My recently completed Games

I used to do a post about what Games I had completed that month, some months I would just have finished a short indy game, sometimes I would have finished a full sized game and heck sometimes I would have finished a handful but then I found there were a few months when I didn't finish anything new at all. In some cases I had spent my time playing games that didn't actually have an end, or I had played and finished a game I had already finished so didn't have a lot to talk about (I finished Xcom on every system it was released for I loved it that much for example) and in some cases I just didn't finish anything. So am I brining this type of post back well the answer to that is a little complex, I am going to talk about a few things I have finished in the last month or two right now, but I have no solid plans to make this a regular feature, I just know that some months I watch a lot more films or I spend my time in other ways so I guess I intend to do this kind of thing whenever there are enough games I have completed that I want to talk about.

So what have I completed in the last 2 months, well I finished Halo 5, the first chapter of the Walking Dead Michone (on Xbox One), Steam World Dig (on 3DS), Pokemon Sun (on 3DS) and Angry Birds Star Wars 2 (on my windows phone). So already its a bit of a strange mix of games.

So I am going to talk about why I played these games, what drove me to finish them and what I think of them. Well I guess I will start with Angry Birds Star Wars 2. I think most people will have played some form of Angry Birds and the truth is whether it is the original or one of the Star Wars ones they are basically the same game. Its lots of little levels that you can finish in under a minute but yet the fact there is the chance to improve your score in each level sees you playing them more times than you probably realise you have. They have that quality where you always feel you could have made a better move and that if you have just one more go then you will do better. I know some people don't tend to consider mobile phone games like this really games they will say that they are simply time killers and yes I do agree there is some truth to this, I have mostly played this game while on buses or while I simply have a minute or too to kill but it is really nice to have something that doesn't need dedicated hours and hours of investment, something that you always have with you and can pick up or drop at a moments notice. Yes you can get simple time killing games on handheld consoles but there is the cost factor to consider. Mobile phone games frequently are either free or extremely cheap. I enjoyed this game so much that I ended up downloading regular old Angry Birds and Angry Birds Star Wars (the 1^st one). I suppose I wanted to mention this as I wanted to make it clear that I am not snobbish about what counts as a game and if someone is a gamer or not. If you play Video Games on any platform be it Computer, Console, Tablet or Phone you are a gamer, if its an interactive form of entertainment something that requires the viewer to interact with it in one way or another then its a form of game.

I had began playing Halo 5 about a year before but had not really got that far into it, I guess I partly completed it as I noticed it was sat there filling up a massive 90gigs on my Xbox One hard drive and I wanted to install new things so I thought hey if I finish this I can delete it and clear up some space. I thought it was a pretty good game but it just didn't grab me, I tend to play Halo games like I play COD games a level at a time bit by bit. I really didn't seem to enjoy this Halo as much as some of the ones in the past, I think only two things really made me push to the end to finish it one was Nathan Fillion's character Buck, listening to his comments while playing really helps to liven up the dull bits, the other was the fact I had completed every game in the Halo series before this and I didn't want this to be the one that beat me whether it was from difficulty or disinterest. The fact that Master Chief (John 117) is not that interesting a character, the fact he is a bit of a blank slate doesn't help, it also doesn't help that the Halo series seems to feel very dragged out at times, with games seeming to present a story and then you reaching the end of one game for it to just kind of let things end in the middle of the story with no real satisfying conclusion. Yes I know that you do get multi part stories in both the world of games and films but there is a way to do it where an individual film or game feels like both a complete story and a part of a larger story and the story in Halo 5 just doesn't feel like this it feels like it should be called Halo 5 Part 1. Will I play Halo 6? I don't know I guess probably, in the hope that it is better but I certainly am not champing at the bit desperate for it.

Now Steam World Dig on the 3DS was something I enjoyed every single moment of. I had played it before but I had never finished it, it was on sale for something like £1.49 on the 3DS so I grabbed it, something I didnt realise was quiet how story driven it was. Its not a long game it took me about 5 and a half hours to finish it, I was kind of surprised it was as short as it is, it didn't particular feel like I was getting near to the end of it, I just suddenly found myself at the end of game boss and then it was done, I actually beat the boss on my second attempt and I hadn't upgraded my character as much as you can do. Steam World Dig has one of those sort of styles of play you see in Metroid and Castlevania games where your constantly finding and earning upgrades which will give you skills you didn't have before allowing you to access areas you previously couldn't. It might not be a long game but it is an absolute gem of a game and I think even at its full price it is a very worthy purchase, I certainly enjoyed it a million times more than I enjoyed Halo 5. I guess Halo 5 has more post game value what with the multiplayer but I don't really like playing many games online really especially not first person shooters as they just tend to be populated by screaming dick holes who ruin the fun for normal people.

So as for the first chapter of the Walking Dead Michone what can I say? Well the TellTale Walking Dead Games are award winning games and rightly so, they are excellent little slices of entertainment which always treat there source material with a lot of respect, if you have enjoyed other TellTale walking Dead games then you are bound to like this one but it doesn't actually bring anything new to the table, basically if your a big Walking Dead fan be it a fan of the comics, the show or the other games and you want more Walking Dead then you will like this. If you havent played one of the Walking Dead games and you are wondering if you would enjoy this well then basically all you need to ask yourself is do you like Horror, and Zombies and do you like point and click style games where you get to make decisions and then see the outcome of your choices unfold? If so then give this a bash it is a great little slice of entertainment. I do think though that if you have played a lot of them then the TellTale style of game is starting to get a little old and maybe something needs doing to freshen them up a little, I have played all of Walking Dead Season 1 and 2, The Wolf Among Us, Back to the Future and little bits of other ones and I am just starting to feel like I am a little worn out when it comes to this type of game, I purchased Michone episode 1, 2 and 3 in a bundle but I don't honestly feel like I am going to rush into starting the next one, I feel like I need a big long breather and to play some different sort of things, I wont be rushing to get the next Walking Dead that's for certain.

I am probably a little bit late to the table giving an opinion on the whole Pokemon Sun and Moon thing in honesty. I think if someone wants it they will probably already have it and will also probably have already completed it but it is worth talking about at least briefly. Now I was a bit taken back when I was told that there would not be any gyms in this game and in honesty I do miss them, but they have been replaced with Island Trials which tend to work a little differently, they are based on fighting wild Pokemon instead of going against a gym leader and it does tend to give the game a different kind of feel. I still think I prefer the old gym set up but its good to see that Nintendo are not afraid to try something new with an old favourite and I applaud them for it. I think the game provides a good solid story and I like the fact that the location it is set in is quiet different from the games before it but at the end of the day it still feels like your usual Pokemon game, its a good 35ish hour slice of light RPG fun and unlike some other games I have mentioned I couldn't put it down until I had seen the end. I didn't however care that much about after game stuff, it just didn't really make me feel the need or desire to complete my pokedex and grab every kind of monster you can get, I enjoyed it but I was happy to see it end and felt no need to try and extend my experience. I have in the past invested some crazy hours into Pokemon titles with dex filling and breading and making sure that I have completed every possible task in the game.

If I was going to reward one of these games and single it out as being the best of the games I have recently completed then I think it would be Steam World Dig, but maybe a lot of this is to due with over saturation when it comes to certain themes or genre's of game as much as it is to do with overall quality.