🎮 2022
High on Life
Crude, funny and a breath of fresh air. Just about the right length as well. Filled to the brim with fun easter eggs and humour. Fun character designs. A nice way to end the year.
Soma
Lovely atmosphere and a good sci-fi plot. I'm not much of a fan of horror games so I did not enjoy the scary bits much, but I suppose it was done well. The exploration bits were really well done though.
♥Immortality
Played this on PC Game Pass over a fevered weekend. I've never played anything quite like this! A true work of art. I made several mistakes that spoiled my experience, but those are my faults and not the game's:
- Playing with a keyboard / mouse instead of controller: I missed a critical mechanic until too late in the game
- Playing with low audio: Another reason for missing the mechanic
Batman: The Enemy Within
I'd played part one earlier this year so I decided to finish the series. As with the first part, the visuals are quite nice (I switched between the Classic and Shadows edition after each chapter). The game is quite straight-forward and you don't have to overthink your choices.
Immortals: Fenyx Rising
A thoroughly enjoyable adventure from Ubisoft. Humorous cast, lovely open world that is a joy to glide over, and upgrades that add new abilities instead of just increase the damage percentage.
Like any ubisoft game, you have to unlock each region and rescue a Greek God there. I played the first two regions extensively and then rushed through the next two, until I finished the game in a hectic weekend. There's enough variety in the puzzles to keep things fresh but the number of things to unlock gets a bit exhausting.
TMNT: Shredder's Revenge
A must-play if you love the Turtles TV show and comics from the 90's. It's got all the characters from the old days, a cheerful, humorous atmosphere and great co-op. I struggled near the end on single player and it was nice to switch to a multiplayer match and finish the game with a team of six.
Trek to Yomi
Worth playing just for the visuals. Designed to look like an old Japanese movie, with scratches on the screen edges etc. Finished it over the weekend, so it is short (in a nice way) too.
Halo 4
I'm done with all the Halo FPS's with this one. I had a blast playing through the series. The MCC collection has a great Extras section with all the Terminal videos, and it was nice to see the millennia-spanning back-story. It looks like 343 took over from Bungie at this game, and they did a fine job preserving the spirit of the game while extending the story.
Halo: ODST
This was a short and sweet game that I finished on one peaceful Saturday. It's nice to the see the old cast from Firefly make an appearance here.
♥Guardians of the Galaxy
This is what Marvel's Avengers could have been. Pure joy from start to finish, completely focused on telling a good story with a humorous cast. The team's powers make for some excellent gameplay too. And quite beautiful to look at.
Batman: The Telltale Series
This is a fun game with some nice detecting additions over the usual Telltale formula. The Shadows Edition is beautiful and I switched to it mid-way and stayed with it till the end.
The plot has some similarities to 2022's The Batman.
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
I skipped the other Walking Dead games and jumped straight to this one. As always the roads all feel like they lead to the same place. But the plot is well made and the character dynamics are interesting.
♥Halo: Infinite
I had loads of fun with this game. All the new additions are huge improvements. The grappleshot is fun to use and does more than just aid in climbing. Shoot it at a shield to stun an enemy, at a vehicle to board it, and use its powerful melee attack when you grapple onto an enemy.
This is also the first Halo I've played where I had to constantly use the environment, like the exploding canisters, and switch between different weapons based on the enemy. e.g. the skewer for vehicles.
The move to open-world is also a great choice. I spent a lot of the early game in just exploring the world. The ground vehicles can get a bit bouncy but things got fun when I stole an airborne vehicle.
Highly recommended and my favourite Halo alongside Reach.
Contrast
Another little gem from game pass. Short and sweet, with a really unique mechanism where you can turn into a shadow and move across surfaces.
Mortal Kombat XI
I have fond memories of playing the first 4 MK's back in the day. So after a long time, it was great to come back to this series. The cutscenes are really nice and quite long, giving a movie-like feel in this game. The gameplay and gore are fun as always.
Halo 3
I had a month's gap midway through this game so I lost some context on what was going on. But I enjoyed this game.
Incomplete / In Progress
I spent January in Chennai and did not bring my console along. But I have a low-end gaming laptop that has served as a fair replacement. So far, I've spent most of my gaming time on these two:
- State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition - This seems like my ideal vision of a zombie game so I'm really enjoying it so far! I've just played a couple of hours but I like that it's more about resource management than shooting zombies.
- Lake - This is a peaceful game to balance with the one above. Abandoned because I wanted something with a bit more punch.
- Aragamai 2 - Really enjoying the stealth-ghost-ninja gameplay. New powers keep things interesting.