Games You Played in January 2016

Tell us what games you played/completed this past month and give us a quick review. Also feel free to include December if you'd like. We kind of skipped that one with the year-end thread I guess.

Also let us know what games will you be getting in February.

Borderlands 2 - Finished the main story and did a decent amount of the side missions and a couple of the included DLC packs in the Handsome Collection. I played through the entire game by myself. Maybe some day I'll go through and play all the side missions and finish up the DLC packs I didn't get to... but there's just so much of it and I'd like to try the Pre-Sequel at some point too.

Tales from the Borderlands - I bought this for PS4... originally played it on Xbox One. Wanted to play it again and make some different choices and it was just as good the second time through. Really hope they do a season two with the same characters.

The Witness - nowhere near finished with this game. Feel like I'm just beginning to scratch the surface. I've completed 2 of the 11 areas. Been playing through it with my fiance. We have a notebook started with notes, drawings and theories. Unfortunately this game gives me a bit of motion sickness similar to what I experienced playing Mirror's Edge, so I can't spend too much time playing it in one sitting.

From December:

Xenoblade Chronicles X - Beautiful world to explore, promising game... I just wish I could understand it

Persona Q - Fun, maze-based dungeon crawling with some good tunes. Most of the characters are still charming despite the writing in this particular game, but it does ruin two of my favorites and the new additions are incredibly bland.

January:

Metro 2033 - This game has a bad case of Crytek syndrome. Great combat against humans, boring combat against monsters. Good atmosphere, though. How I'd rate it depends on how much more monster combat there is to push through.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - If you get through an uncharacteristically bad opening, it opens up to be a promising RPG. Combat is unusually fun, the pawn system is interesting to toy with, and I love that you can run and jump along rooftops. It could use a fast travel system, though, and the dialogue is annoying.

Pony Island - A short, cheap, ok creepypasta sort of game that has little to do with ponies. The story isn't memorable and, apart from some OK puzzles, the gameplay just serves to gate off content. It's basically just a showcase of meta trickery, which is actually pretty clever sometimes, but there's not enough substance to justify actually playing it instead of watching it on youtube. C

The Witness - Excellent, tough puzzle game with a lot to uncover. Some of the more gimmicky puzzles are a bit disappointing once you figure them out, but the satisfaction of blowing through them eases the frustration a little. I don't have any idea how close I am to finishing but after 13 hours, I'll give it a tentative A

I was playing Metro...and enjoying it until I just got flat out stuck in a mutant section with these Mutant bullet sponges and NO ammo. And in a game that's all about there being VERY limited ammo, having a bunch of bullet sponge enemies with NO AMMUNITION TO FIGHT THEM WITH...is dumb.

I didn't play a whole lot this month:

Rise of the Tomb Raider: Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch: Because I was so taken with the main game, I had high expectations for this, but was kind of disappointed. A bit too slight in content overall. It had two really good bits that I’m glad to have played, but otherwise I wasn’t too impressed with this. Haven't settled on a grade for this one yet.

Rise of the Tomb Raider: Endurance Mode: Surprisingly I thought this was much more interesting than the story DLC. I wouldn’t want these sort of survival elements in a main TR game, but it is a perfect thing to explore in DLC like this. I also liked how tense it was because of the permadeath aspect and the water cooler type moments I experienced as a result of close calls while I played. Grade: B+

Ryse: Son of Rome: Pretty forgettable and short hack-and-slash action game. The graphics are excellent and I really liked the setting, but those both kind of made me wish I was playing a better game with those aspects. Not a bad time for a rental though. Grade: C-

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone: This was great. I think the main questline here is as good as anything in the full game. The main missions are all creative and really unique from anything I had played in the prior however many hours too. They also made the combat tougher with some good boss fights this time. Grade: A-

As far as new games this month, I'd like to play Far Cry Primal, Unravel and Gravity Rush Remastered at some point. Nowadays I will often rent things at launch and pick them up later when they are a bit cheaper which is what I'd have liked to do with GR, but the exclusive retail thing kind of messed that up which is a bummer. Oh well. I will get to that one at some point. I also might rent that game Giana Sisters for PS4.

Gravity Rush is only $30 right? If so, that's a pretty good launch price. I like when Sony does things like that.

$30 for one remastered game doesn't seem that good to me. Uncharted gave you three for $60 (which I believe you thought was too much). Last gen we regularly got three for $40. Having said that I might have bought GR at launch if it was one of the two places I get discounts, but I don't have Prime, so it being Amazon exclusive (for physical) hurts it for me.

I think that's the "finally on a system that people actually own" tax.

The only reason I might have thought it was too much was that I knew during the holidays I could get it on sale. If sales didn't exist, I'd happily pay $60 for it. The Last of Us for $60 was too much, but I get that they were hoping to get new PS4 owners that owned the 360 and not a PS3. $30 for a remastered game that we know is a great game to me is a great price. I would have thought $40, so shaving off $10 is a pleasant surprise.

Oh well. I guess I just disagree. I'm not a big fan of remastered prices this gen myself. I think they have been what they have been largely because companies think they can get away with it because of people not having played the original game (because they never had a PS3 or a Vita in this case).

I factor in a number of things when I think of what a remastered price should be. How long ago did it originally release. What was its price at launch back then. How much effort was put into the remaster. Is there additional content (or is it missing content).

I mean $40 would have been the same price as GR launched four years ago. I guess I'm not really seeing why Sony knocking off $10 is worthy of an attaboy in this case. I think perhaps $30 is about what they feel the minimum for a full PS4 game is perhaps especially if there is a physical version. Maybe they don't want to go under that.

And just for a comparison that you did think was too much, TLOU was only a year old, had more DLC value added in than GR did, and had a similar discount (it was actually at $50 at launch so $10 less than the original's release price just like GR).

I thought it was $60, so it being $50 isn't as bad as I once thought. What is surprising is that the game is still on average around $40 at most places, but it's the same case for Grand Theft Auto V as well. Hell, I think even the PS3 and 360 versions of that game are still $30 or higher.

I like what Steam (occasionally) does. When I bought the Deus Ex Director's cut it reduced the price if I owned the original and the DLC. So it was $20 but owning the original game brought it down to $10 and owning the DLC brought it down to $5 so I only ended up paying $5 for it which is nice. I wish Sony would do something similar.