Last game you finished, tell us about it

[bkrueger]

Oh I know that - I didn't say it was. I chose to support Wyll and that ended in a fight. Like I said, my dwarf was possibly immune to her charms. This choice at least makes a strong argument to try something else in a replay with a character that has a stronger affinity for Karlach.

A character who thinks before he acts would be sufficient.

But seriously: Behind all of the "bad" companions there is a story to understand. I would suggest to keep all of them (except one, who might be inevitably evil, I believe) in a next playthrough in order to understand their stories.

 

[Pessimeister]

Your tolerance for bullshit is evidently higher than mine.

Also, one of the core virtues and strengths of Baldur's Gate has always been replayability with new and different party choices - mostly for the banter of course!
So what you say is obvious and a given. But I have to want to replay the game first! We'll see how it goes.

 

[Philistine]

Personally i enjoyed that part of the story. There were plenty of hints about things not being what they seemed, which made it hard to know exactly what to think about it and what to chose initially.

Did you not finish the game due to this?

Yes but just to see it through. I could no longer be invested in the story because of the railroading (being forced to co-operate with monsters).

 

[SveNitoR]

Yes but just to see it through. I could no longer be invested in the story because of the railroading (being forced to co-operate with monsters).

Ok, that's fair.

 

[Billy Bones]

I finished up the short campaign levels on Songs of Conquest the other day, man what a great game that is. Really glad there's so much replayability.

 

[JDR13]

RoboCop: Rogue City

I didn't actually "finish" it which is rare for me, but I completed around 75% of the storyline. It didn't feel like it was going anywhere, and the gameplay was becoming too repetitive for my taste.

Rogue City is a first-person shooter at heart. You explore portions of Detroit while trying to solve missions and picking up side missions as well. There's a detective aspect to it, but that part is very simplistic. It also has some basic skill trees you fill out from XP gained by finishing missions and taking down criminals.

The combat is decent enough, and they did a pretty good job of making you feel like RoboCop. The problem is that things start to repeat after awhile. You go back to the same police station between maps, and many of the sidequests are very mundane. Also, the section of the city you get to explore repeats several times.

It's not a terrible game though. The production values are quite good for a AA developer, and they actually got Peter Weller to do the voiceovers. If you're a fan of RoboCop, chances are you'll like it.

7/10

 

[Philistine]

Finished Starfield (again)(for now). Did everything storywise except NG+. Got all achievements except hitting Level 100 because I tried grinding a few different ways, but they were all boring as hell, so I quit at Level 66. If they release more story content or some good quest mods I'll return to it.

 

[Morrandir]

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Just a copy from my mini Steam review:
Great game. It's just like the first game, only better.
The main protagonist starting with literally nothing and clawing his way up to become something of significance is a great experience. Also, not being the chosen one, the saviour of the world, is a nice change from other RPGs.
Absolutely beautiful scenery and depiction of medieval life in Bohemia.

 

[Carnifex]

Ok, this time I truly finished Trails From Zero!! It had me fooled two or three times thinking I was in the final stages yet it didn't actually happen until today. This one brought back such great memories of other Trails games, and I've always been curious about the Crossbell games, which I've never played before. Easy to state that Trails from Zero delivered on all those expectations in a very good way.

The final zone, Sun Fort, was a perfect culmination to an excellent game. Lots of named battles, and some of them happen right after another, which always keeps me on my toes. I've already loaded the save file to do a revisit with unlocked bonuses so I've that to look forward to in the future!!

 

[Drithius]

Atomfall

Fantastic game (with minor room for improvement)

Pros

• Great world building. It was all just densely packed with handcrafted, environmental storytelling. Lovely!
• A nice storyline that ever so gradually reveals itself and whose ending I didn't see coming for a change! Four different endings/people with whom you can align yourself.
• Discovery, discovery, and more discovery. Whether it was the world's geography or the actual quests (and scattered notes), the game did a great job of enveloping you completely.
• Graphics are nice indeed for the people that like that sort of thing.

Cons

• The combat was lackluster. Although there were a couple rare exceptions, most enemies were simply variants of melee and gun-toting types you met five minutes into the game (with higher healthpools the further you progress into the game).
• I was not a fan of 2/3 of the game's perk-like skills being locked behind exploration. Given how freeform a player can roam, they may not stumble upon an important ability until half the game's already been completed. Certain perk 'manuals' may be incredibly common, but some only exist in a singular location and you're out of luck if you overlook it in some way.
• LOTS of backtracking at the end of the game. While immersive for the majority of the game, no fast travel can be a double-edged sword when you're finishing up outlier quests.
• A few other quibbles: consolized multi-hotkey for flashlight, no sorting in your bank/stash mechanism, upgrading (crafting) weapons can be a clunky affair given the limited inventory space.

Overall, really liked the game. It's hard to convey just how densely packed the game is with various facets of storytelling. The devs (Rebellion) were passionate about the project and you can tell; some of the best worldbuilding I've seen in a game.

8.5/10

 

[JDR13]

@Drithius What was your playtime? You must have taken a more direct route to the end than I have.

Your score is exactly the same as what I would rate it. I completely agree about the worldbuilding. The level design is also top notch.

 

[Drithius]

28 hours, give or take. I'd venture to say that, at minimum, the final five hours involved backtracking to wrap up quests or find some last piece of the puzzle (figuratively speaking). The game keeps filling in the blanks right up until the end.

 

[Carnifex]

Nice to read your review of Atomfall, Drithius, it's one I look forward to playing now even more!

 

[JDR13]

28 hours, give or take. I'd venture to say that, at minimum, the final five hours involved backtracking to wrap up quests or find some last piece of the puzzle (figuratively speaking). The game keeps filling in the blanks right up until the end.

I'm at almost 40 hours now, but I've left it running a few times. Will probably finish it today. I actually have everything I need to take any of the four paths, but I'm still exploring every corner out of curiosity.

 

[Drithius]

Well, 28 hours is my savegame time; the Steam time is 47, but likewise have left the game running.

 

[JDR13]

I finished it earlier today. I ended up going with Dr. Garrow which the ending seemed to indicate was a somewhat neutral choice. I might check out a couple of the other endings before I set it aside.

GotY for me so far, but it's only the beginning of April. I'll stick with 8.5/10 for the rating. It could have been 9/10 with better stealth and more enemy variety, but it was a really good experience nonetheless.

 

[JDR13]

The Last of Us Part I

This was my second time playing it if you count the original PS3 version. That was so long ago though, I had forgotten much of it. I won't go into what it's about since anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last decade already knows. Suffice to say, the Steam version is just as good as I remember the original being and improved in some ways.

It's technically a remake, but the story and locations are unchanged from the original. Visually, it's a masterpiece. Even without ray tracing, it's one of the best looking games I've played. The story is also still among the best as far as games go.

Very little to complain about here. If I want to nitpick, I'll mention that it only uses 1 auto-save slot which really annoyed me at times because I wanted to backtrack to certain parts of some locations and I couldn't. You can avoid missing stuff by simply creating more manual saves, but I was so engrossed in the game, I'd go hours without making a save.

If you like post-apoc and/or the zombie/infected genre, this is a must play. It still has one of the most convincing post-apocalyptic worlds I've ever seen and a great story and combat to boot.

9/10

Spoiler: Screenshots

 

[daveyd]

Caves of Lore
I had bought it a year ago played for 10ish hours and stopped playing for whatever reason. But I recently decided to start it up again and I am very glad I did. The game is fantastic; Challenging turn-based tactical combat with lots of abilities and spells to acquire, great exploration with lots of secrets to uncover, and a decent story / lore.

Dialogue is fairly minimal (it uses a keyword system). The focus is on the combat, progressing with your character, acquiring new equipment. Some of the sidequests are a bit uninspired (e.g., "bring me 5 monster tails") but since the game focuses on combat so much I suppose that is to be expected.

Anyway I highly recommend the game to everyone here. It is a hidden gem and a steal at only $10. I'm shocked there's only 326 reviews on Steam... clearly a lot of people don't know about this game.

 

[Stingray]

Caves of Lore
I had bought it a year ago played for 10ish hours and stopped playing for whatever reason. But I recently decided to start it up again and I am very glad I did. The game is fantastic; Challenging turn-based tactical combat with lots of abilities and spells to acquire, great exploration with lots of secrets to uncover, and a decent story / lore.

Dialogue is fairly minimal (it uses a keyword system). The focus is on the combat, progressing with your character, acquiring new equipment. Some of the sidequests are a bit uninspired (e.g., "bring me 5 monster tails") but since the game focuses on combat so much I suppose that is to be expected.

Anyway I highly recommend the game to everyone here. It is a hidden gem and a steal at only $10. I'm shocked there's only 326 reviews on Steam... clearly a lot of people don't know about this game.

2023 was loaded with too many good RPGs, but if it had come out in 2024, it would have been either my #1 or #2 vote for GoTY that year. Never figured out why it gets so little attention while SKALD did so well. Its graphics have a lot more charm imo, but I guess SKALD has the better story/writing.

I check the Discord every now and then, and sadly it doesn't seem like the developer (one guy) is in a huge hurry to make the sequel.

edit: also you might be interested in this post from Feb 2024, post-mortem from the developer:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1aggumi/indie_postmortem_a_year_in_caves_of_lore

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1aggumi/indie_postmortem_a_year_in_caves_of_lore/

 

[JDR13]

The Last of Us Part II

This was my first time playing Part II as I don't own a PS4/5. I'm sort of glad I didn't play it until now though since this remastered version is by most accounts the definitive version of the game.

Like TLoU Part I, it's a narrative-driven game, but the gameplay isn't lacking. In fact, the gameplay is improved over Part I in many ways and is what really drew me in. People will usually focus on the story when discussing it, but I'm probably in the minority that it was the action that did it for me more than anything.

Maybe it was the fact that a few key parts of the story were somewhat spoiled for me a long time ago due to people blurting them out in forums, but I wasn't blown away by it. Even without those parts being spoiled though, I think I would have still preferred the story of the first game by a small margin. That said, I think most people would agree the writing is excellent by video game standards.

I do think they took the central theme of revenge a tad too far though. Narratively speaking, the final chapter was entirely redundant imo.

Like I said though, it was the action that did it for me. Naughty Dog absolutely nailed the combat. It's some of the most visceral and brutal fighting I've ever experienced in a game that tries to stay mostly realistic. The stealth is improved over the first game, and the AI is better than most. I was constantly surprised by how good the enemy was at flanking me and using the environment to their advantage.

You get a lot of it too. The game is close to double the length of TLoU Part I. Despite that, I never grew tired of it at any time.

It's fantastic from a visual standpoint as well. I mentioned how good TLoU Part I looks, and they equalled or surpassed it in every way here.

If you enjoyed TLoU Part I and haven't played this yet, it's a no-brainer.

9/10

Spoiler: Screenshots