2019 - 12 Month Pile Program

Well, 2019 was supposed to be the year of the pile, and finally getting around to all those story heavy RPGs that have been sitting on my hard drive for way too long. It might be time I just accepted the idea that I don't do story based games anymore, because after 7 days of the year all I wanted to do was slip into some comfy slippers... replayable, short session games, no story to remember, colourful, memorable characters in a world I'm familiar with, stats and strategies that I can look up online out of game, very active Reddit threads..... In short, most blizzard games. And I started playing Heroes of the Storm again.

I'm fine with being in both poisoned and confused stati in Backloggery. They are temporary and something to work towards clearing.

With my current plans for the year, Backloggery would pronounce me dead

I guess an early progress report of sorts, with me declaring 2019 be more about quality of gaming and fun vs quanitity. Not good for the pile but it has been nice not stressing over completing anything. My primary game I've been playing is still Witcher 3 and I expect that to stay that way for atleast another month, but it has been nice to be able to go back to few games guilt free, I ended up purchasing remainder of dlc courses for Everybody's Golf which has brought back alot of enjoyment from that game. Its been nice to go back to a few endless games such as Rocket League and World of Warships.

Overall I am enjoying this type of approach so far, I do will have to think of keeping a different type of spreadsheet for this year, instead of games completed maybe games enjoyed?

I've dusted off my Vita since I discovered I'm more likely to play a mobile platform.

So far, so good. I'm bouncing off of about 4 titles at present, but I'm having fun doing it, so that's a win in my book. MP

I wonder if there were any decent Vita titles in the PSN Jan sale... Better check... Uh oh...

Bubblefuzz wrote:

I wonder if there were any decent Vita titles in the PSN Jan sale... Better check... Uh oh...

Be careful, that way there be pile bloat!


But, but...
Dragon Quest Builders (double dip)
Persona 4: Dancing all Night
YS VIII
SteamWorld Dig
...
...
all hearted...
...
but resiiiisting!

This week's update on my gaming progress:

SWITCH

Stardew Valley: No progress.

Skyrim: No progress.

Diablo 3: Started campaign mode game last night with the Necromancer. Up to about level 12 or 13 and still in Act 1.

ANDROID

Microsoft Solitaire Collection:

Freecell achievement Alcatraz Escape with a goal of playing 100 Freecell games (started at 24 games): Went from 28 to 34 games.

Completed the Go for the Silver achievement to have 9 months of silver daily challenge badges!

Am still caught up on dailies, but posting in this thread has helped me stay caught up. Since it was my zoo volunteer day yesterday, I didn't get my dailies done, and then when I went to post in this thread, I thought I should get caught back up before posting, so it gave me the motivation to catch up with both yesterday and today!

No Star Club games played this week.

Candy Crush Saga: Overall level 29 from level 29. Went from level #421 to #425.

Candy Crush Friends: Reached #189 from #179 last week after getting stuck and now I'm stuck on #189!

Township: Town of Hope, named after one of the giraffes at Topeka Zoo. Went from town level 24 to town level 27. Finally have a foundry to make ingots in order to upgrade my trains and factories, though getting ore is very slow! Population at 1275/1680. I also have a Museum in my town now that will slowly be displaying various artifacts I find in the mine!

Fishdom: Level 178 from level 170. Tropica and Greece aquariums 3 stars. Farm aquarium 2 stars. Still working on being able to afford Lester to go with Earl and Maybelle in the Farm aquarium.

Gardenscapes: Level 203 up from level 191.

Homescapes: Level 223 up from level 192. So I'd named the cat Priscilla only to find out later that it's supposed to be a male cat. Doesn't quite have the same ring as a man named Sue though. "My name is Sue, how do you do!"

Empires & Puzzles: Haven't progressed much in this game this week, but still doing a bit here and there. Still at level 7 with watchtower at level 6 and working on upgrading all buildings to level 6 as well. Team power up from 1310 to 1316.

Mid-month check-in on my goals.

This year, I've set three goals for myself: work on my "Goodbye, 3DS" pile; work on my "Adios, Wii U" pile; and play everything I buy in 2019, in 2019. Where do I stand with that?

I've finished two games from my Goodbye, 3DS pile so far this year, and I'm currently playing two more.

I'm not currently playing anything from my Adios, Wii U pile. I haven't even turned it on yet this year.

I have purchased eleven games so far this year; anything crossed off has been finished, and anything with an arrow has some progress made:

  1. Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
  2. Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker
  3. Pokémon Moon
  4. Ever Oasis
  5. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions
  6. Monster Hunter Stories
  7. Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World
  8. Hey! Pikmin
  9. Super Mario 3D Land
  10. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
  11. Luigi's Mansion

I suppose I should put some goals down for 2019.

1. Similar to several others, if I buy it in 2019, play it in 2019.

2. Keep a close eye on those digital purchases. They might be cheap but they add up.

3. Remind myself: if I am not having fun or lost interest in game, it's okay to toss it from the pile

4. Do something about that unopened 3DS still gathering dust. Maybe just set the Vita down for a couple months, plow through the three games owned and get rid of the system unless my kids suddenly find it interesting.

5. At least TRY a western RPG. Witcher 3 is still in the shrink wrap from holiday 2016 purchase.

6. Keep gaming balanced against 60 book reading goal for 2019.

Wasn't entirely sure where to put this, but since it relates to playing backlog games, I figured this is as a good a place as any.

So rather than focusing on one or two games on my backlog this month, I've been grazing through several as the mood strikes me. I was worried that switching control schemes, characters, and stories, would be constantly confusing and difficult. Thankfully, so far, that hasn't really been the case.

What has happened, though, is that i've noticed just how damn long games on the PS4 take to start up and load your save. Since I'm not just leaving a game suspended in the background all the time, I more frequently have to put a disc in or at least cold start the game from the home screen. Burnout Paradise, Red Dead 2, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey take multiple minutes to actually get into the game. Sometimes even getting to the initial main menu screen takes longer than seems reasonable. Maybe it's just the nature of these open world games.

There's no real point to this other than to whine, but suspending games for the last few years on PS4 has apparently spoiled me and left me blind to the fact that modern games just have a lot to do before they drop you into their worlds.

Being able to come back to a game without seeing those start-up screens was, if I recall, one of the reasons the 3DS became the dominant platform of choice for me for a while there. When tasked with starting a game up and waiting to actually load it, or to open that shell up and be right where I left off, it was often easier to just grab the 3DS and get going. The same has been true for the PS4 and Switch versus going back to playing WiiU games.

I don't know if games take longer to get into specifically because you can suspend, or if it's been a growing problem for a while now. Even the original Xbox and GameCube had titles where you couldn't skip those splash screens, and once upon a time every console had a lengthy boot-up screen (most likely so they could begin spinning the CD tray and read the data).

Oddly enough, this didn't have a negative impact on me while replaying Final Fantasy VI, as the SNES Classic boots pretty quickly and the game loads swiftly from the menu. So it's not as immediate as the Nintendo Switch, but given how long it can take for the PS4 to wake up it wasn't much more of a wait.

beanman101283 wrote:

What has happened, though, is that i've noticed just how damn long games on the PS4 take to start up and load your save.

This is why I keep getting stuck on one PS4 game at a time...it's just so much better suspending the game than booting it from nothing. So I'm really slow to complete games on the console because instead of swapping when I feel like a change, I just turn it off and move to my Switch.

Hello GWJers,

former active poster, but for the past years lurker and listener only. I'm hoping you can help me take the penultimate step of defeating my gaming backlog.
Sales don't tempt me anymore and sunken cost hasn't saved a game from being cut for a while now. Still, due to the increasing number of freebies and bundle collateral, I have close to 60 games left on list.
For many joyous life reasons (family and all that), I want to now cut those to 10 in one fell swoop.
So what I am hoping for are some well-reasoned arguments, why one of the games should considered to be selected and/or why one of the selected ones could be downgraded in favor of something else.
I'll first list some of my recent highlights and disappointments for reference. I know indies will come a bit short on that list, but FEZ, Brothers and Journey are among my life-time favorites.
Below that, I'll show my 10 preselected, 5 runners-up (to be cut, but just barely) and then all the rest.
I hope this type of post is permitted. Thanks for reading and all feedback is welcome.

For reference

Highlights in recent years

  • Bloodborne GOTY: Beautiful, cruel, mechanically perfect - the one perfect AAA game in recent years for me (and my only ever deliberate Platinum trophy)
  • Dishonored 2: Interesting twists on the mechanics of the first and a master lesson in level design
  • God of War 2018: Perfect length, great story and art direction, satisfying combat - great new direction
  • Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice: Mechanics and art supported theme and story well for a unique, oppressing experience
  • Horizon Zero Dawn GOTY: Aside from issues with health and combat progression, a fresh take on the open world adventure

Disappointment in recent years

  • Assassin's Creed Unity: Technologically a mess, with map icon bloat and utterly uninspired
  • Firewatch: My last foray into "walking sims", I enjoy Idle Thumbs more than Campo Santo's first game
  • Nier: Your game should sell me on several on playthroughs (which it didn't), not your design doc
  • Shadow of Mordor: The Nemesis system became transparent quick, especially as levelups shifted combat from challenging to godmode
  • The Witcher 3: Too many systems with too little depth, writing too spotty, pacing issues and overstayed its welcome

The list

The preselected 10

  1. Dark Souls 2 GOTY: Currently on a break 50% of main game already played, it's a nice mix-up of Demon's and Dark Souls 1
  2. Dark Souls 3 GOTY: Dark Souls with the combat speed and art quality of Bloodborne? Sign me up!
  3. Hyper Light Drifter: Soundtrack by Disasterpiece, beautiful pixel art and challenging combat are the draws here
  4. Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain: Haven't played the series, but an open world without filler and great stealth gameplay sound enticing
  5. Uncharted 4: Liking the first 3 and The Last of Us, I'm expecting another great theme park joyride
  6. Dying Light GOTY: I am expecting a mix-up of Dishonored, Fallout and State of Decay
  7. STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl: Interested in the Eastern take on post-apocalyptic shooter
  8. Star Wars: KotOR 2: The first was great, I love that era of SW lore and I trust Obsidian to have made something great
  9. Shadow Tactics: I devoured the Commandos series way back when and after ~50% played, this is a great revival of the genre
  10. Assassin's Creed Origins: Done with Ubi's open world formula, the general reception and Egypt made me reconsider

The 5 runners-up

  • Darksiders: Warmastered: A Zelda-like RPG with grown-up combat and art design sounds worth a try.
  • Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: Like Human Revolution, loved the Dishonoreds - could this be more of that?
  • Metro 2033: Is this a worthwhile alternative to the Fallout or STALKER series?
  • Prey: I love all Bioshock titles, but the first 3 hours of this left me unengaged and scratching my head
  • Red Dead Redemption 2: RDR1 was my favorite PS3 game, but The Witcher 3 left me disappointed - a 50% chance this will as well?

The rest

  • AI War: Fleet Command
  • Battle Chef Brigade
  • Beyond Good & Evil
  • Broken Age
  • Element4l
  • Endless Space
  • Far Cry 4
  • Gone Home
  • Gravity Rush
  • Gravity Rush 2
  • Guild of Dungeoneering
  • I, Hope
  • ibb & obb
  • Jotun: Valhalla Edition
  • Kentucky Route Zero
  • Kingsway
  • Mad Max
  • Observer
  • Overcooked
  • Oxenfree
  • Penumbra: Overture
  • Pillars of Eternity
  • Puzzle Agent 2
  • Q.U.B.E. 2
  • Quantum Conundrum
  • SOMA
  • SteamWorld Dig 2
  • Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
  • Superhot
  • Tacoma
  • Tales from the Borderlands
  • Teslagrad
  • The Adventure Pals
  • The Evil Within
  • The Pillars of the Earth
  • Thief: Deadly Shadows
  • Time Gentlemen, Please!
  • Titan Souls
  • Tokyo 42
  • Torchlight 2
  • Trine 2
  • Tyranny - Commander Edition
  • XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I think your approach to try and sift out a selection of worthwhile games is on the right track, but you're also seeking our outside opinion when we can only speak to our own preferences and strategies. I think, in the end, you have to decide what is more worth your time and what is more likely to speak to your interests.

The only thing I'll say is, based on what I know, it might be better to give Metro 2033 a try instead of STALKER, as the latter was quite buggy and janky on release. I don't know much the difference between them, though.

beanman101283 wrote:

Wasn't entirely sure where to put this, but since it relates to playing backlog games, I figured this is as a good a place as any.

So rather than focusing on one or two games on my backlog this month, I've been grazing through several as the mood strikes me. I was worried that switching control schemes, characters, and stories, would be constantly confusing and difficult. Thankfully, so far, that hasn't really been the case.

What has happened, though, is that i've noticed just how damn long games on the PS4 take to start up and load your save. Since I'm not just leaving a game suspended in the background all the time, I more frequently have to put a disc in or at least cold start the game from the home screen. Burnout Paradise, Red Dead 2, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey take multiple minutes to actually get into the game. Sometimes even getting to the initial main menu screen takes longer than seems reasonable. Maybe it's just the nature of these open world games.

There's no real point to this other than to whine, but suspending games for the last few years on PS4 has apparently spoiled me and left me blind to the fact that modern games just have a lot to do before they drop you into their worlds.

I usually keep my "main" game in the disc drive, and play all my side games of the hard drive, currently I have Witcher 3 Loaded up in the disc drive and I play Rocket League and Everybody's Golf as my side games.

Luggage! You have a heck of a list; a lot of your preselected games are long. So I'm going to help you make tough, almost arbitrary, choices.

The one good:

Beyond Good & Evil: This isn't super long, it's fairly linear, and the main gameplay loop is simplified stealth that can be pretty satisfying. And, there's a sequel. I'd keep it on the list, but play it later as BG&E2 nears release.

The not-as-good, since you must make hard cuts:

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: The sequel is probably never coming. Good excuse to let it go.

Gone Home: I loved it, but I also liked Firewatch. Seems unlikely to engage you based on what you've said.

Prey: I enjoyed it, but it was never as good as Bioshock for me. It's also pretty long, and involves a lot of backtracking. (Unless you skip optional stuff, in which case it gets tough.)

Jotun: Valhalla Edition: I found it frustrating. Its gameplay is mostly "old school boss battles" where you are memorizing patterns. Pretty but just didn't work for me as a game.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP: If you don't like a game that leaves you "scratching your head..." A pretty great tech demo, lots of interesting ideas here, but it never really satisfied me as a game or story.

The Evil Within: Again, if you don't like a game that leaves you "scratching your head..." If you absolutely loved the gameplay of Resident Evil 4/5 this might be worth it, but the story is even more nonsensical, relying mostly on "well it's dream logic." I enjoyed it because I like that kind of slow shooter, but found it unsatisfying.

I would try:

Superhot - its short and pretty unique puzzle/shooter

Mad Max - This one I'm not sure for you, on one hand you liked Horizon and interested in AC Origins, but on the other you didn't like Witcher 3 or Shadow of Mordor. It follows similar formula for Ubi open world games with Batman style combat system, with decent amount of focus on the cars. I would atleast try it, give it couple hours if you like what you see, keep playing, but know that it won't deviate much from the formula

Tales of Borderlands - this is one of the better Telltale games made, so I recommend you atleast try an episode of it.

Fastmav347 wrote:

I usually keep my "main" game in the disc drive, and play all my side games of the hard drive, currently I have Witcher 3 Loaded up in the disc drive and I play Rocket League and Everybody's Golf as my side games.

This is what I've done in the past, though if, say RDR2 was my main game, I'd still have the issue that RDR2 takes forever to load your game. Playing several triple-A games at the same time just means that now I notice how many are just as bad as RDR2.

I suspect that the issue will either slowly force me to focus on one game on the PS4, or just play one of my current PC games instead.

Fastmav347 wrote:

Tales of Borderlands - this is one of the better Telltale games made, so I recommend you atleast try an episode of it.

Seconded!!! It's so, so, soooo good.

Darksiders: Warmastered: A Zelda-like RPG with grown-up combat and art design sounds worth a try.

It's not. ccesarano will strenuously object, but Darksiders really isn't very good and isn't worth your time. I was a moderate fan of it when it released in 2009, but I replayed it last month with one of the game clubs here on the site, and it doesn't hold up well at all. The art looks great, yes, but the gameplay is repetitive, frustrating, and uninspired. We had maybe a half dozen or more players in the club for the month, and I was the only one who didn't give up on it.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: Like Human Revolution, loved the Dishonoreds - could this be more of that?

It's not. I was a big fan of Human Revolution, and I also really enjoyed the Dishonored series. Mankind Divided doesn't stand up to either, and in many ways, it's a lot like Darksiders: the art is fantastic, but the game itself is not. Mankind Divided doesn't have the smart mission design of its predecessor nor the improvisational fluidity of Dishonored. Its vision of cyberpunk Prague is stunning, but I found the gameplay to be very disappointing, and as beeporama said: the story is obviously a setup for a sequel that will never come as Square-Enix has put the property "on hold" indefinitely.

Prey: I love all Bioshock titles, but the first 3 hours of this left me unengaged and scratching my head

It's interesting to me that you liked Deus Ex and Dishonored but were flummoxed by Prey. It bears a similarity to Bioshock in their shared lineage through the System Shock series, but Prey is less like the RPG shooter of Bioshock than like the immersive sims of Deus Ex and Dishonored. I don't know how far you were able to make it in the three hours you played, but my suggestion would be to stick with the game at least until you get Typhon powers. Similar to the way that Dishonored opens up once you get out of the prison and get your first powers from the Outsider, the Typhon powers in Prey give you many more ways to interact with your environment. Don't bother yourself too much about the story in Prey; instead, see what you can do with the tools at your disposal: what can you get into? Where can you go?

Dark Souls 3 GOTY: Dark Souls with the combat speed and art quality of Bloodborne? Sign me up!

It's clear that you're a fan of the Souls series from your other comments, but I'll just warn you to temper your expectations: Dark Souls 3 doesn't have nearly the combat speed of Bloodborne, and the art quality wasn't as unique and captivating. I haven't finished Dark Souls 3, yet, but I was definitely disappointed when I went into it expecting an experience similar to Bloodborne (which is one of my all-time favorite games).

ClockworkHouse wrote:

It's not. ccesarano will strenuously object, but Darksiders really isn't very good and isn't worth your time. I was a moderate fan of it when it released in 2009, but I replayed it last month with one of the game clubs here on the site, and it doesn't hold up well at all. The art looks great, yes, but the gameplay is repetitive, frustrating, and uninspired. We had maybe a half dozen or more players in the club for the month, and I was the only one who didn't give up on it.

I would not object to the uninspired part. It's very clearly Devil May Cry-lite, Prince of Persia-lite, Zelda-lite, and even a dash of Portal-lite. You can argue each of the games it is pulling from does those individual things better, and you'd honestly be correct. I love Darksiders because it pulls all those things together into a single package, and you're not really going to get a game doing all those things at once like that.

I'm also reaching the point where the more proud a game is to be a video game, the happier I am with it. Darksiders is definitely the developers saying "Let's just make everything we like right now!" and mixing it all together. Maybe that's your jam, maybe it's not. It's totally mine, though.

Then again, Twilight Princess is probably my favorite of the 3D Zelda games that's not Breath of the Wild, so that probably says enough right there. For example, I never actually aged beyond fourteen years old.

I think Twilight Princess is a great game, and I have no problem with video games being proud to be video games. I don't like Darksiders because the level design sucks, the encounter design sucks, the controls suck, and the combat sucks. That's too much suck for me to forgive even if I like the art and find the studio's willingness to gleefully embrace their influences admirable and something I wish more studios did.

You're right, I do strenuously object, but I will hold my objections for another time. I'll probably go looking for that old game club thread to see what you and others said, though I'll try to keep my chill pills at the ready when I do so.

For now, though, I've moved on from Darksiders and am all about anticipating Devil May Cry 5. And Resident Evil 2 tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to 2019.

Luggage, I can’t comment too much on your list, but here’s a few where I can offer some insight:

Q.U.B.E. 2 - have you played the first one? It was really enjoyable, had some great puzzle design, and was short. I thought the length was perfect: in each section, every puzzle built on some mechanic you had learned before, and there wasn’t any bloat. If 2 is like 1, I’d heartily recommend it. It would also be (I expect) much shorter than some of the other games on your list, which involve massive time commitments. Maybe that would be a good thing, or maybe you really want those 10 to be very involved.

KOTOR2: better dialogue than the first, and very interesting story, but also slow and long.

Element4l: I was about to recommend a hard pass, but then realized this was not the famously bad Stardock game.

Superbrothers: some people loved this, and I remember it was very well reviewed on release. For the life of me, I don’t get it. The pixel art is beautiful, but (to me) the writing is too hipster and totally the wrong tone for a fantasy story, and I found the gameplay itself really uninspired. Tried it again earlier this year, and decided I would be happy never to play it again.

Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny: I list these two together because they are both heavily inspired by old Infinity Engine games like Baldur’s Gate. Did you like those? If so, playing one of these might be right up your alley.

A bunch of us played through Pillars, last year, with the CRPG Club. I loved the character customization, and how the world reacted to your choices. I loved how the game finally, and very effectively, did away with a good vs. evil morality system in favor of character traits (like rational, stoic, deceptive) that you developed over time, through your decisions, and that in turn established a reputation which would affect other events. There’s a lot to do, and the world has some great lore baked in. Cons: the story pacing is a bit off; too often, you’re subjected to info dumps and walls of texts, and it can get confusing. Obsidian did a better job of this in the expansion, and from what I hear, in Tyranny and Pillars 2. Also, if you know D&D really well, the game may be mechanically confusing at first: it draws heavily on D&D’s rule set, but changes the rules in significant ways that are not always intuitive.

I played only a little bit of Tyranny last year during a free weekend, but it seemed like a lot of the presentation and story was crisper and paced better than Pillars was.

This week's update (since January 11) on my gaming progress:

SWITCH

Stardew Valley: Turned in a few more things for the Community Center and made enough money to buy the first backpack expansion.

Skyrim: No progress.

Diablo 3: Completed Acts I through V campaign with my Necromancer and ended around level 60. Started a new Demon Hunter character for the new season. Decided to go through the campaign with him as well and am currently in Act III and level 35. If I haven't made a lot of progress in other games the past few days, Diablo 3 is the reason!

ANDROID

Microsoft Solitaire Collection:

Freecell achievement Alcatraz Escape with a goal of playing 100 Freecell games: Went from 34 to 45 games.

I'm three days behind on my dailies. I plan to catch up a bit on these this evening.

No Star Club games played this week.

Candy Crush Saga: Overall level 29 from level 29. Went from level #425 to #425. In other words, no progress!

Candy Crush Friends: Still on #189 because I haven't played since the last report!

Township: Town of Hope, named after one of the giraffes at Topeka Zoo. Went from town level 27 to town level 29. Population at 1495/2085. Working on raising gold to buy the rubber factory. Got the zebra enclosure for my zoo!

Fishdom: Level 183 from level 178. Tropica and Greece aquariums 3 stars. Farm aquarium 2 stars. Still working on being able to afford Lester to go with Earl and Maybelle in the Farm aquarium. I haven't played much the past few days, but I just love these cute little fishies!

Gardenscapes: Level 217 up from level 203. Just opened up a new garden area!

Homescapes: Level 241 up from level 223. Been working on the outside orangery.

Empires & Puzzles: Still at level 7 with watchtower at level 6 and working on upgrading all buildings to level 6 as well. Team power up from 1316 to 1319.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Darksiders really isn't very good and isn't worth your time.

Very much this. I tried to play along with the club, but I just couldn't get over the ranged combat, which was absolutely terrible. Throw some other bad gameplay choices in the mix and reflecting back I'd say this was probably my least favourite game played last year. I can see how there could be an enjoyable game there for some. It goes for the fun, but for me the execution of half of what I played was far from it, the opposite of fun times.

I'd say try Mad Max. I found it to be a good time and worth it for a dozen hours or so... until the open world repetitiveness kicks in.

Probably not finishing anything else this month, so

Finished:
Assassins Creed: Odyssey
Rime
Dead Cells
Dragon Age Origins (againagainagain)

STOP EDITING YOUR POST ON THE PREVIOUS PAGE. Seriously, do we have to do this every year?

Does it do anything? :/