Fnord

A few more games beaten, one of them being a rather large one (Pillars of Eternity 2). I ever expected to 100% a game like that, but it was so good that I ended up doing pretty much everything in that game.

Ghost 1.0

10 hours, 37 of 119 achievements
Non-steam verison

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Ghost 1.0 is a metroidvania game made by the same devs who made Unepic (a game that might be best known for getting rejected by Valve, despite being a relatively good game). This feels a lot more polished than Unepic, but it does lack some of that crude charm that comes with a game made by a developer who was learning things as they made the game.

What sets Ghost 1.0 apart from other Metroidvanias is the fact that you can take control of most enemies. You've got a main body that you control most of the time, but your character can leave it and jump into one of the enemies, and when doing so you get full control over it. This sounds more useful than it really is, but there are a few puzzles which relies on it. Other than that, it's a relatively standard Metroidvania game, with average levels, relatively good controls and a few fun boss fights, but it lacks one of the key features of Metroidvanias: The ability to find new and interesting abilities scattered through the world. You do find powerups, but you don't get any major game changers.

Overall though, Ghost 1.0 is not a bad game, it's worth a playthrough for fans of Metroidvanias, just don't expect the game to do anything extraordinary.


Sonic Mania

4 hours, 3 of 18 achievements

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The Sonic series has never been my favourite series of platforming games. While most Sonic games have a great first level, they tend to become a lot less fun in the later levels. Sonic Mania fixes a lot of issues that the classic Sonic games had, and has far more consistent level design and controls that make it a joy to play. This game feels like it was made to be like how people with a lot of nostalgia for the old sonic games remember them, not how they actually were. I would highly recommend that anyone who's a fan of 2D platformers take a look at this one, it's great!


Pillars of eternity 2

96 hours, 55 of 55 achievements

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Pillars of Eternity 2 might well be the best game I played last year. It's just that good!

Pillars 2 takes place about 5 years after the first game, and is a direct sequel to it. You play as the same main character, and you can import your old save file from the first game to it. While you won't start with a high level character if you do, the choices you made through the first game will impact things in the second game.

Pillars 2 is more of a sidegrade than an upgrade to Pillars 1. While you've got fully voiced dialogue this time around (rather than just have certain important moments be voiced), better graphics and the ability to multi-class, combat seems to have been made easier, and the caster classes feel less unique compared to each other.

I won't spoil the story of Pillars 2, but let me just say that the writing is better than the story. Overall the story is not amazing, but many of the characters you'll meet along the way are well written and feel fleshed out. You've also got several major factions this time around, and which one you chose to support through to the end will determine exactly what the ending will be like (you can, and probably should, work with all of them though, for as long as you can). Like with most modern RPGs, the factions don't represent good or evil here, but are rather different groups with different interests.

I would highly recommend this game to any fan of party based CRPGs, as it's great! I doubt it will be remembered as well, or as fondly, as the first Pillars of Eternity, but it's still a very good game.

There are also 3 DLCs for the game.
Beast of Winter
The first DLC for Pillars of Eternity sees you explore a mysterious ice floe. It comes with a small new settlement with new NPCs, and has the most involved boss fights of the entire game. The new boss fights are actually pretty challenging, and were the highlights of this DLC, which overall was quite good

Seeker, Slayer, Survivor
This DLC was probably the weakest part of the entire game. While it's not bad, it's mostly just a bunch of arena fights, with a relatively weak story holding it together. There's a bit more to it than that, but this DLC did not impress me. Worth playing if you get the season pass, but probably not worth getting on its own. Also, for some reason, loading times were longer in this one than any other part of the game.

The Forgotten Sanctum
This DLC is basically one big dungeon. The kind of dungeon that you'll only find in a fantasy RPG, that does not make a whole lot of sense if you think about it, but which is still interesting to explore. This DLC was also pretty good, and it's also more connected to the main plot than any of the other DLCs.


Bulletstorm

7 hours, 19 of 34 achievements
Non-steam version

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Bulletstorm is one of those games that I've heard a lot of good about, but up until last month, I had never actually played it.

Bulletstorm is a simple, fast paced shooter, where the main gimmick is that you can do a lot of different environmental kills, and the game rewards you for it. You can kick enemies into cacti, off cliffs, into electricity and so on, and the game gives you points for doing so, points you can then later exchange for more ammo and some minor upgrades for your weapons. You've got a kick that's so mighty that even Duke Nukem would be jealous, and a whip you can use to throw enemies around, and a bunch of different guns. While using the kick & whip is quite fun, the guns do actually feel a bit weak.
The difficulty is overall quite low in this one, but the difficulty is a bit uneven, and the enemies the game hypes up as being the most dangerous things on the planet are actually the easiest ones in the entire game, so the balance does feel a bit off. But despite this, Bulletstorm is a really fun game, and actually a better Duke Nukem game than Duke Nukem forever.


Sonic Foces

4 hours, 19 of 48 achievements

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After having recently beaten Sonic Mania, Sonic Forces feel like a real step down. Where Sonic Mania had tight controls and well designed levels, Sonic Forces has sloppy controls, that at times feel very slippery, and at times feel needlessly stiff. The levels also don't seem to have been designed with the controls in mind. This is extra obvious in sections where you're supposed to turn in mid-air, which never works well. There are a few other issues with the game, such as the games lock-on system sometimes sending you into a pit after hitting the enemy, and the camera not always being able to keep up. This is not the worst Sonic game ever, but it's just worse than Sonic Mania in pretty much every single way, and not a particularly good game as is. It's very easy though… when the controls cooperate.


Mskotor

Oh wow. You have formatting.

It’s so unexpected, I may even find a job this year. 2019 - time of wonders.

Also I still must beat PoE 1 :hehe: Maybe this year, as it’s “year of miracles”

Fnord

Figured people would not want a huge wall of text :P

And do it! And then you’ll see how good PoE is, and how unfounded your fears of the game are!

Mskotor

You pester me about PoE for 1,5 year now? You’re bad at this :hehe:

Formidolosus

Good assessment of the sonic level problem. I never understood why they were considered to rival Mario in any way. A classic Mario game feels so well orchestrated from the first level right to the very end, progressively adding in more and more until the end, and when you reach the end it feels satisfying. I’ve beaten many, many Mario games, I’ve never felt compelled to reach the end of a Sonic game. And I think it’s bang on to say they always start out well, but by world 2 I’m usually feeling bored. I definitely want to try sonic mania though.

Fnord

They were among the better Mega Drive platformers, and fanboys need something to cling to :P I did find the first Master System Sonic and Sonic CD to be more consistent in their level design than Sonic 1-3 though, and thus more fun.

And I’ve beaten most of the classic Mario games, and also all the Mega Drive Sonic games + a few others (like Sonic 4, which is best avoided, as it’s genuinely bad). I would not pick Sonic over Mario. Heck, there are many platformers I would pick over Sonic.

Formidolosus

Yeah I think sega actually contributed to creating this ‘rivalry’ between the systems by making sonic seem like a ‘cool’ character. Which actually backfired in the long run when the games got really bad. Then his teenage edginess became ‘old man pretending to be relevant’, and it was seriously cringey. Whereas Mario has never been ‘cool’ but he’s been backed up by some of the literal best platforming games ever made, so I guess the lesson was the characters are only endearing if they have good games behind them. What I think is funny about Sonic Mania is that it was mostly fan made, and they seemed to know better than team sonic what makes a good sonic game.

Narayan

Can you 100% Pillars of Eternity 2 in one playthrough? First one required several from what I remember, cause some of them were mutually exclusive I think.

Unepic was rejected by Valve? When was this? I bought it ages ago via Steam without any issues.

Kicking is fun ;) I didn’t play Bulletstorm, but I did play Dark Messiah of Might and Magic in the ancient times, and while it did feature 3 skill trees for different playstyles, it also featured the mighty kick (first time combined with physics engine I think), so why bother with anything else if you could one shot everything by kicking it into spikes or traps, or off the cliffs ;) Fun times.

Fnord

There’s a point near the end where the questline diverge, but it’s really obvious where you should save.

Yeah, before Greenlight, Valve rejected Unepic. And then GOG accepted it, and made a big deal out of it. Unepic got in through greenlight though.

And yeah, that was the best part of Dark Messiah. I don’t remember all that much from that game, but I do remember kicking orcs into conveniently placed spikes and down into pits