Completed Games 2025

[Mera'din 308]

Last year was a weirdly low count for me, having only completed 9 new games. I was imbedded in a handful of live service things and I have a decent number of games I've started but haven't completed due to lack of time and sheer volume of stuff releasing that I had to prioritize in some way. It also doesn't help that I played a lot of 100+ hour RPG type things, so I expect better numbers this year. Starting it off with one I was trying to finish before the end of the year, but missed the mark by a couple days due to work.

 

Previous year list:
 

Spoiler

 

1.)  Marvel's Spider-Man 2

2.)  God of War: Ragnarok - Valhalla

3.)  Still Wakes the Deep

4.)  Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

5.)  Persona 3: Reload

6.)  Werewolf: The Apocalypse - The Book of Hungry Names

7.)  Vampire: The Masquerade - Reckoning of New York

8.)  Dragon Age: The Veilguard

9.)  Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory

 

 

 

1.)  Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. The trailers looked interesting and since it was on Game Pass, I decided to run with it after I finished the new Dragon Age game. It ended up being a really solid experience. It really feels like playing through an Indiana Jones movie, from punching Nazis to Troy Baker's absolutely uncanny voice work that had even the creative director didn't realize he wasn't listening to the sample audio of Harrison Ford when they were going through auditions. The writing, the story beats, all of it makes it feel like the sort of Indiana Jones sequel that people actually wanted. Even the side quests tied back to the main plot and didn't feel tacked on to waste time (though some of the collecting stuff did lean that way). The best way I've seen it described is that if you follow the main story path, it's like watching an Indiana Jones movie. If you do all the side quests with it, its like watching the Director's Cut of the same movie with all the deleted scenes worked back in.

 

On the mechanics side, it was a solid experience as well. Stealth actually felt rewarding, and even if you were spotted it didn't instantly alert every enemy in the area. You could take an enemy out after seeing you before they could alert others in the area. Even if you didn't get to them in time, they'd shout and it would generally only alert enemies in the immediate vicinity. Wait too long, or if guns get involved, then you'd have a bigger mess on your hands though. The combat is a bit clunky, but as I got used to the mechanics for the fist fighting, I felt better about it. I rarely, if ever, used a gun as it seemed like the worst approach in most situations.

 

The game was also much longer than I thought it would be. Part of why I picked it for my last game of the year is I figured it would be a quick 15-20 hour campaign sort of action-adventure game and though it maybe could have been (probably closer to 30 for me), getting sucked into all the side stuff turned it into a roughly 60-hour thing. Some of the areas are stronger than others (running around Vatican City, the first part of the game, being the highlight IMO), but all of them have some interesting things going on. The only thing that felt awkward there was it felt like they went out of their way to hit as many biomes as possible. XD

 

Overall, this was a hell of an experience. It seems to be doing well too, which is good to hear. I'd be more than happy to play another one of these if this level of care and detail continues to be taken.