2024 VIDEO GAMES CATCH ALL THREAD

[RIPPA]

I was trying to sit here and remember everything I played in 2023 and realized that yet again... my memory is shit

What I know for sure (Not counting Baldur's Gate 3 since I only played that for like two days)

• Destiny 2 (By far my most played because I am an idiot)
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (which I play every day because I really really am an idiot)
• Starfield
• God of War (didn't finish)
• Spider-Man Miles Morales (didn't finish)
• Vampire Survivors
• A Short Hike
• Hot Wheels Unleashed (Might sound strange but this might be the game I was most disappointed by)
• Gotham Knights (No wait - it was this one)
• MLB The Show (Grrr... maybe this one)
• Hitman: World of Assassination (revisited when they made the changes at the beginning of the year)

I am sure I forgot a Game Pass title or two. My list is shameful compared to others

[JLSigman]

Still playing a lot of Lord of the Rings: Online - Nostalgia is strong, sure, but this is also a very good MMO that you can play mostly solo and without subscribing at all.

I've still got a sub to Final Fantasy XIV, and have started to think, "Oh I should log in that alt over there and work on her a bit."

A couple of silly Match 3/Match Mahjong games to pass the time.

 

My computer is pretty much at the end of it's life cycle; I can't play anything from about 2020 onward, unless it's a real simple one. Which is not bad, per se, but there's a bunch of things I've been thinking about playing that I can't. We'll see what Mom and Dad's taxes look like this year, maybe there's some room in the budget for an upgrade.

[twiztor]

A different (retro video game) forum i'm on has started creating a "Backlog Challenge", where you list off all the games you would like to beat for the year. For me, i'm having better luck by taking things one "challenge" or "set" at a time.

in 2022, i focused on finishing up the NES/SNES Mega Man classic games, the three Luigi's Mansion games, and the Sonic the Hedgehog games.

My list for 2023 looked like this (i try to end up with about 12 games over 12 months):

PS1 challenge:
Crash Bandicoot COMPLETED 3/3/23
Metal Gear Solid  [did not play]
Spyro the Dragon  COMPLETED 9/12/23
Tomb Raider  [called it quits 5/19/23]
+the sequel of whichever game i enjoy the most.  [did not play]

Wario Land Challenge:
Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land (GB)  COMPLETED 1/29/23
Wario Land (VB)  COMPLETED 3/13/23
Wario Land 2 (GBC)  COMPLETED 5/21/23
Wario Land 3 (GBC) COMPLETED 11/25/23
Wario Land 4 (GBA) COMPLETED 12/7/23

misc.
Super Mario Bros. 2 [J] (NES)  COMPLETED 2/16/23
Tank! Tank! Tank! (Wii-U) COMPLETED 12/9/22
Mega Man: Wily Wars (Gen)  COMPLETED 1/28/23

 

and my list for 2024 looks like this (less sets but more random stuff):

Wario World (GCN)  COMPLETED 12/29/23
Wario Land: Shake It (Wii)
Wario: Master of Disguise (**this is my last priority for the year, as i didn't even know it existed until a few days ago, and it's not REALLY a Wario Land game, so we'll see...)

Mighty No. 9 (Wii-U)
Mega Man 9 (Wii eShop)
Mega Man 10 (Wii eShop)

Super Mario Bros. 3 e-Reader levels (Wii-U eShop)
Super Princess Peach (DS)
Mario vs Donkey Kong 4: Mini-Land Mayhem (DS)

Awesome Possum (Genesis)
Knuckles Chaotix (32x)
Revenge of Shinobi (Genesis)
Cuphead (Switch)
Dark Void Zero (DS eShop)

[tbarrie]

According to Steam:

73% of my playtime was spent on Old World. That's higher than I would have guessed, but not a lot higher. Old World is a Civ-like that combines 4X mechanics with a Crusaders King-style system of characters and random events. Turns out the combination works really well. There's another expansion coming out this month, so I expect it'll rack up decent numbers in 2024 as well.

9% was spent playing Tropico 6. I forgot about this when I was speculating what games would top my list, mainly because I played it almost entirely back in February. Decent enough diversion, but the default sandbox mode is really easy, and I couldn't be bothered to go over all the options to figure how to make it a challenge.

8% each was spent on Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours, which are from the same developer and similar enough that I'll discuss them together. But I can't really discuss the mechanics without giving spoilers, because the games deliberately have no tutorials; the developer wants you to experience a "What the heck am I doing here?" feeling when you start, and honestly that's when they're at their best. Hours is by far the more forgiving of the two; you can expect to die early your first few attempts at Cultist, whereas I don't think you can die in Hours. To my knowledge the worst thing a mistake in Hours can do is cause you to have wasted the time performing multiple previous actions (which is arguably more annoying than dying).

1% was spent on Return to Monkey Island, which I really should finish. I remember thinking as I went through Chapter 3 that things were rushing to a conclusion more quickly than I'd like. Then I got to chapter 4, which as I recall was titled "Things get complicated", and I was felt it may have gone too far the other way. I've already gotten enough fun out of this to justify its low price, but I still want to finish it. Some day.

I should see if I can tease a similar list out of my Xbox account.

 

[Death From Above]

My most played game of 2023 on Steam was actually Dead by Daylight lol

[Andrew POE!]

According to PlayStation Wrap Up, my most played game was Dreams. All I did was make sculptures that look like poop to rack up XP to earn the Platinum.

[JLSigman]

To start out the new year, I'm playing a game from 2004 - Sacred (Gold version). It's still very pretty, and very dumb, and very fun.

[odessasteps]

Like 90% of what’s on my Game Pass are old games, like bejeweled 3, peggle 2, monkey island and grim fandango. 

[TimLivingston]

I’m Switch heavy right now as having a 7-month old isn’t conducive to sitting and playing PS5. TotK and Super Mario Wonder in the rotation with me having just finished Super Mario ROG sans super bosses (and not sure if I’m gonna give it a go there tbh). 
 

But once FF7 Rebirth hits? That’ll be my life for the 100 or so hours I play it. 
 

After that, I’m not really sure what I’m gonna be looking towards as my tastes and wants for games have changed significantly these last few years. My retro backlog is always there but I’m more seeing that as a lifelong thing to have going forward as opposed to anything near term. And then there’s whatever the kid might be into in the years to come. 
 

Skull and Bones has me intrigued, though. An actual honest to dog pirate open world would be wild if it all works. 

[Robert S]

In 2023 I almost exclusively played stuff on Game Pass. Game Pass does not give you a list per year (of what you played for how long), but you can at least see for single games the total number of hours spent on it. So here is my list (sorted by hours):

• Chained Echoes (55 h)
• Phoenix Wright Trilogy (55 h)
• Loop Hero (36 h)
• Age of Empires IV (33 h)
• Formula 1 Manager 2023 (30 h)
• Ori and the Will of the Wisp (20 h)
• Ori and the Blind Forest (for whatever reason Game Pass does not list the time spent, but I think it was about the same as for the second Ori game)
• Persona 5 Tactica (11 h)
• Humankind (11 h)
• Fuga (10 h)

The last three games I somewhat bounced off from. There were also a couple of games that I played less than two hours, also some games (e.g. Vampire Survivors and Flight Simulator) that I played in 2023, but played already a lot in earlier years, so I don't know how much I actually played them last year. I would guess both in the 20-30 h ballpark.

I bought a PS5 shortly before Christmas, so this year will be way less Game Pass-centered, I would think.

[Contentious C]

Only video game-adjacent, but someone who bought one of my Steam items was named, "KFC's $5 Fill-up, only $5.49!" I got a good laugh.

[Casey]

So, I bought the PSVR2 Horizon Call of the Mountain edition, and mannnn… it’s fucking great, ya’ll. I’m not terribly far into it, but I had a really thrilling “boss fight” against three Glinthawks that was really fun. Aloy is really short, if anyone was wondering. It was cool to see her in this game, even if it was for only a few minutes.

When I had the first headset on PS4, and played the Astrobot game, my big takeaway from that was that shooters aren’t the way to go with this, but instead the bow & arrow feels really satisfying. And sure enough, here we are, with a game that has (so far) 100% bow combat and it’s fun as fuck. Now, where’s my Tomb Raider VR game?!

Oh and Beat Saber is cool. That’s a given, though.

I’m eventually gonna grab RE4, Red Matter, Moss, and a few others I’ve already got wishlisted. Beat Saber makes me want to play Vader Immortal finally, but it’s not backwards compatible so I’ll have to settle for that Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge game or whatever.

[odessasteps]

I did finally get Midnight Suns ($25 in Xbox credits). Not bad so far, but some of the character designs are so weird (I’m looking at you, Nico).

[RIPPA]

New Year. Same Shit

Unity is laying off 25% of its staff which equates to approximately 1800 jobs

So pissing off all the indie developers worked out real well for them

[dragonzombie]

I used one of those have everything at the start codes for Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, then I save stated it at the start. I'm not gonna use any guide.

 

 

Edited January 11 by Kang

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

1 hour ago, Kang said:

I used one of those have everything at the start codes for Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, then I save stated it at the start. I'm not gonna use any guide.

 

 

Man, good luck with that. Even with everything, some of those secrets are pretty cryptic.

[Death From Above]

I want to love Castlevania 2 so much. I think it's a failure, in the end. But it's a really interesting one.

[Andrew POE!]

Got the Platinum for The Crew last night. Servers are shutting down on March 31.

[Raziel]

Both Castlevania 2 and Metroid are examples of games that are really rough to go back and say anything kind about, but they were necessary steps as both franchises got what those 2 games were trying to do right in the end.  They were just a little too ambitious for that generation of hardware.  Hell, even OG Zelda is rough without some help.

[Matt D]

I've been playing Zelda: A Link Between Worlds emulated because I got annoyed it was on so many "Best Zelda Games Ever" lists and I'd never played it since I didn't have a 3DS. I'm enjoying it. It's weird not having a money limit, using magic for all items, and having paper mario mechanics but the gameplay feels generally right and there are lots of secrets. 

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

1 hour ago, Raziel said:

Both Castlevania 2 and Metroid are examples of games that are really rough to go back and say anything kind about, but they were necessary steps as both franchises got what those 2 games were trying to do right in the end.  They were just a little too ambitious for that generation of hardware.  Hell, even OG Zelda is rough without some help.

They're very much games of their time, because if you played them in that era without any knowledge of what was to come, they were masterpieces. If you play them out of order, or after a later version, it's hard to imagine what made them special. It'd be like playing Super Mario World first, then playing the original Mario Bros. (not Super Mario Bros., mind you) and wondering why it was such a big deal.

That doesn't make the older games bad, it just makes them of their time. I still love Metroid, the original Zelda, et cetera because I grew up with them, but my daughter would be bored out of her skull with them. Such as it is.

[AxB]

I played the story of Red Dead Redemption, and it was good. The game is pretty frustrating, the story is great.

Then I tried the online version... it keeps asking me to buy things to get a role, but the things cost a 15-20 Gold Bars, and I have like 1.89 Gold Bars. Not much going on except sometimes people who are high level kill you for no reaon.

[Tabe]

6 hours ago, Raziel said:

Both Castlevania 2 and Metroid are examples of games that are really rough to go back and say anything kind about, but they were necessary steps as both franchises got what those 2 games were trying to do right in the end.  They were just a little too ambitious for that generation of hardware.  Hell, even OG Zelda is rough without some help.

I think the original Metroid holds up just fine. 

[Casey]

I was doing a little housecleaning today and found original Gameboy Color cartridges for Pokemon Blue & Silver. Now I just need to find my Gameboy…

[Death From Above]

I think (other than the Japangrish translation that is a product of the times) the OG Zelda is a masterpiece that is so far ahead of its time it's not even funny.