Games I Played in 2016
I did much better in 2015 than I ever thought I would've been able to. Maybe this year will be better
List items
-
Xbox One (Xbox 360 Backwards Compatible)
1/4/16
This game makes me want to play some Mario RPG's. It's pretty fantastic. It has a solid turn-based RPG system similar to Paper Mario; selecting attacks and button prompts for attacking and defending. The timing isn't strict at all. I kind of wish it was slightly harder to time.
The game looks great, just like an episode of South Park.
There's a steady release of exploration mechanics that make looking around for things fun. It is a huge dick move that some areas that you can't return to contain collectibles. So, make sure you look for everything at all times. I missed a single Chinpokomon. Now that save file has FOREVER the count of 29/30. It quite upsetting.
Also, get this, this game is rather funny. Who knew? (Lots of people.) The only other knock I have against it is that most of plot and jokes are recycled from the show. I hope the Fractured But Whole contains more original content.
-
Xbox One
1/5/16
It's a real shame there isn't more of this game. The game is definitely a flawed experience, but it's just so weird and interesting. It's pretty much an adventure game using kinect. The stamina system is dumb. ROLAND WALKEN HOLY SHIT SHUT UP. That character is so annoying. He taaaaaalllks exxtreeeeeemelyyyyyy sloooooowlyyyyyy. Which I guess is an example of the poor vo in this game. He's pretty much the only atrocity though. The rest of it is serviceable. The game is probably at it's best during the action sequences. Just real wacky stuff.
-
Nintendo 3DS (Nintendo DS Backwards Compatible)
START - 1/5/16
END - 1/6/16
I really enjoyed this game until I played it on the hardest difficulty. Then, on certain songs, this game seemed cruel. If you miss a note, it feels near impossible to find out where you're supposed to me and then one second later you've failed the song. Really frustrating. Especially when it's hard to even tell what happened even if you use the review feature. While it is a rhythm game, on the hardest difficulty, the game seems much more about memorization instead of rhythm. I only played about half the songs on the hardest difficulty. Because of the frustration I decided not to finish the game on that difficulty even though there's two bonus stages I haven't played.
All that complaining aside, EBA is really charming. Really wacky and zany stuff happening all the time. It sucks that I'm too focused on the gameplay to notice all their dance moves. I wish I could say more to the point that I like this game, but all I have in my head is frustration. I really do like this game.
Edit: Forgot to mention that when you're really doing well, it feels so good.
-
Xbox One (Definitive Edition)
START - 1/6/16
-
Playstation 4
START - 1/22/16
END -
-
Playstation 4 (Console Edition)
START - 1/22/16
END - 1/22/16
I want more games like this. It was a super tight experience that told an interesting story. The use of narrative ("your family moved into a new home after you moved out") to make the fact that this home is unfamiliar to you is great and that uneasiness is increased by the severe weather happening outside. It almost makes you feel unwelcome as you're exploring the home; a real horror atmosphere despite nothing spooky happening. The story itself rather emotional and told through audio logs. Not gonna talk about specifics. I really enjoyed it though. It's just a real interesting game. A neat way to tell a story.
-
PC
START - 1/22/16
END - 1/23/16
Oh my god, this game is great. It's so charming it had me smiling through the vast majority of it. On the surface it's an RPG, but after exploring the mechanics it's closer to bullet hell or puzzle games. All the characters are really well written, to the point that they seem alive. It's also really interesting as one of the few games that makes violence a choice. It makes hurting something have more weight. I died at the a certain boss several times before it became apparent that I had to hurt him. I'm honestly not sure if I could bring myself to do a genocide run of this game. I do want to do a pacifist run though. I ended up killing like two things early on in my first run. I couldn't figure out how to spare them and got frustrated. :(
-
Nintendo 3DS
START - 1/26/16
END -
-
Playstation 4
START - 1/26/16
END - 2/13/16
I did it! I'm one of the currently 13.8% of people on PS4 that have reached the end of The Witness. The game itself was really fun and probably the most frustration I've experienced with a game in a long time.
Obtuse at times, but when you get it, that click in your brain is so satisfying. The logic puzzles are probably my favorite, but the gimmicky ones can be really cool.
I let my friend play it like for maybe an hour one night from a fresh save and he discovered a line you could draw in the environment outside of a panel and my mind was blown. We both lost our shit. All I could think about was the fact that I had put at least a dozen hours into this game and didn't realize this deeper level. Now, I need to decide if I'm going to find all of these.
One thing I'll be critical of is that this game makes it very clear that it's not there for the player. It almost seems to dislike your presence at some points in how frustratingly difficult and unhelpful it can be. It doesn't care if you complete all the puzzles or not. It'll still be there.
I still need to finish the areas I didn't before. I'll probably do that in a few months. Then, a few more after that look for all the "real" lines.
-
Playstation 4
START - 2/13/16
END -
So, I've really enjoyed what I've played of Firewatch. The beginning of it was reminescent of the start of the film Up. As in, an emotional gut punch that made tear up and my only real response was, "Fuuuuuuuuck...".
Besides that I've only reached Day 2 and I experienced a bug where my progression won't, uh, progress. Their save system doesn't allow multiple saves of the same playthrough. So, I'm autosaved in a broken playthrough and I'll probably be waiting at least a week or so to start again. Actually, maybe closer to a month. Street Fighter V is coming out.
Load Comments