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VisceralBowl · Dec 25, 2014

A thread for gaffers who are trying to play 52 games in a year. Tell us how you're doing and what you are going to play next, claim a post and update us on your progress.

Previous threads:
2014

How do I take part?
Claim a post (you may need two later). Write down each game and your thoughts about each one. Use this format for your post:

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

Game 2: NAME - DURATION PLAYED
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 3: NAME - DURATION PLAYED
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

How do I know when I've completed a game?
That's up to you, it could be completing the game or playing 10hrs+ if it has no ending or a MP game. PS: You can do replays, as long as all the games are completed in 2015.

What should I do once I've completed the challenge?
Shoot me a PM with a link to your post that shows all the games you've completed. Make sure to note if you completed the challenge last year.

Is there a deadline?

People who have completed the challenge will be posted here, please remember to send me a PM once you’re done!

Knurek

StingX2

corrosivefrost

Spy ware

Steverulez

hersheyfan

Hikami

Minish driveby

Arthea

WeWereGiants

Teggy

Dryk

GLuigi

wyvern_bloodfist

Duxxy3

Widdly Scuds

Jawmuncher

Krafter

Reila

watdaeff4

The Illiterati

ChryZ

SteHitch

chrominance

LocarionStorm

Stanng243

J.W.Crazy

AHA-Lambda

NingenJanai

LiquidSolid

Aarglefarg

bobnowhere

Spieler Eins

Flutterborn

BinaryPork2737

Ozium

jiggles

Drayco21

Labadal

Madn

Sch1sm

donny2112

Ladekabel

mp1990

Oreoleo

KyleP29

Azriell

Mman235

Pellegri Testament

rybrad

RoaringMdog

Ceallach

belkheldar

An-Det

KenOD

eefara

electroflame

JooseBawcks

Xeteh

HassanJamal

Rymuth

Enstikto

Nbz

mstevens

Lindsay

JPS Kai

JudgmentJay

WiiRevolution1

jb1234

Wo33er

ArjanN

Domstercool

Nemaides

Triggerhappytel

IfAllElseFales

gaiages

lochnesssnowman

TheDancingWatermelon

s74rshaped

LGom09

StarskySilverz

shmoglish

Zeranium

Dan

SolidSnakex

Lemstar

chrixter

mrgone

CloakBass

moeshizzle

Sendou · Dec 25, 2014

My Backloggery

Game 1: Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) - January 1
# Nice way to start the year. I really like when games teach you something interesting. Gameplay has some problems (mainly companion AI and some clumsy parts) but still manages to be passable.

Game 2: Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale - January 5
# Refresingly innocent and beautifully presented. Just the right lenght for the story it's telling. Very interesting setting.

Game 3: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - January 19
# Just what I expect from EAD Tokyo. Surprising, fun to play and all around polished. That said I didn't like how they tried to make the game artificially longer.

Game 4: The Talos Principle - February 15
# Reminded me of Portal a lot. Very philosophical and intriguing story that I enjoyed all way through. All around a very strong show from a developer I wasn't familiar with before.

Game 5: Max Payne 3 - February 22
# Really solid game all around. Had fun time shooting in Brazil (a country not overrepresented in video games). Spends too much time on the nonsense story and ever interrupting cutscenes.

Game 6: This War of Mine - February 24
# Tells stories about a side of war you don't often see in games. Mechanics wise the game is hurt by the lack of information behind how it works (worst example of this in action is the food system that's easy to misunderstand so that you use between 3 or 4 times as much food as is actually needed) yet I definitely enjoyed the 10 hours I spent with it. Has some factors that encourage replayability but unfortunately lack of scope in elements (that would make different playthroughs interesting) doesn't make it desirable at all.

Game 7: Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number - March 21
# Hadn't such a good time with it as I did with the first one. Feels frustratingly hard more often than challengingly so and this is without considering bugs. At least the soundtrack is still rock solid.

Game 8: Bejeweled 3 - April 13rd
# Scratched that match-3 itch I had nicely. Perfectly realized version of Bejeweled. Only flaws revolve around the heavy randomness behind getting a good score.

Game 9: Pillars of Eternity - April 18th
# A really good game yet one I was glad that ended when it did. I really liked how well written the quests in this game were. Bugs, both severe and minor, I didn't care much about.

Game 10: A Bird Story - April 18th
# I was big fan of To The Moon but didn't get similiar feelings with this game. I wish RPGMaker would burn in the fires of hell already. While I wasn't a fan of the result I can still appreciate Freebird Games tried something different with this game.

Game 11: Roundabout - April 23rd
# Really lovely game. Use of FMV's really made this game's wacky story. Gameplay wasn't a home run but it was still something unique and had its moments.

Game 12: Westerado: Double Barreled - April 27th
# Ostrich Bandito's game travels in genres not often explored by other indies. Uses pixel graphics and music to create exactly the right kind of mood for the game. A little lacking in content.

Game 13: Broken Age - May 3rd
# Beautiful but still very underwhelming game. Splitting it into two acts didn't help its case at all. So frustrating puzzles that it left me wondering if there's any place for adventure games in today's world.

Game 14: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare
# Best multiplayer shooter I've played in a long time. Delightful artistic style is not overshadowing the honed gameplay in the slightest. A game I rarely get excited about but this is a clear exception.

Game 15: Splatoon
# Game of the Year contender. EAD at their best providing masterfully crafted take on the multiplayer shooter genre. Clear shortcomings also like lack of multiplayer options and weak singleplayer (except the final boss, holy shit) but at its best it's such a joy to play.

Game 16: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
# Even after hearing all the praise I was still surprised how much I ended up enjoying this game. Stellar writing, world-building, graphics, OST, combat system, pretty much anything really. I have only minor complaints: controlling Geralt (both on foot and riding) could feel smoother and it's never a pleasure seeing bugs.

Graveyard (or games I shelved for now after playing them some): Child of Light, Hexcells Plus, Sonic Generations, There Came an Echo, Crimsonland, (It came from space, and ate our brains), Wizorb, Far Cry 4, Goat Simulator

theusedversion · Dec 25, 2014

I am in awe of anyone who finishes 52 games in one year.

Edit: Holy crap, donny2112 beat 112 games in one year? How in the fuck is that possible? Wow.

Edit 2: Realized it's just about playing games and not necessarily finishing them.

VisceralBowl · Dec 25, 2014

Game 1 – Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PC) (Started in 2013)
There’s a ton of technical and design issues. Those aside I thought it was alright.

Game 2 – Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PC) (Started in 2014)
I didn’t like it.

Game 3 – Assassin’s Creed Unity (PC) (Started in 2014)
I liked it more than AC4. The combat and visuals were great.

Game 4 – Halo: Combat Evolved (XBO) (Started in 2014)
Some of Halo CE's levels are quite boring and repetitive at this point.

Game 5 - Halo 2 (XBO)
My favorite Halo game. Loved the new coat of paint.

Game 6 – Prey (X360) (Started in 2014)
What a weird game. It was okay.

Game 7 – infamous: First Light (PS4)
I wasn’t a fan of Second Son nor this. Pretty game though.

Game 8 – Heavy Rain (PS3) (Started in 2013)
I thought Beyond and Fahrenheit were better. The controls were really bad.

Game 9 – Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus (PS3) (Started in 2013)
I haven't really enjoyed a Ratchet and Clank game since ACiT. This game did a better job at trying to recapture the magic but in the end it failed. Next year's reboot is looking promising.

Game 10 – The Order: 1886 (PS4)
It was alright.

Game 11 – Until Dawn (PS4)
Bought it on a whim. Loved every second with it. 10/10.

Game 12 – Destiny: The Taken King (PS4)
Better than vanilla Destiny by a mile though it still isn't exactly what I was expecting two years ago.

Game 13 – Race The Sun (PS4)
Great PS+ game.

Game 14 – Bloodborne (PS4)
I loved it. I got to the final boss and was unable to defeat him. Grinding for more ammunition wasn’t worth the time so I just watched the ending on YouTube.

Game 15 –Forza Horizon 2 Presents: Fast & Furious (XBO)
A neat little game. I enjoyed it.

Game 16 – Titanfall (XBO)
After playing the PC version a ton I tried out the console version. The framerate isn’t that great on console but there’s more people playing.

Game 17 –Sunset Overdrive (XBO)
Rental. Not a big fan.

Game 18 – Project Spark (PC)
I didn’t play this a whole lot. I tried some of the Conker stuff and thought it was pretty cool but the rest of the game was pretty awful.

Game 19 – Battleblock Theater (360)
Fun little co-op game. I had fun. Never finished it and probably won’t touch it again.

Game 20 – IDARB (XBO)
I wish the netcode was better. Extremely fun.

Game 21 – The Beginner’s Guide (PC)
Outstanding.

Game 22 – Cities: Skylines (PC)
Love it.

Game 23 – Besiege (PC)
Neat little game. It’s quite difficult but I like it.

Game 24 – Halo 5: Guardians (XBO)
Bad campaign. Great MP. Forge is nice but buggy.

Game 25 – Metal Gear Solid V (PC)
Gave up. Not what I want from an MGS game.

thekonamicode · Dec 25, 2014

Claiming this post

I'm actually going to try it this year. Wish me luck!

WiiRevolution1 · Dec 25, 2014

IMPORTANT NOTICE: 52 GAME CHALLENGE DEFEATED!

PS: The PT in he list means PlayThrough. So 1PT means my first time playing it, and so on.

PPS: As always with me, I probably screwed up stats somewhere. But I tried to keep track as best as possible.

2015 Games S&F
Start and Finished games for 2015 in order of completion.
Goal is to finish the 52 Game Challenge!

2015 Games S&F
Start and Finished games for 2015 in order of completion.
Goal is to finish the 52 Game Challenge!

New: 40
Replays: 13

Games Beaten by Syetem:
(All Retro games beaten via Virtual Console/PS1 Classics on 3DS/WiiU/Vita. All will be counted as original system.)
3DS: 27 (35 Including VC & DSiWare)
Vita: 7 (8 Including PSP)
WiiU: 4 (7 Including VC)
PS4: 3
---------------------
GB: 5 (5 3DS)
GBC: 0
GBA: 1 (1 3DS)
DSiWare: 2 (2 3DS)
DS: 1 (1 3DS)
NES: 1 (1 WiiU)
SNES: 1 (1 WiiU)
PS1: 0
PSP: 1 (1 PSV)
Steam: 1

Ikachan (3DS) (1PT) (1/52)
Started playing Thursday January 1st 2015 12:38 AM
Finished playing Thursday January 1st 2015 2:57 PM
Play Time: 1:21

Yoshi's Island (GBA) (3PT) (100%) (2/52)
Started playing Friday December 16th 2011
Finished playing Sunday January 4th 2015 1:38 AM
Total Play Time: 22:49
Play Time in 2015: 6:04
Play Time in 2014: 10:26
Play Time in 2013: 2:07
Play Time in 2012 & 2011: Not in Top 30 so unavailable.

Xeodrifter (3DS) (1PT) (3/52)
Started playing Thursday December 18th 2014 8:34 PM
Finished playing Saturday December 20th 2014 5:37 PM
Started 100% playthough on Tuesday January 13th 2015 7:01 PM
Finished collecing all but one thing on Wednesday January 14th 2015 5:03 PM
Playtime: 2:31
Playtime for 100% (99%) 3:41 (1:10)

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD (WiiU) (2PT) (4/52)
Started Friday October 4th 2013 12:08 PM
Finished playing Thursday January 15th 2015 8:33 PM
Play Time: 24:58 (11:31 in 2015)
Times Played: 38

Castlevania (NES) (1PT) (Second Attempt. First was on Wii VC) (5/52)
Started playing Friday January 30th 2015 9:07 PM
Finished playing Monday February 9th 2015 5:00 PM
Play Time: 1:15

Gunman Clive (3DS) (2PT) (6/52)
Gunman Clive - Easy
Started playing Friday February 13th 2015 11:58 PM
Finished playing Saturday Friday February 14th 2015 5:23 PM
Play Time: 0:40
Retries: 9

Gunman Clive 2 (3DS) (1PT) (7/52)
Gunman Clive - Easy
Started playing Saturday Friday February 14th 2015 5:23 PM
Finished playing Sunday February 15th 2015 10:22 PM
Play Time: 1:03
Retries: 29

Donkey Kong Country (WiiU/SNES) (1PT, but played through many times as a kid. Furthest ever gotten was Ice World.) (8/52)
Started playing Friday February 27th 2015 12:37 AM
Finished playing Sunday March 1st 2015 5:06 PM
Play Time: 3:06
Times Played 8

Persona 4: Golden (PSV) (1PT) (9/52)
Started playing Friday January 9th 2015 2:17 PM
Finished playing Wednesday March 4th 2015 8:25 PM
Play Time: 89:23

Corpse Party: Book of Shadows (PSV/PSP) (1PT) (10/52)
Started playing Wednesday March 4th 2015 9:38 PM
Chapter 1 Wrong End #2 on March 6th 2015 2:27 PM
Chapter 1 Defeated on Friday March 6th 2015 2:43 PM
Chapter 2 Wrong End #3 on Sunday March 8th 2015 2:33 PM
Chapter 2 Defeated on Sunday March 8th 2015 8:10 PM
Chapter 3 Wrong End #2 on Monday March 9th 2015 5:48 PM
Chapter 3 Wrong End #1* on Monday March 9th 2015 5:52 PM
Chapter 3 Wrong End #3 on Monday March 9th 2015 7:01 PM
Chapter 3 Defeated on Monday March 9th 2015 7:40 PM
Chapter 4 Wrong End #1 on Tuesday March 10th 2015 6:44 PM
Chaoter 4 Defeated on Tuesday March 10th 2015 6:53 PM
Chapter 5 Wrong End #1* on Wednesday March 11th 2015 4:23 PM
Chapter 5 Wrong End #2 on Wednesday March 11th 2015 4:33 PM
Chapter 5 Wrong End #3 on Wednesday March 11th 2015 6:10 PM
Chapter 5 Wrong End #8** on Thursday March 12th 2015 4:01 PM
Chapter 5 Defeated on Thursday March 12th 2015 4:08 PM
Chapter 6 Defeated on Thursday March 12th 2015 9:38 PM
Chapter 7 Wrong End 1* on Friday March 13th 2015 2:02 PM
Chapter 7 Defeated on Friday March 13th 2015 2:29 PM
Chapter 8 Defeated on Friday March 13th 2015 7:10 PM
Play Time: 14:38

Invisible Apartments (Steam) (1PT) (11/52)
Started playing Wednesday March 18th 2015 9:53 PM
Finished playing Wednesday March 18th 2015 11:09 PM
Play Time: 0:36

HyperDimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 (PSV) (1PT) (12/52)
Started playing Saturday March 7th 2015 10:28 PM
Finished playing Tuesday March 24th 2015 2:48 AM
Play Time: 41:05:07

Infamous: Second Son (PS4/Vita) (1PT) (Easy) (Good End) (13/52)
Started playing Tuesday December 16th 2014 12:02 PM
Finished playing Thursday March 26th 2015 3:33 PM

10 Second Run (3DS/DSi) (1PT) (100%) (14/52)
Continuing a playthrough. Quit around 2011 or 2012. Level 38-50 + 1 Second Run Level 1-10
Restarted playing Friday March 27th 2015 1:28 AM
Finished playing Friday March 27th 2015 4:21 PM
Play Time in 2015: 1:04
Total Play Time: 2:06

Fairune (3DS) (1PT) (15/52)
Started playing Saturday March 28th 2015 3:12 AM
Finished playing Saturday March 28th 2015 6:03 PM
Play Time: 3:13
Times Played: 1

Shovel Knight (3DS) (3PT) (16/52)
3PT Started on Saturday March 21st 2015 2:28 AM
3PT Finished on Saturday March 28th 2015 9:27 PM
Play Time: 5:03

SteamWorld Dig (3DS) (1PT) (17/52)
Started playing Saturday March 28th 2015 10:34 PM
Finished playing Monday March 30th 2015 4:10 PM
Play Time: 5:03

Kerploosh (3DS) (1PT) (18/52)
Started playing Sunday April 5th 2015 3:43 AM
Finished playing Sunday April 5th 2015 4:18 AM

Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale (3DS) (1PT) (19/52)
Started playing Monday April 20th 2015 1:39 AM
Finished playing Monday April 20th 2015 8:10 PM
Play Time: 3:51 - All Episodes except 4, 5, and 6 completed.
Times Played: 1
Average Play Time: 3:51

Donkey Kong Land (3DS/GB) (1PT) (20/52)
Started playing Tuesday March 3rd 2015 10:10 PM
Finished playing Monday April 27th 2015 9:47 PM
Play Time: 2:25

Might Gunvolt + DLC (3DS) (1PT) - Beck (21/52)
Started playng Friday May 1st 2015 11:21 PM
Finished playing Saturday May 2nd 11:42 PM
Play Time: 1:28
*Didn't finish DLC Stages Bio Lab and Highway. Couldn't defeat bosses. Insane difficulty there. Maybe with a different character later. Jeez.

HyperDimension Neptunia Re;Birth2: Sisters Generation (PSV) (1PT) (Started ASAP) (22/52)
Started playing Thursday May 7th 2015 1:13 PM
Normal End Finished on Friday May 15th 2015 7:29 PM (Fogot CPUs)
Play Time: 24:40:13
True Ending Finished playing Saturday May 16th 2015 2:52 PM
Play Time: 30:27:01

Super Mario Land (3DS/GB) (2PT) (23/52)
Started playing Sunday May 17th 2015 3:34 PM
Finished playing Sunday May 17th 2015 4:16 PM
Play Time: 0:39

Home (PS4) (1PT) (24/52)
Started playing Sunday May 24th 2015 4:33 PM
Finished playing Sundy May 24th 2015 5:41 PM
Play Time: 1:08

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (3DS/GB) (3PT) (25/52)
Started playing Friday May 29th 2015 4:40 PM
Finished playing Saturday May 30th 2015 8:18 PM

Splatoon (WiiU) (1PT) (26/52)
Started playing Monday June 1st 2015 2:15 PM
Finished playing Tuesday June 16th 2015 6:28 PM
Play Time Estimation: 4:32
*Play Time is estimation since most time was played online. Its impossible to be accurate.

Mutant Mudds (3DS) (3PT) (27/52)
3rd Playthrough Started on Friday July 3rd 2015 5:46 PM
3rd Playthrough Finished on Monday July 6th 2015 8:06 PM
Play Time: 4:59
Total: 13:43 (Doesn't include 2PT since it was on Vita)

Witch and Hero (3DS) (1PT) (28/52)
Started playing Thursday June 18th 2015 11:33 PM
Finished playing Thursday July 9th 2015 12:38 AM
Play Time: 7:04
Final Boss: 2:24

HyperDimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: V Generation (PSV) (1PT) (29/52)
Started playing Thursday July 9th 2015 1:32 PM
Finished playing Thursday July 16th 2015 4:37 PM
Play Time: 38:23:08

3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure (3DS) (5PT) (30/50)
Started playing Friday July 17th 2015 4:07 PM
Finished playing Saturday July 18th 2015 2:11 PM
Play Time: 2:19
Total Play Time for 3DS: 4:56 (Other times played are GBA, Wii, WiiU)

VVVVVV (3DS) (2PT) (31/52)
2nd Playthrough Started on Saturday July 18th 2015 10:24 PM
2nd Playthrough Finished on Sunday July 19th 2015 12:57 AM
Activity Log Play Time: 1:44
Trinkets: 10
In Game Play Time: 1:31:46
Total Flips: 2616
Total Deaths: 512
Hardest Room (with 27 deaths): Stop and Reflect

Splatoon: Rank 20 (WiiU) (Online) (32/52)
Started playing Monday June 1st 2015 2:15 PM
Finished playing Tuesday July 28th 2015 4:36 PM
Play Time: 34:26

Splatoon: Inkling Girl Amiibo Challenges (WiiU) (1PT) (33/52)
Started playing Tuesday July 28th 2015 6:31 PM
Finished playing Wednesday July 29th 2015 10:35 PM
Play Time: 2:33

Mighty Switch Force (3DS) (3PT) (34/52)
3PT Started on Wednesday August 12th 2015 2:16 PM
3PT Finished on Thursday August 13th 2015 9:27 PM
3PT Play Time: 1:49 < Wow, so much improvement.
Total: 5:27

Mighty Switch Force 2 (3DS) (2PT) (35)/52)
2PT Started on Friday August 14th 2015 1:19 AM
2PT Finished on Saturday August 15th 2015 9:32 PM
Play Time: 2:05

The Walking Dead: 400 Days (PSV) (1PT) (36/52)
Started playing Sunday August 16th 2015 9:29 PM
Finished playing Sunday August 16th 2015 11:47 PM
Play Time: 1:30 (Estimation, no ingame counter)

Pokemon Shuffle: The Original 150 Stages (3DS) (1PT) (37/52)
Started playing Thursday February 19th 2015 12:50 PM
Finished playing Tuesday September 1st 2015 11:22 PM
Play Time: 46:56

Mega Man X (WiiU/SNES) (1PT) (38/52)
Started playing Monday March 30th 2015 7:24 PM
Finished playing Wednesday September 2nd 2015 4:31 PM
Play Time: 4:35

DanganRonpa: Ultra Despair Girls (PSV) (1PT) (39/52)
Started playing Sunday September 6th 2015 1:41 PM
Finished playing Wednesday September 9th 2015 1:15 AM
Play Time: 22:25:02 (Added 40 minutes due to Final Boss GItch)

Code Name S.T.E.A.M. (3DS) (1PT) (40/52)
Started playing Friday March 13th 2015 4:42 PM
Finished playing Friday September 11th 2015 6:05 PM
Play Time: 24:14

Super Mario Bros. 3 (3DS/NES) (5PT) (41/52)
5PT Started Thursday September 10th 2015 4:43 PM
5PT Finished Monday September 14th 2015 3:13 PM
Play Time: 3:37
Total: 7:59

Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (3DS) (1PT) (All Coins) (Day One!) (42/52)
Started playing Thursday September 17th 2015 1:44 PM
Finished playing Friday September 18th 2015 4:12 PM
Play Time: 8:26
Plague Knight Deaths: 88
Times Played: 1
Total Play Time: 23:11

Senran Kagura: Burst (3DS) (1PT) (All Missions) (43/52)
Started playing Thursday September 3rd 2015 2:15 AM
Finished playing Saturday October 10th 2015 7:41 PM
In Game Play Time: 35:26:09
Activity Log Play Time: 35:47
Times Played: 10
Average Play Time: 3:34

Find Mii II (3DS) (1PT) (44/52)
Started on ??? (Launch)
Finished playing Thursday October 15th 2015 11:37 PM

Corpse Party: Blood Drive (PSV) (1PT) (45/52)
Started playing Tuesday October 20th 2015 2:50 PM
Chapter 0 Defeated on Tuesday October 20th 2015 4:23 PM
Chapter 1 Defeated on Tuesday October 20th 2015 7:09 PM
Chapter 2 Wrong End #1 on Tuesday October 20th 2015 9:55 PM
Chapter 2 Defeated on Tuesday October 20th 2015 10:10 PM
Chapter 3 Defeated on Wednesday October 21st 2015 6:06 PM
Extra Chapter 1 Defeated on Wednesday October 21st 2015 6:34 PM
Extra Chapter 2 Defeated on Wednesday October 21st 2015 6:48 PM
Chapter 4 Wrong End #2 on Wednesday October 21st 2015 10:07 PM
Chapter 4 Wrong End #4 on Thursday October 22nd 2015 4:23 PM
Chapter 4 Wrong End #5 on Thursday October 22nd 2015 6:29 PM
Chapter 4 Defeated on Thursday October 22nd 2015 6:36 PM
Extra Chapter 3 Defeated on Thursday October 22nd 2015 7:05 PM
Chapter 5 Wrong End #2 on Thursday October 22nd 2015 9:40 PM
Chapter 5 Defeated on Thursday October 22nd 2015 9:51 PM
Chapter 6 Wrong End #1 on Thursday October 22nd 2015 10:42 PM
Chapter 6 Defeated on Friday October 23rd 2015 3:14 PM
Extra Chapter 4 Defeated on Friday October 23rd 2015 5:15 PM
Chapter 7 Defeated on Friday October 23rd 2015 7:41 PM
Extra Chapter 5 Defeated on Friday October 23rd 2015 7:49 PM
Chapter 8 Defeated on Friday October 23rd 2015 8:25 PM
Extra Chapter 6 Defeated on Friday October 23rd 2015 9:41 PM
Chapter 9 Wrong End #2 on Saturday October 24th 2015 12:07 AM
Chapter 9 Defeated on Saturday October 24th 2015 2:27 PM
Chapter 10 Wrong End #3 on Saturday October 24th 2015 3:50 PM
Chapter 10 Defeated on Saturday October 24th 2015 4:26 PM
Extra Chapter 7 Defeated on Saturday October 24th 2015 4:54 PM
Extra Chapter 8 Defeated on Saturday October 24th 2015 5:02 PM
Play Time: 19:43

Escapee GO! (3DS) (1PT) (46/52)
Original Run: 08/12/11-08/14/11 - 2 Times Played - 0:16
Restarted new save of forgotten game on Monday October 26th 2015 12:04 AM
Finished Monday October 26th 2015 7:06 PM
In Game Escape Time: 31 Minutes, 6 Seconds
Activity Log Play Time: 0:47
Acivity Log Total: 1:03

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team (3DS/DS) (1PT) (47/52)
Started playing Monday May 18th 2015 2:49 PM
Finished playing Thursday October 29th 2015 10:56 PM
Play Time: 19:32

The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS) (1PT) (Online) (48&49/52)
Demo Started Friday October 16th 2015 7:00 PM
Demo Finished Friday October 16th 2015 7:57 PM
Full Game Started Tuesday November 3rd 2015 2:43 PM
Full Game Finished Thursday November 5th 2015 3:37 PM
Play Time: 13:31
100% Online Co-Op Finished on Sunday November 15th 2015 11:07 PM
100% Play Time: 67:41

Kirby's Dream Land (3DS/GB) (2PT) (50/52)
Started playing Monday November 16th 2015 12:36 AM
Finished playing Monday November 16th 2015 2:17 AM
Play Time: 0:30
Total Play Time: 1:23
1PT was on 06/30/11

Kirby's Dream Land 2 (3DS/GB) (1PT) (51/52)
Started playing Monday November 16th 2015 9:55 PM
Finished playing Sunday November 22nd 2015 8:00 PM
Play Time: 4:08

Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) (5PT) (100%) (52/52) (GOAL COMPLETED!)
Started playing Saturday December 5th 2015 2:25 PM
Finished playing Friday December 11th 2015 7:35 PM
Play Time: 7:05
Total Play Time: 49:29

Indivisible Prototype (PS4) (1PT) (53/52)
Started playing Saturday December 12th 3015 5:04 PM
Finished playing Tuesday December 12th 2015 7:48 PM
Play Time:...2:36:40.66?? lol playtime was counted while in sleep mode.
Play Time Estimation: 0:49

Additionally I want to try and add my total playtime for the year up but that will come after the new year.

It has been an incredible journey, and I plan to do it next year!

Burnburn · Dec 25, 2014

Yeah, will probably try it again. I'll most likely fail this years one, since I still need to complete 7-8 games. What I liked most about the challenge was that if you write substantial thoughts about the game, it ends up being a little diary. I did want to suggest the idea of making some sort of diary thread and mixing it with this thread, but I got lazy and didn't expect the 2015 topic to go up this early.

Anyway the diary thread would have no "pressure" and you could just post in it whenever you felt like.

Dr. Buni · Dec 25, 2014

Servbot24 · Dec 25, 2014

I'll reserve a post. Not gonna make it to 52 but will be good to record my progress.

Family Fry · Dec 25, 2014

I didn't partake last year but 2015 that will change. Will be fun playing at least 52 games next year.

Finished

Life is Strange: Episode 1 Xbox One
Really interested to see where the mystery is going with Rachel, also still have a few camera shots to find too. Can't wait for episode 2.

Master Reboot Wii U
I love the idea of the Soul Cloud and the creepy mystery behind the haunting inside it. Quite a lot of levels throughout the game, didn't particularly get stuck on any of the puzzles sections. The only place I got a bit stuck on was the library, got lost a few times.
Fully recommend the game if you like story/experience style games like Stanley Parable, Gone Home and Dear Esther.

The Unfinished Swan PS4
Has been a long time coming playing this one, really enjoyed all the mechanics throughout, story was well told and thoughtful/philosophical in the end really enjoyed it, just need to finish off finding the last of the hidden balloons.

Pneuma: Breath of Life Xbox One
Also enjoyed this one too, puzzle game with voice over, surprised to hear a lot of people turned the narration off, understand he can be annoying at times with his own self satisfaction/gratification but when you finish it, it all makes sense what he's talking about and it becomes surprising when you replay it knowing what you know and listening to what he's saying.

Currently Playing

Shovel Knight - Wii U
The Swapper - PS4
White Night - Xbox One
Sound Shapes - PS4
Counter Spy - PS4

MRORANGE · Dec 25, 2014

Thanks for taking over this year VisceralBowl, I hope people found the previous thread fun.

blackMamba1187 · Dec 25, 2014

It is on. Again.

Game 1: LARA CROFT AND THE TEMPLE OF OSIRIS - 5:00 hours - PC - Jan1
-played whole game 2-player local co-op w/ the same friend I originally played Guardian of Light with. We both agreed that this game was not as good/well thought-out as its predecessor. The structure never fully clicked until the last level, which is easily the best in the game.
- had pretty uneven performance the entire way, which is disappointing, and I also thought the shadow quality was shit.

Game 2: THE WALKING DEAD: SEASON 1 - 10-12:00 hours - XO - Jan3
-this is my first replay of a past favorite (the first with my saves carrying over). It holds up. Poor Lee.
-really strange that this game has performance issues on XO, but telltale gonna telltale

Game 3: MARIO KART 7 - ~6:00 hours - 3DS - Jan6
-3 star all cups in 50 & 100cc; I'll continue and play 150cc, but I'll consider this beaten so the game doesn't drive me INSANE!!!

Game 4: MARIO KART 8 - DLC PACK 1 - ~3:00 hours - WiiU - Jan6
-3 star all cups in 50 & 100cc; I'll continue and play 150cc, but I'll consider this beaten so the game doesn't drive me INSANE!!!
-playing as link and w/the mii captain falcon costume/blue falcon combo were great; f-zero stage is a highlight

Game 5: OREGON TRAIL - ~0:40 hours - PC - Jan6
-I couldn't help myself, once I saw it was playable in-browser.

Game 6: HALO: THE MASTER CHIEF COLLECTION: HALO 2 - 10:00-12:00 hours - XO - Jan10
-all online coop (which was a nightmare), on hardcore difficulty (because fuck legendary in H2)
-had to replay levels a number of times due to connection losses, and a number of times we couldn't even get into the game. We almost gave up. On to H3 I guess.

Game 7: SUNSET OVERDRIVE: THE MYSTERY OF THE MOOIL RIG DLC - 2:00-3:00 hours - XO - Jan11
-more of what I enjoyed in the main campaign
-beat this and finished collecting all collectibles in the game

Game 8: NEVER ALONE - 2:30 hours - PC - Jan17
-co-op; love the art style

Game 9: STARFOX 64 3D - 2:00 hours - 3DS - Jan19
-man, andross really whooped my ass a bunch of times. [brain form]
-much shorter than i remembered/anticipated, but it seems good on replay-ability with branching paths and all. Plus I got it digital so th game will always be local.

Game 10: HALO: THE MASTER CHIEF COLLECTION: HALO 3 - ~10:00 hours - XO - Jan24
-all online coop (2 or 3 players); legendary difficulty
-had to replay levels a number of times due to connection losses, and a number of times we couldn't even get into the game. We almost gave up. On to H4 I guess.

Game 11: HALO: THE MASTER CHIEF COLLECTION: HALO 4 - 8-10:00 hours - XO - Jan26
-all online coop (2 or 3 players); legendary difficulty
-had to replay parts of a couple levels due to connection losses. Better than the other games overall, I guess. On to Reach

Game 12: SAINT'S ROW: GAT OUT OF HELL - 8:00 hours - PC - Jan31
-97% completion

Game 13: LIFE IS STRANGE: EPISODE 1 - CRYSALIS - 3:00 hours - PC - Feb1
- pretty relaxing time with this one
- writing wasn't perfect but the setup is intriguing. Definitely interested to see where this all goes.

Game 14: GAME OF THRONES: EPISODE 2 - ?:?? hours - XO - Feb14
- pretty boring. Where is Borderlands episode 2?

Game 15: FAR CRY 4 - 45:00+ hours - PS4 - Mar01
- 100% complete, on the way to my first platinum (probably); EDIT: GOT IT!
- suffice it to say I really like this game

Game 16: THE ORDER: 1886 - 6:00+ hours - PS4 - Mar02
- maybe its because I played ~2 weeks after release, but I enjoyed it

Game 17: UNCHARTED: DRAKE'S FORTUNE - 7:00 hours - PS3 - Mar05
- 3rd or 4th time; normal difficulty
- still a fantastic experience

Game 18: KIRBY TRIPLE DELUXE - ??:?? hours - 3DS - Mar10
-
-

Game 19: UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES - 8-9 hours - PS3 - Mar12
- 3rd or 4th time; normal difficulty
- still a fantastic experience

Game 20: UNCHARTED 3: DRAKE'S DECEPTION - 8-9 hours - PS3 - Mar15
- 2nd play; normal difficulty
- still a fantastic experience

Game 21: GOD OF WAR III - ~9:00 hours - PS3 - Mar21
- normal difficulty
- remaster got announced when I was half-way through

Game 22: TIME CRISIS: RAZING STORM - 0:45 hours - PS3 - Mar21
- well... that couldn't have ended at a stranger place. I thought the game was just starting
- Playing Time Crisis 4 now

Game 23: TALES FROM BORDERLANDS: EPISODE 2 - 2-3:00 hours - PC - Mar23
- stupid gmg telltale game key

Game 24: FAR CRY 4: VALLEY OF THE YETIS DLC - 0:00 hours - PS4 - Mar25
-

Game 25: GAME OF THRONES: EPISODE 3 - ~3:00 hours - XO - Mar27
- pretty boring.

Game 26: FORZA HORIZON 2 PRESENTS FAST AND FURIOUS - ~3-4 hours - XO - Mar29
- a neat little jaunt back into a game that I really enjoyed... for free!
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Back-log games I would really like to tackle in 2015: PN03; W101; Madworld; Red Steel 2; SMG2; KirbyRTDW; LoZ:ALBW; Luigi's Mansion DM; FzeroX; SS2;
Butcher Bay; SCBlacklist;
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
currently playing: Destiny (ps4); Punch Out!! (wii/u); X-Men Legends (xb); Paper Mario(gcn); Time Crisis 4(ps3); AssCreedU (pc); Ori (pc)
DmC

E(ps4); Luigi's Mansion(3ds); FFT0HD(ps4)
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
have: 2500k sli 4gb 980s; 360; xbone, xbox, ps2/3/4, wii, wii u, n64, 3ds xl, vita1000, psp3000, pstv; dreamcast; shield portable; ipad air, htc one (m8);
rog swift monitor;1080p monitor; 65" "240 hz" vizio, 3d vision

PhoenixDawn · Dec 25, 2014

I'll give this a try, sounds fun to have a place to write down my thoughts about each game I play as I usually play a lot of different games but never really take time to reflect.

SheHateMe · Dec 25, 2014

I AM

NOT

GOING TO DO THIS IN 2015!

I AM.

I think.

But I can honestly say I'm going to do my best to hit my goal of 52.

EDIT: NOPE.

Having a baby changed a LOT. And by a lot, I mean a LOT. I've purchased games and dabbled in them and played most of them, but I'm not going to hit 52. Not. Even. Close. The only way I can see myself hit 52 now is to blast through 8/16 bit games and fatten up my list, but that destroys the purpose of even doing this in the first place, so yeah.

As it currently stands, I've only "finished" one game and it's a fighting game's story mode, so I don't even know if it counts or not. But whatever. Here's my list(?)

Mortal Kombat X: Started 4/14/2015, finished Story Mode 4/17/2015. I'm going to be playing online and fighting when I can, but I did complete the core game until the ending and saw my main character's ending (Quan Chi), so I feel like I "beat" it somewhat.

Yuterald · Dec 25, 2014

Game 1: Crimson Clover: WORLD IGNITION - 3 Hours - PC/Steam

First game of 2015 down and it feels fucking awesome. Totally LTTP on this game. Just finished my first 1CC of the game on Novice Difficulty on Original Mode with the Type-1 ship. I was only on my 3rd attempt too! Holy shit was it intense though. I haven't attempted or done something like this in a long time. Got to the final form of the true final boss with one ship left and at one point I had nothing and he was locked in this relentless assault of bullets, but I pulled through. I'm pretty content with my run, but I'll definitely give the standard Arcade difficulty a shot to see how I fair. For now, I've seen the legit credits roll, so I consider the game "beaten".

Game 2: Pink Hour - less than an hour - PC

Decided to give the game that's considered the set-up/demo to Kero Blaster a shot. I don't even know if this should be considered a real game, but it's got a start screen and a credits roll, so I'll include it, haha! I still have no idea what's going on in these games, but I love it. There is a Hard mode to unlock and I cleared that as well for good measure. It's an interesting way to try and sell people on the real game.

Game 3: Kero Blaster - a couple hours - PC - REPLAY

Finished off a replay of this game. Finally cleared the new game+ mode and completed the boss rush. Such a fucking cool game. I like it more than Cave Story, in fact. I will need to do 2 more runs though as I missed an upgrade I believe for the secret weapon only found in the second run of the game.

Game 4: Shovel Knight - a couple hours - Wii U - REPLAY

Finished off a replay of this game as well on new game+. Got a few more Feats accomplished on my last run too. I think I need to replay the game at least two more times to knock out the rest of the in-game achievements. Good times.

FluxWaveZ · Dec 25, 2014

I'll pull it off this time.

Oh wait, I'm supposed to be committing more to university next year... Eh, I'll find the balance.

J A N U A R Y

Game 1: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth [3DS] 73h03m (Hard; P3 side; Started in 2014) [Finished: January 20th]

Fantastic game. I didn't have too many expectations going into it as a Persona spin-off RPG that seemed to mostly be about fanservice, but everything about it was top notch. It was my first prolonged experience with an Etrian Odyssey-like game, and I came to enjoy mapping elaborately long dungeons, avoiding F.O.E.s, and the battle system. The music was awesome, as well as the overall presentation, as one would come to expect from a Persona game. The fanservice was great as a P3 and P4 fan, and didn't feel overbearing or too pandering, which is nice. To my surprise, the unique story told in PQ, centered around the new characters Zen and Rei who I came to appreciate, was also quite good. It was 6 years since an original, Persona RPG, and this game shows that P Studio's still capable of making memorable, fun, long ones.

Game 2: The Evil Within [PS4] 15:14:13 (Survival; 120 deaths; Started in 2014) [Finished: January 26th]

This was a fun game, though quite frustrating at points. I liked how the game constantly made the player feel helpless, facing overwhelming odds. Generally, it did a good job of depriving the player of just enough resources that they would frequently think, "Am I going to make it with what I have?" My problem came from times where that balance failed, and where I actually didn't have enough resources to deal with a given situation, leading me to resort to tactics that were surely not intended by the game (i.e. cheesing bosses). There were several times where, lacking any ammunition against a boss, I had to either mess with their A.I. in order to punch them to death (e.g. climbing a ladder, waiting for the boss to climb after me, punching them as they climb up, jump down, wait for them to climb down, punch them, repeat) or at least once where I had to farm for ammo in a weird way that destroyed the pace of the fight. It's good that I felt weak for the most part, and it often felt rewarding to take down bosses when I was constantly scared about the ammo I was using up; it reminded me of taking down some Souls game bosses. But the game could get frustrating because of my constant need for ammo, and also because its trial and error nature (120 deaths in 15 hours... I guess I died 8 times per hour on average). The game ended pretty much how I wanted it to; it was a nice experience overall.

F E B R U A R Y

Game 3: Dying Light [PS4] 14h 34m 27s (Overall Completion: 47%) [Finished: February 14th]

A surprisingly fun game. The combination of parkour and melee combat, with a lessened emphasis on gunplayall evocative of Mirror's Edgewas engaging until the end. I liked how the upgrade system worked, gaining points in respective skill trees as I engaged in parkour or combat. The parkour was fun, but the grappling hook upgradea genuine game changercame at the right time, and made traversing the environment all the more fun. The story and characters were actually pretty good, when I didn't think I'd care much about the world of another pretty standard zombie setting, going in. Several of the twists were pretty damn predictable, but it still managed to stay interesting. Rais was a cool villain.

M A R C H

Game 4: The Order 1886 [PS4] ~7 hours [Finished: March 8th]

A really pretty game with very basic, third-person shooting. I liked the world and characters they set up with the game, but they unfortunately didn't do that much to explore it. As a resultoutside of a few story segmentsI wasn't that motivated to see it through, but the story started picking up when its conspiracy entered the fray. Outside of the basic cover-and-shoot gameplay which isn't anything special outside of a couple of unique weapons which act differently, the environment is littered with pointless stuff. Picking objects in the environment up and observing them with the right stick didn't serve any purpose, for the most part, than to contemplate how much time an artist must have put into modeling it. The function of the audio logs is to improve the game's sense of place, but they are some of the worst I've seen in a game, where I was not remotely interested in anything they had to say. Overall, it was fine, but I feel like there was a lot of missed potential, with how plain each facet of the game turned out to be, with not one real stand-out element other than that its beautiful.

Game 5: Rhythm Heaven Fever [Wii] 6 hours, 46 minutes [Finished: March 21st]

Rhythm Heaven Fever was just as fun as my first exposure to the series through the DS version. It lacked the touch controls of its handheld predecessor, too, so that's a plus. Just like with the DS version, there are certain rhythm mini-games that I didn't enjoy as much as others (such as the fishing one, which was rather peculiar), but they were fun, overall. The remix levels once you finish a set of songs are still cool, and it's still as hard as ever to perfectly hit all of the notes in a level when required to for bonuses. This is a game that, despite having "finished" by completing all of the songs, I'll return to so that I can unlock new bonuses and try my hand at perfecting as many mini-games as possible. Hopefully the 3DS game turns out great, and I also hope it gets released in North America.

A P R I L

Game 6: Mortal Kombat X [PS4] ~5 hours [Finished: April 19]

I pretty much only played through the game's story mode because, as it turns out, I still dislike the way NetherRealm fighting games play. The story wasn't as good as the previous game's, and it got rather confusing and unpleasant with its overbearing use of flashbacks. The character interactions felt a bit more meaningful, but I found the overarching story to be actually pretty uninteresting and predictable. I tried the "Test Your Luck" tower once and that seemed kinda pointless when playing against AI. Tried a handful of matches online and the latency was pretty terrible in all of them. I don't really like this series, though the story's somewhat compelling and I liked that ending cliffhanger, so I'll probably tune in for the next one just for its campaign again.

Game 7: Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA f [PSV] 10:06:50 (Started in 2014) [Finished: April 28]

I bought this game during a sale mostly to prepare myself for Persona 4: Dancing All Night. Project DIVA f reminded me that I really enjoy rhythm games. Rhythm Heaven Fever did as well, but that's a more unconventional type of rhythm game. I'm not into most of the music in this game, and the presentation kinda gets a bit wacky for my tastes, but it's still cool to play and feel overwhelmed at higher difficulty settings, while frantically trying to survive when you're not familiar with a song and you don't have its button inputs memorized. The touch screen inputs are crappy, though, I would have felt better if the game was only about button presses. There's not much of note outside of the rhythm game component. There's the "Diva Room" feature, which seems utterly pointless unless you're into hanging out with virtual girls while rubbing their head and giving them gifts. All in all, this has made me more excited for Persona 4: Dancing All Night, and I'll be playing more of it to prep myself and improve my skill at fast-paced rhythm action before that game comes out.

M A Y

Game 8: Bloodborne [PS4] 26:39:09 (Level 77) [Finished: May 26]

Another great Souls game. I'd put this one ahead of the Dark Souls games, but behind Demon's Souls. I've always leaned towards being a magic user in these games, so it was a bit jarring getting used to a more limited range of combat possibilities in Bloodborne, essentially all revolving around melee combat and evasiveness. I adapted fairly quickly, though, especially since I barely relied on shields in the previous games, and I found it to be a rather fun change of pace. I found myself getting lost less often than in the Dark Souls games, which is a plus. I feel like there's a fair amount of content I missed during my first playthrough by not following a guide, so I'll obviously need to go back to it eventually to see it all. I also barely explored the chalice dungeons, and that's something I'll be interested in visiting once I go back to the game. I wish there were more viable and different ways to engage with the combat, like being a pure gunslinger or having better access to arcane attacks; it would give me more incentive to go back into it. All in all a great game, with another odd and relatively incomprehensible story.

J U N E

Game 9: Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare [PS4] ~7.5 hours (campaign on Regular); 4-5 hours (multiplayer) [Finished: June 4]

I was a bit reluctant to try this out after having gone through the immensely boring experience that was Call of Duty: Ghosts, but I decided to try it out in the end. Starting with the campaign, I selected the "Regular" difficulty as opposed to the more challenging "Hardened" because I really just wanted to see the spectacle this time, without having to go through the tedium of endless, repetitive firefights. I'm realizing more and more that I do not enjoy ducking for cover and popping out to slowly and methodically take out enemies. The campaign was alright. It's not better than the Modern Warfare saga or Black Ops, but it's at least a hell of a lot more interesting than Ghosts, at least. It's predictable and occasionally pretty hammy, and the characters all had bland personalities outside of the main antagonist, whose scenes were probably the highlight of the entire story. There's a character called Gideon who was basically a poor man's Woods from Black Ops, by the way he acted. As opposed to Modern Warfare and Black Ops, Advanced Warfare's ending didn't leave me any interested in knowing where the story would go from there.

I really came around to this game when I played the multiplayer, though. All of the future tech relating to gameplay didn't feel all that meaningful in the single player campaign; it all felt kind of like the other CoD games, really. But the multiplayer is so much different this time around because of the enhanced mobility and abilities the exo suits grant. Exo abilities are a neat little addition granting more customizability, but boosting around and making huge leaps changes the multiplayer dynamic significantly. I only play Free-For-All in these games, and I was reminded just how much fun I have running around, shooting other players. The increased maneuverability in Advanced Warfare made this even more fun. I wouldn't be able to play a Call of Duty game without it after this.

J U L Y

Game 10: Persona 4: Dancing All Night (JPN version) [PSV] 31:21:33 (finished all songs on ALL NIGHT, except for one to avoid spoilers) [Finished: July 4]

When this game was first announced in 2013, I was immediately wary of it because it seemed so absurd and, potentially, pointless. Playing it now, however, and I've come to appreciate it as a fantastic rhythm game with great music, which one would come to expect from the Persona series, and good rhythm game mechanics and a layout that just makes it so fun to play. I haven't played the story yet due to my not understanding Japanese, but I have a feeling that the whole package is a great goodbye to the Persona 4 series before Persona 5 comes out.

Game 11: Her Story [PC] 4 hours [Finished: July 5]

I'm not sure what to think about this. I impulse bought it without knowing very much about it, and I went through it all in a single sitting. The acting, which is basically at the core of the game, was good. The presentation as a whole was pretty neat. Each player will have a unique experience regarding how they saw the story, due to the way the video clips are laid out and how everyone will have their own order of having seen things. This in turn means that one's perspective concerning how the story presented in the game actually unfolded could differ from another person's. I didn't like when I would search for a word but nothing came up, and it became rather frustrating when I would keep trying to search for new clips only to get nothing. On the other hand, it felt good when I'd perform a search and found something I hadn't seen before. In the end, I guess I like how there's no "decisive" answer to the events in the game and that people are running wild with their own interpretations.

A U G U S T

Game 12: Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls [PSV] 21:17:33 [Finished: August 21]

As a Third-Person Shooter, Danganronpa: Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is a missed opportunity which has interesting gameplay mechanics obfuscated by poor controls and a lack of interesting combat scenarios. As a story-based game, Another Episode is excellent, with memorable characters and a worthy entry to the Danganronpa series, known for its compelling story. Lasting around 20 hours with most of it consisting of dialogue and cutscenes, Danganronpa fans should very much enjoy what this has to offer, while those coming into Ultra Despair Girls just for its gameplay wont have a great time with it.

S E P T E M B E R

Game 13: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes [PS4] 143:28.844 [Finished: September 21]

Started this to catch up before playing The Phantom Pain, and it was much more fun than I expected it to be. I always heard people talking about how fun the gameplay was, and never gave it much thought since that's not necessarily why I played the previous Metal Gear Solid games. I discovered, though, that I agreed with the opinion that its just a really fun game to play. It gives the player so many options to deal with any given situation, all in a sandbox. While there was not much to the story, that didn't bother me too much since I did have fun infiltrating the area and completing tasks. A nice preliminary to The Phantom Pain, though I don't think I would have been too happy paying full price for it (glad that I got it for free through PS+).

O C T O B E R

Game 14: Life is Strange [PC] 18 hours [Finished: October 20]

I really liked this series. I didn't have as much of a problem with the dialogue and lip syncing as others, and I enjoyed the characters and story. I'm rather conflicted on the ending, but the time traveling journey in the small seaside town of Arcadia Bay was memorable. As an episodic, story driven game, this was on par with The Walking Dead (Season 1) from Telltale, and I hope to see DONTNOD try their hand at another game like LiS in the future.

N O V E M B E R

Game 15: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain [PS4] 80:40:30 [Finished: November 2]

My opinion is the common one: fantastic gameplay, poor story. Doing Side Ops and tackling different scenarios the with so much freedom given to the player was a lot of fun. Definitely the best playing Metal Gear Solid game yet, and building up Mother Base was neat, too. However, while there were some cool story scenes (mission 43 being a highlight), having mainly be told through passive codec calls and audio tapes was not interesting. Gameplay came first for this MGS game, and that's not quite what I come to the series for. And then there's the controversial ending. I'm coming around to it after having some time to think about it and read theories, but I still don't really like it. There are a lot of missed opportunities for how they could have handled things in the narrative, and it's unfortunate.

Game 16: Undertale [PC] 514:10 (Normal + Pacifist); 194:49 (Killer Normal); 300+ (Genocide) [Finished: November 9]

This will end up being one of the most memorable games I've played in recent times. I wasn't sure if it would be my thing from the little I had seen of it before playing it, but the buzz and my own desire brought me to it, and I'm glad it did. I loved the dialogue, characters, world, music, gameplay... pretty much everything about it. It mixes levity and absurdity with serious undertones in a great way. The game essentially has two extremely different perspectives within it because of the different routes, with the Genocide Route being one of the most unique I've seen in any game, with how it depicts how evil it can be to play as a villain in a game.

Game 17: StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void [PC] ~15 hours [Finished: November 12]

Story is the worst thing I've ever experienced in a very long time. Extremely reminiscent of Mass Effect 3. It's tragic, thinking back to StarCraft 1 and Brood War. SCII was a major shit show in comparison.

The gameplay was alright. Weakest campaign for me, perhaps because I don't care much for the Protoss. Multiplayer's still the same; build orders are wonky in early days.

Game 18: Until Dawn [PS4] ~8 hours [Finished: November 24]

This was a really nice game, and the type I'd like to see more of. Neat twists and turns and, despite not knowing that much about the horror genre, it was reminiscent of The Cabin in The Woods in some ways, up to its subversive elements of the genre. I wasn't too into a certain twist, but I was okay. It had a rather abrupt ending, but it was satisfying as a whole.

Game 19: Tales from the Borderlands [PC] 14 hours [Finished: November 29]

This was a fantastic experience. I had been rather down on Telltale games recently, so I can't say I was anticipating anything they had going on, and I really did not care for the Borderlands universe. Still, the praise this game was getting was enough for me to jump in when it was discounted, and I'm glad I did. It was a fun romp, and on par with the first season of The Walking Dead and with Life is Strange.

D E C E M B E R

Game 20: Emily is Away [PC] ~40 minutes [Finished: December 31]

Recently heard some praise for this game and, it being available for free made me decide to try it out. Turns out, this wasn't compelling to me AT ALL. The AOL interface is cool ala Digital: A Love Story, but that's about it, and I don't have any nostalgia for it anyways. I also had zero nostalgia for the kind of experience it attempts to represent. The lack of real dialog choices in several situations makes it a frustrating experience that tunnels you into a very specific scenario. That might be the point, but then it's not an interesting scenario at all. I didn't care about anything that was going on, and then it ended.

Game 21: Hotline Miami [PSV] ~5 hours [Finished: December 31]

It was alright. Lock-on on the Vita was a real pain in the ass. I liked the aesthetic, and there were sometimes where I was really into the music as the action happened. The story was alright; nothing too compelling, but serviceable. The gameplay itself was fine. Not amazing, but alright. I really just feel pretty average on the game; don't think I'll be getting Hotline Miami 2, but I'm glad I played through this.

kulapik · Dec 25, 2014

I'll try it, but no way in hell that I do it.

AsylumX · Dec 25, 2014

This year I'll do it. Already have a couple of games on my sight...

Megatron · Dec 25, 2014

I would love to do this, but until I finish grad school this isn't realistic for me. I may still document whatever I do finish though.

Axass · Dec 25, 2014

I'll gladly accept the challenge for the second year, the last one really helped me with my backlog, and I'm just about to end it (4 games left).

- JANUARY -

Game 1: The Expendabros - 2/5 - 1:49 hours (02/01/15)

Finished all ten missions, unlocked all bros. Mindless and straightforward fun, you just go forward and destroy everything in your way; the bros are almost all great and fun to use (the doctor sucks though) and feature very different weapons, the destructible environments are amazing, never saw anything on this level in a 2D game since Worms. The fact you can't choose whichever bro you want is kind of puzzling, no real reason for that, and sometimes you're stuck with a bro who's not apt for the task at hand. The game has style but lacks a lot in substance, it's incredibly repeating, even though it's so short; however, everything consodered, being a free game it's more than ok as it is.

Game 2: SteamWorld Dig - 3/5 - 6 hours (03/01/15)

Beaten the final boss and got heaps of achievements, still need to max out my equipment though. It caught me by surprise, thought it was more similar to Spelunky, turns out it's more puzzle like in its approach and has metroidvania elements for the progression. It's very nice and polished, the graphics are great 2D artwork, everything works and feels awesome and responsive; it feels repetitive after a while, but I'd say that only happens when you are basically at the end of the game (the game's short), so it's not a huge issue. Only real issue is that the developers could have done much more with the world and characters.

Game 3: The Room - 3,5/5 - 2:54 hours (05/01/15)

Nice puzzle game, with minimalist, clean graphics, and great atmosphere. I love chinese boxes and hidden mechanisms, so this one really hit the spot for me. I only have a few complaints: the game's too short and the last two sections are too straightforward, you feel a little guided at times, while at the beginning you could choose to follow multiple "paths" at once; also I found the game too easy, only got stuck once, for around 10 minutes. The ending sucks.

Game 4: Puppeteer - 4/5 - around 12 hours (13/01/15)

Completed the story, still missing a bunch of heads and bonus stages. I'm still impressed by the incredible attention to detail that went into the presentation of this game: the voice-over is exceptional, the music is great, the artstyle charming, everything is coherent to the theme of the magical theatre (parts of the stages seen as props, meta comments, the claps, boos and gasps), everything moves and animates smoothly, the lighting is fantastic, even the menus and the stage selection are exceptional. Best artistic presentation I've ever witnessed in a game, miles over anything Nintendo has ever done (only WW gets close)... and they're masters in regards of artstyle and presentation. Stylistically it could really pass for a Nintendo game,... until you start playing: the gameplay is as deep as a puddle. It still manages to be pretty entertaining and fun, but it has got very basic platforming, with somehow floaty physics; while each of the 21 levels is pretty unique in setting and flair, you basically keep doing the same 5 things for the entire length of the game, with very few surprises: it's a game that lives off its outstounding charm alone.

Game 5: 140 - 2/5 - 53 minutes (14/01/15)

The game's the very first rhythm platformer I play, never seen anything like this and I've got to say that platforming and rhythm games really go well hand in hand; the controls work well, the physics are ok, the minimalistic style and music mesh well together. The game however is really too short and basic for its own good (it ends when you're getting the hang of it), it doesn't wear its welcome but it doesn't offer enough of a challenge either. It goes from having a checkpoint every two or three deathly pits in the standard stages, to having no checkpoints at all and requesting you complete entire levels without failing in the reverse stages, unlocked after you finish the game. No way I'm doing it, it wouldn't be fun, it'd be masochistic, with no reward or gratification at the end.

Game 6: Halo: Spartan Assault - 2,5/5 - 8:12 hours (21/01/15)

Completed the campaign and got all the medals. The game manages to channel the spirit and world of the Halo main series quite well, however the plot is lackluster to say the least, narrated through still text for the most part, with just a bunch of CG scenes here and there; I really couldn't get into it, skimmed through most of the text, barely reading it, the focus on war tactics and on the strategic decisions of the UNSC made it kind of boring, as that's a long way removed from the usual Halo plot. The actual shooting feels nice, the combat borrows heavily from standard Halo, transferring the usual tropes of the series inside the twin stick shooter genre almost flawlessly; the missions begin to repeat themselves a little too much after a while, and I'd have preferred more "traveling" missions and less timed stuff or escort stuff, however all in all there's a good variety, besides the game's not too long, so it doesn't get boring.

Game 7: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - 4/5 - 17:12 hours (29/01/15)

Done everything (no time attacks) and got the crown. It's a charming little gem using 3D World's amazing engine, the presentation is really great and the diorama-style levels really fun to interact with. The levels, just like in 3D World, almost always contain some unique mechanic to play with, however there are some notable repetitions, like the lava boss stage, that the third time wears out its welcome, being structurally almost identically: one would have hoped for at least a pair more bosses. The book formatting is a really nice change of pace, however the opening sequences, and certain intermissions, are weirdly identical, leaving the player kind of puzzled as to why they're even there. The bonus section is nice to have, it offers some differently paced challenges, but nothing to write home about, and especially no real new content. While the game is in general a great package, it's mostly too easy, becoming often challenging for the wrong reasons, the main focuses are the exploration and puzzles, yet they're almost never the hard parts: you mostly get stuck and die on levels featuring the forced running mechanic, bosses, many on-screen enemies, and the Mummy-Me Maze, which is more a test of endurance and concentration than a "puzzle". So, my complaint would be that action oft takes the spotlight over puzzles, in a game that could have done much more with its puzzles.

Game 8: Bardbarian - 1,5/5 - 7:48 hours (31/01/15)

Finished the campaign and tried the side games. Worst game I've played this year so far, I'm mostly baffled by how they completely missed the point of a tower defense game: it's the first game I can remember where you're supposed to lose countless times before winning, you literally can't win the game on your first try. That's a pretty big design fail in my opinion: one of the most important mechanics in a tower defense is being able to buy and upgrade units on the go, in order to adjust to what the waves of enemies contain; here you can't, you just choose three type of units at the beginning and that's it, you can't even upgrade on the field, you have to lose to do it (but you have to grind the money playing and dying soo thereafter), of course the units are severely underpowered at first so the whole system falls on itself and crumbles. Disappointing in almost every way.

- FEBRUARY -

Game 9: EarthBound [replay] - 4/5 - around 30 hours (09/02/15)

Beat Giygas. This game is amazing for many reasons: enemies fleeing from you and being automatically killed when your level is high enough, the very fact the enemies can be seen in an age when random encounters were still the norm, the rolling stats in battle (best innovation of the game, it gives a sence of rhythm and urgency to the battles), the weird approach to battles itself, with enemies going for unusual actions, while friends have crazy techniques and items, besides the whole setting was and still is incredibly unique and the plot is bonkers (in a good way). However that comes at a price: some of those innovations end up hindering the player more than they should, that happens with the ATM, the hospital system, the delivery service and the very limited inventory, micro-managing that stuff becomes a chore after a while; also, the second half of the game, after you leave the big cities, is badly paced, with too much incessant fighting and too little NPC interactions. Another gripe I have is that the batttles are kind of boring and just too hard until you get the third member of the team.

Game 10: Super Time Force Ultra - 4/5 - 11:49 hours (11/02/15)

Completed the campaign, the holodeck, got all collectibles and characters. I love games that try to fuck with my mind, the whole time rewinding plus clones mechanic is excuted excellently, collectibles are fun to get and require skills and timing (especially in the well crafted holodeck challenges), the characters are a lot and almost all unique and interesting to use, each with its own quirk, having to actually save them to use them is a nice added touch. The pixel graphics are phenomenal, with an unusual attention to detail, it really feels like a moving cartoon, the story is pretty much nonsensical, the settings awesome; the whole game is very pop-culture inspired and sometimes it goes overboard, ending up in the silly zone, the opening and ending cutscenes in particular go on just too much.

Game 11: Shovel Knight - 4/5 - 7:05 hours (25/02/15)

Finished the game, got all the items and gear, miss only 6 music sheets. Retro gaming done right: the spritework is excellent, there's lots of 8-bit music, the gameplay is immediate, you need no tutorials to start playing and have fun, something rare nowadays; the story is very basic but charming, the world is built with the utmost care. The risk/reward mechanic built around checkpoints, deaths and gold works flawlessly, making the game challenging but not race-inducing like Mega Man games are at times. The levels are all unique, the bosses many just like the items. However there're a few shortcomings: the villages are nice but I wished there was something more to do in them, the armors and shovel upgrades aren't anything mindblowing, also having to go to the blacksmith to change your armor is pretty annoying.

Game 12: Dungeon Keeper [replay] - 3,5/5 - around 15 hours (25/02/15)

Completed the campaign. This is a game that's amazing when it works as intended, but it becomes quickly underwhelming when you're forced to use cheap tricks to win or when your opponents are playing unfairly. The atmosphere is perfect and the attention to detail, even gameplay-wise, astounding: each creature is tortured differently, Hellhounds use your graveyard as a bathroom, prisoners fight among themselves if you leave a chicken nearby, tortured enemies can give you intel on their base, can be converted to your side or can die and become ghosts. Though the designers have this bad habit of making you start a good amount of levels with some kind of handicap, especially near the end of the campaign: limited gold, limited space, limited creatures, limited rooms, allied enemies ganging up on you, etc. I wish there were a bunch of more difficult but straightforward maps, because the difficulty of the last levels, which are pretty hard, is enhanced artificially by the aforementioned limitations. Also the battling mechanics are weird, for a game based on managing stuff, big fights get too chaotic too soon and sometimes you have the impression you can't do much to sway their course.

Game 13: The Stanley Parable - §/5 - 5:36 hours (26/02/15)

Of course I did not complete The Stanley Parable, after all the end is never the end is never the end... However I pretty much saw all of what can be seen, both by playing the game (90%) and watching some easter eggs and the art ending on Youtube (10%). I didn't give a meaningful score to The Stanley Parable, because The Stanley Parable isn't a game: it's an interactive statement regarding (mostly but not only) gaming narrative. It's basically a very well thought thesis, only it's not written in words, but with code; a thesis built around paradoxes and illogicalities, such as the clearly and purposedly paradoxical main ending, the one you reach following the narrator's instructions step by step, resulting in the only outcome permitting Stanley to obtain freedom. However there are also paradoxes created unwillingly by the developer: the Unachievable Achievement, something you literally can't achieve in game if not in a completely random way, with the developer changing the way the random process worked with each patch, ended up becoming the only real and practical achievement of the game when gamers collaborated in real life to find a way to activate it through cheating, something that ended up being very difficult in and on itself, as the developer had tried to block cheating in many ways.

Game 14: Mirror's Edge - 3/5 - around 8 hours (27/02/15)

Completed the campaign and one starred most of the time trials, didn't bother getting all the bags. The aesthetics are pretty striking, the use of white and light blue in contrast with other saturated strong colours, like yellow, red, blue, orange and green, gives the rather simple environments a clean and beautiful look. The gameplay is very interesting and unique, the controls mostly work as intended and when you manage to keep going for a long time without stopping or falling you feel a great sense of accomplishment, however, due to a few issues, that doesn't happen often enough. In fact the visual cues telling you the right route sometimes aren't enough, there are a bunch of areas where you get lost easily, not knowing where to go next; the combat is really underwhelming, it gives you too few approach and defense options, also it mostly breaks the pacing: you just wish you could keep running but you have to take cover, or worse steal a gun and fire back, something that shouldn't have a place in a game like this. Sadly a few freezes got in my way when playing on the PS3, it's unbelievable that not even the Chapter 6 glitch, which seems to happen to half the people owning the game, has ever been patched. The plot and characters are utterly worthless, Faith herself, for all the talk surrounding her realistic look, is boring and dull personality-wise: looks don't make a great character.

- MARCH -

Game 15: Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut - 2,5/5 - 10 hours (22/03/15)

Completed the game with ending A, I also got all the items afterwards, but didn't bother replaying the final boss to get ending B. I found Shantae to be highly overrated, it's a nice metroidvania-style game, but very limited in what it does and especially short; the combat system in particular is straight on garbage, with a single option for the main attack and only three, forgettable, options as far as side weapons go. The enemies are few and featuring too many recolours, the plot is lacking, the setting nothing phenomenal, but the transformations and graphics are charming, the map is one of the most confusing and convoluted I've ever seen, the warps are placed in a very inconvenient way, so you still have to backtrack a lot. The metroidvania formula though holds up well and the two main dungeons are pretty good, especially the second one, however the game doesn't really try to do anything new or to perfect what's already there: its shortcomings are apparent.

Game 16: Rayman Legends [with gf] - 4,5/5 - 26:16 hours (29/03/15)

Completed the game 100% in co-op, only missing the last three locked characters. An incredible game, one of the best 2D platformers ever created as far as I'm concerned, the only real problem I can think of is the great amount of material rehashed from Origins, and from Legends itself (the invasions), however it's basically a surplus, since the new levels are still a lot, enough to justify the new game by themselves. The comparison with the original is in favour of Legends: while it's true that the first one had somewhat tighter level design and controls, the sequel is HD (an astonishing moving cartoon) and has more variety: kung foot, musical levels, lots of time trials (here the game basically turns into a runner), more characters and settings, the old reworked levels and the touchscreen ones with Murphy. The thing I admire the most about Legends (and Origins) is how adamant it is about getting you into a rhythm, how silky smooth the gameplay feels when you jump and run following the cues the developers give you: it's a sight to behold, after a while you learn to just trust the game, because you know that it won't ever misguide you into a bottomless pit. Finally, they nailed the co-op so well that it puts the NSMB series to shame.

Game 17: Kero Blaster - 2,5/5 - 5:32 hours (30/03/15)

Beaten both the game and the new game plus. Nice time waster but nothing to really write home about, it's pretty much a let down compared to Cave Story, which I absolutely loved: too streamlined, too easy (even the new game plus), too short. The weapon upgrade system was carried over from Daisuke Amaya's masterpiece, even though now it works with money; I have to say I prefered the former "on the go" system, which made it possible to downgrade a weapon if needed, adding an ulterior layer of strategy to the game, strategy options that are absolutely lacking and would be very welcome in Kero Blaster. The plot is underdeveloped and confused, a mere pretest to shoot around, the characters and artwork are charming as always. The actual shooting feels great, but it's apparent that the controls have been dumbed down so that it could work on a smartphone, resulting in rather stiff movements and actions.

- APRIL -

Game 18: Hotline Miami - 3/5 - 8 hours (05/04/15)

Completed the game, got all masks and the secret ending. There's a lot of gore, but the game's cohesiveness, both in tone and visual style, make it so it's actually acceptable and not tasteless. The arcade gameplay, designed to have you try all options and strategies, works wonderfully thanks to the absence of death penalties ad the quick restart; the controls are simple and immediate, yet manage to make you do crazy stuff, like ricocheting weapons and enemies against each-others. The level design and missions are the main drawbacks of the game, they're too samey, with not enough new mechanics added as you progress and lacking a balanced learning curve: at a certain point the game simply starts throwing heaps of enemies after you and making the levels longer and longer. The plot keeps you interested throughout the game, even though it's a little confused at times; the twists are unexpected and the ending is pretty out there (maybe a little too much). The setting and acid coloured artstyle, which are a very unique take on the genre, together with the incredible soundtrack and the dirty, bloody hallucinations sprinkled through the game, create an immersive dream-like experience.

Game 19: Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut [with gf] - 2/5 - 18:36 hours (06/04/15)

Curse of Monkey Island being my favourite adventure game ever, Broken Sword has revealed itself to be a pretty big disappointment. The setting and lore employed in the game is extremely fascinating, just as the lovely hand-drawn backgrounds, but all that potential is squandered by the awful remastering (the portraits are amateurish and the dialogues are horribly acted and translated, at least in Italian) and by the bare bones gameplay. In fact 80% of the puzzles are about distracting someone to do something (I wish the whole game was built around the remaining 10%: mechanisms, old texts to translate, codes and such), speaking to people is a chore, because they too often keep rambling about personal stuff or other inane and absolutely humorless things, there's not enough stuff to check in those beatufil backrgounds, making oft too obvious the solution to a problem, there are no dialogue options, far too few items, silly choices (the only guy who wants to shake your electric hand in the whole game is the assassin? REALLY?), and you constantly feel as if you're forced in a certain direction. The plot is intriguing at first, but soon becomes too complex for its own good, with too many worthless, two-dimensional characters, and too many unanswered questions: most of the time you proceed through the game wondering why you're doing something, or what you have to do; George himself admits to have no clue about what they're searching at one point. By the way, George Stobbart has to be the most dumb and annoying main character in the history of gaming.

Game 20: Super Mario Sunshine [replay with gf] - 2,5/5 - around 25 hours (25/04/15)

Beaten Bowser with about 80 shines. I've returned to the game after many many years and the first impression I had was that the game was much better than I remembered. That didn't last long. In fact I soon re-discovered what it is that plagues the game: worst camera in any 3D game I've ever played, weird control scheme that sacrifices some series staples in favour of FLUDD, and a convincing first part of the game, overshadowed by an incredibly boring and monotonous second part. Half of the missions of every "world" are copy-paste jobs with very little fun to be had: get red coins, get blue coins, catch shadow Mario, race the masked guy, do a no-FLUDD mission. The level design itself is very limited and messy, paling when compared to Super Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie. The story and voiced bits are frankly cringe-worthy, the setting full of wasted potential. Yoshi is ass in this game and totally breaks one of the hotel missions. It's clear Sunshine was rushed out of the door: for every new interesting feature, it does two wrong things and in the end the content leaves too much to be desired.

Second post.

Ventara · Dec 25, 2014

I'm gonna give this a go this year. Let's see how badly I'll fail.

Axass · Dec 25, 2014

First post.

- MAY -

Game 21: BOXBOY! - 2,5/5 - 11:52 hours (12/05/15)

Perfected every stage and beat all the challenges. Nice and clever timewaster that proposes something genuinely new, but lacks real challenge until later on in the game, and even then it never really gets seriously hard. I wish the various elements/hazards slowly introduced through the worlds were mixed up more and earlier in the campaign; as it is now every world but the last few, is a unique take on one element alone. I also think they should have experimented more with the multiple rows of blocks, maybe introducin that particular mechanic earlier in the game.

Game 22: de Blob - 2,5/5 - 30:05 hours (13/05/15)

Completed the campaign, got all the unlockables and got a gold on every secondary mission. The game's fun but overwhelming and tiring if played in long sessions: I found it's best to play no more than one stage of the campaign a day (trying to 100% it), that way you can immerse in it thanks to the nice dynamic soundtrack and big stages, without ending up bored. Getting everything in a stage may end up taking you a very very long time, and as if that weren't enough there's plenty of glitches involving Blob getting stuck in between buildings and forcing the player to restart a stage, while robbing him of all its progress. The game's a little monotonous after a while, not offering anything new to play with; controls are another big problem, especially due to the waggle-jump you can't do without: sometimes one feels as if he's losing lives and time unjustly.

Game 23: Broken Age [with gf] - 3/5 - 11:34 hours (27/05/15)

Replayed entirely the first act before getting my hands on the second one and completing it. The game's great, just not what they originally pitched: it's more of a Double Fine game (well duh) than a classic adventure game. I can't possibly hate on the devs after watching the documentary, however I think Tim kinda got his priorities wrong: too much attention to the production values at the expense of scope, length, variety and choices. Stuff like the (awesome) artwork of Bagel, the (stunning) orchestral score and the (amazing) voice over, take precious time and resources away; it was good to have them in, and Broken Age wouldn't be Broken Age without them, however they go to show where the project failed: that's stuff that's as far removed from old style adventure games as possible, yet they were consciously prioritized over better item management, a proper SCUMM-like exploration menu for the backgrounds (talk, move, hear, use, etc.), more intricate dialogues and additional scenes and places to visit. Tim's writing is top notch, but the plot and the resolution of act two leave something to be desired: the ending is abrupt, many things are left unresolved, Loruna isn't explored at all, the whole matter about genetics feels weirdly out of place and unnecesarily convoluted (so, the Trush sent out young lorunians and their families in part-fake-monster/part-fake-spaceship airships to instinctively search for maidens bearing the impurities they need to add to their DNA? Ok...), and there's a bunch of bad plot holes (Shay didn't remember he had parents? Really? Also where did the Merryloft maidens end up in the end?). The puzzles are much better implemented and actually require thinking things through this time around, also making great use of the alternation between the two main characters. In the end the game's great for what it is, and I appreciate it, however it's quite far from what it should've been at first.

- JUNE -

Game 24: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - 4,5/5 - 16:15 hours (08/06/15)

Completed the game with 100% power-ups, but missing a bunch of scans. Amazing conclusion to one of the highest quality series in gaming. I loved the planet jumping and the new ship mechanics, they feel fresh and innovative, even though they have their cons: both are underdeveloped. The planet jumping could have made for an even more interesting and intricate level design, instead the game feels more streamlined and objective-based than the previous entries: that's good because the backtracking is kept to a minimum (Echoes was horrible in this regard), but you can feel the environments somehow lack the thrill of mystery and the sense of going towards the unknown typical of Metroid. The ship works wonders as a warp point and moving save point, the upgades are nice, the grapple beam moreso than the missiles, however the upgrades themselves are underemployed and the interactions inside the ship are underwhelmingly futile. The weapon management is also streamlined, with upgrades stacking on top of each other, severely cutting back on battle strategy in favour of the hyper mode, which doesn't fully convince and feels a simple way to brute force your way out of any kind of fight (add on that the much less diverse enemies, now feeling more bullet-sponge than ever). Motion controls are great for aiming, and I found the grapple beam mechanics a nice yet kinda wonky addition, while buttons, levers and switches using motion technology aren't anything hot. I'm appalled that missable scans for minor enemies are still a thingespecially now that we've got 30 pretty uninspired space pirate variations, though the satellite system you access in the late game to track the secret items is a welcomed addition. The bosses are cool, but not as much as in Echoes, the final boss in particular feels too easy, underdelivering both battle and story-wise. The plot itself ties up everything quite well, expanding the lore of the series in new and exciting directions.

Game 25: Nidhogg - 1,5/5 - 1:05 hours (13/06/15)

Beaten the single player, played online multiplayer (Steam's community is kinda dead though :/). The game's fine, the animations are nice, the style employed interesting, but the game ultimately ends up being quite limited and boring, because there's just not enough options, both mode-wise and combat-wise. Once you learn the 5-6 kind of attacks and tactics the game offers you, everything gets stale quick, even in multiplayer. Seeing the simplicistic gameplay of the game, the developer should have tried to add as many stages, hazards, enemy types, weapons, traps and different modes as possible. One thing that bummed me is that the game basically rewards people who flee instead of fighting: trying to outrun your enemy is oft a less risky strategy than engaging in actual fencing.

Game 26: Goodbye Deponia [with gf] - 4/5 - around 12 hours (14/06/15)

Completed the game and got all platypus's eggs. Rufus is a douchebag, but an incredibly simpleminded and lovable one: after liking him in the first game and loathing him in the sequel, now I can safely say I really grew attached to his antics and I'm sad I reached the end of his adventure. That's a testament of the amazing love Daedalic put into crafting a vast and charming cast of characters, that sometimes reach Monkey Island heights of stupidity and craziness. The crucial plot revelations are nice and don't feel shoehorned at the last minute (Broken Age I'm looking at you), in fact they were foreshadowed ever since the first game; also Rufus shows quite the growth as a character in this last game. The puzzles are well balanced and very diverse, the situations are also quite numerous, as are the beautiful background artworks: you never feel bored and you hardly get stuck. Exception to the rule is act 5, which reminded me of the three isles part of Monkey Isalnd 2: you have so much stuff to explore and so many possibilities to calculate, that you end up feeling a little lost; in fact that's the only part where I got stuck for a long time. However due to the gameplay gimmick employed in said act, I can't help but love how everything works together in the end. Speaking of the ending, it's absolutely fitting to the tragicomedy that is Deponia, anything else would've felt forced and disappointing. Great series that shows how point and click adventures can still innovate and have a big impact even in this AAA age.

Game 27: Hexcells - 4/5 - 2:30 hours (22/06/15)

Completed 100%. The developers nailed down what makes picross and minesweeper fun: they managed to implement both games' mechanics, making them cohexist without bogging down the result with overcomplexity. Only negative thing is the lack of features and different modes: the stages aren't randomly generated like in minesweeper, you can only play them so many times before getting bored. Still, a classic in its genre.

- JULY -

Game 28: Hexcells Plus - 3,5/5 - 13:36 hours (11/07/2015)

Completed 100%. The new mechanic shakes things up a little, but the core game is mostly the same. Even though I appreciate the added challenge this sequel brings forth, at times the game becomes needlessly frustrating: later on you oft have to find an exact order of moves to complete the stages without errors, you can't start multiple paths and work you way to the end that way. The second to last level is especially unforgiving.

Game 29: Kami - 3,5/5 - 8:30 hours (25/07/2015)

Perfected both standard and extra puzzles, only used three hints total. Highly relaxing game: there's no failure involved, unlike what happens in many puzzles nowadays; here you can just hit a button and replay the stage instantly, without having to change screen at all, which I think is awesome. The music is amazing and gets you in the mood, the various patterns and colours are beautiful to look at, the stages are difficult but lenient enough to let you go on even if you don't perfect them. Even just seeing the paper move is soul candy: loved it.

Game 30: Super Castlevania IV - 2,5/5 - around 8 hours (25/07/15)

Completed the story, beat Dracula. I must say that for its age the game's a very fair one: the learning curve is nice and steady, there aren't real difficulty spikes, unless you count the last two levels, but then again, they are supposed to be difficult. The password system lets you continue from the last level reached and it's good they thought about adding a "checkpoint" before the final boss as well. Graphics are nice for its age, so is the catchy music; the gameplay is a little repetitive, but it's spiced up through Mode 7 usage, which creates some cool obstacles and hazards. Love how they implemented the whip, letting you hit in 8 directions and making it limp to control it manually: awesome mechanic, especially for a SNES game.

Game 31: The Legend of Zelda - 3,5/5 - around 10 hours (27/07/15)

Beaten the first quest. The game holds up magnificently and you can clearly see the foundations of the series laid in it. The sense of actual adventure, of being lost in a big world with barely any idea about what you have to do, lingers throughout the whole game: something you can't really say about most of the latest games in the series. The perfect balance between mystery and being able to proceed without being frustrated is sadly broken by some cryptic shit: how would I know which wall to bomb among hundreds to get a piece of heart? How would I know which bush/tree to burn down to find the 8th dungeon? Hints are there, but you have to find and make sense of them first, not an easy task considering the somewhat lousy translation. The dungeons are cool but repetitive after a while, same goes for the enemies and combat; the items are great and numerous, but many end up underused (flute/raft/wand/silver arrows). All in all it's an incredible game, which stands the test of time: no wonder the series ended up so awesome starting from such a solid first entry.

- AUGUST -

Game 32: Hexcells Infinite - 3,5/5 - 17:06 hours (04/08/2015)

Perfected every stage and played some randomly generated stages. It's basically more of the same, with no actual innovation in gameplay, but there's a new infinite mode, where you can play randomly generated levels: the mode kinda falls flat because the randomness makes the stages pretty easy and uninsteresting, not even remotely as good as the hand-made ones.

Game 33: Outland - 2,5/5 - 12:48 hours (21/08/15)

Completed the story, found all helms, vases and upgrades. The game tries to mash-up Ikaruga's good/bad projectiles gimmick with Metroid's backtracking-based game progression, but if fails on both fronts. First problem is the art-style, which is very nice and different at first, but simply doesn't evolve at all later on: if you show me a pic of a random area from the game, it'd be hard for me to say to which main area it belongs to. That's a problem for the backtracking part of the game: you have a new power yet you have no clue where are the places you have to use it in; probably the developers noticed too, that's why they created detailed maps and a guiding light that you just have to constantly follow, wich defeats the whole purpose of the Metroidvania stuff. As for the dual powers mechanic, it's severely underdeveloped, it basically revolves around the game throwing growingly complex projectiles patterns at you, there's no health absorption from your color's projectiles and no other relevant use of the mechanic. The combat is pretty basic and clunky as well, but it gets a few more options down the road. All in all, it's an average game through the end, lacking any surprises.

Game 34: Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep - 3,5/5 - 17:47 hours (22/08/15)

Completed Aqua's story and started Terra's, I'm kinda burned out on the game right now, so I'll probably replay it with Terra and Ventus later on. I'm not completely sold on the "triple character" approach, its nice to see new areas of the world, new bits of the story, new characters in each character's journey, but redoing every challenge and minigame, starting anew with the commands, treasures and stickers isn't the most fun thing ever. The best approach in my opinion would've been to make just one file where you can switch between characters at will, and have a few things in common (like commands). Structure aside, the combat is a step forward coming from KKHII's mash-fest, still not up to par with the first game though: it reminds me of CoM's deck system; same in regards to exploration and puzzles, a middle ground between KHII's corridors and KH's open ended areas. The plot is weak, at least Aqua's story is; there's still a great confusion, unexplained stuff and very little meaningful content to reflect upon, the choice of worlds rather boring, yet the game is enjoyable, mostly thanks to the fact it's made of bite-sized sections (perfect for a handheld game) and to the commands and combat system.

Game 35: Jack Lumber - 2/5 - 02:24 hours (22/08/15)

Played the campaign to completion, got at least a silver stash in each stage, bought some beards. The game didn't do enough with the slow-mo lumber cutting system to fully convince me; it's not a bad game, but it's too repetitive, too shallow and lacks a charismatic artistic style. After the relatively short campaign the game becomes a challenge against oneself to get plaidinums in all stages, but the difficulty spike is huge and the game's not fun enough to keep playing.

Game 36: Vanquish - 4,5/5 - around 7 hours (23/08/15)

- DECEMBER -

Game 37: The Maw - 2/5 - 03:24 hours (03/12/15)

Finished the story, ate almost everything. The game starts from a nice concept, but doesn't make anything special out of it; that's the main problem: the game's rather boring. The pace of the main character (and of the game itself) is just too slow, the environments are so incredibly samey and boring, the preys mostly dull and requiring almost no effort to capture. The game's pretty short, yet you feel it still treads on too much, especially with the few but insipid cutscenes. Wasted potential.

Game 38: Tower of Heaven - 2,5/5 - 00:30 hours (24/12/15)
Completed the game, found one secret. Nice web-game which employs a very innovative way to do a platformer: it adds rules upon rules as you go onwards and progress up the tower, and it does so in a very natural way, so that by the end you have already internalized them and are able to comply to everything at once, while navigating though as nail jump sequences. In the end though it's still a very raw and quick flash game, you're left wanting more depth and complexity.

Game 39: Bad Mojo Redux - 3/5 - around 3 hours (27/12/15)

Completed the game, seen all endings. This was a pleasant surprise, a game that thinks outside the box, something truly unique. The game's focus is exploration: through exploration you solve the (few) environmental puzzles, you get to know the world around you and you slowly learn the story surrounding the main character. In fact, by the end, you get attached to the characters themselves, even though you're moving around as a cockroach the whole time and you only see them in the filmed live-action sequences. The visions brought forward by the many encounters with various insects are an excellent hint system, helping the player without giving away too much; the game's still hard at times though, mainly due to the fact you may miss a few places, as it's not always clear where you can and can't go. The premise of the game is brilliant, so is the cohesive little world the developers created, always coherent in the way it works, however it falls short on the length and on the puzzles, which are a little too few.

Game 40: The Swapper - 3,5/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)

Finished the story, got all secret terminals.

- STILL PLAYING -

Game 41: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 42: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 43: Splatoon - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 44: BattleBlock Theater - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)

Game 45: The Last Story - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 46: Bayonetta 2 - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 47: Kirby and the Rainbow Curse - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 48: Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 49: Rhythm Heaven Silver - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 50: Pokémon Shuffle - 3/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)

Game 51: Bioshock - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Game 52: Olliolli - ?/5 - ??:?? hours (??/??/15)
# INSERT INFO AND COMMENTS HERE

Lemstar · Dec 25, 2014

1: Wolfenstein: The New Order (XB1) - 18h (01/04/15 - 01/07/15)
2: D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die (XB1) - 5h (01/08/15 - 01/12/15)
3: Infamous: First Light (PS4) - 3h (01/16/15 - 01/16/15)
4: Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell (XB1) - 4h (01/21/15 - 01/22/15)
5: Super Mario 3D World (Wii U) - 16h (01/23/15 - 01/29/15)
6: Escape Plan (PSV) - 3h (02/05/15 - 02/09/15)
7: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Wii U) - 20h (02/01/15 - 02/13/15)
8: Trine 2 - Goblin Menace (PC) - 4h (02/14/15 - 02/15/15)
9: Star Fox 64 (3DS) - 2h (02/16/15 - 02/18/15)
10: Kara no Shoujo (PC) - 12h (02/18/15 - 02/20/15)
11: The Order: 1886 (PS4) - 7h (02/21/15 - 02/22/15)
12: Battlefield 3 (PS3) - 7h (02/17/15 - 02/24/15)
13: Mortal Kombat (PSV) - 8h (02/26/15 - 02/28/15)
14: Fate/stay night (PC) - 28h (03/02/15 - 03/08/15)
15: Heroes of Might and Magic III: Restoration of Erathia (PC) - 50h (12/15/14 - 03/18/15)
16: Battlefield Hardline (XB1) - 8h (03/18/15 - 03/20/15)
17: Battlefield 4 (PC) - 6h (03/25/15 - 03/26/15)
18: Planescape: Torment (PC) - 30h (03/31/15 - 04/09/15)
19: Mortal Kombat X (PS4) - 5h (04/14/15 - 04/15/15)
20: Kick & Fennick (PSV) - 6h (03/30/15 - 05/10/15)
21: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (360) - 5h (05/12/15 - 05/22/15)
22: Watch Dogs (XB1) - 18h (04/10/15 - 06/06/15)
23: The Walking Dead: Season 2 (360) - 9h (06/12/15 - 06/15/15)
24: Batman: Arkham Knight (XB1) - 17h (06/23/15 - 07/02/15)
25: The Stanley Parable (PC) - 2h (07/28/15 - 07/31/15)
26: Entwined (PSV) - 2h (08/16/15 - 08/18/15)
27: Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions (PSV) - 10h (08/18/15 - 08/20/15)
28: eden* (PC) - 4h (08/22/15 - 08/23/15)
29: Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (PSV) - 14h (09/02/15 - 09/07/15)
30: Saya no Uta (PC) - 2h (09/26/15 - 09/26/15)
31: Never Alone (PS4) - 3h (04/16/15 - 09/29/15)
32: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (XB1) - 9h (09/23/15 - 10/04/15)
33: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (XB1) - 2h (10/06/15 - 10/06/15)
34: Valiant Hearts: The Great War (XB1) - 6h (10/13/15 - 10/24/15)
35: Hatoful Boyfriend (PC) - 4h (10/25/15 - 10/25/15)
36: Halo 5: Guardians (XB1) - 6h (10/28/15 - 10/29/15)
37: Murasaki Baby (PSV) - 2h (11/02/15 - 11/03/15)
38: Jazzpunk (PC) - 2h (11/04/15 - 11/04/15)
39: CounterSpy (PSV) - 3h (11/03/15 - 11/05/15)
40: Call of Duty: Black Ops III (XB1) - 8h (11/07/15 - 11/09/15)
41: Undertale (PC) - 7h (11/10/15 - 11/12/15)
42: Rise of the Tomb Raider (XB1) - 12h (11/12/15 - 11/16/15)
43: Ace Attorney Investigations: Prosecutor's Path (DS) - 20h (11/16/15 - 11/22/15)
44: Assassin's Creed: Unity (XB1) - 17h (11/22/15 - 11/27/15)
45: Assassin's Creed: Unity - Dead Kings (XB1) - 5h (11/27/15 - 11/27/15)
46: Rayman Legends (XB1) - 7h (11/29/15 - 12/05/15)
47: Dishonored - The Knife of Dunwall (XB1) - 7h (12/07/15 - 12/08/15)
48: Dishonored - The Brigmore Witches (XB1) - 6h (12/09/15 - 12/11/15)
49: The Talos Principle (PS4) - 14h (12/13/15 - 12/20/15)
50: DmC: Devil May Cry - Vergil's Downfall (XB1) - 2h (12/21/15 - 12/21/15)
51: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (XB1) - 9h (12/23/15 - 12/27/15)
52: Rogue Legacy (PSV) - 18h (12/25/15 - 12/28/15)
53: Call of Duty: World at War (360) - 5h (12/28/15 - 12/31/15)

XxRampage07xX · Dec 25, 2014

Never mind. I will lose anyway

Smokey · Dec 25, 2014

So you don't need to complete 52 games? Just play them?

Popstar · Dec 25, 2014

claiming this post

My backlog is too big and needs to get smaller. So I will use this as motivation.

Game 1: Monument Valley - ? Hours - (Jan 17)
Nice relaxing puzzle game. I find these types of games are great for playing a level or two in bed before going to sleep. But that also means I don't know my total time played. Will probably grab the DLC later at some point (after finishing Pushmo and Crashmo probably).

Game 2: Hexcells - 4 Hours (Feb 26)
This is pretty addictive...

Game 3: Hexcells Plus - 17 Hours (Feb 27)
...and straight into the sequel. Had to running in the background for a day and a half. I'm not sure what this thing was programmed in (Unity?) but it pulls a surprising amount of juice from my laptop. Gets the fans going full blast.

Game 4: Hexcells Infinite - (Mar 5)
moar hexcells

Game 5: The Floor is Jelly - (May 19)

Game 6: Kami - (May 20)

Game 7: Thomas Was Alone - (May 21)

Sendou · Dec 25, 2014

Smokey said:
So you don't need to complete 52 games? Just play them?

How do I know when I completed a game?
That's up to you, it could be completing the game or playing 10hrs+ if it has no ending or a MP game. PS: You can do replays, as long as all the games are completed in 2015.

.

Basically you do need to complete the game but often it's not so clear when that is.

Uzzy · Dec 25, 2014

Lets do this. May as well play the games I got from the Steam Sale. So that'll be Alien: Isolation, Killer is Dead and Ground Zeroes to start with, along with The Fall for a bit of a breather from the AAA stuff. All these games will be on PC, unless otherwise noted.

Game 1: Claire - Started 2014, Finished 1/1/15, 5 Hours Total, 3 Hours in 2015
A 2D Psychological Indie Horror game, I bought this back during the Halloween Sale, and it's really quite good for a horror game. More in the Silent Hill vain, you spend your time exploring grim urban environments, running away from monsters and trying to advance through the maze like levels by finding the right items. The sound design is top-notch, and works to put you on edge, while the 16 bit graphics are neat. I particularly liked Claire's idle animation, where she'd sit down on the floor, make herself small and put her hood on. Nice touch.

Game 2: Transistor - Started 2014, Finished 3/1/15, 12 Hours Total, 6 Hours in 2015
My Game of the Year of 2014, Transistor is divine. Jaw droppingly gorgeous visuals, a near perfect soundtrack and wonderful gameplay that's challenging and flexible and rewarding all at the same time.

Game 3: Killer is Dead - Started 3/1/15, Finished 4/1/15, 8 Hours Total
Finished this on Normal, I might go back to at some point to unlock more stuff and play on higher difficulties. Really quite weird, which is expected from a Suda51 game. I mostly enjoyed the combat, though it had camera issues that are frustratingly common amongst similar character action games. Very stylish.

Game 4: Wolfenstein: The New Order - Started 4/1/15, Finished 6/1/15, 11 Hours Total
Finished on I AM DEATH INCARNATE! difficulty. Wonderful game, really excellent blend of old school shooter sensibilities with a smattering of more modern additions, and a surprisingly great plot for a Wolfenstein game, or any shooter really. Shooting Nazis in the face will never go out of fashion.

Game 5: Civilisation: Beyond Earth - Started 15/1/15, Finished 18/1/15, 11 Hours Total
What a disappointing game. I was so excited when the team at Firaxis announced a new 4X set in space, thanks to Alpha Centauri still being my favourite 4X game. But it really doesn't live up to anything close to that illustrious predecessor. Perhaps I'm being unfair in comparing it to Alpha Centauri though. The Tech Web is a mess that devolves into a race for affinity points, which are practically the only thing that matters now, as they're the source of upgrades for your meagre selection of units. The main failing is the lack of character throughout the game, which is immensely disappointing given that there's little glimpses of it in the intro scene and in some of the bits of text over on the Beyond Earth website. So disappointing. I might return to it after an expansion.

Game 6: Resident Evil HD Remaster - Started 19/1/15, Finished 26/1/15, 13 Hours Total
Finished Chris's path on Normal difficulty, with a playtime of 9 hours, 9 minutes and 10 seconds. Once I got used to the controls and the mechanics, I found this game to be truly excellent. It's actually my first time ever playing RE1, though I did play Dino Crisis back in the day, so I had some idea of what I was getting into. Really enjoyable with a great atmosphere. I want to see the rest of the RE games get the remake treatment now.

Game 7: Huniepop - Started 19/1/15, Finished 20/1/15, 5 Hours Total
Disappointing really. The cast of characters was rather enjoyable, Audrey especially, but there just wasn't enough dialogue and interaction with them really. The scenes you get when meeting a new character for the first time is basically it. Wish there had been more of that.

Game 8: The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings - Started 2/2/15, Finished 21/5/15, 23 Hours Total
Perfection in a game really. I played through in order to prepare for Witcher 3, and went through Iorveth's path this time. I've done Roche's path before, and I think that while Roche is by far the more likeable character, Iorveth's path is more interesting, and Iorveth himself is quite an interesting character.

Game 9: NBA2k15 - Started 12/2/15, Ended 16/2/15, 111 Minutes Total
Not a bad little game. I mostly downloaded this as it was free on Steam, and I figured why not give it a go, since it's been ages since I've played a sports game. It's got all the presentational flair that you expect. But I'm not really a fan of Basketball, so no more gaming for me.

Game 10: Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault - Started 12/2/15, Ended 26/2/15, 8 Hours Played, 92 Hours Total
Real Time Strategy games are one of my favourite genres, and in nearly all of them I find the campaigns to be pretty damn poor. Company of Heroes 2's original campaign was no exception to this. Ardennes Assault, on the other hand, is a really damn fine campaign. Rather than a scripted series of battles, one after the other, meant to replicate a historical campaign, here you get a map of the Ardennes divided up into various sectors, into which you lead your three US companies into battle, fighting off the Germans in a number of missions. There's a real sense of overall strategy going on with your battles, and doing things like cutting off the Germans before attacking them on the meta-map is vitally important. The companies you lead are persistent too, so combat losses or veterancy levels taken in one mission will be carried over to the next mission. The missions themselves are nicely varied, with a mixture of scripted missions and 'encounters', basically skirmishes against the AI. There's even little random events that occur when moving your companies around the map, such as coming across wounded soldiers and deciding what to do with them. My only big complaint is that you don't have any opposition on the metamap, strategic level. The Germans don't counter your moves on the metamap, but rather sit there and wait for you to attack them. Still, it's a damn fine campaign.

Game 11: XCOM: Long War Beta 15 - Started 2/3/15

Game 12: Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Started 5/3/15, Finished 18/3/15, 11.5 Hours Total
I've just finished the campaign with both Barry and Claire, not touched the raid mode stuff thanks to technical issues, which mar the whole experience. Shame, because the actual game is really damn excellent. It's got great atmosphere, an actually decent story and nails the survival horror aspects. Hopefully they'll fix the technical issues so I can actually play raid mode.

Game 13: Pillars of Eternity - Started 28/3/15, Finished 22/4/15, 43.9 Hours Total
What a game. I've waited over a decade for a proper isometric real time with pause RPG, and Pillars of Eternity delivered and then some. Are there issues? Sure. I found the story to be a bit lacking, and characters somewhat weak, but they had to spend time introducing and establishing the world that I can forgive that. Combat was good, though towards the end it oscillated sharply between 'cakewalk' and 'impossible without cheesing it', but for the most part it was good. I really enjoyed the world that Obsidian created, and particularly liked the characters of Grieving Mother and Durance

Excellent stuff, and I'll be right there when the expansion comes out.

Game 14: ARMA 3 - Started 6/4/15, Finished 1/5/15, 66 Hours Total
ARMA 3, another excellent game, a real hardcore war sim. I've been playing the excellent single player scenario 'Pilgrimage', as that's probably the best open world mission I've seen in the game. It's great fun, one man against the world, trying to bring his brother's body home.

Game 15: Endless Legend - Started 16/4/15

Game 16: Skullgirls - Ongoing, 10 Hours Total
I really enjoy Skullgirls, and gave it another whirl after the Beowulf character DLC dropped on 18th April. It's got a lot of things I like to see in fighting games, like an actually interesting story mode, a proper tutorial and training mode, and the best online implementation around. I just wish more people played it.

Game 17: Street Fighter IV - Ongoing, 143 Hours, 43 Hours in 2015
Unlike Skullgirls, Street Fighter IV doesn't have an interesting story mode, proper tutorials or training modes. It's online play on Steam is also pretty flawed, with a lot of lag in matches. It's certainly improved, but it's still not good. But, it's the biggest fighting game out there. So it's what I play when I want some fights.

Game 18: Europa Universalis IV - Ongoing, 252 Hours
I love Grand Strategy Games, and EUIV is the current pinnacle of that sub-genre. So many options, so many countries to play as and things to do, in terms of setting your own goals. I've been playing both single and multiplayer games, and the difference is stark. Singleplayer you can conquer the world, whereas multiplayer is more about diplomacy and managing other people.

Game 19: Payday 2 - Ongoing, 105 Hours
While there are quite a few issues with this, it's still my go-to co-op game, and I love playing it with a bunch of friends. Sure, it's probably the friends I play with that make the game fun, but it's still good fun.

Game 20: Kerbal Space Program - Started 08/05/15, 4 Hours Currently
Amazingly good. I've barely gotten into orbit yet and still, I'm totally in love with this game. Building stuff and watching it fail is really damn fun.

Game 21: Tera - Started 08/05/15
Maybe I'll get into this, maybe not. Wait and see.

Game 22: Invisible, Inc. - Started 2014 (Early Access), 18/05/15 (Full Release), Finished 24/05/15 10 Hours Total
Finished a campaign, only on beginner though. There's a great feeling of risk and reward, the greed of staying in a level for longer to grab that extra item, only to get spotted, have the alert level go up, more guards to spawn in and get you into bigger trouble. Which I love. The turn-based stealth works really well, and the game is exceptionally fair. If you get into trouble, it's because you got yourself into trouble, not because of random elements outside your control. I rather enjoyed the cyberpunk aesthetic too, though the story was a bit naff.

Game 23: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Started 20/05/15, 21 Hours Currently

Game 24: Ronin - Started 31/05/15, Finished 08/08/15 5.8 Hours Total.

And done. The last level is a pain with it's lack of checkpoints, but overall this is a damn good product. The gameplay is top notch, focusing on the flow of action, making you constantly think about your next moves. Story was a little basic, but totally appropriate for a roaring rampage of revenge, which this game is. Loved the art design, though the locked 30fps was a real shame. Jumping out of one window, throwing a grappling hook into the wall to smash your way through another window, smacking into a guard then slicing him up in midair, then throwing your katana into the chest of another guard half way across the room.. that's one hell of a way to start the carnage.

Game 25: Her Story - Started 25/06/15, 41 Minutes Currently

Game 26: Total War - Started 27/06/15, 16 Minutes Currently

Game 27: Persona 4 Ultimax (PS3) - Started 08/07/15

Game 28: Guilty Gear Xrd (PS3) - Started 16/07/15

Game 29: Satellite Reign - Started 29/07/15

Game 30: NaissanceE - Started 08/08/15, Finished 14/08/15, 3.9 Hours Total.

A truly eerie experience. Wandering around the massive environments to find more areas that played around with light, structure and physics to create an unsettling vista was rather fascinating. It felt a bit aimless at times though, so maybe a little more direction as to where you were meant to go to 'advance' the levels would have helped.

Game 31: Persona 4 Golden (PSTV) - Started 08/08/15, 50 Minutes Currently.

Bought this and started playing it while updating my PC to Windows 10. Heard quite a few good things about it!

Game 32: Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut - Started 15/08/15, 4.1 Hours in 2015 Currently

With Shadowrun: Hong Kong on the way, I figured it was time to get the mirror shades on again and hit the rain and neon soaked streets. So after seeing a neat looking mod/campaign available called Mercurial, I booted up Dragonfall once more and got back into it. The campaign itself wasn't the best, but it was good to get back into the swing of things before Hong Kong.

Game 33: Act of Aggression - Started 16/08/15, 2 Hours Currently

Game 34: Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Started 20/08/15, Finished 25/08/15, 18.1 Hours Total

Shadowrun: Hong Kong once again shows how good Hairbrained Studios' writers are. The cast of characters are all fascinating and interesting and I just adored spending time with them, learning their stories, probing their ideas and finding out what made them tick. Even relatively minor side characters could develop in nuanced ways. Likewise, the story and setting were well put together. There were some pacing issues with the main plot, but the variety of shadowruns made up for that somewhat.

Sioul · Dec 25, 2014

Here we go.

I'm a completionist so probably I will play some games longer than it should take a regular playthrough

Game 1: Guacamelee! STCE (Xbox One) 15 hours - ★★★★☆
Finished the game with 100% map complete, just missing the hard mode achievement. It was a really fun game, loved the art style and the gameplay. Isnt a hard game but there are some tricky screens.

Game 2 (Jan.2): Mirrors Edge (Xbox 360) - ~10 hours - ★★★★☆
Main story completed but I still need to do the timetrials. Short and fun game, looking forward for the reboot.

Game 3 (Jan 3.): Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (Xbox 360) - Tons of hours - ★★★★☆
Almost everything completed (just missing a couple side quests). I really liked this game, it is very fun and have a well crafted world and lore.

Game 4 (Jan.16): Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360) - ~18 hours - ★★★☆☆
I like this game mainly because of the historic setting. The gameplay is very repetitive and the side missions are all the same.

Game 5 (Jan.22): Assassin's Creed II (Xbox 360) - ~30 hours - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Amazing game, great cast, good story, beautiful maps. A realy good experience after the first Assassin's Creed game.

Game 6 (Jan.26): Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Xbox 360) - ~25 Hours - ★★★★☆
A good game and very similar to AC2, it just adds more game mechanics and a multiplayer mode (not really good)

Game 7 (Feb. 1): Assassin's Creed: Revelations (Xbox 360) ~ 30 Hours - ★★★★☆
Similar to the last two games, it is a fun game with good story and a nice end.

I like how it finish the story of Altair and Ezio

Game 8 (March 4): The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (Xbox 360) ~ 20 Hours - ★★★☆☆
The gameplay is like Mass Effect with a worse AI, the story was okay until some point and there was some technical issues, anway it is a fun game.

Game 9 (March 9): Tomb Raider (Xbox 360) ~ 30 Hours - ★★★★★
A perfect reboot, loved the plot and the gameplay, the isle is fun to explore and the pacing is really good. The game is really well made and I can't wait to play the sequel. On the other side, the multiplayer is really bland.

Game 10 (March 12): #IDARB ~ 4 Hours - ★★★☆☆
Fun and chaotic game. It really needs a 4v4 online instead of 1 console vs 1 console

kuroneko0509 · Dec 25, 2014

screw it... 2014 challenge fails horribly for me but I shall complete 2015 challenge instead :<

Wozzer · Dec 25, 2014

Failed to really participate in 2014, with a mere 35 completed. This year I'll be a better person..

#1: BattleBlock Theater - 9hours - Jan 8th 2015

The games core is its tight puzzle heavy platform gameplay, which has just the right learning curve and challenge to remain engaging even though the levels can become a little repetitive before long. The presentation throughout is the star of the show though, with fantastic narration in a unique over exaggerated witty humour that lends itself perfectly to the cartoon cardboard art style. 8/10

#2: World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck - 5hours - Jan 9th 2015

Officially the first game that my daughter has managed to complete from start to finish, in full control of the character (which had to be Mickey Mouse) through the co-op story. It's a fantastic platformer for its time with a lot of varied levels that span much of the Disney universe and pose a surprising challenge in parts. 8.5/10

#3: Mind: Path to Thalamus - 4hours - Jan 10th 2015

The game starts on a high with bags of potential demonstrating it's technical capabilities with stunning level design but ultimately falls drastically short with very dull and repetitive puzzles and a lackluster story that had so much potential squandered. 5/10

#4: Metal Gear Solid - 8hours - Jan 12 2015

An absolute gaming masterclass, and my favourite series in all of video games. Every time I come back to play through it again I'm surprised how fresh and well aged it is from start to end, almost as remarkable today as it was at release. For the first time in this playthrough I opted to fail the torture scene and was surprised how much the subtle difference adds to Otacon's character. Will play again next year. 9.5/10

#5: Tearaway - 7hours - Jan 12 2015

I never quite took to the aesthetics of Tearaway and didn't feel the desire to pick it up until the price hit rock bottom in a recent sale. An absolutely beautiful game that oozes passion and attention to detail that's rare. Never have I played a game that uses so many different input and control mechanics, demonstrating the vast capabilities of its brilliant console, and all so flawlessly and well ingrained in the games core gameplay. Easily one of the best games for the PS Vita and a fantastic fully featured platformer, it's well worth the investment. 9.0/10

#6: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers - 12hours - Jan 13 2015

The core game structure, its unraveling plot and compelling characters makes for a great story telling experience. It's a fantastic adventure that's absolutely crippled by aging terribly and some poorly designed puzzles. I unfortunately had to rely on a walkthrough with a handful of puzzles that were complete roadblocks. The lack of features now commonplace to the genre results in pixel hunting at a pixel resolution so small that you're lucky to make out an object at all, and the lack of direction or the ability to gain additional context can leave you with little to go on. I can imagine how remarkable the game was at release, it's a crying shame that the recent rework looks to have been executed poorly and didn't have a greater emphasis on maintaining the core experience with only quality of life improvements. I get the impression that Broken Sword was inspired heavily from the game, and fortunately for it was released at a time where the genre had evolved considerably. 8.0/10

#7: Portal - 3hours - Jan 20 2015

A game I come back to almost every year, and after having watched a few speed runs recently now is as good a time as ever. As brilliant today as it ever was, though standing aside its sequel it's variety and length has it stand out as a prototype than a full retail game. I feel a Portal 2 playthrough coming up soon, a game I've only actually played the once. 8.5/10

#8: Lovely Planet - 6hours - Jan 20 2015

An extremely quirky first-person platformer that has you needing to speedrun from A to B whilst avoiding a host of hazardous enemies and objects. Whilst levels can be as short as 20seconds it can take 10minutes to build up the muscle memory and pixel perfect reaction patterns to surpass them. A small dose of fun with unique gameplay but a little too shallow to be worth too much investment. 5.0/10

#9: Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse - Episode 1 - 8hours - Jan 20 2015

This is my flight buddy having endured six long flight planes before coming to its episodic conclusion, though this is mostly thanks to the story having an extremely slow pace to start. Though I found my enjoyment grew dramatically as the episode passed the half way mark, where both plot and puzzles quickly become interesting and kept me engaged. It's not quite the Broken Sword I was hoping for (and have ever since the second installment) but it's a step in the right direction, particularly so with the decision to go back to the 2D visuals which are gorgeous. I'll remain hopeful for the concluding episode to come. 7.0/10

#10: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time - 3hours - Jan 20 2015

Another co-op completion with my daughter (third game already!) working through a SNES classic backlog. Given that it came out after Streets of Rage it's hard for me to over appreciate the nostalgic admiration the game has going for it, though I had enough of a blast working through the levels thanks to the varied environments, boss fights and occasional bonus minigame stages.6.5/10

#11: Framed - 1hours - Jan 25 2015

A clever short mobile game that has you switching key frames in a comic-book style story telling experience to manipulate the sequence of events. It's over just as it starts to really make use of the potentially complex core mechanic and the story could have been expanded upon. I'd certainly like to see further use of the concept in a larger scale, particularly more story driven, experience. 7.0/10

#12: ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron - 2hours - Jan 25 2015

Oh this game, a platforming spin on the Megadrive classic ToeJam & Earl. Whilst there's a good number of same-screen co-op games of this generation, for some reason my daughter took an interest in this particular one. It's likely related to her ability to entirely troll me at all opportunities, from running off screen and getting lost to finding every available path to proceed except the correct one. The core gameplay mechanic of finding and capture humans is dragged along repetitive levels and all in all results in an extremely dull adventure that losses all of the charm from its prequel. 3.5/10

#13: Mafia II - 10hours - Jan 31 2015

My feelings towards Mafia II are somewhat split, and that's mostly down to misplaced expectations. It's extremely linear in a world where you'd expect far more open world sandbox gameplay, with a heavily hand held story telling experience. In fact the large city is more burden than benefit as the game is artificially lengthened by an endless need to drive from one side of the city to the other. That said there's a solid story throughout that peaks at a handful of memorable moments, which is mostly thanks to the memorable cast. The last two chapters in particular were fantastic, particularly thanks to a superb conclusion that left me anticipating more. 8.5/10

#14: Blitzcrank's Poro Roundup - 5hours - Feb 15 2015

Its a mobile game Riot made! You pick a League of Legends character, you pull things, you push other things. Its a fun little mobile game that plays with the IP and was given away free for a limited time, then pulled offline entirely. Flappy Bird aint got nothing on Blitzcrank. 7.0/10

#15: Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number - 8hours - Mar 16 2015

A lengthy more refined and varied sequel to the fantastic first installment. Ultimately it falls a little short in level design that often makes the encounters and overall pacing inconsistent but the sum of its parts still makes for a fantastic package. Without a doubt the music alone represents the best score I've encountered in a video game. There is even an attempt at a storyline with a wealth of characters from different backgrounds and even periods in time, and whilst I'm positive there's some logic to be drawn I have absolutely no idea what it is. Fantastic game highly recommended to all. 8.5/10

#16: Minecraft - 40hours - Mar 16 2015

Every single time I pick up Minecraft it's always a mistake, as countless hours fly by in a blink whilst I click blocks for what feels like an eternity. Destined to beat the end boss with a group of friends I ultimately collaborated in constructing a city with emphasis on a host of elaborate redstone contraptions. Every time I come back I always uncover a new depth I never knew of before, and few games achieve this level of replayability. Timeless. 9.0/10

#17: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - 13hours - May 16 2015

Ive a love and hate relationship with the second Metal Gear Solid. The storytelling and frequent twists are sublime, the tanker episode the game begins with is an absolute treat from start to end and even the games tornado twisting conclusion (excluding the sword fight) is great. However the entire middle segment feels to be overly extended with extensive backtracking which isnt aided by the repetitive level design of the oil rig itself, made more frustrating by being littered with Kojima troll in the form of randomly hidden claymore mines, surprise platforms that drop you to your death and explosive trip-wires galore. My least favourite game of my likely favourite game series; still great but flawed. 7.5/10

#18: System Shock 2 - 15hours - May 24 2015

The atmosphere is absolutely suffocating, even after a decade and half, with some of the most terrifying set pieces and enemy encounters Ive experienced. Brutally difficult Id slowly sneak through corridors with the audio turned up seizing in fear whenever the clicking noise of the spiders or vocal chatter of the cyborgs could be heard in the distance. A great deal of its core design is executed brilliantly and refined further in Deus Ex, though theres also a wealth that are poorly executed. Most of which being the poorly defined mission structure and excessive need for mindless backtracking. 8.5/10

#19: Bloodborne - 40hours - May 24 2015

Theres no avoiding comparisons with the Souls series given the core design of Bloodborne closely resembles it, with areas of refinement and exclusion. The atmosphere is eerily fantastic, enemy design varied and exceptionally horrific and the combat is vastly refined and well executed. However its a far shallower and less explorative affair with fewer items to discover, character builds to experiment with or combat variety to master. Bloodborne is the best game FROM have made, but its not their best RPG and for this reason its not my favourite of theirs either. Still bloody fantastic and easily the best game on offer from this generation so far. 9.0/10

#20: Uncanny Valley - 4hours - May 26 2015

Interesting enough premise but poorly executed upon. As the new security guard to an eerie abandoned facility the game builds tension with fixed 7 minute daily shifts where you can explore the complex and look to find answers to the oddities and strange nightmares youve been having. Unfortunately the discovery is shallow, the connection to your nightmares are never made and the engaging format of timed exploration balance is thrown out of the window in favor of a straight free-form survival romp half way through. Theres a sense of abandonment in the project, that perhaps half way through the developers ran out of budget, time, care or all three. 3.5/10

#21: Super Mario 3D World - 35hours - Jun 7 2015

An absolutely gorgeous and content rich platformer once again demonstrating why Nintendo are a league above most when it comes to polish and execution. Right from the offset Super Mario 3D world oozes charm and its hard not to adore the whimsical nature of the world, from the cute cat-suit additions to the saturated colour palette that covers spectrums outside of modern gaming browns and greys. There is a large amount of variety in the many core and additional worlds, with many levels dedicated to sparsely used and frequently brilliant core game mechanics. Easily one of the best co-op experiences of the generation to date. 9.0/10

#22: Pillars Of Eternity - 54hours - Jun 8 2015

Absolute nostalgic CRPG bliss. Everything from the handcrafted world to the presentation of the UI has an attention to detail that feels to have been built with unbridled passion from Obsidian. Growing up on the likes of Baldurs Gate theres a continual sense of nostalgia and frequent referencing to aspect that made such RPGs memorable. The scale of the world, engaging personalities of cast of party members, level of character progression and real-time strategic gameplay kept me engaged from beginning to end like no other RPG has for a very long time. That said its not a flawless victory as the story, arguably the most important aspect of a game in this genre, is lackluster and waits far too long (an hour before the end) before revealing its overly teased twist reveal. The story in itself is solid, as is the dialogue that carries it, its just unfortunate that its kept from the user until it's too late, ending abruptly before youve even had chance to wet your appetite. 7.5/10

#23: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - 16hours - Jun 20 2015

What a thrill. From beginning to end I surprised myself with how much I adore every aspect of my favourite instalment in the Metal Gear saga. Right from the introduction of The Boss and the Cobra unit, followed by the brilliant title sequence and song, all the way to one of the best concluding scenes in gaming theres so much to adore about Metal Gear Solid 3. Im hard pressed to think of another game that could easily be considered to having the best boss fight (The End), protagonist (Snake), antagonist (either The Boss or Ocelot), theme song (Snake Eater) and conclusion wrapped together in a beautiful, consistent and almost flawless package. 9.5/10

#24: CounterSpy - 3hours - Jun 24 2015

Having heard numerous praise for this as a Metroidvania I was anticipating an experience comparable to the likes of Shadow Complex, and unfortunately had set my expectations too high from the offset. Less of a traditional Metroidvania I was led to believe CounterSpy is less grand-scale open world interconnectivity brilliance and more clever procedurally level segmented 2D platforming. Theres charm here and the games clever use of 2D-3D with gameplay placing emphasis on stealth fills a different itch that is equally sparsely itched. My biggest disappointments come from the games short length and repetition, with little variety added from the games attempt at character progression in weapon loadouts and character perks. Ill be interested to see what the developers do next, hopefully with a larger budget and more ambitiously scaled project. 7.0/10

#25: The Fall - 4hours - Jun 25 2015

An often slow paced adventure that came to surprise me with its atmospheric eerie world building and clever story that slowly unwraps to a cliffhanger dangling suspense for future episodes to come. The majority of the games meat is a traditional adventure with a very light sprinkling of action, with sparse gun combat, on top. This coupled with the games narration has you often needing to do extremely mundane and painfully slow gameplay execution that kills the games pace, but it's a tale that I felt worth enduring the lows for the handful of highs. 6.5/10

#26: OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood - 3hours - Jun 26 2015

Didnt quite grab me as much as the first, which Id put down to the inclusion of manuals resulting in a need for a single chained combo instead of a flurry of short and sweet tricks. Additionally the levels felt less engaging, with more emphasis placed on tough to navigate obstacles than on rails and rams to perform more interesting combos. 6.0/10

#27: Grim Fandango Remastered - 10hours - Jul 6 2015

Often coined as one of my all time favourites Grim Fandango has been well overdue a second playthrough. With the recent remastered release now is as good a time as ever. Surprisingly whilst a lot of the story and overall narration had been forgotten most of the puzzles were a breeze, expect the occasional awkward item combination or find the pixel scenario that classic adventures adored. Theres a charm to the world and its characters that I adored revisiting and although still brilliant from start to end I cant help but feel it all didnt quite live up to my lofty expectations set beyond the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia. 9.0/10

#28: Valiant Hearts: The Great War - 5hours - Jul 31 2015

I had high hopes for an emotional roller-coaster that potentially put the pedestal a little too high to reach for this beautiful 2D adventure from Ubisoft. Theres many great things about Valiant Hearts, namely in the storytelling and presentation, but theres also a slow plod to the gameplay that makes progression a drag to the next chunk of storytelling. The games conclusion almost hit the bottom lip but fell a little short and expected given the subject matter and continual grief that's thrown at you from the war. If nothing else its a nice little history lesson and change of pace from my regular gaming schedule, and Id look forward to more of this nature from the studio. 6.5/10

#29: Lifeline - 3hours - Aug 4 2015

Surprisingly engaging piece of storytelling thats beautifully suited to mobile, and my time drained life of late. Infrequent communications come from a stranger to which you engage in conversation and ultimately make a handful of choices thatll decide on their fate. The story takes a while to get going but is engaging enough that it has me interested in the writer's other works, namely The Wolf Among Us. Well worth the price of admission for the unique storytelling mechanic, and I look forward to the wave of clones to come. 6.5/10

#30: Year Walk - 2hours - Aug 6 2015

Somewhat shallow and contrived to what I was hoping for, though still an enjoyable relaxed experience and insight into a topic Id have otherwise never had been exposed to. The puzzles were either far too obvious or buried with little indication, which is unfortunate, and the game doesnt really get interesting until the last hour and the additional post-completion content. 4.5/10

#31: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - 18hours - Aug 21 2015

Peace Walker sits confused alongside its more blockbuster siblings. Taken as a PSP game its magnificent, easily one of the best titles on the system and a brilliant take on the popular Monster Hunter style of games. However as a title in the Metal Gear series it falls short due to its technical limitations resulting in minature levels, sparse enemies and storyboard cutscenes. Theres a slew of brilliance, particularly with the Mother Base features, and I adored revisiting the Boss storyline of Snake Eater. However alongside these moments are pitfalls and tragedies, such as the unforgivable boss music on the final encounter, the overly wacky AI nonsense and the dull grind heavy vehicle boss fights. 7.0/10

Remaining game reviews can be found here!

#32: Broken Age - 11hours - Aug 25 2015

#33: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - 4hours - Aug 27 2015

#34: Far Cry 3 - 26hours - Aug 27 2015

#35: Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs - 4hours - Aug 29 2015

#36: A Bird Story - 2hours - Aug 31 2015

#37: Rocket League - 5hours - Oct 2 2015

#38: Grow Home - 5hours - Oct 7 2015

#39: Journey - 3hours - Oct 7 2015

#40: 80 Days - 4hours - Oct 19 2015

#41: The Wolf Among Us: Episode 1 - Faith - 2hours - Oct 25 2015

#42: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - 65hours - Oct 26 2015

#43: The Wolf Among Us: Episode 2 - Smoke and Mirrors - 2hours - Oct 28 2015

#44: The Wolf Among Us: Episode 3 - A Crooked Mile - 2hours - Oct 30 2015

#45: The Wolf Among Us: Episode 4 - In Sheep's Clothing - 2hours - Nov 3 2015

#46: Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse - Episode 2 - 4hours - Nov 7 2015

#47: Shadowrun Returns - 12hours - Nov 8 2015

#48: The Wolf Among Us: Episode 5 - Cry Wolf - 2hours - Nov 9 2015

#49: Mario Kart 8 - 10hours - Nov 18 2015

#50: Titan Souls - 2hours - Dec 3 2015

#51: Hitman GO - 3hours - Dec 7 2015

#52: Fallout 4 - 90hours - Dec 9 2015

#53: Life is Strange: Episode 1 - 3hours - Dec 9 2015

orthodoxy1095 · Dec 25, 2014

Only got to #42 in 2014. Bah.

Anyways, I write a lot for my games, so I'll be taking up quite a few posts, but I'll reserve a spot for a main abbreviated list. My actual thoughts will be included in updates throughout the year, which are linked right under this paragraph. If it seems like my scores are harsh...well they probably are. If it's above a 5, I probably still really enjoyed it.

DETAILED POST ONE | DETAILED POST TWO | DETAILED POST THREE

Game 1: Liberation Maiden - 54 minutes - January 2nd, 2015

- 6/10

Game 2: Hatoful Boyfriend - 3 hours - January 2nd, 2015

- 6/10

Game 3: Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale - 3 hours 20 minutes - January 4th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 4: Shadowrun Returns - 9 hours - January 5th, 2015

- 6/10

Game 5: Bastion - 3.8 hours - January 8th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 6: Dysfunctional Systems: Learning to Manage Chaos - 1.8 hours - January 8th, 2015

- 4/10

Game 7: Framed - 2 hours - January 30th, 2015

- 6/10

Game 8: Wolfenstein: The New Order - 15 hours - February 21st, 2015

- 9/10

Game 9: Hitman GO - 4-5 hours - February 23rd, 2015

- 7/10

Game 10: inFAMOUS: First Light - 3.5 hours - March 2nd, 2015

- 7/10

Game 11: Don't Starve - 14 hours - March 8nd, 2015

- 8/10

Game 12: Counterspy - 3 hours - March 12th, 2015

- 4/10

Game 13: Fire Emblem: Awakening - 30+ hours - April 14th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 14: Hyrule Warriors - 20+ hours - April 17th, 2015

- 9/10

Game 15: Freedom Wars - 40+ hours - April 20th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 16: Genroku Legends: Fishy Tales of the Nekomata - 9 hours, 54 minutes - April 25th, 2015

- 10/10

Game 17: Killzone: Mercenary - 6 hours+ - April 28th, 2015

- 6/10

Game 18: Muramasa Rebirth - 26 hours total, 14 in 2015+ - May 5th, 2015

- 9/10

Game 19: Monument Valley - Less than one hour total - May 11th, 2015

- 6/10

Game 20: Sorcery! - About an hour and a half - May 12th, 2015

- 10/10

Game 21: inFAMOUS: Second Son - Around 8 hours - May 17th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 22: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - Around 8 hours - May 19th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 23: Home - Around 3 hours - June 12th, 2015

- 5/10

Game 24: Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes - 77 minutes - June 20th, 2015

- 8/10

Game 25: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 140+ hours - June 23rd, 2015

- 9/10

Game 26: Valiant Hearts: The Great War - 6 hours - July 4th, 2015

- 9/10

Game 27: Entwined - 2 hours - July 10th, 2015

- 4/10

Game 28: Injustice: Gods Among Us - 6 hours - July 11th, 2015

- 6/10

Game 29: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 17 hours - July 20th, 2015

- 8/10

Game 30: Journey- 2.5 hours - July 21st, 2015

- 10/10

Game 31: Transistor - 7 hours - July 23rd, 2015

- 9/10

Game 32: Final Fantasy Type-0 HD - 25 hours - August 7th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 33: Rocket League - 20+ hours - August 23rd, 2015

- 10/10

Game 34: Until Dawn - 7+ hours - September 7th, 2015

- 9/10

Game 35: Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain - 60+ hours - September 18th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 36: Call of Juarez: Gunslinger - 5.5+ hours - September 26th, 2015

- 8/10

Game 37: The Beginner's Guide - 81 minutes - October 5th, 2015

- No score

Game 38: This War of Mine - 8 hours - October 16th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 39: Fallout Shelter - 8.5 hours - October 24th, 2015

- 6/10

Game 40: Fallout 4 - 36 hours, 26 minutes - November 18th, 2015

- 7/10

Game 41: The Order: 1886 - Around 7 hours - November 27th, 2015

- 6/10

Game 42: Tales From The Borderlands - 10+ hours - November 29th, 2015

- 9/10

Game 43: Hexcells - 3 hours - December 1st, 2015

- 10/10

Game 44: Life is Strange - 15 hours - December 12th, 2015

- 8/10

Game 45: Tomb Raider - 12 hours - December 17th, 2015

In Progress/Play

Mirror's Edge
League of Legends
Lara Croft GO
Sorcery! 2
Metal Gear Solid
80 Days
Loren the Amazon Princess
Guns of Icarus
OlliOlli2
Rocket League
Driveclub
Terra Battle
Puzzles and Dragons
Mirror's Edge
Apotheon
Remember Me
Bioshock Infinite
Wind Waker
Inazuma Eleven
Ace Attorney
F2P Steam card game
everybody rapture
STFU
Helldivers
Downwell
Undertale
Broforce
N++/PoE/Volume/Soma
Downwell

eot · Dec 25, 2014

What the hell, might as well try this year too.

Reserving this post.

my 2014 games #1 #2

Game 1: Tomb Raider III - 27 hours, Jan. 5th
Quite the game. It took me almost 10 hours longer to beat than TR2. This was the first time I played all of it, only played bits of it at a friend's house as a kid, but it might be my favourite out of the first three TR games. The complex level design appeals to me, however the downside is that it makes the bad levels more of a slog since they too are more complicated. I thought the ability to monkey swing adds a lot and on the whole the game controls better than the first two. The environments also feel much more dense. My favourite levels were the ones in the South-Pacific, as well as the first Antarctica level. The India ones were all right, but I think TR2 starts better.

Game 2: The Stanley Parable - 1 hour, Jan. 6th
I did not particularly care for this game. I know people praise the narrator, but I didn't like his delivery one bit, nor did I find the writing to be all that funny. But then I didn't like Wheatley in Portal 2 and everyone loves him too.

Game 3: GAME OF THE YEAR: 420BLAZEIT vs xxXilluminatiXxx [wow/10 #rekt edition] - Montage Parody The Game - 15 minutes, Jan. 7th
More fun than a CoD campaign. Well, maybe not, but the shooting is better than it has any right to for a parody game.

Game 4: Dog of Dracula 2 - 1 hour, Jan. 9th
It's silly cyberpunk, but the writing is pretty good for the most part. Max Payne style noir parody. "Birds, plural. I whip out the akimbo middle fingers like I'm the master of suspense and show him what fighting the system looks like.". The soundtrack was good too, but I suspect it wasn't original.

Game 5: Hernhand - 45 min, Jan. 15th
A companion piece to Bernband. Even setting its presentation aside I don't think it's as good as Bernband. For every interesting room there's wasted space, it doesn't have as strong sound design and in general it's simply not as evocative as Bernband was.

Game 6: E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy - 10 hours, Jan. 24th
One of the strangest games I think I've ever played. Off putting in so many ways, yet at its core a great game. There were a lot of systems I didn't get the chance to explore, because you don't get enough XP and money in one playthrough unless you grind. I might continue in NG+ some time later.

Game 7: Owls Ever After - 30 minutes, Jan. 24th
A cute game about a family of owls. Not much going on here in terms of mechanics, but it does a good job telling a simple story and the art is fantastic.

Game 8: Escape Goat - 2.5 hours, Jan. 27th
It's a fairly good 2D puzzle platformer. Not exceptional in any way, but I did enjoy it. The mouse was a clever mechanic. I was a little surprised that it threw proper platforming challenges at me, these types of games usually lean more towards the puzzle side of things. When you beat the game you unlock quite a few optional, more difficult puzzles. I haven't done those yet, maybe I'll give them a go.

Game 9: Lovely Planet - 3.5 hours, Feb 13th
This game was exactly what I expected it to be and for the most part I enjoyed it a lot. My only issue with it is that the later levels get a little cheap in the way they increase the difficulty. For example having to basically blind fire into the fog on the fourth world to destroy the apples in time, or being dead 250ms after going through a teleporter. I didn't get frustrated by it, I just didn't find the challenge to be rewarding. I enjoyed the chill flow of the first three worlds more.

Game 10: Bloodborne - 39 hours, Apr 7th
Despite my better judgement I bought a PS4 to play this game and I think it was worth it. I don't think it's as good as Dark Souls, for several reasons, but it's still bloody amazing and (I think) validates a lot of the complaints with Dark Souls II. It might also be, at times, the prettiest game I've ever played. Shame about that damn chromatic aberration though.

Game 11: Deus Ex - 27 hours, Jun 17th
I decided it was time to replay this game with the 15th anniversary coming up. It held up better than I remembered, though I think it probably goes on a little too long and the post-Paris stuff could've been compressed. To the game's credit I was able to discover new things on this playthrough, even though I've played it so many times. I was also a little surprised how easy it was. There was rarely a time I wasn't at full ammo and every other resource.

Merkunt · Dec 25, 2014

Claiming this post

Also, I've only finished 2 games in 2014, wish me luck!

HassanJamal · Dec 25, 2014

Completed!

Game 1: COUNTERSPY (PS Vita) - 4hours 7min COMPLETED
Fantastic spy stealth/action. Whilst story aint anything amazing, the gameplay is the tops. Weapons are varied and fitted to accompany any playstyle which is great and having being punished via being discovered instead of 'mission failed' is just as grand.

My only negatives is that it can be difficult at times how the enemies field of view are, the procedural level dont seem at all great, its currently impossible to stealth through a level without being caught.

Short time to complete aint a negative cause I get to play more with higher difficulties and rewards

Fun game!

Game 2: Child of Light (PS Vita) - 13hours 22min COMPLETED
One boss after another is one way to end the game.

The art in CoL is artsy fartsy but in the most beautiful sense of the word and really does help compliment the child like fantasy setting and story. The combat is unique and memorable enough in that its probably the first ever RPG I've played where you can only use two, TWO, members at a time. Technically though, Igniculus could be counted as the third member as the permanent mini-medic that you cant ever switch out that never attacks but slows down enemies at a time but honestly, I'd still rather have three members to attack with. He was still mostly useful though.

Story was probably the lowest of the low for this game as it was nothing unexpected or surprising, which is a shame as everything was just excellent. Doesnt help that everything was in bloody rhymes. While I get that it was to give that child like stories thing, it just made reading the dialogue between characters cumbersome to read.

Game 3: Demon's Souls (PS3) - 47hour 17min COMPLETED
Hell yeah finished it! Old King Allant was a worthy final boss, although not too dissimilar to sun king in Dark Souls.

Overall, the game is easier but by a few notches than Dark Souls. Dont get me wrong, its difficult but I had much more difficult time with Dark than Demons. Plus the fact that all the bosses in Dark are actually difficult to fight unlike Demons which have some of the bosses just be easy and act more like puzzles. One other thing I dont like is the world tendency thing, which I dunno, doesnt seem to be all that useful during my playthrough.

The only thing I do really feel that Demons is superior to Dark is the world and how mystical it felt, visually in the design and atmosphere.

Game 4: Warriors of the lost empire (PSP emu on PS Vita) - 14hour 28min COMPLETED
Gah, the bosses in this game suck dick.

Story is 'unique' to say the least(it involves gay characters) but its mostly forgettable. Gameplay is pretty fun in terms of combat and trying to outmaneuver the swarms of enemies, unfortunately its not fun slogging through repetitive dungeon designs and enemies re-skinned throughout the game. Doesn't help that all the dungeons explored always end up with a boss fight(or two or more) and there is not much looting to be done other enemy drops. There's also the odd inclusion of switching out gear and leveling up through a storage chest. Crafting is available but only used it to dissolve the weapons to get more healing items.

The only true positives to this game is dying doesn't get rid of your earned EXP and weapons and armor picked up doesnt affect your item weight limit. There's also the unique playstyles that come with each of the four selectable characters which make playing through the campaign fresh again to play through and NPCs even react differently compared to your previous character.

Despite my experience being turned more bitter towards the end, I really did enjoy my time with the game. Mostly because taking out enemies and surviving through dungeons without using all my items until the end make it fun and addictive.

Get if you need an action rpg with fun combat on the vita, dont get if you want an actually good story, interesting enemies or bosses or dungeon designs and a non-confusing crafting system.

Game 5: The Swapper (PS Vita) - 7hour 44min COMPLETED
Enjoyable puzzle sci fi game with amazing looking graphics and some really perplexing puzzles. The claymation really looks good on vita.

Game 6: InFamous: First Light (PS4) - 4hours 38min COMPLETED
Wow, Fetch just happened.

I honestly think I like this more than Second Son. Powers are more focused and actually much more fun to use compared to SS. Even the hostage and lumen side missions are more engaging than SS. Overall, much better than SS but doesnt beat InFamous 2.

Really enjoyed my time with it.

Game 7: Ratchet and Clank (PS Vita) - 15hour 35min COMPLETED
This was pretty mediocre compared to the Spyro games.

By that, I mean clunky platforming with a hard to aim camera, slightly laggy response to buttons by a second or so and odd controls that I had trouble with. Meaning I had to switch some buttons with the ps vita's button assignment function. That was a god save to this game that I pushed through. I had more frustration than fun with this game.

Game 9: Dying Light (PS4) - 42hours 31minutes COMPLETED
Fantastic game but a crappy last boss battle.

Parkour, zombie bashing equals fun. Story wise, not so much, its pretty decent, nothing mind blowing. Really liked Crane though. Side missions are repetitive but the stories for them are pretty interesting. Oh and the music is fantastic too.

Must buy IMO.

Game 10: Kick and Fennick (PS Vita) - 8hours 45min COMPLETED
For their first outing, I feel Jaywalkers has made a fine game, aside from wonky physics with the bounce pads and some super annoyingly timing puzzles. Music is pretty uninspired and story is ok, I suppose. Could've elaborated on what the heck happened to this place, what's up with robot enemies, etc. There's also the fact the camera can sometimes be your enemy in this game as it makes it really hard where you're jumping off to or on to. You can't move the camera which honestly sucks. Then there's the fact that you have to play the game inverted aiming and sensitivity is unadjustable.

Despite all those gripes, it was one solid game. If Jaywalkers improve on the wonky bits, this would've been a solid 9. For now, 7.5.

Definitely worth if you want platforming plus slow mo jumping and you like sci fi locales.

Game 11: Transistor (PS4) - 4hour 32min COMPLETED
This game is good in all the places that count; music, story, combat, and art. One of low aspects of Transistor is the voice actors of the other characters, aside from the Man in the Transistor.

A must play for anyone.

Game 12: Rogue Legacy (PS Vita) - 21hours 21min COMPLETED
Hah, screw grinding, just avoid the attacks and killed him!

The gameplay is similar to Spelunky but unlike Spelunky, this got me motivated to finish to the end as there's always a sense of progress to the game. Its addictively fun, with great controls and no performance issues at all.

A must play on whatever platform you have, like a vita for example. Give me RL2!

Game 13: Thief (PS3) - 19hour 27min COMPLETED
Done.

This has gotta be the worst performing stealth game I've ever played on PS3. Really enjoyed the dark/light stealth mechanic, stealing and the side missions.

Really didnt enjoy the story or characters, I dont care about Erin. Garret does, somehow and he also cares about the city. I never saw that 'care' in the story or I didn't care enough to listen. Annoyingly, the devs felt like sticking one button for peeking, pick locking, stealing, hacking and sometimes makes stealing or peeking a hassle to do.
The game also has this annoying habit of adding dumb music whenever you knock out someone all the bloody time. Possibly cause the devs wanted players to be more sneaky than beaty.

Probably recommended if you like stealing, arrows and stealthing through.

Game 14: Apotheon (PS4) - 8hour 13min COMPLETED
Patch fixed the crashes.

Really enjoyed this game. Story was decent, nothing grand. Miffed that Nikandreos never once spoke throughout the story. Combat was wonky at times but for most of the times, it was fun battling enemies, especially considering the game allows you to hold like a ton of weapons. Art style was nice, fitting the Greek theme the game had it going for it, more so when you realize its all played on a wall.

Fantastic game, a must play if you have PS+ or a PS4/PC.

Game 15: Little Big Planet 3 (PS4) - 5hour 28min COMPLETED
Shorter than expected, especially since the platforming was much more fun here.
I enjoyed playing Oddsock and Toggle, Swoop not so much. Oh and Sackboy finally got some upgrades to make his platforming funner. Collectibles are even more engaging than before with some of the collected stuff being able to be used for getting costumes.

Overall, Sumo Digital has done a proper job with this title, with the direction of the single player, I mean. Have yet to try the MP and UGC stuff yet.

Game 16: Grim Fandango (PS Vita) - 14hours 38min COMPLETED
I gotta be honest, had to look up a guide for two or three of the puzzles.

Had a great time with this one. Interesting world, setting and characters and a whole lot of funny dialouge. I had problems with some rooms with the odd wonky camera placement and also it was hard to tell what you could and could not interact with. Oh and towards the end of the game, game tended crash on me a couple of times so makr sure to save constantly once you get the first crash. Despite those issues, it was well worth the time and money.

Go get this great puzzler!

Game 17: Hohokum (PS Vita) - 6hour 16min COMPLETED
The music and visuals are simply fantastic!

The only way to sum this game up. Its like your music visualizer that you control and explore around in.

Game 18: Monster Monpiece (PS Vita) - 28hours 37min COMPLETED
One of the longest games I've completed this year.

There is a fun strategy card game in this perverted game. I have no problems with the persverseness, more so with the AI always starting out with the same damn strategy, starting with a fairy that increases their mana BS. And then there are the routes which as you power through the game, you start to realize where what hidden thing is. Story wise, it was okay, nothing amazing. Same can be said of the characters too.

Overall, a fun card game but hampered by dull AI and predictable routes.

Game 19: Disillusion Manga Horror (PS Mobile) - 33min COMPLETED
Well, for what its worth, its a stable Unity PSM game. It is however jump scare mania with some too spooky dialogue.

Game 20: Valiant Hearts (PS4) - 5hours 56min COMPLETED
Damn, now that ending was a tear jerker.

A beautifully drawn game with puzzles that aren't that over complex. Really enjoyed this game. Not was it fun, it was pretty educational about the war.

Highly recommended. Play it!

Game 21: The Order: 1886 (PS4) - 6hours 51min COMPLETED
People weren't kidding when ending was abrupt. I would've liked more but I'm guessing they're keeping for the sequel. If it even happens.

I was keeping a mind set that this would've been like the Uncharted series where 1 was a bit weak but good enough to be fun and enjoyable. I did not find any of that here. Linear as hell and little to no exploration. The stealth aspects not fun. The soundtrack was pretty none existing except during the credits and the emotional scenes. And the story was interesting enough but not enough to warrant the time to play this, even at being 6 hours short on normal.

I wouldn't recommend this. I'm disappointed.

Game 22: Yakuza 4 (PS3) - 24hours 3min COMPLETED
Yeah, I'm getting Yakuza 5. Huge fan.

A solid 3D beat em up with great characters and a very neat albeit silly towards the end story. Game is only hampered by one map being explorable. The four characters are all fun to use and their own arcs and parts are fantastic.

Totally recommended. Play it. You must play it.

Game 23 Dead Head Fred (PSP emu on Vita) - 9hours 15min COMPLETED
Well, that was an interesting ending. Also the credits was hilarious.

Its a pretty fun game with an interesting mechanic of switching heads for different fighting prowess and abilities. Love switching back and forth to beat enemies up and to solve puzzles, helps to keep the repetitive fighting fresh. Beside fighting, there's surprisingly a handful of mini-games like pool or mutant cockfighting and tons of sidequests to do if you're not focused on the main mission at hand. There's also a money system that I rarely used unless it was required by an objective. Performance was pretty solid and the graphics look pretty good despite the usual jagginess that comes with PSP games. The story was ok, getting a bit interesting towards the end, its also accompanied by some great writing and VA, especially with John C. McGinly being the main character.

Game feels like Psychonauts except more raunchier. I'd recommend this game.

Game 24: Olli olli 2 (PS Vita) - 12min
Not digging the character's design but really liking the new gameplay additions and backgrounds.

Game 25: Tales From Monkey Island (PS3) - 18hours 9min COMPLETED
Fantastic game and personally, an easy PnC title.

Performance wise, the game is a solid, if my TV is telling me right, 1080p 60FPS. Visually, the art style is charming albeit a bit stiff and wonky in the animation bits. The story was fantastic although an abrupt ending, would've like to have seen a bit more. Its filled to the brim with charming and humorous writing and characters plus the puzzles are satisfyingly fun to figure out.

My only gripe with the game is the finicky ways at pointing at things. You gotta aim Guybrush and face him towards the objects to interact with, I dont like this. They have remedied by including a button to show objects you can interact with without facing them.

A solid point and click game that is worth whatever the price it is now, even more so. A must play for anyone, especially folks who've played Double Fine like games.

Game 26: Threads of Fate (PS1 emu on PS Vita) - 12hours 11min COMPLETED
I've had my fill and not feeling to do the other campaign.

Its a fun lil action RPG with bits of platforming here and there. The story was entertaining with a great bunch of characters. While I had fun, the gameplay didnt hook me as much as I liked to, seeing as I have on inclination at all to play the second campaign.

None the less, its a fun lil time waster. You'll be missing out on a charming platforming action RPG ps1 game.

Game 27: One Piece: Unlimited World Red (PS Vita) - 12hour 38min COMPLETED
Fun lil game that would appease any OP fan. Not for the combat, its boring button mashing, but more for the story, character interactions, stylistic finishers and levels based on big arcs. There's even a side campaign but full of non-stop fighting but worth the time for playable characters outside the Strawhat crew. Performance was solid from start to end.

If you like OP, definitely. If you hate dull button mashing combat with wonky dodge mechanics, dont.

Game 28: Bloodborne (PS4) - 41hours 35min COMPLETED
Fantastic game should be enough to say how good Bloodborne is.

MUST PLAY. Great combat, great atmosphere, great weapons, great music, great progression, great risk/reward thing. Just great everything to be honest.

Game 29: Never Alone (PS4) - 2hour 24min COMPLETED
I enjoyed the visuals. The gameplay I did not.

There's just something off about the jumping in this game and the physics they're using. Its like you'd expect a character to jump farther pressing the stick forward but instead you jump a few pixels to the left or right.

It'd probably be more enjoyable as a co-op game as the frustration tend to came when using both characters simultaneously.

Its ok. Nothing special aside from the unique setting and story, which aint that engaging but interesting to experience none the less.

Game 30: MonsterBag (PS Vita) - 3hours COMPLETED
The animations are one of the strengths of this game.

Storywise, it was okay. I assumed it'd be something similar to the plot of Monsters Inc but at the half point of the game, it turns that idea up on its head. To further differentiate this from said Pixar movie, the game does not let up on the gore and theres so much of it. I should also commend on the devs on telling their story via no dialogue, they pulled it off quite nicely enough but it does get a bit confusing towards the end. Visually, the animations and art style is top notch, loved the crazy use of whole lot of colors and the character designs are fantastic. Music is also top notch, especially toward the end levels where it just turns from good to woah, I need this on my playlist. Now on to the gameplay, being the weakest aspect of MonsterBag, most of the time while I was playing, I really had no idea what the game allowed me to do and other times, I had no idea what to do but hope touching something progresses the story/level somehow. IMO, that is pretty bad communication between the game and the player. Whats worse is that there are a few levels where there are timed puzzles so you got to rush through WITHOUT failing. I hated those levels. Thankfully, its just 2 or 3 levels out of 19. Despite that, I actually enjoyed the game.

Overall, I'd only recommend this if you love awesome art and animations and if you're really interested in puzzles, as this game is about that but are mostly solved through trial and error. Some of the solutions are just whacky as heck.

Game 31: The Last Of Us: Left Behind (PS4) - 2hours 20min COMPLETED
A rollercoaster of emotions.

Pretty short but well worth time to play it. It was neat to see Ellie's past slightly revealed and what she did to help Jeol survive. Combat was basically like main campaign except I had never lost my knife or needed to make shanks. All in all, pretty good DLC.

This DLC has made really wanna play TLOU but I dont wanna go through all that again. I feel to heavily invested in it but the combat and survival aspect of the game is pushing me to play it again.

Game 32: Ratchet and Clank 2 (PS Vita) - 14hours 23min COMPLETED
Like the first, the mini games and platforming frustrate me.

The game is a huge leap of improvement over Ratchet and Clank 1 in terms of performance, shooting gameplay and graphics. Everything felt good except the above. Also the boss fights are dull as shit and the game got bullet spongy towards the freaking end. Sure, thats a way to end your game on, making it freaking annoyingly hard as shit. Fuck me, that was utter bullshit.

Despite that, there was more positives than negatives for this second game in comparison to the first one.

Game 33: Murasaki Baby (PS Vita) - 4hours 7min COMPLETED
Cumbersome touch controls get in the way of an interestingly visually designed world.

Game 34: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PS4) - 2hours 14min COMPLETED
Its a solid looking game.

Performance and visuals are just top notch, constant 60FPS and freaking beautiful too. Game wise, I'm not too sure I dig the new gameplay. It was a bit hard to see whether I was hiding well or not hiding at all. Maybe its just me. Still enjoyed the game though.

Game 35: Soul Sacrifice Delta (PS Vita) - 53min
I wanted to pop in my old SS save then I remembered I lost it :C Ah well, game still awesome.

Game 36: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PSP emu on PS Vita) - 7hours 47min COMPLETED
All right, its not the greatest looking nor is the performance that great but hell, nothing feels more badass than spraying lighting from your hands and choking and throwing enemies like a Sith.

Controls were not that good, there was input lag when attacking, frame rate noticeably below 30FPS reaching 25> FPS most of the time. Graphically, its nothing to write home about. Models do look good but everything else looks jagged up.

If you wanna feel a like Sith/Jedi on the go, go get this. But if you want the game at its best, get it on consoles/PC. Hell, even the PS2 port is better than this.

Game 37: Dino Crisis (PS1 emu on PS Vita) - 11hours 33min COMPLETED
Dinos, never had I been more happier knowing they're extinct thanks to this game.

Graphically, it doesnt look too bad, mostly saved to the art style. Liked the mixing elements of the game, making poison darts and med packs. Combat aint too annoying and was fun and tolerable enough to plow through. The only problem was the obvious tank controls. No duh.

If you missed out on some solid PS1 games, then sure. If you hate tank controls, nope.

Game 38: Whispering Willows (PS Vita) - 3hours 34min COMPLETED
The PS4 theme is pretty dang creepy and awesome.

I enjoyed the game for the art, creepy atmosphere and sounds and a pretty neat use of of paving side character's stories with the notes.

I did not however enjoy the game letting the character's painfully slow walking speed and inability to run anywhere outside the area. The game's puzzles are also mind numbingly simple at times especially with the solution literally being highlighted in green. There are also later on in the game, threats to the MC that are annoying and frustrating. Also its rather short, I expected side quests to extend the game a bit, what with others ghosts around.

I'd recommend a buy if it was lower priced.

Game 39: Styx: Master of Shadows (PS4) - 1hours 14min
There is some odd pop in from this game.

Game 40: Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate (PS Vita) - 10hours 13min COMPLETED
I had more frustration than fun with this one.

The top down map that is not even available as a mini map and psuedo 3D ruined what could've been one heck of a batman handheld game. Armature did a proper job capturing the essence of the Arkham games with the artsyle and setting but thats about it. The combat looks as nice as the console games but it doesnt feel as good cause you either face left or right. There's also the annoyance of having to stop batman when investigating and having to swipe a tons of time on the screen.

Eh, get it when its cheap.

Game 40: Valkyria Chronicles 2 (PSP emu on PS Vita) - 54hours 13min COMPLETED
This was just overall a fantastic game to waste time away and have fun demolishing over the AI.

The game does a few things better and some worse than VK1. There are much more variety to soldier classes, example Shocktroopers can be evolve to flamethrower bearers or mass wiping gunners. Theres the classic VK artstyle but with further details on enemies and the field. Soldiers also talk to each and react to others like living beings on a field. Things worse are the low number of troops available on the field being 6 and 5 in each map, makes fighting and planning a bit more hectic and a bit unfair to the enemy AI who can have up to 20+ at any given time.

Its a really solid handheld game that anyone who owns a psp or vita must play.

Game 41: Z-run (PS Vita) - 1hour 3min COMPLETED
My review of Z-run.

This QA tested by one person and that person thought this game was ok. That guy doesnt know shit.

Dont buy this at 8.99, its a runner with a uselessly dull campaign and filled with big ass hitboxes and wonky gameplay.

No, really, just no, dont get this game unless its under 2 or even a dollar. So disappointing.

Game 42: Jungle Rumble (PS Vita) - 1hour 45min COMPLETED
A fun lil rhythm game but not really worth 4.99 on the US store, its rather short for that price. Still a fun Patapon inspired game.

Meia · Dec 25, 2014

I'm hitting it this time dammit. ><

Working 100 hours a week makes this rough.

Game 1: Shovel Knight - 4:59, 01/01/2015
Only have a 87% completion on a first playthrough(with 57 deaths), but man what a blast. Think this was a Kickstarter game, which once again shows how great this thing could be to games overall. Great old school feeling game, with a neat story. Definitely coming back to this one for higher completion %.

Game 2: Super Mario 3D Land - 4:20, 01/07/2015
Looking at activity log(as I should be shocked that a game at this day and age doesn't keep track in game yet I'm somehow not) is how I came up with the time. Haven't actually played a Mario game since the first Galaxy game, so it's been awhile since. Was kind of disappointed how easy this game was, but then again it's possible the "Special Worlds" are more difficult. So far after playing one of them, Lakitus in place of Goombas isn't my definition of "difficult", so may come back to 100% this later. For now, done.

Fee · Dec 25, 2014

Backloggery
True Trophies

#1: Broken Age (Part.1) [PC] - 4 hours - 1/1/15

#2: Diablo III: Reaper of Souls [PS4] - 4 hours - 1/2/15 Completed 80 or so bounties for the final trophy to get the platinum.

#3: D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die [XBO] - 5 hours - 1/5/15 What a bizarre game from mechanics to characters to story. I kinda want to find a kinect somewhere cheap just so i can experience the game the way it was intended to be played even if it wasn't very good.

#4: Dota 2 [PC] - 20 hours - 1/7/15 I figured I should get this on my list now, because by the end of the year I'll be embarrassed by my total hours played in 2015.

#5: Super Mario 3D World [WiiU] - 7 hours - 1/10/15 I stopped playing the game initially somewhere in the first set of level post-credits, i went back and completed the remaining stages, I'll more than likely pick it up again to finish collecting the rest of the stars and stamps by year's end. The WiiU may be a under-powered system but damn does this game look good.

#6. Steam World Dig [PS4] - 6.5 hours - 1/15/15

#7. Hotline Miami [PS4] - 6 hours -1/16/15

#8. Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth [PC] - 10 hours - 1/18/15 This game is missing something that's typically found in a Civ game that I cant quite put my finger on that prevents me from really getting into it.

#9. Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair [PSV] - 20 hours - 1/19/15 Year of the backlog continues! I put down the game at some point last year after finishing chapter 2, really glad i seen the crazy final chapter.

#10. Costume Quest 2 [PS4] - 6 hours - 1/24/15

#12. Dying Light [PS4] - 19 hours - 2/1/15 The game has a amazing looking and designed world, unfortunately the rest of the game is very mediocre so it felt like a slog to get through by about the half way mark.

#13. Evolve [PS4] - 10 hours - 2/15/15 I think I'm pretty much done with this game though I might play it here and there until next month when it needs to be returned so I can get the next game in my gamefly queue. I had debated buying this game for a while before release, kinda glad that I didn't, there is no where near enough content to justify a 60$ purchase.

#14. The Binding of Issac: Rebirth [PS4] - 100+ hours 2/22/15 I wanted to plat this game without exploiting seeds for some of the unlockable content, but unlocking The Lost seems impossible to me. I have done everything in the game that can be done aside from beating the game as him, so I'm gonna put the game down until the Afterbirth expansion comes out later this year and hopefully there will be a better solution.

#15. The Order: 1886 [PS4] - 7 hours - 2/24/2015
#15A. Completed Platinum - 4 hours - 3/3/2015

#17 Guacamelee! : Super Turbo Championship Edition [PS4] - 7 hours - 3/1/2015

#18. Valiant Hearts: The Great War [PS4] - 7 hours - 3/8/2015 I wish this game did anything for me, after reading so much here about peoples reactions to the story, I had been expecting something great. After finishing the game I'm not sure what was more boring the story or the gameplay.

#19. Hohokum [PS4] - 6 hours - 3/9/2015

#20. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number [PS4] - 9 hours - 3/11/2015 The story to HM2 is a fever dream, not literally, well maybe literally, I'm looking forward to more people finishing the game so they can explain what the hell i just played. Great game none the less though, not as good as the first but still quality.

#21. Ori and the Blind Forest [XBO] - 10 hours - 03/12/15 It's hard to imagine Ori not making my top 10 list at the end of the year, it's near perfect, my biggest complaint is that jumping is a tad too floaty, oh and also that it had to end.

#22. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor [PS4] - 12 hours - 3/14/15 I went and did some post game trophy clean up to get the plat, I also had to do a partial playthrough for a story related one that didn't pop when i initially played it .

#23. Rogue Legacy [PS4] - 22 hours - 3/15/15 At some point I lost count of how many times i died to the final boss, finally killed him today, i'm so glad to have this game off my backlog.

#24. Battlefield 4 [PS4] - 5 hours - 3/15/15 (Campaign playthrough)

#25. Grim Fandango [PS4] - 11 hours - 3/16/15 Full playthrough with tank controls for the platinum.

#26. Final Fantasy Type-0 HD [PS4] - 30 hours 3/20/15 Even though the game was mediocre, i very much liked a lot of the mechanics. Definitely looking forward to a sequel if one ever happens.

#27. The Swapper [PS4] - 8 hours - 3/21/15 I need to stop buying puzzle games, i really like the idea of what the games are, i'm just aweful at them. I finally gave up on the swapper and busted out a guide and did the rest of my playthrough so I could clean up the trophies.

#28 Smart As [PSV] - ??? hours - 3/21/15 I had been plucking away at this game for just over a year working toward the platinum. There are a few trophies that can take quite a while such as "Perfect Attendance -
Play Smart As on 100 different dates " I have the plat now, and I am never touching the game again. haha

#29 Bloodborne [PS4] - 33 hours - 3/26/15 I have a decent amount of complaints about bloodborne, but they are mostly stemmed from the way other souls games choose to do certain things. Amazing game top to bottom.

#30. Sunset Overdrive's two DLCs "Dawn Of The Rise Of The Fallen Machines" & "The Mystery of Mooil Rig" [XBO] - 5 hours - 4/1/15

#31. Assassin's Creed Unity [PS4] - 16 Hours - 4/7/15

#32. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel [PS4] - 22 hours - 4/11/15

#33. Bastion [PS4] - 7 hours - 4/11/15

#34. Mortal Kombat X [PS4] - 5 hours - 5/16/15

#35. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood [PS4] - 7 hours - 5/17/15

#35. Shovel Knight [PS4] - 5.5 hours - 5/30/15

#36.Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn [PC] - 100+ hours - 6/23/15

#37. Final Fantasy 14: Heavensward [PC] - ??? hours - 12/31/15

#38. Batman: Arkham Knight [PS4] - 25 hours - 8/13/15

#39. Everybody's Gone To The Rapture [PS4] - 8 hours - 8/31/15 This sounds like hyperbole, but this was probably the most boring game I've ever completed. It knocked "Murdered :Soul Suspect" out of the top slot. I could not in the slightest get invested in the story, the painfully slow movement speed only compounded the boredom.

#40. The Witcher 3 [PS4] - 100+ hours - 9/2/15 Pretty glad I finally finished the game before this Fall's releases really start coming out, not sure when I would have came back to it, and by them i would have been foggy on the story. I'm really looking forward to when all the DLC is out so I can do another play-through.

#41. Fallout Shelter [Mobile] - 10? hours - 9/17/15 Great little game to kill time with that has a way of sucking you in, id actually love to see a bigger budget version of it on consoles/pc with more complex mechanics.

#11. Destiny : The Taken King [PS4] - 60+hours - 9/25/15

#16. Until Dawn [PS4] - 7 hours - 9/28/15 I hate to be that guy, and it probably should be said I've really enjoyed Telltale's recent games in this style, but Until Dawn is barely a video game. The game consisted of pushing forward occasionally hitting x on a collectible and every hour or so hitting maybe 5 buttons in a QTE sequence. I had seen some saying this was a gem that got snubbed by critics, but anything higher than a 7 imo is being way to generous.

NotDreamcast · Dec 25, 2014

I only managed to finish 29 games last time around, but sure, I'll give it another go.

Game 1: Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus - (Finished on 1/2)

As with Senran Kagura Burst last year, I went in expecting life and hometown, and got a surprisingly decent story and characters to go along with it. Although with all the new characters introduced, along with having to fight a boss at the end of every stage made for weaker narrative overall compared to Burst, I feel. Additionally, the game does get fairly repetitive like Burst does. Ultimately, it’s still a fairly solid game. If the combat were just a bit deeper, it’d be pretty amazing.

Game 2: Ghost Trick - (Finished on 1/5)

What a ride this game was. From start to finish, it just oozes charm with its silly characters, wonderful sprite animations, fun puzzles and a curious story full of twists and turns. I truly feel this is a game absolutely anyone could enjoy.

Game 3: Persona 4 Golden - 77:43 (Finished on 1/23)

It's breathtaking moments in life
Addicted to it, minds craving more and more
I'm believing you and I can do anything
We can change the world
Hey, sky's the limit we can spread wings
To roadless travel together we go

Game 4: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story - 19 hours (Finished on 1/31)

This was my return to the Mario & Luigi games after quite some time. (Last was Partners in Time probably around 2007ish). I'm still in love with the timed button presses and adapting to enemy attacks to dodge/counter them, and the high risk, high reward factor in the bro attacks. But some things really bugged me. I'm not a huge fan of the giant Bowser battles. They're an interesting concept, but the DS's microphone just wasn't reliable at certain points. Then there is the excessive amount of tutorials the game gives whenever you happen upon something new such as the minigames within Bowser. Oh, those too. I wasn't a huge fan of those minigames either. But, all-in-all, I did enjoy the game. The signature battle system and silly characters keeps me coming back to this series.

Game 5: Pokemon Red - 24:35 (Finished on 2/6)

Admittedly, despite being a huge pokemon fan, I never completed a Gen 1 game. I’ve completed Firered and Leafgreen, sure, but I wanted to delve back into good ole’ Gen 1. Looking past all the QOL improvements not present here (the box system is terrible) Gen 1 does still have some merits. My favorite is the fact that there pretty much is no story, you just go from town to town getting badges and thwarting Team Rocket here and there. In later Pokemon games, it’s kind of a pain entering a new route or town and being treated to walls of dialogue from an NPC, but this barely exists here in Gen 1. It was also fun taking advantage of some of Gen 1’s quirks, such as critical hits being based upon speed. Each successive game has improved upon Gen 1, but I believe Gen 1 best captures the sense of being a regular kid trying to become the champion.

Game 6: Devil Survivor Overclocked - ~30 hours (Finished on 2/14)

This wasn’t a fresh playthrough, but rather a go at another of the game’s routes. (There’s a lot!) Going through this game again, I was reminded of how devilishly difficult it gets within the final sections of the game. Even when having access to high level demons via carry over bonuses, it’s still fairly easy to get pummeled. I’ve only completed 2 of the game’s neutral routes which has put me around 70 hours total. It’s a long road, but I hope to complete them all at some point.

Game 7: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers - 25:42 (Finished on 2/18)

This game absolutely nails the cyberpunk atmosphere. From the dungeons/setting, to the story and characters and even the music, everything manages to capture it. I wasn’t used to the mechanics of the older Megami Tensei games, so this one took some adjusting to when coming off of games like Persona 4 and SMT IV. Namely, concepts such as magnetite and demon loyalty put me off until I was able to grasp them completely. The game feels dated, with its menus and FMV cutscenes, but I kind of liked that about it honestly. Fun game. And Nemissa is an awesome character.

Game 8: Persona 3 Portable - 63:48 (Finished on 3/5)

Persona 3 FES is probably my favorite game of all time. I decided it was time to play through P3 again, only this time as a lady. Having gone through P3FES a few times, P3P has some good changes, and not so good changes. The big one being that you can control your party members, as opposed to relying on the A.I. This is a complete positive. Playing the female protagonist also allows you to social link to male party members and offers a different perspective on the female party members as well, in addition to completely new characters exclusive to the female route. It was interesting seeing familiar characters in a new light. On the other hand, the overworld had to (understandably) be relegated to a point and click interface, which I’m not a fan of. Cutscenes and dialogue also had to be relegated to a visual novel-like structure with extra dialogue used to describe what’s happening. This isn’t too bothersome, but I feel it does take a lot of impact out of some of the game’s more emotional scenes. Finally, P3P throws out the P3FES battle mechanics and replaces them with Persona 4’s, so you get things like party members saving you from death, co-op attacks, and follow up attacks added to your disposal. I feel this trivialized a fair amount of game battles, but it’s not a huge deal. In the end, it’s still Persona 3, and very much worth playing through as the female protagonist.

Game 9: Fire Emblem 7 - 30:47 (Finished on 3/18)

Having only played Awakening and Sacred Stones, I felt it was time to delve into more Fire Emblem. I wish I would have done this one sooner, because it was great all the way through. All the maps felt pretty well balanced and fair and the difficulty curve in general was just really solid. Of course having three lords in Eliwood, Lyn and Hector makes parts of the game a breeze, but in its later stages, the challenge does ramp up. One thing in particular I really appreciate about the GBA Fire Emblem games is the fantastic sprite animations. Nothing is better than scoring a critical hit in these games. Of the installments I’ve played thus far, this is my favorite one along with Awakening. Great game.

Game 10: Yoshi's Island - 7:16 (Finished on 3/19)

I don’t think this game will ever stop being beautiful. Also that noise when Baby Mario is floating around in the bubble is still annoying.

Game 11: Fire Emblem 6 - 34:22 (Finished on 4/3)

Well, since this takes place after Fire Emblem 7, I decided to jump into this next. Now, I knew since this came before FE7, it would be a bit less refined and whatnot, but the gap in difficulty between this and FE7 was far greater than I anticipated, and the RNG feels much more sadistic. There are a few key differences which made it much more difficult than FE7. The first and foremost of which being that Roy, the only lord, is not quite a powerhouse like lords found in other games. Furthermore, Roy promotes extremely late into game, which hinders his usefulness in the midsection of the game, as you can’t let him soak up experience, but you need him to be able to seize objectives. Another major hurdle is getting to the true ending, in which you need to satisfy certain conditions during the main campaign maps (which are sometimes ridiculous) in order to gain access to bonus maps, which need to be completed to reach the true end. In short, FE6 offers a greater, yet more frustrating challenge than its successor and prequel, FE7.

Game 12: Persona 2: Innocent Sin - 26 hours (Finished on 4/27)

Persona 2: Innocent Sin can be summed up easily: Fascinating story, monotonous gameplay. What I’m bothered by the most is that there is really no sense of challenge in this game. To make a comparison, in every other Persona game I’ve played (1, 3, 4) you will of course, need to visit the Velvet Room in order to call upon new personas to stay on par with what the game throws at you. In Innocent Sin, you can go nearly the entire game using only the character’s starting personas and their upgraded forms. This is mainly due to enemies having very low damage output. Aside from a very particular boss, you will never need to upgrade your personas, which in itself is somewhat of a good thing, as negotiating for cards to summon stronger personas is a grind. The lack of challenge, combined with the high encounter rate and mind numbingly slow battle system, makes Innocent Sin a real slog. It’s not all doom and gloom however. The game is supplemented by, in my opinion, the strongest and most interesting story in the Persona series. It makes you want to push through the gameplay just to see where it ends up going. Each of the playable characters has a large amount of depth to them and they have excellent chemistry. The game’s world also has plenty to say with areas and NPCs frequently being affected by the game’s rumor system and plot progressions.

Game 13: Persona 4 Ultimax - (Finished on 5/4)

Solid, fun fighter. But the plot is an absolute mess. I don’t know what happened there, which is a shame since I thought the first Arena game had decent plot for what it was.

Game 14: Persona 2: Eternal Punishment - 35 hours (Finished on 5/11)

The continuation of the Persona 2 saga. I don’t know if it’s because I had to play the PS1 version of this or what, but the difficulty in Eternal Punishment is leaps and bounds above Innocent Sin. In fact, I won’t hesitate to call it the hardest of the Persona series. No longer can you ignore making new Personas like in Innocent Sin, or take single digit damage from most enemies. You need to use all that is available to you to get by, and boss battles are intense in this game. I barely scrapped by in most of them. Eternal Punishment is unique in the Persona series in that for the first and only time thus far in the series, the party consists of a group of adults, rather than teenagers, which I thought was really refreshing. The gameplay is a bit more engaging than Innocent Sin, but at the same time still a bit dull. It does continue what Innocent Sin set up: a well realized world and characters. Ultimately, my thoughts about the P2 duology are: fantastic story and characters, but terribly slow and unengaging gameplay. I actually feel if the gameplay were more enjoyable in P2, it would easily be the pinnacle of the series.

Game 15: Persona Q - 67:25 (Finished on 6/18)

Pretty mixed on this one. It was neat seeing the P3 and P4 casts come together for an adventure. And adopting the Etrian Odyssey gameplay with some unique touches added was a nice change of pace. But at the same time, I didn’t thoroughly enjoy this game. I wasn’t a fan of how FOE focused the puzzles became in the middle of the game onward, and the continued exaggeration of individual character quirks began to wear down me after a while. I had planned to go through both P3 and P4 side of the game, but I feel I experienced enough going through the P3 side for now.

Game 16: Persona (Snow Queen Quest) - 19 hours (Finished on 7/3)

Last year I played this game for the first time, and I didn’t like it all. However, having played all the Persona games this year, I decided to revisit it and play the alternate storyline. Perhaps Persona 2 broke me, but this game really wasn’t as bad as I remember. In fact, the battle system is extremely quick, dungeon crawling is extremely quick, and compared to Persona 2, getting new personas is also extremely quick. Everything is just so smooth to navigate. I’d definitely put it above Persona 2 in terms of gameplay. The Snow Queen Quest presents a daunting challenge in that you must conquer three dungeons, each with its own time limit and gimmick with no saving allowed in any of them. Overall I didn’t find it too difficult, but a strong tension was present throughout most of the route. The Snow Queen Quest actually covered some pretty heavy themes such as inadequacy, suicide and deep grudges. I didn't expect much in the way of story at first, but I was pleasantly surprised. Having completed both the SEBEC and Snow Queen Quest scenarios, it’s kind of neat to see elements of these stories used in Persona 3 and Persona Q. I feel as though I’ve developed a soft spot for this game. It’s dated, but I like it.

Game 17: Tales of Xillia 2 - 41:00 (Finished on 7/30)

Above all else, I was kind of shocked at how dark the story was in this game. I was expecting typical Tales fare, but it goes to depressing places that I don’t usually see in Tales games, which I feel is commendable. I didn’t mind the debt system too much, but because of it, I rarely found myself buying new weapons or armor. Choice is a big theme in the game, but honestly it felt like Ludger didn’t need to be a silent protagonist at all. It doesn’t really add anything and it makes many scenes feel really awkward. The battle system like most other Tales games was fun. Although, because of the updated weakness system, it feels like a waste if you’re not using Ludger at all times, which didn’t bother me too much since his moveset is insane. Xillia 2 is definitely one of the more unique and stronger entries in the Tales series.

Game 18: Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (Pokedex completion) - 75:34 (Finished on 8/15)

I finally have caught them all.

Game 19: Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls - 21:17 (Finished on 9/7)

From visual novel to third person shooter. Not a terrible attempt, but not stellar either. The shooting in particular felt really clunky at times, and the gameplay-to-cutscene ratio was lopsided. Where it succeeds I feel, is creating a very hopeless and depressing atmosphere – even more so than Danganronpa 1 and 2 – and the character development seen between the two protagonists. Fairly good looking game too. It’s a fresh take on the series that could use more refinement.

Game 20: Gravity Rush - (Finished on 9/9)

The Gravity Slide. The Gravity Slide, was my main problem with this game. Tilting the Vita to steer, combined with there not being very many wide open, long areas to practice made sliding the worst. Now that the negatives are out of the way, the positives consist of pretty much everything else. Kat was a likable protagonist, flying around was a blast, the plot although confusing and vague, was intriguing and contained a colorful cast of characters, and the music was grand. Easily my favorite Vita game. I look forward to the future of this series.

Game 21: Tales of Hearts R - 49:09 (Finished on 10/18)

Not much to say about this one. I didn’t really find it terrible in any aspects, nor did I find it excellent in any aspects. Although I guess being average in each aspect is in itself a good thing since nothing stood out as being offensively bad. It was just really… standard. The emphasis on air combos was pretty cool. But the translation had some highly questionable parts to it. It was cool playing a 3D Tales on a handheld.

Game 22: Undertale - 14 hours (Finished on 11/5)

Being a fan of quirky games like the Mother series, Mario RPGs and Yume Nikki, Undertale felt like a love letter. It stands out to me in that it builds a world and creates a story in a way that can only be done in a video game; it conveys its themes and message through its gameplay, and the individual mindset of the player themselves. Together with a fantastic soundtrack composed of catchy melodies, lovable characters with a surprising amount of depth, interesting battle mechanics, and one of the most twisted “evil” routes I’ve seen, Undertale is one of the most unique and memorable games I have played.

Game 23: Devil May Cry - 4:51:10 (Finished on 11/26)

Once again, I dive into the cuhrazy stylish character spectacle action slice ‘em up genre. I understand that this was at one point a Resident Evil game, and it feels like it with the lonely, creepy atmosphere on the island and the static camera angles. The big aspect that stood out to me was the encounters. Each one felt like its own boss fight. I played through the game on normal, so perhaps this isn’t true on the game’s higher difficulties, but by investing most of my orbs into Devil Trigger, and relying on Devil Trigger in general, I was able to blast through the game, apart from a few boss fights. I still have to get through DMC2 and 3, so it’ll be interesting seeing how the series progresses. Also the, “I should have been the one to fill your dark soul with light!” line is amazing.

Game 24: Deus Ex: Human Revolution - ~30 hours (Finished on 12/21)

This very well may be the most yellow game I have played. That aside, Human Revolution is the first Deus Ex game I have played, and it was a pretty cool experience. I wasn't totally sucked into the plot, but I did think the schism between augmented humans and non augmented humans was an interesting premise, as well as questioning if augmentation is something humans should be doing in the first place. The stealthy approach seemed to be encouraged, with a bunch of secret paths that allow you to easily encroach on enemy territory, along with the discovery of various goods and tools to use to your advantage, but I usually chose the guns blazing approach with a slight bit of sneaking, since a full on stealth approach makes my heart beat fast. All the sidequests in the game were generally fulfilling, and there wasn't much that felt in the way of filler content. If I had to give this a game a knock, it'd be the boss fights. They were challenging, but in a frustrating manner, rather than an entertaining one. An enjoyable game, which now has me interested in Mankind Divided and the original Deus Ex.

Mr. Doop · Dec 25, 2014

My first attempt! Let's do this.

Completed

Game 1: Hexcells Plus (PC) - 10 hours
How did I put so much time into this game? I really liked the first one, but this one felt like it required more guessing, especially in the later puzzles.

Game 2: Little Inferno (PC) - 2 hours
Well, this was an interesting experiment. I didn't really enjoy it, but I didn't feel like that was the point of the game. It was alright, but I don't think I'll ever want to play this game again in a long time.

Game 3: Half Life 2 (PC) - 14 hours
This was my first time playing it and holy crap it was amazing! I loved just about everything about it.

Game 4: Portal 2 (PC) - 11 hours
I got this one on sale a while back and only got about half way through before forgetting about it. I just finished it and really enjoyed it. Old Aperture drags on forever, though. Really nice ending.

Game 5: Half Life 2: Episode One (PC) - 4 hours
A great expansion to a fantastic game. Felt like more of the same, but when the same is so goddamn good, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Got all but one of the achievements, and I don't feel like going back for the last one. Maybe later this year.

Game 6: BIT.TRIP RUNNER (PC) - 5 hours
I first played this game on Wiiware back in 2011, and it has been a while since I have played it. The gameplay is really fun once you stop looking at it like a platformer and more like a rhythm game. About halfway through the second world, I realized what my biggest problem with this game (and the Bit.Trip series in general) was. There's too much shit flying around in the background, so it can become very hard to see what is actually important. Also, the last four levels are absolute hell and are far too frustrating. Overall, I liked it, but I never noticed how many flaws it has that the second Runner game fixes.

Game 7: BIT.TRIP Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (PC) - 5 hours
Playing through the first Runner game earlier this week made me want to play its sequel again. I legitimately love this game and think it is one of the best games of 2013. Everything about it just works. It never feels too frustrating or too easy, which is something the first game suffers from in the late game. I think my biggest issue with the game is the fact that some characters/costumes can be hard to see on all the different level backgrounds, but there are so many costumes to choose from that this isn't a big deal. I just absolutely adore everything about this game.

Game 8: Bayonetta (Wii U) - 10 hours
This was my first time playing through and I loved it. It was just pure fun and I can't wait to play the sequel. My biggest problem with this game was the terrible camera angles and some annoying minigames that dragged on forever. I've heard the second game solves both of these problems though. It's an absolutely brilliant game.

Game 9: Shovel Knight (Wii U) - 5 hours
I think I might have let myself get a little too hyped for this one honestly. It was a fantastic game, and I don't feel like I wasted my time by playing it. You can tell there is a lot of love and care put into the game. I just felt that it didn't really live up to my hype, which is my fault for letting the hype build up so much. It is a really good game though, and I definitely recommend it.

Game 10: Half Life 2: Episode 2 (PC) - 4 hours
Well, I'm finally done with all the Half Life games. I really liked this part, and I thought it was a lot better than episode 1. The pacing was a lot better and there were a lot of original areas compared to episode 1. I really didn't like the ending, but that's probably because I know deep in my heart that Half life 3 is probably never going to happen. I'll try to stay optimistic about that.

Game 11: Rogue Legacy (PC) - 18 Hours
Wow, what a fun game. I just loved almost everything about this game, but I didn't really like how random the character selection was. I usually got stuck with a character with a class or ability that was really bad. Overall, I thought this game was super fun and I just liked running through the castle exploring everything. I would buy a sequel with more bosses and less random characters immediately.

Game 12: The Walking Dead Season 1 (PC) - 11 hours
I bought this one about a year ago and stopped somewhere in the middle of episode four. I just finished it today and I thought it had a good story, but it didn't really deserve all the praise it got when it came out. The gameplay is almost nonexistent outside of extremely simplistic puzzles that serve no purpose other than to keep the story going. I can totally see the appeal of the game though. I think another part of the issue is that I have no interest in the Walking Dead series anyway. I think it would be cool to see the Telltale formula applied to a franchise that I like. As of right now, I have no plans on buying season 2.

Game 13: Bayonetta 2 (Wii U) - 10 hours
This game is even better than the first. It takes almost all the flaws of the first Bayonetta game (besides the obnoxious characters and stupid story I guess...) and completely removes them. This is easily one of the greatest video game sequels of all time and I'm just happy that it exists. I suppose my biggest problem is the fact that the new climax system makes the game a bit too easy and removes any usefulness the torture attacks had in the first one. I see myself coming back to this game for a long time.

Game 14: Speedrunners (PC) - 2 hours
I beat all of the story mode missions, so I'm going to count this as done. It's really fun, though, and I can see myself playing it for a long time. You can tell it's a work in progress. I ran into quite a few glitches while playing.

Game 15: Hyrule Warriors (Wii U) - 14 hours
This is just a really solid beat 'em up. I played through the entire legend mode with my brother in co-op. I also started the adventure mode, but there is so much content in that that I don't think I'll ever finish. I definitely recommend this.

Game 16: Captain Toad Treasure Tracker (Wii U) - 5 hours
Is it legal for a game to be this adorable? This is quite possibly one of the cutest games ever made and I absolutely loved it. There's a lot more content in the game than at first appearance, too. Most of the puzzles were creative and fun to solve, and I just had a really nice time playing through this.

Game 17: Thomas Was Alone (PC) - 2 hours
Of all the weird artsy indie games I have played, this one is probably my favorite. With many games like this, I feel like the gameplay is almost nonexistent and its only purpose is to further the story. While the story is a large part of this game, it isn't the only part, and the actual game is just as important as the story. The narrator is really great and absolutely steals the show. I guess my biggest problem is that this game is a bit on the short side, but I had a lot of fun with my experience.

Game 18: Hexcells Infinite (PC) - 10 hours
I can't believe I'm done with the Hexcells series. These have been some of the best puzzle games I have ever played. Infinite is by far the pinnacle of the series. I don't see how it would be possible to improve the formula after this one. Absolutely fantastic game.

Game 19: Jazzpunk (PC) - 2 hours
I honestly think most video games' attempts at humor comes off as obnoxious and trying too hard. This is the first game I have ever played that has actually made me laugh out loud because the game itself was funny and not because of glitches or anything. I loved all of Jazzpunk's jokes and would definitely buy a sequel assuming it had a lot more content. I guess my biggest issue with Jazzpunk is its really short length, but the two hours I spent with it are some of the most hilarious I have spent with a video game.

Game 20: Hotline Miami (PC) - 4 hours
Finished this one up just in time for the sequel. I really loved this game and I kind of wish it went on longer. The levels are super fun and challenging without ever feeling unfair. I didn't like the boss fights, though.

Game 21: VVVVVV (PC) - 1 hour
Really short little platformer. I got all the trinkets and beat the game. There's still a ton of extra content left, though.

Game 22: Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze (Wii U) - 12 hours
Fantastic 2D platformer, one of the best I've played in ages. Creative level design, beautiful graphics, amazing soundtrack, this game is fabulous. I guess I didn't really like the boss fights, they really dragged on.

Game 23: To The Moon (PC) - 3 hours
A lot of people really like this one, but I honestly thought it was garbage. It's a decent story that's caught in the wrong medium. The gameplay is nonexistent and halfway through I was just wondering when it would end. Any emotional impact the game might of had was totally ruined by the game's embarrassing and obnoxious sense of humor. A total disappointment for me.

Game 24: Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast (PC) - 13 hours
One of my childhood favorites. It really still holds up to this day. The lightsaber is super fun to use and cutting enemies in half is extremely enjoyable. I don't think I ever got that far into the game as a kid, though.

Game 25: Steamworld Dig (3DS) - 5 hours
Started this one a while back and got pretty far into it. Pretty great metroidvania with a lot of exploration. Very anticlimactic ending, though.

Game 26: Star Wars: Republic Commando (PC) - 9 hours
Halfway through the challenge! I've been on a real Star Wars binge lately. This was another game I used to play a lot as a kid. It still looks great for a game that came out in 2005. The squad tactics are fun, but the game is really short and linear.

Game 27: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (PC) - 8 hours
While certainly not a bad followup to Jedi Outcast, I didn't really enjoy this one as much. I wasn't a huge fan of the mission structure. The lightsaber combat is as fun as ever, though.

Game 28: A Story About My Uncle (PC) - 3 hours
Really fun little first person platformer. I liked it, but I was pretty sure I was going to get vertigo every time I played it. Very short as well.

Game 29: Paper Mario (N64) - 15 hours
One of my favorite games of all time. It's just an incredibly fun RPG that is a blast to play through. I like to play through this and Thousand Year Door at least once a year. My biggest problem is the incredibly small inventory, but that doesn't affect my enjoyment that much.

Game 30: EarthBound (SNES) - 22 hours
Another one of my favorites. Classic RPG that everyone who plays games should experience at least once. Everything about this game is wonderful from the charming graphics to the amazing story and soundtrack. It's a true classic and in my opinion the best game on the Super Nintendo. I don't really like the grindy beginning, though.

Game 31: Super Metroid (SNES) - 4 hours
I've never been a huge Metroid fan, but the Nintendo World Championships made me want to go back and play this one. I don't think I've ever finished this before this year. I always stop around Maridia. This is a brilliant game with amazing level design and an incredible atmosphere. I don't know why I waited so long to beat this, but better late than never I guess.

Game 32: South Park: The Stick of Truth (PC) - 11 hours
This is really just like playing through a South Park episode. I thought it was absolutely hilarious and I loved it. It's kind of on the short side, so I can't wait for the second game.

Game 33: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (GCN) - 22 hours
This is one of my favorite games of all time. Everything about it is just perfect. The story is awesome, the gameplay is brilliant, the soundtrack is excellent, everything about this game is just wonderful. It's such a shame that we still haven't gotten another Paper Mario game like this even if I do like Super Paper Mario.

Game 34: Harmoknight (3DS) - 5 hours
Cute little rhythm game by Gamefreak. It's not bad, but it's on the short side and it's really easy until the special world.

Game 35: Splatoon (Wii U) - 23 hours (and counting)
Finished up the story and I've played a lot of the multiplayer. Extremely fun game with solid and unique mechanics I have a few problems with the game's matchmaking, though.

Game 36: Earthbound Beginnings - 18 hours
Earthbound and Mother 3 are two of my favorite games of all time, but I've never really given the first one much time until now. While the game definitely shows its age and hasn't aged as well as Earthbound, it's still pretty good and definitely worth a playthrough for anyone who considers themselves Earthbound fans. Quite a bit of unnecessary grinding, but that applies to most RPGs of the era.

Game 37: Guacamelee: STCE (Wii U) - 4 hours
I kind of rushed through this one because I had played parts of it on PC last year. This is a really cool metroidvania with an awesome artstyle and great combat. There's a lot of secrets that I missed during my playthrough though.

Game 38: Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) - 11 hours
I wanted to play a 3D Mario game so I decided to play this one. I haven't played it since its release in 2011 so it was a pretty fresh experience for me. My biggest problem is that it's extremely easy untill the very last world. Still a pretty good game, though.

Game 39: New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) - 9 hours
This was a fun game, but it suffers from being incredibly generic. It has the usual Nintendo polish and it's still really fun to play, but the same themes for the levels get really old considering how many NSMB games there are. I really hope Nintendo switches it up for the next Mario sidescroller.

Game 40: Fallout: New Vegas (PC) - 23 hours
Absolutely incredible experience. Quite possibly one of the best games I've played all year. Wonderful dialogue, quests and characters all really make this game an awesome time. I did run into a few bugs, but nothing really too bad.

Game 41: The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA) - 14 hours
One of the very few Zelda games I have never beaten until this year. It's alright as far as Zelda games go, but it's really kind of forgettable. No real big scenes or bosses or dungeons that really stick out for me. Not bad, but it's definitely not one of the best titles in the Zelda series.

Game 42: Katamari Damacy (PS2) - 4 hours
A thread about this game made me want to go back and revisit it. In my opinion it is one of the best games of all time. Everything about it is brilliant and extremely memorable. I did have a few problems with the camera, but when the rest of the game is so charming, you can look past that.

Game 43: Stealth Bastard Deluxe (PC) - 6 hours
Cool little stealth platformer with some fun puzzles. Not really too much to say about this one. I guess the controls when wall jumping could be wonky, but pretty good game regardless.

Game 44: Star Wars Battlefront 2 (PC) - 7 hours
Another childhood favorite. The campaign is okay, but the game itself is just extremely fun. It's really well done.

Game 45: FEZ (PC) - 8 hours
Really weird little puzzle game. I really enjoyed it but a lot of the puzzles could be kind of obtuse, and the clock tower is just the worst thing ever. I hate it when games are timed like that.

Now Playing
The Banner Saga (PC)
Dark Souls (PC)
Banjo Kazooie (N64)

TomcatTheLion · Dec 25, 2014

I think I'll give it a try this year.

MrDaravon · Dec 25, 2014

I'm in! I actually kept my post from last year's thread up to date, currently sitting at 40 games. I might finish one or possibly two more, but not gonna make the 52. That said I did way better than I thought considering that I dropped like 500 hours into Diablo 3 and 200 or so into Destiny last year. Also finally got around to beating a few of my gaming white whales (Persona 4 being the main one).

tiltnkirby · Dec 25, 2014

Steam backlog the thread. Gettin' shit done. Here we go.

chrominance · Dec 25, 2014

Hi there! LET'S DO THIS. Check out my 2014 run of 62+ games here. Dunno if I'll make it in 2015, as I don't plan to play as many games. But who knows? Backlog always needs clearing out.

COMPLETED
1: Forza Horizon (360) - 5:58 (9:15 in 2012 and 2014) - COMPLETED January 2
For some reason, I played about two hours of this in 2012 and then dropped it for god knows what. I got Horizon 2 in the mail a few days ago and figured it was now or never for Horizon 1. I'm glad I went back--underneath the mountain of corporate sponsorships and the sleazy sheen of rich-as-fuck music festival douchebaggery lies a compelling open-world racer. It's probably heresy to say this but I got more out of this game than I ever did from Burnout Paradise. Though, come to think of it, I never came close to finishing that game either. 2015: year of rediscovering underappreciated arcade racers? (full post)

2: Wing Commander (PC) - 5:37 - COMPLETED January 3
Mixed feelings upon returning to one of the first PC games I ever played. On the one hand, it's still Wing Commander, so there's plenty of dogfighting and cruiser-lancing and all that. On the other hand, I think about 90% of my deaths weren't because someone shot me down, but because I ran into something. Also, at times the game ran slower than it did on my 286, which really says something. (full post)

3: Forza Horizon 2 (XB1) - 27:53 - COMPLETED January 13
A very good follow-up to Horizon 1, marred somewhat by a less satisfying progression and the scourge of cross-country races, which need a major overhaul for the next Horizon. (full post)

4. Scania Truck Driving Simulator (PC) - 5:35 - COMPLETED January 15
Hard as nails, incredibly stressful at times, and incredibly rewarding when everything comes together. Scania Truck Driving Simulator is the predecessor to the much-lauded Euro Truck Simulator 2, but besides the fact that you drive trucks in both, the differences are night and day. Scania has a much more limited appeal than ETS2, but if the concept of "the Dark Souls of truck simulators" intrigues you, this is your game. (full post)

5. Infamous: First Light (PS4) - 4:54 - COMPLETED January 17
A fun side story to Second Son, and arguably with a more compelling protagonist too. It's too short for a full meal, but First Light is a decent snack, with half the city open to you and plenty of new powers, side missions and challenges (including a separate arena mode) to keep you entertained. If you have PS+ and you haven't downloaded this yet, what are you waiting for? (full post)

6. Call of Duty: Ghosts (XB1) - 4:33 (0:58 in 2014) - COMPLETED January 17
It's a Call of Duty game, I guess. (full post)

7. Child of Light (PC) - 16:00 - COMPLETED January 28
It's a gorgeous game. It's also a massive disappointment. I never managed to master the game's time-based battle system, and the result is a game that frustrated me far too much. (full post)

8. Valiant Hearts: The Great War (PC) - 6:14 - COMPLETED February 2
A heartfelt remembrance of the First World War that deftly weaves together a compelling adventure story and a treatise on the horrors of trench warfare. Also a candidate for best dog in a game ever. (full post)

9. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (XB1) - 10:02 (2:39 in 2014) - COMPLETED February 8
The first half is a pretty good shooter. The second half is a slog with baffling level design, an enemy that's no fun to fight, and vehicle sections that only highlight how awful Halo's vehicles are. This is what spawned a multi-million dollar franchise and singlehandedly propped up the Xbox? I can only assume it was the multiplayer that did it. (full post)

10. Gravity Ghost (PC) - 2:38 - COMPLETED February 14
A study in orbital mechanics, combined with a character study of a ghost suffering remorse. Short but sweet. (full post)

11. DiRT 2 (PC) - 13:24 - COMPLETED February 16
When it sticks to the fundamentals of rally racing, Dirt 2 really shines. It's when it tries to mix things up with Xtreme Racing Events like Raid and Landrush that the game falls apart a bit. Still, a solid racing game in a sub-genre that doesn't get enough exposure anymore. (full post)

12. Kamui (PC) - 1:01 - COMPLETED March 6
I'm not even sure this should count, it went by so quick. I do appreciate, though, that Kamui is at least an accessible shooter; though it's brutally difficult to 1CC (which I'm pretty sure I'm never going to do), the continues ensure you can at least brute-force your way through the whole game. (full post)

13. The Order: 1886 (PS4) - 7:13 - COMPLETED March 7
It's not a bad game, exactly. The good news is that it's very pretty, and the setting and story have potential. The bad news is the game is let down by its mechanics somewhat. The ugly news is that some of its combat encounters are so frustrating as to make significant portions of the game a slog. (full post)

14. Cities: Skylines (PC) - 22:18 - COMPLETED March 18
My first city is pretty much complete, now that it's reached 100k population. Trying to decide what my second city will be, and wondering if I should get into Skylines modding. Oh, yeah, forgot to mention: this game is amazing. (full post)

15. Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3) - 41:42 - COMPLETED April 1
The first Atelier game in a long time that doesn't make me want to immediately play a second time, though we'll see if I still feel that way once I start NG+. (full post)

16. Persona Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth (3DS) - 55:37 (32:40 in 2014) - COMPLETED April 4
It goes on for too long and by the end it feels like it wastes your time with too many trash mobs. But all in all, Persona Q manages to take the good bits from both Persona and Etrian Odyssey, and even manages to put together a decent story (though it does a disservice to some of the returning characters). Recommended if you have 80+ hours to spare. (full post)

17. Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious (XB1) - 3:14 - COMPLETED April 5
Did you want a bite-size Forza Horizon 2 as narrated by Ludacris? Then this is the standalone expansion for you. (full post)

18. Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (PC) - 9:56 - COMPLETED April 7
Great game when it came out in 1991, but hell to play now. Really begs for a modern remake. (full post)

19. Chain Chronicle (Android) - 45:44 - COMPLETED April 9
Free-to-play gacha game, with everything that entails. You don't have to pay anything to enjoy the game, but if you don't like the free-to-play model and how it shapes gameplay balance, this ain't the game for you. (full post)

20. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) - 5:22 - COMPLETED April 12
I scraped by the final castle, but I did it: I've finally finished a Mario game. (full post)

21. Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (PC) - 14:12 - COMPLETED April 24
Kilrah is toast. My love for the Wing Commander series isn't doing so hot, either. I'm gonna take a long break before WC4--at least I'm pretty sure that game won't tax my patience as much as WC3 did, as I've at least played it before. (full post)

22. Broken Age (PC) - 9:52 - COMPLETED May 5
A lovable adventure game, though some of its puzzles get pretty annoying. (What part of "adventure game" did you not understand?) (full post)

23. A-Train 3D: City Simulator (3DS) - 115:57 - COMPLETED May 20
A funny thing happened after I bought A-Train on a whim: I liked it. A lot. More than Cities: Skylines, even. Likely the best impulse purchase I'll make all year. (full post)

24. Vanquish (PS3) - 8:23 - COMPLETED May 24
Not a bad game, but falls short of Platinum's usual greatness. Or maybe I just couldn't get used to Platinum's take on what a third-person shooter can be. (full post)

25. Catlateral Damage (PC) - 5:24 - COMPLETED May 31
The premise is sound (and adorable!), but you run out of things to do pretty quickly. Still, if the idea of playing a housecat with a temper sounds great to you, by all means dive in. (full post)

26. Blur (360) - 10:33 - COMPLETED June 1
Blur has great racing, lively weapons, and a slick, neon-streaked style--everything you'd want out of a kart racer, except a fulfilling career mode. Pity. (full post)

27. Luna's Wandering Stars (PC) - 4:04 - COMPLETED June 2
Another study in orbital mechanics, but this one's a master class compared to Gravity Ghost. It's bursting with different ways to manipulate gravity, but also ways to frustrate and challenge you. Not for the faint of heart. (full post)

28. The Last of Us: Left Behind (PS4) - 3:27 - COMPLETED June 2
The story of Ellie and Joel, but also the story of Ellie and Riley, equal parts whimsical and harrowing. (full post)

29. World in Conflict (PC) - 10:01 - COMPLETED June 7
Russia attacks America, and only Alec Baldwin and Nolan North can stop them. A great late-era real-time strategy game with a dash of Red Dawn. (full post)

30. Oozi: Earth Adventure (PC) - 3:20 (0:28 played in 2014) - COMPLETED June 8
A cute 2D platforming game that's well executed, though lacking slightly in imagination. (full post)

31. FRACT OSC (PC) - 5:37 - COMPLETED June 10
An abstract world, all neon like, synthesized. Your job is to piece it all together somehow. Stick with it and you'll be rewarded with full control. (full post)

32. Fortix 2 (PC) - 1:06 (1:54 in 2013) - COMPLETED June 14
A fun game of trying to capture territory while dodging dragons, fireballs and bats. Gets a little hectic at the end, though. (full post)

33. Sunset (PC) - 3:41 - COMPLETED June 27
Sunset doesn't quite achieve its artistic aims, though it has enjoyable moments along the way. (full post)

34. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (PC) - 8:20 - COMPLETED June 29
A worthy follow-up to one of the best--and most surprising--games of last year. (full post)

35. Her Story (PC) - 2:50 - COMPLETED July 1
A non-linear, full-motion-video, mystery game that actually manages to do all three really well. Definitely worth your five bucks. (full post)

36. DriveClub (PS4) - 10:40 - COMPLETED July 3
Somewhere in all the slipping and the sliding, the bumping and the grinding, there's a very pretty racing game that nevertheless fails to feel like much fun once you graduate to the faster cars. (full post)

37. I Am Bread (PC) - 5:28 - COMPLETED July 5
The best game I've ever played about bread, and actually a good game to boot. (full post)

38. Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell (PC) - 8:22 - COMPLETED July 10
A fun place to cause mayhem, but you've kind of played this game already if you played Saints Row IV. (full post)

39. Scribblenauts Unlimited (PC) - 1:59 (4:04 in 2013) - COMPLETED July 11
It's not bad, but the gameplay is repetitive and wears thin quickly once you realize it's just a guessing game where almost any plausible answer is correct. (full post)

40. Pressure (PC) - 2:00 (0:56 played in 2014) - COMPLETED July 13
A madcap game that doesn't really reward precision so much as balls-out pedal-to-the-medal mass destruction. (full post)

41. 100% Orange Juice (PC) - 7:18 - COMPLETED July 19
Fun party game. Less fun single-player board game. Embrace RNGesus. (full post)

42. 10,000,000 (PC) - 7:25 - COMPLETED July 25
A compelling mixture of roguelike-like, endless runner and match-3 puzzler. (full post)

43. Crackdown (360) - 10:46 - COMPLETED July 26
Crackdown hasn't aged well, and there's less to do here than most open-world games, but there's still fun to be had. (full post)

44. Roundabout (PC) - 2:53 - COMPLETED August 5
It's like someone mixed a goofy student film with an action-puzzle game about a rotating limousine. It's as excellent as it sounds. (full post)

45. Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker (3DS) - 86:52 - COMPLETED August 15, SECOND CAMPAIGN COMPLETED August 21
Record Breaker's improvements make this the definitive edition of Devil Survivor 2, and very much the equal of its predecessor, which is already one of the best 3DS games. (full post)

46. IA/VT Colorful (Vita) - 13:23 - COMPLETED September 1
I was cautiously pessimistic about IA/VT thanks to multiple delays, but I think it's the equal of Project Diva f or DJMAX Technika Tune. It's a welcome addition to the Vita's rapidly increasing rhythm game library. (full post)

47. Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f (Vita) - 5:00 (1:38 in 2014) - COMPLETED September 7
Speaking of Project Diva f, finally managed to knock another game from my 2014 purgatory off the list. Still like it, but boy does it get punishing. (full post)

48. Tales of Xillia 2 (PS3) - 48:57 - COMPLETED September 15
A worthy end to the duology, and surprisingly entertaining even as it revels in the usual franchise tropes. Won't do anything to relieve Tales fatigue, but fun if you're a fan of Xillia. (full post)

49. DanganRonpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (Vita) - 20:04 - COMPLETED September 22
An offbeat spinoff of the DanganRonpa series that isn't the greatest to play as a shooter, but provides enough story incentive to make the 20 hours worthwhile. (full post)

50. Persona 4: Dancing All Night (Vita) - 15:38 - COMPLETED October 3
Great songs and great visuals, but sadly it don't mean a thing: this Persona rhythm game ain't got no swing. (full post)

51. Forza Motorsport 6 (XB1) - 41:14 - COMPLETED October 11
Yup, it's definitely the sequel to Forza 5. It's a very good sequel, at least, with the extra tracks, night driving and rain effects adding needed spice. (full post)

52. Life Is Strange (PC) - 14:45 - COMPLETED October 21
Game of the year? It'll be hard to top Life Is Strange, that's for sure. (full post)

overtime begins!
53. Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX (3DS) - 5:11 - COMPLETED October 22
A gentler, kinder, more adorable Project Diva, in all the right ways. (full post)

54. Sublevel Zero (PC) - 14:06 - COMPLETED October 26
Permadeath Descent. If that sounds as great to you as it did to me, you must play this game. (full post)

55. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (PC) - 10:51 - COMPLETED November 8
Bought it on a whim after reading decent reviews. Even then, I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed the campaign. (full post)

56. Fallout 4 (PC) - 136:14 - COMPLETED December 10
I've spent countless hours lost in the wastelands of the Commonwealth, and as far as I'm concerned it was (mostly) worth it. Now if someone would just deliver another shipment of wood to my settlements... (full post)

57. Rock Band 4 (PS4) - 14:01 - COMPLETED December 19
Rock Band is back! It's missing a lot of features and your exports from previous games aren't all in yet, but it's back! (full post)

58. Guitar Hero Live (PS4) - 3:58 - COMPLETED December 19
FMV Guitar Hero is surprisingly decent. Too bad there's only four hours of it. But GHTV will theoretically last you a long while. (full post)

59. Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows (PC) - 39:21 - COMPLETED December 20
A tower defense game for the relentless tinkerer. Luckily, I fit that description! (full post)

CURRENTLY PLAYING
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (PC) - 18:41
Yakuza 4 (PS3) - 12:21
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (3DS) - 2:02
Read Only Memories (PC) - 2:00

ON HOLD
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 8:11
Orcs Must Die! (PC) - 1:29 (1:33 in 2011)
RefleX (PC) - 1:36
Crimson Shroud (3DS) - 0:23
LocoRoco (PSP) - 0:57
Crypt of the Necrodancer (PC) - 2:32
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC) - 2:08
Assetto Corsa (PC) - 0:59
Final Fantasy VII (PS1) - 1:55
DiRT Rally (PC Early Access) - 8:15
Rocket League (PS4) - 1:53
Mini Metro (PC Early Access) - 1:07
LoveLive! (Android) - 6:22 (1:17 in 2014)
Mafia (PC) - 5:41
Jeanne d'Arc (PSP) - 5:59
Tearaway Unfolded (PS4) - 4:17
Steins;Gate (Vita) - 1:23
Superbeat Xonic (Vita) - 2:12

BACKLOG
For starters, here's a list of significant games I failed to finish in 2014 that I might return to in 2015:
Rogue Legacy (PC) - 8:02
The Last Remnant (PC) - 8:45
Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3) - 16:33
Bravely Default (3DS) - 39:49
Deception IV: Blood Ties (Vita) - 2:00
Batman: Arkham City (PC) - 4:26
Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia (PS2) - 4:06
The Longest Journey (PC) - 4:09
Rune Factory 4 (3DS) - 38:30
Civilization: Beyond Earth (PC) - 5:56
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PS4) - 3:39
Half-Life 2 (PC) - 2:26
Valkyria Chronicles (PC) - 4:12
Valkyria Chronicles 3: Unrecorded Chronicles (PSP) - 24:50
Elite: Dangerous (PC) - 14:55
Euro Truck Simulator 2 (PC) - 9:03 (14:56 played in 2013)

To make things more interesting this year, some additional objectives:
Play the entire Wing Commander mainline series (1-4 and Prophecy) to completion
~~Finish one goddamned JRPG on the 3DS, seriously already~~ complete!
~~Finish Child of Light and Valiant Hearts~~ complete!
Finish at least one more Metal Gear Solid game

...and finally:
Play (but not necessarily finish) every Xbox 360 game in my backlog (oh god)

The Illiterati · Dec 25, 2014

January

1. MIND: Path to Thalamus / 5 hrs
2. Danganronpa 2: GoodBye Despair / 25 hrs
3. Kirby Triple Deluxe / 10 hrs

February

4. The Fall / 5 hrs
5. Diablo 3: UEE / 30 hrs
6. Apotheon / 15 hrs
7. Ether One / 12 hrs
8. Hero of the Kingdom 2 / 7 hrs

March

9. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC / 47 hrs
10. Ori and the Blind Forest / 10 hrs
11. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number / 10 hrs

April

12. Axiom Verge / 13 hrs
13. Never Alone / 4 hrs
14. Monsterbag / 2 hrs
15. Pillars of Eternity / 60 hrs
16. Sorcery / 4 hrs
17. Sorcery 2 / 8 hrs
18. Shovel Knight / 6 hrs

May

19. Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim / 12 hrs
20. Memoria / 7 hrs
21. Legend of Grimrock / 20 hrs
22. Ace Attorney Investigations 2 / 40 hrs
23. Invisible, Inc. / 8 hrs
24. Night of the Rabbit / 12 hrs
25. Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy / 12 hrs

June

26. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt / 150 hrs
27. Assassin's Creed: Rogue / 13 hrs
28. Please Don't Touch Anything / 3 hrs
29. Her Story / 3 hrs

July

30. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn/Heavensward /410 hrs

August

31. Assassin's Creed Unity/Dead Kings DLC /40 hrs
32. Stealth Inc 2 / 7 hrs
33. Tengami / 1 hr
34. LISA: The Painful RPG / 9 hrs
35. Until Dawn / 8 hrs
36. Lara Croft GO / 3 hrs
37. Shadowrun Returns / 15hrs

September

38. Shadowrun: Dragonfall DC / 32 hrs
39. Stasis / 7 hrs
40. Year Walk / 2 hrs
41. J.U.L.I.A.: Among the Stars / 8 hrs
42. Goodbye Deponia / 10 hrs
43. Dropsy / 6 hrs
44. Broken Sword 5: Serpent Curse / 8 hrs
45. Tesla Effect: Tex Murphy / 12 hrs
46. Journey of a Roach / 3 hrs
47. Knights of the Old Republic 2 / 31 hrs
48. Batman: Arkham Knight / 30 hrs

October

49. Undertale / 14 hrs
50. A Beginner's Guide / 2 hrs
51. Armikrog. / 5 hrs
52! Corpse Party / 10 hrs
53. Corpse Party: Book of Shadows / 11 hrs
54. Murasaki Baby / 2 hrs
55. Unmechanical Extended / 3 hrs
56. Contradiction / 7 hrs
57. Tales from the Borderlands / 10 hrs
58. Broken Age / 10 hrs
59. Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone / 12 hrs

November

60. Book of Unwritten Tales 2 / 18 hrs
61. Rise of the Tomb Raider / 32 hrs
62. Picross e6 / 46 hrs

December

63. Brandish: Dark Revenant / 26hrs
64. SquareCells / 6 hrs
65. Super Win the Game / 3 hrs

1403 hrs / 65 games

sweenster · Dec 25, 2014

Finished Games

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD
Started 1/23
Finished 1/26
30 Hours 03 Minutes
Completed

Grim Fandango Remastered
Started 1/27
Finished 2/1
Time Unknown
Platinum Trophy Earned
Completed

The Order: 1886
Started 2/20
Finished 2/21
Time Unknown
Platinum Trophy Earned
Completed

Wolfenstien: The New Order
Started 2/21
Finished 3/9
Time Unknown
Platinum Trophy Earned
Completed

Almost done except for one final hurdle:

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker
Started 1/12
12 Hours 42 Minutes
192 Gems, 3 Gold Toad Stamps on books 1-3, 1 Gold Toad Stamp on bonus book (screw the mummy maze)
Completed?

Super Mario 3D World
Started 1/12
29 Hours 14 Minutes
All Green Stars, Stamps, and golden flagpoles on all worlds except final
Completed?

Currently Working on:

Mario Kart 8
Started 1/12
12 Hours 10 Minutes
All characters and tracks unlocked, still working on car customization unlocks

Life is Strange
Started 1/30
Time Unknown
Completed Episode 1
Earned All Trophies (for ep. 1)

Majora's Mask 3D
Started Feb 13
Time Unknown
Completed 3/4 Dungeons

HellDivers
Level 16
Mission Time: 10 Hours 49 Minutes
Started 3/5

OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood
Time Unknown
Started 3/7

Kaita · Dec 25, 2014

Claiming a spot.

Anustart · Dec 25, 2014

Reporting for duty.

1. Dark Souls 2

Fantastic game all around. I had such a great time with this one, and I personally feel it was better than the first. The story of this one or in this one had a greater hold over me than the first, as well as some cool bosses and the same gameplay that rewards patience and strategy. Will pick up Scholar of the First sin when available and probably add that to this list before the year is out.

oggob · Dec 25, 2014

Claiming a post, perhaps I might do better in 2015... Kids might be a touch more independent, so hope to get some more free time. Might try and play some shorter games and not spend endless time with games like Danganronpa and Hatsune Miku... Lol

The 2015 Playlist...

Game #50 : Grand Theft Auto V (PS4 | ~10hrs | Trophies - 8%)
Just started, looks great and 1st Person mode kinda makes it a whole new game.

Game #51 : Resogun (Vita | ~1hrs | Trophies - 10%)
Booted this up to see how it ran, reasonable... but haven't dug into it.

Game #52 : PlayStation Home (PS3 | 50 Days | Trophies - 100%)
Went back to get the login to Home 50 times trophy before it was taken offline.

Game #27 : F1 Race Stars (PS4 | ~15hrs | Trophies - 41%)
This was previously started a long time ago, but I wanted to finish it off to remove from my HDD on the PS3. It's not a traditional Kart game, power slides are out, so you really have to slow around hard corners, but overall the stylised versions of the tracks around the world are quite fun.

Game #53 : Sound Shapes (Vita | ~1hrs | Trophies - 100%)
DLC Clean up, there were 2 DLC packs not completed, which is now resolved.

Game #54 : Sound Shapes (PS4 | ~10mins | Trophies - 100%)
Cross Save, DLC Clean up...

Game #55 : Sound Shapes (PS3 | ~10mins | Trophies - 100%)
Cross Save, DLC Clean up...

Game #17 : Smart As... (Vita | ~30hrs | Trophies - 100%)
PS+ strikes again... have only done 65 Daily challenges... John Cleese is pretty cool and the game works alright at the moment, seems like a cheapish game to make, Sony could really try to make a series out of it. Very close to finishing this off, just need to organise myself around some time in the daytime with the AR Cards and all that stuff.

Game #45 : Let's Fish! Hooked On (Vita | ~10hrs | Trophies - 18%)
This was on sale way in the past and I never started it up, this was started in the lead up to some of the bigger games on the Vita to fill some time.
You can see the budget for the game was small and there are some huge inconsistencies across the game, the actual gameplay is also very simplistic and repetitive. Aside from all that, it's a nice distraction to play something I haven't really played before. If they streamlined the game abit instead of padding it with 4 characters, it could have been far more enjoyable.

Game #39 : Ratchet & Clank 2 : Going Commando (PS3 | ~10hrs | Trophies - 17%)
Replaying the PS3 version also... PS3 version is much easier on the eyes, but the Vita version still plays fine.

Game #56 : Helldivers (PS4 | ~5hrs | Trophies - 4%)
Wanted to really get into this, but had some holiday time and went away, upon returning haven't picked it up again.

Game #57 : Ratchet & Clank 3 : Up Your Arsenal (PS3 | ~15hrs | Trophies - 100%)
This was on the back of replaying the HD trilogy and Vita versions, game is still amazing to this day.

Game #58 : Farming Simulator 14 (Vita | ~40hrs | Trophies - 100%)
I picked this up on special one PSN sale, because I was curious to see what the fuss was about. Now I have since learned that this Vita version is slightly gimped compared to a regular Farming Simulator release, but in the end this turned into a guilty pleasure, happy to get a good farming flow on whilst listening to music on the way to work. It was kinda a cathartic experience for some reason.

Game #59 : Ratchet : Gladiator/Deadlocked (PS3 | ~15hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Such an underrated game, some of the weapons in this game are the best in the series. The game is balls to the wall tough from the beginning when the weapons are at the low end of things, but once you get them beefed up, you can blitz through the game. In the end, I think this game was 2 planets too long and maybe needed another major boss fight.

Game #60 : LEGO Batman 2 : DC Super Heroes (Vita | ~20hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Fun game, but the Vita version is still stripped back of the console cousin. This was meant to be the tip of a huge back catalogue of LEGO games, but that looks to be a 2016 job now.

Game #61 : The Order : 1886 (PS4 | ~15hrs | Trophies - 100%)
This game get more shit than it deserves, I certainly have issues with some aspects of the story, many loose ends and some illogical gameplay designs (a specific reveal and then no actual fight), but the engine is there, the game deserves a second chance to fix the problems of the first, as I am still interested in the world they have created.

Game #62 : Hatsune Miku : Project DIVA F (PS3 | <1hrs | Trophies - 0%)
Fired this up to see how it ran on the PS3, in the end I didn't but I haven't gone on to continue playing the console version at this stage.

Game #63 : Shovel Knight (Vita | 10hrs | Trophies - 34%)
Campaign complete, haven't gone back for the DLC update, nor started the Speed or 1cc runs.

Game #64 : South Park : The Stick Of Truth (PS3 | 25hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Possibly my first ever completed turn based RPG. Now I know the game is very RPG light, but still it was the story that pulled me through the game, it was unbelievably hilarious. I finished the game in late May and lamented that I wished for DLC for the game, in the form of the same "game" the kids were playing or with Coon and Friends, etc. Little did we know that E3 2015, the sequel was announced and off the back of this game is a Day 1 purchase for me now.

Game #65 : Ratchet & Clank : Into The Nexus (PS3 | <2hrs | Trophies - 1%)
This was to be the continuation of all the Ratchet & Clank games, but it hasn't taken off yet.

Game #66 : Super Stardust Ultra (PS4 | ~10hrs | Trophies - 88%)
Still just as good on the PS4...

Game #67 : Hatsune Miku : Project DIVA F 2nd (Vita | ~75hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Just as amazing as the first Project DIVA game, looking for too Project DIVA X.

Game #68 : inFAMOUS : First Light (PS4 | ~12hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Started playing this because I heard is was shortish and needed something different at the time. Had a really good time with it, so much so that jumped back into Second Son straight after to do the Evil/Hard run..

Game #18 : Infamous : Second Son (PS4 | ~22hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Good story complete, will clean up the city and then move onto Expert and the Evil story.

Game #69 : Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus (Vita | ~40hrs | Trophies - 100%)
First foray into ths game and series, certainly something else... played this back to back with...

Game #70 : Senran Kagura Bon Appetit! (Vita | ~25hrs | Trophies - 100%)
If Shinovi Versus was something else, then this was, I still don't know! HA! Anyway, I'll be there is early 2016 for the next entry!

Game #71 : The Walking Dead : Season 2 (Vita | 10mins | Trophies - 0%)
It was planned to be played, but I couldn't get my save game recognised, so the run has been abanonded for now.

Game #72 : Journey (PS4 | ~4hrs | Trophies - 47%)
Still as beautiful as ever.

Game #73 : Nekoburo: Cats Block (Vita | ~7hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Not sure why I picked this up, but I thought there would be more substance or depth to the game or puzzle element, but in the end it was a series of levels only with preset conditions for clearing it. Not terrible, but the game needed more.

Game #74 : Flame Over (Vita | ~15hrs | Trophies - 60%)
This one certainly doesn't hold your hand, tough as nails, with some good luck required for some of the single run trophies.

Game #75 : Hatoful Boyfriend (Vita | ~7hrs | Trophies - 31%)
Why? Just Why? lol Need to go back for all the endings.

Game #76 : Super Time Force Ultra (Vita | ~5hrs | Trophies - 10%)
This game gets really confusing fast, still seems fun to play at times.

Game #77 : Rayman Legends (PS4 | ~20hrs | Trophies - 65%)
Despite not finishing the Vita version to 100% Trophies, I started the PS4 version up, kinda in a similar position with this one now, need to find the effort to keep logging in for challenges, but the Top 10 places are really deflate the want to.

Game #78 : Rocket League (PS4 | ~20hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Fun game, very addictive... Completely shit at it still... lol

Game #79 : Xeodrifter (Vita | ~5hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Super light version of a Metroid type game, had more fun than I thought I would, if fleshed out it could have been something special.

Game #80 : Tearaway Unfolded (PS4 | <2hrs | Trophies - 1%)
Started it up to show the kids, but they were only 2 years old, so they weren't interested in watching me play it, will go back eventually.

Game #81 : Danganronpa Another Episode : Ultra Despair Girls (Vita | ~30hrs | Trophies - 44%)
Mechanically the game works, it not great with aiming and things like that. Whilst there are connections to the other games, the game still doesn't "need" to exist, but I'm still happy that it does, the collectables are a complete chore though and has stopped me from getting 100% at the moment.

Game #82 : Uncharted : Drake's Fortune Remastered (PS4 | ~12hrs | Trophies - 29%)
The worst Uncharted compared to all the others, but it was the first attempt from Naughty Dog to do something more serious, there are design choices that were questionable nowdays, but they learnt from the feedback. The jump in quality from Uncharted to Uncharted 2 is what gives me hope that The Order : 1886 will have it's own chance.

Game #83 : Rock Band 4 (PS4 | ~2hrs | Trophies - 4%)
Waiting for export packs to become available to really give this a shake.

Game #84 : WRC 4 FIA World Rally Championship (Vita | <3hrs | Trophies - 11%)
Less than 3hrs of game time supposedly, I'm trying to get the Online trophies first before hitting up the single player stuff.
Seems to be better than WRC 3, but still more or less the same.

Game #85 : PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (Vita | ~25hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Return to the party, finally obtained the online trophies to complete this off and finally free up the memory card!

Game #86 : PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (PS3 | ~15hrs | Trophies - 42%)
Return to the party, looking to obtain the rest of the online trophies, then delete it off the hard drive.

Game #87 : LEGO Dimension (PS4 | <2hrs | Trophies - 2%)
Expensive game, very expensive, looking to get the kids involved in this one, but need to find the right time.

Game #88 : Gauntlet (PS4 | <2hrs | Trophies - 0%)
Gave it a whirl, this is something that I would like to continue, but there seems to be a big grind factor, see how it goes.

Game #89 : Worms Revolution Extreme (Vita | ~15hrs | Trophies - 74%)
Mainly online trophies to mop up, but this was sitting on the Vita for so long and it felt like the right time to play it.

Game #90 : Rugby World Cup 2015 (Vita | ~7hrs | Trophies - 100%)
It really isn't a great game, there are some tricky things you can do, but the controls are both overly complicated to pull off such things, plus the AI isn't dynamic enough to warrant attempts to try the tricky stuff because there is no need. The controls also seem loose/laggy also.

Game #91 : The Escapists (PS4 | ~2hrs | Trophies - 3%)
Bought in the sale, but this game throws you into the deep end with a crafting system that needs an exercise book of notes on how to make certain things, need to read up on this more before heading back to jail.

Game #92 : Persona 4 : Dancing All Night (Vita | ~14hrs | Trophies - 47%)
Game on Hard is fucking hard, mainly because the number of 'misses' seems rather low before failing, yet before that 99% of the track could be Perfect. Seems a touch unbalanced, anyway... enjoying this quite alot still, and the characters have been interesting enough to make me actually consider getting Persona 4 Golden.

Game #93 : Tales From The Borderlands (PS4 | ~10hrs | Trophies - 50%)
Just about halfway through, loving this so far, should have played this earlier.
Game #93 : The Escapists (PS4 | ~2hrs | Trophies - 3%)

WeWereGiants · Dec 25, 2014

First year attempting this, I'm incredibly surprised I made it this quickly.

Update 1
Game 1: Monument Valley (iOS) 1:20
Game 2: Framed (iOS) 1:30
Game 3: Nintendo Pocket Football Club (3DS) 36:11
Update 2
Game 4: Yoshi's Story (N64) 0:45
Game 5: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (WIi U) 5:36
Game 6: Pokemon Link Battle! (3DS) 7:31
Game 7: Pokemon Trading Card Games (3DS VC) 5:11
Game 8: Pokemon Puzzle Challenge (3DS VC) 2:04
Update 3
Game 9: Mario Tennis (GBC) 4:03
Game 10: Huniepop (PC) ~3:00
Game 11: The Legend Of Korra (PS4) ~6:00
Game 12: Assassins Creed IV Black Flag (PS4) ~18:00
Game 13: Citizens Of Earth (Wii U) 19:41
Game 14: Lara Croft And The Temple Of Osiris (PS4) ~6:00
Game 15: Grim Fandango Remastered (PS4) ~12:00
Game 16: Kirby: Triple Deluxe (3DS) 6:25
Game 17: Minecraft PS4 Edition (PS4) ~30:00
Update 4
Game 18: The Order 1886 (PS4) ~8:30
Game 19: Persona: Racing All Afternoon (PC) ~1:30
Game 20: Pokemon Shuffle (3DS) 8:30
Game 21: Valiant Hearts (PS4) ~6:00
Game 22: Pokemon Snap (N64) ~2:30
Game 23: ZigZag (iOS) ~3:30
Game 24: Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires (PS4) ~15:00
Game 25: Mario Party 10 (Wii U) ~4:00
Game 26: Super Mario 64 (N64) 7:13
Game 27: Boxboy! (3DS) 4:45
Update 5
Game 28: Goof Troop (SNES) 3:00
Game 29: Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) 70:00
Game 30: The Unfinished Swan (PS4) 4:00
Game 31: Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (3DS) 29:13
Game 32: Pokemon Rumble World (3DS) 6:00
Game 33: Puzzles & Dragons SMB Edition (3DS) 22:22
Game 34: Broken Age (PS4) 8:15
Game 35: Race The Sun (PS4) 6:00
Game 36: Beetle Adventure Racing (N64) 2:30
Game 37: Splatoon (Wii U) 3:31
Game 38: Mario Party 2 8:00
Game 39: Windosill (PC) 0:29
Game 40: Tokyo School Life (PC) 1:39
Game 41: Kingdom Hearts (PS3) 6:07
Game 42: Super Smash Bros (Wii U) 49:32
Game 43: Puzzles & Dragons Z (3DS) 22:50
Game 44: Yoshi's Woolly World (Wii U) 13:41
Game 45: Final Fantasy: TCC (3DS) 7:31
Game 46: Paper Mario: Sticker Star (3DS) 17:19
Game 47: AFL Live 2 (PS3) (8:00
Game 48: Mighty Switch Force (Wii U) 5:00
Game 49: Rocket League (PS4) 25:00
Game 50: Never Alone (PS4) 4:30
Game 51: Final Fantasy XV: ED (PS4) 10:00
Game 52: Mighty Switch Force 2 (Wii U) 4:32

52 Games Complete!!!

VisceralBowl · Dec 25, 2014

Fee said:
What's the best way to track time played for a console game?

Manually track time, read save games, guess. You don't really need to report the time unless you want to.

If you have Xbox 360/One, you can get MS to send you monthly statements with playtime per game and app (idk how, I get them rarely).

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