Don't Be Scared, It's Just the Pile

trueheart78 wrote:

I'm going try my hand at...

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (XBLA) (est 5-6 hrs)

Let me know if you want to Op for some Cos. I have about 15 minutes in that game.

I think it's time to finish up God of War, and then decide whether to deal with God of War 2 or L.A. Noire. That's probably the biggest dent I can put in the pile, which is about to get the gasoline of another birthday leading in to the Christmas season poured onto it. Hmm, I suppose that would normally make the pile smaller rather than bigger.

I set up a Backloggery account. I'm a little disappointed at the feature set since it doesn't automatically give me estimated completion times or trophy numbers, and I'm abusing the "null" game status to mark what is in the pile, since it won't let me the games pending that I own along with the ones in my wishlist at the same time. In my younger years, I'd have taken this as reason to write something myself. Now I'm counting the years until I can get my daughter to write it for me. I really don't want to know how big my pile will be at that point.
http://backloggery.com/games.php?user=walkera

Already finished with Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, focused on that game this weekend. One down, nine to go!

List should be current.

Doing a rough estimate based on where I am in the in-game calendar, it looks like I have 80-100 hours left in Persona 3. Yikes.

Unsurprisingly I was unable to finish up Final Fantasy IV over the course of last month, so I'll carry that over. Unfortunately I'll otherwise be a slave to new releases. (Unless you count me replaying ICO and SotC in HD.)

I'm picking up Dark Souls which will take up a lot of my time, but I'll try for a few pile games to start things off: Super Mario Bros (NES, with no warp use... I've never beat it that way before), and Shantae: Risky's Revenge (DS)

I'm going to try to finish these games in the next three months from the pile:

Final Fantasy Tactics (PS2)
Kingdom Hearts: Recoded (DS)
3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
FF Dissidia 2 (PSP)
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (PS2)

I am going to hold off on most of the fall's releases until next year when they are a little cheaper and the pile is smaller.
I am going to hold off on most of the fall's releases until next year when they are a little cheaper and the pile is smaller.
I am going to hold off on most of the fall's releases until next year when they are a little cheaper and the pile is smaller.
I am going to hold off on most of the fall's releases until next year when they are a little cheaper and the pile is smaller.
I am going to hold off on most of the fall's releases until next year when they are a little cheaper and the pile is smaller.

(If I keep repeating this, it will come true. Right? Right!?)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Doing a rough estimate based on where I am in the in-game calendar, it looks like I have 80-100 hours left in Persona 3. Yikes.

It goes does some wonky things, so it's tough to judge. You're farther in than that.

So... something like Mega Mall Story for iOS. Does that count for inclusion into the pile? I finally started playing, and the sucker is addictive. I fully expect to finish it this month.

I'm gonna say:

Dragon Age: Origins
Dead Rising 2
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor

walterqchocobo wrote:

I am going to hold off on most of the fall's releases until next year when they are a little cheaper and the pile is smaller.

(If I keep repeating this, it will come true. Right? Right!?)

Be strong! You can do it! I'm right there with you on that boat...

Garden Ninja wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:

Go for it with BG! Don't be bogged down. Happy to provide motivation and tips if needed; that was a year-long pile entry for me. :)

I played a bunch earlier in the year, but haven't played in a few months. Probably partly because I knew it would take me more than a month to finish, so this 3 month stretch should help. If I remember, I just recruited Minsc and am on the way to save Dynaheir. I never got much further than that, so I should be hitting new stuff soon.

In fact! You're early in the game, and haven't really hit the plot yet. I found that on my first 2-3 attempts, I was not drawn into the plot prior to going to Nashkel (which is no spoiler, as you certainly have Jaheira and Khalid by now). Much like real 2E AD&D, the early parts of the game feel vastly different from the later parts, especially in terms of how grind-oriented your experience will be.

Needing a bit of a breather from Shin Megami Tensei games, I started up Costume Quest last night. I played for a couple hours, and I'd guess that I'm about 40% of the way through it. So far, it's a fun, easy little romp that has just enough mechanical depth to it to not have to coast entirely on its charm.

It's interesting to me that this game was so popular, because mechanically, it's pretty much a JRPG. More specifically, it's about one flattened character away from being a Paper Mario game. The self-referential humor, the turn-based battles with quicktime-like button prompts for bonus damage and defense, and the progressive physical abilities that allow greater exploration of the overworld: they're all right out of The Thousand-Year Door. If I remember correctly, there was even a card equipment system in that game that was almost identical to the Battle Stamps.

To anyone who liked Costume Quest and said they'd love to play a full-length version: if you have access to a GameCube or a Wii, get a used copy of Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door and have fun.

Zoda's Revenge: Star Tropics II is done.
It's been a long time since I played the original, so it is difficult to compare it to the sequel, but my memories of the first Startropics are slightly better. Perhaps this is simply because the original was new, because Zoda's Revenge really offers a lot. There are nine different locations and time periods, and only one of them is carried over from the first game. There are numerous power-ups and lots of different enemies, although some of them are simply different sprites for the same foe. The story is....well....rubbish, but it has some amusing moments including a decent pun or two, and at least two cameos from other Nintendo properties.
The downsides primarily consist of the controls and the game's penalty for death. Most dungeons are long enough to have at least one continue point inside them. The problem is not only that these are often many screens back, right before a challenging gauntlet, but also that all collected power-ups are lost, making passing the challenges - well - significantly more challenging. The final section of the game includes a boss rush. Fail at boss #6, and the player gets sent back to the beginning. Due to the tile-based nature of the game and the difficulty of moving diagonally, it can be challenging to not take damage in some locations, and because of occasional slight unresponsiveness caused by the game requiring animations to be played out, some areas can be frustrating.
Despite the questionable design choices and the limited tools used to design the dungeons, there is a surprising variety presented here which sometimes borders on the ingenious. A battle against a mounted knight is both awesome and irritating at the same time. Even though this extremely-late NES offering isn't the best thing on the system, it is still worth checking out.

After just three nights of play, Costume Quest is done. Being a Doublefine game, it goes without saying that the game is a witty adventure in a charming and well-realized world. A lot of care and attention clearly went into making each of the game's three areas feel aesthetically distinct, with location-appropriate (and appropriately-placed) props and characters, and unique lines for the different NPCs you randomly encounter when trick-or-treating.

Unfortunately, the game is remarkably shallow, even for a project of this scale. There's little in the way of variety, challenge, or evolution as the game progresses. The first half-hour of gameplay is largely indistinguishable from the last. The different costumes you collect are well-designed visually but aren't distinct in the way they play; two of the costumes you receive early on are, disappointingly, functionally the same. There's little depth to the combat, and because the enemies you face throughout the game all have roughly the same powers, you'll likely find yourself changing up tactics and the makeup of your party not out of necessity but just for a change of pace. And while the game's three areas are strongly differentiated visually, they all feature a virtually identical set of quests and subquests.

This isn't to say that Costume Quest is a bad game. That's going to depend on why you game and what sorts of things you enjoy. If you play games for the writing, the stories, and the places, Costume Quest will be a delicious, six hour diversion. If you play for challenge, mechanics, and novelty, you're better off looking somewhere else. (And both crowds should, once again, check out Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door which is like a larger, lusher Costume Quest.)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

...Costume Quest...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: as much as I appreciate the wonderful humor in DoubleFine's more recent "bite-size" outings like Stacking and Trenched, they do a far better job at full $60 games like Psychonauts or Brütal Legend. The humor is great in both cases, but they seem to need more time and (for lack of a better word) impetus to design really good game mechanics.

Still keeping my fingers crossed that they'll move back in that direction in the near future, and that the XBLA games are just placeholders...

This weekend I started Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. I'm torn between being thrilled that it's so much like Symphony of the Night (with an always-on map!) and being frustrated that I'm somehow supposed to use the d-pad, the face buttons, and the stylus all at the same time.

Also, I've had issues where the game will reset itself after I've left it suspended for a long time. The battery is fine, but when I open the case back up, the game starts like it's just been loaded. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the cartridge or my 3DS.

I can already tell that I'm going to shell out for the other DS Castlevania games, though. This style of gameplay is like crack for me.

I can't remember if this game is old enough or not, but I finished up Brink on the 360. That game was quite disappointing.

I'm gonna add my name to:

Super Meat Boy (just finished the hospital boss)
The Witcher 2 (got four hours deep in August, but I'm gonna restart with a gamepad (Razer Onza) when it gets here)
Supreme Commander 2 (I'm a third of the way through the campaign)

League of Legends keeps taking my game time...

Well, I've only got one mission left in the base game of Defense Grid: The Awakening. However, I've tried and failed at it 2 or 3 times. I do blame this on being slightly tired and pre-occupied with trying to hold a baby with one hand at 3am. I figure I'll get it eventually and then I'll also move on to the expansion content. But for now, put that one on the list.

I believe Mass Effect 2 will be getting it's first "ending" from me in the next couple of days. Got four days off straight and I intend to game on!

Beat Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War. Not that the story was anything amazing to begin with, but the ending was terrible.

2 down, 8 to go

It was undeclared, but I wrapped up the Grubbins on Ice DLC for Costume Quest. The whole of the DLC takes place in a single area—Repugia, the home of the goblins—but it's a nicely-sized area, broader in scope and complexity than the areas in the game proper. It introduces nooks and crannies to explore, more complex secret passages to navigate, and more interesting sidequests. It also escalates the difficulty of combat, even setting up a battle at the end that requires some degree of preparation and strategy to overcome. More than anything, I'm left with the impression that this is how the main game should have continued after the first area in the suburbs rather than the bland carbon-copy of the first area that was the mall. There's a deepening to the game's mechanics present in Grubbins on Ice that Costume Quest itself was desperately lacking. Where the main game felt a bit tired by the end, Grubbins on Ice suggests an evolution that could keep things interesting. If they make a sequel of some kind, hopefully they take some cues from the DLC.

I don't think of myself as a person with a pile but over the last month or so I have gotten a few older games I want to finish.

Uncharted 2
Bioshock 2
Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Zelda: Twilight Princess

I would like to get through them all before Skyrim and Zelda: Skyward Sword come out but that isn't realistic. I think I just need to be methodical and get through them one at a time. And I think posting here will help me be committed!

Wish me luck.

Good luck!

Uncharted 2, Bioshock 2 and Zelda: Twilight Princess are all great games. I haven't played Zelda: Phantom Hourglass or Zelda: Spirit Tracks, but hey, they're Zelda games, so I'm sure they good. Should be a good quarter for you.

Garden Ninja wrote:

Good luck!

Uncharted 2, Bioshock 2 and Zelda: Twilight Princess are all great games. I haven't played Zelda: Phantom Hourglass or Zelda: Spirit Tracks, but hey, they're Zelda games, so I'm sure they good. Should be a good quarter for you.

My problem with the DS Zelda's is the stuff that's not traditionally in a Zelda game. That is to say, the vehicle transportation. I would have loved Phantom Hourglass and given Spirit Tracks a try were it not for the fact that you have to meander over vast expanses of effectively nothing to get between the actual game parts. I had no problem with revisiting the same temple repeatedly in Phantom Hourglass.

Also, I'm probably 2-3hrs from finishing Borderlands on PC (please add it to the list, too), so man, I could be finishing 3 pile games before even the month is over. It's a good thing I don't buy new releases between the end of August and Christmas.

mrtomaytohead, given that, how did you feel about Windwaker and its sailing?

Garden Ninja wrote:

Good luck!

Uncharted 2, Bioshock 2 and Zelda: Twilight Princess are all great games. I haven't played Zelda: Phantom Hourglass or Zelda: Spirit Tracks, but hey, they're Zelda games, so I'm sure they good. Should be a good quarter for you.

I guess the nice thing is I got all of them all used so I probably paid less total then one of them new.

I actually cancelled my pre-order of Skyrim because I just know I won't be able to get to it. Plus it will give me something else to put on my Christmas list.

I couldn't bring myself to cancel Skyward Sword....it just looks so beautiful...

ClockworkHouse wrote:

mrtomaytohead, given that, how did you feel about Windwaker and its sailing?

I wouldn't know, the 2 hours I played of it had no sailing yet. I have a feeling it's going to drive me nuts. I'm seriously considering using at a guide to tell me where to go when in terms of sailing so that I don't end up wandering aimlessly.