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23.) Halo 3: ODST (MCC) This one started out kind of meh but really took off as it went. Some great sections in it. The side story that built up as you found the files was probably the most interesting part though. Was more invested in what was going on there than I was the main story. XD

22.) Halo 3 (MCC) This one was better. More solid game overall than the first two imo. Felt like it looked worse than 2 though just because that one had all the nice cut scenes and this one didn't so seeing characters that were only in cutscenes in 2 have normal character models for 3 was kind of jarring. XD The sequences where Cortana and/or the Gravemind (I think that's what it was called) would talk in your head were interesting and kind of fun, and the driving bits in the game were pretty entertaining.

21.) Halo 2 (Master Chief Collection) Well that was a bullshit "ending". Jesus. Glad I never played these before because waiting 3 years after that shit would have been annoying as fuck. Game was an improvement over the first one by a fair amount. Story was better overall and some of the cutscenes were pretty cool. The dual wielding functionality for smaller guns was fun. Still kind of floating in the realm of "this was fine". I think Destiny probably ruined these games for me since all the core gameplay just feels like that only slowed way down. XD

20.) Halo (Master Chief Collection version) This is a game I'd honestly thought I would never play, but I've had the game pass thing for a few months and I tried and didn't hate the Halo: Infinite multiplayer so I said fuck it. Might as well play through them. First game expectedly dated but wasn't the worst FPS experience I've ever had. The graphical improvements were pretty nice for the re-release. Had the button that lets you switch between the redone and original graphics and boy was it noticeable when I accidentally hit it a few times. It's always a little jarring seeing just how far graphics have come over the past 20 years or so because in my head I always felt like it looked like the nicer version and then you see what that stuff actually looked like after so long and it's just such a stark contrast. Game was fine. Didn't hate it. Probably won't ever play it again though. At least interested enough to play the rest of them.

19.) Road 96 This was a fun little indie game. Kind of a procedurally generated, rogue-lite Telltale game is the best way I can think of to describe it. XD You play as a randomly generated teenager who is attempting to flee the fictional country of Petria due to the totalitarian ruler there who routinely disappears teens to the iron mines. You have you make your way to the border by any means possible (calling for a taxi, taking the bus, stealing a car, and of course hitchhiking). The greater story unfolds around the cast of characters present in the game that you run into on the road, many with connected pasts who are instrumental to the fate of the country. Who you run into and when is never set (which is where the procedural part of the game comes into play) and as you try to make it to the border you can die or be arrested in the process and your journey is cut short, where upon you switch to playing as a different teenager on the same mission, keeping only a handful of skills you had the potential to pickup along the way (and there's the rogue-lite element). Choices you make throughout each run will eventually start to effect the story based on whether your choices and actions support people voting for a new leader in a typically rigged election, pushing for change by force, or maintaining the status quo. Even if you manage to escape the country, you will proceed to play as other teens until the date progresses towards election day and the fate of the country comes to bear. Was a pretty interesting game overall. Nothing super fancy in terms of mechanics, but the characters are unique and a bit over the top and I had a lot of fun playing it. There are some pretty heavy themes going on mixed in with some rather ridiculous events that really kept things going and each run felt radically different at times.

18.) Vampire the Masquerade: Parliament of Knives Another text adventure style game. Stats were a lot more condensed in this one than in the other two, and fewer starting clan options, but the storytelling was a LOT tighter which made the story a lot more compelling IMO. Probably my favorite of the three so far. Relatively high replay value like the other two as well. Really wish these had music to go with them at least. Didn't realize how much music in a game did for me until I played these. XD

Been playing too much perpetual online shit lately. My completion count is suffering. XD 17.) Guardians of the Galaxy This game was absolutely hilarious. Wasn't expecting too much going into it after Avengers (different dev, but another one owned by Square-Enix was was expecting the same kind of greedy shit that had) and was pleasantly surprised. This is to Avengers like Jedi Fallen Order was to Battlefront 2. Which is to say a surprisingly well made and properly entertaining single player game with no BS online shit or microtransactions vs a shining example of the worst of those things. They even have multiple skins for each character in the game that are all earnable IN THE GAME. Even the pre-order and deluxe edition skins are just "early unlocks" and you can find them all in the game from what I understand. Good mix of original designs and comic and movie inspired ones. Game had a really good story and it featured a LOT of characters I wouldn't have expected to see in this and the humor was great. Tons of good banter between everyone while exploring and in combat, and didn't really notice much repeating of combat lines until later in the game. Would really like to see them do another one of these. Great music too, and they even recorded an entire 80's metal-style album by a fictitious band called Star-Lord for the game that was actually halfway decent. Combat was a little clunky to start but smoothed out later on. Some of the button command stuff was a little awkward (mostly for Peter's own abilities), but not terrible. Game also ended up being a fair bit longer than I was expecting. There were a couple places I was expecting it to end and then it just kept going. Not in a bad way though. The whole thing was pretty well put together and had solid pacing. They overused their sliding mechanic thing a fair bit though. They must have been really proud of those sequences. XD Gonna do a 2nd quick play through to wrap up the handful of trophies I had left over and maybe try some different dialogue options.

16.) Cyberpunk 2077 Finally finished it. Got most trophies. Will wrap those up eventually when the PS5 version finally drops. Game ran pretty well on the PS5. No major issues when it launched outside of the bugged quests and stuff which they fixed pretty quickly. It wasn't terrible. Had some really good quests to it, but mostly playing it just felt like there were a LOT of missed opportunities. Game probably could have used another year (maybe even 2) of work to make it really shine. Mostly lots of little things. Still enjoyed it overall though and definitely got my money's worth out of it (Think I clocked 150 hours to do everything). It just definitely had so much potential it didn't live up to.

15.) Twelve Minutes Well that was... a game. This was honestly a really intriguing looking game and I have been looking forward to it for some time. You probably saw a trailer for it at some point if you watched any game shows the past year or two. Takes place in a single apartment, top down view, characters voiced by Daisy Riddley, James McAvoy and Willem Defoe about a guy stuck in a time loop trying to figure out what's happening. It starts off really strong. Lots of mystery, lots to figure out, but you quickly get ahead of the narrative a bit and the game expects you to do some very specific things on occasion to make meaningful progress in a given loop which eventually leads to it being a bit tedious (luckily you can skip through conversations and such generally). Was still relatively enjoyable to get thrings progressed and find out more. And then it goes in for the BIG twist at the end and it's just... WTF. It still may have been salvageable, but the actual ending is just garbage. Absolute garbage. It doesn't explain what's going on, why anything happened and a number of other things. There are a few different endings, and I saw a couple, but the "real" ending (I guess?) completely resets the progress and I just can't be fucking bothered to deal with this shit again to find out for sure. There were some really good ideas in this game, and the voice acting was pretty good but it it really flubbed the landing it feels like and took what could have been a pretty solid game that had a few hitches, into an absolute mess that felt kind of disappointing overall. Might be worth dicking around with if you can get it for under $10 (maybe closer to $5).

14.) Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption First VtM game ever made, back in like 2000. Never got a chance to play it as my old computer just would NOT run it properly for whatever weird ass reason. New one ran it fine though. Combat was pretty clunky and really unpleasant a lot of the time and the story dialogue was super cheesy (which is to be expected from a game this old), but overall it was a good story that had a LOT of depth and thought put into it from the world building side of things. I can see why people liked it so much. It has a shitty multiplayer mode as well, because apparently the expectation from Activision was that they'd be able to compete with Diablo 2.

12.) Vampire: The Masquerade - Out for Blood The is the 2nd of 3 text adventure games that are being put out for VtM. This one has you playing as a human in a relatively typical "vampire in a small town" story that gave me some major Salem's Lot vibes, but was REALLY well put together. The branching narratives seem really diverse and there were some interesting options and endings available. Liked it a lot more than I was expecting considering you typically play the vampire in this setting and not the human. Looking forward to the 3rd one. 13.) Death's Door Fantastic game. Felt like an old Legend of Zelda game in terms of magic abilities (bow and arrow, fire, bombs, chain shot to cross gabs), exploration and feel, but with a light Souls-like aspect with dodging being super important and how respawning/saving worked. Story was straight forward, but interesting and the characters and general feel of the game were full of charm and humor. Felt pretty worthwhile for a $20 game.

11.) Her Story Interesting little FMV style game where you're watching clips from the interrogation of a woman about her husband's murder. The one was less "game" than others I've played outside of having to pick up keywords from what you watch to be able to find more clips but there's no real "win condition" and it just kind of ends. Some interesting twists in the story though that kept me interested/intrigued the whole time. Have had the game sitting around for a while and finally decided to play it since this dev has another game coming out soon that looked interesting.

10.) Call of the Sea Fun little puzzle/adventure game with a Lovecraftian themed story. Even if you've read even just a little Lovecraft, you can see where the story is going pretty much 5 minutes in (and probably had a decent idea to begin with just from the trailer and name of the game XD ), but it still had its moments. Some decent Lovecraft themed easter eggs too. Puzzles were solid without being punishingly hard. Had to actually stop and think about them, but never felt like I was going to be forced to consult a guide. Enjoyed it.

8.) Control: Ultimate Edition God I love this game. Easily in my top 5 of all time. One of the few games I've wanted to replay in recent years, and this was a good opportunity since it was free. The PS5 version was a world of different from the PS4 one. Near non-existent load times, and finally got to see a really good example of ray tracing at work. Control is free on the Epic game store right now so I'm considering grabbing that and playing it again on PC. XD 9.) (Mobile) Kingdom Hearts: Union X They finally finished the story in the f2p mobile KH game that's been going for a few years. Will be shutting down at the end of the month and they wrapped up the story for it. As per usual KH fashion, it answered a few questions, and left like 8 more in its place. X_x They're not completely getting rid of the game. They're just disabling the "game" part of it but are leaving the theater mode in tact and functional so you can still watch all the story stuff which is kind of cool. Will need to go back through it at some point and see the story all together instead of drip feed once a week to once a month over the course of years. Maybe it'll make slightly more sense that way. XD

7.) Cibele Not even sure where I got this game. Must have been packed into one of the random Humble Bundle's I've bought over the years. Barely what I'd call a game at all. More like an interactive short film kind of thing about relationships that develop in online games. Felt a little cringey at times (though more because it was true to form than anything actually wrong with the way it was written). Super short and didn't really feel like it resolved in any meaningful way. Seems like it was just the creators way of telling a personal story in the best way she new how. Definitely felt like a niche sort of experience that would be lost on most people. Not something I would be likely to recommend to anyone I know, but it was quick and straight forward which is pretty much what I was looking for before I headed to bed.

6.) The Signifier This is a game I've had on my wishlist since before it came out last October. Seemed like an interesting premise, but reviews said it was relatively short so I was waiting for a sale. Definitely an interesting game. Reminds me of a toned down version of the "Brain Dance" recordings from Cyberpunk which was probably one of the most interesting parts of that game. Basically, you're trying to find out how a woman died by using a scan of her brain from shortly after her death. It appears to be suicide, but she was the VP of a tech company and the timing was suspicious so you've been called on to investigate it. You use the scan to go through both objective and subjective representations of her memories from various points in her life ranging from 5 years old or so to just minutes before her death. You also investigate and speak to people in the real world to find clues that will help unlock understanding of what you've seen in her memories and can utilize things found in the memories to further interactions with some people. There are some interesting choices to be made along the way that can change the ending. The one I got was pretty bleak so I'm hoping another play through will hopefully turn things around a bit. In terms of gameplay, it's a relatively simple adventure game/walking simulator, with some light puzzles. Visually, it's pretty trippy as the memories you visit are not always clear and things in the subjective representation can be tainted by the persons emotions and mental state resulting in some pretty chaotic stuff. I really enjoyed it overall and it was an interesting concept. There's another game called 'Observer' that I'm looking at getting because it has a similar sort of theme to it but with more of a dark, futuristic, cyberpunk style that looks like it could be interesting. Also managed to get my last few completions in Hades done and saw the ending. Still playing here and there to finish some of the side stories and see the epilogue. Love that you continue to get unique interactions even after you're done with the main story. Such a well made game.

That was literally the only one I never played. Refused to get it after they revealed there would be a multiplayer mode. Don't care how little it may have impacted anything else in the game I learned a long time ago not to support that shit when they pull it with traditionally single player games. >_o That and I was honestly burned out on prequels by that point and never even cared enough to see how the story was for it.

5.) Persona 5 Strikers This was a decent game. It's made by Omega Force, the dev that does all the "Warriors" games (Dynasty, Samurai, Hyrule, etc ) and it shows. It feels a little less "open" then most of those games, but I think that's do more to the source material than anything. It still very much FEELS like Persona 5. It took a bit to get used to how it plays, but once I got into it, I had a lot of fun. It felt a bit shallow compared to the main series games (really felt the lack of side character stories and all the usual Persona trappings), but it was a fun story none the less. Nothing ground breaking, but the new characters they added were solid and probably one of the best things about the game. Probably worth a play for sure if you liked Persona 5 and just want more of the main characters doing what they do. Just have some post-game grind to do to finish up the platinum.

Kind of feels like where I'm at right now. Don't play it nearly as much as I did at first even though I've been consistently able to get to the end now, but I really want to know where it's all going. Even with that in mind, it seems like there's still a ridiculous amount of stuff left to do in the game even after reaching that point. X_x

4.) Hades Can't say that I've "really" beat it yet since the story just seems to keep going but I've completed a run with each weapon so I'm going to go ahead and list it now. This game is absolutely fantastic, and that's coming from someone who absolutely HATES Rogue-like (or Rogue-lite or whatever this counts as) games. I've made something to the effect of like 30 runs, and have not once encountered repeated text or interactions with characters/bosses/etc. and it's clearly not done yet (and has remained interesting). If I ever start feeling a little tired with the game I go play something else for a couple days and coming back feels like a relatively fresh experience. Boss rooms even have alternate encounters at times that mix it up really nicely. The amount of replayability in this game is downright staggering. This is by far the best game that SuperGiant has put out and that's saying something as all of their games have been generally impressive.

3.) Werewolf the Apocalypse - Earthblood This was an okay game. Wasn't expecting too much since it's from a mid-tier developer but it's the first non-text based video game to come out for a World of Darkness property since the original Bloodlines so I wanted to support it. Was only $50 at launch so not light they were expecting full price for it either. I agree with the way one review put it (paraphrased) that this is the best PS3 game I've played this generation. It honestly feels like a remaster of an older generation game, both visually and in general gameplay and story. Story is pretty predictable and nothing to get excited about if you don't care about the source material (and even then it's still kind of bland). Combat was actually really satisfying, but never terribly difficult so it got a little repetitive. Something really fun about turning into a huge werewolf and just fucking up dozens of enemies at a time. Was kind of short too, but that made it relatively simple platinum. Overall I got some enjoyment out of it, but hope for more going forward with the franchise. Just glad the text based one that was done for Werewolf hit the spot for story so it made the lack thereof here more palatable. Would expect to see this free on PS+ sooner than later to be honest.

1.) Man Eater This was the free PS5 game on PS+ this month and I figured what the hell? Nothing special, but it has some entertainment value. Swim around, eat things, get stronger. Repeat. Has a basics story that was a fun distracting. Camera is a little janky, and it was a bit hard at first, but once you get a couple solid upgrades it gets super easy really fast. Think it took like 12-15 hours to Platinum. Was fun to load up when I didn't have a lot of time. 2.) Astro's Playroom As MT said, this is basically just a tech demo to show off the PS5 controller's new features and some of the visual capabilities, but it was a hell of a fun way to do it. The only other PS5 game I've played other than these two was Mile Morales, and that used the rumble stuff in relatively cool ways sometimes, but this REALLY shows the true potential of the controller and I honestly can't wait for more games to really dig into some of these features. The nostalgia trip of seeing all the old consoles and peripherals was really cool too and I loved all the little easter eggs to different Playstation games and not just first party stuff either (even some of the trophy names are fun references). This was just an all around wholesome experience and I wholly recommend giving it a run through. Another straight forward platinum too. Think it only took a few hours to find everything.

I think you'll like the Miles Morales game considering your gripes on this one. The story is a lot more focused and streamlined and gets rid of the kind of stuff you seemed to dislike. Though the primary villain they went with may make or break it for you. Random crimes are still there, but feel less NESECCARY overall, and the changeup to combat with the addition of Miles' unique spider powers really makes the combat flow nicely (though arguably makes it WAY easier than the first game once you get used to them).

I keep forgetting that exists. Seemed more interesting than the one they had on the PS4 at least since the majority of that needed the camera. Need to try it out sometime.

I bought/listened to that audiobook a few months ago. I enjoyed it. Also made me want to play GoW again as well, but I'm holding out until the next one gets closer. XD