Games Beaten 2025

[Note]

1. Streets of Rage 3 (GEN)*
2. Iridion II (GBA)*
3. Final Fantasy III (SNES)
4. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (PS1)
5. Shockman Zero (SNES)
6. Suikoden (PS1)
7. Chiki Chiki Boys (GEN)
8. Altered Beast (GEN)
9. Jewel Master (GEN)
10. Fight'N Rage (NSW)
11. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (PS1)
12. Phantasy Star (SMS)
13. Super Metroid (SNES)
14. Double Dragon (Arcade)
15. Final Fight (Arcade)
16. Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (SNES)
17. Virtua Fighter 2 (SAT)
18. Yoshi's Story (N64)
19. Crusader of Centy (GEN)
20. Koudelka (PS1)
21. Castlevania: Bloodlines (GEN)
22. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
23. Brawl Brothers (SNES)
24. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (GEN)
25. Silent Hill (PS1)
26. Arc the Lad (PS1)



27. Raiden Trad (GEN)

My Raiden fandom initially started in the arcade with Raiden Fighters. A clothing store across the street from my high school had a few arcade cabinets at the entrance, including Metal Slug and Raiden Fighters. My friends and I enjoyed stopping by to waste some quarters there every once in a while, and the bright graphics and variety of ships drew me in. Many years later, I picked up the Raiden Fighters Aces collection on the 360, and have been curious to check out other games in the series.

Raiden Trad is a pretty straight forward shoot ‘em up. The game has two weapon systems that you can power up. For your main weapon, you have a choice between a spreadshot or a laser that only shoots straight ahead. You also have a choice between two sub weapons, a homing missile or a nuclear missile. I believe the latter is more powerful, but it only hits targets straight ahead and fairly close by. You also have access to a bomb, which isn’t screen clearing, but it can free up a good area. For my playthrough, I mostly stuck with the spreadshot and homing missile combination. In regard to slow down issues, they do pop up from time to time, but I didn’t find it to be a deal breaker. I found the difficulty to be pretty tough and I had to replay many sections multiple times to finally get through it. I’m genuinely curious about how other fans feel about the difficulty here.

The graphics in Raiden Trad are a bit of a mixed bag. The colors throughout the Genesis port are muted and don’t have that bright pop that games later in the series would contain. However, the enemy bullets are easily identifiable. There are some nice visual details throughout your mission, such as the grazing cows in the first level and some cool enemy ship and boss designs. Regarding the soundtrack, I’m a fan of the tunes here; however, there is a limited amount of unique tracks; with some themes being played in two stages. My favorite track is probably the theme that plays in Stages 3 and 7, titled “Rough & Tumble.”

I’d also like to point out there are two package variants for the Genesis release. The more common one has a strange mix of colors on the cover, including a bright green, bright pink, and bright blue and depicts your ship flying upward. The variant that seems tougher to find is simply red and grey, and shows a straight ahead shot of the ship, which I think has a nicer look to it. Another interesting tidbit is that this is the only Raiden game to appear on a Sega console. To my understanding, there were plans to bring Raiden Fighters to the Sega Saturn, but the release was canceled.

Overall, I had fun (but admittedly was frustrated at times, mostly due to my skill level) with Raiden Trad. The game is a bit rough around the edges, but is a solid experience. For a novice shmup player, I did find sections of the game to be quite challenging, but I wanted to come back for more. For fans of the Genesis or the genre, I’d give it a shot!

[Note]

1. Streets of Rage 3 (GEN)*
2. Iridion II (GBA)*
3. Final Fantasy III (SNES)
4. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (PS1)
5. Shockman Zero (SNES)
6. Suikoden (PS1)
7. Chiki Chiki Boys (GEN)
8. Altered Beast (GEN)
9. Jewel Master (GEN)
10. Fight'N Rage (NSW)
11. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (PS1)
12. Phantasy Star (SMS)
13. Super Metroid (SNES)
14. Double Dragon (Arcade)
15. Final Fight (Arcade)
16. Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (SNES)
17. Virtua Fighter 2 (SAT)
18. Yoshi's Story (N64)
19. Crusader of Centy (GEN)
20. Koudelka (PS1)
21. Castlevania: Bloodlines (GEN)
22. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
23. Brawl Brothers (SNES)
24. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (GEN)
25. Silent Hill (PS1)
26. Arc the Lad (PS1)
27. Raiden Trad (GEN)



28. Bio-Hazard Battle (GEN)

Bio-Hazard Battle is one of those Genesis games that I did not hear about until much later, as I never came across it or saw any information about it in magazines I had access to around the time of its release. However, I was intrigued by it once I heard it was a first party developed game from Sega and it offered co-op play.

Bio-Hazard Battle has a pretty unique theme and atmosphere. You have a choice of one of four ships, with each being a cyborg enhanced creature, including a dolphin, two different fish like creatures, and some type of fly. Quite the cast! For this playthrough, I played as the dolphin with the helmet, also known as Polyxena in the manual. For each character, the power-ups act a little differently, which is another interesting nuance to this one. For the dolphin, the orange power-up is a homing shot, the blue is a spread shot, and the yellow power-up shoots straight ahead. The green power up is the only one that is the same for every character. I mostly stuck with the homing shot or the spreadshot, depending on the situation.

You do not have access to a screen clearing bomb in this game; however, you can charge your main shot with the B button, to direct major damage at an enemy or boss. Also, each character has a satellite ship around them, which will fire your power-up weapon of choice. The satellite can also be used to block an incoming bullet, which is a great feature. The game consists of eight levels, and I found the difficulty here to be approachable for a novice player of the genre. There are a few instances where there is a lot coming at you, but there are also many easier sections throughout.

I have to give the development team credit for the graphics in Bio-Hazard Battle. There are a lot of great looking effects used for certain enemy designs and specific backgrounds that have a pseudo 3D look. One of my favorite graphical effects in the game is when the large twisting enemies pop out in the third level, the Forest. They look great for a 16-bit system! The color palette and look of the game is on the grittier side, but it fits with the feel of the title. We also need to talk about the music, because the soundtrack here is very memorable. The game has a thumping, bass heavy, and dark atmospheric soundtrack. It’s very unique and I can’t say anything else on the system sounds similar. My favorite theme in the game is the tune that plays in Stage 7, which is haunting and melodic.

I don’t have much to criticize or nitpick here, but I do want to call out the blue power-up, when it acts as the “bond” weapon, consisting of a bubble shot. This power-up appears for two of the characters (I believe), and it seemed pretty awful. If I was playing a character who could access this shot, I would do my best to avoid it. It would have been nice to have a different useful power-up in its place.

Overall, Bio-Hazard Battle is a great shoot ‘em up that has a one of a kind theme. I think it’s one of the best shmups on the Genesis, as it’s challenging but is approachable for casual players of the genre. I would enjoy playing it in couch co-op sometime! It’s one that I’ll be returning to, for sure. It’s too bad we never got a sequel on the good old Sega Saturn.

[marurun]

Note, I'm loving reading about your adventures in the STG genre. While the MD version of Raiden Trad is considered decent, the best 16-bit port is probably the TG-16 release. I'd really love to see you sample the SNES and TG-16 or PCE CD releases and let us know which you personally think fares the best. Also glad you enjoyed Bio-Hazard Battle. It's such a weird shooter and I found it good fun and graphically impressive, just as you did.

[Note]

I'm glad you're enjoying my recent reviews, Maru! I'm trying to explore the shooter genre with the limited skillset I currently have. That's a good idea about Raiden on the other consoles. I should try to track down the SNES physical copy. For the TG-16 or PCE CD releases, I'll have to emulate those, but it would still be fun to compare.

My goal for the next few days is to try to clear out some of the backlog of Genesis games I have, as I have a good amount of games that I put time into but wasn't able to beat previously.

[Ack]

First 50:

1. Growing My Grandpa! (Point-and-Click Adventure)(PC)
2. The Black Masses (Action RPG)(PC)
3. Dead Estate (Action)(PC)
4. Call of Cthulhu (Horror RPG)(PC)
5. 100 Asian Cats (Puzzle)(PC)
6. Blade Chimera (Action)(PC)
7. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Action)(PC)
8. 7 Days to Die (Action)(PC)
9. An Arcade Full of Cats (Puzzle)(PC)
10. Excive A-1000 (FPS)(PC)
11. Only Lead Can Stop Them (FPS)(PC)
12. Home Safety Hotline (Horror)(PC)
13. Viewfinder (Puzzle)(PC)
14. Star Wars: Dark Forces Remastered (FPS)(PC)
15. Wanted: Dead (Action)(PC)
16. Crime Scene Cleaner (Action)(PC)
17. Beyond Citadel (FPS)(PC)
18. Turbo Overkill (FPS)(PC)
19. Project Warlock 2 (FPS)(PC)
20. Saints Row: The Third (Action)(PC)
21. Saints Row: The Third - GenkiBowl VII (Action)(PC)
22. Saints Row: The Third - Gangstas in Space (Action)(PC)
23. Saints Row: The Third - The Trouble with Clones (Action)(PC)
24. Ultra Cop (Action)(PC)
25. The Land of Pain (Horror)(PC)
26. HROT (FPS)(PC)
27. RFA Station (FPS)(PC)
28. Ultimate Zombie Defense (Top-Down Shooter)(PC)
29. Nightmare Reaper (FPS)(PC)
30. Abiotic Factor (Survival)(PC)
31. Doom (FPS)(PC)
32. Doom II (FPS)(PC)
33. Master Levels of Doom II (FPS)(PC)
34. Doom: TNT - Evilution (FPS)(PC)
35. Doom: The Plutonia Experiment (FPS)(PC)
36. Doom: No Rest for the Living (FPS)(PC)
37. Doom: Sigil (FPS)(PC)
38. Doom: Sigil II (FPS)(PC)
39. Doom: Legacy of Rust (FPS)(PC)
40. Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders (FPS)(PC)
41. Heretic: Faith Renewed (FPS)(PC)
42. Hexen: Beyond Heretic (FPS)(PC)
43. Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel (FPS)(PC)
44. Hexen: Vestiges of Grandeur (FPS)(PC)
45. Handshakes (Puzzle)(PC)
46. Generation Zero (FPS)(PC)
47. Generation Zero: Alpine Unrest (FPS)(PC)
48. Generation Zero: FNIX Rising (FPS)(PC)
49. Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights (Action)(PC)
50. Cthulhu Saves Christmas (RPG)(PC)

51. Brazilian Drug Dealer 3 (FPS)(PC)
52. Toilet Chronicles (Adventure)(PC)
53. Chorus of Carcosa (Horror Adventure)(PC)
54. Soul Calibur VI (Fighting)(PC)
55. Squirrel Stapler (FPS)(PC)
56. Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (Action)(PC)
57. Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr (Action RPG)(PC)
58. Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef (Action)(PC)
59. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (FPS)(PC)
60. Sisyphus Reborn (Adventure)(PC)
61. Off-Peak (Adventure)(PC)
62. The Monster Inside (Visual Novel)(PC)
63. GreedFall (RPG)(PC)
64. GreedFall: The De Vespe Conspiracy (RPG)(PC)
65. Fallout (RPG)(PC)

Finally, after years of starting and stopping, I finally beat a Fallout game. And I did it with the original Fallout. So glad to know that war never changes!

Nuclear war has devastated the US. You have survived in your vault thanks to the good people of Vault-Tec, but now the water chip has been damaged, so you're getting sent out to find a replacement chip. Into the wasteland you go, where survivors, raiders, mutants, and monsters all wait to deal with you...usually through murder.

It's a very open-ended game, and that's the beauty of Fallout. You can explore as you like, try to resolve quest lines in a variety of ways, be a good or a bad guy, whatever you prefer. Want to talk your way through, shoot lasers, sneak past, you can. The game is good about options. If anything is working against you, it's time. You have a time table for how quickly you can get the water chip, though you can extend it. However, you also have time limits on things like whether super mutants overrun certain parts of the world.

It's tough to judge Fallout, because it's so open, yet most of it feels at least somewhat viable. However, the game can punish you for not knowing how to tackle particular things or how quickly you're supposed to tackle them. Also, if you're not a fan of desert wasteland, it can look kind of samey. But it's also a lot of fun to not have your hand held and go blast something with a rocket launcher.

Fallout is worth playing still. Bethesda did the series a favor by changing styles to a hybrid FPS, because it allows the original few games to shine as a separate experience. There are also certain RPGs from the 1990s that captured the desire to experience an open world where everything can work; Fallout succeeds in this attempt. I had a wonderful time with it.

[TheSSNintendo]

Quake Enhanced (GOG)

[REPO Man]

Beat Far Cry 6 for PS5.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2025 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
* indicates a repeat

1~50

1. Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii)
2. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
3. Battlefield: Hardline (PS3)
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3)
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (PS3)
6. Dead Nation (PS3)
7. Kileak, The Blood 2: Reason in Madness (PS1)
8. Paro Wars (PS1)
9. in Stars and Time (Steam)
10. Tetris Battle Gaiden (SFC)
11. Super Tetris 3 (SFC)
12. Battlefield 4 (PS3)
13. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3)
14. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3)
15. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (PS4)
16. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PS4)
17. Call of Duty: WWII (PS4)
18. Resistance 3 (PS3)
19. Tearaway: Unfolded (PS4)
20. Grow Home (PS4)
21. Grow Up (PS4)
22. Ratchet & Clank (2016) (PS4)
23. Dark Sector (Steam)
24. Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (N64)
25. Multi-Racing Championship (N64)
26. Super Smash Bros. (N64)
27. Puyo Puyo Sun 64 (N64)
28. Shin Nippon Pro Wrestling: Toukon Road - Brave Spirits (N64)
29. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 6 (N64)
30. Let's Smash (N64)
31. Mario Tennis 64 (N64)
32. Ucchannanchan no Honō no Challenger: Denryū Iraira Bō (N64)
33. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 4 (N64)
34. FIFA: Road to the World Cup 98 (N64)
35. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 2000 (N64)
36. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 5 (N64)
37. Time and Eternity (PS3)
38. Pokemon Red (GB)
39. Dr. Mario 64 (N64)
40. Shining Force Neo (PS2)
41. Chou Kuukan Nighter: King of Pro Baseball (N64)
42. Tales of Destiny 2 (PS2)
43. Star Wars: Episode I - Racer (N64)
44. ChoroQ 64 (N64)
45. F-Zero X (N64)
46. Homefront (PS3)
47. Ape Escape: Pumped & Primed (PS2)
48. F-Zero (SNES)
49. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (PS2)
50. Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (PS2)

51~100

51. Wave Race 64 (N64)
52. Bakushou Jinsei 64: Mezase! Resort-ou (N64)
53. Mother (Famicom)
54. Famista 64 (N64)
55. Weird and Unfortunate Things are Happening (PC)
56. Kirby and the Rainbow Curse (Wii U)
57. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
58. Wario Land: Shake it! (Wii) *
59. Mario Party 8 (Wii) *
60. Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Wii)
61. SimCity 2000 (N64)
62. Prototype (PS3)
63. Prototype 2 (PS3)
64. Final Fantasy X (PS2) *
65. Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2)
66. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2)
67. Crackdown (Xbox 360)
68. Crackdown 2 (Xbox 360)
69. Alan Wake (Xbox 360) *
70. Dead to Rights (Xbox)
71. Medal of Honor (PS3)
72. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
73. Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii) *
74. Mario Party 9 (Wii) *
75. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 (PS2)
76. Splashdown (PS2)
77. R4 Ridge Racer Type 4 (PS1)
78. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) *
79. Star Fox (SNES)
80. Kamen Rider: Battride War (PS3)
81. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GC) *
82. Final Fantasy VII: International Edition (PS1)
83. Final Fantasy VIII (PS1)
84. Final Fantasy IX (PS1) *
85. Pac-Man World (PS1)
86. Super Ghouls'n Ghosts (SFC)
87. Disney's Aladdin (SNES)
88. Mega Man: Wily Wars (MD)
89. The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse (SNES)
90. The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey & Minnie (SNES)
91. Mickey to Donald Magical Adventure 3 (SFC)
92. Disney's The Little Mermaid (NES)
93. Little Nemo: The Dream Master (NES)
94. Gunman's Proof (SFC)
95. Blaze & Blade: Busters (PS1)
96. Void Stranger (Steam)
97. Fortune Street (Wii)
98. Max Payne (PS2)
99. Momotaro Dentetsu V (PS1)
100. Shodan Morita Shogi (SFC)

101. Rayman 2: The Great Escape (N64)
102. Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (Famicom)
103. Panic Restaurant (NES)
104. Mr. Gimmick (NES)
105. Bucky O'Hare (NES)
106. Wheel of Fortune (N64)
107. Resident Evil 2 (PS1)
108. Dragon Quest VI (SFC)
109. Ninja Gaiden (NES)
110. StarTropics (NES)
111. Parody World: Monster Party (Famicom)
112. Super Mario Bros 2 (NES)
113. Kamen No Ninja Hanamaru (Famicom)
114. Power Blade (NES)
115. Power Blazer (Famicom)
116. Metroid (NES)
117. Kid Icarus (NES)
118. New Super Mario Bros. U (Wii U) *
119. Ganbare Goemon 3: Shishi Juurokubee no Karakuri Manjigatame (SFC)
120. Hitman: Blood Money (Xbox 360)
121. Super Bonk (SNES)
122. Plok (SNES)
123. Batman: The Video Game (NES)
124. Power Blade 2 (NES)
125. Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (NES)
126. Phantasy Star (SMS)
127. Solomon's Key (Famicom)
128. Solomon's Key 2 (Famicom)
129. Panel De Pon (SFC)
130. Ice Climber (Famicom)
131. True Crime: Streets of LA (PS2)
132. True Crime: New York City (PS2)
133. Mafia III (PS4)
134. F.E.A.R. 3 (Steam)
135. F.E.A.R. (Steam)
136. F.E.A.R. Extraction Point (Steam)
137. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (Steam)

138. F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate (Steam)

I’d already played the other 4 Fear games over the past week, so it only seemed appropriate to do this last one too. After trudging through Fear 2 previously to this, I was very much looking forward to returning to TimeGate Studios’ take on the Fear 1 formula (as I’d quite liked Extraction Point). As with the other Fear games, this is another one I’d watched a Let’s Play of many years ago, but it’s also one that I’d largely forgotten beyond the larger concept, and I was very eager to experience it for myself and bring my time with the Fear series to a close. Playing with my Xbox One controller, it took me around 7.5 hours to beat the English version of the game on normal mode.

Unlike the first standalone expansion to the first Fear, Perseus Mandate is less of a sequel and more of a side-quel, taking place concurrently to the events of Fear 1 and Extraction Point. You play the sergeant of a different F.E.A.R. team to the one the main game focuses on. You’re still a silent protagonist, and you still somehow have slow-mo powers, but you’re not Point Man, and that’s all that matters X3. You’ve been tasked with getting to Armacham Technology Corporation’s global data center to see what you can find about the titular Project Perseus, but as usual, things are never so easy. Not only are Alma Wade’s vengeful ghost and Paxton Fettel’s replicant soldiers still on the loose, but a hereto unseen elite mercenary group called the Nightcrawlers are also all on the hunt to be the first ones to get their hands on Perseus’s secrets!

It's a pretty shallow story that largely just serves as an excuse for the action, but it’s perfectly fine for what it is. Much like the original base game for Fear, this game definitely aims much more for action than horror compared to how Extraction Point had done things, but it still ends up being remarkably well paced regardless. Your AI-controlled NPC companions are in this a lot more than either previous game as well, and even if their dialogue largely just boils down to exposition and quips, I’m glad that the quips in this are at least usually actually funny (unlike how Fear 2 had been). It makes for a very different vibe than the previous two games, and even though I definitely prefer how Extraction Point handled things over this, this was still a really fun time for me.

Mechanically, this is still very much like the first Fear and especially Extraction Point. Much like the base game, we still have loads of guns, big silly melee dashes & jumps, and slow-mo powers for blasting enemies. Similarly, we have much more varied and interesting level design much like Extraction Point had done, so we’re not contained solely to close-quarters offices that dragged the original Fear’s gameplay down so much. If you’ve played either or both of those, then there will largely be little all that shocking to you about how Perseus Mandate is put together, but TimeGate Studios have nonetheless done their best to throw a few new things in here and there.

There are a few new weapons added for this game: the grenade launcher, arc lightning gun, and the advanced assault rifle the Nightcrawlers use. They’re interesting additions to the arsenal, but I don’t think they’re particularly game changing. The grenade launcher suffers the issue that most explosive weapons in Fear 1 do in that it’s just far too unwieldy and slow despite the relatively low damage it does (the combat shotgun is still easily the best weapon of choice if you’ve got a heavy target to take down at anything other than very long range). The arc lightning is neat, but it lacks the ammo to really be terribly useful as anything other than a brief gimmick when you can manage to find one. The assault rifle is probably the most fun new weapon for me, as the base game’s assault rifle is pretty cruddy for how much kick back it has, but simply making a better assault rifle is hardly something that makes Perseus Mandate a better or more interesting experience than past Fear games had striven to be. At the very least, they’ve changed back proximity mines so that they can be picked up again after throwing them instead of being down permanently like they were in Extraction Point X3

Where the original Fear has its heavy emphasis on close-quarters combat, and Extraction Point’s big additions are more varied level design and a focus on horror, I’d say that Perseus Mandate’s biggest contribution to the formula is enemy variety. The Nightcrawlers are much more than slightly tougher replicant soldiers with fancy rifles and silly very pitched down voices. While that does make them interesting (as well as the many instances of encountering the various enemy factions fighting one another instead of you), their version of the heavy soldier is the biggest new change. Rather than the slow, lumbering normal replicant armored soldier or his shield-wielding cousin, the Nightcrawler super soldiers are *very* fast. They can side-step your big bullet shots, parkour up walls, and fling grenades at you in incredibly deadly waves if you’re not careful. They’re a whole new type of beast to deal with compared to what the previous two games offered, and they act as a nice compliment to the larger environments that TimeGate Studios’ Fear games lend themselves towards. Overall, if you weren’t a fan of how TimeGate was already taking the Fear series, then this game’s design is absolutely not going to convert you, but if you’re like me and you already quite enjoyed Extraction Point, then this is a fun, new take on that same sort of design philosophy.

Aesthetically, this game is still very much more Fear 1 much like Extraction Point had been. The Nightcrawlers and such look cool with their new designs, and the new locations are pretty neat too, but it’s nothing that’ll blow you away if you’re already familiar with the previous games (and it definitely would’ve looked decidedly dated when it came out in ’07 too). The sound design and music are still good as ever though. We’ve got a couple new songs that help highlight the action really well, and I continue to appreciate TimeGate Studios’ approach to the use of music in Fear 1 compared to how Monolith did it. The VA is also very nice, and the banter between enemy soldiers manages to be even more fun when they’ve got such very pitched down voices like this X3

Verdict: Recommended. I can’t recommend it as highly as I can Extraction Point, but this is a very similarly good experience to that one. Much as I said before, if you already weren’t digging TimeGate Studios’ changes to Monolith’s formula, then this game isn’t going to do anything for you. However, if you’re someone who likes how they were making stuff, then this is a sorta short (and fairly tough) campaign to have a new bundle of slow-mo silly fun with~ ^w^

----

139. Dead Space (Steam)

Much like the Fear series of games I just finished, this is another game that I watched a Let’s Play of many years ago and have also owned on Steam for about as long (apparently the last time I played this was 2013, according to Steam X3). Since I already had the PC and controller all hooked up for it (and this game has such effortless, native controller support), I figured I may as well finally play through this game too during this year of so many shooters for me. Using my Xbox One controller, it ultimately took me almost dead-on 10 hours to finish the English version of the game on normal mode.

Dead Space centers around the happenings on the planet cracker vessel, the USG Ishimura. Effectively a deep space mobile mining rig, the ship suddenly sent out a distress signal, and our main character Isaac Clark is part of the 4-man team sent to fix it. However, the issues on the Ishimura are far from simply mechanical in nature. The whole ship is dark and deserted save for loads of dead bodies and horrible, bloodthirsty monsters. Once their unaware rescue shuttle crashes into the hangar bay, it’s all our surviving rescue crew members can do to simply stay alive, let alone figure out what’s even the cause of this madness in the first place.

Rather than a deeper, contemplative kind of horror story like the old Silent Hill games aimed for, Dead Space is much more Resident Evil in its approach to writing. It’s basically a horror story and a mystery story carried forward by the thriller that is the gameplay, and it works pretty darn well! The pacing of the story between the gameplay is really well executed with our small cast of characters, and the growing sense of desperation and suspicion between them is also very well done. Even with Isaac only being a silent protagonist (effectively whittling our main cast down to two), they still carry this out quite well, which is quite the achievement as far as I’m concerned. I have some minor issues like how I wish the one guy with a clearly non-European foreign accent wasn’t the most evil monster of the bunch, but aside from light casual racism like that, the story suits its purpose here excellently. Dead Space serves as yet another example of how just because a game’s story is thematically shallow, as long as the execution and pacing are well done, it by no means needs to feel unsatisfying or boring (even if some of the final twists are a bit easy to see coming).

The gameplay is definitely where Dead Space shines most brightly though. After playing so many F.E.A.R. games, it’s so refreshing to be playing a horror game that tries to be scary and succeeds *so* well at it. The desolate halls of the Ishimura make for an incredibly unnerving and isolating atmosphere, and the shooting gameplay compliments that very well too. Taking a lot of cues from Resident Evil 4, Dead Space is a third-person survival horror shooter, but unlike RE4, you can both move and aim at the same time here. However, the ability to move and shoot hardly makes things less scary. It’s very easy to get swarmed to heck by the Necromorphs infesting the ship, and only smart use of your resources and smart aiming too will see you out of it.

That brings me to the main gimmick of the gameplay in Dead Space (which I imagine most of you reading this are probably already familiar with given how famous this series is). Rather than head shots being the ultimate kill shot like most shooters do, Dead Space’s aliens’ weak point is more decentralized than one big “kill me” button. As a result, slowly dismembering your enemies until they stop moving is the key to victory, and with how strangely and quickly they so often move, that is far easier said than done when you’re being swarmed by 4 or 5 of them ^^;. Despite there being not even 10 enemy types, this novel approach to the shooting makes for a consistently fun and interesting shooter experience, and that’s also given an extra boost with the good variety of weapons available to you.

With the Ishimura just being a big mining rig in space, it’s not like they have much in the way of weaponry lying around. Even then, it’s not like normal guns are going to do all that much good when your main method of slaying foes is taking off their legs, arms, and tendrils. Thankfully, a mining rig like this has all sorts of other projectile energy weapons for cutting rock, and they do a great job of slicing up alien monsters too~. Your default weapon is the incredibly useful and versatile plasma cutter (for long-range, accurate shots either vertically or horizontally), and you’ve got another 7 weapons beyond that for any variety of situations (with my personal favorite being the force gun, even if it kinda sucks XP). While some are certainly much better than others, it’s fun to just pick a new one out from the Ishimura’s store and try it out for a bit, and if you don’t like it, you can just sell it. However, money and resources are far from infinite, and that’s especially true for your power nodes. Power nodes can be used to permanently upgrade your stats and equipment, but they can’t be retrieved after you’ve placed them. You’ll have more than enough to upgrade the heck out of both yourself and at least 3 weapons on normal mode (which is perhaps a bit too easy for it’s on good, tbh) if you play like I did, but it’s still a neat level of customization that also plays into the survival horror aspects nicely too.

The Ishimura itself is also such a fantastic feature of this game that I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. Taking a lot of inspiration from films like Alien, the way the Ishimura is put together is a big, chunky future of large mechanical machines and glowy touch panels. The various different areas you have to explore along your journey through the game’s 12 chapters do a good job of feeling just different enough without getting you lost. The game is generally very good with signposting all together, as going back to old areas freely isn’t possible, and you’ve got a “where do I go?” line that’ll pop up whenever you hold in the right stick. With a nice mix of more open areas alongside claustrophobic smaller ones, there are tons of opportunities to have good, tense firefights with Necromorphs as you dread what might be squelching its way out of the next wall vent you wander past.

The aesthetics of the game compliment the horror aspects really well, and it’s just held up generally really well for a game from 2008. In an age where so many games aim for realism and have been left thoroughly stuck in the uncanny valley instead, Dead Space’s relative lack of up-close encounters with human characters makes this a very minor problem, ultimately. The Necromorphs are all super creepy and just human enough to be disconcerting along with all their new awful flesh and claws they’ve got, and they’re still just as scary and creepy as they’ve ever been as they shamble, sprint, and leap after you. The dingy, run down look of the Ishimura ties into that atmosphere of isolation and danger too, and it gives a great vibe of things having totally gone to hell but recently enough that there are still signs of life here and there if you’re willing to look.

The game also goes to great lengths to maintain immersion, so there are barely any proper cutscenes that take away control of the action from you. Conversation scenes are generally via video feeds that pop up in front of Isaac using his space suit’s in-built HUD elements, and the same thing goes for reading text logs and even using your inventory. You have hard pause menu by hitting start or escape, so it’s thankfully not like an always-online experience where there’s just no pausing ever, but it’s a design and aesthetic choice that I think aids the rest of the experience very well without ever feeling needlessly cumbersome (thanks to a dedicated medkit button and good hotkeys for reloading and weapon switching too).

The sound design is also really good. The voice performances are all well done (which is certainly expected for a game by an American studio in 2008, but I’ve seen enough exceptions to that rule that it’s still worth pointing out :b), but it’s the rest of the sound design that really pushes things over the top. From the inhuman wailing and growling of the Necromorphs in full view to the ambient clanking, squelching, and steaming sounds you’ll hear even when you’re not under attack, the sound design of this game does an awesome job of creating a tense, scary atmosphere that rarely lets up. The music is also really effectively towards this end as well, with lots of good, high-tension tracks to really viscerally make you feel just how cornered and in danger you currently are.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. If you’re a fan of horror games and you somehow have not yet played the original Dead Space, that is a gap in your experience you should remedy post-haste! Even as someone much more wary of horror games (I only played the game in Discord calls with friends to help make it less scary ^^; ), I still had a ton of fun with the adventure and shooting aspects of things. 2008 was a great game for video games at the time, and a few of those greats have lost their luster in the nearly 2 decades since, however the first Dead Space is absolutely not one of them. It still holds up fantastically and is well worth a play if you’re at all into single-player shooters or horror games~.

----

140. Alpha Protocol (Steam)

This is a game I’ve been meaning to get to for a good while, and the praise I’ve heard for it recently finally pushed me into giving it a look (especially while I was already going through so many games I’ve owned on my Steam library for ages). I wasn’t too familiar with this game outside of a few high recommendations, but those commendation have even gone into some folks calling it “Obsidian’s best game”. I like a fair few Obsidian games a fair bit, so with praise *that* high, I just had to see what all the fuss was about. Clearly, I found out pretty darn well exactly why this game was so beloved, because I actually immediately played through it a second time after beating it originally X3. Both on normal mode and using an Xbox One controller, I played through the game once in 20 hours and then a second time in 22 hours to see what the recruit starting mode was like.

Alpha Protocol follows new recruit Micheal Thorton from his first day at the titular agency. Also a term referring to when an agent goes rogue, Alpha Protocol are a super secret black ops agency of the U.S. government who carries out high priority secret missions with very high plausible deniability that they’re part of the U.S. at all. After getting introduced to the rest of his team, he’s sent off at once to his first mission assignment in Saudi Arabia to hunt down how the regional terrorists happened to get their hands on high tech, prototype surface to air missiles for their latest strike. As routine as things start, however, they quickly get a lot more complicated as Thorton finds things were in fact nothing as they seemed from the start. Forced to actually go rogue, he’s left with few allies or resources as he sets out to uncover just what’s actually going on, and if he can stop these mysterious forces from plunging the world into another world war.

To cut right to the chase, Alpha Protocol is an astoundingly well written game for when it came out. Especially for 2010, it’s kinda wild to see a game that manages to be so tied to our real life reality (with the places and agencies it deals with mostly being taken from our real world alongside fictional ones like Alpha Protocol itself) yet manage to *not* be a giant piece of pro-U.S. propaganda. They’re remarkably respectful to the gravity of the kind of story they’re telling, and they don’t fall into traps of moralizing the ethics or lack thereof of the reasons the many groups you’re fighting with or against do what they do. They leave it up to you to make those calls yourself by however you decide to make your Thorton behave. Your exact takeaways will likely differ at least a little depending on how you played the main character, but it nonetheless makes for some very effective execution on their main themes of “how to serve a country that doesn’t love you back” and the dangers of the international military industrial complex. It manages to do all this while juggling its levity and serious aspects very well, at least for me, which is quite the impressive feat in and of itself on top of how well it manages its messaging.

The real star of the show, as pretty much anyone will tell you, is the character writing particularly with your main character. Thorton does have something of a personality of his own (not unlike a character like Commander Shepard does in contemporary Mass Effect games), but it’s largely guided by the conversation choices you pick for him. You’ve got three main ways of responding to people: Professional (which is by the book and generally courteous), Suave (which is also very often smarmy too), and Aggressive (which also lends towards dismissive and arrogant responses as well). Picking your dialogue choices is hardly special though. The really interesting thing that AP brings to the table is just how thoroughly your choices affect how the gameplay and story carry on.

Both your behavior in missions and your conduct in conversations will have long lasting effects on both your reputation with individual characters as well as other characters who hear about you secondhand. While Thorton is diegetically very good at switching his approach to people on the fly to manipulate them, all the sweet talk in the world won’t help you very much if you already have a well-established reputation as an aggressive bully or a dutiful patriot (for example). Even though I was mostly playing the same way my second time through (mostly going with professional responses and stealthy, mission-focused gameplay), there were still so many changes along the story from the few new choices I did make *on top* of the new changes down to the order I did the game’s larger post-Saudi Arabia missions in. Even with all the different Micheal Thortons you can roleplay as, the game still manages to very effectively communicate its themes nonetheless due to the strength of the writing in the large supporting cast. The different ways Mike can bounce off of them illustrate so well the depths of their respective characters, and even more minor characters end up feeling remarkably fleshed out and narratively valuable as a result despite them only appearing in one or two scenes.

The game ends up having a ton of replayability as a result of all the different ways you can play Mike as a character, and that ties in to the larger nuts and bolts of playing the game as well. On its face, this is another cover shooter with RPG elements that were quite popular at the time (like Mass Effect before it, Deus Ex reboots after it, among quite a few others), but I think the nuance of that description can help set expectations a lot better. Where I’d say something like Mass Effect 2 is absolutely a cover shooter with RPG elements, Alpha Protocol, by comparison, is an RPG with cover shooter elements X3. What I mean by that is that if you try and play Alpha Protocol like a normal cover shooter, you’re probably going to be quite frustrated by how entangled in the RPG aspects the shooting is. For example, much like how the original Deux Ex approaches its gunplay, if you don’t have meaningful stats put into a weapon type, you’re not going to be hitting anything with it no matter how hard you point the center of your targeting reticle at it.

However, despite the *large* amount I’d heard from even fans of this game of how jank and bad the gunplay is, I think this game’s systems work far better than people give them credit for! It just takes some getting used to how each particular weapon is meant to play rather than just trying to play the game like a more typical third-person shooter. Putting skill points into a weapon type upon leveling up is absolutely important, but playing along the general strategy that weapon’s main activatable ability is also very important. Most guns have *very* wide bullet spray if you don’t take time and stand still upon taking aim, for example. Even weapons accurate at high range like the assault rifle need Thorton to first take aim and *then* pull the trigger if you actually want to hit anything, because that’s just the kind of realism aspects this game is pulling from for its mechanics.

While it did take a bit of an adjustment for my pistol-focused playthroughs to start making sense, it ultimately paid off a lot! I’d say it’s mostly worth focusing into just one weapon type rather than several if only because you’ll otherwise be too spread out to really adequately take on late-game enemies, each of the four weapon types have a remarkable amount of utility in their respective play styles compared to what I’d originally heard which was that only pistols were worth using at all. Pistols are indeed extremely powerful (and the only weapon that stealth highly compliments with how they’re the only weapon that can be fired silently), but it’s by no means the only weapon type that is worth using. I’ve honestly had a great time watching just how viable my partner’s playthrough is currently going, and she’s currently focused on melee combat and SMGs as her primary stats X3.

It may take a bit of experimentation with what weapon suits your play style the best, but I think this game has gotten a really unfair rap over the years. People talk as if this game’s gunplay is some rotten waste of time that doesn’t work at all, and that just says to me that people haven’t tried nearly hard enough to actually figure out how to best use the game’s systems rather than just assuming and expecting it to work like any other shooter. It’s all well and fair to not enjoy the game because it doesn’t play in a way you enjoy, but I don’t think it’s at all reasonable to then jump to the conclusion that the game is broken and bad as an extension of that.

Outside of the gunplay, the game’s other systems mostly work quite well too, and they make for a fun gameplay loop. The stealth mechanics work very well, thank goodness. I’ve played so many stealth games that are even more stealth-focused than this that have far buggier and nonfunctional stealth systems, and it was always such a relief that whenever I got spotted, it was down to something careless I’d done rather than an enemy spotting me through a wall or something. There are also a few hacking and lock picking mini-games too, as were so popular at the time, but these are honestly some of the best of such mini-games I’ve seen. They definitely work more awkwardly on keyboard & mouse than they do on a controller, but they manage to straddle the line between dynamic and difficult juuuust right to be engaging every time without feeling impossible or like a repetitive waste of time like some games of this era struggle with. They get quite hard too, but thankfully you can put a few points into Sabotage to make them a lot easier (or mostly skippable with the right item), and upgrades you can find for your armor can also assist with larger time limits for mini-games too.

On that subject, another thing that I was very happy to discover is just how well the game manages to balance its combat and non-combat options. Alpha Protocol may give you a fair few options for nonviolent or stealth options, but it thankfully manages to side step an issue like Deux Ex: Human Revolution originally had were it was far too easy to ignore combat skills completely with certain play styles and therefore being totally incapable of dealing with the game’s mandatory boss fights and combat checks. Admittedly, a lot of the combat systems end up being relatively shallow compared to more straightforward shooters like the Deux Ex reboots or Mass Effect, but they struck a great balance for me, and this is definitely a game for which the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.

One thing I do want to make clear, however, is that I absolutely don’t want to come off as if I’m saying the game has no issues at all and all of its detractors are flatly wrong about it being jank. It’s absolutely got some jank with its mechanics, and the biggest culprit there is the cover system XD. The game’s cover system is mostly fine, but it can be very fiddly with how it decides to work sometimes. The A button being both interacting with items *and* taking cover echoes a serious mechanical annoyance that I had with the original Mass Effect, and Thorton can be very picky with when and how what walls/cover can even be interacted with *as* cover. It’s not a game breaking problem or anything (at least for me), but it definitely makes some builds much more annoying than they probably needed to be.

Enemy AI is also less than brilliant, and they tend to look very “stand still and get killed” even compared to games from the previous generation. That said, the time needed to take aim is often so long that more fast-moving enemies would be frankly impossible to deal with, so I honestly can’t say just how purposeful the “dumb” enemy AI actually may or may not be. On the more player-friendly jank end, this is the odd game where the targeting reticle is king rather than physical space. Even if Thorton’s gun’s model is clearly right up against a wall, as long as your targeting reticle is on the target, it’ll pass right through that physical object and into your enemy X3

The game is otherwise relatively problem-bug free, at least on PC. There were never any mission-breaking bugs or serious collision issues or anything in either of my two playthroughs, and the most consistent bugs come from the game not loading properly upon reloading a checkpoint. Sometimes enemies don’t respawn properly (so they’ll either not spawn at all for you in a couple of areas), and sometimes objective markers forget to update properly too, but it was thankfully never in any way that made an objective impossible to complete or anything. While these little bugs can certainly be annoying, I thankfully never ran into anything that I could describe as a small annoyance. As far I experienced on other technical aspects, the game runs great on Windows 10 these days with no mods needed, and the native controller support is great too (as long as you have an Xbox brand controller to use <w> ).

The game’s aesthetics aren’t awful, but they’re hardly brilliant for the time either. I think the voice performances are very good and suit the game’s tone and such very well. Serious actors like Omen Deng fit alongside total weirdo maniacs like Steven Heck effortlessly, and they’ve even gone the extra mile of making their linguistically gifted spy characters pronounce foreign names correctly (which is more than I can say for most other games XD)! The music is pretty uninspired, however, and the graphics are nothing to write home about either. I think the graphics do a fine job of making locations look different, and they’re especially adequate for portraying the various facial animations on characters, but it’s all stuff I absolutely don’t blame anyone for being underwhelmed by in 2010.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. It was so nice to end the year on such a high note! I expected to like this game, but I never expected to love it nearly to the degree that I’d just immediately replay it right upon beating it X3. The mechanics may be unconventional, but they’re great fun to experiment with once you get to grips with them, and the narrative is both very well written and knows exactly when and how to pepper in comedy here and there too (with my favorite aspects being the news reports on TV as well as some of the sillier stats the game keeps track of like “orphans created” XD). If you’re not too fussed about how particularly your shooters play and you want a truly impressive role playing experience, then Alpha Protocol is unquestionably a game to put high on your priority list.

[Note]

Awesome you finished Fallout, Ack! Great to read your take on it. An old friend of mine swore by the game and I tried it after talking about it with him, but I didn't finish it. I need to revisit it sometime and finally beat it as well.

[Note]

1. Streets of Rage 3 (GEN)*
2. Iridion II (GBA)*
3. Final Fantasy III (SNES)
4. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (PS1)
5. Shockman Zero (SNES)
6. Suikoden (PS1)
7. Chiki Chiki Boys (GEN)
8. Altered Beast (GEN)
9. Jewel Master (GEN)
10. Fight'N Rage (NSW)
11. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (PS1)
12. Phantasy Star (SMS)
13. Super Metroid (SNES)
14. Double Dragon (Arcade)
15. Final Fight (Arcade)
16. Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (SNES)
17. Virtua Fighter 2 (SAT)
18. Yoshi's Story (N64)
19. Crusader of Centy (GEN)
20. Koudelka (PS1)
21. Castlevania: Bloodlines (GEN)
22. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
23. Brawl Brothers (SNES)
24. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (GEN)
25. Silent Hill (PS1)
26. Arc the Lad (PS1)
27. Raiden Trad (GEN)
28. Bio-Hazard Battle (GEN)



29. Batman: The Video Game (GEN)

When I was a kid, my parents purchased the VHS of the 1989 Batman movie for me and it ended up being one of my favorites. After watching it, I would ask my parents if we could watch it again right afterwards. I didn’t have a Genesis at the time this game was released, but if I did, I probably would have been all over this one as well. I’m glad to have finally experienced and beat the game.

Batman: The Video Game is an action platformer, and this version is exclusive to the Genesis. In general, the pace of the game is a bit slower and the controls aren’t as smooth as action platformers that would come later in the console’s lifespan. However, the long distance batarangs and the full life replenishes that appear a few times per level make things a bit easier. The game is a bit shorter, consisting of six levels, which follow the movie quite accurately, and anyone familiar with it will recognize the backdrops.

To break up the gameplay, Sunsoft has thrown in two horizontal shooter levels, one in which you drive around the Batmobile and another where you pilot the Batplane. The difficulty ramps up in the last level, the Gotham Cathedral. Where you’ll have to get through a boss gauntlet, and a tough climb to the top of the tower, consisting of a lot of spikes to avoid and enemies throwing projectiles your way, which can knock you to your doom.

Graphics wise, Batman: The Video Game looks really good for its time, considering the limitations. The character sprites are a bit smaller here, but they’re fairly detailed. The developers also did a nice job of translating the locations from the movie into 16-bit platforming stages. I also give the developers credit for including a few nice cutscenes in between a few of the levels. The one with Batman swinging with Vicki in the museum level was especially impressive. Soundtrack wise, the composers did a great job of taking advantage of the Genesis sound chip. While the music mostly does not reflect anything from the movie, the soundtrack is very catchy, and I think it’s one of the better OSTs on the console. Tough to pick a favorite here, but it might have to go to the theme that plays in the Gotham City Streets or the tune that plays during the shooter levels.

The only thing I can really criticize here is the boss gauntlet in the last level. I’m really not a fan of these things being thrown in at the end of games to extend the play time. The difficulty of the last level also ramps up quite a lot in comparison to the rest of the game, which can be frustrating.

Overall, Batman: The Video Game is a lot of fun and probably one of the best licensed games to appear on the Genesis. It might not be in the top tier of action platformers on the console, but it’s a solid experience. If you’re a fan of the Genesis or the Batman franchise in general, check this one out!