How many and which bad games did you play this year?
I had a really solid year, all things considered:
- ⭐ Hi-Fi Rush – Love it, hands down. This game’s like if Jet Set Radio, Scott Pilgrim, and DMC got into a fist fight and then that fist fight had a baby with Jack Black
- ⭐ Pentiment – I’m still playing through this one but I can already tell it’s a new favorite. Major Return of the Obra Dinn vibes
- ⭕ Against the Storm – This game innovates on the citybuilder genre so hard and I can’t get enough of it. If you love a challenge and hate the late-game, this is THE ONE
- ⭕ Psychonauts 2 – Fun and bursting with creativity… but I had to set it down after a certain point because I stopped enjoying the gameplay loop. Can’t put my finger on why…
- ⭕ Peglin – Yes, Peglin. The Peggle Roguelite. I like it and you would too if you gave it a chance. It’s not a forever roguelite, but I guarantee you’ll have a blast with it for 5-10 hours
- ❌ Deep Rock Galactic – I bounced off of this one. The game has so much charm… but I just couldn’t click with it. I think co-op games just may not be for me
Honorable Mention: TF2 – Definitely not a “new” game to me, I own TF2, I bought it with money! Even so… this year marked my return after a looong hiatus. Coming back was a total revelation – I thought I’d grown to hate FPS games – as it turns out, what I’d actually grown to hate was the modern antisocial MMR grindset. Game developers: I beseech thee… abandon matchmaking and return to 2007. Return the slab or suffer my curse
A fellow Xbox gamepass User IT seems. Pentiment is one of my All Time favorites (probably top3 at least)
This was after my First playthrough. Now, with George putting out his video, im back in. My god, its marvellous.
Hifi Rush was great, but felt too formulaic for me, so i abandoned it after the first or second Boss. Too much running arpund, No real banger music between Bosses.
On a Side Note, its kinda similiar too with Lies of Pi. I can See the great soulslike It is (3/4 in) but my interest vanishes. Too many repetitive encounters. Too linear. I feel Like Elden Ring really innovated the genre through its semi Open world approach.
I played a few games that were just really mediocre.
- Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor was a super boring ARPG and I couldn’t put in more than a few hours. The levels were super short and just corridors.
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker started out ok, but was just far too long, terribly paced, and the last third was a complete slog. This was probably the one I’d call a “stinker” the most.
- Crisis Core Remake (FF7 spin off) had a boring story and lame characters. The bulk of the “content” were 300 side missions that were usually less than five minutes long in one of like six stages. I picked it up after I enjoyed the FF7 Remake far more than I thought, but this game adds nothing to the overall story. To be fair to the game though, I did complete all 300 side stories, because from time to time I like a mindless grind.
- I’m continuing my four-year-old save of Octopath Traveler, where I got a third or so in. I dunno if it’s the Steam Deck, but there’s just tons of aliasing, shifting sprites and flickering, it just looks bad, and the detailed enemy sprites were the only thing I really liked about the game in the first place. Combat is also a slog at times, so I don’t know if I have it in me to finish the game.
