09: Streets of Rage 4

Imagine not only bringing back one of the best beat em up series, but also making it as good as the best in the series? Are you picturing a new version of Streets of Rage 2? Yes!
That is Streets of Rage 4.

Not content with that, it then decided to up the re-playability, add as many variants of all characters from every game so that you could challenge yourself over and over and give you the option of switching out graphics and music for the old style games.

What a glorious win of a late sequel!

08: Deep Rock Galactic

One of two co-op games that my bestie and I have been playing together, this is a ridiculously fun friendship game. We have played about 30 hours together and our dwarves look suitably rugged for stealing ores, eggs and gold.

Each class is differentiated and fun, each mission has enough variety to not get boring, the maps are big enough that you can do the missions in the way you want to. First and foremost, however, it is a great game to join your bestie as you play Dwarven Starship Troopers.

07: Elite Dangerous

A late entry to the list, seeing as I have only been playing it for the past week, but again, my bestie asked me to play this coop with him as he knows me very well and the sort of thing to blow my mind.

When he got me to open the star map for the first time, that is when my jaw hit the floor and he started to laugh. He is fully aware of how much pleasure I get from potential when it comes to game maps. He knows how obsessed with space facts and the ideas of long distances between celestial bodies. So he knew what my reaction would be upon viewing not only the available game space, but the ‘explored’ space too.

The pair of us are playing deep space explorers and I am leaning into mining again (much like I did in EVE.) It is a beautiful and complex game and having my bestie to fly around with makes it feel as though I am engulfed in another life. There is something about the level of detail and non hand holding that I love about gaming so bonus points straight away for that!

06: Resident Evil 3 Remake

It was very short, yes, and the re-playability of the original version is not there, yes. I must make that clear.

Even still, Jill Valentine has always been my favourite Resident Evil character and I had the same reactions as kid me did when playing RE3 and taking Jill through the same timeline as RE2.

Jill is even more of a badass in this game than she was in the original and that gives me all the thumbs up because the master of unlocking deserves more screen time! I have not played resistance which is where I am going to assume a ton of the development time went but what we got was top notch and I was left wanting so much more of it.

It feels way more actiony and fast paced than the slower and dread filled RE2 and in a way it is a nice complement to that one.

I think if I had gotten this on release day for full price then I might not have ranked it as highly. I still want more Jill Valentine and she needs to be in more RE games please! Capcom if you are reading this, give me some extra gameplay!

05: Dead Space 2

Dead Space is one of my most favourite games ever. For some reason I never really played Dead Space 2 back when it first came out – I think I was in the process of leaving the country and had no consoles but all I know is, I did not play the sequel.

My bestie and I marathoned the first on release. I got it early one Saturday morning and we sat in front of the TV until 4:00am Sunday morning when I finished the last boss.

The visuals and appearance of that boss is one of my favourite gaming moments (as well as his). He is not brave enough to play games like Dead Space, so he must live vicariously through me and I got onto the topic one night of streaming a certain From Game. He was interested in watching me stream via Discord and I gave him a list of games I could play and he chose Dead Space 2.

Dead Space 2 is Aliens to Dead Space’ Alien. It is extremely obvious in both tone and atmosphere that this is the action horror equivalent and perfect game representation of those two films.

The story gets a bit more complex and over the top at the expense of making the universe a bit less mysterious but that is often the nature of sequels. The set pieces have ramped up in both spectacle and jump scares (seriously the laser beam moment had me freaking out constantly) and Isaac has become the chattiest engineer ever.

I had an utter blast, as did my bestie who watched the whole game, and both of us wish I had played it earlier.

04: Dark Souls

I have heard the phrase ‘your first from game is your favourite’ and I think that is true for me. A different From game is the reason that Dark Souls appears here and I have much to say that overlaps, so please see entry #1 for my thoughts on that game and how it ties into Dark Souls. Nevertheless this is great and I want to complete it. I am having SUCH fun in the world of Anor Londo and friends.

Whew. OK. My top three I have a lot to say so grab a drink if you wish to stay with me til the end.

03: Celeste

Celeste appeared on my 2018 list. Back then I had not completed it but said I would. It took me until a week ago to actually put my money where my mouth was and finish the game. I originally stopped two years ago at the end of the fifth level, Mirror Temple. I had beaten that section and I put the game down there with the thoughts that I would finish it in the new year of 2019.

In 2020 (according to Spotify) my fourth most listened to track was First Steps by Lena Raine which is the song of the first level.

A week ago I decided to start the game again, play through, and finish it. I “owed it to myself” I suddenly decided. In a way, I had been experiencing what the game’s protagonist was feeling. Climbing Celeste mountain in game was as difficult an experience for her as it was for me outside of the game.

Madeline never stopped trying though, so why should I?

I started again. Again, it got tough and tougher but I was remembering where I had been and what I had done. Then I got to chapter 6, reflection.

Badeline climbing out of that textbox to unerve me DID scare me.

As someone who did battle with, and overcame severe depression many years ago, (well as overcome as you can with something like that) it was a moment that resonated impeccably.

It reminded me of the discussions I would have with my own inner self and the struggle I would face every day. It was just so much easier to ‘fall down the mountain rather than climb back up’ and do what I needed to do each day.

Goodness the whole game started to click with me more than it ever did back when it appeared on my 2018 list. I had no real clue at what was below the surface of chapter 6 and I felt a sense of understanding wash over me as to the reason this game gets accolades.

Then chapter 7 came along.

Wow.

Just. Wow.

The Summit is the one of the all time best finales of a game I have played in recent memory. The way it weaves every previous level into one long gruelling climb with you working with yourself had me in tears so much of the time.

It felt exhilarating and cathartic.

It brought to the surface those feelings of advancement I had during my final few weeks of therapy, where we learnt to approach events and days with specific techniques.

It took First Steps and fused it with those previous segments. It took my 4th favourite song of 2020 and made it better (which I was previously unaware was possible) in the song Reach for the Summit. I think I know what will be appearing on 2021’s playlist.

The summit was a rush and a come down. It felt as though I had not just overcome the game, but I had overcome some previous parts of my own condition that I had not been able to articulate until this game did it for me.

I am even getting emotional writing this little recap up.

I am happy to say I beat this game.

I fought till the end and I climbed the mountain.

02: Tales from the Borderlands

Back in April I played this and I did not think any other game would be #1 this year with just how much I utterly love it.

Other than the first batman game, I had never really played TellTale games. I heard good things about walking dead and Wolf Among Us, but I never played them. The batman one was fun, but I was fine with just having done that.

Then Borderlands 3 was to be released on Steam. I was working from home and made the decision to play through the borderlands games again in order to link up with 3 like a big old Borderlands tale.

I like the Borderlands games and universe a lot. According to steam, I have a collected 500 hours between the first, second and prequel games.

I think the first game has a much better UI than 2 and also feels better as a story. ( I am fairly sure that is down to Mikey Neumann, one of my favourite YouTube watches) but I think the gameplay of Pre-Sequel is the best and most original of the follow ups to it. There are a lot of fetch quests and a lot of go here now go here now kill these people, but it scratches an itch I have and in terms of FPS Diablo looters there are not many.

So I played through the games again. I did all of the BL1 GOTY version and the DLC, then I did BL2 and the DLC, then I did the BL Pre-sequel and I was ready for Borderlands 3!

OR so I thought.

It was at this point that I remembered there was a telltale game and had heard that a few characters who appeared in it would appear in 3. I thought I might as well play it just so that I have done the whole universe up to that point.

It turns out Tales was SO good that when I eventually got about three or four hours into BL3 I stopped playing.

All I wanted was more of Tales of the Borderlands.

Tales of the Borderlands proves to me that it is the setting more than anything that I like about the games. FPS Diablo looters are fun (when they exist) but they need a good grounding to work. Get rid of the Diablo Looter part of BL1, BL2, BLPS and you have a series of OK quests and passable main storylines. BLPS works better than the first two but that only helps my subsequent point.

BL is at is best when other people are telling stories in its universe.

BL as a point and click adventure tale is the best version of Borderlands that you will ever get. Telltale took a great setting and filled it not only with characters who you care about, but that have full and well rounded depth to them. Rhys, Fiona, Vaughn and Sasha are characters I want to spend time with and see how their lives play out.

I loved the way each chapter started with a banger of a tune and often to either humorous events or cool events or sympathetic events. The direction on the game and decisions made in regards to the visuals were brilliant.

The story built and built and built and being able to make my choices and create the nuance to some already pretty nuanced characters felt real (even if I now know that Telltale has a kind of structure about their games.) The magic worked for me.

I finished it and wanted more, desperately. Now all these months later I want more even more than before and still have not returned to Borderlands 3.

Tales from the Borderlands is the apex of the Borderlands games. It is filled with emotional depth, creative genius and moments of sheer joy. The voice acting is top notch and everyone plays their parts so well that I would not change a moment. The way it often ties in with other events in the other games means it feels connected in a way a standalone story in the universe might not, but at the same time does not feel like fan service.

Telltale’s best game is also the best Borderlands game and it was so, so close to being my #1 game of the year.

However…

October 27th 2020 happened.

So let us get into that.

01: BLOODBORNE

A Brief History of From Games As Experienced by VideoGames
By Video ‘Videogames’ Games

I own Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3. I own Bloodborne and I own (I think via PSPlus) Demon Souls on the PS3.

Of these games the only one I had played was Bloodborne at the start of 2018. I did not like it. I did not like the idea of From games. I like easy modes in games because I am very bad at them and the lack of one led me to spend the bits of 2018 that I played Bloodborne feel like the equivalent of running into a wall over and over again.

I died constantly to everything. I could not beat the cleric beast (Lady VG asked to have a go and beat it for me on her second go of playing a third person game of this nature. I think she might be a savant?) I struggled my way onwards and met Father Gascoigne. I then proceeded, over the space of the next few weeks of game play, to die to him roughly 75 times.

I struggled, but beat him after close to 100 deaths, eventually running around and dying to a normal enemy on top of a roof in a place that resembled Cornwall. The loss of 40000 blood echoes from an enemy that I had faced numerous times before soured any last sliver of fun I was deriving from the game.

This was when I stopped playing and decided that From games are not for me. The sort of mental focus they require and gaming reactions were not something I was particularly blessed with. I found dying over and over not very informative and not much fun. I would panic at losing so much health in my journey backwards to get my blood echoes from a boss who almost immediately cornered me and killed me thus making me start the carousel of failure again.

I was sad but satisfied. I had given it a go at least and while I had not got very far, I had played for a good twenty or so hours, so I felt I understood my relationship to the game. This was one of those forum moments where I would be askew from the majority goon opinion. This had happened before and would happen again, and always made me a little sad.

Seeing a ton of posters in your favourite thread gush about a game that you cannot get along with always makes me wonder if it is me who did something wrong or approached something incorrectly. Especially a game like Bloodborne which comes up constantly in the PS4 thread (and the place I spend the most.)

Years passed. Posts talking about the game appeared and went and I continued to wish there was an easy mode so I could at least get to feel some of the love that others did.

Then October 26th happened. People had been discussing Bloodborne again and I spoke about my Dead Space 2 streaming. Then jokingly said I would stream my attempts at Bloodborne so people could see my ineptitude. My memory of the game was thus:

I mean, I definitely was not as bad as I started out. I could take out the weird wolves and the squicky poison monster in this one area and I recall what I did and whereabouts I went (I think). From what I was able to describe I had played a big chunk, but just not gotten on with the bosses. I was trying to do the long stick bug looking boss with the skin hanging off him (Is that the blood starved beast?) and kept summoning this hunter friend I bumped into in the game, but the pair of us failed over and over. So I went the opposite direction and went through fields and graves and a barn and over some rooftops where a brick dude from the very beginning one hit killed me and I stopped playing.

I laugh now that I look at that poor description of things because, now I know exactly what those things are.

So on October the 27th at 5:31pm I posted the following and shortly after began streaming.

I am eating some dinner, then going to stream my attempts to get back into Bloodborne. I promised I would. I am going to.

Then at 7:57pm something happened to me.

I am enjoying this more than I ever have. Nothing has changed except I have gotten braver. Maybe because I know people are watching?

I wrote that yes, but I did not know at the time exactly what had happened. My long absence from playing, my divorcing of all that frustration, coupled with the fact I was now playing the game for fun on stream changed the way I saw the game.

People giving me words of encouragement, tips and tricks, laughing with me as I failed and cheering with me as I succeeded turned the game from one long slog into a challenging arena that I believed I might have a shot at winning.

Over the course of 6 more streams for a total of 19 hours I had completed Bloodborne. I, Videogames, one of the most low skilled players of games in Games had defeated Mergo’s Wet Nurse, Gerhman and the Moon presence in succession without dying.

This was a From game. This was a game made by a company with the notoriety for having made the hardest video games there are and I had beaten it. I started the game immediately again just to see if I could take on the Cleric Beast and Father Gascoigne again.

I did. I beat them both first time in New Game +. I did not stop there. I have continued the game again because I want the platinum trophy. Only two remain and that is to get the other two endings to the game – both of which are considerably easier than the ending I got.

I beat the chalice dungeons and got the trophies for that, and on stream I beat the Old Hunters DLC and saw the ending to that.

All the while I had fun, I was joined by some awesome goons and I finally got what it was about From Games that cause such a love in people.

This led me to play Dark Souls 1 (and with the intention that I will then work my way through the whole series. This time, not because I want to see what goons see, but because I find them a genuinely fun experience and Bloodborne has left me craving more.) I like Dark Souls but I do not love it like I love Bloodborne and that is simply because it is not Bloodborne, which is not any games fault but something that crops up in my mind.

Bloodborne is a masterpiece.
It is art essentially.

Never before have I seen an in game world look so deliberately unsettling and yet lived in with such an attention to detail as the one I see when walking through Yarnham. It is so dense and attractive yet the atmosphere is laden with the dread and disease that infects the world you are in means you can never feel truly at ease in any point of the game. Not even the hub area, that is supposed to be a dream, acts as a reprieve because there is always something tugging at the back of your mind while you are there. Whether the way you talk to Gerhman or looking out into the white void at the endless rows of towers, even in the Dream something feels wrong.

Every area of the game has a similar attention to its makeup and there are so many places to visit that you are guaranteed to see more and more wondrous things up until the end of the game – even revisiting old areas unlocks varying aspects based on how you have been playing. The way the world is shaped by your actions is as splendid as a gothic Victorian city plagued by beasts and blood could be.

There are no real tutorials, no map to guide you, no quests highlighted on the HUD, no NPCs telling you where and when to go. The game is basically open to you from the get go and all it requires is you to battle the beasts, beat them and continue.

A hunter hunts.

And boy does this game train you to become a hunter. So many games I have played I am used to facing enemies and being slow and backing up and sniping from a distance or over levelling and tanking their damage.

Bloodborne taught me a different way of combat. ‘I am a hunter. I do not fear these beasts, I destroy them.’

I run into battles knowing that the lessons I have been imparted about parrying and dodging are what will get me through each fight and that as a hunter these are my tools. There is no shield, no defence item or anything that could be seen as such. There is my aggression and my aggression alone shall take me through every challenge the game throws my way.

Big bosses who stand eight times your size are no longer threats; they are obstacles that you know you will get over. You have your size and speed as the advantage. They cannot hit a hunter that hugs their legs and speeds around their slow attacks.

That is not to say the enemies are not dangerous, in fact even the first enemies you meet can still reliably kill you if you are not paying attention. Bloodborne rewards focus and attention and rewards you in making you feel exceptionally powerful. That video I posted at the start of this entry is the first boss I faced after stream number 4. I have seen people talk about how tough Paarl is to beat and yet here was me wandering into his arena without knowing what to face and dispatching him after 43 seconds. It is a moment that is seared into my gaming memories of when I could safely say I was a Bloodborne Hunter.

Bloodborne rewards concentration not just in the combat but in learning the map. The world might seem huge but there are hundreds of shortcuts that exist all throughout the world and spotting them and unlocking them can lead you to be able to speed through areas and fight only what you wish to fight. The more you play the sooner you spot these shortcuts and the more of the world becomes yours to decide where and how you approach it.

The lack of overt story is also something that I had not experienced before in a game. Bloodborne tells you very little outright and I think this is a strength. It is tantalising enough to lead you to discover the lore, to read the descriptions on all the items and for you to use not only the inventory but the state of the areas you visit to piece together what you can from what you see. There is a vast amount of knowledge to be gained from the game but you have to want to find it. I find this respect (something I am learning that Dark Souls does as well) unique and desirable.

The music is another thing that absolutely whips. It is a character in its own right and when used enhances the exact mood the developers were going for. (There are a few tracks I know are going to feature in my Spotify 2021 list because they are just great to listen to alone.)

Weapon choice is an actual choice and not just a case of working towards one best weapon. You pick what you want to play with and you will be able to beat the game with it. There are a number of options all with a wildly different approach and various modes and combinations.

Your combat style will adapt to that weapon and you can mix it up at any point while playing. I do not feel I have seen such a robust combat system before where anything is viable and all it relies on is your focus, concentration and timing.

Bloodborne was such an incredible experience for me that it now shares the #2 spot of Favourite Game of All Time with Nier:Automata. Even now I cannot stop thinking about the game and have a desire to just play a few more hours.

I fell in love with Bloodborne and a switch flicked. I have been playing as many Fromlikes as I could since beating it. I started Dark Souls; I started Nioh; I started The Surge; I am playing my ‘new game plus’ in Bloodborne. I discovered a love for a genre I thought was previously off limits to someone like me.

I am sure I am missing things I want to say but this entry is already the same length as the others put together and others need space to write their entries.

Tonight, VG joins the hunt.