Time Flies When You're Playing in the Pile

ClockworkHouse wrote:

If you're talking about achievement completion percentage, Half-Life is not the way to go. The Orange Box is a completion percentage ruiner.

I found that out the hard way. With some quality time with Portal, and Team Fortress allowing you to set up a system link match without another 360 in the room I've managed to get that one up to a completion percentage of 24. I started playing that one in 2008 according to the date stamps on XBL.

Crackdown on the other hand is floundering in the woeful position of only 2% complete. I unlocked the only 2 achievements I have on the 31/05/2007 and 01/06/2007.

2007 here I come!

OK, cutting through the crap of my waffling, Hemidal, please put me down for Mini Ninjas and Crackdown.

If time permits, I may get in some Fable 3, or round out the 2007 flavour with some Half Life, but for now, those two will do.

whew - ok 1.30 am but Tomb Raider : Anniversary is beat.

Mostly pretty good - lots of good puzzly explory bits. They do a reasonable job of adapting the original game into their legend/underworld storyline - which gives Lara a much better motive for doing what she does than just 'for lulz' .

The problem (as with the original actually) is the awful combat.

I espicially wish a considerably grisly fate on whoever designed the last couple of levels as they mostly contain flying creatures who shoot fireballs that a) stun you for a couple of seconds and b) stagger you back a few feet uncontrollably. Naturally, they get plenty of time to fire off another fireball before you regain control, meaning they can stunlock you into oblivion....which is easier said than done, as most of the time you are fighting them on precarious platforms so if that first fireball is not enough to send you staggering over a ledge into lava, the second one usually does the job.

Couple that with some timed platforming puzzles and terrible, TERRIBLE, checkpointing and you can probably understand why I've only just finished it at 1.30am 0_o

Anyhoo...game beaten. On to Underworld.

About 20 races to clear in Burnout Paradise now, raced over 30 today. Once the credits roll I may continue on to the completionist license but I doubt it.

I'm going to finish up Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (SP) and Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days before I start anything else. I think I'm very near the end on both, so that's nice.

My 2007 choice will be Super Mario Galaxy. I remember stopping at the 60th star because I couldn't decide whether I wanted to beat Bowser first, or play around more. It shall be decided!

I also plan on starting Bioshock 2 and continuing where I left off months ago on Deus Ex.

Ok, in keeping with the 2007 theme, I'm finally going to finish Bioshock and Guild Wars: Eye of the North. Please postpone Dragon Age 2 and Shogun 2 if you haven't already added them to the official list.

Another one down : Tomb Raider - Underworld. Which is good - wanted to get the early CD tomb raider games done and dusted before the new one. Anod now I have. Splendid.

Time to consult the new backloggery list to find out what's next on the agenda...

stevenmack wrote:

Another one down : Tomb Raider - Underworld. Which is good - wanted to get the early CD tomb raider games done and dusted before the new one. Anod now I have. Splendid.

Time to consult the new backloggery list to find out what's next on the agenda...

How about boosting your gamer cred and knocking off either Ico or Eternal Darkness? I know that they're not 2007, but you should still be playing them.

As for me, I'm making progress in Infinite Space, but it's an extremely slow burn even when using fast travel. Haven't done anything noteworthy in either Kirby or Bioshock yet.

Ico I'm waiting on, since there's an HD version due out for PS3 at some point.

Eternal Darkness is a good idea but I'll need to reclaim my Wii before tackling that though (it's on loan at the minute).

I think in the meantime I'll have another stab at Arx Fatalis. The recent re-release of Ultima Underworld has got me in the dungeoneering mood.

Watched the credits roll on Burnout Paradise today. Will not be going for the elite license (108 races).

Please put me down for Fallout New Vegas.

trueheart78 wrote:

Watched the credits roll on Burnout Paradise today. Will not be going for the elite license (108 races).

I don't blame you. I thought about it...but then sanity kicked in and I moved on. It's a fun game but not THAT fun.

walterqchocobo wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

Watched the credits roll on Burnout Paradise today. Will not be going for the elite license (108 races).

I don't blame you. I thought about it...but then sanity kicked in and I moved on. It's a fun game but not THAT fun.

Add in the fact that I've gotten my Burnout license on the ps3 version as well, and yeah

Divinity II DKS and Bayonetta

walterqchocobo wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

Watched the credits roll on Burnout Paradise today. Will not be going for the elite license (108 races).

I don't blame you. I thought about it...but then sanity kicked in and I moved on. It's a fun game but not THAT fun.

Just got my A license after 2 years of on and off playing - 38 to go till Burnout License, by then a new one should be out :0

For some strange reason, my Crackdown nomination has shown up in the PC listing...

I finished Saints Row 2 five days too late for the pile-thread of may, mainly thanks to the very frustrating final mission (it envolves helicopters). After 5 or 6 attempts I didn't want to try anymore and quit the game, this went on for 3 days. Finally made it on sunday though, so it's onto the next game on my pile! And seeing this month's theme is "2007", who am I to argue with that? A quick look at my sizable pile tells me I actually have 3 unplayed/unfinished games from 2007: CoD4:MW, Crysis, STALKER: Shadows of Tchernobyl. Funny enough all three of them FPS-games and all PC games I have on my steam list. I'll choose one; my pick is Crysis.

I always love reading through these threads, but never felt committed enough to post. You've all inspired me to knock something off my pile, so for my first attempt I'll be playing The Witcher. I'm about half way through chapter 2, so hopefully I can have it done by the end of the month.

Glycerine wrote:

I always love reading through these threads, but never felt committed enough to post. You've all inspired me to knock something off my pile, so for my first attempt I'll be playing The Witcher. I'm about half way through chapter 2, so hopefully I can have it done by the end of the month.

Even if you don't, roll it over to July. It's about committing, less about finishing.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

For some strange reason, my Crackdown nomination has shown up in the PC listing... :)

Whoops, that should be fixed now.

Hemidal wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:

For some strange reason, my Crackdown nomination has shown up in the PC listing... :)

Whoops, that should be fixed now.

What have I done, now he's all alone!?!?!?

In related news, Mini Ninjas is down. Saw the credits roll, and I need to back track to get a few collectibles, but it's finished in terms of actual gameplay. Not too bad for a budget title, and scratches a casual itch if you don't have a lot of time to spend.

If I had to sum it up, Ninja Gaiden VERY LIGHT? All the ninja moves (stealth, wall hoping, wall running) with only minor challenges found playing on Hard. Kind of the antithesis of NG really. The different Ninjas were a novel idea, but they were very poorly implemented. You can take out 95% of the AI with the main character. I would have liked to have seen a more integrated way of taking down the end bosses using the different ninja's core weapons, but they just became button sequenced takedowns.

Good if you can find it on the cheap and are looking for a relatively straight forward 1000 with a LOT of collectible challenges pulling in a big share of that.

I think I'm going to add Infamous to the list...seeing as how I've only had the game downloaded for a couple days and I'm near half-way done. Um, that game's pretty fun. Better late than never!

Hm not sure about the 2007 thing yet.

But I started SMT Strange Journey last week, and took my DS on vacation with me, where it really got some love. Feels like I'm about halfway through, so we'll see if I can keep playing a portable game now that I'm back home with PC/PS3 distractions.

Please scratch Fallout New Vegas off the list. It's finished.

Sign me up for Resistance Fall of Man again. I didn't finish Saboteur last month because I lost interest about 8 hours in. I'm gonna look through my pile and see what other games I might want to play this month.

Episode 1 is finished. Much better with the pacing then HL2. On to Ep. 2!

And I've got one to undeclared title to scratch from the list. Fable 2 was recently returned to me and has since been put to rest. I was much closer to the end than I'd originally thought. Tonight, however, Mother 3 will fall!

Another long-standing pile game is beaten. Arx Fatalis is down.

Brilliant game but let down by it's bugginess and low budget. Would have loved / love to see a modern, AAA game in a similar style but I guess they're probably very niche. Not enough games where you can bake your own wine and apple pies in my opinion.

Going to let Backloggery pick my next game using the fortune cookie thingmabob....

Fortune Cookie Says: Call of Duty : World at War.

Ok cookie, if you say so....

Just watched the rather somber ending to Infinite Space.

This one was long - 55 hours long! It also could have been done in half that, and without a walkthrough, I might have spent 100+ hours on it, if I didn't give up first because I was so clueless as to what to do next. The game is very stingy with its guidance, often relying on the player using pen and paper to make maps and keep a quest log, or even making the player bank on plain luck to figure out how to advance the story. Sometimes randomly flying around for a while is the correct thing to do.

Infinite Space's premise of a boy escaping into space to embark on a grand adventure is an intriguing one, and the first few hours can be captivating, but the game keeps throwing flies on your delicious cake. No quest log, murky or no guidance at times, lots of time spent grinding (something I normally don't mind, but here it isn't as fun), a pointless first person "exploration" mode where the only option is to go forward or turn back (with only two exceptions in the entire game), a weak rock-paper-scissors melee mode, and almost all space battles playing out the same (launch fighters, dodge, close to optimal weapons range, wait for enemy to fire and then unload. Repeat until dead.) Furthermore, she's not the prettiest girl at the dance, the music repeats a bit often, and that there is no option to skip dialog you've had to read 30 times already is infuriating.

On the other hand, there is something oddly compelling about the game. Your characters are not your traditional party members, but rather your ships, and their crew, modules, and weapon upgrades take the place of traditional RPG upgrades like weapons, armor, and amulets. A large number of crew can be recruited, each with different stats that increase over time. Ships can be upgraded and modified using a Tetris-style inventory system for modules. Furthermore, fighters are really useful and you shouldn't ignore using them as long as I did. As is typical for these types of games, the story begins small and continuously expands in scope. It also features some branching paths with different obtainable modules and crew for each branch. There are even some unexpected and very dark twists to it.

Overall, Infinite Space is a diamond in a great deal of rough. The story and sense of adventure will keep many playing while at the same time they are cursing many of the game's design decisions and wondering why the same amount of content couldn't have been packed into 30 or fewer hours.

Heh... World at War beaten already. That's a hell of a short game. Glad I didn't pay fu.....hey wait, I DID pay full price for that at the time. Bugger.

Oh well Suprisingly entertaining game - probably because it's been long enough since the last WW2 shooter for the fatigue to wear off a tad.

What do you have next for me Fortune Cookie?

Zeno Clash you say? Fine, lets do this thang

Put me down for both Puzzle Quest 2 and Dead Space: Ignition, please.