May I Play a Game? - Pile of Shame May 2019

My pile play was the April Fool's joke... Yikes. Think I managed a few hours of a couple of games, but it was nothing impressive. Let's turn that frown upside down.

If you're interested, m0nk3yboy, has the 12 month 2019 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, Picks of the Pile, etc... Please go here and check out the spreadsheet I setup.

Let's get on to the games!

This month's Pick of the Pile is

The Messenger


IMAGE(http://www.sabotagestudio.com/img/messenger_screenshot_06.jpg)
"One day, a ninja village is attacked by an evil Demon King. It is then that a supposed "Western Hero" appears and gives a scroll to one of the surviving ninjas, appointing him as "The Messenger" and telling him to deliver it to the top of a mountain. During his journey, the Messenger is aided by a mysterious blue-robed shopkeeper who provides him with upgrades and a demon named Quarble who helps to save him from death" (wikipedia)

Multi-Platform
Axiom Verge - brokenclavicle
Blackwell Unbound - Eleima
The Cave - brokenclavicle
The Council - Eleima
Dead Space - Hemi
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice - Eleima
Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - bobbywatson
Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 - JohnKillo
The Messenger - brokenclavicle
Murdered: Soul Suspect - AUs_TBirD
Still Life - AUs_TBirD

PC

PS4

Xbox One

Nintendo 3DS
Super Mario 3D Land - LastSurprise

NES
Strider - LastSurprise
Wrath of the Black Manta - LastSurprise

Feeling a little lonely in here...

I'm just hesitant to set myself up for certain total failure again

Oh fine.
Carrying over Murdered: Soul Suspect (360/multi) from last month. Should be done in 2-3 more hours.

Probably within an hour of Still Life (PC) as well, so put that up there.

I've been spending too much of my limited gaming time in open worlds (AC Odyssey and Yakuza 0 lately).

Success! Credits rolled on Still Life!

It has its charms - a promising overarching story, decent main characters, a cool flashback aspect, and some nice settings.

It also has some horrific voice work, occasionally unbelievably poor writing, some massive stereotypes (I cringed anytime a person of color was about to speak for the first time and was always proven right - hello Chris Tucker's character from The Fifth Element!), some extremely sexist tropes, occasional pixel hunts (the X-acto knife at the end was particularly bad), background items that can only be interacted with upon passing some arbitrary milestone (fire extinguisher) and several stupidly obtuse puzzles. I consulted a walkthrough numerous times - either because the puzzle, even upon knowing the answer still appeared illogical, or just to save (a lot of) time. Once, a walkthrough wasn't enough (lockpicking) and I even had to use youtube.
Speaking of time, Still Life doesn't respect your's very much, as it occasionally features a ridiculous amount of jogging back and forth between locations to do individual actions of a larger chain.

Although I was initially very positive on the game, the more I played it, the more I soured on it.

Still Life is an example of great potential held back by too many flaws.
2 out of 5 stars.

The goal for this month is Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (multi/Vita). I am playing other things, but I do not plan to focus on them until next month.

Trails in Cold Steel 2. I've stalled a bit but still trucking.

Hemidal wrote:

Feeling a little lonely in here... :)

Sorry, I’ve been on vacation and not paying as much attention to the forums. I’m carrying over Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (multi). Hopefully, that won’t talk too long. Might as well throw in Blackwell Unbound (multi) since it’s this month’s adventure game.

I passed last month, but for May, I’m going to throw down three: Super Mario 3D Land (3DS), Strider (NES), and Wrath of the Black Manta) (NES).

I had said at the beginning of the year that I wanted to try to clear my NES backlog. I think it’s time to start!

Eleima wrote:
Hemidal wrote:

Feeling a little lonely in here... :)

Sorry, I’ve been on vacation and not paying as much attention to the forums. I’m carrying over Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (multi). Hopefully, that won’t talk too long. Might as well throw in Blackwell Unbound (multi) since it’s this month’s adventure game.

It's all good. It was my shameless thread bump without just posting "bump."

Heh, all good. Incidentally, I just wrapped up Blackwell Unbound.

I really must play something besides Rocket League and Warframe.

Going with a few relatively short games before declaring the big boys (RPG's) for June:


The Messenger (Multi)
The Cave (Multi)
Axiom Verge (Multi)

That should do for me. One carry-over, two newish titles.

Solved the mystery of Murdered: Soul Suspect last night. It really is a game just shy of greatness due to several minor annoyances and a few elements that could have been fleshed out more.

I loved the concept and setting. Seeing past Salem blend with modern day was neat and I loved exploring. The various mysteries were usually interesting and the side missions led to some creepy stories. Speaking of creepy, the effects used were definitely that until I got used to them.

The writing as well as most of the voice cast deserve some recognition! The overarching story was mostly well done and had me guessing wrong several times until the big reveal. A few loose ends remain - for example the motivation of the antagonist's initial misdeed remained unclear to me, but perhaps I just forgot it over the course of a month. In terms of the voice cast, I think the actor for the player character NAILED his part, and I can't believe he doesn't do more games.

As I mentioned, most complaints are minor. The gameplay mechanics could have really been expanded upon and some of the unique ones used more. There is lots of repeated dialog among random NPCs, which in a way is good as it let me know who to focus on at least... That voice work, however, was usually not so stellar. I also felt there were some navigation issues inside buildings which led to numerous deaths and reloads, the game suffered from some serious performance hitches when loading new areas, and the puzzle solutions sometimes felt like they could have had multiple solutions, but only one was the "acceptable" one. Also, the rules for what objects could be passed through seemed a bit arbitrary, the moment-to-moment writing does stumble at times, and the game really did rely on collect-a-thons a bit much, although those were mostly optional.

I really enjoyed Murdered: Soul Suspect......most of the time. I would have loved to see what could have been with a slightly expanded scope and some more time in the oven.

I fully concur with AUs_TBirD. I really think Murdered: Soul Suspect is underrated.

I finished Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice! Yay me!

Eleima wrote:

I finished Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice! Yay me! :D

Good job. I meant to play it when it was game of the month but feel like I missed my chance.

I feel like I need one full day to make a gaming push and get one or two of my picks done. It's been a very busy month in non-gaming subjects, so it's been tough to get around to putting some quality time with my games.

Hopefully, I can do so next week during the weekend!

Stele wrote:
Eleima wrote:

I finished Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice! Yay me! :D

Good job. I meant to play it when it was game of the month but feel like I missed my chance.

It's never to late to play a great game!!! This one is GOTY material.

I'm also going to declare The Council (Multi).

And The Council is down. I do not recommend it. I got through it, but it goes completely off the rails halfway through, and it was a slog.

Super Mario 3D Land is down! Fun little game, and a great thing to play in short bursts on my commute.

Aaaaand the first round of The Cave is done. Going to get the Platinum somewhere in there, but for the purpose of clearing the Pile, this game is done.