Easily my game of the year.

Ooh, will be fun to see you work through these. The remake series is polarizing to be sure, but I quite like them despite their flaws. The combat system in particular to me feels like such a fun blend of action and ATB-gauge style inputs.

Man… this looks rough. I’m not sure what to even think. I really want to be excited for Prime 4 but none of the trailers have done it for me. Now we have this weird bike that looks awful.

I’m happy to be wrong and will wait and see how things turn out but the faith is being tested.

Silksong coming out actually motivated me to do what I’d been putting off, which was getting platinum in Expedition 33. The Simon fight was tough but fun and satisfying, then picked up any lingering journals, music disks, and Monoco skills.

Amusingly my final trophy was the mime you can encounter during the prologue, which I had completely missed on my first time through. So I fired up NG+ mode, knocked that out for my plat trophy, and decided to watch the Gommage cutscene one more time. It still hit me just as emotionally the second time around. This game really was beautiful and it’s going to stick with me for a long time.

With that out of the way I’m now a few hours into Silksong and enjoying it so far. The bosses I’ve encountered have been tough but not “throw the controller and rage quit” tough. But I’m sure that is coming soon, haha.

This is my answer as well!

That sounds about right. I feel like it played more like an expansion than an outright new game. I do remember banging my head against some of those tougher levels now.

Good point about the music, it really was quite memorable!

I replayed Galaxy sometime around 2020 and had a lot of fun doing so. I remember liking this one quite a lot. It was also fun to let my kid who was around 5 at the time hold a remote to help collect stars.

I’m… reasonably sure I played Galaxy 2 as well but my memory of that iteration is almost completely blank.

It’s worth it! I am still chipping away at Expedition 33 as well. I’m in the endgame portion now but just don’t have a lot of time to game at the moment. I’d like to eventually do NG+ and 100% everything.

Stanley walked through the red. door.

Was going to comment this as well! I enjoyed the story quite a bit too. Despite nothing really “happening” per se I remember the ending feeling emotional regardless.

Even with the warp ability it feels like you still have to do a fair amount of sailing because the warp locations are fairly spread out. I can see double speed helping considerably, though.

Thinking on in some more and I guess another problem with the sailing for me is how often I had to stop and play the wind requiem. It really makes navigation a chore. I could see a mod that lets you change the wind direction much more quickly would help tremendously (maybe there is one, I have not looked).

I’ve started this game twice. Once recently and once back when it came out. Still have not managed to finish. I always lose interest about half way.

When I think about why that is, I think it’s what you pointed out - the sailing gets monotonous fast.

Which is too bad cause I do think the game is otherwise very charming and fun.

I loved pvz back in the day, before it got junked up by EA. I have no idea what the state of the game is anymore. Curious if this would be worth playing for a bit of nostalgia.

It really was incredible. Especially back then when I hadn’t had much exposure yet to that style of music. The fact that it was CD quality instead of midi really helped.

I vividly remember discovering how you could just put the game disk in a regular CD player and it’d work. Kinda blew my mind lol.

Adding this to my wish list!

Man I friggin loved Descent II. Game was so fun and immersive. I watched that opening cinematic over and over. The soundtrack was fantastic as well.

I later went and played Descent 1 as well but 2 was the one I played the most.

2 also has the thief bot which while infuriating also lead to some of the most memorable gameplay for me. Just chasing that little piece of shit to the ends of the earth and then feeling so triumphant when I finally nabbed it and got my stuff back.

There is indeed! My kid played it on the switch and loved it. Well, right up to the point where they couldn’t proceed due to a level being completely broken. They ended up having to finish the last few stages on my PC instead.

Wow! I somehow never knew this bug existed. I guess it’s been a long time since I played this one. 😅

Now, how about fixing game-breaking bugs on the Switch version of Portal 2?

Man, I should revisit this one sometime.

Congrats on making it a year! And Halo 3 is a great game for the occasion too.

Agreed, this shit sucks. The credit card companies hold far too much power over what is considered viable commerce.

My thoughts exactly. Some of these ads are just plain weird in a way that they would never dare today.

Man I thought the well was so dang creepy when I originally played it.

I played so much SoT back around 2019/2020! Was such a blast just hanging out on the seas.

I agree with your comment about the water, it really is beautiful.

I know folks have mentioned disliking the pvp aspect and believe me I get it - I was never particularly good at it especially in close encounters. But I will say some of the most genuinely exciting memories I have are of those times when we had a boatload of loot with some pirates hot on our tail and managed to get away with it.

The crew I played with eventually moved on to other things but I still miss it now and then.

Hype!! The new music is fire. 🔥

Guess that’s me too. I loved Fallout 3 and wasn’t really aware of a lot of hate for it.

The original Portal game does a good job of this. The first several puzzles are essentially tutorials that still manage to feel fun and interesting.

I wasn’t aware they tried to make it a live service game, but that’s also incredibly unsurprising. It explains so much.

I am still working my way through Expedition 33. I’m in Act 2 and I’d estimate about half way into that. I’m still absolutely loving it.

In many ways the jankiness is part of the charm and why so many of us love it. :)

The game has effectively been in maintenance mode for some time. That being said I’m glad it still exists. I unsubbed a little over a year ago, but the idea that it’s still there waiting for me makes me happy.

I actually logged in just this week - there’s a free login campaign right now for those who are inactive, so it’s a good chance to scope things out.

I do both PC and console gaming, and I’ve personally never gotten the Epic hate. As a store it’s not amazing but it’s fine. I will generally go to Steam first but I’m also not going to boycott a game just because it’s Epic exclusive.

Yeaaaah, I’m with you. What a wild comment to make. I was ready to give them the benefit of the doubt that the whole review bombing drama was just a case of having a bad day but this is something else.

I’d love an XI remake but it’s also scary to think about because of how I know it’d completely take over my life lol.

This for sure. There are other great examples, like Yoshi’s Island or Mario 64, but World is the one I grew up with and have the most nostalgia for.

Looking forward to playing this later tonight!!

Kind of only tangentially related but if you bought FF7 Remake originally on PS4 there is a way to claim a free upgrade to the PS5 / Intergrade version. But it was so well hidden in the online store I had to watch a youtube video to figure out where to find it.

Getting to the top of the mountain in Celeste. It may not be the hardest challenge in the game (screw you Farewell), but just arriving there with the soundtrack swelling felt so good.

Completing the golden path in Tunic.

Any number of silly things in FFXI that at the time probably felt immensely important.

I played it and Blue Shift way back when. I don’t have a lot of specific memories of the levels or story. At the time I was just happy to have more Half-Life to play, and I enjoyed it.