The Quest to 100 slows down (February Progress Report)

by morecowbell24

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...

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 with Gold for Xbox Live, so I decided to see how I’d fare. It turns out I fared pretty well. Nothing too special compared to its predecessor, nor the modern installment. Again, I’m no expert, but to me it seemed just kind of okay.

19. Crusader: No Remorse [1995]

Reasons to play Crusader: No Remorse... Exhibit A: '90s Surfer bro hacker "Wizard"

I rounded out my impressive gaming output in January with this one, beating 19 games in one month. It’s B sci-fi at its finest. The FMV is about as '90s as it gets and it’s great. The game itself took some getting used to as the controls aren’t really up to modern standards, but when I got the hang of playing the game without a mouse, it made me feel like a hacker. A hacker that shoots dudes. (My Review)

20. Hyper Light Drifter [2016]

Absolutely gorgeous environmental storytelling

The more I think about Hyper Light Drifter the more I think about how much I dig it.The environmental storytelling and complete lack of text really invoked a sense of wonder and mystery to an otherwise pretty straightforward premise. And that color palette, magenta, teal, cyan and purple, mmm… so good. It plays well too, but I think what surrounds the gameplay is really what makes Hyper Light Drifter such a great game.

21. XIII [2003]

If only the gameplay lived up to its sense of style.

Another stylish game, so stylish that it largely shrinks its mountain of lesser qualities into just a hill. It’s a shame the gunplay, stealth and story are all pretty mediocre. The games comic book look holds up so incredibly well and the music really brings home that spy stuff feel.

22. Nioh [2017]

Nioh = Benevolent King

The first game I’ve played from this year! It’s a sort of Dark Souls meets Diablo game dripping with Japanese style and sensibilities. I respect a lot of what this game does different from Dark Souls, but ultimately came away from it thinking more of From’s Souls games, because of how all of the moving parts create something really cohesive. Nioh felt sort of mish mashed and messy by comparison. It’s still a fine game, but if it were a Souls game, it’d be the worst of them by a significant margin. The enemies get rather repetitive, have too much health, and bosses mostly seemed like uninteresting tests of endurance rather than skill.

23. Darksiders [2010] (Edited in)

Mark Hamill's Joker-esque performance also helped a little

In a bout of absent mindedness I didn’t talk about Darksiders in this February update. Despite beating and saying I beat seven games in this update I only talked about six. It kind of echoes my overall opinion on Darksiders though, a pretty forgettable experience. The most memorable aspect was frequent Zelda-style handholding camera takeovers. As negative as my thoughts seem, I do believe Vigil had something here. There is some neat world-building. It’s just a shame only a middling cross between Devil May Cry and Zelda backs it up.

24. No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.’s Way [2002]

The indomitable Cate Archer talkin' 'bout how she 'bout to do spy stuff.

Perhaps the biggest crime of the industry is this series being lost to litigation. It is still possible to play it via the physical release, but as operating systems get upgraded it becomes increasingly difficult to get games of yore to run properly. Thankfully I have managed it with NOLF and now NOLF 2. They are both easily among the elite of the first person shooter genre. The writing of NOLF 2 leans more into the sillier aspects the first game introduced and for that reason I don't think it quite matches its predecessor. It’s still often funny and fun with some great level design, and it also adds some new gameplay elements, separating it from being one of those more of the same sequels.

There you have it folks. I've brought the total to 24 with these here, 7 games. 5 of which I beat in the actual month of February, but hey, at least my January looks even more impressive at 19. Until next time, thanks for reading.