[ Previous entries: 2016 … 2017 … 2018 … 2019 … 2020 ]

Steam hours currently = 2,262 hours, minus last year’s milestone of 1,934 hours, which means that (while crossing the 2k hour mark) I logged 328 hours in Steam gaming last year. So, my Steam gaming time continues to decline year over year. And I only have 34 games logged here. I guess I had other things going on this past year.

Over at MobyGames, I managed to accrue… wow, 38 whole points! This seemed strangely low to me until I recalled that I spent a huge amount of time actually approving contributions this year, as opposed to making contributions.

At the very least, I think I managed to finally kick my They Are Billions habit, a significant milestone. Speaking of which, it looks like that was the very first game I played last calendar year…

1. They Are Billions: I was managing my addiction by allowing myself to play the weekly community challenge. However, I would still slip into the mode of playing the survival game, mostly serving the role of something to do while listening to some manner of audio program. I came to the realization that when I play in these increasingly advanced survival modes, it’s essentially the equivalent of idly bouncing a rubber ball against the wall to keep my body doing something as I’m listening to said audio programs. However, in April, after 863 hours, I finally won a 350% game, something I didn’t think I would accomplish. At 965 hours in August, I won at 380% (score of 103,868 points). Sometime in the middle of September, I decided that I was already as good at the game as I ever care to become (vs. could possibly become), and finally hung it up. Strangely, I had managed to log exactly 1,000 hours into the game at the time I decided to quit. I have a feeling that I will never log as many hours into any other game. Or at least, maybe I’m just hoping that’s the case.
2. Two Dots (iOS): I got some mileage out of the previous Dots game on mobile platforms and I saw the sequel in the App Store. Free with IAP. Usually, I try to evaluate what the IAP on offer entails before installing the game. But I could not determine the purchase types for this title. So I gave it a whirl and got through a few levels before I failed to meet the goal after 8 or 9 levels… and I had to wait 20 minutes before trying again, or had the option to pay to give it another spin. I do believe this is the first time I have ever played a game that offered this scenario. Previously, I had only heard of it. Uninstalled the game immediately after encountering it.
3. Plants vs. Zombies 2 (iOS): Plants vs. Zombies on an original iPod Touch was my first introduction to the tower defense genre. The sequel first appeared in 2013. It was free with IAP, but made to be unobtrusive and non-essential. I remember enjoying it quite a bit but eventually lost touch with it. I decided to give it another whirl. Unfortunately, it’s such a horrendously cluttered experience that I can’t even find my way around the menu anymore.
4. Opus Magnum: I appreciate that it played at fullscreen and that changing the resolution had the effect of changing the UI scaling rather than changing the desktop resolution. It is another machine-building game from Zachtronics, in the same spirit of their SpaceChem game, which I very much enjoyed. I rather love the soundtrack too.
5. Stories Untold: Not sure what this is about, but I picked it up a few months ago since it promised some sort of retro-80s nostalgia trip, at least owing to the aesthetics of the artwork. Starting up the game, it seems to be an old school interactive fiction text adventure, played through a classic CRT on an 8-bit computer that strongly resembles a Spectrum ZX with integrated cassette loader (which makes sense since this seems to have been developed by a U.K. dev house). I suspect that there is supposed to be more to the game than just this simple IF game. Unfortunately, I was unable to get very far in the first story since I couldn’t seem to persuade the text parser to allow me walk around the back of the house so I could turn on the generator so I could then proceed inside the house.
6. Observation: This is from the same people as Stories Untold (I probably picked them up in a bundle as they seem to be on sale together frequently). I didn’t have high hopes after Stories Untold, but I took the opportunity to quickly clear it off my “unplayed” list. You’re supposed to play as a space station AI computer. I couldn’t figure out how to do anything and I didn’t care enough to try harder, after the previous disappointment.
7. Peggle Deluxe: This was on sale in a pack with its sequel, Nights, so it was a no-brainer to pick up this addictive casual game and play through it again.
8. StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void: I wanted to get back into playing StarCraft II, with the Protoss campaign (Legacy of the Void). I didn’t get too deep into it. Protoss is not the most intuitive faction to play.
9. Mahjong Epic (iOS): Always fun to sink some time into this one.
10. Siege of Centauri: I had this tower defense title on my Steam wish list for quite awhile and it never went down enough in price for me to pick it up. However, it eventually showed up in a Humble Bundle of games that included others I wanted to try, so I finally get to try it. It’s reminiscent of Defense Grid, which is positive. It just annoys me that the game pushes my GPU to 100% no matter what the graphical settings are. I suspect that it isn’t really that taxing; rather that the frame rate might be uncapped. At least the game provides UI scaling.
11. When Ski Lifts Go Wrong: I saw this in a Humble Bundle and it was the only game in the bundle that looked interesting. Fortunately, it was on sale for cheap on Steam at the same time. It’s like a physics puzzler where you are trying to construct minimally strong ski lifts, lest the skiiers, um… die. “Fail fast,” as they say. Regrettably, I couldn’t figure out how to get past the second level in the tutorial. It seems like a game bug that others have also reported on the Steam forum. At least I got an achievement out of my brief play session, for committing manslaughter against 5 skiiers.
12. Styx: Master of Shadows: I’ve had my eye on this one for awhile and it finally came up on sale cheap enough that I bought it. It’s a really good experience– from the very start, it automatically detects the best graphical settings and runs fullscreen. I think the story is strong with just the right amount of bizarre fantasy worldbuilding. I’m rusty at the core stealth gameplay but I’m still having a lot of fun with it. At 4.5 hours, I finally finished the first mission, which I’m led to believe was essentially the tutorial mission. So I’m not sure how plausible it is for me to consider ever finishing it. Also, the story cutscenes after this first mission have a jarring change of art style which drove me nuts.
13. Resident Evil 4: There was a Capcom publisher sale in April which reminded me that I already have this game in my library, which makes it the 3rd time I have purchased the same game. I bought it on its original platform (GameCube) in 2006. I purchased a digital edition of it on the PlayStation 3 in 2011, which was an upgrade in that it added widescreen support to a previously 4:3 aspect ratio game. Then I purchased this Steam version which promised to be the most HD version yet. I was easily able to get it running at full 4K and I guess it looks pretty good– not great.
14. Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics: Beyond Oasis: I decided to dust off this large collection of emulated Genesis games and continue working through alphabetically. This game had a great intro. But the game play struck me as a bit too RPG-ish, which was not something I was looking for in a quick play session.
15. Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics: Bio Hazard Battle: This is more like it! After bailing out of Beyond Oasis pretty quickly, I dove into this title, which turns out to be a pretty creative little shoot-em-up game that features giant bugs (both antagonists and protagonists). It was challenging but still a lot of fun; it became a little easier when I recognized that the powerups were there to be collected and not avoided as indestructible objects on the playfield. There is some unconventional shmup game play in that you have some companion weapons that fly near you, but whose aiming direction is influenced by the opposite direction in which you are flying.
16. Beyond Blue: From a pack of Earth Day Humble Bundle games. Really beautiful underwater game, especially at 4K.
17. Zen Pinball (iOS/Android): I launched this on my iPad to play a round of the default freebie board. Then I tried to see if I could access some old boards I purchased a long time ago. Nope. But I could access them on the Android version. Turns out that I purchased about 1/2 dozen boards nearly a decade ago. However, Zen Pinball doesn’t allow transferring purchases between platforms. Later on, it was the first game I booted up on my new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 phone. I have always enjoyed this game but it’s hard to play on the new phone because the screen is so tall and skinny, making it difficult to play in portrait mode. Landscape mode is more playable, but you don’t have the benefit of seeing very much of the board.
18. Infectonator: Survivors: I listened to an audiobook called The Junkie Quatrain, essentially about survivors trying to make it in a ruined city full of zombies. It reminded me of this game, so I went back to play it. I had a good time but I eventually had to put it down as it got too repetitive and frustrating for me.
19. Super House of Dead Ninjas: Just another romp with a fun old game.
20. SimplePlanes: A bundle of HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle And Stick)-enabled games showed up on Humble Bundle and tempted me. So I bought a Logitech X52 HOTAS and wanted to see what I could do with it. I started with this game because, well, it had simple in the title and I wanted to start easy. This game has you building planes and then flying them. I got through the building tutorial but I was unable to get the HOTAS to work with this game.
21. DCS World: This is a game that uses the model of giving away a little bit (in the form of a few different military aircraft types) and then having an enormous amount of DLC for purchase (many other aircraft types). This is when I started to figure out something crucial– I don’t know anything about flying. I need to figure out some way to learn the basics and flying and how that applies to flight simulation software.
22. Elite: Dangerous: Another big reason I wanted to try out a HOTAS– flying in this game is supposed to be a natural fit for the control scheme. Again, I couldn’t get too deep into it because I am just not competent at flying yet.
23. Masters of Anima: I got the impression that this was a puzzle game or tower defense game. It’s not quite either, at least during my brief playthrough. It has some interesting art styles happening. The cut scenes remind me of Disney’s Hercules. The game engine and graphics remind me more of StarCraft II, mostly of the Protoss variety of graphics. I think the game has more in common with games like God of War and Darksiders, though.
24. Blaster Master Zero: I recently learned of this series of upgraded remakes/sequels of the original Blaster Master game. I put a lot of time into the original Blaster Master game on the NES. This game reminds me of DuckTales Remastered in that it’s an improvement in the storyline of the original. The graphics are a little too low-res, but it’s still fun.
25. Velvet Assassin: I felt like playing a game for the first time in a long time on Halloween night, after I shut down my home’s trick-or-treating operation. I chose this stealth action game that I picked up for a whole dollar at a recent sale. The first thing I really appreciated was that it starts with a Windows dialog box that offers graphical configuration before launching the game. Usually, games try to launch in a low-res mode, mess up the desktop, and I have to configure the settings in game. So I was able to configure the game at 4K, maxed on all settings, and it’s quite lovely, at least outside, before the titular character gets into the dark, drab indoor environments.
26. Xeodrifter: Retro pixel space platformer that I can’t really figure out. It’s interesting for the fact that it uses a window frame to handle configuration items.
27. Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle: The King of Dragons: An arcade game that I have never experienced before. I played it as long as I could before the monotony of classic arcade style action became too much for me.
28. Banana Hell: This falls into the category of impossible platformer. Fun, but incredibly difficult. Weirdly, that doesn’t put me off. I keep on trying.
29. Dungeon Warfare II: Thanksgiving weekend rolled around and it occurred to me that I have often played a bunch of TD games on previous such weekends. Since I didn’t have any new games purchased from the traditional sale, I looked for an older game that I hadn’t played as much. I had about 5 hours on record when I delved into the game this time. I was surprised it was that many. I thought I had discarded the game pretty quickly the last time I tried it. Pretty fun this time around.
30. Box: The Game: The game was free on Steam. It was a delightful, quick romp of a puzzle game.
31. Stars In Shadow: I wish I understood why I am so infatuated with the idea of understanding 4X games. I tried playing this one but got too bored a few minutes into it. I liked the cartoonish aesthetic, though.
32. Talisman: Digital Edition (Android): I got this in a Humble Bundle of tabletop games. I side-loaded it onto my new Android phone. Then I realized it was some sort of card game and quickly lost interest.
33. Mysterium: A Psychic Clue Game (Android): Pretty, but I really didn’t understand what was going on. It’s sort of the opposite end of what usually happens– normally, games have way too much tutorializing. This one didn’t seem to have enough.
34. American Truck Simulator: I fired this up for a quick play session since a MobyGames contact needed confirmation that the game does, indeed, feature gas stations that showcase the price of gas. This critical data was needed for a Steam game group. I even pulled into a station and tried to fill up, but I couldn’t figure out the hotkey to enable that action.

[ Previous entries: 2016 … 2017 … 2018 … 2019 ]

My Steam record indicates that I finished 2020 with 1,934 hours. Vs. the finishing line of 1,566 hours last year, that means I somehow only accumulated 368 hours of Steam gaming for the past year. Seems like I would have played more, given the state of things in 2020.

I still played too much They Are Billions. There was that whole thing with a virus and being technically required to stay in the house, plus being unemployed for a spell. There were too many days in which I sank into playing endless hours of Billions while listening to audiobooks or podcasts and not leaving the house.

Not a complaint, necessarily.

Over at MobyGames, I managed to contribute a bit more than 600 points’ worth of historical game data, again skewing toward promo art harvested from old magazines, catalogs, and press assets CD-ROMs. I stalled out early in the year, however, because I felt like it was moving too slowly. There is a lot of manual tedium in the processing of each promo image and I started to brainstorm process improvements to help alleviate that tedium. This is still an ongoing project as I am preparing better tools to help with the extraction, processing, and submission of these promo art assets, both for myself and any other contributors who would like to assist. Thus far, I have downloaded more than 7000 computer and video game-related magazines from the Internet Archive, nearly all of which are known to contain some video game advertisements– and I only prioritize the downloading of English-language magazines too! Clearly, some optimizations are called for.

Further, I have finally started taking my MobyGames approval role seriously. I have been an approver for well over a decade. But in the past month, I have actually started approving a few of the backed-up queues, starting with the promo art queue, which doesn’t get much love. During December, I managed to approve more than 2000 pieces of promo art.

I have also finally started uploading some material to the Internet Archive. It’s a bit slowgoing because I have a lot of material, but the physical artifacts still need scanning, and I’m working on those process improvements (see above) so it doesn’t take me so long.

Some details about all the games I touched this past year…

1. Cursed Treasure 2: I managed to stay off of video games entirely until January 24 this year. I started picking up a few cheap games during the Year of the Rat Lunar New Year sale. This is tower defense that reminds me strongly of Kingdom Rush, just not quite as good. The biggest problem I had was getting the game running in full screen, with a visible mouse pointer, and with a reasonably sized UI.
2. Ancient Planet: Another TD game from the Lunar New Year sale. This was a good deal more enjoyable than the previous TD game. It definitely feels like a mobile-first title based on the controls. Indeed, it is available on mobile platforms. But it still hooked me for a little while.
3. They Are Billions: Okay, after 2 TD games, I fell back into Billions. Maybe I’ll just resolve to only play once a week, just to have a go at the weekly community challenge. Eventually, a particular Saturday in March rolled around and I realized it was the one-year anniversary of when I got hooked on this game. My total playtime on this momentous occasion stood at 473 hours. A week later is when the quarantines/lockdowns hit my area and I’m pretty sure I decided to just sit inside my house and play this game for 3 days straight. At 568 hours (April), I finally beat a game at 220%, beating the previous best of 170%. Somewhere along the line, I also completed a game at 270%. As of August 12, I wiped the game from my system yet again after logging 653 hours total. I fell off the wagon in early December (clean for 4 months!) and started playing again. I ended this year with 710 hours in the game; last year’s entry indicates that I had nearly 400 hours. So, about 300 of my 368 Steam hours this year got sunk into this game… I believe the correct internet acronym is smh… By the end of the year, I kept falling into this trap of playing at 350% and not playing at a high-enough level of skill to get very far. It’s roughly the equivalent of bouncing a rubber ball against the wall– something to keep my hands occupied while I’m listening to audiobooks. If I return to this game in the coming year, I hope I just keep it to the weekly Community Challenge, which tends to be manageable. It’s one of those games where I realize I’m already as good at this game as I ever care to be– I’ve watched numerous Twitch streams of really awesomely skilled players cruising through the game at 900% (the highest difficulty) and it’s something I don’t really want to pursue.
4. DOOM (2016): This game made a considerable splash among FPS fans when it came out a few years ago. It was on sale for cheap early in the year and I figured it might give my new GPU (RTX 2070) a run for its money at 4K. Actually, it’s not that stressful– only about 70% utilization on max possible settings for 4K. And unlike with Quake/RTX, I can actually perceive how awesome the graphics look. And it’s fairly fun and doesn’t make me too dizzy. One issue, however, is the 70 GB of HD space it requires when fully downloaded and installed. I have a large conventional HD but also a smaller SSD that is reserved for games I would like to access quickly (as well as an M.2 SSD boot drive). I had to do some juggling between the HD and 120 GB SSD to free up enough space that I could move DOOM over to the SSD. I’m so bad at the game that I frequently have to continue from the previous checkpoint, which incurs an intolerable load time from the HD. With the SSD, I’m back into the action in under 10 seconds.
5. Concrete Jungle: Sounded like a neat concept so I finally gave it a spin. It’s one of those titles that elicited a “GAH! I’m sooooo bored!” reaction a few minutes into the tutorial and I quickly bailed out.
6. Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle: The King of Dragons: I dusted off the Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, which has 7 classic Capcom arcade brawlers, many of which I never actually saw in the arcade. I gave this one a spin until I couldn’t handle the monotony of the classic arcade style of free play anymore.
7. Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle: Armored Warriors: Another item from the Beat ‘Em Up Bundle that I never actually saw in the arcades back in the day. It definitely has a unique aesthetic with its mech combat.
8. Shadowgate: Trying to get back into this. I’m not sure how much I need to keep the classic Shadowgate in mind as I play this, i.e., how much is just a straight remaster of the original.
9. Castle Crashers: After playing the classic Capcom arcade brawlers, I had a desire to play a similar game with deeper gameplay, and Castle Crashers fits that bill.
10. Zen Pinball (iOS): Prepping for a long plane ride, this is the first game I put on a refreshed iPad.
11. Hitman GO (iOS): Good airplane game to occupy my time while I simultaneously listen to an audiobook. I’ve played this game’s companions (loved Lara Croft GO; couldn’t figure out Deus Ex GO) and this still manages to be unique among them. I’m a sucker for novel aesthetics and I love the commitment to the board game look of this game.
12. Dissembler (iOS): Another fun casual puzzle game for my iPad.
13. Monument Valley (iOS): The Escher-inspired title continues to be a fallback when I need an iPad time-waster.
14. Pocket City: It didn’t make an impression. I think this was the point on my long plane flight that I decided to just read a book on my iPad.
15. F-Zero (SNES Classic Mini): I reorganized my entertainment center which made it easier for me to play my SNES Classic Mini. I’m trying to get somewhere on F-Zero. I’ve never made it past the fourth track (Death Wind).
16. Mahjong Epic (iOS): I wanted a good Mahjong Solitaire game for my iPad. This fit the bill nicely. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find a mobile Mahjong game that doesn’t have a subscription for removing ads, but I found one.
17. Party Hard 2: The first game in the series grabbed me hard. Seriously, I couldn’t quit playing until my main gaming computer started to die (main hard drive started to give out). I remember seeing a few screenshots of this sequel while in development. I thought that they were trying to make it look like PS1-era graphics as an evolution to the original entry 8/16-bit type of graphics. Fortunately, the final 3D environments are much better– perhaps the dev screenshots were just early development scaffolding without the polish. Anyway, I want to like this game but it’s just not grabbing me like the original. In this facet, it reminds me of the Dungeon Warfare  franchise– the first one grabbed me and wouldn’t let go until I completed the whole thing, while I’m just not as good at the sequel and can’t bring myself to get more motivated. I have to say, however, that the audio engineering is on-point– as you move in and out of the area where the main party is taking place, the audio level reflects that.
18. Ori and the Blind Forest: This falls into the category of “really beautiful platformer,” like Astal or Seasons After Fall. Amazing watercolor art style. I learned of it from a Penny Arcade comic and it made me curious.
19. Resident Evil 3: Raccoon City Demo: It’s free so I tried it out. First, I had to go through the ritual of letting it mess with my monitors’ resolutions as it tried to spread one continuous game window across 2 (but not all 3) of my desktop monitors. When it started running, it decided to run on my main 4K monitor, which was nice. I gave it a few minutes and mostly spent that time gawking at the Easter eggs / member berries in the game (toy store with the Mega Man doll; “1942” movie poster as a pastiche of the Top Gun movie poster style).
    
    

    Resident Evil 3 – Mega Man doll

    
    
    

    Resident Evil 3 – 1942 Movie Poster

20. TIS-100: I’ve owned this assembly language programming simulator for a long time now and Steam still reports it as one of my most played games, at 10 hours. This is because the first time I booted it up, I clicked the button in game to view the programming manual, which launched an external PDF viewer while the game was still running, and then I went to bed, and accidentally logged 10 hours. Not sure why that matters to me. Anyway, every time I booted up the game, I was just confused about what to do. Finally, I started it up and I understood what I was supposed to do. Now I’m having a great time with the game.
21. Halo: Spartan Strike: I’ve played the preceding game– Spartan Assault. I remember wanting to like it but that it didn’t really grow on me. I knew this would be more of the same. But it was on sale for about a dollar, so why not? I knew it would at least be pretty, and I was right– runs beautifully at 4K. And it actually is growing on me just a bit more than the previous game.
22. Elite Dangerous: I wanted to give this game another honest attempt. So I jumped into the pilot training / combat simulator mode with a keyboard control cheat sheet up on a side monitor. It made me dizzy. Runs great at 4K, though.
23. Halo: Spartan Assault: I was enjoying Spartan Strike so much that I decided to give the predecessor another spin.
24. Kingdom Rush: This old favorite boasted some new content so I decided to fire it up again to enjoy it again, but on a bigger 4K monitor. Regrettably, playing the game in fullscreen hides the mouse pointer so I have to play in a window.
25. Bloons TD6: I remember playing a Bloons game in the very early days of the iOS App Store, where the point was just to pop balloons (until writing this, I completely forgot that I’m the one who submitted the iPhone screenshots to the database). Somewhere along the line, the developer morphed the Bloons brand into a tower defense franchise. Steam had a TD sale in April and, improbably, this is the only game I purchased. This is my first foray into Bloons TD and they have somehow already gotten to volume 6. It’s super-cartoonish, but that doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is the complicated upgrade paths, apparently a holdover from the mobile, IAP-enabled edition. I only played it for a few minutes, getting past the first level. The gameplay experience had me wondering if the game was written in a garbage-collected programming language since the engine seemed to noticeably pause often. That’s not something I ought to be thinking while playing a real-time action game.

And then I arrived at the now-traditional Steam Spring Cleaning event, which attempts to induce players to actually play little-touched games in their libraries. This time, there is a machine learning algorithm surfacing 3 games per day for 7 days. Fortunately (?), I have absolutely every game in my Steam library downloaded, just for laughs, because I installed a larger conventional HD recently, and because my ISP suspended download caps early in the pandemic.

26. Anomaly Defenders: I can already tell this is going to be hugely frustrating to boot up a bunch of fresh, never-been-launched games. Each one wants to monkey with my resolution at first start-up. This launched at 1440×809, a bizarre resolution that I’m led to believe is a fractional scaling factor applied to a more sane resolution. Still, everything appears to be in the wrong aspect ratio. I tried to change it via the main menu’s settings but the controls didn’t work. Some of the controls were also covered by the logo. However, upon a relaunch, the game sorted itself out and showed up in proper 4K rez. I’m glad I got to experience the game properly because it’s a reasonably competent tower defense game. It adds something new to the genre that I don’t believe I’ve seen yet– the enemies can hit back at your towers. So you need to be concerned with upkeep. I just wish the game had some keyboard controls. As it stands, all the controls flow through the mouse. Also, the art style isn’t particularly distinctive and the different types of units (both friendly and not) are difficult to distinguish.
27. rymdkapsel: For the second day of Spring Cleaning, Steam surfaced this game as one of my 3 choices. I remember giving this a try a long time ago when I bought it on sale, but it didn’t capture my interest. It feels like it should, however. So I tried again. While it correctly goes fullscreen at full 4K upon launch, the UI is still relatively tiny. Also, there is no mouse cursor, a problem I see more and more these days, in fullscreen modes. If I could get the game out of fullscreen mode, it would probably be playable. I couldn’t find any textual configuration files pertaining to the game. Instead, I radically lowered the resolution on my 4K monitor so that I had a chance of hitting the “Options -> Fullscreen” item with the hidden mouse cursor. I was also able to scale up the UI via the options. I’m glad I stuck with it because once I figured out the game, it turned out to be quite a delightful — if brief — romp about building a base using Tetris pieces that kept me occupied for a few hours. I eventually sunk a few more hours into it in an effort to earn more achievements. It’s always a good sign when a game induces me to do want to do that.
28. Kingdom Rush Origins: The theme of day 3 of the Steam Spring Cleaning event was “old flame”, surfacing 3 games that I have already played a lot. I chose to gave Kingdom Rush Origins a whirl. I still haven’t come close to finishing this game. However, while writing this entry, I realized that the next chapter is called Kingdom Rush Vengeance. It’s only on mobile now but I’m sure I’ll buy it when it makes its way to Steam.
29. Mafia II: Day 4 of the Steam Spring Cleaning event was “Time Machine”, which listed the first 3 games added to my Steam library. That means Just Cause II, Mafia II, and … Mafia II: Definitive Edition. So, really, I only had 2 games to choose from. The Mafia II game already in my library has been renamed to Mafia II (Classic). The Definitive Edition is some kind of HD remaster which was only released the week prior to this Spring Cleaning event. I’m not certain if this is one of those limited-time “free for everyone” things on Steam or if I automatically received it because I owned the classic version. The former seems more likely than the latter. Anyway, since I already had the Classic installed, I launched that. While I finished the main game 8 years ago, I realized that there are a bunch of extra missions (DLC?) that I have access to. I delved into “The Betrayal of Jimmy”. I didn’t play too long, but I did shoot up a few gangsters, including nailing several at once by aiming for the gas tank of a truck that they were using for cover; drove to escape a car full of other gangsters chasing me; eventually bailed on the car and got a $50 ticket for hit & run which I got out of with a $300 bribe (which I just realized doesn’t make much sense); tried to steal another car which earned me a police foot chase which I elected to resolve with my fists this time; successfully jacked a fresh car; then finally finished the tutorial mission of this content. So I feel like I got the quintessential open world crime game experience in this brief whirlwind play session.
30. Terraria: Day 5 of the Steam Spring Cleaning event surfaced games in my library recommended by a friend. Only one game in my library qualified — Terraria — so Steam also recommended Black Skylands Origins (free game) and Trials of Mana Demo (also free). I wonder if Terraria will grab me anymore than it has in my previous combined play sessions, totalling all of 45 minutes? NOPE! I still can’t bear to learn how to play it. I did receive 2 new achievements simply for starting the game.
31. Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle: Day 6 of the Steam Spring Cleaning event revolved around enticing users to try the Steam Remote Play feature. I don’t have a whole lot of Steam friends– gaming has never been a social activity for me. However, I realized that I could just launch the game and exit and still get credit toward the Steam badge.
32. Tropico 6: This had a free weekend in July. As always, I like the idea of simulation games but I just couldn’t get into this. I made an effort to get through the extensive tutorial but didn’t finish before the weekend was over. Still, the graphics are a real treat as is the Latin/Caribbean soundtrack.
33. Devolverland Expo: Due to the shutdown of every convention and expo and other large gathering, eccentric developer Devolver Digital put out this odd little commercial for their upcoming games. It did get me interested in their upcoming Carrion game.
34. Oil Rush: This is a game from Unigine that I have had on my wish list forever, long enough to know that it will never go any cheaper than it already is ($8, $10 with full DLC). Unigine makes some impressive graphical demos that I have been watching since 2011, and this game is roughly the same vintage (2012). It puts a decent amount of stress on my RTX 2070 with maxed out settings on 4K. I’m trying to get into the RTS gameplay. It’s awfully stutter-y, as though it’s constantly reaching out to the HD and loading in more data. I give it credit for the music, though.
35. The Ball: Whenever a publisher has a sale on Steam, I scan through to cherry-pick anything that looks interesting that’s also super-cheap. That’s how I ended up with this mysterious game, which turns out to be a first-person puzzle platformer built on some variation of the Unreal Engine. It reminds me a bit of Portal with its manipulation of the Companion Cube. Actually, it’s sort of like Indiana Jones prowling through the ruins of an ancient temple, except that instead of chasing you, the iconic rolling boulder works for you. Hey, it’s a gameplay twist and it works out pretty well.
36. Factorio: This is supposed to be the ultimate logic/programming game for nerd gamers, like myself. This is the year that it finally exited Early Access status. I played the demo but it just wasn’t grabbing me. Or perhaps I kept it at arm’s length because I was afraid that it would grab me.
37. Armor of Heroes: Free game for Sega’s 60th Anniversary. It strikes me as a clone of Combat for the 2600, reskinned with a Company of Heroes theme.
38. Kingdom Rush Vengeance: Works much better on 4K than previous installments, which I always have to run in windowed mode on my 4K monitor, lest I wind up with an invisible mouse pointer. I’m really enjoying the new angle of managing the traditional villains and attacking putative good guys of the franchise. I did get stuck at one level and I don’t have the persistence to push forward like I once had.
39. Endless Zone: Another freebie for Sega’s 60th; this was is a Defender clone themed on Sega’s Endless Space franchise. It’s really frustrating.
40. Streets of Kamurocho: A Streets of Rage (2?) rendition featuring characters and settings from Sega’s Yakuza franchise. This has been my favorite of the Sega 60th freebies so far. I can’t believe how much I remember the game mechanics of the SoR franchise. There is only one level in this particular freebie game and when you finish, you start over again. Play it through twice and you unlock a special character who, if you actually played the Yakuza franchise, might be familiar to you. Same with the various boss characters. Unfortunately, the characters all play exactly the same. Can’t expect too much from a freebie. It was still a fun 1/2 hour, even if I didn’t know any of the characters, and even if jump-kick was still the key to winning every single boss battle.
41. Golden Axed: A Canceled Prototype: The last of the free games celebrating Sega’s 60th Anniversary. I was a big fan of the Golden Axe brawler back in the arcades of olden times and I was looking forward to this. It is, however, just the first level of the prototype. I still had fun for 10 minutes as I worked out all the possible move and attack combinations that they worked into the game. I played through the level twice since Streets of Kamurocho taught me to expect a bonus if I played it enough (like another character). But alas.
42. SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics: Golden Axe: This is an emulator framework for the SEGA Genesis that features individual games as DLC. During the SEGA 60th Anniversary, the entire bundle of nearly 60 games was very cheap so I took the plunge. After playing Golden Axed, I wanted to see how it stacked up against my memories of the original game. Actually, I don’t think I ever played the Genesis version, only the arcade. This version doesn’t really compare favorably to the arcade.
43. SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics: Streets of Rage: After Golden Axe, I wanted to give the original Streets of Rage a whirl, having played the freebie Yakuza remix. This shaped up to be much more fun than Golden Axe. The most humorous aspect that stood out to me while playing as a grown-up was that the fighters that the player gets to choose from are all ex-cops… who are each between the ages of 21-23. I guess they needed to keep the ages relatively young in order to make them a bit more relatable to the kids who would be playing the games.
44. SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics: Alien Storm: At this point, I’m just starting to work through games I haven’t heard of before, such as Alien Storm. It has it’s charm. I appreciate that the artists didn’t stick to standard humanoid alien forms, rather letting their creativity flow.
45. SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics: Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle: Now I’m just proceeding through the big game collection alphabetically. This is a frustrating platformer where you can only take one hit– my least favorite type of platformer.
46. Super Gridland (iOS): Started auditioning some decent iOS games (with the help of No BS Games) and found this one. It’s surprisingly challenging.
47. Minesweeper Genius (iOS): Another very simple logic/puzzle game in the tradition of the old Minesweeper game.
48. Million Onion Hotel (iOS): Odd, but strangely fun. That’s all I can say about it.

And that was it for my game-playing for 2020. Too bad Steam doesn’t allow generating a pie chart of games played so that I could see how Billions dominated all the other games on this list. Billions is supposed to be an RTS and it seems like the many, many other RTS games in my collection should be able to slake the same appetite. To that end, I would like to give another try at completing StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (Zerg campaign) and also jump into Legacy of the Void (Protoss campaign).

Further, at the end of the year, I finally scrubbed through my big spreadsheet of games and submitted outstanding cover art for games that used to be missing but have since been entered by other users. I think this is the first time I have performed the complete exercise in 2 years. It reminds me of how many fascinating[-sounding] titles I have in my collection that really need to be played and archived via MobyGames, lest the internet at large have no useful record of the game’s existence.

2016, 2017, 2018… now it’s time to discuss 2019.

Okay, let’s see: I went into 2018 with 1,114 hours on Steam — having logged about 200 hours throughout the year — and ended with 1,566 hours, about 450 hours… and nearly 400 of those were attributable to a rather unhealthy obsession with an odd little game called They Are Billions. This blows past my previous #1 Steam game (Defense Grid, which took me many, many years of playtime to reach just 325 hours). When framed that way, the rest of this list seems pretty negligible in terms of total playtime. Billions probably warrants a separate blog post regarding my personal struggle with video gaming addiction.

As I resolved at the start of the year, I did eventually get a 4K monitor in May (long, 6-month upgrade project as I gradually upgraded the PSU, then the GPU, and then finally bought the monitor). It was always a trial to find out which games don’t reliably support 4K, normally in the form of a UI that doesn’t scale.

I also got a Steam Controller near the end of the year since Steam was clearing out the last of their inventory. I still haven’t found a good use for it, but I haven’t given up on it yet. At least it only cost US$5 (plus US$14 S&H).

Over at MobyGames, I managed to finish out the year with exactly 20,000 contribution points. All but one of the 172 points I earned were due to my new hobby of scavenging old promo art for games.

On to the list…

1. Defense Grid: The Awakening: Starting the year off strong (or lazily?) with a game that has 294 hours invested into it at the start of the year.
2. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon: This is a retro NES-style game that is strongly inspired by Castlevania. Actually, “inspired” is too generous of a word– this is primarily Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse with the serial numbers filed off. Gameplay characteristics are extremely similar; the music seems to be just a few notes removed from the classics. But I guess that’s okay with me. There are also a fair number of improvements, such as the obvious graphical improvement of parallax backgrounds; heart powerups recovered from lamps actually restore health; lamps that yield new weapons are a different color so it’s harder to screw oneself out of a preferred special weapon; there is a configurable difficulty, which allows me to run through it on an easier sightseeing-tour sort of difficulty; configurable knock-back which alleviates a huge frustration of the traditional Castlevania gameplay.
3. Syder Arcade: Good action game to play while on the exercise bike. I finally finished the main campaign. The boss I was stuck on for a long time turned out to be the final boss. Now I get to play it again and with different difficulty levels. I’m really appreciating this game more thoroughly, just for its graphics and music. I must be really into it because I’ve gotten to the point where I am trying to obtain all of the achievements (the reasonable ones– there are 3 that revolve around being tops in the leaderboards). Later in the year, I upgraded to a 4K setup. Rather than playing games in 4K and 60fps, I often just look on YouTube for captures if the same. I noticed that Syder Arcade had no such captures. So I endeavored to fill the gap. Enjoy.
4. X-Morph Defense: A tower defense game that has been on my wish list for awhile. During a sale, I noticed that it has a demo. So I elected to try that first. It has an interesting inversion of the traditional TD model, in that you play as the invading alien force. But I had trouble adapting to the overall control scheme.
5. Galak-Z: After getting back into Syder Arcade in a big way, I got an itch to play another space action game with awesome graphics and sound. I really want to enjoy this Galak-Z game (possibly because every single character and vehicle reminds me fondly of Robotech/Macross, to the point of making me wonder how the creators avoided a lawsuit by the notably litigious Harmony Gold) but the core gameplay just isn’t grabbing me.
6. The Disney Afternoon Collection: Darkwing Duck: I was enjoying this OCRemix of a Darkwing Duck NES tune and I realized I have never actually played that particular title. I have it easily playable, courtesy of the Steam release of the Disney Afternoon Collection. Just another game that reminds me how bad I am at old NES action games. I can’t get past the first bridge level, and I’m really trying, too!
7. Battletech: This game had a free weekend in February. Ever in search of a turn-based strategy game that will engross me as XCOM once did, I gave it a whirl. I knew that this has a massive pile of lore and I worried that I might have felt locked out of the story, the same way I felt as I played a Halo or Warhammer 40000 game. But this actually has a great, simple intro that quickly brings you up to speed on the overall concept of the Battletech universe. Regrettably, the game crashed after I completed the tutorial. I gave it another try a little later during free weekend, but couldn’t even begin to get into it. Yep, I’m feeling the effect of story lockout– I just don’t understand what all the characters are going on about, and I’m not versed in which giant robots are good for what. And all the giant robot combat just looks incredibly goofy.
8. Kingdom Rush Origins: I only got about 40% through this game last year. I’m supposed to love this series and this genre of game, so I’m pushing back into it.
9. Mortal Kombat X: Free weekend, so why not check it out? I’ll tell you why not– 35 GB download for one thing. And the game is just weird. It makes you pick from among 5 factions (I chose Special Forces) and then walks you through a story mode featuring the most absurd action cinematics I have witnessed in a long time. I keep expecting alternate game modes to break out, and indeed, there are some QTE-laden segments. But eventually, some well-known MK characters show up to square off with series mainstay Johnny Cage who is the character I must play as. I managed to get through Scorpion and Sub-Zero before Jax got the better of me. That’s when I decided I had seen enough. I’ll stick with Mortal Kombat Armageddon on the original Xbox if I need an MK fix.
10. Bad ass Babes: This is a video game art style I never thought I would encounter again– filmed actors performing action, a la (original) Mortal Kombat, Pit Fighter, and Lethal Enforcers. But I guess nothing is too sacred or cheesy that it can’t be revived as retro-kitsch 2 decades after its prime. I have since been informed that there are actually more games which ape this particular retro-aesthetic. I gave this game a whirl (on International Women’s Day, incidentally) and it’s… well, it’s juvenile– let’s just get that out of the way up front. Still, thought went into the game design and the challenge does ramp up. You can’t rely on 1 or 2 moves throughout the game. You keep meeting more enemies that require different strategies. The game technically supports controllers, but it’s hugely frustrating to set it up. Also, it lacks Steam achievements but features “Fake Trophies” internally.
11. Ultra Street Fighter IV: Playing Mortal Kombat just made me want to play Street Fighter instead (much like any other RTS just makes me want to boot up StarCraft II). So I fired this up after a few rounds of MK-X frustration and confusion.
12. Parcel: I sometimes try to get back into this puzzle game but it never quite clicks for me.
13. They Are Billions: I normally eschew early access Steam games. But I have watched a bunch of They Are Billions gameplay via Twitch. I sort of got the impression that it was like the ultimate tower defense game. Truthfully, it’s mechanically a proper RTS (at least if the UI is anything to go by), but I’m still glad I jumped in. The voice acting leaves much to be desired, but I already knew that from the Twitch streams. Progress report: 36 hours in and I just earned my first achievement, finally! 57 hours and I still can’t get enough. I figure out something new about this game every time I play. After 126 hours of play time spread across nearly 2 months, I finally managed to win my first survival game. Granted, it was with a score factor of 22%, but I had to start somewhere. I eventually deleted the game deliberately after about 140 hours because it was too easy to just get sucked back into playing it. I reinstalled it for one more round as soon as I got my 4K monitor, though. After 161 hours, I have finally completed my second game (score factor of 75%). After 185 hours, they finally released v1.0, leaving Early Access. At 208 hours, I won my 3rd survival game (score factor of 95%). At 212 hours, I won my 4th survival game and my first game at 100% score factor. By the end of the year, the best I had done was completing a survival game at 170% score factor. Pertaining to v1.0, the game got a proper release mode with a full campaign story mode. I tried to play this. But since it follows the pattern of “single player campaign as extended tutorial”, it was extremely dull to play since I had more or less mastered all the basics of the game on my own. So I gave up on the campaign pretty quickly.
14. Pembrey: How did this game end up in my Steam library? Oh, now I remember: out of those hundreds of trading cards that Steam randomly gives me, I realized that I actually had a complete set for one game (Ball of Wonder). So I got to redeem it for a prize pack that contained, among other items, a copy of this game. I think this is what the kids these days are calling a “visual novel”. It’s not so much a game as it is a piece of 2D, SNES-style machinima, with a mild amount of token interactivity. I keep wondering how it might have gone over in the SNES days, if the audiences would have demanded a bit more gameplay elements and replayability (I haven’t finished the game yet but I suspect that it’s the type of game you can only really play once).
15. Monument Valley (Android): Since Chromebooks can run Android apps, I rediscovered this Escher-inspired puzzle game.
16. Stellaris: A popular 4X game from a few years ago which had a free weekend on Steam in May. Normally, 4X games intimidate me. But I’m feeling a bit more bold after figuring out They Are Billions all on my own (yeah, that’s of the RTS genre, but still complex by my standards). I’ll see if I can work through the entire tutorial before the free weekend is up. I decided to play a metagame of how long I could play it before the siren song of Billions calls me back. I played for about 20 minutes, getting my surveying ship to Alpha Centauri, before the game glitched and froze on me, thus making my decision to go back to Billions much easier.
17. Quake II RTX/Vulkan Edition: I procured an NVIDIA RTX 2070 card recently and am still looking for things to do with it. I heard that there was a newly re-engineered version of Quake II available which takes advantage of the hardware ray-tracing features. If I max out the game’s settings at 1920x1200x60fps (pre-4K monitor acquisition), I can indeed peg my card’s GPU meter, so that’s something, I guess. The experience is lost on me, though. I’m still no good at FPS games. Also, it seems to be impossible to invert the mouse, which is something I require in this type of game. Further, whenever a new 3D tech shows up, one of the Quake games seems to get an upgrade in order to show off the tech. But since I have no memory of how it originally looked, I have no appreciation of the graphical upgrades.
18. Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle: Final Fight: This is the point when I deleted They Are Billions to keep myself from mindlessly drifting back into playing. The Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle has 7 old Capcom arcade brawlers. I was most familiar with Final Fight since I surely pumped $100 in quarters and tokens into that machine circa 1990.
19. Basingstoke: A new game from Puppygames, a developer with a very distinct style. I have put an inordinate number of hours into their Space Invaders clone Titan Attacks and I decided to try this one when it dropped (I had a signifcant coupon). It didn’t grab me. I actually opted to return it to the Steam Store, which is the first time I have exercised that feature after more than 200 games procured through the service.
20. Nights Into Dreams: A classic title from Sega that is on Steam now. I remember this being a big deal for the Sega Saturn. I am also fairly familiar with the soundtrack thanks to numerous remixes/alternate arrangements of the game’s music on OCRemix. My cursory impression of the actual game, however, is that it was designed to be a graphical extravaganza for the Saturn, rather than offering any major gameplay innovations.
21. Iron Marines: A new title from Ironhide studios, who make the various Kingdom Rush tower defense games that I adore. This one has a similar art style but set in a sci-fi universe rather than a fantasy one. Also, it’s trying to be more of an RTS rather than a TD game. I’m learning that the key to really getting into a TD game is to learn the hotkeys. Fortunately, this one has them and they are customizable.
22. Grim Dawn: I played this because it was free for the Memorial Day Weekend Spring Cleaning event on Steam. I have seen this advertised on the store and I always mistook it for being in the Warhammer 40,000 universe (due to the pilgrim hat seen in the cover art for this game, compared to this inquisitor character from 40K). Nope, it’s its own thing. It’s a hack-n-slash RPG affair, much in the vein of Diablo and friends. The only other game of this sort that I have played is Diablo III, which didn’t impress me much. The core gameplay of this type of title seems to just be clicking on enemies until either they fall over, or until you do. If they fall over, scavenge for loot and then sort through it. That presented a new problem that I expect to see more and more frequently with my new 4K monitor: UIs that aren’t aware of 4K resolution and don’t provide appropriate scaling.
23. Kingdom Rush: Played briefly for the Steam Spring Cleaning event. Didn’t get hooked, though; got too many other games that are drawing me in now.
24. Assetto Corsa: Free for the Steam Spring Cleaning Event. Another itty bitty UI for my new 4K monitor to chew on. The download for this was something like 10 GB and I couldn’t figure out how to even start playing. I wish these “serious” racers would have a simple arcade mode for the uninitiated.
25. Master Spy: I think this might be the last of the 7 games I bought during the Steam summer sale nearly 2 years ago (I always remember that since it was the first sale after I started using my wish list feature extensively in order to track games that looked interesting; when the sale came, I just purchased everything on the list that cost less than $5). It turns out to be a novel little puzzle game that reminds me vaguely of Gunpoint (but much simpler).
26. The Final Station: I think I procured this via a Humble Bundle last year. It was this year’s Steam Spring Cleaning event which induced me to give it a try. I knew the game had something to do with conducting a train during the collapse of civilization. The game doesn’t give you much to go on in the beginning, just encouraging you to figure things out as you go along. I found it strangely engrossing as I gave it about an hour before the gameplay got too frustrating for me. Then I looked up the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. I may track down a full-length Let’s Play/Long Play on YouTube sometime to watch it play out. Also, this game is another member of the “screw u and ur new 4k monitor lol!” club. I can set the resolution to 4k but most of the relevant graphics are rendered on the bottom 3rd of the screen. Fortunately, it renders at lower resolutions without switching the video mode.
27. Endless Space 2: Another 4X game, and space-based, to boot! It was free to play on Memorial Day weekend for the Steam Spring Cleaning event and I was induced to try it because the system was rewarding playtime with digital Tchotchkes. This was the last of the 7 free-weekend games that looked interesting to me. It’s almost like I’m hoping that if I try enough 4X games that one will finally click for me. Out of all the 4X games I have tried, I think this one actually might have the potential to get me interested in the genre. The interface seems a bit friendlier, at least in comparison to Stellaris, the free-weekend, space-based 4X from a few weeks ago. And it renders beautifully at 4K resolution.
28. Frostpunk: This is another post-apocalyptic city-building game. I figured it might speak to me the same way that They Are Billions does. It was a little tough for me to figure out at first but I eventually started climbing that tech tree and progressing in the game. This thing is bleak in a way that Billions could only dream. I’m trying to figure out the difference. I suppose it’s because in Billions, you’re fighting an opponent you can actually beat. In Frostpunk, it’s the oppressive force of the unrelenting cold weather. It’s also rather pretty, art-wise, and pegs my GPU meter at 100% using my new 4K monitor.
29. Anomaly: Warzone Earth: After playing Frostpunk for a few hours, I browsed what other games were developed or published by 11 bit Studios. They have put out a whole series of Anomaly titles which are tagged as “tower defense”. There is a bundle of 5 items in the whole series which was deeply discounted for the Steam Summer Sale. First off, this first title messes with the video mode in a really strange way. Also, the highest video mode in offered me was 1920×1209 (?!). All of the video modes listed really strange resolutions. The gameplay didn’t do much for me as it’s supposed to be some kind of reverse TD (you’re attacking the tower defense’d position). I finished the first mission but don’t have a strong desire to see what comes next. The control scheme seemed wonky and limited, but maybe that’s because I was using a mouse and keyboard. I could tell from the UI that a game controller must be supported and this turns out to be correct. Perhaps it’s more comfortable to play that way.
30. Dungeon Warfare 2: I heard about this game a full year after its Steam release date, and I learned of its existence thanks to an iOS games forum. This strikes me as a stunning failure of Steam’s recommendation system since the original Dungeon Warfare is my 5th most played game on the Steam platform (#4 before They Are Billions got its hooks into me recently). When I played it, I decided that either it’s much tougher than the original game, or I am losing my touch at TD games.
31. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution: I wish I could understand why I keep coming back to this game and trying to make a go of it. Maybe it’s sentimentality due to it being one of the first games I ever added to my Steam library (I bought a boxed copy of the game during a Christmas auction in 2011, a few months after I got on Steam and well before I got into the Steam collector’s mindset). I decided that perhaps my mistake was trying to digest the tutorial. Tutorials are a delicate thing and can easily bore the player to tears (especially if that player is me) if they are too slow and hand-holdy. Instead, I decided to devour the proper manual and jump right into the campaign, especially since I am well familiar with this type of game’s controls. Being an older game, it still runs fine on my new 4K setup at maxed out graphical settings. Unfortunately, it’s another member of the itty bitty UI club. And it still didn’t grab me.
32. Street Fighter V: This game was free for a week in August, which is significantly longer than the normal free weekend that a lot of games will offer. The experience of trying the game turned into an “everything wrong with video games today”-type of ordeal. First, it was nearly 30 GB to download (perhaps that’s why they made the trial period so long?). When I finally get to launch it, of course it messes with my video resolution, messing up all my desktop windows across 3 monitors (happens with a lot of games). I was eager to jump straight to the configuration and drive the resolution up to 4K, but the game first wants to hold my hand through a basic tutorial on gameplay featuring Ryu and Ken. It’s a Street Fighter game! Everyone already knows their way around a basic fight. When I finally skip past all the tutorial battles, I get a EULA and a privacy policy agreement that I have to scroll through using a controller. Then I have to select a country and register a user ID. Urrgh… I just want to play a little Street Fighter! When I finally get to the menu, I am bombarded by about 23 different dialogs about different things happening in the game, from different objectives and events to DLC and trinkets to purchase. At long last, I can access the configuration settings and change the resolution. However, the only way to change the rez is to use the controller to cycle through other resolutions, and the game thinks it’s a good idea to immediately switch to each candidate rez, forcing the process to take much longer than necessary. Anyway, I finally got 4K set and maxed out all the settings. And it actually was worth it because the game is breathtakingly beautiful and runs smoothly at 4K with maxed out settings on my new RTX 2070. Indeed, I would often rather watch the action in the background setpieces rather than focus on the fights.
33. Deus Ex GO (Android): I loaded this back onto my phone in preparation for a long plane trip. On the ride, I eventually arrived at a point where I just wanted to chill with a game so I gave this another spin. I got stuck pretty early on, just like the last time I tried it.
34. Human Resource Machine (Android): I loaded this onto my phone for the same plane trip. Both games came from a Humble Bundle pack of Android puzzle games a long time ago. I’m glad I finally got around to playing this game. I thought it was supposed to be some sort of tower defense game. Instead, it’s a straight-up programming game, though in disguise. I immediately recognized it as a simulation of programming assembly language. And I love it. I wish I had gotten to play it ~30 years ago when I was first trying to comprehend ASM programming. I eventually bought the game on Steam when it went on sale so that I could enjoy it in 4K and harvest Steam achievements.
35. Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2: Another Warhammer 40K game, this time a space RTS, and was free for a weekend (and another monster download). The tutorial didn’t grab me at all. Still, I’m always impressed by the diversity of game types which occur in the WH40K universe.
36. 198X: I’m getting rather bored of all the nostalgia pandering of the past few years, but the screenshots on this one still tempted me. This is kind of a “Nothing But Hits” cover of late 1980s/early 1990s arcade games (sort of the Stranger Things of video games) against the backdrop of a brooding teenager contemplating the meaninglessness of being a teenager. The games are quite polished retro affairs– a Final Fight homage, a Gradius/R-type clone, an OutRun tribute, and a game I couldn’t quite peg– I think maybe it was a cross between Shinobi and Strider. The cutscenes between arcade games depicting “Kid’s” melancholy were painfully slow, but perhaps the creators wanted us to share in her pain. I could do without the schmaltzy romanticization of arcade denizens as “the coolest uncool outsiders, rebels, and misfits.” Hey, I was there. But there are many tiny details to admire and appreciate in this game, and the tiniest detail I appreciated was that the racing game had a speedometer that topped out at 255 distance units/hour, just as I noted 12 years ago when I was playing a bunch of old NES racing games.
37. Steampunk Tower 2: It’s a tower defense game and it came up cheap during a Steam sale, so you know I can’t resist. It’s a curious game that boasts a unique art style and a slight variation on the TD mechanic. It also has a small base-building mechanic. The music is rather incongruous with a lazy jazz theme for base-building portion, while something considerably more orchestral plays for the main battle. The upgrade paths are bonkers which makes this feel like it started life as a freemium mobile game, though I can’t find any evidence of that.
38. Prime Mover: Another science-type game (I have been trying to get more into these, probably for the cover of being able to say I’m sharpening some skill or another). I understand how pixel art is a popular aesthetic but I feel that this game takes it way too far.
39. Sine Mora EX: Sine Mora is Latin for “without delay” (recording this here for my own benefit because I can never remember). This shmup was on sale and it looked pretty. So, due to my fondness for the experience of playing Syder Arcade for its graphical glory, I picked this up as well. I’m becoming very appreciative of games that know how to launch at fullscreen 4K without ever touching the video resolution, and that have a UI which scales appropriately (and runs great at 4K, Ultra settings on my RTX 2070). It is indeed a graphical feast, but a little difficult to place– it reminds me of the “World War II-era futuristic” technology on display in Wolfenstein: The New Order (I have since learned that this aesthetic is called Diesel Punk). Oh, and with anthropomorphised animals. Trying to follow the story and decode the jargon and proper nouns in the game makes me feel like I’m missing some language skills. And it’s the first shmup I have played which boasts some type of bullet-time mechanic (called time capsules in this game). Also, there is a timer that gets replenished by destroying enemies. So I guess a pacifist run is out of the question.
40. Seasons After Fall: Look, it’s beautiful. What else needs to be said about it? It runs spectacularly on my new 4K setup, which makes it a graphical treat. It reminds me fondly of Astal. Not sure how deep of a game it is.
41. Super Impossible Road (iOS): This frenetic racer was my first foray into using Apple Arcade.
42. Grindstone (iOS): Another Apple Arcade item– I was searching for some decent puzzle games and this has an interesting angle.
43. Patterned (iOS): Apple Arcade game that didn’t really make a good impression on me. Manually pattern-matching 2-dimensional image blocks turned out to be not my cup of tea.
44. Word Laces (iOS): An Apple Arcade title that has a tiny amount of educational value.
45. Tint (iOS): This is the point when I got a little bored of the Apple Arcade offerings.
46. Rise To Ruins: This is another of those games that I really, really want to like and that I keep on trying repeatedly, but it simply never clicks for me. It reminds me of trying to jump into a complicated software programming IDE and I just can’t make heads or tails of the myriad tools laid before me.
47. Devil May Cry (From the HD Collection on Steam): This is my first exposure to the franchise. The game won’t let me use my keyboard’s volume control buttons in game, which is weird. Also, its max resolution is 1080p, but I guess it’s upscaling to fill 4K since it doesn’t reset the monitor settings, which I appreciate. I suppose there is only so much “HD remastering” you can do for a game like this. I’m just glad that it is widescreen since some of the earlier screens in the game implied a 4:3 aspect ratio. There is something distinctly Resident Evil-ish about the game, which makes sense since it’s my understanding that this was a revamp of an abortive attempt at producing Resident Evil 4. Frustratingly, my internet was down while I played this game. Even though the game still played fine, it still annoys me slightly that I didn’t get “credit” in Steam’s time tracking for the hour or so that I put into it.
48. Mark of the Ninja Remastered: This game was a key title that made me want to upgrade to 4K last year. Towards the end of the year, I realized that I hadn’t touched this 4K Remastered upgrade yet.
49. Banished: I’ve had this for awhile but finally got around to playing it near the end of the year. Unfortunately, I got bored about 3 minutes into the tutorial. I appreciated that it had UI scaling for 4K. However, it didn’t seem to work everywhere. I.e., some menus were upscaled, but the in-game control icons and tooltips remained tiny.
50. Phantom Doctrine: Yet another turn-based strategy game. I keep buying these in the hope that one of them will grab me in the same way that XCOM did. This one is a cold war, stealth-themed affair which is a setting that I tend to enjoy. I can’t help but notice that all of these turn-based strategy games feel like re-skins of XCOM (I can’t wait to learn that there are earlier examples of the same type of interface), but this is a good deal more complicated than XCOM, based on my cursory gameplay. Still, the commonalities of the different games’ interfaces make me wonder if there is a Unity template.
51. Planet X3 (MS-DOS): This is a full DOS game created in 2018 by YouTuber The 8-Bit Guy. I supported the effort via Kickstarter and the game came out on Christmas Eve 2018. I figured I should give it a whirl some time during this calendar year.

Resolution for next year: play less Billions! I’ve also gotten a good start with MobyGames contributions. I’m hoping this will be the year that I finally learn to properly upload items to The Internet Archive. I’m finally going through storage boxes, trying to organize a lot of random optical discs that I’ve accumulated over the years.

I continue to keep this tradition alive, that of documenting something about every single game I touched, however briefly, within a single calendar year (previous editions: 2017 and 2016). If nothing else, at least it gives me something to write about on this blog. I didn’t even have any game acquisitions to blog about! Slow year, indeed. That, and my usual sources of games seem to have all dried up.

This is the year I finally crossed 1000 hours of total playtime on my Steam account. I don’t know how many I had at the start of the year (I think it was around 900), but I ended the year with 1114 hours logged, according to my SteamDB profile.

A few days before the end of the year, I realized that I didn’t even have any data submitted for MobyGames yet. This couldn’t be allowed to stand! I have data contributed every year since I joined in 2005. I figured the lowest effort correction to this situation would be to scrub through my game spreadsheet and find games which had been added for which I already had cover art scanned. And so it came to pass that I secured all of 78 points for the year. It’s strange, the arbitrary goals we set for ourselves.

My most notable personal gaming achievement this year was that I finally understood the game FTL. I have repeatedly tried to get into this game in the 6 years since I bought it upon release at full price amid gushing reviews and now I finally get it.

1. Defense Technica: Starting the year off strong with an old tower defense game that I have yet to master.
2. Chip’s Challenge 1: Going back to the vintage Windows 3.1 days with this one. It’s surprisingly challenging.
3. Lara Croft GO: The last time I tried this, I was still stuck on the final boss creature. I finally got past it and realized that that was the end of the main adventure. Fortunately, there is still some bonus content to complete.
4. The Disney Afternoon Collection: Duck Tales: I finally finished this game. It took me months of occasional play sessions, but I did it. Oddly, when I accomplished this, my Steam play time for the game only sat just shy of 5 hours. I recall that being roughly how long it took me to win the original when I first rented it. Of course, back then, it was all clustered into a single afternoon/evening session on a Saturday night.
5. Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion: This bills itself as a real time 4X or RT4X game, which is well outside of my normal complexity wheelhouse. I’m forcing myself to march through all the tutorials. Maybe something will click eventually.
6. FTL: Faster Than Light: I bought this game all the way back in 2012. I believe it was the first game I ever purchased via the Steam platform, and I did so at full price after I saw all the glowing reviews of this indie darling. And I just didn’t get it. I tried so many times to get into it, but the tutorial would bore me to tears. Finally, I decided to give it another try, after another unusual roguelike grabbed me (namely Infectonator: Survivors, but Dungelot on Android also warmed me to the genre) and I am finally starting to enjoy this a bit more and it was one of my most played games of the year.
7. Life of Pixel: Still a fun exploration of retro game art styles. But it certainly is challenging.
8. Saints Row IV: I’m finally trying to get into this. Mostly, it just makes me sad that I don’t have more time to commit to immersing myself in modern video games.
9. American Truck Simulator: This promises to be a good distraction game for anytime I want to play a game as background activity for listening to an audiobook or podcast.
10. Sam & Max 101: Culture Shock: There was a big Telltale game sale on Steam so I picked up season 1 of Sam & Max. I only know it by reputation. The humor is definitely something I would have appreciated more when I was younger. I certainly enjoy the art style and soundtrack now, though. Sadly, I can’t solve the opening cheese puzzle.
11. Iron Sea Defenders: This is the year that tower defense games are getting too tough for me.
12. Titan Attacks: Good old Space Invaders clone time-waster on Steam.
13. The Disney Afternoon Collection: Chip n Dale’s Rescue Rangers: I just don’t get it– I was awesome at these games as a teenager. Now I can barely make it past the first level.
14. Parcel: Trying to get back into this puzzle game.
15. Mega Man Legacy Collection: Mega Man: The classic that started it all.
16. Tomb Raider I: The original game. I’m sure I have several copies of this for different platforms but it cost less than a dollar on Steam. It’s the first Steam game I’ve played that comes wrapped in Dosbox. The controls are obtuse and I’m not entirely convinced that it’s working correctly. It makes me happy once more that I sat out the early 3D period of gaming. When this version of the game starts up, there is a 3Dfx logo. I wondered if that had any effect. Then I found some screenshots of the unadorned DOS version and I can definitely see that this 3Dfx version is the graphically improved variant.
17. Tomb Raider II: Again, less than a dollar (most of the TR series was deeply discounted at one point this year, either to promote the new TR game, or the new TR movie, or perhaps both). At least this one is Windows-native, not that it was much of an improvement. Even though I’m playing in windowed mode in order to avoid unpleasant video mode switching, the switching still happens (and messes up all my desktop windows) when it wants to play some embarrassingly 1990s FMV. I’m thinking that this game probably introduced swimming mechanics because Lara starts off pretty close to water, and the devs wanted to show off the swimming early on.
18. F-Zero (SNES Classic Mini): I finally scored an SNES Classic Mini (retail, MSRP, no scalping involved). This is the first game that I played on it. I still love it (and the music even more).
19. Super Castlevania IV (SNES Classic Mini): I completed this game a long time ago so I thought it would be another good one to try on the SNES Classic Mini for nostalgia before moving on to stuff I hadn’t yet experienced.
20. Halo: Spartan Assault: This is a title I keep trying to get into, but I just can’t bring myself to get excited about Halo as a whole.
21. Ghost Sweeper: I remember picking this up during the summer sale last year, when I just bought everything on my wish list that was for sale for less than US$5. I finally got around to trying it in order to clear it off my “Not Played List”. My first clue that betrayed the origins of this game was Steam’s silhouetted screenshot showing a map screen with a series of locations marked with 2 or 3 stars apiece. This is a pretty obvious sign of a mobile-first game. Yeah, this turned out to be some very basic platformer game available on mobile platforms. At least it had joystick support, but I couldn’t figure out all the controls. Instructions are hard to decode on this one.
22. Super House of Dead Ninjas: Clearing out another game from last summer’s Steam sale. This is also an Adult Swim title. The last game of theirs I played was Mega Coin Squad which was a pretty basic concept– an NES-style game that distills the coin-collecting mechanic. This apes an SNES aesthetic, starting with an SNES game box and an interlaced video mode (which can be thankfully disabled). I like the action in this game and it grabbed me for a bit. I can see returning to this for a few more sessions.
23. Qubic: Simple block graphics 3D puzzle game. It was on sale for less than a dollar, so why not? It seems like someone’s first Unity project, but it still kept me occupied for about half hour as I blew past the first half of the total levels. The Steam achievements were broken, regrettably. I’ve never seen that before.
24. Donkey Kong Country (SNES Classic): I know that this is supposed to be a beloved classic platformer (with an awesome soundtrack; I have heard many arrangements of the series’ tunes via OCRemix). But as the game started, I got a very chilling vibe of the mid-1990s FMV era due to the series’ famed specially-rendered sprites. The technology is lampshaded early in the game and the Cranky older gorilla describes how they never had such technology is his day.
25. Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES Classic): I like the idea of playing classic platforming action games like this. In practice, I simply don’t have the patience to grow competent. In my teenage game-playing prime, I’m certain I could have mastered this game in 2 days; 3 tops. Nowadays, I’m afraid I can’t be bothered.
26. Star Fox (SNES Classic): This reminds me of the PC demo scene from the same time period– flat, polygonal graphics that simply didn’t age well. If you weren’t “there at the time”, this is the type of experience that is completely lost on you.
27. Unstoppable Gorg: I tried to get back into this TD-with-a-twist game but it’s not clicking with me anymore.
28. Offworld Trading Company: This had a free weekend and I marched through the tutorial. I really love the aesthetic and music. But it ultimately did not grab me.
29. XCOM: Enemy Within: Dusted off briefly for Steam’s Spring Cleaning event.
30. Kingdom Rush: I decided to start playing this again since I noticed I can crank up the difficulty and play through the main campaign again.
31. Plants vs. Zombies: GOTY Edition: Quick play of my earliest TD experience for the Spring Cleaning event.
32. Ball of Wonder: Also dusted off this Breakout/Arkanoid clone for the sake of the Spring Cleaning event.
33. Kingdom Rush Frontiers: Played for the Spring Cleaning event and I rediscovered how much I love this game. Like its predecessor, I decided to play through it again on the hardest mode.
34. SpaceForce: Rogue Universe: I have no idea when or why I procured this, or even what kind of game it is; it’s no longer in the Steam store. Turns out it’s a spaceflight/combat game. The Steam spring cleaning event motivated me to try this out and clear it from my “Not Played Yet” list.
35. Crowntakers: I tried this again due to Steam’s spring cleaning event. It still didn’t grab me although I played it a little longer this time.
36. Castle Crashers: This was free for the Steam spring-cleaning event. I love it. Finally bought it during the Steam Summer Sale. I find the gameplay to be a refreshing throwback to arcade action brawlers, but with a great sense of humor.
37. Party Hard: I picked up the High Crimes DLC on sale so it’s time to play through this again. I eventually played through the entire game again and completed the DLC and other bonus missions, and also acquired most of the achievements.
38. Forts: Free on Steam for a weekend, and it had been on my wish list. It’s a curious take on the RTS genre. In the end, it didn’t grab me, though.
39. Serious Sam Double D XXL: The developer (Croteam) had a big sale on Steam one weekend. I have never played a Serious Sam game and of course FPS games aren’t really my thing. So I picked up this platforming side scroller in the same franchise. I couldn’t get used to the control scheme. The player is expected to move with one joystick, aim with a second joystick, and fire the gun with a button. I don’t understand how I’m supposed to handle this with 2 hands.
40. Contrast: Just as I resolved last year, I am trying to concentrate on finishing some of the more fun action/puzzle games in my collection. I didn’t complete Contrast by the end of the year but I logged a bit more time overall.
41. GALAK-Z: One of the games I picked up during the Steam summer sale. I’ve had my eye on this one since it is very obviously influenced by the Robotech/Macross cartoon/anime in it’s setting, characters, and technology. When I started playing it, I decided I enjoyed pretty much everything about it– the aesthetic nods to “17-bit” Super Famicom (slightly different from Super NES), the CRT tracking mimicry, the smooth soundtrack, the pacing of the gameplay. The only thing that’s a little hard to get used to is the control scheme.
42. Vanquish: I first learned of this through Extra Credits’ video “The Myth of the Gun”. It’s on Steam and it was cheap for the summer sale so I decided to branch out and give it a try. It’s a modern action game that I have difficulty adapting to, but it was still enjoyable to try.
43. The Disney Afternoon Collection: Duck Tales 2: At long last, I am finally getting into this game. It’s a fun expansion on the original.
44. Super Mario World (SNES Classic): Using the SNES Classic Mini, I am finally able to dip into this title that is a huge gap in my gaming resume.
45. Klocki (Android): I generally spend any idle time on my phone reading something. But one day I found myself so bored that I checked to see which games I still had on my Android phone. I thought this game was too simplistic but I eventually found that the gameplay got deeper.
46. Darksiders: On sale via Steam in a pack that also included its sequel. I have a fondness for what game reviewer Yahtzee calls the “Spectacle Fighter” genre (exemplified by the God of War franchise). In fact, it might be my second favorite genre these days, just behind tower defense. This entry into the genre entertained me for a few hours until I got stuck in one of the post-battle puzzles. I found myself discovering what Yahtzee laid out in his review in that the combat isn’t especially varied, which is a bit of a “must-have” feature for this type of game.
47. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution: I have had this game in my Steam library nearly as long as FTL. Just like that game, I have tried numerous times to get into this game. Since FTL finally clicked for me this year, I gave this one another try. It just isn’t happening. I think it is probably designed for hardcore fans of the WH40K franchise. I simply have no idea what is going on. I wondered what possessed me to try this game yet again. I realized that it’s because as I played Darksiders, Yahtzee’s review of the game — which draws parallels to the art style of WH40K — kept running through my mind.
48. Alicia Quatermain: Secrets of the Lost Treasures: This came up for sale on Steam for less than $2 and I liked the art style from the promo images. It looked a lot like Kingdom Rush. Of course, that warned me that it might be a port of a mobile-first title. But I could find no indication that this is available on mobile platforms… which is weird, because when I played it, the gameplay definitely felt like it would be right at home on a mobile device. You only ever click on things, and that action could easily be replaced by a touch action. This is a puzzle game but the puzzles just feel a little obvious and pointless. Perhaps the gameplay gets a little deeper later on. (As I was composing this year-end blog post, I see that this game is on the Google Play store while 2 sequels have been released on Steam.)
49. Hard West: I really enjoyed XCOM: Enemy Unknown (and the expansion Enemy Within). It was my introduction to the turn-based strategy genre. I have occasionally tried other such games but could not get into them. Hard West came on sale for cheap enough that I decided to give it a whirl. It has an interesting setting– gritty old west combined with supernatural horror. As I tried it out, I wondered if playing XCOM should be a prerequisite for this kind of game? I feel that if I didn’t have 100+ hours of XCOM under my belt, I might be a bit lost. This had a quick tutorial and then the player is sort of on their own. I’m still enjoying it, though. I didn’t play it enough to get to the promised supernatural parts.
50. Kingdom Rush Origins: As with the previous game (Frontiers), I had no idea this game was coming out. As with the previous game, I learned about it when Steam gave me a coupon, likely on account of how much I played the previous installment. I immediately purchased it and began to methodically work through the levels, clearing out all the levels and and earning all the achievements.
51. Halo Wars: Definitive Edition: I have had this on my Steam wish list for awhile and it came up for a free weekend in October. May as well try it out, risk-free. I remember it being notable for its use of a controller-based input scheme, as is befitting a video game console. That turns out to be the way to control the PC version as well. It feels limiting. I got most of the way through the tutorials but was too bored to continue. I think it might suffer from the same issue I had trying the Warhammer 40K game again– since I’m not steeped in the lore of the universe, I am at a bit of a disadvantage.
52. SPACECOM: This was on sale for very cheap so I gave it a whirl. Not my thing. It’s a little strange that it has a banner for “Plays best on Alienware” which implies to me that it would be a somewhat graphically taxing game (this turns out not to be the case).
53. Mark of the Ninja: I specifically remember buying this game during the June Steam sale– in 2017 (to be fair, I bought 7 games at the time, and immediately delved into Party Hard for quite awhile). I’m finally getting around to it in October of 2018. This falls into the category of “I strongly believe I will enjoy this, but I’m just waiting for the right moment to try it out” (another notable game in that category was Papers, Please! and I was right that I would get hooked right away). Mark of the Ninja struck a chord with me right away. THIS is how you do 2D side-scrolling stealth action. Back in my day, we had to settle for the original Metal Gear game on the NES. I’m really looking forward to playing this again but I have been holding off until I get a 4K setup so I can enjoy the HD remastered upgrade. The game is just that beautiful.
54. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: On sale during the Steam Halloween sale, I picked this up and treated myself after I shut down my house’s trick or treating operation on Halloween night. I like God of War and I knew that this game is cut from the same cloth. I guess it’s okay. It just feels a bit too hand-holdy in its tutorializing. I’m an hour in and it still seems to be telling me how to play the game. I guess with this type of game, I should just sit back and let it unfold since it is a fairly linear, movie-like experience.
55. Scanner Sombre: File this under “novel graphical experiment that is interesting for a few minutes” (not unlike Refunct). But, hey, it was on sale for very cheap, so why not? (Again, like Refunct.) It is probably a better VR experience (not that I’ll ever try it since VR reliably makes me very ill). It reminds me of the vector dots portion of Future Crew’s Unreal demo, only turned into an interactive experience.
56. SpaceChem: This is a chemistry-inspired puzzle game that I have been wanting to get into for awhile. I have fired it up a few times but didn’t have the patience to really learn it. When I finally got over the hump, I started to enjoy it greatly. It’s a good passive game to occupy myself with while listing to podcasts or audiobooks.
57. Sol Survivor: This is a good-looking tower defense game in the vein of Defense Grid that I have had my eye on for awhile. It finally went on sale for cheap enough during the Steam Autumn/Thanksgiving sale. It didn’t really grab me… at least, that’s what I recorded when I gave the game a first whirl. I decided to fire it up again the next day. Before I knew it, the Thanksgiving holiday weekend had concluded and I had racked up 11 hours in the game while completing the main campaign. So something must have clicked. The new twist that this added to the genre was that there are various commanders that can be selected for different campaign missions (and then all can be used after the campaign is finished), and each commander has a different loadout of towers that can be fielded.
58. Magic Technology: TD game, made with Unity, sort of looks like it could have been a mobile-first game, but that doesn’t seen to be the case. On sale for $0.75 during the Steam Winter Sale (and of course I scan the TD section carefully at each sale), so give it a try. The tutorial pretty well assumes I’m already on board with the TD genre which is nice. It’s not bad, but the UI is a bit wonky and I’m having trouble really adapting into it.
59. Defense Grid: The Awakening: As I scrub through this list before publishing, I realized I omitted this tower defense game, which is still, far and away, my most played game on Steam. I had a total of 294 hours invested as of the close on 2018. What can I say? It’s just my go-to “time to chill” game. This past year, I finally earned the achievement for receiving a gold medal on 100 main campaign mission variations. By the end of 2019, I expect I will have earned the achievement for 150 missions (one of only 4 out of the 87 achievements that I lack).

What happens in 2019 for me, gaming-wise? I have been itching to make a move to 4K gaming. At the very least, I will be able to get back to playing Mark of the Ninja.

Just like in 2016, I kept a log of all the games I played during the calendar year of 2017. Unless otherwise noted, I played these games via the Steam platform. My Steam stats are here. I make it a goal to keep the number of unplayed games on those stats to a minimum. In order to do that, SteamDB requires that a game be played for at least 5 minutes. Even that can be a chore sometimes.

This is the year I finally started playing some games for MobyGames screenshot recon, something I have been negligent to do for many years.

Last year, I was extremely enthusiastic about tower defense games. This year, I was a bit more interested in retro-themed platformers. By the end of the year, I started to drift back into TD.

1. RAM BOE: Block-moving puzzle game which should be right in my wheelhouse. However, I found it very tough to control with a controller.
2. Life of Pixel: Platformer that presents a very interesting graphical experiment that simulates the graphics of various retro system.
3. Ball of Wonder: I can’t stop wasting time with this Breakout/Arkanoid clone. The levels are tough, but I suppose that’s hardly the point.
4. Titan Attacks: This was the first game I got to play after taking a long break. I earned most of the rest of the reasonable achievements on this Space Invaders clone.
5. Papers, Please: I bought this paperwork simulator during some Steam sale, but I held off on playing it for awhile. I had a weird feeling it would grab me, and I was right. This is every bit as fun and addictive as they say!
6. Defense Grid: The Awakening: This tower defense game is, far and away, my most played game according to Steam. It’s what I drift to when I don’t feel like doing or playing anything else.
7. Dungeon Warfare: Another of my very favorite TD games. I eventually finished all the main missions and scored most of of the achievements.
8. Refunct: Sort of a simple 1st person puzzle platformer; I got 33% of the way through on my first playthrough, then I got stuck.
9. Saints Row: Gat Out Of Hell: This was on sale for pretty cheap. But that’s also because it was sort of an expansion based on an existing engine. Played 2 hours of this when I first started it up. I think I could grow to really enjoy this open world game.
10. Airscape: The Fall Of Gravity: Played for 2 minutes. I didn’t really understand the gameplay and it started to make me ill with its incessant spinning. I later revisited out of a commitment to minimize my “unplayed” games on SteamDB (which apparently requires that you play at least 5 minutes). I started to get into it and even got to the point in the tutorial where it teaches you to adjust the spinning speed. I still got dizzy. I’m starting to come around on the concept, though.
11. Tropico: I think I have most of these games but I haven’t tried any of them. When I tried the start of the series, it didn’t work right with my widescreen monitor. Instead, I hauled out my 4:3 monitor that I keep for older games. This fixed the problem. Alas, I got bored by the tutorial. I may revisit this by just jumping into the main game and seeing what happens, then looking for a manual to fill in the gaps. That has traditionally been a useful approach when trying simulation games.
12. 7 Wonders of the Ancient World: Whenever I boot into WinXP and fail to play other games, it’s common for me to drift into playing this for hours on end. After Golem failed to run, this was my consolation prize.
13. StarCraft: I procured a copy of this awhile ago and wanted to try the roots of StarCraft II for myself. When I got to play this, rumors were swirling that Blizzard would release a remastered version. I had this weird feeling that I should get the original experience before the remastered version comes out. As soon as I played it, I read that in addition to releasing the remastered version, Blizzard would also make the original SC v1.18 free for download. That’s when I realized I was only on v1.05. I wonder if 1.18 fixes assorted UI issues that I experienced with this version?
14. 8-Bit Bayonetta: An impossibly trivial game that still somehow clocks in at a few hundred megabytes. I guess it was a promotional game released on Steam when Bayonetta came to the platform. It no longer seems to be available
15. Goblins & Coins: A simple platformer with primitive graphics that kept me entertained for a little while.
16. You Have To Win The Game: Love the CGA aesthetic of this retro-style platformer. I made it 28% through the game on my first playthrough before it got too brutally difficult for me.
17. Dungelot: Shattered Lands: I loved the Dungelot rogue-like on the Android platform. When this title came up for cheap on the Steam platform, it was a no-brainer. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I couldn’t figure out how to get past the introductory level. Another item off the “play every game in my Steam library” effort.
18. Chip’s Challenge 2: It was a big deal to old-school Windows 3.1 gamers when the original Chip’s Challenge showed up on Steam, along with its sequel that was in contract limbo forever. Though I haven’t made it through the first game, I put in some time on this game in order to clear it from my unplayed list.
19. Bloodrayne: Betrayal: I’ve been holding onto this side-scrolling action game for awhile. I had logged 2 minutes on it at one point and had always meant to give it another try. The “Steam Clear” effort seems like a good reason to do that. I quite like this little game even though it doesn’t seem well reviewed on Steam.
20. Shadowgate: MacVenture Series: I got this as a bonus for supporting the new Shadowgate game on Kickstarter. It contains the original Shadowgate games for the Apple Mac (high resolution, black and white) and Apple IIgs (lower resolution, but in color). I like the original Shadowgate, but I’m most sentimental for the 8-bit NES version. I can’t seem to get into either of these versions which notably lack the soundtrack featured in the NES version.
21. Moustache Mountain: This was on sale for a dollar and I’m really enjoying picking up these pixel art platformers. It gave me a few minutes of entertainment, which I guess is enough for the dollar I put into it.
22. Fiery Disaster: Simple tower defense game on sale for a dollar. I put a few minutes into it but it didn’t grab me.
23. WarCraft: Orcs and Humans: I wanted to go back to the roots of the series. It’s… primitive. I painstakingly got through the first few campaign missions. But I still want to give it another try. I picked up the audiobook version of the novelization of the big-budget WarCraft movie. This motivated me to watch the movie. This, in turn, motivated me to track down the original game to see how well the story actually matched up, since I heard that the movie is supposed to tell the origin to the series. To be clear, the WarCraft movie greatly expanded on the lore presented in the opening of the first game.
24. Fuzion Frenzy (Xbox): This marked the point when I made an effort to play games to capture screenshots for MobyGames, mostly of the Xbox and Dreamcast varieties. This casual party game was quite a slog– 45 minigames to screen cap and catalog.
25. World Soccer: Winning Eleven 8 International (Xbox): I couldn’t wrap my head around this one. I just got enough footage for a few screenshots.
26. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2x (Xbox): I’m not great with stunt games. Just did the basic screenshots recon for this one.
27. NHL 2K6 (Xbox): Did my best to collect MobyGames screenshots by cycling through the party games.
28. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Xbox): Here we go! This one grabbed me pretty quickly. I like the God of War games and this strikes me as a PG-13-rated game of the same genre. Plus, I collected some screenshots.
29. Deep Fighter (Dreamcast): Underwater adventure. I couldn’t figure out much about it, except for the fact that putting your 1st person perspective game underwater is a great excuse to have a poor draw distance. Screenshots successfully collected, though.
30. Monaco Grand Prix (Dreamcast): Racing game that probably has realistic car elements to it, but I just treated it as an arcade racer. The intro cinematic seems to be setting up some kind of horror or psychological thriller, depicting a driver at the starting line flashing back to growing up while playing with toy cars.
31. Sturmwind (Dreamcast): Awesome homebrew/indie game for the Dreamcast. I played it a little when I first got it years ago and I’m happy to get another chance to enjoy it in order to capture screenshots.
32. Namco Museum (Dreamcast): This was a pretty rote slog to collect representative screenshots for all the vintage arcade games on offer (Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Pole Position, Galaga, and Galaxian). The most novel thing I found on this playthrough was the settings screens which simulated DIP switch settings in the original arcade cabinets.
33. Star Wars Demolition (Dreamcast): I didn’t quite get the hang of this during my screenshot recon, but it was still enjoyable playing through all the possible settings and checking out all the set pieces on offer (like the super laser on the Death Star arena).
34. NFL 2K2 (Dreamcast): No idea, just a bit of screenshot recon.
35. NHL 2K (Dreamcast): Really no idea. I don’t seem to have any control over the action. But I got a few screenshots anyway.
36. Party Hard: Right about the time I played this, the new Friday the 13th game was getting all the press. This serial killer puzzler grabbed me immediately, though, quickly rising to my Steam top 10 by hours played. I completed the game and earned most of the achievements.
37. Bleed: Promising pixel art action game, but it proved too tough for me on normal difficulty. I just can’t get used to the control scheme.
38. Terraria: This is a game I keep trying to get into but it still hasn’t clicked for me. I wonder if I’ll ever understand the appeal?
39. Dungelot (Android): Got caught up in this on my phone when I didn’t feel like doing anything else. I can’t believe how I can waste 3 hours on one round of this dungeon crawler.
40. Dungelot 2 (Android): I got a severe case of “They changed it, now it sucks.” I really got sucked into the original mobile Dungelot but this sequel doesn’t do anything for me. The goofy art style and general light-hearted attitude of the game is gone, replaced by something with a much harder edge.
41. Defense Grid 2: Even though I’ve 100%’d this TD game I still waste a bit of time with it.
42. Ultra Street Fighter IV: I built myself a new Windows 10 PC and this is the first game I tried. I wasn’t disappointed.
43. Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: I backed the Kickstarter on this one, on the strength of Wayforward’s previous outings. This is a very enjoyable modern platformer.
44. StarCraft II: At last, I once again have a PC capable of playing this.
45. Alien Breed: Impact: The first of 3 Alien Breed games that I bought in a bundle recently from Steam. This one is built on Unreal Engine 3 and created by Team 17, the folks responsible for the Worms franchise. Alas, this didn’t make much impact on me.
46. Mushroom Wars: Tower defense continues to be the genre that always grabs me and won’t let go. I appreciate this slightly nuanced take on the genre. Come to think of it, it’s more of a simplified RTS vs. a raw tower defense game since the goal is to both defend and attack.
47. Fist Puncher: Retro-style beat-em-up Adult Swim game. I gave it a few minutes but it didn’t really do anything for me. I might be tiring of the retro pixel art style games.
48. Zenge (Android): From the Humble Bundle Android Puzzle Pack; appropriate trivial.
49. Hook (Android): From the Humble Bundle Android Puzzle Pack; really enjoying this logic puzzler.
50. Klocki (Android): From the Humble Bundle Android Puzzle Pack; also a fun puzzler.
51. Mighty No. 9: I watched a lot of controversy swirl around this high-profile Kickstarter title. I realized at the time of its release that the controversies surrounding Kickstarted games had shifted from games that were never finished, to games that were finished but didn’t quite live up to the lofty expectations of the fans. When I would watch gameplay videos of this title, I didn’t see why people objected so much. When it went on sale for cheap enough, I snatched it up… and I like it just fine.
52. Deus Ex GO (Android): From the Humble Bundle Android Puzzle Pack. I like Lara Croft GO but I can’t figure out how to get very far in this game.
53. Lara Croft GO: Fun game to take in while doing something else since it’s just a puzzle game that doesn’t require a lot of concentration. It was nice to return to it after I couldn’t figure out Deus Ex Go.
54. Deja Vu: MacVenture Series: Clearing this off of my “Not Played Yet” Steam list. I gave it 5 minutes. I’m still sentimental for the NES version of these games, rather than the mouse-driven early PC versions. Plus, Deja Vu was least interesting to me out of the MacVenture trilogy.
55. War For The Overworld: I finally got around to trying this but I can’t figure out how to do anything in the game. I just can’t figure out the interface or how to control the most basic workers. At least I cleared it from my “Not Played Yet” list.
56. Contrast: A PS4 launch title that is now on Steam (and for sale, which is why I picked it up). Fun puzzler with a unique visual style and setting that I could get used to.
57. Infectonator: Survivors: A very interesting title. I’ve never played anything quite like it before and it hooked me pretty quickly. It’s hard to describe– roguelike real-time tactics team-based zombie survival game done in a 16-bit graphical style. While it grabbed me right away, I wriggled out of its grasp almost as quickly as the frustrating gameplay got to be too much for me.
58. Girls Like Robots: Gave this one another spin. I couldn’t remember all the specific mechanics and trying to refresh my memory by running through the original levels bored me too much.
59. Hard Reset: I decided to give this one another chance since I have a fresh, up to date Windows 10 machine. I was able to get farther this time, probably because I started a campaign in easy mode, something I normally eschew.
60. Crowntakers: A unique-looking fantasy RPG game that was on sale, so I picked it up. Unfortunately, it totally bored me in the first 5 minutes and I couldn’t see any reason to invest more time.
61. Crookz: The Big Heist: I loved XCOM so I like to try other turn-based strategy games. I haven’t been able to find one that grabs me the same way that XCOM does. This is similar to how StarCraft II is the only RTS I have been able to get into.
62. Batman: The Telltale Series: Telltale games are reliably my cup of tea. Not a lot of mental overhead of trying to learn new gameplay. This game sets the tone immediately by opening with a bullet to the head of a security guard. And being a Telltale game, it starts off a bit heavy on the action quicktime sequences. But it’s still a good time.
63. Mega Man Legacy Collection: Played Mega Man 1 so far. Back in the day, I completed #1-4. Maybe I’ll eventually do all 6 thanks to this collection.
64. Alan Wake: Bought this when it went on clearance before disappearing from Steam (music licensing issues, apparently). I held off playing it until Halloween rolled around. I didn’t really get into it.
65. Cally’s Caves 3: This simple, retro-style platformer RPG grabbed me pretty quickly.
66. Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze: Finally started doing screenshot recon for Windows games and this was my test case. Turned out to be harder than I expected– screenshot recon, not this upgraded Ms. Pac-Man variant. This game used some weird video modes which thwarted my capture software.
67. 8-Bit Invaders!: This could best be described as Lego/Minecraft rendition of StarCraft. And I guess that’s okay. It is actually starting to draw me in, something no other RTS has been able to do since I played StarCraft II.
68. Last Hope – Tower Defense: A disposable TD game that I picked up during the Halloween Steam sale. It’s reasonably enjoyable, even if the English dialog is a bit wonky. There’s something weird about it– there are upgrade trees that require “researching” and when I select a research option (and I have enough in-game currency), I see a brief glimpse of “1s” and then the research is complete. This leads me to believe that this was a mobile free-to-play game with IAP to advance the skill tree faster. This turns out to be precisely the correct assumption. Between this and Zombo Buster Rising, I’m going to need to ensure that any future Steam purchases did not begin life as IAP-enabled F2P mobile games.
69. Space Pirates and Zombies: I don’t quite recall how I came to own this game. I think maybe I got the Steam code for free somewhere. I had 6 minutes on record from years back. I decided to give it another whirl in order to properly clear it from my “Not Played Yet” category. It does seem like an interesting resource management game in space, but it hasn’t grabbed me.
70. Rock ‘N’ Roll Defense: It’s time for the Thanksgiving Steam sale and of course I scavenged to find a bunch of sub-$5 tower defense games. This seemed like a fairly primitive and simple TD game based on the screenshots. At $1, what did I have to lose? It hits all the right notes, no pun intended. It also features an intimidating number of Steam achievements (240), which fits into my plan. The heavy metal soundtrack can get a smidge repetitious. I 100%’d the game (all levels and achievements) in 5 hours of playtime.
71. Iron Sea Defenders: Another TD game yielded by the Steam Thanksgiving sale. This is an interesting contrast to the easiness of Rock ‘N’ Roll Defense. Just the first 2 levels actually challenge me to get all 3 stars.
72. Defend Your Life: TD: Another cheap TD game from the Steam Thanksgiving sale. This is making me start to wonder if the Unity engine has a standard template for crafting TD games since there is a certain same-iness to many TD games I try these days. This one had a unique flair, though, as the setting is your body and your goal is to ward off various diseases and infections.
73. The Disney Afternoon Collection: Fascinating bonus artifacts that don’t require unlocking. I played Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers so far. I’m disappointed by how bad I am at playing it since it was one of the easiest games I played back when I was an NES ninja (rented and won it in about 4 hours, and that was with having to figure out the controls by trial and error).
74. Unstoppable Gorg: Just when I wonder what else TD games can do to appeal to me, and what a game’s aesthetic can do differently than what I have seen before, this comes along. I love the cheesy retro sci-fi feel of this TD title (live action, poorly costumed video segments). I also love that it adds a new twist to the TD genre in the form of movable towers. I also love that I managed to play all 5 of my Thanksgiving Steam sale purchases by the end of Thanksgiving weekend.
75. Azkend 2: The World Beneath: I got a fair amount of enjoyment out of the original mobile version of Azkend. Apparently, it was made by a Finnish developer because this sequel was available on Steam during their Finnish sale. It’s all right, I suppose. But I don’t care much for simple casual puzzle games that try to have too much story or deep tutorializing. Plus, there’s a game mode that I simply don’t understand. I think it’s a hidden object minigame, but I’m not sure. Based on Steam activity, I might be the only person who has played this.
76. Mega Coin Squad: Adult Swim Games can be counted on to produce some enjoyable retro art style games. This game distills the essence of coin collecting from Super Mario Bros.-type platform games. I gave it a spin and quickly thought, “Okay, I got it. I got the concept. I can move on now.”
77. Invert – Tile Flipping Puzzles (Android): Part of a Humble Bundle of Android indie games. Great simple casual tile-flipping game.
78. Snowball (Android): Part of a Humble Bundle of Android indie games. It’s a snowball-themed pinball game that reminds me of Adventure Pinball: Forgotten Island.
79. Jets’n’Guns Gold: I know that I tried to play this once before on Linux, and it booted, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it do anything else. I wanted to clear this off of my “Not Played Yet” list so I tried it again under Windows. I got it to play, but I couldn’t figure out anything about it. I figured out how to move but not how to shoot, even after studying the controls. I have tried a lot of retro-themed games in the past year or 2, but this one really does feel like it comes from a bygone era. Doing a bit of research, I found that the series is a bit old, but not nearly as old as I expect– only 2004. I would have expected late 1990s at best. It’s challenging, but not in a retro-ironic sense.
80. Defense Technica: This was one of the earlier tower defense games that I tried and it did not impress me at the time. However, I decided to give it another whirl since I have experienced such a wide variance of quality in TD games (i.e., I have seen a lot worse that the genre has to offer). I’m actually getting a bit more out of this title than I did the first time around. It does still feel like a pale imitation of Defense Grid, but it has its strong points, notably a better controller configuration than DG.
81. Alien Breed 2: Assault: I tried the first in this series earlier in the year. It didn’t leave much impression. However, the game came in a trilogy bundle. So I decided to clear the second one from my “Not Played Yet” list. For a moment, I wondered if I would be confused by the story if I didn’t finish the first game. Turned out now to be an issue. Honestly, I couldn’t really tell the difference between this game and the first. And I invested about as much time into it. Also, I couldn’t get the sound to work.

What does the new year hold for me, gaming-wise? I still have hundreds of games that need MobyGames screenshot recon, so that’s a good place to start. As for the games in my Steam collection, I would like to try buying fewer games on Steam, clear the remainder from my “Not Played Yet” list, and try focusing more on one game at a time. There are numerous action games that I truly enjoyed during my initial playtime — including Mighty No. 9, Cally’s Caves 3, Life of Pixel, and Shantae — but I need to commit to playing through them. Coming back to them after months of inactivity does not fly since my muscle memory for the game has evaporated, as has my notion of what I am supposed to be achieving in the game.

I feel terribly embarrassed. I bought the wrong high-tech Christmas present for someone. Here’s how it happened:

2 years ago, I handed down my old Nintendo GameCube to some relatives and they have been enjoying it quite a lot. I got them Super Smash Bros. Melee as well as 4 GameCube controllers.

In the weeks before Christmas, these same relatives mentioned that they would enjoy having a Nintendo Wii along with Just Dance 3. Lo and behold, I happened to see exactly what they wanted in the store– a bundle that included the Wii and Just Dance 3, and it seemed fairly inexpensive (the whole bundle cost less than I had been seeing regular Wii consoles go for). Since they liked Melee, I also got them Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Since the Wii sports backward compatibility with the GameCube and has ports for 4 GC controllers, they’ll have all kinds of 4-player fun.

What Went Wrong?
All told, things went pretty well. They were surprised to see the Wii and associated games on Christmas morning and have been getting plenty of use out of them. However, when I visited a few days later to see how things were going, they reported that the Wii didn’t have ports for the old GameCube controllers.

Wait, what?

It turns out that what I purchased was not the original Wii but apparently a newer version called the Wii Family Edition. It looks like this:

It sacrifices GameCube backward compatibility, both in software as well as controller ports. It only has USB ports now.

Oh well, they can still enjoy the old GameCube and the new Wii separately. I was just disappointed that they won’t be able to play multiplayer Brawl until they get some more Wii controllers. Moreover, I felt terribly embarrassed that I am not up to date on current video game technology, particularly Nintendo’s offerings, after being a hardcore Nintendo nerd during my teenage years.

All in all, I can’t fault Nintendo for this move. This is a standard type of cost reduction method. The Wii is 5 years old now and has more than enough of its own software that it doesn’t need to draw from the pool of last generation games to expand on its offerings (it still has Virtual Console for the really old stuff, too). This also reminds me of the top-loading 8-bit NES (for which I paid US$99, used)– that had the interesting cost reduction measure of removing the composite A/V output meaning that you absolutely had to use RF to connect to a TV. Not great, but the console was rock-solid otherwise.

Curiously, the top Amazon search for Nintendo Wii (“Wii Black Console with New Super Mario Brothers Wii and Music CD”) is a new-style Wii yet the features still list GameCube compatibility. No, wait– on closer inspection, the “Product Features” bullet list states, “Nintendo GameCube software and accessories are not supported”, while further down, the same page has an outdated Amazon.com product description table comparing the current generation consoles. This table features the old Wii and the old capabilities.

Oops.