Monday, November 4, 2024

Completed: Dragon's Dogma 2

  • Really enjoyed this game despite some head scratching over design choices like a really dumb, punishing saving system and no combat lock-on being the two more confusing decisions that come to mind. Not game breaking by any means but just...odd
  • Pawn system is awesome. Had so much fun just running to places with my bros
  • Favorite part of the game is picking up enemies, or innocent people/pawns, and hurling them over a cliff. Every game needs this ability.
    • Second favorite part is the pawns in my party who see me do said cliff hurling and exclaim they've never seen their own master (real person) do that and will inform them of such a strategy. How are these people not throwing everyone off a cliff?


 

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Completed: Spyro the Dragon (PS1)

  • Always impressed with Insomniac's games, especially technically. No exception here
  • Very polished for a first game in the series. Excited to see what's really good in 2
  • Some levels can be a bit linear
  • Will never get over the fact that Officer Garcia from Reno 911 voices Spyro in this one

Monday, October 14, 2024

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (remake)

  • Good game. Love the visual style. Really fun battle system.
  • Plenty of funny moments and dialogue. Too much of said dialogue though - very long winded
  • Most backtracking I've done in a game (I'm constantly backtracking in real life - often confused as to why I entered a room) in recent memory. This sort of thing ain't my bag, baby

Friday, September 27, 2024

Completed: Contra Operation GALUUUUUGA!!!

  • Cool title because it sounds like the AWOOOOGA!!! noise from Looney Tunes
  • A lot better than I expected. Not because WayForward doesn't make good games but more of a budget thing (despite the credits showing about 50 billion people who worked on this game)
  • Should not be 40 dollars. Bought it on sale for 23.99 which seems more like a correct price
  • Playing Contra with a health bar feels like cheating sometimes but I don't have the time or patience to play the one-hit death style anymore
  • The weapon upgrade system is really cool and I found myself actually using more weapons than just the homing and spread gun
  • Perk system was cool too
  • Classic Contra shit but made in 2024, what more do you really want?
     

     

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Completed: Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)

  • Rented this back in 2012 but didn't care for the open world aspect. Much more forgiving of that now and really enjoyed my time with it
  • Nearly every race is exciting. Loved the most wanted list idea
  • Tons of cars to unlock so I found myself switching them up quite a bit
  • Loved the intro movies for the races and the most wanted cars. Some of the pre-race ones are pretty hilarious

                            



 

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Completed: Astro Bot

  • In the words of Mark Cerny describing Astro Bot: Now this is a video game
  • One of the best platformers I've ever played therefore it's one of my favorite games I've ever played
  • Best looking platformer of all time
     

Friday, September 6, 2024

Completed: Metal Gear Solid V

  • Fire ass game. I was dumb for not getting into it when it came out
  • Astounding amount of depth, an unending breadth of options. Loaves, even
  • DDog is my best friend

I've been playing 12 hours and I still don't know who's ass that is.

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Completed: Spider-Man 2 (PS5)

  • Pure video game goodness
  • Loved traversing the open world. One of the few games I've played where it's a total joy to get around a giant city
  • First game I've ever deliberately platinum'd. I liked it that much


 

M

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Completed: Bioshock Infinite

  • Fun game and most importantly great loading screen music (which I just learned was a Scott Joplin song so that makes sense why it's so good)
  • Skyhook is dope
  • Incredible setting. We need more floating cities. In real life but also in games too, I guess
  • Combat wasn't a high point so I wish there was some variation in how you could handle it
  • Good story, good ending

Bioshock Bioshock

Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Completed: TES: Skyrim

  • Tempted to put Completed in quotes because does anyone really complete Skyrim? I beat the main quest which was good enough for me since I never thought I would actually do that
  • I'm a kitty cat with Nightingale armor who kills ANYONE and steals from EVERYONE
  • The scope of the game and the amount of content really is staggering 
  • Time to return to do more side quests, chop some people's fucking heads off and steal every item I'm allowed to steal


 

 

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Completed: The Legend of Zelda - Oracle of Seasons

  • Finally beat a game I first got when it came out in Summer 2001 (thank you, Grandma!)
  • Needed a copy of Expert Gamer to help me finish this one off (wherever Nicole Kirk and Frank Provo are, thank you)
  • Really awesome game, fully deserves the Link's Awakening remaster treatment
  • Loved the animal friends (Moosh!) and a lot of really fun boss fights


 

Monday, June 3, 2024

Completed: NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona

  • Can you beat a racing game that can technically go on forever?
  • Won championships in all 4 levels of racing in the game so I'm counting it
  • Really fun career mode and the driving physics are great


 

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Completed: WarioWare: Touched!

  • I love any game that has an exclamation point in its title
  • I also love pretty much all WarioWare games and this was no exception
  • Games and especially the boss fights are a little simple
  • Fun unlockables as always
  • Here's a review from EGM Issue 189 because I think that's fun I don't have to explain myself to you
    (Click to enlarge)

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Completed: NEW Super Mario Land

  • Late to the party but found this awesome homebrew of Super Mario Land remade on SNES using New Super Mario Bros DS artwork. Good luck explaining that to your grandparents when you ask them for this for Christmas
  • Played in co-op mode with MY WIFE. Playing a Gameboy game in co-op is almost surreal at first
  • Retains the unique feel and control of SML really well while expanding upon everything else
  • So many cool ideas in the levels and gimmicks keep the (very short) play through interesting
  • The SHMUP sections are so much fun

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Completed: Pokemon SoulSilver

  • I had never played Gen 2 and the remakes are highly regarded - I can see why
  • Overflowing with content and things to do, if you want to do them (I did not)
  • Excluding my starter (the water one) 4/5 of my Pokemans were from Gen 1
    • Alakazam is my MVP as always
  • Pokemon games are eternally cozy. Love how the DS games look too, just like a slightly improved GBA game
  • Pokemon games are eternally grind-y too. But that's ok





Saturday, March 23, 2024

Completed: Mega Man Zero 3

  • Another fun, solid, 8/10 Mega Man Zero game. What more can you want?
  • Again, some really challenging bosses, some not so much
  • The largest amount of text I've ever seen in a Mega Man game. Zzzzzzzzzzzz
  • Pointless hub world

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Completed: Mega Man Zero

  • Really fun, I'm obviously late to the party but Mega Man games + a sword and I'm all in
  • Fun and surprisingly hard boss fights. Most of the levels were easy though
  • I'm an idiot and forgot to use elements for the first 5~ boss fights to exploit their weaknesses
    • This is the entire gimmick of Mega Man series - I'm dumb 
  • Felt a little validated when I re-read the EGM review (see below) from back in the day about how hard the game was. Without the save points in the Legacy collection I would have definitely gotten annoyed fast of having to replay the whole level each time I died at a boss