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prfsnl_gmr
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by prfsnl_gmr Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:17 am

First 50
1. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary (NDS)
2. Reigns (iOS)
3. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
4. Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
5. Castlevania Legends (GB)
6. Yankai’s Triangle (iOS)
7. Mega Man III (GB)
8. Mega Man IV (GB)
9. Mega Man V (GB)
10. Sin & Punishment (N64)
11. Love You to Bits (iOS)
12. Mega Man Powered Up - Old Style (PSP)
13. Mega Man Powered Up - New Style (PSP)
14. Mario vs. Donkey Kong (GBA)
15. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (NDS)
16. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (NDS)
17. Detective Pikachu (3DS)
18. Super Fantasy Zone (Genesis)
19. Fantasy Zone Gear (GG)
20. Fantasy Zone - The Maze (SMS)
21. Fantasy Zone (Famicom)
22. Fantasy Zone (NES)
23. Kung Fu Master (2600)
24. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
25. Kid Dracula (GB)
26. Fantasy Zone (TG16)
27. Double Dragon V (SNES)
28. Fantasy Zone II (Famicom)
29. Street Fighter: The Movie (PS1)
30. Fire Fly (2600)
31. Pac Man (2600)
32. Extreme Sports with the Berenstain Bears (GBC)
33. Fantasy Zone (PS2)
34. Space Fantasy Zone (TG16)
35. Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf Fantasy Zone (Genesis)
36. Mega Man (GG)
37. Konami Pixel Puzzle (iOS)
38. Qix (Arcade/NES)
39. Congo Bongo (Arcade)
40. Phantasy Star Gaiden (GG)
41. Phantasy Star Adventure (GG)
42. Panzer Dragoon Mini (GG)
43. Spartan X-2 (Famicom)
44. BS The Legend of Zelda: The Ancient Stone Tablets (Super Famicom)
45. BS The Legend of Zelda (Super Famicom)
46. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! (NDS)
47. Double Dribble (NES)
48. Super Pro Football (INTV)
49. Indy 500 (2600)
50. Tecmo Bowl (NES)

51. Ninja Gaiden (GG)
52. SonSon (Arcade)
53. Wonder Girl: The Dragon’s Trap (iOS)
54. Minit (iOS)
55. Ninja Gaiden (SMS)
56. Surround (2600)
57. Pocket Bomberman (GBC)
58. Shadowgate (iOS)
59. Kuru Kuru Kururin (GBA)
60. Metroid Prime Hunters - First Hunt (NDS)
61. Mekorama (iOS)
62. Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP)
63. Akamajou Dracula Peke (TG16)
64. Darius Burst (iOS)
65. DoDonPachi Resurrection HD (iOS)
66. Vigilante (TG16)
67. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
68. Oxenfree (iOS)

Oxenfree was my Halloween game this year, and it was an spooky delight. It’s a graphic adventure game in which you guide a young woman and her friends as they struggle to escape a haunted(?) island. Like a visual novel, there is no failure state, but your dialogue choices during the game will impact the ending. The game also has a mechanic where you use a radio to tune into ghostly voices and uncover other information about the island. The writing and voice acting are both top-notch, and the dialogue system, which allows you to choose what to say, when to say it, or whether to stay silent, is very intuitive. Moreover, the dialogue is (mostly) very natural, and I only rarely felt that none of the dialogue options fit what I would have said to the other characters. Finally, the sound design is spectacular. The game has a wonderful synth soundtrack, and the static and other sounds from the radio are delightfully creepy. The game is very (to borrow a term from Doctor Who) timey-wimey, and it invites multiple playthroughs. I found all of the hidden letters during my first playthrough, and I actually got the best(?) ending too. Accordingly, I doubt I’ll play through it again. I would encourage anyone to give the game a shot though, as I really can’t recommend it highly enough (especially at this time of year).
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MrPopo
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by MrPopo Thu Oct 31, 2019 6:53 pm

First 50:
1. Octopath Traveler - Switch
2. Dusk - PC
3. Forsaken Remastered - PC
4. Tales of Eternia - PS1
5. Resident Evil 2 (2019) - PC
6. Pokémon Trading Card Game - GBC
7. Metro Exodus - PC
8. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales - PC
9. Project Warlock - PC
10. Magic: The Gathering - PC
11. Ghost 1.0 - PC
12. Call of Duty 2 - PC
13. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - PS4
14. Revelations: The Demon Slayer - GBC
15. Mechstermination Force - Switch
16. Shadow Warrior Classic Redux - PC
17. Lost Sphear - Switch
18. Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal - PC
19. Dragon Quest III - NES
20. Rage 2 - PC
21. Blood - PC
22. Harvest Moon 64 - N64
23. Battlefield V - PC
24. Sigil - PC
25. Shining Force III: Scenario 2 - Saturn
26. Shining Force III: Scenario 3 - Saturn
27. Borderlands 2: Commander Lillith and the Fight for Sanctuary - PC
28. Gato Roboto - Switch
29. Timespinner - Switch
30. Amid Evil - PC
31. Pillars of Eternity II: Beast of Winter - PC
32. Pillars of Eternity II: Seeker, Slayer, Survivor - PC
33. Pillars of Eternity II: The Forgotten Sanctum - PC
34. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Switch
35. Orphan - PC
36. Project Nimbus - PC
37. Hardcore Mecha - PC
38. Grey Goo - PC
39. Giants: Citizen Kabuto - PC
40. Wolfenstein: Youngblood - PC
41. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Switch
42. Metal Wolf Chaos XD - PC
43. Ion Fury - PC
44. Final Fantasy Adventure - GB
45. Astral Chain - Switch
46. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw - PC
47. Blasphemous - Switch
48. Daemon x Machina - Switch
49. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Switch
50. Borderlands 3 - PC

51. Valfaris - Switch
52. Unreal: Return to Na Pali - PC
53. The Outer Worlds - PC

The Outer Worlds is the latest game from Obsidian, and serves as a gameplay successor to Fallout: New Vegas. Rather than being in a nuclear wasteland, the game is set in a human space colony. However, space colonies are expensive ventures, so the colonization was financed by a consortium of corporations, who now control everything. So you end up having a similar sardonic sense of humor going through the game, but now it's focused more on capitalism rather than post-apocalypse.

The story begins with you being woken up by a crazy guy from hibernation. Turns out you were a member of a second colonization ship that had drifted off course and by the time it was found you had been asleep too long. Conventional wisdom was that once you slept more than 10 years you couldn't be brought back (the body would liquify), but the guy who wakes you up figured out a chemical concoction that could bring you safely back. He gets stopped before he can wake any more colonists and so he sends you out into the world to him with his plans for the colony. But since he's paranoid and hides in his secret base the only thing he can do is cantankerously suggest things for you to do. Meanwhile, you get to do whatever the hell you feel like and leave your mark on things; the random variable no one accounted for.

The gameplay will be instantly familiar to fans of the modern Fallout games. You start by picking some base attributes which will set your initial skill levels, as well as some general stat boosts. Base attributes cannot be raised past character creation other than through temporary food buffs. Your skill levels end up doing the heavy lifting for your capabilities. Skill levels go from 0-100, and every 20 points invested unlocks a benefit (so temporary stat boosts don't help with that, just skill checks and values that scale with skill level). One interesting thing the game does is bundle the skills into groups of 2-3 related skills. Up until level 50 you raise skill groups as a whole, so if you put a point in lockpicking you also get a point in stealth and hacking (assuming all are below 50). Once a skill reaches 50 you have to manually invest points. This allows you to avoid getting too pigeonholed by min-maxing, and all characters will be reasonably competent. One neat thing is that the dialog skills also have combat applications; the values at 20/40/etc will give you a chance in combat for particular kinds of enemies to be debuffed. You can definitely get through all the combats in the game with utterly dumped combat skills (like I did), so don't worry that you'll screw yourself like in Oblivion.

You can have up to two companions at a time, and they will helpfully chime in during dialogs to spice things up and sometimes give you stat boosts. They also come with three of their own values in skills, and I believe those will get used in combats if yours are too low. I'm not 100% sure, though, since I was always as good or better, as I went heavy into non-combat skills. Each one has a personal quest that is reasonably lengthy to resolve something in the character's past; like most Obsidian things all the characters are flawed. The writing for companions is excellent, and there's a lot of good banter.

Rather than being a single large open world, the game is divided up into a series of smaller areas. This helps avoid some of the open world fatigue; things are much more deliberate and any time you stumble upon something that looks interesting you can bet it will be used for a quest at one point or another. The quests all have a variety of solutions to them depending on character build and player morality, and nothing is cut and dried. Sometimes you might even have larger consequences much later in the game that you hadn't anticipated. There's no such thing as a perfect game, but you should come out feeling satisfied with your choices if you didn't try to game things too much.

I feel it worth mentioning that this is the least buggy Obsidian game ever. The only bugs I found were a couple of areas where the map wasn't properly putting a player marker; after a couple of rooms I was able to orient myself but it was still a touch annoying. Otherwise there wasn't really anything goofy happening. There's a bunch of little touches to keep the experience going well, such as your companions understanding how to navigate terrain (including jumping gaps), and they will teleport to you if they're on the wrong side of an elevator or just get stuck somewhere. They also can be commanded to move to a position or target a particular enemy, so managing them is much easier than "I hope you do the right thing".

All in all, it's a fantastic game. I'm really hoping Obsidian turns this into a full franchise, as there is definitely more to be explored here.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by MrPopo Thu Oct 31, 2019 7:06 pm

First 50:
1. Octopath Traveler - Switch
2. Dusk - PC
3. Forsaken Remastered - PC
4. Tales of Eternia - PS1
5. Resident Evil 2 (2019) - PC
6. Pokémon Trading Card Game - GBC
7. Metro Exodus - PC
8. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales - PC
9. Project Warlock - PC
10. Magic: The Gathering - PC
11. Ghost 1.0 - PC
12. Call of Duty 2 - PC
13. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - PS4
14. Revelations: The Demon Slayer - GBC
15. Mechstermination Force - Switch
16. Shadow Warrior Classic Redux - PC
17. Lost Sphear - Switch
18. Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal - PC
19. Dragon Quest III - NES
20. Rage 2 - PC
21. Blood - PC
22. Harvest Moon 64 - N64
23. Battlefield V - PC
24. Sigil - PC
25. Shining Force III: Scenario 2 - Saturn
26. Shining Force III: Scenario 3 - Saturn
27. Borderlands 2: Commander Lillith and the Fight for Sanctuary - PC
28. Gato Roboto - Switch
29. Timespinner - Switch
30. Amid Evil - PC
31. Pillars of Eternity II: Beast of Winter - PC
32. Pillars of Eternity II: Seeker, Slayer, Survivor - PC
33. Pillars of Eternity II: The Forgotten Sanctum - PC
34. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Switch
35. Orphan - PC
36. Project Nimbus - PC
37. Hardcore Mecha - PC
38. Grey Goo - PC
39. Giants: Citizen Kabuto - PC
40. Wolfenstein: Youngblood - PC
41. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Switch
42. Metal Wolf Chaos XD - PC
43. Ion Fury - PC
44. Final Fantasy Adventure - GB
45. Astral Chain - Switch
46. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw - PC
47. Blasphemous - Switch
48. Daemon x Machina - Switch
49. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Switch
50. Borderlands 3 - PC

51. Valfaris - Switch
52. Unreal: Return to Na Pali - PC
53. The Outer Worlds - PC
54. MechWarrior 4: Black Knight - PC

Black Knight is the forgotten expansion pack to MechWarrior 4: Vengeance. It wasn't a great follow up to Vengeance, and then Mercenaries came out and blew both out of the water. It's most notable for the protagonist being voiced by George Ledoux, which fans will know better as the Solaris VII announcer Duncan Fisher who was so memorable in Mercenaries.

The plot follows after the bad ending of Vengeance; Ian Dresari turned out to be an asshole, let his sister die, and now rules Kentares IV. You are a member of the Black Knight Legion, a mercenary outfit that gets hired by House Steiner to go ruin Ian's day. Now, the story claims that Ian ended up being mean to his subjects and that's why Steiner wants him taken out, but everything Ian does in game is grossly out of character, even given the bad ending. Apparently he's bad enough that there is a resistance fighting against him (and your old lancemates from the first game are ok putting that down), but then when your group lands and cause some trouble he somehow convinces Steiner to sell you out (and given how much ass he kicked in the first game, why would he bother?) So you get betrayed, you have to rebuild the unit, take out Ian, and then get revenge on the person who hired you. Amusingly, they couldn't get any of the old voice actors and no one sounds right.

In terms of additions to the base game, we get the high caliber autocannons, a handful of mechs (one of which you never get to salvage), and a resource system similar to MechWarrior 3's; lost weapons are removed from your inventory along with destroyed mechs, while heavily damaged mechs take a mission to get back to full strength (you CAN use them, but it's not advised). Since ammo is still free this ends up feeling much better than MW3's; you can actually use your big guns. There's also a market that's available after some missions; you can use this to buy mechs and gear, though everything is done using a system of people bringing equal amounts of value to the table. There's no persistent currency.

The game suffers from two problems. The first is bad pathfinding for your AI partners. There were multiple missions where they got stuck because they couldn't figure out how to navigate geometry. I'm guessing this is due to the developers not putting in enough pathfinding nodes or something similar. These problems didn't exist in Vengeance and don't show up in Mercenaries. The second problem is Expansion Pack Syndrome; the game is made harder than necessary under the theory that people coming from the base game are only looking for higher challenge. This is expressed through some really long odds in several missions and the enemy aim mostly focusing on your center torso. I lost many missions with only having taken CT damage, when the base game (and again, Mercenaries) not being so egregious. I realize that computers can act perfectly, but part of the job of good game design is not to expose that.

Overall it's an ok game; it's shorter than the base game and the new mechs don't really add much. More interesting is the added autocannons, as they give you a very high damage but short range option that is worth considering over just going gauss. If you can snag it cheap and like the other MechWarrior 4 engine games then it's worth a run through, but don't bang your head on it when it starts being mean.
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by PartridgeSenpai Fri Nov 01, 2019 3:01 am

What difficulty did you play Outer Worlds on, Popo? I've been playing through on hard, and I'm curious if you can totally dump the combat stats in hard and I just suck, or if you're playing on normal. Hard has been pretty tough so far. I can't imagine how masochistic you'd have to be to do it on Supernova difficulty XP
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by MrPopo Fri Nov 01, 2019 10:06 pm

PartridgeSenpai wrote:What difficulty did you play Outer Worlds on, Popo? I've been playing through on hard, and I'm curious if you can totally dump the combat stats in hard and I just suck, or if you're playing on normal. Hard has been pretty tough so far. I can't imagine how masochistic you'd have to be to do it on Supernova difficulty XP

I played on Supernova. The main source of restarts was me letting a companion die, to be honest. Combat wasn't killing me so much (heals are plentiful), but it was killing my companion. At least once I was up to about level 4 or so. The first couple levels are definitely brutal, as you have shit gear and the level scaling is pretty sharp (a couple levels of difference between you and the target has a large effect on damage dealt and received, in either direction).
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by MrPopo Sun Nov 03, 2019 7:14 pm

First 50:
1. Octopath Traveler - Switch
2. Dusk - PC
3. Forsaken Remastered - PC
4. Tales of Eternia - PS1
5. Resident Evil 2 (2019) - PC
6. Pokémon Trading Card Game - GBC
7. Metro Exodus - PC
8. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales - PC
9. Project Warlock - PC
10. Magic: The Gathering - PC
11. Ghost 1.0 - PC
12. Call of Duty 2 - PC
13. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - PS4
14. Revelations: The Demon Slayer - GBC
15. Mechstermination Force - Switch
16. Shadow Warrior Classic Redux - PC
17. Lost Sphear - Switch
18. Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal - PC
19. Dragon Quest III - NES
20. Rage 2 - PC
21. Blood - PC
22. Harvest Moon 64 - N64
23. Battlefield V - PC
24. Sigil - PC
25. Shining Force III: Scenario 2 - Saturn
26. Shining Force III: Scenario 3 - Saturn
27. Borderlands 2: Commander Lillith and the Fight for Sanctuary - PC
28. Gato Roboto - Switch
29. Timespinner - Switch
30. Amid Evil - PC
31. Pillars of Eternity II: Beast of Winter - PC
32. Pillars of Eternity II: Seeker, Slayer, Survivor - PC
33. Pillars of Eternity II: The Forgotten Sanctum - PC
34. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Switch
35. Orphan - PC
36. Project Nimbus - PC
37. Hardcore Mecha - PC
38. Grey Goo - PC
39. Giants: Citizen Kabuto - PC
40. Wolfenstein: Youngblood - PC
41. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Switch
42. Metal Wolf Chaos XD - PC
43. Ion Fury - PC
44. Final Fantasy Adventure - GB
45. Astral Chain - Switch
46. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw - PC
47. Blasphemous - Switch
48. Daemon x Machina - Switch
49. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Switch
50. Borderlands 3 - PC

51. Valfaris - Switch
52. Unreal: Return to Na Pali - PC
53. The Outer Worlds - PC
54. MechWarrior 4: Black Knight - PC
55. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - PC

This is the new one that came out; you can tell the difference between it and the previous game called Modern Warfare because that one is properly known as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. This is the first of the post-WWII CoDs I've ever played, and I mostly picked it up because I got a free key and the reviews for the campaign were good. And it was a pretty solid experience, though there is a part of me that just doesn't find the cinematic FPS to be the most engaging.

It's interesting to see how the general gameplay flow hasn't really changed since CoD1. It's built around creating these cinematic moments and a lot of "there will always be enemies until you push up to this next trigger point". So in a sense in most of the levels there is a lot less of that feeling of just how good can the player be, as your NPC helpers are competent enough that you generally only need to take out key enemies in the way of you triggering the "ok, next segment". It's just now, it is much prettier than CoD1.

Speaking of pretty, they went ALL OUT on the cinematics. It looks more like they filmed footage and then passed a "CGI" filter over it. It's also rendered in realtime, which you'll discover when it decides to hitch up and then the audio desyncs from the animations. It was annoying, but it doesn't diminish from the general technical feat. During the missions they don't go so crazy and all the action was butter smooth.

The storyline could have come out of a Tom Clancy book. You bounce between two primary protagonists as you seek to stop the proliferation of some nasty gas and disrupt an Al-Quidah expy, get involved in some shady shit, and hopefully have made the world a slightly better place by the end. You'll definitely be doing some bad stuff for the right reasons, and there will be several moments where you will be given things like civilians who may or may not end up being hostile (almost Virtua Cop style). I can't say that the themes were treated with any real nuance; the focus mostly seemed to be "look, war is not squeaky clean" but leaves the player the option to decide how they feel about it. One stand-out setpiece, though, was an early mission where there is a terrorist attack on a London square. The sheer level of confusion and what the fuckery that occurs in the mission until you finally can get a handle on things was well executed.

I don't know if I'd tell people who aren't big CoD fans to snag it at full price, but if you are a fan of the franchise this entry will definitely be enjoyable.
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by PartridgeSenpai Sun Nov 03, 2019 7:27 pm

MrPopo wrote:
PartridgeSenpai wrote:What difficulty did you play Outer Worlds on, Popo? I've been playing through on hard, and I'm curious if you can totally dump the combat stats in hard and I just suck, or if you're playing on normal. Hard has been pretty tough so far. I can't imagine how masochistic you'd have to be to do it on Supernova difficulty XP

I played on Supernova. The main source of restarts was me letting a companion die, to be honest. Combat wasn't killing me so much (heals are plentiful), but it was killing my companion. At least once I was up to about level 4 or so. The first couple levels are definitely brutal, as you have shit gear and the level scaling is pretty sharp (a couple levels of difference between you and the target has a large effect on damage dealt and received, in either direction).


I always forget that healing is a thing because I'm so focused on shooting, but that does make a lot of sense that Supernova isn't so hard if you use the heal mechanic the way it's supposed to be played :lol:
I definitely agree that the game has only gotten easier as I've gone on though. Even my companions rarely go down now, let alone me dying now that I'm like level 22 or 23.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by MrPopo Sun Nov 03, 2019 10:39 pm

It did take me a little while to realize that you can just spam it.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by Ack Mon Nov 04, 2019 12:30 pm

1. Dusk (PC)(FPS)
2. Project: Snowblind (PC)(FPS)
3. Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition (PC)(FPS)
4. Ziggurat (PC)(FPS)
5. Wolfenstein 3D: Ultimate Challenge (PC)(FPS)
6. Destiny 2 (PC)(FPS/RPG)
7. Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris (PC)(FPS/RPG)
8. Destiny 2: Warmind (PC)(FPS/RPG)

9. Destiny 2: Forsaken (PC)(FPS/RPG)
10. Star Wars: Rebel Assault (PC)(Rail Shooter)

11. Castle Werewolf (PC)(FPS)
12. Project Warlock (PC)(FPS)
13. Castle Crashers (PC)(Hack and Slash)
14. This Strange Realm of Mine (PC)(FPS)
15. BioShock Remastered (PC)(FPS)
16. BioShock 2 (PC)(FPS)
17. BioShock 2: Minerva's Den (PC)(FPS)

18. Blood (PC)(FPS)
19. Blood: Cryptic Passage (PC)(FPS)
20. Blood: Post Mortem (PC)(FPS)

21. Shadow Warrior (PC)(FPS)
22. Shadow Warrior: Twin Dragon (PC)(FPS)
23. Shadow Warrior: Wanton Destruction (PC)(FPS)

24. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (PC)(FPS)
25. F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn (PC)(FPS)

26. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC)(RPG)
27. Men of Valor (PC)(FPS)
28. Ultima III: Exodus (PC)(RPG)
29. Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space (PC)(Point and Click)

30. Midnight Ultra (PC)(FPS)
31. Amid Evil (PC)(FPS)
32. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC)(RPG)
33. Betrayer (PC)(Horror)

34. Borderlands 2: Commander Lilith & the Fight for Sanctuary (PC)(FPS/RPG)
35. Far Cry 2 (PC)(FPS)
36. Apocryph (PC)(FPS)
37. Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor (PC)(RPG)

38. Menzoberranzan (PC)(RPG)
39. TimeShift (PC)(FPS)
40. Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition (PC)(RPG)
41. Shadowgate (PC)(Point and Click)

42. Might & Magic Book One (PC)(RPG)
43. Miasmata (PC)(Adventure)
44. Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (PC)(FPS)
45. Legendary (PC)(FPS)

I remember when Legendary was first announced over a decade ago. A first person shooter with horror elements, where the monsters were pulled from mythology as opposed to being the usual ghosts and zombies? Of course I'm interested! I thought the premise of running gun battles with griffons and firefights with minotaurs would give us something special.

And then the game came out.

The reviews trashed it. They criticized the level design, the gameplay, the lack of features, and so on. As a consumer with limited income at the time, I decided I would just stay away. And I did. For over a decade. Finally, with a Steam sale going on for Halloween, I noticed the price was about $0.75, so I figured why not spend a few quarters and finally pick it up. I got my 75 cents worth...and that's pretty much all.

Look, Legendary isn't an outright bad game, per se, but it is an egregious example of everything that was being criticized in FPS design at the time. You've got a limited array of firepower and can only hold a couple of guns at once. You've got repetitive level design, including constantly returning to sewers in an extremely linear layout. You've got an over reliance on dark hues, particularly grey and blue, so many areas just feel like the same thing over and over again. While the enemy ideas have some creative elements, they swiftly become repetitive. You have a special "Animus" system for drawing in the life energy of dead monsters, but it basically just becomes a means to heal yourself and little else, so it's almost a stand in for regenerating health. Oh, and both unskippable cutscenes and checkpoint saves. Joy.

That doesn't include the bugs, one of which required I go in and edit an ini file to cap the framerate because it was causing an issue where I'd fall through an elevator floor. I also had one crash occur, though the game itself was short enough, one crash is certainly noticeable.

It's still not terrible. The guns feel relatively good to use, though most swiftly become pointless as you find an upgrade. The shotgun is quality, and there is an element of body damage on some of the enemies where their flesh strips away to show exposed muscle that at least makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere with the spongier foes. But you're basically going to use the shotgun and whatever is the highest level of rapid-fire weapon, and that will be your loadout for the game. I also appreciate that the human villains have a faux-Judge Dredd look to them, even if it is a ludicrous look for a ludicrous secret society villain.

The game ends on a cliffhanger after a weak final battle that doesn't really consist of a boss fight. I feel like it wanted to be something more, but Legendary just ended up bland and limited. I'm glad I waited, and I'm glad I paid so little. That said, if you want to see just why folks were criticizing FPS in the late 2000s, here's perhaps one of the best possible examples of those problems that isn't set in the Middle East.
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MrPopo
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by MrPopo Mon Nov 04, 2019 2:25 pm

Ack wrote:Look, Legendary isn't an outright bad game, per se, but it is an egregious example of everything that was being criticized in FPS design at the time. You've got a limited array of firepower and can only hold a couple of guns at once.

I call this "Halo Syndrome". Halo was big, and everyone started aping what it did. And while many of those decisions made sense for the limitations of consoles at the time it really sucked for the PC world.
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