Spring 2022 Backlog Challenge

[gruffiiti]

Still playing a lot of Elden Ring and I likely will be for a good long while. I did however play and complete 2 more games off my backlog.

 

 

Edna and Harvey: The Breakout

Not much to say about this point & click game. I wasn't feeling it as everything about it just felt very tedious and only half baked. I ended up just following a guide to get it done.

 

Carto

This was an interesting puzzle game that was really quite good. At its core it has a cool concept that I haven't seen before. The world is made up of tiles that can be rotated and moved around to allow you to move to different areas and unlock new areas in order to complete tasks. The puzzles were great and it did have me scratching my head before figuring out how to move forward a few times. I came up with the right solutions eventually though with some out of the box thinking. Definitely a game that should be played if you enjoy games with puzzles in them.

 

 

Event Games

1. A Short Hike [PS4] - 100%
2. Edna and Harvey: The Breakout - 0% --> 100%
3. Carto - 0% --> 100%
4. Rise of the Tomb Raider [PS4] - 2%
5. Afterparty [PS4] - 1%
6. South Park: The Fractured But Whole [PS4] - 1%
7. Jurassic World Evolution [PS4]
8. Lost in Random [PS5]

Games completed (3/8)

 

[YaManSmevz]

Update #2

3/15/22

 

What's up y'all?

 

Slow week for me, but for once it was actually on purpose! Was starting to burn out a little bit - going back and forth between GTA V and Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires (ineligible but I really wanna finish it) started to get kinda miserable, as they're both games where it's possible to play for long periods of time with no real progress made whatsoever...

 

 

...so I gave my PS4 a three day weekend. I think it's something we both needed!

 

Cities is looking a lil less intimidating, hit my first 10k much more easily than expected. SNES Sim City was the last time I played a uh.. well, city sim, and it's a touch more forgiving than I remember.

 

For this week I'd like to stick with Cities, get back into Yakuza 0, and aim to finish the last of GTA V's single player portion: gold medals and... stunt jumps.

 

You guys are playing a lot of great games and I'm lovin seeing all your progress, keep that shit up?? Here's hoping for a solid week!

 

1. Cities: Skylines (11-->14%)

2. Yakuza 0 (27%)

3. Resident Evil 4 (0%)

4. Grand Theft Auto V (52-->58%)

5. Final Fantasy IX (8%)

[ArtisticGeek]

UPDATE #2

Hey meant to post earlier in the week but got caught up in real life stuff and kept forgetting, nothing bad just busy. Wish I had a bit more progress to show forgot just how large Inquisition really is, would have been farther along but ended up having to do some backtracking but all good now. 
Played the Longest Road for a quick breather. 
 

1. NieR Replicant - 0%

2. Ghost of a Tale - 0%

3. Horizon Forbidden West - 0%

4. Spirit Farer - 0%

5. Hades - 0%

6. Metamorphosis  - 0%

7. Beholder Complete edition - 100%

8. The Occupation - 0%

9. The Longest Road on Earth -100%

10. Kentucky Route Zero - 0%

11: Chernobyl -0%

12: Dragon Age Inquisition - 21%

[KimBongUn420]

Update 2: short one this time; in the middle of pretty heavy travel so I've only played about 12 hours of games since the last update.

Progress:

• No major progress in CP2077 or Horizon 2.  I'll get back to those in a couple weeks I think.  
• Decent progress on GT7.  Managed to gold all of the B, A and IB license tests without too much trouble.
• Made it about halfway through Shenmue, which has been pretty neat so far.  I can definitely see how revolutionary this game could have been back in 1999 when it first released.
• Been playing AC Valhalla Dawn of Ragnarok for a bit, as a non-challenge completion.  It's an interesting concept, although as of right now I'm questioning if it's worth the full $40 price of admission.  I'm not very far into it so maybe that will change the further I progress.

Plans for this week: I'm traveling most of this week and early next week so I'm not expecting to make a lot of progress.

• Finish Shenmue
• Get 1-2 more trophies in GT7

Color Key:

Green: Completed Game (This Update) (100% or Plat)

Blue: Completed Game (Previous Updates) (100% or Plat)

Orange: In-Progress Games 

Purple: Newly-Added Games

Red: No Change Since Last Update

Black (Non-Bold): Not Started

Swaps: 0/2

 

1. Horizon: Forbidden West [PS5] - 22%
2. Cyberpunk 2077 [PS5] - 40% -> 42%
3. Gran Turismo 7 [PS5] - 12% -> 29%
4. Shenmue - 0% -> 42%
5. Shenmue II
6. Lost Judgment [PS5]

Trophies: 73/266 (27.4%)

[xItsLesterx]

Update #2

 

Another update in less than a week? It's a first for me ? Not gonna lie, it feels good. Initially, I was hoping to do Operation: Tango but I haven't been able to find someone to play it with. I might have to create a gaming session for it. In the meantime, I decided to do Oddworld: New N' Tasty. While I did not enjoy some of the mechanic, I really liked the game itself. I am that guy all about AAA games and the only reason I played was because the sequel was released for PS5 on PS+. However, I enjoyed the game more than I expected it. I'm gonna jump into Oddworld: Soulstorm and I'm really pumped about it. Saw some gameplay last night and developers really did step up their game from the first one. Get it? Step it "their game"? Ok. I'll stop ?

 

- Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (19% => 100%)

- My Name is Mayo 2 (0% => 100%)

- Operation: Tango (0%)

- Oddworld: New N' Tasty (0% => 100%)

- Oddworld: Soulstorm (0%)

 

Y'all keep up the great work. 

Edited March 16, 2022 by xItsLesterx

[KazaneHime]

Update #2

• Horizon Forbidden West - 52% 65%
• Elden Ring - 2% 10%
• Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed - 30%
• Sekiro: Shadow's Die Twice - 7% swapping with The Pedestrian - 0%
• Detroit: Become Human - 4%

Swaps (1/2)

 

More slow progress this week, and swapping out Sekiro for The Pedestrian just to make sure I'll be able to get my first 5 games completed for sure.

Almost done with the main story of Horizon Forbidden West, but not sure I want it to end just yet ?

[Zach]

Very minor update. I just wanted to let ya'll know I finally started my list. With school and work, I just got around to getting the platinum to FF7 Remake. I'll tackle the DLC for that game later. I just started the Uncharted Collection for the PS5!

 

1) Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection- 2%

2) Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

3) Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (PS5)- 0%

4) Far Cry 6 (PS5)- 0%

5) NieR Replicant VER.122474487139...- 0%

6) Beyond: Two Souls (PS4)- 0%

[Crispy_Oglop]

Update 4 - 

 

Actual update time, Ireland is celebrating two public holidays in a row this week so technically this is my Friday update. I made a decent dent in Divinity since the previous weekend and I am really loving this game. The trophies are a bit of a pain in the ass and I think i've already missed a couple, one of them being companion related for a character called Madora. I'm hoping I don't need to do a second full playthrough to get this one and can pick it up in a shorter space of time.

 

I'm a huge tabletop RPG fan and I regularly DM for campaigns so this game is right up my alley. Can't wait to see where it ends!

1. Divinity: Original Sin - 11% > 49%
2. Beyond: Two Souls - 10%
3. Ghostwire: Tokyo - 0%
4.  GTA V  
5. Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga - 0%

I'll likely do a Friday update on top of this so I won't make this one too long. Over the next couple of days I'm going to build some IKEA furniture and catch up on some shows, but I should definitely have some time for gaming in that mix too. Happy St.Patrick's Day for tomorrow everyone!

[PeachyJacobs]

Very small update for me. I figured I should probably add Gran Turismo 7 to my list as I'll be playing it a lot. I don't anticipate earning the  before this challenge ends though but will be good to track it. I've also been spending a lot of time with Monster Hunter World: Iceborne to finish that one up. For anyone that was following me in the last backlog competition, I finally did it! Only 17 days late but I got there in the end! Now I can get stuck in to this challenge.

1. Cyberpunk 2077 [PS5]
2. Elden Ring [PS5] - 2%
3. Gran Turismo [PS5] - 20%
4. Horizon Forbidden West [PS5] - 4%
5. Tales of Arise [PS5] - 10%
6. The Riftbreaker [PS5] - 10%

Honorary mention from last challenge - Monster Hunter World: Iceborne [PS4] - 100% 

 

Key:

Green = Completed

Orange = In progress

Red = Haven't started

[Draps-1337]

I bit of a slow start for me this time around. Elden Ring took quite a long time! though honestly I think it was the easiest FromSoft platinum to date. Currently have relinquished my PS5 while my partner continues their playthrough of Horizon Forbidden West. I'll probably start once they're done or maybe play some Ace Attorney.
 

1. Horizon Forbidden West (0%)

2. Ashen (0%)

3. Far Cry Primal (0%)

4. No Straight Roads (0%)

5. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (0%)

6. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (0%)
7. Elden Ring (0% -> 100%)

[MidnightDragon]

45 minutes ago, Draps-1337 said:

I bit of a slow start for me this time around. Elden Ring took quite a long time! though honestly I think it was the easiest FromSoft platinum to date. Currently have relinquished my PS5 while my partner continues their playthrough of Horizon Forbidden West. I'll probably start once they're done or maybe play some Ace Attorney.
 

1. Horizon Forbidden West (0%)

2. Ashen (0%)

3. Far Cry Primal (0%)

4. No Straight Roads (0%)

5. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (0%)

6. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (0%)
7. Elden Ring (0% -> 100%)

Don't sweat it too much. This is more for fun. 

[Darling Baphomet]

Been slow on the updates because a game I'd hoped to platinum by the end of last month (NEO: TWEWY) took all the way up until a week ago to finish. But now we're finally getting somewhere. Finished most of Hypnospace Outlaw's trophies (fantastic game, by the way), and made some moderate progress in Skyrim VR - namely advancing the mage's college questline. Some progress in Monster Sanctuary as well.

 

current list:

Spoiler

IN PROGRESS:

Monster Sanctuary - 18%

Hypnospace Outlaw - 90%

Skyrim VR - 13%

 

COMPLETED:

 

NOT YET STARTED:

Ghost Giant - 0%

Falcon Age - 28%

Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son - 0%

Pixel Ripped 1995 - 7%

Bow to Blood - 44%

Moss - 10%

Forgotten Anne - 0%

Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour - 0%

Neon City Riders - 0%

Odin Sphere Leifthraiser - 0%

 

[Heather342]

9 hours ago, Crispy_Oglop said:

The trophies are a bit of a pain in the ass and I think i've already missed a couple, one of them being companion related for a character called Madora. I'm hoping I don't need to do a second full playthrough to get this one and can pick it up in a shorter space of time.

 

I missed the Sister of Mercy trophy on my first playthrough, but there is a way to speed through it and get the trophy really quickly so you don't have to do another full playthrough. If you need it, I'll see if I can dig it out for you ?

[Thirsty_Otter]

Update #2:

 

I haven't made much progress over the past week, despite playing Garden Warfare for a while. But this is mainly due to a game that I had on my list to begin with and then removed once completion got too high. Madden NFL 22 took longer than I expected. I've seen people say it would only take a couple hours but it ended up taking me six-seven hours to get all the trophies. I wasted an hour trying to get a trophy that glitched on me and then figured out I had to delete my save file and redo it for it to pop. 

 

Anyway, I think I'm going to continue working on Garden Warfare today. I tried to do a match in CRAAAZY garden ops difficulty and forgot how hard it was to do it yourself. I'll probably set up a session and try to find one or two people to help. After Garden Warfare, I think I'm going to try and get InFamous: Festival of Blood done before they close the UGC servers (who knows when that could be?). Random thought, but I'm actually surprised Sony hasn't remastered the original inFamous games for ps4 or ps5.

 

Complete: 

The Walking Dead: Michonne 0% < 100%

 

Work in Progress:

Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 39% < 53%

 

 

Space Otter Charlie (24%)

Pocket Academy (26%)

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (28%)

Broken Age (25%)

Call of Duty Vanguard (17%)

Two Point Hospital (31%)

Greedfall (19%)

Far Cry Blood Dragon (0%)

InFamous: Festival of Blood (0%)

Brothers: A tale of Two Sons (0%)

The Walking Dead: A New Frontier (0%)

 

 

Games complete that weren't included in challenge:

Spoiler

Madden NFL 22

Ark: Survival Evolved

Edited March 17, 2022 by Thirsty_Otter

[Crispy_Oglop]

2 hours ago, Heather342 said:

I missed the Sister of Mercy trophy on my first playthrough, but there is a way to speed through it and get the trophy really quickly so you don't have to do another full playthrough. If you need it, I'll see if I can dig it out for you

 

Any help is welcome, thanks so much! I saw this thread on the Divinity game section here but I haven't read into it yet. It looks like the las comment was a good few months ago now though so it might have been patched out.

[Heather342]

28 minutes ago, Crispy_Oglop said:

 

Any help is welcome, thanks so much! I saw this thread on the Divinity game section here but I haven't read into it yet. It looks like the las comment was a good few months ago now though so it might have been patched out.

Yeah that's the method I used, but I don't think there's been any patches on the game. I did it in January last year and it worked fine then.

 

The Sister of Mercy trophy is a pain, because even when I followed the guide I still missed it. There must have been some other hidden requirement or dialogue choice that was needed. But that info in the forum thread does work ?

[Big-Brady]

15 minutes ago, Heather342 said:

Yeah that's the method I used, but I don't think there's been any patches on the game. I did it in January last year and it worked fine then.

 

The Sister of Mercy trophy is a pain, because even when I followed the guide I still missed it. There must have been some other hidden requirement or dialogue choice that was needed. But that info in the forum thread does work ?

Wooooooo Heather you got this #CrimsonShinigamis!!!!!!!! BOOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

 

Heather gonna smash this challenge and show everyone why no one can BOOST like she can you got this my Shinigami!!!!

Edited March 17, 2022 by Big-Brady
Complimentes

[Heather342]

5 minutes ago, Big-Brady said:

Wooooooo Heather you got this #CrimsonShinigamis!!!!!!!! BOOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

 

Heather gonna smash this challenge and show everyone why no one can BOOST like she can you got this my Shinigami!!!!

Thanks boss ?

[KimBongUn420]

Not a real update but GT7 dropped a new patch today and I'm pissed off, so I'm venting here.  It is the straw that broke the camel's back for me and I'm dropping the game from my list.  This is an excellent driving game that is getting completely and utterly destroyed by Polyphony's greed.  This new patch nerfed every single moneymaking race by 50% or more, while things like:

• Multiplayer being a complete shitshow
• Multiplayer penalties in particular being assessed almost at random
• No way to sell cars to make money
• No B-Spec to passively earn credits

Are still not fixed.  Also, the servers have been down for about 8 hours as I speak, which is a giant meme.

 

The first hint I should have gotten that this game was going to be an MTX trashfest was when Polyphony added microtransactions into the game after the reviews already came out, which is a dick move straight out of the ActiBlizz playbook.  Also, the roulette tickets are completely rigged.  Of the ~15 tickets I've gotten, I've received the lowest credit reward in all but 2 of them.  There's a gazillion posts on the GTPlanet forums about this too.  

 

The game's economy is also atrocious and getting worse with every patch.  There are 3 different stores to buy cars and ALL of them have some kind of bullshit gacha mechanic.  New dealer has "invites" to buy cars for millions of credits to push MTX.  These invites also expire after a period of time, to push scarcity.  Used car dealer has "limited stock" items which is just a far worse implementation of Forza's Auction House and again, pushes MTX.  And most egregious of all is the Legend dealer that "dynamically prices rare cars" as part of the Hagerty collection (PRODUCT PLACEMENT BAYBEE).  It's revoltingly gross.  Also friendly reminder that GT7 STILL has no way to sell cars.  Have fun grinding for 12m credits for that XJR-15 at 45k credits a race!

 

As an aside, you know what racing sim did a great job of balancing progression with earnings?  Forza 7!  You could set the race length to medium (this feature ALSO not found in GT7 btw), do one campaign race that lasted about 20 min, and get about 100k-200k credits depending on how hard you set the difficulty.  Wanted to save up for a moonshot car?  Run some races for about 6 hours and between the earnings and loot boxes, you'd be pretty close.  Gran Turismo used to be like this too.  Now?  It's a complete mess.

 

Also, people in general would be less angry about the economy if there were anything to do in the game after getting your licenses and finishing the cafe menus.  As it stands right now though, the only thing to do is grind races for credits, which puts even more spotlight on the economy problem.

 

GT7 seems to be much more about collecting cars than previous titles, which is totally fine.  What's not fine is creating an entire game economy that subtly pushes MTX at every turn with its glorified loot boxes and dealer mechanics, while simultaneously nerfing the shit out of any method to get credits at a reasonable pace.  I've been playing GT since A-Spec and this MTX-ridden junk is a total disgrace to the GT name, no matter how good the driving is.  Most of my friends who are long-time GT players have already gone back to GT Sport.  Vote with your wallets and don't buy this game.  We deserve better.  I rarely hope for games to fail but I pray to god the reboot of Forza Motorsport blows this game out of the water.  Fuck Polyphony Digital and fuck this trash-ass game to absolute death.  Can't believe I waited 11 goddamn years for this.

 

E: the game's economy has gotten so bad that Super GT (probably the most prominent GT streamer out there) tweeted about it this morning.  Hopefully something is done soon bc there straight up isn't enough content to sustain GT7 as a live service game right now.

Edited March 17, 2022 by KimBongUn420

[neospoon]

35 minutes ago, KimBongUn420 said:

Something about GT7…

You beat me to it. I’m also dropping GT7 from my list for the same reasons. I’m going to use my first swap and replace it with Dirt 5 on PS5. It’s currently at 0% The DLC is on sale right now for it too so I‘ll try and get the 100% done. My list as it is now.

 

1. Celeste 100% (PS4) 
2. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time 100% (PSVita) 
3. Homefront: The Revolution 13% > 27% (PS4)
4. Gran Turismo 7 0% > 20% (PS5) - Dirt 5 - 0% (PS5)
5. Rage 12% (PS3)
6. Plague Tale Innocence 28% (PS5)

swaps used 1/2

 

[Darling Baphomet]

1 hour ago, KimBongUn420 said:

Not a real update but GT7 dropped a new patch today and I'm pissed off, so I'm venting here.

 

Fucking yikes. Maybe I'll rent it in a few years, hopefully it'll be a bit better by then. Maybe the outrage will piss Sony off and they'll get Polyphony to fix their shit.

[Crispy_Oglop]

1 hour ago, KimBongUn420 said:

Not a real update but GT7 .

 

Ouch, that sounds like a real dick move on their part  I was actually considering grabbing this as I haven't played a driving game in years. Guess I'll look elsewhere for something. Sorry to hear your experience got shafted by them.

[oxford_wolf007]

Update 2

 

Good to see everybody’s updates! Hope everyone is doing well.

 

Uncharted 2

You guys, I did it. After four hours with Lazarovic on Saturday, then dropping my controller and taking my dog to play outside, I came back in and BEAT HIM. He was really difficult for me on normal mode, so I’m pretty proud of myself! Crushing is complete, although I’m not sure if I’m motivated to go back to UC 3. ? Now that I have the plat, I might call this done. I’d like to work on a few other games before going for 100%, if I do decide to go for it. For that, I have to do the full speedrun, and I would probably need to use the cheats for Brutal, which is going to take some organizing.

 

Spongebob

I finished the story, and I’m at about 80 golden spatulas and 30 socks; the socks need a guide, and I wasn’t that into following one after getting all treasures in UC2. The one level I’m really having issues with is Spongebob’s dream, which requires legit Mario-style platforming. Hoping to finish it over the weekend.

 

Infamous Second Son

At first I didn’t realize that the stars are where I’m supposed to go for the story, so I ended up doing everything in the first district because I didn’t know what to do. I’m about 20% of the way through the story now, but so far it’s not as interesting as I thought it would be. Augustine sort of reminds me of Nina Sharp from Fringe though.

 

1. Uncharted 2 [PS4] - 40% —> 89%
2. SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom [PS4]  - 20% —> 61%
3. inFamous Second Son [PS4] - 0% —> 4%
4. Need for Speed Rivals [PS4] - 7%
5. Ratchet and Clank [PS4] - 0%

Games Completed (0/5)

 

Games swapped (0/2)

[MidnightDragon]

@KimBongUn420 @neospoon Sounds like additional bullshit along with the always on requirement. The reason they gave for even making single player require online was laughable at best. My cat, who always has a straight face, couldn't stop laughing!

[LMGhenry]

5 hours ago, MidnightDragon said:

@KimBongUn420 @neospoon Sounds like additional bullshit along with the always on requirement. The reason they gave for even making single player require online was laughable at best. My cat, who always has a straight face, couldn't stop laughing!

 

The always on requirement is so frustrating, my internet has been cutting out for 1-2 minutes abruptly the last few weeks and on multiple occasions when I have finished one of the gold licence tests and backed out my internet has been down and when I load back up the licence test didnt count. Very frustrating, when there's simply no need for the licence tests to require an internet connection.  Additionally the amount of time/money required to get the credits for the Three Legendary Cars trophy is quite insane, not to mention its still not clear which of the insanely pricey vehicles are required for this trophy despite multiple people attempting to contact support/devs (unless its been confirmed by now I havent checked the forum post about this trophy in a few days). Bit annoying cause the driving is a lot of fun, just stupid stuff holding the game/trophy list back. I'm going to keep it on my list for now but we'll see if I end up bailing on it for something else if the grind for credits becomes too much.