Main 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.
1.
Demon's Souls (PS5)
I actually started this game shortly after beating Dark Souls III at the beginning of last year. I didn't get very far though, like I don't think I even got to Phalanx demon, I also skipped a bunch of 1-1 because I forgot what I had skipped. Even in NG+ I skipped the same stuff, I'm just aware of it this time. I played the majority of the game last year, like so much so that I had already "beat" the game, I just hadn't actually activated the ending/credits until after midnight on new years. But this isn't a case of my usual "oh the credits rolled, let's move on", though I really should, I'm still playing the game. I'm working on NG+ trying to get the platinum. I've got 3 rings left to earn, have to beat a bunch of bosses a certain way, and then buy spells/miracles. My 3 rings left are trade item I have to crow, grind for gold coin and trade to crow, and do mephistopheles quest to kill yuria (pbct). The two rings I need to work on are going to be a pain because gold coin has such a low drop rate, even with providential ring and large sword of searching. My luck stat is relatively low too, so I'll need to raise that, but this is going to take a long time to get. Killing yuria to get that ring is going to be one of the last things I'm going to do and I'll for sure save scum when I do it because I don't want to permanently kill her and my understanding is she is the last NPC you kill, so everyone has to die. I do wish I had planned things better, and I could've had the PS5 allowed me to backup save data to a USB device, but you can only backup save data to the cloud and only if you're PS+. It's dumb. I'm very much disappointed in myself that I didn't Twitch stream me playing this because it was real good fun, would've been a lot of streams, and I had a lot of laughs messing around in the Old Monk area. Both helping people and being a trolly boss fighting people with just my fists (I do no damage so they can't lose, but they still have to work for it). Played more last night and did everything I needed to to get the platinum trophy, real happy about that. A guy I had been helping get through the game shenaniganed to get me up to SL300~ and dropped me a lot of real good stuff. I did my own shenanigans to get a lot of trophies and then I went to 4-2 to do some stuff, got invaded by 1 guy twice, but he couldn't find me which was amusing. He gave up and went home twice. 4-3 I went and tried to do Old Monk getting summoned, but I figured it wasn't likely at such a high SL, but I did get summoned. Guy immediately found me hiding, bowed, and then we fought. I toyed with him a little, he kept spamming firestorm and missing, so I casted firestorm and one shot him... then I bowed. I immediately left, killed myself, dropped my sign again, and immediately got summoned to his world again. This is where it got interesting. My intent was to try one thing real quick, which was to see if I could kill him before he enters the boss room, and also see if I can one shot him as soon as he enters the room if the former didn't work. After that point, I would do hands only and toy with the guy and let him win... but he kept disconnecting. I got summoned to his world like 4 times, but I kept getting disconnected. Regardless, this is such a fantastic game, it definitely has its flaws and a lot is outdated conceptually, but still a fantastic game.
Rating: Highly recommended
2.
Dark Souls III (X1)
Another game that I already beat this year. Started a new character to play through the game with my wife and went out and bought another copy of this and DS2. Already playing through further than where I was at when I started my first playthrough over again. I rated this game highly, but fresh eyes on this and having recently played DS Remastered, I think I would put Remastered over this game. This game has a lot of great things, but I feel like I'm just really connected to the world and design of DS1 over DS3. I think I forget that DS3 is very good, it's just that the Lothric wall area is very frustrating for an early on experience, the dragon and tough enemies in certain areas make for a frustrating early game experience. This is a continuation of my second playthrough from last year. I'm pretty much at the end and assisting my wife get through the game. At this point this is basically a "already beaten" thing, but I'm going to be dumping time into this so it's going on here. Still slowly whittling away at this one with my wife. We had been doing like a bonfire or a boss a day, but we haven't played in a few days. She's got DLC, Twin Princes, Dark Firelink, Archdragon Peak, endgame stuff, and I think that's about it.
3.
Deathloop (PS5)
I was originally kind of following a walkthrough at least in terms of order of quests, but then I just kept playing the game because it kept giving me quests. I think I've done all visionary quests except wenjie, so after I finish this it'll probably be time for the perfect day quest. Actually, I'm at the tail end of Aleksis' quest because I'm at the evening where I'm supposed to invade his party. I've heard such good things about this game that I finally decided to give it a go as soon as I got the platinum trophy in Demon's Souls. I considered not even buying this game because it'll surely be on Game Pass for Xbox as soon as its timed exclusivity ends, but it was like $20 and then B2G1 on top of that so it cost me like $15. Anyway, I was hesitant with this game because of the roguelike nature. When I hear roguelike, I expect a game to be so tough that you'll die a ton until you get enough perks or upgrades to be able to live long enough to progress, but I've been having no trouble staying alive through the loops except the few times Julianna spawns with the slab that makes her invulnerable, that one I'm not very good against, but I need to just get better at kiting her. Overall the game feels very Bioshock, both in story and gameplay. I had to look up if Irrational folks joined Arkane after the shutdown. It's a pretty fun and novel game, but I think I have the problem that it loses replay value pretty quickly. There are 2-3 different weapons for each category of weapon (minus unique weapons) and then weapons can get special features and be equipped with add-ons essentially. It's robust-ish, but the game only has 4 ammunitions: small, large, shotgun, and nails. You can only carry 3 guns, so it sort of works out, but you can only carry 2-3 clips worth of ammo at a time. Again, it sort of works out, but big fights can have you scrambling for ammo. The world is broken down in 4 maps, each map has 4 times of day (morning, noon, afternoon, and evening) with different events depending on the time of day. Once you've visited a location at a time of day, there isn't much else to do there except your objective in future runs. This can change depending on new information learned, but again, once you've done it, not much to do other than the one new thing. So yes, there is a certain permutation thing going on for large replayability, but essentially you can do everything in 4 runs, aside from knowledge based stuff. My point is, that after 4 runs, you've got nothing much new to explore or do other than straight quest based content... get in, do the thing, get out. You could argue "oh do side stuff to raid for better weapons, upgrades, etc; but once you've got a good setup, you don't need much else. No difficulty options and the game is pretty easy on its own. Like I've played through several runs, but I think I was inefficient, which is fine, but this game ain't gonna last most people over 10 hours, which again is fine. What I expect I have left is, finish my current evening run for the Aleksis quest, do an additional run to do wenjie's quest (This might turn into multiple runs, I'll circle back on this), and then do the perfect run. That all said, the main quests have you do a run, learn something, use that knowledge on a future run, but sometimes you learn something in the evening, use it in the afternoon to learn something you need for the morning, so that's 3 runs right there, and if you screw up, you have to start over. I hadn't tested it because I didn't care, but the game crashed on me and seemed to support the theory that if you up and shut off the game if you screw up, you can turn the game on and restart the current run at the time of day you're at. I was concerned that the game would say "Oh, you quit, guess you get to start completely over", which would be unfortunate and I didn't want to test it, but like I said, the game crashed so I was able to see it anyway. After finishing the Wenjie quest I really just had to do the perfect run "End it" quest. Pretty quick and straight forward too, but the game just left too many questions on the table and even added more questions with no answers. I really don't know how to write about it without doing spoilers, but honestly it kind of ruins the experience for me. Gameplay is good, but the story isn't worth it and the gameplay out stays its welcome by exactly the final quest which winds up ruining the experience too.
Rating: Soft pass
4.
Blue Fire (NS)
I had bought this game because it was cheap, fairly well reviewed on Switch and it was described as a Soul game. I know I said I was gonna do something other than Souls games so as to not burn out before Elden Ring, but I went ahead anyway. That said, this game is like, in no way, a Souls game. You collect "souls" and you rest at a fire shrine, that's it, end of comparison. Gameplay is very Legend of Zelda, more Ocarina/Skyward, but decidedly Zelda. The menus are Zelda, very Breath of the Wild, like disgustingly the same. Art style feels like a cross between Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild, I say that knowing that Breath of the Wild is already a cross of Wind Waker and Skyward Sword (I think), and what I mean is BotW, but slightly more cartoony. Now I say you collect "souls" but I think that's more in line with collecting the relic in Zelda than Souls for leveling up in Souls games. You collect "ore" which looks like Souls, but it's actually currency to buy stuff. This game has no RPG leveling elements really. I mean, I don't get it, it's a Zelda game. That said, the trickery did get me to play a non-Souls game and now that that's broken, I can play other stuff for the time being without feeling like I need to play more Souls games. Too often games like this wind up losing their luster or outstaying their welcome, but this game actually got better the further along you got and ends with a pretty great final boss fight. It's long, it's tough, you have to tie together everything you've learned the entire game, and it was tough enough that I took the extra 20-30 minutes to go do some side quests that gave me more heal slots and better spirits. Honestly, this game is pretty great and I sort of wish I had streamed it. The game is good and the only thing that comes to mind that would make it a great game would be a map, just a basic map of which door goes where type of thing, because too often I knew where I needed to go, but not how to get there... and I definitely sat at one point at a locked door not knowing how to get to the other side. I also managed to get through the entire game without ever picking up the spin attack upgrade from early on in the game, which seems like a design flaw. Side note: the game comes with a full instruction manual and the developers offer a full strategy guide on their website.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
5.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (NS)
Coincidentally another Graffiti games game. Very much a 2D zelda type game. Gameplay is okay, it plays well enough, battling isn't really tough other than the seldom boss fight, even then it isn't that difficult. The fetch quests are mostly good and quick, but some aren't as intuitive and some have you going back and forth between two characters at opposite ends of the world multiple times. Dialogue is pretty good throughout, very rarely are things "cringe". The premise of the game, which is technically a spoiler I suppose, is that in order to end COVID they nuked the world killing the human race, nuclear fallout caused fruits and vegetables to become sentient. Game does everything pretty well. The controls are a bit frustrating in that they could've just made dedicated buttons for watering/slashing/etc instead of having you swap between items, which just got confusing. I did have to look up how to do certain things or how to proceed a few times which I'm not a fan of, and the few times it was I didn't talk to one person twice. Overall an okay game.
Rating: Soft recommendation
6.
Maze Craze (2600)
This is the first of many 2600 games I played. It's a tad unfair and skews my count greatly because of how short these games are and a lot don't really have a way to beat them as they are meant to just be played over and over and over. This is one of my most fond 2600 games, it's one of those kids cereal box puzzle book mazes where you start at a spot and you need to find a way out. It's a basic game, but it's fairly fun to play with someone else. I really look forward to my kid getting more interested in playing games as he'll probably have good fun with this one and a lot of other games like these. All of these games will surely get a hard pass just because they really aren't worth the time in any manner, but they can definitely be fun in their own right. TBF, I once played ET for like 3 hours straight just playing the stupid game.
Rating: Hard pass
7.
Haunted House (2600)
So this is the first in the series of games that I've honestly never played before. I started playing it and just kind of played along and then I was like ok what's the goal. Googled it and it's like collect the urn and leave, well I already had the urn, I just didn't know how to leave, took me a bit to figure out that I needed to walk out the side entrance on the 1st floor, kind of obvious honestly. I'm really appreciating that all of these games have the manuals. I know I've marked these as 2600, but I am playing the Atari Flashback Classics game on Nintendo Switch... they are however exactly the same as the original and provide no emulation features like save states or rewind, so I'm just calling it 2600 and not skewing things towards NS... because I did play like 20 games. You wander through the 4-9 levels of the mansion and collect the urn pieces and once you have the full urn you get out, pretty simple stuff. I'll probably play the sequel soon.
Rating: Hard pass
8.
Hangman (2600)
Literally just hangman, played this until the words started repeating. Played this with my kid where we took turns guessing letters to get the words. Really not much else to this one. Fun for a hot minute, but probably better incarnations of this literally anywhere.
Rating: Hard pass
9.
Super Breakout (2600)
I would've played Breakout first had I realized it existed lol, legitimately forgot it existed and was like oh yes, super breakout. Frustrating old breakout games, I'm not very good at them and the controls get very frustrating in general, but a thumbstick does not equal a joystick... so things are tough.
Rating: Hard pass
10.
Super Breakout (5200)
My kid backed out of the 2600 game when he was playing, so I loaded up the 5200 version. Not much different, just plays better to be honest. Just more brick break stuff.
Rating: Hard pass
11.
Breakout (2600)
Then suddenly I remembered the original existed and decided to play that too. Just more brick break stuff.
Rating: Hard pass
12.
Brain Games (2600)
So this one is like Simon says, you get patterns and numbers and letters and sounds and you gotta remember it all. Really not much else to this other than that the controls make it kind of frustrating because you'll screw up not because you're wrong, but because you weren't quick enough or that the controller shifted just enough to a different option.
Rating: Hard pass
13.
Atari Video Cube (2600)
This one surprised me, I was expecting terrible Rubik's cube implementation, but it's more like Rubik's cube irl for scumbags where you take off the stickers and just move it to the right side of the cube, but there are some constraints that make it a game. Honestly this one is cool and fun, I actually enjoyed my time with this one and would definitely waste some time on something similar.
Rating: Hard pass
14.
Aquaventure (2600)
I was like oh I'll play games sort of in alphabetical order and just kind of play through all of the games. This one is an unfinished prototype that Atari developed way back when. You are a deep sea diver looking for treasure. Shoot some fish, reach the bottom, grab the treasure, swim back up, hug the mermaid and you win. Each win the sea gets a level deeper, that's it.
Rating: Hard pass
15.
Armor Ambush (2600)
Strictly a 2 player combat game. Didn't play it too much, but enough to get the gist of it. It might be a fun game, but the controls make it frustrating and just about any incarnation that is more modern would be more fun because of the controls.
Rating: Hard pass
16.
Asteroids (2600)
At this point, I'm marking things in a weird order as I marked things and don't remember the order I actually played them. Basic asteroids, really got nothing else to say.
Rating: Hard pass
17.
Asteroids (5200)
More basic asteroids, but this has options like bouncing instead of wrapping around. Art looks more like Vectrex than Atari.
Rating: Hard pass
18.
Codebreaker (2600)
Wordle kind of game with numbers, CPU picks a 3-4 digit number, you guess, it tells you how many correct numbers you have and such until you get the right number. Pretty straight forward stuff. Does make me consider trying to build a wordle 2600 rom just because it'd be dumb fun.
Rating: Hard pass
19.
Crystal Castles (2600)
Kind of a weird qbert/pacman type of thing, collect the stuff, don't die, that's it... except it's kind of 2/3 dimensional and there is depth, so you might miss stuff since you can actually move forward and backward as well as side to side. Very frustrating and the controls are hyper sensitive so the bear just goes zoom.
Rating: Hard pass
20.
Dodge 'Em (2600)
Another pac-man type game, except it's just you and one other car. Collect all the pellets without running into the other guy, and the other guy is just trying to smash into you. Kind of fun, interested to see what if any 2 player option this game has.
21.
Off the Wall (2600)
A breakout rip off, but this one is slightly different, you're a peasant (smaller than one of the breakout paddles) and it doesn't break individual bits but whole chunks and can get cleared pretty quickly, game also moves super fast and the ball can easily move faster than you, so tennis style you gotta stick with it or stay middle-ish so you can make it to the sides if you need to.
Rating: Hard Pass
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