Games Beaten in 2021 Cyberpunk 2077 [2020] Manifold Garden [2020] Superliminal [2019] Lightmatter [2020] Ghostrunner [2020] The Legendary Axe [1989] The Legendary Axe II [1990] Bomberman [1991] Bomberman ’93 [1993] Mega Bomberman [1994] Bonk’s Adventure [1990] Bonk’s Revenge [1991] Air Zonk [1992] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate [2018] Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars [1996] Paper Mario [2...
It might be hard to believe, but indie games 10 years ago were a rarity. Most of the indie scene wasn’t taken very seriously as they were largely “flash games” living on sites like Newgrounds. That all started to change around 2008 when Xbox Live Arcade put a spotlight on the scene with their Summer of Arcade program. Suddenly smaller games were getting more recognition, and it was plain to see...
After the past two years being so jammed-packed with excellent releases, looking at the release calendar for this year is a little discouraging. So I’ve been digging around to see what I can find. One particular “Metroidvania” genre seems to be brimming with potential in lieu of not much else appearing to be all that exciting this year. That’s not to say there isn’t potential elsewhere, but I’v...
We did it! Hi Mom! I beat 100 Games in one calendar year! Here are the final twelve. 89. Full Throttle [1995] The old adventure game model isn’t what it used to be. This is a bit more serious than other Tim Schafer stuff. There’s still an enjoyable story being told here, but the humor is a bit more subdued. Mark Hamill plays a great bad guy in Ripburger. The only problem is, these adventure gam...
I played a fistful of styling metroidvanias, ruined some punks and some suits and survived some horror this month, bringing me ever so close to 100 games beat, in just 1 year. Let's go! 83. Guacamelee! [2013] Do the Grim Fandango With the announcement of its sequel and looking back on all the glowing reviews I decided to tackle Guacamelee! I have to say I’m left kind of disappointed. We’ve no d...
I planned to play more spooky games this month, but I'm still broken from playing Amnesia the several years ago that that game came out. I did still play games though. 9 of them to be precise. Bringing my total to 82/100. 74. Destiny 2 [2017] Lance Reddick is still a baller though Something about Destiny 2 doesn’t quite measure up to the first game. It could be the “lack of content,” but I don’...
With this also belated September update on my progress towards beating 100 games this year, I will be officially caught up on the blogging front. Exciting. I played a good mix of good and middling with 10 more to talk about bringing my total to 73/100. Let's get into it. 64. Assassin’s Creed III Even though Revelations was terrible and this one was supposedly the same way, I’ve still wanted to...
About midway through August I had an epiphany. I realized I needed to beat 48 more games in the next 5 months and if I didn't get past my general malaise beating some games this month, I'd have to beat more than 10 a month to reach 100 beaten games in a year. I mean, I still have to essential do that, but my productivity has surged and I'm feeling confident about reaching my goal. Sonic Mania s...
I must confess that I did not fair too much better in July than I did in June, but I did double my output. And I brought my total past the half-way mark. 52 games would still be one game a week were I to stop tallying, which ain't too shabby. I've said it as many words and math as possible, but in raw numbers, I got four games to talk about in this belated July edition of my progress towards be...
June did not favor my goal of beating 100 games. I got a new job and worse... I started playing a bit of Dota again... It wasn't quite as bad a relapse as I've had in the past, but still, Dota... The grossest of all timesinks. These things help to explain the blogging backlog, but whether they justify it, is most assuredly doubtful. I only beat two games in June, and they were both pretty short...
In my attempts to clear my backlog it seems I've developed a blogging backlog. Life might sometimes get in the way of my blogging, but not my gaming. I must have written these blurbs months ago, but they hold up to how I still feel about these games I played and beat in the month of May working towards my goal of beating a 100 games I've not already beaten in this very calendar year. 38. Banjo-...
I found a lot of time in April to make a good dent in my goal of 100 games in 1 year, making up for my longer detours last month with Horizon and The Witcher 3. Without those games holding me back, I felt a surge of motivation, but I'm kind of dreading the new Zelda, as it might end up draining me in the same way, so I'm still waiting to dive into what might end up being the biggest game of the...
IN MAY! My March was so long it took me an extra month to post an update. It’s was a pretty weak month for me in working towards my goal, but these are some big games I have to talk about. I only beat two games in March, bringing me to a still reasonable 26 in towards the goal of 100. However, I still have four games to talk about. 23. Darksiders [2010] Mark Hamill's Joker-esque performance als...
February has come and gone, and reaching my goal of beating 100 games in a year seems a little less likely than before. I already talked about my impressive January , and I'm here with 7 more games to scratch off the old backlog. 18. Killer Instinct 2 [1996] Fighting games have never been my forte, but I enjoy spending time with them from time to time. This one was free with Season Two on Games...
I dare say it would've been more impossible had Dota not gotten its hooks into me again, and I might have been able to keep a pace of 1 game a day (I had beaten 14 by the 13th) for an entire month. Nevertheless there are 17 games I've completed this year already, after deciding to make a loose resolution of beating a 100 games this year. My traditional goal has generally been 53, but as my prod...
Hello, I played through a bunch of old games in 2016 and I'm here to talk about them. I want to note that I only included games I actually finished on this here blog. Brace yourselves, it's a real barn burner. The Middling Jotun has an awesome look. Jotun [2015] Jotun has a fantastic classical cartoon art style going for it, and the bosses are fun challenges. The parts in between the jotun figh...
I want to pose a question about branding and marketing in video games. Why does it seem like so many companies have such a fondness for that "2" or "III" in their titles? Is it a crutch? Does the "2" really signify it is bigger, better and more bad ass? It could be the nature of the medium, the upfront asking price usually being $60, or some combination of things, but I don't believe the "2" or...
Every year I play a lot of old games. We all got backlogs, I have one too and I'm constantly scooping up old games I've always wanted to play to add to it. In fact, I probably fall further behind on my backlog every year. There are simply too many old games, but these, in no real order, are the ones I enjoyed, really enjoyed didn't enjoy, sort of enjoyed and almost enjoyed this... last year. Th...
Nintendo has grown increasingly more open to the idea of downloadable content over the past few years, with Mario Kart getting more characters to race with and tracks to race on. Super Smash Bros. is bolstering its roster with Ryu from Street Fighter and series veterans like Lucas and Mewtwo as DLC and even allowing the people to vote for Britney Spears as the game’s next addition. They’re even...
The budding operative, Cate Archer, is one of the most endearing and relevant video game protagonists ever written. It’s a shame she came in 2000 and was gone by 2002, and an even more of a shame that Warner Bros. seems keen on letting her story rot away under their lock and key. The Operative: No One Lives Forever (also known as “NOLF”) is among the finest first person shooter experiences ever...
Quick saving, or the having the ability to save a game at any point in time, has only recently dawned on me as a powerful tool for games. Obviously, quick save is a feature generally looked at as something that makes it easier to “cheese” through harder sections of a game. You might also use it in games with player choice when you’re forced to make a difficult decision and would like to see bot...
There is this idea I've been toying with lately. This idea of a lot of developers being stuck making the same games over and over. Perhaps they're under pressure from publishers. Maybe the fans are being aggressively demanding of sequels. If you go any game related site on the web, you're probably not going to struggle to find a "they should make a X sequel." thread or article. There are probab...
The Big 3 didn't exactly wow me, but they all came out with some solid stuff. Microsoft and Sony seem to be trading personas and Nintendo is off doing their own Nintendo thing. I had a good time, but I think next year will be a bigger year for the event. Microsoft as usual is the first of the Big 3 to strut their stuff. The backwards compatibility announcement seems like it was the most crazy t...
E3. It's an exciting time for the people who care about video games. Some pretty major announcements have already happened and the leaks just keep on coming. While it certainly makes easier to not feel a bit of information overload on one day, these things do take away from some of that excitement. However, this flow of information leading up to E3 might point to a show with some real weight be...
Video game balance is a never ending struggle for developers. There are few (if any) examples of games that have just the right balance between all of their factors. Every type of game struggles with getting everything just right, and I think that’s great. Video game balance is not something I thought much of before getting really into Dota 2. Now it’s something I think about frequently. In the...
It's a new year and it's bound to be more exciting than last year. Why? Because all the games we wanted last year got pushed to this year, and it's not like that happens every year... or does it? Despite a number of solid games, 2014 didn't quite live up to the indie movement of recent years and was something of a mess on the AAA end of things. There was a lot of disappointment for big new IPs...
So in January in an act of rebellion towards StarCraft II I decided I'd try out the other big competitve online game with a "2" in the title, DotA... 2. I partook in this shit festival of a game for nearly 2000 hours just this year, and it borderline consumed me. It stopped me from pursuing my passion of playing all kinds of games, and you know what? Under the right circumstances I would say it...
So you’re playing a game of Dota, and it’s going poorly. You’re getting rolled into the ground. You look at the scoreboard and see you’ve managed to get a few kills and a good number of assists, but you’ve racked up a hefty number of deaths too. Everybody on your team is doing about the same or worse. Who’s going to start it? Probably the one who said, “good luck have fun everyone :D” before th...
What is good? What is bad? Chances are the game giving you a choice is telling you the answer. Video game morality is often black and white, or maybe it’s red and blue. There is often little room for grey or purple. Infamous: Second Son uses player choice a lot like the previous Infamous games. You are rewarded with good karma for deeds deemed to be good and evil karma for deeds deemed to be ev...
With its Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls series’ boss encounters, From Software has displayed a deft handling of the boss concept. Regardless of how difficult, there always seems to be some X-factor making Souls bosses more memorable. Some are gigantic, some are monstrous or disgusting, some are a spectacle, some are relentless, some require outside thinking, some are just waiting for the right mo...
Whether I think they are good or bad, these are some songs that could use the Saints Row treatment, or something similar anyway. Volition has a knack for putting the right licensed music to the right moment. My favorite parts of both Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV wouldn't be the same without the tracks that accompany them. This list probably isn’t complete, and I keep thinking of more...
Hey everyone, the clock has reached midnight and it's Tuesday... This is for me, because I am a selfish asshole who needs to find peace through writing... I probably should have let the tears flow. I didn't, for whatever reason. I fought them, not letting a stupid single one pop out of my eyeballs, and now I'm struggling again. I've never met Ryan; he's never met me. We don't "know" each other....
Let's get this out of the way. Sony has pretty much won the next console war already. The announcement of no used game restrictions was Sony stabbing Microsoft. The no DRM announcement was Sony twisting the knife. When the price was announced Sony finished Microsoft, cutting their throat. Or so it would seem. People are sometimes smarter than we give them credit for, but they are also sometimes...
When we look back to this generation from the next From Software's Demon's Souls and Dark Souls will be two of the revolutionary games we put on a pedestal. Their online innovations, their return to the punishing days of yore, their atmosphere, their refined and precise gameplay. Those things, and that in a time when the "games as art" is being pushed harder and harder, and story is becoming mo...
I think you're probably in one of two camps, and I think I have an idea of what you're thinking. Well, three camps with the camp, "I have no idea what you're talking about," but let's just ignore that camp's existence. There is camp "I've played Bioshock or I know about Bioshock being awesome or whatever." Those of you in this camp might recall that Bioshock is a spiritual successor to System S...
Over the past week, big things have happened in the industry, and if anything is to be learned from it, it is that we should never say never. First, it was learned that Tim Schafer of Double Fine Studios had pitched a sequel to the cult-hit platformer Psychonauts to several publishers, but none would take him up on it . Regarding a Psychonauts sequel, Tim Schafer said, "I'd love to do that game...
I'm glad you asked me that question. You didn't? Well, I think it's only fair that we, and by that I mean I, discuss it. Obviously, they are hard at work on Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2), a sequel to the popular WarCraft III mod. Now, you're probably wondering what the hell WarCraft III is. Well, believe it or not, there were games in the WarCraft series before World of WarCraft. And they...
Let's get the obvious out of the way, it sucks. Okay, that's probably an exaggeration, but given how good the two-dimensional installments are and always have been... mostly (looking at you Simon's Quest), one can't help but feel underwhelmed by the series' transition into the third dimension. Before I go any further I think I should talk about what it means to be a Castlevania game in the two-...