Games Beaten 2012

[dsheinem]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - PC
I enjoyed it. But that's about it, I think it feels clunky most of the time. I feel like it is one of the more overrated games in recent memory.

just like the original!

[pierrot]

NiGHTS is the reason I first got a Saturn. Of all of Sega's franchises, it's the one that I think has been the most unfairly ignored. This remake was very, very well handled.

The directional controls didn't feel--off, to you at all?

[Flake]

NiGHTS is the reason I first got a Saturn. Of all of Sega's franchises, it's the one that I think has been the most unfairly ignored. This remake was very, very well handled.

The directional controls didn't feel--off, to you at all?

Only a little bit. I'd have preferred a Saturn 3D controller but the analog stick was serviceable.

[noiseredux]

1. Sonic CD (PSN)
2. Golden Axe Warrior (PS3)
3. Ico (PS3)
4. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (PS3)
5. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
6. SoulBlade (PS1)
7. SoulCalibur II (PS2)
8. The Simpsons Arcade Game (PS3)
9. Sonic Sega All-Stars Racing (PS3)
10. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (PS3)
11. Ys I (PSP)
12. Heavy Rain (PS3)
13. Street Fighter x Tekken (PS3)
14. King of Fighters XIII (PS3)
15. Knights of the Round (PS2)
16. Journey (PSN)
17. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition (PS3)
18. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PS1)
19. Skullgirls (PSN)
20. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (PS2)
21. Abobo's Big Adventure (PC)
22. Adventure (PC)
23. Wolfenstein 3D (PSN)
24. Pac-Man Championship Edition (360)
25. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360)
26. Garou: Mark of the Wolves (XBLA)
27. X-Men (XBLA)
28. Cthulhu Saves the World (XBLA)
29. DoDonPachi Resurrection - Novice Mode (360)
30. Mushihimisama Futari - Novice Mode (360)
31. Deathsmiles IIX (360)
32. The King of Fighters Evolution (DC)
33. Deathsmiles (360)
34. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (DC)
35. Maniac Mansion Deluxe (PC)
36. SoulCalibur (DC)
37. Exmortis (PC)
38. D (Sat)

D arrived today with about a dozen games. I popped it in to make sure it worked... and two hours later I had beaten it, jaw on the floor, mind fucking blown. I plan a full write-up on my blog later. But for now I will just say that this game is amazing and I plan to check out the rest of series as well.

[J T]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (1/12) PC
Mirror's Edge (1/18) PC
Medal of Honor [2010] (1/23) PC
Puzzle Agent 2 (2/2) PC
Dinner Date (2/15) PC
NyxQuest (2/19) PC
Dear Esther (2/20) PC
The Stanley Parable (2/21) PC
To The Moon (2/26) PC
Escape Goat (6/16) PC
Rayman Origins (6/17) PC
Robot Pinball Escape (6/18) PC
Offspring Fling (7/16) PC
The Darkness II (7/30) PC
Thomas Was Alone (8/22) PC
Thirteen Flights of Loving (8/23) PC
Corril Slayer (8/27) PC
Sleeping Dogs (10/02) PC
Alice: Madness Returns (10/16) PC

Alice: Madness Returns has some of the best art direction I've seen in a game yet. The visuals are just stunning throughout the game and range from bright and magical to dark and disturbing. The melee gameplay is also quite good. The platforming is ok, though with a triple jump and float ability, you are almost too powerful. And for things to be out of reach, they have to be really far out of reach, which means the levels are huge. It was kind of a strange experience playing this game because I loved the artwork, I loved combat, and I liked the music. I just somehow frequently felt that the game was too long. It feels padded, or something. There's just an awful lot of walking around and solving little non-challenging puzzles, and airy platforming. Ultimately, I like the game, but I'd have to give this one a 4/5 stars despite having some of my favorite graphics in the modern era.

Here's a ton of screenshots I took while playing.

[SamuraiMegas]

Infamous 2 hero playthrough
That ending was SHIT.

[Gamerforlife]

Games beaten so far:
1. Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again - DSiWare (Gold Star save file)
2. Sonic Generations - PS3
3. Super Mario 3D Land - 3DS (with a five glittering star save file)
4. Starship Defense (All no SOS perfects) - DSiWare
5. Soul of Darkness - DSiWare
6. Mutant Mudds (All crystals and water sprouts) - 3DS Eshop
7. The Simpsons Arcade (US Version) - PS3
8. DodoGo! - DSiWare - (Golden egg on every stage)
9. Mass Effect 2 - 360 (Insanity mode difficulty with Sentinel class)
10. Mass Effect 3 - 360 (Insanity mode with Adept)
11. Final Fantasy XIII-2 - PS3 (Platinum trophy)
12. Xenoblade Chronicles - Wii
13. The Darkness II - Xbox 360
14. Lollipop Chainsaw - PS3 (Platinum trophy) and 360 version (all achievements)
15. Dust: An Elysian Tale - Xbox Live Arcade
16. Cthulu Saves the World - Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Indie Games)
17. Double Dragon Neon - Xbox 360
18. Mark of the Ninja - Xbox 360
19. Journey - PS3
20. Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit - PS3 version
21. Fez - Xbox 360
22. Code of Princess - 3DS

Sleeping Dogs

Awesome story, awesome races, awesome car chases, awesome on foot chases, there's a lot of fun gameplay elements here. The melee combat is the focus of the game and it's really solid. It's similar to the Batman games, but not as smooth or fluid unfortunately. It does gives you more combat options though and has very cool environmental kills. Far too many melee combat games ignore the environment. This makes combat in Sleeping Dogs far more brutal than anything in Rocksteady's Batman games. On the negative side, the counter system is not quite as refined as the one Rocksteady perfected. An enemy glowing red isn't quite as good of a visual indicator of an incoming attack as the icon that would show up above an enemy's head in the Batman games. Also, the use of quick time events in combat is annoying and makes some enemy attacks feel really cheap. Oh, I hit the wrong button so I take damage. Lame. You never feel like quite the badass in this game that you are in Batman Arkham City. I guess it's fitting, since this is just some cop and not a super hero, but disappointing too. I didn't come away from this game feeling like I was Jet Li. As good as combat is, it's missing a certain something that truly captures the badassness of Asian movie stars. Perhaps no game can truly capture that. Still, it's nice to see any game that isn't just copying the Devil May Cry/Bayonetta school of combat and Sleeping does a really good job of giving the combat a real Asian action movie feel.

In fact, every part of the game does that well. The music has that Asian feel. NPCs will yell out stuff in Mandarin at you and main characters in cutscenes will often yell out Chinese slurs, which the game subtitles for you. If you love Asian or Hong Kong cinema and know who Donnie Yen, Tony Jaa and Michelle Yeoh is, you should play this. In fact, this game's story could easily have been a Donnie Yen movie.

One thing that annoyed me a bit with this game is how wonky the manual camera is when you're in a vehicle. Also, the gun fights in this game are mediocre and really drag the experience down quite a bit. This game works just fine as a beat 'em up and the gunfights are the game at its weakest as they are not nearly as well thought out as the melee combat and the gunplay just feels tacked on. It doesn't even give you as many offensive options as games like Stranglehold or Max Payne. To be fair though, I rarely enjoy shooters and gunfights in Sleeping Dogs contain many of the reasons why. Gunfights just feel like random, chaotic affairs like they do in most shooter games. You never get the interactive equivalent of a finely choreographed firefight where everything plays out fluidly and perfectly like the hospital shootout in Hard Boiled. Stranglehold, Max Payne, and Wet have all failed at properly replicating the bullet ballet that John Woo's best movies have. Again, it may just be the limitations of video game design. The game does so many gameplay elements so exceptionally well smartly and the gunplay is the one part of the game that clearly had no inspiration or creativity put into it. It feels half assed and tacked on. Just a mediocre knock off of games like Uncharted, Gears of War, etc.

Still, looking past those crappy parts, the game as a whole is quite good. The melee combat especially stands out even though it's not perfect. It's still a great deal more inspired than what you'll probably see in other Grand Theft Auto style, open world games. This is really the best example I've seen of an interactive Asian action movie

[J T]

I totally agre on the wonky camera for driving scenes. Usually you can get away without having to use it, but god help you if you ever crash and need to use reverse. The camera goes bananas.

I can't say that I agree with the shooting segments though. I do think the brawling was better executed than the shooting, but I liked running from cover-to-cover and shooting people, and using the slow-motion "face" moves where you vault from cover and take guys out in slow-mo, which continues to stay in slow motion as long as you can keep maintaining headshot accuracy. It was a cool way to make it ok to take gunplay risks and look like a badass leaping through the fire fight and taking out guys left and right, though the game never really required it so you had to bother to learn this technique just for the hell of it rather than due to gameplay demand. I think it may not have translated well to a controller though. I played with a mouse and keyboard and it required such fast and precise movement that I know I would have been dead in the water if I was using an analogue stick instead. Still, I'm glad they focused on the fighting and the fact that they explained guns are illegal in Hong Kong, and therefore hard to come by, gave a good rationale for not having tons of gunplay.

I guess I'm going to have to take up your advice and reinstall Batman.

[Gamerforlife]

I totally agre on the wonky camera for driving scenes. Usually you can get away without having to use it, but god help you if you ever crash and need to use reverse. The camera goes bananas.

I can't say that I agree with the shooting segments though. I do think the brawling was better executed than the shooting, but I liked running from cover-to-cover and shooting people, and using the slow-motion "face" moves where you vault from cover and take guys out in slow-mo, which continues to stay in slow motion as long as you can keep maintaining headshot accuracy. It was a cool way to make it ok to take gunplay risks and look like a badass leaping through the fire fight and taking out guys left and right, though the game never really required it so you had to bother to learn this technique just for the hell of it rather than due to gameplay demand. I think it may not have translated well to a controller though. I played with a mouse and keyboard and it required such fast and precise movement that I know I would have been dead in the water if I was using an analogue stick instead. Still, I'm glad they focused on the fighting and the fact that they explained guns are illegal in Hong Kong, and therefore hard to come by, gave a good rationale for not having tons of gunplay.

I guess I'm going to have to take up your advice and reinstall Batman.

One thing I like about the Batman games is that they allow you to be offensive. Even when you're not attacking you can stay on the move by using Batman's vault over move and the combat system is built around you constantly attacking or moving. Enemies in Sleeping Dogs block incessantly so you can't stay offensive which I found irritating. Plus, you can't grab many enemy types so ultimately you find that the easiest way to win most fights is just to stand in one spot and wait for people to attack you, then counter. That's the most effective strategy in the game, but it's also slow and boring. I think Sleeping Dogs overemphasizes defense.

[J T]

No, the most effective strategy is to drive a car into the alleyway and run over everyone at the drug bust.