I beat nearly 180 games last year, this year will probably not be so prolific, but we'll see.
JANUARY:
#1: Kelvin & the Infamous Machine (5 hours) - A point n click adventure about travelling back in time to help historical inventors and creators after a mad scientist takes credit for most of their work. Sort of like Time Squad the Game. The humor is just kind of ehh.. to people who could use this info, there's no button to show all the hotspots, but they're easy enough to spot, and you can double click exits to warp there.
#2: Another Lost Phone (2 hours) - While the subject matter of the first Lost Phone is more near and dear to me, Another Lost Phone has a more gripping narrative that unfolds a lot more organically. It seems they really took a lot of feedback to heart from the original.
#3: Ara Fell (15 hours) - Very competent RPG Maker game that manages to have a very luscious aesthetic despite using stock assets (the profile art could be improved, however). I wouldn't put this at the top of the RPG Maker list, however.
#4: Old Man's Journey (2 hours) - Sidescrolling walking simulator where you raise/lower terrain to help an old man on his journey. Relaxing game.
#5: Cat Quest (8-10 hours) - I played the iOS version, which wisely opts for point and click combat rather than a virtual controller. The nature of the game and its simplified systems works pretty well in a pick-up-and-play mobile format.
#6: Miss Fisher's Deathly Maze Episode 1 (2 hours) - Here's a cool little iOS game, it's a detective game based on a series of media but also HEAVILY inspired by Phoenix Wright. While it doesn't have cross-examinations, it has many other similarities, from the sound design to the text effects, and the general interface is very similar. This game is coming to Steam and will probably be the best Wrightlike there (though I do like Aviary Attorney).
#7: Alphadia Genesis (18 hours) - Bog standard JRPG by Kemco, the masters of bog standard JRPGs.
#8: The House of Da Vinci (5-6 hours) - The Room-inspired puzzle game full of switches and toggles and hidden compartments. If you've played The Room games, you know what you're getting here.
#9: Xanadu Next (10 hours) - Falcom's Not-Ys, a dungeon crawler in a small, interconnected world, with the looting->levelling->shortcut unlocking kind of loop that Souls games have, just transposed to a more arcadey-action style (though nowhere near as uptempo as the Ys series).
#10: Midnight at the Celestial Palace (2 hours) - First part of a planned musical adventure trilogy. Yes, it has songs.
#11: Yume Nikki (4 hours) - Surreal dream-like game from a decade ago made in RPG Maker. Has something new coming out in the future apparently!!
#12: Leaving Lyndow (half hour) - Short little walking sim about a woman leaving her community behind to go explore the unknown. Very pretty, not much in the way of content, just looking at the sights and chilling out.
#13: Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet (4-5 hours) - Charming self-aware Monkey Island knockoff with a bit of a odd artstyle but it means well.
#14: Miss Fisher's Deathly Maze Ep. 2: Cleopatra's Curse (2.5 hours) - A bit of a meatier episode that hops back and forth between investigations in a sea-side town, and investigations in Melbourne. The mystery ultimately doesn't have much in the way of twists and turns, but is compelling in the sense that the main character is distracted and trying not to get involved (and then ultimately getting involved).
#15: ICEY (3-4 hours) - Devil May Cry sidescroller meets Stanley Parable. Not the greatest dub or localization, of a story that tries to be both wacky comedic but also have serious Cthulhu mythos.
FEBRUARY
#16: Skylar & Plux (2 hours) - A surprisingly decent Ratchet & Clank knockoff, whose main crime is being ridiculously short. Despite its generic characters that border on obnoxious, the level design is pretty impressive.
#17: The Room 4: Old Sins (5-6 hours) - Wonderful sequel in the Room series. It'll be done while I'm in bed playing it so I'm pre-emptively putting it in here.
#18: The Perils of Man (3-4 hours) - 3D point n click adventure with time travelling (but not to famous history, just in service of plot). It was not bad! A little jank, and some odd looking cutscenes.
#19: Black Sails: Ghost Ship (4-5 hours) - Point n click adventure that is interesting but ultimately average, with very conventional plot twists.
#20: Fire Emblem Heroes Book 1 (10~ hours) - I didn't have to spend a cent!
#21: Mega Man Battle Network 1 (12 hours) - Hoo boy, okay, the first half of the game is very enjoyable, but Escape being a chip rather than an always ability makes the second half of the game a chore. So many unnecessary battles with trash enemies!!
#22: Golf Story (10 hours) - Very enjoyable golf game... Dunno if I like this or Hot Shots Vita more, but this one I actually finished. Pretty easy, though, outside of a couple of side quests. Beat the final tournament by four strokes. Chipping is crazy good in this game.
#23: The Fidelio Incident (2 hours) - Very pretty walking simulator where you fight through the cold to save your wife. It plays up a couple of tropes that would lead to a typical twist, but then go a different direction. It's still not AMAZING but it at least didn't resort to the really predictable walking simulator plot reveals, and it's nice to look at.
#24: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (15 hours) - Should be done before I go to sleep tonight... It's a quality followup to the self-titled, and seems to have a branching path with different missions based on who you follow. It doesn't do the "talk to the player as a tactician" thing, which is fine with me because I thought that was weird anyway (yeah I know Robin is basically the same thing in Awakening). I ultimately wish that the armories stocked better gear.
MARCH:
#25: Matterfall (3 hours) - Well, this was a disappointment, I have to say. Sorry, Housemarque but you whiffed on this one. Style over substance all the way, with cumbersome controls, a real lack of enemy variety, and levels that go on for way too long for how little the game spices things up.
#26: PSVR Demo Disc 2 (2 hours) - A collection of small portions of full(?)-priced VR games. It came with the PSVR on a disc, so I'm counting it as one singular game.
#27: Jeanne D'Arc (25 hours) - Level 5's one and only SRPG, it's a good one. A little too reliant on making you grind if you don't have the perfect group.
#28: Weeping Doll (1 hour) - VR horror trash
#29: Dying Reborn VR (1 hour) - VR horror trash
#30: The Last Guardian VR (10 minutes) - A little VR plaything where you say hi to Trico and throw food barrels to him.
#31: Arc the Lad (9-10 hours) - Kind of weird little Active SRPG, also bizarrely short compared to its much longer sequels. Almost rudimentary to the point of being simpler than early Fire Emblem.
#32: PSVR Worlds: Scavenger's Odssey (1.5 hour) - Mechwalking-simulator.. okay there's a tiny amount of action too. The amount of gravity-defiance made for a very dizzying experience.
#33: Tearaway (4-5 hours) - Wonderful game from Media Molecule, easily their best.
#34: PSVR Worlds: The London Heist (1/2 hour) - The 'action' game on the PSVR Worlds collection, it's very silly and a dumb as fuck plot. I was very impressed by the expressiveness of the character models.
#35: PSVR Worlds: Ocean Descent (1/2 hour) - More of a 'movie ride' than a game, a shark attacks you as someone talks to you through an intercom about some plot that has no relevance to anything.
#36: STATIK (3 hours) - Your VR hands are stuck inside of puzzle boxes. Should scratch the "The Room" kind of itch, but without the millions of tiny secret drawers.
#37: Eight Ball (many many tries) - Literally a pinball machine in my apartment's basement. I thought there was more to the table but it turns out there's not since it's from the solid state era.
#38: Conceptis Fill-a-Pix (many hours) - My 'going to sleep' game. I solved all the F2P puzzles which is enough to call this beaten.
#39: Adventure Time: Finn & Jake Investigations (6-7 hrs) - Sort of like if early-era Telltale made an Adventure Time game. Similar to the Sam & Max series. Not super funny and not super difficult either but it's alright. The combat sections are HORRIBLE though.
#40: Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom (16 hrs) - Somewhat breezy but just average 3D JRPG with fighting game combat, deviantart character design, and a bafflingly obtuse story with an even more baffling ending.
APRIL:
#41: Infamous First Light (3-4hrs) - Very enjoyable compact little superhero game. Not sure why the low metacritic score. I thought it was fun, pretty, and engaging. Maybe the skill trees aren't the best, but, eh.
#42: Shadwen (5-6 hours) - Stealth puzzle game where time freezes when you aren't moving. You can also rewind time. The general gist is to escort a child from point A to point B without being caught or seeing all the murder you're doing to clear a path. It's just okay and the levels get really samey after a while.
#43: Watch_Dogs 1 (15 hours) - What a mess of a game this was. A lot of good and bad ideas that do not come together. The constant chase sequences are awful awful awful. Reducing hacking to just a door unlock device is so uninspired as well.
#44: Minecraft Story Mode Episode 1: (2.5hr) - I debated whether I'd count individual episodes of Telltale games as their own game, until I saw above that I already did that for Miss Fisher, so here we are. This series seems more tailored for kids than all ages, and it has really weird ass combat. I'm not sure whether I will continue or not.
#45: The Order 1886 (6 hours) - Another trashy mess but at least it's beautiful as fuck.
#46: The Park (1.5 hours) - Trashy walking sim spun off from The Secret World. It's a bit mystifying that the people who made TSW made this, as TSW is generally praised solely for its storytelling, and the story in The Park is a long fart.
#47: The Inpatient (2.5 hours) - Vaguely branching VR horror game by the makers of Until Dawn. Thankfully, despite being in an asylum, it does not become an Outlast-style tropefest. I liked it, although the ending left something to be desired.
#48: Batman: Arkham Knight (15 hours) - Improved gameplay and traversal from City, awful awful awful awful awful awful awful story.
#49: Dragon Quest Heroes (20 hours) - Action-heavy Musou game... not much in the way of strategy or territorial control in this one. Definitely not for everyone.
#50: The Invisible Hours (4 hours) - Wonderful walking simulator, combining the mechanics of Tacoma with a murder mystery. Apparently this is by the makers of The Sexy Brutale?? I'll have to play that too.
#51: Phil's Epic Fill-a-Pix Adventure (many hours) - Despite its low budget presentation, this is a very good collection of fill-a-pix puzzles and I'll miss it now that I've finished it.
#52: The Evil Within (13 hours) - Yes, there's a lot of bullshit and insta-kills in the game, but I still enjoyed the Evil Within quite a bit.
MAY:
#53: The Last of Us Remastered (10 hours) - This was just eh. I actually don't think it was a very good game. The stealth is awful, the guns feel awful, every character other than Ellie is awful, and the story is (intentionally) dissatisfying.
#54: Kamiko (1 hour)
#55: Prey (16 hours) - The ending may have been dumb, but wow what a game. What a great game!!
#56: Gravity Rush Remastered (8 hours) - Interesting, flawed game. I'm curious to see how the sequel improves on it.
#57: Splatoon 2 SP (5-6 hours) - A lot like Splatoon 1 SP but with a few more design wrinkles to the levels.
#58: Yakuza Kiwami (18 hours) - What a fun fun game! My first Yakuza game and I picked a good one to start with. Majima Anywhere was a great concept.
#59: DuckTales (1 hour) - The original NES game! Yeah I'm going through the Disney Afternoon Collection now.
#60: Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers (1 hour) - There's really not a whole lot to this game, it's pretty bare bones and just a simple sidescroller. I do like the idea of throwing balls at bosses though.
#61: Tailspin (1 hour) - Okay this one is fucking weeeeeeird. A shmup where you have to upgrade twice to have the ability to rapid fire, where you can shoot diagonally (and sometimes have to against bosses), and you can turn around LITERALLY by flying upsidedown.
#62: Darkwing Duck (1.5 hour) - Basically reskinned Mega Man.
#63: The Sexy Brutale (5 hours) - Really cool time-loop murder prevention game. Reminded me of Ghost Trick a little, but without the possession aspect.
#64: Cursed Castilla (2.5 hours) - Ghosts & Goblins style game, originally a free game by Locomalito but remastered for Steam with additional fixins.
#65: DuckTales 2 (1 hour) - More of the same but looks nicer.
#66: Chip & Dale 2 (.5 hour) - See above.
#67: Implosion (6 hours) - Splashy top down action game... a bit low budget so the mechanics are not very deep, but it was enjoyable enough for a bedtime Switch game.
#68: Dishonored 2 (13-15hrs) - I'll need to think more about whether the first or second game is superior. I think the second game is very good, and has interesting setpieces, although the mission design isn't QUITE as strong.
#69(nice): Fallout 4 (20 hrs) - An extremely 'more of the same' Fallout with dumbed down dialog and paths. Very few vaults :(
JUNE:
#70: Observer (5-6 hours) - Mostly okay game from the makers of the not very good Layers of Fear. The detective stuff was fun. The trippy sequences were bog standard.
#71: LEGO City Undercover (15 hours) - I wish this was better.... bleh.
#72: Samus Returns (8 hours) - Fuck yeah. Third best 2D Metroid behind Super Metroid and Zero Mission.
#73: Tom Clancy's The Division (25 hours) - Ugh... fuck lootgrind games, and especially fuck playing them solo.
#74: Snipperclips (2 hours) - This on the other hand I played co-op with my roommate and had a blast!
#75: Sonic Mania (3 hours) - It's soooo good but I wish the co-op was better than "bye Tails". Split screen that shit!!
#76: Uncharted 4 (10 hours) - What a blast! Just the thing I needed after my soul-sucking experience with The Division.
#77: Theatrhythm (5 hours) - Cute little music game. This wasn't Curtain Call so the 'campaign' as it were is pretty limited.
#78: Destiny (8 hours) - Now this was a fun game and didn't punish me for being underleveled. Once I did the campaign, however, I deleted it (70 gigs!!!)
#79: Moon Hunters (1 hour) - Roguelite game, beat it, dont care about beating it further times.
#80: Splasher (5 hours) - Platformer by the designer of Rayman Legends, with very similar game DNA. Very excellent.
#81: Torin's Passage (4 hours) - lol what a stupid game, fuck you Sierra
#82: D the Game (2 hours) - FMV game from the 3DO by the late Kenji Eno. I played the scanlined-as-hell PC version PUBLISHED BY ACCLAIM (RIP).
#83: Steamworld Heist (9.5 hours) - Active Control SRPG but in 2D.. essentially plays like a mix of Valkyria Chronicles and Worms. Super good, and doesn't overstay its welcome.
#84: Dying Light (12 hours) - Spiritual parkour successor to Dead Island, better than Dead Island in a lot of ways... no fast travel was a real buzzkill, as were the forced zombie encounters in story missions.
#85: Black the Fall (3 hours) - Out of this World style game, also inspired by Limbo/Inside. Doesn't stand out from those games but I liked the atmosphere.
#86: THOR.N (45 minutes) - Small walking simulator about the gamification of society -- was a Humble Original.
#87: Stray Cat Crossing (2 hours) - Small little walky game made in RPG Maker. No real strong feelings about it.
JULY:
#88: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit (1 hour) - I am really, really tired of seeing shitty single/widowed dads in video games.
#89: Hidden Agenda (2 hours) - Oh boy, another story where we show how crazy a villain is by having him
fuck off Supermassive
#90: Until Dawn (8 hours) - I've now completed the Supermassive trilogy and I'm convinced these people only know how to direct. They can't write for shit.
#91: RUINER (4 hours) - A dang good time, doesn't overstay its welcome, nice and splashy.
#92: Resident Evil HD (10 hours) - Jill defeated all the zombies and they died forever the end. Chris was saved but he's dumb.
#93: Infamous Second Son (8 hours) - Very fun to play superhero game, with a Native American protag!! I think I liked First Light's tight focus more though.
#94: Rhiannon (7 hours) - Goofy low-budget Myst style game.
#95: Bear With Me (6 hours) - Three-part point n click adventure.
#96: Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon (5 hours) - Silly fun that I should definitely have not played solo. It's meant for co-op.
#97: Hustle Cat (3 hours) - VN about a cat cafe where people turn into cats. It's pretty goofy. I went down the Finley route.
#98: SiN (8 hours) - That was a weird game. A 1998 shooter that FELT 1998. For better or worse.
#99: SiN Episodes (2.5 hours) - Unlike the first game, this was a clear Half Life 2 knockoff. Which, to be fair, I'm totally into. But it shows its age bigtime. And like HL2 Episodes, it was never finished.
#100: Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within (10 hours) - One of the all-time point'n'click classics, the story has aged horribly and... well.... it's just really bad. And the acting! The ACTING!
#101: Mass Effect Andromeda (16-17 hours) - Honestly? This was alright. Not $60 alright, but good for the price I paid.
#102: Spycraft: The Great Game (5-6 hours) - It's not a GREAT game as it says on the box. But it's a fun game with trashy FMV where you do CIA stuff in a vaguely 90s web-browser looking interface... it's the kind of game Activision would never do now.
#103: Hidden: On the Trail of the Ancients (3-4 hours) - Mediocre Myst-style game that ends unfinished. Oops!
#104: Jackbox Party Pack 4 (endless) - Played just about every game on there. We actually did pretty well with Survive the Internet, but Fibbage is the star of the show.
#105: Cold Fear (6 hours) - RE4 on a boat. Yeah, RE Revelations did that too. And better.
#106: The Count Lucanor (3-4 hours) - Spooky top-down stealth fairy tale.
#107: Ahnayro: The Dream World (10-11 hours) - ARG-ish Steam game that involves a lot of googling and research to solve puzzles.
#108: Emily is Away 2 (2 hours) - Teens using AIM Simulator.
#109: Quiet City (5 minutes) - Yes, a 5 minute Humble Original. You walk around interacting with hotspots and that's it.
#110: A2Be (1/2 hour) - A VN Humble Original. It was very buggy and kind of a knockoff of that old CFB animated short about teleportion.
#111: Pocket Kingdom (4-5 hours) - Block pushing puzzle game with very very vague metroidy ability gating. VERY SLIGHT.
AUGUST:
#112: Red Faction (8 hours) - The original game, PS2 version... boy aiming was a hell of a lot different in the PS2 era! A lot WORSE kind of different.
#113: The 11th Hour (9 hours) - Maybe one of the worst first person adventure games I've ever played.
#114: Dead Secret (2 hours) - A breezy first person adventure spoop where you solve a murder case as a killer chases you around.
#115: Azure Striker Gunvolt (6 hours) - Another Inti-Creates Megaman-style jam.. this one was pretty darn fun, with a really bad story and a bad nonbinary stereotype character. I imagine the second game is better, and people say Burst is pretty good so I'll stay on this series for sure.
#116: Barrow Hill: The Dark Path (4 hours) - Surprisingly short followup to the original Barrow Hill game. The updated engine made the game feel a lot more like a Hidden Object Game without the hidden objects. The original, despite the jank, was a better trashy first person adventure.
#117: Subnautica (38 hours) - Ohh boy was I addicted to this one. But I'm glad I've finished it because the frustrations were really starting to mount up. The amount of pop-in is unforgivable, but even moreso is the amount of times I fell through the world. What the heck!!! Unknown Worlds more like Unknown Geometry.
#118: A Hat in Time (8 hours) - What a wonderful game! Don't buy it, JonTron is a piece of shit.
#119: Drill Dozer (7 hours) - A delightful Metroid-lite game from Game Freak (I call it Metroid-lite because it has-- LITERAL!!-- gear-gating in each level).
#120: Bleed 2 (1 hour) - Fantastic sequel to a massively underrated XBLIG gem.
#121: Sublevel Zero (2 hours) - Quenched my Descent thirst... for now. Beat on the second run, the levels were too samey to want to do another run to see the additional content.
#122: Knee Deep (3 hours) - Flawed but interesting interactive story game with a "stage play" aethetic. Really goes to sillytown in the third act.
NEXT:
Soma Spirits: Rebalance
Project Snowblind
ON THE SHELF:
Republique Remastered (finished episode 1, need to switch over from laptop to desktop before playing more, performance issues)
Hellblade (ongoing, need to be in a certain mood to play it)
NOT REALLY GAMES:
XX: Alumette & Invasion - Two animated short films made for VR by different studios. Invasion is also available in 360 video and is mostly designed like that, while Alumette has more of a space to explore.
