Your Games Completed of 2018

Well, I'm not losing this one even if no-one else cares… update time! :P

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea - Platinum'd, deleted. A story game, so there's not much to it, but I still enjoyed it for what it was. Picked it up cheap in the sale though, so there's that too. Interesting to play through the different paths and even more so that you can get your story path printed as a real hard-back book with pictures and everything… nice touch.
Minit - Platinum'd, deleted. Clever adventure where you can only live for 60 seconds at a time, so you're basically doing things that'll set you up for your next 'life' to make progress. Not as easy as it looks, but definitely doable and enjoyable.
The Adventure Pals - Platinum'd, deleted. Great fun! Really funny, light-hearted platform adventure with plenty to do. Simple enough for younger players to enjoy too though. Glad I backed it on Kickstarter, really good stuff.

MAY
Dandara - Nice twist on the Metroidvania style, in that you can't move conventionally; instead, you have to jump from wall to wall using fixed points and aiming. Quite clever, rather tricky. Couldn't Platinum it, because one of the trophies is broken but I did manage to do what it takes to earn it… hopefully, when the devs come through with the update they've promised, it'll unlock. Really don't want to have to play it through again to earn it, since it's the 100% completion one…
The Swords of Ditto - Finished it once, but that's definitely not the end… I need to go back and play it more. But I saw the credits, so it goes on the list. :)

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon - Got to the point where I could max out everyone straight from a restart, so I'm happy that's done.
Tearaway Unfolded - Platinum'd, deleted. Not a fun one to clean up for, the collectibles are horrible.
Yoku's Island Express - Platinum'd, loved it to pieces. Heartily recommend it, it's delightful.
Burnout Paradise Remastered - Platinum'd but not truly completed. Might go back for the Elite license. Might not. Won't delete it yet though.

…I don't think I've finished a single game this year…

I think I've finished Dragon Age: Inquisitions and Celeste, and I can't think of anything else, other than maybe the odd successful run on a roguelike/roguelite (of which I now play many).

This is literally going to become a thread for me, isn't it? :\

I normally tick over with a couple of games a month but I’ve finished nothing for ages.

The only game I've completed this year is Journey, which I did in a single sitting on a Sunday morning at my two-year-old's insistence.

(It was wonderful. He got really into the scary parts and was so excited during the final level.)

Actually, that's a lie - Doki Doki Literature Club was this year. Also finished in a single sitting, but without the toddler audience.

I don't even know what else I might finish. Maybe Breath of the Wild, or Mario+Rabbids (which I've started up again, and it's great); I could probably wrap up the Destiny 2 Warmind DLC if I could find a shit to give about it. Lord knows I have enough stuff unfinished on the PS4 to keep me busy for a solid month, and XCOM 2 is calling me on PC.

I need my enthusiasm and my time to align and so far that hasn't really happened in 2018.

Tell a lie, I did finish FFXIV: Heavensward. Technically I know it's an expansion pack but it's as big and complex as any standalone JRPG I can think of so I say it counts.

To be honest the problem isn't really time or enthusiasm but the sheer size and never-ending nature of games these days - or at least the ones I like to play. I put weeks and weeks into Monster Hunter earlier in the year and then played FFXIV for a month solid. I've had a runthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles that's been ticking along in the background for nearly a year. I loaded up Assassin's Creed Origins last night and even on a 50-hour save I've got masses of stuff left to do. I guess I could do a Mart and just churn through indie games for the trophies but honestly that sort of stuff doesn't really appeal, so I'm essentially down to a handful of epics a year.

I guess I could do a Mart and just churn through indie games for the trophies

HEY.

That makes it sound like I'll play any old shit, which isn't true. Only quality indie games here, baby!*

• about 80% of the time

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike - Platinum'd, deleted. Meh. Thought this looked really good during development, tried to sign it but the dev wasn't interested. Kind of glad now, it's Metroidvania at its most basic. Too easy, rudimentary back-tracking, bosses are dull and easy to beat. Fine, but not great.

I completed The Hidden Ones, the first expansion for Assassin's Creed: Origins. It plays it very safe, it's really just more of the same, but it's a pretty good chunk of more of the same nevertheless: you get three new regions to explore, which are all pretty distinct, and a nice storyline that actually delivers on the promise of the original game, showing you the early days of the Assassins and the challenges they faced in getting the organisation off the ground. There's one new feature (ziplines), a couple of really big forts to fight through and genuinely it was a pretty agreeable way to pass a few hours.

The next expansion, Curse of the Pharaohs, is supposed to be a bit bigger and more inventive so I'm looking forward to that one a lot.

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War - Not the new one, but the first one, except on Vita through the GoW Collection. EDIT: Platinum'd it now, so that's nice.

I've completed Assassin's Creed: Origins - Curse of the Pharaohs. Solid enough but less enjoyable than either the main game or the first DLC so it's a good place to leave this for now. I've got a few more trophies to get before I close off on it all but the end is in sight. Not going to Platinum it (there's one ridiculous trophy in there that would take hours and hours to get) but I'm going to get reasonably close I think.

Glad to see this has been pinned now. I mean, I didn't want to ask. :P

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War

JULY
God of War II - Done, only a few trophies and then it's Platinum. Great game, solid Vita port that had some weird stuttering/slowdown on the menus, but not mid-action. Don't think I'm going straight into GoW3HD on PS4 though, that'd be a bit much (and a bit gory, considering I'd have to play that on my big TV, not in my hand where the kids can't see).

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War

JULY
God of War II
Batman: Arkham Asylum - Done on Hard, got most of the trophies but suspect I won't get them all… the combat challenges are really tough to get three medals on, and you need to do them all for the last trophies. Annoying, really. Still a great game, though it's smaller than I remember on repeated play. Not going onto City yet, there's only so much Batman I can take.

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War

JULY
God of War II
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Headlander - Had this sitting there for ages but never played it. Done it now, Platinum, and deleted. Lovely game, surprisingly good fun and quite challenging in places. Worth a punt, since it's currently in the PSN sale for a few quid.

Hang about, how did Mart complete Fortnite?

I think he once won a round, and has no shame.

Hang about, how did Mart complete Fortnite?

It took him two weeks.

I think he once won a round, and has no shame.

I cannot deny either of these facts. :)

(I won my third-ever round without firing a single bullet… no way to ever top that, so I was done) :D

Completed Yakuza Zero last night. Absolutely first rate from start to finish. I’ll add some detailed thoughts to the main thread in due course.

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War

JULY
God of War II
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Headlander
Mother Russia Bleeds - Totally understand why this got very little attention when it came out from the media… it's really quite grotesque in places and very much fits into the Hotline Miami style of Devolver games. That said, however, it's also a surprisingly solid and enjoyable side-scrolling beat-'em-up in same vein as Streets Of Rage. Only got to play it alone, I suspect it'd be even better with other people. Don't think I'll end up getting all the trophies since some of them are quite tough without people helping you out, but I'll get what I can. Worth a look, if you're that way inclined, but obviously with a severe warning of language, gore, drugs and sexual activity throughout.

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War

JULY
God of War II
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Headlander
Mother Russia Bleeds

AUGUST
Chasm - The indie community are currently gushing all over this, saying how amazing it is because it's one of those Kickstarter 'took ages to come out because we're too fixated on attention to detail, but now it's here!' stories. Having played it through, there's no denying it's got a buttload of charm in the character designs, the monsters, the level backgrounds, the music… it's lovely. BUT, that said, it's also rather sterile and uninspired, not much going on in the way of complexity or clever ideas. That's almost entirely because it's a procedurally-generated Metroidvania game, meaning there's no-one behind the map layout crafting an intricate web of interesting design… it's all done by algorithm.

That's great in that it means you never play the same game twice… but you do, because the items you can collect and obstacles you have to overcome aren't any different, they're just jumbled around like someone shuffling a deck of cards by scattering them over a tabletop. The result is a decent-enough game, but nothing revolutionary or particularly exciting. Would I want to play it again, knowing that it'd be different if I did? Not really. In fact, that's less appealing to, say, playing through something I've already finished and would essentially be repeating (see: Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Super Metroid, etc). I saw an article say this exact criticism immediately after I'd finished it, only for a bunch of people to leap on it and go 'No, you're wrong, this game's amazing, you're an idiot for saying otherwise!' and I tuned out. It was a good criticism, a perfectly valid one, but not surprisingly people just shot it down because they didn't agree with it.

Batman: The Telltale Series - Blitzed the whole first season over the weekend. It's okay. The story was pretty good. But it did make me realise how light on actual gameplay the Telltale games are. It's just… pressing a button, occasionally? That's about it. Maybe a few buttons in quick succession. I get it, it's basically a visual novel, but still. The engine's janky as hell now as well, but I think I read somewhere that they've got a new one for their future games… unless I made that up in my head.

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War

JULY
God of War II
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Headlander
Mother Russia Bleeds

AUGUST
Chasm
Batman: The Telltale Series
Metropolis: Lux Obscura - Utterly lovely art style, very Sin City comics in nature, and a relatively half-decent match-three mechanic not unlike Puzzle Quest. It's also got branching routes through the story with four different endings. Sadly though, the writing's absolutely terrible (both in terms of translation and the actual content) and it's full of sex scenes that someone clearly wanted to show in as much detail as possible, which is a little unpleasant when they don't actually lend anything to the story. Plus, it's a janky broken game with busted trophies that require rebooting everything, broken voiceover that plays even when you've got it turned off and AI that's all over the place. Finished, Platinum'd, deleted.

Dragon Age: Inquisition
Celeste
Ratchet & Clank
Rise of the Tomb Raider

That's all I can remember, anyway, so that's a years-old RPG I really liked, a brilliant 2D platformer, a remake I completed a month ago and promptly forgot about, and now RotTR…

It's a good game, to be fair to it, especially for the £12 or so I got it for (PSN sales continue unabated). Seemed pretty much like what I expect from most AAA titles these days - extremely polished, with occasionally jaw-dropping graphics, a lengthy list of collectibles/busywork activities to tick off, and a tendency to at least slightly overstay their welcome - so I enjoyed it, but won't be playing the imminent sequel until it's similarly discounted, I think.

Just completed Life is Strange, which I started yesterday and have blasted through. Loved this, I actually begin to consider 'the twist' although I think that's due to my annoying media studies brain never shutting off. Been really ill the last few days and the last episode is not easy with such a muggy fog over my brain, but I have have that post brilliant game melancholy feeling where I just want to read as much about the game as possible. And can't imagine starting a new narrative game until this settles in my mind.

Oxenfree - not even sure what this was when I started, assumed by the name and icon it would be a sort of puzzle/match up icons experience. Really enjoyed that even if I am not totally sure what's happened at the end.

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War

JULY
God of War II
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Headlander
Mother Russia Bleeds

AUGUST
Chasm
Batman: The Telltale Series
Metropolis: Lux Obscura
WarioWare Gold - I was really, really disappointed by this. Went into it thinking it was the 'ultimate' WarioWare game (I picked it up just before going to Gamescom so I could play it on the train), but it's ridiculously short and doesn't have half the content I expected it to. For a full-price game, I was gutted. Not sure what I've missed here… I should go back to see what's going on there, but I don't have the inclination right now.
Guacamelee 2 - A weird one, because it's clearly very polished and good, but as someone who rinsed the original completely (I Platinum'd it twice!), it also feels very similar and more like an add-on for the first game rather than a totally new experience. It only adds a bit to what was there, rather than do much new: almost all the enemies, moves and other ideas are identical to the first game, some gameplay areas that are actually identical to before and it's generally super-familiar. The fact that I breezed through it with very few problems and got 100% completion straight away says it all… if you know the original, this isn't exactly new. But it's still good! Just felt a bit odd, since it wasn't as new as I expected.

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War

JULY
God of War II
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Headlander
Mother Russia Bleeds

AUGUST
Chasm
Batman: The Telltale Series
Metropolis: Lux Obscura
WarioWare Gold
Guacamelee 2
Donut County - Didn't expect this to be quite as short as it is, because it came out yesterday and I finished it in a single sitting. Enjoyable, fun story (if a little annoying in its overuse of internet speak) and the game was okay. Trophies seem to come from doing things in levels that aren't what you're meant to do, so I'll go back and get those soon. Possibly tonight, maybe tomorrow. I liked it, I guess.

Maybe a bit of a stretch but I'm claiming Pokemon Go. After two and a half years of daily play I've finally hit level 40, the level cap - and found my inclination to play it has immediately dropped off a cliff. Without that tick-tick-tick of everything you do in the game counting towards something, it all seems rather, well, pointless. The majority of the game now is clicking on random Pokemon to see if you've got lucky with an astronomically low chance of a shiny variant, and that doesn't do much for me really. I figured I'd take a break for a bit, but after more than a week of not playing, I don't really miss it at all.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Rogue Aces
Call of Duty Black Ops 3
Celeste
Ratchet & Clank
Rise of the Tomb Raider

Spider-Man

A fifth platinum for me, and probably the best (licensed) superhero game I’ve played that didn’t have ‘Arkham’ in the name; a few niggles and the standard occasional lack of variety/quality in the side-missions aside, this was actually pretty great, and did Spidey real justice, especially with the story. I’ll try and elaborate further at some point when I’m not on my phone.

(Was having a quick look at my trophies earlier, which is why there are a few additions to my list, as I “remembered” a few based on that.)

Clicker Heroes - first things first, yes I do hate myself for playing this; I think I started during one of those play 3 free to play games and get some cash offers from MS. My plan was to ditch it immediately afterwards, but then it dropped a bunch of achievements so I had a look at the rest and realised they were all doable without spending money and so in a fit of bloody mindedness decided to get them all. Since then it’s been a long, pointless, slog of turning it on for a few minutes a day, but other than that basically letting it play itself which is for the best as it’s not really a game, rather an interactive spreadsheet with a pretty front end.

anyway, I’m now free - hurrah!

Since then it’s been a long, pointless, slog of turning it on for a few minutes a day, but other than that basically letting it play itself which is for the best as it’s not really a game, rather an interactive spreadsheet with a pretty front end.

Just like Final Fantasy XII then!

I finished a game!!!

Rise of The Tomb Raider, like JDub, got it cheap in a PSN sale recently. It took me a couple of goes to get into it. I stopped just after the Baba Yaga level, and didn’t touch the game again for the whole summer - actually I stopped playing at the end of April, shortly after trying the PSVR level and getting motion sickness.

Once I did get back into it, it flew by. Was taking my time and getting as many of the items I could - but looking at the trophies now I’m finished, I must have missed out on 2/3rds of them.

As for the story - I liked it. Would have liked less fighting and more tombs, and am looking forward to Shadow.

Would have liked less fighting and more tombs, and am looking forward to Shadow.

Sadly, these two things directly contradict each other (or so I'm led to believe). :(

Almost everything I've heard about Shadow puts me off it; I don't know why they're pushing Lara Croft - sarcastic, sardonic, globetrotting murder-billionaire Lara Croft - into grimdark mode. This is stored to be her "BECOMING THE TOMB RAIDER" - so why is she so unlike the Tomb Raider?

Completed Yoku's Island Express. A charming, low-key and ultimately slightly forgettable Metroidvania. It's remarkably low-stress: you can't die, or lose progress; objectives are clearly highlighted on the map; and it's small enough that you'll quickly find your way around and completing the game really only takes a few hours. It's a nice palate-cleanser between more substantial fare but I don't feel particularly inclined to go back and track down its secrets and there are better games available in its (currently wildly prolific) genre.

JANUARY
Four Last Things

FEBRUARY
Slayaway Camp
Rise & Shine
Small Radios, Big Televisions
Her Majesty's Spiffing: The Empire Staggers Back
Fortnite
Iconoclasts

MARCH
Red
Part-Time UFO
Metroid: Samus Returns
Tembo The Badass Elephant

APRIL
Burly Men At Sea
Minit
The Adventure Pals

MAY
Dandara
The Swords of Ditto

JUNE
Crazy Taxi Tycoon
Tearaway Unfolded
Yoku's Island Express
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Omega Strike
God of War

JULY
God of War II
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Headlander
Mother Russia Bleeds

AUGUST
Chasm
Batman: The Telltale Series
Metropolis: Lux Obscura
WarioWare Gold
Guacamelee 2
Donut County

SEPTEMBER
Absolutely nothing and I'm ashamed. :)

OCTOBER
Hollow Knight - Finally went for the end of this over the weekend and got the bad ending, which is… fine? I guess? There are four more, but only two of them are doable since I refuse point blank to pour time into the Godhome DLC stuff that's little more than a trumped-up boss rush mode. The bosses here are hard enough, why the hell would I want to fight them in succession? That said, there's a lot to like about the game and the way it continually unravels new content… I very much enjoyed it. Even so, once I've got the last two endings (not difficult, just means I have to handle the last boss fight slightly differently each time), I'll be happy to draw a line under this one. 104% complete out of 112%… I'm happy with that.

Nothing says 'You are alone' more than realizing you have no one to play the new Super Mario Party on Switch with atm. XD

As mentioned in the thread, I finished Yakuza Zero, which was pretty great - despite the best efforts of its rubbish combat system. All it needs is an enemy lock-on and it'd be great; its floaty "punch-the-air" bullshit got real tired in those closing missions.

The question now is, do I jump straight onto Yakuza Kiwami, grind out some more hostess levels, or give the series a break? Dragon Quest XI is looking very good right now…

Apparently the games are very similar (Zero and Kiwami especially) so you risk burnout by jumping straight to the next. Take a break.

All it needs is an enemy lock-on and it'd be great; its floaty "punch-the-air" bullshit got real tired in those closing missions.

Wait… does it NOT have a lock-on? When the combat pretty much requires something like it? Blimey. I've played a few games in the past that had crazy fighting and no lock-on, and that killed them stone dead for me. That said, Batman doesn't have it, so I guess if the combat's tight enough… but I get the impression it's not here. Hmm.

It does. Hold down R1 in battle. (I didn't use it much though).

Oh. Well that's embarrassing.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Rogue Aces
Call of Duty Black Ops 3
Celeste
Ratchet & Clank
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Spider-Man
Horizon Zero Dawn

I liked that. I managed about fifteen minutes of the Frozen Wilds before I decided I'd had enough and would (maybe) play that later though.

It's quite hard for me to work out or explain quite how much or why I liked it though, even to myself; it has so many things it does well, and yet there are also a bunch of little issues. I think it boils down to it a very beautifully presented and well made version of every other AAA open-world game (with some Tom Raider and Monster Hunter thrown in), with all the baggage that entails, which means that for all the pretty graphics, the surprisingly decent story, and the multitude of other nice touches, there's a very palpable sense of having pretty much seen it all before.

I will now very deliberately play nothing even remotely AAA or open-world for a week or two, for just in case I can't resist RDR2…

Mark the date, people, I FINISHED A GAME! Only took me until fucking Hallowe'en.

Spider-Man (PS4)

It's very, very good - as everyone else in the universe has pointed out - and does some interesting stuff with the canon, so even if you're familiar with (bits of) it, it still manages to keep a few unexpected bits. I liked it! Still have a bunch of side missions and stuff left to do, but it's one of the most common platinums going at the moment, so I'll likely get there eventually.

…now then, what next..?

Overcooked 2, apparently, was next. Didn't realise how close we were to the end, though I think we only unlocked/completed maybe 3 of the Kevin levels.

Just finished up Halo via the MC collection.

Huge fan of the game. Think it may still be my favourite, halo 2 multi not being counted.

I have fond memories of… bits of Halo; I remember the back half being a bit of a slog, bar maybe the last level? Halo 2 I dislike quite a lot; I remember 3 and 4 being okay, and I never finished ODST, but I think Reach was the high point of the series.