VideoGame_Discussion

#6 down: Marvel’s Midnight Suns on PS5. I would like to count this toward the Days Gone By badge. It took me 103 hours to finish everything. Proof here:

https://imgur.com/a/n9rsYqV

This was a fun one. Turn-based tactical battling with card mechanics, a huge script with tons of dialogue and interactions between characters, opportunities to go dark or light based on how you respond to teammates and how you fight, and much more. I had a lot of fun tweaking decks and building new strategies. There’s a lot to do but also constant rewards (new cards, new stats, new costumes and variations on those costumes, decorations and furniture for your room, etc.). It lived up to my high expectations.

Minor gripes: Some of the dialogue is pretty cringy, as it’s a superhero game. Also, this game looks great, but some of the character models are weird. Tony Stark has this oddly smooth face that looks plasticy like a Ken doll.

TalonJedi87 wrote:
Few of us miss 2020, but we all miss the freetime lockdown afforded. Twas a great time to 100% Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition.

Number: 5
Full Title: Twinbee
Platform Played:
Collection: Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection
Native Platform:
Original Platform:
Applicable Badge: Destroy the Core (2/2)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails...

After finishing level 11, I looked up how many levels this has and found that the answer is five and that there is no end. So, I looped it twice plus an extra stage. Stage 10 was horrible with indestructible enemies hiding behind clouds.

Took almost 25 hours, but I beat Donkey Kong 64 . Halfway to Bear & Bird!
[imgt]https://i.imgur.io/sNmXzop_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sha...[/imgt]

It’s a good game, but not good enough for me to want to 101% it. It’s an odd in-between of Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie, with a greater emphasis on BK than DKC. I liked seeing animations and mechanics from DKC being converted into 3D without fully changing them—the Kongs didn’t need air underwater before, so it makes sense that they don’t here. The game has earned a negative reputation online for being so overstuffed with collectibles and swappable characters that you don’t want to bother playing at all, and I did feel that at first. By the time you’ve gotten accustomed to Tag Barrel switching and playing minigames, it becomes more fun. Maybe you shouldn’t get everything, but it couldn’t hurt to explore these large environments and nab the stuff that isn’t super obtuse. World 6 is where that really clicked for me.

The game does feel like it’s missing something. Maybe it’s the David Wise soundtrack, maybe it’s too few Animal Buddy sequences, maybe something’s wrong with the bosses, I can’t say. But there’s something about Banjo-Kazooie, Tooie, and Conker that makes them feel more complete. Perhaps it’s the story and NPCs? N64 Rareware games usually have a lot of characters to meet and humorous cutscenes, but DK64 really doesn’t. Sometimes you see K. Rool yelling at his lackeys, but it’s never more than that. Maybe they should’ve kept the banana-stealing plot at the forefront and revealed the Blast-O-Matic as a surprise superweapon two-thirds in, with Snide knowing about it the whole time and subtly trying to prepare you for it. That might make it feel like more is happening.

It’s no DKC, but it was fun enough. Thanks to @HEHEHATE for the sale!

3-TMNT Turtles in Time via cowabunga colllection. felt like I was 8 all over again

Updating...

Done! Keep up the fun games, everyone!

Got my 5th, 3rd already
Wreckfest
Counts towards Race Drivin'

This has been available on GP for-seemingly-ever and it had my attention b/c I really enjoy racing games, but Horizon 4 and 5 have scratched that itch fully for the past 2+ years (and are better games). But I've done just about everything there is (that I actually want) to do in H5, so I finally took a swing at this and at times it was fun and others it was frustrating. The career mode that I beat consists of 5 championships where they give you around 10-20 events that are all worth either 100/200/400/600/800 points and you need to earn like 2k for the first to beat it, then in the upper 2k range for the next 3 and 3600 for final one. If you win all of the races in a set you get the full 400/600/800 points, but if you take a 2nd place you give up like 20. I earned 'congrats you beat the campaign' message, but have around a dozen total events I didn't do on that journey, plus like 3 I could replay to get their full points from, but that's unlikely.
You also get 1-2 bonus objectives to go for in each race/event and I'd guess I collected around 2/3rds of those, but some were foolish since I was more interested in winning races vs. wrecking or causing more mayhem. The variety of event types wasn't too bad, but a good amount were races and the AI and nature of the game/tracks could make that a challenge, such that only 2.06% of players earned the Achievement. I can see why, as I did restart a number of races b/c you could get screwed and have about zero chance to win in some events if you got spun out or slammed into and other things. I tried to limit that, but near the end it got frustrating to try to get even moderately clean races in.
They did have destruction derbies and several races on tracks that had cross-overs, figure 8s, or even ran a good percentage both directions on the same stretch, so collisions going to happen - tough ones occurred on cross points when I was in a healthy lead and you really couldn't spot a car coming. I didn't love some of the controls as, at times, the cars felt floaty or could too easily overcorrect, but nearly all AI cars would do the same and you could dial some of that out with the simple car setup tweaks and modulating your throttle input.
I'm not sure if I'll seek to beat more of the events, there aren't really any Achievements that I'm close to earning by playing just a little more and while I liked a lot of the AI cars in the game, you don't seem able to unlock a number of them that I'd like to drive, so I might just be fully done with this.

My #6 is Far Cry 6

https://ibb.co/PmWwVZZ

Surprised how much I enjoyed this game. Good graphics and lots of different systems for game play, even if I didn't use them all. They even had a Stranger Things surprise mission. 8/10

@DarkFact I beat Final Fantasy VI.
[imgt]https://i.imgur.io/dVLSu4D_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sha...[/imgt]
What a rip. No gameplay, only about two minutes of cutscenes, and then credits. I don’t know why you people rate this one so highly.

Grats! I've beaten it at least a dozen times, it's easily one of the least offensive games in the series, I like a quick RPG

Beat Mom Hid My Game! For as trashy as the game was, I enjoyed the ending.

KCPenguins wrote:

Are you joining the thread? If so, I'll need your console list.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Took me a minute, and then I LOL'd.

#4 of the year is Dishonored 2 (PC). Took almost 40 hours and had a blast finding ways to sneak around everyone and not get noticed. Searched every nook and cranny and almost always missed something in the end of chapter stats screen ... lol

#7 down: WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! (Game Boy Advance, emulated on PC). This is my first clear toward the Makin' Money with Minigames! badge.

I'll be honest. I'm really looking forward to finishing this badge as quickly as possible. These minigames seem completely pointless. I had to force myself to finish this game.

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:
Ha. Yeah, those Warioware games, while fun/funky, don't really have a goal. Wario LAND Nintendo. Wario LAND. Not Wario WARE. Wario LAND. Make it happen already. It's been too long.

I beat Family Guy: The Video Game on . This game is actually pretty fun with loads of references to old school FG. The cutaways are reproduced as warioware-esque micro games, and the cutscenes are pretty good as well. There is probably enough for a whole episode's worth of animation. It did slow down a TON when a lot of enemies were on the screen, and some of the stages were kind of annoying like the one on the docks where Peter instantly dies if he falls in the water. Overall, this is a really fun game, and if you like old school Family Guy it is definitely worth a try!

I beat Fantasy Zone Gear . Halfway to Destroy the Core.
[imgt]https://i.imgur.io/Onia4P1_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sha...[/imgt]
It’s the third (canon) space shooter in Sega’s Fantasy Zone series. I like it, not sure if it’s better or worse than Super Fantasy Zone. This one has two tricky bosses right next to each other and is somewhat stingy with the shop balloon spawns. Much of the time, you’ll die, lose your gear, start a new life, and the shop balloon will not appear—you’re a sitting duck at that point! But if you can buy the unique Flash Attack weapon for powerful charge shots, you’ll love it. But choosing the Flash Attack prevents you from choosing the Shield that affords you a second hit. This adds some strategy that other FZ games don’t have, which is pretty cool.

I beat Monopoly Plus on the xbox1

legendrko25 wrote:
Did you play as the shoe?

6th down, 2nd
High on Life
Badge: 1st Amendment makes sense to me.

Largely beat this for @Frank's GotM club this month (vs. later). I liked Trover, so I expected I'd enjoy the humor and in general I did, though the high use of the Fbomb got old. I did some exploring in the game and got like 85% of the chests and talked to a ton of side characters and such. The mechanics weren't anything to go nuts over, but the game was fun and worth playing.

7th down, 1st
God of War 3
Badge - Grown-Ass Man

Been working on this one for a few weeks and I don't think I would've considered it for GAM badge until the end. The 1 fight on your 2nd visit to the bottom of the chain wasn't fun, then the 2.5D fight against Zeus was a nightmare for me. It must have taken me 30 tries, I was pushing too hard, a tactic I often do in these games and fighting games too, trying to be too offensive and not dodging/blocking/slowing down much/enough - I can get 1 track minded, not a good idea. Zeus wrecked me b/c of my lacking skills with blocking and failures to dodge enough. I finally got him by slowing myself down and reacting more with quick attacks vs. rushing and walking right into combos... and declining to lower the difficulty at least twice <sigh>
Game looked excellent even this many years later and it was still in love with it's QTEs, Kratos' rage, awesome music/score and other staples of the series. I only beat GoW2 in the last few years, but after this crazy frustrating final session I think I might take a break - was thinking I'd jump to the 2 portable system offshoots included in my collection. Also want to give Ascension a go as well, but I need a less frustrating game first.
The game interestingly had a few glitches where I had to back out to the main menu and reload in my save. It happened in at least 3 places, but the one I recall was one of the chain flights and I couldn't seem to avoid hitting something right before the cut to one of the Titans and in that scene b/c of the glitch Kratos was missing and the scene wouldn't complete b/c of it, even if I got the QTE right. Oh well.

@SupremeSarna largely curious, but looking at the Mass Destruction badge, how many other games are similar to the example of Rampage? Are you thinking of say Katamarcy as well? One of the biggest reasons I trimmed the count of badges was some felt like they applied to just too few titles or too specific of a genre/subset.

@Slickriven This was a suggestion from another user. I don't play many of them myself, but Blast Corps comes to mind immediately. I'd count Katamari and Twisted Metal also. I'm thinking games with a lot of carnage that aren't hack 'n' slashes or beat'em ups are good candidates.

My #7 is Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.

https://ibb.co/nDwXbZV

Woof. What a mediocre game. Graphics are nice but the game play is so repetitive. None of the weapons feel great. Most skills are low % increases to stats. Dialog is terrible and the jokes are even worse. Such gems as calling a village 'Buttsville' and having enemies repeat the same bad lines in every encounter (My foot bone is going to be connected to your ass bone). Wasn't a fan of the Borderlands games so I'm not quite sure why I picked this up. 6/10

#4 for me is Evil West
This was the best current gen throwback to the Gears of War coop style games of that era. Graphics aren’t the greatest and framerate can be a bit choppy but other than that it tells a coherent tale has some charm and humor and is action up the butt from start to finish. It’s quite refreshing to play a linear based corridor like 3rd person action shooter with a heavy emphasis on in your face satisfying melee combat that packs a punch. We really need more games like this and Focus seems to know that and keeps delivering the goods to us on more than one occasion. Flying Wild Hog is no stranger to action shooters too I just hope sales on this game warrant more like it cause this was simply awesome.

I beat Bayonetta for my 360 clear this year. Got it very cheap on eBay a few years ago, now I’ve made good on that purchase.
[imgt]https://i.imgur.io/DLzE9sW_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sha...[/imgt]

Game’s fun, plot’s nonsense, it’s sometimes stylish, it’s sometimes trashy, it’s always violent. What else do you expect from Mr. Twitterblock?

I played this years ago in college, but I’d forgotten most of it. Turns out it was better than I’d remembered. Maybe I’ll replay Bayonetta 2 sometime, or buy Bayonetta 3. Always happy to support Jennifer Hale, AKA Aayla Secura in Star Wars: TCW.

@SupremeSarna I'm actually debating playing Bayonetta on my WiiU. I have it digitally on the 360 from a Xbox giveaway, but I bought 1 & 2 from a fellow GTZ person after getting the system last year. Trying to decide btwn that and Captain Toad.

Slickriven wrote:
Captain Toad is probably easier and a bit more violent, but I haven't played it myself. You can't go wrong with either, I'd say.

#8 down- Marvel’s Midnight Suns DLC on PS5. I would like to count it toward the Quest for Peace badge.

This first DLC just came out today and features Deadpool. It includes a few new story missions, allows you to integrate Deadpool into the main campaign, provides a few new costumes, and introduces new research that lets you build a food truck, giving you the ability to discard a card for an extra move and slam. Deadpool was pretty annoying as a character in this, but his deck is interesting to use and the new story missions were OK. I’ll definitely play the other DLCs when they come out, as I really enjoyed this game. I don’t know when they’ll be out, but Venom is supposedly next and then Morbius and Storm.

I've decided after some waffling that I'll update the OP every Friday, not Saturday--changes with my work schedule make this more optimal. Sit tight, everyone!

EDIT: Got everything. With only a few days left in the month, @legendrko25 has time to beat a few more games and become #1 game-beater for January! Several others have beaten a good number--keep on going!

As for me, my brother just moved into a new house and found an abandoned Xbox One X. He gave it to me as he has little need for such a console. What a nice gesture! Now to find a game to play for it. I have a few ideas...

My #8 is Dead Space (2008)

https://ibb.co/rdYbsVv

Played this since the new remake just came out today. Beat it in a little over 8 hours. Great game, didn't play through when it first came out. Graphics are surprisingly good for a 15 year old game, great gameplay and tense moments. Good boss fights too. Plan on playing the rest of the trilogy in February. 8.5/10

8's all around, mine is my fist title as well
Layers of Fear 2
Badge - counts towards Raccoon City

I beat Layers of Fear in '21 and started this last year but didn't prioritize it and thus only got around 30% in. I just finished this almost walking sim... or door opening sim just now and yeah it was meh. Last time you were an artist uncovering what happened to your family, this time your an actor dealing with your past and demons, or something. It was sort of boring to me and you just moved along a linear path or sorts. It tried jump scares that didn't get me but about once. It also tried psychological things, like you enter an empty bathroom and see there's something simple to interact with, you do and a flash and loud noise and turn around and the room is completely different or there's a mannequin right in your face. There's also this monster that gets triggered a few times and chases you, it's not all that scary really, more annoying.
And wow do you open a TON of doors. It's set on a cruise ship, likely a fictional homage to the Titanic, but there are doors everywhere. They're largely used as checkpoints and prevention mechanism on any form of backtracking. I just got tired of clicking the mouse to grab the door handle and swing the door mostly away from me, but sometimes towards. I also apparently got the 'indecisive' ending - fitting. I unlocked NG+ but have zero interest in playing it anymore. It was from Bloober Team, the devs that are doing the Silent Hill 2 remake - technically their skills were great as the game was atmospheric (I should've used headphones to enhance that) and the game looked great, if a bit dark at times. The story and flow was just slow and not all that entertaining, I liked the first game's story and delivery better.

#9 down: Grumpy Cat’s Worst Game Ever on iOS. This (alongside WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!) gives me the Makin' Money with Minigames! badge.

After the hundreds of minigames I played to unlock everything for this, I never want to play a mini game again. It seems I’ve found something I hate as much as really puzzle-driven games.

Got my 9th, 3rd
TMNT: Shredder's Revenge
I think I might look to beat this 5x times, so not applying towards anything yet.

I've beat this now with every character besides Raph and just finished likely my worst character, Mike. I have enjoyed this and it's not too long thus why I might go for the 5x, but we'll see. I started my next run with Raph and already am liking him over Mike. Heck I like April better than Mike, her aerial kick was pretty cool. I'd guess I've already beat this the 5x times in the last calendar year, but I'm going to guess the badge implies all clears in 2023. Once I get Raph's run done, I'll have to decide on if I care to make 3 more runs...

Additionally I've been playing The Legend of Tianding and the game is alright I guess. There's a bit too much story via dialog to read, but the fighting and exploring in some areas is decent. The 3rd boss SUCKED so much. Again it was a case of me pushing too much, but even when I caught myself doing it, it was like she tailored her attacks to what I was trying to hit her with, so I kept having to alter my strategy and dodge like a pro. When I finally beat her I was beyond stoked. I'm now facing the next boss and after just 1 try he wasn't as frustrating, but I've also purchased several more health upgrades.

Let's welcome @buster4252 for joining this year's challenge! I've got you all set on the OP and spreadsheet, so I hope you'll play many games with us.

I beat two more games: Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! and Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! .
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[imgt]https://i.imgur.io/EqwBJYL_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sha...[/imgt]

As my first real Minis game, March Again was quite good. It was longer than it needed to be, but most of the puzzles were well-made and comfortably challenging. The ones that make heavy use of Thwomps are a pain, and the DK boss fights are pretty weak, but otherwise it’s a good time. Got all 100 gold stars.

As for Wario Blast, beep Bomberman. It’s a decent game, but holy cow, Bomberman is ruthless and annoying by design. The enemies wander around placing bombers thst detonate in four directions, and your own bombs vaporize you—one hit and you’re dead! You have to best the enemies in 2 out of 3 matches, then they add more. There are upgrades like the ability to kick bombs forward and even Wario’s first motorcycle. Once you get the ability to shove and stun enemies, you become nearly omnipotent.

But then bosses come into play. Some are easy, but others are incredibly frustrating. They’re usually invincible unless you destroy some projectile to make them briefly vulnerable. But that takes a lot of setup and they take multiple hits to kill; one mistake kills you, remember. The final boss is dreadful, with three separate phases and numerous projectiles that it can launch at a moment’s notice. Took at least 20 tries to beat him, and that’s ignoring all the deaths I suffered at bosses 2 and 4. Never again.

#10 down: Samorost 1 on PC. This is my first clear for the Brain Teaser badge and the first game I've ever played on Gog. This is a really weird, short puzzle game in which you have to help this gnome guy get back after his rocket took him off course. I don't usually like puzzle games, but I will admit that some of the ones in this are fairly clever. A few were pretty tricky and took me awhile to figure out. Some of the characters look kinda creepy, because it looks like someone took a regular picture of a person's face and used it on a different character (like this one squirrel you encounter with a human face).

SupremeSarna wrote:

No the dog

#11 down: Halo 2 on Xbox. This gives me (alongside my previous clear of High on Life) the 2nd Amendment badge.

I enjoyed this one more than Halo. The story was more interesting, and there were a few level design details that I was impressed with despite how old this game is. While there are still a lot of grey hallways like in the original, there’s more variety this time around.

#12 down: Hearthstone on PC. This is my first completion toward the All Aces badge. As per the badge, I beat two matches, but that didn't feel like enough, so I also beat a bunch of challenges and a single player campaign. This game is pretty addictive, and the fact that you can just pick it up and play a match whenever is nice. You can actually unlock quite a bit without paying any money as well.