52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[telekill]

Alright... I'm calling it. Here's where I stand, not just for this year, but since I started trying to take note since 2021. Now, 2021 was probably only half of what I actually played and completed, but I was trying to remember everything at the end of the year.

2021 - 10 Completed that were noted.
2022 - Not kept track.
2023 - 27 Completed.
2024 - 17 Completed.
2025 - 16 Completed.

Clearly a downward slope over the last three years. I will also say that the last couple years have been primarily retro game collections like TMNT, Jurassic Park, Sonic and Tomb Raider. What does 2026 hold for me?

2026 Planning to Play:
1. Code Violet (PS5) - Jan release [preordered]
2. Tomb Raider 4-6 Remastered (PS5)
    - Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (PS2)
3. Zelda: Skyward Sword (Switch)
4. 007 First Light (PS5)

So far... that's it. There could be some great announcements, but for now... that's it. We'll see what happens.

[Cartagia]

I beat Crysis Remastered having never played the original version, and if it weren't for all the talk about how you needed a beast of a computer to run it at the time... I don't think anyone would really remember it. Its such a generic shooter.

[bikingjahuty]

119. Pilot Kids (Arcade)

While they have a few shmups I really enjoy, I'm generally not the biggest fan of the former shmup dev Psikyo. For the most part, I find their STG games to be a bit haphazardly put together with poor balancing, inconsistent or poorly sized hit boxes, and on occasion lazy, uninspired visuals. However, one of their shmups, Pilot Kids has always been a curiosity of mine due to have different it seems from most of their other shooters, both in how it looks and plays.


After playing and beating Pilot Kids (which btw only takes about 15 minutes), I can definitely say it's pretty different than your standard Psikyo shooter, but it's not necessarily better unfortunately. For one, the visuals are probably the biggest strength of this game. Being developed on Sega's Model 2 hardware, the game leans fully into 3D visuals for the backgrounds, ships, and other stage elements. Pilot Kids does have an impressive array of enemies and the bosses are visually appealing, creative, and pretty quirky too. There are also fun set pieces like your character's ship being chased by the family dog as you're making your way through one of the stages. Unfortunately, most of the stages are a bit on the bland and uninteresting side of things. But still, the fact this game has you piloting a little toy airplane flying around the inside of a house deserves some recognition for how original it is.


The audio in Pilot kids is fine for the most part, but doesn't necessarily sound amazing at any given time. The music is appropriate and pretty good for the most part. Sound effects from weapons and enemies sound fine as well. Again, the audio is just slightly better than okay, which is enough, but it would have been nice if there was more here.


Finally, the gameplay of Pilot Kids is fairly original, at least for a Psikyo shmup, but not particularly good. The ship you control has a standard forward laser shot which feels pretty underpowered, even after collecting various power ups. Where the game leaves it mark is when you use your ship's secondary weapon which is a tagging star where you can mark up several enemies, which then fires a hoping missile that destroys them and also any enemies that happen to be in the path of the traveling missile. You can also tag up a single enemy and then unleash this game's version of a shmup bomb attack. This fairly unique system is executed okay, but is hampered by typical Psikyo balancing issues. Your hit box is just a bit oo big for some of what the game throws your way, and unfortunately neither shot type does much to mitigate these attacks.


Even though I have a lot of criticisms of this game and one might think I hate Psikyo (I don't), I actually enjoyed Pilot Kids more than I disliked it. Sure, I'm not going to be replaying this game any time soon, or possibly ever again, but it was a fun little romp into one of the more obscure, rare shooters I've ever played. If you have the chance to play this game and don't have to waste any quarters on it, yeah sure, try it out. It's decent for what it is and certainly not Psikyo's worse shooter, nor is it close to being their best either. (12/9/25) [29/50]

[bizzgeburt]

14 - Pictionary Plus (PlayStation 3)
https://vgcollect.com/item/286774

Hardware: PlayStation 3 fat + uDraw GameTablet
Playtime: About 15 hours

A few months ago I purchased a uDraw GameTablet along with uDraw Studio: Instant Artist and Pictionary Plus. A few weeks later I got hold of an fat PS3 with funtioning disc drive, which enabled me to play my PS3-games again after almost 7 years. I love funky peripherals and started off trying out the GameTablet with uDraw Studio: Instant Artist, trying to get the platinum trophy to finish it. But after getting stuck with the mini games of this title, I switched over to trying out Pictionary Plus.

In countries other than Germany this game is titled Pictionary: Ultimate Edition. Yet another boardgame turned videogame, like I tend to play them from time to time (I already finished and reviewed Scrabble for PlayStation earlier this year). Pictionary Plus was published by THQ and released in Germany on November 18th 2011. I tried to do some research on the developer Page 44 Studios and found out that they mostly did football- and ice hockey-games (NHL, Madden,...) and did some interesting titles like The Godfather for PSP and some other Disney- and sports-games. Shortly after making Pictionary Plus and some other games, Page 44 Studios were bought by Zynga in 2011, who then were bought by Take 2 Interactive in may 2022.

The original boardgame/party-game Pictionary was first invented 1985 by Rob Angel after two years of tinkering it out whilst working as a waiter. He published the first commercial version of his game via Angel Games with about 6000 copies sold. After licensing the game in a joint venture between The Games Gang and Western Publishing, Hasbro aquired the games business of Western Publishing in 1994. In 2001, Pictionary was sold to Mattel. By this time Angel's game has spread into 60 countries in 45 languages, with 11 verions just in the U.S. and a total of about 32 million games sold. Angel went on inventing another game named ThinkBlot, which wasn't as successful as Pictionary, but still a hit game for two years. He also was involved in TV-productions such as the 1997 Pictionary themed TV-gameshow.

Gameplay-wise, Pictionary Plus mostly seems like a straight-forward conversion of the boardgame with a few additional modes like the free-drawing-mode, Pictionary-Mania-mode and the Family-Competition-Mode. The standard Pictionary-mode offers the game in it's original form. The free-drawing-mode is self-explanatory: use the game's drawing editor to draw and save any picture you like. The Pictionary-Mania-mode offers an enhanced version of Pictionary with additional fields on the board and combined drawing-challenges differing from the original version. And the Family-Competition-mode lets you set a game for points without a playing board and all options regarding the rules, so you can set up your individual type of game/competition against 1 up to 3 other players.

Graphics are suitable for what it is, but mediocre at their best. The drawing editor itself IS fun though, yet not as sophisticated as the one in uDraw Studio: Instant Artist. By now, I don't own other uDraw-games for any further comparison.

A very disappointing side of this game: it doesn't really have any type of soundtrack given, just a mediocre and non-memorable lullaby in the background of the whole game and in all modes. But, having played a few boardgame conversions by now, I know that it isn't irregular for such games to have an irrelevant soundtrack, or actually none at all like this one. I guess players can be thankful to be at least accompanied by a typically generic sounding female voice soullessly commentating on everything happening on-screen.

To wrap it up, I can't really say I enjoyed playing it, but Pictionary Plus makes a set of easy-to-achieve trophies if you're into hunting platinums for your PSN-account. One can way too easily cheat his way to platinum in this game with one specific trophy being awarded when the game catches you cheating, which was kind of a funny moment, actually. AND of Course, if you like playing Pictionary, this title really may be the "ultimate Edition" to do so.

Another game finished, on to the next one! 

Let's see how many short lived titles like the one mentioned Above can still be beaten within the last weeks of this year ...

[realpoketendonl]

A few months ago I purchased a uDraw GameTablet along with uDraw Studio: Instant Artist and Pictionary Plus. A few weeks later I got hold of an fat PS3 with funtioning disc drive, which enabled me to play my PS3-games again after almost 7 years. I love funky peripherals and started off trying out the GameTablet with uDraw Studio: Instant Artist, trying to get the platinum trophy to finish it. But after getting stuck with the mini games of this title, I switched over to trying out Pictionary Plus.

Omg, someone else who remembers the uDraw GameTablet, no way. I have the Wii version collecting dust on my shelf, but I did try it out. Cool to see someone else who loves odd peripherals!
I'm currently trying to get my hands on a Cyberbike. Half exercise bike, half GameCube controller. That would probably be the crown jewel of my stupid accessories collection. Looking forward to trying and reviewing that once I get one.

[bizzgeburt]

Omg, someone else who remembers the uDraw GameTablet, no way. I have the Wii version collecting dust on my shelf, but I did try it out. Cool to see someone else who loves odd peripherals!
I'm currently trying to get my hands on a Cyberbike. Half exercise bike, half GameCube controller. That would probably be the crown jewel of my stupid accessories collection. Looking forward to trying and reviewing that once I get one.

The uDraw GameTablet and the two games I own for it kinda fell into my hands unintentionally, really. I wasn't specificly looking for it but it sure is some fun. More examples of funky peripherals on my PS3 collection are the Move Zumba with belt and the Konami Dance Mat for DanceDance Revolution. I also own a Wii with Balance Board, 2 shooters and 2 wheels. A few Arcade sticks for MegaDrive and PS1, the PS2 Eye Toy Hero with the sword  Disney Infinity or Activision Skylanders are also very cool and collectable as well (and there was something called LEGO Dimensions that looked interesting to me) ... I'm actually wanting to own a functional Game Boy Printer with paper to run it for years and hoping that I can make that a reality soon.

[kashell]

80. The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch

I have no idea what compelled me to not only get a functioning PSP, but to go through this game that I dropped years ago. I dropped it for good reason: this game, much like A Tear of Vermilion, is bad. What gets me is that it looks like it could be good. The ingredients are there. The presentation is classic and crisp. The gameplay features tried-and-true combat and development. But it just doesn't work. It's dull. The translation is horrible. The story, while interesting from a high level, is hard to take seriously because of said translation. I laughed when a boss' last word was, "Whuuff". Even the bond between Chris and Jurio and their coming of age is hard to take seriously. Then there's the pacing. This is a short game that feels like a long game. Progress is tricky too because you have to talk to one person or stand in one area (mercifully marked by a red exclamation point) to move things along. I'm all about giving the PSP some love but it seems like each time I do, I get let down.