I think you may have missed the part where I said "regardless". It's okay. I know you have a condition.

I'm telling you why, unlike previous games, the game is mediocre offline: because it was designed to be play with others. It's also why the demo of this game is only playable online. Apparently, you can't play it with friends or family, but you can still give it a try online.

I no longer find the puzzles nonexistent or overly simplistic. I see now that having three people tackle the nonexistent puzzles will suddenly make them appear, and be interesting. Thank you for this insight.

Firewatch.

Okay. I technically didn't play it. I watched an entire stream of it today. Games like these I'd rather watch it all and enjoy the story. Did the same for The Walking Dead too.

There's a big debate if these sorta games are actually "games" or not. Personally, if it has some form of interaction, and isn't JUST holding down forward, It's a game in my books.

But anyway. The game is very interesting and has some of the best voice acting I've ever heard. The characters sound very genuine and makes them even more likable. (The boss in particular is a blast to listen to). The game is also very immersive. Even when watching a stream, I was immersed in the story and the world. The artstyle is also really nice. It reminded me a lot of TF2's.

I won't spoil anything about the story so I'll just say if walking sims are your thing, it's pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking. Just a good experience.

That “just” has a sting to it, dude. It’s definitely more than “just” good, although I could see why that might not come through so well if you’re watching in a stream instead of playing it yourself.

Better when played? Yeah I guess it would be.

I'm going to pick it up and play it when it's on sale.

I'm about halfway through Crash Bandicoot 2: Attempting my very first 100% completion of the game. Speaking of which theres an unusual amount of hype about Crash recently..

We just like him, that's all.

There's very high hopes something is going to be announced this year.

Not only is it his 20th anniversary. Sony has been teasing the shit out of it for ages.

Were the latest Crash games any good? I never played many of them, mainly just stopped at CTR with the exception of Twin Sanity which was pretty great, despite the reviews.

Twinsanity is the best "latest" Crash game. I also enjoyed Crash Tag Team Racing.

Titans and Mind Over Mutants are horrible though. They're nothing like the Crash games people liked.

Is Crash4 as mediocre as they say?

Yeah it's not great. It was rushed out for the PS2's launch.

Wrath of Cortex has stupid vehicle levels, and overall less inspired level design than the originals, but I don't rate it too much worse. That's mostly because I don't rate the first 3 games especially well. I mean they're good for the time don't get me wrong. They just control like ass. There's some good design in there for sure, and some great people working on it that shine through, but overall I was just never that excited by them.

I remember saying I didn't think Rayman 2 aged well in this thread recently, but I can still appreciate how solid and fantastic that game is, especially when it comes to controls. Don't think I just hate all PS1 platformers here because that's really not true.

In my recent hermitage I became very engrossed with Minecraft (Resonant Rise 2 Modpack). Mods, man. They completely change the game. I have a power station. And I live on the moon.

I managed to tear myself away eventually, though. I have since been playing more moderate amounts of Titan Quest and Path of Exile. They're nice counterpoints of design, one being just after Diablo II and the other just before Diablo III.

In TQ I am an archer who makes things bleed to death. In PoE I am a necromancer who sets hordes of flaming skulls on people.

The Wrath of Cortex was the last Crash game I've ever played, and I don't really remember anything from it aside from that Crunch character who was the boss of every world and I really thought he was fucking lame.

Yeah that definitely applies to Crash 1. The controls in that game were primitive to say the least. It's because it was designed for the original PS controller; which didn't have analog sticks. So it was forced into 4 directional movement. Which is quite awkward at times given it's a 3D game. You find yourself adjusting yourself before making a jump far too often.

But 2 and 3? I've gotta disagree. I think those games controls still hold up quite nicely in my opinion. Crash moves very smoothly, plus the addition of sliding gives crash a nice amount of movement too. Perhaps it's because I've played the first 3 games to death, But you get this nice flow of movement once you've mastered the controls. It's quite satisfying.

Anyway, That's the last i'll speak of Crash. I don't want this to split. :)

Crash 2 and 3's controls are amazing

I would definitely like to see more Crash.

I’ve had a real hankering for Halo recently so I booted up my 360 for the first time in forever and put in a few hours of Halo 3.

I guess the problem with Crash series is that Naughty Dog are more focused on Uncharted

Also that Activision owns the license.

what

how did it happen

The franchise has changed hands several times, and Naughty Dog hasn’t been a developer for Crash since 1999.

Actually now that I think about it I've only ever played Crash 2 and 3 on a PS2 so maybe that has something to do with it? And not very much of Crash 3. I'm hoping to get a cheap PS1 soon actually, my cousin has been trading in video-game stuff online lately. I have a copy of Crash 2 somewhere so I'll do a comparison one day.

I really don't see Naughty Dog going back to Crash. After Crash, Naughty Dog moved on to something character driven in Jak. They had animated humanoids and a huge open world to explore. With Uncharted they went towards character and narrative driven games even more. I don't really know what the Crash franchise has for the team any more, other than nostalgia. And I don't even know how much of the original team is still around.

I guess Yooka-laylee will ditermine whether there is still a market for 3D Mascot platformers. I hope so, its my favourite genre.

I just got back into evolve after a 10 month 'break'. Im still in the top 40 wraiths on the leaderboards in Oceania so thats cool.

Naughty Dog won't go back to Crash. Crash was merely a stepping stone for them to branch out into what they really wanted to do.

What's Yooka-laylee? I miss 3D platformers, they all seemed to disappear midway through the PS2 era. Also, you should check out Grow Home.

Yooka-laylee is a kickstarter game advertised as a spiritual successor to games like Banjo Kazooie.

Grow home is pretty bad.

yeah I played grow home, stopped after 30 minutes. Was really boring. I slowly grew a tree and fell off it a bunch of times and then nothing happened...

Also yooka-laylee was a successful kickstarter project from playtonic games, which is comprised of members from Rare who made the original Banjo kazooie.


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...al/description

Grow home gets a bit more interesting as you go, after it gives you some more stuff to do, but you really have to make your own fun. I wouldn't call it good, but I struggle to call it bad too. It just kind of is what it is, and works exactly like it should. Some of the challenges in getting things back to translocators are pretty tricky and fiddly - I carried the dodo just under the big doughnut area up the Star Plant one handed for a good 5 fucking minutes before he randomly slipped away. I dived after it and tried to do an Ace Rimmer in mid air, but he was gone forever :(

But yeah I can understand why people say it's boring. I got bored of it too, after like 1000 meters. I only payed a single buck if memory serves though, so it was well worth it for what I got.

There were some great moments of delight in the exploration though.

And Crashpunk I wouldn't say Naughty Dog used Crash as a stepping stone. That makes it sound like they had a plan or something. It's just a good game in their catalog of good games, and part of their journey to Uncharted, The Last of Us, and whatever's next.