Games Beaten 2014

[BoneSnapDeez]

HowLongtoBeat is a great resource, but the times given to some games leaves me scratching my head. 9 hours is the "rushed" time for Lost Vikings? I'm no pro but I can finish it in 3-4. I guess the more submitted times a game has the closer to an accurate average emerges.

Anyway nice job finishing Wario.

[ExedExes]

I'm no pro but I can finish it in 3-4.

You're the LV pro.

[BoneSnapDeez]

The cubex55 longplay on YouTube is 2.5 hours (Amiga). I'm not a pro like that guy so I'd say toss in another hour for my deaths in the last few candy/space levels. 3.5 sounds right.

[SpaceBooger]

01/02/14 A Wolf Among Us E1 - PS3
01/24/14 Injustice Gods Among Us (Campaign) - PS3
02/25/14 Donkey Kong Country Returns - Wii
06/04/14 Batman: Arkham Origins - PS3
06/24/14 Ninja Gaiden - NES

Batman: Arkham Origins
I loved the first Arkham game, the second one threw me off with the open world concept. I did not like the open world idea, it was the first game like that I played, so I would get confused as to what mission I should do and so on. I beat the game, but didn't like all of the side stuff. Arkham Origins was much more fun. While the story was just OK and the game played just like the others, I was able to focus and understand the open world idea and finished many of the side missions before completing the story. I also thought it was awesome that the toughest of the bosses, Deathstroke, was at the beginning of the game. It was kinda cool to struggle early on since it motivated me to upgrade and get better instead of just moving the story forward. Maybe I will go back and give Arkham City another try.

Ninja Gaiden
I have had this game forever and never finished the 3rd act until last night.
My NES is hooked up to the CRT in the basement so it doesn't get played as much as it should (I am working all day and then when I come home I play with the kids, so if I am in the basement at night I am not seeing/hanging out with my wife at all that day). With all of the Retron 5 talk, I remembered that I had a modded oXBOX that was connected via component cables to the HDTV. So I updated it and installed CoinOPS6 and decided to test it with Ninja Gaiden. After realizing there is no lag and the XBOX controller wasn't too bad for NES games I decided to take advantage of the unlimited continues and grind through the game.
I did ok only having to redo a couple acts because the bosses were tough (Act 3). The worst part of the game was Act 6-2 with the two bottomless pit sections. After finally making though it and losing to the 2nd of the final bosses, the next time I made it to the bosses I broke down and used a save state. I know that is cheating, but it took an hour and a ton of continues just to make it through 6-2 the second time. The second of the final bosses gave me the most trouble and the others I figured out pretty quickly. I know I shouldn't have used the save state but it was after 1am and I had to get up for work at 5:30. Save state or not, I am proud to have finally beat this game.

[laurenhiya21]

1/6: Dear Esther (Steam)
1/11: Hydrophobia: Prophecy (Steam)
1/14: Spirit Camera: Cursed Memoir (3DS)
1/26: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS)
2/1: 1,000,000 (Steam)
3/14: Thomas Was Alone (Steam)
3/15: Fairy Bloom Freesia (Steam)
3/22: Suikoden (PS1)
3/25: Wizorb (Steam)
3/28: Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (Steam)
3/29: Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)
3/30: Chibi-Robo! (GC)
3/31: Luigi's Mansion (GC)
4/13: Deponia (GOG)
4/13: Shatter (Steam)
4/14: Rusty's Real Deal Baseball: Cage Match (3DS)
4/19: Super Mario Sunshine (GC)
4/23: Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia (PS2)
4/25: Freddi Fish 3: Case of the Stolen Conch Shell (PC)
4/26: Frogatto & Friends (Desura)
5/6: Persona 4 (PS2)
5/9: The Last Us (PS3)
5/24: Atelier Ayesha: Alchemist of Dusk (PS3)
5/28: Tobe's Vertical Adventure (Steam)
6/2: Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians (Steam)
6/11: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GC)
6/23: Half-Life (Steam)

LoZ: Twilight Princess Thoughts:

Truthfully, I have no clue why I haven't beaten this until recently. I bought it at launch and loved it, but for some reason I would always stop on the 2nd last dungeon. I would then leave it for so long that I had no clue what I was doing so I would restart every time. I hate that old habit of mine >:l

Anyways, I'm so glad I've beaten it now, since I love this game soo much I can't say whether it's my favourite Zelda or not (haven't played enough of them to fairly judge) but it would probably be pretty close. Love the dungeons, the characters, the music, most of the items... Really I think the only thing that I disliked was the final dungeon. It just wasn't very interesting and could get really annoying... but really that's a bit minor if you ask me :V

Overall... great game, love it tons

Half-Life Thoughts:

I am awful at FPSs. I am also awful at platformers. Combine them in one game and you get... me having a tough time getting anywhere! Seriously though, I did have a hard time during many parts of the game, especially when I had to deal with a ton military men or aliens... at times it was overwhelming ;-; (so thankful for being able to save anywhere) I'm still not quite sure whether I enjoyed it or not, but I felt the ending was worth playing for.

[jvalentine98]

In the last month I've beaten Resident Evil Deadly Silence (Chris original mode), and Sonic 2 with all emeralds. Currently playing Deja Vu on GBC

[ExedExes]

1. Metal Gear - NES (February 27)
2. Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault - PC (March 4)
3. Thunderbirds - NES (March 9)
4. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 - Gamecube (March 22)
5. Army Men: Sarge's War -Gamecube (March 22)
6. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas - PC (April 5)
7. Army Men Advance - GBA (April 16)
8. Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death - PC (April 27)
9. Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX - GBA (May 17)
10. Symphony - PC (May 24)
11. Serious Sam: The First Encounter - PC (May 30)
12. The Lost Vikings - GBA (May 31)
13. Star Wars Rebel Squadron II: Rogue Leader - Gamecube (June 21)
14. *NEW* Sonic CD - Android/Mobile (June 24)

You've heard me sing the praises of Sonic CD before, but this mobile version was a fantastic experience. Everything was beautifully ported and even the choice of JP or US soundtrack. I got all the Time Stones too, so the better ending video! I guess now I can play again as Sonic or Tails. Just like all the other Sega mobile ports lately, worth the $3 or $4!

[BogusMeatFactory]

1. We Love Katamari (PS2)
2. Major Minor's Majestic Marching Band (Wii)
3. Mario and Luigi: Dream Team (3DS)
4. Petz: Wildlife Rescue (Wii) (Don't Ask)
5. Flow (PS3)
6. Journey (PS3)
7. Shenmue (DC) (5th completion)
8. Ben There, Dan That (PC)
9. Serena (PC)
10. Graffiti Kingdom (PS2)
11. Bushido Blade (PS1)
12. Super Bomberman (SNES)
13. Metal Gear Solid (PS1)
14. Way of the Samurai (PS2)
15. Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening DX (GBC)
16. Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
17. Dust: An Elysian Tail (PC)
18. Chrono Trigger (SNES)
19. Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)
20. Sonic Adventure DX (GCN) (3rd Completion)
21. Burning Rangers (Saturn) (4th Completion)(Beaten Twice This Year)
22. Quest For Glory (PC)
23. Guacamelee (PC)
24. Sly Cooper and the Thievious Racoonus (PS2)
25. Sid Meier’s Civilization V (PC)
26. Neverhood (PC) (2nd Completion)
27. Mount and Blade: Warband (PC)

Neverhood

After enthusing about adventure games once again with Stark, I convinced myself to load up my copy of, "The Neverhood," once again to relive my nostalgic memories. I played this game initially when I was in middle school. A dear friend of mine had it and let me play it. I had to immediately borrow it from him and dig into with a fervor.

The claymation still to this day is astounding. There is so many unique and superfluous animations that ooze charm out of this game. Also, how can a very simple game convey such character and connection. Playing as Klaymen, you have to figure out what is happening in this empty world of the Neverhood and fix it. Little cassettes you get fill you in on what happened while you were asleep. The story of the world's creation really strike a heart string as you play through it. I mean....Bill the Robot is single handedly the best character in the game and what happens to him....well.....I won't spoil it.

Mount and Blade: Warband

This is an open world game, very similar to Sid Meier's Pirates!, but with a larger focus on medieval combat and politics. I played a small time lord working up the ranks for the kingdom of Swadia as I helped stave pf bandits and open up trade routes, as well as help in the ongoing war with other countries in an attempt to unite the continent. After roughly 70 hours of playing, I finally achieved that goal. I was able to help our nation conquer the continent and bring peace to the world! It was an uphill battle and there was a lot of awesome experiences along the way. It was a ton of fun.

Now to play a female character and strike out on my own, starting an upstart faction!

[Sload Soap]

Moar games. Spoilered for extreme wordiness.

Game Dev Tycoon (PC)

The only android game I've ever put any decent time into was Kariosoft's Game Dev Story, a cute but simple sim/strategy where you run your own imaginary game studio. Game Dev Tycoon is near enough the same thing with slightly less charm but slightly more features.

You start off in the late seventies (I guess) bashing away on what looks like a BBC Micro in your mum's garage making simple games with no sound sometimes with no graphics. You might get lucky and have a hit on your hands whisking you away from your squalid beginnings to a plush office with your own team making big money budgeted games for millions of fans around the world.

Or at least that's what the game sells itself as. In actuality though the game is governed by strict algorithms that make it near impossible to play the game the way you want to play it and not go bankrupt.

My first attempt met failure pretty early on. I moved to a new office, got two new staff and produced a semi-successful Racing/Action game called Road Racing: Also, Jet Skis. It got rave reviews 8's and 9's across the board. Of course the game doesn't say why it got those reviews, but it did all the same. So okay, sequel time. Road Racing II hits the shelves: 3's and 4's. How odd I think. I'd created a new engine for the game with better sound and graphics, all that. So why the poor scores? Dunno, game doesn't say.The poor sales combined with my staffs exorbitant wages soon put that company in the ground. So I start again.

This time I look up a wiki to see where I went wrong and find out that the invisible coding of the game prevents you from achieving higher review score (and thus better sales) based on some arcane percentage based algorithm. Even if you do add more features to a sequel you can actually be penalised for adding too many features.

The wiki advises that you milk your audience by alternating between RPG/Fantasy and RPG/Medieval games adding ONE new feature each time while slightly training my staff up in the downtime. And guess what? I made four billion dollars doing that. Then it dawned on me. My eyes widened, I sat back and realised "holy shit, I've become SquareEnix!". And I wept.

Some people have said it's supposed to be a deliberate parody of the gaming industry. I don't agree. Sometimes that oddball combination is what takes the world by storm or at least can be a modest success. Something like, oh I don't know, a sim game based on running a game company. It wouldn't matter if it were parody anyway: even if you get the joke it isn't that funny and there's still 5+hours of menus to click through until you get to the end.

Long and short of it is that Game Dev Tycoon is frustrating if you try and play it how you want (your knowledge of gaming trends means nothing here), or boring if you play the game how it wants.

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (Xbox)

Castlevania games in three dimensions have a generally poor reputation so there was a bit of trepidation when booting this up. Having beat it I can say that, although not without its flaws, Curse of Darkness is as close to a proper 3D rendition of Castlevania as you're likely to get.

Curse of Darkness follows on somewhat from Castlevanis 3: Dracula's Curse (there's a theme here...) and tells the story of Hector and his spectacularly camp nemesis Isaac both of whom are Devil forge masters. This basically gives them the power to make less cute Pokemon. Or regular Digimon. Hector can use these "innocent devils" to help him open doors, cross ravines, heal up and generally kick ass. There are five main types of devil with one bonus unlockable variant. To make things more interesting each Devil will evolve and change depending on which weapons Hector uses in battle. So using a sword a lot with your Battle-mon will eventually lead to having a badass sword wielding skeleton knight fighting by your side. To add even more malleability at certain points your current Devils will birth a new devil with slightly higher base stats that you can then take down a different evolutionary path should you so wish. If you have OCD, prepare for the long haul.

The rub of the gimmick though is that it can make combat a bit easy. Your Devil uses the Vania staple hearts gauge as its life meter. Doing special moves depletes that meter and thus its health. But on regular enemies you probably won't have any need to use a special and they rarely target your devil so you essentially have an indestructible fighting companion with you at all times. That and certain doors or passages can only be passed with certain configurations of Devil so again, if you have the desire to explore absolutely everything, good luck because it'll take a while.

Not that there is a enormous amount of exploration. The game is split into long fairly linear levels punctuated by a boss battle. This isn't Symphony of the Night even if Konami are trying to pretend it is with it's similar in game map, RPG like character progression and teleporter system. It's more like it's caught somewhere between the oldskool and new. Lengthier levels have some narrow avenues for exploration and but there is minimal backtracking.

There is also a massively decreased emphasis on platforming. Hardly any level has any sense of verticality. It's one of my main criticisms of the game really. A lot of the game is just open a door, fight some enemies, leave room, open a door, fight some enemies etc etc. Said like that it sounds awful though when it really isn't. It's just that that is the basic structure of the game.

So what elevates in from being a rote hack and slash experience, aside from the innocent devils, is that the combat is actually fun. Hector, like his pale pretty boy stablemates Alucard and Soma, can use a variety of weapons including swords, lances, warhammers, knuckle dusters and silly things like electric guitars. Not only does each weapon have a unique playstyle but sometimes weapons within the same class can behave very differently. So in the sword class you get rapiers which allow fast jabs and flurries of blows for finishers but you also have zweihanders that have massive start up animations but deal huge damage. It's pretty versatile and very cool.

You obtain these weapons through a crafting menu. Enemies will drop various types of crafting material and you combine them to create increasingly powerful weapons. It's a pretty nice feature and gentle nudges you into engaging in combat to find uncommon material drops. And again it adds a nice slice of replay value. Tasty.

Another thing this game has going for it are the bosses. I don't know what it is but they're just cool. Old fashioned for sure. But still cool. And you get to fight Trevor Belmont! The final fights with old Dracul himself are pretty epic. I love Castlevania's version of Dracula. That guy don't give a shit.

Another high point, which came as a massive surprise, was the quality of the voice over work in cut scenes. The plot isn't much to get worked up about but the way it's delivered is very professional. You'll recognise a few voices if you watch a decent amount of anime, no doubt. The music is also exceptional. Michiru Yamane gives us a typically esoteric 'Vania soundtrack combining synth and electric guitars with baroque ornaments. It's a bit "variation on a theme" but it is still great. The graphics however aren't brilliant. Hector himself looks fine as do the Innocent devils but regular enemies are very low poly and the texturing veers from acceptable for PS2 to acceptable in 1996. There is absolutely no use of the Xbox's added power here at all except for maybe shortened loading times. It should be noted this is a very late (2006) release so it really should look better.

Still, despite a few technical weaknesses I had a lot of fun with Curse of Darkness. It's more Castlevania-y than Lords of Shadow and better in quality than Castlevania 64. There's a lot of replay value including a very cool bonus feature I won't spoil. I'd say it's essential if you like Castlevania and worth a look if you like hack and slash RPG type games in general.

Mercs (Xbox Capcom Classics)

Not quite a credit feed though not close to a 1cc either. If the machine cost ten pence a go I'd have spent enough to have money left over for a Curly Wurly. Classic shooter action from the glory days of Capcom. I've got to say, it is much, much better than Commando feeling more fluid and varied. It's also insane in that way only late eighties/early nineties arcade games can be with shit exploding on screen nearly constantly. Veers a bit into the cheap towards the end. Those electric fence things are a pain. And the level six boss is weak sauce compared to level five's giant battleship.

Great game and you should really add both of the Capcom Classics Collections to your own collection.

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Xbox)

Engineered by the pervert mechanics at Tecmo comes this bizarre waifu simulator sports game/dating simulator hybrid. Only Tomonobu Itagaki, the dirty old man of gaming, could have the brass neck to pitch this to the Microsoft execs and I applaud him for it.

Admitting you like this game is tantamount to sellotaping a "kick me" sign on your own back. I know it's stupid and sexist and pervy and there's no reason why the male Dead or Alive cast members couldn't be in it. I know that.

Thing is I just find it a strangely relaxing experience and the actual volleyball section of the game is quite good. That and it is a really really good looking game. Dem sand particle physics.

For starters it does massively help if you replace the game's awful teeny bopper soundtrack with your own music. It's amusing how you can change the tone of the volleyball matches with song choice. Try using Clint Mansell's Lux Aeterna to give your games a totally undeserved epicness. Or play some Morrisey for that truly morose and introspective Volleyball experience.

There is no plot. In a way you make your own story. You choose your DOA femme fatal of choice and hit the sand. You're teamed up automatically with Lisa (unless you picked her) and are free to spend your two weeks on Zack Island either playing ball or trying to make friends by buying them gifts. Each lady has a colour preference, a hobby and a favourite food. Their occupation can also govern how well they favour certain presents. It's all in the manual.

Each character also seems to have a slightly different personality. It's a bit vague. Helena is snooty, Ayane is mean that sort of thing. It basically translates to a thinly veiled difficulty setting making some girls harder to partner up with than others (just like IRL, amirite?!).

I spent my time trying to woo Christie while also keeping Lisa sweet because you can't play volleyball alone. I was doing okay with Lisa until I had the temerity to buy her a pink outfit (which she wore anyway. Women AMIRITE!) even though I knew her favourite colour was red and she knew that I knew that and why do we never visit her parents anymore. So she dumped me.

Thankfully my wooing of Christie had worked a charm and we partnered up and kicked Lisa's god damn ass! Of course Lisa was wearing as much stuff that I bought her as she could just to rub it in. I started getting flashbacks to my early teen romances. The feels. I actually was genuinely annoyed with her.

Then I got on the plane, a stupid cutscene with Zack played and the credits rolled. I didn't even get to say goodbye.

It's hard to recommend this game. It looks great, plays well and has much better production values than it has any right to have. That said, it is also the gaming version of typing 80085 into a calculator and snickering to yourself in the back of maths class. Your mileage may depend on the quality of your CD collection and ability to invest in such a stupid concept.

[dsheinem]

If the machine cost ten pence a go I'd have spent enough to have money left over for a Curly Wurly

This is the new standard I will now be using as to whether or not to count all arcade games