Game
Every year I try to compile a list of games, books, and movies I experienced. For the complete list, check the Ratings. Here we go (sorted alphabetically)!
This year my game library is over 1000 games. 1/3 I’ve never touched it. 1/3 I’ve barely played. So I can stop buying games for a while and still have a lot of fun.
About to finish:
Most of them I barely started. Installed to check the general flow or if it was working at all. Some It’s WIP. Few are collecting dust.
Yet, there are some games that I did not quit definitively, but they are still to be played (therefore, not yet fully rated). A few are installed even still.
I play them eventually. Most of them, are strategy games.
Finally, here is a list of games that I already have in my collection that I plan to play in the next months.
Stonemaier got famous when the owner, Jamey Stegmaier, blogged every aspect of his first Kickstarter campaign. People felt confident with his struggles, thoughts, and solutions.
After some success, Stonemaier created another hit. This time the game was not designed by Jamey but by newcomer Elizabeth Hargrave. Wingspan (which is currently at the high tier in BoardGameGeek) lets you collect birds that provide special powers, that accumulate turn after turn. I bought it as the last year Christmas gift for my wife last year, and it became one of the most played games in our collection.
The components and art, OMG, are all high quality and adorable. The board, the cards, the dice tower, the eggs… ohhh… don’t even mention the colorful eggs. The colors do not have any gameplay meaning, but they are adorable. People always react when seeing those little eggs.
The care in creating each bird card is astonishing. The flavor text is rich in details, and most of them have a real implication in the game itself. Bird size, breeding pattern, type of food… it’s all grounded in reality!
There are birds objectively better than others, but the external objectives and bonuses may increase the usefulness of birds in each play. Considering also the huge number of cards, at least for the sake of replayability, it’s a major plus.
The core value of this game is the engine-building mechanism. Each time you get a new bird, its powers will be used in later turns. So by the end of the match, some super powerful combos will be created. It’s very satisfying to activate a multipoint machine!
This game is a multiplayer solitaire: while you can somewhat manipulate resources and face up birds a bit, it is best to be occupied to “do your best”. My nephews were hooked all the time, but mostly commenting about the birds’ looks and imagining their next moves.
It is very difficult to keep track of other people’s boards. So it is really hard to counteract. None will take mental notes tracking other players. But for those who do this, it could represent a major strategic advantage.
The abilities are fun but require a lot of reading to understand. While the texts are not long, the font is a bit small.
The dice tower, despite being cute, is prone to damage over time. I already not using it in my sessions, to preserve it.
Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order is a mouthful sub-titled titled title. I don’t particularly like this cascading naming convention, but it’s rather common in big franchises. Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, and Pokémon all suffer from this.
So, EA published another Star Wars game. The default expectation is a TRASH game loop with microtransactions and paid loot. Battlefront 2 and FIFA will not let me lie…
But this one was… good!
I got it “for free” in the Amazon Prime deal. My original intention was to get both “free” shipping and streaming service for a fixed and low monthly fee. But they do give some video games for free too. And they are eventually good games. After activation in the yet-another-game-launcher Origin launcher, I decided to give it a try.
TLDR: it has all the mediocre elements of recent games. But the visuals and gameplay hooked me. I liked it very much.
The main protagonist is bland. Another white impetuous generic dude. The amnesia trope was also employed here. The guy, once fully skilled, now have to relearn everything.
The companions, however, are much more varied. They are never very relevant to the plot, nor do we participate in their journeys, but they add a great flavor to the story. Particularly the pilot Greez: funny, warm-hearted but scared little creature. And, of course, your droid companion. The villains are good. Some are visually memorable like the Ninth Sister. Some are, like Malicos, those type that appears, brags, and dies. Next.
The general assortment of goons is the stars of the show. From low-rank troopers to big machines, monsters, and fallen Jedis, the list is varied throughout the whole game. They provoke fear and anxiety and relaxation. They generally do not talk or express any particular personality, but all portray a very specific role.
The appearance of iconic characters is definitively a high point to mention. But no spoilers here.
Not much to add beyond what you can see in screenshots and trailers. The game is gorgeous. EA at least has to be praised in this regard: despite being bad games, all recent SW games are visually stunning. Squadrons, another Amazon free game that I’m still playing, is also amazing.
The main core loop is great. In the Metroidvania style, maps are presented but inaccessible until the player acquires some special ability. It implies that, when acquired, the player must revisit the same areas over and over again. There is a kind of fast travel mechanism, but the travel points are sparse and will still require some time traversing.
The combat is challenging. Being a Jedi presupposes being a god-like fighter. The game gives the player enough abilities to make one feel powerful but not overpowering. Even on late levels, it’s possible to lose health fighting goons. Health is important to face bosses and harder enemies.
Boss encounters do not change the general gameplay in any big way, which is a plus. You fight using the same muscle memory developed until it. There is always the annoying pre-cutscene that will be played over and over if you die a lot in these fights.
Visiting 5 different planets gives the scenery a great variation, even being particularly different regarding the traversal challenges. Ice planet, fire planet, vegetation planet, futurist planet/installation, underground… And all are beautiful to look at.
I got it for free, but I would pay for it if necessary. The game is fun, front and foremost. The story is a bit lacking, and the protagonist is definitively lacking but when I finished, I even tried to complete some extra objectives to extend the experience.
Last year I published a post of my played games, but the title was mistakenly named Media List 2020. It was a games list so this year it was properly named. This year I wrote much less about each individual game, so I dedicated a small space to comment on each entry.
By far, the most important game I played was Cyberpunk 2077. At least, it was supposed to be the most loved and commented game. Whatever, here is a list of games of all games I played this year.
2021-01-13: Totally forgot to include both Battlefield 4 and Battlefield 1.
Most of them I barely started. Just to check the general flow or if it was working at all. Some It’s WIP. Few are collecting dust.
Yet, there are some games that I did not quit definitively, but they are still to be played (therefore, not yet rated). A few are installed even still.
I play them eventually. Most of them are strategy games.
Finally, here is a list of games that I already have in my collection that I plan to play in the next months.
What a surprise! After playing several Ubisoft open-world games lately, I was expecting another result of a generic and repetitive side quest generator with a superficial storyline over it.
I was a bit reluctant to start WD2. I read that the original title was overpromised and under-delivered. The second one flew on my radar at the time. Recently I got it through the Epic free game initiative. Then I read some reviews and comments from the launch time and there were good ones. So I decided to check it out. Not without flaws, I enjoyed the time, the story, and the gameplay.
Far Cry 3 presented the very iconic and infinite memerable villain Vaas Montenegro. However, the Ubisoft writing team struggles to create memorable protagonists. I cannot name a single great protagonist in Far Cry and most Assassin’s Creed (old and new entries) are plain boring. AC3’s Ezio Salvatore da Firenze is the top of mind. AS Odyssey’s Kassandra was nice, despite being put in a split role with her unnecessary male version Alexios.
The player spends hours living the life of another person that she/he cares so little about. It’s sad really.
Marcus Holloway is a new entry on the likable protagonist list. Optimist, clever and lighthearted. His motivations seem reasonable and believable. However, there is a cognitive dissonance playing Marcus as an armed gangster, shooting at police and mob armies. From start to finish, all cutscenes present him, as well the other members of the DedSec crew, as non-violent watchdogs. People that fight to preserve individual liberties and respect life and diversity. Using machine guns to kill everybody on site feels wrong. I tried to play as much as possible in the way I understood the character: low profile, clever hacker.
For the rest of the crew, it’s a mixed bag. The only one that will definitively stick in my mind is the masked engineer Wrench. Horatio, the guy that works on Goog… Nudle becomes relevant. The rest is the rest.
For villains and NPCs, none are worth mentioning. The main villain, Dušan, is both an idiot and annoying.
The hacker theme is presented as the usual Hollywood cliché. Type furiously into the notebook and any bank account in the world is yours!
However, the overall universe is set using several references to popular culture. Movies, music, and video games are often mentioned by characters. Some are more obscure, but most of the time these references are more common sense. For those that know them, they are quite fun. For those that do not, is an exotic flavor.
Some references are less subtle: There is a search engine and maps company called Nudle. A rocket launcher Galilei commanded by a millionaire much like SpaceX. I linked the main villain company, Blume, as Microsoft, but it’s my own thing.
Watch Dogs 2 does not take the story and theme too seriously. There is even a good dose of self-mockery about being a hacker/programmer. It’s not like FarCry’s Blood Dragon over-the-topness. WD2 translates complex problems into smaller bites to make them more accessible and fun to a broad audience.
As I said before, it is possible to be Rambo and shoot everybody. Like GTA, you will attract police attention and will die, respawn and try again. But I feel that is not the way it’s meant to be played™. Harder, but more satisfying, is avoiding direct conflict and using gadgets and powers to sneak. The same could be said for old Assassin’s Creed games (the new ones embrace direct combat as pillars).
The hacking abilities are more useful for small interventions, like distracting guards, than creating mayhem. Hacking citizens’ phones in the streets are fun for 10 minutes, then becomes quite useless. Event robbing their bank accounts, money in general, becomes irrelevant mid-game, after upgrading Marcus’ drones.
Most puzzles are repetitive, but fun mini-game.
In the end, the core mechanics are solid. Open-world games tend to be repetitive, but WD2 scrambles the same basic mechanics offering variety.
