|OT| The 2020 MetaCouncil's Addiction Log (put your finished games here!)
- Thread starter NarohDethan
- Start date
Xenoblade Chronicles X - Done!
I spent nearly 300 hours according to my save and i'll probably keep it to hand for some Post-Game Tyrant Hunting. The sense of exploration is fantastic and once it clicked in my head again after many years the combat system was like a comfy blanket of fun. Sure, there's some issues of course but they don't really impact my enjoyment of the game. Love it.
Pizza/10
I spent nearly 300 hours according to my save and i'll probably keep it to hand for some Post-Game Tyrant Hunting. The sense of exploration is fantastic and once it clicked in my head again after many years the combat system was like a comfy blanket of fun. Sure, there's some issues of course but they don't really impact my enjoyment of the game. Love it.
Pizza/10
Hey game finishers, need help.
I need guidance in gaming finishing rules that you set upon themselves to finish games. I can't seem to... finish games.
I also see there's something on this thread too what's this about?
metacouncil.com
I need guidance in gaming finishing rules that you set upon themselves to finish games. I can't seem to... finish games.
I also see there's something on this thread too what's this about?
Community - Backlog Blitz Season 3 - Runs April 1 through June 30 with a raffle at the end
We just finished a successful first season of the Backlog Blitz. We had 27 participants with 132 game goals set and 71 of them were completed. Congrats on clearing out those backlogs! C-Dub was the big winner this time with winning the first draw of the prize for completing Job Simulator. Make...
metacouncil.com
37. The Evil Within 2 - Still a vast improvement on the first, more interesting locations and encounters. More forgiving and Sebastian has finally leveled up his agility, slightly. ★★★★
There aren't really any rules 2bh. For "story games" if I finish it. For GAAS game I usually go with have I done enough content to be happy with it. For more open ended games, probably have I had my fill of it?Hey game finishers, need help.
I need guidance in gaming finishing rules that you set upon themselves to finish games. I can't seem to... finish games.
I also see there's something on this thread too what's this about?
Community - Backlog Blitz Season 3 - Runs April 1 through June 30 with a raffle at the end
We just finished a successful first season of the Backlog Blitz. We had 27 participants with 132 game goals set and 71 of them were completed. Congrats on clearing out those backlogs! C-Dub was the big winner this time with winning the first draw of the prize for completing Job Simulator. Make...
37. Until Dawn - Decent choose your own adventure QTE-a-thon with weird dentition. Got most of the people to the end, 2 of the girls died.[UWSL][UWSL] Jess died early on because apparently I was too slow jumping and QTE'ing and Hayden Panettiere died with seconds left in the game as I was trying to stay still to avoid a Wendigo and my arm twitched! ★★★ 1/2[/UWSL][/UWSL]
Here's an updated list of the games I've played so far this year.
Stars are my personal rating:
* = Terrible;
** = Not Good;
*** = Good;
**** = Very Good.
Games I consider a master piece (5 stars) are in bold. Go play them!
Stars are my personal rating:
* = Terrible;
** = Not Good;
*** = Good;
**** = Very Good.
Games I consider a master piece (5 stars) are in bold. Go play them!
- Hellheim **
- My Big Sister ***
- X-Morph Defense
- Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair (minus the final "impossible" lair) ****
- Slay the Spire ***
- Ziggurat (died a few times at the final boss) ***
- Night of the rabbit ***
- Black Paradox ***
- Dishonored Death of the Outsider
- Forged Battalion (stopped after a few missions, what a waste of time!) *
- Oxygen not included
- Stoneshard ****
- Train simulator 2020 (only played a few scenario's, didn't enjoy it) **
- Spyro Reignited (only Spyro 1) ***
- Eliza ****
- The Tiny Bang Story ***
- Dark Souls Remastered
- Little Nightmares ****
- The First Tree ***
- The Hex
- Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark
- Planet Coaster (stopped after a few scenario's) ***
- Blasphemous ****
- This War of Mine
- Everspace (died in the final battle and gave up) ****
- Halo Reach ***
- Kentucky Route Zero *
- Divide by Sheep ****
- My Friend Pedro ***
- Remote Life ****
- Besiege (stopped after 15 missions. great game but not my cup of tea) ***
- Masquara: Songs and Shadows
- Kingdom Come Deliverance ***
- XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
- Truberbrook ***
- Halo CE ***
- Total War: Warhammer 2 ([UWSL]Broken Axe Tribe[/UWSL])
- Total War: Warhammer 2 ([UWSL]Yvresse[/UWSL])
- Lifeless Planet **
- Guacamlelee 2 ****
- C&C Remastered Collection
- Mystic Quest ***
- Mega Man Wiley's Revenge *
- Castlevania: Circle of the Moon **
- Grim Dawn (Hardcore Mode)
- AER Memories of Old ****
- Basingstoke **
- Rusty Lake: Roots ****
- Oxygen Not Included (new playthrough, water asteroid)
- Supraland ****
- Horizon Chase Turbo ****
- Yuppie Psycho ****
- Frostpunk ***
- Escape from Tethys ***
- Chrono Trigger ****
- Mothergunship **
- Transport Fever ****
- Chronicon ***
- Wasteland 2: Directors Cut
- Silver **
- Diaries of a Space Port Janitor *
- Highway Blossoms ****
- Warstone TD ****
- Embracelet ****
- Resident Evil 7
- Valkyria Chronicles
- Don't Escape: 4 days to survive ****
- The Gardens Between ****
- Divinity Original Sin **
- The Messenger ***
- Xenoraid ****
- Surviving Mars ****
- Starcrawlers **
- 198x ****
- AI War 2 *
- Gris ****
- Void Bastards
- Vampyr ***
- Battle Chasers Nightwars ***
- Yakuza Kiwami ****
- Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors ****
- Blackhole **
- Mushroom Cats **
- Pikuniku ****
- Halo 2 Anniversary ****
- Brukel ****
- Shadows Awakening ***
- Holy Potatoes We're in Space ****
- Sam & Max Save the World (remastered) ****
- Minion Masters ***
- Gears 5 ****
- The Stillness of the Wind **
- Children of Morta ****
- Smile to me
- Age of Wonders: Planetfall ***
Last edited:
Haha yeah, for some reason the five stars were turned into one star
And indeed, Hellheim had some promising idea's but the execution wasn't good. I wouldn't have finished it if it wasn't so short.
#20, Vagrant Story.
Still great after all these years. The art style, translation and soundtrack are impeccable.
Still great after all these years. The art style, translation and soundtrack are impeccable.
Haven't updated in a while so did it now.
Beat 13 games last year so lot more active this year.
Damn, every once in while I think about setting up a blog to write a few lines about games I liked enough to finish. Posting in this thread instead might actually get seen by somebody other than search engine bots.
Okay, maybe not, but at least I don't have to set up a blog. Guess this will be my post.
Jan:
- Afterparty (Night School, 2019) - Modern 2.5d-point-and-click adventure.
I liked this one, even though none of the characters or any particular bit of the writing really spoke to me. Just a very nicely art-directed, charming game that doesn't overstay its welcome. And, if you're really vibing with it or come back to it years later, has branching story-lines and outcomes for some real replay-value.
Played on Game Pass.
4/5
- Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer, 2013-2020) - If this game is for you, it's probably a big deal. If it isn't, you will probably bounce off of it so hard that you will eternally wonder why it's such a big deal for others.
Looked at from the widest angle, it's a 2.5d-point-and-click adventure game. More zoomed in however, it's a very intertextual work of fiction and is jam-packed with multiple layers of references to various fields of culture including films, plays, early computer games, literature, modern art in various mediums, academic linguistics, poetry, politics, all tied into the game's quite specific setting and location.
The game has heavy, heavy emphasis on character dialog and very few puzzles, so much so that the ratio of interaction and reading reaches visual novel levels. And it is literally reading, too - no voice-overs. I have watched many-a-variety-streamer bail out of this game real quick after realizing that fact. Those who soldier on will often find that the game's incredible balancing act of being quite specific in setting, but incredibly varied in its references, just leaves them dumbstruck.
The secret to enjoying this game to me has been to follow its references outside of the game and slowly get into the creators' headspace. Doing so has literally expanded my mind - I learned about so many things and got so many new contexts to put the world into out of it. That's why I fall into the "big deal" category mentioned above.
Thing is though - I only played that quite short last episode in January. The rest of the game I played as it came out - over the course of 6 years. It's not that hard to go on a game-directed self-education adventure if you have 6 years to do so, with plenty of time between each episode to let it all sink in.
Having it all put on your plate at once - oof. This is a game that could be taken on like a book-club project. But how large is the intersection in the Venn-diagram of book-club participants and gamers?
(Very personally) 5/5
Feb:
- Last Day of June (Ovosonico, 2017) - Another modern indie take on a 3d-point-and-click. This one certainly has a striking look to it, but I found out I can't technically call it original - the whole thing is an expanded adaptation of a Jess Cope-directed music video for a song by prog-rocker Steven Wilson. And while it looks and sounds great and for long stretches is an actual game - puzzles and everything - I couldn't quite get over the overt sentimentality of the story. Little too on-the-nose.
EGS freebie.
3/5
- A Plague Tale: Innocence (Asobo Studio, 2019) - Third person stealth/action-adventure. Sets a new standard for premium-tier indie games, which now is "basically indistinguishable from AAA titles", Incredibly pleasant to look at (I took so many screenshots!) and a really smooth gameplay experience, albeit not very challenging at all and despite all the polish, it's not quite on the level of recent Uncharted and Tomb Raider titles either. Quite original scenario though, at least for a video game.
Played on Game Pass.
4/5
- GRIS (Nomada Studio, 2019) - Looks and feels like a stylized 2D-metroidvania, but: 1) You actually cannot die, 2) There are sections that look like an epic boss-battle, but again, there is no actual peril. Now this might sound very bad, but I actually loved it. The game's art-direction totally connected with me and there is an actual challenge in there, too, which is finding the secret collectibles. And looking for them was very enjoyable because of the great level design, exploring and beating the little platforming challenges/puzzles had me so captivated I completed the thing in two afternoons.
3.5/5
Mar:
- FAR - Lone Sails (Okomotive, 2018) - Amazing little indie-gem of a 2d action-adventure with a pretty unique vehicle mechanic - you pilot a steam-powered vehicle through a strangely barren and abandoned land towards an unknown destination. Lovely presentation all around (again, took a lot of sceenshots). Short game, totally playable in one long afternoon, left an impression though.
4/5
Apr:
- Broken Age (Double Fine, 2014-2015) - Not-so-modern take on a 2d-point-and-click-adventure by the point-and-click veterans from Double Fine. Largely powered by nostalgia and paid for by a record-breaking early Kickstarter campaign, this one was nice-enough-I-guess, but I'm glad I waited all these years to get it for literally four bucks in a PSN sale.
- Close to the Sun (Storm in a Teacup, 2019) - Steampunk-ish walking simulator with occasional run-away-from-the-monster action bits. Some bits look very good, some oddly generic. Great voice-acting and pretty good soundtrack. This one was pretty grating towards the end for me, but that might be because of my strong bias against all things Steampunk. A more objective problem with the game is the hilariously bad optimization, I had to put the game down to 720p in order to keep the framerate nice and smooth. On an RTX2070.
EGS freebie.
2/5
May:
- Arise - A Simple Story (Piccolo Studio, 2019) - Indie action-adventure with an interesting time-manipulation mechanic that shifts the environment. Tugged at my heart strings. Really beautiful game, great soundtrack. Some parts of it struck me as very weird though. Like, one level is sort of an extended reflection on pregnancy and it's, uh. You'll get what I mean if you ever play it.
3/5
- Observation (NoCode, 2019) - Narrative-heavy first person puzzle game, set on a stricken space station. Gameplay twist: You don't play an astronaut, you play as the station's AI and interact with the station through video camera feeds and robotic drones, which you control in first-person perspective. Liked this one a lot, I also posted about it here.
4/5
- Hob (Runic, 2017) - is a fixed-camera third person action-adventure centered around exploring the map and enhancing your wea- ok, look, it's a Zelda clone, but it replaces Nintendo's cutesy formula with completely non-verbal story-telling and puts a bit of gore on top (which you can optionally disable so your kids can play, too).
It's about as easy to get into and as addictive as Link to the Past or Link Between Worlds, but shorter by about a third. Enjoyed every minute of it, but ultimately it lacked that extra special something to make it a five.
EGS freebie.
4/5
Jun:
- OVIVO (Izhard, 2017) - Neat (and short) little monochrome platformer with cool art direction (every level is a cool piece of ink-style artwork that zooms out after you complete it to reveal the art behind the platforms) and gravity-bending mechanics. It's so tidy and tight, I would like to have said 5/5, but I feel like the music could have been a little more integral to the game (particularly since there are almost no sound fx) and it seems the main item collection achievement was never fully debugged and thus is easy to miss through no fault of your own, thus:
4/5
Jul:
- Mutazione (Die Gute Fabrik, 2019) - Puzzle-less adventure game in the vein of Oxenfree, but with the magical realism of the story slanting more towards the magical. This might be the most itch.io/tumblr-esque game I ever played and still ultimately enjoyed. Seriously, this game at one point has dialog that unironically goes "your feelings are valid" and credits a "Diversity Consultant".
But more than anything else, it's supremely chill. The art style got me in a Mediterranean vacation mood immediately, the soundtrack is so chill I've been using it as background music for naps and the only game mechanic to speak of besides running around and reading through dialog (no voice-acting in this game) is planting seeds and watching them grow. The story and characters also are fluffy as clouds that pleasantly blow past you without leaving much of an impression, but also without harshing your mellow (the game's own promotional material self-consciously and accurately describes itself as a "soap-opera").
Got it as part of a five-game-bundle for which I paid 10 bucks, so no complaints about value-for-money either - for the regular MSRP however, your mileage may vary.
3.5/5
- Eastshade (Eastshade Studios, 2019) - The big followup to Danny Weinbaum's 2017 short walking sim Leaving Lyndow is a first person adventure game that looks and feels like a classic Bethesda RPG (Morrowind in particular), but with all the RPG elements as well as all combat mechanics taken out.
Your main quest, after arriving on the island of Eastshade by ship-wreck, is to honor the memory of your late mother by painting four locations on the island - and in between doing that and going home again, there are 36 quests to discover and complete. Weinbaum is an ex-AAA 3D environment artists, and so, unsurprisingly, the quality of the graphics is exceptional - relative to the development team size. Think about the most pretty mods for Oblivion you have ever seen, add a bit of extra quality for the environments and subtract a few for the character design and animations, and you get an idea of how good this game looks.
This game was really nice and relaxing to play, although it suffers from all the same faults Bethesda RPGs tend to suffer, too - at some point, the exploration ceases to fascinate and traveling becomes a chore. Another similarity to a Bethesda RPG is that the bug density notably increases the closer you get to the finish. And the more items you get, the easier it gets to break the game.
All in all a lovely, lovely game that I would especially recommend to every parent on here who is looking for PC games to give their kids aged 8-12 to play, if they aren't completely brain-poisoned by Fortnite yet.
4/5
- A Short Hike (adamgryu, 2019) - is a hyper-condensed isometric top-down action-adventure (minus combat). You're a little bird-gal on holiday with your aunt in a nice cabin at the foot of a mountain and need to climb to the top in order to get cellphone reception. You're expecting a call. It's important. You're a bird-person, so you can jump, run, and glide. On the way up, you meet people, get mini-quests, play mini-games, find tools, collect tokens, money and upgrades to your abilities until eventually, you're ready and able to make it to the top. You receive that call, you go back to your aunt, take a nap and the game ends.
Every mechanic in this game is fine-tuned to perfection and immediately usable for anybody who has ever played any game in the genre. The music is great, the visuals are super-cute (and the pixelization effect, one of those indie-darling style choices I will never be a total fan of, can be completely turned down), the game-play is just maximally satisfying and there's a couple mini-games/challenges with global/friends leader-boards (in the Steam version), so it even comes with replay value and a competitive element (*).
5/5 (N.B.: For a game that can be beaten within two hours and probably achievement-perfected in 4).
(*) I can't believe my stick-ball score of 24 only gets me #19,223 in the world.
- Stela (Skybox Labs, 2020) - is playable praise of the work of Playdead Games. In the sense that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. And like most imitations, it's lacking. It's most painfully lacking in the character animation department, which is kind of surprising and somewhat hard to understand, given that Skybox Labs is mainly an outsourcing studio, founded by ex-EA Vancouver staff, that makes its bread by subcontracting for AAA development and DLC, mainly for Microsoft (Age of Empires, Project Spark, Halo, etc.) and surely would have had the means and the contacts to get more than what really looks like the sort of basic Poser stuff you get from indie devs who are just starting out. The second area where it's lacking is the gameplay, most of the time you're just running the gauntlet, there isn't much of puzzling, platforming or stealth and moments of "oh, wow!" that especially Inside has so many of are non-existent. Finally, it's lacking in length. I completed my first playthrough in two hours.
One saving grace: There are secrets to collect and they aren't trivially easy to find, so you will probably get a second playthrough out of that. The reward for finding them is not just achievements either, you unlock little animated 3d scenes in the main menu explaining a bit of the backstory of each level, and those are pretty neat.
Another: The level design, general art direction and music are quite nice, but, as mentioned, there's no mistaking whose games it's flattering.
I got this game during the Steam summer sale for 50% off and to be really frank, that's what the MSRP should be. It's a two hour game that you will play, at best, twice.
2.5/5
Aug:
- Manifold Garden (William Chyr Studio, 2019) - Three main ingredients: MC Escher-inspired level design, gravity shifting relative to the surface you are standing on and the 3D environment being actually contained inside a 4D torus, which makes the environment seamlessly wrap around in every direction.
The result: The most stylish and mind-bending puzzle exploration game since Antichamber.
Unlike Antichamber and other critically acclaimed games of the genre however, Manifold Garden restricts itself to a very limited set of puzzle mechanics, so that in the latter half of the game, players will be less and less occupied with unlocking progress and instead get an opportunity to really take in the fantastically surreal world they are moving through. Most people should be able to complete this game completely on their own. I did - in 8.5 hours combined playtime.
The constant sense of awe that the visuals create is helped along greatly by the sound design and soundtrack, which mixes natural soundscapes (wind, birdsong, flowing water) with synthesized sounds to make the world feel a lot more real than it looks. The package is completed by a set of simple and tidy controls for mouse/kb, controller and even touch (on iOS).
This one might be my new favorite game of the genre - definitely in the top 3 (from which it will bump The Witness).
5/5
Sep:
- XING - The Land Beyond (White Lotus Interactive, 2017) - (Review)
Oct:
- Creature in the Well (Flight School, 2019) - (Review)
- Superliminal (Pillow Castle, 2019) - (Review)
- Submerged (Uppercut Games. 2015) - (Review)
- Night Call (MonkeyMoon / BlackMuffin, 2019) - (Review)
- Assassin's Creed Unity (Ubisoft, 2014) - (Review)
Nov:
- The Last Campfire (Hello Games, 2020) - (Review)
- The Ball (Teotl, 2010) - (Review)
- Murdered: Soul Suspect (Airtight / Square Enix, 2014) - (Review)
- Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Superbrothers / Jim Guthrie / Capybara, 2012) - (Review)
- Deliver Us the Moon (KeokeN Interactive / Wired Productions, 2019) - (Review)
- Rise of the Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics / Nixxes / Square Enix, 2015-2016) - (Review)
Dec:
- Ghostbusters - The Video Game (Terminal Reality / Atari, 2009) - (Review)
- Fe (Zoink! / Electronic Arts, 2018) - (Review)
- Mørkredd (Hyper Games / Aspyr, 2020) - (Review)
- The Touryst (Shin'en, 2019) - (Review)
- Call of the Sea (Out of the Blue / Raw Fury, 2020) - (Review)
- Carrion (Phobia Game Studio / Devolver Digital, 2020) - (Review)
- Beckett (The Secret Experiment. 2018) - (Review)
Okay, maybe not, but at least I don't have to set up a blog. Guess this will be my post.
Jan:
- Afterparty (Night School, 2019) - Modern 2.5d-point-and-click adventure.
I liked this one, even though none of the characters or any particular bit of the writing really spoke to me. Just a very nicely art-directed, charming game that doesn't overstay its welcome. And, if you're really vibing with it or come back to it years later, has branching story-lines and outcomes for some real replay-value.
Played on Game Pass.
4/5
- Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer, 2013-2020) - If this game is for you, it's probably a big deal. If it isn't, you will probably bounce off of it so hard that you will eternally wonder why it's such a big deal for others.
Looked at from the widest angle, it's a 2.5d-point-and-click adventure game. More zoomed in however, it's a very intertextual work of fiction and is jam-packed with multiple layers of references to various fields of culture including films, plays, early computer games, literature, modern art in various mediums, academic linguistics, poetry, politics, all tied into the game's quite specific setting and location.
The game has heavy, heavy emphasis on character dialog and very few puzzles, so much so that the ratio of interaction and reading reaches visual novel levels. And it is literally reading, too - no voice-overs. I have watched many-a-variety-streamer bail out of this game real quick after realizing that fact. Those who soldier on will often find that the game's incredible balancing act of being quite specific in setting, but incredibly varied in its references, just leaves them dumbstruck.
The secret to enjoying this game to me has been to follow its references outside of the game and slowly get into the creators' headspace. Doing so has literally expanded my mind - I learned about so many things and got so many new contexts to put the world into out of it. That's why I fall into the "big deal" category mentioned above.
Thing is though - I only played that quite short last episode in January. The rest of the game I played as it came out - over the course of 6 years. It's not that hard to go on a game-directed self-education adventure if you have 6 years to do so, with plenty of time between each episode to let it all sink in.
Having it all put on your plate at once - oof. This is a game that could be taken on like a book-club project. But how large is the intersection in the Venn-diagram of book-club participants and gamers?
(Very personally) 5/5
Feb:
- Last Day of June (Ovosonico, 2017) - Another modern indie take on a 3d-point-and-click. This one certainly has a striking look to it, but I found out I can't technically call it original - the whole thing is an expanded adaptation of a Jess Cope-directed music video for a song by prog-rocker Steven Wilson. And while it looks and sounds great and for long stretches is an actual game - puzzles and everything - I couldn't quite get over the overt sentimentality of the story. Little too on-the-nose.
EGS freebie.
3/5
- A Plague Tale: Innocence (Asobo Studio, 2019) - Third person stealth/action-adventure. Sets a new standard for premium-tier indie games, which now is "basically indistinguishable from AAA titles", Incredibly pleasant to look at (I took so many screenshots!) and a really smooth gameplay experience, albeit not very challenging at all and despite all the polish, it's not quite on the level of recent Uncharted and Tomb Raider titles either. Quite original scenario though, at least for a video game.
Played on Game Pass.
4/5
- GRIS (Nomada Studio, 2019) - Looks and feels like a stylized 2D-metroidvania, but: 1) You actually cannot die, 2) There are sections that look like an epic boss-battle, but again, there is no actual peril. Now this might sound very bad, but I actually loved it. The game's art-direction totally connected with me and there is an actual challenge in there, too, which is finding the secret collectibles. And looking for them was very enjoyable because of the great level design, exploring and beating the little platforming challenges/puzzles had me so captivated I completed the thing in two afternoons.
3.5/5
Mar:
- FAR - Lone Sails (Okomotive, 2018) - Amazing little indie-gem of a 2d action-adventure with a pretty unique vehicle mechanic - you pilot a steam-powered vehicle through a strangely barren and abandoned land towards an unknown destination. Lovely presentation all around (again, took a lot of sceenshots). Short game, totally playable in one long afternoon, left an impression though.
4/5
Apr:
- Broken Age (Double Fine, 2014-2015) - Not-so-modern take on a 2d-point-and-click-adventure by the point-and-click veterans from Double Fine. Largely powered by nostalgia and paid for by a record-breaking early Kickstarter campaign, this one was nice-enough-I-guess, but I'm glad I waited all these years to get it for literally four bucks in a PSN sale.
- Close to the Sun (Storm in a Teacup, 2019) - Steampunk-ish walking simulator with occasional run-away-from-the-monster action bits. Some bits look very good, some oddly generic. Great voice-acting and pretty good soundtrack. This one was pretty grating towards the end for me, but that might be because of my strong bias against all things Steampunk. A more objective problem with the game is the hilariously bad optimization, I had to put the game down to 720p in order to keep the framerate nice and smooth. On an RTX2070.
EGS freebie.
2/5
May:
- Arise - A Simple Story (Piccolo Studio, 2019) - Indie action-adventure with an interesting time-manipulation mechanic that shifts the environment. Tugged at my heart strings. Really beautiful game, great soundtrack. Some parts of it struck me as very weird though. Like, one level is sort of an extended reflection on pregnancy and it's, uh. You'll get what I mean if you ever play it.
3/5
- Observation (NoCode, 2019) - Narrative-heavy first person puzzle game, set on a stricken space station. Gameplay twist: You don't play an astronaut, you play as the station's AI and interact with the station through video camera feeds and robotic drones, which you control in first-person perspective. Liked this one a lot, I also posted about it here.
4/5
- Hob (Runic, 2017) - is a fixed-camera third person action-adventure centered around exploring the map and enhancing your wea- ok, look, it's a Zelda clone, but it replaces Nintendo's cutesy formula with completely non-verbal story-telling and puts a bit of gore on top (which you can optionally disable so your kids can play, too).
It's about as easy to get into and as addictive as Link to the Past or Link Between Worlds, but shorter by about a third. Enjoyed every minute of it, but ultimately it lacked that extra special something to make it a five.
EGS freebie.
4/5
Jun:
- OVIVO (Izhard, 2017) - Neat (and short) little monochrome platformer with cool art direction (every level is a cool piece of ink-style artwork that zooms out after you complete it to reveal the art behind the platforms) and gravity-bending mechanics. It's so tidy and tight, I would like to have said 5/5, but I feel like the music could have been a little more integral to the game (particularly since there are almost no sound fx) and it seems the main item collection achievement was never fully debugged and thus is easy to miss through no fault of your own, thus:
4/5
Jul:
- Mutazione (Die Gute Fabrik, 2019) - Puzzle-less adventure game in the vein of Oxenfree, but with the magical realism of the story slanting more towards the magical. This might be the most itch.io/tumblr-esque game I ever played and still ultimately enjoyed. Seriously, this game at one point has dialog that unironically goes "your feelings are valid" and credits a "Diversity Consultant".
But more than anything else, it's supremely chill. The art style got me in a Mediterranean vacation mood immediately, the soundtrack is so chill I've been using it as background music for naps and the only game mechanic to speak of besides running around and reading through dialog (no voice-acting in this game) is planting seeds and watching them grow. The story and characters also are fluffy as clouds that pleasantly blow past you without leaving much of an impression, but also without harshing your mellow (the game's own promotional material self-consciously and accurately describes itself as a "soap-opera").
Got it as part of a five-game-bundle for which I paid 10 bucks, so no complaints about value-for-money either - for the regular MSRP however, your mileage may vary.
3.5/5
- Eastshade (Eastshade Studios, 2019) - The big followup to Danny Weinbaum's 2017 short walking sim Leaving Lyndow is a first person adventure game that looks and feels like a classic Bethesda RPG (Morrowind in particular), but with all the RPG elements as well as all combat mechanics taken out.
Your main quest, after arriving on the island of Eastshade by ship-wreck, is to honor the memory of your late mother by painting four locations on the island - and in between doing that and going home again, there are 36 quests to discover and complete. Weinbaum is an ex-AAA 3D environment artists, and so, unsurprisingly, the quality of the graphics is exceptional - relative to the development team size. Think about the most pretty mods for Oblivion you have ever seen, add a bit of extra quality for the environments and subtract a few for the character design and animations, and you get an idea of how good this game looks.
This game was really nice and relaxing to play, although it suffers from all the same faults Bethesda RPGs tend to suffer, too - at some point, the exploration ceases to fascinate and traveling becomes a chore. Another similarity to a Bethesda RPG is that the bug density notably increases the closer you get to the finish. And the more items you get, the easier it gets to break the game.
All in all a lovely, lovely game that I would especially recommend to every parent on here who is looking for PC games to give their kids aged 8-12 to play, if they aren't completely brain-poisoned by Fortnite yet.
4/5
- A Short Hike (adamgryu, 2019) - is a hyper-condensed isometric top-down action-adventure (minus combat). You're a little bird-gal on holiday with your aunt in a nice cabin at the foot of a mountain and need to climb to the top in order to get cellphone reception. You're expecting a call. It's important. You're a bird-person, so you can jump, run, and glide. On the way up, you meet people, get mini-quests, play mini-games, find tools, collect tokens, money and upgrades to your abilities until eventually, you're ready and able to make it to the top. You receive that call, you go back to your aunt, take a nap and the game ends.
Every mechanic in this game is fine-tuned to perfection and immediately usable for anybody who has ever played any game in the genre. The music is great, the visuals are super-cute (and the pixelization effect, one of those indie-darling style choices I will never be a total fan of, can be completely turned down), the game-play is just maximally satisfying and there's a couple mini-games/challenges with global/friends leader-boards (in the Steam version), so it even comes with replay value and a competitive element (*).
5/5 (N.B.: For a game that can be beaten within two hours and probably achievement-perfected in 4).
(*) I can't believe my stick-ball score of 24 only gets me #19,223 in the world.
- Stela (Skybox Labs, 2020) - is playable praise of the work of Playdead Games. In the sense that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. And like most imitations, it's lacking. It's most painfully lacking in the character animation department, which is kind of surprising and somewhat hard to understand, given that Skybox Labs is mainly an outsourcing studio, founded by ex-EA Vancouver staff, that makes its bread by subcontracting for AAA development and DLC, mainly for Microsoft (Age of Empires, Project Spark, Halo, etc.) and surely would have had the means and the contacts to get more than what really looks like the sort of basic Poser stuff you get from indie devs who are just starting out. The second area where it's lacking is the gameplay, most of the time you're just running the gauntlet, there isn't much of puzzling, platforming or stealth and moments of "oh, wow!" that especially Inside has so many of are non-existent. Finally, it's lacking in length. I completed my first playthrough in two hours.
One saving grace: There are secrets to collect and they aren't trivially easy to find, so you will probably get a second playthrough out of that. The reward for finding them is not just achievements either, you unlock little animated 3d scenes in the main menu explaining a bit of the backstory of each level, and those are pretty neat.
Another: The level design, general art direction and music are quite nice, but, as mentioned, there's no mistaking whose games it's flattering.
I got this game during the Steam summer sale for 50% off and to be really frank, that's what the MSRP should be. It's a two hour game that you will play, at best, twice.
2.5/5
Aug:
- Manifold Garden (William Chyr Studio, 2019) - Three main ingredients: MC Escher-inspired level design, gravity shifting relative to the surface you are standing on and the 3D environment being actually contained inside a 4D torus, which makes the environment seamlessly wrap around in every direction.
The result: The most stylish and mind-bending puzzle exploration game since Antichamber.
Unlike Antichamber and other critically acclaimed games of the genre however, Manifold Garden restricts itself to a very limited set of puzzle mechanics, so that in the latter half of the game, players will be less and less occupied with unlocking progress and instead get an opportunity to really take in the fantastically surreal world they are moving through. Most people should be able to complete this game completely on their own. I did - in 8.5 hours combined playtime.
The constant sense of awe that the visuals create is helped along greatly by the sound design and soundtrack, which mixes natural soundscapes (wind, birdsong, flowing water) with synthesized sounds to make the world feel a lot more real than it looks. The package is completed by a set of simple and tidy controls for mouse/kb, controller and even touch (on iOS).
This one might be my new favorite game of the genre - definitely in the top 3 (from which it will bump The Witness).
5/5
Sep:
- XING - The Land Beyond (White Lotus Interactive, 2017) - (Review)
Oct:
- Creature in the Well (Flight School, 2019) - (Review)
- Superliminal (Pillow Castle, 2019) - (Review)
- Submerged (Uppercut Games. 2015) - (Review)
- Night Call (MonkeyMoon / BlackMuffin, 2019) - (Review)
- Assassin's Creed Unity (Ubisoft, 2014) - (Review)
Nov:
- The Last Campfire (Hello Games, 2020) - (Review)
- The Ball (Teotl, 2010) - (Review)
- Murdered: Soul Suspect (Airtight / Square Enix, 2014) - (Review)
- Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Superbrothers / Jim Guthrie / Capybara, 2012) - (Review)
- Deliver Us the Moon (KeokeN Interactive / Wired Productions, 2019) - (Review)
- Rise of the Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics / Nixxes / Square Enix, 2015-2016) - (Review)
Dec:
- Ghostbusters - The Video Game (Terminal Reality / Atari, 2009) - (Review)
- Fe (Zoink! / Electronic Arts, 2018) - (Review)
- Mørkredd (Hyper Games / Aspyr, 2020) - (Review)
- The Touryst (Shin'en, 2019) - (Review)
- Call of the Sea (Out of the Blue / Raw Fury, 2020) - (Review)
- Carrion (Phobia Game Studio / Devolver Digital, 2020) - (Review)
- Beckett (The Secret Experiment. 2018) - (Review)
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And that's all for May:
| # | Title | Length (h) | Comments | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | DOOM (2016) | 10¾ | Playing DOOM: Eternal and DOOM 64 gave me a hanking for more DOOM, and DOOM (2016) was the obvious choice. However, it became clear just how much Eternal improved on the formula, and I enjoyed myself less than I anticipated. While Eternal did get a bit kitchen-sinky, its improvements to the movement system, tighter balance, and improved controls in specific areas were sorely missed. However, I still found the more story-telling to be vastly better in 2016, with a much clearer sense of your goal and less need to consult the codex to understand what the heck is going on. | ★★★★ |
| 27 | Hatsukoi 1/1 | 38½ | An infamously long romance visual novel, made to feel longer by the slow moving plot and what is probably the most dense protagonist I have ever seen. Despite that there was a lot to enjoy about the game and I did not regret my time spent reading it. | ★★★★ |
| 28 | Moons of Madness | 5¼ | A decent to good Lovecraftian horror game. It has some neat ideas, but also suffers from going all-out too early (leaving little in the way of dreadful anticipation),from chase scenes are that rendered almost comical by the movement speed of the protagonist that barely amounts to a slow jog, and from less than enjoyable stealth segments. | ★★★★ |
| 29 | YOU and ME and HER (Totono) | 8¾ | A visual novel with a twist. Experience with the medium is recommended, since it relies on the player having a familiarity with common visual novel tropes. | ★★★★ |
| 30 | Dying Light: The Following | 18¼ | A follow-up to Dying Light, it was about as entertaining as the original when played in co-op, meaning that most of the fun came from messing around, and the vast distances that you had to drive became something of a chore. Kabooom! | ★★★ |
| 31 | LAMUNATION -international- | 9½ | A comedy visual novel written by a Japanese guy obsessed with western media. While there were a lot of funny jokes, there were even more that simply fell flat. Too many gags involved a couple of characters speaking, followed up by the narrator summarizing what whacky thing then happened, something that should probably have been shown, not told, 9 times out of 10. | ★★☆ |
| 32 | Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition | 7¾ | An incredibly pretty game that fell utterly flat for me. There was no emotional impact (except for the birbs), there was a too heavy reliance on long, check-point less segments to add challenge, and the poor differentiation (and even overlap) between foreground, background, and threats made for frequent frustration. | ★★★ |
| 33 | Dies irae ~Interview with Kaziklu Bey~ | 6 | A short prequel to Dies Irae, Interview manages to capture the best parts about Dies Irae (the great presentation, the larger than life characters, and the sheer absurdity of its rule-of-cool background) while avoiding the poor pacing that plagued the original game. | ★★★★ |
| 34 | ENIGMA: | 8¾ | A fantastic mystery visual novel that ended earlier than I would have liked, despite it fitting the theme of the game; see my comments in the book club thread for more. | ★★★★ |
13. Frog Detective
14. Energy Breaker
15. Resident Evil 3
16. MHW Iceborne (campaign + several post game monsters)
17. Yakuza Kiwami
18. Halo 2 (on PC)
14. Energy Breaker
15. Resident Evil 3
16. MHW Iceborne (campaign + several post game monsters)
17. Yakuza Kiwami
18. Halo 2 (on PC)
38. Lego Indiana Jones The Original Adventures - Super Old School Lego game. Play through the first 3 movies, doesn't include that weird 4th one! Camera isn't great though. ★★★ 1/2
39. Simple Machines - There's been a dearth of short minimalist puzzle games but worry no more! Control a maze of machines to get one or more balls home. Some of the later levels require some pretty slick timing and reactions. ★★★★
40. Mafia III: DE - I'd still be here next week if I tried to list all the bugs I encountered and 95% of the games content is driving between actual content but when it works it really works, most of the time it's a chore. ★★★
39. Simple Machines - There's been a dearth of short minimalist puzzle games but worry no more! Control a maze of machines to get one or more balls home. Some of the later levels require some pretty slick timing and reactions. ★★★★
40. Mafia III: DE - I'd still be here next week if I tried to list all the bugs I encountered and 95% of the games content is driving between actual content but when it works it really works, most of the time it's a chore. ★★★
41. Minecraft Dungeons - Utterly forgettable isometric ARPG. Lots of different gear and builds but without much goal or point. Difficulty is a little uneven at times and you just have to hope you get the right gear and right encounters via the RNG. ★★ 1/2
Mass Effect: Andromeda
Finished for the second time, first on PS4 and now on PC and i reckon i'll be going back in a few months for another run. Sure the game has issues but it scratched that Mass Effect itch for me. The crew are fine and even the ones i wasn't keen on grow on me throuugh the game with some having some great lines in both cutscenes and their interactions in the Nomad. Combat is fun and has plenty of leeway to mess about with different styles. The music has it's moments and the rest is fine. I thought the story was interesting and kept me going, i liked that it let me do things at my own pace and put things off until i was ready for them which i always appreciate even if it does break some people's sense of Epicness and urgency. If i want to go exploring let me explore, dammit.
It was always going to be divisive having to follow on from a trilogy that many had become intimitely familiar with over 10 years leading to high expectations and it's troubled development and launch state didn't help but i didn't hit any game breaking bugs and the odd animation glitch didn't bother me. Definitely released too early and although the patches have solved most issues there's still some bits of polishing that could have been done.
I really enjoy it and look for ward to the next Mass Effect even if it isn't Andromeda or Ryder. (... but i hope they do return, FemRyder and Peebs need to go explorefighting ). There's plenty of stories to tell in that universe. Bring 'em.
Maybe i'll romance Suvi in my next run? As Vetra says, she has a voice to die for.
Update:
BOOM! Two in one day? i'm on a roll!
Sea of Solitude
First thing, the game can be a bit clunky at times when you're trying to work out how to achieve what you need to do but there's no penalty for failing so it doesn't interfere too much. There's a couple of stages to each area and sometimes you have to advance the narrative in order to give you the freedom to go exploring for the two types of collectables but it's easy to work out when you need to do that so no problem.
The artstyle is simple but gorgeous with a great use of different palettes for different moods and atmospheres, very nice. Now the meat of the game is in it's narrative and the story it has to tell. It's a story of inner thoughts, relationships and understanding told through the eyes of a young woman, don't want to say more as it unfolds wthin the game and that keeps you interested and compelled to continue. I got the impression that the design and pacing had a lot of thought put into it and even the parts i felt were being drawn out had a purpose and didn't actually linger too long after all. The unfolding events are quite dark at times but there's always something to lift it back up. The difference in an area and mood when you bring the sunshine is a welcome release and feels like a reward.
It took me about 4 hours to finish but i did miss some of the collectables but they don't seem to do anything but give some backstory or thoughts or just some extra life to the exploring. I'm not sure if "enjoyed" is the right word but i'm glad i finished it and some parts were close to the bone i'll be thinking of them for a few days.
Finished for the second time, first on PS4 and now on PC and i reckon i'll be going back in a few months for another run. Sure the game has issues but it scratched that Mass Effect itch for me. The crew are fine and even the ones i wasn't keen on grow on me throuugh the game with some having some great lines in both cutscenes and their interactions in the Nomad. Combat is fun and has plenty of leeway to mess about with different styles. The music has it's moments and the rest is fine. I thought the story was interesting and kept me going, i liked that it let me do things at my own pace and put things off until i was ready for them which i always appreciate even if it does break some people's sense of Epicness and urgency. If i want to go exploring let me explore, dammit.
It was always going to be divisive having to follow on from a trilogy that many had become intimitely familiar with over 10 years leading to high expectations and it's troubled development and launch state didn't help but i didn't hit any game breaking bugs and the odd animation glitch didn't bother me. Definitely released too early and although the patches have solved most issues there's still some bits of polishing that could have been done.
I really enjoy it and look for ward to the next Mass Effect even if it isn't Andromeda or Ryder. (... but i hope they do return, FemRyder and Peebs need to go explorefighting ). There's plenty of stories to tell in that universe. Bring 'em.
Maybe i'll romance Suvi in my next run? As Vetra says, she has a voice to die for.
Update:
BOOM! Two in one day? i'm on a roll!
Sea of Solitude
First thing, the game can be a bit clunky at times when you're trying to work out how to achieve what you need to do but there's no penalty for failing so it doesn't interfere too much. There's a couple of stages to each area and sometimes you have to advance the narrative in order to give you the freedom to go exploring for the two types of collectables but it's easy to work out when you need to do that so no problem.
The artstyle is simple but gorgeous with a great use of different palettes for different moods and atmospheres, very nice. Now the meat of the game is in it's narrative and the story it has to tell. It's a story of inner thoughts, relationships and understanding told through the eyes of a young woman, don't want to say more as it unfolds wthin the game and that keeps you interested and compelled to continue. I got the impression that the design and pacing had a lot of thought put into it and even the parts i felt were being drawn out had a purpose and didn't actually linger too long after all. The unfolding events are quite dark at times but there's always something to lift it back up. The difference in an area and mood when you bring the sunshine is a welcome release and feels like a reward.
It took me about 4 hours to finish but i did miss some of the collectables but they don't seem to do anything but give some backstory or thoughts or just some extra life to the exploring. I'm not sure if "enjoyed" is the right word but i'm glad i finished it and some parts were close to the bone i'll be thinking of them for a few days.
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42. Saint's Row 3 Remastered - Borrowed a copy off a friend that bought it for some reason on PS4. It's Saint's Row, same as always with slightly better graphics. ★★★
43. Lithium City - An aesthetically pleasing twin-stick/beat 'em up set in a glass-like neon soaked cyberpunk city. Fast, furious, spectacular and at time demanding, this game will stay with you long past the final boss. ★★★★ 1/2
44. The Last of Us Part II - A stunningly designed world, great characters and a sad tale of vengeance over everything else. A bit drawn out in places and some of the levels appear to be designed to show off level design rather than reality but it's fantastic none the less. ★★★★ 1/2
45. Bulletstorm Full Clip Edition - Silly fun and the scoring mechanic rewards creativity. The world is a little bit samey but the set pieces are great. ★★★★
43. Lithium City - An aesthetically pleasing twin-stick/beat 'em up set in a glass-like neon soaked cyberpunk city. Fast, furious, spectacular and at time demanding, this game will stay with you long past the final boss. ★★★★ 1/2
44. The Last of Us Part II - A stunningly designed world, great characters and a sad tale of vengeance over everything else. A bit drawn out in places and some of the levels appear to be designed to show off level design rather than reality but it's fantastic none the less. ★★★★ 1/2
45. Bulletstorm Full Clip Edition - Silly fun and the scoring mechanic rewards creativity. The world is a little bit samey but the set pieces are great. ★★★★
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Void Bastards - Great look to a comic art (2000AD?) inspired FPS Rogue-like. Pretty short if you don't amble around the map and all the game mechanics are designed to push you towards get it, get stuff, get out, move on. Death can sometimes be helpful as your next avatar might have some helpful traits and you learn pretty quickly not to care too much about your current toon. Good in small doses as i did find the repetetive loop a bit wearing after a while but i alwats came back to it for another few ship runs after a day or so.
Game #22 done, XCOM: Chimera Squad.
It's kind of neat, but a little buggy. As is tradition at this point in the Firaxis XCOM games I guess. The turn order change actually changes the game quite a bit and makes it a fresh spin on the XCOM formula. Though I still prefer the traditional turn order.
It's kind of neat, but a little buggy. As is tradition at this point in the Firaxis XCOM games I guess. The turn order change actually changes the game quite a bit and makes it a fresh spin on the XCOM formula. Though I still prefer the traditional turn order.
June is over and I didn't manage to finish much other than the book club VN. I did try hard to finish Yukikoi Melt as well, but the last routes nearly killed me. You can look forward to my raging about that VN next month.
| # | Title | Length (h) | Comments | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 | Blood: Fresh Supply | 10½ | Edgy the shooter. While I had pretty much experienced all the game had to offer after the first hour or two, the game remained decently entertaining all the way through. | ★★★★ |
| 36 | Helltaker | 2 | A free and light puzzle-game with funny writing, great music, and pancakes. | ★★★★★ |
| 37 | G-Senjou no Maou - The Devil on G-String | 21 | A fantastic read, my enjoyment of which was only dampened by a twist that felt contrary to earlier parts of the story. See the book club thread for more. | ★★★★★ |
| 38 | DUSK | 5¾ | DUSK ended up being a bit of a disappointment. Movement was great, but both enemies and weapons felt rather lackluster, and the many parts of the game in which you had to grope around in the dark with a shitty flashlight just felt annoying (with a couple of exceptions that did manage to spook). | ★★★ |
Surprisingly solid. Short but fun, even if you're going for Platinum it didn't take us long.
46. Halo 1 (MCC) - Painfully oldschool in design, some levels like The Library really dragged. Difficulty on normal was all over the place. Forced my way though it mainly for the story. ★★ 1/2
47. Halo 2 (MCC) - A vast improvement on Halo 1. More interesting level design, better gunplay and much more and more interesting story. Cortana is such a snark. ★★★★
48. Replicated - Replicated is a deceptively simple looking yet thought provoking shape matching game where it’s up to you to find the two matching interlocking shapes in a single group of cubes ★★★ 1/2
47. Halo 2 (MCC) - A vast improvement on Halo 1. More interesting level design, better gunplay and much more and more interesting story. Cortana is such a snark. ★★★★
48. Replicated - Replicated is a deceptively simple looking yet thought provoking shape matching game where it’s up to you to find the two matching interlocking shapes in a single group of cubes ★★★ 1/2
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Guess what? I'm going to do it again later in the year.
While i'm here i finished a couple of games recently.
Comedy Quest: Typical indie point and click adventure about starting out as a stand-up comedian. Short with some interesting ideas but i think i only chuckled a bit. It was definitely a fun project for the team though so i ain't mad.
Gris: What can be said that hasn't been said before? Gorgeous game with fantastic animation, art design and music. The game is also very, very good at letting you know what to do without a tutorial and only a basic overlay when the new abilities unlock. It doesn't take long to understand the story it is trying to depict. It's very easy to play and get into a flow and there were only a couple of instances where i had to try things over and over again but once it clicked it took seconds to achieve.
I will be replaying it as i want to do some exploring and pick up some collectables i missed. They are in no way required but there were times when i thought i was exploring when i was actually on the critical path so i'm looking forward to diverging a bit more. Tricksy devs fooling my contrarian brain.
Did i mention it just oozes style and substance? Because it sure does.
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D4: [UWSL]D[/UWSL]ark [UWSL]D[/UWSL]reams [UWSL]D[/UWSL]on't [UWSL]D[/UWSL]ie:
Well, it's a strange one. Kind of a very interactive, Linear, Visual Novel with the usual Swery oddness in both concept and story. As usual again it can look god at times and at other times very odd. I'm a sucker for Swery's games though so i thoroughly enjoyed it. You play an ex-detective working on a case that might be related to your wife's death. You click between "nodes" to travel around locations, you can look about and find objects/people to interact with and there are simple QTEs that i found easier with a mouse than controller.
[UWSL][/UWSL]
[UWSL]It does finish on a cliffhanger that will probably never be resolved tho. I'm glad i played it, it was relatively short and quite engaging once i worked out the gameplay loops.[/UWSL]
[UWSL][/UWSL]
[UWSL]
[/UWSL]
[UWSL][/UWSL]
[UWSL]Obligatory Cat picture.[/UWSL]
Well, it's a strange one. Kind of a very interactive, Linear, Visual Novel with the usual Swery oddness in both concept and story. As usual again it can look god at times and at other times very odd. I'm a sucker for Swery's games though so i thoroughly enjoyed it. You play an ex-detective working on a case that might be related to your wife's death. You click between "nodes" to travel around locations, you can look about and find objects/people to interact with and there are simple QTEs that i found easier with a mouse than controller.
[UWSL][/UWSL]
[UWSL]It does finish on a cliffhanger that will probably never be resolved tho. I'm glad i played it, it was relatively short and quite engaging once i worked out the gameplay loops.[/UWSL]
[UWSL][/UWSL]
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[UWSL]Obligatory Cat picture.[/UWSL]
2017-2019, it took me until December to finish the 52 games a year challenge... this year I finished it in July. I didn't realize just how much of an impact COVID had on how many games I played so far this year!
...I know I haven't really been updating things on this side too well, but I'll have the list up to 52 later today.
...I know I haven't really been updating things on this side too well, but I'll have the list up to 52 later today.
[UWSL]Hylics[/UWSL]
Well, that was a thing. Abstract art hand-made with claymation and video capture passed through a bunch of filters make it a unique looking RPG that doesn't really explain what's going on but you somehow manage to keep progressing regardless. The actual gameplay is not as obtuse as it looks as underneath it all is a fairly standard but well thought out combat system with some interesting abilities. There's a ton of thought gone into this game both artistically and game ideas, you get a boat, an airship, puzzles and dungeons and death has no real penalty which is good as the one maze area is very trial-and-error but once you grok it, it's very quick to get to the goals.
The artwork and semi-random, sometimes nonsense dialog make it seem more bizarre than it actually is. Three short acts of enjoyable bizzarity.
I try not to do spoilers in these summaries but hot-damn i feel i am terrible and vague with these writeups. lol.
Well, that was a thing. Abstract art hand-made with claymation and video capture passed through a bunch of filters make it a unique looking RPG that doesn't really explain what's going on but you somehow manage to keep progressing regardless. The actual gameplay is not as obtuse as it looks as underneath it all is a fairly standard but well thought out combat system with some interesting abilities. There's a ton of thought gone into this game both artistically and game ideas, you get a boat, an airship, puzzles and dungeons and death has no real penalty which is good as the one maze area is very trial-and-error but once you grok it, it's very quick to get to the goals.
The artwork and semi-random, sometimes nonsense dialog make it seem more bizarre than it actually is. Three short acts of enjoyable bizzarity.
I try not to do spoilers in these summaries but hot-damn i feel i am terrible and vague with these writeups. lol.
24 so far and that'll probably be the number for this year.
Super happy with that!
Super happy with that!
| Title | Genre | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| A Short Hike | Walking Sim (?) | - |
| Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition | Action RPG | - |
| Dark Souls Remastered | Action RPG | - |
| Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin | Action RPG | - |
| Dark Souls III (+ Ashes of Ariandel & The Ringed City) | Action RPG | - |
| Disco Elysium | CRPG | Very disco. Still processing it, but it's among my favorites for sure. This is a game that everyone should probably play at some point. |
| Dishonored: Death of the Outsider | Action-Adventure / Immersive Sim | - |
| Guacamelee 2 | Action Platformer | - |
| Hades | Action Roguelike | GOTY |
| Halo Reach | FPS | It's alright. Felt a bit like Bungie looked at Final Fantasy IV and figured they'd replicate that in another genre, i.e. lots of seemingly pointless sacrifices. I couldn't really be moved by the story and characters, as it all fell flat due to weird delivery and/or a lack of meaningful characterization. Gameplay-wise, it's fine. My impressions are colored a bit by the pitiful gun sounds and general sound mixing issues. There are also a lot of combat encounters that drag on for too long. I don't know if that was a factor of playing it on Heroic or what. |
| Halo Combat Evolved | FPS | Pretty fun game that's held back by really repetitive level design and plentiful cheap deaths. The soundtrack is sublime, however. I largely played it with the Anniversary graphics, but I felt like the art direction in the original was a little better. For some reason, Anniversary is really bright and changes the mood of a lot of locations. Kind of a weird remake in that sense. I was also way into the story here. I'd previously only played separate levels of this in co-op, so I never paid much attention to it, but it's kinda neat for as simple as it is. Lots of dumb proper nouns, but I liked its general vibe and it comes together in a satisfying way. |
| Halo 2 | FPS | The anniversary treatment for Halo 2 is incredible, the gameplay feels really good, the story is dumb fun and the variety of environments kept me interested throughout. It turns out I never really played Halo 2 much beyond the first level, because I had zero recollection of playing the rest of this game. Some minor issues I had were the occasional visual flair in the anniversary graphics occluding visibility too much (most prominently the muzzle flare on the Carbine), crazy accurate enemy snipers, all the boss fights kind of sucking and several combat sequences dragging on a little too long (e.g. all of Gravemind!). I liked that Halo CE and Reach didn't really have any explicit bosses, but I guess Bungie didn't agree. Its fundamentals -- shooting, movement and level design -- have held up well, however. |
| Halo 3 | FPS | What an experience. Sharp gameplay, fun levels and a top notch aesthetic that really holds up. While I have my misgivings with the Floodgate and Cortana levels, the game as a whole is still really strong, and I found it to be the most consistent of the three. Each of them has their pluses though. Halo CE has an impeccable soundtrack, Halo 2 has great variety of locales as well as some of the best gameplay and character moments in the series, and Halo 3 is -- for me anyway -- the most fun to play of the three. Taking down Scarabs will never get old, and the vehicle sections in this one are an absolute blast. |
| Higurashi When They Cry Ch. 3 | Visual Novel | Fun story, but probably the least interesting of the ones I've read. Still, solid pulpy entertainment. I liked it overall. As usual, I'm not very happy about the somewhat off-color attempts at humor most of the time, but I grit my teeth and move on because I genuinely like the absurd story. |
| Higurashi When They Cry Ch. 4 | Visual Novel | My favorite in the series so far. Changes perspective to another main character with different goals. Super fun, creepy and sets up lots of interesting strands for later entries. Still has many of the same issues I had with earlier entries, unfortunately. I was also pretty glad that this one was shorter than the other games. Less fluff, more weird folk/murder mystery. Good! |
| Higurashi When They Cry Ch. 5 | Visual Novel | More goodness. Shifts into gear faster than the previous entries. Like! |
| Hyper Light Drifter | Action-Adventure | Pretty damn good. I couldn't really get into it back when the game launched because the difficulty was way too brutal. It seems like they've tweaked a few things here and there to make it less of a pain, which did wonders to its overall playability. Had a really good time, and I think I'll return at some point to go after some of the collectibles I've missed. |
| Kentucky Route Zero | ??? | Incohesive, tedious, overlong. |
| Outer Wilds | Walking Sim | Decidedly not a game for me. Was very frustrated with how the game articulated from a mechanical perspective. While having a lot of memorable "moments", I found the actual play in this deeply unsatisfying. often surprisingly antagonistic towards the player and its story was wholly forgettable. |
| Paratopic | Walking Sim | - |
| Planescape: Torment | CRPG | - |
| Sagebrush | Walking Sim | A neat little game. I enjoyed the aesthetic, atmosphere and sounds a lot. The central story is told through notes and audio logs, which isn't the most interesting way of doing so, but the game has a few surprises up its sleeve towards the end at least. You're exploring the compound of a fictional cult and unwrapping what happened there. The cult's practices are reminiscent of People's Temple and Scientology. Pretty typical. It also gave me Midsommar vibes, but the game actually released before that movie came out, so that's just coincidental I suppose. The distances between points of interest are perhaps a little too long for my taste, and I think the sense of scale wouldn't have been impacted much if it was condensed a bit more. Thankfully, the game's only like an hour and a half in length, so these issues are not as glaring as they would be if it was longer. All in all, I enjoyed it and am glad I chanced it. Worth a try if you're into cult themed spooky stuff and delightful lo-fi 3D graphics. |
| Shadowrun: Dragonfall | Tactical RPG (?) | Really good fun. It's not groundbreaking in any way, but I had a great time with it. Decently written characters, an incredibly interesting world, satisfying combat and simple but fun RPG character building. |
| Trials of Harmony | Visual Novel | Decent escape-room VN. Nothing to really write home about, but it's surprisingly okay for the price and scope. |
| Yakuza 0 | Action-Adventure | - |
| Yakuza Kiwami | Action-Adventure | - |
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Neon Code:
Lovely Cyberpunk/Deus Ex atmosphere and music for a basic, linear 3D FPS Adventure game but it was only 79p and took me about an hour to play through. One guy made it after work over the course of a year and had some help with music and dialog. A nice little distraction for a Sunday afternoon.
Now playing Flux Caves, the same dev's next project and it's a marked leap in quality. It's an open world 3D balls and tube puzzle game with sliding blocks. Like all those water pipe/circuit board mini pizzles you get in games but in 3D and set on an island like Talos Principle/Witness with some open air puzzles which unlock doors to puzzles in caves. Starts simple but that won't last i'm sure.
Lovely Cyberpunk/Deus Ex atmosphere and music for a basic, linear 3D FPS Adventure game but it was only 79p and took me about an hour to play through. One guy made it after work over the course of a year and had some help with music and dialog. A nice little distraction for a Sunday afternoon.
Now playing Flux Caves, the same dev's next project and it's a marked leap in quality. It's an open world 3D balls and tube puzzle game with sliding blocks. Like all those water pipe/circuit board mini pizzles you get in games but in 3D and set on an island like Talos Principle/Witness with some open air puzzles which unlock doors to puzzles in caves. Starts simple but that won't last i'm sure.
Fairly meaty for early access, game is really good, can't recommend enough.
Cayne
Small P&C adventure episode set in the Stasis universe. Short, simple and free. The story is decent and dark, if you like Stasis give it a whirl it's very short.
Paradigm
Shortish P&C adventure with fantastic art design, artwork and music. The puzzles are simple for the most part but the world and characters are quirky to say the least. It's full of ideas and made with a lot of love and passion for the madness. Great game, well worth playing if you have it in your backlog.
Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure
Short P&C Job Sim? set in the Thinleweed Park world. You are Delores taking photos for assignments for the local paper, you wander around two streets of the town with each assignment being a puzzle. There are 30 of them in batches of 5. Do 5, report in, game ends. Restart game, do 5 more etc
I really liked it. It's charming and some of the assignments made me think so they aren't all totally obvious and simple. Very short but it's free so go for it if you want more Thimbleweed or like puzzles.
Small P&C adventure episode set in the Stasis universe. Short, simple and free. The story is decent and dark, if you like Stasis give it a whirl it's very short.
Paradigm
Shortish P&C adventure with fantastic art design, artwork and music. The puzzles are simple for the most part but the world and characters are quirky to say the least. It's full of ideas and made with a lot of love and passion for the madness. Great game, well worth playing if you have it in your backlog.
Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure
Short P&C Job Sim? set in the Thinleweed Park world. You are Delores taking photos for assignments for the local paper, you wander around two streets of the town with each assignment being a puzzle. There are 30 of them in batches of 5. Do 5, report in, game ends. Restart game, do 5 more etc
I really liked it. It's charming and some of the assignments made me think so they aren't all totally obvious and simple. Very short but it's free so go for it if you want more Thimbleweed or like puzzles.
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Game 25 Ufouria: The Saga is done.
Still a great game, and boy do I love the Sunsoft sound.
Still a great game, and boy do I love the Sunsoft sound.
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Played enough to get platinum trophy, game was fantastic.
49. Stela - Waking in a cave, the nameless protagonist climbs a ladder emerging into a world rife with danger. Beautiful art and sound, this is a game that will leave you wanting more. ★★★★ 1/2
50. Ghost of Tsushima - Stunning world and setting, plenty of sneaky tricks to keep it working on a base PS4. The rock paper scissors battle system works quite well and with even half decent timing the game becomes quite easy on the normal setting. You really carve shit up! The story while being somewhat cliched does honour the setting quite well without resulting to Hollywood tropes, though after Sucker Punch's dual morality stories in the inFamous games, GoT leads you though a set story. The only criticism is that at times it feels unnecessarily large. ★★★★★
50. Ghost of Tsushima - Stunning world and setting, plenty of sneaky tricks to keep it working on a base PS4. The rock paper scissors battle system works quite well and with even half decent timing the game becomes quite easy on the normal setting. You really carve shit up! The story while being somewhat cliched does honour the setting quite well without resulting to Hollywood tropes, though after Sucker Punch's dual morality stories in the inFamous games, GoT leads you though a set story. The only criticism is that at times it feels unnecessarily large. ★★★★★
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July is at its end, so it is time to do a status report:
| # | Title | Length (h) | Comments | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39 | Yukikoi Melt | 20 | The first full visual novel by Frontwing themselves released in English in a while. While the common route was a lot of fun, the 3 of the 4 routes ended up being tests of endurance, and the last didn't make up for it. Why do I have to be a VN completionist? | ★★★ |
| 40 | ATRI: - My Dear Moments - | 8 | A post-apocalyptical VN reminiecient of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō. Great production values and a plot that takes some expected and unexpected twists and turn. While I didn't have a lot of interest in this title when it was first announced, it managed to completely exceed my expectations and ended up being my favorite by far of the two ANIPLEX.EXE titles (the other being Adabana). | ★★★★★ |
| 41 | Adabana Odd Tales | 6 | A fairy tale style visual novel in the distinct and lovely art-style of Liar-soft. I had greatly looked forward to this one, but while very enjoyable, it ended up being perhaps a bit too predictable and lacked the emotional highs (and crushing lows) of the visual novel I had just finished at the time, namely ATRI. | ★★★★ |
| 42 | Serre | ¼ | A short and sweet visual novel about a woman who suddenly finds an alien crash-landed in her greenhouse. | ★★★★ |
| 43 | Jiangshi x Daoshi - Ep. 1 and 2 | 2 | Bubbly Dao priest meets smug assassin and hi-jinks rapidly ensue. While assets are not as high quality as bigger VNs, a lot of love has clearly gone into this doujin title. This VN is animated to a degree that is rarely seen even in big titles, is voice-acted, has a soundtrack that is more memorable than many other VNs despite largely being made of free music, and is funny as hell. And did I mention that the first two episodes are free? | ★★★★ |
| 44 | Making*Lovers | 20¾ | Sappy romance. Lots of sappy romance. Unfortunately most routes lacked any meaningful plot to drive the them forward, and were too sparse in terms of cast, with the result that it felt a bit empty. | ★★★★ |
| 45 | CUPID | 3¾ | A suprisingly well wrought (and free) visual novel, about love and revenge. | ★★★★ |
| 46 | Dark Souls 3 | 53½ | More Dark Souls. It turned out that what I wanted wasn't more Dark Souls. I beat the final boss and I beat the first DLC, and then I had enough. | ★★★★ |
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