by asylumrunner
Like last year, I'm giving myself a goal to clear out a certain amount of my backlog this year. Despite actually missing my target last year, I'm going to increase the target this year to 30 games. The reason is that I want to encourage myself to play more of the smaller (<5 hour) games in my library, and forcing myself to in order to reach a quota makes sense.
Same loose set of rules apply as last year: any platform counts, replays count as long as it's the first time I played it this year, and a game is "completed" when credits roll (er, at least, the final credits, if a game is gonna pull some Okami or NieR: Automata credit shenanigans).
Showing 1-10 of 30 items
A charming little Metroidvania, although it never quite gets much of an identity of its own. Has some challenges that rely more on execution than clever thinking, which are frustrating because the controls are just a smidge too slippery for that sort of gameplay. A lot of my memories with this game are frustrated, partially because I accidentally did something of a sequence break in which I did an entire fourth of the game without a critical movement upgrade (did snag an achievement, though). I wonder how well this game will stay in my memory with so much competition in the Metroidvania space.
I dunno, I think a lot of my opinion of this game is ballooned by my wanting to like it more than my actually liking it. The art style is really charming, and the dialogue is too, but, I dunno, it maybe was just a bit too aimless for me. Really, my big issues with the game were a combined lack of navigability to the map and a lack of any sort of log or quest list. I get that this isn't a game for 100% Tryhard Doin' Stuff Hardcore, but when I find an object, and I don't remember who wants it, or where they are, it's not relaxing, it's annoying. I think I just don't dig these sorts of feel good, chill out games.
Genuinely a masterpiece in my opinion, and one of my favorite games of all time. I'll concede that this game has some low points. The dialogue can be especially on-the-nose, sometimes Sam gets a bad case of "can't keep balance for shit-itis", and the combat starts to feel a bit tiresome by the end. But goddamn if this game isn't like anything else ever made. This game's themes and ideas are so fantastically interesting and moving and incredible to witness. The world is absolutely gorgeous. Obviously the soundtrack, and the game's careful deployment of it, is phenomenal. I can genuinely say that no game has moved me like Death Stranding in a long, long time.
I really enjoyed this! The writing is great, even if the larger plot beats are moderately predictable. The Picrossin' here is good, even if I find myself wishing for a few convenience features like a chat log or a "reset puzzle" option. Also, the intro cinematic is *perfect*. I would love for this to turn into a whole series, maybe even with some more in-depth interrogation mechanics. My one big complaint is that there are some tonal inconsistencies, where a few characters just really stick out as real sacks of garbage in an otherwise fairly lighthearted game, and not even sacks of garbage in a fun, bad-guy-in-a-comedy sort of way, but genuinely unlikeable, and it rubs me the wrong way.
Astonishingly good, no-frills puzzle game. Does a lot with an extremely limited pool of mechanics, with no chaff, easy resets, fair hints, and enjoyable bonuses to collect in the form of the game's crowns and cosmetic unlockables. I made a ritual of clearing a world before bed, and it was a delightful little brain teaser. Like the best puzzle games, any time I was stuck, I was able to just put it down, leave for a few minutes to do something else, come back, and immediately see an answer.
I really, really, really like DUSK. The shooting and movement both feel top notch, which is, like, 100% of this subgenre of old-school shooter. The level designs feel inventive and extremely interesting, and there are a lot of fun enemy types that behave differently, that the game does a great job of mixing and matching to create new, interesting combat encounters. Really just sublime in every regard, I don't have much of a complaint in any regard. A worthy successor to Doom and Heretic
The best racing game ever made, bar none. Lacking a traditional "story", I'm invoking the credits roll here as a signifier of a game being "done", I got the Burnout License, and to get anything higher requires beating every event in the game, which, fuck that. I have remarkably few complaints. The soundtrack, save 'Girlfriend', has aged like garbage, the game could really do with a "restart event from start" shortcut, and sometimes the post-takedown autopilot puts you back in control of your car in a place that's extremely disadventageous. But, dammit, the driving in this game feels good, exploring Paradise City is a blast, and running expensive cars straight into a goddamn wall is never not fun.
I don't envy the task of having to make a game to follow up Doom(2016). That game's excellence comes from how tight the design is, there is so little chaff (and what chaff there is sticks out painfully as the worst part of the game) that trying to add to it must have felt like trying to add to this dense, atomic black box. In the realm of combat, they totally did it. Going back and watching footage of Doom(2016), it looks positively glacial compared to Eternal. The resource collection loop, combined with some fun new enemy types, great weapon changes, and excellent movement options, make most every fight feel dynamic, and it does, to use the line, make you want to rip and tear. But wow everything else they added is bullshit. The plot here is both clumsily written, bafflingly paced, and tries too hard to justify things that I did not care at all about. This game is borderline character assassination for the Doom Slayer, turning him from a single-minded engine of carnage to a dweeb who collects Funko Pops and has a pair of nunchucks. The platforming elements at best elicit no reaction, and at worst are hot garbage. id, for Doom Eternaler, I don't give a shit about Doom Lore. That was the beauty of Doom(2016), was that there was a setting and lore and themes, but you created a player avatar that embodied the player's desire for violence. Don't make me collect ancient relics. Don't make me listen to the monologues of villains, taunting me with guilt. Give me huge guys, with huge guts.
Oh my god I regret sleeping on this game, it's a genuine gem. For starters, the dynamic bump-and-grind-based movement mechanics are an absolute delight to play with, making every fight an extremely high-paced romp and ensuring you're always moving, always looking for the next rail or bounce pad to jump between, and it never gets old. This game is also just gorgeous? The art style and animation are phenomenal, you can tell a lot of love went into them. Do yourself a favor and go look up a reel of the respawn animations, just them alone are such a good encapsulation of the fun and creativity in this game. Speaking of fun, it goes for ironic, fourth-wall breaking humor and it totally works? In an era of shitty Deadpool knock-offs, it's good to know that there are still writers out here who can totally nail this punk, too-cool-to-be-here, referential tone and actually genuinely make me laugh out loud. This game rules. It's on Game Pass, go play it for free, and then go buy it anyways to try and get them to make more of them.
A game that someday I will be able to recommend without reservation, but... not at launch time. The changes to the XCOM formula are fantastic here. Keeping a small squad of unkillable named characters means you never have a campaign implode because of casualties in your "A-Team" forcing B-Team squaddies to come out in late game, but the wound churn for that A-Team means you're constantly switching up your squad composition and trying new powers. Breaching is a nice way to simplify the sluggish early setup turns of XCOM, and the new timeline is very fun to mess with. But HOLY SHIT this game is buggy right now. In the 4 days it took me to plow through this game, the game crashed *eleven times*. Animations would freeze or bug out. One of my squad members was unusable, because the game refused to let me equip them. Fittingly, the second the credits stopped rolling for me, the game crashed. But once that stuff all gets patched out, Chimera Squad is a ton of fun. I'd love to play it again down the road with some of the other squad members I didn't pick, the gameplay is just so fun and satisfying, and I hope they carry its best ideas to the XCOM 3 they obviously set up at the end.