The 365 Days 2022 Gaming Challenge - achievement unlocked.

[MartyG]

Letter Quest Remastered - PC - Day 50 Game 50

And the word games continue. Letter Quest is a word based RPG(ish) game. Perhaps a RogueWordLite game. You battle through different levels defeating numerous monsters using the power of the English language. But wait, there's more. You can power up your character with different weapons, armour and spells that allow you to use certain combinations of letters for better damage.

There are also status effects where poison might be inflicted on your tiles which spreads, or your tiles may crack making them worthless. Like in Scrabble, certain letters are worth more damage and the longer the word using stronger tiles, the harder your attacks will be.

I really enjoy this one, so I give it 9 Susie Dents out of 10.

[MartyG]

EXAPUNKS - PC - Day 51 Game 51

Burn it. Do enough coding in my day job without having to do obscure intructions to "hack" made up systems.

I give this one 1 there is no spoon out of 10.

[MartyG]

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk - PC - Day 52 Game 52

A yes, we navigated a labyrinth. LorCoD is a dungeon crawler. My first experience of this genre I think must have been Dungeon Master on the Atari ST. Maybe there were others on 8 bit, but if there were, I don't remember them. Dungeon Master though was great, if a tricky and unforgiving game.

LorCoD takes a more friendly and welcoming introduction to the genre, with Nipon Ichi's familiar graphical style, characters and music numbers. The basic premise is you explore a dungeon with puppet soldiers that you get to create (from 6 different classes) and give attributes to that mod their stats. Down the well they go and adventure around a labyrinth, fighting random battles and finding interesting things.

I'm sure as you explore more, other game systems will expand, opening up the game but the first hour of things was amusing enough, if not action-filled. Nice art style, interesting creatures and a story that I want to know more of makes this worthwhile looking at.

I give this one 8 creepy shepherds out of 10.

[MartyG]

Total War: Warhammer - PC - Day 53 Game 53

Whilst people are enjoying the third game in the series, I took a look at the first one which has been languishing in my collection for quite some time.

Total War is a strategy game mixed with RTS battles, this one based in the Warhammer universe. I've played a lot of Total War: Rome way back in the 2000s, but honestly, the UI on this one was a bit unfathomable. I really didn't have much of a clue what I was doing on the campaign map with the game telling me I needed to do stuff without actually telling me how I needed to do it.

No tutorial explaining stuff, you're left on your own to figure it out, but given the obscure icons, that wasn't particularly easy. The battles themselves are enjoyable enough, but I didn't really win in any decisive way (unless I autocompleted them which is an option). I'm sure if you watched a few tutorials it'd be easier to figure out, but if you were coming into this as a first impression of the Total War games, I think you'd be walking away again.

Total War Warhammer 1 gets 6 greenskins out of 10 as a first impression, definitely far from my favourite Total War game.

[MartyG]

Final Fantasy XIV - PC - Day 54 Game 54

I've played a lot of Final Fantasy games over the years (and sorry, but Final Fantasy VIII is still my favourite - hurrah for the junctioning system). It is often said that FF games don't get good until you've played them for fifteen hours, perhaps FFXIV is the same.

It was definitely a pleasant experience, no nasty trolls spoiling it for everyone, but the whole introductory period consisted of picking something up and taking it somewhere else, for over an hour. I didn't get to use my bow and arrow at all - apparently I can't use that yet. No, picking things up and taking notes to people, that's why we play Final Fantasy games.

I'm sure there's plenty to see here and an hour is certainly not enough to form a good opinion of an MMO designed for you to spend hours (and money every month) in the game world, but it definitely didn't grab me, it was just meh. Better with friends perhaps.

I give FFXIV 7 fetch quests out of 10 as a first impression.

[MartyG]

Grid Legends - PC - Day 55 Game 55

So for game 55, I took a look at the recently released Grid Legends (so a very short member of the pile of shame). I did fear that the whole story thing would overtake the racing, but actually, you can totally ignore it and just play the career mode.

It plays pretty well, typical arcadey racing the Grid series has decided to use throughout the series and the similar different disciplines the other games have had. I think the truck racing and electric series are new (I'd need to check Grid), but there's nothing dramatically different.

That said, the game plays well and I have seen any microtransactions (yet!) although the earning of credits is quite slow so I wouldn't be surprised to see earnings boosters. One annoyance is you lose 50% of your race earnings if you have to "borrow" a car to race in (and you only earn about 4,000 credits). There will be a lot of grinding to unlock the entirety of the garage.

Overall, I give this one 8 skidmarks out of 10.

[MartyG]

Borderlands 3 - PC - Day 56 Game 56

Another entry in the Borderlands saga and I'm glad to say it's better than Borderlands the Prequel. Of course, the story is silly and the characters are annoying, but the gunplay is tight and the weapons are plentiful.

Looks nice on my rig, smooth as butter (though not quite a solid 60 at 4K), but overall, a solid game.

I give this one 8 won't somebody mute claptraps out of 10.

[MartyG]

God Wars The Complete Legend - PC - Day 57 Game 57

God Wars has nothing to do with Kratos, instead, it's about a group of people who have no clue about Earth's geology and believe that throwing children into pools of magma stops volcanos from erupting. However, the main character, Kintaro, who enjoys exploring the caverns of his nostrils with his thumb, decides that lava based sacrifices are not for him and breaks out the girl to run away elsewhere, with enemies in hot pursuit.

Yes, the story is really quite garbage, but the combat will rescue it, right? Well almost. It's not particularly badly done, with a job system, skills and normal attacks, but it's fairly by the numbers and slow to complete. It's worth the £6 it's on for sale at right now, if not a shining example of the SRPG genre. Disgaea is still the winner here.

I give this one 5 badly disguised nose pickings out of 10.

[MartyG]

Black Mesa - PC Day 58 Game 58

Black Mesa is a remake of the original Half-Life with much prettier graphics. You all know the story, physicist, unknown material, questionable experiments, rips in spacetime and reality. Nasty facehuggers that turn you into zombies.

And unfortunately, a broken control system that seems bugged leading to the primary fire binding being sticky and emptying your weapon. I haven't looked to see if there's a fix, but after reaching the part in the game where you got a weapon, it essentially made it unplayable.

Half-Life is a great game, but if it's broken then a great game it no longer is. For this reason it can only get 4 headlice out of 10.

[MartyG]

BPM: Bullets Per Minute - PC - Day 59 Game 59

I thought I'd get on with this one more than I did, as the idea of it appeals to me (I like both rhythm games and FPS), but was struggling with it even on the easy setting.

The idea of the game is to clear the room by timing your shots with the music. The trouble I was finding was twofold, getting hit by enemies off the viewport and the controls. Having to use the trigger button with travel there is on the XBox pad is really straining on the fingers and there's no way I could see in the menu of remapping it to the non-analog shoulder button or a face button.

With a bit of practice I'm sure you could git gud, but I'd honestly had enough after half an hour.

If you can get on with it, I think you'd find a rating of 8 is that finger arthritis out of 10. It also seemed to capture weirdly; it was completely butter-smooth playing it.

[MartyG]

Police Stories - PC - Day 60 Game 60

Nope, didn't like it. Top down police-em-up where you enter buildings, get shot and die before you can do anything. Rage inducing and I hate it.

I give this one 2 bullets in the chest out of 10.

[MartyG]

The Amazing American Circus - PC - Day 61 Game 61

This one is a card-collector-battle trying to ape something like Darkest Dungeon, but instead with a more light-hearted theme of impressing your audience at a circus by performing tricks.

You take your circus across the cities of America, training your staff, upgrading your wagons and cooking food needed for your trip. Trouble is it's not so amazing. It doesn't really have the same charm of Darkest Dungeon or the immediacy of something like Dicey Dungeons and unfortunately, being quirky only gets you so far.

It's not a bad effort but you're far better off just playing Darkest Dungeon even if you've put dozens of hours into it already.

I give this one 5 where are the human cannonballs out of 10.

[charlesr]

Just wanted to say, keep it up. Amazing

[QualityChimp]

Just wanted to say, keep it up. Amazing

That's what she said.

[gunrock]

Actually, I come here for the ratings out of 10. I hope your imagination can make it to day 365.