Your Games Completed of 2019

1

Sorry, Customer Service is currently experiencing a high number of calls. Please hold.

elevator version of Super Mario World theme

# #

Not sure if it's the same problem you're having but I've always found the wireless connections on the joy-cons to be extremely poor, very sensitive to range and interference. Even in my (not especially large) living room I find they sometimes drop inputs and drift, and are easily blocked by my leg or even my hand. I managed to improve it a bit by moving the Switch away from other sources of wireless interference but it's a room with a load of consoles and other electronic equipment as well as a wireless access point so there was only so much I could do. Putting them in the little slidey things or the dogface adaptor helps a bit but they are just shit, unfortunately.

The Pro Controller (which isn't a cheap option, admittedly) suffers from none of this and is pretty much the only way I play Switch docked now.

Does your joycon drift improve if you're very close to the Switch?

The drift is always terrible. If I push up and release the stick bounces back, but the Switch still has an up input until I push in another direction.

Have you updated them? There's an option in the settings to do that and they seem to get updates regularly.

I'm fairly sure it's a mechanical issue but I'll give it a go.

Lift the rubber skirts on the sticks - spray contact cleaner in there, give them a wiggle.

Then do the joyconslol

I'll give it a go.

Beat Final Fantasy VIII - I think…at least going back as far as FFIV, this game has:

The worst music (what is up with some of these songs, Liberi Fatali is sick though)

The worst characters (Does any of the party besides Rinoa and Squall even count as character, compared to Tifa/Aeris/Quina/Vivi…?)

The worst gameplay (It's the most broken game in the entire series I think, which is more fun than not breaking it. Also Junction is fucking awful)

The worst story (Disc 1 events are a fucking clown show, Ultimecia is a cool villain who needs fleshing out, I can't think of a time she even has a dialogue with Squall or anyone else in the party)

That said…I enjoyed my nostalgic playthrough, it's got a lot of bad but I don't think anything actively unfun, every time you have to play as Laguna I groaned though. It's structure is pretty nice in that it doesn't really have traditional dungeons and the 'real world' aesthetic is great (Remember when SE were hyping up FFXV as the 'real world' FF? big think).

Yakuza Kiwami 2 - great fun, a big improvement on Kiwami 1 though not quite hitting the heights of Zero. It's a bit of an odd mix between the shiny new graphics engine, the PS2-era plot and side-stories, and the new minigames and side-activities, but you don't play Yakuza games for a coherent experience, it's the collision between all the various elements that makes them so unique. Going to take a break from the series now while the remasters of 3/4/5 are completed, I'm a bit Yakuza'd out for now.

Mario Golf World Tour
Red Dead Redemption 2
Titanfall 2
God of War
Yoku’s Island Express
Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall
Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches
Spider-Man: City Never Sleeps
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Holedown
Spaceplan
Dust: An Elysian Tale

Borderlands 2 (properly this time)
Assemble With Care
Florence

A game I'd already sort of completed earlier in the year, a finely crafted two-hour Apple Arcade game, and then a slightly wonderful iOS game which I have no qualms about paying for, even if it did take less time to get through than an episode of most tv shows.

I'm going to need to stop playing so much arcade/roguelike fare and try and get into a "proper" game soon.

Mario Golf World Tour
Red Dead Redemption 2
Titanfall 2
God of War
Yoku’s Island Express
Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall
Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches
Spider-Man: City Never Sleeps
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Holedown
Spaceplan
Dust: An Elysian Tale

Assemble With Care
Cricket Through The Ages
Florence
Borderlands 2

Gone Home

Assemble With Care and Cricket Through The Ages are a couple of nicely made Apple Arcade games:
Assemble is a fun, light, tactile puzzle game given a slight story to push it along. CTTA is one of those daft single-button sports games, given a silly single-player accompaniment to the multiplayer element, and made me laugh out loud more than once. Neither are worth subscribing for, but worth a look if you are anyway.

Florence was another one I played through on the iPad, the beautifully-presented story of a relationship, and is a lovely way of spending the half an hour or so it takes to drift through it.

Borderlands 2 got fun (with Zer0) as soon as I unlocked a capstone skill, which basically meant it took about a day's worth of play. I suspect that means I had an issue with picking a character which, while theoretically suiting my style, gets a (very) slow start, as well as general impatience, but that does feel like a bit too long before a game gets "good". Even so, it did enough that I'll potentially pick Borderlands 3 up at some point in a sale, because it is a loop/world I quite enjoy, despite myself (and the usual Borderlands annoyances), assuming I'm in the right mood.

Now onto the game I actually completed yesterday, rather than completed (again) previously and forgot about…

Gone Home surprised me in terms of its atmosphere (though I won't go into why, on the off-chance there's still someone else who hasn't played it), but it is difficult to say exactly what I made of it. It feels like it would've been more affecting as a fresh experience, but it was somewhat compromised (for me) by it's status as an early and important example of it's genre, and all the expectation and discussion that comes with that; as an example, I'm sure that I must've heard what the primary plot "twist" is previously, but had forgotten until one of the first mild hints the game gives. It's not a huge thing, but I think all things considered it would've been nice to discover it all more organically.

It's largely worthy of it's reputation, though, even as it starts to show it's age/limitations, and it's hardly a huge time investment (it can be completed in under a minute, apparently, though I didn't manage that, and my first playthrough took maybe a couple of hours) so as a standalone experience, if you're going in cold (and with tempered expectations), I'd still say it was worth a look to anyone partial to this kind of narrative experience.

(Do I win something for getting through that without saying 'walking simulator'?)

JANUARY
Starlink: Battle For Atlas
The Spectrum Retreat
A Rubik's Cube
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

FEBRUARY
Guacamelee 2
Rogue Aces
The Gardens Between

MARCH
Gris
Return of the Obra Dinn
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
GODS Remastered

APRIL
Pode
Yoshi's Crafted World

MAY
Pool Panic
Forgotten Anne
Splatoon 2 (main single player campaign)
Shakedown Miami
Retro City Rampage
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy

JUNE
Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit!
Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer featuring The Legend of Zelda

JULY
Super Lucky's Tale

AUGUST
Nada (really?! Wow)

SEPTEMBER
Tap! Dig! MyMuseum
Creature in the Well
Mortal Kombat 11
Sayonara Wild Hearts

OCTOBER
Darksiders 2 - Never finished this before, though I got near the end… went back on PS4 from the start and now I've done it. Not as good as the first one, very bloated with stuff, some weird design decisions (whoever created the 'third person shooter' level needs their head examined) but still playable. Sadly, I did it on the new 'Deathinitive' difficulty and man, that's some unfun shit. Skill-based difficulty is fine; just making enemies damage sponges while allowing them to kill you in four hits, especially when you're facing several at once, totally sucks. I've slapped it on Easy now for the last few trophies but I'll be honest… I can't be arsed.
Knights and Bikes - Played this co-op with my other half online, since it's a two player adventure. It's good! Not great, but definitely good and with a pretty neat story that is both touching, sad and funny. A bit tough round the edges in places, mainly online issues (seems less buggy in local or solo play) but I'd recommend it if it shows up cheap in a sale (I Kickstarted it).
Return of the Obra Dinn - Again, since I did it on PC in March and this was PS4. Still a great game. Not quite as satisfying this time, since I could remember some of the tricks it pulls to trip you up. But hey, great films with big twists are still great even if you know what's coming. Just need to get one more trophy and that's the Platinum…

Shadow of Mordor. Superb game. I think what impressed me most about this was its restraint - especially compared to late-gen open-world titles. The map is very small, basically a couple of muddy fields that you can run across in a minute or so; cut-scenes are short and to the point, usually consisting of a short sequence where someone explains what you've got to do then leaves you to it; collectibles are clearly marked on the map; and the lore is sensibly kept to optional text to read and never overwhelms the game, perhaps surprisingly given the source. So you spend 95% of your time in Shadow of Mordor actually playing the game, and it's depressing how refreshing that feels.

And it's well-judged throughout. The Nemesis system is superb, and you get quite attached to your favourite orcs: I particularly enjoyed spending time with Grublik the Flogger, who looked like Dominic Cummings, and there was another orc captain whose principal weakness was "Fear of the Ranger", i.e. he shat himself and ran away every time he saw me. Playing them off against each other is tremendous fun and the mid-game switch-up in the mechanics happens at exactly the point lesser games would be starting to get stale. It's got a nice progression curve too: it introduces new abilities at a sensible speed so you actually use them all, and over the course of a few hours you go from an underpowered weakling to a teleporting, head-chopping, orc-slicing demigod, but it's never any less fun to play as a result.

It's not perfect: it didn't really need three separate skill trees, the ending is astonishingly abrupt, and there's an extended story sequence in the second act where you help a random dwarf kill monsters for absolutely no reason at all. But the story is really secondary to just messing about with the Nemesis system, and the game's wise enough to give you the time and space to do that with a couple of objectives that are so open-ended you can approach them in any way you like.

I've still got plenty to do. I want to go back and at least complete the (pretty decent) weapon upgrade missions, then there are two hefty chunks of DLC (the GamePass version which I've been playing is the Game of the Year edition), then of course there's the sequel. I'm looking forward to all of it. One of the more pleasant surprises of this gen for sure.

JANUARY
Starlink: Battle For Atlas
The Spectrum Retreat
A Rubik's Cube
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

FEBRUARY
Guacamelee 2
Rogue Aces
The Gardens Between

MARCH
Gris
Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
GODS Remastered

APRIL
Pode
Yoshi's Crafted World

MAY
Pool Panic
Forgotten Anne
Splatoon 2 (main single player campaign)
Shakedown Miami
Retro City Rampage
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy

JUNE
Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit!
Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer featuring The Legend of Zelda

JULY
Super Lucky's Tale

AUGUST
Nada (really?! Wow)

SEPTEMBER
Tap! Dig! MyMuseum
Creature in the Well
Mortal Kombat 11
Sayonara Wild Hearts

OCTOBER
Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition
Knights and Bikes
Return of the Obra Dinn (PS4)
Castle Crashers Remastered - Shorter, more annoying and less fun than I remember it being. Fine for what it is though, I guess. I'd go for the Platinum, but some of the remaining trophies demand multiplayer when I don't have anyone to play it with and one is for playing a new mode that is, frankly, dogshit. So, sadly, I might have to leave this one as it is.

Going to stick Lonely Mountains: Downhill in here because I've completed all the trails in it now, although I'm far from done. Still got a huge number of challenges to tackle and haven't even unlocked a second bike yet. I'm #20 in the world on one of the hardest tracks though which isn't bad for an old git like me.

JANUARY
Starlink: Battle For Atlas
The Spectrum Retreat
A Rubik's Cube
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

FEBRUARY
Guacamelee 2
Rogue Aces
The Gardens Between

MARCH
Gris
Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
GODS Remastered

APRIL
Pode
Yoshi's Crafted World

MAY
Pool Panic
Forgotten Anne
Splatoon 2 (main single player campaign)
Shakedown Miami
Retro City Rampage
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy

JUNE
Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit!
Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer featuring The Legend of Zelda

JULY
Super Lucky's Tale

AUGUST
Nada (really?! Wow)

SEPTEMBER
Tap! Dig! MyMuseum
Creature in the Well
Mortal Kombat 11
Sayonara Wild Hearts

OCTOBER
Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition
Knights and Bikes
Return of the Obra Dinn (PS4)
Castle Crashers Remastered

NOVEMBER
Pikuniku - It's £12 on Switch, I got it for £3.19 in the sale after a few gold points on top. It's definitely £3.19 worth of game and not much more. Lots of silly side stuff left unfinished/unfound but as quaint as it was, I've got absolutely no desire to go back to it. Done, deleted, next.

Mario Golf World Tour
Red Dead Redemption 2
Titanfall 2
God of War
Yoku’s Island Express
Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall
Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches
Spider-Man: City Never Sleeps
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Holedown
Spaceplan
Dust: An Elysian Tale
Assemble With Care
Cricket Through The Ages
Florence
Borderlands 2
Gone Home

What the Golf?!

Very amusing, and often brilliantly observed, but still stretched a little thin by the end (though much less so than I was expecting).

I did pay actual money for Apple Arcade for a month in the end, but as someone who can't be bothered to attach a controller to an iPad and already has plenty to play, it stopped appealing enough to persevere with (despite a few excellent games), and has now been cancelled. Worth keeping an eye on though.

JANUARY
Starlink: Battle For Atlas
The Spectrum Retreat
A Rubik's Cube
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

FEBRUARY
Guacamelee 2
Rogue Aces
The Gardens Between

MARCH
Gris
Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
GODS Remastered

APRIL
Pode
Yoshi's Crafted World

MAY
Pool Panic
Forgotten Anne
Splatoon 2 (main single player campaign)
Shakedown Miami
Retro City Rampage
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy

JUNE
Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit!
Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer featuring The Legend of Zelda

JULY
Super Lucky's Tale

AUGUST
Nada (really?! Wow)

SEPTEMBER
Tap! Dig! MyMuseum
Creature in the Well
Mortal Kombat 11
Sayonara Wild Hearts

OCTOBER
Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition
Knights and Bikes
Return of the Obra Dinn (PS4)
Castle Crashers Remastered

NOVEMBER
Pikuniku
Luigi's Mansion 3 - Really enjoyed this, especially as I played the whole thing in co-op. A few of the late boss fights seemed quite tough, not sure how you'd do one of them alone and another didn't seem to have much strategy to the first half. But we did it, so that's good. Only main issue: I didn't get all the achievements or Boos, but there doesn't seem to be a way to go back and get them if you start the final boss battle as the save point is right when it starts. Bit of an oversight, really, as I'd like to go back without starting over. Otherwise though, loved it.

Shenmue II. I'll add some thoughts in the main thread for this.

Lots to add!

JANUARY
Starlink: Battle For Atlas
The Spectrum Retreat
A Rubik's Cube
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

FEBRUARY
Guacamelee 2
Rogue Aces
The Gardens Between

MARCH
Gris
Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
GODS Remastered

APRIL
Pode
Yoshi's Crafted World

MAY
Pool Panic
Forgotten Anne
Splatoon 2 (main single player campaign)
Shakedown Miami
Retro City Rampage
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy

JUNE
Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit!
Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer featuring The Legend of Zelda

JULY
Super Lucky's Tale

AUGUST
Nada (really?! Wow)

SEPTEMBER
Tap! Dig! MyMuseum
Creature in the Well
Mortal Kombat 11
Sayonara Wild Hearts

OCTOBER
Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition
Knights and Bikes
Return of the Obra Dinn (PS4)
Castle Crashers Remastered

NOVEMBER
Pikuniku
Luigi's Mansion 3
The Stretchers - Another one that I played and completed in co-op while I was away staying with my partner. I knew about this one for ages, since Nintendo published it, but it finally got released quietly while I was away. Think Overcooked meets the NHS, with added incompetence. Two people (or one, since it can be played solo with some coordinated controls) basically have to find people who've been 'dizzied' and cart them back to an ambulance, then get them to the hospital. Sounds easy, except it's very much Chuckle Brothers level of nonsense in that you have to coordinate carrying the stretcher, getting people onto it in a pile, solving puzzles to reach people and finding all kinds of secret things to collect as well along the way. It's quite short and a few bits are annoying (hello, chase level before the end!) but it's genuinely funny in a slapstick way and made me laugh a lot. Driving the ambulance is especially silly, as one person drives while the other controls additional things you unlock during the game. I liked it, so keep an eye out for it appearing in a sale if you fancy it.
The Big Journey - If you're going to copy a game, might as well go the whole hog. This is a full blown rip-off of LocoRoco, bar the ability to split up and merge again. It's fine, was only £2.
The Touryst - I've been looking forward to this one for a while, since we featured in it an Indie World presentation. Turns out it's good, but not amazing. Very lovely to look at in a voxel way, but quite short and broken up: you have multiple tiny islands to explore, find things to do and generally solve puzzles. I really liked the way it doesn't hold your hand and makes you work stuff out for yourself, but ultimately it's a little light on things to do through the main quest and the side-quests are just stuff with little consequence. I liked it, but wish I'd got it at a discount. The ending could have been better too.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp - Pretty much bang on the second year anniversary of this one, I think I can safely say I'm done with it. I don't have the drive to keep going, especially since it's same stuff happening in a cycle, and I feel like it's played out. Still, two years of daily play isn't bad I guess. I won't delete it, since it's one of my work projects and I need to have it on hand to check things, but I doubt I'll be on it much beyond that.

Finished Luigi’s Mansion 3 - well, beat the last boss. I’ve a number of gems still to get and all the Boo’s.

Enjoyed that, just about my level of difficulty

Finished Shenmue III - fantastic. Tried to string it out as long as I could but all good things come to an end eventually. Or not, in the case of Ryo's story. The journey continues.

Mario Golf World Tour
Red Dead Redemption 2
Titanfall 2
God of War
Yoku’s Island Express
Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall
Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches
Spider-Man: City Never Sleeps
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Holedown
Spaceplan
Dust: An Elysian Tale
Assemble With Care
Cricket Through The Ages
Florence
Borderlands 2
Gone Home
What the Golf?!

Data Wing
Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition
Ruiner

Data Wing is a free indie on mobile (I played on iOS) that takes elements from old top-down racers and physics puzzlers, that is actually genuinely good, and well worth a look.

Bulletstorm is what it was last gen - an imperfect but genuinely amusing and inventive FPS that, at least in terms of the weight of the characters, feels weirdly like Gears of War. The first half remains considerably stronger than the second (and one of its missteps is assuming it was the first of a series), but I enjoyed blasting through it in a few days just as much as I did the first time.

Ruiner is a slick top-down/isometric shooter set in a futuristic dystopia, which probably leans a little too much into its sadistic/nihilistic elements for my liking. That might in turn explain why it took almost two years for me to finish it (in very short, very irregular bursts). It also probably needs to be played on a harder difficulty, by a better player, to get the best out of it - any time I got even remotely stuck I just ramped up the stats on my dash and self-healing powers, and half-arsed my through, which I doubt is what they had in mind.

There's definitely [i]something[/i} there though, and I can see myself going back to it in future.

I played through Data Wing on Android a couple years ago and really enjoyed it.

Ruiner is a slick top-down/isometric shooter set in a futuristic dystopia, which probably leans a little too much into its sadistic/nihilistic elements for my liking. That might in turn explain why it took almost two years for me to finish it (in very short, very irregular bursts). It also probably needs to be played on a harder difficulty, by a better player, to get the best out of it - any time I got even remotely stuck I just ramped up the stats on my dash and self-healing powers, and half-arsed my through, which I doubt is what they had in mind.

I wouldn't be so sure. I tried it on the highest difficulty from the off (because trophies) and it's almost impossibly hard. I barely got through the second mission… in fact, I might have only got to the boss of it. It was hard to the point that I genuinely wasn't having any kind of enjoyment, so I stopped playing. Keep meaning to start over on the lowest difficulty just to finish it, because I love the aesthetic, but I've never bothered. Pity, it's right up my alley.

I muddled through on normal, so I’d imagine you can at least manage that.

I’m just annoyed that I never triggered the first part of the C.A.T.S side mission, after spending the time tracking down both the second lots (without realising).

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit

I'll be honest, I hadn't even heard of this one. But I was playing through Life is Strange 2 and then suddenly at the start of chapter 2 it starts looking for save data from this thing. Turns out it's a free demo sort of thing that acts as a kind of prequel or side-story to Life is Strange 2. It also acts as a standalone story featuring a new character, Chris, an superhero-fixated eight-year-old boy trying to entertain himself one snowy morning. It's desperately poignant and sad, actually quite upsetting in places, but absolutely worth playing: it's only an hour or two long, costs nothing and doesn't require any other knowledge of the series to play. Very glad I discovered this, and interested to see how the events and choices I've made here feed back into the parent title.