Games You Beat in 2022: PXoD's Bogus Journey

[Mister Jack]

Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality

 

This game is less than two hours long and you want to charge 30 dollars for it? Are you insane? It's not even that funny compared to the show or even to Trover Saves the Universe, which actually IS a proper game. You know what, I don't even care that I pirated this one. If this was a five, MAYBE ten dollar game I could give it a lukewarm recommendation but 30? Go fuck yourself, Adult Swim.

[danielpholt]

The Case of the Golden Idol 

 

Grabbed this after hearing The Beasties talking about it on their podcast a few weeks ago, they seemed to be really into it and I can totally see why; think Obra Dinn with more clicking and less exploration. 

 

I don't think it delivers it's story in as interesting way as Obra did, and the gameplay isn't nearly as interesting, but for the most part it lands what it's going for. 

[Mister Jack]

Resident Evil 4 VR

 

I don't really have that much to say here. Everyone in the world has played RE4 by now. This is RE4 in first-person where you manually reload your guns. There are a few differences aside from that, though. You can move while aiming in this version as well as hold your knife and gun at the same time. You can also equip two guns at a time so you don't have to constantly go into the menu to switch between your pistol and your shotgun/rifle/TMP. Just reach down to your hip for your sidearm and over your shoulder for two-handed guns. You also have grenades strapped to your chest and healing items over your left shoulder that you can use without pausing if you want to. It does make the game a bit easier, but if you're a purist you can play in classic mode where you're not allowed to move while aiming your gun. 

 

I wouldn't quite call this THE definitive way to play RE4. Separate Ways is missing, although that might be added later, and there's some lame censorship that cuts out all of the enjoyably corny flirtatious lines.  Still, anyone who owns a Quest would be doing themselves a disservice by skipping out on this version no matter how many times you've played RE4 on other platforms. 

[Mister Jack]

God of War: Ragnarok

 

If not for Elden Ring this would be my GOTY. Gameplay-wise, it doesn't change a whole lot compared to the last game but it expands on a few things and adds a lot more variety in what you do. My only real complaint about the last game was that you fight the same boss too many times, which is no longer an issue here. Some bosses do get repeated, but not nearly as much as the troll from the last game and it's spaced out enough to not get annoying. The graphics and presentation are the best gaming has to offer right now, and as much as I hate the 70 dollar price point on next-gen titles I can at least see here that the extra money is being put to good use. The story also managed to surprise me quite a few times despite the fact that this is about the Ragnarok prophecy, which is supposed to be set in stone and predetermined. Kratos and Atreus both have satisfying conclusions to their character arcs, and if the series ended right here that would be perfectly okay with me because everything is tied up nicely with a bow on top. Of course, if they ever decide Kratos needs to go kill the Egyptian gods or something then I'll be on board because there hasn't been a bad game in this series yet.

[Mister Jack]

I Expect You to Die

 

Great, fun little escape room game with a spy theme, complete with a James Bond style opening. It's on the short side, but still definitely worth it when it's on sale. This is a good one to whip out when you want to show your friends the difference between playing on a flat screen and playing in VR.

[Thursday Next]

8 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

I Expect You to Die

 

Great, fun little escape room game with a spy theme, complete with a James Bond style opening. It's on the short side, but still definitely worth it when it's on sale. This is a good one to whip out when you want to show your friends the difference between playing on a flat screen and playing in VR.

 

This has been my fave VR experience to date. While it is short there's still like 6 (iirc) missions, there's a huge amount of replayability as each mission has puzzles that can be solved in multiple ways, and there's a lot of bonus objectives to achieve. The first time you solve a puzzle in what feels like a hacky way (even though it is almost certainly intended) is great, like lighting a cigar, and using it to ignite a stick of dynamite to open a door, rather than doing it the "proper way" just makes you feel so smart.

[Thursday Next]

Elden Ring

 

Got the platinum. Looking forward to the DLC. Not my favourite FromSoft game (that title goes to Sekiro), but still deserving of its GOTY.

[Mister Jack]

Black Mesa

 

It's pretty much just a Half-Life 1 remake. Most of it is preserved pretty faithfully, for better and for worse. HL1 gameplay doesn't hold up nearly as well as HL2 does. I hate precision platforming in FPS games and Half-Life is full of it. They did completely reimagine Xen since nobody liked the original Xen, and to their credit the new Xen is much better. Unfortunately, it's also three hours long and it starts to wear out its welcome long before that. At least the final boss fight is better.

 

I don't want to disparage the work that the developers did on this remake. They did a fine job. The game they remade just isn't as good as I remember anymore. If you still want to play the original Half-Life for nostalgia reasons then this is the version I would say to go for, but the gameplay is dated and it shows.

[TheMightyEthan]

On 11/24/2022 at 9:04 AM, Thursday Next said:

Elden Ring

 

Got the platinum. Looking forward to the DLC. Not my favourite FromSoft game (that title goes to Sekiro), but still deserving of its GOTY.

 

I'm afraid that this DLC is gonna be one of those things where I go back to it and am like "oh no, I have no idea how to play this game anymore..."

[TheMightyEthan]

God of War: Ragnarok

 

So, you may have heard, this game is pretty good. I had a good time throughout, I never felt like it dragged, it had the perfect balance of giving me side stuff to do when I wanted and not gating the main story so I could always progress if I wanted that instead. The combat was really fun too, especially the new weapon. You definitely feel the limitations of the different realms, they're open-ish but still feel pretty restricted, in a way that feels more like a PS360 era game than a modern one, but once you get used to it it doesn't detract from the experience.

 

The story is also really compelling for the first 95%. I did think the very end fell a little flat, I was hoping for more spectacle in the last confrontation than what we got, which left me a little down on it when the credits rolled, but the epilogue pulled me back in and the really-actually-the-final-end part was about as perfect as it could have been.

 

Since finishing it I've been wrapping up the remaining content, working towards the plat, and I've cycled from love to hate and back again about three times. Basically there keeps being more to do than what I realized, and I keep getting irritated with it for that, but then I get back in the groove of actually playing, and it just feels so good that I can't stay mad at it. It also keeps dropping little extra lore tidbits that are just amazing, even in the post-game, which definitely helps lessen the feeling of grind.

 

Grade: A

[Mister Jack]

Half-Life 2: VR Mod

 

This free mod is one of the best VR experiences I've had. Of course, a lot of that chalks up to the fact that Half-Life 2 is a great game that still holds up today. To my knowledge, the mod started out extremely basic with just simple point and shoot functionality and several essential game mechanics being unusable, but the team has been plugging away at it for a long time now and my experience with the current version was great. Of course, this is based on a non-VR game so your interactivity with the environment is mostly limited to what you could do in the original game. Don't expect Alyx levels of immersion. However, you can manually reload weapons and pump your shotgun, hold two objects at once, wield a turret in one hand and a gun in the other, aim the gravity gun much more easily, rotate objects to create improvised cover, shoot around corners, swing the crowbar as fast as your arm can move, and freely toss grenades (though an aimed throw is available for tricky spots). It's a ton of fun and it makes you much deadlier in combat. They also added recoil to the two-handed guns to encourage holding them properly, which is cool. The pistol still has a little too much recoil if you ask me, though. I'm hoping they adjust that. You can also choose to turn on a laser sight to assist with aiming, which I would recommend doing since the game wasn't originally made with iron sights in mind.

 

My only major problem with this mod was the airboat section. No matter how strong your VR legs are, this WILL make you motion sick, guaranteed. I don't blame the mod team for this. The game wasn't made for VR and there is only so much you can do to increase the comfort of this incredibly bumpy section. In fact, I heard they plan to add an option to just play the boat driving with a projected flat screen to eliminate the nausea. It may not be immersive to drive that way, but no immersion is worth making yourself barf. Aside from that, I can't recommend this mod highly enough. Team Beef is doing a great job adding VR to non-VR games and I can't wait to see what they do next.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Mister Jack

[TheMightyEthan]

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope

 

This game could have been great if it hadn't spent so much time shooting itself in the foot. I loved the first one, so this was a major disappointment, made all the more frustrating because the actually battle system is improved from the original. The problem is the stupid open areas they made for each world, where you have to do boring, tedious puzzles to advance to get to the next battles. It was okay for the first world, by the second world it was starting to drag a bit, and by the third world I was completely over it. By the fifth world I was legit hate playing the game. Then, the sixth and final world does away with all that and it's glorious and just makes me even more frustrated with the rest of the shit I had to put up with to get there.

 

The battle system is great though, it's similar to the first but refined, and the grid system is removed, instead allowing your characters to run around freely within a certain distance of their starting position until they fire their weapon, which locks them down. It feels great to play, and I wish the rest of the game didn't ruin it.

 

Grade: C+

[Mister Jack]

Sonic Frontiers

 

Finally, some good fucking food. Now, while I liked this game, I'm not about to go comparing it to Mario Odyssey or anything like that. This is very much a AA game rather than a AAA game, but I paid 40 bucks for it, which feels about right. The open world is really more like a playground filled with obstacle courses for you to run through to collect the various tokens in the game, but I'm fine with that, really. There are some old-school style Sonic stages, both 2D and 3D, that you can teleport to from certain spots in the world, but the real attraction of this game is just being able to freely run and jump around at high speeds. You can level Sonic's speed up to 99 and when you get there he is absolutely blazing. Using your speed to find shortcuts that weren't intended by the game feels really cool. I also appreciate that you don't have to collect every single little thing to achieve 100%. There are far more collectibles than you actually need, so you can choose how you want to go about unlocking everything. If one token or key is giving you a hard time, there are plenty of others to look for. Maybe some will feel that's cheap, but to me it just means more freedom to do what I want.

 

I only really have two complaints. The first is that there are too many times when the game takes control away from you in the middle of running around to show you a cutscene or tutorial or do a QTE. In fact, when you max out Sonic's rings you get a major speed boost and an electrical aura, which is dope, but every time you do it plays a cutscene, which is annoying. This is the main issue bringing the game down for me, and I hope if they make another open world game they learn to integrate this stuff with the gameplay better. It wasn't a deal breaker for me but it does bring it down by a point on my personal scale. My second issue was that there's a lot of pop-in. Not so much with the environment itself but with the various rails and platforms within it. This isn't an issue when you're actually using them since you can always clearly see your next jump, but if you're trying to figure out how to get to a place on the map far in the distance, you can't count on looking for a connected rail or platform because the game might not have even loaded it if you're too far away. You have to run around and see what pops up, which is a drag. But other than those two things I had a pretty fun time with this game. I'm looking forward to the free DLC which adds Tails, Knuckles, and Amy as playable characters.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Mister Jack

[Mister Jack]

High on Life

 

Yeah, the Justin Roiland game with the talking guns. It seems to be getting a lukewarm reception but I really think your enjoyment of this one will come down to how much you appreciate Roiland's brand of comedy. Mechanically it's sound enough, although it doesn't really do much you haven't seen before. You jump, you shoot, you solve environmental puzzles, your guns have secondary functions both for combat and exploration. It works fine and it isn't bad, but it won't really blow your socks off either. My personal high points for this game don't really come from the gameplay (although I thought one boss fight in particular was pretty cool) but from certain jokes or scenes that I found funny. The comedy didn't always work for me. I still think Trover Saves the Universe is a funnier game, but it worked well enough. Some of the talking guns have endearing personalities, although I am not fond of the SMG. I did find that one annoying. If the thought of your guns talking to you is unappealing you can change a setting to make them only talk during story scenes, but if that's the case then why would you even play this game where that's the entire premise? Anyway, this one was alright. I'd say it might be good to get on sale or after a price drop. It is also available on Game Pass.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Mister Jack

[toxicitizen]

8 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

High on Life

 

Yeah, the Justin Roiland game with the talking guns. It seems to be getting a lukewarm reception but I really think your enjoyment of this one will come down to how much you appreciate Roiland's brand of comedy.

 

I think this is one of those games where the critics are kinda missing the mark because apparently it's been doing insanely well on Game Pass, which is probably driving sales on other platforms like Steam as well.

[Thursday Next]

21 hours ago, toxicitizen said:

 

I think this is one of those games where the critics are kinda missing the mark because apparently it's been doing insanely well on Game Pass, which is probably driving sales on other platforms like Steam as well.

 

It's also all over TikTok and if your game is meme-able on that platform you are probably going to be feeling pretty good about your chance for getting a lot of installs.

[TheMightyEthan]

I shelved that game after a couple hours. The combat was barely passable, and the humor was just mildly amusing. My main reaction to the jokes was "I understood that reference," which isn't exactly high praise. So scores in the 60's seem about right to me.

[MetalCaveman]

My final list for 2022:

 

1-Halo Infinite

2-Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin

3-Duel Princess

4-Remnant From the Ashes

5-Elden Ring

6-God Eater 2

7-She Will Punish Them

8-Moero Chronicle Hyper

9-The Future You've Been Dreaming Of

10-Prison Princess

11-Aperture Desk Job

12-XCOM Enemy Within

13-Dead Space

14-Dead Space 2

15-Dead Space 3 Awakened

 

Last year it was 24, so down 9, but also last year, 12 of those 24 were Resident Evil games, this year there was a bit more variety in there.

[TheMightyEthan]

2 hours ago, MetalCaveman said:

last year, 12 of those 24 were Resident Evil games

 

[Pojodin]

1.       Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp

2.       Narita Boy

3.       Death's Door

4.       Cat Quest

5.       Cat Quest 2

6.       A Short Hike

7.       The Pedestrian

8.       Death Stranding: Director’s Cut

9.       I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator

10.   Ninja Gaiden (NES)

11.   Legend of the River King (GBC)

12.   The Artful Escape

13.   Elden Ring

14.   Horizon Forbidden West

15.   Ghostwire: Tokyo

16.   The Quarry

17.   Trek to Yomi

18.   Salt and Sacrifice

19.   Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

20.   I.Q. Intelligent Qube

21.   Frightence

22.   Ikai

23.   A Tale of Paper

24.   Unbound: Worlds Apart

25.   Castlevania: Rondo of Blood

26.   Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

27.   Aladdin (SNES)

28.   Stray

29.   Battle Clash

30.   Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

31.   Riverbond

32.   Eternal Hope

33.   Cloudpunk

34.   Super Mario Bros. (NES Big 20)

35.   Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES Big 20)

36.   Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES Big 20)

37.   Mega Man (NES Big 20)

38.   Mega Man 2 (NES Big 20)

39.   Darkwing Duck (NES Big 20)

40.   StarTropics (NES Big 20)

41.   Contra (NES Big 20)

42.   Batman (NES Big 20)

43.   Crystalis (NES Big 20)

44.   Blaster Master (NES Big 20)

45.   Kid Icarus (NES Big 20)

46.   The Legend of Zelda (NES Big 20)

47.   Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES Big 20)

48.   DuckTales (NES Big 20)

49.   Battletoads (NES Big 20)

50.   Castlevania (NES Big 20)

51.   Little Samson (NES Big 20)

52.   Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers (NES Big 20)

53.   Tunic

54.   Little Nightmares II

55.   God of War: Ragnarok

56.   Live A Live

57.   The Callisto Protocol

58.   UnMetal

59.   Morbid: The Seven Acolytes

60.   Escape Academy

61.   Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course

62.   Heavenly Bodies

63.   Cult of the Lamb

64.   Lil Gator Game

 

Not as many as last year, but this was a busy and challenging year. Still satisfied with the games I played and finished this year.

[TheMightyEthan]

My list:

1. Scarlet Nexus
2. Quantum Break
3. Chorus
4. Psychonauts 2
5. Pokemon Legends: Arceus
6. Horizon Forbidden West
7. The Forgotten City
8. Carrion
9. Death's Door
10. Cyberpunk 2077
11. Elden Ring
12. Tunic
13. Returnal: Ascension
14. Bridge Constructor: Portal
15. Triangle Strategy
16. The Gunk
17. Unpacking
18. Ghostwire: Tokyo
19. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla: Wrath of the Druids
20. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla: Siege of Paris
21. Tales from the Borderlands
22. Sifu
23. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
24. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok
25. Hades
26. Prey: Mooncrash
27. Deliver Us the Moon
28. Lego Builder's Journey
29. Hardspace: Shipbreaker
30. Far: Lone Sails
31. Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels
32. As Dusk Falls
33. Exapunks
34. TIS-100
35. Shenzhen I/O
36. The Looker
37. Jurassic World Evolution 2
38. Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn
39. Death Stranding PC
40. Escape Academy
41. Deathloop
42. Tinykin
43. The Spectrum Retreat
44. Escape Academy: Escape from Anti-Escape Island
45. God of War: Ragnarok
46. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope
47. The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon
48. The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos

Weirdly exactly the same number as last year.

 

But wait! There's stats!

 

Playstation saw a massive decrease in the proportion of my gaming spent there. In 2021 a whopping 92% of the games I beat I played on Playstation, accounting for 88% of my gaming hours. In 2022 it was just 23% and 32%, respectively, even losing the top spot to PC (though just barely). The biggest and most obvious explanation for that is that I got an Xbox (increased from 0% in both categories last year to 25% of the games and 23% of the hours this year) and a built a new PC (up from 4% to 44% in games and 7% to 33% in hours), both with Game Pass. But even that doesn't account for all of it, because Switch saw a rise from 4% of games and 5% of hours last year to 8% of games and 12% of hours this year. Not a huge bump, but it did go up.

 

 

(Here's a link to my post from last year for comparisons.)

 

In terms of the amount of time spent with each game, Horizon: Forbidden West takes the top spot, with 69 (nice) hours, and Elden Ring right on its heels with 68 hours. On average I spent 22.6 hours with each Playstation game, 22.5 on Switch, 15 on Xbox and 12 on PC. I think Xbox and PC's averages were both dragged down by Game Pass encouraging me to play more little indie games, since I don't have to buy them individually.

 

 

So that's my year in gaming. I'm honestly surprised how well balanced I was between the platforms. I'll be interested to see what next year's looks like, and if I get an even bigger skew towards PC now that I have a Steam Deck.