2019 Gaming Objectives
Dec 24, 2018 11:05:59 GMT -5
Post by Xeogred on Dec 24, 2018 11:05:59 GMT -5
I guess Borderlands is a nice 2009 entry for next year. I loved it at the time and did the whole thing solo, whereas some might argue these games are better with co-op (a bit in the Phantasy Star Online vein, small party based co-op). Unfortunately I bought the Steam release within the last year or two to check it out again in better form... except the game was strangely designed in a way that makes the FOV basically impossible to change permanently. And the FOV is nauseatingly close and weird. I figured the 360 version would be hard to go back to, so yeah. But maybe you won't care at all. On the flip side 2 was really well optimized with tons of flexible customization. Way better story/villain in 2, but I'll admit that one didn't click with me immediately like the first did.
Call of Pripyat... I'll be honest, I think I've 100% completely given up on this one. I've tried playing it at least 3-4 times, which is way more chances than anything needs. It's a hassle to even get running correctly on modern PC's so yeah, I'm just done with this forever probably. I think because this one is more truly open world with one giant map, yet still lacks the deeper RPG elements of a Fallout or whatnot, it just doesn't gel with me or have any sense of progression like the original. Maybe it's just me, many fans still enjoy this one and hopefully you will too.
Halo 2's a pretty strange mess, as some might remember they had to redo a lot of the game for a huge portion of it late in its development cycle. That said, it's still a lot bigger than most games out there. I've never loved this one though nor have I hated it. A solid adventure with some weird twists in turns in the story.
Absolutely loved Red Faction back on the PS2. It's Total Recall the game. The sequel gets the reward for being one of the worst sequels I've ever played, next to Perfect Dark Zero and a few other heaping piles of trash.
Serious Sam peaks at The Second Encounter to me, which is not exactly the second game. There's a separate Serious Sam 2. 2 and 3 seem solid but I didn't finish them. I think there's charm in the originals but "repetitive" is this series' middle name, don't expect much more than super mindless arcade styled action haha... but yeah I did have fun revisiting these games on the PC last year or something. Here's how long they took me to finish:
Serious Sam HD The Second Encounter - 9.4 hours
Serious Sam HD - 5.8 hours
I think the humor here is that when I played them on the original Xbox back in the day, I thought I remembered them taking like 20+ hours long. lol
I know you like playing games in order, but if you really can't get into System Shock 1 you should just jump to 2. I don't really think the tiny bits of details that carry over are that big of a deal and played them out of order myself. Besides, with Warren Spector behind the original and Ken Levine behind 2, they really do feel quite different in a lot of ways, so I think they're fine to approach on their own. I beat 1 last year and enjoyed it, after taking years to finally click with me. But 2 was easy to love immediately and it's got that awesome Dark Engine from the Thief games.
Turok doesn't hold up to me ... yikes. I still have 2 HD to checkout eventually though and always recall that one being better. Still some decent curiosities to look at though.
Ultima Underworld I loved right away, which was surprising since my sci-fi bias didn't make System Shock 1 a winner right away in comparison. Ultima Underworld is slower and less action oriented, really felt the Deus Ex roots here and loved the dungeon crawling. I need to play 2 eventually, I love that it looks like a nice improvement on everything. Bigger player window space too haha.
Unreal 1, I played this for the first time somewhere around 2013-2014 and absolutely loved it. Until that point I actually had no idea a big campaign for Unreal existed. Unreal Gold includes the main game and its expansion. I discovered it thanks to Deus Ex composer Alexander Brandon's involvement and Unreal has the same mesmerizing MOD tracker format for the music. Now I've seen a lot of fans of this campaign online, but unfortunately have never once seen anyone I know personally on forums share my same enthusiasm for it. I can see how the gunplay isn't as good as Quake 2 and whatnot, but I think it was really the atmosphere and adventure-ish style of the game that won me over. Imagine if in Halo, instead of jumping around from level to level, you're just stuck and lost on the halo ring world from the beginning of the game until the end. The maps can be big and sprawling with a sense of wonder, trekking through the mountains, caves, alien villages, going through the seasons, there's temples and weird puzzles changing up the pace that I loved, such an awesome sense of exploration. I really got a lot of Halo and Metroid Prime vibes playing through this. And it actually does feel like tensions ramp up in the final stretch when you know the journey is coming to an end. I really loved it personally. I can't emphasis enough that this is one of the greatest OST's I've ever heard and since I played this game years ago, it's become a constant in my rotation when I want some background music doing whatever.
Haven't touched Unreal 2 yet, never hear good things lol.
Call of Pripyat... I'll be honest, I think I've 100% completely given up on this one. I've tried playing it at least 3-4 times, which is way more chances than anything needs. It's a hassle to even get running correctly on modern PC's so yeah, I'm just done with this forever probably. I think because this one is more truly open world with one giant map, yet still lacks the deeper RPG elements of a Fallout or whatnot, it just doesn't gel with me or have any sense of progression like the original. Maybe it's just me, many fans still enjoy this one and hopefully you will too.
Halo 2's a pretty strange mess, as some might remember they had to redo a lot of the game for a huge portion of it late in its development cycle. That said, it's still a lot bigger than most games out there. I've never loved this one though nor have I hated it. A solid adventure with some weird twists in turns in the story.
Absolutely loved Red Faction back on the PS2. It's Total Recall the game. The sequel gets the reward for being one of the worst sequels I've ever played, next to Perfect Dark Zero and a few other heaping piles of trash.
Serious Sam peaks at The Second Encounter to me, which is not exactly the second game. There's a separate Serious Sam 2. 2 and 3 seem solid but I didn't finish them. I think there's charm in the originals but "repetitive" is this series' middle name, don't expect much more than super mindless arcade styled action haha... but yeah I did have fun revisiting these games on the PC last year or something. Here's how long they took me to finish:
Serious Sam HD The Second Encounter - 9.4 hours
Serious Sam HD - 5.8 hours
I think the humor here is that when I played them on the original Xbox back in the day, I thought I remembered them taking like 20+ hours long. lol
I know you like playing games in order, but if you really can't get into System Shock 1 you should just jump to 2. I don't really think the tiny bits of details that carry over are that big of a deal and played them out of order myself. Besides, with Warren Spector behind the original and Ken Levine behind 2, they really do feel quite different in a lot of ways, so I think they're fine to approach on their own. I beat 1 last year and enjoyed it, after taking years to finally click with me. But 2 was easy to love immediately and it's got that awesome Dark Engine from the Thief games.
Turok doesn't hold up to me ... yikes. I still have 2 HD to checkout eventually though and always recall that one being better. Still some decent curiosities to look at though.
Ultima Underworld I loved right away, which was surprising since my sci-fi bias didn't make System Shock 1 a winner right away in comparison. Ultima Underworld is slower and less action oriented, really felt the Deus Ex roots here and loved the dungeon crawling. I need to play 2 eventually, I love that it looks like a nice improvement on everything. Bigger player window space too haha.
Unreal 1, I played this for the first time somewhere around 2013-2014 and absolutely loved it. Until that point I actually had no idea a big campaign for Unreal existed. Unreal Gold includes the main game and its expansion. I discovered it thanks to Deus Ex composer Alexander Brandon's involvement and Unreal has the same mesmerizing MOD tracker format for the music. Now I've seen a lot of fans of this campaign online, but unfortunately have never once seen anyone I know personally on forums share my same enthusiasm for it. I can see how the gunplay isn't as good as Quake 2 and whatnot, but I think it was really the atmosphere and adventure-ish style of the game that won me over. Imagine if in Halo, instead of jumping around from level to level, you're just stuck and lost on the halo ring world from the beginning of the game until the end. The maps can be big and sprawling with a sense of wonder, trekking through the mountains, caves, alien villages, going through the seasons, there's temples and weird puzzles changing up the pace that I loved, such an awesome sense of exploration. I really got a lot of Halo and Metroid Prime vibes playing through this. And it actually does feel like tensions ramp up in the final stretch when you know the journey is coming to an end. I really loved it personally. I can't emphasis enough that this is one of the greatest OST's I've ever heard and since I played this game years ago, it's become a constant in my rotation when I want some background music doing whatever.
Haven't touched Unreal 2 yet, never hear good things lol.