Tracking Games Beaten in 2020

[Laevateinn]

@Glowsquid mentioned the other day in the discord that he had noticed he hadn’t beaten Star Fox 64 in 2019 and made sure that happened before the year ended. I tend to take pictures of games when I’ve beaten them but I’ve never formally tracked them so I thought it might be fun to do this year. If anyone feels like joining me, feel free to post updates here. I’m also keeping a spreadsheet to keep track of this too. As for rules, decide for yourself what beating a game means. For me, getting to the credits will be enough except on arcade titles. I’ll need to decide a reasonable number of credits to make it so it’s somewhat of a challenge.

I’ll try to keep this updated too as I update my spreadsheet with a 1 line review.

So far I’ve beaten:

Sonic R - This turned out to be a lot easier and less frustrating then I remembered. Really enjoyed this.

[Glowsquid]

You asked me about my 2010 list, so (hidden because it’s Big)…

Summary

1: Star Wars Republic Commando

2: Ace Combat 7

3: Singularity

4: Rogue Warrior

5: Sin 2 Episodes

6: Red Faction II

7: Dark Void

8: Quake 4

9: medal of honor heroes 2

10: call of duty modern warfare 2

11: Inversion

12: kane & lynch dead men

13: killzone mercenary

14 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3

15 Army of Two

16 wolfenstein II the new collosus

17 resistance burning skies

18: Quantum of Solace (x360 version)

19: descent freespace: the great war

20 perfect dark zero

21: call of duty black ops

22: Nemesis (game boy, first 2 loops 1cc)

23: virtua cop (saturn, 1cc)

24: battle unit zeoth

25: bionic commando (the 2009 one)

26: ghost recon advanced warfighter 2

27: hawx 2

28: red faction armageddon

29: brothers in arms road to hill 30

30 brothers in arms earned in blood

31 duke nukem forever

32 gears of war

33: armored core 4 (100% completion).

34: hour of victory

35: Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway

36: The Club

37: Frontlines: Fuel of War

38 Ubersoldier II

39 solar striker (1cc)

40: super mario land

41: Warhammer 40k fire warrior

42: Metal Wolf Chaos XD

43: history channel: battle of the pacific

44: secret service ultimate sacrifice

45: battlefield bad company

46: Call of duty black ops II

47: Star Fox (center path, one-life clear)

48: killzone 3

49: call of duty roads to victory

50: flag to flag CART racing

51: FEAR (+ its expansion packs)

52: Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land

53: tokyo xtreme racer (first credit roll, haven’t done the 2nd set of bosses)

54: unit 13

55: turok (2008)

56: Spy Hunter (vita)

57: doom 3 (and its expansion packs)

58: FEAR 2 (+DLC)

59: fear 3

60: world heroes perfect (1cc)

61: galaxy force II saturn (1cc)

62: return to castle wolfenstein

63: thunder force IV (1cc, saturn version)

64: Halo Reach (PC version)

65: Star Fox 2 (normal and hard mode)

66: batsugun special (saturn, 1cc)

67: Star Fox 64

edit: And now my first of 2020!:

1: Sniper Elite V2 remastered: I really liked it! When I got it early in 2019, I couldn,t get my head around it because I tried to play it with more “realistic” settings and i’m not very good at sniping OR stealth. this time i allowed myself to be dumb and i was with a fun linear shooter

[Laevateinn]

Super Mario World - My wife and I play this every year and new years and stop around chocolate world because she gets tired. We finished last night. Lovely game of course but I’ve played it enough to know it has tons of technical issues. Hope to see an SA-1 port soon.

[poptart]

I finished the GBA version on Dec 26.

It resolves a lot of the slowdown and has a number of improvements over the SNES version. You can save at any level, when you first encounter color yoshis they then appear in normal yoshi eggs at random, you can play with fucked up Luigi physics, and a few other minor things. OTOH the viewport is smaller and in a couple levels its pretty annoying. Still a nice way to play the game, especially with a few rom hacks to get rid of the voices and make the color more similar to the SNES version.

[Laevateinn]

Interesting. I think I’d prefer it with the original resolution but I might try it out one day.

Anyway, I just did some googling and apparently an SA-1 hack was released last May so next time I play it will be with that.

[Laevateinn]

Altered Beast - Love games like this I can beat in 20 minutes on a Sunday night. This one is significant for me because it was my first Genesis game and the only game my mom ever threw away for being evil. I could never beat this as a kid and it’s still somewhat challenging but I can manage. Looking forward to trying the System 16 version later this year.

[Laevateinn]

Shenmue 3 - It was amazing. End seemed a bit rushed. Plan on writing a bigger write-up on this later.

Golden Axe (SMD) - I play this a lot when I feel like wasting a half hour. It’s the greatest. This wasn’t my best playthrough.

[Glowsquid]

2: Thunder Force V

[Glowsquid]

3: Resistance: Fall of Man

This game is sick of my shit

[Glowsquid]

4: World War Zero

Back in 2002. French developer released Iron Storm, a PC-exclusive FPS set in an alternate history where WW1 never happened and the world is stuck in a pointless, stock-market driven war between the fascist Western Alliance and the also-fascist and slightly more unpleasant Russo-Mongolian empire. Despite not being exactly franchise material Rebellion (who by then were solidly invested in low-budget development) saw something in the title and released a PS2 version titled World War Zero in 2004, which, despite many of the design and technical choices being made with the limitations of the PS2 and console audience expectations in mind, was ported back to PC in 2005. Both versions used to be exclusive to Europe until Rebellion shadow-dropped it and other obscure games in their back catalogue on Steam in December 2019.

WW0 is a much more straightforward and actioney version of the game: the player character has much more health, weapons are more accurate, levels are more linear and densely packed with enemies, puzzles and forced stealth sequences are removed. Most telling of Rebellion’s priority is that the og climax of the game, which had you meeting the sickly and unarmed enemy commander, is replaced by a more conventional video-gamey final boss where you fight an armored cyborg supersoldier. While this arguably doesn’t respect the artistic intent of the original game, I think most players will feel World War Zero is a more fun experience as the OG Iron Storm is prime eurojank.

Speaking about the game on its own merits, it’s OK . Weapons are generally useful and follow the usual “realistic” FPS conventions, but they don’t feel that punchy either. The highlights are the minigun (one of the new things added in WW0) and the cluster grenades. Levels are super linear with some sidenooks and secrets to find more ammo. There’s some Half-Life esque platforming and exploration required to progress, but System Shock this ain’t.

There’s a secondary objective mechanic where you can accomplish additional tasks like finding an allied spy or sabotaging enemy ammo dumps: some are truly optional, some are stuff you have to do anywayy to progress, but none of it really feels inconsequential and the game didn’t unlock anything or give bragging rights for 100% completion. Enemies are mostly other dudes with guns: sometimes you also fight vehicles and celling turrets. Basically, it plays exactly like how you’d expect a low budget console FPS from the time to play.

There is some neat stuff here, most of which is carried over from Iron Storm. The dystopian terminal-capitalism theme is quite neat and unique. You save by finding “DRTs” (basically viewphones with CRT screen) and you’ll often get new reports where a Bagdhad Bob-esque female presenter mouths off propaganda, downplays your latest accomplishments or advertise new weapon systems (though I’m told WW0 cuts out most of the videos from Iron Storm). You also scrolling new texts, ranging from things like “actor JF Kennedy” being nominated for the Oscar after his role in Dr. Strangelove or Mao being killed in an ambush.

Technically, it’s OK. It’s a vey low budget release, and that is felt with the uninspired menus, near total-abscence of cutscenes and the sparse (and not very good) voice acting. The models are improved from the original game and the graphics aren’t too ugly but this was released the same year as HL2, Doom 3 and Far Cry: nobody was impressed.

It’s a OK port, about what you’d expect for the time. There’s arbitrary resolution support up to 4k (where the OG Iron Storm was locked to 4:3 resolutions) and a handful of graphical options. The most telltate sign of its root as a console port is that there is no way to manually assign weapons to keys: you have to scroll through them, which is irritating as there’s a lot of them, and you must equip and throw all of your grenade variants individually. I’d say it’s the biggest problem of the game.

Rating: it’s OK/10. Irrespective of the lackluster quality of the game, I’m grateful for Rebellion making this thing available for sale when the number of people who’d be interested probably doesn’t go past the two digits.

[raskulous]

I track all my games beaten on backloggery.com, and I think a few others on here do as well.

https://backloggery.com/raskull

[Laevateinn]

Looks like the game crashed.

[Laevateinn]

I’ve looked at backloggery before but I’m not a fan of the interface, the term backlog, or how it would pressure me to not replay games I like in favor of games I’ve bought but never finished. The thing is, I buy a ton of games, play them for a bit and never finish them and that’s okay. I don’t want to develop some OCD that forces me to play through games that are ridiculous or mediocre.

Anyway.

Majora’s Mask: I’ve always said this is my favorite 3D Zelda and I think that’s still true but the dungeons in this game can be really annoying. I also hate how the last 4 heart pieces are on the moon so you can’t get them and then save.

[Laevateinn]

Sonic Spinball - I haven’t beaten this since I was a kid. Feel like this game gets too much hate but parts are annoying and the soundtrack is forgettable. It did the job as a buffer while I waited for Sonic 3 though.

[Peltz]

It’s a good game (not great, but genuinely good) that is only really marred by the final boss encounter which seems bizarrely obtuse.

[harborline_765]

1: Natsuki Chronicle. Still going to be playing many more hours of this because I’ve only cleared Chronicle Mode on Easy and Normal. Still got two thirds of hard mode and I want to 1’cc Arcade mode. Brilliant game though, and along with Esprade what a superb close to the year for STGs.

[Laevateinn]

Mega Man X: Fantastic game which needs no introduction. I think I prefer X to the original series but it really peaked with the first game unfortunately with 4 being the last one worth playing.

Jet Grind/Set Radio: I really love this game. I wish there was a modern remake which revamped the controls a bit but this is one of those things that makes the Dreamcast a console for the ages.

[harborline_765]

2: Cleared Ginga Force in Chronicle mode on, erm, Easy difficulty the other week. As mentioned in the shmups thread it’s a really energetic, forward-thinking vertical shooter with heaps of variety. Haven’t really been motivated to get chapters 9 and 10 done in Normal difficulty though. Chapter 9 is too memorisation-heavy to be fun on higher difficulties I find.

[Laevateinn]

Being able to beat SHMUPs must be nice

[harborline_765]

I often feel the same! I haven’t come close to 1’cc-ing my favourite early shmups, and I’m hopeless at all the games in the Darius Collection. I’m better with certain games over others, particularly those which don’t ask the player to memorise too many specific details to survive.