Last game you finished, tell us about it

*** Minor Max Payne 1 -3 spoilers ahead ***

Since July 29 is getting closer (Windows 10 free upgrade offer cutoff date), I finally managed to give myself a kick in the butt and finish some games I still had installed, namely the Max Payne trilogy.

I paused my Max Payne 1 and 2 playthroughs for quite some time and played them in small chunks over the last few months but managed to plow through no. 3 in just a couple of nights last week (it's only ~12 hours long... and even faster if you skip all exploring).

I definitely liked Max Payne 2 better than 1 and I believe that 3 is my favorite of the series. It was 'Die Hard' mixed with original Max Payne and lots of fun thanks to Rockstar's excellent story delivery and level design. Sure, it was a little cutscene-heavy but it all served the purpose of delivering the fairly decent story.

And the levels in part 3 were just great. The yacht, the NYC cemetery, the NYC bar, the Brazilian slums, the Sao Paulo airport... some really good stuff. Awesome life-like characters, "digital acting" and animations, too.
It was some really good popcorn blockbuster gaming (kind of like CoD if/when you are in the mood for a real AAA spectacle).

I'd definitely buy a Max Payne 4 on sale in case it ever comes out. They need to take it a little easy on the whole ex-cop with serious issues, and an even more serious grudge, on a most serious vendetta, theme though. It's wearing thin after three games. Max doesn't seem like a nine life cat but more like a 99 life cat already. They run the risk of a next game getting even sillier than Bruce Willis in 'Die Hard VI'.

PoE 3.0.2 with WM 1&2. Definitely game of year for me and possibly even game of the decade. Going into it I thought it would be typical Obsidian rough but good despite the bugs but I was surprised in a very good way. Extremely polished and WM 1&2 were gaming perfection - the best expansion I have ever played - longer than most full length games. Very exited for Tyranny.

Just finished Bound by Flame. Once again I wish Spider had more budget for the level of their ambition. Saying that, I feel this was a bit of an upgrade from Mars War Log. I played a female Vulcan and I didn't romance anyone.

I liked the story, or should I say the structure, it didn't beat around the bush too much and was straightforward while still being interesting. The world could have been fleshed out a lot more though, but I put that down to lack of funds. There was also some "jump" that felt weird here and there in the script depending of certain choices you made.

I found that there was too much backtracking for side quests though and some story progression check not done at the right time (i.e. I could talk about a traitor with characters before I got a quest to find a traitor). Also, the dialogues, that went from vulgar and bratty to totally awesome sarcasm at the right moment.

Mathras and Edwen are awesome companion.

One final note F*** that last boss fight! and I'm done fighting undeads for a little while I think.

Since all my save files were on my computer and got wiped by the Windows 10 failed automatic download where I had to restore my system to factory settings, I guess I can take this moment to declare that I have finished playing Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic.

I'd completed all the campaign missions and had messed around quite a bit with the individual scenarios. I don't tend to do multiplayer of anything so I have no experience of that.

I have also been simultaneously playing Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne so as to see if I like the series generally and to compare and contrast. I've completed all the missions in the campaign of this apart from the last set of three and the final stand alone mission, but have lost motivation to go on as the first mission of the last three has not provided me with a Hero to play with and it's terribly grindy, making it very boring as a result. Maybe there is a Hero hidden somewhere and I have to find them, but I'm bored before getting there if there is.

Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is a truly awesome game. I discovered it from recommendations, found it was highly recommended from on-line research, such as being in TotalBiscuit's short-list of best games etc, and found myself highly motivated to continue playing, often even thinking about levels while away doing other things.

While on the face of it it's just another turn-based strategy game, something I've over exposed myself to over the years, this one has plenty of other things to keep it both fresh and entertaining. It's the little things that can make the difference and this game has oodles of little things, from baby dragons that you can grow into adult dragons by using them in battles to gain experience to clever in-battle combos such as using one hero to remove an enemy's willpower while another hero then tries to dominate it, effectively stealing an opponents best unit, not only for that battle, but permanently.

It will take you the entire campaign, which is long, very long, hugely timesinkingly long, to get used to every little feature the game offers, which says more about the fun things it provides than anything else.

It's also a wonderfully colourful and artistically detailed game where you can really see the love and attention to detail the developer has dedicated to the game above and beyond the cynical desire to just get something out there. Each faction, and there are oodles of factions, has it's own specific array of units with barely any repetition to learn and utilise and, on top of that, the game has another oodle of neutral units that can be either summoned or found.

There are some downsides, but they are small beans in perspective to the whole. The writing is awful, as in the mission descriptions and plot for the campaign, but that's not really so important, it's all just some bollox to enable a cool scenario anyway and it's the cool scenario that's important. One of the missions was really obnoxious and had little to do with strategy, but that was just one out of loads and loads.

For the individual scenarios you can edit your scenario however you want, which is great, from difficulty to build options and all in between, which is great and can add a huge amount of playtime to the game as you experiment how a game might turn out if no-one was allowed to build anything better then a level 1-3 unit, for example. There were also scenarios which started everyone out on the exact same footing, which is a popular holy grail for strategy games and one that had me playing that kind of scenario more than once.

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne just felt more disjointed. Levels were either too hard/frustrating or too easy/boring and everything felt a lot more claustrophobic as the amount of available options to the player is less and everything feels a bit more single-path to victory. That's not to say the game is bad, it's not, it's a lot of fun, it just seems like a bit of a drag after playing the near perfect Shadow Magic. It's more of a basic strategy game that doesn't offer much 'new' to a seasoned TBS player like Shadow Magic does.

Shadow Magic 5/5
Wizard's throne 3.5/5

Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY

First off, I'm not a Batman fan (only watched the... 1990? flick with Kim Basinger and Michael Keaton) and I'm not a superhero fan either but this game, which was one of those €4.99 Steam sales for me a while back, has almost turned me into both!

I know I'm late to the party in 2016 but this game is still absolutely amazing with stunning visuals and an extremely detailed world to explore.

For a Batman fan, this must be the pinnacle of awesomeness. For me as a regular gamer, it's just plain awesome.
My only gripe would be the consolitis which shines through at times. I also wasn't too impressed with the rather lame bossfights which are made unnecessarily annoying because of said consolitis and camera issues. In fact, I have not beaten the final boss yet due to these issues but I have kept the game installed and shall try again.

Verdict: A highly recommended near masterpiece. Now onward to Arkham City GOTY and Catwoman...

Moriendor said:

Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY
[skip] My only gripe would be the consolitis which shines through at times.

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If the consolitis annoyed you in Asylum, expect it to annoy you even more in Arkham City. At least, that was my impression after 7 hours into it.

azarhal said:

If the consolitis annoyed you in Asylum, expect it to annoy you even more in Arkham City. At least, that was my impression after 7 hours into it.

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I'm about four hours into Arkham City and I'd say it's about the same so far. As usual with just about all the games I play (i.e. with a console heritage), I applied some fixes from the PCGamingWiki like a larger FoV, removed the mouse smoothing and other minor tweaks.

I had a technical issue where the sound (the voices especially) would sporadically not play in some cutscenes or be very faint and muted. I believe I fixed that by installing the latest Logitech Gaming Software (I use a G930 wireless headset). I haven't come across too many cutscenes since the update though so it may be a little premature for a 'yay' .
BTW, in case anyone cares, the issue can also be fixed by going into control panel and changing the speaker setup from 7.1 or 5.1 to stereo. It appears to be a known surround sound bug with this game, unfortunately (according to Google-fu).

Other than that, so far so good. The much bigger and even more detailed world of Arkham City has been lots of fun to explore so far. Hope it stays engaging .

Moriendor said:

Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY

First off, I'm not a Batman fan (only watched the… 1990? flick with Kim Basinger and Michael Keaton) and I'm not a superhero fan either but this game, which was one of those €4.99 Steam sales for me a while back, has almost turned me into both!

I know I'm late to the party in 2016 but this game is still absolutely amazing with stunning visuals and an extremely detailed world to explore.

For a Batman fan, this must be the pinnacle of awesomeness. For me as a regular gamer, it's just plain awesome.
My only gripe would be the consolitis which shines through at times. I also wasn't too impressed with the rather lame bossfights which are made unnecessarily annoying because of said consolitis and camera issues. In fact, I have not beaten the final boss yet due to these issues but I have kept the game installed and shall try again.

Verdict: A highly recommended near masterpiece. Now onward to Arkham City GOTY and Catwoman…

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Well, If you're on the edge of being a fan.... watch the movie The Dark Knight, and you might become one. I hate most superheroes stuffs, but that movie.... WOW, truly amazing. It even has 9 / 10 on IMDB!

lackblogger said:

Shadow Magic 5/5
Wizard's throne 3.5/5

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I think I remember one of the developers writing in the old forums that the game was developed with Delphi. Yes, that Delphi by Borland. I don't know which version, though.

I agree about the consolitis in Batman AA. I found the button prompts especially annoying. It's one thing to have them during the tutorial, but why have them all the time? Do they think we're suddenly going to forget after 10 hours that the Space Bar opens doors?

I also disliked the attack icon that appears over the enemies when they're about to strike at you. They should have made that optional.

Ah I just ignored them. I was always focused on the enemies. After a while I didn't even see them.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Well I finished the main quests in the game and man is it long....really long.

The first 70ish hours I was doing everything as I had no clue how long this game really is, plus I am not one to leave things undone in a game. Near the end I was just running past most everything trying to finish off the main quests.

Plus there is a ton of stuff to do, though that is also a minus as there is a ton of stuff to do. If they had cut half the content out of the game I think it would have been a better game. I had completed 144 quest, everything to do with the main quest. I still had open 40 side quest, tasks and fraction quest and had stopped talking to people that wanted me to do things for them so I don't know how many more there are.

At first it was fun to get all the different weapons and armor but if you are anything like me and open every chest, it became a chore managing it all. Crafting was okay but I never could build a very powerful weapon. Also confused that I was level 34 or 35 and the best weapon I found was a level 19.

The story was well written, if the game had stuff with it more or I had stuck with it more I would have found the offered more.

All and all I am glad I played it, though would never do a replay of it. If someone picked up the IP and made a second game I would most likely play it as well.

Hard to say what I rate it though. If you had asked me 70 hours in 7.5/10, but it was draining to finish it so lets just leave it at that.

Another one down .

Batman Arkham City GOTY

I was already quite impressed with Arkham Asylum (see a few posts above) but Arkham City knocks it out of the park . What an awesome game!

Even as a (still) non-Batman and non-comic hero fan, this is an incredible game. So much attention to detail… great gameplay as you alternate between Batman and Catwoman, a much expanded arsenal of gadgets and equipment to get around the world and defeat enemies, a vast open world to explore, superbly crafted interesting locales, great characters & voice acting (thanks, Luke, the force was definitely with you for the Joker impersonation ), awesome visuals and cutscenes, challenging puzzles and side missions… you name it.
The best part is the interactivity of and the interaction with the world. It is an outstanding game in that department. This was tons of fun.

Now on to finish the Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC and I might also return to the main game (which is possible as both Batman or Catwoman, as you please, after finishing the main story which is another huge plus for this game!) to finish a couple more side missions or pick up a few more Riddler trophies.

After that it's on to the final part Arkham Origins. Well, "final" for me and for now. I don't think I'll be playing Arkham Night anytime soon… it'll be another €4.99 purchase in a couple of years.

Just finish The Witcher 3 Blood & Wine.

Well, it's more of TW3 so I'm not going to talk about gameplay, but with more cutscenes than what I remember the base game and Heart of Stone to have. In fact, the main quest was basically a huge interactive movie with a fight here and there. The story was rather "conventional too" and at some point I didn't feel like I was in a Witcher game too.

I must admit, the level design was top notch once again, as does the mo-capping and the return of a lot of TW1 monsters (which were not in TW2 or base TW3) was kinda cool. I was broke though so I couldn't make that grandmaster set *sniff* I ended up running around in gold knight armor instead which made a comment about fashion by a NPC super hilarious at some point.

Finally, I did like the cast of new characters. I'm kinda sad that this was the last of everyone too.

Just 'finished' Sims Medieval. Liked it a lot, I said 'finished' because I just finished the first 'campaign', but it didn't look like the other 'campaigns' were much different, just the same thing with different restrictions. Basically you create a sim that's the monarch to start, he/she will do a multi-part mission. After that, you get 'RP points' which you can use to add a building to your kingdom, which adds a new sim (say, a spy), then you do another multi-part mission with the king and/or the spy, get more RP points, add another building with, say, a wizard, and the next mission could be with the wizard, or wizard and spy, etc.
There is no story, just a series of missions you do until you run out of quest points (you start with like 50 and each mission costs some 2-5 QPs). The kingdom has several stats, that provide bonuses or penalties and they get increased as rewards from each mission you complete.
Overall, a nice pseudo-RP distraction.

wolfing said:

Just 'finished' Sims Medieval. Liked it a lot, I said 'finished' because I just finished the first 'campaign', but it didn't look like the other 'campaigns' were much different, just the same thing with different restrictions. Basically you create a sim that's the monarch to start, he/she will do a multi-part mission. After that, you get 'RP points' which you can use to add a building to your kingdom, which adds a new sim (say, a spy), then you do another multi-part mission with the king and/or the spy, get more RP points, add another building with, say, a wizard, and the next mission could be with the wizard, or wizard and spy, etc.
There is no story, just a series of missions you do until you run out of quest points (you start with like 50 and each mission costs some 2-5 QPs). The kingdom has several stats, that provide bonuses or penalties and they get increased as rewards from each mission you complete.
Overall, a nice pseudo-RP distraction.

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My dream ist still to write an article to write that SIM's Medieval is still an "proper" RPG - apart from the absence of any story. (Well, some Action-RPGs nearly have no story as well.)
The thing people will most likely disagree with me is the way experience points are gained : Through social interaction. NO THER RPG has that. Almost all RPGs rely on combat to give out experience points (although some give out more experience points for non-combat interactions).
I'm still completely and absolutely sure that I'll create a shitstorm when I write that.

You won't create shitstorm.
And it's not quite like socializing only - you'll improve some skills by using them (like in Skyrim).

The problem RPG fans have with the game is not the XP gain style but it's name. Sims. Everyone is scared to give it a try.
Another problem is classes design. One priest type evolving is great and fun, another is irritating and sucks - for example.

It didn't help that the game has an expansion which practically brought nothing new in it just a few irrelevant quests and interactions. While on official forums people got angry (dragons and archery were not added but instead were sold as overexpensive DLC for Sims 3) EA did nothing to improve Sims Medieval. Instead, they just shut down the project.

joxer said:

It didn't help that the game has an expansion which practically brought nothing new in it just a few irrelevant quests and interactions. While on official forums people got angry (dragons and archery were not added but instead were sold as overexpensive DLC for Sims 3) EA did nothing to improve Sims Medieval. Instead, they just shut down the project.

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I read some of the 'bad' reviews of the game, and most were from Sims players who wanted it to be more Sims and less RPG, basically they wanted a "Sims 3 - Middle Age clothes" or something. I think the game would have fared better if they had changed the name to make it clear it was just using the Sims engine, and not called it "Sims Medieval".

Yes and they wanted editable/buildable houses, castles etc.
Not going to happen - it's EA who wants to sell as less content possible for as much $ as possible.
Just as an example - Sims 4 limited building heights to 3 floors max (ground, 1 and 2) and didn't have cellars at it's release. Unlike Sims 3 that had max 5 floors aboveground and 4 floors below.

Because Sims Medieval was not good enough for existing Sims fans nor RPG fans EA had two options. Drop the ball or improve the thing. They went the third option - milking DLC.
Then they dropped the ball. Paradox is supposed to take that ball soon.

joxer said:

Then they dropped the ball. Paradox is supposed to take that ball soon.

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What now? Elaborate for us slow people!