Just 100% GTA: San Andreas, can’t believe it was the first game I gave up halfway through but look at me now. Stupid kid me didn’t know what he was doing.
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I see that you followed the damn train CJ. Love San Andreas. GTA V is more technically impressive but SA has a magic that I don’t think IV or V quite have. I really hope VI’s open map can capture that feeling more for me.
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I’ve played some more TLOU2 No Return and I think I’ve got enough to make some decent first impressions and critiques.
It’s a solid mode that should offer tons of replayability and challenge, giving you new combat scenarios with a roll of the dice whenever you want it, compared to the main game’s decently sized but limited/unchanging combat encounters.
The mode can be quite tough if you don’t play it safe or start to lose your cool.
However, encounters are very quick (I’d say 5-10 mins at most for each, especially the un-timed Assault Modes) Plus, there’s only 6 levels to get through before you’re done.
You’re also graded after each one based on how well you killed, avoided damage, did side-tasks etc. Good for high-score chasing.
Each character so far feels different than others and have notable strengths if you want to specify your playstyle into one thing.
Plus, the game has a good Shop system where you can buy other crafting recipes or weapons that are usually starter-ones for other characters.
The Dead Drop system is good for finding supplies in a match and sacrificing a few crafted items so you can get a recipe or a lucrative gun for free if you survive.
Gambits are just little one-time challenge tasks per encounter to make you experiment a bit, but can help in giving you a small edge in Coins or Ammo if you need it.
Ellie is a good all-rounder.
Abby is great at close-combat melee focused builds.
Dina can get flush with crafting recipes and resources.
Jesse is great at building up Coins to use in the trading post.
Lev is great for stealth-runs, where possible.
Now, with Tommy, I’ve only played one unsuccessful run with him, but like Joel, he also has the inability to dodge for some reason.
And I think that could be a major problem most times. The game is built around the dodge combat system, with the enemy being able to get first-punch-priority even if you try to get in a good swing.
There’s 4 mode types and you have to play up to 7 runs to be able to unlock all of them (the latter 2 unlock at 5 and 7 runs)
Assault - Hunted - Holdout - Capture
Assault is a wave-based mode, you have to kill waves of enemies while picking up materials and sneaking around.
This mode can unfortunately be cheesed by letting the final enemy of the wave live while you run around the map collecting as many materials as you can.
Hunted is time-based where you have to survive a set time while enemies keep pouring into the map (I think the limit varies)
If you can survive long enough, you win.
The strategy is basically to hide or run away as much as possible, but can be quite tough and nail-biting when faced with Infected faction because they’ll almost always spawn in alerted and trying to follow the rest of the group.
Holdout is Infected-exclusive where you have to kill a set amount (I think 20 in total?) enemies while you have an Ally partner who has a health-bar that needs to be kept alive too.
It’s okay. But can get pretty chaotic when you’re faced with 4 of them boxing you in causing you to die by your own bomb oops.
Capture is where an enemy group is placed around a safe and you have a limited time to get to the safe and open it. It is VERY useful to get extra parts, skill supplements, or coins to use back at base. If you don’t unlock the safe in time, it becomes Assault where you just have to kill all the enemies instead.
Oh yes and there’s a Daily Run mode where you’re locked to one character, everyone has the same branching mode paths, and you have to finish a whole run and get the highest score possible. Everyone is separated by difficulty chosen I think.
You can quit between encounters and can come back to finish the rest before the 24-hours are up, but I didn’t get to verify that lol. (The reset time is 7pm ET. I started a DR, played through a few, quit out at 7pm exactly, and was confused why the Run suddenly got wiped and changed. Lol.)
Overall I think it’s a good mode that could also use some improvement.
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Cut out the weapon upgrade animations in this mode only. It was a cool detail to see in the linear main game, but in this mode it feels like it’s wasting my time locking me into those animations every time (Crossbow animation have mercy)
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Characters either use Ellie or Abby’s combat animations I think. Even Tommy and Joel (he should really use his Part 1 animation set, I really thought that’s why he was included here)
This can look a little weird with some people, as Abby’s “jog” animation with a pistol can look silly on someone else’s body, and I think facial expressions are affected too.
Jesse uses Abby’s animations and looks constipated while sprinting here.
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Strange lack of Owen given how prominent of a character he was in Abby’s story. At least maybe he should be implemented as a alt skin for Mel? He’d work well as a good healing-type.
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A successful run (on Normal) can feel a little too short. 6 levels of a few minutes each, just 30 minutes overall I’d say, and that’s it.
You get very few resources overall and (despite being allowed to use your entire arsenal by the final level) you can be left feeling pretty limited in the ability/gun/stockpile front by the Boss level.
I think having a mode that doubles the length of a normal run would feel great. -
Some maps from the main story seem to be missing for whatever reason. I haven’t encountered all from the trailers yet, but I’ve heard that:
Abby’s boat-crossing section isn’t there.
An enclosed version of the Tilted-Buildings section could be great.
The opening storefront-street from the Santa Barbara section isn’t there too.
Overall, TLDR etc. I think No Return breathes so much life into the game’s combat system and at least for now is very fun – even if some of the challenges are a little too easy to complete (unlocking more level mods just needs you to complete other levels with mods on them. Very simple, just playing the game haha.)
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I am with you on IV but I still love V, still probably the best GTA game for me.
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Yeah, V is my favourite too, but I love SA’s map more. Granted, it isn’t perfect, the San Francisco part isn’t that interesting (although as a Scot, I do love how the Forth Bridge and Forth Road Bridge have emigrated from Edinburgh to California.) But I think having 3 cities and a bunch of interesting stuff in-between works really well. Kind of unusual too even today, most games tend to use a single city in their open world, or a countryside dotted with towns.
With V, it just feels a bit incomplete, the way the island is designed, one city and then a giant motorway that loops around with little else. I actually love the countryside in V but it always feels like I’m being guided back to LA.
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gta iv is by far my favourite in the series. really enjoyed niko and roman’s relationship, the driving, the city, and the slightly more grounded take. plus, both dlcs were great fun.
i liked the start of san andreas a lot but it lost me by the time it got to the vegas expy.
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I have never seen anybody like a game in reverse before. Venturas is the most memorable part of the game.
Yeah I am one of the ten people on the whole planet that like TLAD, I mean Gay Tony wipes the floor with it but I still enjoyed it.
I hate the way the map is laid out between Los Santos and San Fiero, that countryside is really rough to get around blind.
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i liked the start though? 
i just found the beginning more engrossing. venturas kinda jetpacked the shark for me.
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Yeah but I reckon that while the start of the game is memorable in a lot of areas most people will say a lot of the actual big story moments and the wow factor is firmly in the Venturas chapter. I mean the game lets you storm Area 51 as a part of its main story.
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yeah, it was that kind of thing that left me a bit cold. 
i was way more interested in the gang stuff.
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i hated johnny but loved the mechanics. the plot was basically rdr2 on scooters but, y’know, before rdr2 came out.
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Really? I liked Johnny in that sort of I love hating him sort of way. Honestly I think TLAD is the best examination of the underlying psychology of the OMC in terms of videogames. It is to Playstation as to what Hunter S Thompson’s Hell’s Angels is to literature.
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San Andreas was amazing at the time for what it added to the series. Bicycles, swimming, weight gain/loss, an improved targeting system and a map with rural areas like a desert or a forest/countryside. It was, at the time, quite frankly basically one of the best games ever released. It really was similar to Ocarina of Time in terms of advancing its respected genre/style to an entirely new level. Nowadays a lot of what made San Andreas exciting and wonderful are sort of commonplace, so if you didn’t have any love for the game back when it released then I can’t see it landing the same way in the present. Still, I consider it one of the better GTA games and it really bothers me that Rockstar unlisted the original game in favour of these weird, uncanny-valley remakes they did.
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blimey. i like it but i wouldn’t put it quite in that bracket. i love hst’s hell’s angels.
i just thought johnny whinged. a lot. 
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I mean the only other OMC game I can think of is Ride To Hell: Retribution. Would you be more comfortable if I compared that to Gonzo journalism?
Addendum: the plot thickens just a little bit more with No Return’s apparent “limitations”
This was clearly made using existing resources and very little was added in the full gameplay/character loadout side of things. It mimics the gameplay styles of the campaign. Since every character uses Ellie or Abby animations, they can be classed into specific “combat archetypes” too
So, every Ellie archetype only gets:
Ellie Campaign weapons: 9mm Pistol, Revolver, Bow, Hunting Rifle, Pump Shotgun, Silenced SMG
Crafted Items available: Molotov, Arrows/Explosive Arrows
Always has a default Knife, no need for Shivs
Every Abby archetype gets:
Abby Campaign Weapons: Military Pistol, Semi-Auto Rifle, Crossbow, Double-Barrel Shotgun, Hunting Pistol
Crafted Items available: Pipe Bomb, Shotgun/Incendiary Shells, Shivs
And the skill trees that you do get randomly for each run are mostly tuned to improve the commonly-shared crafting items or other perks like Listen Mode or Better Melee Damage etc.
Which is fine, but, I wish you could at least get a chance to acquire someone else’s starting skill tree to be able to craft those specific/special items that come with it.
Plus, every Ellie-archetype gets Ellie’s exclusive weapon skins and vice-versa for Abby, so someone like Lev gets the Astronaut and Giraffe skins (who has no relation to either of those topics let alone Ellie herself) And Joel gets Abby’s Eighties and WLF weapon skins, which is just… why can’t he have Ellie’s thematically-related skins too?
So… yeah, the game mode is gonna get old a bit quicker than I thought, because it’s still restricted by the main game’s loadouts and weapon sets.
Hopefully they could decide to update it and add in support for the 'other side’s" weapons, but I doubt we’ll get much more than this. (It has been noted that some outfits in the trailer aren’t included – notably Ellie’s iconic Part 1 outfit with the red shirt – which is very strange to omit given Joel has his green plaid style. But I’m gonna assume they’ll update that in alongside the documentary release with little fanfare…)
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imma take option 3: neither 
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Lots of Paradox games lately, modded HOI4 and the like. I’ll sometimes mute the game and use the time to listen to a podcast or audiobook. However, I decided to jump into Hitman WOA today; replayed Freedom Fighters for some reason. Never a fan of this one, it’s a bit wearing. Still, I appreciate the straightforward infiltration. No need for a fancy party or public event that saturates most missions. Something I’d like to see more in the future.
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Which others do you play?
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Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis. Used to play a lot of Cities: Skylines. I’ve tried Stellaris, but couldn’t get into it.
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