Games Beaten 2012

[Stark]

1/21 Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (PS3)
1/23 Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC)
1/31 Deus Ex: Human Revolution: The Missing Link (PC)
2/5 Blood Stone: 007 (PS3)
2/19 Warhammer 40K: Space Marine (PC)
2/25 Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (NDS)
2/28 Bastion (PC)
3/3 Cave Story+ (PC)

Games Beaten = 9
DLC = 1

3/5 Puzzle Agent 2 (PC)

As JT says here this game was a welcome follow-up to the cliffhanger at the end of Puzzle Agent. It ties up some loose ends and leaves some things hanging and I think I feel a little better about it this time, if that's how this series is going to go. Feels like an episode of a TV show with an overarching plot element.

This plays like a point and click meets a Professor Layton game and if you've played the Layton series, the puzzles in this will seem like child's play in comparison. I had some difficulty with the last number sequence puzzle and another one with trees and lunar rays, but felt that the latter puzzle's rules were not described adequately and I had to resort to the hint aspect just to figure out how the rules worked. Anyway I enjoy the quirky little story they're telling and the way it is presented. 3.5/5

3/5 Rochard (PC)

This is a puzzle-platformer from Recoil, it looks like the current ways to play this are PSN or Steam (PC/Mac) and I played it for PC. This would make a great game for the Playstation Vita. Graphically this game is done in a 2.5D style, a la a game like Shadow Complex. These games feel a little like a Metroidvania type game, but I don't think the levels are as complex as the ones in those games tend to be. This game is very linear when it comes down to it and there is no back tracking, using upgrades or whatnot that you unlock.

The hook here, if you will, is the various ways you alter gravity and use your "g-lifter" to throw objects or enemies in the environment. Sometimes you are throwing your self or an object to propel yourself in low-gravity environments. There are also puzzles involving fuses for doors and different types of energy fields (red for physical field, orange for energy, white for everything, blue for objects) and you'll have to think about it to proceed.

In the end all of these elements work well together to make for an entertaining game that's about 8 hours in length. My only complaint was that I felt like all of the different puzzle elements were not explored as thoroughly as they could have been. 4/5

[SwooshBear]

2012:
Uncharted (Ps3)
Soul Caliber (Dc)
Atom Zombie Smasher (PC) *NEW*

Fun little game I got on a 75% off Steam sale. The objective is to prevent a zombie outbreak by using tower defense-like tactics while battling over an overworld like Risk. The game's setting and humor is hilarious as well, I recommend it to anybody. Replay value is pretty high for me because I can't stop playing it.

[sabrage]

Atom Zombie Smasher (PC) *NEW*

Fun little game I got on a 75% off Steam sale. The objective is to prevent a zombie outbreak by using tower defense-like tactics while battling over an overworld like Risk. The game's setting and humor is hilarious as well, I recommend it to anybody. Replay value is pretty high for me because I can't stop playing it.

Don't forget that it has the best soundtrack ever!

I feel like the game is a bit unbalanced if you don't turn on the mod that prevents your good troops from going on vacation, though.

[alienjesus]

Super Mario 3D Land 3DS
Professor Layton & The Spectre's Call DS
Trip World 3DS VC
Streetpass Quest II 3DS
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 301: The Penal Zone PC
Kirby's Fun Pak VC
Golden Axe Warrior SMS
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 302: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak PC
Ax Battler: The Legend of Golden Axe Game Gear
Gitaroo Man Lives! PSP
Panzer Dragoon Saga Demo Saturn
Asterix SMS
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 303: They Stole Max's Brain! PC
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure DS
Picross DS DS
Half Minute Hero PSP
Soul Calibur Dreamcast
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations DS
StarTropics VC
Faselei! NGPC
Ninja Commando VC
Wario Land II Game Boy
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 304: Beyond the Alley of the Dolls PC
Poképark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure Wii
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 305: The City That Dares Not Sleep PC
Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut GC
LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias WiiWare
Dead or Alive 3 XBox *NEW*
Ys: The Vanished Omens SMS *NEW*
Trauma Center: Under the Knife DS *NEW*
Total: 30

Dead or Alive 3 was a fun enough little fighting game, although I have to say that it felt rather noticeably underdeverloped compared to Dead or Alive Dimensions. There aren't many modes in either, but there truly was strangely little to do in DOA3 for a console game. There's also only a small handful of unlockable costumes, and a single unlockable character. In addition, the movesets are much smaller, and I found myself struggling to play as some of my favourites from DOA: Dimensions (Lei Fang, Helena) because their movesets felt so different. However, none of this changes the fact that the action was still fast and smooth and the game was a lot of fun. The Xbox controller sucks, but I do wonder if I can really hold that against the game, and at least as a 3D fighter using the control stick feels more natural than the dpad. It was kinda weird that the menu forced you to use the dpad to navigate though. Overall, definitely fun, and more than worth the 50p I paid for it .

Ys: The Vanished Omens was a game I played for Togetehr Retro this month, and I posted a handful of thoughts there. I'm going to try and sum up my feelings on the game here. The game was fun, with the battle system proving rather more engaging than expected considering it's just walking into people. The game was also refreshingly fast paced and short. I did have some problems with it though, that a lot of other people didn't seem to find. First off, healing takes forever, you have to stand still for ages in order recover. This wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for the fact that almost every enemy encounter seemed to drag your health down to near minimum, if you even survived it. This might have been a master system issue though, as determining whether you hit an enemy or he hit you seemed rather arbitrary, with the same positioning working in your favour for one hit, and the enemies the next. The game wasn't very well signposted either, but thats to be expected for an old 8 bit RPG I guess. There were some annoying mazes, which I've never been a fan of too. My main issue though, was the grinding. For the majority of the game, it wasn't a major issue, with enemies bombarding you with experience points. However, before I could even hurt the first boss, I had to spend hours grinding on 4 exp enemies until I had 1600 exp to reach level 5. That's literally 400 enemies worth of grinding. On the SMS version, the enemies were pretty spaced out, and thus finding enough of them to grind on could take quite some time. I almost gave up on the game right then. I'm glad I didn't in the end, as I enjoyed it, but to me, this is an average to above-average game, nothing more.

Trauma Centre: Under the Knife, which you will see me spelling in this paragraph the British way even though the PAL box stubbornly refuses to do so, was a fun and challenging game. It starts off with your performing simple 'realistic' operations such as removing tumours and suturing wounds, but by the end you're zapping parasitic millipedes, suturing wounds which look like a patchwork quilt because there are so many lasering eyeballs which grow tumours on people's spleen and removing deadly triangles from someone's stomach. Needless to say, the game doesn't take it's doctoring too seriously. However, it would be nice if this was reflected in the story, which involves international terrorism, sinners, euthanasia and over-emotional backstory. With the crazy cast of viruses you'll be operating on, it kind of feels like the characters you meet should be as quirky and interesting, like they would be in the Ace Attorny series, but instead, the game comes across as taking itself a bit too seriously. On the other hand, it plays very well, and although some of the missions are very difficult, it has that one-more-go factor which keeps you involved. On the subject of difficulty, the game has trouble with difficulty spikes, with some of the earlier madcap viruses you'll encounter being much harder than the latter, and some of the missions reach crazy hard territory, especially the very last one. Overall though, Trauma Centre is very enjoyable, and I'd be interested in trying the other games in the series, if not straight away.

[geozeldadude]

On the subject of difficulty, the game has trouble with difficulty spikes, with some of the earlier madcap viruses you'll encounter being much harder than the latter, and some of the missions reach crazy hard territory, especially the very last one. Overall though, Trauma Centre is very enjoyable, and I'd be interested in trying the other games in the series, if not straight away.

i completely agree that the variable difficulty makes the game way more frustrating. did you try S-ranking any of the missions? i tried the first couple, and you would have to be a real glutton for punishment to S-rank the whole game.

[alienjesus]

On the subject of difficulty, the game has trouble with difficulty spikes, with some of the earlier madcap viruses you'll encounter being much harder than the latter, and some of the missions reach crazy hard territory, especially the very last one. Overall though, Trauma Centre is very enjoyable, and I'd be interested in trying the other games in the series, if not straight away.

i completely agree that the variable difficulty makes the game way more frustrating. did you try S-ranking any of the missions? i tried the first couple, and you would have to be a real glutton for punishment to S-rank the whole game.

Nah, I'm done with it for now I think. Maybe one day I'll give them ago, along with the X1-X7 bonus missions. I did get a couple of A ranks as I played through normally though, which was nice. Most of the time I was just a class C Rookie Doctor though...

[noiseredux]

1. Sonic CD (PSN)
2. Golden Axe Warrior (PS3)
3. Ico (PS3)
4. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (PS3)
5. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
6. SoulBlade (PS1)
7. SoulCalibur II (PS2)
8. The Simpsons Arcade Game (PS3)
9. Sonic Sega All-Stars Racing (PS3)
10. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (PS3)
11. Ys I (PSP)
12. Heavy Rain (PS3)

Played nothing but Heavy Rain for four days. I loved it. Completely loved it. I have more to say, but not until I gather my thoughts.

EDIT: Ok, so in most games I put up with a story I don't care about because the gameplay is so awesome. In Heavy Rain I loved the story. I cared about the characters (and hated others). It mattered to me what happened.

SPOILER TALK:

There were a lot of things that got to me. I accidentally made Jayden shoot a witness because I was nervous. And I felt bad. Or what about Madison's home invasion nightmare? That was scary and I thought I fucked up and she was dead. And there was the driving down the highway the wrong way which might be my favorite "chase scene" in a game ever now. How about the tension of cutting your own finger off? But even worse... the reveal of who the Origami Killer was. Someone I really liked. It actually upset me.

I played nothing but this for four days and loved every moment. I knew nothing about the plot and didn't mention I was playing it anyone here in fear of spoilers. There were some bothersome controls at times -- namely motion controls which I hate as "move the controller up" always registered in brain as "hit Up on the analog stick." And there was the hard to control crawling through broken glass part. But whatever. All of that was easy to overlook as I was deeply engrossed with this game and its story.

I had played a bit of Indigo Prophecy in the past, and liked it but got distracted. Now I think I need to go back to it. Also, I think I heard there was a DLC add-on for Heavy Rain?

[Stark]

Played nothing but Heavy Rain for four days. I loved it. Completely loved it. I have more to say, but not until I gather my thoughts.

Loved this one, can't wait to hear your thoughts.

[Flake]

1/2 Cannon Spike (DC)
1/9 Mega Man X4 (GCN)
1/17 Psycho Soldier (PSN)
1/22 Warhammer 40,000: Dark Crusade (PC)
1/28 Police 911 2 (Arcade)
2/7 Soul Calibur V (PS3)
2/26 Metal Gear Solid 2: HD Edition (PS3)
3/7/ Street Fighter X Tekken (PS3)

Got a lot to learn about this game still but my first run through was very enjoyable. Cammy is still a lot of fun to play and I look forward to cleaning Sevin's clock with her this weekend. Poison is an exciting character and very hard to describe. She is like a slow character with a fast characters move set.

The graphics, music, artwork, and difficulty are great. Still have not gone online yet, so no comment there.

I think I might like this game more than SFIV if only because of the diverse characters.

[noiseredux]

1. Sonic CD (PSN)
2. Golden Axe Warrior (PS3)
3. Ico (PS3)
4. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (PS3)
5. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
6. SoulBlade (PS1)
7. SoulCalibur II (PS2)
8. The Simpsons Arcade Game (PS3)
9. Sonic Sega All-Stars Racing (PS3)
10. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (PS3)
11. Ys I (PSP)
12. Heavy Rain (PS3)
13. Street Fighter x Tekken (PS3)

I think I might like this game more than SFIV if only because of the diverse characters.

exactly what I"m thinking man. I got up to Ogre, but didn't beat him. Tried 3 times. Then decided to quit, install to HD and attempt a 1CC. But yeah. This game is fucking great. And I think the cast is great. I'm using Chun-Li and Akuma right now, but want to learn Cammy a lot more. Plus Vega is here. Next week brings Mega Man & Pac-Man, and at some point we'll have Blanka so I'm thrilled. I haven't fucked with the gems or whatever or online. But as it stands right now... I think this game is great.

EDIT: And now I've 1CC'd the Arcade Mode on Normal. And yeah... all of us who still love SF4 and play it regularly -- we have a new game. This is basically SF4 with a big giant roster update. Fucking awesome.