Reserved

After reading so many of the enlightening posts from the 2014 challenge, and seeing the fun and satisfaction quite a few of my friends had doing it, I shall give it a try and do my best this year.I look forward to whatever discoveries I make about myself and the games I buy.

I will consider a game complete when I have a sense of satisfaction that I have done all that I can and want no more, usually after seeing an ending or leaving when I have sampled all that I could enjoy potentially. I will not consider something I walked away from as completed if done so because it's just no fun or I lack the desire to play it at this time or I feel it's unresolved in some fashion on my end.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Game #1 Darksiders on PC. Story completed, achievements I found fun or completed in my normal play style unlocked, but not a 100% collection for all items/power ups/purchases as many were never needed or wanted.
Slightly bigger write-up of it.

I'm glad I completed the game enough to see the bosses and all that it offered for the potential it held, and I never felt like it was a chore or joyless to get through, but not a strong impression on my end. Yet in the end a story I skipped through because I could not care and a wish there had been more to it's combat, puzzles, and sense of speed in movement.

As a PC game I found screen tearing to be annoying and discovered that with Steam a bug exists that can prevent achievements from unlocking. Didn't harm me as between my friend and I both playing with two different saves we got all the achievements, but an issue for others to consider should they ever try it out.


Game #2: Beyond Gravity on PC. All achievements completed, full sense of having seen everything it offers game play, and no desire to play it any longer.

For what it is, for what it was designed to be, for how it provided something to do as I or my girlfriend waited on something or each other while still providing some small sense of enjoyment, I call it a competent game. More about it here


Game 3: New Super Mario Bros. 2. Beat all the worlds, collected all the coins, played as Luigi for a bit.
While it's colourful, imaginative in it's art design for the different stages, there is a Tesco Value Brand of the Super Mario line that decided to add a new shiny label to make it seem fresh and exciting, when really it's the same cheap brand. Enough to somewhat appease a taste for something, but too watered down to ever truly satisfy what I actually wanted when I asked for it.
Link to more of that paragraph.


Game #4 You Have To Win The Game. All achievements earned, normal mode and Extra Spice mode completed to 100%. Played as a cat.

As a platformer fan, as someone who loves to explore a game world, and one who enjoys creative designs with limitations on what is actually shown at any given time, I find this to just to be a spectacular and amazing game that does so many things right and is a pure example of a platformer. A game where my first play through was filled with numerous deaths, gave me the greatest sense of satisfaction in earning an achievement (Steam) when I beat the game by never dying, proving that I had mastered the game and knew exactly what to do.

I talk more about it here . If you don't read that but your interest is piqued, it's free to download here and free on Steam.


Game #5 Gunman Clive. 3DS Version fully completed, No Damage and Par times met for each stage for each character. Steam version half-completed.

A less is more stylistic platfomer of the Mega Man vein for run and jump, whose strength is is in it's basic game play being well designed. Be it as a average run and gunner cowboy, a hovering jump damsel rescuing the dude in distress, or the greatest platformer of all time The Duck, it's a joy to make it through each stage.

Read a little bit more about it here.


Game #6 Mighty Gunvolt. 3DS Completed Story mode with each character.

This is a short and simple, a Mega Man by any other name, title made to help promote and celebrate the full Gunvolt and nothing more. Nice in it's own way to harken back to the days of NES/Famicom run and gun platformer, a demake of sorts to Azure Strikers Gunvolt to give it some unique identity, but ultimately not that strong of a title.
I won't play it again, but I could be convinced to get a full fledge sequel perhaps as I state a bit here


Game #7 Super Mario Land. Completed, rescued Princess Daisy a few times. Did a "pick up as few coins as possible" challenge.

While I appreciate the creativity of taking what worked so well on the NES and fitting it to the confines of that green and black LCD screen, it never proved to be entertaining enough to me as so many other Mario titles have and as such I can't say I truly enjoyed it all that much. True it might have been something astounding when it came out, but I was not there when it came out and what I have experience today leaves it lacking.

I wrote more here


Game #8 Peggle Classic for iOS. Adventure mode beaten, each challenge completed. Ace Score and 100% Peggle Clear achieved on every stage.

This pachinko/bagatelle inspired peg clearing title remains as fun as ever no matter what device it is played on. Simple in execution of aiming, seeking high score, and clearing out the table as best one can with a variety of powers and trick shots to learn leaves an entertaining title to master all the same.

I wrote more here


Game #9 Tobe & Friends Hookshot Escape on iOS. Completed by getting a high score I was happy with, unlocked another character, saw as much as I felt the game was going to offer.

Call it yet another in a long line of endless vertical scrollers, call it a reverse Mr. Driller, but in the end I say it's simple an okay time waster whose game play could use a better virtual button lay out and more reason to keep playing beyond just high score and travel distance.
Post here


Game #10 3D Classics Kirby's Adventure. Story complete, 100% of activity to do.

A classic NES title whose style, simplicity, and lack of much of the extras I've come to expect in a Kirby game today, lovingly revisited with the addition of stereoscopic 3D that combined with a New 3DS, I found myself quite appreciating for it's art and design for all the tricks they used back in the day to make the NES appear stronger graphically than it actually was.

I found it slightly more difficult than expected due to improvements of controls made over the decades as mentioned more here, but nothing to big.


Game #11 The Order: 1886. Complete as in the story was finished. If there was more to do in the game, I never checked.

I can't say it was a bad game, for I knew full well what type of game it was going to be and how heavy the QTE was to be, I just never got into it beyond hope of something more. Glimpses of something special, competent at worst, enough to make me curious for it's short length.

I'm Gonna Be... talking about it just a wee bit more here


Game #12 The Treasures of Montezuma 4 on Steam. Completed each mode, story, and challenge. Four missing achievements that simply are tedious and would result in it being work to get, not enjoyment of playing.

A classic styled Match-3 puzzle game with an Aztec theme, story, and art design, whose claim to difference comes in the form of power ups when you use the same colour jewels twice in a row for power, and a RPG type level up system.
I found myself quite enjoying this game after long being away from getting into any Match-3 too heavily due to burn out in a decade ago, but this one provided just the right balance of being casual and a sense of improvement in skill that I found worthwhile to spend time with until I saw all that I could.

Slightly more thoughts to unlock here


Game #13 Contra for NES. Finished the story with 1 life remaining.

Classic run and gun shooter that I simply never got around to ever playing beyond a quick demo of until recently. What needs to be said about this infamous title for difficulty and challenge other than it's one of the classics for memorising the stages and patterns, and knowing the right weapons for each section? It certainly holds up to this day and is a true classic that I thoroughly enjoyed, and one I can claim I beat by myself without the need to cheat (not even the Konami code).


Game #14 Jack N' Jill for iOS. Completed each stage.

A nice simple and free platformer to pass the time, as it never truly does anything special or unique. Once it's charm wears off and you notice there is no scale in difficulty or stage design, it lacks much of a reason to keep playing beyond being a time waster.
Still, if in the mood for something with Game Boy black and white aesthetics and you appreciate platformers being designed around touch controls rather than emulating devices with d-Pads and buttons, this is one to try for free.
Slightly more here


Game #15 The Ninja for Master System. Got to the end and and beat my high score three times.

A top down run and gun, well run and throw knives. In a simplistic way I found it fun, but I must admit I only truly played it to completion for the sake of doing something I failed to do when I purchased the game as a young lad and finally scratch the itch.
More here


Game #16 Guacamelee! Gold Edition for Steam. Story mode and completion of every challenge, secret, and achievement.

Not my first time having completed a version of Guacamelee!, having done so once before on the PS3 to full Platinum Trophy competition, and as such not much new for me outside of Gold Edition's extra challenge rooms that I found in good fun. I did get quite the thrill playing as The Tick I must admit in my second run through it all that I enjoyed just as much as the first time.
More here.


Game #17 Pokemon Shuffle. Every off-line possible Pokemon stage beat and captured, seen enough of the daily or special challenges.

Having never grown frustrated at only playing five times in a row before I had to put it away until I got more attempts unlocked, never seeing the need to spend any money at all, and finding it to be a solid puzzle title on various levels, I had good fun with this game since it's release. I may have no desire to revisit it again as it can't possibly change too much and I grow weary of Match-3 titles now, it may be something I come back to in a few years and find myself enjoying it yet again.

More thoughts to match up here


Game #18 Ninja Blade for PC. Completed story.

For no other reason than simply to see what comes next and a curiosity if it could ever improve did I finish this game's story. Just a half hour removed from it and I can tell you little that made it good other than the game worked on a basic level in all aspects, but it wasn't all that bad if I never really felt frustrated or annoyed. Did I have fun? No, I can't say that, but rather I did not mind spending the time on it while I waited on other things to complete.

More here.


Game #19 Heavenly Sword. Finished the story.

I will say I enjoyed playing this game overall and it still holds plenty of potential for a remake, but as it stands, it's a short game that I found worth finishing for the first time simply for the sake of seeing what it once was, an attempt to introduce new ways of doing a game even if very few worked out.

More thoughts here


Game #20 Deathchase for ZX Spectrum. Completed each of the stages in several loops, got high score, and saw as much as I could out of it.

I raced, chased down, and destroyed all my enemies in a basic never-ending forest of high score action and I loved every second of it. Nostalgia or simple fun I can not say, but I'm glad I played it as much as any title on a modern computer.

More here


Game # 21 Bionic Commando for Game Boy. Completed story and each area.

Swinging through the world on the bionic arm and firing three tiny bullets as I quickly went through the stages hunting down keys and communication, enjoying it all. Taken purely on it's own merit as a Game Boy title, as though only it and perhaps just Commando existed for the franchise, this was an impressive title for the system and still very much a fun and challenging game.

Contact Joe for more details here.


Game #22 Bionic Commando: Elite Forces for Game Boy Color. Completed story and each area.

While the Game Boy title I found it impressive they manage to capture the feel and smoothness of the NES title, here I'm impressed by the improvements and additions this U.S. team came up with. Simply good fun and and outside of a personal annoyance of feel a bit too zoomed in, perhaps my favourite of the franchise.

I almost wish Capcom had asked Nintendo to make more of them.

Snipe for more here


Game #23 Harley-Davidson & L.A. Riders on SEGA Model 3 Arcade. Completed by seeing each area, high scores reached.

One of my favourites of SEGA Arcade titles. A part of the racing for time sub-genre, seeking to make it to a specific area before time runs out and aiming for a high score, and sister title to Crazy Taxi and 18 Wheeler.

Ride some more here


Game #24 Remember Me for PS3. Finished the story and all but hidden object trophies completed.

It's combat was functional, but never interesting and sometimes frustrating in both being overly simplistic in practice and being convoluted in design/set-up of. A toss away story and characters who fell apart too easily didn't help the situation. The idea of memories being so core had potential, but sadly never fully realised outside of the fun memory alteration mechanic. I say it's a worthwhile experience to play through and annoyances do not take away from it being a competent game, but despite the title, it's an interesting idea with some nice artwork that I shall remember down the road, and not the full product.

Recollect my memories here.


Game #25 Zombie Party on Steam. Completed in the sense of seeing all that it has to offer at the moment. High scores reached.

A top down twin stick shooter with lite RPG elements (improve power of guns used) of a zombie hoard. Not much else to say, but it remains as fun to me as Robotron: 2084 was back in the day.


Game #26 Monster Summer Game on Steam Website. 1,000,000+ Monster Summer Badge.

Ah, an idle clicking game. A genre I never really understood before, never truly understood how one can get a sense of accomplishment from it, or why one would spend time trying to do well at what amounted to such monotonous task. Yet in the midst of the Mid-year Steam sale, I found it to be the most fascinating thing and came out of it on the last day with an understanding of why one might devote so much time to it beyond simply "it's a time waster.
In the end it became a "install this and walk away" for the highest accomplishment unless you sought out to help others get better badges with your user script, and no where in all of it did I ever think "click a lot" was ever really any fun, but I can say I enjoyed taking the time to be a part of the experience and working with others.

Click once more for extra word damage


Game #27 Hostage for ZX Spectrum and DOS. Completed each mission with TOTAL VICTORY !!.

An ambitious game in limited era hardware wise, but it accomplished all it set forth to do and let the players experience sniping and urban combat in a fun, exciting way. I quite enjoyed it back in my youth for what little my friend would let me, and playing it now. I almost wish it was easier for me to play today as a quick game on Steam.

Tactical thoughts here


Games #28 Art Puzzle Renoir, Michelangelo, Rousseau, Monet, etc. for iOS. Each puzzle solved for free versions.

Not one single game, but rather a series of jigsaw puzzles featuring classic European artists. No not much separates this from other jigsaw titles out there, other than they simply work in being able to easily locate and place pieces through a collapse holder and soothing public domain classical music as you do so.They do nothing wrong, and that's what makes it work so well.


Game #29 Streets of Rage 2 3D Classic for 3DS. Story mode and Rage Relay completed.

Fundamentally it's not too different from the Mega Drive version, still a solid beat-em-up that allows me to take on an entire army, but never feel like it's too easy or simple. Each character has their own strength and skill, and a new mode called Rage Relay allows one to go through each of them, switching from one character to the next on each death and forming a strategy to complete the title with instead of credits.
A joy to play in original mode or Rage Relay, and if need me Casual Mode is good to get new fans a taste of it should they wish to not be challenged just yet.

Cruise here for more bruising.


Game #30 Ninja Gaiden for SEGA Master System. Story completed.

What a surprise this has turned out to be, a true hidden gem that I so unfairly ignored in the past. While I still consider Shinobi to be the best of the side-scrolling ninja titles, this a joy to play and a bit better than the Shinobi on the same console.

Bigger scroll here

Gonna try it this year for the first time. Damn 52. Better get some short games in there.

Also reserved.

Game 1: Splinter Cell: Blacklist - 14 hours
Actually only beaten the last 3 levels in 2015, but still counts . Overall, i don´t think it´s as good as Conviction (which in turn isn´t as good as the godly chaos theory). Too many levels in the sunlight, no pick locking, only 2 speeds for walking, no sound and visibility meter. But still enjoyable. Also lol the terrorist is Chloe´s husband from 24.

Game 2: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - 1.5 hours.
Played it at a friends place. Gameplay great, looks great. It´s a mission. That´s about it.

Game 3: The Wonderful 101 - 12 hours
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. No wonder some people were disappointed with Bayonetta 2´s ending.
Holy hell man. Also, that game just throws new shit at you constantly. It´s ridiculous how much is in this game.
You got a Wii U? You don´t have this game? How about you get it.

Game 4: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 110 hours
GOTY candidate right here. I was absolutely engrossed in that world. Pretty much all the sidequest were great. Charming characters, interesting storylines. Loved em.
Witcher contracts were fun with a LOT of different monsters to fight. And i almost didn´t want the campaign to end. I just wanted it to keep going.

Game 5: The Stanley Parable - 1.8 hours
Ehhmmmm, that was weird. But in a good way. Really good in fact. Really nice experimental game. Choosing the choosing choices.
Buy it.

Game 6: Cities: Skylines - 88 hours.
Love it. It´s what Sim City should have been. Starting cities over and over. Rearranging stuff. Traffic is hardcore and basically a puzzle to solve. So good.



In Progress:
Paper Mario - The Thousand Year Door: Ok, i´m three hours in, loving it.

~Spot Reserved~

I doubt I will get to 52, but I'll see what I can do.

The one thing I want to focus on is just having fun playing games. If something isn't fun, I'm just going to be done with it this year. I know that seems obvious, but I'm finished playing stuff just because it was on sale, or on ps plus, or for trophies, etc.

Also - I want to make a point to go back and play some older SNES and GBA games on the VC. Luckily I have a pretty small backlog of about 10 games, so I'm ready to get started.

Currently Playing: Pikmin 3 and Yoshi's Island (Wii VC)

Game 1: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - 10 Hours (Finished on 1/1/15)
Awesome Game. Started it on Christmas Eve and have been slowly working on it since. Finally finished the story, but will be going back occasionally to get more collectibles. Games like this are why I love Nintendo. Fun puzzles, awesome art style, polish, etc.

Game 2: Infamous: First Light - 4 Hours (Finished on 1/9/15)
Always meant to get to Second Son last Spring but never got around to it, so I thought I would try this on PS +. Kind of underwhelmed to be honest. Game looks great but by the time it was over I was ok with it being over.

Game 3: Ducktales: Remastered - 3.5 Hours (Finished on 1/10/15)
Another game I always thought I would eventually buy comes to PS+ and I really liked it. I'm biased since I like then original as a kid, but I had fun. I might even jump back in tomorrow for some collectibles.

I'll reserve a spot as well. I feel like I never finish enough games, so maybe this will be a good motivator. I'm hoping to play a lot of good stuff! Some replays, some new stuff, should be fun.

Started out well, but real life has been interfering with progress. Let's see how far along I can make it this year...

Game 01: Puzzle Quest-Challenge of the Warlords Completed 1-8-15

This game is a great hybrid of an RPG and a match 3 game. The RPG elements blend very well with the puzzles and provide an immense amount of variety in how you can choose to play the puzzle aspect. It's deceptively addicting. About the only qualm I have with the game is the lack of consequence when capturing cities for income. Whether friend or foe, there are no story based consequences to laying siege to the cities. With the amount of detail the developers put into integrating the RPG elements it seems to be a missed opportunity. Highly recommended.

Click to expand...

Game 02: Steamworld Dig Completed 1-17-15

Cute and fun metroidvania-ish type game. Simple and cohesive mechanics with addictive gameplay. Despite the repetitive nature of being practically forced to return to the starting point every few minutes, the progress almost never feels grindy. The travel nodes are spaced out well and, unless you are having trouble finding the next one, it will keep you exploring. The game designers did very well at pacing the game's variety of atmosphere and character progression. Upgrades are also well balanced as you never feel overpowered or overgeared for the challenges ahead of you. Everything just comes together as a cohesive whole.

About the only negative thing I could say about it is the rather limited interaction with the inhabitants of the town. Incorporating them into the storyline a bit would have helped flesh them out more. Perhaps in a sequel. Steamworld Dig is definitely a game I would highly recommend. It doesn't overstay it's welcome and is highly enjoyable from start to finish.

Click to expand...

Game 03: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP Completed 1-18-15

I have to say, not really impressed with this one. For all the praises this game has received, I found it lacking.

The visuals are uninspiring and very limited in scope and variety, especially for a retro 8 bit styled exploratory puzzler.

The audio (specifically the OST) is the best part of the game, but that's not really saying a whole lot as there is nothing particularly memorable about the music other than it being an experiment in "indie" modishness. Some of the puzzle elements use audio clues but it's been used to better effect in other games.

Gameplay design is quite shallow and simplistic with the puzzle elements and the combat sequences being both derivative and repetitive even for an iPhone port. Technically speaking, the (mercifully few) combat sequences are themselves just simpler puzzle elements that could have easily been replaced with other puzzle elements. Although that would have likely only been a lateral move as none of the existing puzzles are clever or intriguing. I guess the developers felt obligated to include combat in the game since they used the word "Sword" in the title, but frankly, the game would not have suffered with it's removal. All together there may be a total of 30 minutes of actual gameplay, with the vast majority of the in game time being spent trying to (slowly) travel across the game screens.

And, finally, the story. It would have been possible to have all of the flaws above and still been a decent to good game if the story had been worth it. Unfortunately, much like the other aspects, the story is just middling at best. It tries to be clever with it's trite use of metaphysical philosophy, but ultimately it seems like the writers just watched "The Matrix" movies a few too many times and read a cliff notes version of a community college philosophy book.

I would recommend passing on this one.

Click to expand...

Game 04: Lume Completed 1-18-15

I expected this to be a short game, but not nearly as short as it was. I finished what I thought was a tutorial-ish beginning only to realize that was the entirety of the game.

That is very unfortunate as the content that is included is great. The art style is wonderful and the puzzles are great to piece together. There is great potential here and I see there is a sequel now (Lumino City) that continues the story.

Would I recommend this game? Yes, but only if you can pick it up in a bundle of other games you already want. If I were the developers, I would include this game as the intro of the sequel or bundle it for free. As it is, it basically functions as a proof of concept.

Click to expand...

Game 05: Dear Esther Completed 1-19-15

While some might not consider this a game, I found it to be a great atmospheric experience. The self pacing exploration (though linear in execution) while piecing together the story works beautifully in a game engine medium. Though short at about 2 hours it was actually longer than I expected it to be, which was great as it never overstayed it's welcome.

Visually it is just a wonderful presentation. When I started, I was expecting a rather pedestrian (forgive the pun) experience and the first area kind of reinforced that impression. However, the successive environmental variety that was implemented for such a short game was impressive, most notably in the cavern system with something new to behold around every bend.

The music and narration reinforce the sense of isolation and looming despair without affection to too much pretentiousness; though the overreliance on a particular metaphor did weigh a little too heavily at times.

I would definitely recommend playing this through when you have a few hours to spare.

Click to expand...

Game 06: The 39 Steps Completed 2-2-15

The 39 Steps is a mixed bag that ultimately left me a bit unsatisfied with it's material. As this is a visual novel with very limited interaction, it works on some levels but not others. The audio-visual elements for presenting a great story in this medium are there, but for this endeavor the plot collapses in on itself for its contrivances.

Visually, it is nicely done. The location backdrops are quaintly presented with added touches of animation to enhance the scenes. The characters are presented as ghost-like abstractions of the human form, leaving the details of appearance to the imagination. The typography is well done with occasional flourishes that parallel the pacing or actions of the story; I noticed similarities to the stylistic English subtitling for the Russian movie "Nochnoi Dozor (Night Watch)".

Aurally, it is a competent production with appropriate cues when needed and a fairly good cast for the voice over work. There are a few scenes, with one in particular, where the dialogue gets lost in the heavy accents of the characters. Since everything is also subtitled that should be a minor issue, however even the subtitles are written with the same idiolectal diction of the spoken dialogue, rendering some scenes unnecessarily obtuse. Thankfully, these few scenes do not hinder the story progression.

The plot of the story is where this entry sadly frays. I am unfamiliar with the original novel from which this is sourced and can only wonder if the story as presented here has been truncated a bit too much and/or a few too many artistic license shortcuts taken. Many of the scenes presented here are good, but when the not-so-good ones appear it dispels the suspension of disbelief.

Several plot devices are just too convenient in its occurrence. For example,

Spoiler

when the protagonist, having fled London and on the run from the police and German spies, haphazardly stumbles into the one house in a remote region of Scotland that happens to be the headquarters and home of the ringleader of the German spies

. Pure balderdash and lazy writing.

Then there is the whole

Spoiler

Masters of Disguise conceit

that strains credulity to the point of absurdity and is the basis for

Spoiler

the 'climactic' ending

.

While I can't recommend The 39 Steps, I would like to see other stories given the visual novel treatment in a similar fashion.

Click to expand...

Game 07: Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy Completed 4-5-15

Mystery of the Mummy has aged very poorly. The game is severely hindered by it's design.

Right out of the gate, you are presented with a set 640 x 480 resolution. No other options and no windowed mode available. Additionally, the textures are low quality and blurry, a bad combination for a game designed around searching for clues and objects.

The cutscenes are about what you would expect for an old and lower budget game, however the game itself would crash after the end cutscene for every level, even with compatibility mode set for XP Service Pack 3 as recommended for this game.

If you so choose to play this game and run into this issue, you will need to know when you are about to end the level, save, finish the level, watch the cutscene, restart the game and load your save, finish the level again and skip the cutscene to start the next level.

Audio is basic and serviceable, but inconsistent loudness makes for some jarring scenes. There were also a few instances of popping during voice over scenes.

The gameplay itself is where the age of the game really drags it down. The movement and interaction is solely done by mouse and every bit of it is laborious. Moving around a room requires finding the hitbox on part of the screen you need to click to do so, and in a few instances isn't particularly obvious.

Searching for objects or other interactable items in the dark blurry mess of textures is reduced to moving your hand cursor around an area until it changes. Some objects aren't even visible when you move your hand over it. Using items from your inventory is also a kludgey exercise that is exacerbated when you find yourself in a timed puzzle.

Some of the puzzles are obtuse and none seem particularly clever in execution. As you are playing, you never get the sense that you are playing the Great Detective.

For completionists, like myself, who start from the beginning of any series, the good news is the game is short. I can only hope the follow up games of the series aged better and becomes more compelling.

For everyone else, skip this game.

Click to expand...

Game 08: Sherlock Holmes: The Secret of the Silver Earring Completed 4-6-15

This second entry in the Sherlock Holmes series is a dramatically improved experience, relative to the first. There are some technical issues that impacted the experience, but with the age of this game, odd glitches were not unexpected.

I believe that recent video card drivers may not be the best for this particular game. The options for the game allowed a couple of resolution options, but I could only run the game with the lowest option. When first starting the game, the character models would also be missing but their shadows would be present. Alt-tabbing out and back into the game fixed this glitch.

The other odd issue was the audio output. Again, the video card driver appears to be the culprit as the audio for this computer is normally handled through the card over HDMI. Regardless of the settings for the HDMI audio device, the audio from the game would never play. The fix was to use the secondary audio device on the computer and outputting directly to headphones, bypassing the video card output.

Aside from these two issues, no other technical problems were evident during the playthrough.

The visuals for Secret of the Silver Earring are leaps and bounds beyond those from Mystery of the Mummy. While certainly not comparable to current games, the visuals were clean and detailed. All clues and objects were visible and discoverable through observation, unlike many of the scenes from the first game. Additionally, the streamlined user interface makes the inventory so much easier to interact with and use.

Sounds and music for this game were fine, though nothing special. I did find the voice acting to be commendable, especially for Holmes. The subtle inflections and tone changes the actor employed added a great amount of depth to the character during longer dialogue scenes.

The focus in this game was much more dialogue and clue discovery than mechanical puzzle problems of the first game. This was a great design direction that felt more befitting a detective.

While Mystery of the Mummy seemed filled with trifle puzzles and obnoxious arbitrary timed scenarios, Silver Earring's situations felt cohesive and natural. With that in mind, there are still a couple of scenes that seemed out of place due to their timed nature. Be sure to save your game before

Spoiler

venturing past the pond in the forest

and before

Spoiler

entering the compound with the night guard and guard dogs

.

I had low expectations going into the second Sherlock Holmes game due to the experience of the first and the technical issues at the start were also concerning, but I am glad I didn't allow those to stop me from playing.

I would recommend that if someone is interested in playing the Sherlock Holmes games, start with this one if you can get past any technical issues that you might encounter.

Click to expand...

Game 09: Runespell: Overture Completed 5-25-15

I found this to be a decent, though relatively short game. Combine a little bit of Puzzle Quest with poker mechanics and Norse mythology and you have the ingredients for this game.

Though Runespell is enjoyable, it just feels a bit sparse and rushed. Where Puzzle Quest excelled at diversity of style built around the game mechanics, Runespell is much more limiting. This is true throughout the game; a predetermined main character, linear quest lines, few enemy types, less game mechanic modifiers, on and on. All of which combines into the biggest drawback for the game; it's overall brevity and lack of replayability. In the short amount of time it takes to reach the end of the game, you've seen everything it has to offer.

As far as presentation goes, it's quite pleasing. Visually and aurally, everything has a nice polished finish and complements the game well.

The only technical difficulty found was a persistent crash when leaving the first "village". A quick search and disabling of the Raptr gaming app solved the issue.

Final thoughts. If you are looking for a casual diversion for a weekend, give Runespell: Overture a try. If you are looking far a bit more depth and have much more free time, go for Puzzle Quest instead.

Click to expand...

Game 10: TBD

1. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney : Dual Destinies (3DS) 29H
8/10. Case 2 & 3 were kind of weak. Case 5 was very good. (FINISHED)

2. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (PC) 19H and counting
10/10. Amazing game! Finished It 4 times in a single day. (FINISHED)

3. This War of Mine (PC) 16H
7.5/10. Pretty good, but after understand how the game works (by losing a couple of times), the game becomes pretty much a cakewalk. (FINISHED)

Claiming this post.

IN PROGRESS. . .

1. 
   1: THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS [3DS] - 15:09 (Got as a Christmas gift, really digging it so far. No surprise since ALttP is my favorite Zelda, alongside MM.)
   
   2: SUPER MARIO GALAXY [Wii] - 5:00
   (RTTP Playthrough, started 2014, aiming for 120 stars but would like to get all of them across both playthroughs)
   
   3: THE STANLEY PARABLE [PC] - 0:00 (Will start tonight.)

GOALS: Work through my Steam/3DS backlog, starting with Steam indie titles. Actually beat more than five games. I'm trying to fight off a number of creative blocks, and I sort of consider my recent "gaming block" under that umbrella. Sort of.

Claiming this post ^^ I'm going to try for it this year ~

Currently Playing:

1. 999: 9 Persons, 9 Hours, 9 Doors [DS}

2. Class of Heroes 2 [PSP]

3. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle [Wii]

Planning on playing:

1. Madworld [Wii]

2. Killer is Dead [PC]

3. Valkyria Chronicles [PC]

4. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance [PC]

5. The World Ends With You [DS]

5. Shin Megami Tensei 4 [3DS]

6. Binary Domain [PC]

Beaten:

1. Super Meat Boy [PC] - 11 hours - I picked up Super Meat Boy during the winter steam sale. It was a nice gaming palette cleanser to begin 2015 with, nice short challenging platformer, one of the better platformers I've played actaully.

2. Limbo [PC] - 3 hours - Limbo, like Super Meat Boy was a short platformer I picked up in the steam sale, I enjoyed the few moments of joy after I figured out how to beat each puzzle but the core gameplay wasn't particularly fun, I definitely enjoyed it though the art style/grim mood in general it had definitely carried it.

3. Even Cowboys Bleed [PC] - 10 minutes - This was short, really short, more of a interactive poem than a game but like Christine Love's other work it was well written and I enjoyed "playing" through it.

4. Magical Maiden Madison [PC] - 20 minutes - I promise to play real games soon~ Again god tier dialogue, really cute story.

5. Brandish: The Dark Revenant [PSP] - 47 hours - Normally I'm not a fan of roguelikes/dungeon crawlers other than the Megami Tensei series and first person ones like it but Falcom + PSP sort of made this automatic day 1, and I *really* enjoyed it like, it gives me the "moment of beating a hard boss/figuring out a path or whatever feeling" (I'm sure there's a long arse german word for that) at just the right times had great atmosphere and did a million other little things *perfectly*.

reserve de cuvée

Present 3DS

1. Persona Q
2. Shovel Knight
3. Luigi's Mansion 2

Ditto Vita

• Tearaway
• Persona 4 Golden
• Guacamelee

Future Perfect

1. Danganronpa 2
2. Wipeout 2048
3. Flower
4. Gravity Rush

I might have this many lying around. I definitely have this many in my steam library. Let's do this!

It's on! [Progress: 4 Complete, 9 In-Progress]

Game 1: Gods Will Be Watching [In Progress] - 1.2 hrs
Update: This game is haaaaaard!!!! Stupid one to start with.

Game 2: Company of Heroes 2 [In Progress] - 32.7 hrs
Played the hell out of skirmish so far now attempting the story. 3 missions in so far.
Skirmish Skirmish Skirmish!!! love it
More skirmish. Did a 3v3 omaha beach map mod. Went on for hours as I did annihilation. Epic map. Loved holding the line and breaking the opponents.

Game 3: Kerbal Space Program [In Progress] - 3 hrs
I'm going to attempt to land on the Mun. This could take a very long time.

Game 4: Elder Scrolls Online [In Progress] - 5 hrs
Going to complete main story with a new alt. Completed AA with one of my alts, woot!

Game 5: Worms 2 Armageddon (iOS) [Complete] - 2 hrs
This is my need a break game. No doubt this will rack up a few hours. Go champions! Such a great 5 minute game.

Game 6: Never Alone [In Progress] - 2.9 hrs
I'm really not impressed by this game. It should be brilliant and visually it is, but it's let down so much by the clunky controls.

Game 7: Ascension (iOS) [Complete] - 1 hr
Love this game. Great little card game for anyone interested.

Game 8: Gunpoint [In Progress] - 1 hr
Playing this again for the love of it

Game 9: Thomas Was Alone [Complete] - 3.4 hrs
Well that was weird! A simple game made truly epic by a great commentary and an incredible sound track. I really enjoyed this. Not too hard but not too simple either.

Game 10: Lego - The Hobbit [In Progress] - 1.2 hr
Playing this co-op with the wife. The lego games get better and better and repeat a nice little formulae. Nice casual game to play.

Game 11: Dishonored [Complete] - 9.9 hr s
Amazing game. Almost completed it on PC for second time but getting hooked on finding all the little things.
This game feels sooo easy the second time. It took me ages the first time, second time it felt like a speed run.

Game 12: Hitman Absolution [In Progress] - 1.0 hr
Seems ok so far but I'm going to focus on some other games first.

Game 13: XCOM : Enemy Unknown [In Progress] - 1.7 hr
Having fun so far. Neat little game.

Game 14: Just Cause 2 [In Progress] - 5 hr
Went back to this game for a browse and having so much fun, I really hope GTA V (PC) turns out to be as fun as this when just free roaming.

The only game I have in progress at the moment in Bravely Default. My backlog is huge and saddled with long RPGs, but I'll give it a shot.

Cleared: 22

Super Time Force Ultra - 6 hours




This game looks pretty great, I love the art and music. It has some of the most creative mechanics I've ever seen in a side scroller. I don't think the game is what I wanted it to be though. They gave you so much time and so many rewinds that you could brute force your way through every level which made the difficulty non-existent and left no room for strategy outside the Helladeck. Of which, my biggest complaint is the writing, I just don't see the humor in using internet slang.

Risk of Rain - 17 hours



Risk of Rain is a game I've been playing on and off for a while but never actually seen the end of until this week. I always seem to get in over my head, backed into a corner with my enforcer shield up, broken healing droid on the ground next to me with a repair bill that far exceeds what I've got in my pocket, and all of my abilities cooling down. It's mechanically solid, has excellent music, and does a great job of placing you in a particular atmosphere and making you feel unstoppable one minute and absolute dread the next. I imagine my play time will see a good amount of growth between now and December.

Killer is Dead - 17 hours



What a weird game. I had no idea what was going on from start screen to credits so I'm not going to talk about any story sequences because I have no idea what would constitute a spoiler. My only issue with the game was that you had to play at least 3 Gigolo missions to get all the items, which made me feel like a total creep. The regular stages and side missions were all incredibly fun. Though nowhere near as good, this really appealed to the part of me that adored No More Heroes.

Final Fantasy - 15 hours



After Sakaguchi won his lifetime achievement award I started thinking about how much I truly appreciated his games. I've loved pretty much everything he's put out. Last Story, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Away, and Terra Battle. One of the biggest holes in my gaming library has always been Final Fantasy. My experience with the franchise was limited to a couple of hours of FFVII, and for whatever reason, I never went back. I'm making that right this year, and I decided I wanted to start where it all began, with the original version, dated mechanics and all. The game has aged surprisingly well, with a reasonable encounter rate and a short enough length that it doesn't overstay its welcome, which I feel like a lot of modern RPGs tend to do. The only aspect of the game that really frustrated me was that your characters would swing at enemies even if they had already been defeated by another character that same turn. In any case, while I haven't touched the rest of the series, I could see aspects of the game that have influenced most of the RPGs I play and felt like being able to appreciate that gave me a better overall experience. Also, while the story is pretty bare bones, it's enough to make it interesting and had me talking to all the townspeople, and I really enjoyed everything just going off the rails in the last act. In short, great game, great music.

Harmoknight - 5 hours



I'm terrible at rhythm games, and Harmoknight is no exception. Fortunately, the game is pretty forgiving, which allowed me to beat every level with at least a "good" rating, unless there are some bonus levels past the cloud world. The music is super catchy and the visuals are appealing. There's not much variety to the gameplay, but it's short enough that it never becomes stale. I also want to add that I still don't know how Lyra works and did awful with her in every level she made an appearance in save the tutorial. Regardless, I had a lot of fun with the game.

Bravely Default - 85 hours



I picked this game up when it first came out and played an hour or two a night before I got really bogged down with school, so I decided I would just power through it now that I'm on break. I really enjoyed the art direction, and the music was absolutely phenomenal. Now, I'm obviously still not familiar with the bulk of the mainline Final Fantasy titles, but this pretty much struck me as heavily inspired by Final Fantasy 1, down to how the story and how it's paced, which I enjoyed. I also really appreciated all the features they included to streamline the game, which prevented it from getting too tedious. Things like setting encounter rates, experience, point, and gold bonuses, as well as items to aid in grinding really went a long way, especially during that second half. I heard people talking about how terrible this second half was long before I reached that point, and those claims were not exaggerated. I feel like there must have been a better way to handle all of that without compromising the story. I will say that I found the twist at the end incredibly satisfying and adored the way different gameplay mechanics tied into it. In any case, I'm excited for Bravely Second.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS - 160 hours



I know this is sort of cheating since it's a multiplayer game, but my general rule is that I've cleared the game once I see the credits. This isn't where I stopped with Smash's single player content though. I got all the modes down on the hardest difficulties including every event. Now that my justification is out of the way, I really like Smash 4. At times I find myself getting angry at how the game favors more defensive play styles, which I still think is true, but it doesn't cripple the game like Brawl. Overall, I think it's a great fighting game and an excellent homage to Nintendo and gaming icons. The soundtrack produced by the entire Japanese video game music industry will always be one of my favorite parts of Smash, and this one is no different.

Inazuma Eleven - 18 hours



This is one of those rare cases where I fail to adequately research what I'm buying. I'm going to preface this whole thing with how much I enjoy what Level-5 puts out. The company had been a favorite of mine because of games like Dark Cloud 2 and the Layton series. When I picked up Inazuma Eleven, it was on sale and had a Level-5 logo so I figured I would give it a shot since I'm a fan of soccer but not simulation type sports games. Inazuma Eleven is something I would have absolutely gone crazy over 15 years ago. It's got cheesy writing, heavy handed lessons about friendship, a story about how people are getting murdered over a junior high school soccer tournament, and super cool special moves involving fire and dragons. This is a game hand crafted for elementary school boys, and I feel like it succeeds at appealing to that audience. Unfortunately, this sort of falls into Dragon Ball Z territory for me, as something I appreciated when I was younger, but can't really enjoy today. I found myself being disappointed by the non-existant difficulty, mediocre Mitsuda soundtrack, and art style, all things I wouldn't care about as a kid.The gameplay largely consists of running to an area to talk to someone who will direct you to another area to talk to someone else. The game also has random battles, which is fine, given that the battle system is surprisingly enjoyable. While I can't say I particularly enjoyed this game, I didn't dislike it either thanks to the way soccer matches and battles operate, which don't get tedious due to the game's short length. It was a welcome break from the heavy RPGs I've been running recently, in any case.

Olli Olli - 2 hours



I heard a lot of good things about this game, but it didn't really click with me. All the move inputs felt overwhelming and it felt incredibly repetitive. I'm going to say I cleared it because I went through every level on the easiest setting, but didn't really feel the need to go any further.

Woah Dave! - 2 hours



Not exactly a game you can finish, but I did unlock hard mode for every level. I thought it was a super fun arcade game and will probably come back to it quite a bit.

Yumi's Odd Odyssey - 5 hours



I don't like puzzle platformers. I have never liked puzzle platformers and yet I keep buying them only to be reminded that I can't stand them. My only previous exposure to this game was watching the Game Center CX episode, which is more or less why I wanted to try this. I thought the physics were super weird and never really got a good grasp on how to manipulate the string to launch me in a direction I wanted to go. I pretty much stumbled through this game on pure luck.

Mighty Switch Force - 5 hours



Great platformer, quick pace, heavy reliance on reactions and learning from past mistakes. Level time goals allow some room for mistakes but not enough to where they become push overs. It's too bad the 16th level threw away everything that was fun about the game by taking control away from you.

Star Fox 64 3D - 2 hours



If there's one thing I can't really stand in games it's multiple endings. I rarely want to play through the same levels twice, and hiding content behind multiple playthroughs really annoys me. I knew what I was getting with this game, since it's Star Fox though. This continues a long standing trend of me not really clicking with Nintendo's heavy hitters on 64 (Zelda excluded). Perhaps it's because I've grown accustomed to immaculate pointer controls on the many rail shooters I played on Wii (and yes, I tried the gyro controls), or maybe it's because no rail shooter will ever be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Star Successor. Star Fox 64 isn't a bad game by any means though, and I enjoyed my short time with it.

Box Boy! - 4 hours



Fun, light puzzler. Never really gets difficult until the bonus worlds. They were able to really stretch the box multiplication mechanics, and I loved that each world introduced a new obstacle or strategy that you had to master to make it through. Music was pretty good. The biggest surprise in this game was the story, which sort of sneaks up on you, and ends on an incredibly somber note.

Splatoon - 29 hours



I finally got around to clearing the single player content, and they went above and beyond compared to other multiplayer shooters. Everything about it was excellently designed from the "world map" to the boss fights. The meat of the game is multiplayer, and I've been having a lot of fun with that, but I find myself having to put the game down when I get particularly terrible teammates. I'll probably throw more time into this game, especially once the August update rolls out.

Super Hexagon - 3 hours



I decided I wanted to really explore mobile games since I had never given them a chance before. Super Hexagon is the type of game that goes from something to kill time to an obsession that actively impedes your life. I cleared the first three modes and decided that my body was at its limit. I really enjoyed pretty much everything about this except I found some of the music incredibly obnoxious and often played on silent.

Monument Valley - 3 hours



I'm ripping the above image from Jiggle's post later in the thread, so thanks Jiggles. Monument Valley is stunning. The aesthetic, the atmtosphere, the story, and music are all great and come together for a really cohesive experience. Unfortunately, the actual game part is lacking. I was expecting a puzzle game but I didn't really find any puzzles until the end, and even then they were simple. It was a pretty disappointing experience over all.

Nier - 53 hours



So this wasn't what I was expecting. I played this because I loved the soundtrack. That's the only thing that pushed me to play a game in any way, shape or form related to Drakengard, a game with absolutely no redeeming qualities except for the twisted story. Nier is a bittersweet game from beginning to end. It makes it so natural to care for your friends and family, yet at the same time come to resent them and yourself. I can't say much of what I want without spoiling or writing paragraphs, so I'll just leave it at this vague statement: I've never seen a game do that before. Can't wait for Nier 2.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - 22 hours



Like many, I'm preparing for MGSV by running through all the mainline games. This is new ground for me though as previously I've only beaten MG, MG2, MGS1, and MGS2. I felt like the sneaking in this one was a little more difficult to accomplish. There were some rooms where I just gave up and knocked everyone out. The game brought the typical Metal Gear insanity I've come to expect and love. Great title overall, not sure I'd agree that it's the best in the series, but it's certainly up there.

Her Story - 2 hours



I played this with a friend that doesn't typically play games but is super into murder mysteries. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting, even though the game had been described to me before. I don't think I was as into it as some people, for the same reason I'm not huge on visual novels, but I definitely enjoyed the ride. The game creates a phenomenal atmosphere and I left it creeped out as I imagine was the intention.

The Fall - 3 hours



So I vaguely remember this game because I listened to the Bombcast GotY stuff and they spoiled it, which was fine with me since I had never heard of the game, let alone had any intention of playing it. I don't feel like this impacted the game for me since they were hinting pretty heavily about the moment that got ruined for me from the jump. I really enjoyed the voice acting and the characters. The point and click style gameplay was adapted well for controllers and the combat, while simple, was also satisfying due to headshots working similarly to Binary Domain. I will say that some of the back tracking, and trial and error style puzzles got tedious even in a three hours game. The story kept me engaged, and I'm excited to play the next entry.

Bayonetta - 14 hours



I can be confident in stating that this is the best character action game I've ever played. The game hits the ground running and never slows down. Even though the action is perpetually ramping up, the game does a good job of easing you into the controls and revealing its depth. The loading screen in general being a training room of sorts was a nice touch. Overall, I enjoyed the goofy tone, even if it did get bizarre at times. There are a couple of things I disliked however, namely the vehicle sections and the one hit kills, both in boss fights and in cut scene QTEs.

Beaten:
1: inFamous First Light: Jan 7-Jan 10
Fun game, platinum'd it, fitting since my first and only platinum is inFamous Second Son.

2: Call of Duty Advanced Warfare: Dec 31(2014)-Jan 15
Much better than Ghosts.

3: Zelda OoT3D(RTTP): Jan 13-Jan 27
Decided to replay it in anticipation of Majora 3D, still love this game.

4: Injustice: Dec 3(2014)-Jan 19
It was okay, MK9's story mode was more fun though.

5: Shadow Warrior: Jan 24-Feb 4
I was surprised at how much I liked this game, I love the gameplay, the story, the characters, the writing and the art direction.

6: Zelda MM3D: Feb 18-24
This was the first time I played through Majora's Mask, I had seen an LP and knew a lot about it, but this was the first time playing it myself and it did not disappoint. This is definitely one of the absolute best Zelda games.

7: DragonBall Xenoverse: Mar 2-5
The most fun I've had playing a DragonBall game in a long time, I still prefer Raging Blast 2's combat, but the whole experience here puts this far above that game. It was also nice to get a game in a similar style to Destiny that I actually like after being completely disappointed by that game. I'm going to be playing Xenoverse for a long time and I am extremely excited for the DLC and the inevitable sequel.

8:Far Cry 4: Nov 19(2014)-Mar 15
I really like Far Cry 3 but this game just didn't grab me because when I finished Far Cry 3 I just felt like I was done with it and this just felt like more of the same. The story, world and characters where a lot more interesting, but the map and missions weren't very fun.

9:New Super Mario Bros 2: Feb 6-Mar 16
The game is a competent Mario platformer, not bad but certainly not great. I'd take New Super Mario Bros U over this any day.

10ead Nation: Mar 24-25
It was a fun little co-op game to play with my friend, but damn was the plot and ending stupid.

11:Final Fantasy Type-0HD: Mar 19-28
This is the most fun I've had with a new*(to America) Final Fantasy in a LONG time. It was a great game, but now I have to do new game+ to get extra story details to understand what the fuck actually happened in the last chapter...

12:Bayonetta 2: Dec 27(2014)-April 4
As always Platinum made an amazing game, it was every bit as fun as the first game. I hope Nintendo keeps the franchise around.

13:Counter Spy: April 4
Was a fun game for one run though, I don't see myself playing it again though.

14:Surgeon Sim: Mar 20-April 5
I payed under a dollar for the game and definitely got my money's worth out of it. I will probably come back to this one when I need a laugh.

15:Bloodborne: Mar 28-April 7
Holy shit, what a game. This was the first "Souls" game I bought and the first I beat (I rented Dark 1 but never beat it). I am very pleased, practically everything about this game is amazing. Time to jump right into New Game +!

16:Uncharted Golden Abyss: 2014-April 16
A totally passable game, definitely nowhere near as good as Naughty Dog's games. Most of the game dragged on pretty bad.

17:Uncharted Drake's Fortune: April 16-April 20
It was pretty good, the shooting could have been tighter, a lot of the combat sections were too long without a checkpoint and the last level was fucking horrible, but other than that it was a pretty fun ride.

Playing:
Pier Solar: Dec 19(2014)
999 : Jan 8
Super Smash Bros Wii U: Jan 10
GTAV(PS4): Dec 25(2014)
Hyrule Warriors: Sep 26(2014)
Fire Emblem Awakening(RTTP): Feb 1
Persona 4
Super Mario Land 2: April 4
Sonic Generations(RTTP): April 17

Jame Retief said:

Reserving my space.

Whether I achieve the goal or not, at least I can push myself to clear some backlog. Let's get some quick ones out of the way...

Game 1: Playing now: Puzzle Quest-Challenge of the Warlords

Click to expand...

Fantastic game. Never finished it though. However I think you're underestimating its length; I wouldnt call a 40+ hour game quick.

Ging to give this a shot. Going to be here duur to my jrpg backlog, unless i also pack in a lot of short games.

Reserved - why the hell not?

Might as well start Super Mario 3D World and a re-run of Galaxy to get my self started, boy this will be interesting.

I'm up for measuring another trip around the sun with completed video games.

1. Saints Row: The Third (PC) - 40ish hours
Saints Row: The Third taught me that if you wrestle enough wrestlers you will eventually develop immunities to everything, including bullets and fire.

2. HexCells (PC) - 4 hours
A logic puzzle that's like a hex-based fusion of picross and minesweeper, only you don't draw pictures like picross, and you don't get fucked in the end like minesweeper. An excellent series of games.

3. Crypt of the Necrodancer (PC) - Currently up to 98 hours
I threw this on the pile in after the final level and boss were added early in the year. It's a ridiculously fun, highly replayable game - an awesome idea in a rhythm-based classic rogue-like, fueled by an excellent Danny Baranowsky soundtrack. I don't see myself stopping cold on it at any point. Definitely one of this year's (and last year's) best.

4. Hook (PC) - 1 hr
A simple, relaxing puzzler. There's not much reason to go back and play it again, but I enjoyed working my way through it.

5. Escape Goat (PC) - 3 hours
Escape Goat is one of the better action puzzle games I've played, charming and addictive in that Portal way, where you feel like a ninja-wizard when you finally work your way through a sequence of initially boggling obstacles. And you're a goat. You can headbutt stuff. It's the better goat simulator.

6. Rocket Knight (PC) - 3 hours
A solid, slightly modernized revisit of the classic Genesis title. No spectacular new additions, but better than I expected for a small digital-only thing from modern Konami based on an old thing from '90s kickass Konami.

7. Savant: Ascent (PC) - 3 hours
I'm not much of a Savant fan or even a dubstep fan, but this arcade-style score shooter based on Savant's ridiculous dubstep persona is pretty gosh darned fantastic. Compact, simple, and extraordinarily well put together for the asking price.

8. Mutant Alien Assault (PC) - 3 hours
A Flash single-screen arcade platformer/shooter inspired by Vlambeer's Super Crate Box, the basis for Super Mutant Alien Assault on Steam. I had a ton of fun with it, and ended up playing until I'd unlocked everything at all the difficulty levels and sworn a whole lot.

9. Viktor (PC) - 3 hours
Hey, come here for a minute. Do you remember Abuse? Stop telling me about your problems, I'm talking about the game by Crack dot Com in the 90s, for your MS-DOS PC! Viktor is like that, only as if it were written by Chris Metzen. But it's good! Good enough I'm planning to replay it eventually to hunt down all the hidden items and such.

10. Relic Hunters Zero (PC) - 5 hours
Relic Hunters Zero is a free game on Steam. I don't know why it's free - there aren't any free-to-play hooks and it's better than most of the similar isometric shooter-type games on Steam - but I'm thankful they gave this little gem away. It has a bunch of replayablility with the items and characters to unlock and the recently added Endless mode, and they've continued to support it with tweaks, fixes, and holiday events. It's rad.

11. Final Fight: Double Impact (360) - 2 hours
Possibly the best home version of Capcom's classic brawler. When you're the mayor, sometimes you can only trust yourself to do the job right. And that job is to piledrive every city scumbag into their own filth until they learn that winners don't kidnap the mayor's daughter.

12. Final Fight 2 (SNES) - 3 hours
Why only piledrive scumbags in your own city? In your own country? Don't fuck with the mayor of Metro City!

13. Trine (PC) - 6 hours
It's the threesome you can talk about on Neogaf.

14. Luxor Evolved (PC) - 3 hours
Popcap has their frog and that's cool. MumboJumbo has an Egyptian mythology-themed electric laser rave with a littany of additions that give the genre a punch I never knew it needed. I actually really dig Zuma, but Luxor Evolved is the new standard for this kind of game as far as I'm concerned. It did for Puzz Loop what Geometry Wars did for the twin stick shooter. I play it casually but I've tacked on another 6 hours since I "finished" it. It's awesome.

15. The Red Star (PS2) - 6 hours
This is probably what Konami would've eventually turned Contra into if they actually cared about improving the series. It's a brilliant fusion of the run-and-gun shooter and brawler genres, and deserves way more recognition than it's receieved. Thank you, XS Games, for attempting to rescue it from obscurity after Acclaim imploded. Truly an awesome game.

16. Hero of the Kingdom (PC) - 6 hours
It's a hidden object game hidden in an adventure game, or vice-versa. Surprisingly good, and I'm looking forward to playing through the sequel sometime next year.

17. Abyss Odyssey (PC) - 7 hours
Even with the fantastic setting, artwork, character design, and music, I can see why people are down on Abyss Odyssey - it's awkward to play, like some kind of side-scrolling dungeon adventure crammed into a fighting game engine. You know, sort of like the Smash Bros. adventure modes. Hey.. this game plays just like Smash Bros.! Once that clicked with me everything got easier. It's a fun game with a learning curve - nearly every enemy is a playable character with a full moveset, there's much nuance to the combat, and the levels are randomly generated each playthrough. It's a game I see myself going back to a lot, and I only count it as "finished" because I defeated all the bosses at least once.

18. Unmechanical (PC) - 2.5 hours
Cute robot explores interesting mechanical environment and solves clever physics puzzles without any filler or misplaced exposition. Unmechanical was a pretty great time, and one that I'll certainly return to at some point to play through the extended edition content.

19. Super Mario Bros. (NES) - 4 hours
Super Mario Bros. is an old game with some old game problems, but it can still cut a rug better than most of those arrogant young'uns. With the exception of some aggravating stuff in the final few levels it was a real pleasure to play through again.

20. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (PC) - 13 hours
Even Uplay couldn't stop Rex Power Colt from saving the year 1997 from Orochi Sgt. Slaughter, or something. I don't know. I killed a lot of masked dudes with laser arrows while Michael Biehn had way too much fun saying dumb action-guy things. It was good fun. Power Glove has my blessing to make all the video game soundtracks.

21. Ys I (PC) - 9 hours
The classic Falcom action RPG I'd always wanted to play through. I started with this from the Chronicle+ collection instead of Ys Origins as I thought it'd be difficult toplay them in story order with the more dated gameplay here. I think I would've been alright though - despite being somewhat old and clunky, there wasn't that much grinding required, nor were there many instances of getting lost in overly maze-like labyrinth design. Definitely a good game, even now.

22. Iron Fisticle (PC) - 4 hours
It's Smash TV, only instead of fighting hoards of coked-up prisoners for money and fame you're fighting the undead for the return of your kingdom's precious supply of vegetables. Good lunchbreak fun.

23. Day of the Tentacle (PC) - 6 hours
Still one of my favorite adventure games, long overdue for a replay. It was a weird trip back through the game - hazy memories of how many of the puzzles were solved worked against me in an unexpected way, adding extra confusion to the game's time travelling structure with the game set in the same environment at different points in history. It was like a bonus twist that you can probably only experience either by getting older or getting really high.

24. Space Quest 1 VGA (PC) - 3 hours
It definitely doesn't hold up as well as Day of the Tentacle, but I still had a good time revisiting one of the first adventure games I'd ever played. I'd forgotten how Lucasarts and Sierra were the yin and yang of adventure game design in the 90s. Lucasarts had your back. Sierra set you on fire, shot you, doused you in acid, fed you to various things with sharp teeth, and then stabbed you in the back.

25. Ys II (PC) - 9 hours
I appreciate the gameplay improvements to Ys II (better "bump" combat system, a new magic system), but the second half of the game takes place entirely in Solomon's Shrine, possibly the most convoluted maze I've ever experienced in a video game. I ended up putting it down for a while as a result of that place. I still enjoyed it quite a bit, but it felt much more dated and tedious to me than the first despite being slightly newer and improved. Definitely bring a map!

26. Loom (PC) - 4 hours
Short and sweet, it's written like the dark first third of a fantasy storybook. I'm glad I finally played through it, but it's always a little gloomy to start a story that'll never be finished.

27. Monster Tale (DS) - 11 hours
A cute Metroidvania game, its unique feature being a monster companion that you feed and train to evolve into different forms with new combat skills and helper abilities. By the end I was pretty tired of it. I don't mind backtracking in this sort of game, but the level design here forces the player to run back through nearly the entire explored world each time a new ability is found, making the trip that much more tedious each time.

28. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (PC) - 7 hours
Hey Jim Cummings, why'd you just give me your shiny spear and then peace out for the rest of the adventure? Fucking lazy asshole. It's a really nice spear, though.

29. Betrayer (PC) - 9 hours
Colonial-time Virgina is really depressing. Everyone's shitty to one another, and everyone's dead. In this game you use your ghost whispering superpower to remind the comically forgetful departed about what kind of fucked up racist, sexist, murderous scumbags they were in life so they shut up and go away. And to kill spectral conquistadors with old-timey sacks of high explosive.

Betrayer isn't actually a bad game - it's loaded with eerie, melancholy atmosphere and all sorts of well-written story contextually told in found letters and journals, and dialogue with the spooky ghosts. It's just a little over-long and repetitive, and very nearly every character you meet in the game is an unforgivable (formerly) human monster so it's a little exhausting to get through.

30. Bastion (PC) - 11 hours
Beautiful and engaging in sight, sound, writing, and gameplay. Bastion's narrator is definitely one of my enduring favourite game characters. I'll be back for new game+.

31. Demon's Crest (SNES) - 5 hours
One of the SNES generation's finest looking games, and the final game in the Gargoyle's Quest trilogy. It reminds me a lot of Mega Man X - solid platforming action, new abilities earned by defeating bosses and tracking down hidden secrets, and flamboyantly melodramatic villains. Definitely one of the good ones.

32. Tron: Evolution (360) - 6 hours
I love Tron, but this game felt like the developer was trying to incorprate elements of like five other games into the license and not really doing a great job with any of it. I think they had a good foundation, but maybe had to rush the game out the door and cut some corners.

33. Flame Over (PC) - 11 hours
Another one of those "finished" endlessly replayable games. Flame Over makes putting out the fires as exciting as starting the fires in most other games. Frantic and fun.

34. Tomb Raider Legend (PC) - 7 hours
It holds up better than I'd thought - I can see why this game revitalized the Tomb Raider brand back in 2006 after a littany of bad sequels. There's some quirkyness getting it to run on a modern PC - disable Data Execution Prevention and the "Next-gen content". Good enough that I want to dig back and play through Anniversary and Underworld, too.

35. Tron 2.0 (PC) - 15 hours
The better of all the Tron games, I think. Monolith did a good enough job recreating the computer-generated world of Tron that the cheesy storyline doesn't detract much from the overall experience. Great disc-based combat and tons of content, especially for an FPS.

36. Grow Home (PC) - 7 hours
One of the best games I've played in years. It's not a long adventure, but it's a lovingly crafted, lush little world to explore, dense with awe and fun. The whole game is pure joy, and I really hope Ubisoft's Reflections team sends B.U.D. on another adventure sometime.

37. Loot Hero DX (PC) - 3 hours
The only thing that separates Loot Hero from your average clicker game is that it requires you to move your character back and forth the whole time while you "play" it. It took me all year to to get through it as something on the side while doing other non-interactive things, and I still feel guilty and stupid about wasting that portion of my life on it. But hey, I made a little bit of money on the on the cards. That was probably worthwhile. Right?

38. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PC) - 7 hours
A classic reboot of a classic game that I remembered enjoying immensely when it was first released. Well-made for 2003, but still not an easy game to revisit - like many third-person titles of its era, the camera is the secret main villain. The platforming is still a lot of fun most of the time, and there's a charm to the game that survives a replay even today.

39. Mutant Mudds Deluxe (PC) - 9 hours
I didn't think I was going to like this one as much as I did. It's a basic platformer, with a few simple powers - you can shoot, hover for a short period of time, and jump between different level planes at predetermined spots. Lots of hidden things to find and challenges to surmount without dipping too far into the sadistic difficulty of many modern indie platformers.

40. Trace Memory (DS) - 6 hours
Cing is gone, and I wish they weren't. Trace Memory is a fun adventure game with a few really likeable characters, biting tragedy, some awkward dialogue, and puzzles that range from clever to bizarre. I'm glad I finally played through it.

41. Shantae: Risky's Revenge (PC) - 6 hours
Great Wayforward animation, but a lazy port with some performance issues and terrible UI design. It felt much smaller and less interesting than many other games in the genre, while taking longer to complete. I'm still looking forward to playing the sequel sometime.

42. Teslagrad (PC) - 3 hours
The draw of this game was the beautiful hand-drawn art and the engaging electrical and magnetic puzzles. It didn't disappoint - outside of a little bit of physics-based frustration and punishing boss battles, a really good game.

43. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (PC) - 5 hours
A unique take on the Metroidvania genre, putting you in an alien spacecraft and tasking you with reverting your sun from the corrupted murder-planet it's become before it wipes out your home. Full of cool art and design, I played through it in just a couple of sittings.

44. Spec Ops: The Line (PC) - 5 hours
Heart of Darkness with a Dubai twist. A decent cover-shooter that inspired some thought after it ended. And Nolan North has some range!

45. Xeodrifter (PC) - 3 hours
A cool, short metroidvania from the people who made Mutant Mudds (so you can jump between planes in the levels, naturally). Fun abilities, configurable weapons, and I like the "overworld" concept of the levels being separate nearby planets that you travel to with your damaged spacecraft. Feelings were felt.

46. Thomas Was Alone (PC) - 2 hours
Short and quite charming. I felt empathy for rectangles with proper English names. That narrator did some quality narrating.

47. The Fall (PC) - 3 hours
Aside from a little bit of stiffness to the controls, this is an awesome start to a sci-fi adventure trilogy that I'm hoping will maintain this level of quality throughout. Loved it.

48. Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition (PC) - 8 hours
When you're an undead luchador it probably does make a lot of sense to take fighting lessons from a giant chicken. Lucha Libre! Juggling skeletons with Guacamelee's fighting game-inspired combat system never got boring. And the world, art, music, abilities, everything else in the game, right up there with Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night for me. I'll be very happy if that perported sequel comes to be.

49. The Stanley Parable (PC) - 2 hours
I thought I was messing with you, but it was you who was messing with me! All this time! I'm living a lie while living a lie! While there wasn't a great deal of game to play, I had a good time feeling my way through the The Stanley Parable's boundaries. All these games with narration, and they all seem to be better as a result.

50. Orcs & Elves (DS) - 6 hours
A more simpler turn-based dungeon crawl than others in the genre, but a lot of fun. I wish more of these games were ported at the time; the Orcs & Elves series along with Doom RPG, Wolfenstein RPG, and Doom 2 RPG were released by Katherine Anna Kang's (John Carmack's wife's) company Fountainhead for Java-based mobile phones, and are now pretty much lost as pre-smartphone games.

51. Stick It To The Man! (PC) - 4 hours
It's an adventure game with: Cool art. Weird humour. Weirder sticker-based puzzles. Short yet super-annoying stealth sections. Government conspiracy. Aliens. It was like a bunch of Swedes were brought together by and made a game based on their shared love of Psychonauts and MTV's 1994 animated series The Head. I liked it.

52. Wrack (PC) - 5 hours
Wrack was more fun as an idea than a game, I think. I live my life believing that someone can still make a fun new run-and-gun shooter of the classic Doom and Quake style, but Wrack is not quite it. Bobby Prince brought the music though, and that was pretty cool. It was meant to be the first episode of a multi-episode game, though, so there might be better things to come.

53. Not A Hero (PC) - 6 hours
A little inconsistent, but an incredibly fun side-scrolling cover shooter with intense political campaigning, offically sanctioned gang violence, absurd amounts of knife crime, and ninjas, who are thee fucking worst. Good times.

54. Nuclear Throne (PC) - 187 hours (and counting)
airhorn.wav

I put nearly 200 hours into Nuclear Throne this year without realizing it. See you next year!

Reserved.

I really should go through my backlog.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. LYNE - 14Hrs (Feb 16th)
Linking shapes with lines, I didn't expect so many puzzles. Some of them seem the same except with a different orientation. It can feel a bit repetitive so it's nice to play in your downtime or when you are relaxing (in my opinion at least).

2. Pixel Puzzles: Japan - 16Hrs (Mar 8th)
An okay puzzle game. Picking up the pieces from the water is somewhat glitchy since sometimes it picks up the piece below the one you want. Wish the picture you piece together was of better quality since some are a bit blurry.

3. The Silent Age - 5Hrs (Jun 3rd)
Time travel point-and-click game. It has pretty nice pacing since the puzzles are well integrated with the progression of the story. It's fairy short, but I enjoyed the time I had with it.

4. Blackwell Convergence - 7Hrs (Jun 29th)
Another great entry to the point-and-click Blackwell game series. Things took more of a spiritual turn than usual.

5. Spooky Cats - 1Hr (Jul 25th)
Simple platforming game, short and easy. The grammar is pretty bad in the game, lol.

6. Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition - 143Hrs (Aug 26th)
Praise the sun! Things aren't too difficult once you figure out how to do it. I still suck at backstabbing though.

7. Puzzler World - 61Hrs (Aug 26th)
Collections of various puzzles such as sudoku, wordsearch, and crossword. About 14 different kinds of puzzles. Another nice game to play in my leisure.

8. Party Hard - 14Hrs (Sept 2nd)
The point is to murder everybody and not get busted. I really enjoyed this one despite some repetitiveness. Wish there were more levels.

9. Letter Quest: Grimm's Journey - 14Hrs (Sept 3rd)
The power of words! Spell words, some with certain restrictions, to fight enemies and progress through the levels. Each level has challenges like time trials and higher difficulties. Enjoyed trying to spell randomly and end up learning new words.

10. Blackwell Deception - 7Hrs (Sept 5th)
A great combination of previous mechanics in the other Blackwell games. Some things are revealed in this entry and I can't wait to learn more in the next one.

11. Lucius - 65Hrs (Sept 8th)
MURDER! \o/

12. Blackwell Epiphany - 13Hrs (Sept 13th)
The end to a great point-and-click series. Totally recommended!

13. Her Story - 4Hrs (Sept 13th)
Trying to piece together what happened from a bunch of video clips was quite a pleasant experience despite the confusion.

14. Lume - 0.9Hrs (Sept 14th)
Short puzzle point-and-click game and a prequel to Lumino City. You have to figure out how to get power back to your grandpa's house based on some of the clues he left you. The puzzles were pretty simple and easy to solve. Wish transitions between different areas was faster.

15. Strata - 16Hrs (Sept 19th)
Nice puzzle game. Feels sort of like a cross between LYNE and KAMI.

16. Lumino City - 4Hrs (Sept 19th)
Very nice improvement over Lume. This time, you journey across the city trying to find your grandpa. I enjoyed the variety of puzzles encountered in the game. The power of lemons!

17. The Last Door - Collector's Edition - 4Hrs (Sept 26th)
Intriguing horror point-and-click game where you investigate Victorian England as Jeremiah Devitt to uncover dark secrets. Very much enjoy the adventure in the game thus far. Waiting for Season 2 to release on Steam.

18. The Swapper - 5Hrs (Sept 26th)
I enjoyed the narrative of the game. As well, the puzzle difficulty was just right.

19. Hexcells - 2Hrs (Sept 26th)
Hexagonal minesweeper!

20. Hexcells Plus - 8Hrs (Sept 27th)
Difficulty was ramped up more. I like the new mechanics added in.

21. Finding Teddy - 3Hrs (Sept 27th)
Short and sweet point-and-click game. Lots of spiders. There's some extra stuff in NG+ as well.

22. McPixel - 7Hrs (Oct 10th)
One of the most random games I've played. Objective is to figure out how to stop the bomb from exploding. The solutions may be or may not be obvious.

23. Hexcells Infinite - 10Hrs (Oct 10th)
Played it all day. I went through this one a bit faster than Hexcells Plus since there weren't really any new mechanics introduced and Plus prepared me for most of the puzzles. The random puzzle generator is a nice addition to feed your Hexcell needs.

24. Fortix - 5Hrs (Oct 11th)
A Qix type of game where you have to take over pieces of land taken by dragons. Going for the Impossible mode achievement was a bit of a pain. A bit of luck with the final boss fight with that.

25. Two Digits - 5Hrs (Oct 12th)
A game where you are given a set of numbers and colour them in such a way that the two colours are equal to each other. A simple and enjoyable game.

26. Life is Strange (Season 1) - 23Hrs (Oct 23th)
Each episode gets better and better. The choices you make do make some difference in the progression of the game. Ending was okay for me. Have high hopes for the next season if any.

27. Domestic Dog Simulator - 4Hrs (Oct 31st)
No purpose in the game other than to run around and act like a dog. There are some minigames and stuff to collect. Other than that, pee on everything! Bark bark bark!

28. Tomodachi Life (3DS) - A lot (Nov 10th)
I arrived at the credits so I assumed I finish the game. I might return to collect all the items available though. This game was great random fun!

29. The Bridge - 7Hrs (Nov 22nd)
Another puzzle game. Interesting rotation mechanic. I have no idea what's going on in the story.

30. Metal Dead - 4Hrs (Nov 24th)
Steam didn't seem to long some of the hours I've played. Anyways, interesting point and click adventure where you play as a metalhead in a zombie apocalypse. Moving through areas isn't really smooth as you can see each frame. Other than that, puzzles weren't too bad and the game is kind of funny.

31. 4PM - 0.7Hrs (Nov 28th)
A short narrative game. There's too much blur and bloom so I could hardly see what's going on. Maybe it was the style. but it made it a pain to play.

32. Message Quest - 2Hrs (Nov 28th)
Nice point and click adventure. The puzzles were pretty simple as well. I liked the art and music in the game.

33. Hook - 1Hr (Nov 28th)
Simple and relaxing puzzle game where you untangle hooks.

34. Labyrinthine Dreams - 2Hrs (Nov 28th)
A sort of feelsy puzzle game. Didn't expect it to be one at first so I was pleasantly surprised.

35. 199X - 3Hrs (Nov 29th)
An interesting and sort of pretentious game. Breaks a lot of fourth walls and there some drama. Wish movement was a bit faster.

36. Tengami - 2Hrs (Nov 29th)
Nice relaxing puzzle game with beautiful visuals and music. Puzzles were not too difficult except maybe for figuring out what to do for one near the end.

37. You Are Not A Banana - 2Hrs (Nov 29th)
A sort of experimental game. Took a bit to figure some sections out, but it's relatively short.

38. Year Walk - 2Hrs (Dec 4th)
Pretty intriguing horror game. Fairly short. I like the art style of the game as well as the atmosphere.

39. Thomas Was Alone - 4Hrs (Dec 5th)
Great puzzle game in that it wasn't too easy or too difficult. The narrative was nice as well.

40. 6180 the moon - 2Hrs (Dec 6th)
Another nice little puzzle game. The top and bottom are continuous so that makes for an interesting platforming mechanic.

41. Mirrored - Chapter 1 - 2Hrs (Dec 6th)
Short puzzle game set within a room where you have to find something your brother left behind. I enjoyed the style of the game and the puzzles.

42. Ichi - 7Hrs (Dec 12th)
Simple puzzle game were you use shapes and other mechanics to collect tokens by bouncing around a ball. There is also a level editor where you can make your own levels. I spent more time on this than I should. XD

43. The Shivah - 2Hrs (Dec 26th)
Another great game from WadjetEye. Learned a bunch of new terms from the game. XD

All right, I'm going to try this on this year, I missed last year, and this sounds like a good tracing method for all my backlog.
-Reserved, will edit later with all my games-

This post is just gonna be keeping track of the games. At the end, I'll link back here!

Tried this last year. After I abandoned it and seriously built my backlog, I want to take this on as a way to review each game I play, and think a bit more on what I play. Count me in on here. Gonna do it this year, for sure. Post reserved.

1. Dragon Age: Inquisition (PC) - 65 hours COMPLETED
Loved this game, although I don't think I could ever do a run to get everything in the game. Since I'm in college, I probably made a small mistake buying this when most of my schedule includes a fair amount of check marking lists in my. Luckily, I polished this off over winter break, although I rushed through the final act of the game in the interest of finally being able to play another game. The most time I put into a game this year, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Had to put on some records at certain points while doing side quests and exploring at certain points. Easily have 3 areas left to fully explore, but I'm done. Can't do any more now that winter term is about to begin.

2. Monument Valley (iOS) - 1 hr, 30 min~ COMPLETED
A great iOS experience. I can't usually can't into touch screen games, but I couldn't ignore the hype surrounding this after I got an iPad Air for Christmas. A great two-ish hours of entertainment for the 3 dollars I paid. Easily finished it in a few sittings, and was left with a smile on my face. Highly recommended.

3. A Story About My Uncle (PC)- 2 Hours COMPLETED
I'm not sure what the story about this game is, but WOW what a cool little game. I'm a huge fan of Bionic Commando, and the grappling hook gameplay that you use to get around in those games. This game transfers that to a first person space, and throws in some of the coolest environments I've ever seen in a game from such a small studio. There is some stuff that seems off. The VO is pretty bad, and almost monotone at times, to the point where I was taken out of the story on occasion while analyzing it. It sounds like this wasn't originally written in English, and they tried to have people who didn't speak English do the voice acting. Very similar to how Heavy Rain sounds. But the gameplay is beyond solid, and I loved traversing the environments.

4. FRAMED (iOS) - 1 hour COMPLETED
This is a cool little game, although I'm not sure it quite deserves the praise that everyone has been throwing at it. I liked my time with it, but at the end of the hour it took to beat it, I was getting a little tired of the one gameplay mechanic and was upset I couldn't speed up video playback to skip the 30 second clips when I was trying to just switch one panel. I suppose if I was good enough it wouldn't be an issue, but I still had to sit around waiting a good portion of the second half of the game. Also, maybe I wasn't paying attention enough, but the story was very vague and I had no clue what was happening other than the beginning of the game.

5. Grim Fandango (PS4) - 10 hours COMPLETED
This was one that threw me for a loop. I went in with the intention to not use a guide for ANYTHING throughout my experience, and was broken after spending about 6 hours in the opening chapter. There are some extremely obtuse puzzles here. I only used a guide on two specific puzzles (ones that had relevant hints at the beginning of the entire game), and felt like I got my money's worth. This was an awesome experience. I loved every minute, and I wish more developers would put this much time and energy into creating such an awesome world with really great characters inhabiting it. However, some of the puzzles are downright crazy, which drove me away at first from really seeing this through to the end.

6. Resident Evil: REmake (PS4) - 15 hours COMPLETED 3 TIMES
What a phenomenal game. This was one that I was legitimately scared of when I first tried to play it a few years ago. Something about not being able to see what was in front of me terrified me on my first try. The initial experience of not really "getting" where stuff is in the mansion was also really disorienting. However, after finally grasping how to start the game properly, I was off. I beat this game 3 times in a week, getting my final run score under 3 hours with Jill. Still need to complete it with Chris and do the same, but I'm content to say I'm putting this down for a while, with a desire to come back in a few weeks.

7. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 20 hours COMPLETED
Completed this with 60 stars in an unusual fashion, which is why it took 20 hours. I played through this entire game with my girlfriend. The rule was: both players could only use one half of the wiimote set: one person on nunchuck, one person on the actual wiimote. You can imagine, this took some getting used to. In the end though, I don't think I've ever been more challenged by a Mario game, and I actually really enjoyed turning SMG into a co-op experience. Actually a really fun way to play through the game.

8. Tales from the Borderlands Ep. 1 - 2 hours COMPLETED
This was a surprisingly solid episode of gaming! I really don't like the Borderlands universe at times in the way the series currently does it, but this game took it and turned it into a really fun environment for an adventure story to happen. Humor falls flat at times, but overall I really enjoyed the story.

9. Hotline Miami - 3 hours COMPLETED
Solid game. Loved the presentation, though the violence was even a bit much for me at times. This led directly to....

10. Hotline Miami 2 - 12 hours COMPLETED
Not as good as HM1, but I appreciated that it went out and tried to do something different. At times, the game was exhausting, and the story seemed to be dark just for the sake of being dark, rather than tying it to a specific point like HM1 did with players enjoying violence in games. Once that sort of commentary got thrown out, I was a bit disconnected. Solid 8/10 game though! Played on PS Vita.

11. Suikoden - 22 hours COMPLETED
Kind of a bare-bones JRPG, but I loved my time with it. Quick little game that I beat in a week, but I enjoyed the music and the battle system (though it was easily cheeseable and I was super OP by the end of the game). Suikoden II looks to be better, but I ended up having to sell my PS Vita before I could complete that.

12. Resident Evil 2 - 10 hours COMPLETED
Just as good as the first, if not better. I loved everything about this game.

13. Bloodborne - 30 hours COMPLETED
Beat this in a week-long spree, putting 18 hours in in the first two days. Definitely the best game I've played so far this year.

14. DJ MAX Technika Tune - 15 hours COMPLETED
Solid rhythm game! I think the Vita's screen is just a tad small for my fingers, so I couldn't get to the level I wanted to be at, even though I know that I was competent enough to play the game at the highest level possible. The curse of having huge hands.

15. Ori and the Blind Forest - 8 hours COMPLETED
This game was a real treat. Played through it with my girlfriend, who was really captivated by its art style. I loved just about everything about it, and plan to do another 100% run in the next year or so. One of my favorite indies of all time. Also, best opening to a game I've seen for a while as well.

16. The Witcher 3 - 70 hours COMPLETED
GOD this was a LONG game. I skipped a great deal of sidequests after I hit 50 hours just because I was exhausted due to the game's pace. Every single important NPC has like a 6 hour quest attached to them. I would have loved that when I was younger, but I had to rush to the end of this one so I could get to other stuff. I loved the game, and the world is fantastic, but it was definitely not a game I should have tried to beat in a few weeks.

17. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - 6 hours COMPLETED
Solid FPS! I really enjoyed how quick this felt when compared to The New Order. Second half of the campaign definitely outweighs the first, but I think as a package this was worth the money.

18. D4 - 4 hours COMPLETED
Weird game. Love Swery, but I was looking forward to a bit more than what was presented here. I get that it's season 1 or whatever, but the ending here was too big of a cliffhanger to end on!

19. Life is Strange Ep. 1 - 2 hours COMPLETED
Great start to a series that I hope continues to be this awesome. Also, set in Portland, just a half hour from where I live! Certainly captures the Oregon spirit. Lip sync is kind of weird, but I can deal with it. Can't wait to see where this game goes.

20. Life is Strange Ep. 2 - 2 hours COMPLETED
Well, it definitely went places! No spoilers here, but this chapter had one of the most powerful "your choices matter" moments that I've ever seen in these Telltale-esque games. I couldn't believe how much those little choices ended up affecting the end of this chapter.

21. FFXIV: A Realm Reborn - 65 Hours, 2.0 completed!
WHEW this game has taken over my free time. I've loved everything here, and I think that Square really knows what they're doing now on this one. On to Heavensward after I get through the post-2.0 content!

22. Never Alone - 2 hours, COMPLETED
This was a fun co-op experience, but horribly buggy on PS4. I loved the traditional storytelling here, and I thought the little documentaries were well made and interesting, though I ended up skipping them half way through. Cool little indie game. I enjoyed my time with it.

23. Life is Strange Ep. 3 - 2 hours COMPLETED
Slow episode with an awesome ending. Not much to say here.

24. Life is Strange Ep. 4 - 3 hours COMPLETED
WOW. Pretty awesome episode that had a seriously excellent ending. I can't wait to see how this all wraps up.

25. Until Dawn - 8 hours COMPLETED
I messed up a ton of this game, but I still loved every second of it. Truly scary, and harkened back to the multi-character plot that engaged me so much in Heavy Rain, just without the David Cage. Excellent story, excellent performances. One of my favorite games so far this year.

26. Rocket League - ~20 hours. Playing it a ton, getting better.
This is an amazing multiplayer experience. I decided to include it since it's been a bit of a time sink the last month. Unlocked most of the stuff, and I'm on my way to the plat.

27. Cytus - ~40 hours DONE.
Best rhythm experience on iOS. Will continue to play it every day.

28. Metal Gear Solid V - 40 hours COMPLETED
About a month after finishing this game, I still don't know how to feel about it. No spoiling here, but the ending left me a little unsatisfied (which seems to be the common thread). I loved the experience though. Definitely unlike most everything before it, but it is still my least favorite Metal Gear game. That being said, it is the best playing title I've completed in a while.

29. Metal Gear Solid - 11 hours COMPLETED
Went back to the original after completing V, and it still holds up very well. This is the only Metal Gear Solid I haven't completed, until now. Loved it, but wish some stuff was better explained (like holding down X to run and shoot. I beat the whole game without knowing that).

30. You Must Build a Boat - 8 hours COMPLETED
Great little iOS game. Kept me company the last few weeks between classes and I eventually beat it.

31. Demon's Souls - 25 hours COMPLETED
I think this is probably my least favorite Souls game, but it was the last one I played to completion out of the four. Some design decisions made a pure melee run very frustrating (the trek up to boss 3-3 where you can't stun the enemies), but at the end of the day this game was awesome with the exception of a few little level issues. I did NOT enjoy 1-4. The walk to the boss was hit or miss, and I wanted to do pure melee, but ended up needing to use a bow for that section to bait enemies.

32. Guitar Hero Live - ~6 hours COMPLETED. Many more hours to come.
Reinvigorated my interest in plastic instrument games. Love the new guitar, and love the systems they've implemented here. Not being able to buy songs is definitely odd, but I also have 200 more songs that I can play at any time. Not super obsessed with FCing songs, so I'm okay with it. Will be playing this well into the winter season.

33. Destiny - 12 hours COMPLETED
This game was pretty good. Played through the campaign, thought it was a fun shooter. Far improved from the state it was in at release.

34. Destiny: The Taken King - ~4 hours COMPLETED
Still have to do the raid and strikes, but the main campaign was a huge step up from the main story. If they keep going in this type of direction, I'll stay on board with Destiny. Plenty of fun!

35. Undertale - ~8 hours COMPLETED (Neutral)
What a phenomenal, out-of-nowhere game. Loved every minute I spent in this aside from a few small quibbles (Hotland, ugh). Overall, it's an awesome experience of a game.

36. Horizon Chase - 10 hours COMPLETED
Awesome iOS game. Love the Outrun-esque style and it never dropped frames on my iPad Air. Beautiful game too!

37. Gang Beasts - 6 hours PRETTY MUCH COMPLETED
You can't really beat this game, but it's been a rotating part of our house's multiplayer gaming sessions. Excellent, broken fun.

38. Starwhal - 3 hours PRETTY MUCH COMPLETED
Again, one of our house's regular rotating games. Went to a party and exhausted all of the game's options. This is an extremely fun party game, though it's super shallow for people who are really into multiplayer games. For a few nights, it was a fun experience. Definitely ignited a lot of yelling out of drunk people.

39. Deemo - 8 hours COMPLETED
Kind of a weird iOS game that mimics piano playing, similar to Cytus (same devs, actually). I loved the music in this game, but thought the gameplay was styled just weirdly enough that it didn't really feel responsive. Other than that, it's a serviceable rhythm game, especially if you like piano!

40. Fallout 4 - 25 hours COMPLETED
Finished up the main story today. Um, I had some choice opinions about the ending, but the experience, overall, was pretty fun. Very similar to Fallout 3 rather than New Vegas, but I don't mind that much. First Bethesda game to actually have good combat. I loved the gunplay in this game! Solid experience. Played on PC, and didn't experience any crashes or bugs, which is nice.

41. Gone Home - 2 hours COMPLETED
Had a chance to give this game a quick playthrough for a paper in one of my J classes. Pretty cool little experience when you take all the design elements into account, and set story standards into place for many indie games to come. Ending is a really cheesy conclusion though, now that I'm used to this type of game.

42. Invisible INC. - 6 hours COMPLETED
While this is a game that's meant to be played multiple times, I just finished it on easy for the first time. Great little tactics game that reminded me a lot of the Hitman GO style of puzzles. You have a set list of abilities that you need to use to manipulate the environment. Really fun gameplay experience, though I'm not a huge roguelike player, so that aspect of it doesn't really grab me.

43. Her Story - 3 hours COMPLETED
Interesting, and well done for what it is. I don't quite get the full picture of the story and had to look things up to truly understand what's going on, but I guess the thrill of the game is that each player will draw their own conclusions. I would have loved a more concrete ending, but that's just me. The experience is excellent.

44. Lara Croft GO - 3 hours COMPLETED
This is an excellent iOS experience. I found the puzzles a little easy, but overall each one was extremely satisfying to think my way through while still feeling like a Tomb Raider game. Really, a great game no matter the device you're playing it on.

45. Bloodborne: The Old Hunters - 8 hours COMPLETED
Went into this around lvl 125 on NG+. It destroyed me! Excellent addition to Bloodborne, and further solidifies this as my game of the year, for sure.

46. Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, And The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist - 15 minutes COMPLETED
I loved The Stanley Parable, and this felt like it was in a similar vein. While it's short, it's worth the few minutes to play it only for its creative direction. I didn't expect the game to be about what it was actually about, and I enjoyed the short experience overall.

47. Assassin's Creed: Syndicate - ~20 hours COMPLETED
So, I can appreciate the setting and attempt to bring Assassin's Creed back to its roots. I loved the second title back when it came out, but have been suffering from fatigue over the last two years of Ubisoft games. The missions in Assassin's Creed never feel like something new, only mild extensions of what goes on in side missions. While I had fun playing it, the core gameplay here is mindnumbing and skill-less, which means I have absolutely nothing to master and nothing is at stake during gameplay. I felt like overall, this was a very boring title that I was slogging through towards the end. I enjoyed Black Flag, but this game really didn't do it for me. A shame, since I really, REALLY wanted to love it.

48. Downwell - 7 hours COMPLETED
This is an awesome game with tight controls, even when I played it on iOS. While it takes a ton of time to get used to the mechanics, I found myself loving this title and it's been keeping me entertained for half hour sessions here and there. Finally got to the end of the campaign for the first time, and I'm calling it good, though I'll keep it on my iPad for a while just to come back now and then.

49. GTA V - 35 hours COMPLETED
Finally got around to sitting down and finishing my playthrough of this that I started back in March. Stellar game, but I'm glad it came out when it did on PS3 before open world took over every genre. It's odd that this is a game that's already beginning to feel slightly dated in its design. Still love it though, and multiplayer on PC is great fun.



Now Playing: Tales from the Borderlands

Participating in this should be fun. I didn't keep track last year but I'd like to see how many games I can get through this year.
January

Game 1: Super Metroid - 10 Hours (1 January) [Wii U]
What better game to start off the year with than the supposed best game of all time? I'd never played Super Metroid before, though I did play Fusion/Zero Mission and enjoyed them. This game held up tremendously well and it's still great today.

Click to expand...

Game 2: Legend of Grimrock 2 - 15 Hours (4 January) [PC]
The original Legend of Grimrock was fantastic, and the sequel only improved the game. Great real time dungeon crawler with very intriguing dungeons and challenging puzzles. I also loved walking around in the open air for once, and the final boss was a major step up from the first. Awesome game.

Click to expand...

Game 3: Spyro 2: Ripto's Revenge - 8 hours (9 January) [PSV]
I always loved the original Spyro, but for some reason I never played the other two Spyro games when I was younger. After seeing the trilogy on sale for €4 I decided it was time to rectify that mistake, and I don't regret it. I had a ton of fun playing this game.

Click to expand...

Game 4: Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon - 12 hours (11 January) [PSV]
This might be my favorite Spyro game yet. It takes everything the first two games did right, and added a whole bunch of new content. I loved the new characters and mini-games, and the sheer amount of content in the game. It's just such a shame they never made any other Spyro games after the PS1 trilogy.

Click to expand...

Game 5: Crash Bandicoot 2 - 6 hours (13 January) [PSV]
Similar to Spyro I only ever played Crash Bandicoot 3 when I was young. I played Crash 1 last year and I have to say, Crash 2 is a major step up. The save system and bonus levels made Crash 1 quite a pain to play through, but Crash 2 fixed all that and made the game much more enjoyable.

Click to expand...

Game 6: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - 8 hours (19 January) [3DS]
A short but sweet game. Great music and cool bosses. Very enjoyable.

Click to expand...

Game 7: Volgarr the Viking - 8 hours (19 January) [PC]
I have mixed feelings about this game. It was fun and challenging, but I felt like a big part of the difficulty was trial and error. I was learning specific routes through the levels themselves rather than how to play the actual game. I did enjoy it but not enough to go for all the endings.

Click to expand...

Game 8: Chrono Trigger - 20 hours (27 January) [3DS]
Awesome game, I can certainly see why people love it so much. This game is great from start to finish, whereas most JRPGs drag on or have dull filler. The unique cast of characters and unique plot made the game very enjoyable, and the battle system was way ahead of its time.

Click to expand...

February

Game 9: Muramasa Rebirth - 40 Hours (3 February) [PSV]
It's rare for me to 100% games nowadays, but this game was just so awesome that I had to do everything. Great combat, music, artstyle and bosses. Awesome game.

Click to expand...

Game 10: God Hand - 10 Hours (5 February) [PS3]
Fantastic game. The combat in this game really is something else. This game is just pure fun. The difficulty system is really well done too, it was always challenging, but it was never flat out impossible thanks to the dynamic difficulty.

Click to expand...

Game 11: Sin and Punishment 2: Star Successor - 6 Hours (5 February) [Wii U]
I have absolutely no idea what's going on in the story of this game, all I know is that it's really fun. Great music too.

Click to expand...

Game 12: Ghost Trick - 10 Hours (6 February) [3DS]
Wow.

Click to expand...

Game 13: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner - Soul Hackers - 25 Hours (10 February) [3DS]
Great dungeon crawler, although it definitely shows its age. Still enjoyed it a lot. Being able to save everywhere made this game a lot more enjoyable. I'm not sure if I would have had the patience to get through this game otherwise.

Click to expand...

Game 14: Danganronpa 2 - 25 Hours (11 February) [PSV]
Awesome sequel to an already great game. The ending wasn't as good as the first, but the characters and trials were a lot better. Enjoyed it a lot.

Click to expand...

Game 15: Nine Persons, Nine Hours, Nine Doors - 20 hours (25 February) [3DS]
This is the best game I've ever played, or at the very least, the game with the best writing. The story, the characters, the puzzles, everything. The game just kept getting better as you unlocked more endings. What a crazy ride.

Click to expand...

Game 16: Guacamelee - 6 Hours (26 February) [PSV]
I enjoyed this game a lot, although it was a bit short. The combat and boss fights were great, but the exploration was lacking and the game felt very linear.

Click to expand...

Currently Playing:
Persona 3 FES
Corpse Party
Dragon's Crown
Soul Sacrifice Delta

ED: Disregard this! I didn't remember I had reserved a post already!

Going to put in a good effort to tackle my backlog this year

Currently Playing

Persona 4 Golden (Vita) - I'm almost 50 hours in at the moment and can't put it down.

Claiming a post. Know its way down the list by now but i reckon 52 games in 2015 should be easy.

currently playing

Captain toad treasure tracker
Bayonetta
Bayonetta 2
Super Smash bros wii u
Super Smash bros 3ds
Splinter cell black list
Just Dance 2015
Mass effect 3
Batman Arkham city armoured edition
Deus ex human revolution
Kid Icarus Uprising
Fire Emblem Awakening
Zelda Minish Cap
Zelda Skyward Sword
The lego movie videogame

<parameter: string> said:

Fantastic game. Never finished it though. However I think you're underestimating its length; I wouldnt call a 40+ hour game quick.

Click to expand...

I have a library of RPGs, so, relatively speaking, it's fairly short. And I'm 27 hours into it already.

Currently Playing

• Yakuza 5 (PS3)

Beaten

1. Dragon Age: Inquisition (PS4) - 03/01/15
2. Murasaki Baby (PSV) - 04/01/15
3. Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty (PS4) - 20/01/15
4. Valiant Hearts: The Great War (PS4) - 21/01/15
5. Strider (PS4) - 28/01/15
6. DriveClub (PS4) - 31/01/15
7. Life is Strange: Episode 1-4 (PS4) - Episode 1: 31/01/15 | Episode 2: 25/03/15 | Episode 3: 19/05/15 | Episode 4: 28/07/15 | Episode 5: 20/10/15
8. Grim Fandango HD (PS4) - 01/02/15
9. Resident Evil (PS4) - 06/02/15
10. The Walking Dead: Season 1 (PS4) - 09/02/15
11. Bayonetta (PS3) - 15/02/15
12. The Wolf Among Us (PS4) - 16/02/15
13. Resistance: Burning Skies (PSV) - 17/02/15
14. The Order: 1886 (PS4) - 21/02/15
15. ICO (PS3) - 23/02/15
16. Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut (PS3) - 02/03/15
17. Demon's Souls NA (PS3) - 06/03/15
18. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (PS3) - 10/03/15
19. Dead or Alive 5: Last Round (PS4) - 14/03/15
20. SteamWorld Dig (PS4) - 16/03/15
21. Stick it to the Man (PS4) - 17/03/15
22. SteamWorld Dig (PSV) - 18/03/15
23. Valiant Hearts: The Great War (PS3) - 22/03/15
24. Never Alone (PS4) - 13/04/15
25. Bloodborne (PS4) - 19/04/15
26. MonsterBag (PSV) - 20/04/15
27. Helldivers (PS4) - 24/04/15
28. Virtua Fighter 2 (PS3) - 25/04/15
29. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (PC) - 27/06/15
30. Ether One (PS4) - 29/06/15
31. Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People (PS3) - 30/06/15
32. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PS4) - 09/07/15
33. The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief (PS3) - 11/07/15
34. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PS4) - 16/07/15
35. The Fall (PS4) - 17/07/15
36. Rocket League (PS4) - 20/07/15
37. Splinter Cell: Blacklist (PS3) - 21/07/15
38. Journey (PS4) - 22/07/15
39. Final Fantasy Type-0 HD (PS4) - 28/07/15
40. Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PS4) - 14/08/15
41. The Legend of Korra (PS4) - 15/08/15
42. The Swapper (PS4) - 16/08/15
43. Sacra Terra: Kiss of Death (PS3) - 19/08/15
44. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2 (NDS) - 29/08/15
45. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PS4) - 19/09/15
46. Until Dawn (PS4) - 26/09/15
47. Tearaway Unfolded (PS4) - 03/10/15
48. Volume (PS4) - 08/10/15
49. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Remastered (PS4) - 11/10/15
50. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Remastered (PS4) - 18/10/15
51. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Remastered (PS4) - 25/10/15
52. Testament of Sherlock Holmes (PS3) - 29/10/15
53. Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (PSV) - 09/11/15
54. Need for Speed: Most Wanted (PSV) - 13/11/15
55. Actual Sunlight (PSV) - 16/11/15
56. Game of Thrones: Season 1 (PS4) - 17/11/15
57. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (NDS) - 22/11/15
58. Last Window: The Secret of Cape West (NDS) - 25/11/15
59. Assassin's Creed: Rogue (PS3) - 05/12/15
60. Tales from the Borderlands (PS4) - 07/12/15
61. Final Fantasy VII (PS4) - 14/12/15
62. Submerged (PS4) - 15/12/15
63. Syberia (PS3) - 21/12/15
64. The Walking Dead: Season 2 (PSV) - 31/12/15

Reserved. Sounds like a challenge!

Jame Retief said:

I have a library of RPGs, so, relatively speaking, it's fairly short. And I'm 27 hours into it already.

Click to expand...

Haha, OK. Fair enough.

1 Bit.Trip Runner

Wii - 2 hrs so far - I have Bit.Trip Complete and want to try this game first.

2 Hexcells

Steam - 3 hrs Total - 6/6 Achievements
Relaxing little puzzle game. Not too tricky and fun when it "clicks".

3 Never Alone

Xbox One - 4 hrs Total - 15/15 Achievements
Good little story platformer about the Inuit people. Has documentary clips to unlock as achievements on the Xbox One version. I purchased it along with Child of Light for my kids and played it through myself in one sitting.

4 Bomberman Generation

GameCube - 0 hrs so far

5 Kirby's Epic Yarn

Wii - 3 hrs so far
Awesome so far. I love old-school Nintendo platformers and this game fits that perfectly. As well as being gorgeous and inspirational, like Mario Galaxy.

6 Forza 5

Xbox One - 14 hrs so far - 17/98 Achievements
My first entry into the next gen. Love it. I like to put the settings on realistic and so I'm crashing a lot and not scoring many points!

7 Super Sanctum TD

Steam - 4 hrs so far - 6/27 Achievements
I like TD games, the best one being the online Vector TD on Candystand. I purchased Super Sanctum TD hoping it'll be a polished TD game. Good so far but quite hard. I'll try to beat campaign mode and improve my skills.

8 Angry Birds Star Wars - 3 hrs so far - PC
My only Angry Birds game, but what's not to love about it?

Game 9: Tomb Raider Definitive Edition - 0 hrs so far - Xbox One 0/50 Achievements

Game 10

Halo: The Master Chief Collection - Xbox One - 0 hrs so far - 0/400 Achievements

Game 11: GTA V - 0hrs so far - Xbox One - 0/50 Achievements

Game 12: Punch-Out!! - 0 hrs so far - Wii

Game 13: Beat The Beat: Rhythm Paradise - 0hrs so far - Wii

Game 14:

Hmm, this could be interesting - I did watch the 2014 thread from afar. Let's give it a go, eh?

Game 1: Battleheart Legacy (iOS) - ~12hrs
Grabbed on a whim while three or seventeen sparkly Shiraz's to the worse early this morning (happy New Year!) Loved the original, figured I'd give this sequel a bash. Am an hour or two in so far. Finished! Got about 12 hours worth of playtime in this, though a few of those may have been while I dozed in bad Had a great time with it, though I don't love it nearly as much as the original. Still worth your time on iPad, I'd say.

Game 2: Ziggurat (PC) - ~4hrs
God damn that final boss! Several hours in. Took 4 hours of on and off play, but I finally downed the final boss. This is a wonderful game that didn't get anywhere near the recognition it ought to have in GOTY nominations. It's essentially an arena shooter, with some light RPG mechanics. Great stuff.

Game 3: Device 6 (iOS) - ?hrs
My partner and I played this over ATV across a few evenings. What a wonderful game.

Game 4: Framed (iOS) - ?hrs
Another game my partner and I have been enjoying playing together on ATV. Great soundtrack, neat gameplay, lovely visuals.

Game 5: Monument Valley (iOS) - ?hrs
Yep, you guessed it. I'd like this game to exist on a living poster in my hallway. Just great.

Remaining games (that I own or have easy access to) earmarked for early 2015 completion:

1. Luigi's Mansion (n3DS)
2. Mario Golf: World Tour (n3DS)
3. Professor Layton: Miracle Mask (n3DS)
4. Ace Attorney Trilogy (iOS)
5. Lords of the Fallen (PC)
6. The Banner Saga (PC)
7. A Bird Story (PC)
8. The Swapper
9. Antichamber
10. 80 Days
11. The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo
12. Divinity: Original Sin
13. Legend Of Grimrock I
14. Transistor
15. Alpha Protocol (replay)
16. Far Cry 4
17. Jazzpunk, 2014's GOTY (replay)

/edit: UPDATE (28.1.15) A few finished titles and a change to the upcoming list! Looking forward to my n3DS arriving!

Reserving this post. I will be far from 52, I think half that would be already good for me. But keeping and sharing a log will be fun.

First is "finishing" Everybody's Golf 6 on Vita, which I started on December.

I've never done this before! Suppose I'll reserve this post and update it when I get back to my computer.

Reserving this spot

Was too late to jump on board last year, this year will be different

-In Progress-
Wolfenstein: TNO

Game 1: Transistor | 6 Hours
Good game, really great music and art style. Combat was fun when it wasn't confusing. A suitable followup to Bastion.

Game 2: Pokemon Omega Ruby | 28 Hours
About what I expected, which is probably why I didn't like it as much as Pokemon X, and why it took so long to get around to playing it

Game 3: LISA - The Painful RPG | 15 Hours
Oh my god yes, this is more of an experience than a game, so f-ing good. Everyone should check this out. Just be sure to save often, and try not to get frustrated with the brutal combat

Game 4: Shovel Knight | 7 Hours
Took long enough to finally come out in Aus. Amazing old school platforming action, with old school difficulty. Made me want to throw the gamepad on more than 1 occasion, but the struggle was worth it.

Reserved. Made it over half way last year .

Game 1: The Fall - DURATION PLAYED ~ 4 hrs
# Interesting plot and puzzles are OK.


Game 2: ACU - Long Enough
# A disappointment in many ways. I did not enjoy any of the mystery quests and the game had the worst modern day story so far. They really need to take out some of the collection BS and fix the damn parkour.

Game 3: Velocity 2x
# Not a fan of the exp locks on harder levels, perfection required is never fun, but ti is a fun game overall.

Game 4: Saints Row Gat Out of Hell
# Fun for a quick romp. I still enjoy SR. Oh I absolutely hated the fucking flying BS. Way too fucking hard to pass the first fucking flying race mission.

Game 1: NAME - DURATION PLAYED
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 1: NAME - DURATION PLAYED
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Claiming a spot, currently in the beginning of ME1.

#1 Star Wars Republic Commando - 9 hours, completed 4th January.
#2 Baldur's Gate 1 EE - 40 hours, completed 6th January. Had left this play-through hanging since fall 2014 after getting the enhanced edition but went in and finished it off.
#3 Red Faction Armageddon - 8 hours, completed 10th January. Could quite possibly be one of the worst corridor action games I have ever played. Sure it has destructible environments but there's not much more to it than that.

Against all my expectations, I managed to this in 2014 with my 52nd game falling on the 29th.

Have a baby due in five weeks (and have a 20 month old) but I have a commute to work that gives me 3 hrs on a train per working day which is where the vast majority of my gaming time comes from. Work will be busy and it's likely I'll cut my commute by moving closer but hopefully I can get close.

Having the goal really helped but made sure I had fun and played games I wanted to play.

Currently Playing:

* Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse (Vita)
* New Super Mario Bros U (Wii U)
* Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4)

Backlog (subset, actually 100+):

* Bayonetta 2
* Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Wii U)
* Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U)
* The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (Wii U)
* The Wonderful 101
* Batman: Arkham Origins (Wii U)
* Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)
* Dragon Age: Inquisition (PS4)
* Watch_Dogs (PS4)
* The Evil Within (PS4)
* Destiny (PS4)
* Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PS4)
* Dark Souls (Xbox 360)
* Dragon Age 2 (Xbox 360)
* Fallout: New Vegas (Xbox 360)
* Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360)
* Halo 4 (Xbox 360)
* Skyrim (Xbox 360)
* Demon's Souls (PS3)
* Dragon's Dogma (PS3)
* Shadow of the Collosus HD (PS3)
* DanganRonpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Vita)
* Final Fantasy X HD (Vita)
* Final Fantasy X-2 HD (Vita)
* Little King's Story (Vita)
* Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita)
* The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (PSP)
* Ys SEVEN (PSP)
* Grandia (PS1)
* Attack of the Friday Monsters (3DS)
* The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3DS)
* Crush 3D (3DS)
* Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright (3DS)
* The Starship Damrey (3DS)
* Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (DS)
* Final Fantasy Tactics Advance II (DS)

Reserving a spot.

I am pretty damn sure I beat this challenge last year, the problem is I didn't record it and so can't remember all the games I played =/
Well this year I'll do it properly! XD

Ah why not. Kinda regret finishing so many games in the last few days of 2014. Both seasons of twd, gta v :")

currently playing

- the wolf among us(pc)
Started this one and only played couple minutes so far. I admit i bought it for the hype that was twd and the alarm of a sale price. So far i discovered its a fantasy so... That was a suprise. Do want to finish it

- assassins creed unity(ps4)
Started this one when psn was out or i would have saved it for a later time, a well.. Got myself spoilered some days ago here on neogaf so.. Thats a bummer..

I'll give it a go. I'm unlikely to achieve it due to also attempting a strict budget for the year, but with PS+ it may be possible.

Currently playing;

• MGS V: Ground Zeroes
• Peggle 2
• GTA V
• Drive Club
• Spelunky

Challenge accepted

I couldn't finish in time last year, but I'm ready to try again!

#1. Volgarr the Viking (PC) - 7 hours
&#9733;&#9733;&#9733;&#9734;&#9734;
Solid game. It's clear a lot of thought went into the design of each level to make use of the game's mechanics and to give the player a fair shot when facing a new enemy for the first time. Still, the game is totally trial and error, so it's not for everyone. I enjoyed it, but I'm not extreme enough to do Path of the Valkyrie.

Reserving this nice post

1. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition - PC - 6:25:00 - 24/02/2015
Game started out a lot of fun but didn't bring a whole lot to the table late-game so I got quite burned out in the last couple of chapters.

2. Forza Horizon 2 - Xbox One - 05/04/2015
Fantastic game, not as good as the first but the driving is still excellent. Wasn't a huge fan of the campaign set up but the actual racing was fantastic.

3. OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood - 06/04/2015
Incredible game, even better than the original. Addition of manuals and reverts mean level long combos that are a blast to perform. Reminds me of old school Tony Hawk.

Might as well jump in a give this a try. Managed around 40 last year, so this may well be manageable.

My Backloggery

1. Captain Toad Treasure Tracker
[Finished 04/01/15]
Super fun and charming, but definitely gets frustrating trying to get all those extra bonus objectives in the late game. Finished the main story, but honestly the extra unlockables don't sound enticing enough to put in the effort to get them.

2. One Finger Death Punch
[Finished 12/01/15]
Holy crap this game is the BOMB. Takes 2 button clicking to a whole new level. It is just a pure adrenaline rush. The stick figure animations remind me of the amazing flash stuff on Newgrounds in the early 2000's, but being able to pull off those moves on my own feels that much better.

3. Teslagrad
[Finished 19/01/15]
I was gifted this game on steam, and had been interested in it for a while, mainly as it looked like another fantastic 2D puzzle platformer with Metroid sensibilities and a gorgeous art style. I have to say it didn't disappoint. The reviews I had looked at were mostly mixed so I wasn't expecting anything tremendous, and it certainly surpassed the expectations I had going in. Teslagrad is a pretty tough game, especially since you die in a single hit, but the puzzles and bosses are so well designed that it never feels like an overwhelming challenge, everything is totally do-able. While it may no be as Metroid-y as I expected, the powers are cool, and you definitely feel much more capable and powerful as you aquire new stuff which is great. Some control hiccups here and there, but otherwise a pretty smooth experience.

4. Gunman Clive 2
[Finished 30/01/15]
I adored the first Gunman Clive, so I guess I was predisposed to like this one as well, but man the sequel steps it up in almost every way. From unique stages to a more vibrant colour palette and amazing music, this is the best one could hope for from a Clive sequel. Probably the most fun I've had playing a game all year! (so far of course)

5. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
[Finished 24/02/15]
Having played Symphony of the Night for the first time last year, I have been eager to get back to the bevy of follow ups that were released on the GBA and DS as spiritual successors. Circle of the Moon is the first of those, and while it doesn't quite hold up to the PS1 classic, it was still an enjoyable ride. There are a lot of issues with the game (See poor difficulty curve, uninteresting upgrades, random card drops for the actually interesting upgrades etc...), but for all its faults, its still a fun as hell Metroidvania and has set me up nicely to play Harmony of Dissonance soon!

6. Mario Vs Donkey Kong
[Finished 27/02/15]
I liked this game for the first hour. It was janky sure, the platforming mechanics had issues, but the puzzles were fun and went by at a real rapid pace. I was having fun. Then World 5 happened. I don't remember a video game where I've screamed the word "FUCK" more times than Mario Vs DK. They ask you to do things which require the kind of a precision of Super Meat Boy, but you still have the controls of friggin Castlevania 1. Its hot bullshit and really soured my opinion. Oh well, at least it was short.

7. Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
[Finished 07/03/15]
Well here it is, many people's GOTY for 2014, and fortunately for me a lovely Christmas gift from someone on Steam! I know everyone goes on about the nemesis system, but I didn't find it all that groundbreaking. I mean it was cool and all, but not the second coming of open world game mechanics that everyone was clamouring about. Shadow of Mordor is fun as long as you like killing Orcs, cos honestly there isn't much to it other than that. The story missions switched things up nicely from time to time, but mostly I was murdering dudes. I will say that this game is challenging, especially in the late game where you have to brand all the Warchiefs, it almost took me to breaking point and became kinda frustrating. But hey, when you get it done its so fucking satisfying that I can't really complain. I may not love Shadow of Mordor, but I like it. Its a cool game. Yeah.

8. Ori and the Blind Forest
[Finished 16/03/15]
Ori and the Blind Forest swept me off my feet. This game is spellbinding. From the sweeping orchestral soundtrack, to the stunning visuals to the heartfelt story, everything surrounding the aesthetics of this game is sublime. But if it were only these elements that made Ori shine, it wouldn't have made such an impact on me. The gameplay is incredibly satisfying and the controls are tight as hell. My favourite platformer is Super Meat Boy and my favourite MetroidVania is Metroid Fusion. This game is the child of those 2 games and it is no surprise that I love it so much. The bash ability is one of the most mechanically satisfying abilities in any game I've ever played and those escape sequences (which act as bosses) are challenging and intense, but never frustrating. Ori is immaculate in so many ways, and it is one of the best games I've ever played.

9. Mega Man 3
[Finished 16/03/15]
As someone who beat Mega Man 2 for the first time last year, I expected to have the skills necessary to roll into the sequel and Mega Bust my way through. BOY was I wrong on that one. Mega Man 3 is a step up in difficulty in almost every way. The biggest stumbling block is getting those first couple of robot masters beaten, because trying to beat these bosses with the buster alone is an immense challenge. I banged my head against Magnet Man for so long, but eventually broke through. I got into a rhythm soon after, but man the game is tough. It doesn't help that the second part of the game involves you having to take on even harder stages with 2 bosses in each of them. The end game is actually way easier than Mega Man 2, as the Wily weaknesses are super easy to exploit, but the rest of it was a massive challenge. This is perhaps one of the hardest games I've ever beaten, and I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment (even if I did use save states). Oh and did I mention the music? Because daaaaaamn the music in this game is top notch. Somewhat expected from a Mega Man title, but it has to be said.

10. OlliOlli
[Finished 23/03/15]
OlliOlli is so deceptive. I'd seen videos of it and was like, that seems cool but looks kinda simple. How wrong I was. OlliOlli is hard, like really hard, like really really hard. It has such a whack control scheme that it took me some time to get used to it, but once I had a handle on grinding and landing and flicking the stick in various directions to pull off different tricks it was so satisfying. Yes its really short, but that's only if you blast through the main missions, the real depth to OlliOlli comes in unlocking the pro levels, where things get even tougher and more complex. I'll admit that the controls feel wonky at some points where you swear you got the timing right and it didn't work out, but 90% of the time its on point and thats when it feels the best. Its like Bit Trip Runner but with Skateboards, and that's totally something I can get down with.

11. Saints Row The Third
[Finished 03/04/15]
Having started this game on PC over a year and a half ago, I thought I'd never be able to finish it. I encountered what seemed like a game breaking bug in one of the main missions of the game, and was really annoyed about it. I was having so much fun with this game, but then it straight up screwed me over and it sucked. However, I decided to re-download it on Steam and give it another shot to see if something had been patched and that perhaps I could continue playing. Thankfully I got through that mission without any hiccups and I'm so glad for it. Saints Row The Third might be the funniest game I've ever played. I'm not really one to go around doing side missions in open world games, and I didn't in this one, but the amount of amazing hilarious ridiculous moments in the main missions cannot be overstated. The voice acting is top notch and the cutscenes are really well done. Saints Row The Third is just a bucket load of fun and I'm glad I managed to finish it finally!

12. Persona 4 Golden
[Finished 04/04/15]
Wow, what can I say? This may well be one of my favourite games of all time, let alone my favourite JRPG ever. I knew going into this that many people held Persona in extremely high regard, so I was sure that I'd enjoy it, but what I entered into was far beyond my expectations. Persona 4 Golden is fucking amazing. The characters are some of the most memorable in any medium, let alone video games, and the story is gripping and suspenseful. I had made the decision early on to play the game on easy, as I didn't want to grind for levels and would much rather concentrate on the social link building and general goofing off around town stuff, and man was that a fantastic decision. Its not to say that the battle system of Persona is bad, its actually really cool, but I would much prefer to not be stuck grinding out levels in randomly generated dungeons forever. I never had to, and due to that the game still provided me with ample challenge as a newcomer. I'm sure there is a ton of depth to Persona Fusing and moveset building, but I'm content with not having to dive into that. As it was, Persona was a spellbinding experience from start to finish. Its kind of incredible that a PS2 game from 2008 has this much voice acting in it, and pretty excellent voice work at that. Honestly, its one of the main things that drew me into the story so much. Having fully fleshed out characters whose dialogue you don't have to read all the time was awesome. I'm so happy I've now played this, and I couldn't be more excited for Persona 5. Bring it on!

13. BOXBOY!
[Finished 13/04/15]
Having initially heard about this title by the name of "Hako Boy" on the fantastic Japanese Gaming Podcast, The Famicast, I was eagerly awaiting a western release. Finally, Box Boy arrived after the April Nintendo Direct, and it seemed like a short, neat puzzle experience that I would really enjoy. BOY, was I wrong about it being short though. Box Boy is a surprisingly meaty experience with so many interesting and fun mechanics that make it a joy to play. You can breeze through the first through worlds pretty fast, but when the difficulty starts to ramp up you really have to sit there and scratch your brain. It may have frustrated me at points, but I always came back for more, because there simply isn't a feeling like attaining a crown that has been eluding you for an eternity. It may not be the most artistic or technically impressive game, but its a lesson in why gameplay is king, and why a simple mechanic stretched to its limits can create an incredibly deep experience.

14. Monument Valley
[Finished 16/04/15]
What a simple, charming elegant puzzle game. This thing won plenty of awards last year and for good reason. Not only is it extremely beautiful, but it creates very simple but rewarding perspective based puzzles on a mobile device. This is quite honestly the only mobile game I've ever played where I sat down, plugged in headphones and immersed myself as if it were on a 3DS or Vita. It is a truly wonderful experience.

15. Xeodrifter
[Finished 23/04/15]
If you asked me which game frustrated me the most this year, my answer would 100% be Xeodrifter. You see, it has elements that I typically enjoy, but Xeodrifter is horribly punishing. You start with so few hit points, and the enemies and bosses you have to take down take so long, that getting into the game is a real off putting experience. This is partially the reason that a game which took me a total of 3 hours to complete was stretched out over the course of 4 months. The checkpoints are so sparse, that I would constantly fail to get through an area and then just straight up quit the game because I didn't want to start all over from the beginning again. Despite all this, I actually really like the end part of the game, as you are so much more powerful, having aquired many more hitpoints and gun powerups, and as such I beat the last 2 bosses on my first try. Xeodrifter certainly feels like a rushed game, but it has redeeming elements.

16. Chrono Trigger
[Finished 29/04/15]
I know I'm late to the party, but WOW, Chrono Trigger is incredible. It is so amazingly ahead of its time in so many ways. The characters are varied, and interesting, and in many ways defy gender stereotypes that games are so often mired in. The story is based around time travel (who doesn't love time travel?) and the battle system is one of the most awesome fucking things in a JRPG. Not to mention it is perfectly paced, grinding is never necessary, and the challenge is still ample. The soundtrack is impeccable, boasting tunes that you will remember long after the game is over, and it has 13 fucking endings. Guys. Chrono Trigger is fucking awesome. There isn't much more to be said.

17. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
[Finished 09/05/15]
I'm 15 years late I know, but I finally beat Ocarina of Time. This game has been around me in one form or another for years, but it has taken me this long to finally finish it off. I played it on N64 at my friend's house and we never even got to adult Link. I watch my other friend play it on Gamecube, and Wii VC. I downloaded it the day it came out on Wii VC, and then finally got the 3DS version. So despite having opportunities aplenty to finish the game, I never did....till now. Regarding the game itself, there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said, its friggin Ocarina of Time.

18. Race The Sun
[Finished 13/05/15]
Not necessarily a game that you can categorically beat, but I've had my fun with it, and feel like I'm done. This really reminded me of an old flash game I used to play when I was younger, but I completely forget what it was called. I really liked that, and Race The Sun is basically a souped up version. Its a neat game.

19. Fenix Rage
[Finished 14/05/15]
I love masochistic platformers, so when I heard about this game, I knew I had to play it eventually. It is best described as a mix between Super Meat Boy, Sonic and Flappy Bird, with the main character having the ability to infinitely jump and dash around very challenging levels. While it may not have the same excellent game design as Super Meat Boy, it still offers a lot of challenging and fun levels, though they verge on the somewhat impossible more often than not. It may not be the best of the genre, but it is an admirable effort.

20. The Witcher 2
[Finished 17/05/15]
As someone who was completely unfamiliar with the world of The Witcher, jumping in at the 2nd entry may not have been the best idea. A lot of stuff went over my head in this game, trying to keep track of characters, alliances, jargon and history related to the story was a pretty mean task, but I think I got the bones of it all straightened out in my head. That said, I really like The Witcher 2. It certainly has its moments of frustration and seemingly impossible to get past bosses (see the stealth sections and the Dragon), but the fact that I started and finished it within 3 days should say something about how engaging it is. The voice acting is excellent, and the sidequests are meaningful and help flesh out the world tremendously. I feel like the fantasy elements are much more prominent than in something like Game of Thrones, but it has the political intrigue and complexity to even surpass that. Not only all that, but this game is incredibly impressive on a technical level. A few years after it came out, it looks better than most games that have come out this year. A truly stunning achievement in many ways, and though I may have cheesed my way through it at times, it was pretty rewarding.

21. Final Fantasy XIII-2
[Finished 27/05/15]
I'll be honest, I didn't actually finish this game, but you know what, I wasn't prepared to sit there and grind for 8 hours just to beat a slew of final bosses that quite frankly spike up the difficulty to a level of stupid that is just unfathomable. I wish the trope of 7 boss battles in a row would just go away, because frankly it is absurd and no fun for anyone. I got to the 3rd fight with my underleveled characters then couldn't beat it. I'll just watch the final cutscene on youtube (that's if I care enough to remember because honestly the story was getting pretty shitty in its own right). I've practically beaten this game anyway, so I don't have an issue counting it. Yes, XIII has an equally annoying final boss, but I actually kind of cared about the characters and story in that game, here it is frankly beyond me.

22. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
[Finished 28/05/15]
Valiant Hearts is a beautiful game. Not only is it artistically gorgeous, but it is able to evoke more emotion with 2D hand drawn art than most realistic looking modern games ever do. The puzzles are simple but elegant and just when you feel like a section is outstaying its welcome, it ends and moves you onto a different area. In many ways I wish that there wasn't any voice acting involved as the story is so well told from a visual perspective, however, the ending convinced me that such an addition was necessary. Valiant Hearts is a game everyone should play, and it is most certainly one of the best things to come out of Ubisoft in many years.

23. Splatoon
[Finished 03/06/15]
While I may have beaten the single player of Splatoon, I'm far from done with the game. The multiplayer is one of the most fun times I've ever had in an online video game, mixing fast paced action with a style of shooter that is completely different than anything before it. It is one of the most mechanically sound games I've ever played and one of the most frantically kinetic experiences in recent memory. The level progression stuff is excellently done, allowing you to spend money on new weapons and customisable pieces of gear very frequently. While there are only a couple of modes and few maps right now, the promise of consistent future updates from Nintendo has me content that I will be playing this game for a long time to come.

24. Grow Home
[Finished 13/06/15]
Ubisoft made another good game, hurrah! Anyway, been wanting to play this one for a while and finally picked it up in the Steam sale. It has to be said that the aesthetic is gorgeous and the draw distance amazing, the game is absolutely brimming with life and colour. The platforming challenges require much concentration, and can at times be frustrating. This comes partly owing to finicky controls and partly owing to an awkward camera. B.U.D. is a clumsy character from a design perspective, so it makes sense in the context, but can get annoying at points. The game is very short, but doesn't overstay its welcome, and I may goof about with it some more to see if I can find all the missing seeds.

25. Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush
[Finished 20/06/15]
Kirby is normally delightful, but make a clay version out of him and the cute factor raises ten fold. Yes this game is a joy to look at, the sound design is fantastic and the music is charming as all hell, but that doesn't mean I loved it. Some of the bosses in this game are down right frustrating, verging on unfair in cases although with a bit of patience and precision you usually won't have the worst time. See Kirby is dichotomous in the sense that it is a really easy game, yet also frustratingly tough in parts. The level design leaves a lot to be desired when there are no powerups in the standard Kirby tradition and the main objective is collecting stars, that have no reason for existence other than make Kirby giant for a brief period of time. It is also ridiculously short, at only 4 and a half hours, I'm certainly happy I bought this in a sale rather than at launch.

26. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
[Finished 23/06/15]
The Witcher 3 is a masterpiece. Never before have I been so engrossed and enveloped in an open world. In most open world games I mainline the story, always feeling that any side objectives are unnecessary, and for the most part they are. The Witcher 3 however, makes you care about everything. The main cast of characters are some of my favourite in any video game, especially the story's main focus, Ciri, who's development and growth throughout the narrative is a joy to watch unfold. But everyone has a story in this world, from the lowliest of peasants to the highest of noblemen and I wanted to find out about all of them. Every sidequest has its own little story, and many have consequences on the main story itself, and for that reason I wanted to do them all and just explore this gorgeous open world. That itself is an understatement, as the world of the Witcher is among the most beautiful in any game ever made. The feeling of riding around Skellige with the wind at your back and the somber soundtrack playing in the background is like no other. The RPG progression was a help in pushing me towards these quests, but even when I was overleveled and stood to gain no experience from a quest I would still take it on for the pure curiosity at what had befallen these people. I spent over 70 hours as Geralt and I didn't want it to end, but alas all good things must finish eventually. CD Projekt Red have made a game that I will remember for years to come, and that is something rather special indeed.

27. Scribblenauts Unlimited
[Finished 24/06/15]
Well here is one that has been on the back burner for a while. I like scribblenauts, but I don't love it. Most of the puzzles are either mind numbingly easy or infuriatingly frustrating, and there doesn't seem to be a nice middle ground where you can come up with interesting and unique answers to situations. Its fun in the sandbox mode, but honestly when put in a position where you can think of anything, I find it really hard to do, so I don't get much mileage out of that. Anyway, at least it is ticked off the list now.

28. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
[Finished 05/07/15]
The Minish Cap is a really solid Zelda and somewhat overlooked by many I feel. This was my first time playing through and I really enjoyed the experience. The world at the outset seems like it is extremely small, and while that is rather close to the truth, the fact of the matter is that Hyrule is very dense. There is only 1 town, but there are so many people and houses in it, that even by the end of the game you won't have a full grasp on where everything is. In a sense this is a nice mirror for the main mechanic of the game (turning from big to small via the Minish Cap). There are many interesting puzzles that use the big - small mechanic and even some bosses. The dungeons are well designed and strike a good balance between challenge and good pacing. You won't get hung up horribly like in LTTP nor will you breeze through without any issues like ALBW. Minish Cap feels like a lovely middle ground and yet still has dungeons with the depth and length of any 3D entry in the series. There are gripes here and there but overall Minish Cap is a very good Zelda game, and deserves to sit in the pantheon of this franchise.

Continued

66 gaffers completed the 52 games in 1 year challenge.

460 took part that year, I wonder how many will succeed this year?

Alright. I'll probably fail because my personal life is so chaotic right now, but I'm trying to play more and this should be a nice driving force.

Currently playing:
*Lisa
*Wolf Among Us

backlog
*Banner Saga (2 hours in)

Finished:
*Transistor
*Wasteland 2
*Pillars of Eternity
*To the Moon
*The Walking Dead season 1
*The Walking Dead season 2

As someone with ADHD, I think this will help me finally clear my backlog. So, let's give it a try!

January

#1 Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (PC) | 13 hrs | 1/4/2015
As a fan of Contracts, and an even bigger fan of Blood Money, I found Silent Assassin to be a little unforgiving at first, but after the fourth level I really started to get the hang of it. Afterwards, the game became very enjoyable, much like any other Hitman game pre-Absolution. My only complaint would have to be the large, outside levels and the Japan levels. In particular Shogun Showdown. Never. Again. Really though, It's a fantastic Hitman game, and is completely packed full of content with great, solid mechanics that just work. Loved it.

#2 Ridge Racer V (PS2) | circa 14 hrs | 1/11/2015
This one took a little bit of time, and I finished very close to 100%, but the last two drift cars were far too difficult for me to tame. Regardless, I managed to unlock all the Duel cars (including the Pac-Man ghosts!) and had an absolute blast with this game. The structure was very confusing at first, and it definitely had a learning curve but after that it was a blast. I even participated in the 99trial, which was a 99 lap endurance race that took 1 hour and 38 minutes, and I still had a great time. I finished Ridge Racer 7 recently, and even then I still think that Ridge Racer V does things a little better than 7. Definitely an underrated entry into the franchise, having been released so early into the PlayStation 2's life cycle. Loved this one, too!

#3 Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2) | circa 10 hrs | 1/16/2015
I'm a massive fan of the 3D-era GTA games. I adore them, and they completely defined my childhood, despite the fact that they really shouldn't have. As technically impressive as LCS was at the time, in retrospect, it's really easy to see that the game was a 'lesser' Grand Theft Auto title. Compared to previous 3D installments, it's just not up to scratch. The story is lacking, the missions are alright (if not a little awkward) and the performance is very weak. Considering I played this on the PS2, I was at least expecting a consistent framerate but its performance was arguably worse than the PSP releases'. There's also a distinct lack of soul compared to GTA 3. The dark, gritty atmosphere of GTA 3's Liberty City is no longer there and instead is replaced with one that is vibrant and colorful. It's an odd choice that doesn't suit the story's dark tone very well. With all that said, I'd consider this a 'budget' Grand Theft Auto Title. Not as a great as I remembered, but it's pretty good for what it is.

#4 Grand Theft Auto IV (PC) | 23 hrs | 1/22/2015
Finally managed to get the most out of this game since initially buying it way back in '09, but I couldn't enjoy it with the poor PC setup I had at the time. I've been playing the 3D Era GTA games for years, and I know IV came out in '08, but even now, this game really felt like a fresh experience. There's an unbelievable amount of detail and content in this game! The combat's fantastic, the story's deep and engaging, the characters are memorable and the atmosphere's dark & gritty. All big positives for me! The only negatives I have towards this game would have to be that it's hard to find clothing that makes Niko look decent, the infamous 'boat-handling,' and the length of the main story. 16 hours in, the story really felt like it was dragging out, but the ending made it worth it! (Revenge all the way) Great game. Really happy to have played through this again!

#5 Saint's Row: Gat out of Hell (PC) | 11 hrs | 1/28/2015
I waited quite a while for this game to come out, and when I finally had the opportunity to play it I was actually really impressed with it. The atmosphere is absolutely beautiful. I adore the industrial sections in particular. The architecture of the business district is stunning as well. The whole map just looked amazing to me. Definitely one of the most uniquely styled games I've ever played! Aesthetics aside, I really had fun. The flying mechanic felt perfect, the story was short but it was pretty decent and the references to past characters was more than welcome as a big fan of the first two Saint's Row titles. Got to 97% before I called it quits. I just needed to beat a few more challenges, but I was kind of burned out. I think I got RSI from holding the shift key down so long with my little finger, lol. Otherwise, this game was pretty good. Can't wait for the next Saint's installment! ... Hopefully it'll be more like the first two. I can dream, right?

February

#6 Ridge Racer: Unbounded (PC) | 11 hrs | 2/4/2015
You know, I actually really dig this game. If you look past the fact that it's Ridge Racer in name only, then you can really have a great time with it. It's pretty much Burnout meets FlatOut. The atmosphere and environments are beautifully dark and grungy, ranging from industrial zones to big cities. This game just feels so badass. Gameplay-wise, it's good. Though the handling's not the best. I mean, I'd love a little bit more grip, you know? The only real issue I had with this game was that an hour or so in, it really becomes obvious that all the levels are created using a map editor. Specifically, the ingame one (Which is actually a fantastic editor!) But yeah. I really enjoyed this game. I can't help but feel a sequel is almost mandatory for a spin-off title like this. Although please, drop the Ridge Racer name. 'Unbounded' is a kick ass name for a racing franchise like this. Great game!

... Pretty much spent the rest of February playing GT6

March

#7 Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number(PC) | 9 hrs | 3/15/2015
Really good sequel to the first Hotline Miami. Great, but somewhat confusing story filled with plenty of detail and easter eggs. It's worth playing through multiple times to get the full picture, because there really is a lot in there. The gameplay's exactly what you'd expect. I really enjoyed it, especially all of the new characters and their abilities. My only complaint would be that the game's a bit more linear, as a good portion of the levels, you don't really get to choose different abilities or masks. Nonetheless, it was a fantastic sequel. GOTTA GET A GRIP!

#8 Midnight Club: Street Racing (PS2) | 8 hrs ? | 3/18/2015
Midnight Club 2 was a fantastic game, Midnight Club 3 is one of my all time favorite racers. Naturally, I thought that the first game would be a blast. I was wrong. Whilst the atmosphere and the music (Moving Shadow <3) is pretty good, the gameplay was lacking. The handling is dreadful for every vehicle. Terrible by any standard. Why? Go play this game and try to line yourself up to drive into a small alley or tight place at a high speed. I dare you. It's just not going to happen. You literally cannot make these cars go straight at high speeds. It's infuriating, and I thought it was an incredibly cheap and lazy way of making the game difficult. I thought I could adapt, but I never quite got used to it. Multiple times I just quit out of anger. If it weren't for this, I would have had a really good time. It's such a shame. Didn't enjoy this game much at all.

I have alot of games I want to complete. I'll give it a shot.

Game 1: F.e.a.r [PC] Complete: 3 hours, 5 minutes.
Game 2: F.e.a.r: Extraction Point [PC] Complete: 3 hours, 23 minutes.
Game 3: F.e.a.r: Perseus Mandate [PC]Complete: 4 hours, 21 minutes.
Game 4: F.e.a.r: 2: Project Origin [PC] Complete: 5 hours 42 minutes.

Claiming this post.

Will add a list/overview eventually!