Silent

This year I set a few challenges for myself:
Use all these sketch books Learn how to use ink pens Improve anotomy Learn how to draw hands Use more pose references 50 OCs Rochelle:
 
Aura:
 
Void:
 
Robunny:
 
Penny:
 
Silvia:
 
Aurora:
 
Carmen:
 
Red:
 
Gray:
 
Lisa:
 
Alessandra:
 
NEW: Urban Bird (Becky)
 
NEW: Queen (Unnamed)
 
NEW: Ghost Girl I saw in a dream once (Unnamed)
 
NEW: Super Hero Bunny (Unnamed)
 
NEW: Ninja Lizard (Unnamed)
 
NEW: Paralysis Demon I saw from food poisoning
 
Some jar of fruit:
 

Meanwhile I'm still remembering stuff I played last year, not going to add it to the list because it's arguably even less of a "game" than those fangames I played, but Cursed Halo was another extremely fun co-op experience for me and my most halo-brained friend. It's a mod for Halo 1 MCC that adds a bunch of ridiculous weaponry and vehicles to the game, some custom cutscenes, and even an added Mario Kart level that worked surprisingly well. Said friend and I had been following the creator's work modding the game for years and suddenly we were just able to download an entire playable campaign via the steam workshop. I think what really made this work for me is that Halo was the first game where I would just have a blast fucking around with the physics engine, spending hours on Silent Cartographer carting marines around to build up massive grenade piles for warthog jumping. Combining this with things like the gmod tools is a pure stroke of genius an gave me a huge hit of nostalgia. Also there are "d20 grenades" with random effects from summoning a squad of enemies to killing everything on the map, and if you know me, that is the sort of thing I immediately seek out and play around with in any game.
In the same vein as Huff's best moments here is a clip of us using our raw intellect to solve a problem wherein we had no suitable weaponry to kill a pair of hunters conventionally:
 

Meanwhile I'm still remembering stuff I played last year, not going to add it to the list because it's arguably even less of a "game" than those fangames I played, but Cursed Halo was another extremely fun co-op experience for me and my most halo-brained friend. It's a mod for Halo 1 MCC that adds a bunch of ridiculous weaponry and vehicles to the game, some custom cutscenes, and even an added Mario Kart level that worked surprisingly well. Said friend and I had been following the creator's work modding the game for years and suddenly we were just able to download an entire playable campaign via the steam workshop. I think what really made this work for me is that Halo was the first game where I would just have a blast fucking around with the physics engine, spending hours on Silent Cartographer carting marines around to build up massive grenade piles for warthog jumping. Combining this with things like the gmod tools is a pure stroke of genius an gave me a huge hit of nostalgia. Also there are "d20 grenades" with random effects from summoning a squad of enemies to killing everything on the map, and if you know me, that is the sort of thing I immediately seek out and play around with in any game.
In the same vein as Huff's best moments here is a clip of us using our raw intellect to solve a problem wherein we had no suitable weaponry to kill a pair of hunters conventionally:
 

I played a lotta games this year in part due to having a very high paying job for the first time in my life. Hope I can find another one lol.
 
In no particular order, games I remember playing and liking:
 
Remnant 2: Was amazing up until that last level. Earth is such a fucking slog, and the devs putting the unlock for a class (a popular class I really wanted to play) behind layers of obfuscation they later admitted the ONLY way to figure out was via data mining left a bad taste in my mouth. I've cooled down a bit but these two things mar an otherwise incredible experience, and whenever I play again I'll be using a save editor to unlock Archon because I'm not going through some dev trolling bullshit that requires at minimum two whole playthroughs to unlock even once you DO datamine that shit just to play the class I wanted to from the start of playthrough 1.
 
Battlebit: Very fun Battlefield-alike, I should really play more of it.
 
Warhammer 40k: Darktide: This technically came out December of last year but...eh. It wasn't really a game until October of this year. it still feels very limited and repetitive compared to Vermintide 2 (especially with Chaos Wastes in the mix) but the core gameplay loop is VERY strong. This is a game that is like a 6.5/10 now but could be better if they continue to improve, like all of Fatshark's games.
 
Baldur's Gate 3: Deserved all the hype. I am not in the slightest a fan of 5th Edition but this game is very good at taking the good and throwing away the bad. Gameplay-wise it's smoother than any CRPG ever made, it looks nice, and has enough changes form tabletop to make the game actually feel fun. Narratively, Resist path Dark Urge is one of the best stories I've played in gaming, especially with a certain romance. Remember: You can do this. Shadowheart believes in you.
 
The Finals: Easily the best new competitive FPS I've played in the past decade. Put in like 30 hours just in the open beta and it left me smacking my lips and scratching my arm for more in the month between then and actual release. 3v3v3 combat in fully destructible arenas never gets old. If they could figure out how to rebalance the game to keep it from becoming stagnant and do something about the cheaters, this could be an all-time legend of a game. As-is I fear it will be abandoned by a playerbase frustrated by rampant cheating (in ranked) and overtuned controller aim assist and dropped by the publisher.
 
Ghostwire: Tokyo: i think this game came out in 2021 but I got it from a Humble Bundle this year so eh. It's a middle of the road 7/10 game. Good enough but not good ENOUGH for me to finish it.
 
Hammerwatch II: A flawed but interesting sequel to the original Hammerwatch, which everybody and their grandmother was confused about and derided because it is not a sequel to the Roguelike spinoff Heroes of Hammerwatch, which is the game people...actually played. Hammerwatch is one of my favorite indie games of all time, very fond memories of it. Hammerwatch II is both more...and less. The open world concept is interesting, but leads to there just being a liiiitle too much walking in between each interesting thing. Probably could have stood to be a middle ground between Hammerwatch's extremely linear campaign and this, but I really appreciate the gumption in releasing a  2D isometric open world Gauntlet-alike in the year of our lord 2023.
 
Last Epoch: After the vast disappointment of Diablo 4 (which is all I will say about it here), this game was a breath of fresh air. Fun gameplay, looks nice for an indie ARPG, and tons of customization. it's all any game in this genre really needs. Big ups to the devs for releasing an unarmed build in an ARPG that doesn't suck cock. Any other time I've seen the "get these big bonuses if you have no weapon equipped" style fo ability in an ARPG it's been...suboptimal to say the least, but the Hand of Judgment fell upon my foes like the wrath of god and it felt GOOD.
 
Lethal Company: Extremely fun title I wish I had gotten to play more than one session of before it became impossible to assemble the crew again. Don't get all the hate. Yes it's popular, no that doesn't mean it's bad.
 
Lords of the Fallen: This game started off well and then fell off hard, but I have to give the devs credit for listening to players about what was annoying to them, and then listening to the counter-arguments of "hardcore" players who love the game as-is and finding a compromise that seems to work fro everybody. Moving all the annoying bullshit with extra-tenacious enemy mobs and such to New Game+ (where the hardcore players will be anyway) was a great choice. Enough changes like that to the good but flawed core gameplay loop and I might revisit this review next year.
 
Resident Evil 4 (Remake): RE4 is the one game in the franchise I have never been able to play. I couldn't buy my own games when I had a Gamecube or Playstation 2, and any time I tried to boot the fucker up on PC it had unplayable slowdowns apparent even from the first cutscene. RE4make follows the trend of taking an already amazing and beloved game (see: RE2, the de facto best of the series IMO) and making it look prettier and control less like ass, which is really all that was needed. I get the gripes about plot changes and "de-gonzofying" the game but...eh. It still has plenty of charm even without some of the goofiest bits. I loved playing this, with the actual only gripe I have being that Ada's voice actress SUCKS (and Wesker's is boring).
 
Starfield: My expectations were relatively low, but I expected it to be about as fun as Fallout 4. I.e. really good on a first playthrough but shows its flaws mostly on subsequent runs. Boy was I wrong. Bethesda has never released a more vapid and uninteresting game in terms of both narrative and gameplay. The nail in the coffin was the GOD DAMN LOADING SCREENS. So many, so close together, so LONG that I dropped the game fairly quickly.
 
Hogwarts Legacy: The last game I played on my old computer. It was fun enough, but my computer apparently couldn't handle the water physics around the lake where I saved at so any time I loaded it would just freeze lol. I didn't find it interesting enough to continue playing on my new computer, but it wasn't awful.
 
Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader: I did not expect much of this game. Not because I don't like Owlcat's CRPGs (I backed both of their other games on Kickstarter because I love Pathfinder) but because I'm not a huge 40k fan. But I'm surrounded by them and when they picked it up and started raving about it, I got it too. Is it as smooth and polished as Baldur's Gate 3? Hell no. Do I somehow still like it better? Yeah, though that may be recency bias as I'm still in the middle of it. It just feels really good to play, I think in large part because of how many options you have in combat. Somehow with only 4 starting classes it manages to feel more customizable and interesting than anything 5e's 12(?) can manage. And the sheer melodrama in the writing *mwah*. Beautiful.
 
Alan Wake 2: I was not a huge fan of the original Alan Wake, but I do like Remedy's other games, in particular Control. Alan Wake 2 fixes a lot of my issues with Alan Wake 1, largely by limiting the amount of time you have to actually be exposed to Alan Wake. Frankly, Saga Anderson is an INFINITELY better protagonist than Alan Wake is, and I had a blast playing as her. I haven't quite finished the game as of this review; I just got the message I was entering the point of no return endgame when I was sideswiped by how much I got sucked into Rogue Trader, but it was a good game overall. Good but...not necessarily fun. The narrative bits are great, exploring and solving puzzle sin the usual survival horro gameplay loop also great, the combat...it's Alan Wake 1 again. And Alan Wake 1's combat sucked ass. I get that it's a survival horror, and they're supposed to be clunky and have bad combat but god dammit this game's fights are annoying. Thankfully mandatory ones are relatively few and far between and otherwise you can employ the standard survival horror strat of just boogieing out any time a monster shows up. But for all that, in terms of narrative and just VIBES this game is the best game on this list by a wide margin, really rivaled only by the aforementioned Resist Durge at its best moments.
 
I think that's everything. Top spot is a toss-up between BG3 and Rogue Trader, which I would not have expected going into this year. I am not a huge CRPG guy. Honorable mentions to Alan Wake 2 which had easily the highest highs of any game on this list (shoutouts to the obligatory Remedy musical section, Herald of Darkness was fire, almost as good as Take Control)...but that gameplay man and Resident Evil 4 which was awesome but as a remake of an already awesome game gets bumped down the list a bit.
 
Best multiplayer game goes to The Finals and it's not even close.

Damn, I played Way more new vidya than I remember. Perks of having an actually paying job, I guess.

 
 

new games i played/finished this year (in no particular order)
 
 
anyways 70% of my playtime this year was tf2 l4d2 smite and yugioh sooooo ya business as usual

Now if you'll ex-ceeeeuuuuwwssee me, I'm going to spend a quiet evening my my NINTENDO gameCUBe.
 
This was probably the best year of new videogames I've experienced. Looking at my top ten... looks like a whole two of them weren't released in 2023! Looking back at my previous GOTY thread posts, that is by and away the best I've done. I think I started my last post looking at my steam wrapped with dismay at how much time I poured into roguelikes. Lemme see how I did this year...
 
hm.
 
Well, other than somehow not killing myself while grinding out the maximum rank in Hades, I managed to mostly steer clear of the Roguelike curse this year. I like roguelikes! But I dump far too much time into them and get into ruts far too quickly. But late to the party due to needing to finish up two of them, here are the games I played this year.
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Huff/https://www.backloggd.com/u/Huff/
 
And yes, Silent did post this early to cheese me off a bit; I've been talking to him about how excited I was for this over the past few weeks. Thing is, I'm writing this the night before a plane flight, and IDK if SPUFpowered is gonna save this draft. I still have yet to finish American Arcadia and Cocoon and will post and amend this one once I finish them. I think I know where I'm going to place the latter, but I'm unsure about the former yet. Neither are making my top ten. Here we go!
 
----------
 
Honorable Mentions
 
Top 10
 
 
The Not So Good
 
 
The Huff Awards
Just a couple extra awards and details I want to focus on.
 
Best Music Track
 
Best Girl
 
 
Best Moments

Took me forever to find this video again, so I am preserving this important bit of TF2 history:
 
 

I ended up playing a mix of new and old stuff this year.
Ended up on the hypetrain for a decent number of high profile releases.
 
As I wrote this, I realized I played a ton of short games, mostly shooters, this year.
 
Stuff I played this year.
 
Top picks are probably
TitanFall 2 - One of the best campaigns I've played in a really fun shooter.
Disco Elysium - This one's going to stick with me
Metal Hellsinger - Finally a heavy metal Rhythm FPS game that isn't a roguelike
Robocop - Weirdly really good
Shadows of Doubt - Hope it gets more updates
Pizza Tower - Of course
Resident Evil 4 Remake - Really solid
Armored Core 6 - Really Solid
Slay the Princess - Not usually my thing, but was very surprised.
Tears of the Kingdom - Really enjoyed the new stuff, need to go back to it at some point.

Hey! STOP playing videogames. I’ve had enough of your STUPID videogames. Aren’t you a little O-O-OLD to be playing videogames-
 
This is mostly to piss Huff off because he hasn’t finished everything yet, but I also heard there were rumblings that there were “no good games this year”. Also another friend of mine said I needed to get this posted to keep old school internet forums alive. Little half-baked in some parts but I might add a lil to it.
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Silentology/
 
------
Honorable Mentions:
 
Top 10:
 
The Rest:
 
Backlog/Frontlog for 2024
 
 

This year is probably about right even though I really feel like I didn't play anything. Honestly I kinda want to make this years' resolution to be more active and try new things on the games front.

 
 
I also give an honorable mention to TF2 because the latter half of the year I fell back in love with the Huntsman and fucking hell that weapon is so much fun to use.

Here we go:
 

Shut up! (sick backflip) HA HA HA HA H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H- BITCH!
 
From the stuff I played (not released) in the year, in no particular order of goods and bads:
 
 
Backlog (AKA games I should be playing instead of cycling through the same 3):
 

Hey! STOP playing videogames. I’ve had enough of your STUPID videogames. Aren’t you a little O-O-OLD to be playing videogames-
 
This is mostly to piss Huff off because he hasn’t finished everything yet, but I also heard there were rumblings that there were “no good games this year”. Also another friend of mine said I needed to get this posted to keep old school internet forums alive. Little half-baked in some parts but I might add a lil to it.
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Silentology/
 
------
Honorable Mentions:
 
Top 10:
 
The Rest:
 
Backlog/Frontlog for 2024
 
 

Hey! STOP playing videogames. I’ve had enough of your STUPID videogames. Aren’t you a little O-O-OLD to be playing videogames-
 
This is mostly to piss Huff off because he hasn’t finished everything yet, but I also heard there were rumblings that there were “no good games this year”. Also another friend of mine said I needed to get this posted to keep old school internet forums alive. Little half-baked in some parts but I might add a lil to it.
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Silentology/
 
------
Honorable Mentions:
 
Top 10:
 
The Rest:
 
Backlog/Frontlog for 2024
 
 

Hey! STOP playing videogames. I’ve had enough of your STUPID videogames. Aren’t you a little O-O-OLD to be playing videogames-
 
This is mostly to piss Huff off because he hasn’t finished everything yet, but I also heard there were rumblings that there were “no good games this year”. Also another friend of mine said I needed to get this posted to keep old school internet forums alive. Little half-baked in some parts but I might add a lil to it.
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Silentology/
 
------
Honorable Mentions:
 
Top 10:
 
The Rest:
 
Backlog/Frontlog for 2024
 
 

Hey! STOP playing videogames. I’ve had enough of your STUPID videogames. Aren’t you a little O-O-OLD to be playing videogames-
 
This is mostly to piss Huff off because he hasn’t finished everything yet, but I also heard there were rumblings that there were “no good games this year”. Also another friend of mine said I needed to get this posted to keep old school internet forums alive. Little half-baked in some parts but I might add a lil to it.
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Silentology/
 
------
Honorable Mentions:
 
Top 10:
 
The Rest:
 
Backlog/Frontlog for 2024
 
 

Happy New Year subspuffers! I wish y'all a nice 2024

Everyone needs an automobile, even those with many tails. This was the largest auto I could afford. Should I therefore be made the target of fun?

i beat the video game
its extremely good

i beat the video game
its extremely good

i beat the video game
its extremely good

But, erm... Look guys, look! One of my greatest achievements! Pizza Tower on the Steam Store! Hahahaha!