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52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

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telly:
Game 24 - Astro's Playroom (PS5) - 3 Hours

Astro's playroom was a really fun, short and sweet platformer that feels like such a great homage to all things PlayStation. I could understand if when playing this game you feel like you're being advertised to. For me, because the game had tight controls, great graphics, excellent music and tons of variety, it was really hard to get cynical because it did feel like the developers were trying to make a quality product. The idea that the game represents a world inside your PS5 is a really neat idea.

This is the first game that I've played (and it may be the only one I end up playing) that takes full advantage of the dual sense controller, and a lot of it was great. I think the Monkey climbing stages were a little awkward, but I enjoyed everything else. One of my favorite aspects of the game was testing my knowledge of all the little hidden homages to previous video game franchises and I definitely wasn't able to identify all of them but again it felt like such a nice little nod to the history of PlayStation and also video games in general and because each area was structured after a different Sony game console, you also have the opportunity to see lots of different pieces of history, some of which I didn't even know about.

So overall this game didn't overstay its welcome; it was a fun little distractor from all of the horror games that I've been playing recently, and I definitely want to try out the fully fledged Astro Bot at some point in the future!

Cartagia:
Got the true ending of Hollow Knight: Silksong.  Just a masterful game.  A pretty natural progression of design from the first game, which was all I wanted.  I think the map may actually be a hair too big for how long it is, making it easy to forget about stuff in areas you haven't seen for dozens of hours.  The game is difficult, but once you hit a certain point everything just sort of clicks into place.

kamikazekeeg:
28 - Poppy's Playtime: Chapter 1 (PC 2021) - BEAT - I thought I had played this before, but I think I just watched someone play it, but this is mostly just a tech demo, proof of concept, as it's free and very short, mostly just to set things up for the next chapters.  I kinda dig the goofy extendo hand gadget, it offers some lightly unique gameplay elements.  Aside from Five Nights at Freddy's, I'm kinda generally not into mascot horror a ton, there's a lot of slop out there, but this and maybe Bendy seemed decent enough to check out.  I'll get to the next one once it gets a sale, maybe there will be a Halloween bundle sale.

bikingjahuty:
8. Silent Hill (PS1) - ABANDONED

Years ago, before I started scoring the games I beat, I played the first Silent Hill on the PS1 as my introduction to the series. I remember living the games audio and visual presentation, and its very unique horror atmosphere, something that really set it apart from any other game at the time. However, where I felt Silent Hill really shit the bed and something everyone seems to conveniently forget when discussing how iconic this game is, is its terrible gameplay. However, since my first trek through the eerie town of Silent Hill, I've since played both Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 2 remake, two games I absolutely adore. So after all this time I figured maybe I was too harsh on the first game, or maybe my love of its sequel would soften me up to Silent Hills clunky, cumbersome gameplay. Not only did that not happen, but I might actually dislike Silent Hill's gameplay even more than I did nearly a decade ago when I first beat it.


During my second go around with Silent Hill, I made it all the way to the lizard boss in the school basement. Seeing the story book in the library, I knew exactly what I needed to do in order to defeat it. However, like so many things in this game, knowing what i needed to do was constantly hampered by how poorly implemented the controls are. If you ever thought the classic Resident Evil games' tank controls were awful, just play Silent Hill and it'll make you appreciate those old RE games at a level you never thought possible. Not only is movement absolutely dreadful, but just doing things like lining up your character to pick up an item or examine something. Avoiding slow moving enemies feels like steering the Titanic and anything other than firearm weapons will almost guarantee you'll take damage. The point I'm trying to make here is I kinda hate playing this. Yet, despite this I don't hate Silent Hill.


As mentioned, this game's presentation is outstanding. It's still creepy as hell, which I feel like is aided by the aged graphics and distorted polygons which at least at the time with borderline cutting edge for a console game. The art direction is absolutely stellar and it really creates a nearly constant tense, frightening atmosphere. This is only complemented even more by the creepy as hell OST and overall sound design in Silent Hill, which literally gives me chills. I guess my only minor gripe is the pretty bad voice acting that nearly every character demonstrates.


In many ways, I feel like what Konami was trying to do with the first Silent Hill, but fell short with, especially in the gameplay department, was perfected with Silent Hill 2. Even Silent Hill 1's story isn't as interesting as the second game. I really, really want to like the first Silent Hill game, I truly do. But unfortunately the gameplay is so crap, I don't think that's even possible. This is why I'm even happier than I was before that Blooper is in the process of remaking the first game, which I can safely say needed a remake way more than Silent Hill 2 did. Perhaps with some much more refined gameplay, I can finally enjoy playing through Silent Hill. Until then, however, I'll stick with its newer entries, at least the ones that are worth playing. (10/12/25)

kashell:
66. Silent Hill f - The Great Space Invasion!

It's not Silent Hill unless there's some goofy bonus ending. That's what this was, and it was a lot of fun to get because it tied into the main game with Hinako's and Shu's favorite movie and past time. There was an even some homage to other Silent Hill silly endings. I really appreciated the 1960's, black and white, Speed Racer looking presentation. Time to move to the next ending - New Game Plus is pretty damn awesome.

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