Be Excellent To Each Other

Finished 2024 on 57. It helps that I'm constantly reviewing absolute tat.

1 - Peglin (Switch). Fun little Peggle-ish roguelike. Still lots more to do on it but I finished a run so I'm taking that as a completion.

1) Resident Evil 4 Remake (PSVR)

Yeah, I played the lot in VR. And, by jove, if I didn’t bloody take my time and enjoy very second of it. 20 hours in a virtual environment and it was 100% fun times. Gotta be the best VR game I’ve ever played, except for co-op Crossfire. Fuck me, I love Crossfire in co-op. But, hey, Resi single player is where it’s at.

You know what, this is a cheat, but we don't play enough games to complete so I'm going to put it in here.

1) Jenny LeClue: Detectivu - bought this based on the name alone as Mimi said elsewhere and it's a very easy going puzzle game where you walk through the various scenes, interact with characters and look for clues to help solve your first real case.
There is a meta aspect that this is all being written by a novelist who is being forced to make changes to his plot by the publisher.
Honestly, such fun and a good 20 or so hours of easy gaming

2 - Brotato: Abyssal Terrors DLC. I had planned to play through some full retail games at Xmas (inc. Resi 4 Remake) but then they dropped this DLC. A load more new characters to play through and beat on the hardest difficulty. A lot of fun but very time consuming. I love it though. Brotato might be my favourite ever game.

3 - Dead Island 2. I liked it a lot. Played the whole thing in co-op which helped.

2) Lies of P (Xbox)

It “feels” exactly like a Sekisoulsborne game. Like, exactly. It could literally have been made by Fromsoftware from running with the B button, the speed of the running and walking, the speed of ladder climbing, eats, etc etc. The levels are mainly linear with some off shoots and circling back to a bonfire and all that. I don’t think there are any secret levels like you’d get in a Fromsoft game, mind, or at least I never found any.

It’s a weird mix of Dark Souls but with Sekiro parry combat, well, as long as you engage with the parry system but you can almost play it like a vanilla Dark Souls game. Almost - cause some bosses are fucking annoying and will kick your sweet ass unless you start parrying their string of combos. There’s no shield to speak of and it does the Bloodborne thing where any blocked attacks take health off your chap unless you deal damage shortly after to get your health back. Unless you do a parry and you get no damage off and can stagger them if you do it enough and do a hard hit, like Sekiro. It works but it feel intuitive after a few hours. You just get into a rhythm and enjoy it as any good Dark Souls game.

…about Pinocchio, for some reason.

Anyway, it’s rock hard for a Soulsborne game, more like Bloodborne than anything else. It’s proper good and probably the best Souls-like there ever was cause it feels Fromsoft-like.

…for 95% of the game. I’m sorry but for the final area they just shit the bed. Too hard, too boring, and a couple of lengthy runs through mobs of spongy enemies that aren’t much fun to fight against. The same old dickheads keep showing up and it’s boring. An area with all the enemies that do the acid attack? Sure. An area with all the fencing guys? Sure. Just lots of cut and paste stuff that’s not much fun.

I’ll tell you what makes it not a Fromsoft game? No matter what game I’d want to clear out EVERY. SINGLE. AREA. I can’t move on until everyone is dead at least once and I’ve explored as much as possible. And I was doing this for every level up until this final area when I started just running past guys to get to the checkpoint so I can get it over with. Lengthy runs with cheap areas filled with cheap dickheads.

Which is a bit of a shame cause it has some good bosses in this area. I especially liked the woman knight on the bridge and even the final boss with his absolutely crackers introduction to his second phase! Bloody ace that was. UNTIL THE FINAL-FINAL BOSS. All of a sudden, there’s a guy who has all of the games weapons, randomly changing back and forth, making it extremely hard to read the moves and they take away the ability to call in co-op help (always AI controlled, cause there’s no online). Absolutely fucked me. And of course he’s got a second stage where he’s even quicker and cuntier. I got real bored and opted to give the main baddie my bits and just got the shit ending. I’ve saved it so I could go back but why bother when I could get on with my life and watch the other endings on YouTube.

And I was thinking about this boss for a couple of days since calling it quits. It just wasn’t smart and satisfying like the final boss (Isshin?) of Sekiro. You’d learn Isshin’s three sets of moves and if you got it all lined up perfectly you could split him down the middle in no time. It was fair and it was a beautiful sword fight. Lies of P’s final boss is just another puppet. He comes out of nowhere and you fight him in this boring unattractive grey stone walled arena. He’s boring to fight and the second phase feels very unfair as he dashes around with barely any change for a damaging input. I had loads of these star things that could call in a coop helper but it just says nah, get fucked, so I noped out. What a shame. But hey, that’s less than 1% of the whole game and was optional so… fuck it.

3) Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (PS)

Some of the best world building ever made. From the tops of the mountains to the under the sea coffin graveyard thing, it’s all so beautiful. How it’s all connected is a delight and after god knows how many hours playing the thing I’m still in awe at how this is “just” DLC and not Elden Ring 2. It’s an unbelievable accomplishment. There’s surprisingly few places where you just fight one guy and fuck off either, which I liked too. It just seemed like padding. There’s not that many dungeons either with the recycled wallpaper, which I also liked. There’s only a few but the rest of the dungeons are decent affairs. The top left of the map is ace, the bottom right is ace, the bottom left, not so much, the top right is ace, the middle is good, that bit over there, going down them bits. Mwah. Chefs kiss.

A few quick moans. I don’t understand the story and feel much less connected to it than, say, Dark Souls. I don’t know what it is, but the story and the characters just don’t pull me in like a good old Dark Souls game. The open world is great an’ all but there are places with enemies that I’m just riding by and have no intention of ever engaging because, well, why should I… I like the dungeons, castles and what not much more when I’ll stop and kill everything at least once. I also don’t know how to kill the giant furnace head things when they’ve got armoured feet, but also why bother because even the weak feet ones give you fuck all. That last boss was a cunt an’ all. I had to call in jolly cooperation for that nonsense. Also, there’s some really odd boss names. Death Knight. How long did that take them to come up with that. And don’t get me started on … Dragon. Man.

Still 10/10. It’ll be a long time before we get another FromSoft game and I’m already sad about it.

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4) Sniper Elite: Resistance (Xbox)

Did you play SE5? It’s that.

Story: bollocks
Gameplay: “bollocks”

4 - Macross Shooting Insight. A mix of horizontal, vertical, 360 and into-the-screen shoot 'em ups. Doesn't really nail any of them though.
5 - Pinball Heroes. PSP port on PS5. Yeah, was alright I guess. Very difficult though.
6 - X-Out Resurfaced. A remaster of the fairly obscure C64/Amiga shoot 'em up. Very dated and it's all too easy to crash into the scenery. But it was okay. If you're a fan of the original, this is probably a good version to play.

1. - The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt & DLC - PS5


Gosh that took a long took to complete. Really enjoyed it. Have to love a bit of Witcher and some of the quests were funny. Being stuck in a children's book, rescuing the goose that laid the golden egg, and killing the pigs

2. Star Wars Outlaws Wild Card DLC - PS5

A little bolt on few missions. I do like this game and not sure on the hate on it.

7 - Shootvaders. A sort of pimped up Space Invaders which is reasonably fun and dynamic but does have two of the dumbest design decisions I've ever seen in a game.

8 - Vampire Hunters. It's Vampire Survivors but in first person. You wouldn't think it'd work but it does. Aside from an awful UI, it's a superb game. I'm going for the Platinum but that's mainly because the game is so great. Probably not one for a great first impression but once it gets its hooks in, it's great.

5) Armoured Core VI (PS)

I’ll tell you what, the graphics on this are somewhat fucking brilliant. Big ole fucking mechs flying around massive environments with some of the best skyboxes this side of … um … the last game with really good skyboxes.

Gameplay-wise it’s pretty basic but lots of fun. Get a big mech, choose the head, tits, giantest arms, tank wheels, flying saucer, or just some flying legs, and then select four of the biggest fucking guns, rockets, grenade launchers, swords or whatever you can find and slap on it. Then take it out for a spin and fuck people up.

Apparently I played 18 hours and while it kept me entertained for most of that, I’ve reckon there’s a good three hours or so that were just frustrating slogs. The greatest and most memorable was of course the last boss for my playthrough, where I fought some fast mech woman who threw everything and the kitchen sink at me repeatedly. I swear to god, I must have tried many, MANY, different builds to get her. I tried a bunch that were recommended online walkthroughs, but all were shit. In the end the only thing that could stop that bastard was FOUR giant miniguns. I came across it after testing two miniguns but not having enough whacking power. But four really did the trick and allowed me to focus on dodging while just holding down all the shoulder buttons at once. I was getting quite frustrated and worried I’d never do it, so this was a lucky roll of the dice, for my sanity.

There’s a secret ending and some alternative story paths but, honestly, I think I’ve had enough. There’s a ton of games to play, and whereas I enjoyed my time, I don’t think I can do it all over again. Would recommend, mind!

9 - Build Lands. Minecraft crossed with MS Paint. Kind of like a paint by numbers thing but with an aggressively fussy interface.

10 - Under Defeat. The Dreamcast-era shoot 'em up gets yet another port. Still as drab as ever.

11 - 3D Don't Die Mr Robot. One of the Vita's best games gets a sequel. It's a dodging game that's a lot of fun but the original was better.

Ooh I never really persevered with don't die Mr robot. Maybe it's time to fire up that beautiful hunk o junk.

I really liked it. Going for all the platinum medals on it was a real challenge but super-addictive. I'm a big fan of games where you dodge. Brotato, Pacifism mode in Geometry Wars 2 and 3. That sort of thing.

3. Forspoken - PS5

It came free with a PS5, and I thought it was just ok. This review sums it up -

6) Split Fiction (PS)

Co-op only game that is absolutely ingenious. Loads of different things to see and do and the amount of creativity on display is kinda mind blowing. You only need to buy one copy to play it with a friend online too, which is pretty awesome (the only just downloads the “friend version”)

I think is this going to be a very strong contender for Game of the Year, even if GTAVI arrives. Absolutely everyone has to play this!

The only downside for me was that the characters are pretty one dimensional and cringe. There’s lots of “THIS IS EPIC!” “LEGEND-ARY” and that kind of garbage like you’re watching a Ubisoft trailer for a new game. Skip the cutscenes and it’s you’ll have a whale of a time!

12 - Police Shooter. Super janky shooter of sorts where you play as a police officer who goes to each scene, interviews people, finds clues and then has to take out the bad guys. You can either shoot them (which has a bit of a weird mechanic to it) or try to take them out without killing them. There's an overarching story that's completely pointless and not really resolved. It's very buggy. People get stuck in conversation loops or block up doorways, that kind of thing. But the levels are very short and you can replay them if you miss anything. It looks like a bad PC game from the early 2000s. In fact, it looks like a mod for Unreal Tournament. It's really odd. But what's odder is that I'm actually still playing it after completion as the Platinum is right there and, as a stealth game, I sort of don't mind it. Won't be getting a great review though.

GTA V main storyline: What a game. Seriously brilliant, well written, brilliant gags.

13 - Graze Counter. A pixelly vertically-scrolling shooter that's pretty unremarkable. I managed to 1CC it on the first go which isn't a good sign at all.

14 - Legends BMX. A BMX game with no legends or campaign or story or upgrades. Just 50 second time attack runs on four bland courses. The tricking system is basic, but works okay, but aside from that there's nothing to recommend here. It feels like a demo waiting for a game.

15 - Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. Odd game. It's more cutscene heavy than a Kojima game. Five minutes of cutscene and then three minutes of gameplay. Unless it's an important cutscene and then it's more. Also, because the game has been out a while it gave us a bunch of overpowered weapons to start with that carried us through the whole story. Like even the super epic legendary weapons we got at the end were way weaker than these freebies. The story was actually pretty good though. The shooting less so.