December, January, and February
So… I definitely have been putting off my monthly updates for a while. So much so that I ended up writing up my reviews/thoughts all in one night at the last minute. Thus, this is going to be a bit of a mess and maybe not completely coherent or grammar correct. Luckily, for better or for worse, I haven’t actually had time to play games a whole lot due to having a vacation, getting sick on vacation, going to conventions, starting a 7 day work week schedule, etc. It has been hectic and busy to say the least. Anyways, away we go.
January
Supposedly a must have for VR, but not one that I would recommend. Moving around by swinging arms made motion unpleasant. The combat could have been great as it was a gladiator game, but ruined by the weapons being made of rubber. Instead of going for a somewhat realistic and satisfying victories, your weapons just flop around and most of your attacks are better of you wiggling around a bunch. To access different levels, menus and settings were a pain and clunky. Overall this game was kind of a gimmick that only really tested the fields of VR and lost upon a bunch of potential in my eyes.
Hack the planet. Okay not actually, but a surprisingly good hacking game that employs a lite version of actual hacking. It favors people who have some semblance of hacking or coding, but is simplified enough and even provides a visual UI with buttons that makes it even easier if you so choose. Overall, really enjoyed this and looking to get the DLC when my budget allots.
A wonderful gift by the most secret-est of santas. Always a game I was tempted to get every sale and regretted not getting each time. To be honest when I started playing I was slightly worried I wasn’t going to like it as it was a little slow and not as metroidvania as I thought. However, as you progress the game slowly becomes a little more complex, with beautiful visuals and music. Although it wasn’t the metroidvania that I thought it was going to be, it was still a great journey and recommend to any.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection – Halo Reach
It is time to finish the fight again, as we continue the great journey. It was great coming back to Halo despite it not being an overly favorite series of mine. Reach itself is one of my top Halo games next to Halo 2. The campaign is great as always, very engaging and enjoyable levels. The multiplayer however generally solid has a real bad case of a handicap for those with controllers. Eventually I learned to stop caring as controllers had the immediate advantage, but for a while… it felt bad being a keyboard and mouse user. I would have liked to see a wider variety of maps, but
Ever wanted to work in border control? Probably not, but this game has you do just that and at least provides a more interesting scenario with a country in conflict with itself and those around it. The game starts out simple enough with a set of rules, but as the game progresses and letting people in can become more complicated requiring them and you to follow an ever changing entry criteria that can have you make a mistake and let the wrong person in or send an honest person away. It doesn’t really stop there as there are multiple points where the story can end, and you have to do well enough to keep your family in good health. Enjoyable, but takes a lot of concentration and time with a little bit of a slower pace to it.
A lot of anticipation for the reboot of my favorite entry of one of my favorite series in gaming and… it did not disappoint. Though it adopted the point and shoot system introduced in Resident Evil 4, it still had a solid element of survival horror and strategy. Rationing ammo and herbs, solving puzzles, and having to really look and listen to the world around you to decide whether you engage, or run was generally well crafted. Generally, this was a great game, but it did have it’s faults. The boss battles as a whole just felt really lack luster and spongey. Though the previous entries didn’t involve a huge amount of in battle strategy, they at least felt like a bit of a fair challenge rather than annoying wide area tracking moves. Not to say it’s difficult battles just… annoying.
If the old RE games weren’t your cup of tea, this will be a good RE-introduction to the series. A solid meld of old meets new.
Annnnnnnd, we’re back in the past with an older game, but follows Leon after the events of RE2. You are now super cool secret agent tasked with a mission to save the president’s daughter in another country. That’s right, it sounds like a plot straight out of an 80’s action movie, and its dialogue and gameplay follow through. It has some elements of horror and helplessness early on for newcomers, but very quickly thrown out the window as you run, gun, and can never quite get enough inventory space to fit your boxes of ammo. Though it may not quite put the survival (or horror) for that matter that the series is known for, the game still follows the general plot line of the series with enjoyable gameplay. The bigger issue is that despite it runs smoothly throughout the game at 60 fps, the quick time of events (which there are many) do not run at the same frames. So much so, that in some parts you have to exit to the menu to switch to a very ugly 30 fps to actually do them successfully. Though I’ve only really felt that in one or two of these events. So if the old RE games weren’t your style, and the reboots 2 meld of new and old aren’t quite your taste, play 4 where it is just pure action.
I didn’t play much of this due to it only having multiplayer and I don’t have any friends that can stick to one game without going back to the same two… unenjoyable games… that I didn’t quite get to play too many matches. Generally RTS is pretty mixed for me, but I enjoyed this quite a bit. Having small sets of areas around the planets that you have to jump to gave a sense of ease rather than the rush down strategies that some others employ. Though not quite as laid back where it takes 500 years for anything to happen or develop. It was a nice middle ground for pacing. Unfortunately, I don’t have too much else to say about it other than that if you enjoy RTS, you will probably enjoy this.
Generally good fighting game, though I feel having all sorts of mechanics revolving around specials/ultimates can kinda take away from that. There is generally no main story, with a heavy amount of time spent into a sort of choose your own adventure game that I kinda just fell out of. Outside of that the characters play relatively well. I haven’t really done any online so that’s where this review left off. Not the best fighting game, but an enjoyable one.
The Jackbox Party Pack 2
I finally got a chance to play this after using the remote play (even though we realized streaming the screen was just the better solution) to get all my distant friends to gather around and have essentially self-provided fun. Not every game is made equal as every game just about heavily relies on the crew you are bringing into the match and your degree of joke capacity. My particular favorites of this batch of games was Quiplash XL (create interesting responses to situations or phrases and match them against another person. The rest of the players vote to which one they like the best) and Fibbage 2 (a sort of trivia where the players must create a convincing answer in order to fool the others to thinking theirs is the right one).
Because you don’t just stop at one Jackbox pack (see Jackbox Party Pack 2 for the general idea of the packs). Favorites on this one includes
Trivia Murder Party (trivia with a twist, if you fail the answer you must play in a minigame with the other failed players and win to live. It doesn’t stop there though, even if one player is left alive they must contest with a series of multiple answer questions to keep their body to the goal, lest a ghost steals their body [and potentially the victory])
Tee K.O (create designs and slogans that other players must decide between to create weird or cool shirts that will be judged by the whole. An even more interesting twist is that after the game ends you have the ability to buy these shirts).
And it continues… Favorites:
Patently Stupid (Create two problems that pools together and randomized for the other players and yourself to solve. Then you must draw a product, give it a name, and slogan to then present and convince the other players to invest in. The biggest problem with this game is it can require some thought and creative juices that we all eventually lost after a fair amount of plays)
Mad Verse City (A personal favorite. One on One rap battles, four lines per match. Don’t worry the first and third line are mostly written and unknown until you fill it’s adlib criteria (noun, place, things, animal, verb, etc.) and then create your own line to follow each one up. Create the dopest rhymes and the sickest burns to earn the votes of the player audience.)
Lastly… Favorites:
Trivia Murder Party 2 (More of the first entry (see Jackbox Party Pack 3) but with new trivia, minigames, and setting)
Joke Boat (Alright, I am now decided this isn’t great, only because I think it takes a very particular group to make this game mode successful. You write a bunch of words that players must insert into templates of jokes that they then must follow up with a good punch line. Their have only been a few successful creations, but the only real joy was following up with a partially made catch phrase)
Push the Button (A decent game that has the potential to be great. Depending on the size of the party at least 2 players are secretly an alien. Each round a player is rotated in as the captain to test at least 2 players with some minigame that has a prompt. The twist is that the aliens receive a different prompt from the humans. However, aliens can hack themselves to get the right prompt or others to give them an alien prompt. An investigation must happen in order to figure out friend verse foe and push the button to elect and eject the aliens. My issue with the game? It’s an all or nothing for the humans. This means if you don’t get both aliens when you decide humans will automatically lose and with bigger games it is really hard to tell who exactly the aliens are.)
After playing the final mix version of this game, I wanted to see how it faired on it’s original release console. Though it is still fundamentally the same game, it is far better suited on a console with a variety of buttons rather than the very limited Game Boy Advanced. It’s 2.5 D graphics are nice, but figuring out which layer of the floor you are on along with the enemy can be unclear. As well the limited amount of buttons means actions are mapped to very similar button combinations. For example to swap through your cards is left and right trigger, but to add cards to a combo you must press right trigger plus A (or something like that) which means if you are off slightly by a press you can not only swap the card you were on, but add the wrong card to your combo. Effectively this messes up the combo system which drives the combat of the game. Avoid this form of the game, and go for the remix/final mix.
The story in this game may not connect very well into the main series, but it serves as a decent run through the main story of KH1 and Chain of Memories while still providing its own continuation. Better yet it has a good thematic of pain, how one processes it, how we can deal with it, and what exactly pain means when it comes from others. Generally it’s good as it offers a varied customization level up system (similar to FFX), but then gets weird with its boss battles as most of them turn into weird mini games as opposed to the original style form the first game. Relatively to the rest of the entries, it’s okay and only recommended to die hard fans of the series.
January
Taking a second to switch it up with a fighting game. A typical 2D fighting game that has a combo heavy system but is more forgiving to players who mash and spam. Generally it’s very simple, following quarter circles that do a various versions of the same special. With this being a first entry of the series it faces a serious issue with far better characters than others, so if you are on a basic level, spam with Noelle with Jin and in higher tiers play Jin. Though I can only vaguely say of skill levels since I am 10 years too late to this series and even if online was a capability, I would be sorely mistaken in even trying to face another. The story is interesting, but following each character route can be annoying, confusing, or seemingly pointless plot wise. To add to any confusion each character has split routes that cause all sorts of mess and to truly get 100% you have to lose once in every battle to get every last bit of dialogue.
Free, a VN, and generally an advertisement. Despite two out of three of the above cases, it was an enjoyable and wild ride. Attend a cooking school along side a very beautiful and hunky Colonol Sanders as you not only try to win a cooking competition, but his heart. Though it’s not all about cooking as it follows very wacky anime/VN tropes, while still slipping in food art that will look better than any bucket of KFC could ever appear in real life. Meeting the man behind the VN was interesting and if things go well for him, I would look forward to seeing more of his and his teams games like this.
Always interested in this game, never got around to getting it until now. A puzzle based platformer where you must use blocks to climb the tower (lest you fall or something worse comes along) as each layer below you falls. It has a lot of interesting mechanics as far as moving and stacking these blocks as well as strategies to climb the various obstacles and tools at your feet. The story itself tells of a man, Vincent unsure about where he is at in life and more importantly his love life with long time girlfriend Katherine who wants to settle down. This is where Catherine comes in who only cares about the spur of the moment and living a free life, taking an interest in Vincent with an undeniable attraction towards her. But, while in the middle of this triangle, men are mysteriously dying in their sleep where they dream they are sheep who must climb for their lives. It deals with a delicate situation, and tests the morals of the player as they face moral questions and compares them to the rest of the player base as well as affecting the ending. Really enjoyed the game and story alike, where it’s replayability comes from the want to master the ways of the block strategies and climbing to get better scores for each floor/level.
Totally recommend (Despite the fact that while having the flu I had a really bad fever and couldn’t stop dreaming of solving and climbing block scenarios. Oddly enough, the fever disappeared after that night, though still going through the rest of the symptoms.)
February
If there is one particular developer I’m a fan of it is Suda51/Grasshopper Manufacture. The punk-style of gaming and full tilt wild action and weird just fit so well together, added to being exclusive to the ever weird console (the wii) fully utilizes its motion control capabilities for the better. Play Travis Touchdown a complete weird Otaku who also happens to be an Assassin set to be Numero Uno. He must climb the Assassin ranks in One on One fights as each Assassin is more different and bizarre than the rest. The worst part of this game is essentially its open world to accept missions, as well as needing to do side missions to even play the story mission, let alone buy new weapons, clothes, etc. The better part of this game involves the unique boss and memorable boss battles and it’s no care unrefined and comedic dialogue. It also offers a healthy challenge throughout the game. Challenging the player as they go making sure you aren’t too overpowered and become better as a player, but just enough where you never feel like you hit a wall that you can’t climb.
This sequel provides a lot of good and some bad from the previous entry. The good: No more open world, no more money requirements to play the next story mission, very direct with the boss battles which is my favorite part of the gameplay, the music, and the final boss fitting so well with the left field style of the game. The bad: The normal difficulty has been toned down greatly from the game where most bosses offer little to no challenge. It’s not until you beat the game and unlock the next difficulty where the bosses get a nice complexity them akin to the original game. Though most of the levels quickly progress to the boss fight, some levels take quite some time to get there and drag on for no real reason. Still love the game to death and looking forward to the third entry later this year.
KH3 Re-Mind DLC
Though I paid for this DLC without a second thought, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that this should have just been in the main game from the start. Not only does it provide much more needed context and background info, but has more of what was teased throughout the game and in the effectively Alpha version of the game, Fragmentary Passage. Still I enjoyed it greatly, and finally being able to face each member of the Real Organization XIII with challenging replica fights was refreshing.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne DLC
A bold expansion to the base game which effectively adds an entire games worth of content (with an entire game’s worth of price for it). New area, new monsters, new variations of old monsters, new mechanics, new moves for each weapon, and new climate with the plus of additional monsters added later for no additional cost. The only crime this game pays is that after a little bit you don’t really visit the new ice map much, and to fight a specific monster you have to increase your hunter rank all the way to 200. Still a lot of fun, refreshing, and a lot of content to sift through, despite it still being a little grindy.
Well…I haven’t played ANY of these games myself :D Your review of GORN pretty much is what I expected from the game after seeing its trailer a while back…nice to see that I was right.
7 day work week sounds kinda horrible to be honest. I hope you don’t mean full workdays by that! Otherwise, when would you play video games?
Well I hope that it assured you not to get Gorn, unless it was exactly what you are looking for.
7 days is not great, but at least the week goes by fast. Eh about 9 hour shifts, but like how there is always room for dessert… there is always time for video games. >:3
via Imgflip
No worries, I wasn’t going to get it before reading your review and even less after reading the review. But…that’s like 63 hours/week, that sounds crazy much. I hope it’s only temporary?
Average of 61 due to the second job having flexible hours. Sadly it is only temporary as I do enjoy the extra income. There are impending loans that I wish to smite >:3
Ok, I guess impending loans are a reason to be happy about having a lot of work. I didn’t think of that. Hope everything works out fine for you :)
Thanks, and to you as well. ^_^