I'm not specifically a big brain person but all the other people responding more in depth into this are pretty true. You either like something or you don't like something. It doesn't matter what the general consensus of Metacritic or Steam tells you.

It seems a lot of people are talking about reviews here so I'll chime in on that. There's some games I'm just too afraid to even touch right now because I feel I'd just be extremely disappointed like I have in the past. Seriously, if I see something on Steam that has a 95% or more (Overwhelmingly Positive) rating, I'm going to stick close to my chest to see if I like the game personally, but many times it's not been the case. As somebody who until recently has played Indie/Boomer Shooters almost exclusively, I cannot tell you how many games I didn't like in that genre. And yes, there's not a lot of middle ground when everyone agrees on something and sometimes I look at these reviews and as people said, they've only said one sentence, a meme or trash talk. I've come to let go of bias in terms of playing something especially whether the game is by a publisher or developer people don't like or if it's something I didn't like, but it's hard to do that sometimes when it feels with so much content that's on the internet you've been trained to think in a more cynical way (Example: My negative feelings about Microids). I like to think positively about things, but it's so easy for the internet and game reviews to get you down.

My advice for this whole underrated/overrated thing, you like a game or you don't and you shouldn't feel bad for feeling this way about things. I'm a person who plays Fallout 76 with my friend on weekend nights sometimes, I have a really awesome time with that game and if I only listened to the overall reception and stuck with that I would have 1: Never given it a chance and 2: I would have been being dishonest with how I feel about it. And I've done this with MANY games. Fortnite is one of my favorite multiplayer games now ever since I gave it a try because it's so casual and not extremely competitive compared to other games. So, I'm mostly with everyone else who is diving deeper into the discussion, but sometimes it can be disheartening to want to play something but you feel pressured not to play it because of what the popular reception might be. I've certainly felt this and I really tried to stay away from that crap when going into a game. Give things a shot and see if you like them.

Passing the Ketchup! I mean- Catch Up! #1

I haven't done many reviews recently and that's mainly because I'm kind of stepping away from my blog a bit to just enjoy the games I want to play. I pretty much said to myself I don't need to constantly review things, so I'll keep that in mind continuing on into the year. But I wanted to try something new and if it goes well, I'll probably attempt more of these! I want to catch up on some games I completed last month and recently and again, I'm hoping to make more of these because I think this will be a good way to refresh the blog a bit. So without further ado, I wanted to talk about three games that I played in the last month and a half. I'll go by order of when I completed them.



Return to Castle Wolfenstein (RealRTCW)

I started the year off by completing another FPS game I never tried before and thankfully, it was very, VERY good! I know Wolfenstein is a popular series now but to be honest after playing The New Order years ago I found it to be way too serious for something that is supposed to be inherently silly in concept. This is where RTCW comes in. In the fashion of the best Old School Shooters, you are once again swept into WWII as a one man army to defeat Nazi Occultists and save the world from the Nazis changing the tide of the war. It's nowhere near as serious as the Wolfenstein games of the present are and to me this puts it WAY up there when compared to other FPS games. It's not obnoxiously comedic or tone deaf, it has the best blend of serious and darkly funny that I think the series should be going back to.

I played it with the RealRTCW mod and it added a lot of conveniences like Widescreen Support, Extra Weapons, Updated Graphics, Better AI and many other things that are optional. Unfortunately, some of the things are completely unnecessary and the mod sometimes detracts from the overall experience. The game has a HUB you visit after every Chapter is completed and this is by far the worst part of the game. These sections features some of the worst voice acting in the history of video games, not even on an amateurish level, but on a "I don't give no shits!" level of abysmal that is absolutely horrendous. It's also quite frankly redundant to have a cutscene telling us what we're going to do next, only to be in the hub and have to go to headquarters for them to tell us the exact same thing we already know! I think this HUB can be toggled off but I'm not entirely sure. If not, I would have rather played the Vanilla+ versions of the game that are on the workshop and my rating would have been so much higher.

RTCW still is another incredibly immersive FPS game that takes you on a classic one man army adventure with tons of great weapons and excellent gunplay among some really interesting environments. Sometimes the game will put you into stealth sections and these are by far some of the best I've played from an older game. Stealth in older games (especially FPS Games) are usually awful, but this was really good and it wasn't a hassle to play. One of the best things about the game is the AI and how responsive they can be. If you hide, they'll come straight after you, they'll actually respond by hiding from gunfire, they'll also try to flank you at multiple points. The only other game I can compare the AI to is the original Unreal, which to me might have the most responsive AI in an FPS Game ever. The levels are always interesting and the action is almost constant, keeping a fast pace throughout the game.

This is one I'd very much recommend. Old School FPS games for me are some of the most immersive in the genre and it's no wonder that RTCW is still such a classic after all these years. It's everything I wanted out of a Classic FPS game from the era.

Rating: 8/10



Delta Particles

A very recent mod release for Half-Life 1. This is one of the best Half-Life mods I've played and rivals a lot of the great HL2 mods out there. This time, you're not focusing on Black Mesa or Gordon Freeman or Barney, or some random coworker who spilt his coffee and caused another resonance cascade. Nuh uh. Instead you focus on a new location, Delta Labs who inadvertently get involved in the Resonance Cascade and it's up to you and your... coworker? Boss? Girlfriend? Best Friend? Lover? Whatever. Her name is Diana and will have to survive in Delta Labs and make your way into the Border World to find missing scientists.

First things first, this is a full on Total Conversion of Half-Life. I'm always a big sucker for what people can do with Half-Life and it's assets and my god, this mod looks incredible. The skyboxes actually have stuff going on in them, the character models look excellent and even the one for Diana is really well done. There's also tons of new weapons to try out but at the very end of the day, this is still the classic Half-Life experience redefined. It's kind of survival horror like in terms of the gameplay at the beginning, but by the end of the first act you'll be in for a wild ride. Like every good Half-Life mod it rewards you for exploring and thinking during puzzles and combat scenarios which there are many. Seeing a new location other than Black Mesa is a welcome change of scenery and Delta Labs has lots of interesting places to explore and look at. The music is also very much like Half-Life and I could see this passing as an Expansion in 2002 and I wouldn't know the difference it's that good. All the pieces fall into place to make a memorable experience that is leagues ahead of some other Half-Life 1 and 2 mods.

The ending of the game however is unsavory. It ends on a cliffhanger that will probably never be continued and the game basically tells you a few moments before that all you did to get to this point in the story was pointless meaning you feel like you wasted a bunch of time doing something for nothing. I hope there is a sequel to this mod but I'm not getting my hopes up. This mod came out of nowhere and had a great time with it. If you love Half-Life and it's universe you have to play this. The gunplay is excellent, the combat encounters are interesting and differentiate from regular Half-Life, the music is kick ass, the graphics are REALLY awesome for a Gold Source mod and Diana is best girl. Looking forward to playing this again.

Rating: 8.5/10



Job Simulator

My first VR Completion! Recently I bought a Meta Quest 3 for me and my sister to play with and we're loving it. VR has absolutely changed my perspective on game immersion and I seriously am having the best time trying out VR titles. This one is a classic of VR Games, taking place in a mid 21st Century where Robotic CRT Monitors mostly populate the world. You play as a human visiting a Job Museum and being trained by Job Bot to try out jobs of the past. There's four choices, Office Worker, Cook, Store Clerk and Auto Mechanic. You're guided through each and every one of these situations by Job Bot, but instead of feeling hand holdy it instead helps the player become immersed in the job they're doing.

This is one of the best gaming experiences I've had in a LONG time. For such a little game there is so much interactivity. If you open a door, you can swing you hand at it to close it and it will react to your movements. If you are told to blow on something to get rid of dust, you can actually blow and the item will react to what you just did. If you eat a donut, you actually see chunks of the donut being eaten as you hold it close to your mouth. You can crank dials, pull switches, press buttons, throw objects at robots or into recycling cans, drink grape juice, I could go on and on and on about how much I loved the amount of creativity you could do with the amount of freedom you have despite being lead on a path.

The Graphics are adorable. I love the Robots you meet in this game and I enjoyed seeing everyone's interactions with you or other bots. The immersion in this game stands almost above even the most immersive games on flat screens because when you're playing this game, you always feel like you're part of the environment which I guess is what VR is supposed to do, but it's insane how we went from dreaming of VR as a schlocky cyberpunk fantasy in the 90's to actually having great hardware that supports incredible experiences. I loved the world of Job Simulator and I can't wait to go back to it again. I cannot recommend enough. The price to get into VR is extremely high and is not for everyone, but if you so happen to have a VR Headset like I do, this is a must play for any beginner to the VR Experience. I hope I can get to play the sequel soon.

Rating: 9/10

Out of all the games, I would absolutely recommend Job Simulator, but the others I covered are still worth checking out and are probably cheaper alternatives (Delta Particles is free because it's a Mod on Steam) but I had a great time playing these games. I'll see you all later and hopefully will continue this Ketchup- I mean Catch up series! Thanks!

-TheAutisticGamer

A New DND Video Game/Sequel to Demeo has been announced and I'm loving that ever since DND's popularity exploded we're getting more focus on the interesting races that never got the focus in previous games (Before BG3 it was rare to have anything media related focused on a Dragonborn or Aarakocra of Tabaxi). Thanks BG3! Can't wait for more DND video games to come out, but this is the one I have my eyes marked on right now even though there's little info about it yet.

Yep! I changed my banner. Hope you like the change of scenery.

I haven't posted in quite a bit but I have some exciting news. I bought a Meta Quest 3 for my sister and I to play on and so far I've been REALLY enjoying the experiences I've played on it. I played loads of Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter, not to mention I've tried a little bit Half-Life 2 VR and Job Simulator, the latter being probably my favorite game I've played thus far on the headset. Although my bank account is crying right now, I spent over $700 dollars just to get this and thankfully I'm heading back to work after my LOA I've had from it, so I'll finally start getting money in the bank again.

So far, the Meta Quest 3 has been quite good. I was worried initially that I would not be able to fit into it because I wear glasses, but they have a facial spacer that allows glasses users to wear the headset which is a huge step up from the mediocre experience I had with PSVR. The fact that it's wireless as well is a HUGE bonus as I don't need to set up a billion sensors in the room to get the best results. We currently have it hooked up in my sister's second room which is more appropriate for playing. The headset is comfortable and I've not had any major with the controls or build quality. I'm really looking forward to trying games like Half-Life: Alyx, Sniper Elite VR, Zombie Army VR, Star Wars Vader Immortal, Asgard's Wrath II and others and I also have a 3 month trial for Meta Quest+ so I'll definitely be trying some titles on there as well.

Regular gaming has been mixed. Right now I'm into one specific game, but other than that I'm just having trouble figuring out what to play right now, so I'll probably stick with the game I'm going with, which happens to be the one I'm going to talk about right now!



I hear of this series a while ago but only now have I decided to play one of the games in it. This is SUPER addicting. It's a JRPG type game made for Web Browsers back who knows how long ago and is free to play on Steam. It has really excellent turn based battles and a really good sense of humor, although I feel most of the side quests are just junk filler. It's a breath of fresh air from the genres I usually play and I'm wanting to play more JRPGs now. But, I'm going to stick with this series for the next little while and try out 4 and 5 as well. The reason I don't play 1 and 2 is because they're so short, so these will have to do. Still, it's really good so far and I hope to put more hours into it.

I don't have anything much to add atm. I did a lot of coding practice today as I'm still going through the book I got for Christmas. I hope sometime to use Source Engine to make Half-Life 2 mods. Anyways, that's all. Sorry there wasn't too much to say but that's what happens when you've had an uneventful month. Oh, I did see a Cybertruck though when I was out with friends and I was completely baffled by it. See you soon!

-TheAutisticGamer

I'm addicted right now to Epic Battle Fantasy 3, which used to be a free browser game franchise I never heard of until I saw the 4th game on Steam years ago. IT'S SOOOOO AWESOME! It's a very engrossing JRPG type game with loads of great humor, excellent turn based combat system and really enjoyable crafting as well and I spent a long time last night just going through the first dungeon in the game. Best thing is that it's free, so it makes for a perfect demo for the franchise if you wanted to pick up the other games but didn't know if it would be worth it. But it's worth it!

I got a Meta Quest 3 for my sister and I to share and I'm also going through Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter atm which I think is an appropriate title to have as my first true VR Title. It certainly takes a lot out of me though and gives me slight motion sickness and I can only play for maybe 20-30 minutes at a time. The worst part of the game is that if you exit the game via the Meta Quest in Steam Link, it will think the game crashed and will try to get you to launch it into safe mode. Since I play in a secondary room upstairs and my computer is downstairs, it's EXTREMELY annoying to have to turn on my headset, use Steam Link, take it off, go down and launch the game properly, come back up and put the VR headset on again just to play the damn thing. But this is a really good version of the game. You can dual wield any weapons you get in the game and make multiple combinations of dual wielding such as rocket launcher in one hand and a laser rifle in another. Plus you can shoot down projectiles enemies fire at you. I had to adjust controls in the options but the game plays REALLY good now and by my second session I was comfortable with how the Quest Controllers worked. I also had to adjust some SteamVR settings and turn resolution scale from Auto to Manual and put it at 100% since the game was lagging and getting pixelated like crazy and now it works nicely.

Those are the two main games I've been working on. I also previewed some games like Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings on PS2 emulation on PS5, which has some of the most jarring facial animations I've ever seen. And I'm still slowly working my way through Forza Motorsport 3. Speaking of, I'm really excited to see Forza Horizon 5 come to PS5 so now I have a reason to play it again!

I had a lot of gaming time this month since I'm on a LOA at work to deal with my Seasonal Affective Disorder that happens every January and I feel very refreshed. This month started the year off great. All the games I played I enjoyed in some way or another, even the worst game wasn't completely terrible for reasons I'll get to.

Here's 5 Completions:

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (RTCW) - PC - 01/02 - 8/10
Half-Life: ESCAPE 2.0 - PC - 01/09 - 8.5/10
Aperture Desk Job - PC - 01/15 - 8/10
Delta Particles - PC - 01/17 - 8.5/10 - Best
Rogue Warrior - X360 - 01/23 - 5.5/10 - Worst

A lot of good completions this month, probably the best gaming month in terms of quality and entertainment I've had in quite a long time. And yes, Rogue Warrior even had some enjoyment to it. The brutal takedowns are some of the most graphic and violent I've seen in a game and had me howling in excitement every time good ol Dick "Fucking" Marcinko stabbed someone multiple times in the face. The one liners are hilariously vulgar and awful and got tons of laughs out of me, not to mention this could have been the ultimate so bad it's good game that doesn't often happen nowadays. Unfortunately, the performance on 360 is terrible mainly staying at 20 FPS most of the time, not to mention the guns aren't good to use, the lack of weapon variety is noticeable, the graphics are bland and the voice acting is poor, but it certainly functions and it's nice and short, so I have to give it credit where it's due.

Aperture Desk Job is the latest Valve game that came out three years ago and I'm glad I got to play it. It's an insanely inventive and oftentimes funny experience set in the earliest period of the Half-Life/Portal universe and even if you don't have a Steam Deck, you can use an Xbox Controller like I did but you'll be missing out on Gyroscope which isn't a big deal. Even though it's short, it's by far one of Valve's best titles to come out since the Golden Age of the company (1998-2013) with tons of interactivity from not just the controller but mouse and keyboard and microphone as well. It's by far the most impressive title I played this month and the game looks astonishing, but as said, it's short and I don't have much else to say about it other than it's a unique experience that should be tried out.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein I played on the RealRTCW mod. Apparently, there are options to disable things the mod makes default which would have made my experience a hell of a lot better, considering there is a HUB between missions where you'll hear probably the most hideously awful voice acting maybe ever recorded in mod history? Not to mention story wise it's redundant. The game itself though still holds up and the mod is great for getting widescreen support and up to date features like mod support. It's very immersive and the game doesn't take itself too seriously compared to later Wolfenstein titles. Gunplay is excellent and like any great FPS game feels very adventurous in it's levels. Very much recommended.

Finally, it was either between Half-Life: ESCAPE 2.0 or Delta Particles, two great mods for Half-Life. But in the end, Delta Particles took the cake. ESCAPE 2.0 is action packed throughout and is constantly exciting, but Delta Particles is more unique and original, taking the Resonance Cascade incident and showcasing it from the view of another competitor to Black Mesa (and it's not Aperture!). Even though the game ends on a sour note, I still think this is the best game I played all month. It's a total conversion so the guns, enemies and characters are all new and it makes for a refreshing mod for Half-Life fans. It's almost survival horror in the aspects of the combat situations but there's still the classic Half-Life experience awaiting you in this game. Also, Diana is now best girl. I absolutely had a fantastic time with the mod and I hope with the success there will be a continuation, because that ending wasn't good, so I hope the modder can continue to craft a new mod to continue the events of this game.

So cool news! I bought my sister and I a Meta Quest 3 to share and right now I'm playing through Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter at the moment. I'm also hoping to get more time into Forza Motorsport 3, while also starting to make some progress in Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. I'll also have to get back to Black Mesa, but that might have to wait. So far, I'm pretty happy right now with how things are going. See you all next month!

I prefer this clip personally, the build to, "suck my balls" is what makes it.

There's tons of lines from this game that are just comedy gold. I can't believe Dick Marcinko is a real person lol.

Rogue Warrior
System: Xbox 360
Developer: Rebellion
Publisher: Bethesda
Genre: FPS, Cover Shooter, Action



Okay, so this fucking fuck of a fucking game is fucking kind of fucking weird...

Just kidding, I'm not going to do that for the entire review, but man oh man this could have been the ultimate so bad it's good game! Rogue Warrior went through hell to get developed before landing on Rebellion's lap and releasing to horrid reviews with many citing it as one of the worst games of all time. I can't agree with this for numerous reasons. One is that the game certainly does function and if something didn't function, I would probably give the game a MUCH lower score than I did. Yes, things are exploitable but the game certainly isn't broken by any standards with a couple of glitches I found along the way. But in general, this almost has the perfect brew to go down in the history books as THE bad game. A complete vanity project, this game features Dick Marcinko (a real person BTW) in a plot to end the Cold War once and for all during the mid-80's. Despite what you may think, no. It's not based on his autobiography, it's not based on any actual missions he had done in service and it's certainly not based on the ridiculous fiction books he co-writes. This is a wholly original game with Dick being the main hero and my god it's crazy.

This game is bonkers but it's also hilarious in the wrong ways. First off, this is a First Person Cover Shooter in the style of Quantum of Solace (a better game to be honest for the 360). Dick plays in the first person unless he's in cover in which he switches to third person. Dick has a weak variety of guns, mainly ranging from crumby shotguns to mediocre assault rifles. All you do in this game is shoot North Koreans and Soviet Russians while Dick says "Fuck" so many times that the people behind Swearnet: The Movie I think would faint in horror by how many fucks he says. And often, Dick's one liners are hilariously bad. I laughed so hard at a lot of them and one of the one liners involving "A Polar Bear Freezing It's Dick Off." had me completely in stitches. His lines are so in bad taste and just awful that you cannot believe this person is real. I kept laughing throughout the majority of the game because of how idiotic the dialogue from him is and to be honest, the game has become kind of a so bad it's good cult classic among gamers due to it's vulgarity. But does that mean the game is great? Not really.

I played it on Xbox 360 and the FPS usually stays at around 20 FPS which makes the guns feel sluggish. It doesn't help that enemies can kill you almost instant in 3-4 bullets, so you have to basically play this game like a Gears of War or Uncharted game. The gunplay just doesn't feel good mainly because of the framerate and sensitivity. I had to adjust the sensitivity actually which is never a good first impression when starting an FPS game. Aside from the hilarious dialogue, the voice acting is extremely poor. I don't think any of the two Hollywood level actors they got for this game gave an entire shit. The game also gets boring 70% of the way through and then much of the game after that is planting bombs constantly on missiles. Grenades are also useless as they have too little of a blast radius and can realistically kill only one enemy at a time, so grenades are a waste and don't matter in this game. The cover mechanics work fine, but they can be much more refined if this game wasn't rushed out the door. I also had a moment where I got checkpoint after I died instantly, meaning I almost had to restart an entire level because I kept get blown up by a barrel that was on fire which is probably the worst part of the experience for me.

My favorite part though is the glory kills. These are some of the most brutal takedowns I've ever seen in a game and I was ecstatic with joy every time Dick did one. If you press X, Dick will stab an enemy multiple times in the face or eyeballs or slit an enemy's throat and it's so vulgar and violent that I was cheering for the next one to happen. This is easily exploitable at the beginning of almost ever level. Mainly because you can use the takedown feature for like 2 minutes tops if you're running because enemies are slow and stupid and are always looking in front of them. The AI also is terrible. They'll mostly just hide behind cover for hours on end and even if you get close to them, they'll rarely shoot you much of the time. And some enemies are just extremely slow as said. There's not much else to say other than the graphics are below average and murky, not to mention the game thankfully is short at around 2 Hours tops so it doesn't overstay it's welcome for much longer.

If you can get this cheap like I did, it's a fun albeit mediocre romp that will have you howling with laughter for the first half of it. It's certainly got issues as so many have pointed out, but as a so bad it's good game, it ultimately falls flat at the 3/4 mark. Still, there's a cult classic in here somewhere.

One more note before I go. I want to link this video to everyone because I think it's genuinely important.



This is one of my favorite Youtube videos in a long time and made me subscribe to this guy's channel. If you have time, take a look at it. It covers a lot of ground for bad games and it even talks about the bigger releases in 2023 which honestly, are just kind of boring. But one of the most important things I took away from the video is that if there is a game that is considered bad, you should give it a chance! Who knows, maybe you'll just find it average or mediocre or decent. And I've certainly taken that advice to heart especially in the last few months after seeing this video. This video is the reason I finally bit the bullet on getting this game, because I honestly wanted to see what the fuss was about so I could be part of the conversation. And in the video, he also says why we shouldn't constantly get angry and full of contempt at failure because again, no one sets out to make a bad game! Loved the video and you should check it out.

Anyways, Rogue Warrior is medicore but has tons of laughs. Try it out for cheap!

Rating: 5.5/10

PROS:

-Brutal and awesome takedowns
-Hilariously awful one liners
-It certainly functions!
-So bad it's good for most of it

CONS:

-Not so great gunplay
-Bad performance on Xbox 360
-Vulgar to the point of parody
-Boring graphics and art style
-Poor voice acting performances
-Checkpoints can become broken
-Becomes boring after a while

-TheAutisticGamer

Rogue Warrior is often considered either a So Bad It's Good masterclass in bad video games or complete junk. I find my opinion is somewhere in the middle and yes, I beat it in one sitting, but I didn't have to pay too much for this, only $5 CDN. This has some of the most brutal glory kills I've seen in a game where our main hero Dick Marcinko stabs people in the face multiple times which is absolutely amazing. The game has a lot going for it to be the ultimate So Bad It's Hilarious Guilty Pleasure, with excessive profanity, misguided passion from it's developer and publisher (Seriously WTF were Rebellion and Bethesda on for this one LOL) amazing 90's action movie feel (unintentionally), hilarious and awful one liners, poor voice acting, useless AI who stays in cover and sometimes just doesn't shoot you even if you're up close, short length and being a complete vanity project.

Too bad it gets boring 70% through and the performance on 360 is terrible, uncapped and usually staying at 20 FPS at best. It makes the sensitivity sluggish and the guns not fun to use. There's little to no exciting set pieces throughout the game, just bad and dull game design. It doesn't help that the game can spawn you in a place where you'll get killed immediately almost forcing you to restart the level, not to mention the camera glitching out and enemies dying while in a sitting position. I'm literally shocked that Rebellion made this game. At the very least it doesn't hold your hand for 95% of the game like the Sniper Elite series does and is straightforward.

I didn't hate it as I got my laughs and enjoyment from the hideously awful and terribly funny one liners (The Polar Bear one liner had me in stitches) and extreme glory kills, but the game loses steam unfortunately. To be kind, I'll give it like a 5.5/10 for giving me some great laughs along the way, but in general it best be avoided.

Aperture Desk Job
System: PC
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Genre: Tech Demo, Adventure
Completed in 30:45



I've had mixed feelings on Valve for the past decade. To give them credit where it's due, they made my favorite game ever, Half-Life, which is still the most immersive game I think anyone has ever made. And games like Left 4 Dead 2 are also incredible for their endless replayability thanks to Valve's open stance on modding. But the main focus I want to go onto is Half-Life 2 and Portal. Now, I liked both games and have come to appreciate Half-Life 2 A LOT more in recent years. Half-Life 2's physics, characters, world, graphics, gameplay and reliance on player respect is what makes the game so refreshing to play in today's market. And Portal was a nice surprise that built the Half-Life universe to new heights, showcasing a competitor to Black Mesa in Aperture Science.

However, things quickly got off the rails faster than I would have imagined. A couple years ago I played the Episodes of Half-Life 2 and to say they were disappointing was an understatement. Episode One was too silly in it's characters and plot for what it was trying to be and was excruciatingly short. Episode Two was longer and had a more serious story which was appreciated, but I felt like the series was beginning to lose too much steam way too fast when they introduce things like the Borealis, which to me until recently always seemed to be nothing but a tie in wink wink to Portal featured on The Orange Box. The ending was genuinely great to Episode Two, but by this point I've lost interest. And then there was Portal 2. This is by far one of the most disappointing games I've ever played and even when I played it at launch I just didn't like it. I thought it was way more restrictive than Portal 1 and the humor and story just didn't work at all. The cooperative mode was fun and it had workshop support, but at this point, Valve seemed to have took a gigantic hiatus from Half-Life and Portal, as we now know for those past 12 years until Half-Life: Alyx announced.

My point is, I don't think Valve has made a good single player game since Left 4 Dead 2, And with Alyx having such a high entry fee to play, it's just not worth it in my eyes to own a VR headset at the moment. However, Valve seems to be in a much better state than it was Pre-Alyx. They're starting to release more games and tech and are finally getting back into the Half-Life/Portal universe. The ending of Alyx which I have seen gave me hope that the next Half-Life game would be genuinely awesome and a return to form, not to mention I think a Portal 3 taking place in one of the Combine Occupied Cities where the Portal Gun, physics and turrets are your only line of defense would be excellent. But that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about a short game called Aperture Desk Job.

It's a game meant to be played on Steam Deck, but the best thing is it's compatible with an Xbox controller, so there's no need to really buy a Steam Deck if you don't have the money for it. The only thing you're really missing out on is Gyroscope, but that's something I can live without. This review is going to be very spoiler heavy as it details a lot of new things about the Portal/Half-Life universe.

Okay, so this game is the earliest in the Half-Life/Portal timeline when Aperture was a still a functioning company as we do see the silhouettes of people in the background as we start the game. It focuses on a worker who is essentially the player and a Core named Grady who work together to invent a Toilet Turret and hope to become rich and famous for it. However, things do not go as planned and the game at the end reveals a gigantic twist that I'm sure is going to make every Half-Life/Portal nut go wild. That's all I'm going to add for now, but I will focus it more on spoilers.

The basics: You use your controller or Steam Deck to interact with the Toilet Turret. The first time you get to use it, you destroy a warehouse in this incredible sequence that is true Valve fashion. You see tons of real time destruction and physics as the warehouse is totally obliterated which is genuinely one of the most impressive scenes I've seen in a Gen 9 Game. It showcases a huge scale that has always been true to the company's games and despite it's small length at about 30 minutes, I was genuinely impressed by how fantastical this scene was. What really helps the player get to know the controls is that the desk has all the buttons you would expect on a controller. And when you press the button on your controller, it showcases you did on the screen by showcase the pressure being put onto it. Without sounding incredibly hand holdly, the game showcases you the controls in a smart, unintrusive manner.

One of the best things to come out of this is the interactivity behind the game. At one point, you're supposed to talk into your microphone to say your name after being released from jail (which you still have the desk with you). I didn't know if this was going to work at first but the game suddenly played back my words in clean clarity that was one of the highlights of the game. You also get to use the keyboard and mouse to type your name and sign a paper which is a great way of getting around some of the other Steam Deck Features. With these pieces, the game becomes more involving and realistic in terms of gameplay and again, like a lot of Valve's best games makes you feel immersed in the situation.

I would say a lot more about the gameplay, but that would require spoiling the best parts of the story. So before I go into the story, I want to say this is a magnificent looking game with incredible texture and surface detailing and amazing sequences that are capable because of Source 2. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Source 2 will be able to do in later games. I also think the voice acting is excellent. Grady is funny and very well voiced and you do feel close to him in the short amount of time you do get to play. But now, we come to the story and it's ending. Spoilers.

The game expands upon Half-Life and Portal's universe is a totally unexpected way. Cave Johnson, who we heard voice overs of in Portal 2 is here again. And this time, we find out something shocking. We find out that he was getting extremely sick and so, when we go up to see him after a big fight against washing machine turrets, we find out that Cave Johnson has had his consciousness uploaded in a gigantic metal head that will live forever. Wanting death, he tells the player to destroy the head but being unable to do so, he attempts to turn the power off, but a backup turns on. This results in Cave's head collapsing to the very bottom of Aperture Science and Grady and the player going under Witness Protection due to Grady owning money to loan sharks who gave Grady the funds to create the Toilet Turrets.

The resulting story is a refreshing look at the universe Valve created in their franchises and yes, I'm going to say it. Even though this is short and meant to be a tech demo, this is Valve's best game since Left 4 Dead 2. I mean it. It's refreshing, inventive, funny, captivating, it builds upon the world of Half-Life and Portal in a new intriguing direction and absolutely got me excited to see what's next. This gives me hope that future Portal and Half-Life related games will just be as inventive as this, so lets hope Valve continues this absurdly high quality of single player and multiplayer games in the future. This is a really damn nice game if you have an Xbox Controller to play with. But I can only imagine what the Steam Deck version is like. Really good and any valve fan will enjoy this.

Rating: 8/10

PROS:

-Inventive and Refreshing gameplay
-Source 2 is fantastic and it's best sequences are possible with this engine
-A welcome return to the Half-Life/Portal universe with unexpected worldbuilding
-Top Notch Voice acting that gets you close towards the person next to you
-Story is really damn great
-Tons of interactivity including for the use of microphone and mouse and keyboard

CONS:

-Controller is only limited to a few minor things compared to Steam Deck version
-Pretty much no replayability after initial playthrough

-TheAutisticGamer

EDIT: I just realized I showed Piglet's Big Game last time but that was before the explosion in price. So here it is again!

This is from the last couple of months. Probably from September to right now. Yep! I managed to get Piglet's Big Game but that was before the Price skyrocketed because of Silent Hill 2 coming out, so that price of $4.95 will never be that way ever again. Apparently, Rumbly Tumbly Adventure is a lot like Piglet's Big Game (an adventure game of sorts) so I picked it up before people realized it's the same as Piglet's game and prices would skyrocket for that too. Thankfully that didn't seem to happen yet.

I'm slowly starting to get some XBSX titles. I already got a physical of the new Forza Game which from what I saw got LOADS of orders at Gamestop when it came out so it must have been a popular title but I'll get the digital copy as well just in case when it delists and if the new Xbox generation in a couple years doesn't have a disc drive (which I'm fine with that, I mainly use my Xbox nowadays as a Game Pass/Xbox 360 BC machine and most of my collection there is digital XB1 and X360 with a few OG XBOX titles). Goat Simulator 3 I played on Game Pass and it was actually really good! They actually decided to give effort into it and it's worth playing. Sonic Colors I also got, considering I wanted to go through that, not to mention I got Sonic Superstars and Sonic X Shadow Generations as well both on PS5. Finally, Bionicle was a game I was curious about, so I picked it up for dirt cheap at the nearest retro game store around my area. So yep, I'm slowly still collecting disc based games but I'm not a avid collector and do sell games I don't like.

With the tease of another Half-Life game coming out, I decided to go back and finish up some HL and HL2 mods starting with Half-Life: ESCAPE 2.0. Really enjoyed this one. It's basically just non stop action from beginning to end where the action feels like it has an urgency and story purpose to it all. There's also a couple of big touches of immersion with emergency broadcasts from outside Black Mesa that really give you an idea of how awful the situation is outside. I don't have much to say about it, but I thought it was REALLY good for what it was trying to do.



Also a couple weeks ago I finished Return to Castle Wolfenstein via RealRTCW and had a very good time with this game as well. I'm surprised I hadn't gotten to it until now but man, this was a blast. Very immersive, great selection of weapons with gunplay that feels awesome, incredibly smart AI who are very reactive to the things you do, at least feels like it has a sense of humor compared to later Wolfenstein games plus there's a few missions that are something else than constant shooting including some stealth missions that are ACTUALLY great for an Early 2000's FPS. My problems have to do with some of the age in it's design such as hitscan enemies and parts of the mod that include a HUB that doesn't need to be there plus some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard in my entire life that is jarring from the actual game cutscenes from the original title.

I'd recommend Escape 2.0 over RTCW mainly because the game is just more immersive, but that's always been a thing with Half-Life in general. But these are both games that are definitely worth playing.

Half-Life: ESCAPE 2.0
System: PC
Developer: RETROtastich
Publisher: RETROtastich
Genre: FPS, Mod, Old School Shooter
Completed in 2:17:51



Welcome all to the first review of the year, kicking it off with Half-Life 1 mod that released last year and one I've been wanting to try out for a while. I don't know how much I'll have to say about it, but lets get into it!

So the mod is called Half-Life: ESCAPE 2.0 and it's yet another Black Mesa Incident story, this time focusing on a Scientist named James West who works in Portal Technology. The goal is essentially like Blue Shift, just to escape Black Mesa all as things around get more grim. One of the first things I have to praise the mod is how much more depth there is to the background of the events after the Resonance Cascade. There are a couple Emergency Broadcast radio messages telling people to evacuate New Mexico, and then later on in the game, things become much more horrifying as the President declares a state of emergency. This is a great way to showcase to players the horrible impact that Black Mesa has caused by accident on the world, leading to the arrival of the Combine in later Half-Life games. It also helps deeply with immersion on another hand because while Half-Life was already a deeply immersive game, these little additions add a lot to playing the mod in a dark room where there is a feeling of hopelessness coming through.

My favorite thing about ESCAPE 2.0 is that it's basically non stop combat throughout the entire game and boy, does the combat in this game exceed. There's lots of reasons for this. For one, I've stated my points on against using HD Models in the original Half-Life game because everything seems more dated. However, I've learned to appreciate using these in mods as it can enhance a lot of things such as making the weapons more refreshing. The HD Models do a great job here at making gameplay and graphics stand out from other Half-Life mods, but I feel Echoes did a lot of more impressive things with the HD Models especially with NPCs. Still, there's still lots to enjoy. There's only a few select weapons you get in the game. There's no HEV Suit, No Flashlight (which is annoying) and no melee weapon. Instead, Dr. West goes out all guns blazing with a pistol, magnum, assault rifle, shotgun, grenades, tau cannon and satchel charges. By removing most of the weapons that I would consider fat from the game, especially the alien weapons, you're given a great if small selection of guns that works wonders in many of the combat encounters whether it be with Alien Slaves or Marines.

Another thing I liked about the combat is that I feel it has a very good story purpose. In the game, Dr. West meets up with some security guards and scientists at the beginning and works with them to get out. They are soon separated once the marines come in however to silence Black Mesa, so Dr. West has to meet them at another location. This is something I loved. While you're in combat, it makes for a compelling reason to want to go and reunite with this group and secondly, the combat gives the players an urgency to get to them on time in hopes that they aren't killed by whatever is around the corner. I think in this mod which so heavily relies on combat and very little on puzzles, there's just this excitement to wanting to complete it, hoping that your colleagues will be safe and hoping you can get out of Black Mesa alive.

The levels are also very good for fighting in. Some exterior areas are pretty open and that counts for some of the interior areas. Giving players a chance to move around and have a fighting chance is always a good thing. A mechanic you can use in the game is picking up turrets and setting them up at certain areas to defend yourself from major hoards. However, this leads into a thing I didn't realize at first. The game has you picking up LOTS of stuff but you don't get a good idea of that at the beginning. One segment early on has you moving a corpse out of the way from blocking an elevator. However, I didn't see really any indication of that unless I wasn't paying attention. Usually when there's stuff to pick up there's a shiny sparkle on it that says you can pick it up. However, this beginning point didn't really give you the best idea of what to do at first. Correct me if I'm wrong if you've played it though and I will edit the review afterwards. But yeah, the turrets are okay, but they're not even comparable to the Gargantua you fight. Trust me, save your satchel charges and blow this thing to hell at the end of the mod immediately, it will make your life so much easier.

My only really big issues with the mod is that the Marines AI is worse than in the original game. Most of the time they'll just stand there and do nothing. I was convinced at one point that these were somehow friendly aliens and that the Marines were helping the Scientists like in Opposing Force. But alas, that's not the case, just really bad pathfinding and AI. However, companions have seen a major improvement in terms of AI. Instead of relying on the usually unreliable follow system, instead each character you meet is scripted for you to follow which means they'll never get stuck on geometry and they'll never forget to follow you after a couple of seconds. This was a welcome change and I hope a lot more Half-Life mods consider doing this trick in future endeavors.

I found Half-Life: ESCAPE 2.0 just as exciting as the original Half-Life game. It doesn't have a better story, atmosphere, voice acting or puzzles than Half-Life, but it's constant combat encounters make for a thrilling experience that should be checked out if you love Half-Life and the modding community for this franchise. It has a few downsides, but they are pretty minor in comparison to the rest of the experience. It's fun mod, made by people who care which is the usual case for this wholesome modding scene. Very much recommended.

Rating: 8.5/10

PROS:

-Constant Action and Excitement throughout the mod
-Areas are big enough to have a fighting chance against enemies
-Combat gives reason to be invested into the story
-Adds some nice touches in terms of immersion
-HD Models make it stand out from other Classic Half-Life mods
-Companion AI is now scripted compared to the unreliable Follow Freeman system of the original game

CONS:

-Marine AI is dumbed down completely
-Picking up items isn't that clear at first
-No Flashlight makes walking in dark places more of a chore than it has to be
-Lacking in creative and inventive puzzles that Half-Life mods usually have

-TheAutisticGamer

I haven't seen a thread like this done in a while!

Mine is a Dragonborn character I created in Solasta to represent the main character of my story for what I hope to be a series of games called Paladin named Troumash Evergrace. Of course, it would be much easier to create this character in BG3, but considering BG3 didn't come out at the time I got Solasta, I just had to create it my own. Kind of sucky that this Dragonborn race isn't even part of the main game and you have to pay a couple bucks for a DLC with multiple other things to even have the ability to create one. I'm seriously hoping with Solasta 2 they'll learn from this mistake and put every single race and class without having to pay extra in the sequel because before BG3 so many unique and amazing D&D races were left out of the spotlight not just Dragonborn but I'm so glad it feels like we're getting so much love for these guys, because they were always background fodder in books and video games.

December was pretty good for completions with a total of 6. And thankfully, I managed to save the month after a bad start.

The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer - Gamecube, 12/07, 40/100 - WORST
Evoland - PC, 12/09, 50/100
Donkey Kong Land - Game Boy/NSO, 12/15, 80/100
Donkey Kong Land 2 - Game Boy/NSO, 12/21, 65/100
Donkey Kong Land III - Game Boy/NSO, 12/25, 85/100
420BLAZEIT2: Game of the Year (This title is WAY too long) - PC, 12/28, 85/100 - BEST

I'll talk about the bad games first. Despite the idea of a sequel to a movie being in video game form as an at the time canonical sequel sounded intriguing, I found Rise of the Underminer to be nothing but mindless button mashing done badly. There's not even a combo system in the game so most of your punches feel like you're waving around at air. There's some pretty terrible design in general for this game and the voice acting is terrible due to constant nonsensical banter and the main villain taunting at you whenever you go into a menu thinking it's so smart and funny and BTW, no subtitles options which sucks cause the game drowns out all the audio of the voice acting because of how loud everything else is. Not worth it, even for the $5 I got it for.

Evoland is slightly better, but it's a conceptually flawed game. When your goal is to have a homage and satire to JRPGs and Action Adventure games by letting the player unlock mechanics and technical elements, it makes for a confusing journey of what you think you can unlock and what is restricted from the game such as not being able to use items while opening the menu which never unlocks at any point ever. Instead of doing one certain type of game right and being a homage to that, the game does several poor imitations of games you could easily be playing right now (even the end credits says this). It also features one of the worst pieces of gameplay of the year with a quest that essentially involves talking to every single person in a town who mostly say "He went thatta way!" which isn't funny and is not satirical and just plain sucks. It's like the Deadpool effect of "Isn't this thing that's here in this game stupid?" and then proceeds to do the exact same thing cynically. Sucks because if they just stook with one game type it could have worked.

The Donkey Kong Land Trilogy is one I binged over the holidays and I genuinely really enjoyed them despite the second game mainly taking a tumble at points. They're not dumbed down versions of DKC and they translated the gameplay and graphics and music of DKC onto the Game Boy really well. To say which game does which best, DKL1 does music best, DKL2 does graphics best and DKL3 does controls and gameplay the best by removing most of the gimmicky levels. These were really good games all things considered and I would recommend playing them. And I'm certainly going to try more Game Boy games in the future.

Finally, we come to my favorite game of the month, 420BLAZEIT2: Game of the Year *Insert Overlong Title That's Longer Than Slayers X Here* which is a love letter to meme culture of the 2010's. Despite the game's style being physically aggressive (DO NOT PLAY THIS if you are sensitive to flashing lights and colors) this is one of the most original FPS games I've played in a while. There's loads to like here from the gunplay feeling really good and tight, not to mention how much variety is in this game from sections going to a rail shooter, to a prison escape, to zombie apocalypse, becoming the most richest person on Earth, it never stops. And in general I love that it celebrates memes and doesn't believe in dead memes. The game is pretty funny but my god, these are some of the most inventive levels I've played in quite a long time. I seriously hope more people will play this if they can get past the flashing colors and lights because I had a great time with it. If the devs really are going to continue making stuff, they really have a chance to make some of the most creative games in recent memory.

I just finished Return to Castle Wolfenstein and am planning to play two of it's expansion mods Enemy Territory and The Dark Army: Uprising made by one of the main creators of the RealRTCW mod. I also pre-ordered Donkey Kong Country Returns for Switch, so I'll try and get some playtime in that. Otherwise, we'll see how the month goes!

The Search for Eternity Begins! Welcome to The Chronicles Of Life and Death, Season 4 of TheAutisticGamer's Behemoth Backlog!

Welcome one and all to a new Season! This year, my goal is to get through a lot of my physical backlog to find greater games as last year, most of the games I played were very underwhelming. Although I will still be taking a look at my Digital Library of course across all consoles, but I want to at least try to get through a good chunk of my physical backlog. I also want to attempt to play longer games, although that depends on stuff like how often I'm learning to code and other hobby stuff, not to mention work!

I don't have much to add at the moment as like always, the format will be the same! Contracts are still in effect and act like they always have. Sorry, I'm just kind of out of it right now, but this should stop after winter is over. Anyways, I will update this to be on the front of my Blog so people can take a look at it. I'll update this to add more stuff later on, but for now, the Hub is up and a new season has begun!

-Contracts-

Contract #1: Half-Life: ESCAPE 2.0 (PC, 01/09, 8.5/10)
https://howlongtobeat.com/forum/thread/1729/27#post120127

Contract #2: Aperture Desk Job (PC, 01/15, 8/10)
https://howlongtobeat.com/forum/thread/1729/27#post120203

Contract #3: Rogue Warrior (X360, 01/23, 5.5/10)
https://howlongtobeat.com/forum/thread/1729/27#post120414

Catch Up #1: Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Delta Particles and Job Simulator
https://howlongtobeat.com/forum/thread/1729/27#post120786

I've said it many times but this year has not been ideal for me in terms of life, especially when it comes to gaming. Most of the games I played were crap or underwhelming and there were few very memorable, worthy games I truly enjoyed or loved or remembered. I'll try my best to showcase what is Top 10 material but some of it is VERY lower rated compared to other users scores.

10. Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition

One of two games that is like a Doom Eternal and Titanfall 2 blend on the list, but this is by far the one I would say play after the other Doom/Titanfall-like game I recommend later on. The story is one of the best in an FPS Game in recent memory, the voice acting is great and the comedy certainly does work. They very much improved Lo Wang as a character since in the 2013 game I didn't like him at all, but there's tons of laughs and the graphics are pretty stellar and give the game they scope they need despite it's linearity. Gameplay is basically Doom Eternal but easier, but the traversal is more like Titanfall 2 by using a grappling hook to swing around everywhere. And the finishers are bloody and fun and not redundant at all since the enemy variety is so stacked. I still don't like the non-organic locked in arena fighting that this series popularized in FPS games, but this is well worth playing. It's funny, engaging and knows how to have fun with itself.

9. Doom 64

This is probably the only Doom game I haven't played and for good reason. The original N64 version is so devoid of any lighting that you have to turn your TV brightness all the way to the maximum setting in order to see anything. Thankfully, the Nightdive Remaster fixes this making it MUCH more playable. The only thing I don't like about Nightdive's games that I've tried out is that they're maybe a BIT too faithful to how the game's were back then. Instead of adding any QOL features, they basically just ported the game over to PC without being unable to see anything. This seems to be a common complaint I'm noticing from reviews on Steam as well for some Nightdive titles. Thankfully, the game is pretty great. It's Doom Re-Established for the 32/64 Bit Era with cool new redesigns of enemies, overhauled sound design, interesting maps with cool puzzles, guns that are overall excellent, this is a great title. My only other complaint is that the game doesn't tell you that you can make the final boss easier by doing secret levels, which would have been much appreciated and caused less frustration knowing that these are basically mandatory, but the game is beatable.

8. Cat Quest

This was recommended throughout the year by a couple people to me on the site and I didn't expect much, but this is a very enjoyable game. It's a parody of RPGs with a witty sidekick who comments on basically all the cliches and tropes of game design and story in these games. And thankfully, it can be pretty funny too. One of the things that surprised me the most is the music, it honestly sounds super professionally crafted with an epic adventurous tone throughout the game. The graphics leave a lot to be desired, but the game itself shines with it's quests, characters and BIG twist at the end of the game. I got the platinum trophy on this one, although it was a bit tedious to get it. Don't have much to say here!

7. Donkey Kong Land III

A series I binged last month, but the third game is the one that shines the most. It gets rid of all the gimmicky stupid levels from the previous DKL games and manages to be the best designed, best playing, best controlling game in the trilogy. The graphics are certainly worse than DKL2, but the game is a blast to play from start to finish. I've been seriously enjoying coming back to these old Game Boy games so I'll have to try out more of them. These might be just "We Have DKC at Home." but this is still a worthy title and one of the better platformers I played this year.

6. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

While I loved Super Mario Land for it's excellent music and surprisingly good controls for a game that looks so microscopic, the sequel barely inches it out by having improved graphics and a lot more gameplay than the last one. I think it's safe to say that this is one of the staples of the Game Boy system and I would highly recommend playing both games, but SML2 just has a lot more character to it in general.

5. 420BLAZEIT2: GAME OF THE YEAR -=Dank Dreams and Goated Memes=- [#wow/11 Like and Subscribe] Poggerz Edition

No this is not a joke and it's not two jokes. 1. Yes this is the actual title of the game. And yes, this game rocks. This is one of the most fresh and original FPS Games I've played in years. Even though it's a sequel to a 15 Minute joke game, the developers are bursting with ideas and creativity. I seriously hope they go legit, but if this proves anything they can craft some super surreal and amazing FPS games. A love letter to 2010's meme culture where there are no dead memes, only good memeories of the past. The game can go from visiting a bootleg Willy Wonka Experience, to kicking zombies while on a toilet doing your thing, to having a rail shooter segment, to then going into multiple prison escapes and finally, entering the Memeverse to save all memes on the internet. This is crazy and physically painful, the latter being due to all the intense flashing lights and colors. I swear to god, I didn't think I should be playing this at all and DON'T PLAY THIS IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO FLASHING LIGHTS AND COLORS! But, this game manages to be awesome. The guns have great weight and feel to them, the graphics while basic are perfect for the entire joke of the game, the Brostep music soundtrack is tonally appropriate, there's so much variety, so much uniqueness, this has to be commended for being one of the most original games in years. I highly recommend it, but again, be warned that you may have eye aching while playing this.

4. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

This was groundbreaking for it's focus on narrative in an old school shooter and this is before Half-Life came out a year later! This is insane to think about because Half-Life defined story driven FPS games, but Lucasarts did it all the way back in 97! This is an extremely immersive game (probably the most immersive I've played this year) with it's lovable late 90's 3D Graphics, excellent variety of weapons with blasters that feel unique. The lightsaber is also great and thankfully, it's not the ideal situation for every combat encounter. The game's story and characters are where it's at, told through well aged FMV cutscenes with a genuine sense of camp and fun to it. This is a truly impressive title and it surely made a huge impression on everyone that played it back then. Kyle Katarn is probably character of the year for me.

3. Half-Life: Uplink

Despite this being just a demo for the game, it's a truly fantastic demo. It has everything I love about Half-Life in general from the difficulty, weapons, graphics, voice acting, gunplay, puzzles, it's just awesome. It's literally included with Half-Life now so if you didn't get a chance to play it you should!

2. Turbo Overkill

My worries after a troubled Early Access release have been squashed thankfully. This is the closest adrenaline rush I've felt since Doom Eternal and this is the best Boomer Shooter in recent years. I'm not a fan of the obnoxious amount of F-Bombs everyone drops and I do think it's too edgy for it's own good, but this felt fresh and had a bunch of ideas that were really well done. It's extremely fast paced and the game never seems to lose energy, it keeps going and going until a massive showdown at the end. The bosses are really inventive and the gameplay is like Doom Eternal and Titanfall 2 on crack. Trust me, this game is crazy fast paced and if you loved any of those games you're surely to love this. I'm genuinely impressed with how the game turned out because I had numerous problems with the EA build when it first came out. But no, it's just as good as everyone has said. I still think DUSK is a much better and more important game in this genre, but this is still some of the most fun I've had all year.

1. Cat Quest II

This game comes close to being a masterpiece. While I liked the first game a lot, this sequel blows it out of the water. Everything has been improved upon basically. Graphics, gameplay, character building, character development, design, music, sound, story, everything. The game has an astonishing mind blowing twist that I absolutely did not see coming and I seriously loved everything about it. I'm super impressed with how this series was finding an identity by the second game. This series has so far been awesome and I'll see how Cat Quest III turns out!

And that's all! Happy new year everyone! Hopefully this year will be MUCH better for gaming for me.

I'm not picky but the Forza games despite my love for them DRIVE ME INSANE with this. I usually play on Average Difficulty since that's my go to for the entire game whether it be Motorsport or Horizon. But I hate when the game suddenly asks me "You're doing too good! Turn up the difficulty by one level?"

Why? Why would I want to turn up the difficulty when I'm comfortable with what I'm playing on for my skill level? I know you get better rewards if you do so, but seriously, I don't wanna have to think about that or worry about difficulty. At the very least in all the Motorsport games from 5 and up, you had the ability to check "Never show again." Not in Horizon though. Nuh uh. It constantly pesters you into changing the difficulty. It's like a tease! It's like the game is judging me for the difficulty I'm playing on just because I've won a bunch of races in a row. Let me be!

Other things:

-Style Over Substance (Mainly in games that cater to nostalgia like Boomer Shooters, Platformers, JRPGs, that stuff)

-Stealth Sections in Early Video Games

-When the game treats you like a dumbass by literally giving you the answer to what you need to do (Sniper Elite is NOTORIOUS for this. Karl just never shuts up and doesn't let the player think for themselves. He literally says "I should do this!" at every given opportunity. This is one of the reasons why I stopped playing this series is because of crap like this. Please, just let me figure it out myself! And if I can't, a walkthrough won't hurt!)

-Unoriginality (I'm mainly seeing this a lot in the Indie scene now that I think about it. This also goes back to the Style over Substance problem, but so many games now are just rip offs of better games you could be playing at this point. I recently tried out Disney's Bolt for Xbox 360 and the game is basically Children's Devil May Cry with a Superpowered Dog and it's so obvious that it is that. I don't mind games being influenced by other games if it's done neatly as that's just a normal thing. Influence can help make your game better in some cases! But when you're game comes down to "Quake but with Cults." or "Devil May Cry but with a Dog!" it usually means "It's this game but it's worse." Not all the time though! The game I want to make is basically Yakuza meets Dungeons and Dragons but there has to be more than just ripping off mechanics from another game. It needs some spices and herbs! Basically, something that makes it stand out from other games)

And one more thing: Hit-Scan Enemies. That is all.

Tomorrow is New Years Eve and thus starts a new year. And again, it's time to see our tally up every single game we beat this year. This year was crazy for me, I ended up completing 45 Different Games throughout the year which is again my best since 2019 (although, to be fair a lot of that was adding already completed games and doing replays so maybe my best since 2020?) To be honest, a lot of the games I played were underwhelming or downright bad and there were very few true winners that made the cut for my Top Games of the Year. I'm also changing how I am covering ratings now, with the games being ranked from a 5 to 100/100 scale which I think will help me give more precise and definitive ratings for games I play.

Here's some more specific stats:



Okay. Here's everything I completed this year! The BEST and WORST game of the year is dedicated to a game I've never played before. Replays don't count!

January:

DUSK 82' ULTIMATE EDITION - 35/100
Half-Life 2: Genry's Great Escape From City 13 - 60/100

February:

Quake (REPLAY) - 95/100
Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon - 70/100
Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity - 50/100
illWill - 75/100
Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2024) - 55/100
Kao The Kangaroo (2022) - 75/100
Quake: Dimension of the Past - 40/100

March:

Yakuza Kiwami - 65/100
Kirby's Adventure - 40/100
Quake Dimesion of the Machine - 70/100
Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition - 75/100
Portal: Still Alive - 60/100

April:

Kirby Super Star - 60/100
Doom 64 - 80/100
Herald of Havoc - 70/100
South Park: Snow Day! - 60/100

May:

Lunistice - 25/100 - WORST
Little Kitty, Big City - 70/100
Super Mario Land - 80/100
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins - 85/100

June:

Quake: Beyond Belief - 70/100

July:

SUPERHOT - 70/100
Transmissions: Element 120 (REPLAY) - 80/100
Half-Life 2: Riot Act - 70/100
Turbo Overkill - 90/100 - GOTY Runner Up
Half-Life 2: Rock 24 - 70/100

August:

Doom (1993/REPLAY) - 100/100
Forza Horizon 3 (REPLAY) - 80/100
Cat Quest - 80/100
Kirby's Dream Land - 70/100
Severed Steel - 50/100

September:

Half-Life: Uplink - 90/100
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - 85/100
Super Mario 64 (REPLAY) - 60/100

October:

The Pony Factory - 70/100

November:

Sonic Generations - 70/100
Cat Quest II - 95/100 - Game Of The Year!

December:

The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer - 40/100
Evoland - 50/100
Donkey Kong Land - 80/100
Donkey Kong Land 2 - 65/100
Donkey Kong Land III - 85/100
420BLAZEIT2: GAME OF THE YEAR - 85/100

Okay! I'm going to try and summarize what I would recommend and wouldn't recommend! I know it's a lot but here we go!

First off, the underwhelming/bad stuff. Lunistice is an absolute garbage fire that is another in a line of style over substance nostalgia bait games where 99.9% of your deaths come from clumsily falling off the world making having a life bar useless. I hope you like being enraged for the majority of the game. It's art style can only do so much for awful controls, bad design and tons of frustration. Evoland might have been good if it stuck with one type of game, but it does multiple types of games poorly, not to mention the premise is conceptually flawed as you can't tell mechanics and technical things will just unlock or not. The worst piece of gameplay of the year goes to a horribly designed quest where the game wastes your time by having you talk to every person in this town basically saying "He went thatta way!" which is an infuriating waste of time.

I might have been too hard on Severed Steel and to be honest, I was. But in hindsight, I still think it's nothing great to begin with. Other underwhelming titles include Kirby's Adventure, which would later be surpassed by the better but still not amazing Kirby Super Star. South Park: Snow Day!, a weird Deck Building Rogue-lite 3D Action Adventure Cooperative game in the style of Left 4 Dead 2/Warhammer Vermintide games wasn't fantastic, but at least some of the humor was good, despite the fact some it the jokes will be as timeless as expired milk. Mario vs. Donkey Kong's presentation looked fantastic on the Switch but you're essentially paying CDN $65 with tax included for a bare bones puzzle game that isn't really all that fun to begin with. DUSK 82 is another disappointment and it sucks even harder because you would think David Szymanski would know better not to do something as dated and archaic as this, but this felt like a complete cash grab to capitalize on the success of DUSK. That's most of the bad/not so amazing games.

Here's some games I would recommend though! Even though I gave Yakuza Kiwami a lower score, I would still suggest people play it. The story was disappointing coming from 0 yes, but it was still a very addictive game to put loads of time into. The characters are awesome and the gameplay and world is still pretty amazing all things considered. It's a shame they didn't add bowling back for Kiwami 2, because I was desperate to play that again. Good game, but let down by a clumsy story. The Donkey Kong Land games on Game Boy are pretty good! The third one especially takes away all the dumb gimmicky parts of DKL1 and 2 and is the most consistent one so I would recommend that one mainly. For FPS Games, Doom 64 is pretty solid! And I can finally see what's in front of me unlike the original N64 version! Loved the new redesigns and sound effects for enemies and guns. illWill is like a Henry Selick film thrown into a Boomer Shooter. Has some originality to it which gives it extra points and the game ends up essentially becoming Indie Serious Sam which is never a bad thing! My replays of Doom (1993) and Quake have re-established my love for them, especially Quake considering it might be one of the single most important games ever made.

The Super Mario Land games on Game Boy are also worth it! Specifically the sequel, but the first game's music is absolutely excellent throughout. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II is a incredibly immersive game in the FPS genre and groundbreaking for focusing on narrative in an old school FPS Game before Half-Life came onto the scene! Loved the weapons, graphics, characters and story to this one. Turbo Overkill is my runner up for best game of the year, it's like Doom Eternal and Titanfall 2 on Crack. Shadow Warrior 3 also had Doom Eternal and Titanfall 2-esc gameplay and the story is REALLY good in that one, but I ended up enjoying Turbo Overkill more for it's endless energy.

Finally, my game of the year: Cat Quest II, While the first game was a fun parody of RPGs, this second game managed to improve pretty much every single aspect of the first game. It has a more epic story with lighthearted humor, the ability to character build two characters simultaneously and switch playstyle on the spot was a welcome edition, the dungeons have improved, the characters have seen big upgrades in personality as well, the graphics have received a nice shiny new upgrade, the gameplay and controls are more faster and fluent, the music is just as kick ass as ever, this is a fantastic game and I would absolutely recommend everyone play this. I'm going to start Cat Quest III in the new year and I can't wait for that.

Next year I'm going to take a look at my physical backlog, but I also want to at least get to some newer/recent games as well ESPECIALLY Doom: The Dark Ages. I will certainly replay Doom 2016 and Eternal this year. But my main goal is to clear some of my physical backlog so that I can avoid playing numerous bad/underwhelming games like I did this year. This year has not been kind to me and that seeped into my gaming life. I want to use my time better and also, I'm going to learn how to program and code this year by self teaching myself.

Happy New Year Everyone, and see you in 2025!

I'm not going to even say the full title of this game because compared to something like Slayers X, this title goes on for miles. So I'll just say I finished 420BlazeIt2: Game of the Year and wow, I've sure been busy with gaming this month. This will be my final game of the year probably, but what a great way to go out. It's a original, fresh, deeply creative, honestly quite funny, surreal and thrilling Modern FPS with a genuine love and heart for 2010's Meme Culture. This could have gone wrong in so many ways but they managed to make a great game out of it. There's so much to like here. Gunplay is great, all the guns have weight and have tightness to them, the levels are based around certain basic themes and are insanely creative (One level has you pressing a button to say the world is flat. Meanwhile, a flat helicopter lands and flat enemies appear for you to kill), the Brostep soundtrack fits the game's tone perfectly, the levels are just thrilling and have numerous set pieces that are funny and exciting, I mean, this is one of the most original FPS Games I've played in years and where every FPS now is a rip off of something old or a poor imitation of something from the last 30 years, this has so much creativity bursting from it.

Despite the insane eye aching I got (seriously DON'T PLAY THIS IS YOU HAVE REACTIONS TO FLASHING LIGHTS AND COLORS!) this was never obnoxious and doesn't overstay it's welcome. This is truly one of the most refreshing games I've played in a while and my god, even though this was a sequel to a 15 Minute joke game, I seriously hope these developers go legit. They could make absolutely fantastic stuff if they have this much energy and ideas bursting from them. I gave it an 85/100, really great game all around.

I binged the Donkey Kong Land games on Game Boy via Nintendo Switch Online and I had a very good time with them. Each game does something well. I think DKL1 does music and sound the best, DKL2 does graphics the best and DKL3 does level design and controls the best. Each have their quirks to them and there are certainly issues especially in DKL1 with deaths from falling into nothingness if you're too high and DKL2 had me in for a shock when I had to use the - Button for special animal buddy moves like for the spider which is like, WHY!? If I were to say the best balanced game in the series, DKL3 is by far my favorite. It's the one I had the most fun with to be honest and it did a lot of things great, although graphically it's WAY worse than 2. These games took me around 5 or so hours to complete together so they're not long games to be honest. Still, if you like this series and like Donkey Kong, you'll have a good time with these ones. I'm certainly wanting to explore more Game Boy games in the future, but we'll see when that happens.

I started giving new ratings out of 5% to 100% as I wanted to switch things up for myself. But to make it simple, I gave DKL1 80/100, DKL2 65/100 and DKL3 85/100. They're worth playing and it's impressive they managed to not dumb down the DKC gameplay onto a handheld.

Wake up and smell the ashes...

TAG Screamed. He thought he had died. The last hit on Gilgamesh, the world eater of the Outer Realm had exploded into a ball of blinding light and all TAG could see in silence was white. It felt like eternity had engulfed him. Then, for a split second he saw a face emerge in front of him. It was then he had awoken. Where? He wasn't sure. The sudden yelp from him made someone drop a pipe. He looked. The familiar face of a Gruff Red Panda, in kind of a clockwork cowboy outfit.

“You don't have to scare me like that scalie.”

TAG looked at his hands. He was still in his usual form he preferred, the Golden Dragonborn. He looked back and forth between the red panda and his golden hands. He laughed.

“Xizax!” He exclaimed. The red panda grinned. “The Realms? Are they-”

“They're alright.” He nodded. “Unfortunately, some things haven't changed.”

“High-Glin?” TAG asked. He was concerned. High-Glin was the one to have planted the atomic incendiary expander (AIE) into Gilgamesh by entering with a team into his bowels. It wasn't pretty, but he was unsure if his warrior friend had survived and if he did, where was he? He knew Pilonka was dead, she was killed during the escape to Dynisolos (Die-Nie-So-Loss) when the ship she had boarded was destroyed by Gilgamesh's Wyrms, snake like creatures big enough to eat alliance fleet ships. That hadn't changed. But High-Glin...

“I don't know...” Xizax answered softly. “I don't know if he survived. I didn't see him here.”

TAG was quiet. He hoped High-Glin survived but at that moment, he hadn't really thought about his surroundings. Looking around, he lay in bed. The roof was of a glass ceiling. In fact, the walls and floor were also made of a sustainable, hard glass. Possibly bulletproof. The room he was in appeared to float and a source of light came from above the ceiling, giving the room a reflective look. There was a metal door with a keypad and a security camera up top. It certainly wasn't the fantasy landscapes he was used to. He remembered Felingard where one of his contracts took place. He remembered the beautiful mountain scapes, the lush land of green, with ancient ruins awaiting to be plundered.

Where was this place?

“Where is here?” TAG questioned.

There was a light beep that played once at the door. It opened and someone came in with a folder. He was alien, or was it? He had an anthropomorphic look to him. He was obviously very well dressed. It wasn't until he came closer that he realized from the shape of the alien's face, it was a rat. A rat with purple dress shirt, a black tie and blue dress pants. He expected a rat person to look more sickly, but he trimmed his features nicely.

“I'm glad you're awake. Once I saw you were I came here as soon as I could.” He then pointed at my stomach. “Oh, and don't worry about the payments for the recreation of your lower stomach. I paid it on the house.”

“Wha-” TAG looked at his stomach to see a giant bandage wrapped around him. He had totally forgotten in the last moments of Gilgamesh's defeat that a shard, most likely one of the world eater's smaller teeth had burst a hole through his stomach. He touched it, it felt solid as if nothing had happened.

“I'm confused.”

“So am I.” Xizax replied. “I woke up randomly as well. I don't know what day or month it is.”

“Days? Months?” The rat inhaled. He didn't look happy to be telling us this. “I'm sorry to say, but, the year you're in is 11030 I.R”

“The hell?!” TAG didn't understand. “How could I have been asleep for two full years!?”

“And where is Glin? Did he survive? Does anyone know we're still frickin' alive?!”

The Rat cleared his throat. He tried to look empathetic.“Look, I know you have a lot of questions, but lets just start at the beginning. I'm Walton, I represent Section B-10 of the Inner Realm. My job and the rest of B-10's is to look for potential objects that can change the world for the better. After all, the Inner Realm has seen a rather nasty blow in the last two years. And frankly, Mr. TAG has been of our interest for the longest time.”

“What about me?” Xizax pointed out gruffly.

“And you too. In fact, your entire group was of full interest. But as for this 'Glin' person, he's gone off the map.”

“What do you mean? He's alive?!” I exclaimed.

The Rat nodded. “We know little but from what we have established, he has been captured and is being forced by a solar terrorist operation to find an object that would be of great use to us.” He took out a holographic coaster. Spinning around was a lush tree with exotic fruits. It seemed like a normal fruit tree, but...

“A tree.” Xizax scoffed. “What's so important about a tree?”

“This is not just any tree. This is a tree of life. This is taken from the 10th volume of the History of the Inner Realms. The fruits that tree bares can potentially expand life and resurrect the dead. It was thought to have been destroyed, but thankfully, another tree lives. Although we do not know where.”

The hologram of the tree changed into a picture of someone apparently standing by said tree. It appeared to be some type of alien figure, possibly Wrexon with it's smooth skin and harsh facial details. It seemed real, but TAG and Xizax were unsure. They have been tricked before, but considering they were out for two years, lots could have happened.

“What do you want with the tree?” TAG asked.

“We want to use it's fruits to expand life in Section B-2's solar council. It is very clear that after the attack of Gilgamesh, the death of many of our most significant members mean that the leadership of the council has been in jeopardy in the past two years. If we can expand their life, this means we will have a much stronger chance at building a better realm for years to come.”

“It sounds like you're talking about making people immortal. That's playing with God.” Xizax warned.

“We don't intend to make people immortal, for that would be dangerous. We intend to just lengthen their lives to about another 25 years. It couldn't hurt.”

“But it's risky.” TAG jumped in. “You said it can resurrect the dead. Wouldn't that be dangerous if someone got their hands on it?”

“That's why we want you to get B-10 to take property control over it. We intend to use it for medicine, not war. And we wouldn't dare think of using it for reviving anything. Look, if you do this, you can find your friend and attempt to save him from the solar terrorists. We'll have you continue to do contracts that will connect you closer to the location of the tree as that is what you do best. You two are adventurers and there's no one we wanted more than you two. You saved the Realms after all.”

TAG looked unsure. But he knew in his heart that he wanted to find Glin again. If this was their only option at the moment of finding him, then he would seize the opportunity and make sure he could save him.

“If we do this, what's in it for us?” Xizax questioned suspiciously.

The Rat smirked. “Maybe I'll let you all travel to the outer realm so you can see your friends and families again. That is, if the council approves it.”

Xizax noticed TAG was staring at him. He already had a feeling that he knew what choice he was going to make, although Xizax wasn't sure if this was good.

“Do you trust me?”

“I've trusted you thus far. I won't turn away now.”

TAG would only nod. He looked at The Rat. “You have a deal.”

- - -

THIS MARKS THE END OF THE SEASON OF CHANGE. TheAutisticGamer will return.

Coming in the new year... the most ambitious adventure TAG has ever faced.



----

Well, that marks the end of the season! I think I've definitely improved some of my writing thanks to the addition of Quickviews, which have made reviewing games more smoother. Overall, I've said many times before this is not an ideal year but I really hope to have some more exciting reviews and many other things happen within 2025. Again, thank you all for supporting the blog over the past year again. Your kindness and awesomeness really makes me love doing this and you guys are the most coolest, excellent gaming forum around! I also hope you enjoyed the annual short story titled "Wake up and smell the ashes." This was in the works since the beginning of November, but this is by far the most effort I put into a Season Finale so far. Usually these are short but I wanted to express a creative vision going forward with these Season Finales. I'm turning 28 next year and hopefully this will be a turning point for me where I start to learn coding and understand the fundamentals of it. I'll attempt to update you on my coding adventures as well if possible.

Thank you all and I cannot wait to start the new Season next year. Happy Holidays!

-TheAutisticGamer

It's nearing the end of the year and it's time for some predictions/plans! What games are you planning to play next year, or at least predicting you will finish?

2024 was not an ideal year for me personally and that unfortunately sunk into my gaming life. Many of the games I played were underwhelming/bad which accounted for 2/3rds of my completions this year. In 2025, I'm hoping to fix that by taking a chunk out of my physical backlog and playing games that I hope will be potentially good/great. I feel if I do this, then I'll end up avoiding the problems of having to play junk most of the time. That doesn't mean my digital games aren't going to get love, I'm planning to continue getting through my Steam/Playstation/Xbox games that I have digitally, but the physical backlog is something I'm really wanting to take serious.

Anyways, these are some of the games I plan to get to. Keyword being: Plan. I'm not going to complete every single game since there's about 50 or so physical games I put in a completion list, but this gives me lots of choice.

Bionicle (Gamecube) and Bionicle Heroes (360) - Don't know much about these games except for the fact that they're based on a brand of LEGOs they don't make anymore. At least I don't think they do. Still should be worth it for some Action Adventure gaming.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Gamecube) - My most valuable game is on the list for stuff I'm wanting to complete. I never beat a Zelda Game before but this time I'm taking it seriously to get this done.

Cat Quest III (PS5) - This will probably be done very early on in the year as it's shorter, but I've really enjoyed the series up to this point so I'm hoping they'll hit another homerun with this one.

Resistance Trilogy (PS3) - I probably am going to binge this series back to back to back. Considering two years ago I played Killzone 2 and was disappointed with how it turned out gameplay and control wise, I'm hoping Resistance will just be better at capturing the console FPS Thrills I want.

3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3) - This is another game that hopefully will be a banger. I managed to get it this year at the Game Expo in Vancouver and yes, I'm so happy that it's in my hands. I've heard loads of good things here so I'm really looking forward to trying it out.

Forza Motorsport 3 + 4 (360) - I keep restarting FM3 but have yet to fully commit time to it. 2025 will hopefully be the year that I complete the majority of content in 3 and 4.

Valkyrie Elysium (PS5) - A game I've been wanting to play for a while after being impressed by the demo. 2025 is the year I hopefully get to it and complete it. I'm always looking for a satisfying Action RPG and this seems to be the one that might do the trick.

The Original God of War Series (PS3) - I have God of War Saga (1, 2 and 3), Chains of Olympus, Ghost of Sparta and Ascension and I've been meaning to play these classics for a while, but since I got all of them I might do a marathon, but am more likely to finish one, take a break in between them and then keep doing that for the rest of the year.

Evergrace (PS2) - Well, I'm going to have to get to this one eventually so hopefully 2025 will be the time to do so! I don't know if the game's going to be my thing but I'm intrigued considering it's an PS2 Launch game.

More Yakuza! (???) - Probably will continue the series on Playstation but I still have to get through Kiwami 2. I hope I can somehow get Yakuza 3 done in the middle of all this, but not sure yet.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning (XBONE) - Probably going to play this game on Xbox, but I remember very much enjoying what I was playing. I put 10 hours on the Playstation version. It really is a shame that there's not of lot of games like Amalur in the way it's designed, but that's what makes it so unique I guess.

These are just some of the games I'm hoping to get to in the new year. There's also stuff like Various Ratchet and Clank games, the two Winnie The Pooh Gamecube Games I got, Blood Stone 007 and focusing on getting games finished that I attempted like Astro Bot, Baldur's Gate: EE and of course Kiwami 2, but who knows if that will get done. Point is, there will be a physical backlog to clear, plus digital games and additions as well. Hopefully next year goes MUCH better for me including for my gaming life. Then again, my time will also be committed to attempting learn how to code for game development self taught, so we'll see what happens.

Good luck on your 2025 Gaming Journey everyone and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sometimes we have gold and we don't even know it. And a select few games we have could be considered EXTREMELY valuable that we want to keep. What are some of the most valuable/rare/expensive games that you own? This isn't about bragging, it's more about keeping the stuff you love close to your heart and trust me, there's lots I keep close to my heart. And if you had any valuable games in the past, did you sell or lose them? Does it pain you to see that it's hard to find or the price has gone up?



By far the most valuable game in my collection at a whopping CDN $193.21 according to PriceCharting is Twilight Princess for the Gamecube. I got this for $50 when EB Games was still selling Gamecube games. I've played it time and again but never have I beaten it but hopefully next year I'll be able to beat it. It's CIB, with manual and disc. The great thing about Gamecube discs is that they always seem super durable no matter what scratches or scuffs come on them, so despite this one looking rough the disc still plays! Yay!

A lot of the most valuable games I have are mainly Gamecube titles. Mario Party 4-7, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Pikmin 2, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Smash Bros Melee are the others I have that cost above $75 in terms of retro. The only other game I can say is valuable that is not a retro Nintendo Game or Modern Game is Folklore for PS3. I got it for about $25 years ago, but the price shot up then shot way back down again so it's not as valuable as say Mario Party 6.

I love keeping these games that are super valuable since they mean a lot to who I am as a person. Games like Melee and Mario Party 7 shaped me and I'm very grateful for them and I will never EVER sell them. I just can't. They're like family to me.

I unfortunately lost some Valuable games including Super Princess Peach which really sucks. I did sell Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete in the very nice box it came in on Playstation. I was probably not going to get to it for a long time but thankfully, I'm okay with that. The two Lunar Playstation games are getting re-released next year anyways, so I'm happy about that and I can get them more easily.

Shockingly, my friend had a cartridge of EVO: Search for Eden on SNES and sold it. Being a rare game, they probably got a good deal on it, but they mainly sold it because they didn't really enjoy the game too much which is understandable.

Looking forward to seeing what people bring to the table with this thread!

Here's my stats from the site this year!



I'm going to try and sneak in Donkey Kong Land for this month as well and maybe the second one too, but I've completed 41 Games at the time of this post. This year hasn't been ideal for me at all and it shows in my gaming year as 2/3rds of my completions are games that are 6/10 or below. There are very very few "Excellent" Games I completed this year, but I'm hoping to rectify that next year by diving more into my physical based games and hopefully will find more bangers than whimpers. I also plan to add more upcoming games of course and dive into some my digital library as well to play things that never got touched or didn't have a lot of time put into them. And I still gotta attempt to finish Baldur's Gate: EE, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning and Yakuza Kiwami 2. And I'm also going to do a replay of Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal plus a playthrough of Ancient Gods I + II to get ready for Doom: The Dark Ages which is by far the most anticipated game I'm waiting for next year.

However, despite the fact that I played a ton of crap this year and underwhelming titles as well, this is by far the most completions I've done in a year since 2019! I've been trying to balance a lot of my hobbies and work to fit in game time this year and it actually ain't all that bad! I don't know how next year will go as I'm planning to start coding in game development, hopefully starting with Source. As I'm turning 28 next year, I want to achieve something that will make me feel very good about myself and honestly, I've been more noticeable on design, gameplay choices, art and other aspects of games that make me want to design a mod in Source that will make a great impression on folks.

Anyways, it might be too early, but here's my Top 5 of this year (Not including games I've already played!) I'll update this again on the Games Completed - 2024 thread when it is posted.

5. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - One of the few old school FPS Games to focus on a compelling narrative instead of just constant gameplay. I had a great time with the story, told wonderfully through FMV cutscenes that have aged very well, as well as featuring likeable characters, a unique roster of blasters and weapons and of course, making the lightsaber powerful but having it not be the superior option while fighting. Graphics are very late 90's in the best way possible for 3D Games and I was very immersed throughout the entire game. This is a groundbreaking title for it's story and released between Chasm: The Rift and Half-Life, both which are known for having focused narratives.

4. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins - I thoroughly enjoyed both Mario Land 1 and 2, but 2 I think takes the cake for it's improved graphics, more selection of levels, good music and terrific control and gameplay only Nintendo could offer. Mario Land 1 may have the better music and did more interesting things but this is another great improvement and showcases the possibility of the leap you could go with sequels on Game Boy technically and gameplay wise.

3. Half-Life: Uplink - Despite being cut content from the game to act as a demo, this is still Half-Life at it's very best. Everything that makes Half-Life so good is in this demo with the same top notch gunplay, graphics, difficulty, set pieces and excitement and immersion you get in the original game. And now since it's a part of the new Half-Life package for it's 25th Anniversary, you have to pick it up and experience it.

2. Cat Quest II - A terrific sequel that improves pretty much everything from the first game. Gone is the satire and now comes a more epic adventure with a world to get invested in and a story that is awesome. Features the best plot twist I've seen all year and the graphics, gameplay, systems, design, music, sound have seen a massive upgrade. You usually don't get a sequel that 100% improves every aspect most of the time, but here we are. A must play. I'm beginning to love these games.

1. Turbo Overkill - It was hard to choose between Cat Quest II and this as my top contender, but this is by far my favorite game I've played all year. I haven't had this much of an adrenaline rush since Doom Eternal came out and it's by far one of the most exciting, thrilling Boomer Shooters I've played recently and is ABSOLUTELY worth playing over the majority of stuff that gets thrown into the Boomer Shooter category on Steam. It's extremely fast paced with tons of memorable moments and this is the first FPS in a VERY long time that re-established my love for the genre since Doom Eternal and Serious Sam 4. I love this game and it almost matches Doom Eternal in quality. If it wasn't for the overly edgy dialogue consisting of numerous F-Bombs and obnoxious cursing and if it was 4 hours shorter, this would have been perfect.

I'll be looking forward to seeing everyone's elses stats for this year! And I can't wait to talk about all the games I played in the 2024 Year Completion thread. Hope everyone is doing well!