2015 -- Finished
A list of games (from any year) which I completed, stopped playing, or even just played enough to comment on in 2015.
List items
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01/19 -- Not an amazing game, but still a fun 4-player "co-opetitive" romp. Play with friends who have a good sense of humor.
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01/25 (3DS version) -- I really like where Nintendo is taking the Smash series (more single-player content, better online support and more attention to fighting elements), but the 3DS is not the right platform for fighting/party games.
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02/01 (first book)
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02/27 -- I enjoyed this PS Plus freebie.
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03/01 (two campaigns) -- This definitely felt like Heroes of Might and Magic II (a game which I enjoyed many years ago), with plenty of smart updates. The story was a major attraction for me. A cool opening cutscene and sprinkled in-game character dialog describe how a young duke, his siblings and his duchy are drawn into an epic war.
I would have liked to see shorter campaign missions with more varied gameplay.
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03/08 (Wyatt normal), 03/21 (Reina hard) -- Valdis Story's platforming, exploration and puzzle-solving elements are fun, but fairly basic. Its atmosphere is cartoonish, and while its characters are interesting its story doesn't make a lot of sense. Basically, Valdis Story is not Super Metroid.
Its combat system, on the other hand, is great. The game is challenging and there are plenty of boss fights ranked by your performance. Building up long combos using magic, air attacks and dodges is satisfying, and Valdis Story's distinct characters and RPG elements offer quite a few viable build options.
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03/08 (multiplayer) -- Turtle Rock knows how to craft amazing co-op gameplay experiences, and they did a great job with Evolve. Coordinating to corner and kill a powerful (sometimes human-controlled) monster is a uniquely satisfying experience.
Evolve's 5-player competitive format definitely hurts the experience. The hunters can't afford even one weak teammate, but the odds are high when matchmaking. Matchmaking (at least on PSN) is also often slow and poorly matched.
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03/21 -- Some of this game's best moments came from the always-on friendly fire. Like when I died to my teammate's turret, only to watch my other friend, now distracted, be crushed by his own supply drop.
Helldivers plays like its predecessor Magicka (which is a good thing). Managing the enemy patrols was an interesting gameplay mechanic, and the cooperative difficulty scaled up well (until we mastered the mechanics). The whole "global community war" setting didn't really do it for me or my friends, though.
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03/24 (turret boss) -- I like many of the elements Heavy Bullets adds to the FPS genre, but it's not quite there overall. Roguelikes are often difficult (if not brutal), but usually with more progression and variety along the way. Its combat is also unpolished (if not outright glitchy) for a modern FPS.
06/11 (update) -- This sums up the experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7Vb7Yhkrrs&t=26m15s.
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03/25 -- Solid. Forced's hook is its co-op ARPG play, which it does well. The game has slow points, but I enjoyed it more as we continued playing, unlocked more skills and took on challenge missions.
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04/09 -- Awesome. At first I thought Axiom Verge was borrowing too heavily from 8- and 16-bit traditions. While that's true on the surface, AV quickly comes into its own -- the story and mechanics are deep and unique even for a classic platformer. The Metroid analogy serves this game very well.
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04/10 -- Quick and fun, ToG is a light-hearted, arcade-y take on the FPS rogue-like theme. Tower has the polish that Heavy Bullets lacks -- combat is manageable, items are useful, there are meaningful progressions (like speed, armor and damage) and a variety of weapons with level ups.
One thing that neither Heavy Bullets nor Tower offers as a rogue-like is meaningful choice. In deeper games like Nethack or FTL there are often risks associated with rewards, and you have the option to trade items or resources (sometimes making difficult sacrifices out of necessity).
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04/15 (Omega Ruby) -- Pretty standard main game compared to previous Pokemon games. Gen VI (ORAS in particular) is much more generous with the post-game content.
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04/22 (book two) -- Dreamfall has a cool story and the pace picks up in book two. The characters are interesting, there's plenty of good dialogue (I found myself chuckling quite a bit) and the game gives you a lot of tough story choices which (at least) seem meaningful.
Dreamfall Chapter's gameplay is... "classic". Gameplay segments tend to be simple objectives, like Fed-Ex missions or finding and assembling simple items. Exploring the areas themselves isn't bad -- most environments have a lot of interaction points which build on the setting. Trying to find the needle-in-the-haystack objective or talk to NPCs in the right order, however, is outright boring (especially when the environment is re-used).
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05/02 (mobile version) -- Fantasy-meets-cyberpunk (and cyberpunk in general) is tricky to pull off without being cheesy, but Shadowrun Returns makes it work. The solid writing and dialogue coupled with well-imagined character portraits create interesting and believable NPCs: a bumbling Ork detective and his corrupt human counterpart, a polished Troll bouncer, a calculating Elf mega-corporation CEO, etc...
Shadowrun Returns' campaign is mostly linear, but the branching dialogue and multiple approaches to objectives keep things interesting. The game tries and reward many different character options with little mission and dialogue shortcuts. Does your character know the corporate lingo? Maybe you can talk your way past a guard. Are you an amazing hacker? Then you can hack those turrets, or skip finding a password.
Overall, a fun, well-polished and not-too-heavy tactical RPG.
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05/10 -- Having just finished Forced, I was eager to find another great indie co-op title. Eh, I should have been more skeptical. A 3D game promising co-op and heavy environment-based gameplay would have been ambitious for a AAA studio.
Son of Nor has its moments but it's just too unpolished. The game engine is choppy, the combat and platforming are wonky and there are a few basic puzzles along the way. (The combat echoes a little bit of the Jedi Outcast games which were also fun, yet wonky.) Son of Nor's story starts out on a strong note -- the nearly-extinct human race now lives in a secluded desert haven -- but then suffers from a weak presentation and ridiculous plot twists. (One of the game's later mission is titled "Indigo Prophecy" and it well foreshadows the wild story at the end of the game.)
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05/19 -- The latest of the "Souls" games, Bloodborne carries on many elements of the franchise. I played (and thoroughly enjoyed) Dark Souls fairly recently and, while Bloodborne was fun overall, it fell well short of Dark Souls for me. I found myself less patient with some of Bloodborne's challenges and less interested in exploring its content and lore.
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05/24 -- Great game. The story and atmosphere are unique and engaging. A few of the puzzle/objectives were tedious, but otherwise I enjoyed the gameplay.
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05/31 -- Ironclad Tactics is a decently fun card-based strategy game. I enjoyed it enough to complete all of the bonus objectives for each stage, but not enough to start an NG+. The story doesn't paint history quite right, but it's mostly just light and cartoonish.
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06/01 (level 5) -- Not bad. In general, SWTOR feels well-polished with a decent story. Some of the Star Wars elements look pretty cool (although of course some things are a little silly juxtaposed on MMO gameplay). SWTOR definitely has echoes of KOTOR which isn't a bad thing, but gives it a familiar feel. I'm stopping now because I feel like an MMO is better played with at least one friend.
I'm not a fan of SWTOR's business model. There are three common MMO models: retail/DLC, subscription and freemium/premium. I'm personally not opposed to any of these (depending on the content and value) but SWTOR uses a confusing mix of all three! It's free-to-play, but constantly reminds you about $15/month subscription benefits (full-priced for an MMO), tons of premiums pay-fors (some of which didn't look cosmetic to me) and at least one $20 DLC.
Of the MMOs I've played recently (in the past 2-3 years), I would probably give a slight nod to Guild Wars 2, followed by FFXIV. Based on original story, business model, polish and/or gameplay, these games seem a bit better overall. (Granted that my experience is limited with FFXIV and SWTOR.)
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06/12 -- Chronicles is a fun game to play co-op. I'm not sure if it would be nearly as fun solo, but my experience was great. The strategy, progression and story are straightforward (think XCOM-lite meets Shadowrun Returns-lite). The game isn't difficult, but individual missions are easy to fail -- a clean hit or two will drop your characters. I personally found the characters, dialog and Boston references charming.
My biggest complaint overall is progression. I enjoyed Chronicles throughout, but there are a lot of missions and only a handful of vendor upgrades. More upgrade steps and a better loot system would have made the brief between-mission points more rewarding.
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06/21 (PS4 remaster)
-- *potential spoiler* --
The Last of Us definitely deserves its acclaim. Its story, graphics and cinematics really shine.
TLOU's ending wasn't quite what I expected. (Of course, I knew better than to expect a cut-and-dry happy ending. It wouldn't have made sense for the setting.) I sympathize with the characters and outcome, despite the selfish and questionable methods.
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06/21 -- Reminded me of Rogue Legacy, but less polished.
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06/23 -- Very similar to the first game and not as interesting on the console. A little more variety would have helped... but Helldivers was already a newer and interesting game by the same team in a very similar genre.
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08/07 -- I revisited Hearthstone about a month or so ago. I'm stopping play now partly because I have several other games running, but also partly because of a few frustrations.
Blizzard has done a few interesting and cool things this time around. I still enjoy the Arena mode, which allows you to see and play with a lot of random cards. The new single-player campaigns also offer some interesting, puzzle-like missions with some solid cards reward for competitive play.
A major frustration is how a lot of the free-to-play content is tied heavily to daily "quests". Many of these quests require *winning*. To play an arena, I might have to complete 3-4 quests. That might mean winning a dozen or so games and, even though I'm a casual player with a tuned-up starter deck, I can be matched against an opponent with a tourney deck. If you've ever played a casual deck against a competitive deck in any TCG, you know how much fun that is.
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08/07 -- A fairly standard ARPG in many ways, Van Helsing does a few things well with its sense of humor, atmosphere and, in particular, your character's ghost-ally, Lady Katarina. What is does not do well, however, is technical quality. The game has a lot of bugs and glitches, some of them game-breaking.
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07/31 -- Still fun after all these years.
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08/23 -- Worth a fresh mention after a "last hurrah" play (/uninstall). The last Frontier Defense play was fun, but frequent server issues dampened the experience.
Titanfall is a curiosity for a AAA shooter. I've been consistently surprised by how few people play the game, despite its production values. I suspect a combination of factors, including platform (no PS4), server stability, seemingly unbalanced competitive play (like burn cards and three-dimensional movement), the lack of a single-player mode and the lack of many modern gameplay "hooks" all contribute.
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09/05
-- *minor spoiler* --
Gods Will Be Watching did a good job of setting up desperate story situations requiring careful management to survive. Each decision has specific gameplay consequences, and the game gives you some extreme options. It was definitely challenging and frustrating at points (not all of the conditions made perfect sense to me). Developing workable strategies with a little practice (or hints) and completing missions (with a little luck) was a satisfying experience.
The individual characters and scenarios were really interesting, but the bigger story was a slight let-down. Any themes were vague and the final ending was circular.
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09/11
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09/12 (third book) -- I disagreed with some of the character development decisions -- one in particular I found surprising, confusing and trying to make a statement.
Gameplay segments were generally shorter, which is actually a positive thing (based on my previous complaints). They even left at least one decision point in the gameplay. That's usually a good thing, but it caught me off guard this time. (Most of the game's choices are selections, and important ones are usually very obvious.)
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09/16 -- A continuation of the first game, with some of the same wonkiness. On one hand, VH2 expands both Van Helsing's and Lady Katarina's skill trees in interesting ways, continues to deliver charm and humor and adds some interesting gameplay modes. The base defense segments are particularly well-developed and fun.
On the other hand, the game still has technical issues (which are possibly worse than before), the story arc has classic "part 2" weaknesses and character progression felt a little rushed (based on the game's pacing and the deep skill trees with plenty of ineffective skills).
A fun co-op game overall. I'd like to think that a little polish and quality assurance would do wonders for this franchise, but I guess it does its thing.
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09/25 -- I'm not sure whether I enjoyed Returns or Dragonfall more, which is already high praise for a follow-up campaign. Dragonfall builds on the engine of the first game with a little more polish (in combat, skills and items), a smart party system, more character development and a deeper story arc.
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10/01 -- I'm not particularly a fan of cars or soccer, but somehow the two can be combined (along with acrobatics and a great electronic soundtrack) to create an excellent multiplayer game.
I haven't played Rocket League for a while, but I hope to play more before I'm "finished".
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10/01
-- *minor spoiler* --
Hand of Fate fits together a unique combination of gameplay mechanics in a way that works well. You build a deck of equipment and encounter cards, which are dealt randomly to create rogue-like encounter paths and many of the encounters have Arkham Asylum-style combat sequences. The story isn't deep, but there's a sense of reliving some of your protagonist's past adventures. The dealer also adds flavorful narration (by sometimes taunting, criticizing or sympathizing with you).
Hand of Fate's more challenging missions (like Endless Mode) throw penalty cards at you each time you progress, which I found frustrating. This design randomly punishes you for progressing. Unlucky events or encounters in normal gameplay can hit you with similar penalty cards but, like many rogue-likes, you can sometimes build for those or choose less risky options.
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10/06 -- Kind of funny, but nothing special. The hordes were a neat touch, possibly something that could work in a future game.
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10/29 -- A really smart take on local co-op. Lovers is a co-op game which requires actual cooperation, since there are two players and eight ship systems to manage. While one player flies the ship, the other might stop at the map station, man the shield and/or grab a gun to clear a path. The pilot might then move to a combat station to help fight, but leave the ship floating dangerously or unable to escape quickly. This dynamic creates moments of awesome cooperative station-juggling, and others of hilarious panic and indecision. The station upgrade system was a nice bonus -- my friend and I had fun finding and testing the various upgrade combinations.
Two complaints worth mentioning: about half of Lovers' missions followed a standard template. It showed off the gameplay, but exploring a lot of large maps became tedious. Lovers also only supports local co-op, which is limiting for the game's multiplayer design.
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11/04 (normal mode), 11/10 (hard mode) -- Really fun. Classic arcade-style look-and-feel, where you learn a lot just by playing. Rushing downward, building a combo, dodging enemies then safely making it is incredibly satisfying (although challenging). There's a rogue-like element of randomized upgrades after each level, giving each playthrough a light character progression.
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11/05 -- Still running strong, although overall it didn't seem quite as good as its predecessors. I encountered a number of irritating bugs in my playthrough and some of the scenarios could have used more polish. The between-run segments also started to drag for me. The "run-then-story" format is fine, but there seemed like a lot more writing this time. It sometimes took 20+ minutes to catch up with my party, talk to locals, read through the mission computer threads and shop for gear.
On the bright side, I actually enjoyed Hong Kong's writing more than Dragonfall's: it had a lot of light humor and genuinely funny dialog, meaningful scenario choices and (in my opinion) more likable characters. HBS also made some minor tune-ups from previous games, including the graphics and skill trees.
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11/15 (normal/pacifist) -- Gameplay about *not* killing things isn't a new concept for RPGs, but it certainly isn't the norm. Undertale's mercy often felt like an act of friendship compared to the stranger's benevolence of many games. I was interested in most of Undertale's characters (even Mettaton), though most of them tried to kill me.
11/21 (genocide) -- More evil than I originally expected. The "fourth wall"-breaking was creepy -- and went too far.
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11/15 -- A free-to-play gem. Card hunter has solid turn-based strategy gameplay, varied and interesting campaign missions, a unique loot system, great flavor and co-op. The light-hearted story and sound effects were especially charming and funny. The premium content was also reasonably well done (although club membership is slightly annoying).
Aside from the subscription option, Card Hunter's main caveat is loot. My first character (a warrior) was ill-equipped for many missions. I still enjoyed the game, but was often frustrated. My second character (a mage) was much more versatile, but somewhat pigeonholed. Although I had a lot of options for tuning, my most successful build through the majority of the game revolved around a few powerful items (which were also lucky finds).
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11/29 -- Blizzard is continuing the trend set by its previous StarCraft II entries with solid campaign gameplay. Missions were varied and interesting, for the most part. The hero-unit focused missions were actually some of my favorites. (There weren't many, but they added onto one of the cool parts of HotS.) This round's unit upgrades were as at least as much fun as before. (Most of the faction units also had brand new voice acting -- the Vanguard is a personal favorite.)
-- *minor spoilers* --
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12/13 -- Splatoon's unique style and concept are "fresh", but it falls short in a lot of ways. Nintendo's online multiplayer design has improved, but is still severely lacking: the Wii U's built-in wireless is not great for multiplayer, aiming isn't as tight as many modern shooters and casual matches offer only one game type, no between-match gear switching and NO PARTY SUPPORT.
Splatoon is still a cool bundle game for the Wii U, despite it's weaknesses.
12/20 (update) -- Ranked mode unlocks after several hours' worth of progression. Party matchmaking is supported (and works reasonably well), new game types are available and gear switching between each match is allowed. All of these should be part of the game's core design.
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12/20 -- Initially, Arkham Knight's setting felt contrived, villains were uninspiring, the open world felt bland and the Batmobile segments felt forced.
I found myself warming up to the game as I played it, albeit with ups and downs. At its core, Arkham Knight has plenty of solid Arkham Asylum beat-em-up and predator gameplay (with a few appropriate upgrades) and excellent production values. Traversing the open-world was fun and not all of the Batmobile segments were bad. The story setup was weak, but it had its moments (and plenty of classic comic/cartoon Batman references).
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