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.
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered (X1)Went back to this one again because I needed something I could play in front of my impressionable kid, and this is mostly fine. I don't remember the grind for level 20 being as annoying in the original, and I certainly don't remember having to play this much online to get all of the achievements. So I'm not having a terribly good time having to play online, which doesn't earn much xp, or repeatedly playing the same levels over and over to get xp to hit level 20.
Rating: Soft pass
2.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion (PS5)
Been trying to start this one for a while. Kept booting it up and never starting. Did the prologue and just didn't come back... and now here I am, trying to play it, and I even took time off work, which partly was going to be used for this, and with this stupid fucking arctic blast I'm dealing with plumbing shit because I don't know what the fuck to do to not have my pipes burst and shit. Had someone come out today and they super did a temp job and are coming back in a couple of days to weld on a more "permanent solution", and something, I don't know what the fuck it was, did a loud banging noise for like 7 seconds and we have no clue what it was. Pipes didn't burst because the water main shows no water usage when I turn off dripping faucets, water was dripping not running, so I wouldn't think water hammering is what's happening, my only thought is now something is fucked up with my water heater. Anyway, I'm on Chapter 2 or 3, I'm really not sure, I'm doing missions which is interesting, especially in the whole doing side quests when there is an uber urgent main mission awaiting my attention. Played most of the game doing my own thing and not getting too caught up in the game's systems, but then I started getting towards the harder missions and decided to look stuff up, wound up having to look up how to defeat a bunch of duders because they were invulnerable to physical and magic. Got all the way to the Minerva fight and was just blown away by how BS that fight is. It's almost RNG to win, but I guess if your stats are just right you can survive anything once so just gotta play right, once I had my stats right I beat it without issue. Story didn't really answer any questions but just left more, I will say I'm hyped for Rebirth. It's kinda weird too, I've never been a FF fan, but my wife has, she made me get Remake day one and she played it like crazy, Rebirth is coming out and she doesn't care but I'm hyped. We'll maybe see if she changes her mind, but she hasn't been about playing games for years at this point.
Rating: Soft recommendation
3.
Pokemon Scarlet (NS)
Needed a day time game to play because my kid is too impressionable and I basically can't play anything with violence at all. Even pokemon is a problem because it has violence which winds up making my kid start hitting me every time the pokemon do anything. Anyway, this game is pretty awful, like one of the worst pokemon games ever released. The game crashed multiple times and so much slowdown so frequently. Game was nearly unplayable at times in handheld mode. A lot of, if not all, characters seemed, I don't know how to put it other than they seemed like they weren't designed by the Pokemon team. The entire game feels like it was developed by a western developer. Again, I don't know how to put it other than that, it just doesn't have any of the same feel as previous Pokemon games, it feels like Game Freak just handed development over to like a 2nd party US Nintendo studio and just let them run with it. A bunch of stuff makes no sense too, like Toedscool/Toedscruel, why are these new pokemon and not regional variants, and how are they different from these ancient pokemon that are obviously ancestors to current pokemon. This entire game feels like a fan hack written by a hormonal teenager obsessed with gen 1.
Rating: Soft pass
4.
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (PS5)
I've had this for a while, but for some reason or another just never got around to it. I hate that I waited literally months to get around to writing this. I'm consistently in a slump in keeping up with stuff. I've got a stack of games to add to VGC/VGPC. Anyway, I think this game gets some shit because it's not technically main line, but this game is essentially a true Yakuza 7, it continues Kiryu's story after 6 through the events of Yakuza 7. Plus this game is great. I also like the traditional Yakuza games over the new RPG style games, not that they are bad, but I enjoy these better. Tons of content in this one, and honestly probably the easiest platinum in the entire franchise, I don't have the platinum yet, but it won't take but an hour or so to grind out the last trophy or two. I have to think about 2024 game wise at this point (months later) because this one is definitely on the list if not at the top.
Rating: Solid recommendation
5.
Simmiland (PC)
The playtracker mystery game of the season. Small rant, playtracker moved to 3 month seasons instead of monthly seasons (they may not have called them seasons before) and part of the excuse was that with 3 month seasons the site could afford to spring for better games as the mystery game... this seasons game is a cheap sokpop game, kinda feels like a slap in the face considering, but free is free, so whatever. Anyway, this is definitely not the type of game I would play on my own, so it is interesting to be pushed outside of my comfort zone. The game isn't the worst, but again isn't a game I would play on my own. The systems are a bit convoluted and taking learning, plus the RNG nature of deck based games. I played some on Steam deck and then realized that I wasn't going to be able to successfully hit my goal for this game without using mouse and keyboard, so I transitioned to playing on PC... or maybe I hooked up my steam deck so I could use a mouse, I don't recall, it's been months. Anyway, not a great game, but you definitely get your value for a $5 game.
Rating: Soft pass
6.
God of War III Remastered (PS4)
I had beaten this years ago when I did my franchise run of the GoW franchise (Still need to buy Ragnarok to keep up) but I rolled a trophy from this game as a personal challenge for playtracker. Trophy was to collect certain collectibles, but I found out there is a glitch for this game that grants you invincibility so I decided that I'd work on the platinum trophy in the process. Unfortunately this game has unskippable cutscenes so replaying the game is truly horrendous. I pretty much stopped playing once I unlocked the trophy that I needed for the challenge, but I'm pretty close to beating the game on Titan difficulty or whatever it was that I had left to unlock so at some point I'll go back and finish up to get that platinum, but for now, it can sit.
Rating: See
52 game challenge 2019 tl;dr Extremely soft recommendation
7.
Hidden through Time (PC)
First of many hidden object games played this year. This one is a fun one on paper, but quickly the levels get real big and unwieldy very quickly. It's a neat game, but I eventually reached the point that I wasn't going to progress without assistance, and that's not really fun. I will give the game points that even though it has DLC, the DLC doesn't add achievements that are DLC locked.
Rating: Soft pass
8.
Shredders (XS)
I'm surprised that this is the first Game Pass leaving game I played this year. Not really sure why I decided to play this one other than it looked kind of SSX. Controls aren't great nor intuitive, but maybe I've just lost my whatever with snowboarding/MX/ATV/etc games or maybe they were simpler back in the PS2 era. Story is kind of dumb, like really dumb, it has its moments that are amusing, but overall really dumb. I kind of breezed myself through this game, which was relatively quick, but overall wasn't really enjoyable. If the game had had accessibility options to simplify the controls a bit more, I would've been able to enjoy the game better, but I spent so much time fighting trying to do flips and spins, which is usually pretty basic in these games.
Rating: Solid pass
9.
Bluey: The Videogame (XS)
This hit game pass, which I had already played some on Switch, because I bought it at launch, but decided that earning achievements was a good reason to get me to actually play through the game. A bit disappointing in that it is an OG bargain game, but the game is playable. For its target audience, little children, this game is real great, it even has extra content to keep playing and has some level of replayability of the 4 multiplayer games. But personally, I was hoping for something more akin to Rugrats PSX, but I know that was asking too much, it's just disappointing that such a great show got a phoned in game. Like extra disappointing is just how poor the graphics are, I mean, they didn't even bother to do anything about looking left and right, it's literally just flipping a sprite, so when Chilli looks the other direction, her spots hop to the other side of her face, it's this kind of laziness that just disappoints me. Easy 1000 Gamerscore.
Rating: Soft pass
10.
Pokemon Puzzle Challenge (GBC)
I actually don't know if I had ever actually played and beat this game before, I spent so much time playing the N64 game, I don't know that I ever actually played through the GBC version. Mostly played this because I wanted to play something old and kind of mindless, and old puzzle games like this are my bread and butter. Spent a bit of time on it earning all of the retro achievements for the game. Not nearly as good as the N64 game, for so many reasons, but I really love Panel de Pon games.
Rating: Solid recommendation
11.
Forza Horizon 3 (X1)
I think at this point I had been playing Yakuza 8/FF7R2, but I was being so stressed because my son has been so out of hand, I needed to be playing something relatively mindless, even if not, I have to play games that are safe to play in front of him which pretty much limits me to like puzzle games and racing games, very seldom does anything else fit that isn't problematic (language, any sort of violence, etc) Anyway, I decided to play this and try to check out things I missed out and the Hot Wheels expansion. Did about as much as I could given that the game isn't supported anymore... plus this game is notorious for being busted achievement wise, so many achievements are kind of broken due to being dependent on Xbox's busted ass stats functionality that launched around the release of this game, so early players missed out on so many achievements that shouldn't have been missable... myself included. There is technically a workaround to earn them, but it requires deleting your saved data and starting a new game and essentially re-earning the achievements... just another reason why it fucking sucks that Xbox stores all saves in the cloud where you can't backup your saves yourself. Very concerning for when Xbox eventually shuts down saves and such because games will literally become unplayable I imagine... but Xbox is 3rd rate, 3rd tier, and not enough vocal users to get shit taken care of.
Rating: Solid recommendation, despite bugs
12.
Ravenlok (XS)
Another leaving Game Pass game. This one has storybook vibes so I figured I could play this one in front of my kid. Game has obvious parallels with Alice in Wonderland. Pretty simple repetitive hack and slash gameplay, puzzles are simple enough, story and dialogue is mildly interesting, but all in all, not really special. Graphics however are voxel, which is one of my least favorite art styles so the game loses points there, in a lot of places it doesn't look too bad because it's high enough quality, but still not preferred. Easy 1000 Gamerscore though.
Rating: Soft pass
13.
Pikuniku (X1)
Started this game years ago, however I have no notes on my original time with the game. Game was leaving game pass so I made sure to finish up. It's a game that on paper sounds good and should be enjoyable, but the controls are a tad unintuitive and the game overall isn't the easiest to follow what to do next. When I had originally played this, I had abandoned it because I didn't know what to do next. So when I came back to the game this time around, I made sure that I had a guide to follow so I don't waste much time given the time constraint of it leaving Game Pass.
Rating: Soft pass
14.
Cataire (PC)
There have actually been a lot of games I've played this year that I haven't marked on here because I only played them long enough to meet some sort of criteria. This one is one where I only played because I won it as a gift with a condition that I play and earn some achievements (I actually think it wasn't an actual condition for this one due to shenanigans, but I did it anyway). However this game is literally just Spider Solitaire with nothing else going on for it, so I'm marking it as beat despite there still being achievements left to earn, but nothing really to do with this game.
Rating: Solid pass
15.
Balatro (PC)
This game was another game that I won under the condition that I earn some achievements in it. The achievements in this game are mostly tied to winning, so I consider the game beat given that I succeeded some runs, and honestly once you've done that you get what the game has to offer despite some new cards and rules appearing later on. All in all, this game is really fun and super addictive, real easy to lose yourself playing this game. Roguelike/deckbuilding poker, so many ways to go with this game, but seriously fun.
Rating: Solid recommendation
16.
Liquidum (PC)
I get sent games to review, but they are generally not great games because I'm not a prominent reviewer. Honestly, I still don't know if I get this game. It's sort of picross like, but adds other elements which then make the game kind of hard to follow. One of those puzzle games that tries to reinvent the wheel, starts out innovative and interesting, but then the mechanics get confusing and convoluted... but this game doesn't really punish you for getting things wrong so you can just trial and error fill things out until you're right.
Rating: Hard pass
17.
Dice Guess (PC)
LMAO this game, it's literally just hey if the die rolls like this, what number will display... which is a bit flawed in that you can just grab a real D6 and just "roll" the die the way it should and get the answer. I get what they are going for puzzle wise, but it just doesn't make a ton of sense.
Rating: Hard pass
18.
Balance (PC)
I get what they really wanted with this game, trying to make a spin on the 2048 type of games, but this one has one mechanic, no levels or anything so no real replay value and honestly the one mechanic isn't that great. It really amounts to one of those thought puzzles where there is one answer, why would you resolve the same puzzle over and over once you have the answer... the answer? You wouldn't.
Rating: Hard pass
19.
Fine Sweeper (PC)
Came back to this because I rolled it backlog in playtracker because I wanted puzzle games to play on PC. Just a minesweeper game with achievements, went through and picked up some of the easier achievements that I missed from my original playthrough of the game.
Rating: See
52 Game Challenge 2017. tl;dr Soft recommendation
20.
Wordle 2 (PC)
Another game I rolled in backlog for Playtracker. Game isn't even mildly wordle, and confusingly seems to have existed before Wordle ever came out which is interesting, because this isn't something that came out to take advantage of the Wordle craze, this existed first. Anyway, it's a simple scrabble texttwist kind of game where you have the letters and you have to assemble the words.
Rating: Hard pass
21.
Fallout 4 (XS)
Game had its next gen update, which I wouldn't normally think anything of, but apparently the next gen update added new quests and made some Creation Club content part of the main game, so I decided I'd jump in with my vanilla save and take part in the new content that I'd never partaken in before. From what I read it sounds like the content in question is modder content that was created by a modder who is now employed by Bethesda, thus them making it canon content. Personally, this update doesn't feel very next gen, maybe on PC it'll look improved, but the game didn't feel improved on XS and the creation content at least at launch was broken where some items wouldn't render and just leave the big red triangle meaning models couldn't be loaded and caused some glitching and at least one crash. From what I've read they've patched it to fix it, but seems a glaring QA issue to me, but who ever accused Bethesda of having QA in general amirite.
Rating: Solid recommendation
22.
Forza Horizon 4 (XS)
After doing pretty much all to be done in FH3, I decided to jump into FH4 and work on content I missed in this game. This lead to me finally starting the LEGO DLC but also I'm doing a lot of the achievements in the main game and working on some Fortune Island content as well as taking part in the festival season content since this game is still being supported actively. Such a frustrating thing the live content on this game, because there are 74 series (4 seasons each) of content that are just fucking inaccessible because of the time lock nature... it's stupid hopeful thinking, but I'd love for them to unlock it all and remove the time constraints one day when they decide to stop supporting the game, because that is all content that would be great to be able to access especially given that so many cars and content are locked behind the festival series/seasons.
Rating: Solid recommendation (until support ends maybe)
23.
Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions (PC)
More stained glass jigsaw puzzle goodness, this one adds a hard difficulty mode with requisite achievements, where hard mode requires you to rotate the pieces and find which way they go as well as where they go. Surprisingly this game took me less than 28 hours to get through all of the puzzles, even the non-achievement DLC puzzles on hard difficulty. This is one of those games that honestly on its own is great, but then you add being able to listen to your own music or listen to a tv show, and it just makes for a fantastic chill relaxing evening... until you start seeing stained glass pieces when you close your eyes... that can be miserable.
Rating: Solid recommendation.
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