Played 2019
Somewhat chronological list of games I have played in 2019.
List items
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Went to see Into the Spiderverse and got the urge to play this, since it got a lot of positive reactions. I can understand why, and I quite like it.
The swinging is mostly good, though I wish they had not made the distinction between Swing (R2) and Zip to (L2+R2), most of the time I just want to keep swinging. Then there is the unprecise movement or rather when you need to get near a backpack, or when you get "trapped" under a ledge, there the movement gets down right bad.
I really enjoyed the main story and like all the nods it has to characters in the universe (though I am not a Spider-Man expert).
It was good enough for me to buy the first set of DLC, which almost never happens.
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This is a nice gem of a game, glad it is possible to turn off the worst survival parts of the game (ugh hunger and thirst).
It allowed me to actually enjoy the hunting for materials, and blueprints.
The game is very very open, and not too good at telling you what to do next. I would love a real log book that actually told me: Hey this is the next thing to work towards.
It is one of those games that are better with a wiki, so you can figure stuff out, and get hints on what you need to collect to make certain materials.
The story is ok I guess, it was enough to keep me wanting to complete the game, though the last build was a bit annoying.
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After more or less not getting into Origins, the cold opening really killed my interest, I decided to give Odyssey a go.
It seems ok, lighthearted, and not to serious. The new "don't shower your UI in icons" seems ok (though the compass still has most things, which kind of is the same).
Not sure what I think of the poking fun at the player for not knowing this weird island layout. I think a better way would have been the PC saying "ah down at the harbour on the east side of town" or something.
Hair still looks awful in this engine, and they don't seem to skimp on beards. Same goes for teeth. In general the characters are not very impressive close up.
So far I have put in about 55 hours and I am only level 36.
I think the game suffers from too much to do TM.
Furthermore, almost all the choices in the game feels like non choices, it doesn't matter what you say to people, how you act.
At first I kind of liked that, but to be honest it gets boring really fast.
Oh and go away Sokrates, the philosophy is both not deep, and you dont get meaningful choices for most situations.
Ok ~60 hours in, I think I am done, the game is seriously starting to annoy me, enough to the point of me not finishing it.
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A 7 year old cover shooter with voice commands, what could possibly go wrong? Well a lot.
Playing the PC port, and damn, not being able to rebind any thing is frustrating. That and the aiming is clearly funky.
Then there is the hilariously bad voice recognition, combined with no push to talk, the amount of times the AI responds to background noise is crazy, and if you raise the mic cutoff you will be a raving lunatic screaming in you man cave.
The story is quite over the top / quite stupid, and I already have way to many ideas for plot twists, that may or may not happen... Which I guess can be fun.
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Slowly started on P3P / P3 fes, found out you could download and run P3 FEZ on your PS3.
I think I will end up doing the P3P rather than FEZ, due to the quality of life stuff done in it. E.g. Even if you don't have move around in 3d outside of the tower, you have fast travel and the ability to show what you can interact with. That last part is really crucial so far for me.
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This was a nice murder mystery game, with some interesting mechanics. The story was interesting, though I think it fell kind of flat with the bargain chapter.
I kind of felt a bit bad about some of the crew on the Obra Dinn, since some of the crews estates were fined, even if they kind of just fell over board (guess it depends on what they were doing just before dying, e.g. fleeing).
The proper ending kind of tease that this is not the first time the player has been on such a mystery. There was a scarab on display beside another book where the Obra Dinn book is placed. I hope that means that we at some point get another game like Obra Dinn, but e.g. set in Egypt around the Pyramids or some other interesting setting.
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Not as strong as the first two, and I don't really feel like the story was concluded, and a lot is still open.
That being said it was still enjoyable to play, and the side stories are awesome. And fleshing out the reveal of SC was nice getting some more backstory.
Unfortunately "Zero no Kiseki" and "Ao no Kiseki" have not been officially translated, but maybe I will check out the fan translation... Who knows?
I have Trails of Cold Steel 1 lying around, so that might draw more.
Took me 58 hours to get all doors (though not all pop quiz minigame)
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Bought this since it was on sale, and I craved some planning sim. I quite like it, it is very chill (on easy at least :P). This might be a game I go back to every now and again.
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Cute little quick game, though I think I like the experience in Abzu better.
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Finally got through HL2, last time I tried I stopped around the hover craft.
It has not aged terribly well, though you can see all the novelty it brought to the FPS genre with its physics engine.
Stacking bricks and stuff gets old quick though :)
Still stuck it out and was ok happy to have done so, I ended up buying HL2 ep 1 since I apparently was missing that from my collection.
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I remember playing this quite some back in the day... But I kind of forgot most of the story, and I am not 100% sure I ever completed the game, or the expansions.
I know now that at least I got through the first two chapters, I am just at the start of chapter 2, but I feel like I am remembering more of the story and where it is heading.
This will be an ongoing thing for quite some time, since the mechanics are a bit dated.
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After playing some Surviving Mars, and remembering dipping my toe into Endless Legend I decided to try out CIV4.
Boy do it not explain anything, I feel like I need to watch a lot of tutorials to even begin to play this for real.
I checked out some introduction videos, but I still feel lost as to how I am supposed to play and expand.
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I bought Hitman 1 after it being the crews game of the year two years ago, but could not really get into it.
Now I bought Hitman 2, cause I had the first and kind of wanted to throw some money at IO.
The first level was neat enough and now I am at the tutorial, which is where my last Hitman experience stopped.
I kind of don't care a lot for doing the same missions over and over, even though it has its charms to figure out how the clock ticks.
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After playing the first training missions, and getting through Paris I think I really like this game.
It is not really a stealth game, but rather a puzzle game, and with that in mind I quite enjoy the game. Not for long stretches at a time, but an hour here and an hour there.
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Nice little puzzle game.
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I love the setting of this game, and I love the way it mixes investigation and puzzle solving in court.
The formula has a lot of potential, and I am actually a bit shocked I never found these games before. Guess not being a Nintendo kid except for the original gameboy is the reason.
It feels like the way a proper JAG / CSI / NCIS game should have been created.
Quite like the first game, especially the first 4 episodes, the 5th was not bad, as much as it was just different, probably due to being added later with new mechanics.
The second game was nice as well, the first real case was quite interesting. And the last case was quite an interesting story as well.
I still need to complete the third game, but Fire Emblem is in the way for now.
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I feel like I should know that me and Brad Shoemaker don't have the same taste in games. (well except for that stint into dota 2)
I only played the first couple of maps, and it should be right up my alley, the strategy is more kind of a puzzle.
It is as if the levels are meant to be played more than once, first to lean what spawns and how they react, then doing a perfect run.
I cant help but feel this should have been a mobile/tablet game rather than a PC (and switch?) title.
Not sure I will ever play much of this.
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Persona + Xcom? Sign me up!
I really like this game a lot. Completed the Black Eagle Crimson Flower route, the characters and their interactions are super good. Even characters that I did not really like from the start, looking at you Ferdinand and Hubert, ended up winning me over due to their motives.
Played on normal + casual and it was plenty easy, often I did not use the Divine Pulse at all. Had a lot of trouble with the last fight though, well first time anyway since I spread out my teams too thin.
Re-fought the last 2 battles over and over to get all the S class endings, and already at second replay the fights were a lot easier. Found out that you get different sub stories (same outcome) depending on if you take out Deuce before he chooses to turn. Got the last fights down to 6 turns each.
The normal side missions are very weak, with the exception of the character specific missions. They are just the same 3-5 mission areas over and over again, with more or less the same enemies.
The first playthrough save game says ~70 hours, but with the repeat battles at the end I think it broke 80 hours for me.
Currently going through the Golden Deer route and I am curious how different the story is, if it is just a different perspective or what.
Really don't like Lorentz and I am not sure if that will change. Currently at B level so I don't count on it, and his interactions with the other characters is just as bad.
The new game+ mode seems nice, I like that you can unlock a lot of things with renown, so there is still a bit of a ramp up, but not a lot. Not sure if it was a good idea to unlock all the professor levels was a good idea, but then again you still have to balance your time on whether or not you want to do a bunch of hot meals.
I will probably go through all of the (four?) endings, I have a save game stowed away from my first playthrough just before the choice to go the Crimson Flower route. Not sure if I will end up using that or using a new game+.
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A nice space opera, that reeks of fallout, but in a good way.
I was not overly in love with the game from the start, but after some time it grew on me, though I never really got lost in it.
The writing is good enough, though one of the first real choices you make shows you that there is not really a good and bad choice.
The corporate gone bad/weird angle is fun a first, but kind of wears you down over time.
Beefing up your speech and hacking skills, feels like it trivialises/cut out some of the tasks. Its neat that you can do that, but some times it feels like you just skip parts of the game.
I like the companions, but some of their personal quests seems very short, or uninvolved. Parvati's quest is by far the most interesting / cute, while some of the others felt like they were done and over after two space jumps. It might be due to the choices I made, not sure at all. One thing that made me sad was that your companions will often comment on quest outcomes, but then you try and talk to them and they have nothing to say. It would have been super cool if you could have a short conversation with them or just hear a bit more that just a one line comment. Also I wanted more ADA.
I will probably come back to this later and do another play-through to see some of the other choices.
In the end "It's not the best choice, it's Spacers Choice."
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Haven't played one of these since the original DMC I think, so I am kind of not up to speed with the story. It doesn't matter that much since the story is rather self-contained, and still kind of goofy.
A lot of weapons, styles and some different characters to play as, which almost gets a bit too much switching between different fighting styles all the time.
The network functionality seems fundamentally broken, since it tries to match you up with other players, such that you can catch a glimpse of them and from time to time fight along side them. But it really doesn't take different routes and speed into account it seems, so you rarely see other players.
This game commits the sin of showing you interface buttons, and then stalls for 1-2 sec before you can actually push them, which is very annoying. It looks like you can push ok, but you have to wait for some animation to finish before you can actually push the buttons. Especially frustrating in the challenges that are spread out through the game, where if you fail, you not only have to wait for the game to reload the world state, which sucks, but you also have to mash the continue/try again button.
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Been playing this from time to time with some friends, a bit more after the move to Steam.
I still kind of think the game is somewhat boring and repetitive, and the story is not really there. Furthermore with the shadowbringer? release the story stuff seems to be even more isolated.
The shooting is still ok, and it was nice not having to grind from light level 200 something to 900.
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Cute little game that I am not sure I will complete.
I bought it since I wanted a relaxing game, and what could be more relaxing that being a traveling painter.
On the technical side, this game was very ugly when I started it up the first time, since it started on Low settings. I felt cheated since I thought the screenshots and video looked really nice.
After a couple of hours I found the video settings and changed it to Ultra and everything became a lot prettier, though not as pretty as I had hoped.
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So Jedi Fallen Order released, with some talk about bugs etc. It was also compared to the new Tomb Raider games, and I remembered that I had not really played the 3. So to starve off the Fallen Order hunger I started on Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
I quite like the first half, even if it as always is weird that you start from 0 again with the skills and weapons. The story is ok, and it is nice that it paints Laura in a not 100% hero role.
The puzzles are great as always and I really like the spelunking part of the game.
Where the game falls apart for me is when the hoard mode starts. I really hate the forced confrontation, and the added horror element turns me right off the game.
Not sure I will complete this if the way of making the puzzles harder is just to add enemies that come at you.
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Since I bought a month of GamePass to play The Outer Worlds on PC, I figured I might as well have a look at Gears 5. Having not played Gears game before, I only vaguely knew it was a cover shooter and somewhat story focused.
I don't think this game is for me, the cover mechanics feel arcane, at least when playing on PC.
The universe is kind of interesting, but not knowing the story behind e.g. the childlessness, and the "board" makes it a bit hard to follow. Add to that some rather crappy characters, like the main dude or his rival, who obviously is made to be one you hate from the start. The "funny" thing is that the main character seems like just as much of a douche.
The combat is annoying and feels quite limited. The constant having to change weapons due to lack of ammo, and the reload system makes me hate it, and then there is not a lot of game left.
Glad it was on game pass, since I don't think I would have bought this otherwise, unless heavily discounted.
It makes me fear for the master chief collection, since I have never played a Halo game before, and it being a console first series. I hope the story is better, and really hope the gameplay is better. But since Halo Reach is from 2010 I am not that optimistic
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Since I did not cancel my game pass, and Halo Reach dropped on PC, I thought I would give it a go.
I have never played a Halo before, so I don't really know what to expect from the game. Halo has always been presented as the epic space opera fps that was renowned for its story telling. So I was a bit curious if the game was still up for it in 2019.
As I understand it Halo Reach is a prequel to Halo, showing the Master Chiefs origin, or at least some of it. So far it does that, but not really any back story on who the enemies are.
Not yet done with it but it shows its age in places, such as unclear objectives, no map. That being said, enjoyed the space part that I just got to.
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Finally caved and bought Jedi: Fallen Order.
The characters are interesting, all with some kind of baggage. The droid is cool and you get a light saber, whats not to like? Well a lot of small things. The map is borderline useless, lots of slow traversal, slow elevators, too many slides that are more like quicktime events you start over again and again, and bad underwater controls. Luckily in the case of the last you at least go somewhat fast under water. Also the worst looking Wookies in a long time.
With that out of the way it was still an enjoyable game, the planets were interesting and diverse, the metroid style ability unlocks were fine, and gave you a reason to go back. The platforming was mostly fun, and Respawn really knows their wall running :) The puzzles were also fun enough to keep me going.
I did not particular enjoy the combat, the moves and timings felt a bit odd, and if you did not lock on to every enemy you kind of just wiffed your attacks into the air without getting any closer to the enemy. Also everything is a lightsaber sponge in this game.
I think I would have liked some kind of quick travel. Only place where there luckily were any besides the elevators were on Kashyyyk after you did the main plot there. Was so happy to find out I could at least get back to a previous area rather than having to go though all, looking at you Dathomir.
I would have loved some more character story and some side missions.
Like Rogue One it fits into the over all Star Wars lore without really altering anything.
I still have 0 % understanding of what it was Brad meant he got early due to going back to a planet on a lark. As far as I experienced all the unlocks are tied to the main mission, and all the crates give you are cosmetics (and max number of stims).
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Cute little 3d platform puzzler that is not to too long.
Some interesting environment puzzles. Liked the visual style, and shouting at flames.
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A lot of buzz around this one, so finally caved, and I am glad I did. It is really a gem of a game. Went more or less blind through all of the game. Did cheat a bit at the end though since I was a bit clueless with regards to getting by the only enemy in the game.
I got the "fake" ending in 2019, but only got the true ending in 2020 :)
The only thing I hated was some of the controls, such as moving orbs around, that sucked soo much due to what felt like bad right stick controls.
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