#but unless gameplay and story are insanely beyond expectation

[simonstamenovic]

respecting supergiant character design less and less. i see what you did for jodariel. do it for any of your goddesses.

[sazorak]

Every Game I Played in 2020, Ranked

2020. Boy, what a garbo year huh? Didn't actually play that many games this year all-in-all. Happens! My backlog is getting pretty big, but I just find it hard to focus on games when I could be working on something. Or put off working on something, as it may happen to be at times.

My arbitrary decision from years ago to only attach a numbered ranking to same-year releases is getting increasingly silly, especially given my propensity to wait on playing games until I’m in the right mood, but whatever. That order matters than the dumb numerical numbering anyway.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019

Later Alligator – 2019 – Steam – ★★

The style of this game is very cute, and the jokes are funny enough. But… ok, look, I’m not one to be precious about what is or isn’t a game. But this really isn’t a game. It’s a series of disconnected, unrelated challenges clipped from Atari Free Mini Game Collection 100, wrapped in a very non-interactive adventure-game. It’s cute, it’s kind of sweet, but it’s dull. Dull dull dull. There’s a pointless, mandatory sliding block puzzle early on that infuriated me by its mere existence. Them giving the ability to skip it because “wow you’re bad at this huh”, which, while accurate, also just sold the whole point meaningless of the “““interactive experience”””.

Also: when a huge part of your game is WOW WE ANIMATED EVERYONE REALLY GOOD, text boxes that reveal word-by-word, far away from the animations that occur when said characters talk? Kind of stinks!

8. Carrion – 2020 – Steam – ★★

What Carrion does well— the whole “You’re controlling The Thing and just rippin’ people apart!” shtick— is really neat. They made that bootleg The Thing animate real-ass good.

The actual game as a whole though? Kind of garbage. Imagine a Metroidvania with zero actual exploration, where every opportunity you have to venture off the path instead results in immediate railroading with constant, utterly inexplicable one-way pipes. It’s not that it’s linear, it’s that it actively slaps you when you attempt to explore. It’s very frustrating! Add the fact that the tentacle-monster-shtick makes challenging to actually, y’know, move around and control all your bits…  the only reason I finished the game was due to foreknowledge of its extreme brevity.

I think if the game were more open and less obsessed with constantly handing out upgrades, as well as having less of a focus on pure combat, I think I’d have enjoyed it more.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays – 2019 – Steam – ★★

It is well documented at this point that I am both an active Gundam fan, and as well as an on-again-off-again tactical RPG aficionado. A SD Gundam game appearing on Steam with a good English translation and localization is… exciting, to say the least. That said, I have never had much context for this game series beyond the basic facts that the combat tended to be pretty well animated CG, and that it’s vaguely similar to Super Robot Wars. Turns out… it’s really different from SRW? I dunno how the rest of the series fairs, but Cross Rays is weird as hell.

For one, there’s zero tutorialization at all. None. Almost all of what I’m going to explain here is me figuring stuff out by trial and error, or by reading junk online. Gundam is insanely popular, you’d think they’d be interested in explaining how it all works, but… nope. Even Super Robot Wars has multi-level introductory bits for new folks to show them the rope these days.

So: Cross Rays is a tactical RPG where you can playthrough the storyline of various Gundam AUs. You can play through them in any order. These playthroughs are fairly literal translations of the stories. You take control of the lead mecha from those series, fight enemy mobile suits that show up in SRW-like tactical RPG combat, until all reinforcements cease. Pretty straight forward. There are occasionally mission variants like “prevent enemies from reaching X” or “prevent enemies from destroying Y”, but even those can be just reduced to “kill everything very quickly please.”

But here’s the thing: while there is a story progression, the characters in the story itself actually have no character progression. These characters and mecha are actually considered guests, despite it being ostensibly their story. Instead, you are able to field “permanent” mecha and pilots of your own choosing, which do have progressions. There is no plot justification for this or anything like it. The game does not recognize that it’s weird that during Iron-Blooded Orphans intro where nobody knows what a Gundam even is, you can have 25 Gundams show up at once and just fire lasers at everything. That’s because this game is actually about repeatedly grinding the same set of missions over and over.

Pilots are recruited by completing certain in-mission requirements. Mecha are acquired by either by getting enough kills with the progression-less “guest” mecha, combining mecha you already have gashopon-style, completing certain quests, or by leveling up mecha and then “evolving them”. This is the actual core of the game.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays is basically Disgaea, it turns out? You’re grinding story missions at various difficulty levels in order to complete missions, try to recruit specific pilots, equip them with stats and levels to make them stronger, and then hitting mecha together in a sort of quasi-SMT fusion system until you get all the powerful mobile suits you desire.

The combat itself is kind of… bland? There’s a lot of systems, but they mostly seem in service of making an already easy game easier, or burning through tedium. There are four different difficulty modes, because there’s not actually that many different missions you can play through. The expectation is you’ll just work your way through every story beat while ramping the difficulty up over time to where the “guest” mecha would not be able to handle on their own. In fact, letting the story mecha act out the story beats is actually bad after a point, unless you’re still trying to get those lead mobile suits, or if you’re trying to complete some mission requirement in order to recruit Named Wing Grunt Pilot #246.

There is something to the notion of “I want to get N and N and N and N on a team, piloting weird but powerful mobile suits, and just solo every Gundam AU in a row,” but the whole premise seems kind of against purpose. Why bother recreating story beats at all, then? It’s not like the game even acknowledges any of that going on.

If the point is that I’m supposed to be, like in other grind-heavy tactical RPGs, breaking the systems to my own end in order to proceed… why not make the missions you play challenges focused towards that? The story progression literally only exists to facilitate the mission-based unlock conditions, which makes all the energy put into making them JUST LIKE THE ANIME really damn pointless.  

I like tactical RPGs, I like breaking RPG systems so as to beat hard challenges (I beat all the insanely hard extra bosses in FFXII for crying out loud), I looooove Gundam. I should like this. But I don’t really have the “god, I NEED TO FILL THIS LIST” gene that some folks have… except as an excuse to continue to engage in gameplay I enjoy. The gameplay here seems in service of the collection, rather than the way around.

7. Pokemon Sword: The Isle of Armor – 2020 – ★★★

Pokemon’s first foray into actually doing DLC is… a mixed bag. As a positive, they’ve improved the Wild Area concept I liked from the main game, and even brought back buddy Pokemon walking behind you. That’s neat. On the other hand: the actual progression in it is completable in like an hour, it doesn’t scale with you, so you’re bound to be over leveled for it, and all the raid stuff, while still conceptually neat, is just as flawed as in the base game. And so, you’re just left with even more new Pokemon to RNG grind on to continue to catch-them-all. Nah, I’m good.

Astral Chain – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

Platinum knows how to make good character action games. They’ve made a bunch of them. Bayonetta, Nier: Automata, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. They also know how to make some kind of mediocre character action games. Transformers: Devastation, Wonderful 101, their various shovelware character action games like Korra. Astral Chain falls somewhere in the middle, I guess?

Astral Chain has all the production of their good games. It has some stylish, cool action. It has a neat core mechanical idea, in that it’s essentially a two-character action game where you control both characters at once. It has a lot of the old mechanics from some of their best games brought in; witch-time last second dodging from Bayonetta, Nier’s shooting-and-slashing combination, the Zandatsu mechanic from Metal Gear Rising, even Wonderful 101’s multi-unit shenanigans. The setting is different, and there’s some neat world flavor all in all.

But, of all games I’ve played over the past few years, Astral Chain made me more vividly angry than any other. It’s not that it’s too hard— far from it, really, I found its combat incredibly mashy. No, the problem is that it has so many shitty mechanics slathered on that it become a chore to get to the “good bits”.

Why would you put forced stealth sequences in your character action game, especially when your movement controls are not suited for it?

Why the HELL would you put platforming sections in your character action game, constantly, especially when your stupid ghost buddy can accidentally yank you off the edge, your auto-combos can just throw you off the edge, or literally anything can knock you off the edge and make you lose life?

Why would you put so many constant excuses into the world to force me use the digital sensor in the game, that also makes it miserable to walk around while using it?

WHO THE LIVING FUCK THINKS THESE SHITTY BOX BALANCING MINI-GAMES ARE FUN???

These games are supposed to encourage me to perfect everything, right? Why keep putting fucking fights you need to complete in order to get an S rank behind backtracking, or Legions I don’t have yet? That isn’t adding replayability, that’s just wasting my time. There are even in-level missions that have fail conditions that you never even know about. Surprise!!! A lot of them involve chasing after guys and catching them with your chain, which is really obnoxious to do!!!! SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The story is just Bad Evangelion, straight up. Every story beat from Evangelion is here, executed worse. They also make your character have a twin just so they can have a character who can talk and feel emotions, because your boring-ass protagonist is stuck being an emotionless audience cipher. Cool!!!

Tetris Effect – 2018 – Origin – ★★★

It’s drugs Tetris. I personally don’t use, or have synesthesia for that matter. I imagine this game is better if you do. It’s an enjoyable enough experience but it feels incredibly slight for what I was expecting from it, or even compared to something like Lumines, which has tons of replayability by way of its difficulty. Tetris just isn’t that hard, unless you’re forcing yourself to do weird shit to get points. I WILL NEVER LEARN HOW TO T-SPIN. Never.

Castlevania Anniversary Collection – 2019 – Steam – ★★★

Kind of an unremarkable Castlevania collection. Neat that it has an official translation of Kid Dracula in there, but also… look, I prefer Metroidvania Castlevanias, OK?

6. Spelunky 2 – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

I’m not entirely sure why this doesn’t click for me where Spelunky 1 did. More annoying intro levels? Too many fiddly requirements for different ending-progression? Gameplay additions that just make things more annoying? Spelunky 1 was hard, but there was a kind straight-forwardness to it, even with its weird secrets, that made it much easier to grok and continue banging your head against. I’m just not having as much fun with this. Difficulty should be challenging, not a hassle.

5. Stellaris: Federations – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

This is the year that Stellaris just broke for me.

Federations itself is a good DLC; it adds some really interesting mechanics tied to various types of multi-national unions (the titular federations, as well as the Space UN), as well as the addition of unique “origins” that allow you to further specialize your gameplay. The origins in particular are a great addition that allows more specialization and roleplay.

I’m just tired of the sheer amount of busywork Stellaris forces you to do. Every DLC adds more junk you need to keep an eye on, and the fact that the AI doesn’t even bother with it (compensating with copious economy boosts in order to keep up) makes the whole thing frustrating. It’s like playing fetch with yourself; you just get tired of chasing after your own ball after a point.

I have to wonder if they’re pivoting towards a notional Stellaris 2 at this point? Might not be a bad idea for them, though it is weird with all they talked up adding more origins when Federations came out.  

4. GranBlue Fantasy Versus – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★

This is probably the fighting game I got most into over the past few years. There’s just this nice, almost Street Fighter-esque ease of execution to the controls, and that Arc Systems Works 3D-as-2D style continues to just do work. I don’t give a single shit about GranBlue Fantasy (frankly, I think I’d enjoy this game more if it wasn’t attached to a property) but the characters are fun enough to play and look at.

The big problem here is two things: no crossplay, and no rollback netcode. In the span of a month, this game became a total ghost town on PC, and it doesn’t sound like PS4 faired that much better. 

Ring Fit Adventure – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

I’ve fallen on-and-off this game all year. At its heart: it works, it’s a fun exercise game. I don’t think it really feels like a “game” (in the sense that I’m not really coming to it for riveting gameplay or anything) as much as just a guided exercise experience, but… that’s fine? The in-game story is kind of flat, but funny in the fact of it existing at all. Buff Nicol Bolas and all.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen – 2017 – Steam – ★★★★

XCOM2: War of the Chosen is a great answer to what XCOM2 struggled with. As I discussed back in 2016 (Jesus Christ), XCOM2 tried to push against player’s worst instincts by incentivizing them to keep being aggressive through a whole bunch of timers— which, kind of just weren’t fun given how much accidentally walking into an ambush could “ruin” dozens of hours of play. War of the Chosen dials that back in some intelligent ways, by instead making the encounter designs themselves, as well as much more grab-and-bail mission types, encourage players to push ahead instead. Smart!

The addition of the Chosen makes the game feel more alive, and they really do make missions harder— particularly early on. But they’ve somehow accidentally fell into the hole, where XCOM just… isn’t that hard? Early on it’s challenging, particularly with the resource restrictions and all. But they keep giving you more and more options (that aren’t especially meaningful choices) that make your team more and more powerful, without increasing the strength of the enemy as time goes on. By the five-hour mark, you basically know if you’re going to steam roll the game or not.

The amount of additional character and variety in the gameplay is great, I just wish it had a more challenging difficulty curve. Maybe make the meta-layer of when enemies show up more targeted to where players are at. If a player is doing well, ramp up the difficulty, if they’re struggling, pull it back a bit. I should always feel like I’m just barely keeping ahead with XCOM, not like I’m bored. And by the end of War of the Chosen, I was kind of getting bored, really. Oh well.

3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 2020 – Switch – ★★★★

This is probably the video game that I spent the most time with hours-wise this year. I’m not entirely sure why? It’s a nice evolution of New Leaf, in that the crafting, environment shaping, and general quality-of-life improvements made are quite nice. There’s clearly been some thought on how people play these games, and ways to make the experience less frustrating.

… and yet, they kept so much tedium in the game. Like yes, the schedule stretching is the point, I get it. As someone who for some reason decided not to play with the clock, I only just recently finished the fish, fossils, and insects for the museum. But there’s just so many weird, little things that just make it hard to keep coming back to it. It’s like… to what end? When I’ve unlocked everything, and basically seen the entirety of the item list at this point, and the holiday events all being the game meaningless collectathons…. Why? I’m not going to try completing the collection; the museum stuff is about my limit, really (and even the paintings I can probably pass on).

I guess even an idealized, digital representation of a quasi-domestic life has the spiritual emptiness of consumerism-for-consumerism sake. Thanks???

Hypnospace Outlaw – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

I grew up on the internet of the early 00s. I had an AngelFire website, mostly consisting of shitty sprite webcomics and hosted Gundam pics. I remember when Google wasn’t really a thing and you would heavily rely on website compilation sites like the Anime Web Turnpike in order to find anything of value online. It was weird, it was wild. It was exciting!

The internet seemed so different back then. There was a ton of garbage online, but also, like… there was a sense of optimism to it. Folks were shitty, there was plenty of bad stuff online, but it felt so disconnected from the fabric of the physicality of real-life that it was at the same time a perfect escape.

I was young when I first got “online”, something like 12. I remember having this notion that the internet was going to be this great equalizer, that it had infinite potential to change how people behave and interact. Boy, huh.

Hypnospace Outlaw is essentially a splendid alternate universe GeoCities recreation, where you’re a volunteer moderator of a grouping of websites on HypnOS, an internet-analog you access while you are sleep. At the surface level, it’s mostly about poking around the weird alternate-historical version of the internet they created, full of kids feuding, bizarre historical divergences, and plenty of amazing bespoke weirdness. All of this is great; there’s an incredible amount of content that’s just great to poke at, listen to, and explore.

Below the surface, there’s also a rolling plotline about the ethics of this industry-owned platform, those who run it, and the way corporations handle new technology, new platforms, and emerging digital societies. There’s a late game turn that’s pretty damn affecting. And as someone who has moderator his share of internet forums in his time, trying to balance ‘do it for the community’ and what your ostensible ‘bosses’ require of you, it was kind of a weird throwback in more ways than one.

Minecraft – 2011 – PC – ★★★★★

Turns out, Minecraft is really as good still who knew??? Started playing a bunch more of it this year due to Giant Bomb deciding to do so, and yeah: still good!

2. Hades – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again— Supergiant makes damn good games. I’d been holding off on checking out Hades until its full release due to my tendency to burn out on games easily, and I’m glad I waited. Hades is a fantastic rogue-lite experience. The way it makes narrative progression part of the reiterative, randomized rogue-lite structure is just perfect.

It’s got all the usual Supergiant bullet points. Great characters, voice acting, narration, and music. In terms of gameplay, it’s probably their least ambitious game— playing something like a cousin to their original game, Bastion— but it’s also been polished to a mirror sheen. It just feels really damn good to play, over and over and over.

That being said, the second (final?) ending feels kind of…. Tacked on? It’s fine as a goal to go for while continuing to do the game’s relationship mechanics for additional story bits, but it ends up feeling kind of unfulfilling compared to the payoff of the first one.

1. Crusader Kings III – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I never could get into Crusader Kings II. Despite my interest, the sheer mechanical heft and unintuitive interface made the game a wall that I just couldn’t get over. I’m sure if I’d dedicated myself I probably could have learned it, but… ehhhhhh.

Crusader Kings III, on the other hand, has a good tutorial, a cleaned-up UI, and a very helpful highlight and tooltip system that make it much easier to understand how to actually play the game through resources inside the game itself. And, as it turns out: I rather love this game.

I mean, conceptually it’s an easy sell, isn’t it? Historical politics is something I enjoy broadly. I liked Stellaris but wish it had more narrative, roleplaying elements. They outright say that “winning” isn’t really the point of the game. Instead, it’s more about emergent storytelling and playing with the different systems and seeing what you can do with it.

My current game has had me taking the Haesteinn dynasty from its Viking origins into England, forming a London-seated Northern Sea Empire that encompasses all of Britannia, Iceland, Holland, Norway, and Denmark. I am currently working on hegemonizing Norse religious control over enough Asatru holy sites to finally reform the religion, such that more unified feudalization can occur. To that end, my current ruler’s predecessor invaded West Francia and conquered the whole of its territory, substantially reducing the foothold of Catholicism in mainland Europe… which seems to have kicked the hornet’s nest, given the Crusade I’m going to need to contend with next time I boot up the game.

Of course, a complicating matter is that my current ruler— the Emperor of the North Sea, King of Ireland and the Danelaw, liege of the King of Denmark, was elected from the extended Haesteinn family via Thing, the Scandinavian council of his erstwhile vassals. Where the previous emperor, the one who manufactured the invasion of Francia, was quite religious and beloved for his adherence to the old ways, I discovered as I took over as his successor that he really, really is into just boning down across Europe. We’re talking constantly attempting to seduce neighboring Queens and Princesses. His vassals are not thrilled with this. They also don’t care for his propensity for torturing people to death, constantly.

I had no real say in this; attempting to stay on top of a dynasty is kind of like riding a bucking-bronco, so many things are only tenuously under your control that some weird shit can happen. This is especially true when you use the systems that make it easier to maintain the coherency of your domain. The Norse religion encouraging concubinage results in you having a lot of kids, which means there’s a lot of domain partition going on (someday, primogeniture, someday). Naturally, using Thing election reduces that, but also makes you sometimes end up having to play Emperor Stabbo-Fucko because they thought he was the best candidate at the time. Hell, I thought he was the best candidate at the time until I discovered just how many people he’d be laying with on the low. But you just have to roll with it.

The way the game forces you to play ball with character traits is great. Doing things that match with the character’s traits makes them lose stress. Doing things against their character increases stress. Too much stress can force you to make the character take up vices (which can make them suffer health or opinion maluses, as well as altering their aptitudes), or even die outright. And sometimes those vices and attitudes can be boons, given they open up opportunities for different character interactions.

Emperor Stab-and-Fuck-Kingdom is perhaps the most relaxed person alive, it turns out, because his sadism makes him really enjoy sacrificing infidels, which makes the gods happy. It also freaks the fuck out of all of his vassals, so they’re a good supplicant mix of both appreciative of my religious sentiments and also utterly terrified of my skull piles. Some especially brave vassals occasionally try to assassinate me, but my lovers keep jumping in front of the knife and saving my life mid-coitus. Iiiiiit happens! :D  

The game can be incredibly fun to just watch, as it becomes emergently weird. Georgia right now is incredibly Jewish in game. I’m not sure how that happened; I guess someone made a random Jewish guy into a vassal, who somehow moved up enough in the world to make it a movement? The Byzantine princes elected a Coptic as Emperor, which over the course of the decade resulted in very accelerated balkanization as Byzantium just lost its shit. The Middle East and notional HRE haven’t really unified in a meaningful way, so I’m curious how things are going to go if/when the Mongols unify and roll-on in.

It’s one of those “Just one more thing” games that can completely devour time. I have more than a few times checked the clock mid-game to see that it’s 4AM and that I’ve totally ruined my sleep schedule in the process of play. Oooooops.

I highly recommend checking it out if you’re curious; the introductory, pre-release video series Paradox put out showing off the game does a pretty good job of showing the core gameplay loop and also how weird it can get.

[thementalattic]

The stars align, the cosmos arranges itself, the portents cry true and whispers seep into the minds of faithful and weak-willed alike. The Great Old One rumbles in sleep in sunken R’lyeh but soon enough all will hear The Call of Cthulhu.

How’s that for a review intro?

Call of Cthulhu blew my expectations out of the water. I expected something like the previous first-person Cthulhu Mythos game I played, Dark Corners of the Earth, but what I got was a first-person RPG based on the classic Chaosium tabletop RPG ruleset, with deep storytelling and ways to influence encounters based on the elements in your character sheet. I expected action, but got deductive problem solving. What I’m trying to say is I’m impressed, which doesn’t happen that often.

I also played the game and went straight to order the Chaosium Call of Cthulhu RPG books, ‘cause I couldn’t resist.

Call of Cthulhu stars Edward Pierce, a private investigators arriving on Darkwater island, investigating the deaths of the Hawkins family, particularly Sarah, a rather famous painter with something of a bizarre style, her paintings almost otherworldly. Soon things take a turn for the bizarre, as Edward delves into the hidden secrets of the island, the cults that make it their home and just how alien Sarah’s paintings really are!

Let’s get to the finer points:

The Good

Read a Damned Book: As I mentioned, Call of Cthulhu uses tabletop RPG rules, and as such you have a character sheets with attributes/skills. You can use experience points gained by completing objectives in the story to increase their effectiveness, with certain conversation or interaction options locked out unless you have a minimum rating. But the two knowledge skills, which help tremendously in uncovering truths, Medicine and the Occult, you can’t raise with experience. You have to find books, scrolls, diagrams, treatises and so on, each found advancing your growth towards the next rank of these skills. It’s a wonderful way to promote exploration and replays!

Sweet Skills: Your character’s skills aren’t just for use in conversations or contextual interactions but on every aspect of gameplay. For instance, Strength will help you do certain things quicker and if you must wield a weapon, your accuracy is deadly at higher ranks. But my favourite aspect of skill use is with Investigation, which will let you know if there are hidden items in the environment, such as a note hidden under a table and behind a burnt doll that holds key information about the next puzzle or about the characters in the story.

Professional Gumshoe: Call of Cthulhu has a pretty good story, with enough twists to keep you interested and a myriad of characters with their own motivations who you may trust and then regret. The story even plays with your perceptions at times. Best of all, it’s not just a game of picking up evidence and talking to people. There are wonderful deductive puzzles and some crime-scene reconstructions that beyond being awesome, also blur the line between reality and insanity. I was never sure if this was just the character’s deductive reasoning in at play or if he really hallucinated those reconstructions.

It’s all in your head…until it isn’t: A staple of the Cthulhu mythos and Eldritch horror is the loss of sanity and hallucinations and there are so many wonderful and hideous ways to lose your mind in Call of Cthulhu, from looking too intently into the abyss to willingly immerse yourself in the Mythos and learn its secrets. In fact, the Mythos as a whole is part of the story as an entity, forbidden knowledge that consumes you as you explore it. The coolest thing about going mad is that new conversation options open where it’s just Mythos script gibberish, with the character saying some rather ominous things.

Creeping Terror: The Call of Cthulhu has an amazing atmosphere, constantly keeping you on edge. There is a wonderful mix of visuals and audio to unnerve you at all times, even when nothing is happening. This is not a game that relies heavily on jump scares, instead using that oppressive atmosphere to unnerve you.

Paths of Damnation: Because of the RPG system that powers the Call of Cthulhu, you have a myriad of approaches to the game’s challenges and in doing so create a fair amount of branching paths, making the game incredibly replayable, as you can try different approaches and skills. After publishing this review and finishing another title, I will run this game again on my Twitch streams, with different skills and approaches. I’ll try this time to avoid the occult and learn all the medicine, instead of the balanced character I took on my first trip into the Cthulhu mythos.

The Bad

Fateful Binary Choice: The entirety of your time on Call of Cthulhu you’re making choices and using your skills to create a unique narrative path. Some people talk to you, others refuse to help you and you may even get into trouble with yet another group of people. Yet even so, it all boils down to a binary choice in the final confrontation. The options are wonderful in their consequences but I would have liked something more organic and befitting the narrative you build throughout the game, instead of a “Light” and “Dark” side equivalent.

Sneak Attack: In Call of Cthulhu there are several instances where you must engage in stealth, to hide from a hideous creature whose very visage will drive your psyche to horrible corners in your mind, or to escape from an insane asylum as deranged in staff as the patients it houses. The problem is that the stealth mechanics are too shallow and simple, and thus the challenge is not there in these sections. It feels forced and lacking the same polish as the rest of the game, especially when only one of these sections manages to keep the tension up. The rest of them disrupt the atmosphere and when, like me, you walk almost

Gallery

I played and managed to keep my sanity with @cyanidestudio’s #CallOfCthulhu, and loved every minute of it! Our review!

The stars align, the cosmos arranges itself, the portents cry true and whispers seep into the minds of faithful and weak-willed alike.

I played and managed to keep my sanity with @cyanidestudio's #CallOfCthulhu, and loved every minute of it! Our review! The stars align, the cosmos arranges itself, the portents cry true and whispers seep into the minds of faithful and weak-willed alike.

[digikate813]

I got tagged by @marvelandponder a while ago, but I’m just getting to it now (I’ve been sick, working on some videos etc.)

Rules: List 10 good things that happened in 2016 and then tag 10 friends

Now, marvelandponders list consisted mostly of entertainment related things, and while there were a few good things that happened to me in 2016 (going on more vacations, my parents overcoming sickness, getting closer to you guys) I realized that while 2016 was pretty lousy in places, it was an amazing year for entertainment! Which is why I decided to take a page form her book and talk purely about entertainment. Because that’s what I do best.

Also, 10? 10′s not how I roll. Let’s do 12! But first, keep in mind that there were a few well regarded things in 2016 I haven’t gotten around to watching yet. Like Deadpool, Stranger Things, Moana. In fact, Doctor Strange, one of my most anticipated movies of the year, came out during probably the most stressful time of the year or me. So I couldn’t find the time to go see it. Just a little disclaimer. So, under the cut, there will be My Top 12 (somewhat arbitrarily ranked) Awesome Entertainment Things in 2016! Except for the top 3. Those are less arbitrarily ranked. On with the list!

12- The Ace Attorney Anime

Okay. Full Disclosure. I actually haven’t finished this one yet. I got pretty busy during the Turnabout Goodbye arc and just haven’t gotten back to it. But what I did see was great! Ever since I got into Phoenix Wright in 2014, I have been hoping for an anime. And in 2016, it finally came. I know there are people that have problems with it or just generally don’t like it, and that’s fine. But for me, I had a ton of fun watching what I did of these famous moments from the game come to life, and I thought it was a great adaptation. I do hope it gets an English dub one of these days (maybe by then, I’ll have finished Justice For All)

11- Kung Fu Panda 3

One of my most anticipated movies of the year. And while this was a pretty stellar year for animated movies (for the most part), I tried not to forget the badass-itude that was Kung Fu Panda 3. Anyone who loved the first two installments is not going to be disappointed. Giving the same level of comedy, emotional depth, incredible action and wonderful animation that at first we wouldn’t expect form something called “Kung Fu Panda”, but now we wouldn’t expect anything less.

10 - La La Land

One of the perks of procrastinating on this list is that I got to see La La Land before I finished this. And I’m glad I did, because this movie is as good as everyone says it is. It’s a visually stunning film that manages to embody the spirit of classic musicals right in the middle of 2016. A lot of us thought it wasn’t possible to carry that style into a modern setting, but this movie does it so gracefully that I hope others give it a try. And as someone who is a big fan of those musicals, it was right up my alley. But it also has a wonderful message behind it that rings true to anyone who tries to pursue something in a creative field. I won’t say too much more for fear of spoiling it, but it’s a wonderful film. It’s as good as everyone says it is, and like the ads are saying, if you’ve seen it already, see it again!

9- Kubo and the Two Strings

One of the most underrated movies of the year! This was a movie that was incredibly well done but insanely difficult to market. Seriously, if you’ve seen the movie, you probably know what I mean. You cannot go 10 minutes into this thing without giving something major away. What I can say is if you know those people who think animation is just for kids, and can’t do anything deep and impactful, show then this. It’s a beautiful film in animation, storytelling and performances. I personally have a bit of a problem with the ending, but that’s just me. Everything else about it is marvelous, and I’m glad people hyped it up enough to encourage me to check it out.

8- The People vs O.J. Simpson

Now this may seem like a weird addition to this list, but there is a reason this mini series is winning every award ever. And watching this was, an interesting experience for me, because I saw it with my Mom, and it was like watching this very well done series through two different lenses. I knew about as much as any millenial does about the OJ trial, but my Mom lived through it, and recognized moments throughout the trail and the broadcasts they were re creating. While I was just stunned at the kind of things that happened during this trial, my Mom was able to validate that yes, that is how it happened. This is one of those shows where if they didn’t do this as well as they did, it was going to crash and burn, but they pulled it off gracefully, and that’s why it deserves all the awards.

7-  Steven Universe: Bismuth

I decided that unless a show began and ended in 2016, I could only include one episode from it, and as great as Steven Universe was this year, none compared to this one for me. The 100th episode of any show is sure to be a big one, and while Bismuth isn’t exactly a spectacle or a celebration of the show reaching this milestone, it is an amazingly well done episode that may be one of the most well crafted stories in the show (and that’s saying a lot). It brings the same level of quality that any other SU episode does, but it goes above and beyond, bringing twists and new perspectives that are still effecting the show today. I really can’t believe I haven’t reviewed this yet, because I have a lot to say about this one. But for now, let’s move on to…

6- Finding Dory

With all of the amazing animated movies we had this year, Finding Dory seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. And that’s kind of a shame, because it does something that is an immediate red flag for most, putting the comic relief in the spotlight, and actually delivers a well made movie that can be compared well with the original. While I had been waiting for this movie for a while, I was hoping for it to be pretty good, and what I got was a great time that delivered all the feels. Seriously, there are some heart breaking moments in this movie. But what else do you expect form Pixar at this point?!

5- Captain America: Civil War

Oh my God! This movie was everything I wanted it to be and so much more! The fact that this movie borrowed a premise from one of the most despised comic book arcs in modern history, and managed to fulfill all of the untapped potential while building on all of the previous Marvel movies and was able to introduce new characters and get us to feel just as much for them as we do for the other Avengers we’ve known for years is astounding! Take that Batman v Superman! This may be the most well balanced Marvel movie so far. You understand both sides of the conflict, everyone has well thought out and understandable motivations, the action is some of the best in the franchise, and if it turns out that this is the last Captain America movie in the MCU, I would be 100% okay with that.

4- Zootpoia

I actually wasn’t anticipating this movie that much. But by the time I saw it, it had gained quite the reputation of being a wonderful film with a fascinating world, fleshed out main characters, and gracefully addresses social political issues in a family film. And after finishing it, I couldn’t agree more. I’ll be really surprised if Zootopia doesn’t win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. This is one of Disney’s best (and again, that’s saying a lot), and it’s such an important movie that still manages to be a fun buddy cop movie. It’s not preachy. It doesn’t talk down to it’s audience. It was a risky move, but it paid off miraculously.

3- Sherlock: The Abominable Bride

Yeeaaahh. No surprise here. Of course the Sherlock Christmas special that takes these characters back to their Victorian roots with tons of callbacks, an engaging mystery, and deep character exploration was going to make it here. I was so, so excited for this, being the big Sherlock Holmes geek I am, but this special actually managed to be so much more then it was advertised to be. I don’t want to spoil it, but I have reviewed this episode, and I gave it a glowing review. It’s one of my new favorite episodes, and given how much competition it had, that’s an achievement.

2- Pokémon Sun & Moon

Well, duh. I could have put Pokémon Go in this spot, since it made Pokémon a worldwide name again (for better or for worse), but I decided to go with Sun and Moon. Not only was anticipation for this game a ton of fun, with the excitement for each new Pokémon and feature that was announced being contagious, but the game itself was so much fun. Yes it takes forever to get to the actual gameplay. Yes there is a lot of hand holding in the first half. But this is probably the most experimental main series Pokémon game I have ever seen. And it really pays off. There are so many new features I love, the story was engaging, the environment, the Pokémon, the journey, it was just so much fun. What a great game to mark Pokémon's 20th anniversary.

#1- Gravity Falls: Take Back the Falls

Of course it’s Take Back the Falls! How could it not be Take Back the Falls? This may have been the most nervous I have ever been for a series finale. This was going to decide for me if Gravity Falls was going to become my new favorite show, and I had no clue how they were going to conclude this amazing show. But this was such a wonderful conclusion that had all of the action, intrigue, and emotional stakes it needed to, while giving us a wonderful goodbye to this place and these characters we had come to know and love for 3 years.

And a lot of my friends here on the internet I made through a connection with Gravity Falls. So to be able to celebrate what a wonderful and satisfying finale this was with those people made it all the more meaningful to declare Gravity Falls my favorite show.

So those are my Top 12 Favorite Entertainment things in 2016. I am so sorry that it took so long and that it’s very long and rambly. If anyone else wants to share their favorite things about 2016, I tag you! So feel free to write them up.

ADDENDUM: Okay, real quick. I finally saw Arrival last night, and oh my God! That movie is amazing. I didn’t want to kick any of these things off the list, so consider this an honorable mention. If you want some high concept science fiction and a different take on the first contact story, see this movie! I don’t want to spoil anything, so that’s all I’ll say. SEE IT!

Okay. I’m done. Bye,

[sarahkhalilsa]

In among my play sessions over this first weekend with the Beyond update, I really did not also leave the system I began in, because each earth as well as moon had a ton of unique aspects to absorb, though the increased quantity of points to do in the video game itself absolutely had something to do with this too. Yet in Virtual Reality, I unexpectedly found myself removing much more slowly, to ensure that I may look around the fully-rendered cockpit, and look down at the world as it gradually shrank in size the higher I went. But few video games have actually gotten to the heights of buzz that No Guy's Sky, particularly considering the small dimension of the team at Hello there Gamings. The Nexus likewise enables gamers to visit each other's bases, with a space for Hello there Games to share particular bases of note internationally, which will be an interesting room to watch, especially as the game has actually introduced electrical energy and also reasoning to its structure parts, which as any kind of LittleBigPlanet or Minecraft fan recognizes, can result in some insane automatic developments. This subtext has actually always become part of the game as the in-game language system is discovered by the build-up of shed words and also the old damages share stories of ancient marvels as well as expertise lost from long earlier. Ever before considering that the Atlas upgrade, the entire story has been rewritten from the ground up with the originals subtext as an allegory for the Tower of Babel, which currently includes the whole narrative. No mans sky ps5

If you wish to venture into that bunny hole you can start by following this owl that can explain it in far better detail than I, however if you desire a condensed variation: Sixteen deals with the Tower of Babel allegory from the sixteenth tarot card, the Tower. What I in fact obtained is blowing me away, something much beyond video game, although not without problem. Some critics even presume regarding claim that youre not actually uncovering things but locating points people have actually already uncovered, which has lots of misconceptions. Others might state it's just how much time was committed to finding and also repairing all the game-breaking bugs. It's fine that some people aren't wired for a video game similar to this. It's really that huge of a distinction. One of the most obvious factor is exactly how repeated the game is to play, so covering it currently versus forty hrs later wouldnt make a distinction besides me losing my gloss-- if a game can maintain me excited twenty hours, then that is a consequence Im going to run the risk of if it occurs. First, individual exploration is still exploration; it would be laborious to have you map and also call everything, so the video game takes some of the concern off from you. It is an exploration game for the benefit of exploration alone. Whatever that Hey there Gamings ever before declared to be in the video game seems in below. Survival video games, or a lite survival experience for No Mans Sky, typically obtain a bad rap from other games when they strain gamers with their mechanical systems.

What individuals do not obtain is that this is not a survival video game, or a space sim. Now simply making a video game with the scale of the world is not an engaging reason by itself as Daggerfall incorporated all areas of Tamerial, yet it likewise came to be a slog to people that werent attracted by its range. On another planet, I kept in mind exactly how the elements showed up in details areas where the Ferrite and Carbon was found from trees and rocks on the snow whereas Oxygen and Cobalt were located only below in the labyrinthine caves where eggs were kept beside the poisonous fungus to ward off trespassers. Components like carbon are typically found on fauna/flora whereas dihydrogen is found in a crystalline form on earths, never simply one atom hydrogen as hydrogen has a tendency to bond with itself. Nevertheless, all these systems are mechanical expansions to get you to travel from one corner of the galaxy to the following. Are you perplexed yet? Genuine male. These crazy NMS fanboys are several of the most awful I have actually ever encountered. The initial of many inquiries concerning No Male Sky is to ask one of the most obvious, "What do you do? Unfortunately, nearly everybody was let down by it, as the game was so full of game-breaking bugs that I directly couldn't also make it past the initial 3 missions without needing to remove my conserved game and start around again.

Instead of being randomly stumbled upon during gameplay, the Anomaly can currently be summoned at-will precede, as well as, unless the player's game is set to offline (yes, you soloists can still play whatever offline), docking opens the video game to as much as 15 other gamers, who will certainly reoccur as they please from and also to their very own games. There is no base building since it does not fit the theme at all, it is regarding being on your means, coming and going, that following hill, that brand-new planet, as well as leaving all of it behind permanently. There are hundreds of technicians one could discuss such as the upgradable systems, the essential combinations of craftable products, or the various means of travel from Exocrafts on earths, Freighters for Interstellar fleets, or the Warp as well as Hyperspace drives from your spacecraft. These plants can be harvested, which can be combined with various other products and also pet items to find one of over 300 recipes, differing in name from the mundane refined flour, to the in-joke Grahberry or the amusing yet ominous-sounding Haunted Pie. For some it could be a brand-new home, a gorgeous, separated, lonely residence where you can only go onward. As you may anticipate, these individuals didnt get on as well as the crewmembers despise his lack of knowledge; the expectations set by author not only from his creating experiences, but likewise classic works made him originally feel "that anticlimax was being stacked on anticlimax. " Nevertheless, Gibson becomes renewed whenever he experiences something new such as Zero-G environments; the initial appearance at Earth, space and also the stars; and also touchdown on Mars for the very first time.