Games Completed & Rated

Relic System

So according to my original notes date, on the 20th of January 2020 I decided I was gaming wrong, I had become a collector of games and not a player of games.

I literally have tens of games on my Steam and Epic accounts that I have never installed let alone completed.

I wanted to change that, so I started a small list on my iPhones notes app that I would use to keep a record on games I completed.

it should be noted that the game list starts from 20th of January 2020…I not pretending I have never completed a game prior to this but I felt back tracing my history of games completed was cheating (digging for an excuse to confirm I do indeed complete games I purchase)

So since then I have kept a list of what I have completed with only a few rules:

Must have never completed the game before
Must complete the game itself, DLC does not count (but play if it if its good!)
No Cheating, No hacks
Games that have ‘no end’ (Minecraft, City builders, No Mans Sky) get to a traditional endpoint (any story completed) and that counts…
Write down a rating and a quick short note right after completion, I have expanded my comments in this post.
If a game isn’t hitting the right notes for me, move on.. no forced playing!

So here is my list (in order, year separated)

2020

Frost Punk [7.5]

Difficult to the point of frustration, accept you cannot save them all
This game is hard, frustrating and forces you to keep trying and trying to just accept that, you will lose some of your colony, you cannot save them all.

Halo: Combat Evolved [9]

Hate myself for taking so long to get to this game, however glad I finally did and I got to play it at it’s best with the remastered graphics, the music fluid gameplay are all great. I noted originally that I wasn’t a million percent solid on what the story was.

Halo 2 [8]

Halo 2 kept the story going and I really do love the Arbiter character the back and forth between him and Chief was great - seems I didn’t get what the .. and I quote “giant monster things purpose was” .. obviously not the case now but perhaps I should have paid a little more attention.

Halo 3 [7]

I noted that the game was fun, the music was a bit dull compared to previous entries and I didn’t like the obvious team up with the flood that were bound to and do turn on you within 5 minutes.

Halo 3: ODST [5]

Drab, boring - nice they told a sub story that does not have HUGE universe issues and focuses on a single battle but reach does this so much better

Seems I did not like ODST and while I enjoyed the story being a little less “the universe is at stake” and more focused on a single battle… I according to my notes said “the game was drab”… harsh…

Halo Reach [8.5]

Smooth, silky, starts out slow but pushes hard and fast and tries some new stuff with the space fighter missions - tells you the whole time that nothing you do will end with you saving the world and all your friends.. tagline is very much true .. from the begging you know how it ends.. sad story of heroism

Halo 4 [6.5]

New enemies show up and they are weird and unusual but not all that much fun, the weapons however were interesting.

Halo 5 [7]

Seems I enjoyed a lot of aspects of this game but not this games story, I missed Cortona chirping away in my ear during my missions, I thought the new abilities has promise (Halo Infinite seems to confirm this) and the split gameplay was interesting.

I thought they had polished the weapons but changed the functionality - not sure what that means now but I do recall at the time thinking this game is so long…

Surviving Mars [6] [ENDLESS]

So the game held my attention and I did enjoy the process but it did quickly become a bit of a grind and the ‘random events’ always seemed to occur just as you felt you were safe and going to be self sustaining. I had humans out of bubbles and all wonders build across the numerous DLCs that had been released at the time.

Mortal Kombat 11 [8]

Very quick, tons of combos to learn, but played through the story (winner stay on style) and we finally finished the story within a couple of hours .. fun game .. have not gone beyond the story much yet but a DLC is on route that expands on the story so could be worth a look.

A very quick moving game with a ton of combos and methods to learn, however I rarely play these competitive online or against friends purely played for the story. I noted the game was fun and that’s about it, the story was fine and offers a soft reboot (I have not played nor do I own Aftermath)

Yakuza 0 [8.9]

Hearting breaking in all the right ways
I wanted to play Yakuza 0 for the longest time but I could not get past that long ass opening, however once I did I found one of the best games I have ever played the only note I left was “heart breaking in all the right ways”

Yakuza Kiwami [7]

I felt this game wasn’t as deep nor as good as 0 but was still a really good entry into the series and help me only adore the Yakuza series a little more

Star Wars battlefront II [6]

The story was shockingly short and did not feel like a full campaign story, not tacked on but not a story long enough to warrant the t title campaign.. the game played fine, the visuals were stunning but I didn’t bother beyond the at release story content…

Streets of Rage 4 [6]

I did not enjoy this was half as much as the original game, not for any other reason than it felt so much harder than the original games which I played at a much younger age so perhaps I have become worse over time….

Hot shot racing [4]

Not my favourite racing game, but completed the career/campaign aspect of the game and never went back to it.

2021

Cyberpunk 2077 [6]

I played this on my original Xbox One (no S, no X) and it crashed, a lot - the story was fine but choices don’t matter all that much you (V) are dead and it’s just a debate if Johnny gets your body or not…

This game could fix itself in updates and probably should not have shackled itself to last gen (PS4/Xbox One) but they did and raked in a ton of cash on an unfinished game, likewise they have failed when it comes to updates.. it’s more stable but so slow going

Detroit become human [8]

I loved this game and in my only play through I got an ending that was somewhere in the middle of success, it looked great, choices did matter and I would love to see more in this universe and from this development team.

Injustice 2 [7]

The cast of characters was a little .. small .. opinion of course but the game was fun, the story was fine.

Batman Telltale Series [5]

I enjoyed the story but I found the fact that a massive multitude of bugs still, to this day exist within this game.

Batman Telltale Series Enemy Within [6]

The story wasn’t my favourite thing but the gameplay was much better and the bugs from the previous entry were all but gone in this one.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 [8]

The only note I made on this game was “typically excellent” and to be honest .. I think that says all you need to know about this game, it looks great, plays well and offers a really great story.

Zombie Army 4 [7]

Run, gun, run some more and hope like hell.. I would have loved to see coach co-op on this game it would have completely transformed the experience or at least multiplayer - these devs need to do a game in the Left4Dead design scheme.

Yakuza 3 [6]

Not as pretty as the other remasters and at least according to my notes it “played really ‘dumb’ compared to the Kiwi versions and the amazing zero”

Outer Worlds [9]

Not the most amazing game to look at but it’s possible one of the best game I have played in quite some time, I actually wish I had put more time into the side stuff rather than just rushing through things.

Yakuza 4 [8]

I seemed to enjoy this one as much as the others, but I did find the boss fights to be much harder..

Wolfenstein: Old Blood [7]

My notes on this game are as follows “very good, fun weird twist, sadly too short” not sure I agree with me now but I have always wondered how this was not just released as DLC

Wolfenstein New Order 2 [8]

I really enjoyed the story and the lots of weird and interesting moments - seems I was a huge fan of the fact that the side missions were not enforced .. but I did not like the waypoint system.

Halo Infinite [7]

I thought this was a great return to form for the Chief and more importantly it was so nice to have the interaction between Cortana (The weapon) and Chief again.. I did miss those little moments..

The gameplay was predictability good, these developers do know how to make a solid game in terms of feel and handle - if they nail the story is up for debate, I thought it was a good start, great start but I was not entirely sold on the open world.

The Gunk [8]

I really did love this game, it started a little silly in terms of what’s going on but the game sees the characters grow with interaction and circumstances within the story .. I did feel it was a little easy and perhaps would have liked a few more notable upgrades.

2022

My friend Pedro [8]

I had played but not completed this game previously I do recall getting stuck but In this play through I started from the start (duh) and had no really nagging issues. The art style is fantastic and I would love to play more like this and the sense of humour was unusual and just outwardly weird but very entertaining.

Yakuza 5 [6]

I really had trouble liking this game, the whole Saejima prison bits I could have lived without, Baba as a character did nothing for me and because I didn’t check spoilers I did assume for a lot of the game that Goro Majima had actually been killed off screen… hated that .. also the second fight with him he’s way over the top.

This by far was the first time I lost interest in a Yakuza story, Haruka Sawamura probably saved the game as by the time I got to playing as her in the story I was struggling to want to play the game, this is followed up by playing as Shun Akiyama which is always fun and then back and forth with Kiryu thrown in .. anyhow not my favourite I’m hoping 6 delivers!

Destroy All Humans! (remake) [7]

I really enjoyed this game, up until the final boss which was a fun fight and took some doing but felt like a big leap if difficulty, the game had been somewhat breezy up till this point but for the final fight it really dialled things up just a touch.

Didn’t hurt the games score, maybe it would have been an 8 if not for the final fight but overall fun, quirky and different.

Yakuza 6 The Song of life [8]

Thoughts / review posted below https://joolo.net/d/93-relic-system-games-completed/4

Guardians of the Galaxy [8.5]

Thoughts in this post https://joolo.net/d/93-relic-system-games-completed/5

High on Life [8]

Relic System

Updated to add Yakuza 5
This took far too long to complete mostly due to it being a bit of a dud, but finally finished it up and have started playing Destroy all humans.

Just to be clear, as I know some Yakuza die hard will read this and question how long is too long - I skipped most if not all of the side stuff and stayed on the main story and clocked in around 26-28 hours. Yakuza 0, Kiwama 1 and 2 and even 3 didn't have this drag to the story and I spent way longer on those games.

Relic System

Updated to add Destroy All Humans!
Sat down after work and put effort into exploring and pretty much explioting the anal probe to get my score up quicker so I could buy all the goodies - if you end up playing this game honestly you want the deflectors up for the prez fight to deflect rockets back at him and for the final fight you just want to max out as much as you can and probably avoid the splodes.. kill anything that's not her as quickly as possible as they just get in the way.

Relic System

Updated to add Yakuza 6
I really enjoyed this one and it felt so much more in tune with Yakuza 0 and Kiwanis 1 and 2, admittedly I didn’t deep dive much if any of the side missions but this is fairly standard for the way I play Yakuza.

I did play and complete the Kircudbright Clan mini game which was a ton of fun, would have loved to have seen a few more of New Japans best in the game but was still great to see what was provided.

I really missed Goro and Daigo being in the story, they are such interesting characters that were used purely as plot points until the end credits scene.

Speaking of end credits, while I was hugely satisfied with the game I do feel like Kiryu being dead was sad but fit the narrative for the character but for some reason they felt the need to give us a sad but hopeful ending for the future, I feel like this was more about flushing out corruption which may be something the Japanese story writers felt would hit home with its local audience

I actually thought it would have more sense to have Kiryu die, he writes to Daigo and Haruka preventing war and helping her with move on with her family, meanwhile Date or his cop buddy try to expose what’s gone on, cop buddy dies or they sweep it under the rug

Date opts to leak everything she has to the press, it s all exposed minus anything specific to the victims and we move on knowing all is right in the world again

I’m not sure if I will look at Like a dragon as it looks very different from the other games in the series but enjoyed what I’ve played so far aside from Yakuza 5

Relic System

Updated to add Guardians of the Galaxy
I went into this one honestly expecting to hate the game, the visuals of the characters differed enough from the movies and comics to make you question if they were cheap copies and of course you never know if the voice acting is going to be on point and given the cast of characters it has to be on point! and honestly you forget about 1-2 minutes in about all that stuff and just start to enjoy the game.

The story is massive in terms of scope, without going to deep into store you end up having planets or moons hurled at you - it's really quite wild and interesting and covers a lot of the stuff a casual to the stories will be able to pick up on ... I'm only shocked that howard the duck didn't appear and a little sad Lady Hellbender didn't appear as much as I'd have liked

The story itself does have some emotional depth, more so with Peter Quill and Rocket should you choose to explore a little, similar with Drax but perhaps Gamora has the one story not fleshed out emotionally as deep as the others unless to get the doll in which case she does open up about some fairly dark moments with her and Nebula whom is seemingly dead in this story arc

It's a really fun game and I'm already on my second play through although I do feel like achievements on Xbox are busted as certain story driven ones have just not popped for me at all but I did go from finishing it to dropping straight back in for a second go around

Relic System

Updated to add High on Life

This one I did hope would life up to what I’ve watch in some of the TV shows like Solar Opposites but was also thinking, it’s the first ever FPS game they have made, it’s not a VR game which the studio is apparently known for - so it’ll probably be funny but average at best and thankfully … I was wrong.

The story is patchy in places, the sisters story was probably the oddest in that we meet her offering you some drugs, which she does herself then she hooks up with an alien anddddd then she spends the rest of her time behind the sofa talking crap or being supportive - it’s the most patchy part of the game in my opinion.

The story of the Gatlian (the living guns) are a lot of fun, but I have so many questions how these things move or even exist to feed themselves - no fingers n all that

In the game we meet Kenny - his story is perhaps the most important as spells out what could happen to your own planet should you fail, Kenny comes across as nervous and a natural worrier - but he has a secret that will be impactful on the story much later on - Kenny is the basic pistol really and he can be modded and upgraded

Knifey, I’m unsure if Knifey Is a Gatlian as he mostly acts as his name would suggest a knife, he does also serve to aid in getting you around as a wip type of thing too, clearly an Aussie as well - I like Knifey but he does not get in on most the story elements -after your initial meet and usage of Knifey he kinda just sits in the background but you will likely use him more than any gun purely to traverse the world

Gus is a shotgun but he also has these disc things which you will need much later to traverse some of the worlds terrains - Gus is fine, not my favourite as for a shotgun he’s a weak.

Sweezy I used this one the least, suspect he’s meant to be like a machine gun but with explosive crystals or something like that - dunno but just preferred to use Kenny, Knifey and the occasional Gus rarely broke out Sweezy unless it’s a boss fight in which case it’s I resulted to swapping guns, unloading, mass reload, repeat. Sweezy has a character tho is very funny, self obsessed, a little rude and kind of a dick to Kenny

Creature is like a grenade launcher but instead of launching explosive nodes, he launches his short living children to club you in the head and bite off your nipples - Creature was experimented upon and I get many chill vibes from one of my favourites to use and look at.

Lezduit was apparently one of the strongest on his planet until a specific event occurs, it would appear he had some fairly horrid experiments done to him. He can only say his name and looks like a little like (and talks a lot like) Stallone - still uber powerful but with a huge cool down.. sadly he makes fighting boxes a little easy.

The game itself is fine, it took about 12 hours to complete and I didn’t wander too far from the main story, it’s fun - interesting and not all that bad of a shooter really - I would have loved to have seen maybe a lot more bosses in the game or 20 or so side missions but I assume they opted out of that for fear of people getting bored.

One level I want to touch on is the level with the boss fight where you are trapped I guess inside a vision of some sorts and when you move, you see the same scene over and over and over but it’s so well done and very Alice in wonderland - I loved this levels design it was fantastic

Giphy - Yell Sharp Teeth GIF by Xbox