I’m back!
After staying in the hospital for a couple weeks due to a rough car accident, I’m finally back. I missed a few things, yeah?
Category: Xbox One
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Games of the Month – January 2017
We’re back in this thing, huh?
While January was an epic garbage pile for a handful of reasons, the games weren’t one of them. A huuuge surprise came in the form of this month’s #1, and second place wasn’t too far behind. I wish I liked the Gravity Rush games but am glad that apparently a lot of other people do. In terms of indies…I don’t know! A few decent ones here and there but no early Pony Island like last year. AAA’s have my attention for the first time in a while this year, so I hope there are enough great indies to keep up.
#1. Yakuza 0
So whose job was it to let me know Yakuza was 100% my jam? It’s all I’ve been able to talk about this month. If you’re as new to the series as me, it’s tough to explain what exactly what this is. So let’s hit the questions:
Is Yakuza a serious crime drama? Yes, much of the game’s main story is focused around typical crime story scenes of family betrayal, honor, and that kind of stuff. It’s pretty good. Once a jumped through a window and punched a man into a toilet.
Is it a comedy? Yeah, it’s that too. Once you’re outside of the “main story” missions, the open world allows you to roam around and take on side quests. Hilarious side quests. Without spoiling anything, Yakuza 0 stands up as one of the most genuinely funny video games I’ve ever played.
Open world? Side quests? …Is Yakuza an RPG? Huh, I guess it kind of is. Yakuza 0 blends so many different things together that it’s hard to pin it down and give it a label. There are random encounters, multiple skill trees, side quests with branching dialogue options…so yeah, I guess. Yeah it is.
Is there good punching? Yes, the punching is very good. Sometimes you can punch someone while holding a bicycle. That is also very good.
I like punching, but what if I get tired of punching? Go sing one of the many songs and play the rhythm based karaoke mini games. Or the disco one in the dance hall. Or go win prizes in a crane game. Or go to an arcade and literally just play some other games made by Sega. Or go to the bowling alley or the Shogi with the old people.
Is there any reason not to play Yakuza 0? If you refuse to do anything other than the main story and you also hate melodramatic crime fiction. Otherwise, no. Not at all.
#2. Resident Evil 7
Attempting to play Resident Evil 7 in Virtual Reality with headphones on is the scariest video game experience I’ve ever had. You tiptoe through a claustrophobic house fully aware that awful things are going to happen to you, and when they do it’s not any less terrifying. If you’ve yet to try horror in VR, this is the end-all be-all of the genre so far. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the first hour after playing for nearly a month. It’s that rough. I swear I’ll see more of it by the end of the year…but man, it’s something you’ve gotta see for yourself to believe.
Honorable Mentions:
I didn’t like anything else enough this month to have a solid #3… but here are the good ones that are still worth your time!
Hidden My Game By Mom 2: A sequel to an original puzzler that has me hoping for a third one sooner rather than later.
It’s 2:51A.M. Can You Fall Asleep?: A return to form for ClickHole. This gives me hope that 2017 will have a good set of top tier adventures from some of the funniest people writing games.
ARACHNAFOE: A pretty simple dual stick shooter about wrecking shop on some spiders. They deserve it.
Ninja Spinki Challenges!!: Flappy Bird creator, Dong Nguyen, is back at it again with a mini game collection. Not quite WarioWare, but it’s a set of fast-paced challenges that kept me coming back all month long.
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Games of the Month – August 2016
So I played Monster Hunter some more. Oops. After spending a few dozen more hours hunting down dinosaurs and sharks, I figured I should try to find some new things to play. Turns out, not a whole lot happened in August. A few neat fan games came out, some of my favorite games ever had re-releases, and there’s a new Deus Ex that I’ve barely touched. But since I probably shouldn’t make Monster Hunter the Game of the Month for a month it didn’t come out in, I guess I’ll find the next best things.
1. Pokemon Uranium
Megaman Unlimited was my first real introduction to excellent fan-games. I had typically written them off as projects by people who couldn’t come up with better ideas, but now I realize some of them are impressive tributes that rival entries in the series they so obviously admire. Pokemon Uranium is somewhere in the middle. I’ve never played a Pokemon fan-game before and now I realize I probably should have. Did you know that some people make entirely new regions of Pokemon for stuff like this? I had no idea. Yes, a few of the ones featured in Uranium look like bad Digimon, and the bugs and framerate issues that plague it don’t do the game any favors. But even with its issues, there’s a fine Pokemon game here that can ease the wait of these next few months. And sometimes you just feel like roaming around and checking out cool new monster designs, you know? Birbie rules.
2. The House Abandon
Text adventures haven’t ever really been my thing, but this one sold me on checking more of them out. The House Abandon stays exciting throughout its short half-hour runtime and never becomes too frustrating or fiddly like so many others in the genre. It says what it wants to, does a lot of surprising stuff, and gets out. You should try it.
3. Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X
Weird, right? I had heard about these games for the past few years, and until a friend of mine mentioned this one on Twitter I’d never considered giving the series a shot. I probably should have. Project Diva X is a fast-paced rhythm game overloaded with flashy visuals, and I wish I had tried one of them sooner. It isn’t perfect, and on occasion the colors and dancing get in the way of distinguishing what buttons you’re actually supposed to hit, but the game is so positive and cheerful that it’s hard to be too upset. If you’re looking for a serious high score chasing experience this may not be your thing. But if you just want to tap out quick J-pop rhythms while cartoon characters skip around on stage, this may be up your alley.
Honorable Mentions:
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided – Uhh, the first hour or so was cool! I just haven’t made the time for it. I dumped around 80 hours into its fantastic predecessor so I’ll get to this one at some point before year’s end.
Project AMR2 – I’d never played Metroid 2 before, but this seems like the way to do it. Though AMR2 is nearly just as speedy and well-paced as Zero Mission, the monotonous Metroid fights really turned me off.
Resident Evil 4 HD: Still the best shooter ever made? Yeah.
Mibibli’s Quest (Steam Edition) – If you didn’t play Mibibli’s Quest back a couple years ago when it snuck out, here’s your newest reminder: It’s just as good as Shovel Knight and maybe the best indie platformer ever made.
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2016 Mid-Year Wrap Up – What’s Left?
We’re halfway through 2016 and my Game of the Year prediction list is already in the trash. Surprise! Four of them aren’t even coming out this year and two of them weren’t that good. Dark Souls and The Witness were pretty sweet, and the verdict’s still out on Zero Time Dilemma and No Man’s Sky. We’ve had a few great releases this year like Salt and Sanctuary, SUPERHOT and Pony Island, but so far I’m feeling a bit down on 2016’s game output.
HOWEVER: We’re far from sending this baby off just yet.
There’s a load of cool games still coming this year, and *hopefully* some of them will actually be good. Let’s run through the ones I’m most excited about.
Zero Time Dilemma:
I’m finally getting to play Zero Time Dilemma, a game I’ve been hoping would actually get made since 2012’s incredible Virtue’s Last Reward.
Inside:
The follow-up to Limbo, Inside, is also on its way. I’ve got some very high hopes for this one, especially after hearing some early thoughts on it during E3.
BoxBoxBoy!:
The sequel to one of the best games nobody played last year. Nintendo’s best puzzle game in a long time, and one of my favorite things HAL Laboratory has done.
Song of the Deep:
Song of the Deep looks like a promising Metroidvania, and Insomniac tends to not make anything that’s outright bad.
No Man’s Sky:
You’ve probably heard enough about No Man’s Sky by now, but I don’t know how anyone can write it off yet. There’s no way this thing can deliver on all of its promises, but even if it manages to be a decent version of what Hello Games’ is envisioning… it’s going to be something very special.
Azure Striker Gunvolt 2:
Gunvolt 2 is nearly topping my most anticipated games right now. After finishing Mighty No. 9 and well, not thinking about it much anymore, I’m ready for a good action platformer that can deliver the goods. The first Gunvolt was sooooo cool. Please don’t mess this one up.
Final Fantasy XV:
Final Fantasy XV is somehow just a few months away and I still don’t have any idea what kind of beast it’s gonna be. It seems like such a mishmash of so many disparate ideas that I can’t fathom how any of it is going to work together. And maybe it won’t. But, wow…what if it does?
The Last Guardian:
The Last Guardian is finally, really, truly coming out. The follow up to one of my favorite games of all time, Ueda’s next game has a lot to live up to.
Dishonored 2:
I never finished Dishonored. I never even got halfway through it. But a lot of people I respect seem to love it, and I’m willing to give the series another chance.
Below:
Below is a mysterious adventure game that I’ve heard whispered of in the same breath as Dark Souls, and that’s about enough for me.
Cuphead:
Cuphead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2D platformer. Cool boss battles. Wonderfully drawn art style. Cuphead!!!!!!!
Nioh:
I have no idea if Nioh is actually going to make it out this year with all of the changes they’ve been making to it, but that alpha demo was promising. It definitely needed a tweak or two, but there are neat ideas there that I want to see more of.
The Intruder:
The Intruder has been talked about in hushed tones for what feels like a decade now. It’s an indie Slender-like thing, but supposedly has way more going on than your average “get chased by spooky man” game.
We Happy Few:
We Happy Few reminds me of BioShock at its prime. Terrible world that’s totally fallen apart but a subset of the population seems cool with it? Sign me up.
The Pedestrian:
The Pedestrian is a simple platformer with a cool aesthetic, and sometimes that’s all I need, ya dig?
DARK SOULS III DLC (at some point)! Yay.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided:
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is the sequel to a game I love, in a series I should probably play more of. Human Revolution was my introduction to Deus Ex, but what a wonderful, memorable introduction it was.
Pokemon Sun and Moon:
Also Pokemon Sun and Moon is coming and if you don’t know why someone might be excited about that I don’t know what else to tell you. Rowlet 4 lyfe.
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And I’m sure there’s more stuff coming, too. I always get blindsided by some cool indie thing that comes out of nowhere, so don’t take this as the law of everything cool coming out for the rest of the year. And, yeah, there are other games I plan on playing, like Infinite Warfare (yes, space shooty will probably be fun), but those just didn’t feel special enough to make the “excited about” list. 2017 is already looking ridiculous with all of the currently announced games, consoles, delays, etc, but there’s still plenty to occupy our time until then.
Here’s to a good rest of the year. And please let most of these actually come out in 2016. Please.
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Games of the Month – May 2016
Before I went to look at the list of games I had played in May, I had assumed it was a huge list. It was not. I’ve been playing a ton of games lately (or so it feels like) but I think I’ve just been getting a lot deeper into a handful than I usually do. And I’ve been playing Mother 3 and the original Doom a lot, and I guess it wouldn’t be fair to count those.
1. Overwatch
Even as I’m typing this, I’m not sure if Doom belongs in this spot. But I haven’t been looking at fan art, memes, and lore videos about Doom 2016, so maybe Overwatch speaks for itself. Like last year’s Splatoon, Overwatch is a fast-paced, colorful multiplayer game oozing with personality. Also like Splatoon, I don’t know how much I’ll be playing after the launch-window hype has died down. I still enjoy hopping back in with my squid buddies every once in a while, but those first few weeks made such a good first impression that it was still one of my favorite games of the year even after I put it down during its second or third month. Overwatch feels like it could live in a similar place in my gaming library. But with Blizzard’s promise of keeping the game fresh with (free!!) new characters and maps, hopefully this one will stay fresh in my mind even through year’s end. I’m gonna hurry up and finish this post so I can read more character bios on the game’s site. And maybe play a few matches. And go look at more fan-art. And…
2. Doom
I’ve never been a Doom guy. I didn’t grow up with any access to it, and by the time I started messing around with emulators, I always ended up trying the shitty GBA ports and not understanding why anybody thought that highly of the series. Then Doom 2016 came out. I’ve been blasting and shooting my way through the entire series this month, and I have a newfound respect for each game in the series. I’ll admit that I’ve played more Doom 1 than Doom 2016 since the newest one’s release, but I still enjoy both immensely more than I thought I ever would. What I had always thought of as a dumb bloody mess of bullets is so much more. It’s still that, sure, but there’s a level of thought and decision making that goes into each new area. Each game is about managing guns, ammo, upgrades, placement and more to minimize your chances of being turned into space dust. I see a lot of Doom in my future this year, and I’m happy that such an amazing sequel could be made this far into the series’ life cycle. Oh, and the explosive charge on the shotgun is clearly the only choice. Just sayin’.
3. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Another Uncharted game, and maaaaybe my favorite in the series? I’ve never been a super huge fan of Naughty Dog’s work outside of The Last of Us, but I still respect a lot of what the Uncharted games have accomplished over the years. They’ve done a lot with just a few pulpy adventure stories, but the actual play itself hasn’t ever grabbed me. This was the first that I actually enjoyed playing a lot of. The shooting still isn’t exactly top notch, but it’s serviceable, and the climbing and swinging around while people chit chat is better than ever. TLDR: Uncharted is good. It’s never been great. This is another good one.
Honorable Mentions:
Cooldog Teaches Typing: Another good and funny typing game in a surprisingly consistent genre. Is…is every typing game just automatically good?
-I wish i had played more this month, but the big things took up so much time. I’m sure I missed some indies, and that sucks. I’ve looked around like always, though, and I can’t find any giant standouts. I’ll keep looking for things I may have missed. Here’s to June!-
hippochippies 