I've seen this topic loads but never read it before. I can definitely get behind this as I like having a record of games I've completed, and I'm trying to work through my backlog before moving on to next gen. I'll refer back to my trophy list to know exactly what I've played and finished.
1. Muramasa Rebirth - 10th Jan - approx 10 hours
I bought this digitally in a sale before Christmas for £10. I really enjoyed it overall; terrific visuals, wonderful combat and character control and a nice range of optional things to do adding a bit of depth. Some excellent boss battles too, and characters that I came to quite like. 7/10
2. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (PS3) - 17th Jan - approx 7-8 hours
Another sale purchase; I think this was about £3.50. An excellent game in most regards; I particularly enjoyed the storytelling structure and the level design and set-pieces were really inventive and interesting too. Sadly overshadowed by Blood Dragon, but I thought overall this was probably the better game. 8/10
3. Jacob Jones & the Bigfoot Mystery (Vita) - 24th Jan - approx 3 hours
A wonderful little puzzle adventure that was amazing value for money. Great visuals and presentation, a funny script and a surprisingly generous amount of content. I look forward to the next episode. 8/10
4. LittleBigPlanet PS Vita - 8th Feb - approx 8 hours
I enjoyed both of the main games on PS3, but thought this was even better. It had really inventive use of the Vita's functions without ever feeling intrusive and some wonderful level design (both developer and community). 8/10
5. The Last of Us: Left Behind - 21st Feb - 3 hours
Just amazing. TLoU was my favourite big budget game of last year, and this was a perfect accompaniment. I loved being back in that world, I love the gameplay and tools which are part of the TLoU gameplay and it was one of the rare instances of DLC not feeling like a shallow cash-grab. 9/10
6. Dead Island (PS3) - 4th March - 22 hours
I started this months ago but just got around to finishing it a few weeks ago. Loved it initially but I actually felt like it dragged on too long and I would have preferred it end about 33% sooner. It was shonky as hell and there's lots to fix in any future instalments (I understand Riptide fixed very little), but I did enjoy it and I think Techland are a lot more talented than they get credit for. 7/10
7. Spec Ops: The Line (PS3) - 6th March - approx 5 hours
I basically ran through this on Easy as fast as possible to experience the story and have a breather between longer games. I enjoyed it for what it was; the story was good, the shooting and character controls were solid and mechanically it had some interesting ideas. 7/10
8. Retro City Rampage (Vita) - 7th March - approx 6 hours
I didn't finish this as I stopped playing on what I later found out was the last boss. Initially I really enjoyed it, after a while I grew tired of what I felt was a lack of substance outside of 80s and 90s references, and by the end of the game I began to hate it. About 1-2 hours before the end it gets crazily difficult and not at all fun, and that pretty much ruined my opinion of the entire game. 6/10
9. Uncharted: Golden Abyss - 13th March - approx 10-12 hours
This was another I started last year and came back to finish, and similarly I felt it too outstayed its welcome by a couple of hours. It was a solid Uncharted game, more or less on par with the original, although there's almost no variation in the gameplay and I felt it got tired faster than the others. A couple of nice uses of the Vita features but overall not especially memorable. 7.5/10
10. Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken (Vita) - 17th March - approx 6-7 hours
I really enjoyed this game, from the visuals and soundtrack (loved the music and animated cutscenes), the lite-puzzling and the cool jetpack sections. Reminded me of SNES-era platformers like Flashback and Another World. 8/10
11. Luftrausers (Vita) - 22nd March - approx. 5 hours
I'm not sure there's any kind of 'end game' state or whether it just goes on forever, but I put lots of time into this and probably won't be going back besides odd plays here and there. Really excellent gameplay, great reward and progression system and very addictive to boot. A quality game, as one would expect from Vlambeer. 8/10
12. SteamWorld Dig (Vita) - 29th March - 6 hours
Adored this game; I knew nothing about it before it launched on Vita and bought it pretty much on a whim. Everything about it was honed almost to perfection - visuals, controls, character progression and upgrades, soundtrack, etc. It was so well designed it felt like a Nintendo game at times. Loved it, and I can't wait for what Image & Form do next. I'll be there day one. 8.5/10
13. Metal Gear Rising - 4th April - approx 6 hours
Normally I really enjoy Platinum's output, but I had really mixed feelings about this overall. The combat was really awesome and the presentation was very cool, but in other key aspects I felt like it was really lacking, such as overly simplistic and dull level design, poor characterisation and, contrary to most opinions, several annoying boss battles. 7/10
14. Eufloria HD (Vita) - 6th April - approx. 6-8 hours
I didn't complete this but I put a fair amount of time into it and I don't see myself going back. It's an excellent RTS/base defence game with lots of interesting gameplay aspects, really great art style and excellent use of the touch interface. 8/10
15. Metal Gear Solid 2 HD (Vita) - 20th April - approx 9 hours
Didn't like it very much back in 2002; still not sure about it all these years later. Some cool sections, gameplay that's a clear step up from its predecessor and on the whole it's aged very well, but an absolutely fucking bullshit crazy plot, a structure that's far too similar to MGS1 (I know it's deliberate for narrative reasons, but it's still weak) and overall it's just not as memorable or clever as the first game. Still one of my most disappointing sequels, alongside Halo 2, Soul Reaver 2 and Red Faction 2. 7/10
16. Urban Trial Freestyle (Vita) - 12th May - approx. 8-10 hours
I haven't finished this but I don't see myself getting any further so I'll consider it done with. Not a bad game, but lacking in content and stylistically a bit ugly and charmless. I also find the bounce pads horribly glitchy and useless. 6/10
17. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (PS3) - 25th June - 130 hours
Got the Platinum trophy, I finished all of the main game content, although I have not finished all the Dark Arisen content yet. Absolutely adored this game in almost every regard, from the combat, the game world, the enemy encounters, the exploration and discovery, the customisation, the depth and even the surprisingly decent plot. Such a brilliant game, one of my favourites of the generation and I really hope there's a sequel. 9/10
18. Need for Speed: Most Wanted (Vita) - 29th June - approx. 10 hours
I'll paraphrase a lengthy post I made earlier today:
It's a really good game in most regards, but not as good as the Burnouts and a few minor annoyances kept it from greatness in my opinion. A big part of what I missed was the massive and detailed crashes from the Burnout games, and I wished they weren't using licensed vehicles as the cosmetic damage was really weak. 7/10
19. Tearaway (Platinumed) - 23rd July - approx. 15 (?) hours
I finished this game when it came out late last year, but I went back to finish up. Absolutely adored pretty much everything, it may well be the cutest and most likeable game I've ever played and I'll probably double dip on the PS4 remix. Easily one of the best Vita games. 9/10
20. Grand Theft Auto V (PS3) - 29th July - approx. 35 hours
I was apprehensive over this as I didn't really enjoy IV, but it was amazing in almost every regard and improved on its predecessor in almost every meaningful way. The biggest star for me was the amazing gameworld and the physics which help it feel so grounded and fun. An astonishing achievement that really raises the bar for its genre. 9.5/10
21. Rogue Legacy (Vita) - 13th August - approx. 20 hours
A disclaimer; I got to the final boss but couldn't quite beat it and have probably lost the enthusiasm to revisit the game and finish up now. Regardless, I really enjoyed the game, with butter smooth controls, an excellent character progression system, fun combat and enemies and great presentation. Probably the best Roguelike I've played. 8/10
22. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PS3) - 17th September - approx. 10 hours
I'm not a big fan of the typical modern war FPS, but this exceeded all my expectations. The campaign was open enough to feel dynamic yet straightforward enough to feel purposeful, and I thought the characters were fun and likeable without being obnoxious. Controls were great, level design was excellent and there's a lot of variety to the mission design. I played maybe a couple of hours of the multiplayer as well which was a lot of fun even though one of the game modes seems to go on forever. But it's fast and fun and the demolition really makes it feel open-ended, and as a noob in online MP I found a fair amount of success. A really strong FPS in almost every regard. 8/10
23. Aliens: Colonial Marines (PS3) - 24th September - approx. 8 hours
I had pretty low expectations for this, but it honestly wasn't as bad as I expected. I thought they nailed a lot of the aesthetics, atmosphere and feel of the film, but it was sloppy execution and weird design decisions that dragged the whole game down. I couldn't get a multiplayer game on the couple of times I tried, so can't comment on that, but honestly on the whole this was merely average and not as bad as I'd been led to believe. 5/10
24. Tekken Revolution (PS3) - 24th September - approx. 4 hours
I haven't 'finished' this so to speak, but I doubt I'll play it again. Played the single player Arcade mode a bunch of times, and had a few fights online. It's pretty decent for an F2P game, and the amount of content is not bad, although £4 per character is pretty absurd and I probably would have put a bit of money into it had it been cheaper. I'm not a big fighting game fan, but this was pretty generous for free. 7/10
25. Murasaki Baby - 27th September - approx. 3 hours
I'll C&P a post I made in the game's OT: Finished it now, a really nice little game with some great ideas and neat puzzles, but I didn't always feel as in control as I would have liked. In fact, my favourite section might have been the tentacle pram, because it's the only place in the game I was genuinely in full control, rather than having to use the front or rear touch screens. Great ending song too. I give this wonderful little oddity two tentacle masks out of purple. (also known as 8/10)
26. Entwined (Vita) - 14th October - approx. 1 hour
A very pretty, relaxing and enjoyable game from new development team Pixelopus. Perhaps a little too simplistic overall though, and fairly slight on content. 6.5/10
27. Just Cause 2 (PS3) - 25th October - approx. 20 hours
Just batshit crazy OTT fun. Very enjoyable to mess around with the physics and tools, and a really enjoyable and vast gameworld. It's got a seriously impressive engine too. 8/10
28. Velocity 2X (Vita) - 28th October - approx. 5 hours
Excellent stuff; a very enjoyable shmup-come-platformer, starring one of my favourite protagonists in a long while and some really impressive gameplay strides over its predecessor. One of the best games of the year so far. 8/10
29. Mass Effect (PS3) - 6th November - approx. 27 hours
I really enjoyed this and I'm now questioning why it took me so long to play it. I absolutely love the world Bioware built, the technology and different alien races, and even though I already know the trilogy's whole story, I really like the storytelling and sense of mystery and the reveals towards the end. The Mako sections were decent and gave a sense of exploration and variety, I liked being able to 'explore' the galaxy even though it was through menus and I thought the politics between the different races were really interesting. It lacked polish in some areas, I didn't like some characters (Ashley and Kaiden mainly) and I thought the romance stuff was pretty fucking awful (right after giving my crew a pep talk about the final battle Kaiden was like "We have to talk do you love me or not I neeeed to know!!"), but overall this was such a great game and possibly my favourite sci-fi universe ever. I've already started ME2 with my imported character and decisions, and it's a nice feeling to know that things I did in the first game will ripple into the second game. And one last thing; I had to reload an old save and play about two hours in order to
, and it was absolutely worth it. 8.5/10
30. Journey (PS3) - 8th November - approx. 80 minutes
I played through this at the weekend with my 4 year old daughter, and it was such a nice experience. She really loved it, kept thanking me for buying her this lovely game, and was really hoping we would make it to the top of the mountain. She loved all the cloth animals that fly around and help you, and that getting a big scarf makes you fly higher, and we even spent some time trying to interpret the plot together. I try to shield her from the concept of death, but she understood that some of the murals were signifying people had died and I told her that I thought the person was trying to get to the top of the mountain so they could travel to the stars and be with their friends and family. It was so nice and she really enjoyed it, and gave me a big hug afterwards. Elsewhere, I think this second play-through made me appreciate it all the more and it's probably one of my favourite games on the PS3. 9/10
31. Mass Effect 2 (PS3) - 25th November - 34 hours
A great game overall with some solid improvements over the first, and some streamlining that IMO took away away a lot of that game's depth. I felt like ME1 was a decent RPG that was a bit clunky in some regards, while ME2 felt more like a third person shooter with lots of conversations and not really much of a plot. Nonetheless I did enjoy the experience and I adore the series' universe. It does feel very epic and I like the scale and overriding plot about the Reapers, but narratively this episode felt pretty inconsequential and it pretty much ends at the same place the first game does. 8/10
32. Mass Effect 3 (PS3) - 11th December - approx. 25 hours
A good game overall but it's my least favourite in the series, and that's not just because of the ending. I do love the universe Bioware created and got genuinely attached to some of the characters like Garrus, Mordin and Wrex. The general plot was kind of nonsense and I didn't really like the tone either, as there were too many side missions and no sense of urgency. I also didn't enjoy the combat as much as ME2, and felt like there were too many rooms that you walk into and fend off waves of enemies, and many of those enemies are horrible bastard bullet sponges that just are not fun to fight. 7.5/10
33. Lego Batman 2 (Vita) - 29th December - approx. 6 hours
I've never really liked the Lego games, although this is the first I played to completion. I found it really bland, unimaginatively designed and was surprised by the number of glitches too (three or four times events would not trigger so I couldn't progress). The premise is kind of fun and I liked it poking fun at itself, but aside from a couple of fun chase sequences and boss fights I found the level design to be pretty poor overall and
very repetitive. I liked that they used Elfman's music from the original Batman films (I think at one point I maybe even heard a bit of Forever soundtrack in there too) and the voicework was good, but overall it's a really mediocre game that feels just like the other Lego games I've played with a pallet swap. 5/10