Games You Have Beaten Recently?

[TDIRunner | 2,927]

14 hours ago, mbd39 said:

I just played through both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 on PC for the first time. Both were an utter blast. I think I like them so much because they're adventure/puzzle games with loads of environmental interactivity as much as they are first person shooters, and you really get pulled into the lore.

Both took me about two weeks each. HL1 seemed a lot tougher to survive. HL2 much more generous with the health refills.

I tried my best to avoid looking up spoilers and usually didn't have to unless I was absolutely stuck which wasn't often. For example, I had to look up strats for the final boss in HL1 but not HL2 which was so much easier at the end.

I probably need to play episodes 1 and 2 next.

Have you tried either of the Portal games?  Completely different gameplay, but similar to HF in the fact that they tell an amazing  story that really sucks you in without the distractions of cut scenes. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,971]

15 hours ago, mbd39 said:

I just played through both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 on PC for the first time. Both were an utter blast. I think I like them so much because they're adventure/puzzle games with loads of environmental interactivity as much as they are first person shooters, and you really get pulled into the lore.

Both took me about two weeks each. HL1 seemed a lot tougher to survive. HL2 much more generous with the health refills.

I tried my best to avoid looking up spoilers and usually didn't have to unless I was absolutely stuck which wasn't often. For example, I had to look up strats for the final boss in HL1 but not HL2 which was so much easier at the end.

I probably need to play episodes 1 and 2 next.

FYI, Uplink, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift are all expansions of HL1.

[mbd39 | 2,108]

1 hour ago, TDIRunner said:

Have you tried either of the Portal games?  Completely different gameplay, but similar to HF in the fact that they tell an amazing  story that really sucks you in without the distractions of cut scenes. 

No, haven't played Portal yet.

[TDIRunner | 2,927]

45 minutes ago, mbd39 said:

No, haven't played Portal yet.

By all means, finish the other Half Life expansions first, but I highly recommend Portal 1 and 2.

[NostalgicMachine | 334]

I finally 100%-ed Super Metroid.

[Silent Hill | 291]

Beat Alone in the Dark (2024) on PS5 which was underwhelming to say the least. I got it through Gamefly a few months back for $20 and I'd say that's about all it's worth. 

Before that I beat Ori and the Blind Forest DE on the Switch. Enjoyed it enough overall but there were some really frustrating parts and the combat wasn't great. Heard the sequel is better, at least from a combat perspective. 

Also chipping away at Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Astro Bot but the Silent Hill 2 remake drops today, so I'll at least do two playthroughs of that before even thinking about anything else. 

[MagusSmurf | 579]

Lots of SNES replays

Final Fantasy V - 9/10

The job system is probably just about the best I've seen and the battle system and enemy design are more than good enough to get good work out of it. I still like VI, VII, X, and Tactics better overall but this is probably my next favorite FF game. Being the best at something is probably edging out FFIX being merely really good in general (aside from being really slow). Can definitely see why some people have this as one of their all-time favorites.

I'm not one of them though! This game's main problem is that the developers didn't seem to know they were making The Definitive Job System JRPG, they just tried to make a Really Good 1992 JRPG with a Great Job System . For all that the job system and its variety is conducive to replays, the rest of the game...kind of isn't. It's a ~30 hour game with a poor story that nonetheless forces a fair amount of unskippable dialogue on you and that's largely linear until the endgame. The soundtrack, while good, is also a little underwhelming considering this series's pedigree. Everyone loves Battle at the Big Bridge but from what I've seen the rest goes largely unremarked on.

If I had to pick a desert island SNES RPG, yeah, it'd probably be this, but since I'm not on a desert island, there are so many other games I can play instead of replaying FFV a dozen times. I'm sure I'll be back someday though.

Mega Man X - 9/10

Played without using Sub Tanks. Took about 2 hours to get to the final level and then another hour to beat said final level. Had never really bothered to really properly learn the final bosses here before now; winning felt pretty good.

The rest of the game, while really cool, was a bit too easy though. It helped that I knew the game pretty well, but I don't think I died on accident even once outside of bosses. And once I had a few upgrades I didn't lose to any Mavericks either, even without using their weaknesses. I feel like what's basically a ~2 hour action game should put up a bit more resistance than that even if I know what I'm doing, so my opinion on the game has gone down marginally and I wonder if I'd like X2 or X4 better nowadays. Maybe I need to play no Health and Armor upgrades next time or something.

Donkey Kong Country - 9/10

DKC1 was the last of the trilogy I owned and unlike the sequels there's no content reward for finding all the Bonus Rooms so I'd only really done it like once or twice before this. This time I got to 99% on my own and then caved and looked up the last two (it was Tanked up Trouble and one of the Orang-Utan Gang rooms). Some of these were kinda bullshit; I remember the sequels being much better about hiding things yet still feeling fair about it. A straight run through was about as fun as always though.

[Aguy | 784]

I probably won't get very far, but I started playing Lord of the Rings Online. I was looking for an MMO to try out on my steam deck, and since Rings of Power just ended, I figured I'd give it a shot.

[a3quit4s | 4,398]

I beat the Silent Hill 2 remake for PS5. Never played the original but man is it a total mind fuck lmao. Really well done remake and on par with the recent Resident Evils that have been remade for PS5/Xbox. Creepy as hell. I played the combat on light bc I suck at survival games and always run out of bullets and get frustrated and stop playing them. I got the In Water ending which people usually don't get on their first playthrough. Not sure why I got it but I did basically curb stomp every single monster I killed after they went down to ensure they were down for the count. While it was really good I'm not sure I would pony up $69.99 for the game if I already had it on PS2. I can see why so many that play it speak volumes on it, it's one of those games that really exemplifies games as art. 

Edited Tuesday at 07:47 PM by a3quit4s

[Silent Hill | 291]

1 hour ago, a3quit4s said:

I beat the Silent Hill 2 remake for PS5. Never played the original but man is it a total mind fuck lmao. Really well done remake and on par with the recent Resident Evils that have been remade for PS5/Xbox. Creepy as hell. I played the combat on light bc I suck at survival games and always run out of bullets and get frustrated and stop playing them. I got the In Water ending which people usually don't get on their first playthrough. Not sure why I got it but I did basically curb stomp every single monster I killed after they went down to ensure they were down for the count. While it was really good I'm not sure I would pony up $69.99 for the game if I already had it on PS2. I can see why so many that play it speak volumes on it, it's one of those game that really exemplifies games as art. 

It's my favorite game of all time (shocker) and I think the In Water ending is the best, as in the most fitting to the overall story and intention with enemy design. 

Go back and play the original. I'd bet you may think a bit differently about ponying up for the remake. I think they complement each other well enough to justify owning both. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,336]

Haven't been playing much, but I was testing out some repros I was making and accidentally knocked off Happily Ever After.  I see why it was scrapped, but there was some potential there.  Some of the powers never got used, the rest only got used sparingly throughout, so it seemed like they were just there for one or two spots and were otherwise completely unnecessary.  The game looked good, plays well enough, but the wonky hit detection was frustrating.  I'd say it's a 5/10...passable, but with nothing to differentiate it from the competition.  It definitely needed a bit more fleshing out...better hit detection, more levels, more variety within those levels...but for what's there, it's passable.  There's definitely worse action platformers that actually got released

[Andy_Bogomil | 866]

Anyone know of a high score list for Wild Guns (SNES) or a past contest on the forums that score was a factor? Just had a crazy run on hard difficulty with some sweet score combos. 

[NostalgicMachine | 334]

Turtles in Time (SNES) this morning with my nephew (3.5 years)!

We totally beat it before he had to head out to pre-school this morning, lol.

[a3quit4s | 4,398]

39 minutes ago, NostalgicMachine said:

Turtles in Time (SNES) this morning with my nephew (3.5 years)!

We totally beat it before he had to head out to pre-school this morning, lol.

My 5 year old son loves Ninja Turtle beat em ups. He plays my turtles Arcade1Up all the time and when we went to Long Island Retro convention he was playing Shredders Revenge most of the time with an 8bitdo arcade stick