2024 Game Journal
Games are sorted with most recently played at the top and earliest played at the bottom.
My "rating" system is just an enjoyment level with five options: Hated, Disliked, Neutral, Liked, & Loved. These aren't necessarily my ratings, just how much fun I had playing the game.
Halo 3: ODST
Platform: Steam
Genre: Shooter
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Toss up between this and Reach for my favorite Halo games. The soundtrack is just so so good with that piano and saxophone, gotta be my favorite out of the soundtracks easily.
Halo Reach
Platform: Steam
Genre: Shooter
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Probably my favorite Halo game, or at least a close #2 to ODST. Teared up a lot at various spots, especially all the sacrifices from Noble team. Such a great game for Bungie to go out on from the Halo series.
Signalis
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Got the Promise ending this time, though it pained me so much to not talk to the NPCs... Such a damn good game; I usually describe it as the survival of Resident Evil with the horror of Silent Hill, which in my opinion are the strongest parts of each franchise. The music is used extremely well and honestly I didn't know it was all just classical music - I assumed it was original but even still, it's just chef's kiss.
Resident Evil 3 (1999)
Platform: GOG
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Liked
Played before? Yes
Notes: Liked it more than the first time I played it. I still think the story is okay at best, though. Nemmy is very intimidating but his double tap attacks are very annoying. Had several parts where I just had to repeat parts 5+ times because I get stunlocked by an enemy or something. It happens in other games but it felt way more often in this one.
Silent Hill 2 (2001)
Platform: PC Standalone
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Got the In Water ending since I've previously gotten Leave and Rebirth. I'm not huge on the story itself but man the gameplay is just really good. The puzzles, the exploration, the horror itself, they're all phenomenal. The remake comes out in a few days so hopefully they do a good job on it.
Little Nightmares II
Platform: Steam
Genre: Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes:
Animal Well
Platform: Steam
Genre: Metroidvania
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? No
Notes: Awesome little platformer/metroidvania game. I was able to get to the initial ending for the game and get I think 40 something eggs with only looking up one small hint. I initially wanted to get all the collectibles, but I'd look up how to get one egg and the guide was like "to get this egg, you need x object. to get x object, you have to get y item. to get y item, follow these seven steps" and so I gave up on doing that. If the puzzles were a bit simpler or I was a bit smarter and could do the collectibles on my own, I'd love to do that but I don't want to do that much stuff using a guide.
Resident Evil 3 (2020)
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Played for footage. I used the noir costume mod for Jill and oooooh she just looks so good in it. People complain about this remake constantly but like… it's a good game! It's not as survival-based as many others, but it's a great action game.
Resident Evil 2 (2019)
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Played Leon's A scenario for footage (and for fun of course)
Resident Evil 2 (1998)
Platform: GOG
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Played ClaireA/LeonB scenarios; still just as good as it was the first time through. It's super cool going through it and seeing what they changed/kept/repurposed for the remake. The two games (original and remake) tell the same story but I think they're different enough that they're both worth playing.
Industria
Platform: Epic Games Store
Genre: Shooter
Enjoyment: Liked
Played before? No
Notes: Fairly short shooter but was pretty cool. The story is a bit confusing and the end just gives you more questions than you had before, but they're working on a sequel. The interactions between Nora and Brent are very sweet. Game also feels like it's straight up horror at some points.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Platform: Steam
Genre: Stealth
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Called people on the radio as much as I could to get more dialogue. If you just heard the radio chatter, you'd think this game was a comedy; some of it is actually hilarious.
Silent Hill
Platform: PSX Emulator
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Liked
Played before? Yes
Notes: Finally got the Good+ ending; I've previously gotten the Bad and Good endings.
Resident Evil Code: Veronica X
Platform: PS2 Emulator
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Played for my friend Audrey for the second time. This was I believe my third time through? Steven still sucks.
Resident Evil (1996)
Platform: GOG
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Emulated it initially and found it very meh but absolutely adored it on a second playthrough. Voice acting in Chris's campaign was definitely better than Jill's, though not amazing. However, Wesker's dialogue and voice acting in the Tyrant scene was kinda really good
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Platform: Gamecube Emulator
Genre: Action/Adventure
Enjoyment: Liked
Played before? No
Notes: Had some classic Zelda moments where it's like "how tf was I supposed to figure that out?" but overall it was quite good. I'm devastated we only saw milf Midna for a little bit at the end :( Played it with my friend Joel and it took like six months to get through it so I forgot a lot of the story by the end.
Super Metroid
Platform: SNES Emulator
Genre: Metroidvania
Enjoyment: Liked
Played before? No
Notes: Pretty good game overall. Had a similar Mother Brain fight as Zero Mission (not a good thing) but it was much more manageable. Used savestates only a few times just to save some time on platforming challenges and for saving at the beginning of the escape timer after Mother Brain.
Metroid Prime 3
Platform: Wii Emulator
Genre: Metroidvania
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? No
Notes: Larger scale than the previous two games; takes place across multiple smaller planets. Wasn't sure about it at first but it ended up working really well. Honestly it was a really good game. Final ranking of the Prime series is 1 > 3 > 2 (I didn't like the dark world stuff).
Resident Evil 0
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Disliked
Played before? Yes
Notes: Played for my friend Audrey. Used a mod that adds an item box to the typewriter (Link here) which made it much better but the game is still mid at best.
Hi-Fi Rush
Platform: Steam
Genre: Rhythm
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? No
Notes: Phenomenal game; no notes. I'm not amazing at rhythm games but I kept on beat pretty well and it was super fun. My only complaint would be the Mimosa fight which I ended up looking up cheese strats for, but all of the boss fights after that were easier and more fun.
Resident Evil 5
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Liked
Played before? Yes
Notes: Played with my friend Audrey. We had previously given up at the final boss due to the almost impossible QTE for Sheva, but we finally came back to it and beat it thanks to the auto-complete QTEs setting. We also played the Lost in Nightmares DLC which is a very fun reference to RE1.
Tormented Souls
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Hated
Played before? No
Notes: Gave up after about four hours. Annoying enemies combined with stingy health items AND stingy save items means constant suffering and reloading. My breaking point was an enemy spitting blood at me through two walls to kill me.
Resident Evil 4 (2023)
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Playthrough for cutscene footage.
Signalis
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Phenomenal, one of my favorites. Got the artifact ending this time. I reloaded the final save from my first playthrough and apparently
I got the Leave ending :(. I looked it up online and apparently that's a pretty rare ending to get on a first playthrough, much less without trying
to get it. I just like talking to the NPCs...
Resident Evil 4 (2023) Separate Ways DLC
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Playthrough for cutscene footage.
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Platform: Steam
Genre: Stealth
Enjoyment: Liked
Played before? No
Notes: Played through on Steam with legit saves. Wayyy better than MG1 as it actually had a story and some mechanics that are feature in
later games. There's a bit where an actual snake crawls through your inventory and eats your rations and it caught me so off guard. I adore Kojima
for doing that shit all the way back in 1990.
Resident Evil 4 (2023) Separate Ways DLC
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes:
Resident Evil 3 (2020)
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Playthrough to get cutscene footage for video ideas.
Metal Gear
Platform: PS2 Emulator
Genre: Stealth
Enjoyment: Neutral
Played before? No
Notes: Emulated on PS2 via MGS3's second disc so that I could use save states. I'd say it's okay overall; not much of a story other than
"Oh hey your commander is actually the bad guy!" and it could've been done better IMO. Had to use a walkthrough several times.
Death Stranding
Platform: Steam
Genre: Adventure
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? No
Notes: Great Kojima game; Weird game mechanics and an absolutely crazy story. Got annoyed at the end because I thought I would knock it out quickly but I still had like five hours left. Completely my fault and not the game's; I shouldn't have rushed it.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Platform: Steam
Genre: Stealth
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? No
Notes: Wonderful game. Boss fights were great and the gameplay too thanks to a third-person camera.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Platform: Steam
Genre: Stealth
Enjoyment: Liked
Played before? No
Notes: Boss fights were much better than MGS1; overall was a bit better than it too.
Tunic
Platform: itch.io
Genre: Action/Adventure
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? No
Notes: Turned combat difficulty down for some boss fights and used guides for a few of the puzzles, but that's fine by me. Used a guide
for figuring out what the golden path was, but I did figure the path out on my own.
F.E.A.R.
Platform: GOG
Genre: Shooter/Horror
Enjoyment: Liked
Played before? No
Notes: Solid shooter with good horror.
Resident Evil 4 (2023) Separate Ways DLC
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes:
Resident Evil 4 (2023)
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? Yes
Notes: Casual playthrough
Luigi's Mansion
Platform: Gamecube Emulator
Genre: Adventure
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before?
Notes:
Resident Evil 4 (2023)
Platform: Steam
Genre: Survival Horror
Enjoyment: Neutral
Played before? Yes
Notes: Ran through for S rank in Hardcore. Don't want to do it again; skipping all the cutscenes is no fun :(
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Platform: EA Origin
Genre: Action/Adventure
Enjoyment: Loved
Played before? No
Notes: