Main ListPrevious 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.
53.
Elden Ring (PS4)
This is my third time 100%ing this game. I don't recall why I decided to 100% this again, I would think it rolled in Dungeon for PT, but it shouldn't have been able to populate if I've never played it before on PS4. I don't know, I really don't, but I did. I spent a chunk of April playing this. This experience was different than my Xbox and PC experience as Xbox the game was brand new, I was playing with my wife, and I have Game Pass and PC it doesn't require a subscription to play online and the lion's share of players are on there. PS4, I don't have a Plus subscription anymore, so I couldn't play with others and had to solo the game. It did make for a new experience having to rely on summons and spirit ashes, but the game was more than doable and I really enjoyed my time running through for the umpteenth time. I'd say 3rd, but I played through a few times on PC using randomizer which only does so much to change up the experience (Still recommended). I can't recall what spirit ashes I relied on early game, but towards the end I was leveraging the mimic tear and my character was a tanky tanky tank tank with double giant weapons and so many natural buffs that my weapons did like 1k damage each and putting that on my spirit ash as well made just about every boss in the game go down in less than a minute, it was insane. The exception was probably solely Parthurnax or whatever, the optional tough ass dragon boss, but I think even Radagon+Elden Beast went down super fast with my spirit ash and I just bonking the shit out of them.
Rating: Highly recommended, though suggest PC over console.
54.
Fill-a-pix (Android)
I don't recall how I found this, I don't generally look at phone games, but I found this game that was a cross between picross and minesweeper and just kind of fell in love with the game. Spent so much of my spare time playing this and just thinking how much I'd love for a game like this on Steam to earn achievements. Eventually I found that on Steam, games like this are called Mosaic games and there's a developer who makes a ton of these games. I bought a bunch of them and have beaten 1 and started another at this point, but I'll get to those later. This one has a standard level based system broken down by difficulty, that's what I went through. The game also has daily/weekly/monthly puzzles that rotate, I only checked those out a little bit, but I just don't generally bother with that stuff because I'll forget to keep checking and I like to move on to other things. All in all, a real fun and cool game that definitely has that puzzle factor of playing too much of it and seeing the puzzles when you close your eyes. Consider that a pro or a con on your own, I've got strong feelings about it, but in both directions, definitely means that the game is addictive, but also means the game is addictive. Now that all said, knowing they have the mosaic games on steam, I wouldn't recommend this over those, but definitely consider the puzzle style if you enjoy minesweeper and picross.
Rating: Soft recommendation
55.
100 Christmas Cats (PC)
Another find all the cats thing. This is another one where the developer puts out new versions regularly, but they are generally profile limited so I don't play them until they get verified generally. Most of these are free which is always good, but some are paid. I'm sure this one was free, it being a christmas one.
Rating: Soft pass
56.
100 hidden mice (PC)
Another 100 hidden game. I almost shouldn't bother writing anything. I will run out of these games to play eventually and my lists will hopefully get more meaningful again lol
Rating: Soft pass
57.
Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk (PC)
I had seen this on Twitter from Wario64 a bunch, but it wasn't until a person on Discord talked about it being one of their favorite games that I decided to go buy a bunch of this developers games and wishlist the rest. I'm so susceptible to suggestion from folks about games to play, even if they are awful. Anyway, a real short game, like under an hour, that is so very obviously about mental health, definitely more an experience than a game, but definitely worth checking out. It's cheap enough and can be had for under a dollar frequently. I definitely recommend the experience.
Rating: Soft recommendation
58.
Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion (PC)
Got this one picked for me as a PoP game. Every time I write about a PoP game or a PT game I get a little depressed that I've sort of lost my autonomy of picking games for myself because these keep me so busy I don't have time to pick stuff for myself, plus I have limited play time since I really can't play anything in front of my kid. This is one that should be friendly enough that I should be able to play it in front of my kid, but I fear Adventure Time might be too silly and too violent (can you believe that) for my kid given how impressionable he is. I do like the humor and writing of Adventure Time and would like the finish the series one day. This has its own stand alone adventure, which does reference content from the show, possibly even stuff I haven't yet seen because I don't think I made it that far into the show, maybe season 2, couldn't check if I wanted to I imagine. Combat is fine but definitely gets grating towards the end, but the game is only a 15-20 hour game and a fairly simple 100% completion. Overall really enjoyable licensed game, and wouldn't surprise me if it's the only good or best Adventure Time licensed game, but I will try to play the others eventually. I'd say I might replay this one day because I do have it on console, but I don't know that I'll waste my time replaying a game even if I do recommend it.
Rating: Soft recommendation
59.
KungFu Kickball (PC)
I think this was a backlog dungeon pick and a steamgift win so I played it to improve my play ratio for my gifts. Overall a pretty simple and fun sportsball 1v1 arcade game, like a little less convoluted #IDARB. It's fun enough, but I'm never quite that fond of couch multiplayer games, mostly because it's not something I can really do, but I know I would've enjoyed something like this in my high school or college days. That said, there are definitely better more fun more interesting games to play than this, so I wouldn't recommend it over any of the better ones.
Rating: Soft pass
60.
How Buddy's parents met - jigsaw puzzle (PC)
simple jigsaw puzzle game, not even that interesting either, and frustratingly the achievements for it require playing each of the games like 6 puzzles at varying piece amounts. I like the art, but I can't abide that level of bs to force increased play time. If I really wanted jigsaw game to waste hours, I'd consider it, but I just can't see it worth the time.
Rating: Hard pass
61.
We <3 Katamari: Reroll + Royal Reverie (XS)
I think I only played this because my kid saw me play Katamari Damacy earlier in the year and loved watching me play and I didn't want to play that to 100%, but I definitely wanted to check out Royal Reverie. We <3 Katamari itself is a fantastic game, an amazing improvement over the original, but Royal Reverie doesn't add much to the game really, a few extra levels where you play as a young King of the cosmos and get a little extra story on the character. It's neat, and it is added content which is also great, but it is annoying that you can't unlock the young king for the main game, he's just on his own on the side. I did manage to 100% the game, which I don't think was too much of an annoyance, I think the game did have collectively easier achievements than the first one as it did require 100% completing the item collection, which is truly a PITA. That all said, the game is still amazing, and one shouldn't look a gift horse in the ass when given a great game + good content.
Rating: Solid recommendation
62.
Lots of Cats in Every Moment (PC)
This one, one of the few games that I have an exclusive category for Beat (Needs DLC), a game that I would've completed before DLC ever released, but since DLC released, I've got to wait to buy the DLC to be able to properly complete the game. Standard find the cat game, but stupid dlc achievements. And it's not just a few, 50% of the achievements are paid DLC... really brings down your average completion rates.
Rating: Hard pass
63.
An Arcade Full of Cats (PC)
Can you believe it, back to back both games that required the creation of the Beat (needs DLC) category. Another game where the game's got a load of DLC achievements, this one is worse though, because over half of the achievements are paid DLC. I "completed" as much as I could without dlc and I'm only at 42% completion. Another one weighing down my average completion rate. Don't get me wrong, I'll probably buy the DLC eventually like a dope, but it certainly sucks, but at least in this one's case, the proceeds to go to shelters and such.
Rating: Hard pass
64.
Another Crab's Treasure (XS)
So, I completed this game last year when it was brand new, but the game got a major title update this year adding new game plus, boss rush, and a bunch of other stuff. I hopped back into the game to get all of the new achievements, none paid DLC mind you, just a free title update. Added content is great and appreciated and not too difficult to complete, but definitely stuff that had I known were coming and had been on the fence on starting the game, I would've waited for the DLC to come out to start the game. Still an amazing game, highly recommended.
See Game 29 of 2024Rating: Solid recommendation
65.
100 Capitalist Cats (PC)
Gosh this feels like not that long ago, but maybe I'm getting periods mixed up and this isn't even the group, truly might not be the group. Anyway, another find the cat game, boy are these a dime a dozen and unfortunately not financially, just how common the game style exists. Anyway, nothing really special about this one once again. I'd probably find more joy in playing Artifex HOGs with stories that last me an hour or so rather than these shallow 5 minute games.
Rating: Soft pass
66.
100 hidden aliens (PC)
Insert generic message about these 100 hidden games. Again, 5 minutes for 100% not worth the time, game doesn't provide value lol
Rating: Soft pass
67.
Beautiful Katamari (360)
I beat this game years ago, a decade ago at least. My kid beat We <3 Katamari, so I decided I'd show him the 3rd main entry. I know there are a lot more Katamari games and this probably isn't the 3rd, but I'll call it that. This one actually kinda sucks, it's kinda like Super Mario Bros 2, the real SMB2, not SMB USA, the game is tough, it can be fun, but it expects you to be a master of Katamari just to progress the game, ignoring the fact that the achievements for the game are even tougher and I think there is a lot of online components to the achievements too which might be doable if you coordinated with people, but surely that's tough too even with the game being backwards compatible. It does do some interesting things, but it's all mandatory which in previous games the interesting stuff was optional and you had the pure Katamari experience. This game forces all the goofy stuff upfront, plus the game has a weird scoring system so even if you meet some arbitrary goal, you've got to come back to do it the way it wants or as good as it wants so you can get a higher score.
Rating: Soft recommendation
68.
Assassin's Creed: Origins (X1)
I started this game years ago, not sure if it was around release, but it was definitely around the time that Ubisoft starting swapping all of their games to... geez I don't even know what to call it, cursor based menus and lvl based equipment. You know where they encourage you to redo stuff over and over hoping to randomly get better loot. Would you consider that Diablo style equipment, I have no clue. I abandoned it pretty quickly, more because of the menus than the equipment BS. Personally, I'm not a fan of level based equipment, just give me unique weapons with stats and an upgrade system, adding a level system on top of all of that makes upgrading useless. I don't think I upgraded a weapon once in this game, because there just wasn't a point if I'm going to abandon the weapon as soon as I find a higher level version. 1 or the other, not both. Anyway, I came back to this recently, partly wanting to continue my franchise run and I think partly because I pulled it in backlog dungeon and it was a personal productive thing to do. One of the few instances of playing something I do actually want to play even if I had a site pick the game for me. I was always interested in this and the newer ones because the combat was described as more Dark Souls and less whatever the fuck the older Assassin's Creed games were, which to be fair were great for stealth, but actual combat it was like "you should've used stealth, moron". I enjoy that freedom. The story in this game is fairly good, feels fairly disjointed until things start piecing together and there's a lot left desired, but cohesively the experience is one of the best Assassin's Creed games to date. I really look forward to playing Odyssey and Valhalla. The game does bring back the whole outside animus story thing and seems to be trying to get back on track and connects back to Desmond's story iirc, it has been a while since I played this, but I look forward to the overarching story to continue.
Rating: Solid recommendation
69.
Monaco (PC)
So, this is one of those games I bought on 360 way back in the day, but never got around to playing. Truly do regret so many 360 era arcade purchases, especially this one. I got it on Steam eventually and had it picked for me for PoP so I made myself play it. Game has 2 acts, which makes it sound like you need to play both acts to beat the game, but really the two acts are the same, just different perspectives, so you get the whole story with act 1, you just get an alternate telling of the story with act 2. Act 2 however, has different and I think harder criteria to beat the game, so it's basically a hard mode/ng+ type of deal, so I noped out. Had to explain that to the event organizer, because I just really had no interest in spending more time with the game to beat it a second time to consider it beat. Luckily they didn't give me that hard of a time about it, but had they said no, I might have forced myself to go through with the Act 2, but I would've hated every second of it. This game didn't click with me that well and I think I didn't get the controls + strategy and stuff because every level I wound up just murdering my way through because I just didn't understand so many of the mechanics. I'm sure I should have been able to stealthily get through every level undetected, but I just didn't get it and there were so many things that were difficult for me to tell because some stuff was color based. I'm not even confident I followed the story other than your generic heist stuff where you get betrayed at the end.
Rating: Solid pass
70.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (NS)
Every year, at some point in the year I wind up playing this game for a day or two because I'm trying to convince my kid to play. We actually wound up finding a 3rd copy for real cheap this year and I had made the comment that since we each have our own switch, maybe we could try and once a week play this like a family and visit each others islands and stuff. Didn't last, didn't even open the 3rd copy. Couldn't get my wife to actually play with us and it only took a day for my kid to start being a bully in the game again. He tends to walk around and hit the villagers with his bug net until they get mad and say they are going to leave his island. So we have to stop playing pretty quickly. I constantly forget how much of an asshole my kid is sometimes. I honestly don't recall what my previous ratings were, so I'll update this if I had said something different in a past year when I get around to collating 2025.
Rating: Soft recommendation
71.
Resident Evil 3 (PC)
Another PoP picked game. These are particularly annoying. I tell my pickers please don't pick games that are marked as games that I've already beat, but every season they always always always pick games that are marked as such. This season (right now, not then), I've got at least 2 that are marked as such. It's such an annoyance because I want to be more productive on games I've never played, but especially annoying in situations like this where I'm still technically in the middle of a franchise run and I'm replaying older games in the franchise that I've already played. And once again, this season I got another Resident Evil game, I may go check, I'm wondering if I've gotten Resident Evil games every season for the past few seasons. Anyway, I like this game, despite it being shorter than RE2, RE2 is better for sure, but I will always hate the areas in these games where you're running from giant Tyrant man. I didn't play this for PoP... I don't know why I played this. Maybe backlog dungeon? I really don't know. I'm actually quite perturbed by it.
Rating: Soft recommendation
72.
The Darkside Detective (PC)
This one was definitely a PoP game. I don't want to say this is one of my first experiences with point and click games, but I don't usually play this type of game. I've got no issue with them, but I think I don't have the time or patience to play them the way they are meant to be played. I generally follow a walkthrough, especially if I check out the achievements and notice there are missable achievements that could be easily obtained by following a guide. If a game has straight forward story based unmissable achievements, I might give the game an honest go without a guide, but that's rarely the case. Almost feels like cheating with these types of games, but I also feel like these games are always so obtuse, rigid, and overly specific in what they want you to do and how they want you to do it. The humor of this just barely doesn't click well with me, and it doesn't help that the art style doesn't click with me either. This game isn't bad, it's quite good even, but they'll always lose points for those two things because with how little these games provide, these two things are really important. Game is case by case which makes the game a tad more palatable than longer point and click games given its sort of episodic nature. I don't believe the game has an overarching story where the cases culminate in some larger thing, but I don't recall. Short, pretty good, I'll say the extra cases at the end make the game last just a little too long and if they were optional (read as not having achievements) I'd be pretty happy personally, but the game did wear out its welcome by the time I got through the extra case.
Rating: Soft recommendation
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