Henke

Ooooh, not bad!

Where's Nick Breckon's 3D animation? I gotta see this thing.

Yay! I loved Human Fall Flat, for the same reasons. It would've been easy for the devs to just rely on slapstick physics madness for sales, but they actually went and made some well though-out puzzles and obstacles, every new level bringing with it totally new systems and challenges. And yes, M+KB plus turn off the auto-look-forward-thingy was the best control setup I thought.

Bought: a pile of stuff Completed 2017 titles: 15 Prey Zelda: Breath of the Wild Lone Echo Super Mario Odyssey Ultrawings Night In The Woods Freeways Road Redemption Conductor Robo Recall Little Nightmares Star Trek: Bridge Crew Kôna The Long Dark Ep 1+2 Monumental Failure Completed PS+ Games: 3 (y'know what, PS+? Not really worth it. I've already finished most games I wanna play on it.) Life is Strange Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry Bound Completed older games: 13 Final Fantasy XV Shovel Knight Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun The Beginners Guide POLLEN Human Fall Flat Year Walk Technobabylon Mafia 3 Satellite Reign Hidden My Game By Mom! The Witness Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Completed older VR games: 5 Superhot VR Edge of Nowhere Chronos Adr1ft I Expect You To Die Completed Total: 36 edit: forgot about Bound, The Witness, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. added those. edit2: oh and also Monumental Failure, Final Fantasy XV and Shovel Knight.

Aww man, I hope you get back to it even if it doesn't make it into the Jam. It looks great.

That's not to say that playing with strangers can't be a magical experience on it's own. You never know what might happen.

I've finished and uninstalled it so I probably won't be joining, but I can confirm that it's good stuff in co-op with friends. (me and my buddies playing it. I'm Sulu-ing it up on the thrusters!) Gameplay and story-wise it's quite shallow, but the fun comes from cooperating with friends and trying to get things done, forming a plan and then scrambling to adjust when the plan doesn't work. It is super-short though. It's like, 6 missions long. Each mission roughly half an hour. There are procedurally-generated "Continued Voyages" after that, but we didn't bother much with those.

You should definitely give it another go! The story mode starts off very tutorial-y and friendly to new players, before it opens up and you're left to your own devices. The difficulty is well-tuned I think. Even though I've played 20 hours of it, there are still times when I get turned around, lost in the woods, hunted by wolves and almost freezing to death.

Hah, yes. I picked up Mario+Rabbids last week and I just beat Rabbid Kong this morning. It's wonderful, lighthearted turn based tactics fun. It's this year's Steamworld Heist. For a decidedly less lighthearted TBS game I also picked up Vietnam '65 in a Steam sale recently, though I haven't gotten to it yet.

Played through The Long Dark's first storymode episode over the past couple days. The addition of a linear narrative to this open-world survival game has worked surprisingly well, and the story has it's hooks in me. I'm eager to see what happens in Episode 2, which I'll get started on tonight. My only criticism is that the mission-design so far has just been a series of fetch-quests. I'm hoping more variety is brought to your objectives in Ep.2. Photos from my journey so far.

That's right folks it's time to pick your MOTYs! List your favourite 2017 songs/albums/mixtapes and let your fellow thumbs be enriched by your amazing music tastes! I haven't listened to many albums this year so I'll just list my... Top 5 Tunes Superorganism - "Something for your M.I.N.D." I actually discovered this less than a week ago so perhaps I'm a bit premature in putting it on the list, but I can't think of another song from this year that I've ended up replaying over and over as much as this one. That chorus is an instant earworm. Hercules & Love Affair feat. Faris Badwan - "Controller" This is probably actually my tune of the year. It's really good. Really good. It's almost as good as "Blind". That's how good it is. Charlotte Gainsbourg - "Rest" It's another cool and moody song by that French lady. Produced by one of the Daft Punkers apparently. Mustasch - "Lawbreaker" Swedish hardrockers Mustasch are back with a gloriously dumb song that's fun to scream-sing along to while you're driving. Mavis Staples - "Try Harder" Finally, Mavis Staples with a song about trying to be a better person. That's a message we can all take with us into 2018.

Yeah that looks great!

I've been listening to this this tune a few times now and, yeah, it's good stuff! I'm digging that A Giant Dog track up there as well! On the topic of "Only you", have you played Batman: Arkham City? It's got a pretty amazing rendition of that song over the end credits.

Great video by Mark Brown as usual. The movement-mechanic is indeed great. Usually no matter what animal or thing you're playing in a game the movement is the same, press forward to go forward, press jump to jump. So it's great to see a game rethink that and make you really think like a snake to get around. Unfortunately, as a game Snake Pass impressed me less, which is why it's relegated to my Honorable Mentions. About halfway through you've pretty much seen all the game has to offer and the movement-mechanic starts to wear out it's welcome. I started getting bored with levels from that point on, only finishing them to have it done with. My campaign is currently at 85% completed and I don't know if I'll ever bother with the last 3 levels.

Ok, I'm done with my list. My Top 15 of 2017 15. Little Nightmares, by Tarsier Studios A physics platformer with good puzzles and nicely done horror tropes that was well worth playing through. It’s like an off-brand Inside. 14. Robo Recall, by Epic Games Epic’s shoot em up was a nice introduction to touch-controlled VR gaming. Packs a lot of complexity, cool ideas, and room for experimentation into it’s gunfights. 13. Strafe, by Pixel Titans Turned out to be more of a first-person Teleglitch than old-school Quake, which upset a lot of people. Me, I had a lot of fun with it. 12. Conductor, by Overflow An overlooked little VR gem, in which you ride a locomotive through a dark forrest and occasionally stop to do physics-puzzle and clear the path ahead. An atmospheric and fun little game. 11. Road Redemption, by Pixel Dash Studios/EQ Games An action packed arcade racer with a lot of nifty ideas and a permadeath campaign-structure that’ll have you coming back until you’ve beaten it. 10. Freeways, by Justin Smith Takes one aspect of city-builder games, namely transportation, and hyper-focuses on it, resulting in some very fun and addictive gameplay. 9. Night In The Woods, by Infinite Fall An adventure game that’s light on the puzzling and heavy on the sass. Effortlessly charming, cool, and heartwarming. This is a game you play not for a challenge, but rather just to hang out with the characters in it. 8. Hollow Knight, by Team Cherry A wonderful metroidvania that’ll pull you deep into it’s world. 7. Ultrawings, by Bit Planet Games A VR flying game that’s just the right mix of arcade and simulation. The touch-based input is a novel idea that works beautifully, and each of the airplanes is unique and fun in it’s own way. 6. Rain World, by Videocult Is a strong contender to Zelda and Prey for most real-feeling and complex gameworld of the year. The inhabitants of this world are the main feature here. Their unpredictable AI and procedural animation grants them a wildness not seen in many Video game characters. The harsh conditions and un-explained systems of it’s gameworld also grants it a realness that more accommodating and handholdey gameworlds lack. Rain World feels like a real place, and it is terrifying. 5. Super Mario Odyssey, by Nintendo A game that's been designed to be a pure joy and make you smile from ear to ear. This game right here, is a good time. 4. Lone Echo, by Ready At Dawn I like games where you’re basically just a working joe, and this is very much that. The combination of a great narrative, immersive gameplay and an innovative new locomotion-system makes this a game that really shows the full potential of VR. 3. Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, by Mimimi Productions (Technically a super-late 2016 release, but c’mon.) Fantastic stealth-tactics game with great characters and story. Thoroughly engrossed me for the couple of weeks I played through it. 2. Zelda: Breath of the Wild, by Nintendo A great open-world adventure that does "the hero's journey" very well. You constantly feel like you're improving, preparing for a great showdown. It manages to feel dangerous, while somehow never being too difficult, and it's systems allow for out-of-the-box thinking. 1. Prey, by Arkane I played Zelda quite shortly after Prey, and it’s surprising how much my top 2 games of this year feel similar, gameplay-wise, while being completely different in their story and gameworlds. They both allow for lots of experimentation and novel approaches to problem-solving. But whereas Zelda's narrative is a rather simplistic thing, Prey offers complex characters, tough choices, and a narrative that pulled me in and kept me hooked until the end. It's the best immerisive sim since Deus Ex. Honorable mentions Star Trek: Bridge Crew Horizon Zero Dawn Snake Pass Gravity Rush 2 Spintires: Mudrunner Kôna Bound Still want to play Mario+Rabbids, Golf Story, Heat Signature, Darkwood, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Nioh, Rime, Hellblade, What Remains Of Edith Finch, Nier Automata, Yakuza 0, Styx 2, Sniper Elite 4, Persona 5 The problem with the game industry right now? Too many great games! I can't keep up!

Heeeell yes! It's one of my faves too, though only #10 on my (still under construction) Top 15 of the year list.

I know I said I finished Freeways on the iPad a few pages back, but I bought and completed it again on PC and this time I have VIDEO EVIDENCE. I made a cool timelapse.

IIRC Homefront mainly got criticised from being really short (howlongtobeat says its 4,5h) which wouldn't be that much of a shortcoming for a free game. I say give it a go! Mainly because I also just picked it up and dunno if I can be bothered actually playing it. Be my canary in the coalmine plz.

Finished it a couple days ago. It's more realistic and grounded than the rest of the Marvel shows, and also more self-contained. Not as actiony as I expected, just a handful of big action scenes throughout, and as usual with these Marvel shows the one in episode 3 is the good one that they put a lot of effort and choreography into and the rest are kinda meh. Looking back on the series after the finale there's certainly excess flab that could've been cut, didn't need all those sidestories that didn't end up going anywhere interesting. Overall, yeah, it was ok.

Man, it's the start of December. Way too early to start naming GOTYs. I shall return at the end of the month with my list and a VIDEOCOUNTDOWN. In the meanwhile here's my picks from last year:

Night In The Woods. It was wonderful. Also finished Super Mario Odyssey. Also wonderful.

There's a great How Did This Get Made episode about Punisher War Zone, featuring Lexi Alexander and Patton Oswalt, that offers a lot of juicy behind-the-scenes info. Apparently Freddie Prinze Jr. auditioned for Jigsaw and absolutely killed it, but the studio didn't want him.

I knew it! True story: my Russian neighbor told me "Passengers" was a good movie and I should watch it. Nice try, ruskie, I'm not watching that!

Well, that's really something! Congrats on getting this far! Hey I don't know if you're still taking feedback but those bazooka missiles really need impact explosions, just don't feel right without em. And how about some other font than Arial? That Arial font on grey textbox is just soooo default.