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can i just say i appreciate the effort people put into making their lists, not only the write-ups, but the screenshots, the gifs, the clips and heck even a youtube video, i shall have to step up my list posting game in 2023 edit: i checked out that youtube list persons channel and omfg holy poo poo how did i know know about the final fantasy 7 honey bee inn dance , crying with laughter over here lol JollyBoyJohn fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Dec 31, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2022 18:22
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I intended to put much more effort into this, but am still recovering from being sick with covid. Please don't crusify me for not having cool gifs. 10. Crankin Presents Time Travel Adventures (playdate). If the playdate was successful at only one thing, it was revealing that more games need cranks. Crankin Presents was an especially good use of the crank. 9. pokemon scarlet (switch) This is somehow a broken mess of a game and also a masterpiece in the pokemon franchise. This is the forumla they should move forward with in the future and never look back. 8. deathloop (ps5) I think I like the idea of this game more than the game itselft. This could have been a special game with incredible replay value, but instead inded up being a pretty fun game to play though 1 time. The multiplayer was very cool in my opinion, but the player base died off pretty much right away as players beat the campaign. 7. gran turismo 7 (ps5) I hate cars. I hate car culture. I hate driving in cities. I watch youtube videos about walkable city design and daydream about how much better city life could be. And yet when I play this game I think "hey, cars can be pretty cool". 6. mario kart 8 deluxe (switch) This is hear solely due to the DLC tracks, my wife have been playing this game online like crazy again and its been a blast. 5. splatoon 3 (switch) Splattoon has been my favorite online fps series post TF2/CS. This entry doesn't really do anything special that 1/2 didn't do, but I still enjoy it a lot. 4. pokemon arceus (switch) This gets the 4 spot just for vibes. The game runs pretty badly, battles are boring, the world is mostly empty and boring....but its just zen to walk around and catch pokies in the open world. 3. live a live (switch) The charm this game gets in each of its chapters is just outstanding, I am so happy they remade thigs game as I had never even heard of it before. I started with Distant Future and wasn't really feeling it (ended up being my least favorite chapter), but really came around with Prehistory. I was hooked from that point and it was a joy to the end. 2. fire emblem: awakening (3ds) I played 3 houses DLC this year which fundamentally fixed a lot of issues I had with 3 Houses. It gave me a fire emblem itch so I refired my 3ds and restarted a playthrough of Awakening, which I never even finished when I played it 10 years ago. The cast is incredibly unbalanced and most levels feature incredibly BS enemy redeployments. For those reasons this should probably not be my favorite fire emblem game or my #2 game of 2022, but the story and characters hooked me from the beginning all the way to the end. 1. elden ring (ps5) Try Finger But Hole
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Dec 31, 2022 18:22
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I’ve been umm-ing and ahh-in over whether or not to join in - there are so many well thought out and well considered posts that I’m anxious to drop My Toilet Opinions - but it’s been a while since I’ve really got my thoughts on paper, and I'm trying to Just Post without agnoising over everything and driving myself insane with editing, so here is my stream of consciousness: I’ll start with a couple of honourable mentions. I didn’t play it this year (or at least not enough to feel justified including it in my top ten), but watching VG play Shovel Knight on his streams reminded me how absolutely stunning those games are. The gameplay, graphics, sound, level design, presentation and humour are all flawless. Just dripping with charm, and Yacht Club Games absolutely have me in their pocket for whatever they produce next. Shovel Knight Dig was lovely, and the Pocket Dungeon was a charming little puzzler. Just superb. Another honorable mention is Portal and Portal 2. Again, I didn’t play them, but I installed a friend in my house, handed her a controller, and said “Here. Press these buttons until your life is changed.” With how  the internet got with the cake being a lie, it’s easy to forget how drat good those games were. Watching them being played by someone for the first time was wonderful and nerve-racking. What if they weren’t as good as I remembered? What if it’s aged badly?! Thankfully, I had nothing to worry about. The writing is incredible, the puzzles wonderful, and the air of sinister menace finds the perfect balance of humour and genuinely chilling. I’m so excited to play Portal 2 co-op for the first time in the new year.Final honourable mention is the Steam Deck. Not a game, obviously, but oh boy what a piece of kit. An emulation powerhouse and a Fallout New Vegas In Bed machine. Just remember not to obliterate the back of yours with a heat gun when you’re trying to fix a sticky button. On to the list! 10 - Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope The original game had no god drat right being as good as it was. No right at all. “Mario has a gun and also the minions are here” is a hard sell for anyone, but somehow the end result was a thing of beauty. Watching the thread go from “lol this is going to suck” to “this game is incredible, feed me more humble pie” was a treat. So. Lots of pressure for the sequel. I don’t think it’s got quite the same charm, but it plays beautifully, looks wonderful, and - god help me - the Rabbids are funny. They point at bottoms and there are giant toilets. Am I supposed to not react to that? For god’s sake I’m only human. I’m not a deeply tactical man, but the level of planning was about in my wheelhouse, and being able to swap out Sparks to change your build gives it a nice bit of chewiness. Did you know that in France the Rabbids are called “Les Lapins crétins”? That’s hosed up, France. 9 - Monster Train Oh god. My free time. Please. Please leave me alone. I’ve got things to do. I’ve- fine. Fine. I’ll do one more round. One more round then I’ll- hey, is that a new relic? Okay we’ll see what the next round is like. Just the next one though. Then I hav- WAIT HANG ON LOOK I CAN GET THAT GUY TO BUFF THAT GUY AN- and so on. This is the first time a deckbuilder really clicked for me, and HOO MOMMA did it ever click. Obviously I then had to get Slay the Spire. And Steamworld Quest. And so on and so forth. When I was a teen I bought Metal Gear Acid 1&2 and just didn’t get on with them. Now my brain is thoroughly loving poisoned, I am really looking forward to giving them a proper go. 8 - Dark Souls 3 Hello. It’s me. The autistic husband from the post 11 posts above. Do you like Dark Souls? I like Dark Souls. Let’s talk about Dark Souls. Hey. Where are you going? What do you mean “This isn’t really appropriate talk for an orgy”? Come back! So yeah. Bit keen. In advance of the release of Elden Ring I decided to finish Dark Souls 2 and 3, as I’d never actually got round to doing that before. I’d previously put a few hours in both but, as with Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls, and Bloodborne before them, it seemed like a few false starts were needed before I could properly get on with finishing it (he says, having imported Demon’s Souls for the PS3 (thanks to the thread here) before it was released in Europe, and finishing it for the first time THIRTEEN YEARS LATER via the PS5 remake. Good grief). Dark Souls 3 definitely plays better than 1 or 2, and I appreciate what it’s trying to go for, but it’s not quite got that magic. While I generally thought the “hey look, it’s that guy from the other games!” was laid on a bit thick, seeing Patches again genuinely thrilled me. I do wonder if the backlash against DS2 hadn’t been so much, whether we might have seen a different final product. Something a bit riskier, and less “okay fine here is a little bow on it all, are you happy now?” Still, it’s more Dark Souls. Obviously it’s great. Don’t be silly. 7 - Where The Water Tastes Like Wine You know what’s not Dark Souls? Hobo stuff. All bindles and secret signs and campfire stories told to each other while trying to avoid going blind from drinking prohibition whiskey. Actually now I think about it that does sound kinda Dark Souls. Well. This game is slow, contemplative, and quite unlike anything else I’ve played this year. You play as a hobo in Depression-era America, travelling the country swapping stories, and watching those stories grow and change as they spread. The music is beautiful, the presentation unique, and the game ties together two of my interests: Hobo Stuff, and aching melancholy. If you want a game you can immerse yourself in undiluted atmosphere for a while, I highly recommend it. 6 - It Takes Two Oh my god people. Get a divorce. Sometimes a relationship ends and that is sad, but it can be for the best. It’s not necessarily better to stay together, even if a slightly perverted book encourages you to do so. That aside, It Takes Two is an absolute triumph. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game where the gameplay is so consistently refreshed as you proceed. Playing as a husband and wife who, through various magical contrivances, have become tiny models of themselves, you and a partner have to Honey I Shrunk The Kids your way through their house and gardens in order to mend your relationship and regain your human meat. This generally takes the form of the characters having complementary powers, and having to work together to solve puzzles and progress through each level. It really does take two! Who’da thunkit?! Each level puts a unique twist on this core conceit, and it’s remarkable that at no point do things feel stale or boring. It’s genuinely incredible how imaginative this game is. Also, it’s loving haunting. At one point you have to dismember a toy elephant as it begs for its life. My god. I did not expect that. You are bad people, Cody and May. You need a divorce. 5 - Hades In which a chaos bisexual with daddy issues murders his way through hell, goes on the shagabout a bit, and pets a third of his dog. To my eyes, Supergiant can do no wrong. Bastion was great, Transistor was a joy, and Hades is just sublime. Beautiful cartoon world, really lovely synergies to explore, and gameplay loop that rewards each run with more story, even if that is just having a quick chat with your dad’s subordinates. Then, once you’ve had that chat, you may as well see what weapon is recommended. Then may as well give it a go. Then may as well WHOOPS it’s 3am. Might buy it again for the Steam Deck… 4 - Hollow Knight I’ve already beat Hollow Knight on the Switch. I didn’t do all the DLC, but I did beat the White Palace, and that was nails. Pun intended. I didn’t really feel the need to pick it up again. That was enough. Then a friend was playing it for the first time for her stream. I popped round one day, and asked how she was getting on with it. Whether she had mastered the downward slash yet. That kinda stuff. At one point I fired it up, showed her the downward slash, and ruined the next two weeks of my life. Just playing it for 3 minutes was enough to grab me right back in. It feels so drat good in the hands. Just exquisite. The world is beautiful, Zote is hilarious, and everything fits together to make one of the most satisfying games I’ve ever played. Absolute god-tier Metroidvaniaing. I can’t think of many games that could pull me back in so hard in so little time. Now I have to do the White Palace again. poo poo. 3 - Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin Oh boy it’s a good ‘un. I was put off playing it for ages thanks to the fan backlash, and being told that it was safe to skip and go straight to DS3, but that’s toilet advice for yokels. Dark Souls 2 is weird, man. Real weird. Haunting and dreamlike and fragmented and weird. It wasn’t a straight copy of Dark Souls, and nor should it have been. It did its own thing in its own way, and quite explicitly tells you that Dark Souls, and what you did there, doesn’t matter. That is bold. That is god drat bold. It obviously didn’t do everything right - the AGL level tax is a terrible decision in every conceivable way - but it did something different and interesting and weird, while also playing just beautifully (agility fuckery notwithstanding). If you’re a Dark Souls-liker like me, and also have been put off giving it a go, I can’t recommend it enough. Weird, man. 2 - Resident Evil 7: VR I played this game on stream throughout the year. Me in my headset playing the game, and my friend on another camera monitoring the chat. I’d set it up so the chat could throw pennies at me to secretly tell her to blow in my ear/poke me in the side/generally make me jump out of my skin even more than I already was. It was awful. Horrible time. Terrifying. Good telly, but loving horrid. Resident Evil 7 absolutely whips rear end. I first thought it wasn’t going to be much to write home about - “Capcom saw PT and wanted a bite” - but then I got into the house proper and holy poo poo this is a Resident Evil game. There’s convoluted locking mechanisms and herbs to fanny about with and OH DEAR GOD WHAT WAS THAT. Playing in VR was mindblowing. If I hadn’t been streaming it - and therefore distracting myself by keeping a running monologue of what I was doing and how I was feeling - I honestly don’t think I could have got past the first five minutes, let alone finished it. It is so immersive. So horrible. My little brother played it in VR on his own and screamed so much the neighbours came round to make sure he was okay. Resi 8, which I am yet to play, is getting a VR patch for the PSVR2. I’ll be there day one, live on Twitch and making GBS threads myself dry. 1 - Elden Ring Of course it is. Of COURSE it is. I checked the Playstation “year in review” thing and Elden Ring made a full 50% of my playtime this year. 50%! Half the time I was using my Playstation I was playing Elden Ring. Hundreds and hundreds of hours. I could have learned a trade. Didn’t though. Went biffing instead. What a game. What a generous game. Magic and intrigue and potential around every goddamn corner. I don’t think I’ve played anything so full of mystery. Anything that’s made me think “what next?” so consistently. This is the first From game I’ve played without knowing anything (beyond the first trailer) in advance: I did my level best to make the most of that, and play through as much as I could without looking at a wiki. Just me, my notebook, and endless fascination. I wasn’t disappointed. There’s so much. Oh god there’s so much. I’m not sure how it will hold up against a fresh playthrough (though I’ve done my NG+ run and that was a hoot) given how much of the magic was in the discovery of the new and the delight of what was round the next corner. Dark Souls is a game where I can start a new playthrough without any friction. Just revelling in being in that world and slowly bending it to my will. I’m really anxious that things will be different here. The revelation and discovery was such a big part of my first playthough of Elden Ring that I worry it may feel stale on further attempts. Each area I reach disappointing me slightly by reminding me how good it was the first time (gently caress YOU, Terminator Genesys). Even if that were the case (which I really hope it won’t be) my year with Elden Ring unquestionably puts it in the top spot. “What if Dark Souls 2 was big and loads?” loving of course I’d like that. Bring it here and leave the bottle. Rarity cheatsheet 10 - Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope 9 - Monster Train 8 - Dark Souls 3 7 - Where The Water Tastes Like Wine 6 - It Takes Two 5 - Hades 4 - Hollow Knight 3 - Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin 2 - Resident Evil 7: VR 1 - Elden Ring Thanks for the Effort Posts, pals, and huge thanks to Rarity for putting herself through such a colossal undertaking <3 Flint_Paper fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Dec 31, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2022 18:52
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Some drat fine Toilet Opinions there
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Dec 31, 2022 19:13
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Hell yeah game of the year time! Quick list dashed off on mobile. Love seeing all the work everyone puts into these! Honorable Mentions Two Point Campus is neat for what it is as a humorous simulation game, but a few bugs and the sandbox mode taking so long to unlock prevent this from going higher for me. That said, the issues I was having are fixed and the sandbox mode now apparently unlocks much earlier! Maybe another go for 2023, we'll see! Stray - gosh, the vibes! I adore the absolute hell out of what the game is doing as far as a lot of the aesthetic and overall 'being a cat' goes. Did Not Get To This Year Potionomics seems neat and is on Game Pass! Triangle Strategy is the big one I feel I missed this year. Just from what I know about it, it feels like it could absolutely be a strong contender. But next year! ----- 10.) Beacon Pines I found Beacon Pines while scrolling through stuff on Game Pass and downloaded it on a lark after reading a quick review or two. The concept seemed interesting enough: an overall storybook presentation, with the direction of the narrative decided at key moments by using keywords found throughout the game. How does your character decide to react to another's aggression at a certain moment: by being a little COOL or by being a little poo poo? And so on. It's also adorable. The visuals are wonderful, and the entire presentation is so smooth. The game's biggest weakness, though, is that the core concept of the keywords is only so deep. There aren't actually that many, and when the narrative is all said and done, you realize how limited the branching paths really were when you see it all laid out. But oh, the narrative! When I started, I thought it was neat enough, but it didn't super grab me in the first few minutes. After, say... 20? 30? minutes though? The story suddenly dropkicked me into a wall and had my attention. I believe someone who mentioned upthread described it as something along the lines of Uchikoshi light. Which, I don't disagree with one bit. 9.) Tunic Oh, Tunic. Such mixed feelings! If you've read some of the other words written about this game, you can probably already see where I'm going with this. The stapled together genres, while looking great, struggle and don't quite hit the mark in truly fantastic gameplay. By the end, as much as I wanted to otherwise, I just couldn't stand the combat. But, it's a few things that, for me, make Tunic such a standout game in spite of this. For one, all the complaints about combat? The game comes with the wonderful accessibility option to make yourself invincible, something I absolutely utilized two thirds of the way through the game. The often talked about manual, found in pieces, complete with scribbled notes and all? Absolutely a shot of nostalgia mingled in with mechanics that kept me hooked the entire way through. But, the puzzles. I'm not talking about the postgame stuff with the various collections. The Golden Path puzzle, though... when what I had to do finally clicked? Such an incredible moment, and probably one of my favorite non-narrartive moments in a game in a long little while. 8.) AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative Uchikoshi can't keep getting away with this! Look, if you know an Uchikoshi game, you know more or less what you're signing up for. A lot of anime, a bunch of over the top nonsense with bits of science and philosophy mixed in, complete with a surprisingly compelling cast of characters including several returns from the previous game. I agree with the general sentiment that the overall story of the first game is stronger. But, personally, I liked some of the individual character beats and themes of the second game a little more. And while I think some people were disappointed by it, the fact that the Somnium/active gameplay parts generally make a liiiitle more sense, though there are one or two that, bluntly, just kinda loving suck. (looking at you, awkward stealth section) Couldn't help but swear at the screen for a moment when the big twist was revealed near the end. I do think it's a bit of a weaker twist than some of the other games, just with - er, how it works, I guess. 7.) Crypt of the NecroDancer It's motherfucking Crypt of the Necrodancer, baby! Somehow this game just keeps going even after seven years with another new bit of content released this year. The music ever remains top notch, the gameplay is tight (even if I'm bad at keeping the beat) and there are countless combinations of characters and gameplay options and additional optional challenges you can enable. The pricing for the game was an absolute steal when I originally picked it up, and I think more than almost any other game NecroDancer wins on value of gameplay time to dollars spent. It is also on sale right now with the base game being only $3 USD on Steam right now if you've managed to avoid picking it up and have any interest in it at all. Also the pun names for the enemies/humor are all top notch. 6.) My Time at Sandrock My Time at Portia was a wonderful little game but absolutely full of jank and some interesting design decisions. My Time at Sandrock is much better overall, but is still in Early Access at the moment - though the pace of updates and work during this period have been pretty healthy so far. Still, it is early access, with the struggles and warts involved. That said! The desert is an interesting environment for the concept, particularly with the vital focus on water and with the occasional dust storms that roll through. If you played Portia and loved the various bits of machinery to make parts that you then use in another machine to make a larger machine or commission - all here, and a bit further refined from Portia. I played a bunch of it earlier this year, especially after some optimizations were completed lowering the overall load times significantly. There have been a good few patches including more content since. I'm very much excited to return to my dumb workshop after giving the game a little more time to keep developing! 5.) Hardspace Shipbreaker "Each day he steps into the yard To earn his wages working hard I pray to the stars and heaven above To return my daddy to those he loves If there comes a time when he and death meet Bless the next cutter that takes his seat" Having been in early access for a while and fully releasing earlier this year, Hardspace Shipbreaker at its core remains a solid game of taking a set of tools to an early spaceship and dismantling it to bits and sorting the pieces into their proper places. It is a phenomenal game to just put something on in the background and while away your time. It comes with a few great options on how you want to play: how/if certain meters should deplete, if you want to go the standard shift timer (15 minutes, cutter!) or unlimited shift times if you don't want to worry about the clock. The game's biggest sin is probably in part the presentation of the story. Not the narrative itself, mind! A story about the struggles of unionization against a lovely as gently caress corporation? Hell yeah, I love that poo poo. The voice actors also do a pretty decent job of the material, and special shoutout to your main man, your eye in the sky helping you through so much of it all, Weaver. But... the game has a habit of pulling you out of the action for extended periods in your office/habitation space to be talked at while you just stare at the background of your place. This happens a lot! Hardspace you give me so much of that while I'm actually playing the game which rules! Just do that more! That aside, Hardspace definitely wins the "Best Game to Just Kinda Zone Out On Wait poo poo I Just Breached The Core Oh gently caress" award. 4.) Elden Ring Look, I'm not a Souls person. I've tried several entries in the series and bounced off of it at some point. Bloodborne was real good, though, and one of my prouder gaming accomplishments is beating Duke's Dear Freja in DS2 with only punching - after my two summons died 10 seconds into the fight while managing to do essentially zero damage. So I get the appeal! It just never quite clicked with me. But Elden Ring, wow! Something about how open the game was seemed to be the missing piece for me. It became my go to game after work for a few weeks as I steadily made my way through it. Being able to explore in more directions and go rooting around for secrets instead of bumping my head into one of one, two, three bosses or such in other games was so good! There's absolutely a few valid complaints against it, at least imo: some of the choices in the back part of the game, there's definitely at least a liiiitle bit of bloat, should be able to use the goddamn horse against the goddamn last boss  but overall, a fantastic gaming experience. I expect it to take GotY easily, and, hell, it deserves it! Even if a few more games took higher spots for me personally. 3.) Dwarf Fortress It is 2007. I am at home, and am playing Dwarf Fortress. It is terrifying. It is 2010. I am at college, and am playing Dwarf Fortress. It is terrifying. It is 2014. I live in a different part of the country, and am playing Dwarf Fortress. It is terrifying. It is 2021. I now own my own home, and am playing Dwarf Fortress. It is terrifying. It is 2022. I open Steam, and am playing Dwarf Fortress. It is terrifying. 2.) Citizen Sleeper Citizen Sleeper was going to be GotY, until my number one came out of nowhere and snatched that title away. The atmosphere of the game is incredible, with the blending of mechanics, limited music, UI and other design choices. At least with my own playthrough, Citizen Sleeper was legitimately - in a fantastic way - a tense experience. The writing pulled me in, and I agonized over some of the choices throughout the game, particularly early on. There came a point where my very survival teetered on a knife's edge after a string of rough beats and literal roll of the dice. The sheer crushing weight of the capitalistic hellscape mixed in with the beads of hope from community and social relationships and other people just trying to make the best of it they can... simply a fantastic narrative experience. There are multiple endings you can go after, depending on which of the various plotlines you follow. I suppose my biggest complaint is that eventually the game gets... easy. You finally have enough resources that scarcity isn't really an issue and you can deal with pretty much whatever with ease. Which I suppose is part of the reward for the earlier struggles! But close to the end, tasks which once felt harrowing became busywork to click through to get to the remaining (excellent) meat of the game. It's on Game Pass! Go try it if you have it! 1.) Pentiment Scroll back up real quick and look at my username. Yeah.  I swear to God this game felt so ridiculously laser targeted to me. I threw a little 'hey, I think this is good, but I'm me,' note when I recommended this game to friends out of worry, though thankfully they seemed to have enjoyed it!An absolute fuckton of care and attention to detail went into crafting this game. There's a lot to say about the visual styles of the characters themselves, the startlingly fantastic bit of animation in the simple character models and so forth, but let's just focus on the text. Look, even if you don't read the thing (though I highly recommend it if you're into that kind of thing) I suggest at least looking through some of the pictures here in a write-up about the crazy amount of research and work that went into the various fonts and text styles included in the game. Characters have different fonts and styles, based on their education/class/life. The ink and typetext look brilliant. Occasionally there are typos that are then wiped out and corrected! There's so much style and effort into the text alone. (Yes, there is an option to turn the more stylized fonts into something a little more readable if you're struggling with it.) And what text it is. Yes, the concept is essentially investigations into mysteries - and they are good mysteries! - but the real draw is the tiny town of Tassing itself, and those that make up its populace. How you, as Andreas Maler, a stranger to this town coming to work in the abbey on your masterpiece, have an impact on the various townspeople especially as you work on your investigations. (Or, how you don't have an impact - there are important choices to make, including who to have your meals with!) The themes hum along together in harmony, from individual characters struggling with their own difficulties in medieval life - how will they make ends meet? What should they do with their lives? What does God have in store for them? How do they grapple with joy and grief and love and loss? ...to on the more wider level: the development and growth of Tassing as a community overall, how it fits in overall to the greater historical period of Bavaria in the 16th century, the interactions of the various social and class structures... to on the grander scale. What is history, how is it defined, how do we decide who and what and where to remember? And how do we depict such things? Pentiment isn't necessarily going to be for everyone. I know at least a few people are turned off by the setting/time, and that's a little understandable - though it is certainly not just a period piece, and if that's your main concern, I urge you to look past that if possible and give it a shot. It is very text heavy, with much of the game being reading and making choices. You'll also be doing a decent bit of running around, which is probably the one main knock I have against the game: it often rewards running about and following up with people with additional dialogue, but sometimes I wish it was a little clearer when you can move forward without fear of missing anything. All in all, though, I consider Pentiment a masterpiece in the same vein of Disco Elysium but in a very different way that shines on its own. Hats off to you and God bless you rope kid and the rest of the team that worked on this game, it will be one I remember for a long time to come. (Also, this game is on Game Pass. Grab it if you have it!) --- Easy list: 10) Beacon Pines 9) Tunic 8) AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative 7) Crypt of the NecroDancer 6) My Time at Sandrock 5) Hardspace Shipbreaker 4) Elden Ring 3) Dwarf Fortress 2) Citizen Sleeper 1) Pentiment
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Dec 31, 2022 19:18
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fridge corn posted:Some drat fine Toilet Opinions there
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Dec 31, 2022 19:18
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Game of the Year Thread 2022: Some drat fine Toilet Opinions there
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Dec 31, 2022 19:21
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Listen if anyone formed their opinions without the involvement of a toilet I don't wanna hear em
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Dec 31, 2022 19:22
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Part 1 - Part 2 Alrighty, before I go through my top ten I just wanted to list a couple of games that I played that I couldn't really give an honorable mention to, but I also didn't want to leave unregarded. These aren't DIShonorable mentions, just... mentions?? Mention #1: Vampire Survivors The reason that I didn't care for Vampire Survivors may come down to the style of game that it is. Though I do like idle games, you can't really idle so much in this, as you do need to keep moving around... but it's also too slow and passive to be a fun action game. It sits in this uncomfortable inbetween that makes me very sleepy, to have to sit through an entire 30 minute round (and even the 15 minute mode is a stretch). I'm glad people like it, but it's not for me. Mention #2: Indie visibility A fair number of games in my list have fewer than 1000 reviews on Steam. Some, like my 2021 list's Binky's Trash Service, are barely into the double digits. It's been bad for years, but I think at this point we are in full-on crisis. Publishers are not doing their jobs either, because I have seen games like Sunday Gold have dead silence, and that's TEAM 17. The Worms people. What, you too busy making and apologizing for NFTs to do a little promotion? And actually, okay gently caress it Mention #3: Indie publishers Hey. Dear Villagers? Team 17? Other indie publishers who are already not doing their job as it is? When I click on the link to a developer from a game's Steam page, I want to see what else that developer has made. What I don't want, is to be redirected to the loving publisher's catalog. I'm sorry, did you, do you think YOU made this game? No, you did not. You provided some press kits and localized it into 3 non-English languages, assuming you even paid people to do that. I want to know, if I liked a game, if the dev maybe did something else cool. When I click on the dev for Sunday Gold, I don't want to hear about Worms WMD. Those games have absolutely no commonalities!! Now, are a lot of indie devs first-timers? Yes. Many, many games on Steam are the debut (and sometimes final) entry of a fledgling studio or person in their garage. But that's not always the case. I have seen instances where a developer has released multiple games on Steam, but a couple of them redirect to the publisher's page rather than the dev's catalog. That's just so lovely. Why do you make that part of your contract or whatever? I assume it has to be. In exchange for the zero dollars you spend to get the game out there. I see ads for the loving Moon Pod but I don't see ads for Jack Move, which had fewer than 500 reviews on Steam. The publisher calls themselves HypeTrain Digital which has to be the most ironic publisher name I've ever heard. loving get your poo poo together, publishers. What are you all even doing?? Okay, let's get on with the remaining games:   Ron Gilbert's a divisive figure in modern gaming thanks to The Cave and Thimbleweed Park, but he's a beloved figure in the adventure game scene, and when Return to Monkey Island was announced, everyone was excited to see how Ron would address his last canon involvement, the infamous "Big Whoop" ending of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, as well as the games that followed his exodus. Return manages to weave every game together with some smart twists and a clever framing device. It's a story about obsession, and the destruction and harm that comes with that. What is the Secret of Monkey Island? Is that truly important? It introduces some new fun characters as well as bringing back most of your favorites. Without Earl Boen to play LeChuck, the role does to Jess Harnell, known mostly for playing Wakko in Animaniacs, and... he does just fine! On top of that, Dominic Armato brings his best performance yet as Guybrush, with some truly great deadpan line reads to go with his usual charming and chirpy energy. The puzzles are good, the backgrounds are gorgeous, and.. sure, the animation is puppety and odd, but it ends up being fine. The ending, unfortunately, falls into another patented Ron Gilbert pothole, and I found it disappointing in several ways, but it wasn't enough to ruin the game for me. This is easily the best adventure game this year, and a fantastic send-off for the series.   Mara's going through those terrible teens, where every incident feels like the world has ended and a piece of you has died. And to some extent, Mara's world is continuously being destroyed and rebuilt. Despite living in what she feels is a dead end town-- a New York island tourist trap akin to Ocean City, Wildwood or Cape May (ok there's a more obvious NY reference here but I grew up in New Jersey okay)-- everything is changing, and she is changing as well. But not in sync. The island residents are slowly leaving as condos and renovations happen for a crowd that will only ever show up for six weeks out of the year. Her childhood friend is distant and avoids her at school. She is old enough to get a job but still seen as a child by everyone around her. Her one solace, an online fanfiction forum, is slowly fading away. And as she is mocked by peers, as she desperately searches for validation, she is never sure if the connections she manages to make are real, fleeting, or a lie. And the truth, no matter what it is, only serves to worry her more. This is a coming of age story that is about as real as they get, written by a seasoned veteran of coming-of-age comic fiction (Meredith Gran, Octopus Pie), and it is brutal, melancholy, heartfelt, heartbreaking, and as cathartic as it is crushingly awkward. Mara plays somewhat of an unreliable narrator (sometimes arguing with the game's own descriptive text boxes) as a lot of her feelings about the world are defined by her anxieties, but despite her everpresent paranoia that any happiness in her life will be taken away, there are real, lovely things that she is going through and goes through. The pain she is in sometimes causes her to push people away and cause pain to others, though all she wants is to be understood and cared about. This all gets more complicated when, through one simple request from an acquaintance on the island, she ends up finding herself an entirely new group of outcast friends on the mainland that are as supportive as they are strangers, pushing her outside of her shy and introverted comfort zone and making her take bigger risks, but also making her worry about when it's all going to fall apart. You don't need to have lived a life like Mara's to relate to what she is going through, as the narrative is superbly written and will wring every emotion from you, whether it is cringing at her attempts to break the ice with strangers by bragging about be able to eat ice cream really fast, to feeling her frustration as the people in her life seem to (intentionally or not) say the worst possible things when she looks to them for support, to shaking your head when she, in turn, says the worst possible things right back at them. As was the case in Octopus Pie, friendships will ebb and flow, relationships will spark in a hurry only to fizzle, or build to a precipice that Mara is afraid to peer over. You will feel bad for her mom, a lot. There are also occasional dialog options, and while this isn't a Choices Matter game, I also think, at least personally, that this is a game you play only once. You live with the choices you make just as Mara does. Sometimes even saying something well-intentioned ends in self-destruction. Arguments and fights are messy, Mara's feelings are tumultous, and any moment of idyllic peace could be shattered with one sentence. But that's life as a teenager. You can look back at it as an adult and say "a lot of this stuff won't matter" but this game will make you believe that these things very much do matter! A lot! I make this sound like some sort of bleak nihilist game, but it's not. There are still plenty of silly and comedic moments, helped by the game's many bits of hand-drawn traditional animation, rendered in a low-resolution pixel style that calls to mind games like Willy Beamish (but with better art, IMO), as well as many bits of Y2K-era culture that exist along the periphery of the story and are not there as joke substitutes, just there to provide a smile and help reinforce the setting. It's just very emotional! Mara wrestles with a lot of self-doubt and self-worth issues and imposter syndrome, and will often have outbursts at her family and friends that are, in some ways, a ripping off of the bandaid-- but not everyone knows there was a wound to begin with. This is a point and click adventure, but it is far more about narrative than about puzzling, though there are a few inventory puzzles. I think this is the one area where the game could be a bit stronger, as too many interactions yield a generic response from the game, and it's not always obvious how to get time to progress forward. Also, many things about the island don't really change throughout the same season so the amount of unique examinations and interactions drops with each new day. I also noticed that the right mouse button skips cutscenes, which I noticed.. by clicking it accidentally and completely missing a scene, needing to reload a previous save and replay back up to that scene. I think some sort of "hold to skip" would make a lot of sense for the next game (which is coming, in 2024). One last thing is that I felt like the content warning on the store page wasn't 100% accurate and would've liked to have known about at least one scene's content (the art class scene) beforehand. Maybe that's just me. Still, the limitations of the game aren't enough to outweigh the powerful storytelling at work. Mara's story resonated with me quite a lot as a creative nerd who had mostly online-only acquaintances, and could not connect to others or say the right things to make life as a teenager make sense the way it seemed so easy for others. It excites me for how Station to Station (the followup) will turn out, with time moving forward a couple of years, new mechanics being added and that extra developer's experience factoring in. I can't wait to see where Mara's story goes in the future.   Resident Evil meets Hideki Anno meets Hideo Kojima. A sublime blend of horror, science-fiction, existentialism, and lesbian robots. The nature of being and of self, and how far one is willing to go to save the person they love, are questioned in this dreamlike journey where the timeline is nebulous, your consciousness can travel through a VHS tape, and industrial space installations are suddenly getting quite flesh-covered. Signalis' direction is powerful and daring in a way that most games could never hope to be. It is brutal, it is in your face, it obscures itself, it will throw loud text and harsh distortion at you, with quick cuts, flashes, and sudden changes in perspective. It doesn't just invite interpretation, it demands it from you. Now, this is a tribute to the survival horror greats of the original PlayStation, such as RE1 and Dino Crisis, so you will have to get used to very limited inventory space, conserving your ammunition, running past enemies, and lots of locked doors. This type of game isn't for everyone, but for those who love that kind of thing, Signalis is exactly what you want. It's weird to call Signalis refreshing when it is such an obvious replication of very specific games from the late 90s, but real talk: Signalis is the best indie horror game in a long, long time. I'm so tired of every indie horror game utilizing cheap scares, Lovecraft mythos, and a reliance on a Big Twist(tm). Signalis is a bomb of a balm for the weary, destroying every NightCry, every Daymare, every pointless 3 hour walking sim where a thing suddenly appears and runs at you very fast. There will not be a game like Signalis for a long time, but I cannot wait to see what Rose Engine does next.   After wasting my time with four bad Trails games, NISA finally wised up and brought me the good Trails again, with the pre-rendered chibi sprites in PS1-looking 3D environments. Hell yeah. No more dumb high school bullshit and 'free time'. Just low stakes peacekeeping and the occasional world-threatening monster, just how I like it. You play as a group of misfit fake-cops (the only acceptable form of cop, I suppose) whose job is basically to mimic the Bracer Guild in order to repair relations with the police as a whole (okay, maybe not acceptable then). It's a framework basically designed to continue the format of the Sky trilogy, but with a new cast and setting, a capital city you'll become quite accustomed to as it is where a ton of the game takes place. If you prefer going on long journeys, Zero will not have much for you, as everything will be within reach of the city. But if you got, perhaps, a little exhausted of running down every NPC all over the world every time a plot beat happens... well, the NPCs are significantly more condensed here. If you like the griddy combat of the Sky series, it's here, as is the Quartz, Quartz exchange and slot systems. Think of Zero as an iteration rather than a dramatic reinvention for a new series. You'll even see some Sky characters show up in this story... some pretty important ones. The ones you're thinking right now, yep. Them. Everything is snappy, from being able to fast travel anywhere within the city at any time (much like an Atelier game), to having separate turbo speed settings for combat and out-of-combat gameplay. Multiple playstyles are valid, as the game leans just as heavily on arts weaknesses, as crafts and s-crafts are very powerful themselves. In addition to being a solid slow-burn plot, the small cast is likeable and fun, and it doesn't balloon out into a crowd like previous games (especially Sky Third!!). The game does tread into the supernatural, something you'll want to know ahead of time so that you're not confused by the intro to the game seemingly being way out of Trails' usual territory. But for most of the game it's the kind of easygoing episodic stories building up to serious missions that you enjoyed Sky for, from sorting out local gang misunderstandings, to helping kids out of the sewers, building up over time to you infilrating a black market auction, and dealing with the mafia. There is also a major major character/plot arc from Sky that gets resolved in Zero, making the game a must play for Sky fans. I'd say "they don't make RPGs like this anymore", but, looking at the landscape this year... RPGs are in a really healthy state now. We're a far cry from 15+ years ago, when RPG developers lamented that they weren't prepared for the Xbox 360 and didn't have the resources to put towns in their game. Triangle Strategy, Chained Echoes, Harvestella, Jack Move... things are looking really good for this genre. No shade on any of them that they were all upstaged by an English release of a former PSP game; Trails from Zero is just that good.   It was wild to me to see some people try to dunk on Elden Ring's art direction. We talking about the same Elden Ring? The one with the underwater starry sky? With the incredible vista awaiting you as you leave Stormveil Castle and see Liurnia of the Lakes? The giant volcano you climb bit by bit?? I'm gonna get my negatives out of the way first so people know why I didn't put this at #1. The biggest thing is, I've never been fully in love with Souls combat. I'm an Ys fan, I love my combat fast and mashy. If I can't swing 5 times per second as I whirl around like a maelstrom pinball of sword slicing, I'm always going to be at least a little put off. And Souls combat is sort of, the opposite of that. You can't mash, every swing is deliberate, and you have to wait for your windows to open. UGHHH can't I just mindlessly whack at things! Moving the tongue away from the cheek, I did have one other issue with the game, which is the amount of reuse in the game. All open world games have it, and I know Elden Ring couldn't avoid it, and From games have had it in the past. But because of the sheer size of the game, you notice it more. If it was a 40-50 hour game, it'd be one thing, but this is an 80-90 hour game. I don't need to fight those Godskin dudes multiple times. Or the valiant gargoyles. Or the burial watchdogs. And the catacomb dungeons and tunnel dungeons all blur together in my mind. But if you push the side content aside, all of the main and legacy content is incredible. I can't stand open world games and this is the best open world I've ever seen. The regions are all very unique, from blood red skies and bone-covered deserts, to ghost filled lakes, to a temple in a massive tree you slowly scale your way down. The legacy dungeons are the best dungeons that FROM have ever created, with some incredibly epic fights. Fighting Starscourge Radahn with a mob of ghosts as part of 'the hunt' is a truly special and memorable moment. Wielding a giant magical gently caress-you spear to slay a serpent. Putting Margit's foolish ambitions to rest. I'll get out of the way now because other people can explain why Elden Ring is fantastic far better than I could. The only thing keeping this from #1 is my own personal preferences and bias, that's all. Congrats to FROM on the SA GOTY.   Possibly the game with the largest discrepancy between public reception/Steam reviews, and my ranking on this list, Souldiers singlehandedly rescued the reputation of the Metroidvania this year for me, after so many got delayed, after Ghost Song wasn't quite the slamdunk I was hoping for. drat what a good game. After being betrayed on the battlefield, a group of medieval soldiers get discovered by a valkyrie who sends them to another world (that's right it's isekai babyyyyy) with the promise of going to Valhalla if they assist the valkyries. Over the course of the story, though, the MC discovers a town full of different fantasy races living in immortal harmony, not interested in following the valkyries. Then people start getting possessed by some weird scarab creatures, including one of the valkyries themselves. Where did they come from? What is the Guardian's deal? What is the nature of this place that the soldiers have been taken to? Well, being honest, story is not really the reason you play a Metroidvania but it's at least a little interesting. The main reasons you play a Metroidvania are for the exploration, the ability gating, and the vibes. And this game's got 'em all! Souldiers sports a beautiful PS1-era 2D look, with fluid spritework and intricately detailed pixel backgrounds. It also has what I would call "SNES+" music, taking from the SNES soundchip and augmenting it with additional orchestral instruments and synths. It's a very cool sound and, frankly, it's time for games to stop all doing NES chiptune already. The biggest positive is its exploration, however. Souldiers' dungeons are MASSIVE, sprawling inter-connected regions with shortcuts to unlock, abilities to gain that help you reach new places, hidden & destructive walls, lots of fast travel points (also your save points) and some sort of interesting dungeon gimmick. For example, at one point you are sent up to a flying fortress, with visuals and music that call to mind Mega Man X, and it has little helper robots you're powering on and escorting around so they can help open doors. Another dungeon is a hidden laboratory under the city sewers that has keycard doors everywhere, and you're expected to upgrade your keycard at certain terminals in order to open them. In a lot of dungeony Metroidvanias, you'll usually find a map in a chest that shows you everything. To keep the player from being overwhelmed, Souldiers meters out your map discovery by giving you one map fragment at a time in chests, mostly detailing the current area of the dungeon you're in. In addition to movement upgrades, there are also tons of throwables you can find in special chests (sort of the Castlevania sub-weapons of this game). These range from basic bombs, to electric javelins that ricochet off walls, to throwing knives/axes, to a little robot pal. These cost 'ammo shards' to use, which are dropped by enemies and not much different from hearts in a Castlevania game. There are also HP and MP upgrades to find in secret alcoves, which award 10 and 7 respectively. The game does have leveling, which increases random stats by 1 (HP, MP, ATK, stamina, skill points), but only a few at a time, which makes finding those HP and MP upgrades still very useful. You have various potions in the game such as healing and stamina potions, ailment cleansing potions, regen vials, etc, but only a certain amount, which you can increase by finding pouches in dungeons. And then for the abilities themselves... there are movement upgrades, such as double jump, wall jump, air dash; and then there are elemental orbs which augment your attack as well as activate certain devices that require a certain element (electricity powers up a robot, for example) and many enemies and bosses are weak to elements giving a little bit of a Mega Man feel (but with a sword). This wide amount of collectables and unlockables makes dungeon exploration highly rewarding as any red or blue chest could have something cool or useful in it, while plain chests can have money or potions. Now, the combat itself is fine, it won't win any awards but it is decently uptempo. You have a dodge roll with iframes, enemies have colored tells to let you know if an attack can't be dodged or blocked by your shield. The default Scout class has a sword & shield which is what I chose, and there are block and parry options, although I haven't had a ton of success with the latter. The dodge has a brief cooldown so it can't be mashed, which means you do have to have some timing and rhythm, but how much probably depends on what difficulty you choose (I chose the default, the 2nd of 4 difficulty levels, and found it well-balanced). Souldiers is the full package; it's fun, it's big, it looks and sounds great, and there's plenty to explore. At launch the game was very buggy and apparently unbalanced, which may explain its Mixed grade on Steam, but playing it on the Steam Deck this past week, whatever problems other people were having, either I'm very lucky or it's all been patched and addressed, because I had a fabulous time with this game and couldn't put it down until it was done.   If there is an award for "most highly-anticipated release to be forgotten about", Cuphead's long-awaited DLC has to be at least one of the nominees. 5 years in the making, Last Course adds a new island to the game with all-new bosses and challenges, hand-animated with the same love and care as the original game, with more of that bombastic jazz and big band soundtrack to pump you up. Recognizing what people loved and didn't love about the original, Last Course is all bosses, no filler. No dull run & gun stages. Just a dozen bosses to fight, including a secret unlockable boss if you solve a puzzle on the world map. These bosses range from a giant literal cowgirl fighting you from inside of a saloon, to a squad of bootlegging bugs and spiders, to an aereal dogfighting team. Each new boss is a wonderful surprise, with each phase offering up something incredibly creative. I was not expecting the cowgirl to... uh... get sucked into their own machine and become cooked and turned into sausages. There is also a string of special bosses that can only be damaged by parrying, and though one of them was kind of a dud, the rest were pretty legit, and a great way to practice your parrying skills, while you'll definitely need for some of the primary bosses in the DLC campaign. While it is not very long, in a year full of affordably awesome games, The Delicious Last Course is yet another great sub-$10 experience. It's every bit as good as the original, and all killer no filler.   Well, hell-fuckin-lo there, Prodeus. I've waited for you ever since the Early Access release had people raving, and you were definitely worth the wait. It's an absolute rampaging romp of a shooter with powerful weapons, secrets galore and style for days. Prodeus achieves its slick look by pre-rendering its 3D enemies and giving them and your weapons a wickedly crunchy look to them. Combined with the absolutely brutal level aesthetics, this is a game that exudes a powerful aura of rage. Even more than RAGE(tm)! Much bellyaching has been made about the game's checkpoint system, which puts you right back in the action rather than restarting and respawning everything. I don't care. It doesn't... it literally doesn't matter. Who cares. Nobody's watching you show off your sick K/D ratio. This is a game to whip around destroying everything, not do a perfect no-damage run. Just have fun!! It's loving fun!! Okay, sorry about that. I really like the many vistas and setpieces on offer from Prodeus, like a level where you are constantly evading a sniper's nest, or a downhill mountain climb where you get the sniper rifle and YOU ARE THE SNIPERS NEST!! Or a trip to an alien world where the topography of the level design is literally changing all around you as you progress. The game is full of cool ideas like this, and each level adheres to the design ethos that makes old school FPS design age so gracefully in these modern times. If you go down a route to get a colored keycard or trigger a switch, the route will dump you back out at the crossroads before you went that way. Perfect. Yes. Good. We love that here. The game has an SMB3-style overworld complete with side activities like a shop and time trial race levels. There's a currency in the game that you use to acquire new abilities and upgraded weapons at the shop, and it can be find in many of the secret locations of every level, as well as being a prize in the race levels. These abilities include Metroidvania staples like the double jump, and more powerful versions of existing weapons. You can then go back to earlier levels with the double jump, and find more secrets!! It's cool!! This is a dev that put everything they love about games into one game. OK, I will not just be a geek the whole time. I will say this. The game asks for your feedback after every level, and if you repeat that level, it doesn't remember what you voted the last time. C'mon guys. Most people don't want to do that anyway, it's friction keeping them from more action. But at least remember what people voted! Your star rating ostensibly would guide the devs into knowing what works and what doesn't work and would affect future campaigns, but it's hard to know how much it's going to really matter if the game has the memory of a goldfish, and they also have to take into account ratings from console players and Gamepass players. This is me, throwing my hands up in the air. I don't know! I just know this is a really good game! It looks really cool and it's a hell of a lot of fun. That's honestly all I really need from a retro shooter.   Despite all the japes and the jests over the years, I am a big Nintendo fan, and any time they release a 3D platformer, I'm immediately invested. Kirby & the Forgotten Land doesn't hit the highest highs of the 3D Mario games but it is easily the best Kirby game released in a long time, and utter chaos in co-op. What makes Kirby work this time is not even the new features like Mouthful mode, but how those features are used to tuck surprises into the levels. It's a pretty smart tactic to go backwards as soon as you find a Mouthful ability, for example, because there might be a hidden path or collectable hidden earlier in the level that requires that Mouthful form to access. In addition to finding Waddle-Dees, there are fun little gachapon toys as well. And the more Waddle-Dees you bring back to town, the more the town grows and offers additional minigames and side activities such as fishing and tilt-mazes. The Forgotten Land also incorporates objectives into each level, most of which are hidden, in order to get more Waddle Dees. Each level clear will reveal one of the mystery objectives, but you can also just discover them through playing through the level and trying things. Taking down posters, eating certain types of food, to give a couple of examples. It naturally invites replayability but I also think there's a lot of fun in trying to figure out the mystery objectives in your first playthrough. The powers themselves are great this time around, as they not only are strong out of the box, but can be upgraded into different forms at the Blacksmith to become even more devastating. The world map hides secret stages that focus on each one of these power forms and act sort of like Mystery House challenges from Super Mario 3D World, which was another nice chunk of content to have and shows a bit more of the level design prowess of HAL Laboratory, something that we have not really seen from them in the 3D space. Granted, nothing in this game is super difficult, as it is designed to be accessible to all ages, but getting top times on some of these stages will require perfect precision. To offer one nitpick, I played this with my roommate and the co-op was... well, it felt tacked on, because the game just does not like the second player being even a foot off-screen before warping them back to center. This is being generous as well, because I've found that 2P will sometimes get warped just by being in the bottom third of the screen depending on the camera angle. This resulted in a lot of frustration but also some real silliness as well. Personally, I would have tweaked it to be more like the bubbling in New Super Mario Bros where a character has to go all the way off-screen, OR you give them the manual option to bubble themselves. A game that pretty much anyone can get into easily and enjoy, Kirby manages to find the perfect balance; cozy without being sleepy, deeper than you'd think and wider than you'd expect.   It's so many little things. The monument to a fallen soldier with "FAKE" spraypainted on it. The 'headdrives' that attempt to simulate an uploaded consciousness but speak robotically and inaccurately, because of technology that has clearly been rushed to market to prioritize profit over its actual benefits to mankind. It's the homeless being shoved aside to make room for a hipster puppet show. So much of Norco is too real, it's almost scarily uncomfortable. More than any other game this year do the characters in a setting feel like real people who have lived a lifetime. Even the oddest or seemingly smallest roles have something poignant or profound to say. And all this while you're palling around with a Juggalo detective. Norco takes the game language of an ICOM adventure and translates it into a stunning narrative experience that walks the fine line between bleakness, despair, surreality, and magical realism. Is there hope in this game? Not much, it's quite grim. Is it still silly and light-hearted at times? There's a cult of teens LARPing as knights templar all named Garrett. Does the destination matter as much as the journey? You may get tired of this always being the case, but no, the destination doesn't matter. In fact, the game predicts an ending for the protagonist before you even conclude the story (which, admittedly, has an ending that feels a bit rushed and inelegant compared to the lengths of prose that led up to it). But don't go into this game looking for an investigative whodunnit where you solve all the mysteries and feel super smart. You're not Sherlock. You're a young woman who has come home after drifting and tumbling through life, picking up the pieces of your family's shattered lives, learning how to process grief, how to escape hell, the nature of faith and belief, the impermanence of memory, and living with the knowledge that you will likely continue drifting and tumbling after the credits roll, because there are no tidy endings in the real world. And that's without even getting into the setting itself, which is so well-realized that you'll develop a nostalgia for a place and time you've never been (well, unless you did actually grow up in Louisiana). This is a game that invites replaying, that requires some digestion, and its metaphors and mindfuck sequences paint such interesting word pictures and leave enough to the imagination that I'd be interested to see how people interpret all of them. There's just one really odd thing about the game that I don't really get. The game has combat sequences that feel like the barest bones of a turn based JRPG. They're extremely basic, involve some repetitive QTEs, and.. I just don't know why they're here. They do spice things up, but they're so superfluous. It feels like something that was a part of the concept stage that just never managed to be cut throughout the production process. I think you could cut the combat and it would be just fine, maybe you save it for THAT ONE SECTION and it'll stand out more? That's just my feelings, at least. But Norco is a game that really does push the point and click adventure forward in a way that resembles the later era of Infocom games as they advanced the medium of interactive fiction. This is a special, special game and it deserves to be played by anyone that has a passing interest in the genre.   No game kept a smile on my face more than Tinykin this year. Created by the team behind Splasher (one of the low-key best 2D platformers on Steam), Tinykin tells the distant-future tale of a scientist who wants to learn about the history of the human race and their origins. On discovering what could possibly be humanity's home planet, he winds up blinking into a very large house, in a very small body. It's Honey I Shrunk the Platforms, with an extra helping of Pikmin, and it's a real treat. While Splasher was a twitchy test of reflexes, Tinykin is about cozy exploration. Each new room you enter is absolutely massive, full of activities, people to help and places to go, which you'll reach with the help of your new tinykin friends. These tinykin can carry large objects, explode, and form bridges and ladders to help you traverse the many rooms of the house, each of which are humorously themed around the room's original purpose. A child's bedroom, for example, has become a theme park, while a bathroom has become a frat-like party zone. The game is drop dead gorgeous, mixing 3D environments and hand-drawn animated characters in a way similar to Demon Turf but on a whole different level. You can't get much more polished than this. Navigating these worlds is a breeze with the help of a soapboard you can whip out and slide around on, which is also used to slide up and down spider-silk rails. As you make your way around you will also find and unlock shortcuts by knocking things over, or exploding certain jail crates. Your exploration of each room thus ascends in a pleasing and thorough manner from bottom to top, as you initially see what's at ground level, then tackle little sections at a time, slowly making your way up, unlocking shortcuts, until eventually there's no place you can't reach and you're zipping all over the place. The game is a sort-of collectathon, as the ultimate goal is just to acquire the parts to a spaceship, one of which is in each room. But certainly you'll be collecting tinykin as certain objects require a certain amount of them to interact. There are also bits of pollen everywhere, which have a satisfying click sound every time you grab one, that are used to upgrade your bubble glide several times so that it lasts longer (which naturally will allow you to find the hardest-to-reach secrets). Ultimately I have very little to complain about with this one, it's just a fun and relaxing game that is pleasant on the eyes and ears, should be accessible to players of most age groups, and will keep you entertained from start to finish. gently caress I'm just starting to sound like a back-of-the-box VHS quote. I apologize.   As I've mentioned before, I'm a fan of Nintendo games, and whenever I run out of them I start to look to the indie circuit, because there are a host of indie developers that have made games these past several years that could easily pass for a first-party Nintendo title. Last year I regarded Kaze & the Wild Masks quite highly, and this year I've played something even better. Grapple Dog looks like a long lost Nintendo DS title straight from Nintendo themselves. It has thick, Nitrome-like spritework, extremely good music, excellent level design, a content-packed game structure, and devious post-game challenges. The music is a blend of Jet Set Radio electrolounge and Jazz Jackrabbit chiphop, and I only wish there was more of it! Having a game built around grapple would suck if the grapple was poorly implemented, but it is perfectly executed and, combined with wall jumping, allows you to pretty much get anywhere you want to, which allows purple gems (the equivalent of Mario's Green Stars) to be tucked away in all sorts of fun places. These gems are needed to unlock boss doors, but the game is completely fair about how much you need to collect, as it's only the post-game challenges that have steep unlock requirements. In addition, there are bonus stages of various kinds to get more gems, such as sprint-to-the-finish stages, collect-em-all and fight-em-all stages. Yeah, a 2D platformer is my #2. I enjoyed it that much! With Nintendo less and less likely to make purely 2D sidescrolling games in the modern era, it falls on indie developers to fill in the gap. Well, that hole was meant for Grapple Dog, because it fills the space completely.   For me, what makes open world games promising is the idea of picking a direction, going in that direction, and finding something interesting. I know that's pretty basic and a typical design mantra, but it's amazing how many open world games just completely gently caress that up. I don't need a thousand question marks to run over to find out that they're a generic bandit camp activity that looks like every other bandit camp activity. Regions often look quite identical with very few defining features or landmarks, and even if they do have them, the geography of them is homogenized-- possibly so that AAA publishers ensure that more players experience the majority of the content. But it's not always that way. FROM SOFTWARE puts their trust in the player that the reward will be worth the risk of making exploration challenging and diverse. Nintendo places bespoke and unique content in many places that you might never experience. Crystal Project is a one-man indie RPG that patterns itself after Final Fantasy V, XIV, and Bravely Default, but with a world design that calls to mind Minecraft and 3D platforming. It is a touch crude; its big blocky cubes that make up the world will put some people off, and sprites in the game were from RPG asset packs. To say that it's "programmer art" would be a solid nail on the head. But give an hour or two of your time to the demo and you'll see some of the magic that Crystal Project offers, and a lot of it goes back to that design mantra. The game starts you off with limited knowledge, just a single path forward and some tutorial NPCs that teach you about basic game mechanics. Once you've reached a rest stop, at that point, the game takes the ankle bracelets off. Sorta. You are ostensibly given free reign to run about wherever you want, as long as you can reach it. This is accomplished via platforming, but also is augmented later in the campaign with rideable mounts that offer additional Metroidvania-like abilities such as higher jumps and gliding to reach new areas. But you don't have those yet. You pick a direction and maybe you find a small encampment dug into a crevice with vendors, maybe you find a cave with pools of water that leads to a small dungeon, maybe you find yourself at the beach. During this early part of the game, you'll discover a few things about Crystal Project. One is that its battle system is completely transparent. You will always know the turn order, the damage your attacks will do and your accuracy, the enemy HP, the attacks the enemies will do and their damage, whether a status effect will work on either side, how much aggro your party members are currently pulling, and whether an insta-kill skill will one-shot an enemy. It is exceptionally good, borrowing elements of FFX and FFXIV. The second thing you'll discover is the job system. Behind most bosses is a Crystal which will give you a brand new job to play with (much like Asterisk fights in Bravely Default would award you new classes). These jobs can be changed at any checkpoint, and you will be expected to do that, because attempting to run the game with one party configuration will usually end poorly for you against the many big fights in the game. Jobs range from your average tank, magic and fighter classes, to more esoteric (but familiar) ones, such as jobs with time-based skills, a ninja class that requires a decent amount of setup but can be absolutely overpowered, and a scholar class whose skills are learned by stealing them from enemies. After playing the game for several hours and getting several crystals, you'll eventually come across an area with a trial for those who have collected enough to be worthy. After completing the dungeon, you'll eventually wind up in the capital city of the game, and it's at this point that you realize everything you've just done was still the prologue in a closed-off area, and you are now truly free to explore to the best of your abilities, the remaining handcuffs taken away. And you learn the third thing about Crystal Project: it's deceptively big. Some people won't love the platforming but I thought that it was a novel way to design an interesting topography that makes the regions feel uniquely different but also consistently engaging. It's also how the game tucks away the many chests littering the world. You will be surprised at how many places you can scale up if you're willing to keep looking for a part of the cliff-face that's within your jump reach, and that's before you even start utilizing the mounts which allow you to reach higher and further. This might lead you to treasure like rare/powerful gear, or healing items, or it might lead you to an entirely new area of the world. In this game there aren't a lot of simple paths... you need to actually explore and reach locations rather than just jogging to them like any other open-world game. But if you are worried about a Kingdom of Amalur-esque eternal jog, there are fast travel options. Once you activate a Save Crystal, you will be able to set it as a Home Point, which means you will be able to return to it at any time. In the interest of keeping players from getting too frustrated, the game was patched to allow three different Home Points at once that you can warp between. If an area is just too powerful and kicking your rear end, you can always warp back to it later after exploring elsewhere. You will also find shrines that act as the game's official fast travel locations, which you will be able to warp to at any time after purchasing a key item from the shrine vendor. Despite what I said about the visuals earlier, I actually think the combination of a chunky 3D cubic world and classic SNES-style spritework works really well. It's clean, the monster designs are funny, the biomes are easy to distinguish between, and readability is rarely a concern. The music licensed for the game also fits appropriately for the different regions and the different kinds of encounters. It's a good example of a developer who knows their limitations and their limited budget, being able to find assets that actually fit, something that a lot of users of, say, RPG Maker, still struggle with even in 2022 (this is not a generalization against all RPG Maker games, however, as I know there are RPG Maker games that are quite good and have smart asset usage... I'm a Dancing Dragons fan, after all). If I had to give a criticism to the game, it's the storytelling. I suppose if I'd rather have an engaging open world or an engaging story, I'd choose the former in this type of game, given the size of it, but Crystal Project's "MMO at a crossroads" narrative is at best clumsy and reheated, and at other times confusing. The final boss's motivations are just sort of belched at you and don't quite connect to earlier statements. It's just weird. In the time since I've completed the game, the developer has gone back and added additional content, from a training arena to a randomizer mode, so there's no better time to jump in. If you're wary, there is a demo for the game that covers the opening hours. I was utterly delighted by this game, and I'd love for more RPG nerds to play it. ------ And that's all I have to say about gaming in 2022! I will see you, next year, or in the Steam thread where I occasionally point out cool upcoming indie releases. Get psyched for Zeno Clash 3 folks! It's only two months away. Later!
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Dec 31, 2022 19:25
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7th Guest listed Elden Ring, the gimmick is dead
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Dec 31, 2022 19:29
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Three 7th Guest posts and the top game is something I’ve literally never heard of? Have to love it
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Dec 31, 2022 19:30
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You'd have heard of it if you'd been reading every list 
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Dec 31, 2022 19:31
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as someone with basically zero nostalgia for JRPGs, Crystal Project just feels really lovely to play. Cosy and comfortable and just kinda - really *nice*. I haven't delved very deep but I have to think if you *do* have an affection for the kind of game it is, you'll adore it.
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Dec 31, 2022 19:32
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Aipsh posted:Three 7th Guest posts and the top game is something I’ve literally never heard of? Have to love it
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Dec 31, 2022 19:55
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I feel like I saw one post about souldiers in the steam thread when it first released and then never heard about it again so I'm glad it landed for someone else. Definitely glad I played it after patches, it was a comfy time
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Dec 31, 2022 19:58
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Papes posted:I intended to put much more effort into this, but am still recovering from being sick with covid. Please don't crusify me for not having cool gifs. i hope you feel better soon! cool gifs not required!!
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Dec 31, 2022 20:07
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Lethrom posted:Question for all the people putting Nirvana Initiative on their lists, how do you all think it compares to the original AI? Depends on what you disliked about AITSF. The original game has a tighter narrative and a stronger supporting cast. AINI is more batshit insane. If you disliked the writing or the humor, you will not like AINI.
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Dec 31, 2022 20:10
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Rarity posted:You'd have heard of it if you'd been reading every list After receiving tremendous psychological damage reading Veeg’s top ten I have had to only view morsels of the thread at any one time. Please someone post an asymmetrical deck building game to bring me back to reality
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Dec 31, 2022 20:12
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Holidays got away from me and I was planning on doing a better write up, but half arsed is better than not at all! I'll give my number one slot the proper attention to make up for it! With Apologies To The Following Games I Bought But Haven't Played Yet And Will Now Get Yelled At For Not Playing - Metroid Dread - Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope - Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword 10.) Vampire Survivor This probably would have been a lot higher if I started playing it earlier in the year! 9.) Tabletop Simulator COVID sucks. COVID sucked less by being able to play boardgames with friends online via Tabletop Simulator. It's basically  for boardgames and everyone should have it.8.) Tiny Tina's Wonderlands I bought a new PC this year, cause my old one blew up. Wanted a game to test it out on, and I've got a soft spot for Borderlands. Not as annoying as it could have been! 7.) TMNT Shredders Revenge One day I'll finally get around to building my TMNT themed arcade cabinet 6.) Lost Judgement I like the Beat Em Up style of Yakuza, more than the RPG style. https://i.imgur.com/iXNZChM.mp4 5.) Horizon Zero Dawn Forbidden West gently caress Ted Faro. Probably would have been higher if Elden Ring didn't release this year! 4.) Marvel Snap A mobile game... that's free.. and Marvel themed... and isn't P2W garbage... isn't bloatware... and is.. good? Da fuq? 3.) Elden Ring It's Elden Ring. It's also a game I could play for 20-30min segments and just enjoy. 2.)Returnal https://i.imgur.com/Alkho05.mp4 I'm sorry I slept on you so long Returnal. This is one of the best games on the PS5, and I implore you to play it. 1.) World of Warcraft Dragonflight  To say that I lamented the 'death' of World of Warcraft over the last year or so would be an understatement.. WoW has always been a game that was just 'there' for me to enjoy, my comfort game, and it has slowly transformed into a series of endless chores over the past 3 expansions, Legion, Battle for Azeroth, and Shadowlands, which had just straight up killed any enthusiasm I had left for it. That's not to wash over the far more serious real world problems Activision Blizzard had caused itself, and it all just left me.. Tired. I didn't like the MMORPG that I've played for over 18 years anymore. I didn't like the company that made it anymore. And then Dragonflight released, and it is everything WoW expansions should have been years ago. Fun. One of the major problems WoW had been facing for a long, long time now focused around Borrowed Power, wherein you would be giving an item or a weapon at the start of the expansion and told "Go endlessly power this up for us Champion"; and then off you popped for 2-3 years and constantly had to feed this soul sucking piece of poo poo Power, in whatever flavour that expansion took, and this was just an ENDLESS loving CHORE you had to do to remain competitive with the rest of the population. You couldn't play the game 'correctly' unless you were spending time powering up the item, so you had to commit more and more personal time to Powering Up The Maguffin instead of just playing the game. WoW became a chore, a second job, something you didn't want to log in for. Worst of all? This was always the expansion 'feature' - Legion - Power up this weapon - Battle for Azeroth -Power up this neck - Shadowlands - Power up this covenant (lol also you have no choice in which you choose because this covenant is Best For Your Class) Along comes Dragonflight and says "gently caress all that poo poo. How about we go fly some dragons in the prettiest goddamn content we've ever made?"  Dragonflights key features are as follows: - Talent tree rehaul - Dragon flying (This poo poo is so good) - New class And aside from the standard New World To Explore and Raid + Dungeons, that's it. That might not seem like much, but it is everything and it's so hard to eloquate succinctly what a breath of fresh air keeping everything 'simple' has been, how relaxing this is as a long time player to not have to commit my time to doing 20 WQs to get 10AP to power up some bullshit I don't loving care about, and to just simply log onto a video game and enjoy the act of playing. I am not trying to be facetious when I say I am falling back in love with a game I thought I had lost, and had finally moved on from. They have roadmaps for new content! Every 2 months! And they told us what they are ahead of time! All the bullshit of expansions past they seem to have taken a hammer to. Easiest example? Logging in and having to do world quests on 12 hour times, now they're multi-day quests - and you're not grinding towards Boosting Your Power, you're just slowly earning cosmetic rewards. I can just play the game, and that's what it should be, and that's what it needs to be, cause I'm old.  I'm turning 40 this year, and when I first started playing WoW I learnt how to Tank - It's what I love to do in the game, and for the first few expansions I main tanked for multiple guildes from Vanilla to the end of Wrath of the Lich King.. and after that I fell out of doing it for one reason or another, only tanking a little bit here and there. And it's hard to join a new guild for the express purpose of effectively trying to slide into a main tanking position. So I've been playing Damage specs, with a little bit of tanking here and there whenever I had the energy for it, after grinding up my Maguffin Power - so it wasn't often. I missed tanking, and being 'That Guy', and I just don't have the energy to commit to what WoW expansions were previously expecting of its players. I've yearned to return to a time where I could do this again, and WANT to do it again. Do you know what this screenshot is?  This is a picture of me tanking the current final boss of the expansion, a split second before killing it. With a bunch of random people I never met before that raid. I'm playing World of Warcraft. I'm tanking. And I'm having fun. 
Infinitum fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Dec 31, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2022 21:16
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For Rarity 10 - Vampire Survivor 09 - Tabletop Simulator 08 - Tiny Tina's Wonderlands 07 - TMNT Shredders Revenge 06 - Lost Judgement 05 - Horizon Zero Dawn Forbidden West 04 - Marvel Snap 03 - Elden Ring 02 - Returnal 01 - World of Warcraft Dragonflight
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Dec 31, 2022 21:17
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Why's the final boss of WoW wearing a santa hat
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Dec 31, 2022 21:20
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Because it's Christmas!
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Dec 31, 2022 21:21
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Oh man I hadn't been fully paying attention to Crystal Project but it definitely looks like something I'd have a lot of fun with. Curses that I'm perpetually poor during the biggest game buying time of the year with this thread. 
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Dec 31, 2022 21:33
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e: whoops i hit post not preview oh god oh no it's not ready don't look
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Dec 31, 2022 22:05
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I didn't put Delicious Last Course on my list but it is really good. The bootlegging spiders level might be one of the three best levels in the game + DLC in terms of pure theming, details, and execution. Aipsh posted:Dead by Daylight — DbD is just a time management simulator. Once you figure that out, and properly assess what actions you need to take at any given time, it becomes fun in the same way that any task where you're trying to maximize efficiency is fun. But it's not a horror movie game, it's not scary, and the optimal way of playing is often to abandon chases, which seems counterintuitive for a slasher. Playing as a survivor is dull as dishwater though. Lethrom posted:Question for all the people putting Nirvana Initiative on their lists, how do you all think it compares to the original AI? I'm in the minority. I think the only thing the first game did better was having more Date. Everything else, preferred NirvanA.
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Dec 31, 2022 22:05
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Right, okay here it is HONORABLE MENTIONS Vampire Survivors - I get it, it's fun as hell, it's the 2nd most perfect podcast game ever made after Snowrunner. I didn't like it as much as others but I feel it deserves recognition because at long drat last the game design psychologists used their training for good rather than evil, and the best part is that the "low price, no mtx" is mandatory for any of the numerous clones to copy because it's become a staple of the genre gamers expect. I continue to play, and enjoy it, but it doesn't have any hooks in me. Maybe soon. Shadows over Loathing - Sequel out of nowhere with no warning to a game I also played and loved this year. It's everything you loved about the first and more, it'd probably be on the list but I'm probably not going to actually beat it until I can do so on my Switch because it's a great lunch break game. In Other Waters - About halfway through this one but it's very good and unique, and when I learned this was the first game from the studio that gave us Citizen Sleeper I wasn't too surprised, but it gave me a bit of extra happiness to see people putting that on their lists. The game is a UI and exists largely in the theater of the mind, but if you like that sort of thing or just would've liked Subnautica if only it didn't have such perilous depths and scary monsters, check it out. Wildermyth - Played this with some friends in co-op and very much enjoyed the too-easy tutorial campaign. We decided to put it down and wait for 1.0 when we got out of that and the difficulty ramped up to like 11, and we decided to move over to a new game than do the less fun but probably intended thing of having more party members than players. Real potential here. Pentiment - Haven't finished it yet because this thread keeps making me want to play Elden Ring, but it's very clearly going to be a high ranking one for next year. I remember after Disco Elysium came out Sawyer, noted goon, said that it figured out a lot of stuff that had been issues in the quest to make an excellent narrative game, so I was really excited to see what his next project would be. I'm glad to not be disappointed and I'm glad we're entering an era where big studios and big names will be allowed to experiment with just not having unfun combat at all just because they think the audience expects it. Snowrunner - The GOAT audiobook game keeps getting updates baby, this consumed my January as I 100%'d the Don region but I'm already behind like 2 expacs. I'll get to it, truckin' and fuckin' is eternal. 10) The Xbox Series S + Game Pass I'm not gonna lie and say I spent hours tormenting myself on the listing ranks here, but this unusual pick which you are free to disregard Rarity is one I just felt deserved to be on here. The only console I've owned since the PS2 was my Switch, but earlier this year I was wanting to spend more time gaming from my living room couch because it's so much easier for my elderly dog to hang out with me there, but to be frank I don't console game enough to justify dropping serious bank. So I was looking into this, saw it was not only in stock down the street but also had a special running where they'd just give me Elden Ring for free. I had enough in my "laptop's dyin' Cloud" fund to buy it outright because hell, what's a 2nd platinum for Elden Ring? About 6 months later and it's probably among the purchases I made this year that I'm happiest with. Half the games I played this year were on this through Game Pass, and it revitalized co-op nights with my buds because it's just one cheap monthly payment to have loads of co-op games to pick from and people can play from their PC or console and it doesn't matter. Everything looks amazing unless it falls into one of the two downsides - no 4k, no disk drive. I don't have a 4k TV tho, and while it sucks not being able to rent games from the library, well Game Pass is just as good. Also the controller is the best one for PC gaming and comes included! If you're wanting a console but aren't a Console Gamer this is the best deal in town until the Switch Pro comes out in 2028. 9) Tinykin A fun romp that really nails what it's going for. Enjoyed it immensely from start to finish, zipping around on a soap bar and solving puzzles just challenging enough for my caveman brain in what is one of the best implementations of an incredibly vertical level design I've played. 8) Frog Detective 3/Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery Wholesome, sweet, and fun game series that saw its final chapter release this year. Relatively bite-sized affairs that will leave you smiling. Whole collection is on Game Pass (PC) 7) West of Loathing No clue how it took me so long to try this but I really, really enjoyed this and believe it's a master class is how to make a funny game that is actually funny AND keeps you wanting to see what's around the next corner. Magic is unapologetically busted as is often the case in, well, most games but the other ones are probably pretty busted to. It's fun and not a combat game so it works, it's about the world you're exploring and the people in it and it doesn't disappoint. 6) Raft The only non-GamePass co-op game our group played this year but it's very good. One I've been following since early alpha so I came into 1.0 with like 150 hours but still enjoying every minute of it. You start out with yourself (and friends if you like), a hook to catch scrap that floats by, 4 foundation squares, and a dream. You float and build your raft and keep yourselves alive and equipped until you find and navigate to a plot setpiece, all of which are great so far, spend a couple hours exploring every nook and cranny, then repeat. 5) Graveyard Keeper Didn't expect to like this one as much as I did, but it's irreverent and proudly unserious with a whole lot of really satisfying crafting loops and a shitload of stuff to do with absolutely zero timers. I probably would've hated this game without zombies to automate things, and I was late in getting them set up because I figured it'd be a lot more work than it turned out to be. My church and graveyard were bare minimums and I ignored the traditional combat dungeon levels and still got a solid 50 hours out of this. Switch performance is what I'd describe as "okay", not great at parts and frame drop-prone, but not so egriously or uniquely Switch bad that I ever though it might not just be the game itself struggling under the load of the monstrosities I have built which is a genre feature ala Forager. 4) Dysmantle I was looking for some background noise videos and one of my go-tos had a full playthrough of this, so I figured why not? I have no idea what the hell this game is but it looks interesting enough. I then watched two videos, decided I'm in, and played it instead. About 60 hours later I put it down, having done everything, to wait for the DLC, which came out recently for the Switch and was also very fun. In many ways it's a very simple game - destroy everything around you for materials and experience, use those to make yourself more powerful and give yourself more stuff you can do. In other ways, it's deeply strange - it's got more Souls mechanics than you'd expect (enemy respawn, bonfires, lock on and dodge rolling, items get charges that refresh at bonfire) that amazingly all make you wonder why nobody else thought of this before because they work so well. The tone varies between tongue in cheek and genuinely odd like the cinematic train rides complete with musical accompaniment out of nowhere, and there's always something to do even if you aren't sure what to do. 3) Grounded Another game our co-op group played and loved loved loved, and naturally we started and finished before the traditional "here's all the QoL and balancing stuff this game obviously needed but we couldn't get in before launch" 1.1 patch so it's doubtless even more fun and less grindy now. The aesthetic is good and perfectly executed, it's fun throughout, you really feel in real danger even when you're essentially an NFL linebacker in heavy armor and shield+spear like I turned Willow into, the base building is very fun and building itself is something that extends into combat and exploration itself (more than once we looked at a big platforming challenge and instead decided to build a huge and dangerous shambling tower of half walls), it's got charm through the roof, and perfectly encapsulates the sort of vibe of Honey I Shrunk the Kids and 90's kids movies. The map is big and there's stuff everywhere, and the sense of satisfaction once you get a big zipline network up and running is enormous. It's very much unlike my mom's brussels sprouts! 2) Dark Souls Remastered So I am among many here, I suspect, in that this year was the first year I actually sat down and tried a Souls game after years of making fun of it for no other reason than it'd bother people. Not even trying before and bouncing, just sort of assuming that as a huge moron who is bad at games that it wasn't for me. Then I saw hasanabi beat it, and I said to myself, "if he can beat it then so can I" and so I loaded up on str/vit/end and grabbed the biggest sword I found and started out on my voyage to discover that my default playstyle for all games is actually one of the most fun ways to play this series. The peripheral systems like estus flasks and stuff like being able to just suicide run to pick something up as the flip side of losing consumables you spend in a failed attempt, and countless other things made me stop and say "good lord, they solved this 10 years ago, why aren't more devs doing this?" The greatest tragedy is that I discovered my love of Souls co-op (sunbro life!) about 3 hours before all the online got shut down, right before I was entering Sen's Fortress. I put it down for a bit to hopefully wait it out, but as ER approached I decided to complete it. Thanks to a lucky Black Knight Sword drop I captain caveman'd my way through everything and was loving loving loving every minute of it. The slow, deliberate pace of combat and rewards for going absolutely apeshit when it's Apeshit Time combined with the tremendous build variety were exactly what I didn't realize I needed this whole time, and let me tell you the difficulty is marketing. It ain't EASY but it is fair, you can figure it out and you can solve it and eventually a boss will click and you'll just pick them up and wring them out while laughing as they helplessly flail and let me tell you it is the greatest feeling when it happens. Magic is kind of okay until it becomes stupidly broken, it's the best game in the series for heavy armor sword and board freaks like me, there's no party members or hangers on constantly chattering and telling you what to do, every NPC feels like they're on their own quest that doesn't involve you unless you go out of your way to become a part of it, the level and world design are unmatched even to this day. It's been a long time since a game has felt like it really opened my eyes but by the time I had finished I finally GOT IT when people talk about Souls games. 1) Elden Ring  DA KING BABY! A game that had as much hype and expectation as could've been possible and it not only met those expectations, but blew through them to hard and fast that every other open world game that was probably coming out that year got delayed to 2023, hopefully so they can copy huge chunks of what they've done here. A lot of words have been spent on this but what stands out to me most about my first playthrough is the incredible spectacle of Radahn (and mind breaking difficulty of the fight at release) and Mr Snake Man, the feeling of spending 20 hours exploring this whole rear end landmass only to find a trapped chest that teleports you to a part of the map so far away you realize you're still in the backwaters of nowhere and have a long way to go, the Siofra Well elevator of course blew my mind, the incredible build variety all of which are perfectly viable, the 10,000 QoL stuff they implemented like the stakes and torrent and a jump button and powerstancing and weapon arts and Margit telling me "this ain't DS1 anymore" before zipping around like a ninja maniac before humiliating me and and and This game completely consumed me for the first month and since then I've been playing it nonstop in addition to whatever else because there's still whole new ways to work through it that I haven't even touched after 500+ hours between my Series S and PC. 10 years from now I'll probably still be booting this game up to have a go, or playing the seamless co-op with friends, or maybe a randomizer, or whatever mods the very active community has come up with. I mentioned that DSR made me fall in love with the sunbro life of doing a lot of my leveling by putting down my sign to help a fellow player out when they need it, and this has been so expanded and streamlined in ER as to be unbelievable. No going human, no having to camp a boss door with your sign, all of that's gone. Touch the effigy, and when you activate your own that place is now somewhere your sign will be dropped automatically. Go on about your day until you see the message pop up that you're being summoned, then get the "You're Beautiful!" prattling pate ready. On one character I was being summoned to Castle Morne essentially nonstop from level 20 to 50, each time I helped someone who was struggling to finally find victory and teach them some tips and tricks in the process. It's enormously satisfying, and something you cannot really experience like you can when one of these games is brand spankin' new. It's surging right now as you'd expect, and will again when DLC is released. If you're on the fence, jump in! Easy list: 10) The XBox Series S + Game Pass 9) Tinykin 8) Frog Detective 3 7) West of Loathing 6) Raft 5) Graveyard Keeper 4) Dysmantle 3) Grounded 2) Dark Souls Remastered 1) Elden Ring
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Dec 31, 2022 22:08
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10. Horizon: Forbidden West Horizon: The End of Ted Faro. Finally. 9. God of War: Rägnarok A great (and partially bittersweet) send-off for several characters that I came to love in God of War (2018). The second part is definitely better, and the Crater was such a pleasant surprise that it probably moved the game up the list a place or two for me. The new companion basically made the game for me. Finally, the ending was simply well-done and the post-game is what I would wish more games did in terms in integrating it into the story. 8. Case of the Golden Idol Capping off the list of games I've played in 2022, this game managed to tickle my brain a little and made me appreciate how much atmosphere can you wring out of relatively simple scenes and art if you're creative. Intriguing story that has a really funny ending that doesn't necessarily take itself that seriously. 7. Citizen Sleeper Amazing music and thought-provoking story. 6. Tunic The game managed to keep me intrigued almost the whole way through and I really liked its art style and sound design. The first ending that most people will get first is such a gently caress you that I can't but give mad props to the dev. 5. AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative I'm an almost complete newcomer to the author's games but Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors hooked me so hard. While I think this game is overall weaker than its predecessor, it still manages to weave a great story and show you some great sights. Here's to the next one, Mr. Uchikoshi. 4. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles A long journey with so many great moments. I'm in awe how well they managed to tie everything together in the end. 3. Signalis I will not name-drop its obvious inspirations because Signalis, a survival horror that is both very old-school and modern at the same time, manages to create its own style, and raze its own path like a proper work of art. I was instantly in love with the music and the narrative, and the ending almost made me cry (I think the fault is entirely mine there). 2. Pentiment Incredible writing, sense of place, art direction and overall story. It was so engrossing I couldn't put it down for a few days before I've managed to finish it. It blew me away and I hope it did really well. 1. Elden Ring My first FROM game was Demon's Souls on a PS3 I borrowed from my younger brother back when I was still living with my parents and I played it to completion over many evenings after everybody went to sleep. It was magical but not only because of the atmosphere I've incidentally created for myself outside the game. Then when Dark Souls came to PC, though incredibly broken, that was when I think I completely fell for this style of game forever. The combat was enjoyable but I especially like the ATMOSPHERE. And Elden Ring does not disappoint in this regard from the moment you enter the main menu and the main theme kicks in, to the moment the credits roll. Elden Ring, for me, is pretty much the perfect game because all the elements I've liked in their previous games are here, x100. It is, to me, the perfect open world game and I'm getting feverish just thinking about what they'll do next. ez list 10. Horizon: Forbidden West 9. God of War: Ragnarok 8. Case of the Golden Idol 7. Citizen Sleeper 6. Tunic 5. AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative 4. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles 3. Signalis 2. Pentiment 1. Elden Ring
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Dec 31, 2022 22:16
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2020 to 2022 seems to have turned the concept of time inside out everywhere and it doesn’t help that the definition of “released” is so iffy in the gaming world that sometimes a game is only actually released until a couple of years of updating. That and all the freaking re-releases are messing with my concept of time too. So for Top 5ish list for 2022 I am just going to base my review on my gaming experiences for the year and not on games released this year. So don’t think of this as a Top 5 list of games released in 2022 but more so a Top 5 gaming moments for me for 2022. In no particular order:  Day of Defeat Source (2005) Starting off the list is Valves other multi-player game. Released all the way back in 2005, this game has been going strong since then with a huge amount of user made content and modes. I didn’t pick this game up for a couple of years and when I re-installed it this year, I was looking for a multi-player game that I could play for 15 to 20 minutes on and off and have fun. I was reintroduced to a game with the titan’s of the server list all but gone and a small group of people still playing in North America. The game was perfect at filling my gaming itch during times when I was way too inundated with work to commit to longer periods of play. I could hop on, get into a server in a minute, play for 20 and be off and on my way with other things. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/EuphoricCloseFairybluebird-mobile.mp4  Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (2008) Are you looking to lose some weight and also to see what would have happened if everyone that participated in the French Revolution was a massive weeb? Well, grab an exercise bike and boot up Tales of Vesperia. This game was one of the most exciting JRPG experiences I had this year and I am not ashamed to admit that I learned a lot of stuff from it. In addition to a great story line, the combat mechanics in this game are very dynamic. Dynamic in the sense that you can keep the combat super simple where you mash a couple of buttons or you can go really deep into a complex fighting system that even some normal Action games would be envious of.   Ion Fury (2018) This is the game Duke Nukem forever promised to be and Ironically is made by the same developers. You play as a supercop in a cyberpunk dystopia killing techno fascists. There’s nothing more fun than killing Techno-Fascists with a wide variety of tools. The game is campy with a lot of interesting easter eggs for you to find and is a very well refined twitch shooter. Lots of fun and really did a great job reviving the boomer shooter genre.   Sam and Max Save the World Season 1(2009) Really awesome point and click adventure game. I had these games for a while, but started playing them when I got my Steam Deck. They are very well done point and click adventure games with great humor and endings. All of the episodes are connected so make sure you start from the very beginning with these. Some of the puzzles are stupid, but that’s usually how point and click adventures are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzvfY0d7kGg Bit of spoiler there, but there's tons more stuff like this   Elder Scrolls Online (2014) Sleeper hit for this year for me. Picked it up in November for super cheap and have been floored by it. I know there is a lot of negative news about this game being over monetized, and I agree it is. It costs over 100 dollars of real cash just for a house in game. However, the Solo experience for this game is where its at. If you are a fan of the Elder Scrolls series, the quests in this game help to expand the lore in the series and also lets you experience all the areas in a constant art style and graphical level. The combat system is honestly better than Skyrim without losing the feel of combat that has evolved from Morrowind. I would definitely recommend this game as a solo play through and maybe just avoid all the monetization stuff as that’s just endgame.  Genre Specific Awards: This section I just wanted to give a special mention of two games that I have had a lot of great experiences with consistently over the years.  Best Dead Multiplayer Game that I want to see revived but you can also add me on steam and I’ll play with you for sure: For the third year in a row: Day of Infamy (2017) It is a goddamn shame this game is dead because it is THE best WW2 multiplayer experience to exist ever. The sound engineering in this game is incredible, gunplay is super tight and you will get PTSD when the bombs start dropping on your Squad. The infantry focused maps, squad specific roles and support system make for an incredibly intense experience. Even though the PVP is dead, the PvE was where the real fun was at. 6 man squads pushing various objectives against an endless supply of enemies and artillery. The fear, anguish and anxiousness you feel when you are the last man left alive and you need to survive the onslaught of the enemy is very rare to be matched in a lot of WW2 shooters these days. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AbleBareAcornweevil-mobile.mp4 https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ZigzagPointedAlpineroadguidetigerbeetle-mobile.mp4 https://thumbs.gfycat.com/VagueSinfulAmericanriverotter-mobile.mp4  Game that should have won/should win Game of the Year: Hellish Quart (2021, Early Access) Fighting games are an incredibly underappreciated genre in the Game of the Year world. Especially considering a lot of my core fun gaming memories have been derived by playing these games with my friends. That’s why I think one game that was overlooked in 2021 and in 2022 that really does deserve GOTY is Hellish Quart. This 1 on 1 17th century combat game brings to it a lot of technical sword fighting styles in a fast paced game. And I really mean fast paced: I’ve won rounds in less than a second against some people. The combat system the developers have designed is best described as elegant. Everything about this game's sword play is so well throughout and meticulous but it is still incredibly accessible by players. Usually within the first two rounds people have figured out the basics of the combat. GOTY is about games being fun. And the most fun I have had this year with friends has been with Hellish Quart. Many nights we’ve just ended up gravitating towards this game and just beating the poo poo out of each other (in game). https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ExcitableSelfassuredCockatoo-mobile.mp4 https://thumbs.gfycat.com/UniformHiddenBullmastiff-mobile.mp4 https://thumbs.gfycat.com/OblongFineEstuarinecrocodile-mobile.mp4
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Dec 31, 2022 22:21
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I don't think I played many more then ten or so games this year because the major releases were just so time-consuming, but here's my list: 10. TOEM Fun little game, clever and satisfying  9. Stray Charming and gorgeous with a great atmosphere, fairly shallow but memorable  8. LEGO Star Wars: Skywalker Saga Lots of fun and absolutely packed with content  7. Horizon Forbidden West I thought it would be really hard to have a story as engaging as uncovering the history of Zero Dawn in the first game but I really liked where the story went with the big sci-fi twists, even if some of the characters were very underdeveloped. Gameplay is still great and it has stunning environments to experience and explore, but the new weapon system sucked and it suffers from being too big with too much to do and too much to pick up, like many other open world games  6. Case of the Golden Idol The art style was so offputting that I didn't look at this game too closely until it started getting great reviews and was really glad I gave it a try. Super satisfying to solve the cases and have every puzzle (and the overarching story) click into place. The music fits the game's atmosphere but I still found it irritating , but that's a pretty minor complaint (Figuring out this top five was really difficult!)  5. Returnal Slick, superb gameplay. Figuring out how it worked in the first several hours could be frustrating at times and I think you needed to rely on luck with weapons & items for truly successful runs, but I never got tired of playing the game since it feels so great to control Selene  4. Spiritfarer I kind of want to put this at #1 because I'm not sure any other game has ever provoked such an emotional response (over and over and over and over!) in me. It was maybe a little too long and repetitive but I mostly loved all of the 30ish hours I spent with the game and even just thinking of the music or saying goodbye to certain characters is enough to make me well up  3. Elden Ring I've never really liked the Souls games but the open nature of the game and incredible hype was enough to get me on board for this one. The 100 hours it took me to binge through the game feel like a total fever dream now that's all vibes and no specifics, but I do remember many thrilling, satisfying, terrifying, etc. moments and it did the open-world very well with so many unexpected things around the corner without worrying about icons or checklists to finish. I don't think I'll ever play it again but what an experience  2. God of War Ragnarok My head tells me that Elden Ring should be ahead of Ragnarok but my heart says no to that notion. I think it comes down to a preference right now for a more straightforward story that is well-told and I just love the story, characters and world of Ragnarok. I hear and understand the issues that others have with the game but I was never really bothered by any of the common complaints in my playthrough and just found it a joy to play. The combat system is a ton of fun (especially when you've got a full arsenal and have so many options), great boss fights, incredible voice acting and presentation in general, just one of my favourite games ever  1. Disco Elysium I'm not sure why it took me so long to play this but wow, what a miracle of a game this is. Total masterpiece that I'll never forget and can't wait to replay (Games I would probably like but I haven't played include Signalis, Norco, Citizen Sleeper, Monkey Island, The Quarry, Midnight Suns)
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Dec 31, 2022 22:28
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el oso posted:
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Dec 31, 2022 22:31
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Every year I tell myself I'm going to post in the GOTY thread and every year I don't. No more!  I've played very few tactics games - basically only XCOM, now that I think about it - but they're a friend of mine's favorite genre and he asked me to play this with him. I suspect the tactics in this game have less depth than other entries. A rock/paper/scissors element system and some basic equipment options are about as much thought as I had to put into individual battles. But I found the whole experience outside of some boss fights very relaxing and had a lot of fun sending my melee chain attack puppy or fire infused boxer chicken man to ruin some goblins' day.  I love perspective tricks and bendy puzzle games like Portal, and while Superliminal is (obviously) not as strong as the latter it's an entire game based on the former. The first time I picked up a tiny chess piece, held it to my POV, then set it down to find it was now ten feet tall I knew I'd love this.  Astrologaster's presentation does a lot of heavy lifting. Characters and cases are introduced with little medieval songs and they are all a delight. The dialogue between characters is well acted and fun to listen to, so fun that even I, a chronic "quickly read the subtitles and click through the voice acting"-er let it all play out. The gameplay itself isn't very deep at all (you occasionally "read the stars" by selecting a diagnosis/treatment option, that's it), but the whole package is cozy and short enough that it doesn't run out of steam. Probably the game I was most surprised by this year.  Talk about atmospheric! This is probably the oldest critically acclaimed game I played this year and it holds up (I played the remaster). I didn't know anything about it going in, other than you climbed on giants and rode a horse, and I was pleasantly surprised by what is essentially a super moody boss rush. I love how varied the colossus fights are (despite all ultimately boiling down to "step 1 - reach weak spot, step 2 - hit it") and was always excited to see what the next one had in store.  The first time I ever tried a Resident Evil game was the Resident Evil 2 N64 port, rented from Blockbuster. I vaguely recall having a hell of a time navigating the streets outside the police station and giving up. Fast forward to 2022 and I finally get to give the game another try, though heavily modernized, and wow. The Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil is one of my favorite places in gaming (years after my initial RE2 failure I fell in love with the GCN remake of 1), but the Racoon City Police Station presented here is right up there with favorite locations this year. Nothing from this year put my heart in my throat quite like the thud, thud, thud of approaching footsteps reverberating from a room over.  This was the ultimate cozy game for me this year. I'm not a huge Pokemon fan, but a Pokemon obsessed friend was very excited about it and wanted someone to discuss it with so I picked up a copy. Imagine my surprise when I not only finished the game, but went on to Catch Them All(tm) while my friend dropped off before the end of the last zone. The campaign itself is very simple, but there was something very satisfying about wandering the different biomes hunting for new mons and then pegging them with Pokeballs.  I'm a big idiot and am easily drawn in by strong narrative beats. And let me tell you, this was one of the first games I played this year and I still can't get over how amazing the opening is. The seamless transition from the start screen to the tree cutting sequence, Bear McCreary's score blowing me away as you reach the reveal of what the wood is being used for, the camera swinging away from Atreus to show Kratos framed in silhouette in the doorway as the music darkens. Just top tier stuff. I really enjoyed exploring this world and spending time with its characters.  Speaking of strong narrative beats, the balancing act Yakuza Like a Dragon pulls between its dramatic central story and the absolutely batshit, zany stuff surrounding it is nothing short of magical. Like a Dragon boasts easily the best ensemble of characters of any game I played this year (or last year) and approaches their individual and group quests with genuine earnestness punctuated by having them call their good friend, a crawfish, to come do Massive Damage to their enemies, Some Men Wearing Diapers. That the game manages to make you care about them in the midst of the madness is a real accomplishment, as is that all of this content - from the core RPG elements to a plethora of minigames (shareholder meetings! kart racing! pick up cans!) to the hilarious but almost all heartfelt side quests - is relentlessly fun.  My Monster Hunter journey started and, I thought, ended with World. I picked it up for PS4 and decided I loathed it around the time an Anjanath was stepping on me to death for the third straight hour. I somehow managed to clear the base game (somehow being "summoned other people to kill every monster for me" starting with Nergigante and swore the series off. Then last year Rise comes out and two friends tell me they're buying it. I join in, they both quit after the first few hunts and here I am 200 hours later inexplicably loving Monster Hunter. I went back and checked my old World file and it turns out I never upgraded any armor or weapons after I hit high rank, whoops! Rise was my GOTY last year and it feels a bit like cheating to have Sunbreak listed as my number two again this year. But the fact is it's easily the game I spent the most time with (number 1 game excepted) and is the game I played this year that I feel myself wanting to return to every day. The new hunts and silkbind switch mechanics are fun as hell, and the randomized investigations mechanic helps every session feel fresh. Sunbreak is so strong that one of those two friends who bailed on Rise returned to the game and has since put in 100+ hours himself.  I don't usually get hyped for games, but oh my god I was hyped for Elden Ring. I beat the first Dark Souls during one of the hardest periods of my life - I'd recently moved to a new city, leaving my new wife behind until she could join me six months later, and I'd been out of work for almost a year and a half after being laid off during the 2008-2010 recession. Dark Souls gave me something hard that I could actually overcome, a feeling I hadn't felt in that whole time. Needless to say, I've been a From Fan ever since. I've loved every variation on the Souls formula since, and Elden Ring looked to be the biggest helping of poo poo I Love yet. And reader, it abso-loving-lutely was. I played alongside two friends. We had a running chat sharing cool poo poo we'd found, bosses we'd beat, crazy ways we'd died. After a week, we were still constantly finding things the other two hadn't found yet. The sheer scope of the thing was daunting, but exhilarating. Every moment I wasn't playing Elden Ring I was thinking about playing Elden Ring. The two weeks I spent playing that game was some of the most fun I had all year. It presents the Souls formula I love in its most massive shape yet, maintains the challenge but layers on surprise after surprise, delivering some of the most incredible gaming moments I've had in the last several years. And topping it all off, it gave my friends and me a shared gaming experience - very rare of them, as serial game quitters - from start to finish and prompted excitement outside the game (we had a celebratory breakfast when the last of us beat the game to talk about our experiences in total). God drat I loved Elden Ring. Condensed List 10. Fae Tactics 9. Superliminal 8. Astrologaster 7. Shadow of the Colossus 6. Resident Evil 2 Remake 5. Pokémon Legends Arceus 4. God of War 2018 3. Yakuza Like a Dragon 2. Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak 1. Elden Ring Happy new year goons! I look forward to reading everyone's lists! Fifteen of Many fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Dec 31, 2022 22:39
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Defenistrator posted:
Hell yes Day of Defeat owns
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Dec 31, 2022 22:40
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Skjorte posted:2. Disco Elysium (Steam) Buddy I'm so thirsty for Disco-likes of any type that I'm even waiting on Clam Man 2 to release. It essentially created a whole new genre that its fans are ravenous for more of, just look at how Pentiment and Citizen Sleeper have been hoovered up, it's gonna blow out God of War Ragnarok here lol. Mash dat buttan Epic High Five fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Dec 31, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2022 22:49
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Mysticblade posted:10. Immortality Idle And now, so do I. Mysticblade posted:I played this quite a lot since it's an easy browser game to play while doing other stuff. I have no idea if I had fun or not this year.
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Dec 31, 2022 22:57
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My god what a year. Here we go. Honorable mention: You Coulda Been a Contenda Warhanmmer 40K: Darktide https://i.imgur.com/fYuKBM2.mp4 It's depressing to have to leave this off the list this year, because I'm honestly still having incredible fun with it, but my god is it rough. The combat is absolutely brilliant, the soundtrack is incredible, the new engine creates gorgeous visuals, the maps and creature designs show that off to breathtaking extent. It's arguably better and more polished in places than Vermintide ever was. Everywhere else though, it's a shambles. Early Access would be a generous way to describe the launch state of this game. I was there for the first six months of Vermintide 2 and I was desperately hoping we wouldn't have a repeat, but I think this launch is actually worse. The crafting system is an unclickable "feature coming soon" sign, the loot drops are based on an in-game store that refreshes every hour and never has what you want, the map selection is.... no. I'm not going to describe the map selection system, it's too horrible, I can't. Try it on gamepass because it isn't worth $40 yet, but god help you playing with pubs on difficulty 4. Let's move on and look at it next year. Number 10: Turns out, you can polish a turd! Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core Reunion https://i.imgur.com/Twlj0fa.mp4 I have fond-ish memories of the original but this is almost a better remaster than this game deserved. There are times when the new character models and the updated scenery genuinely suck you into the (mostly wacky) narrative. Other times the combination of current-gen models and psp-era animations give the impression of creepy anime flesh marionettes. As a whole though, I gotta hand it to them for taking a belt sander to the extremely rough edges of the original to the point where it's actually fun to play. Was the original FF7 compilation a mistake? Yeah, mostly. Is the new compilation off to a good start? Surprisingly, so far, yes? Number 9: Fear my powerful toots. Monster Hunter Rise https://i.imgur.com/FWE3hG8.mp4 I love my palicos, the singing twins are delightful, and the wirebug owns. It's more Monster Hunter, it's great, and I'll keep playing these stupid games forever, even if I'm not a huge fan of how they changed the hammer. It's fine, the hunting horn is fun too, but at least some of these toots are toots of protest. Number 8: It's all about fambly. Forza Horizon 5 https://i.imgur.com/vZiQuWL.mp4 I don't usually enjoy racing games, but this one loving rules. It's just a big, loud, stupid playground with all the cars in the world. At first it seems like a microtransaction hellscape, except you soon realize that it's not asking you to buy anything, it's just constantly showering you with rewards. It's a slot machine that costs nothing and always pays out. If you have gamepass, go hoon around for a while, it's worth the 100+gb install. Number 7: Potentially dangerous compulsion of the year. Vampire Survivors https://i.imgur.com/NdjUkjO.mp4 Whoever decided to combine an idle game with a bullet hell with a roguelike is a real sicko. I played this game until there was no more content, and they added more content. Then they added more content, and I will never stop playing this game. I'm playing it right now. Help me. I need to stop doing this, I am dehydrated. Help. Number 6: A pure delight. Chicory: A colorful tale https://i.imgur.com/4bl3hW3.mp4 I spent my early 20s fancying myself a tortured artist, and I wish I'd played this game back then so I could maybe learn how to let myself off the hook a little bit. It's a beautiful story told through simple puzzles, exploration and painting with an incredible OST. And lots of cute outfits. Number 5: Buggiest game of the list. Hollow Knight https://i.imgur.com/sRd2nj3.mp4 Look, it's Hollow Knight. Much like Elden Ring, I'm not gonna talk your ear off about it, go watch one of those 7-hour video essays gushing over it. They're not wrong. Silksong when. Number 4: Have you found your reason to fight yet? Ace Combat Zero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVkgAY1wTWE I don't know what possessed me to play the entire Ace Combat franchise this year, but by god I did and it was incredible. Zero is my favorite of the series, but consider it a stand-in for the entire thing, which you must play, except for the ps1 era unless you're very curious. I'm dead serious, if you haven't played Ace Combat, download a PS2 emulator and start with AC4. Skip the PS3 era, it doesn't count, but play Ace Combat X for the PSP, and of course AC7. You'll know you're almost done when you see the jpeg dog. Trust me on this. It's insanely fun arcade-style jet combat wrapped around an absolutely loony anime plotline with some of the greatest music in video games. It owns harder than I can describe. Number 3: I'm not crying, you're crying. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 https://i.imgur.com/1NBCI3P.mp4 I enjoyed XC1 okay but never got around to finishing it. I quit XC2 about 10 hours in because honestly some of the character designs were creeping me out. XC3 absolutely hooked me from start to finish, with a bunch of postgame thrown in. It's proof that a Switch game can be gorgeous despite all the gnashing of teeth recently. The soundtrack is incredible, and flows and evolves from diagetic music that's integral to the story. What completely sold me was the cast, though, and the way the story twists and turns and changes them in ways you will not expect. This is among the best written JRPGs I've ever played, and you owe it to yourself to experience it if you like the genre. Number 2: It's elden ring. Elden Ring https://i.imgur.com/zunhXBG.mp4 It's goddamn Elden Ring. It's the first multiplayer From I've gotten to play on launch. It owns. Play Elden Ring. I'm still playing Elden Ring. Number 1: Don't ask me for poo poo Tekken 7 https://i.imgur.com/kJYRT6U.mp4 There I was, bored, hanging out on the People's Republic of Gamers official discord channel when forums superstar Ms. Unsmiley pipes up on a whim and goes "hey im gonna run a beginners tekken tournament, who wants to play?" I hadn't played a fighting game in probably 15 years, and I didn't own Tekken but I wasn't doing gently caress all else on a sunday night and it was on sale for $4. Cut to almost 30 weeks later, the Kinder Gym tournament is still going, I haven't missed a single one and I'm designing custom hitbox controllers in my spare time. This year I've dabbled in 3rd Strike, +R, a little KOF and Killer Instinct, but I always come back to Tekken. Is it the best game to get into fighting games with? Ehhhhhh... There's zero tutorial, a bunch of characters have movelists that read like dostoyevsky novels and just moving around the screen takes a week in training mode to get used to. Is it the game I had the most fun with this year? Hell yes. It helped me rediscover a fundamental law of the universe that should never be ignored: Fighting games rule. da rarity corner: 10. Crisis Core Reunion 9. Monster Hunter Rise 8. Forza Horizon 5 7. Vampire Survivors 6. Chicory: A Colorful Tale 5. Hollow Knight 4. Ace Combat Zero 3. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 2. Elden Ring 1. Tekken 7
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Dec 31, 2022 23:12
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The question on everyone's lips... who will be taking home the SA GotY silver
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Dec 31, 2022 23:15
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I didn't finish a whole lot more than ten games this year, so there's not much of a process of elimination here, mostly just ordering. 10. Legend of Heroes III: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch The Gagharv trilogy is rightfully viewed as being filled with bad translations, and the games are definitely showing their age even aside from that, but this was my first ever Trails game and I thought it was a fun and charming world tour despite the issues. It just made it in ahead of LoH V: Song of the Ocean, which is actually probably a better game in a lot of ways, because it didn't overstay its welcome like Song of the Ocean did. 9. Total War Warhammer 3 This was pretty much my most anticipated game of the year, and related to those expectations it has to be considered a flop. It's a testament to how good 2 was that this was such a disappointment in comparison though, and I feel like a spoiled brat for not being just awed at all the poo poo that's in this game now that Immortal Empires is live. It still just didn't really gel for me, but I'm hoping future DLC will at least produce some super fun factions going forward since they were really killing it with DLC in the back half of Warhammer 2's life. 8. Clannad This felt like kind of an archetypal VN, but in a way that showed why by being a really good example of what it does. There were some throwaway routes, but for the most part it was a very solid VN. It would be rated higher, but high school drama just isn't really where my head is these days, so I wish I'd played it when I was younger. 7. Final Fantasy IV It's not the best Final Fantasy even of its generation, but it's still a classic. I'd played parts of it before, but never quite made it through the whole thing until this year. If I'd been brand new to it I might have rated it higher, but I think it also does get dinged a bit by being so easy to compare to better games I've played before. 6. XCOM: Enemy Within This game was sitting in my back catalog for a long time, and I finally played it this year. There's nothing new to be said about it at this point, but I'm really looking forward to playing 2 next year. 5. Monster Hunter Rise I didn't care much for World, but for whatever reason I really wanted to try this one anyway, and I'm glad I did. I'm still bad at these games, but I found this one a lot more accessible by playing through the story difficulty village quests solo and playing the hub quests mostly multiplayer. I didn't end up smashing the endgame or anything, and don't know if I'll ever touch the expansion or not, but it was fun playing as far as I got anyway. 4. Legend of Heroes IV: A Tear of Vermillion Rating this higher than FFIV may be heresy, and I'll freely admit that it's not as good a game in a lot of ways, especially since it has the worst translation in the Gagharv trilogy, but I really thought the story in this one was fantastic even with the garbled nature of its telling. 3. Yakuza Like a Dragon Honestly I don't think the series handled the transition to JRPG combat as well as a lot of other people did, so it's not in my top three or four RGG games, but even a less than perfect entry in the series is still a gaming highlight for me. 2. Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward I probably binged it a little too hard, so I was pretty burned out by the puzzles by the end, but the twists and turns as the plot revealed itself were really fun. I liked this game enough that it inspired me to go all the way back to Never7 and start reading Uchikoshi's first trilogy. 1. Persona 5 Royal Speaking of gaming binges, I played the poo poo out of this game when it came out on Game Pass. I didn't plan this intentionally, but as I'm writing this list I'm listening to the amazing soundtrack in the background, which did as much as the game's visual style to help cover up whatever issues this game's substance may have had at times. But as a fan of both VNs and RPGs, I'm about as much the target audience for this game as anyone. Condensed list: 10. Legend of Heroes III: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch 9. Total War Warhammer 3 8. Clannad 7. Final Fantasy IV 6. XCOM Enemy Within 5. Monster Hunter Rise 4. Legend of Heroes IV: A Tear of Vermillion 3. Yakuza Like a Dragon 2. Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward 1. Persona 5 Royal
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Dec 31, 2022 23:16
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Finished Citizen Sleeper thanks to this thread. Oh yeah, that's a good one. Here's the ending I got: Got to leave the station on a colony ship with Lem and Mina. The part where my robot body aged to the point where they had to turn me off in the hope that I would somehow survive the trip, and then Mina turning me on just long enough to let me know Lem had died of old age... It's okay Mina. Don't cry. We did it all for you.
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Dec 31, 2022 23:36
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I love reading this thread every year. The general positivity and celebration of games is a welcome change of pace compared to most other discussions. It has helped me discover a lot of games I would like to play. 10. Dome Keeper Dome Keeper had a surprisingly fun gameplay loop. Dig beneath the surface to find resources, find a way to get those resources back to the dome for upgrades, and then protect the dome from increasingly difficult waves of aliens. It ends up being very satisfying, with just enough choices to make you want to go back and try again.  9. Potionomics I went into Potionomics expecting a laid back, chilled experience. Instead I got something that was actually very stressful, at least toward the beginning. Trying to balance your day to get the ingredients you need to win your potion battles, while building relationships and expanding your shop was very intense. But the character artwork put off so much charm, that I couldn't stop playing.  8. Tales of Arise I didn't grow up playing JRPGs, so this ended up being the first Tales game that I have played. Honestly, I am not even sure what caused me to decide to play this, but I am glad that I did. While a bit hokey at times, the story and characters kept me hooked enough to get me through the game. While probably not the deepest, I enjoyed the combat and combo system. If I had one real complaint, it was that the intro movie for the first half of the game was much better than the one that replaced it half way through. You wouldn't think that would be an issue, but it was something I had to see a thousand times due to the ridiculous procedure that Bandai Namco designed in saving and exiting the game on PC.  7. NORCO The first of some fantastic narrative games that I played this year, NORCO was a real treat. I am not sure if it was intentional, but I couldn't stop wanting to compare this game to Kentucky Route Zero. Something about how it looked and the narrative played out. I hope we see further games in this style.  6. Persona 5 Royal The only reason Persona 5 Royal wasn't higher on my list is because I beat the original version of the game on my PS4 several years ago. The game continues to ooze style. The additional characters and story segments added with Royal contained some of the best writing in the game. The game just drags in parts, which becomes more apparent when playing through it again.  5. Tinykin The trend of people deciding to make their own version of Nintendo games is one that I hope continues, because at least in this case, it was a huge success. Tinykin is the weird bastard child of Pikmin and Mario, and I love it for it. The game was immensely satisfying, largely due to how it controlled and moved. The fact that it didn't overstay its welcome, just added to my satisfaction.  4. Citizen Sleeper Citizen Sleeper was a game that frankly surprised the hell out of me. I am not even sure that I had heard of it prior to release and only decided to play it based on some recommendations of some people I know that have similar tastes in games as myself. But a combination of the writing, music, and world building quickly captured my attention. The dice based gameplay was interesting, forcing some tough decisions, at least toward the beginning of the game. It is hard not to become attached to some of the characters you meet, hoping your decisions are going to benefit them and not the opposite.  3. Two Point Campus I am not sure that Two Point Campus does that much different from its predecessor, Two Point Hospital, but I loved it regardless. It sanded down some of the rougher edges and left something that was just irrelevantly fun to play. I enjoyed being able to create my own version of Hogwarts or the CIA (either for food or spying). Unlike Hospital, this one didn't burn me out toward the end, which is why I think I enjoyed it so much more.  2. Pentiment I can't say that I was very interested in the subject matter or period of history that Pentiment was based, but I gave it a shot because of my appreciation of Josh Sawyer. I am glad I did, because it is an amazing game. For a smaller project, the attention to detail is amazing. From the art style, to the choice of fonts for different characters, everything had a purpose and a place. The decisions you make and the impact (or lack of impact) you had on this small village really stuck with me. Knowing that an offhand comment I made could result in a character finding happiness or being burned as a heretic really stuck with me, long after I had finished playing.  1. Vampire Survivors For a game that I bought for a few dollars back in January based on some posts in the Steam thread, I would have never expected Vampire Survivors to suck up my free time like it did. It is almost insidious in how addicted you become to the gameplay loop. I appreciate that the develop wasn't concerned about some ridiculous notion of balance, but just putting more and more overpowered weapons and features into the game. It was almost a game to find out what sort of combinations of weapons, aracanas, and limit breaks you could combine until the game screen was no longer readable and you were just walking ball of destruction. Can't wait to see what the developers add to future expansions.
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Dec 31, 2022 23:45
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Long time listener, first time caller. I like playing a lot of coop games, as well as management games, so no Elden Ring. I also apparently love games about vampires? 10 - V Rising Replaced Valheim and Sea of Thieves as the casual play option with family and friends this year. 9 - The Colonists Really cute little more-of-a-puzzle-solver-than-a-city-builder. I want a model of one of the robots for my desk. 8 - Subnautica I knew I was hooked when my wife asked why I had filled up a few sheets of yellow legal pad with crafting recipes. I don't have a VR headset but might get one when I purchase the sequel. Beautiful. 7 - Vampire Survivors Perfect dopamine machine. I'm really glad to have an option in the genre that doesn't squeeze you with micro transactions. Raises the bar for everyone else. 6 - Against the Storm Still EA and putting out major updates every 2 weeks. My favorite part of city builders is the first few hours where you're unsure if it's going to work out, before you're able to pave the whole map no problemo. That's the whole game loop here. Had to put it down so I can come back to it in a year or two when it hits 1.0. 5 - Vampire the Masquerade: Night Roads (Actually almost all of the series, but I need to choose one) The third and best vampire game(s) on the list. I played through the first three installments while travelling this year and each of them were great. Can't get enough Vampire. 4 - It Takes Two Super fun gameplay. Cringey story. Loved playing on the couch with the wife. Hate that loving book. 3 - Slay The Spire I think the last deck builder I really got into was ... Baten Kaitos? 2 - Golf Gang Has elicited the most new and unique curses in my group since Mario Kart. Great way to spend 30 minutes yelling at your friends on Discord. 1- Oxygen not Included Spaced Out I put a few hundred hours into ONI when it first came out and picked it up again when the DLC went gold. Honestly I prefer "one big asteroid" to fiddling with a few smaller ones, but this game had enough new content that I suddenly found myself sinking another 600 hours into it 
LlamaTrauma fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Dec 31, 2022 23:50
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