Games Beaten 2015

[BogusMeatFactory]

@Crono

Brilliant assessment of games. I fully endorse this message!

[Luke]

I don't have much fun writing it up

Well that's because you are doing it wrong. You write things "down", not "up".

This is my first year not keeping a tally, but I do want to mention a game I recently beat.

Long story short, while going back to my whip (kids still call their cars whips right?) from the grocery store I couldn't help but notice that a 2015 Lotus had parked next to me.

Forest green paint, and just a delight to gaze upon. I even waited in my car for around fifteen minutes so I could hear the owner start the engine.

As soon as I put my groceries in the fridge, I played and beat Lotus Turbo Challenge on the Genesis. Not a great racing game, but certainly a very fun one. Lots of fun. There's even a button designated to make the driver shout "Woo-Hoo!".

There are only eight stages, but they're all different enough to hold your interest.

Man. Wish I had a 1998 Lotus.

Was there a Lotus in GT2? I forget because I always chose the Acura NSX.

[Exhuminator]

I don't have much fun writing it up, and it's not of particular interest to anyone.

I for one read most of the reviews posted here by folks. Sometimes I will skim over a review if it is like eight paragraphs long though. It would be nice if more of us posted responses to the reviews left here however, to show that yes people actually read these things.

[MrPopo]

I don't have much fun writing it up, and it's not of particular interest to anyone.

I for one read most of the reviews posted here by folks. Sometimes I will skim over a review if it is like eight paragraphs long though. It would be nice if more of us posted responses to the reviews left here however, to show that yes people actually read these things.

Same here. I especially like to read people's thoughts on games I've either beaten before or are interested in playing. Since there's no motives here other than rambling it makes for pretty honest reviews.

[Sarge]

Yeah, I always like seeing people's thoughts. I'm more likely to just skim it if it's not a game I'm interested in, but if it is one, either that I've played or am thinking about playing, I definitely give it a good read.

[ExedExes]

This is my first year not keeping a tally, but I do want to mention a game I recently beat.

I played and beat Lotus Turbo Challenge on the Genesis. Not a great racing game, but certainly a very fun one. Lots of fun.

I miss your games beat list, because I think we like a lot of the same stuff.

I played a Lotus racing game back in the DOS days (Lotus The Ultimate Challenge), I thought it was developed by Gremlin, but it was only published by them. You may know Gremlin from the Top Gear series on the SNES, but those Lotus games looked exactly like them. The Lotus games were a series that was on the Amiga. Lotus Turbo Challenge was the second game in this series, and Lotus II on the Genesis was Lotus The Ultimate Challenge, which was the third game.

[Sarge]

Oh, yeah, MrPopo, I have that second PCGamer disc. It's how I knew about Star Control 2 and Betrayal at Krondor. Good times! Especially the part where I would try to finagle my computer to get enough base memory to run SC2. You had to make sure there were no vestiges of Windows '95 around, or it didn't play nice.

Come to think of it, I had the same issues with Ultima VII. Oh, the days of messing with CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files...

That second disc looks even better! Man, wish I'd have found that back in the day.

[Luke]

I miss your games beat list, because I think we like a lot of the same stuff.

Oh, we totally love a lot of the same games.

I'll get 'em next year and keep a tally.

[Czernobog]

First off, to GSZX, if you read this: I didn't have time to respond to your earlier posts about my Half-Life experiences in depth back when you replied, but I did read through them. Hopefully we get more Xen if Valve returns to the Half-Life universe anytime soon! Cool to see someone else who enjoyed the Xen stuff as much as I did!

1. Lighting Returns

I had some problems with FFXIII, but liked it enough overall to beat the game and enjoyed myself. I thought XIII-2 improved massively and actually platinumed the game, which I rarely do, so I was excited to try Lightning Returns.

Lightning Returns is strange. I've never played anything quite like it. Basically, the game starts with a few days left until the end of the world. It takes place 500 years after the end of XIII-2. Lightning has been awoken and apparently been designated as "savior" by Barthandelus, one of the various gods in the XIII lore. She has been giving the task of ferrying souls to a new world. Unfortunately, I found Lightning's constant way of talking about being the savior and brooding one of the most overly dramatic and annoying things ever. The other characters (most of which I didn't ever like to be honest) have made returns as well, because 500 years prior, the final events of XIII-2 caused everyone to stop aging. (They can still die though, and can no longer procreate). Snow has become king of his own party town, which is sort of hilarious. The others are spread around the world, each tending to their own issues. The story does get a little better, but is still often cringe-worthy. One of the saving graces is a little girl who keeps popping up to taunt Lightning and is enjoyably dark and vague to annoy her.

The gameplay is.....different, but addictive. There are encounters with on-screen enemies, but you do not level up by fighting them. Instead, you gain stat bonuses by completing quests throughout the four areas of the game. (Two cities, a desert, and a wildlands area.) Each quest also works to add time to the remaining days (you can get up to thirteen) and there is a clock constantly ticking down. You do have an ability to freeze the clock temporarily using ability points you get from killing monsters. There's no need to rush though, as you can fairly easily complete almost all the quests and still have days remaining. There are a few main quests which can be done in any order, as the game is completely open really early. Fortunately, the quests are fairly varied and some of them are interesting as the whole point is for people's souls to be "saved." There are some crappy fetch quests and tedious things thrown in though. Like finding clocks. Screw the clocks.

The battle system is actually surprisingly fun. It's sort of a mix between the garb system of X-2 and FFXIII's battle system. Most garbs have 1 or 2 unique abilities locked to them, but any open slots can be equipped with any abilities you have obtained throughout the game. You can have 3 garbs equipped at once and switch between them instantly with the shoulder buttons. I ended up having a physical fighter garb, a mage garb, and a buff garb, but also had additional ones for specific encounters. Basically, Lightning is extremely customizable. You can also create additional garb customizations and save them to equip when you want. The stagger bar also returns but has a color changing wavy line effect on the enemies hp bar which I didn't even notice until I had gotten a ways into the game.

Since it's the end of time and everything, you can actually drive nearly every monster in the game to extinction. After killing anywhere from 30 to 150ish(iirc) of a monster type, you get to fight their respective last one (basically a much stronger version of the enemy) and get a powerful accessory. I found playing the exterminator pretty fun. There are also two massively powerful extra bosses, which I attempted but did not beat. Would likely have to do so on a new-game plus.

Overall, an enjoyable game, and I was surprised by how much it was willing to differ from the other games.

2. Half-Life

Decided to play through the Half-Life games at long last. The first one was a lot of fun. Certainly dated at this point, but still enjoyable. I wish I had played this when it first came out as I probably wouldn't have played anything that managed to be quite as immersive at the time. It was noticeably more difficult than any modern fps I've played recently. I don't have a lot to say about it, other than the boss was annoying as hell, but Xen was neat. I tried playing through Opposing Force but ran into a glitch quite a ways into the game that would require a complete restart and decided to move onto the other games instead. Still may go back to that and run through Blue Shift as well.

3. Codename Gordon

This is a little 2D action platformer based on Half-Life that was taken off Steam, but you can still get if you Google how to get it in your Steam library. It's very short, but an alright little game. You hit things with a crowbar, then shoot things with the mouse when you pick up a couple guns. Then shoot down a helicopter and it's over. Manages to nail the half-life look with the headcrab zombies and things pretty well though. Even had some manhacks and vents. Good for a half-hour boredom cure.

4. Half Life 2 and the 2 Episodes

This is where I felt that Half-Life started to get interesting. I liked that the story wasn't spoon-fed to you, but you were dropped into the world and got to infer things through what was happening around you. I would have liked to see some more of the Xen enemies from the first game leaked into the world. The physics engine is certainly fun to play with, especially with the gravity gun, but some of the puzzles were a little too focused on it. Some very cool gameplay ideas, especially in episode 2. Every part of each game sort of feels like it's own set-piece. However, some areas do drag on and on. Especially the first boat section. Like the first game, I wish I had played this when it first came out. I imagine it was extremely impressive at the time. It still plays well, but I have a feeling some of it's more groundbreaking aspects are lost on me. I actually enjoyed the first Half-Life quite a bit more. I am a bit curious where they were trying to go with the story however. Maybe they're a bit curious as well.

5. The Last of Us

Let me preface this by saying I love horror games, but usually hate stealth segments. That being said, I found being stealthy the best part of The Last of Us' gameplay. I actually had a lot of fun sneaking around and landing the stealth kills. The gunfight segments mostly felt tedious. Still, this game was more about the story and atmosphere than the gameplay and it delivered. I really liked that the characters felt human. They were flawed and they had believable reasons for being flawed, especially Joel. Many of the environments were fun to explore and picking up the pieces left behind by other people who had once been there was often a highlight. This was especially true in the case of the boat captain who had made a life in the sewers. I know I'm not going into as much detail as I usually try to for my games beaten, but I am awfully tired at the moment.

6. Sleeping Dogs *NEW*

Finally played through Sleeping Dogs since getting it on a Steam sale way back, and I wish I had tried it out sooner. I absolutely had a blast with this one. I'm really fond of these type of games when they know how to limit you're capabilities in the world. (I loved Saints Row III, but IV felt like you had way too much power way too early and felt like I had entered cheat codes). The story may have been cliche but the characters kept it from feeling stale, and I was always itching to do the story missions.

However, the best part of the game was the combat. It was just so damn fun. It's similar to the Batman games with the counter mechanic, but feels smoother. Once you get good at countering, you can feel like a total badass by countering every move and laying waste John Woo style. The driving was also fun with it's drifting mechanic and it was nice being able to lose cops easier than some of the GTA games. There's a ton of side mission things I haven't done much of, but I intend to play some more on my clear file and see what else there is to explore.

[dsheinem]

Games Beaten 2015

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call - 3DS
A Bird Story - PC
Quake - PC
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - PS4
Quake: Scourge of Armagon - PC
Quake: Dissolution of Eternity - PC
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis - NDS
Painkiller - PC
Gungrave: Overdose - PS2
Adventure -Atari 2600 (PS2)
Auto Racing - Intellivision (PS2) [1979]
Boxing - Atari 2600 (PS2) [1980]
The Count - TI99/4A (emulated) [1981]
Dragonstomper - Atari 2600/Starpath Supercharger (emulated) [1982]
Enduro - Atari 2600 (PS2) [1983]
Diablo III - PS4
Front Line - Atari 2600 (emulated) [1984]
Gertie Goose - The Lost Eggs - C64 (emulated) [1985]
Ocean Commander - Wii
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance - PS2
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - PS4
Mortal Kombat: Deception - PS2
The Order: 1886 - PS4
The Uncle Who Works for Nintendo - PC
Grab Them By The Eyes - PC
Growl - PS2/Arcade
Hydlide - NES [1986]
Ikari Warriors - NES [1987]
Jonah Barrington's Squash - C64 (emulated) [1988]
Steel Diver - 3DS
Super Mario 3D World - - Wii U
Quake II - PC
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number - PS4
Kung Fu Louie vs. The Martial Art Posse - PC [1989]
Loom - PC [1990]
Metroid II: Return of Samus - GB [1991]
Ninja Commando - - Arcade (MAME) [1992]
Tennis in the Face - Vita
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD - PS4
Quake II: The Reckoning - PC
Injustice: Gods Among Us - PS4
Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry - PS4
Infamous: First Light - PS4
Race the Sun - PS4
Mad Riders - PS3
Destiny: House of Wolves - PS4
Escape Goat 2 - PS4
Tower of Guns - PS4
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - PC
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars - PS3 *new*
NotGTAV - - PC *new*
Flower - PS4 *new*

Total: 52

Previously: 2014 | The First 400 Games

My game playing time has been severely lacking, but I am starting to make up for it a bit and have some new entries for this list...

What I have been playing a lot of is Rocket League, so along the way I went back to play and beat SARPBC, which I'd never actually played despite it long sitting in my PS3 library. It is a lot of fun, and I highly recommend both it and Rocket League.

NotGTAV is quite cheeky, pretty fun, and surprisingly innovative for the snake genre. Worth a look for anyone, really.

I was showing Flower to a friend and she insisted I play through to the end. Great game is still great.