P&B Ranks: The Top 42 Video Games of All-Time

[Stellaboz]

Andromeda can GTF. Lovely gameplay but the absolute lack of any decent characters or story make it totally soulless. 

The original trilogy cast were all so unique and memorable. There are literally no memorable characters from Andromeda. The one that they tried to make sound different showed none of the qualities that they tried to sell. I don't even remember anyone's name. Get it in the fucking bin.

[NotThePars]

3 hours ago, Stellaboz said:

Andromeda can GTF. Lovely gameplay but the absolute lack of any decent characters or story make it totally soulless. 

The original trilogy cast were all so unique and memorable. There are literally no memorable characters from Andromeda. The one that they tried to make sound different showed none of the qualities that they tried to sell. I don't even remember anyone's name. Get it in the fucking bin.

The concept was fine though and the way the original trilogy ends should've precluded any sort of follow up in the Milky Way. They built a good justification for continuing elsewhere and should've tried to fix what they started. There were plenty of threads that could've been salvaged from the first game.

[Stellaboz]

Just now, NotThePars said:

The concept was fine though and the way the original trilogy ends should've precluded any sort of follow up in the Milky Way. They built a good justification for continuing elsewhere and should've tried to fix what they started. There were plenty of threads that could've been salvaged from the first game.

Definitely. Shame they utterly ruined it.

[BFTD]

Yeah, Andromeda was fun to play, but the story and characters were forgettable. I did appreciate that it felt like an attempt to improve the first game's mechanics, but the writing was poor (and, as became obvious, rushed).

The 'rejecting the options' option wasn't available when I played #3, and I've never seen the extended ending. I'm sure it's lovely, but no amount of delicious icing can hide the taste of turd. I guess you could say I chose the rejection option on my second playthrough, when I chose not to finish.

[NotThePars]

16 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Yeah, Andromeda was fun to play, but the story and characters were forgettable. I did appreciate that it felt like an attempt to improve the first game's mechanics, but the writing was poor (and, as became obvious, rushed).

The 'rejecting the options' option wasn't available when I played #3, and I've never seen the extended ending. I'm sure it's lovely, but no amount of delicious icing can hide the taste of turd. I guess you could say I chose the rejection option on my second playthrough, when I chose not to finish.

This is a conversation also carrying on from the movie tropes thread but there's an arms race between internet pedants and big creators which is hampering storytelling. I don't see why it's an issue if story details leak but people are obsessed with being spoiled or predictability in plot that developers will make wholesale mental changes to finished stories which leave people with a much worse final product or introduce just baffling plot elements to try and capture that Game of Thrones sense of unpredictability. It's fine if people know what's happening as long as it's told well.

I'm not the biggest fan of The Last of Us 2 but could you imagine if Naughty Dog had tried to write out Abby for instance because of that initial visceral reaction when the story details leaked online?

[BFTD]

12 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

This is a conversation also carrying on from the movie tropes thread but there's an arms race between internet pedants and big creators which is hampering storytelling. I don't see why it's an issue if story details leak but people are obsessed with being spoiled or predictability in plot that developers will make wholesale mental changes to finished stories which leave people with a much worse final product or introduce just baffling plot elements to try and capture that Game of Thrones sense of unpredictability. It's fine if people know what's happening as long as it's told well.

I'm not the biggest fan of The Last of Us 2 but could you imagine if Naughty Dog had tried to write out Abby for instance because of that initial visceral reaction when the story details leaked online?

I presume the folk with the money get worried that people will hear the plot and not bother paying as a result. Maybe true in some cases, but it doesn't seem to have hindered Godzilla v Kong after the internet worked out that the real villain was <REDACTED>. Nor The Hateful Eight after the whole script was leaked online. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples.

Nobody's forcing anyone to track this stuff down and read it, so you can only blame yourself if you do. I read a virtually flawless (and very detailed) synopsis of Revenge of the Sith not long after Attack of the Clones came out, but I still went to see the damned thing and didn't whine about knowing what was going to happen. I whined about being stupid enough to go in the first place, but that's a different matter.

Edit: a good rule of thumb is to avoid reading anything about any entertainment you're looking forward to. Absolutely leaving yourself open to discovering that Snape killed Gandalf.

Edited April 12, 2021 by BFTD

[54_and_counting]

On 10/04/2021 at 13:49, GAD said:

Yeah, I picked Xcom as well. I love all the new ones, but went for unknown as it was the first one I played, and I still play now. There is such a fine line between getting everything right and breezing through a mission where the baddies can barely get a shot off, to making a complete c**t of it and getting wiped out. I've tried to get into games that claim to be similar, but none have ever clicked with me like the Xcom ones do.

Aye, thats the best and worst part of it, obviously RNG plays a big role but at times you don't feel its that, you feel that its you that's made the mistake, 

Breezing through a downed alien craft mission (i play xcom 2) without losing anyone and you feel like a god, then an escort mission pops up, and one of they stupid enemies that can de ammo your weapons with a cloud thing that blows up, hits your whole squad as you accidentally walked into his line of sight with your last guys last move lol

[Fuctifano]

On 10/03/2021 at 00:09, NotThePars said:

I voted for DIsco Elysium. It is very wordy which would be a problem if the writing wasn't so good and incredibly funny. I've still got nowhere near to the bottom of just all the ways the player character has fucked his life up before the events of DE start. Also Kim Katsuragi is some boi. Maybe the only good cop.

Feel like it's due out this month or something but idk where I got that from. The Final Cut as well so more missions and that.

 

I'm now well into this on PS4. Unusually for a game in which I've sunk a good few hours I'm already looking forward to replaying it and using different answers and thoughts in the cabinet, I get the feeling there are a reasonable amount of potential endings. I know for a fact I've already locked myself out of choices with 2 characters (I'm on day 6).

It is superbly written and as you say very funny as well, I found myself at one point yesterday going "is that a fucking Scooter lyric?". I'm fine with the amount of text as I'm a very fast reader but I can see how it could be overwhelming and a bit slow if you're taking a bit more time.

My nitpicks on it would be (some of these may be PS4 specific):

- lots of invisible walls particularly in the coast area which isn't great

- the load time between screens is very long for a game that isn't super hi-res, which is really frustrating when you accidentally go out of a building and then have to go straight back in or vice versa, you're close to 2 minutes real time wasted.

- it's cool that each place has its own little music theme but the trumpet fanfare every time you step out of the Whirling-in-Rags is now embedded in my brain.

-the map could be better especially on level of detail on west side of the bridge, it has been fixed a bit in the 1.03 patch in terms of letting you know where tasks are located.

Still a definite 9/10 though.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Fuctifano

[Miguel Sanchez]

3 hours ago, Fuctifano said:

I'm now well into this on PS4. Unusually for a game in which I've sunk a good few hours I'm already looking forward to replaying it and using different answers and thoughts in the cabinet, I get the feeling there are a reasonable amount of potential endings. I know for a fact I've already locked myself out of choices with 2 characters (I'm on day 6).

It is superbly written and as you say very funny as well, I found myself at one point yesterday going "is that a fucking Scooter lyric?". I'm fine with the amount of text as I'm a very fast reader but I can see how it could be overwhelming and a bit slow if you're taking a bit more time.

My nitpicks on it would be (some of these may be PS4 specific):

- lots of invisible walls particularly in the coast area which isn't great

- the load time between screens is very long for a game that isn't super hi-res, which is really frustrating when you accidentally go out of a building and then have to go straight back in or vice versa, you're close to 2 minutes real time wasted.

- it's cool that each place has its own little music theme but the trumpet fanfare every time you step out of the Whirling-in-Rags is now embedded in my brain.

-the map could be better especially on level of detail on west side of the bridge, it has been fixed a bit in the 1.03 patch in terms of letting you know where tasks are located.

Still a definite 9/10 though.

I know there are some problems with the trophies on PS4, it'll probably be getting an update sooner rather than later.

[NotThePars]

9 minutes ago, Fuctifano said:

I'm now well into this on PS4. Unusually for a game in which I've sunk a good few hours I'm already looking forward to replaying it and using different answers and thoughts in the cabinet, I get the feeling there are a reasonable amount of potential endings. I know for a fact I've already locked myself out of choices with 2 characters (I'm on day 6).

It is superbly written and as you say very funny as well, I found myself at one point yesterday going "is that a fucking Scooter lyric?". I'm fine with the amount of text as I'm a very fast reader but I can see how it could be overwhelming and a bit slow if you're taking a bit more time.

My nitpicks on it would be (some of these may be PS4 specific):

- lots of invisible walls particularly in the coast area which isn't great

- the load time between screens is very long for a game that isn't super hi-res, which is really frustrating when you accidentally go out of a building and then have to go straight back in or vice versa, you're close to 2 minutes real time wasted.

- it's cool that each place has its own little music theme but the trumpet fanfare every time you step out of the Whirling-in-Rags is now embedded in my brain.

-the map could be better especially on level of detail on west side of the bridge, it has been fixed a bit in the 1.03 patch in terms of letting you know where tasks are located.

Still a definite 9/10 though.

There have been enormous bugs on the PS5 version as well to the point that two significant items were locked behind objects that were unable to be interacted with. Luckily the more important one was resolved w/ patch 1.2 that came out as I came to it. A bigger problem was the final scene kept fading to black for me and locked in an audio loop which meant credits wouldn't roll despite 5 attempts at replaying the (long) final confrontation. Luckily Patch 1.3 just fixed and 1.4 launched today which is class given that's three patches in a week. Should hopefully be all fixed now.

That's the only major gripe I have with what is an extraordinary game. The other complaint is that dice roll checks should have an upper success rate where you can't lose (say 85-90%). 

What a game. I've probably alluded to it a few times but I love games which reward attention to detail and focus on branching paths and multiple ways to approach quests and this might be far and away the best game at doing it. There's so many ways to approach nearly every encounter and the number of ways to approach the main mystery, the order in which you do things and how you advance the plot is extraordinary. What's more extraordinary is how often the game will try and react to the manner, order, and decisions you take in advancing the various plots. It's not perfect and there's dialogue and elements of missions which act on the assumption you've done stuff when you haven't but they felt like outliers rather than the norm.

The writing is tremendous as well. It's got its own views without being didactic which maybe makes it more effective. I don't think I've seen a greater parody of neoliberalism for example than the Sunday Friend. The heart in the game is great as well. It's not just Kim who's an amazing partner with a ton of depth that I didn't get close to fleshing out but side quests like the Working Class Woman which was a gut-wrencher and Plaisance's daughter and getting her to go back to school. That's before I even get to the cryptid couple and how that quest pans out. I was nearly cheering when I hit the resolution to that story.

Even the folk who're outwardly grating or adversarial like the Hardie Boys I grew to really like. Even Edgar Claire who's ostensibly the stereotypical union boss: fat, corrupt and an arrogant pain in the arse has a lot of depth and it's understandable what his objectives are and possible to empathise with.

Now the issues are largely resolved I'm gonna dive back in and try some of the specific political play throughs or maybe go tonto with the booze or drugs. I played it teetotal and relatively left wing and did well enough apart from absolutely fucking the mid-game confrontation. That meant I had to take Cuno with me to the final section which was hilarious and a good resolution to his story. He's another terrific character. Too unpredictable for me to figure out a lot of the hidden dialogue checks most of the time. When he launches into this mad defence of you though... Unreal. 

 

(He really doesn't care)

[Miguel Sanchez]

The next two are The Last of Us 2 and God of War (2018), I forgot to post them earlier and I'm too annoyed at other video games to do them properly, they'll go up tomorrow.

[Ludo*1]

On 09/04/2021 at 23:16, BFTD said:

X-COM: Enemy Unknown was one of mine, and is just utterly superb. One of those games you can play time and again, with a dizzying array of difficulty modes and gameplay options if (IIRC) you have the excellent Enemy Within add-on. It's always available somewhere for a couple of quid as a complete pack with all the DLC, and I really can't overstate what an incredible bargain that is.

X-COM 2 is terrific as well, if you enjoyed the first game, and also has an excellent expansion called War of the Chosen, which takes the bizarre step of cutting out some of the major missions from the original version of the game, the events of which are still referred to during the campaign. Bit of a shame, but both versions of the story are well worth playing through.

Absolute double-hard b*****ds on the higher difficulties, though. Don't feel bad about starting off on Easy; I still get my arse handed to me on Veteran.

 

On 10/04/2021 at 13:49, GAD said:

Yeah, I picked Xcom as well. I love all the new ones, but went for unknown as it was the first one I played, and I still play now. There is such a fine line between getting everything right and breezing through a mission where the baddies can barely get a shot off, to making a complete c**t of it and getting wiped out. I've tried to get into games that claim to be similar, but none have ever clicked with me like the Xcom ones do.

 

On 09/04/2021 at 16:46, Miguel Sanchez said:

IN 30TH PLACE, WITH 14 POINTS FROM 2 VOTES

Game: XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Platform: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Release date: 9th October 2012
Gameplay: 

 

Zero Punctuation review:

 

User comments: "Probably the most modern game I've fell in love with. Just brilliant, turn based fun."

Poll-maker comments: Back in the day when PlayStation Plus first became a thing I downloaded everything that was offered for free, usually without knowing what the game was or what you did in it. I played at least a dozen AAA games at once and didn't follow through on any of them at the time. About a year later I properly discovered trophies and became a more dedicated completionist. As a result I went back to a lot of games I wouldn't have touched otherwise.

XCOM wasn't one of these. In fact looking at my profile it seems I didn't go back to it until late 2017, and I remember I didn't finish a full campaign either. I also know that there are several difficulty levels beyond the easiest option I was playing on, and even then I was pretty much useless. That said, I can still remember the thrill of playing this and getting off successful shots to finish missions. Regardless of whether you've played a turn-based game like this or not I think it's a very easy format to become invested in. There's the mechanical thrill of completing missions and making progress with your research for better equipment and weapons, and there's an emotional bond too with your assorted units who you hire, train up and send into battle against aliens, watching them improve with each successful campaign. It's hard to create well-rounded characters that an audience can empathise with and care about, it's a mark of how mechanically effective the game is that XCOM manages that with randomly generated avatars.

One of you didn't because I also voted for it and I had the 'user comment'.

[BFTD]

31 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

One of you didn't because I also voted for it and I had the 'user comment'.

Just checked, and it was my #3.

I'd put up the full list, but two of mine are still to come  

[GAD]

7 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

 

 

One of you didn't because I also voted for it and I had the 'user comment'.

I defo did, I just checked! Voted at number 7. I'm guessing it got 14 points from 3 votes rather than 2.

[Ludo*1]

17 minutes ago, GAD said:

I defo did, I just checked! Voted at number 7. I'm guessing it got 14 points from 3 votes rather than 2.

Aye, it was my number 9 so that makes sense!

[Miguel Sanchez]

Hey, I was close.

IN JOINT 27TH, WITH 15 POINTS FROM 2 VOTES

Game: God of War
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release date: 20th April 2018
Gameplay:

 

Zero Punctuation review:

 

User comments: "I went into this completely blind (I hadn't played any of the previous games and knew nothing about this at all) but I loved it. It's unquestionably my favourite game of all time. The story, reader, moved me. The combat was fun, and the blocking actually felt like you were blocking. It looks stunning at times. It straddles the line between open world and "linear" perfectly - I never felt overwhelmed nor was I contained. It's just a terrific game and I was genuinely gutted when I finished it."

Poll-maker comments: Having played every God of War game besides this, at no point did I ever think things would be improved by giving Kratos a beard and a small child to shout at.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Game: The Last of Us Part II
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release date: 19th June 2020
Gameplay:

 

Zero Punctuation review:

 

Poll-maker comments: Naughty Dog employees were made to watch videos of people being killed so they could accurately render what happens to human bodies when they're broken. I hope you enjoyed your game, though.

[djchapsticks]

Two games that I've never played as I no longer own a PS and have no intentions of getting one.

However, both games bizarrely enough are two of only maybe 3 that I have ever actually sat and watched entire playthroughs of as I'd completed and enjoyed previous instalments in the respective series and was interested in the story side of both.

[Stellaboz]

TLoU2 is fantastic. Anyone who is still complaining about Abby and the storyline needs to wind it in. It's a fucking rollercoaster of a ride and really presents well the morality of nothing being black and white. 

[NotThePars]