Undertale (2017)
Dug out the old PlayStation Vita for this one, god that is still such a great piece of handheld gaming hardware, the design and the performance still hold up. Anyhow Undertale yes, going into this one I had little prior expectation. I was aware that it had something of an 'indie darling' status. Employing a simple retro aesthetic but subverting the expectations that come with such a presentation to deliver something truly auteur. Now I can sort of, maybe see some of that in this game. This is definitely a work that reflects an individual sensibility. It just didn't deliver a great game for me outside of a few sporadic moments of interest. An awful lot of genuine goodwill seems to surround this game online but for the life of me I just can't quite see it. Two talking flowers out of five!
Elite: Dangerous (2017)
This is a game that I've been trying to get into on and off for several years now across multiple platforms. Having dallied with it on both PlayStation and Steam before losing interest in it on multiple occasions. In keeping with the general spirit of meeting my goals to clear such games from my to-do list I committed to at least one substantial playthrough of it this year and what did I think? It's a game with such promise, exploring the vastness of space from the cockpit of your spaceship. You can wheel, deal, mine, attack and freewheel across the stars. The presentation is outstanding, the graphics hit the spot and the sound work is top notch. It is also one of the most convuluted, long-winded and tiresome games I have ever played. The operation of your ship, the centrepiece of the game itself, takes a whole lot of work all by itself. Remembering what buttons need to be pressed and in what order frequently tapped away at whatever joy I got out of Elite. Part of this is the translation to consoles and the controller but I don't recall this being any easier with mouse and keyboard either. I really, really wanted to like this game and I still want to really, really like a game like this. It just won't be Elite: Dangerous. Two low fuel warnings out of five!
Guacamelee! 2 (2018)
The original Guacamelee! was another title I hugely enjoyed on my Vita back in the day. A Metroidvania-esque platformers infused with all kinds of style and charm. A love letter to games, pro-wrestling and pure imagination. Given how much I enjoyed it, I surprise myself with how long it took me to check out the sequel which remains all of the good stuff and expands on it somewhat. This time the goofy hijinx go all multiversal and the developers really run with this idea and use it to the utmost. There's still a solid sense of puzzle and challenge to the whole thing but I also found myself grinning a whole lot as I made my way through the madness. Playing this game in 2023 when the concept of 'multiveraal fatigue' is very much a thing in popular culture, it speaks to the sheer quality of this game that so much of it's humour still shines through. This game was the good stuff even if it doesn't stray too far outside of the template set down by the first game. Four jumping powerbombs out of five!
Pillars of Eternity (2017)
You know what I haven't played in a while? An RPG, a full bodied, full fat, full of everything RPG. Sure I sunk a whole bunch of hours into Fallout 76 back in the pandemic era but it's just not the same with MMO's. No I wanted a classic top-down isometric experience. With swords and spells and dragons and whatnot. For the most part I found it in Pillars of Eternity, a game that very much does what it says it's going to do on the tin. You embark on a quest, you get companions, you get embroiled in intrigues big and small, you become everyone's favourite errand boy. The writing is great, the presentation for the most part is superb but there was one big issue here. Now it's common to run into games with performance issues on PC, the nature of the format can indeed give rise to such things. The advantage of console gaming on the other hand is that whilst you won't get the bleeding edge performance, you will nonetheless get stable, reliable performance. On my standard PS4 at least, this game runs like #?$. Just the poorest performance I've seen on a console port. Distractingly bad, game crushingly bad, just the worst. So yeah that did detract from the experience in a big way. Loaded it up on PS5 and the issues thankfully resolved but they are not getting a free pass for this version. Two frequent crashes out of five!
Paradise Killer (2022)
Next up is a game I may have bigged up around these here parts not so long ago. A surreal retro first person exploration murder mystery-a-thon. You play Lady Love Dies, a god in exile after previous misdemeanors but exile In this case is a luxury apartment suite located on a single strut that extends miles and miles above an extra-dimensional tropical island inhabited by other gods. It's this island where you will spend most of your time figuring out who killed a number of members of the ruling council of this island as everything and everyone was just getting ready to transcend into a new age or something like that. Yes that previous sentence got away from me but it definitely captures the feeling of the thing. It looks and sounds much like a mid-budget game from the PS2 era and it has a great soundtrack. It's a quirky, expressive gem of a game and one I immensely enjoyed. Five skeleton bartenders out of five!
Hard Reset Redux (2016)
No-frills cyberpunk first person shooter with minimal storytelling and maximum boom boom! Ok so that might be a touch too reductive as a summary of this game but I feel it sums it up pretty well for the most part. It's dark, it's grim, it's rainy, it's industrial. That game's palette is essentially shades of dark blue and grey with some splashes of neon thrown in. The core gameplay was solid, robust and reliable. Not the highest standard of gunplay I've seen in a FPS but a solid good time all the same. I had fun with this, played through to the end of the story and I probably won't pick it up again. Sometimes though, that's all you need. Three EMP bombs out of five!
Punch Club (2017)
Feel like a broken record with this line but this happens to be yet another game I started on Steam during the pandemic and decided to return to this year and play through the whole thing. 2D retro homage to 80's action movies with plenty of references from the pop culture of the period and a tight gameplay loop which sees you training up your would-be street fighter into a veritable badass. I had a decent time with his one, the game itself plays well and I got a kick out of how well the old-school aesthetic was captured here. On the flip side I feel that core game never really evolved too far beyond what is established in the first hour or two. Lots of repetitive button tapping that is endearing at first and then eventually starts to feel like they run out of ideas a bit too soon. Two and a half roundhouse kicks to the head out of five!
XCOM 2 (2016)
I may have mentioned around these parts just how big a fan I am of the modern take on XCOM. The 2012 reboot/remake is one of my all-time favorite games and I dread to think just how many hours I've sunk into it across multiple platforms. Now I had completed XCOM 2 prior to 2023 on Steam but I never got around to completing a run with The War of the Chosen expansion enabled. So this year I played the PS4 version with said DLC just to see how it stands up. In short, it stands up pretty well. At length, it adds some compelling new twists to what could be a brutally tense game at times. The core XCOM 2 experience was already a finely tuned response to the shortcomings of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and this expansion feels like it does much the same to the core XCOM 2 experience itself. If the base game feels like you're spinning just one too many plates at once, then the expansion adds a few saucers more. Now it would be nice if they could get around to an XCOM 3 some day soon but Marvel's Midnight Suns apparently didn't set the world on fire commercially so there may be more waiting on that front. Oh the rating? Five squad members cruelly cut down before their time out of five!
Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (2016)
It's Duke freaking Nukem! It's a game I've played through in one form or another multiple times over multiple decades. I played the original version, played the Atomic Edition, played the Megaton edition that came out about a decade ago and now I've played this 20 year anniversary edition. The main draw here being a new chapter with new levels designed by the original level designers. The original game still plays great and what improvementa there are have been respectfully integrated into the old game. It's a case study of solid gameplay trumping almost everything else. Yes you have to acknowledge that this is not the most progressive sense of humour on show here but nonetheless it never fails to crack me up (of all the failings of Duke Nukem Forever, it was their failure to deliver the humour that took it down for me). As for the new levels, it was genuinely an enjoyable experience for me seeing how the Build engine can still produce results after all this time. They can't quite outshine the original levels but that is a high standard to surpass in my view. Five shake it baby's out of five!
Tekken 7 (2017)
Tekken, the name itself evokes the glory days of the PS1 and PS2. 3D beat em ups hold a special place in the heart for most gamers of that sacred decade we call the 90's. They were games that seemed to capture something of the future at the time but soon dated in a major way if only graphically. Not all of the mainstays of that time remain with us but Tekken certainly. Tekken 7 is a smooth, fluid, intuitive ass-kicket of a game. It rewards a certain degree of mechanical skill but can also grant a good time to the most anarchic of button bashers. From the perspective of pure gameplay, it still has its own unique place amongst the big-hitters of the genre and it works well. As for the stories and the characters themselves? Well it doesn't help that I haven't really sunk much time into Tekken since the PS2 was a new and exciting console, so I was just baffled in a somewhat amicable way throughout the single player campaign. Also I realise celebrity cameos are all the rage in fighters these days but getting Negan in from The Walking Dead was just weird. Four inexplicable plot developments out of five!
Pony Island (2016)
Funny thing happened this year, I remembered I actually have a gaming PC. A gaming PC that has been somewhat neglected for the last year or two and a system which was decent for 2015 but a gaming PC nonetheless. So on the spur of the moment I loaded up Steam and played me some Pony Island. This is a unique experience, played from the perspective of someone playing a haunted game machine at an old arcade somewhere. What starts as simple platforming and puzzling soon reveals itself to be a battle for your very soul with whatever evil entity possesses this accursed hardware. It goes to extreme lengths to rig the game against you but you are not entirely alone in your fight either. The very code of the game itself becomes the battleground, just trying to select an option on the main menu screen becomes contested warfare. It's a novel, entertaining experience that's big on ideas and doesn't overstay it's welcome. I'm a big fan of this game, some of the ideas may be for a niche crowd but the confidence in the execution of it is to be applauded. Five screens of assembly code out of five!
The Beginner's Guide (2015)
Still on my PC here, I moved on to another random title in the Steam library which caught the eye. This is a follow up to The Stanley Parable (more on that later) and whilst not played for laughs in the way we saw there, this is another curious and singular take on the more meta aspects of videogames. What starts as a retrospective on the life's work of a small time hobbyist videogame maker by the maker of The Stanley Parable turns in on itself and becomes something more introspective. I found this to be a curious title big on idiosyncracy and the nuances of the creative process. Much like Stanley, I can't say I've played anything else quite like this. As one person reflects on the impact they have had on another and comes to a realisation about their own life's work in the process. It's a mature and thoughtful work, can't say I prefer it to it's predecessor and much like that game it's more narrative than game but this is well worth checking out. Four unfinished levels out of five!
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019)
Take your average Soulsborne-like game with all the difficulty and skill required for such an experience. Subtract a bunch of your typical RPG elements, maybe touch down the difficulty just a smidge, remove most of the fantasy elements and add a whole lot of Star Wars and you arrive at something like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. It's been a while since I played a Star Wars game and even longer since I played one I really liked. This game was tremendous on all fronts even with the difficulty curve that comes with games of this type. With skill and timing the combat hits its groove and feels great. The story is one of the better ones Star Wars has come out with in many a year and altogether the package is one of the best AAA games I've played in quite some time. Between this, Titanfall and Apex Legends, Respawn Entertainment might just be my favourite studio in action today even though they haven't given the world Titanfall 3 yet. Five Jedi mind tricks out of five!
Mad Max (2015)
It's curious that there haven't been more attempts to translate Mad Max from film to game. Post-apocalyptic setting, crazy mobs of feral lunatics, vehicular combat and plenty of resource management. It feels like all the ingredients are there but despite this, the series gets little exposure in the interactive space. This one came out not long after what might be my personal favourite cinema experience of the last 10-15 years, that being Mad Max: Fury Road. I love that film but curiously it's influence is not hugely felt in this game outside the visuals and some of the enemy designs. It's an open world drive and survive experience with plenty of explosions and in that sense, it's a job well done. The driving has a really solid feel to it, as does the combat. There are some colourfully over the top personalities here but nothing that eclipses the film that casts a rather large over it. It's that kind of mid-budget game that we don't see so much of in the modern era. It's a game that over delivers on modest ambitions. I liked it but I really wanted to love it. Four Road Warriors out of five!
Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition (2022)
From one cinematic translation to another, this is another one of those games that reminds me just how ancient I am. I happen to have played this game on its original release back in the late nineties and to be sure that original release still holds a special place in my heart. Indeed Blade Runner itself might be my all-time favourite film. Shame really, as this was not a stellar update this game deserved really. What was an atmospheric point and clock adventure based on said film has been updated but only in the most cursory sense. It runs on modern platforms on modern displays and that's about it. The backdrops still look great but the characters that inhabit this world barely look like they belong there. Muddy low resolution graphics have had the minimum of touch up work done on them and it painfully shows. I know a lot of the original assets were lost when Westwood Studios (RIP!) closed up shop but this game deserved better than this. Two skin jobs out of five!
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (2022)
Another advantage of taking ages to get around to playing some of my games is that by the time I get to them, they sometimes have a snazzy new edition to play them on. Such was the case with the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection for the PS5. Not that 2016-17 was ages ago but it's clearly long enough for some games to get the deluxe upscale and performance boost treatment. Naughty Dog have a well deserved reputation for quality and excellence in the videogame industry and those qualities shine through here in this collection. Nathan Drake and company travel the globe in search of treasure and adventure, quipping aplenty at each other and laying waste to the global supply of private mercenaries in the process. It's not in the description where these games excel as much as it is in the smooth, flawless execution of the entire thing. The combat, the traversal, the sheer gorgeous look of the entire thing. It's action adventure in the best possible sense of the term but without the story and character development getting short shrift. Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy are excellent games excellently upgraded for the current console generation. Five death-defying escapes from flaming wreckage out of five!
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… (2021)
Wasn't entirely sure what I was signing up for when I picked this game next. Wasn't entirely sure about it whilst I was playing it and having completed it I'm still of a mixed opinion about the whole thing. A reissue of a game from over a decade ago but a reissue of the Japanese version of that game before it was adjusted for the Western audience of the time. A hack and slash combat RPG that plays it's cards close to the chest for most of it's playtime before revealing all in the last 10-20 minutes of it. It's not a bad game as such. It still certainly feels like a game of it's time what with an open world structure that feels a bit too empty even for something that's supposed to be desolate. The combat is fine but the core gameplay is really lacking a certain something for a game that lasts dozens of hours. The game doesn't dish out it's revelations until the end and I wonder if a more well paced story might have helped here. There's enough here to make me check out the acclaimed sequel but as for this game AI doubt I'll ever return to it. Three foul-mouthed RPG companions out of five!
Hypnospace Outlaw (2020)
Picture the internet of the mid to late 90's in all it's primitive but endearing glory. Now imagine an alternate history scenario where that self same Internet is visited only in your dreams and someone has to monitor and police the whole mess that results from this idea. Someone who is also navigating corporate intrigue within the company that developed this whole system to begin with. This is Hypnospace Outlaw and I was really impressed by this game. You largely spend your time surfing this space whilst on the lookout for those who breach it's rules. Copyright infringement, inappropriate content, threatening behaviour and the such like. There is a real love to the design of the whole thing, based as it is in the early versions of Windows and Internet Explorer. The Geocities and the AOL's of yesteryear get the same ironic but nostalgic treatment as well. Whilst it doesn't always play the smoothest and some of the transgressions were a little obscure for me, this game is a real triumph of ideas and concept in my view. A love letter to a bygone era for those who lived through it and a reminder why we wouldn't want to go back. Five Chowder Men out of five!
The Messenger (2018)
Speaking of love letters to the past, this one is very much an ode to the 8-bit and 16-bit platformers of the late eighties and early nineties. Yes those Metroidvania senses are tingling again as we fight, jump, and upgrade our way to greater and greater access through an ever expanding game world. The games fundamentals are solid and it's tone of self-aware humour hits the mark more than it doesn't. The plot plays around with expectations in an entertaining way and you feel a decent sense of accomyas you expand your set of abilities. Some of the difficulty spikes were a bit much for me however and some time was wasted in search of the tools and prompts needed to proceed to new areas of the game. So it's not a whole hearted endorsement from me but I liked it nonetheless. Three flying shurikens out of five!
That's it for the second part of my end year reflections. I'm going to leave you all now to go enjoy your yuletide celebrations and I will be back before New Year with the third and final part of this great work. Merry Christmas all!
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