Completion Thread 2013: Prove the Justice of Our Culture

4.) Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

This game throws so many "oh shit" moments at you that you eventually become numb to them. Tons of great set pieces. I read that Naughty Dog didn't use any motion capture for facial animation, which is pretty insane when you consider how realistically these characters emote. Excellent voice acting too, and it's quite extensive; I seldom heard the same quip twice. Elena and Nathan's dialogue during the ending was particularly amusing.

This series is a lot of fun.

5.) Demon's Souls (PS3)

I don't think I died a single time from the end of the Tower of Latria on. Also, there was a huge influx of new players when the game hit PSN last week that were a little too confident in their PvP abilities. The Shrine of Storms was just a non-stop slaughter. Dark Souls really did improve on this in just about every way, so it's a bit unfortunate I ended up playing this after the fact. Definitely going to give it another go and get the second ending on NG+.

2. The Walking Dead

I agree that the story is great, it's a real journey from Episode 1 to Episode 5. Reminds me a lot of those old Choose Your Own Adventure books, even if there is only one ending. The illusion of choice is really great, better than say Mass Effect where a lot of your choices can be influenced by gameplay bonuses you get on the clear good/evil option you always get. There's a lot of great characters and some really awful situations you get put in. It's much more inline with the comics than the TV show. I don't agree with Game of the Year awards though, it's a great experience but there are better games from 2012.

A new patch was released for the 360 a day or two ago, that seemed to get rid of some nasty bugs. The game engine is pretty jank in general. It looks good, but the loading is super distracting (which can have weird audio and video syncing) and there's some shitty animation in there. Budget or time probably led to that, but it's rough around the edges. I had some fucked up game save issues where it wouldn't load my save a few times, and when I started Episode 4, it loaded episode 1 and wrote over that save file. With the wacky loading it gave me before, I thankfully had a copied save that let me keep going. Bullshit for a new game release.

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Originally Posted by bVork

You should try Stealth Bastard: Tactical Espionage Arsehole then. It's basically an entire game of rooms like that. In fact, when I started doing the challenge rooms in MotN, my first thought was "Hey! This is an awful lot like Stealth Bastard!"

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More people should play Stealth Bastard. It's pretty excellent.

I beat Rage. Good game, great gunplay and the DLC was done right (added stuff and fixed some design issues in the main game)

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Originally Posted by bVork

You should try Stealth Bastard: Tactical Espionage Arsehole then. It's basically an entire game of rooms like that. In fact, when I started doing the challenge rooms in MotN, my first thought was "Hey! This is an awful lot like Stealth Bastard!"

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Originally Posted by epmode

More people should play Stealth Bastard. It's pretty excellent.

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I don't think I've ever heard of it, but it's on my Steam wishlist now. :tu:

It's an indie game that I got from one of the indie bundles before it was released on Steam, which I think got an updated version. It's pretty cool.

The pile of shame continues to shrink!

#3) Binary Domain: Waited on this one due to middling reviews, but it was actually pretty great. It's very much a Gears of War clone, but with lots of giant "shoot the weak point" bosses, cool enemies to fight, a big emphasis on zone damage, and some interesting squad mechanics. The story, while derivative of a lot of Cyberpunk stuff (and, in the third act, Avatar) is well told, with the same kind of strong cut scene direction you'd expect from the Yakuza team. Right up there with Vanquish as one of my favorites in this genre. It's too bad we'll never see another.

Next up... Assassin's Creed II, I think. I could also be talked into Rage, perhaps.

5. Borderlands 2 Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt DLC (360) 1375/1375

First off, still no level cap increase. The new areas (VERY vertical, where previous areas were about huge open spaces these ones go up and down and overlap all over the place) are great additions and full of new and new-ish types of enemies (Boroks feel like Scalions feel like Skaggs), and most are fun to fight. The quests themselves fell a little flat this time, partially due to the lack of a really compelling antagonist (Dr. Nakayama is the new baddy but he's more of a pushover than anything else). It seems the areas you go into are in a perpetual rain storm, and it could just be a while since I last played but the areas seems decidedly more muddy in color and contrast, like a little washed out. It didn't detract from the experience at all, but I found it a little odd for a game that has been so vibrant and colorful before. Hammerlock is the same as ever and even has you going after a new type of Bullymong in one quest. I found pink weapons fairly judiciously throughout, they seem to be packed in a little better this time. And the "final" boss, instead of showering the field with loot, opens up an armory FULL of chests that house the loot in nice little areas for you, which I really appreciated and thought worked much better than anything else before it. The invincible enemy in this iteration is by far my favorite and seems the most fair out of any of them, although he himself only dropped a couple of items. Overall it's a very good DLC pack, it doesn't have the in your face fun of Torgue's but that was going to be a hard DLC to follow no matter who you were. More good stuff from these guys.

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6.) Journey (PSN)

There's already been so much said about this game that I really don't have much to add. It was unrelentingly moving and an absolute joy to experience. I'm already itching to do it all again.

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Originally Posted by No One

4.) Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

I read that Naughty Dog didn't use any motion capture for facial animation, which is pretty insane when you consider how realistically these characters emote.

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If I'm remembering correctly they chose to hand animate the faces because, ironically, the motion capture didn't look realistic enough or somesuch.