Sorry peeps, I'm Gona have to drop out of this month. Work/life has just meant I've got 0 time to actually sit down and play a game properly.
I won't be playing The Evil Within but I will be finishing up Psychonauts 2 at some point and will post when I do. If I get any time at all, I'll probably be playing some shorter 2-5 hour games in the near future.
But yeah, peace out! I'll still be around to organise the thread, sort out the votes, change the thread title etc. Just got a lot of real life stuff going on so don't have much time to play games properly
@ralphdibny let me know what short games you try out. I just played procession of calvery and it's pretty short. I heard that Amono and artful escape are both short and great.
Finished all three DLC packs for The Evil Within and so I decided to write down my impressions of them. All in all, I think the additional content was absolutely worth it, even for €10. The first two DLCs are basically the main story but from the perspective of another character. It's obviously not the entire game, but it shows the moments that you didn't see with the other character. And honestly, I think you really need to play these two DLC packs in order to fully understand the story of the main game. Because here's the thing, it genuinely feels like this content was cut out from the main game. The reason I say this is because there was so much additional information and lore that wasn't in the base game that probably should've been. For example, the DLC brings up the name of the corporation behind everything. But I don't think their name is even mentioned in the main story. Imagine if the first Resident Evil game came out today and no information was given about Umbrella at all, not even its name. That's what it feels like with the DLC for The Evil Within. Information that should be crucial isn't even in the main game and you have to play the DLC in order to learn it. It's just so bizarre to me.
Other than that, I enjoyed the first two DLCs a lot. Instead of having a lot of different weapons at your disposal like in the main game, you have most of the time no weapons at all and have to rely on pure stealth in order to get through the levels. New mechanics include hiding behind cover and luring enemies to you and then running away so that you can get pass them. This was interesting when you could lure them into a room and then lock the door so that they were stuck in there. Over time, you'll find axes that can be used as one-hit kills when sneaking up behind enemies. You could also lure enemies using bottles and throwing them off buildings. So overall, I highly enjoyed the stronger focus on stealth in these DLCs. Not to mention that there was a larger emphasis on puzzles this time around, which reminded me a lot of Resident Evil. In other words, if you want a fresh experience after playing through the main game, the first two DLCs are definitely the way to go.
The third DLC is very different. It lets you play as one of the bosses from the main game called "The Executioner" and you get to absolutely destroy other enemies. Imagine if you could play as Mr. X in Resident Evil, it's kinda like that. It's basically like a fun extra thing and a good way to wind down after having played through the main game plus its two other DLCs. I had a lot of fun with it even though it was only an hour long. However, it's meant to be played through multiple times so it's kinda like the arcade mode of this game.
The other two DLCs were around three hours long each, so you're looking at a total of roughly 27 hours to get through the base game and its three DLCs, so there's a lot of content to be had here, especially for a horror game. I personally had a blast with The Evil Within plus the DLC and I highly recommend to check them out as long as you have a lot of time to set aside for this title.
So I finally finished up Psychonauts 2 and this was such a phenomenal game. It just oozes with so much creativity and each level felt so different and refreshing from the previous one. The levels never failed to bring a smile to my face, whether it was due to the different environments or the entertaining dialogues between the characters. Speaking of which, I'm amazed at how many characters there are in this game. I thought the first game had tons of them, but this one brought it to another level. The important thing though is that the developers managed to give each character enough time in the limelight so that you get to know them and care about them. Otherwise you would've gotten all these forgettable characters such as the kids from the first game.
Compared to the previous game, the controls have been much improved and the graphics are obviously much better, which made the levels that more stunning to look at. Combat has also been vastly improved and overall, it felt much more fun to play this game compared to the first one, which could get frustrating to play sometimes. Not to mention that some levels and boss fights in the first game could get rather difficult. Luckily, the developers made sure not to have these frustrating moments in the sequel. I can't remember a single time when I got frustrated, the game just felt great to play. It could still get challenging, but not to a point where you would get frustrated.
All in all, I really enjoyed my time with Psychonauts 2 and it's definitely one of my favourite 3D platformers of all time now. I highly recommend playing it, but do play the previous game first in order for the story to make more sense. Not to mention that it'll be easier to remember the characters when you've already encountered a good amount of them in the first game.
@LtSarge nice one!! Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I think my own experience wasn't as good but I think that's attributable to other stuff going on in my life at the mo. I'm hoping to finish it up tonight as I'm pretty sure I'm on the final boss. I'm not sure when I'll get around to 100%ing it tho
@ralphdibny Thanks man. Yeah, I didn't think it was worth going for 100% because it's just collectibles that you don't have any use for once you've beat the game. It's kinda like how I play Metroid games, I try to collect as many upgrades as I can in order to make the journey easier but once I complete the game, there's really no point in collecting the rest as the journey is already over.
Plus I could use that time to play other games on Game Pass. Right now I'm going through DOOM 64 (absolutely loving it this time around!) and Genesis Noir. There's also so much other good stuff that have been added since I was last subscribed to GP so I'm definitely not going to apply the completionist mindset right now.
@LtSarge ah that's fair enough, I think the last few collectibles would nag at me too much to stop lol. Might as well go for the 1000GS too. But yeah, didn't end up playing it anyway. I booted it up and realised I had Truman's mental world to go still. So I decided to get a few achievements in back4blood for the reward quests instead.
Glad you are enjoying Doom though! It's a decent game.
@Balta666 Well that's unfortunate, I didn't think of doing that but now I've already uninstalled the game. Good shout though for those who haven't finished the game yet.
@ralphdibny I honestly found it a bit hard to get back into this game after a long hiatus. I don't know why, maybe it's because it kinda dragged on towards the end because at that point, I already felt like I was nearing the end but I still had a couple of levels left to complete. So that kinda unmotivated me into only playing one level each day.
@LtSarge what's that, Psychonauts or doom 64? I do think there is a bit of a pacing issue in Psychonauts 2 and also in the first one. I'm not sure how I'd address it if I was making it myself. Something doesn't quite gel between the levelling +upgrades, the collectathon and also the actual story parts of it. The levelling and upgrades are a bit pointless as you plataeu around the half way mark and can't get any more powerful. The collectathon and the (not so) points of no return in the story don't gel well together either. It's a bit of a Mish mash of game styles and it might be better if the games dropped one of the above aspects. Not the story though because that's probably the best bit about it. I think they are great games but something does feel a little off about them
@ralphdibny Yeah sorry, I was talking about Psychonauts 2. I think the issue for me was probably the collectathon aspect as I wanted to collect everything but you rarely can on your first run through the levels because you don't have access to all your PSI powers. Not to mention that a lot of the levels are linear with no way to backtrack and so it kinda feels pointless to add so many collectibles that you can't get in a level after you've passed a certain point. Naturally, I stopped caring about this after a while but it still annoyed me whenever I missed something and it made me unmotivated because I knew I was going to miss stuff in the next level and the level after that. I don't find it fun to revisit levels either, it feels more like a chore at that point.
I'd honestly be happy if they either dropped collectibles completely or at least only had them in the open levels while leaving the more linear ones empty.
@LtSarge I think you've summarised what I was thinking quite well and my solution as unimaginative as it would be, is a collectible detector. Maybe could buy it from Otto and it would occupy the same slot as the stray thought detector but would only activate inside a mental world. That would probably alleviate some of that anxiety from missing collectibles. Even if it cost an extortionate amount of Psitanium, like 5000 shards. You'd have enough by this point in the game anyway
@LtSarge@ralphdibny to be fair whenever you go back to a level you can start from a series of shortcuts but thuth is at least for myself i played the levels from start looking everywhere to see if I had missed something out in the open
I'm watching the credits roll on Psychonauts 2 now. My criticisms having been said, I will say that I still love this game despite its foibles. I think it's as good as the first one and where both games really shine is the story. Perhaps the story is a little better in this one. The new characters are great, both the interns and the Psychic 6 (or 7). So it's still probably in my top 5 games that we've played for game club.
(Just seen Armin Shimmerman's name in the credits which has some meta links to his Quark character in DS9 and all of Xbox's acquisitions!)
I liked the way the game explored the different pitfalls we can all fall into in terms of our mental health. Addiction, longing, fear, control, isolation etc. I feel like it is all stuff I've gone through as I've got older and I'm sure others will feel the same.
If a Psychonauts 3 gets made, I doubt it will improve on the formula seeing as critically, this game appears to have been faultless. I'm personally not so enamoured but I think it is still very good and I'd love to see where the story goes from here. I know I've sung praises of both Psychonauts games but they're not 10s for me, more like 8s at most. Great games though and worth playing if you have game pass and/or see them at reasonable prices!
@ralphdibny Nice mate, glad to hear that you enjoyed it! I'd love a third game with a more ambitious story and maybe an overhaul of the formula. It definitely has the potential to be a great series.
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