Beat the Heat, Clear the Pile

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In case you haven't noticed, it's freaking hot outside. I encourage the avoidance of heatstroke and/or sunstroke and suggest staying indoors and playing some more video games. We're starting to get some new titles rolling in, which might dissuade you from playing pile-worthy games. Stay strong, and play both!

I realize last month's theme is similar. What can I say? It's hotter now then it was then.

If you're interested, m0nk3yboy, has the 12 month 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, Pick's of the Pile, etc... Please go here and check out the Google doc I setup.

Let's get on to the games!

This month's Pick of the Pile is

[size=30][b]Fallout: New Vegas

[/size][/b]

IMAGE(http://cdn.gamerant.com/wp-content/uploads/fallout-new-vegas.jpg)

"Welcome to Vegas. New Vegas.

It’s the kind of town where you dig your own grave prior to being shot in the head and left for dead…and that’s before things really get ugly. It’s a town of dreamers and desperados being torn apart by warring factions vying for complete control of this desert oasis. It’s a place where the right kind of person with the right kind of weaponry can really make a name for themselves, and make more than an enemy or two along the way.

As you battle your way across the heat-blasted Mojave Wasteland, the colossal Hoover Dam, and the neon drenched Vegas Strip, you’ll be introduced to a colorful cast of characters, power-hungry factions, special weapons, mutated creatures and much more. Choose sides in the upcoming war or declare “winner takes all” and crown yourself the King of New Vegas in this follow-up to the 2008 videogame of the year, Fallout 3.

Enjoy your stay." (Official Fallout Site)

[u]Multi-Platform[/u]
007: Bloodstone - Hemi
Batman: Arkham Asylum - SallyNasty
Bayonetta - AndrewA
Bioshock - AUs_TBirD, ClockworkHouse, ChipRMonk
Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den - MadGav
Deathspank - brokenclavicle
Dragon Age: Origins - peedmyself
Dragon Age: Origins Awakenings - Stele
Dragon Age 2 - Itsathief
Fallout 3 - walkera, ChipRMonk
Fallout: New Vegas - Quintin_Stone, stevenmack
Gish - [color=red]Garden Ninja[/color]
Half-Life 2 - Jolly Bill
ilomilo - ClockworkHouse
I-Ninja - [i]AUs_TBirD
Limbo - brokenclavicle
Machinarium - AndrewA, stevenmack
Magicka - Luggage
Mass Effect - honeycut1
Mass Effect 2- honeycut1
Medal of Honor - Hemi
Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe - m0nk3yboy
Portal - peedmyself, Bonnonon
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - Hemi, m0nk3yboy
Red Dead Redemption - Wuppie, Bonnonon
Sam and Max 102: Situation Comedy - Garden Ninja
Splinter Cell: Conviction - MadGav
Split/Second - Garden Ninja
Still Life - stevenmack
Strong Bad Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands - billt721
Strong Bad Episode 4: Dangeresque 3 - billt721
Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay - Poppinfresh
The Tiny Bang Story - Jolly Bill
Torchlight - philucifer, stevenmack
Trine - Luggage, Garden Ninja
Tropico 3 - Jolly Bill

[u]PC[/u]
Ben There, Dan That - peedmyself
Company of Heroes - peedmyself
Deus Ex - cyrax, Jolly Bill
Lugaru HD - mooosicle
Quake 2 - AUs_TBirD
Samorast 2 - mooosicle
Shogun 2 - jdzappa
Time Gentlemen, Please! - Poppinfresh
Tinker - ClockworkHouse
The Witcher - ChipRMonk

Xbox 360
Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad - m0nk3yboy

Xbox
Genma Onimusha - AUs_TBirD

[u]PS3[/u]
Demon's Souls - Stele
Uncharted 2 - mrtomaytohead

[u]PSP[/u]
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Slepp - walterqchocobo

[u]PS2[/u]
Shadow of the Colossus - Itsathief

[u]DS[/u]
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies - AUs_TBirD

Bioshock and Tinker for me. And... (opens fortune cookie) ilomilo.

I'm going to attack Split/Second on 360. I'm already about half way through the Season mode, so I should be able to knock it out pretty quickly if I just sit down and actually do it.

Ok! Dragon Age 2 on the 360 for me. Let's see if Hawke can get some sassy action with fellow adventurers in Kirkwall.

I failed to complete Bayonetta last month, however I'm on chapter 12 of 16, so it will fall this month.

Not sure what I'm in the mood for next, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Add these two for me please
Trine and Magicka, both PC

I'd also add a DS game, but I have no idea how much time investment Chrono Trigger or the Advance Wars campaign require.

Luggage wrote:

Add these two for me please
Trine and Magicka, both PC

I'd also add a DS game, but I have no idea how much time investment Chrono Trigger or the Advance Wars campaign require.

It's been some time since I've played it, but I think Chrono Trigger is on the order of 40 hours.

Well put me down for Demon's Souls to start. I got distracted 7 months back or so, but was near the end and I think I can finish it up this week.

Carrying over Deus Ex.

There doesn't seem to be many new games this month that I'll be drawn to besides Human Revolution (late), Toy Soldiers: Cold War, and Orcs Must Die!, so depending on my Deus Ex progress I hope my to add another to the list.

Fallout: New Vegas

Here we go again!

Deathspank must fall... this week, I hope?

If I do get it done, I may jump right into the sequel... maybe. I might decide I need something more action-y or maybe go 180 and do a heavy RPG... haven't done one of those for a while.

I'm hooked on EU3 at the moment, and I just picked up Crusader Kings, so I don't imagine I'll get much time for a backlog game this month. That said, put me down for:

Strong Bad Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands
Strong Bad Episode 4: Dangeresque 3

I should be able to get through those. And if they're good, I may just finish out the season over the next month.

I am going to try to wrap up Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for the PSP. Maybe I'll even figure out what the title means...but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm in act 2 of Dragon Age 2 (just entered the Deep Roads). Can anyone tell me if I'm at a point where I could realistically finish in 20-30 hours, especially if I focus on just main quest?

Otherwise, please put me down again for Shogun 2.

Please put me down for Torchlight. I'll be doing the 360 version. If I get it done I'll add more to the list then. Thanks!

List should be current. Now, if I could only figure out what I want to play.

Still working on Fallout 3, but I've made decent progress with it during the past month. On the side, though, I finished Lego Pirates, Red Dead Redemption (unless I go back for the co-op missions) and Portal 2 single player.

philucifer wrote:

Please put me down for Torchlight. I'll be doing the 360 version. If I get it done I'll add more to the list then. Thanks!

I just finished that last night. Pretty fun, but not much to it.

jdzappa wrote:

I'm in act 2 of Dragon Age 2 (just entered the Deep Roads). Can anyone tell me if I'm at a point where I could realistically finish in 20-30 hours, especially if I focus on just main quest?

PC or console? I don't remember my time, but it I'd be surprised if it took as long as you think it will. Act 1 was definitely the lengthiest portion of that game.

Finished Shadow of the Colossus (sorry for pushing it back Hemidal).

It is a very, very frustratingly beautiful game.

Finished up the main story of Red Dead Redemption last night. I will clean up the stranger missions but otherwise I have to say that I am finished with it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Went in expecting it not to live up to the hype and boy was I wrong. It exceeded all of my expectations.

Here's hoping for Red Dead Revenge?

Yay, just finished Half Life 2 from my pile (somehow managed to skip right to episodes 1 and 2 without realizing it)

Deus Ex, Bastion, and Tropico 3 are next to go, although I'm not really sure Tropico 3 is the kind of game that you 'finish'

I'm back into Arcadia in Bioshock and continuing to enjoy the game much more than my first attempt at it. One aspect of the game's legacy as a "spiritual successor" to System Shock 2 is the designers' over-reliance on abrupt roadblocks as a means of forcing exploration. Every level so far has involved progressing through an area to a destination only to be turned away from that destination and sent on a fetch quest that involves re-exploring the area you just passed through. Completing that fetch quest often doesn't end the level but instead gives you access to the next area where you're confronted with another road block. It's a constant, annoying interruption to the flow of the game.

Also, the world of Rapture is very well-designed, but it never really feels like you're in a city on the bottom of the ocean rather than in an ocean-themed spaceship. The oceanscapes beyond the glass walls of the city are often static, with no sense of anything out there except empty buildings; heck, most of the time it just looks like a flat texture that's been made to undulate oddly. And after the game's opening, when a piece of the airplane cracks one of the walkways, the ocean never feels like a threat trying to work its way into Rapture. By comparison, Bioshock 2 does a great job of filling the world outside the windows with all kinds of interesting things, and the underwater sequences do a lot to bring home that you're, you know, underwater.

Spoiler:

Perhaps the best sequence for making the world of Rapture come alive is when you flood Siren's Alley in Bioshock 2. Quietly walking through the flooded world is a great sequence, and it really brings to the fore the danger of having a city on the ocean floor.

I'm finishing up Mass Effect 1. I planned on heading to ilos tonight, but instead I spent several hours on side quests (it was totally worth it).

I'm going to go for some low hanging fruit and pick Medal of Honor.

I'll definitely do Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay. After that, who knows?

And Demon's Souls is finished.

Granted I quit with only 3 levels or so left. But finishing still wasn't easy. Will probably still be trophy hunting for a bit, so no replacement game yet.

Stele wrote:

And Demon's Souls is finished. :cool:

Grats, man! It's been enjoyable reading your trials for months now. I always feel like going back, the first level and some I played were really entertaining, but so many things, mainly the time needed, prevent me. I hope I'll make some time to dig into it mid-September.

I hope I can do Dragon Age 2 (PC) without rushing in a month... Put me up Hemidal!

Making a serious attempt at getting through Fallout NV again - although I'll probably hold off on finishing it completely until the last DLC pack is released (that's this month, right?) since it doesn't do the "continue after the main story is finished" thing. Really struggled with it before but I'm enjoying it MUCH more this time around for some reason.

Also just noticed my steam counter is at 110 hours played so far. Heh. Once things for sure, you certainly get your moneys worth out of a Bethesda/Obsidian game.

***

And Finished...the main story at least - going to go back at some point and finish up sidequests and wait for the last DLC pack, maybe install a few more mods to mix things up a bit.

I'll be taking a shot at Machinarium (PC).

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