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Gears 5 (X1)
Decided to take a break from God of War to play something else. Popped in Control but it had a huge update and I already preloaded this thanks to Game Pass, so I decided to play this. I remembered not particularly caring for Gears 4. I think I didn't care for JD Fenix, the story didn't seem to explain enough of why the Locust (Swarm) were back, story was pretty short, and the ending was abrupt. This game fairly quickly hands over the reigns to Kait (Laura Bailey ofc). Kait is a more likely protagonist, so that helps. They make JD sorta a bad guy for not much of a good reason, but then it's just fine... sorta disjointed. Story and background is really good this time around though, I'm finding myself
wanting to play the game instead of just about anything else. Doubt it'll be a top 5 overall, but it might make top 5 for the year, if they can manage to not screw up the epilogue and the climax. Epilogue and climax were pretty great, but the final boss fight was so frustrating that I think that alone disqualified it from being a top 5 game. I'll go look at my list and see where it stacks... but Control will definitely outrank this so it might not matter.
Rating: Recommended. It makes Gears 4 not so bad and the story is pretty good.
64.
Control (PS4)
I don't even know how to talk about this game. The story is so trippy and complicated... the game even starts you out with little subtle hints of what to expect. There really isn't much I can talk about without spoiling things, but this game is pretty freaking great. Combat is interesting and can be frustrating at times. Combat provides so many different button actions that can be done that I find myself getting flustered with the options at hand pretty frequently. The trophy list for the game looks really simple so I'll probably wind up going for the platinum on this game. Wound up going for the platinum for this game. This game was amazing. It was difficult enough that I got the same feeling I got with Souls games while wandering around just waiting for shit to attack me and boss fights trying to figure out strategies. Only 3 downsides with this game. 1) The loading screens when you die feel like forever, because you just want to jump back into it.. 2) Unpausing the game or loading from a loading screen leaves you with a couple of seconds of horrible framedrops (<10 fps). Both annoying, but not game breaking. 3) No checkpoints, any progress you make is always saved, but when you die you get loaded back to the most recent control point (bonfire), this makes the game even more Souls like. I hate to call this the Souls of 3rd Person Shooters, but it kind of is.
Rating: Highly Recommended.
65.
Catherine: Full Body (PS4)
I've been interested in this game for a long time, anime puzzle game? Sign me the frick up. Puzzle gameplay is... sorta meh... it's the anime/story that keeps you going. The puzzle gameplay isn't tiresome, so it's all good. The story however is pretty damned good and has me wanting to play more. The internet rage machine mostly spoiled the new content for me so I wasn't really surprised at the twists. I never played the original, so I'm not patently aware of the ramifications to gameplay and story of them adding in Rin. It makes me consider going back and playing the original... but I'll probably just do Youtube. I decided to go for the Rin ending because it seemed like the thing they wanted you to do, I felt the obvious feelings towards K/Catherine, so I wanted to see what Rin wound up like. I also heard something akin to that doing Rin's ending lets you do chapter select and no other endings give you that, and I want chapter select. I was doing laundry late last night so I wound up playing really late and hitting Stage 10 by the time laundry was done running, I really wanted to finish the game, but I figured that would wind up keeping me up for another hour or so. Finished the game. I don't think I cared for the game quite enough to playthrough multiple times for the multiple endings, especially don't like the idea of replaying the same puzzles over and over.
Rating: Soft Recommendation.
66.
God of War III Remastered (PS4)
Started this game shortly after finishing Catherine. Kept falling asleep while playing, I'm unsure if it's because I was that bored of the game or if my allergies were just acting up that badly. Took me getting about halfway through the game because I really got invested. Honestly, this may be my least favorite God of War game. Honestly, it's kind of a toss up between this and Ascension. Ascension had a lot of colorblind unfriendly aspects, but so did this I assume. Every game I ended with max stats... except this game. Apparently there were invisible chests throughout the game that I didn't know about until the end of the game. Apparently I was supposed to know that when there is mirage looking lines on the screen that that means there is an invisible chest, the game never really conveyed that information. I messed around looking at these mirages every time they appeared, but I never tried to use the item that would've activated it, so I missed a ton of collectibles and would've wound up with max stats. Yeah, definitely my least favorite game in the franchise. Seems to tie up a lot of the Greek Mythology loose ends and stuff. He appears to die at the end, but as GoW 2018 exists and he's got the scar from his wound at the end, obviously he lived.... somehow. My only complaint is that Athena died in a previous game, she's in this game as a ghost, she is corporeal enough to hold a sword, seems like the only left antagonist and she just walks away at the end, sorta anticlimactic and seems to leave a single loose end.
[/b]Rating[/b]: Extremely soft recommendation.
67.
Untitled Goose Game (NS)
Bought and started up this game over the weekend so I would have something I could play in front of my kid. Only wound up playing for like 20 minutes or so before I was able to get back to playing whatever I was playing. As short as this game is supposed to be, it will probably last me a while. This game is actually really short, probably took me like 2 hours over the course of a week or so. Game gives you things to do after beating the game, but I lost my motivation and just quit. The ending made me laugh. It's one of those endings where you saw or could've saw a thing at the beginning that would give away the ending, and you get to the ending and remember what you saw and just laugh. Cost is fairly high for a game that will last you a couple of hours, it's fun and funny, but I feel it can lose its appeal pretty quickly, but I see replayability in it if you care for being an asshole goose.
Rating: Soft recommendation
68.
Cube Escape: Seasons (Android)
My wife convinced me to play this game last night. It was an enjoyable experience. The game is about 30-40 minutes long and it's your traditional escape game but it gets pretty dark. It's free, but it's also the equivalent to an old flash escape room game. It's apparently a part of a long running series of escape games and it's well reviewed. I might play a few more of them.
Rating: soft pass.
69.
God of War (2018) (PS4)
Started this up after GoW3, been waiting so long for this game. Bought this game day one with my PS4 Pro, finally started playing it on the day it got announced as a Greatest Hits title. I've always had a mild fascination with Norse mythology, so I'm really digging this game. I know nothing of the ending or if they are planning a whole trilogy around this, but I'm very excited about this experience. Combat is pretty frustrating in this game. It's like it wants to be hack and slash, but it also wants to be Dark Souls, but it isn't quite doing either very well. Combat isn't so frustrating that I won't go for the platinum trophy, but I'm planning on going for the platinum as it's rated as a 3/10 for difficulty. Story is pretty great, characters are well developed and portrayed, voice acting is amazing, gameplay and combat are fun and interesting. Ending was really good, gave you a little bit of closure but didn't end in a manner that it doesn't make sense to continue running around and doing stuff, but also leaves tons for a sequel.
Rating: Highly Recommended.
70.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PS4)
Beat this game years ago when it came out, I've been playing it yearly slowly working towards the platinum. Played a little bit and got frustrated that even almost a year later, there are things not spawning that I need to finish the game. Got over it and kept playing. After a few days of playing through missions over and over, I finally S-ranked all missions and completed all mission tasks and earned the platinum trophy. No clue how much time total I put into the game because there were a lot of days that I left the game on and unpaused over night to unlock stuff.
Rating: Still a freaking amazing game.
71.
WWE 2K19 (X1)
Since getting back into wrestling around Wrestlemania this year, I've been super into wrestling. I wanted something sort of mindless to play while I was sick the past week, so I played this. I forget constantly that since it because the 2K series, it's been pretty garbage overall. I try to look online into how to adjust the game to make it super easy, because that's what I want when I play these games, just sort of mindless challengeless violence... but changing the settings to what should read as essentially the bot standing there and taking it, the bots will reverse everything still and you could utterly destroy the bot and never take a hit, but the pin system is so broken that you could lose at full health with a pin and a single reversal can earn them a finisher and they constantly reverse finishers. I spent the entire game just doing what I can to burn their reversals so they couldn't reverse my finishers, because if they have a reversal stored 10/10 they will reverse finishers.
Rating: Hard pass.
72.
Legend of Zelda, The: Link's Awakening (NS)
Finished Goose Game and my wife insisted that I start playing this even though I wasn't feeling it. So I kept screwing around and did the thing I do when I'm made to do something I don't want to do. I play stupid, I feign ignorance, and I'm all around annoying to people watching me play. My wife got really angry and wanted me to stop playing because I kept getting myself killed on purpose and doing the wrong thing on purpose. I also kept skipping over all dialogue so I legitimately had no clue what to do next. No clue if I'll get through this game. Finally being mildly serious about this game and through with the 2nd dungeon. Kept playing through the game and finished it... I don't think it even places on my top 5 for games this year, unfortunately, it's a great game, but it just doesn't check all those boxes for me.
Rating: Recommended, definitely recommended over the original for it's QoL improvements.
73.
Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes (GCN)
After having played Phantom Pain and trying to find other stuff to play and playing other stuff, I kept just wanting to play more Metal Gear. So I sat down and tried to decide what to do, Metal Gear Solid (PS1 Classic), Metal Gear Solid (PS3 download), Metal Gear Solid (PS1 on one of those portable screens), or Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes (GCN). Through my research a lot of folks insisted that PS1 was the way to go as PS1 Classic loses the memory card thing, PS3 probably loses the memory card thing, and people have some weird issue with the GCN release. I have PS1 memory cards with saves, but probably 0 Konami games, but I do have a GCN memory card with tons of saves for tons of games. GCN release has many QoL improvements, looks better, and I get the neat Nintendo references. Played through the game over the course of a few days, really enjoyable experience for the most part, but nothing out of this world compared to other games I've played this year.
Rating: Recommended, much better experience than I had with what little I played of the OG MGS.
74.
Two Eyes (Android)
My wife showed me this little app/game and now I'm playing it as my handheld/mobile game for now. Will probably last me a while too. Picross with a story(ish). Really not much to say about this, even the story is kind of meh and non-existent. It'll be a soft pass for this one, maybe even hard pass as the Jupiter Corp Picross games are the ultimate picross games. After finishing the Wolf story I've gotten super interested in the game because I want to see the Deer story and the finale, so the story grabbed me I guess. Finished the Deer story and started up the finale, I really didn't expect the finale puzzles to be 30x30, so it's taking a long time and will continue to take a long time.
Rating: Hard Pass.
75.
Outer Worlds, The (X1)
Got super excited to try out this game as it got closer, literally knowing next to nothing about the game. Free with Xbox GPU, so I knew I had to try it out. Pleasantly surprised that it was pretty much Fallout: New Vegas X Firefly. It's pretty freaking great... but it has a lot of... downsides. World is very sci-fi, like almost No Man's Sky level of world sci-fi-ness. Exploration feels super boring, and to be quite honest, everything looks like everything else, so half the time I don't know where I need to go and where is accessible. Weapons are super boring, only recently realized that as you get better versions (base, MK2, Ultra) you get more customization options, which is nice. Inventory management is atrocious as at a glance there is no way to know where what you want is without being able to just recognize the weapon's icon/image, text would go a long way. Companions aren't likeable. Closest to likable is Ellie and Pavarti, and even they can be annoying. The game does a poor job of motivating you as a player to get involved. You just wake up in a ship and get told to save everyone. Fallout at least had reasons (find dad, get revenge, find son, etc). It's been 70 years, I should have some pre-freeze knowledge, but I have nothing and the game gives you nothing. As a role playing aspect, I don't know what I should and shouldn't know, seems like 70 years would be a long time and there would be things. I don't know that this game will even break the top 5 for games released this year, it's definitely not on the top 5 for the year. I find myself getting bored of the game and wanting to do something else. I will likely give the game a second chance and go on a murder rampage just going full evil and kill everything. I finished the game, thought about doing a second run like I suggested and couldn't put myself up to it.
Rating: Recommended for Fallout fans. Soft recommendation for everyone else.
76.
Tangle Tower (NS)
Bought this game near launch because it was having a launch sale. This game is made by the folks who brought you Detective Grimoire (same franchise), Snipperclips, and The Legend of Zelda: The Lampshade of no real significance. That last one is a real flash based game, and it's actually pretty fun/funny. This game has amazing voice acting, the character animations are just phenomenal, the story is interesting, the dialog is funny and a little bit irreverent (read as British), and the puzzles aren't too simple and hints are given with no punishment. I absolutely adored this game and am trying to get my wife to play it as I think she'd love it.
Rating: Highly recommended.
77.
Metal Gear Solid 2 HD: Sons of Liberty (X1BC)
Started this up after finishing Twin Snakes. I was mildly concerned that going from a game that was made after Snake Eater, to a game before Snake Eater, that I'd be missing QoL improvements and have a miserable experience, but the HD collection release has QoL improvements over Twin Snakes even... so that's nice. I did notice that the collection sort of default expected you to play Snake Eater first. Seems the devs picked chronology over release order. I played Sons of Liberty on PS2 way back in the day, but I never even got to the Olga fight I believe. It wasn't a goal for me for this year, as I said God of War was my goal for the year, but I'm thinking I might get through the MGS franchise this year.
Rating: Recommended, essentially a direct sequel to MGS.
78.
Metal Gear Solid 3 HD: Snake Eater (X1BC)
Started this up right after finishing Sons of Liberty. There are a few throw backs to the previous games, and it appears to really just answer some back story questions that Sons of Liberty left about the Patriots. I feel like this game provided backstory to help connect 2 and 4 together, but I'm thinking this whole franchise really could've been played in chronological order... maybe even should've. Going 1995 > 2005 > 2007-2009 > 1964 > 2014 > 1974 > 1975 > 1984 by release order just throws things in such a weird order to try and piece together. Plus I tend to look at MGS as a split. Half the franchise should be looked at as Big Boss games and half should be looked at as Solid Snake games. There seems to be very little overlap between them. The only constants are Revolver Ocelot, The Emmerich family, and Metal Gear. Essentially chronological pre MGS and post MGS. Like I feel like this game really just served the purpose to set up who the Patriots are for MGS4, which while necessary, wasn't necessarily needed to take place between 2 and 4.
Rating: Recommended, provides a lot of information about a lot of characters (i.e. world building).
79.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)
Started this game up and just really wasn't feeling it. Got frustrated a lot because they try to justify the radar capability behind an item you have to keep equipped that runs on a battery. Game throws endless enemies at you when alerts happen which is quite frustrating, so you can't even be like I'll just kill everyone because they'll immediately infinitely spawn. As always story is kind of confusing and difficult to follow. A lot of things come up that directly revolve around the events of Snake Eater, so this game is making that game necessary, but even played in chronological order, you would've already played that, but it would've been 100's of hours before this game, so events might have been forgotten, which could influence your intake of the story.
Rating: Recommended, closes off a lot of plot holes and arcs.
80.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (X1BC)
Started this up shortly after finishing Guns of the Patriots. Moderately enjoying it so far. Definitely feels and plays like a portable game with it's small area sections. Definitely feels like the transition game moving from Tactical Espionage Action to Tactical Espionage Operations with the mission system. Honestly the game is great, it's basically a prototype for MGSV which is just an amazing game to me. The Outer Ops are quite annoying to me in conjunction with the limited 10-11 fultons per mission, but it's side content, so whatever. A lot of annoyances with this game, but it's actually really freaking fantastic. Not as good as Phantom Pain, but it's pretty damned good and directly connects
Rating: Highly recommended.
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