Category: Gaming

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Mission Complete: Grim Fandango Remastered (PS4)

While I adored Lucasarts and Sierra adventure games growing up, I only played Grim Fandango until around Year 2 when it was first released. I’m happy to see that it and other Lucasarts adventure games are still thriving through emulation and remastering.

As I did originally, I loved the style and direction of the game. However, I found a lot of the puzzles unclear and baffling in their logic, requiring timed action that is not at all obvious during character animations. I found myself consulting guides way more than any other adventure game to get through it. The controls were also pretty clunky on console, even after replacing the tank controls. Yes, there was a run button but with the amount of backtracking you had to do in the game and the forced animations for various scene changes it did get quite tedious.

Either way, a classic adventure game restored for newer generations to enjoy, dated mechanics and all!

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Mission Complete: Life is Strange (XB1)

  • Date: 2017-03-04
  • Time: 18h13m
  • Achievements: 34/60
  • Gamerscore:

I can’t give this game enough praise. For its emotion, for its depth, and for what I assume is an accurate portrayal of modern teenage life with some obvious unique situations for dramatic effect. It’s the one of the best Telltale games that Telltale didn’t make.

I played the first half an hour of this game about a year ago and it didn’t immediately click with me. I’m at an age where the tropes of high school dramas cause me to constantly eye roll, but I am certainly happy I returned to give the game another try. If you feel the same way, hear me out and stick with it. You may continue to eye roll at some ridiculous behaviour as I did, but it’s worth your time.

I don’t want to speak too much about the plot or the gameplay itself, because I think the discovery of its unique features is important to the experience.

It’s got a great soundtrack that even made the transition from the game to my Spotify Playlist, where normally video game scores are reserved for very specific moods.

If you love a good episodic adventure, it’s one of the best out there right now.

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Mission Complete: Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (XB1)

  • Date: 2017-02-15
  • Time: 48h
  • Achievements: 38/74
  • Gamerscore: 755/1680
  • Warchiefs Killed: 7
  • Slaves Liberated: 1119

Fantastic game. The combat is awesome, beating Mad Max and the Batman games in my opinion. The art style and overall feel of the game world imitates the Lord of the Rings movies really well and the Nemesis system is such a refreshing gameplay feature.

You could take on a whole horde by yourself or stealthily take over a stronghold without being seen and feel like a badass doing either one. Great abilities and weapons to make both fun, and a lot of mission variety to keep things interesting. Also, watching Uruks run in fear is such a joy.

Gripes? As others have said, the final battle(s) were anti-climatic considering all you went through to get there. I also don’t like the Caragor-riding missions as I find the controls sluggish compared to your normally nimble character.

If you like the gameplay of Mad Max or the Arkham games, this one is highly recommended.

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Mission Complete: Murdered: Soul Suspect (XB1)

  • Date: 2017-02-09
  • Time: 13h17m
  • Achievements: 46/48 (86%)

After XCOM 2, I needed something a little lighter. Batman was a nice, light romp and this game worked too. I had bought this game a year or two ago when it was super cheap but never got around to trying it out until now.

Supernatural film noir murder mystery? What’s not to love? I really enjoyed the concept and mood of the game. It really had a bleak feel at times when you would encounter lost souls in your travels who wouldn’t understand that they were dead or couldn’t come to grips with their situation.

Nothing too difficult, it didn’t overstay its welcome and I enjoyed the clue system that moved the narrative along.

Gripes? It had a large collectible aspect to it, but I rarely had to work beyond my regular diligent searching to find just about everything. The lack of the world map meant that once I reached the end game and saw that I was missing about 10 items from my final collectible category, I opted not to continue the search. The stealth/action sequences were irritating at times but they were few and far between.

Solid adventure game.

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Mission Complete: XCOM 2 (XB1)

My first campaign run failed spectacularly on Normal difficulty, despite finishing Enemy Unknown years prior. It was a combination of too many dead/injured soldiers so my squad was perpetually made of rookies and not enough initial reading on research and facility build orders. The Avatar Project sped along as I was desperately struggling to get anywhere.

I did some reading on build orders based on how I wanted to play, and started a new campaign shamefully on Rookie difficulty. This combination made all the difference, as I still felt challenged and well-thought strategy was still very important. There were missions where I was flawless and others I squeaked out an evac just in the nick of time. I didn’t lose a single important high level squad member, but it was still a struggle to keep them out of the infirmary for long stretches of time.

I’m not sure when I’ll play it again as playing 1.5 campaigns was enough for me for a while. I got the PC version in a humble bundle, so maybe down the road when I’m in the mood to be thoroughly punished I’ll see what the Long War 2 mod is all about.

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Mission Complete: Batman – The Telltale Series (XB1)

Another enjoyable Telltale adventure with the same stuttering QTEs that have plagued most of their releases. I’d like to see if the PC versions suffer the same fate as their console releases.

Did I enjoy it as much as The Wolf Among Us? Not quite, probably due to the fact that TWAU was an entirely fresh IP for me, whereas I’ve played Batman in numerous other games. Still, it was interesting (and a bit strange) to play a non-canon (as far as I can tell) Batman game in terms of character development. It did certainly keep things interesting in that regard.

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Mission Complete: The Wolf Among Us (XB1)

Great Telltale game! I knew nothing about the graphic novel or much about the story of the game going into it, but I certainly enjoyed the supernatural/detective blend. I’d be interested to see what changes to the plot would have occurred had I made different decisions. I believe the whole experience took just shy of 10 hours.

Concerns: This telltale game still suffers from the same state as many others on console releases. Stalling/pauses in between certain segments and when auto-saves activate. During some QTEs, the pauses can ruin the flow and cause you to be a little late with your timing. I also would not have enjoyed this in an episode-by-episode fashion as some episodes are shorter than others. I believe one of them lasted at most 1.5 hours. But these are minor gripes for an otherwise great experience.

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Mission Complete: Diablo III: Reaper of Souls – Ultimate Evil Edition (XB1)

I picked this up when it came out on the XB1, played until Act V and I believe got distracted by a new game. I threw it on after I finished Firewatch tonight to see just how much I had left of it and finished it up in 45 mins. I feel like the console version, or at least the refinements that came with the expansion made for a much better experience. When I played the original Diablo III PC release I didn’t really enjoy it. Gameplay was tight but inventory management was a pain. The constant juggle of inventory and chest storage grew tiresome immediately when I picked the game back up. I seriously doubt I’ll try the adventure mode or a new character unless I play with a friend.

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Mission Complete: Firewatch (XB1)

What a wonderful little game. While I wish the ending was a little more fulfilling, I loved the voice acting and atmosphere of the game. Up there with Virginia and Gone Home as a great walking simulator. 5 hours of gameplay and 100% of the achievements at the end of it all.

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Mission Complete: Headlander (XB1)

Short, fun metroidvania game with a 70’s scifi style! Pretty unique gameplay and it didn’t overstay its welcome. I’ve got a few remaining achievements to acquire with minimal effort at a late date.

I’ve heard Double Fine get a lot of hate lately, mainly due to their support of Spacebase DF-9 and the endless delays of Broken Age, but I’m a fan of a number of their recent releases.