Games Beaten 2014

[BrokenGeode]

Finally beat Portal after putting it off for like a year.
Haven't played many games this year so far, so it'll be a while before I post any worthwhile updates.

[BurningDoom]

The original game was ported to everything - there's even a Boulder Dash arcade game! - but I plan on spending some more time with the NES version (which is kind of its own thing as far as I can tell).

EDIT: The NES version was developed by a Japanese company, and it has graphics like this:

Based on the title screen, it also appears to be a port of the Data East arcade game(?). Also, there is apparently a GBA version - which has been added to my want list - and a PAL-exclusive version of the game for the Nintendo DS. Finally, there are close to 50 different version of this game and its sequels, and they would proabably make a great subject for a Hardcore Gaming 101 article.

I played the heck out of the PC rip-off, Herman and the Falling Rocks, back in the day. I don't think I've actually played Boulder Dash itself.

[REPO Man]

Technically, it's not a full-sized game, but I just beat Robot Ninja Haggleman on the Retro Game Challenge for the DS. It's only 16 levels that last at least 90 seconds, but you might die a lot (but that game has a cheat code... at the Game Over screen, hold Left and press Start and you'll start on the level you died on instead of at the beginning).

I bought the game (Retro Game Challenge) back in the summer of 2012, and since have beaten all the challenge except the final challenge, which is to beat all the games in Story Mode (already beat Cosmic Gate, which is like Galaga or Galaxian). I still have the following games in the collection to beat:

• Rally King
• Star Prince
• Rally King SP
• Robot Ninja Haggle Man 2
• Guadia Quest
• Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3

I wish they'd release the second game in America, though maybe the third game will get a digital-only release (it's for the 3DS).

Maybe the company who made the games themselves should just make these games for a digital market.

[ExedExes]

The original game was ported to everything - there's even a Boulder Dash arcade game! - but I plan on spending some more time with the NES version (which is kind of its own thing as far as I can tell).

EDIT: The NES version was developed by a Japanese company, and it has graphics like this:

Based on the title screen, it also appears to be a port of the Data East arcade game(?). Also, there is apparently a GBA version - which has been added to my want list - and a PAL-exclusive version of the game for the Nintendo DS. Finally, there are close to 50 different version of this game and its sequels, and they would proabably make a great subject for a Hardcore Gaming 101 article.

There were 3 versions of Boulder Dash for the arcades. Exidy came out with the first one in 1984, followed by 2 from Data East; one in 1985, and one in 1990. The NES port is loosely based on the 1990 arcade version; DE also published the Famicom port.

This is not the first American computer game that received a bazillion ports thanks to the Japanese; let's not forget Lode Runner and Spelunker!

[GSZX1337]

Thought I'd participate in the Games Beaten tbread this hear.
I beat Devil May Cry 2 a couple of days ago and bitched about it in the Random Gaming Thoughts thread. Pretty shitty way to start the year. Not sure if it counts, but I played through Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Knuckles again a couple days before playing DMC2. Damn, that game gets more amaing every time I play it.

[Sload Soap]

Bioshock

Me and Bioshock don't get along. I want to like its audio and visual design but that crappy game play keeps getting in the way. Bad combat combined with horrible bullet sponge enemies just make this game a drag for me. The ending section is a particularly tedious escort when the pace should be being built to fever pitch. It's topped with a stupid, needless final boss and some cod-philosophical ramblings about choice and what not. Most of the weapons suck as well, having no weight behind them. Even upgraded they do minimal damage in most situations, and there is no go to gun like the shotgun in Doom or battle rifle in Halo. Equally, I don't think the RPG elements are as fleshed out or useful as they are in either System Shock 2 or Dues Ex. They're so barebones here but annoying also fairly crucial I wonder why they were left in.

The game also makes you think it's going to be about something more substantial as well, the morality of capitalism versus the reality, but in the end it all ends up being set dressing. Like Bioshock Infinite, the creative team can't actually take a side and show one political system as the lesser evil than the other, so instead go for a reckless and nihilistic "everyone is wrong" outlook. In the end though even this sliver of invention is cast aside for a fairly average and cliche plot when the writer realised he had to wrap things up somehow.

Aside from the visual and audio design I have no idea how this game keeps getting placed so highly among the best of the generation. Each to their own though.

[Gamerforlife]

Bioshock

Me and Bioshock don't get along. I want to like its audio and visual design but that crappy game play keeps getting in the way. Bad combat combined with horrible bullet sponge enemies just make this game a drag for me. The ending section is a particularly tedious escort when the pace should be being built to fever pitch. It's topped with a stupid, needless final boss and some cod-philosophical ramblings about choice and what not. Most of the weapons suck as well, having no weight behind them. Even upgraded they do minimal damage in most situations, and there is no go to gun like the shotgun in Doom or battle rifle in Halo. Equally, I don't think the RPG elements are as fleshed out or useful as they are in either System Shock 2 or Dues Ex. They're so barebones here but annoying also fairly crucial I wonder why they were left in.

The game also makes you think it's going to be about something more substantial as well, the morality of capitalism versus the reality, but in the end it all ends up being set dressing. Like Bioshock Infinite, the creative team can't actually take a side and show one political system as the lesser evil than the other, so instead go for a reckless and nihilistic "everyone is wrong" outlook. In the end though even this sliver of invention is cast aside for a fairly average and cliche plot when the writer realised he had to wrap things up somehow.

Aside from the visual and audio design I have no idea how this game keeps getting placed so highly among the best of the generation. Each to their own though.

That's probably the most accurate description I've ever read of that overrated game.

[isiolia]

The game also makes you think it's going to be about something more substantial as well, the morality of capitalism versus the reality, but in the end it all ends up being set dressing. Like Bioshock Infinite, the creative team can't actually take a side and show one political system as the lesser evil than the other, so instead go for a reckless and nihilistic "everyone is wrong" outlook. In the end though even this sliver of invention is cast aside for a fairly average and cliche plot when the writer realised he had to wrap things up somehow.

The point of the Objectivism stuff is to be set dressing though, just like the American Exceptionalism stuff in Infinite was. It's the setting for the actual plot, which in turn is used for a more meta statement about choice/free will. Probably in part the plasmids were part of enforcing that - you see what they've done to people, but utilize them anyway.

I'd generally agree about the gameplay though. Not especially compelling.

[Sload Soap]

It's just so daft to have such big ideas and topics relegated to scene setting so that we can have a much less interesting story about mad scientists and magic sea slugs. Neither aspect feeds back to the player anyway.

Nothing in the game play indicates that the plasmids will drive you to ruin as they did the rest of rapture. They are very useful in fact, almost necessary. And yes the game suggests a commentary on player choice in games, but only ever gives you two real choices: harvest or free the little sisters and those choices lead to laughably opposed endings. It's telling of the way the game is made that the only part where you could make a choice with any real consequence is left to the only cutscene.

I feel that the game was written in reverse; the location and plasmids came first and the players place in the narrative came after. This is why the reveal is sloppy and cliche. They'd painted themselves into a corner.

[dsheinem]

I couldn't disagree with the negative opinions of Bioshock more. I found the gameplay and storytelling in both B1 and BI to be well designed, engaging, and complementary. Both games are among my favorite shooters of the last decade and are well deserving of the high praise they receive.

If anything, having the "big ideas" presented as part of the setting and not the driving question of the plot works to the series' advantage given that it is a FPS series. If anything, I'd guess that the Objectivism/Exceptionalism ideas were introduced to a lot of people through this series who otherwise play games as a form of mostly-mindless entertainment. They aren't designed as RPGs with a ton of dialogue and branching paths, they are designed as straightforward shooters with a relatively quick pace (and I don't really get the complaints about the gameplay mechanics, either). In the end it is a FPS with some slight RPG elements, and that isn't a genre mix that works well for everyone - people want it to move more in one direction or another. I find the mix here to be perfect, myself (as opposed to something like Fallout 3, which felt tedious to me).

I think that, as with something like FF7, the series has become one of those that it is "cool to hate" on because it was so popular and critically heralded. People blow small issues way out of proportion or find things to nitpick as a way of setting themselves aside from the chorus of people who think the game is great.