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dang i guess i gotta play perfect tides
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Dec 26, 2022 06:49
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Tulip posted:I guess I’ve managed to make people cringe by my low-cost solution to making gold from lead that takes 3000 cycles, but mostly its just enchanting and pure. Not for the faint of heart: https://i.imgur.com/pzDY1tz.mp4 This is violence and I love it.
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Dec 26, 2022 08:23
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Tulip posted:My only interaction with Josh Sawyer was him recommending me studies of Flemish manuscripts for improving my calligraphy. This is a wonderful sentence. Thanks for an interesting writeup!
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Dec 26, 2022 09:49
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Tulip posted:2. Pentiment Clearly you didn't take Latin during character creation
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Dec 26, 2022 18:52
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I shall be receiving my final game gifts in one hour and six minutes so I will have a few short days to play them and then I can finally do my writeup for the thread!
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Dec 26, 2022 18:58
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I played these but eh, they didn't make a massive impression on me: Fallout 4 - It's fallout. I like wandering around boston and having npc factions randomly fighting each other was cool, but drat did the story suck rear end and it didn't do anything particularly special. Deathloop: I enjoyed it. A bit of option in how to do the perfect day would've been cool instead but that would probably mess up the game's idea. Outer Wilds: It's good but I haven't really gotten through it to be able to jam it on the list. 10. Brotato: is a single stick shooter that I've surprisingly dropped a lot of time on. Very simple premise of a six armed potato fighting aliens across 20 waves, buying upgrades between each wave to eventually try and beat the boss. 6 danger levels give a bit of difficulty enhancement and the devs have added a few new classes in the recent patch and are still working on the game. Would also recommend their other games Space Gladiators and Lost Potato as good time killers. 9. We Were Here (Series): Clever first person co-op escape room type puzzle game that helped me connect with some family that lives far away. I like the walkie-talkie mechanic as it means even communication requires proper team work. 8. Elden Ring: It's good yeah, it's souls yeah, it's open world which I guess is good or bad. Was happy to see from get away from the hyper speed trash that was dark souls 3. Exploring the world was a great experience but repetitive dungeons were meh. The proper legacy dungeons were fantastic, but I guess it doesn't scratch itches the way a souls game used to? Maybe I'm getting old. 7. Slice and Dice: A goon made mobile game where you roll dice to determine what your 5 character part will do across a 20 encounter dungeon. For a game that sounds simple it's got a huge number of game modes and ways to play, loads of items to attach to your characters that vary the game play even further and there are no in app purchases. I have almost missed my train stop because I've been too engrossed in it. Buy this game! 6. Tunic: This game was extremely unique and scratched that exploration itch. Certain bits felt a little bit too inscrutable but the experience of piecing together how to play was fantastic and it's definitely worth a play. 5. Blasphemous: This game oozes style and was really engaging. The difficulty felt bang on for what I was looking for and the exploration was good fun. 4. Art of Rally: Minimalist game about rallying. The art style and vibe is extremely chill, despite there being a decent challenge in it. Lack of co driver instruction is always a weird one in a rally game, but the game is great if you can pick it up on the cheap. There's almost a zen point you can hit when things are flowing well. 3. Unpacking: I can't explain why this game ends up here. When I think about the other games on the list for some reason this one sticks out as having left an impression on me that puts it above the others 2. The Hunter: Call of The Wild: I've spent way more time playing this game than I ever thought I would. It's chill as a hiking simulator where occasionally you try to shoot a moose or something. The locations are detailed and tend to be very pretty. There's a loose mission system, but it isn't entirely necessary. It's weirdly addictive but can be immensely frustrating when you're trying to track down a coyote but can't find one. Almost feels a bit hitman-like as you try to find and track a target to set up the perfect shot. 2022 game of the year, the once, current and future champion, the game I think I nominate every year: 1. Sleeping Dogs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iH8Qc9-gA8  On sale now on steam for like 85% off. It's a fun game about being a loose cannon undercover cop who gets in too deep and almost goes too far as he runs afoul of his superiors in the police department. There are some great characters, the city of Hong Kong is fun to run around in and people will try to sell you pork buns in the street. The very silly hard-boiled story is paced a bit weirdly but eventually escalates in a crazy way, it's got lots of wild hand to hand fighting, it's got some really poorly shoehorned in dating missions that scream "cut content", you can eat pork buns, it's got a bunch of random "face" missions that are very silly, you can show up to your undercover meeting with your gang dressed in a full policeman's uniform or just your skivvies if you want I like that missions give you both cop xp (which you lose for doing things like causing accidents or hurting civilians) and triad xp (for mixing up your fighting and stuff), plus opportunities to stop off and eat pork buns, but if you do your best to gather cop xp you can max level that tree right around the time of a major plot beat which leads to main character Wei Shen getting far too invested with the triads and caring less about his cop job, and as such go nuts and cause all the destruction you want. The hand-to-hand combat is fun, the driving physics are a bit weird at times but you can jump from car to car so who's to say if they're good or bad, movement on foot is tied in with a parkour system so you can vault over and slide under things, the DLCs are actually really good, the general lack of guns outside of missions makes gameplay and story pretty unique (at least until you're firing rifle grenades off a roof), the soundtrack is an absolute banger and you can buy pork buns off a man in the street then eat them. Sleeping Dogs, 2022's game of the year.
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Dec 26, 2022 19:23
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Ah gently caress you reminded me I played tunic this year and I totally forgot to put it on my list 
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Dec 26, 2022 19:47
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Lethrom posted:Ah gently caress you reminded me I played tunic this year and I totally forgot to put it on my list Fortunately you have time to correct this error
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Dec 26, 2022 19:48
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I find this thread intimidating, but I love reading it every year and learning things about how games affect people. It was also a busy year and I don’t finish many games at the best of times, but I’m just going to go with it. Seven: Tactics Ogre: Reborn This dropped, unexpectedly, just as I was figuring out how to get the previous iteration of it working on my Steam Deck under emulation—what good luck, since it is apparently a much friendlier version in terms of a bunch of the mechanics. I’ve been enjoying it, and I am sufficiently invested that I had to go back to a previous save when I presided over a massacre of civilians due to a dialogue choice. I play it in little 2-battle bites every now and then but it’s everything I had hoped it would be as a tactics game and the production values are lovely. Six: Final Fantasy XIV I played so much of this game in the first half of the year that I burned out on it, though I came back briefly later to have an in-game wedding after our real life one. Even the ongoing time limited event for Christmas hasn’t drawn me back in, and I’m normally a big sucker for that sort of thing. I love how much there is to do, I wish I were better at remembering or even reacting to boss cues so I could join the Savage raid content confidently, I am so fond of the Goon community, and I really loved the story and characters. I might be done with this game, or maybe just until the “big reset” coming with the 7.0 patch, but it has given me a lot of joy and I’m grateful for it this year as much as in previous. Five: Citizen Sleeper I had to stop playing this because I was literally lying awake worrying about what I would do next. The tone and writing and tiny mechanics of the game are arresting, and I will get back to it in a slightly more detached way and love it all over again. Great world-building, choices feel that they matter, characters I cared about (sometimes because I wanted to smash their faces). Four: Vampire Survivors It’s so small and so pure and I’m really not very good at it but when I boot it up I am always suddenly in the mood to play it more than the one-or-two runs I had in mind. It was no surprise to discover that the developer of this $3 masterpiece has a background in gambling software, because the reward loop is tight as hell. Three: Cyberpunk 2077 I have a Samurai hoodie. I have the lore book. I own multiple (unplayed) editions of the TTRPG that inspired it. I was so excited for this game and I took a day off work to play it on launch day, and then shortly after The Heist I just…stopped playing. I would have told you I was enjoying it, and I think I was, but I just didn’t want to play more. I came back to it this year on a fresh play through, after enjoying Edgerunners, to see how it could flex with my new video card, and it stuck. I trivialized a lot of the game through the common strategy of frying people from a safe distance with my hacking skills, but I really enjoyed it and I finished it! I don’t finish games, really; I can’t remember the non-MMO-main-story that I finished before this one. It felt great to see the whole arc through and think about how all the interactions led to where I ended up. I know there are a ton of other parts to the game that I haven’t experienced, even beyond the other endings, and I might go back for them next year when the DLC drops. Two: Elden Ring I have played a total of like 8 minutes of the Souls genre previously, which I think was an opening cinematic and then dying suddenly. Inspired by this thread, though, I gave it a shot on my Steam Deck and it has honestly been great. I have come to some comfort with the fact that dying-and-running-back (or dying and loving off to somewhere else) is part of the core game loop and not a sign that I’m doing anything wrong. If you’ll permit some overanalysis, that was really a bit of a breakthrough for me because I have that “gifted kid” fear of failure and incorrectness baked pretty deeply into me. In terms of the main plot I’m still in the first zone, but I’ve seen so much thoughtful and interesting stuff in the world already. I don’t really understand the story or lore super well, but I’m enjoying it anyway. I’m doing better than I thought I would, and I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. I’m playing it instead of doing hobby programming and cooking, which had been my plan for the break, and I don’t mind at all. One: Pentiment I am so out of the ropekid stalking loop that I didn’t know about this until release and then I played it and babbled about it to my wife (“are you playing that scratching-noise game again?”) and got kinda choked up at a few points and skimmed some pirated JSTOR articles that I didn’t understand. What a wonderful experience. I don’t know if Obsidian could have afforded to make this game prior to the Microsoft acquisition, and I’m so glad they (and especially Josh Sawyer with whom I have a healthy parasocial relationship) got a chance to put this into the world. I finished it and was drained enough that I was not ready to start another pass at it, but it was a really satisfied sort of drained. I am not really a history buff and have never taken a history class outside of high school and I haven’t read Eco, and this game was a delightful blast of historical thought and consideration and opinion that I definitely could not have told you I was looking for. The writing is so human and the art is beautiful and they added an option for the dialogue text to appear more quickly, so it’s now the perfect game and you should all make the 20 hour investment to experience it. For Rarity, our hero: 7: Tactics Ogre: Reborn 6: Final Fantasy XIV 5: Citizen Sleeper 4: Vampire Survivors 3: Cyberpunk 2077 2: Elden Ring 1: Pentiment
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Dec 26, 2022 19:51
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Lethrom posted:Ah gently caress you reminded me I played tunic this year and I totally forgot to put it on my list I had to flip through my steam and gog list to see what was there lol. I forgot about it too. Can never forget sleeping dogs though
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Dec 26, 2022 19:58
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Hunter: Call of the Wild is really good, I agree
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Dec 26, 2022 20:03
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ilmucche posted:I had to flip through my steam and gog list to see what was there lol. I forgot about it too. Can never forget sleeping dogs though Yea I remember having a blast with sleeping dogs. Been a few years since I've played it. Maybe its time for a revisit. Tunic slipped through the cracks because I keep track of Steam and GoG stuff I've beaten with tags, keep my console stuff tracked with Backloggery, but Tunic I played over Gamepass so it didn't show up anywhere I looked.
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Dec 26, 2022 20:31
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God yes, so happy to see Pentiment getting the love it so richly deserves.ilmucche posted:you can buy pork buns off a man in the street then eat them. Why don't I have a pork bun in my hand right now?
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Dec 26, 2022 21:57
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*Having dinner with a monastery of catholic monks* How bout that Martin Luther?
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Dec 26, 2022 22:03
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1. No Man's Sky: It let me do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, which was (and is) important to me in these circumscribed times. 2. Scarlet Hollow: When the game said that choices have consequences, this game means it. 3. Boyfriend Dungeon: The only game on this list that made me smile when I recollect on it. Simple gameplay and far too short. 4. Monster Hunter Stories 2: I find it upsetting that you have to kill everything in Monster Hunter. At least in Stories, you can make some of them your friends. 5. Shadows Over Loathing: Amusing diversion where actions aren't terribly consequential, maybe due to it happening to stick figures? 6. Dinkum: Fairly well fleshed out farming simulator. I find it less stressful than others since there's no pressure to date or even get to know the townspeople very much. 7. Persona 5 Royal: The style is impeccable, the story less so. Maybe I'm getting too old for 100+ hour jrpgs.
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Dec 26, 2022 22:12
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pentiment was made for exactly one person and it was nice of him to share it with the rest of us
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Dec 26, 2022 22:16
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Rianlee posted:1. No Man's Sky: It let me do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, which was (and is) important to me in these circumscribed times. 
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Dec 26, 2022 22:31
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You circumcised your times?
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Dec 26, 2022 22:43
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Rianlee posted:2. Scarlet Hollow: When the game said that choices have consequences, this game means it. Heck yeah! Glad to see this getting another vote! (apologies if I missed anyone else earlier!)
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Dec 26, 2022 22:51
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Rianlee posted:3. Boyfriend Dungeon: The only game on this list that made me smile when I recollect on it. Simple gameplay and far too short. Man, way too fuckin true.
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Dec 26, 2022 22:55
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Lethrom posted:Ah gently caress you reminded me I played tunic this year and I totally forgot to put it on my list You can edit your list just let me know you've done so to make sure I get the updated vote  Incidentally we are now up to 95 lists submitted, which is still less than half the amount we had last year so I know there's lots of you out there still waiting to vote 
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Dec 26, 2022 23:02
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Waffleman_ posted:You circumcised your times? Circumscribed: limited or restricted.
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Dec 26, 2022 23:21
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Waffleman_ posted:You circumcised your times? imes
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Dec 26, 2022 23:30
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Honorable Mentions: 17. Weird West An interesting little thing I played a couple hours of one night and never launched again. 16. Neon White Apparently I only played like 90 minutes of this before I got distracted, but that’s really surprising because I dug the hell out of it. 15. Stray I started a good number of games this year and didn’t finish a lot of them. Hopefully I can make time to come back to the fun cat game, it was slight but I enjoyed it for what it was. 14. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Yo, this game is dumb. To be fair, it knows it’s dumb, even if it doesn’t really nail the tonal and narrative balancing act that being dumb on purpose requires. It’s pretty fun, though. Once I discovered the Ninja job’s Utsusemi ability, oh man. I’m sure I could have gotten another few dozen hours of enjoyment out of this thing if I had the patience to play Nioh games more than once, but one go-around was fun and enough for me. 13. Live A Live I got through two stories before I forgot about this game. Prehistory was kinda lame, but the Wild West was cool as hell even if it was really, really short. The problem with the game is mostly just that the totally separate stories kill your forward momentum every time you finish one, which is a shame. 12. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Not always a great game to play, though it has its moments. However, the story is pretty sublime once you get used to Extremely Canadian Star-Lord. It’s a bit too long, but that just means everyone gets a chance to shine. 11. Tunic I’m really bummed this didn’t make it into my top 10, but I really, really enjoyed everything from this point onwards (even if, again, I didn’t always finish the games). The gimmick of finding pages of the game’s manual to reveal helpful information was awesome, and it felt like it never ran out of ways to surprise me with fun shortcuts. The quarry can go eat a dick, though. The Real List! 10. Triangle Strategy I’m not big on tactics games, mostly because I suck at them, but this was a lot of fun. Every character providing a different niche or spin on the game mechanics was an excellent way to differentiate the massive cast. Some chapters can be brutally difficult (stop making me protect Roland, please), which invites a lot of creative thinking about how to succeed by the skin of your teeth. That feeling of being ground into dust and only barely managing to squeak by carries over into the story as well, even if there’s maybe a bit too much of the story. I want to do more fun battles, game, not watch all these (still good) cutscenes! 9. Marvel Snap I don’t play mobile games. I don’t like playing games on my phone. This is the only exception. It’s ridiculously addictive and fun to watch these silly animations and ridiculous combinations. I’m not even mad when I lose because it’s usually due to some ridiculous counterplay by my opponent. 8. God of War: Ragnarok I got the platinum in this game, even though I was ready for it to be over a while before it actually ended. The combat is solid if unexceptional, and while the story is pretty good, I feel it lacks a simplicity the first game had. It’s just a solid experience all around, despite these complaints, but I don’t feel strongly enough to put it any higher. It’s here because it’s one of the few games I actually finished, but that shouldn’t be taken as me saying it’s not good. 7. Citizen Sleeper I keep hearing people talk up Norco as a kind of successor to Disco Elysium. I didn’t get the chance to play that game, though, so my pick for that role is going to have to be Citizen Sleeper. They’re not terribly similar in gameplay outside the presence of literal dice rolls (though Citizen Sleeper’s dice rolls are all kind of pre-decided, the dice being rolled at the start of every day and spent to perform actions), and the settings couldn’t be more different, but Citizen Sleeper seems very much in the same vein in terms of the way it tries to engage the player with its world. There’s a lot of very good, very interesting “literary” writing in both games to sell the sense of place in the worlds you inhabit. Now, Disco Elysium is a better game than Citizen Sleeper, better written, with more interesting and novel mechanics, but CS I think edges it out in a crucial way. Disco Elysium, for all its greatness, for all its ability to sell its world, for everything that it does absolutely right, doesn’t have much ongoing tension on the gameplay side, at least until the story tensions boil over. Now, that’s completely intentional; it’s an RPG with a lot of interesting and funny side content that the developers want people to see, so they let you explore it at your own pace, more or less. Citizen Sleeper does not do this. Citizen Sleeper is a game about motherfucking timers. They’re all counting down, maybe not in real time, but every single day you spend is another chunk of your rapidly shortening life draining away, sliding into the gutter. Your body is breaking down, and as your condition gets worse so does your performance, with fewer dice available to you until you fix yourself up. The corporation you’ve technically stolen your own body from is tracking you, with an ever-present countdown until they come to take you back. Managing all your physical and monetary needs while trying not to waste too much time is nerve-wracking, especially when it’s not always clear what the “right thing” to do is. You don’t always know what the ramifications of a decision will be even when you’re successful. It’s an intensely stressful game in the best way. And eventually, you gain a measure of stability, a measure of peace and the luxury of a second to relax with nothing on your back, and by then you’ve unlocked so much of the station that you’ve got several places to check up on, different questlines you need to give attention, daily routines to keep up, and you feel like a real member of a community for a while–at least until you set some quest into motion and it’s back to scrambling and giving whatever you can spare to try to prevent disaster. It’s a fascinating game. Needs a good Kim, though. 6. Pentiment Pentiment is extremely charming, extremely cool, and extremely unexpected. I only finished Chapter I of this game before being pulled away, but it’s so lovingly realized a portrait of a time and place that the murder mystery part almost feels ancillary. My only problem with what I played was that I didn’t feel like there was enough time to really explore multiple theories, but that might change later in the game so I feel bad even mentioning it. 5. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 This game is also too long. Now, to be fair to Xenoblade Chronicles 3, when I started playing it I had just blitzed through the first two games in a week each, but to be more fair to me, the game kind of runs out of steam in the story by the end, which also coincides with the amount of side content going loving nuts. That said, the characters are pretty excellent, and the story for the first fifty hours or so is absurdly good even if the nature of the setting means it can’t do much interesting worldbuilding. The game is just a classic JRPG on a scale we don’t really see anymore, for good and ill. 4. AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative This game cheats. I shouldn’t like what this game does so much, but I do. There’s having balls, and then there’s Uchikoshi, who just throws out basically every rule in the book to show you a good time and break your brain. 10/10. 3. Elden Ring Here’s my Elden Ring story: I started as a Samurai because I had decided from the start of the game that I wanted to run something different from the Strength-focused characters I normally roll in Souls games, so I chose Dexterity and Intelligence as my main stats. I didn’t use much in terms of sorcery in my playthrough, except for occasionally drawing aggro from distant enemies, but I didn’t change my build. Then I did a side dungeon and found the Moonveil katana, which slotted in perfectly to my Dex/Int build and rocked that for the rest of the game. Then I found another Uchigatana, swapped its element to Cold (for the Freeze effect and Intelligence scaling) and started dual-wielding it with the Moonveil. I would later discover this Moonveil/Cold Uchigatana setup I’d stumbled into was actually relatively popular among players. Anyway, I played the rest of the game with that setup, got to the final boss, and got stomped like fifty times (gently caress phase two). I eventually got the final boss to the very last of its lifebar with no heals left when it used a move I had never figured out how to dodge. So I used my Flask of Wondrous Physick, which I barely ever used and which had an effect that absorbed damage, and just tanked the hit, barely surviving but having enough health left to run up and kill the boss. loving incredible. That’s the kind of poo poo I come to Souls for. Also I wore the starter Samurai armor for the entire game because it was loving badass. 2. Dwarf Fortress This game is truly amazing. I had always been trying to get into Dwarf Fortress, but it was too impenetrable for me to even begin. This recent release changed that, and when it came out I put like 30 hours into it that week. It’s just enrapturing watching these idiot dwarves go about their lives. Also, no more bards are allowed in my fortress, stop asking. 1. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker In fairness, this game only received two major patches this year, making it probably the year I’ve had the least to do in it since I first got into it back in 2015. I’ve been Savage raiding, so I’ve still been spending a lot of time with it, but the strongest part of the game is the story, so it’s been kind of rough not having much of it this year. That said:  I feel justified in placing it first for this reason alone. I just played it significantly more than every other game I played this year combined, and it still brings me a lot of fun. Arist fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Dec 27, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 23:45
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Rianlee posted:
Holy poo poo there's a new game from the West of Loathing people? Does it have spittoons? Regardless, I am pumped.
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Dec 27, 2022 00:05
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Wittgen posted:Holy poo poo there's a new game from the West of Loathing people? Does it have spittoons? Yeah it basically dropped out of nowhere lol, the spittoon bit has been upgraded. If you liked the first you'll like this one.
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Dec 27, 2022 00:09
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Sleepy Dawgz is great because it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. It is the perfect length game.
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Dec 27, 2022 00:18
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y'all are gonna make me do a third playthrough of sleepy pups
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Dec 27, 2022 00:20
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I am so excited about shadows of Loathing. My veins are singing. And sleeping dogs rules. I loved the romance interest quest line where your character is a possessive jealous creep and the woman calls you out for fooling around with other women.
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Dec 27, 2022 00:26
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Waffleman_ posted:y'all are gonna make me do a third playthrough of sleepy pups Hmmm.. *thinks*  Ah poo poo here we go again
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Dec 27, 2022 00:29
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2022 was not a big year of video games for me. Real life has kept me busy and I've not been particularly motivated to play any games aside from some big names I was waiting for or smaller games that caught my eye. As a result, I don't have a full ten--let alone any honorable mentions or anything. 9. NYTimes free daily games (Wordle/The Mini Crossword/Spelling Bee). These continue to be a tradition that I complete every morning while having breakfast. I still remain working from home, for the most part, and having a morning routine has been essential to feeling motivated to get to work after. Solving them as quickly as possible and then comparing scores with my mom continues to be something I look forward to. 8. Horizon Forbidden West. This is still a good game but probably my biggest disappointment of the year. The combat is pretty much the same (which is good) and the traversal remains unchanged aside from the introduction of a hang glider. Basically they played it super safe as a sequel and it works, but it's not as special as the first game. Still it's a lot of fun, the story is decent, the voice acting is spectacular, and it's the most beautiful game ever made probably. After finishing it, I was left with a lingering sense of "That's it?" which is a shame given that the original was easily my favorite game of 2018. 7. Night of the Full Moon. I got Play Pass as part of a deal with my new phone and I went searching for fun games. This was recommended as a Slay The Spire-like and boy is it fun. They did an excellent job making each class have its own identity and it's very fun to become super overpowered and take ten minute turns where you play 100 cards and kill the boss before they even take a single action. The translation is weird, the story is just Little Red Riding Hood except she fights, and it's absolutely perfect for playing on the sofa as a comfort game while watching a movie I've already seen a thousand times. 6. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. It's a lot of goofy fun in the Borderlands-style with tons of good humor for D&D players. Excellent voice-acting from some big names (Will Arnett, Wanda Sykes, Ashly Burch, Andy Samberg) and the addition of spells, multiclassing, and an overworld map make what could have been just a Borderlands game with a fantasy skin something much more interesting. This was the most fun I had playing with friends all year. When you have two friends all jus 5. I was a Teenage Exocolonist. A story-heavy deckbuilder that weaves a pretty depressing tale of the difficulties of colonizing a new world. The gameplay is just ok for this type of game, but the story leaves a mark. It does an excellent job of having the mechanics capture the feeling of desperation that begins to sink in as the colony struggles at various points. There are months where you can't do anything because the main character is slowly starving to death and too tired to do any activities. 4. Overwatch 2. I like this game in spite of itself. Blizzard sucks now and their monetization is predatory. I haven't given them a cent. It's still a good game and a lot of fun to play with friends. Kiriko is a great addition as a support and I absolutely love playing her. I have mixed feelings about the 5v5 combat as it puts too much focus on the tank, but it definitely makes the game a bit more frenetic. Overall it's a fun diversion, but I don't think it's got a ton of life expectancy for me. 3. 2. Final Fantasy XIV. Remember how FFXIV started 2022? The queues were just starting to die down from the Endwalker launch and the new set of raids were launching. It remains an amazing and beautiful game with the best music around. With Endwalker completing the first story arc (and totally sticking the landing might I add), there are a lot of unknowns for what comes next. The patch content has added some neat ideas like Island Sanctuary and Variant Dungeons, which I hope they continue to build on. I also look forward to seeing where the story takes us as we head into the next expansion in early 2024. 1. Elden Ring. This one is obvious so I won't even bother explaining why instead to say that to get this game I made the mistake of preordering for pickup at a local Best Buy. Arriving at store open to pick it up during a terrifyingly powerful rainstorm, I learned that they had recently changed the hours and were not opening for another 45 minutes. I waited outside in the pouring rain in February to pick up this game for that entire 45 minutes. I got back to my apartment chilled to the bone and soaked, despite having an umbrella. It was completely worth it to play it ASAP. Games I hope to have time to play in 2023: Valkyrie Profile Lenneth Signalis Tactics Ogre Reborn Fire Emblem Engage Final Fantasy XVI I don't have the energy to make graphics (or a Doom mod) for my picks but here enjoy some Disco Elysium art that my friend gave me for Xmas: 
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Dec 27, 2022 00:32
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Rosalind posted:1. Elden Ring. This one is obvious so I won't even bother explaining why instead to say that to get this game I made the mistake of preordering for pickup at a local Best Buy. Arriving at store open to pick it up during a terrifyingly powerful rainstorm, I learned that they had recently changed the hours and were not opening for another 45 minutes. I waited outside in the pouring rain in February to pick up this game for that entire 45 minutes. I got back to my apartment chilled to the bone and soaked, despite having an umbrella. It was completely worth it to play it ASAP. owns. Rosalind posted:Games I hope to have time to play in 2023: owns.
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Dec 27, 2022 00:39
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Finally got my list together. I'd like to refine it more but I'm running out of time before year end. I've gathered a lot of games over the years via sales, PlayStation Plus, Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Game Pass, Humble Bundle, and Fanatical bundles. I'm generally working through my backlog in reverse chronological order of when the games were released. (No Elden Ring for me this year) I played a lot of games released in the 2012 - 2016 era this year. Although I'd often throw in modern games from Game Pass if I was afraid they were going to leave the service. My other big gaming moment this year was getting a Steamdeck. I had basically stopped playing all PC games since I started working from home with Covid. The Steamdeck is great and really lets me get back into my PC backlog, along with some games on systems I've never had via emulation. I played 40 games this year and it still feels like I'm missing out on so much. Honorable Mention - Fortnite I won't rank it again because I've played it other years. I got back into it this year to see what the Unreal 5.1 update was like and the graphics are amazing. I'm impressed that I continue to enjoy it after all this time. It's just an overall fun and polished game. 40. DayZ The worst game I played in 2022. I don't really get why this game has lived as long as it has. The landscape is fairly ugly, the maps are plain, the zombies uninteresting, the weapons are boring, and it's too easy to die. It's especially brutal coming from a game like Fortnite. 39. Kentucky Route Zero I'm sure some people love this game and it may have the coolest name in video game history. I liked the artwork but it didn't really feel like there was much of a game here. It seemed pretentious and an unsophisticated oaf like me was often confused by it. 38. I Am Fish I really like monkeyball-esque marble rolling games and thought I would love this. Super frustrating controls really held it back. 37. Lost Planet 2 I remember really having fun with the first Lost Planet. I'm not sure if there is a step down here, or if time has just passed it by. 36. Foul Play A 2D side scrolling beat'em up. Nothing really bad about this game, but there isn't much to it. Another game that probably would have been improved with coop. 35. Genesis Noir I'm probably not the right audience for this game. I don't like jazz and quickly got into what seemed like a gamebreaking bug. 34. Astroneer The colorful graphics pulled in me. There is a fun basebuilding and crafting game in here somewhere, but I found myself continually having to look up information and watch tutorial videos to figure out how to progress forward. 33. Mortal Shell[ I generally don't like games that are super hard and bounced off quickly and Souls game I tried. Mortal Shell looks very good and I enjoyed the exploration and leveling up, but I just don't find the boss fights fun when I have to play them over and over again. 32. Going Under Colorful isometric beat'em up roguelike. Kind of funny too, but not really my type of game. 31. Human: Fall Flat One of the games where you control a character with ragdoll like motions. I went back and forth between getting frustrated with how loose the control are to laughing about how goofy it is. 30. Mighty Goose A 2D side scrolling shootem' up. It's fun for what it is, but not very memorable. 29. Luigi's Mansion I've been out of the loop on Nintendo games except for the SNES and Wii. I finally got to try out Luigi's Mansion via Steamdeck emulation. You can tell the game fits the era with it's relatively constrained rooms, but it looks amazingly good for it's time with the resolution and FPS cranked up. I like the "spooky" Luigi story and it has the Mario charm. I found the ghost vacuum cleaner somewhat unwieldy though. I played The Gunk later, and that vacuum feels so much better and smoother. Maybe the later sequels control better. 28. DiRT 4 My first DiRT game. I had fun learning the different rally racing strategies. The courses are nice, but they aren't varied enough. I enjoy racing directly against competitors more than an isolated time trail type race. 27. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes This felt like a short demo, which I guess is what it actually is. It was hard to get into it when considering how quickly it ends. Phantom Pain is still on my backlog. I'm hoping I'll enjoy that more. 26. Phoenix Point I've never played an Xcom game so I had a bit of a learning curve here. I enjoyed figuring out the gameplay mechanics, but somehow Phoenix Point seems to be missing the fun factor. 25. Project Wingman I really want to enjoy a flight combat game, but maybe they aren't for me. I like taking out ground targets and shooting down planes, but flying around in circles constantly trying to get behind another plane is tedious and boring. I made it through about the first five levels or so here and then got stuck on one that I found nearly impossible. 24. Lego Batman I hadn't played a Lego game in a while, so I figured it was about time to pick one up again. I think this is one of the earliest ones? Fun but fairly standard Lego action. I probably would have enjoyed in more in coop with someone. 23. Hood: Outlaws and Legends I got this via PS+ and figured I better play it now before the player count dies off. It's a very good looking game and I had fun with it for a while. Even though you play as a team, it rarely ever felt like anyone tried teamwork. 22. Max: The Curse of the Brotherhood I can struggle with puzzle platformers, but I played Max all the way through to completion. Creative levels, well done graphics, but a childish storyline. 21. ZombiU ZombiU was originally designed for the WiiU and obviously didn't get much traction there. I guess this is first person melee through London combined with survival elements. It was fun enough until I got to constant hard crash that I was not able to get around. 20. Dead Cells  I like this game, but it would ranked much higher if it was a regular mentoridvania and not a rogue-like. 19. The Adventure Pals  A great game for the Steamdeck. A colorful metroidvania with levels that can easily be completed in 15 minutes. This is just a fun game to play. 18. Battlefield 4  This is about what I expected. A fairly standard but enjoyable campaign. I was surprised to see the multiplayer still going, but I didn't enjoy that part very much. 17. Narita Boy  This is the correct way to do a retro vaporwave pixel art game. It oozes coolness, but requires a bunch of back tracking and I eventually lost my way. 16. The Riftbreaker  Combine a top down twinstick shooter with base building, tower defense, an elaborate tech tree, and a beautiful scifi planet. I really enjoyed this game, but like MechWarrior, it eventually fell victim to repetitive missions and environments. 15. 11-11 Memories Retold  The second game I played on my Steamdeck since I'm doing these in alphabetical order. This can be described as a walking simulator set on both sides of WWI with an art style that looks like a moving painting. Really well done with the story, voice acting, and graphics. 14. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor  I was expecting this to be my GotY when I started it given all the praise it's had. (The box even says Game of the Year edition on it!) I was disappointed there was no resolution or FPS upgrades on the Xbox Series X. It's more clunky to control then Assassin's Creed and I found the story incomprehensible at times. Battling the orcs was either super easy or maddeningly difficult. All that being said, it still kept my attention and I played it all the way through. 13. Strider  This is the one from 2014, not the original. I was expecting more of beat'em up, but this is a fun metroidvania type game that reminds me more of Shadow Complex. 12. The Medium  I know this game gets a lot of hate, but for me this is a case of cool graphics overcoming the kind of meh gameplay. 11. Tower of Guns  I'm not normally into Roguelikes, but this is one of the best I've played. Crazy bullet hell with turrets all over the place. Each level is compact and give a great sense of presence. The weapon modifiers are a lot of fun and levels get mixed up enough to not be boring. 10. Exo One  Half game, half art-like experience. You play a UFO/blob flying through fantastical landscapes. A little like an amazing looking free roaming Star Fox with no shooting or enemies 9. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries  Mech Assault is one fo my favorite games and I was hoping this would recapture the magic. I enjoyed it, but eventually got tired of the repetitiveness of the procedurally generated levels. This could have been ranked much higher if they custom crafted fewer levels instead of having a zillion generic ones. 8. 198x  The first game I played on my Steamdeck as I decided to play through my Steam backlog in alphabetical order. The novelty of the Steamdeck may have biased me a little, but this was a great fit for it. It hits the nostalgia factor hard with a somewhat pretentious storyline about the cool days of the arcade. Each level is a different style of retro arcade game. The soundtrack is fantastic. 7. Marvel Snap  What the hell is a mobile game doing on my list? I've tried just a handful mobile games over the past few years and always ended up hating the gameplay. I watched a Kyle Bosman video on Marvel Snap though, then I saw it won the Geoff Keighley's Mobile Game of the Year presented by Geoff Keighley. Then I saw it has a sizeable and active thread here on the SA games forums. I figured there might be something to it after all that, so I gave it a try. I can easily say it's the most fun and addicting mobile game I've ever played. I don't feel like I'm wasting time on it like most mobile games. The strategy and progression has been fun even without spending money on it. 6. Rain on Your Parade  A super charming game where you play a cloud who ruins people's days by raining on them. It's hard to explain, but each level is very creative and had me smiling. 5. Wolfenstein: The New Order  A very solid FPS. I always enjoy BJ Blakowitz and the Wolfenstein games. 4. Shadow Warrior 2  I've missed out on the Boomer Shooter revival other than Shadow Warrior 2. Great fun to just run around, explore, and shoot things. I'm looking forward to playing more in the genre. 3. Omno  It's like the game was made me for me. The exact style of game I love with exploration, light puzzle solving, and a fantastical world. 2. Orc's Must Die  I had no clue what this game was about. I think I got it via Xbox Gold at one point. This was a surprise hit with me. It's probably best explained as a first-person tower defense. You try to prevent Orcs from invading your base and each level introduces you to a new kind of trap for them. Really great game design, perfect level length, fun graphics, and it has that "just one more time" addictive quality. 1. Watchdogs  I got made fun of last year for making Thief 4 my GOTY, and I expect the same this year. I seem to remember that Watchdogs wasn't very well received when it came out? I don't know if it just had a poor release that was later fixed or if my tastes are just different then everyone else. The driving segments are very well done. I liked the variety of cars and the differences in handling. The city feels like it's living, and each neighborhood feels unique. There are a lot of crazy side quests and I never found myself bored. This is one of the few games I came close to 100% on, but a bug prevented me from completing one mission. I definitely enjoyed Watchdogs more than GTAV and am looking forward to eventually getting to the next two. The Grey fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Dec 28, 2022 |
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Dec 27, 2022 02:44
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orcs must die is super fun and orcs must die 2 is also super fun, plus has co-op so you can do stupid infinite trap bullshit with your friends. I like that it's not entirely "create a labyrinth of death" like some other tower defense series, you can make up for the shortcomings of your trap setup with your character and equipment and kill orcs the old fashioned way I hear orcs must die 3 is also good but way too easy and short. they must've really hosed up with that OMD moba or whatever they tried real hard to push
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Dec 27, 2022 02:48
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actually the entire Orcs Must Die franchise with all DLC included can be had for $18 right now during the steam sale, an absolute steal for how much enjoyment I got out of those games. seriously at the very least the first two are incredibly fun, the first is at minimum a great proof of concept, the second improves on almost everything from the first and adds multiple characters and co-op, and like I said, I haven't played the third but have heard good things with a few complaints.
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Dec 27, 2022 02:54
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Orcs must die is super loving good. I really enjoyed 1&2 but when I tried to play 3 multiplayer it didn't work at all so I haven't tried it otherwise. 1&2 are well, well worth playing. I like the idea, too. The super powerful wizard has a dumb as rocks jock apprentice, and said wizard is in charge of keeping the orcs out of the rifts or whatever that lead to humanity. Wizard trips and dies in the intro so it's all up to the apprentice to save the world. In #2 he's joined by a witch or sorceress of some kind. It's an fps tower defense, You play the same level one or two times trying to get the trap placement correct, level up existing traps or buy more traps, and kill lots and lots of orcs.
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Dec 27, 2022 02:58
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Orcs Must Die 2 is super fun. Never played the others.
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Dec 27, 2022 03:23
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*adds Orcs Must Die on the already too long list of games to try out*
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Dec 27, 2022 03:26
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Thief 4 was fun and I don't care what anyone else thinks
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Dec 27, 2022 03:28
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Rarity posted:You can edit your list just let me know you've done so to make sure I get the updated vote I did go back and update my post. For your sanity here's the direct link to it https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=4019454&pagenumber=14&perpage=40#post528654889. 1-3 unchanged, added a new 4 and 5 which knocked the rest down. Sorry about the extra work, you're the best, Scoopsgal.
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Dec 27, 2022 03:36
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