What Video Games Did You Play? [2021 Edition]

[bomaye]

God of War (2018) for PS4

Platinum Trophy/98ish%

I ended up having a lore piece glitch on me so I never bothered 100%ing. Platinum wasn't needed for it anyways.

I prefer the old-school style of gameplay, the over-the-shoulder view leaves you a little too open to being easily hit (Valkyrie fights especially could be pretty bullshit because of this). I played on Easy so it wouldn't be a problem but it'd probably be aggravating as hell on harder difficulties.

Otherwise, what a great game. I was expecting the reboot to be a huge departure from the series and instead it was pretty much the same formula but expanded. The setting was fucking awesome, mostly good characters (Atreus had some nice moments but mostly came off as Anakin-in-Episode-1 to me), satisfying kill animations.

Spoiler:

I'm pretty hype for Ragnarok/whatever the sequel is now

[bomaye]

2) Marvel's Spider-Man GOTY Edition on PS4 (Platinum/100%/100%ed DLC)


- 9/10 game that gets dragged down to 8.5/10 levels when you have to play stealth sections with side characters.

- Web-slinging through New York was probably the best part of this game. Maybe the best free-flowing movement I've ever played in a video game.

- Rocked Scarlet Spider in first playthrough, Future Foundation throughout the DLC and Spider-Man 2099 for the Ultimate New Game+ Replay

- No Venom-costume = plz let's do Maximum Carnage and Symbiotes somewhere

- I think the game over-relies on random crimes to pad out the 100% list.

- Sony's DLC game is top-notch, all three were pretty cool and about what Spidey DLC should be

- Though I will say the Olympus bases on Normal Mode in the DLC was harder than anything in the base game in ultimate mode, holy shit.


Story

Spoiler:

I think the Arkham games (Asylum and City, haven't played the others yet) adapts its superhero material better but maybe I would've had a harder time choosing without the forced side-character stealth segments and more classic villain boss fights

3) Spyro The Dragon Reignited for PS4 (Platinum)

Comfy little platformer. The controls felt a bit slippery and there's a secret or two that's pretty high level of bullshit for a children's game ("How would even think to run that way?"). By the time I got to Spyro and Crash via rentals during the PS1 era, I'd already played Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie and had the impression of "Oh, I guess this is what you play if you don't have access to a Nintendo 64" and never touched them again, so it's nice to be able to play them like this.

[bomaye]

4) Assassin's Creed Liberation HD Remastered for PS4 (Platinum)

This is like an anti-proof of concept for the Vita, a weird uncanny valley where it looks and plays almost exactly like a AAA Assassin's Creed game but it's missing so much content and extras and story quality that the main games do that it leaves you feeling disappointed and just wanting to play an actual AC game (this came with AC3 Remastered for free, otherwise I'd never have bothered with it).

5) Spyro Reignited 2: Ripto's Rage for PS4 (Platinum/Only 100%)
6) Spyro Reignited 3: Year of the Dragon for PS4 (Platinum/Only 80%)

Pretty much the same as the first game, comfy platformers with slippery controls, though the flight controls were better than the first game. 2 was the best of the bunch. I was happy that 3 didn't require 100%ing for the Platinum Trophy because a lot of those mini-games were aggravating as shit.

[KMR]

Bug Fables on Steam

Cute and fun RPG in the style of a Paper Mario game. I started out with the hard mode enabled for the extra achievements and rewards, and while I appreciated the extra challenge at first, about halfway through it became an annoying time-sink to have to retry boss fights multiple times and to keep replenishing items (since the best items require collecting ingredients and cooking, which is another time-sink). And I learned that I could get the extra rewards through other means and I wasn't going to get all the achievements anyway, so I stopped bothering. Also, some of the post-game optional boss fights were extremely difficult and I decided not to bother trying to beat those either. But it's cool that the game has some major challenges for players who do want to engage with it on that level.

Link's Awakening remake for Switch

I missed out on this game growing up since I never had a GameBoy, so it was cool to get a chance to play this via remake. Very reminiscent of Link to the Past, but also cool to see some elements that later transitioned into Ocarina of Time that I didn't realize originated here. It was super weird to see random Mario stuff incorporated into a Zelda game. I was also surprised by how relatively short the game was. I completed just about everything, except the optional Dampe challenges that no longer give rewards (the dungeon arranging is just too tedious), and I was still missing some seashells but I stopped caring after I got the sword upgrade.

[Werel]

Hypnospace Outlaw

First game I played in 2021, and it is awesome? It's sort of a point-and-click puzzle game in the format of a pseudo-AOL interface. It's got an extremely specific aesthetic, i.e. "you are old and the 1998 internet feels like home, and/or you are a youth who's into ironic vintage computing," but the writing is funny, the puzzles are interesting, the visual feel is exactly right, and the music is awesome.

[bomaye]

7) Genshin Impact('s Trophy list to 100% on PS4)

Popped the 6th Character Ascension and 6th Weapon Ascension trophy today. Whether I keep playing this or not is up to the next update. The last big update made you redownload the entire game and one of the next ones is introducing the third major area so if they do that again, I'm probably not bothering. So far it seems unlikely that more trophies are on the way, both the major update that finished off the second area's storyline and the update that added the Dragonspine Mountains to the first area didn't add trophies. The last indicator will be when they add the third area, Inazuma, maybe in the next update.

Otherwise, very fun BOTW style game, the gacha elements never felt obnoxious to me (I haven't spent money at all and they give you a ton of ways to earn things, though I've had a crazy-lucky time with the amount of 5-star rolls and 4-star chars I've unlocked), the combat becomes a bit of a drag if you're not properly leveling everything and don't have a 5-star or two in your party. I'd like to get into the lore more but there was a problem awhile ago with not being able to scroll in lore entries and then on some updates it re-lists stuff you've already read as unread so I dunno about doing more of that. I never felt bottle-necked despite it being a free-to-play game, the updates are spaced out enough that you'll finish most of the content and then have a few weeks to just fuck around and gather materials while doing daily quests to level your chars a bit. 

[bomaye]

8 ) Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light for Nintendo Switch/NES (35ish hours)

Yeah, neeeeever would've beaten this without save states/turn rewind. So many future QOL features that I badly missed. Super happy I got this one on my completion list, though. I've now beaten two of the three versions of Shadow Dragon (now just release the third one, Nintendo)

[bomaye]

9) Mario 3D World on Switch (380 Stars/All Normal Stamps/Mario Stamp)

You have the beat every level 5 times to fully 100% the game, I don't have the patience to do it all right now, so I'm gonna hit up Bowser's Fury next and then maybe come back to this after.

As usual for 3D Mario games, I was killed by the camera/misjudging perspective way more than I was by anything else. Game's pretty easy For the most part. This style was okay for a 3DS game but I think with hindsight it was a mistake to try to use it as a signature 3D Mario game for the Wii U. 3D Mario's gotta be an event and a magical feeling world or universe, this was pretty uninspired especially coming off of playing 3D All-Stars not that long ago. Almost controls like a dream, I swear the roll is designed to make you accidentally die all the time from pressing the dash button and jump button at the wrong time rather than being useful.

[bomaye]

10) Mario 3D World/Bowser's Fury on Switch (100 Cat Shinies)

It's technically not DLC but it's mostly structured as a Mario Odyssey-style larger open-world add-on with 3D World trappings. Doesn't overstay its welcome, really enjoyable exploring the world of it. Best and worst part of it is Godzilla Bowser. His attacks out of nowhere can make levels more exciting, but you need him to break some objects to earn Cat Shinies and he only shows up randomly (up to 6 minute wait time I think?) unless you have a Bowser amiibo, which I don't, so there's dead time waiting for him to show up.

Camera kinda sucks too, but I might not have fiddled with the sensitivity enough

[bomaye]

9/10a) Annnnn now I've 100%ed Mario 3D World by beating it four more times

[bomaye]

11) Jet Set Radio (100% Trophy List) for Playstation 3/Dreamcast

That one involved Jet Ranking every story mission, beating every other mission, collecting all Graffiti Souls and unlocking every character. Dreamcast sure had a vibe back in the day, (A Sweet/Sweet Soul/Brutha). I didn't like how hard it was consistently do really anything in this game, but I guess Sega didn't bother playing Tony Hawk back in the day. The arcade feel of it was something that did draw me back to it, it always felt do-able if I could get the right control reactions. Got three ultra-rare trophies out of it, so that's cool (People said this one was artificially inflated because it was the first free PS+ game that came with Vita, fine by me).

[bomaye]

12) Dungeons & Dragons - Chronicles of Mystara (100% Trophy List) for the Playstation 3/Arcades

Tower of Doom was an okay arcade game (I like King of Dragons more as a fantasy arcade beat'em up because it plays smoother). Shadow of Mystara is an effing great arcade beat'em pretty much any way you look at it. Really fun to play, really fun to explore, really fun to use attacks. I primarily liked playing as the Dwarf or the Magic User but the Thief could be pretty fun too.

Actually pulled four Ultra Rare trophies from this one. I could understand the "Collect every treasure" Trophy being rare because it involves farming rare drops from bosses and the trophy itself is glitched (it'll pop later randomly, I got it to activate by starting Tower of Doom with the Cleric, which was the game and the character that I 100%ed the list with). The only other four-Ultra-Rare-trophy games I have are Yakuza Kiwami with 5, which was hard-as-fuck, and Shadow of the Colossus with 4 (which isn't Platinum'ed so there's more). D&D Mystara doesn't belong anywhere near that list for difficulty 

[bomaye]

13) Ico HD (Platinum) on PS3

Had most of the trophies going into it, but had to get the New Game+ and speedrun trophies. Used a youtube speed run and still just barely got it (the Graveyard encounter in particular I could never figure out how to do, so I ended up burning probably 5 minutes just clearing the enemies out). Surprisingly I don't hate this game after doing this, but there were a few spots that were pull-your-hair-out aggravating even without speedrunning.

[bomaye]

14) Shadow of the Colossus HD (Platinum) on PS3

Hell yeah. Popped the last two trophies, 8 Ultra Rare PSNProfiles trophies, two below 1% rarity on PSN itself. I guess the game got ported slightly wrong (your grip or balance is weaker so it's easier for the Colossi to shake you around), so two Colossi on Hard Time Attack are aggravatingly much harder to beat than they were meant to be. Probably took me a hundred tries or more between the two to finally have the run to beat them. Actually proud of this one.

[bomaye]

15) Dirt 3 on PS3

A rally racer. Had fun in the career mode but did not like all the stunts and trick modes. Not possible to Platinum anymore (the online was locked behind a pass which was no longer for sale after the game got de-listed), but I wouldn't have been able to anyways, not skilled enough at drifting and don't know enough about cars to figure out good set-ups to accomplish some of said stunt/trick modes. Luckily there was enough to do that I hit 52% trophy completion (65% in the base game/not counting DLC trophies) so I could at least maintain the goal of 50% trophies on my profile (acks TLOU1 on my profile is below that because of the multiplayer).

[bomaye]

16) Grid 2 for Playstation 3

I liked this one better than Dirt 3, less stunt modes and more out-and-out racing. Though, one thing that always annoys me about street racing games is that the computer AI is tuned to make the right moves to quickly recover from any contact with anything whereas if you slightly nudge a street sign or a wall, you're liable to backflip your car right off a cliff. I popped all the available non-DLC single player trophies and hopefully I'll eventually find a boosting partner to pop the Platinum but if not it's fine, I'm over 50% trophies even counting the DLC (which I'm not going to get).

[Hielario]

The only gaming i'vee done this year was replaying Strange Flesh (PC, freeware, gay porn), because I was bored, and horny, and I wanted to see the Dominate ending again, since the first time I beat the game and got it did not get saved for reasons I can't remeber. And I wanted to compare it to the Corrupt and Secret endings.

Turns out gettting the three unlocks a "Debug Mode" that lets you do all sorts of crazy stuff, like seeing every level's defeat screens or commands for making stuff happen in-game. I don't even know what some of them are! This promises some fun the next time I open it in six months or so.

Kinda wish there were straight porn games like this, but I'm aware that it would have some very fucked up implications.

[bomaye]

17) God of War: Ascension (PS3/Platinum)

Just had to beat it once on Hard Mode to get the Platinum. Still my favourite God of War game. Only annoyances was the camera zooming out a bit too much at times and the QTEs (especially in combat, where you're frantically mashing one button and suddenly you have to press another to counter an attack and there's really no way to do it)

[bomaye]

18) God of War III (PS3/Platinum)

I had three trophies left, beating the Challenge of the Gods (easier than I thought it would be), beating the Labyrinth without dying and beating Titan Mode. I cheated for the last two, there was a glitch that gave you infinite health and all your weapons maxed out at the start of the game (still died a few times on the Labyrinth anyways). Would've hated trying to do this legit. Some of those battles seemed like quite a bit of bullshit heaped on you. Still would be my least favourite God of War if it wasn't for the second PSP game.

[bomaye]

19) God of War: Ghost of Sparta (Platinum) for PS3/PSP

Beat the challenge mode and the game on Hard Mode. Don't know why I thought it was one of my least favourites (definitely has one of my least favourite enemies in those ghost things that dive at you from underground), game flowed pretty well and the combat was cool. Though I guess the one big difference is that I played it directly after Chains of Olympus and I wanted to Platinum that one immediately because it felt so good to play.

Anyways, that's every God of War game platinum'ed for me now. Ascension > 2 > CoO > 2018 = GoS > III = 1

[bomaye]

20) Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (Platinum) for PS3

What an annoying game. Sticking to spires and swinging off hooks is so finicky. Had pretty much completed everything except the Master Thief challenges for the 75% and 100% trophy so I just finished those for another platinum.

That's all the Team Ico, God of War and the Sly Platinum I'd left behind. Still have two Infamous Platinums, maybe two Uncharted Platinums (1 was kinda clunky and I never liked 3 but maybe I could do'em) and then some extra trophies I never bothered with in Uncharted 4 that were left behind that I'd like to do. Buuut that'll be in the future.

[KMR]

Curse of the Dead Gods

A sort of Hades meets Darkest Dungeon rogue-lite game that was really challenging for me to get the hang of for a while and got kind of repetitive at times, but was still fairly engaging. I am master of the bow and mediocre with just about any other weapon, which is very much on-brand for me. Beat the game on normal mode and unlocked all but one of the weapons. Not really invested enough in the game to want to bother with hard mode, plus this currently puts me at 69% completion, so it's probably better to just leave it be.

I feel like I should also mention that I played Hades for a while back in the day. Mostly in 2020 but going into early 2021. I got the true ending, most of the unlocks/achievements, and reached heat level 16/32 in the post game. I kept thinking I might go back to the game later and unlock a few of the more achievable things I missed but got distracted by other games instead. I like to say that I was into this game before it was cool, since I played a lot of it in early access and then after its release suddenly everyone was playing the game and raving about it. The hype for this one is certainly well-deserved.

As a side note, I feel a bit odd about how infrequently I contribute to these threads given the amount of gaming I actually do on a daily basis, but I'm often playing games that are more open-ended and lacking in concrete completion points or that are continually updating and that I keep going back to (or meaning to go back to but then never do...). So it's hard to find a good point to declare "I am completely done with this game and can now report on my experience" as is the nature of this thread.

[bomaye]

You can talk about'em while you play'em, I changed the thread from "Completed Games" in 2020 to "What did you play" in this year just so it's more open-ended and people can talk about what they're playing at whatever stage they're playing

[bomaye]

21) Altered Beast (PS3 Port)

Never played before. I like the '80s look and it's fun when you're in beast form but stiff as hell and kinda cheap otherwise. It may just be the port, but it does feel like there's some input lag, that you pretty much have to know something is gonna come at you to properly time the button press. I abused the hell out of the save states to pop all the trophies (except the multiplayer trophy, gotta look for a boosting partner for that).

[bomaye]

22) Daytonaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa USA (PS3 Port/100% Trophies)

Fun little game. Music, the bridge etc. Kinda wish I paid more attention to the arcade and/or Sega scenes back in the day so this could've been one of those "OMFG" moments at what the future of graphics was going to look like

[Sponsored content]