Figured I'd use the time to do a couple of write-ups on games I've beaten since the new year, since I'm at 3 now. I should preface that I'm going to use a full 0 - 10 rating scale, so just convert a 5 to what would be like a 7.5 in the traditional gaming press.
1. Marvel's Spider-Man: The City that Never Sleeps DLC (PS4) | 1/4/19 - 8hrs | 5/10
Insomniac did a decent job with these pieces of DLC content. The middle one was clearly lacking in interesting story content, but that's also personal preference. The third one "Silver Lining" did a good job tying things up, and I'm REALLY interested to see where they go with Yuri now in the inevitable sequel. Although, tying up her storyline in side content felt a little lame. Silver Sable was great.
2. Burly Men at Sea (PS4) | 1/6/19 - 1hr | 5/10
People often call games minimalist erroneously, but Burly Men at Sea is truly minimalist. The controls were a little grating, but for what the game was, they were respectable. Fun little story that won't take you too long to get through, but I wish the gameplay was a little more involved.
3. Bayonetta (Switch) | 1/15/19 - 10hr | 6/10
I've played a few Platinum games in my time, namely Vanquish, Transformers Devastation, and NieR: Automata. I'm not huge on character action much, but having just purchased a Switch over the holidays, I felt it was a great opportunity to take a swing at this franchise I'd let pass me by.
To start, I wasn't expecting to actually get invested in the story. Sure, it's batshit insane and barely makes sense most of the time. But the characters are compelling oddballs, and the gameplay more than makes up for any inconsistencies there. I played on normal for the most part, only cheating for a bit on the airship Jeanne fight which I couldn't beat for some reason. If there's one main critique I would have of the game, it's that it doesn't make its systems very clear. NieR does a wonderful job explaining how all of the items and elements work, but Bayonetta doesn't quite as well. Still, I'm looking forward to playing the sequel later this year, but I think I need to take a break first.
4. The Order: 1886 (PS4) | 1/20/19 - 9hr | 6/10
I'm pretty disappointed that the gameplay is king crowd put me off from playing this in 2015. It really does feel like this was a victim of the backlash to "walking simulators" that was spurred on by the GG crowd. This is not to say that if you don't enjoy those type of games, that you are a gamergater. It's just that crowd had a disproportionate impact on the discourse around games in '14/'15.
Anyways, I'm getting sidetracked. The game itself is gorgeous, and could come out today and put a lot of games to shame. For my money, it looks better than all of the current gen games except maybe RE2/DMCV and The Last of Us Part II. The gameplay is also not that bad. The shooting feels better than uncharted 4, and the weapon design is actually stellar. Where the game stumbles is in its movement mechanics and lackluster monster encounters. They nailed the feeling of fighting humans, but as soon as a lycan enters the fray, the pacing goes to shit and I would stand in a corner for 5 minutes to dodge their attacks and get easy kills. Also, the QTEs aren't that egregious except for the boss fights, which are terrible and much easier than they should've been.
The story itself was super easy to predict, and I wish that there had been more meat on the bones. The characters and world are really solid, but the moment to moment writing was a little on the nose. With about a year more in the tank, I think this game could've been something
really special.
All in all, I think The Order is a mechanically solid game with gorgeous graphics, and a story that's too short to give the game a better score.