I refuse to let real life get in the way
of the wondrous games I play.

31: Renegade Ops (PC) 7/10

This one had been on my Steam account since 2016, with just 10 minutes played.  I thought, 'this looks fun', then just didn't play it again for 3 and a half years.  Turns out it IS a really fun little game from 2011 that seems to be a modern day take on Desert Strike etc, but with twin stick shooter controls, and you're mostly in a jeep.  You do get to cut sick in a helicopter from time to time.  The early levels look really nice, all bright and sunny, and everything explodes in a very satisfying way.

It does lose a bit of steam, with the final levels getting a bit grim, and the maps lose their open nature in favour of trickier, maze-like layouts.  I didn't find those as fun as dashing around a larger map and clearing objectives.  

That said it is only 4 hours including the expansion missions.  The weaker levels aren't exactly terrible either, just less good.  Not a bad way to spend a couple of weekday evenings indoors.

Nice! imagine it would be great fun with couch co-op.  Don't want to call it a dumb action game given how polished it is, but not the sort of thing you need to think too hard about while playing and could have a laugh with.

It may have been one of those game that's more difficult in co-op, like Hard Corps: Uprising.  Memory is hazy but I think I finished it off in single player.

You share lives in two player, so it takes longer to learn stages. That one struck me as too hard however you played it, I don't think I saw level three either.

Edit: Looks weird now I've typed it. Maybe you just share items? Can't remember how it works.

Hmm.  I bought it on 360 but never played it, was one of maybe three games in my XBLA pile of shame when I got rid of the console (sadly it looks like I'll never get to have another crack at Bangai-O HD).  Then it finally appeared as BC on Bone, and I bounced off.  May try again now that I've got a Blazing Chrome training montage under my belt.

I'm dumping this in here as well, in case anyone misses it in the Completed thread:

25. Detention [9]
21-24 August
So I'd read about this horror game that was supposed to be really good earlier in the year, and when I saw Detention on sale in the PS store I thought that was it. Turns out that the game I'd read about was Devotion and had only been released on PC anyway, and had since been removed from sale altogether. It also turns out that Detention was the previous game from the same Taiwanese devs, Red Candle. It also also turns out that it's really good.

Think something like a 2D side-on Silent Hill, with nightmarish versions of ordinary locations (most of it is set around a school). But there's no combat and it's a bit more puzzle focused, kind of like a simple point 'n' click adventure, but not shit. But then it's set in Taiwan during the 60s during the anti-Communist purges and all the disturbing shit connects to the terrors of the time. And it's really quite scary, or at least very tense for long periods. Genuinely effective horror. For instance, to get past monsters you have to hold your breath and walk really slowly right by them, which never stops being a nervy experience. You're also forced to get your hands dirty to solve some of the puzzles, with one 'solution' being particularly grim. But the inventiveness is admirable and it all fits with the overall themes. If anything, perhaps it drags out the final part a bit much, with a tonal shift that focuses more on the narrative, but it's a powerful enough story to get away with it.

And right now it's £4 on the PS store (other versions are available). It'll only take you around 4 hours to finish it. Give it a go. Preferably with headphones.

54. oOo Ascension - Switch

Assault course speedrunner that plays like a cross between Monkey Ball and one of those bendy metallic things that buzz if you touch them with the handheld bit.  Analogue stick moves, Left trigger slows you down, right trigger speeds you up.  Stages are spherical, which makes for some interesting design but also serves up the main design flaw - the way the camera tracks the action makes for some frustrating sections.  It's tricky enough to snake your one-hit-pops craft along tight corridors, but having to readjust the direction keep up with the view can add a needless layer of trickiness.  There are other missteps, like the homing missiles fired at you in the late game - fair enough in themselves, but the fact that they explode into three more projectiles is too big an ask in the tight sections.  I'm all for fiendishly design in these types, but it's too much to keep track of imo so adds a random element to some stages.  Some levels give you infinite attempts, respawning next to your failure point with added time on the clock, but some require a one-shot finish.  So progression can be spammed to an extent, but it's certainly no pushover.  The fact that it has no leaderboards (none that I could find anyway) is unacceptable considering the genre - it's all about shaving milliseconds off your times, surely?

I've been a bit down on this but it's actually a fun game overall.  It definitely rises above its problems with some very well designed stages.  I'd recommend it to anyone keen on the marble guide types, Shabby and Davy mayber.  Reads like a [5] but I'm going for a [7].  Pretty sure I would've enjoyed t more on Xbox thanks to its more suitable analogue stick, plus I'm guessing it has a locked 60fps.  Switch performance is definitely good enough to recommend though, but don't go near it if your JoyCons are starting to drift.

4 hours-ish I'd say.

56. Supermarket Shriek - Xbox One

More than just a pleasant surprise, it's one of the best games I've played this year.  The rather odd premise is as follows: You control a man and a goat sitting in a shopping trolley, and movement is entirely governed by shrieking.  The analogue triggers make your characters scream, which rotates the trolley either left or right, and holding both triggers at once makes the cart go forward.  That's it, and it's one of the most perfect, pure gaming control schemes in recent memory.  With practice you could get obscenely good at this game, would love a forum comp but I'd presumably have to pay anyone to play it.  Hey ho.  Your job is to guide the trolley through pun-laden supermarket obstacle courses in as brief a time as possible.  Occasionally you'll have to collect items en route to the goal, or win a head-to-head, or smash cans of baked beans to maximise your score, but it's mostly just a question of whether or not you can make it to the end.  If you crash you tear a bit of hair out and start again. 

Progression is gated behind an overly strict star system.  Between one and three stars are dished out for a successful run, you'll pretty much need two or more on every stage in order to see the late game, and some of the three star requirements are damn tricky.  It's a tough game, extremely so in places, but I'm glad I pushed through.  I can hurtle through the earlier stages now, thanks to the superb handling model and the fact that the game demands constant improvement for success.  Forget o0o Ascension Muzzy, this is a far better game.  [9]

It's going in Cinty's Top 100 thread.  I would've been absolutely obsessed with something like this 20 years ago, it's got a touch of the halcyon pass-the-pad post-pub feels.  

57. Resident Evil 2 - PS4

Caveat and disclaimer: I don't really like survival horror games and I only completed this with Leon.  

For all the talk of this remake bringing the series bang up to date the way it plays is still rooted in the past.  I was expecting the tank controls to be gone (something I also hoped for when I first booted up Resident Evil 4 on Gamecube) but they're kind of still here, not doing a very good job of hiding in plain sight.  That's pleasing for fans, of course, but the oppressive nature of the survival horror genre has always felt like a byproduct of control schemes geared towards skin-of-the-teeth narrow escapes (literally).  Fun, if you like to pretend you're a pig in a passage, but a residue of a bygone era - not having a dodge move of some description never sits right for me.  It was the same with The Evil Within 2, which I enjoyed for the most part, but that one seemed less inclined to pretend it was A Modern Game.  I like the idea of the PT approach to interactive horror, not that I've played it, rather than the 'FFS I'm boxed in by zombies again' feeling.

Plot is easy to ignore, I didn't remember much of what happened in the PS1 game and I'm not entirely up to speed with this one.  Something about a virus that the player characters are always inexplicably immune to, something about a scientist, something about an FBI agent in a nightie.  It's all thinly veiled bobbins, but that's fine.  

Graphics are excellent, it's definitely a nice looking game and they've done a great job of bringing the familiar pre-rendered backdrops up to date.  The police station had me in its thrall throughout, I was absolutely enjoying the toing and froing until Mr. X turned up and started to ruin chunks of the game for me.  It didn't help that you're off to the sewers shortly after his first appearance, which suffers from a fair old drop off in quality compared to the first half of the game.  The final lab pulls things back a bit, but I was after the credit roll at that point.  

Even though I'm glad I played it I'm still having to stop myself moaning about other things that irritated me (button prompts to waste precious grenades! First aid items that can't be used on the spot if your inventory is full! Mr. X again!).  It's fan service done well, but I lost interest in the series after no.2 (although I did play and finish Veronica, which was never top tier) and this hasn't done much to rekindle it.  The original Resi 2 is still the series highlight, taking how awesome it was at the time into consideration.  Final verdict: quite good, but nowhere near as overhauled as I was expecting. [7].  Would've been a [6] but I remembered I gave The Evil Within 2 a [7] last year.

59. Rise & Shine - Xbox One

Had my eye on this for ages but never risked a purchase thanks to mixed reviews.  Perfect Gamepass fodder, then.  Nice looking run and gun (although you can't actually fire while running) with a smattering of ultra-lite puzzling thrown in.  I really liked it at first, the LT aim/RT fire thing works well as does the rudimentary cover system, but once it starts layering in alternate functions for the gun it all gets a bit fiddly and irritating.  I still enjoyed it overall but the tougher sections felt like I was battling with the plate-spinning controls just as much as the enemy waves or boss patterns.   Respawning with the main shot/sub weapon combo you had selected when you died feels like a misstep here too, reverting to the default gun would've been a better way to go imo.  Worth a look if you like this sort of thing, it's mostly pretty good, but try not to pay much for the privilege as it was all wrapped up in 2hrs or so.  [6]

61. Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure - Xbox One

Or non-Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar co-op Adventure.  Turns out this is more polished than the Disneyland Adventures game I played with my daughter last year, to the point where I'd say I just about enjoyed it mechanically.  It's a collection of individual stages built around specific game worlds: Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Dory, Ratatouille, Cars and Up.  Cars is the best, Finding Dory is the worst - everything in between is somewhere between passable and 'it's alright really'.  If you've got kids into the Pixar thing playing through this isn't much of a chore as you might expect and the split screen performance is quite tidy.  In my experience games guaranteed to sell to kids (the Dineys, the Sanics) are often punted out the door in a wonky AF state, so it's refreshing to see one that feels like it's had some thought put into it.  There's enough reason to revisit stages and plenty of extras to unlock so I'll go with a generous [7] as Tilly loved it.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Saw this in the Kim Justice top 100 MD list

What a great channel.  Especially love the longer videos about 80s/90s British developers (living in Tasmania that stuff was mostly unavailable back then, so a lot of it is new to me, or at least obscure), but it's pretty much all good stuff.

Another game (kinda) completed for the list: Slay the Spire (10/10)

Much like with Tetris 99 I'm temporarily retiring from this game since it's ridiculously addictive and I can lose hours at a time replaying it.  There's no way I can play just 1 game.  The 52 Game challenge would be doomed.

It is a rogue card battle game with a high degree of chance; you never quite know what tools you'll be working with.

You have to ascend 3 levels.  Each level contains a dozen or so events.  You will have a vague idea what you're getting yourself into with each event (ie, a normal battle, a hard battle, a chance to buy some new gear, rest, etc) but there will be a number of variables so you're never quite sure what might happen/who you'll be fighting.  A lot of runs end due to being too cocky or too conservative.

It's a great feeling when you get a selection of items and cards that you know how to use effectively, but almost as much fun when you get a load of bad luck and have to improvise, and fluke your way into something even more effective.  

With 3 playable characters with unique abilities and cards there is a lot to get your head around.  I've beaten it once with each of these characters.  It seems like THE REAL GAME IS JUST BEGINNING etc, unfortunately I need to beat another 20 or so games before the end of the year so the real game will have to wait until January.  Top stuff.

Yeah I was in the same on Spire (Thought it was visually pretty dull, and I'm not massive on rogues or any game where there's not really an ending).  Wouldn't have even bothered with it if not for gamepass.

That's a good summation of Justice's appeal!  Think it's a great approach for the kind of stuff she covers.