Games Beaten 2020

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Sun Oct 11, 2020 11:27 am

marurun wrote:It’s a black light that makes all the funky stuff glow, but it’s our funky stuff, and we missed it.

I've got some funky stuff for you. :wink:

Post by **BoneSnapDeez** » Sun Oct 11, 2020 12:47 pm

ELKIN IS BACK BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Sun Oct 11, 2020 1:24 pm

Games Beaten in 2020 - 22
* denotes a replay

January (1 Game Beaten)

February (2 Games Beaten)

March (10 Games Beaten)

April (7 Games Beaten)

Sometime in the Dark Ages of My Life Between May and October (1 Game Beaten)

22. Star Wars Squadrons - Xbox One - October 4

I normally am not one to jump on Star Wars games on release day - I'm a much bigger Star Trek fan than I am a Star Wars fan - but this is one that I knew from the first reveal that I couldn't sleep on. John Linneman said in Digital Foundry's review that Star Wars Squadrons was a "perfect console game," and I couldn't agree more. He was able to test it on Xbox One, Xbox One X, Playstation 4, Playstation 4 Pro, and Playstation VR whereas I've only been able to play on the Xbox One X, but between my personal experience with the One X and his detailed analysis of how it runs on the other hardware, I've got to tip my had to EA - this really is a perfect console game.

Let's start with the reason I play games - the single player campaign. The story takes place between the end of Return of the Jedi and the start of The Force Awakens as the Galactic Empire continues to struggle against the infant New Republic while dealing with the fallout of Emperor Palpatine's death. The game tells a split narrative in which you play as both a New Republic pilot and an Imperial pilot depending on the mission. The campaign revolves around the New Republic's secret project to build its new Starhawk class capital ship, either running missions as a Republic pilot to help make that construction a reality or as an Imperial pilot to sabotage the project. The story itself is great, but what really sold it for me is the motion capture and voice acting. A lot of the cut scenes really felt like I was watching a Star Wars movie. It's a hell of a cinematic game.

The gameplay itself is, at its core, your average first person space dogfighter but polished to perfection. The game features four classes of ship the exact class of which naturally varies depending on whether you're playing as the Republic or the Empire - Fighter (X-Wing or TIE Fighter), Interceptor (A-Wing or TIE Interceptor), Bomber (Y-Wing or TIE Bomber), and Support (U-Wing or TIE Reaper). Each ship handles totally differently and plays a different role, so there's plenty of gameplay variety to be had here. The handling of the fighters makes it feel more authentic than I can adequately describe. I can only imagine how fantastic playing this VR must be (note to self: double dip on Playstation 4). By gaining experience and leveling up in multiplayer, you can unlock additional ship components each of which have their own pros and cons. Some lasers do more damage than others but overheat faster. Some shields have a higher capacity but slower recharge. Some hulls have more hit points but cut your maneuverability. Some engines have better boost but lower top speed. You can equip various secondary items - repair droid, proton torpedoes, seeker missiles, etc. In that regard, your ship loadouts are every bit as customizable as loadouts in a first person shooter, and can add an enormous amount of variety to the gameplay.

Despite the fact that I'm primarily a story mode gamer, it was actually the multiplayer that drove my purchase decision here. Normally I'd have gotten a game like this on Playstation 4 due to the VR support, but I got this one on Xbox One to play with college friends, and I absolutely do not regret that decision because the multiplayer here is absolutely fantastic. You've got your standard PVP dogfight mode - Imperial team vs Republic team - but you've also got two version of a fleet battle mode. In this game mode, each team has a capital ship, two frigates, and a bunch of fighters. Your goal is to destroy enough enemy fighters to gain the momentum advantage, then destroy the two frigates, then finally destroy the capital ship to attain victory. If enough of your ships get destroyed to give the enemy the momentum advantage, you have to go on the defensive until you can retake that advantage. It's a brilliant game mode that in my opinion is far more rewarding than the standard dogfight. There are two versions of this mode - PVP and PVE. The difference is pretty obvious; both teams are human players in one version whereas one team is entirely AI in the other.

Star Wars Squadrons just gets everything right. It really is a perfect console experience. The single player is a ton of fun, the multiplayer is virtually perfect, and the game looks absolutely beautiful in 4K. The detail on the huge battleships is stunning, and the frame rate is damn locked at 60 fps on the One X. The cherry on top is that the game is only $40 on day one. This is peak Star Wars action, folks, and it's a perfect swan song for the Frostbite 3 engine since I'd be willing to be that this will probably be the last major AAA game we see released before EA unveils Frostbite 4. No matter if you're an Xbox gamer, a Playstation gamer, or a PC gamer, between how damn good this game his, how well it runs, and its relatively low price point, this is one flight combat sim you can't afford to sleep on especially with the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X having backwards compatibility.

Post by **MrPopo** » Sun Oct 11, 2020 6:28 pm

First 50:

51. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - Switch
52. Star Control Origins: Earth Rising - PC
53. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX - Switch
54. Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith - PC
55. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls - PS3
56. Silicon Zeroes - PC
57. Warcraft - PC
58. Serious Sam 3: BFE - PC
59. Wasteland 3 - PC
60. Iron Harvest - PC
61. Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile - PC
62, Homeworld Remastered - PC
63. Homeworld 2 Remastered - PC
64. Offworld Trading Company - PC
65. F-Zero - SNES
66. F-Zero X - N64
67. Gauntlet (2014) - PC
68. Gauntlet Legends - Arcade
69. Halo 3: ODST - PC
70. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - PS4
71. Star Wars Squadrons - PC
72. Serious Sam 4 - PC

Serious Sam 4 is another prequel, set before 3, so it's Before Before First Encounter. Given how tight the existing timeline is, Croteam only had two options; another prequel or somehow figure out how to pick up after Serious Sam 2 and dealing with that abject goofiness. So I'm not shocked to see this was a prequel. Though they better not pull that sort of shenanigan again for 5.

The goal of Serious Sam 4 is to try and find the Holy Grail, an artifact that the Earth Defense Force thinks might stop Mental. Obviously it's not going to work, otherwise we wouldn't have the other games. But that doesn't stop the journey from being fun, especially with all the improvements compared to 3. This is a full return to form for the Serious Sam franchise, and while the first game might still be a bit better that's probably just due to that first game magic. The weapons, the level designs, the enemy adjustments, it all adds up to an extremely fun horde shooter that strikes a balance of challenging the player enough without being over the top and still giving you lots of awesome moments of you mowing down giant hordes.

Aesthetically this is the Second Encounter to 3's First Encounter. Instead of being in a single desert biome you get to experience a variety of locales. You initially start off in Rome, making your way to the Vatican to get the location of where the Grail is, which turns out to be France. France includes several extremely large sweeping vistas which feel like something out of an open-world game, though the game mostly seems to be using this as a demonstration of the engine's rendering power; trying to explore will be met with frustration as your vehicle used to traverse these distances doesn't do offroad very fast. Once you finish France you get a level on an oil rig in the Arctic and then a final level on a bombed out battlefield. And even with the large areas the different levels have different architecture, so you never get fatigued with "ugh, another of THIS level".

On the weapons end you get the entire arsenal of 3 (minus the grabby beam for story reasons), plus a handful of new weapons. The grenade launcher is back from Second Encounter, and you now get an automatic shotgun. And the sniper rifle and laser gun aren't secrets anymore, undoing one of the major dick moves of 3. Additionally, about half the weapons have a secondary function that can be unlocked. These serve to give you a few more options for handling large crowds. You also can dual wield weapons; this prevents you from using the secondary (that key now fires the offhand weapon) but now you have double the fire rate. And you can do this with any gun, and eventually combine any two a la the RPC90 and Grenade Launcher in Goldeneye. I found not all weapons were worth dual wielding, but the ones that were it was a major boost. Finally, you get a series of items that can be used a la Quake 2's inventory which can help turn the tide. This includes a 50 health pack that can overheal, a revive, a variety of "kill lots of enemies" options (basically replacing the Serious Bomb), and a couple time manipulation ones; one makes you go fast and the other makes enemies go slow. You get enough of them (and have a couple inventory resets) that you should feel free to use them any time things get hairy.

On the enemy side we get all the enemies of 3 (with the cloned soldiers being replaced by a more visible and non-hitscan enemy and the stupid leaping monkeys cut for being stupid) and a handful of new guys. But most importantly all the new enemies in 3 that you hated have been adjusted to be more fun. The scrapjack has a bit less health and isn't quite as spammy, the khnum's fireball patterns are much more dodgeable and he stays at range more, the witchbrides now just throw shit at you instead of freezing you in place and their teleport is instead a vampire-esque turn into a bunch of bats that rapidly move so you can follow where they'll be, and the helicopters have less health, deal far less damage, and don't show up until you have appropriate weaponry. They now all serve as keystones of hordes that demand your attention without being "kill this immediately or you lose".

And speaking of, the overall horde design is greatly improved. 3 suffered from a lot of drip feed hordes where enemies would spawn in onesies and twosies; this game is back to the original's "spawn a large horde quickly so your AOE weaponry is worth a damn" and arenas are more waved based; kill all the initial enemies and a new wave spawns in. This is accompanied by a very generous autosave that is basically after every wave, making the whole experience fun rather than frustrating. You should never feel the need to manually save other than because it's dinner time. Even the final level is the perfect length; built up of a bunch of large hordes that require all your weaponry (and being generous with ammo in return) but not the gigantically long slog of 3. The game has a total of four bosses, with the second being just for fun (you're in a mech at the time), the first and third being based around vulnerability periods, and the final boss being basically a puzzle boss. It's hard to do good FPS bosses but these seem to have the right amount of health and the right kind of attacks where you have to try in order to survive but aren't too bullshitty. And given how annoying the final boss of 3 was this is a welcome relief.

All in all Serious Sam 4 is the best game since the first one, and if you liked the first one you should snag this one.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Mon Oct 12, 2020 1:22 pm

Games Beaten in 2020 - 23
* denotes a replay

January (1 Game Beaten)

February (2 Games Beaten)

March (10 Games Beaten)

April (7 Games Beaten)

Sometime in the Dark Ages of My Life Between May and October (2 Games Beaten)

23. The Last of Waifus - Steam - October 11

I've got some great friends. Whenever I'm feeling down - and lately that's been lower than US stock prices on October 29, 1929 - they're always there to have my back. Let me tell you a story. One of my friends, TC, knows that I've been going through a hell of a rough patch. He also knows that I'm a filthy degenerate who loves waifus. He gifted me the other night a couple of silly dumb looking indie games on Steam one of which was The Last of Waifus. I was so excited to play this game. I figured this was exactly the kind of nonsense I needed to find a moment of up in my current world of despair. I was not incorrect in this assessment.

Let's be upfront about this game's quality. It's garbage. I mean, this game is pure, unadulterated garbage. This is kind of Unity engine indie game that one dude probably made in his basement over the course of a weekend. Does that mean it's not fun? If you answered "Yes" to that question, you should probably move along because this is not the blog for you, and I am not the reviewer for you. I played this game until I had unlocked all 15 achievements, and I tell you what, it was the most fun half hour I've had in a hot minute. Okay, so it was actually more like 20 minutes, not half an hour, but you get my point; the game's short.

You play as a big titty anime girl in a camo bikini carrying an entire arsenal of weaponry from a knife and a bow to a rocket launcher and what I assume is supposed to be a .50 caliber sniper rifle. Once you go through the gate separating the safe area from the actual game, you have to survive waves of identical shirtless zombies all of whom clearly didn't miss a single day at the gym. That's it. That's the whole game. As far as I've been able to tell, there's only one map, and the waves never end. You just keep shooting identical zombies until you inevitably die. There is no story. There are no bosses. There is no enemy variety. You just shoot and eventually die. Then you respawn at the safe area and do it again. That's The Last of Waifus. And why is she holding that rifle by the magazine when there's a grip literally an inch in front of it? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Now clearly this game's title is referencing The Last of Us, but other than the main menu very vaguely resembling it and the ruined block of town you play in looking kind of sort of like a city area from The Last of Us maybe if you squint real hard and turn your head sideways, there aren't any similarities. I don't actually even know if these are technically zombies. Are they? Are they aliens? Are they Weyland-Yutani androids? Are they reclaimed Borg drones with all of their implants removed? Are they vampires who've developed an immunity to sunlight? Are they emo kids on steroids? I don't know. All I know is that they want to kill my unnamed waifu, and it's mildly entertaining to shoot at them.

The Last of Waifus is a mindless time waster and nothing more. As a mindless time waster, though, it does a pretty fair job in my opinion. There's more depth in a sidewalk puddle, but if you just want to spend ten or fifteen minutes shooting things as a cute anime waifu, this is the game for you, bro. It's $2 on Steam, and I can say with absolute certainty that this game brought me significantly more satisfaction than an Egg McMuffin (and that actually costs more than this game). It's repetitive, and it's as bare bones as it gets, but it's cute. At the end of the day, isn't that what the world really needs in 2020? Cute waifus killing things? As a video game, though, if I'm being objective, it's pants.

Post by **BoneSnapDeez** » Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:32 pm

Kek, I saw your review on Steam before it was posted here.

Looks bad, man.

Post by **PartridgeSenpai** » Mon Oct 12, 2020 6:48 pm

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

1-50

51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *

70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)

This was part of the most recent addition of games to the Switch Online SNES game service, and I was pretty excited to see it. While it was quite weird that the Western SNES service got it and the Japanese SFC service did not, I love me some Picross, and I've had a lot of fun with Mario's Picross on the GameBoy, so this has been something I've wanted to try for a long time. 300 puzzles over the course of a few weeks later, I finished this one XD. It's difficult to really give much of an estimate for this one, but I'd guess this took me at least 25+ hours to 100% complete if not more.

Super Mario's Picross is, for the most part, just what it appears to be. It's a Picross game that has Super Mario-themed presentation, but not really puzzles for the most part. There's a few more Mario-themed puzzles in the few dozen puzzles you unlock after you beat the first 260 or so (the ones you need to beat to see the credits), but other than that, it's mostly just mundane objects, places, things, etc. That's not really a strike against the game, but it was just something in the presentation I was surprised by.

The game has two kinds of puzzles to complete: Mario puzzles and Wario puzzles. You unlock the Wario puzzles as soon as you complete the first dozen (or rather, the first "level") of the Mario puzzles. Mario's puzzles have a 30 minute time limit and you get time taken away from your remaining total every time you make a mistake. Wario's puzzles have no time limit, but also have no hint feature. While Wario's have no hint feature, they DO have a kind of trial-and-error mode you can toggle on, which lets you experiment with a new type of marker and you can choose to either erase or commit those choices when you're finished with that guessing mode. It's a neat feature, but I mostly just used save-states and rewinds to do the same thing XP

The biggest issues with the game largely come down to its age and the lack of quality of life features it has. Moving up from being a GameBoy game, this game has more detailed graphics, of course, but that isn't always in the game's favor. I frequently found myself simply not seeing what was or wasn't an X'd spot because they can blend in with one another when you're on the bigger Picross boards. Beyond that, this game also doesn't mark off the numbers on the edge of the board for you. You need to do that yourself. That lacking QoL feature is probably the #1 reason I'd have trouble recommending this game, because it's a big adjustment from more modern Picross experiences (of which there is no shortage of free editions of), as marking them off yourself is time consuming and keeping track of them in your head is annoying.

The game's presentation is fine, but a little underwhelming. Mario and Wario will talk to you after you beat a world, and Wario's dialogue especially can be quite funny, but there isn't that much unique dialogue. It's mostly just "you beat a world, now try the next one" unless it's the last puzzles in the game. There're only about a dozen music tracks in the game, and they're usually fine but nothing special. Wario's 3rd song is also very weirdly sleepy, and given that it takes place during levels 8-10 (out of 11 base ones), you're gonna be hearing it a lot (unless you change to one of the previous tracks or just turn the music off and put something on yourself). I took to calling it the "Picross Lullaby" XD. It's also worth mentioning, in closing, that this is a pretty lousy first Picross game if you don't speak Japanese, as since there ARE tutorials, they're all in Japanese XP.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. This is a fine Picross game, but I don't think there's anything that massively special about it other than it being free on the Switch Online service. The Mario/Wario theming is fun at times, but you need to be able to read Japanese to really get much out of it, and the lack of quality of life features make it a chore to play at times compared to more recent Picross games (both free and not-free). If you want Picross to play this can certainly scratch that itch, but there is such a great amount of easier to enjoy Picross out there that I don't think most people will be missing much by skipping this one.

Post by **Note** » Mon Oct 12, 2020 9:11 pm

1. Streets of Rage 2 (GEN)*
2. The Ninja Warriors (SNES) [3x]
3. TMNT IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)*
4. Golden Axe (GEN) [3x]*
5. Beyond Oasis (GEN)
6. Super Double Dragon (SNES)*
7. Shenmue II (DC)
8. Shining Force 2 (GEN)*
9. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES)
10. ActRaiser (SNES)
11. OutRun (GEN)*
12. X-Men 2: Clone Wars (GEN)
13. Captain Commando (SNES)
14. The Pirates of Dark Water (SNES)
15. Final Fight (SNES)
16. Gradius III (SNES)
17. Super R-Type (SNES)
18. U.N. Squadron (SNES)
19. Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
20. Arrow Flash (GEN)
21. Forgotten Worlds (GEN)
22. Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES)
23. Wonder Boy in Monster World (GEN)
24. Resident Evil 6 (360)
25. Skies of Arcadia (DC)
26. Streets of Rage 4 (Switch)
27. Star Fox 64 (N64)*
28. Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (SNES)*
29. Perfect Dark (N64)

30. Resident Evil 2 (PS1)

I purchased Resident Evil 2 along with the Gamefan Books player's guide around the time of release. I was a huge fan of the first Resident Evil game, and also got the original long box version around release, after seeing it at my cousins' place and being blown away. My friends, sister, and I played a ton of RE -- it was one of the highlights of my spring and summer of 1996. However, we played so much of the game in the first two years I had it, by the time RE2 came out I was a little burned out, and I didn't give RE2 the attention and time it deserved. I also didn't have much luck with memory cards at that time. Anyway, I wanted to finally revisit this title and with a few new memory cards and not playing any survival horror titles in a while, I thought it'd be the perfect time to hop back in.

Graphics wise, Capcom did a great job with the 3D character sprites and the pre-rendered backgrounds. The pre-rendered backgrounds especially look amazing, all the environments and scenes throughout the game hold up well all these years later, and not knowing what's around the corner definitely adds to the creepiness of the game. The main characters and the cast of zombies and enemies all look much better and it's awesome to have such a variety of enemies throughout the game. The other improvement I need to mention is the voice acting. The voice acting is levels above the original and at the time was some of the best I had heard in a video game. The soundtrack is also very atmospheric and eerie, and the selected tunes usually fit perfectly with what's occurring in the game.

Gameplay wise, the controls still feel fine to me all these years later. I know nowadays a lot of people complain about the tank controls, but the control style doesn't bother me, as I clocked in so many hours with the first game, I'm used to it. My only gripe is that I had a bit of an issue aiming properly at enemies from time to time, especially when trying to get rid of lickers. This affected my ammo supply, but luckily I had just enough high-powered ammo to get through.

In regards to my particular playthrough, I didn't finish the game fast enough to unlock the infinite rocket launcher for Claire in her Scenario B, but I did leave the submachine gun and side pack behind for her use. I was pretty well equipped as Leon with the modified hand gun, modified shotgun, and eventually the modified magnum. As Claire, I definitely felt underpowered so I was glad to have the submachine gun and grenade launcher. I had a bit of a tough time getting through the end of the game as Claire, as I was a bit short on acid rounds and fire rounds, and it took me a few tries to finish off the Lab area and final bosses.

This game is still great, and I really enjoyed playing it -- the difficulty was just right and there was a good balance of action, puzzles, and jump scares. I was totally absorbed in the game the last few days, as I started it on Saturday afternoon and finished it up by this evening. I definitely did myself a huge disservice by not spending enough time with it years ago when I first purchased it, but I'm glad I finally gave it another go. If you haven't experienced RE2 yet, it's definitely recommended! Eventually, I'd like to play the PS4 remake as well. As we're in October, I'd like to check some more survival horror titles or horror themed games! I'll have to see what else I can dig up.

Post by **dsheinem** » Tue Oct 13, 2020 11:05 am

Games Beaten 2020
Mortal Kombat 11 - PS4
The Force Unleashed II - 360
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom - Wii
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - 360
Super Fantasy Zone - Genesis
Fable Heroes - 360
Castlevania Bloodlines - Genesis
My Friend Pedro - X1
Darius - Genesis
Ape Out - PC
Doom Eternal - PS4
Dead or Alive 6 - PS4
Plague, Inc. - PC
Space Harrier II - Genesis
Space Harrier - Arcade
G.I. Joe - Arcade
Chaos Control - PC
Super Off Road - SNES
Pyscho Dream - SFC
Psychosis - Turbo Grafx-16
Splatterhouse - Turbo Grafx-16
Minecraft Dungeons - X1
Astro Bot Rescue Mission - PSVR
Samurai Shodown (2019) - PS4
Tank Force - Switch (Arcade)
Call of Duty: WWII - PS4
World War - PC (Arcade) *new*
Death's Hangover - PC *new*
Hotshot Racing - PC *new*
Double-Kick Heroes - X1 *new*

Total: 30

Previously:
2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

Post by **prfsnl_gmr** » Tue Oct 13, 2020 12:30 pm

How is Death’s Hangover? I’m curious about that game, and it’s frequently on sale.

racketboy.com

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