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Looks like the last time I posted was Tears of the Kingdom time, so here's a troublingly long, chronological summary of my past year or so in games!
HORIZON BURNING SHORES: I love the core gameplay of this franchise so much that it'd be hard to truly disappoint me, but I gotta say this was kind of a whiff compared to the excellent Frozen Wilds DLC for the first game. It doubles down on many of the questionable changes to the combat flow and showcases a stunningly bad final boss (that should have been great). A year later, I barely remember anything about this, sadly.
LAKE: Just a game to play if you want to chill, it got a little too twee for me to invest in but this is the sort of game that makes Playstation Plus/Gamepass feel valuable because at least you get to try something different.
PARADISE KILLER: On the other hand, there's not much to this game but its art style, writing and - eventually - traversal are so satisfying that I crushed this game in just a couple of sittings. The cherry on top was that when I finally decided to take the case to trial, it turned out I was far less informed about a few threads than I thought and the game made me suffer for it. I love when "bad" endings feel good, and this is an all-timer.
LIKE A DRAGON 7 / 8: I'll just lump these together. The shift to turn-based combat is so wonderful after having stormed through the entire franchise over the past five years. Auto-battling really makes the grind RGG loves to incorporate into their combat go down so much easier. I played 7 a year ago and have been derailed from 8 by a couple games I'll get to later, but I got distracted after over 70 hours with Ichiban's crew and I'm stoked to get back to them as soon as I can.
STAR WARS JEDI SURVIVOR: Like a lot of sequels the past handful of years, I think this game actually got a little too big for its britches and didn't quite capture the magic of the first game for me...specifically, it has some real dick-in-the-ass multi-phase boss fights that don't necessarily feel unfair but don't really vibe with the flow of the rest of the game, either. Ultimately very fun, because Respawn excels at finding the fun, but weirdly bloated and mean at times.
FINAL FANTASY XVI: I did every side quest in this game. Every monster hunt. I tried as hard as I could to not just mash through the combat but get decent at it. All told, I gave this game 63 hours of my life according to my PS5. I might've enjoyed 15 of those hours. Definitely the weirdest relationship I've had with a game in quite a long time. It wears its influences so brazenly and awkwardly, like a preppy theater kid that decides to go goth junior year, I just had to know. I'm shocked many people loved this game, but I guess I get it.
STREET FIGHTER VI: When I fell off of this, I fell off HARD, and the couple times I've tried to reinstall and get back in a groove haven't gone very well. But I LOVED World Tour, and enjoyed the battle arcade more than any fighting game online experience I've ever had. I just wish I had a local crew like I did back in the SF4 days.
OXENFREE: Just a cool, short, side scrolling puzzler with a neat story and great art design. It was really neat to finally play this. I'd got it because OXENFREE II was coming out, but the games are pretty similar so I barely dug into the sequel. I'll be happy to get back to it sometime this year though.
SKYRIM: One of those games I figured I'd just never play, it came to Playstation Plus at some point and after my journeys with FF16 (63 hours), Jedi (40 hours) and Like a Dragon (79 hours) I felt empty without another big, endless world. Turned out, I'd definitely played the intro before - must've been one of my last Blockbuster rentals...wow. Anyway, I couldn't possibly say anything interesting about this game, other than without even a hint of nostalgia the game really is what it is - a gargantuan thing that hinted at a litany of things later games would do better.
LAWN MOWING SIMULATOR: PS Plus game. First time I had that swimmy post-gaming visual effect Guitar Hero was famous for since, well, Guitar Hero. I couldn't say whether this game is actually good or sneakily bad, but after five hours with it I felt like this was a game designed to fuel horrid relationships with alcohol and other drugs so I gladly dumped it.
ROGUE LEGACY 2: I'm not sure why this game didn't sink its hooks in me the way the first game did, because it's just as good and full of really smart additions. Maybe DEAD CELLS just ruined this genre for me forever?
ARMORED CORE VI: I'm so mad I only played 10 hours of this game. I want to go back to it really, really badly. The atmosphere is incredible and when you start to feel one with your core, it's the closest to peak Zone of the Enders 2 gameplay I've felt and that's one of my gaming white whales. Unfortunately...I simply was not enjoying the bosses at all. The big lava pot boss broke me, more because I was bored than defeated. But I will give this game its proper due eventually.
TMNT SHREDDER'S REVENGE: I only played two levels of this with some randoms online the night I bought it, but it's stayed installed on my system ever since. As someone who devoted more than one summer to simply tearing through Turtles in Time over and over, I love what this game represents, even if I'm not thirsty for much more of it.
SPIDER-MAN: What was basically a perfect video game technically still is, but I'll never understand the need to switch the character model for Parker. The original was phenomenal, and far more emotive. The replacement's wooden performance dulls the impact of what's truly my favorite Spider-Man story (though I'm no expert), but I don't want to go full gamer-crazy about it. This game is about as close to flawless as you can get otherwise and it was a joy to replay.
SPIDER-MAN 2: On the other hand, much like JEDI SURVIVOR and BURNING SANDS this game sometimes seemed to struggle under the weight of surpassing the first game. The story has a tricky pacing to it with a third act that seems to barge in out of nowhere (and, as I later found out, is heavily indebted to an earlier game on PS2) and at times it can be so desperate to be a VIDEO GAME that it's honestly a bit corny...and then, again like JEDI, it has some bosses that are so comically long-winded it can feel like some designer lost a bet.
NBA 2K23: I've written about this franchise enough in this thread, but I just gotta reiterate how insane the Jordan glitch in the MyEras mode is. Even if he plays like he should on the court, the fact that he pretty much inevitably and immediately declines on paper is absolutely insane. I know 2K's calling card hasn't been attention to detail in damn near a decade but I can't get over that!
MORTAL KOMBAT 1: As always, righteously fun story mode, though for obvious reasons it can't trigger the nostalgic beats of MK9 and in having to reckon with certain beats of MK11 and its Aftermath DLC the writers clearly erred on the side of "fuck it, it's MK, just do the silliest thing we can think of" which usually works but sometimes finds a unique blend of convoluted and half-baked that's impressively impenetrable. Unfortunately, because I'd played the PS3/4 era games mostly via Playstation Plus or some HUGE discounts (I doubt I spent more than $20 on the last three) I splurged for the ludicrous $110 early access and bonuses package...only to find a game that's far less replayable solo offline than MK11 was, or at least feels like way more of a grind. The real shame of MK1 is that the combat is, to my feeble mind, PHENOMENALLY GOOD (though just as unplayable online as ever). But once the story mode is out of the way, this game is a huge tyrant of a bully that won't chill 'til it's got your lunch money. To be honest, it's an impressive achievement how hollow this game can make you feel.
MASS EFFECT: I bought the Legendary Edition ages ago out of obligation, finally booted it up around the start of winter, and as a Playstation player finally experienced the original Mass Effect. I know a few significant changes were made to bring it more in line with the sequels, but I do finally understand why a vocal minority argue not just 3 but 2 also loses sight of what makes the franchise seem so infinitely special. It's not always a fun game, and the remaster can't do much to hide some very 2007-ass level design, but unlike Skyrim the lack of nostalgia didn't affect me at all. Absolutely iconic game.
LOST JUDGEMENT: After LIKE A DRAGON, I gotta admit this was kind of a tough hang. It's not quite the mini-game dumping ground the first game was, and what's there is mostly higher quality...but the story simply doesn't have any meat to it, so the bulk of the game is each character reminding whoever they're talking to of what they do and don't know, briefly mentioning what they just learned might teach them something new, then button mashing your way through endless brawling to learn (or, even worse, not learn) the new thing. To be honest, after steadily gorging on this whole franchise the past six years, it's the side content that made some of these games' worst indulgences feel trivial, and there's a massive after school club Degrassi-esque drama that's entirely optional a real treat.
RED DEAD REDEMPTION: It's the same game it always was, but it runs on a PS5. It felt more dated than I expected, but I almost cleared Mexico before the holiday season hit. John Marston will always be a good hang.
CYBERPUNK 2077: This post has already ran so damn long I'll just say this: everybody who changed their tune about this game after Phantom Liberty is right, and everybody who held fast to their belief this game is fundamentally flawed at its core are more right than ever. 115 hours later, though, all the could'ves, should'ves, clumsy dialogue and damn near endless filler content are smeared by the sheer audacity of Night City and the level of immersion CDPR try to trick you into thinking they've achieved. One of the most flawed games I can't help but love.
BALDUR'S GATE 3: OK, for real, just a brief comment: this combat totally eludes me. I found the game dramatically difficult even on the easy mode. I just don't get it. I'll say it again, I've always struggled to "find the fun" and much like Tears of the Kingdom this game seems to really hinge on whether you have that skill or not. I have a feeling I'll be thinking about giving this game one more shot for the rest of my life.
GOD OF WAR RAGNAROK: I don't remember the exact relationship, but there's a moment while playing as Atreus that you help a new friend kick the shit out of their aunty or grandmother or someone in that sort of relation to them and when the fight's over you get thanked so profusely for beating that woman's ass it's a startling reminder that the original trilogy was exclusively dedicated to that kind of comical parricide. Like the other sequels I wrote about here, Ragnarok has too many ideas for its own good and fails to match how assured the first game felt, but Toby plays an incredible Odin and, as with a lot of mythologies, sometimes it's more about the journey than the destination anyway. Which in this case is a hella fun video game.
CLOUDPUNK: Don't ask me why I finished this game in one full over-nighter. It's not remarkable at all, and it's very repetitive. It felt like 12 hours but the console says 6. I really like looking at voxels, and the stakes are mostly so low I never worried about how disinterested I was. Calmly washed over me.
STARDEW VALLEY: 'Cause after all these years...why not? Put about 20 hours in, made it to Winter, I get it I think...but sort of like "finding the fun", I'm not interested in plotting out the most efficient farm and min-maxing all the girls in town. I just wanna harvest my corn and go to bed.
ALAN WAKE 2: Truly shortest blurb in this monster post: PLAY ALAN WAKE TWO YOU COWARDS. Easily the most remarkable game I've played since...something you, dear reader, will think of before I do. What a banger.
THE WITCHER 3: After Cyberpunk, I was itching for more CDPR...and it turns out, the PS5 update for this game is insane. As a console player, I've never been more convinced of ray tracing's significance. While this may say something kind of sad about the PS5/Series X era, the RTX mode of this nearly 10 year old game is one of the console's graphical showcases. I screamed through this whole game like it was my first time, all because of one little trick (though the new combat system is a huge improvement as well!)
RESIDENT EVIL 4 (2): Deceptively perfect remake of a deceptively perfect game, the only reason I didn't finish it or grind out the New Game+ rewards over a half-dozen speedruns is I did that 20 years ago, and time doesn't feel as infinite as it used to.
ARKHAM ASYLUM: I loved City and heavy-liked Knight, but for whatever reason I'd never got too deep into Asylum until this summer. I get the take that the extreme focus of this game makes it the best of the bunch, but I've gotta say that old hag nostalgia comes up again here: it was fun to dig into the foundation of two Batman and Spider-Man games I loved the hell out of, but all these years later it was impossible not to think about all that came after this. And the bosses ALL suck.
MGS V PHANTOM PAIN: Felt a random itch for this one, and had to jump through some weird hoops to start it over from scratch. Just like I remembered and hoped, every 15 minutes or so something extremely satisfying happens while playing this game. It's also a totally broken mess now not just because structurally it always was, but because the microtransaction debacle surrounding it seems to have concluded with Konami basically giving you infinite money, which amplifies how rudderless the story progression was by completely removing the resource management distraction. Such a bizarre game, forever and always.
POWERWASH SIMULATOR: Even more mindless than the Lawn one, and far better for it. Though similarly, I had to let it go when I realized it wasn't nearly as entertaining as it was allowing me to engage in highly questionable indulgences with just enough remove to pretend it was normal.
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I've got a few more games I could list from the past month, but fuckin' look at this thing. Embarrassing. 'Til next time!
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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz
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