Games Beaten 2015

[BoneSnapDeez]

I haven't finished either one. Part 1 I enjoy, I just haven't put in the time yet. I thought the sequel was terrible.

[Ack]

I haven't finished either one. Part 1 I enjoy, I just haven't put in the time yet. I thought the sequel was terrible.

I've beaten the first ActRaiser but not the second. It's the diving mechanics that get me in it. I just haven't put in the time to pull them off consistently.

[Sarge]

That very well may be my problem. My enjoyment is very much eroded by the control scheme. I suspect if I could ever get the hang of it, I might even be praising it from the rooftops.

I mean, I used to hate fighting games, too, but I practiced and got good at them, and now I like them. So it's not inconceivable, anyway.

[pierrot]

Soul-- Blazer? Nope, not ringing any bells.

He wants the D.

Hmmm--. No, I have D. I don't feel like that fits in context.

[elricorico]

1. Fatal Fury (GEN)
2. DuckTales Remastered (WiiU)
3. Final Fantasy IV (PSP)
4. Journey (PS3)
5. The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
6. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
7. Super Mario Kart (SNES)
8. King Oddball Ends the World (Android)
9. Street Fight II The World Warrior (SNES)
10. Secret of Mana (SNES)
11. McDonald's Treasureland Adventure (GEN)
12. Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze (WiiU)

13. NES Remix II

I took this as my last Platinum reward for Club Nintendo, partly because I picked the first game as my reward the previous year and partly because the only other rewards I wanted were games I preferred to have physical copies of.

I'd say this one was just a little better than the first, but realistically they are so similar that if you like one you'll like the other, no matter the order you play them in. This one definitely has more advanced games to play and it is interesting to contrast just how far Nintendo went between Clu Clu Land and Kirby's Adventure!

I finished the last stage tonight after playing half an hour at a time whenever the urge struck me. Everything is beatable and nothing felt quite as luck dependent as a couple of stages felt in the first one.

These games make for fun and simple distractions, and fit well in between playing more "serious" and story driven games. I'd like to see a SNES Remix someday.

[TSTR]

I beat Ys I this past weekend, but I don't wanna write it up until I beat the second. So obviously, I'm enjoying myself.

[MrPopo]

1. Painkiller - PC
2. Front Mission 4 - PS2
3. Wasteland 2 - PC
4. Arcanum - PC
5. X-COM Terror from the Deep - PC
6. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16
7. Unreal - PC
8. Shadowrun - SNES
9. Warcraft III - PC
10. Dungeon Keeper - PC
11. Final Fantasy X-2 HD - PS3
12. Descent - PC
13. Quake Mission Pack 2 - Dissolution of Eternity - PC
14. Quake 2 Mission Pack 2 - Ground Zero - PC
15. Sokobond - PC
16. Hybrid Heaven - N64
17. Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis
18. Castlevania - NES
19. Super Castlevania IV - SNES
20. Castlevania III - NES
21. Castlevania II - NES
22. Castlevania Rondo of Blood - Turbo CD
23. Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders - PC
24. Fractal - PC
25. Kirby's Adventure - NES
26. Pillars of Eternity - PC
27. Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den - PC
28. Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour - PC
29. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - NES
30. Punch-Out!! - NES
31. Doom 3 - PC
32. The Even More Incredible Machine - PC
33. Contra - NES
34. Dark Forces - PC
35. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - PC
36. X-Wing - PC
37. TIE Fighter - PC
38. Bloodborne - PS4
39. Gradius - NES
40. Marble Madness - NES
41. The Witcher 3 - PC
42. Mega Man X5 Zero Playthrough - PSX
43. Wolfenstein The Old Blood - PC
44. Might and Magic Book 1 - PC
45. Hexen: Beyond Heretic - PC
46. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter - PC
47. Duke Nukem - PC
48. Terminal Velocity - PC
49. Borderlands 2 - Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt - PC
50. Duke Nukem II - PC

Duke Nukem was a pretty solid DOS platformer. I personally have found I don't care much for the DOS style, but Duke Nukem I'd say is one of the best. Duke Nukem II, on the other hand, is a general step down, even though the graphics are a step up. There's just so many things they got wrong that the new stuff they added doesn't make up for it.

To start with, your sprite is huge. If you look up screenshots of Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II you'll see that II gives you a lot less visible area, and enemies are always right on top of you because of how little you can see. The game even has a feature where holding up or down will scroll the screen that way (and then it will stick there). Think of it like pushing the screen up or down in Sonic, except you need to do this in order to tell if there's a pit in front of you or just a minor slope downwards. You spend a lot of time finagling with the camera, which is not something you should be doing in a 2D platformer.

Second, everything in the game has too much health. In the first game it took one shot to kill most enemies with only the most dangerous ones (which includes one of the two projectile enemies) taking more than one shot. In this game even the weakest enemy takes at least two shots, which means that you pretty much have to be spamming your fire key if you don't want to take damage from enemies that come on screen before they touch you (due to the aforementioned shitty field of view). But then the game tosses in a ton of stuff to penalize you for doing just that, such as bombs in red crates that will explode after time or when you shoot them, various breakable objects that spawn ooze enemies which take a ton of shots to kill, and in the later stages of episode 4 you can even blow out an airlock and be sucked into space. I think this decision was made to show off the three limited use weapons you can pick up, except those all have other properties that already makes them good; the laser pierces, the plasma has a wide arc and can let you fly (shoot the ground) and the rocket kills everything but barnacles in one hit, including otherwise invincible enemies. Making the base gun so weak makes the times you aren't using one of those weapons shitty.

Third, the environments are too busy. There is a major enhancement in the graphics between the first game and this one, but it ends up leading to lots of hazards blending into the background because of all the bling that's going on. Sometimes the explosions you trigger in stages are so intense that you lose visibility, since the engine can't quite keep up. This is especially terrible on the first boss when he does his carpet bombing pattern. And I can't tell you how many times I ran into floor spikes or acid drops because I couldn't make them out from the rest of the stage.

Fourth, the first boss fight. The other boss fights are fun, with good enemy patterns and rewarding you for skillful maneuvering. The first boss is very rote once you see the pattern (which should only take an attempt or two) but the nature of his pattern means you spend a lot of time hiding from him and it takes forever. Cutting his health in half would have been nice.

Now, the environments as I mentioned are quite nice, and there's a good variety that helps to actually demonstrate that you're making your way through various places. There's also a decent amount of variety in terms of what you need to do to pass. Some require you to find appropriate keys, some require you to knock out radar dishes, and some are just "make it to the end". Unfortunately, the pattern repeats across each episode, so what starts off feeling varied does become a bit repetitious.

Another nice feature is the checkpoint; many levels have a checkpoint you can activate, and if you die you respawn there without resetting your level progress, and that includes the stuff after the checkpoint. So if you touch one, then collect a key and die on the way back, when you respawn you have the key. You do respawn with the same amount of health and weapon energy that you did when you first touched it, and this makes for a nice anti-frustration feature (though be careful if you checkpoint at low health; any health you get afterwards will be gone if you die again).

I honestly had more fun with Duke Nukem I, though II's boss fights are better overall. But either way, I think I prefer the Japanese style of platformers like Mario and Mega Man and Sonic.

[pierrot]

I completed Soul Blader.

[GSZX1337]

1) Cannon Spike - Dreamcast
2) I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream - PC
3) Mighty Gunvolt - 3DS (as Mighty No. 9)
4) Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X - PSP (Vile Mode)
5) StarCraft - PC
6) Naughty Bear - Xbox 360
7) The Last of Us - PS3
8] Eets (100-percented) - PC
9) Gunpoint - PC
10) The Last Story - Wii
11) Papers, Please - PC (Ending 18)
12) King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown (AGD VGA remake)

13) Dune 2000 - PC (easy )

Another title for my attempt to play more RTS games this year. It was a bit of an adjustment for me since I was used to the StarCraft interface. I kinda like how this game's interface relies mostly on the left mouse button, but the lack of shortcut keys made it feel like murder. At times I felt elegant and at others I felt like a clumsy clown.

I didn't play the original Dune II, but I listened to some of its soundtrack and I think it's much better. This song kicks the shit out of anything in the Dune 2000 soundtrack. Despite it being the inferior soundtrack, it fits the action very well. I downloaded this from Abandonia without the cutscenes. I watched the Atreides (the house I chose) cutscenes and I think that it's fine that these weren't in the Abandonia version.

I don't have much to say about the gameplay since I'm not too familiar with the genre. I can say that I had a good time and that the difficulty options are much appreciated. I don't think I would've made it far if I had played the game on normal difficulty. It would've been nice to have this for StarCraft. Overall, this game has been real fun and I recommend others to visit the planet of Arrakis.

[prfsnl_gmr]

1. Cut the Rope (3DS)
2. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
3. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (XBOX)
4. Jewel Link Chronicles: Mountains of Madness (NDS)
5. Super Mario 3D World (WIIU)
6. Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
7. Kirby Triple Deluxe (3DS)
8. Gunman Clive (3DS)
9. Child of Light (WIIU)
10. Gunman Clive 2 (3DS)
11. Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition (WIIU)
12. Shifting World (3DS)
13. VVVVVV (3DS)
14. Mega Man 9 (PS3)
15. Mighty Switch Force 2 (WIIU)
16. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (PS3)
17. Castle Crashers (PS3)
18. Pushmo (3DS)
19. Steamworld Dig (3DS)
20. The Unfinished Swan (PS3)
21. Blaster Master (NES)
22. Samurai Shodown II (NEOGEO/PS2)
23. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (2600)
24. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
25. Shining Force II (GEN)
26. Rayman Legends (WIIU)
27. Gorf (ARCADE)
28. Fairune (3DS)
29. Mighty Gunvolt (3DS)
30. Ikachan (3DS)
31. Block Boy! (3DS)
32. Legend of the Dark Witch (3DS)
33. R-Type Delta (PS1)