This year I decided to join a challenge that was proposed by The Donovan Viper, where you have to play and complete at least one game from your backlog whose title begins with each letter of the alphabet, over the course of the year. I finished it, at last, in early November, and decided to post my results in this new blog!
There were also a lot of games that I wanted to play even though I had already played one with the given letter, but I threw them in here anyway, because the little summary reviews might be useful to you readers if you haven't tried one of these and are interested.
My playlist is mostly modern PC games, plus a few retrogames from the Genesis/Megadrive and SNES to the Gameboy Advance and Playstation Portable. Some of the games I chose specifically because they were short enough to get them all done this year and they fit the letters I needed, but at least they were all in my backlog.
What counts as "finishing" the games varies, but generally means I reached the end credits at a minimum. I may or may not also have gone on to complete any DLC it may have, get all the achievements, or complete extra unlocked game modes.
I do have to mention, that after doing this once, I don't think I'll be doing it again. I felt a little too restricted sometimes, especially with a couple of the problematic letters, and I didn't feel like I could just relax and enjoy the kind of longer, immersive games I often like playing. I definitely appreciate the freedom to play whatever I want, whenever I want. Though this challenge got me to try a few games that I may have put off indefinitely, and I did enjoy many of them, I'll stick with my more free-form game selections from now on.
That said, on with the list!
Unfortunately, the bright and sunny mood becomes darker, more bitter, and bleaker as the story progresses. I would love to have a sandbox game where you can just enjoy a day at the beach boardwalk with a friendly companion, like part of this game, but with even more interactions.
The game's file size is massive – the largest game I've ever had, and once I've finished the DLC and uninstall it, I'll have enough room for 5-10 more games on my hard drive, at least. The second DLC is my favourite, where you play as Elizabeth and get a nice stealth system very much like in the Thief and Dishonoured games. Great game, very enjoyable, no complaints. ★★★★★
Often comically bad voice acting and dubious translation, but a fairly solid story, and several branching paths depending on whether you make choices favouring your vampire side or your human side. The two main characters have an often amusing odd-couple dynamic. A couple of frustrating fights, but overall a good time, and a very interesting gameplay style choice. ★★★★
You roam the ruined Earth in search of evidence of what caused this event, meeting enemies and allies, finding upgrades and purchasing more with souls from defeated enemies, solving puzzle dungeons, and returning to earlier areas to traverse early barriers with new powers. Zeldalike exploration, God of War-like combat, and even Portal-like testing chambers once you get a power similar to the portal gun to be used in the final megadungeon. Looking forward to playing its sequel, as well. ★★★★★
The story is very esoteric and translated in a rather circumspect way to avoid the real-world religious and historical references, but is along the same lines as Assassin's Creed and the Da Vinci Code. There are also some quite inappropriate jokes in the text trying to make light of what are visually very serious situations, which I can only assume were thrown in by the translators. There's a lot of backtracking, which pads out an already rather short game. Endlessly respawning enemies tend to zoom onto the screen giving you very little time to react, resulting in many cheap shots.
The controls and music are good, which saves the game, in my opinion. I won't play this one again, but I'll probably try others in the same series. Probably would have been 3 stars if it had received a more serious and faithful translation. ★★
The two "collection" elements sort of interrupt the flow of the game, but I appreciated that they were there. It's just that if you don't know what you're looking for, you may end up walking around with the PK scanning goggles on most of the time, and not be able to appreciate the excellent art design of the place. This is probably partially my own fault, though, since I should have just relied on the chirp of the PK meter to alert me that something scannable was nearby.
The game felt a bit long, and I had to take breaks while playing, but I could see myself playing it again at some point in the future. Very high production values all around in this one. ★★★★
It was fun enough, and had the beautiful artwork I expect from this company, but I was expecting a hidden object game, not a point and click adventure. Still, as an adventure game, it deserves four stars. ★★★★
Although the primary goal is to get to the end of the stage within the time limit, there are two optional objectives in each platforming stage (there are also occasional side-scrolling shooter stages, and boss stages): Collect 33 musical notes (a total of 99 per world), and find the stolen musical instrument, if there is one in that stage. Completing these tasks often involves tripping a series of switches and pushing blocks onto pressure plates scattered throughout the stages.
The game has a surprising amount of depth, with a large number of unlockables, including new costumes, an image gallery, SFX and music players, a stage select menu for an Encore Mode with stage collectibles rearranged, and a Time Attack mode where you have to complete a world within a given time limit. I enjoyed the game so much I'm gladly playing through it again in these other modes and unlocking yet more content. Truly a high quality game and a welcome surprise for what could have been a forgettable licensed game in a lesser developer's hands. ★★★★★
A quick game, finished in around 5 hours as far as the main quest and all of the mini-dungeons on the overworld, but there's also a Master Cave for pros containing 12 much tougher puzzles. I really can't think of anything negative about this game. It's great fun and it's well-designed, and I'd play it again. ★★★★★
The story involves an FBI agent getting involved in the mystery of where the last remaining Knights Templar sailed and hid their treasures, including the Holy Grail, but the story doesn't matter much, and is just a framing hook to get you from one location to another for puzzles and hidden object scenes. The ending is rather abrupt, and leads into a sequel which I don't have. Good gameplay, dull graphics. ★★★
There's an occasional puzzle, and lots of hidden switches to uncover, and several mini-games that are unlocked from time to time on a level, and of course boss fights. The stages are pretty short, and broken up into several smaller areas. There are unlimited continues, and although it automatically saves the game, it doesn't save any extra lives or powers you had. But any doors that you've unlocked remain unlocked.
The story is a tragic ghost story romance with a pirate theme. American mahjong is offered as an alternative to the hidden object scenes, and both can be played separately from the narrative adventure. After the end, there's even a bonus epilogue adventure. Also supports widescreen, which is somewhat rare for this kind of game. ★★★★★
Excellent art and much better video compression than the first game. Gameplay is the same as before, so nothing more to say about that. Includes a bonus epilogue as the first did. ★★★★★
Like most games that have a strafing option, I wish there were a setting to toggle it instead of having to hold down the strafe button all the time. Other than that, a very nice game. ★★★★
Backtracking was minimal in this game compared to others, which I appreciated, and the puzzles were familiar but still challenging. The story was very minimal, and the ending seemed very rushed, with some loose ends left over. Still a good game for its genre, and especially useful as my Q game for the challenge. ★★★
I like that it was almost all hidden object scenes, each one having a humourous pirate scene to enjoy. There were a few puzzles, and some of them were new to me, and each one had helpful instructions. Overall an enjoyable little game. ★★★★
Hidden object scenes make up 85-90% of the game, with a few puzzles making up the difference, but the tool-required hidden objects often have no indication at all, such as an unremarkable location on the ground where you have to dig, or a blank spot on the wall where you need to dust. A decent game anyway, and notable for having a dramatically different art style from most other hidden object games. ★★★
There are a handful of quests that involve searching for creatures or objects on the map or in hidden object screens, but the rest of the game can be completed simply by persisting through the cycle of work, rest, learn, and advance. A pretty simple and short game, but nice-looking and certainly a novel experience. ★★★
This was reworked from Turrican 2 to tie into an action movie of the time, which I didn't see. The gameplay is still basically Turrican, but made easier by the inclusion of a password system. The levels are huge, and the objective is to find the exit. Enemies are fast and often cheap, but they don't respawn. Powerups abound, as do hidden blocks that give powerups and can sometimes be used as platforms that lead to secret areas.
You take damage constantly if an enemy happens to be touching you, without any sound effect letting you know that you're being hurt, no knock-back, no brief period of invulnerability to let you react. Just instant and rapid health drain. Your character will silently and unresponsively stand in something that's hurting him without your knowledge, and it's up to you to check to see that the health meter is draining.
It was a chore to finish, and the worst game I played for this challenge. It felt so cheap and clunky, and the total lack of sound effects for anything other than your shots and your death made it feel unfinished. Never playing this one again. ★
Checkpoints are scattered throughout the levels, but sometimes there are particularly long stretches that you may find yourself replaying many times due to instant-death hazards. Some levels are much longer than others, as well, with the shorter ones running around 12 minutes, and the longer ones taking upward of 25. Exiting the game during a level, even if you've activated checkpoints, will make you start over at the beginning of the level again. I found the final boss to be very frustrating, thanks to a long beginning to the level that required fast and accurate moves for a long time before finally reaching a checkpoint, and the boss fight having several phases to it that also start over from the beginning if you fail. All in all a decent game, and pretty good looking, but one I'm not likely to revisit, nor will I attempt to get all of the time trial achievements. ★★
Each mission ends with a boss fight, and I hated these. Especially Omega Red and Magneto, the latter of whom was surrounded by instant-death pits and projectiles that knock you back into them. I would have enjoyed this game and recommended it unreservedly without these extremely irritating boss fights draining my lives and limited continues. Since it has them, I knock two full stars off of my rating, I hated them so much. ★★
The game was clearly made for mobile devices judging from its interface, but it works just fine with a mouse, and the graphics are cute, cartoony, and often funny when their expressions change during the blasts, though I prefer the non-gory graphics of the other two games.
You can pass a level as long as you don't run out of bombs, but you'll only get a gold medal if you keep the bomb use to the par set for the course. Every 5 gold medals gets you an achievement. I considered the game completed when I got all 60 of the gold medals and all of the achievements. The game may lack production values, but it's still a solid puzzle game that provided me with some challenge and some laughs. ★★★★
There were also a lot of games that I wanted to play even though I had already played one with the given letter, but I threw them in here anyway, because the little summary reviews might be useful to you readers if you haven't tried one of these and are interested.
My playlist is mostly modern PC games, plus a few retrogames from the Genesis/Megadrive and SNES to the Gameboy Advance and Playstation Portable. Some of the games I chose specifically because they were short enough to get them all done this year and they fit the letters I needed, but at least they were all in my backlog.
What counts as "finishing" the games varies, but generally means I reached the end credits at a minimum. I may or may not also have gone on to complete any DLC it may have, get all the achievements, or complete extra unlocked game modes.
I do have to mention, that after doing this once, I don't think I'll be doing it again. I felt a little too restricted sometimes, especially with a couple of the problematic letters, and I didn't feel like I could just relax and enjoy the kind of longer, immersive games I often like playing. I definitely appreciate the freedom to play whatever I want, whenever I want. Though this challenge got me to try a few games that I may have put off indefinitely, and I did enjoy many of them, I'll stick with my more free-form game selections from now on.
That said, on with the list!
A:
Alisia Dragoon (Genesis/Megadrive)
Completed April 10. An attractive and fun techno-fantasy platformer with a sorceress protagonist and a choice of 4 creature companions. Good controls and auto-aiming lightning attacks, good music and visual design, and generally very fun until the last few stages, where the difficulty rose to frustrating levels. This soured my overall experience despite the pleasant ending, and brought down my rating, but I'd still recommend it. ★★★
B:
Batman: Arkham Origins (PC)
Completed March 22. Just as good as the previous Arkham games, with some nice new features and better variety in the random NPC voices. It's also nice to see a frosty Gotham decorated for the holidays rather than a closed-off and deteriorating section. ★★★★★
Bioshock Infinite (PC)
Completed September 1. A high quality FPS with beautiful environments, great characters, and an intriguing storyline. You have a near-constant companion throughout the game, much like Alyx in Half-Life 2 and its episodes, which is a very similar set of games in many respects. Quite long, with a wide variety of set-pieces and goals that felt quite different from each other.Unfortunately, the bright and sunny mood becomes darker, more bitter, and bleaker as the story progresses. I would love to have a sandbox game where you can just enjoy a day at the beach boardwalk with a friendly companion, like part of this game, but with even more interactions.
The game's file size is massive – the largest game I've ever had, and once I've finished the DLC and uninstall it, I'll have enough room for 5-10 more games on my hard drive, at least. The second DLC is my favourite, where you play as Elizabeth and get a nice stealth system very much like in the Thief and Dishonoured games. Great game, very enjoyable, no complaints. ★★★★★
Blood Knights (PC)
Completed May 21. A fun twin-stick shooter action-RPG. Also playable as a melee sword-swinging ARPG, but I played as the vampiress pretty much the entire time, and she does the twin-stick shooting with dual crossbows.Often comically bad voice acting and dubious translation, but a fairly solid story, and several branching paths depending on whether you make choices favouring your vampire side or your human side. The two main characters have an often amusing odd-couple dynamic. A couple of frustrating fights, but overall a good time, and a very interesting gameplay style choice. ★★★★
C:
Cally's Caves 3 (PC)
Completed May 23. Even more fun and better looking than Cally's Trials (see below), but with enough differences to recommend playing both. Includes two expansions, one of which is pretty large, and the other of which has you play as a different character with different abilities, as well as a survival mode and New Game Plus. Plenty of collectables to hunt for, as well. Great game. ★★★★★
Cally's Trials (PC)
Completed May 6. Fun platformer with purchasable upgrades and leveling up a wide assortment of weapons. ★★★★
Costume Quest DLC: Grubbins on Ice (PC)
Completed April 2. Has the same excellent gameplay, visual design, and comedy as the main game, though it's a bit shorter. There's nothing bad about this game. Highly recommended. ★★★★★
D:
Darksiders: Warmastered Edition (PC)
Completed May 7. An excellent 3rd-person hack & slash Zeldalike based on mythology surrounding the Apocalypse of John the Revelator, also known as the Book of Revelation. You play as War, one of the Four Horsemen described in the Apocalypse, accused of initiating the Eschaton without sanction, even though he could only have been summoned by the breaking of the 7th Seal.You roam the ruined Earth in search of evidence of what caused this event, meeting enemies and allies, finding upgrades and purchasing more with souls from defeated enemies, solving puzzle dungeons, and returning to earlier areas to traverse early barriers with new powers. Zeldalike exploration, God of War-like combat, and even Portal-like testing chambers once you get a power similar to the portal gun to be used in the final megadungeon. Looking forward to playing its sequel, as well. ★★★★★
E:
Exile (TurboGrafx CD)
Completed March 26. A decent side combination overhead RPG-like game and side-scrolling action-platformer. Level up, raising your stats with XP, and get gold to buy gear and buffing tonics.The story is very esoteric and translated in a rather circumspect way to avoid the real-world religious and historical references, but is along the same lines as Assassin's Creed and the Da Vinci Code. There are also some quite inappropriate jokes in the text trying to make light of what are visually very serious situations, which I can only assume were thrown in by the translators. There's a lot of backtracking, which pads out an already rather short game. Endlessly respawning enemies tend to zoom onto the screen giving you very little time to react, resulting in many cheap shots.
The controls and music are good, which saves the game, in my opinion. I won't play this one again, but I'll probably try others in the same series. Probably would have been 3 stars if it had received a more serious and faithful translation. ★★
F:
Fairy Tale Mysteries: The Puppet Thief (PC)
Completed July 24. An Artifex Mundi hidden object puzzle adventure game. This one has much stronger emphasis on the hidden object scenes than others by this publisher, and less emphasis on the puzzles. It also doesn't have the gimmicks of the others. The story is another variation on a fairy tale, and includes the Brothers Grimm as characters, in a role as supernatural problem solvers, though it's you as a new recruit that does the work, with the brothers acting as advisors and occasional helpers. The story, pacing, and ending are terrible, but the art and puzzles are good, and that's what I was playing it for. ★★★★
G:
Ghostbusters: The Video Game (PC)
Completed March 31. A very good third-person action-adventure that "captures the spirit" (pun intended) of the first two movies and really gets the ghost-trapping mechanics right.The two "collection" elements sort of interrupt the flow of the game, but I appreciated that they were there. It's just that if you don't know what you're looking for, you may end up walking around with the PK scanning goggles on most of the time, and not be able to appreciate the excellent art design of the place. This is probably partially my own fault, though, since I should have just relied on the chirp of the PK meter to alert me that something scannable was nearby.
The game felt a bit long, and I had to take breaks while playing, but I could see myself playing it again at some point in the future. Very high production values all around in this one. ★★★★
Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan (PC)
Completed July 6. Not so much a hidden object game as a point and click adventure, based loosely on the various fairy tales involving a mute queen and her brothers who were transformed into swans. As in the stories, she's framed by a jealous stepmother for the kidnapping and/or murder of her own baby, and sentenced to death, and you have to uncover the truth, save the queen, and break the curse.It was fun enough, and had the beautiful artwork I expect from this company, but I was expecting a hidden object game, not a point and click adventure. Still, as an adventure game, it deserves four stars. ★★★★
H:
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: Kaznapped! (Gameboy Advance)
Completed August 22. This is a wonderful platformer with some puzzle and action elements based on the cartoon about the cartoonified versions of the real life Japanese band Puffy AmiYumi. The art style is just like the cartoon, heavily stylised, colourful, and cute. You play as both Ami and Yumi, switching between them at any time, similarly to Giana Sisters, with each character sporting her own abilities and advantages. Punk Yumi can run faster, do an air slide/dash, push/pull blocks, and break big blocks with her guitar. Cute Ami can triple-jump, glide, and swing from hooks. There's also a co-op special move that will clear the screen of enemies.Although the primary goal is to get to the end of the stage within the time limit, there are two optional objectives in each platforming stage (there are also occasional side-scrolling shooter stages, and boss stages): Collect 33 musical notes (a total of 99 per world), and find the stolen musical instrument, if there is one in that stage. Completing these tasks often involves tripping a series of switches and pushing blocks onto pressure plates scattered throughout the stages.
The game has a surprising amount of depth, with a large number of unlockables, including new costumes, an image gallery, SFX and music players, a stage select menu for an Encore Mode with stage collectibles rearranged, and a Time Attack mode where you have to complete a world within a given time limit. I enjoyed the game so much I'm gladly playing through it again in these other modes and unlocking yet more content. Truly a high quality game and a welcome surprise for what could have been a forgettable licensed game in a lesser developer's hands. ★★★★★
I:
Ittle Dew (PC)
Completed April 3. A cute, funny, and fun puzzle-dungeon game wrapped in an irreverent Zelda-like skin. Goofy cartoony art style with mostly block-pushing and switch-hitting puzzles to open doors, sometimes with timing involved. Story is minimalistic, with a girl shipwrecked on an island, needing to collect an artifact for a shopkeeper in exchange for him building a raft for her to leave the island. There's a main dungeon (castle) and an overworld with three main wings containing mini puzzle dungeons, each of which are unlocked as you earn enough gold to buy one of the three magic items used to traverse the puzzles.A quick game, finished in around 5 hours as far as the main quest and all of the mini-dungeons on the overworld, but there's also a Master Cave for pros containing 12 much tougher puzzles. I really can't think of anything negative about this game. It's great fun and it's well-designed, and I'd play it again. ★★★★★
J:
Jane Angel: Templar Mystery (PC)
Completed November 5. This is an early and somewhat clunky hidden object game, with scenes made mostly of photo edits instead of hand-drawn art, and it's set in modern day, with the scenes being rather drab and urban. Nevertheless, it has some features I haven't seen in other hidden object games, and some new kinds of puzzles, too. The hidden object screens here are made to scroll left and right, so not everything is on screen at once. This actually helps, because the list of objects to find dims out the word of anything that's not currently visible on the screen, so you can scroll it left or right and stop when it lights up, and you know it's somewhere along the edge of the screen.The story involves an FBI agent getting involved in the mystery of where the last remaining Knights Templar sailed and hid their treasures, including the Holy Grail, but the story doesn't matter much, and is just a framing hook to get you from one location to another for puzzles and hidden object scenes. The ending is rather abrupt, and leads into a sequel which I don't have. Good gameplay, dull graphics. ★★★
K:
Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland (Gameboy Advance)
Completed August 2. This is the first Kirby game I've really played, and it's a remake of the NES game Kirby's Adventure. It's a very cute, colourful, and cheerful hub-based platformer where you can float in the air, slide kick, and suck enemies into your big mouth. You can absorb the special powers of enemies that you eat and use them yourself, or just spit the enemies back out as big yellow stars to hurt enemies.There's an occasional puzzle, and lots of hidden switches to uncover, and several mini-games that are unlocked from time to time on a level, and of course boss fights. The stages are pretty short, and broken up into several smaller areas. There are unlimited continues, and although it automatically saves the game, it doesn't save any extra lives or powers you had. But any doors that you've unlocked remain unlocked.
The game ranges from easy to
challenging, but is mostly easy. Enemies respawn endlessly if you
scroll back to where they spawned before, which was the cause of many
of my deaths. It's so forgiving with the unlimited continues,
though, that I can't call it a hard game at all. I really enjoyed
it, and I look forward to playing other Kirby games. ★★★★★
L:
Last Tale (PC)
Completed July 2. A cute retro-style action platformer, surprisingly difficult after the easy first set of levels, at least in hard mode. Great gameplay and art. Charmingly awkward story text translated from Russian. ★★★★
Legend of Korra, The (PC)
Completed April 9. A fun 3rd-person beat-em-up from PlatinumGames based on the cartoon series, and using a cel-shaded art style. Sometimes called a "spectacle fighter". Level up, increase your skills, buy useful accessories and consumables, unlock new costumes, and replay any chapters you've unlocked keeping your current skills, level, and items. Charming presentation, likable characters, and good gameplay. ★★★★★
M:
Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy (PC)
Completed June 13. A well-made hidden object game with a historical drama narrative advancing one hypothesis regarding the circumstances of Poe's death. Recommended if you like hidden object games. ★★★★Midnight Mysteries 2: Salem Witch Trials (PC)
Completed June 22. Another well-made hidden object game that blends historical events with mystery solving, this time involving Nathaniel Hawthorne and the trial of Sarah Good. The previous game had a better structure with a quest hub, but this is still a good one. ★★★Midnight Mysteries 3: Devil on the Mississippi (PC)
Completed July 14. Another well-made hidden object game that blends historical events with mystery solving, this time involving Mark Twain and William Shakespeare. Review is the same as for #2 in the seres. ★★★N:
Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart (PC)
Completed June 20. A very high quality hidden object and puzzle adventure game, with more object puzzles than hidden object scenes, or perhaps an equal number. Notably in this game the hidden objects all have their normal scale, and are not cheated into scenes where they don't belong. The art style is consistent, too.The story is a tragic ghost story romance with a pirate theme. American mahjong is offered as an alternative to the hidden object scenes, and both can be played separately from the narrative adventure. After the end, there's even a bonus epilogue adventure. Also supports widescreen, which is somewhat rare for this kind of game. ★★★★★
Nightmares from the Deep 2: The Siren's Call (PC)
Completed June 28. Another excellent hidden object/puzzle adventure from Artifex Mundi. The story continues a short time after the events of the first game. You've repaired the museum and have an even better exhibit for it after the last adventure, when the Gorton's fisherman shows up and leads you to an adventure involving a captive mermaid and a secret island town of ex-pirates who were cursed and transformed to fish-people thanks to the pact the mayor made with Davy Jones.Excellent art and much better video compression than the first game. Gameplay is the same as before, so nothing more to say about that. Includes a bonus epilogue as the first did. ★★★★★
O:
Operation Logic Bomb (SNES)
Completed March 21. A top-down maze-type shooter akin to The Chaos Engine, this third game in the Ikari no Yousai series is a nice-looking game with good controls and a cool atmosphere. The story is delivered entirely through flashback cutscenes with no text or voice, leaving much to be guessed, but it involves dimension-shifting technology enabling an alien invasion, and a lone hero (or pair of heroes) has to stop it. It can be a little unforgiving, with only one life, but there are three continues, the health bar is pretty generous, and there are occasional one-use stations that restore your health to full.Like most games that have a strafing option, I wish there were a setting to toggle it instead of having to hold down the strafe button all the time. Other than that, a very nice game. ★★★★
P:
Princess Isabella: The Rise of an Heir (PC)
Completed November 4. This is a pretty nice hidden object puzzle adventure from Artifex Mundi. Some bugs here and there like a lack of description on things that can be clicked on, or no notification of things that have changed, and a couple of misspellings here and there, but overall a pleasant game. Plenty of nice hidden object scenes, and the achievements didn't require me to play through the game multiple times to get them all. I enjoyed the upbeat, fairy tale atmosphere, and the happy ending. They go out of their way to pat you on the back when you finish, with a spoken congratulations and fireworks over the restored castle. What's not to like? ★★★★Q:
Queen's Quest: The Tower of Darkness (PC)
Completed July 22. A hidden object puzzle adventure game published by Artifex Mundi, in a style typical of their other games. This was developed by a different studio than others I've played, and the art, while good, was not as colourful as in other games, and they skimped on the character art – it looks like they had one concept art piece for each character, and used that for all instances.Backtracking was minimal in this game compared to others, which I appreciated, and the puzzles were familiar but still challenging. The story was very minimal, and the ending seemed very rushed, with some loose ends left over. Still a good game for its genre, and especially useful as my Q game for the challenge. ★★★
R:
Robinson Crusoe and the Cursed Pirates (PC)
Completed September 15. A hidden object game from Mumbo Jumbo. This is not quite as good or polished as their other series Midnight Mysteries, but it's very playable and has good art and excellent pirate-themed music. Someone involved in this game was clearly a fan of Monkey Island, too, with the opening shot of the island and the caption "Somewhere deep in the Caribbean", and a map point captioned "Men of low morals", and one pirate character being named Guywood, after Guybrush Threepwood.I like that it was almost all hidden object scenes, each one having a humourous pirate scene to enjoy. There were a few puzzles, and some of them were new to me, and each one had helpful instructions. Overall an enjoyable little game. ★★★★
S:
Saints Row the Third (PC)
Completed May 4. Open-world sandbox with quests, side quests, and lots of activities. Highly customisable player character, including appearance, gender, voice, various ability upgrades and perks. Gameplay is a combination of third-person shooting, driving, flying, and boating. High comedic content and the first in the series to start to divorce itself from its gangster-themed GTA-like origins, which I appreciate. ★★★★★Saints Row IV (PC)
Completed May 24-27 (DLC). Everything said about the 3rd entry in this series applies to this one, with the addition of fantastic superpowers and an excellent alien invasion and cyberspace/Matrix setting. There are still some callbacks to the gangster origins of the series, but the rest makes up for it. ★★★★★Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena (PC)
Completed July 2. A hidden object game with an adventure comic book style and a plucky young archaeologist who is considered a heroine despite sometimes raiding owned and operated locations such as Buckingham Palace and the Louvre, and stealing an air tank from an innocent diver.Hidden object scenes make up 85-90% of the game, with a few puzzles making up the difference, but the tool-required hidden objects often have no indication at all, such as an unremarkable location on the ground where you have to dig, or a blank spot on the wall where you need to dust. A decent game anyway, and notable for having a dramatically different art style from most other hidden object games. ★★★
T:
Twilight City: Love As a Cure (PC)
Completed July 19. This is a very unusual game. I'm not sure I've encountered anything quite like it before. The main gameplay is like an RPG – creating and building up your character, improving your stats and gaining new skills and spells – but there is no combat and no dungeons. Instead, there is a city, with ten specific locations to visit throughout the game. What you can do in those locations, aside from using their services, depends on whether you're on a quest, have a job there, or where you are in the main storyline. For the most part, you just need to do jobs to earn money, which you need for buying food, clothing, home furnishings, pets, mounts, spells, and courses at the academy or training hall. With greater skills you can get better jobs, and with conspicuous consumption you can gain prestige and advance through the story.There are a handful of quests that involve searching for creatures or objects on the map or in hidden object screens, but the rest of the game can be completed simply by persisting through the cycle of work, rest, learn, and advance. A pretty simple and short game, but nice-looking and certainly a novel experience. ★★★
U:
Universal Soldier (SNES)
Completed October 29. Although this is more or less a Turrican game, this is not the Turrican game I would have preferred to start playing through. It's pretty much only because it begins with a U and is relatively short compared to any other U games I have, and I'm only two letters away from completing the alphabet backlog challenge for this year.This was reworked from Turrican 2 to tie into an action movie of the time, which I didn't see. The gameplay is still basically Turrican, but made easier by the inclusion of a password system. The levels are huge, and the objective is to find the exit. Enemies are fast and often cheap, but they don't respawn. Powerups abound, as do hidden blocks that give powerups and can sometimes be used as platforms that lead to secret areas.
You take damage constantly if an enemy happens to be touching you, without any sound effect letting you know that you're being hurt, no knock-back, no brief period of invulnerability to let you react. Just instant and rapid health drain. Your character will silently and unresponsively stand in something that's hurting him without your knowledge, and it's up to you to check to see that the health meter is draining.
It was a chore to finish, and the worst game I played for this challenge. It felt so cheap and clunky, and the total lack of sound effects for anything other than your shots and your death made it feel unfinished. Never playing this one again. ★
V:
Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova (PC)
Completed August 25. This seems to be a somewhat early hidden object game from Artifex Mundi, judging from the relative lack of special features and extras in this one compared to their others, not to mention the stretched out 4:3 aspect ratio that I was only able to correct using a program to force a game into a window of my specified size. Regardless, it has excellent art, a much better ratio of hidden objects to puzzles, much better translation and voice acting than some of their other games, and a dark gothic story with some occasional comic relief. There's also a bonus extra chapter, but after playing it, I prefer the way the main game ended. Good fun, and definitely recommended if you like this kind of game. ★★★★★W:
Wooden Sen'SeY (PC)
Completed June 25. An action-platformer with a Japanese motif, where you play as a village chief wielding two axes on chains, going after the bandit who stole the village's "SeY", some kind of alcoholic beverage. You pick up bottles of the stuff throughout the levels as you pursue the villain, ultimately regaining the big cache when you beat him as the final boss. It has a sort of combination downward thrust/double jump mechanic, where you can only double jump by bouncing your downward thrust off of something. You can also use the chained axes as a kind of grappling hook to swing on, on certain surfaces.Checkpoints are scattered throughout the levels, but sometimes there are particularly long stretches that you may find yourself replaying many times due to instant-death hazards. Some levels are much longer than others, as well, with the shorter ones running around 12 minutes, and the longer ones taking upward of 25. Exiting the game during a level, even if you've activated checkpoints, will make you start over at the beginning of the level again. I found the final boss to be very frustrating, thanks to a long beginning to the level that required fast and accurate moves for a long time before finally reaching a checkpoint, and the boss fight having several phases to it that also start over from the beginning if you fail. All in all a decent game, and pretty good looking, but one I'm not likely to revisit, nor will I attempt to get all of the time trial achievements. ★★
X:
X-Men 2: Wolverine's Revenge (Gameboy Advance)
Completed November 4. A good platformer with powerups and exploration, and a variety of gameplay types, with a mission-based structure that allows you to go back to any previous one, with your new abilities that you've picked up, to get to places you couldn't before. There are simple action-platformers, more precision-based platformers, stealth areas, timed areas, find-the-key areas, and chase areas. I hated the chases, with Sabertooth running across obstacle courses and destroying bridges along the way, and you had to keep up, not let him get offscreen, but not let him see you, while negotiating the hazards he creates.Each mission ends with a boss fight, and I hated these. Especially Omega Red and Magneto, the latter of whom was surrounded by instant-death pits and projectiles that knock you back into them. I would have enjoyed this game and recommended it unreservedly without these extremely irritating boss fights draining my lives and limited continues. Since it has them, I knock two full stars off of my rating, I hated them so much. ★★
Y:
Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (PSP)
Completed March 31. A fun action-RPG with good controls and an interesting story, bogged down by a little too much backtracking and grinding. This was the first Ys game I played for any significant amount of time, and the only one I've finished. The ending was very disappointing, but expected. ★★★Z:
Zombie Boom (PC)
Completed July 30. One of three games in a series of the same type with different themes (the others being Beast Blaster and Cyborg Detonator), this is a casual physics-based puzzle game, where the object is to use a limited number of bombs to knock the monsters off of their platforms and into the bottomless pit below them, while avoiding knocking innocent creatures into the pits.The game was clearly made for mobile devices judging from its interface, but it works just fine with a mouse, and the graphics are cute, cartoony, and often funny when their expressions change during the blasts, though I prefer the non-gory graphics of the other two games.
You can pass a level as long as you don't run out of bombs, but you'll only get a gold medal if you keep the bomb use to the par set for the course. Every 5 gold medals gets you an achievement. I considered the game completed when I got all 60 of the gold medals and all of the achievements. The game may lack production values, but it's still a solid puzzle game that provided me with some challenge and some laughs. ★★★★
