10. Out of the Park Baseball 18

Intense management, an old ass sport, and a ton of menus? That’s me in a nutshell. Despite enjoying Motorsport Manager, I didn’t think this dryer, less graphic based cousin would do anything for me. I grabbed Out of the Park in a Humble Bundle and instantly realized this was my kind of shit. I would normally spend a season or two in a sports game trying to live out my own team dynasty. Out of the Park puts more of that control in my hand, more “realistic” information on the screen, and makes me feel like a real baseball manager. I’ll gladly take my menu based fantasy fulfillment.

9. Cook, Serve, Delicious 2

Despite the long hours, the low pay, and the less than grateful customers, a part of me enjoyed the challenge of cooking up as many damn sandwiches I could manage. Cook, Serve, Delicious manages to reintroduce that stressful challenge that actually feels like a rewarding practice. It’s what I imagine gym rats feel like after a good workout. The actions might be rough, but the mental reward outweighs the pain. No pain, no gain. Cook, Serve, Delicious 2 may have been light on some of the original’s features, but it still managed to change things in just the right way. I feel like this sequel expands on how I, personally, wanted to play Cook, Serve, Delicious.

8. Persona 5

The JRPG has firmly spun off into its own genre. While it holds the hallmarks of all other role-playing games, the Japanese style maintains a stalwart attachment to a rigid way of approaching things. That’s where the Persona series, and especially in Persona 5, seeks to solidify and undermine those expectations. For every piece of Persona that feels cliche there’s another part layered with so much style, and care, that it becomes impossible not to feel joy. I didn’t walk away from Persona 5 fulfilled like I had with Persona 4, but I did enjoy the ride they placed me on. In a world where a developer must follow up their most successful title I did not expect Atlus to step so far away. And yet they did, and did so with an wonderful game.

7. Cuphead

Video games have a great power to transport us wherever the creators choose to go. Cuphead does that with powerful ease. It’s obvious at a glance why Cuphead is so special. When we all first glimpsed this early 1900s cartoon styled game we knew this would be something to behold. Despite endless delays and worrying changes the end result is nothing short of spectacular to watch in motion. Cuphead’s cartoony style conveys it’s artistic whimsy with just a devilish hint of difficulty that really rears its head by world two or three. I personally have never enjoyed intensely hard platformers or shooters and yet I came very close to beating Cuphead. Its style and presentation was enough to grab ahold of me and force me to approach a genre of game I’d never touch otherwise.

6. Pyre

Pyre is painstakingly beautiful. A simple game that starts with some form of basketball that’s surrounded by story was able to, over and over, leave me filled with astonishment. I frequently had to stop playing and take screenshot after screenshot so that I would never forget how Pyre looked. You’d do yourself a service for play, or even watch, Pyre play out. It’s a feast for the eyeballs that drags you into a unique world the likes of which I had never seen before. Games all too often limit their art to a handful of appealing moments when the developer knows you’re looking. Pyre simply layers it all in and lets you unfold it like a blooming flower.

5. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

One of my first intense moments with any video game was in Zelda: Link to the Past. I’d hop into my older brother’s saves in order to see the end game spells and items that I’d never get around to earning. It felt like Hyrule was a real place I could walk around and explore. I never felt that away again until Breath of the Wild. There’s a sense of loss and exploration, of pristine and damaged beauty, all around Hyrule. And what really hooked me in, after a few hours of floundering, was the openness of it all. I had no restrictions, no places I wasn’t allowed to go. Everything was open for poking and prodding until I either found a way inside or was rebuffed enough that I moved on to the next interesting point on the horizon. I’m so happy this will be the final cap for my Wii U’s lackluster life as a gaming system. A remarkable send off with a remarkable game.

4. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds

It’s probable that I ignored nearly a dozen emails about Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. Each one touted this new game from the maker of Day Z mods and revealed screenshots that, honestly, never impressed. It all fell onto deaf ears and even after seeing a growing segment of players enjoy their time in this Battle Royale simulator I was still apprehensive. I thought it would be a waste of money and time. But there’s something about PUBG. Alone it’s a nervous wreck simulator, with a group it’s a wacky comedy, and in a duo it’s somewhere in between. All based around a ridiculously simple premise that’s still somehow enjoyable to replay on repeat. PUBG’s enjoyment comes from a perfect combination randomness and skill, or your own personal skills with the guns you do (and sometimes don’t) find. PUBG shouldn’t have 20 million players, shouldn’t be so fun to hop into, and shouldn’t have been this successful and yet here it is.

3. Horizon: Zero Dawn

Horizon had sold me the instant they showed robot dinosaurs. Some not-so-dormant internal child woke up and took ahold of all my decision making abilities. Thankfully, even with the long wind up, Horizon was able to deliver on the goods. Wrapping a wonderfully unveiled science fiction story around robot dinosaur combat was exactly what I was hoping for. I found myself seeking out every new piece of story and lore that would help fill in the background of Horizon’s world and Aloy’s past. Every new answer always yielded more questions and by the end I was left completely satisfied with the story I was told. Typically I’d be all for a standalone game that tells one good story and leaves the stage with the crowd endlessly cheering. However with Horizon I’m chomping at the bit to jump back in and begin lobbing some arrows at more robot dinosaurs.

2. Fire Pro Wrestling World

Do you ever remember, as a kid, walking down a toy aisle and spotting an absolutely too large box filled to the brim of toys? Some set from some franchise that included a ton of characters, accessories, and even a chunk of plastic land to fight over? They were glorious, pieces of heaven expensively left in that aisle for us to hem and haw over while our parents explained how money worked. Fire Pro Wrestling World is that wonderful toy box. It’s bare when you open it but thanks to the inclusion of the Steam Workshop you can quickly fill it up. My wrestling toy chest now contains a legion of my favorites. Even better, you can organize and place your wrestlers on digital shelves, choosing which fantasy bouts you want to recreate and when. I’ve already lost hours to this fantasy booking paradise and I expect 2018 will feature the same.

1. Divinity: Original Sin 2

At a glance, Divinity Original Sin 2 is a game and a franchise I would ignore completely. It appears to be another entry in an uninteresting fantasy role-playing series that needed to be Kickstarted just to come out. It looks to harken back to typical PC role-playing games with its isometric camera and fantasy setting. While none of those assumptions are necessarily false, they were all buried underneath the immense wonder and affection I built up over my time with Divinity Original Sin 2.

The old school approach is enriched with turn based, Dungeons and Dragon like combat that feels more strategic and decisive. That fantasy feel is accented with a knowing humor and wonderful writing. Divinity feels like a labor of love from developers who were having fun putting together an immense, occasionally intimidating, but approachable game. Even the little touches like choosing a specific instrument to play during battle music or getting to meet the pre-made characters during your adventure really strengthens my attachment to the game. It really feels like my personal version of Divinity Original Sin 2 every time I boot it up. Divinity is dense yet light, complicated yet accessible, overwhelming yet friendly. It’s been such a wonderful bright spot of a game to sink into and experience and turns out that’s what I needed in 2017.

The post Michael’s Top 10 Games of 2017 appeared first on Gamesline.

The core of the original Cook, Serve, Delicious is just as important in the sequel. Customers will walk in and order some food. You’ll slam their order out on your keyboard, cook it up, and serve it as quickly as possible. During rush hours, your restaurant will be packed and you’ll have more customers than you know what to do with. Each customer is put into a slot corresponding to the numbers on your keyboard, and each order will demand certain keys in order to cook everything up correctly. Do it all right, and the patron will leave happy. Do it wrong, and you’ll deliver an average or bad meal. Too many bad meals and all your effort, your entire day, will be for naught. It’s a system that benefits repetition, and often frustratingly led me into repeating the opening rush of certain menus to get them just right. I’d often mess up perfect days by pressing D instead of S to season some chicken. It reminded me of those long shifts in front of a griddle where I’d forget someone’s grilled mushrooms because they were one in a hundred customers who wanted grilled mushrooms.

Much has changed when it comes to the actual cooking. You now have prep stations where food must be made beforehand, some can be prepared ahead of time, and side dishes that will extend your customer’s willingness to wait. This simple system adds an entirely new layer of strategy to the game. Even now I struggle trying to time out which dishes should be prepped and when. It’s a good idea to have plenty of food ready for rush hour, with a couple of sides to give yourself more time. Nothing hurts worse than having to wait on your prepared food to cook as several customers leave in frustration right in the middle of your busiest hours. It also means you’ll need to balance your menu to avoid overwhelming your prep stations with food, which I still often do.

If you’re successful, you won’t be bringing your restaurant from corn dog rags to porterhouse steak riches like in the first game. Instead you’re a chef for hire- moving from restaurant to restaurant, with their own menus and themes trying to pass a successful day. When you do, you’ll slowly unlock more restaurants, with several shifts of different menus that get harder and harder. It’s a nice change from the original game, since you are forced to get better at different dishes rather than sticking to the same dozen or so foods. This new setup unfortunately takes away the buzz and menu rot features that forced you to shift your menu around in the original. Eventually I found my handful of items that I could bust out as quickly as possible, making these systems somewhat useless, and while I really enjoy trying new foods, taking away those systems is disappointing and ends up leading to repetitive gameplay.

Even with new restaurants to cook through, the removal of old features makes everything feel much more shallow. In the original game you had emails that added some story depth and individual foods could be upgraded and changed. This often made the food you served more rewarding, or easier to make and serve. Without buzz or menu rot, there is no strategy or menu crafting. I was less worried about how many days wine or grilled chicken was on my menu, and just bashing whatever menus the game gave me. Tossing these features out the window cuts out a meaningful chunk from the sequel.

While you will be moving from place to place, you still have your own home restaurant, a customizable blank slate where you can still create a menu and earn extra random items. And I do mean random. Everything from new brick walls, new flooring, new lights, new seating, and new art. Currently my restaurant is decked out with a few cat pictures, a large painting of someone tenderising meat, and one large window. It’s a shame so many food and restaurant items are locked behind gameplay but it’s easy to level up a few times and get some wonderful weird stuff to create your own gastronomic eatery.

If there’s one thing the game succeeds at, it’s making me want to learn more about the food. Where the original game had a cartoon art style throughout (which this game retains for the design of your demanding customers) the food now looks absolutely spectacular. Every time I scroll through the food list I almost always find something new and tasty that makes my mouth water. The food glistens and drips as if it was freshly made at your favorite haunt, and each piece of culinary delight has an incredible description that assigns some ludicrous lore to each item. For pancakes we’re told about a syrup flood from the turn of the century that was so tragic we pour syrup on our hot cakes to this day in remembrance, which is actually partially true. Corn dogs became so popular that they inspired an old-timey, now banned, game called Blister Dash, challenging people to grab as many corn dogs out of an active fryer as possible. It’s ridiculous and just crazy enough that you really want to believe them.

The core of Cook, Serve, Delicious still burns brightly in the tasty center of its sequel. You’re still divining the perfect strategy to shove out as many orders as possible to the ungrateful masses. A lot of the little nuisances that gave the original strategy and depth are gone, however. Gone are some interesting and wonderful systems that added to the simulation feel without forcing me to cook the books. Emails, buzz, and more are promised to come in the future to Cook, Serve, Delicious 2, but for now it’s pretty bare bones. However, the meat that is left on these bones is pretty tasty.

The post Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2 (PC) Review appeared first on Gamesline.

Ryan, Andi and Niall have gathered around to spend a couple hours laughing at John! The gang talk Seinfeld, Metroid, Destiny, Everybody’s Golf, Paul Giamatti, John’s distaste for K-pop, Danganronpa, Hellblade, Yakuza, MvC’s bonkers story, NBA 2k18’s garbage microtransactions, Randy Pitchford being Randy Pitchford, Tokyo Game Show, and Tigger’s Numbers.

Follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @JohnMichonski, @sewerpeak, @YourPalNiall, & @captaintrash, and don’t forget to rate & review the show on iTunes, as well as tell a friend! You can also send questions, comments, and concerns to podcast@videogamechoochoo.com or find us on Tumblr! You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Count Tigger’s Numbers with Chooch via iTunes, Hipcast, Direct Download or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 187: Seinfeld Chronicles X appeared first on Gamesline.

Follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @JohnMichonski, @finaldasa, @sewerpeak & @captaintrash, and don’t forget to rate & review the show on iTunes, as well as tell a friend! You can also send questions, comments, and concerns to podcast@videogamechoochoo.com or find us on Tumblr! You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Get nasty with Chooch via iTunes, Hipcast, Direct Download or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 185: Are You Nasty? appeared first on Gamesline.

Follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @JohnMichonski & @finaldasa, and don’t forget to rate & review the show on iTunes, as well as tell a friend! You can also send questions, comments, and concerns to podcast@videogamechoochoo.com or find us on Tumblr! You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Down some mayonnaise soda with Chooch via iTunes, Hipcast, Direct Download or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 182: Yakuza Kawaii appeared first on Gamesline.

Follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @JohnMichonski & @finaldasa, and don’t forget to rate & review the show on iTunes, as well as tell a friend! You can also send questions, comments, and concerns to podcast@videogamechoochoo.com or find us on Tumblr! And don’t forget to join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Eat Chooch’s burgers via iTunes, Hipcast, Direct Download or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 174: Hamburger University appeared first on Gamesline.

No word yet on when the PS4 version is coming.

The post Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2 Serving a Plate Full on August 24th appeared first on Gamesline.