GameTZ

7-Dec-03 9:25am
#1

Guru

This topic had many older posts which were moved here: https://gametz.com/V...

9-Mar-24 11:20pm
#61

PizzaTheHutt


Race The Sun {} 6/10
This is a hybrid game. It was given on PS+ 8 or 9 years ago, I remember because I recall originally playing this on PS Vita but I don't remember enjoying it very much. Since then I see they added a VR mode to the PS4 version, so I decided to give it a try. It's maybe a little cooler to play it in VR, but overall I still am not enjoying it very much. It's inspired by old arcade games, which means it is best played in short bursts, but you're basically racing through these areas and trying to last before the sun goes down. There's way better VR games to play. This felt a lot like they just flipped a switch and turned their game into VR with little effort.
-=-
Horror Adventure: Zombie Edition {} 3/10
Of all the years I've been gaming, I've played some real turds (sometimes intentionally). This ranks pretty high up there on the list of the worst games I've ever played. This reminds me of a Nintendo 64 game in VR, because not only are the graphics just awful, but there's this annoying fog that prevents you from being able to see more than 10 feet in front of you.

To start off with, I selected to play the tutorial right from the main menu. It was trash, because it would tell you to do things but not tell you which button you're supposed to press to do them. Also when I'd pause the game, the pause menu would show up behind me causing me to have to turn around to be able to see it, and re-centering via holding the Options button didn't fix it. So after quitting to the main menu so I can start the actual story mode and just figure everything out on my own, I was disappointed to see I had to play through the tutorial yet again. This time I just ran through the tutorial ignoring most of the messages and once the campaign started I knew then what kind of crap show I was really in for. The intro CGI cutscene was so low budget, there were typos, and the characters were mispronouncing words because they were voiced by some cheap AI program. I looked up a video of the PC VR version when I was done playing this. It's still a bad game on PC VR, but overall it looks lightyears ahead of this piece of crap version. Even for $1.49 this was a rip-off.

12-Mar-24 12:00am
#62

PizzaTheHutt


Farpoint {} 8/10
I wish I hadn't waited so long to play this. I'm pretty sure I've owned it for at least 4 or 5 years now, but I kept hearing how much better it is with the Aim Controller, and I just didn't want to buy one of those because Sony has a history of releasing peripherals and then not supporting them for long (Nintendo is the same freakin' way). Surprisingly the Aim Controller got more support than I expected, but I still personally wasn't sold on it and it was more of just the idea of buying a peripheral (Aim controller) that would only be compatible with certain games made for another peripheral (PSVR). That didn't stop me from buying PS Move controllers though, even though I can't use them in a non-VR game...) But anyway, finally I just dove right in using my plain ol' DualShock 4. I'm having fun with the game despite some tracking issues, but I don't doubt that the Aim controller is the superior way to play this game.

First off, graphically, this looks surprisingly good for an early PSVR game. Even more surprising is how this small dev team was able to pump this out, and it stands toe-to-toe with some of PSVR's big AAA games that were released by much bigger studios. I feel like with a little bit of tweaking, they might have been able to pitch this as something for the Aliens license. The audio is good too, I'm digging the music, and the voice acting is all done well. Even the story is good. The controls are where I'm having some trouble. Since moving in late 2022 I've pretty much always kept the PS Camera on top of my TV and have not been having too many issues with tracking in most games, but this game suggests putting the camera below the TV. I did that, and the tracking is a little better, but still gives me some trouble here and there, just not as much. I give the game props though for being able to aim down the scope of a gun. In my experience that isn't so easy to do in a lot of VR shooting games. Also, nothing to do with my enjoyment of the game itself, but a neat little feature is you can see what time it is on your character's watch. I kinda wish more VR games did that so you can see what time it is without having to open the home menu, because sometimes when you want to play a VR game but you want to stop playing at a certain time to do something or maybe a TV show coming on or whatever, it's easy to lose track of time once that VR headset is put on.

As far as the gameplay itself, it's like most typical Sci-fi first-person shooters out there. I don't know if Halo is to blame for this, or if they're just the ones that popularized it and it now became standard across every shooter, but I do kinda not like the fact you're limited to only carrying two guns at a time. I had an issue where I found a sniper rifle, I dropped my assault rifle to pick up the sniper rifle, wasn't really liking it too much and I wound up dying and when I restarted at the checkpoint I had lost my assault rifle for good and had no choice but to adapt to using the sniper rifle now. Luckily I did get the hang of it though and it has come in quite handy. Another thing Halo popularized is regenerating health. You'll need it in this game, because there are times where you are going around kicking ass, but then a big swarm of enemies appear and you're the one now getting your ass kicked. This random difficulty spike seems to happen once or twice per level, it's not that the enemies turn into bullet sponges, it's just that you become greatly outnumbered by them.

What kind of impresses me about this game is that it was the dev studio's first game. You can't really find much info about the developer either, they don't even have a Wiki page and their website's News section hasn't been updated in three years. I'd really like to see what they can cook up on PSVR2 but it might not ever happen, and that's sad. Sony published this game, I don't know any PSVR owners who didn't like it, so why isn't Sony throwing more money at this dev team for a sequel?

12-Mar-24 11:13am
#63

DCGX


'Farpoint' is excellent! I wish we were seeing more games like this from Sony (or any games at this point) for PSVR2. Considering Sony just closed their London studio, it almost feels like they've thrown in the towel on PSVR2 already. Shame.

12-Mar-24 6:09pm
#64

DrizzDrizzDrizz


I bought Aim controller just for Farpoint and it was so worth it

12-Mar-24 9:34pm
#65

Anxiouz


Farpoint with the aim controller was great. I got stuck at one of the bosses mid-way through the game though for a loooong time. Eventually got past it but that bummed out my experience quite a bit. Everything before and after seemed to go pretty smoothly and was enjoyable.

12-Mar-24 10:12pm
#66

PizzaTheHutt


DCGX wrote:
'Farpoint' is excellent! I wish we were seeing more games like this from Sony (or any games at this point) for PSVR2. Considering Sony just closed their London studio, it almost feels like they've thrown in the towel on PSVR2 already. Shame.

Yeah, everyone was asking why the PSVR2 wasn't compatible with PC, and now that it will be later this year I don't know how to interpret that. Was this something they were planning from day one, or do they want to use this as a way to just want to wash their hands of VR now? I mean, we're 3½ months into the year and they have no 1st party games to show, that's not a good look. We know there's a Astro Bot game coming possibly later this year, but we're only left hoping that it's for VR, that part has yet to be confirmed. Some people expect it'll be a hybrid game, but what made the first Astro Bot so good was that it was built for VR and that experience wouldn't have been anywhere near as good if played flat.

I've only had my PSVR2 since early January, and I've had fun with it and don't regret my purchase yet, but by the end of this year they need to convince me I didn't make a mistake buying one over a Quest 3.

13-Mar-24 6:10am
#67

DrizzDrizzDrizz


Anxiouz wrote:
Farpoint with the aim controller was great. I got stuck at one of the bosses mid-way through the game though for a loooong time. Eventually got past it but that bummed out my experience quite a bit. Everything before and after seemed to go pretty smoothly and was enjoyable.
I got stuck for a while against that huge spider thing but eventually prevailed

13-Mar-24 11:07am
#68

DCGX


PizzaTheHutt wrote:
DCGX wrote:> 'Farpoint' is excellent! I wish we were seeing more games like this from Sony (or> any games at this point) for PSVR2. Considering Sony just closed their London studio,> it almost feels like they've thrown in the towel on PSVR2 already. Shame. Yeah, everyone was asking why the PSVR2 wasn't compatible with PC, and now that it will be later this year I don't know how to interpret that. Was this something they were planning from day one, or do they want to use this as a way to just want to wash their hands of VR now? I mean, we're 3½ months into the year and they have no 1st party games to show, that's not a good look. We know there's a Astro Bot game coming possibly later this year, but we're only left hoping that it's for VR, that part has yet to be confirmed. Some people expect it'll be a hybrid game, but what made the first Astro Bot so good was that it was built for VR and that experience wouldn't have been anywhere near as good if played flat. I've only had my PSVR2 since early January, and I've had fun with it and don't regret my purchase yet, but by the end of this year they need to convince me I didn't make a mistake buying one over a Quest 3.
I don't know. I could see them testing behind the scenes the whole time, and I can seem them making a desperate move. PSVR2 is definitely one of the best headset. I'd still choose it over Quest 3, because that already looks dated (and I don't like Meta), but especially if it gets PC support. I do think it's extremely odd Sony themselves haven't released a game since launch. I don't get it. An exclusive 'Astro Bot' game may reignite interest.

13-Mar-24 9:26pm
#69

PizzaTheHutt


Resistance: Retribution {} via {} 7/10

I miss the Resistance series. The first game I felt was good but not great, a good starting point for the franchise by 2006 standards though. But Resistance 2 and Resistance 3 were so much better. Resistance: Burning Skies on the PS Vita was...better left forgotten about, but now playing this game for the first time, I am impressed knowing that they managed to pull this off on a PSP, even seeing it for the first time 15 years later. The controls feel a bit clunky, but I can only imagine how they were on an actual PSP without the second analog stick (or nub). And I do question their decision to open a game on a handheld system with an 8 minute cutscene.

But I've put a couple hours into this and that's all I wanted to do, I didn't plan on actually finishing it, I just wanted to see how it was and to see how well it aged, and I am pleased with it. I remember reading back in the day that the game had a fun online mode, but that's no longer an option here unfortunately.

13-Mar-24 10:54pm
#70

kevolones


Been playing Sifu and its amazing. I can see myself replaying this easily.

14-Mar-24 9:07pm
#71

Heavyd814life


Persona 3 Reload - 10/10

They took the blueprint of the original game and added a ton of new wrinkles and many QOL improvements I didn't even know I wanted. The end result is what feels like the true definitive edition of what I consider the best JRPG of all time. This is either my 5th or 6th time beating P3 - I've honestly lost count at this point - and it completely consumes every time. The grind of Tartarus, the social sim, the incredibly strong characters and story...it's 100+ hours of JRPG bliss that I never ever want to end. I've either stayed up way too late or gotten up way too early over the past 3-4 weeks to try to fit as much of it into my schedule as possible. I don't think my girlfriend will let me touch my PS5 for at least a couple of weeks but it was sooo worth it! Oddly enough this was my first time completely maxing out entire party in any Persona game. Got everyone up to level 99 and I think that's because Atlus absolutely nailed the gameplay loop. The combat improvements and the way Tartarus has been upgraded and balanced so it's both challenging and rewarding made me just want to keep grinding and grinding. I really milked the final month of the game because I just didn't want it to end. The tweaks made to the music, the presentation, and the story in the final month of the game are pretty damn perfect. Honestly can't say enough about the job Atlus did with this remake.

But as much as I want to gush over this game, I still can't believe Atlus is charging extra for The Answer. I guess that's just the way they roll these days so no point complaining about it. I'm sure they'll release a "complete" version at some point - maybe when the Switch 2 launches - so I'll probably end up just waiting for that.

14-Mar-24 9:25pm
#72

TalonJedi87


Yeah I’m waiting for the COMPLETE edition before I dive into P3 Reload. I’m riding high off P4 Golden now so I’m good waiting a bit to play P3. Still can’t see how it’ll top P5 for me though but it’s welcome to give it the ol’ college try. P5 was just breathtaking in every sense for me.

14-Mar-24 10:04pm
#73

Feeb


I prefer P3 characters, story and the grindy dungeon crawl. Reload just reinforced all the reasons it was my favorite.

15-Mar-24 8:50am
#74

loztdogs


Prince of Persia lost crown - 7/10 / portal

Meh… as others have mentioned, would have preferred a traditional Prince of Persia rather than this Metroidvania style. While the platforming is solid it does begin to wear thin about halfway through. It feels like a mobile game to me. I think it’s the art style Ubisoft chose. Not a fan. I don’t particularly care for Ubisoft games in general these days so I’m probably a bit biased. Im not gonna finish it. The story is not compelling enough to me to grind through the rest. The rpg elements (if you can call it that) are boring. In order to get the good upgrades you have to do a fair amount of exploring and It’s just not engaging enough to continue. For what it’s worth I didn’t like Fenyx Rising either.

16-Mar-24 7:23pm
#75

PizzaTheHutt


Sonic Superstars {} 7/10
Oh Sonic, you blue, old, crusty sonofagun. How do you manage to remain relevant in today's gaming world when the quality of your games has been so inconsistent and for so long?
It was nice of Sega to return to the series roots. Just plain ol' 2D, no voice acting (that's when the series started to go downhill to me personally, the first time Sonic opened his mouth on Dreamcast).

I feel like I say this in every Sonic game review, but I was never big into this series as a kid. I've enjoyed some of the games, but definitely didn't enjoy them as much as other kids at school seemed to. But with this having a co-op mode, and the fact it dropped down to $20 only a few months after launch, I felt I had to get it just for the co-op aspect alone, so that's what this review is based on because I don't want to play it solo.

Lemme tell ya, this game's co-op mode is nothing more than a freaking afterthought. Like, no part of this feels like it was designed with co-op in mind. It was first and foremost a single player game and somewhere down the line one of the devs say "I bet this could be fun if we let all 4 characters be on-screen at once", and they did it because it seemed to have worked for the New Super Mario Bros. series. But it's not always fun here. If you zoom too far ahead of your partner(s), they will despawn and have to respawn where the player furthest ahead is. I wish the game was playable in split-screen just to avoid that, because it's gotta make the other player(s) feel like they're not contributing much or they're just being carried through the game by the more experienced player. There's way too many bonus mini-games in the early levels too. After the first hour or so I found myself actually trying to avoid them when possible.

The game itself overall is not too difficult until you get to the final boss fight, and oh boy, don't even get me started on that son of a dog. It is so frustrating, my friend and I spent 2 hours unable to beat him until we finally just gave up for the night. We'll try again tomorrow evening, but neither of us were having fun with that boss fight after 20 minutes of failed attempts, so I'll be damned if I'm going to spend another 2 hours on it, and I took a point off the score just for that alone. Everything else about the game though, the graphics, controls, music, it's all pretty damn good. If they had just toned down that boss fight and maybe put more thought into the co-op, this could've been my all-time favorite Sonic game. There's a chance it still might be, I'll have to think about it after beating that boss.

Also there's an online battle mode. I only played a little of it, I didn't feel it was very fun, and I don't know why that mode has online support but the co-op doesn't.

17-Mar-24 6:29pm
#76

bill


Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Overall a good game that I enjoyed playing for months.

Probably too big - though I did all the shrines (my favorite), got all the sages, defeated Ganondorf; I skipped many side quests (most seemed kind of dumb and tedious to be honest -- glad they were optional). Also, The Depths were meh, hard to get around in, sparse content, and weak rewards. I covered less than 25% of the Depths.

I was worried the Zonai building would be annoying, but I generally liked it. I also liked the shrine quests where you had to bring the crystal to the shrine with a beam of light.

Overall, TotK seemed easier than BotW. Initially, I struggled with combat (would get one-shotted), but I think once I got my armor upgraded, I just button-mashed through it all easily. The dungeons also were not hard. The game is more long than hard. It was hard to stay focused on playing for weeks. I'm pretty tired of playing at this point. But, I don't regret it.

17-Mar-24 7:12pm
#77

TalonJedi87


Yeah that’s my gripe with today’s big named games. They’re mostly bloated and overwhelming. I just got TOTK too and I’m dreading playing it cause once I do I’m probably not gonna finish it for a good half a year or more. Even now I’m playing Jedi Survivor and I’m almost 35 hours in and feel like I still have a long way to go before I finish it. I miss the days of 15-20 hour max games. They’re a lost art.

19-Mar-24 5:02pm
#78

PizzaTheHutt


Concrete Genie {} 7/10
I wish I hadn't slept on this game for so long. When this was first announced I was hyped because I feel like Sony gave the impression that it was a VR game. But then my interest faded when I learned that it only contained an optional "VR Experience" mode and the actual game itself wasn't playable in VR at all. Well that optional VR mode is hardly worth busting out the VR headset for unless you desperately want to unlock 3 extra trophies (if you don't have PSVR those trophies are just optional and will not prevent you from getting the platinum if you care about that). The VR thing lasts around 15-20 minutes, and I admit it's pretty neat, I just wish there was more to it.

That little disappointment aside, I think the actual game itself is quite good. The graphics especially were nicer than I was expecting. I mean, I don't really know what I was expecting, because I don't know what kind of budget went into this, but regardless it looks nice in 4K even though there are some noticeable frame-rate dips here and there, but not enough of them to make me scale it down to 1080p. The controls work well too, and I like that it supports gyro (relax, it's optional).

Drawing/painting the Genies and having them come to life is pretty cool. I don't know if Warren Spector would agree, but I feel like there's a part of this game that I was expecting from Epic Mickey back in the day, but was executed a little better here.

The game seems to be on the short side, so I don't remember if they charged $60 for this at launch, but if they did, it wouldn't have been worth that and if that's what they released it at and this game bombed, that could be why.

20-Mar-24 12:55am
#79

PizzaTheHutt


Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs {2} 7/10

There's only one way to get me to play Angry freakin' Birds in 2024, and that's if you add VR to it. And add VR to it they did. It has been about 12 years since I've last played an Angry Birds game on my old tablet. I remember playing it quite a bit...for like a month, and then I got so tired of it that I never went back. While it is entirely possible that could happen here too, I've been enjoying this while it lasts. I won't be playing it as often as I did on my tablet back in the day, but that's not because of the quality of the game, it's more to do with the hassle of always having to bust out the VR headset whenever I feel like playing.

So...it's Angry Birds. You knock crap down using birds, some with special abilities. Not much has changed other than it being in VR now, so you likely already know what to expect from it and whether or not you'd like it. The graphics are nice and colorful, though still look pretty basic overall. Some of the music is catchy, but honestly most of the time I felt like I barely noticed any bgm while I'm trying to think of what move to make next. Controls for the most part are fine, but there were some rare times where the slingshot I was holding seemed to not be moving in the way it should've been. But it wasn't happening often, so it did not affect my overall enjoyment.

I'm enjoying the game, but I wish there was more to it. At least in the beginning it does what any good puzzle game should do, and that's make you want to replay levels over and over again to try and get a 3 star rating if you didn't the first time. If it wasn't for that, I'd say it would be entirely possible to just breeze through the game within two or three days. However I've now reached the point where I'll just be content with 1 or 2 stars and am ready to just get through the game, which I'll probably be finished with within the next couple of hours.

Another aspect where the game offers replay value is that you can create and share custom made levels, and I believe the levels are pooled together between PlayStation VR and Quest users. I have zero interest in making my own levels, but I like that it's there. I went browsing through the community uploads and there is still stuff being uploaded by the community, but I don't know how often people are playing them. For example, I sorted by upload date and there were levels uploaded from a few hours ago up until 3 days ago that nobody had played before me. But then there are other uploaded levels with over a million plays and even more with tens of thousands of plays. Unfortunately there is a lot of junk levels too, like, there were too damn many where the level starts and you begin looking around trying to assess the situation and figure out the best way to tackle the stage, but then something triggers an explosion and before you know it the level has completed itself without you even doing anything. I chalk that up to children just experimenting with the physics rather than caring about making a fun level. Just use the filter to sort by the highest rated levels and you'll be fine, because there are some good ones worth playing once you've finished the main ones in the campaign, because the campaign just by itself won't last you very long. I think I paid $10 for this on sale and I feel like I got my money's worth out of it.

23-Mar-24 1:32pm
#80

loztdogs


Injustice 2 legendary edition - 7/10 - via portal

Knocked this one out from the back log. I enjoyed the cinematics. I went with Batman ending; kinda cheesy. Head and shoulders above the first game. It gets a little redundant in the later levels. Lots of unlockable goodness.

23-Mar-24 7:22pm
#81

PizzaTheHutt


KarmaZoo {} 8/10
This is a pretty cool little 2D platformer that is based entirely on co-op. You play with 10 random players online or setup a private lobby for friends only (I wish you could mix and match friends and randoms but the last time I played it wasn't possible) and the goal is to help each other. Sometimes that includes dying on purpose, for example jumping into a floor of spikes so when you die it leaves behind a little tombstone that your teammates can use to jump across safely. There are a bunch of characters to play as and each has their own unique ability. If you try running off to do your own thing (like I am sometimes guilty of in co-op games) you will be punished for it if you go too far away from the rest of the team. I don't know how many levels there are in total or if there are an infinite amount and are just randomly generated (because a bunch do look similar) but you basically just have to survive a loop that is 4 levels long and keep repeating to rack up karma points to spend on unlockables.

This has cross-platform multiplayer which is great, I'm playing on PS5 and my friend prefers Switch so I bought it for her on there. It's only $10 (but free on PS+ Extra) so if you're a sucker for co-op games like me, you should consider giving this one a chance.
-=-

Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas {} 6/10
I bought this back in 2018 and finally started it. I've only put around 3 hours into it, so this is more like a first impression.
I know this game got a lot of praise back in 2013 for being a pretty decent Zelda clone for mobile devices, probably the closest you could get to Zelda on your phone or tablet at the time without installing an emulator and playing an actual Zelda game that way. However, when you port the game to consoles where there is no shortage of good Zelda clones, especially a Nintendo console that gives you access to legit Zelda games, expectations are going to be a little different. So far the puzzles are pretty basic stuff, like pushing blocks. And pushing is all you do, you can't pull them. Of course early on you get bombs so you can blow your way through hidden walls. The gameplay itself is like a mix between 2D and 3D Zeldas. I've read they went full 3D in the sequel, but in this one you don't get control over the camera. You sail a ship around to different islands like Wind Waker, but I've only gotten to visit 3 or 4 so far and haven't gotten to do everything there is to do on them. Anyway, I don't expect it to be a long game, but the minute I start feeling bored of it, I'm moving on to something else.