Dead Rising (Completed)
by Chezni

Believe it or not, I don’t have any screenshots of this game. Then again, I probably don’t need any, as popular as this game is. You’ve likely seen it before. Look. I could go into the big long anecdote about hours of soda-infused midnight shenanigans I pulled off in this game with friends howling in laughter behind me. I could tell you how I’ve waited 10 years to finally own a copy, so I could finish the damn thing. But I’m not going to. I’m just going to tell you, that this was not and is not one of the best zombie games I’ve ever played. It was and is one of the best games I’ve ever played. And here is a laundry list why.

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Chroma Squad (Completed)
by Chezni

Ah, yes. Chroma Squad–another game sadly lowered from Tier 1 to Tier 2.

It’s hard to quickly pin down the problems with Chroma Squad–in fact, there’s a lot of things that are great about it. I mean, we’ve got…

  • Generously customizable mock-power ranger team creation
  • A light-hearted atmosphere that leads to shenanigans
  • A bear who does the dance of death
  • A customizable Zord built out of cardboard boxes
  • A surprisingly tactical combat system & character stat/skill/equipment customization mechanics
  • A reasonably challenging final boss at the end
  • Powerups in the forms of hiring different advertising companies
  • Optional “quests” in the form of director’s instructions

 

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Amnesia: Memories (Completed)
by Chezni

 

Screw men. Seriously. Screw them.

 

It doesn’t help that it’s a visual novel, albeit with fluid and expressive (Japanese) voice acting. It doesn’t help that it’s a Shojo, filled with all the tropes of overly-complicated love-drama, albeit with an excitable and fun spirit named Orion living in your head. It doesn’t help that out of the four guys you can randomly choose at the beginning of the game to date (with no information about them before the choice is made), I picked the misogynistic playboy asshole who couldn’t help but be constantly obsessed with putting his johnny in every single woman he met on the street BUT ME, albeit he apologized several times for such behavior. However, I think what did it in for me, is that by the time I got to the end of my first playthrough of Amnesia: Memories, the ending I received indicated that the writers hadn’t really intended for there to be any closure for the player, unless they actually tried to make it work with their boyfriend. I got an ending without explanation of events that happened throughout the entire game, no closure on the nature of the relationship with the boy named Ikki, Orion was still stuck in my head, and my memories were still lost in amnesia.

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Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
by LepcisMagna

The Dragon’s Dogma starting village is the first game town that has ever felt real to me.  As I was walking between two buildings, I suddenly realized that this felt exactly like walking around an old, eastern European town that’s been built and rebuilt since the middle ages.  Besides the layout, being able to enter any building is always nice – buildings aren’t just placed to make the place feel large.  But then, I realized I had to climb on top of a building for a quest and I was very, very happy.  I’ll take this game over “We place half our guards on the roofs because reasons” Creed any day.  Even with dragons, magic, and companions that literally fall out of thin air, it feels more realistic than Italy during the renaissance.

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Darkstone
by LepcisMagna

As of this writing, Darkstone is an 18 year old RPG.  And it definitely looks it.  But so far, the voice acting and atmosphere have kept me wanting to play.  For now, Tier One – even if I can’t take screenshots.

Crysis 2 Maximum Edition (Completed)
by Chezni

Okay. So it’s Crysis 2. A game where you get told you’re the manliest man to ever man the man, and you’re supposed go out there and be a man. And that’s okay? Why? Well, because there’s aliens, seismic catastrophes, explosions, more aliens, guns, skyscrapers being destroyed, tanks, more explosions and a cyber suit that turns you into a small god. If I’m going to jump the shark, I want to jump it hard. Screw realism.

 

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Shadowrun Returns
by LepcisMagna

Shadowrun Returns is the sort of game I really want to play when I’m not playing games.  When I actually sit down to play it, though, I just never find the motivation.  That’s the curse of RPGs.  There’s actually not much more to say about Shadowrun.  It’s a true pen-and-paper RPG translated to cRPG – the Baldur’s Gate of Shadowrun.  If you’ve not heard of the Shadowrun setting, it’s based on the premise that some time in the near future, magic returns to Earth and transforms a percentage of the population into orcs, elves, dwarves, and the like.  It’s high fantasy crossed with cyberpunk.  It’s quite good, as is this computerized version.  Tier One.

Steam link

The Turing Test
by LepcisMagna

It’s pedantic, I know, but the thing that bothered me the most in my first five minutes of the Turing Test was that the AI on the spacecraft said “100 degrees Kelvin.”  It should have said 100 Kelvin, since the Kelvin scale is absolute and not measured in degrees.  There was another issue I had, but I can’t actually tell you what it was without ruining a twist that happens in the fifth chapter.  As for its mechanics, the RPS article said it best by saying that “in a world that had never seen Portal nor The Talos Principle, it would be lauded, famous beyond belief.”

In about three hours, I got roughly 80% of the way through this game.  At that point, my motivation tanked and I’m not sure why.  I only have about three puzzles left, but I just can’t bring myself to try finishing them – perhaps because it feels so much like Portal and The Talos Principal.  So as strange as it seems, I think this game will have to go to Tier Two for now.

Steam link

Stellar Overload
by LepcisMagna

While this game seems interesting (Minecraft but with planets), I’m just not motivated enough to play it.  Perhaps if it were a bit more like Starbound is to Terraria – which it may eventually be when it leaves Early Access.  For now, it’ll have to stay in Tier Two.

Steam link

Unreal
by LepcisMagna

Sadly, I think I missed the train for these games (Unreal and Unreal II).  They’re just a tad too out-of-date to make it to Tier One, given the sheer quantity of other games to play.  It’s particularly sad since they seem like excellent FPSs.  Perhaps someday I’ll make it to them.

Steam link 1

Steam link 2