Last game you finished, tell us about it

It was around 15h for me.

It is pretty much the way you play it. On hard without automap and without abusing the "2x2 dance" (instead running away and even retreating to upper levels to heal and then re-approaching combat etc) and also trying to get as many of the secrets and off main path puzzles, the game can last you some time…

Actually looking at the statistics page It seems I lost quite a few secrets, only gathered 4 treasures and knowingly left 2 iron doors that I did not try enough to open.
(gotta have something to look forward to for the next replay ;) )

I expect If I really tried to get at least 90% of the challenges done I could have hit 20 easily. (otoh I really take my time with games steeping in the atmosphere, never in a rush to the next shiny thing, having only 2-3 games per year that actually interest me helps with that)

I have always been a proponent of longer games, but for such a focused experience I think this is a good length… You can go quite a bit more by adding more exploration and map variety with above ground maps and this would be my #1 wish for part2…

…That and a quicksave button :)
 
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My completion rate was not great, plenty of secrets left to discover in Grimrock, which should warrant a replay of the game. And I usually finish games a bit faster than average. None of the main game puzzles gave me much of a hassle, but some of the iron door ones were tricky.
 
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None of the main game puzzles gave me much of a hassle, but some of the iron door ones were tricky.

Yeah, main path puzzles were pretty straightforward.

Actually most of the Iron Door ones were not all that devilish. Don't know why I got stumped on those two but I felt like moving deeper instead of doggedly trying to solve them at the time. Did that a few times actually but then I said, what's the rush, so I retraced my steps to upper level and was delighted to find lots of stuff I missed in addition to solving puzzles I skipped.

The biggest time drain was looking for secrets and trying to get at tantalizingly displayed passages or treasure behind locked grates etc. The single biggest timedrain being funnily enough trying to find a secret hinted on a piece of map. I guess the lack of the automap was telling there as I had to traverse the level a couple of times (re passing its challenges) until I had a clear enough layout on my head so I could match the piece of map on it. Loved every minute of it :) (Luck may also play a small part ofcourse, I matched another bit of map to its location in under a couple of minutes)
 
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I recently finished two shorter games. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and Metro 2033.

MW3 is still the same old spectacle as all of the previous installments in the series and I enjoyed it quite a lot for what it is (gaming equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster action movie).
Also have to give the devs props for their creativity in still coming up with new scenarios and new military/covert ops style set pieces after so many games in this series.
Sure, a lot of the time you have this "been there done that" vibe (like in most shooters or games in general actually) but then there's also some missions that are surprisingly different in a good way.
Took me approximately seven hours to finish the campaign on the second highest difficulty level (Hardened) so reports of a three hour campaign are certainly exaggerated unless you rush through it like mad on the easiest setting.

Metro 2033 was kind of fun as well. I'm neither a big fan of the Russian "trash tech" style nor of Doom 3-like corridor shooters where it's so dark all of the time you can't see fuck nor of post-apocalyptic settings.
Still... this game did a really good job to suck you right into its (mostly) underground world. The excellent DirectX 11 graphics helped a lot in creating an astoundingly immersive atmosphere and so I enjoyed it more than I would have thought. The ending was fairly underwhelming though. I finished the game in ~11 hours on normal difficulty (IIRC).
Don't think I'll be getting the Last Light sequel when that one comes out. I liked Metro well enough but it's just not really my cup of tea and I figure I'd rather spend my limited time playing games that I care more about.
 
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Just finished ME1 - for the second time. I actually enjoyed it a lot more than first playthrough. Continuing on ME2 with same Fem Shep. Funny, ME2 doesn't seem very fun anymore whereas I immensely enjoyed ME1.

I realised few Alien races are missing in ME1 (I don't remember seeing Vorcha and Batarians). Few complaints here and there. I felt Citadel is way too small. Such small area permitted to explore compared to it's size (I mean, Soverign looked tiny when it attached itself to Citadel!) Mako driving was horrible as usual. Glad they got rid of it in ME2 (although, probe launching isn't that fun either). I think one of the biggest improvement in ME2 is your squad members. In ME1, you had only 6 squad members and I only found Ashley interesting. Kaidan is a real weirdo in my opinion (why is he romance option?) and I hate Liara (her voice acting is absolutely horrible, it's like she's reading text book rather than talking, and why is she romance option as well??). Nothing wrong with Wrex... it's just Krogans don't appeal to me that much ;) Garrus was a bit dull in first game. No hilarious moments like in ME2. I didn't find Tali that interesting either. She was usually quite, not talking much. Overall, I enjoyed it very much (despite all those complaints) and I'd say its 7.5/10.
 
Last save says 8h 24min for me. I expected the game to be somewhere in the 13-15h region.

Wow that was fast. I just finished and it took me 18h 39m and 39s.

Game was very fun. First indie I've ever finished. I'm sure i'm in the minority but I would have liked less puzzles and felt the end boss was lame.

Other than that It was a very positive experience. I would recommend it to others and will definitely buy grimrock 2.
 
Since Project Fedora is soon to appear on kickstarter, I figured I should continue my journey through the Tex Murphy games and finally play The Pandora Directive.

This was the first of the series that I found it to be pretty much what I was led to expect: one of the best adventure games ever made. (the first two being a lot better than I expected and the third considerably weaker)

In most aspects this is an often spectacular improvement over its predecessor, and when it did not improve it was at least not worse (that would be the controls for example - though it would take a lot of effort to make them worse, not that they didn't try mind you, the part with abductor was the nadir of the game)

The acting was the first thing I noticed and this time it was at least decent (Oscar worthy compared to the horror of UaKM). Finally the series got a proper femme fatale that can actually pull off the role. The puzzles where significantly improved as well, plenty of them but none as dumb as some in the previous game and nothing unfair while this was the first game of the series to offer a decent challenge - I played in Game Player mode (hard).

The story was silly. The bare-bones general idea I thought was the only part that was worse than the other games of the series. The big twists at the end I though were too obvious from very early on and its subject might have been very popular at the time, but after nine seasons of the X-Files and everything similar that came before and after, I can't help but feel that I've seen it countless times before. The Martian Memorandum remains the best in this aspect - and not only as far this series is concerned but game stories in general. It was however very well told and very entertaining and the details worked better for the game's benefit. For instance, like in Under a Killing Moon, we spend a very large part of the game in Tex's neighborhood, this time however it makes perfect sense while in UaKM it made me feel more like I was controlling a child pestering his neighbors because he wanted to play detective instead of a proper PI investigating actual crimes.

Apparently I got a Lombard Street ending, though I was going for Mission Street. I'll keep the game installed and I might try to replay it soon in Entertainment mode just to get the ending I was hoping for. Intending to replay an adventure game so soon after I've finished it is a pretty obvious sign that I really liked it.
 
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Continuing my fall into :decline: if just finished Blades of time, a game that tries to get away with being a collage of thingies and stuffies stolen from Devil May Cry, Darksiders, and God of War. It's also the most fun I have had with a game in, like, I don't know how long.

Sure, it's derivative and the story sucks horrible thingies. But, who cares? The action is fast, furious, and fun. The combat system is simple but it includes different elements to allow for a lot of different thingies: the elemental magic, the button of awesome awesomeness, the time manipulation thingies, the guns, etc. The characters are two dimensional papercuts yet endearing enough in their stupidity and, uhm, clichecity. The art design is pretty cool if you are into animeish sci fi meets fantasy meets surrealism meets warhammer lite.

Hell, I even loved the little DLC thingie: A short but awesome mission that gives you around an hour and a half of Michelle, Zero, and a Skyguard squad fighting off hordes of chaos mooks in a desperate "defend this position until help arrives" situation, that turned Michelle from that bitch I can't swallow to that awesome sistar I hope gets more DLC done about her misadventures.

All in all, guilty pleasure but, like, totally awesome all the same.

Now it's Asura's Wrath time. Hell yeah. I can't believe this game came out while I was in my "no gaming allowed" period. I am so bloody hyped about this bleep. :smitten:
 
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That's it, with Overseer I'm finally done with the Tex Murphy series.
There's not much to say about this last game, it's a fine adventure game, definitelly one of the best FMVs after the Pandora Directive and Gabriel Knight 2.

If there's one thing that needs to be said is, for all the people that advise that Mean Streets can be skipped because Overseer tells the same story, that is true but that general story is pretty much the only thing these games have in common. In everything else they seem to be exact opposites: while Mean Streets is a completely open 'detective simulation' that lets the player set the pace while focusing more on investigation instead of puzzle solving and storytelling, Overseer is a straight, extremely linear, pure adventure game that takes you by the hand and leads you from one brain teaser to the next through its well made cutscenes. No, having played Overseer does not count as having played Mean Streets too. Even the story has significant differences.

By the way, I found the notorious cliffhanger in the end to be completely insignificant. It's just forced, the game's real story ended properly and they just added the next game's intro right after this one's finale. It's a shame that such a good game would resort to such cheap tricks but at least it's better that actually leaving its story unfinished.

If I was to rank the games (and I will because why not) from the one I liked most to the one I liked the least, that would be:
1st the Pandora Directive, no surprises here, the only think that was not the best in the series was its story.
2nd Mean Steets, for its openness and for making me feel like an actual detective.
3rd Martian Memorandum, for its great story that managed to make me not care about its dead ends and annoying trial and error puzzles
4th Overseer, for being very good overall but not the best (or the worst) in any aspect
and 5th Under a Killing Moon, that I found, despite its good reputation, to be the weakest of the series in pretty much every respect.
 
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I've just finished TW2 EE and I loved it. I did like the first one, but I loved this one. And I'm already planning on starting a new game and doing different choices, but am planning on trying it on Dark Mode. My first playthrough was on Hard, and while it was hard at the beginning, it did get a lot easier as I unlocked mobility skills and got better equipment. The only battles which I've had trouble were the boss battles.

Anyone have experience with Dark difficulty? I hope it's not difficult as in cheap-difficult where you get one-shot all the time.
 
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Anyone have experience with Dark difficulty? I hope it's not difficult as in cheap-difficult where you get one-shot all the time.

It depends. The whole game is a little bit cheap, considering the ruleset you have to obey does not apply to your enemies (blocking and vigour depletion, enemies killing you in 1-2 hits when you need 3-4 strong attacks to do the same). I don't think there are battles on Dark mode that one-shot kill you (ok, the Dragon killed me once up front)... unless you receive backstab damage. There are, however, times when after a cutscene, before the screen fades-in you receive massive damage before you even get a chance to unsheathe your sword. There are also some enemies that have strings of attacks, which when put together can kill you in no time (Gargoyl rush).

On the other, all those enemies appear later on, when you can have 'Dark' armour sets, which makes those fights bearable. Plus, thanks to that the 'inverse' difficulty curve is non-issue, as the game is challenging through and through.
 
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One of the more interesting games I finished recently is Binary Domain - an RPG cover-based third person shooter with stats from the land of the rising sun. I would have missed this game if not for the bros from RPGCodex who for laughs and giggles conducted a LP there.

Anyway it turned out to be a surprisingly good experience, and I have to say I have had more fun with it than with any other RPG cover-based shooter out there. This is largely on account of supreme cheese that this game emits in large quantities.

Basically the story revolves around human-like robots infiltrating society, and surprisingly enough not being aware that they are not human. Seeing a potential threat an UN-like organisation sends a bunch of soldiers to apprehend the likely manufacturer and mastermind behind the whole thing - dr Yogi Amano. Yes we are part of multinational squad that invades Japan in a Japanese game.

One is led to believe that if Quentin Tarantino ever wanted to make an action sci-fi movie he would reach for Binary Domain for inspiration. Just listening to the english cast makes me flashback to those old cheesy translations of anime. This is further reinforced by total implaussibility and silliness of what is going on. However, I have an impression that not all of the corny atmosphere was intentional - and it comes from the game trying to state something sophisticated while in reality it is pathetic. Regardless of that, there are some good laughs out there.

The gameplay itself is your typical TPS corridor shooter. You go with a team of 2-4 characters and steamroll scrapheads (robots) that come in waves. One would be led to believe it would come off as tedious, but thanks to huge variety of scenarios and bossfights to make up for that. The bossfights are particualrly well-done with some neat foes, and heart-pounding action. Above all, they are often cheeeeeese like hell.

Believe it or not, there are quite a few RPG elements out there - character customization (through nanomachines), weapon customisation (upgrades) and character loyalty system which is miles above the one we could see in ME2. It's all pretty basic but sufficient for such RPG game.

It's not all fine and dandy, however. The greates beef I have with Binary Domain are the 'gimmicky' missions, which try to serve as a nice diversion from main action but prove annoyingly boring and pointless. There are also some QTEs which should burn in hell. Some 'gimmicky' sequences prove artificially difficult on account of mouse acceleration which can, not only screw up your aim, but also make it so that you character turn another way altogether - which makes you dead meat in a nick of a time.

It's not a greatest game ever, but definitely worth having a closer look into - especially once it hits the bargain bin. If you've ever enjoyed corny anime, go fo it! You won't be disappointed.

7/10

A linky to an ongoing LP:

http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.ph...n-バイナリー-ドメイン-revenge-solves-everything.71679/
 
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Anyway it turned out to be a surprisingly good experience, and I have to say I have had more fun with it than with any other RPG cover-based shooter out there. This is largely on account of supreme cheese that this game emits in large quantities.

Steam just released a playable demo today, so I'm gonna give it a try.

Downloading now…

*Edit* I'll just update this post instead of creating a new one.

Not sure how representive the demo is of the full game, but it's complete garbage. It might literally be the worst optimized PC port I've ever played. Even with most of the graphics options set at medium, it ran like a slideshow on my system, (3.4 Ghz Quad Core, GTX 470 OC), and the mouse control is horrid.
 
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JDR since I don't have time to try it out please share your thoughts about demo soon, I've discovered that I actually like all games you suggested to try and despise all games you described as "mediocre". ;)
 
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Might & Magic 8
Might & Magic 8 is, unsurprisingly, the 8th game in the Migth & Magic series, though exactly where it fits into the whole chronology is a bit unclear. A few years after the Armageddon's blade expansion for Heroes of Might & Magic 3, would be my guess, judging by the fact that the faction that got introduced in the expansion was mentioned.

The game plays quite similar to Might & Magic 7 (and by extension similar to Might & magic 6), with a nigh identical spell, character development and combat system. Unlike previous games in the series, you are only allowed to create a single character at the start of the game, and then other party members has to be recruited along the way. This is not as big of an issue as it first would seem, as you will quickly find characters from all the different classes, except for trolls (yes, the game has a silly race=class system for all the non-humans), and it also allows you to swap out characters in case you want to try different skill combinations.

The main highlight of the game was its character development system. With each level up, you get 5 skill points to spend on a large number of different skills, with each class having its own set of skills and possible specializations. And while the gameplay difference between having a sword or an axe might not be huge, all the different schools of magic (9 in total) all had their own unique flavour, and some other skills also had their own spell-like abilities.
The skill balance was not all that good though. Some schools of magic were simply more useful than others (light magic and body magic being the two most useful schools, while earth or mind magic felt pretty pointless), and skills like Identify Monster or Body Building (which could be found on the classes that needed it the least) were a real waste of skillpoints.

The game engine that the game uses was considered to nearly be ancient at the time of the games release, and it has not aged all that well. The sprite based graphics, in a 3d environment made it looks like all the creatures that populated the world were cardboard cutouts, and it never felt very natural, and while the sprites were well drawn and animated, by 2000, a proper 3d engine would have looked a lot better. That being said, nothing looks distractingly bad, so it is just a minor gripe.

The game fares a lot better in the sound department. While none of the effects sounds spectacular, the soundtrack is pretty good, and usually fits in really well, with the song that plays in Garrote Gorge, Ironsand Desert & Ravage Roaming being my personal favourite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGGp3mvffyg

The Might & Magic series has never been about deep & engaging storylines, and sadly Might & Magic 8 follows suit, with a relatively forgettable story about some "Destroyer" who wishes to destroy the world, which different regions being affected by different natural disasters. A major part of the main storyline is about gathering support from different factions (some mutually exclusive, though it does not matter which ones you pick), though there is one rather odd omission. Early on it is established that the lizardmen are suffering from these disasters, yet you never try to enlist their aid. The minotaurs & trolls are apparently important enough, as are a band of dragon hunters, but not the lizardmen (who seem to be a faction in better shape than the trolls & minotaurs).

Overall, I found the game to be relatively enjoyable, but rather short and incredibly easy, even though I was trying to avoid most of the "game breakers". I could easily make the game even easier by having a light/body magic focused Cleric and 3 dragons in the party (I only had one, but even that was probably one too many), or by simply switching out the characters that I found early on in the game for the ones with better stats.
 
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Steam just released a playable demo today, so I'm gonna give it a try.

Downloading now…

*Edit* I'll just update this post instead of creating a new one.

Not sure how representive the demo is of the full game, but it's complete garbage. It might literally be the worst optimized PC port I've ever played. Even with most of the graphics options set at medium, it ran like a slideshow on my system, (3.4 Ghz Quad Core, GTX 470 OC), and the mouse control is horrid.

Oh gawd… don't tell me they didn't patch the demo yet! What's the point of releasing broken demo! Anyway the full game has improved mouse controls. I also didn't observe any slowdowns on my system (save for one resource-intensive fight and it was maybe 3 times during whole span of it for 1-2 seconds). I have practically identical PC to yours, but I use Radeon 5700 with 1GB Ram.

|In that case I advise you to watch the LP I linked to.
 
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