Games I Beat: Mario Kart 8

Mario Kart 8
Kart Racing
1-2 Players (Local) 1-12 (Online)
 System: Wii U
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Year of Release: 2014
Beaten: July 20th, 2014

You can probably tell by the difference in the beaten date and the posted date that I've been sitting on this one a while. I found myself struggling to talk about Mario Kart 8. It's a really good game, typical of the series. Though Nintendo would like you to believe otherwise nothing really new was added in this game. Sure there's the anti-gravitational thing that I liked, but it doesn't change anything in a really big way. It plays exactly the same as being on the normal race track, but with a lot more boosting opportunity. Which is great. I really really love Mario Kart 8, I just also happen to simultaneously hate it. There's one major issue (at least in my eyes) that has a really simple solution, but I'm going to go over why I enjoy it so much first.

DLC I Beat: Crown of the Sunken King

Dark Souls II: Crown of the Sunken King
Suicide Simulation
1 Player
 System: PS3
Developer: From Software
Year of Release: 2014
Beaten: July 24th, 2014

I want to preface this a bit. While I'm a huge fan of the Souls series overall Dark Souls II is probably my least favorite entry. Ironically it's my most played by a HUGE margin. I don't want to get wrapped up in talking about the main game itself right now, needless to say I was underwhelmed overall. They streamlined a lot of things, some for the better but in my opinion they went overboard in a lot of key areas. Considering I only beat Demon's and Dark Souls once each while I've managed to claim the Throne of Want at least six times by now. That should show how much I really do love the game despite all of its faults.

Games I Beat: Fighting Force

Fighting Force
Beat 'Em Up
1-2 Players
System: Playstation
Developer: Core Design
Year of Release: 1997 (North America), 1998 (Japan)
Beaten: July 19th, 2014

Fighting Force is the first game my buddy recommended we play through that was a co-op beat 'em up on Playstation. We did play it first, but after dying once and having to go back to the last save (a common feature in older games that I don't hold against this) I decided to move on to another game. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but just as a break. We popped in Crisis Beat, and we didn't stop playing. Only because we didn't die, well the plot was pretty funny in a "what the fuck" sort of way, but the entire time we were bored. We went back to finish up Fighting Force and it is definitely the superior PS1 beat 'em up. It still isn't phenomenal though.

Games I Beat: Crisis Beat

Crisis Beat
Beat 'Em Up
1-2 Players
System: Playstation
Developer: Soft Machine
Year of Release: 1998 (Japan), 2000 (Europe)
Beaten: July 17th, 2014

Crisis Beat has to be one of the slowest, most tedious co-op beat 'em up games I've yet to force upon myself and a friend, this is just not anything worth wasting your time with. It's insultingly simple, with two attack buttons, a special attack button that drains health, a run and a jump button it takes next to no time to familiarize yourself with the controls. You can pick up items, though they either are simply thrown, or break almost immediately anyway and lacks a notable increase to damage output. Combos do exist, though I'm not sure how I executed them, I would just switch between the attack buttons at random. You can even throw your opponents, but again this seemed to happen at random. Don't worry though, precision and talent aren't necessary in this game.