PS2 Backlog Committee

Finished: God of War (platinum)

Now Playing: RiME

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 31 games

Got the platinum trophy in GoW and now I'm playing RiME before getting lost in Yakuza 6.

Happy Mother's Day!

Played this week:



Also:



Also:



Also:



Finished this week: nothing

Added to backlog: nothing

Current backlog: 38 (12 PS4, 11 Vita, 7 PS2, 5 3DS, 2 PS3)

God of War is still a blast. Some interesting stuff has happened of late...

I also started FFIII, which is also great so far.

And I've been farting around with my son-in-law playing Portal Knights and Fortnite.

Good times all around.

I like it - gifs of what you played.

I didn't play much at all this week - been so busy, but I did play a very little:



&



edit: actually looks like that's a DDS2 gif, but same character so good enough!

Games added: Destiny 2, Soldner-X (vita), Neo Atlas 1469 (week-before-last, but I think I forgot to mention it)

Last week: Finished nothing, played:





This week: Should finish off GoW, I'm fairly close to the end now. Not gonna go for the plat - I'll tell ya, when I turned off my trophy hunting switch I turned it off *hard*. This should be showing up in the mail sometime this week:
And then Friday I'm picking up:





...and watching:



So it should be a pretty good day!

So I finished God of War last night. Excellent game, but I do have a few nit-picks with it. First let me say...I kinda agree with Phase. Yes, you CAN ignore all of the side stuff, but I'm sure most of us want to experience the game as presented when we play so we aren't going to skip a lot of stuff...and it does hurt the flow of the story a little. It's especially noticeable when you're in one of the more tense areas of the story, say about 3/4's of the way through, and the characters are speaking to each other in a rather tense manner...then you stumble across a side thing, and their tone completely changes for that area. It just pulls you out of it a bit, which is a shame because the story and characters are SO GOOD. It was also a slight letdown to discover that the 2 non-essential realms basically end up being challenge/grind areas with no real story to speak of.

I'm glad I dropped the difficulty when I did. While it did make the common fights trivial, I ran into enough fights after dropping it that I *know* would have had me pulling my hair out on normal that I didn't mind. I'm not great at these types of games, and I really don't like being overly frustrated while gaming - especially when real life is being frustrating enough.

One last thing, while I'm not going to say I didn't like the ending because I actually did, it didn't fall into any of the cliche traps I was afraid it might. However the "twist" just seemed...pointless? I'm not sure what the purpose was honestly, other than to play into the fact that it all ends up feeling like one giant prequel to a new series. Which is fine in a way, I'm all for more of this style GoW. And I found it refreshing that they learned from past mistakes and didn't have you encounter (and murder ) every single god in norse mythology in the first game. But they all but flashed up TO BE CONTINUED at the very end, which was a tiny bit of a disappointment.

Again, these are definitely minor issues and I loved the game overall. It's definitely top 10 material, heck, top 5 easily.

Thanks for the GOW impressions, argyle. I hope I enjoy as much as most people seem to have.

I finished God of War. While it's an awesome game and I was fairly satisfied with the ending for the most part, my same complaints remain and more so after finishing it. The story, characters and combat are its strongest aspects. Them mixing in open world and RPG elements felt like an afterthought to me. It's like they included that stuff just because they felt like it's what every game needs these days. It's not, The Last of Us proved that. Sometimes a game works better as a directed linear experience that doesn't stray from the story and characters.

I feel that the game would have worked better if it stuck to the basics instead of trying to be something that it's not. It's a story driven action adventure game, and the half-baked open areas and RPG elements seemed a little out of place to me and took away from the flow of the story and character interaction. And they went overboard with collectibles, items and upgrades. Half of the stuff in the game is throwaway, and just makes you spend way too much time in menus for slight variations to everything. RPGs aren't even as bloated as this game is with useless enhancements, items and upgrades.

There's way too many little puzzles to figure out, and way too many loot chests. These things constantly remind you that you're playing a video game instead of feeling like you're interacting in a real living world. A few here and there is fine, but having them almost every step of the way along with a large amount of them as side content was overkill.

It's hard to complain too much since the game is definitely a big epic adventure with lots of awesome stuff to experience throughout, and kickass combat. I played the game on normal throughout only dropping it to easy a few times due to difficulty spikes. It was a little unbalanced at times which was frustrating since it did hurt the flow of the game a bit. Another reason why I would have preferred a tighter focus is because this isn't the type of game that you should keep playing after you finish it. The story and characters had a set goal, and continuing to do side stuff after that goal is met seems out of place.

argyle wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 9:41 amI kinda agree with Phase. Yes, you CAN ignore all of the side stuff, but I'm sure most of us want to experience the game as presented when we play so we aren't going to skip a lot of stuff...and it does hurt the flow of the story a little. It's especially noticeable when you're in one of the more tense areas of the story, say about 3/4's of the way through, and the characters are speaking to each other in a rather tense manner...then you stumble across a side thing, and their tone completely changes for that area. It just pulls you out of it a bit, which is a shame because the story and characters are SO GOOD.

I agree.

argyle wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 9:41 amwhile I'm not going to say I didn't like the ending because I actually did, it didn't fall into any of the cliche traps I was afraid it might. However the "twist" just seemed...pointless? I'm not sure what the purpose was honestly, other than to play into the fact that it all ends up feeling like one giant prequel to a new series. Which is fine in a way, I'm all for more of this style GoW.

Apparently this is the first game in a trilogy. I liked it enough to want sequels, but I won't buy them on day one for $60+ like I did this one.

Phaseknox wrote: ↑Fri May 18, 2018 8:14 pm Them mixing in open world and RPG elements felt like an afterthought to me. It's like they included that stuff just because they felt like its what every game needs these days. It's not,

I agree. Not every game has to try and incorporate the trends of the day. In the end, doing so makes things feel bland and homogenized, rather than having a unique identity.

Phaseknox wrote: ↑Fri May 18, 2018 8:14 pm It's hard to complain too much since the game is definitely a big epic adventure with lots of awesome stuff to experience throughout, and kickass combat.

On the other hand...who cares?!

thanks for the impressions phase

I see mentions of the ending so I'm going to circle back and read those impressions after I finish the game.

isthatallyougot wrote: ↑Sat May 19, 2018 9:43 amOn the other hand...who cares?!

Yeah, that stuff isn't too big of a deal considering how good the game is overall. A lot of the side stuff seemed shoehorned into the game, but since it's optional it's hard to complain about it too much. Even with my nitpicks it's one of the best action adventure games that I've played, and my current GOTY.