Beat the Heat, Play the Pile - Pile of Shame June 2021

Last month made up for the past three years on Pile games. I'm going to keep this train moving forward. No stops, all easy.

Let's see what we're playing this month.

Some housekeeping notes.

If you're interested, trueheart78, has the 12 month 2021 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 Outer Wilds


IMAGE(https://www.psu.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/outer-wilds-ps4-review-1.jpg)
"The planets of Outer Wilds are packed with hidden locations that change with the passage of time. Visit an underground city before it’s swallowed by rising sand, or explore the crust of a hollow planet as it crumbles beneath your feet. Every secret is guarded by hazardous environments and natural disasters as the solar system spirals out of control." (Official Site)

Multi-Platform
The Alliance Alive - Malkroth, LastSurprise
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey - jdzappa
Batman: Arkham Asylum - AUs_TBirD
Bugsnax - Stele
Eastshade - benign1
Forgotton Anne - AUs_TBirD, benign1
Gears 5 - Hemi
Heavy Rain - AUs_TBirD
Into the Breach - jdzappa
Lego The Ninjago Movie Videogame - bobbywatson
Maquette - benign1
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - brokenclavicle
Murder by Numbers - charlemagne
Observation - benign1
The Outer Wilds - iaintgotnopants
Red Dead Redemption 2 - iaintgotnopants
Star Wars Squadrons - Stele
Streets of Rage 4 - AUs_TBirD
Subnautica - iaintgotnopants
Super Mario 3D World - iaintgotnopants
Whispers of a Machine - benign1

PC
Black Mesa - Forlorn Hope
Guild Wars 2 Living Story Season 2 - jdzappa
Half Life: Alyx - Forlorn Hope
Imperator - jdzappa
Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm - LastSurprise
Tyranny - brokenclavicle, LastSurprise

PS4

Nintendo Switch
Ring Fit Adventure - Forlorn Hope

Nintendo 3DS
Radiant Historia - Stele

Oops. Carrying over some stuff.

Radiant Historia (3DS)

I'll have to see what else I'm ready to abandon or keep playing.

Guess who's carrying over everything? Me, that's who!

Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
Tyranny (PC)

I suck at completion this year hahaha.

Here are my games for June:


Guild Wars 2 Living Story Season 2
Imperator
Into the Breach
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Formatted shortlist:

Spoiler:

Multi-Platform
Batman: Arkham Asylum - AUs_TBirD
Forgotton Anne - AUs_TBirD
Streets of Rage 4 - AUs_TBirD

Playstation 3
Heavy Rain - AUs_TBirD

Last month wasn't nearly as successful as I'd hoped. Even though the claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny, I'm still going to blame being introduced to Cobra Kai, which I binge-watched last weekend rather than playing pile games.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC/multi) - 30% done according to the game. I'll keep working on it. It's not my first choice to play at night, but when I do fire it up, I enjoy it.

Aside from the fact that every time I press the Trigger on the 360 controller to fire the grapple, the controller turns off...

Forgotton Anne (PC/multi) - For the adventure game club.

Heavy Rain (PS3) - Approximately halfway. It's gripping when I play it. Some sections have prompts that come so quickly that it's borderline impossible to get them right without having memorized them. Just shot a guy and didn't drive as far as I wanted to, so things are going wrong.

Streets of Rage 4 (Switch/multi) - Hey guys, it's good! Just finished stage 4 of the story. There are difficulty spikes, but they are not unfair.

Carrying over:
Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (PC/multi)

And adding:
Tyranny (PC/multi)

Only one thing to declare at the moment: Lego The Ninjago Movie Videogame (multi). That game should be trash. It's not, and had me laugh out loud on a few occasions.

I'm playing other things, but I don't expect to finish either of them in June. I might add another short game at some point.

Well, lost more time in June than I thought I would and didn't complete my game, so carrying it over to this month. For now, just going to stick with it and once I complete it figure out something else to play.
The Alliance Alive (multi)

Carrying over Subnautica and Super Mario 3D World (again).

I was worried about Subnautica because those first couple hours are super boring. Go out and collect resources without any idea what is and isn't useful. Fill my tiny inventory and go back to the lifeboat. Craft whatever I can. Go out again. Repeat multiple times but sometimes accidentally go to the same place I've already been since there's no map and waste a trip. Luckily, I've gotten passed that and it's actually a fun game (this is my problem with every survival game which is why I almost never play them).

Carrying over Murder by Numbers on Switch. Life definitely got in the way last month.

I meant to add The Alliance Alive, like Malkroth did. Forgot to, earlier. But in any event, it's finished!

Lego The Ninjago Movie Videogame is done! As I said above, this was way better than I thought it was going to be (especially for a Steam freebie), and I had an excellent time with it! I'm not going back to 100% it, but what I've played was great!

Nothing else to declare at the moment. I'm juggling two long JRPGs at the moment (Xenogears and Trails to Azure), neither of which I'm going to finish this month, although I might have room for another short game, but I have no idea what that game is going to be.

Finished Subnautica. I put about 15 legitimate hours into it. At that point, I was getting tired of how grindy it was getting to make my next vehicle so I started cheating like crazy. I liked the idea but the story elements were too thin justify the grindiness. Very unlikely that I'll play the sequel.

Not sure what I'm going to play next. I'll probably decide this weekend.

After skipping the monthly pile thread last month, I did it! I beat a game! That game is Black Mesa (PC) so I'm going to declare and strike it off at the same time. Next I want to put forth Ring Fit Adventure (Switch) since I just have the last world to go. And finally, I'll put down Half Life: Alyx (PC) as well. Really excited to check that one out.

So what’s the rule again for declaring open ended strategy games as “done”? I’ve almost completed the Rise of Rome scenario in Imperator but I don’t think I have it in me to play the next 500 years game time /30+ hours real time.

jdzappa wrote:

So what’s the rule again for declaring open ended strategy games as “done”? I’ve almost completed the Rise of Rome scenario in Imperator but I don’t think I have it in me to play the next 500 years game time /30+ hours real time.

Call it done!

Very good Imperator is done!

Gears 5 is finished. I still like that series.

I guess I should declare some things now that we're well into June. Looks it's adventure club catch up month! Plus a little low-hanging fruit. I'll be shocked if I get through all of this...

Multi-Platform
Eastshade
Forgotton Anne
Maquette
Observation
Whispers of a Machine

benign1 wrote:

I guess I should declare some things now that we're well into June. Looks it's adventure club catch up month! Plus a little low-hanging fruit. I'll be shocked if I get through all of this...

Multi-Platform
Eastshade
Forgotton Anne
Maquette
Observation
Whispers of a Machine

That’s one phenomenal list, if I do say so myself!

Forgot to add these as carry over but let's put them on the list as finished. Had a great day and knocked off 2 games!

Bugsnax (PS5, multi)
Star Wars Squadrons (PS4, multi)

I posted thoughts in the PS5 games thread about Bugsnax. Think I'll write something up for Squadrons in its thread in the morning

And last night I completed The Alliance Alive (multi) for the JRPG club. It was an engaging game that really shows its 3DS heritage, with lots of optional grind and bite-sized narrative segments. I enjoyed my time with the game, and definitely spent too long grinding random fights. Most of my thoughts are in the JRPG club thread devoted to it.

Now to decide if there's something else I want to tackle or take it easy before the next JRPG club game.

I started Outer Wilds this week. I haven't gotten particularly far but I think I'm done with it. Seems like a decent idea but the movement of both the character and the ship is such hot garbage it's just not fun.

I think I'm going to play Red Dead Redemption 2 next. That might end up taking me into August.

This month has been a disaster in terms of pile pledges so far.
Aside from one good push in Heavy Rain during a sick day, and playing about 90 minutes of Forgotton Anne, I've not really made any progress. I've gotten sidetracked by a few nights of Koudelka in anticipation of a deep dive Cane and Rinse podcast, returning to Assassin's Creed Odyssey for some short pick-up-and-play sessions late at night that require little mental investment, and the European Championship games.

The kids rarely being asleep before 9:30/10pm nowadays doesn't help one bit either. We normally start the bedtime process at 7:30...

Well darn. I didn't touch the 3ds much lately. Got back into Rocket League and finished adventure mode of the new Mario Golf, so it will never see the pile. Guess Radiant Historia carries over to another month.

I managed to finish off Observation and Whispers of a Machine this month, so not a complete wash, but I wasn't expecting to have 3 games to carry over...

Had a second sick day Tuesday which allowed me to finish Heavy Rain.

It was really gripping every time I sat down to play it, but getting TO the point of playing it was always the issue, as it demands longer stretches of uninterrupted time to really get into. I thought the many different scenes and interplay of characters was fascinating, the many possible actions and use of the controller very interesting (if not always successfully pulled off), and the facial animation pretty darn great. Characters were, for the most part, believably portrayed. I did not have a clue who the real killer was until the reveal.

...and that's where my complaints begin. The story, in retrospect, only partially makes sense. I couldn't seem to square a few earlier scenes with my newfound knowledge. The motivation for some actions didn't seem logical. At least one side-thread is just left largely unresolved.

Spoiler:

The rich kid.

I like surprise twists, but not when they don't entirely make sense.

As for the gameplay, it's certainly unique (at least for 2010), and I enjoyed it largely. Making my character walk in the direction I wanted in tight spaces with shifting camera angles was sometimes a minor challenge, but the bigger problem was just that some scenes give you such short prompts, that it seems impossible to succeed without at least some memorization of them (the convenience store scene was the first of these). It also didn't seem to register "up" correctly sometimes. Needless to say, I restarted some scenes numerous times before the game autosaved progress.

I'm glad I played Heavy Rain and therefore finally finished a David Cage joint (I got most of the way through Fahrenheit many years ago). Detroit: Become Human is on my must play list.

Regarding the month as a whole - as benign1 said it really well, I'll just quote and edit:
I managed to finish off (Heavy Rain) so not a complete wash, but I wasn't expecting to have 3 games to carry over...

Yet another month where I don't beat any of my claimed games... or any games, in this case.