2017, Part 2 (
Part 1 here)
Game 31 - Assassin's Creed Revelations - Playstation 4 - Completed Sept. 25th, 2017
I blazed through this game in about a week's time, but I had a blast with it. I loved the continuation of the story even though it was pretty light on the modern day details (which I guess is a thing that's just part of the franchise now). I especially loved the end of the game, how Ezio spoke to Desmond and how the ancient people spoke to Desmond through the Animus. I even completed a few of the first person puzzle sections, and did a few rounds with the tower defense game. My only complaint is that maybe this game didn't know which genre to pick and went a bit all over the place. However, I stuck to the story and "traditional" Assassin's Creed gameplay and had a great time with it. I'm really looking forward to Origins next month!
Game 32 - Rogue Legacy - Playstation Vita - Completed Sept. 28th, 2017
I've been (re)playing through Rogue Legacy on my Vita during my lunch breaks and such at work after finishing Adventures of Mana. I think I last seriously played the game shortly after it first released in 2013 and
got voted as SteamGAF's game of the year. I had previously played on the PC, using an Xbox 360 controller. I found the Vita's D-pad to be MUCH better and much more precise which benefits this game immensely. I beat the game this time in about half of the time it took me last time, using about half as many lives (115 or so, which I thought was pretty good). I still love almost everything about this game including it's weird sense of humor ("I found some chicken hidden in a chandelier - I swear this castle makes me think I'm going insane"). I'm glad I revisited this!
Game 33 - Super Mario World - Retro Achievements PC - Completed Sept. 29th, 2017
I knew I wasn't going to get my SNES Classic in time to really participate in the thread for Super Mario World, so I decided to fire up the game on Retro Achievement's emulator. This game is an absolute treat to play (as always) and I had a good time with it.
Here is more I wrote about it in the Club thread.
Game 34 - Actraiser - Super Nintendo Classic - Completed Oct. 7th, 2017
With the release of hacks for the SNES Classic, I knew the first game I would add to the system and beat right away was Actraiser. I play this game every couple of years but it never gets old. I absolutely love this game and it's easily in my top 5 SNES games, possibly in my top 5 games of all time. Strangely, I don't think I ever played the sequel. Maybe I should.
Game 35 - Golf Story - Nintendo Switch - Completed Oct. 8th, 2017
Fuck this game to tears. The difficulty spikes make this game an absolute trainwreck - all the way up to the end of the game. The game had some interesting sub-plot lines and character development, but the actual golf part of the game was absolutely the worst game I've played in a long time. Really regretting my purchase, even though I spent 15 hours beating the game - even at that sweet $1 per hour spot - it's hard to recommend this game to anyone unless maybe they like cutting themselves or inflicting self-harm.
Game 36 - Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - Playstation 4 - Completed Oct. 21st, 2017
I've played this game before when it released on PC, but I thought I'd give it another go on the Playstation considering it had Pro enhancements and the price was alright at just over $20. I love almost everything about this game - from it's equipment system to level progression just about everything feels really right. I tried a few different strategies this time around and I think I came up with a good character / pawn build. I completed the game at level 50. At some point I'll start again and try to do the Bitterblack Isle quests which I've never succeeded at.
Game 37 - The Wolf Among Us - Playstation Vita - Completed Oct. 27th, 2017
I absolutely love this game and the atmosphere and environment that it creates. Sadly, the Playstation Vita port was a little... rough. Most of the time I think it was running at around 10-15fps, which made the "action" sequences (aka everything except the choose your own adventure storyline) pretty difficult to manage. Either way, I still had a good time with it as it's been a few years since I played it (on release) and I thought I might give it another round before season 2 next year.
Game 38 - Until Dawn - Playstation 4 - Completed Oct. 28th, 2017
My wife and I played through this leading up to Halloween - we finished it in three separate sessions all which took place late at night when everything was dark. I had an absolute blast with it, even though this was my second time through the game and let my wife make all of the decisions for the characters. We unlocked a few extra achievements, and she was able to get two of the teenagers out alive (previously I had only saved Emily). This game is really great for Halloween and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to get a bit spooked.
Game 39 - 12 Labours of Hercules V: Kids of Hellas - PC Steam - Completed Nov. 4th, 2017
Another Hercules game - not much to say here except that I still enjoyed it immensely even though the formula is starting to wear itself a bit thin. I believe there is only one more game in the series so I'll probably wait a few months to try and tackle it. I unlocked every achievement except the "beat the developers record 10 times" and "earn every other achievement" ones - which I did for one of these (2 I think) and it was a total slog so I'm not going to bother. Overall, still pretty great and well worth the $0.50 I paid for it.
Game 40 - Telltale Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy - Playstation 4 - Completed Nov 9th, 2017
This game got off to a pretty rocky start - releasing their first episode on the heels of the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 movie and coming up REALLY short in comparison to that. However, as the episodes went on the characters fell into their roles really well and it was cool to look at an expansion of the GotG universe even if it did diverge from the movie's plot lines somewhat. By the end of the last episode I was loving it and wished there were more. Hopefully Telltale follows this up with more adventures of Star-Lord and crew.
Game 41 - Hidden Agenda - Playstation 4 - Completed Nov 11th, 2017
I had a group of 5 family members over to play through Hidden Agenda. I'm a huge fan of Until Dawn so I was curious to see how the formula played out with just the decision making. The game was pretty cool and the graphics were really great. Unfortunately, we got the "bad" ending which left a lot to be desired. We'll probably play through it again in a couple of weeks to see if we can get somewhere different. While not as deep or rewarding as Until Dawn, it was a lot of fun to play with everyone gathered around.
Game 42 - Rock Band 4: Rivals - Playstation 4 - Completed Nov 17th, 2017
I picked up the Rock Band Rivals expansion during a sale on PSN, and I'm glad that I did. I have about 200 Rock Band songs in my PS4 library now, and this was a fun and unique new way to experience them. I played the "Career Mode" and did the Rockudrama sets which were entertaining and a lot of fun. Sometimes the humor was pretty hit and miss, but it was interesting none-the-less. I tried to theme my songs around the venues for added realism - playing songs like "The Power of Love" during the battle of the bands, and Semisonic's "Closing Time" as my final farewell tour ballad. Overall I had a lot of fun with this expansion and it's various perks, even though I didn't ever play online.
Game 43 - Until Dawn: Rush of Blood - Playstation VR - Completed Nov 29th, 2017
This is the first game that I've played to completion using PSVR, and I had an absolute blast with it. Although I'm sure it'll be one of those games that, years later, will seem kinda silly and primitive but I actually enjoyed it a lot. I bought the Skyrim VR bundle on Black Friday, but I quickly realized that I would have to ease into modern VR a little more before jumping into Skyrim. I've been on a bit of a Supermassive kick anyway after having recently beat Until Dawn and Hidden Agenda, so I thought I'd give this game a try and I'm glad I did. I only unlocked about 47% of the achievements but I might go back at some point and play on Psychotic mode or something and see how far I get.
Game 44 - Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - PC Steam - Completed Dec 3rd, 2017
I started playing Final Fantasy XIV earlier this year with my son. We took a few months off when he started back to school, but now that things have mellowed out a bit we've gotten back into it. My Steam account shows 85 hours on record, and that sounds about right although might be slightly off because some of that time was spent in the launcher downloading updates. Really impressed with the game overall - and we finally got our primary job classes to level 50 and beat the A Realm Reborn content and watched the credits roll. I'll definitely be keeping up with this and stay subscribed for a while - we still have the Heavensward and Stormblood campaigns to move through as well as a plethora of other side content to mop up.
Game 45 - 8-Bit Adventures: Shadowgate - Playstation 4 - Completed Dec 9th, 2017
I've probably played through Shadowgate at least a hundred times in my life - but it was still fun to play through yet again and this time to earn PSN trophies while doing so! This is easily one of my top 10 NES games of all time. I enjoyed all of the extra filters that the game provided (I personally used the CRT filter while playing, which was pretty decent) and the low price of $8 for all three games had me sold. I'll definitely be playing Deja Vu and The Uninvited soon!
Game 46 - Pokemon Go - Android - Completed Dec 9th, 2017
I've been playing Pokemon Go off and on all year, and I figured a good time to consider it "beat" this year is for the release of the Gen 3 Pokemon. I filled most of my pokedex with the Gen 2 pokemons and probably spent a total of 30-40 hours playing the game this year. Although there isn't a definitive "end" of this game, it's still something I had fun with all year and would consider it "beat" for 2017.
Game 47 - Assassin's Creed Origins - PlayStation 4 - Completed Dec 12th, 2017
I really didn't like this game as much as I thought I would - and it definitely wasn't as good as the Assassin's Creed games I played earlier this year that were part of the Ezio trilogy. The graphics and voice acting and open-world gameplay were all top notch. The combat was pretty alright once I got the hang of it, but the game felt like it was stretched far too thin in actual content. I enjoyed the first two hours and the last two hours as a more focused experience than anything else in the game. The game suffered the same fate as Oblivion did with it's scaling enemies - at no point did I feel like I was significantly more powerful than I was supposed to be. I think this is mostly due to the fact that Ubi wants to sell people shortcuts for real cash, which is a shame. I still liked the game enough to finish it (about 45 hours) but not really enough to recommend it to fans of the series.
Game 48 - 8-Bit Adventures: Deja Vu - Playstation 4 - Completed Dec 23rd, 2017
I used to love this game to pieces, and I probably played it a million times when I was younger. I think I might have beaten the game once or twice - I almost always got stuck somewhere or couldn't figure out what to do. So I was surprised to find out just how much about this game I had remembered. I will admit that I had to look up a guide in order to progress at the end of the game, but I had gotten through most of it on my own. There is a lot of hidden subtext in this game that I obviously missed as a kid, so it was interesting to play this as an adult and understand what happened exactly. I also got all the trophies for this game, so it's on to The Uninvited!
Game 49 - Stories Untold - PC Steam - Completed Dec 23rd, 2017
This game was really trippy! While I get the overall theme that they were going for here, I feel like this game kinda sorta was pretty hit and miss. I enjoyed the game (I had to use a guide in a few spots!) and it was a fun throwback to the old text adventure games but it suffered from the same issues as those games did ("I did not understand that" was common but playfully adhered to) which made the game somewhat frustrating. An interesting experience, but it kinda left me wanting more.
Game 50 - Life is Strange: Before the Storm - Playstation 4 -Completed Dec 27th, 2017
This game was much more emotionally charged than the original Life is Strange - and I loved that about it. Even though the game didn't have the first one's signature time travel aspects that made it so great, this game definitely had a lot going for it. I loved Chloe in the first game so it was good to see more of her back-story with Rachael and to find out what exactly happened. The montage at the end was touching, and the spoiler / teaser for the original Life is Strange was enough to make me want to play it again. Excellent game.
Game 51 - Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas - Playstation 4 - Completed Dec 29th, 2017
I picked this game up on the PSN sale on a whim, having beat it on Steam back in 2015 but I had good memories of the game so I thought I'd give it a go. I still love the game, and it's great for all the reasons I can remember. The music was especially good and I paid more attention to it this time around. The puzzles were still unique and fresh and since it's been a few years I had to rack my brain again to solve them which is a good thing. Overall this is a 7.5/10 experience - good but not great, somewhat of an acquired taste.
Game 52 - Super Mario Odyssey - Nintendo Switch - Completed Dec 29th, 2017
I suppose it's fitting that I end this challenge on Super Mario Odyssey. It was a great 3D platformer, probably up there for me with Super Mario 64. It definitely seems like a game that will get better with time and age well - there is so much to do and see that it will take several playthroughs to see everything, and I love that about the game. My only complaint is that I'm not very good at these sorts of games so some of the bosses were a bit bullshit. Overall, a solid 9.5/10 from me.
Past challenges: