Games Beaten 2015

[Luke]

Agreed. DMC series > NG series on difficulty and just about everything else.

They're different. I really appreciated NG's focus on defense, and I think that playing through it first made me a much better DMC player. I also can't say that I favor one over the other. (I have not yet played DMC3, however, which I have read is the best in the series.)

I also want to note that I played through Ninja Gaiden (Xbox), not Nina Gaiden Black (Xbox), which I have read is more difficult. I also played through it on "normal" difficulty, and I suspect that, on the higher difficulty levels, the game would be too much for me.

Not to bring up a malady, but I'm going to anyway as it might explain why I stink at Ninja Gaiden on da box.

Grab your xbox controller with your right hand, thumb on the x button. Make a fist with your left hand. Place it on the d-pad and see how far you get.

You have to block so often (Left Trigger) and switch to moving (D-Pad/nipple) that I have a terrible time getting the "flow" of blocking and moving. And if you can't block an opponent, you're done for.

[Sarge]

Ninja Gaiden on XBOX is tough, but certainly not impossible. For my money, the NES version is harder, but both can be finished by brute force.

The secret to NG? Swallow Dive + Izuna Drop. Learn those moves and at least the normal difficulty will be quite doable. I've heard it's a lot tougher on higher levels, though, as enemies will tend to interrupt your Izuna Drops.

I just finished off Dragon Quest III for SFC last night. I've played the NES version to completion untold numbers of times, and the GBC version once. This one is obviously the prettiest. The patch is a bit wack at times (twice with liege for "league", ugh), various formatting issues with text at times (post-battle items, etc.), and what I've heard are game-wiping bugs in the last patch. Thankfully I didn't run into that, and I backed up my saves before it could become an issue.

Anyway, I was pretty underleveled, running a party of Hero, Fighter, Sage, Priest at 38, 34, 32, 35, respectively. But there's also a lot better equipment in this game, especially for your Fighter. The original game had the best you could get as the Iron Claws, obtained very, very early, unless you wanted to fight every step with the Gold Claws. This one actually kills the random battles every step if you can get out of the Pyramid, so that's a big upgrade right there.

I fell quite a few times to one particular boss, but I did kill the last one the first go, despite his attempts to nuke me at the end. Seriously, I was sitting at 55 HP for the Hero, 86 HP for the Fighter, and both my others dead. I was going for a last-ditch Healusall when my Fighter hit the final blow. Whew!

Doubt I'll go for all the bonus content, though.

[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)
34. Half-Life (PS2)
35. Soul of Darkness (3DS)
36. Cubit the Hardcore Platforming Robot (3DS)
37. Alien on the Run (3DS)

Alien on the Run is an amazing 3DS eShop exclusive (and, as of the date of this post, it is still on sale for $1.99!). In it, you control an adorable alien who has to escape from a space ship. To do, he has to make a mad dash through a series of obstacles such as tractor beams, conveyor belts, dance mats, shock panels, boxing robots, etc. You start each stage with a certain amount of time to reach the exit, and the stage ends when you: (1) run out of time; (2) are pulled in by a tractor beam; or (3) reach the end. You receive a grade based on how much time is left on the clock when you reach the end of each stage, and you obtain additional time by "disarming" tractor beams and other obstacles. The last stage in each of the game's levels requires your little alien to collect bottles of hot sauce to fuel his escape from the space ship, and beating a level unlocks both a pallette swap for your alien and the ability to revisit each stage to improve your score.

For its price, the game offers a generous amount of content, and although the mechanics do not change much between stages, their depth means that the game never becomes tedious. Moreover, each stage restarts instantly if you fail, and very quickly if you are working to improve your score. Accordingly, it has that "just one more time" addictiveness inherit in the best twitch games. More importantly, however, the game is oozing with personality and Japanese-games-from-the-mid-1990s quirkiness. Inexplicably, the method for deactivating tractor beams (and gaining additional time to complete each stage) is to slide into them and strike a pose. There are easily 30+ poses in the little alien's arsenal, and they range from sleeping to sitting on the toilet and from shooting a jumpshot to moonwalking. Striking these poses in rapdi succession, coupled with the game's manic pace, kept a smile on my face throughout my time with the game, and the cut scene at the end of each level - despite the fact it never changes - always made me chuckle.

In sum, I highly, highly recommend this incredibly fun game, whcih is a great value at $3.99 and an absolute steal at $1.99.

[noiseredux]

1. Beavis And Butt-Head In Virtual Stupidity (PC)
2. Renegade Ops (PC)
3. Arena Of Octos (Apple II)
4. Beauty And The Beast (Intellivision)
5. Chivalry (Apple II)
6. Donald Duck's Playground (C64)
7. Left 4 Dead (PC)
8. Left 4 Dead 2 (PC)
9. Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered (PC)
10. Forward To The Sky (PC)
11. Elevator Action (MSX)
12. Quake (PC)
13: Talisman: Digital Edition (PC)
14: Dead Or Alive 5 Last Round (PC)
15. Dragon Age Origins (PC)
16. Hearthstone (Android)
17. Toren (PC)
18. The Great Giana Sisters (Amiga)
19. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (PC)
20. Lego Jurassic Park (PC)
21. Borderlands The Pre-Sequel (PC)
22. Cities Skylines (PC)
23. Borderlands The Pre-Sequel: Claptastic Voyage (PC)
24. Her Story (PC)

my wife and I just spent our night playing through Her Story together. And talking about it. What a brilliant game! To the point where at the end we were like "it's not even about beating the game.... you care about the story. You want to know what happened and WHY.

Her Story is the best $6 game released in 2015.
Her Story is the best FMV game ever made.

We've already downloaded the Idle Thumbs spoilercast episode to listen to tomorrow morning.

Just wow. The acting! The writing! The fact that you're given a glorified Win95 desktop to explore - there's even a crappy puzzle game in the recycle bin. The fact that some random folk tune gave me goosebumps.

There were so many moments of pure "OMG!" in this game. We'd run a clip barely a minute long and stare at each other with mouths and eyes wide open.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.

Play it, y'all.

[BogusMeatFactory]

24. Her Story (PC)

my wife and I just spent our night playing through Her Story together. And talking about it. What a brilliant game! To the point where at the end we were like "it's not even about beating the game.... you care about the story. You want to know what happened and WHY.

Her Story is the best $6 game released in 2015.
Her Story is the best FMV game ever made.

We've already downloaded the Idle Thumbs spoilercast episode to listen to tomorrow morning.

Just wow. The acting! The writing! The fact that you're given a glorified Win95 desktop to explore - there's even a crappy puzzle game in the recycle bin. The fact that some random folk tune gave me goosebumps.

There were so many moments of pure "OMG!" in this game. We'd run a clip barely a minute long and stare at each other with mouths and eyes wide open.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.

Play it, y'all.

It really is spectacular and brilliantly executed. Absolutely one of my favorite games this year to be sure! Stark and I were just talking about our experiences with it in chat and would love to talk about it next time I see you on steam or in chat. We can't talk about it here, even in spoiler tags, because it really is a very naturally flowing experience that I feel can't be risked to be spoiled.

How you reach these epiphanies and realizations is different for everyone. Theories about the ubiquitous, but vague clues are abound and unique for everyone. Stark and I were going over our findings and talking about whether certain things were true or not. Such a fascinating game that was played out spectacularly.

One thing this game does teach you is the power of FMV in conveying emotion. I have always been of the belief that a real person can make you feel something far stronger than a computer animated character. It is really difficult and expensive to make these models and try and make them as close to human beings as possible. The closest I think they have gotten to really make you pick up human body language was LA Noir and what happened with that technology? Gone!

Why do we spend millions of dollar on Virtual Kevin Spacey when could just have FMV Kevin Spacey!

[dsheinem]

Y'all have me intrigued! Will download and try out this weekend...

[BogusMeatFactory]

Y'all have me intrigued! Will download and try out this weekend...

Bust out a pen and a pad of paper! Hadn't had to take notes in a modern game. So refreshing! I set my notes up by category and event. Found a new event, added a new box with key words to look up related to the event. Was so much fun!

[noiseredux]

Y'all have me intrigued! Will download and try out this weekend...

it's really, really impressive. Like my wife told me this morning she had trouble falling asleep last night cuz she was just thinking about the game. It's a really haunting experience.

[Luke]

Bust out a pen and a pad of paper!

This sounds incredible.

I hope the game will run on an old Dell laptop with Windows XP.

Loved writing notes down on paper when playing Sherlock Holmes on the Sega CD, so this sounds right up my alley.

[noiseredux]

I hope the game will run on an old Dell laptop with Windows XP.

how old?

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows XP+
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 512MB
DirectX: Version 9.0
Hard Drive: 2 GB available space