52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[kamikazekeeg]

I hit credits on Ball x Pit today.  It was a really fun Vampire Survivors timed survival style game, that played like Breakout or Arkanoid.  It's not quite as streamlined as VS, though, with some base building stuff that drags down the early game a little.  It gets kinda grindy towards the end and kinda boring if youve been keeping up with upgrades, as you can be pretty overpowered if you are staying on top of the upgrade system.  The VS comparisons really don't help my feelings about it, since it cost 3 times as much, but wore out its welcome way faster.  Worth picking up on sale, at least.

It is interesting how a game that I think is mechanically and visually better than Vampire Survivors, isn't as good as VS, because the draw to these sorta mindless shoot-em up style games is the ease of jumping in and kinda losing yourself to the power creep, but you spend less time in rounds, then have to do base upgrades (Which I generally liked) and then you have to be more engaged with the gameplay because you want to get those ricochets or get behind tougher enemies and such.  I liked it quite abit, but hit 15 hours with the ending and that was sorta good for me, having unlocked all the characters too, while I have currently 105 hours into Vampire Survivors and I'm gonna put more as I'm still not finished with the Castlevania DLC, some other free update stuff, they just added more to the Castlevania DLC, and just did a Balatro free update lol

[Cartagia]

I hit credits on Ball x Pit today.  It was a really fun Vampire Survivors timed survival style game, that played like Breakout or Arkanoid.  It's not quite as streamlined as VS, though, with some base building stuff that drags down the early game a little.  It gets kinda grindy towards the end and kinda boring if youve been keeping up with upgrades, as you can be pretty overpowered if you are staying on top of the upgrade system.  The VS comparisons really don't help my feelings about it, since it cost 3 times as much, but wore out its welcome way faster.  Worth picking up on sale, at least.

It is interesting how a game that I think is mechanically and visually better than Vampire Survivors, isn't as good as VS, because the draw to these sorta mindless shoot-em up style games is the ease of jumping in and kinda losing yourself to the power creep, but you spend less time in rounds, then have to do base upgrades (Which I generally liked) and then you have to be more engaged with the gameplay because you want to get those ricochets or get behind tougher enemies and such.  I liked it quite abit, but hit 15 hours with the ending and that was sorta good for me, having unlocked all the characters too, while I have currently 105 hours into Vampire Survivors and I'm gonna put more as I'm still not finished with the Castlevania DLC, some other free update stuff, they just added more to the Castlevania DLC, and just did a Balatro free update lol

Pretty much where im at with it.  The strength of Vampire Survivors is the pure simplicity (and amount of content). The base building in BxP isn't bad by any means, but it's a hurdle when all you really want to do is play the levels.  Theres too much to think about, comparatively.

[kamikazekeeg]

Pretty much where im at with it.  The strength of Vampire Survivors is the pure simplicity (and amount of content). The base building in BxP isn't bad by any means, but it's a hurdle when all you really want to do is play the levels.  Theres too much to think about, comparatively.

I really wanted to like the base building more, I think it's an awesome way to make upgrades come across as "physical" instead of just a menu option, but what I found was that I'd just put buildings anywhere they'd fit and then when needing to build, I'd create a tiny cul-de-sac of upgrading/construction buildings that they couldn't get out of, and once those were built, they'd get thrown somewhere else to make room for a new batch of buildings that needed a little place to bounce around in, so the village never really took off in the way I think they thought it would.  Cool idea, but in the end not as engaging as it could have been, but an interesting attempt to try and set itself apart.  Sorta feel like they could've added more like roads that could speed up bouncing, or more general decor for the sake of driving people to want to spiffy up the village instead of just throwing buildings wherever.

[kamikazekeeg]

35 - Voices of the Void (PC) - ENDLESS - Thought it was last year when I last played, but it was actually earlier this year, but couldn't help it, new update dropped (Game has been a free WIP for quite a long time now) and it added some really cool features, overhauling mechanics, adding more detail, it's not a super different game, but it's apparently now the functionally "final" design of the base, no more big additions or changes, just tweaks from here on out.  There's a lot of control differences with this update that has been hard to get use to when you get so use to the muscle memory from previous versions.  Love this game, it's weird, creepy, and super engaging and I like that there's been more depth added and there's still a ways for the game to go, but I love it.

Don't know if I'll get to the end of the available story moments this time, it's actually an unstable update for the moment, so it has a number of bugs right now, but I was just way too interested to see the new stuff to wait.  Either way, I'm dumping hours into the game.

[telly]

Game 26 - Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD (PS5) - 8 Hours

Have you ever gone back to your childhood middle or elementary school? Walked through the hallways, looked at the lockers and thought to yourself… when was I ever this small? That’s basically how it felt playing Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. I greatly enjoyed playing this game on my PS2 when I was a kid and decided to pick up the HD remaster digitally for a much-needed change of pace from all the stressful horror-filled games that I’ve been playing over the past few months. And immediately, the game conjured up a lot of fond memories. I thought the game was way vaster and more complex than it actually is, and I also found the game was a lot easier.

Of course now as an adult, I can see that this game is pretty simple and yet it's still fun and offers a really solid gameplay experience. I found the controls to be very fluid, and I really enjoyed the level design that borrows from a lot of Australian topography. Of course the characters are great with lots of Australian slang and silly dialogue. Even though the game is a clone of Mario 64, which was very popular during this period of gaming, it's still fun to collect all the Thunder Eggs the Golden Cogs, all the boomerangs, and the hidden concept art. I had just as much fun playing this now as I did when I was a kid.

This era of gaming will always have a special place in my heart and I think it would be fun to play more games from this time period. Maybe that will be something fun to do next year. I want to start with Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights, the first game I ever played on my PS2. That will be really interesting.

[kamikazekeeg]

36 - Poppy's Playtime: Chapter 4 (PC 2024) - BEAT - This was an interesting shift after the third chapter.  The game stayed pretty PG-13 up to this point, relatively speaking, a few things were kinda dark, but they usually avoided showing real dead bodies, but not this time, 4th chapter had dead human bodies all over.  It's nothing gory or extra violent, but it was not something I expected after the first three chapters.  Definitely the complete realization of its gameplay experience, though they didn't add anything new in particular gameplay wise, which was odd.  Decent enough puzzles, a lot more character stuff as you get to hang around with Doey a lot, talk to Poppy more, they didn't kinda flop with the Safe Haven concept, as you don't get to interact with anyone.

I think I like this chapter less than the last one, because the facade of a friendly place is all gone now, which makes sense for the story, but that means I'm just running around kinda caverns, and tunnels, and this big jail place and it's way less interesting than either the Game Station or Playcare. Once again good animations and character voice acting.  Think it's coming up on the end of the series, I can't imagine they go much further than one more chapter at this point as it all seems to be leading up to this I think.