Games Beaten 2013

[dsheinem]

Games Beaten 2013
Twisted Metal - PS1
Twisted Metal 2 - PS1
Twisted Metal III - PS1
Twisted Metal 4 - PS1
Screaming Mad George's Paranoiascape - PS1
N.O.V.A. - PSP
Jetpack Joyride - Vita
Devil May Cry (2013) - 360
BlazBlu: Continuum Shift Extend - Vita
Fighting Masters - Genesis
Kirby's Epic Yarn - Wii
Cruis'n - Wii
Foosball 2012 - Vita
Electronic Table Soccer! - Odyssey2
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown -PS3
Asura's Wrath - PS3
Showdown in 2100 A.D. - Odyssey2
CoD of Duty - PC
Little Big Planet Karting - PS3
Gattling Gears - PS3
Monster Maulers - Arcade (MAME)
Angry Birds Rio - iOS
The Last Story - Wii
Retro/Grade - PS3
Sonic Fighters - 360
Spec Ops: The Line - PS3
God of War: Ascension - PS3
Bioshock Infinite - PS3
Half-Life: Source - PC
Guacamelee - Vita
Tekken 6 - PSP
Half-Life: Blue Shift - PC
Power Stone - PSP
Power Stone 2 - PSP
Torchlight - PC
Torchlight II - PC
Gorgar (from Pinball Arcade) - Vita
Metro: Last Light - 360
The Last Blade - Arcade (MAME)
Fatal Fury Special - PS2
Halo 2600 - Atari 2600
Lollipop Chainsaw - PS3 *new*
Sonic Colors - Wii *new*

Total: 43

Games Beaten: 2012 2011 2010

I picked up Lollipop Chainsaw on Friday and was done with it by Saturday night. A lot of silly fun and fairly easy to get through, but nonetheless it is probably tied with Shadows of the Damned for my favorite Suda game. Like that game, this was juvenile humor/comedy done right in a game.

Sonic Colors I started playing back in February or so (whenever I was playing those other Wii games) but I stopped about half way through. The last few stages are a pain in the butt (what is with hard bosses in Sonic games of late?), but otherwise it is not too rough. It is not as good as Generations, but it is still a lot of fun and signaled a pretty big shift for Sonic games in general. Worth hunting down if you don't have a copy and have ever liked a Sonic game.

I'm hoping to be at or near 50 by the end of the month which seems feasible given the pace thus far.

[graffix_13]

1. Borderlands 2- PS3 (Platinum Trophy)
2. God of War: Ascension- PS3 (Platinum Trophy)
3. Actraiser- SNES
4. Borderlands- PS3 (Platinum Trophy)
5. Super Castlevania IV (SNES)

[Ack]

1. Sniper Elite V2 (PS3)(TPS)
2. Teen Agent (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
3. Alpha Protocol (PS3)(RPG)
4. Beneath A Steel Sky (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
5. Imscared - A Pixelated Nightmare (PC)(Horror)
6. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (SNES)(RPG)
7. Celestial Mechanica (PC)(Platformer)
8. Gravity Bone (PC)(First Person Adventure)
9. Secret of Mana (SNES)(RPG)
10. Lure of the Temptress (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
11. Mario's Early Years: Fun With Numbers (SNES)(Edutainment)
12. CoD of Duty (PC)(FPS)
13. The Bard's Tale (PS2)(RPG)
14. The Great Circus Mystery, Starring Mickey and Minnie (SNES)(Platformer)
15. Deus Ex (PC)(FPS)
16. The King of the Wood (PC)(FPS)
17. Shadows of the Damned (PS3)(Horror Adventure)
18. Chuck Rock (SNES)(Platformer)
19. Arcana (SNES)(RPG)
20. Jurassic Park (SNES)(Action-Adventure)
21. Brawl Brothers (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up)
22. Monopoly (SNES)(Boardgame)
23. Dr. Mario (SNES)(Puzzle)
24. Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday (SNES)(Platformer)
25. Breath of Fire (SNES)(RPG)
26. The Death and Return of Superman (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up)
27. Battle Blaze (SNES)(Fighting)
28. Todd McFarlane's Spawn: The Video Game (SNES)(Action-Adventure)
29. Mario's Early Years: Fun With Letters (SNES)(Edutainment)
30. Dwarfs!? (PC)(I have no idea)
31. Super Adventure Island (SNES)(Platformer)
32. Batman Returns (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up)
33. Pit-Fighter (SNES)(Fighting)
34. Lester the Unlikely (SNES)(Platformer)
35. Killing Floor (PC)(FPS)
36. Dungeons of Dredmor (PC)(RPG)
37. The 7th Saga (SNES)(RPG)
38. Donkey Kong Country (SNES)(Platformer)
39. Super Mario Bros. 3, via Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World (SNES)(Platformer)
40. Sunset Riders (Arcade)(Run and Gun)
41. Battle Circuit (Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
42. Monster Maulers (Arcade)(Boss Rush Fighter)
43. Metamoqester (Arcade)(Boss Rush Fighter)
44. Ninja Baseball Batman (Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
45. Alien vs. Predator (Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)

So Fastbilly, a friend of ours named Xentrix, and I played through a bunch of games on MAME over the weekend. Here's my quick thoughts on these:

Sunset Riders is a great run and gun. I plan to play through the SNES version along with this one, because I want to see the differences. Apparently while some levels are similar, certain others are entirely different to remove content which could be considered sexist or racist. The game is ridiculously fun with friends though.

Battle Circuit is an obscure beat 'em up that really deserves to be played more. It's bizarre, but it's well designed and a lot of fun to play, especially once you start to unlock the various special moves hidden for each character. And those characters have some great designs! I went for the giant carnivorous plant creature, while Fast played a little girl riding a rough and tumble flamingo and Xen tried a cat girl with a big squirrel for a pet. Those of you with MAME cabs should look into this one.

Monster Maulers and Metamoqester are two examples of an obscure fighting game subgenre where you fight only giant boss creatures. I'm not gonna lie, Monster Maulers just doesn't feel good and is pretty tacky with its design, and Metamoqester is designed to eat quarters through extremely cheap bosses (particularly the final one). This subgenre is better represented with Red Earth, but good luck finding it.

Ninja Baseball Batman is colorful, fun, and incredible strange. You play one of a team of baseball-playing robots who must recover gold baseball items that were stolen. To do this, you'll have to beat the tar out of hordes of enemies composed of baseballs, cigarette lighters, ghosts, smoke, playing cards, baseball gloves, etc. Again, if you have a MAME cab, I recommend checking this one out.

Aliens vs. Predator is an old favorite of mine, but I must admit that it didn't seem as amazing after a night of other arcade games. It's still fun, and I still enjoy it, but being built for 4 players would have been much better. Still, it's one of my favorite games in the franchise.

[ExedExes]

1. Medal of Honor Allied Assault Spearhead - PC (January 2)
2. America's Army - Arcade (January 12) - 1cc!
3. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - Gamecube (January 26)
4. Dragon Spirit - NES (February 7) - 1cc!
5. Final Fantasy - (by way of DoS) - GBA (March 15)
6. Wing Commander - PC (March 21)
7. Medal of Honor European Assault - Gamecube (March 30)
8. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow - Gamecube (April 6)
9. Half-Life - PC (April 25)
10. Fantastic Dizzy - Genesis (May 16)
11. *NEW* Fatal Fury Special - NeoGeo (in MAME) (June 10)

This month's TR. I never really gave FF2 or 3 much time, but this update to 2 was a good experience. I may be attempting the SNES port next.

[prfsnl_gmr]

1. Okamiden (NDS)
2. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (Wii)
3. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection (Wii)
4. Cave Story 3D (3DS)
5. Theatrhytm Final Fantasy (3DS)
6. Rayman Origins (Wii)
7. Kim Possible: What's The Switch (PS2)
8. Super Street Fighter 4: 3d Edition (3DS)
9. Metal Slug Advance (GBA)
10. Caveman Ninja (ARC)
11. Wario Land II (GBC)
12. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (GC)
13. Link's Crossbow Training (Wii)

I took a break from my summer gaming challenge games to breeze through Link's Crossbow Training (Wii) on Sunday morning. (My daughter wanted me to play a "scary" game, and this was just "scary" enough for a four-year-old.) The game is light gun shoooter inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It has relatively high production values and varied courses. Some courses merely involve hitting bullseyes, while others involve protecting Link from attacking monsters. Others permit free movement and involve eliminating all of the monsters in an area in a set amout of time, and there are even a couple of - admittedly pretty aweome - boss fights. Moreover, while I completed the game in about 30 minutes with bronze and silver trophies, I suspect that obtaining gold trophies on all of the stages would be very challenging (and would likely require a bit more than 30 minutes). In any event, this game was a very fun distraction, and like any good arcade game, I plan to go back to it to see if I can tiop my high scores. It is well-worth the $1 it sells for a Gamestop right now, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good old-fashioned light gun shooter.

[Luke]

It is well-worth the $1 it sells for a Gamestop right now

That's an amazing steal. I'm guessing it doesn't come with the "Crossbow" but still...Great game for a buck.

[prfsnl_gmr]

It is well-worth the $1 it sells for a Gamestop right now

That's an amazing steal. I'm guessing it doesn't come with the "Crossbow" but still...Great game for a buck.

Yeah. It is ridiculously cheap there. It is not listed on GameStop's website; so, you may have to shop around a bit. The last time I stopped in to a GameStop, however, it was marked $0.99...which is quite a discount from the $2.99 I paid sometime last year!

[Gamerforlife]

1. Thomas Was Alone - PC
2. Sam & Max Save the World - The whole season - PC, GOG versions
3. Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space - The whole season - PC, GOG versions
4. Sam & Max The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 1 - PC, GOG version
5. Sam & Max The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 2 - PC, GOG version
6. Sam & Max The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 3 - PC, GOG version
7. The Walking Dead Series - PC
8. Sly Thieves in Time - PS3
9. Guacamelee - PS3
10. Castlevania: Mirror of Fate - 3DS
11. Resident Evil Revelation - 3DS
12. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask - 3DS
13. Samurai Warriors Chronicles -3DS

Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attacks - Vita (Finished with all trophies, gold medals on every stage, and all friendly blobs found)



So here's the second game I believe from the guys who created Guacamelee. I guess I'm playing these guys' games in reverse as their first game (the prequel to this game I think) will likely be the last one I play from them. This game's a basic platformer in the vein of an old Mario game or something like Rayman Origins, but it does a lot of really creative things that caught me by surprise. The game does a fairly good job of throwing new challenges at you in each stage. I guess this was an early Vita game, so it has to use all the gimmicky stuff like touch screen controls and the system's tilt feature. For the most part, this stuff works well and is cleverly implemented in the game. There are moments when its annoying, but it has less to do with the implementation of these features and more to do with the game's high level of difficulty, which I'll get too a bit later.

The best thing about the game is its humor. It's like a very old, cheesy horror movie. The cool part is that you are playing as the monster. The story is humorously portrayed and basically focuses on your path of destruction throughout the planet, punctuated by funny news stories covering it. There's a lot of funny gaming references too, which you can also find in their other game Guacamelee. It's getting kind of trendy for all these indie, retro games to be full of gaming references. It annoys some people. I was sort of indifferent to it as I played through the game, focusing more on beating the stages and collecting everything than looking for all the jokes and references in the background. I see so many games do this now that I sort of don't really pay attention to it anymore

The soundtrack is catchy and upbeat. It captures both the humor and old movie vibe. One funny track has some catchy vocals ("Zu-zu-zu, zuzu, zuzu, zuZU!) Visually, the game isn't all that amazing, but there is this cool effect that is hard to describe. It makes the sides of your screen look grainy and dirty. I guess it's supposed to look like you're watching some really old, film reel. Initially, I thought something was wrong with my OLED Vita screen and was very concerned. The game plays with a sense of scale rather nicely as your mutant blob grows bigger and bigger from devouring everything around him and everything around him starts to look smaller by comparison. You start the game as this tiny experiment escaping a lab with these humongous human beings in the background and over the course of the game you'll reach King Kong-like levels of size. There's a neat retro gaming look to one of the game's bonus levels too. This isn't a game to show off what your Vita can do and it's not nearly as impressive visually as Drinkbox's Gucamelee, but it does have its charms.

This game if fucking hard. There's been this annoying trend over the past couple years of these sadistically hard, physics based platformers being all the rage with stuff like Super Meat Boy and that game with too many Vs in its title. There are parts of this game that are frustrating, and it's clearly by design. Also, the ultra realistic jumping mechanics of games like this can be very awkward and unintuitive, which is ironic. I guess I've become accustomed over the years to unrealistic jumping in my Marios, Sonics, Mega Mans, etc.

So yeah, the game is tough. Fortunately, this game has a ton of checkpoints for you to respawn at. It keeps you from wanting to give up on this at times brutally hard game. If you took out the game's abundance of checkpoints and implemented a lives system, you'd have a game as brutally difficult as Battletoads or those old Ghouls and Ghosts games. It's a modern concession I'm happy to see in our games today, and probably even more mandatory for a portable game.

The checkpoints can screw you over though. When you're trying to collect everything for the gold medals, it sucks when you get through a section where you missed a few items and can't go back. You can try to kill yourself to respawn at the last checkpoint, but moving forward to try and find something to kill you can inadvertently trigger a NEW checkpoint. So now you have no way to go back and have to start the level over again from the beginning. Irritating. This pissed me off with Raman Origins as well. You only get once chance to get a lot of the collectibles in Origins as they quickly float off the screen and you have to try and kill yourself and go back to the last checkpoint to try again if you fail. This problem could have been remedied in BOTH games by having a simple, restart checkpoint option that players could use at any time. Common sense folks. Sometimes designers just don't have it.

I have to give the game credit for its tilt based levels. The motion controls are FAR better than the HORRIBLE ones in Sly: Thieves in Time and its spin off Bentley's Hack Pack. The tilt levels in Bentley's Hack pack are practically unplayable due to inaccurate and over sensitive motion controls regardless of if you play on the Vita version or the PS3 version. It's a big misstep in two otherwise great games that Mutant Blob Attacks completely avoids making.

Overall, this is a fun game. For trophy hunters, this is a pretty straightforward set of trophies. If you are skilled enough to beat the game, you can probably get them all. The game's final level deserves special mention. It's quite memorable, and noticeably easier than the rest of the game. It actually feels like a reward for making it that far.

[Gamerforlife]

Games Beaten 2013
Twisted Metal - PS1
Twisted Metal 2 - PS1
Twisted Metal III - PS1
Twisted Metal 4 - PS1
Screaming Mad George's Paranoiascape - PS1
N.O.V.A. - PSP
Jetpack Joyride - Vita
Devil May Cry (2013) - 360
BlazBlu: Continuum Shift Extend - Vita
Fighting Masters - Genesis
Kirby's Epic Yarn - Wii
Cruis'n - Wii
Foosball 2012 - Vita
Electronic Table Soccer! - Odyssey2
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown -PS3
Asura's Wrath - PS3
Showdown in 2100 A.D. - Odyssey2
CoD of Duty - PC
Little Big Planet Karting - PS3
Gattling Gears - PS3
Monster Maulers - Arcade (MAME)
Angry Birds Rio - iOS
The Last Story - Wii
Retro/Grade - PS3
Sonic Fighters - 360
Spec Ops: The Line - PS3
God of War: Ascension - PS3
Bioshock Infinite - PS3
Half-Life: Source - PC
Guacamelee - Vita
Tekken 6 - PSP
Half-Life: Blue Shift - PC
Power Stone - PSP
Power Stone 2 - PSP
Torchlight - PC
Torchlight II - PC
Gorgar (from Pinball Arcade) - Vita
Metro: Last Light - 360
The Last Blade - Arcade (MAME)
Fatal Fury Special - PS2
Halo 2600 - Atari 2600
Lollipop Chainsaw - PS3 *new*
Sonic Colors - Wii *new*

Total: 43

Games Beaten: 2012 2011 2010

I picked up Lollipop Chainsaw on Friday and was done with it by Saturday night. A lot of silly fun and fairly easy to get through, but nonetheless it is probably tied with Shadows of the Damned for my favorite Suda game. Like that game, this was juvenile humor/comedy done right in a game.

Sonic Colors I started playing back in February or so (whenever I was playing those other Wii games) but I stopped about half way through. The last few stages are a pain in the butt (what is with hard bosses in Sonic games of late?), but otherwise it is not too rough. It is not as good as Generations, but it is still a lot of fun and signaled a pretty big shift for Sonic games in general. Worth hunting down if you don't have a copy and have ever liked a Sonic game.

I'm hoping to be at or near 50 by the end of the month which seems feasible given the pace thus far.

I amazed at the pace some of you guys keep. I mean you seem like a busier guy than me with moderating here, the podcast, and being a professor. Yet, I swear you seem to blow through games faster than me in a given year. You guys must be like the dude in the five hour energy commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS_LwObwXAs

I'm glad to see someone else finished Lollipop Chainsaw and enjoyed it. I think noise was playing it too, but I don't know if he ever finished it and added it to this thread. LC is a silly game, but it knows its silly and has a lot of fun with it. I think it's fun on a second play through as well since you can use the more expensive combos from the shop to rack up lots of Sparkle Hunts and nail the high ranks in each stage. Good stuff. I have to try Shadows of the Damned again. I'm not as high on it as other people, but LC has given me enough appreciation for Suda to maybe give that game another shot

[noiseredux]

I was more than halfway thru LC and loving it but got sidetracked. Keep meaning to finish. Maybe this week...