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This is the year end spectacular. If you've made it this far, you deserve something new and shiny. Luckily, I hear there's a title or two due to come out in the next three months. So, make your picks and add a couple for good measure. I'll be following the thread and making timely updates (as always).

We'll pick this back up in 2013, when your orgy of holiday spending has led you back to to us with your head hanging low and your pile magically refreshed to pre-2012 levels.

If you're interested, m0nk3yboy, has the 12 month pile plan thread over here.

A quick reminder, in order to be considered "Pile of Shame" the game needs to be at least three months old. Otherwise, it's just a new game you haven't gotten to playing yet.

Also, if you are curious about some of the previous threads, Pick's of the Pile, etc... Please go here and check out the Google doc I setup.

Let's get on to the games!

The year end Pick of the Pile is

[size=30]Transformers: War for Cybertron[/size]

IMAGE(http://cdn1-www.playstationlifestyle.net/assets/uploads/2010/04/feature-Transformers-War-For-Cybertron.jpg)

"Transformers: War for Cybertron is set on the planet Cybertron, prior to the Transformers' contact with the planet Earth. Robotic in nature, each Transformer has the ability to transform from their robot mode to an alternate form, such as a tank or jet. The Transformers are engaged in Civil war with one another. A group of like-minded Transformers form a splinter group separate from the main faction. Known as Decepticons, they follow Megatron, their powerful and ruthless leader. The main faction, known as the Autobots, follow the command of Zeta Prime. Zeta Prime is killed, leaving behind an inexperienced leader, Optimus, who must lead the Autobot forces to prevent Megatron from corrupting the planet, itself a Transformer, with Dark Energon." (wikipedia.com)

[u]Multi-Platform[/u]
Anomaly Warzone Earth - Garden Ninja
Assassin's Creed 2 - gravity
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - DaScorpion
Bastion - jdzappa, AUs_TBirD
Batman: Arkham City - mrtomaytohead
Battlefield 3 - Hemi
Bioshock - gravity
Bioshock 2 - Poppinfresh
Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den - Poppinfresh
Crysis 2 - Garden Ninja, SallyNasty
CSI: Fatal Conspiracy - honeycut1
Darksiders - SallyNasty
Dark Souls - CptDomano
Dark Void - m0nk3yboy
Dead Island - SallyNasty, mrtomaytohead
Dead Space - Hemi
Defense Grid: The Awakening - Poppinfresh
Dirt 3 - MrDeVil909
Dragon Age: Origins - Garden Ninja
Dragon Age 2 - Hemi, SallyNasty
Dungeon Defenders - mrtomaytohead
Fallout 3 - jdzappa
Final Fantasy IV - walterqchocobo
Final Fantasy IX - AUs_TBirD
Final Fantasy XIII-2 - AndrewA
Final Fantasy Tactics - walterqchocobo
Just Cause 2 - MrDeVil909
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - [color=gray]Demosthenes[/color]
Limbo - jdzappa
Mass Effect - gravity
Megaman 9 - mrtomaytohead
Metal Slug Anthology - mrtomaytohead
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes - ClockworkHouse
NCIS - honeycut1
Nier - brokenclavicle
Penny Arcade Episode 2 - brokenclavicle
Prototype - MrDeVil909
Rayman Origins - ClockworkHouse
Saint's Row the Third - SallyNasty
Sam and Max Episode 102 - brokenclavicle
Sam and Max Episode 201 - brokenclavicle
Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper - honeycut1
Silent Hill 2 - AUs_TBirD
Sine Mora - mrtomaytohead
Skyrim - jdzappa
Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition - mrtomaytohead
Toy Soldiers - jdzappa
Transformers: War for Cybertron - AUs_TBirD, mrtomaytohead
Trine 2 - Garden Ninja
uDraw Studio: Instant Artist - honeycut1
World of Goo - shoptroll

PC
Civilization V - mrtomaytohead
Deus Ex - beanman101283
Diablo 3 - jdzappa
Empire: Total War - jdzappa
The Longest Journey - Garden Ninja
Sanctum - mrtomaytohead
Star Wars: The Old Republic - jdzappa
World in Conflict Complete - MrDeVil909

Xbox 360
Cthulhu Saves the World - brokenclavicle
Hulk Hogan's Main Event - honeycut1
Viva Pinata: Party Animals - honeycut1

[u]PS3[/u]
Infamous - walterqchocobo
Infamous 2 - walterqchocobo
Tales from Space: About a Blob - AndrewA

[u]3DS[/u]
Mighty Switch Force - AndrewA
Super Mario 3D Land - Garden Ninja

[u]NDS[/u]
999 - AUs_TBirD
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies - ClockworkHouse
Pokemon Black - Garden Ninja
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - AUs_TBirD
The World Ends With You - gravity

[u]Wii[/u]
Donkey Kong Country Returns - ClockworkHouse
Kirby's Epic Yarn - mrtomaytohead
The Last Story - Stele
Super Mario Galaxy - Luggage
Super Paper Mario - ClockworkHouse

Let's throw these out there and see what sticks...

Dragon Age 2
Dead Space
Battlefield 3 campaign

I may add more later.

I don't have anything nailed down yet, but backloggery fortune cookie suggested I finish off Metal Slug Anthology on the Wii, which came out after launch, but before Christmas in 2006, and I got it shortly after release. How's that for a pile game (compilation)? And would I get credit for each of the games in the anthology I beat, or just 1 for the disc?

Put me down for World of Goo (multi) again to start. I should be able to work on that whenever I don't have quite enough time for Borderlands 2.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I don't have anything nailed down yet, but backloggery fortune cookie suggested I finish off Metal Slug Anthology on the Wii, which came out after launch, but before Christmas in 2006, and I got it shortly after release. How's that for a pile game (compilation)? And would I get credit for each of the games in the anthology I beat, or just 1 for the disc?

Being that I am pathologically lazy, it would count for 1.

Okay, I'm just going to start with one game and we'll see how that goes:

Dark Souls (Multi)

Going for Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Multi) as part of the Metroid Prime Trilogy and Rayman Origins (Multi).

I need to pick a PC games and a handheld game, too, but I have no idea what. Anyone know off-hand if AI War has a beatable campaign?

Edit: I forgot this was the year-end thread, so go ahead and put me down for Persona 3 Portable (PSP/Multi). It's about time I finished that one off.

Thing are going to be busy for me the next few months, so I don't want to commit to too much at once. I'll start with these:

Pokemon Black (DS) - I already have a good chunk of time into this. With Black and White 2 are coming out next week, I'm actually hoping to finish this up soon. Not sure I'll finish the last 2 gyms and the Elite 4 + Champion before BW2 come out, but hopefully not too long after that.

I'm also on mission 12 of 18 in Crysis 2 (Multi), so that should fall pretty soon as well. After that's done, I will probably add another of my shorter games.

I also picked up Dragon Age: Origins (Multi) again last week and played for a bit. I do have the Ultimate Edition, but I'm only going to focus on the base game. Awakening and the mini-"Other Campaigns" will wait. Depending on how much it sucks me in, and how much time I can give it, I may not be able to finish it, but with 3 months, I should be able to put pretty big dent into it.

I feel the Guild Wars 2 frenzy starting to calm. Not that I'll stop playing, but may find space in my life for more than that.

I'll put Prototype back on the list and add World in Conflict Complete for some RTS goodness.

Hemidal wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

I don't have anything nailed down yet, but backloggery fortune cookie suggested I finish off Metal Slug Anthology on the Wii, which came out after launch, but before Christmas in 2006, and I got it shortly after release. How's that for a pile game (compilation)? And would I get credit for each of the games in the anthology I beat, or just 1 for the disc?

Being that I am pathologically lazy, it would count for 1. :)

jerk

Maybe I'll just start by playing the Mame version of Metal Slug 4... then 5, then 6. That way they're all separate. Yeah, that's what I'll say (no I won't). It's not like the games are really 'hard' with infinite continues and all. They are massivly quarter muncher style games though. I think the best I ever did on one of them was like 12 continues.

I guess I'll continue with Deus Ex (PC). With new games coming out, I don't know how ambitious I should be regarding my backlog. We'll see!

All right. Ok. I am going to make a serious effort to clean out the pile a bit over the next few months. Will review tonight and come back with a plan of action.

Stay tuned.

SallyNasty wrote:

All right. Ok. I am going to make a serious effort to clean out the pile a bit over the next few months. Will review tonight and come back with a plan of action.

Stay tuned.

I've been able to secure a copy of Sally's plan of action for the end of the year. I can't reveal every detail, but I can leak a few excerpts:

Sally's Secret Plan™ wrote:

Spend at least 1 hour each day on CAG. I'm not buying anything, but they might have a really awesome deal on Darksiders or something.

Sally's Secret Plan™ wrote:

Buy at least 5 Marvel super hero games for $10 each. 1K them all in a vodka-fueled weekend when Mrs. Nasty is out of town.

Sally's Secret Plan™ wrote:

Pick up a couple GFWL games in the next Steam sale. Can't run 'em yet, so they're not technically on the pile at all!

ClockworkHouse wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

All right. Ok. I am going to make a serious effort to clean out the pile a bit over the next few months. Will review tonight and come back with a plan of action.

Stay tuned.

I've been able to secure a copy of Sally's plan of action for the end of the year. I can't reveal every detail, but I can leak a few excerpts:

Sally's Secret Plan™ wrote:

Spend at least 1 hour each day on CAG. I'm not buying anything, but they might have a really awesome deal on Darksiders or something.

Sally's Secret Plan™ wrote:

Buy at least 5 Marvel super hero games for $10 each. 1K them all in a vodka-fueled weekend when Mrs. Nasty is out of town.

Sally's Secret Plan™ wrote:

Pick up a couple GFWL games in the next Steam sale. Can't run 'em yet, so they're not technically on the pile at all!

I laughed so much at this.

Damn, you know me too well.

Well, since Mighty Switch Force (3DS) thwarted me last night, I'll have to carry it over to this month.

Aside from that, I'm playing too much GW2 right now to realistically commit to finishing anything else.

I'm going to continue with my quest for Mass Effect on the PC and The World Ends With You on the DS. Hopefully I'll have both more gaming time and a slightly lesser fraction of that time spent playing FTL this month.

I'll declare my failed attempts from last month: Nier, Cthulhu Saves... & Penny Arcade Episode 2.

Given my currently rocky personal situation, though, I may very well find myself unable to play at all lol.

I'm in the middle of three games right now:

Infamous (PS3)
Final Fantasy IV (DS)
Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1)

I'm confident that those three will be removed from the pile!

I'm going big or going home (though I doubt I can do half of this considering I'm still addicted to GW 2, XCOM and Dishonoered are coming out, and I've signed up for Nanowrimo):

Diablo 3 (My Halloween project)
Skyrim - main quest + warrior's sidequest
Empire Total War
Fallout 3
Bastion
Limbo
Toy Soldiers

jdzappa wrote:

I'm going big or going home (though I doubt I can do half of this considering I'm still addicted to GW 2, XCOM and Dishonoered are coming out, and I've signed up for Nanowrimo):

Diablo 3 (My Halloween project)
Skyrim - main quest + warrior's sidequest
Empire Total War
Fallout 3
Bastion
Limbo
Toy Soldiers

Go big and choose a tag, sheesh...

Carrying over:

Professor Layton & the Diabolical Box (NDS) - The last August pile pledge. Almost done.
Transformers: War for Cybertron (PC/multi) - September pledge. Nearly done with mission 3 of 10.
Final Fantasy IX (PS1, maybe multi?) - September pledge. Started it well over a year ago.

New:
A horror game. For now, it's Silent Hill 2 (Xbox/multi), but it could change with my mood.
Bastion (PC/multi) - Never played this one before.

Alright, I'm committing to Metal Slug Anthology (Wii/Multi) as I made it through 4 last night and as it turns out, someone at some point has played 5 & 6 on my system. Since I don't recall it being me, and I want to spend some more time with the game, I'll get through those before I call it done.

Also, Tbird, in an effort to give you some companionship, I'm going to try to finally get to Transformers: War For Cybertron (PS3/Multi). Tbird, are you gonna try again?

EDIT: hah! My question was answered before I even asked it!

I should really work on Kingdoms of Amular (multi) during my non-laptop Torchlight 2 time, but I haven't really played on it much since TL2 came out! :X I haven't even finished Torchlight 2 yet because I keep rerolling new characters. Love it so much that even like 6 runs of Act 1 haven't phased me, still love it!

Man, I have no idea.

It has made it out of the wrapper, I am 3 stars in, I am positive that I'll complete Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) by the end of the year. Amidst all the Fall 2012 release madness and other backloggery...

Put me down for Bishock 2 on the 360.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Man, I have no idea.

Same.

I finished Torchlight 2 to keep it off the pile, and maybe will do the same to Borderlands 2. Not sure if I'll get back to old stuff before the month is over.

I'm thinking I need to go back to a large-scale strat game. Maybe CK2 or AI War.

I just installed AI War myself. At what point would you consider it beaten? Does it have a campaign?

I finished up Crysis 2 the other night. All in all I'd say it was just alright, which is about what I'd expected, though I had hoped it would be better.

I played on Rookie, since I read that suit upgrades carry over to later playthroughs, and even then, while I only died a handful of times, I was close way more often than I should have been. In a lot of shooters I've played, on easy you are basically a bullet sponge, but here you are pretty killable, despite being a super soldier in a nanosuit. I never played the first Crysis, so that may be bad expectations about what the suit is supposed to do. I feel like they wanted you to use stealth most of the time and avoid straight up firefights (I've read that the highest difficulty has to be played that way), but it didn't really feel feasible until later in the game after several upgrades. A stealthy playthrough might be more fun, except for certain forced fights. The end-boss is going to suck at least:

Spoiler:

It is basically 4 high powered enemies, that can cloak, fire a blast that will drain your energy to unclock you, and are bullet sponges. On Rookie.

I was also really disappointed that there were no cool weapons to use. Despite fighting off an alien invasion, with the exception of the microwave canon, it's all standard modern guns. Even the microwave gun isn't fun to fire, feeling basically like any other gun, and you can't find replacement ammo for it. It does have a pretty cool death animation associated with it, but that's it.

The story was similarly disappointed. I don't know if it was bad storytelling, or if I was supposed to have played the first game, but I didn't know what the hell was going on. Based on the fact that everyone calls the aliens "The Ceph", I think the invasion was already well underway at the beginning of the game, but you aren't given an background info ahead of time. We don't know why they're here or what they want until way late into the game, and even that felt more like a blink-and-you'll-miss-it off-hand comment, than a real story payoff.

I might go back for a few achievements, but I have no interest in Crysis 3 at this point.

Beat, then completed Professor Layton & the Diabolical Box on Wednesday. It "only" took me about 26 hours. Yikes! The Layton games never cease to charm me, but large swathes of the story have to be ignored for being nonsensical, and the introduction of many of the puzzles is just forced. A small number of the puzzles were poorly explained, I thought, but most were good, some quite tricky, and a few even lived up to being "diabolical".
The mini-activities, I could have mostly done without. While the camera was implemented well, the hamster fitness was only decent, and the tea-time activity was a real drag. I hope it doesn't come back in the other games of the series.
According to my admittedly flaw-prone memory, there seemed to be fewer animated cut-scenes than in The Curious Village, which was a bit of a downer as they are excellent. The music is another fantastic highlight, and I would gladly listen to several of the tracks even outside of the game.

The Diabolical Box is a enjoyable way to pass a surprisingly long number of hours, and the story culminates in an unexpectedly action-packed and sweet ending. Recommended in spite of a few flaws.

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