"A Winner Is You!" 2013 Edition.

#87 Wolfchild (Genesis)- A lesser version of the Sega-CD game. Fewer levels, fewer sound effects, but a decent game still.

#88 Air Diver (Genesis)- Mediocre flight game. Choppy scrolling, so-so music, and rather tedious boss fights.

#89 Side Pocket (Genesis)- A good, albeit basic pool game. The sequels added more game modes and a bit better physics.

#90 Dead Space 3 (PC)- I know people bashed this game for leaving the horror behind, but I still enjoyed it. A good story, very nice graphics, fun set pieces and battles... a good game all in all.

#91 Dead Space 3: Awakened (PC)- Short, but more psychological horror than the regular game. It's a DLC that'll last about two hours, and given how it ends, there better be a Dead Space 4 coming.

#92 Steel Storm: Burning Retribution (PC)- A little Steam game that's a roaming shmup with a bit of strategy. It plays all right, and looks pretty good, but it really needed some optimizing, as the frame rate's all over the place for no reason at times.

#93 Titan Attacks (PC)- A Space Invaders clone with a some fun twists and touches (like the aliens bailing out of damaged ships). I looped it twice, so I think that counts as beating it, since it doesn't seem to end otherwise.

#94 Snyder Arcade (PC)- Basically, it's a Defender clone, with added weapons, bosses, stage changes and a bit of story. Not a bad game really.

#95 Sine Mora (PC)- A horizontal shmup with anthro characters, some rather impressive graphics, a strange time travel story, and some extra modes of play. My PC can barely run it at its lowest settings, but it ran well enough for me to enjoy it.

#96 Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut (PC)- Yeah, I know. Everyone else has already played this game. But I picked up a three pack a while back, sat down, and delved into the somewhat convoluted world of this series. I had quite a bit of fun, frankly. Even on the lowest settings, the graphics are still pretty nice (thankfully, I was able to play it with everything on medium). The controls were fluid, as were the fights, running jumping around entire cities to elude guards was enjoyable, and the story wasn't too bad. I can see why people enjoy the series, and can't wait to get into the second game.

18. Kid Icarus (NES): A big deal has been made about this game's difficulty, but I'm not sure I agree. A flawed game, but a good one nonetheless. Great music, too.

[?? I have no clue how many games I've beaten due to not tracking]
Group S Challenge (Xbox): A grindy based racing game where there isn't much content [only 4 championships = 20 races, 40 duels = 120 rival races and 87 cars in total, 3 courses with variations] but you would have to win the championships to get enough money to buy cars [the line-line mode gives you a bit but not enough to get a car] and the duels to get anywhere in this game. The graphics look okay, the controls are quite good and the handling believe it or not is slightly more realistic than Gran Turismo since when you brake when you move, your car shifts weight across [thank you GT Academy TV show for that info] that is more noticable than the GT series but still arcady. Before picking up this game for a £1, I didn't even know Capcom made a racing game [I was aware of that cel shaded one but I don't think Europe got it] but enjoyed it.

Unusual for a game manual, it actually gives you helpful tips like the best car to drive in a class. You need to buy the S7 or the RUF CTR2 and a bit of luck otherwise you will have no chance of beating the game since their bhp [or the Japanese PS system that the game uses] is higher than every other car in the game. Oh and Monaco Course 2 is a nasty track.

Oh and it has music from Motohiro Kawashima [the same man who did music for Streets of Rage 2 & 3] but a very few people are even aware of this game.

19. Gradius III (SNES): Okay, I didn't beat it beat it; I was on the "easy" setting after all. But easy or no, it's still a challenging game, particularly during the final three levels. I made it all the way through and died only once, so I suppose it's worth bragging about here.

I've attempted the game on normal difficulty, but once I died during the fifth level I found it impossible to claw my way back without all the power-ups. It seems to be one of those games you have to go one-life-or-bust.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrMatthews

14. Life Force (NES): I've been "courting" this one for a few weeks now. I'll pop it in every now & then and play either until the end of the game or the end of my patience. I've seen the ending a couple times now, but always with the 30-life code and always with a continue or two. Tonight I beat it with no continues, although I still used the life code. Tonight I still had close to 30 lives by the last level, so I imagine that with a bit more practice I could beat the game legit.

Maybe I'll do that some time.

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14b. Life Force (NES): The semi-realistic goal I had in my head was that I was going to one-life this game. Couldn't manage that, but I did make it through the game with no continues and sans Konami Code.

I'm overdue for an update to this thread:

34. Wardner (Genesis)
Nifty little action-platformer with thoughtful stage design and a refreshing lack of cheap hits. 8/10.

35. Space Blaster FX (Sharp MZ-700)
I can only play this in emulation for now since I don't own a MZ-700. Obviously the character-based graphics are primitive, but that said, it's a nifty little shooter! 7/10.

36. Gauntlet Legends (PS1)
Mediocre port of a great game, but my fiancée and I still enjoyed it for the most part. The bonus levels at the end are pointless but it's nice not to have to be in collectathon/find-the-secret mode for once. 6/10.

37. Bonanza Brothers (Genesis)
Fun port of the cloak-and-dagger arcade game. Before I'd only played this in co-op, but it's actually a lot easier in 1P mode. I went through all three difficulties, finishing up with Hard/3 Lives, but I scarcely noticed any changes in the difficulty. 7/10.

38. Wayne’s World (Genesis)
Bizarrely, this is practically just a re-skin of B.O.B., one of my favorite action-platformers on the Genesis (and even more so on the SNES). Of course just about every aspect of the game is downgraded, but the stage design and "feel" are totally B.O.B.-ish. It's not nearly as bad as its reputation -- some claim that it's among the worst games on the Genesis, which is nonsense -- but it's still no better than mediocre, of course. 4/10.

39. David Crane’s Amazing Tennis (Genesis)
If you can overlook the technical flaws, the shortcomings in the presentation, the near-total lack of options or bells and whistles, and several questionable design decisions, this is one of the best 16-bit tennis games you'll find, and certainly one of the most realistic. It's also tough as nails, and even though you only have to play a four-match tournament to beat the game, getting through it was a real streetfight. 6/10.

I've also played through a few games on lower difficulty levels for the beat-'em-all project -- largely games that I've beaten before (Sol-Deace, Atomic Robo-kid, Art of Fighting), but also some that I hadn't (Primal Rage, RBI Baseball 3, Shadow of the Beast II, Junction).

Today I beat Super Castlevania 4 for the first time. Great game. Not as hard as I thought it would be considering it is a Castlevania title. Still a challenging tough game.

Grand Theft Auto: Ballad of Gay Tony (360):

Saw the latest gameplay trailer for GTAV, got psyched, placed a pre-order for it, remembered I still had BoGT to beat, sat down and played it to completion for four hours straight. Enjoyed it immensely; the NOOSE tank mission was great fun, and the Blizzard chopper is a riot! Really looking forward to Sept 17th now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by segaddict

Today I beat Super Castlevania 4 for the first time. Great game. Not as hard as I thought it would be considering it is a Castlevania title. Still a challenging tough game.

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Yeah, I thought so too. I don't particularly like frustratingly-hard games, but after genuinely feeling like I EARNED my victory with a few of the other games in the series, I was kind of let down that Castlevania IV didn't put up much of a fight.

40. ExoSquad (Genesis)

Beat this mixed-mode mech game a week or so ago, on all three difficulty levels in succession. The scaling space shooter segments are a disaster, while many people think the one-on-one fighting segments redeem the game. But actually my favorite part of the game was the side-scrolling levels, which use an extremely unusual control scheme that works pretty well once you get used to it. 7/10.

#94 Tomb Raider 2013 (PC)- Yeah, my PC was chugging big time in about half the game (namely, the huge outdoor areas like Shanty Town), but I was still able to play through it. Good game on pretty much all fronts, and I look forward to seeing what the developers come up with for a followup.

#95 Tomb Raider: Anniversary (PC)- I've had this game for a while thanks to a huge Steam sale that put all of but the newest game at less than a dollar a piece, but I'd only given it a brief try. Finally sat down and beat it. Not a bad game, though some of the jumping/grappling puzzles were a HUGE pain in the ass.

#96 Primal Rage (32X)- I've had the Genesis version for a couple of year, but picked up this version when I came across it for a fair price. Decent conversion with the typical missing bits thanks to Probe (opening, ending images, etc.).

#97 Deadlight (PC)- Zombies meets Out of This World gameplay. Fun game, but the ending "twist" came out of nowhere in a bad way (no set up, no hints, just BLAM!... here's something!).

#98 Post Apocalyptic Mayhem (PC)- A cheap racing/shooting game. It looks pretty good and plays all right, but the floatiness of the vehicles gets annoying at times when you bounce off in stupid directions for no reason. There's no real campaign mode per se, but I came in first in the mode that lets you race on all of the tracks consecutively.

#99 Raptor: Call of the Shadows (PC)- I bought this game off of Yahoo! a long time ago, but never beat it. I found a Steam copy on another digital gaming site for dirt cheap, so I grabbed it (I couldn't find my Yahoo! copy that I'd saved) and beat it.

#100 Tomb Raider: Legend (PC)- Yeah, I'm on a bit of a Tomb Raider kick. Beat this game, and had fun with it. Interesting story, better graphics than the previous game, and the controls were ironed out a little.

#101 Rocket Knight (PC)- Shorter than I remember it being, I beat this one again a few hours ago. Now that I have a controller for my PC, this game was noticeably more enjoyable than when I gave it a whirl with its keyboard setup. Not as good as RKA, or Sparkster, but not a bad followup overall. Could have used a bump in the difficulty though.

GTA V (360)

Finished the main story. No spoilers from me, but the final mission & ending is a bit anticlimactic. Still got tonnes to do though, just gonna take my time now and explore.

After a bit of a dry spell earlier this year, I suddenly got the games bug again and finished quite a few games in the last couple of months:

• The Last of Us (PS3)
• Okami HD (PS3)
• Zone of the Enders HD (PS3)
• Rayman Legends (360)
• Asura's Wrath (360)
• The Unfinished Swan (PS3)

41. Psychic Detective (3DO)

Played this with my fiancée, and got the best ending (Grand Slam) on our eighth or ninth playthrough. Nifty little game that makes near-ideal use of FMV. 8/10.

42. Doom Troopers: The Mutant Chronicles (Genesis)

Beaten on all three difficulty levels: Wimp, Trooper, and Brutal. The only saving graces of this run-'n'-gun are the password system and the fairly generous supply of extra lives and secret areas. Otherwise, it's like a poster child for everything that mid-1990s American action-platformers were doing wrong: bad controls, frustrating and unclear level design, erratic hit detection, gratuitous gore and gross-out humor, forced hits/damage and cheap shots, and just a feeling of having been designed by a committee of back-slapping dudes who say “bro” all the time. Despite one or two clever moments, it's just not fun, and constantly gives you that Johnny Rotten feeling of having been cheated. 3/10.

43. Warrior of Rome (Genesis)

A "re-beat" in service of the Sega-16 beat-'em-all effort. Like the review says, 2/10.

In the past month I've also "re-beaten" Gain Ground, Astérix and the Great Rescue, and Jewel Master for the beat-'em-all, all of which I've beaten in the past on Hard but beat this time around on Normal difficulty. Actually, Gain Ground is arguably harder on Normal than Hard, since you have to build up your army by rescuing prisoners (though you can ultimately amass a larger army because of that).

I also summited the final mountain, Everest, for the first time in the TI-99/4A game Alpiner. However, the manual seems to expect you to complete three loops, and unfortunately, the game becomes essentially unplayable on the third loop. Plus there's no ending!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by goldenband

41. Psychic Detective (3DO)

Played this with my fiancée, and got the best ending (Grand Slam) on our eighth or ninth playthrough. Nifty little game that makes near-ideal use of FMV. 8/10.

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I've had this game for my PS1 for something like 16 years now, and I've never been able to make any sense of it at all. I tried really hard to like it, but the story just seems so random, and the average acting work and postage stamp-sized video don't help either. Any idea what I might have been missing all this time?

^Well, I've read that a couple things were censored or removed in the PS1 version, so that probably doesn't help! Otherwise, we were confused too at first, but we made a point of systematically trying every branch of the story (by jumping into different people's heads and seeing events we'd missed before), and over time we came to understand what was going on.

Mapping out your choices on paper helps, so that you know what you've done before; so does letting the game play through at least once without doing anything. As always with these kinds of games, choices that seem left-field or off the beaten track often turn out to be the right ones.

The most confusing part is the final battle, and a lot of how that works is still obscure to me, but there's a scene you can trigger where you can practice the game with the old woman, and she'll tell you if you've made good or bad choices.

1 Sorcerer’s Kingdom (Genesis)
2 Jewel Link Legends of Atlantis 3DS (a few times)
3. 4 Elements DS
4. Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones GBA
5. Shanghai II: Dragon’s Eye Genesis
6. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask 3DS
7. Lego City Undercover Wii U
8. Crystal Adventure 3DS (played full game several times)
9 Shining Force Genesis (lost no lives)

10 Fire Emblem Awaking 3DS
11 Jewel Quest Mysteries the Seventh Gate 3DS (finished a few times)
12 Code of Princess 3DS

#102 F-117 Night Storm (Genesis)- A so-so flight sim, it doesn't really have as much of a challenge as other flight sims for the Genesis. No landing, no take offs, and it puts you right at the mission's first target. It does have a lot of speech at the end, though, so there's that.

#103 Batman Forever (Genesis)- Dull, tedious brawler that lasts too long. Rough graphics, bad music, over complicated controls, and fights that drag on. Not fun.

#104 Batman: Revenge of the Joker (Genesis)- Only a little better than the above game, with boss fights that take for-fucking-ever.

#105 Urban Strike (Genesis)- The final entry of the series for the Genesis. The graphics are as nice as the first two installments, and the ending's a real let down. But it's a big game with plenty to blow up and fly. It's the worst of the series for the Genesis, but it's still a good game overall.

#106 Thunder Wolves (PC)- A '80s action helicopter movie, turned into a video game. A nice selection of helicopters to unlock, some fun missions, and you get to drive a few other vehicles around at times. It doesn't overstay its welcome, and it's a fun little game. However, the sense of scale is... off. Everything looks like it's the size of Micro Machines in terms of scale. It's really odd, and a bit hard to describe.

#107 Another World 20th Anniversary Edition (PC)- It the original with scaled up HD graphics, redone sound in spots, and some extra goodies like a "making of" video and such. Still a great game.

#108 Championship Pool (Genesis)- Not a great or piss-poor pool game. It's got some cool features (fine tuning your shots), and annoying traits (hard to read numbers on the balls, REALLY repetitive music, etc.), but it's an average game in the end. There are better looking, playing and sounding pool games on the Genesis.

#109 DJ Boy (Genesis)- This game is just... odd. A decent game, but... odd.

#110 Need For Speed: Underground (XBox)- A fun racing game with rather nice graphics, a few decent tunes, and lots of stuff to unlock for all the Fast And Furious wanna-bes out there. Too bad the later races get so frustrating, thanks to CPU cars that are virtually glued to the damn road.

#111 Need For Speed: Carbon (XBox)- Basically "Underground 3," the difficulty got dialed down for this one. It still looks good, has some decent tunes and such, but now it has the rather fun cop chases, and it lets you explore the city more. It still suffers from the "invincible CPU car" syndrome later on, but it's not as bad as "Underground."

44. The Incredible Crash Dummies (Genesis)

This platformer was made by the same developers who did B.O.B. and Wayne's World, and you can certainly tell. Despite its bad reputation it controls fairly well, has a decent sense of humor, and shows flashes of inspiration in the level design. However the boss fights are poor and somewhat inscrutable -- I wasn't always sure why I won or lost. 6/10.

45. The Adventures of Mighty Max (Genesis)

Mediocre puzzle-platformer with a ridiculously high-jumping protagonist. It's got a few good ideas, but poor design and repetitive gameplay keep it from rising above low-grade shovelware status. 3/10.

46. Hit the Ice (Genesis)

Decent arcade-style hockey game is fairly shallow but plays well. Heck, I'd even say it's downright fun at times. However, it's too easy to run out the clock by skating in circles. 6/10.

23. Thunder Blade (Master System)
24. Guwange (XBLA / arcade mode)
25. Keio Flying Squadron (Sega CD)
26. Double Strike (NES)
27. Vapor Trail (Mega Drive)
28. Cosmic Epsilon (NES)
29. Flying Hero (SNES)
30. F-15 City War (NES)
31. Zed Blade (Neo Geo)
32. Earth Defense Force (SNES)
33. Dux 1.5 (Dreamcast)
34. Super Stardust HD (PSN)
35. Balloon Bomber 2005 (PSP)
36. Raiden II (Playstation)
37. Let’s Go! Burunyanman Portable (PSP)
38. Forgotten Worlds (Mega Drive)
39. Tekkaman Blade (SNES)

47. Pro Quarterback (Genesis)

I'm not in a position to say whether this lives up to its title as the worst football game on the Genesis; since I was playing it for the Sega-16 beat 'em all effort, one of its biggest flaws -- the fact that you only play a single game, with no difficulty settings or season options -- was somewhat lost on me. I found it at least playable, and wasn't bothered by the graphic shortcomings. But if even I, who understandeth the rules of football not, can beat a football game within an hour, it must be a real pushover. 3/10.

48. Todd’s Adventures in Slime World (Genesis)

Frustrating, ear-shredding, cheap, ugly, repetitive, with expletive-inducing controls and stage design that keeps the expletives coming back. And I too kept coming back until the whole thing was done (which took a while). 5/10.

49. Vigilante (Sega Master System)

It's games like this that make me wonder how the Master System ever hoped to compete with the NES. I could overlook the poor presentation (annoying music, garish colors) if the gameplay was interesting and the controls were crisp; instead, we get the worst parts of Kung Fu and Double Dragon, plus pathetic/buggy boss fights. As for the challenge level, within 75 minutes of putting Vigilante in my SMS for the first time, I was able to 1LC the whole game -- and yet I never got the damned thing to jumpkick consistently, or even semi-consistently. 2/10.

50. ALF (Sega Master System)

Also a disaster of a game, with all kinds of technical flaws and gameplay somewhere between Action 52 and a middling Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree title. Plus, as my fiancée noted, it's a relief when ALF dies since the music stops for a bit.

And yet I find it less objectionable than Vigilante, partly because of the nature of the license, and partly just because it amused me somehow. Also, it doesn't hurt that it marks a milestone for me: not just 50 games beaten this year, but 500 games beaten in my gaming "career" to date. (Or at least that's what my list tells me: and some games are on the list that shouldn't be, others aren't and probably should, but a milestone's a milestone.) 3/10.

#112 Dragon's Revenge (Genesis)- Horrid pinball "game." The graphics are all right in some ways, but the boards are bad, the physics are quite bad, and the game just isn't fun.

#113 Dragon's Fury (Genesis)- One of the best 16-bit pinball games out there. Fun boards, good music and graphics, and while the physics aren't spot on, they're rather good. That annoying bug on the right side of the bottom board that almost always kicks your ball out of play is a pain, but...

#114 Family Feud (Genesis)- Boring game on all fronts. So-so graphics, dull music, and slow plodding gameplay. It's just not fun.

#115 Project Freedom (PC)- This odd little space sim kind of came out of nowhere. It plays like a mix of BANG! and Star Lancer, with some surprisingly good graphics, simple missions, and really... REALLY bad voice acting. You hear the same phrases over and over, and some don't even make sense ("Nice Shoot!"). And uh, someone screwed up the translation. I'm pretty sure the guy was supposed to call the enemies attacking "Goons," but... well, the "n" had a "k" in its place. Hope no one from Vietnam ever played this game.

#116 Road Blasters (Genesis)- A surprisingly faithful port of the Atari game, this game is a tough one. 50 levels to get through, and they get pretty nasty along the way. The graphics and sound are quite close to the arcade game (sans any voices), and the controls feel pretty good. A solid game.

#117 Dynamite Duke (Genesis)- This game it just... meh. Tedious gameplay, so-so graphics and sound... it just didn't do anything for me.

#118 Dick Tracy (Genesis)- Another meh title. The music and graphics aren't that bad, but the boss fights drag on, and the gameplay gets pretty stale quickly.

#119 Grind Stormer (Genesis)- A surprisingly close port of the arcade game. Nice graphics, good music, a good difficulty curve, and solid gameplay, marred with having to play through twice to get the real ending.

#120 Zero Tolerance (Genesis)- The Genesis' first real FPS that actually plays decently. A bit sluggish, and filled with horrid "music," the gameplay is solid, the framerate surprisingly good, and damn is it a looooooong game.

51. Last Action Hero (Genesis)

Widely held to be among the Genesis's lousiest titles, but it's actually not that bad. I found it pretty easy to cotton on to the side-scrolling action sequences, and though they're repetitive they actually play reasonably well once you get used to them. The driving sequences, on the other hand, are aggravating and simplistic -- once you know what you're supposed to do, there's almost nothing to them -- and the helicopter boss is cheap and borderline unfair. (The final boss can be tricky too.) It's still not a good game, but it was kind of fun to figure it out. 3/10.

52. No Escape (Genesis)

Another game maligned as one of the worst on the system, but other than the unfortunate opening level, this Flashback-ish action-adventure is actually pretty good, with some interesting puzzle-solving and multiple endings. The controls are flawed and combat's kind of a mess, but you can still tell some TLC was put into the game. 6/10.

53. Wani Wani World (Genesis)

Beat this in 2P mode with my fiancée, working our way up to the hardest settings (Hard/3 Lives/3 Continues) and benefiting from a generous slot machine on our winning playthrough. It's a bit like a cross between Bubble Bobble and Lode Runner, and once you get on the right wavelength it's quite a lot of fun! Too bad it wasn't released in the US. 9/10.

54. Pocahontas (Genesis)

Oddly enough, this rare Disney title has a couple slight similarities to No Escape (which I beat a few weeks ago). It's certainly a fine-looking title, but control shortcomings and questionable design decisions undermine what could otherwise have been a sleeper classic. Also, the opening level's rendition of "Colors of the Wind" gets old very fast. 5/10.

55. Kingdom: The Far Reaches (3DO)

An updated port of Thayer's Quest for the ill-fated Halcyon laserdisc console, this FMV adventure had me and my fiancée utterly, completely stumped, and setting it aside for a year (!) didn't help. After spending an evening getting nowhere, I ultimately caved and looked at a walkthrough...

...and I only needed to read the first two sentences to realize we'd completely missed an item that we were supposed to get right away, by taking a path that was meant to be obvious (but thanks to UI issues, it wasn't). Compounding the problem, we were playing on the lower Apprentice difficulty level, which removes some of the puzzles but leaves behind FMV scenes that, without proper context, are confusing and come off as red herrings.

Anyway, once we had the item we missed, we tore through the game in no time, and Wizard difficulty went down the following night. Overall it's an engaging little slice of the 1980s, and while it's not an especially deep game, it takes a little bit of thinking and planning to navigate its challenges. However, bad audio work makes some of the dialogue almost incomprehensible, which is a real problem in this genre. 7/10.

56. Normy's Beach Babe-O-Rama (Genesis)

This beach-bum platformer, from the man behind INTV Corp., bears an unexpected resemblance to Bubsy, of all things. You even collect bouncing multicolored balls to earn (points for) extra lives. It's got modest charm and a few clever ideas, but issues with the physics and stage design massively increase the frustration factor. And why can't I fully customize the controls? 5/10.

BTW according to my list, Normy's is the 100th Genesis game I've ever beaten. OK, I'm counting the two different regions of Art of Fighting twice, and I'm not counting a few games I haven't beaten on Hard mode, but...

Time to post my last couple victories of 2013:

57. Peter Frankl: Tower of Puzzle (3DO)

By some definitions this collection of brain-teasers, a Japanese exclusive that can be played entirely in English, is little more than shovelware. But actually the puzzles it offers are generally well-chosen, with just the right amount of challenge. But a couple are inappropriately difficult (which made me set aside the game for months), and even worse, in at least two cases the game wouldn't accept a correct solution -- which reveals that instead of checking your work, the game is simply comparing it to a stored answer. That's not OK in a game like this. 6/10.

58. Kingdom II: Shadoan (Mac OS Classic)

After beating the first Kingdom game on 3DO a few weeks ago, I bought a nice sealed big-box copy of this FMV title -- which never made it to 3DO -- as a Christmas present for my fiancée and me. It took a lot of doing to get it up and running; it won't work properly in Classic mode on OS X PPC machines, and I had to resurrect an old PowerBook 1400cs to play it. But once we did, it was a worthwhile sequel to the first game, and probably a bit superior to it across the board, especially in the voice acting department. However, we ran into a game-breaking glitch in Apprentice mode, and spent hours trying to figure out the problem -- only to discover that, once again, switching to the allegedly harder Wizard mode was the key. But this time it was 100% the game's fault: and how many hapless kids were driven to drink by this bug? 8/10.

just to wrap a rather tame year in achievements
I'm getting old....

40. Galaga '88 (PS2, 2nd dimension ending)
41. Fren-zE (PS2, max points)
42. Super Shooting Towns (FM Towns)
43. The Great Paper Adventure (XBLIG)
44. Cotton 2 (Saturn) video
45. Side Arms (PC Engine)
46. Kolibri (32X) video
47. Darius Gaiden (PS1, path ACFJOUV')

Yeah, I'll add my final games of 2013 later today, too.

2013 was a good a year for my gaming experience. I focused on playing one game at a time, until finish. The results were pretty good:

01. Skyrim
02. Dragonborn
03. Fallout 3
04. Forgotten World
05. Ghouls 'N Ghosts
06. Golde Axe
07. Mystic Defender
08. Revenge of Shinobi
09. Strider
10. Super Thunder Blade (I cheat!!)
11. Truxton
12. Bonk's Adventure
13. Ninja Spirit
14. Legendary Axe II
15. Atomic Robo-Kid
16. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
17. DJ Boy
18. Dynamite Duke
19. Elemental Master
20. Ghostbusters
21. Lakers vs Celtics and the NBA Playoffs
22. Phelios
23. Two Crude Dudes
24. Toki (cheats!!)
25. Terminator
26. Sonic 1
27. Midnight Resistance
28. El Viento
29. Chuck Rock
30. Centurion - Defender of Rome
31. Alien Storm
32. Actraiser
33. Final Fight
34. Joe & Mac
35. Contra III - The Alien Wars
36. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Lost in Time
37. Street Fighter II - The World Warrior (Snes)
38. Ariel the Little Mermaid
39. Cadash
40. Captain America and the Avengers
41. Sonic 2
42. Street of Rage II
43. TMNT- Heiper Stone Heist.
44. Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego
45. World of Illusion

#121 Crue Ball (Genesis)- This game had the potential to be a good pinball game, but it's dragged out way too long. There are some interesting ideas behind some of the things you need to do to reach the end, the music is typical EA stuff (the good and the bad), the graphics are decent at times, and there are plenty of little things to hit on the board. But the ball physics are odd (it seems too heavy), the ball passes through the flippers at times, and eventually, the game just gets incredibly tedious as you keep having to do the same basic thing again and again and again. As it is, the game's average at best, and is no match for Dragon's Fury.

#122 Valis III (Genesis)- Not a bad little action game. Kind of dull in spots when enemies are scarce, but the music, visuals and overall gameplay are good. Having three characters to chose from (eventually) is a nice addition as well.

#123 Alien 3 (Genesis)- A pretty good action game with some platforming elements, it's a game I ordered a long time ago from a mail order company. Took a chance after seeing a review, and found it to be a fun, albeit at times drawn out, game. Very nice music, some good graphics, solid controls, are the high points. The low points, are the at time scatter-brained level layouts, the boss fights that get old by the end of the game, and some cheap hits from aliens popping up abruptly or dropping down out of nowhere. Still, an overall good game, and one of the better licensed games for the system (even if it takes MAJOR liberties with the movie's plot).

#124 Awesome Possum (Genesis)- A shitty game. Just... complete and utter shit.

#125 Insector-X (Genesis)- My review on this site give my opinion on it, so I won't repeat myself there. However, I have to say that the graphical changes were for the better in terms of the characters and backgrounds. Still sucks that they didn't add some parallax scrolling to the game. It would have been nice.

#126 Sagaia (Genesis)- I can remember reading way back when, how the reviewers liked the game, but thought it lacked a soundtrack that was good. I like this game's music. The sound effects are a little weak, but the music is nice. It took a graphical hit over its arcade big brother (simplified backgrounds, more repeating background graphics, simplified bosses, etc.), but all 28 levels are there, as are all five endings. Some of the bosses from the first game make appearances as mid-bosses, and overall, this is a solid shmup. Not the best, but solid and worth playing.

#127 G-LOC (Genesis)- An average game when everything gets added up (as I said in my review). Some good stuff, some bad stuff, and a final two missions that just drive you up a wall sometimes.

#128 T2: The Arcade Game (Genesis)- Let's face it, very few light gun games translate well to a controller. And this port was not one of those few. It's not a horrific game, but there are some areas that are just beyond annoying when using a controller; the truck sequences, namely. Moving that reticule around to try and get the helicopter and the HKs takes too long, and makes for a frustrating pair of levels. Outside of that, the music's OK, the graphics are pretty good, and the controls work all right for the rest of the game. But this wasn't exactly a stellar arcade game, and being ported and downgraded did it no favors. It also feels a bit drawn out at times, with enemies that just coming at you over and over... which is likely part of its arcade heritage (try to get more quarters by giving you enemy-stream points). I'm sure it plays better with a light gun, but I've never owned the Menacer, so that just leaves me with my controller. And as such, the game's above average, but not a classic.

#129 Task Force Harrier EX (Genesis)- Another game I reviewed years ago, so I won't go into it again. Suffice it to say, it's a pretty good shmup with some shortcomings that keep it from being with the system's greats.

#130 Rock 'N Roll Racing (Genesis)- So many races to do. So... many... races. It's decent game once you get used to the controls, perspective, and such, but while it can be fun, it starts getting old about 2/3 of the way through. Add to that how the tracks can be a bit perplexing at times, and how the music isn't exactly the Genesis' best in quality, and it starts losing some of its appeal. It looks good, and has some fun stuff to build up on your vehicles, but it's not something I'd readily seek out when I'm in need of a racing fix.

#131 Arcade Classics (Genesis)- You know, I never thought the Genesis would be outdone by the Atari 2600, but folks, it was with this game. I shit you not when I say the ports of Missile Command and Centipede play better on that old Atari dinosaur, than on the Genesis. Missile Command has horrid explosions that don't even register half the time (missiles pass right through them), slow movement of the cursor, really questionable hit detection with the explosions. Hell, the explosions don't even do what they did in the arcade game. Somehow, the programmers screwed up their behavior, along with the visuals. Centipede is so sluggish, it's pathetic. But not only does your little guy move slowly, guess what? Centipede has slowdown. A LOT of slow down. I wish I was joking, but I'm not. This is an utterly abysmal port of these arcade games, which can't even get the graphics right, nor does it improve on them in any way. They're just botched, like everything else about this game. Oh yeah, and Pong? It cheats. Plain and simple. That CPU paddle hits it in the center virtually every damn time, resulting in long, drawn out matches that are tedious beyond measure. And as if that weren't enough, the programmers didn't even get the paddle behavior right (hit the ball with the paddle's top part, it bounces off with an upward angle adjustment to its trajectory, etc.). It's just sad.

#132 Disney's Ariel: The Little Mermaid (Genesis)- This game is just... meh. The graphics and music are so-so, the animation's actually not too bad, and unlike trash like "Belle's Quest," this game actually has a point to it (rescue the mermaid men and women). You can even play as two different characters. However, the controls are very sluggish with movement, you get stuck on everything, and the levels are pretty boring (even for a kid's game). It's not busted, or mind-numbingly drawn out (it's only four levels), but it's a pretty rough game that makes it hard to believe the people behind Vectorman were responsible for making it

#133 Jungle Strike (Genesis)- Ah, the sequel, and some would argue, the best of the 16-bit "Strike" games. Nice graphics, more missions and vehicles, good sound effects, and the same solid control from the first game. Good stuff, except for mission 2 in the final scenario. All those vehicles you have to blow up, and you're not shown were any of them are. It becomes an annoying "Where's Waldo?" hunt after the first five minutes of criss crossing over the entire map, trying to find that one remaining vehicle. Beyond that, it's what we all loved in the first game, but more of it

#134 Phantasy Star III (Genesis)- And so ends the black sheep side-story in the family. I know this game gets A LOT of shit for its faults (goofy enemy design, high RE rate, music a bit too loud sounding, etc.), but frankly... I enjoyed it. It's not as good as PS1 or PS4, but the generational gameplay touch and the dungeons that aren't as stupidly huge as the ones in PS2 made it fun. The graphics are pretty nice, and some of the music compositions are actually quite good. But the game did get slapped with a few nasty issues that relegated it to being left out of the proverbial reindeer games that the other entries in the series got to enjoy. The enemies are goofy, the enemy animation sucks, and the RE rate can get frustrating at times. But I've played worse RPGs on the Genesis, and this one gets a bad rep a bit undeservedly at times.

#135 Rambo III (Genesis)- This is one of those "I have nothing better to do, so I'll play this" games. Not bad, not great, just sitting in the middle with enough visual and gameplay flare to keep you interested long enough to beat the game. Nice visuals, decent music, but with levels that don't really add anything. The between level fights with vehicles are interesting, but they're also stupidly easy, which ends up not adding anything of value to the game beyond a very brief distraction. But, the gameplay adds some nice touches to the "shoot it if it moves" motto, by making you stab enemies to refill your arrows and bombs (not to mention, get bonus points).

#136 Diablo III (PC)- Yeah yeah, Blizzard is The Devil and all that. Whatever. I wanted to play it, so I did. Not a bad game. Nice graphics, good music, and a solid selection of characters to play as. The quest is satisfyingly long without being drawn out, and the cinemas (in Blizzard style) are gorgeous. The gameplay's a bit dumbed down, and isn't as in-depth with how much tuning you can do with your character's stats and abilities, but it's still got a lot to tinker with. So while it isn't as gameplay rich as its predecessor, it's not the "OMG one star rating!!!shift+one" that people raged one it because of the DRM.

#137 Mazin Saga (Genesis)- An odd game, this one. Part fighting game, part beat'em up, all fighting against "Hell." While the multi-jointed characters, the gameplay is a bit limited. Streets of Rage was a better brawler, and even Heavy Nova has more moves for you to use. Even so, it's not a bad game, with some decent tunes at times, and some nice graphics. The Mega Man-esque stunt it pulls at the end was a bit unwarranted.

#138 The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (PC)- It's a Diablo clone, but it's a good one. Good graphics, lengthy quest, enjoyable music, solid level diversity, and some fun characters to interact with. The final boss was oddly easy though.

#139 Darklight Conflict (PC)- I played this game on the Saturn many moons ago, and always wanted to try out the PC version. After I came across a copy of it, I got that wish. Though my old rig has some trouble keeping a smooth framerate at time with DOSBox, it was a fun game that scratched that Space Sim itch. Nice graphics with lots of lighting, some decent (albeit overused) music, and lots of missions. It can be unfairly frustrating at times, as some of the missions just end rather abruptly due to something important suddenly being destroyed, and the game does throw a lot at you at times that require you to reacted stupidly fast, but overall it's a good game.

...'forgot to add these:

4. Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition - PS3

5. Injustice - Gods Among Us - PS3

6. MK vs DC Universe - PS3

7. Assassin's Creed - PS3

8. Assassin's Creed II - PS3

9. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - PS3

10. Assassin's Creed: Revelations - PS3