Stopped updating after 52 because I got burned out. Here's the complete list of the 89 games I finished this year:

(♦ = 100 % completed, ■ = beaten)

♦ 01-03 - SquareCells
■ 01-08 - LittleBigPlanet Vita
♦ 01-11 - Never Alone: Foxtales
♦ 01-16 - Her Story
♦ 01-18 - Dark Souls
■ 01-23 - Tomb Raider
♦ 01-31 - Home
■ 01-31 - Alien: Isolation
♦ 02-06 - Dark Fall: The Journal
♦ 02-07 - Dark Fall II: Lights Out
■ 02-09 - Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
♦ 02-09 - Firewatch
♦ 02-20 - Pokémon SoulSilver
♦ 02-20 - Pokémon HeartGold
■ 02-25 - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
■ 02-28 - Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
♦ 03-04 - Broken Age
♦ 03-05 - Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale
♦ 03-11 - Pokémon White
♦ 03-12 - Pokémon Black
♦ 03-16 - Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy
♦ 03-17 - Sherlock Holmes: The Secret of the Silver Earring
♦ 03-25 - Paws: A Shelter 2 Game
♦ 03-27 - Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
♦ 03-29 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl
♦ 04-01 - Beneath a Steel Sky
♦ 04-07 - Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis
♦ 04-09 - Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack the Ripper
♦ 04-13 - I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
♦ 04-17 - The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav
♦ 04-24 - Deadly Premonition
♦ 04-24 - Far Cry 3
♦ 04-27 - Luigi's Mansion 2
♦ 05-01 - Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
♦ 05-07 - inFAMOUS 2
♦ 05-08 - inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood
♦ 05-15 - Papers, Please
♦ 05-15 - Back to Bed
■ 05-18 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky
■ 05-21 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
■ 05-23 - Ziggurat
♦ 05-25 - Outcast
♦ 05-30 - Gray Matter
♦ 05-30 - Undertale
♦ 06-07 - Wasteland
♦ 06-11 - Pokémon White 2
♦ 06-14 - Spyro the Dragon
♦ 06-16 - Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer
♦ 06-25 - Spyro: Year of the Dragon
♦ 06-26 - Octodad: Dadliest Catch
♦ 06-27 - Final Fantasy
♦ 06-27 - Arx Fatalis
♦ 06-27 - The Charnel House Trilogy
♦ 06-28 - The Silent Age
♦ 06-29 - Cibele
■ 09-12 - Hitman: Codename 47
♦ 09-17 - Tomb Raider
♦ 09-19 - Tomb Raider II
♦ 09-22 - Tomb Raider III
♦ 10-21 - No Man's Sky
♦ 10-22 - Heroes of Might and Magic II
♦ 10-25 - Dishonored
♦ 10-26 - Condemned: Criminal Origins
♦ 10-29 - Kholat
♦ 10-31 - Outlast
♦ 10-31 - Outlast: Whistleblower
♦ 10-31 - Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall / The Brigmore Witches
♦ 11-01 - DreadOut
♦ 11-02 - DreadOut: Keepers of The Dark
♦ 11-03 - Rusty Lake Hotel
♦ 11-04 - Stairs
♦ 11-05 - P.T.
♦ 11-06 - Neverending Nightmares
♦ 11-07 - Alpha Polaris
♦ 11-08 - 35mm
♦ 11-09 - Mad Father
♦ 11-10 - The Moon Sliver
♦ 11-11 - INSIDE
♦ 11-12 - The Music Machine
♦ 11-13 - Through the Woods
♦ 11-14 - Lethe: Episode One
♦ 11-15 - Near Death
♦ 11-16 - Dead Secret
■ 11-17 - Layers of Fear
♦ 11-18 - SOMA
♦ 11-19 - DISTRAINT
♦ 11-20 - Bulb Boy
♦ 12-11 - Reveal the Deep
♦ 12-11 - Pokémon Y




Soooo ready for next year!

Original Post - Part 1
Original Post - Part 2
Original Post - Part 3
Original Post - Part 4

#55: Puzzle Agent 2: 3.7 hours

Click to expand...

It's more Puzzle Agent. The good things about the original (atmosphere, voice acting, narrative) remain good and the mediocre things (the puzzles themselves) remain mediocre.

Preview: Picross e7 came out Chibi Robo is on hold. Thinking of starting up Mass Effect 3 on PC now.

Finished the Last Guardian last night and barely crossed the challenge line in this year's challenge. That's two years in a row!

Fyrion
J.W.Crazy
wyvern_bloodfist
Teggy
electroflame
WinterDemons
Aru
Shotterke

Just barely made it

Main post

Again, unlikely that I'll do write-ups for these and the last 5 due to lack of time.

48. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
49. Momodora III
50. Final Fantasy I
51. Dracu Riot
52. To the Moon

doubt I'll make it to 52 again next year

Another chunk:

18. Deathtrap - Tower defense set in the Van Helsing world. Quite a good effort with huge amounts content differentiation even if there are only 15 or so maps. (26 hours)
19. Deus Ex. Human Revolution - Replayed in time for MD, fantastic game, see avatar! (36 Hours)
20. DMC Devil May Cry - First game in the series. Not too bad, didn't really delves too deep into the combo system just played it for the story. Final boss was annoying as hell though. (29 Hours)
21. Driver San Francisco - Great open world game with an amazing twist. Winning races by crashing trucks into the leader never gets old! (14 Hours)
22. Dying Light - Strange feeling with this one as it was the game I was playing when I got the call my Dad had died suddenly. Took a few months to get back to it but still enjoyed it in the end. Will probably get the DLC at some point. (40 Hours)
23. Dyscourse - Great choose you own adventure survival game. Each game takes less that an hour but there are wildly varying outcomes. (12 Hours)
24. Enslaved - Great action game set in the Monkey universe. Fantasic facial animations and a really enjoyable story. (14 Hours)
25. Epistory Typing Chronicles - Typing game a bit like Typing of the Dead but set in an isometric open world. Not that difficult and pretty poor performance but pretty good none the less. (8 Hours)
26. Evo Explores - Nice Escher type puzzle game (2 Hours)
27. Far Cry Blood Dragon - Ridiculous shooter set in a near future/past 80's neon movie vibe like thingy. Riding mecha-dinosaurs seems like it should be in all games. (10 Hours)
28. Firewatch - Brilliant but short adventure game set in the wilderness. Not a lot of challenge but brilliantly told. (5 Hours)
29. Five Guardian of Davids - Interesting ARPG set in the old testament. You are five of David's best warriors going around fucking up everyones shit. (20 Hours)
30. Grim Dawn - Fantastic and deep Diablo like ARPG. Endless time could be spent here. (37 Hours)
31. Hard West - XCOM like set in the weird west. Brilliant game let down by a restrictive save system and no overwatch for you even though enemies do! (23 Hours)
32. Hocus - Another Escher style maze game. Well done. (2 Hours)

Thinking about doing the 52 challange next year but litte hesitant, so a question to you do have or have tried to do it, is it worth it or does the stress of it somehow lessen the enjoyment of the games? Do you still relax and take your time with a game or do you rush?

Monooboe said:

Thinking about doing the 52 challange next year but litte hesitant, so a question to you do have or have tried to do it, is it worth it or does the stress of it somehow lessen the enjoyment of the games? Do you still relax and take your time with a game or do you rush?

Click to expand...

It's not supposed to feel stressful. I think the reason people usually join is that they otherwise get stuck in MMOs, MP modes, endless games or just jump around lots of different games without finishing anything... while still buying more and building up a backlog

Try it, and if it doesn't feel right for you, you can just stop

Spyware said:

It's not supposed to feel stressful. I think the reason people usually join is that they otherwise get stuck in MMOs, MP modes, endless games or just jump around lots of different games without finishing anything... while still buying more and building up a backlog

Try it, and if it doesn't feel right for you, you can just stop

Click to expand...

Good points! For me why I am thinking about doing the challange is to make myself give a chance to more shorter and simpler games, I always prefer to go for RPGs and open world games so I miss out on alot of gems.

It is settled, I will do the challange next year!

VisceralBowl:

Forgot to add my post with all 52 games, here it is:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=216049893&postcount=2059

Monooboe said:

Thinking about doing the 52 challange next year but litte hesitant, so a question to you do have or have tried to do it, is it worth it or does the stress of it somehow lessen the enjoyment of the games? Do you still relax and take your time with a game or do you rush?

Click to expand...

It may be just me but I also think it's fun to have a more organized way of playing. I also enjoy posting small reviews whenever I finish a game!

Monooboe said:

Thinking about doing the 52 challange next year but litte hesitant, so a question to you do have or have tried to do it, is it worth it or does the stress of it somehow lessen the enjoyment of the games? Do you still relax and take your time with a game or do you rush?

Click to expand...

The only way it can be stressful is when all of your planned games are 50+ hours epic rpg's I played what I wanted and got to the number easily. It just helps to have a number of short games, I usually gravitate towards those anyway. There was a month where I didn't even play anything.

And like was said, the best part about this is that you keep track of what you play. And when goty voting comes along, you just have to copy paste if you wrote your impressions! I remember I hardly wrote anything down for my picks last year, but now I had a short blurb for every pick.

That being said, not sure yet if I'll do 2017, but we'll see. I already have FF XV and a bunch of Steam sale stuff lined up. That and PS VR. I could probably make it again easy enough.

Aru said:

VisceralBowl:

Forgot to add my post with all 52 games, here it is:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=216049893&postcount=2059

Click to expand...

In the future:

read the op.

Monooboe said:

Thinking about doing the 52 challange next year but litte hesitant, so a question to you do have or have tried to do it, is it worth it or does the stress of it somehow lessen the enjoyment of the games? Do you still relax and take your time with a game or do you rush?

Click to expand...

Not really, but I think it has subtly changed how I play games. The thing is, the challenge is self-imposed, so if halfway through you decide it's not fun anymore, just stop doing it! No one, including the people in this thread, will think any less of you for doing so. The only stress you should feel is the stress you want to put on yourself to finish.

Personally, I think next year I'll continue to participate, just because I like the habit of writing up every game I complete, but I'm no longer so worried about whether I'll hit 52 games or not. Three years in a row is enough proof to me that I can do it, so next year it'll just be a matter of whether I feel like doing it or if I end up devoting my energies to other things.

Game #55 - Assault Android Cactus
Time: 2 and half hours

Great dual stick shooter that I was loving until the last couple of bosses really bummed me out and put a damper on the whole game. Still, the gameplay is great, theres a lot of characters to unlock, the art is super stylish and cute, I love the way the levels morph as you play them, and for people like to replay games for score and whatnot, the game has you covered both in the campaign and in the extra modes like infinite or boss rush. I wish the campaign was longer tho, it could use with about 3 more zones at least because what they had going there was great. Oh well.

Main post

calling it here too because I want to save for 2017 52 lol, what has this thread done to me.

Part 1

===========================================

Part 2

Finished 34/52

Game #18 Dropped: Overwatch (PS4) - About 30 Hours
★★★★★
(August to September)
This must be the first game I have ever returned and since I paid full price for it, I'm glad to have bought it on Amazon. It is an excellent game and a more than welcome addition to the current, mostly modern military dominated FPS line-up. But why return it then if it's so good? Because the controls haven't been sufficiently optimized for consoles... or rather the aiming aspect. I have played a lot of FPS on consoles to be able to know when one's aiming system is bad. Not only is sticky aim almost nonexistent but does aiming feel generally wrong and unpolished, which becomes especially frustrating when encountering fast characters with tiny hurtboxes like Genji or Tracer. The aiming problem on consoles and those two characters are what pretty much ruined the game for me and made me turn my back towards it.

Game #19 Beaten: Rise Of The Tomb Raider (PC) - 14 Hours
★★★☆☆
(Started August 12th 2016 / Finished September 11th 2016)
Highly impressive visuals and beautifully crafted hub worlds, all in all a very good optimized PC-Port. But aside from the technical aspect, the game was rather a disappointment for me. I've had a lot of fun during the first hours though. Exploring the small hub worlds, picking up a few side quests, gathering resources and collectibles, and crafting were fun at first. But the more context was given to this world, the more I felt discouraged to continue my journey. The characters are poorly written and act implausible. Their motivations seem to change with every second cutscene and the dialogue is just terrible, consisting of far too many generic one-liners. The story does also fall short and as if that isn't enough, the game ends with a massive cliffhanger.

Game #20 Beaten: Inside (PC) - 3.5 Hours
★★★★★
(Started September 11th 2016 / Started September 11th 2016)
One of the best indie titles I've played with outstanding visual design and sound design. The puzzles of this 2.5D platformer were clever and creative and have been complemented by some of the best physics I've ever seen in a videogame. Gameplay is intuitive enough to not hold your hand with tutorials. Lighting effects have also been put to very good use here. I'm glad the checkpoint system was that forgivable. It allowed for a good pacing and it's also the reason why I managed to finish the game in one sitting despite dying a lot. Neither does dialogue take place, nor does it explain itself in textboxes or audio logs. It combines storytelling and gameplay instead of seperating them through cutscenes, which is a welcome change in the current state of this industry. It enables the game to convey its entire context through the events that occur on the screen while playing through it and it works really well here. All in all an excellent experience and I will definitely find myself thinking about the things I've seen in this game for the next weeks.

Game #21 Beaten: Firewatch (PC) - About 6 Hours
★★★★☆
(Started September 16th 2016 / Finished September 17th 2016)
The first two thirds of this game were excellent, but as I made my way towards the end, I couldn't help but gain the impression that this game doesn't really know what to make of all the excitement and tension it managed to build up so excellently. I still think it's a great game even though the ending was a bit foreseeable. The atmosphere in this one is one of the strongest one's I've ever experienced. The excellent voice acting gives the two characters of the game a lot of personality and the dialogues between them are so well written that listening to them was a treat at all times. I enjoyed their conversations so much! Merely the narrative conclusion felt superficial to me due various little events I noticed during my playthrough, which just didn't fit into that big picture the game was trying to sell me. So I did a bit of research on the web to find out that the ending is apparently one big distraction from what really happened in that forest. And I have to give them credit for having me to go that far and read through multiple theories of what could have really happened in that game. Only few games manage to evoke this amount of my interest.

Game #22 Beaten: Gone Home (PC) - 4 Hours
★★★★☆
(Started September 17th 2016 / Finished September 17th 2016)
Environmental storytelling is something I've come to appreciate for the last couple of years and despite approaching it in a very unconventional way, it worked out really well in Gome Home. I've found myself at the edge of my seat from start to finish and that is an accomplishment worth mentioning, because there is literally nothing happening in this abandoned house (or rather mansion) you're supposed to explore. All you do is picking up stuff other people left behind while trying to make sense of what the hell has happened at this place. And it's the combination of this and its meaningful environment what makes the experience so good. The dark rooms, the ominous sound effects, the irregular claps of thunder and made up for a dense atmosphere. Definitely not a game everyone for though. The gameplay is minimalistic and the narration consists of slice of life themes. On the surface at least. When you start digging deeper into the house's history, you will find some pretty dark secrets which you will likely have missed. I have actually found the dark and subtle sub-plots of the game to be even more interesting than the main one...

Game #23 Beaten: Dear Esther (PC) - 2 Hours
★★★★☆
(Started September 18th 2016 / Finished September 18th 2016)
I was curious about this game since it practically established the 'walking simulator' genre. A genre which I will continue to explore for the foreseeable future. Dear Esther is arguably the driest good walking simulator I've played so far and yes. I think it is good at what it is trying to be. It is highly linear. Exploration is barely possible and not really encouraged. And yet it's one of the most beautiful and dreamlike experiences I've had with this medium. People who find it hard to take games like Heavy Rain serious will laugh at Dear Esther but I am looking forward to further games of this genre.

Game #24 Beaten: Undertale (PC) - 8 Hours
★★★★★
(Started September 18th 2016 / Finished September 25th 2016)
This game has done things I have never seen before in any videogame. They surprised me. The way in which they surprised me, surprised me. And even the realization that they are surprising, surprised me. And that music. DAT MUSIC!!!

Game #25+26 Beaten... more or less: Destiny - The Taken King, Rise of Iron (PS4) - dozens of hours in 2016
(September to October)
★★★★☆
After my initial disappointment with the game at release, I thought I'd never return to it again, but a friend of mine managed to convince me and so I gave it a shot and played through most of the new content. No one can deny the insane amount of value you get from the complete package that Destiny offers today and Bungie deserves great credit for their efforts. All in all I've had a good time with this game and the people I played it with.

Game #27 Beaten: Oxenfree (PC) - 6 Hours
★★★★☆
(Started October 2nd 2016 / Finished October 2nd 2016)
A well written and atmospheric adventure game with believable and excellently voiced characters. The mysterious storyline unfolds at a good pace and has you constantly grasping for more information to reach a conclusion. The visual art direction is great as is the music. And it conveys a very similar vibe as Life Is Strange does. Definitely one of the best indie titles this year.

Game #28 Beaten: Mirror's Edge Catalyst (PC) - 12 Hours
★★★★☆
(Started October 5th 2016 / Finished October 10th 2016)
My feelings about this game are rather mixed. On the one side I appreciate the improved gameplay and beautifully crafted environments and sound design. On the other side I don't agree with the necessity of a reboot for the 2008 released Mirror's Edge. Fans demanded a sequel, not a reboot. That 'ubisofty' open world felt as if it was added to artificially extend playtime through repetitive backtracking and pointless, uninteresting and unrewarding mini-tasks. It also feels as if the open world came at the cost of level design compared to the previous game. I also found the original storyline and the character Faith of 2008's release to be much more thought out and believable. And why did they remove essential mechanics from the older game and locked them behind an upgrade system in the new one? As if every AAA-release needed an upgrade system nowadays. Anyway, it still was an enjoyable experience. The great gameplay and visuals made up for those weaknesses and I had a good time playing through this game.

Game #29 Beaten: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PC) - 7 Hours
★★★☆☆
(Started October 10th 2016 / Finished October 14th 2016)
A terrible PC port and a technical disaster. I've had 15-20 fps during the majority of my playtime. Why did I go through it then? Because it's a walking simulator and probably the only type of game that's playable at such a low framerate. The interesting storyline, the good voice acting, beautiful visuals and some of the best music I've ever listened to in any type of media made up for these technical issues. An experience worth going through.

Game #30 Dropped: Pokémon Moon (3DS) - 12 Hours
(Started November 11th 2016 / Finished ...)
The last Pokémon game I've played was Pearl, which is roughly a decade ago. So after missing so many installments I was curious about what the latest release of this franchise had in store for me. The crazy sales and the amount of praise and critical acclaim these games get, may have risen my expectations too high for this game, as it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Maybe this game just doesn't represent the best one of the recent Pokémon games, I don't know, but the majority of people I know seem to love this one.
Anyway, I've went through the first two islands, which should be about a quarter or third of the game without having the impression that it would get any better or more interesting, so I decided to drop it.

Game #31 Beaten: Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) - 19 Hours
★★★★☆
(Started November 23rd 2016 / Finished 18th December 2016)
A first-class jump n' run and pretty much the little brother / handheld version of Super Mario 3D World. After gathering every single collectible I found out that I had to go through all levels again with Luigi just to unlock one more level. Seriously Nintendo. Why do you hide playable content behind such mindless grinds? Anyway, I borrowed a copy with a finished savegame from a friend so I could play that last hidden level without an entire second playthrough of the game. And it was one of the hardest levels I've ever played in a Super Mario game. Nearly as hard as the last one in 3D World. I would have had a much easier time if I had tried it with the Tanuki suit which allows you to float in the air. But I refused. After all it's just a Mario game HAHA

Game #32 Still going: Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) - 55 Hours in 2016
★★★★★
My favorite Mario Kart so far. Had a ton of fun with its multiplayer this year just as I did last year.

Game #33 Still going: Splatoon (Wii U) - 28 Hours in 2016
★★★★★
Same case as with Mario Kart 8. I just can't help but to pick this game up every now and then.

Game #34 Still going: Super Smash Bros. (Wii U) - approximately 650 Hours in 2016
★★★★★
My current competitive horse. I've got to know a ton of cool people in the scene, made new friends, traveled and got around for quite a bit in my country, actually more than in any year before in my life, attended about 6-7 tournaments of which 4 of them lasted for multiple days. I've been to numerous training meetings of my regional community and in good months, people came over to my place for some sparring multiple times a week. I've had a great time with this game and its community this year around.

===========================================

And now some special mentions:

• GOTY released in 2016: Dark Souls 3 (PC)
• Biggest surprise: A tie between Undertale (PC) and Tales from the Borderlands (PC)
• Game with the most playtime: Super Smash Bros. for Wii U with approximately 650 Hours in 2016

Monooboe said:

Thinking about doing the 52 challange next year but litte hesitant, so a question to you do have or have tried to do it, is it worth it or does the stress of it somehow lessen the enjoyment of the games? Do you still relax and take your time with a game or do you rush?

Click to expand...

I've done the challenge the past two years and it's a GREAT way to focus yourself into chewing through your backlog, if you have one. I wouldn't call it stressful but I've had this little niggling feeling this year that I'm not spending as much time with certain games as I'd like in the name of not 'falling behind' on the challenge, or skipping longer games that would otherwise weigh me down (looking at you Pillars of Eternity) to play later, so I might not go for a full 52 next year (Also because I've killed most of my backlog by now *fist pump*). That said, I was able to spend a full 100 hours with MGSV and 80 on Dark Souls 3 (and 60 on Dead by Daylight and 40 on No Man's Sky.. Jesus) and still beat the challenge with flying colors so maybe it's just in my head to some extent.

If you have a substantial backlog of games just sitting there going to waste, it's a bit of a no-brainer to me to at least try the challenge, otherwise idk. It's fun, but there's definitely an element of it influencing how you approach games.

VisceralBowl said:

In the future:

read the op.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I read it a while ago and didn't remember the part about sending you a PM. It should have been obvious to me though, since you are not probably gonna read every post here.
Thanks anyway.

53) Doom(2016)- 12/14-12/25

Wow! This game is fantastic! Holy shit, I usually don't want to believe the hype on some of these games but my god, the game is so intense! So many chilling moments, rage, yeah it's just destroying a group of enemies for the most part but the enemy variety is insane and this game just gets crazy at certain points!

I only played the single player but man the campaign is fantastic. The one real complaints I can say is that there were quite a few glitches that I endured throughout like getting stuck on a platform to lead to my death or seeing enemies completely vanish off my screen and and I want to say the last good hour or two was a bit ridiculous with the wave of enemies and lack of armor/health which easily led to retry after retry. But honestly besides all of that, this game was intense, full of action, had numerous guns and playstyles that everyone can get into, encourages you to get in the thick of things to get health/armor back. So much variation of enemies in this as well, I completely understand all of the hype and I get why people say this is their GOTY for 2016. It's up there for me most definitely.

This and Overwatch have given me such a 180% turn of my views on FPS. I used to frown upon these modern day FPS but with these 2 games that have been a major part of my gaming of 2016 and both will be well represented on my list in the coming couple of days.

I cannot imagine for someone who is a long time Doom fan to see so much nostalgia with the hidden throwback parts of the game and more so the enemies that originated from the past. As a newcomer to this series, this may not have hit home for me as much but the enemy variety nevertheless is still impressive.

I am so glad I found time to play this game and glad I got it for 19.99 from Gamestop back in August, that was a complete heist!

54) Oxenfree 12/25-12/26
What do you get when you try and take a page out of Life is Strange's tale of a teenage bonding and friendships that last forever and mix it with some Scooby Doo(Only without the best qualities of the latter)? You get Oxenfree, a game that should have been so much better on paper than what it ended up being. When you have the lead writer from the amazing Tales from the Borderlands and have some Ex Telltale staff to work on this, I come in expecting quality storytelling and worthwhile enough gameplay and after my couple of hours with this game, I got neither.

It's practically a longer Scooby Doo film meets Life is Strange only with a hint of pretentious, without the charm, without the appeal of the characters and a game that in a way really let me down given this should have been a relative home run on paper for me given who was behind this were some real talented people who formerly worked with Telltale games.

Not to say the voice actors and actresses did not do a good job but my complaint is the fact that outside of one character, NONE of the characters are in the least bit spooked or shocked over what is going on. At least with Scooby Doo you had Shaggy and Scooby Doo freaked out over the paranormal that has been going on and at least showed some fear......the main character is hardly at all ever spooked, its crazy. It got a bit rough not being able to run through portions of the game and slowly having to walk back and forth through the island like this is a Metroidvania of some sorts.

I felt like you get even less time to make a decision as to what dialogue you would say as you get around 3-5 seconds to make a prompt or else you miss out, Telltale gave you enough time for the most part so how or why the decision was to give you so little time to make a choice is beyond me. The game drags itself where you have to stay in one place for the sake of hearing a character's full dialogue and the problem I ended up facing is I lost out on dialogue for the mere fact of wanting to explore and press/touch an item to progress story, only to lose out on that dialogue sequence. This is something that I felt could have and should have been done better because what it makes you do is honestly wait and wait and wait until the dialogue is finished and THEN touch the item and move along. The pacing for that just feels very off and couple of times I missed out on character conversation until I picked up on this.

The ending was pretty decent I mean, and the music for what it is was okay(Nothing I would go out of my way to listen) but unless this game is free for PS Plus or XBL Gold or is really cheap, I would not buy it. Game was barely over 5 hours and just did absolutely nothing for me. Sucks that after such a stellar game like Doom, that Oxenfree was such a bummer.

I hope to not end what has been a crazy good year of new games from 2016/2015 and plenty of old retro games too with Oxenfree......but regardless the potential of getting to 55 games in one year is pretty awesome and I didn't think I had it in me.

Original post


56. Homefront: The Revolution (PC, 2016) - 17:33
Completed the main campaign on Hardened.

(I don't know why sometimes I save the longest posts for the most mediocre games.)

Homefront: The Revolution wasn't on my radar at all, and this is almost entirely due to the disaster that was the original Homefront. Any remaining interest I had was scrubbed away by the game's troubled development and sale to not one, but two different suitors: first Crytek, after the first Homefront helped to bury THQ; and then Deep Silver, after this new Homefront helped to bury Crytek. But largely, I wasn't interested because I didn't want to get burned again. Homefront's original concept was neat, obviously inspired by Red Dawn but given a bizarre and potentially audacious tweak. World in Conflict managed to make a Russian invasion story surprisingly tense and dramatic; maybe Homefront could do the same. So I was in on day one, and I got burned. Not another time.

Homefront: The Revolution launched, and it was apparently riddled with bugs and performance issues. It landed way too hot, even given its troubled development. As a result, reviews were brutal. Fast forward a few months, and Dambuster--formerly Crytek UK, who reformed under Deep Silver to finish the new Homefront--finally managed to fix most of the issues. Then they gave the game a free weekend on Steam. That's where I played the first eight hours, leading to the first big revelation: holy crap, this game isn't awful.

Let's get the good stuff out of the way first. First, it's not three hours long and it's not a highly scripted, linear-ass shooter. It's open-world, which sometimes can be the kiss of death (see: Mirror's Edge Catalyst), but in Homefront's case is maybe the thing that saves the game. Instead of having to follow AI characters through linear levels, waiting for them to open doors for you, and then shooting heads that pop out of doors like you're at a carnival shooting gallery, you get to choose what objectives you want to pursue. And because so much of the game is about controlling territory--a mechanic I can't get enough of, traditionally--it's easy to settle into a cycle of checking your map, seeing a place you haven't conquered yet, and figuring out what you need to do to make that place yours.

In terms of story, Homefront: The Revolution does a better job of selling its premise than the original. I don't mean that in terms of how plausible it is, exactly--both the original and this half-remake, half-reboot version seem ridiculous for different reasons--but rather in how much detail lurks in the nooks and crannies. In the first game, everything is linear, so everything is shown to you with the expectation that it has your full attention. You're often told, not shown, the effects of the North Korean invasion, and even when a character isn't literally reciting exposition at you, it feels very much in your face (like the initial sequence where you're bussed past a bunch of North Korean soldiers shaking down American civilians and executing them in the street).

By contrast, the most remarkable acts of worldbuilding in Homefront: The Revolution happen around you, not at you. You see it the very first time you step into a Yellow Zone, and note that it doesn't look like the war-torn Red Zones you've spent most of the game in to that point. You can sense it in the way people react to you when you have a weapon out (you don't belong there, your weapon screams), in the random conversations people have that should be benign but feel a little bit tense. And when you begin to erode that Yellow Zone down and turn its denizens over to your side, you can feel it in the way your landscape changes: citizens become more overtly disobedient, the walls start to look grimier as resistance graffiti collects, and the propaganda speakers trade their neutral messages about the day-to-days of the occupation for increasingly stern ones designed to suppress resistance.

If the lesson of the first eight hours is that Homefront: The Revolution is surprisingly not awful, the lesson of its second eight hours is that it's still not that good of a game. There's a solid foundation here, but the story puts constant friction on the premise. For most of the game's running time, it's easy to ignore that friction; you're not really playing a resistance fighter trying to take back your country from a foreign invader, you're a one-man army that waltzes into heavily fortified enemy strongholds, blasts everyone to shreds, and claims the fortress for their own. But every so often, you have to interact with the game's writing again, and unfortunately there just isn't much to like here. Other reviews liken the game's outlook to an adolescent take on what revolution is supposed to look like, and that feels pretty accurate to me.

Homefront: The Revolution is an impressive game because I expected so little, like praising a puppy that manages to walk on its hind legs. It's a competent open-world first-person shooter set in an urban environment, and frankly it doesn't feel like we have a lot of those. (Far Cry is set in non-urban environments, for example.) But while it has some interesting ideas, most notably the Red Zone/Yellow Zone dichotomy, it's all married to some incredibly poor narrative work that, almost as much as the North Korean invasion concept itself, has become the Homefront trademark.

Original Post:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=191026515&postcount=345

Completed:
Game #1: Ryse: Son of Rome - 5 hours - 01/01/2016

Combat became a bit boring during the last 2 chapters but overall a decent game. Graphics were amazing though.
7/10

Game #2: Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 1 - 3 hours - 02/01/2016

8/10

Game #3: Victor Vran - 6 hours - 03/01/2016

Combat was fun but the story and the jokes were horrible.
6/10

Game #4: Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 2 - 3 hours - 05/01/2016

9/10

Game #5: Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 3 - 1,5 hours - 08/01/2016

8/10

Game #6: Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 4 - 3 hours - 08/01/2016

8/10

Game #7:Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 5 - 3 hours - 09/01/2016

Best Telltale game I've played. Loved the story, jokes, characters and setting.
9/10

Game #8: Emily is away - 1 hour - 10/01/2016

I heard some good things about it and it was free so I tried it out but didn't really like it in the end.
6/10

Game #9: Contradiction - 6 hours - 10/01/2016

A really fun and different experience. Some more games like this would be awesome.
8/10

Game #10: Halo 4 - 10 hours - 17/01/2016

8/10

Game #11: The Witness - 8 hours - 27/01/2016

I was so hyped for this game and it delivered. I couldn't 100% it since I'm not smart enough but I did get to the end and it probably will end up on my GOTY 2016 list.
9/10

Game #12: Rise of the Tomb Raider - 13 hours - 12/02/2016

Better then the first game which I also really enjoyed. I didn't really run very well on my system (SLI GTX970) so I'll probably start it up again now that I have a GTX1070.
9/10

Game #13: Hotline Miami 2 - 7 hours - 12/02/2016

Fun. Weird. Awesome Music.
8/10

Game #14: Path of Exile - 50 hours

I leveled a few characters and played it around 50 hours this year but Diablo 3 is the better game for me.
7/10

Game #15: Dark Souls 3 - 40 hours - 08/05/2016

The Dark Souls serie (including Bloodborne) is my favorite serie so I was so hyped for this. I was only able to play this during the weekends when my girlfriend was here since she wanted to also see everything so it took a while to finish it. But everything was just so amazing. Gameplay, world, graphics, ... The only negative point I have is that most bosses were easy.
9/10

Game #16: Ratchet & Clank - 10 hours - 06/05/2016

This is how all remasters should be. The game is just gorgeous, guns were amazing, gameplay fantastic.
9/10

Game #17: Uncharted 1 - 8 hours - 16/05/2016

In the past Uncharted 1 is the only Uncharted game I ever completed so my goal for 2016 was to play and complete all 4. Once again I could only play them when my girlfriend was there since she also wanted to see everything. We played it together (I did the shooting parts and she did some of the platforming.). We enjoyed it but this game really didn't age very well.
7/10

Game #18: Uncharted 2 - 9 hours - 19/06/2016

Best Uncharted game. I can't really think of anything negative. My girlfriend and I both loved it.
9/10

Game #19: Cibele - 1 hour - 04/07/2016

7/10

Game #20: Firewatch - 3 hours - 09/07/2016

Fantastic game until the plottwist (Which was pretty obvious.) which made the ending just bad. Great game to play on my 21:9 monitor.
8/10

Game #21: The Room - 3 hours - 09/07/2016

7/10

Game #22: SquareCells - 2 hours - 09/07/2016

7/10

Game #23: Uncharted 3 - 8 hours - 23/07/2016

After playing Uncharted 2 we had big expectations for 3 but we ended up being disappointed. Overall it's an okay game but the ending felt rushed, not enough platforming and adventuring and way too much shooting.
7/10

Game #24: Batman The Telltale Series - Episode 1 - 2 hours - 05/08/2016

8/10

Game #25: Typing of the Dead: Overkill (co-op) - 6 hours - 06/08/2016

8/10

Game #26: Inside - 4 hours - 09/08/2016

9/10

Game #27: Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (Co-op) - 4 hours - 13/08/2016

Fantastic co-op game. I finished it with my girlfriend and we had a blast.
8,5/10

Game #28: Yooka-Laylee (All Quils + secret) - 2 hours - 13/08/2016

8/10

Game #29: The Park - 1 hour - 13/08/2016

6/10

Game #30: ABZU - 3 hours - 15/08/2016

Bought this to try out my new 21:9 monitor and it ended up being one of the most beautiful games I ever played. I took around 70+ screenshots and it's one of the best games to show my monitor to other people.
9/10

Game #31: Uncharted 4 - 10 hours - 14/10/2016

Great game except the bad pacing and ending. The ending felt like fanservice to me.
8/10

Game #32: Monument Valley - 01/10/2016

7/10

Game #33: Shadow Warrior 2 - 7 hours - 21/10/2016

I had no idea what to expect with this game but I enjoyed for the short time I played it.
8/10

Game #34: The Witcher 3 - 50 hours - 22/10/2016

My 2015 GOTY even though I didn't finish it last year. After finishing the main story I still think it's one of the best games ever and I can't wait to complete all the side quests, contracts, ... and start the DLC's next year.
10/10

Game #35: Batman The Telltale Series - Episode 2 - 1,5 hours - 25/10/2016

8/10

Game #36: Batman The Telltale Series - Episode 3 - 1,5 hours - 25/10/2016

7/10

Game #37:Halo 5 - 6 hours - 25/11/2016

I had to finish this since I was going to trade in my Xbox One for a PS4 Pro so rushed through it on easy mode. Gameplay wise it's so good but the story was bad. I'm happy that I played all Halo games now and will probably buy the next one.
8/10

Game #38: Refunct - 1 hour - 25/11/2016

7/10

Game #39: Batman The Telltale Series - Episode 4 - 1,5 hours - 22/11/2016

7/10

Game #40: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 42 hours - 27/11/2016

I played this with my girlfriend. She did all the social stuff and investigating and I did the trials. One of my favorite games I played this year and my girlfriend also liked it a lot. Monokuma was fantastic and so was the story. I already bought Danganronpa 2 for next year.
9/10

Game #41: Portal - 2 hours - 10/12/2016

Replayed this again when I was bored. Still one of my favorite games ever.
10/10

Game #42: Message Quest - 1 hour - 27/12/2016

7/10

Game #43: Darks Souls 3 Ashes of Ariandel - 3 hours - 19/12/2016

A little bit short but the last boss was amazing.
9/10

Game #44: Lost Constellation - 1,5 hours - 19/12/2016

7/10

Game #45: Batman The Tellstale Series - Episode 5 - 1,5 hours - 19/12/2016

I liked that they created a new villain but once again the illusion of choice kind and the technical problems (Like the controller issues on PC that didn't get fixed until the last episode.) of annoyed me. Overall a decent Batman story.
7,5/10

Game #46: Monster Loves You! - 1 hour - 21/12/2016

7/10

Game #47: Kickbeat Steam Edition - 2 hours - 27/12/2016

Great rhythm game. Music was amazing and not something I listen to usually and the story was okay.. I'll probably keep playing this from time to time.
7,5/10

Game #48: Super Mario Run - 10 hours - 27/12/2016

8/10

Game #49: WoW: Legion

Best expansion since Wotlk but since I don't have time to raid I got bored last month and decided to cancel my sub until I get that itch again.
9/10

Game #50: Hearthstone

I started playing this last year after my girlfriend got me hooked. Got the cardback every month.
10/10

Game #51: Guild Wars 2

Leveled a character to level 80 but then got distracted by WoW: Legion. I'm going to start playing again next year since I also bought the expansion but I haven't had the time to play it yet. I did get a bit bored after a while although that I also because I haven't found a guild yet.
7,5/10

Game #52: Diablo 3

Played all seasons except the last one and always reached the goals I set for the season.
8/10

Still working on:
Solo:



Co-op with girlfriend:

chrominance said:

56. Homefront: The Revolution (PC, 2016) - 17:33
Completed the main campaign on Hardened.

(I don't know why sometimes I save the longest posts for the most mediocre games.)
-snip-

Click to expand...

Man, I know what you mean. I could practically write a novel on Mirror's Edge Catalyst and all the ways it kinda misses the mark. In regards to Homefront though, have you played STALKER? The most favorable Homefront reviews seem to compare it to that (and you elude to it with your "FarCry in urban environment" remark). STALKER is great. Homefront seems like it'll be a nice distraction whenever it decides to hit $5.

3rd chunk:

33. Jurassic Park: The Game - Earlier Telltale effort. Quite a bit different than the later games with more challenge and "harder" puzzles. Well worth your time. (13 Hours)
34. klocki - Minimalist puzzle game from the makers of Hook. Beautifully made but short and most of the mechanics are barely used. (1 Hour)
35. League of Mermaids - Decent Match-3 puzzle game, saving mermaids or something. I didn't pay attention to the story. (3 Hours)
36. Lego Batman 3 - It's Batman, It's lego, it's in space. Good fun. (14 Hours)
37. Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 - Another lego game! (26 Hours)
38. Lego Jurassic World - Lego! (14 Hours)
39. Lego Marvel's Avengers - Jeez, there's a lot of these lego games. (14 Hours)
40. Lost Planet 3 - I skipped 2 as it was boring but 3 is good fun. Could be Mass Effect DLC easily. Quite a change from 1 though! (25 Hours)
41. Magical Brickout - Circular arkanoid game where you rotate the entire screen. Very edgy meme heavy though. (8 Hours)
42. Marble Mountain - Beautiful 3D marble roller. Really good example of the genre. (5 Hours)
43. Masquerada: Songs and Shadows - Stunning RPG set in a world where masks have power. Beautiful story telling only let down by a combat system that doesn't quite work well enough. (25 Hours)
44. Mass Effect 1 - Shepard. Wrex. (22 Hours)
45. Mushroom 11 - Puzzle platformer where you control a blob by shaving parts of it off forcing it to grow in the opposite direction. (13 Hours)
46. Nightsky - Another marble roller set in silhouette. Nice puzzler (15 hours)
47. Optika - Puzzler involved with manipulating light through physical and made up means. Needs a bit a work to make the game better but still a lot to like here. (6 Hours)

Final chunk in the next day or two!

This was my first year attempting this challenge, and I succeeded. I played a lot more games than expected, 69 as opposed to 52. Next year I'll try updating monthly instead of continually editing one or two posts of massive lists. This was a fun goal to have throughout the year. I ought to challenge myself to take on longer games next time, like Persona 5.

Games 1 - 14
Games 15 - 28
Games 29 - 41
Games 42 - 52

Last batch for this year, goodbye 2016.

#53
Dishonored DLC: Dunwall City Trials, The Knife of Dunwall, The Brigmore Witches
PC (Steam)
Completed: December 12, 2016
Playtime: 17h 29m
Dunwall City Trials wasn't for me, dropped it after playing through the more traditional assassination challenges. The other two story-based expansions focusing on Daud's exploits, however, were excellent. They feature some of the best-designed levels with lots of freedom to play as you want, cool "alternative POV" throwbacks to the main game's story and characters, and some interesting fights with skilled opponents (something the base game lacked in).

#54
Quantum Break
PC (Steam)
Completed: December 17, 2016
Playtime: 16h 51m
- Very interesting story, although the ending left me somewhat confused - in its final moments the game suddenly raises (intentionally, I think) a number of questions and then just leaves them without any answer or explanation. Possibly just hooks for a sequel which we now are unlikely to get.
- I enjoyed watching the TV show episodes and how they were shaped by earlier junction choices, but feel like it could just as well been created in-engine and played out in cutscenes. Especially considering that the quality of facial animations in-game (both in cutscenes and actual gameplay when characters are speaking) is top-notich, possibly the best I've ever seen. Probably would've been cheaper that way for Remedy as well.
- Good soundtrack and impressive visuals, even if the picture is too blurry with upscaling on.
- Enjoyed playing around with cool time-bending powers. 3rd-person shooter mechanics are solid, as long as you don't try to play it as a cover shooter (the "automatically stick to cover" part often flukes out).
Overall, liked it more than I expected to.

#55
Hitman - Season 1
PC (Steam)
Completed: December 18, 2016
Playtime: 22h 14m
Might just be my new most favorite Hitman game, edging out Blood Money. Quality level design, amount of possible approaches to tackling missions, attention to detail, and sheer volume of stuff packed into each stage are amazing, better than anything I dared to hope for after Absolution. The only thing somewhat lacking here compared to earlier games is the music - while the soundtrack is not bad per se, it cannot compare with the masterpieces from Jesper Kyd days. It's unfortunate that the game did not get as good recognition as it deserved at launch because of poor management-level decisions to introduce unnecessary offline play restrictions.

#56
SOMA
PC (Steam)
Completed: December 29, 2016
Playtime: 14h
Another great horror/suspense fps adventure game from Frictional Games - this time in a cool sci-fi setting - and again they nailed the atmosphere. Playing this on a 50" tv in a dark room with surround sound = amazing experience, was getting chills in some places. Great visuals and audio, very interesting story concept. One drawback is that much of the tension is gone once you figure out the "monster" behavior patterns (this won't take long if you played Amnesia) and realize that Simon is almost never in any real danger.

Master post updated.

You guys are insane. I'm very impressed at the write ups, dedication, successes and failures. It's inspiring, yet my backlog is terrifying. Perhaps I'll join you in 2017.

Keep it up!

Master Post

This is what should be my final update. I'll be cleaning up some holdovers in the new year while working on Cyber Sleuth leading up to 2017. SO UNTIL THEN

Click to expand...

Game 74: The Last Guardian (PS4) | ~13 Hours | 12/16/16 | 4.5/5

Last Guardian has issues. Anyone with a normal PS4 that needs a good framerate to function should steer clear of this game. The boy character controls like the Shadow of the Colossus character, poorly. Sometimes the camera is a bit shite. Very rarely in specific areas Trico decides to not do the things you want.

However, despite all that, it's a damn good game. Even with the shitty framerate, the game is beautiful. Art direction is top notch, as you'd expect from this team, and the size and scope when you start going higher in the outside areas can be breathtaking. This goes hand in hand with the game's setpieces, which are visceral and exciting. In all honesty, I found the setpieces in this game even better than Uncharted 4.

The real main treat of the game is Trico, your bird/dog/cat/thing. They really did a fantastic job with your animal friend. There's a lot of care put into the way it moves and interacts with things and it really shows. The AI issues some people suggest they have are really overblown. Trico, for the most part, will pretty much play the game itself or will do the thing you want once you understand how instructing Trico can be combined with the face buttons to do specific tasks. After watching someone else play through the game, cross referencing with my own playthrough, there are certain areas where Trico will have difficulties doing the thing needed, but in a 12-13 hour game, they are few and far between.

So yeah, game is good. The most important thing to understand is patience. Trico isn't a robot, it's an animal. Give it an instruction and it'll do it, just give the thing time and let it go through its animations.

Click to expand...

Game 75: Rez Infinite (PS4) | ~2 Hours | 12/27/16 | 4/5

I have heard about and always wanted to play Rez but never got around to playing it. So I was excited to get this PS4 re-release and having played it I'm glad I did. Rez is a phenomenal audiovisual treat. The cyberspace minimalist art style is great and compliments the electronic music. The gameplay compliments the music with your shots creating music that flows with the background music and it all works so fantastically well.

The only real downside is its short length. The game sports five levels which take around or under two hours to complete. There are optional modes and its arcade structure means you can get more out of it the more you put in, but that's up to you. The re-release includes a new level 'Area X' which is a fresh take on its traditional gameplay, letting you move around and shoot things, which is a great addition to the package and a great level as well.

Well that's all folks. Until next year hooray.

Main Post

Game 51: Kirby's Adventure

I actually beat this one over a month ago, but wanted to hold off and write up a post combining a few of the NES classic games. Unfortunately, December has been a bit busier for me than I anticipated, so I have half a dozen half- or nearly-finished saves close to the end of this year, so they'll probably end up giving me a nice early boost for 2017.

The interesting thing about Kirby's Adventure is that it is actually the very first game I beat. I got my first video game system, a used NES with about a dozen games my parents managed to score relatively cheaply, for my sixth birthday, and while I have since beaten some of the other NES games I physically own, I was far too inexperienced to have any such aspirations back then. In fact, my aptitude for video games didn't really start developing until a few years later, by which time I had largely shifted to N64 and PC.

Perhaps it shouldn't be all too surprising that out of all the NES games I owned, Kirby's Adventure was the one I actually managed to finish. After all, it is quite a beginner-friendly title, and not just by NES standards. Most of its 'difficulty' arises from the fact that your health doesn't regenerate between stages, so that your dumb mistakes eventually add up and start costing you lives. At the same time, you're likely to score quite a few extra lives through the end-of-stage jumps and minigames (unless you suck at the crane game). Not even the world bosses put up much of a fight, and can usually be beaten without a single hit once you've internalised their handful of movements. The only real 'challenge' comes in the form of the optional hidden switches, which allow you to unlock more minigames on the world map and count towards your completion.

Still, while it's easy to rag on the game's simplicity, it's muted colour scheme, or even the way floating can break the game's challenge even more, I don't want to underestimate how important such early successes might have been for my development, and outside of its difficulty, Kirby's Adventure is a lot of fun to play. Obviously, I now know most of the level layout at least roughly and remember all the different abilities, but discovering that you can swallow certain enemies and copy their abilities brought me no small amount of joy and experimentation the first time around. There are some moments that have always stuck with me, such as the slow, steady climb of the Butter Building or the duel with Meta Knight, but what draws me back the most easily are some of the musical tracks, which have been featured in a number of other titles since.

To give a few examples:

Vegetable Valley
Ice Cream Island
Forest Area
Yogurt Yard
Green Greens

Ultimately, this game will always hold strong emotional value for me, but even without that, it makes for a great little diversion. It's not terribly long, but it gives a great sense of how Kirby and his games work, and serves as a good palette cleanser between more demanding NES games.

I failed HORRIBLY, ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLY, at my first attempt of this challenge. I was going at a decent pace the first month (lol), but fell into a 10 month Destiny black hole shortly thereafter & completely forgot other games existed. I think I ended the year with a grand total of 5 (FIVE) games completed!!

- Fallout 4
- Tomb Raider
- Uncharted 1
- Borderlands 2
- Final Fantasy 15

6 games if you count the Rise of Iron DLC for Destiny, but I'm just going to consider it 5 games completed & shoot to greatly exceed that number in 2017.

EDIT - now that I think about it, I did beat a few more games than I gave myself credit for;

- Bloodborne (G.O.A.T)
- Dark Souls III
- Assassins Creed Syndicate
- The Division

Still extremely shy of 52, but a bit better.

Oreoleo said:

Man, I know what you mean. I could practically write a novel on Mirror's Edge Catalyst and all the ways it kinda misses the mark. In regards to Homefront though, have you played STALKER? The most favorable Homefront reviews seem to compare it to that (and you elude to it with your "FarCry in urban environment" remark). STALKER is great. Homefront seems like it'll be a nice distraction whenever it decides to hit $5.

Click to expand...

I played the beginning of Chernobyl yeeeeeeears ago and never swung back around to finish it. I do own all of them, but I worry that they're too old and clunky now. (I remember the interface being kind of shit even back then.) Stalker also never struck me as particularly urban, not in the same way Homefront is, and I felt like that was only partially a tech limitation. But maybe Pripyat is different.

chrominance said:

I played the beginning of Chernobyl yeeeeeeears ago and never swung back around to finish it. I do own all of them, but I worry that they're too old and clunky now. (I remember the interface being kind of shit even back then.) Stalker also never struck me as particularly urban, not in the same way Homefront is, and I felt like that was only partially a tech limitation. But maybe Pripyat is different.

Click to expand...

They aren't urban in the sense of "living in the middle of a densely populated area" just by virtue of the setting but, it's also not "killing dudes in shacks in the jungle" like FarCry is. The areas in Chernobyl and Pripyat both get progressively more urban (power plants, apartment high rises etc) as you progress through the game, especially Pripyat where the final 3rd of the game takes place in 'downtown' Pripyat. Calling Chernobyl "old and clunky" is definitely a fair critique, but Pripyat has approximately 100% less jank and is totally playable even be modern standards (and no mods required, unlike Chernobyl). If you already own it you got nothing to lose! I definitely recommend it, one of my favorite games of all time.

Last Batch - I finally did it! Shouldn't have spent so much time on Overwatch and No Man's Sky

Original Post

50. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PC) - December
Really good game. I didn't like the controls at first but they grew on me. That ending though...

51. A Story About My Uncle (PC) - December
Got this during a Steam sale so I wanted to close it out of my backlog. I did not like this game. Probably one of my least favorites I played all year.

52. Until Dawn (PS4) - December
Why did I wait do long on thsi one? Really great game.
Games I Gave Up On:

• 
  
  Overwatch - got to level 100+ and decided to put it down. I don't think you can really finish this game
  No Man's Sky - took too long and got boring real fast, spent almost 30-40 hours on it
  35M - boring and terrible walking simulator
  Doom - I'm terrible at first person shooters
  Star Ocean 5 - Just so mediocre and bland. Did not keep my attention long enough for me to beat it
  Hotline Miami 2 - Sorta just forgot about this one. Need to go back to it.

Original post

Game 17 - The Last Guardian - between 10 and 15 hours
Finished December 26

I joined the 52 game challenge as a way to whittle down my backlog by making myself keep track of titles I own but haven't played. In part, I needed to budget my income in 2016 (as I will in 2017) and I'm susceptible to purchasing new releases that then sit on my bookshelf as prices drop precipitously before I get around to them. I've been happy with my progress; in the new year, I'll have 16 library titles and four new releases (Gravity Rush 2, Persona 5, Rain World, and the forthcoming VA-11 HALL-A Vita port) to tackle.

The day after Christmas, I finished The Last Guardian, a game I frankly didn't think I'd be able to see through to the end when my aging dog got sick in the middle of the month and the idea of playing alongside an injured companion felt too emotionally overwhelming. Thankfully, my dog recovered, and sat beside me on the sofa throughout the rest of my time with Fumito Ueda's singular masterpiece.

For me, the game is a culmination of his collaborators' craft and skills--not simply a variation on themes from Ico and Shadow of the Colossus but a subversion of what those titles ask of the player. As Simon Parkin mentioned in his review, the child in The Last Guardian is essentially helpless, tasked with aiding a creature who would be harmed without him. The player does not inflict injury on others but instead shelters a great beast from the cruelty at the doorstep of the cavern he lies chained in.

At times Trico is doglike, at times catlike, at times something else completely. Petting the animal in tall grass illuminated by afternoon light is surely one of the medium's great experiences: a small kindness at the center of a dream about flight. The game is a highlight for me that ranks among my lifetime favorites.

Main Post

Game 52: Overwatch

...and that's that.

I actually started playing Overwatch when it came out this summer, but I decided to hold off on my post until I had a better sense of how much play time I would log this year. As it turns out, it wasn't a great amount, in large part because I only started playing it again a few days ago, but I suppose I can always keep playing in the years to come.

Overwatch is a bit of an interesting case for me. I more or less can't stand competitive online multiplayer because of how it mostly ends up being a frustrating experience for me. At the same time, I found myself immensely drawn to this game. I've been a big fan of Blizzard's work for close to two decades now, I love the game's style and character, and saying that I was interested to see what was salvaged from the remains of Titan would be an enormous understatement.

One thing I will wholeheartedly admit is that moment-to-moment gameplay is absolutely exhilarating, and when the game is at its best, it feels immensely satisfying. I haven't been able to spend an appropriate amount of time with all the characters, but I like the diversity of play style that is on display here. Your priorities shift dramatically when switching characters, and the possibility of mid-game re-selection introduces an incredible amount of dynamism to the game. Still, since I traditionally play support, I tend to gravitate towards either healers or tanks, whereas my output is of a considerably lower quality whenever I decide to give more confrontational characters a try.

At the same time, Overwatch is still a competitive online multiplayer FPS, and so isn't really my cup of tea. Whenever I launch the game, I end up playing in bursts of 2-3 games before something ends up annoying me enough for me to close the game and cool off again for a bit. To be honest, I don't even know why I'm getting so worked up. After all, there's not a lot at stake, and losing a game isn't exactly the end of the world. I suppose things might be better if I was playing with people I know personally, or at least with a semi-regular set of other players (it usually helps when I feel like I can count on the rest of my team not to run into enemy fire single-file).

I think if Overwatch had a proper campaign that allows you to explore the universe that was built for the game and try out all the characters in a more controlled environment, it might be my game of the year, but in the absence of a significant single player mode, all I'm left with is an experience that is undoubtedly incredibly well-made, but that'll ultimately always present certain barriers to me.

Based on my time played so far, I can hardly say that I've gotten my money's worth out of the purchase, especially considering the fact that I had to get the CE, but I'm absolutely convinced I'll slowly, but steadily, keep building it up.

Finally, for those interested, my most-played characters are:

1. Mercy
2. D.Va
3. Widowmaker
4. Roadhog
5. Pharah

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=190929071&postcount=63

Don't know if I'll do this again next year. Probably less free time.

Oh hey forgot about this thread. This year I made the list yay!

59 games cleared for 2016 so far:

Soma 3.5/4
Monument Valley 3/4
Resident Evil Revelations 2, Episode 1 2/4
Life is Strange Ep2 2/4
Tengami 2.5/4
Dino Crisis 3/4
Ao no Kiseki 3.5/4
The Blackwell Convergence 3.5/4
Asura's Wrath 3.5/4
Monument Valley: The Forgotten Shores 3.5/4
Exist Archive 3/4
Mad Max 2.5/4
Grim Dawn 3/4
Devil Daggers 2.5/4
Sen no Kiseki 2.5/4
Project Mirai DX 3/4
Gundam v Gundam Extreme VS Force 2/4
Sen no Kiseki II 3/4
Theaterhythm: Dragon's Quest 3/4
Project Diva X 3/4
Dead Space 3 2.5/4
Crypt of the Necrodancer 3/4
Guilty Gear Xrd: Sign 3.5/4
Ratchet & Clank Remake 3.5/4
English Country Tune 3/4
Hitman Episode 1 3.5/4
Shin Megami Tensei IV Final 3.5/4
Uncharted 4 3/4
Severed 2.5/4
Hitman Episode 2 3.5/4
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood 2.5/4
Nier 3/4
Dark Souls 2 3.5/4
Assassin's Creed IV: Freedom Cry 2/4
Dead Rising 2: OTR 2/4
Drakenguard lol/4
SRW OGs: The Moon Dwellers 3/4
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs 3/4
Project Diva: Future Sound 3.5/4!
FF: Theatrythm Curtain Call 3/4
Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator 3.5/4
Hitman Episode 3 3/4
Fran Bow 4/4
Sunless Sea 2.5/4
Hitman Episode 4 2.5/4
Virtue's Last Reward 2.5/4
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ 3/4
Tales of Berseria 2.5/4
DOOM 3.5/4
Slayaway Camp 2/4
Beyond 2.5/4
Titanfall 2 3/4
Superhot 2/4
Tyranny 3/4
Dishonored 3/4
Dishonored DLC1&2 Expansion 3.5/4
Forza Horizon 3 3.5/4
The Last Guardian 2.5/4
Persona 5 4/4

Would have finished a couple more shorter games (In the middle of Watchdogs 2 and making progress in Let it Die) but I went from 100 hours on P5 to starting FFXIV (my first mmo) and now I'm 75 hours in on that, so that was basically my last 2 months of the year.

This definitely one of the years I've finished the most stuff. Whereas last year was the least games I'd ever finished (~35-40 last year). I think I was trying to make up for not making the list last year subconsciously

Original Post

I made it! It came right down to the wire but I finished my 52. I beat more games this year than I had previously in my entire life. Glad I stumbled upon this challenge!

Here's the list:

1. FEZ [PC] - 10 hours

2. Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons [PC] - 4 hours

3. Emily is Away [PC] - 1 hour

4. The Witcher - Enhanced Edition [PC] - 55 hours

5. The Witcher 2 - Assassins of Kings [PC] - 35 hours

6. Plumbers Don't Wear Ties [PC] - 1.5 hours

7. Undertale [PC] - 8 hours

8. Half-Life [PC] - 16 hours

9. Crash Bandicoot [PS3, PS1 Classic] - est. 15 hours

10. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon [PS3] - 5 hours

11. Final Fantasy IV [iOS] - 32 hours

12. Mass Effect [PC] - 23 hours

13. Portal [PC] - 2 hours

14. Shadow of the Colossus [PS3] - 11 hours

15. Amazing Brick [iOS] - N/A

16. Sonic Adventure DX [PC] - 15 hours

17. Final Fantasy V [iOS] - 32 hours

18. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune [PS4] - 7.5 hours.

19. Amplitude [PS4] - est. 15 hours

20. Super Meat Boy [PS4] - est. 15 hours

21. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves [PS4] - 10 hours

22. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back [PS3/PSP] - est. 10 hours

23. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception [PS4] - 7.5 hours

24. Demon's Souls [PS3] - 35 hours

25. Diablo [PC] - 15 hours

26. Journey [PS4] - 1.5 hours

27. Gone Home [PS4] - 2 hours

28. The Beginner's Guide [PC] - 2 hours

29. Dark Souls [PC] - 56 hours

30. Firewatch [PC] - 4 hours

31. Gear of War: Ultimate Edition [Xbox One] - 8 hours

32. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance [PS3] - 8 hours

33. Smash TV [Arcade] - 1 hour

34. Batman: Arkham Asylum [PS3] - 12 hours

35. Overwatch [PC] - 30 hours

36. The London Heist [PSVR] - 1 hour

37. Prune [iOS] - 3 hours

38. Half-Life 2 [PC] - 13 hours

39. Bastion [PC] - 6 hours

40. Papers Please [PC] - 11 hours

41. Half-Life: Blue Shift [PC] - 3 Hours

42. Doom (1993) [PC] - 5 hours

43. Half-Life 2: Episode One [PC] - 3 hours

44. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter [PC] - 3 hours

45. The Howler [PC] - 1 hour

46. Reveal the Deep [PC] - 3 hours

47. Limbo [PC] - 4 hours

48. The Swapper [PC] - 5 hours

49. Ico [PS3] - 15 hours

50. SUPERHOT [PC] - 2 hours

51. Her Strory [PC] - 5 hours

52. Final Fantasy VI [iOS] - 35 hours

Hikami
Rhaknar
Widdly Scuds
Linkyn

Archive Post


Game 45 - The Last Guardian [PS4] ★★★★★
It's difficult to understand how this game came together as well as it did. By all rights, it should be an absolute mess, with its stop-start development cycle and a format change. And indeed, it does show its legacy in a few places. The camera isn't as fluid as you'd expect from a game in 2016, and the controls are weighty in a way few games are anymore. But on the other hand, the animation and creature AI are the most accomplished I've ever seen in a game, and it has a unique feeling of physicality that is super-impressive. Fumito Ueda's typical "design by subtraction" is once again put to great effect: You control a young boy as he and a mysterious beast help eachother escape from some colossal ruins, and that's it. You solve environmental puzzles along the way, and sometimes defend against (or more accurately, be defended from) some animated suits of armour. It doesn't sound like much on paper, but it's utterly transformed by the beast itself. Trico is an astonishingly convincing animal. You slowly come to an understanding of one another's needs and wants, and forge a genuine bond with it. You care when it's in pain, you'll pet it just to make it feel better, and you'll find yourself calling out for it just because you miss it. I can't overstate how emotionally affecting my time with Trico was, and it only works because of how flawlessly crafted the beast is. From the depths of a decade of development hell, the Last Guardian is a miracle. A beautiful, inspirational masterpiece.


Game 46 - Street Fighter V [PC] ★★★
Street Fighter V is a bit of a mess. When you're in a round, actually doing some fighting, it's among the best fighters around. It's finely balanced and invitingly easy to pick up, while allowing loads of room for self-improvement to reach it's incredibly high skill ceiling. The V-skill and V-trigger systems give it enough of its own identity from the SFIV games, while not going so far as to alienate people and force them to go back to the drawing board Look, it's Street Fighter. You know what you're getting here by now. Everything surrounding the gameplay, though, leaves a lot to be desired. From its botched launch, missed deadlines, and leniency on quitters, to literally opening a massive security hole on the PCs of their users, it's hard to be enthusiastic about this game. A new addition for this entry is a story mode, in the style of the recent Mortal Kombat games, but as much as I loved it in those games, this one just can't compare. The meatheads and babes of the Street Fighter universe take every opportunity to show off their muscles or flash some cleavage and/or ass at the camera in their ridiculous outfits, while (terribly) acting out the world's worst-written story. As they continued to randomly pair off to fight, it finally dawned on me that this wasn't a Street Fighter story at all. It was a Street Fighter porn parody where they fight instead of fuck. Like the rest of the package, it's hard not to balk at how Capcom are handling the world's greatest fighting game series. How the mighty have fallen.


Game 47 - Battlefield 1 [PC] ★★★
When Battlefield 1 was first announced and it was revealed the series was going back to the Great War, I was a little concerned. A bro-military series that's all about explosions, sparks and spectacle taking on the horrors of first world war just seemed like a recipe for disaster, and rather than deal with the tonal imbalance, they seem to have just sidestepped it by glossing over the less action-packed realities of the conflict. The multiplayer is standard fare for the series, a mix of vehicular and on-foot combat in massive matches focused around capturing and holding key points on the map. The main differentiation is the equipment available, defined by the period. It's absolutely gorgeous and sounds incredible, and it really assaults your senses and overwhelms you with mayhem to feel convincingly like you're in a brutal conflict. But, the problem is, while exciting, it's not really any fun. You're under constant threat of sniper fire, and will too often find yourself in an unwinnable situation, where no amount of personal skill can save you. The modern Battlefields have enough gadgetry to give you a fighting chance from almost any scenario, but in Battlefield 1, the tide of battle can often feel pre-determined from the moment you spawned, and the game just becomes about throwing blue fodder against red fodder and seeing which one suffers the heaviest losses. The story campaign is a fresh change, though, swapping out a one-man hero story for a series of vignettes about different characters in a different part of the greater war. While they still lean a little towards being one-man armies, the characters are charasmatic and their stories interesting, while the final chapter changes up the structure entirely and gives a brief glimpse of some open-world stealth action reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid V. It's a fun and varied campaign, but it's completely at odds with the multiplayer.


Game 48 - Gears of War 4 [PC] ★★★
Gears of War has typically been a single-player series for me. I've only ever really gone through the campaigns and moved on, but for Gears of War 4, I decided to give the multiplayer some time, and it turns out, it's pretty good. The regular modes are pretty standard fare, but the main event is Horde Three Point Oh, a class-based tower-defense alike that is as thrilling as it is maddening. Playing with random players online, you're relying on them to make a long time commitment without quitting (which they seldom do) and having a shared resource pool lets some greedy little shit spend all your money on their dumb ideas. But as stupid as people online can be, they will seem like strategic geniuses compared to the AI you'll encounter in the campaign. Gears 4's story mode is no worse than any game in the series, and I really enjoyed the original trilogy, but this shit just doesn't fly in 2016. Obvious kill rooms telegraph fights before they start, two terrible on-rails set-pieces fall flat on their face, and outside of that, you're just fighting endless waves of bullet sponges with no hit detection. It looked like it was going for something different at the beginning, when you were fighting robots, but then it's just about fighting the totally-not-Locust ad nauseam. It never surprises or impresses. I appreciate the legacy behind the series, but Gears 4 is just a fresh lick of paint on the same-old same-old.


Game 49 - Gang Beasts [PC] ★★★
Gang Beasts is an early access mess. With barely any presentation, and only a handful of modes, this is a physics-based fighting game where you have loose control over a coloured little dude as you try and knock out and eliminate other players. It controls more like you're a puppeteer than playing a videogame, which makes it often difficult to translate your intention to action. Difficult, but not impossible. Unlike games like Octodad or Surgeon Simulator that just ride off the gimmick of "look at our wacky controls", Gang Beasts gives you just enough direct control to feel right. And when you pair it up with multiplayer fighting, essentially what you have is a convincing simulation of drunken fighting. And it's fucking brilliant. The maps are hit and miss, but with a group of friends, you're laughing too much to care. They've recently rolled out online multiplayer, and the ability to host your own server (with some technical knowhow), and it holds up surprisingly well. It just needs a little more fleshing out and polish, but for now, it's worth a 30 minute session every week or so.


Game 50 - Elite: Dangerous - Horizons [PC] ★★★★★
I dipped into Elite: Dangerous when I got my Oculus Rift DK2. As the only full game with proper support at the time, I spent a lot of time with it, but really just in a demo capacity. When I realised VR was a waste of time and sold on my Rift, I never really went back to it. No Man's Sky this year put me in the mood for a galaxy-spanning space exploration game, but when that turned out to be a shitfest, I turned back to Elite. It's interesting, because compared to NMS, Elite throws out most of the minute-to-minute gameplay in favor of wrapping everything in a solid structure, and it's somehow a much better game as a result. The galaxy is vast and utterly convincing, and that's pretty much all this kind of game needs. It's basically Space Truck Simulator: a grind for sure, working your way up the ship hierarchy, but your work and planning is consistently rewarded, and everything is just sim enough that it's hard for any sci-fi fan not to geek the fuck out at it all. In multiplayer, working together on long-haul routes, hunting down pirates, or simply just meeting on a planet's surface after a 150 lightyear journey, it's magical. Elite makes a lot of promises, and keeps them all. Aside from an occasional server disconnection, it's hasn't set a foot wrong. Perfect for playing with a podcast or some tunes on. The gameplay loop isn't for everyone, but if it's your thing, it's basically flawless.


Game 51 - Overwatch [PC] ★★★★★
Blizzard's Midas Touch is still in full effect. As both their first foray into first person shooting, and their first new IP in almost 2 decades, Overwatch could have fallen really flat, but thanks to an obscene level of character and polish, it soars. Overwatch is essentially a TF2 clone, with even more of a push to individual characters and their abilities. What's incredible is really how they've managed to make every last one fun to play. A lot of that is thanks to the focus on positive feedback, where assists and kills are counted as the same, and there's no attention given to how much you've died. As a result, you feel like you're doing good even if you're not, and when you are having a good game, you feel godlike, with the Play of the Game at the match's end being a nice appreciation of some top play (or someone being Bastion). The sound design is also remarkable, giving you an awful lot of essential information about threats/allies in the vicinity without any cross-talk. The characters and their callouts are of such a high standard that they've been instantly iconic, and a massive dedicated fanbase sprung up around the game overnight. The post-release support has been impressive, from rebalances and meta-shifts to keep the game from getting stale, to high-quality seasonal events and the new Arcade mode adding new twists and rules to the base formula. Overwatch is an impeccable first step, setting up an exciting future for itself. One of the best new games of the last decade.


Game 52 - DOOM [PC] ★★★★★
DOOM is an incredible balance of past and present. The moment-to-moment gunplay feels fresh and new, it boasts a modern upgrade system and brutal melee finisher system, and it looks incredible, but the sprawling map design, lack of reloading, non-regenerating health and coloured keycards hark back to the old days. It feels like id took only the best parts of both eras and removed all the headaches, and the result is one of the best shooter campaigns ever, and a game that feels truly unique. There are no weak sections, and there's virtually no downtime. If you're not running around killing demons, you're speedily platforming around the environment, or searching around for secrets. The glory kill system invites you to melee finish enemies to replenish your health, while chainsaw-killing them will make them explode in a shower of ammo pickups like a bullet piñata. You're always being pushed to move, get up close and fuck demons up, and the more you do it, the more you want to do it. From minute 1, DOOM puts its foot on the accelerator and doesn't ease up until the credits roll. Personally, I couldn't handle its relentless pace for more than 90 minutes at a time on my run through it, but complaining about that seems unfair when it's exactly what it tries to be: a pumped-up adrenaline-fuelled delight. The combination of the action and the stunning synths & metal soundtrack makes DOOM feel cathartic in a way few other games are. Hell of a fucking game.

Having completed the full 52 last year I started the year powering through the list but my PC died and I still haven't replaced it so a mere 29 this year:

1. Serena
2. Where's my Micky
3. Jack Lumber
4. Street Fighter
5. Sega sonic the hedgehog
6. Sonic Lost World
7. Street Fighter Alpha
8. Street Fighter Alpha 3
9. Street Fighter the movie
10. Cadillacs and dinosaurs
11. Alien 3 The Gun
12. Afterburner II
13. Moonwalker arcade
14. Captain Commando
15. Cyberbots
16. Darkstalkers
17. Garou
18. The Simpsons arcade game
19. Jackie Chan kung fu master
20. Waku waku 7
21. Golden Axe revenge of death adder
22. Marvel super heroes
23. Dexter mobile
24. Sonic Colours DS
25. Sonic 06
26. Aquatic Games
27. Zoop
28. Galaxy force 2
29. The Silent Age

I'm pretty excited to start this challenge in 2017 as I've set up games on my laptop to play and clear 50+ games this coming year.

Since theres still time left why not add another to the list? Phantasy Star: Portables been beaten in a different way from how I did it for the 2014 challenge!


Games Beaten: 53 / 52
Total Playtime: 1061:19:00
01 - 27
28 - ??

62 games beaten in 2016. My goal is to play and beat more Xbox One /360 games as well as Wii/WiiU/3Ds games for next year.


PSP Games:

Ratchet and Clank Size Matters-7/10
The Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky-10/10
The Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter-10/10
LittleBigPlanet-9/10


PSVita Games:

The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel-10/10
Hitman Go-8/10
Lara Croft Go-7/10
Stein's Gate-10/10
Stein's Gate 0-10/10
Hue-9/10
Assassins Creed India-9/10
Assassins Creed China-9/10
Assassins Creed Russia-9/10
Senran Kagura Bon Apetit-6/10
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune vs. Zombies-7/10
Virtue's Last Reward-8/10
Legolas Ninjago: Shadow of Ronin-7/10
Lego Jurassic World-7/10

PS4 Games:

Assemblance-7/10
Virginia-7/10
The Bunker-8/10
Metal Gear Sold V The Phantom Pain-10/10
Resident Evil 6-7/10
Batman The Telltale Series Episode 1-10/10 for entire series
Batman The Telltale Series Episode 2
Batman The Telltale Series Episode 3
Batman The Telltale Series Episode 4
Batman The Telltale Series Episode 5
Bound-10/10
Abzu-10/10
The Walking Dead Michonne Episode 1-9/10 for entire series
The Walking Dead Michonne Episode 2
The Walking Dead Michonne Episode 3
Ratchet and Clank-10/10
Doom-10/10
Uncharted 4-10/10
Stories The Path of Destinies-10/10
Never Alone Foxtales-9/10
Among the Sleep-7/10
Call of Duty Black Ops 3-10/10
Onechanbara Z2: Chaos-7/10
Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition-9/10
Fire watch-10/10
Assassin's Creed Syndicate-10/10
Metro Last Light Redux-10/10
Peggle 2-8/10
Transformers Devastation-7/10
DmC Devil May Cry Definitive Edition-10/10
Gemini Heroes Reborn-7/10
Battlefield Hardline-7/10
Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition-9/10
Gone Home-8/10
The Walking Dead Season 3 Episode 1
The Walking Dead Season 3 Episode 2


PSVR Games:

Batman Arkham VR-9/10
Until Dawn Rise of Blood-9/10


PS3 Games:

Ratchet Deadlocked-7/10
Mirror's Edge-8/10
Ratchet and Clank All for One-9/10

Xbox One Games:

Oxenfree-9/10
Inside-10/10
Rise of the Tomb Raider-10/10

Already hit 52, but here's what I beat in December.

54. Fran Bow / 8 hrs

Really solid and SUPER dark adventure game. Terrible grammar and translation(?) though.

55. Anatomy / 1 hr

Creepy little trifle.

56. The Last Guardian / 13 hrs

Worthy third part of the Ueda trilogy!

57. OneShot / 4 hrs

Really solid meta fourth wall breaking Undertale like(came out before Undertale)

58. Final Fantasy XV / 40 hrs

I hate 90% of this. It's terrible. The things that are appealing about it are all gloss and shine.... it has the depth of a puddle. Thankfully XIV is still quality, or this franchise would be DEAD to me.

59. klocki / 1 hr

Nice little puzzle game that ends before it gets going.

60. Trials of Azra / 8 hrs

Perfect length puzzle game involving possessing creatures.

61. Zenge/ 2 hrs

Also wish there was more of this.

62. Yankai's Triangles / 3 hrs

I dunno what I feel about this.

62 games / 1258 hrs

Bye 2016!

Following all of this for the best part of the year, I've definitely felt inspired to take part next year. I've only finished thirty odd games this year, so I'm going to do my best to go for a year's worth of stuff anyway at this point.

This, along with my second rodeo in the Backlog Blitz challenge and how I'm going to approach that a bit more creatively next year, will be an amazing challenge.

I failed hard this year. Things just go so busy with work. Hoping to actually do this properly in 2017, as one of my resolutions is to finish more games. Looking forward to the new thread going up.

Main Post

Click to expand...

Since the year is ending I wanted to post the Mii Plaza games I beat this year. Given that I got a 3DS late last year, I only got the chance to truly explore Streetpass in 2016. For unaware people, Streetpass is a system where your 3DS interacts with other nearby 3DS systems by exchanging Mii information. You can view all the Miis you have interacted with in the Streetpass Plaza and even use them to play minigames!

Game #23: Find Mii I & II (3DS)
Completion Reached: Beat the final boss several times during the year.

Find Mii is a RPG-ish Streetpass minigame. In this one, Miis you meet act as party members that you use to battle monsters and rescue your Mii from an evil boss. Each Mii has a color which determines which spells it can use. After beating Find Mii, you unlock Find Mii II which is essentially the same but features a bit more depth. Overall, Find Mii is a fun way to use your Streetpass buddies!

Game #24: Mii Force (3DS)
Completion Reached: Cleared all the levels.

Mii Force is a shoot'em up Streetpass minigame. In this one, Miis act as powerups for your ship, giving you different weapons depending on their color. Unlike other Streetpass games, Mii Force feels like a true game with really fun gameplay and a decent level of challenge. I'd actually recommend buying this one.

Game #25: Battleground Z (3DS)
Completion Reached: Cleared all the main levels.

Battleground Z is a brawler-ish Streetpass minigame. In this one, Miis give you weapons to use against masses of zombies while you try to save the world. Although Battleground Z is fun and challenging it gets old quickly. Not that recommended.

Click to expand...

Game #26: The World Ends With You (DS)
Time Played: 60 hours or so.
Completion Reached: Cleared the main story and postgame content.

The World Ends With You (TWEWY) is a jRPG that has become somewhat of a cult classic in the past years, mainly thanks to how unique it is. The game follows Neku Sakuraba, a teenager in Shibuya, Tokyo, who gets somehow involved in a thing called the Reapers' Game. The plot explores the mysteries of this weird game as Neku grows and meets people in TWEWY's weird version of Japan.

In terms of gameplay, TWEWY has a very unique battle system that has you controlling one character on each screen of the DS. On the top screen you control Neku's partner by using the D-Pad to chain attacks. Meanwhile, on the bottom screen you control Neku by dragging him across the screen with the stylus. You also perform "spells" on the bottom screen by slashing, drawing, tapping and other actions with the stylus and also by blowing or shouting at the microphone. The system is very challenging at first but becomes fun when you get used to it. The game is also unique in the many small systems it has like a Bravery stat that determines which clothes you can wear, a Trend system that powers up some spells in certain locations, a Food system for power-ups and many more. Overall, the game has a lot going for it so it can get a bit overwhelming.

I enjoyed my time with TWEWY. The story's fun, the characters are great and the game oozes style with it's awesome art direction and cool music. Completely reccomended!

Finished the year with 26 games cleared, which is pretty decent IMO! Next year I'll do a log again, even if I know I won't reach 52.

Calling it here, that's 56 games total this year. Here's the wrap-up for me:

Click to expand...

Total time: 1350:36 hours, or 56.25 days, or 3.7 hours a day (+12% over last year!)

Top games by hours played:
1. Pokemon GO (Android) - 172:00
2. Overwatch (PC) - 151:42
3. No Man's Sky (PC) - 64:46
4. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (Wii U) - 64:43
5. Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book (PS4) - 55:08
6. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright (3DS) - 52:14
7. Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest (3DS) - 51:21
8. Watch Dogs 2 (PS4) - 38:34
9. Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation (3DS) - 37:16
10. Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita) - 34:02

Optional goals:
Finish the Wing Commander series. Big fat zero on this front, with no Wing Commander games played at all.
Finish at least one more Metal Gear Solid game. Ditto.
Finish a Wii U game. COMPLETED. Thanks, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE!
Finish three more 360 games. Close; I got two, ilomilo and Project Gotham Racing 4.
Finish three games I buy in the 2015 Steam Holiday Sale COMPLETED, barely. You Must Build a Boat, Empire TV Tycoon, and Flame Over (which was game #52!). I never managed to finish TIS-100 or Chroma Squad, and I actually played through all of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel EXCEPT the DLC I bought in that sale.

Plan for next year: no optional goals, I think, and I'm going to try and cut back a bit on the time (and money!) I spend on gaming. But I'll still be in the 2017 52-game challenge!

I did it! finished my 52nd game yesterday! Close call

List

Sooo, no where is the thread for 2017?

Guerrilla said:

I did it! finished my 52nd game yesterday! Close call

List

Sooo, no where is the thread for 2017?

Click to expand...

It's 19 hours til 2017 over here, just wait it out :3