General Gaming ~*D1P's Games of 2024*~

[stepee]

Starfield

Bleed 2

Armored Core 6

Returnal

Ys9

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

Vampyr

Suicide Squad

Mario vs Dk

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

 

Brothers: Tale of Two Sons Remake - An absolute achievement of a remake. One of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played, and I mean that on a tech and art level, as well as story, game design, and music. I never played the original so this was a really magical experience, and a bit heart breaking. Fantastic way to spend $20 and 4 or so hours.

 

The game as told is pitch perfect and some of the reviews saying they should have added more are dead wrong. They did the right thing here and just brought the visuals up to date to do justice to the design. I can’t speak to consoles (the DF video didn’t cover pc so I only know the consoles have issues with iq/perf idk if other stuff is toned back) but on pc I can’t sing its praises enough as a visual showpiece. 

 

10/10

[stepee]

Starfield

Bleed 2

Armored Core 6

Returnal

Ys9

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

Vampyr

Suicide Squad

Mario vs Dk

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake

 

Wanted: Dead

 

7/10 AA stupid action game heaven - this had a recent patch that added a lot so I don’t know how much it may be improved from release but this is a super fucking fun game now. The story is barely sensical and told in a nonsensical manner but it’s fun.

 

The action is actually straight up solid with its mix of Gears of War cover shooting and Ninja Gaiden combat. For the most part it works besides there being no real lock on (using the y button for quick shots sort of compensates) and the camera sometimes isn’t great with keeping up with the action. 

 

It took me just under 10 hours to beat it. I think for $15 which you can get it for right now on humble along with some other stuff it’s a very solid pick up. It ends in a cliff hanger and yeah I’d take another one that’s maybe a little more polished in UE5.

[dualhunter]

Finished Dino Hazard: Chronos Blackout. The Jurassic Park Collection wasn't on sale during the Steam Winter Sale and I saw this with positive reviews so I gave it a chance. The exploration is a lot like Jurassic Park for SNES but battles are like a turn based JRPG. Later you can tame dinosaurs like Pokemon (there are hundreds).

 

There's a love/hate system based on whether you use offensive or defensive abilities and either kill or spare animals or robots. You can't spare robots so you have to either destroy them and get hate points or run away (can't from some battles so you'll be forced to get at least a few hate points). Your ability to tame animals is affected by your love/hate ratio and it also affects endings. If you don't plan on hunting dinosaurs you won't need much ammo but you will need tons of bait to put them into a state where you can show mercy to end the fight gaining love points. Some smaller animals have weakness (? for each one until you uncover it) but can't be fought, you can spare them (love points, money, exp and sometimes drops) or turn them into bait (hate points, normally you'd use the bait to avoid those but I guess you could use it to distract animals while you attack them). You can fight much higher level dinosaurs, if they might one shot a party member but if you use bait on them you can show them mercy and even the fallen party member(s) will get EXP. You'll have to go back to the hospital to revive the fallen though (don't save with dead party members until you are able to get to the hospital). There are defibrillators, the description says it revives fallen party members but when I tried it, it didn't work.

 

I mostly enjoyed the game, exploring the island and restoring power to various areas was fun. The game seems very amateurish. Most of the bugs I encountered were minor and just a bit annoying. Often the text turns dark (mostly after reloading a save but sometimes also when you exit the game and load a save which is how you get the text back to normal). More annoying is when the button to open the menu stops working (especially when you're bleeding and can't use items, experiment a bit to find ways to get it working again). The worst are the crashes but I only encounter those in 2 spots. There's an escape from rising water event where if I failed to escape, not only was it game over for me, it was game over for the game. The other was the final battle which I had to redo multiple times before succeeding. This really soured my mostly positive opinion of the game. There are some cyber space battles where you can't use items and weapons. You have to use antivirus attacks that miss more than they hit. The end game was really annoying because it consists of a bunch of boss battles like this (big part of what made the crashes on the final boss so annoying).

 

It can be fun and it's currently 50% off on Steam but it includes much that is sloppy and annoying. There is a tree north of where you start that has a chapter select (I never used it) if you check the tree.

[Paperclyp]

I don’t know how I’ve kind of just let this thread pass me by but I’ve really enjoyed reading through it just now. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Spider-Man 2 - PS5 - 9/10

 

Started it last year, but played the majority this year. Was fun. Not GotY or anything, but another really fun entry. Did 100% completion. 
 

2024 games:

 

Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World - GBA

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - 3DS

Spider-Man 2 - PS5

[best3444]

On 2/26/2024 at 9:09 PM, best3444 said:

TLOU2 10/10

Skyrim 9/10

FF7 Remake 9/10

FF16 9/10

 

Add FF16 to my list. I just focused on the main story ignoring everything else and it's a fantastic action game. It's not a typical FF RPG but it's absolutely better than I initially gave it credit for. 

 

An easy 9/10. I'm glad I gave this game another chance. 

[SaysWho?]

2024 Games

 

Final Fantasy 7 Integrade

More Starcraft online

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

[Brian]

Avatar - 6/10
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank - 7/10
Princess Peach: Showtime! -8/10

 

i think this is the peak for this type of Nintendo game. It is not challenging and very long (10-12 hrs), but it is very charming and fun. The levels are well designed. Each power feels different and adds to the variety. 

[gamer.tv]

Bit of a shocker this is my first completed game this year.

 

Pokemon Violet: B-

 

At no point would I say this was a great game, it ran like shit, the story wasn’t overly interesting l, and the world was dull but…it did enough to make me want to finish it. I’ll never touch it gain however and unless Pokemon has a major revolution, I probably wont come back to the series unless they pull on the nostalgia. 

[CastletonSnob]

Started Pokemon Ruby and got the first 2 Badges. Here’s my team so far:

Marshtomp
Beautifly
Ralts
Nuzleaf
Whismur
Zigzagoon

[Phaseknox]

I finished A Space for the Unbound, and I found it to be a mixed bag overall. It’s primarily a narrative adventure game, so it’s something that you play more for the story and characters than for the gameplay which there’s not a lot of. There’s some mini-games, key item puzzles and cerebral puzzles, but the game is primarily running back and forth through the same few 2D side scrolling areas interacting with NPCs, reading text and triggering story events.
 

It was designed in Indonesia (where it also takes place), and the English translation is spotty at times. Since the story is completely told through text this does hinder the overall experience a bit. Also, the writing is hit and miss which could be due to the translation as well.

 

As with a lot of indie games the story is somewhat ambiguous, and admittedly a little more out there than I would like. But I still found it entertaining and interesting enough to want to play it to the end.

 

2024 Games

A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Space for the Unbound

[stepee]

Starfield

Bleed 2

Armored Core 6

Returnal

Ys9

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

Vampyr

Suicide Squad

Mario vs Dk

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake

 

Horizon Burning Shores - Awesome dlc/expansion - just as good if not better than the main game. Sony really nails this kind of actual expansion style story dlc. Infamous First Light, Uncharted Lost Legacy, Miles Morales, and this. Different price points and marketed differently but all of them are pretty similar in size and scope and substantial feeling. Wish other companies did better dlc like this since games take forever to make now and this can help with the wait. There are others though of course like CP77 and I’m sure Elden Ring’s will be good.

 

Im really happy with how it ended too!

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Finally got back around to Dying Light 2 and beat it. I actually played about 30 hours toward the end of 2022, then put it down and just kept being distracted by other games. Story is pretty ho hum, but the parkour and combat are fun. I played it on PC and it looked and ran fantastic on the 4k OLED. 7.5/10. 

 

2024 games:

 

Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World - GBA

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - 3DS

Super Mario Bros Wonder - Switch

Spider-Man 2 - PS5

Dying Light 2 - PC

[Phaseknox]

11 hours ago, stepee said:

Horizon Burning Shores - Awesome dlc/expansion - just as good if not better than the main game.

I have Horizon Forbidden West for PS4 which unfortunately didn’t get this expansion. Since I plan on getting a PS5 Pro when it comes out I’m probably just going to wait and play Horizon Forbidden West on it since not only will it look and run better, but I can play this expansion as well.

[Brian]

Avatar - 6/10
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank - 7/10
Princess Peach: Showtime! -8/10
Unicorn Overlord - 7.9/10

 

The combat is great, but the rest is swimming in 7s. Story and characters are forgettable which is a travesty when you are playing 50+ hour game. Choices have no material impact minus the last one. There isn’t a lot of variety in mission structure. Due to the amount of characters, equipment, and skills, the game is very menu heavy which isn’t the greatest when using a controller. I think this would be more enjoyable with a KB/M setup. Unfortunately game isn’t on PC.  
 

I recommend the demo. If you don’t care for the combat, this is an easy pass. 

[stepee]

Starfield

Bleed 2

Armored Core 6

Returnal

Ys9

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

Vampyr

Suicide Squad

Mario vs Dk

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake

Horizon Burning Shores

Princess Peach Showtime - I think this is probably Good Feel’s best game yet and a good more 3D evolution of their style of game. Having all the different play styles also helps keep the variety for mechanics up with this sort of game.

 

I’d probably give it a 8/10 with some slight marks dropped for having no way to skip cutscenes and to select specific scenes when replaying levels. It makes getting 100% more tedious than it needs to be, and typically that’s what you want to go for in a game like this. 

 

But it’s an incredibly charming and imaginative game with an absolute killer style all throughout and a lot of fun.

 

I’m torn what I want Good Feel to do next because after 40 years to finally get a non insulting Princess Peach game, I don’t think you should just put it down for another four decades, so this should be a series now. But also GF have now made good Peach, Yoshi (Wooley World and to a lesser extent but I think I need to go back to it, Crafted World), Kirby (Epic Yarn), and Wario (Shake it!) games and I’d love to see what they would do for another Nintendo character also. 

 

I think the only solution is to grow the developer and have a Peach team and another team that does random 1 offs. I wouldn’t mind another Wario though either.

[stepee]

Starfield

Bleed 2

Armored Core 6

Returnal

Ys9

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

Vampyr

Suicide Squad

Mario vs Dk

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake

Horizon Burning Shores

Princess Peach Showtime

 

Pepper Grinder - Awesome platformer that completely nails its central mechanic. It’s short with only 20 levels and four boss fights (and the last boss is an annoying difficulty spike) but it’s also $15 which is a fair price and to get all 5 medals in all of the levels took me just shy of 7 hours. I’ll definitely be going back just to play around and also to do the time attack now that I don’t need to find medals. 

 

While a 79oc isn’t bad I still feel it got hit too hard for being short considering the replay-ability and fantastic execution of what is on display here. I’d give it a 8.7/10. It is too bad it’s not a little longer, even if that raises the price, but that is what Pepper Grinder 2 will surely be for!

[Brian]

Avatar - 6/10
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank - 7/10
Princess Peach: Showtime! -8/10
Unicorn Overlord - 7.9/10
Dave the Diver - 8/10

 

It is a fun game.  I went in thinking this will be a short game and I put in 32 hours according to Steam. There is a lot of content. 

[Phaseknox]

I finished Avengers, it was a decent third person action beat ‘em up platformer that could have been a lot better if the single player experience was the focus instead of the co-op/multiplayer live service stuff.

 

2024 Games

A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Space for the Unbound

Avengers

[Brian]

Avatar - 6/10
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank - 7/10
Princess Peach: Showtime! -8/10
Unicorn Overlord - 7.9/10
Dave the Diver - 8/10
Lil Gator - 9 🐊 

 

The game is charming and fun. You are a kid trying to convince his older sister to play fantasy with him. As a parent with a young child, it definitely resonated with me. 
 

The gameplay is simple but extremely well done. Same can be said about traversing the island. It’s a short title (4 hours) and it’s totally worth your time. It’s on Game Pass. Easy recommend

[best3444]

Just beat Horizon Forbidden West. It took two years for me to fully appreciate this masterpiece.

 

I'm giving it a 9.5/10. Off to the Burning Shores. 

[stepee]

Starfield

Bleed 2

Armored Core 6

Returnal

Ys9

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

Vampyr

Suicide Squad

Mario vs Dk

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake

Horizon Burning Shores

Princess Peach Showtime

Pepper Grinder

 

Sonic Dream Team - more like Stepee Dream Game am I right. This was very good. Sonic is definitely in the best place it’s been since the genny days. This is a great take on 3D Sonic and has the kind of art style that I wish Frontiers had. I really hope they can at least find an in-between for Frontiers 2. 

 

But yeah this is a lot of fun and now with a new zone, more levels, and more coming soon, it’s a decent amount of content too. 18 levels but each level has multiple goals and can be remixed so there’s a lot to do. I got most of the emerald or whatever things besides the boss time attack ones.

 

Im definitely happy to see Cream playable again. Also the Knuckles/Rogue gameplay is a lot better here than the Adventure games as it’s much snappier to glide around. Some of the stages do a really good job of having you switch between the different character types and that’s probably when it’s at its best. 
 

It’s way too good of a Sonic game to be apple only so I hope when they are done adding content and whatever contract expires they release it on steam/console as well because it definitely deserves that. It would be an absolute tragedy for Sonic fans if this went the way of Chuchu Rocket Universe on Apple Arcade and just vanished forever.

[Phaseknox]

I finished Raging Bytes.

 

2024 Games

A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Space for the Unbound

Avengers

Raging Bytes

[stepee]

Starfield

Bleed 2

Armored Core 6

Returnal

Ys9

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

Vampyr

Suicide Squad

Mario vs Dk

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake

Horizon Burning Shores

Princess Peach Showtime

Pepper Grinder

 

Alone in the Dark 2024 - Very cool game! You definitely want to just play it on easy and not bother dealing with the combat as it’s really not worth getting invested in that part of the game. It’s best approached as an adventure game with some shooting elements to keep the tension up. Not unlike Alan Wake 2, but with more combat and worse mechanics! 

 

But it’s a beautiful looking adventure that gets really varied and creative with its visuals and locations. For a haunted mansion game there sure is a lot of locale variety. The story is breezy and fun and the game can be damn scary at times as well. Ending got real weird, kinda seemed rushed a bit there. I’m curious if things get more fleshed out if you play as the other character, I’d have to think the story would play quite differently unless they just swap the characters stories.

 

The puzzles are fun and a good balance between keeping things moving along and not being completely brain dead. The atmosphere is off the hook. Solid 7.8/10 for me - definitely recommend it for adventure genre fans at $30 or so. 

[Brian]

Avatar - 6/10
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank - 7/10
Princess Peach: Showtime! -8/10
Unicorn Overlord - 7.9/10
Dave the Diver - 8/10
Lil Gator - 9 🐊 
Inscryption - 9.5/10

 

It’s a Dan Mullins game so it gets weird and goes places which I personally love. I don’t want to talk too much about it because it’s best to just experience it. I will say I found it hard in the beginning. I owned this game since release and couldn’t get past the beginning. I would look at this game every 6 months or so and say “let me try again” and start over only to get stuck at the same spot. Due to it being a card game with roguelite features, there is some R&G that can make or break your run.  Now it is more than a card game and the beginning is the hardest part because once I got past it, I cruised through the rest. Easy recommend. 

[Brian]

Avatar - 6/10
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank - 7/10
Princess Peach: Showtime! -8/10
Unicorn Overlord - 7.9/10
Dave the Diver - 8/10
Lil Gator - 9 🐊 
Inscryption - 9.5/10

Open Road - 4/10

 

It’s a narrative game that’s super short (1 hr) and it’s on Game Pass. That’s about all I have to say about it. 
 

I played it because it’s the game that destroyed FullBright and Steve Gaynor’s career. I found the story behind that way more interesting than the game. 

[Brian]

Avatar - 6/10
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank - 7/10
Princess Peach: Showtime! -8/10
Unicorn Overlord - 7.9/10
Dave the Diver - 8/10
Lil Gator - 9 🐊 
Inscryption - 9.5/10

Open Road - 4/10
Hex - 8.5/10

 

Decided to play the other Dan Mullins game that I never finished. It doesn’t hit the highs as Inscryption but it’s really good. Don’t want to say too much since it is best experienced with no knowledge. Easy recommend. 

[Phaseknox]

I finished Almost My Floor.

 

2024 Games

A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Space for the Unbound

Avengers

Raging Bytes

Almost My Floor

[dualhunter]

Finished Star Ocean. Back in the day I saw it in gaming magazine and it looked awesome (that and Tales of Phantasia, played the GBA version of that years ago). Years ago I briefly tried it but found the first battle hard. Turns out the problem was I tried to move around. Moving the cursor with the d-pad is too slow. If you just keep attacking it's easier. It's mostly easy, when it's hard it's because it's cheap. In the hardest post game battle, it was really tough because the enemies spammed attacks and I never got a chance to hit back. Once I finally manage to hit them it was easy. Overall I enjoyed it despite some annoyances.