Games Beaten - October 2023

(PS4) Watch Dogs 2- 70%

(Xbox 360) Gears of War Judgment- 65%

(Xbox 360) WWE Legends of Wrestlemania- 30%

(3DS) Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D- 30%

(Switch) Five Nights at Freddy’s- 80%

(Switch) Unravel 2- 100%

Went hard this month catching up on backlogged survival horror stuff and new boomer shooter action:

Turbo Overkill (3 Oct)
Ion Fury: Aftershock (5 Oct)
Leon A and Claire B runs of Resident Evil 2 Remake (9 Oct)
The Evil Within + Assignment and Consequence DLCs (12-13 Oct)
The Evil Within 2 (17 Oct)
Signalis (18 Oct)
Sprawl (21 Oct)
Faith: The Unholy Trinity (23 Oct)
Quake 2: Dimension of the Machine campaign (Oct 24)

Also played a bunch of Quake map packs, with Deathmatch Dimension being a particular 10/10 highlight. Up there with the Arcane Dimensions of the Quake world IMO. Ion Fury DLC was another great blast of old-school FPS fun, although it doesn't hit the same heights as the base game.

As far as standalone games go, Signalis and Faith definitely stood out this month. The former is beautiful, haunting, and surprisingly creepy (and I'm glad I played it before the inventory "fixes"), while the latter impresses for doing so much with so little. RE2R was great too, of course, but that's not a particularly surprising or "different" opinion.

Probably my most proud completion had to be beating all of Bioshock series this October on xbox.

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon for 3DS on the 6th (the HD remaster for switch gave me a hankering to finish this game, so i went through the whole thing after buying it again)
Super Mario 3D World for Wii U on the 11th (already had most of the game played, just finished the last world)
Kirby's Dream Land emulated on 3DS on the 28th (played in one day)
the rest of my time inbetween 3D World and Dreamland was spent with a replay of Super Metroid, phenomenal time. overall, im okay with this for october but hope to have more PS4 games in November, havent beat a game on there in a long time.

XBOX 360 - Mirror's Edge - 4/10
PSP - Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles - 7/10
PSP - Lunar: Silver Star Harmony - 8/10

From those, I most liked was Castlevania due its good gameplay and exploration
The worst was Mirror's Edge due its bad controls and poor history

Exceptionally late, started my new teaching job and haven't had much time for gaming.

10/01-Trine 2 (6.5/10)
10/08-Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (7/10)
10/09-Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (8/10)
10/18-LISA: The Painful RPG (9/10)
10/20-Streets of Rage 4 (8.5/10)
10/21-LISA: The Joyful (7/10)
10/23-Metal Slug X (7.5/10)

Most Favorite: This one has to go to LISA: The Painful RPG. This game is the lynchpin to any discussion about games being made poorly on purpose as it embodies exactly how to make things that would seem terrible in most games somehow work within its own rules and world. The story is also heart-wrenching and maturely told. Most Earthbound-inspired games fuck up their dialogue but LISA takes pages from Mother 3 in how to make your audience cry. It's fun, full of heart, and tells a deeply moving story, definitely play this one.

Least Favorite: Trine 2 isn't a bad game, I just got super burned out on it too quickly. The levels are way too similar and the gameplay is a still minimalistic like the first one. I'm glad the magic meter is gone but there needed to be more than just a new (and frankly terrible) story on top of nigh-identical gameplay. Maybe a fourth character or more distinct gimmicks. Overall, I think I'm maybe just not a very big fan of the series.

Personal Recommendation: Obviously I recommend LISA but I also really was taken by surprised as to how much fun I had with Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. Aside from the one snow level towards the end, the game is a nice short burst of fun that feels like a "baby's first Ace Combat" game but with Star Wars and it was quite a pleasant surprise.

Sadly i only completed 1 game

-Mafia: Definitive edition

Only 3 completions in October which is probably the worst October I've had in years

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP) October 6
ULTRAKILL (PC) October 11
Alone in the Dark (PC) October 13

Ultrakill was definitely the best game and I'm excited to see act 3 whenever it comes out
Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles was decent but I think I've realized that I just don't like 2D platformers very much, it was satisfying to beat though so I'm glad I stuck with it
Alone in the Dark was just bad, I don't know how the hell I was supposed to guess what to do for 80% of the puzzles, I used a walkthrough the whole way through.
I started Alone in the Dark 2 but I seriously couldn't get in to it and I think it kind of kiled my urge to beat games for the rest of the month.

This october i completed two games on my xbox series x:

* Lies of P - great game overall 8/10
* Jusant - good experience but i think they missed a great opportunity with the climbing gameloop 6/10

Managed to beat:

Smurfs: Mission Vileaf
Forgive Me Father
The Callisto Protocol: Final Transmission
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
Rise of the Triad: The HUNT Begins
Assassin's Creed Mirage
Immortals of Aveum
Hyrule Warriors
Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway
Quake 2: the Rekconing
Watch Dogs 2
Metal Gear Solid(1998)

I am surprised I even bought and played an Assassin's Creed game at all since I stopped being a fan of the series a while back and I look back on the entire series with less fondness as time goes on. But played both this and Watch Dogs 2, I realize that open world games really tend to be the "junk food" of gaming. Both games consist of you going to outposts, infiltrate, do objective then exfiltrate. Do this for multiple hours on end.

Also, replaying MGS1 for the first time since 2017 was a fascinating experience. I remember really not liking the gameplay since I tried to actively loot guards for rations instead of realizing you can just get rations just by easily exploring the levels, once I did this my impressions of the game changed somewhat. I still don't think it's that amazing gameplay wise. It feels like someone's first introduction to gaming, especially if people were gaming in the late 90s. I go more indepth on my review but if you ever played a game with basic stealth mechanics, exploration, or just have gameplay that is challenging enough to the point where the game isn't playing itself, you get MGS. It's got more going on for it than David Cage or Uncharted games do but I still don't think it's that special. Story and voice acting are solid and enjoyable but I don't really play games for that primarily.

Got the platinum on Spider-Man 2.

October was a decent month.

03 - Underground Blossom
08 - Homeworld Remastered
14 - Parasite Eve
16 - Master of Darkness
23 - Condemned: Criminal Origins
29 - Titan Chaser

The Best - It's nearly impossible to choose. I think Parasite Eve takes it though, I just absolutely loved it.

The Worst - No worst.

The Rest - Underground Blossom is a worthy continuation of the Rusty Lake series in all its macabre glory. Fascinating at all times.

I got some flak for playing the remastered version of Homeworld before playing the original which I was instructed to do but I still enjoyed it quite a bit. The story, units, factions are all very interesting and the way the game is structured really surprised me since I'm usually not too fond of RTS games.

Master of Darkness is just an old blast from the past, something I had played before but never completed, to my knowledge. Solid game.

Condemned: Criminal Origins was really cool as well, a bit janky with how the combat operates but it felt really immersive and tense for those reasons too. I was expecting a stealth kind of game similar to Manhunt but finding it to be a kind of first person brawler was a nice surprise.

and finally, Titan Chaser. Not a game for everyone, looks like a horror game based on things like "The Mist" and while it manages to share a very similar kind of atmosphere this is actually a very chill and relaxing game. It's a bit like a puzzle game where you lurk through the fog in a creepy environment trying to figure out how to corral giant creatures to safety. It's janky, weird, charming. Maybe a bit boring and lacklustre, underwhelming but I liked it for what it was :)

I finally beat the whole metal gear solid after beating 4 last night. The ending made me want to cry.