Completion Thread 2013: Prove the Justice of Our Culture

**No One** · 18 Mar 2013, 06:15 PM

15.) Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)

I played through this once before on a friend's PS3 when it was still fairly new. Now that they patched in trophies (and I have my own system), I thought I'd play through it again and see how it holds up. Quite well, as it turns out. Being able to install every chapter upfront instead of one at a time as you play through is much appreciated. It still blows my mind that Kojima was able to make sense of MGS2's batshit plot and tie up so many loose ends.

16.) Hotline Miami (PC)

SO GOOD. Just writing about it is making me want to go back and improve the grades I got on a few levels. The soundtrack alone is worth the purchase, imo.

17.) Alice: Madness Returns (PS3)

Very inspired art design and it does some interesting things with a story that's been done to death. Unfortunately, everything else is thoroughly mediocre (not to mention buggy as hell) and it's several hours too long. At least it was cheap.

18.) Spec Ops: The Line (PS3)

I don't know about this one. The premise is interesting enough and the setting is downright eerie, but I think it would have been a better game had they done more with Walker's fraying sanity and made the parallels to Apocalypse Now/Heart of Darkness less overt. The Radioman in particular had me rolling my eyes at his third rate Dennis Hopper impersonation. I also wish the goddamn fucking dialogue was a little less fucking puerile and fucking typical of shitty motherfucking meathead military games. After a while I was just embarrassed for Nolan North. Still, I appreciate that Yager tried something different and hope it inspires other devs to follow suit.

**Pineapple** · 18 Mar 2013, 10:43 PM

A little catching up:

6. MGR: Revengence (360) 710/1000
I didn't like it as much as some of you, but I still really enjoyed it. The action was good but it was more style over substance. Set pieces were pretty cool, but the overall level design was yawn inducing. Looked pretty, most of the time, but it was still kinda blah for a lot of it. Story... yeah. Overall I'm glad I played it, it was good times. Not at all sad that I traded it in towards GoW, though.

7. Trials Evolution (XBLA) 500/600
Counting this again because I have gone back and replayed every single track in the base game and both expansions, setting the time to beat for nearly every track. Moreover, I FINALLY got all golds on the Extreme tracks (at least on the base game) and EVEN managed to platinum one of them! Holy shit that felt good! Honestly I'm still not done because there are achievements to get, but the ones that are left are incredibly difficult and require insane reactions and timing. I'm getting close, though. I find it very telling about this game that even with all the stuff out that I have bought or things I really want to play, I still go back to this game several times a week and knock out a few more high scores. One of the best games, maybe THE best XBLA game. IMO, of course.

Edit: also completed the Hearthfire DLC for Skyrim. Built 3 big ol' mansions and fully outfitted one with all the fixin's, transported all of my inventory from my other houses to the main mansion and made it my "base". It's really OCD, but it was a lot of fun to see it all come together, with a trophy room full of cool models and all my weapons and armors displayed through the house, a library full of all the books I've come across, and everything separated into chest and safes for easy access. No more opening one chest and scrolling for ages looking for one particular item, everything is sorted and has it's own spot in the house. Now to finish Dawnguard and eventually start Dragonborn.

**MechDeus** · 18 Mar 2013, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by Pineapple

The action was good but it was more style over substance. [...] I traded it in towards GoW

So you wanted something that was even more so?

**Frogacuda** · 19 Mar 2013, 10:55 AM

8) Leisure Suit Larry (VGA): With the remake of this coming up, I decided I wanted to do a little refresher so I'd be able to notice the changes better. The humor holds up in its cornball sort of way, but this is probably the worst of the Sierra games in terms of utterly pointless death scenarios. Like walking into the street or off to the left of most areas results in a death rather than just not letting you walk there. It seems like they did that more because they didn't understand how to express level boundaries yet. There are a lot of silly design issues, which I guess means lots to improve in the remake.

**Rumpy** · 19 Mar 2013, 09:10 PM

6) Rayman Origins

Great game. I've had this sitting around for awhile and decided to jump in and finish it. I haven't played a 2D platformer in ages so it was a lot of fun to change things up. It looks amazing, the music is great, the controls are super sharp. Plus, it's as tough as you want it to be. Getting to the end of the game is a decent challenge. You can hop through most of the game with some hard sections here and there. Later levels offer a nice gradual increase in challenge. But, if you go for 100%, you are going to have a tough hill to climb. There is some really fantastic level design throughout. When you go back to levels to get the different goals, the genius really shows.

Most levels have 2 hidden cages to find in addition to the 1 at the end of each stage. 3 amounts (150, 300, 350) of lums (the coins of the game) to collect and a speed run through the level (the base time isn't too difficult to get, but the "trophy" times are pretty legit). There are a few levels that you ride a mosquito to shoot shit down with, which I liked a lot as they were a great change of pace. A couple of boss fights that are creative (most are easy, 3 hits and you're done) and 10 treasure chase levels that get pretty brutal. You have to keep up with a treasure chest that is running away from you. These levels are to test your speed, timing, jumping and memorization skills. Get all 10 and a hidden level unlocks. That took me an hour and 20 minutes to finish. I must have died at least 200 times on that, I'm surprised I stuck it out to be honest.

Great, great game. I think it got ignored when it came out and it's totally worth playing. Should be easy to find now on the cheap!

**James** · 20 Mar 2013, 01:34 AM

8) Rhythm Destruction. Cheated on this one a bit and beat the last level on easy. Merging music/rhythm and shooter seems like it could be a good idea, but this didn't quite manage it.

James

**Mzo** · 20 Mar 2013, 12:09 PM

#21 - Burning Rangers (Saturn)

What a weird, miniscule game. I guess they wanted it to have high replayability since the levels randomize after beating the game. Still feels a few levels too short, and the final mission is SO WEIRD (but great). Good lord this game looks like shit, even for a Saturn game.