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52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

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dhaabi:
13. Transform || Browser || 03.03.25



When looking through my timeline of previously played games, I was a little surprised that nearly two years had past since I last played an Eyemaze game. After going through some of them, I came across another one that I hadn't yet played before, Transform.

In short, Transform is a puzzle-action game that plays step-by-step animations which must be completed in one specific sequence. By moving the cursor, players must discover on their own where to click next. It's mostly straightforward, but there are moments when multiple selections must be activated at once as their conditions are dependent on each other to progress forward. As far as the game's premise, it revolves around an alien-like antelope that slowly transforms into something else entirely to evade the attack from an encroaching lion.

As players work toward solving the puzzle, a stopwatch timer times each playthrough. While there isn't any penalty for lengthy playthroughs, the game presents an optional ending which does incentivize players to play numerous times in order to achieve a higher ranking score. Since the puzzle mostly never changes, it becomes a task of memorizing the sequence of clickable points and acting speedily. I say "mostly" because there is one small aspect involving the order and presence of a series of shapes that is randomized with each playthrough. As higher ranks are achieved, an additional small piece of a post-game scene becomes available to interact with. After about ten attempts, my fastest time was 01:18:99 which did grant me Rank A, but Rank S also exists. I doubt I'd ever be able to achieve it, though, since I'd need to be six seconds faster from what I've read which seems far more trouble than its worth. While playing, it quickly became evident how all the tiny pauses, miss-clicks, and general forgetfulness adds to the total time, and there is little if any time for error to be awarded with Rank S. Once achieving that lofty goal, a new mode which has the entire game upside-down becomes available to play and master too.

By all accounts, Transform tests the player's reflexes and memory, and it's a fun game when wanting something brief to play. It's another one of the shorter games the developer's made, but it does offer some replay value for those wanting to see just how quickly they can finish the game.

kashell:
26. Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana - Very Easy

This playthrough was done to max out my equipment and Adol's level. Thanks to 2X speed mode, it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. Up next, Inferno Mode!

bikingjahuty:

25. Half Life: Opposing Force (PC)

While I really, really like the first Half Life game, I'm not necessarily one of those people that worships it and acts like it's the greatest FPS ever made. Because of this, I've been slow to play its acclaimed expansion, Opposing Force as well as Blue Shift. Well, I finally got around to playing the better regarded of the two and I'm here to say, yeah, it's pretty freakin good!


While I didn't enjoy Opposing Force as much as the core Half Life game (I'm not sure there are many that do), I will say that in terms of visuals and sound, it's right up there with the game its based on. Half life and by extension Opposing Force were some of the best looking video games out at the time, period. It's still impressive how much detail and love went into crafting the various diverse areas of Black Mesa, and it definitely keeps the game fresh and interesting throughout. Audio, the voice acting is actually slightly better than it was in the original, but where Opposing Force lacks over core Half Life is the OST. It's not dramatically worse, but just a tiny bit less memorable as that game's soundtrack. The real tie breaker that makes core Half Life better than this expansion is the gameplay. There definitely seemed to be a lot more thought and effort put into stage design in the original Half Life, and there was almost always an intuitive sense of where you were supposed to go and what you were supposed to do. Opposing Force is a lot more stop, go, stop, go, in the sense that you'll struggle to figure out what to do or where to go, finally figure it out or look up a walkthrough, get a little further, and then be forced to do it again. This is pretty much the pacing of Opposing Force, and it wouldn't be as big a of deal if the game didn't have you doing things in one part to progress that you never had to do previous or again later on. And often, these ways of progressing involved some poorly laid out platforming, toggling the jump and crouch buttons to get up on ledges that you aren't able to get on, just by jumping (which is how it should be), or doing some other nonsense that has you fighting against the limitations of the controls and gameplay. This definitely lowered my enjoyment of Opposing Force ever so slightly compared to the first Half Life, but other than that I enjoyed all the same things that made the core game great, while being annoyed or frustrated with the things about the core game that weren't that great as well. One other thing of note when comparing the original game with Opposing Force is the latter game is several degrees more challenging, which core Half Life was no slouch in the difficulty department. Get ready to save scum a lot because you will likely die way more than you did in the original Half Life.


More or less, if you love Half Life, you're almost guaranteed to love Opposing Force. Beyond everything I mentioned above, Opposing Force dives deeper into the Black Mesa facility and what the researchers were really up to, and allows you to explore new areas, as well as some familiar ones too. The game certainly delivers on the Half Life mythos and lore, which was a big part of why I found the game fairly addicting as I played though its five or six hour campaign. Now, just need to play Blue Shift at some point so I can consider myself a REAL Half Life fan lol. (3/7/25) [38/50]

kamikazekeeg:
7 - Monster Hunter Wilds (PC 2025) - BEAT - While the release of the game was abit tarnished by performance problems, the game mostly ran well for me.  I could like 70 to 90fps at 1080, no DLSS, but I locked it at 60 to keep it more steady and it runs great like that.  I have only beaten the story itself, which is functionally like "Part 1" of the game, "Part 2" being high rank fights and such, where you put the real work into a Monster Hunter game.  I've seen people rag on the story also, but I think it's one of the better stories compared to Wild and Rise, at least in the way that it has a specific through line with a main cast that goes on a journey, compared to just being kind of a collection of events linked together with a pretty barebones plot.  It's not executed the best as there's a lot of on rails walk and talk and it kinda feels like you are stuck on easy mode for awhile until you get through the story, but it is generally better.

Actual gameplay stuff is great, I like the zones, there's a good amount to explore, lots of customization now that both male/female armor can be used by either gender, I'm enjoying myself.  Definitely more than Rise at the moment, which wasn't a bad game, but after playing a lot of World, Rise never did it the same for me, compared to Wilds, which is very much the World sequel proper.  Can't wait to jump into the tougher fights now and get to the grind unlocking gear.

dhaabi:
14. Pac-Man World Re-Pac || PlayStation 5 || 03.03.25



For the last few months while looking at my shelves of games, I had considered playing through Pac-Man World 2 but eventually decided on other games to play. After realizing that I could play the recent remake of the first game titled Pac-Man World Re-Pac, though, I decided to do that instead.

Before the main screen loads, an introductory scene plays out involving Pac-Man's birthday celebration alongside family and friends, but it does not take long for ghosts to kidnap everyone else but him before he actually arrives. Apart from this small setup, there isn't any narrative to follow until the game's conclusion which is fine considering the scope and focus of the game and its genre. Nevertheless, the game's events revolve around the player acting as Pac-Man to reclaim his loved ones one-by-one after venturing to save them from Ghost Island and its various themed areas.

To carry out his goals, Pac-Man must overcome all sorts of platforming trials across a 3D plane while obtaining collectibles and using his abilities to access new areas to finally reach where each of the captives are held. More than I would have expected, stages are designed with backtracking in mind. This is mostly in regards to optional collectibles, but there are still plenty of instances where one must move forward to find a required item functioning as a key only to move backward again. As a result, I often found myself wondering if I was missing certain collectibles, as the game makes it clear when certain types are missed. Since there are so many side paths to follow which are either hidden or locked—and especially so in the game's later stages—it is easy to overlook these items. That being said, most collectibles can be ignored should the player choose to do so, but then the issue of some pick-ups, which players aren't able to discern in the moment and especially so when hurrying, being required to find becomes problematic. In the end, it's just easier to seek out everything, which I think many players would naturally do, given the game's genre and its focus on collecting.

Generally speaking, stages are more lengthy than I had expected, although part of the reason for this is due to the aforementioned backtracking for collectibles. Even so, traversal is fluid and simple enough, but I did find myself dying repeatedly to certain platforming segments. Notably, this problem was with the ramps which Pac-Man is required to roll off of to land across a pitfall. These aren't uncommon, and I rarely landed without dying at least once. Dying isn't much of an issue, though, as player lives are plentiful and especially so when taking the time to be thorough with gaining collectibles. Additionally, there is a slot machine game that's present at the end of stages which is easy to exploit if taking the time to memorize the order of reels since they don't change. At the same time, players may freely select Easy Mode at any time, and the game's liberal checkpoint system is a welcome feature too.

Apart from platforming, there are also optional maze sections to play with traditional top-down gameplay. These stages also vary in design, and their difficulty scales with the the difficulty of main stages. While early courses are simple, later ones introduce various hazards such as falling debris and wall traps. Players are given three player lives to overcome these side stages, which is usually more than enough for players to win. At any time, players can revisit this mode from the world hub too. And, once the main campaign is completed, the original Pac-Man arcade game also becomes available to play.

I haven't played any of the Pac-Man World games before, so how this remake varies from the original game or expands upon it is something I can't comment on. Regardless, I'm left with the impression that it honors the source material well enough as its core gameplay and design are exceptional, albeit simple and unobtrusive that's perfect for younger players or those new to the genre. After reading some discussion online, it seems like much of the differences Pac-Man World Re-Pac introduces are in its visual presentation which some will prefer while others won't. These types of modern remakes are the kind I generally avoid, but this was the easiest means of access for me to play the game in some form.

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