01. Stardew Valley | PS4 | ~110hrs | ★★★★ | JAN 18TH
My first one of these type of Animal Crossing-esque games and probably the last for a while. Not because it was bad but because I was borderline obsessed for a good three weeks.
02. Furi | PS4 | ~17hrs | ★★★ | JAN 4TH
Fantastic soundtrack and I enjoyed most of the fights. The story was gibberish as far as I could tell.
03. Let It Die | PS4 | ~45hrs | ★★★.5 before paywall / ★★.5 after paywall | JAN 30TH
Was having a legit blast until I began bumping up against the aforementioned paywall which, as Super Bunnyhop pointed it out starts around Floor 19 and by Floor 24 or so is flat out ridiculous. I would have stuck with it but the grind gets old if you don't want to shell out for Death Metals IMO, especially when you make a new Lvl 1 character only to run into a Lvl 74 Hater on Floor 2 over and over and over.
04. Far Cry Primal | PS4 | ~40hrs | ★★★ | FEB 2ND
The prehistoric setting was novel but I'm over the Far Cry 3/4/P grind now. It's definitely put the dampers on my hype for FC5 unless they prove to really up-end the formula in a way that eschews this stale upgrade treadmill and injects a little variety.
05. Nioh | PS4 | ~58hrs | ★★★★ | MAR 3RD
TBH I struggled with Nioh early on a lot more than any of the Souls games I've played to date, but once I got into the the groove of it, I felt like I had mastered the combat to a level I never had to in Dark Souls. That said, I wasn't a fan of the bespoke levels and a lot of the side missions amounting to playing the same level in reverse or with harder enemies. The late game grinding I had to do to get even near the recommended level for the final side missions was insane. I'd argue they should have given the difficulty curve another pass or scaled the XP better. I didn't lose my Amartia much either. Otherwise, it was fantastic. Last couple main mission bosses were way too easy though. I dunno, the difficulty curve was all over the place for me.
06. Horizon Zero Dawn | PS4 | ~39hrs | ★★★★ | MAR 9TH
Despite being mostly apathetic about FC Primal just a month earlier, I went ahead and got this mostly for the eye candy and was pleasantly surprised with both the story and the combat. While the combat isn't exactly deep, the different bow and arrow types added a very welcome level of strategy to most fights (I still think fighting humans in that game is garbage so I just assassinated them 99% of the time). And of course the game is drop dead gorgeous. Can't wait to see Death Stranding on the Decima Engine.
07. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: WIldlands | PS4 | ~68hrs | ★★★ Solo / ★★★.5 Coop | MAR 14TH
It's definitely repetitive and yet in a way I could slip into a very zen-like state and watch the hours tick away and still want to keep going. It's definitely better with friends IMO although you can be a lot more efficient solo at the same time. Parachuting in as a squad to pick apart an enemy outpost and assassinate a leader or rescue a VIP while two friends hijack a chopper to provide cover on your extraction is a badass feeling.
08. Lara Croft Go | PS4 | ~5hrs | ★★.5 | APR 2ND
Another 'Go' game. Simple but fun. I found the puzzles to be more enjoyable than Hitman Go's.
09. NieR: Automata | PS4 | ★★★★★ | ~61hrs | APR 13TH
I make no bones about it, Nier: Automata is thus far my GOTY which is surprising to even me. I can't say too much without massively spoiling the game but let's just say I found the story deeply affecting in a way I wasn't expecting and if I have one complaint, it's that I wish there was more of this world to explore and more stories to experience. I never played the original Nier but it's now sitting very near the top of my backlog. I will play it this year. Oh and the combat was a little rote for PlatinumGames.
10. Shadow Warrior 2 | PS4 | ★.5 | ~25hrs | JUN 16TH
Generally speaking I love looters but something about this one just fell flat for me. Even playing with a group of friends, I found the repetitive nature of game very boring and mind-numbing. I could only do a few missions each time before I just was bored to tears. There was too much loot and so much of it garbage and most seemed inconsequential in that it didn't change the way the game played or felt at all, a problem I also had with the enemies. Changing elemental damage doesn't constitute gameplay variety IMO. All in all, it reminded me a lot of Borderlands. Terrible writing, a barely existent plot and a Diablo-esque loop without any of the things that made leveling up and getting new loot in Diablo 3 feel awesome. At least Borderlands had some novel characters.
11. Persona 5 | PS4 | ★★★★ | ~150hrs (incl. NG+) | JUN 24TH
Persona 5 was my first and onliest turn-based JRPG that I've ever finished so not only was I a Persona virgin but a genre virgin too. Despite all that, or possibly because of it, I enjoyed my time with P5. It certainly wasn't perfect. I found the last two Palaces
to be way too long to the point that I wasn't having fun with that part of the game anymore. Some of the time management stuff was annoying to me too. Not just the part where some things cause time to pass despite how trivial they are while others don't pass time at all, but more particularly the days where everything is essentially on autopilot, making it feel like your time is being wasted, solely to make it nearly impossible to do everything in one play-through. That said, the highs were really high and I enjoyed most of the core characters and the confidant stuff. The plot gets a little up it's own ass when it goes for the plot twist, but overall not so bad that it changed my opinion of the story much. The combat was mostly fun; challenging while relatively briskly paced (although the result screen afterward should be skippable); but fuck Hamas and Mudoon. The few times I died were being instakilled by that shit and that's just not fun, especially when you encounter a Persona for the first time and have no idea it has those abilities. The grinding was a bit extreme for my tastes but at least they give you ways to mitigate that. I also didn't care for the way they do NG+ (i.e. certain things carry over, others don't), I don't like games forcing multiple play-throughs to see/do everything
.
12. Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove | PS4 | ★★★★ | ~20hrs | JUL
I played a level or two of it way back when it first came out on PS4 and didn't love it but came back to it recently and I enjoyed the whole package. Tough at times but fair. I guess I lucked out because I bought it relatively early on so it looks like I got all the update free. Waa-hoo! Now to try the other campaigns!
13. Gemini: Heroes Reborn | PS4 | ★★ | ~8hrs | JUL
Decided to give it a try after seeing it on Vinny Caravella's personal Top 10 games of 2016 list. I'm usually down with what Vinny likes and I see the appeal of the game, but everything felt so janky I just couldn't get into it. The story was blah and the powers were cool but didn't seem to jive well or make a lot of sense.
14. Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition | PS4 | ★★★.5 | ~40hrs | JUL
Another solid effort from Housemarque. Never played in on PS3 and initially wasn't a huge fan of the weapons but came back to it for the co-op and my buddy and I had a blast with it. A little disappointing that your weapon upgrades don't carry over from one difficulty to the next but I suppose that would have made the game way too easy on the hardest difficulties. Great fun in co-op.
15. Tearaway Unfolded | PS4 | ★★.5 | ~18hrs | JUL
Enjoyed the game on the Vita, not so much this one. It's not bad but it's a lot of the same stuff, which I was prepared for as it's basically sold as a remaster, but the new stuff specific to PS4 wasn't anything to write home about. It also made the game seem way too long as well.
16. ICEY | PS4 | ★★★ | 5hrs | JUL
Heard about it a while ago and didn't know it was coming to the US PSN so I picked up the HK version. The combat side reminded me a little of Nier: Automata on normal; button mashy and pretty forgiving. I had not heard about the meta part or the narration throughout. That was a nice surprise. The acting from the narrator was pretty cheesy but not so much that it annoyed me. It was weird to hear Carcosa and The Yellow King pop up in a hack n slash 2D fighter that I'm pretty sure is from Asia when the only other place I had heard those things before was True Detective (although I know it's from literature including being co-opted by Lovecraft into his work. Enjoyable but short game.
17. Small Radios, Big Televisions | PS4 | ★★★ | 5hrs | JUL
Another short but fun little game. The atmosphere and puzzle solving reminded me of The Witness a little, although in reality they don't seem much a like. They both just take a relatively simple type of puzzle and then build and build and build upon it. I liked that it was on the short side too. It didn't overstay it's welcome for me, unlike The Witness.
18. Sundered | PS4 | ★★★ | 19hrs | JUL
Sundered had not been on my radar at all until right before launch. The incredibly well-drawn and animated art style interested me and I'm always up for a Metroidvania type game. While I enjoyed the vast majority of the game, the weird hiccups in the game (just freezing randomly for half a second), the occasional BSOD on PS4 and the nearly constant stream of enemies at all times began to take it's toll after a while. If not for that, this would have been one of my favorite games of the 2017 thus far but the technical issues were often enough to be annoying and the ceaseless mobs made exploring a chore when it should have been interesting. It wouldn't have been so bad if they were a little more challenging but what little challenge there was felt cheap with enemies shooting you through walls that you yourself cannot shoot through and often from off screen. Super Bunnyhop did a video on it for those interested.
19. Jazzpunk | PS4 | ★★★.5 | ~4hrs | AUG
Hilarious and strange little game. I heard about it years ago but never got around to it until recently when I decided to buckle down and clear the backlog as much as I could. Honestly the only disappointing part was when it ended. Well, and I wasn't the biggest fan of that beach level. Definitely makes me want to see more games that try to weave comedy into them.
20 . Albedo: Eyes from Outerspace | PS4 | ★ | 3hrs | AUG
Another backlog game, this one wasn't nearly as good. The puzzle solving was simplistic and easy apart from this one that was annoying underwater. I swear, the guy voicing the main character sounds like he was high af for most of it. Strange game, not my type of thing.
21. Her Majesty's Spiffing | PS4 | ★.5 | ~3hrs | AUG
Very much a traditional adventure game with a little comedy thrown in here and there. It didn't do anything different or exemplary well so it was kind of boring for me. Adventure fans might get more out of it but I was glad when it was over.
22. Here They Lie | PS4 | ★★★ | ~4hrs | AUG
Didn't play this in VR but I liked it quite a bit. Very interesting story once you have the full breadth of it. I was enjoying walking around this hellscape wondering what exactly was going on until I got to this part near the end where you have to run from house to house to avoid these little creatures. That part and a few others dragged the pacing down for me. I know it's padding to lengthen the game but I don't appreciate that shit. I'd rather play a 2 hour game with tight pacing than something that drags.
23. L.A. Cops | PS4 | ★★ | ~5hrs | AUG
It looked like a Hotline Miami knock off but man, it's got none of the gameplay refinement of Hotline Miami. The AI is dumb and that was the only saving grace as it made the game rather easy to cheese so I could get through it pretty quickly. No one should mention this game in the same breath as HLM.
24. Unravel | PS4 | ★★★.5 | 13hrs | AUG
Very cute little game. For the most part the gameplay and puzzle solving was fun and intuitive. It could have been a little more challenging in some places, but I guess it was intended more as an all-audiences type game so I can let that go. The main character is a cute little critter and the way they animate him differently in the different levels made it feel alive. It'd rub it's shoulders in the cold level and look around it with these big eyes when it was scarred. Really good job conveying emotion without words. Real interested to see what's next from that studio. Oh and the art style is fantastic. Beautiful game.
25. Color Guardians | PS4 | ★★.5 | 8hrs | AUG
Endless runner type game with multiple lanes of different colors where you need to collect color blobs. Kind of reminded me if you turned the Rockband/Guitar Hero highway left-to-right. Surprisingly difficult at times it made for a challenge occasionally in a game that looks like it's straight up phone game for kids.
26. Blackwood Crossing | PS4 | ★★★ | 3-4hrs | AUG
Cute little walking simulator type game with some very basic puzzle solving but is mostly about the story of the main character and her little brother. I don't want to spoil the story stuff so much so I'll just say I enjoyed it and it was a good length. Enough time to get interested without overstaying it's welcome and becoming tedious.
27. Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin | PS4 | ★★★★ | ~40hrs | AUG
Played DS2 on PS3 but picked up the PS4 version for cheap a while ago to do the DLC stuff. I don't know if it's the tweaks they've made or just coming back to a Dark Souls game I've played before and having it be a solid 60fps but man is this game a hoot. The DLC stuff is real cool and I have liked the small changes to enemy placements and the like they made. DS2 was my first DS game so it's probably still my favorite between 2 and 3. Still need to play 1 but SotFS is definitely an upgrade from 2 and probably my favorite thus far (Bloodborne is excluded).
28. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record | PS4 | ★★★ | ~70hrs | AUG/SEP
I can't honestly say the majority of the Dead Rising games are good games, but they are bad games that I thoroughly enjoy playing. When the first 3 (main) games were remastered and ported to next-gen, I'm probably one of the few people that was legitimately excited about that. I just love the world of those games and OTR is probably my favorite to date. The playground in DR2 is bigger and better than the original and the weapon crafting makes for some fantastic, fun, and silly combat moments, and in OTR you get all that plus Frank West too. What's not to love? Plus it was fun to play it again without it being (as much) of a choppy mess. I don't think it quite maintains 60fps the whole time but it's so much better than back on 360.
29. Mafia 3 | PS4 | ★★★ | ~45hrs | OCT
Mafia 3 is at the same time one of the best open world crime games I've played in a long time and also one of the worst. While the plot follows the framework of a boiler plate revenge tale, because of the quality of the writing and the light interweaving of historical elements into the story, it rises well above the tropes it's built on. Even though I wouldn't consider Lincoln a particularly well fleshed out character, he's above average for the genre and probably one of the better protagonists in the genre since John Marston and some of the more colorful side characters like Donovan and a great, albeit too short cameo by comedian Joey Diaz kept me invested all the way to the end. The problem is that the gameplay in between is about as repetitive as you can get. There's virtually no variation to main mission structure and the ancillary stuff like races and the repeatable missions for your underbosses are somehow even worse. They're skipable whereas the repetitive main missions are not and there are so many it becomes a question of if it's worth it to get to the next story beat. In the end, it is worth it, but the game would have been so much better with either more variety or pairing down of missions to make the whole thing move quicker. That said, I'm looking forward to jumping back into New Bourdeux at some point to give the DLC a try but for now I need a break from it.
30. Everybody's Golf | PS4 | ★★.5 | ~35hrs | OCT
I really wanted to enjoy this game but apart from the golf itself being relatively solid, I just found nothing to like here. After the first 5-10 hours, it was all downhill from there as you repeat the same courses in just slightly different variations over and over. First vanilla, then with wind, then with small cups, now with big cups and no drivers, now with rain, now in reverse order, etc. But the biggest disappointment of all is that despite having online play, there is inexplicably no way to party up with friends to either play together as a team or even against each other. You can kind of do it in the shared area, but any actual play where you can set modifiers or pick a course, you cannot.
31. Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel | PS4 | ★★★ | ~5hrs | SEPT
Generally whenever there is any new Soulsborne content, I've found the most enjoyable way to run through it the first time is in coop with my buddy. It lets us work together to figure things out and mitigates some of the frustration that can arise in going through a new area in a Souls game. Plus we get to play everything twice! Unfortunately that was probably the worst way to play this DLC as, even though I'm on NG+5, everything was so easy. In both my game and his, we beat the Ariandel/Freide fight first try. I went back and did it all on my solo character and while it was significantly more challenging, I still made rather short work of it. Definitely glad I didn't pay full price for it.
32. Dark Souls III: The Ringed City | PS4 | ★★★★ | ~15hrs | SEPT/OCT
So much better than Ashes it almost hurts. I never research Souls content ahead of time, I just buy it and play it at this point, so it was kind of surreal to go through the beginning area only to realize about halfway through that it was Earthen Peak. It's a nice throwback to DS2, including the sorceress invader straight out of DS2 Earthen Peak. It really shines though when you get to the titular Ringed City which is chock full of new enemies and lots of exploring to do and MUCH better boss fights, from Midir to Gael and the novel PvP Spear of the Church fight. I loved fighting Midir on the bridge only to be invaded and just by the skin of my teeth, defeating both before limping to the shortcut to the real Midir fight.
NOW PLAYING
Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir | PS4 | PENDING |
COMING SOON
My first one of these type of Animal Crossing-esque games and probably the last for a while. Not because it was bad but because I was borderline obsessed for a good three weeks.
02. Furi | PS4 | ~17hrs | ★★★ | JAN 4TH
Fantastic soundtrack and I enjoyed most of the fights. The story was gibberish as far as I could tell.
03. Let It Die | PS4 | ~45hrs | ★★★.5 before paywall / ★★.5 after paywall | JAN 30TH
Was having a legit blast until I began bumping up against the aforementioned paywall which, as Super Bunnyhop pointed it out starts around Floor 19 and by Floor 24 or so is flat out ridiculous. I would have stuck with it but the grind gets old if you don't want to shell out for Death Metals IMO, especially when you make a new Lvl 1 character only to run into a Lvl 74 Hater on Floor 2 over and over and over.
04. Far Cry Primal | PS4 | ~40hrs | ★★★ | FEB 2ND
The prehistoric setting was novel but I'm over the Far Cry 3/4/P grind now. It's definitely put the dampers on my hype for FC5 unless they prove to really up-end the formula in a way that eschews this stale upgrade treadmill and injects a little variety.
05. Nioh | PS4 | ~58hrs | ★★★★ | MAR 3RD
TBH I struggled with Nioh early on a lot more than any of the Souls games I've played to date, but once I got into the the groove of it, I felt like I had mastered the combat to a level I never had to in Dark Souls. That said, I wasn't a fan of the bespoke levels and a lot of the side missions amounting to playing the same level in reverse or with harder enemies. The late game grinding I had to do to get even near the recommended level for the final side missions was insane. I'd argue they should have given the difficulty curve another pass or scaled the XP better. I didn't lose my Amartia much either. Otherwise, it was fantastic. Last couple main mission bosses were way too easy though. I dunno, the difficulty curve was all over the place for me.
06. Horizon Zero Dawn | PS4 | ~39hrs | ★★★★ | MAR 9TH
Despite being mostly apathetic about FC Primal just a month earlier, I went ahead and got this mostly for the eye candy and was pleasantly surprised with both the story and the combat. While the combat isn't exactly deep, the different bow and arrow types added a very welcome level of strategy to most fights (I still think fighting humans in that game is garbage so I just assassinated them 99% of the time). And of course the game is drop dead gorgeous. Can't wait to see Death Stranding on the Decima Engine.
07. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: WIldlands | PS4 | ~68hrs | ★★★ Solo / ★★★.5 Coop | MAR 14TH
It's definitely repetitive and yet in a way I could slip into a very zen-like state and watch the hours tick away and still want to keep going. It's definitely better with friends IMO although you can be a lot more efficient solo at the same time. Parachuting in as a squad to pick apart an enemy outpost and assassinate a leader or rescue a VIP while two friends hijack a chopper to provide cover on your extraction is a badass feeling.
08. Lara Croft Go | PS4 | ~5hrs | ★★.5 | APR 2ND
Another 'Go' game. Simple but fun. I found the puzzles to be more enjoyable than Hitman Go's.
09. NieR: Automata | PS4 | ★★★★★ | ~61hrs | APR 13TH
I make no bones about it, Nier: Automata is thus far my GOTY which is surprising to even me. I can't say too much without massively spoiling the game but let's just say I found the story deeply affecting in a way I wasn't expecting and if I have one complaint, it's that I wish there was more of this world to explore and more stories to experience. I never played the original Nier but it's now sitting very near the top of my backlog. I will play it this year. Oh and the combat was a little rote for PlatinumGames.
10. Shadow Warrior 2 | PS4 | ★.5 | ~25hrs | JUN 16TH
Generally speaking I love looters but something about this one just fell flat for me. Even playing with a group of friends, I found the repetitive nature of game very boring and mind-numbing. I could only do a few missions each time before I just was bored to tears. There was too much loot and so much of it garbage and most seemed inconsequential in that it didn't change the way the game played or felt at all, a problem I also had with the enemies. Changing elemental damage doesn't constitute gameplay variety IMO. All in all, it reminded me a lot of Borderlands. Terrible writing, a barely existent plot and a Diablo-esque loop without any of the things that made leveling up and getting new loot in Diablo 3 feel awesome. At least Borderlands had some novel characters.
11. Persona 5 | PS4 | ★★★★ | ~150hrs (incl. NG+) | JUN 24TH
Persona 5 was my first and onliest turn-based JRPG that I've ever finished so not only was I a Persona virgin but a genre virgin too. Despite all that, or possibly because of it, I enjoyed my time with P5. It certainly wasn't perfect. I found the last two Palaces
(Sae's and Shido's)
(fighting the Twins)
12. Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove | PS4 | ★★★★ | ~20hrs | JUL
I played a level or two of it way back when it first came out on PS4 and didn't love it but came back to it recently and I enjoyed the whole package. Tough at times but fair. I guess I lucked out because I bought it relatively early on so it looks like I got all the update free. Waa-hoo! Now to try the other campaigns!
13. Gemini: Heroes Reborn | PS4 | ★★ | ~8hrs | JUL
Decided to give it a try after seeing it on Vinny Caravella's personal Top 10 games of 2016 list. I'm usually down with what Vinny likes and I see the appeal of the game, but everything felt so janky I just couldn't get into it. The story was blah and the powers were cool but didn't seem to jive well or make a lot of sense.
14. Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition | PS4 | ★★★.5 | ~40hrs | JUL
Another solid effort from Housemarque. Never played in on PS3 and initially wasn't a huge fan of the weapons but came back to it for the co-op and my buddy and I had a blast with it. A little disappointing that your weapon upgrades don't carry over from one difficulty to the next but I suppose that would have made the game way too easy on the hardest difficulties. Great fun in co-op.
15. Tearaway Unfolded | PS4 | ★★.5 | ~18hrs | JUL
Enjoyed the game on the Vita, not so much this one. It's not bad but it's a lot of the same stuff, which I was prepared for as it's basically sold as a remaster, but the new stuff specific to PS4 wasn't anything to write home about. It also made the game seem way too long as well.
16. ICEY | PS4 | ★★★ | 5hrs | JUL
Heard about it a while ago and didn't know it was coming to the US PSN so I picked up the HK version. The combat side reminded me a little of Nier: Automata on normal; button mashy and pretty forgiving. I had not heard about the meta part or the narration throughout. That was a nice surprise. The acting from the narrator was pretty cheesy but not so much that it annoyed me. It was weird to hear Carcosa and The Yellow King pop up in a hack n slash 2D fighter that I'm pretty sure is from Asia when the only other place I had heard those things before was True Detective (although I know it's from literature including being co-opted by Lovecraft into his work. Enjoyable but short game.
17. Small Radios, Big Televisions | PS4 | ★★★ | 5hrs | JUL
Another short but fun little game. The atmosphere and puzzle solving reminded me of The Witness a little, although in reality they don't seem much a like. They both just take a relatively simple type of puzzle and then build and build and build upon it. I liked that it was on the short side too. It didn't overstay it's welcome for me, unlike The Witness.
18. Sundered | PS4 | ★★★ | 19hrs | JUL
Sundered had not been on my radar at all until right before launch. The incredibly well-drawn and animated art style interested me and I'm always up for a Metroidvania type game. While I enjoyed the vast majority of the game, the weird hiccups in the game (just freezing randomly for half a second), the occasional BSOD on PS4 and the nearly constant stream of enemies at all times began to take it's toll after a while. If not for that, this would have been one of my favorite games of the 2017 thus far but the technical issues were often enough to be annoying and the ceaseless mobs made exploring a chore when it should have been interesting. It wouldn't have been so bad if they were a little more challenging but what little challenge there was felt cheap with enemies shooting you through walls that you yourself cannot shoot through and often from off screen. Super Bunnyhop did a video on it for those interested.
19. Jazzpunk | PS4 | ★★★.5 | ~4hrs | AUG
Hilarious and strange little game. I heard about it years ago but never got around to it until recently when I decided to buckle down and clear the backlog as much as I could. Honestly the only disappointing part was when it ended. Well, and I wasn't the biggest fan of that beach level. Definitely makes me want to see more games that try to weave comedy into them.
20 . Albedo: Eyes from Outerspace | PS4 | ★ | 3hrs | AUG
Another backlog game, this one wasn't nearly as good. The puzzle solving was simplistic and easy apart from this one that was annoying underwater. I swear, the guy voicing the main character sounds like he was high af for most of it. Strange game, not my type of thing.
21. Her Majesty's Spiffing | PS4 | ★.5 | ~3hrs | AUG
Very much a traditional adventure game with a little comedy thrown in here and there. It didn't do anything different or exemplary well so it was kind of boring for me. Adventure fans might get more out of it but I was glad when it was over.
22. Here They Lie | PS4 | ★★★ | ~4hrs | AUG
Didn't play this in VR but I liked it quite a bit. Very interesting story once you have the full breadth of it. I was enjoying walking around this hellscape wondering what exactly was going on until I got to this part near the end where you have to run from house to house to avoid these little creatures. That part and a few others dragged the pacing down for me. I know it's padding to lengthen the game but I don't appreciate that shit. I'd rather play a 2 hour game with tight pacing than something that drags.
23. L.A. Cops | PS4 | ★★ | ~5hrs | AUG
It looked like a Hotline Miami knock off but man, it's got none of the gameplay refinement of Hotline Miami. The AI is dumb and that was the only saving grace as it made the game rather easy to cheese so I could get through it pretty quickly. No one should mention this game in the same breath as HLM.
24. Unravel | PS4 | ★★★.5 | 13hrs | AUG
Very cute little game. For the most part the gameplay and puzzle solving was fun and intuitive. It could have been a little more challenging in some places, but I guess it was intended more as an all-audiences type game so I can let that go. The main character is a cute little critter and the way they animate him differently in the different levels made it feel alive. It'd rub it's shoulders in the cold level and look around it with these big eyes when it was scarred. Really good job conveying emotion without words. Real interested to see what's next from that studio. Oh and the art style is fantastic. Beautiful game.
25. Color Guardians | PS4 | ★★.5 | 8hrs | AUG
Endless runner type game with multiple lanes of different colors where you need to collect color blobs. Kind of reminded me if you turned the Rockband/Guitar Hero highway left-to-right. Surprisingly difficult at times it made for a challenge occasionally in a game that looks like it's straight up phone game for kids.
26. Blackwood Crossing | PS4 | ★★★ | 3-4hrs | AUG
Cute little walking simulator type game with some very basic puzzle solving but is mostly about the story of the main character and her little brother. I don't want to spoil the story stuff so much so I'll just say I enjoyed it and it was a good length. Enough time to get interested without overstaying it's welcome and becoming tedious.
27. Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin | PS4 | ★★★★ | ~40hrs | AUG
Played DS2 on PS3 but picked up the PS4 version for cheap a while ago to do the DLC stuff. I don't know if it's the tweaks they've made or just coming back to a Dark Souls game I've played before and having it be a solid 60fps but man is this game a hoot. The DLC stuff is real cool and I have liked the small changes to enemy placements and the like they made. DS2 was my first DS game so it's probably still my favorite between 2 and 3. Still need to play 1 but SotFS is definitely an upgrade from 2 and probably my favorite thus far (Bloodborne is excluded).
28. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record | PS4 | ★★★ | ~70hrs | AUG/SEP
I can't honestly say the majority of the Dead Rising games are good games, but they are bad games that I thoroughly enjoy playing. When the first 3 (main) games were remastered and ported to next-gen, I'm probably one of the few people that was legitimately excited about that. I just love the world of those games and OTR is probably my favorite to date. The playground in DR2 is bigger and better than the original and the weapon crafting makes for some fantastic, fun, and silly combat moments, and in OTR you get all that plus Frank West too. What's not to love? Plus it was fun to play it again without it being (as much) of a choppy mess. I don't think it quite maintains 60fps the whole time but it's so much better than back on 360.
29. Mafia 3 | PS4 | ★★★ | ~45hrs | OCT
Mafia 3 is at the same time one of the best open world crime games I've played in a long time and also one of the worst. While the plot follows the framework of a boiler plate revenge tale, because of the quality of the writing and the light interweaving of historical elements into the story, it rises well above the tropes it's built on. Even though I wouldn't consider Lincoln a particularly well fleshed out character, he's above average for the genre and probably one of the better protagonists in the genre since John Marston and some of the more colorful side characters like Donovan and a great, albeit too short cameo by comedian Joey Diaz kept me invested all the way to the end. The problem is that the gameplay in between is about as repetitive as you can get. There's virtually no variation to main mission structure and the ancillary stuff like races and the repeatable missions for your underbosses are somehow even worse. They're skipable whereas the repetitive main missions are not and there are so many it becomes a question of if it's worth it to get to the next story beat. In the end, it is worth it, but the game would have been so much better with either more variety or pairing down of missions to make the whole thing move quicker. That said, I'm looking forward to jumping back into New Bourdeux at some point to give the DLC a try but for now I need a break from it.
30. Everybody's Golf | PS4 | ★★.5 | ~35hrs | OCT
I really wanted to enjoy this game but apart from the golf itself being relatively solid, I just found nothing to like here. After the first 5-10 hours, it was all downhill from there as you repeat the same courses in just slightly different variations over and over. First vanilla, then with wind, then with small cups, now with big cups and no drivers, now with rain, now in reverse order, etc. But the biggest disappointment of all is that despite having online play, there is inexplicably no way to party up with friends to either play together as a team or even against each other. You can kind of do it in the shared area, but any actual play where you can set modifiers or pick a course, you cannot.
31. Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel | PS4 | ★★★ | ~5hrs | SEPT
Generally whenever there is any new Soulsborne content, I've found the most enjoyable way to run through it the first time is in coop with my buddy. It lets us work together to figure things out and mitigates some of the frustration that can arise in going through a new area in a Souls game. Plus we get to play everything twice! Unfortunately that was probably the worst way to play this DLC as, even though I'm on NG+5, everything was so easy. In both my game and his, we beat the Ariandel/Freide fight first try. I went back and did it all on my solo character and while it was significantly more challenging, I still made rather short work of it. Definitely glad I didn't pay full price for it.
32. Dark Souls III: The Ringed City | PS4 | ★★★★ | ~15hrs | SEPT/OCT
So much better than Ashes it almost hurts. I never research Souls content ahead of time, I just buy it and play it at this point, so it was kind of surreal to go through the beginning area only to realize about halfway through that it was Earthen Peak. It's a nice throwback to DS2, including the sorceress invader straight out of DS2 Earthen Peak. It really shines though when you get to the titular Ringed City which is chock full of new enemies and lots of exploring to do and MUCH better boss fights, from Midir to Gael and the novel PvP Spear of the Church fight. I loved fighting Midir on the bridge only to be invaded and just by the skin of my teeth, defeating both before limping to the shortcut to the real Midir fight.
NOW PLAYING
Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir | PS4 | PENDING |
COMING SOON
Gravity Rush Remastered | PS4 | PENDING |
Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Ed. | PS4 | PENDING |
Titanfall 2 | PS4 | PENDING |
ABZU | PS4 | PENDING |
The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine | PS4 | PENDING |
Final Fantasy XV | PS4 | PENDING |
Gravity Rush 2 | PS4 | PENDING |
Rise of the Tomb Raider | PS4 | PENDING |
The Surge | PS4 | PENDING |
Watch Dogs 2 | PS4 | PENDING |
Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Ed. | PS4 | PENDING |
Titanfall 2 | PS4 | PENDING |
ABZU | PS4 | PENDING |
The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine | PS4 | PENDING |
Final Fantasy XV | PS4 | PENDING |
Gravity Rush 2 | PS4 | PENDING |
Rise of the Tomb Raider | PS4 | PENDING |
The Surge | PS4 | PENDING |
Watch Dogs 2 | PS4 | PENDING |