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

[DarkAmbient]

The game is a solid 8-10 hours longer than the original, too. The first few areas up through the hospital are largely the same, but they really fleshed out the back half. I didn't mind the increased combat frequency, I just hated the stupid fucking spider mannequins. Motherfuckers take forever to kill then respawned when you're required to backtrack to solve a puzzle. Those guys can fuck off the highest mountain.

Yeah, fuck these mannequins. Do they really need to be behind every corner? Maybe I'm just getting too old for this shit.

Silent hill f is a lot worse in that regard. I just don't like this direction. Sure, the game is a lot longer, but at what cost?

I already decided from gameplay videos that Silent Hill F is not for me. Honestly for me it might just be an age thing. I'm more interested in the atmosphere and exploration than constantly fighting enemies.

A screenshot I took of my first encounter with ol' Pyramid Head. I think it looks cool, although it's a bit darker than it actually looked on my TV.

[Koriani]

Yeah, fuck these mannequins. Do they really need to be behind every corner? Maybe I'm just getting too old for this shit.



I already decided from gameplay videos that Silent Hill F is not for me. Honestly for me it might just be an age thing. I'm more interested in the atmosphere and exploration than constantly fighting enemies.

Then, as one old gamer to another, might I suggest playing games with cheat codes. (Or at least if you're on PC its an option) I like to use WEMOD (now rebranded to WAND I believe) as its free and has cheats for most all the games and never gives me issues.

All the atmosphere and story, and then cheese the fighting you don't want to have to waste time on. What's really nice is you can fight "normal" all you want, and then when you're sick of messing with the fighting, cheese it.

That's what helps me anyway. Don't let stupid mechanics that frustrate you turn you away from games you wanna experience - just cheat'em.

[everydaygamer]

Silent Hill F is honestly pretty good and in some aspects I enjoyed it more than 2 remake. But I’ll admit, replaying it 3 times minimum to get the full story is a bit much. I got burned out by the time I reached my last play through and couldn’t finish.

[Mysterymask]

Route Matrix Randomizer:
Ok so this be a weird one I found and played around with but holy shit is it fun. This is a Randomizer that frankenstiens Megaman X 1-3 into one game with the items shuffled. It's weird to get started, the site is in Mandarin, it requires using the Bizhawk emulator and dragging and dropping a lua file into the game and holy shit is it early and bloated BUT the concept is fucking fun.

So the idea is you have to beat all 3 games the upgrades, items, and even keys to all the levels is shuffled into all 3 games. We have multiple difficulties and outside the recommended you'll find out "Oh holy shit I can only shoot in one game and that one game I have like 1 lemon every 20 frames!" If you like MMX as a series this is fun because it will make you do a lot of stuff you wouldn't normally do. I can't remember the last time I fought the X-Hunters or even fight some of the X2 Bosses with buster only. The big cons is being early the UI is pretty messy and you really don't have a good way to save if you need to stop playing for a bit plus it can only really be played on a PC. But this is still VERY VERY early and has a lot of potential

7/10 with a LOT of potential later on

[Relapses]

Silent Hill F is honestly pretty good and in some aspects I enjoyed it more than 2 remake. But I’ll admit, replaying it 3 times minimum to get the full story is a bit much. I got burned out by the time I reached my last play through and couldn’t finish.

You did better than me. I had to watch the other endings on YouTube, and even then I was underwhelmed. I could not muster the gamer fortitude to endure even a millisecond further than the first ending. I'll admit that maybe I'd have a more positive opinion if I'd actually picked up what it was throwing down, but the combat system in this game is like raw-dogging an electrical socket.

[Benggaul]

Isn't clunky/unsatisfying combat like a hallmark of Silent Hill games? Ostensibly to heighten the tension and because the character you're controlling isn't generally a battle-hardened warrior. The combat didn't put me off because I expected it to be terrible based on previous SH games. At least there weren't tank controls and random fixed camera switches this time.

I liked the story of F and did feel like the additional endings kept adding new layers of complexity to the relationships--though I agree making you complete nearly the entire game 3-5 times in order to get all of them was a poor design choice and I totally get not wanting to slog through it again.

[Redwyrm]

Currently playing Sea of Stars

Enjoying it. The best part of the game for me is the writing and characters. Lots of meta RPG humor, character development and mystery. Level exploration has some nice platforming/puzzle solving aspects (climbing, jumping, switches, hookshots). Only complaint is the monster weakness lockouts. To break an enemy's defense/turn you need to hit a certain amount of "elemental/weapon" attacks before an enemy turn timer runs out. Unfortunately they don't give you enough time to hit all of them in the few turns you have. So it is just easier to ignore them. Also has button press timing to mitigate enemy attacks or strengthen yours.

Mini games are meh. Especially "Wheels". God, I am just going for completionist and never touching that RNG mess again.

[Relapses]

Isn't clunky/unsatisfying combat like a hallmark of Silent Hill games? Ostensibly to heighten the tension and because the character you're controlling isn't generally a battle-hardened warrior. The combat didn't put me off because I expected it to be terrible based on previous SH games. At least there weren't tank controls and random fixed camera switches this time.

I liked the Dutch angles in the OG SH games -- really emphasized the Lynchian vibe they were going for in those games. Maybe I'm just too old school, but I'd take tank controls over whatever the fuck they tried to with f any day of the week. At least you have the option to use firearms in the other SH games. The decision to make the game melee-only was its biggest drawback, imo. To me, it felt like they tried to Dark Souls-ify the SH combat formula. I get that's a dub for some gamers (especially younger ones), but it just felt like ass every time I engaged with it. I found myself largely ignoring combat altogether or deliberately cheesing stuff to get past it faster. A game shouldn't actively make you not want to play it.

[Benggaul]

I found myself largely ignoring combat altogether or deliberately cheesing stuff to get past it faster.

I mean, again, this is pretty much a staple of all Silent Hills games. The rest is mostly personal preference and that's fair enough.

[Jastall]

Age of Wonders 4 - 8/10

A pretty solid fantasy 4x game. I remember playing the third one a while ago, but it didn't grab me like this did. The bones of the game are quite simple really, but the variety granted by the different races, hero classes, maps, alignments, magic tomes etc. afford a good amount of replayability out of the box. It was fun to be cannibal elves shooting baddies with bows one playthrough and the next spreading a huge empire of undeath using the raised corpses of my enemies as units and heroes.

Combat system is again a fairly simple turn-based affair, with spells adding some spice. AI isn't the best, and most battles boil down to drawing aggro with expendable units then clapping back hard, it falls for the bait the vast majority of the time. Siege battles are cool tho, the frontline is spread out enough that the armies have room to maneuver and enemy towers mean you have to be aggressive.

The DLC page for the game is, um, kind of terrifying, as is the standard for Paradox published games I suppose. I may get the dragon one as it's barely more than 10$, but 35$ CND for vampires? Jeez guys, calm down.

[Eapoe]

Ninja Gaiden 4. 6/10
Not bad overall. The combat starts off pretty unforgiving, but then you start getting used to things and it eases up a bit.
The boss fights were kind of a letdown in terms of difficulty whereas it was harder in the gauntlet areas of the game (in which there are a lot of them).
About halfway thru the game I was overloaded with currency for items , which is nice to buy healing items but also made it a little easier than prior games. Especially once you realize you aren’t really buying anything other than those items.

- - - Updated - - -

I liked the Dutch angles in the OG SH games -- really emphasized the Lynchian vibe they were going for in those games. Maybe I'm just too old school, but I'd take tank controls over whatever the fuck they tried to with f any day of the week. At least you have the option to use firearms in the other SH games. The decision to make the game melee-only was its biggest drawback, imo. To me, it felt like they tried to Dark Souls-ify the SH combat formula. I get that's a dub for some gamers (especially younger ones), but it just felt like ass every time I engaged with it. I found myself largely ignoring combat altogether or deliberately cheesing stuff to get past it faster. A game shouldn't actively make you not want to play it.

I had quite a few complaints about SHf, with the main being that it just didn’t feel like SH. Definitely seems like a game that was meant to be a stand alone psychological horror that they later slapped SH onto and changed some things to fit it. Especially after the reveal of what causes everything.
As far as combat, it is like almost all other SH games with clunky combat. SHf mainly fails in that it’s skipping 99% of fights with the only real tension being the gauntlet you have to run and worry about durability at the end of the game is definitely an issue (for me). Pretty sure I only ever picked up 4-5 weapons the entirety of the game (again, until the end).

[Relapses]

I had quite a few complaints about SHf, with the main being that it just didn’t feel like SH. Definitely seems like a game that was meant to be a stand alone psychological horror that they later slapped SH onto and changed some things to fit it. Especially after the reveal of what causes everything.
As far as combat, it is like almost all other SH games with clunky combat. SHf mainly fails in that it’s skipping 99% of fights with the only real tension being the gauntlet you have to run and worry about durability at the end of the game is definitely an issue (for me). Pretty sure I only ever picked up 4-5 weapons the entirety of the game (again, until the end).

Yeah, it felt like a half measure. They didn't want to stray too far from bog standard, but they also wanted to reward players with parries and dodges. The result was malaise, with the game vascilating abruptly between being creepy and just being annoying. I'll admit I dug it at first, but after the first few hours I was begging to get out. I get that this is a valid criticism of other SH games, too, but at least in those you could stockpile ammo and blast your way through. The melee-only.thing hampered the overall feel of the game for me.

[hellhamster]

Metroid Prime 4 (NS2): 8/10

An utter disappointment overall, but still very good.

It's as if Metroid Prime evolved using genes from Federation Force instead of Super Metroid. There are many questionable design choices. The desert and the bike are both things I really wasn't sold on. The use of NPCs is not the worst thing ever but it makes me wonder why they want to make a Halo type game out of one of the oldest and most beloved franchises in videogames. The progression system is pretty ass, the game just straight up tells you where to go.

Those are the bad. The good certainly outweigh the bad. It is without hyperbole one of the best looking games ever made. The 120 hz HDR mode looks and plays like an absolute dream. The shooting is the best in the franchise. The puzzles and overall exploration elements are pretty good. There is not much interconnectivity, there is a central hub that connects to various biomes which are linear for the most part, similar to Metroid Prime 3. The bosses are all great and very fun, and the enemies are a blast. The different guns are all very fun, but some are just better than others. The story is kinda meh but who cares.

If Metroid Prime 1 is Ocarina of Time, Metroid Prime 2 is Majora's Mask, Metroid Prime 3 is Twilight Princess, and Other M is Skyward Sword, then Metroid Prime 4 is The Windwaker of the Metroid franchise (just not as good). Some questionable design choices that alienate and disappoint a lot of people but otherwise pretty good.

[Alithia]

The Bloodlore Chronicles (bloodlore-chronicles.com), 11/10!

[Zuben]

WoW: The War Within - 7.5/10

Seeing as my account is frozen atm and I don't think I'll resub until at some point in Midnight, this might be a good as time as any to write up my thoughts on how TWW fared. I should point out that I only played for a month, timing the re-sub to the last weeks of Undermine and the first two weeks of K'aresh, so I went through everything at a fast pace. This means the City of Threads wasn't so much end-game for me but a quick pit stop when the story and side-quests took me there. I might also have missed some renown-locked story beats.

I think TWW did fine. Xal'atath was mostly well-realized (the smirks can go away though), the nerubians worked well as the initial main antagonist faction, we got to Undermine and finally saw Gallywix off (should've happened in the goblin introduction storyline tbh...), even got to K'aresh and dealt with Dimensius. The earthen were a bit meh, even as I generally appreciate dwarf stuff, and I absolutely hated how faction tensions are pretty much gone these days, mostly amounting up to Geyarah and Turalyon bickering in Dorn and some minor faction of nazis trying to stir shit up in Arathi Highlands. And somehow they saw no problem having multiple prominent Alliance leaders treating my tree-burning Loyalist blood elf like he's a life-long Alliance hero. "At least I can trust you", Alleria says to me at a time she feels like she can trust no one. Bitch, I would Pyroblast you in the face the instant they let me. I hate you.

Another thing I had a major gripe with was Faerin Lothar. After finishing the main story and all the side quests, she's not as bad as I initially thought (especially appreciated the side quest where Anduin and I found out about her dear friend passing and then us being there for her as she was feeling down about it), but she still reeks of token. There aren't other Arathi like her, so she stands out in kind of a wrong way, and she's clearly being pushed to be relevant for future storylines as well. In fact, I think she is going to be slated as Danath's heir for Stromgarde due to how the Red Dawn storyline played out (she's a Lothar after all *groan*). Or when we eventually make it to the Empire, the emperor will probably go all Rastakhan on us and Faerin will be the one they raise to the throne, because of course they will. This is the energy she carries and I hate her for it. Kind of a similar vibe to how Calia was pushed on the Forsaken.

Removed from Faerin, I absolutely loved the Arathi and Hallowfall. Such a cool faction of humans, a beautiful zone, it all felt like Blizzard was actually trying again.

The new feature of Delves... boring af. Either too easy or too time-consuming. In some higher tiers Bran couldn't tank for shit, leaving my fire mage fleeing the scene constantly. The content isn't very interesting either, as the delves don't have story beats or events like dungeons do, it's all its own filler fluff. And there's soooo many of them... It's all just stuff I don't want to do, yet I do anyway for the incentives--I wanted to pimp out my dirigible after all.

All in all, I had a fairly good time in TWW, removed from the annoying sides of the story and the boring content of delves. Dungeons were as they usually are, some good, some bad, nothing special to note really. Didn't raid this time at all besides the story mode. Speaking of, it's nice of them to let people see the conclusion to the storylines like that, even if it skips most of the raid otherwise.

[tehealadin]

Outer Worlds 2 - 9/10

Didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did. It could have had more interesting locations, but the experience was great all the same. Really felt like Fallout in space.

[Zuben]

Plague Tale: Innocence - 7/10

It was alright. Good presentation, decent story, okay gameplay (somewhat sluggish in certain parts). Played through it in two days, so it's a bit of a snack by modern senses. Also, while I liked the characters, I didn't really get invested in them and their fate. I have the sequel in my library, so I will eventually check out what's next for Amicia and Hugo.

Okay, interesting to revisit what I wrote about the first game. Because I kind of hated the second one. It's been a few months so I don't recall if Innocence is tonally different to Requiem, if the characters are written differently, or what the problem is, but Requiem was an infuriating journey that somewhat successfully evokes other, better games, but snaps you back with how annoying Amicia and Hugo are.

Plague Tale: Requiem - 6/10

It feels like a resource upgrade from the first game. Like the production values increased, along with length and such. But I know I didn't hate the main characters this much in the first game. Hugo is very whiny and angsty when he isn't annoyingly kiddy. Amicia is 95% about her brother and this relationship is beaten to our heads with some stuff that's introduced later in the game (the stuff about Carriers and Protectors, like they're a recurring, fated thing in this world). A lot of the dialogue in this game is about the relationship between Amicia and Hugo and the Macula, just without anything new to say about it. It gets tiresome early on, grating after a while, and by the end I was hoping they'd both die in a fire. Still, it was somewhat sad that Amicia had to kill Hugo in the end. The only part of the game that made me feel something.

Other characters are alright, with the exception of Lucas from the first game and maybe Sophia at times. I liked Arnaud the most. Would've been a far better game if he was the main character and all this nonsense about the Macula wasn't a thing. The Count was a good villain too.

On the story, this game is supposedly taking place during the Black Death. And apparently it's caused by the Macula. The plague that wiped out, what, 60% of the populace of Europe is due to this wacky rat thing? I felt that was a bit juvenile, considering present understanding is that the rats weren't that central in spreading the plague. Besides that nonsense, I hated how side characters whine about you killing soldiers in sneaking sections. Like in Innocence, Amicia is physically incapable of taking on the soldiers head on, so your options are either sneaking past them or finding creative ways to kill some of them.

Except, you get a crossbow in Requiem. And a skill that lets you loot the bolts you fire. That completely breaks the game as it removes any incentive to sneak around, you just wipe the area clean like in any video game. That's what gamers do, and honestly it's a lot more enjoyable than patient pacifistic sneaking. But like I said, the side characters whine about it as if Amicia is out of control. STFU, let me play the dang video game!

Gameplay is serviceable at worst, pretty decent in general. Quite by the numbers, tall grass completely concealing you and all, but it works well enough. All in all, Requiem may not be a bad game per se. It's just not a game I can recommend, because I think it's fundamental that you like the characters you play as. When I completed the story I felt relieved that it was over. That should say it all.

[Relapses]

Dispatch -- 8/10

This was my first "Telltale game." I went in pretty much completely blind, outside of the hype surrounding the GotY award. I was hooked pretty much instantly and this game never lets up. Engaging characters, clever writing and absolutely insanely good voice acting. I never thought I'd find myself enjoying gravel-voiced Jesse Pinkman, but here we are. Without a doubt, the best written game I've played in at least a half-decade. Everything just works. It has a few surprising emotional beats, too. If you're going in just for the story and animation, this is a solid 10/10.

...unfortunately (or fortunately if it's your jam I guess), this is also a video game, so there is, you know, a game that you need to play between the episodic drama. I was never a fan of Garrisons and that's essentially what the meat and potatos of this game is. It's not bad, but it is very... hmm... Facebook-mom-coded. There's a hacking mini-game to give the gameplay a bit of variety, but I found this more frustrating than enjoyable. As a guy with perpetual OCD, I found myself spending an inhuman amount of time trying min/max when it definitely wasn't necessary. It's not at all difficult, but YMMV depending on your tolerance for this kinda game. It's not enough to ruin the game completely, but it definitely took away from the experience for me. Still, one of the better games to come out this year and a surprising year-end close second to CE33 for my 2025 GotY.

Also, continuing my PSOne Era JRPG adventures:

Final Fantasy IX -- 7.5/10

I'll be honest. I started this one about 9 months ago. I'd played this back in the PSOne days and remember having a pretty favorable opinion of it, so I was excited to experience it again. Sadly, this game cured my insomnia. I swear to God, I started playing this game and, without fail, about 20 minutes later I'd be out cold. The first three discs of this game are... well, they're a lot. It's not a bad FF. Quite the contrary. It's still one of the best. But it takes a long time to get going and maybe I'm just getting too oldge for these things. Banger soundtrack, ends on one of the highest notes of any FF game and has some great themes. Absolutely worth a playthrough, to this day. Sounds like the rumbling for a remake are back on the horizon, too, so hopefully that pulls through.

[Doffen]

Dispatch -- 8/10

This was my first "Telltale game." I went in pretty much completely blind, outside of the hype surrounding the GotY award. I was hooked pretty much instantly and this game never lets up. Engaging characters, clever writing and absolutely insanely good voice acting. I never thought I'd find myself enjoying gravel-voiced Jesse Pinkman, but here we are. Without a doubt, the best written game I've played in at least a half-decade. EVerything just works. It has a few surprising emotional beats, too. If you're going in just for the story and animation, this is a solid 10/10.

...unfortunately (or fortunately if it's your jam I guess), this is also a video game, so there is, you know, a game that you need to play between the episodic drama. I was never a fan of Garrisons and that's essentially what the meat and potatos of this game is. It's not bad, but it is very... hmm... Facebook-mom-coded. There's a hacking mini-game to give the gameplay a bit of variety, but I found this more frustrating than enjoyable. As a guy with perpetual OCD, I found myself spending an inhuman amount of time trying min/max when it definitely wasn't necessary. It's not at all difficult, but YMMV depending on your tolerance for this kinda game. It's not enough to ruin the game completely, but it definitely took away from the experience for me. Still, one of the better games to come out this year and a surprising year-end close second to CE33 for my 2025 GotY.

Dispatch looks seriously fun, going to get it today. Did you play it on PC? Reason why I ask is that I have a PS5 too, but I think I'll have a better experince playing this on PC, but my PC is kinda potato now and I read that the requirements is kinda too high for its graphics?

[Relapses]

Dispatch looks seriously fun, going to get it today. Did you play it on PC? Reason why I ask is that I have a PS5 too, but I think I'll have a better experince playing this on PC, but my PC is kinda potato now and I read that the requirements is kinda too high for its graphics?

It looks like a PC from 10 years ago can play it, so I think you should be fine? I have a 9800x3d and a 5080 so I'm not a very good barometer for potatos lol