Games Beaten 2016

[prfsnl_gmr]

Wendy is fun, but I'm surprised it's price has jumped up so much. If you are looking for another good, relaxing GBC platformer from WayForward, pick up the Sabrina games. They are both as good as Wendy, and they should only set you back a few dollars.

[BoneSnapDeez]

That's hilarious - when I was playing Wendy the other night my wife sarcastically said "Hey maybe you should get the Sabrina games too!" Didn't realize there actually were any.

Wendy was "only" $12 at our favorite gaming store.

[elricorico]

1. SSX 3 (oXbox)
2. Mario Kart DS (NDS)
3. Fairune (Android)
4. Streets of Rage (Gen)
5. Amplitude (PS2)
6. Kirby's Dream Land (GB)
7. Crash Team Racing (PS)

8. Enchanted Arms (Xbox360)

I only got an XBox 360 at the start of this year and really was only interested for a few exclusives, but when I came upon a 3 for $10 at a pawn shop I found myself grabbing this game as well. About 2 months ago I was trying to decide what I wanted to play and something about this stood out from the crowd. After a couple of hours I was pretty hooked.

This isn't one of the greatest JRPGs ever, but there was more than enough good stuff going on to keep me engaged. The battle system is a little bit of a mix of turn based and grid based strategy. Battles move quickly and the fact that your characters start each battle at full strength (for most cases) changes the general strategy - going all out early on tends to be the best for most battles.

There's also a little bit of variety available in your party by having the opportunity to swap in golems instead of your human party members. The golems tend to be about the same power as the humans, but are limited in the ways they can advance. For most of the game I would switch golems in and out of the party while traversing dungeons and then bring in humans for the boss battles. As I reached the end I did find myself keeping the humans in all the time to maximize their progress.

The story is okay - not far outside the norm for this genre. The characters are a bit silly though; this is definitely a game that didn't take itself too seriously. The plot tends to move along quickly though, which is probably why I made it all the way through this one. There wasn't a particular spot where I felt bogged down.

There were some definite gripes for me. I felt that I had to spend a little too much time in the menus. Some of the areas were just too big and you were often forced to go back and forth through them to move the plot ahead. Treasure chests almost always contained money, which took away some of the charm in finding them. I also found the series of endgame battles to be just a bit too much.

If you like JRPGs I would say that this is a good - but not great - one to try. I'm glad I picked it for my first XBox 360 game to beat.

[ElkinFencer10]

1. Shadow Warrior - Playstation 4 - January 1
2. The Order: 1886 - Playstation 4 - January 2
3. Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop - Wii - January 3
4. NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits - WiiWare - January 4
5. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd - Vita - January 5
6. Shadow the Hedgehog - Gamecube - January 9
7. Fairy Bloom Freeia - Steam - January 10
8. Petit Novel Series: Harvest December - 3DS - January 13
9. Gas Guzzlers Extreme - Steam - January 14
10. Muramasa: The Demon Blade - Wii - January 16
11. Project Zero 2: Wii Edition - Wii - January 19
12. Killzone: Liberation - PSP - January 20
13. Sin & Punishment: Star Successor - Wii - January 20
14. Kirby's Epic Yarn - Wii - January 24
15. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love - Wii - January 25
16. Corpse Party - PSP - January 25
17. Freedom Planet - Wii U - January 25
18. Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders from Planet Space - Vita - January 25
19. Silent Hill: Homecoming - Xbox 360 - January 26
20. Life is Strange - Playstation 4 - January 28
21. Corpse Party: Book of Shadows - PSP - February 2
22. Megadimension Neptunia VII - Playstation 4 - February 12
23. Dr. Discord's Conquest - NES - February 13
24. Corpse Party: Blood Drive - Vita - February 17
25. If My Heart Had Wings - Steam - February 18
26. Missing: An Interactive Thriller - Steam - February 18
27. Her Story - Steam - February 18
28. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 3DS - February 26
29. Saints Row 2 - Steam - March 1
30. Saturday Morning RPG - Playstation 4 - March 3
31. Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3DS - March 6
32. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - Wii U - March 8
33. Pokken Tournament - Wii U - March 20
34. Moe Chronicle - Vita - March 22
35. Tom Clancey's The Division - Playstation 4 - March 23
36. Yoshi's New Island - 3DS - March 28
37. Alien Rage - Steam - April 1
38. Alien Breed: Impact - Steam - April 2
39. Alien Breed 2: Assault - Steam - April 3
40. Alien Breed 3: Descent - Steam - April 3
41. Bravely Second: Ballad of the Three Cavaliers - 3DS - April 6
42. Quantum Break - Xbox One - April 7
43. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric - Wii U - April 8
44. Akai Katana - Xbox 360 - April 9
45. Otomedius Excellent - Xbox 360 - April 9
46. Chasing Dead - Wii U - April 10
47. Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation - 3DS - April 14
48. Ratchet and Clank - Playstation 4 - April 20
49. Starfox Zero - Wii U - April 23
50. Aero Fighters 2 - NeoGeo - May 8
51. Bravely Second: End Layer - 3DS - May 11
52. Uncharted: Golden Abyss - Vita - May 15
53. Doom - Playstation 4 - May 20



Holy fuck, this game is legitimately sexual. I've never been so turned on the image of a massive servant of Satan being bisected with a chainsaw. I'm sure this is common knowledge on these forums already given the amount of discussion this goregasm of a game has gotten over the past week, but just to reiterate - JESUS CHRIST ON A BICYCLE, THIS GAME IS INCREDIBLE.



It seems like, in the last couple generations, id hiccuped a little bit. Wolfenstein was okay. Doom 3 wasn't bad. Neither were great games, though. Then POW, Wolfenstein comes and punches you in the face a couple years back like YOU WANT MULTIPLAYER?? SCREW YOU, MAN. HERE'S A BITCHIN' SINGLE PLAYER. Last week, Doom exploded onto the scene like FAST PACED DEMON SLAYING. YOU WANT JESUS?? WE AIN'T GOT NO JESUS, BUT WE DO HAVE CHAINSAWS AND SHOTGUNS AND A BFG.



I'm a bit of a fanboy for this game, but I'll give you some legitimate information about the game now. It's a total reboot of the series, and it takes a very different direction than Doom 3. Whereas Doom 3 had a distinct horror atmosphere, Doom 4/2016/whatever put all of the focus on the action. That's not to say that there aren't parts that are downright creepy, but there's a totally different feel than its older step brother whose parents never really loved him and just kept him around to avoid CPS.

They really hit it out of the park with this one. The game is gorgeous, and it runs beautifully; even on consoles (Playstation 4, anyway; can't attest to Xbox One personally), it runs at a silky 60 fps. The single player is the main attraction here, but for those of us with an internet connection (which is everyone here, otherwise I'm going to need an explanation of how you're reading this), there's a treat. And it's not the traditional multiplayer mode (although that's not bad. It's not great, but it's not bad. Just kind of okay).



Welcome to Snapmap, your ticket to making the most fucked up Doom levels imaginable. Got some friends? Team up to take on an ever-increasing number of player made maps and scenarios. Don't have any friends? Go make some, and then team up to take on an ever-increasing number of player made maps and scenarios. I've only played around with Snapmap a little bit, but it's got a LOT of potential for some great cooperative multiplayer.



In short, there are two kinds of people in this world - people who play Doom, and people who are missing out on one of the best shooters in years. Don't be the latter. Go buy Doom on your platform of choice. Like, yesterday. It's great.

[MrPopo]

1. Oni - PC
2. Donkey Kong 64 - N64
3. Yoshi's Story - N64
4. Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide - PC
5. Forsaken 64 - N64
6. Bloodrayne: Betrayal - PSN
7. Fire Emblem Seisen no Keifu - SNES
8. Fire Emblem Shin Monshō no Nazo: Hikari to Kage no Eiyū - Nintendo DS
9. Valkyria Chronicles 3 - PSP
10. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing - DC
11. Rise of the Tomb Raider - PC
12. XCOM 2 - PC
13. Shadowrun Hong Kong Bonus Campaign - PC
14. Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3DS
15. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 3DS
16. Lagrange Point - NES
17. Fire Emblem Fates: Revelations - 3DS
18. Cybernator - SNES
19. Outwars - PC
20. Resident Evil - GC
21. Resident Evil 2 - GC
22. Resident Evil 3 - GC
23. Resident Evil Code Veronica X - GC
24. Dino Crisis - PSX
25. Resident Evil 5 - PC
26. Dark Souls 3 - PS4
27. The Banner Saga 2 - PC
28. Bravely Second - 3DS
29. Star Fox Zero - Wii U
30. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - PC
31. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault - PC
32. Doom (2016) - PC
33. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade - PC
34. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm - PC

So when I went to make this post I noticed I named the previous game incorrectly; I guess I was so excited about doing Soulstorm I called Dark Crusade that (adding in the whole "my cat ate the post" thing). But last game I beat was Dark Crusade, this time it was Soulstorm.

So Soulstorm and Dark Crusade are very similar. They both involve a Risk-style map with all the supported races duking it out for overall control. Soulstorm includes the Sisters of Battle (as well as the Dark Eldar), so it's automatically better because the SoB are the best faction in the universe.

Soulstorm does remove a lot of the more OP stuff from Dark Crusade. Now instead of a large number of territories providing really amazing bonuses that let you quickly sweep the map you instead see said bonuses distributed amongst the racial strongholds, and most have been severely toned down. The only bonuses to survive fully intact are the Forward Base (start with prebuilt buildings) and the lower cost for map armies bonuses. The rest are mostly nice to haves, with the Space Marines being the best new one (you can build some units in stronghold capital at an outrageous price and then use them when attacking non-stronghold maps). The two bonuses I mentioned at the start are still the best ones, however. That said, the main tangible difference is that the middle portion of the campaign isn't the steamroll that Dark Crusade's was; now it's only the end portion that maintains that momentum. In the middle portion you'll find that you don't have the resources to keep attacking in a line while your enemies still have enough resources to attack you. That said, you should still be able to fend them off, so you're never in any real danger.

The strongholds are less tedious in this game compared to Dark Crusade. In Dark Crusade I found many of them just took ages to beat due to how they were laid out and how enemy reinforcements worked; I was never in any danger of losing, I just had to keep rebuilding rather than maintaining the same army. The Imperial Guard stronghold in Soulstorm was actually the most interesting, as it gets harder if you try to be a good experienced RTS player and squash the resupply bases as they pop up; doing so forces you to keep overcommitting to keep them off their Baneblades. If you instead take it easy and bottle up the first one then you'll do all right.

[Ack]

1. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun)
2. Puzzle Link (NGPC)(Puzzle)
3. Illusion of Gaia (SNES)(RPG)
4. Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War (PC)(Strategy)
5. Shadowrun: Dragonfall (PC)(RPG)
6. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (PC)(RPG)
7. Drakkhen (SNES)(RPG)
8. Flight of the Amazon Queen (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
9. Shadowgrounds: Survivor (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
10. Lufia & The Fortress of Doom (SNES)(RPG)
11. BioShock (PC)(FPS)
12. Jeopardy! Sports Edition (SNES)(Game Show Sim)
13. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (PC)(FPS)

I am Turok!

Sorry, I just had to start with that line. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is the first game from my Summer Challenge this year, and it was an excellent choice to kick things off that has left me pumped. The action is fast paced, there is a surprising amount of challenging platforming, the array of weaponry is impressive, and while the game features a hub system along the lines of titles like Hexen and Catacomb: Apocalypse, some of the level design approaches open world design years before that was remotely conceivable. Hands down, I am impressed, and I think I actually like Turok: Dinosaur Hunter even more than Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, which I hold up alongside GoldenEye 007 as some of the very best in console FPS history. This is not to say that Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is perfect, because it certainly has a few problems and quirks I would have liked fixed., but these are relatively minor points in the grand scheme of the game.

First things first though, let's talk about the plot. The game has one...but it's ultimately unimportant and hardly comes up in the game. The Campaigner, an extradimensional overlord bent on conquering our universe, attempts to find the ultimate weapon, and it is up to a middle-aged Native American man named Tal'Set to take on the title of Turok, stop the Campaigner's diabolical plan by shooting all of his minions in the face, and then stop the Campaigner...by shooting him in the face too. This is never explained in the game, but like I said it's ultimately unimportant. You're here to shoot dinosaurs anyway, and the game certainly doesn't hold back in letting you go after the great thunder lizards. To make things more interesting though, eventually those dinosaurs get weapons a la Dino-Riders, so you'll have to fight raptors armed with laser cannons and triceratops with rocket launchers being ridden by poachers with machine guns. To kill them, you start with a knife and a bow...and then that bow gets exploding arrows, and then you get shotguns, assault rifles, miniguns, grenade launchers, a missile launcher that fires three rockets in a spiraling volley, a device that shoots a charged shockwave, a fusion cannon, so on and so forth, so don't feel bad for our old pal Turok. He may be wearing bone armor and have a feather in his hair, but he can drop a missile mech at 100 yards with a well-placed bolt of screaming plasma. You know what? We need more bad ass Native American protagonists in video games.

To add to this, Turok moves less like he's running and more like he's got a jetpack. You freaking fly through these levels, and you've actually got a fair bit of maneuverability with your jumping mechanics too. Turok can't bunny hop, but he can strafe jump for greater distances and do a midair hop if he is falling and not coming off of a jump. This means that if you have to get a bit of distance, you can run off the side of a cliff and then jump in the air for that extra inch of horizontal reach you need. The devs put this in intentionally, so their level design often features precariously tiny ledges and rock pillars which seem to hang in midair over terrifying plummets into nothing. Which is kind of funny actually, because it's about the only way Turok will die from a fall since he doesn't take fall damage whatsoever. Does this mean I have ever thrown myself off a ledge while going full auto with a shotgun into a screeching Dimetrodon's face? Oh yes. Oh God yes.

As I mentioned earlier, Turok features a hub world system, which isn't that uncommon in FPS of the era. Each of Turok's 8 levels contains a piece of the super weapon, the Chronoscepter, along with keys needed to be found to open up other levels. Generally it's three keys to a level, but not always, and the game provides a helpful menu option to show you which keys and Chronoscepter parts you have found, in what levels you found them, and how many remain. If you miss a key, then you can easily go back from the hub world, and as a bonus, most of the enemies you killed will still be gone, unless they respawn. While respawning enemies are fairly common, they're usually of an easier variety, they often drop health when killed, and there is usually a limit to how many will appear, so if you keep killing them, they will eventually get the message. This means you could spend your first run just clearing out the bad guys so you can come back later to find those missing keys in peace. While many levels are pretty linear, there are a couple that are much more open and let you wander around to find the secret keys on your own. Level 4 is the best about this, and consequently it's also my favorite level. Most of the game uses a distinct jungle theme, though several explore villages, ancient cities, or mountainside temples, and by the end of the game you're fighting through the Campaigner's futuristic robot warriors inside what seems to be a massive space ship. The transition across regions is actually pretty consistent, and each level is fairly distinct in its layout. The first two levels appear the most alike, but after that, you'll be able to spot the vast differences in design.

If you pick up the GOG or Steam versions, you're playing the enhanced re-release from Night Dive Studios, which is how I played the game. Night Dive made some important changes, but these changes do things to make the game both easier and harder, resulting in a rough balance of what the original was like. The initial release of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter on Nintendo 64 and PC featured limited options and a heavy dose of fog which limited the player's viewpoint to about fifteen feet. This worked for enemies as well, and it meant weapon accuracy needn't be so efficient. Night Dive expanded upon these options and pulled that fog way back, letting the player see much farther than before. Unfortunately this limitation was removed from enemies, so now they are incredibly accurate from great distance. Your weapons on the other hand...not so much. I found I often would have to fire a couple of shots to figure out where I was hitting before finally getting to take down my target, usually while I was being shot at by said target. I like that this sort of balances out the changes, though even with enemies popping me from a football field away at times, I found the game quite easy. So much so, that I ended up maxing out my lives by level 3 and pretty much keeping it that way from then on. Which leads me to my complaints...

Yes, I do have complaints. The first is that the respawn rate is really quick, which does get a bit frustrating when I'm fighting a ton of enemies who respawn roughly as fast as I can put them down. Second, melee attacks from enemies have a weird range that I was never able to determine. In general I found I was getting hit from much further out than I thought, so I suspect that my camera view actually comes from within my hit box or behind it as opposed to in front of it. This meant there were some awkward moments when I would try to dodge out of the way and still take damage from a dino whose jaws were like five feet from my face. I noticed it whenever it happened, thus breaking my immersion.

Finally, I have one complaint from something that Night Dive implemented: achievements. More specifically, achievements and how they interact with cheats, which were in the game from the getgo. I didn't bother with the cheats in the game, save for one, which unlocks for you when you max out your lives and the icons needed to gain an extra life. When you do this, the game gives you a pop up message which declares you have unlocked the Infinite Lives cheat. Every time you turn on the game, you will have to re-access this cheat if you want to play with it. Even if you don't care, you still get the message. That's a minor annoyance, and considering how many lives I had, it was one that I never felt was necessary. But, hey, I had access to it, so I activated it, threw myself off a cliff a few times for laughs, and then cut it off and went right back to doing what I was doing. And then I saved my game. Apparently if you activate a cheat at any point and then save your game, you can no longer unlock achievements on that save. Nothing in the game will tell you this, nor even that there are achievements, but once I noticed that I had a few in GOG Galaxy, I looked them up and then discovered that this happens. Because I goofed off for a minute, I had screwed over that aspect of the game and discovered I'd have to wipe my saves and start over fresh to unlock any more achievements. While I understand why this happens, I admit that I felt more than a little annoyed that one thing built into the game from day one actively interfered (and was intentionally designed to do so per Night Dive) with something else built into the game at a later date. While I know this happens in other games, like how the Grand Theft Auto series keeps you from getting 100% if you ever activate a cheat in most of their entries, those games don't also award you with cheats for being good at the game in the first place and parade the fact in front of you with pop up messages you might see every time you turn on the bloody thing. So, you know, that sucked. Moral of the story: don't pay attention to pop up messages in games. It's just the devs trying to lock you out of something. Also, don't be so good at games.

[MrPopo]

Question for you Ack; you mentioned respawning enemies. Do said enemies drop ammo? Or are they just a bullet tax that eventually bleeds you dry?

[Ack]

Question for you Ack; you mentioned respawning enemies. Do said enemies drop ammo? Or are they just a bullet tax that eventually bleeds you dry?

Bullet tax would be pretty apt, though these are typically the weakest varieties. I usually just used my knife for those guys.

[BoneSnapDeez]

1. Tenchi Sōzō (Super Famicom)
2. Eternal Senia (Steam)
3. Tombs & Treasure (NES)
4. Magic Knight Rayearth (Super Famicom)
5. Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy (Famicom Disk System)
6. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)
7. Seiken Psycho Caliber: Majū no Mori Densetsu (Famicom Disk System)
8. Deep Dungeon: Madō Senki (Famicom Disk System)
9. Deep Dungeon II: Yūshi no Monshō (Famicom Disk System)
10. Suishō no Dragon (Famicom Disk System)
11. Dandy: Zeuon no Fukkatsu (Famicom Disk System)
12. Lagoon (SNES)
13. Contra (NES)
14. Super C (NES)
15. Wonder Boy (Sega Master System)
16. OutRun (Sega Master System)
17. OutRun (Genesis)
18. Ninja Gaiden (NES)
19. Written in the Sky (Steam)
20. Wendy: Every Witch Way (Game Boy Color)
21. Mario Bros. (NES)
22. Popeye (NES)

Two Miyamoto classics, both of which are single-screen platformers that originated in the arcades.

I played countless hours of the arcade Mario Bros. as a kid. The NES port isn't perfect, but holds up pretty well. The goal here is simple: clear out all the enemies from each level. They emerge from pipes at the top and gradually descent several platforms to the bottom of the screen. Enemies that hit the bottom enter some other pipes and then reemerge above. Unlike "Super" Mario, the "Original" Mario isn't equipped to jump on enemies. Instead they must be hit from below (stunned) and kicked away. There's no time limit and patience is sometimes the best strategy, though invincible fireballs will inevitably appear should you dillydally too long.

After I beat (well, looped) the single-player mode my daughter wanted to join in as player 2. Being a toddler, she just mashes buttons. I've made it my goal to complete the game whilst protecting here from bad guys, which is no easy feat. We've made it about halfway through.

I never had the pleasure of playing Popeye in the arcades so I'm not suite sure how this port (a Famicom launch title) compares.

Popeye feels a bit funny at first - there's no jumping! The objective here is collect all the stuff Olive Oyl drops from the top of the screen. Anything left lingering at the screen's bottom for too long will cause Popeye to lose a life, so it's best to keep moving and grabbing. All the while, Bluto must be avoided. Which honestly isn't too tough in this particular port, he basically wanders aimlessly and it's not particularly hard to keep a fair distance away from his punches. Despite the fact that Bluto can't be attacked directly, there are some offensive maneuvers. For instance, in level 1 if Bluto finds himself under a barrel Popeye can punch a bag from across the screen which will hit the barrel and knock Bluto out for a short period. These attacks are tricky to pull off and I generally found them to be a waste of time. It's better to just go for Olive Oyl's Objects or head for the can of spinach which will allow Popeye to hit Bluto across the screen one time.

It's a pretty fun game overall and, despite the fact that there are only three levels, the scenery is drastically different in all of them. Impressive for 1982 standards.

I should mention that I own additional ports of these games that I was unable to complete. Mario Bros. on the Atari 2600 features some cramped levels with very little room to jump. And Commodore 64 Popeye showcases a very aggressive Bluto I found incredibly difficult to avoid.

[Exhuminator]

I remember when the original Turok came out on N64, playing it in 1997 with some friends. I distinctly recall being blown away by the sun and lens reflection graphical effect. Those were simpler days.