Tag: xbox one

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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: 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: Lifeless Planet: Premier Edition (XB1)

Simple in its design and execution but I liked it. Nice art style and atmosphere, although as expressed in the title it is quite barren. One complaint would be that it ended up being basically a platformer for most of the game, which was a surprise to me because the beginning didn’t feel that way. I could have done with a lot less endless hopping and better puzzles.

Apparently it took me under 4 hours to finish it, because I got the achievement to prove it.

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Mission Complete: Virginia (XB1)

Short, sweet and it had a lot of say without any actual dialogue or narration. Interesting art style, beautiful music and more interactivity than Dear Esther, although I would never quality it as an adventure game. If you like Dear Esther and Gone Home, you’ll certainly enjoy Virginia. It definitely has a great 90’s X-Files/Twin Peaks vibe too, which has already been said numerous times.

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Finished: Far Cry Primal (XB1)

Far Cry Primal

Far Cry: Primal is finished after 28 hours with a 56% completion rate and 80% of the achievements. I’ll probably play a bit more to get a few more easily obtainable achievements.

Far Cry Primal (2)

All in all I enjoyed it. A different take on the Far Cry experience. Not as cool as Blood Dragon and not as fun as Far Cry 3 & 4, but still enjoyable. I’m glad I got it on sale, but there’s a lot of content and I didn’t have the complaints that most people had about the reused map and lack of weapons. I found the weapon choices altered my play style from how I normally would have approached missions in other Far Cry experiences. I have to give them credit for doing something different.

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Finished: Mad Max (XB1)

Mad Max

Mad Max (XB1). Bought it during a Games for Gold sale after reading some positive comments and it turned out to be a fantastic game. Yes, it can get very grindy/repetitive if you’re a completist, but it sure is a lot of fun. My playthrough totaled 64 hours, I maxed out Max’s stats and his main car and by the time the credits rolled I was still having fun. I will note that I don’t enjoy racing games so I avoided all the optional races, hated the few mandatory ones, but LOVED the convoy chases. Definitely recommended if you’d like a mix of Arkham Knight, Shadow of Mordor, and set in an a well-executed Mad Max world.

Mad Max (2)

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Finished: Fallout 4 (XB1)

Fallout 4
While I pondered, weak and weary.
  • Duration: 108 hours
  • Level: 60
  • Achievements: 42 (83%)

What a game. Despite some forum concerns about the lack of real depth in your choices when compared to Fallout: NV, I was very happy with Fallout 4. I preferred the perk systems from the previous games instead of seeing everything laid out in front of me, but I’m so happy to see equipment repair banished. Weight concerns are still a major pain in the ass, though. I would have loved a hotkey to “Send to companion” when I was carrying too much cargo. It got irritating having to strike up a conversation every time I needed to pass off some heavy gear mid-quest to my companion to trudge on. Torchlight’s feature of sending your pet to the closest town to sell gear for you would have been cool too.

Fallout 4 (4)
Furry convention.

While I loved the legendary drops, I found that I had been using mostly the same weapons and armor for about the last 20 levels. Nothing got better in terms of the additional legendary benefits, and since my modding perks were maxed out that hinged on whether I’d move to a new piece of gear.

Fallout 4 (3)
Sadly, his only purpose was being awesome.

I’m sure I’ll revisit the Commonwealth, especially when the DLC finally arrives. I have a few behemoths and many bobbleheads left to hunt and while I ran out of new quests as I played, there are large chunks of the Commonwealth I haven’t even touched yet. I’m sure just wandering into a few buildings will bring me more unexpected adventures.

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Game Time: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Fri_Apr_10_18-02-27_UTC-0230_2015
Pow!

If you combine the best elements of the combat of the Batman Arkham series with the exploration of the Assassin’s Creed series, and then add the surprisingly awesome Nemesis system, you get Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

#selfie
#selfie

Despite loving Dragon: Age Inquisition, I needed to take a break from my 120+ hour save to try something new. I had picked up Shadow of Mordor during a recent sale and kept hearing overwhelmingly positive reviews, so I decided to give it a try. It was exactly what I needed.

Great creature designs.
Great creature designs.