Abandoned Games

[BadgerFarmer]

God of War Ragnarok

 

I've played a dozen or so hours, and there's just no part of its neatly boxed play chunks that I want to see any more of. Puzzles are all the same, and the same as they were last time. Combat barely evolves, leaving the tiers of upgrades feeling superfluous. And the just-so design feels like some experiment in psychological control.

 

If I thought it was going to wrap up soon, I'd probably see it through - there are some great locations and sights, and the story is intriguing enough - but knowing that I'm around a third of the way through, I just can't. 

[Jg15]

AC Valhalla

 

Mentioned this in the game thread but I over indulged and got the Ubi open world sickness bug. I think there is so much to do you can't see the wood for the trees. Progress wise I might be halfway in the main story (completed around 6 regions in England) but nor overly clear. Will revisit in the new year at some point no doubt.

 

On a unfinished Ubi games note I still have Immortals, Watchdogs Legion and Starlink to go back to someday. I haven't even attempted Far Cry 5 or 6.

[Vulgar Monkey]

On a similar note I picked up FC5 a little while ago in a steam sale, and got maybe halfway through before it got replaced by Battletech (specifically the BTA mod) and now Shipbreaker. It was a hard 'ok'; polished but with all the usual predictable Ubi design format, plus the ai was not as satisfying to fight as I'd like.

 

Fell off subnautica BZ pretty hard halfway in, too. I liked the gameplay and finished the original...and was very impressed with how theyd improved the engine actually, but never got quite as good a feel for the map I guess.

 

I also have the last 10% of a Longwar campaign and Elden Ring to finish off, but do at least intend to return to those. Just needed a break as they go on so long.

[Count Buffalos]

5 minutes ago, Vulgar Monkey said:

On a similar note I picked up FC5 a little while ago in a steam sale, and got maybe halfway through before it got replaced by Battletech (specifically the BTA mod)…

Have you tried RogueTech? It’s BTA and more, a real Batttech feast that’s constantly updated. There’s also the Rogue War mod which links in with RogueTech to provide a meta-multiplayer element, also highly recommended. 

[Vulgar Monkey]

Not really, no. I did dl it before BTA but then switched to see how stable my system would run with the lesser demanding of the two. That went ok so a switch to RT might be on the cards at some point in the future.

 

I do love the equipment overload aspect of both (which I understand RT takes even further), always having more gear to rebuild with. Also impressed with how both keep light mechs relevant throughout - though if anything I find that end-game mass assault mechs are a bit too ponderous to stay fun for long. That seems like a problem with the core rules of the game though so I dunno how any mod could tweak their way around that.

[Jamie John]

LA Noire

 

I thought I had enough of an appetite to play through this again, but after a handful of cases I'm done. Graphically, it hasn't dated that badly, especially playing on Steam Deck, where it's easier not to notice the 11 year-old textures, and the writing still feels true to this kind of homage.

 

What hasn't stood the test of time, however, is the interrogation system, and it's annoying enough for me to stop playing. Every time you ask a suspect or witness a question you press A if you think they're telling the truth, X if you doubt their statement, or Y if you think they're lying and can disprove them with evidence. The problem, however, is that the 'Doubt' button doesn't just mean 'Doubt'; it can also mean 'Half-truth', 'True, but omitting information', 'Hiding something but not lying', 'Lying but not lying enough to warrant an accusation', and so on. The net result is that you're never entirely sure whether to go for 'Doubt' or 'Lie' and you then just end up guessing, then getting it wrong, and it's infuriating. This is exacerbated by the fact that you can't go back and try again without restarting the entire case. And, often, the game suffers from the Phoenix Wright problem where you figure out the answer more quickly than the game wants you to, or you want to ask a particular question but the game doesn't let you, and it's *soooo* infuriating.

 

It's a shame, as you can't imagine Rockstar ever making a game like this ever again, but a modern sequel with some improvements to this mechanic would be brilliant, especially if they got rid of the overworld and the shooting gallery sections, which feel entirely arbitrary.

[Jamie John]

Resident Evil Remake

 

Another old Steam game that I thought I'd check out on the Deck. I got about two hours in and it runs well, but after playing the remake of 2, and even the HD remaster of 4 more recently, the controls, loading screens and tedious running back and forth, back and forth all the time got a bit too much for me. It's a great game, but one which is better kept in the memory, I think.