Games Beaten 2020

Post by **Ack** » Fri Dec 04, 2020 12:35 pm

The First 50:

51. Kid Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
52. Castlevania (Switch)(Platformer)
53. Akumajō Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
54. Akumajō Dracula [Castlevania IV](Switch)(Platformer)
55. The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone (PC)(RPG)
56. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Switch)(Platformer)
57. Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Switch)(Platformer)
58. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine (PC)(RPG)
59. The Darkness II (PC)(FPS)
60. MOTHERGUNSHIP (PC)(FPS)
61. SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash - SNK Version (NGPC)(Card Game)
62. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC)(RPG)
63. STRAFE (PC)(FPS)
64. Shadow Warrior [2013] (PC)(FPS)
65. Shanghai Mini (NGPC)(Puzzle)
66. Shadowrun: Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
67. Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Shadows of Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
68. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (PC)(RPG)
69. Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet - The Lovecraft Museum (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
70. The Mummy Demastered (Switch)(Action Adventure)
71. Just Cause 2 (PC)(Action Adventure)
72. Prey (PC)(FPS)
73. Prey: Mooncrash (PC)(FPS)
74. The Signal From Tölva (PC)(FPS)
75. Death Rally (PC)(Racing)
76. Bastion (PC)(RPG)
77. Cosmic Star Heroine (PC)(RPG)
78. Ultimate DOOM (PC)(FPS)
79. DOOM II: Hell on Earth (PC)(FPS)
80. DOOM II: No Rest for the Living (PC)(FPS)
81. DOOM 3: The Lost Mission (PC)(FPS)
82. DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil (PC)(FPS)
83. DOOM 3 (PC)(FPS)
84. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC)(RPG)

Since I beat Morrowind earlier this year, I figured it was time I go back and play through Skyrim. It's been out for nearly a decade at this point, and while I'm not sure when or where we will get another Elder Scrolls game that isn't an MMO, it's still a series that I enjoy returning to, even if I'm only just now finally getting around to actually beating the damn things.

Much like Morrowind takes place in the titular region of Tamriel, the Elder Scrolls' setting, Skyrim takes place in Skyrim, home of the Nords and most definitely pulling heavily from Scandinavian history and mythology. Snow, giants, horned helmets, wolves, bears, witches, honor, defiance, a disdain for magic, and a belief in a great ol' partying mead hall when you die is what defines the country. Also...dragons show up. Well shit.

Yeah, dragons return, and it's up to the player-created hero to discover why and end what may well be a cataclysmic threat. In the process, you'll resolve quests, join and take over guilds or organizations, fight a war, and maybe even buy a house and get married. There is a lot to do in the game, which has built upon previous titles in the series to make you feel more a part of things. For example, you can get way into blacksmithing armor, or you could check out all the options for cooking, or simply go chop some wood. I'm hoping they add fishing into the next game, because that's the next thing I'd like to see...with a rod, mind. You can actually jump into the water and catch fish by hand in this game, just like you can snatch a butterfly out of the air for its wings. That's alchemy, baby!

Combat has steadily been built up over time in the series, and in Skyrim it has become much more action-focused. You can block, learn power attacks to be used in different directions, shield bash, and so forth. Combat now has a flow, and it is satisfying to bait an opponent into an attack, smack them quickly with your shield or the hilt of your two hander, and open them up for your own power attack. Bonus points if you manage to knock them down or applied poisons or spells to your weapon to do more damage or even paralyze your opponent. I prefer paralysis, but I'm a dirty fighter, yo. Also, if your weapon hits, it hits. Dice rolls are long gone by this point in the series, thank goodness.

Another big change from the Morrowind days is that the idea of greater skills is long gone. You still level by increasing your skills, but now any skill works; you can just as easily level off magic skills as you can stealth or combat ones. This gives more opportunity to become powerful, so Skyrim has a system of enemies getting tougher too, and it's not nearly as limited as the 20 levels of Oblivion. I've read enemy types officially cap off at level 75 with legendary dragons at this point, but even that might not be right.

Of course, there are still some problems. Magic just doesn't feel up to snuff unless you heavily invest in it, and it's much easier to focus on Enchantment and building yourself some ridiculously powerful gear for melee or range builds. Yeah, range builds are quite effective here in tandem with stealth, though I find once spotted it's best to swap to something I can make heavy hits with. Melee will always be king to me.

Overall, I like Skyrim. I like it a lot. It gives me a large world to play around in, a lot of activities to do, and a lot of content to enjoy. While the dungeons do feel samey after a while, they offer a great amount of variety from Oblivion's flat tours through green murk. A lot of the complaints of previous games have been corrected, and there is still room to grow but nothing outright glaring (unless you really like magic). That said, spellmaking is out, which feels like a loss and possibly part of the magic problem. But for everything else, I'm quite happy with where Skyrim ended up.

Post by **Note** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 12:33 am

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)
31. Metal Slug X (PS1)*
32. Left 4 Dead 2 (360)*
33. Yu Yu Hakusho - Makyou Toitsusen (GEN)
34. Left 4 Dead (360)*

35. Metal Slug 3 (PS2)

I'm a big fan of the Metal Slug games, being first introduced to Metal Slug X in the arcade back in 1999. I picked up the PS1 port a few years after, randomly stumbling across it -- not realizing it had been released. All these years later, I had only played the first game in the arcade and Metal Slug X in the arcade or on the PS1. When I saw that Metal Slug Anthology was released for the PS2, I wanted to get my hands on it to try the other games, which I finally did in 2018. This weekend I felt like trying out the later games in the series, which I hadn't previously gone through.

Metal Slug 3 adds to the action packed formula by introducing a branching path system, which adds to the replay value. The different paths take you through various situations, but in the end you will always fight the same boss to complete the level. However, you may have the opportunity to attain different power-ups or more POWs depending on the path chosen. While there aren't any new weapons introduced in this entry, there are a lot of new and different vehicles to control which switches up the gameplay a bit. For starters there's a submarine, and in one point of the game you can also control an elephant, which was hilarious and a lotta fun.

I'm aware that in the original home release there were two additional modes consisting of "Storm the UFO Mothership" and "Fat Island", in the first I believe you're able to control an enemy soldier and the second is a two-player item collecting competition. The PS2 port from the Anthology does not include either of these modes, which is too bad. I wish I could at least try them out, but I'm not certain I'd give them much time anyway.

I really enjoyed finally going through Metal Slug 3, while it doesn't top the first two games for me, it was a ton of fun and I'll definitely return to it eventually.

Post by **Ack** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 1:56 pm

The First 50:

51. Kid Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
52. Castlevania (Switch)(Platformer)
53. Akumajō Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
54. Akumajō Dracula [Castlevania IV](Switch)(Platformer)
55. The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone (PC)(RPG)
56. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Switch)(Platformer)
57. Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Switch)(Platformer)
58. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine (PC)(RPG)
59. The Darkness II (PC)(FPS)
60. MOTHERGUNSHIP (PC)(FPS)
61. SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash - SNK Version (NGPC)(Card Game)
62. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC)(RPG)
63. STRAFE (PC)(FPS)
64. Shadow Warrior [2013] (PC)(FPS)
65. Shanghai Mini (NGPC)(Puzzle)
66. Shadowrun: Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
67. Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Shadows of Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
68. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (PC)(RPG)
69. Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet - The Lovecraft Museum (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
70. The Mummy Demastered (Switch)(Action Adventure)
71. Just Cause 2 (PC)(Action Adventure)
72. Prey (PC)(FPS)
73. Prey: Mooncrash (PC)(FPS)
74. The Signal From Tölva (PC)(FPS)
75. Death Rally (PC)(Racing)
76. Bastion (PC)(RPG)
77. Cosmic Star Heroine (PC)(RPG)
78. Ultimate DOOM (PC)(FPS)
79. DOOM II: Hell on Earth (PC)(FPS)
80. DOOM II: No Rest for the Living (PC)(FPS)
81. DOOM 3: The Lost Mission (PC)(FPS)
82. DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil (PC)(FPS)
83. DOOM 3 (PC)(FPS)
84. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC)(RPG)
85. DOOM: SIGIL (PC)(FPS)

Considering how many DOOM games I've been playing this year, I figured it would be a good idea to sit down and check out John Romero's return to full DOOM episodes with his 2019 release, SIGIL. As per my experience earlier this year with Ultimate DOOM and DOOM II, I chose to experience SIGIL as intended and set the difficulty to Ultra Violence. You know what? it's hard, it's dark, and I feel like a ballsy king for beating it. Once again, John Romero did not make me his bitch.

He certainly tried though. Romero's intention for SIGIL was to create an episode that he'd have trouble beating, so he went in with a design ethos geared towards making the player run through and from danger. Cyberdemons make repeated appearances; they serve a purpose of turrets to harass the player, not as a stand up fight. One level in particular has a mazelike structure which much be traversed while avoiding the big, rocket-launching demon boss; getting through the ground section then sends you to the parapets of the maze, where you're still under continuous rocket fire, so move your ass. Romero also uses Barons of Hell to similar effect, with the goal of driving the player onwards or trying to outwit danger as opposed to confronting it, though with significantly less health and damage output, the Baron is more often a droppable, temporary threat.

Level design also figures into Romero's views on harassing the player, relying heavily on large sections of damaging floors, narrow ledges which must often be traversed while under fire, and darkness so deep I sometimes wondered what I was shooting. Romero's vision of Hell is a graphic place, and he perhaps relies a bit too excessively on preventing the player from seeing what they're doing, particularly early on.

Secrets are also a pleasure to find, and more than once I was pleasantly surprised to find secrets within secrets. Just about every one that I managed to find was well worth the time, ranging from life-saving radiation suits to ammo bags to the much-beloved BFG. If you don't think I used the BFG, well, I don't think I would have beaten SIGIL without it. Romero ends the whole thing with a nasty hallway run, and I used the big gun to cut a path at the end. In fact, most of the levels ended with a frantic rush to reach the end, as taking the time to kill whatever was between me and the exit simply wasn't worth the cost.

I liked SIGIL. It feels like a ramping up of skills that I built up getting through Ultimate DOOM and never falls into the trap of "here's just another horde of monsters" that some of the other later DOOM and DOOM II content fell into. Which isn't to say that it doesn't have hordes you have to battle through, just that I found them more effectively utilized. Romero understands how a Cacodemon coming from the wrong angle can devastate way more than just throwing the player into a mass of enemies.

That final hallway though...whoo. It took me a few tries before I realized the ammo was a trap.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:53 pm

Games Beaten in 2020 - 31
* 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 in No Particular Order (6 Games Beaten)

November (4 Games Beaten)

31. Spider-Man - PlayStation 5 - December 6

Since it first came out on PS4 two years ago, Spider-Man is a game that I'd been meaning to pick up. It looked like Arkham style combat, and as a huge Arkham fan, that naturally appealed to me. I've never been big into comic books and superheroes, though, so it stayed pretty mid-tier on my priority list. When I saw that the follow-up, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, was launching with the PS5 and included the remastered version of the first game if you bought the Ultimate Edition, I figured that was a good time to get it and finally play. I think that was the right call, too, as this not only includes all of the DLC but some seriously impressive enhancements courtesy of the PS5's extra horsepower. Now keep in mind that I'm approaching this review from a position of general apathy regarding Spider-Man and comic book heroes in general, so my take will likely differ from a long-time Spider-Man fan's.

The first thing that jumped out to me with this game is just how good the characters are. Obviously Peter Parker is a likable character, but his portrayal here is top-notch and super relatable. His quips in fights are hilarious, the voice acting is absolutely perfect, and the character model is fantastic. I honestly have no idea why the internet hated the new face. The dude is 23, and in this version, he actually looks 23; I've seen the original face used for the character model, and he looked like he was in his 30s. Definitely a good move with the new face. The world itself also looks stunning especially with the enhancements that the PS5 remaster gets. You get two visual modes, Performance and Fidelity. Fidelity has the game running in 4K with some spiffy visual effects like ray tracing with a 30 fps target, and good god, this mode looks phenomenal. The detail on the gym floor in the FEAST location where Aunt May works is detailed to the point of irrelevance - reflections, random bits of debris, dust, life-like sun rays, the whole nine yards. Performance, which is the mode I played the game with, sacrifices those extra effects in favor of a solid and unbroken 60 fps. Normally I would have been really torn between the two, but with the fluidity of the combat and the speed and acrobatic nature of the movement in the game, I felt that the experience would be better enhanced by a higher frame rate than by spiffier visuals. The choice, however, is incredible, and it's a trend I'm glad to see becoming a mainstream feature so that each player can set it based on their own performance and visual priorities.

So, as I mentioned, you play as Peter Parker, a 23-year-old dude working as a research assistant for Dr. Otto Octavius and who is in a committed relationship with chronic tardiness to work and routinely flirts with homelessness from rent delinquency. Norman Osborn, the mayor of New York and CEO of the massive corporation, Oscorp, comes in being a typical capitalist pig and flaunting his money and power around to get his way. That's strike number one against the game; there's a distinct lack of guillotines despite the perfect narrative opportunity. I'm kidding, of course. Mostly. Anyway, you work for Octavius, you help out your Aunt May at FEAST, a homeless shelter established by the always-in-a-spiffy-suit Martin Li, and the beat the hell out of thugs working for Fisk, the crime boss you bust and send to prison in the beginning of the game. From there, multiple webs start to spread (no pun intended, I swear) as the city slowly but surely devolves into chaos. After slowly devolving into chaos for a while, it sprints to the edge of the cliff and leaps headfirst into anarchy. Also, pro-tip for life: get you someone who looks at you the way Peter Parker looks at a pizza.

When I first started, I figured, "I'll spend a few nights on this, power through the main story, maybe do a side quest or two, and be done with it." Rome was like, "Na man, you're gonna end up doing everything and get hooked for a straight week." I snorted at the ridiculous notion. Here I am, a week later, things having played out exactly like Rome predicted. Once I started playing, it was a compulsion. I couldn't stop. I'd play till 3 am just to get up at 8 for work. Then I'd do it again. By the time I was actually done, I'd gotten 100% on the main game (including the Platinum trophy) and 100% in all three of the DLC stories. In the whole game, I'm only missing two trophies, and they're both side trophies that got added for the remaster and (obviously) aren't counted for the Platinum trophy. I was hooked completely and totally, and that's how you know a game is good. A big part of that addicting gameplay is relatively small stuff. The photo mode that lets you take pictures with different poses and effects and frames in the game world. The wide array of costume choices for you to unlock. The tokens needed to unlock and upgrade gadgets. The little bits of story elements and character development that you get through the optional side stuff. It's the open-world action game equivalent of Civilization's "just one more turn" compulsion.

That doesn't mean it's perfect, though. The combat, while extremely fun, doesn't quite match Arkham's gloriously smooth flow in my opinion. There are some bugs, too, that force you to reload the last checkpoint; I once accidentally used a web power in the air while chasing a pigeon for a side mission and ended up freezing that pigeon in the air. That pigeon then attracted a swarm of pigeons flying around it at high speeds, so I basically created a pigeon solar system. Since I needed to catch that pigeon, I had to reload the last checkpoint. Little bugs like that mostly. Sometimes the controls and mechanics can be a bit overly finicky with being close enough to a ledge to perch but not so close that you fall off or enemies that rapidly shift back and forth from "Safe" for a stealth kill to "Danger" (like, shifting back and four five or six times per second). All in all, though, the game is damn near a masterpiece.

Spider-Man is an absolutely brilliant game, and that's especially true of the PS5 remaster. The writing is fantastic, the voice casting is phenomenal, and the visual world and character designs are works of art. Combat is fun and addicting, and while it's not quite as buttery smooth as Arkham, the open world feels significantly more alive and interesting than it did in the open-world Arkham games, so that more than makes up for it. I couldn't care less about comic book heroes, so for me to sucked so hard into this game and become so bent on 100% completing it is a testament to good game design; actual Spider-Man fans will likely be over the moon with this game, although I suspect most had already played long before I did. Even if you're just a fan of action games but not comic book heroes like me, this is still a game with an enormous amount of fun and content to offer, and the PS5 remaster contains all of the DLC. All of that plus Miles Morales for $70? Yeah, that's not even a choice. If you've got a PS5, you really need this on your shelf (or on your SSD).

Post by **MrPopo** » Tue Dec 08, 2020 8:14 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
73. The Bard's Tale - PC
74. The Bard's Tale II - PC
75. The Bard's Tale III - PC
76. The Bard's Tale IV - PC
77. Outbuddies - Switch
78. Ghostrunner - PC
79. Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict - GG
80. Zombies Ate My Neighbors - SNES
81. Spider-Man: Miles Morales - PS5
82. Demon's Souls - PS5
83. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - PC
84. Wild Arms 5 - PS2
85. Halo 4 - PC
86. Breath of Fire 2 - SNES

Back in high school I emulated Breath of Fire 2 and got all the way to the entrance of the final dungeon; that's when you get the last shaman and I could finally transform Katt into her demon Katt form. Then for some reason I dropped the game and never got back to it. Flash forward to this month; TR"s theme is Capcom RPGs and other such games and I figured it's finally time to get through it (I'd done BoF1 years ago). So I busted out my cart and started from the beginning. And while it it has a rough localization and is a bit mechanically primitive compared to what Square was doing it is a fun RPG that's well worth playing.

Breath of Fire 2 is set hundreds of years after the first game; comparing the world maps seems to indicate there was a major rise in sea levels between the two games, I honestly can't tell if they thought hard about how to change the world map between games or not, as the general shape is similar (U shape with some stuff in the middle) and the couple of towns that exists in both maps are in the correct places on both. But anyways, you are once again a young boy of the dragon clan who has some bad shit happen and needs to go on a journey and eventually save the world.

Now, this doesn't sound like anything terribly interesting; pretty standard JRPG plot, right? And the game start off that way. You spend about half the game going from town to town chasing the thief who got your buddy accused of a crime he didn't commit. It's a delightful romp, where you meet party members, solve local troubles, and the like. Then you clear your buddy's name and all of a sudden the main plot jumps in with an evil church trying to take over the world by subverting the power of people's faiths. And people start rather graphically dying (no falling off of cliffs here). It's a surprisingly dark and interesting plot, especially for the time, especially for a localized SNES RPG. My current theory is the NoA approval board only played the first half, then when Nintendo Power was making their walkthrough for the magazine it was too late to pull the approval and they had to go through with things.

As mentioned, the localization is rough, but mostly in terms of really needing an editing pass. There's no confusing plot points lost in translation or anything, just a handful of errors (one yes/no seems to be flipped, but it's probably due to a wording thing) and a lot of obvious "translator didn't realize these were western words converted to Japanese phonetics and needing to be converted back to English". There's also just a general technical limitation on item names that can be confusing, but on the flip side the help text is always accurate. Comparing it to FFVII I'd say BoF2 has a more comprehensible plot but VII has a higher quality bar for most things.

The battle mechanics are pretty straightforward; turn based with ordering coming from your speed stat, you have a basic attack, you can cast spells, and everyone has a special move (most of which are dubiously useful). You can put the party into one of four formations which affect damage dealt and taken with physical attacks, and seems to affect enemy targeting. One thing worth noting is the battle spritework is fantastic. Enemies and allies have very large sprites and your characters have a lot of well done animations (enemies have simpler animations because there are far more of them).

My main complaint is the game lacks certain quality of life features that demonstrate that Capcom's RPG devs were still inexperienced. That first half of the game I mentioned involves a LOT of world map backtracking; you don't even get access to a teleport spell until you're done with that half of the game. The game is inconsistent on what types of items stack (powerful healing ones don't) and the game does not auto stack (so when mass buying you gotta fill up inventory, then hit clean to combine, then you can buy more). You get a flight option late game, but then when you open the final dungeon you lose it and have to go back to the ship and warping (you do technically have access to another flight option if you unlocked it (missable) but it is sloooooow). And finally, the shaman mechanic is fiddly. A character fused with shamans loses them if that character is killed/brought to critical HP or if a story segment decides "nahh, that's gonna go away". Which includes going into the final boss. It takes what was something cool (nice power boost, cool transformations) and forces you to accept you're gonna lose it and to not get attached.

Overall Breath of Fire 2 is a solid RPG on the SNES and while it doesn't reach the heights of what Square was pulling off in that era it's far better than a lot of non-Square RPGs. Highly recommended.

Post by **MrPopo** » Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:05 am

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
73. The Bard's Tale - PC
74. The Bard's Tale II - PC
75. The Bard's Tale III - PC
76. The Bard's Tale IV - PC
77. Outbuddies - Switch
78. Ghostrunner - PC
79. Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict - GG
80. Zombies Ate My Neighbors - SNES
81. Spider-Man: Miles Morales - PS5
82. Demon's Souls - PS5
83. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - PC
84. Wild Arms 5 - PS2
85. Halo 4 - PC
86. Breath of Fire 2 - SNES
87. Typing of the Dead - DC

Typing of the Dead is what happens when someone gets really high over at Sega, watches his kid with Mavis Beacon, and then slaps together a prototype using House of the Dead 2. It's insane that it exists, it's insane that it's fun. But sometimes insane things happen.

As mentioned, the game is basically a modification of House of the Dead 2. So start with that game and it's incredibly bad voice acting; people were paid for these performances. But now modify the gameplay for being a typing game. When a zombie comes on you'll be given something to type; hitting it all will kill the zombie. Gotta do it before the zombie attacks. I'm assuming that in many cases the zombies have been slowed down to accommodate this. Then at the end you have a boss fight, which has some sort of gimmick to it. One boss can only be typed at during vulnerable periods while another boss asks you questions and you have to type the correct answer in time. You shoot powerups and enemy projectiles by typing single letters (to fit with the fast reaction needed) and you have to deal with the fact that once you start typing at a zombie you have to finish before moving on; this can trip you up with some projectile enemies. As the game progresses what you have to type gets harder; longer words, compound phrases, and punctuation all make an appearance (though you never need to type the space bar).

The game has two faults. The first is that not all of what you need to type is properly calibrated to the speed of enemy attacks. There are some that you have to basically process an bang out immediately or you're taking damage. Now, this wouldn't be so bad except for the second fault (and it's not really the game's fault per say); the Dreamcast keyboards are awful. They are the cheapest membrane keyboards available with a high throw needed and like to drop inputs. A good amount of your deaths will come from the keyboard dropping a letter, throwing you off stride and screwing up your entire process. But preserver and you'll get through it.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:54 pm

Games Beaten in 2020 - 32
* 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 in No Particular Order (6 Games Beaten)

November (6 Games Beaten)

32. Spider-Man - PlayStation 5 - December 8

Spider-Man: Miles Morales is the second game in Sony's current Spider-Man series following 2018's simply named Spider-Man. While some have called Miles Morales a stand-alone expansion or DLC for that game, I think that does it a disservice both because of how good the game is but also because of how distinct it feels. Plus you don't need to own Spider-Man to play Miles Morales, so I think the "stand-alone" nature makes it its own game.

You play as the titular character Miles Morales who was introduced in the previous game as he tries to fit into his own Spider-Man role to protect New York and especially his new home of Harlem. The core gameplay here is the same, but there are some changes and improvements that definitely give it a distinct feel. First off, the UI is different as are a couple of the combat mechanics. The "Focus" meter for finishers is gone and replaced with a "Venom" meter that you build up to use your bio-electric attacks. Finishers are now tied to your combo; a combo of 15 will net you a finisher move. There are fewer gadgets this time, but the gadgets you do get - the trusty web shooter, a remote mine, a holo-emitter to create holographic allies, and a gravity well - are super cool and feel more focused on quality than quantity. The whole combat system just "feels" more polished, too. It's still not quite as smooth or fluid as Arkham, but it's definitely a LOT closer than the last game was. Building and keeping combos is a bit easier due to that added combat smoothness.

In my Spider-Man review, I said that the world felt a lot more vibrant and alive than Arkham City. That's doubly true of Miles Morales. From beautiful street art murals to the snowy weather, Harlem feels like a living, breathing community in Miles Morales, and as you go through the story and side quests and interact with the denizens, you can't help but feel a connection with the game's world. Miles as a character lends himself to this as he, too, is relatively new to Harlem. He was always from New York, obviously, but had just recently moved from Brooklyn to Harlem when the game starts, so he's getting a feel for the area, too. His character is also very different from Peter Parker. Whereas Peter had been Spider-Man for several years by the time the first game took place, Miles had just acquired his powers. He also comes from a totally different background being a black teenager rather than a white young adult and still having his mother (and, until recently, his father) whereas Peter had been orphaned and raised by his aunt and uncle. While they both may be Spider-Man, they're very different Spider-Men with different powers and different personalities, and that helps this game stand out as something truly unique rather than just more Spider-Man.

The game also looks absolutely fantastic. The remaster of the first game looked incredible, but this game looks even better in my opinion. The performance mode, like with the first game, runs at a silky and solid 60 fps and looks amazing doing it, but the fidelity mode is even better implemented than it was in the first game's remaster. It looks truly stunning, and the frame rate is better on fidelity mode in Miles Morales than it was in the original's remaster. What really sets this above the original in my opinion, though, is the soundtrack. The first game had a nice but pretty typical superhero sound track; Miles Morales, on the other hand, has an absolutely brilliant hip-hop soundtrack. It feels modern and urban while still keeping some of that superhero feel. Truthfully I can't think of a way they could have possibly made this soundtrack more perfect for the game. It's a masterpiece of mood design.

One of the things I most appreciated about Miles Morales, however, has nothing to do with gameplay or setting or character development. Those things are all amazing, but it's the nods to real world events that really put the icing on the cake for me. Stan Lee's death, even for someone like me who doesn't care about Marvel or comic books, was a big deal. The man was an absolute legend, and you don't need to be a Marvel fan to appreciate the wake such an icon's death leaves. Seeing a big and beautiful bronze statue in his honor in the game was just perfect, and even I teared up at how perfectly it was done. It was glorious and spectacular but also unobtrusive, the kind of monument you could easily overlook because of how seamlessly it blended into the world. There's also the huge Black Lives Matter mural on one of the building exteriors in the game. At a time when black Americans are fighting just for the right to live and be treated as individuals rather than tokens or marginalized set pieces, seeing a stunning work of art like that with "BLACK LIVES MATTER" in big, bold letters in a game that features a young black protagonist in a genre oversaturated by white characters is the kind of social commentary and support that give me hope. Sure, you can say it was a marketing ploy to cash in on the BLM movement. Sure, you can say it's pushing some leftist "woke" political agenda. You could, but I think that kind of cynicism blinds you to what matters - that a game in a genre popular among younger gamers reinforces the idea that black boys can be superheroes, too. That black lives DO matter. That black characters are just as deep and complicated and multifaceted and conflicted as the white characters that populate most video games. Those are things that should be obvious, but in a medium that still struggles with achieving representation and doing it right, I think it's important to reinforce that idea in the ways that they can, and I applaud Insomniac for including the mural as well as the statue of Stan Lee. They don't affect gameplay or storytelling in anyway, but they make clear those two points; Stan Lee was a legend who will never be forgotten, and black lives matter.

So, social commentary aside (which, as a social justice-minded leftists, I eat up), the game is a damn masterpiece. It's MUCH shorter than the first game, yes, but a game's quality is not determined by its length. This game packs in the same brilliant Spider-Man experience as the first game; it just does it in a shorter time. I definitely wish the game were longer, but one thing no one can say is that it overstays its welcome. It tells its story, provides its experience, and then invites you to keep playing in the world or to move on. There are a couple of side quests that don't unlock until after the main game is finished, and I STRONGLY recommend sticking around for those as they're really important in building Miles's backstory. There's also New Game+ which unlocks a new suit and some new skills. All things considered, this is a brilliant game that matches the quality of the original and, in my opinion, surpasses it even if the length took a big hit. Whether you've moved on to the PS5 or are still rocking the PS4, don't sleep on Miles Morales. Sony hit gold with this one, folks.

Post by **MrPopo** » Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:01 pm

Stand alone expansion is exactly what Miles Morales is. It's the base game with new content which doesn't require you to own the previous. See also, Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries.

Post by **marurun** » Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:49 pm

Fantastic review, and I love your take on the importance of Miles Morales as a video game protagonist in the world Insomniac has populated.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Thu Dec 10, 2020 9:58 am

Games Beaten in 2020 - 33
* 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 in No Particular Order (6 Games Beaten)

November (7 Games Beaten)

33. Spider-Man: Miles Morales - PlayStation 5 - December 9*

Yes, I already replayed the entire story again. I had to do New Game+ to finish my Platinum trophy. :lol:

racketboy.com

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