The Backlog Check-in Vol. 29: 7/21/18: Hello Neighbor Edition

[Phaseknox]

Played: Dark Cloud 2

Finished: Nothing

Playing: Dark Cloud 2

I'm roughly 20 hours into Dark Cloud 2 and further than I was when I originally played it, but I'm not sure that I'm going to stick with it. It's a charming, cute and pleasant dungeon crawling/town building action JRPG, but the pacing is a little slow and the dungeon crawling is repetitive. It looks, sounds and plays good, but the core game is going through randomly generated dungeons and town building.

I like the combat (even though it's a little on the basic side) and going through the dungeons fighting enemies and collecting loot, but the town building aspects and mini games don't really interest me. I only do what's required to progress the story when town building, it's not something that I find all that fun.

If I didn't have so many other games that I want to play right now then I could see myself playing it until the end because I like a lot about it, but the dungeon crawling (when also factoring in level grinding) and town building are very time consuming where I can dump hours into the game without feeling like I've progressed very much.

Hello Neighbor comes out next week:

[jfissel]

Finished: What Remains of Edith Finch

Now Playing: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 29 games

Finished off What Remains of Edith Finch early in the week and then didn't have time to start anything else. I'll knock out Brothers this week and then start a longer game.

[Phaseknox]

I stopped playing Dark Cloud 2, and decided to play Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection because I want to play Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy but I want to go through the first three games again to get caught up with the story since it's been so long since I played them.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune back when it came out because while a lot of gamers were touting it as the evolution of the action adventure genre, I just found it to be a linear cover shooter with platforming which is essentially what it is. Sure the way that the story was told and the scripted events/set pieces were pretty cool for the time, but the game itself was an average third person cover shooter at best. My memory of it was shooting wave after wave of generic enemies that were bullet sponges while basically inching my way forward through linear levels and doing some platforming here and there. My memory was correct. I finished it yesterday, and I found it to be infuriating a lot of the time. While it picks up a little after the halfway point, I never really enjoyed my time with it. It's the very definition of a shooting gallery game, there's almost never a time throughout the entire game where you're not shooting waves of enemies. There's some platforming sections, but they're brief and then it's right back to shooting wave after wave of enemies. In every area they throw out tons of enemies to contend with, but the real kicker is that when all of the enemies have been defeated and you start to progress through the level they throw out more enemies never giving you a break or a breather from shooting enemies except during some brief platforming sections and puzzle solving areas here and there. It got to the point of ridiculousness, and it's obvious that the only reason they threw out so many enemies was to pad the length of the game since it's on the short side for the genre. I would have rather the game be shorter and have less enemies to shoot in every area, because it got absurd how many enemies that they had you go up against. And they were all the same generic pirates and mercenaries without any variation until near the end. There were many times that I wanted to quit playing because doing nothing but shooting wave after wave of bullet sponge enemies that come at you from every side and have sniper rifles and grenade launchers got old fast. I was never really having fun, I just wanted to play through the game for the story. It did get a little more interesting after the halfway point with its National Treasure vibe, but not by much.

This is a comparable situation to Assassin's Creed where the first game wasn't that great, but the sequel was awesome. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves improved upon the original substantially, and is one of my favorite games. I started playing it directly after finishing Drake's Fortune, and I'm having a blast. I would like to add that these remasters look fantastic with improved graphics, and run at 60fps. They almost look current gen... almost.

P.S. Happy birthday, argyle!!!!

[argyle]

Thanks Phase! I guess old age is already getting to me, could swear I already posted here this week.

Games added: Forza Horizon 3, Splatoon 2, Blackguards 2, and I added a couple back to my collection along w/ their season passes because I wanna play their DLC - AC Origins & South Park: TFBW

Last week: I've mainly been playing Xenoblade 2 - I'm about 50 hours in now. Still an awesome game. Also been playing a little AC Origins. Had to start over because it was the Xbox version I found the best deal on w/ the season pass, but I knew I wouldn't mind going through the main story again.

This week: Same.

Got a pretty good haul for my b-day. No games, but some game-related stuff. I'll snap some pics sometime tomorrow (or later today... ) and post 'em.

[jfissel]

I completed Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons tonight. Interesting gameplay with the 2 analog sticks controlling each brother separately...most of the time I could get them going where I wanted, but there were a few occasions where I got confused.

Overall, it's got a good story and beautiful scenery. I recommend checking it out.

[Phaseknox]

I'm halfway through Uncharted 2 and it's been a non-stop exciting thrill ride, but that's also part of the problem that I've been having with it because (like the first game) it rarely ever gives you a break or a breather from the action. It does a better job than the first game did with more frequent and lengthier cut scenes and platforming sections, but the core game is still cover shooting wave after wave of same-y enemies. The combat/shooting mechanics are improved and there's more variation to the types of mercenaries that you fight, but it still gets to the point of absurdity and ridiculousness at times. The same is true for the scripted events and set pieces, they're so over the top sometimes that they're laughable. Not to mention how everyone is a bullet sponge during gameplay, but during cut scenes it takes a realistic approach where only one bullet will seriously injure or kill someone. I just find it funny how Nathan Drake can outdo Rambo during the game killing armies of mercenaries and taking down assault helicopters firing missiles at him, but then during a cut scene one shot from a pistol puts him out of commission. I know that it's a video game, but I find a lot of it to be cartoonish. There's no doubt that it's entertaining a lot of the time, but I feel that some restraint to the shootouts and scripted events/set pieces would have made it a better experience since shooting wave after wave of enemies almost every step of the way gets exhausting, and constant over the top scripted events/set pieces become somewhat redundant and silly. I'm having fun, but not as much as I did when I originally played it. I'm just not into non-stop action games and shooters now like I used to be, one reason why I like open world games so much is because they let you progress more at your own pace instead of constantly throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you from start to finish.

I completed Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons tonight. Interesting gameplay with the 2 analog sticks controlling each brother separately...most of the time I could get them going where I wanted, but there were a few occasions where I got confused.

Overall, it's got a good story and beautiful scenery. I recommend checking it out.

Good to know, I have it and will get to it eventually.

[Phaseknox]

I just finished Uncharted 2, and it was a great time. They went overboard with the enemy encounters throughout, but I did have some great firefights and there was a lot of really good platforming that mixed things up. The story, characters, voice acting, music, graphics, level layouts, gameplay, scripted events/set pieces, etc. were all really good. The character controls were a little floaty, loose and sticky without feeling really solid or weighty as Nate would stick to everything around him like glue and gravitate unrealistically towards everything that he jumped at, but the combat/shooting mechanics were solid which is good because that's what you spend the majority of your time doing in the game. There were definitely some great shootouts in the game, but there was just too many without much of a break. It wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't throw so many enemies out at you in almost every area, but at times it felt like there were endless waves of them and then you would move to another area and do it all over again. You would even have to fight enemies during some of the platforming sections, it got ridiculous. But that's really my only complaint with the game, because everything else is pretty much top notch. The final boss was really frustrating, but I guess that's to be somewhat expected. The ending was decent, but it was silly how Elena didn't have a scratch on her with perfect makeup (which she had throughout the game) and clean unstained clothes after being blown up by a grenade and almost dying while Nate was still all dirty. I guess that he just didn't decide to bathe, or wash his clothes while she was healing. Overall a really good action adventure platform shooter without a dull moment.

I'm going to start Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception now.

[jfissel]

That's a lot of Uncharted in a short time. Hopefully, 4 and The Lost Legacy don't fall victim to series fatigue when you get to them.