Blog: Video Games of January 2017

I wasn't sure that I wanted to keep tracking the games I played in 2017. Still, in the early days of the month it was hard to stop tracking and it's kinda fun to see the graphs and totals build. So I kept on tracking and now I seem to have tracked what I played in the month of January.

January was a month where I didn't have a strong drive to play anything, so my play spread over a few games.

My top five games (by play time) for January 2017 were:

1. Marvel Puzzle Quest - For a game I usually play for less than half-an-hour a day, it's a little surprising that this is my post played game of the month. That being said a few minutes a day builds up over time and between time spent commuting on the bus and a few quite minutes in the office here and there it's been really easy to play.
   
   
   As I said before they do a good job of keeping the game interesting and updated and every time I play I feel rewarded (even without putting in money) and for a very simple game it's continually interesting and fun to play.


2. EarthBound - I started playing this in December (thanks to the WiiU Virtual Console) as part of my SNES Nostalgia. That being said, as you might know from a few other posts, I never played EarthBound as a kid. Who want's to play a game that stinks ... or an RPG that doesn't have swords in it (yeah I was a dumb kid).
   
   
   I think though, that this is a game well arrived at as an adult who has played games for a long time. It has a lot of concepts that really resonate more as an adult than it ever could have as a kid.
   
   I've also been motivating myself to play so that I can read the Legends of Localization: EarthBound book without spoiling myself. The book is a fantastic look at video game localization and I highly recommend it and the first volume in the series.


3. Civilization VI - Civ VI doesn't grab me as much as I think it should. It also doesn't really have the "one more turn" hold that I remember other games in the series having. It may be that I just haven't hit the right mindset or that unupdated with DLC Civ VI is still a little thin on material. I am enjoying it, and it still reminds me of the good-old-days playing Civ, but it doesn't really give me good days playing Civ right now.
   
   


4. Recettear - This game is weird. It's not that well produced, although not terrible and it turns out that the best way to play it is to ignore one of its main mechanics. Still, playing the RPG shop keeper is pretty fun. It could be way more in depth or dynamic, but it's still sufficiently fun to play that I've really enjoyed pulling it out to play.
   
   


5. Mario Golf: World Tour - Other than MPQ, Mario Golf remains my in office, lunch hour break game (you can't play it on the bus, you need to be more precise). It has great tactillity and it's really satisfying to play when you're playing well (and super frustrating when you're playing badly). I feel like it could have a deeper online experience (or a better explanation of the online experience) and I wish it had a little bit more of the Game Cube's course design. It's really enjoyable in short bursts.
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for January 2017:

And here's the total times I've played over the month:

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (154)

In this volume of my Favourite YouTube Videos, we freeze the rain, celebrate feathered friends and begin at (almost) the very beginning.

• Did you ever want to watch rain drops hold still? Destin from Smarter Every Day brings you your dreams with a syringe and a slotted spoon. 
• Next, Norman Caruso, The Gaming Historian takes a break to tell you his 10 favourite birds in video games, because ... well, don't *you* have 10 favourite birds in video games? (I think my number one is Sage Joch)
• Finally Dave Bulmer brings you not the beginning, but the beginning of the bit at the beginning of the beginning but just after the beginning of the beginning. By which I mean he's talking about the beginning of the Prolog of The Way of Kings (by Brandon Sanderson). Dave already talked about why he's talking about the Stormlight Archive in an even earlier beginning.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 153)

In this volume of my Favourite YouTube Videos,  we reprogram our brains, go play and find the animal hidden in our own minds.

• First, Destin from Smarter Everyday reprograms his mind as an exercise in bias and bicycle riding. 
• Next, Pomplamoose would like to know if you'd like to Come Out to Play
• Finally, Mary Doodles scribbles with her buddy Danté and discovers an animal in hiding. (Kudos for deciding it was facing us, I kinda thought it was going the other way.) 

Blog: Best Game of 2016

I've played 8 games that were released in 2016. In this post I'm going to talk about those 8 games, which ones I liked and which ones I didn't.

So, what were the 8 games I played this year? They were Bushido Bear (a mobile game from Spry Fox), Civilization VI, Halycon 6: Starbase Commander, Pokemon GO!, Rimworld, Starfox 0, Stardew Valley and XCOM 2. The one game that I missed in 2016, that I wanted to play, was Dishonored 2, but hopefully I'll catch up to that some time soon.

Its an interesting set of games and for the most part they were good games. Roughly I'd sort the  games I played into The Bad, The Okay, The Good and The Great. I'll talk about each of those now.

The Bad

Star Fox Zero

Star Fox Zero is the worst game I played this year (not just out of games made in 2016). Now I think I need to say first that if the control scheme clicks for me, I might take that back, but until then there wasn't much to redeem Star Fox Zero at all.

The controls are abysmal and unintuitive and sadly I don't think there's a good reason for them to be as difficult as they are. Nintendo gets into their gimmicks some times and I think that they let the gimmick override the game play. There's no reason for the single player to be this difficult to control especially when there are a lot of other good uses the game pad could have been put to. Sadly the game it self does nothing to support this, the missions (that I got to) are boring and repetitions of Starfox 64 (which they easily could have just done an HD version of). The characters and story are bland and boring and while you don't really look to Nintendo for the best story if nothing else is drawing you into a game then there's not much else.

On the positive I can only say that it's pretty, but Nintendo really got off in the wrong direction on this one.

Bushido Bear

Bushido Bear, from Spry Fox who is one of my favourite mobile/web developers is uninspired for the most part. I played it both on iPad and Android phone and just wasn't hooked. The mechanic of swipe to send your sword bear around isn't that compelling and none of the progression rewards seemed worth it. Tied with a limited energy monetization system, I just never felt like it was worth playing.

The Okay

Rimworld

Rimworld is a graphical Dwarf Fortress in beta. It's okay. The game is okay and the game is Dwarf Fortress. It's "fun". Sadly it lacks the charm of Dwarf Fortress while keeping the ick factor and its interface is rough. Maybe when it's released for real the interface will at least be cleaned up, but at the moment it wasn't compelling and didn't really scratch the Dwarf Fortress itch for me either.

The Good

Pokemon GO

I like Pokemon GO. It's fun, it encourages you to go out for a walk and for that little while it was awesome to see so many people out together playing the same game. The game is a little simple, but its satisfying (and compared to Bushido Bear it's a much more satisfying screen scribbler, if I may coin a genre), and the walking to find pokemon and pokestops is good and a good thing to do.

I've found myself hesitant to play quite a few times over the course of the year. This stems largely from the technical problems they've struggled with, although they do seem to have worked out how to make the game work now (and for a team as small as Niantic, I'm very impressed). That being said I would like it if the game could load faster (there's a pikachu, someone shouts and then I get to stare at the Niantic splash and the loading screen for the next five minutes. The other thing is that it would be nice if the game had some mechanic that didn't rely on your location, I may not always have the time (or inclination) to take a walk and it would be nice to have a reason to pick up the game.

XCOM 2

XCOM 2 is a lot of fun. It's the game I played the most this year. It's also really hard. The difficulty, especially the expanded added by the DLC, really holds the game back from being something that you just pick up and play (again I'm talking about a game I played for 88 hours this year). I think it's a great improvement over its predecessor and confidently divides the modern XCOM games from the originals (and the remakes) into a new style of gameplay (within a grid based tactics game).

It would be nice if the difficulty was a little more balanced, even while you're supposed to be underpowered, better alternate mechanics for stealth or hit-and-run might have made the story blend better with the mechanics. It's definitely good, but lacking a little bit to be great.

Halcyon 6: Starbase Command

I haven't played as much Halcyon 6 as I might have and I've liked what I played. It has an interesting mix of game play elements, jrpg style combat, XCOM style base building and adventure style decision making. It does seem to lack a little bit of depth or at least diversity in tactics but generally its been enjoyable and has been worth playing.

The Great

Civilization VI

As I mentioned in my Games of November post, Civ VI is the most nostalgic and best Civ game in a very long time. If games are a series of interesting decisions, they've increased the size of the series and the interestingness of the decisions. The game looks great, feels great (if a little slow) and rewards your time. I think it has some room to grow and get polished, but its the most fun I've had with a Civ game in a very very long time and I look forward to playing it for a long time to come.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley is my favourite game released in 2016. I've always loved Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley cleans up so many of the rough points in that series and improves on the genre beautifully. The chance to build your own farm and engage with a small town at your own pace is incredibly peaceful but still engaging and fun. The writing in the game is good and it doesn't shy away from difficult topics while not losing its own light-hearted tone.

The only complaint I have about Stardew Valley is that there isn't more of it. It feels almost as if it could be extended by programmatic event creation, but the strength of the game is just how well all of the interactions and events of the game are written. It would be sad to lose any of that, so instead I play it as slowly as I can an enjoy every minute of it (while I keep hoping for a new update from ConcernedApe). If you haven't played and you'd like a game that lets you farm at your own pace then I really recommend picking up Stardew Valley.