Games Beaten 2016

[Exhuminator]

I dunno, if folks want to start throwing suggestions out there, I'm all ears.

[Sarge]

Oh dear, except for maybe those...

[dsheinem]

Games Beaten 2016

Spirits of Xanadu - PC
Tales From the Borderlands: Episode 1 - PC
Operation C - Game Boy
That Dragon, Cancer - PC
Contra - NES
Super C - NES
Contra III - The Alien Wars - SNES
Tekken - PS1
The King of Fighters '99 - PS1
Street Fighter Alpha - PS1
Call of Duty: Black Ops III - PS4
Three Fourths Home - PC
Firewatch - PS4
Street Fighter V - PS4
Far Cry: Primal - PS4
Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax - PS3
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma EXTEND - Xbox One
Android Assault Cactus - PS4
Table Top Racing - Vita
The Room - iOS *new*
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle - PS3 *new*

Total: 21

Previously: 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

The Room is an awesome puzzle-based game that was much more engrossing than it has any right to be in large part because of the smart incorporation of elements of strange fiction. I can't wait to play the two sequels!

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle is, well, bizarre. I picked it up for $5 on that last PSN flash sale and suppose I will go back to it some more in time, but the 1cc in arcade mode was pretty straightforward (1st try!) and the story mode seems convoluted and filled with characters I don't care about. The game controls ok and some of the ideas are novel, but what it has going for it more than anything is its visual design - the game pops on screen and is worth hunting down on the cheap just to check it out.

[fastbilly1]

1. Portal DS - DS
2. Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People: Episode 4 - Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective - PC

New:
3. Metal Slug - Coop - MVS
All the years I have played Metal Slug, I never beat it in coop. Earlier this year Ack and I beat it on his MVS. He did it in 3 credits, I did it in 11...ok so I am super rusty.

4. Mario and Luigi RPG 3 - Inside Bowser Story - DS
Started in January, ended in March. Power leveled the Bros, not so much on King Koopa. Neat concept, introduced a couple new enemies that I really liked - like the Goomba Train. Overall it is the weakest of the Mario role playing games I have played, granted I have only played three. The minigames, specifically the giant Bowser ones, were very spotty in design. Rules in these games were all over the place, some made sense, some had hidden tricks. It was a pretty poor showing by Nintendo actually.

5. Payday 2 - PC
Started last year, I have now beaten every map atleast once (not counting holiday maps), and most have been completed on a couple difficulties. I currently sit at Infamy III, almost IV, but feel that I have completed this one to a level where there are few challenges left. Once you figure out how the AI handles certain situations, and what is considered stealth, it becomes a game of exploit the weakness. I wont say I am gangbusters at it, but I did get a couple of the hardest achievements like Tabula Rasa.

6. Akalabeath - PC
Ultima 0 and the game of overpowered lizardmen. If you do not know the name, it is one of the first graphical CRPGS and free on gog. I completed about half a dozen quest for Lord British then got cornered by a gremlin who could dodge anything. So I ended up dying of starvation. Close enough, I wont be playing it again.

7. Kings Quest 2 – PC
I have had an on again off again affair with the KQ series for most of my life. Kings Quest 1 was a game that a friend of mine owned and I got to play occasionally but never got very far. It wasn’t until dosbox got to the point where I could play it all the way through, that was an intense brain teaser of decade old information being unearthed. Kings Quest 2 I flirted with shortly after beating 1. A couple weeks ago a friend mentioned it in casual conversation and I said I never gave it an earnest go because I kept hitting dead ends. He then gave me the most profound bit of advice I have received for a pc adventure game: “Just make a different save everytime you do anything, its not like you dont have the harddrive space” yeah, that night I beat Kings Quest 2. I had somewhere in the company of 400 saves. Kings Quest 1 was pretty groundbreaking when it came out, 2 was just more of the same. Technical marvel for the time it was released, but other than going back to see the world in 1987 PC terms, I would highly recommend the fan remake with less dead ends. I ended up seeing the batmobile easter egg completely by accident and it was awesome.

8. Kings Quest 3 – PC
After beating KQ2, I loaded up 3 thinking “yeah I got this.” I fully admit to using more than just the hint book on KQ3. Mostly because several of the key puzzles are time based. The story falls in line perfectly with the rest of the KQ overall story arc, but does not appear to at first. The world is well fleshed out, the puzzles are not as obtuse. But the spells… I did have a bugger of a time trying to find that stupid mirror for Medusa. Sadly, like KQ2, I think the fan remake is superior to the original game. If for no other reason that removing the bulk of the damn suicide stairs that plague the series.

9. Kings Quest 4 – PC
Luckily Kings Quest 4 was one of my wife’s favorite games as a child, so we burned through the entire game in about two hours. She knew up until Lolotte castle like the back of her hand, it was super unexpected. It was a very clever title, letting you play as the daughter of King Graham from the first game, saved in KQ3. She is captured by Lolotte and it is all very heavy Wizard of Oz influenced. To me it was the best KQ since the first, but still has its own set of stupid deaths. And who thought Bridle to Snake = Pegasus was a good idea?

10. Kings Quest 5 – PC
Now we are talking, King Graham back in the saddle, point and click interface, and voice acting. Daventry has been kidnapped by the brother of the evil wizard from KQ3. Awesome, then we get the talking Owl. Critical plot points are tied back to other games in the series, like the wizards, I think this is the first of the series to do that. Actually I think it is the only game to acknowledge Adventure in Serenia (aka Kings Quest 0). Yes the desert sucks, but not as bad as the honey trap or the yeti pie. Honestly the part that got me the worst was Cat and Rat Quick Time Event.

11. Kings Quest 6 – PC
This is probably the pinnacle of the series. It is stunningly beautiful, has an excellent cast, is not full of super obtuse puzzles, and has some truly funny and truly scary moments. Yes it is impossible to win without the “Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles” which my GOG version did not come with, so I used a PDF version I found online. With areas based on Arabian Nights, Alice in Wonderland, Greek Mythology, Druidic, and Beauty and the Beast, the landscape is vast and varied. The cliffs were the most difficult part until I got to making the spells and realized that I had inadvertently went to the druid island early and buggered up the game, so I consulted a guide and got the “worst” ending.

* Yes I beat five Kings Quests with only sparingly using a guide in the span of three weeks. Once you get into the mindset, they all have a similar thought layout for puzzles and solutions. Or maybe it is just that my mind is wired up weird.

12. Battle Block Theater – Coop – PC
I have beaten it solo but BBT is best in coop, with the narrator set to the highest setting and the music booming. If you like comedy platformers it is a blast.

13. Lode Runner – Apple ][ Plus
Only took me 30 years… A couple weeks ago I got the Apple ][ working again and loaded up my favorite game to play when my uncle use to use it for work. Using my trusted CH Products Apple Joystick, I rushed through the first two stages in moments, then muscle memory ran out and I realized I had never gotten past that. So every night when I got home I played it for atleast ten minutes until I finally beat every stage.

14. Space Eggs – Apple ][ Plus
The unofficial port of Moon Cresta to the Apple ][ by Nasir Gebelli (Better known for working on all of Squares NES games). Not a great game by any standard, but after decades of on and off again bullet hells, Moon Cresta is a much easier. So it only took me about 30 minutes for me to get back in the groove and break 30k.

15. SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium - NGPC
Just have to beat noise's time. Competent little fighter, one of the best portable fighters pre 7th gen. Such a deep combo system for two buttons.

[Key-Glyph]

01. MagMax (NES)
02. World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (GEN) [2-player]
03. Sonic Spinball (GEN)*
04. Sonic Spinball (GEN)* [complete]
05. Comix Zone (GEN)*
06. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
07. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Manhattan Project (NES)
08. WCW World Championship Wrestling (NES)
09. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
10. Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)
11. Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii)

12. Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

This was my first Animal Crossing experience.

This game came with a used DSi XL I bought off eBay, and I was excited by my luck. For years I'd had a coworker telling me that I'd love this series based on my general enjoyment of Harvest Moon, and Bogus was always going on about it too. The stars had aligned! It was finally time to give it a try.

The funny thing about Animal Crossing is that it's more of an experience than a game. The real fascination comes in with its real-time sync to the real world; every month, day, and second in the real world has its counterpart in Animal Crossing. This means that all your neighbors -- and you! -- have actual annual birthdays you can remember or miss, your town has day-specific holidays (e.g. New Year's), and fish and bugs come and go with the seasons.

Neighbors move in, and they move away. You work, save, spend, repeat. Animal Crossing is almost like a philosophical statement on the nature of change. The game openly discourages save scumming (reloading to avoid/change an outcome you've already experienced), which forces you to confront and deal with the fact that hey... that's life. This might not sound like a particularly significant gameplay change, but since video games at their core are all about repetition for a better score, or reloading to save your party member, or engaging in endless other types of do-overing, it's more jarring at first than you'd think.

At first I thought the game was incredibly complicated. Then, when I figured out the basic personal types of my neighbors, I felt a little disappointed. But in the end, I settled into a comfortable place of appreciation for the ongoing experience it offers. Its simplicity keeps it familiar while everything is evolving around you, mostly beyond your control. There's no "right" way to do anything, really, and seemingly no absolute guarantees that you can influence neighbors to leave or stay. I mean it when I say I had to work at this -- to really work at letting go of viewing the game as either something I was winning or losing at.

Also, the dialog is HILARIOUS. Seriously, some of the consistently funniest stuff I've read in a game in a while.

Definitely not for everyone. Very repetitive, and not overly much to do. But, when you're sick, or you have a few quiet moments after work when you want to de-stress, or if you're the kind of gamer who wants to work on a looooooooooooooooooong long-term goal, this one's for you.

* = replay

[noiseredux]

Fast are you gonna play KQ7 now? That's the only one I own haha.

[fastbilly1]

I am holding off on more Kings Quests. I am debating Space Quest or Quest for Glory. I will be much slower in those since they are not of the same mindset (the first Space Quest took me a solid month of random sparetime gaming). Or Witcher 1, so I can finally move into Witcher 2.

Just working through my PC gaming backlogs.

[noiseredux]

Just working through my PC gaming backlogs.

me too... sort of. My ME2 strategy guide just showed up. Basically got it so I could just sort of use it as a checklist as to what the actual mandatory story missions are. I like the game a lot so far, but it's not like games like Dragon Age Origins or Pillars Of Eternity where I was so enamored that I actively enjoyed doing sidequests and exploring at my own leisure.

[MrPopo]

I am holding off on more Kings Quests. I am debating Space Quest or Quest for Glory. I will be much slower in those since they are not of the same mindset (the first Space Quest took me a solid month of random sparetime gaming). Or Witcher 1, so I can finally move into Witcher 2.

Just working through my PC gaming backlogs.

My understanding is Space Quest is Kings Quest in space while Quest for Glory makes a lot of usage of the RPG elements to fit in between an RPG and an adventure game.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I am holding off on more Kings Quests. I am debating Space Quest or Quest for Glory. I will be much slower in those since they are not of the same mindset (the first Space Quest took me a solid month of random sparetime gaming). Or Witcher 1, so I can finally move into Witcher 2.

Just working through my PC gaming backlogs.

My understanding is Space Quest is Kings Quest in space while Quest for Glory makes a lot of usage of the RPG elements to fit in between an RPG and an adventure game.

When Quest For Glory claims to add RPG elements to games, it means like pen and paper RPG elements, combined in with the normal Sierra "quirks." Granted if you can handle that, and it certainly seems like you can, go right on ahead. It's just a bit more of a ballache than it seems like it's worth to do what's essentially King's Quest with stat management and training (think of like Ultima 7-style training) and penning lots of your own maps and stuff, especially in QfG2.

Lots of silly Sierra quirky humor and writing, but GOD, if you're a purist and refuse to use any kind of guide, then get ready for it to consume your life. Then again, considering that this is a Sierra game, that shouldn't surprise you ;3