Games Beaten 2015

[Exhuminator]

If the game is fun and you enjoy playing it, then that's all that really matters.

Though sometimes I play games that aren't very fun but rather as a scholarly pursuit of the medium.

[bmoc]

1. Radiant Historia
2. Halo: Combat Evolved (Master Chief Collection)
3. Halo 2 (Master Chief Collection)
4. Killer Instinct (Season 1 Story Mode)
5. 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors
6. Ori and the Blind Forest (Xbox One)
7. Rayman Legends (Xbox One)
8. Mortal Kombat X (Xbox One)
9. Killer Instinct (Season 2/S2 Story Mode)
10. Halo 3 (Master Chief Collection)
11. Halo 3 ODST (Master Chief Collection)
12. Halo 4 (Master Chief Collection)

I enjoyed Halo 4 pretty well. I disliked playing as the Arbiter (Halo 2) and Cortana hallucinations (Halo 3) started getting old really fast. Luckily, none of that was present in this one. I felt that the main villain was kind of weak and one dimensional but the gameplay and aesthetics were all very good. While the villain wasn't impressive, the interactions between Master Chief and Cortana were very good. They also upped the production value of the cut scenes substantially from Halo 3. The only Halo FPS game that I haven't played now is Reach. That will be one of the first ones that I play when Xbox One backwards compatibility becomes a thing. If I had to rate the ones that I have played in order of preference it would be:

ODST
Halo 1
Halo 4
Halo 3
Halo 2

Keep in mind that this is for the campaigns only. I have only done local multiplayer on Halo 1 & 2 on the original Xbox.

[Stark]

You need to play Reach.

[Fragems]

You need to play Reach.

Yeah you will most likely enjoy Reach quite a bit based on your ranking of the series so far.

[bmoc]

You need to play Reach.

I'm sure that it will be one of the first 360 titles that will work on the Xbox One. I won't have to wait long and I have several friends that I can borrow it from.

[ExedExes]

My best score was with Iron Man/Cable/Captain America. They are all sorts of cheapness.

I tried your team today. Not a lot of hits but they work very well together (best combo I got was 85 hit).

I've got some more talk about this, I'll take it to the DC gaming thread.

[emwearz]

Games Beaten 2015

1. New Super Mario Bros. 2 - 3DS
2. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - Wii U
3. God of War - PS2
4. Gunman Clive - 3DS
5. Dead Space 3: Awakened (DLC) - PC
6. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney - DS
7. Rogue Legacy - PS4
8. Spinmaster - Neo Geo (Via Neo Geo X)
9. The Walking Dead: Season Two - PC
10. Transistor - PS4
11. Shadow Warrior - PS4
12. Assassin's Creed Unity - PC
13. Dying Light - PC
14. Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark - PS4
15. Far Cry 4 - PC
16. Valiant Hearts: The Great War - PS4
17. WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! - GBA
18. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days - DS
19. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number - PC
20. The Order: 1886 - PS4
21. Professor Layton and Pandora's Box - DS
22. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - PC
23. Killzone 3 - PS3
24. Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (Part of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix)- PS3

Total Games for 2015: 24

19. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number - PC
The story was so much harder to follow this time around, but everything else was a big step up from the original. I also found it a bit harder than the original, but it stands up with it as a great gaming experience.

20. The Order: 1886 - PS4
Under rated game. It has a great story, awesome setting and lore, the gameplay is decent and the graphics amazing. It is way too short, even more so when you consider there are so many cutscenes, which chew into an already short experience. Only fault with the game is its length.

21. Professor Layton and Pandora's Box - DS
More of the same for Layton, while it is the second game in the series, it is the third I have finished. I thought it felt a lot shorter than the 1st and 5th games of which I have played through. The story I felt was better than the original.

22. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - PC
More of the same from The Old Blood, which is a good thing. The big thing I disliked was the wall climbing feature they added, waste of time and broke up the momentum of the game.

23. Killzone 3 - PS3
While I enjoyed Killzone 3, I found its setting, at least for the first half of the game really dull and I did not really care about what was happening. I heard a lot of people rip into Shadow Fall, but I honestly rank it higher than Killzone 3. I think for me in order of enjoyment I rank them as follows. One big plus was the weapon "weight" from Killzone 2 was removed.

Killzone 2 > Killzone Shadowfall > Killzone 3 > Killzone

24. Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (Part of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix)- PS3
Really enjoyed this game. I never finished the original on the PS2 and as such I never played any others in the series until I recently beat Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. I am now looking forward to playing through the entire series.

That end boss though, man it took such a long time! I also thought the balance between Disney and Final Fantasy / Sqaure was not there, it felt 90% Disney.


Sorry for such a big post, I have not updated for awhile.

[Exhuminator]

21. Professor Layton and Pandora's Box - DS

I've been playing this one off and on this year. I've been having a hard time staying invested in its plot, and I find the puzzles to be not as good as the first game. I've got about eight hours in it, and I'm trying to push myself through to the end. It just hasn't drawn me into its world the way the first game did unfortunately. I'm glad the series changed directors after the first two games.

Killzone 2 > Killzone Shadowfall > Killzone 3 > Killzone

Where would you put Killzone: Liberation or Killzone: Mercenary in these rankings?

[emwearz]

I've been playing this one off and on this year. I've been having a hard time staying invested in its plot, and I find the puzzles to be not as good as the first game. I've got about eight hours in it, and I'm trying to push myself through to the end. It just hasn't drawn me into its world the way the first game did unfortunately. I'm glad the series changed directors after the first two games.

You will most likely find you are closer to the end than you think, in terms of area to explore you have the first main area, the train then the second main area then the game is over. When it finished it took me by surprise a bit. I have found all three of the Layton games I have played to be a slight chore to finish, as by the time you get close to that 150 puzzle count, the formula has gotten pretty old.

Check what puzzle number you are up to, there are only 150, good way to know how far along you have to go, if you are nearing the end, give it once last burst to the finish line.

Where would you put Killzone: Liberation or Killzone: Mercenary in these rankings?

I have not played Mercenary at all yet, though it is on my list for Vita games. Liberation I have started 3 or 4 times but never seem to play past the first level or two. I just did not like the game play style, it felt like they wanted to be more tactical, however it felt tacked on at the last moment and did not play that well.

I will have to get into it again and give it a honest go.

I am currently playing Pheonix Wright 5 on the 3DS, so once I am done with that I will jump into Killzone Liberation, can only play one handheld game at a time as I only play before bed while my girlfriend reads.

[MrPopo]

1. Painkiller - PC
2. Front Mission 4 - PS2
3. Wasteland 2 - PC
4. Arcanum - PC
5. X-COM Terror from the Deep - PC
6. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16
7. Unreal - PC
8. Shadowrun - SNES
9. Warcraft III - PC
10. Dungeon Keeper - PC
11. Final Fantasy X-2 HD - PS3
12. Descent - PC
13. Quake Mission Pack 2 - Dissolution of Eternity - PC
14. Quake 2 Mission Pack 2 - Ground Zero - PC
15. Sokobond - PC
16. Hybrid Heaven - N64
17. Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis
18. Castlevania - NES
19. Super Castlevania IV - SNES
20. Castlevania III - NES
21. Castlevania II - NES
22. Castlevania Rondo of Blood - Turbo CD
23. Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders - PC
24. Fractal - PC
25. Kirby's Adventure - NES
26. Pillars of Eternity - PC
27. Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den - PC
28. Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour - PC
29. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - NES
30. Punch-Out!! - NES
31. Doom 3 - PC
32. The Even More Incredible Machine - PC
33. Contra - NES
34. Dark Forces - PC
35. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - PC
36. X-Wing - PC
37. TIE Fighter - PC
38. Bloodborne - PS4
39. Gradius - NES
40. Marble Madness - NES
41. The Witcher 3 - PC
42. Mega Man X5 Zero Playthrough - PSX
43. Wolfenstein The Old Blood - PC
44. Might and Magic Book 1 - PC
45. Hexen: Beyond Heretic - PC
46. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter - PC
47. Duke Nukem - PC
48. Terminal Velocity - PC

It's been a while because of the Fiesta, but since I finished a run in the mid afternoon and it needs to be manually verified by a guy who lives in Japan I can't start another run, so I went ahead and finished my playthrough of Terminal Velocity.

Another game from the glory days of shareware, this is a game that has you piloting a starfighter as you take out targets on nine planets/moons/asteroids/space stations. The story is that one day all of Earth's interstellar colonies suddenly turned on the Earth. You are piloting an experimental craft that no one else can handle and you hop from location to location to take out each particular enemy threat to those back home.

The game is divided into nine worlds of three stages each (except the last which is two stages). Your ship is constantly moving but you can change the velocity from barely a crawl to full speed ahead. Your ship carries a variety of weapon systems. Two of them have unlimited ammo and the rest are ammo limited (mostly missiles, but one is a spread gun). One interesting thing is your two infinite ammo weapons can be collected again to upgrade them from alternating fire to dual fire, then a second one collected for quad fire. However, the upgraded versions ARE ammo limited, and if you run out of ammo you go back to the basic rank (quite punishing if you're at quad). So once you start getting the upgrades you'll find yourself bouncing between the two, as they are your bread and butter rapid fire laser weapons.

The missions have good variety in terrain and objective. Some missions require you to take out a series of enemy installations, while others might be blasting your way from one end to the other (with the eventual goal being getting to a boss at the end of the three sages). All planets end with a boss. One interesting thing is that enemy fighters constantly respawn; you have to balance out thinning out their numbers to reduce the incoming fire with taking out your objectives, as there is no way to render an area completely safe.

Something unique to the game is the presence of tunnels. These are openings in the terrain you can fly into that take you into a tunnel that will connect you to some other point on the map; it's actually a transition to a completely different geometry under the hood. The tunnels play similar to those sections in the original Star Fox where you fly down a corridor and dodge obstacles and enemies. These tunnels have more twists to them.

The difficulty ramps up pretty steadily over time so you're constantly being challenged. About the only time it feels bad is when you start planet 7; since it follows shareware rules the game is divided into three episodes of three planets each and you start with no inventory at the beginning of each episode. Since planet 7's difficulty is a little higher than planet 6's this makes things rather difficult at the beginning with no gear. The first stage of planet 7 also doesn't have much in the way of powerups, so your best bet is to focus on the objectives and try to finish as fast as possible.

One final thing the game does well is have lots of things off the beaten path. If you follow your compass from objective to objective you will miss a lot of powerups that can really give you an edge; the game rewards exploration.