I finished 13 games during the month of September. That's a lot, but they were all new games so it didn't cut down on my backlog at all. My overall average gamerscore rests around 31%. Will I make it to 35% by year's end? I'll probably need to finish more older games to do so. But that's what December is for, right?
Finished Games Summary:
Deus Ex Human Revolution: 520 out of 1000 achievement points. This game was what Alpha Protocol should have been. The two games were quite similar, except AP was a steaming mess, and Deus Ex was great fun. Hopefully they won't wait a decade to make another one.
Madden 12: 415 of 1000 gamerscore. I miss NFL 2k5. Madden has never gotten the concept that people might enjoy the presentation as much as the actual football game. I like things like decorating my crib, creating bizarre uniforms, and watching cheesy sideline interviews. But Madden is too serious for all that, ain't it?
Bodycount: 670 of a possible 1000 gamerpoints. I don't know why this game was made. There seems to be no hook to it. Just endless genericness continuously flying at you on a cheap pulley system. It did have a cool explosive shotgun. And absolutely no one playing the multiplayer, even on the release weekend.
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine: 345 of 1000. Unfortunately, this game doesn't seem made to appeal to people unfamiliar with the franchise. It was okay, and I did like the mix of ranged & melee gameplay. But it needed more choice given to the player, such as upgradeable weapons. And why was there no block or shield? A big badass that just dodge rolls and hides behind stuff?
Dead Island: 780 out of 1000 gamerscore. This is my type of game! I had an amazingly fun time, despite dying constantly in parts. I even played online co-op almost exclusively, with random strangers even... something I don't usually like to do. This is good zombie killing fun, and you're only minimally punished when you die. I would recommend this game to everyone who enjoys bloody violence.
Driver San Francisco: 480 of 1000. Another awesome game. For owning a lot of driving games, I think this is only third one I've ever actually finished. Like Dead Island, I kept wanting to play this game at every opportunity. Why do they release great games on the same day?
Gears of War 3: 410 out of 1000 gamerpoints. I was never big into the franchise, but I can't argue that this is a solid game. I do wish they would have let you choose which characters to bring along on each mission, ala Mass Effect.
Burnout Crash: 55 out of 200 gamerscore, only 27 percent. If the goal of this downloadable release was to make me wish they'd release a new true Burnout game with a Crash Mode, then it worked. Otherwise, is was addictive and enjoyable for a little while. And then I moved on.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two: 420 out of 1000 achievement points. I don't know if they didn't have time to include the random sidequests and crappy stealth missions from Part One, but it's a better game because if it.
X-Men Destiny: 725 of 1000 gamerpoints. Short and lame. The game did itself a disservice by clinging to the X-Men license like a life jacket. If they didn't have a name to sell this game, they might have tried to put some effort into squeezing some quality in someplace.
The Gunstringer: 660 out of 1000. The motion controls are decent, though perhaps they should have used voice commands, since I was yelling "Jump, you idiot!" every time it failed to register the proper motion. There's some funny stuff in there, though. I almost fell over when a member of the studio audience got frightened out of his chair and ran away.
Brink: 560 out of 1250 points, 44%. This is a mess of a game, really. It has a neat parkour movement system, but the level design restricts movements. It is a squad-based objective game, but the AI has out-of-whack priorities. There's something neat in there, but it really needs to be polished.
Vanquish: 410 out of 1000 gamerpoints. This is a fun, stylish shooter with crazy action. Not quite as over-the-top as Platinum Studio's previous game, Bayonetta, but close. They should have had the main characters go "Weeeeeeeeeeeee!" whenever you used the power slide.
I managed to garner just over 51% of the achievement points from these games. A decent standard.
And with these 13 completed games, I have officially surpassed my goal of completed games for this year. I won't stop increasing the count, of course, but it's nice to have actually done finished at least part of what I've started.
I also wrote short reviews of all the games I finished this year. That was unexpected of me, wasn't it? Sure, they're tiny little two-line mini-reviews, but it counts towards the third part of my resolution.
Now all that's left is to keep up the pace for the rest of the year. Yay for games!
