I finished Pokémon Shield recently (I bought a Switch!), but I started that last year. I'll start with a game I started a couple days ago.
I always play through one single-player game at a time, and usually I don't know what I'm going to play next until I've just about finished the game. I have access to a gigantic (9000+) Family Share library on Steam, so I'm pretty spoiled with options.
1 - Deathloop
Original: Right now I'm pretty unimpressed. The gunplay is fine. The AI is some of the worst I've seen in a really long time, and the dialogue's pretty bad. I also recently played Outer Wilds, an absolutely outstanding game set in a time loop, so Deathloop doesn't really have any novelty to me. I don't think the game excels at anything, but it's a little bit interesting to see FPS mechanics mixed with time loop puzzle mechanics, even if neither the FPS nor the time loop elements compare well to other games.
Dropped: This game has some of the worst AI I've ever seen in a video game, excluding stuff like asset flips. The enemy AI is honestly probably worse than in Aliens: Colonial Marines. The game incorporates some great ideas and mechanics that were mastered in other titles, but in combining these ideas Deathloop just makes me wish I was playing a better shooter, a better stealth game, a better roguelite, or a better time loop game. The writing was just painful. I also found the game to be pretty buggy, which I usually don't hold against a game, since I usually find them pretty easy to work around. One bug would repeatedly get me stuck on menus that wouldn't load though, and that meant I was routinely rebooting the game.
1 -
Advance Wars (Switch)
I thought this was fine, but I wish I could turn the story mode off and just play through the levels. Lots of the time it felt like a level was built with just one strategy in mind, which made my victories feel less satisfying, since I didn't feel like I'd outsmarted my enemy, so much as I'd successfully stuck to the course determined by the level designers. Fun enough.
2 -
Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu!
Pretty fun. I like the customization, but of course I'd like if it was more in-depth, or if there was more variety in the outfits. Outfits only vary in texture, and share the same model. That's fine, and it's better than no customization.
I don't think I'd like more Pokémon games designed like this, but I can enjoy it as a one-off. The Pikachu in this game is wicked cool.
3 -
Resident Evil 4 (2023) +
Separate Ways
This was fun. Didn't care much for Separate Ways (and why is the Ada Wong voice acting so amateur in comparison to everyone else?). I did miss the exploration focus of RE1 and RE2, but the action was pretty tight. I'd like to play the Wii version sometime, I'm a big fan of motion aiming, and a lot of people told me the original had better atmosphere.
4 -
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Switch)
I'm a really big fan of the Krome Studios version of The Force Unleashed, which I insist is superior to the LucasArts version. Had a great time playing the Switch release. I collected about 75% of the holocrons! Primarily used a yellow lightsaber, that's always been a favorite of mine.
5 - NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139...
I fell in love within the first half hour, and after about six hours of playtime the effect had worn off. The gameplay's really dull, the combat's so repetitive, easy, and boring, but worst of all the writing. The dialogue's so goddamn stupid. Apparently the story does something really cool later on,
and I'm pretty sure the story's told over multiple playthroughs, but I'm not gonna slog through this awful writing just to check if there's something redeemable later on. I don't trust them to hit the mark. Also not sure why this game even has sidequests, since they're given so little effort. The whole open world mechanic seems pointless in this game. I guess it makes it easier for the game to justify constantly recycling its maps? Music was impressive at first, but it plays on a very short loop, and quickly becomes annoying.
Dropped after about 13 hours.
5 -
The Forgotten City
This was really cool. Played each ending. I'd like to give the original Skyrim mod a go sometime.
6 -
Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition
Oh man, I knew I loved this game, but I really forgot how awesome it was. ME1 kind of failed to recapture my heart, but not ME2. What a sick game. I ended up using mods to bypass the hacking minigames, since they got repetitive, and to fully mine a planet after one probe, again so I could just bypass the repetitiveness. I also used an unofficial patch and a mod that corrected some of the lighting mistakes of the remaster.
Mechanically the game feels pretty simple now, but I'm still so into it. This was also my first time playing a lot of the game's DLC.
7 - Saints Row (2022)
Played four and a half hours. Think I've had enough. I can see a lot of Agents of Mayhem in the DNA for this game, but not a lot of Saints Row in there.
7 -
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
This was a replay, wth a mod to add c-stick camera control, and my New 3DS CPU running at full speed to improve performance. Fantastic game. I never finished Majora's Mask, so I plan to try the 3DS version again, with a major mod overhaul that's meant to bring some gameplay elements more in line with the original.
8 - Hi-Fi Rush
I don't have any problem with this game, but I don't care enough to finish it. I'd just be forcing myself through because I know everyone else likes it.
8 -
Terminator: Resistance
This is basically exactly what I want from a Terminator game. The shooting feels great, and the open level design is rewarding to explore. At first the gameplay is pretty tense, as you have to sneak around more powerful machines (which your guns can't even damage at first), but by the end of the game you can be a total killing machine.
I actually got 100% of the achievements, which was a total accident, because I don't achievement hunt. I also played on Hard mode. I would've played on Extreme, but it had lower XP rewards, which I know I'd find less fun.
9 -
Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition
This was fun, but the endings sure suck. The combat was really easy, and the only times I died were when I willingly stepped into poisonous gas to see what would happen, and during a Reaper fight—the one on Thessia—when the weapon I was given didn't work until I reloaded. I didn't use any healing items. I should've played on hard mode.
There were definitely some gameplay improvements over ME2, but overall ME2 recaptured my imagination much more than ME3 did.
10 -
Pokémon Legends: Arceus
This game feels unfinished to me, like it should have a watermark in the corner denoting this as an alpha build. It's better than Sun/Moon, but worse than any other Pokemon game. I really like the customization.
Dropped during the post-game stuff, I'm not gonna finish the Pokédex to catch Arceus. The game's much too bland and repetitive.
11 -
Biomutant
This was pretty fun, even though the open world activities were very generic, and the dialogue's so bad. None of the quests were at all interesting, but the world really captured my imagination. Very nice-looking too. I played the dead-eye class, as a cat.
I really appreciated how much freedom I was given to explore the world. I was able to access areas that clearly weren't really intended to be gameplay zones, or areas I wasn't supposed to be able to access yet, but it felt like the developers weren't really trying to stop me from reaching them if I really wanted. I found areas where models lacked collisions or weren't textured on every side, and with empty buildings just serving as facades to be seen from afar. There are these giant roots you can see from all areas of the map, but unfortunately you can't climb them. I managed to reach one, and it didn't have any collision.
12 - Gloomwood
This was okay. I wasn't interested enough to finish it.
12 -
Tales from Off-Peak City Vol. 1
I really liked Off-Peak, and I really liked this game too! The surreal world's awesome.
13 - Assassin's Creed Valhalla
I wasted way too much time on this game. It's such a painful grind, and stupidly easy even with all the difficulty settings cranked up. I kept playing because there was always something I wanted to at least check out, but inevitably everything I found was just a disappointment.
The game's a downgrade from Odyssey in every way. The combat's worse, the leveling system's worse, the gear system is worse, the world has so much less personality (well, it is England), the characters and quests are all worse, and the fun bounty hunters are gone. The AI's abysmal, it's some of the worst I've seen in a video game—reminded me of Deathloop, actually. There's also strangely little loot for a viking game. Finally, characters kept referring to me as "she," even though I played as a male
Pictured: I told my friend I needed to quit Valhalla. I then resumed Valhalla. I've uninstalled it now.
13 -
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
I wasn't sure whether I'd prefer the original release or the fully raytraced version, since in comparison videos the original looked more atmospheric. I went with the raytraced version to see how it looked in action, and this is the first time in ages that a game's really stunned me visually. It looks absolutely insane. Even when I can see the limits of the textures and models, the lighting makes everything look amazingly realistic. I keep wanting to reach out and touch everything. It feels like being in a lucid dream (where I have looked at things close up, and inspected the look and feel of the world).
I had a great time with this game.
14 - Mass Effect: Andromeda
I think I'm dropping this. It's just another soulless timesink like AC Valhalla.
14 -
Portal with RTX
I'm not really sure what to say. I wanted to look at Portal with raytracing. Cool.
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(Need to finish up Nuka World)
