by zor
A list of most* of the games I played in 2025
I'll list them in this format:
[Platform], [Release Year], [Score]: Review text
Am going to use a 3 point score system.
1 = Don't recommend
2 = Maybe recommend
3 = recommend
*most = Am going to try to include all the games I played, but, i usually miss some during the year. Or I play a game a small amount, or I don't feel like including it.
Showing 1-10 of 73 items
XSX, 2024, 2/3: An action adventure game where you a bulky space marine, on his quest to.. well... kill all the enemies of the emperor, be they xenos or the forces of chaos. You have a 3 weapon load out (usually), a main gun, a side arm, and a melee weapon. Each group has choices, and those choices do feel different from each other. Visual the game looks good, and it has a cool style (well, its the Warhammer 40k style). Audio is pretty good too... but the music is forgettable at best. The story is solid, but not noteworthy... well, the ending has an issue i'll go into later. The gameplay is fun, it is a bit old school-ish, in the sense you are just running around in the open, kill enemies, and not using cover as... cover. And for the most part, you are just going from point A to point B, killing stuff along the way, or killing stuff at the point, or defending the point (by killing stuff) until a timer runs out. There not a lot of variety in this game. Especially not when compared to Black Ops 6, where most missions felt unique from each other. In Space Marine 2, there a big sense of sameness. Lucky, there is an online pve mode for 3 players. Its kind of the same gameplay, but there are classes, and other human players, so its a change of pace... And the single player did have some cool moments. Completed: The Single Player Campaign, all the PvE online missions (once), and 1 pvp match (we won, woot). The game is fun, it does most things alright, and the theme/style are interesting. However, objectively thinking about the gameplay, and I feel disappointed that it was just so... generic. I took breaks from the game (to play the other mode) on purpose, while playing it, and if i hadn't, i think my opinion on it would be much lower.
NSW, 2019, 2/3: The brain games don't make you smarter, but I feel like they do keep your mind active, so I don't feel as rusty as I would if i didn't play them. In any case, am mainly just playing the sudoku mini-game. Their fun, and i figured I could go through them. Once those are finish, i'll probably fully stop playing this game.
NSW, 2024, 3/3: A RPG, strategy game, where you make squads, containing characters of different classes (well, you can have all of the same class if you want, but it won't do well) like fighters, mage, dragonrider, knight, etc... whom have different abilities, and move them around a map to do the objective (usually take the enemy control center, or take out their leader). The overworld is a world map, and it has about 150 battles on it (which is where the maps mention above take place). When you win, you take that area on the overworld. And can rebuilt the town (to gather overworld resources from the area (which are needed to rebuild), use the forts (to hire mercs, and upgrade your units/squads), and remove the random patrolling enemies in that area. Combat itself is automatic, you set tactics for your units, and they execute them automatically when combat happens. Stuff like, use the AoE attack if there are 2 or more units in this row, or cast cure if a friendly unit's hp is below 75%. It can get a bit overwhelming, but the shear number of units and abilities, but the game has an auto setup ability for units (to set what the game thinks is the best items and tactics) which is useful and helps a lot. The game has a hand drawn art style, with a generic anime medi-evil fantasy feel. Most of the dialogue in the game is voiced (all the main story stuff), and the voice acting is okay. The story is... generic at best. It gets the job done, and there are some above average characters, but overall, it just what you think it is. Completed: The game, took about 50 hours. I don't know if i got every character, i think i did, but there are so many, that I could have missed some, and just didn't notice. Did every quest, and some of the post game too. While the story is forgettable, I really enjoyed the gameplay. This game just does things that I really like. Am really into territory control in games, and this game whole overworld is theme around that. I also like auto battlers where you setup tactics (some other rpgs, like ff12 let you do that for your squad mates). The other parts, like using special abilities on maps, and equipment with abilities and functionality changes are good too. If i had finish this last year, it would have been high on my GoTY list, but not at the top. While I did enjoy it a lot. The weak story, and some pacing issues (the game doesn't really add anything new that shakes up the gameplay, which becomes a problem over 50 hours), held it back a little. Still, this would have probably been like my number 3 or so.
PC, 2009, 1/3: An exploration, adventure rogue game. Where each run the map changes (a little bit, like the layout, but the overall themes do not. Same traps, enemies, and such), and your goal is to get to the exit. After 4 or so levels in a zone, you get to the next. There are hidden exits to other zones, and other secrets in the game. You also are collecting items (some functionality changes, like hovering. Or bombs (to blow up part of the terrain and/or enemies). Ropes (to create something to climb up for a few spots), gold (to buy items), and sometimes people (who unlock new character skins, or restore a HP). There a lot to this game, and I can see why some people really got into it. But I didn't. The game just has too many instant kill traps, and enemies. The levels are boring (the random layout doesn't add anything to them). There little meta progression (you can unlock short cuts to later zones, after a while). The story is like 3 lines of text. The visuals aren't interesting. So yeah... Tried the game, got to the 4 or 5 zone (past the alien mothership special zone), but, i just didn't enjoy the game or what it was doing.
PC, 2022, 1/3: A overly complex, shallow, cozy animal crossing-like, which feels kind of chore like to play. You slowly wander around maps, picking up resources, than building rooms in very small select areas, than inviting people to stay at those rooms, so that after a long time, they'll pay you some money, which you can use in turn to buy new schematics for other items to build, to put into the rooms, to get higher level people, to make more money, and repeat the process in new areas, over and over again. Its a simple loop, And a slow loop. With too many resources, and not much actual do in regards to gameplay. I played about 2:40 of it, and other than a charming premise (of being a bear), the game doesn't do much right.
![[Redacted]](https://www.giantbomb.com/a/uploads/scale_super/0/1992/3673804-3538727576-libra.jpg)
PC, 2024, 2/3: A rogue-lite, based off the Hades format, in the TCP universe. And it is okay. The humor is bad, and childish, and there are some questionable design decisions (a lot of the weapons and suits, don't feel viable). But overall, it is fun enough. Its big gimmick is a rival system. Where some NPCs are also trying to complete the run, and only one of you can, so its a bit of a race/fight to the ending. Not going to go into too much details on this one, since I have a bias towards the title. Completed: 1 full run, got to the ending, unlock some new stuff, but none of it was interesting.
PC, 2023, 0/3: A rogue lite, that kind of a card battler, but the cards are dice-ish (they have 6 possible options that can be drawn, when they are drawn). Other than that, normal rogue-lite stuff, you go on a board from point to point, picking spots that have either battles, money, shops, buffs, events, or new dice. There a story about 6 planets around a sun, one of those planets fell to evil, so now your character (there are some choices, after you unlock them) is there, trying to fight their way to fix it. And yeah... that about it... and it is bad. Like, by the end of my time with the game, i kind of hated it. The wording on some of the dice abilities is confusing, and it isn't clear what some abilities will do, if anything. Combat is slow, and dull. The story is generic. The art style isn't interesting. The audio is bad. Hell, when i tried to lose on purpose, to see what the meta-level up system is (it just the lame, unlock more abilities rogue-like thingy) it took time and effort to do so. Enemies just weren't tough, and did a small amount of damage. So yeah, I just don't like this game.
PC, 2018, 1/3: An action rogue-lite, top down, ability based (which have cooldowns)(you get to choose 4 (one for each face button on a controller) and get more as your run goes on (for other buttons, i believe 7 in total is possible, though, i never got more than 5)). The game play reminds me a bit of hades (though, this game might have came out before Hades), but not as tight or fun. Which, is the real big problem with it. While it has solid ideas, the actual gameplay just doesn't click. Combat feels annoying, and not fun. The story is paper thin. The visuals are bland. And the abilities themselves don't feel cool. I played for about an hour before I had my fill. I cheated to unlock a ton of the abilities to try them out, but they were mostly just copies of each other, but in different element styles (fireballs that track, or lighting balls that track... etc..)
PC, 2022/2024, 1/3: A goofy, FPS, that plays a bit like Goat Simulator, in the janky, comedy, game genre. Poor voice acting, but that seems a bit on purpose. Poor controls, shallow gameplay, bad visuals, etc... and yeah... i guess if that, jank, is your bag, than this game is for you. But it isn't mine, so I bounce off it quickly.
PC, 2023, 2/3: A rpg with a top down camera, where you control up to 6 characters (the main pc and 5 npcs companions), set in the warhammer 40k universe. You play as a rogue trader, which means you can do whatever, as long as it is to help build an empire for the imperium of man. The game follows the Warhammer setting of being Grim Dark.. which am not going to go into detail of since the setting of Warhammer is well known, and if someone wants to know more they can look it up (and it would take too long). The gameplay is a mix of rpg (where you characters have stats like strength or willpower, equipment (armor, helmets, weapons, consumable items), levels, abilities both active and passive, and character classes) and turn base, grid combat. And it works fairly well, while playing. The biggest issue I had with the gameplay parts was that it didn't really explain what the difference between item types were (well, not well enough. Still not sure what Melta is, and if it is better than just using a flame thrower). And that there were just too many items of similar stats, so it came down to their effects. Which is fine when dealing with a handful of items, but when there are hundreds, it just feels overwhelming in an annoying way. The story of the game goes places, and I can't really sum it up quickly (my end play time for the game was 98 hours). But, to give a shallow summary, You get picked as the rogue trader, you go on a quest to find out who killed the last rogue trader (who picked you), on this adventure you meet your companies, help them out, go to places, help them out, all the while fighting the forces of chaos, and xenos. By the end, you find out what happen to the last rogue trader, their secrets, and decide the fate of your empire and companions by the actions you have taken during the game. One, major point of note, the game has a morality system of sorts. You can choose to be Dogmatic (fully blown for the Empire, anyone who disagrees has to be put down, the needs of the Empire come first), Ironcault (not sure how to spell it)(Helping people, being merciful. Doing what you think is right to help, even if it goes against the Empire). Or Heritcal (don't know how to spell it either)(self center, working for the forces of chaos, amassing power for yourself). And this morality system effect your choices in the game. So, for example, in the above summary, instead of helping people, you would be hurting them, in order to get as much power as possible. This would turn other people against you, but also turn the forces of chaos to your side.. a little, chaos forces aren't team players, so they help when it benefits them, and than backstab to get more. Overall the story is okay, but the presentation brings it down a lot. So yeah, the presentation for the game is on the same level as other Owlcat games. Which means about 5% of the game has voice over, and the other 95% is just text. The visuals are sub-par. The game isn't optimized (my PC was making a lot of noise, fans going full blast, and i haven't seen this kind of drain since running Doom Eternal on Ultra) . And the writing is unclear at times (it isn't clear what some choices you are making are, by the way they are worded). Completed: The main story, all quest and rumors I could find, and the dlc for void shadow. Took 98 hours, made a save at the end, and check out a different ending, which turns out, changed only about half of it. During the later half of the game, I started to guide myself to specific endings for characters. And I mostly got what i wanted. However, even with guides and cheating, a couple of the endings i wanted were missed, and I don't know why. Also, some of the endings felt too forced, like I know warhammer 40k is suppose to be 'grim dark', but it just feels like bad writing to have so many negative endings when the player is given a choices in the game. Still, I did enjoy the game, spent so much time with it. Going to circle back to it when the next DLC comes out (since i have the season pass). But, it isn't a game I would recommend to everyone. If you like the squad base rpg like the other owlcat games, baulder gates, or are really into warhammer, than yes, this game might be for you.