Hit the Lights on the Way Out - Pile of Shame Oct.-Dec 2020

Oh, that reminds me. I've finished Wasteland 2.

Not sure yet what I'll try to finish next.

Hey I finished Batman Arkham Origins (PC, multi).

Was actually playing it back in Sept. Can't remember if I declared it then. But my daughter was born early and I forgot all about it. Finally saw it in my Steam list and fired it up tonight. I was at the 2nd part of Bane fight, then one more group fight then final boss. 15 minutes and game cleared haha.

The main game is tons of fun. The extras, like the riddler stuff, is insane. Way too many and too much and just empty ways to fill the game and tying bonus powers to them is annoying. No way I will try for 100%, even though I did that twice on the original Arkham Asylum game on both PS3 and PC.

Oh almost forgot my list. Here you go:


World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth
Endless Space 2
Assassin’s Creed: Origins
Warhammer 40K: Gladius
Small World
Dishonored
Tacoma

Credits rolled on The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit a few days ago.
Not much "game" here, but a good experience that also takes on some difficult themes (spoilered below). It's a free teaser for Life is Strange 2, and lasts about 2 hours. There's no reason not to try it out.

Spoiler:

When bad things happen in life, how do we deal? How does it affect those around us and how do they cope?
It never went full dark, but I experienced a real feeling of creeping dread at the prospect of some actions, and therefore either avoided them completely, overcompensated to attempt to mitigate the effects, or put off the interactions as long as possible.

Budgeted one evening for this and that's all it took.

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Halfway through the end of the year, so here's a status update:

Finished
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1979 Revolution: Black Friday - (Budget/Actual: 2/2 days)
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit - (Budget/Actual: 1/1 days)
Far Cry 2 - (Budget/Actual: 10/16 days = 6 days over)
Sanitarium - (Budget/Actual: 4/5 days = 1 day over)

Declaring
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Loom - (PC) for the adventure game club. Budgeting 4 days. Already spent two on it.

Progress report
------------------------
Life is Strange: Before the Storm - not started
Loom - two 30 minute sessions so far. Was having trouble with it until I realized that I should check out the "manual"....that makes things a LOT clearer.
Marvel's Spider-Man - played about 15 minutes and went from 27 to 29% story progress.
Mass Effect 2 - been playing this heavily. Had 10 days budgeted, but at 11 already and a lot of game left. I could push through to the end fairly quickly, but am missing loyalty missions and numerous side missions.
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin - not started
Remember Me - no progress.
Silent Hill 2 - Resumed my old save and played about 20 minutes. Went down a dark hallway and saw a figure in the gloom. Slowly got closer, shone my flashlight on it and saw it was made of mannequin legs in a humanoid shape. It wasn't moving. Kept illuminating it, and just as I decided it wasn't going to move.....IT CHARGED AT ME in herky-jerky movements. Ran to the nearest safe room, saved, and NOPE'd out of the game. Haven't gone back yet and it's been a month.
Wasteland 2 - no progress.

I'm way out of my initial planned order, but that's fine. I'm playing whatever I'm in the mood for and making progress. Progress has, so far, been quite a bit slower than anticipated (in part thanks to completionist tendencies), so I'm beginning to look at potential games to "give up on" for now. The most likely candidates that will carry over into next year are currently Life is Strange, Psychonauts, and Spider-Man. I haven't given up on Wasteland 2 yet as I'd like to finish it in the CRPG club 6 month window, but considering I'm only an hour in, I fear I may burn myself out on it trying to get it done in the few weeks left.
I'd also like to play at least one VR game this year, so there's still hope for Psychonauts.

Enough navel gazing. Mass Effect 2 is calling me

Crossing Middle-Earth: Shadow of War off the list. Though I didn’t get to the end of the game, I’m pretty much “done” with it.

I have wrapped up Goetia, both "bad" and "good" endings. An interesting experience, to be sure, though I did end up having to us not one, but two walkthroughs to reach the finish line.

I was debating whether I should drop it from the backlog of finish it, and I ended up going with the latter: Assassin's Creed Liberation is done.

That game is totally skippable.

For some reason, the combat never seemed to work right compared to Revelations, quite possibly because I completely forgot to buy new weapons, a fact that the final battles of the game liked to remind me when it was actually too late to do anything about. It looked quite nice for an upgraded Vita port, and had some fun platforming sections here and there, but overall, if you're on a quest to beat all the relevant AC games, this one does not bring anything to the table.

bobbywatson wrote:

I was debating whether I should drop it from the backlog of finish it, and I ended up going with the latter: Assassin's Creed Liberation is done.

That game is totally skippable.

For some reason, the combat never seemed to work right compared to Revelations, quite possibly because I completely forgot to buy new weapons, a fact that the final battles of the game liked to remind me when it was actually too late to do anything about. It looked quite nice for an upgraded Vita port, and had some fun platforming sections here and there, but overall, if you're on a quest to beat all the relevant AC games, this one does not bring anything to the table.

Haaaaaard disagree, but I think it's because Aveline is such a wonderful character and came before Kassandra and Evie.

Eleima wrote:

Haaaaaard disagree, but I think it's because Aveline is such a wonderful character and came before Kassandra and Evie.

That's fair. And for the record, I did like Aveline overall, and I did appreciate the fact that The Company Man ended up being

Spoiler:

The Company Woman

, which I was a nice twist (although I spoiled myself beforehand by reading check an FAQ to see how long I still had to go before finishing the game).

Ori and the Will of the Wisps done!

Finished two games in the past week:
Mass Effect 2
Loom

Reviews will follow when I find the time.

While my timetable was wobbly in the middle of November, it has now been destroyed. Loom had a budget of 4 evenings and it took 4 (three of those were 30 minutes or less, to be fair). Mass Effect 2 is the game that blew all estimates out of the water. It had a budget of 10 evenings; it took almost the entire month of November, however, and finished at 23.

I've now given up on seeing the end of Wasteland 2 before the new year and have decided to focus on finishing games I've started, followed by anything else that's reasonably short. With Spider-Man being the last "big" game I've declared (and have already gotten 34% through the campaign), that leaves pretty much everything else (Silent Hill 2, Remember Me, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, as well as the started, but so far undeclared Dino Crisis) as "possible" except for Wasteland 2. Sorry Godzilla Blitz. It's now scheduled for after Banner Saga.

Well, you can finish ME2 in ten evenings, but do you really want to?

I guess I should put Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (PC, multi) on the list. I've been playing it pretty hard for a couple weeks and am apparently over halfway through the story. Maybe I can finish this month.

And can I put down Spider-Man DLC (PS4) as finished? I beat the main game when it released before any of the DLC came out. But I popped back in the last couple months and knocked all 3 of them out in short bursts. Got the last one done last week, so I could transfer my 100% save file to the remastered version on PS5.

Eleima wrote:

Well, you can finish ME2 in ten evenings, but do you really want to? :D

I was about 20 hours in prior to September, so I thought it was doable. It didn't help that I bought all the DLC when I had finished almost everything in the base game prior to the point of no return, then finished all that before activating the IFF.

I also stripped way too many planets bare of resources (and had several hundred thousand of all except E0 left over at the end). Makes you wonder why there are mining installations on so many planets when all it takes is a few probes from space to get the stuff.

I want to declare Hob (multi/PC).

I started playing it on a whim (I got it for free from the Epic store a few months back), and I will definitely play it to completion this month. That game's amazing, y'all! Looking at the other games I played in the-year-that-shall-not-be-named for the first time, I think it will end up being the best of them all!

bobbywatson wrote:

Looking at the other games I played in the-year-that-shall-not-be-named for the first time, I think it will end up being the best of them all!

Ooooh, that sounds promising!! It's been in my Pile for a while, I'll have to get to it soon. Looking forward to your list in the GOTY thread.

Eleima wrote:
bobbywatson wrote:

Looking at the other games I played in the-year-that-shall-not-be-named for the first time, I think it will end up being the best of them all!

Ooooh, that sounds promising!! It's been in my Pile for a while, I'll have to get to it soon. Looking forward to your list in the GOTY thread. :)

I should probably get started on that It's only going to be a top 5, since haven't played that many new games this year (although I found the time to replay a bunch of old games for some reason).

And Hob (multi) is done! It was amazing!

Whew, finally wrapped up Trails of Cold Steel 2. I haven't been able to play it since the end of October since my PS4 got stuck in an update loop and I had to send it in to Sony to get fixed. The extended break is my fault since I was going to be visiting my parents' a lot over the holidays, I used their address, unaware that Sony was going to send a prepaid shipping box and instructions to send my PS4 to them. So lost about 3 weeks from my fix submission to when I actually mailed it in, then it arrived after I left their place for Thanksgiving, so I had to wait until I came back for Christmas to play it.

I finally beat something old! Jedi Fallen order is done.

Since my last update, I finished:
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin - really wowed me for 30 minutes. It was merely "pretty good" after that.
Marvel's Spider-Man - a ton of fun and made a real case for my GOTY, but lost out to:
Life is Strange: Before the Storm - at SEVERE risk of recency bias, my GOTY.

Sorry, once again no time for more detailed thoughts on these atm.

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Final status update.

Finished
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1979 Revolution: Black Friday - (Budget/Actual: 2/2 days = on target)
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit - (Budget/Actual: 1/1 days = on target)
Far Cry 2 - (Budget/Actual: 10/16 days = 6 days over)
Sanitarium - (Budget/Actual: 4/5 days = 1 day over)
Mass Effect 2 - (Budget/Actual: 10/23 days = 13 days over)
Loom - (Budget/Actual: 4/4 days = on target)
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin - (Budget/Actual: 3/2 days = 1 day under)
Marvel's Spider-Man - (Budget/Actual: 10/15 days = 5 days over)
Life is Strange: Before the Storm - (Budget/Actual: 5/4 days = 1 day under)

Progress report
------------------------
Remember Me - Went from 31% to 35% story progress in the course of 90 minutes.
Silent Hill 2 - About an hour played since the thread started. Made it to West Silent Hill.
Wasteland 2 - no progress.

I can safely say that I played some really excellent games in these past 3 months, even if most of them took much longer than anticipated. Initial plans were to focus on things that I'd already started, but as the end of the month neared, I just found myself far more in the mood for the new Life is Strange and Psychonauts RoR than continuing Remember Me or Silent Hill.

As is typical of me in the end of year pile thread, I bit off more than I could chew hahaha. I only beat The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, so that's something.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

Finished games.....Reviews will follow when I find the time.

Well, the time for the first 3 (of 5) has been found. Review text for the first two spoilered for length.

Loom

Spoiler:

I imagine that if I had played Loom near when it was a current game, that I would have been more awed. It is a VERY different game compared to its contemporaries, and honestly, I think that's what kept me from being interested in the early 90's. The music-based interaction is, to the best of my knowledge, a wholly unique system for the time, and it is pretty well done. I liked how it made you think of how you could use notes for an action in a different way to create different effects, and including some spell names as red herrings was a fiendish little ploy.
Or was it? I honestly had the feeling that the developers ran out of time and/or budget on Loom, as it somehow felt....incomplete. There always seemed to be the promise of some bigger vision that never comes to pass. Locations seem underdeveloped (and, in a post-mortem, grander plans for at least one section were confirmed). Perhaps Lucasarts actually intended to have all the spells in the book included in the final product. We'll probably never know.
As pretty as they were, it seemed odd to me that some meticulously rendered areas were only used for a single interaction in the released product. Not only was the game sound sparse (there is rarely any sound aside from the casting of spells or speech, which I initially thought was a bug), but many locations seem empty. I honestly don't know if this was deliberate or not.
I was also surprised at the difficulty I had navigating numerous areas - possible paths were indistinguishable from the background for me at least three times, and another time I found myself stuck at a barrier, spending a good while trying to figure out what puzzle I had to solve to progress - turns out the puzzle was "click on the small visible bit of terrain on the other side of the barrier".

I'm glad I finally played Loom. Even though I'm not sure what all of it meant, I'm happy to finally understand several jokes/references in other Lucasarts games (Monkey Island series) now. I just wish there had been more to it, and that the vision that I feel was there had been realized in full.

Mass Effect 2

Spoiler:

I first played Mass Effect 2 in the second half of 2017, shortly after completing my first-and-only playthrough of ME 1. I had a tough time adapting to the changed gameplay mechanics and subsequently bounced off hard after just a few hours. I recognized that it wasn't a bad game; I just wasn't in a position to appreciate it after having so loved Mass Effect 1 in spite of that game's warts.

It seemed that, compared to the first game, the RPG element that I had so enjoyed had been simplified to an unpleasant degree, and the changed combat didn't really click with me. The cinematics were impressive and Omega (where I stopped playing just after recruiting Mordin) was impressive.

Fast forward to 2020 and my occasional thoughts of picking the game back combine with my determination to clear some games off of my hard drive that have sat there for years. Now, with the memory of Mass Effect 1 sufficiently faded, I see ME2 in a beautiful new light. Within the span of a few weeks, I've increased my playtime from less than 5 hours to over 70 (I purchased all the DLC shortly before the end - getting that to work on the Steam version was stupid-complicated though) before watching the credits roll

The game had hooked me....hard. And, as I said about ME1 - "warts and all".

I got used to the combat (except for the having to take cover, then vaulting over objects rather than simply being able to jump). In fact, it was rarely very challenging and it wasn't until the latter 1/3 that I even began to use powers, aside from ammo effects, in any significant way. Admittedly, once I got the hang of some of the fully powered up abilities, I wished I had used them sooner. I stuck with pistols and rifles - ESPECIALLY once I got the Mattock Assault rifle - through almost all encounters, and it usually worked just fine.

Missions were nicely varied - moreso than the original - with some impressive set pieces. The galaxy was truly expansive, and the major locations really felt like they could be real places. The dialog was a step up as well......in most cases, and I enjoyed seeing what had become of my old crew, with one exception early on.

Yet there rarely seemed to be much urgency between missions. Yes, there was this imminent threat that would wipe out everyone, but it didn't want to impose and would therefore wait until I was good and ready, I had filled my ship the brim with personell, upgraded everything, and made everyone on my crew super-duper happy. Oh, and until I'd filled my quarters with lots of little knick-knacks.

Yes, I did every quest, recruited every possible member, and made sure they were loyal. I even grew to appreciate the crew members who I initially disliked - except for one. Kasumi is welcome to get off at the next station, ship, or inhospitable asteroid. Loved her recruitement mission, hated the character. On the other hand, Thane is possibly my favorite ME character, so I guess it somehow balances out?

Remember how I mentioned that the dialog was a step up...in most cases? Well, it fell flat for me in the romance bits. I had a thing for Kelly, but the dialog was just - I'm sorry - BAD in how direct it was straight from the beginning. My advances were so unbelievably blunt that it became a turnoff and I went for Garrus instead - at least that was good for some laughs, not to mention that he was just super-reliable and I liked him as well.

Then we come to scanning planets. I realize the Mako was not everyone's cup of tea and that it could be quite tedious, but at least it added a sense of exploration to the planets, even if much of the content was cut-and-past. Scanning planets for resources, on the other hand, was -just- tedious. It didn't help that I had no idea how many resources I'd need, so I spent tons of time earlier on stocking up, only to have massive surpluses of each element at the end of the game with nothing to spend them on. And no ability to sell them.

In fact, I wondered why mining colonies even existed if all future space people had to do was send probes down from orbit.

It seems like I'm being overly harsh here, but the fact is that ME2 is one of my top five games of the year. When it's impressive, it's DAMN impressive. It just has lots of minor scars that I wish had been removed, just like I fixed up Shepherd's scars when I got the chance.

Finally, I have to say - hearing Shoreh Aghdashloo (Chrisjen Avasarala in The Expanse) in the role she was cast in was an incredible treat. I wouldn't have recognized her had I been unfamiliar with the Expanse, but ME2 puts her in basically the same role as she gets years later in The Expanse, and it is just perfect casting!

Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin
What a treat it was to be back with Raz and the gang. In the HD era. In virtual reality! I was grinning ear-to-ear for about the first 30 minutes of this short puzzle game (this being my only VR game this year may have contributed to that reaction). The novelty did wear off a bit after that, but I still really enjoyed my time with it, and am even more excited for Psychonauts 2.

Yes, Rhombus of Ruin is a puzzle game. Not a 3d platformer. You read that right.
Raz still has psychic powers, still has that same charm and trademark wacky humor that makes you laugh out loud every now and again. It's just "warp to point" VR movement and use your powers to solve mostly simple puzzles to get to the end of a story that gets surprisingly dark. The latter shouldn't be a complete surprise to Psychonauts veterans though.

In summary, Rhombus of Ruin is a pretty great way to spend 2-3 hours in VR.

...and the final two reviews:

Marvel's Spider-Man (2018)
What a joy this is! In fact, I've kept playing it after the credits rolled in order to attempt to 100% the map. It helps that my oldest keeps asking me to play it.

Gorgeous, exciting, emotional, fun and funny. There's very little I can complain about, but I'll give it a try.
- There are too many of the optional "stop this crime" missions, and they repeat a bit often.
- If I ever have to catch pigeons in mid-air again, it'll be too soon.
- The city, as astoundingly real as it feels, seems populated almost exclusively by 18-40 year olds.
- In fights with lots of fast movement over larger areas, I sometimes felt I was fighting the camera more than the enemies. I guess you could argue that it does a good job of capturing the disorientation one would feel in such a situation.
- Most of the optional Taskmaster challenges can die in a fire. Not sure if I'll ever be able to afford all the suits
- Did ANYBODY aside from Peter not see those twists coming??

Those are honestly all the negatives I can think of for a game that I spent probably close to 50 hours with. That's really impressive.

I loved exploring the amazingly detailed city, I enjoyed the story, the dailog was great and witty, and the combat was fun and fluid. It was odd playing the game in 2020, as there were several uncomfortable paralells between that fictional world and the real one we live in. Not only did this apply to the larger story themes, but even Rush Lim...I mean Jonah Jameson was a constant annoyance in my ear, and was just a dead-on eerie reflection of "alternative facts".

It's impressive that in the course of playing this game, that I probably learned more about Spider-Man than I'd soaked up in my previous decades on this planet. I also learned more about New York City as a whole, and I feel like I have a better sense of landmark locations than I had before. I did search for some that weren't in the game (Hotel from Home Alone 2, Ghostbusters fire station in the correct location), but they obviously couldn't add everything anyone would think of. Besides, the fire station IS in the game, just in a different location - next to Central Park.

Finally, contrary to what many have said, I fast-traveled numerous times. Web swinging is fun, but sometimes you just want to get to your destination - and the game rewards you in numerous different ways that even change at least once depending on what is going on in the main story.

Thanks to this game, Miles Morales is currently my #1 game to play for whenever I get my hands on a PS5.

Life is Strange: Before the Storm
The original Life is Strange, which was my third favorite game last year only because the competition was so stiff, is fading a bit in my memory, but my current feeling is that the prequel, Before the Storm, surpasses the original! The story seems more intimate, centering on working through feelings of loss and betrayal. It is helped by being far more grounded in reality, which makes it easier to relate to. Some choices were truly difficult to make, and I even missed out on the best ending because several hours earlier I didn't do something because it just seemed like too much to ask of someone.

Some great highs, some deep lows, and it was all told with a deep sincerity that is rare not only in gaming, but other media as well. Game of the Year for me for sure!

What I'm not sure about is if this should be played before playing Life is Strange. It would give lots more context to the original which should result in a deeper emotional investment in the characters. At the same time, that game is Max's story, and she simply doesn't know about the things that took in Before the Storm.

Maybe I just need to replay the original game now with my newfound knowledge.

EDIT: Actually, there is ONE thing that bothered me about Before the Storm. For some reason the delivery of the lines was often strangely S-L-O-W with frequent, unnatural pauses. This affected several characters, including Chloe. The only explanation I could come up with is the developers made the animation for the translation with the longest speaking time, and then stretched the other voiced translations to match the animation.

There's 3 pigeons in Miles Morales. Otherwise I think you'll really like it.

I guess I can deal with three pigeons. If they're not too hard to catch. Thanks for the warning