Board 8 > banananor ranks the steam games he has completed

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banananor
03/18/19 3:54:13 PM
#1:


There are 63 games that I would consider myself to have 'completed' on Steam, and I would say.... most... of them are decent.

I have them ranked, and will make write-ups if there's a modicum of interest. Any takers?
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Gatarix
03/18/19 5:30:02 PM
#2:


sure I love ranking topix
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Shonen_Bat
03/18/19 5:32:29 PM
#3:


ye
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TheArkOfTurus
03/18/19 5:33:40 PM
#4:


Gatarix posted...
sure I love ranking topix

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Lolo_Guru
03/18/19 6:20:37 PM
#5:


TheArkOfTurus posted...
Gatarix posted...
sure I love ranking topix

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Lolo
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Omfg
03/18/19 6:26:24 PM
#6:


I am honored rocket league is #1
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banananor
03/18/19 10:30:32 PM
#7:


Fantastic. To give this topic some context, I'll tell you what sort of games are on the list

First- only games I own on steam. I've played a lot of games on a lot of different platforms, but steam is the only one for which I expressly have a category of games labeled 'complete', so making a comprehensive list is pretty easy.

Second, only games that I've actually completed. This *generally* bars games that aren't good, *generally* bars games that are expressly multiplayer, and *generally* makes it more difficult for long, grindy, or difficult games to make it onto the list. Generally. I've spent so much of my life in competitive and cooperative online games that I could make that a whole separate ranking topic.

I'll be getting into some honorable (and dishonorable) mentions soon, but first I have my list of 63 games, grouped by loose genre category, so you can keep track of counts and possibly try to predict a little bit.

[Games] Genre
[3] Neutral 4x or Sim
[3] Platformer
[7] Point & Click
[10] Puzzler or Quicker
[2] Real Time Strategy
[1] Rogue Lite Life
[11] Running Around
[7] Shot Bullet
[5] Watch This
[10] Western Eastern RPG
[4] Zell Metroidvania

Feel free to to get official B-point funbucks by guessing what games are on the list and their rankings. It should be pretty easy to get a head start (aka cheat) by looking at my gamefaqs history or trying to find my steam profile, but that takes away some of the fun.

Next post will be an honorable mention for an ambitious indie game that I really, really loved despite how broken it was- and despite the fact that I was literally unable to finish it.
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Omfg
03/18/19 10:32:00 PM
#8:


banananor posted...
Fantastic. To give this topic some context, I'll tell you what sort of games are on the list

First- only games I own on steam. I've played a lot of games on a lot of different platforms, but steam is the only one for which I expressly have a category of games labeled 'complete', so making a comprehensive list is pretty easy.

Second, only games that I've actually completed. This *generally* bars games that aren't good, *generally* bars games that are expressly multiplayer, and *generally* makes it more difficult for long, grindy, or difficult games to make it onto the list. Generally. I've spent so much of my life in competitive and cooperative online games that I could make that a whole separate ranking topic.

I'll be getting into some honorable (and dishonorable) mentions soon, but first I have my list of 63 games, grouped by loose genre category, so you can keep track of counts and possibly try to predict a little bit.

[Games] Genre
[3] Neutral 4x or Sim
[3] Platformer
[7] Point & Click
[10] Puzzler or Quicker
[2] Real Time Strategy
[1] Rogue Lite Life
[11] Running Around
[7] Shot Bullet
[5] Watch This
[10] Western Eastern RPG
[4] Zell Metroidvania

Feel free to to get official B-point funbucks by guessing what games that are on the list and their rankings. It should be pretty easy to get a head start (aka cheat) by looking at my gamefaqs history or trying to find my steam profile, but that takes away some of the fun.

Next post will be an honorable mention for an ambitious indie game that I really, really loved despite how broken it was- and despite the fact that I was literally unable to finish it.


I'm too lazy to do any research but please for the love of Allah tell me "shot bullet" is not what steam references Danmaku games as
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banananor
03/18/19 11:22:38 PM
#9:


Honorable Mention: Else Heart.Break()

This game attempts so many cool and difficult things and fails at almost the same amount. It's weird and quirky and frustrating and worth experiencing.

The main pitch of the game is that you are able to hack nearly anything in the world with programming code. Lamp posts, doorways, and soda cans are basic examples. The awkward curveball is that you don't get to do that for hours- or ever- if you don't look up a strategy guide.

For a while it plays like a gestalt of the sims, a point and click adventure, and shenmue. You're a student that shows up for an extremely undemanding sales internship on a small island town, and the game gives you a lot of freedom. There's a day/night cycle on top of a week/weekend cycle, stuff around town seems to often glitch or break, and ominous government men are quick to tell you to move along. It's kind of neat.

I personally spent hours wandering around town kind of confused, going to house parties and interacting with the characters of the island, hoping to figure out what progressing the game even looked like, and above all how to get a hacking device. When I caved and looked it up, the solution made me laugh: Stalk a normal girl you meet at the bar, find out where she lives, and get caught. The only hint was your character dreaming about her. Wow!

Anyway, once the game opens up you can start hacking. At this point, your goal is not only to simply progress, but to progress without breaking the scripting of the game so badly that not even a guide can save you.

I broke Else Heart.Break() so badly that not even a guide could save me. It does not get to be on my list of completed games.

Next post will be a pair of anticlimactic dishonorable mentions.
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banananor
03/18/19 11:24:52 PM
#10:


These anticlimactic dishonorable mentions are games I probably would have finished if they didn't kick me in the stomach.

Dishonorable Mention #1: Warmachine Tactics

I like the concept of warhammer knockoffs. I have a good computer. Warmachine Tactics, a game from 2014, ground my good computer into dust before I could finish the tutorial. I cannot complete games that are this poorly optimized. Warmachine Tactics is basically a virus.

Dishonorable Mention #2: Fallout 3 - Game of the Year Edition

Fallout 3 - Game of the Year Edition does not run on Windows 10 without carving modifications into your motherboard.

I'll probably be getting into the bottom game on the actual list tomorrow. The title with this dubious honor was the first gaming train wreck I saw coming from a mile away.
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banananor
03/18/19 11:25:39 PM
#11:


Omfg posted...
I'm too lazy to do any research but please for the love of Allah tell me "shot bullet" is not what steam references Danmaku games as

: )

these genre categories are self-named. i guess you'll get to learn what my tastes really are!
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Mega Mana
03/18/19 11:59:29 PM
#12:


Look forward to following along. Tag
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banananor
03/19/19 3:50:55 PM
#13:


Welcome to my least favorite game that I've completed!

Bottom Section: Stuff I'm Embarrassed to have Finished

#63: Spore

A few times on this list I'll declare myself to have "beaten" a game that could theoretically go on forever, simply because I've already gotten everything possible out of it. This is one of those games. I made it into space and expanded for a while to see if anything interesting would happen (nothing did).

Sure, Spore had potential. It's a cool premise- growing a species from the primordial soup into the stars. In practice it became one of the least ambitious games I've ever played, far less than the sum of its parts.

The only somewhat interesting section was 'inferior version of Fishy or Flow'. There was also 'inferior version of black and white', 'inferior version of age of empires', 'inferior version of civilization' and finally 'the worst space 4x clicker you have ever played'. I'm forgetting some other ones, but that's because they are forgettable

The creature creator was kinda interesting, but that's about it.

Because the games are 100% separate, and after the second level your species traits no longer matter, the game is not a gestalt but rather a boring collection of minigames.
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VintageGin
03/19/19 4:02:02 PM
#14:


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Steiner
03/19/19 4:04:30 PM
#15:


ranking topics are the very fabric of this board tag
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banananor
03/19/19 8:46:34 PM
#16:


In my defense, a lot of these games came from a humble bundle. I rarely buy things new.

#62: ICEY

Probably the most embarrassing game on this list, ICEY is a predictable fourth-wall breaker that ultimately culminates with you dating your avatar and fighting against the narrator. Can you tell how jaded I am? It's cool for about 2 minutes, before you realize that you're going to be hearing the same note for the entirety of the game. I should add that the english voice actor they got for said narrator did a fucking fantastic job at playing a frustrated neckbeard indie game developer.

It looks and feels like a flash game with okay action combat. It's extremely hard to tell how much of the low quality was intentional (in-story, the game was created by a solo developer) vs. coincidental. As a side note, I think this might be the first original 'made in china' video game I've ever played. I did not get the secret ending, but I experienced enough endings to consider it finished.

In retrospect, I probably labeled this as the wrong category. List so far:

HM. Else Heart.Break()

63. Spore [Neutral 4x or Sim]
62. ICEY [Platformer]
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banananor
03/20/19 4:09:51 PM
#17:


Second to Bottom Section: Games That Are Pretty All Right

#61: FTL: Faster Than Light

This is the only roguelike on this list. This is partially because it's difficult to truly declare a roguelike 'finished', but despite the original Rogue being the first video game I ever played, it's not really my genre. There are a couple I've really enjoyed on consoles (spelunky is probably the best of the bunch), but this is the steam list!

Low story, low gameplay, high time investment is not a winning formula in my eyes. I get that slowly learning the RNG and relative importance of events, shop items, and resources can be rewarding to some, but it's not enough for me.

Anyway, this game is cool, and kind of fun in practice! You command your little star trek men to operate different parts of the ship, put out fires, and shoot lasers, and ultimately survive various space battles and complete choose-your-own-adventure decisions on planets until you die or defeat the final boss. The most interesting parts involve being able to seal off sections of the ship and empty them of oxygen, killing enemy combatants, putting out fires and allowing your robot or crystal crew to operate in peace.

But with most sim/low interactivity games, it's mild entertainment when you win and boring/frustrating when you lose. To me it felt like the quality of a run depended completely upon whether you were able to get your hands on the cloaking device and/or a good teleporter + assault squad.

If you enjoy roguelikes at all this is worth a play. After winning once, I could've played through while trying to unlock other ship designs and alien crews, but I decided it was enough for me.

The chiptune soundtrack is good, but not strong or diverse enough to qualify as one of my all time favorites
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banananor
03/20/19 4:13:09 PM
#18:


Next game is probably the one that required the least developer hours to create out of any game I've ever played
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Gatarix
03/20/19 4:24:20 PM
#19:


you have to burn the rope: steam edition
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OliviaTremor
03/20/19 4:38:52 PM
#20:


Oh man, FTL is one of my favorite games ever. You can win without cloaking devices/boarding. There's a lot of neat things to the game.
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banananor
03/20/19 5:18:04 PM
#21:


OliviaTremor posted...
Oh man, FTL is one of my favorite games ever. You can win without cloaking devices/boarding. There's a lot of neat things to the game.

i gotta say, my friend who is actually good at the game would probably ream me for that review

i think one of the weaknesses of FTL is that the feedback cycle is so slow- it was difficult for me to pick up which strategies were efficient in a reasonable timeframe. Unfortunately, I am an impatient beast.

at least in my experience, enemies rarely felt challenging until the final boss, at which point whatever strategy you were previously using is either good enough or gets steamrolled. and it takes a couple hours to get there each time

i gotta say that i pretty much only played with one of the default ships, and even then never really got too deeply into drone strategies. i could see that some of the other ships designs/starting crews could more easily support alternative strats, or if i learned the game systems i could depend on certain upgrades becoming available and being worthwhile (aka git gud).

in FTL's defense, I played it enough to get that far! every single game on this list had some joy to it- they're the top 63 out of 650, and the biggest gaps are between 62 and 61, 31 and 30, and... i wanna say 12 and 11
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banananor
03/20/19 5:20:47 PM
#22:


#60: Guts and Glory

A solo developer with an embarrassing sense of humor creates what looks like a set of Gary's Mod obstacle courses, and I have fun.

How far can the joy of simple 3d physics simulation take a game? Above three other titles, apparently.

There might be a whole ocean of similar games out there that are better, but this is the one that I played. A relatively forgiving checkpoint system and diverse enough vehicles kept me playing the game until I got to the end. The stupid ragdoll physics help a lot, too.

I feel like the appeal of games can be split into different categories, and there's just something great about responsive controls that sits on its own and makes games like Super Mario 64 so great.

Guts and Glory gets a 10/10 on the physics exam and a 0/10 in pretty much every other subject.
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banananor
03/20/19 5:38:36 PM
#23:


That's the last one for today, but one preview: the next game on the list is clean and competent, but can't help but be negatively (and perhaps unfairly) compared to another game higher on this list
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banananor
03/22/19 12:04:17 AM
#24:


#59: Q.U.B.E.

Ranking this game was hard. Really hard. Even now I'm tempted to bump it up at least a few spaces. Played this one a long time ago.

It's a phenomenally competent first-person-perspective phsyics type puzzler. Good-looking, spartan visual design, smooth frame rates. But that's all it is. No story, no twists, nothing more than the basics of what's on the back of the box.

I guess I wanted it to be something more, and that disappointment lowered it a few spaces. It's worse than some similar games higher up on the list, but significantly better than quite a few that didn't make it on the list at all. I'll save spoiler talk for when I get to those.
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NFUN
03/22/19 12:12:20 AM
#25:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aGDCE6Nrz0" data-time="

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th3l3fty
03/22/19 5:21:08 PM
#26:


Q.U.B.E. has a director's cut with a story

it actually makes the game worse
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banananor
03/24/19 10:46:37 PM
#27:


#58: Deadlight

I kind of slept through this game. I actually have to do a double take every time I see the title, because there are like three other zombie games with equally forgettable names floating around in my periphery.

Deadlight has a story. Deadlight is quick, kind of easy and about a lone father's journey through zombie Seattle. It has the story beats you might expect. Nothing stands out in my memory about this game, except perhaps that segment where you're trapped underground. And I guess the final 'twist' is difficult to forget. Some of the temporary characters and associated scenes made me facepalm, so that's a reaction.

The reason this game isn't higher is that the story didn't really make me think.

The reason this game isn't lower is that it has a story, and i'm glad these zombie wasteland tropes get to be recorded in this kind of medium. The gameplay is also completely acceptable as a conduit for said story.

I'll take a weak game with a distinct beginning, middle, and end over a mediocre one that never concludes- every time.

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It's kind of tough to write about the ones towards the bottom. Especially looking at the next one, which might have been the absolute bottom of the barrel if I hadn't played the game on android
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banananor
03/24/19 10:59:36 PM
#28:


#57: Mini Metro

I don't know what to say. I was always a fan of the old old sim games- SimAnt, SimTower, SimLife, SimTown. Surprisingly, I could never get that excited about their real breakout series, SimCity. The Sims was great and signaled the end of the old style of games, but that's a whole other can of worms.

To my point- these games were fun because you could work to set up a system and then sit back and watch as it puttered around of its own volition. They may have been more toys than games in some instances and difficulties, but toys are neat, too.

Mini Metro taps into that joy- while it's technically a puzzle game, you're ultimately setting up connections between train/bus/whatever stations, assigning trains/buses/whatevers to those connections, and watching them scramble to get all of the citizens where they needed to go. It is exactly that sensation of setting up elevator networks in SimTower, and watching the little people go from black, to yellow, to orange, to red as they got progressively more annoyed until they all crammed into the express elevator and head to floor 40.

It helps that the design is minimal, the colors are bright, and everything hums to a beat and is non-distracting. This toy is fun!
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azuarc
03/24/19 10:59:45 PM
#29:


I wonder what my list would look like.
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banananor
03/24/19 11:18:23 PM
#30:


#56: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Grid turn-based strategy games suck. I'd rather write a program to play these games for me. They're tedious. I know it can be satisfying to have your strategies be proven effective, but why go through all the rigimarole of clicking 500 times to see if they are?

Anyway, now that I have that out of my system, XCOM: Enemy Unknown doesn't even have characters. Don't give me any of that garbage about 'writing your own story' with mute chess pieces.

The actual story of this game is that aliens are attacking earth, and you scramble to form a defense using small squads of soldiers. You build a bunch of defense structures as instructed and lose the game. Then you start over, build zero defense structures, and instead build all of the economy satellites. Then your soldiers develop psychic powers and shoot all of the aliens in the head. The end.

Back to strategies, the strategy is to stay behind cover, focus fire and abuse the best perks of your classes. I'll admit, it's kind of fun to have your sniper get 6 kills in one turn, or for a pair of your shotgunners to run up and multiblast a massive alien in the face, or to land a sweet grenade, or to get the jump on a flying psychic asshole. So that's where the joy is. But I'm cynical about it- that's just how turn-based games are. Turn-based games are fun to win. My friend plays this and the sequels on ironman/hardcore/whatever it is called, so I guess not everybody save-scums, but I absolutely do not approve of games that will throw out 20 hours of progress if you are imperfect and refuse to save scum. Letting a new player limp along in a doomed journey is somehow worse than flashing the game over screen to me.

Production values are good, I'm just biased against the genre and do not like the story. We're slowly crawling out of the boring titles and into the ones that are worth getting frustrated over.
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banananor
03/24/19 11:33:29 PM
#31:


#55: Waking Mars

I like the chain reactions that rejuvenating different types of plants can have on the zones. Flying around on a jetpack is fun. The setting is neat, and the voice actors and characterization is pretty okay.

The only problem is that it's a puzzle game and the puzzles are lackluster. You mostly just ferry stuff around and water all of the thirsty plants hidden away everywhere.

I dunno! It's a nice experience with a unique tone. I did beat this game, but I'm pretty sure there are additional endings I didn't collect. Maybe those are locked behind the real puzzles. I wasn't ready to test that out with potentially minimal payoff. I'll absolutely be boosting the rating if it turns out there's some more interesting gameplay tucked in there.
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banananor
03/24/19 11:56:06 PM
#32:


#54: SUPERHOT

First of all, this game deserves a slap on the wrist for its stupid story, but at least it tried. I won't be saying much else about that. SUPERHOT is all about the gameplay.

If I remember correctly, the gameplay isn't exactly what was advertised. It was pitched as 'time is paused while you don't move', but it is actually 'time moves veeery slowly while you don't move', which leads to the final few levels feeling more like a traditional shooter with very slow bullets. I imagine there's a good reason for that.

SUPERHOT is still really cool! There's something visceral about disarming enemies and throwing guns. You'll notice this is a running theme. The way enemies shatter is satisfying, which also is a big deal. Enemies should react when they are shot/hit/anything. In any game. SUPERHOT dances the line between puzzle and action, and it is good.

Finally, getting to watch a replay of your succesful run is such a great way to break up pacing. Every single game should have this if at all possible.
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banananor
03/25/19 11:10:32 AM
#33:


The next game feels like the evil twin or heroic foil of #55
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OliviaTremor
03/25/19 11:18:28 AM
#34:


banananor posted...
OliviaTremor posted...
Oh man, FTL is one of my favorite games ever. You can win without cloaking devices/boarding. There's a lot of neat things to the game.

i gotta say, my friend who is actually good at the game would probably ream me for that review

i think one of the weaknesses of FTL is that the feedback cycle is so slow- it was difficult for me to pick up which strategies were efficient in a reasonable timeframe. Unfortunately, I am an impatient beast.

at least in my experience, enemies rarely felt challenging until the final boss, at which point whatever strategy you were previously using is either good enough or gets steamrolled. and it takes a couple hours to get there each time

i gotta say that i pretty much only played with one of the default ships, and even then never really got too deeply into drone strategies. i could see that some of the other ships designs/starting crews could more easily support alternative strats, or if i learned the game systems i could depend on certain upgrades becoming available and being worthwhile (aka git gud).

in FTL's defense, I played it enough to get that far! every single game on this list had some joy to it- they're the top 63 out of 650, and the biggest gaps are between 62 and 61, 31 and 30, and... i wanna say 12 and 11


I understand what you are saying. The final boss can be exceptionally rough, but once you figure out a general strategy it isn't really any harder than the stuff leading up to it. The game takes a long to begin understanding but once you do it's pretty great. You are right, though, you really have to be patient and invest a lot of time into the game to get something out of it other than 'that's a neat idea'.

Anyway I'm loving this list and the writeups. Even if I may like the games a bit more, I still really appreciate the critiques.
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banananor
03/25/19 3:22:42 PM
#35:


for sure! i have to catch myself and actively focus on positives when i talk about things, because it's so much easier to creatively critique than creatively praise

#53: The Swapper

Now this is a traditional puzzle game that really explores what it can do with the mechanics.

I call The Swapper a foil to Waking Mars because they're similar in length, genre, and camera perspective. Plus, you're an astronaut in both of them. You're going around solving puzzles, but in this one the challenge is greater and the tone more somber. Mercifully, there are easier and harder goals within each level, and you only have to get a certain number of them over a group of levels to progress to the next batch.

I thought it was a great system! The kick in the nuts towards the end is that in order to actually get the game's normal ending- not the secret ending- you have to go back and make sure you've gotten 100% of those pickups. Why let me skip them in the first place then?

Anyway, the game has a light story and poses a minor philosophical question about consciousness. The primary mechanic involves you creating duplicates of yourself that act simultaneously with you in all actions, and you can 'swap' which one is your primary body with your titular swapper gun. Traps block your path, mists block your swapper, and you don't have a jetpack so just getting around is a challenge. Anyway, it's engaging and about all you can ask for from a hard-boiled puzzle game.

As a side note, I was already a firm believer that consciousness will never be truly transferrable. Sure, you could upload a copy to the cloud and into another brain, but your original brain will still be sitting there at home, dying of whatever malady you wanted to escape. The real questions should be more detail oriented- should it be legal to make copies? Personally, is it more rewarding to create as close to a perfect copy as possible, make a traditional copy (child via birth), or to pass on as much of your philosophy to others regardless of physical relation? Does any of it matter after you're dead? Anyway, I had already decided what i felt from two minutes in, but The Swapper still framed it well.

Thought provoking game, strong to infuriating puzzles, punishing towards the end.
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banananor
03/26/19 3:11:30 PM
#36:


#52: Shadowrun Returns

As mentioned before, I still don't like top-down grid-based strategy games. There are a few factors that make this one a little bit better. First, this one has a story with characters, even though the protagonist itself is still a useless customizable blank slate. The story is about the world and antagonists, and your companions get their little side stories.

Second, cyberpunk is inherently more interesting than generic d&d land, even though I would still prefer something actually new or creative rather than traditional cyberpunk tropes. No, slapping elves, orcs and dwarves in there doesn't help. This game does get sort of get a pass because it's part of an established setting. Speaking of which, if someone could give me a video game set in the Rifts RPG I would be pretty stoked.

But cyberpunk is still uncommon enough, and it was fun to cruise through the various tropes. I think I made my main character a min/maxed haste-buff shaman elf lady and plowed through one of the easier/normal difficulty settings. I don't mind easy combat if it means I get to see the story faster.

What I will say in defense of turn-based strategy RPGs is that they're better than pause-time strategy RPGs. Those are the worst of both worlds- neither fast-paced and viscerally fun like an action game nor relaxing like a turn-based one.

I honestly can't remember the story, but I remember thinking it was okay. It felt like a series of D&D modules tied together with competent thread. Nothing exceptionally stupid or eye-roll worthy, but nothing too memorable, either. What was memorable were all of the little side options available based on the protagonist's skill set. High charisma unlocks certain dialogue and shaman can speak to the dead. I presume smarties can hack their way through obstacles and click with other geniuses or robots.

I'm having some kind of positive feelings about the game, so maybe it would be worth a replay. Maybe I'll finally crack open one of the expansions/sequels sitting in a humble bundle somewhere.
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banananor
03/28/19 10:25:51 PM
#37:


#51: Oxenfree

I like the tone of Oxenfree. I like the artstyle. I like the dialogue. I like the process of uncovering a mystery. I think it's creative, even though a little is taken away by the fact that it's clearly a branch cut from the homestuck tree. There is pretty much zero gameplay- it's a point and click adventure game where you mostly just walk forward, talk to people and explore a weird island with a group of kids.

The core plot twist or revelation or backstory or whatever is arcane and at the same time forgettable. The interactions between the characters along the way are the core of the game, and combined with the surreal scenery makes the journey worth it. There just aren't a whole lot of games set in a the present day with weird things going on.

There's a true ending to collect, but the way the story is structured, i felt okay just looking it up on youtube. I don't need to play through the entire game again, especially when the normal ending is vague as hell to start with.

Your mileage my vary. My friend hated the dialogue- he thought it was unrealistic- and that completely colored his experience of the game. I guess the characters walk kinda slow sometimes.

I'm glad I played it. Can't say for sure how much everyone else is missing out on.
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TheArkOfTurus
03/29/19 9:09:43 AM
#38:


banananor posted...
I'm having some kind of positive feelings about the game, so maybe it would be worth a replay. Maybe I'll finally crack open one of the expansions/sequels sitting in a humble bundle somewhere.


Definitely skip to Dragonfall if you have it. It's near universally regarded as the better game.
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banananor
03/30/19 12:43:01 PM
#39:


#50: Broken Age

This is the traditional point & click adventure fan's modern point & click adventure, with all of the associated quirks and, I'll say it, problems.

Thankfully, there's no king's quest level bullshit in here. The other good thing about the future we live in is that a stupid puzzle doesn't end the game- it only forces me to go to google, youtube, or the FAQ half of gameFAQs.

I always had beef with point & clicks. You don't have to think of a solution, you have to figure out the writer's brain and divine what they want you to do. Sometimes you just have to rotate combining every item in your inventory with every interactive object in the world. So as I list my frustrations, realize that this game is still the best in class

I won't bother enumerating every offensive puzzle, but some tips include: it is impossible to die, so attempting to kill yourself is the solution about 30% of the time (offensive due to massive reliance on metagaming). You can combine things, but if you want to separate them you need to get someone else to do it (offensive because it defies all logic). If the game rejects your very obvious, direct solution to a puzzle for a b.s. reason, just look up the solution, because logic is going to get you nowhere (f.u. mold puzzle). if there is a section that obviously wants you to climb, just look up a solution (offensive because i never want to have to struggle against a game to perform a simple action). oh, and if you feel well and truly stuck, just switch characters to postpone having to look up said guide (not offensive, actually cool)

The artstyle is fantastic, the world is neat, and the dialogue and humor are good. It's a young adult picture book in video game form. If you take equal or less issue with point & click adventure games than I do, this game is worth it. If you want to try a "real" game in the genre (a.k.a. not telltale, david cage, or life is strange), this is the best one to start with.
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banananor
03/30/19 5:17:34 PM
#40:


#49: Headlander

Headlander is a mellow metroidvania with narrative gusto, set in a dark but humorous 70s future where everyone's uploaded themselves into robot bodies. You're a flying rocket head, hence the name headlander.

I was more interested to see where the story went than I enjoyed the gameplay, but once you start unlocking perks it starts feeling better. I plowed through it in a few days. It didn't completely go in the direction that it expected, and the ending is i think a little intentionally cryptic in a way I didn't anticipate. But nothing's going to blow your mind. The 'chess battle arena' section was pretty neat.

Extra category, the sound and resistance when popping off robot heads or doorway latches is perfect

I don't think this is a must-play, but it's a worth-trying.
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Mega Mana
03/30/19 5:58:28 PM
#41:


Six games played so far, two beaten (bold)

Spore (maybe an hour of play, a few hours watching others play) - The hype for this game back in the day was unreal, a lot like the hype for No Man's Sky, but it was pretty empty nd disappointing... a lot like No Man's Sky. Very much a novelty game.

FTL: Faster Than Light - Probably the one I'd bump up the most though I empathize with your assessment in this and other games. I'm in the in-between where I enjoyed figuring out what works and what doesnt to beat it more than once, but without enough love to go and actually seek out new ships or content. I'm also very very bad at hoarding and doing everything in one play, so this game forces me to actually manage resources and choices better than most. (I've spent about three of the last twenty hours in a current game I'm playing actually advancing the story, and the other seventeen backtracking to every area I've been doing super minor things and minigames).

Deadlight - Short, decent, very forgettable. It was a good bit.

Mini Metro (about ten maps done) - I'm very bad when strategy games get frenetic and difficult.

XCOM Enemy Unknown (at least six or seven failed campaigns) - Permadeath games are... I can never complete them. I get too attached. Fire Emblem, Darkest Dungeon, and this. I spend at least an hour or two naming and color coding and theming each one and I savescum tirelessly to keep them alive.

Shadowrun Returns (about five hours?) - Hacking minigames are fun, but I just never got into it.

Looking forward to more!

FTL > XCOM > Shadowrun > Deadlight = Mini Metro >>> Spore
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banananor
04/01/19 1:55:42 PM
#42:


#48: World to the West

If the previous game was cut from metroid cloth, World to the West is a direct inheritor of the Zelda style. But there's something weird about this one.

Is it the completely black, glassy eyes? Is it the fact that the four protagonists don't really like each other, or have any chemistry whatsoever? Is it the fact that the game doesn't bother to resolve several prominent storylines and story hooks, cutting the final act short, as if the game were a project, essay, or homework assignment a student slapped together with duct tape six hours before the deadline? Including the story hook that kicks off the entire game? Is it the fact that health upgrades, while typically sequestered in a place that only one character can get, can be picked up by any character that reaches them first? The answer is yes to all of those

Basically, it has all the signs of a game made by a very small studio on a timetable.

Aside from those eyes, the art style is bouncy. The diversity of character abilities makes for good breaks in gameplay. The puzzles/dungeons are lean towards the easy side, but take good advantage of each character's arsenal. Not quite Twilight Princess easy, but i think I remember being stumped more than once or twice within a room. There are tougher ones when it comes to collecting optional items, which is the perfect difficulty slider. The fact that you get to play with physics a little bit with some abilities helps.

The only times I remember being completely confused were when I had to do a certain number of 'things' to open a door, and i didn't know what (hint: one time i had to kill a certain number of enemies in the room, another i had to collect a certain number of 'things' around the world).

The difficult section of the game involves the broader world- it's easy to hang yourself with all of the rope the game gives you. Oftentimes it'll just sort of mark a faraway point on the map, and then you have to determine through trial and error when and where (and how many times) you need to go underground, where you need to emerge, and from which angle you need to approach tthe destination. On top of that, you might need to send one character ahead to unblock some obstacles, but you won't know when- this only happened once or twice

As for the individual characters? A couple of the survivor's boss battles stood out in terms of design. The strongman was dumb and annoying. The mindbender being the only one that could use money was pretty funny. Teleporting around as the teslamancer is the best, which is also nice because every speedrun abuses the hell out of it. It is a little weird how you have to progress through each room separately with each character. The theme is not teamwork- the theme is how everyone has parallel goals and tackles their challenges in different ways. The studio is Swedish- is this a Swedish stereotype?

This game compelled me to play it all the way through in about a week, but it's not a must-play. It's worth analyzing if you're at all interested in zeldalike game design, but the story and characters have a strange, unfinished isolation about them.
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banananor
04/03/19 3:48:57 PM
#43:


#47: Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

This is probably the best low-resolution pixel work I've ever seen.

The characters, enemies and background are so detailed and animate so fluidly. It says a lot about the art direction that my only complaint is that the higher definition menus/items/text boxes look a little cheap, like a flash game.

Also- and maybe this says more about me than the game- how the hell did they make so few pixels so sexy? Seriously, the characters are like 40 pixels tall.

A few of the 'traversal' platforming sections are dull, but the actual combat and platforming is very snappy. The mazes and dungeons are cool. The leveling and upgrade unlocking system- you pick up another character's gear over time- is pretty all right, and I don't necessarilly mind that I could theoretically cheese a tough fight with food and those spinny ball items. All of the boss battles were solid, but the first and last ones are fantastic examples of appropriately tuned introductory and ultimate bosses. There was even a most difficult boss towards the middle that made me almost blow a gasket and forced me to learn some more advanced mechanics.

I dunno, it's halfway between a vania and a mega man and it is great. The more that I write about it the more that I want to bump it up the list, but I think we're starting to get the the 'actually good' section of this list and the inherent cheapness and camp limit it.
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banananor
04/03/19 4:26:50 PM
#44:


#46: Galactic Civlizations II

If I were judging games purely by gameplay, this one would be at the bottom of the list. Games are such a broad field.

I give this one a little bit of a pass because it's my favorite game in one of my least favorite genres- 4X. And that means something. I've always had high hopes and great disappointments when it comes to 'competitive puttering around and tending gardens simulators', but there are a few reasons I enjoyed this one.

First, some bad notes. The graphics are horrible even for 2006, the interface wildly outdated, and I'm not sure if I would call it playable today. I think the resolution caps at something ridiculously low.

Now, the things that it does well. The diplomacy system does a good job of pretending to be varied. Each alien race has an alignment, personality, goals and of course inherent weaknesses/strengths. Trading is powerful. There are a lot of 'choose your own adventure' events that pop up, and selecting good/evil/neutral options- aside from giving different immediate perks- will help you ally with those with a similar alignment. It feels better than having each faction interact with you identically each run, and isn't as restrictive as raw alignment systems. Stellaris and Endless Space seem to be angry neighbor simulators for the most part.

The humor on descriptions and lore snippets are fun, and the writers get pretty creative with some of them.

When a war begins, if you've scouted properly you can anticipate what sort of weapons and defenses your enemy will be using, and if you've diligently invested in military research you should be able to create the armor/weapon modules that most exploit them, and if you've invested in enough of an industrial infrastructure you should be able to produce a counter army in a quick enough time. Geographic predeterminisim feels low.

Empire management is easy to grok and the building placement minigame is a harmless diversion that links well with the planetary invasion mechanics. Everything just sort of clicks.

You can accelerate your civilization's 'engine' and be in the fun zone for a good period of time before victory becomes inevitable and you're just mopping up, as inevitably happens in this genre.

A military playthrough feels different enough from a science playthrough, and a 'good' playthrough feels different enough from an 'evil playthrough'.

There is a story campaign and it's all right. I dunno. I've burned a lot of time in Alpha Centauri, the Civilization series, and various space 4x games, and it's difficult to describe why I enjoyed Galactic Civilizations II more. Civ doesn't have enough story and flavor. Alpha Centauri's war is not entertaining. Endless Space and Stellaris feel a little more gimmicky and the opposing factions tend to behave identically and the pacing is off, and there doesn't seem to be as much ability to interact with and react to your opponents.

So... different games for different moods. This happens to be the 4x game I own on steam and became most immersed in at the time.
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banananor
04/03/19 4:42:28 PM
#45:


#45: Sorcery! Parts 1 & 2

Putting this on the list is *almost* cheating, because Parts 3 & 4 do exist, but technically each book can stand on its own and I HAD to share my love for adventure books somehow.

This digital implementation in particular is great because it maintains a lot of things that made those adventure books charming. The interface is papery. You can 'undo' actions without penalty, which lets you enjoy some of the sillier and more b.s. 80s adventure scenarios.

The second book in particular does a decent job of balancing linearity and allowing you to explore a busy city in a way that feels non-linear.

It also diverges from the book mechanics in some good ways- combat goes from i think die rolling to an energy bidding system, magic goes from page number lookups to divining letters from the stars. Apparently a good number of rooms/encounters/events were altered from the books to give long-time fans some surprises, and many hidden mechanics prevent the game from being completely mappable.

My favorite adventure books are still the uncompleted 'Fabled Lands'/'Quest' series, but there isn't a steam release for that.
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banananor
04/03/19 4:52:23 PM
#46:


#44: Spec Ops: The Line

I imagine this game as a gateway for good stories to slowly encroach into the minds of call of duty dudebros.

I get when games can 'get better' once you reach a twist, but the gameplay or story up to that point has to be fun enough on its own. I'll admit, the first time I tried this I couldn't muster a desire to get more than a couple of hours into it.

A few years later I came back and soldiered through. I'm glad I did! AAA production values, sufficient challenge, worthy enough story that wasn't as patronizing as I expected. A great accomplishment. Some of the scripting and effects were impressive, especially when the main character starts really losing it/hallucinating. The tone shifts over the course of the game and I was pleased with the possible endings

I especially liked the things our hero would say when reloading. He either screams "IM RE LOOOADING!" or whispers to himself 'im reloading...'.

This is another one of those games where I found the actual gameplay more tedious than the actual story, but I think it's worth it to get into the mindset of a beleagured soldier.

If you're a shooter fan this one is a must-play. Otherwise, this is a probably-play-if-you-can-get-it-cheap.
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ChaosTonyV4
04/03/19 5:41:38 PM
#47:


FTL this low?
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Phantom Dust.
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banananor
04/03/19 5:46:23 PM
#48:


Yup! And it's 18 places below...

#43: Machinarium

This is my favorite point and click adventure game that still fits the 'true' definition of a point and click adventure. A kind of magnum opus hybrid right before the industry was shaken up.

The main takeaway from this aside from the objectively beautiful art and creative world of gearpunk robots is the absolute fairness of the puzzles. There was exactly one puzzle that felt too difficult about 80% of the way through, but I'll grant one pass. If I were looking for that level of challenge I would have been excited it was there.

It also shares the great of honor of being in the same category as Tomba! by having your character eat items to put them into your inventory.

I still think that Broken Age is probably the best trial run of old-school adventure games, but Machinarium should be the dessert or final encore. Any point & click adventure better than this (at least in my experience) will have to ride on the coattails of an extremely strong narrative on top of decent gameplay or puzzles- not to say this one's story is weak at all.
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banananor
04/03/19 6:00:08 PM
#49:


#42: SteamWorld Heist

SteamWorld Heist is my favorite turn-based strategy game that can actually coast by based off of its gameplay rather than its story.

Yes, it does have a story, which essentially starts out as steampunk Firefly. The story's kind of neat, but ultimately is just a vehicle for the gameplay, which is worms. And worms is great. The story even has a few twists and turns in there for you, and lasts for a little bit longer and has more enemy types than I expected. Aiming lasers and genades with targeting lasers and then watching them bounce aroun is inherently so much more satisfying than clicking on a tactical grid.

The characters actually have personalities, unique abilities and their own backstories, wow! You can coast by and enjoy the story or go back and try to beat the levels more efficiently to unlock more stuff, wow! There are funny little achievements to chase after.

There's something that feels luxurious about having a carefully tuned set of encounters, rather than the hum-drum snooze-fests and ludicrous stompings of a roguelike, deckbuilding or otherwise. There are enough simple encounters to get the 'fun' (or at least breather) of stomping simple enemies, and there are enough boss battles and challenging rooms to keep you on your toes.

I wouldn't say you're missing out on anything unique by not playing this game, but I was pleasantly surprised by a game that looked on the cover like a spinoff of a flash game about infinitely mining the earth.
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banananor
04/03/19 6:06:40 PM
#50:


I'll also add that as a lot of stuff has been said about FTL, I do think that and SteamWorld Heist go to show how you can take a similar concept and send it in completely different directions

I believe both involve running a space ship towards or away from an evil space organization, dealing with encounters with various alien types, and making various choices about how to equip yourself and approach combat

SteamWorld Heist went in the cinematic, scripted direction with side-scrolling, turn-based shooting combat and FTL went in the roguelike dice direction with pausable, top-down ship management combat.

I think each could take a lot from the other to improve. FTL could use more character personality and narrative, more hands-on combat, and a more interesting setting. SteamWorld Heist could use more choices and random events, more interaction with their own ship (although i suppose you do run around turning valves in some levels) and ship-to-ship combat.

I'm going to recap the current list on page 2
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