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Gut Check – Vacation Simulator

Welcome to the first installment of Gut Check, a feature about first impressions in video games. To read some backstory on why and how Gut Check came into existence, check out this post. But without further ado, let’s take a look at the follow up to Job Simulator, the aptly titled, Vacation Simulator.

For context, Job Simulator was and still is one of the best virtual reality games around because of how nonsensical, nonlinear, yet focused gameplay. In Job Simulator you were basically in a museum, hundreds of years into the future, learning about the jobs that humans did before they all died. Things like office work, car repair and others were all available for you to play with, but never was it an actual simulation of how these careers actually were.

Instead you were hurling around coffee cups, shoving bananas in tailpipes and doing all sorts of goofy things that these robots thought humans did. It was also a great way to introduce people to VR and get them acquainted with the controls and possibilities.

With all of that said, Vacation Simulator seems to be a more blown out version of its predecessor in just about every way, for better and worse.

The best parts of both Job and Vacation Simulator are the wild interactions that you can have while in a somewhat familiar setting. Maybe you’ve never worked in a convenience store, but we all have an understanding of what that looks like. Similarly, Vacation Simulator takes you to a beach, a campsite, and a snowy peak where you can interact with anything that isn’t nailed down and silly interactions with the other vacationers.

Where Vacation Simulator loses me a bit is in the scope of the thing. What made Job Simulator so fun and approachable was that you didn’t need to worry about what was going on from level to level, or even mission to mission. It was all self contained in a way that made it accessible. Vacation Simulator however, opted to go with a more interconnected world where completing tasks involves you going to different places. It’s not a bad idea, but it leads to a clashing of ideologies that makes the game seem like it’s at odds with itself.

For instance, in the beach level there was a grill where I could cook up orders for people and deliver it to them. All of the ingredients for a cookout were right there, and the customers who wanted the food were on the beach. But as the missions got more intricate and introduced more ways for me to mess up an order, I was also tasked with delivering food to different locations as well as gathering ingredients from those locales too. In this particular instance it bums me out because someone on the beach wanted a s’more, but I had to go collect marshmallows from the forest map and bring them back to cook up the order. And since you have limited inventory space, you might find yourself screwing up said order and having to trudge back to the other map.

It just feels a little like (ironically) busy work was introduced into the game to make it seem like a more robust experience. Now, none of this is ever so off-putting that it made me not want to play more. Vacation Simulator manages to introduce plenty of new and interesting interactions and missions into the world that keep it interesting. But I feel that the multi-level objectives end up feeling more like work than just goofing around.

That all being said, Vacation Simulator is a great time for anyone who enjoyed its predecessor and its brand of silly humor. It’s still a charming and fun virtual reality game that ultimately takes two steps forward and one step back. The biggest disappointment in my eyes is the fact that this game won’t be the first thing I put new VR players in. Job Simulator is still the game I get people to try out who are curious about VR, because of how straightforward it is. Vacation Simulator layers on a bit too many elements to make it approachable to first time users for my tastes, but it’s still one hell of a good time. I’ll continue to play this one for sure.

Blog: Gut Check – 01/08/20

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Last year I found myself struggling to find the time or enthusiasm to play and finish all of the games that came my way. I felt obligated to suffer through some games I really didn’t enjoy and some that just did nothing for me all for the sake of having something to write about.

The truth is, if a game doesn’t hook my early on, it probably never will. That’s why I went ahead and came up with Gut Check, a feature in which I describe why a game hooked me or why it didn’t within the . This isn’t a review of the product as a whole, but more of a look at the earliest parts of a game and how it left me feeling.

As it stands, the format will involve me playing at the very least, one hour of a game. After that, I’ll either continue or back off, but I’ll explain my reasons for both scenarios. Also, I’m well aware that doing this might be unfair to certain games and genres, so I’m being a little more discerning in my selections making sure that the games in Gut Check actually belong here.

Not all games can be judged in an hour, but I feel that if a game can’t get its claws into me in the first hour or so, it probably never will. There are always exceptions to the rules and I’m sure this formula will change as time goes on, but for now I hope you come back to check out the first post when it goes live later this week.

Blog: Backlog Blunders – 01/01/20

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Firstly, Happy New Year to each and every single one of you, let’s hope it doesn’t suck as much as the last one did. Secondly, I made some purchases over the past few days, adding to the pile of games I already have. I’d like to actually start the year off right, and make sure I’m only buying games I genuinely want to play. That’s why I technically made all these purchases last year, so I’m still good. So here’s what’s on the list.

WATTAM

I played a little Wattam when it dropped earlier in December and found it to be a pretty thin, yet charming experience on the whole. It’s not something I’m actively wanting to go back to, but I do have this odd curiosity with it that makes me want to power through and see what else Wattam has to offer.

THE SOJOURN

I’m always game for a good puzzle or adventure game, and that’s what appealed to me about The Sojourn. In the early parts of the game, it hasn’t been particularly gripping, but hopefully that changes as I get further in. I don’t think I’m at a point where I can recommend The Sojourn to anyone just yet, but I’ll see if that changes as I play more.

A KNIGHTS QUEST

A Knights Quest is an action-adventure game that treads on the same ground that most of the 3D Zelda games do. In my short time with it I found it pretty average on all counts. It’s been a pretty unspectacular journey with middling writing, mindless combat and bland level design. That sounds a lot harsher than I want it to, but it made a pretty lousy first impression that’s making me reconsider if I want to follow through with it at all.

OUTWARD

Outward is a cooperative survival RPG that has a lot going on. Just from playing the tutorial I felt mildly overwhelmed, worrying about status effects, encumbrance, crafting and survival mechanics. By all counts it is not a game I think I would venture forward in alone. Luckily, Outward can be played cooperatively, which is my way of justifying this purchase knowing that maybe one of my more RPG savvy friends might shepherd me through it.

CITY GAME STUDIO

City Game Studio is an early access game development and management game similar to the very popular Game Dev Tycoon. Being a fan of this subset of management games, I dove in headfirst and felt pretty comfortable with the mechanics at play. There are a lot of things that aren’t super well explained, but it is in early access, so I’m guessing the tutorials and tool tips aren’t fully fleshed out yet. I’ll keep an eye on this one though.

PARKASAURUS

I actually haven’t had the chance to dive into the charming world of Parkasaurus just yet, but I’m really looking forward to it. Much like a Zoo Tycoon or Jurassic World Evolution, your job is to provide a safe and entertaining place for your dinosaurs and customers respectively, in the form of a park. It seems like a cool idea to be able to build your own dinosaur zoo without all the worry of them breaking out and killing all the people. I really look forward to when I can sink my teeth into this game.

HYPNOSPACE OUTLAW

Hypnospace Outlaw has been a game I’ve been interested in for so long, but never pulled the trigger on. It’s a story/adventure/puzzle game that involves you policing the early internet, flagging various copyright infringements. Eventually this all coalesces into some bigger mystery for the player to discover and navigate the way they see fit. It’s definitely the kind of game I could get lost in for a while. Luckily I now own a copy of it, and I’m going to make time for it in the coming weeks.

MORDHAU

Hey so it turns out I was right about Mordhau being a really fun game as well as having no desire to play it without my friends. I specifically told myself I wouldn’t buy it unless my friends were onboard, but here we are. I really enjoy the combat in Mordhau and think that there’s a lot to enjoy here, but I think that buying copies for my friends might be the only way I sell them on this.

Game of the Year 2019

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Man, 2019 has been a weird one for me. Normally by this point in the year, I have a pretty clear idea of what a top ten games list looks like, but not so much this time around. That isn’t to say it’s been a bad year for video games, in fact, I bet there’s people out there who were spoiled rotten by many of the releases.

The problem wasn’t a lack of quality games coming out, it was just an issue of those games managing to keep me engaged long enough to power through them. So with all of that pretext, here are the top 10 (11) games that I played this year.

HONORABLE MENTION: RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 PC

Before we dive into the list, I gotta pour one out for the PC release of Red Dead Redemption 2. Granted, it was an abysmal launch of a port in an age where PC ports have been pretty good, but returning to the old west that I fell in love with last year has been wonderful. Especially now that it isn’t running like utter garbage.

Technically it came out last year, so I can’t in good conscience put it on the list. Just know that it would probably be top 3 if it was.

10.) LATER ALLIGATOR

Later Alligator wasn’t a long experience, but it was a fun one. The hand animated, point and click adventure game that’s chock full of diverse mini-games really won me over this year. The writing was funny, the story and characters were all charming in their own ways, and the premise itself just oozed with ridiculousness.

9.) STAR WARS JEDI: FALLEN ORDER

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a tough game to talk about because I feel so conflicted about it. On the one hand, it’s scratching that Star Wars itch so well for me, telling an interesting enough story in a world that I absolutely love. Yet on the other hand, it can kind of be a trial in tedium the further in you get.

That isn’t to say I didn’t have a good time with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, because I really did. It’s just unfortunate that as you progress further into the game, it starts to feel very repetitive and uninspired. It also suffered from a lot of performance issues which consistently made themselves apparent.

But even through all that, I managed to find joy in the world and story that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was doling out. The satisfaction of chaining together all of your force powers and light saber abilities is a delight, and gave me those rare moments of fulfilling a Jedi power fantasy.

8.) RING FIT ADVENTURE

I’ve never played a game that physically hurt me, but Ring Fit Adventure is a game that’s left me sore while rubbing in the fact that I haven’t actually done much. In case you aren’t aware, Ring Fit Adventure is the latest in Nintendo’s attempts to make you healthier. It comes with a Pilates ring that houses one Joy-Con controller, while the other goes on a strap around your thigh. You then do exercises to progress through levels, fight battles, and sweat profusely if you’re like me.

Even if we set aside the exercising aspect of Ring Fit Adventure for a moment, it’s a pretty fully featured game with various modes including a full on story mode, mini-games and custom routines. You also do things like upgrading your gear to make your workout attacks and defenses better, as well as crafting different smoothies which will give you certain buffs in battle.

Oh yeah, also you battle monsters in this pseudo turn based workout fight. Each enemy is color coded to match a type of workout that you can do. For example, a blue monster is weak to leg based workouts, so selecting squats or knee lifts will damage the enemy more.

It is wild that I’m describing the RPG mechanics of a workout game, but it’s actually a lot of fun and really effective at what it does. Ring Fit Adventure has been my go to for working out, not only because I can work up a sweat with it, but because it’s actually fun.

7.) PIKUNIKU

One of the first new games I played this year ended up being one of my favorites. Pikuniku was a delightful little game in which you stumble through a world besieged by an evil corporation that’s trying to take over everything. Through a light mix of puzzle solving and platforming you make your way across the land, solving all the problems you can in service of overthrowing said corporation.

It’s oozing with charm, it’s light and breezy, and it’s weird as hell.

6.) CONTROL

Control is a weird one for me. Early in the game I was completely enthralled, exploring every nook and cranny, reading every note and memo, and watching every video log I came across. Control does world building better than any game I played this year. But as I got further and further into the game, I stopped doing a lot of the side quests and stopped reading every piece of paper that wafted past me. The tension and intrigue that drew me in from the beginning began to feel rote and tiresome, and none of it because of any inadequacies in the story or world.

No, the real issue I had with Control was the combat and how frequently you had to engage with it. Every encounter became a chore that ended with me having to hunt down the one last enemy who got trapped behind a corner, or buried under some rubble. More importantly, the boss battles were the thing that eventually broke my back with Control. The difficulty spikes that usually centered around the bosses eventually made me stop playing the game all together for a while.

Eventually I came back to it and powered through to the end. The story manages to hold up its end of the bargain, but the combat never gets any better, even when you get some of the late game powers. It’s a real shame considering when it came out, I was ready to place it at the top of my list. Still though, Control is a hell of a ride despite its failings.

That being said, there’s a sequence at the end of the game that is absolutely incredible. Look up the “Ashtray Maze” if you’re curious.

5.) MY FRIEND PEDRO

My Friend Pedro is one of the few games I felt compelled to actually review this year, mostly because it’s just so damn cool. In another example of style over substance, My Friend Pedro isn’t the most elegant game to play, but it provides such an awesome power fantasy that I still will occasionally pop into just to get my Matrix fix.

It’s a game that really only has the one, slow motion, bullet-time gimmick, but it does it really, really well. It’s because of how well it does that gimmick, that I find myself coming back to it every once in a while, just to get that action movie feeling again.

The controls can be a little weird and cumbersome at times, but when it clicks, it just looks and feels so good to play.

4.) HEAVE HO

I’m pretty sure I pissed myself once while playing Heave Ho. It’s a game that’s so utterly absurd and preposterous, that you and the people you’re playing with can’t help but crack up.

Heave Ho is a physics based platformer, I guess? You and your buddies are these creatures with a face and two arms, each controlled using the triggers on the controller. You navigate levels using “teamwork” and your incredible climbing skills in an effort for everyone to make it to the goal.

It’s the kind of game that you need to play to really understand it, because describing it doesn’t do it justice. Do yourself a favor, get some friends and a copy of Heave Ho, and you won’t be disappointed.

3.) SUPER MARIO MAKER 2

Super Mario Maker 2 along with its predecessor, managed to tap into this primal horror that lurks inside of me – making people test their might in the crucible of my own design. I normally don’t engage with level creation based games, but with Super Mario Maker 2, I already knew the language of how everything interacts with each other from years of playing Mario games. I know what kind of blocks a shell with break and bounce off of, or what a super mushroom does, or that music blocks are evil. Knowing all of that just makes it so easy for me to dip into the creation suite and have a great time.

On the flip-side, I get to play near infinite amount of new levels, some of which are well designed, whenever I want. While the creation tools aren’t as easy to work with as they were on the Wii U, Super Mario Maker 2 has a permanent place on my Switch.

2.) THE OUTER WORLDS

It’s really odd that I enjoyed The Outer Worlds as much as I did considering my general apathy and dislike of the games it so clearly is building off of. Where The Outer Worlds succeeds as opposed to games like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls is in its refinement and focus.

The Outer Worlds isn’t about the scale of the world as much as its about packing it with (mostly) meaningful and interesting things to do and see. From brilliant writing, excellent gameplay, interesting characters and a well thought out and engaging setting, The Outer Worlds is a complete experience that doesn’t waste your time.

I’ve heard some people grouse about how this game is too easy or too streamlined, striping away some of the deeper RPG elements they love, but they can huff my shorts because this is the first time a game in this style has ever won me over.

Honestly I’m shocked that The Outer Worlds is a game I enjoyed, let alone put this high up on my list. I would’ve never believed you if you told me this earlier in the year.

1.) UNTITLED GOOSE GAME

Okay, so hear me out. Untitled Goose Game isn’t the best game I’ve ever played, in fact, it isn’t even that good of a stealth game. But, what it did was bring me a ton of joy and made me laugh.

I’ve had more fond memories playing as a nasty goose than any other game this year. Untitled Goose Game constantly kept me smiling and laughing as I fought against the purposefully cumbersome controls in an effort to throw a rake in a lake.

The truth is that Untitled Goose Game is just pleasant. Even when you’re traumatizing a kid who clearly is terrified of geese, or stealing a mans crops, or getting a guy to break his neighbor’s vase, the game still manages to just be fun without being overly complicated.

I genuinely enjoyed my time being a nasty goose and come back to it pretty regularly to try and sweep up the additional challenges that unlock when you beat it. It may not be what you’d imagine a traditionally good game looks like, but this game made me happier than any other game I played this year.

It’s short, it’s sweet, and it’s my game of the year for 2019.

@house_house_ pic.twitter.com/T8QhgJIUqS

— sorry ari (@ComboBroken) September 26, 2019

So that’s it everyone, Game of the Year 2019 is in the books. I hope you enjoyed the articles that went up this week, because they were a lot of fun to write. This is the last post going up in 2019, so I just wanted to thank you for sticking with me throughout the year. You have no idea how much your support and readership has meant to me.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year everyone. See you in 2020.

Top 15 Games I Didn’t Play Because I’m Not Made of Money

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The money tree I planted in my backyard never really payed dividends, so I couldn’t fiscally find a way to play everything I wanted to this year. So in no particular order, here are 15 games I wanted to play but couldn’t, because I’m not made of money.

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE

I like Call of Duty well enough, but hearing the positive reception it’s been receiving really ramped up my desire to play it. The original Modern Warfare was responsible for some of my favorite gaming memories with my buddies, and while I know I can’t ever recapture that magic, it would’ve been nice to revisit it.

14.) LUIGI’S MANSION 3

I’ve only ever seen other people play any Luigi’s Mansion game with the exception of playing some terrible mini-games in Luigi’s Mansion 3 with friends. I never owned a Gamecube or Nintendo DS, so I was pretty excited to get the chance to play this newest release on a platform I actually owned. But like most of the games on this list, life happened, and I had to prioritize other things. The reception on this one has been mostly positive with some people taking umbrage with the controls. From what I’ve seen, Luigi’s Mansion 3 seems charming as hell, and I definitely want to check it out.

13.) POKEMON SWORD & SHIELD

Okay, I’m not the biggest Pokemon fan, so I can’t say I was actively looking forward to playing this latest entry at all. But I was curious about what a Pokemon game on a more or less, home console, would actually look like. Not curious enough to drop sixty big ones on, but still curious. With this one, I was more just window shopping.

Combine my mild desire to play a Pokemon game with the very mixed and sometimes angry reception of this latest entry, and I think I’m good on never playing it.

12.) DEATH STRANDING

Despite the miles of coverage on this game, I still just wanted to try it for myself if only out of pure curiosity. Most people are pretty split on it either loving it or hating it, but after seeing some of the stuff floating around the internet, mixed with my general dislike of most Kojima games, I’m 100% positive I made the right choice for me. If you like the game, great, but it doesn’t look right for me.

11.) HYPNOSPACE OUTLAW

I’ve been so close to pulling the trigger on this game 3 or 4 times now, but still haven’t for some reason. It’s this adventure game set in these facsimiles of old 90’s GeoCities pages where you play as a cyber cop that cracks down on infringements and infractions of cyber-law. It sounds great, but I just never found the right opportunity to go through with buying it. Luckily, one of my dear friends gifted me Hypnospace Outlaw for the holidays, which means I no longer have an excuse to not play it.

10.) SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE

I’m not a Dark Souls guy at all, but people told me that Sekiro, while still being tough, wasn’t as brutal as a traditional Souls game. Whether they’re telling the truth or not is pretty subjective, but deep down I knew what they actually meant was that this game would still relish in any opportunity to whip my ass. So I kinda decided to save myself the hassle and just skip it. Looks really cool though.

9.) FIRE EMBLEM: THREE HOUSES

Speaking of games that I definitely wouldn’t be into, the Fire Emblem series is an extremely popular role-playing, turn based RPG with an emphasis on crafting relationships with various NPCs in an effort to make them better fighters… I think. It’s certainly not a game I would enjoy, but all the praise people were throwing at it did make me curious enough to consider throwing money at it. Yet after hearing that the game could take upwards of 70-80 hours, I politely declined and moved on.

8.) MORDHAU

I really wish I had some friends who would’ve played Mordhau with me. I enjoyed games like Chivalry back when they came out, and Mordhau just looked like a more refined version of it which was a very appealing proposal to me. But it isn’t a game I would play unless I knew that I had a crew to roll with. Buying multi-player focused games is a pretty tough sell for where I’m at in life, but if my friends were down, Mordhau wouldn’t be on this list.

7.) CADENCE OF HYRULE

Crypt of the Necrodancer was so cool and unique that I’m surprised it took them so long to make another one. I’m even more surprised it came in the form of a Zelda-themed game. For those who don’t know, just like its predecessor, Cadence of Hyrule is a top down dungeon crawling game that has you move and act to the beat of music to attack and move around and all that. It’s such a neat concept, but I just never got around to picking it up.

6.) THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING

Two things basically stopped me from actually picking up Link’s Awakening. The first being that I couldn’t afford it at the time, and the second being that the performance of the game looked really bad. On top of that, people who had finished it were pretty lukewarm on the later game content. I’d still like to try it for myself, but probably never will.

5.) ANCESTORS: THE HUMANKIND ODYSSEY

This is just like Death Stranding to me in that they’re both fairly inscrutable. I really wanted to play Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, but after seeing it in action my desires quickly subsided. There appears to be no direction in how to play or progress which isn’t super enticing for me. I was ready to approach this game like I was on a fact finding mission and I would report my findings back to all of you. But yeah, I don’t know that I’m ever going to buy this game.

4.) ASTRAL CHAIN

So here’s the thing about Astral Chain that can probably explain exactly why I didn’t play it. Up until I went to make this list, I forgot it had even come out this year. I’d heard mixed to positive things about it, but I was on the fence to begin with. It looked like a cool action game and reports of the satisfying combat definitely piqued my interest, but it just kind of fell off of my radar so hard and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything big.

3.) GREEDFALL

I have wanted to like the games that developer Spiders have made in the past, like Mars: War Logs and The Technomancer, but found them to be clunky and mostly uninteresting. But Greedfall looked like the most comprehensive of all of their offerings and certainly showed well in trailer form. When it came out, the response was pretty mixed, but there’s still a part of me that wants to give it a fair shake. There’s also my weird desire to play a big meaty action RPG even though I know that I have a hard time seeing games through to the end. That is unless they’ve really grabbed me, which is something I doubt Greedfall would have done.

Also, Greedfall? That’s the name that comes out of an idle game name generator. It’s a very bad title is what I’m saying.

2.) DISCO ELYSIUM

A lot of people have been singing the praises of Disco Elysium and even giving it their top honors this year. Since it released that’s kind of been the tenor of the conversation around it, so I was definitely intrigued. But seeing it in action quickly reminded me that it isn’t my kind of game. A CRPG is most definitely not what I’m looking for, and Disco Elysium looks to be a CRPG-ass CRPG.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t feeling some sort of FOMO with this game, especially because when I hear it described, it sounds awesome. I just know that Disco Elysium isn’t a game for me.

1.) SHENMUE 3

I just… like… I gotta know. I need to see this stupid game. I need to see if after almost twenty years this game is worth a damn at all. I don’t hate Shenmue games, they were impressive at the time, but they didn’t age well at all. Hearing that Shenmue 3 feels like a game made in the late 90’s but today, is a wild prospect. It sounds like the creator of the game, Yu Suzuki, stopped playing games after releasing Shenmue 2 back in 2001, and decided to make another one without looking at any advancement in the industry since.

Give me infinite time and money, and I will give you the review of Shenmue 3 that you all deserve.

Now even with an unlimited budget, I don’t think I would have had the time to dedicate to playing all of these games anyway. It’s a shame I missed out on some of these games, but I’m not balling out in a way that I can buy them all. Anyway, thanks so much for checking out my list, check back tomorrow for my Game of the Year list.

Blog: Happy Holidays – 12/25/19

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Hey y’all, just wanted to say that I hope this holiday season is going well for you and is relatively stress free. I also wanted to thank you for sticking with The Bonus World and reading our stuff. It truly means a lot to me to know that I’m not just shouting into the nothingness that is the internet, and instead, people are into what I do here.

But that’s not what this is about. What this is all about is wishing each and every single on of you a happy holiday season and a tremendous New Year. By the time you read another one of these it’ll be 2020, which I think we can officially classify as “The Future.”

I won’t belabor the point any more than I already have. So happy holidays and have a fantastic New Year. Now go spend time with your families, or do what I’m probably doing and hide in the bathroom and check social media to see how many other people are doing the same.

My Favorite 15 Games of the Decade

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Alright, it seems like everyone is doing one of these lists right now, so why shouldn’t I do the same? As we round the corner and leave this decade in the dust, I’d like to take a look back at just a handful of my favorite games from the past 10 years. These are in release order, and don’t indicate how much I enjoyed one over the other. Also, I didn’t want to write this article forever, so I limited it to 15. Don’t worry, I liked other games too, but these ones jumped out at me immediately when crafting this list.

MASS EFFECT 2 – (January 26, 2010)

When Mass Effect 2 arrived at the beginning of the decade, I was instantly taken with it. Having never really enjoyed the first one, thanks to its cumbersome mechanics, Mass Effect 2 provided a more streamlined an accessible approach to the action-RPG. With its tight combat and extremely well crafted story and world, there was very little to take umbrage with upon its release. It had its fair share of missteps to be fair, but those complaints drifted into the background pretty quickly. Mass Effect 2 is still a colossal experience to this day, and it also had some phenomenal pieces of downloadable content to provide new and interesting stories in this world I came to love so much.

ROCK BAND 3 – (October 26, 2010)

Rock Band 3 was the pinnacle of the plastic instrument craze that dominated the mid and late 2000’s, providing not only an amazing and diverse set list, but offering people the chance to live out their most rockin’ piano fantasies in the form of a plastic key-tar. It isn’t hard to see why the franchise and its competitors were so popular, but the Rock Band franchise is especially dear to me because without those games, I would’ve have never started playing the actual drums. While plastic guitars don’t really translate to real world musical talent, the fake drums actually taught me a lot about timing and limb independence. That and it had both At The Drive In and Metric on the base set list.

THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 1 – (October 31, 2010)

When the first season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead concluded, I was devastated. Through its highs and lows, it managed to tell a beautifully morose story that left me teary eyed. It also reinvigorated and reinvented the stagnate adventure game, making it not only a viable genre again, but proving that these kinds of games could tell amazing stories while not requiring you to solve obscure puzzles which had been a staple for so long.

PORTAL 2 – (April 18, 2011)

Do I really need to explain why Portal 2 is on this list? It’s one of the best puzzle games out there to this day, providing an excellent learning curve, intriguing story, and for being genuinely hilarious. For years people have been clamoring for Half-Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3, but the correct answer is making Portal 3. I can safely say that I haven’t enjoyed a puzzle game as thoroughly as Portal 2 since its release.

JOURNEY – (March 13, 2012)

The way Journey handled not only its story and world, but its multiplayer component, was a revelation to me at the time. There was this constant feeling of isolation that would encompass everything around you, until a mysterious figure would show up in the distance, beckoning you to come over. They had no name, they couldn’t speak, but they were another player, and they were waiting for me. And it was an incredible feeling to know that while we once thought we were both alone, we were both wrong. Without saying a word, you and your buddy would trek through the entire game together where Journey would finally reveal the name of the player or players that you spent a few hours with. Journey was a beautiful game on all fronts, and everyone should play it.

SLEEPING DOGS – (August 14, 2012)

It’s a shame that Sleeping Dogs never saw a sequel, because it’s a fantastic game. It’s like if Grand Theft Auto had a better story and didn’t rely on shooting everything in sight to progress. It combined all of the fun aspects of GTA, the open world, the vehicles, and the side activities, and paired them with a really good hand to hand combat system in the vein of Batman Arkham Asylum. It was a joy to play, with the least interesting parts of it ironically being the bits where you had to shoot things. Also, Emma Stone was in it and I don’t understand why.

MARK OF THE NINJA – (September 7, 2012)

Okay, so here’s a reference that maybe like 7 people will get, but does anyone remember those old Splinter Cell games that they put out on flip phones like the Motorolla RAZR? They were these 2D stealth games that were way better than they had any right to be. Why did I bring that up? Because Mark of the Ninja scratched that itch for me in the best way possible. It was this 2D stealth action game where you were unsurprisingly, a ninja, who would sneak around and slice fools up. Not only did it play great, but it looked phenomenal. I wholeheartedly recommend Mark of the Ninja to anyone that wants to play a stealth game that isn’t overly complex.

THE LAST OF US – (June 14, 2013)

There’s like 5 or six moments in The Last of Us that still stick with me to this day, and I’m willing to bet anyone who’s played the game can guess what they are. From a gut-wrenching story to tense combat and stealth situations, The Last of Us was a triumph of a game. Ironically enough, my least favorite part about it were the zombies, but I still really loved this game despite their presence. Also, The Last of Us had a really amazing multiplayer aspect to it that I feel was under appreciated.

SUPER MARIO MAKER – (September 10, 2015)

I’ve never been a huge fan of level building games or modes, but Super Mario Maker was so brilliant in its design, using the language of Mario games that I understood so well to empower me to stretch my level building muscles. It was so cleverly designed in a way that made logical sense through the lens of Mario games. If I wanted a large goomba, I’d feed him a mushroom. Want a flying Bowser? Slap some wings on that fool. It took the pieces of Mario we all understand, and made them work in the context of a level editor.

FIREWATCH – (February 9, 2016)

There aren’t too many games that I could say “made me feel things,” but Firewatch was definitely one of them. From the jump you’re thrown into a tragic situation that’s the impotence for the rest of the game. It’s this constant, nagging feeling in the back of your head that reminds you that you shouldn’t be here. “Here” of course being in the middle of the woods working as a forest ranger in a fire watch station. You spend all of your time exploring the wilderness and talking to the voice of another fire watcher who is guiding and directing you while asking you increasingly more personal questions. You’re not only learning about each other, but you’re learning about a mystery lurking in the very woods you’re wandering through. It’s amazing and I can’t say enough good things about it. Play Firewatch.

TITANFALL 2 – (October 28, 2016)

It’s such a shame that when Titanfall 2 was released, it was wedged between a Call of Duty and a Battlefield game, essentially killing any moment it could gather before it had a chance. Like I said, it’s a real shame considering that Titanfall 2 is one of the best first person shooters of the last decade. From toe to tip, everything in Titanfall 2 is crafted with care and attention to detail. The campaign, while not the most interesting story, is incredible from a design standpoint, with each level boasting a new mechanic or idea that dramatically changed how you played. The multiplayer was no slouch either, building upon the chaotic fun that the original Titanfall introduced back in 2014. Titanfall 2 is still worth your time even if you don’t plan on engaging with the multiplayer aspect of it. In fact, I might even recommend just getting it for the campaign at this point.

NIGHT IN THE WOODS – (January 10, 2017)

Night in the Woods is hands down my favorite game of the decade. I wrote a review that goes into my feelings on it in detail, but I’ll quickly summarize what I can here.

Night in the Woods struck a real chord with me and even managed to make me genuinely reconsider things in my own life. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the themes, the interactions, the setting, everything about it just rang so true and hit me hard. It’s a hard game to recommend because when I start out by saying, “you play as an anthropomorphic cat,” people tend to tune out immediately afterwards. But for such a visually adorable game, it gets really dark and intense. Adventure games aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I really can’t say enough good things about Night in the Woods.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD – (March 3, 2017)

I’ve never been the biggest fan of The Legend of Zelda series, enjoying some of them but never really feeling any affinity or passion for the series, but holy hell did Breath of the Wild change all of that. You’re plopped onto this massive and sprawling land mass, given all the abilities you’d need to conquer any and all obstacles along the way. Breath of the Wild isn’t a game about getting stronger, it’s a game about getting smarter by using your skills and the tools you find along the way. By incorporating a system that rewards exploration and puzzle solving in order to maximize your HP or stamina, you were always encouraged to explore the world as opposed to just charging towards the finish line. The only thing that I absolutely hated about Breath of the Wild was its system of weapon degradation. I felt like it didn’t add anything to the game itself, and made me hoard more things that I normally would in games. But that’s barely an issue when stacked up to every other triumph in Breath of the Wild.

MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN – (September 7, 2018)

Let’s get this out of the way, Marvel’s Spider-Man is repetitive in spots and doesn’t offer a tremendous amount of variety in what you actually do in it. That being said, I’ve never had more fun with a superhero game than this one, and coincidentally it stars my favorite one. Marvel’s Spider-Man, by my own admission, is just a good game. It isn’t great and probably doesn’t stack up to several other games on this list, but it was easily one of my favorite and most memorable experiences with a game in recent memory. It’s one of the only games I’ve felt the need to 100%, despite the repetitive chores I had to complete to accomplish that. Marvel’s Spider-Man just feels good to play, providing a satisfying swinging mechanic mixed with some great (yet repetitive) combat. It’s rough around the edges in spots, but I still love it so dearly.

RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 – (October 26, 2018)

I’m willing to bet that a good percentage of the posts on this site are about Red Dead Redemption 2 in some way. That’s with good reason though. You can read my review, but Red Dead Redemption 2 is such a triumph of a game in terms of story, atmosphere and world building, that I can’t even fathom a game that’s done it better.

Every piece of Red Dead Redemption 2 is crafted in a way to reinforce the Wild West setting, while still providing interesting and engaging story beats. Like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it does a great job at encouraging exploration. Almost every cottage, structure or cave you stumble upon has something there for you experience or find. The amount of random events in the world that crop up do a great job of breaking up what would be the tedium of riding your horse from mission to mission, while also being pretty interesting for the most part.

I could go on forever about how much I like Red Dead Redemption 2, but I have a review to do that for me. And if you haven’t played it yet, my one bit of advice is that the game is slow. You have to be okay with going at its pace or else you’ll have a miserable time.

The 2010’s have been really great for video games as a product. Less so for the business end of things… more specifically the “being an employee at a game company” part of it. I know we’re going to get some great games in the coming decade, but we need to see real change in the way game companies are run. Here’s hoping for some progress in 2020.

5 Games I Didn’t Finish This Year

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Every year I find myself struggling to find the time or energy to power through a particular game for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s because of a glut of releases, other times it’s just the game itself repelling me from it, but more often than not, it’s because something in my life came up. This year I’d like to highlight the games that I just couldn’t bring myself to finish this year for one reason or another.

THE OUTER WILDS

Okay, so I know that The Outer Wilds is probably high up on a lot of Game of the Year lists for a lot of people, but despite the incredible first impression it makes, it never managed to get its hooks in me.

For those who don’t know, The Outer Wilds is kind of a run based adventure game about space exploration. I say “kind of” because there are story justifications for the looping of time that actually build up a pretty intriguing mystery that involves ancient civilizations.

The problems I ran into with the game however, are less the fault of the game itself, and more my own issues with certain styles of game. For instance, while it’s cool, the looping nature of the world didn’t engage me as much as it repelled me. I like to explore things at my own pace, and while I understand that different events happen at different times during the loop, I just never shook this nagging, pressured feeling.

I also felt that controlling the spaceship was way more of an obstacle than it needed to be. It’s just so unwieldy and hard to control with any accuracy. It ends up getting in the way of my desire to actually follow up on the elements of the story purely because of how bad controlling the ship feels.

The other big thing that kept me away from it, was just putting it down for too long. I stepped away from The Outer Wilds for one reason or another when it released back in May, and I haven’t touched it since.

All things considered, The Outer Wilds is the game on this list that I most consider coming back to and might get around to by the time this article gets published.

KNIGHTS AND BIKES

I wrote about Knights and Bikes a while back and how despite being a very charming looking game, the gameplay was lacking. To quickly catch you up: Knights and Bikes is an action adventure game with a focus on cooperative play. It kind of plays a little bit like a top down Zelda game, except it’s nowhere near as fun or interesting.

So why didn’t I stick with Knights and Bikes? Because life is too short to struggle through a game that isn’t doing anything for you. From the combat to the dialogue, nothing really stood out to me about the game. That is of course, with the exception of Captain Honkers, the very good goose in the image above.

MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3: THE BLACK ORDER

Okay, so let’s just rip this band-aid off. A few months back I wrote a pretty positive Early Impressions article about Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order. I stand by that article considering it was about, my early impressions. Unfortunately, what should’ve been a fun beat-em-up with all my favorite superheroes turned into an all out snooze-fest mixed with a healthy dose of grinding.

I really wanted to like Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, but the loop of going to a new level to punch beefier enemies just got really tiresome after a while. The main issue I had with the game that ultimately stopped me from proceeding, was that it never fulfilled the power fantasy of being a superhero. I was always outmatched no matter what combination of heroes I threw at the endless horde of enemies.

And ultimately it just stopped being fun to play. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order felt too long for its own good while never adding enough to shake up the formula to keep things interesting.

REMNANT: FROM THE ASHES

Remnant: From the Ashes is a game that people said was a manageable Dark Souls-esque experience if you were to go at it alone. Those people are clearly better at video games than me and I’m okay with that.

I really liked my short time with Remnant: From the Ashes, but I just never had the desire to come back to it. I have some friends who have the game, but even that wasn’t enough to keep me engaged.

I genuinely don’t know what’s stopping me from jumping back into Remnant: From the Ashes, but I suspect it has a lot to do with my general lack of enthusiasm for the, “hard” game genre where games like Dark Souls, Sekiro and The Surge live.

I would love to come back to it, but let’s be honest here, it isn’t going to happen. It’s just another example of a game that you spend enough time away from, that going back to it seems like an ordeal.

AFTERPARTY

Lastly on the list is the most recent example of a game that I said, “I’ll get back to that one later,” and never did. Afterparty is a game that I was so excited for ever since it was announced, and then when it finally dropped in late October I found myself strapped for time.

By the time my schedule cleared up, 2018’s game of the year, Red Dead Redemption 2 was released on PC and consumed every free moment of gaming time I had left. Do I regret not playing a new release for a game I beat twice already? A little. Do I care? Absolutely not.

Afterparty as a game didn’t do anything to repel me from it, the problem was that it got buried under the weight of the cowboy simulator. It isn’t a very long game from what I’ve heard, so I might try to bang it out over the winter break.

So there they are, 5 games I didn’t finish this year and probably wont ever. Check back in tomorrow at 3pm ET for another Game of the Year article. And to answer your question, yes, this list exists in an effort to explain why certain games aren’t on my Game of the Year list.

The Master of Disaster: Adapting – 08

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While I always feel immensely satisfied with the work I put into crafting and delivering our various DnD sessions, when I look back on where we started versus where we are now I can’t help but feel like I missed endless opportunities along the way. My Dungeon Mastering started by following the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist book in an attempt to get my sea legs under me. I had always intended to stray from the book and its story, but never did I expect it to be such a dramatic departure.

I’ve gone over that transition once or twice already, so I won’t retread that yet another time. No, the crux of this The Master of Disaster is about adapting on the fly and how important being able to do it effectively is.

One of my players is currently in the midst of crafting a one-shot game for us as a way to get comfortable with being a Dungeon Master for a future campaign they’ll run. He recently came to me and let me know that he was a little behind and needed more time to hone it. That’s completely understandable, considering that putting together even a one-shot is a tremendous amount of work. But I wanted to impart my limited knowledge upon him and maybe help him prepare for the stuff that you can’t script out.

I don’t know if I was effective in portraying that message, but hopefully this can help him along with other first time Dungeon Masters.

The first thing to understand is that you need to give your players a reason to do something. I’ve struggled with it in the past and it led to a couple of moments with me breaking the fourth wall and just saying, “you’re going there cause that’s where the rest of the game is.” There was more context to that statement, but it doesn’t matter because that’s just a bad way to handle the situation. I either needed a better motivator or a better way to express that this was the direction the party should head in.

The second thing is to know your NPCs. You don’t have to make bespoke character sheets for every NPC you craft, nor do you need to name every citizen in a town or village. That path leads to nothing but insanity. What I settled on was making sure I had an understanding of what the named NPCs knew and what that information meant to them. Maybe the party would have to earn that information, maybe the NPC was easily intimidated, maybe they were a good Samaritan, or maybe they just don’t know something. You can’t plan for every question or line of dialogue cause you never know what your players are thinking.

Along those lines is the third and arguably the most important thing a Dungeon Master can do, and that’s being able to adapt on the fly. Improvisation is a required ability when leading a session or campaign, that’s why it’s important to have the previous two skills down because it makes this third one that much easier.

For example, you might have a quest line involving a corrupt king that’s been enjoying the benefits of their royalty while their people live in squalor. Why should the party care? Well, the easiest reward is money or treasure, but if you have players who actively role play, you can tap into their characters minds and appeal to their nature. The lawful good guy isn’t going to be too keen on an neglectful and abusive king. You can reinforce this by having citizens who voice their disdain and dissatisfaction to the party, or an event that shows the kings brutality. These can help propel the party in the direction you want them to go.

But you never know if they’ll take the bait or be as invested as you want them to be, and that’s why you need to be able to improvise and think on the fly. Maybe the party is looking for a diplomatic approach even though you planned for a big battle. Don’t squash that effort, embrace their decisions. Even if you had this elaborate fight planned, you need to know when to let it go and let the party succeed. There will be plenty of opportunities for other fights.

You can apparently buy this screen here

But let’s say you really want them to fight anyway. Okay, I guess if that’s how you want to play it, you have to justify it. The king might be okay with the negotiation, but maybe a group of his personal guards aren’t to keen on giving up their power. Things like that can allow the players to feel like they’ve accomplished something without making it too obvious that you just wanted to fight.

Although one thing I’ve learned is that it’s usually better to just let your players take their victory in circumventing a battle because it makes them happy. But maybe now you’re in a position where suddenly a battle that could take up half of your session is just gone and you’ve got nothing planned. Using the previous example of the king, you can have the guards jail the king for betraying them or the throne or something and have it end up as a big brawl between the citizens and the guards that remain.

That actually accomplishes a lot because your players feel like their plan worked, but there were unforeseen consequences of their actions that rippled throughout the town. Now they’ve got to clean up their own mess, and now they’re invested.

Like I said, I’m not perfect at this Dungeon Mastering thing, but I have figured out a decent way to keep my players engaged and excited most of the time. Sometimes it’s fun to make a quest that plays their alignments against each other, or that one players character would be really invested in and see how they convince the rest of their group to follow along.

I guess to sum up everything here into one tight sentence, it would be this; Don’t say no to your players, instead offer up alternatives, goals and challenges to their requests and attempts, even if it goes against what you’ve planned for.

Blog: End of the Year Stuff – 12/18/19

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Pardon the self serving post, but I just wanted to get out in front of what’s coming up next week. See, every year I try to compile a list for Game of the Year and that’s worked for me so far. Yet this year, I’ve found it a little harder to build that list. There were a lot of external factors that made it tougher, but I won’t bore you with the details.

The point is that somewhere in my brain I decided that because it was difficult this year to make one list, I made four. What that means is that every day next week there’s going to be something to peruse on the site. I’m really proud with how it all came out and I hope you all enjoy it as well.

The lists are pretty self explanatory, so I won’t go into it here. But yeah, for as much work as all of it was, I’m very happy with the results. So yeah, short blog this week, but it felt necessary to keep you all in the loop.

Happy holidays, and I’ll see you next week.