Games Beaten 2016

[Ack]

Careful, chief, or I might have to call you Exhumipo.

[Exhuminator]

Careful, chief, or I might have to call you Exhumipo.

The difference is, I'm just chewing through a lot of short shmups and arcade fighters. The real deal 'Po chews through RPGs and SRPGs like bubble gum. I can't even begin to touch that.

Edit: Also as an aside, it seems like nearly every GB shmup I've beaten only has 5 stages. Was it a requirement by Japanese law to limit your GB developed shmups to only have 5 stages?

[Sarge]

Yeah, how do you think I get my counts inflated?

I had almost no gaming time last night... not necessarily a bad thing, though.

[Ack]

Careful, chief, or I might have to call you Exhumipo.

The difference is, I'm just chewing through a lot of short shmups and arcade fighters. The real deal 'Po chews through RPGs and SRPGs like bubble gum. I can't even begin to touch that.

I guess that's true. Nothing can stop PopoPower Wheels.

[Exhuminator]

not necessarily a bad thing

Well now, that depends on if you actually wanted to be gaming or not.

[Sarge]

not necessarily a bad thing

Well now, that depends on if you actually wanted to be gaming or not.

Very true. It wasn't a priority this time, so it was just fine.

[MrPopo]

Careful, chief, or I might have to call you Exhumipo.

The difference is, I'm just chewing through a lot of short shmups and arcade fighters. The real deal 'Po chews through RPGs and SRPGs like bubble gum. I can't even begin to touch that.

I guess that's true. Nothing can stop PopoPower Wheels.

I do plan on capping my number of FFV playthroughs this year to just four, rather than the ten I did last year. I feel like I could have beaten more otherwise.

[Stark]

1/22 Emily Is Away (PC)

Games Beaten = 2

1/29 Dishonored Definitive Edition (XB1)
This is an edition of the 2012 Arkane game with some visual improvements over the previous console versions and all 3 DLC packs included.

Promised as the love child between the gameplay of Looking Glass' Thief games and visual aesthetics of Valve's Half-Life 2, Dishonored more than delivers. This seems like the best thing ever, so why am I just beating this now, nearly four years later? Well, my first encounter with this game was shortly after its release and I was disappointed that I couldn't get past the first guard without being detected. You see, my favorite way to play Thief was as a ghost, no one knew you were there, but all of your valubles were missing. So I felt betrayed and set the game down and decided it wasn't for me. Over the years many friends have told me that I should pick this up and finally after getting a great deal on this edition, I decided to power through and change my playstyle to suit and see if it grabbed me.

Good news on two fronts. First, I found that playing ultra stealth isn't always super appealing to me any more and secondly, I found that after the prologue, you can play the rest of the game in "ghost" mode. Awesome! Dishonored really is a modern version of Thief. Lots of valuables to pick up that turns into currency that you can use to purchase upgrades and more gear. Each level has a list of how many valuables or collectibles you missed or whether any of the bodies you left behind were found or if you were a ghost or not and then gives you the opportunity to play the level again. Each target per level has the option to take care of in a nonlethal manner which translates to a "low chaos" or "high chaos" playthrough, which changes some aspects of the overall story. I played "low chaos" so I'm not familiar with how different it is.

There are many avenues through levels and lots of little optional things to do throughout. Magical abilities further the possibility space and how you get through, with things like teleportation, swarms of rats, and x-ray vision. Visually the game really has a distinct style, reminiscent of City 17 in Half-Life 2. It's City 17 through a steampunk lens. The story is a fairly routine revenge tale, but has some optional side quests that are interesting.

Overall I come away very impressed with this game and I'm super excited about the follow-up coming later this year.

[MrPopo]

I'm glad to see you enjoyed it; since I haven't played Thief yet I saw it as a gameplay successor to Deus Ex. But either way you see it the game is awesome. High chaos has you turning the world more and more crapsack as you go on. I did a low chaos playthrough (since it seemed harder) but I watched the ending of a high chaos on youtube and it's not exactly a happy ending.

I can't wait for the sequel.

[Exhuminator]

I haven't played Thief

You've beat Final Fantasy IV like a hundred times but you haven't played Thief even once yet?