Games Beaten 2015

[Kidpanda]

Batman on NES and MD is all he needs, those other pills are just filler XD
Well, GB batman is a great chaser!

[Gamerforlife]

LOL

That's some classic stuff. Some of those I haven't tried yet (those Gameboy games). I think I need a good dose of this too:



Ah, the good old days, when you could turn on your TV and see this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQVC2zCC5qA

And walk into a store without hearing about DLC and season passes

[Gamerforlife]

Oh, I forgot to mention this little nugget.

I had stopped playing the Batgirl DLC at one point, turned off my PS4. Later in the evening I turned it back on...and 3 trophies popped...each with screenshots of my PS4 home screen since I was no longer playing the game

Only in Arkham Knight

[Ack]

1. Renegade Ops (PC)(Multidirectional Shooter)
2. Borderlands 2 (PC)(FPS/RPG)
3. Gunpoint (PC)(Puzzle Platformer)
4. Robotrek (SNES)(RPG)
5. The Tick (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up)
6. Alien vs Predator (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up)
7. X-Kaliber 2097 (SNES)(Action Platformer)
8. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun)
9. Shadowrun (SNES)(RPG)
10. Quake II (PC)(FPS)
11. The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang (SNES)(RPG)
12. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (PC)(Action)
13. A Story About My Uncle (PC)(Platformer)
14. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (PC)(FPS)
15. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith (PC)(FPS)
16. Catacomb (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
17. Catacomb Abyss (PC)(FPS)
18. Catacomb Armageddon (PC)(FPS)
19. Catacomb Apocalypse (PC)(FPS)
20. The Catacomb (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
21. Catacomb 3-D (PC)(FPS)
22. EarthBound (SNES)(RPG)
23. Quake II: Ground Zero (PC)(FPS)
24. Quake II: The Reckoning (PC)(FPS)
25. Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader (PC)(RPG)
26. The 7th Guest (PC)(Puzzle)
27. Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (PC)(RPG)
28. Loom (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
29. Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES)(Action Platformer)
30. System Shock 2 (PC)(Survival Horror FPS)
31. Final Fantasy V (SNES)(RPG)
32. Descent (PC)(FPS)
33. Mortal Kombat 2 (SNES)(Fighting)
34. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)

Well, it's official. I have now cleared another of my Summer Gaming Challenge. Rolled through and watched both of the main endings for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis as well as got Indy turned into an angry god, just to see what would happen. Fun times.

IJFA is a LucasArts point and click adventure from the company's 1990s golden age featuring one of my favorite film protagonists ever. It's fun, offers a variety of ways to solve its problems, and includes a couple of different endings based on your actions. There are three major routes through the game, based on whether you want to fight your way through, think your way through, or rely on your teammate, a "psychic" named Sophia. The combat system isn't the best in my opinion, though if you end up getting into a fight, there is a sucker punch move...though it doesn't give you any score. IJFA uses a scoring system of up to 1000 points to show you how many different ways you had gone. It's an interesting technique to remind the player of the game's replayability, which is unique in this genre.

Most of the game works really well. Traveling the world, searching for clues about Atlantis and figuring out new ways to solve the various puzzles is a lot of fun! The puzzles also steadily ramp up in challenge, at least in my opinion, so the game has a nice build to it until the final climax, which is resolved via dialogue. The various locales are interesting to explore, and the game feels like LucasArts had been learning from all of their previous adventures to create a superior masterwork. Unfortunately that moment collapsed for me in Atlantis.

What happened? Well, technical glitches. I bumped into a Nazi and somehow fled during his dialogue sequence, which caused my dialogue options to appear over my command list. I also watched Sophia get possessed and wander off ahead of me, yet when I backtracked for a minute, I came back to discover her just fine again...until she went through the entire possession conversation again. Ordinarily this would be a small consideration for me, but I've never encountered bugs like this in a LucasArts adventure before. I had always considered them supremely polished. It's still an excellent game, but I'm sad to see them harm the experience. Before they manifested, IJFA was in a top contender spot to become my favorite LucasArts adventure.

Still, between Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Loom, it's amazing to see what LucasArts could do with the point and click adventure formula. I recommend both highly to anyone curious about the genre.

[Czernobog]

I don't seem to be able to find my earlier games beaten this year, but I know it's buried somewhere in this thread. Beaten a few since:

1. Lighting Returns *NEW*

I had some problems with FFXIII, but liked it enough overall to beat the game and enjoyed myself. I thought XIII-2 improved massively and actually platinumed the game, which I rarely do, so I was excited to try Lightning Returns.

Lightning Returns is strange. I've never played anything quite like it. Basically, the game starts with a few days left until the end of the world. It takes place 500 years after the end of XIII-2. Lightning has been awoken and apparently been designated as "savior" by Barthandelus, one of the various gods in the XIII lore. She has been given the task of ferrying souls to a new world. Unfortunately, I found Lightning's constant way of talking about being the savior and brooding one of the most overly dramatic and annoying things ever. The other characters (most of which I didn't ever like to be honest) have made returns as well, because 500 years prior, the final events of XIII-2 caused everyone to stop aging. (They can still die though, and can no longer procreate). Snow has become king of his own party town, which is sort of hilarious. The others are spread around the world, each tending to their own issues. The story does get a little better, but is still often cringe-worthy. One of the saving graces is a little girl who keeps popping up to taunt Lightning and is enjoyably dark and vague to annoy her.

The gameplay is.....different, but addictive. There are encounters with on-screen enemies, but you do not level up by fighting them. Instead, you gain stat bonuses by completing quests throughout the four areas of the game. (Two cities, a desert, and a wildlands area.) Each quest also works to add time to the remaining days (you can get up to thirteen) and there is a clock constantly ticking down. You do have an ability to freeze the clock temporarily using ability points you get from killing monsters. There's no need to rush though, as you can fairly easily complete almost all the quests and still have days remaining. There are a few main quests which can be done in any order, as the game is completely open really early. Fortunately, the quests are fairly varied and some of them are interesting as the whole point is for people's souls to be "saved." There are some crappy fetch quests and tedious things thrown in though. Like finding clocks. Screw the clocks.

The battle system is actually surprisingly fun. It's sort of a mix between the garb system of X-2 and FFXIII's battle system. Most garbs have 1 or 2 unique abilities locked to them, but any open slots can be equipped with any abilities you have obtained throughout the game. You can have 3 garbs equipped at once and switch between them instantly with the shoulder buttons. I ended up having a physical fighter garb, a mage garb, and a buff garb, but also had additional ones for specific encounters. Basically, Lightning is extremely customizable. You can also create additional garb customizations and save them to equip when you want. The stagger bar also returns but has a color changing wavy line effect on the enemies hp bar which I didn't even notice until I had gotten a ways into the game.

Since it's the end of time and everything, you can actually drive nearly every monster in the game to extinction. After killing anywhere from 30 to 150ish(iirc) of a monster type, you get to fight their respective last one (basically a much stronger version of the enemy) and get a powerful accessory. I found playing the exterminator pretty fun. There are also two massively powerful extra bosses, which I attempted but did not beat. Would likely have to do so on a new-game plus.

Overall, an enjoyable game, and I was surprised by how much it was willing to differ from the other games.

2. Half-Life *NEW*

Decided to play through the Half-Life games at long last. The first one was a lot of fun. Certainly dated at this point, but still enjoyable. I wish I had played this when it first came out as I probably wouldn't have played anything that managed to be quite as immersive at the time. It was noticeably more difficult than any modern fps I've played recently. I don't have a lot to say about it, other than the boss was annoying as hell, but Xen was neat. I tried playing through Opposing Force but ran into a glitch quite a ways into the game that would require a complete restart and decided to move onto the other games instead. Still may go back to that and run through Blue Shift as well.

3. Codename Gordon *NEW*

This is a little 2D action platformer based on Half-Life that was taken off Steam, but you can still get if you Google how to get it in your Steam library. It's very short, but an alright little game. You hit things with a crowbar, then shoot things with the mouse when you pick up a couple guns. Then shoot down a helicopter and it's over. Manages to nail the half-life look with the headcrab zombies and things pretty well though. Even had some manhacks and vents. Good for a half-hour boredom cure.

4. Half Life 2 and the 2 Episodes *NEW*

This is where I felt that Half-Life's story really started to get interesting. I liked that the story wasn't spoon-fed to you, but you were dropped into the world and got to infer things through what was happening around you. I would have liked to see some more of the Xen enemies from the first game leaked into the world. The physics engine is certainly fun to play with, especially with the gravity gun, but some of the puzzles were a little too focused on it. Some very cool gameplay ideas, especially in episode 2. Every part of each game sort of feels like it's own set-piece. However, some areas do drag on and on. Especially the first boat section. Like the first game, I wish I had played this when it first came out. I imagine it was extremely impressive at the time. It still plays well, but I have a feeling some of it's more groundbreaking aspects are lost on me. I actually enjoyed the first Half-Life quite a bit more. I am a bit curious where they were trying to go with the story however. Maybe they're a bit curious as well.

5. The Last of Us *NEW*

Let me preface this by saying I love horror games, but usually hate stealth segments. That being said, I found being stealthy the best part of The Last of Us' gameplay. I actually had a lot of fun sneaking around and landing the stealth kills. The gunfight segments mostly felt tedious. Still, this game was more about the story and atmosphere than the gameplay and it delivered. I really liked that the characters felt human. They were flawed and they had believable reasons for being flawed, especially Joel. Many of the environments were fun to explore and picking up the pieces left behind by other people who had once been there was often a highlight. This was especially true in the case of the boat captain who had made a life in the sewers. I know I'm not going into as much detail as I usually try to for my games beaten, but I am awfully tired at the moment.

[KayJay]

Beat the first Spyro, & the first Crash over the course of 4 days.


Spyro was amazing, and Crash was the hardest game I've ever beaten.


all in all, i thought the first Spyro was better, although Crash was still fun.

[Sarge]

Beat The Fall on Wii U. An interesting adventure game with some shooting elements, kinda like Blackthorne or Flashback. It's also rather dark, both visually and in tone. And there's a bit of a twist at the end, although I saw it coming from the beginning. I missed a small detail of how it would be presented, but I knew what was up.

[Markies]

I beat Shenmue on the Dreamcast this evening!

It's...interesting.

My favorite part of the game is the setting. The 1980's is a really unique and favorite decade for me and I love being able to experience that decade in Japan. I love all of the fashion and the little town the game creates. I do love most of the characters. Some of them are pure caricatures and very annoying, but others are really interesting and very in depth for the game style. I do like the openess of the game as it is very unique compared to other games.

However, the game is incredibly slow and deliberate. It gets really repetitive after a while especially when you have to talk to the same people over and over again. I got used to the controls eventually, but they are very clunky. The fighting is not that enthralling as I seemed to use the same move over and over again.

Overall, I thought the game was pretty okay. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't very engaging or thrilling to say the least. However, I am interested in the sequel and I will be picking that up on the XBOX. It's fun, but I think the hype is a bit much for it.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I beat Shenmue on the Dreamcast this evening!

It's...interesting.

My favorite part of the game is the setting. The 1980's is a really unique and favorite decade for me and I love being able to experience that decade in Japan. I love all of the fashion and the little town the game creates. I do love most of the characters. Some of them are pure caricatures and very annoying, but others are really interesting and very in depth for the game style. I do like the openess of the game as it is very unique compared to other games.

However, the game is incredibly slow and deliberate. It gets really repetitive after a while especially when you have to talk to the same people over and over again. I got used to the controls eventually, but they are very clunky. The fighting is not that enthralling as I seemed to use the same move over and over again.

Overall, I thought the game was pretty okay. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't very engaging or thrilling to say the least. However, I am interested in the sequel and I will be picking that up on the XBOX. It's fun, but I think the hype is a bit much for it.

Hey I am glad you enjoyed Shenmue to a degree and gave it an honest chance. Everything you say isn't wrong as Shenmue is one of those strange games where it is easy to fall into a routine and that is where the fun starts to fall off.

The combat system is a victim of that era of beat-em-ups. You can easily get by with simple combos and button mashing and getting into the routine of doing so mitigates the enjoyment of the combat system. You can spend time training, which is monotonous, but there are ways around it and training does change the moves you use and improves them in combat.

As for the controls, it really is at the fault of the dreamcast controller. I have played it emulated and changed the controls around and it vastly improves how things are controlled. It is a shame that the Dreamcast did not come with a second thumbstick.

It is important to try to push yourself to do different things and to talk to different people at different times. It is hard to notice some of the unique interactions Ryo can have with the community. Things like, helping a mother convince her daughter to stay away from a rough group of street thugs that, if you fail in helping will slit your throat, really offers some variety. Also, a lot of people don't notice some of the little things like the phone and using that to get some unique conversations and character development. Talking to Nozomi or Naoyuki on the phone can offer some really unique and interesting Dialog. Also, calling Ine-San from a pay phone while you are away can lead to some entertaining results.

There is a lot that can be missed and I do feel that there is little to encourage a player to explore those things more in depth unless encouraged by the community at large. I suggest looking back at Shenmue again after letting it sit for a long time. It is a game with depth that can intrigue you and is worth revisiting after completing Shenmue II.

Speaking of Shenmue II, it is vastly superior to the first. It is a much larger scale and can feel even more overwhelming in terms of detail and trust me when I say that you may spend a VERY long time playing that game and never fully experience it.

I highly encourage you to continue playing the series and giving Shenmue II a shot. Things do speed up a lot more and there is a much better pacing in terms of storytelling....and that ending!!!!

If ever you want to talk more about the series and give some more specifics about what you did and did not enjoy, please post it. I would love to talk about the series more.

[Markies]

For the controls, I don't know why they mapped the L Button to running. Running and controlling my character with the same left hand felt kind of odd. I wish Run was R and look around was L.

See, I love open world games like GTA because there is an incentive to do all of the little tasks. It didn't feel like there was any reason to discover much of the world and the little things about it. I only knew about what to do because there were plot points along the way that told me where to go next. I want to go back and play it again a while from now to see all those little things that I never did because I honestly feel like I raced through the game.

I am very excited and glad to hear that Shenmue II is much better. I had heard varied opinion about the game, so I am glad to hear that a Shenmue Expert loves the game.

Of course, it is now sky rocketing in price because of Shenmue III...