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52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

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dhaabi:
02. Titanic Mystery || Wii || 01.04.25



Despite owning Titanic Mystery, it's not a game I purchased nor ever had any desire to play. Years ago, someone else in the household bought it for some reason—I suppose to purposely buy shovelware that looked promising or, at minimum, to buy a game that's objectively so bad that it could somehow be construed as fun to play and make fun of in a group setting.

Before describing gameplay, I'll first mention that Titanic Mystery does offer a narrative to follow, although I began skipping over most of it about a quarter-way into my playthrough. In short, one hundred years have past since the Titanic's shipwreck, and the centennial celebration has led for the creation and passage of the Titanic II. Aboard the ship, all of its guests and crew members are descendants from the original passengers of the Titanic. Shortly after the voyage has begun, though, it's revealed through found notes that someone aboard has hidden a bomb, and this person repeatedly leaves the player-character follow-up notes that more-or-less repeat the same sentiment each time for the majority of the game: that the terrorist is a passenger and that we'll figure out their identity as scattered diary pages are discovered all throughout the ship that can only be collected after hidden items are found. If not, the bomb will detonate. Simply put, it's a real never-ending effort for quite some time, and that the terrorist plans to abandon their attack once puzzles are solved shows quite the dedication they have toward the end goal. Alongside the terrorist's notes, the found diary pages were written from a guest aboard the Titanic, but I wasn't invested in this sub-plot. All of the game's dialogue and found notes are voiced, which was one of the game's fewest strengths, though voice work itself isn't particularly strong.

Concerning gameplay, it is chiefly characterized by hidden object puzzle-solving. In short, gameplay is terrible. Instead of crafted puzzles with items strategically hidden, items are instead littered about. Some items are quite obvious to find, but others are far in the background at such small sizes where they can't be discerned. No matter where they're located, items are presented with low resolution as bitmapped images, so understanding what they're supposed to even be becomes a challenge in itself. What's worse is that the experience is made much more irritating as a result of some items needing to be clicked on with certain unspecified precision, so formally finding them becomes an issue as players will either be unsure if it's the item they're needing to find at all or if they just mis-clicked. The play experience is even worsened as the game advanced, as areas are revisited 2–4 additional times. Fortunately, though, items to find and items shown on screen are randomized, so it doesn't always feel as if the same stage is being replayed (at least not entirely replayed.)

Alongside the main objective, there are also more traditional puzzles which appear periodically to solve. Unlike the hidden object puzzles, there is actually a good variety in puzzle type presented in this section, although the quality of them also vary considerably as some are elementary while others prove to be challenging. For some, the means to solve them are convoluted with broken systems resulting in failure even if the player action is done correctly. Fortunately, though, all of these secondary puzzles can be skipped entirely, which I did take advantage of on occasion after some annoyances. There is a penalty for taking such action, but it's not one I imagine many players would care about, as it relates to the player's high score that's determined by player completion time. Should the player desire, these puzzles can be revisited from the main menu.

Unsurprisingly, Titanic Mystery is an all-around bad game, and I can't in any way recommend to others to play it. I was taken aback some when finding out later on that the game received a modern port for Nintendo Switch.

kamikazekeeg:
4 - Get To Work (PC 2024) - BEAT - I'm generally not the person that wants super hard experiences, I almost always play games on normal difficulty, I almost never play on whatever the hardest difficulty is, I don't replay FromSoft games to make them harder and harder, and I don't often play rage games.  There have been exceptions, such as Jump King, which I did for the art and it had a very straightforward control scheme (Still quite hard, still haven't been New Babe + yet), and I played a good few hours of Pogostuck, but that game was too hard and I dropped it.

This game won me over because I saw someone playing the opening area while blasting the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 to 4 playlist on Youtube lol

It's fun, basically you are a guy with multiple rollerblades on him, sliding up ramps and platforms as a metaphor for getting a job and climbing the business hierarchy.  It's goofy, but the game is entirely built around controlling your momentum, either leaning in to speed up, letting go to slow yourself, and grabbing if you need to stop.  It feels really good to get around and I think it offers a lot of leniency a lot of rage games don't do, like when you are done with a section (There's...6 or 7 separate zones I think?), you never return to the previous zones.  You can certainly have really bad falls that cause you to lose tons and tons of time, but it's never returning to the beginning of the game or previous zones.

I still have to beat the bonus endgame, which I will eventually, but I had fun with this, took me around 6 and a half hours to get through, Upper Management/Vice President was brutal, but I had a good time.

bikingjahuty:
4. Silent Hill 2 (PS5)

Being a huge fan of the original, I picked Silent Hill 2 remake up the day it came out in October despite knowing I was too busy with studying to play it until weeks or months later. Well, that time passed, as did the holidays, and I finally got around to playing a game I was very excited for, especially after finding out Konami did an excellent job in remaking the original classic. After beating SH2 remake I can full heartedly agree with all the positive reviews and press this game has received.


Like the original game, the remake is an outstanding example of survival and psychological horror. The game is wrapped in layers of depth from the main character, James' psyche that manifest in form of the once quant town of Silent Hill turning more and more into a horrific nightmare filled with equally horrific monsters. The presentation of all this in the remake lacks a tiny bit of punch and impact of the original, but not by much. The game looks both gorgeous and horrific at the same time, and SH2 remake does a masterful job at unnerving the player with its visual presentation. In fact, SH2 remake is the creepiest game I've ever played, in no small part because of the graphics and visuals. More than the visuals, however, the audio in this game are absolutely perfect. Everything from the soundtrack, to the unnerving noises and sounds you hear throughout the game, to the no longer ridiculous voice acting from the original all equate to a flawless auditory presentation. Part of me misses the borderline bad voice acting from the first game, but SH2 remake does offer its own charm in being a competently voice acted, and it definitely helps deliver the more serious nature of the story and plot. Perhaps the biggest improvement over the original SH2 is the remake's gameplay. While there are some annoying sections, enemies, and bosses that may have not been designed as well as they could have, overall the gunplay, layouts of the areas, puzzles, and controls are very good for the most part. This isn't something I can necessarily say about the original whose gameplay felt pretty clunky and stiff. With all that said, the real question is whether I prefer the original or if the remake has trumped it. Even though its by a very thin margin, I do prefer the remake slightly more, mostly due to its improvements in gameplay. I'd absolutely love to replay either, however seeing how despite being based on the same story and premise, the two versions have their own distinct feel and identity and do satisfy in different ways, while offering enough that is different to really make both an enjoyable experience. (1/7/25) [43/50]

kamikazekeeg:
5 - DayZ (PC 2018) - ENDLESS - Put enough time into this over the past week to count it, I got in the mood to attempt the Deer Isle adventure, it's a big mod map that got a big update sometime last year.  I think it's one of the coolest maps in the game, I know Namalsk is kinda the big favorite for mod maps, but I like the scale, the locations, and like Namalsk, there's a big adventure to be had. 

You have to pick up gas zone gear to get a special capsule at one corner of the map, then go to another location on an island to get a keycard, then make a huge trip to a bunker high up in a mountain to get a special staff, to then use the capsule to cause a smoke creature to appear and with staff in hand, get teleported to an ancient temple, to then progress through a very challenging temple, to get a hammer part to connect to the staff (It's Thor's hammer), and then you need to put together a special cold suit after leaving the temple and go all the way to the further corner of the map, where you have to use the hammer to get into another temple, and then progress through that temple to get a keycard, and then take that keycard, your cold suit and your gas zone gear, to go to an abandoned aircraft carrier to get the best weapons in the game...it's a lot lol

I'm up to the first keycard and heading to the bunker lol It's a very longwinded thing and it takes many, many, hours to do.  I'm playing on pretty low pop servers (Two characters currently to try and do it), as I don't care about fighting anyone, but dying has caused me to restart it a few times, probably put at least 20 hours into it so far as it can be hard to get certain parts sometimes (Full NBC gas zone kit doesn't always work out).  I actually started yesterday on a server that has a viral mod, so I run the risk of getting infected by I think the zombies that sometimes throwup blood, but I did stumble across an antivirus, so I'm safe from it, but that adds a nice bonus challenge since I'm basically just doing PVE.  There's only only a couple places I might meet the couple other players I've seen on the server, and I just left 3 of those spots, and heading to probably the last and most popular soon next, but should be okay.

So easy to just lose hours in this game just traveling, can be very chill like that if you don't have to worry about the cold or food or an illness.

marvelvscapcom2:
4. The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom [NS] Finished Jan, 8th 2025



ZOTY

Review - Where do I begin. Zelda Echoes of Wisdom is bascially a love letter to fans. It's got elements of Zelda of before with new reimaginings of Modern day puzzles.  Tri is truly a beautifully designed sidekick and everything annoying Navi wishes it was.  Navi looks in the mirror and wishes it was Tri lol.  The personality bubbling within this game is warm as can be. 

Playing as Zelda is a fresh idea and the battle elements being unique to her give players wishing for change in the franchise that change. Never does Zelda feel like Link with a pink dress on.  They didnt copy and paste the entire bag.  Zelda is her own beast and rightfully so.  This game gives Princess of Hyrule her own badassery in the way peach has gotten with showtime and super princess peach in the past. But ramps it up 2000. 


From the dialogue. It paints Zelda as not a damsel but as a heroine. And this will come back to bite the game later. Not enough to hurt it. But noticable.

But before I get into that.  I will say. Zelda is incredibly designed. Not derivative. And overall a excellent heroine. And in her simplicity comes complexity. The world is booming with life. The colorful characters really sell the journey and theirs more memorable moments to count. 

SMALL CONS

Slight spoilers here. So dont read on if you dont want that.

Minor spoilers ahead


One of the more potent gripes I have. Is they give you the sensation that Zelda is the hero. In every way she transcends the franchise archetype. They make the character feel and play. Independent and bold. The whole game. Only for the end. The literal final boss of the game. They by FORCE make you into Link's damsel. Link's foot stool. Just completely throw you into his shadow and make you his proverbial play thing. Tehe. Give your weapons to link. You upgraded them the whole game. But hand them over. Link is gonna save the day. And why??? Link has his own shit. And even if he didnt. Womp womp. Zelda is the priestess. The all magical one who saved Hyrule from like a dozen rifts. I wont get to deep into the why. Because I want low spoilers in my reviews. But man. Why on earth would they make you lead all along. Then play second fiddle to Link right at the end. I liked the tandem. I wish they gave link his own supplies. I shouldnt have to give up my entire life progress for links ego. Made me feel like a 1950s housewife lol.


I know it sounds like im angry at the game.  But the contrary.  This critique is small. And more like a pet peeve. Otherwise the game is stellar in every regard. The scores give chills. The play style is wonderfully creative. And the puzzles kept me charmed and entertained without being too stubborn or brutal.  The animals. Smoothies. The environment and especially the echoes. Are so glorious. It makes it so theirs no one way to play. I found myself using water blocks to ascend. Some may use beds as steps. Use ice blocks. Concrete. It's unique and one of the best Zelda games ive ever played. Im so bewildered with it that I clapped at the credits :)


A masterpiece.

Rating - 95/100

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