Games You Beat in 2026: RIP to our backlogs

[danielpholt]

Directive 8020

 

It's another one of 'those' games from Supermassive Games. Only this time it's got a science-fiction theme to it and you're in space. If that appeals to you then you'll likely enjoy this, if not then...probably skip it.

 

For what it's worth I enjoyed it, but I've enjoyed almost everything they've put out. If I had to pick some nits I'd say the stealth sections are far too frequent and some of the animation/dialogue didn't seem to match up, which seems like an oversight given this is what that studio is famous for. 

 

I believe it's another 'Dark Pictures' game rather than a full-on standalone game. So closer to Man of Medan and Little Hope than it is The Quarry or Until Dawn. 

[toxicitizen]

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

 

I was looking for something short to play on my Switch until Star Fox and ended up picking this because the Ocarina of Time Remake announcement put me in a Zelda mood. It's basically a smaller version of Link to the Past, so I don't need to tell you how great it is. I ended up going for all hearts containers (and every other optional things I could find) which I don't think I've done in any Zelda games since the original OoT on N64.

 

I hope they'll remake Link to the Past in this style eventually. I'd be way more excited for that than I am for Ocarina. Although before that, I need Nintendo to stop fucking around and put Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD on Switch already!

[danielpholt]

 

Gun-Nac

 

I was playing around with shaders whilst setting up my new retro-doodad and found myself really digging this thing. Ultimately ended up playing it through over a few sessions. It's a super cool (and fairly accessible) NES schmup with some nice enough art and a steller weapon/upgrade system. It also may have opened up a new genre to me. 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

12 hours ago, toxicitizen said:

I hope they'll remake Link to the Past in this style eventually. I'd be way more excited for that than I am for Ocarina. Although before that, I need Nintendo to stop fucking around and put Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD on Switch already!

 

Man same, I'd be all over that.

[Mister Jack]

Mina the Hollower

 

Sweet Jesus, this game is hard. Shovel Knight could be decently challenging but this one is just straight up brutal if you play without modifiers. It's still great, though. The controls, level design, and combat all feel fantastic. Don't even get me started on that soundtrack full of absolute bangers courtesy of Jake Kaufman again. Hollowing is also one of those mechanics that make you go "man I wish I could do this in every game." I'd give it a strong 9/10, though I have to dock a point because the game is determined not to have tutorials but at the same time isn't always as intuitive as it thinks it is. Did you know the mirrors are the fast travel system and to activate one you have to walk into the mirror for about two seconds? Well now you do so congratulations, you won't have to backtrack to every region of the game to activate the mirrors like I had to do when I realized I'd overlooked this absolutely crucial step to accessing the endgame. There's also a section of the game where you have to burrow through deep water in order to cross large gaps. They drop a subtle hint by putting a tiny collectible in the water, but up until now jumping into water has also resulted in taking damage so the game has trained me by this point to NOT jump into water only to suddenly make an exception without really telling me. I actually had to look up a guide to be told that it's okay to jump in water now. Honestly, if you can make it through this entire game without having to consult a guide even once then my hat's off to you because some things it expects you to do are incredibly cryptic. Despite this flaw, I'd still recommend it to anyone. If the Souls-like difficulty is a turnoff to you then there are plenty of modifiers to adjust the experience. I refrained from using them myself because I wanted to beat it as the developers intended but there's so many options I'm sure you can fine-tune it to be as hard or as easy as you want it to be.

[MetalCaveman]

Air Combat

 

Trying to get through all (or at least the ones that I can get my hands on) of the Ace Combat games before 8 comes out lol.

 

I'd say this holds up pretty well, big part of it is that whether you're playing this or Ace Combat 7, the basic combat controls (gun, missiles, map, change target) are the same. The flight through the ravine was a pain, but it's also a fairly short mission so it evens out.

 

The alarm beep that keeps playing during briefings was really annoying though.

 

Grade: A

[TheMightyEthan]

The Signal State

 

This is a Zach-like where the premise is that you're in a post-apocalyptic world (basically all the computers broke which made all the machines stop working which meant society collapsed), and you're on a farm trying to jury rig reactivating the machinery so that you can grow crops and stuff. You do this by wiring up analog electronics to replace the digital computer parts the machines were using. It's a neat setup, but the import thing is the puzzles are very well designed. This is easily the best Zach-like I've ever played that wasn't actually made by Zachtronics. I highly recommend it if you like their other stuff. It's maybe a little short, and the puzzles don't really get quite hard enough, but otherwise it's great.

 

Grade: 4/5