Second post of mine. This is for games #31 - #52 and perhaps beyond.
First
Main Post is over there for games #1-#30
Game #31 Unium on Steam. 100% complete.
This game awarded me for making a single line. I felt quite accomplished. Joke aside, it's a basic puzzle mechanic to make each puzzle a single colour (white or black), all with a single long line. I wanted to like it, as it is rather competent of a mechanic and there is a large amount of fan-made levels to get, but I never fully enjoyed my time with it and simply used it as a way to kill time, despite hoping it would get better with more challenging stages.
Game #32 Resident Evil 3: Nemesis for PC. Story complete.
Despite a love for the franchise and having bought the title when it was released on PS1, I never could push myself to complete it back then. Primarily this was due to me not caring about Jill in this story line and my enjoyment of the Resident Evil style constantly being derailed by Nemesis. He was never a sense of paranoia to me, but rather a "him again" and wish I could just take my time.
Beating the game now made me realise I never gave the game a fair chance, as I focused on one aspect that I didn't care for while ignoring a lot of the things I did quite care for. Increased number of enemies, more detailed environments, 180* turn, some of the random people one comes across in the city, and the side-narrative.
I'm glad to have finally put this one to rest and embraced the charm of what it offered, even if I still consider Code Veronica really the third main story in the franchise.
Game #33 Until Dawn for PS4. Story completed several times.
The horror game for those who like to scream at characters in horror movies for doing something stupid.
As an adventure game, choosing the actions of several characters and causing different events to happen and offering replay value through that, it's easily one of the best in my mind. Whether I try to kill everyone or save everyone, always some little moment that surprises me that I did not encounter in one of my several previous playthroughs and I love it for that.
It has it's faults. As a horror story it plays a bit too close to it's genre, and the amount of endings is not quite as robust as marketing may lead some to believe, but it got me quite immersed in what was going on and with each character. Even when I played it a second or third time trying for different things, I could always pretend it's just like a remake of a 70s horror movie in the 90s, mostly the same, but different events, still good all the way through.
Makes me wish Supermassive Games would get the Halloween or Friday the 13th license and give it this treatment.
Game #34 An Imp? A Fiend! on Steam. Completed story.
If You Must Win This Game was a tribute to classic ZX Spectrum/Amiga platformers, this feels like a tribute to the attempts at making such games early on in the following generation of titles where technology had improved, but game design hadn't fully caught up yet to what was now offered.
It's not a bad game, it's just not a very special or great game either. An action platformer where you must fight enemies, wall jump and platform to get keys or hit a switch, in an open map for order of one's choice, just stuck in a world without well designed (not bad however) layouts for fighting or platforming. Stuck with outdated "talk to this person, find item, find place to put item" mechanic with very little clear instruction of where to go.
Moments where I cared for it. A Super Meat Boy-esque portion of a factory, buzzsaws and all. Most moments where I wish I could just avoid the enemies all together or had a teleport to a central location mechanic.
It wasn't bad for how cheap it was, but there are so many titles in this style that do it so much better, I don't see much point to playing it.
#Game 35 Hexcells Infinite on Steam. Completed all puzzles. Able to stop addiction and uninstall the game.
Technically I beat this one earlier this year, but I only put it down for good and feel a sense of "I'm done with this game", in the form of satisfaction.
Hexcells is my favourite puzzle series on Steam. A game that will remind many of Minesweeper in that you are given clues as to what to mark and what blocks to remove via the numbers around. No random guessing is required, though it can feel that way until you figure something out, and a game design that never demands you go in a rush and thus can relax or stress as much as you want in figuring it out.
Infinite is the toughest game in the series, having treated 1 as the tutorial and 2 as the "now understand on how to do it with less clues and/or larger scale", but also the easiest thanks to the 999,999+ include stages that are located as part of a "random" seed and are never too complicated because they weren't designed by someone's hand.
Infinite also comes with the much appreciated improvement of being able to close the stage and return without losing the entire progress. Other subtle improvements help a lot to make this the most refined version of the game.
I spent at least a 100 hours across each of the three games, and each time I had good fun figuring it out. Especially the early stages where what I once thought was tough, became quite the breeze as I knew what I was doing the second or third time through. Yet not once did I ever do the stages purely by memorisation of what to remove or what image was formed, as unlike Picross it's not a matter of knowing what puzzle is formed.
Game #36, #37, #38 Crash Bandicoot 1, 2, Warped for PS1 100% or higher completion on 1 and 2, story mode on Warped.
While I consider titles such as Mario 64, Spyro, and others of that era to be better games, I still feel as though Crash 1 and 2 (Warped less so), to be better showings of turning the ideas of those 2D games into a world of 3D geometry. Moving in one direction, able to try for pixelated perfect jumps, and a healthy amount of memorisation (though not demanded on standard stages). Other titles expanded into their own area, while this served as a step between the two, and perhaps better than Super Mario 3D Land did for a similar basis.
The design that went into Crash Bandicoot 1 remains one of my favourite development stories. From research and making use of all the tricks of the Playstation 1 hardware, to subtle mechanics such as giving more boxes for life gain if the player is dying more often, to how it would render and keep in memory what it had to show at just that moment. Well worth reading
http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/ if you are at all interested in game design.
What I came to appreciate most in my recent replays was something I missed when I was much younger. How well these games lead the player into what is to come and show, not tell, as tutorials. An early level can show you boxes to smash, a weird grey box you can't smash later on, a pit that is shallow yet will slow you down so best to jump over it before pits that will kill, and so forth. Nothing comes as a surprise as everything is showcased ahead of time for you to get used to the idea before it happens with few exceptions (gems). That's some good level design.
I greatly enjoyed my time with 1 and 2, even as I found Crash might catch oddly on geometry and that caused me to slow down or fall to my death on moving platform sections, and my thumbs hurt from the Sony D-Pad. I always felt I could complete a stage and get all the gems.
Warped on the other hand, I feel lost a bit of what made me enjoy the first two titles. Increased vehicle sections, which I already didn't care for. Less emphasis on platforming, instead more on getting through enemies. Time trials for a game that didn't feel as though speed running would be all that fun (to me). A title that felt like they had no more ideas for the series and were ready to move on.
Game #39 Tengami on Steam. 100% Completion
An interactive art exhibit of a Japanese art style combined with the mechanics of a digital pop-up book made this a welcomed experience as a worthwhile small title.
Pop out more
here.
Game #40 Xeodrifter on Steam. 100% Map and Items.
As small titles go I had fun with it to be sure, enough to collect every item and health pick up, but I never felt like it was more than a small title for a portable experience (which it was made for on 3DS). Fun for a tiny Metroid like title, but nothing special.
Use the clicking item to find Info
here.
Game #41 Treasures Of The Deep on PS1. Story completed. All creatures captured.
While the title has not aged gracefully, it's core game play mechanics of grabbing each and every creature or treasure I see so that I could buy more items to do it all over again, was more than enough to entertain me all the way through and wishing for a modern sequel. Buy if you loved the Fulton in Metal Gear Solid V and want a whole game of that, but underwater.
Dive to read more
here.
Game #42 OverBlood for PS1. Story completed.
Presented to me as a Survival Horror, but executed as an Adventure game in 3D geometry, OverBlood is a killer b experience of poor design, weak writing, and melodramatic dialogue, that I couldn't help but love and laugh at.
A bit more about sci-fi missteps
here.
Game #43 MYST on PC. Story completed.
It's MYST. A competent, classic, perhaps genre defining adventure game for many that I now feel accomplished for having completed.
Press a button to read more
here.
Game #44 Oh! Cube for iOS. All puzzles completed.
It's Picross 3D on mobile devices. Good fun, though never challenging.
A bit more blocks to remove to see the whole picture
here.
Game #45 Globulous on iOS. All puzzles completed and best scores achieved.
It's Tetrisphere, but not, for copyright reasons. A puzzle title where one slowly removes sections of a shell away until the object hidden in the sphere can break free by sending down Tetris pieces to match up and remove all linked shapes. Good simple fun.
Drop a L block
here for more.
Game#46 Bloodborne on PS4. Story and DLC completed twice with two different weapon styles.
King's Field, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, now Bloodborne, it's Gothic horror where mistakes can make any enemy a killer and I love it so for it's frantic and upfront change to the combat. I'm glad I bought a PS4 to experience it.
Stab
here for more.
Game #47 Shadow Complex on PC (yay!). 100% Story, weapons, achievements completed.
I can't tell you much about the story other than attempted coup against the United States, but then I don't need to. It was justification for game play and that's all I needed. It's music and sound were unremarkable originally, and a bit lackluster as not improved now free from XBLA size restrictions, but the game play was a joy and that's all that mattered here to explore and backtrack with new items.
Hidden
here is more information.
Game #48 Squarecells for Steam. 100% Puzzles solved.
From the makers of Hexcells comes Squarecells. Taking similar mechanics from it's predecessor this Picross meets Minesweeper gave me the same sense of accomplishment when I figured out each and every puzzle with no guessing ever required (though still done until I figured it out a few times).
The clue to more of how I view it is
here.
Game #49 Batman Arkham Origins on Steam. Story completed.
While I enjoyed the game and obviously care a lot about it, but it's lack of challenge and various glitches means I'll never get a 100% in-game or achievements as I did for Asylum and City (twice for both with PS3 versions played) and I'll leave it incomplete with no desire to ever do New Game + or those left over achievements.
It's a glitch
here
You can also read a bit more
here.
Game #50, #51, #52 Onimusha Trilogy on PS2. Story completed for all.
I had some issues and faults with the trilogy, be it what has not aged well or "puzzles" that did not feel like they belonged before they figured out what they wanted from the game series, but nothing to take away from the setting I fell in love with or the story I wanted to see to completion. To block and counter the deadliest foe to trading a simple jewel to making someone happy to doing what little one man can do in a major city under attack, it was grand.
It's not Resident Evil in Japan with demons, it's something more and stands on it's own as a worthwhile experience that shouldn't be missed I believe.
Spend some souls to read more
here.
