Finished Persona 5 on PS4 a few days ago, almost 110 hours. Now I'm playing Final Fantasy VII Remake and I'm enjoying it (never played the original). My 2020 beaten list:

Resident Evil 4
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Metro Exodus
DOOM (2016)
Donut County
Florence
STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order™
STAR WARS™ - The Force Unleashed™ Ultimate Sith Edition
Gears 5
DOOM Eternal
Alien: Isolation
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition
The Complex
Persona 5

Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini Adventure

Browsing Store, "Free Point and Click game", downloaded. I've never played Thimbleweed Park, but thankfully you don't need to have played it. The basic gist of the game is you hit play, you get hired as a photo journalist, you're given a list of 5 reports you need to take pictures for, use classic Lucasarts logic to get the 5 pictures, hand them in, game ends. The game only saves once the game ends, playing a 2nd time will give you another 5 pictures you need to take, you do this 6 times in total and then get a weird ending and then the 'credits' roll. Some of the pictures you need are easy to get, quite a few require obscure methods, I had to get hints for 3 of them (If you're not American or have a great knowledge of American culture you will probably struggle with a certain one), but there are only so many thing you can interact with. This was also a demo of a new engine used for future point and click games, I wasn't that impressed, to use an object on something you have to drag and drop, which I think is a lot more fiddly than the normal 'Click on object, click on thing you want to use it on'. Overall it was a good, short game, took about 90 minutes, and it's free, so why not give it a go.

Wolfenstein: The New Order (XB1)

I started playing this through game pass and found a surprisingly enjoyable first person shooter. I haven't played much of the Wolfenstein games but I've picked almost all of them up now. It took me awhile to finish as I tend to jump between games a lot but I was really surprised by how much I like the story and the characters, something I haven't seen much of in Wolf 3D or RTCW. Besides one or two points I found that the game was well paced and challenging enough and the two timelines as well as the perk unlocks give me more than enough reason to revisit this one. My girlfriend really enjoyed watching me play it so I'll be sure to play the sequels in front of her as well.

Black Mesa (Steam)

With Xen being out and 1.0 finally happening I decided it was time to play Black Mesa start to finish for the first time since 2012, only now with Xen. The AI and visuals are much better than before with some tweaked maps as well. The Xen section still had its flaws (with one level in particular standing out) but overall I'd say it was refined enough and different enough to feel fresh and not frustrating (in most cases) compared to the original Xen. It might be a bit long but over all I'd say Black Mesa was worth it and I'd recommend it to any Half-Life fan even if the voice acting for G-Man was a let down.

Crysis (Origin)

I never got around to finishing the Original Crysis until now. It only recently dawned on me that I finally have a laptop that can run all the Crysis games at the highest settings and get decent performance so I took this chance to go through the series again and try out Warhead which I never played. Who knew that they would announce a remaster later? I feel like Crysis's visuals still hold up really well as does its gameplay. There are a few rough spots, like when it ditches the open ended level structure for floating through alien tunnels or the infamous VTOL level, but for anyone who likes open ended shooters without actually being open world I feel like Crysis is a must. Just be prepared for some uneven difficulty spikes and a focus on gameplay over story.

Bloostained: Curse of the Moon (XB1)

I got this as an Xbox Live Gold game but never finished it until a few days ago. A really good retro Castlevania style platformer with character swapping and modern convenience. It has the difficulty of some older games without as much of the punishment. Amazing sprite art and music as well. I finished the game on veteran difficulty without trying casual though I doubt I'll be playing the two unlockable difficulties as I honestly suck at these kind of games. Its rather short, about 8 levels, but that's par for the course for the genre. However at a cheap price and being good for replaying at higher difficulties, secret routes in levels, and being a great candidate for speedrunning, I give Curse of the moon a recommendation for those itching for more Castlevania in their lives.

Death Stranding (PS4)

I'm still not sure what to think of this gaming, having never finished a Hideo Kojima game before this. Its both smart, and incredibly stupid. Very captivating but also dull. Its somehow mechanically deep while also mainly being about walking from place to place. It was a very memorable experience but honestly an experience that I feel was worth having once but not revisiting. If nothing else, it got me in to Low Roar. I didn't 100% it but I put in a good 60 hours or so and I spent a lot of that time doing side content and building structures.

Superhot (XB1 but I also played on PC)

Short but sweet almost puzzle-y shooter. Almost everyone knows the hook to this one, time advances when you move, if you stand still everything is in slow motion. You die in one hit as do your enemies. I got a lot out of this one and honestly I feel like it could be expanded upon more, though that's probably what Superhot VR if for. Its important to note that Superhot and VR have separate campaigns. I never finished VR as I don't own it but I remember enjoying that more, but honestly I'd recommend either one no matter how you can play it. If you need more try going for times or doing risky things or try out the extra challenged. I'm really hoping we get an expansion on this concept in the future.

Deus Ex + GMDX. Finally. I've tried over the years over and over again but couldn't get motivated until the end. Last time I've played it years ago I quitted in Hong Kong because I just lost it there. This time I used a walkthrough for that part. I'll stay with that, it's one of the weaker parts of the game, just overdone, too much walking and swimming through canals for too little content. It's a bit sad as the Hong Kong main theme is one of the greatest music of the game.

I do think this game has issues though. Mostly, the RPG part isn't working to well, there are to many skill points to force specialization and after all the effects seem to minor. It also leads to these strange skill + action based crossover shooting parts that just don't work very well. Of course it's harsh to critize the game for it from a todays perspective, such elements in action games were still a novelity back then, but I still think especially the shooting could have done much better.

I'm also not too intrigued by the story. In the ends it's just all possible conspiracy theory thrown into a bowl and mixed together. Feels almost like playing a Dan Brown novel at times. Not too original. But very good narration, atmosphere is great, level design mostly too.

Overall I liked it but even considering its age I think it's a tad overrated. A classic? Sure. A milestone in game development history? Yeah. A masterspiece? Eh... 4.5* if I rate it from a 2000 perspective, 3.5* from todays perspective.

Now I'll continue with Deus Ex 2 which I own almost as long as the first part but never even touched it. Want to see if it is really as bad as people say it is.

Okami: HD (PS4)

About a month ago I was having a discussion with a friend about our top 10 favourite games we'd played, I was looking over at my PS2 games and saw 'Okami', which I remembered I loved playing. Anyway the HD version was on sale fairly cheap, and once I saw there were achievements I decided to 100% it.

The easiest way to describe Okami is Legend of Zelda but you play as a wolf. The protagonist is the reincarnation of the god Amaterasu, who has taken the form of a wolf. Summoned to help stop the demon Orochi from taking over the world, your accompanied by Issun, an insect sized artist who acts as your guide and mouthpiece. Your main weapon is the 'celestial brush' whereby you freeze time and draw symbols on objects, the ground or enemies in order to achieve certain effects like slashing something or setting something on fire. New powers are gained through story progression, with some gained through side activities. You also gain 'praise' which acts as a reward for feeding animals, restoring defiled land and helping people, which can be used to upgrade health and other attributes. There are numerous side activates: plenty of quests to complete, treasures to collect and (like any good JRPG) fishing. The game is of a decent length, maybe 25 hours for a casual playthrough and 40 - 50 hours for 100%. The art style is unique, displaying cell shaded graphics in a way that seems like the world was painted in an old Japanese style.

The story is great, the protagonist is probably the best character, it's amazing how much emotion and humour you can get out of a wolf. Issun is slightly different, he acts annoying and arrogant, which is meant to act as a contrast to his wolf companion creating some good humour, however his attitude towards female characters isn't the best, one cringey section involving a priestess with jiggle physics has him struggle to go 10 seconds without referencing the size of the characters breast, often right to her face. My other negative with the game is the draw distance, which hasn't been improved since the PS2 version, sometimes NPC's won't spawn until their 5ft in front of you, which makes searching for specific one's in a large area incredibly difficult. However the flaws are very minor and overall the game is fantastic.

Okami is still one of my favourite games of all time, I'd love a chance to play the sequel. And considering how cheap it is, I'd highly recommend playing it if the chance comes along.

Rainy Season (Humble Original)

Technically rather crude and unpolished - I couldn't exit the options menu at 1680*1050 because the Back button was off screen, I experienced a bit of screen tearing due to the absence of a Vsync option, the physics were wonky and I ran into some bugs in-game, too, once I saw my character without face and everyone else big as a giant, kind of creepy, and after the ending cutscene, instead of going back to the main menu, I was frozen in-game, etc. The gameplay is just walking around the house and clicking on stuff to get some comments.

At the beginning you get to choose whether the day should be 20, 40, or 60 minutes long, presumably determining how much time you have to explore the house between meals. I chose 20 minutes, and unless anything changes with the other choices, I found that to be more than enough.

But I thought the graphics were cute, the rainy atmosphere sounds were soothing, and I liked the general idea a lot. It was interesting to explore the ordinary life, home and thoughts of a Japanese family during a rainy day, both for the familiar and universal and the unknown and particular. And while it wasn't anything outstanding and spectacular, I thought the sentiment behind the story touching and relatable.

So all in all I liked it regardless.

I've finished Rayman DS (NDS)

I've been playing this on and off for a year now, and have finally finished today.
While it's a feat Ubisoft managed to cram entire Rayman 2 into NDS, it's one of those things that just shouldn't have been done, at least not in the way that has been done. I think the problem began when someone mistook NDS for a PSP and thought "Oh why not?". The problem is - NDS has all the graphical processing power of mashed potato and controls are not nearly as accurate as they need to be for a game that made no adaptation for the platform. The camera is next-level horrible, getting stuck behind obstacles, rotating in inconvenient moments causing you to miss jumps, pointing in the wrong direction, the lot of it. Problem with potato-like graphic capabilities is most apparent in final levels, as you have no clue what's 10 feet in front of you or right next to you, as the field of view is cropped compared to the console version and rendering distance is ridiculously low as DS just can't handle it.
If you want to play Rayman 2, unless you really really want to do it on a handheld for some reason - play it elsewhere.


In my game, he would smash me to bits if I stood there. :/

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. I believe this is the second official Iga-vania title, after Symphony of the Night, since Circle of the Moon is apparently not considered canon or something? Not that it really matters. In this one, you control Juste Belmont, who more strongly resembles Alucard than a normal human, and you have to explore Dracula's castle and ensure he can't come back to life again. You have a buddy who apparently caused the whole mess that you run into occasionally, and there's a female hostage to rescue, too. The story is pretty stupid.

Gameplay-wise, it's basically Symphony squished onto the GBA. Instead of the upside-down castle revelation in that one, the big twist is that there is a second castle in an alternate dimension and you teleport back and forth between the two. In terms of fighting, the game is really easy. Most of the simple enemies won't be a problem as you level up consistently, and the bosses are mostly plodding and have patterns that are easy to learn and adjust to. The hard part is when you hit that point where you feel like you've explored just about everything and yet you can't find that one item that will let you get past the obstacles that are holding you up and you're too lazy to commit to an exhaustive search of the whole freaking castle(s) to find it. And then you have to find the last few items that will unlock the game's best ending. I did have a nice enough time playing it, but I was also happy to get it behind me and not have to see the same places over and over again.

Alien Logic (1994), [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Logic:_A_Skyrealms_of_Jorune_Adventure]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Logic:_A_Skyrealms_of_Jorune_Adventure[/url]
a hybrid RPG-adventure game based on a Pen&Paper role-playing game called Skyrealms of Jorune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyrealms_of_Jorune

All in all, enjoyed Alien Logic, although it was very open-ended. Had to resort to walkthroughs to advance the plot about 5 times to find certain areas/items that unlocked access to new areas of the game world. Physical note-taking is required, and you'll want a copy of the world map from the manual at hand, because you get told to visit certain regions, and the only place those region names appear is in the world map from the game manual.

Yakuza Kiwami (XB1X)

The second entry just hit Xbox and Game Pass. It runs as well as Yakuza 0 and looks pretty much identical...no surprise since the map is the same as one the two maps from "0".

I thought the prequel was the superior game, but Kiwami still has a good story. Playing only as Kazuma though, and all on one map, means less variety and therefore it felt a bit more repetitive this time around. Also I'm not sure if it's my imagination, but it felt like the random streets fights were a bit overdone this time. It often felt like I couldn't go 30m without some punks trying to jump me. It also felt like the combat didn't quite flow as well, mainly because the enemies seemed too eager to go into an annoying blocking stance.

It was still a fun game. Plus Kiwami has the best collectable card mini game ever! MesuKing deserves a standalone release like Gwent! Fun for the entire family right there.

Secret Files: Tunguska, May 15 (GOG)-Its an average adventure game. The voice acting was overall bad ranging from slightly above average (Nina, Max, Oleg) to slightly below average (the big bad) to horrendous (Sergej) and the written dialogue was about the same. The puzzles were similarly hit or miss but with the exception of the compass puzzle not unfair. However too often I felt that I was just clicking everything item on everything because I didn't get much direction from the game. The plot could have been a high point but the execution dragged it down a bit.

Full List

Halo 2 - Compared to CE and Reach, this was probably my favorite. Much of it has to do with the soundtrack.

Total Overdose - Not in the same league as oldschool GTA or Saints Row, but it has charm. Only took 5 hours to beat.

Resident Evil 1 (remake) - Wow, the character models and prerendered backgrounds have aged incredibly well. Hard to believe this game was developed in 2002. The level design, resource management, and puzzles are the best of the series I've played.

Streets of Rage 4 - I'm a newcomer to the franchise, having only played the first three games within the last several weeks, but I think this is nearly on the same level as Streets of Rage 2. The biggest thing holding it back is the overabundance of super armor during boss fights. Not sure why they decided to get rid of sprinting and rolling either.

After 2 and half year long break, I've went back to Final Fantasy Type-0 on my PS4. I quit the game somewhere in the middle, because I got tired of the gameplay system, and it got to me very fast again. Some of the quests were mildly of annoying, some of them very nice, but for me, the mildly annoying were more common. Despite that, I found enough fun in the later half of the game to finish it, and grind little bit for all the trophies the game had to offer. The game was made for multiple playthroughs, but for now, I do not think, that I will get back to it anytime soon.

Complete list of my finished games this year can be found >>>here<<<

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (through Daggerfall Unity)

At its best, Daggerfall is almost everything I've come to love in the series throughout the years/versions. At its worst, it's an overbloated mess of excessively complex systems laid on top of a weird mixture of Open World Exploration Fantasy RPG and a Dungeon Crawler with dungeons that aged pretty badly.

Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun with it, and Unity adds a lot of Quality of Life improvements (like the small dungeons option and mods - though I only used the level up adjuster mod). It's just that, some aspects of it are visibly trying to create a lot from very little and it shows, be it through endless repetition, or severe wonkyness.

Also, it's funny how both Daggerfall and Morrowind make a big deal of their giant mechas and never effectively deliver it. I would have loved to see Numidium crushing kingdoms in a FMV.

Deus Ex: Invisible War. Lots of wasted potential here.

Controls are at times atrocious. Want to climb up an obstacle? Ha, have fun! Want to take up ammo from a defeated opponent? Juggle around dead bodies first. Honestly...

The game world is comparably small, which wouldn't be too bad on its own, but is also fragmented in lots of tiny levels. Sniping was never less fun!

Somehow this games lacks the feeling of any progress, story aside. I felt powerful from very early on. Whereas in the original Deus Ex you where hunting for augmentations and happy everytime you could expand your system, here you'll find too much modules as you progress, being able to fully upgrade the first biomods after one or two hours. Greasels where sight in the original only after some time and were quite scary, here you'll meet the first early one and don't care. Exploring isn't rewarded because unlike in the original dx, you don't get any xp (because such a mechanic is simply missing), and exploring for stuff is useless too because you'll drown in items for your too small inventory anyway. Healing is much too plenty, food is everywhere, stacks up to 50 and heals a lot (granted DX1 had similar problems). The tiny levels don't allow for much exploration anyway. Meh.

Story is alright, but the narration is at times almost comically bad, as if written by a 14 year old and kills much of the atmosphere. The voices are bad as well, but that might just be the german version I played.

Unfortunately, it's just not a good game. Glad it's comparably short otherwise I would have probably not completed it. 2.5*