She described her work on that game as "narrative paramedic"; the story and levels were done, she was only really able to write dialogue around it. Doesn't matter how good a writer you are, you can only polish so much.
I think it's hurt more by the fact that the voice actress for Lara is fucking awful.
It's interesting, but what would you say is a better reboot?
Does Hitman count?
Absolutely Hitman.
Hmmm tricky one, depends what you mean by reboot… I'd like to offer up Deus Ex: Human Resources and Fallout 3 for consideration.
As for Tomb Raiders - I've played I think all of them over the years. The latest series are fine if overlong and far more in love with their characters than I am. The first one was't really Tomb Raider at all in the sense that I remember, 2 and 3 were better. As others have said - the original was about mystery and vertigo, Lara was iconic not relatable. The guns were almost immaterial - you could win any fight by holding down shoot and bouncing.
At risk of offending Ninchilla - I thought Legend was fine, although it started the obsession with speed and shooting and therefore gets marked down for me. Lots of fun in there too though. I should probably whisper the fact that I actually liked Underworld more…
Anniversary was great, keep meaning to have another run through that. Can't imagine thinking that about any of the recent trilogy…
Hmmm tricky one, depends what you mean by reboot… I'd like to offer up Deus Ex: Human Resources and Fallout 3 for consideration.
I think XCOM is probably up there too - Enemy Unknown/Within and XCOM 2/War of the Chosen are both fantastic. The reboots were also pretty mainstream which is quite impressive given their PC strategy game origins.
God of War springs to mind but that's mostly because I found the original games absolutely hateful and was actually surprised to enjoy this one in any capacity. It's actually really good, but I'm not sure I'd want to play another one, if that makes sense.
Absolutely Hitman.
I think it was called Hitman Absolution.
Tunic 7.5/10
Oof, that's interesting. What didn't you like about it? Other than the combat feeling a little out of place, this was a solid 9 for me…
I really liked it, but it falls short of a 8/10 for me. I think it's around the last 3rd of the game I really started feeling burned out. I think it needed a few more upgrades for combat or maybe cut last few hours short.
@Garwoofoo YES! Hitman is a good one. I've only played the first two, but damn they did so well with the series. GOW is a very strong pick too.
Tunic 7.5/10
Oof, that's interesting. What didn't you like about it? Other than the combat feeling a little out of place, this was a solid 9 for me…
I really liked it, but it falls short of a 8/10 for me. I think it's around the last 3rd of the game I really started feeling burned out. I think it needed a few more upgrades for combat or maybe cut last few hours short.
That makes sense. It really only came together for me once I turned 'off' the combat and let it be all about the puzzles… I liked the fighting, but having challenging battles AND puzzles felt like the game was trying to assault me on two fronts. I still played it like I was trying, but the frustration of getting close before making one mistake melted away once the threat was gone.
Does it need to completely disregard previous continuity to be a reboot? If so, then I don’t think most of these - Tomb Raider notwithstanding - would actually technically be reboots, so much as sequels, even though reboot feels like it fits better for a lot of them.
On that note, I was going to say DOOM, but I’m not sure that was a reboot exactly either. Wolfenstein was though? And is Prince of Persia the only thing to have been rebooted twice? And/or is basically every new Zelda a reboot?
@BeanyFGC say DmC, I fucking dare you
Spoiler - click to show I'm not a hater, it was a good game, I just didn't like it as the proposed new future for DMC, a series which wasn't in need of a reboot anyway.
@BeanyFGC say DmC, I fucking dare you
Spoiler - click to show I'm not a hater, it was a good game, I just didn't like it as the proposed new future for DMC, a series which wasn't in need of a reboot anyway.
Hay, I enjoyed it for what they went for, but nah. It didn't need it at all. I think Capcom reminded us with DMC5. What a game that was.
I am very surprised to hear you say that, but cool.
I've got it.
Metroid Prime.
@martTM I'd definitely have MP in there, but it doesn't meet JDubs purist criteria… Same continuity, more dimensions - like Fallout 3.
Prince of Persia is a great shout for the purist approach though. I loved both SoT and PoP (however, was very unimpressed with sequel to the former and lack of sequel to the latter!)
I'd love to see a sequel to PoP 2008. It's a great little game.
I don’t think Metroid Prime counts as a reboot given that they were still making the 2D games and indeed released one on the very same day as the first Prime. It’s a spin-off series.
Sunset overdrive 9.5/10
This game was amazing. The gameplay, humour and the punk rock theme were fantastic! It's one of my favorite games ever. It's hard to say if this beats the incredible Spiderman on the Playstation or not, but one thing for sure. This was way better than Ratchet and Clank. I really hope Sony let them do a second one on the PS5. The only negatives I've got with the game are small like clothes clipping through your arms and hair and stuff. A little more polish would be nice on the characters. Apart from that it's a almost perfect game.
Trek to Yomi 6.5
This wasn't a bad game, but the combat let's it down massively. It's the same thing over and over with not much depth to it. It's just too simple and found myself slashing through enemies in two seconds. The story and old school Japanese filter over the screen was my favorite part of the game. Although the middle part of the story gets a bit muddy until it picks back up towards the end. Overall it's a decent game. I wouldn't recommend buying at full price, maybe a discount or game pass if you can.
The Gunk
Mass Effect 1
Sonic Racing Transformed
Mass Effect 2
Pokémon Arceus
Monster Hunter Rise
Hitman 1 (which is actually Hitman 6) – Finally got around to completing this after about six years. I say completed, but I don't have every level to Mastery 20 yet, and I've barely touched some of the bonus missions. I think I'll move on to Hitman 2 (7) first, then come back once I've got every level above Mastery 10. I don't want to add more Hitman chat to the Society of Hitmanplaying Gentlemen and Womenfolk, but it's good innit.
Kirby Switch is excellent. I could have done with a few more bright, colourful levels–it's more than 50% brown/fiery death zones–but it was great fun from start to finish.
Kirby Switch is excellent. I could have done with a few more bright, colourful levels–it's more than 50% brown/fiery death zones–but it was great fun from start to finish.
Did you do the post-game stuff too?
I did the first ‘level’ but the dark, muted colours were getting a bit oppressive. I’ll definitely go back and finish them off, because I was having fun aside from that.
It's hard. Those late game stages are definitely tougher than the rest of the game.
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Quite possibly my favourite game on the DS, what can even come close? Only thing that gives me pause is Monster Hunter 4 but I could 'cheat' and say I prefer the console Monster Hunter games anyway, but that is a game that exists on the DS library. Pokemon Soul Silver? Mayyyyyyybe. I dunno' why this just clicked with me this time but there was something very addictive about the whole thing and it's the absolute perfect commute/lunch break game which is where I played a lot of it, so maybe that helped.
Needless to say the Switch Remasters are Day 1 buys.
Wrapped up Secret of Mana this morning. Still a great game and surely one of the best looking 16 bit games. I think that's the first time I've played it through since the 90s.
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Chrono Cross (True ending because sometimes this game is pretty obtuse and sometimes I needed a guide for this, not sorry tbh.)
I would put this in the same category as Xenogears, another game I really like, both games are really good RPGs but marred by a few flaws here and there that stop them being as good as they could be, yet stand as cult-ish classics of the PSone era regardless because what they do well they do really well.
Radical Dreamers is next
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
The short Visual Novel/Adventure game that comes with the Remastered version of Chrono Cross set in a sort of alternate retelling of that game's story and was one of the things that tipped to get this on PS4 and not play the PSone version. I can say now that was a good choice because this was really good actually, the only issues is how easy to can be to get lost and how the random battles which are neat at first become tiresome the more lost you get and as a result, trigger them more.
Done with all things Chrono now! (Until Chrono Break just spontaneously appears again…)
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Even for the £1.99 this is currently going for this was a super underwhelming experience. I've never played this or the original before but i have fond memories of Panzer Dragoon Orta on the original Xbox so I figured I would try this for that price and an hour later it went down and I don't really remember any of it. Maybe on harder modes it's more engaging but I really don't like dodging in this game at all and it's not like there's a specific boss or enemy encounter I'm dying to tackle again.
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Okay, now THIS was a game, much better than the PD Remake. Off the back of this I do think I should give the Saturn original of the first game a go because I do have a feeling it was just a subpar remake, you can definitely feel the difference in the lock on speed from Remake to Zwei where the latter is super fast and the former had me waving the cursor around until I got the target, which as you can imagine is kinda important to a game like this.
Levels were much better, bosses were actually fun and there's cool stuff like different routes and a points system that affects what form your cool ass dragon evolves into after every level, just a really good game.
Can someone check if Orta is on the MS store for Series X/S? Internet tells me it is and I can't check but I am calling bullshit on that. Either way I have to find a way to play that now or finally play the god game itself for the first time, Panzer Dragoon Saga. 
EDIT - Yooooo, it's on there 
EDIT - So is Otogi, man I remember that game. Or rather the demo for Otogi 2, fun shit.
Sonic Generations-10
What can I say. This had me from beginning to end. The best modern Sonic stages and brilliant 2D classic stage's. If you played most of the Sonic games like me it hits you different. It's just good vibes and fun going through the history. They picked the right boss fights too. Metal Sonic, Shadow all remade perfectly. The soundtrack helps too. Kept finding myself humming along to the songs during the main menus. I even got all the achievements for it. Which I rarely do these days.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 - a remarkably experimental sequel that tries to fix some of the problems of the first game and ends up introducing a few of its own. It's similar in many ways to FFX-2, another sequel that goes in hard with a non-linear approach and a ton of optional side content, and a lot of what this does is very successful. The non-linear storytelling really works, as you hop in and out of different time periods and try to piece together what's happening (and only having a few locations, at multiple points in the timeline, certainly helps with asset reuse - this is a noticeable cheaper affair than the original). The combat system's been sped up massively, which suits XIII-2's faster pace overall. Against that, the plot is kind of silly, the two main characters are sappy and bland (the main enemy is called, ridiculously, Caius Ballad - quickly retconned to Caius Bellend in this house), the soundtrack is insane, and there's a little too much running around looking for stuff you need without any real idea what location or timeframe you should be searching in.
That said, I've really enjoyed this - it's definitely a lighter affair than the somewhat stodgy original, and I've still got plenty of stuff to go back and do.
FFXIII-3 is even more of a experimental sequel, if you try it I'm curious to know what you think. I think the premise is held down by being tied to the XIII universe honestly, I'd play a Majora's Mask real time RPG that you spend the majority doing going around the world saving souls in an original universe 100%.
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Oh man, this took me back. I remembered this being good and I kinda' remembered it being pretty hard but it was a lot better and slightly harder than I even remembered. Mechanically it's not as 'snappy' as Zwei but it's definitely the most involved Panzer Dragoon game because of all the new mechanics they added from Zwei:
Instead of your Dragon evolving at the end of every level based on how many points you get like in Zwei, you have three forms to swap between at any time - Base Wing, Glide Wing, Power Wing that offer various tradeoffs in speed for power, with Glide Wing not even having lock on lasers but having one more level of dash/delay the others don't have. That leads into the next mechanic: you can now boost and hold back at certain points to dodge attacks, on some boss fights a boost will move you to their flank/rear for a positional advantage even, so you have way more to keep in mind for Orta then the first two PD games.
Time to play Panzer Dragoon Saga :o
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Panzer Dragoon Saga
For an RPG that sprung off from an on-rails shooter, the story and combat was way better than expected, I would even put the combat in the same 'why has no one ripped this off since?' category as Skies of Arcadia's Ship combat.
Only thing I'm missing now is the Saturn version of the original game, which is included with Orta thankfully because fuck Saturn emulation. Not for a while though.
Halo 4
I can confirm that this was, indeed, a Halo game.
Actually, it's not that bad. Mechanically it's pretty good, even. The pacing is good, the environments are nice, it looks great for what was originally a 360 game. It has most of the old stuff in it and the new stuff (enemies, weapons) is mostly a slightly worse version of the old stuff but not offensively so.
The plot, though, dear lord. It's complete gibberish to the point where I had to go and find a plot summary to work out what on earth was going on. Apparently I should have read a bunch of novels to understand it. Possibly also some comics and maybe an animated series too? Just ridiculous.
Cortana looks like a stripper now for some reason. And the main bad guy looks like an angry testicle.
The most ridiculous thing for me though is the actual Forerunners themselves - I mean they've always been called that because they predated humanity, surely, it's the equivalent of calling someone "ancestors". But then these dudes show up going "HUR HUR WE ARE THE FORERUNNERS" and it's just ridiculous. Like the new writers didn't even understand the meaning of that name. On balance, removing all the mystery from Halo was a bad thing.
I tried reading one of the Forerunner novels (Cryptum?). I didn't make it very far, but yes, they called themselves that, and yes, it is incredibly stupid.
Halo's story has always been rubbish. Matt Collevile did a video recently about the story of Marathon and the clever ways Halo was going to tie into that fiction, until Microsoft bought Bungie and all that was dropped to be replaced with, erm, nothing really.
The first three games are pretty reasonable as far as videogames go, though, especially the first one which gives you pretty clear reasons for doing what you're doing and has the good sense to leave plenty of stuff enigmatic or unexplained which makes it all feel more developed than it actually is.
Unfortunately Halo nerds are really into this stuff which has led to a plethora of novels, in-game lore dumps and assorted tie-ins and now everything is over-explained and incredibly complex. It's very much to the series' detriment.
I've played all 5(?) and I genuinely don't know who the Covenant are, why Master Chief punches them, who the Flood are, who those new neon baddies were, what Cortana is, why she's an antagonist now, or where she's gone.
That's because there are 8 of them. (1-5, Reach, ODST and Infinite).
Easy mistake to make though, they're all the same.
Off the top of my head, with the caveat that I haven't played one of these since Halo 4:
The Covenant are an alliance of Forerunner-worshipping alien species, and Master Chief punches them because they attacked humanity on sight.
The Flood are a hive-minded fungal infection that threatened the Forerunner so much that they built the Halo rings to wipe out all life in the galaxy in order to starve them to death.
The new neon baddies are Prometheans; they're related to the Forerunner, somehow, but I forget how.
Cortana is a Smart AI, created by scanning a real person's brain connections. Usually Smart AIs are made using recently-deceased people, but Cortana is the brain-map of Dr. Elizabeth(?) Halsey, the scientist also responsible for the Spartan-II programme that produced Master Chief. She's evil now because Smart AIs grow in complexity over time, until they start to fragment and act unpredictably (even to themselves), a process known as going rampant. It happens after 7 years, without apparent exception.
Doesn't Halo 4 retcon the Forerunners? IIRC they were supposed to be human or we were descended from them and then they turned out to be this weird bug race? Anyway how are you finding the Prometheans? Say what you want about them but IMO they are a million times better than the flood ever were. Storywise all I cared about was Master Chief saving Cortana, I don't need to read a handful of tie-ins to know I liked their dynamic since Halo CE and she's a good character imo.
I didn't rate Halo 4 highly iirc, too many closed off levels and generally pretty Anti-Halo combat which I think is at least fixed somewhat in Halo 5. It still blows my mind that Halo 4 came out on the 360. :s
But yeah, Halo 5 of Duty or whatever was pretty good I think, more open and whatnot but probably not peak Silent Cartographer (CE) or Siera 117 (3) tier. Ultimately, in the end, I don't think there's as much satisfying in other FPS' in terms of shooting as the way the Grunts snap backwards when you pop them in the face with the handgun tbh.
She's evil now because Smart AIs grow in complexity over time, until they start to fragment and act unpredictably (even to themselves), a process known as going rampant. It happens after 7 years, without apparent exception.
I feel like this needs a patch.
I haven't played Infinite but it doesn't seem like she's coming back, I'm impressed they stuck to it since I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who likes her.
Doesn't Halo 4 retcon the Forerunners? IIRC they were supposed to be human or we were descended from them and then they turned out to be this weird bug race? Anyway how are you finding the Prometheans? Say what you want about them but IMO they are a million times better than the flood ever were. Storywise all I cared about was Master Chief saving Cortana, I don't need to read a handful of tie-ins to know I liked their dynamic since Halo CE and she's a good character imo.
I don't know if it was a retcon but in Halo 4 the Forerunners are definitely not the same as humans, however it turned out they encountered each other thousands of years ago. I think the Forerunners may have turned captured humans into the Prometheans maybe? There was a bizarre plot dump halfway through the game that covered like 90% of this in about 30 seconds flat so I'm a bit hazy on the details.
The Flood are fine in short bursts and in Halo 1 they make for a very effective change of pace but they kept bringing them back over and over. The "Cortana" level at the end of Halo 3 (millions of Flood in some sort of confusing red hive sort of thing) is one of the worst levels I've ever played in anything, ever.
In fact the whole history of Halo is of plot taking precedence over gameplay, isn't it? It's like the way the whole Halo 2 plot of the Brutes executing a coup against the Elites condemned the player to a game and a half without the series' most fun and iconic enemy.
In fact the whole history of Halo is of plot taking precedence over gameplay, isn't it?
Yeah, I blame Halo 2 for massively expanding the lore and the Convenant into this huge multi-factioned army of partial zealots, one of the things we got from that were Arbiter's godawful mostly Flood centric levels which are so terrible and god damn boring even for Flood levels.
You probably don't realise how much you miss the Elites until you play Reach and end up fighting them again, even though in Halo 3 the Brutes were turned into Faux-Elites as opposed to the damage sponges they were in 2, it just wasn't the same.
Have I really not finished a game since March? Blimey. Anyway…
JANUARY
Inmost
The Pedestrian
Gorogoa
Botanicula
FEBRUARY
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
MARCH
Nobody Saves The World
Tunic
APRIL
Nothing
MAY
Still nothing (?!)
JUNE
Weird West - Started off loving this, but that faded and it became more of a chore once I was too far in to give up. It's just too long, five separate stories that don't do much but last for ages makes it quite yawnsome. It crashed lots too, which isn't great. I liked it overall, though the excessive branching paths of the story that locked off certain achievements felt a bit punitive to me. 12 achievements left and I can't be arsed, so this one's done.
Sonic Advance -6.5
Sonic Advance 2 -7.5
Sonic Advance 3 -6
Decent series over all. Far too many unfair death within the levels design though. The physics aren't quite on par with the old classic Sonic games too. What I did enjoy was the graphics and animations. With them being on the GBA the detail on the characters were awesome. Plays like a 2D Sonic game with the modern Sonic character design. The first one is pretty basic and straight forward. The second one is easily the best of them all. Best levels, and adds an air dash and two air tricks. One letting to gain more high while the other one springs you forwards while attacking. Doesn't sound like a lot but this adds so much depth to speed running levels and replay value. Only one out of the three that I got the super Sonic ending. Advance 3 is a bit of a mess with a forced team gimmick you have to pick. Levels designs are the worst of the three with some taking around 8 minutes to complete. Well too long for a sonic game.
Sonic Spinball -6
Finally got to complete this game for the first time ever. Not much to say, pretty fun if you enjoy pinball or sonic games.
Sonic the Fighters -4
One of them games when it's so bad, It's great haha. The animations are hilarious you can't help but laugh at the game. Could be fun with friends.
Sonic Forces -4.5
A lot of people will say the worst thing about this game is the souless custom character you have to make. I completely agree this part of the game is bad, but that's not the worst part. Every level is around a minute long with next to no multiple paths to take. They scraped the drifting from past games and now the game turns corners for you. You rarely have control throughout the game. Hold down the boost button until you complete the very short levels and that all you do. No super Sonic at all in the story which was odd. Now been demoted to a bum, just a bonus pre order character you can replay levels with, awful! Decent soundtrack is the best thing I can say really.
Damn, that's a lot of Sonic. How did you play Spinball/Fighters/Forces? What's next? Heroes? 2016?
Spinball on the Switch with the Nintendo online games. Fighters and Forces picked up with my Microsoft points on the Xbox (Forces is on sale I think for £17 and Fighters is like £3 anyways). Back to zero points again now though haha. Almost completed Sonic Rush adventure, and then onto the the Bioware Sonic RPG game Sonic brother hood. Just mostly the Wii U games after that. I'll try and cross them off before end of the year when Sonic frontiers drops.
So no Adventure games and Heroes are available?
Yeah, the Sonic adventures are on the store. Pretty cheap too. I'll play them way later on as I've already completed them many times and loved them. It will be a nice treat at the end of the road ( and a pick me up from all the horrible games I've just played 😂). I've grouped Sonic heros with Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06 as they aren't backwards compatible at the moment.