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Games Beaten in 2016 So Far - 93

January (20 Games Beaten)


February (8 Games Beaten)


March (8 Games Beaten)


April (13 Games Beaten)


May (6 Games Beaten)


June (13 Games Beaten)


July (7 Games Beaten)


August (15 Games Beaten)


September (3 Games Beaten)


93. SOMA - Steam - September 5



SOMA is a game that I thought looked neat but wasn't really sold on enough to actually spend money on it. When it got announced as the early unlock game in September's Humble Monthly Bundle, I figured I'd give it a go seeing as how I've heard some good things about it. Those things were absolutely correct, and I am not disappointed.



SOMA is a horror game that feels very much like the love child of Bioshock and Alien: Isolation. It has the isolated "everything's going to kill me" feeling while being completely alone like Alien: Isolation, and it has the oceanic seafloor setting of Bioshock (except less Randian dystopia and more shit-hit-the-fan research center). You play as a Canadian guy named Simon who goes in for an experimental brain scan and wakes up in a strange place that - tragically - has neither maple syrup nor professional ice hockey anywhere to be found.



I won't go into much detail because the plot is REALLY fantastic, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't played the game yet, but you spend the next nine hours or so going from section to section in this research complex trying to figure out what happened to you, how you got there, and what the fuck is going on. For 99% of the game, you have no weapon (you get one weapon in the middle of the game, and it breaks as soon as you kill the enemy you have to loot something from), so you spend the game sneaking around (or, in my case, running around like a bitch screaming bloody murder) trying to remain undetected by the enemies. With my propensity for stealth, I was sorely tempted to pull up the Benny Hill theme on my phone and just let it play on repeat while I played the game.



Without spoiling anything, the game's strongest point - even with its incredible atmosphere, well designed setting, and interesting plot - are the existential philosophical questions it poses to you throughout the story. What is it to be alive? What is it merely to exist? Was Descartes right when he said "I think, therefore I am," or is there more to "life" than that? Where is the boundary between man and machine? Does the soul exist, and if it does, what is a soul?



I cannot recommend this game highly enough. It's an extremely tense horror romp and an exceptionally cerebral experience.

1. The Match Of The Millennium (NGPC)
2. Pocket Tennis Color (NGPC)
3. XCOM 2 (PC)
4. Street Fighter V (PC)
5. Spelunky (PC)
6. Gone Home (PC)
7. Day Of The Tentacle Remastered (PC)
8. Heroes Of The Storm (PC)
9. The Elder Scrolls Legends (PC)
10. Land's End (GearVR)
11. Hearthstone: League Of Explorers (PC)
12. Metal Slug (PC)
13. Broforce (PC)
14. Metal Slug X (PC)
15. Hearthstone: One Night In Karazhan (PC)

the latest expansion is... meh. Solo Heartsthone expansions in the past have been a lot of fun and really made you think and make new decks. This one... every single match I won on my first try using my usual Mage deck. No reason to use other heroes or experiment with deck building. Just totally bland and lazy.

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:


August:

115) Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (WII)
116) Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R) (PC)
117) Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (GEN)
118) Streets of Rage (GEN)
119) Technobabylon (PC)
120) Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
121) Ax Battler: A Legend of Golden Axe (GG)

There's something wrong when I have to go back 24 pages to find my last beaten post.

I've always held some fascination for this game, as it's ostensibly an action-adventure game on Game Gear. I've had it for years and years, but never finished it, so why not?

Anyway, I actually beat this a week ago, just now remembered to post about it. It's not very good, y'all. Kind of like Zelda II meets Gargoyle's Quest, except crappier in every way. It's not even a long game, someone that knows what they're doing could probably rip through in an hour...

...after they've ripped their hair out at all the cheapness the game throws at you. Firstly, random battles are far too often, and require you to not get hit to actually "win" and collect the vases that are used for magic and currency. Secondly, there's one stage in particular that sees you defending yourself against invincible werewolves that drop out of the trees to drop what looks like throwing stars or something in a fixed pattern. But that's not the issue, it's that compounded with the spear-wielders that take a full block of life off per attack and some sketchy hit detection with your own power swings (a normal won't kill 'em in one hit). And you're dealing with bats that descend with almost no warning other than an audio cue, and you better be swinging immediately. I think that's the absolute worst stage in the game, hands down.

Did I mention you only have three bars of health, and no way to extend them? No? Well now you know. (Some enemies only hit for "half" a bar, but still.)

Oh, and weirdly, there's no final boss. There's no bosses at all, actually. The whole thing goes down in a cutscene, and even then, you never actually see the final boss, you "cleave through the darkness". Budget cuts, ahoy!

You do pick up moves throughout the game, and there's enough here that, if competently executed, could have been good. But it ain't. 4/10.

Sarge wrote:you never actually see the final boss, you "cleave through the darkness". Budget cuts, ahoy!

Hey now, anyone can cleave through something tangible they can see. It takes a proper badass to cleave through darkness.

Well, with a name like "Ax Battler" (yes, that is his name), what would you expect?

noiseredux wrote:15. Hearthstone: One Night In Karazhan (PC)

the latest expansion is... meh. Solo Heartsthone expansions in the past have been a lot of fun and really made you think and make new decks. This one... every single match I won on my first try using my usual Mage deck. No reason to use other heroes or experiment with deck building. Just totally bland and lazy.

To be fair, I thought Blackrock and League of Explorers were very much the same, in that I used just one deck to win more or less the whole thing. Granted, I've only been able to buy 2 wings so far of this adventure, but I'm really enjoying it. Though, I will say, I think Blizzard doesn't want the standard adventure to be that hard. After so many people had so much trouble beating Naxramus (which was legitimately very hard at points, especially the final boss), they took a step back and changed it to the status quo for Blizzard story-mode now-a-days: It does take thought, but it's mostly fun and silly rather than challenging, which is what I prefer considering these bosses gate (usually quite good) cards.

BUT, the main meat of all of these expansions, for me anyways, has always been the heroic modes. I LOVE the heroic modes, and even though you don't get much for them, I always do the. Naxramus' was REDICULOUSLY hard (Fuck Noth the Plaguebringer, seriously), but these last few have been super fun and challenging. I'm far from the best at Hearthstone, but with LoE and this one as well I've been able to suss out my own decks and beat almost all of them without walkthroughs

Right now I'm stuck on Magic Mirror's heroic. Trying to think of cards that I can play that would just give him minions that harm him, but it's not easy so far because I don't think you can use Fel Reavers in adventures anymore :/

yeah Naxx was super hard. Agreed. I at least found with League that I needed to switch up my deck a couple times or at least THINK about how I should be attacking. At least some rounds took me more than one try. This was just a cakewalk. Felt like wasted gold.

Xeogred wrote:

Flake wrote:Then I remembered that you and I have this conversation every few years.

Wow nice find.

What I don't like about X5 and X6 at all are the weird scaling boss stats and such. Really wacky stuff.

No kidding! And it is so poorly (as in not at all) explained. X5 is particularly egregious in that you cannot get special items from boss characters until they are level 8 or higher - so there is no incentive on normal difficulty to do anything other than kill yourself and quit 8 times in a row before trying to beat the first boss.

X6 at least does not punish you for going after the bosses but in a really weird twist, is actually designed so that you can access the final levels without beating a single boss.

Daft choices like this are what I think about when people bemoan any semblance of a formula in the game design of their favorite series. Zelda fans? Mario fans? Street Fighter fans? Do you really want them to go back to the drawing board?

Speaking of Mega Man games...

.....

First 25

26. Virtua Fighter Remix (SATURN)
27. Manos The Hands of Fate (iOS)
28. Virtua Fighter 2 (PS3)
29. Fighting Vipers (PS3)
30. Ikari Warriors (PS3)
31. Virtua Cop (SATURN)
32. Virtua Cop 2 (SATURN)
33. Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Director's Cut (iOS)
34. Virtua Racing (PS2)
35. Daytona USA (DC)
36. Sega Rally Championship (SATURN)
37. RayForce (iOS)
38. Hundreds (iOS)
39. Don't Look Back (iOS)
40. Finding Teddy (iOS)
41. Shantae & The Pirate's Curse (WII U)
42. Dragon Warrior II (GBC)
43. Guardian Heroes (360)
44. Ninja Smasher! (3DS)
45. BoxBoxBoy! (3DS)
46. 2 Fast 4 Gnomz (3DS)
47. Aeternoblade (3DS)
48. Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures (3DS)

For a game based on a YouTube celebrity, AVGN Adventures is a shockingly good run-and-gun platformer. In it, you play the AVGN and must navigate a series of tributes to classic games such as Castlevania, Mega Man, The Silver Surfer, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Custer's Revenge, Super Mario World, Zelda II, etc. The "humor" wears thin fairly quickly, but the game itself controls incredibly well and - best of all - is incredibly difficult. I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment when I took down the final boss. Accordingly, and despite its subject matter, I highly recommend this game, and I would very much enjoy reading some of our more seasoned players' opinions of it.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:references to classic games ... A Nightmare on Elm Street,

plz elaborate?