hello we are still trucking along, the gaming will continue until i pick a different form of media to catalog next year (jk i'll still be gaming) i leaned into the bit maybe a little too much this month but it was mostly worth it
New Games for this Month:
Pokemon White Version 2 (2012)
Mirror's Edge (2008)
Halo 3: ODST (2009)
Rock Band 3 (2010)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 (2020)
Super Princess Peach (2005)
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (1997)
Pokemon White Version 2 (2012)
it had been since shield really that i had played through a pokemon game and i never got around to finishing bw2 back in the day so i played white 2! i bought arceus around when it came out but didn't get further than 5 hours in and bdsp/sv have not caught in my interest at all so i thought i might be kind of done with pokemon?? which is wild considering how much of my life it's been a not insignificant part of - anyway, white 2 was a solid experience still and it's still fun to choose and raise a team in these games. story is silly as always but the sprite-work is beautiful, it really shows that this was their send-off to the 2d era before they moved to the 3ds with x/y. my final team was samurott, chandelure, magnezone, leavanny, krookodile, vanilluxe!
Mirror's Edge (2008)
a classic (in my mind at least) of the 360 era that i'm glad i Finally played! the aesthetic and focus on parkour movement really worked for me, i've been having a lot of fun with all kinds of different movement and platforming in the games i've tried out this year. yes the story is silly but we're here to climb up walls and jump between buildings and that part ruled and it looked great
Halo 3: ODST (2009)
second halo that i replayed this year with my friend @lobotanist , it was.. fine? i think i generally like playing as master chief more and that reach is my preferred one if i'm going to be playing a different kind of person. i like the more fantastical area design in the other games over the dark city of ODST and also the audio journals just did not function in our game as they seemingly kept resetting to the first one every time we started up the campaign part-way in on a different night so we just didn't get to hear that part of the story. anyway, i like the silenced smg and it's still got great halo bones so it was still generally enjoyable
Rock Band 3 (2010)
this is the nintendo ds version and consequently this is the most 'why have i done this to myself' game i've decided to finish this year. now if you know me, rock band 3 for the xbox 360 is of course an all timer; for the nintendo ds?? not so much. it's got like 30 something songs that i played many times each in a format that is just less fun than picking a single instrument and playing that for a whole song. the ds version has you play phases of each of the four instruments one at a time, making sure the entire band keeps afloat and it's charming enough for an hour or.. maybe two to play the songs you like of the setlist but the nature of the campaign repeating songs was simply not meant to be powered through like i did. i'll play misery business all day though
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 (2020)
this remake/remaster finally hit steam right around the time i was thinking about buying it elsewhere so i grabbed it and dug right in! i played a lot of tony hawk 1 on the dreamcast growing up and then some 3 and lots of 4 on the gamecube - playing this made me realize i didn't have much familiarity at all with 2 but it was solid regardless! another game of more to follow that have a lot to do with platforming and moving around a space, it was fun but i don't think i have much to say about it
Super Princess Peach (2005)
so yes the premise of this game is bad and peach's powers do revolve around putting on/experiencing exaggerated emotions - But i enjoyed my time with it and i liked the umbrella. thankfully i knew about needing to collect every toad to get the final boss from the start and i liked the added 'challenge' of hunting them down! it was generally pretty smooth 2d platforming and it was a fun world to be in. i absolutely leaned into the bit of this game (as the one mario game you can play as a woman) becoming the first 'traditional' mario game i've beaten but i genuinely had a good time with it!
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (1997)
banger of a platformer from the ps1 era, i was super charmed with this game throughout! i think it plays creatively within its 2.5D space, it does a lot with really only two verbs/actions, and it's got a cute graphical style that holds up great. there was a surprising amount happening in the story and the bosses were consistently unique and challenging. wahoo!!
one final month of gaming remains.. i had the thought for the first time this month that i could definitely end up at 69 games played this year, whether on purpose or just by ending up there - i do not want to do that however and i would love to hit 70 :) i'm also very excited for an amateur podcast a few of us are planning to talk even More about games but that info is quiet for now - keep it secret keep it safe
