Main ListPrevious Listbold 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.
38.
Pokemon: Sword (NS)
For some reason decided to jump into another Pokemon game after finishing the previous pokemon game. Took a while to really start because I didn't know which pokemon to pick. I was trying to decide between grass donkey kong, fire pele bunny, and james pond... then while trying to find a james pond reference on google for it, I found a gex reference and that sort of pushed me towards picking water gex... then I saw his dynamax form where he grows a sniper's perch and a sniper rifle and I'm like oh duh, this is my dude. Thus my wife picked fire pele bunny for when she plays Shield, I picked shield for her because of the fire unicorn pokemon. Full xp share from the beginning speeds things up, my whole team is 10+ already and I'm fighting level 5-7 guys right now because I grind too fast, I guess. This kind of continued the entire game, being 10-15 levels over everyone else, which was pretty awesome... however the final fight against the champion however, he was like exactly my level. Now maybe I should've been out catching pokemon still and leveling up even further like I wound up throughout the game, but I really didn't know where else to look for pokemon to catch and I read about how different pokemon spawn in areas depending on the current weather and don't know how the weather changes. That sort of ruined the game for me. I like being boss awesome strong, that's a personal thing so whatever, but he got destroyed by the pokemon and I destroyed the pokemon, I shouldn't have been getting 1-hit KO'd by every single one of his pokemon. I will admit he was probably the most challenging trainer in all of Pokemon though, because all of his Pokemon knew it's own type, plus the types to destroy its weaknesses, thus making battle complex compared to normal 1 dimensional trainers. So complaints either way, if you want challenge, you don't get it until the final battle, mind you I Gigamax'd once the entire game and it was the end of the final battle with Leon. There appears to be quite a bit more to do, so I'll keep playing
for now.
Rating: Soft recommendation
39.
Ringfit Adventure (NS)
I've already beaten this game last year, and I had stopped playing it last year after beating the main story. Finally decided I needed to get back on it so I can stay in a nicer shape rather than just concentrating on treadmilling. I'm currently down to 155-160, which is a nice loss of ~30lb. Not much to say about this, I'm just working on new game+ and only doing about a level a day. Even from starting up having not played in about 6 months, I wasn't sore doing this, but I also know I'm not over doing it by only doing one level a day.
Rating: Soft recommendation
40.
Sara is Missing (Android)
LRG announced Simulacra and I just really didn't want to support them. So I looked into Simulacra to see where I'd want to play it and where it's the best price. Android won in every category and I saw there were other games in the "series" and like it so I downloaded a bunch of phone snooping games. This the predecessor to Simulacra, I played this first. I was expecting it to be more "Lost Phone Stories" and less psychological horror, so color me disappointed when the ending turned out to be very much not an ending at all... and I still have no clue what happened. Like was Iris in on it? What happened to Sara? I don't know, but I certainly didn't care enough to even google it.
Rating: Hard pass
41.
Gato Roboto (X1)
Every month games get delisted from Game Pass and that's the stuff I prioritize, I saw this was getting delisted so I finally pushed myself to play it. Glad I did because this was a pleasant experience. There was maybe one or two parts that frustrated me, but it's because I did something difficult when I could've done something easy, had to undo what I did, the same hard way, just so I could go the easy way.
Rating: Solid recommendation
42.
Simulacra (Android)
I'm figuring this will be a quick game, but it's kind of contingent on me being able to sit down and play for more than a few minutes and pop in earbuds. It's more of Sara is Missing and has stupid horror psychological aspects. Honestly, not really enjoying the horror aspects, and it tends to lean towards not having closure, it being a franchise and it being horror. Not really horror if you get closure.
Rating: Hard pass
43.
There is no game (Android)
My wife made me sit down and play this on her phone, and I had to be like I'm pretty sure I played this as a flash game a long time ago. But I played it anyway and remembered that it was indeed entertaining and she brought to my attention the "sequel" Wrong Dimension, so we'll probably get that either for Android or Switch. It's basically a game where the narrator tries to convince you that there is no game.
Rating: Soft recommendation
44.
Gear.Club Unlimited (NS)
I've been playing this game off and on for years, but this year I'm finally dumping time into it because it's a great game to just play on the fly. Races are super short and I can jump in and jump out. That said the game crashes quite a bit, has stuttering and slowdown a ton, and has input registration issues. If not for those things, this game would be like an 8/10 for me, but the fact that this stuff happens so often and is kind of infuriating I can't even justify something like 5/10. It'd be a great game if they'd just optimize or prioritize performance. Legitimately this game suffers from such poor performance issues I just can't recommend it. I am however going to play the sequel and see if that's any better. This game does have a hefty amount of "content" because there are like 300+ races to do.
Rating: Hard pass
45.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PS5)
Got this at launch but decided to wait for the PS5 upgrade to actually play it. I will say, having been playing games optimized for next gen and stuff, I don't think they necessarily look or play better than last gen, they just load faster. That's a great thing, loading faster, but it doesn't necessarily feel like a reason to buy a console. The move to an RPG based system instead of a brawler based system took a bit of getting used to, and I still take umbrage with it. Story is pretty good so far, but I am slightly concerned/curious how and if the story will veer back towards Kamurocho. The fall out Tojo irks me something fierce in that it holds that only Kiryu was holding Tojo together and when he "died" everything fell apart... but that was basically the theme of the first 6 games really. Ok, so only really one major complaint about this game. I had to do like 3-4 hours of grinding, like straight grinding, even after doing all of the side content, to beat a story boss. A minor complaint is that the whole game is pretty quick but then right at the end you get a handful of fights that literally take 30+ minutes to get through. May not even be tough fights, but the enemies have so much health, or such high defense, or so many resistances, that it literally takes 30+ minutes to knock down their health... also so many enemies immune to all status effects.
The tail end of the game gives so much info and possibly fan service that it made me giddy every time stuff happened. There was certainly more I wanted story wise, and they left a few loose ends, but what game doesn't really. Kume's bit confused me a bit, I'm sort of hoping a sequel will do something about that.
Rating: Highly recommended
46.
Ape Out (PC)
I've been super interested in this game, but it's only on Game Pass for PC. The game was also going up for order physically for Switch so I wanted to see if this was a game I needed physically or not. This game is actually quite fun to play and possibly has replay value in its procedural generation... but for me, that's a no. I don't think I'd be missing out in my life not being able to play this game ever again, there are plenty of other games out there that I'd possibly have more fun replaying or even moving on to a new game over replaying this game. The game is also only maybe 2 hours long depending on random generation and how good you are at the game. That said, the game is fun to play and if you have game pass or can get the game on the cheap I'd recommend giving it a go.
Rating: Soft recommendation
47.
Streets of Kamurocho (PC)
After playing Ape Out, I decided to look at Steam and see if there were any games I'd like to play, so I installed a bunch of games including this one. I saw HLTB listed the game as extremely short, so I decided I'd kill an evening playing this game. The game is extremely short in that you play through 3 levels and then you loop playing through the same 3 levels infinitely to obtain a higher score. So in that aspect the game is endless and once you've beaten the 3 levels you've essentially beaten the game. The only reason to keep playing the game otherwise is to unlock Ichiban Kasuga, which you'll unlock within like 10 minutes of playing. I don't know what unlocks him, but I unlocked him very quickly and without even beating the 3rd part of the game. That all said, the game is/was free, but even then it doesn't really provide much value that I'd say it's an easy pass.
Rating: Hard pass.
48.
OutDrive (PC)
This was another short game that I had in Steam and decided to play. Premise is basically drive fast, but not too fast, but also not too slow, but drive safely, but not too safely. That's it. That's the game, don't meet those criteria? The girl dies and game over. The game has no ending, you just keep playing as long as you can. I think I managed to last like 20 minutes and then I wasn't paying attention because I was talking to myself on stream about how I was about to give up because I'm just not feeling the game, and then I died. It's a mindless game with beautiful visuals and a nice synthwave soundtrack... other than that, not much going on for it.
Rating: Hard pass
49.
SUPERHOTline Miami (PC)
I don't remember if I was looking at SUPERHOT stuff or itch.io stuff, but I saw this existed so I decided to give it a go because it was short. Pretty fun short game. Really not much to add, it's just Hotline Miami with the SUPERHOT mechanics.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
50.
Operation Logic Bomb (NSO)
We went to my sister's house to have our kids play together now that all the adults are fully vaccinated. I brought my Switch because my sister and I used to play Tetris Attack/Pokemon Puzzle League a lot, thought maybe we could play. Didn't even bring in my Switch and forgot about it. Wouldn't have had time to regardless. Kids and whatnot. Got home and decided I'd play something NSO, just picked a sort of random game to jump into. I might have checked HTLB, but I can't say for sure. Short enough game though, pretty good too. Not necessarily my thing, but it's definitely not a bad game.
Rating: Soft recommendation
51.
Super Valis IV (NSO)
Another case of just playing a game to play a game. Knew nothing of this game going in. It's just a little platformer like Castlevania. I do think it's super cool that this game that's nearly 30 years old had an awesome female protagonist. That's pretty common these days, which is still pretty cool, but I'm always pleasantly surprised when I find older games like this. Shortish game in that it's only got 7 "levels" but the levels are pretty large. I used save states like a scrub, so the game was made much easier and I didn't really leverage any of the items that you can pick up throughout the game. I did get a low score on time for the game, so I assume the boss fights could have been quicker had I used items or something.
Rating: Soft recommendation
52.
Wild Guns (NSO)
The final case of just playing a game to play a game. I knew about this game going in, but maybe not to an extent. The music of this game is great. I didn't really use save states on this one, but I did use the rewind feature a bit. Game is basically a shmup. I think I can enjoy shmups under one of two circumstances: rewind feature and/or infinite lives. Not infinite continues, infinite lives. Without those the games get hard enough that I can't bother. That said, and while I enjoyed this game, I know I would not enjoy it without the rewind or save state features.
Rating: Soft pass.
53.
Wilmot's Warehouse (X1)
I decided to play this game because I wanted to play something while We Happy Few was installing. Of course I forget that Xbox throttles download speeds while playing any game, so it made the download take hours to finish. I streamed my first time playing it. It was boring to watch. I streamed my second time playing, but the audio was garbled, so I deleted it. Then I decided I just wouldn't stream playing it because it's kind of boring to watch and I wanted to pick up and play whenever I wanted without worrying about streaming. It's basically an inventory management simulator. Nothing fun really, just menial and tedious. A puzzle game. That out of the way, it's a pretty good inventory management simulator.
Rating: Soft recommendation
54.
WWE 2K16 (X1)
Randomly decided I wanted to play a wrestling game, saw that this was the oldest one for X1 that I owned in some manner so I decided I'd go with this one. Really frustrating that I don't actually own like any WWE games post Smackdown Vs. Raw except this (GwG) and 2K19... and they are all pretty pricey for no good reason it seems. I had already beaten "story mode" from this one, but I decided I'd do the My Universe or whatever where you play a CaW and go through the whole shebang. I only put in so much time that I went through the whole NXT section and then hit the main roster and stopped so far. I mostly stopped because I wanted to play games to earn achievements for the gamerscore challenge and this was just too long to be worth doing right now. That said, I don't really like the 2k series of these games, they over complicated everything. Pins, submissions, etc are all skill/timing based and I can't do that shit to the point that if a bot decides to quick pin me, odds are pretty high I'm gonna lose. Limited reversals and stamina make sense but are still annoying.
Rating: Hard pass.
55.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition (X1)
I've actually been playing this off and on for years just whenever I feel like it as I already completed the game on 360 back in the day. Randomly decide to play the game. My original playthrough I went a lot into stealth and archery and made it so I could one shot stuff with a bow and arrow. I forced myself to go pure mage in this playthrough. I do have a bow and arrow for when magic just isn't an option, but I basically only use magic. My health and stamina are like base and I put all points into magic and magic skills. Enjoying the change.
Rating: Solid recommendation.
56.
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown (XBLA)
Saw that this was a quick completion for achievements so I decided to jump into it to earn a quick 400 points, but then I saw I could make it super fast 320 points and just not bother with the last 80 points that are difficult. Did that. Basically just play through the story mode once and do some tutorial stuff. I'm not big on fighting games, and I have no clue what was going on with this one, I didn't even fully understand the controls. Meh?
Rating: Hard pass.
57.
The Videokid (X1)
Another game that I saw was a quick 1kGS. Sounded like it was a modern take on Paperboy but with tons of 80's references. All in all, I appreciated the references... and the gameplay was pretty addictive too. It was actually an absolutely pleasant 1k to earn. That said, it's only really a quick 1k if you can learn all the stuff and have the "skills" to do it, it took me several hours, but I enjoyed my time. A pleasant throwback.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
58.
Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (X1)
I was flipping through TrueAchievements to see what all I could get quick achievements from and saw that I could 1k this pretty easily. I already had like 300-400 from the game so I only had so much to do. Super fast experience to get the 1k. I probably wouldn't have counted this if I hadn't already counted it as beat in a previous year. The 1k doesn't even require beating the game, just level selecting the boss level and beating the episodes plus some other stuff. Honestly might go back and play it again one day though.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
59.
Knight Squad (X1)
Another game that I had been working on because of a previous gamerscore challenge, but I had forgotten that I had never finished it up, so I hopped back into it and earned another 500GS from it. An absolute pleasant couch party game and a fast 1kGS. Played this quite a bit over the years at PAX, glad they made a Knight Squad 2, hope it hits GPU one day.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
60.
The Gardens Between (X1)
Another game I had seen was a quick 1k. I had been putting off playing this game, dunno why, but just kept putting it off. I skipped buying the physical release of this game, and glad I did. The game is only about 2 hours long and doesn't really leave a reason to ever play it again. That said, the puzzle mechanics are like Life is Strange meets Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker... but simpler? Music is great, graphics remind me of Oxenfree, story is very meh until the end in which it's like oh yeah, of course that's what was going on. I probably could have and should have streamed playing this game, but it's whatever, it was short and I played it sort of in bursts but also kind of all in one go. I just really haven't been feeling streaming and we're going through figuring out if we are going to move or not. It sounds like we probably couldn't win an injunction against our neighbors to get them to stop playing music loudly (with high bass) but finding another house that we like as much as the one we currently own is just impossible. Anyway, probably need to get back to streaming.
Rating: Soft pass.
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