Thread: What Are You Currently Playing? |OT| Gotta play them all
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I wonder how much of your distaste for Stellar is coming from simultaneously playing a goat like Sekiro.

I tried playing Witcher 3 after Dark Souls 3, and the combat looked like it was made by retards in comparison. But if my experiences with them were spread apart, maybe I'd not have thought that.

I think it is definitely playing a part! I'm on one hand reminded how spectacular Sekiro is. And then in comparison SB may as well be set in Gaza.

Sekiro is so focused. And that may be Sekiros strongest point as a game, to turn the smallest of triumphs into tools that change the game moving forward.

I'm also quite picky with what I'll spend time playing. I definitely struggle to continue playing a game that I form even a mixed opinion of. I probably drop as many games as I complete, if not drop more.
 
Playing Dragon's Crown Pro on PS4 Pro

This game was suggested some time ago by D-Pad. It's some kind of sidescroller Diablo. Seems to be designed primarily for the Vita, its small dungeons are fun in short bursts. Presentation is nice, has some Soulcalibur vibes. But in the heat of the battle it's hard to tell what's going on, very messy. Ok game so far.

Finished the game (on normal). Played as a sexy Amazon. I was a bit bored with it early on but as soon as they send you to collect talismans and let you roam around the locations it got more interesting. Nice game and unlocking art for side quests is a fun feature.

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I finished Ys X. Great game and it ran really smooth on the Switch. The only performance thing I noticed was a frame rate drop near the end of the game in the last dungeon, and that's because there were a ton of enemies on screen at the same time. I don't know much about graphics but I can see the compromises they made to get the game to run smoothly (backgrounds, water etc...). I imagine this game looks really pretty on the PS5 and if it gets a performance bump on the Switch 2, that would be great.

It didn't overstay it's welcome at all, I finished in 28.5 hours. I felt by the end of the game I was really starting to utilize the combat/movement in some interesting ways. The hook shot/grapple can be used to close distance on enemies or to get yourself out of trouble, the surf board can be used practically anywhere to get out of areas quickly. The final dungeons were of great variety too, with a castle, a giant ship and the world's end/valhalla location. I'm sure there's a lot of interesting spots on the map that I never got to check out. To be honest, I wasn't expecting the end of the game to come so quick and I thought the main story would take you through a lot of those areas, so I missed out on quite a bit of content.

I think the biggest issue with the game is there's not much of a reason to use the other character. In other Ys titles, each character had their strengths/weaknesses, but in this game it's only Adol and an anime girl. For stroy reasons you are "bound together", and as such you can execute dual attacks. Which is kind of the problem, you just end up using dual attacks all the time and never have to use single attacks. I'd rather just be playing as only Adol at that point and go the lone adventurer route. Maybe on the highest difficulty the battle system is much more complex, but I played on hard and never found a reason to switch out to the secondary character unless Adol took a lot of damage and needed to heal.

All in all, I had a wonderful time playing Ys 10 and it's one of the stronger titles in the series. I will come back to it one day, which I don't often do with RPGs. Usually once is enough but I enjoyed this a lot and feel there's a lot more to see in this game. Next time through I'll spend more time sailing and going off the main path.

8/10
 
I finished Ys X. Great game and it ran really smooth on the Switch. The only performance thing I noticed was a frame rate drop near the end of the game in the last dungeon, and that's because there were a ton of enemies on screen at the same time. I don't know much about graphics but I can see the compromises they made to get the game to run smoothly (backgrounds, water etc...). I imagine this game looks really pretty on the PS5 and if it gets a performance bump on the Switch 2, that would be great.

It didn't overstay it's welcome at all, I finished in 28.5 hours. I felt by the end of the game I was really starting to utilize the combat/movement in some interesting ways. The hook shot/grapple can be used to close distance on enemies or to get yourself out of trouble, the surf board can be used practically anywhere to get out of areas quickly. The final dungeons were of great variety too, with a castle, a giant ship and the world's end/valhalla location. I'm sure there's a lot of interesting spots on the map that I never got to check out. To be honest, I wasn't expecting the end of the game to come so quick and I thought the main story would take you through a lot of those areas, so I missed out on quite a bit of content.

I think the biggest issue with the game is there's not much of a reason to use the other character. In other Ys titles, each character had their strengths/weaknesses, but in this game it's only Adol and an anime girl. For stroy reasons you are "bound together", and as such you can execute dual attacks. Which is kind of the problem, you just end up using dual attacks all the time and never have to use single attacks. I'd rather just be playing as only Adol at that point and go the lone adventurer route. Maybe on the highest difficulty the battle system is much more complex, but I played on hard and never found a reason to switch out to the secondary character unless Adol took a lot of damage and needed to heal.

All in all, I had a wonderful time playing Ys 10 and it's one of the stronger titles in the series. I will come back to it one day, which I don't often do with RPGs. Usually once is enough but I enjoyed this a lot and feel there's a lot more to see in this game. Next time through I'll spend more time sailing and going off the main path.

8/10

I just started Ys IX, just played one hour and finished the first chapter.
Still only a few hours into VII, but I have that on the Steam Deck for when I am bored and want the couch.

I still think Origins is the best Ys game. The tower design with the incredible combat was such a surprise when I played it. Loved it to bits. These ones are more like proper action JRPGs and the blah blah tends to bore me.
 
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Replayed Vampire Survivors from scratch, and incredibly glad I did. After you've played for hundreds of hours and can faceroll any content in the game, you forget just how weak you are at the beginning. Ended up 100%ing the trophies in under 30 hours, which is surprising given that the game has 221 of them. My main issue with the game's balance still stands; weapons like Phierragi, Spellstrom, Photonstorm and Victory Sword with the right arcanas trivialize the game, and weapons like Knife, Garlic and Shadow Pinion just feel awful by comparison. Really wouldn't mind them rebalancing arcanas as well, since ones like Silent Old Sanctuary, Divine Bloodline and Mad Groove are just so much more useful than everything else.

Really enjoying the licensed DLC packs now, since they're well done love letters to their respective franchises. Although the game finally getting actual Castlevania content makes me wonder where they go from here, since so many of the original weapons are heavily inspired by classic 'vania.
 
Stellar Blade has picked up a little in my last 2 sessions. I prefer the indoor settings to the outdoor. Even tho the indoor settings were just a laboratory and subway station. The story has also picked up a little with talk of some potential surprise twists in the making.

Sekiro has been shelved until I complete Stellar Blade now. Had to do it.
 
I'm pretty close to being at 100% on each level of Pikmin 4 but I doubt I'll be getting there.

This was a good game, but the extra length/content has not kept me interested. It has actually turned me off a bit. The newer additions to the formula mostly didn't interest me either, but I do really like the dog you can ride. They should keep that for the next one. I think I have to just go ahead and finish it up and have that be that.
 
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Black Ops 6, and just finished Dragon Age The Veilguard. Now I am going to start Fallout 3. I never played Fallout before. I found a good walk through video on YouTube as well.
 
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Well, 2 guys at my works said skip FO1 and FO2 because the game play is pretty aged. They don't play the same way FO3 and new play. Such as top down or something. Which I just can't get into.

Play New Vegas at some point, to get some of the feel of the old games.

I also highly recommend Fallout 4. Strong main story, good side quests, a big map to explore, and a ton of build variety. I think it's the best of the 3D Fallouts
 
Play New Vegas at some point, to get some of the feel of the old games.

I also highly recommend Fallout 4. Strong main story, good side quests, a big map to explore, and a ton of build variety. I think it's the best of the 3D Fallouts

I was going to do Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4. I have bought them all and downloaded them already to my Xbox. Fallout 76, at this time, is not on my radar.
 
Well, 2 guys at my works said skip FO1 and FO2 because the game play is pretty aged. They don't play the same way FO3 and new play. Such as top down or something. Which I just can't get into.

They have good writing though. Fallout 3-4 is more like Disney's Fallout.
 
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Played some more Stellar Blade. I do definitely prefer the areas you visit from mid game onward. And some of the bosses have been quite tricky to beat. I suspect I may not be the best with the perfect dodge/parry choices. I love that normal blocking costs substantial chip damage in a lot of scenarios as it forces you to make constant defensive choices.

I haven't taken to the story as much as I expected to. I've actually found nearly all characters borderline annoying in this game. The only character I have liked was Tachy. That is probably because she has a big pair of paps and doesn't have much screen time or dialogue. RIP.

I have to say. I think the game is quite average in a lot of ways. I think I've played enough now to confidently share that. I'm going to sell it when I've finished it. I don't want it stinking out my physical collection. I went into it expecting it to be a 2024 GotY candidate. I just did a quick search for games released in the same month. I wouldn't even have it top 5 games of April 24.

Hopefully just one more play session and I'll be done with it.
 
I am sadly starting to feel burned out in BoTW now.

I got the one elephant at the zomain area, and now I am starting to unlock the other ones. But having to being time gated to farm these weather armors is just straight up ass.

The heat is miserable. The rainy weather with lightning strikes is miserable. Everything has become a chore now.

Fucking sucks because I liked the game up until now.
 
I am sadly starting to feel burned out in BoTW now.

I got the one elephant at the zomain area, and now I am starting to unlock the other ones. But having to being time gated to farm these weather armors is just straight up ass.

The heat is miserable. The rainy weather with lightning strikes is miserable. Everything has become a chore now.

Fucking sucks because I liked the game up until now.

There's equipment for the heat and I just removed anything metal during lightning storms. But yeah, some of the design decisions can be annoying for sure. I was kind of where you are with it -- loved it, then kinda meh, then loved it, then kinda meh. But I really ended up liking it, even though it is not a perfect game as many like to claim.
 
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There's equipment for the heat and I just removed anything metal during lightning storms. But yeah, some of the design decisions can be annoying for sure. I was kind of where you are with it -- loved it, then kinda meh, then loved it, then kinda meh. But I really ended up liking it, even though it is not a perfect game as many like to claim.

Does totk has general improvements over botw or does it have way more annoyances?
 
Does totk has general improvements over botw or does it have way more annoyances?

It's kind of an expansion to BotW, so it felt pretty similar to me. It does feel way more alive and less barren. And the fusion system is pretty neat after you mess around with it some. More enemy types too.
 
It's kind of an expansion to BotW, so it felt pretty similar to me. It does feel way more alive and less barren. And the fusion system is pretty neat after you mess around with it some. More enemy types too.

I see.

I hate to ditch games I have spend alot of time in and have legit enjoyed, but the mechanics has really sucked the fun out of botw, the high difficulty currently is just not fun.

I have like 8 hearts, my gear upgraded 3/4 and I almost still get one shotted. I know people are gonna laugh at me, but I feel like Dark Souls lite territory here, and I hate games like that.
 
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Does totk has general improvements over botw or does it have way more annoyances?

Tears of the kingdom was annoying to me. However, I loved the streamlined simplicity of BotW which I think is TotK's biggest weakness.

Tears takes a basic action like shooting an elemental arrow and turns it into a menu-dive every time. The new physics stuff is neat but also slows down the experience.
 
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I see.

I hate to ditch games I have spend alot of time in and have legit enjoyed, but the mechanics has really sucked the fun out of botw, the high difficulty currently is just not fun.

I have like 8 hearts, my gear upgraded 3/4 and I almost still get one shotted. I know people are gonna laugh at me, but I feel like Dark Souls lite territory here, and I hate games like that.

I took a long break from it when I hit a wall too. I just wasn't having fun. But I wanted to go back to it so when I did, I went and farmed hearts from doing a ton of shrines and then the game just kind of opened up for me.
 
Stellar Blade has surprised me big time. It has really stepped up for the mid to late game. Once you hit the run up to the space station I feel the game finally shines. I really enjoyed the climb up the spire to go into orbit.

Thr game has been frustrating at times because such a great amount of care had been taken with the visuals. But then the first half of the game takes place in alleyways, car parks or sand dunes. It just felt a bit sad for such a sci-fi action oriented game.

The enemies and bosses have both also improved significantly in the mid to late game. Some interesting AI boss enemies with a lot of body horror elements. If the game had been like the second half all the way through, I think I would have loved it.

So yeah, a real split opinion for this game. But I am glad to be enjoying it now. Should likely finish the story in the next session.
 
I think I'll just give up on the game, getting too old to complete games just for the sake of completing it. Just crap I had so much and then this part of the game really ruined everything so I have to just drop it.

It's so dull and boring at this point and "stick to it it gets better", it should not have been this bad to begin with. Feels bad to have wasted so many hours into this game not being able to complete it.
 
I see.

I hate to ditch games I have spend alot of time in and have legit enjoyed, but the mechanics has really sucked the fun out of botw, the high difficulty currently is just not fun.

I have like 8 hearts, my gear upgraded 3/4 and I almost still get one shotted. I know people are gonna laugh at me, but I feel like Dark Souls lite territory here, and I hate games like that.

Just beat it. That's what happened to me. At some point you're like why exactly am I chasing these golden piles of shit or shrines that do nothing for me? Just beat it and you'll feel better after.
Playing that title I was so excited to 100% it but after I hit your point I beat it and got severe post nut clarity and never went back to it and have had no interest in TotK.
 
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Just beat it. That's what happened to me. At some point you're like why exactly am I chasing these golden piles of shit or shrines that do nothing for me? Just beat it and you'll feel better after.
Playing that title I was so excited to 100% it but after I hit your point I beat it and got severe post nut clarity and never went back to it and have had no interest in TotK.

Yeah I agree. Once you've put in the time, you have to know when to quit the open world and play the main story. Once the time has been spent the satisfaction can usually be salvaged by the time the credits roll.
 
Just beat it. That's what happened to me. At some point you're like why exactly am I chasing these golden piles of shit or shrines that do nothing for me? Just beat it and you'll feel better after.
Playing that title I was so excited to 100% it but after I hit your point I beat it and got severe post nut clarity and never went back to it and have had no interest in TotK.

There's one surefire cure for collect-itis - force yourself to 100% Donkey Kong 64 once in your life.
 
I am sadly starting to feel burned out in BoTW now.

I got the one elephant at the zomain area, and now I am starting to unlock the other ones. But having to being time gated to farm these weather armors is just straight up ass.

The heat is miserable. The rainy weather with lightning strikes is miserable. Everything has become a chore now.

Fucking sucks because I liked the game up until now.

It took me like 80 hours and 6 months to finish BOTW.

The first 30 hours didn't really do it for me, but I was in the Zelda mood so I went and played through LTTP, OOT, TP, Minish Cap, and WW, lol.

I then went back to BOTW, gave it another 5 or so hours, and I was ready to drop it but I stuck with it. Around hour 40 something clicked and I began to love the game. I think what happened is that I eventually became so damn powerful w/ no shortage of weapons, so the game was actually fun to play.

I'm glad I stuck with it but I don't think I'll ever play it again. Great memories though.
 
Been playing some Indiana Jones games.

Greatest Adventures (SNES). This is a platformer with a bunch of Mode 7 stages. Think it's from creators of Super Star Wars games or at least follows it's example. All stages are various scenes from three movies. Visually they nail it. Very good looking SNES game. But gameplay is a trial and error gauntlet, way too hard. I ran throught the game with save states, it's meh.

Indiana Jones and The Emperor's Tomb. This one is great. A sort of middle ground between old Tomb Raider games and Uncharted. Very good controls and melee combat. Every punch feels impactful, Indiana Jones is a Hulk. Platforming and puzzles are good too, maybe a bit easy. Game has a very early 2000s PC feel, similar visual kinks, disproportional architecture wrapped in photo textures, ugly in-engine cutscenes. Looks as if it was made on Q3 Engine, but it is a console game on a unique engine. Tried it on Xbox first, but it was reseting for some reason so switched to PC. It is a good port and there's an update to have perfect controller support which is great. I'll keep playing.
 
After finishing Death Stranding, I went back to smaller games, here's what I playd since then:

CULTIC: this game is incredible, "boomer shooter" fans should not skip this one. The first and most striking strength the game has is the presentation, pixel-art and stripe goodness, just check the screenshots below, it's so pretty to look at that my friends got immediately interested and wanted to know more about the game just from looking at a couple screenshots I sent. The gameplay itself is great as well, gunplay is badass, with a surprisingly brilliant level design that elevated the game even more with masterful moment to moment action, like, at times it fels as if Valve made a horror game. The soundtrack and sounds in general were great as well, just all around brilliant game.

Despite being "chapter one" only, I'm already satisfied with my 9 hour playtime, and even though the second chapter will be a separate purchase, which at first I didn't like before playing the game, now I'm right behind this solo dev and I'll be buying it for sure.
















Lost Ruins: this is an alright slightly-perverted Metroidvania that feels like its the devs first foray into making games, it's especially evident in the amateur-ish story. a couple hours in I was going to flush the game because it wasn't really interesting to play but just as I was about to turn it down for good, the gameplay got good enough just enough to keep me interested to keep playing, it's a short one too so I just decided to keep going. The highlight here is some of the quests and how they affect the ending of the game in a surprisingly cool way, it's just a shame since the rest of the game wasn't on the same level, I didn't catch on and didn't bother to do these story-altering quests. Like I said it's just an okay game, if one likes Metroidvanias, I guess you'll stay interested for the 6 hours or so this has to offer, nothing outstanding though, I even forgot to take screenshots.

Next up: the original Mafia and SOMA, both of which I already started, won't share any initial thoughts now, it'll have to wait till full overview in the next couple weeks.

Managed to finish both games on the same day 2 days ago. As holiday is already over, finishing games will take much longer time from now on.

Mafia (2002)



This game is the reason why I created my Steam account when they gave it away for free in 2018, long before I ever thought of getting serious into PC gaming as I was on PS4 at the time, it was a "just in case". Only took 6 years to get here and sit down and play the game, lol.

Even though I'm burnt out of the gangster organized crime stories in film and television, I was immediately hooked here, the devs knew exactly what they were doing. I really liked the way the game starts with this big shot made man submitting and giving it all up to the detective to save his family, and the fact the levels you play are just the retelling of his story to the detective.

Now the game as a game played in 2025 is admittedly on the tough-to-swallow side, on one hand, it's absolutely marvelous in areas such as the city and the attention to detail that went to capture that 1930s New York vibes with excellent soundtrack, world design and art direction. The locations, the people, the music, the cars, the heaters, it's all spot on. This alone carries a lot of weight when playing the game, it adds a lot to immersion. There's also the open ended nature of some of the levels which I really enjoyed especially as it goes in line with the story, being told through the chaos and uncertainty within the open and rapidly chainging events. The story itself and characters for the most part are great too, most of the time the game plays like the best Italian mobster movie you've never seen.

On the other hand, this is clearly a third person PC game that came out in 2002, controls are dumb, the PC build is crap with weird bugs like settings not saving when you close the game, and many softlocking bugs that are easy to trigger and just force you to restart from an earlier save. Beyond the technical issues, the game is just difficult as hell, half the missions I couldn't finish in one life because it's that hard to stay alive, in all of the combat levels there's barely any medkits to heal, so for the majority of the game it was me restarting a checkpoint over and over with like 4HP trying to clear out a level basically without getting hit, and there are no manual saves so no save scumming here. There's also the filler segments where after every mission, you have to manually drive back to HQ, instead of just the mission ending where it ended with a cutscene, there's a lot of this in the game where whole 'gameplay' sections feel better off if they were just told through cutscenes. The difficulty did get frustrating once, where I thought maybe I should just go boot up the remake, but I was really interested in seeing how Tommy's story will end, the plot was the main driving force for playing this game to the end, because it's a damn captivating one.

The story and characters, while great, are also inconsistent, one of the things is that the missions feel too episodic, which makes sense narrative wise as they're just key events that future Tommy is recalling to the detective, but the game flow does suffer from it, like sometimes I'd be finishing a dramatic and impactful mission, then the next cutscene would start as if it has been months with a new gig at hand, it felt abrupt at times. Furthermore, the writing isn't always there, it is great in key moments, but sometimes it feels cheesy and kind of weak. The ending I really liked, especially the 'moral of the story' message that Tommy narrates, apparently the remake changed this for some reason which feels dumb to me, like it's perfect why would you change it? Other changes that I found I didn't like such as Tommy's character design and voice work, in the remake it makes him look more like a tough guy already looking for trouble before it came to him, rather than the original being a softspoken cab driver who was a victim of circumstances.

All in all, this is a great classic that despite all its issues, tough levels and padded segments that basically made it 6 hours longer that it could've, I'm still glad I pushed through and played the original, instead of playing an altered version in the remake that the more I read about, the more I appreciate the intentions and effort of the original team in '02.


SOMA



Frictional Games are just the masters of psychological horror, they do not miss. Back in the day, Amnesia was just too scary for me to finish as a kid lol, I should probably try it again now.

So with their reputation and me always reading about how this is one of the best horror games out there, what I didn't expect is a seriously great and impressive narrative game with interesting and captivating philosophical themes. Now unlike most people online who apparently the game changed their opinion on the meaning of life, my faith is not that flimsy. It's still highly entertaining and I think it was well executed by the devs. The narrative is so good, that it feels like it's a story focused mystery game that just happened to be horror by accident, sort of like Subnautica, but this is still horror game by design. The best kind of horror, is the organic and naturally occurring one.

The ending was incredible and amazingly bleak, I'm not too sure about the post credits segment though, I don't think it was really necessary, and the game should've stopped at the dark conclusion before the credits.

Onto the gameplay, since this is a Frictional game, you better expect interactive objects, I think I spent at least half and hour on the first level at the flat, just messing with the physics and picking up and throwing shit, it's so fun why don't all games do this, fuck all these new and shiny ray traced static worlds that get made these days, this 2015 game that can run on a toaster looks stunning and you can pick and mess with just about anything you see. Until the very end of the game I'd pick random shit up and have fun with the physics, it never got old.

This is a brilliant, chef's kiss game, and I'm excited to play their The Bunker entry and see what the team had in store for us in their latest endeavour that came out in 2023. Possibly even go back to The Dark Descent at some point as well.
























Next up: Thief Gold and Black Mesa. See ya in a few weeks.
 
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I picked up the Donkey Kong Country game that came out yesterday. I also grabbed Tropical Freeze. I haven't played a DK game since the SNES.
Also playing Romancing Sage 2 remake on my Steamdeck.
 
I finished the story on Stellar Blade. I opted for what I assume was the bad ending. No regrets.

And I have now begun Rise of the Ronin. Very early in the game but I think I feel the starting of the potential I've seen some talk about.
 
I finished the story on Stellar Blade. I opted for what I assume was the bad ending. No regrets.

And I have now begun Rise of the Ronin. Very early in the game but I think I feel the starting of the potential I've seen some talk about.

NICE. When all was said and done in 2024, Rise of the Ronin was still my GOTY. It's a damn shame how the majority of the press and gamers treated that game at launch. People knocking it to praise DD2, like both can't be enjoyed and praised.... and then acting like it's a mediocre Souls clone. It's not a Souls game whatsoever. I really hope you dig it like I did. Be sure to really explore the menus as you get further in. That game has options for days, it's hard to describe but if you take to that game and explore it, you'll see just how massive it is and all the QOL things built in to streamline aspects of the menu system. It's a brilliant game.
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I've been playing Arken Age, new PSVR2/PCVR title. Really impressive. Sci-fi, sword & shield and gun combat. Meaty levels to explore. It's a really impressive game.

 
I went on a break with BoTW and started up Syphon Filter 1 again. I played it around september last year and forgot about it until now.

I love retro games compared to modern games, but at the same time I am a fucking retard when playing them.
I just finished level 14, Stronghold, and the map design was a fucking hell to navigate. I ran back and forth throughout the entire map to actually find the scientists. All the textures look alike so I find it hard finding new areas to get to.
Also the map after, warehouse, was fucking annoying.
Enemies keep spawning, and even though you are in a fight between 2 factions, they still annoy you alot and theres barely any kevlar around on the map.
Again, I had to google a video because there are so many hidden entrances to stuff.

I loved Syphon Filter back when it was released, and I gotta admit that I never got this far before. But fuck am I retarded or something for not being able to figure out what we did when we were 12 years old, or is that the exact reason why so many games never got completed back then? At least for me.
 
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