I hadn't really thought about it, but I'd say my resolutions are to keep my backlog in single digits at all times and catch up on classics. I did a pretty good job on both fronts last year! The owned-but-not-beaten list is down to a paltry 6 games, and Fallouts 1 and 2 have been scratched off the list. Next up on the…

Exactly what I meant. (Though technically you can choose your party in the endgame of the remake versions.)

I just finished it (or at least a first playthrough of it) a few days ago and clocked in at 42 deaths. I'm a little bit ashamed of that performance, but I think that at least 40 of those were pit deaths; enemies barely hurt, so don't worry about getting hit every once in a while! But yeah, platforming can get…

Yep, that's the final stretch of the story. Which means it's time for sidequests! I think War of the Lions added a few, but at the very least there's a good chunk of content wrapped up in the Beowulf and Deep Dungeon quests. The former gets kicked off by going to Goug and then Goland (you may need to visit the bars in…

Well, this run is partially achievement-oriented, so yes I expect to ragequit battles that look like impending losses. Thankfully, that hasn't been an issue so far. :) I am glad that they didn't give you total save freedom overall though, because it really would've spoiled the caravan events to have the option of…

Since it's only alluded to in the other posts, it's in Batman: The Widening Gyre. The worst part is, it's not just Batman peeing himself. It's Smith's attempt at a retcon of Year One's scene of blowing a hole in the wall at the mafia meeting and intimidating the hell out of them. That is, he took the best scene from…

The worst part is, it's not even the best-worst Batman; that title goes to the fascinating trainwreck of Batman: Odyssey.

This weekend will be spent wrapping up my second playthrough of The Banner Saga, this time on hard. I love this game. The art, the story, the atmosphere, and good lord the map is a thing of beauty. I'm also in awe of how the combat system breaks from the core assumptions of basically every other strategy game ever. It…

I really like FF4's willingness to go totally gonzo at points while still trying to hang on to key character beats. ("A true paladin will sheathe his sword!" is totally classic, and it's a shame that the spoony bard line is the one people remember.) It's a game fundamentally centered - albeit in a simplistic SNES kind…

My experience with open-world games has been completely the opposite - the story segments are the life of the party and everything else is noodly filler.

I've found this model doubly amusing lately because my tabletop RPG group has asked specifically asked me to slow down the pace of Dire Bad Stuff so that they have time to dick around and do sidequests. Sometimes people just want to sit back and breed chocobos!

I'd get sick of it too if all I played were Deus Ex-likes, but I'm not even sure how I could pull that off. The entire reason they make non-lethal options optimal is because every other game on the market is about killin' dudes. You can certainly play Alpha Protocol as a boot-down-the-door meathead, but why not just…

Netflix gets the Game of Thrones Season 4 DVDs in February, meaning I have maybe a month-and-a-half window to get back to only being a year behind. Sounds doable!

I'm up and down on Morrison, and SSOV is maybe the perfect encapsulation of those feelings. Some of the segments felt like they dragged on forever; Bulleteer comes to mind first and foremost, but it's not the only one. But Guardian's tale may be my favorite thing he's ever put out, and there are really solid beats in…

I finally got to play through Path of Radiance this year, too! Great fun.

I got the impression that there was a lot of anticipation of the "How the hell are they going to pull that off?" variety, moreso than the "Shut up and take my money!" kind.

Vengeance is the operative word in this high-kicking thriller starring Gary Daniels as tough narc Mike Ryan. When would-be mob kingpin Victor Chow (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) viciously murders Ryan's partner, the lawman has to sidestep the rules to find justice for his fallen friend. With the aid of enigmatic beauty Jade,…

In case the crazy lore and fanart of Twitch Plays Pokemon somehow weren't enough, I still love that the most delicate, finicky parts of the game (Team Rocket's Hideout, anything involving the PC) were all accomplished in Anarchy mode. Sometimes the internet just needs to be the internet.

I've tarnished someone's enjoyment of a thing they like! It's a Christmas miracle!

Ornstein and Smough was definitely one of the hardest - it nearly got me to break my strict "no summoning" policy - and I think I gave the double-bird when I finished it as well. But in a lot of ways it felt like a less interesting version of the Bell Gargoyles fight, which I loved.