Grab What You Can from the Pile and Don't Strain Yourself

Been a while since I've worked on the pile. Put me down for Vanquish since I've been on the last chapter forever, and The Saboteur.

Edit: Oh and Resistance 1, been putting it off for a while.

I put it off forever but I finally wrapped up Dragon Quest IX today.

Total failure this month. I didn't even start Enslaved..... and now The Witcher 2 is here. There is zero chance that I'll finish my commitment... or even start it, really.

Finished Vanquish, finishing up resistance next.

Well, I finished Goldeneye 007 last weekend and really liked it. I've been trying to see if I have anything else to claim for the pile, but it doesn't look like it. I'm just working on a few different games (including one I added to the pile, but had wanted to do so since it came out and before I had a PS3 - Valkyria Chronicles) that I'm not sure I'll finish this month. Oh well, 2 declared and finished for the month is good enough.

Batman Arkham Asylum should be finished this month..

and of course I caved and bought Singularity....

Failure, here. I leave for my wedding and honeymoon at 7am tomorrow, and my canonical party in Baldur's Gate is still grinding their way down through Durlag's tower. Would have made it, were it not for ToSC!

Next month, Sarevok. Next month!

Maybe I'll get to Fable 3. Maybe. But can't it be in multiplatform now?

My Dragon Age/Shogun 2 obsession has taken me completely away from BioShock 1. Is this a game I could realistically finish in a weekend, say 10-12 hours?

jdzappa wrote:

Is this a game I could realistically finish in a weekend, say 10-12 hours?

Yup - it's not super-long. 10ish hours seems about right in my (admittedly flawed) memory.

I finally completed Uncharted 2. Dang, that game was fun. I am already on Chapter 8 on a second playthrough on Hard and a few hours into Chrono Trigger on the DS. Go me!

AndrewA wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Is this a game I could realistically finish in a weekend, say 10-12 hours?

Yup - it's not super-long. 10ish hours seems about right in my (admittedly flawed) memory.

It took me about a week and a half at 1.5-2 hours a night. It was a nice pace for it too. If you don't need to rush it, it's worth taking time to stop and smell all the roses (and by roses I mean audio files) and just soak up Rapture and all it's wrongness.

I'd agree, somewhere between 10 and 15hrs, depending on length of gaming sessions, etc.

Just beat Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. I thought it was quite good, but the first is still the best of the three.

Thanks to enthusiasm stemming from the beta, I finally beat Gears of War. Yes, 1. On Casual.

I think that's how I beat it as well, and I've spent a ton of time in Gears 2. I've come to play games how I can enjoy them, even if that means on an easier difficulty.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Thanks to enthusiasm stemming from the beta, I finally beat Gears of War. Yes, 1. On Casual.

I beat Gears 2 on normal before I played Gears 1 (which I still haven't beaten) and I had to turn it down to casual for Gears 1. The difficult is just so much higher.

OK, I finally finished my Europa Universalis III Grand Campaign. Steam says I have put >120 hours into it and I basically played one campaign. I also basically did nothing except react to events for the last 100 years. Man, that thing took forever.

Still, I don't think I did badly. I was playing Spain, in yellow.

IMAGE(http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5146/5753605200_410f075559_z.jpg)

Going to get started on Deus Ex next. I think I've had enough strategy for a while.

Shatter is finished. Once I remapped the controls to my liking, I enjoyed it more. It's an enjoyable twist on Breakout, but still nothing all that complex.

EDIT:

And now Red Dead Redemption is done! Kind of mixed emotions here, though I think that's mostly the fault of high expectations. I liked the setting, liked the plot, and enjoyed most of the missions, but the collection quests, repetitive strangers, killer cougars, and the like didn't do it for me. It also was much more enjoyable as a game to sit down and play for 2-3 hours. 45 minute playtimes could end with nothing being advanced, which was frustrating. I like how they handled the ending.

I'll probably jump into the zombie addition (bought on sale before I even bought the actual game!) pretty soon.

Half-Life 2 is finished. I enjoyed the ride, but my earlier statement about pacing stands. I'm installing Ep. 1 now (might be the game for next month). I hope what everyone says about the improvements in the length of missions is correct.

Finished up Chrono Trigger after 2 long sessions this weekend. Excellent game. Had played through a lot of the beginning back in the SNES days, but finally got through it on DS this time around. Lots of fun...though it did make me appreciate some of the advances of the modern RPGs.

Will I finish Mini Ninjas tonight and tomorrow night?

It's going to be tough, but if I focus just on getting through it, and go back for the collectibles later, I might just pull it off.

I blame Kinectimals. I bought it for my kids, and I have been having the best time ever playing it myself. (Hands in man-card at the door).

Hey, I started Fable 3 before the end of the month. That has to count for something. (I'll be carrying it over into next month.)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Hey, I started Fable 3 before the end of the month. That has to count for something. (I'll be carrying it over into next month.)

I will be interested to hear if you enjoy - I did. I thought it was great.

Mini Ninjas won't happen. I sat down for 5 minutes last night, and woke up at 11pm. How dare sleep get in the way of pile reduction.

I think I'll carry that one over, and join Clockwork in his Fable 3 endeavours. Don't worry about tracking Hemi, I'll declare those in the new thread.

Let me know if you're still chasing those co-ops too Sally, we can tee up something over the coming month.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

Mini Ninjas won't happen. I sat down for 5 minutes last night, and woke up at 11pm. How dare sleep get in the way of pile reduction.

I think I'll carry that one over, and join Clockwork in his Fable 3 endeavours. Don't worry about tracking Hemi, I'll declare those in the new thread.

Let me know if you're still chasing those co-ops too Sally, we can tee up something over the coming month.

Yah, we should do that. We still need to get the mortar achievement.

Hemidal wrote:

Half-Life 2 is finished. I enjoyed the ride, but my earlier statement about pacing stands. I'm installing Ep. 1 now (might be the game for next month). I hope what everyone says about the improvements in the length of missions is correct.

I just finished this, too. Knocked out Episode One in a few hours as well. I agree with everything you said in this thread and it definitely gets better.

During the middle of the month I saw the credits roll on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and less than a week ago I finally ended an unannounced project: SiN (PC).

I've also dumped at least 14 hours into Infinite Space this month and advanced the story 2 or 3 chapters, but barring some sort of miracle, I won't come close to finishing it in the next half day. In other words, it'll have to carry over.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
There are so many things I can criticize BC2 for, such as how nearly every single level is just a single winding corridor which occasionally passes through a room, a pretty unbelievable story, completely implausible enemy reactions or lack thereof (see the loud boat passing unnoticed under a guarded bridge in the opening cinematic for just one example), the rather stupid AI, and the incredible number of abandoned cookie-cutter houses which make little architectural sense and are utterly devoid of furnishings found in every environmental type (except jungle) all over the Americas. There was even a recharging health system, but this didn't bother me as much as in CoD2, and some sections would have been nearly impossible to pass without it.

On the other hand, I can forgive the game of basically all of these flaws for the same reason I can forgive any number of nonsensical action movies - it's just really fun. Even though the infantry combat formula occasionally became a bit stale despite all of the explosions and weapon and environmental variety, it was broken up often enough with fun and occasionally exciting vehicular sequences. Checkpoints were typically well spaced and made up for the lack of quicksaves. The entire single player game took a bit over six hours and - with only rare exceptions - was enjoyable from start to finish.

SiN
SiN was a mystery to me in my previous two attempts at playing it in which I was stuck on the very first level. This time I finally figured out that it is NOT a straight up shooter, but rather combines a significant amount of environmental interaction (for 1998) to introduce a variety of puzzles that go beyond the "find yellow key to open yellow door" variety.
As advanced as SiN was for 1998, it unfortunately has not aged well. It includes some features which are rare even today. The most notable would be levels with multiple entrances and exits. Depending on which exit is taken, the player might play extra levels, and/or enter the next one at different locations leading to varying experiences; in other words, it creates a branching narrative. Each level also includes numerous objectives subdivided into primary and secondary objectives, and it is not necessary - and sometimes impossible - to achieve them all. Many stages also include numerous easter eggs and secret areas like most good FPS titles of the mid 90's did.

As to why SiN hasn't aged well, well that is a long list. The Quake II engine looks extremely primitive for one thing, and sound design is another weakness of that era as none of the guns have any real "oomph" to them - something which disappeared for a while after the original Quake for whatever reason. The enemies suffer from bullet-sponge syndrome and although their AI is laughable, their aim (especially that of the snipers) is far too accurate, even at high speeds. This is a sobering reminder of a somewhat forgotten fact that old games are not only REALLY FAST, but also REALLY HARD at times! Furthermore, despite its age, the game was still somewhat buggy - and I'm not referring to the 300mb third party patch I had to download just to get the steam version to run on my system. The noclip console command was required at least three times because I got stuck in the environment.

Unfortunately, SiN is also plagued by some poor balance and design decisions. I consider myself an fps veteran and as such my aim is pretty decent, but it was still not uncommon for me to run out of ammo, leaving me with the choice to "spawn ammo" or reload a much earlier save and try again. A further "star" of the game is its horrendous script with frequently poor voice accompaniment.

Even though SiN was in many ways revolutionary for the time, there is a reason that it faded into obscurity and its contemporary, Half-Life, built a company which became a giant. SiN isn't a terrible game, but its edges are made of razor blades.

SallyNasty wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Hey, I started Fable 3 before the end of the month. That has to count for something. (I'll be carrying it over into next month.)

I will be interested to hear if you enjoy - I did. I thought it was great.

This is actually my second attempt at Fable III. I bought it at release (pre-ordered it, in fact) but didn't like it and promptly traded it away to a fellow GWJer with the promise to ship after Christmas. Things got busy in his life, and Fable III languished on my shelf, so when the 6/50 achievement progress I had for the game started to really bug me I went ahead and started playing it again.

I haven't made it as far as I did last time (I quit after clearing the mercenary camp), but so far the things that bothered me before aren't really bothering me this time. My opinion of the game is much more favorable. I was a big fan of the first two Fable games, and they changed some of the fundamental mechanics with this one in ways that I didn't like and couldn't get past initially. I still don't like these changes, but with some time and distance I'm better able to roll with what this game's trying to do.

*SIGH* Alas, I have failed, once again, to shave anything off of my pile. Will be carrying all of the titles this month into the June thread, and likely taking off one or two to focus on less, as it have proven impossible for me to focus on gaming these days.

Might be even harder as I might be assigned to a special project at work which will require that I undergo 2 weeks of intensive training. Lofty goals!