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.
64.
Superman (2600)
I was looking for games that came out during years that I've missed so far, so I found that this one filled 1979 for me so I gave it a go. First impression is that I have no clue what's going on, so I had to look up a guide. Guide did a pretty good job of explaining the game. So I started playing it understanding the concepts. Honestly, this game is pretty good. Like it might be one of my favorite 2600 games now as it's a pretty solid single player game. Since you're Superman, you can't die, so there are no game overs, you're just playing against the clock for the best time. Goal is 1) throw Lex Luthor and his minions in jail, 2) fix the bridge, 3) get to work at the Daily Planet. Controls are pretty simple, the only worry in the game is Kryptonite, if it touches you, you turn into Clark Kent and you have to go find and get a kiss from Lois Lane to become Superman again. Amusing. Honestly though, it's a short, simple game.
Rating: Soft recommendation
65.
Mario Bros. (2600)
Another game to fill out a missing year. Just the basic pipe cleaning Mario game, plays well enough on Atari, but I remember playing the SNES Mario All-Stars version. Not much to say about it.
Rating: Hard pass
66.
Kung Fu (NES)
Another year filler. Anything pre, I don't know, 1994 will probably be year filler stuff any given year. Not many games came out in 1985, Atari was dead, NES was too new, real limited options here. Anyways, this is a real simple beat em up game, you head left/right depending on where you start, fight some dudes, fight the boss, move to the next floor of the tower. 4 or 5 levels total, real quick game.
Rating: Hard pass
67.
Balloon Fight (NES)
Another year filler. I've had interest in playing this game since finding out years ago that Satoru Iwata made the game, but I like all NES games, I rarely get around to it. Any while this year filler stuff is kind of meh for me to do, it does push me to play games that otherwise I never would've gotten around to. This game was so pleasant that I actually went and got all of the achievements on Retro Achievements for it. It's the first game that I 100% completed too. That said, there isn't much to the game and from what I read it's basically Joust?
Rating: Soft pass
68.
Contra (NES)
Another year filler, this time 1988. Decided that since I've never played a Contra game before that I'd give it a go, especially after playing the run and gun James Bond game. Pretty fun game, but like seriously, I don't know how people play this game without an emulator or Konami code, some parts are just devilishly tough. Like it's fun, but I wouldn't think it were fun back in the day, especially if I cared to actually beat the game.
Rating: Soft pass
69.
Spider-Man (PSX)
The first 3D entry in the franchise run, I fully expected this to be the longest game so far, and it's proving so. Gameplay is fine so far, but the lack of analog controls is frustrating, and I'm confident this game isn't early PS1. My controller isn't setup for analog at the moment so it's okay, but I'll need to fix that eventually. Controls are a tad confusing, like when I want to jump off a wall and web swing away, I don't know how to do that, if I try to get off the wall, Spidey just falls instead of jumping. That seems like a big flaw either in missing feature or in that I don't know how to do it because it didn't really teach me during the tutorial. The chase segments in this are a bit unforgiving which can be very frustrating. I always find it funny how comics do blue for black and for blue, so punisher, venom, and spider-man both show up as blue, but punisher and venom should be black... so should spiderman have been black and red instead of blue and red?
Rating: Soft pass
70.
Spy Hunter (NES)
Another year filler, this time 1987 because I skipped over it when I was looking at stuff. I've had a mild interest in this series for a long time and I love me some driving games. Pretty simple game, lots of dodging stuff. Plays incredibly well with the exception of the obvious NES era stuff. Enjoyed my time with this enough and the achievement list was simple enough that I wound up with all of the Retro Achievements except one, so I went out of my way to get the last one I was missing. So this makes for the 2nd completed achievement list game on Retro Achievements for me. This game closes a gap and now I've got 1977 through 1993 covered in a year by year thing.
Rating: Soft pass
71.
3 Ninjas Kick Back (SNES)
I didn't choose this one to be a year filler, but it does happen to fill 1994 for me. I picked it because I wanted a random SNES game to play, got half way through and thought about what year this game came out and was sort of hoping it wasn't 1994 because I already had a game in mind for 94 (King's Field), so doing this takes away at least a little incentive to playing King's Field. Enough so that I'll go back to Spider-Man for the time being but plan to come back to King's Field eventually. Anyway, generic action platformer licensed off a terrible kids movie. I grew up with these movies so nostalgia and what not, almost makes me want to watch the movies. Kinda sad, I loved watching stupid stuff like this as a kid, and I know my wife wouldn't be cool with our kid watching this, and neither would I, because our kid would immediately start running around and kicking and throwing stuff and laugh. Anyway, not a great game tbh.
Rating: Hard pass
72.
Tunic (XS)
Started this game at launch. Really enjoyed the demo for this game, and sadly I'd maybe say the demo is better than the game itself. The game is pretty great, but then you reach a point where you have limited health and you just gotta survive until you fix stuff. Like 1 shot KO type of health, and that's just nuts. The game does have built-in infinite health and it doesn't void achievements, but god damn is that part brutal. I didn't even realize you could fix it, so I did infinite health and finished the game and then read about how to fix it, still fucked up. So game's beat, but now I'm going back and doing missed achievements and going for the true ending. I expected this game to be a top 5 contender for the year, but if it does, it'll be by default. I'm quite disappointed in the difficulty spike towards the end.
Rating: Soft recommendation, if you're okay with cheating. Hard pass otherwise.
73.
Bebe's Kids (SNES)
Wowee was this game terrible. I can go and remove it from my wishlist for sure if it's still on there. It's a movie beat em up, but it's terrible. Retro Achievements made it worse by requiring you to beat levels with 0 special moves and special moves kill and enemy in 3-4 hits, but normal hits takes like 50 hits. It's bonkers broken. Level design is near non-existent. One of the fights is torture because you have to jump kick, but if you're at the bottom of the screen and jump, it'll just place you on a pedestal instead of letting you kick, it's poor programming simply put, if I jump from the bottom, even though my sprite winds up high, it doesn't mean I was close enough to make that jump, because I wasn't.
Rating: Hard pass
74.
Seven of Heart (PC)
Didn't even mean to play this game let alone beat it. My kid was playing on his computer and he loaded up the game and started playing it but it was actually kinda tough for a kids game so I started playing it for him and the game is only like 10 levels long so I beat it without even knowing it. It's a single screen platformer where you collect keys and hearts and dodge obstacles. That's it, real simple stuff.
Rating: Hard pass
75.
Pocket Mini Golf (NS)
I was sitting around and really wanting to play a game, but I wasn't allowed to play on the TV because my kid earned no screen time because he decided to rub a rock against the TV screen, TV's fine, he's just a jerk. So anyway, decided to grab my switch and play something in handheld mode. I saw that I had downloaded this at some point and thought, eh this will be a chill game to play and can work towards my backlog. Game has no real goal, it's kinda retro in that sense. It's just like 50 levels and once you beat them you start getting random combos of levels infinitely. I think I did like 60 levels and quit to the main menu and saw that it was an endless thing. So I'm considering it beat. You can collect gems while playing the levels but they don't seem to serve a purpose, so meh on that. There is no par or anything, it's literally just get the ball in the hole with no anything for taking too many shots. So it's a really chill kind of puzzle game that honestly you could lose yourself in. For something that I got for free, I'd recommend it because it's a nice little time waster, but it's honestly not really worth your time.
Rating: Soft pass
76.
SUPERHYPERCUBE (PSVR)
My father in law wanted to try out VR when he came to visit (among other things) so after setting everything up and him playing and then heading home I decided since I set it up, I might as well play some VR games. Started out with this one because I remember it being good casual fun. I got further than I've ever gotten in my recent playthrough, but the game is essentially an endless game like Tetris. It's interesting and the difficult ramps up pretty quick. Don't expect I'll ever get much further than level 3, but it's a nice game to just play on occasion.
Rating: Soft recommendation
77.
Blood & Truth (PSVR)
This was my first major VR game in quite some time if really ever to be honest, most of the other VR games I've played before had been puzzle games so pretty forgiving stuff. I've got so much to say about this game though, because at first I'm like ok, meh, and then I'm enjoying and playing, and then I'm like meh, and then I finish the game and I have complaints, but then I play other games and really realize just how great this game is from a technical/gameplay standpoint. Like for instance, I played this game for hours, came out of VR, and I didn't have that weird reality perception thing where everything feels off, I'm not sure how they did that, but every other game I come out of VR and I'm like are my hands real? Maybe the tracking is real good? Maybe the things they have you do work well with your brain? Maybe the immersion is weak so it's easy to differentiate? I don't know, but I like it. The game has you holster your weapons a lot, which I find neat. Reloading requires you to grab new magazines from your chest and pop it in, which I enjoy more than some of the other methods of reloading I've seen. Story is pretty good, graphics are good too (kinda wish I had played on PS5 for the PS5 patch). My main complaints are the story ending in a cliffhanger teasing a sequel that may never come and issues with tracking/climbing causing you to fall to your death a lot. Aiming is a bit weird in VR and no real good way to use a scope but maybe Aim controller would help? This is so far the best PSVR shooter to try. I may drop the recommendation on this if I manage to find a better game, but I feel like that probably ain't happening.
Rating: Solid recommendation
78.
The American Dream (PSVR)
This one had been on my list for a long time because it looked ridiculous, so I figured it'd be funny. Well guess what, it isn't very fun and it aged incredibly poorly, though the true ending is on point. Anyway, this game is dumb, the gameplay is dumb, just about everything in this game is dumb. The true ending, which I won't spoil is a political commentary on guns in America, which the whole game is tbh, and which don't get me wrong, I agree, but wow that ending. Gameplay isn't great, the final boss fight is confusing, just totally not even worth playing tbh
Rating: Hard pass
79.
Katamari Damacy (X1)
Saw this was leaving game pass and decided, knowing it was short, to give it a play because Katamari is always enjoyable. Interestingly, I remember the final couple of levels in this game being incredibly difficult, did they adjust the difficulty for Reroll? I don't know, still a great game though. I'm always mildly disappointed in the game though because really once you've done the last level there isn't even much reason to replay levels or anything, not that all levels have an eternal mode.
Rating: Soft recommendation
80.
Omno (X1)
Another one of those leaving Game pass games that I decided to play. I really only pushed through on this one because it was so short, but I really didn't enjoy the game. The game play mechanics weren't very good and I just didn't care about the story. To be honest, I didn't give this one much of a chance, but also to be honest, it's not that special of a game sad to say. I didn't even understand the ending to be honest either.
Rating: Hard pass
81.
Powerwash Simulator (XS)
I had been hyped for this game since I first heard about it and I got even more hype when I heard it was coming to Game Pass. Such a chill relaxing game... too much so, like to the point that I legitimately fell asleep playing the game on many occasions. Surprisingly the game has a story, so that's kind of interesting, and it even does moderately well at tying things off, except maybe the what happened to the bad folks. Real simple mechanics of cleaning, game gets a little tedious with some of the achievements and eventually you get to a point where your cleaning supplies just aren't that great. The final level for instance, I upgraded all of my equipment, but like it was still a pain. Even that, the cleaning supplies specifically don't seem to work that great, they're cheap, but they don't work that great and for that long for that matter, and it's a limited resource. Honestly, I expected to like this game more than I actually did, it's not bad, but too often I found myself thinking that this game is a waste of time and not even that relaxing, it's just tedious.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
82.
Forza Horizon 4 (XS)
I saw that the Ultimate DLC was on sale and I suspect the game/DLC will be delisted next month so I decided to bite on it and give the game a go. I was surprised to see that there was so much in the game that I had never gotten around to doing. I had done the main festival story and then stopped playing because of the season/games as a service nature of the game. I'm still frustrated by the games as a service nature to be honest, because while it adds longevity to the game, it only adds that longevity while they are updating the game. You can't go back and do previous seasons or anything, so once the game gets delisted next month (presumably), all you'll have to do is the festival story stuff and some of the side content, so much will be lost even if you do own the game. I'm pessimistic about it, but I hope they patch the game to allow players to go back and do previous seasons, that would add long term longevity to the game for folks who buy the game before it gets delisted. I'm really enjoying my time coming back to this game, but I am finding that 5 has a lot of features that I didn't even realize weren't in previous games and it's a bit disappointing. 5 specifically has a feature that rewards you for collecting so many/all cars from a given manufacturer, and this game does not. But again, once these games get delisted, it'll be impossible to collect all of the cars because cars are locked behind the seasons/games as a service content. I really love these games, but the games as a service and common delisting just makes the games harder to recommend.
Rating: Soft recommendation
83.
Twelve Minutes (XS/X1/PC)
So I started this game on XS around launch and didn't quite enjoy my time with it and sort of abandoned it, it's leaving game pass soon, so I decided to try and finish it. I wound up playing on X1/PC interchangeably based on availability, mostly playing on PC. I recall now that I didn't enjoy it because I was playing with a guide to get achievements and it basically made the experience where I watched a playthrough and then mimicked the playthrough, so it sort of made playing the game pointless. That said I, same as most folks, didn't really get what was going on with this game, even having beaten the game, I wasn't quite sure what was going on. Apparently the entire game is you playing through your future in your head while talking with your dad, which ok, that makes things make more sense, but I still don't get the timeline, do I understand this correctly, you met a girl on xmas and fell absolutely in love by new years? That's one of the only things I don't get and it's kind of like the entire premise of the game... but also, somehow you're playing through these scenarios in your head without the knowledge that you have? I guess that's another flaw, I'm daydreaming about not knowing why I'm daydreaming? No, not gonna dwell on that. The concept of this game is great, execution is poor, the achievements make it so you basically have to spoil the game for yourself to go through a guide, and the story just completely goes off the rails.
Rating: Hard pass
84.
Mighty Goose (XS)
A big ole list of games leaving game pass came out and this was the most attractive game in the bunch in that I played it first. Just a Contra style run and gun kinda game. I enjoyed my time with the game, but sadly I can't remember much about it. I only recall having a basic ass weapon and randomly getting shotguns, smgs, rocket launchers, etc. I'm gonna recommend because my recollection is fuzzy, but I know I enjoyed the game.
Rating: Soft recommendation
85.
I Am Fish (XS)
Another leaving game pass game, but I played this one with my wife's cousins visiting and one of them gave me the story (which I pieced part of it together) that this is a direct sequel to I Am Bread, which is a prequel to Surgeon Simulator (That part I didn't know). I recall hating playing I Am Bread and having to force myself to get through the game. This was much more enjoyable, though it took me a long time to really figure out the controls to be able to enjoy the game, and even then I was very much forcing myself to get through the game so I could be done with it. Game's fun, but as with most of these simulator games it can be very frustrating at times. I had more than one situation where I was super close to the next checkpoint, but something fucky went on and I managed to barely not make it, and I just couldn't do it again, so I skipped to the next checkpoint and took the reduced points.
Rating: Soft pass
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