1. Dead Space (2023) - PC
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS5
5. Stellar Blade - PS5
6. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Switch
7. Silent Hill 2 (2024) - PC
8. Silent Hill f - PC
9. Resident Evil Requiem - PC
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis
11. Sins of a Solar Empire II - PC
12. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! - PC
13. Gauntlet Dark Legacy - GC
14. A Street Cat's Tale 2: Outside is Dangerous - Switch
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - SNES
16. Dragon's Crown - PS3
17. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - PS3
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara - PS3
19. Shadow Hearts - PS2
20. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred - PC
21. Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2
22. Dark Cloud - PS2
23. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Chaos Reign - PC
24. Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
25. Arkos 2 - PC
26. Metal Gear - MSX
Metal Gear is the first game in Hideo Kojima's stealth action series, and Kojima's second credited game. It was developed for the MSX, and the stealth gameplay was a result of them discovering that the MSX couldn't handle a large number of enemies without terrible sprite flicker. The solution was to make it a game about avoiding enemies, rather than killing them, though you certainly are free to eliminate a ton of guys.
The game is set in the near future of the 80s. You are Solid Snake, sent into infiltrate a compound that is causing consternation for your bosses. They had previously sent another operative, who was captured, so your first goal is to save that operative, Grey Fox. Afterwards, you'll need to stop the nefarious plans of the mysterious leader. As you accomplish sub objectives, you will learn a bit more about what's going on, leading to a decently involved plot for a game of this vintage that isn't an RPG.
The game is seen from an overhead perspective and is a screen-by-screen game. Leaving and reentering a screen will respawn everything inside that isn't a boss or key item; this serves as a good way of restocking supplies when you find them, but also means you need to be cognizant of enemy locations. Enemies all start in the same spot and then patrol according to their AI. If they see you, they will sound an alarm. Sometimes they only alert other enemies on the screen, other times they alert the entire base. In the latter case, enemies will keep spawning as you traverse from screen to screen, only stopping when you kill enough to terminate the alarm, or when you enter a significant transition (e.g. an elevator or into the traversal zones between major buildings). Thus, it is important to stay out of line of sight of enemies and only move when it's safe. And I do mean LINE of sight; detection is done by drawing a single pixel line, which means you being slightly offset will not set off enemies. This can allow you to punch enemies out.
As you proceed through the facilities, you will discover a variety of key items. Some are items that give you additional capabilities, like a mine detector that will reveal landmines, or a gas mask to keep you safe from hazardous areas. There are also a set of eight keycards, and this is the first little annoyance in the game. You must equip the right keycard for the door you want to open, with no indication of what keycard the door needs. This starts off as tedious but becomes downright annoying when you are in the gas-filled rooms that damage you. The inventory system requires you to take off the gas mask and equip the keycard to open a door out of the room, and you'll take a couple ticks of damage in the process, no matter how fast you go. The game also has a selection of weapons to find, though these are loud and alert guards, so you're best off saving them for bosses and the guard dogs (which appear instead of guards in certain areas, so no alerting to worry about).
The game has a fair amount of the 80s video game bullshit, like instant death traps that you have to react to very quickly, or just unforgiving damage. You have to rescue hostages, and you gain rank every five you rescue. However, every hostage you accidentally kill reduces your rank by one. There are a limited number, and you require max rank to defeat the penultimate boss, as your rank affects your max ammo, and you need max ammo of a particular weapon for said boss (and no way to refill in the boss room). As a result, you can screw yourself by accidentally killing a hostage when there aren't enough left to refill your rank. And the pen-penultimate boss has three hostages in the room that he cowers behind; this is where runs can go to die if you accidentally kill a hostage and then save, putting you in a walking dead scenario.
On the flipside, the game does have one surprisingly modern feature, which is a checkpoint system. This triggers at particular transitions between screens and saves your current state when you cross the transition. If you die, you can continue from the last checkpoint. This makes the trial-and-error segments with death traps far less frustrating, as you are usually close to them. The game has a save feature, but this just snapshots your current state and associates it with the last checkpoint you crossed.
Overall, this is a hard, but not too hard, game that can be beaten with some determination. The level design is mostly good at channeling you where you need to go, but there is some very annoying backtracking in the late game (which can be exacerbated if you forget about doors you hadn't opened yet). It lays a foundation that will be expanded upon in future games.
Games Beaten 2026
Re: Games Beaten 2026
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
-
RobertAugustdeMeijer
- 64-bit
- Posts: 319
- Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:15 am
Re: Games Beaten 2026
34: Slay the Princess
No, it's not a straightforward plot. Like The Stanley Parable, you find yourself being steered by a narrator, and your choices will quickly have you interacting as much with said narrator as with your goal. The Princess also has a complicated role. In fact, she's probably the most multifaceted character ever written, which is the point. Your actions shape her attitude, and in turn, the player is given room to contemplate their actions. Perhaps too much, as the desire to muscle your way through every possible prefabricated interaction can be an exhausting exercise. The amount of dialogue, voice acting, and excellent drawings are both intimidating and fascinating. Luckily, the game reaches a satisfying narrative climax after only a handful of playthroughs. Those who continue to enjoy digging into labyrinthine conversations about ethics and choice, can play over and over a staggering amount of times.
8/10
No, it's not a straightforward plot. Like The Stanley Parable, you find yourself being steered by a narrator, and your choices will quickly have you interacting as much with said narrator as with your goal. The Princess also has a complicated role. In fact, she's probably the most multifaceted character ever written, which is the point. Your actions shape her attitude, and in turn, the player is given room to contemplate their actions. Perhaps too much, as the desire to muscle your way through every possible prefabricated interaction can be an exhausting exercise. The amount of dialogue, voice acting, and excellent drawings are both intimidating and fascinating. Luckily, the game reaches a satisfying narrative climax after only a handful of playthroughs. Those who continue to enjoy digging into labyrinthine conversations about ethics and choice, can play over and over a staggering amount of times.
8/10
Re: Games Beaten 2026
1. Dead Space (2023) - PC
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS5
5. Stellar Blade - PS5
6. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Switch
7. Silent Hill 2 (2024) - PC
8. Silent Hill f - PC
9. Resident Evil Requiem - PC
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis
11. Sins of a Solar Empire II - PC
12. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! - PC
13. Gauntlet Dark Legacy - GC
14. A Street Cat's Tale 2: Outside is Dangerous - Switch
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - SNES
16. Dragon's Crown - PS3
17. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - PS3
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara - PS3
19. Shadow Hearts - PS2
20. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred - PC
21. Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2
22. Dark Cloud - PS2
23. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Chaos Reign - PC
24. Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
25. Arkos 2 - PC
26. Metal Gear - MSX
27. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake - MSX
Metal Gear 2 was developed when Hideo Kojima learned that Konami was making an NES sequel to the first due to demand, without his involvement. So he built his own dev team and made his own Metal Gear sequel, and is the one he considers canonical. It's a significant evolution over the first, on the level of the evolution between Super Mario 1 and Super Mario 3.
The game is set three years after the first game. The world has engaged in nuclear disarmament, but all the nukes ended up in the small country of Zanzibar Land, somehow, utterly destroying the balance of power. At the same time, a scientist has developed a microbe known as OILIX that can refine crude oil at a far higher rate than traditional methods, greatly extending the expected life of our fossil fuel reserves. This scientist is captured en route to a conference and taken to Zanzibar Land. Solid Snake must infiltrate Zanzibar Land and exfiltrate the doctor. However, things become more complicated as he learns more about what's going on.
Like the first game, it's a screen-based, top-down stealth game. You must move around, avoiding enemies, finding key items, and making your way deeper into the base. You can talk to various people back at base using your transceiver; this is an important source of information that is much better used than the first game. Several of the environmental puzzles have hints given through this transceiver, vs the first game just locking two key items behind activating the transceiver at the right moments.
The game has made significant improvements to the stealth component. Enemy sprites are better drawn, making it much more obvious which ways they are facing. Enemies now have vision cones, so this is especially important. Room layouts are also much better for stealth flow. Finally, you have the ability to crawl. This allows you to duck into vents and crevasses to hide from enemies, as well as crawl under tables and vehicles. Crawling also means you don't make noise when moving across loud surfaces. In addition to gunfire, enemies also will notice if you punch a wall or walk on certain floors, giving another way for enemies to discover you.
Enemy behavior has also been enhanced. Enemies can now move across screens on their patrols, and will move around when offscreen. This can be seen on the radar in the upper right corner, which shows the current screen and the eight surrounding ones, plus the positions of all enemies. The binoculars become very important in this game, as you need to check that an enemy isn't going to be facing your entry point onto the next screen (which was guaranteed based on placements in the first, but here the enemies are dynamic). If you are detected, the whole base goes on alert, and enemies spawn infinitely. Your radar map disappears and instead gives you a status of the alert. While you are visible to enemies, the alert is constantly active. You must screen transition, sometimes multiple times, and get out of sight. The alert level will drop to a middle level, where up to two enemies will spawn on the current screen and do a slow search while a timer ticks down. If they find you, the alert goes back up. Otherwise, once the timer goes to zero the alert goes away entirely. This makes stealthing more important, but you have the tools to match.
The game has more key items to solve various gates, though some of this can get overly complex. One puzzle requires you to get an owl, which hatches from an egg, but another egg hatches a snake. The snake will crawl through your inventory and eat your ration, and you need to get rid of the snake in a specific way. Speaking of rations, there are three different kinds, which each are used as key items in certain puzzles. It adds unnecessary clutter, as the game always makes the required ones obtainable close to where they are required. And the hang glider sequence is something you are unlikely to figure out, even with the in-game hints.
Overall, it's an extremely well put together game that ups the mechanics of the first and has a significant amount of storytelling for a game of the era that isn't an RPG. There are dedicated segments where characters will just talk about their backstory during a lull in the action and is a harbinger of the trend we will see much later of having significant story in our action games, and not just our RPGs.
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS5
5. Stellar Blade - PS5
6. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Switch
7. Silent Hill 2 (2024) - PC
8. Silent Hill f - PC
9. Resident Evil Requiem - PC
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis
11. Sins of a Solar Empire II - PC
12. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! - PC
13. Gauntlet Dark Legacy - GC
14. A Street Cat's Tale 2: Outside is Dangerous - Switch
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - SNES
16. Dragon's Crown - PS3
17. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - PS3
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara - PS3
19. Shadow Hearts - PS2
20. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred - PC
21. Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2
22. Dark Cloud - PS2
23. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Chaos Reign - PC
24. Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
25. Arkos 2 - PC
26. Metal Gear - MSX
27. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake - MSX
Metal Gear 2 was developed when Hideo Kojima learned that Konami was making an NES sequel to the first due to demand, without his involvement. So he built his own dev team and made his own Metal Gear sequel, and is the one he considers canonical. It's a significant evolution over the first, on the level of the evolution between Super Mario 1 and Super Mario 3.
The game is set three years after the first game. The world has engaged in nuclear disarmament, but all the nukes ended up in the small country of Zanzibar Land, somehow, utterly destroying the balance of power. At the same time, a scientist has developed a microbe known as OILIX that can refine crude oil at a far higher rate than traditional methods, greatly extending the expected life of our fossil fuel reserves. This scientist is captured en route to a conference and taken to Zanzibar Land. Solid Snake must infiltrate Zanzibar Land and exfiltrate the doctor. However, things become more complicated as he learns more about what's going on.
Like the first game, it's a screen-based, top-down stealth game. You must move around, avoiding enemies, finding key items, and making your way deeper into the base. You can talk to various people back at base using your transceiver; this is an important source of information that is much better used than the first game. Several of the environmental puzzles have hints given through this transceiver, vs the first game just locking two key items behind activating the transceiver at the right moments.
The game has made significant improvements to the stealth component. Enemy sprites are better drawn, making it much more obvious which ways they are facing. Enemies now have vision cones, so this is especially important. Room layouts are also much better for stealth flow. Finally, you have the ability to crawl. This allows you to duck into vents and crevasses to hide from enemies, as well as crawl under tables and vehicles. Crawling also means you don't make noise when moving across loud surfaces. In addition to gunfire, enemies also will notice if you punch a wall or walk on certain floors, giving another way for enemies to discover you.
Enemy behavior has also been enhanced. Enemies can now move across screens on their patrols, and will move around when offscreen. This can be seen on the radar in the upper right corner, which shows the current screen and the eight surrounding ones, plus the positions of all enemies. The binoculars become very important in this game, as you need to check that an enemy isn't going to be facing your entry point onto the next screen (which was guaranteed based on placements in the first, but here the enemies are dynamic). If you are detected, the whole base goes on alert, and enemies spawn infinitely. Your radar map disappears and instead gives you a status of the alert. While you are visible to enemies, the alert is constantly active. You must screen transition, sometimes multiple times, and get out of sight. The alert level will drop to a middle level, where up to two enemies will spawn on the current screen and do a slow search while a timer ticks down. If they find you, the alert goes back up. Otherwise, once the timer goes to zero the alert goes away entirely. This makes stealthing more important, but you have the tools to match.
The game has more key items to solve various gates, though some of this can get overly complex. One puzzle requires you to get an owl, which hatches from an egg, but another egg hatches a snake. The snake will crawl through your inventory and eat your ration, and you need to get rid of the snake in a specific way. Speaking of rations, there are three different kinds, which each are used as key items in certain puzzles. It adds unnecessary clutter, as the game always makes the required ones obtainable close to where they are required. And the hang glider sequence is something you are unlikely to figure out, even with the in-game hints.
Overall, it's an extremely well put together game that ups the mechanics of the first and has a significant amount of storytelling for a game of the era that isn't an RPG. There are dedicated segments where characters will just talk about their backstory during a lull in the action and is a harbinger of the trend we will see much later of having significant story in our action games, and not just our RPGs.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Re: Games Beaten 2026
1. Dead Space (2023) - PC
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS5
5. Stellar Blade - PS5
6. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Switch
7. Silent Hill 2 (2024) - PC
8. Silent Hill f - PC
9. Resident Evil Requiem - PC
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis
11. Sins of a Solar Empire II - PC
12. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! - PC
13. Gauntlet Dark Legacy - GC
14. A Street Cat's Tale 2: Outside is Dangerous - Switch
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - SNES
16. Dragon's Crown - PS3
17. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - PS3
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara - PS3
19. Shadow Hearts - PS2
20. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred - PC
21. Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2
22. Dark Cloud - PS2
23. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Chaos Reign - PC
24. Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
25. Arkos 2 - PC
26. Metal Gear - MSX
27. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake - MSX
28. Metal Gear (NES) - NES
The NES port of Metal Gear is mostly the original game, but there are some notable differences. The core gameplay loop is the same, as well as the core plot. As I understand it, Kojima was quite annoyed with how the NES port turned out, and I can see where he's coming from, as it is overall a compromised experience.
The first change is one you'll see right away. Instead of starting in the enemy base, you start in the jungle. This seems intended to show you how stealth works, but this section is shockingly punishing. You go through a narrow jungle path and must precisely time movements to not alert enemies. It seems that you have reduced i-frames compared to the MSX version, so you can very quickly get killed in this opener. At the end of this segment, you'll jump into a truck and go to the first building of the game. This is where the game starts to match the MSX original, though this also introduces to you the idea of using trucks to move around (which did exist in the original, but as an end-game trap to frustrate you).
Most of the game is the same from this point forward, though a few room layouts get modified. One thing you'll notice is the enemy sprites are redrawn to be a bit easier to tell facing on, which is nice. Another thing you'll notice is a lot more enemies will be facing entryways, leading to instant alerts. The alert system has been downgraded to just enemies being hostile on one screen, so it's much easier to evade once you've been detected; just do a screen transition. There is one major segment that gets completely removed; the basement maze after Shot Gunner has been taken away, and the key doors are just in an accessible corridor. Upon exiting, you see the next difference; segments that had previously been part of the basements of the two main buildings are instead split off into a separate complex that is accessed from the couple of overland traversal parts of the MSX game. This is where the real fuckery is; these segments are Lost Woods style screens, where you need to take a specific set of exits to get to this critical set of buildings. However, as far as I can tell there is nothing in game that tells you how to solve this puzzle. You can try and trial and error it, but good luck with that given the permutation space. You pretty much have to look it up, and it's part of the critical path if you don't exploit a bug in the penultimate "fight". I use air quotes there because unlike the original, you don't actually blow-up Metal Gear. You just blow up a computer, after shooting four regular guys in the room.
Overall, the game ends up being a bit harder; beyond the opening, the checkpoints are placed quite as well due to how they split those basements out into their own area, to say nothing of the Lost Woods stuff. And removing the Metal Gear fight is unnecessary; I'm guessing it was technical reasons. This game meets the definition of compromised port, and it's not hard to see why it's been the MSX version that's been ported ever since.
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS5
5. Stellar Blade - PS5
6. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Switch
7. Silent Hill 2 (2024) - PC
8. Silent Hill f - PC
9. Resident Evil Requiem - PC
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis
11. Sins of a Solar Empire II - PC
12. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! - PC
13. Gauntlet Dark Legacy - GC
14. A Street Cat's Tale 2: Outside is Dangerous - Switch
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - SNES
16. Dragon's Crown - PS3
17. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - PS3
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara - PS3
19. Shadow Hearts - PS2
20. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred - PC
21. Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2
22. Dark Cloud - PS2
23. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Chaos Reign - PC
24. Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
25. Arkos 2 - PC
26. Metal Gear - MSX
27. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake - MSX
28. Metal Gear (NES) - NES
The NES port of Metal Gear is mostly the original game, but there are some notable differences. The core gameplay loop is the same, as well as the core plot. As I understand it, Kojima was quite annoyed with how the NES port turned out, and I can see where he's coming from, as it is overall a compromised experience.
The first change is one you'll see right away. Instead of starting in the enemy base, you start in the jungle. This seems intended to show you how stealth works, but this section is shockingly punishing. You go through a narrow jungle path and must precisely time movements to not alert enemies. It seems that you have reduced i-frames compared to the MSX version, so you can very quickly get killed in this opener. At the end of this segment, you'll jump into a truck and go to the first building of the game. This is where the game starts to match the MSX original, though this also introduces to you the idea of using trucks to move around (which did exist in the original, but as an end-game trap to frustrate you).
Most of the game is the same from this point forward, though a few room layouts get modified. One thing you'll notice is the enemy sprites are redrawn to be a bit easier to tell facing on, which is nice. Another thing you'll notice is a lot more enemies will be facing entryways, leading to instant alerts. The alert system has been downgraded to just enemies being hostile on one screen, so it's much easier to evade once you've been detected; just do a screen transition. There is one major segment that gets completely removed; the basement maze after Shot Gunner has been taken away, and the key doors are just in an accessible corridor. Upon exiting, you see the next difference; segments that had previously been part of the basements of the two main buildings are instead split off into a separate complex that is accessed from the couple of overland traversal parts of the MSX game. This is where the real fuckery is; these segments are Lost Woods style screens, where you need to take a specific set of exits to get to this critical set of buildings. However, as far as I can tell there is nothing in game that tells you how to solve this puzzle. You can try and trial and error it, but good luck with that given the permutation space. You pretty much have to look it up, and it's part of the critical path if you don't exploit a bug in the penultimate "fight". I use air quotes there because unlike the original, you don't actually blow-up Metal Gear. You just blow up a computer, after shooting four regular guys in the room.
Overall, the game ends up being a bit harder; beyond the opening, the checkpoints are placed quite as well due to how they split those basements out into their own area, to say nothing of the Lost Woods stuff. And removing the Metal Gear fight is unnecessary; I'm guessing it was technical reasons. This game meets the definition of compromised port, and it's not hard to see why it's been the MSX version that's been ported ever since.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Re: Games Beaten 2026
1. Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (FPS)(PC)
2. Doom 3 (FPS)(PC)
3. V Rising (Adventure)(PC)
4. Teardown (Action)(PC)
5. Control: Ultimate Edition (Action)(PC)
6. Peak (Adventure)(PC)
7. The Exit 8 (Horror)(PC)
8. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (RPG)(PC)
9. Killing Time: Resurrected (FPS)(PC)
10. Darkenstein 3D (FPS)(PC)
11. Metal Garden (FPS)(PC)
12. Caput Mortum (Horror)(PC)
13. Corridor 7: Alien Invasion (FPS)(PC)
14. Extraneum (FPS)(PC)
15. Dead Trash (FPS)(PC)
16. Dead Trash: Operation Yellow Snow (FPS)(PC)
17. Withering Rooms (Action)(PC)
18. Green Hell (Adventure)(PC)
19. Stray (Adventure)(PC)
20. Post Void (FPS)(PC)
21. Kiosk (Horror)(PC)
22. Gnomdom (Puzzle)(PC)
23. Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library (Puzzle)(PC)
24. Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion (FPS)(PC)
25. Vital Shell (Action)(PC)
26. Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (FPS)(PC)
27. Slayers X (FPS)(PC)
28. PO'ed (FPS)(PC)
29. Marathon 2: Durandal (FPS)(PC)
30. Green Hell: Spirits of Amazonia (Adventure)(PC)
31. Call of Duty: World at War (FPS)(PC)
Marathon 2: Durandal
Marathon 2 picks up seventeen years after the first Marathon, though for you it feels like immediately afterwards. Hypersleep will do that to you, I suppose. You're back to fighting the Pfhor, but this time you're in the S'pht homeworld, there is an active resistance being in part run by fellow humans rescued from the Pfhor, and you have the AI Durandal giving you orders. And Durandal also wants to be a god, so...yeah.
Gameplay is generally similar to the first Marathon. You enter a level, get an objective from the computer monitor, do the objective, find the monitor that teleports you to the next level. Sometimes, it's a quick job that means you can skip most of the level. Other times, you're gonna be switch hunting for a bit. In general, though, level design has improved from the original, with forced damage sections only occurring towards the end, and almost always with a nearby healing station to take some of the edge off.
The gunplay has seen some minor changes as well, though mostly improvements. You can now wield both fists at the same time as well as two pistols or two sawed off shotguns. Those shotguns are powerful too, and while ammo is limited for most of the game, they delete almost anything that gets in your way. Double pistols was a favorite tactic for me, and weapons like the napalm thrower and rocket launcher are great. The assault rifle is too inaccurate to truly stand out, but it still gets an underslung grenade launcher worth using, and the plasma pistol is a requirement for many foes. The only weapon that takes a backslide is the alien rifle, which goes from a hitscan stun locking machine gun to a weird projectile flamethrower that never felt as fun to use as its original incarnation.
There are also some fun levels in the mix, requiring you root out exploding cyborgs hidden amongst the human survivors or clearing out an alien ship and unlocking it so your guys can use it to escape. The final fight even turns into a nasty free for all against a horde of foes that was frankly a lot of fun, even as I got messed up more than once.
I liked Marathon 2 much more than the original. I'm willing to check out the third in the future.
Green Hell: Spirits of Amazonia
This is the expansion for the survival game Green Hell, though it's even more content, expanding with far more maps, more tribes to work alongside, and more puzzles to figure out. It also adds a huge new juggernaut of a enemy tribesman who can hit you with a giant ax and send you flying. They wear helmets like the giant flying head in Zardoz.
That said, it doesn't really alter much about the game. If you enjoy Green Hell, then you'll probably enjoy the expansion. If you didn't, this won't substantially improve that.
Call of Duty: World at War
So, Call of Duty started as a World War 2 FPS series. Then it went to the modern era. It makes sense; the market was flooded: Wolfenstein, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Brothers in Arms, just to name a few series of the 2000s that were WW2 for at least part of it. So, with CoD4, they went and did Modern Warfare...and a new problem showed up as the market for "modern" shooters got flooded, but that's a story for a different time.
The Modern Warfare flow of gameplay is simple: shoot from cover, rush to next cover, throw back inevitable grenade, wait for your AI buddies to catch up, shoot from cover. It is a constant push, push, push, because if you don't push, you'll eventually be run over by the neverending stream of enemies. So you push to take objectives yourself and hope your allies can at least provide covering fore...which they won't. World at War takes this and sets it in WW2.
Beyond that, it's more classic Call of Duty. You get two ongoing campaigns, split between a US Marine in the Pacific and a Soviet soldier on the Eastern Front of Europe. I don't think CoD touched the Pacific theater much in previous games, but the Medal of Honor series did, and WaW doesn't really do much to distinguish itself from them. The Soviet campaign...well, it feels like it's a "Best Of" take on previous Soviet campaigns, particularly from the original Call of Duty. Yes, you're going to revisit Stalingrad. You'll even hide among dead men in a fountain and then help a Russian sniper. You have done this before.
Does the shooting feel good? Yes, though the range on things like the flamethrower is questionable. There is also a melee option to survive being bayoneted by Japanese troops, but I found it spotty at best; better to simply back away and shoot than rely on a touchy mechanic. The same goes for taking out dogs, which happens a couple of times with the Soviet campaign. On the upside, stabbing someone else is quick and easy, so feel free to knife someone who gets in your face.
World at War also included a big emphasis on multiplayer and their new mode, Nazi Zombies. Nazi Zombies is about holing up in a location, shooting zombies in the head for cash, then using that cash to unlock better weapons, repair defenses, restock, etc. It's a novel idea, but it gets dull fast when it's just you playing, and I've seen this done better in other places since then. Still, it could make for a fun evening with friends.
World at War is a fine game if you like the Call of Duty franchise. But it feels stale, from a time when its setting was old hat. I suppose I should note that in the nearly 20 years since World at War's release, the CoD franchise has only gone back to WW2 twice, and that was when developer Sledgehammer Games took the reins, not either Infinity Ward or Treyarch.
2. Doom 3 (FPS)(PC)
3. V Rising (Adventure)(PC)
4. Teardown (Action)(PC)
5. Control: Ultimate Edition (Action)(PC)
6. Peak (Adventure)(PC)
7. The Exit 8 (Horror)(PC)
8. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (RPG)(PC)
9. Killing Time: Resurrected (FPS)(PC)
10. Darkenstein 3D (FPS)(PC)
11. Metal Garden (FPS)(PC)
12. Caput Mortum (Horror)(PC)
13. Corridor 7: Alien Invasion (FPS)(PC)
14. Extraneum (FPS)(PC)
15. Dead Trash (FPS)(PC)
16. Dead Trash: Operation Yellow Snow (FPS)(PC)
17. Withering Rooms (Action)(PC)
18. Green Hell (Adventure)(PC)
19. Stray (Adventure)(PC)
20. Post Void (FPS)(PC)
21. Kiosk (Horror)(PC)
22. Gnomdom (Puzzle)(PC)
23. Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library (Puzzle)(PC)
24. Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion (FPS)(PC)
25. Vital Shell (Action)(PC)
26. Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (FPS)(PC)
27. Slayers X (FPS)(PC)
28. PO'ed (FPS)(PC)
29. Marathon 2: Durandal (FPS)(PC)
30. Green Hell: Spirits of Amazonia (Adventure)(PC)
31. Call of Duty: World at War (FPS)(PC)
Marathon 2: Durandal
Marathon 2 picks up seventeen years after the first Marathon, though for you it feels like immediately afterwards. Hypersleep will do that to you, I suppose. You're back to fighting the Pfhor, but this time you're in the S'pht homeworld, there is an active resistance being in part run by fellow humans rescued from the Pfhor, and you have the AI Durandal giving you orders. And Durandal also wants to be a god, so...yeah.
Gameplay is generally similar to the first Marathon. You enter a level, get an objective from the computer monitor, do the objective, find the monitor that teleports you to the next level. Sometimes, it's a quick job that means you can skip most of the level. Other times, you're gonna be switch hunting for a bit. In general, though, level design has improved from the original, with forced damage sections only occurring towards the end, and almost always with a nearby healing station to take some of the edge off.
The gunplay has seen some minor changes as well, though mostly improvements. You can now wield both fists at the same time as well as two pistols or two sawed off shotguns. Those shotguns are powerful too, and while ammo is limited for most of the game, they delete almost anything that gets in your way. Double pistols was a favorite tactic for me, and weapons like the napalm thrower and rocket launcher are great. The assault rifle is too inaccurate to truly stand out, but it still gets an underslung grenade launcher worth using, and the plasma pistol is a requirement for many foes. The only weapon that takes a backslide is the alien rifle, which goes from a hitscan stun locking machine gun to a weird projectile flamethrower that never felt as fun to use as its original incarnation.
There are also some fun levels in the mix, requiring you root out exploding cyborgs hidden amongst the human survivors or clearing out an alien ship and unlocking it so your guys can use it to escape. The final fight even turns into a nasty free for all against a horde of foes that was frankly a lot of fun, even as I got messed up more than once.
I liked Marathon 2 much more than the original. I'm willing to check out the third in the future.
Green Hell: Spirits of Amazonia
This is the expansion for the survival game Green Hell, though it's even more content, expanding with far more maps, more tribes to work alongside, and more puzzles to figure out. It also adds a huge new juggernaut of a enemy tribesman who can hit you with a giant ax and send you flying. They wear helmets like the giant flying head in Zardoz.
That said, it doesn't really alter much about the game. If you enjoy Green Hell, then you'll probably enjoy the expansion. If you didn't, this won't substantially improve that.
Call of Duty: World at War
So, Call of Duty started as a World War 2 FPS series. Then it went to the modern era. It makes sense; the market was flooded: Wolfenstein, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Brothers in Arms, just to name a few series of the 2000s that were WW2 for at least part of it. So, with CoD4, they went and did Modern Warfare...and a new problem showed up as the market for "modern" shooters got flooded, but that's a story for a different time.
The Modern Warfare flow of gameplay is simple: shoot from cover, rush to next cover, throw back inevitable grenade, wait for your AI buddies to catch up, shoot from cover. It is a constant push, push, push, because if you don't push, you'll eventually be run over by the neverending stream of enemies. So you push to take objectives yourself and hope your allies can at least provide covering fore...which they won't. World at War takes this and sets it in WW2.
Beyond that, it's more classic Call of Duty. You get two ongoing campaigns, split between a US Marine in the Pacific and a Soviet soldier on the Eastern Front of Europe. I don't think CoD touched the Pacific theater much in previous games, but the Medal of Honor series did, and WaW doesn't really do much to distinguish itself from them. The Soviet campaign...well, it feels like it's a "Best Of" take on previous Soviet campaigns, particularly from the original Call of Duty. Yes, you're going to revisit Stalingrad. You'll even hide among dead men in a fountain and then help a Russian sniper. You have done this before.
Does the shooting feel good? Yes, though the range on things like the flamethrower is questionable. There is also a melee option to survive being bayoneted by Japanese troops, but I found it spotty at best; better to simply back away and shoot than rely on a touchy mechanic. The same goes for taking out dogs, which happens a couple of times with the Soviet campaign. On the upside, stabbing someone else is quick and easy, so feel free to knife someone who gets in your face.
World at War also included a big emphasis on multiplayer and their new mode, Nazi Zombies. Nazi Zombies is about holing up in a location, shooting zombies in the head for cash, then using that cash to unlock better weapons, repair defenses, restock, etc. It's a novel idea, but it gets dull fast when it's just you playing, and I've seen this done better in other places since then. Still, it could make for a fun evening with friends.
World at War is a fine game if you like the Call of Duty franchise. But it feels stale, from a time when its setting was old hat. I suppose I should note that in the nearly 20 years since World at War's release, the CoD franchise has only gone back to WW2 twice, and that was when developer Sledgehammer Games took the reins, not either Infinity Ward or Treyarch.
-
Markies
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 1609
- Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:29 pm
- Location: St. Louis, Missouri
- Contact:
Re: Games Beaten 2026
Markies' Games Beat List Of 2026!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***
1. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
2. Knights of the Round (SNES)
3. Fight'N Rage (NS)
4. Time Stalkers (SDC)
***5. Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster (PS3)***
6. OutRunners (GEN)
***7. Midtown Madness 3 (XBOX)***
8. Phantasy Star Online: Episode I & II (GCN)
9. Pikmin 3 (WiiU)
10. Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)
***11. Evolution 2: Far Off Promise (SDC)***
***12. Mario Golf (N64)***
13. Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis (PS2)
14. Tetris (GB)
15. Double Dribble (NES)
16. Phalanx (SNES)
17. Final Fantasy IV Advance (GBA)
I beat Final Fantasy IV on the Game Boy Advance this afternoon!
One of the perks of being able to play Game Boy Advance games was the ability to replay almost every single of the pixel Final Fantasy games on the console. Last year, I played through Final Fantasy I & II and I absolutely loved it. I thought it was the best way to play both of those original games and I thought they did a lot of improvements to make the experience better. So, later that year, I decided to pick up the next entry as I bought Final Fantasy IV advance. When it came time to pick a long game for the Game Boy Advance, it was a clear and easy choice for me to replay a Final Fantasy game I really enjoyed.
I will always have a soft spot for the SNES version of Final Fantasy IV. It was one of the first RPG's I played when I got into the genre and I have fond memories of playing it after classes while I was in college, many years after the game had been released. Many of things that I enjoyed from that version is still here such as amazing pixel art with incredibly expressive characters. I will always smile when they do that twirly jump. It also has some fantastic music and the beginning of the game is incredibly solid. The game doesn't throw too much at you and you feel strong enough to be able to go through dungeons rather easily.
I played through the Japanese version of Final Fantasy IV and that one had some flaws. The difficulty curve in that version is intense and I don't think the special skills do all that much. Unfortunately, much of that version makes it way into the GBA one. It is hard not to see how many fake outs the game's story has or how many times your party changes after like a single dungeon or two or frankly how weak your characters are throughout the entire game. The last quarter of the game, I had to heal after almost every fight as you don't get strong until the final dungeon just throws tons of weapons and armor at you.
Overall, I have really mixed feelings about Final Fantasy IV Advance. I think there is a solid game here, but I think it leans too much into the Japanese version with its grinding and difficulty. It's hard for me to say anything negative about the game, but my enjoyment of the game seems to dimmer each time that I play through it. The GBA version is a nice middle ground between the easy American version and the hard Japanese version, which is worth a try if you are interested in playing it.
***Denotes Replay For Completion***
1. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
2. Knights of the Round (SNES)
3. Fight'N Rage (NS)
4. Time Stalkers (SDC)
***5. Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster (PS3)***
6. OutRunners (GEN)
***7. Midtown Madness 3 (XBOX)***
8. Phantasy Star Online: Episode I & II (GCN)
9. Pikmin 3 (WiiU)
10. Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)
***11. Evolution 2: Far Off Promise (SDC)***
***12. Mario Golf (N64)***
13. Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis (PS2)
14. Tetris (GB)
15. Double Dribble (NES)
16. Phalanx (SNES)
17. Final Fantasy IV Advance (GBA)
I beat Final Fantasy IV on the Game Boy Advance this afternoon!
One of the perks of being able to play Game Boy Advance games was the ability to replay almost every single of the pixel Final Fantasy games on the console. Last year, I played through Final Fantasy I & II and I absolutely loved it. I thought it was the best way to play both of those original games and I thought they did a lot of improvements to make the experience better. So, later that year, I decided to pick up the next entry as I bought Final Fantasy IV advance. When it came time to pick a long game for the Game Boy Advance, it was a clear and easy choice for me to replay a Final Fantasy game I really enjoyed.
I will always have a soft spot for the SNES version of Final Fantasy IV. It was one of the first RPG's I played when I got into the genre and I have fond memories of playing it after classes while I was in college, many years after the game had been released. Many of things that I enjoyed from that version is still here such as amazing pixel art with incredibly expressive characters. I will always smile when they do that twirly jump. It also has some fantastic music and the beginning of the game is incredibly solid. The game doesn't throw too much at you and you feel strong enough to be able to go through dungeons rather easily.
I played through the Japanese version of Final Fantasy IV and that one had some flaws. The difficulty curve in that version is intense and I don't think the special skills do all that much. Unfortunately, much of that version makes it way into the GBA one. It is hard not to see how many fake outs the game's story has or how many times your party changes after like a single dungeon or two or frankly how weak your characters are throughout the entire game. The last quarter of the game, I had to heal after almost every fight as you don't get strong until the final dungeon just throws tons of weapons and armor at you.
Overall, I have really mixed feelings about Final Fantasy IV Advance. I think there is a solid game here, but I think it leans too much into the Japanese version with its grinding and difficulty. It's hard for me to say anything negative about the game, but my enjoyment of the game seems to dimmer each time that I play through it. The GBA version is a nice middle ground between the easy American version and the hard Japanese version, which is worth a try if you are interested in playing it.
Re: Games Beaten 2026
1. Dead Space (2023) - PC
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS5
5. Stellar Blade - PS5
6. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Switch
7. Silent Hill 2 (2024) - PC
8. Silent Hill f - PC
9. Resident Evil Requiem - PC
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis
11. Sins of a Solar Empire II - PC
12. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! - PC
13. Gauntlet Dark Legacy - GC
14. A Street Cat's Tale 2: Outside is Dangerous - Switch
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - SNES
16. Dragon's Crown - PS3
17. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - PS3
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara - PS3
19. Shadow Hearts - PS2
20. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred - PC
21. Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2
22. Dark Cloud - PS2
23. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Chaos Reign - PC
24. Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
25. Arkos 2 - PC
26. Metal Gear - MSX
27. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake - MSX
28. Metal Gear (NES) - NES
29. Snake's Revenge - NES
The original NES port of Metal Gear did quite well in the west, so Konami commissioned a sequel. When Kojima heard about it, he made his own sequel on the MSX. Snake's Revenge is that NES sequel, and overall, it is a disappointment. There have been several improvements on the technical front, but it leads to a bunch of unfun design decisions that make it far more of a chore to play, with one of the most brutal openings I've ever experienced in a video game. Only trying to beat the intro boss of a Souls game has the same level of challenge.
After the events of the first game, the plans for the Metal Gear have gotten out. You and a small team are infiltrating a new base that has been manufacturing Metal Gears so you can put a stop to them. Along the way, you discover a new model of Metal Gear is being developed, and the mission will culminate in destroying it.
Let's first talk about the changes. The game re-adds the ability from the MSX game to get random ammo and ration drops from enemies you punch out. Alternatively, you can equip a knife, which will one hit kill enemies with a longer reach, but no drops. The ability for enemies to create alerts that last multiple screens has been added back, making infiltration more tense. Unfortunately, the devs utilized this additions in the worst way possible. By about midgame, the game stops giving you fixed ammo and ration spots, so you have to farm enemies for supplies. And those alerts are triggered on every single enemy alert, rather than a chance for it to just be single screen. There is a dearth of transitions that reset that alarm, so you generally have to kill a bunch of guys to do so. As you rank up, more soldiers will appear before the alarm is killed. And in the late game, special enemies will spawn, like grenadiers and big golem guys who explode; both of them take multiple shots to take down. The cherry on top is two different spots has the game force you into detection, as you need to blow through walls with plastic explosives, and those are naturally quite loud and alert enemies.
Another change is that instead of being a fairly open facility with a lot of backtracking as you get keys, here you have a series of small areas with points of no return after each one. The areas also tend to be much more linear. You won't get lost much, but it makes things smaller. But the real big change is the addition of a new gameplay mode. Sometimes, you'll enter a side scrolling segment. You only have access to your knife, pistol, plastic explosives, and rations, and need to make it to the other side to progress. These sections are awful. You control very sluggishly, and if you don't approach every screen transition by crawling on the ground you'll almost certainly trigger an alarm and a horde of enemies. Some segments require you to go underwater, which uses an air tank consumable that I hope you thought to stock up on when you saw it available, and usually requires blowing through barriers with the explosives. The floaty jumps can cause you to trigger alarms to get to elevated enemies, and they like to turn around just as you commit.
Overall, the game is harder for the sake of being harder, making it less fun overall. The most egregious of this trend is the invisible pits now appear so fast that you pretty much can't react, sending you to the last checkpoint. Honestly, I would recommend skipping this unless you really want to be a completionist, as it's not an enjoyable experience.
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS5
5. Stellar Blade - PS5
6. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Switch
7. Silent Hill 2 (2024) - PC
8. Silent Hill f - PC
9. Resident Evil Requiem - PC
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis
11. Sins of a Solar Empire II - PC
12. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! - PC
13. Gauntlet Dark Legacy - GC
14. A Street Cat's Tale 2: Outside is Dangerous - Switch
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - SNES
16. Dragon's Crown - PS3
17. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - PS3
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara - PS3
19. Shadow Hearts - PS2
20. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred - PC
21. Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2
22. Dark Cloud - PS2
23. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Chaos Reign - PC
24. Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
25. Arkos 2 - PC
26. Metal Gear - MSX
27. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake - MSX
28. Metal Gear (NES) - NES
29. Snake's Revenge - NES
The original NES port of Metal Gear did quite well in the west, so Konami commissioned a sequel. When Kojima heard about it, he made his own sequel on the MSX. Snake's Revenge is that NES sequel, and overall, it is a disappointment. There have been several improvements on the technical front, but it leads to a bunch of unfun design decisions that make it far more of a chore to play, with one of the most brutal openings I've ever experienced in a video game. Only trying to beat the intro boss of a Souls game has the same level of challenge.
After the events of the first game, the plans for the Metal Gear have gotten out. You and a small team are infiltrating a new base that has been manufacturing Metal Gears so you can put a stop to them. Along the way, you discover a new model of Metal Gear is being developed, and the mission will culminate in destroying it.
Let's first talk about the changes. The game re-adds the ability from the MSX game to get random ammo and ration drops from enemies you punch out. Alternatively, you can equip a knife, which will one hit kill enemies with a longer reach, but no drops. The ability for enemies to create alerts that last multiple screens has been added back, making infiltration more tense. Unfortunately, the devs utilized this additions in the worst way possible. By about midgame, the game stops giving you fixed ammo and ration spots, so you have to farm enemies for supplies. And those alerts are triggered on every single enemy alert, rather than a chance for it to just be single screen. There is a dearth of transitions that reset that alarm, so you generally have to kill a bunch of guys to do so. As you rank up, more soldiers will appear before the alarm is killed. And in the late game, special enemies will spawn, like grenadiers and big golem guys who explode; both of them take multiple shots to take down. The cherry on top is two different spots has the game force you into detection, as you need to blow through walls with plastic explosives, and those are naturally quite loud and alert enemies.
Another change is that instead of being a fairly open facility with a lot of backtracking as you get keys, here you have a series of small areas with points of no return after each one. The areas also tend to be much more linear. You won't get lost much, but it makes things smaller. But the real big change is the addition of a new gameplay mode. Sometimes, you'll enter a side scrolling segment. You only have access to your knife, pistol, plastic explosives, and rations, and need to make it to the other side to progress. These sections are awful. You control very sluggishly, and if you don't approach every screen transition by crawling on the ground you'll almost certainly trigger an alarm and a horde of enemies. Some segments require you to go underwater, which uses an air tank consumable that I hope you thought to stock up on when you saw it available, and usually requires blowing through barriers with the explosives. The floaty jumps can cause you to trigger alarms to get to elevated enemies, and they like to turn around just as you commit.
Overall, the game is harder for the sake of being harder, making it less fun overall. The most egregious of this trend is the invisible pits now appear so fast that you pretty much can't react, sending you to the last checkpoint. Honestly, I would recommend skipping this unless you really want to be a completionist, as it's not an enjoyable experience.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
-
RobertAugustdeMeijer
- 64-bit
- Posts: 319
- Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:15 am
Re: Games Beaten 2026
Great to read you comparing all the Metal Gear games!
Hot take: the series peaked with Metal Gear 2 on MSX until MGS5 came out.
Hot take: the series peaked with Metal Gear 2 on MSX until MGS5 came out.
-
RobertAugustdeMeijer
- 64-bit
- Posts: 319
- Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:15 am
Re: Games Beaten 2026
35: Ultima IV
Probably the best game ever that's hard to recommend. The battles are tedious. Interactions with NPCs are cumbersome and nowadays seem shallow. Oh, and don't expect to understand your spells without the 60-page illustrated manual. Actually, pretty much everything requires you look up what they mean in the other encyclopedic manual. And best keep the cloth map at hand. The contents of the box illustrate the necessary attitude to immerse yourself in this world. Lord British expected you to spend weeks if not months coming to terms with his creation. Doing so not only transports you to a world of magic, but also back to a time with less distractions. A time when getting the latest Ultima meant long nights behind your Apple ii, obsessed. And to be rewarded in spades! Yes, Garriot's imagination is extremely limited by 8-bit processing. But that makes it all the more amazing to see how hard he worked at creating such an ambitious world. To become the avatar, you must flourish in the eight virtues. Perhaps the ninth that acts as a prerequisite is patience. For those who have that, you might find yourself fulfilling an unforgettable adventure.
9/10
Probably the best game ever that's hard to recommend. The battles are tedious. Interactions with NPCs are cumbersome and nowadays seem shallow. Oh, and don't expect to understand your spells without the 60-page illustrated manual. Actually, pretty much everything requires you look up what they mean in the other encyclopedic manual. And best keep the cloth map at hand. The contents of the box illustrate the necessary attitude to immerse yourself in this world. Lord British expected you to spend weeks if not months coming to terms with his creation. Doing so not only transports you to a world of magic, but also back to a time with less distractions. A time when getting the latest Ultima meant long nights behind your Apple ii, obsessed. And to be rewarded in spades! Yes, Garriot's imagination is extremely limited by 8-bit processing. But that makes it all the more amazing to see how hard he worked at creating such an ambitious world. To become the avatar, you must flourish in the eight virtues. Perhaps the ninth that acts as a prerequisite is patience. For those who have that, you might find yourself fulfilling an unforgettable adventure.
9/10
Re: Games Beaten 2026
It is bonkers to me that Snake's Revenge was not released in Japan, and that Castlevania 3 came out in Japan 4 months before Snake's Revenge released in the US. No telling when coding was actually complete, but it's still crazy that release order.