Summer's Over, Pile is Eternal - Pile of Shame August 2021

Moving into the tail-end of the year. Still can't get a new console, which means it's a fantastic opportunity to play games from the PS4 and Xbox One (or older systems).

For those new to the Pile of Shame, we have monthly threads until October and that thread goes for the rest of the year. It used to be due to the influx of new games, a lot of folks would be drawn to the new games and the pile would to a backseat. As release schedules have changed over the last 14(!) years, it's a way for me to take a bit of a break.

Some housekeeping notes.

If you're interested, trueheart78, has the 12 month 2021 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, Picks of the Pile, etc... Please go here and check out the spreadsheet I setup.

Let's get on to the games!

This month's Pick of the Pile is

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus


IMAGE(https://hdqwalls.com/wallpapers/wolfenstein-2-the-new-colossus-4k-8u.jpg)
"America, 1961. The assassination of Nazi General Deathshead was a short-lived victory. The Nazis maintain their stranglehold on the world. You are BJ Blazkowicz, aka “Terror-Billy,” member of the Resistance, scourge of the Nazi empire, and humanity’s last hope for liberty. Only you have the guns and gumption to return stateside, kill every Nazi in sight, and spark the second American Revolution." (Official Site)

Multi-Platform
Civilization VI - LastSurprise
Days Gone - JohnKillo
Doki Doki Literature Club! - AUs_TBirD
Final Fantasy VII Remake - Malkroth
God of War 3 - AUs_TBirD
Haven - LastSurprise
LEGO Builder's Journey - bobbywatson
LEGO City Undercover - bobbywatson
Lisa - The Painful - AUs_TBirD
Marvel's Avengers - Stele
Monster Hunter Stories - brokenclavicle, Malkroth
Murder by Numbers - charlemagne
Red Dead Redemption 2 - iaintgotnopants
The Sexy Brutale - iaintgotnopants
Spider-Man - honeycut1
Super Mario 3D World - iaintgotnopants
Trine 4 - Stele
Untitled Goose Game - LastSurprise
Way of the Passive Fist - JohnKillo
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus - AUs_TBirD
Yakuza 0 - AUs_TBirD, Forlorn Hope

PC
Half Life: Alyx - Forlorn Hope
Lords of Xulima - LastSurprise
Tyranny - brokenclavicle

Xbox
Jet Set Radio Future - bobbywatson

Two things to declare this month:

Jet Set Radio Future (Xbox)
LEGO Builder's Journey (multi)

I'm almost done with LEGO Builder's Journey, and JSRF is not too long, so I should be able to play both this month. I'm playing something else, I might declare it later if I think there is a decent chance that I will complete it this month.

Formatted shortlist:

Spoiler:

Multi-Platform
Doki Doki Literature Club! - AUs_TBirD
God of War 3 - AUs_TBirD
Lisa - The Painful - AUs_TBirD
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus - AUs_TBirD
Yakuza 0 - AUs_TBirD

Thanks to having the house to myself for a while, I managed to complete all of my July picks and one bonus game. Since I'm still flying solo for much of the month, I've got some ambitious plans. The following list is just part of what I hope to accomplish.

Doki Doki Literature Club! (PC/multi) - Haven't started yet, but it's time I experience this.

God of War 3 (PS3/multi) - About a quarter through. After this, I only have Dad of War left, and I'll be caught up on the series (until the next one releases).

Lisa - The Painful (PC/multi) - While the art style (which makes me think of a violent, post apocalyptic version of the Earthbound art style) kept me from looking at this closer for a long time, frequent positive word of mouth convinced me to give it a try. Almost an hour in, and I'm intrigued.

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus (PC/multi) - Assuming I can avoid trying to get every collectible, which seriously hurt my enjoyment of The New Order, I'm expecting a fun FPS romp.

Yakuza 0 (PS4/multi) - My real stretch goal for the month. It's my first Yakuza game that I keep thinking about playing ever since getting through chapter 1 two years ago, but I've always put off continuing because it's really long and requires bigger chunks of uninterrupted time.

Pulling up Tyranny (PC) again. And Monster Hunter Stories (multi). Yeah, I think I'll keep it like this for now.

Well, I'm going to declare and strike off Yakuza 0 (PC/Multi). Finally saw credits roll after 73 hours and the game told me that I was only around 49% completion or something. No time to 100% since I have 6 more adventures with Kiriyu. I guess I'll try to push to finish Half Life: Alyx (PC) as well since it's on the shorter side and I've been meaning to get back to it.

Forlorn Hope wrote:

Yakuza 0 (PC/Multi). Finally saw credits roll after 73 hours and the game told me that I was only around 49% completion or something.


Alright, Yakuza 0 is now my "fantasy" goal rather than stretch.
I thought AC Odyssey was my only forever game...

This month, I'm going to:

1. Finish Haven, an excellent little RPG recommended to me here. Yu and Kay are such a cute couple.
2. Terrorize a bunch of English villagers in Untitled Goose Game
3. Finally actually finish a game of Civ VI. In my latest game, I'm off to a great start as the Khmer.
4. Finish Lords of Xulima

Whew! Four feels like maybe too much.

I'm carrying over Red Dead Redemption 2 and Super Mario 3D World again.

I'm a little over 20 hours into RDR2 and just finished chapter 2 so it's still got a ways to go. I'm not sure I know what the plot is other than "doin' cowboy stuff" but it's an incredibly well done game.

And, I really need to find a day where I can just set aside like 8 hours to finish Mario. My brain just has a hard time remembering that console video games are a thing.

In addition, the GWJ Adventure Game Club thread made me want to play The Sexy Brutale. So I'm playing that.

My plans are to wrap up Monster Hunter Stories (multi) this month and hopefully get back to my Final Fantasy 7 Remake (PS4) playthrough. We will see how that goes, I have noticed that I spend a lot of time "not finishing a game", probably a hold over from my youth when I had fewer games to play.

The LEGO Builder's Journey has now reached its conclusion. I will put my thoughts together and post them in the Recently finished games thread later today.

I reached the end of Doki Doki Literature Club and it uninstalled.

That was...something else. Definitely worth playing and certainly got a reaction out of me a few times. It also confirms my hypothesis that visual novels (I played A Summer's End: Hong Kong 1986 earlier this year and loved it) are 99.8% clicking through text, and 0.2% making an actual choice (which may or may not matter much).

----
Have made decent progress on all my other picks except for Yakuza 0.

Dipping into the pile a little. Way of the Passive Fist and Days Gone.

Passive Fist is so good and Days Gone is okay for now. It doesn't feel Oregon yet.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

Super Mario 3D World again.

Damn has it been 3 months already? I need to go back and finish this too.

I came to declare Trine 4 (Switch, multi). Started this weekend and it's back to the fun of the first couple games. Got into a good Grove today and hopefully will burn through this quick.

I will add Lego City Undercover (multi) to my list for this month. It had been on my Steam wishlist for quite some time, and it's on sale for $6 this week, so I said 'Why not?', bought it, started playing it right away, and I'm having a blast so far (I played about 6 hours since yesterday).

bobbywatson wrote:

I will add Lego City Undercover (multi) to my list for this month. It had been on my Steam wishlist for quite some time, and it's on sale for $6 this week, so I said 'Why not?', bought it, started playing it right away, and I'm having a blast so far (I played about 6 hours since yesterday).

And... Lego City Undercover is complete! It was really good, guys! Definitely my GOTY so far.

Finished The Sexy Brutale. Overall liked it but I wish there was a little more.

I've been playing too much Dota to finish Battle Pass stuff but that's done next week so I should have more time to hopefully get Red Dead Redemption 2 done by the end of the month.

I'm done with Haven! It was a great little game; I reached the end in about 15 hours. As some of the reviews suggested, the exploration and combat were a bit repetitive and overstayed their welcome a bit, but the story -- I haven't played anything like it. It's the tale of two lovers who've fled from a dystopian, futuristic state to an abandoned planet. They're already in a relationship, and it's a very lovingly-told story about how their relationship deepens and how they build a new life together, there. They take care of each other, and get on each other's nerves, and are thirsty for each other in a very true-to-life way.

Ok, I'll pull back a game I meant to finish a few months ago but I'm getting back into. Put me up for Murder by Numbers (switch).

I finished Untitled Goose Game and Lords of Xulima earlier this week. And, today is a historic day -- just now, I finished a game of Civilization VI! I'm notorious for playing through the first 100 turns or so, then starting over. This is actually only the second time I've finished a game, and the first time I've finished one with the expansion packs.

With the leader tweaks, Jayavaraman VII is an absolute beast.

Finished Murder by Numbers. Took me a long time, but once I got back into it I smashed through the second half.

Finished the campaign in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus about a week ago. Still have a fair bit of post-game content to go through, and I absolutely will!

Not sure if it will beat out Streets of Rage 4 to claim the title, but right now, Wolf II is absolutely in my top 3 for GOTY.

Great graphics, great gameplay, interesting collectibles (for some reason far less annoying than in the previous mainline game), great music, a great imagining of an alternate reality USA, and some great writing (with a few plotholes*) and a message that's as unsubtle as a brick to the face (which I'm ok with in this case) combined into a really outstanding overall package!

It gets an unequivocal recommendation from me!

*Plothole:

Spoiler:

So, the Germans have tons of missiles, bombers, etc that they used to take over the world. Yet...whenever BJ's resistance group is fighting them, and they could easily snuff out the entire group using aerial or missile bombardment, the only enemies BJ encounters are ground-based.

Also, seriously - the New York resistance group hideout is literally the most obvious -, and probably only habitable spot within 50 miles. Yet the Nazis have not found it, and instead continue to force hundreds, if not thousands of troops to patrol the deserted nuclear wasteland below?

My daughter and I have been playing through Spider-Man on Ps4/Ps5 (we've finished the base game and working on the DLCs now...also quite good). That game is absolutely incredible.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

The following list is just part of what I hope to accomplish.

Oh hubris, thou treacherous imprudence.

While I've been able to check off Doki Doki Literature Club! and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, I'm doubtful that I'll finish anything else. I've spent far less time playing than I expected. Made some progress in God of War 3 and am not ruling out that I might still see the end in the next few days.

Lisa - The Painful has been a slog, tbh. I'm interested to see more of the story since it's pretty unique, but the actual game isn't very enjoyable. I haven't even started Yakuza 0.

On the other hand, I've been back into Quake Champions, so that eats about 30 minutes a day, and I got waylaid by Hypnospace Outlaw for several nights (about 2/3 through). Then the Quake Remaster came out and everything else was relegated to second place in terms of importance.

I still hold out hope for a credit roll on God of War 3 and/or Hypnospace Outlaw, but no guarantees on either.

Finally rolled credits on Monster Hunter Stories last night, I was not as close to the end of the game as I thought. The game mechanics were fun and I am interested to see if they polished them up in MHST2, but the story was completely unintesting. Over in our JRPG club thread I equated it to a poorly written children's novel.

With it already being the 28th, I will not be able to get through FFVII Remake this month. Maybe next month since I am already done with the JRPG club game for this quarter.

Well I did finish Marvel's Avengers (PS5, multi) main story. So put it on and cross it off the list.

Unfortunately I've kept playing it, grinding loot, and probably won't finish anything else this month haha.

Trine 4 is close... maybe I can push through the next 3 days when wife is using the TV.

I'd like to carry over Spiderman into September. I have the last story DLC to wrap up and then start the New Game + DLC.

Managed to finish Hypnospace Outlaw (PC/multi - undeclared) in time. I recommend the first 1-2 hours as a unique bit of time travel to 1995-96 company-curated internet spaces (though it supposedly takes place in 1999). Seeing pages change with time is pretty cool too. To be honest though, I don't remember the internet at the time being QUITE as annoying (auto-playing music on EVERY page. I remember being awed the first couple times I found any internet site that played music in 1996/97. It was rare at the time. Now, I never want to hear the Squisherz theme song ever again, and I can't get ThatBrassyKid's page theme out of my head even though I hate it.
The later game presents some interesting friction in the form of the beginnings of digital copyright infringement, visions of developers pitted against company profitability, and a few other themes. Unfortunately, the puzzles became too obtuse and tedious for me to derive much enjoyment out of them anymore.
Honestly, the internet sleuthing puzzle bit was done better in MISSING - Since January (aka. In Memoriam), albeit in a different form. Missing is no longer playable though (many of real webpages were already down when I finished it in 2009, so I'm guessing they are all gone by now).

Hypnospace Outlaw is absolutely worth checking out; just try not to feel any compulsion to actually finish it - the payoff probably won't be worth it to you.
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Made good progress in God of War III, but didn't finish it in time.