27th January 2024, 9:55 AM
(This post was last modified: 27th January 2024, 9:56 AM by Sacred Jellybean.)
PREFACE: after I wrote this, I realized that not a single one of these games was released this year. So this is just a ranking of games I've played.
Mine would probably go to Control. Can't remember what else I played tbh. Perhaps a replay of Ori and the Blind Forest. I'd actually put that above Control, because I loved both the smooth gameplay and the story. Control was packed with just a bit too much lore for my taste. Not that it detracted from the gameplay... just not super into a convoluted story that makes you piece together its plot by finding and reading through a hundred documents scattered throughout the game.
Special Mention to Super Mario World 3D. Best Mario game I've played since the first Galaxy.
I played so few games that I can probably just list them out here.
Perfect Dark and Goldeneye, which were both fun to revisit. I completed the PD campaign, but most of my time was sunk into the Combat Simulator. Was glad to recovery my save files from back in the day, which I thought were lost to the ether.
Um... I played an hour of Body Harvest on N64, which was decent, but clunky by today's standards. Still neat to see a primitive GTA style world.
Maybe four hours of Turok 2. Not as fun as I thought it'd be. I cheated my way through because the game is just as much of a struggle as when I was 14, or whenever I played it. Cheating made it easy which was fun for the novelty of blasting through enemies with an array of cool guns, but the gameplay really just isn't that good. Too dated probably. It felt repetitive to run through environments that just felt like copy-and-pastes of earlier environments. Walk through this area, kill enemies, flip this switch, figure what opened up... I mean, that's reductive enough to describe a lot of great games, so I suppose T2's implementation was simply underwhelming.
Maybe two hours of Glover on N64, which sucked. It's unfortunate because it's a cool concept, and hard to nail down exactly why it sucks. Poor controls? Boring premise? idk. I think it's neat to play as a hand that can perform platforming tricks and attack enemies, but this game just falls on its face.
Super Mario RPG, which I've ranted about and said all that was necessary.
Various forgettable Genesys games. Gunstar Heroes is still cool. Toejam and Earl 1 is meh. Its sequel is fun, but suffers from the same tedious repetition as Turok 2. I love Light Crusader a lot and started a replay of that to kill time on a trip.
A touch of a replay of Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, for the same reason as Light Crusader.
idk man I know there was more but I'm too lazy to go downstairs and fire up the consoles.
No current-gen systems: PS4 and Switch are good enough for me. I ain't made of money, yo. Aren't those fuckers like upwards of a thousand bucks these days? I could drop that on other cool shit, like 20-25 PS4 and Switch games. They're still fun, and latest-gen systems seems like such an incremental improvement over their predecessors that I just don't see the point. Seems like a racket these days just to get you to drop more money on marginally better technology. At least Nintendo is trying to innovate in this area.
Did not play Tears of the Kingdom or the sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn, despite my adoration of their predecessors. Once you sink in 100+ hours into a game, there's just no revisiting them.
Oh, OH! Now I remember. I sunk in an inordinate amount of time into Subnautica. As much as I loved Control, I think this edges it out. I put more hours into that game than any other in my entire life, possibly 150. I love ocean life, and it was extra cool to play a conception of sea creatures on an alien planet. I'm not usually one for sandbox games, but that one blew me away.
I started writing a review of it here, but it really deserves its own thread, so I'll make one later. Which I've intended to do for months. :)
Hmm... a replay of Axiom Verge, which still owns bones.
Yeah, that's all I can remember of this year. Not a bad year, all told.
Mine would probably go to Control. Can't remember what else I played tbh. Perhaps a replay of Ori and the Blind Forest. I'd actually put that above Control, because I loved both the smooth gameplay and the story. Control was packed with just a bit too much lore for my taste. Not that it detracted from the gameplay... just not super into a convoluted story that makes you piece together its plot by finding and reading through a hundred documents scattered throughout the game.
Special Mention to Super Mario World 3D. Best Mario game I've played since the first Galaxy.
I played so few games that I can probably just list them out here.
Perfect Dark and Goldeneye, which were both fun to revisit. I completed the PD campaign, but most of my time was sunk into the Combat Simulator. Was glad to recovery my save files from back in the day, which I thought were lost to the ether.
Um... I played an hour of Body Harvest on N64, which was decent, but clunky by today's standards. Still neat to see a primitive GTA style world.
Maybe four hours of Turok 2. Not as fun as I thought it'd be. I cheated my way through because the game is just as much of a struggle as when I was 14, or whenever I played it. Cheating made it easy which was fun for the novelty of blasting through enemies with an array of cool guns, but the gameplay really just isn't that good. Too dated probably. It felt repetitive to run through environments that just felt like copy-and-pastes of earlier environments. Walk through this area, kill enemies, flip this switch, figure what opened up... I mean, that's reductive enough to describe a lot of great games, so I suppose T2's implementation was simply underwhelming.
Maybe two hours of Glover on N64, which sucked. It's unfortunate because it's a cool concept, and hard to nail down exactly why it sucks. Poor controls? Boring premise? idk. I think it's neat to play as a hand that can perform platforming tricks and attack enemies, but this game just falls on its face.
Super Mario RPG, which I've ranted about and said all that was necessary.
Various forgettable Genesys games. Gunstar Heroes is still cool. Toejam and Earl 1 is meh. Its sequel is fun, but suffers from the same tedious repetition as Turok 2. I love Light Crusader a lot and started a replay of that to kill time on a trip.
A touch of a replay of Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, for the same reason as Light Crusader.
idk man I know there was more but I'm too lazy to go downstairs and fire up the consoles.
No current-gen systems: PS4 and Switch are good enough for me. I ain't made of money, yo. Aren't those fuckers like upwards of a thousand bucks these days? I could drop that on other cool shit, like 20-25 PS4 and Switch games. They're still fun, and latest-gen systems seems like such an incremental improvement over their predecessors that I just don't see the point. Seems like a racket these days just to get you to drop more money on marginally better technology. At least Nintendo is trying to innovate in this area.
Did not play Tears of the Kingdom or the sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn, despite my adoration of their predecessors. Once you sink in 100+ hours into a game, there's just no revisiting them.
Oh, OH! Now I remember. I sunk in an inordinate amount of time into Subnautica. As much as I loved Control, I think this edges it out. I put more hours into that game than any other in my entire life, possibly 150. I love ocean life, and it was extra cool to play a conception of sea creatures on an alien planet. I'm not usually one for sandbox games, but that one blew me away.
I started writing a review of it here, but it really deserves its own thread, so I'll make one later. Which I've intended to do for months. :)
Hmm... a replay of Axiom Verge, which still owns bones.
Yeah, that's all I can remember of this year. Not a bad year, all told.