What was the last video game you beat, and what did you think of it?

[katverwho]

Firewatch, which was GORGEOUS but I wish had been a little more surreal. Nothing gets me like spooky magic realism, and this was more of a novel with some light puzzles and exploration. Mostly just pretty.

I guess I'm also playing Pokemon GO right now, but it's frustrating. Crashes constantly and my area isn't very dense, and an enemy team runs the ENTIRE city.

[carloswebcomic]

I've just finished Dragon Age Inquisition.
coming straight after finishing The Witcher 3 and then finishing Dark Souls 3, DS Inquisition felt a bit generic and slightly unpolished.
It did have some good moments here and there but I did not feel the compulsion to play it again like other games.

[katverwho]

I loved that game but also IT DRAGGED ON FOREVER. I think there was too much scope to Inquisition and my interest was spread far too thin...though I love DA2 dearly <3

[UrMom]

It's been a long while since I finished any games, right now I'm slowly going between American McGee's Alice, and the Myst: Revelation. But the last game I finished was:

The Path

The Path is a very strange, slow paced horror game. It's focus is on exploration, taking different characters through the same areas to trigger different events, and the world you explore in is fairly large. I'm a huge fan of sandbox exploration games, so I enjoyed it, I also liked the surreal horror elements it had going on. The endings get more strange the more things you find, and that's really cool.

[Kura]

Uncharted 4

Really enjoyed it, but the computer was awful and really dumb. (this may be because I was playing on a lower difficulty because I was playing back and forth with another player, I usually play on hard to trick myself into thinking I don't suck, that way I can do the "I died because the game is CLEARLY on hard, not because I suck <.<" excuse) but, they refused to play above normal setting ><

The ending was great and a satisfying wrap up to the series, it made up for the disappointment that was Uncharted 3's shit ending.

[alaingrey]

After four years I finally took the time to beat Skyrim. I didn't realize I'd finished the main quest until I looked online what to do next.

Anyway... For someone who makes games for a living I sure don't get the time to play them much :-/

[J.Z.Castillo]

I have been playing my Skyrim file since I was a Senior in high school 6 years ago. I still have to finish the main quest line lol, but I finished Dawnguard! I get distracted leveling up all my skills and finding random rat kings in the sewers of Riften I still got some places I have yet to explore or discover as well. That game is far too big, I'm not complaining, though!

[Mharz]

Trying to unlock all of Chrono Trigger's (so retro I know) endings recently. It has became on of my favorite RPGs.

[JessJackdaw]

Nice topic! Beat Silent Hill 2 for the first time recently. I've played a good amount of the games, yet for whatever reason never played the all famed "classic best" the series had to offer. Came into the game somewhat blind. I mean... you can't go far without knowing or seeing pyramid head (or Red Pyramid as he's called in this game offically). Also, I played the original ps2 release, because of controversy over the HD re-release.

PROS

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So thoughts! First off, game lives up to it's hype honestly. The atmosphere is solid. You have moments of reprieve, but somehow the moments of silence get you far more scared than the monsters. Hence the name.

Also, in this game I found the clunky controls very welcoming. It feels purposeful and worked very well for the other classic titles in this series. You have to understand, the developers never want you to be a sharp shooting master of the land of Badass, the character is meant to be vunerable at all times. So often, in a panic, you might fire off precious rounds into the floor or turn your flashlight on (bad idea).

But this is what a lot of horror games get wrong, because if the monsters don't feel challenging, what's scary about it? Deadspace was fun but it was all surprise, and hardly any suspense. Silent Hill 2 is just felt like agonizing suspense that never let go of you. The moments you think it has, it goes "Oh, that's cute, go jump in this hole and kill your only friend while you're at it."

Great monster design too. Love Japanese body horror. Anything that destroys the human figure just enough to seem wrong and kite the line of uncanny valley makes for perfectly creepy design. Red pyramid who I thought, "Ehh, I've seen enough chibis and stupid DA drawings of this guy. He's not scary." Then out of the blue... SPOILER WARNING: He uhh... goes out of his way to violently violate the other monsters multiple times throughout the game. Which sort of makes you afraid thinking,"So if he kills me.... That's what's going to happen to my corpse?!"

The monster designs are used to great length to illustrate the underlying narrative which is what Silent Hill does so well. Actually, wait, except for the more recent ones. Those uhh had designs that made no sense with the story. I mean really Silent Hill 5? SPOILER WARNING: Your plot twist involves drowning your kid brother... none of your monsters hint at that at all. Except maybe the Asphyxiation boss.

CONS

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Game hasn't aged well in some ways. Mostly in terms of player direction and map layout. The overworld isn't all that terrifying and it's quite a slog to get through. You get lost and frustrated easily because you didn't see a tiny key on a corpse at the end of a street in the middle of nowhere on the map. Seriously, save yourself the heartache, use a walkthrough whenever you're outside in the overworld so you won't tear your hair out.

At least to me, it's extremely hard to tell what items are things you can interact with. They shine slightly, but with the rather dark lighting it can make things difficult, and make you go "I was supposed to pick THAT up?" I remember once you had to have a carton of drinks to throw down a garbage chute to get a coin and a key or something, and just thinking, "Really?! THAT was a puzzle?!" I had to pick up a random stack of garbage on the floor (which I touched on accident and thought they were health drinks for the longest time). Hnngh, the frustration is real.

FINAL THOUGHTS

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If you like horror, it's a must. It won't make you pee yourself or scream like a Youtube star. It won't even make you jump probably. Although, it certainly will give you a feeling of constant dread and driving curiosity. The world building is nice, subtle, and lovingly crafted. All the characters are aloof and suit the world they're trapped in.

I honestly think, if hell exists, it probably looks a lot like this games depiction. Not a place of fire and brimestone, but of being trapped within yourself unable to escape. Your denial fights against your guilt until you break, and the living town takes you.

Flippin' beautiful storytelling through a game. Hands down.

Edit: Welp, I barfed an essay. Sorry for the wall of text. XD

[phen]

Literally the last game I played and beat would be Donkey Kong Country 2. I pick it up every now and then to see if I can remember where everything is and how thoroughly I can beat it without using Funky to go back to previous worlds, ha~ It is a stunning, amazing, perfect game. My heart, my entire stupid heart for that game.

Now, for recent releases... I THINK, Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly for the PS Vita. Got a 100% on that and almost couldn't put it down once I started! Stories that will put jagged, rusty cleats right into your soul, man. Excellent voice-acting, really fun little shooter mini-game, charming art style, tremendous music. I'm tempted to put out more money on merchandise than what I spent on the game itself.

[AnnaLandin]

Like @katverwho, the latest videogame I beat was Firewatch.

It is an amazing game, with beautiful storytelling, and manages to pull off the "unreliable narrator" concept incredibly well.

There's some jumping and some exploration and stuff in it, but most of the game relies entirely on atmosphere and storytelling, and conversations with people you never see - and aside from a photograph on your desk, you never get to see the character you play as either. It's just you and the natural world you are exploring.

.... Yeah, I'm gonna be thinking about that one for a long time.

Currently, though, I'm inexpertly playing Overwatch (as soon as I'm done with our Kickstarter, I'm SO getting back to that! <3) and Tales of Zestiria, which despite some translation hiccups and some very questionable costume design, is proving to be a very good game, story-wise. It needs a slightly less complicated equipment system, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty enjoyable!

[joannekwan]

Hm, the last full video game I beat and saw the end credits of (that wasn't a visual novel or dating sim) was
Dragon Age Inquisition.

I can't comment too much because I'm a little biased as I love the franchise so much. The combat really stepped it up from the previous 2 games, and I enjoyed it. I also like the "pause and play" feature where you pause mid-combat and issue commands, it's really helpful in a pinch and when you have to manage your party members. As for the story, I quite liked it. However the character relationships I feel wasn't as tight-knit as the ones in DA2. I still love all the companions though. But I feel it was too easy to keep all your party members, whereas in the previous two games, companions could leave due to active or passive in-game decisions. The graphics, sound, and interface are great.

I'm terrible because I'll dabble in games, get into them for a while, but then lose interest and never finish. Case in point, Far Cry 4, Fallout 4, Skyrim, Bully, Bastion, Bloodborne, DmC, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Last of Us, Undertale, Red Dead Redemption, Sunset Overdrive, Assassin's Creed 3 … sigh. A game has really got to grab me for me to finish xD

[wrentemple]

After the new God of War announcement I dusted off my PS2 started replaying.

Just finished God of War 2 and I'd suggest it to anyone writing/drawing a fantasy type comic!! 'cause in terms of cinematography and sheer epic scale it's a wonderful well of inspiration for when it comes to set design and action sequences. Plus some of the puzzles are great.

OR if you just want a good game to play it's great. They're somewhat of a guilty pleasure.

You will, however, notice that the game designers have a fetish for humongous chains. Literally chains the size of trains everywhere.

[Ambat]

I just got done playing Zero Time Dilemma--I really love the Zero Escape series and have been following it since 999 came out and it was a lot of fun to finally play the last installment! I'm a huge sucker for closed room murder mystery/alternate timeline type games so I'm sad the series is over now.

[TheVoidchildProject]

Doom (2016) It's a fantastic action game that has the decency to know not to take itself seriously. Like at all.

I'm playing xcom 2 right now and I'm probably coming up on the end of it. Also a fantastic game, unfortunatly plague by a few annoying bugs and perspective problems (probably because of how it generates missions now). But I love how these games forms their own kind of narratives and a connection to the Soldiers you use in the missions.

[Greg_Dickson]

@amberavara - Did you play ZTD on the 3DS or Vita? I was curious if the game ran smoothly for you. I loved 999, but Virtue's Last Reward had a huge save corruption bug issue on the 3DS. I knew about it beforehand, but you couldn't save in the puzzle rooms if you wanted to avoid them, meaning you had to do those huge brain-taxing rooms in one shot. I wanted to make sure there weren't any save corruption bugs before taking the plunge, as I am very interested in finding out how the series ends.

[donathinfrye]

Tales from the Borderlands and Witcher 3, I watched the credits roll on both of those games on the same day.

Man, that was a sad day. They are both fantastic, expertly woven stories. Could not recommend enough.

Firewatch is next on my list to play, as soon as I find the downtime to play through Witcher 3's wonderful expansions.

[Thesleepypencil]

Honestly i don't play games much anymore. Mostly because i can't afford it. Beating them is even farther and fewer between because i get bored.

I geuss the last one i beat was fantasy life on the ds. I enjoyed the colours and the game play and the design of the game, but found the plot too easy and the story a little chaotic at times. I'm actually playing it again right now.

other than that i play alot of Twilight princess. I've beaten it 7 times now so I'm not suprised if that was also the last game i played and beat.

I'm saving up for a wiiu right now since currently i don't own any systems :(. (And eventually a ps4 would be great i really want to play and suck at overwatch)

[Alamino]

Hyrule warriors
And I enjoyed it. A good game to pick up for 10 min then go draw for 30 then come back to.

[Ambat]

I played it on Steam!! They have it available to buy in the Steam store which is super convenient for me because my 3DS broke last year. Also I didn't realize there was a save issue in the puzzle rooms with VLR--or if I did I didn't remember it (when I played VLR I basically played it all in one go nonstop--I was on summer break HAHA)

I think ZTD was a fitting end to the series though I do have some criticisms of it--I feel like the graphics are probably the worst of all three of the series and there are some plotholes but it was a fun game overall and I'd recommend it!