12 weeks, 12 games, year 3, week 8

   Back to running behind again, been shattered from work and stuff. I'm ready to go now though, I've eaten my chips, got my tea and my Aston Villa 97-98 season review tape (not enough Lee Hendrie) and I'm set. I've not actually played any games for this list (as Rocket League isn't really completable, and if it was, it would have been finished a long time ago) since about Wednesday last week (which is inclusive in week 8), Far cry Primal is waiting to be started but it seems like an effort. Maybe tonight I'll make a start. Point is, I probably won't write one at the end of this week as it's unlikely I'll have finished by then, or even got very far. Oh, there's Lee Hendrie scoring just now (in 1997).

Firewatch

      Wow, old channel 5 Uefa cup coverage was terrible. This game though, is great. It's a 'walking simulator' (as the genre has unfortunately been branded despite games such as gone home, the Stanley parable and so many more being so great) where you shrug off your mentally ill wife to live in the woods and keep an eye peeled for any fires. The main part of the game is the relationship between your character and your boss who you talk to on a walkie talkie. The relationship is very much down to you, you can communicate as much, or as little as you want (well, you have to talk 6 times) and be as nice or mean as you want. Ooh, there's a lovely feature on this tape about our away game against Athletico Madrid, strolling around a field, Dwight Yorke getting held up at the airport, Gareth Southgate chatting shit and so on.
   The only problem I found in the game was the other story in the game, I just didn't care about the guy I replaced or his son. It's overlookable (that's one word, right?) though because of the great character relationship, and of course the gorgeous world that there is to explore. It's about 3-4 hours long but you can add more time if you want to explore all the nooks and crannies, finding tortoises and so on, but that is about the perfect length for me anyway. It didn't seem like I missed much not finding many of the extras, it might be just a nice bit of icing on top. If you like story based games with little actual gameplay (which I do, that wasn't supposed to be sarcastic criticism) then this is definitely worth picking up.

Saturday Morning RPG

 

   If one thing can be said about John Gregory, it's that he knew how to get the 'best' out of Julian Joachim. I heard about this game a while ago and then I noticed it was 60p on the Steam lunar sale, so I went for it. It's a very simple RPG that's split in to separate episodes (as if it were a TV series (also, they weren't all released at once but over time)) like a kids cartoon. It's very 80's themed, with so many references that I can't even. Turns out though, the last episode was never completed for whatever reason so it left me on a cliffhanger. The game itself is fine, it's a basic RPG with the main attraction all the humour and references. The weapons you pick up are all based on something, like the Simon Says machine where you have to complete the sequence to do your attack, or the single glove that deals out a Moon Walk slap. There's scratch and sniffs that boost your stats and 80's movie tie-ins all over the place.
   Gameplay wise it's fine, it's nothing new. It reminds me in many ways of South Park the stick of truth, in that it's a simple but funny light RPG. It's nowhere near as good as South Park mind you, but it was fun for what it was Might have helped if I were about 5 yers older though, it's really for kids of the 80's. For 60p, get it. For full price? depends how much you like the 80's (or RPG's). Can we get Ian Taylor back in the Villa team?

   Right, time to start Far Cry Primal, maybe.

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story
Gauntlet
Xcom 2
Woolfe - The red hood diaries
Firewatch
Saturday Morning RPG

Underway

Xeodrifter

12 weeks, 12 games, year 3, week 7

   Back out of time again, just the way I like it. I'm not going to stick to anyone's schedule though, especially not my own. If I had to do such a thing there's no way I'd be able to sleep for 12 hours, get up at 2pm, then be back in bed by 5, living the dream.

   Xcom 2

   So, I meant to take my own screenshots of this, and indeed all games on Steam as it's pretty easy to do that. I haven't though, I forget. Moving on from where I left off though I was getting towards the end of the game, which picked the momentum back up again, at least it felt that way to me. Firstly, it got harder again. I was getting concerned that I was breezing through the game after I'd set it to easy but towards the last 5-10 missions, I failed a couple of missions and was losing at least 2 soldiers a fight, which lead me in to the final mission with only really 3 squad members worthy of being in the fight (out of 7). Secondly, more story missions. I cared so much more when the mission was actually important or counted towards the advent. When I was trying to do some research or gather some intel then I'd be flashed up with some annoying guerrilla mission, urgh... just let me get on with it!
   Point is, the last few missions were a real pick up at the end of the game and left me with a warm and happy feeling when the credits rolled, where I might not have felt that without those last few. Only problem I had with the ending is, even though it showed some stats throughout the game, they weren't comprehensive enough for me, I do love stats. Overall opinion though is that it was a really good game, but as I'm finding more and more these days, wasn't all that much of an improvement on the 2012 original, so I'll most likely be ending my interaction with this series here, much like I am with so many these days as sequels seem to be becoming rehashed stories of old games that are of little substantial difference. This is a deeper worry for me that I wish to go in to right here, but the future of games is not looking bright to me. That's one for another time though.

Woolfe - The Red Hood Diaries

   Picked up on the cheap on the Steam lunar sale after I'd put it on my wish list some time ago for a reason I'm not sure of, as the average review was thumb across, whereas I'm more of a thumbs up guy (though if I should know anything by now, it's don't trust people). Anyway, bought it now. It's a twist on the little red riding hood fair tail and I was hoping that I'd be able to compare it to Alice: Madness returns, which was a great game (and a twist on a fairlytale). A problem though, this game was not great, or good, or average. It was bad. Style over substance all over the place. It looks great, I'll give it that, but the story was nothing, the gameplay simple and buggy, and the 3D platforming so silly you could jump off the front of the screen like some 1995 PS1 launch game (that's the right year, right?). Point is not much to say really, don't play it, it's bad. Sorry. Under any other circumstances I wouldn't have finished it, but I've done it for this under the foreknowledge that it was short, for no sensible reason. I guess you can trust people after all.

   I've played Firewatch now btw, but technically it's in week 8, so nothing there yet, despite the fact that I'll probably remember it better now than I will come whenever I actually come to write it. Where to go next though? Far cry primal looks very interesting and is out this week, I already have Just Cause 3 staring at me from my shelf and the Witness looks awesome. I don't know which to go with, granted I'll probably play them all eventually, but probably not within these 12 weeks (as they're all big games and this tends to be for shorter games). Quick one this week, things to do (not really, more laziness), for now though...

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story
Gauntlet
Xcom 2
Woolfe - The red hood diaries

Underway

Xeodrifter

12 weeks, 12 games, year 3, weeks 6.

   Ah, half way. Before I go on to this weeks games, I've got to look to the future, and beyond the games I talked about last week (Witness, Far Cry, Just Cause). Turns out this week both Unravel and Firewatch came out to much aplomb. That's 2 games almost perfect for this as they're small contained games and both very good (or so I read). On top of that there was a Steam sale last week so I picked up a few games on there as well (most excitingly (for me anyway) Saturday morning RPG for 66p after I was going to pay £5 for it, deal of the week!). Plus of course The division is out in a few weeks (though I've not made a decision on that yet) and however many other potentially dozens of games that will leap out at me and not forgetting PS Plus and Games with gold of course. Where is the time supposed to come from?

Xcom 2

   After so much excitement it finally arrived, but of course it was always going to be difficult to live up to all the hype I was giving it. So first things first, I'm terrible at this. I got about 10 hours in at great pains and got well and truly stuck. I will be the first to admit that strategy games aren't my forte, the first game in this series (the 2008 re-boot, not the 1992 original) was the first turn based strategy game I ever played for more than an hour, and I loved it. Since then I've played the likes of Chroma Squad, massive chalice, X-Com enemy within and maybe more so I figured I'd be pretty good at it by now, but no. When I look back at it now I remember how difficult I found the original but I'd forgotten that before I picked this up.
   Point was though that I restarted it on easy. I realised which upgrades I should be picking and made all the right decisions and started flying through, so much so in fact hat it seemed too easy. However, It has got more challenging now so I've been proven correct about restarting because I assume it would have gotten impossible for me when I'd gotten to this stage on medium. There is a major issue with restarting though and that's the added time. If howlongtobeat.com is to be believed (as I often do) I should've finished by now with the combined play time. You might wonder why this is annoying me but I'll tell you. As touched upon a few weeks ago I'm starting to enjoy shorter games more and longer games with a constantly repeating gameplay loop get boring to me after a few hours. I'm now at a stage where every random encounter that pops up while I'm trying to do some research is like a hot poker in my buttocks. I was enjoying it, I really was, now though, I'm bored.
   Oh right, what is it? Turned based strategy where you have to reclaim the Earth from alien invaders who have taken over (like the NWO). To do this you have to find gear, research upgrades and budget manage. It's some tricky resource management to say the least as there's constantly something you want and as soon as you've got one thing you want, another 3 pop up that you want, and then a UFO crash lands and you have to recover it which drags you away. There is a lot to do, arguably too much all in 1 go. You get the point I hope. As I said, I was loving it but got bored after 30 or so hours (It could be argued I could play it less intensely than 30 hours in 6 days but, meh). If you're more patient than me then get it, but be warned, it's a long one (again).

   I finished Gauntlet as well btw. That winded up being alright while having half of my attention elsewhere on music, podcasts or whatever. That last boss though, my God. Yet again, I hate bosses, always have, and this one took multiple playthoughs that got infuriating. I managed to snatch a win from the jaws of defeat when I was about to die. Thankfully it's over now though but it left a sour taste from a game I'd enjoyed up to that point.
   That was it for this week though, we'll see how Xcom goes, see which of the Steam games I potentially start or maybe one of the others mentioned in the first paragraph, we shall see.

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story
Gauntlet

Underway

Xeodrifter
Xcom 2

12 Weeks, 12 Games, Year 3, Week 5

   A week of anticipation. I know oh so well that Xcom 2 is out Friday (hey, that's today!), as well as me wanting to play The Witness and Just Cause 3 looking menacingly at me from my shelf as well as Far Cry coming very soon there's a whole heap of stuff to play, but I know the time commitment in the those, so Xcom first, then I'll get on to the rest of the list. Anyway, I needed something else while I waited impatiently for Xcom, and so that leads us here (omg, Unravel is out next week as well).

The Deed

   If I was questioning if the 2 hour games were questionable to count off then this takes the biscuit. 31 minutes. To be fare though, the idea is to try and complete it in all the ways possible, and I did play it twice, to no avail. This is definitely an RPG maker game, fact, and it's about a guy going back to visit his arsehole family to kill his arsehole sister to get the inheritance he deserves for being the only at least semi normal human being in the family (I think that's the idea, yeah?). It's kind of like an interactive version of Cluedo, instead of guessing it's the maid in the drawing room with the candlestick, you can make it the maid in the drawing room with the shard of glass and well positioned panties. Actually, you can't. That's the scheme I played out the second time after initially getting the 'unknown murderer' ending so even though I got away with murder, no inheritance. I tried to set it on the maid and their none existant lesbian relationship, but that got the same ending. Did I even properly finish it? Well, I got away with murder so I'm going with yes. Especially given the fact I totally did the obvious set up to the maid, fuck that bitch.

Her Story

   This one kicked up a big fuss last year as everybody loved it. It's a database game on Steam where you are trying to solve a murder by watching interview clips with the above woman, then based on what she says get some key words to search the database to get more information. There's hundreds of different clips, ranging from a couple of seconds to a few minutes long and even though there's not anything that tells you the ending it's pretty easy to figure out, provided you get enough of the clips and don't assume what it is, because my initial thought was wrong.
    Point is, even tough I like the idea of the game and am always a fan of new ideas in games, what actually happened is ridiculous. I'm not going to spoil it here, but it seems like the kind of plot that got The Bill cancelled (I assume, I haven't seen it since I was 8). Good idea, stupid story. Top tip, get some of the clips from the final session as it reveals all. Oh the wind and the rain...

Rise of the Tomb Raider: Baba Yaga Temple of the Witch

   Okay, so this is DLC so won't be included in the count but it's the best damn thing I've played this week. You may already know my love of the game as it was in my nominees for game of the year, as was its predecessor in 2013 so I was expecting good things, and it delivered. I don't want to talk about the gameplay or those things as I've been there already. The story is delivered brilliantly though. They aim to go down a horror route to separate it from the main game before pulling that all away to reveal the truth behind the mind altering drugs to make sense of it. Then they add it all in again as you run out of antidote. It's a great way to add in some crazy scenes and frankly one of the best boss battles I've ever played (though you should know how I feel about those by now). It may only be a couple of hours long but it's a near perfect piece of downloadable content, if you loved the main game like I did, then, just like L'oreal, it's worth it.

Gauntlet

   Speaking of co op centric games (I was last week anyway) we move on to Gauntlet. A remake of an 80's classic that I rented on several occasions from the infamous 'Oscars video' for my Sega Master System some 25 years ago. The spirit lives on here in many ways. They try their best to pay homage to the original games, repeating the enemies, the keys to continue the game, eating Turkey to heal and I appreciate all this. The biggest issue I have though is how anti single player it is. I've had to set it to easy now (how embarrassing) as I got to a point where I was dying enough times to have to restart the level (though I can't figure out where it says how many lives you have) and for me, repeating 15 minutes you've just played isn't my idea of fun. I'm so glad we've moved on from that now. Anyway, this one is a long way from finished yet, but it seems like a game to play on the side while listening to music or podcasts or whatnot, if I can force myself away from Rocket League that is.

   Anyway, Xcom 2 is out now and if I can't run it I'm going to lose my shit. Expect much on that, and that only next week

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story

Underway

Xeodrifter
Gauntlet

12 Weeks, 12 Games, Year 3, Week 4

   I'm just held over in anticipation now. Xcom 2, which I'm so hoping will play on my Laptop is out next Friday, on top of that I got Just Cause 3 the other day, the Witness has come out and Far Cry Primal is out in a couple of weeks. Point is, there's an array of great games out now, or about to be, but they're all long games that are not at all conducive to this rushed game completion style that I'm going with right now. I want to do Xcom first though, so I'm not doing the others before and I have been/ will be going through some of the rest of the backlog first. It must be said the perceived standard of game for this week I'm writing about here is better than last, but I'd argue whether or not they actually are.

Breath Of Death VII

   But first we go back to the 19p Steam games. This was part of a 2 pack by the same developer along with it's sort of sequel 'Ctulhu saves the world' for 39p total. I'm pretty sure it's an RPG maker game and I'm basically playing this to get in to the mood for Undertale. That's for later though, for now though I had to get through this first. It was a very simple RPG that I was paying half attention to whilst watching TV, there was really no need to pay full attention. It's pretty obvious what to do if you've played any RPG before, if Pokemon was baby's first RPG then this is for the sperm.
   Some of the humour in it though was quite good and bought out by the setting. The human race is over and the undead, monsters and so on rule the Earth. You come across some interesting enemies and fun conversational lines that give this game some character beyond its simplicity. The only real issue with it is that I got to a point in the middle where I had to stop from advancing through the game and grind for an hour. This is a thing that's put me off so many RPG's in the past and in a game that took me less than 5 hours this is a significant time period spent there. As far as buying this one, yeah, why not, it's fine for 19p again, though maybe a bit longer than necessary. BTW Richard Herring, I've now seen a Bigfoot.

WWE 2K16

      Glass breaks. There are 2 main modes to complete in this game, which I was originally going to do, that is until I realised the career mode takes hundreds of hours so I figured I'd forget about that, not mention it here so no one knew I was cheating (whoops) and just go through the Austin 3:16 story mode. I'm pretty sure I don't need to go in to too much depth about this one as whether it was No Mercy or something more recent everyone has played a WWE game at some point. The main part about the story though is that it follows Austin's career from WCW up until his retirement playing key matches in his career and lots of video packages telling you the story in between.
   Weirdness in this comes from having to achieve certain moments in the match that happened in 'real life' and getting the cut scenes to explain out the story. It really separates the matches out in to sort of match segments where you don't really have to fight to get a win as generally most matches are ended by cut scenes, no pin or submission. Another issue, Austin, as a brawler is pretty boring to play as, I get that he was a big star and had a high profile career but in the ring to play as it's pretty dull. Still though it's an interesting look at the story of his career and when you get used to the 'match segment' style it becomes more fun. It's good once you get in to it, and that's the bottom line...

Gears Of War 3

   If you think Gears of War 3 is the most repetitive game you've ever played give me a hell yeah... Oh, wrong game. A bit of back story on why I played this one then. Back in 2006 I got GOW on 360 and didn't like it at all, I thought it was really boring after less than 1 chapter and had no interest in playing any more games in the series. some 9 years later I got ultimate edition, a remake of the first game on Xbox one and really enjoyed it. I figured that my tastes must have changed or I was crazy or something. Anyway, some point in that time in between GOW 3 became available on games with gold and this winter it became playable on Xbox One with backwards compatibility so I had a chance to play it at last. Seems now though that I was right 9 years ago and not so much 6 months ago, it's so boring to play, shoot, cover, shoot, cover, shoot, cover and repeat, for 12 hours.
   I have no idea why I played this to completion (well, I do, because of this stupid blog (not a word, according to the spellcheck on this blog)) but I wish I hadn't. More fun could have been had watching tea stains dry. It probably didn't help with the 'emotional' story having skipped the game in the middle and only reading the wikipedia synopsis. I didn't care that Dom died or anything to do with Marcus Fenix as he's a knob. I can see that it's made for co-op, it's pretty obvious, but playing it by myself really made me question why anyone would like this game. So, get off the Cole Train at the next station and avoid.


   Now it's just a question of what to get through before Friday when Xcom comes out, assuming I can play it of course, I'd damn well better be able to! Also, how great is tipping point? What a ridiculous idea for a quiz show! Yay, I've passed 12 already a third of the way through time-wise, probably a good thing as they're going to be slowing down pretty quickly now.

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3

Underway

Xeodrifter