52 Games Challenge 2021

[dhaabi]

27. Wide Ocean Big Jacket || Nintendo Switch || 07.09.21

As someone who's largely drawn to gaming experiences based on a game's art style, I went into WOBJ blindly aside from knowing that it offered a short 2-hour story. And, in this short two hours, I found myself laughing out loud and taking screenshots to remember the many funny moments later on.

With a simple flat illustrative style akin to Untitled Goose Game, WOBJ also adopts a similar light-hearted tone for players to explore that UGG gave. With an everyday narrative, WOBJ offers a brief overnight glimpse of a camping trip taken by a young married couple with their young teenaged niece and her boyfriend, which is something never done from the latter two. Featuring a cast whose relationship is not close but familiar, players are treated to quick-witted nature of both kids and the awkward conversation unfold among all cast members. Talks of saucy books, adult beverages, and divorce ratios are only a small sampling of what conversation is like.

While players explore their unknown surroundings across the camp site, nature trails, and beach, WOBJ provides just enough content to expression to express this ordinary camping experience: elderly park employees are caught napping through the mid-afternoon, littered trash such as crushed water bottles are tossed here and there, and the obligatory sharing of scary stories ensues as hot dogs are roasted over a fire pit.

In short, WOBJ is a perfect example of the type of games I've found myself drawn to in recent years. WOBJ demonstrates the small moments of life that may not seem impactful—and maybe they aren't, even—but give a glimpse of daily musings and events that help define who we are and who we aspire to become as we grow.

[telly]

Game 16 - Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD (PS4) - 22 Hours (normal mode)

Finally finished the last KH game before Kingdom Hearts III! Dream Drop Distance is a very strange entry in the Kingdom Hearts series, with a LOT of things going on both in the story and the gameplay. Even though this was a 3DS game, I think it's definitely a worthy entry to the KH franchise, even though this is among my least favorite games in the series.

I'm not sure how this game plays on the 3DS, but I'm glad I experienced it on PS4. Plays just as great as any other game on the HD collection, and looks really nice too. My only gripe is that the game has some extremely obnoxious, loudly-colored effects for reality shifts, save spots, and other interactable objects, and it was very annoying visually.

This was the first Kingdom Hearts game that really broke me story-wise. Take the already convoluted narrative of the KH series, and throw in time travel, Harry Potter cloning shenanigans, and Inception-level "dreams within dreams", and this story quickly was lost on me. While the setup of waking sleeping worlds does sound interesting, the story for me only made sense at the beginning and the end, and I had to look up several plot points to fully understand. I did like the little summaries of past games though; gives you a chance to review what has been many games' worth of stories up until this point.

The gameplay this time around has several significant changes, some great and some not so great. I liked the flowmotion, which added a new layer of speed, strategy and maneuverability to the game. However, it’s easily abusable and it sometimes activates when you don’t want it to, I.e. sliding on rails. The addition of the command deck mechanics from BBS has nice thematic ties given Riku and Sora are participating in a Mark of Mastery, but several aspects are removed in this game, such as command synthesis and command styles, which I missed. I think the drop mechanic was interesting. It incentives you to play efficiently and collect as much stuff as possible so you can give your next character (either Sora or Riku) a little extra bonus. However, I didn’t like the dropping into worlds mechanic though, it felt very tedious and unnecessary. Lastly, I liked the reality shifts, they were fun to use and had interesting gameplay quirks, especially the Tron one.

The dream eaters are probably the most interesting addition. I think they’re a neat idea in concept but I really didn’t feel like they had an effect on gameplay. For both Riku and Sora, I used at least one baby-tier F-rank spirit that I made at the start of the game and was still able to beat the final bosses without much difficulty. Maybe in proud or critical mode it becomes more important. They’re also not nearly as cute as something like Pokemon. They aren't designed horribly, but they are way overdesigned on the colors, and they all have really dumb names. Those things make it hard to get invested in mechanics like that. I did like using the touchpad for interacting with your dream eaters though. I think it’s the first time I’ve had to use that part of the PS4 controller.

[dhaabi]

28. Pikuniku || Nintendo Switch || 07.14.21

Aware of Pikuniku's warm reception, I purchased the title some time ago and admittedly had forgotten that it was in my library. I knew little of what to expect from this unexpected humorous and light-hearted puzzle-platformer.

Playing as the red and armless creature whom I can only assume is Pikuniku, players are introduced to a simple world with simple people who believe simple myths while overlooking not-so-simple problems involving others exploitation. Awakening from a long sleep, Pikuniku wanders into the nearby village with every villager crying out "monster!" upon Pikuniku's arrival and imprison them. Immediately realizing that Pikuniku is no threat whatsoever, the villagers let Pikuniku roam free, with Pikuniku now able to explore the land and soon finding themselves having become the person who is to solve everyone's problems.

With an ordinary puzzle-platformer style, Pikuniku's gameplay style will be familiar to many and brings nothing exciting or new to players. The game does offer a few different gameplay styles throughout certain sections, which is a welcomed addition. However, Pikiniku does offer humorous dialogue with laughable settings and situations. While the game doesn't succeed at becoming one of gaming's most humorous titles, it will at times leave a smile on players' faces.

[tripredacus]

41. Prison Architect

Finished the tutorial segment. I find this game to work like the Sims and I like the high autonomy of the characters in the game. I did not end up understanding how everything works and I suspect there are still some bugs at play. For example, I did not understand how to properly assign all guards to specific areas. Even when set, many guards would just either hang out in the canteen, the yard or in the deliveries area.

The tutorial segments consist of a few areas. The first few are you having to accomplish particular goals in pre-made prisons. This is quite a thing to put someone into because (at least early on) it is difficult to understand how to fill the needs of the prisoners. As a result, there will be many riots that happen. It seems in regular game play that if many people die then there is a consequence of being arrested and then becoming a prisoner yourself. In tutorial I think that this is disabled because one of the maps I had 70 people die in a day and nothing really happened.

The last portion of the tutorial is where you can build your own prison from the ground up, and this is much more manageable to me. I had no problems like in the pre-made prisons. Never had any guard deaths or any riots. Also I am not real good at making prison designs, I just kind of stick rooms together. This is not really anything new to me, I've always been like this and not really creative in design or building type games. More of a function over form type thing.

Anyways it was a good game and will certainly play it again.

[dhaabi]

29. Guacamelee! 2 || PlayStation 4 || 07.21.21

Having played the original Guacamelee! about five years, I looked back on the fun experience it provided and eagerly awaited for what Guacamelee 2 would offer as I began playing. And, overwhelmingly, my experience with the game was positive, and I wished that I had played it much sooner.

As its predecessor, Guacamelee! 2 is a metroidvania-type game revolving around the luchador player-character Juan seven years after the events of the original game. With a wife and children—and having gained some weight—Juan is very much retired as a luchador. However, the world takes a turn for the worse, and Juan is called once again to solve the world's problems. Typical of metroidvania games, there is a lot of backtracking involved once certain criteria is met. Throughout his journey, Juan will re-learn advanced luchador wrestling techniques which also includes the Pollo Power skills which effectively transform Juan into a chicken.

While I looked back at the original Guacamelee! title, I remember it being fairly easy without many challenges. However, Guacamelee! 2 changes that notion to some degree. Throughout the sequel, a fair amount of power-ups require focused platforming skills; at the same time, Pollo Power becomes much more across the entire gameplay experience. However, Guacamelee! 2 introduces a section of the game entirely related to Pollo Powers. Five initial Pollo challenges exist which needed to be cleared in order to unlock the final Pollo challenge. I've read others' accounts that this aspect of the game was not well-enjoyed as the platforming skills required are too high, with these voices likening the gameplay to challenging platformers such as Super Meat Boy and Celeste. That being said, I enjoyed the challenge. Only one aspect of the five Pollo challenges and across the entire game gave me some degree of headache. However, after about an hour, my efforts paid off. I will note, however, that the game's "good" ending requires to accomplish these Pollo challenges, which has earned a fair amount of scrutiny over.

Much like the original title, the sequel is steeped with silly humor that sometimes brings out a smile, but nothing is out-right funny aside from one particular area. Dozens of video game and other cultural references are littered throughout both games, and recognizing them is always something to enjoy. There is one hidden area within Guacamelee! 2 that heavily breaks the fourth wall, as it addresses the backlash the initial game received from some people and their problem with "memes" being in the game. To be honest, I don't recall any degree of memes being in the game, but this hidden area goes overboard with them while having NPCs converse with another by quoting actual negative Steam reviews with player usernames as they discuss how Guacamelee! is terrible because of this aspect. It was absolutely hilarious.

Admittedly, I don't play many metroidvania-type games. I don't know how well Guacamelee! 2 holds up to what else exists within the genre. However, I had a great time with the game. I'm finishing up the DLC still, but I've explored and accomplished everything else within the base game. Perhaps check it out for yourself.

[tripredacus]

42. Aliens vs Predator 2010 (abandoned)

This game lets you play the 3 different sides of the classic AvP story, marines, aliens and predators. I actually took a long time to play this game but it was a combination of just not getting around to playing but also that the game was not compelling enough for me to get back to it at times. After finishing the Marine campaign, the story progress wasn't complete, there was an end cutscene but not an end credits. It shows a story progression percentage on the level screen, and it was only after then trying the Alien campaign that this percentage increased. Each campaign takes place in all of the same levels, but under different points of view. This was pretty cool how it worked out and does end up giving you an advantage on the 2nd and 3rd modes because you will already know the maps.

The Marine campaign was a typical FPS. You have your guns and altfire, can jump but not always mantle. No crouch IIRC. Can only carry 2 guns besides pistol which has infinite ammo but has a magazine. Flamethrower sucks like most video game flame throwers. Shotgun is good, Pulse Rifle is ok and sniper rifle is great. In the beginning I would run shotgun + pulse rifle and later the sniper replaces the shotgun. Toughest enemy is the androids and in each game it is best to use shotgun on them and then pulse rifle later on. This is because while the sniper is more damage than the shotgun, it is not worth the ammo to use it on the androids. There is some damage randomisation that occurs where a 1 hit sniper shot is rare and a 2-3 shot sniper is more common. The aliens have a bad hitbox and sometimes you can shoot them and they do not take damage. Melee is present but it plays a long animation so it is largely useless. Some rooms have a set objective but what to do not not always obvious. All objectives are relayed via the in-game radio, and the sound system does not use focus so other sounds can overlap. In these few situations, you can have rooms where aliens continuously spawn (but not ammo or health) until you complete the task. Game will sometimes use object highlighting, but sometimes not.

The Alien campaign was good once you get used to how the controls work. In general they are the same as the Marine except that you can walk on walls and ceilings. It took me a few missions to finally become comfortable with it. The auto transition doesn't work for me, the movement is too fast. There are some times when a transition will jerk the camera around and you have to re-center. The amount of enemies in the levels make this not a big problem. 1v1 on Marines are not a big problem, but the problem is in packs. Despite all of the attacks the alien has, I ended up just using stealth and the tail attack almost exclusively. The other attacks take too long but the weak melee attack is very fast and can be used if needed. Alien has a 1 hit fatality but cannot be used on everything. Have the ability to break lights and can see outlines of enemies through walls. Predator was easy to kill as well, even for Marine.

The Predator campaign is where I decided to call it quits. Unlike what I would think it would be like, the Predator missions are not stealth missions. I approached them this way but the game does not allow for this. You must kill marines even if you don't have to. In the start you have the plasma cannon but realistically can only use it twice. Everything is close combat and there is no 1 hit kill option. You can't use other enemies as shields, and you can get killed during cutscenes*. The detection range of the auto-turret is much greater in Predator campaign than Alien. Their range might be 3x which is huge. In the alien campaign you can sneak around the turrets but in the Predator campaign you really can't.

As always, had to turn off the music because it was too distracting. There is no purpose for it because even the music cues are not needed because the environmental sounds are good enough. Also the sound is not balanced so that the music can mask the environmental sounds or even the objectives which come over the radio. So music had to go. This issue only reappears later in certain buildings where Weyland's coporate loudspeaker is SUPER loud and this covers up everything. Music wasn't licensed anyways, so no classic tracks that you would want to hear from the movies.

*getting killed in cutscenes. This is another type of game that plays animations or cutscenes for most actions outside of combat. I came to realise this from watching a StratEdgy game review where he complains about this type of thing. When an action is done, it plays an in-engine cutscene to showcase this action. In this game, that includes melee for all three classes and (at least) the fatalities for the alien and predator. Another issue is that you can't cancel these animations. The Alien's fatality isn't as big of an issue due to its hitbox and the fact that a crouch occurs. The Predator's fatality is done at standing heigh (and perhaps the Predator is actually larger) in combination with the fact that there is no friendly fire nor bounding box for marines/Androids (they can shoot through each other) so if you are doing a fatality on a Marine and then enter the cutscene for this action, you can still be shot/take damage and be killed.

[Cartagia]

July Update

Games Beat in July
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4) - Beat July 7 - Really amazing game. Just the right amount of difficult and fun
Horizon Chase Turbo (PS4) - Beat July 12 - Rainbow colored puke inducing fun.
Far Cry 2 (XB1) - Beat July 27 - Good gunplay, terrible AI and tedious travel.
Astro's Playroom (PS5) - Beat July 29 - Purely delightful platformer.

Games Played in July
Ring Fit Adventure (Switch) - Kicking my ass twice a week.
PC Building Simulator (PC) - Becoming my time wasting comfort game.

[dhaabi]

30. Doodle Champion Island Games || Browser || 07.31.21

As I'm sure many here rely on Google as their default search engine, you may be familiar in-passing with the 2020 Olympics Google Doodle that was live for about a week. At first, I thought the temporary homepage simply offered a playful animation, but I was surprised to discover that an entire game was built to commemorate the event.

That being said, Doodle Champion Island Games (DCIG) offers a simple yet fun gaming experience and is perfect for when you've got some time to spend. Naturally, DCIG is a sports title with an overworld to explore, as you control the player-character Lucky, who is a cat that has made their way to the island to partake in the sports game to become the champion. Showcasing sports including table tennis, skateboarding, archery, rugby, artistic swimming, rock climbing, and marathon, DCIG offers a variety of gameplay in the form of mini-games.

However, DCIG is much more open-ended than completing mini-game after mini-game. In addition to these mini-games, DCIG is even surprisingly expansive by having side quests to accomplish, a sizeable environment to explore, and higher difficulty challenges to be unlocked. And, in representing the setting of the 2020 Olympics, DCIG takes place within a Japanese cultural world. Across many facets including dialogue and NPCs, simplified Japanese folklore is present, which is a nice touch for those who are familiar with such tales.

For something as simple as a browser game, DCIG has had a lot of effort put into it to create a fulfilling experience for players. While the Google homepage has since been updated to replace the doodle and game, DCIG is still available to play here. With my time in playing DCIG, I played on PC, but playing on mobile devices is entirely possible too. I wish that there was a cross-save feature to go back-and-forth between the two platforms, but, unfortunately, that's not the case.

[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.

153. Unpacking (X1)
I was bored and looking at recent releases on Game Pass and my wife saw me looking at this game and was like "Yes, buy that, I need that".  I had to explain Game Pass and that she could just go play it on Xbox or PC.  She watched me play a bit, said it looked like a good game, but watching me play stressed her out because I was putting stuff where she wouldn't.  It's interesting thought that such a zen game could cause such anxiety lol.  Game play is pretty lax and wholesome and zen, but then once everything is unpacked, you get the little warnings that things need to go in an appropriate place.  This mostly came down to "I don't know what that is" or "I have no clue where you want this to go, seems like it could go anywhere".  I only had 1 situation where I was just entirely baffled as to what they wanted me to do.  It was right at the end too, but I had a laundry basket that it kept telling me no no matter where I put it.  Eventually I swapped it with the laundry basket in the restroom and put the restroom basket in the bedroom and it was happy.  baffling.  Story seems largely to be one where you make your own inferences and/or assumptions, I'm not big on that personally, but I get it for a game like this.  As much as I want to talk about it, it'd be spoilers, but know this is a game I'd love to chat a little bit about.  That said, the ending and the less obtuse parts of the story were expected things for me, they are staples of wholesome indie games to the point that it's a cliché.  Overall the game is short and sweet, honestly, I'd recommend it.
Rating: Soft recommendation.

154. Mario Party Superstars (NS)
I don't know why I never wrote up about this game.  I consider it beat, but I guess I just must have been busy or really hurting to miss writing up something about it.  There is no story mode a la Mario Party 1+ which is a bummer, I enjoyed playing the single player story mode, I think they even had co-op stuff.  Also, all minigames are unlocked from the start, so there is no incentive to keep playing other than to play which is another bummer.  Mario Party games for me were always about unlocking content through playing.  Don't get me wrong, you play to play with folks, but it was additional incentive and I consider that "content" and as such this game really has no content or reason to play other than hey let's play mario party.  It plays well and it's great nostalgia, but it's one of my least favorite Mario Party games, just above the ones where you all move together :shudder:
Rating: Soft pass.

155. Forza Horizon 5 (XS)
Gosh, I went too long without updating stuff here, so I might not have much useful to say strictly out of just not remembering.  Started this game day one because I love the Horizon series.  It's pleasant to go back to driving on the right side of the road, both 3 and 4 were left side of the road and I'm glad I didn't start this game being used to the other way still.  Big expanse open world, I'm always so curious how it stacks up to the real world, are the roads the same, are the towns and such the same, who knows, not I.  Unlike last entry, I actually took part a bit in the seasons stuff and did some things, it's novel, but some of the requirements are a bit too strict while not being exactly clear enough and the season championships I get confused and have no clue what races to do.  Plus, it feels like there are too few ways to earn the Forza Points and such for rewards, but I guess that's their way of getting you to play over time because new stuff drops daily/weekly.  Story has you being the festival champ from the UK, which I don't think you were the champ from Australia or anything, but it seems to have a bit of continuity and even references previous festivals and people which is nice.  Graphics are good, but it doesn't feel much better comparing 4 and 5 jumping from X1 to XS, but again, I think we're both early this gen and we're so far along computationally that things can't really get much better can they.  I love the Horizon series, so I'll always recommend the latest entry.
Rating: Soft recommendation

156. Haven (XS)
Another game leaving game pass that has been on my backlog of games to give a try.  I'm always annoyed by games leaving Game Pass, but games leaving gives me incentive to finally play the game, which otherwise I might not have bothered to try.  Haven is definitely one I would've tried to play eventually, but the next game on this list definitely never would've been given a chance.  I put myself in a potentially dangerous situation with these games too, what if I like Haven so much that I'd want it forever?  Physical release already came and went, leaving game pass, so do I pay secondary market or do I just go digital?  Well, luckily this isn't that great of a game and personally I feel it has little replay value.  The character conversations are quite nice, there's drama and bickering and things are never perfect, just like a real relationship.  The gameplay isn't great, the cleaning things up is sort of zen, the combat really requires coordination and timing which can get tedious and annoying.  There was at least one optional boss I did that kicked my ass for the better part of an hour because I just couldn't do damage to him because as soon as I killed his minions, he spawned more minions, and I can't target him until his minions are gone, but I guess that was a situation to spam the charge items.  The only thing I knew about this game, and I presume at this point it was inaccurate, is that the game featured sex I guess, I think I heard people refer to it as that sex game or something.  The characters are romantic with each other obviously, but the sex is never more than an implication, so I don't really get what people were getting at with the comments.  The dystopian nature of the story is a little interesting, but I feel that they don't go into enough detail into the how's, why's, and what's of the world's history, which is a shame and definitely takes away from my overall interest and ability to recommend the game, because you're just getting this contained story that's really just about these two characters.  As it is, the game has two endings, 1 ending is very detailed and distinct about events, and the other ending is very much open ended and I guess leads to more entries in the series, so obviously the open one is the canon ending because I imagine they are working on a sequel, because why wouldn't they.
Rating: Soft pass.

157. Morkredd (XS)
Another game leaving game pass.  I don't think it was on my list and it wasn't one I was particularly interested in, but it leaving game pass, I gave it a try.  HLTB gave it like 1-2 hours time so I was definitely like I'll give this a go.  I got a little less than 50% of the way through the game (the game tells you your progress in the pause menu) and said to myself "well, you're halfway done, might as well commit" and pushed myself through the rest of the game.  Some of the game play concepts are fairly novel, but it's still just a sort of frustrating puzzle game.  I played solo because my wife wanted to play Dark Souls, I'll talk about that elsewhere, and I didn't really want to interrupt that or sabotage beating this game in time by trying to fit it in with her... plus I could see this game being extremely frustrating for her and I have no clue if this game lets you swap between solo and co-op, achievements make it sound like a no.  The game was mostly fine solo, until it got to a part where you needed to move from left to right, both characters top and bottom on the left side of the orb pushing, very very easily the controls became unintuitive and you just die because you can't remember which stick controls which character.  I nearly quit at that part. There were also some other parts that wound up unintuitive that I was concerned might become unsurmountable for me, but I managed eventually.  The game did wind up short in that I earned the achievement for beating the game in under 120 minutes, so that worked out.  The final section of the game was frustrating, but novel, and I quite enjoyed it.  It's almost a completely different game at that point and that game would've been a rather fun game... but that all said, I honestly can't recommend this game.  It's not very fun, the mechanics gets frustrating, too frustrating, and there is basically no story.
Rating: Hard pass

158. Dark Souls Remastered (NS)
This is another case of a game I already beat this year, but I'm playing through it again.  I did this with Sekiro a couple of years back and I really had nothing to add the second time around, but this time around the situation is different.  My wife was finally convinced to play Dark Souls, which is insane because my wife rarely plays video games and she doesn't play tough games.  I really don't recall what finally convinced her.  It was slow to start and she was hating it, but it's growing on her.  She had the issue she had with Skyrim when she tried to play that game, she just doesn't get the using the shoulder buttons to attack as opposed to using something like 'X'.  She also had the issue that she's just not very good with the right stick in games, it's not intuitive for her, it's why she prefers PC gaming in general.  She had a few instances of dying and just being like this game is garbage and I'm done.  Especially situations with tough platforming or cheap enemies.  But she's getting much better to the point that she and I are doing fights just the two of us and she's staying alive and I started a new character and she's going back and helping me pull my new character through the game and she's having little to no trouble assisting.  She will make her complaints on occasion but she wants to play every single day and she's finally coming to terms with the fact that dying and losing all of your souls isn't the end of the world because you can always get more souls.  I'm really proud of her.  I started a new build that is a squishy sorcerer, which is something I've never really done in a Souls game, so it's an interesting experience and while I'm playing with her on Switch, I started playing on Xbox One as well and I'm taking this knowledge with me in that build as well, but I'll detail that separately.  Right now we've managed to get to the point that she only has the last lord soul (Seath) and then we can either beat Gwyn or do some other side stuff.  We're pretty close to being done, so the conversation is "Will you play Dark Souls 2/3?".  The problem being they aren't on Switch and we don't own multiple copies of those games.  Now I do own 2 Xbox Ones in essence, so I could just go out and buy Scholar and Fire Fades and we can play, but DS2 is kinda garbage and Switch works because I can play handheld while helping and anything else will require multiple TVs.
Rating: Fantastic second playthrough, Highly recommended

159. Test Drive Unlimited 2 (360)
I started this game years and years and years ago.  No clue why I never finished it, maybe it was Forza Horizon?  Like I know I didn't get TDU2 at launch, so time progression, maybe it was around that time.  I've always had it in my head that Forza Horizon was a spiritual successor to TDU in general, so maybe I jumped from one to the other.  It looks like the last time I played TDU2 was Nov 19th 2011 (10 years ago  ) and I can see Skyward Sword came out the next day.  So there ya go, I jumped to another game and just forgot to come back and then Forza Horizon happened.  This game isn't bad, but it's definitely dated.  Part of my comment comes from how much Forza has spoiled me; the driving line, the rewind feature, the better camera work, map system, and world.  That said, this game does a lot of what Forza does and I'd argue that this game's world map is way bigger than any Forza game, I'm probably wrong, but it certainly feels bigger.  But apparently I dropped this game at the last championship and cup, so I really didn't have much left to do "story" wise.  There is still plenty to do and still plenty that I would've been able to do had I played before the servers went down, but I'll just be done with finishing all of the championships/cups.  What's nuts to me is how much I consider this a predecessor to Forza, but like this came out like a year before Horizon, so Horizon was definitely in development before this even released.
Rating: Soft recommendation, but like only as a dated example of a good game pre-Forza, otherwise play Forza.

160. Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (PS1)
I bought a couple of busted PS3 slims and one said the only issue was it couldn't read blu-rays so I tested with an extra ps3 game and an extra ps1 game.  PS3 didn't load as expected, PS1 loaded as expected.  So I played through this.  It wasn't on my backloggery and it really has no story mode, it's just a free race kinda game.  I did a couple of races, so I'm considering it "beat" because there really isn't much else to it, plus I played this a ton as a kid and I hadn't marked it on backloggery.  Fun enough, plays well enough, just not much in the way of content.
Rating: soft pass.

161. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (NS)
Out of the blue I decided to play this again, I wanted to finally play with the DLC characters that I paid for.  I wound up doing classic mode and I wound up not even playing with DLC characters because compulsively I wanted to clear all of the characters and I was insisting on doing it in order.  I think I may have actively made myself, right at the end, play with Sora once, but after I beat it with Sora I said "Eh, I've had enough of this, I'll go play something else"  So I probably played for like 5 hours or something, cleared Classic with 10+ characters, and called it a day.
Rating: Highly recommended

162. Naughty Bear (360)
I'm pretty sure I bought this game at launch.  I thought I had gotten all the way to like the end of the game and just dropped it, but apparently I only got about half way through the game before I dropped it.  Not even sure why I dropped it, I feel like I might have felt like the game was frustrating, but playing it now, it's fun.  It reminds me of Party Hard, sneak around and murder everyone without getting killed.  Lots of fun traps and weapons.  Apparently there was DLC for the game and I guess it all got delisted, so I've only got up to episode 8 because I guess that was free and I never bought 9-10.  I think I have the gold edition on PS3, so maybe I'll replay it one day and do the DLC, maybe even play Panic in Paradise because I think I have that on PS3 as well.  Don't get me wrong, it's not a good game overall, but as a sort of guilty pleasure revenge murder simulator, it's pretty great.  Honestly, I'd recommend it strictly as a sort of bonkers interesting kind of game, and it plays well.
Rating: Soft recommendation

163. The Punisher: No Mercy (PS3)
I bought a couple of busted PS3 systems with the intent of trying to hack them so I could play delisted or otherwise inaccessible games.  Managed to finally get around to it and I loaded up this one.  I really knew nothing going into this game other than it was an oddity that it wasn't reviewed well and wasn't very superheroey.  Real short one this one in that there are only 4 levels to story mode, and it's almost Unreal Tournament style story mode, you just get deathmatches with specific enemies and goals.  First one is a team deathmatch first to 50, second is kill 150 enemies, third is regular deathmatch 1st to 40 kills, fourth is a wave based level with limited lives.  I saw a review refer to the game as aggressively mediocre and that's pretty apt.
Rating: Soft pass

164. Dark Souls III (X1)
I wasn't planning on marking this one beat until we actually beat it again, but I'm aware that I'm not going to beat the game again.  I'm going to do the same as Dark Souls Remastered and get myself to the final boss to assist my wife and then I'm going to stop and leave the character as a character to be summoned to help folks.  My wife beat Dark Souls Remastered and decided that she wanted to keep playing and that she'd play more Souls games, everyone convinced her to skip DS2, but I bought an additional copy of the game regardless, so maybe we'll play that eventually.  My wife has been playing through this and I've been running through slightly ahead of her so she doesn't have to worry about assisting me.  We're currently at the tail end of the game, maybe just past halfway through.

165. Ice Climber (NSO)
Really only picked this game to hit 1985 in my list of games by year, because why not.  It was hard to find info on this game and everything I read said you beat the game at Mountain 32, but when I talked to people they were like "Uh, doesn't that game loop like Donkey Kong?" and I really didn't have an answer.  Having now done Mountain 32 and 33, I can tell you it loops after 32.  Shortish game, just a platformer with annoying controls and physics, but it is what it is you know because it is a nearly 40 year old game.
Rating: Hard pass.

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[vivigamer]

19. Bugsnax - 02/08/2021 (PS5)

I finally got around to playing the PS+ version of Bugsnax and I wasn't disappointing! This charming game follows a reporter investigating the mysterious disappearance of another report on Snacktooth island which seems to feature many bugs which if consumed take a portion of the creatures limbs! A majority of the games objectives revolve around you catching these bugs for fellow creatures. Each creature has a different method to being captured and I enjoyed trying to figure out the ways to trap these suckers!

But what I also loved about the game is the world/island structure! The game has a day to night cycle and certain bugsnax appear through out the day. I enjoyed re-populating the village with the characters and getting to know them via sidequests and activities. The voice acting is stella and I found each one interesting and was compelled to help them.

It's one of the most unique and fun games I've played in quite some time. Highly recommend it to all!

[dhaabi]

31. Kentucky Route Zero || Nintendo Switch || 08.08.21

Kentucky Route Zero (KRZ) is a game that is best to begin blind. However, it is almost certainly a game that many people will not enjoy. But, for me, KRZ has become one of my all-time favorite games.

Despite the game best enjoyed completely blind, I still would like to catalog my thoughts here by some means. Since there currently is no spoiler tag system, I'll have to be a little more creative.

In many ways, the player feels as if they are an intruder to the game's unknown and strange places, despite nearly all environments being largely vacated and stagnant to some seemingly ordinary situation yet with their details being elevating the event to being slightly-off setting. There are many quiet moments to reflect upon. You linger throughout this off-centered slice-of-life story.

A dilapidated church with a tape recorder playing sermons from yesteryear. A lonely museum with unusual artifacts paired with the musings of what addiction is. An unwelcoming darkened diner where a brief physical exchange is made with a stranger's hand. A graffitied, broken office building set in darkness, aside from the lone room at the end of the hallway which harbors a dozen men and women drinking coffee that has been prepared by being hung over a makeshift campfire made from cut-out cubicle pieces in substitute of firewood. An oak tree along the highway that never stops burning. A second church overrun with weeds, dampness, and mushrooms growing along the wall's pockets, where drywall is pushed through repeatedly to reveal a singing frog chorus. An office floor made refuge for a group of brown bears. An empty multi-storied storage facility where sermon recordings play to to the hollow building as the janitor cleans. A shirtless man separated from white-collared workers that barbeques food who pauses to play a melancholy organ. CRT televisions placed intermittently within the nooks and crannies of a brick building. A collection of crabs lobbying together with an assortment of office supplies as their new shells and new homes. A community of displaced locals now housed within a spacious museum as gallery pieces.

These aspects—and many, many more—are never questioned. They are out-of-place, and, at times, unnerving to the player. But to the cast, these aspects are understood and accepted, despite how unusual they may be.

KRZ breaks the fourth-wall regularly. Active phone numbers that may be dialed to listen to a voicemail menu system all too common to 1-800 numbers. Local TV programs mentioned in-game are featured online in-full for viewing. Physical copies of a screenplay complete with stage notes regarding an in-game production were available for purchase for others to direct and perform.

Relying upon southern gothic tones by way of Flannery O'Conner and William Faulkner, KRZ's story is commentary to the coexistence between capitalism, debt, and what it means to lose it all. In every way, KRZ is a tragic theatre play, complete with acts and title card sequences. As the player, you are not there to unfold a structured narrative. Instead, you are there to unfold the characters' lives. As one review I came across says, "[w]e watch these characters navigate the pitted wreckage of their lives, our decisions meant not to guide their actions but to illuminate them as people. 'What do you want know?' the game asks, and lets you answer."

In many ways, KRZ turns traditional adventure-style storytelling mechanics into something new. To me, KRZ is an anti-game. And it's now one of my favorites.

[bikingjahuty]

*sigh* It's not looking too likely that I'll get to 52 games this year. I've been hit with a Mack truck's worth of shit to do recently and various circumstances in my life have pretty much necessitated that I devote most of my free time to working on other things. In other words, I've had almost zero time for games since around my birthday. Luckily last night I was exhausted and felt I needed to play something so I popped this game in.


36. Mace the Dark Age (N64)

I have fond memories of renting this game. My local arcade also had a cabinet of Mace too which was pretty cool. This game is exactly what you'd get if you combined Soul Calibur and Mortal Kombat, and I'm 98% sure that's what the developers were going for. The game actually does a decent job of almost living up to those games. The visuals are definitely this game's best quality with memorable, cool character that all have their own unique, interesting stages. The soundtrack is pretty good, although nothing to go crazy over. Beyond being heavily derivative of the game franchises mentioned above, one thing this game sorely lack in comparison to both those franchises is its gameplay. While not terrible, the gameplay is just fairly clunky and stiff. Also, it's even more difficult to pull off special moves and fatalities in this game than in Mortal Kombat. Even with the mediocre gameplay this is still a pretty fun game and certainly memorable at a time when there were many generic fighting games trying to emulate more successful fighting games. [30/50] (8/10/21)

[bikingjahuty]

37. Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate (PS5)

I've really wanted to play this game ever since it was released a few years ago, however I was holding out until Netherrealms announced they were done releasing DLC. I finally learned they were done and it just so happened that the game was on sale at Gamestop so I decided to pick it up. MK11 does not disappoint at all. In fact, MK9, MK10, and MK11 are the best trilogy of games in the franchise. Yes, even better than the original trilogy. It's the only fighting game franchise where I primarily play it for the story, however there are many other great qualities about MK11 as well as its two predecessors. Graphically they all look awesome, voice acting and music is great, and they have so much damn content it's hard to feel like you didn't get your money's worth. And with Ultimate you get all the DLC characters like Spawn and Robocop, but also the conclusion to the story. There were certainly some writing and plot issues in this game, however they didn't ruin my enjoyment of this game and seeings its conclusion. Unfortunately, MK11's biggest weakness is its gameplay. While certainly not bad or terrible, it just fels kinda stiff and clunky, but luckily it's also a lot more accessible than most of the older games in the series. Between MK9, MK10, and MK11, I'd say I liked MK9 slightly more than MK11, with MK10 fallng in third place. Super fun, entertaining game, and I definitely want to revisit it someday when I play the entire new MK trilogy some day. (8/12/21) [38/50]

[dhaabi]

32. What the Golf? || Nintendo Switch || 08.15.21

As the second non-traditional golf game I've played this year, What the Golf? offers a lot of arcade-like fun presented with an abundance of silliness. Throughout my time playing, the questions "what is golf?" and "what can golf be?" became questions I found myself asking.

Over the course of eleven hub areas, you traverse through scattered hole after hole to unlock paths and collectibles. Naturally, the game begins simple with the fundamentals of basic golf remaining for each goal to accomplish; however, this quickly elevates to become quite erratic. A golf ball can be substituted for anything. A golf club? Of course. A golfer? Well, naturally. A horse? You can count on it.

But the game is more than just offering substituting what a golf ball can be. Beyond just reaching the hole, levels can integrate mechanics similar to other game genres, such as shooters and racing. Throughout the middle of gameplay, many areas became focused on parodying other games entirely. From Metal Gear Solid, Superhot, and Super Meat Boy, the parody sections add a healthy amount of gameplay variety while not overstaying their welcome.

Overall, the game is easy to understand. However, certain goals to accomplish can be quite a challenge. I was able to 100% clear everything available to me, but there was certainly a lot of trial-and-error made. Most of the time, the challenge was understandable and was related to myself as the player. Other times—but rarely—the challenge was due to the game itself, with one segment in particular bringing me a fair amount of frustration.

That being said, What the Golf? is a short experience, with my game time totaling around 9 hours when having accomplished everything. If you're interested in unorthodox sports games or just curious as to what golf can be elevated to, What the Golf? is certainly recommended by me. Additionally, I just learned just that additional free content has been announced about one month ago with quite an extensive amount of content to be offered. It was said that the content should be released within a few weeks. While it hasn't released yet, that can only mean it will be announced soon. I'll definitely be returning to the game once the content has been released.

[telly]

Game 17 - Kingdom Hearts III (PS4) - 42 Hours (Critical Mode)

Long review ahead! This post will both serve as a review of Kingdom Hearts III as well as some general thoughts about the series as a whole. After about 8 months, I've finally been able to finish the final game in the Xehanort Saga, and man, what a ride it's been. I went into KH III hearing a lot of general disappointment about this game, and while there were certainly aspects that I didn't like, I actually really really enjoyed my time playing.

First, I'll start with the things that I absolutely loved. Kingdom Hearts III is easily the best looking, best playing game in the series so far. The game builds off of the excellent combat engine from BBS A Fragmentary Passage in almost every way. The game starts with the foundation laid out in KH I and II, adds the shotlock and special attacks from Birth By Sleep, and adds a rebalanced version of flowmotion from Dream Drop Distance. These elements combined to produce an exhilarating, expressive, and honestly beautiful combat system. I also loved the ability to upgrade and change Keyblades midway through battle, and the added link attacks and attraction rides were always fun to use. Each Keyblade has it's own link attacks and finishers as well, bringing advantages and disadvantages that you have to consider rather than picking whichever one has the most strength. Overall, I was very pleased to see the legacy of Kingdom Heart's outstanding combat continue to hold true with a next-generation entry on modern consoles. It's really a testament to how well the games are designed for me to still enjoying the combat after what has been over 150 hours playing these games.

The game environments are also downright gorgeous, complex, and simply a blast to explore. Each one is incredibly well modelled, vast, and well designed. There were a lot of NPCs this time around in the more populated worlds, which was a great addition. I loved the little side quests that were tied into exploration like Lucky Emblems, ingredients, and Flantastic 7 Missions. I think the choice to include modern and Pixar movies was a great change of pace, and many of them have some of the best stories in the series (even though the Tangled and Frozen worlds are essentially recreations of the movie plots). All of the worlds have an interesting gameplay quirk to mix up the standard combat, and they're actually fun this time. I especially loved the mechs in the Toy Story level, and the Pirates of the Caribbean level, which combines free roaming ship exploration and combat like Zelda Wind Waker or Assassin's Creed IV. The Gummi ship sections are also the best in the series by far, and instantly became my favorite way of travelling between worlds in the series. There are some worlds that took a downgrade in quality however, like Twilight Town and the 100-Acre Wood, and there are less worlds in general than KH II, for example. But overall KH III goes for quality over quantity, and I'd say they nailed it.


~ Story Spoilers ~

While the combat, world exploration, and minigames of KH III are in my opinion the best in the series, the story was among the worst, and I'd say that's significant given how infamous the game's story is to begin with. There are many, MANY issues that I have with this game's story, but when you have a series that plays so fast and loose with it's rules for the world, it's hard for me to stay mad at a plot hole that could likely be changed with a new retcon or side game. It's more of a story that's meant to be spectacle rather than critically analyzed.

Nonetheless, part of the problem with KH III's story is the awful direction the series narrative took in Dream Drop Distance. Everyone that died in the previous game is brought back in Dream Drop Distance and this game, which removes all sense of stakes, accomplishments, loss, and well.... meaning behind what you did in previous games. The quote-unquote "real" Organization XIII subsequently consists of mostly members of the old organization, along with Ansem AND Xemnas, with some bottom of the barrel villains thrown in as well like Vanitas and Dark Riku, and it felt both lazy and a rehash of fights we've already been through before. All these members are thrown at you in a boss-rush style fight sequence at the end of the game, and it just isn't fulfilling.

I also ended this game feeling really meh about Xehanort as a final villain. For such a grand mastermind, he really doesn't have much presence in the series as a whole (he's only in Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance), and he feels really underdeveloped in this game too. I thought they would go a little into his backstory with the scenes between him and young Eraqus, but they don't. The final boss fight with Xehanort is... fine, but given my lack of interest in him as a villain combined with my distaste for the narrative direction, I just didn't enjoy it that much, which you would think I would have given how long it took to play all these games. On a similar page, I found myself really feeling the same way about Sora. He's a really one-dimensional character with barely any development over the course of this series, and if anything he takes many steps backwards and goes back to where he was prior. I felt this way about most of the characters in this series, with the exception of Axel, and I guess Riku.

~ End of Story Spoilers ~

Overall, I really did enjoy my time with the series, and I'll probably end up playing Melody of Memory and whatever new games come out. I'm really looking forward to devoting some time to playing some different games, however. I do think that playing these in a marathon is the way to go so that you don't miss anything. I would recommend just playing them in release order however, rather than strictly chronological order like I did.