What games did you complete? 2022 Edition

[FishyFish]

I've never participated in these threads before, mostly because I was hooked on Battlefield to the detriment of pretty much everything else through the last gen. I'm clean again now though, so...

 

01. God of War (PS4/PS5)

I've never played any of the earlier games in the series and was expecting some kind of fancy 3D Golden Axe type thing, which probably wouldn't have been my thing. But as it's included in the Playstation Collection and it has rave reviews, I decided to give it a go. What I got exceeded my expectations. It looks great and there's a ton of content (I've completed the main story, but have loads uf unfinished side-quests). Looks lovely too. I'll pick up the sequel when it arrives.

 

02. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4/PS5)

I remember seeing the initial reveal trailer for this and thinking it looked a bit "meh". It was only later (and probably post-Mandalorian) that it started to attract my attention so I bought the digital version in a recent sale. The combat felt far more floaty and lightweight than GoW, and it felt a bit janky too with some odd glitches and unfair deaths. I wasn't impressed at first but, gradually, as my force pabilities grew, it became a lot more fun. It's bastard hard though (to me, at least) and I dropped the difficulty down to the lowest setting for much of the game.

 

03. Until Dawn (PS4/PS5)

Another one that I didn't really have much interest in before. One of my sons has it and liked it, but for some reason I imagined something akin to those old Mega-CD FMV games, so never really looked into it. Again, it's in the Playstation Collection so I thought "Why not?". At first I wasn't impressed. It looks really nice but the movement is glacial. I'm also not a big fan of quicktime events, so that's another mark against it. The characters all have a weird uncanny valley vibe to them too, with weird, sparkling vampire eyes, and they annoyed me considerably in their bro-ness. Again though, the game grew on me, really picking up after the somewhat pedestrian opening sections. I only saved three of the plastic-looking fools though. :D

[strawdonkey]

On 23/01/2022 at 23:22, strawdonkey said:

2021/65a. Star Hunter DX (Space Cadet, 1CC, 19.3mil)

01. The Artful Escape

02. Rhythm Doctor

03. Monolith

04. Higurashi When They Cry - Ch.2 Watanagashi

05. Outer Wilds

06. OMORI

 

OMORI is a JRPG/RPG-Maker game with lots of great ideas, an amazing story, and a huge fistful of bloat that I didn't care for at all. I'm sure I've missed something important as this has been received almost universally positively. You play as someone who is moving away from their childhood home in three days, and has been a shut-in for a significant period of time. Your friend comes to call and you spend those three days together reconnecting with old friends and learning about the reason for isolating themselves in the first place.

 

At night, you'll enter headspace, which features the same characters, only you're still friends and you go on adventures and everything is fantastical and also there's about 10+ hours of JRPG nonsense which gets really tedious. Some of it drives the story forward; much of it is just in the way and serves to make the game frustrating to play, which in itself is a shame as the battle system is pretty inventive. Each character (including your enemies) can feel varying degrees of happiness, sadness and anger, and there's a Fire Emblem-style triangle where one is superior to the second but weak to the third. Only, you rarely need to make use of this outside of the bosses. There's also a system where each time you get hit you earn energy, which can be spent on follow-up attacks, which are unique to each character; these are loads of fun too, until you find that 90% of the time you just use the one that lets your characters attack more times.

 

I made it to the end and got the good ending. There's a second route you can play which involves a significant amount of grind and I just don't think I have it in me. It's a shame because the main characters are delightful and the story is both great and presented wonderfully, but the combination of many of the sub-characters being forgettable and the sheer amount of JRPG you have to wade through means I'm probably done with this.

[MikeF]

11 - Doom Eternal PS5 - Game completed with every collectible found, only the extra live mode and MP trophies left, MP is pretty dead so calling this complete now

 

January

Spoiler

1 - Little Nightmares 2 PS5 - Platinum

2 - Dirt 5 PS4 - Platinum

3 - Dirt 5 PS5 - Platinum

4 - The Long Reach PS4 - Platinum

5 - Uncharted The Lost Legacy PS4 - Platinum 

6 - Resident Evil Village PS5 - Platinum 

7 - Outlast PS4 - 100%
8 - Cyberpunk 2077 PS4 - Platinum

9 - Greak Memories of Azur PS5 - Completed main game, speed run trophy means that's as far as I am going so its completed as far as I am concerned

10 - Returnal PS5 - Returned to this and finally saw the credits roll, the suspend cycle was a real help.  Calling it complete now but I will return to it periodically to look for the sun fragments.

 

[Quest]

Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World (3DS)

 

Yeah, it's pretty good. Some standout levels with neat gimmicks but mostly just your standard egg-lobbing and that.

 

This tune was probably the highlight for me: 

 

 

January:

Spoiler

26/01 - Poochy &  Yoshi's Woolly World (3DS

17/01 - iS: Internal Section (PS1)

16/01 - New Pokemon Snap (Switch)

15/01 - Shinobi III (Mega Drive)

14/01 - Bulk Slash (Saturn)

13/01 - Densetsu no Stafy (GBA)

13/01 - Wolf Fang - Kuuga 2001 (PS1)

11/01 - Clock Tower - The First Fear (PS1)

11/01 - Finger Flashing (PS1)

10/01 - Mon Amour (Switch)

10/01- Psy-O-Blade (Mega Drive)

08/01 - Romeo + Juliet (Mac)

08/01 - BLACK BIRD (Switch)

04/01 - The Pedestrian (Series X)

03/01 - Paper Mario: The Origami King (Switch)

03/01 - Sonic Generations (Series X)

01/01 - How We Know We're Alive (Mac)

 

[BabelRich]

23/01 - Control

I was not prepared for how creepy this was going to be. Those floating fuckers and their constant chanting... headphones did not help. The game was fine, combat was great fun once I had a nice suite of powers and some of the documents were funny. Felt the story did not wrap satisfactorily though.

 

7/10

 

25/01 - The Gunk

The Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuunk. I'm a big fan of the Steamworld games, even Quest, so was looking forward to giving this a whirl. Just what I needed after the stress of Control and nice fun, low drama few hours of Luigi's Mansion crossed with Escape from the Savage Planet. There is nothing close to remarkable about this game, I agree with the sentiment that its the devs wanting to dip their toe in to 3D without sacrificing the Steamworld gang if it was shit. But it's not shit. It's not great but it is recommended if you just want a breezy little game to occupy 4-5 hours of your time.

 

7/10

 

26/01 - Gorogoa

I like to think I'm a moderately intelligent man but playing shit like this makes me feel so inadequate. Not because I struggled with the puzzles, but I can't comprehend how a single guy could conceive of and design this game. This was a brilliant hour spent going 'Oh; yes!' and if you have Game Pass and a lunch break you should absolutely play this.

 

9/10

 

 

Spoiler

11/01 - Rise of the Tomb Raider 7/10

07/01 - Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space 9/10

 

[cassidy]

Well slow going so far but considering the size of both completions, it's understandable. 

 

2. Yakuza 4 (series X) - Loved this one probably top tier Yakuza for me, loved the new characters and how they were introduced.  Good story and  really got into the side stories on this one. Saejima is a beast.  Shall I jump straight into 5, I think I shall. 

 

Spoiler

06/01/22

1. Yakuza 3 remastered -(series X) Good game not a great nay amazing one this. It's hampered by the missing QOL improvements made to the Kiwami and all dragon engine games in the series. But I still got through it. 

 

[strawdonkey]

On 25/01/2022 at 11:34, strawdonkey said:

2021/65a. Star Hunter DX (Space Cadet, 1CC, 19.3mil)

01. The Artful Escape

02. Rhythm Doctor

03. Monolith

04. Higurashi When They Cry - Ch.2 Watanagashi

05. Outer Wilds

06. OMORI

02a. Rhythm Doctor (all the bonus stuff and B+'d every stage)

 

It is genuinely amazing just how inventive this game is considering you only have access to one button. Also the whole thing is worth it just for the act 2 boss, which is one of the best pieces of videogames ever.

 

 

The crossover songs are a lot of fun too, though the Muse Dash ones are the best as they are every bit as daft as the rest of the game.

[Varsity]

3. Death's Door - 10/10

 

Rare for me to give anything a 10. Have put my thoughts in the actual thread for this game but to summarise here, astounding soundtrack and beautiful world. If you have PC/Xbox game pass, you NEED to play this one. I'm already considering a second stack on PC at some point in future because I'd love to revisit this one. 

 

From a completion perspective, I was at first, expecting a rough ride here with the numerous references to it being dark souls like in nature and my failures at playing those games. To increase efficieny and eliminate the need for multiple playthroughs, I did my first run handicapped with a weapon to make the game harder for one achievement. It's not really that hard tbh. I think the most a boss took me was maybe 10 goes or so, none of them took more than an hour. 

 

Rest of the cheevos were all simple with most of them being tied into collectibles and/or side npc's etc. 

 

Total time to 1000: 20 hrs 40 mins

 

Previous completions: 

 

Spoiler

1. Train Station Renovation - 1000/1000

2. Resi Village - 1000/1000

 

[cassidy]

Well that didn't take too long to get to number 3. But I have been playing it since it launched last week in between Yakuza 4. 

 

Spoiler

06/01/22

 

1. Yakuza 3 remastered -(series X)

 

26/01/22

 

2. Yakuza 4 remastered - (series X) 

 

3. Nobody saves the world - (Series X) thoroughly enjoyed this Gamepass game from drinkbox.  A very good example of action RPG imo. 

[gossi the dog]

25/01 - Steins Gate 0 (PS4)

Sequel to the time travelling visual novel, that continues from the bad ending in that game. It's not as good as the original, with this being slightly less linear but at the cost of being more confusing due to some contradiction in the storylines depending on which ending path you're on. I ended up getting all the endings and the Platinum. It's definitely worth playing if you enjoyed the original.

[keptbybees]

3: Wattam (PS4)

 

It might be easiest to sum this up as simply being a Keita Takahashi game, there is definitely more gameplay here than there was for Noby-Noby but it still is more of a curio to mess around with. There is a main story which I saw to the end and the journey is a pleasant one making oddity out of everyday objects. I'm glad I experienced it but I'd be hard pushed to recommend it to others, certainly it won't win anyone over who didn't already have some passing interest in the game. The tone is slightly odd in that it seems great for kids but then there is all the eating of the characters and the plentiful amount of poop. Going for all the achievements looks like an act of masochism as all the characters continue to do things when they aren't being controlled by you, which is fun to watch but bloody annoying when the Mouth eats everyone and you have to waste time trying to change them back while it keeps on a rampage. Theoretically you can make everyone hold hands to keep them in place but this isn't a 100% guarantee and the characters still fall off the edges of things, so you break the chain and everyone wonders off again. So an interesting enough diversion but very slight and not for all, it is also the game that made my wife give me the largest 'what the fuck are you doing' look while I was playing it.

 

4: The Forgotten City (Xbox One Gamepass)

 

Having read all the praise for the game on the forum I finally got round to giving it a try and was truly absorbed by it. So to echo the general praise, this is a great detective based game which uses a time loop in a very un-frustrating way. Each time through you work out a bit more and while there are clues in place to help you go forward you can also stumble across things on your own which will still move quests onwards. It is a little rough around the edges but the concept is interesting and the characters well written. There is a lot of talking involved so if that isn't your thing then bear that in mind but otherwise an easy game to recommend. I have a few more thoughts on it but I think they'll be best in the main thread for the game.

 

So far:

Spoiler

January -

 

1: There is No Game: Wrong Dimension (PC)

 

2: The Pedestrian (PC - Gamepass)

 

[Mogster]

Bit of a catch up here as I somehow finished two games this week.

 

24/01/2022 - Hitman (2016)

I've been playing this in small chunks for what seems like ages, which is why I ended up finishing the first of the trilogy imported into Hitman III. It was brilliant of course, and I think the reason it's taken me so long is due to each level feeling like a satisfying experience in its own right. Each one requires you to learn the movements of your targets and their guards, pick up on clues that could help you infiltrate new areas, and eventually take out the targets in the quietest, or at least most stylish way possible. By the time I finished each mission I felt like I'd had my fill for a while.

 

I've played a bunch of the old games here and there, but I think they all felt a bit too clunky for me to really enjoy the experience they offered. This version solved all of that, making for an amazing experience without any obstacles. I've got the next two ready to go, but I imagine they'll both take me a while once again. With the amount of options on offer you could probably spend a whole year just playing and replaying all the missions in this trilogy.

 

26/01/2022 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

I played the DS version of this back when it came out and loved it, and after listening to the Back Page Ace Attorney episode I had to grab the trilogy on Switch. It's a great port too, aside from a couple of instances where the cropped picture makes for some slightly dodgy framing.

 

The game itself was every bit as good as I remembered, and it seems I'd forgotten the majority of the cases which stopped them being a cakewalk. The stories were genuinely pretty great, full of good twists and offering just enough agency to make you feel clever when you pick out contradictions. Then of course there's that tune on the soundtrack that makes every every trial feel exhilarating when you close in on a verdict.

 

I remember the surprisingly lengthy fifth case being a new addition for the DS release, adding some new gameplay sequences designed to take advantage of the touchscreen, mic and 3D graphics. This version replaces the first two inputs with buttons, which is merciful but does make those sequences feel a bit superfluous. The case itself is superb though.

 

I did buy the second game for the DS, but for some reason I don't think I got very far before moving onto something else. I'm looking forward to playing through both that and the third game, and after picking up The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles in a sale I've got a lot of Ace Attorney to get through this year.

 

Spoiler

January

04/01/2022 - Kena: Bridge of Spirits
24/01/2022 - Hitman
26/01/2022 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

 

[Varsity]

4. Double Kick Heroes - 5/10 

 

So many mixed feelings on this one. For starters, when this originally launched in Game Pass, the input lag was broken on Xbox so I couldn't play it back then. Bought the W10 version a few days ago and on PC with controller plugged in it's like night and day. 

 

I thought this was would be nigh impossible for me to 1000 because of the insane note patterns and speeds of the songs but, as it turns out, you can ignore 2 of the 3 note lanes for the most part and just spam the one important one to do damage to the bosses on the hardest difficulties. On the one hand this is good because it means I got another completion that would be impossible otherwise because of the ridiculous speed required to hit all the notes, on the other, there's no determination to get better with practice. 

 

While the premise of the game is kinda cool, I just found it very average and not everything implemented works. The hit timing for the notes is ludicrously forgiving so much so that you can just spam buttons when notes get in the hit window as opposed to any form of skill or precision. The metal music tracks are OK but honestly, there's no real standout ones for me which is a shame given there's 30 something tracks in the main campaign. 

 

I'd have a tough time recommending this to anyone, even rhythm action people like myself unless you're a really hardcore metal fan but even then the gameplay just isn't really there. There's no cool note combos or solos or anything, it's pretty much all just spamming/alternation two buttons over and over with the occasional third thrown in if you feel like a challenge. 

 

Total time to 1000: 12 hours 2 mins. 

 

Previous Completions: 

 

Spoiler

1. Train Station Renovation - 1000/1000

2. Resi Village - 1000/1000

3. Death's Door - 1000/1000

 

[teddymeow]

So far, this year, I've finished:

 

Halo Infinite campaign

The Gunk

The Medium

 

I'm a way into Artful Escape too, hopefully be finished before Uncharted Collection upgrade goes live.

[ImmaculateClump]

Operation STEEL - Normal 1cc, Hard 1cc

 

Spoiler

Nekotosakana - 1cc

Moon Dancer - Normal 1cc

Moon Dancer - Hard 1cc (no miss)

Moon Dancer - Expert 1cc

Grand Cross: Renovation - 1cc

[spanx]

5. A Plague Tale: Innocence (27/01)

 

The abstinence thread strikes again, another Game Pass title I’ve been meaning to play forever and it’s a doozy. A couple of easy but rubbish boss fights late on were the only big blemish on a really very well designed game. A good (albeit grim) story, basic but fun stealth and some very pretty graphics in a game that definitely did not outstay it’s welcome. The chapters seemed paced really well, it was very easy to sit down of and contemplate taking on a couple of chapters, then happily knock through a bunch (which is what happened last Sunday when I started it, played through the first seven or eight chapters in one sitting). Surprisingly good. 

 

Spoiler

Completed

 

1.Return of the Obra Dinn (02/01)

2.The Artful Escape (08/01)

3.The Forgotten City (13/01)

4.Vampyr (22/01)

5.A Plague Tale: Innocence (27/01)

 

Playing

1.Flight Simulator

2.Shapez.io

3.Forza Horizon 5

4.It Takes Two

 

Abandoned

 

1.Halo Infinite (03/01)

2.The Outer Wilds (09/01)

 

[Quest]

28/01 - The Forgotten City (Series X)

 

I don't have much to add to all that's been said about this over the last few months, but anything that combines time-loops, dialogue-driven questing and an isolated environment is going to be a winner with me. More games like this, please.

 

31/01 - Touhou Luna Nights (Series X)

 

Pretty neat little action-platformer that has the lightest of Metroidvania elements. I have no idea what's going on with the story and the anime maiden designs are not my thing at all, but it's snappy, the character animations are great and the bosses are enjoyably intense. Looking forward to trying their Record of Lodoss War follow-up.

 

Completed:

Spoiler

13/03 -Cyberpunk 2077 (Series X)

10/01 - Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master (Series X)

31/01 - Touhou Luna Nights (Series X)

28/01 - The Forgotten City (Series X)

26/01 - Poochy &  Yoshi's Woolly World (3DS

17/01 - iS: Internal Section (PS1)

16/01 - New Pokemon Snap (Switch)

15/01 - Shinobi III (Mega Drive)

14/01 - Bulk Slash (Saturn)

13/01 - Densetsu no Stafy (GBA)

13/01 - Wolf Fang - Kuuga 2001 (PS1)

11/01 - Clock Tower - The First Fear (PS1)

11/01 - Finger Flashing (PS1)

10/01 - Mon Amour (Switch)

10/01- Psy-O-Blade (Mega Drive)

08/01 - Romeo + Juliet (Mac)

08/01 - BLACK BIRD (Switch)

04/01 - The Pedestrian (Series X)

03/01 - Paper Mario: The Origami King (Switch)

03/01 - Sonic Generations (Series X)

01/01 - How We Know We're Alive (Mac)

 

[MikeF]

12 - Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection PS5 - Platinum, imported old saves and then mopped up remaining trophies, playing through again at my leisure

 

January

Spoiler

1 - Little Nightmares 2 PS5 - Platinum

2 - Dirt 5 PS4 - Platinum

3 - Dirt 5 PS5 - Platinum

4 - The Long Reach PS4 - Platinum

5 - Uncharted The Lost Legacy PS4 - Platinum 

6 - Resident Evil Village PS5 - Platinum 

7 - Outlast PS4 - 100%
8 - Cyberpunk 2077 PS4 - Platinum

9 - Greak Memories of Azur PS5 - Completed main game, speed run trophy means that's as far as I am going so its completed as far as I am concerned

10 - Returnal PS5 - Returned to this and finally saw the credits roll, the suspend cycle was a real help.  Calling it complete now but I will return to it periodically to look for the sun fragments.

11 - Doom Eternal PS5 - Game completed with every collectible found, only the extra live mode and MP trophies left, MP is pretty dead so calling this complete now

 

[Unofficial Who]

Jan

 

31/01 Dynasty Wars (Arcade/PC) Another game off the list. I've played this in various incarnations over the years but never to the end. It has a really odd feel. Combat is entirely on horseback (well for the character you control) but it feels like a shooter....just a very short range shooter. It's OK, the graphics here are the big draw and I remember the big bold cutscenes making quite the splash in magazines back in the early 90's.

 

 

31/01 Mega Twins (Arcade/PC) I've never been able to bring myself to finish this cheery bright arcade game before, partly because the art isn't really my style and partly because the game is just full of the sort of cheap shots designed for players to keep funnelling their change in the machine. But mostly it's the unceasing honking the game makes when one of the twins is low on health. Tonight on a whim (maybe because it's summer here and this feels like a summer game) I ran through it on Arcade Stadium and...well it didn't change my mind. It feels like Capcom were going for their take on Wonderboy/Alex Kidd and it doesn't quite suceed. But it's done now and I have that little completed stamp on the options screen.

 

 

29/01 Superhot:Mind Control Delete (PC) I loved the concept of the first game but felt that it was too slight, almost a wasted opportunity. This, the third entry in the series fixes that. It adds a gentler difficulty curve and rogue like elements. Stop, come back! It's really quite good. You have an ASCII map and each node requires you to survive a number of randomly chosen scenarios. You start with a "core" power and every two or three levels you get to add a perk. As the game gets harder more perks are added to your pool. And then 

Spoiler

they're taken away near the end. One by one.

 I became obsessed with this over the last week and by the end of the game was able to (slowly) dance through enemies matrix style. This is a really good solution for those who want an FPS but just no longer have the reflexes. It's immensely satisfying to spend several minutes defeating a scenario and then watching it all play out in real time (usually about three to five seconds.)

 

The only thing that sours the game for me is the ending which I think was a misstep. But if you haven't played this before skip the others and get right into this. It's a masterclass into taking a really simple concept and then adding layers on that make the game more difficult in interesting ways. It's on GamePass now for the curious.

 

 

Earlier this month

16/01 The Forgotten City (PC)

09/01 Mr Driller Drill Land (PC)

07/01 Olija (PC)

07/01 It's a Knockout! (C64) 

02/01 Katamari Damacy REROLL (PC)

 

Abandoned games

04/01 YIIK: A Postmodern RPG

[DeciderVT]

Yakuza Zero (PS4)

 

I've been immersed in this for months, to the exclusion of all else. It's my introduction to the series and despite some misgivings about missing out on references to future events, it has been excellent. It commits the cardinal sin of making me play multiple protagonists (a pet hate) but I loved Kiryu and Majima so completely that it wasn't an issue.

 

A very well-written plot, a stellar localisation, great sense of humour, extremely memorable characters and it's just sheer fun to play. The digital tourism of wandering the streets of Kamurocho and Sotenbori has also been very welcome as I continue to stay indoors. The only blots were the obvious parallels between Real Estate Royale and Cabaret Club (grinding through one and crushing one set of bosses to find that you have to do the same again for Majima was annoying) and events like the catfights, which I found distasteful and gave up on. I adored the rest of it.

 

I'll need to take a break from the series after spending so long with this one but I'll be back to see where Kiryu and co. go next in Kiwami. I hope time will be kind to Pocket Circuit Fighter, the purest (ahem) of all men.

 

8/10

[Jamie John]

7. The Wolf Among Us (2013) - PC

 

 

I'm pretty late to the party with this one. I thought it started off really well - a moody crime noir set in a version of The Bronx to which disenfranchised fairy-tale creatures have been exiled. You play as Sheriff Bigby, aka The Big Bad Wolf, who (along with Deputy Fabletown Mayor Snow White) is investigating the gruesome murders of two prostitutes. The writing and dialogue were believable throughout, and the mystery kept me intrigued through all five of its episodes and the nine hours it took me to get to the credits. Compared with The Walking Dead, it cuts out a lot of the arbitrary adventure game sections where you have to (slowly) walk from screen to screen, clicking on things, waiting to find something to make the story progress. It felt a lot pacier as a result, more like an interactive movie or TV series, which I appreciated. Unfortunately, the final episode, where you eventually catch up with the true big bad, I thought was pretty rushed and unsatisfying, and the ending wasn't quite what I'd hoped it would be.

 

That said, I liked the game well enough overall and I'm interested in picking up the first few volumes of the comic Fables, to which this a prequel, although I understand that the comics don't exclusively focus on Bigby's detective work in the same way this does. Still, I want to see how other folk story characters have been translated into this world; seeing how Bluebeard, Toad from Toad Hall, Georgie Porgie, and others, were rendered here was probably the best part of the game.

 

If you enjoy TellTale's stuff and you haven't played this then it's an easy recommendation. Plus, the cel-shaded style still looks pretty damn sharp in 1440p, nearly ten years after its original release. It could easily pass for a modern game.

 

7/10

 

Played this year:

 

Spoiler

Completed:

 

1. Halo Infinite (2021) - XSX - 7/10

2. Bowser's Fury (2021) - Switch - 8/10

3. The Forgotten City (2021) - XSX - 8/10

4. Grindstone (2020) - Switch - 8/10

5. Inscryption (2021) - PC - 9/10

6. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001) - Switch - 8/10

7. The Wolf Among Us (2013) - PC - 7/10

 

Abandoned:

 

Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008) - PC

 

[Gambit]

30/01 - Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

 

Absolutely brilliant. I don't know why I didn't pick this up at launch, maybe it was because the Star Wars license made me do a shrug at the time, or that people described it as Souls-like (a series I dislike greatly). But I picked this up on the cheap (for a PS5 game) and absolutely blasted through it. I loved the story, the performances, the MetroidVania design, even the Souls-like inspirations were fine, mainly because it wasn't designed by sadists. I'm now all in with what Respawn do with the Star Wars license going forward. The best Western developer out there.  

 

9/10

 

Spoiler

January

05/01 - Starfox 64

14/01 - Resident Evil 3

15/01 - Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

 

[skondo]

My huge list of games completed in January 2022:

 

The Gunk. Was quite good fun, but It needed more variety. Being a vacuum cleaner for the entire game was not that thrilling. The pacing is a little odd at times. You’re out for a stroll clearing up some crap, followed by a gentle ride in a lift, then shit, what’s that thing charging at me? Combat sections were made a little more challenging due to the unhelpful camera. I found the relationship between the main characters a little irritating and the build to the end took too long, but the ending itself is really abrupt. Quite a mixed bag, so 5 out of 10.

[teddymeow]

On 27/01/2022 at 17:15, teddymeow said:

So far, this year, I've finished:

 

Halo Infinite campaign

The Gunk

The Medium

 

I'm a way into Artful Escape too, hopefully be finished before Uncharted Collection upgrade goes live.

 

Finished Artful Escape last night.

 

Absolutely loved it. Just incredible to behold! Then I noticed that my colleague who I worked with at GameStation head office who moved to Seattle to work for MS was named in the credits and it made me miss the good ol' days. 

 

 

[Jamie John]

8. What Remains of Edith Finch (2017) - XSX via Game Pass

 

 

My second time through this. I think I enjoyed it more this time around. A very sad and haunting game with some really poignant imagery. If anything, I felt like it was a little too ambiguous at times - I could have done with a bit more closure from some of the stories. But the house itself is wonderfully-built and remains striking. It's a shame Giant Sparrow, the developers, appear to be pretty dormant, especially when you consider how acclaimed this was when it first came out.

 

Anyway, if you've got a couple of hours to kill then this can comfortably be completed in an evening. It's an easy 1000/1000, too, if that's your bag.

 

8/10

 

Played this year:

 

Spoiler

 

Completed:

 

1. Halo Infinite (2021) - XSX - 7/10

2. Bowser's Fury (2021) - Switch - 8/10

3. The Forgotten City (2021) - XSX - 8/10

4. Grindstone (2020) - Switch - 8/10

5. Inscryption (2021) - PC - 9/10

6. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (replay) (2001) - Switch - 8/10

7. The Wolf Among Us (2013) - PC - 7/10

8. What Remains of Edith Finch (replay) (2017) - XSX - 8/10

 

Abandoned:

 

Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008) - PC

 

[strawdonkey]

On 26/01/2022 at 20:56, strawdonkey said:

2021/65a. Star Hunter DX (Space Cadet, 1CC, 19.3mil)

01. The Artful Escape

02. Rhythm Doctor

03. Monolith

04. Higurashi When They Cry - Ch.2 Watanagashi

05. Outer Wilds

06. OMORI

02a. Rhythm Doctor (all the bonus stuff and B+'d every stage)

07. Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel (all solo content clear)

 

I love TCGs, and have played a few of them extensively; Yu-Gi-Oh! has always eluded me though. Partly due to the community being much younger (I witnessed my one and only fist-fight at a card shop as a direct result of a Yu-Gi-Oh!-related disagreement) and also that most of the games teach you stuff like you're trying to learn from a seven-year-old. You go from "here's how to summon a card" to "I do these five actions in sequence, search my deck mulitple times and now you've died" in record time.

 

Master Duel released in January 2022 as a free-to-play version of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Inexplicably, it maintains a separate list of legal cards from the physical cardboard version of the game, but also the regular online version of the game. It is unclear why this is at this point. Either way, it's a pretty bare-bones client that lets you open some packs, run through some solo content, and then ranked match until your brain turns to mush. It gives you an enormous amount of premium currency over the first week or so that you play, before that drops off a cliff horrendously; I've acquired about 18,000 gems during my first week and there are two striking things about this number:

 

- Those gems are "worth" well over £300 at market rate (though there are bulk-buy discounts)

- It's about enough to build one and a half competitive decks

 

So yeah, the economy in this game is not friendly. If you want to be competitive in ranked battle and farted away your first ten thousand gems? You may as well make a new account. The currency drop-off is huge and while I've been trying to finish off a second deck when the first got completed, I'm realistically a couple of banlist additions away from being unable to play competitively without investing £50+ in gems at the minimum. On the plus side, you can easily put together any competitive deck with the initial glut of free gems so it's defintiely a good in-road to the game for people who haven't played before, so long as you plan a little in advance.

 

The other issue, and potentially more egregious though, is the way cards are obtained. Other than a couple of themed boosters, the way you acquire cards is from booster packs. These contain eight cards each, and they pull from a pool of 6,750 cards each time. In short, the chances of you getting a card you actually want from a regular booster is extremely slim. This is remedied by Secret Boosters, which contain a selection of 80 featured cards, and half of the pack will exclusively be from those featured cards - meaning if you want to build a particular deck, you are significantly more likely to get Cards You Actually Want from the Secret Booster than from the regular ones.

There's a catch to this, though. Secret Boosters are only available for 24 hours at a time, and to unlock them you have to first craft a Secret Rare or Ultra Rare card that comes in that pack. This is problematic and annoying for a few reasons:

 

- Crafting materials can only be obtained through the battle pass (at very, very slow rates) and from dismantling other cards of the same rarity (generally at a 3:1 ratio)

- You are literally crafting the thing you want to open, so random chance can result in you crafting a card to unlock the pack, and then opening that card in the booster packs

- Materials for crafting UR cards are exceptionally rare, which can result in you being in a catch-22 situation - you want to spend your premium currency on a specific pack of cards, but you can't do that yet because you don't have enough crafting materials to make a card from the pack, so you have to buy the shitty packs to dismantle the cards for materials (or craft a card you don't want/need) so you can spend the rest of your money on the pack you actually wanted to open in the first place.

Anyway Yu-Gi-Oh! as a game is a degenerate combo mess of a game, where you find that if you go first, you want to do some ridiculous shit that allows you to disrupt their first turn enough that you get to live through it, and if you go second, you want to kill all of their cards and then summon 8,000 power worth of monsters and kill them in one go. It's a lot of fun but the barrier to entry is enormously high, and it's very likely that a lot of people who always wanted to try the game will be immediately repulsed at one of many potential interactions they have with Master Duel - be it the gem situation, the crafting situation, or just that trying to learn to play the game feels like you've just landed in a foreign country and now is the time to start learning the language. Here's a video that shows how degenerate things have become, wherein I set up a pile of disruptive monsters on my first turn to (hopefully) stop them doing anything, and on my second turn summon a couple more monsters to kill all their stuff and kill them from full health:
 

Anyway obviously I'm completely smitten with it and will be trying to get to the top rank in ranked play now I've finished the solo content because I am an idiot

[Mawdlin]

Limbo (Switch)

 

I played this on Xbox a number of years ago and never did get to the end so when it came up in a sale recently I snapped it up. I have mixed feelings to be honest.

 

I love the atmosphere and pared back nature of the narrative and puzzling but towards the end I found it a slog. I can see why I never did finish it all those years ago. I think once you get to the more industrial parts the puzzles become more trial and error and less organic. For the most part you die three or four times attempting to find that eureka moment, but by the end this multiplies considerably and it becomes far more punishing and plain annoying.

 

I also think it suffers in comparison to Inside which contains one of the best narratives in videogames and is a smoother and more interesting game all round.

 

I can see why this got a lot of love when it was first released but the last third tarnished it for me. It's not a great sign when you just want something to be over.

 

6/10

[bear]

Hades (Series X) 

I hate the bow. The rest of the game is great, I'm hating this damn bow though. 

I'm going to give this a provisional score as I think its almost certainly something I keep dipping in and out of as I make slow progress on the optional quests. 

9/10

 

Super Metroid 

I've never played through this before so I could try and pass this off as a nostalgia free review. Some elements of the game have aged worse than others (its remarkable just how much of an annoyance doors not being marked on the map is when you've gotten so used to it in other Metroidvanias) and I was glad to be playing it on a machine that gave me access to quicksaves and loads as that kept the frustration levels low in areas that might otherwise have induced the rage. The walljumping bit. 🤬 It doesn't feel as good to play as Zero Mission and having to cycle through items to select the superbomb instead of just holding down the shoulder button never felt right. 

 

I thing thats enough negativity for now though as its till a good experience. There are some great moments, the highlight for me being the charged jump you make before getting the grapple. Theres more one off puzzle rooms than there was in Zero Mission or Fusion where you need to figure out the trick in order to get an upgrade and the boss fights were better than they were in Samus Returns. Biggest compliment I can give the game is that I don't think you need to have an attachment to it already in order to enjoy it 2022 unlike some other retro games. Its just a good game. 

 

7/10 

[Arctic Feather]

New Super Mario Land (SNES homebrew)
 

Not sure if this one counts, but having picked up an FxPak Pro recently, I decided to finally give this a go. It's a remake of the Game Boy Super Mario Land on the SNES in the style of New Super Mario Bros games. Wasn't intended to complete it, but it's very short and it's a game I have very fond memories of playing on the original Game Boy.
It's surprisingly polished for a homebrew game and well worth a quick play through.

[strawdonkey]

22 hours ago, strawdonkey said:

2021/65a. Star Hunter DX (Space Cadet, 1CC, 19.3mil)

01. The Artful Escape

02. Rhythm Doctor

03. Monolith

04. Higurashi When They Cry - Ch.2 Watanagashi

05. Outer Wilds

06. OMORI

02a. Rhythm Doctor (all the bonus stuff and B+'d every stage)

07. Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel (all solo content clear)

08. Windjammers 2 (1CC)

Similar to how Streets of Rage 4 managed to maintain the feel of the previous games in the series whilst adding New And Cool Shit, Windjammers 2 genuinely feels like a sequel that could have come out in an appropriate timeframe from the original. It still feels great to play, the new ability to swat the disc back at your opponent is a great way to change up the pace of the game and it just... feels like Windjammers. 

 

There's really not much higher praise you can give it than that - it feels new and fresh but it also feels every bit as good as you remember the original to be. I haven't seen all the character-specific endings but they are completely nuts in the way that only arcade game endings can be.

The real meat of the game will be playing it online, during which I will receive ten thousand batterings and it will be excellent.