Reviewing your year in gaming (revived for 2017)

#1

On the old PT forum, someone (SpiceTheCat, I think?) posted a thread assessing gaming in 2015 through his purchase history. I was one of several who responded, and I like the idea enough to revive it here.

I’d love to see others’ impressions of what they played last year; mine’s below. Note: I mostly buy mobile games because I’ve only “owned” work computers for most of the last ten years, so I’m only talking about those games. I categorized everything without going into detail because the list is ridiculously long.

The short version: I bought (and still play) 14 games I really love, with about that many other games that weren’t great but definitely worth the money.

Expansions: Carcassonne (Abbot, German Cathedrals, Old River), Ascension (Dreamscape), Star Realms (Heroes, Events)

Another game or 5 for the backlog: SteamWorld Heist, Colt Express, Autumn Dynasty: Warlords, Forbidden Desert, FFT: WotL, Road Not Taken, RETSNOM, Sorcery! 2, Door Kickers, Talisman: Horus Heresy

Disappointments: ENYO, Nanuleu, Ortus Regni, Fallen London, Please: Don’t Touch Anything

Tried and quickly discarded: Perchang, PvZ: Heroes, INKS, makenines, Satellina, Downwell

Tried and will probably revisit: Super Mario Run, Red7, Pandemic

Played, enjoyed, and (probably) done with: Sky Force Reloaded, Stencilsmith, Reigns, Her Story, Alto’s Adventure, The Battle of Polytopia, Slydris, I Keep Having This Dream, Space Grunts

Good, not great games: Crypt of the NecroDancer Pocket, Really Bad Chess, Hero Generations, Deus Ex GO, Lost Portal CCG, Warbits, Dungeon of the Endless, Patchwork, [the Sequence], Crashlands

Favorites: Imbroglio (+ Ossuary expansion), Mini Metro, Frost, RYB., Solitairica, Football Manager Mobile 2016, Guild of Dungeoneering, Human Resource Machine, Twilight Struggle, Pathfinder Adventures, Lara Croft: GO, M:TG Puzzle Quest, Brass, Football Chairman: Pro

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#2

my most played and most loved GOTY: Brass

runner-up: Darkest Dungeon

other favorites: Wasteland 2, Helldivers (PS4), The Witcher 3, SteamWorld Heist

on mobile: Steam Rails to Riches, Gems of War, Sky Force Reloaded, Dynasties (can’t wait for the next big update/bugfix and then tournament), Eclipse 2.0 (but still waiting on private games!)

desperately waiting for: Terra Mystica, Starbase Orion 2

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#3

I had already done a bunch of this for another forum, just need to add a few things here to recap my year in gaming:

STEAM New Purchases

February - X-Com 2 - 127 hours played. Heavy play at first, with some sporadic play over the summer.

March - Beyond Earth/Rising Tide - I think I only played one game with the expansion. And I only have 47 hours total with BE.

March - Stardew Valley - 10 hours played - I actually really like this game. I played 10 hours the first day and then decided to wait for it to get out of Early Access…and then just have not been able to get myself to start over again now. But I will eventually.

March - Lords of Xulima - 19 hours played - I could have finished this, except that I could see at the point where I was that it was just going to be a long stretch of loading saved games from RNG mishaps. I wanted to really like this, but could not.

April - Smite - 87 hours played - When the Overwatch open beta closed, I was looking for something interesting and new and free and fps (I mostly play strategy games, and Overwatch was the first fps to get my attention. I tried Smite on a whim, and ended up really liking the Arena mode on the game, bought the unlimited god pack on sale and generally like that one mode. Now, I mostly just go try out new Gods when they are released for an hour or so.

May - Blueprint Tycoon - 4.5 hours. It was ok, but I realized quickly I should have just bought Factorio.

May - Factorio - 31 hours. Despite my self-rule to not buy Early Access games…this was the 2nd I had purchased at that point. And it’s a great game. I intend to go back and play it more when it gets out of EA.

May - Blood Bowl 2 - 27 hours played - I have a confession to make, I have a Mac (don’t hate). I do have Win 10 on boot camp though so play everything I want (like Overwatch, the first Blizzard game not on a Mac OS). But I like to support Mac development/ports, and I had Chaos Edition on the PC side, but decided to buy BB2 when they ported it to OSX. BB is one of my all time favorite games, tabletop and digital, so I am a little biased and play this off and on all the time.

August - Rimworld - 186 hours played - Damn is this a good game. Best Early Access dollars I have ever spent.

September - Rocket League + Steam Controller - 2 hours played. Boy do I suck at that game. I know I just need to practice more, and I keep promising myself I will…eventually…maybe in 2017?

September - Paladins - 8 hours - They had a package like the Smite one where you get all heroes past present and future for like $13. The game still needs a lot of work/balance, but I am sure I will appreciate buying that package some day.

October - Civilization VI - 219 hours played - I actually waited for Aspyr to put out the Mac port before buying it, but mostly because I was playing a lot of Overwatch still.

December - Undertale - 2.5 hours - My 15yo niece talked me into this. Its ok. I lost my game save for some reason though and have not been motivated to start over again yet.

December - Age of Wonders 3 - 25 hours - Steam Sale + been on my wish list forever…It’s not a bad game, I played 25 hours of it already, but it’s not what I want it to be. I want it to be more Civ-like and less fast paced/aggressive. (although in the /r/4Xgaming sub, someone recently suggested some customization I should try to get it closer, so I will try those.

December - Endless Legend - 14 hours - Another Steam Sale wish list purchase. The opposite of AOW3, everything is great except for combat. Wish I could take the units/combat of AOW3 and put them into Endless Legend.

December - Renowned Explorers: International Society - This is like a mashup of FTL and a TBS game. I really kind of like it. It was a end of the year, Steam sale purchase that I am quite happy with.

STEAM Older Content Played

Shroud of the Avatar - I was a kickstarter on this Richard Garriott - UO Revival. I probably put about 20 hours into it this year to try it out once it got to a point where there will be no more server wipes. It’s ummm…not that good in its current state.

Cities Skylines - I liked the Night/Entertainment expansion and was still playing this off and on this year. I never bothered to pick up the snow or the new disaster expansions yet, but probably will some day when they are like $1 each. This is a good go back to, and start a new city game just whenever.

Blizzard Entertainment

Heroes of the Storm - I play this game, co-op vs AI almost every day to clear a daily quest. That is about all I do with this game. I wish there was more PvE content in this game. I am just not twitchy enough to play against people. But I like the game.

Overwatch - I don’t have any idea how many hours I have played, but I am almost level 200. So probably a lot. I have never been any good at FPS games, but I do ok in this one, and really enjoy it.

WoW Special Mention - 2016 was the first year since WoW was released that I did not have a subscription for an entire year. I did not play it at all…so that is notable in itself.

iOS

Star Realms - Most of my iPad play this year.

Gems of War - I kind of play it still? Mostly when they do something new I get into it for a couple weeks.

Township - Just a silly time wasting farm type game.

I Keep Having This Dream - i have played almost nothing else on my iPhone for a year now.

Special Mention

FTL - I own on both my iPad and Steam, and have played on and off during the year…badly…but I pick it up from time to time.

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#4

This is a really cool idea for a thread and I might take a shot at it, though the sheer volume is daunting (I play a lot of games).

Taking the easy way out (for now) my top 5 games have been published right here on Stately Play, my favorite games for short play sessions are conveniently gathered on my own website, and this Pocket Tactics gift-card guide has more of my favorites of the year. Naturally, there’s some overlap.

More recently I’ve been playing Treasure Hunter, Crowntakers, Abzorb, klocki, Twisted Lines and Swap Sword.

I bought a lot of games over the holidays that I haven’t played enough of yet as well (shocking…), including both Banner Saga games, Steamworld Heist, Star Nomad 2, and some others. I’ll get there.

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#5

Last year I kept a list on my phone of games that I beat. I historically rarely beat games, and wanted to be better about it in 2016. Of course, I still played a lot more than this, but I didn’t keep a list of games I just played. These are organized in chronological order per system.

###iOS:

  • A Good Snowman is Hard to Build: Reviewed this one for PT; it’s great.
  • Tales From the Borderlands: For my money, the best Telltale has ever done, and I don’t even like Borderlands that much!
  • Tormentuum: Another PT review, but this one was kind of disappointing.
  • Hidden My Game by Mom: An adorable little Japanese room escape game where you’re trying to find your 3DS that your mom has hidden. Plays a lot with puzzle game logic in some really funny ways. A sequel just came out and it’s just as good.
  • Mario Run: Had a pretty good time with this one for a few days. The coin challenges are pretty clever, but Toad Run is infuriating.

###PS4:

  • Journey: Replayed this one when I got a PS4 at the beginning of the year. Still fantastic.
  • The Unfinished Swan: Clever little narrative puzzle game.
  • Flower: Not as good as Journey, but still beautiful.
  • Firewatch: The last act never really came together, but the game does everything else so well that I don’t really care that much.
  • Uncharted 4: Definitely the best game in the series, especially story-wise. Kind of tired of the gameplay, though!
  • Ratchet and Clank: Fantastic “junk food” game. I kind of miss all those 3d action platformers from the PS2 era.
  • Inside: Liked this way more than Limbo. What an ending.
  • Titanfall 2: One of my favorite FPS campaigns in a long, long time. The multiplayer is fantastic, too.

###3DS:

  • Zelda Picross
  • Picross e2
  • Picross e3: I really like Picross. This was the result of a binge early last year where I also got through a lot of Pokemon Picross and the original Picross 3D.
  • Kirby: Planet Robobot: One of the best Kirby games in years.
  • Rhythm Heaven Megamix: I was so worried this wouldn’t be released outside of Japan because the series has failed to catch on here. Rhythm Heaven is one of my favorite franchises and this is a sort of Greatest Hits compilation of minigames from every game in the series, plus some new ones. The great thing is that since the original game was never released outside of Japan, like half of the games are new to the West.
  • BoxBoy: Excellent platform puzzler. Haven’t started the sequel yet, but I look forward to it.
  • 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors: I played enough to get the True Ending, which is really something. A Saw-esque time travel visual novel with Room Escape puzzles. It’s pretty messed up! I played a bunch of the sequel, Virtue’s Last Reward on my Vita but still haven’t beaten it.
  • Pokemon Moon: Just a great Pokemon game.

###Mac:

  • Undertale: I beat the game a second time early last year to get the true pacifist ending. Definitely worth the time, and it cemented the game as one of my favorites of the past few years.

A lot of games that I played just aren’t the kind of game that you can beat. So Overwatch, Imbroglio, Pocket Card Jockey and Really Bad Chess are missing. Or they’re just really hard, like Shiren the Wanderer, Snakebird, The Witness, and Stephen’s Sausage Roll. Picross 3D Round 2 isn’t here because I’m saving the bonus puzzles for a rainy day. Otherwise, I just get distracted very easily by shiny new games. I’ll get around to finishing Rise of the Tomb Raider, Virtue’s Last Reward, Earthbound, DOOM, and Ghost Trick in the next couple of months while there aren’t too many big games coming out. I’ve actually already beat three smaller games already in the new year: SUPERHOT, OneShot and Hidden My Game by Mom 2. Hopefully I can keep this momentum going and clear out some of my backlog.

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#6

No hate here. I just bought a Mac both for gaming and development. Installed Win10 so (1) I could play games I got in Humble Bundles that weren’t Mac-friendly and (2) code/test on the Windows side of things. I justified the purchase based on (2) … but (1) was a pretty good motivator.

I’ve got a couple of first access games I haven’t put enough time into: Antihero and Overland. Love the premise of both; need to find the time to play them in earnest.

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#7

There’s the stuff I write about, of course. Other than that, on iOS I went back to Dream Quest with a fresh start on a new phone, and have played the crap out of that (again). I still play a ton of Ascension and Honeycomb Hotel, as well as periodic games of The Battle for Hill 218, but I think I’ve finally kicked my Bonza habit after they redid the way they deal with daily challenges. Also picked up Steamworld Heist, and have quite enjoyed it.

I went through a brief period of being recruited into a Marvel Puzzle Quest guild, and sucking royally compare to everybody else. I still think it’s not bad; there is some cool strategy to it. But it’s soooo free-to-play. The final turn-off for me was the realization that everyone in your alliance gets goodies when you make a purchase. As a result, the game essentially pushes everyone to feel like they’re mooching, and ought to make purchases in order to help everyone else out in return. I eventually came to suspect that it would be clever for F2P engineers to fake purchases from your allies in order to create that sense of duty, and that suspicion flattened my interest in the game.

I played a bunch of Civ VI, and wrote a first draft of a review. The final draft will hopefully be out sometime soonish. Short version: happy dance.

On the Xbox, I went through a very unexpected but surprisingly delightful phase with Rock Band. I can’t explain that. Also played a bunch of Overwatch, and I regard the game very highly, but don’t really feel the need to play it more. I didn’t even get the most recent Destiny update. That was a little sad, because I had a ton of fun with that game over the past couple years, but the crew I used to play with was enough harder-core than me with that game that, once I took a break to focus on a busy review period for a while, I could just never catch up. And I never really liked Crucible, so when they started heading there because they were completely burned out on everything else, there just wasn’t much point. I’m taking XCOM 2 slowly, and playing mostly in front of my kids, who are oddly captivated by it. Also played Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor.

I’ve also played a bunch of the games you get for free with Gold. Burnout Paradise has been pretty great in that set; I’m terrible at racing games, but it’s pretty forgiving and is largely about doing other things with cars than just going fast (often, crashing them into other cars).

Oh, and The Witness and The Turing Test. TTT was weird for me, because I used to teach that stuff, so the philosophy wasn’t new. But, unlike most games which deal with philosophy, it didn’t do anything with the philosophy which struck me as objectionable, which is pretty impressive. A trifle didactic, but then, so am I, and I was totally willing to accept that for a decent Portal-esque game. The Witness has confirmed for me the impression I got from Braid, which was that Jonathan Blow makes 90% of a tremendously enjoyable puzzle game, and 10% of a pretentious pile of crap with puzzles so obscure they’re too irritating to be worth solving. So I played a bunch of it, saw the first signs of incipient rage, and pulled out. Consequently, I loved what I played and didn’t get pissed off.

Tons of Tokaido on tabletops, because it’s my son’s favorite game, and I don’t mind it. Also a few months of Pandemic Legacy, but, though he loves base Pandemic, I think the escalating rules complexity was starting to leave him behind, and my wife and daughter just never quite seemed that into it. So we set that aside for a few years from now. We got Imperial Assault for Christmas, and so far he’s having a blast just playing with the pieces, but I’ll be gearing up to interest him in the full game over the next few months, probably, and likely painting at least some of the minis.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch, but that’s what stands out right now.

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#8

We just bought a house, and I finally got the “man-cave-of-my-dreams” here. I have not played Rock Band in a few years now, but I have all the instruments here in the basement right by my brand new 65" tv. I also have a 4 yo who keeps eyeballing the drums. We might be starting up a father/daughter White Stripes type band soon.

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#9

In my experience, the drums are a recipe for tears. The microphone, on the other hand, is very forgiving on easy, and has the bonus effect of increasing the difficulty for everyone else (making it more likely that she’ll beat your percentage, which my kids LOVE).

#10

Yeah, she is 4, so I would set the drums either to no fail and not tell her the point of the game. She won’t know the difference at first.

#11

Card games. SO many card games in 2016.

I finished Card Wars, although I still play it. And all the old standbys were played religiously – Ascension, Star Realms, Magic Duels, etc.

I tried, and ultimately discarded, a bunch of others, too. Probably too numerous to list here. But I’ve found most card games make the decision pretty easy once you get to the “spend money, please” point of no return. And that decision is usually “no, thanks.”

Hearthstone, of course. Although I really think it’s a poorly designed (but very pretty) game. And I gave SolForge another shot … which, I guess, doesn’t really matter at all now.

After that, my most frequently-played game is probably Carcassonne.

For 2017, I hope to revisit some old friends, such as Neuroshima Hex, Elder Sign, and Ra.

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#12

[quote=“TheDukester, post:11, topic:210”]I hope to revisit some old friends, such as Neuroshima Hex, Elder Sign, and Ra.
[/quote]

definitely Neuroshima Hex!
let’s make ready for a SP tourney!

did you mean “Card Wars - Adventure Time Card Game”? i guess so, as you mentioned having finished it.
have you tried “Card Wars Kingdom - Adventure Time” too?
same franchise, same developer, but multiplayer league and friendly gaming added. it can be played w/o spending IAP money.

#13

definitely Neuroshima Hex!
let’s make ready for a SP tourney!

did you mean “Card Wars - Adventure Time Card Game”? i guess so, as you mentioned having finished it.
have you tried “Card Wars Kingdom - Adventure Time” too?
same franchise, same developer, but multiplayer league and friendly gaming added. it can be played w/o spending IAP money.
[/quote]

I’d definitely get in on a NH tourney - love that game.

#14

As js619’s resident punching bag in the game, I’d be up for it too.

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#15

did you mean “Card Wars - Adventure Time Card Game”? i guess so, as you mentioned having finished it.
have you tried “Card Wars Kingdom - Adventure Time” too?

Yes to both. I’ve played the first one practically to death; I’m familiar with the second one.

The sequel is a 1:1 re-skin from a previous game. I mean, it’s literally the same, with the names changed. I can’t remember the original at the moment. Someone here will probably know.

#16

the original was: Card King: Dragon Wars.
i have played that game very much. without spending money i was able to ascend to a high PvP league, earning crystal wings. it was really much fun.
when my iCloud Backup could not be restored after a factory reset i lost all progress and quit. not the game’s fault.

Neuroshima Hex tournament discussion thread
#17

i have created a Neuroshima Hex tourney discussion thread to keep this thread on topic and to rally interested players round the flag.

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#18

I’m reviving this thread because I enjoy taking stock of what I bought and played last year. I’d love to see everyone else’s lists as well. I changed my gaming habits in a couple of interesting ways this year:

  • I actually own a non-work computer now, so I did spend some time playing PC games (well, mostly one PC game).
  • I spent a significant amount of time going back to “old” single player games rather than just new purchases and ongoing MP games.

Last year, I listed everything I bought. This year, I’m going to stick to stuff that really stood out (good or bad). I bought fewer games in 2017, but I’m still wordy, so this list is too long.

Disappointments: Faeria and Elder Scrolls: Legends convinced me I don’t like CCGs (not just Hearthstone). Paperback and Eight-Minute Empire didn’t live up to even my mediocre expectations. And I’m among the many who wanted more from Warhammer Quest 2.

Games to revisit: I really like Ticket to Earth, but I can’t stay interested in an unfinished game. I’ve just scratched the surface of Card Thief. I’ll play Death Road to Canada and forma.8 GO more now that I own a MFi controller. And Darkest Dungeon will get more time, too.

Puzzlers: I play a lot of puzzle games and even finish some of them (if possible). I tired of Warlock’s Tower long before reaching the end. I loved Invert - Tile Flipping Puzzles, and I’m still working on A Good Snowman is Hard to Build and Hidden Folks. I played a ton of Topsoil, which is a high score chaser I’d still classify as a puzzler. And Typeshift and Sidewords were my two favorite word puzzlers of the year.

Old favorites: A lot of my iPad time went to FTL, Mini Metro, Frost, and 80 Days. On my phone, expansions to Solitairica and 868-HACK reignited my interest, and I never stopped playing Imbroglio. I also restarted Dream Quest just to have that experience again. And I got sucked back into our Gems of War guild.

New favorites: In no particular order:

  • Cinco Paus is a late 2017 entry that’s getting most of my current attention.
  • My favorite light game of the year is Flipflop Solitaire.
  • I’m cheating a bit here, but Star Realms saw so many expansions this year–including the big Colony Wars expansion–that it feels like a new game.
  • I don’t know if I love the game Terra Mystica, but I do love the app.
  • Race for the Galaxy would have been my (mobile) GOTY …
  • … if Through the Ages hadn’t taken that title.
  • However, given the 170+ hours I’ve sunk into Out of the Park Baseball 18, that game is clearly my overall favorite for 2017.
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