dan-likes-trees

Interesting that all the negativity on this thread is from people who haven't played the game, whereas everyone who's played it seems pretty positive? (Just skimmed through mind, given I noticed a couple of spoilers). Anyways just popping my thoughts in the mix - about 5 hours in and it's such a masterful game, certainly in terms of directing and of technical finesse. I've always found the 'read a book if you want a story' argument a bit bizarre. I read a lot, but I also play games because they can tell different stories in unique ways. Last of Us and this sequel are I think a pretty great example of that, where a lot of the story of the world is conveyed through optional environmental storytelling. Figuring out the story of deceased survivors through letters and clues scattered around abandoned buildings still makes for some really beautiful moments. That said the game certainly suffers from so many games in recent years having been inspired by the original - the gameplay feels a lot more familiar, and it hasn't really evolved as much as one would hope in 7 years - still a fair bit of moving boxes around et all - and think I've thoroughly had my fill of stalking through long grass and pressing triangle in games at this point. Still - excited to play more. The most notable and impressive thing for me (alongside the directing of sequences and the way the music works) is the quality of the acting and VOs across the board. Really puts into perspective what a complete embarrassment 95% of games are in this regard - one of the few games where my partner will actively sit down and watch me play rather than have to leave the room because the acting is so awful (looking at you, every assassins creed game). Can't praise the leads highly enough - and the writing feels so much more engaging than Unchartered - that's what really carries the game for me.

Sign me up to team 'console looks nasty AF' Loads of great stuff on how there - very to my taste with lots of cool indie or stylised sort of stuff. Even if not many are exclusives, makes me excited about games over the next couple of years. Kena and Little Devil inside I loved; loads of personality. Deahtloop, Jett, Returnal, ghostwire, cat robot game, rocket league smash em up game, all look a blast. Camaan! Surprised so many of y'all are up for the digital version. Disk all the way for me

Sony crushing it so far. !!

weird robot cat game looks interesting. Annapurna have such a solid track record that my interest is piqued! Athia looks dope but pretty early Spiderman looks cool but oddly little footage if it's coming 2020. Maybe it's more of a DLC type thing / lost legacy style?

Thanks a lot for this info! Jumping in the episode you mentioned sounds best for now, will do!

This all sounds very exciting. I currently have disney plus and tried starting clone wars but the first episode is pretty uninspiring and the animation is preettty dated. I'd like to watch a couple of the more recent episodes before i cancel my subscription (as I'm not interested in much on the service.) How do the arcs work? Can i just drop in some way through the last season or would I be confused AF?

Finally getting round to finish this off after pausing it for christmas and then the outer wilds. Am I just a bit shite at this kind of game or does the difficulty seriously spike at times? I was finding it all quite enjoyable until the fight with Don't want to drop it to story difficulty again as it was way too easy and anti-climatic, but also can't really be arsed to spend ages getting gud enough to finish it. Some of her moves seem a bit cheap (plus that crap robot the spawns halfway through thats a pain in the arse to kill because of the lock on. Basically the difficulty spikes have soured it for me a bit because the rest of the game doesn't feel like those overly tough frustrating experiences until now

That was a really bloody awesome doc. Bit depressed by how young that main guy is for what a masterpiece the game is. Some really interesting stuff about the evolution of the game and also how many technical challenges were added by things like the scout launcher and the ship. Also mental that the guy from Heroes owns the studio or whatever? Thanks! Finished the game the other day. It is unbelievably good, and the climax is really amazing. One of y'all check in when you've played it!

Ah nice one - yeah I love Danny O'Dwyer's work - I just watched a couple of minutes of this and I'm excited to come back to it - going to finish the game and then sit down for a full watch. Yeah totally, it's not for everyone for sure. I actually think it's pretty poorly suited to game pass as it's so purposefully obtuse for the first couple of hours. Kind of agree re the text, though playing it in a short space of time I found I almost always remembered if I was somewhere that I'd already been and read the text. That said, I actually think the game does a really great job of hinting at possible directions for you to explore, so I've so far only really felt stuck once or twice. The ways that different routes and explorations feed into information about roadblocks on other planets is pretty masterful, I think. Someone described it as a Metroidvania where you're not collecting abilities to progress, but knowledge, which seems pretty spot on. I think I'm close to the end now and it really keeps astounding me. Some of the moments of revelation the game gives, like working out how to get somewhere that you first heard of hours previously, have made my hair stand on end. Excited to see where it's all going to end up!

Her Story, God of War, Red Dead 2, Tales from the Borderlands, Monument Valley, Assassins Crred Origins, 10 - Astro Bot Rescue Mission (VR) The best platformer I've played this decade, just a total joy to play - every level brings more invention and the way the head movements and controller are integrated make it the best VR game I've played yet 9 - Breath of the Wild A really wonderfully chill game - great memories of diving off a cliff with the sailcloth.. as someone said, I'm so jealous of 10 year olds getting to grow up on this game. Even if I never got round to actually finishing it.. 8 - Banner Saga series Beautiful Beautiful artwork alongside with memorable characters and choices, all wrapped up with tight isometric turn based gameplay 7 - What Remains of Edith Fitch A fantastic, varied experience, and one that proved that two hours is more enough to encapsulate more ideas and emotion than most games manage in 80... 6 - Fortnite Fortnite has a bit of a rep as a kids game, but it's some of the most fun I've had this decade, particularly with how contantly it's evolved - hopping back in to dick about with planes, boats and cars. Mostly it's on here as it's such a great social game, catching up with pals who live across the country looting away. 5 - Hyper Light Drifter Feels like the game I've wanted for a decade - excellent evolution of the 2D Zelda games, great level of challenge, secrets, abstraction and depth. GF was quite glad when I finished it and stopped swearing at the TV.. 4 - Inside Triumph of art direction, super memorable and super spooky. Some of the moments are the most mad and memorable that I've seen in a game - the creepy underwater monsters, the mazing moments with the walls of sound.. stayed with me long after. 3 - Last of Us Amazing atmosphere, story and acting, and importantly one that feels really cohesive with the gameplay too, matching the desperation of the characters with ad hoc situations, scrabbling around for guns and ammo 2 - Journey Literally breathtaking, astounding art direction and beautiful to move around the world in, with an ending, me and another stranger battling the elements in the final passage, that I'll never forget 1 - Witcher 3 I've ranted and raved about this enough on this forum - but the Netflix show has reminded me what I love most about it - such an amazing collection inventive and twisted tales, packaged in what feels like a legit adventure. I'm still amazed it exists.

Ah yeah nice one - just had a read of your posts - was sure someone here had been singing it's praises but it didn't come up when i searched. Completely agree with all you say. played a bit more today and it keeps getting better - so many clever ideas or little touches that have made me smile. Also love how much content there is - I only checked out the challenge stages today - some of them are ace!

Have you been there atall yet? I just beat the second tomb (I think it was second) but went to Dathomir by accident as soon as the game gave the option - you can't progress that far in Dathomir until you have certain abilites later in the game - I guess the game nudges you that direction later on. But it's cool, there's some things to find there if you're up for the challenge. So you won't be spoiling anything for yourself by going there now if you want to check it out. Hope that keeps it vague enough. I'm not at the stage where I've been sent there and I think I'm roughly where you are. Also agreed re your above post, that stuff is great!

Any of y'all played Astrobot Rescue Mission? Probably matches Superhot for my favorite VR game so far. It's a great platformer in it's own right, chock full of clever ideas and personality (particularly the astrobots that litter the stages that are all individually animated in amusing ways); feels great to play, so much so that I think I actually prefer it to Odyssey... The VR massively elevates it; you play a separate entity for the astrobot that you control, so lots of the game design is about craning your head over crevices to uncover little secrets, spinning 180 to see a cracked wall where another robot is hidden, dodging out of the way of projectiles whilst simultaneously directing your character.. it's really amazing!!

Agreed on this. It feels so fluid and tight to play, I haven't had this much fun with a game in ages! Even considering how blatant the 'inspirations' are (even down to the camera pulling focus on your distant geographical objective a la unchartered) it's so fun and so star wars-y. Great art direction on all the designs of the levels. It most reminds me of God of War, though I found that game's settings and characters often a bit obtuse / too abstract or something. This one feels really easy to connect to, even if the story is pretty standard. Not sure I share the love for Cal, he's alright but I feel the game would've benefited from not having yet another young male Han-ish type. But the cutscenes are done really well so meh. Obviously wasn't paying attention to what was said when I first picked planets. Went to that Dathomir which was astoundingly hard even on normal. Had a right old 'aaahhhh riiiight' moment when I went to the other planet

Yeah I got a strong BotW feel from the last season too. Filling in the map this season I definitely felt the same! Had the same experience of doing quite well and winning a couple recently - the ranking and bot have definitevly helped without making it feel tooo cheap. Nice that they've stripped back a lot of the gubbins that made the first game season pretty inaccessible / a bit of a mess at times. It's fun!

Just landed on the island so not too far in yet but generally.. really enjoying this. Nice to see a proper, meaty, serious western RPG - some great touches of old bioware games with the different ways that you can tackle or resolve quests, morally grey options. Definitely easy to see how low budget it is but I'd definitely prefer more games like this than big budget games with crap writing or no soul. Looking forward to playing more!

Hard to pick just one but it would have to be Superhot VR - Just en insane and unique experience, literally dodging out the way of bullets, plucking them from the air, spinning around and throwing shit at enemies. The stylized look looks great in VR (compared to more realistic games which look a bit janky) and the way enemies crumble when you hit them.. love it.

GF spilt water on my PS4 so the disk drive it broke D: Considering replacing it with a pro but tbh I'm really struggling to actually see any palpable difference when I watch gameplay comparisons on youtube. Seems like the biggest case of emporer's new clothes ever. Or is it that you only can really tell the difference when it's on a TV? Has anyone here upgraded, and is it worth it? thanks?

Wipeout collection is sososo dope on psvr!

Thanks alot!! Gotta get started on the next one!

Hey pals, I made a video essay.. thing.. about pixel art in recent games and why it's so eternally popular (Celeste, Hyper Light Drifter, Octopath Traveller et all) It would be great to get some feedback from you lot in case I get round to ever making another one Sorry, hope this isn't not too self-promotiony - you can all put a voice to my posts here in any case!

Thanks alot man! Good to hear

Thank you good bobson

Thanks very much man! Glad you enjoyed it. The music is all from youtube's audio library - so those tracks are probably on a tonne of other videos! Using music from elsewhere seems to be a legal minefield so didn't seem worth the risk Thanks very much! Yeah it took a while, to edit I was keen to make it fairly high production value-y. I did the editing in Premiere, and the graphics and animation bits in After Effects. Bit of a faff going between the two but all ultimately a fairly enjoyable process

Called it!! That shit was fucking crazy. Might've eclipsed the quarter final second leg against City. Right on par with last night. I literally cannot believe it. Can't believe how done for we looked after half an hour in the first leg. Can't believe how bringing on Llorente turned the game on it's head completely, Ajax could not deal with him. Can't believe Moura's third, the timing of it, the ridiculousness of the angle he had to completely perfect between two Ajax players, the keeper, the post. Can't believe we, Spurs, are in the champions league final. Bloody hell. Just an incredible incredible season for football. Nothing brings emotions out like this game. Jesus christ.