Be Excellent To Each Other

14) Super Mario 3D World (Switch)

Hated it. Too easy for too long then suddenly really hard. Mario is too fucking slippery and for some reason I reckon he’s placed somewhere weird in the screen where I keep misjudging where he’s going to land. Every. Fucking. Time.

Couldn’t be bothered with all the green stars

15) Bower’s Fury (Switch)

OMG I fucking loved this though. Open world Mario? Yes fucking please. I got all 100 cat shines and clocked it good and proper. I thought it was a couple of hours long but I seemed to be on it for ages just enjoying the world. I wanted even more.

But much less of the respawning Bowser interrupting my game every 5 fucking minutes.

1) Doom Eternal (PC)
2) Meteor 60 seconds (PC)
3) Vampire survivors (PC)
4) Titanfall 2 (PC)
5) Dead Rising 3 (PC)
6) Overboard (PC)
7) Shadow Warrior (2013) (PC)
Subnautica (PC)
9) Subnautica Below Zero (PC)

I still have yet to start the new Zelda...

1) Doom Eternal (PC)
2) Meteor 60 seconds (PC)
3) Vampire survivors (PC)
4) Titanfall 2 (PC)
5) Dead Rising 3 (PC)
6) Overboard (PC)
7) Shadow Warrior (2013) (PC)
Subnautica (PC)
9) Subnautica Below Zero (PC)
10) Return To Monkey Island (PC)

Fun, but shorter than expected, and never really in a place that the way forward wasn't clear.

And I still have yet to start the new Zelda...

16) The Legend of Zelda; Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)

Obviously it’s brilliant. The inclusion of the Depths was genius and I must have spent most of my time down there just mapping the place out. The new building mechanics really help traversal over what can be a fairly empty map at times. Again. The lack of variety of the enemies is disappointing an’ all especially the colour swaps.

But it doesn’t distract too much from what’s a wonderful game. The story is stronger, the temples are better, the combat is slightly better I guess, the weapon combining stuff is decent, the depths are great, the sky is great fun, the bosses are fun challenges (the first time around)… etc. The last mission is very memorable.

17) Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War (PS)

Well, at least it’s brief. I can’t remember how many missions it has but it’s fuck all and some don’t last 5 minutes from start to finish. I swear I spent more time figuring out how to unlock the two extra missions than in the actual campaign. And the campaign is significantly “all right” but when the shooting starts it’s strictly old CoD as you shoot armies of bad uns until they stop. Some all right set pieces don’t stop this feeling like a third of a game. From the most wealthy gaming company there is. I’m glad I didn’t spend money on this.

18) Gunfire Reborn (Xbox)

I’m struggling to think of a more forgettable (obviously), generic name for a game. But underneath that absolutely shit title is a cool little online coop rogue-like FPS where you play as a variety of animals that shoot things with guns and powers and grenades and skills and ting. It’s fun and surprisingly difficult. Also, I’d have never in a million years played it if it wasn’t on game pass!

19) Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem (Xbox)

Same old Serious Sam. In Siberia. The only mayhem is the frame rate which is shit on XSX but it’s reasonable fun for a muck about with friends. There’s only 5 levels so it’s over and done swiftly. I tell you what though, Serious Sam so desperately wants to be funny but it has never been funny and never will. Annoying, yes. Funny, no.

20) Broforce Forever (Xbox)

It’s Broforce! With more content. Couldn’t honestly tell you what that content was cause I couldn’t remember the areas or levels to save my life. I clocked it solo years ago so it was fun to do it coop this time. Anyway, it’s still good although a little repetitive after a while.

21) Switchback VR (PSVR2)

It’s the sequel to Rush of Blood on the PSVR and is basically a on-rails shooter. Again. Frankly, I loved it. I think VR would be amazing for a resurgence of old light-gun shooters at an affordable cost. Time Crisis in VR? I’d be on that in a minute. Virtua Cop? Fuck yeah. House of the Dead? WHY AREN'T PEOPLE MAKING THESE THINGS.

Switchback? Oh yeah, it’s got a shit name. The shooting is great though, with a couple of good jump scares and some decent set pieces. It uses the PSVR2’s eye tracking to good effect too. There’s some really fun “Don’t Blink” sequences that go great with the horror vibes. Super fun, not too long, great in small bite sized chunks too, especially cause I don’t like staying in VR for long periods of time. So yeah, ace!

22) Crossfire VR (PSVR2)

Utterly mindless CoD style coop shooter. In VR. Loads of guns and customisation of guns and selection of guns and shooting guns and waving your guns in your friends faces as you point guns at enemies while they shoot guns back at you and one of you stops shooting guns.

Frankly, it was fucking brilliant.

There’s no story to speak of and not even an ending screen. It just ends. And that made me very upset…because I was loving it. I couldn’t give a toss about a story when there’s four guys with sledgehammers trying to squash me as I unload barrels of justice in their Helgast looking ass faces.

23) Lisa: The Painful - Definitive Edition (Switch)

Indie darling about abuse, drug use and generally some horrible stuff. At its heart though it’s an unfair turn based RPG that’s not that difficult, but has some annoying “choices”. Chop your arm off and lose 50% of your attacks? Yeah sure that’s a thing. Both arms? Yup, also a thing. Lose all your items and money? Couple of times it does that. Have enemies that can permanently kill your party members? Yup, I lose two in one fight and never really recovered. I had to reload a save to avoid that fight. Sure, it’s all to make you realise that life (or rather this game) is unfair. Blah blah.

It was interesting enough I guess, but it didn’t grab me by the balls like, say, Undertake did. I dunno. Not sure what to think about it really.

Oh, actually, you can just fall off the map easily and just instantly die and have to reload a save. Yeah, it can fuck right off thinking about it.

5. Assassins Creed: Mirage

Feels like the game has gone back to its roots. A lot simpler than the previous games.

All set in Baghdad and the areas round it. A clear progression and not a lot of silly missions.

I really enjoyed it.

24) Cocoon (Xbox)

I’d rate Inside & Limbo as having two of the best atmospheres in any video game created to date. I love them both.

So I was pretty excited when one of the devs from Playdead has branched out to make Cocoon. And it’s pretty good! But has lost some of the charm from the earlier games worked on. Boo!

Basically you’re an alien beetle thing and you’ve got to solve puzzles to some end that involve an Inception-esq world in a world thing thats going on. The puzzles are pretty easy going for the most part but spice up near the conclusion. I liked it. And that’s my problem. I didn’t love it like Inside or Limbo. It was good and is probably more of a game than either of those titles but this abstract alien world was never going to captivate me like the dark real worlds where bad shit happens in the shadows.

Anyway, try it cause it be pretty good.

25) Triangle Strategy (Switch)

It’s a strategy game! That’s right, I’m a master of all the game genres. Yes, even that one you’re thinking of now.

Anyway, I liked this a lot. Kinda Game of Thrones-lite story with some chess-style strategy action with moving squares and stuff and people doing different things and other stuff. It’s also got some Octopath Traveller style pixel art which I thought was actually rather great. It has a lot of chat and bullshit and loads of cliched characters but the story was pretty good. And it has branching paths and, I reckon, 4 endings and different paths. So…Quadpath Traveller then? No.

Conclusion: very good. I might even play some Age of Empires on Xbox after that.

26) The Callisto Protocol (PS)

It’s currently on PS+ and, y’know, I quite enjoyed it. It’s basically Dead Space with, mostly, melee combat. The graphics are decent, the environments good, the sound is ace and the combat is…functional. There’s some stealth in there too, so, y’know, never mind. But it’s actually a really good time and I had a blast with it. It helps that it isn’t too long either. It also helps that there’s a ton of death animations which are pretty funky too and your head is never too far from being removed from your shoulders. It got a bad rap on release but don’t listen to the haters - listen to some random bloke on the internet instead and give it a whirl.

It's so easy to dodge that you can literally do it with your eyes closed.

It's rubbish.

Hater.

I paid £60 for it.

Oof, yeah, that’ll sour your taste buds.

I got it free with a graphics card. I haven't bothered to install it

NSFW animal based visual novels?

3) far - changing tides
A 2d puzzle platform game that has too much doing nothing in it.

27) Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed (DLC) (Switch)

Brilliant. It’s a prequel to the third sequel and also an ending. Which makes about as much sense as the plot. But who gives a fuck when you’ve got 20-30+ more hours of awesomeness; this time with Shulk & Rex again! When Rex turned up I swear I had one of the biggest laughs I’d had in any medium.

It reappropriates a lot of Xenoblade 1’s environments which was actually rather fun in a story about combining the first two games…literally. Frankly, the best JRPGs I’ve ever made just got better. Easily one of the best games I’ve played this year.

1) Doom Eternal (PC)
2) Meteor 60 seconds (PC)
3) Vampire survivors (PC)
4) Titanfall 2 (PC)
5) Dead Rising 3 (PC)
6) Overboard (PC)
7) Shadow Warrior (2013) (PC)
Subnautica (PC)
9) Subnautica Below Zero (PC)
10) Return To Monkey Island (PC)

Got a few to catch up on here

11) Horizon: Forbidden west (PS5)

Like Horizon zero dawn, but westier.

12) Zelda: Tears of the kingdom (Switch)

Like Breath of the wild, but tearsier.
(Yeah, by the end I was happy to never have to build a contraption again.)

13) Chants of Sennaar (PC)

Adventure game that involves figuring out some languages and the occasional bad stealth sectrion.

28) Solar Ash (Xbox)

From the team that made Hyper Light Drifter, the 2D technicolour game, here’s a 3D game and it’s a bit of a weird mish mash of games. The movement is all about skating around clouds and environments and dashing and shit. Then you have to do a task of climbing and stabbing black goop in order while timed. You do that a couple of times then you get to “fight” a Shadow of the Collosus style boss (often very impressive looking and massive) where you, well, you have to do some climbing and stabbing black goop in order while timed. On a collosus.

Anyway, I enjoyed it but, fuck me, they really needed another pass on the camera which struggles following the action and is often the cause of many a missed jump and restart. Had they sorted that out I reckon it’d be much more fun. As it is, it’s flawed but enjoyable. The panoramas are often beautiful and spectacular, the big enemies visually very interesting, it’s just the gameplay is decent but lacking a little something.