Last Game You Played and What You Would Rate It Out of 10

[hellhamster]

Haven't played the other 2, although I have them. Without previous games to compare to, I liked the pace and the shield. Seen quite a few not digging the shield.

Definitely play the other 2. Haven't completed it yet, but so far this is absolutely the worst of the trilogy, it's still good though.

[Malkiah]

final fantasy 16: 2/10

since a nearly 3 year old game finally stopped being 70 dollars, i finally got around to playing this and it's a pile of shit on a level that is frankly slightly awe inspiring.
despite the fact that FF15 was a notoriously troubled production that went through at least two complete restarts and took 10 years to make, 16 feels like the half-baked precursor to 15 - every idea in 15 was better executed, and 15 also kinda sucked.

the combat in 16 is just atrocious, and really feels like exactly what it is: a dev on loan from DMC5 giving creative tips to a team that isn't confident in their own abilities.
it's insanely boring because it's tediously spammy, there's no depth or nuance because they removed the concept of elements or weakness/resistance, and removed all spells and buffs.
i'm severely not a fan of the "do fuck-all damage until stagger and then do a chunk of damage in 6 second window then go back to doing fuck-all damage until stagger" combat style, and IMO too much of the encounter design came down to either enormous HP sponges, or shit that constantly teleported out of melee range.
also, every eikon battle sucked complete donkey balls, it was just visual noise and brief periods of button mashing in between extended recreations of power rangers boss fights.

the story is interesting, but only insofar as how badly they fucked it up.
there were at least 3 narrative elements that were introduced that had fantastic potential but they did nothing with it, always opting for the most boring version of a straight up mustache-twirling villain.
while FF games always follow a pretty standardized formula for the macro story, the little details are what are important, and this game just had none.

the world design was also atrocious, and felt like a real step backwards from FF15.
going from a decently implemented open world in 15 to a "fast travel to the start of a hallway, go down the hallway, fast travel to another hallway, repeat" world made everything feel incredibly shallow.

apparently a lot of 16 was designed around criticism of 15, and i can only assume that either they willfully took the worst possible lesson from feedback or else everyone they listened to was an idiot.

[Zuben]

Days Gone - 8/10

In every way what you'd expect from a typical modern open world game, but still a decently good one.

Plot is Walking Dead if it was all about Daryl with a way more aggressive demeanor. That's the protagonist, Deacon St. John, a biker who's always pissed and antagonistic, bUt WiTh A hEaRt Of GoLd. I wrote that like I'm mocking his depiction, and I kind of am, though his vibes make sense at the same time, since he's lost so much and dealt with so much shit over the two years the zombie apocalypse has been going on. Not one of my favorite protagonists by any measure, but fits this game well.

I liked the bike and how you feel the upgrades making it run better. The thing with me is that I don't really like horses in video games—I would much rather ride a motorcycle. This game gave me that I loved it, though there are few caveats. 1) the ground is largely annoying to traverse in the first two areas, 2) you need to refuel ALL THE TIME (until the final tank upgrade that makes the bike far more fuel efficient) and God help you if you run out in the middle of nowhere, 3) the bike is not a living thing so you don't have a whistle functionality to call it to you like you would a horse in games like this. But yeah, overall it was a lovely experience to ride around, so I used uncharacteristically little fast traveling in this game.

Shooting works well enough. You have three slots, one for primary (assault rifles or shotguns), sidearm (pistols, sawnoff shotguns, SMGs), and special (sniper riffles, machine guns). You'll zero in on your favorite pieces soon enough, mostly swapping only the special gun between sniper rifle and machine gun depending on if you're going for a Horde or human opponents. A lot of selection regardless, though it's a bit lame that some cool ones are unlocked only by the very end part of the game.

Enemies are either "freakers" (=zombies) or humans, like you'd expect, but this game's specialty is the Horde: A large swarm of freakers. Their size varies depending on the area they're in or plot relevance. The smallest is 25 I think, and the largest 500, though that's one of a kind. Most large Hordes are 125 or so. There are about three occasions where you must take on a Horde to advance the plot, but otherwise they're largely optional. I killed all of them for the rewards, which are some of the best guns in the game. Hordes only consist of "swarmers", but there are other freaker types as well that are unlocked into the world as the plot goes on.

Anyhow, when you're not doing missions, you have an open world with checklists of busywork anyone who's played an Assassin's Creed or a Far Cry is familiar with. They don't include towers, thankfully, though there are literal towers in the game you can climb to if you want.

I did everything listed in the 'Progression' tab, which I think is enough. There are collectible pamflets and such that serve world building, but they are largely irrelevant. I collected some, then proceeded to ignore them.

When the game didn't do as well as Sony hoped, plans for a sequel were scrapped and the dev team was transferred to do other stuff. Now that I've finished the game myself, I think it was fine, but in so many ways an experience I have already experienced before. Therefore, I don't need a sequel. I wouldn't have cared to play this game at all if I hadn't received it for free as a PS+ monthly.

[SpaceMistakes]

Seen quite a few not digging the shield.

It was a weird choice.

"You know what this first person shooter series needs? Tanking."

- - - Updated - - -

Finally got round to playing Starfield (£1 deal for two weeks of Gamepass). I was not expecting to hate it but I did. I thought it was awful. A weirdly sterile universe with copy-pasted locations and boring procgen environments, rubbish talent trees and bland writing. I didn't like anything to do with the space ships. Even the menus felt bad. So glad I didn't buy this. Uninstalled, never to be played again.

Starfield is the biggest misfire in the history of that studio. Rumor has it they're quietly moving on from the game, which makes sense as they're clearly not going to hit the 'annual expansions' goal.

Building the ships was fun, some of the companion stuff was decent and I genuinely enjoyed the Terrormorph storyline. But how do you spend years hyping up a game about space exploration that doesn't actually have any space exploration? And they talked about it being realistic as an excuse for no sentient aliens, only for it to turn into Space Skyrim almost immediately with the super powers BS.

Add in the neutered combat (no dismemberment or noteworthy gore) and literal copy paste environments (down to the placement of clutter/enemies) and it ended up being the least time I've spent in a BGS title since their old Terminator games.

[Musta]

WoW. 10/10

[DarkAmbient]

Starfield is the biggest misfire in the history of that studio. Rumor has it they're quietly moving on from the game, which makes sense as they're clearly not going to hit the 'annual expansions' goal.

Building the ships was fun, some of the companion stuff was decent and I genuinely enjoyed the Terrormorph storyline. But how do you spend years hyping up a game about space exploration that doesn't actually have any space exploration? And they talked about it being realistic as an excuse for no sentient aliens, only for it to turn into Space Skyrim almost immediately with the super powers BS.

Add in the neutered combat (no dismemberment or noteworthy gore) and literal copy paste environments (down to the placement of clutter/enemies) and it ended up being the least time I've spent in a BGS title since their old Terminator games.

I'm especially annoyed about it because Starfield was one of the reasons I chose a Series X instead of a PS5. I traded the Demon's Souls remake for the biggest turd that Bethesda ever produced.

[Faldric]

final fantasy 16: 2/10

I would probably rate it at 5/10, but I was also massively let down with this. The whole RPG experience is shallow as a puddle. If this was some 10 hour action game, without all the MMO stuff, ending before the boring combat system overstays its welcome it would probably be an ok 8/10 game. But as a FF game, it is probably the worst mainline title yet (for its time).

[Eapoe]

Clair Obscur 8/10

Very fun, solid game. Had some drawbacks from the overall main story that reduced any story aspect from being a 10/10.
Platforming (extensive, in depth type) sucks, but believe it’s completely optional for cosmetic stuff.
Music is great.
All of the characters are amazing.
Combat parry/dodge mechanics was kind of neat, but not really my thing.
None of the downsides are egregious enough to lower the score by a large amount, and I definitely think it’s worth a playthrough for RPG genre fans.

[Christan]

D4 6/10
storyline was great, gameplay is okay, but after a million nightmare dungeons, pit runs, infernal hordes, etc etc...it gets boring,
i have anhedonia (just realized this recently) so all games i play feel boring lately...so i cant really say d4 is 6/10 completely

pther than d4 its old school runescape, id give that a 6 or 7

[hellhamster]

Doom: The Dark Ages (PS5): 8/10

The opening hours are, frankly, pretty rough. You're given just one or two weapons per mission, and it takes about five missions before things really start to pick up. That slow ramp-up really soured my first impression. I ended up dropping the game for a couple of weeks before giving it another shot.

But once the game decides to shower you with most of the new weapons, it's go time. The gameplay feels tighter than any of the recent Doom entries. Every weapon is thoughtfully designed and viable, with something to suit every playstyle. Naturally, the super shotty is the best weapon in the game as usual. Cranking up the difficulty and tightening the parry window is a welcome challenge for those of us who thrive on Doom Eternal's intensity. While it’s not quite as fast-paced as Eternal, it still delivers a fresh and compelling take on the Doom formula.

Audio design was a mess at launch. Poor mixing really dragged things down, but a later patch thankfully sorted most of it out. On the technical side, I didn’t notice major improvements to the idTech engine. It mostly feels like a resolution bump with added (and seemingly unnecessary) mandatory RTX support. A few bugs were still present too, some map icons failed to appear, which forced me to restart missions multiple times. That was the worst of it, though.

One thing I really wish they’d done is add some fresh enemy types toward the final stretch. The last 20% could’ve used a jolt of novelty—something to shake things up. The bosses were great, but the entire last act just felt rehashed and rushed.

Minus an entire point for forcing me to play on PS5 even though my non RTX 1080 could have handled it no problemo. 2016 and Eternal are clearly better, but Dark Ages is no slouch and is definitely worth your money, but maybe wait for a discount.

[Zuben]

Mafia: Definitive Edition - 5/10

What I liked:

• Story was decent. Riffs off Goodfellas, but manages to stand on its own and carry its thing well enough. Doesn't nail the pacing imo, though the framing explains the rushed nature somewhat, as it's all supposed to be a story told by Tommy to detective Norman in a cafe. Makes sense he wouldn't talk about his wedding day and such.
• Presentation. The world and characters are well made and realized. Typical to the genre, but I think it's okay for the story.
• Collectible vintage comics, some of which are amusingly horny.

What I didn't like:

• Gameplay is ass:
  
  - Shooting: Very clumsy aiming. Sometimes enemies don't react to being shot at all and just come at you like a bunch of T-800s. I had the default settings so aiming at them was agony until I switched to High aim assist at the far side of the game.
  - Driving: Absolutely horrible. Yeah yeah, 1930's cars, IDGAF. It's the core of the game and absolutely drains enjoyment of life from you. Even motorcycles ran poorly, which is an achievement in itself. The only vehicle I kind of liked driving was the black Mustang you could select from your personal garage. Doesn't matter that it's four decades out of place.
• It's all missions, no free roam, which makes you wonder why the game is set in an open map at all. There is a separate free roam mode, but who cares about that? Put it all in the core experience ffs...

All in all, I hated playing the game so much that I would've dropped it if I wasn't aware that it's actually kind of short by modern standards. I don't know how much of its downsides can be chalked up to it being a remake of a 2002 game, but I still can't recommend it to anyone but the hardest mobster fans. At least I didn't pay for it (technically) as I got it via PS+.

[tehealadin]

Clair Obscur Expedtion 33 - 10/10.

The best game I have played since Elden Ring. One of the best games I have ever played. This wasn't just a game, it was an experience, one I am so glad I had. I love souls games. I love JRPGs. I adored the gameplay in this. Put it in a world with phenomenal art direction, an emotionally impactful and gripping story, a story that made me feel complex emotions, brought to life with some fantastic characters, including one who is one of the best characters I have ever seen in a game, with phenomenal voice acting (Ben Starr at the end if you chose Maelle's path, "help me!", fuck that hit me), and score it with that might be the best OST I have ever heard in a game (I am going through my head trying to think of a game whose OST stopped me in my tracks as often as this did)...what can I say? I went into this hopeful. I wanted it to be good. I didn't realise it would leave such an imprint on me. Finished it last night, still need time to fully process the game. This is one of those rare games where I feel somewhat lost now. Not sure where to go from here. This felt like a generational title. I heard people calling it this generations Chrono Trigger, and the Final Fantasy SE have spent the past 20 odd years wishing they could make. None of this is hyperbolic imho. At times it felt like they made it for me. I will remember this the way I remember FFVII and FFX, DS1, Bloodborne and Elden Ring, the ME trilogy, and MGS 3. It is a timestamp on my personal gaming history.

[Faldric]

Sid Meiers Civlization 7: 3/10

Just finished another game after the recent patch hit. Or better I played through 2 out of 3 ages and decided to stop. This was probably the last game I am ever going to play. The patch didn't improve nearly enough. IMHO the game is just a terrible civ game. I don't think this is salvageable. The foundations of this game are just not fun. The few things they actually improved like army commanders pale by the massive downgrade in about everything else. And on top: It still feels like playing a beta/early access.

Massive disappointment.

EDIT: seems like I played to early. Just saw the patch I was waiting for actually got pushed. I am still not going to play another game. The new configuration options won't change my main grievances with the game.

EDIT2: The patch notes for the next patch are up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJxLliwr6jk This is just sad, the main feature is that you can disable major features of civ 7.

[Daedius]

Alone in the Dark [2024]

2/10

Played it off PlayStation Plus free monthly games.

Alright story, with some humour thrown in... not keen on its ending with the out of nowhere thing that happened in the conservatory.

It was marketed as being able to play with the two characters, Edward Carnby and Emilia Harpwood, to experience their side of things in the story. I played as Edward first, then Emilia... it was literally the exact same storyline with the roles reversed. Aside from interactions with other characters it was literally the exact same story... I was led to believe I'd see what Emilia was up to after while I played Edward first... but nope!

Seriously disappointed with that.

The game is too easy, even on hard mode... the game gives you ammo via RNG loot opening stuff, the less you have the higher chance you'll find. So you'll always have plenty of ammo to take out whatever challenge shows up completely degrading any survival element.

But MY GOD is the game riddled with bugs!! And it's never been given a patch to fix it...

-- Graphic glitches frequently [the models spiking out and stretching their textures]

-- Game breaking bugs where you can no longer melee [areas that you have to break through with it]

-- Reloading the game bugs out the map. It's similar to the Resident Evil games where Red = items still, Blue = cleared. Reloading causes key items to 'respawn' making the area permanently unable to be cleared.

-- Objectives note pad bugs out getting stuck in a loop spamming the same update over and over again, so I am unable to what on what to do next...

-- Atrocious enemy AI, they constantly get stuck on something

-- Throwing items is buggy... often nothing blocking your throw, but somehow it clips off objects like 2 meters away to your side.

-- etc



AND THIS WAS FROM A SINGLE PLAY THOUGH!!!

Do not recommend. I am seriously appalled at what they did to this franchise!

[Relapses]

Signalis -- 8/10

Criminally late on this one, but I'm glad I convinced myself to sink into this one. This is a terrific entry into the pantheon of truly special survival horror games. It's hard to describe this game as anything other than an amalgamation of the best parts of already-existing survival horror, but that's expected in a project whose scope is as large as this game's with a development team consisting of just two people. Art direction is spectacular, with several nods to Evangelion and Silent Hill. This is a game that wears its inspirations on its sleeve, for better or for worse. The soundtrack is also excellent, perfectly discordant and unsettling in all the right ways.

But the thing that sets Signalis apart from its contemporaries is its story. From the jump, you're playing a game from the perspective of an incredibly unreliable narrator. It's not clear what is and isn't real. The game follows the tried-and-true survival horror trope of providing vital story background information via letters and environmental clues found along the way. All of this is familiar territory, but what sets Signalis above a lot of other games in this genre is the way that the story is delivered. The game pulls a Nier Automata and fakes out its first ending then begins to really explore the what and how of this story's nuts and bolts. At its core, it's a love story, but it's also a deeply human introspection on how we process emotions. A love between people powerful enough to warp the very fabric of reality is, well, both touching but also deeply, inhumanly frightening.

The game is, of course, not without flaws. The limited inventory gimmick, even though it has an in-world explanation, is tiresome. I get that it's a deliberate choice but it just felt like half of my gameplay was spent traveling between save rooms and wherever I needed to be. The fact that many puzzles required multiple keys and each key took up an inventory slot was particularly cumbersome. Moreover, the combat system left a lot to be desired. It's standard survival horror kitsch, but the kitsch wears thin after the midway point of the game. By this point in the in the game, I found myself preferring to evade enemies altogether which just felt pretty anticlimactic. Finally, even though I mentioned this as a positive in the previous paragraph, some might walk away feeling like this game is too referential. It tears some stuff literally 1:1 from its source material; and, while I feel like this is done in service of something that's wholly its own thing, might take you out of the game once it happens. YMMV, but knowing this going into the game will at least prepare you for it when it happens.

Overall, though, this is an excellent game. Very much worth the price of entry. It's relatively short, too, clocking in at only around 10 hours, so you can likely finish it up in two or three gameplay sessions. If you're like me where the game was on your radar but you were hesitant to check out, then it's absolutely worth your time. I'd recommend it to anybody, but it's nearly essential for any fans of survival horror.

[WeAreNotSmilesTimes]

final fantasy 16: 2/10

since a nearly 3 year old game finally stopped being 70 dollars, i finally got around to playing this and it's a pile of shit on a level that is frankly slightly awe inspiring.
despite the fact that FF15 was a notoriously troubled production that went through at least two complete restarts and took 10 years to make, 16 feels like the half-baked precursor to 15 - every idea in 15 was better executed, and 15 also kinda sucked.

the combat in 16 is just atrocious, and really feels like exactly what it is: a dev on loan from DMC5 giving creative tips to a team that isn't confident in their own abilities.
it's insanely boring because it's tediously spammy, there's no depth or nuance because they removed the concept of elements or weakness/resistance, and removed all spells and buffs.
i'm severely not a fan of the "do fuck-all damage until stagger and then do a chunk of damage in 6 second window then go back to doing fuck-all damage until stagger" combat style, and IMO too much of the encounter design came down to either enormous HP sponges, or shit that constantly teleported out of melee range.
also, every eikon battle sucked complete donkey balls, it was just visual noise and brief periods of button mashing in between extended recreations of power rangers boss fights.

the story is interesting, but only insofar as how badly they fucked it up.
there were at least 3 narrative elements that were introduced that had fantastic potential but they did nothing with it, always opting for the most boring version of a straight up mustache-twirling villain.
while FF games always follow a pretty standardized formula for the macro story, the little details are what are important, and this game just had none.

the world design was also atrocious, and felt like a real step backwards from FF15.
going from a decently implemented open world in 15 to a "fast travel to the start of a hallway, go down the hallway, fast travel to another hallway, repeat" world made everything feel incredibly shallow.

apparently a lot of 16 was designed around criticism of 15, and i can only assume that either they willfully took the worst possible lesson from feedback or else everyone they listened to was an idiot.

100% agree. I wanted to like this game but it found it incredibly dull, incredibly repetitive, and incredibly shallow.

[Relapses]

100% agree. I wanted to like this game but it found it incredibly dull, incredibly repetitive, and incredibly shallow.

Different strokes for different folks. I liked the different battle system and even though I see why some people dislike it, I think it's still a worthy entry into the FF series.

[SavoirFaire]

Sid Meiers Civlization 7: 3/10

This is just sad, the main feature is that you can disable major features of civ 7.

I’d say i’m right there with you on Civ 7, though I’d be more generous with a 5/10 simply as a genre fan and hope (cope) for the future. I was late to 6 (my first civ since call to power…) so I don’t know where that version began, but it ended well. I’ve heard a lot of good things about 5 as well.

I think civ is in a bad spot now, because they’re trying to innovate on a solid formula, and they don’t seem to know what to do because so much of it would be incremental without big fence swings, which lead to big misses. It would seem that 7s age focus, which I feel is trying to slow down snowballing, just is better on paper than practice. Granted I haven’t even broke the 50 hour mark yet, with over 1000 in 6. I’ve shelved the game and may look for an ultimate edition with $20 for all the dlc in 2 years or so before I take another stab at it.

[Benggaul]

Different strokes for different folks. I liked the different battle system and even though I see why some people dislike it, I think it's still a worthy entry into the FF series.

To that end, despite the flak it gets from a lot of other folks FFX is my wife's favorite and I'm pretty much right there with her (though I also enjoyed the combat system of 12 purely from an amateur programmer's standpoint--gambits are just code strings, after all). When FF stopped doing turn-based after FFX and pretty much went to ATB and beyond I lost interest quickly. I liked being able to take my time to plan and the constant timers were ruinous to my enjoyment.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about 5 as well.

I'd say 5 is pretty much the pinnacle and they've been trying to recreate that former glory ever since. Though even with 5 it wasn't until a couple of major patches later that it became the great game it is now, and there are still bugs, especially if you're playing online multiplayer--not that many do.

[Yriel]

Tiny Tinas Wonderland: 5/10

This one is a borderlands clone, borderlands combat, borderlands enemies, borderlands weapons, borderlands classes.
The only difference is that there are no overworld maps with vehicles and stuff but instead you move a little miniature on a gaming table in an isometric view. There are no real enemies in this view, only sometimes when you walk through grass patches some enemy spawns but you can just attack them and they vanish. If you fight (or enter one of the random dungeons) you end up in a random map where enemies spawn constantly and you have to kill them till a bar fills up. At the end you get a treasure chest. You have to do this 1-3 times depending on the dungeon. It's pretty boring, especially if the enemies happen to be hydras as they spawn reeeealy slow. All in all this feels pretty cheap.
They have 5 zones on the worldmap that you unlock and each zone usually has one main story dungeon and one side story dungeon. Those maps are pretty large, with many quests, borderlands standard.

What is supposed to be the big selling point is the story. Tiny Tina runs a TTRPG. But the problem is, there is sooooo much talking. Humor lives off timing and they just talk everything to death. It's like the Ghostbusters 2015 movie where they let them inprovise and they kept talking and talking to fill the void.
The result is, barely a joke works, it's just endless blabbering. The Tiny Tina DLC to (IIRC) B2 was better in that regard.

Another problem with the story is that, even if supposed to be a funny D&D session all the settings are fairy tales (giant beanstalk), folklore (don quichotte) and endless Money island pirate settings (there are at least 6 story NPCs that have variation of Guybrush Threepwood or Le Chuck as their name) and some general stuff like Smurfs. There are no TTRPG settings/quests/jokes, no D&D, no Lord of the rings, anything like that. I don't know if that is a licensing problem or what but that really disappointed me. There are countless ways to parody a D&D session and they barely have anything like that. (the only thing i can remember is a sequence where the players totally focused on an unimportand side NPC because he wore a blue hat and stalked him and totally ignored the main quest until Tina gave in and made him a baddie. That was really funny, something every game master has experienced and i really would have liked more of that kind of content).

So thats the problem with that game for me. The whole story just isn't entertaining and without that it's just a worse borderlands.