TIL I Don’t Like First Person Games (clickbait title, this is really just an update)
So it’s been a few months since my last update, and I’ve actually finished a few games, and left a few unfinished that I really wanted to finish. So I’m due to make another update. This is going to be a long one, so strap in for a long and boring ride!
Beaten
I loved Tomb Raider. One of my favorite game genres is third person action, and this game is pretty much the epitome of a good 3rd person action game. For some reason it took me a really long time to get into it but once I did I couldn’t get enough and finished the second half of the game within a few days. I loved seeing Lara develop into the badass she was in the older games (and probably RotTR as well?). Everything was just good and very smooth, it felt like a movie where I was controlling the main character. Such a cool experience. Overall I cannot wait to play Rise of the Tomb Raider, I’ve heard it’s even better than this one.
Would I recommend this game? Absolutely, it’s a must play.
One of my all time favorite games. I liked the original WD and even enjoyed the not-so-great story. The problem is it took itself way too seriously and didn’t refine many of the key mechanics of the game (namely driving and hacking). WD2 fixed what the first game did wrong. The story can be cringey at times but at its core is fun and lighthearted with plenty of social commentary (on racism, gang warfare, and of course Big Brother). The game world is riddled with outdated memes and neon colors, and half of the Dedsec characters look like they’re dressed to go to a rave. It was one of the most fun games I’ve played. The stealth gameplay is great, you can infiltrate areas without stepping foot in them, and you don’t have to kill a single person in the whole game if you don’t want to. But you can also shoot up everything if that’s your thing too (though the shooting isn’t anything noteworthy and doesn’t fit with the tone of the game at all). You have plenty of options and all of the main missions are unique and designed well. The coop is really fun and the seamless multiplayer is done well. The missions can get repetitive but they’re still quite fun. The soundtrack is spectacular, the second the main menu of the game opens up and that music plays, you know it’s going to be a good game.
My biggest complaint about the game is the side missions. And I’m not talking about the actual missions you get (those are great), I’m talking about the minigames like motocross racing, drone racing, sailing, etc. Just like the first game and its boring side content, this is equally boring. All you do is race and that’s the whole point. If you’re into that you’ll have a great time but I personally hate racing games with a fiery passion so I didn’t take part in that part of the game.
Overall I loved Watch Dogs 2 and can’t wait to play it again someday.
Would I recommend this game? 100% yes. It’s my pick for 2016 Game of the Year.
Much like Tomb Raider, this game felt like such a cinematic experience. The story wasn’t spectacular (it’s your typical revenge tale) but it was interesting and I liked the character you play as and his transformation into some kind of “God”. The combat was fun, albeit very easy. It’s basically a series of quicktime events over and over again and it sometimes got monotonous but was mostly a really fun part of the game. The executions were satisfyingly brutal. One of the biggest appeals of the game is how beautiful it is, the graphics were seriously incredible. I saw some reviews complaining about how short it was but I think it was a perfect length. Any longer and it would have become repetitive and boring.
Would I recommend this game? Yes, it’s a short play and has some great level design and combat. It’s worth playing just to take it the scenery as well.
I love the new Hitman. Incredibly open levels with countless different assassination opportunities. The disguise system isn’t convoluted like it was in Absolution and the gameplay is just great. The stealth is really well done, with only a few small hiccups like the AI being occasionally omniscient but also being completely idiotic at the same time. I finished the campaign and found that each level was varying degrees of good with great unique assassinations. I even tried my hand at an Elusive Target (if you fail, that’s it; you can’t try again) and managed to not fail, but it went absolutely horribly. The story is a small element of the game but was still rather interesting. It of course ended on a cliffhanger to leave you wondering what’s going to happen in Season 2.
The biggest problem with the game is the Always Online bullshit (I think it’s because of Denuovo but I’m not sure). It’s frankly ridiculous for a single player game to require you to have a constant connection to the server in order to play the game properly. I lost connection multiple times and was unable to play the game until my internet came back on. You essentially lose all functionality and I totally get why people are angry about this. I don’t think it’s worth not recommending the game because of this sole factor. It’s really the only big negative about the game.
Despite finishing the campaign I’m not even close to actually being truly finished with the game. Its incredibly satisfying to complete challenges, becoming more and more skilled in each level after each playthrough.
Would I recommend this game? If you’re a stealth fan, you have to play it.
Unfinished/Abandoned
My favorite game of all time, I’m taking my time playing it and loving every second. It’s the only game I’ve ever played on hard mode because I actually love the combat. Just the other day I killed an enemy almost 20 levels above me in starting level armor. It took over an hour and killing it was probably one of my proudest moments in gaming. I totally understand why people play games like Dark Souls now.
Don’t ask my why I can’t finish this great game because I honestly don’t know. I haven’t played it since last year; I tried to force myself to play it but I couldn’t do it. Aside from the terrible disguise system, it’s a really decent stealth game that is definitely worth a playthrough. I’m hoping one day I’ll pick it up again and finish it up, as I’m pretty sure I’m about 3/4 of the way through and I just want to finish it at this point.
Over the past few years I’ve tried to play this game multiple times. I played the original around 3 years ago and I loved it, it was one of my favorite games. The story is great, it’s one of the better open world games. It has some really unique ideas too (balancing being a cop with being a ruthless gang member can be really interesting) and has some great gameplay and combat (it’s similar to Batman’s combat, but it’s better IMO - the environmental kills are amazing and gruesome). No clue why every time I pick it up, I can’t play it for more than a few hours without wanting to put it down. It’s not boredom, it’s just a lack of motivation. I’ll try to play it again in a few years, it’s sad because I really do love this game.
At first I tried to play the Remastered Edition of Bioshock. But like everyone else it crashed every time I tried to save and it would delete my saves. I finally gave up and switched to the old Bioshock. I was really interested in the story but I don’t think I’ll ever finish it. In fact I’m hesitant to play any other first person games at all, as I’ve noticed a pattern where I just don’t enjoy them. I liked it well enough, just like very other first person game I’ve played, but I just got bored so easily. I don’t get what’s wrong with me because I’d probably adore it like everyone else does if it just wasn’t a shooter. I’ve done the exact same thing with multiple other critically acclaimed shooters/first person games: Far Cry 3, Dead Space, Dishonored, Fallout 3, etc. I don’t know if I’ll ever pick Bioshock up again, but I do know that its convinced me to not buy any more first person games.
The conclusion I’ve drawn from these past few months is that A. I can’t get into first person games no matter how hard I try and B. Shooters (that aren’t open world) apparently bore me to death. I’m not going to try and beat a dead horse by forcing myself to play a genre I’m clearly not a fan of. I guess from now on I’ll stick to the genres I really love like open world and stealth games.
I didn’t immediately fall in love with Bioshock. It wasn’t until a few hours in that I started to really like it. By the time I finished it, it was my favorite game. It still is one of my favorites today. I appreciate a game that doesn’t spoon feed you a story and instead lets it come out naturally through the environments. Very atmospheric and intelligently crafted. I’d say keep pushing into it until you get some of the more advanced tonics and after your first Bid Daddy fight. That’s when the ingenious of it all starts to open up. I have a love hate relationship with Hitman games in general. I love the concept and the cleverness. I hate how random and hard they usually end up getting. The last one I played, I got so frustrated from dying on a mission and having to start the whole thing over that I ended up just rushing in the front door in the wide open, unopposed.
Unfortunately I did spend a few hours in the game. Fought a few big daddies, rescued some little sisters and it’s not like it wasn’t a good time. I genuinely like Bioshock, the atmosphere, the story, the mechanics, it’s just the same thing is happening that happens with every first person game I play. I just can’t get into it. I just think maybe it’s not the genre for me, and that’s okay, it’s just unfortunate because it and all the other games I’ve turned down have seemed like really great games.
Yeah I’m not particularly good at Hitman. Saving and reloading is my only saving grace, otherwise I would have to go full rambo in every single level like I almost had to do with that Elusive target (I didn’t have a gun so I had no choice other than to just leg it and hope I didn’t die). Most of the time getting caught is my fault, sometimes the game cocks up (AI seeing through walls is one of the bigger problems). I think the whole “random” bit works for it in a way though, you replay the levels and learn the locations of items and you study guard patterns, and eventually you just breeze through the level. After all that hard work, you eventually master it. I think that’s the brilliance of Hitman.
Awesome selections. Sadly Watch Dogs 2 is the only stealth game from your post that I didn’t play yet, I really want to but it’s way too expensive for me right now.
HITMAN is masterful! My only gripe with it is that mastery difficulty of missions unlock after you reach level 20 mastery within that mission. It should have been an option from the beginning. It already takes like 7-8 playthroughs maybe even more to get to mastery level 20 so you already know the mission like the back of your hand (unless you don’t play the game for months on purpose to forget about them), the ramp up in difficulty after that doesn’t mean anything to me.
It is so worth the money, but definitely expensive. I got it on sale for $40 and that was probably the most I’ve ever spent on a game. That’s how confident I was that the game was going to be good. It won’t hurt to wait until it gets much cheaper though, they are still releasing new content so buying it once they’re finished with that will really give you the complete experience. From what I’ve seen of your profile (and your comment from ages ago where you said you liked WD1 too), you’ll love it!
I noticed that, I wanted to challenge myself by playing on Hard and was surprised to find the ‘professional’ difficulty was locked (that may be a good thing though, I’m not exactly a pro, hah). Maybe if you aren’t finding the master difficulty a challenge you could set up some interesting scenarios for yourself like doing a Kill Everyone challenge or suit only silent assassin (though you seem like a pro, you’ve probably already done that!). As a side note I was a bit ticked that the iconic silverballers were missing until reaching a certain mastery level, and even then you only got one silverballer! That’s just me being nitpicky though. I’m excited to see where the story goes with this one though, with Diana’s possibly wavering allegiances.
Edit: I added you on Steam, just because it seems like we’ve got a lot of games in common. No need to accept if you like to keep your friends list smaller :)
Styx: Shards of Darkness is my priority at the moment and I’ll struggle with purchasing that one. Watch Dogs 2 needs to wait for a very long time :(
An all kill run is a huge “NO” for me. I’m a pacifist in stealth games. For me there is zero challenge in killing or taking down everyone. I spent all those hours into HITMAN and I didn’t even know about the situation with Silverballers. I never used any guns :P I just hope Square Enix won’t screw up HITMAN season 2 they way they did Deus Ex franchise with Mankind Divided.
I’d like to keep my friends list tiny, yes. Even 22 feels too many right now. But I also like those who are active on Steam. So if you often share screenshots and most importantly interact with other people’s screenshots on feed or something I’d be happy to accept. I just don’t see the point of having +1 just for the sake of having +1. I hope you understand :)
Well I hope one day you can get it on sale for cheap because it really is such a great game :)
That makes sense, I find Kill Everyone playthroughs really fun to watch but I dislike doing them myself as well. It’s hard to not feel guilty about massacring dozens of innocent people, even if they’re fake.
If it’s not a huge thing, would you mind elaborating a bit on how they screwed up with the new Deus Ex? From the reviews I read it seemed like they greatly improved stealth and allowed you to go full ghost, which was apparently an issue in the first game (especially with the boss fights). I haven’t played Human Revolution yet (I will do so soon though) so I could also have no clue what I’m talking about.
No worries! I’m not very active as far as the community part with steam goes so I wouldn’t be the ideal person to have on your friends list. No hard feelings there at all.
There are a number of factors dragging Mankind Divided down. Story is extremely simplified and very forgettable. I like that choosing some quests can lock you out of others but it doesn’t feel like it actually has any meaning. Game is extremely simple, AI is absolutely terrible. I was disabling a security system right in front of them, cameras and lasers etc were going offline, their security partners were getting taken down (for experiment purposes) and they were not reacting in any way.
The thing I hate the most is how much the game is monetised. They added this arcade mode called Breach which is completely rigged with microtransactions. Loot is randomised, you “purchase” loot crates. You are kinda required to purchase them to progress further. Base game is filled with crashes and fps drops but Square Enix keeps on adding new content to Breach, fixing its problems, adding new achievements (I was at 88% average completion now I’m at 58% and I predict that this will continue to drop at this pace) whereas not doing anything to improve the ACTUAL game. Some quests were removed from the base game just to be sold as DLC packs.
So there you go, I’m quite scared that HITMAN will be ruined the same way.
Thank you for your understanding again :)
Thanks for that detailed explanation! Explains why a somewhat new Triple A release is already being sold for $15 on sale. Wow, what a shame though. It really seemed like it was a going to be a great game. Bad AI is a given in most games but if it’s that bad that’s pretty unforgivable. So is making decisions that have no meaningful impact.
Microtransactions? That’s absolutely ridiculous. And I thought Hitman’s always online “feature” was stupid. What happened to companies trying to make games for people to enjoy rather than create for the sole purpose of making money? What a joke, no wonder you’re afraid Hitman could share the same fate, let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
Haha I was going to make a smart comment about how everyone enjoys Skyrim and that’s a first person game then I looked on your profile and saw you’ve only got 18 hours in it! Fair enough! I’m not sure I have a preference as long as the gameplay is good but having giant spiders lunge at your face in first person isn’t very pleasant, having the option to pull the camera back as much as possible is certainly advantageous in those circumstances.
The games you’ve picked out as favourites all look like great choices, unfortunately I’ve only played Sleeping Dogs from your list but I’ve had my eye on playing all of the others eventually… I decided against buying the definitive edition as there doesn’t look to be many differences and a second playthrough doesn’t feel like it’d be anywhere near as fun as playing it all for the first time. Btw don’t worry about the “long and boring ride”, I love reading through all these detailed ones the most!
No I love Skyrim! I actually have over 200 hours in it, but it was on a pirated copy (I don’t do that anymore, don’t worry). I felt guilty and bought the game (along with every other game I had originally pirated), modded it so heavily that my poor laptop couldn’t handle it and I broke the game as well. Fixing it was too much effort and I didn’t want to start a new game, so I found other games and sort of just lost interest. But I fully intend to go back to it eventually and start a whole new game. I primarily played it in third person though, unsurprisingly I didn’t really like the first person.
Yeah, they’re all really good games! I hope you eventually get to play them, they’re all so much fun (even if I wasn’t in love with all of them). I definitely don’t think the definitive edition is worth it if you already have the original, the DLC looks good but since I haven’t played it yet I can’t attest to that. The graphics are nice but they’re not a drastic improvement from the already nice graphics of the original game, so it isn’t worth getting for that either.
And thanks, I actually kind of love writing these updates, so it’s really nice to know people read them even though they’re quite long!
Awesome games.. I remember like if it was today when I first played Tomb Raider. The game is incredibly awesome. I also can’t wait to play Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Hope you can still get into Bioshock and enjoy the game. It’s one of my favorite games, either because of its story or the gameplay (even though it’s not that new, it’s kinda different and I enjoyed a lot).
It was so great, I wish I could experience it again for the first time. Rise of the Tomb Raider looks amazing too.
Thank you, I really tried but I think forcing it was making me enjoy it less. I’ll try again eventually, I really want to love it since like you, everyone adores it! The story was definitely one of the most interesting parts, along with the atmosphere. Seeing Rapture for the first time when you start the game is breathtaking.
I totally understand your point… I also wish I could experience this game like if it was the first time… It was sooo good! From what I read, RotTR is 2013, but better in all aspects that the previous one failed. Hope you can play it soon :3
Hmm, you’re right. You’d just have a bad gaming experience if you tried to force yourself to play the game :( give it a time, and maybe you’ll enjoy it more next time \o (let me know if this worked for you). We’ll never feel the same way we felt when played a game for the first time, but that little part of Bioshock, when they show us Rapture, that one I think I’ll always feel if it was the first time :o Rapture is amazing. I felt the same way when I saw Columbia (from Infinite) for the first time :3
I finised bioshock half hour ago. My firsts feelings were as your but, when the story advances, the game improve a lot :)
Good to know, thanks! I’m still hesitant to continue with it just because a pretty clear pattern with shooters and first person games has showed up for me. But I won’t put it on my “Abandoned” list just yet. I really want to love this game.