@irongrey I didn't want to skip it, I like to know context and story. But that was hard to endure! Fortunately the game lets you turn off voices, because it was giving me an headache.
On the other hand... I'm now around 15h in and damn, pretty amazing game! Since the Wii days I've been on the fence about it... I had no idea this is basically a good Zelda game. Lots of Windwaker vibes.
More official details on the Xbox series X confirming 12 teraflops. That'll be a beast!
(Next Generation Custom Processor: Xbox Series X is our most powerful console ever powered by our custom designed processor leveraging AMD’s latest Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architectures. Delivering four times the processing power of an Xbox One and enabling developers to leverage 12 TFLOPS of GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) performance.)
Had a Okami copy that I was yet to play. That is a damn atrocious intro!!! Like for 15 minutes is just annoying gibberish over still images. If it wasn't for being a Platinum game I think would have dropped the game straight away. And even after the intro it's still annoying for a good while. But now I'm enjoying it.
Blasphemous. Metrovania style game with some clear Dark Souls influences in the mix.
I'll start with the bad first. I played it on the Switch, it stutters occasionally in docked mode while handheld seems to be much better. It is also a bit buggy, nothing that's so bad to the point of detracting from the experience but I got a freeze that forced me to restart the game (although I was purposely trying to see if I could break it by doing a very specific thing... I did.) And there are also some deaths that make the game nearly break but it ends up sorting things out by it self. Still annoying. What I really don't like about Blasphemous is that hit detection at times is very flawed and in general the game is far from being pixel perfect. Voice acting is not that good either, just competent with some characters worse than others.
But I really enjoyed it despite it's flaws. Animation work is nice and detailed. Makes great use of religious iconography and the art direction suits the theme perfectly. Characters and narrative center around penitence and guilt. Me, being from a catholic country, it really made me appreciate their approach on the subject. Brutal, visceral and blasphemous in a way that's only possible on the indie space. While story isn't that great, the narrative is well structured enough to carry me through the game and item lore is interesting to read.
Level design is not amazing but still good, and it does a great job at offering variety. Item interaction, be it with the player, other characters or the world, is rewarding enough to encourage exploration and experimentation. At least with me made me spend way more hours with the game then what was strictly needed to beat it.
Soundtrack feels very metal without ever really being metal. Often it resembles something you would find in the intro or interlude of a Black Metal album. I really love it. Suits perfectly the theme but I wish they were a bit more daring with it.
As for difficulty, it's on the easy side. I'm fine with that but I wish boss fights were more challenging because there's definitely a disconnect between how menacing they look and the actual challenge.
I feel that after Hollow Knight I'm always expecting the next unexpected GOAT material game to come out of nowhere. Blasphemous is definitely not that, but maybe because of its iconography I would still recommend it.
Kentucky Route Zero. Played the first ep on PC 10(?) Years ago, got it now for the Switch. As expected I'm loving it.
DICE awards was last night Untitled Goose Game and Control are the big winners. That opening actually delivered good jokes.
Congrats to RE2. I've enjoyed it, visually is not only technically impressive but also nails the mood. But I'm not a big fan of RE or the genre, so I couldn't place it higher.
Sekiro is a fknig brilliant game. Exhilarating and nerve wrecking! From the From Soft games it was the most rewarding to explore and the most precise to control. The sound design is superb, the feedback from consecutive parries is so damn rewarding.
It has a great trollish sense of humor. The moment when I was about to fight the Drunkard and his crew, sneaked to the NPC nearby to talk with him and he pulls a "Leeroy Jenkins" moment ruining my stealthy plans, made me laugh so hard. The Guardian Ape fight, also a terribly funny and trollish moment.
I think Sekiro does a better job in subverting expectations than other From Soft games. And also some boss fights against other human characters are among the best they've done so far. It's cool to fight giant demons and all, but at least for me it's psychologically more rewarding when you meet another human that matches you.
The one thing that took me some time to get over it was the lost mechanic of recovering your lost souls. The moments that rise from there in previous games, when you constantly have to make a risk assessment, and then having to recover them and sometimes taking enormous losses due to a silly mistake or over confidence, are missed here.
Unlike many others I don't think this game is lesser than Souls or Bloodborne. It's different enough but at the same time it delivered the same thrills I want from a From Soft game. And how it rates for me it depends on the day. Some days it's my least favourite, other days my top one.
My complete 2019 list:
1 Control
2 Outer Wilds
3 Sekiro
4 Void Bastards
5 Outer Worlds
6 The Touryst
7 Gears 5
8 Death Stranding
9 Metro Exodus
10 Plague Tale
11 Astral Chain
12 Untilled Goose Game
13 Ace Combat
14 Resident Evil 2
15 Blasphemous (This one is a bit of a cheat since I've only played it in 2020.)
16 Mario Maker 2
17 Creature in the Well
18 Zelda Links Awakening
19 Observation
20 Devil May Cry 5
21 Gato Roboto
22 Totaly Accurate Battle Simulator
23 Crackdown 3
24 Ring Fit Adventure
25 Arise
26 Moonlighter
27 Night Call
28 Baba is You
29 Dreams
2019 was a brilliant year for me. We didn't have those games with $50m marketing campaigns shouting in our ears to play it but there was a pletora of fantastic titles. I might been forgetting a title or two but at least from the 30 2019 games I've played I enjoyed them all, except Blair Witch. Shootout to Void Bastards (my #4) for some of the most fun I had playing a game this year. Hilarious game with a cool and well executed concept, fantastic sound design and music and cool art style. Also to Creature in the Well, just a tad short from being great.
And a special mention to Dreams. While I had fun with it, I hope it gets released on PC. Interface is 70% of any creation tool and I find it atrocious to interact with. I know people have created impressive stuff, but people create impressive stuff using matchsticks too, doesn't mean it's an ideal material. But I'll give it some more hours, as I've seen they made improvements on the controls.
Now 2020!!!
Edit: I forgot about Blair Witch, really didn't liked that one.
Edit 2: I also forgot Untitled Goose Game!! Had a great time with it playing with my GF.
Outer Words is the game "we" needed and for the most part it delivered.
@dipset Anthem sold incredibly well (considering), so they'll be on a privileged position IF they don't ask people to buy it a second time. Then if the game is actually any good it's the kind of comeback story the media loves. Free marketing.
I'm sure it's a pretty solid game but gives me creepy vibes.
@el-shmiablo Just for clarification, when we talk ray-tracing we're talking in real time RT not pre-rendered effects like GT uses.
Still haven't connected my PS4 since I moved but it will be my first think to check once I do it. Still want a PC release since I don't like the console interface for creation.
I make @ffff0 words my own.
Then for my actual words:
Quantum Break was a deeply flawed game but it had my favourite 3rd person combat this gen. Control pushes it even further making it more varied and dynamic. Then in terms of world and story it's a game tailored to my tastes - weird, dark absurd and funny. Reminiscent of stuff like X Files and Twilight Zone with some David Lynch thrown in there.
Visually it's my favourite game ever. It mixes a clean and strong architecture with surprising "rooms" that are always gorgeous.
Really good level design, very similar to a 3d Metroid. The map it's not very clear, but that's deliberate. It's enough to give you a sense of where to go but forces the player to use visual cues in the world for orientation. And it's SO rewarding to explore!
Remedy is a very unique voice in gaming and I'm so glad to see them back.
I had to give DS an honourable mention because it's a daring game. I don't think it's overall better than some games I didn't vote for but it is quite unique and willing to take risks.
I hated most of its characters, it has horrible pacing problems, the music is way overdone, it has obnoxious product placement, bad writing and narrative structure. But at least the writing gets so silly that towards the end of the game it made me laugh out loud for how bad it is.
It's also a shame that the world on one hand has fantastic level design but on other very few times felt rewarding to explore.
But its emergent gameplay many times during the more than 100h delivered great, amazing moments. And online elements while underdeveloped are at times really rewarding. Good sound design and art direction.
Pretentious it's a fitting word but at times it does meets its pretentions. But ffs, someone please force Kojima to, at least once, totally give up writing to someone that's really talented on that.
I haven't played it yet, but I will eventually. Don't care about SW so no urgency really. Seems like it's an okish game.
Astral Chain... The Switch has some secret GPU that only a few have access to it, this game has a gorgeous art direction and at times it made me wonder how on earth could the Switch run it. Just stunning.
The combat was a visual spectacle, had dept and it felt new, creative. Really impressed and surprised by it.
But it has too many issues. Filler sections, underdeveloped stealth, simplistic level design, camera issues, basic mission structures and too many uninteresting characters (some cool ones though).
Still a great game, with the positives overwhelming the negatives. I just wish elements outside combat and art direction were at least close in terms of quality because the world is interesting and deserved more competent hands developing it.
One of the very few games where I kept playing for a while after the credits because is at its best when combat it's the only focus.