Hey. The gaming thread was resurrected. Neat. Perfectly timed with the apparently lackluster game awards. 

Well, I’m grateful that I’ve had a lot of games to keep me occupied. (Even more so than last year.) Because this year has otherwise been a pretty low point for general entertainment. 

So without further ado, here’s some quick reviews.
 
[b][u]Actual good games. (In the order that I played them.)[/u][/b]

Dark Souls 3: This game is the closest to making the “challenging but fair” mantra accurate. And it’s easily the best paced Souls game in terms of what everyone is here for; fighting bosses. But it does have its own unique bugs, (teleporting enemies) bullshit gimmick bosses, (the giant killed my onion. :c), and moon logic (like needing to buy 4 random ass spells to be given the item that makes the jail area a cakewalk.) But I enjoyed my time throughout, and found nearly every bosses’ gimmick to be entertaining. (Quite the refreshing time after DS2/Bloodborne’s bosses kept disappointing me.)

Lies Of P: I’m surprised how much I enjoyed the music, characters, atmosphere and story of this game. (Especially after watching someone stream this, and immediately finding the King Of Riddles “Joker voice” grating.) And I think it’s excellent how the developers have continued to listen to its fans after release. (Like improving the readability of the enemies animations, and recently upgrading the dodge.) But my experience was kind of spoiled with how balancing worked. Because many bosses seemed borderline impossible without the overpowered summon, that made almost every boss feel unsatisfying to defeat. (Or they were bugged and easily exploitable. Like almost every miniboss that allowed you free roam and subsequently walk out of bounds of its aggro range.) And the last boss was an obnoxious endurance test that almost made me rage quit. So I’m conflicted in singing the praises of something that I found frustrating more often than not. But I am looking forward to what these devs do in the future.

Dark Souls: The interconnectivity and worldbuilding is easily the strongest part of this game. (No other Souls-like comes close to this.) And the characters also leave a strong impression on you. (In a sense that you don’t have to go out of your way to find them, and they seem to be doing their own thing.) But I do agree with the recent sentiment that the final four areas and bosses aren’t enjoyable to get through. And the Remastered version on PC had a frequent item pick up bug (made items a glowing bag on the floor that you couldn’t pick up) that forced me constantly restart the game and lose said items. So I enjoyed my time. But I take back what I said about this game being fair, because there’s a lot of bullsh*t in this game. 

Remnant 2: So, I only recently got this. But this is certainly a more consistent quality product compared to its predecessor. With the gun gameplay feeling quick and snappy, (because the aim assist is incredibly generous.) The challenge being fairly easy and breezy throughout, aside from the generally awful hitboxes of large monsters and one-hit kill moves of bosses. (The cube maze boss is the worst.) But despite not having the same lows of the first Remnant. Parts make it feel like its “Remnant 1.5”, with worse AI generated level design, and stupider AI enemies that all only rush at you. (Unlike the gun mobs that run to take cover and flank you like the first game.) And it does make the same mistake of making its final boss a miserable experience. (For much worse reasons than Lies Of P.) Being an absolute unfair clusterfuck with three phases that basically requires me to grind out a 2nd subclass. A thing I’d be more willing to do, if the story itself didn’t completely suck. (But it was fun for twenty hours. Will finish at some point.)

[u][b]Things I’m glad I didn’t pay for. (Just some of what I played through.)[/b][/u]

South Park Stick Of Truth: I enjoyed this one for the most part. But it was starting to wear out its welcome, and ability to make more than a single joke in its 2nd half. To the point where I was glad it was over. (Much like Spiritfarer. Because holy hell did that game drag on relentlessly.)

Superliminal: Short and sweet. The puzzle aspect is debatable when the biggest challenge is getting the “perspective growing” to work properly.

Nioh: This game has three fucking tutorial sections, and its as strange as it sounds. But it does have some unique ideas that might’ve made a strong “non-souls” game. If the enemy design wasn’t so immediately repetitive. (Maybe I’ll try the sequel some day?)

Dragon’s Dogma: Despite a strong opening tutorial and story hook, this game’s exploration was frustrating and dull from the start. With the pawns truly never shutting the f*ck up. (Unless you turn off their dialogue in the menu.) (Maybe I’ll give it another shot later. Since it supposedly gets better.)

Sea Of Stars: The decent combat is on par with that paper-bug RPG. (In that you have to press a lot of buttons for a turn-based system, which some might enjoy for being more involved or find repetitive, depending on who you are.) But the characters might be the blandest cardboard cutouts I’ve ever experienced in an RPG. This is not comparable to Chrono Cross.

Roki: The main protagonist repeatedly throws rocks at birds, tricks strangers, complains about her younger sibling, and burns her house down with her sleeping father inside. Our hero everybody. But seriously, the gameplay is obtuse and not particularly engaging.

Uno: “Classic” Uno now has half-a-dozen stupid rules that you’ve never used in your life, and you can’t finish a game before someone disconnects. (You can’t seem to join fresh lobbies either. So you’re always starting in the middle of a game.)

Tetris Effect Connected: The input lag and god awful pop music somehow made playing Tetris undesirable. (It was legitimately impossible to clear levels on faster speeds.)

[u][b]Other games and things I’m playing next:[/b][/u]

BPM Bullets Per Minute: Since I enjoyed Hellsinger, I’m disappointed to say that this basically didn’t work on my PC. The visuals/audio wouldn’t sync properly and made this rhythm game unplayable for me.

Puzzle Agent 1 & 2: It’s unsurprising that there weren't six of these. When the first one was already pretty bloated and felt half finished & the second one had repeated puzzles, blatant visual bugs and hard crashed on me at least once.

Fortnite: "My gun is better than you're gun, so I win every time." = A recipe for the most popular game on planet earth, for some reason. (I don't get the appeal of playing this competitively/solo.)

Tales From The Borderlands: I liked this one overall. Though it doesn't top Telltale's 'The Walking Dead'. (For its predictable story.) It's a hell of a lot more enjoyable to experience than Borderlands 3's plot.

Deep Sky Derelicts: I think Steam's mixed reviews are unfair to this one. (Unless it's all related to a buggy launch.) As this one almost caught me off guard for how engaging it was. (And how closely it resembled a card/board game that I made as a child.) But I suppose it's a bit repetitive and unbalanced for a "rogue-lite". (And it doesn't really fit that genre either.) However the last few levels are absurdly difficult, and it was more annoying than fun to play through them.

Playstation Extra's library actually released a good batch of games. So I'll be playing several of those & whatever else that I buy for Steam's winter sale. (So I think I'll be perfectly content for some time.)