I: Adieu, free time
After multiple months of no school (finished in June), university starts in mere 3 days. This means that my free time will be reduced dramatically and I couldn't be happier for it. It's been fun to just chill and do whatever I want for a couple months but I couldn't imagine doing this for any longer. I don't know how some people
choose to be unemployed for their entire lives, it's torture at some point. :D Anyway, uni starts and this means gaming will be more of a luxury in the future. It will take me 9 semesters to finish my studies, so I'm quite intrigued to find out how much time I'll have for video games. Obviously, friends and family have a higher priority when I do get the time, so I might skip a month or two on here again just to have something to report. I might come back next for the Year in Review but we'll see about that. Anyway, onto the report.
II: Games I've Quit | 6
- Borderlands 3
- Final Fantasy XV
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker
- Pillars of Eternity
- The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut
- Tyranny
I've tried a lot with the Borderlands series and apart from the first one, which was fine, none of the other games really made me enjoy my time with them. I tried Borderlands 2 twice with two different 'coop partners' and I tried The Pre-Sequel solo. Quit them every time. I got 15 hours into a coop playthrough of
Borderlands 3 before my brother and I couldn't be bothered to play it again. Forgettable plot, grindy gameplay that's not fun because your weapons just don't do any damage (though they look cool) and multiple laggy areas. That's enough Borderlands for the rest of my life I'd say.
As a late addition to this section, I've also abandoned
Final Fantasy XV recently. It just.. ugh. Uni starting played a part in this decision but even so, I can't imagine sitting through 50+ hours of this game. I got into this before and decided to do it properly this time. I took my time to learn the combat and all the features in this game, so I didn't feel as lost. I even watched the damn anime series in preparation. The story bits were fine and maybe would've gone somewhere but I disliked how they shove the movie down your throat by choosing to add scenes from it
at the end of Chapter 1. Or at least I think that scene was from the movie because it looked like it and felt so out of place. The ensuing sections were well done but literally 30 minutes later, I'm standing next to this reporter who says: "Ah, the prince, you're looking quite nice today". And Noctis says "yep". And the fact that this reporter then asks me to retrieve a stupid item for him, which basically is EVERY FUCKING QUEST in this game. It's just not for me for the same reasons why anime isn't for me. You get 50 hours of filler just to get rewarded with, admittedly, incredible story moments. But I'd rather rewatch Inception 25 times than to go through this. At least Persona makes it fun and adds the social life sim sections where I can see and do new stuff regularly. So yeah. Final Fantasy is not for me.
I've also quit four (c)RPGs. I had re-added
Tyranny to the backlog just recently funnily enough but after playing and abandoning
Pillars of Eternity I decided to "re-abandon" it, along with
Pathfinder: Kingmaker and
The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut, two games I had not started even. Why? Playing PoE, I realized that cRPGs in a fantasy setting don't seem to really be games I enjoy. I did play Baldur's Gate years ago (on my phone), which was fine but I found PoE just boring. It doesn't do anything wrong generally but the gameplay (clicking at enemy, sometimes choosing different attacks) is extremely boring and unrewarding to me and the dialogues are filled with big words I don't understand, which makes understanding the main plot rather difficult as well. I get the gist of it and slightly more but having to google one word per sentence gets old fast. I state the obvious here by saying this is just my personal taste but it's worth mentioning. I might try highly praised games like Planescape: Torment and keep an eye out for Baldurs Gate 3 but with uni starting in a couple days, I don't think I'll have the time to sink into these kinds of RPGs for the next few years at least.
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III: Games I’ve Added | 3
- Costume Quest 2
- Layers of Fear 2
- Mafia: Definitive Edition
Two additions from the Epic Store in
Costume Quest 2 and
Layers of Fear 2. I'd like to get my hands on the first CQ game before I play the second but I already played the original LoF game, so the second part being free is quite nice.
The first game in 2020 that I'll play will be
Mafia: Definitive Edition. I personally wouldn't have bought anything that came/comes out this year (apart from maybe Cyberpunk 2077) because I'm (about to be) a broke student but my brother got Mafia on Steam and I have access to it thanks to Steam Family Sharing. Appreciate you bro.
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IV: Games I've Beaten | 5
A quick overview of all the games I've beaten this month. Reviews are in alphabetical order. (
Bold = Game of the Month)
- 11-11: Memories Retold
- Black Mesa
- Furi
- Into the Breach
- Overcooked
Overcooked
Owned Since: February 4th, 2020
Beaten: October 1st
Platform: PC
Playtime: 10 hours
The month overall has been pretty underwhelming but Overcooked has easily been the most unique experience because it's been the first game I've ever played together with my little 3 year old brother. You can imagine that some parts were quite stressful, especially when I would tell him to put the steak on the frying pan and he'd just throw it in the trash bin.
Still, I had a lot of fun teaching him some things, seeing how he got better and better and how we actually managed to beat it. Well, the final boss section was 90% me running circles around him and telling him to just wash the dishes because it was too hard.
The new PS5 version seems to include more kid-friendly settings like removing the timer on the meals, which is great news and will make our life with Overcooked 2 much easier.
Rating: 7/10
Into the Breach
Owned Since: September 3rd, 2020
Beaten: October 1st
Platform: PC
Playtime: 4 hours
Just played through this while watching some baseball on the side. I've played it on easy because the game beat my ass on even normal but I might've not really been paying much attention in my first try. Nice strategy game. It kind of lacks in terms of features but I guess that's by design (and budget) and strategy game fans probably got a lot out of the different difficulty levels and beating the game in different ways. I'm just a filthy casual though, but enjoyed my short time with it.
Rating: 7/10
11-11: Memories Retold
Owned Since: November 1st, 2019
Beaten: October 3rd
Platform: PC
Playtime: 6 hours
Not taking anything away from this game but this being my favorite of the month at a 7/10 rating shows that October wasn't all that fantastic. Just a bunch of solid to OK games.
In this one, you play a Canadian and German soldier during World War I. Shamefully, I did not recognize that the Canadian, Harry, was voiced by Elijah Wood but now that I've read it, yeah, Harry sounded a lot like Elijah. The German, Kurt, actually spoke German throughout the game, so it was a fun experience for me (I'm German) that way.
The story in this one was pretty interesting and there were a few big moments which were definitely surprising. The protagonists motivations for joining the army were well explained as well. My only negative with this game, and if you're into art, you'll probably dislike this opinion, but I thought the graphics in this game were ugly as hell. I guess the devs wanted to portray something with it that I didn't get and that's fair but to me, it just looked terrible. To add to that, there are a bunch of collectibles in this game but the artwork just made it very hard to find them sometimes, especially out in the open.
Gameplay was limited to a few simple puzzles, interacting with characters and walking around a bunch. Very simple and pretty fitting to the overall experience. I've not been mesmerized by this game but it's definitely a unique one and worth checking out.
Rating: 7/10
Furi
Owned Since: December 26th, 2017
Beaten: October 5th
Platform: PC
Playtime: 3.5 hours
Last time I tried this was right around December 2017 and I remember quitting at the 3rd boss because of how difficult it was. Another member on this sub had played this recently and mentioned a very easy mode for noobs like me, so I thought I'd give it another shot.
I like the aesthetics of this game. The soundtrack meshes really well with it and definitely enhances the thrill you get from the fights (though there wasn't much to get thrilled about on easy of course, even though I still died twice). "The Voice"/ the dude in a bunny costume helps make those long walks more bearable, even though his cryptic talking didn't do much for me. These talks basically tell the whole story or rather give you a rough idea on what's happening, with much left to interpretation I feel like. There might be articles talking about what the story was about but I didn't read them. Maybe there's more to all of it but I didn't really care much for that.
Fighting the bosses is were the real fun is at but I wish the controls were tighter than they are, especially when dodging. Some parts where you had to dodge a bunch of enemy attacks in a row got kind of frustrating, even on easy but all in all I had fun with it. If you're into "boss only" games like this one or something like Titan Souls and Jotun, give it a shot.
Rating: 6/10
Black Mesa
Owned Since: April 7th, 2017
Beaten: October 21st
Platform: PC
Playtime: 13 hours
Had this in my backlog for a while and thought I'd play this to conclude my journey through the Half Life series (not getting VR for Alyx). I played the original back in October 2017, so it's been a while but I had a hard time remembering a bunch of areas. And I swear the "On A RaiL" chapter took way longer in my memory of the first game than it did here in Black Mesa. So either the game has been changed a lot or I have a trash memory.
Anyway, just playing this game and seeing the updated graphics was a joy, especially since I didn't play many games as a kid, so none of the remasters that have come out in the past 10 years really affected me up to this point.
There were a lot of bugs that have to be ironed out still for sure, and many game breaking ones as well. It happened about 4 or 5 times where my game would auto save right as I was about to die, so I'd find myself in a death loop with no other option but reloading an older save. It didn't take too much time to get back to where I was on all but one of these bugs fortunately but it was annoying and took away from the experience. Also, I don't know if the Xen level was extended compared to the original but damn, it just took ages. Don't get me wrong, the level looks beautiful but it just overstayed its welcome in my opinion.
Overall, very nice to see Half Life with better graphics but not the most joyous experience of my gaming life.
Rating: 6/10
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V: Currently Playing
PC - Batman: Arkham City: No game really looks interesting to me right now, so I've downloaded this as it's on my list. Don't know when or if I'll be starting it next month. Mass Effect 2 will definitely not be completed this year.
Playstation 4 - FIFA: As most of the games I've played this month failed to impress or at least excite me and FIFA releasing, I got hooked on it for the first time since FIFA 13, when it was the only game I'd play. We'll see how I'll juggle this with single player games in the coming months.
Xbox One - Nothing: I have Kingdome Come: Deliverance, Metro Last Light and AC: Origins on this console left. The AC series will probably take me years before I get to Origins and I also want to re-try playing Metro 2033, while KC:D just is a huge time sink. Don't think I'll touch this console for a while.
Nintendo Switch - Nothing: This console is being used solely for playing Super Mario Odyssey with my little brother these days and I don't know when there will be a game released I'd like to play day one. A bunch of games look interesting but I'll not be able and don't want to pay 40 € for a 7 hour platformer.
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VI: 12in12 original list | 10/12 completed
- Batman Arkham City
- Blair Witch | COMPLETE
- Bioshock Infinite | COMPLETE
- Deponia Doomsday | COMPLETE
- Detroit: Become Human | COMPLETE
- Half-Life 2 | COMPLETE
- Mass Effect 2
- Minit | COMPLETE
- Orwell: Ignorance is Strength | COMPLETE
- Pokémon Sword | COMPLETE
- SOMA | COMPLETE
- The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine | COMPLETE
No progress. Batman might be done this year but Mass Effect would take too long.
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VII: My Stats
- Games Added: 57
- Total Price: 53 €
- Games Removed: 35
- Games Finished: 31
- Games Left in the Backlog: 79
The number of games in my backlog should only grow and grow from here on out, because I can't imagine beating 3 or 4 titles in a month for a while. But again, I'll find out about this in the coming months.
Thanks for reading and best of luck to you all for the rest of the year :)
