8. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (PS5) - 24 Nov (33 hrs)
One heck of a ride. Loved it. Does lose it a bit in the final quarter, but not too much.
[9]

Wait maybe I wasn't more generous. Thought you gave it a 7.

Paul the sparky wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

Paul the sparky wrote:

I just can't get past 6 at the back being a legit formation that the AI use against you.

How does that even work?

Five in a line, sweeper in behind them.



That back four on the right is pissing me off too, because they've probably set up like that (Pickard forehead rub).

You don't get enough moves to have shifted them all across in a unit like that while defending. It makes me feel sick just looking at it

You should bever be offside I guess.

Paul the sparky wrote:

I just can't get past 6 at the back being a legit formation that the AI use against you. And the fact that anything except 5 at the back leaves them with an exploitable gap to easily attack. It's just not football as I know it.

The short games are a bugbear too, like it's not worth trying to go for a cute, patient bit of passing or hold up play to pull them out of position because you've only got a handful of moves to use

Yeah, you ain’t doing slow possession based football and formations are…well, it’s a board game. So a formation can be some weird ass Frankenstein’s monster.

I am running 3 at the back, with a diamond in front and 2 strikers. Then there’s one spare that I tend to reposition based on opposition formation, pushing high up to support attack, or on wing to stop an opposition winger.

But yeah, it’s weird at first. As for breaking through something like 6 at the back, best tactics I’ve found were:
1. A striker with RAINBOW FEINT (Basically just dance through the defense)
2. A FW can run though defenders, so use that and try to use LONG BALL through them.
3. LAYOFF PASS and cut in from the side.

Another tactic is to get the ball to their defensive line and then use HOLD - it’ll increase control and allow you to start an attack next round. But, even if you lose the ball, the defender and attacker may swap places, getting your forward into their defensive line - if you win the ball back quickly you already have a better platform for scoring a counter attack.

Anyway, it’s fine if you don’t like it - I 100% get the weirdness and jank. It’s best approached as a tabletop strategy game with a master league vibe than a football strategy simulator.

A streamer I watched played that Football Tactics thing for 400 hours. It looks fucking atrocious sorry Cintz

I will die on this hill! (Probably alone)

46: Signalis (Switch) 6/10

I really liked this at first, it's a throwback to PS1 survival horror but with good controls and no silly camera angles (mostly) and has a wonderful sense of style. Kind of a 'retro' aesthetic in that I don't think any games used to have this kind of style back in the day but if you want something to look vintage in the 2020's you might make it look like this. No idea how to say what I'm thinking at this point.

But a lot of stuff does wear thin the longer it goes on - the stingy inventory slots mean endless back and forthing to the same room, especially as the puzzles get more complicated. The shooting is good but due to that inventory size I just ended up yogging past the enemies rather than carrying a gun and ammo. It's mostly a valid strategy since they move slowly and can't chase you between screens. Since you can ignore the enemies they don't stay scary for long. On Switch interacting with puzzles is slow and cumbersome in first person mode with a curser that just chugs along. Maybe it's made for a mouse on pc but it's just not good. The last level is really bad and confusingly laid out (deliberately, as sometimes you'll exit at the bottom of the screen, and reappear on the left hand side of the new screen. But also not deliberately, in that sometimes you can't really see a door) and your map is disabled. At that point I said 'no' and just followed an online guide and stopped caring.

I really enjoy the setting and think you wouldn't need to make too many changes (like just be kind with the inventory and you'll be most of the way there), but it was a pretty frustrating play unfortunatly.

47: Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 (PS5) 5/10

In the words of Norm MacDonald, couldn't be more leashed. I didn't know this was out until I saw it half price in a black friday sale. I think it was a semi-budget title even as a new release. I didn't hate the first game and thought it had potential but this is pretty much the same game to be honest.

I like the style and the novel, realistic hot wheels cars and tracks. The racing is generally good but a pet peeve of mine is when you're playing an arcade racing game and your car can be brought to a complete stop and this game is full of that. I'm not the most skilled gamer but christ I can't tell you how many times I was easily winning (on the easiest mode) only to hit a wall near the end and have to start again. I found it really hard to lose control in the air and even not know where the hell I was supposed to be going at times. I think with some better tracks, everything's pretty generic here even when it's not confusing or easy to f- up, this could be a perfectly decent game but maybe it came out a bit too soon after the first.

I played the story mode, which was very dully told and I skipped through it instantly. It gives you a board game style layout which is a bit hard to follow. Felt pretty undercooked like the racing I guess.



48: Sonic Superstars 2 (PS5) 8/10

This I don't think got great reviews but the great John Linneman from Digital Foundry talked it up, and I agree! This is a really good entry, I wonder if it's copping a bit because it's not a Mania. Maybe it's not as good as that but it's not bloody far off if not. I enjoyed it every bit as much aside from the graphics, and even they work quite well. They do a great job in matching the feel of the old games and come out with quite a few novel ideas like playing a bit of breakout with your chosen protagonist, which work pretty well. I will say the odd level goes a touch too long but I was really impressed all up. I think I laughed at Sega going head to head with a new Mario but in hindsight they were right to be bullish from a quality perspective in not financially. Good shit.

Interested to see what you reckon!

29. Asterix (Master System) - 1hr 15mins

Up there with Castle of Illusion, Sonic 1 and Alex Kidd for shout as the best MS platformer.

Graphics are very nice, especially the sprites of the main characters, they wouldn't look out of place on the MD.

Two unique playable characters, slightly different level design for each, good satisfying range of moves, tight and responsive controls.

Solid.

8/10

My list

40. Robocop: Rogue City [5]
Decent shooty bits, combine with dull busywork, and a dud of a script. 

41. The Invincible [7]
A gloriously rendered reimagining of the novel that's too heavy-handed at times.

42. American Arcadia [8]
A Limbo-like with added first-person puzzles and fun characters.

43. Flashback 2 [2]
Broken and awful in every way.

44. Alan Wake 2 [8/9?]
I can't quite decide how much I like it. As a production it's on another level, far beyond anything Remedy has done before, and stuffed with imagination. As a game it's less adventurous, and combat is somewhat clumsy. Definitely essential if you're into third-person action-adventures, though, and as an audiovisual experience, it's hard to beat.

8 to go before the end of the year, then. I'll probably fall just short, even with a couple of games that are already half done.

Sounds like one for moot

I thought marsupilami would be a retro game of the 90s cartoon.

Edit - maybe it is based on the same character

nick_md wrote:

I thought marsupilami would be a retro game of the 90s cartoon. Edit - maybe it is based on the same character

That's right - a newish game based on the old show.

I don't know the show well enough to explain what a hoobadventure is unfortunately.

Try Hold My Beer mode on Nuclear Blaze, Moot. It's not just a hard mode, it also has different rooms and layouts, so it's kind of like extending the campaign.

The only downside is that because it's more challenging, the slightly awkward control becomes more noticeable.

2022:
Final Post

For list of games played in 2022, click any of Parts 1-6 below. List removed from Part 7 onwards.

2023
Part 1: Games 1-3 (plus 2022 hangovers) (Judgment, Vampire Survivors, Miles Morales)

Part 2: Games 4-39 (Vaporum: Lockdown, DMC5:SE, Lost Judgment, Roadwarden, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Against the Storm, RE: Village PSVR 2, Tentacular, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, Destiny 2: Lightfall, Tyranny, Lunacid, Pile Up!, Synapse, Far Cry 6, GTA 5, RE4 Remake, Tchia, Scarlet Nexus, Pistol Whip, Olli Olli World, Nier: Replicant, JETT: The Far Shore, Rune Factory 4: Special, Horizon: Call of the Mountain, DQ11:EoaEAS - Definitive Edition, Legend of Grimrock 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Whitewater Wipeout, Casual Birder, Pick Pack Pup, Crankin's Time Adventure, Direct Drive, Legend of Etad, Reel Steal, Recommendation Dog) 

Part 3: Games 40-43 (Dungeons and Puzzles, The Bookwalker, Chambers of Devious Design, Super Corporate Tax Evader)

Part 4: Game 44 (El Paso, Elsewhere)

Part 5: Game 45 (BABBDI)

Part 6: Games 46-54 (Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Teardown, Humanity, Walkabout Mini Golf, Shadows of Doubt, Omaze, Demon Quest 85, Slay the Spire...again)

Part 7: Games 55-61 (Vignettes, Froggy's Battle, co-open, Fatum Betula, Executive Golf DX, Questy Chess, He Fucked the Girl Out of Me)

A mixed bag today, with 4 more entries.

62. Crusader Kings 3

A grand strategy Scheme 'em Up set in The Long Agos, this...is pretty decent. It seems to be one of the more well received of the recent-ish hyper dense PC-centric strategy games (though i know console ports exist) and i'll be honest that I often struggle with PC grand strategy / 4X games. 



Civilization is about the level of complexity I can manage, and the likes of Stellaris are genuinely way beyond me - even if I find them conceptually incredible. And make no mistake, Crusader Kings is one of those games, filled to the brim with separate menus for religions and schemes and your council. There's pressed claims, and unpressed claims, and vassals and duchys and...

It's all so engrossing. Factions, disputes, wars and subterfuge. Affairs, uprisings, imprisonment, betrayal, incest and blackmail. It's not a genre I'm good at, but it's testament to CK3's not completely awful tutorials and how appealing the game is that I actually managed to stick with it enough to feel comfortable knowing what I was clicking on, even if more than once I'd be scratching my head trying to remember which exact sub menu of a menu was necessary for me to claim certain titles. 



It also helps that the game really encourages Role Play - all these games do, in a way, I guess. In Civilisation, it's often best to focus on domination, or science, or culture - one thing rather than spreading yourself too thin which gets you thinking and playing in a certain direction, but in CK3 the role-play is real, as you play an entire lineage - leaders die, their kids take over, they get married, and they have an impact on each other - with one king being a feared tyrant who commands respect, only for his son to inherit an absolute shitshow once his dad passes and it turns out his overly pampered kid is a bit Shit at War. Said kid was good at shagging everyone's missus though, and had a plethora of illegitimate children spread everywhere. 

Am I going to pump hundreds or thousands of hours into this? Probably not. As good as it is, it's still not My Genre, but I had fun with it, and I'll likely pop back on every so often when I'm in the mood for court intrigue and banging my aunt. [6]

63. Football, Tactics & Glory

I played this as a result of a recommendation from an indie discord where a non-Football loving friend got super into it. Then someone else tried it, and they got super into it.

But...

The hump was always the same. The game does not make a good first impression, and the first season especially it, well, a bit shit.

It's football, for sure, but it doesn't play like football. Patient build up play is kind of impossible, formations are best though of in terms of how you'd lay something out on a board and what skills are available, rather than what formation would actually be used by a football team (that's why I go with the very popular and well known 1-2-1-2-1-1-2, which can also change to a 1-2-1-3-1-2) depending on opposition).



I do like it, though - a fair amount actually. After back to back promotions, often against teams that defend with 5 or 6 players, or teams that are able to waltz through my defence due to the massive disparity in quality), I've reached that Master League-esque moment where you hunker down, hold on for some draws, collect some points, and try to actually build a proper team. 

It creates those stories that Master League did - of journeyman players having an indian summer, of whizkids levelling up in double quick time and turning into giants. I spent a bunch of "Glory" points to convince one of my strikers not to retire because he's just about the only player I have who can score semi-reliably. I likely have to sell my best player at the end of this season as losing that one guy will likely fund the rebuild my team so desperately needs. 



It's ugly, and the animations and art style are just awful, and it's clunky, and the tutorials are bad, and it can be full of straight bullshit Xcom-esque moments where an opponent walks through your entire team in the 90th minute with everyone rolling low in defense so that you lose the game with the final touch. And I think it's great. [7]

64. Backpack Hero

I might have talked about this before, quite possibly in a previous year of this thread, but it's worth revisiting now that the game has reached 1.0 and launched properly out of Early Access.



Backpack Hero is a roguelike that can be described as a "Slay the Spire meets RE4's inventory management" game, and it's actually pretty fucking good. The idea is to make your way through multiple zones, each with 3 sections and a boss at the end, just like your Slay the Spires and the like. As you go through, you navigate around a map with nodes of interest, find loot, fight enemies, meet merchants...you know the deal.

So, what makes this one special? As you level up, your backpack can gain extra space, allowing you to carry more items. Items can be rotated and moved to maximise efficiency. The hook though, is how these items interact. Certain ones work best when there's more blocks below, above, to the left or right. Some items float to the top. Some items give more power to nearby items. Some items disable nearby items. Some items connect to other items and create circuit-like setups. 

The attention that needs to be given to your item choices and layout is exactly the same as you need to pay on deck construction in Slay the Spire. Consumables shouldn't be hoarded, as space is at a premium. Some items give great passive bonuses, but don't actually help do anything in the middle of a fight. Do you want to create a completely automatic block engine and focus entirely on damage? 



The bread and butter of this game is great, and if you're looking for your next game in the genre to go with your StS and your Peglins...then you could do much, much worse than this.

HOWEVER

1.0 is not the slam dunk I had hoped for. Or rather, I think 1.0 hides the strengths of the game away, which is a shame. 1.0 introduced a Campaign Mode, which takes the run-based mechanics of the game, and applies a full story to it, with a town-building side thing between runs. 

This part...isn't great. It slows the game down, it's grindy, it's kinda dull and while I get what it is going for - basically run you through all the characters and item setups over the course of a full-length game, rather than drop it all on you at once, it just kills the pace of the game.

It's not without its good points - NPCs in the town will give challenges for completing runs with certain item setups, which keeps the game feeling fresh. But, I do worry that new players who jump into 1.0 will be disappointed in the game when they jump into campaign mode, not realising that it was, in fact, a late addition and not the focus of the game.

Do yourself a favour - if you get the game, just go with the "Quick Start" option. That's the roguelike single-run option and that's where the game shines. (The dev has also acknowledged confusion about the naming of these modes, and quick start may be changed to something like Dungeon mode in future updates).

So - great, great game. Mixed 1.0 launch, but still a banger and one of my regular go-to games for a while now. [8]

65. Starfield

With apologies to the people who like Starfield - I'm glad they like it, truly. I wanted to like it too. I hated this though.



It didn't help that it ran like dogshit on a PC that can handle everything I throw at it, suffering from stuttering and freezing even in performance RT mode (a common issue on a lot of NVidia PCs, it seems). It baffles me that you CAN'T CHANGE THE FUCKING RESOLUTION IF YOU PLAY THE GAME IN FULLSCREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The dialogue was shit, the opening was shit, the performance was shit. I got a refund within the 2 hour Steam window. Absolute shit. [2]

Next / The To-Play List:
Final Fantasy XVI (for real, real - right at the end now)
Growing my Grandpa
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 
The Forest Quartet 
Spare Parts: Episode 1 & 2 
Unpacking
NUTS
Super is Hot
Neurocracy
Evolution
Slasher U
Cannelé & Nomnom - Defective Agency
Druidstone
Prodigal
Tangledeep
Jupiter Hell
Mary Skelter 2
Scanner Sombre
Recursed
Kine
Vomitoreum
Salamander County Public Television