by beargirl1
Hi, thanks for reading! This is just my humble record of the games that I have played this year, along with little blurbs of my thoughts if I have any. This year, I'm going to try and continue the trend of playing the games that I want to play without getting super caught up in what's hot at the moment. This, of course means that I'm going to find an excuse to play Ninja Gaiden Black and all the Grand Theft Auto + Resident Evil games again, so please respect me in those trying times. Sorry again, Valkyria Chronicles.
xoxo
Ajay
Previous years: [2011] [2012] [2013] [2014] [2015] [2016] [2017] [2018] [2019]
Showing 1-10 of 47 items
• January 2nd (and again on early May 19th with 🐶) • PlayStation 2 (via PS4 Backwards Compatibility) • ✓ Completed main story Not that I think anyone is itching to replay Grand Theft Auto III in fucking 2020, but I think that people seriously underestimate how god damn weird the PS2-era Grand Theft Auto games were. This feels less like it's in the same category as San Andreas or GTA IV and more along the lines of like... a 3D version of Grand Theft Auto 2. I mean this in the sense that Grand Theft Auto III doesn't really ever feel like it's trying to portray this ultra-realistic metropolis, but instead a vague parody playground built for complete mayhem. It's a step removed from GTA 2's oil slicks and hood-mounted machine guns, but there are still bizarre missions where you're running down drug dealers only for the mission text to say "DEALER MINCED!!!" or firing rockets at a dude encased in a bulletproof, full-body cast. It's even down to the tinier details like earning money for blowing up cars, or how the sound of running somebody over literally just sounds like somebody at DMA Design stepping on an orange. I guess this is all to say that Grand Theft Auto III is a glimpse into what this series (and Rockstar as a whole, I guess) could have been if it didn't blow up as colossally as it did. You can see the strive for movie-quality voice acting and cutscenes in Vice City, while III barely has any story to speak of whatsoever. It's to the point where you can just skip all the cutscenes and not miss a damn thing because every mission comes down to "go here and shoot this guy" or "drive to these three points in the city before the time runs out." I guess in that sense, Grand Theft Auto III is the most video game-ass video game because you can literally see the seams in how the missions were designed. It really drives home the point that no matter how many millions of dollars that Rockstar can spend on voice acting and polish, the archaic mission design always comes down to just going somewhere and doing something to fulfill a variable, or something like that. It's not bad by any means - in fact, I think it lends a ton of charm to a game that would likely be otherwise totally outdated nearly 19 years after its initial release. For as much as I can acknowledge the overwhelming amount of detail, polish and, well - labor that goes into something like Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto III feels like a honest-to-god video game made by normal people. It's full of busted-ass garbage like AI driving into walls and cars in traffic blowing themselves up with zero player intervention, but that's also what's so much fun about it. It's imperfect, and over-the-top, and it feels like a world to cause needless, cathartic wanton violence in as opposed to this finely crafted world that we're supposed to take so god damn seriously. I think that's why I have played through Grand Theft Auto III like, four times in the past couple of years and haven't even thought once about returning to Grand Theft Auto V or Red Dead 2 - as much as I loved my time with them. Grand Theft Auto III is just... fun, in a way that lets loose and knows, for as groundbreaking as it knew it was going to be, that this was still the same series that had a dedicated farting and burping button. Classy.
• January 17th • PlayStation 4 • ✓ Completed all missions on normal as Ranger I was extra depressed, so I bought Earth Defense Force 5 on a whim because I was hoping for it to keep me distracted for a while. Needless to say, this is the same junk that they've released for all the other entries. This is also to say that EDF 5 is fucking crazy. The last few missions have the most messed up enemy encounters and battlefields that I've seen in pretty much any game. The added splatter, weather effects and damage modeling are nice touches alongside a few class changes and weapon upgrades. It's the same shit, so I don't have much to say other than I had so much fun playing this game, and I know I will again when they release this exact same game again in five years.
• February 18th • PlayStation 2 (via PCSX 2 emulator) • ✓ Completed main story Revisiting Def Jam: Fight for NY in 2020 was one of those pleasant, though increasingly rare instances where something is not as good as you remember it, but instead much better. I liked this game for a lot of reasons - notably the blending of popular hip hop stars (at the time) with a seedy, back-alley premise and over-the-top, yet gruesome violence. In retrospect, however, it's apparent just how god damn weird the finished product is, given that it's just appropriating the AKI wrestling system for this bloodthirsty, illegal street fighting video game with Henry Rollins and Danny Trejo thrown into the mix. More so, it's even more baffling just how good it is. The speedy additions to the Vendetta's mechanics make this so much faster and give you a lot more tools to get out of some fucked up situations. It's fun, and there's an excellent attention to detail in just the little things - like how the hook of the current song will kick in after you hit your finishing move, and all the different kinds of dialogue and custom fighting styles that all the different celebrity characters have. In this way, it's surprisingly cohesive for a game that is essentially a mishmash of popular names of the day, especially since the voice work is quite good and the stars seem way into what they're doing. Something I'll say is that this is _definitely_ some 2004-ass shit, though. The male-only custom character looks absolutely ridiculous, no matter how much you try to make him look like, well... not a beefed-up male fantasy action figure. Couples with how throwaway the female cast in this game is and how they're used as fodder for the game's third act... a lot of that stuff hasn't aged all that well, but it's part of going back to essentially what is a time capsule of the early to mid-2000s. I'm okay with that. Some stray thoughts: - This was the first time I had ever heard of Christopher Judge and I always wondered if he was supposed to be some big-shot guy that I had just never crossed paths with. I still wonder this right now. - There is absolutely no fucking way that a game this wild would ever exist in 2020, but I like to think that the constant primordial twisting and turning of space and time can always prove me wrong - I don't really see myself coming back to this game for at least the next little while, but I think it would be fun to unlock all the cool secret characters sometime.
• February 23rd • PlayStation (via Retroarch emulator) • 🐶 + ✓ Completed story as Jill (best ending) It may come as no surprise to - well, just about anyone who keeps up with me but I had already played through the original Resident Evil recently. As a result, I don't have anything new to say about it except that I still love this game a whole lot. The catch for playing Resident Evil this time was that I played it with a boy that I'm very much in love with right now. He had never seen it to the end and I, for whatever reason, was looking for another flimsy reason to play this game again. It was thoroughly enjoyable, mostly to see his adorable reactions to just how strange this first game is. I will say that the dialogue in Jill's route is somehow more fundamentally busted than I ever remembered it being, and it got a ton of laughs and head scratches out of us. It was also super duper fun to see how he reacted to Barry's sub-human mannerisms and Jill's adorably stilted, vaguely sassy voice work. I think I could have fun with this game, no matter what but the fact that I got to share it with someone that I love and care for was special to me in ways that I can't express. I never, ever get the chance to show someone the things I love and get genuine interest, and a whole lot of mutual fun in return. I want to show him all the games that I love, and I want to see all the things that he loves, too. It's a new feeling to me - one that's definitely a little insecure but that uncertainty is consistently overpowered by eagerness and excitement. I could get used to this.
• March 6th • PlayStation (via Retroarch emulator) • 🐶 + ✓ Completed story as Claire (A Scenario) I've definitely said this in one form or another for the past several years, but the original Resident Evil 2 is by far my favorite game in the series. There is something about its gradual curtain reveal of sinister doings, increasingly morbid horror and pert sincerity that has made it stand out in my head as much as it has. It's not quite as campy as the first game (though it very much is campy) nor is it as action-packed and over-the-top as Resident Evil 3 ended up being. It finds a cosy middle-ground between the stuff that, in retrospect, makes Resident Evil so good. With all of that said, I was really, really glad that I got to experience this game again with my boyfriend. It was fun to see just how much of the same little details that we'd pick up, as well as the cool shit that I learned from his perspective. It was also really adorable to see how much he was taken aback by just how much better the horror had improved, and all sorts of creepy atmosphere and classic jump-scares. It's rare to experience this sort of game with someone who had never even played it before, so I was grateful for the chance and ecstatic over just how much fun it was playing this game with him. I can't wait to play more. ❤ Some stray thoughts: - Last time I played this game, I was surprised by just how short it was. Boyfriend thought the same thing, and it made me realize that this game's pace just doesn't really have any sort of middle act. Or - well, it does, it just goes by very, very quickly. It almost feels like we missed a big chunk of the game and just somehow ended up in the endgame. - I love Claire and Sherry, so so so so *so* much. Every time I see their story, I end up loving them even more. - I kinda wish that we decided to play Leon B... there's a lot of cool little stuff in there but I'm still excited to move onto Resident Evil 3. He doesn't know anything about this game, so I'm excited to see how he reacts to everything it has going on. heehee... - Fuck spiders.
• (early) March 18th • PlayStation (via Retroarch emulator) • 🐶 + ✓ Completed story (Barry ending) We've hit Resident Evil 3 in the Jace & Ajay Resident Evil Romp, and it's still pretty good! I know that I just played this game like, not even six months ago but I still had a lot of fun wandering through the fucked up ruins of Raccoon City with someone that hasn't seen it before. Nemesis is still scary, city is still cool, Jill still rules, Carlos is still a dope. I don't know if I have much - if at all to say anything this time around. Jace picked different choices throughout the story than I did so we ended up seeing some cool, different paths and outcomes. I don't think he was as terrified of Nemesis as I was, mostly because I was the one that had to fucking run from him. We'd both blank on most of the puzzles that dragged on the game's latter half, so we were content just looking up solutions, guilt-free. I will say that it was really, really fucking fun to see how he inevitably reacted to Nicholai just, exploding all the time, the over-the-top story beats and just the absolute, complete lack of human chemistry that Jill and Carlos had. We also had a ton of fun just blowing dudes up with the excess ammunition and mostly just breezing through the game while chatting up our usual nonsense along the way. Though I'm glad to be done with the original trilogy, what comes next is... the point of no return. Some stray thoughts: - Jace pointed out the cute sweater around Jill's waist - i never noticed how much it complimented her outfit, honestly but her extra outfits in this game are also superb - Man, they really made Carlos just the most vague, unlikable non-character huh - The scene with Nicholai in the fuckin' gas station is, in retrospect, one of the funniest things that has ever been put into a video game. Actually, this game is more hilarious than it is scary, now that I've played it 3-4 times in the past few years - I'm writing this before trying the 3 remake demo... what scaries await me now...?
• April 1st • PlayStation 4 • Remastered • ✓ Completed campaign on recruit Man, it's not every day that you wake up to the news of one of your favorite campaigns ever being remastered and released on the same day. Unsurprisingly, Modern Warfare 2 is still something that I overwhelmingly enjoy - more than any of the campaigns in the following years in spite of how good *those* were. I just think that it ramps up such a frantic, globe-trotting pace with such excellence and it always takes you to cool places under fucked up circumstances and a ton of exciting set pieces. Not to mention the dialogue is still great (if not EXTREMELY dated) and the voice work is real nice too. Of course, there's a lot you can say about how this game (and basically every Call of Duty game) serves as a vehicle for pro-American, pro-imperialist & nationalist propaganda, so all the fun I have with it is always taken with a helping of salt. It certainly doesn't know *what* direction it's trying to go in politically speaking, which is why the Task Force 141 stuff is by leaps and bounds the most engaging and exciting stuff. Price and Soap were always the best part about the Modern Warfare series, and I think that notion holds up more and more as the US Marine oorah stuff continues to date itself. Something I noticed about why this game stands out so much to me, apart from rampant nostalgia is that there is just a ton of really great imagery in this game. From the way things are revealed, to gorgeous looking locations (thanks to a generous remaster from Beenox) and excellent POV framing on certain things like how Soap fires the flare in the gulag. There are just a ton of well-crafted spaces that stuck in my mind as I wandered through them - both then and now. Though I think the most recent Call of Duty games have had fantastic campaigns, it never quite feels on the same level of touch and love as it did when West and Zampella were working at Infinity Ward. Multiplayer and all, I think this and Black Ops were Call of Duty at its peak.
• April 5th • Xbox 360 (via Xbox One BC) • ✓ Completed campaign on recruit Given that it's the final game in the original Modern Warfare trilogy, it's only appropriate that Modern Warfare 3 serves as the catalyst for how fucking crazy the series would be for the next nine or ten years. I always underestimate this game before I play it, but it really is one hell of a fun experience. Though it completely eliminates any traces of perceived intelligence from the first two games, MW3 more than makes up for it with just how good at is at having everything fucking explode and creating near-death experiences every 15 to 30 minutes. It's loud, and dumb - sometimes for worse, but god damn is it ever entertaining, popcorn fun and at the very least, I can appreciate it for what it is. Some stray thoughts: - You could see this as the starting point of characters in Infinity Ward games dying needlessly for the sake of heroism. It's a really stupid one. - This game pumped my subwoofer to the max. I don't think I've ever heard it sound this chaotic before. It was a treat at the expense of my neighbors' peace. Sorry. - Again, this is the best ending that they could have possibly made for this story. Just, ugh. So good.
• April 7th • Xbox 360 (via Xbox One BC) • ✓ Completed campaign on recruit It's weird to me that, for as memorable as Call of Duty Black Ops has been for me, I don't really remember much about the campaign. I put most of that up to the fact that I came home and finished the story in one sitting on launch night, but even so, the numbers stuff and the wild twists at the end were more or less the only parts that stuck with me. I haven't revisited the Black Ops story since it came out, so I wasn't so sure what to expect going back into this one. It's OK. It's just OK, I guess. I really do think that the set-up and premise are all really, really cool especially if you think about what Treyarch did before this game. The heavy lean into mysterious cold war intrigue, numbers stations and sleeper cell terrorism still ends up building a cool-ass foundation if you can get past just how "ra-ra Americans are cool and Vietnam was great" the story ends up being. Even in retrospect 10 years later, Black Ops is probably one of the more ambitious games this colossal video game series has ever seen in virtually every aspect of its design. In that way, I can still appreciate it a lot. Things start to fall apart once you get into the nitty gritty of things, though. The voice work, for the most part is pretty damn rough, no thanks to some really, really awful dialogue. Woods and Ice Cube nail their performances, with the former having this really unhinged, fidgety feel to all of his delivery. It's great, and you can see why Woods ended up being the standout character considering his actor made gold out of some terrible stuff to work with. Sam Worthington is reliably terrible across the board, hilariously only putting in a convincing job when he's screaming in pain and terror. Again, his dialogue really sells just how lame of a character he is, in spite of everything that's done to give him a cool story. At least in comparison to how slick and cool Modern Warfare games are written, Black Ops feels like the plainest language delivered in the most uninteresting ways. It goes to show that strong writing in the minutia of things can really sell whatever's going on, regardless of how silly it is. There are other things too like constant discrepancies between dialogue and subtitles, as well as the weird quirks and typos sprinkled throughout. Animations look goofy, things pop in and out abruptly and overall it just feels... sloppy. Like these are things that should have been cleaned up for the biggest game in the world in 2010. This lack of polish combined with just how bad some of the effects are, it makes me wonder about the kind of budget that Treyarch had to work with post-World at War, and if it was ramped up severely given the rampant success of this game. It's a death by thousand cuts sort of thing - at some point Black Ops just feels amateurish, and janky in all the wrong ways. Some stray thoughts: - Weaver's voice is fucking hot. - The ending is really, really bad but at least the HILARIOUS imposition of Mason in that JFK still lightens the mood a little bit - I appreciated the callback to World at War, with Reznov and Dimitri, as well as returning weapons, equipment and music. I liked that game, and it was good to see Treyarch acknowledge their history in some way - My neighbors called us to turn the noise down when I was playing this game. I totally understand, but I wonder where they were during the explosion fest that was Modern Warfare 3?
• April 15th • Xbox 360 (via Xbox One BC) • ✓ Completed all missions This has been a awfully weird time for me, and - well, the world at large. So, I needed something awfully weird to distract me, and it just so happened that for as much as I love the series, I've never actually played the first Saints Row. I always figured that SR2 (the one I started with) was something that had more or less made the first game totally obsolete. From what I remember of playing SR2 over ten years ago, I'd say that I was pretty much dead-on. Still, I think there's merit to playing the first Saints Row, if only because the series continues to reference back to its events and characters over and over. In retrospect, for as fucking bonkers as the later Saints Row games got, this one isn't nearly as cool and composed as so many people remember it. In fact, I would say this game is real fucking weird in its own right. Sure, it's rooted in small-time street gang warfare, but it feels small and humble in the way that Grand Theft Auto III does. By that, I mean that you can see the edges of the game at every turn - not to mention, tons of little human errors like spelling, grammar and fucked up bugs. It's a lot more goofy and busted than I thought it'd be, thankfully to its merit since the story is surprisingly pretty good, with some sharply written characters and some oddly genuine-feeling dialogue. I never really felt like this was some sort of cliche pastiche-fest written by nerds, but instead it all comes together in a way that allows me to enjoy it as it is. I don't tend to feel that much in video games, especially older ones that are as fucked up and busted as this one. I don't know if that backhanded compliment sounds as good as I want it to, so I'll just say this - I liked Saints Row a whole bunch, and I'm glad I played it. Some stray thoughts: - Lin is such a great character for - well, what little of a character she is. She deserved better, though. - I can't believe stupid shit like Insurance Fraud was in this first game. It seems much more fitting for all the wacky nonsense that 2 tried to go for. - Not that Saints Row has ever had a reputation for bad writing, but this game is surprisingly funny? Like, the subtleties in this game are quick and really enjoyable. I didn't expect it, that's for sure. - Now I know why Benjamin King is such a big deal in IV. Good lord. - Pretty good fake credits sequence. I always knew how this game ended, and thought it was weird but seeing it in sequence with the rest of the game makes me like it a lot more. - You ready for this, playa?