Hello everyone. Hope you have all had a good week, and if you've been celebrating the holidays, have had a chance to unwind and enjoy. Its the last Sunday of the year so let's use this thread to talk about what games we played in 2025, our favorites, least favorites pleasant surprises etc.
Games I played that released this year:
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Elden Ring: Nightreign: This is probably my GOTY, but I didn't play too many games that released in 2025. Anyway, I think a lot of people were rightfully skeptical about Elden Ring Fortnite edition but it's an incredibly fun co-op game. I haven't tried the Deep of Night Mode or the DLC, but thats something I am thinking of picking up when I return home from my holiday vacation
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The Outer Worlds 2: the gameplay is markedly better than the first game, once again proving any movement system in any video game just needs a double jump. A lot of people complained about the lack of skill points you get from leveling up, but I thought it wasnt that big of an issue. One aspect I think they knocked it out the park was with the in game radio stations, they were absolutely fantastic and once i turned them on i never once turned them off. The one area I think it comes up way short of the first game is the companion characters: they simply do not match the energy of the ones from the first game. I look forward to the promised expansions.
-Becoming Saint: i picked this up because I saw Northernlion play it and I thought it looked interesting, but unfortunately there was little meat on its bones. The game bills itself as a rouge-like but there is very little variation between playthroughs. Also the devs suffered a huge aura loss in my eyes when I checked the steam reviews and they were replying to every single review. I liked the art style though. 5.5/10
Stronghold Crusader Definative Edition: 97 Year Old Game Studio Still Makes Crossbowmen The Old Fashioned Way. Stronghold crusder is one of my favorite childhood games (it taught me how the economy works). I actually didn't even know they were releasing a remaster of it until I saw that you could buy it bundled with Becoming Saint. Its the good kind of remaster: fixes longstanding bugs and actually ads some content to the game. I have worked my way through the co-op trail with my brother the past few months and we are eagerly awaiting fresh missions to be added to it.
Games I played this year that releases prior to 2025:
-Balatro: crack cocaine
-Dark Souls 1 and 3: i replayed 1 for the hell of it but I did a SL1 playthrough of 3. Very challenging, very rewarding
-Fallout 4: I began 2025 with a brutal, soul crushing period of unemployment and job hunting. To keep my spirits as low as possible, I did a playthrough of FO4 on survival difficulty. Extremely brutal in the early game, I ending up immediately siding with the Brotherhood so I could get access to vertibird transport early. Became the perfect mixture of fun and challenge once I got good armor and put in enough perks so I didn't die in 1 bullet
LA Noire: my comfort game tbh, shame they had to burn through hundreds of University graduates to make it
Rome Total War: still whips
Mass Effect 1 and 2: Playing Outer Worlds 2 made me want to play more space games, so I fired up the legendary edition for my second playthrough of the trilogy. My first playthrough I did male paragon shepherd, so this time I'm doing female renegade shepherd. They really tried to make the paragon/renegade dichotomy akin to good cop/loose cannon but full renegade means you swing between asshole and psychopath. The conversation you have with Anderson and Udina at the end of ME1 after letting the council die floored me with the renegade dialogue options; you and Udina basically become Darth Vader and Palpatine. Anyway, I will start ME3 when I get back from vacation
Hope everyone has had at least a tolerable 2025, and here's to maybe a better year in 2026!
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii - Not the greatest entry in the series, but was pretty fun like usual.
Hollow Knight: Silksong - Fantastic, but good lord it can be unforgiving.
Sekiro - I played this a few years back, and then hit a wall at the guardian ape and bounced off it. After I beat silksong I went back to this and beat it a few times in a row. I had to resort to some cheese strats, but I did it. Silksong was probably harder.
Spiderman 2 - The first few hours felt like a slog to me. It felt like every time I got into a fight the game would take control away from me and put me in a cutscene forced me to do something else or play a certain way. I also didn't like the parry mechanic they put in. It felt inconsistent so I tried to not use it, but some enemies you could only hit after a parry and it just kind of sucked fighting them. Most of your moves feel underpowered and so it encourages you to stick to a few that keep you in the air and away from enemies you have to parry while spamming a small subset of moves. The side quests weren't very fun either. It was a bigger map, but with less stuff to do in it. It picked up after the first act, but I found the first game and MM to be a lot more fun.
Balatro - Good shit
Claire Obscure - Good, but I'm a little surprised by just how much people love this game. Art, acting, story are all excellent, but most of the game I was either steamrolling enemies or getting 1 shotted by wandering into a boss I wasn't ready for. There were very few parts of the game I felt challenged by. It is pretty fun to see just how much you can break the game with different builds, but also by the point you unlock everything there aren't many enemies to fight.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - Pretty good.
Alan Wake 2 - Overall I liked it, but the combat never felt satisfying to me. Story was kind of exhausting in a bad way. Too many parts of the game felt like a chore.