52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[dhaabi]

59. Split Fiction || PlayStation 5 || 09.23.2025



Looking for another proper co-op experience to play, I decided to play through Split Fiction. At this point, I've come to expect a certain quality from developer Hazelight Studios after having played their previous two games, so their latest game was something both myself and player two were excited to play.

Following the developer's trend of pitting two people at-odds with another in some sort of fashion, Split Fiction follows the plot of two young writers being invited to a large publishing company for the opportunity of being published. However, the general plot is revealed early on to be this company exploiting creative minds through some sort of virtual reality simulation technology which steals not only their submitted works but all subconscious creative thoughts. Unfortunately, there's no in-game explanation provided to how this technology functions which I suppose is fine, though I still am curious how the simulations are manifested. What I mean by this is that, somehow, this technology is able to sift through the user's mind to separate creative works from memories, dreams, and even passive thoughts. The protagonists themselves become fully aware of what's happening early into their adventure, but they're still forced to continue progressing through their own stories which I assume is because they remain bound to the technology until they eventually break free from it. Regardless, the process goes wrong immediately, and the two protagonists end up being sharing one simulation together that's a blended experience that routinely shifts from one character's written world—one fictional reality—to another's. So, there are two thematic genres (science-fiction and fantasy) which provide two highly contrasting gameplay environments and general mood over the course of the game's events.

Despite Split Fiction's story being centered around two writers, the game continues the developer's trend of surface-level writing that showcases their weakest skill set. While there is a narrative, it comes across as being aimless as the story's protagonists journey through a series of two seemingly endless types of worlds. Meanwhile, these protagonists are written fairly weak without much depth to them (or as much as I'd like for them to have, anyway) despite some obvious character development present. Throughout it all, writing balances a lighthearted, feel-good mood against deep trauma and ongoing hardships, and it is evident how the stories and scenarios presented reflect each protagonist's past. After writing this out, it would seem like Split Fiction's protagonists are arguably stronger than the cast of characters from Hazelight's previous two games, but neither of us across our shared playthrough felt a strong connection to either of them. Perhaps the issue lies in the premise itself. For what it's worth, this isn't to say that the writing is bad, but it certainly could be better. Aside from the ongoing narrative, I feel as if the writing concerning level design could have been more engaging, though this is overwhelmingly in regards to the science-fiction half of the game. Unlike the fantasy sections which actually do have some narrative plot and commendable setting differences, nearly none of the science-fiction levels do and instead were far more focused on the basic premise of high-intensity action sequences in space. I'll also mention this: from what I've seen of them, I feel as if director Josef Fares at Hazelight is a little full of himself, and this is quite evident as the decision to include an audio recording from The Game Awards 2024 with him and Geoff Keighley talking was seriously inserted into level design.

Moving forward, gameplay is generally divided up well. While there are some short moments of rest of with minimized action such as when puzzle obstacles are present, action and tension remain high. Still, chapters are lengthy, and each chapter is nearly exclusive to only one character's story theme at a time. Even though chapters are divided into sections, the one overarching theme can grow to be tiring. However, as I just mentioned, chapters are nearly exclusive to one central genre. Optional content referred to as side stories are available to pursue and engage in, which is straightforward to accomplish as it's difficult to overlook them. Usually, there are two or three of these side stories in each chapter, and they serve their purpose well to break up whatever monotony players may be experiencing since the immediate focus is only on one theme, and for a long duration too. So, in a sense, the game offers a very minimal short branching path throughout playthroughs, though the overall narrative is still a linear story. Yet, while these side stories are appreciated, optional activities felt far more integrated in Hazelight's previous two games, and they were also designed with a competitive nature in mind. Unfortunately, this kind of co-op and exploratory play is almost entirely absent in Split Fiction aside from one extremely memorable area.

With that said, gameplay is split into a large array of genres throughout the entire game but revolves around 3D platforming foremost. Chapters are divided into sections, and each section has numerous segments usually separated by rooms or an enclosed area of sorts that may each provide a different play experience. During some specific boss encounters, this is also an accomplish feat as some battle phases may be separated once more into phases. It may sound daunting—and it certainly will be for any inexperienced player—but this versatile structure excels at maintaining player interest. Simultaneously, player engagement is driven to remain high as there's almost always something new being presented or learned. In spite of its ever-changing differences, Split Fiction succeeds in adding varied gameplay onto the existing platforming mechanics. As previously mentioned, Split Fiction is a co-op only game. So, fortunately, there is a natural back-and-forth between the two players that requires steady teamwork, though there are still plenty of gameplay sections where it's just two players progressing on their own individually. For puzzles or obstacles which require teamwork and player communication, they're designed in a way that it's not just one player doing the bulk of the work. Instead, passive and active tasks delegated to each player are balanced evenly.

However, there were many moments throughout my playtime when it felt like there was a break in the action. This isn't even necessarily true, but it did feel that way as the two protagonists are forced to progress without much idle time, if any, really. As I hinted at before, Split Fiction is not the kind of game where an inexperienced player can easily be carried by a more adept one. Even with two proficient players of various genres in my shard playthrough, we frequently found ourselves failing. Fortunately, both players must fail together for the game to reload the latest checkpoint—otherwise, there is a brief window of time the player who's failed must wait to respawn. Until experienced, some obstacles are difficult to avoid or overcome simply because there's regularly so much on-screen action going on at once at any given moment that's only made worse by the halved screen. This isn't outright a critique on level design, though the amount of failures we experienced whether individually or together did negatively work toward removing us from any tension currently taking place.

In the end, Split Fiction is an exemplary co-op experience that really doesn't come as a surprise considering what else Hazelight Studios has developed in the past. While there are certain aspects of the game I find stronger than those previous works, there are also aspects I find weaker. Nevertheless, player two and I enjoyed our time playing, and I am looking forward to whatever next project follows. As one final concluding thought, I'll also mention that, strangely, this is now the second game I've played within the past full year that I've been tasked with completing CAPTCHA security tests which is an interesting detail to think about.

[marvelvscapcom2]

52. Call Of Duty Modern Warfare: Remastered [PS4] - finished Sep 28th, 2025




As many will know, the echoing of sentiment. From 2005 to 2016ish Call of Duty hit a stride that can be likened to the golden age of comic books, the silver screen age of cartoons, popeye the sailor man and Lucy and Ethyl or even the industrial boom of America. You had gamers by the millions who lived and breathed Call of Duty. Every double XP weekend, each and every map pack was like christmas. Begging my dad for the 20 dollar xbox live cards to be the next to join my friends in cool kid circle. It also had it's naysayers. But each and every year it became clear.  COD was untouchable in military based first person shooters. Battlefield crumbled in it's wake, multiple times. It even made Halo itself into a shrew mouse after long been standing as a titan of industry... trey arch and infinity ward both went back to back like lethal weapon. Just coming up with new fresh maps. Cool guns. The game was flawless... but only temporarily.  Very quickly COD last its balance. But overall for many years it was the funnest time. Red dot sights. The leveling and prestige system was genius, the killstreaks were addictive. And leading a team of mountain dew chugging 10 yr olds to victory was some of my greatest memories in gaming.  When I say COD defined my childhood in many ways. I'm not exaggerating.  Call of Duty also had semi responsibility in my love for militaria, history, and education endeavors that followed.  I have since

1. Gone to 2 presidential libraries, 2 WW2 museums, a civil war museum and many boston massacre related attractions.

2. Studied WW2 speificially for decades. Books. Movies. And now vietnam.

Would my interest in WW2 have existed without world at war? Possibly. My great grandfathers served at both Germany and North African Campaigns. My great grandfather on my grandmother's side was even a POW in a nazi concentration camp.  Then went on to become a professor of behavioral sciences.  His name is Ogden Lindsley.  My other grandfather George A. Muggleton served at Kessarine Pass. These things were engrained in me at a young age. GI Joes, Toy army men. I just love the historical importance.  But would that passion have cultivated into the multi media arm of my personality it is today? Without my formative years being playing call of duty world at war with my friends? Maybe not.  What I enjoy about these games. Is they actually try to be historically accurate. Do they always get it right? No. Do they embelish? Of course. But they get the heart down. The horrors down. The way wars occured and how battles progressed. None might be as important to that trajectory of the franchise as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Which was known as COD 4 when I was a kid.

Phrases like "switching to your pistol is always faster than reloading" and "Nice! Your fruit killing skills are remarkable" both birth themselves just in the prologue of this game. Have become sort of lexicon in the gaming community. Gold skins on AKs? This game. Care packages? This game. Noscoping? As far as I know. This game. Well over a decade before fortnite even dreamed of such. It did it all without micro trans (aside from optional map packs that came about a year into launch).  It was gaming paradise. It truly was. But now into this games campaign mode.

Call Of Duty 4 is definitely inspired by the war on terror mixed with a bit of Russian civil war. It's less directly based on real wars like the WW2 games are. But it clearly has a very "nuclear" seal team 6 vibe to it.  The game manages to make you feel part of batallion.  By the end of the game. You remember captain price (recurring character) and people like sgt briggs on first name basis. Like they were your men you actually served with. Because the game does well at subtly reminding you of commanding orders while still being present in the very arcadey vibe.  The controls are smooth. Missions like "all ghillied up" are franchise staples that almost all love. The missions has you in pripyiat ukraine where chernobyl happened. It's a front to back stealth mission where you gotta maneuver without being detected this russian operated snowy badlands of poison.  Tunnels.  Sinking ships. Nukes. Tanks. Fighter jets. Cobra attack helicopters. It's all in this game. German Sheppards even. The game is a campaign masterclass.  I feel there are many moving moments. Deep reflections of society. But also humor. Night visions missions. Collecting intel ect are especially fun. It also has a nice trophy system that has fair but intriguing challenges to get outside the game UI. Even the mini game that begins the game is an absolute blast attempting to get the squadron record time. 

Call of Duty 4 is one of the greatest call of duty games. It predates world at war. As a cohesive unit? It has amazing footing. And I enjoyed every second.

Welcome game 52! I've made the mark.  I was well on pace for high 90s. Now my new final year goal is 75. Lets see what we can do.  But 52 is in the bag.


Rating - 93/100

[kashell]

63. Little Hope

That's the last of the Dark Pictures! This one had the best plot twist at the end; very unexpected. Otherwise, it was more of the same in terms of gameplay. The characters were a lot of fun. One was super insufferable but she got properly wrecked. The only one that died was someone I somehow kept making a jerk. So, I guess he had it coming? I think I'd rank them: Man of Medan > The Devil in Me > Little Hope > House of Ashes. The Quarry and Until Dawn are kind of their own things.

[kamikazekeeg]

24 - Time for Bed (PC 2025) - BEAT - Starting off the season with some spooky games, as I want to try and maybe pick up some more indie horror games if I can, though I was hoping more Five Nights at Freddy's stuff would go on sale, maybe later in the month, but starting with this little game. 

It's a unique gimmick to me in terms of gameplay you are a kid trying to play your Game Boy at night without being seen by your "mother", so you have to play through an actual pixel art, retro game on the game boy, while having an awareness around you for when "mother" is looking at you, and if she is looking at you with her red eyes, you have to pretend to sleep.  I think some of it is maybe an asset flip, I think "mother" is not a unique creature, but it works, it's generally abit creepy and there's some nice variety to the behavior and retro games. 

It is only 3 levels and a special bonus level, but you have to play through stage 3 to get the special stage and I kinda hate that, so not sure if I'll attempt it again.  I can't complain too much about only 3 levels, just because it's a 5 dollar game I got for 4 bucks and got an hour and a half out of, but I think there's a great idea here that can be expanded.  The second level is the best, it's the most creepy, though I like the little Zelda-like game you get in Stage 3.

Got a handful of spooky games to play ready to go, particularly Little Nightmares, Signalis (I've had this ready to go for a long time now), Bendy and the Ink Machine, FNAF 2, and might grab Crow Country since I just refunded another game that didn't really work out.

[kashell]

64. Lost Soul Aside

This game has a PlayStation-like plot, PlayStation 2-like gameplay, and PlayStation 3-like graphics. And it's on the PlayStation 5. It's quite the bizarre combination, and mind-boggling to think that its development began in 2016. I have a soft spot for 2000s action games like Shinobi or Blood Will Tell, so I didn't mind some of the gameplay issues. But, it's hard to ignore some of the game's other issues. I'll get a review written for it at some point, but for those wondering: no. It's not worth the full price tag.

[telly]

Game 23 - Silent Hill: Downpour (PS3) - 10 Hours

Silent Hill: Downpour was a very mixed experience for me. It's certainly better than Homecoming, but still falls short in a lot of ways to the main four games and the other western developed games like Origins and Shattered Memories.

For me, what this game succeeded the most in was the combat and exploration, The combat, while frustrating, felt like the right level of difficulty and the ability to run away from fights made it more interesting. Breakable weapons are back, which were annoying, but not nearly as aggravating as having to search for specific weapons to access high ladders or chop through boarded up doors. Exploring the town was probably the best thing that this game has to offer, because it’s the biggest, most expansive town out of any of the other previous games. While the level design was not the best, I did find the final prison level to be pretty good and I also appreciated the return of series staples like puzzle difficulty. I also really liked the addition of side quests. Although most of them really aren't worth completing, they add a little bit of spice when you're trying to explore the town and could have been a great idea if it had been executed a bit better.

Alas, the problem with Downpour at its core is that the developers really tried to broaden this game’s appeal to the mass market, and so the game play feels like it's been injected with a heavy dose of Uncharted or Assassin's Creed. I mean come on, an elevator fight sequence? Moving past timed hazards like spikes and swinging blades? Quick time events for climbing and opening doors? Regenerating health? Autosaves and checkpoints that completely restore your health after you die? These things should not be in a Silent Hill game. Compounding the effects of these gameplay changes is an overall aesthetic that is way too bright, way too overdone, and most of the horror comes across as a haunted house baby-tier spooky thrill ride. The Otherworld in this game features a lot of strange level design choices that feel more surreal than scary. For example, large floating clocks and moving between the floor and ceiling. As a result, just like in previous games, it really doesn't feel like Silent Hill.

As much as I dumped on Homecoming for just being a terrible experience at least it had better monster design than Downpour. Most of the monsters in Downpour just look like regular people, except for their faces are a little messed up, but they really aren't that scary. The “boogeyman” in this game featuring a slick raincoat and gas mask is not effective at scaring you at all, and he just looks silly. This game also features a lot of chase sequences like in Shattered Memories, but it's even worse because it's just a red and black rift and it's really dumb when you think about it. Not to mention it’s given no contextual explanation whatsoever.
The game unfortunately is also brought down by being built on Unreal, so a lot of the character textures load in AFTER the models have been loaded in, and it looks awful. On the topic of looking awful, this game performs terribly, and it might even be worse than Homecoming. it is especially in the town the game is constantly stuttering and excessive amounts of screen tearing particularly with high amounts of movement.

And at last, we get to the game’s story. Ultimately, it's one of the most confusing stories in the series, and I don't think that's a good thing. The problem is that the story plays very fast and loose with it’s timing of certain events. It’s completely unclear whether things happened in the past, versus the future, versus whether they happened at all, if they are a dream, if they are a manifestation of the town, or the other world, etc. Not to mention that you appear to die at least 3 times during the game, so you don’t know if the events following are real or purgatory or whatever else you want it to be. If you listen to the developers of this game, this was the intention: keep it as open-ended as possible so that multiple different conclusions can be drawn from the same story material. But all it ends up doing is just contradicting itself and the result is a total mess. This was particularly apparent for me because I got the worst ending on my first playthrough where the entire game was revealed to be a dream of Ann Cunningham. If you disregard that ending, the big problem with this game’s story is that Murphy’s big mistake that he’s supposed to feel guilty/repent for sometimes didn’t happen, which makes most of the symbolism irrelevant. You can tell that they really tried to copy the story of Silent Hill 2, while forgetting that the bad thing James does in that game is always the same, and the different endings are instead how he reacts and either redeems himself or not despite the thing he did.

I’ve now gone through all the Silent Hill games in the series up until the present day, just in time for Silent Hill f (not including book of memories or some of the more obscure titles). Once I finish that, then replay 2 and the remake, I’ll be able to give my ranking of the series.

[kamikazekeeg]

25 - Slime Rancher 2 (PC 2025) - BEAT - I enjoyed the first Slime Rancher game, it's a casual, cozy, ranching experience where you huck cute slimes into corrals and feed them food to get "plorts", which are then used to get money to buy new stuff and expand your ranch.  It's a fantastical scifi world and it was just a nice time.  Unfortunately the sequel doesn't really do a lot to build off the first game.  It's kinda just more of the same, but at the same time, has less stuff than the first game had.  There were some improved areas, the visuals look better, I believe resource farming for certain items was made better in this, but that's sorta it.

I think where the game doesn't work for me, is that I think the map is too big, I don't know how it compares to the first game exactly, maybe I'm wrong on this, but there's so much area to explore, but not enough that feels warranted.  Like if you cut down sections of the map by...30%, I think you get a tighter world to enjoy as there just seems like spots that are super empty, or might become something later with future updates, I'm not really sure.

The resource grind feels tough, again, I don't remember exactly how it was before, but getting stuff that isn't slime plorts can take awhile along with needing money for each gadget/upgrade, and it just drags, and there's a late game thing where you need to farm a certain plort time that you can't farm back on your ranch, and to accomplish a 100% in this game, getting all of those unique plorts would take forever.  Thankfully not required to get the ending, but completionists might get burnt out.  There just felt like more tedium here than before, and I think it's not helped by me having played the first game and this gameplay experience is very much the same as it was before without adding much to change or expand.

I do like it enough, I'm sure it'll get updated and they'll add more stuff, the first game had that, but this game should've had more from the start, this wasn't their first game this time, so maybe a year or two from now if I decided to go back, it'll have a lot more going on with it.

[bikingjahuty]

Well, I did it! With just a little under 3 months to go in the year, I officially hit 100 games beat for the year! I honestly thought it would be more challenging to reach this number than it was, but I have to say, it's been nice having so much time in 2025 to really tackle my backlog and also try out some other games I've been meaning to check out. But anyhow, here's my review for game #100, Resident Evil VILLAGE.


100. Resident Evil VILLAGE (PS5)

I have to admit, my expectations going into Resident Evil VILLAGE (RE8) were somewhat low. Unlike what seems the majority of the internet and RE fans, I didn't think RE7 was the miraculous "return to form" masterpiece it gets stratified to whenever it gets brought up. I really didn't care for Ethan Winters as a protagonist, I thought the whole black mold/Eva story wasn't that interesting, and maybe most of all, the game just didn't feel like a Resident Evil game to me throughout 95% of my time with RE7. Part of that was the switch from third person to first person, but the whole premise of the game just felt like Capcom was trying to chase the streamer jump scare crowd of the early and mid 2010s more so than make a faithful sequel to their beloved series. So yeah, with all that, RE8 didn't have the best set up from my point of view and I honestly expected to like it even less than I did its predecessor. Thankfully, that is not what happened, and in fact, I found a game that I really enjoyed for the most part and one that gave me something I didn't necessarily know I wanted despite RE8 also suffering from it not really feeling like a traditional RE game. Allow me to explain.


Resident Evil VILLAGE's gothic, old village setting, almost similar to the one we had in RE4, felt even less like RE7 than it did the rest of the mainline franchise. I frequently forgot I was playing a sequel to RE7 actually. If RE7 was trying to be like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, RE8 was trying to be classic horror with vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein monsters, and evil dolls. While none of this really screams Resident Evil to me, it did produce a fun, mostly well put together horror experience presented very will in the incredible RE Engine.


I have to saw, RE8 is nearly a flawless looking game. The character models, facial animations, detailed settings and areas, frightening monsters and other creatures, and pretty much everything else there is to look at show off an insane amount of detail. Typically the mark of a visually amazing modern game is when I actually stop playing for a moment and take the time to appreciate details present in what I'm looking at. I caught myself doing this multiple times throughout RE8, particularly in Lady D's castle as well as certain areas in and around the village that acts as the game's central hub in a way. I also have to give special recognition to the boss characters in this game, which mostly look outstanding. Of course, Lady D (aka Vampire Mommy) was who everyone was freaking out over when this game was announced, but I have to say the other boss characters have nearly as good character design and look just as detailed and good overall. Capcom did an absolutely amazing job making this game pop visually and it really captures that gothic horror feel that I feel so drawn to in pretty much all media its present in. I guess my only real gripes about the visuals were the frequent reuse of models for enemies, which at least wasn't even remotely as bad as RE7 which just used a few variations of the same, bland mold monsters you're primarily fighting throughout the game.


Another aspect of the games presentation is its story and writing, which RE8 unfortunately doesn't excel at in the same way it does with its graphics and visuals. The premise of this game starts out pretty promising and there is a part about a quarter into the story that really ramped up my interest in what was really happening, but overall, the writing isn't as good as it is in most of the previous mainline entries, including RE7, and sometimes just comes across as Capcom trying to put in twists just for the sake of twists. There is one particular revelation that occurs towards the end of the game that had me more confused and asking "okay...why?" more than me being like, "OH, NO WAY!" Likewise, some writing around Ethan Winters is fairly spotty. He motives for doing certain things, as well as his reactions to things just seem really strange at times. On top of that, he makes a lot of really dumb decisions or acts really stupid when what is going on at the time is fairly obvious to the player. I didn't care for Ethan as a character in RE7, and unfortunately RE8 did little to change my feelings about him, even with how determined and selfless he can be in RE8. But yeah, the overall writing isn't bad, but I'd say it's probably one of the weakest games in the mainline series from a story and writing perspective.


When it comes to audio, RE8 is pretty damn good, albeit with a few noteworthy blemishes. The soundtrack is pretty good and definitely fits with the spooky horror settings of the game. However, more than the music that plays during RE8, it's really the overall sound design that steals the show here. You're constantly hear vague creaks, rattles, moans, growls, and other noises that will ramp up your anxiety and add to the tension present in RE8. With that said, I will say this aspect of the sound design was done better in RE7, which for the record was a scarier game, but more on that later. As for the voice acting in RE8, it's somewhat of a mixed bag unfortunately. Some performances are absolutely amazing, most a pretty good, and a few are just sort of meh. One of the meh ones is unfortunately Ethan Winters, the main character. Even more frustrating is not all of Ethan's dialogue is delivered poorly, in fact some of it is up there with the better performances, but at other times the voice acting just doesn't seem to get the tone right or his delivery just seems way incongruent with the situation at hand. I will say his performance it an improvement compared to RE7, but it still isn't great and unfortunately was just another aspect that undermined Ethan's character.


When it comes to RE8's gameplay, its surprisingly different than RE7's. While both games use the same first person perspective, RE8 is definitely more of an action horror title than survival horror. While ammo and herb drops aren't appearing with every drop of blood like they do in RE5, resources are way more plentiful in this game. Whether that's finding them in the wild, buying them from the shop keep that almost travels along with you, or they're crafted for various materials you find throughout RE8's campaign, you will almost never find yourself strapped for ammo or health items. This absolutely undermines the horror aspect of RE8, which overall I found about half as scary as RE7. For some, this will instantly make RE7 the preferred experience, and while I do prefer RE's more survival horror leaning games (REmake is my favorite game in the franchise after all), I appreciate the more action heavy games for what they are as well. I'm probably one of the few people you'll find that will actually defend RE6. But yeah, as a more action focused game, RE8 does a pretty good job. The shooting isn't perfect, but it's definitely good enough to get the job done most of the time. There are a few very annoying enemy types later on in the game which can be a total pain in the ass to fight in the closed quarters you'll often come up against them in, and several of the boss fights feel a bit too cramped, but on the whole everything plays and works pretty well in RE8.


With all that said, I am pleasantly surprised I enjoyed RE8 as much as I did. Like RE7, I often forgot I was playing a Resident Evil game, with most of the tie ins not occurring until the last hour of the game. However, even if I looked at RE8 as its own things separate from the rest of the franchise, I still really enjoyed my time with it for the most part. Maybe up there with how much I enjoyed RE8 is the fact that for the first time in twenty years, I'm FINALLY caught up with the mainline entries and story in Resident Evil. Yep, the last time I was up to speed with RE was around the time RE4 first came out on the Gamecube. Since then, I've fallen behind more and more with this series, probably because I just wanted to go back and replay RE1 - RE3 over and over again lol. But in all seriousness, it feels great to be caught up again, especially with RE9 being only a few months away. After playing and beating RE8 I'm looking forward to what the future of the franchise has in store, even if that future seems like a fairly big departure from the Ethan Winters arc of the RE saga. (10/4/25) [40/50]

[bikingjahuty]

101. Area 51 (Arcade)

Area 51 may be my most sentimental, nostalgic arcade machine of all time. One of the defining locations of my childhood and adolescence was a laser tag business near where I grew up called Laser Quest. I went there for countless birthday parties as a kid, may being my own, and beyond how amazing their laser tag guns and area were, they also had an awesome arcade throughout the 90s and into the 2000s. Perhaps the game that I spent the most money on between laser tag matches was 1995's Area 51. In fact, the first time I ever laid eyes on this staple of mid 90s arcades was at Laser Quest. And unsurprising it was one of the machines they had the longest; I believe it first appeared there in 1995/1996 and didn't disappear until the late 2000s, maybe even the early 2010s. But anyhow, beyond my strong personal connection to this game, it a title I've loved going back and replaying from beginning to end once or twice ever few years. Maybe with Halloween around the corner, I just felt like playing it again, partially to relive some wonderful memories and partially because Area 51 is still a blast to play through.


Gameplaywise, Area 51 is about what you'd expect out of a mid 90s arcade lightgun shooter. Your enemies are a variety of mutated humans in colored jump suites, and later on you encounter some more unique bipedal alien creatures that look sort of like insects. The lack of enemy variety in this game was always disappointing, but what is nice about this game is the balancing of enemies being thrown at you. Even as a single player playthrough, Area 51 never feels completely lopsided or cheap for the sake of devouring your quarters. In fact, when things get to hairy, you can use one of your grenades to clear the screen of enemies for a moment. It's a surprisingly nice balancing mechanic and one that makes you feel like you could conceivably beat Area 51 on a single credit if you got pretty good at it. Aside from these screen clearing grenades, you also have a few weapon power ups which include larger ammo magazines, a shotgun, and an assault rifle. These are collecting by shooting a variety of ammo boxes as well as floating power ups that appear briefly on the screen in select sections. The only other aspect of the gameplay there's to mention are ally characters that are present for no other reason than to bait you into accidentally shooting them, causing you to lose one of your lives. Yeah, it's pretty annoying, but this was fairly common in lightgun games back then.


I already mentioned Area 51's unfortunate lack of variety when it comes to enemies, however the game does make up for it with some cool 3D rendered backgrounds, as well as some very period appropriate digitized graphics, which are used for all the human/mutated human characters. It gives it a more "realistic" look in.way, but more than anything it will remind you when game companies were doing this often due to limitations in graphics processing technology and the ability to render realistic looking polygons. All of this results in a game that looks pretty good for its time, but was never groundbreaking at the time, and certainly isn't today.


Finally, the audio in Area 51 is pretty decent, if not dipping its toes into good territory. The OST is appropriate for the game and has a fairly charming mid-90s arcade game sound to it that really drives home when this game originally came out. There is speech audio from the various characters, as well as roars and other noises from the enemies you'll be mowing down. There are also a handful of explosion sound effects as well, but nothing that will make you feel like you're in the middle of a crazy combat situations. It all works pretty well for the most part, even if like various other things in the game, it can feel a tad repetitive.


There is no doubt in my mind that Area 51 is bolstered by my own nostalgia for this game. In all, Area 51 can be beat, start to finish, in under 20-minutes, which was pretty much the perfect amount of time to keep a bunch of 9 year olds occupied before their next laser tag match started. However, someone who never played this game growing up will probably feel like this game is lacking in a lot of ways, and may even write it off as a mediocre game at best. I'd definitely argue you'd have to have been the right age in the mid 90s to appreciate this game. Having been a young, impressionable kid in the mid 90s, I can fully vouch that this game definitely impressed my friends and I, and even 30-years later, I still feel drawn to it, both as a source of wonderful childhood memories, but also as a fun relic of mid-90s arcades. (10/5/25) [34/50]

[dhaabi]

Game 23 - Silent Hill: Downpour (PS3) - 10 Hours

Alas, the problem with Downpour at its core is that the developers really tried to broaden this game’s appeal to the mass market, and so the game play feels like it's been injected with a heavy dose of Uncharted or Assassin's Creed.

I’ve now gone through all the Silent Hill games in the series up until the present day, just in time for Silent Hill f (not including book of memories or some of the more obscure titles). Once I finish that, then replay 2 and the remake, I’ll be able to give my ranking of the series.

I'm not sure if you've already started playing Silent Hill f or not, but you may want to consider playing on Story difficulty then, because anything higher is certainly designed with an appeal to the mass market. When I first began prior to software being updated, what's now Hard mode was previously named Balanced. The name was changed for good reason. Though I will mention that after repeated deaths, players can temporarily (?) choose a lower combat difficulty setting.

[bikingjahuty]

102. Little Nightmares (PS4)

Several years ago my wife played Little Nightmares and its sequel while I played or did something else in the same room. My wife and I have pretty different tastes in games so typically when she plays something I occasionally glance over at whatever it is she's playing for a few seconds before it becomes background noise again as I return to whatever it was I was doing. However, she'll occasionally play something that with pique my interest and I'll find myself watching her play for minutes or even hours. It's these unexpected captivating games I eventually throw on my backlog since they at least looks interesting enough for me to give them a go at some point. One such game was Little Nightmares (I guess two games if you want to count its sequel too).


Little Nightmares is a platforming puzzle game at its core, but over that it's a straight up horror game with grotesque creatures, foreboding settings, dark atmosphere, and all sorts of other flourishes that make this an excellent game to play in October. Before I get ahead of myself with talking about Little Nightmares' visuals and presentation, I'd like to briefly go over its gameplay. Gameplay is fairly basic for a modern game. You're more or less defenseless in Little Nightmares, with your only options to either evade or go undetected to get through the game's various areas and puzzles. The character you control can perform a variety of actions such as jumping, running, grabbing items and ledges, and crouching. All these things give you all you need to get through the game, but unfortunately they're all implemented a bit haphazardly.


One of the most frustrating things for me in a video game is when I know exactly what I need to do, however the controls are impeding my ability to do that specific thing. Unfortunately, I ran into this problem more times than I would have liked in Little Nightmares. Controls often times feel imprecise and even delayed, resulting in resets back to the last checkpoint which you know could have been avoided if the developers had let the controls bake a little longer in the oven.


Speaking of checkpoints, there are a generous amount of them, which means you'll never have to replay too much of what you'd previously gotten through. This is even more welcome considering Little Nightmares has more than its fair share of first time playthrough traps and trial and error moments which ensure you are almost guaranteed to get killed if you've never played this game before. Add to this some of the puzzles being on the less intuitive side, and also the camera working against you at times as well. This culminates in yet another grievance I had with Little Nightmare's gameplay. And while, yes, I have been mostly negative on the gameplay in this horror title, I will say that it mostly works as intended and you can still get through this game with relative ease despite these shortcomings. So no, it's not all bad, but it's certainly noticeable as you're playing through Little Nightmares.


Little Nightmare's presentation is fortunately a step up compared to its gameplay. The game has its own undeniably unique art style and premise which I've personally never experienced in a game before. The best I can describe it is Tim Burton and maybe Coraline mixed together, but even that doesn't fully do it justice. The game has some truly creepy areas and grotesque monsters and areas that will genuinely creep you out. Maybe my only issues visually is how redundant some of the game looks, and also a lack of variety in creature models. However, these are both relatively minor complaints to what it otherwise a very good looking, unique game.


When it comes to Little Nightmare's audio, it pretty good for the most part. While I didn't find anything about it mind blowing or amazing, the music is appropriately creepy and goes good with the overal atmosphere of the game. There is no voice acting, but characters and creatures do make the types of noises you'd expect them to. The game also leans on environmental sound effects heavily to indicate when someone is moving away or towards you, or when you're in danger. Again, nothing out of this world awesome, but still well implemented and mostly enjoyable.


My time overall with Little Nightmares was short, but mostly sweet. The game does not take more than a couple hours to beat, unless you just get really, really stuck I suppose, but for a game I started this morning and finished right before bed time, I could have spent my Sunday doing (or playing) something far less enjoyable. Because it's so short, I'd say definitely give this game a try if you want a fun, yet creepy horror title to enhance your mood during the Halloween season. Little Nightmare's certainly did that for me, even it is isn't the most amazing game ever and has its fair share of flaws. (10/5/25) [33/50]

[ignition365]

Main List
Previous List

bold games are games that have been beaten, previously beaten, or are unbeatable.
italicized games are in progress.
standard games are games I am not currently trying to beat.
strikethrough games are games that have been abandoned.

98. Paratopic (PC)
I kind of have no clue what's going on this game, except maybe you're smuggling a cursed VHS tape, or maybe VHS tapes are special... I don't know, it's weird.  Just a really weird game, there isn't a ton of game play to it either and it's relatively short at around an hour.  The game is broken down into sections with various, mechanics, I guess.  The driving sections are weirdly stressful as nothing is going on and you're just kind of driving for a few minutes, I think there's a a handful of achievements related to driving, but the controls aren't well explained, so I think I missed like all of those achievements because I think there is a way to drive faster, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do that.  You infrequently have some camera based gameplay where you take some pictures, very minor, maybe less than the driving.  The rest of the gameplay is first person walking simulator with some minor interactions as you proceed from point A to point B.  The game has almost no action, except maybe right at the end for the ending.  Just a really weird game with an incomprehensible story.
Rating: Soft pass

99. GUILTY GEAR Xrd REV 2 (PC)
Like a lot of the other games on the list this year, I'm playing through games I won on steam gifts in an effort to increase my play rate on games won.  For the most part, when I pick up a game, I aim to beat the game so I can be "done" with it, with a minimal side goal of also getting 25% of achievements.  I'm also using it as an opportunity to get some games off of my PoP lists that I'd rather not be forced to play in a time frame.  I'm not big on fighting games, I think it's that I just have no interest in learning the intricacies of the game's systems and combos and whatnot, if I cared, I could probably get good enough, but I just don't have the interest in the time investment, so I'll almost never have a good recommendation for fighting games unless something else about the game sticks out like the story in Mortal Kombat games.  I tried to follow the story mode, which is essentially just a series of kinetic visual novel esque scenes with no gameplay, didn't really enjoy that but I suppose the concept is novel, I just wasn't expecting or in the mood for a VN let alone a kinetic one.  I played through arcade mode as Jack-O I think and got achievements and whatnot.  Really don't know what's going on story wise in the game or series overall, but I'm also not really willing to invest myself in the story, but maybe one day?  Unfortunately, I'm a scrub and button mash in fighting games when I don't understand the controls and systems... it's enough to get me through story mode/arcade generally, and in this case it was, so I've got no good information to provide regarding the games mechanics and gameplay.  I did play through the tutorial to learn some of the controls and it went well enough, but I did have some trouble with the advanced concepts.  Game seems easy enough to pick up, but surely difficult to master.
Rating: Soft pass

100. Diluvian Winds (PC)
Another win I played to improve my rate.  Initially I had intended on just getting the 25% goal without beating the game, but as I played the game I decided that I would aim to beat the game because I was enjoying it well enough and the game did have a set of story/chapter based achievements where I could definitively say, yes I've beaten this.  Each chapter of the game teaches you new mechanics to the game basically playing out as a long winded tutorial which culminates in you "beating" the game.  It allows you to continue playing or start a new game, but at that point it's an endless game once you've played through the story of learning all of the game's mechanics.  Not some short tutorial, but a nice long series of requests and features drawn out over a series of like a month of in game gameplay.  The game is in essence a city builder, resource management game, but the game's play is very casual in nature allowing you to take your time in making your decisions and planning out your days while keeping an eye on any looming or upcoming events.
Rating: Soft recommendation

101. Escape This (PC)
I think I was collating data from my steam account to backloggery and noticed that I was only missing one achievement in this game and that that achievement would only take a few minutes to achieve.  I don't recall ever playing this game in the first place, but apparently I played it like ten years ago.  Don't know where the game came from, I could look it up, but I won't.  Game looks like a real cheap game, like something that was probably given away for free, and I suspect I probably didn't put much time into it for it giving me the 100% overall.  Janky move the ball through the puzzle type of game.
Rating: Hard pass

102. Tooth and Tail (PC)
Another gift win that I decided to play to get my play rate up.  Started it and realized I needed to play through it because I really wanted it off my play list.  I'm not a big fan of RTS games, I really dislike RTS games because they require constant time and resource management and an intricate understanding of the game's systems and AI.  I followed a guide to a T for this one because I knew I couldn't push myself to invest the effort in learning the game's systems and I'm just not at a point that I can really enjoy non-casual strategy games.  One day I'll push myself to play the older Fire Emblem games and I'll have the same thoughts and feelings I'm sure.  I had a lot of trouble telling when a character was on my team, neutral, or an enemy, so that made the game even more difficult for me.  It also doesn't help that throughout the game you swap what faction you are, so you have to constantly pay attention to what color you are and what color your enemy is... and I'm color blind.  I breezed through the game so I didn't really pay attention to the story, but I could tell that the story was an interesting seeming story, but seems to end with mutual destruction at the end?  I can't fairly rate fighting games and strategy games because I just don't enjoy those types of games.  I've started making a habit of hiding such games so I can't win those gifts as I know I won't enjoy them.  Unfortunately, I thought this game was just a general strategy game with high praise so I went for it not realizing it's an RTS game.
Rating: Soft pass

103. 100 Korea Cats (PC)
A group I'm in was having an event for playing hidden object games so I went out and picked a few profile limited hidden object games that I could play that I knew could not benefit me on playtracker and went through and played them.  Just went and grabbed 3 100 cats games that I owned or were free that were profile limited and played through them.  Took all of 5-10 minutes each again not any different from the other 100 x cats games.
Rating: Soft pass

104. 100 Funny Cats (PC)
See previous review
Rating: Soft pass

105. 100 Alient Cats (PC)
See previous review
Rating: Soft pass

106. Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry (X1)
This is the oldest AC game I hadn't played.  I had it via PS+, when I had the service, but I never played it because I knew I wanted to play it on Xbox with all of my other AC games.  I'm weird about it for no good reason.  I only relatively recently, within the last year or so, bought the season pass/freedom cry for Xbox and the game came up as a choice in playtracker dungeon, so I finally decided I'd play it to make a little bit more progress on my Assassin's Creed franchise run.  Unfortunately, I should've played this years ago, as I'm certain the age difference and mechanical disadvantage of going back to an old game after playing Origins was going to be a problem.  I don't fully remember the story of Black Flag, just that it was one of the better AC games of the early years.  I don't really remember who Adawale(?) is within the story other than maybe a mentor to the protagonist, but the game serves as a backstory to the character.  Game has limited stealth sections where most of the game seems to take place during the day where you're going to get caught up in open combat if you engage, as far as I can remember there was only 1 forced stealth section and it was quite painful because enemies would detect me through walls (by sight, not sound as I was crouched and slow), have to repeat the whole section due to mistakes, and overall jank.  Ship combat is fine as I recall and relatively few and far between and quick enough when it did occur.  There is islands to be explored, but seems to be purely optional as most of the content takes place between 2 or 3 locales.  Story feels quick well, but doesn't feel like it really links well to the whole templar/assassin overall story nor the modern content at all, despite the story being interesting and giving backstory to what I assume was a well liked character.  The slave liberation content is fine enough, but quickly you realize that almost all of it is repeatable content and there is no hard limit to the amount you can save and enemies frequently respawn in their same patterns, which is probably a regular mechanic of the series, but having played Origins recently, I recall cleared areas staying cleared for at least a while.  Parkour mechanics are pretty awful, but might be on par with Black Flag and maybe I'm spoiled by recent games.  Overall, not bad, doesn't contribute much to the overall story, but an enjoyable enough experience.
Rating: Soft pass

107. Fling to the Finish (PC)
One of those games that is designed for couch co-op, but completely playable start to finish with a single player using a single controller.  controls work well enough, but do frequently get confusing when the left ball swaps sides with the right ball, but the controls obviously don't switch which stick controls which ball.  Game has 7-8 mechanics that repeat, making the game last significantly longer than you might otherwise want, given having to replay levels over and over with different rules, but the game has something around 20-40 levels to play, so lots of content, but the extra rules makes the game feel like too long of an experience, but overall the experience is enjoyable start to finish without too much jank.  Unlike other co-op games, this game is quite enjoyable as a solo experience, possibly more enjoyable lacking the frustration of forced cooperation.  That said, the repetitive nature and simplistic gameplay doesn't really make the game well worth playing.
Rating: Soft pass

108. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (360)
I started this game years ago when I was going through my Metal Gear franchise run, but I just never finished this one.  I think I didn't get terribly far into it before I abandoned it and I can't quite recall why I abandoned it, but surely it was partly due to the fact that that era of gaming just didn't click with me where so many games felt the same way XBLA indie games felt... it's ineffable but they just don't click with me.  This, like Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z, just sort of bored me very quickly with its combination of gameplay and pacing, despite generally wacky story telling, Ninja Gaiden being another game I keep very slowly making progress on.  This time I sat down and said I would not abandon it and I would not move on until I finished it.  It made the experience a little hard as I was definitely having the problem of trying not to fall asleep while playing, more a commentary on myself than the game to be honest.  I've never been big on hack and slash games as they essentially feel like button mashing fighting games in a PvE story based setting, not unlike Musou games.  Gameplay wise, they just don't click with me for several reasons, which the general gameplay bore also makes it difficult for me to consume the story content (A big reason why I really don't recall much of the DMC series unfortunately) and this one being a side story set well after the events of the mainline series with limited callbacks strictly to MGS2 (Maybe a little bit MGS4, but lets be honest I don't remember that one much either).  The game has a lot of the same jank you get from other Konami/Capcom hack and slash games and takes itself about as seriously as DMC.  A fun game for most I'm sure, but how it truly relates to the mainline MGS franchise and lore we'll never know.
Rating: Soft pass

109. A Game About Digging A Hole (PC)
I bought this a while back because it is quite a cheap game and it was stupidly popular for a while, but as always I don't get around to these things until way later.  The game quite honestly feels like a cheap imitation of another game, despite it being its own unique thing (AFAIK).  Despite the jank, the game does require a certain level of planning and strategy between balancing money, lighting, equipment, resources, and general traversal maintenance.  Game starts out monotonous enough, but gradually get a bit unhinged culminating in the final ending.  Overall a real simple, cheap, janky game that will definitely eat up more hours than dollars, despite no real pay off, maybe that'll disappoint, but the game is a decent time waster akin to Powerwash simulator.
Rating: Soft recommendation

110. Cats Hidden in Japan (PC)
Another find the cats in a location game, you can see any of many previous reviews for these types of games, nothing really special, easily completed in 5-10 minutes.
Rating: Soft pass

111. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (360)
Man, this is just a year for picking up old franchise runs with games around the early 10s.  I started this one shortly after finishing the first game, but abandoned it rather quickly for no reason in particular.  Game seems to be a relative direct continuation from the first game with direct ties to the plot of the first game jumping back and forth between past events around the first game and modern day stuff with older and new characters.  Feels a bit more plot driven than the first game, though the first game was pretty plot driven, but it had that in a bottle stuff where it's just flashbacks while you sit in an interrogation type room.  Overall your average CoD experience, I understand why they started to back away from these plot things because while people enjoy them, and possibly even buy the game for them, they stay with the game for the multiplayer... which I don't play unfortunately for these games.
Rating: Soft pass

112. Mega Mosaic (PC)
I played a game similar to this on Android earlier this year and bought up a bunch when I found out similar games existed on Steam.  Finally rolled them on backlog dungeon so ran with this one first.  Minesweeper meets picross, but instead of 100+ levels or something like most puzzle games will do, you get 1 humongous puzzle with like 50000 blocks to fill/cross.  The game very quickly becomes one of those puzzle games that you dream about and see when you close your eyes.  Again, one of those things you have to decide for yourself if that's a good thing or a bad thing.  Game lasted me roughly 40 hours iirc.  Personally, I think the concept works well, but it is fairly complex, so I would only recommend it if you like both minesweeper and picross.
Rating: Soft recommendation

113. Humankind (PC)
Another game I won that I intended on just playing for a bit to hit 25% or atleast get a few achievements to get it off my list.  Again, I'm trying to do better and actively ignore games I don't think will bring me joy.  I started it up, dabbled in the tutorial, and then wound up playing for several hours and decided that I would go through a full game at least.  I wasted a lot of the early game time because I didn't understand things.  I wound up keeping up with the 1st/2nd faction, but that wasted early time really cost me in the end, plus all of the me learning how to play and the AI knowing how the systems work from the get-go.  I wound up making an alliance with the 1st/2nd faction thinking ok, keep them on my side peaceful like and take over the world and then squash them... they wound up secretly/maybe not so secretly making all the right choices to lock the best lands and resources.  While they were in a war I tried to take advantage and grab some territories while they were distracted.  Eventually I realized they outpaced me very quickly so I decided I would go the war route and demolished everyone except them... unfortunately for me, as I demolished other factions, they snuck in and took the land for themselves, which I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't let me take the land, still don't understand and they just walked up and claimed it despite me having troops there and trying to claim it.  Had a lot of instances of them doing that which I guarantee is what won them the game.  Towards the end I decided I would develop nuclear weapons since I had a monopoly on uranium, built nuclear warheads en masse, only to find out for some reason, I'm not allowed to launch them directly at capital cities or something, so I had to hit alternative locations of way less economic value, and also found out all of the ICBMs I were building don't do a sliver of damage to cities even when you fire like 20 of them, so I dumped all of my missiles on them, and they still managed to destroy me in war because I couldn't hit anything of importance with nuclear missiles and they were able to just trounce me.  In the end, I came in second, ended frustrated because I still don't understand why I couldn't do what I had meticulously planned for like a solid year of gameplay or whatever the time frames are.  So many combinations of things I didn't and still don't understand that the AI took advantage of wound up making the end experience of the game absolutely miserable.  I even spent the post game trying to figure out what I did wrong and how I could've successfully leveraged all of my weapons, but I eventually realized I was dumping more time in a game I didn't enjoy because I wanted to win, childish shit, so I uninstalled the game and moved on.  Shit like this is exactly why I don't enjoy most RTS/strategy games, they have stupid little hidden rules that aren't explained until you try to do something and by then its too late and you've wasted a fuck ton of time... and in this case, it happened multiple multiple times with multiple multiple things.
Rating: Solid pass

Next List

[kamikazekeeg]

26 - Megabonk (PC 2025) - ENDLESS - Do you like Vampire Survivors? Do you want Vampire Survivors, but in low poly 3D? Then that's Megabonk! Functionally that what this game.  Pick up weapons that auto-attack, build up your stats and gear to get stronger, fight some bosses at the end of a run.  Generally nothing super different, other than with Megabonk, being in 3D, there's vertical elements to at least one of the stages, you can jump around and boost that, so you can jump multiple times, which is helpful for jumping out of tense situations like swarms, so that does a lot to make the gameplay more interactive than usual.  Runs are similar, other than they are 10 minutes long, but there are tiers to each map, which can add up to 30 minutes, including a possible 10 minute final boss fight.

There's not tons that's otherwise original or standout here, I think it's downside is that there's only two maps right now, and it's a pretty challenging to get to the Tier 3 final boss, as unfortunately it's not super balanced and if you aren't focusing on having an XP Tome, Luck Tome, and boosting up your difficulty for more enemies, you won't be strong enough to beat the final boss in the time limits.  It's more limiting than Vampire Survivors in that way, which is a pretty easy game, but you can basically play however you want with whatever setup as long as you can level up.

Hopefully the game sees a future where it gets expanded and it gets a nice decent life to it like Vampire Survivors as there's plenty they can add and things to tweak.  Technically I haven't beaten the final boss of the desert map, got close, but it's one of those games that doesn't have a real ending.

[dhaabi]

58. Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion (PC)
Overall really enjoyable licensed game, and wouldn't surprise me if it's the only good or best Adventure Time licensed game, but I will try to play the others eventually.
Rating: Soft recommendation

You'd be surprised to learn that the majority of Adventure Time games for console and PC are actually good—the only real exception is Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know! They're all different from another too, which is nice.

[kamikazekeeg]

27 - I'm On Observation Duty 4 (PC 2021) - BEAT - I still enjoy these "find the anomaly" games, and this one was pretty decent after 3 being a miss with you moving around the space, it never worked as well as the security camera setup.  Only thing I realized with the last level was that there was a brightness option, but only in game, which helped alot as the final level had some real rough areas due to being too dark by default.  These sorta goofy little indie games are just nice, it's got tension, which I like more in games than jump scares.