Sep 6, 2015

LittleBigPlanet 2

this game was one of the best Ps3 games to me period, and one of the greatest games of the last generation. The tagline of this series is play, create, share, but I'll be focusing on the play. I never had the ambition of committing to creating levels in LBP, ever. But the game was a blast to play with. In an era of gaming where local multiplayer is on its way out unless you're on a nintendo console, LBP2 is loads of fun with friends, on the couch. It was a huge step up from the original in many ways but boy was its successor a letdown.

Anyways, the campaign levels were a blast to play through and the bonus levels were fun as well. Unfortunately however problems that plagued the mp portion was how the game was contingent on having all the players on the screen instead of doing splitscreen but I suppose that would complicate things.

+cute & cuddly
+potential for lots of local multiplayer fun
+campaign is a joy to play through
+updated graphics works well with all the backward compatible levels from LBP1
+soundtrack. the soundtrack of LBP has always been its strong suit
+the miniature characters actually have dialogue now instead of always mumbling nonsense
+move support worked well with this game.
+all the dlc costumes you bought, as well as all the custom ones you made yourself, carry over to this sequel!
-lack of splitscreen hurts gameplay, although it could be for the best
-after playing through a good portion of it, it does start to feel old
-as fun as the game is, the story is a bit too nonsensical for me



my score: 9.3/10

 

Sep 6, 2015

The Last of Us

As this was a ND title, I was interested from it since it was announced, but gradually, as I learned more and more about it, the less and less interested I became. However, I recently got to play it in its entirety. And I'd say by about 99%, it lives up to the hype. It shares similarities with the Uncharted series, namely, the engine, and the fact that this is also a 3rd person shooter. Minus the fact that this game has a post apocalyptic setting with the survivor-horror story genre giving you a feeling of scarcity throughout, the actual shooting I would say is an improvement over the Uncharted series and it seems like Uc4 has taken several queues from it. And of course, this game is very story driven. And with a lot of ND's story driven games, this game would've benefited so much with a coop campaign mode. Sad to have it absent.

+Story is (while not absolutely flawless) very compelling.
+Graphics are quite amazing, especially on Ps3 (for its time)
+While I'm not entirely sure, the campaign lasted for a good 10 hours I think
+Gameplay & navigation through the campaign actually allowed for a lot of freedom and choices for how the player would like to have it executed. Although sometimes some routes are more obvious and easier to take than others.
+Multiplayer while still pvp is quite different, and encourages teamwork. But you can't exactly go in guns blazing.
-No splitscreen coop campaign. Games like this would be perfect for that.
-The story at certain times felt a bit weak to me. Just a few times, a few stutters for this masterpiece, at large.
-The friendly AI can get really annoying sometimes in the game. Getting in your way, stuff like that.



my score: 9.9/10

 

Sep 6, 2015

Rocket League

This was a game that was the sequel to Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars. Never played that game but apparently this one plays very similar to that. This game is very simple, easy to learn, and it is pretty fantastic.

+Number of players go from 2 to 8.
+Any gamer can learn to play it as it doesn't take extraordinary skill.
+Splitscreen online AND offline, a huge win in my book!
+Each game is 5 minutes, which is the perfect amount of time for a match
+crossplatform play; all gamers win.
-colors are a big too saturated for me
-cars could offer a little more customization
-there really isn't very much content to the game, even for its price-point.
-there should be an option for up to 10, 12, 14, and 16 cars on a map.



my score: 8.5/10

 

Sep 6, 2015

Driveclub

It got a lot of heat during launch because the online was broken. Other than that, I can't remember why the reviews were so low. Maybe because of lack of content?

+Graphics are AMAZING.
+Club system is pretty neat
+Crossplay with the Psplus version
+Variety in car choices, from what I can tell
+soundtrack was pretty good, I at least liked it
+the club feature system is pretty neat
-single player content doesn't seem very compelling
-no splitscreen.
-gameplay can get pretty darn frustrating around corners when you don't break properly
-going off track for more than 3 seconds is a no no. wtf?
-you can't even see the tracks before you select a match
-you can't even see the whole track layout in the race.
-club symbol customization is a bit tricky and doesn't look like it has much freedom



my score: 7.7/10

 

Sep 6, 2015

Journey

I played this on Ps3, but I bought the retail. And because of that, I had to pay $15 to play it on Ps4 again. I didn't really remember the very ending except for one of the last parts, and it was quite artsy/refreshing.

+very artful.
+easy to play
+tells a (albeit wordless) story in an interesting way
+although it's entirely a desert, there is a variety in environments you will explore
+doesn't take very long to finish (but we'll get to that)
+integrated multiplayer (with some limitations)
-it seems like since there's not much communication you can do, it's hard to stick with someone you found in the game - you don't know where they might wander off to.
-it's $15, but given the length, I feel like it should be even cheaper...I don't think there's much replayability incentive to it other than wanting to 100%
-the levitation system can get confusing and annoying - sometimes you can't really tell what to do if you want to float



my score: 7.5/10