A Winner Is You 2021 Edition

[BubsyFan1]

TBD on the Professor's involvement with the Claus...

I appreciate you bringing it up nonetheless.

10. Darkwatch - PS2

Definitely not a game you play for the story, writing, etc., but it was enjoyable for me regardless. I also had a lot of fun with the boss fights but wasn't a fan of the jumping. It could have used more enemy variety, but I think the game was short enough where this isn't that big of an issue. I looked through the games I have completed since 2017, and the closest thing to an FPS was Maken X, and this made me want to start playing them again.

[Leynos]

I just finished

Nero/Dante
Vergil
Lady/Trish

Campaigns in DMC4 SE. Love this game. PLayed the original version on 360 but this version is a massive upgrade. I have the Asia English physical release. Sadly unlike Switch games. English copy does not mean US DLC will work. Oh well. This game has aged in some ways but it's still great fun. Seems a little humble next to Bayonetta which came out a few short years later. DMC5 improves on some things but DMC4 does some things better. Love these kinds of games. It took us from 2008 to 2019 to get another DMC game. Bayonetta 2 is 2014 and still waiting on Bayonetta 3. At least NG collection and Scarlet Nexus next month!

[Metal64]

I think that the only game that I beat this year was jojo venture

[profholt82]

Still the best Olympics video game I've ever played, Capcom's Gold Medal Challenge. Seriously, did Capcom make a bad game on the NES? It features a ton of events, and a strategic marathon that you periodocally adjust in stages throughout the overall game. Some of the events are just button mashers, but many involve timing and strategy. Plus, Hungary is a playable country which is rarely the case in these types of games. My grandparents immigrated to the US from Hungary. I played through it a couple times over the past week in preparation for the upcoming Tokyo games. I also picked up Olympic Gold something or other on the Genesis recently, so I'll be playing that one soon as well.

[Leynos]

Cotton Reboot

Great remake and the original game is in there as well.

[WarmSignal]

Just finished MX 2002 as the first game in my moto-quest to play every MX game in my collection. Decent game. Little on the easy side. Riding feels pretty good, if a little floaty. But there's definitely technique and mastery to a good flow. Some of the tracks were kind of bleh, but a few of them were pretty fun. Graphics, pretty good for a Xbox launch game, can't complain. The freestyle side of the game, I never really got the hang of it. Not a required aspect for completion. It was okay to mess around with. Soundtrack kinda meh, but I actually do kinda enjoy Fat Lip as a clearly Beastie Boys inspired song that was in a lot of early 2000s sports and racing games.

Next I'll be jumping over to everyone's favorite love-to-hate it, Motocross Championship for the 32X! Already tried it out. I don't like the fighting elements, but there is some strategy to this game... think I'm already seeing what a lot of people fail to see in the game. Clearly the original owner of this copy was a fan, he's got every password for every track in all CCs written down in the notes of the manual! So obviously, this game is playable and was well-like at one point. We'll see how it goes.

[BubsyFan1]

Time to catch up on my list...

11. The Guy Game - Xbox

This is like a lame Newgrounds game. The ridiculousness seemed appealing, but it fell short.

12. Chicken Blaster - Wii

Also seems like a lame Newgrounds game. Probably the worst and easiest lightgun game I've played.

13. Body Harvest - N64

This game was really stiff and clunky, but something about it made me want to keep playing it. Not sure if the difficulty was due to the fault of the game or me at times.

14. The Pagemaster - Genesis

I remember renting this game, which definitely left a bigger impact on me than the movie did, when it came out and enjoying it. Revisiting it... not as good as I remembered. Not bad though. Just seemed king of bland.

15. Spider-Man: Mysterio's Menace - GBA

I thought this game was really hard until I realized the shoulder buttons on my DS weren't working. After fixing that, the game was much more enjoyable.

16. Shaq-Fu: A Legend Reborn - PS4

I think they went a little too far with the over-the-topness on this one. The intro seemed kind of inspired by the beginning of the original, but then it just kept going and going. I almost feel like the game would have been better had it been even shorter.

17. Lady Sia - GBA

Overall solid title. Maybe a step above Pagemaster.

[Night Driver]

Beneath a Steel Sky (Mac)

I'm not really a fan of traditional point-and-click adventure games, to be honest. I believe that there is potential in the genre, but I've yet to find a game that has delivered on much of it. BaSS is one of the better examples of the genre that I've played. Still, I found it no better than decent. In its tone, BaSS walks a fine line between the serious and the farcical, as, indeed, most point-and-clicks do, but to its narrative detriment, I think the balance in BaSS too often falls on the later side. In particular, there are a couple of segments in the game that demand a certain degree of gravitas and pathos, but the absurdist tone completely undercuts the experience, causing the game's protagonist to come off like a callous sociopath. (3/5)

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars--Director's Cut (Mac)

I didn't realize until I was halfway through it that this game was made by the same folks who made BaSS. Broken Sword strikes a better tonal balance than BaSS, but I still found Broken Sword to be no better than decent. I guess a large part of the reason why is because I don't find the particular style of humor in the two games to be all that appealing. Most of it seems to be satirizing social and class stereotypes in a way that I suspect is more appealing to the European disposition of its creators. The entitled obstinacy of a socialist French blue-collar laborer refusing to aid you during his lunch hour, the exaggerated manners of a widowed British aristocrat as she verbally abuses the hotel staff, the overweight American tourist waddling around in his garish cabana wear, taking snapshots of every insignificant thing, and able to converse about little more than his business opportunities back home, are, to me, caricatures more tedious than humorous. To be fair, there were a number of one-liners in the game that caused me to audibly chuckle.

The narrative is interesting enough to drive the game forward, though its conclusion is among the most abrupt I've ever encountered, leaving a number of loose ends. The game's art direction is very impressive and I liked the fact that there were occasionally some real puzzles to solve. I was not, however, a fan of those "puzzle" segments where logic was treated as specious and progression was gated behind having to effect the correct sequence of arbitrary events in a specific, step-wise manner.

Also, the Director's Cut adds a prequel segment that stars the game's female lead. It was fine and on-par with the rest of the game, but her intelligent and confident demeanor in the prequel was such a stark contrast to her utter ditzzyness in the main game that, for continuity's sake, I wonder if it might not have been helpful for the developers to have inserted an additional scene at the end of the prequel wherein she's shown undergoing a lobotomy. (3/5)

Riven (Mac)

Having completed Riven, I am able to look back on it holistically and recognize it as the masterpiece it is. However, the game drops you into its world with very little direction on what it is that you're supposed to be doing, making the first few hours of the game feel rather aimless. I'm actually fine with that and I enjoyed piecing together the nature of Riven's world. However, once I began to figure things out, I found myself having to backtrack over substantial portions of the game in a way that occasionally crossed the threshold between the immersive and the annoyingly tedious. It didn't help matters that I failed to recognize a whole series of clues, which made part of one of Riven's game-encompassing puzzles simply guesswork. (4/5)

Time Soldiers (PS3)

I used to play this one in the arcade, way back when. It's a rotary-stick shooter in the style of Ikari Warriors. Unfortunately, on the PS3, the rotational controls had to be remapped to the L and R buttons, which is, obviously, less than ideal. The game on the PS3 is, consequently, more difficult than it was in the arcade, but I was able to adapt to the remapped controls reasonably well and only the final level of the game gave me real trouble. I had to save-scum a bit there. (4/5)

Alien Breed: Impact (PS3)

The core gameplay here is fine, good even, as is the art direction. But the game is utterly repetitive. Every level plays out almost identically: same structure, same objectives, same enemies, same ambushes. A one-trick pony, defined. The story, cutscenes, and voice work are all substandard. Upgrades are boring and, beyond two or three of them, completely pointless. I'd be willing to give the game a passing grade, but the repetition is so extreme that the game devolves into mindless tedium well before the halfway mark. It's too bad. There was potential here. (2/5)

Thief (2014) (PS3)

Throttled by most reviewers, and I understand why. I don't think its creators had a clear idea of what they wanted this game to be. The story is a bit of a mess. I didn't think a game would ever present me with cutscenes more stilted than those of Dragon Age Inquisition, but Thief's cinematics exist on a transcendent plane of awkwardness all their own.

"Klepto" would, actually, be a more fitting title for the game, as 90% of what passes for larceny in the game is habitually riffling through people's desk drawers to pilfer their inkwells, pens, and letter openers—activities so preposterously low-stakes, repetitive, and boring that one quickly loses the motivation to engage in them at all.

Thankfully, the stealth aspects of the game are strong and the level designs and atmosphere in the main-story missions are, at times, outstanding. These aspects really saved the game for me as I thoroughly enjoyed finding ways to complete the level objectives and find all the secrets while remaining completely undetected and non-lethal. Strange that the game undercuts these strengths by allowing and even encouraging the player to "upgrade" their character with a battery of skills and equipment that make stealth an afterthought—again, I don't think the designers had a clear vision for this game. (3/5)

[Blades]

Riven (Mac)

Having completed Riven, I am able to look back on it holistically and recognize it as the masterpiece it is. However, the game drops you into its world with very little direction on what it is that you're supposed to be doing, making the first few hours of the game feel rather aimless. I'm actually fine with that and I enjoyed piecing together the nature of Riven's world. However, once I began to figure things out, I found myself having to backtrack over substantial portions of the game in a way that occasionally crossed the threshold between the immersive and the annoyingly tedious. It didn't help matters that I failed to recognize a whole series of clues, which made part of one of Riven's game-encompassing puzzles simply guesswork. (4/5)

How did you play it? Original hardware?

[Night Driver]

How did you play it? Original hardware?

I played the GOG version, which uses ScummVM to run the game on OS X.

[Blades]

Parasite Eve II (2000)

I really liked it, the puzzles were great and the atmosphere was striking. I got the bad ending, so I really want to play it again...

[Night Driver]

Gunstar Heroes

There's not much to say about this one that hasn't already been said, which is good because I tend to go on about these games way more than is necessary. Nevertheless, I will say that Gunstar Heroes is a game best experienced on the harder difficulties. Normal difficulty demands almost no skill or strategy from the player, especially if you use a homing weapon. The lack of challenge on the lower difficulties almost completely undermines the game's strengths. I played on normal the first time through and came away decidedly unimpressed with game, asking "so what is it, again, that's so special about this game?" After spending a week trying to beat the expert difficulty, my impression of the game had flipped almost 180 degrees.

I wasn't able to beat the game on expert. Unfortunately, time constraints forced me to drop the difficulty down a notch and beat the game on hard, which was still a decent challenge.

I do wish there was a degree of predictability or, perhaps, even some amount of player control over weapon drops. It might make the game somewhat easier, but it would create an additional layer of strategy that I feel would benefit the game.

Oh, and I know everyone hates them, but the Dice Palace and the shmup level were my favorite sections of the game. (4/5)

[profholt82]

I beat Gleylancer tonight. I bought it for the xbox shortly after it came out, and then bought a copy for the switch so I could have a portable version as well, and because it was only like 5 or 6 bucks in the e-store. After a week or so of playing it off and on, I finally beat it. Man, what a great game, seriously, the whole way through. I really loved it. Being able to choose different robot buddy shots and the angles in which they shoot, the speed of your ship, all of that, I love the customization options. And the story and anime cutscenes seemed like blatant Robotech/Macross ripoffs which was fine by me. I loved Robotech. So, I've really been enjoying this game, and it was great to finally beat it. That last boss is a real ball buster with all the different forms.

When the green trophy message came on at the end, it said I unlocked the good ending. So, now I've got to know, how do I get the bad ending? Does anyone know?

[Leynos]

I put 90 hours in Shin Megami Tensei V. What a fantastic game. Maybe my fave Atlus RPG. I also bought the Demi Fiend DLC and that has to be one of the hardest if not the hardest boss fight in an RPG I ever had. He's is insanely difficult. I do not know if he is as or more difficult than he is in DDS. After many attempts I finally did get him and felt great. I've played almost nothing but RPGs the last couple of months (minus playing Vergil in DMCV) and I'm ready to shoot shit in a game.

[WarmSignal]

Just finished Far Cry Instincts Predator (Xbox 360). I never realized how different this game was to the PC original. It's essentially a remaster of the OG Xbox games. It includes two stories - Instincts and Evolution. The "animal" like powers you get in these versions are cool, but some of the level design was drawn out and they had really annoying kamikaze enemies. These versions are more of a classic corridor shooter with some stealthy elements, because consoles at the time couldn't handle the original open world game. Still a good time, even if the aiming is kind of jank. The Evolution story is very short. However, I noticed Far Cry Vengeance which I've also played for the Wii is like an odd mishmash of the Evolution game, mixed with some different elements taken from the PC version that wasn't in the 360 one. It's a confusing mess. The Wii game has terrible graphics and poor controls, but I the campaign was a bit more interesting, I felt.