The Clock is Ticking, is the Pile Shrinking?

WOW - ten minutes into picking up where I left off in Black Mirror and I managed to save over my only save game for chapter 2 in an unwinnable game state.

Note to adventure game developers: If, say, I have two bullets and absolutely require one of them to get past a murderous wolf immediately after using the first to shoot off a sealed lock. It's probably not a good idea to have a TOTALLY RANDOM CHANCE OF MISSING THE SODDING LOCK AND WASTING ONE (OR BOTH) OF THE BULLETS!! Just putting that out there.

And breath...it's fine...everything's fine....nobody needs to die here.

Except the wolf, obviously.

Luckily it seems there are enough people who got caught out by this that there are plenty of save games available online at just the right spot.

Splatterhouse is BEATEN.

I stuck it out and saw the credits roll last night when I realised I was only 'one moon phase' away from the ending. Didn't finish until past midnight, but it was worth it. I love that they thanked Simon Bisley in the credits, you can see his influence/inspiration all over this title.

For a cheap hack and slash, there was a surprising amount of depth to the combat. Use too many splatter techniques, and you lost the ability to use them (they are the more powerful attack). So you had to find a way to full the Necro gauge in between splatter attacks, by mixing up your physical attacks with the supernatural, one feeding into the other, for maximum effect.

Not as involved as the combo dynamic in Batman, but just as satisfying. If anyone sees this in the bargain bin, and you have a strong stomach for animated gore (one mini boss requires you to pummel it's face, then jump over the top of them, and pull it's intestines out through it's corn hole) you might be pleasantly surprised.

Black Mirror is finished. (Though a walkthrough was used at the end to help minimise the pain).

Aside from the smallest of seeds of a good story, practically EVERYTHING else about this game represents the absolute WORST the genre has to offer. It's actually something of an achievement in that regard I think. AVOID LIKE THE VERY PLAGUE ITSELF.

Right.. Still Life 2 is next. The first one might have had the most anti-climactic ending EVER but at least it was a halfway competent adventure game.

Sam & Max episodes 103 and 104 are done. Ended up knocking them both out this weekend.

Hey Hemi, Burnout Paradise is done, and the formatting around my name / yours the line below is all messed up.

I also just looked at the qouted text of the OP and man, I don't undestand why it's all extra complicated like that. Why do some people use that sort of marking up, (HTML?) when there's the simple and compact (all I know) BBCode tags?

List should be current.

New releases are sapping my will. DE:HR has my attention and Space Marine is threatening to grab it next. I hope to fire up Crysis 2 soon.

m0nk3yboy wrote:
beeporama wrote:

I finally started a Backloggery account too, so watch out; I'm organized!

Yeah, somebody else with over 70% of their library unfinished! I think you may actually have a higher unfinished % than AUs_TBirD, impressive!

To be fair, I haven't plugged in all of my completed games; I just prioritized getting in the incompletes.

But hey, switching one over: finished Batman! After such a long game, the end really came kind of suddenly.

OK, sorry to mess you around Hemidal, but I'd like to swap out Brutal Legend for De Blob 2. I'll come back to you shortly BL, but for now, I need something a little lighter in tone.

Nothing personal Eddie/Rick, but if I wake up my wife one more time in the night with dreams relating to zombies, the undead, or anything else I seem to taking to bed with me, I'm going to be getting in trouble... At least this way, the worst I can hope to tranfer with me is some ideas for interior colour schemes while we decorate.

Anyone else have issues with games getting stuck in their head, or that just my special flavour of crazy?

This time, I mean it. I WILL finish Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep in the next week or so. I'm almost done with the third character's story.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

OK, sorry to mess you around Hemidal, but I'd like to swap out Brutal Legend for De Blob 2. I'll come back to you shortly BL, but for now, I need something a little lighter in tone.

I'd like to hear your impressions on De Blob 2, and how you felt about the original (assuming you played it)

I'm going to jump in on Vanquish too.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:

OK, sorry to mess you around Hemidal, but I'd like to swap out Brutal Legend for De Blob 2. I'll come back to you shortly BL, but for now, I need something a little lighter in tone.

I'd like to hear your impressions on De Blob 2, and how you felt about the original (assuming you played it)

I really enjoyed both. The second one controls better, at least on the 360, due to have a button (rather than waggle) to jump, and a right thumbstick for the camera.

I really only had two complaints:

  • There are tons of collectibles in the game. Gradians, breakable boxes, and trees affect your score, and reset each time you play that level, light blubs are basically XP for upgrades, and pictures unlock concept art. When you finish a level, your compass will show the closest Gradians, boxes and trees, but not the bulbs or pictures. It's clearly based on whether the items affect score, but it is incredibly useful for finding things you would otherwise have to scour the map for, and not having it for the light bulbs and pictures seems arbitrary.
  • Setting the game to Easy Mode is irreversible (it does have a warning), and there is only one save slot. I only turned on Easy mode in order to get an achievement, after I beat the game, but apparently it makes some pretty drastic changes. Annoying, but only a big deal if I decide to replay it, and easy mode presents getting an S-rank on the level (I don't know that it does).

Starting the month in style! TOMI: chapter 5 is down. Had fun, but it went rather quickly. Now on to focus on ME 2 and nothing else!

Garden Ninja wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:

OK, sorry to mess you around Hemidal, but I'd like to swap out Brutal Legend for De Blob 2. I'll come back to you shortly BL, but for now, I need something a little lighter in tone.

I'd like to hear your impressions on De Blob 2, and how you felt about the original (assuming you played it)

I really enjoyed both. The second one controls better, at least on the 360, due to have a button (rather than waggle) to jump, and a right thumbstick for the camera.

I really only had two complaints:

  • There are tons of collectibles in the game. Gradians, breakable boxes, and trees affect your score, and reset each time you play that level, light blubs are basically XP for upgrades, and pictures unlock concept art. When you finish a level, your compass will show the closest Gradians, boxes and trees, but not the bulbs or pictures. It's clearly based on whether the items affect score, but it is incredibly useful for finding things you would otherwise have to scour the map for, and not having it for the light bulbs and pictures seems arbitrary.
  • Setting the game to Easy Mode is irreversible (it does have a warning), and there is only one save slot. I only turned on Easy mode in order to get an achievement, after I beat the game, but apparently it makes some pretty drastic changes. Annoying, but only a big deal if I decide to replay it, and easy mode presents getting an S-rank on the level (I don't know that it does).

I didn't play the original, but I found the first level on this to be exactly what I was looking for. It plays pretty well, I only struggled with the camera once, but a quick change to the settings saw that corrected (playing 360 version). It's my first dip in the deBlob pool, and it reminded me a lot of the old C64 game Wizball, just for the painting/reveal mechanic.

I managed to jag the S rating on the first level, even though I missed a few of the lightbulbs/pictures. The tree/box/Gradians appearing on the map once objectives are completed is also very handy. Should be able to knock off a world a night, so this suits my schedule perfectly.

I intend to play it without upgrading, for the related achievement, but if I find that too taxing, I'll start the upgrade cycle and to hell with the cheev. Should get this finished before Deus Ex arrives from the UK, fingers crossed.

I fired up Crysis 2 this weekend on the 360. Why do I wait to play these? I took 3 years to get to Crysis and Warhead and I really enjoyed both. This is freaking sweet.

I'm going to see if I can finish Nier this month. I kind of doubt it, as I keep messing around and trying everything, but we'll see.

Alrighty, put me down for Assassin's Creed 1 on the PS3.

Since TOMI is down and ME 2 is trudging along nicely, I'm considering adding another pile game for the month... it should be something short, but I can't really think of any such game for this purpose right now... Actually, I'll throw in Lego Batman, I intend to 1k it!

I know, it might be too much given my schedule, but what the hell, I like challenges!

Somewhere in the middle of Act 2 of DA2. Taking a while, but it's my own fault. I can't have uncompleted quests in my journal, so I'm pretty much doing every single side quest and companion quest and everything. I guess I'm still on track for the month as we're not halfway through and I'm apparently more than halfway through the game. But I might not get to anything else.

I'd like to change Duels of the Planeswalkers to Zelda II: The Adventures of Link. That one I'm actually playing.

I'm hoping to have The Witcher beaten this month.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I'd like to hear your impressions on De Blob 2

Update, being as I'm half way through this little gem.

I am REALLY enjoying this title, more than I expected to! It appeals to the OCD in me (collecting and completing all bonus challenges once the primary mission is complete), and playing with zero upgrades (for the "Keepin' It Real" achievement) is really adding to the challenge of the game.

Very satisfying when you complete a level, and quite tense when you sit there, waiting to see if you grabbed enough to "S" rank the level...

Spoiler:

Quit to dashboard before you hit OK, and you can go back and farm more points if you need to <--- top tip

Add Sam & Mad 101 as well, please!

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is finally down. I wasn't expecting a 65 hour game out of that but there you go.

Speaking of 65 hour games, I don't think that I will finish but I'll chip away at Final Fantasy Tactics (my version is on the PS2).

Far Cry 2 (360) is my current flavor. I may or may not stay focused on it, but why not try?

I managed to finish up Risk Factions tonight. It wasn't on my list of games to work on, but I fired it back up and had too much fun.

I'll get back on the Mass Effect 2 wagon soon.

I finished up Bioshock 2 and the Minerva's Den expansion. Great game, and the DLC was as good as any I've seen for any game.

When I first heard about a follow-up to the original Bioshock, I thought it was a bad idea, since the original's story seemed so self-contained. I'm impressed with how well the developers were able to plug a meaningful story into a game that was probably intended primarily to meet the publisher's demand for a sequel.

That was rather quick. Sam and Max 101 is in the books.

That was rather quick. Sam and Max 101 is in the books.

Hit 50% on FarCry 2 tonight. Up more than 2x from where I was at yesterday (24%).