My games of 2012

[Prpl_Mage]

The games I played 2012, the classic purple mage tradition is back. Just a few days earlier this time. My typical new years resolution was to play less games and focus more on my studies. That didn't work. At all.
I was writing this but then the power went out and I lost everything. So with less quality - here we go.

Btw. Gonna make these into different posts. Part 1: PC and Wii Part 2: PS3, DS,3DS,PSP

PC: Good ol trusted Pc, the games are only as good as your computer and some won't even work without an internet connection.


Diablo 3:
I've said this many times before and I'm gonna say it again. A great game, but to some people it was a disappointment because what they really wanted was an expansion pack for diablo 2. I love diablo 2, yet I hate diablo 1. So in conclusion, the games in this series aren't the same. If you like a super mario bros you're gonna like pretty much all super mario bros because they are the same. Blizzard makes something new with their games. And diablo 3 introduces a couple of new things. First you don't have to spend skill points to make skills useful, damage of skills isn't a numeric value but rather a percentage of your damage (weapon damage, attackspeed, crit chance, crit damage ect). I like this change because weapons finally make some sort of difference. Also, you are limited to 6 skills "active" which is all fine and dandy, because to be honest. Who used more than 6 skills frequently in diablo 2? And I'm not talking about activating frost armor or summoning every different type of undead here. They also added the difficulty inferno which was too damn hard to beat. People complained in the forums; Blizzard nerfed it. Then people complained that it was too easy; so blizzard introduced monster level which works like the "/players #" in diablo 2, stronger enemies, better loot. There have also been a lot of patches to make all skills evenly useful(since some skills were worthless compared to other similar at the start, kinda like D2 firebolt vs fireball), legendaries are also far better now and come with unique effects.
The game succeeds once again to make you spend hundreds of hours gearing up your hero to slay thousands of demons left and right as you travel the world. 


Portal 1 & 2:
Sorry but portal 1 and 2 are pretty much the same thing. First person shooter without the shooting part but add a friggin portal gun. This game is just so much fun and manages to create a lot of interesting puzzles for you to solve. Because that's the game. You walk into a room, clear a puzzle and then progress to the next room. Exception is some storybased areas that you get to - because of the story. For being a game with such simple concept Portal actually manages to produce some likeable characters, for a game that have no focus on characters whatsoever this is amazing. We have the murderous AI Glad0s and the stupid probe Wesley and then the recordings of Rock Johnson who all manages to appeal with their twisted personalities. This game is great fun, the Coop in Portal 2 was too short ,I missed some things in the map creator and memes kinda made the companion cube a bigger deal that it actually was. But it's just soo good.


Borderlands Game of the year edition:
I played borderlands earlier but with the addition of steam... I actually think this is the first game I got. Anyway, borderlands with all the DLCs for a small amount of cash. Great deal. I loved this game, mostly because it's like Diablo 2 in a predetermined world, with guns and FPS elements. No wait, it's an FPS with diablo 2 elements. You have skills trees(3), skill points, weapon proficiency, badass enemies and loot to find. Shoot 'n loot I think someone called this at one point. Anyway, the overall atmosphere of the game is just great, the few characters that are in it are so messed up and hilarious especially in the DLCs. Which is what I should be talking about. The zombie DLC was great, fire weapons preferred, headshot zombies to collect brains and new enemies. Moxxies arena wasn't as much fun, it's pretty much "hey, survive 10" rounds of enemies and defeat a boss or something". Which got kinda old, you had to do a lot of that for the extra skills point (yay) and there are only so many bosses to fight and the rounds are pretty much the same. A total terror in singleplayer. General knoxx dlc is awesome to the core, Knoxx himself is an amazing character, just my kind of humour. Also tons of new items and areas and enemies to be killed. Claptrap robolution, well it's nice to kill all of those claptraps and such but most bosses were returns of old bosses and well you fight those bosses 2 times each during this story mode. First you fight the three of them as you progress and then you meet them at the very last final mission. Still, amazing job on the DLCs, I would totally have gotten them (not moxxies though).


Guild wars 2:
Just gonna come clean, never played guild wars 1. But the moments the servers opened people complained that it was too much like WoW and too little like guild wars 1. Which is pretty much the same reception that Diablo 3 got. Anyway, the game is an MMO, and free. Which is great, but it got some backsides. For starters there are a lot of events (randomly occurring timed quests for everyone in that area) that are bugged. Like super bugged. I remember going to the Bloodtide Coast to explore everything and get some reputation. But I encounter like 10 different bugged events that couldn't be completed. Anyway, I'm not here to bash them for that, just seems a bit silly to restore the servers each tuesday to watch the same errors occur again. The game gives you skills based on the weapon type you have equipped, all classes(but elementalist) can have 2 different weapon sets equipped at the same time to switch between. This is a good thing because you can form some sort of strategy. The kinda boring this is that you're stuck with these 3-5 skills throughout the entire game, when leveling up and earning skill points you spend those on class/race based skills (most are passive I think). There are some really neat active skills here as well such as the elemental minion but in most cases people just goes with the passives. The dungeons are ridiculously hard, I hit the level for the first dungeon and went there, didn't stand a single chance. Everything killed me in two blows. Got better as I progressed and got better gear but still, really hard. Especially when there is no real tanking or healing being done. A lot of people went on and on about making choices about your background and how it affected your game, well basically we can narrow it down to two choices. Background and anecdote. One decides the first story quest chain, such as my human noble having to rescue his noble friend. The second one is a quest chain after the first one which in my Charr's case was finding the legacy of my father.The third one is the same for all of the same race, then you get initiated into one of three factions, nerdy magicians, stealthy rogues or the stout sentinels. So in the end only a few quests differ between the choices and all races have the same quests in the factions, and you end up in the same place as all other players in the end. No matter if you're a street urchin or the commander of the blood legion.
Game itself is pretty well planned, you don't just go and do quests to level up, in the different zones you can get exp from different sources: mining, crafting gear, killing enemies, finding points of interests, watching a movie of the landscape, completing tasks (pretty mush like a quest only you can do 2-5 different things to fill a bar and when the bar is full you get exp and some cash, no talking required) and participating in events.The events are pretty much the only thing that makes this game interesting, just randomly an event occurs in an area that you happen to be in and you rally some players to complete it. Either if it is something trivial like protecting the beehives from bears or taking down a giant that's stomping the **** out of a town. I think I have a picture laying around that pretty much summarize the game.



Borderlands 2:
I love borderlands, and I love borderlands 2. They have some new classes that are pretty much the same. Instead of letting the big guy go melee with better stats he can now wield two weapons at the same time (improvement). Lots of new skills although most seem to be "on kill" triggered, which is okay since the bosses now have an endless supply of easy-to-kill minions to bother you doing fights. I kinda miss the weapon proficiency but I'm okay with it since there is the badass ranks where you can spend points on stats. My only problem is that I don't really like the idea of these stats affecting all of my characters. I don't want to get too overpowered. Weapon types have been reduced, pistols and revolvers are the same thing for example. Lots(lots) of new types of grenades and shields. Nova shields, spike shields, teleporting sticky grenades ect. Amongst the new weapons are also some annoying traits like "fires 3 bullets" but also cool ones like "explodes on reload" and the eridium weapons. It's a great game just like the previous one, a shoot 'n loot with tons of items to get. I just kinda miss all these redundant quests like "find 10 cactuses" that makes you visit some areas that you otherwise have no reason to explore.
It's an amazing game with even more interesting characters, although I kinda felt that some of the ones from the last game could've been left out.


Worms reloaded:
The problem with Steam sales is that you find all these cheap games and think "hey, I should try that one". So I got this. I'm a big fan of the worms series, always been a great hotseat game to play with some friends. This one is kinda new and fancy and I get kinda cross with some aspects of the game simply because it's not like the old titles (Armageddon). Sure it's fine to make new things and such but... Whatever. New weapons, ferrets x3, you unleash 3 ferrets that can climb walls (and upside-down) that pick up crates they touch and explode when colliding with worms. It's glorious, also new airstrikes, buffalo charge that hits an obstructing object 6 times and totems that gives health regen to all your worms.
It's a great game for multiplayer but beating the AI in singleplayer mode is still like trying to snipe the eye of a needle.



Wii: That white ghost that gets an awful lot of games, like tons of them. How can I own so many wii games?


The last story:
The game starts out really good, you are introduced to all the aspects of it like hiding behind walls and triggering magic circles and such. The story starts and it feels nice, you get some lovely characters and a bit of dark plot to figure out. Then the game is over. Well maybe not that fast but you know. It kinda feels too short, I think I spent like 25 hours) to beat the game and that's like all the extra dungeons and upgrading all the equipment and such. It might just be that I'm used to RPG battles that eats tons of time with their turns and animations but still. I wish it was longer because I liked to so much. It's kinda neat that upper and lower armors change the appearance of characters and that you can upgrade them to add additional parts to it, and then you can recolour it and hide/show parts of it(or just make all the clothes invisible). After beating the game you can replay it with all your equipment and stronger enemies (well, at least the bosses are stronger). In the second playthrough you can also upgrade all your equipment to lvl 99 instead of 3-5 which makes a lot of difference in damage and defence. Multiplayer is plagued by connection issues as always. Playing pvp with one person lagging forward and not taking any damage kinda gets old.
Great game, just wish it would've lasted longer, or that I could choose which character to control or just more areas to visit or more enemies. Anything.


Xenoblade Chronicles:
I got this weird FFXII feel at first (which is a bad thing) but it got tons better when I realized it was more like dragon age.  It's kinda RPG, only that you fight enemies as they appear in the world, skills costs nothing but have cooldowns. you control one character of your choice. Really long game, lots of sidequests, huge world to explore and enemies to beat and skills to upgrade and passives to be learned and character relations to be improved(not just between the protagonist and the party members, all party memebers to each other party member). It was a blast, long time since I played a game like this. One that just appeals to me as an rpg. Equipment changes appearance, weapons as well, there are sockets in gear where you can improve the stats. And lots of skills that can be assigned to your characters in battle (limited ammount though). Story is good, starts out really good. It's just towards the end where it kinda went from plot twist to huge friggin plot hole and just overall "**** the story let's make it as epic as possible" and the ending turned out really silly. There was no real build up, it went from this to that. During the time of a cutscene. Still an amazing games with original characters with different "styles" that make them different and the ability to tweak nearly all party members to play out different roles in battle. Only problem are the party members that tends to do exactly what you don't want them to do.
Still, I wouldn't mind spending another 200 hours on this someday. But new game + with all enemies the same but you keep your level and gear - dumb idea.


Kirby's Adventure Wii:
Just like New super mario bros and DK country returns this is pretty much an old idea in a new package (which is a good thing). It's a classic kirby platformer with new abilities and some enemies that I didn't recognize. It's pretty simple, steer kirby, find the coolest ability and use it to kill everything in your path - save for when you need an ability to get that hidden (in this case) cog. Fighter kirby is back, lots of abilities got additional skills when pressing button combinations. Like the plasma which is charged by moving back and forth. Awesome. You go through levels in different themed worlds and fight a boss at the end of the world, pretty standard platformer planning. And it allows up to 4 player coop. Additional players can either play kirby, metaknight(sword kirby+ flying), dedede (hammer kirby), or waddledee(spear kirby). So it's complete madness a lot of times.
Also the ability challenges are well done, like the aqua challenge where you have a course to get through with the aqua ability while racing against the clock and having a score to increase. Great game, but probably better in coop.


Pandoras Tower:
A typical game, the hero is more or less silent and barges into the dungeons to save the girl. Only that the girl in this case will turn into a huge monster and kill you unless you come back with some cursed meat before the time runs out. That very aspect gives this game a lot of charm, you have to return in time and give her some meat in order to start the cycle over again. It just reminds me of Majoras Mask with the moon and everything and limited time in dungeons. But that's pretty much where the similarities ends. You have an inventory that can only carry that much stuff and most of the stuff(if they aren't bombs) is used to craft accessories or upgrade weapons. You don't find a lot of interesting tools to solve puzzles either. The hero of this story, Aeron, is equipped with a sword and a chain, later you can find double blades, a schythe and a short range bazooka. The weapons are great for disposing of enemies, upgrading weapons gives them longer combos and not just damage. The chain is used to grab enemies, throw them, spin them around you, yank their limbs off and ultimately - rip out a piece of cursed meat to return to the girl. It's just a shame that most boss battles are the same, find the weak spot and use the chain to deal damage, there is no real use of the sword or any other item in the game. The girl is kinda lonely back at the base so you can give her gifts or talk to her to improve your affection which gives some random scenes and such. Also, apparently it affects the ending of the game. Lots of gear to craft with cool effects and gifts to give her, also you can unlock furniture and clothes for her by getting X amount of flesh from a single dungeon, or some equipment. Great game, just wish there was a way to refight some bosses. Get's kinda lonely when you're just farming materials to craft that last thing you never got during your first playthrough.


Super Mario Galaxy:
Yeah I know. I sure waited around to play this one. But I did it. And it's glorious. Well, considering that I wasn't too fond of sunshine with it's cleaning missions and other flud-related skills it's no surprise that I had pretty low expectations on this. You remember N64 mario and it was awesome, kinda like how you remember Ocarina of time and then play a new one. There is a lot of comparisons going on. And that like 50% of what you rmember is glorified doesn't help. Anyway, Peach is kidnapped, Bowser and Jr is to blame. Mario meets hot meteor chick and visits 6 different "hubs" with worlds to collect stars during different missions. It's like the classic N64 games. There are also a hidden star for most(non minigame-like) worlds, a "prankster comet"(speedrun, no damage, ghost race) and after clearing the game - purple coin collection(collect 100 purple coins, sometimes timed). There are lots of fancy worlds and great leveldesign going on in this game with new power ups(although the bee is silly) and revamped classics. Favorite is the ice flower that lets you run on water and walljump on waterfalls. Story is kinda non-existant as always, "collect **** to get to and beat the final boss". I just hate that they take away all the extra lives you collected when you quit the game... Evil. Collected all 120 stars (although I used a guide for the desert hidden star) and the game allows me to play through the entire game with anti-gravity luigi. Didn't really feel like doing that, maybe in a couple of years.


Super Mario Galaxy 2:
Okay, yes. Maybe it was a misstake to start playing super mario galaxy 2 directly after galaxy 1. For those who played galaxy upon release, I have no doubt that a sufficient amount of time passed before they played this. It's the same game. No really, it is the same game only with new worlds. Some minor changes: you have a world map and don't have to go to a room and choose 1 out of 5 worlds there. You get 1up for every 100 crystal stars as opposed to every 50 in galaxy 1. Your coins are added to a total after a world is finished(although they lack meaning). So the new big thing is yoshi, yepp that green raptor is back in action and swallowing enemies whole. Sure it's a pretty nice touch, then they added 3 power ups for yoshi - red fruit that makes him autorun really fast, blue fruit that makes him into a balloon that flies for some time and yellow fruit that kinda works like the lens of truth in ocarina of time. The cloud har is a neat addition, you get three charges of clouds that you summon directly under you which can be used to stand on, great possibilities follows. Anyway, the story is the same. Peach kidnapped by Bowser who goes to space(although not even a FMV is given to the player, it's just ingame graphics from a to z). Mario have to collect the power stars and grand stars to reach him. Rosalina is replaced with a big purple luma who acts kinda like a pirate and well... Let's face it, you don't care about that. You go to the world map and pick a world where you haven't gotten all stars and play it. Bad things with this game - not all the levels have a hidden stars, it messes with my mind. Some star missions become available really late in the game. So you have 1-3 gaps in your "completed" tab until later. Some of the prankster comets are plain boring or dumb. I haven't gotten all 120 stars, I'm stuck at 118 because I can't finish the Galaxy 1 boss run in 5 minutes. And it just pisses me off when the bosses screw me over and I have to start over again. I used to like Bouldergeist but now i hate that guy. Good game if you liked Galaxy 1 though, just think of it as an extra 120 star missions that you paid a lot of money for.


Final fantasy CC; Crystal Bearers:
Let's just start by saying that this is nothing like any other crystal chronicles. The original was a great game(if you had friends with GBA and a GBA/GC cable) and the 2 DS games were surprisingly well done - ... Go through dungeons and kill monsters while solving puzzles - kind of game(2nd is sooo much better than the first, just wish all the dungeons and bosses were ported). Anyway! The game opens up with a mini game where you shoot down birds with a gattling gun while falling from the sky onto an airship. The following cutscene shows you fighting hand to hand with a Yuke. Great opening. The only problem with the game is the fact that it more or less lacks a battle system. Sure there are monsters with hp that will attack you and you have a defense and attack stat but fact remains fact. Layle can do 2 different things. 1. Roll, this can push monsters away from you and into a wall or another monster. 2. Gravity, grab them with gravity and either flip them upwards or to the sides. A monster that's staggered can be picked up with gravity and thrown like a projectile. And that's pretty much it, well except picking up objects and throwing at enemies. Compared to Pandoras Tower this is kinda lame. Well, Pandoras tower had the chain that did pretty much the same thing, only that you could yank it or spin enemies around you. The thing you can do with your gravity is triggering different reactions, for example you can mash skeletons together to create something new or make a cactuar grow with a bucket of water. You soon realize that the designers of the game didn't go for entertaining battles. The game is more or less a series of minigames that needs to be done in order to progress. First up is shooting the birds, then you get to steer the airship through a gorge, then you try to catch a ferret and so on. And it actually works, when you see monsters you actually want to kill them because you don't get to do a lot of that. The different areas in the game comes in two versions, npc version and monster version. In the NPC version there are some npcs running around and some kind of task/mini game that can be completed for some materials or gil. Killing all monsters in an area and closing down the "miasma stream" earns you a max health boost(first time), and doing it several times give you a chance to encounter a huge boss instead of pesky skeletons. The one problem with these bosses and such is that the two sides of an area are timed, so after X amount of minutes, the game swaps to the other. So there is no dillydalling when trying to defeat all monsters. Chracters are pretty good but no big deal, kinda classic rpg material. Good game but a bit short, approximately 15 hours or so. But there are tons of things to do on the side, main story itself is short. There are "medals" to be earned by doing different things in the world, much like achievements, only 350 of them. Anyway, entertaining game with variety, great animations, messed up ending.


Super Paper Mario:
It's kinda hard for a game in a series to live up to a past game when the past game were so awesome. I'm talking paper mario here. The gamecube game(the thousand year old door, now referred to as paper mario 2) is just such an awesome game that I keep replaying every now and then. Anyway, Super paper mario is not an rpg, this is kinda sad because I liked the paper mario rpgs just like the superstar saga games. Sure, Mario still has his stats, the hp and shopping, leveling up and so. But your basic move is jumping on enemies just like the first mario bros games. And despite the fact that you deal a set number of damage with the jumping - most enemies dies on one hit anyway. The fancy partymembers are replaced by pixls, flying colourful digital pixies or something like that. By pressing the 1 button you use their powers which can be used to defeat enemies or solve puzzles. For example there is a bomb pixl that places a 3second bomb or the grab pixl that grab enemies for you to throw them. I never expected this to beat paper mario 2 but what I kinda miss are all the mario enemies and characters. I haven't seen a single toad except for the opening scene. The town you run around in have these weird, square, flipside people, same with some of the enemies. Seem to be the result of mashing geometrical figures together rather than creating something that fits in. Second thing I miss is the ability to go where you want to. Each chapter is divided into 4 "stages" and it's pretty much a classic mario stage, you start in one place and goes to the finish to get teleported to the next one. Then you have the flip ability which is a nice touch. Since the "normal" world is a real platformer this time around where you can only move left or right Mario can use flip to turn the world into the 3d version of it. Kinda like spinning the camera 90 degrees to the left. It's well done and kinda funny to see how it actually looks behind the scenes, always something to pick up or enemies you didn't see before. Still haven't beaten the game yet but so far it's a good game, but it only makes me want to replay paper mario 2 again.

[Prpl_Mage]

Part 2: PS3, DS, 3DS, PSP

PS3: The paragon of HD graphics and diminishing storage space.


Soul Calibur 5:
Another soul calibur, another opportunity to get some fighting done while customizing characters. And yeah, that's pretty much it. Soul calibur decided to add a similar system as the new Mortal Kombat, you have a special gauge that increases on attacking and getting hit, this is divided into 3 bars and can be filled twice. Each bar can be used to execute a more powerful version of some attacks, like power throws or additional strikes to a combo. Or you can use a bar to do a guard impact. Fill up 3 of them to do a special attack, complete with animation and high damage and everything. The customization is great this time around as well, you can customize even more on characters and recolour weapons and stuff. And to be honest, that's pretty much the best part of this game - creating a character. A lot of characters were dropped in this game, some classic ones and some of the more recent. I don't really like that, sure if they remove the character himself but I would prefer to be able to choose them for my custom characters at least. Removing characters, especially the ones that were a bit original, is not a good thing in a fighting game, we need variety to make them funny. Anyway, you can only have 50 custom characters which is kinda sad, the story mode is a joke, the "tales of soul"-arcade is far too difficult and people online are jerks. But making characters is still funny.


Final Fantasy XIII-2:
Yay, a sequel! They did a lot of job promoting this and I got caught. People said that this solved a lot of problems that XIII had (which is good) but it's just not... Good. So there are NPCs this time around, enemies actually drop gold and you can backtrack to anywhere you want. Those are all good things, but the rest of the game is all meh-ish. You follow the tragic tale of Serah(lightnings sister) and Noel and it's one of those stupid time travelling games. No, time travel isn't stupid. But doing it like this is stupid. Okay so we can travel like 2000 years into the future. Yet the areas look the same with some roads being closed off, some new stronger monsters and a different coloured lightning effect. And it's just lame. You have like 5 different versions(times) of the same area and they barely stand out from each other. Except for Serah and Noel the third party member is 1 out of 3 monsters assigned to your party. You can level them up as you please by feeding them spheres or something which increases their stats and make them progress their own sphere grid much like the actual character. You can also pick a name for these and give them a funny hat or something. But in the end this game is more or less a disaster, sure you have a slightly improved battle system without the summons and so but without everything else that an RPG should be it kinda crumbles. The story, is messed up, and just gets more and more messed up. Not messed up as in "whoa dude, wicked!" more like "wtf guys, try to keep it logical at least?" Defeating the final boss gives you an item that allows you to make slight changes to the timeline. It's kinda like the bucket in CHronotrigger that allows you to fight Lavos earlier. Yeah it's like that, only it's not Lavos. Defeating this final boss at the early stage of the game gives you an alternate ending much like Chrono trigger and much like Chrono trigger - pretty much none of these are happy. Anyway, worst part is that beating the game rewards you with a dramatic ending and a cliffhanger, no really a cliffhanger, it actually says "to be continued". I just spent tons of hours on this, getting to the end, and they give me a "to be continued". Bullocks. I suppose the following story is in Lightning returns: FFXIII...


Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - Big Boss Run:
A great game that I borrowed from a friend in the past, found a used version of it in a store cheap and got it. I decided to challenge myself, and went for the Big Boss run. To summarize it, beat the game on the highest difficulty, with no alerts, no healing items, no kills, no continues, no special items and under X amount of hours. Let's just say that it was hard. I wouldn't suggest doing this unless you do it on a new game + save that allows you to keep weapons and such. It's a great game so I didn't mind playing it again, lots of good bosses and difficult passages, and even more so when I can't go Rambo on their asses. Lot's of frustration and loading my save file because something tiny went wrong. Worst parts in this run - episode 3, especially the bike sequence. You are stuck at the back of a moving motorcycle and you aren't allowed to kill anyone. So aiming with your tranq gun in peoples' heads and throwing smoke grenades is the way to go, problem is that just a few bullets will kill you and you aren't allowed to heal yourself. Lot's of frustration. Did realize that Gekkos are completely deaf though, the only way they can notice you is if their laser touch you. You can simply run past them on the side. So I had a great time playing this and I did it in the end. Good times, good times.


Little Big Planet 2:
This game is pretty much LBP but with a much better map creator and new fancy features. New fancy feature 1. Grip glove, allows you to pick up those items that you normally only can grab. This allows for a lot of fun. 2. Hookshot, although the mechanics of it is complete rubbish when trying to get speed and such it's really nice, nothing like swinging back and forth across the skies. 3. The spawning hat that works like an emitter only you aim it with your head and presses the grab button to spawn the chosen object. The hat itself can be decorated as well. The very best part of the map creator is the addition to some of the most basic programming elements, although they are still in "lbp form", you can add a "command board" type of thing to an object and assign commands and conditions to it which mostly ends up in a jumbled mess. But it works, and it can do wonders. I've played some freakishly amazing maps like a platformer spaceshooter complete with power ups and bosses. So the game itself is a lot more storydriven than the previous one, there is more action here and a clear antagonist, some friendly characters that help you out and final boss battle. The worlds are great and all but I still have trouble getting people to help me out getting the 3X and 4X challenges. 2X I can handle since I have 2 arms and 2 legs but the lack of additional controllers make this a bit difficult. Still a great game and the new additions allows for a lot more variety.


Dead or Alive 5:
Actually the first dead or alive I've bought and own, it might not be a surprise that the storymode is rather lame and useless`? I guessed not. The story itself is all trivial, people are going to a tournament and start fights for no reason, I once compared the stories of fighting games to porno and I will do it again. It just happens, no real explaination or reason, just a situation that leads to it. Anyway. Lot's of fighters to learn and some to unlock, took quite some assload of time to get 300 titles and unlock Alpha 152. Let's just start of by saying that the AI in this game is cruel, the difficulties as I know them are amateur, easy, normal, hard, champ, true fighter, master and legend. I have barely managed to beat arcade on hard. Those unfamiliar with Dead or alive(like me) have to know about those blasted holds, while a game like Soul calibur have 1 input that you can time to do a guard impact, or how tekken have some moves that acts like counters ; dead or alive have approximately 6 of them. Guard button hereon refered to as H is simply a guard. But H forward counters medium kicks, H back medium punches, H North East for high kicks, H north west for high punches, H south east for low kicks and H south west for low punches. And the worst part is that some characters swap these around and messes with your head. The title on the back of the game is "The best looking fighters are back" and I'm willing to buy that statement, not that the characters are hot or something; just that everything looks good. Characters have been given a great revamp (I looked at screenshots of earlier games) and boobs are less bouncy(unless you pick a costume with no boob-support), there is a sweat and dirt motor running that gives a great effect as well, mostly for all those shirtless guys though I suppose. Not only the character design looks good, every move in this game looks good as well, comboes are awesome and the action camera actually does its job for once and gives you a close in on those decisive blows and not just any attack. So it's a great job on that design department. Good game to play with friends, frustration with all the holds though.


Mortal Kombat (9?):
The game is simply called mortal kombat but it's the latest one. For some reason, you need  X amount of free space on the console for it to run. Which is a bit of a problem, seems like the European release of the PS3 had a smaller storage than any other version. Anyway, this game is just so smooth. It works like the classic mortal kombat games, platformer with basic fighting styles, add some character specific combos and special attacks. There is so much violence in the game, so much blood, so much exposed skin and brutality. I love it, because those guys at Midway just want to do this. Shock the world, try to create a new PEGI or something. Children shouldn't be given this game though, it's not a good idea. Lot's of greatly designed fatalities and the new X-ray(super) attacks also look great. Characters are damaged while fighting. And while most games just make your armor break at convenient locations we are talking about damage, huge wounds, bruises and ripped skin. So very very horrid. Even the nekropolis where you unlock stuff is filled with gore. There's a forest with hung people, a plain of people trapped in torture devices and a swamp with people getting all swollen and explody. The story mode is probably one of the best I've seen so far. The battles seem mostly natural and not forced, and there is no(no!) loading time between battles and cutscenes. Such a great relief, and a good job by those people who made this. Beside the storymode and the typical arcade we also have the challenge tower with 300 challenges of different difficulties. The last 50 or so just messes with your head. Fighting 3 Shoa Kahns with the same life bar? Yeah right. Fighting Goro, Kintaro and Shao Kahn while they receive buffs? Not gonna happen. Great fighting game and the tag teams makes it even better. Great to play with friends.


Dead Space:
A space horror story. Really great concept. I rather be trapped on a spaceship rather than a boat anytime. Kinda reminded me of Other M at first but it soon went away when I realized that this game. This game runs on fear and the desire to scare you. other M didn't do that, at all. It's all about the atmosphere in this game, they create this uncertain creepy feeling, thorw in some random snarls and other ambient sounds, play some with shadows and light and it's a real experience. Sadly I've played a couple of these so they don't really get me into that "oh my god oh my god"-hyperventilation mode anymore. Anyway, hardest part of this game is to get by the urge to shoot enemies in the head. Enemies have lots of health so just shooting them does pretty much no good. You have to cut of their limbs(in case you missed one of the 15 reminders you get on that in-game) to deal massive damage. The first weapon can either fire horizontal or vertical which kinda made me use it throughout the entire game save for the final boss. A useful tool for severing legs and arms. I like that the enemies have a bit of speed in their legs, gives it a different feel than zombies slowly walking down the corridors. Game is divided into chapters where you visit different parts of the ship to get different stuff working(while killing hordes of alien-undeads). The back story files you find are actually pretty interesting to read, they don't really give you any information on stuff you should know (like the failure in XIII) but rather background on how stuff works and why. Great game anyway, upgrading weapons and using a shop. Enemies appear when you least expect it and some great parts where you are pushed to your limits.


Shadow of the Colossus HD:
Now I hate to be a jerk, but how come this game have received so much praise? I hope that nothing disappeared when they made the HD remake at least. So yeah, you are a guy on a horse and a girl is dead that you need to bring back to life by killing 16 colossus. So you are in this temple and you get pointed in the right direction, you go there, find the colossus(which isn't all that hard because they are huge) and then kill them. Repeat 16 times. No really, that's it. Everytime you kill one you are teleported back to the temple and given new directions. The collosuses have to be defeated in the order the game gives you. So there is no real point in exploring the world - mostly because there's nothing there. Like nothing at all. There are some hawks, some lizards, some shiny lizards that gives you stamina increase and some fruits, and some bright fruit that increases your hp. And that's the game. No people, no ordinary enemies, no additional weapons, no puzzles. It's just that, huge empty fields that you steer your horse through only to find the next colossus. "The collosuses are the puzzles" Some people told me... But really, it's even easier to figure out than zelda. You can climb on hairy parts of the colossuses, and you can hang on ledges in their armors. Use this to climb on top of them and then find the weakspot(conveniently all bright and shiny) and stab it like 3-4 times until it dies. You can do this with most Collosuses in one go, some forces you off them but most just shake you around a bit which you can recover from. So yeah, some collosuses are more annoying than others but what you have to do is pretty obvious. We have the huge mammoth-like one with shiny footpads that you need to shoot for it to fall down, the bird that you jump on top of when it charges you, the sandragon that you jump on top of from your horse and that wolf like thing that you force of a cliff. And that's shadow of the collosus.


Ico HD:
So, someone said that Ico and Shadow of the Colossus were linked together. It was on the same CD so why not? This game is... Boring. Yepp, sorry people. I was not as impressed by this game as some people were. You control a little guy and have to escort a girl through puzzles, she's unable to simply follow you or think - you have to grab her hand and lead her all the time or she'll fall behind and get kidnapped by shadow creatures and its' game over. Most of the puzzles aren't all that exciting, it's all dungeon like where you find the right thing to do. Like breaking a pillar with a bomb, jumping on top of something to get something else to happen. And then every friggin time that you go forward, like climbing a ledge - the game summons shadow creatures to kidnap the girl and force you back there to fight them off. The most annoying part is that the shadow creatures gets wings, and several portals to take her. So one grabs her, flies of starts dragging her into the portal, you pull her out, a new one grabs her and flies across the room to the other one, you go there and pull her out and it repeats itself. The portals spawn tons of shadow creatures until they run dry and you get knocked down for like 10 seconds the moment they hit you. A bit frustrating. Worst part is this piston that moves up fast and slowly lowering that you need to use to get to a ledge high up on a wall, you gotta time your jump to reach it and the game is just stupid. And that's pretty much the game, push some blocks to get forward, pull some levers to allow the girl to get there as well and then it finally ends.


Prince of Persia - Sands of time HD:
This one is a classic, I remember playing this when I was a kid. I think I borrowed it from a friend or something. Anyway, the disc is 3 prince of Persia games, I only played this one though since I were at Zerl's place at the time. Battle system is kinda straight forward, you use your sword to cut enemies and the dagger to finish them, or to slow them. The best way to deal with most enemies is to find a wall and do some sort of wall jump lounge at the enemies which knocks them down ready to be finished. The Prince vs whatever the girl's name was dynamics is entertaining, they bicker a bit and get along. This is good escorting, a woman with a bow. Sure she needs help to get through but she can help you back unlike that girl in Ico who just stands there. You solve a lot of puzzles, mostly climbing or jumping puzzles and you can turn back time with the hourglass in case you make a bad jump and falls to a spiky death. Yeah, a good game. Enemies and puzzles. Hardest part of the game is that elevator with tons of enemies, it can get kinda messy when they come for you in every direction or kill the girl.


Lolipop Chainsaw:
I'm gonna be honest, I wouldn't even think of getting this unless Zerl showed it to me. Basically you play as a cheerleader with a chainsaw and you hack and slash your way through waves of zombies. There are a lot of messed up humour and sexual innuendo going on , but it's like a huge satire of high-school, zombies and the 60s(or something). Some guy is summoning 5 dark purveyors to convert people into zombies(and they succeed) and you are the daughter of a great zombie hunter and have to kill them all and solve this trouble. Luckily you have the talking head of your late boyfriend to assist you with witty remarks and praise. While playing there are some people than needs to be rescued, some named zombies to be killed and in order to get platinum coins you have to get a triple kill or better with the same attack. Great fun, lots of great boss battles. You can buy new skills, upgrade your stats and unlock additional costumes(although some are more kinky than a cheerleader outfit). A great hack and slash divided into 6 stages only with a chainsaw instead of a sword.


Resident Evil 6:
It's kinda ironic I suppose, the game is moving more into action-game controls and systems while the game becomes more dark and zombie-ish. Another zombie outbreak, people are dying and our protagonist Leon is still acting all clueless and naive even though he's been through this exact situation a couple of times. The game offers some new traits here compared to the last 2 resident evils. The life bar is now a series of squares accompanied by a status thing like the old games. You can swap between weapons by clicking the D pad, you use herbs and healing items by pressing R2 and you have a stamina bar that is decreased while sprinting or using melee attacks. The lower it is, the worse is your sprinting and melee attacks. Also, the useful laserdot aim from previous games are gone. Well, there is a laserdot indicating the centre of the aim but you don't get to see that convenient red beam anymore. What else can I say... I haven't beaten this yet but I got a message that Ada's chapter can now be played in coop and that they added a harder difficulty with the latest update. Which is good. Zombies can kinda leap at you, and the puking zombies are back, enemies hurt a buttload and ammo is kinda rare. Great game, great fun but so much better in coop(which is why I haven't completed it yet).


DS: Good ol DS, not replaced by the 3ds.


Profesor Layton and the Curious Village:
I never played through this on my own, just assisted my cousin as he played it. But now I got it and had a great time playing it. Stupid puzzles, and stupid stupid hints. It's kinda paradoxical. For the puzzles that are hard to figure our you get useless clues and for the ones that are easy you pretty much get the answer... Tons of challenges of the mind but some are just messing with you. Great game though.


Final Fantasy Tactics 2:
Why did I get this? I don't know... Tactics games should be played on an emulator so that you can hold down a speed button. No really, that's what I did with tactics for the GBA. I had that speed button pressed like 80% of the time and I remember why. The animations are all nice and stuff but it simply takes too much time. the AI make slow moves and I get sick of watching the same thing over and over again. A bit of an improvement since the last game, 2 new races and some new classes. But some of the new classes are exclusive to these new races... And yeah it's a tactics game, deploy troops, kill the enemies. Use the terrain and fancy spells to your liking. The Viera red mage/fencer/elementalist combo is awesome and so are human gladiators and such. Because of the lack of speedbutton I didn't bother doing all there is to do beside beating the game though. Same thing as last time though, a guy gets trapped inside a magic book.


Pokemon White 2:
I am actually glad that they didn't just add a "pokemon grey" and had the same thing all over again. This is supposed to take place 2 years after white 1(yet some people are standing at the exact same locations...) so the world has changed a little. You start in a new area and fight a couple of new gyms, the pokemon in the world have a greater diversity as well now that you can find some from previous generations. And not just geodudes, zubats and tentacool. They also allow you to travel a bit more than just following the left path of the world map. Altough some areas are still restricted until after the elite 4 I suppose. Still, pokémon will be pokemon, fighting and catching pokes. Great fun.



3DS: The better version of DS, just... no GBA slot.


Pokemon Dream radar and pokedex pro:
Note, they are two different things. I just don't have enough to say about them.
Dream radar allows you to get Therian forme Tornadus, Thunderus and Landorus and after catching those 3 - Ho-oh, lugia, dialga, palkia and giratina by insering their respective game into the 3ds. Since I did all this before beating the first gym I got them all at lvl 5. Hilarious.
The pokedex pro is pretty much a portable bulbapedia without some things. But it have all the moves, the types, evolution levels and such. Also there are these quizzes you can take to challenge your pokemon knowledge. Some are times, some are hard and some are just plain fun. A bit pricey though.


Super Pokémon Rumble:
I loved rumble wiiware but thought ti was a bit sad that they only had Gen 1 and 4 pokémon. Lot's of other people must've thought the same thing since they released this one. Gen 1 to 5 pokémon are in it, expanded world, new areas, a story mode to follow. But in the end it's pretty much the same thing. Get some pokémon with good moves and just smack around anything that crosses your path, collect pokémon and have a great time. Also works well in coop, just a shame that it only supports wireless coop and not online.


Resident Evil Revelations:
Kind of a stupid title since it doesn't reveal anything about the other games... Anyway. We're on a boat. Chris and Jill are separated, Jill is on a boat looking for him with her new partner. This game goes with the whole "it's dark and stuff" feeling and throws some slow moving squidheads at you as you solve easy puzzles such as "find the cardkey" and "open the door by rewiring it with the touch screen". Game itself is really well done and works fantastic with the 3d, the characters can now move and shoot at the same time and it's overall a great 3rd person shooter. There is also this survival mode thing where you can replay the maps only with more enemies and the mission is to get to the end and killing as much as possible. You get some experience points and credits to be used to purchase weapons for this mode. It's actually really well done. Especially if you like the bit more fast-paced game rather than the slow storydriven in the singleplayer.


Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of time 3D:
An old classic. I don't have to say much more than that this is a really great port without too much weird stuff put into it. Young Link makes some weird movements while jumping and you can control the aim while looking by moving the console. That's about it. Unfortunately you unlock master quest by clearing the game and the master quest is mirrored like twilight princess. Still remembers every puzzle so I haven't played through it yet, also. The enemies aren't much a trouble when you're not playing on Master quest. Kinda too easy.


Mario Kart 7:
Another mario kart, some new items and you now compile your car by picking some parts. New for this game is the ability yo glide through the air and driving at the bottom of water. The blue shell no longer flies, there is a fireball weapon that bounces around, a raccoon powerup that allows you to spin the tail on enemies or projectiles and a 7 that gives you 7 random weapons to use. As always there are a lot of new courses, some are "reach the goal" rather than "drive 3 laps" kinda like Toads turnpike in N64 mario kart. Some classic courses are included as well for nostalgic moments. And the CPU drivers are crazy while playing on the higher difficulties. A shame I don't know anyone who got this game, Mario kart should be played with friends.


Heroes of Ruin:
So yeah. It kinda looked like your typical diablo clone. Pick a class and kill a lot of enemies. And it pretty much is just that. Squareenix was behind it so I hoped that it would be like the DS FFCC games. But it wasn't, I think square simply published it... So yeah, you choose a class and you kill a lot of monsters, there is a storyline you must follow that allows you to visits new areas to kill more monsters. Boring part is that all the dungeons in the same "area" look the same. Sure they are randomized upon entering but the diversity isn't all that exciting. Some boss battles and such to go for, get better equipment and do some sidequests. It was fine and all but it ended pretty quickly and then after beating the game there was nothing more to do. not even a hard mode or something. A bit sad. It had potential.


Kingdom Hearts - Dream Drop Distance:
Another spinoff game in the kingdom hearts series. So far there are 2 games in the main series and ... 5 side games. This is the fifth. I have to say, for a game that simply revisits some old worlds again and puts kid Sora back in charge it does a great job. The story, like all kingdom hearts, is riddled with a series of plotholes and other things that makes little sense: even when explained to you. But the sturdiness of the story isn't all that matters when playing kingdom hearts, the battle system. Oh how I love the battle system and the changes they've done. Besides normal attacks you can use different skills much like Birth by sleep, so you have them on a list and after usage they go on a cooldown. I kinda miss the whole MP use but y'know, it really speed things up here. Then we have the flowmotion, pretty much what they call their very convenient wall jumping system. And it rocks. Jump into a wall and leap out with a great burst of speed to the next wall and repeat until you get where you need to go. In flowmotion you can also do some really useful AoE attacks and the same while spinning around poles or such enviromental things. After playing X amount of minutes on Sora or Riku they "fall asleep" and you get a score, the opportunity to spend the score on bonuses on items and then you start playing the other one. Pretty interesting concept though. Better than playing Sora mode first and Riku mode later. One thing that always bogged me though is whether Sora and Riku are visiting the same worlds at the same time or two different versions of the same world or something like that... Anyway, great game, great graphics, great gameplay and all that.


PSP: Poor psp, now the Vita is the **** and few new games are comming out.


Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core:
So yeah. Some advice here, don't play crisis core AFTER birth by sleep or Dream drop distance. To summarize it as simply as possible... DDD > BBS > CC. It's like an evolution here. Crisis core, compared to his KH siblings is stale and kinda slow. The concept and battle system is pretty much the same only that BBS did it a lot better and DDD even more so. The cool thing are those reels that have the chance to activate and give you some neat animation and then damage. Like the summons, great animations on those. Like the neo bahamut that friggin blows up a moon. Great stuff indeed. Um, the story itself feels kinda forced in a way. There are two other one winged angels beside sephiroth and you pretty much just goes on different missions and kill enemies. They kinda make Zack's whole part in FF7 kinda exaggerated... So it's kinda a mission based game with some missions being more playful that others. They make sure to include a lot of references to FF7 as well. With some things being pretty much the same as Cloud went through. Good anniversary game though, especially when Square have said that they won't remake FF7 until a newer game gets just as good or better. Which won't happen if they keep on milking FFXIII, I mean seriously. Lightning returns XIII? Another new world? Another new outfit for her? Uggh...


--------------

And that's it. A lot, I know. What did you guys get around playing this year? Any games you are looking forward to next year? Gonna get the starcraft expansion, monster hunter for the 3ds, paper mario for the 3ds. And perhaps Lightning returns FFXIII and the new DMC. We'll see...

[Moosetroop11]

My god.

I honestly don't play many games.  I guess The walking dead game was my favourite that came out this year?  That or 13-2, because I actually like the idea of time travelling with jumbo cactuar in my party.

EDIT: Could the powers that be please make a new years newspost when the time comes? Or give me the power to make it? :p  I think Charas deserves it still.

[drenrin2120]

Holy games list, Purpleman! I don't think I could have played that many games if I tried. My list is much smaller. In no particular order...

Minecraft
I played a ton of minecraft this year. So it seems fair it should be at the top. It's a simple game at an agreeable price. You make a crafting table, see what you can build, gather resources and try to survive at night when monsters want to kill you or blow up your **** up. Loads of fun! The one thing that really impressed me was the stance the developers took. Their weekly beta releases of the next update might not be original but it's been pivotal for Mod creators. In fact, Mojang has said they want Minecraft to eventually be like Gary's Mod. Their even working on an API that will allow Mod makers to easily create plug and play mods. ****ing awesome!

Pokemon Black and White 2
I only played White 2, and I only plan to play White 2. Gotta say, I'm actually wishing I had waited for the official english release of the versions. All the extra features that simply weren't in BW1 don't work in the pirated version. Never the less, the game is actually really good. I despised BW1, but BW2 really brought back a sense of Pokemon adventure I haven't felt since the third generation.

Black Ops II
I don't own a PS3, but I know that these games are essentially the same as the last. No one cares about the campaign mode, it's all about talking trash online. Regardless, my friend got this game and I figured I'd give it a go with him. I can't remember the last time I played an FPS. It was nothing special, but still was good all FPS fun.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
I started playing this game only about a month ago. The thing about Dragon Quest is it is reliably unchanging. Of course, there are some tweaks to make the system flow better each time, but the all around theme is the same. I'm not sure I'll finish it, there are some things I don't like (The stupid random fairy with a ghetto-bitch attitude... I mean, seriously, what the hell?) but I was surprised to find myself playing as far in as I have. Dragon Quest is always a good classic RPG challenge.

Construct 2
Not really a game, but a wonderful game maker based in HTML5 for making phone app style or browser based games. I messed around with the free trials for only a few weeks before realizing it wasn't suited for what I was aiming to do. Still, if you're looking to try and make platformer games or even ABS games but are afraid to leave rm2k3, Construct 2 is worth a shot. Trial version is free and gives you access to almost everything you need. More importantly, the program has an event system very similar to the RPGM series, but, in my opinion, is even more versatile.

RPGVX Ace
Love/Hate. However, the game maker in me is back because of this program. Though there will always be complaints against Enterbrain. There are a ton of arbitrary limitations that irk me hardcore. It never ceases to amaze me how Enterbrain will expand one part of the Maker series and then artificially redact other parts. The move event command hasn't changed one single bit from RM2000. Key input process effectiveness has been reduced. You don't have access to the number pad or the number keys, as well as other keys you did have access to in rm2k3. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more confused and angry I get. STILL, RGSS3 makes it all worth it. There are pathfinding scripts, movement scripts, mouse/full key board control scripts, custom menu scripts, font scripts, lighting scripts, etc, etc. It's kind of like Enterbrain said, "**** it, we'll just through Ruby scripting in the mix and let the bastards program the damn thing themselves." Smart move on their part, for without ruby, RMXP, RMVX and RMVX Ace would be nothing.

I think that's it really. I've never been much of a gamer. Me and friends have been known to get together and play old school games, hook up the n64 or super nintendo, but that's about it.

[Razor]

Guys, check out this gross nerd with his words

[Moosetroop11]

Yeah.  Looks like TL;DR also stands for Total Loser; Don't Reply.  Yeeeeeeeah.

[Archem]

I thought it stood for "The Lord ;f Da Rings". Boy, do I have egg on my face!

[Prpl_Mage]

So what,  am I like the only person still playing games around here beside Drenrin?

[Archem]

No, but you wall-of-texted pretty hard core right there.

I honestly have no idea what games I played this past year. Pokémon, Battlefield, Halo 4, and others. They were all good, nothing disappointed.

Ok, wait, I think I played most of Dead Space 2, which was more linear and less scary than the first. I suppose you could call it a minor disappointment.

[Meiscool]

I played... um... the three wii rpgs, Dragon's Dogma, Persona 4, and.... I dunno, a bunch of other games that I got ~10 hours into and didn't feel they were worth finishing. Oh, and Dishonored. That game was pretty awesome.

EDIT: and Downpour and Catherine. RoAW2 as well, though I really can't recommend that one at all.

[GaryCXJk]

Okay, 2012 was a rather gameless year for me, as I was too busy actually programming. First half of the year I was busy making Minecraft mods, second half I was busy making games.

[Meiscool]

EDIT: Could the powers that be please make a new years newspost when the time comes? Or give me the power to make it? :p  I think Charas deserves it still.

What do you want it to be about? Not much is really happening.

[zuhane]

I'm bored of playing games. Developers do tiny little things, like make a tutorial too long, or make an annoying menu, and I'll stop playing after an hour. There's only a very set few games that don't piss me off. I think after playing games for a lifetime, you start to get jaded against the same things happening in each game.

I'd rather program my own, so I can make something with less annoying things!

[drenrin2120]

I find it pretty hard to finish a game lately too. I play well into it and then just get bored.

[Razor]

Well I just finished Arkham City yesterday. That is one exceptionally good vidja.