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Started playing Half-Life 2 Update (graphics mod for HL2.) I wouldn't say it looks noticeably better without a side-by-side comparison but it's still worth playing for the extra commentary stuff. If nothing else it's helping to increase my annoyance at the lazy and completely unrealistic audio log story telling that every FPS made after Bioshock has. Was gonna try the cinematic mod just for something different but it's a pain to download and commentary is a better incentive than something that ruins a lot of the visual design in the original

Complain all you want about Valve not making games anymore and Steam being DRM, at least they promote community projects. In a few years I'll probably be playing a free Source engine 2 overhaul mod of HL2 while waiting for Bloodborne remastered to drop to $30

Gamefly sent in Far Cry 4 last weekend so that's dominated the past week. I enjoyed the previous game so this is more good stuff. Kinda wish those fucking hawks would lay off. If this game gives me a flame-thrower, I'm BBQing these feathered fuckers.

I finished The Order even managing to get the platinum by putting in an extra hour of play. It is very short. That isn't a problem in and of itself (I like plenty of short games), but when control is taken away from you as much as it is here, it is more of a problem. Plus it doesn't feel complete. The setting is cool and it has all these interesting elements to the story (like working in Tesla and Jack the Ripper), but it doesn't feel like it tells a full story.

The shooting actually feels really good as do the weapons, but too many other things bring down the shooting sections. Boring encounter and level design. Terrible melee. Lack of enemy variety. The werewolf encounters feel phoned in and just copied and pasted a few times throughout.

The graphics are certainly impressive though.

Definitely not a good game. A shame because Ready at Dawn had made some really good ones in the past, so this is a disappointment.

Is the first thing Nicola Tesla makes really a rifle scope? I remember hearing that somewhere

That's what Red Letter Media said.

I honestly don't recall. I think you get the scope first, but he shows you other stuff he is working on before that. Like an arc gun and something that disrupts electrical stuff. Could be wrong though.

That's... slightly better than what I thought? I think? I hate it when games take an original setting and don't do anything with it. That's impression I got from The Order

I finally started playing Dragon Age after being too swamped in life to do anything video game related for a while. Was playing the main campaign and it's all like "DO THE RITUALS" which means do a stupid time-consuming floor puzzle three times. THIS IS NOT ENGAGING GAMEPLAY! This is me, running in circles for an hour so that you can pad out your game. I would get the same level of enjoyment if they just gave me a "choose your own adventure style" - "Do you want to complete the rituals or go in without it? - Y/N"

Rant over. Still a good game. Dammit.

That puzzle was awful. Felt the same way. In other news, Bloodborne is everything I hoped and dreamed it would be. It's basically bizarro The Order

Still playing though Ori and the Blind Forest. Its delightful. I'm getting to a point where the platforming is starting to kick my ass, but its in a good way... like Super Meat Boy. Where it demands perfection and the smallest slip up means you have to go back to your last save to attempt the whole sequence over again. Haven't had this much fun with a game in a long time.

Kayshire Cat wrote:but you can ignore the puzzles in that part and just jump in the pit

But I want the story things that come from doing the stupid puzzles. I just don't want to DO the stupid puzzles.

Onto Sly 2 now on Vita. Also started up Game of Thrones Episode 3, but only play it a chapter at a time because it gets real boring.

I started up DKC2. Seems pretty fun so far.

Just finished up Ori and the Blind Forest tonight. Loved every bit of it. My only complaint is there is no new game + and after you finish the game you can't go back into your game. It just says 'completed' so I wasn't able to go back and get any extra collectables I missed. Seems kind of odd considering its a 'metroidvania' type game. The game is not too long though. I beat it in just under 7 hours and there is an achievement for beating it in under 3... so I may have to give it another go to try to collect everything.

Beat a Bloodborne boss that was just incredible tonight. Like you combined The End from MGS3 with Revolver Ocelot from MGS1. Wasn't too hard (only took me three tries), but man I had a lot of fun with it.

Finished my 2nd playthrough of Mass Effect 2 last night. Even started to work on ME3's campaign. I can't believe it's taken me this long to start it. I've owned this game since week of release and all I've touched for the longest time was multiplayer.

Almost finished with Donkey Kong Country 2. I've been hooked on it this weekend. Very fun if a little frustrating at times.

Been playing The Talos Principle. It's a pretty solid puzzle game. Lots of early puzzles are easy but a few have stumped me so far. It lets you pick which ones to attempt so there's always something else you can do if you're stuck. I'm a bit mixed on the story so far but I can appreciate that it's a rare game about religion that isn't really preachy one way or the other. It has some online components but I think they're too limited. There's a lot of potential for some Dark Souls/Journey style features. I'm not ready to say it's better than either Portal game or Antichamber, but it's definitely up there with the best first person puzzlers

It also looks really nice despite not being super advanced technically. Great artwork for the textures and skyboxes.

Beat Bloodborne. There's some stuff I like from Dark Souls more and some stuff I like here more. Though I definitely prefer combat in BB. Easily my favorite PS4 game so far and I'm sure I'll replay it this year.
Also rented The Evil Within. Intro was just awful and I realized I'd rather replay Resident Evil 4 or Dead Space 2 when I got to the combat sections. So I just sent it back. There may be more to it, but I don't want to potentially waste my time seeing if there is

I rented Assassin's Creed Unity and think it is actually pretty good so far. The return to the grand architecture that made the Ezio games so fun is so welcome. Paris is pretty awesome and lively which makes the social stealth better I guess. It makes climbing around fun again too and they made some nice tweaks to the freerunning so getting down things when there isn't a hay bale is a lot easier.

Other good things are having a sneaky crouch button (how did it take this long). The present day stuff is minimal and actually does something cool for in between memory sequences. And the first assassination gives you a lot of freedom. It sort of takes its cues from the original in that area and is better for it. Assuming it fleshes this out even further for the rest of them, they should be great.

It still has a lot of the quirks from the series that ended up bugging me so much over time. Like some boring missions design and stuff like that. Haven't run into any glitches so I'm either lucky or they patched most of it out. Not sure if I'll end up finishing it or not, but it is better than I figured it'd be.

Still working through Sly 2 a bit here and there. I played a bit of that game Never Alone too. A little like Limbo I guess. Seems very simple so far, but I played about 20 minutes probably. The little fox (which you can control!) is adorable though.

Playing Pillars of Eternity and Mario 64 right now. PoE is pretty great. The amount of depth and variables to this game is really intimidating, but it delivers information at a good pace and gives a better sense of direction than the RPGs it's imitating like Baldur's Gate and Fallout.

Mario 64 I'm liking more than the last time I replayed (Gamepad support may be helping), but I feel like this game is still pretty dated. It's fun, the levels are iconic (though that could be because I know them so well from the last time I played them), but the controls, while not awful, can be really imprecise. Some moves are just way too hard to pull off and any platform that isn't enormous is really hard to land on.

I finished Never Alone today. It is pretty cool. There are some neat puzzles. Great graphics, atmosphere and a neat story. I found the controls to be a little fiddly in the later sections, but otherwise I liked it. Not bad for free.

I finished up Sly 2 on Vita. I feel pretty similar to how I felt before. I do think Worlds 3 and 4 leave a lot to be desired. Some bad missions and less good hubworlds, plus having to start the fourth with just Bentley. Just not as good as the rest of the game.

I hate that Bentley hub. Hate it.

Got Donkey Kong 64 on Wii U. Just beat the boss for the second world (though there's a lot I still need to find in both worlds) and having a lot of fun so far. Good mix of adventuring and platforming, kind of feels like a Metroidvania version of Mario 64/Jak 1 kind of level design. May get annoying with even more characters after the novelty wears off and with all that extra stuff I need to find, but right now it's fun, though the controls are really dated, especially since they were designed for an N64 controller.

Also, the DK Rap is both one of the dumbest and most amazing things I've ever seen.

I might get that. Going to wait and see what you think after playing more of it.

I think it's safe to say that even if my opinion changes for the worse over time, I won't be trying to fit "Fuck this game," as many times as possible.