A year in gaming - An effort to clear the 'backlog' of impulse buys

[Axyl]

See, I'm not preventing myself from buying new games during all this.. which is probably making things harder for myself.

Having just bought Natural Selection 2, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion and (finally) Mirror's Edge.. I guess i'll see how it goes, although i did clear over half of Portal 2 last night so I'm making good progress...
Thanks for the weclome, SMiD...

Game on! :P

[FunnyB]

Just finished Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising. It was excellent!
Next on my list: Finishing my second playthrough of Mass Effect, and playing through Rainbow Six Vegas.

How is it going for everyone else?

[alms]

Finally found the will to tackle Ben There, Dan That. It's not a bad game but for some reason it couldn't get me too much involved.

[Jiiiiim]

Ben There Dan That is very short, and very well-written. I really warmed to it because it was portraying self-aware adventure game protagonists. Admittedly being meta is no great shakes nowadays but it was played so well that it won me over.

Meanwhile I've been finishing off the detritus of some Indie Bundles. Scraping the barrel of short games I can finish quickly here.

26: Hammerfight
27: Samorost 2

NEXT UP: Darwinia and The Sims 3.

[Anthile]

Ben There, Dan That was incredibly funny and I'm someone who doesn't find anything funny (it comes with being German). It's also a fairly good adventure game on top of that.
Time Gentlemen, Please is actually even funnier and better written, even if the puzzles go off the rails in the last third of the game.

[alms]

The playing-the-devs-thing didn't really worked for me, the humor only partly more so. While the running gag did make me laugh, there were other times, especially when exhausting conversation options, when it felt like when you're talking to one of those people who try too hard to be funny - grows tiring.

Regardless, I liked the ending and are going to try TGP sooner or later.

[Axyl]

Portal 2, cleared. Loved each and every single second of that one. I totally see why it's gotten such praise.
I'm still smiling now, and i quit out over half an hour ago. :D

Not sure what to clear next... Just picked up Arkham City and am quite enjoying it.. Might actually go with DX:HR or Dead Island next thinking about it. I want some pewpew. :D

[DevinSmoth]

DX:HR is a fun game... but if you're going for pewpew I'd go Dead Island. While not a fan of zombie games anymore (other than perhaps L4D2), it's most likely going to be more pewpew than DX was. That said... I loved DX. ;)

[Axyl]

Ended up between Dead Island, DX:HR and Far Cry 2...
Picked DX:HR + DLC.. rather looking forward to this one. :D

[DevinSmoth]

Good luck! It's a really fun game... I need to replay it again soon, now that I have the DLC and try the whole sneakery thing. Good times!

[Axyl]

Yeah, i've been reading up on the whole stealth vs non-stealth thing..
I'm sure it's nice to gain extra XP from Stealth takedowns / non-lethal etc, but quite frankly i feel like being a violent cyber-psychopath.. so Guns a plenty it is! :D

P.S.. Is it actually worth a second playthrough to take the stealthly/LTL route? Are there (m)any major differences bar XP gain? A different ending maybe? :)

[DevinSmoth]

As far as I can tell, you can experience all three endings in one playthrough if you save-scum. That said... I'm still working up to a second playthrough for the stealth just to see if I can't do it. I don't know if it's worth it, but I loved the game the first time around, so I want to see it again.

[FunnyB]

Weren't there 4 endings in DE:HR?

Anyways, I finished my second playthrough of Mass Effect yesterday. Played Male Renegade this time. Which means that it is now time to continue that character in Mass Effect 2! When I've completed nr 2 the second time around, I'll consider getting Mass Effect 3. Even though I've spoiled it completely for myself, I still want to play it. It's one of those games that sounds like the journey is better than the outcome. And I think I can live with that.

[groovychainsaw]

I completed stuff! 2 in one day! Finally. Kinda highlights how little time I have for games these days (blood bowl commitments notwithstanding). But I completed uncharted 3 yesterday, then followed that by finally beating deus ex:HR.

Both, interestingly, were only defeated when i said 'sod this' and turned the difficulty down to 'easy'. Both had bored me with tedious combat and I just don't have time for it any more. I still enjoyed all the fantastic set pieces in uncharted without the boring 'shoot 50 respawning men with slightly wonky controls and a bad cover system with a pad not fit for aiming well' fights. Likewise, I switched difficulty down to get past the penultimate boss fight in DE:HR, after it had screwed me by taking away all my abilities and leaving me with just one big gun (which didn't do enough damage on medium difficulty to kill the bad guy - on easy he died almost before he'd finished monologuing, which was strangely satisfying after this stopping my game for 4 months).

Neither are bad games, but repetitive combat, poor controls (IMHO) and odd difficulty spikes killed my enthusiasm for both. I put them on easy, then I enjoyed them again. I'm starting to come round to the mass effect 3 'i don't want fights' mode these days, i don't have time for boring combat.

Saying that, dark souls is still on my list, and I love that, still one of my favourite games of all time, but that a different sort of difficulty altogether, very rarely do i feel like the game decided to kill me for no reason, I like to feel its my fault entirely when I fail, and dark souls does that beautifully.

[FunnyB]

... the game decided to kill me for no reason, I like to feel its my fault entirely when I fail, and dark souls does that beautifully.

Reminds me of my recent replay of Mass Effect 1. Certain encounters in that game annoyed me to no end. First, the fact that quicksaves are blocked when an enemy is present made things really annoying when you died. Plus the fact it often felt like your companions didn't contribute much to the combat, and that 80 % of your shots missed, since the accuracy in that game sucks.
So, when I was killed by a stray rocket launcher blast by the very last enemy in a room, and had to restart a save where I hadn't entered the room containing 10-12 crazy enemies, I got kind of pissed off. Especially when this happened 5-6 times per room.

Talk about a game with good story, but bad gameplay mechanics :D

[Axyl]

Dammit.. i got right back into Minecraft with the latest update (Jungles, cats, world height increase, etc) and have only played the first two missions of DX:HR.
However, I'd decided to play a violent sociopath rather than the non-lethal stealthy option i keep hearing so much about.

You know that guy who takes the woman hostage in the early mission?

*SPOILER AHEAD*


i shot him in the head. no talking, no thought.. soon as i was given the option. cap. headshot. (damn that revolver is sick, though)

I felt like crap. Seriously. All the potential information i could have gained from this man, his side of the story and god knows what else...
Plus.. his motionless body laying in the room whilst everyone is saying "good job" etc..
Very strange sensation, i must say.

But, it got me thinking.. first off i restarted and will be taking each choice "as it comes" and playing it true to my RL self..
This has got me infinitely more excited about playing the game now, plus I still remember that feeling I got from cold bloodedly killing that guy. Maybe it's pure game design or maybe it's because it wasn't a "mindless bad guy". He spoke, facial animation and voice acting quality were all stellar and that in turn sold a REALLY immersive experience, which i think this profound cold chill i still get (IRL) remembering that scene is the result of.

Or.. I'm just far, FAR too neurotic and overthink everything.
Either way.. this Backlog Clearing is becoming far more poignant that I had first suspected.. and I am enjoying the ever-loving crap out of it!

tl;dr Yay for RPS and it's awesome ideas! :D

[DevinSmoth]

Well, since the thread made the first page again today, I decided that I'd give a quick update from me. I've had another quarter at graduate school start (working on finishing my Master's in Mathematics) and along with the Teaching position that I'm holding this quarter, that's taking a lot my time. Plus, I really need to score a full quarter of A's this quarter, so I'm studyingmore than I have been lately... which leaves me very little time for gaming.

I'm also being super ADD right now as far as games are concerned. If you check my Backloggery.com page, I'm keeping it updated with everything that I'm playing right now and it's getting a bit out of hand. I'm really enjoying Kingdoms of Amalur, but I'm not going to be finishing it any time soon with how large it is. I'm also really enjoying the time that I'm spending with Age of Empires Online, which also doesn't have a real finish point either. But I'm trying to push through and finish games like Majesty 2 and Hard REset, so that I can say that I'm clearing space in my backlog for more games at this point.

Add to all of that the fact that my wife and I are considering starting a family now that we've been married for almost four years... and things are insane at my house right now. Lots of long talks into the middle of the night only to have my sleep interupted by the insane pressure of needing to get out of the house for classes early the next morning.

I'm trying to keep up... but with everything going on, it's really REALLY hard! I do think I'm going to be skipping Guild Wars 2 which means that I only plan on purchasing Orcs Must Die! 2, Torchlight 2, and Starcraft 2 expansion this year... so that's a plus, right?! At least those are all games with technical endings (minus the whole multiplayer aspect of each).

Good job on the rest of you completing stuff though, I'm proud of you! ;) Maybe I'll finish Guardian of Light with my brother in law while he's here in town with some couch co-op... or finish the Lego Star Wars Saga. ;) So many hopes... so little, little time (especially since his first kid was born this morning!).

Edit: Oh, as a quick addendum, I did want to say that I'm also playing Kingdom of Loathing again pretty hardcore, so that's taking a lot of my gaming time right now as well. If you want to friend me on there, it's Hobse...

[SMiD]

After a small hiatus while I 100%ed FF 13-2, I'm back on the PC backlog. Icewind Dale is the current flavor, and it's pretty decent. Not on the same level as BG, but then it wasn't meant to be. Feels good to be back in the ole IE.

When not in IWD, I'll jump into Just Cause 2 for some amazingly catastrophic mayhem. Turning the difficulty down to casual is definitely the right move.

And when not in either of those 2 games, I'm in Unity trying to make an updated version of Sid Meier's SimGolf. Yeah...

[Yachmenev]

I recently got Shogun 2 and The Witcher 2 out of the backlog, although I feel I want to return to both of them. And now I´m not sure what I want to play of the backlog games. I keep putting som time in to Skyrim, but feel no rush in beating that. As for the others:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - 9 hours in, and have reached the second hub, but am not entirely conviced yet. The hubs are quite dull in their design, and I feel like the progression through the main missions is a bit to linear for my taste.

Back to the Future - In the third episode. It´s ok, but really not much more. Feels like several steps backwards after the excellent Tales of Monkey Island and Sam&Max: Hit the Road.

The Last Express - Not even started it yet.

Alpha Protocol - I like the idea of it and the conversation system, but not quite fond of the mission structure in the game.

[allanschnorr]

I finished L.A. Noire and Mass Effect 3 and I'm thinking on what to play next. I'm between Dirt 3 and Blur. Also I've been playing SpaceChem during the last month, mainly during the weekends when I can play longer sessions. Also I'm trying to think in an indie game to play but that's been difficult. I'm finding that most of the indie games I own, mainly due to indie bundles, I don't like.

Let me explain the situation: those acclaimed indie games, like Super Meat Boy, Braid, SpaceChem, Bastion, VVVVVV, Machinarium, Osmos, among others, I absolutely love. It's games like Greed Corp, Binding of Isaac, Revenge of the Titans, Sanctum, Toki Tori, Sideway: New York that I end up not liking. I guess it's live and learn. Good thing I decided to skip the majority of bundles released this year (I only bought the BeMine bundle).

From now on I'll apply to Indie games the same treatment I aplly to AAA games: I'll only buy them after either playing a demo representative of the complete game or either watching at least a couple of let's play videos on youtube to at least have a good idea of what I'm getting.