Hadn't been posting in this, since I've predominately played FFXI this year, making my list of games beaten...fairly meager

As that's tapered off, I anticipate getting to more
other games, so I figured I'd start posting.
Thus far...
1.
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox One)
2.
DOAX3 Fortune Edition (PS4)
3.
Uncharted 4 (PS4)
4.
DOOM (2016) (PC)
5.
Halo 5 (Xbox One)
6.
Dark Souls (PC)
7.
Call of Duty (PC)
While I can comment on others if anyone cares, I completed Dark Souls and Call of Duty over this past weekend, so I'll just share thoughts on those.
Dark SoulsPlayed: Just under 56 hours, elected not to delve into the DLC (though I made a copy of my save hive file, so I assume I
could), and after 55+ hours of not using it, took advantage of having saved Knight Solaire from himself by employing Jolly Cooperation™ to take down Gwyn (likely saving myself a few hours of attempting him...I am not good at
Dark Souls).
I've taken a stab at other Soulsborne games before, but something has always distracted me from actually keeping at them. Given that I don't particularly care to use the online features, the "restart" movement wasn't that key to the timing...but I was looking for what game to play next, and figured why not.
The last time I'd attempted DS, I'd managed to get past the bell gargoyles fight/first bell, and...then went and ran around Darkroot Garden for some reason. This time, I consulted more FAQs...and over the course of my playthrough, pretty well near any other resource I could find to help. I may have denied myself some of the joy of discovery, but the difference it made in keeping at the game likely paid off.
To a point, that the game pushed me to research it in order to come up with plans of action...is rare, and satisfying. The game doesn't tell much of its story in a direct way, and even some of the lore/etc is only from outside resources - it helped me appreciate what I ran into.
Even then, as much as knowledge helps - and it does, as proper preparation goes a long way -
Dark Souls still thrives on execution. Nothing like watching a Youtuber able to speedrun the game in under an hour after I spent several failing to beat a single boss. I never quite got to the point of quitting over a difficult encounter, but a handful did get quite frustrating.

Still, while parts of the game are at least mean, if not downright cheap (I had...more choice words at the time), it
does come together to craft a memorable experience.
Ultimately, I enjoyed my run through this, and plan to re-attempt or start on the other Soulsborne games. It may not always be
fun, but it's satisfying. Praise the sun!
Call of DutyPlayed: ~6.5 hours on Normal.
I grabbed this (well, the 1/2/UO bundle) on the Steam Sale to nominally participate in this month's Together Retro. I also bought
Advanced Warfare, but I don't feel like paying (another) overage charge to download it before my cap resets, so I won't be playing it this month.
My only prior experience with the series was
Modern Warfare, which I was mixed on (and played several years ago). However, it did serve to reconfigure my expectations for the series going into the original here. So, it was fairly similar to what I remembered from that, just clunkier. Main thing that stood out was that they'd yet to use regenerating health. Playing on PC seemed to net an advantage as well, since I could (and did!) abuse quicksave, and the high res + mouse controls seems to make sniping enemies maybe a little
too easy.
Story was, for the time - or perhaps more, for the team size/budget - decently done. I didn't find most of it to be particularly memorable though. Could also just be the glut of WW2 based media that came out around then. I can respect that they were trying integrate
Band of Brothers style storytelling, but little seemed incorporated into the gameplay.
All in all, it was okay, and didn't really defy expectations.