Games Beaten 2020

[prfsnl_gmr]

1. Her Story (iOS)

Her Story is a FMV game released to well-deserved critical acclaim a few years ago. In it, you search archived police interview footage to determine, as much as the game allows, the truth surrounding a murder committed nearly twenty years earlier. The surprisingly compelling gameplay consists almost entirely of typing search terms into an approximation of an old Windows PC. Doing so unlocks additional interview videos. Those videos, obviously, provide you with ideas for additional search terms. The order in which you access the videos is determined entirely by the player, and videos you access later in the game frequently provide additional context to videos you watched earlier. Tracking down all the videos is quite challenging, and completely unnecessary for “beating” the game. (You can log off whenever you feel like you’ve uncovered enough of the story, rolling the credits.) You’ll likely want to track them down, however, to make sure there’s nothing left that might upend your understanding of the events surrounding the murder. Most importantly, the game is very well-written and well-acted, and it is tremendously engaging. (My wife and I played through it over dinner as a weeknight date.) I am surprised that, to my knowledge, no FMV games during the 1990s CD-ROM FMV boom adopted similar mechanics - it’s so simple, yet so compelling! - and I really can’t recommend it highly enough.

[pook99]

1. Hard corps: uprising(xbox 360)
2. Katana Land (XBox 360)
3. Bionic Commando: rearmed 2(xbox 360)
4. Pheonix (atari 2600)
5. Knights of Valor (mame)
6. Double Dragon 2: wander of the dragons (xbox 360)
7. Castlevania: legacy of dracula (openbor)
8. Shock trooper 2nd squad (neogeo)
9. Vigilante (tg16)
10. New Super Mario Land (snes)

1. Hard Corps: Amazing entry in the contra series, how konami went from this game to rogue corps is completely beyond me. This game has a great graphical style, plays great, has amazing set pieces, and is one of the hardest games in the series, what makes it more manageable is the fact that you can buy upgrades including more lives and more health. My only gripe about the game is the insanely difficult final boss battle.

2. Katana land: A platformer from the XBL indie games days. It is literally impossible to buy now but your not missing much, it is a basic platformer with basic levels and can be beaten in about an hour. Not terrible, but not memorable either

3. BC: rearmed 2: The reason I dug my 360 out in the first place was to revisit this game and I'm glad I did. This is definitely the best game in the series, which is actually saying a lot because, although the series does not have many entries, the quality of the series is very high. The bionic arm is much more versatile here and is just much easier to move around the environments. The level design is very fun and has a nice progression of difficulty and gets very tough near the end. Although the ending of the game is obviously not as epic as the first game(but really, what can compare to shooting hitler in the face with a bazooka), it does a very nice job of leading into the events of the 3d bionic commando game. A truly fantastic game and anyone who loves the nes original needs to check this out.

4. Pheonix: inspired by bonesnap, I decided to play a random 2600 game that I never played before and this is the game I stumbled on. I'm actually glad I did, it was a very fun romp that is similar in style to space invaders with a few different levels before culminating in a battle with a huge ufo that must be blasted apart before shooting the alien piloting it.

5. Knights of valor: Awesome 90's beat em up that I never played or heard of before. The game has a samurai/japanese feeling and has you playing as any one of 4 different weapon based fighters. Each character has a pretty robust move set, and the level design is great with a few branching paths, mid bosses, and good enemy variety. An unknown game that fans of 90's arcade beat em ups(especially golden axe) should definitely check out.

6. DD 2: wander of the dragons: I've heard many things about how epically bad this game was but none of them prepared me for the shitstorm I was walking into. Horrible combat, horrific levels filled with instant deaths, clunky unresponsive controls that sometimes don't even work, and a shallow moveset that pretty much means instant death as soon as you are knocked down. I bought it for the laughs and just to say that I played it, as a fan of the series I felt I owed myself that. I'm glad I played it because I actually had a good time laughing about how terrible it was, next up, I will play the tg16 cd version of dd2 which I have heard excellent things about to wash this game out of my mouth.

7. Castlevania: legacy of dracula: a 2d sidescroller made in the openbor engine. It starts out very promising with a nice selection of playable characters(alucard, simon, trevor,, and richter are all here) but the game is unfortunately pretty bad. The graphics and music are excellent but a number of design choices make this game virtually unplayable(losing sub weapons when hit, enemies are all bullet sponges, many levels have barely any platforming or interesting traps, and boss battles take way too long and are very boring to fight) avoid this game at all costs.

8. Shock trooper 2nd squad (neogeo): awesome top down shooter, not too much to say about it other than that.

9. Vigilante: This game has been on my bucket list forever, the best way to describe it is a 16 bit kung fu that takes place in slums instead of a temple and has you fighting thugs instead of random karate people. It pretty much plays exactly like kung fu with the enemies being pallete swaps of things you may find in that game. Nonetheless it was fun to play and worth the 15-20 minutes or so it took me to beat it.

10. New Super Mario Land: this was a pleasant surprise, basically someone took Super Mario land for game boy and remade it for the SNES. If you are a fan of mario land this game is definitely worth a playthrough.

[BoneSnapDeez]

4. Pheonix: inspired by bonesnap, I decided to play a random 2600 game that I never played before and this is the game I stumbled on. I'm actually glad I did, it was a very fun romp that is similar in style to space invaders with a few different levels before culminating in a battle with a huge ufo that must be blasted apart before shooting the alien piloting it.

Ha, nice. If you're looking for similar stuff there's Demon Attack and Gorf.

[BoneSnapDeez]

1. ACA NeoGeo: Cyber-Lip (Switch eShop)
2. Pengo (Atari 2600)

My first exposure to this particular title was through a terrible Neo Geo advertisement from the early 90s. An ignored and frustrated woman clad in lingerie exclaims "I remember when he couldn't keep his hands off me!" while her husband -- a man with a penchant for mom jeans, vertical stripes, and standing-up gaming -- is slamming some Neo Geo in the background. His game of choice: one run and gun known as Cyber-Lip. So, should one ignore the ladies in favor of this MEGA SHOCK experience? In a word: no.

Cyber-Lip was originally released in 1990, a few years after Konami's titan Contra, and six years prior to the Neo's own (fantastic) Metal Slug. The game received no sequels, and while it was available on the Neo trio (MVS, AES, CD) it was never subsequently ported to weaker hardware. Officially emulated versions do exist, including this one by Hamster. Taking cues from Contra itself, the game's about a hostile alien menace. Humanity has been kept safe thus far, thanks to a supercomputer known as the "Cyber-Lip" but come the year 2020 (uh-oh) the computer goes rogue and begins to threaten human beings. The president sends in his two toughest soldiers, Rick and Brook, to defend the Earth against both extraterrestrial life and the Cyber-Lip's android army. By the way, the name "Cyber-Lip" is indeed meant to be taken literally. The game's antagonist is a giant flapping pair of mechanical lips.

Right off the bat we're confronted with a problem: the controls. The heroes of Cyber-Lip can only fire in three directions: left, right, and up -- as opposed to the industry standard of eight. There's nothing inherently wrong with a limited range of fire (never heard Mega Man complain), however Cyber-Lip feels like it was designed to accommodate eight-directional fire and then simply never included it. Rick and Brook are rather ill-equipped to confront the enemies, which constantly swarm from all areas of the playing field. It's not uncommon to deal with a horde of fiends rising from the screen's bottom, or an enemy gunner just out of reach in the screen's corner. To make matters worse, the protagonists move very slowly overall. And some actions, such as dropping down from a high ledge, seem to contain a few too many frames of animation, wasting precious seconds and resulting in cheap deaths.

As some sort of compensation, the programmers granted Rick and Brook some additional abilities. A "super jump" can be performed by holding up in tandem with the jump button; this maneuver is downright mandatory in the later stages to reach the tallest platforms. There's also a dodging roll, though I rarely found use for it. In addition to the standard pea shooter, additional weapons can be obtained. Unlike Contra, a newly-acquired weapon won't "overwrite" a previous one. Instead, a cache of arms is stored, and a push of a button can cycle between weaponry. There's a rapid-fire gun, arcing grenades, a flamethrower, and a (very lethargic) "spread" gun. Ammo is limited, but easily restored by popping into select doorways (think Rolling Thunder).

The game's a purely platforming experience, albeit with some gimmicks to mix things up. There are some auto-scrolling levels, an ascending elevator section, and even a right-to-left stage. Bosses are frequent, and numerous. Most require a modicum of strategy, though some of the scariest looking bosses can be defeated simply by standing in a (relatively) "safe zone" and blasting away mindlessly. Boss designs are certainly the most memorable of the visuals encountered in the game: they're massive and totally ugly. The first (and most distinct, and the one showcased in the aforementioned ad) is this gross reddish phallic thing, perpetually oozing and pulsating. There's a great "queen alien" fight later in the game, with attack patterns that resemble the "heart" villain of Contra, coupled with some lovely H. R. Giger rip-off artwork. The character designs are crappy though: Rick and Brook are like two 1990s "radical" dudes, and the "president" that lectures them between levels also looks terrible. The "Sphero Symphony" soundtrack is of little consequence; it's just completely forgettable background noise.

Cyber-Lip isn't terrible, but there's a reason it never received any real acclaim (or ports). Significantly weaker than numerous other action-platformers of its era, it feels like it existed just to hold folks over, until the Metal Slug bombshell dropped. That said, I'd wager that Cyber-Lip was probably somewhat fun to play in the arcades during its heyday, especially with a friend in tow (or a drink or two). God help anyone who actually paid $200 for the home cartridge.

Pengo was a cute and quirky top-down action arcade game released by Sega in 1982. An Atari 2600 port arrived two years later. With a 1984 release date, this is one of those rare-ish "post-crash" titles. The game stars an adorable red penguin, the eponymous Pengo, who must navigate ice mazes populated by the villainous "Sno-Bees." The Sno-Bees appear to be penguins themselves, though the box art shows they have separate beaks and mouths. Very strange!

Though Pengo looks quite simple in screenshots, there's a lot going on here. Controls are easy enough: Pengo moves in the four cardinal directions and the lone action button is used to manipulate the penguin-sized ice cubes that litter each board. The resulting behavior of an ice cube is dependent on its position. If there's space for it to slide, it will, either crashing headlong into the border wall, another ice cube, or into one of the wandering Sno-Bees, squishing it into oblivion. Note that ice cubes that have been slid do not disappear, and they can be reused. However, pressing the fire button while touching a cube that has no space to slide will instead erase it from the playing field completely.

As Sno-Bees make their advance, they can destroy cubes themselves, but (mercifully) are unable to slide them towards Pengo. Flashing cubes contain Sno-Bee eggs, which will swiftly hatch as the mature ones are annihilated. There are three additional "diamond" ice cubes in each stage. These cannot be destroyed, but may be slid. If the three are lined up touching successfully, the Sno-Bees receive the "blue ghost" treatment, and can be vanquished via mere contact with Pengo. Lastly, Pengo can shake the screen borders to stun his enemies, though there's rarely an opportunity to do such a thing.

Now, a stage will typically conclude seconds after the Sno-Bees are cleared out. However, there's also a (hidden) stage timer, which can function in the player's favor. It's basically there to prevent an unwinnable situation from occurring (for instance, having cleared all cubes except for the diamond ones, which are stuck in the far corners of the screen). Regardless of the scenario, stall long enough and Pengo launches into the next round. As such, the game's rather easy when simply playing "for survival" as the Sno-Bee AI isn't especially sophisticated. The main challenge comes from finding clever ways to rack up points quickly and efficiently. This is done by smashing eggs while they're hatching, taking out multiple Sno-Bees with a single cube, lining up the diamond cubes in the screen's center (as opposed to edges), and finishing stages with plenty of time to spare.

Stage designs loop, subtly and eventually. And Pengo even offers up unlimited continues, albeit in a strange fashion. A Game Over in one stage results in the player getting kicked back to the previous one (in other words, lose in stage 10 and you're back in stage 9). Graphics are of mixed quality. Pengo himself looks great (and is clearly a penguin, not just some miscellaneous bird), as do the Sno-Bees, though the ice cubes themselves have a questionable appearance (especially the ones that flash). There's a nice title screen too, as one usually finds in the later Atari releases. Music is present, but it's a five-second loop of "carnival" stuff that gets old rather quickly.

This is a fun little game, geared specifically towards those obsessive score-chasers. I'd recommend it, either on the 2600 or any of the numerous other systems it ended up being released on. Sadly, I have yet to play the 16-bit Pengo sequel, as it appears to be one of the most expensive Mega Drive games out there (seriously).

[Ack]

1. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)(Adventure)
2. Final Fight [Japanese Version] (Switch)(Beat 'Em Up)

I said I'd be revisiting the Japanese versions of Capcom Beat 'Em Ups in 2020, so over the weekend I sat down with Final Fight to begin my journey. Playing this in close proximity to the US version made for an interesting comparison, because there are some cosmetic changes. However, the most significant change for me is that the game feels easier, even though it isn't based on what I could find.

Why? Well, I have played quite a few beat 'em ups in the last few weeks, which means I'm more in the habit. Yet this run through of Final Fight still felt significantly less of a challenge. Then I realized that I was getting extra lives more frequently than in the English Version. While you can adjust game difficulty and score value you need to reach for an extra life, I wasn't really expecting the two to differ. I guess they wanted to really capture the spirit of unscrupulous American arcade owners in the early '90s.

As for the game itself, Final Fight was always better with multiplayer. Why is that? Because the game doesn't take into account the number of players, it throws the same number of enemies regardless. That can mean up to eight opponents on the field at any time, all coming to beat you down. And yes, just like in the US release, the Japanese version does not feature any recovery time if you've just been knocked down by opponents. Enemy damage also varies, and some attacks hit hard. Really hard. I was surprised to occasionally take a simple punch or kick that seemed to knock off half my health from lighter looking foes.

Still, this is only a beginning point for Capcom, and I enjoy what it gave me over the likes of Double Dragon. As for those changes, they mainly involve things like the plot in Japanese, and there is a flash of one character in her bra in the arcade attract screen. Other than that, Poison is officially a cis-gender woman in the Japanese arcade, instead of being retconned into a transwoman in the American arcade... which I admittedly didn't know for years after the release until reading about it in the early 2000s. As much as there are things about the Final Fight setting I enjoy, it's tough to play the game without feeling at least a little uncomfortable with the implications of that change whenever she appears on the screen.

I think from now on that I'll stick to the Japanese version if I go back to play it, though I just don't see myself going back to it much.

[REPO Man]

Ziggarut for PS4, on Easy as Kraz the Novice. It's an FPS roguelike with a magic motif, with all the weapons either being staves and spellbooks, or a wand that serves as your base weapon, as well as magic weapons such as crossbows, bombs and even pistols. While the wand has its own mana pool, your other weapons use mana from one of three mana pools.

[Sload Soap]

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order PS4

This game has left me a bit torn. It's mostly very good even if it's basically a melange of other games of the last decade. So it's got the set pieces from Uncharted, the backtracking of Tomb Raider and the combat of a Souls game. It's also a pretty good Star Wars experience that doesn't need to excessively refer to canon to get by similar to the Mandalorian. Well, until Vader turns up which frankly was a turn off.

My main issue is that the supposed Souls like combat isn't tight enough when it really matters during what should be epic boss fights against other lightsabre wielding antagonists. Instead of being intense bouts of parrying, counter-attacking and zoning rather become attritional as the safest way to proceed is to slowly chip away at their health, healing when appropriate and never letting your guard down. It comes down to timing, frames of animation and I-Frames really and perhaps a lack of understanding on Respawn's part of what makes the mechanics of the Souls/Sekiro experience they are trying to emulate work.

Essentially, parrying is a big aspect of combat but the windows for parrying are slim and there is a killer delay between hitting the button and actually having the lightsabre up to block/parry. This is kind of unacceptable on harder difficulties as the window is reduced further and it becomes more difficult than it should be. From what I can find out online you can't press a direction while attempting a parry as that interferes as well and the time lag on the parry from button press is 0.25 seconds which sounds like nothing but means a lot.

It's just not as slick it needs to be and illustrates why Japanese developers tend to be better with these kind of mechanics, if you look at similar systems in Sekiro, Metal Gear Rising and Ninja Gaiden to name a few. This lack of refinement really ruins the flow of encounters with melee focused enemies which is a real shame as this should have been the game's strongest suit.

That's my major gripe but honestly if that was tightened up and a new game+ mode added Fallen Order would be pretty close being a truly excellent game. The story is set between Revenge of the Sith and New Hope so, Vader aside, none of the usual cast turn up, the worlds you explore are genuinely interesting and varied. The story is well paced and small cast of characters have enough depth and are well voices that you get attached to them. BD-1 may be one of the best droids ever in SW canon.

I think I would recommend this but would caution against maybe playing it on the higher difficulties. Even if (or especially because) you are confident with this style of combat, when that parry frame goes down that's when the real issues with the game become most apparent.

[MrPopo]

I felt the same way regarding the parry timing; I don't think the issue is with the window size, but rather the window position. Because Star Wars is 90% flynning if you're used to combat styles which aren't super showy your sense of timing will be really off. There's definitely an art to getting those windows right and Respawn just doesn't have the practice that From has.

I 100% disagree with you on the one story beat, though. I was hoping we would get a scene like that at the end of the game, and my only "disappointment" was that it didn't go worse for us.

[Markies]

Markies' Games Beat List Of 2020!
*Denotes Replay For Completion*

1. Pikmin 2 (GCN)



I beat Pikmin 2 on the Nintendo GameCube this evening!

When I first bought my GameCube and many games with it, the game that surprised me the most was the original Pikmin. I am not much for Real-Time Strategy games, but I heard that this one was different and I was always curious about it. When I started playing it, I quickly became addicted and could not stop thinking about how I wanted to spend my day. After beating the first, I was then on the lookout for the sequel. It took me a long time, but during one of my last trips to my favorite local game store, I finally found a copy. I could not pass it up and as my random GameCube game of the year, I was lucky enough to play it this year.

Pikmin 2 almost feels like the Majora's Mask to the original's Ocarina of Time. Not much has changed in the world of Pikmin as the graphics and look of the game haven't changed a bit. The biggest difference would be new colored Pikmin with new abilities, you can do a dungeon crawl with the Pikmin as you go to lower levels and the removal of the timer from the first game. You now have all the time in the world as you are trying to erase your company's debt. The removal of the timer does loose much of the tension of the first game, but you are also free to roam around and not have to reset your day constantly. The dungeons are interesting and remind me of the maps in Warcraft where you just did battles with your army. The new Pikmin are unique, but nothing really ground breaking. My favorite part would be the fact that the garbage you pick up has actual brand names. It's really neat to see, especially in a Nintendo game.

I would say Pikmin 2 has more emphasis on hazards and enemies. You are thrown right to the wolves from the very beginning, so it's a must to play the first one first. But, there is more environmental hazards for you to loose Pikmin and the enemies are much tougher, so your Pikmin will die much easier than the first game. At the beginning, I was getting frustrated, but the ability to spend a day or two just creating and harvesting Pikmin really helped alleviate that annoyance.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Pikmin 2. I think I enjoyed the first one more as the tension really helped. Also, the battles didn't seem as tough. But, if you liked the first one, then playing the second one is a no-brainier. It expands on the first one and just continues it into the next chapter.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat

1. Invisigun Reloaded (Switch)
2. Human: Fall Flat (Switch)

3. Shantae: The Pirate's Curse (3DS)

After playing through Risky's Revenge, I thought it only natural to move onto the other Shantae game I already owned on my 3DS. It took me a while to have the successive down times to play through it, but I eventually got it done just before I headed back to Japan. I'd heard this one was pretty good, and that's about what I found as I played it, with some not insignificant caveats along the way. It took me just under 7 hours according to the in-game clock, and I also collected all the collectibles.

At the end of Risky's Revenge, Shantae lost her genie powers, so the entirety of this game is Shantae as just a human (so no transformation powers). The Ammo Baron from the first game who bought Scuttle Town has moved in to take what's his, and on top of that, Risky has come in as well to inform Shantae that the Pirate Master is awakening from his undead slumber because of events that happened in the last game. Shantae has to team up with Risky (or really just borrow her ship and her info on where to go) to travel to five islands and defeat the "dens of evil" (dungeons) there to keep him dead for good. The humor is still very much Shantae, although it does wear a bit much at times. A lot of the humor is also tied up in references to pop culture (some hit, some miss), although I don't mind that. The music is nice, and the animation looks great as WayForward are known for.

The biggest issue I had with the presentation is that you can REALLY tell the game was designed by men with how the game seems to go out of its way to constantly shove the female characters' bodies in your faces in all manners of costumes and standing positions. The degree to which the four central female characters are constantly sexualized got to somewhere between pathetic and creepy for me, and it's something that brought the whole game down a peg for me.

Mechanically, Pirate's Curse is more Shantae but faaar better than Risky's Revenge. It's still the same power-ups for your base attack (a simple hair whip you can make hit harder and/or faster), but the transformations are gone now. They were a gimmick that did nothing but slow things down in Risky's Revenge, so I had no problem with that. Instead you get more moves that incorporate far more easily into how you play the game and don't break the pace. Levels also look more different on the whole, and you also finally have a Metroid-style auto-updating mini-map so you aren't wandering around lost constantly. I would've liked the ability to pin places of interest on the map, but overall the game design is head and shoulders above Risky's Revenge in a way I really liked.

That's not to say that the mechanics aren't without their fumbles. The dungeons are still the best designed levels of the game, but the overworlds are still a bit too flat and bland. With the whole concept of going across tons of islands, they didn't really need to have these mostly flat areas connecting to the dungeons or gimmick stages (the running one and the stealth one both suck, especially the stealth one) instead of just having several smaller labyrinths. The signposting is nowhere near as dire as the first game, but it's still a problem (especially if you're looking to get ever single bit of dark magic hidden throughout the game, as some are very fiendishly hidden).

Verdict: Recommended. This is a really solid Metroidvania on the 3DS. If you can deal with the signposting issues and the character design, you'll have a good time. It's certainly not the best Metroidvania out there in 2020, but on 3DS, particularly back in 2014, this is a really solid addition to the genre.