drahkon

Banned!

Black + PS2 all the way. If you choose anything other than that, you'll be banned.

(the remaster) Man, what a bad campaign that was. Now, don't get me wrong. I know what it did for the FPS genre on consoles. And by "it" I mean its multiplayer. But goodness me, the campaign is a constant string of repetitiveness. Mission after mission you fight in two or three locations that get repeated two or three times. It's lazy, it's not creative, it's boring. The pinnacle was a mission where you basically just play a previous mission in reverse with one added objective (that, funnily enough, you have to do three fucking times, as well). There have also been a myriad of bugs, mainly in the sound and music department. SFX and songs randomly cut out, either never to return unless we restarted the game, or to come back 20 seconds later. Some gameplay glitches softlocked us. No idea what caused it, but in some missions a completed objective didn't register and we were stuck. Not a good look for a remaster. Normally, I would've abandoned the game halfway through, but playing it in co-op with a mate we were able to look past the glaring issues. I made it my mission to bitchslap at least one Marine in each mission they appear. My mate was horrible at flying Banshees. I was horrible at driving Warthogs. My mate was very trigger happy and killed me many times with the shotgun (most of the kills were unintentional, though, surprisingly). I bitchslapped my mate many times. There was also a glimpse of how the plot could evolve in the sequels. The Flood is a boring antagonist, the Covenant is just all over the place, but the story and twists surrounding Halo were pretty intriguing. Yeah, all in all...very mediocre. We will finish the entire series (at least the FPS games), though

I'd describe it as a roguelite reverse bullet-hell auto-battler. Enemies come at you fast, you kill them via auto attacks (some of them attack in a random direction, some of them in a fixed direction). Level up, add weapons, improve weapons, increase stats, rinse-repeat until you die. It's in early access so not finished, but there's still an end to reach, even it's just an inevitable death. Will be interesting to see where Vampire Survivors will go and how the game will improve over time. For now, it's an absolute steal at 2.39€ (on PC via Steam). There's another game I've finished on my PSVita: Timespinner. A very pretty, small-scale Metroidvania with generic mechanics, that's still enjoyable for one playthrough. And one more for the best handheld ever to which Sony definitely needs to make a successor (): Habroxia 2. I've played the first one and loved it. This is even better. Plenty of improvements make this one a very fun shmup. Will definitely go for the Platinum 8 games in January, so far. Not bad, not bad. Probably won't be able to finish much more, though. Still playing Halo: Combat Evolved with a mate and we also started Nobody Saves The World. Both of which are not very good... Halo is repetitive as all hell. Even back then I would've thought its level design is outdated. It also introduces one of the most boring antagonists ever... Still, there's something to the plot and it's a joy playing this with a mate. We just josh around a lot with the game Nobody Saves The World...so far? Meh Very slow start and an annoying co-op mode make this a game we might drop soon. If one player opens the menu, it opens for both. If one player talks to an NPC, the other is teleported to it. There's a million quests which improve your characters but most of them are just "use this skill a gazillion times". Basically fetch quests with a different coating. And the best part? You need to do them to advance... Not a good first impression. The game does, however, have pretty funny writing. But that's to be expected from the makers of Guacamelee!

First of all: The first part of Ozark's final season is here Secondly: Anybody watching Archive 81? Just finished the first episode and it's incredibly well shot. Really set the tone. Very intriguing, but I hope there won't be any major jumpscares

Sorry, it's in German 1004 hours played, a little less than half of it came from PS5 games. Impressive and it shows what a great first year the console had. Absolutely incredible 22 Platinum trophies. Honestly felt like I acquired less. Not too shabby, though

One of the current PS+ games and actually quite fun. Got the as well But, the game reminded me that as long as there is no nitro-infused boost and the ability to crash other cars I suck at racing games Played the campaign on normal and struggle a bit in some races. A game that has left early access quite some time and got the 1.0 patch on consoles in summer last year. Which means: There's a final boss now. Been playing Risk of Rain 2 regularly with a mate for a while now, we managed to beat it several times. Some challenges are left, so we're not done, yet. Highly recommended if you want to play a frantic rogue-lite that starts quite slow each run.

Sad days. Seems like Microsoft is actually going for a monopoly. Really hope Sony doesn't follow suit and will keep going for smaller acquisitions (which I also don't like very much, but are necessary) and that Nintendo will continue to keep their audience and stay themselves, even if I've fallen away from them. One thing that would be great: Turn that company around. Throw out those pieces of shit and rebuild.

Love it.

Not yet, because Deep Rock Galactic entered the PS5 scene. What a glorious game this is. I'd describe it as a co-op horde-mode-objective-FPS. From simply mining minerals and collecting crystals or eggs to escort missions or destroying a huge enemy there's a lot to discover. There are four classes. The Gunner is basically what the name implies. He shoots things. Can also deploy a shield which is very helpful when swarmed by enemies and set up zip lines for easy access. The Driller is basically what the name implies. He can drill through stuff (and shoot things). The Scout is basically what the name implies. He scouts things via a long lasting flares (everyone has flare sticks you can throw, but they don't last very long) and can swoop around via a grappling hook (he can also shoot things). The Engineer is basically what the name implies. He engin...nah, doesn't work. He can build a sentry gun and platforms (shooting things is also possible). I've been running the latter for most of my playtime just to support and create easy access to minerals. 14 hours in two days. I'm not joking One of the benefits of being on sick leave, I guess. The game shines in co-op. It's been an absolute blast with two of my mates. One plays as the Gunner, the other as the Driller. It's a little annoying without a scout, because the long lasting flares are incredibly useful, since the caves you're exploring are quite dark. It's still so much fun, though I've already put it in my gaming list for 2022 as "finished", because I've completed every type of mission and played through the first mandatory assignments, but there's no way I'm stopping here. There appears to be a bit of an endgame which I have yet to reach. If you have the chance to play this (it's on PS+ and on Gamepass, as far as I know), DO IT.

It's a new dawn, it's new day, it's a new life year for me us, and I'm we're feeling good. Well, that didn't really work. Anyways, here's the 2022 edition of the Gaming Diary thread. I'll start: I've finished two games on my PSVita already. And both from my backlog. First one: It was a PS+ title back in 2014. It's actually a PS4 and PSVita game but I'm counting it as completed on the latter device Aaaaand it was mediocre. A tower-defense game that relies more on quick actions than actual strategy is not a good tower-defense game. Second one: Oh yes, it was finally time to play this one. A launch title for the PSVita back in 2012. I bought it, played it for a bit but haven't finished it until today. Can't remember why I stopped, but something must've gotten in the way back then. It's definitely the worst entry in the Uncharted series, but still a solid game. Pacing is a little weird and the PSVita features overstay their welcome, but it's Uncharted...it's fun Also: It looks absolutely gorgeous. For a game from 2012 on an outdated handheld it still holds up 10 years (!!!) later. Framerate dropped to low 20s at times, but with a lovely overclock plugin it managed to stay at 30fps for most of the game. There's some great music, as well. Yeah, it was a fun ride Next up: Killzone: Mercenary on...you guessed it, the PSVita It was a PS+ game in 2015 and it's gonna be my second Killzone game after Killzone Shadow Fall, which I barely remember.

Holy cow, those semifinals. I hope the final tonight will be just as high quality as the matches yesterday. Can't wait

Started with Google Sheets, but for the diagrams I've used Excel as the designs are nicer to look at. I'll probably work out an Excel spreadsheet for 2022. Nothing professional, though, as my Excel skills are basically non-existent. I do wanna add a short "one-line review" section

The year's almost over and I doubt I'm going to finish any more games before 2022 begins. Which means...WAKE THE FUCK UP, TIMMY! It's time for drahkon's gaming statistics. "..." To start with: How many games have I played and finished? Take a guess, everybody. HERE IT IS: Alright then. Next question: How many games have been from my backlog? Phew, next up: Which gaming devices provided most games this year for me? And now the big one: Scores! A few thoughts on my gaming year: selling the Switch was my best gaming decision, closely followed by buying a PS5 (which happened in 2020, but still ) - Nintendo lost me long ago; their new games don't bring me a lot of enjoyment, anymore, to the point where I don't want to spend money on them Sony has crushed it this year with PS5 games - stellar experiences, further enhanced via 3D Audio and the DualSense ohhhhh boy, the DualSense - I'll say it again: haptic feedback and adaptive triggers are the next-gen feature and a game changer the XBox App on PC is ass - Gamepass is a nice service, but I would never pay full price for it; I will always prefer actual ownership of games The Gunk is one of the worst games I've ever played so is Remnant: From The Ashes, but it is slightly better - I also got the Platinum, for whatever reason speaking of: I got 22 Platinum trophies - my favourite? Outer Wilds, which also gets my "favourite game I played this year" award! And to end this post, here's my GOTY:

Surprise

Killed a few Visionaries, unlocked a few powers and thankfully there's a way to keep items between loops. That was the one thing that worried me at the start. So far so good. Have a lot of fun just exploring and killing Visionaries without using any of the information you can find. The game is very easy, though. Hope it'll change but given that I have a suppressed weapon and can make myself invisible I very much doubt it...

Got the PS5 version for Christmas and finally got the time to play The tutorial went on for quite a while but I think now the game opened up and there's so much potential to fuck around already. Can't wait to unlock some abilities and go nuts (If anyone got the PS5 version, too, and would be up for boosting the two multiplayer trophies gimme a shout )

One of the most boring games I've ever played. After the first 30 minutes you've seen everything. "Puzzles" are a matter of "find A and bring to B". It's labeled as "action adventure" but there's barely any action. Enemies are easy to defeat (wanna know how many types of enemies there are? Three. Four, if you count the final boss). Story is predictable and the mystery fades very quickly. The characters are annoying. Aesthetics and gameplay are repetitive (you have a glove that could've been used in a lot more ways...just add a grappling hook to it...it would've opened up the game's possibilities so much). It's pretty and the music is atmospheric, but other than that it's garbage. Thankfully it's very short. Finished it in 2 1/2 hours. Wanted to see if it has something to offer in the end, but nah. Can't recommend Image & Form should go back to the SteamWorld series.

I was correct, there wasn't much left It was good fun, but the story was boring as hell. But I guess it served its purpose as a prologue to the other games? Anyways, we started Halo: Combat Evolved immediately afterwards and holy hell, the gameplay is much worse than in Halo: Reach It just feels weird. It's to be expected, though, given that it was released back in 2001. Oh and I just wanna reiterate: The PC Gamepass app (I think it's called Xbox App?) is ass. To quote AVGN: "To describe this game's app's assness, all I can say is, it's very ass." It took us each 3 restarts of the Master Chief Collection and the app to be able to play together. We got the wonderful error messages "one party member is not entitled to play the game", which I think is very rude, and "the game is not installed", which I can assure you it was 'cause we obviously played it before. Same thing happened with Halo: Combat Evolved. We also tried Deep Rock Galactic and it was a mess, as well. We both had similar issues with the app telling us the game is not installed. For a software released two years ago, it sure is still garbage. Anyways, after my spending spree on the PSN store I decided to give all games aside from Blasphemous a quick go. Demon's Tilt - very overwhelming but I enjoy the occasional pinball game so this will be a proper time sink, for sure. First impressions: Interesting/weird take on pinball but seems fun. Descenders - a roguelike extreme downhill freeriding game. Played one "run" and reached a boss level. Yes, you read that right. A boss level in a downhill freeriding game. The objective: "survive the boss jump". I failed. First impressions: Great but probably quite difficult. F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch - metroidvania from China. Played it for 30 minutes, obtained a few abilities and yes...it's a metroidvania game Combat is melee focused, it seems, but very satisfying. There's also been one challenging platforming section already. Hope there will be more. First impressions: Somewhere between good and great.

Welp...I went a little nuts with the new PSN sale F.I.S.T. also has a PS5 version.

That looks too good to be true But I'd take Deep Rock Galactic even if it's the only game next month. Have tried it on PC and it's really good.

Yeah, I can see this work.

Finished the Call of Duty: Vanguard campaign. And yeah...it's CoD Not one of the best campaigns but still enjoyable. Started Halo: Reach last night with a friend. I think we're 3/4 through the game. Had a lot of fun so far. I've made it my mission to kill all AI controlled allies with melee attacks. I don't know why, but I find it hilarious. Maybe I'm sweet but a psycho and at night I'm screamin' I'm-ma-ma-ma out my mind. Ava Max, anyone? *cough* My mate and I were surprised to play a mission where you control a space fighter. That was pretty awesome. Gameplay is great in general, but that was expected, to be honest. The story, however...I don't know if it's because I'm not really into Halo and I've only played one campaign before - 800 years ago and I forgot everything about it - but somehow nothing about that story clicks. It's basically just been a succession of missions in a war. "Secure this", "destroy this", "evacuate this". No overarching plot or anything other than "we are at war with the Covenant". Maybe this is much more interesting when you're familiar with the Halo lore but as it is now it's quite boring Still: Lots of fun in co-op. On a side note: The Gamepass PC app is ass. It's slow, installs are confusing (Forza Horizon 5, says hello), it took 3 restarts for the app to understand that I actually have Halo: Reach installed, so just let me play it in the Master Chief Collection...also: No separate language selection for games. The language is based on your system's language. My mate wanted to play the game in English but couldn't because Windows is installed in German. Speaking of Gamepass: I started playing The Gunk after reading that it's supposed to be good. Well, can't wait to reach the point when it starts to be good It's pretty, got an interesting premise but gameplay and setting have become repetitive very quickly.

Looks like the roguelite genre isn't for you then While I can see the point with most of your criticism (and not necessarily agree with it ), I have to disagree with you there. I think the story benefits from the game being of that genre. Glad to see you mostly enjoyed your time with it But sad to see you apparently didn't appreciate the fourth both and the build up to it as much as you should have. Your enthusiasm levels are too low