Psy-Tychist Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 Ok, so let's see where we are at in this new month: Horatio Goes Snowboarding - 97% Simulacra - 96% Draugen - 94% Call of Cthulhu - 94% Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition - 94% Deponia Doomsday - 91% Goetia - 90% White Night - 90% Close to the Sun - 90% Light Fairytale: Episode 1 - 88% Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 89% Spec Ops: The Line - 82% The Evil WIthin 2 - 82% Rusty Spout Rescue Adventure - 81% --> 100% Resident Evil 3 - 81% inFamous: First Light - 68% Frisky Business - 61% South Park: The Stick of Truth (PS3) - 61% Captain Cat - 48% Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate - 46% Crazy Chicken: Wanted - 45% Kingdom Hearts (PS3) - 62% Suicide Guy - 43% Far Cry 3: Classic Edition - 39% Not Not: A Brain Buster - 38% Whiskey & Zombies - 34% Creaks - 31% --> 100% Sokocat Combo - 27% Mousecraft - 20% Underland: The Climb - 18% Reflection of Mine - 18% Foreclosed - 14% Dissection - 11% Remothered: Tormented Fathers - 9% Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - 9% Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - 4% Lydia - 0% Old Man's Journey - 0% --> 26% What Remains of Edith Finch - 0% Virginia - 4% Stilsand - 0% The Long Reach - 0% Sagebrush - 8% Hatoful Boyfriend - 0% Spoiler Games completed: The Dark Prophecy - 1pt Cross the Moon - 0.5pt Autumn's Journey - 0.5pt Foxyland 2 - 0.5pt Fivies - 0.5pt Blind Men - 0.5pt Arrog - 0.5pt Cybxus Heart - 0.5pt Castle of No Return - 0.5pt Castle Pals - 0.5pt Alienzix - 0.5pt Black Death: A Tragic Dirge - 0.5pt Hakosan - 0.5pt Marsi's Adventure - 0.5pt Strawberry Vinegar - 0.5pt Aborigenus - 0.5pt Night Detective: Decrepit Manor - 0.5pt Knightin+ - 0.5pt Repentless 2 - 0.5pt Vera Blanc: Full Moon - 0.5pt Vera Blanc: Ghost in the Castle - 0.5pt Demon Hunter: Chronicles from the Beyond - 0.5pt Himno - 0.5pt Football Game - 0.5pt Thunder Paw - 0.5pt War Dog: Red's Return - 0.5pt Bleak Dystopia - 0.5pt Cubic Lines - 0.5pt Saomi - 1pt Black and White Bushido - 1pt Elea - 0.5pt I completed Creaks at the end of August for 0.5pts and have finished Rusty Spout Adventure for my first game in September. Creaks - 0.5pt Rusty Spout Adventure - 1pt Total 18.5pt Currently my aim is to finish Sagebrush, Evil Within 2, Call of Cthulhu and something else to get my points moving again. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StraightVege Posted September 5, 2023 Share Posted September 5, 2023 On 8/30/2023 at 2:20 AM, Darling Baphomet said: I'm sorry you've been going through it, and I hope you can manage to break out of your slump! If you do end up disengaging from PSNP, do you use Discord? You're one of the few people I've enjoyed interacting with here so I wouldn't mind keeping up with you elsewhere. Aw, thanks; I really appreciate your kindness, and a few people have reached out to me with similarly nice comments, which is quite heartening. At this point, I've lost count of how many times I've been through the same ordeal, so I expect things will improve eventually. Hope so, anyway, 'cause this stinks. The feeling is mutual, but I'm afraid that Discord never quite caught on with me, probably because I'm an old, anti-social bastard who can't adapt to change. Of course, feel free to add me on PSN, if that suits you! In any event, I intend continue posting here occasionally (maybe visit once or twice a week?), but the frequency and length will be significantly reduced, for the sake of my own well-being. On 8/30/2023 at 2:20 AM, Darling Baphomet said: Oh, that's actually a neighboring island that's been getting hit so I'm completely fine. Well, thank goodness for that! I heard the death toll was awful. 😟 On 8/30/2023 at 2:20 AM, Darling Baphomet said: Also, Alan Wake was a good game! I'm surprised you liked the combat - that was one of the weakest parts of the game to me, between the flashlight mechanics and the extremely limited arsenal that kept resetting. Combined with the awful movement options and I was thoroughly frustrated by the game by the time I finished my nightmare run (even though flashlight spamming trivialized that difficulty-wise.) Indeed I did, but the sheer frequency of it—coupled with the lack of enemy variety and Alan's apparently subpar fitness—admittedly begins to wear on you long before the end. I think the light/darkness mechanic adds a lot of good tension to the combat encounters, personally. The need to rebuild your arsenal in every chapter was somewhat troublesome, though, come to think of it. But, yeah, the amusing tactic of running backwards while blinding pursuers with the flashlight is what made Nightmare tolerable. It's the DLC2 platforming that I couldn't stand! How anyone playtested that and thought it was acceptable is beyond me. More on topic, I've completed three more games since my last post: Death's Door, Pinstripe, and Xeodrifter, for a total of 26.5 points (I think?). However, I just don't have it in me to do a proper update at the moment, so I'll simply edit the list in my last post to reflect the progress for now. Hopefully, I can return with a more substantial summation some time around the middle of this month. Until then, keep up the good work, everyone! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KillerUni12 Posted September 8, 2023 Share Posted September 8, 2023 (edited) Happy September! Thank goodness fall is almost here - my favorite 3 weeks of the year (or so it feels here in Minnesota ). I started off the month by completing Thumper. I had hesitations about this game and, honestly, started it in August so that I could remove it if I hated it. I ended up loving it, getting absolutely sucked into some of the levels. One of my favorite things about the game is that it was challenging - but not impossible. S Ranks didn't require every turn to be perfect and there were a number of short/simple sublevels sprinkled in throughout each level. Next up was Handball 16. Before playing this game, I didn't even know what a handball court looked like. Getting thrown into the game without any tutorial or explanation of the rules was a rude (albeit entertaining) awakening. If I would've tallied the scores of my first 4 or so matches, it probably would've been like 3-45 (with me being on the losing end). But, I quickly learned a strategy - turn off yellow/red cards and foul opposing players until they turn it over. Then get a lead, a stop, and hold the ball for the remainder of the game. Overall the game quickly turned into a grind due to a lack of variety but there's not much more to be expected of a sports simulator. Glad I played it, but not something I would have played without PS+. Finally, I finished Tokyo Jungle earlier today. This was one of the most unique games I've ever played. At times it was fun, other times it was downright frustrating. That's about all I have to say on this one, I'm coming down with a cold and my head is killing me, so I will conclude the post here. Thanks everyone for your reviews, thoughts, and camaraderie! It definitely was an unexpected bonus from joining this challenge. EDIT 9/9/23: Editing here to avoid posting twice in 2 days. I completed I am Alive and I'm adding Dead Space (PS5) to my list. Edited September 9, 2023 by KillerUni12 Added game & updated completions 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddie1989 Posted September 8, 2023 Share Posted September 8, 2023 September completion in the books. Really good entry in the series, next up are 2 games that aren't on my list but Ghost of Tsushima has waited long enough!! April Lego DC Super Villains Stray May Mafia Life is Strange: True Colours August Guardians of the Galaxy September Spiderman Miles Morales Call of Duty Ghosts 47% Metro 2033 Redux 1% Battlefield Hardline 24% Mass Effect Andromeda Endling The Ascent Rayman Legends 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
princexedar Posted September 10, 2023 Share Posted September 10, 2023 To Play, Plat only. Sackboy: The Big Adventure 54% -> 87% Deus Ex: Mankind Divided 45% The Quarry: 65% Life is Strange: True Colours: 40% Moving Out: 37% Control (PS5) 9% Hades 3% Dark Pictures: House of Ashes (3%) Last of Us Part 2 (12%) Spiderman 1% Spiderman: Miles Morales 0% Completed: Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor 100% (+1.0) Bioshock 2 74% (+0.5) Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory 100% (+1.0) Call of Duty: Ghosts 61% (+0.5) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dinkus83 Posted September 11, 2023 Share Posted September 11, 2023 I finished up Death's Door last night to grab another point here. I really had a blast with this game. It's not the sort of game I'm necessarily good at (I died, a lot), but it wasn't so difficult as to frustrate me to the point of stopping. The art style and dialogue kept me fairly entertained too. Because I wasn't expecting to be great at it, I played through normally first, and then did a separate run afterwards with the umbrella weapon. And I did get better at it! Cuz I didn't die as much the second time through, even with the limitations of the umbrella. Anyway, would definitely recommend this one. Still have quite a bit of work to do on my list, but at least I'm making steady progress again. Spoiler Completed: Points - 7.5 (March) The Pedestrian (PS5) [+1.0] (April) Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition [+1.0] (April) The Town of Light [+0.5] (April) 36 Fragments of Midnight [+0.5] (April) Concrete Genie [+0.5] (April) Gabbuchi [+0.5] (April) The Gardens Between [+0.5] (April) Last Day of June [+0.5] (April) Puzzle Showdown 4K [+0.5] (May) The UnderGarden [+1.0] (May) The Wolf Among Us [+0.5] (May) It Takes Two [+0.5] (June) No completed game [-1.0] (July) No completed game [-1.0] (August) Life is Strange 2 [+1.0] (September) Death's Door [+1.0] The List: Horizon Forbidden West (PS5) +NG+ DLC- 35% => 71% Cozy Grove (PS4) - 69% => 76% Overcooked! All You Can Eat (PS5) - 17% A Plague Tale: Innocence (PS5) - 1% Chicken Police (PS4) - 8% Erica (PS4) - 28% Lego DC Super-Villians (PS4) +all DLC- 17% Cat Quest 2 (PS4) - 6% Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls (PS4) - 20% => 25% Okami HD (PS3) - 18% 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3) - 14% Beyond: Two Souls (PS3) - 30% => 33% Untitled Goose Game (PS4) - 25% => 72% The Suicide of Rachel Foster (PS4) - 0% Chicory: A Colorful Tale (PS5) - 1% PC Building Simulator (PS4) - 14% => 16% Deliver Us The Moon (PS5) - 7% Operation: Tango (PS5) - 7% King's Quest (PS4) - 23% Lego Harry Potter Collection: Years 1-4 (PS4) - 7% => 11% Dragon Quest Builders (PS4) - 6% The Legend of Dragoon (PS5) - 0% The Quarry (PS5) - 0% => 43% Omno (PS4) - 0% => 11% Heavenly Bodies (PS5) - 0% Child of Light (PS4) - 0% Infamous: First Light (PS4) - 0% Detroit: Become Human (PS4) - 0% Horizon Chase Turbo (PS4) +DLC - 26% => 38% Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) - 7% Two Point Hospital +all DLC - 88% Dirt 5 +all DLC - 40% => 60% SteamWorld Dig - 50% Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms - 90% Escape Plan +all DLC - 36% Catlateral Damage - 94% The Witness - 91% Need for Speed Most Wanted DLC - 87% CastleStorm DLC - 81% Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight - 79% => 93% Lost in Random - 0% => 43% Bus Simulator 21 - 2% => 24% House Flipper (base game only) - 3% => 7% Lawn Mowing Simulator (PS4) - 19% => 29% 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurricane_Tanya Posted September 16, 2023 Share Posted September 16, 2023 (edited) I got some games finished up for my birthday today. I added Dodgeball Academia last month and really enjoyed playing it ‘with’ my kids. It was a very fun game with some challenge to it, although there are very adjustable difficulty settings as I found out while struggling to get S ranks in all teacher challenges. Normally I like to play on default difficulty (unless there’s a trophy for specific difficulties), but there was one challenge type where I ended up being stun locked and then knocked out so quickly that I couldn’t even finish it. It’s the strength challenge, you need to use dodgeballs to destroy a car, but the robots throwing the dodgeballs you need are so relentless that I could either focus on dodging and catching, or try to attack the car, but then lose my health immediately. The rest of the game is just challenging enough to not be boring. It’s also quite a short game with only 8 in game days and only a couple short side quests per day. I also finished Assassin’s Creed II. This game is such a comfort game for me, I think I played it about 10 times through when it was first released and it was great to add the platinum finally (played on 360 before I got my ps4). I have to say that although I was going into the game full of nostalgia, I still got frustrated with the controls at times. Especially when Ezio would just jump in the opposite direction to where I was trying to go. The game is really short though and I finished it in less than 10 hours according to the in game tracker. Black Mirror was an ok point and click game. I enjoyed the setting and the story was pretty interesting at times. Unfortunately the camera and controls were pretty bad, there were also quite a lot of graphical glitches during my playthrough including times where the characters clothes would just be missing. The puzzles were ok, although there weren’t a lot of them. The game was mostly focussed on its memory/ghost sequences, but the puzzles it did have were well done. I never found myself struggling to find an answer for too long anyway. I also played Endling: Extinction is Forever. It was a cute game about survival. Having to play as a mother fox needing to keep her cubs fed and safe was a little stressful at first, but once I knew where to go and where to find food it became quite nice to explore the surroundings and grab some berries/crisps/mice along the way. Lake is a game I was interested in when it was announced and I was happy when it was added to the extra catalogue. Unfortunately it wasn’t the game I was hoping for. Most walking simulators have some kind of mystery or intrigue to keep you going, but this is just you’re a postal worker for a week. There are some npcs you can chat to and get some story from, but it’s never important and it never goes anywhere, and the endings are just a last minute choice of if you stay in the small town, or if you go back to the city. Even then there are no stakes because all the characters you’ve gotten to know are happy either way. I finally finished up my multiplayer grind for Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition. It’s an ok game, but I definitely prefer Rise and Shadow over it. It’s a Tomb Raider game with barely any tombs, barely any puzzles and just endless waves of enemies. It was a good reboot, but the later games feel more like Tomb Raider. I did enjoy the characters in this one though. Finally, for this update, I played through The Order 1886. I’ve heard how this game is too short, how it’s not enough of a game, how it ends too soon. I really fell in love with it though. I loved the story, the lore, the setting. The story does end too soon though and I’m very disappointed that there has been no news of a sequel or anything else in the same setting. I felt like the ending was realistic, but not necessarily what you want from a game you’ve gotten invested in. I want more adventures of Galahad. Also the game is stunning, especially for a launch ps4 title. That was a big post, sorry for being so wordy. This brings my points up to 24. I have a couple more games I’m struggling on a couple of trophies for, but hopefully I’ll get them done soon. Backlog list: Batman Arkham Origins Cult of the Lamb Erica Haven Hitman Hitman 2 Hitman 2: Expansion Humanity Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Moving Out Party Hard Powerwash Simulator Rise of the Tomb Raider Road 96 The Gardens Between The Warriors Edited September 16, 2023 by Hurricane_Tanya 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dinkus83 Posted September 20, 2023 Share Posted September 20, 2023 Time for another update! I worked my way through Omno this past week. Really pretty game, which is why it caught my eye. Very chill and quite short, but I enjoyed it. I was a bit disappointed that the puzzley aspect of the game was very simple. After finishing up Omno, I went back to Frozen Free Fall to do the last few multiplayer matches I needed. Only took me almost 5 years, but I'm finally done with that game! It's a fairly normal match 3 game, with some issues. After getting stuck on a level for a very long time, and looking it up to see what I was missing, I learned that the PS4 version of that level is bugged, and it pretty much requires you to save up powerups to get through it. This is why the game took me so long to get through. When I was frustrated with a level, eventually I'd just stop playing it for months (or a year). There ended up being a couple levels bugged in the Playstation version of the game. I also want to add Unpacking to my list. I'm very excited that it was added to PS+ this month, and plan to play through that game very soon. Spoiler Completed: Points - 8.5 (March) The Pedestrian (PS5) [+1.0] (April) Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition [+1.0] (April) The Town of Light [+0.5] (April) 36 Fragments of Midnight [+0.5] (April) Concrete Genie [+0.5] (April) Gabbuchi [+0.5] (April) The Gardens Between [+0.5] (April) Last Day of June [+0.5] (April) Puzzle Showdown 4K [+0.5] (May) The UnderGarden [+1.0] (May) The Wolf Among Us [+0.5] (May) It Takes Two [+0.5] (June) No completed game [-1.0] (July) No completed game [-1.0] (August) Life is Strange 2 [+1.0] (September) Death's Door [+1.0] (September) Omno [+0.5] (September) Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight [+0.5] The List: Horizon Forbidden West (PS5) +NG+ DLC- 35% => 71% Cozy Grove (PS4) - 69% => 76% Overcooked! All You Can Eat (PS5) - 17% A Plague Tale: Innocence (PS5) - 1% Chicken Police (PS4) - 8% Erica (PS4) - 28% Lego DC Super-Villians (PS4) +all DLC- 17% Cat Quest 2 (PS4) - 6% Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls (PS4) - 20% => 25% Okami HD (PS3) - 18% 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3) - 14% Beyond: Two Souls (PS3) - 30% => 33% Untitled Goose Game (PS4) - 25% => 72% The Suicide of Rachel Foster (PS4) - 0% Chicory: A Colorful Tale (PS5) - 1% PC Building Simulator (PS4) - 14% => 16% Deliver Us The Moon (PS5) - 7% Operation: Tango (PS5) - 7% King's Quest (PS4) - 23% Lego Harry Potter Collection: Years 1-4 (PS4) - 7% => 11% Dragon Quest Builders (PS4) - 6% The Legend of Dragoon (PS5) - 0% The Quarry (PS5) - 0% => 43% Heavenly Bodies (PS5) - 0% Child of Light (PS4) - 0% Infamous: First Light (PS4) - 0% Detroit: Become Human (PS4) - 0% Horizon Chase Turbo (PS4) +DLC - 26% => 38% Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) - 7% Two Point Hospital +all DLC - 88% Dirt 5 +all DLC - 40% => 60% SteamWorld Dig - 50% Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms - 90% Escape Plan +all DLC - 36% Catlateral Damage - 94% The Witness - 91% Need for Speed Most Wanted DLC - 87% CastleStorm DLC - 81% Lost in Random - 0% => 43% Bus Simulator 21 - 2% => 24% House Flipper (base game only) - 3% => 7% Lawn Mowing Simulator (PS4) - 19% => 35% Unpacking - 3% 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurricane_Tanya Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 (edited) Somehow I am having a really productive month and I’ve managed to finish 5 more games. I’ll try not to be so wordy this time. The Gardens Between was a lovely time puzzle game where you rewind and forward time (and sometimes just stop in the right place) to manipulate the levels into letting you get to the end. It was very short and very sweet with a lovely story that had a somewhat sad ending. Erica was finally beaten by me today. Somehow I messed up my saves when I deleted it and then re-downloaded it and downloaded saves from the cloud. I ended up playing the game 11 times in total. Honestly if it hadn’t popped today I would have given up. The game itself is fine for a couple playthroughs, it’s an fmv game, but a decently made one. I’m not opposed to playing more games like this, but I’ll have to check how many playthroughs they need beforehand. I've been playing Moving Out with my 6 year old over the last year. Once we finished the story together I was free to clean up the gold levels and dlc by myself. It was a lot of fun and we’ve already started Moving Out 2. Powerwash Simulator has been my go to relaxation game since I bought it earlier this year. The challenge trophies were frustrating for the kind of game it is, but I finally got them done. The game is staying downloaded as I’m still playing the Tomb Raider and FF levels for fun, there’s also more dlc coming later this year, which I’m looking forward to. Finally, Cult of the Lamb is my newest obsession. I have loved every second of this game and I can’t wait for the next dlc to be released. Hopefully there will be more trophies to earn and more challenges. This was my first roguelite game and I’m going to look into playing more soon. This brings my points to 26.5 Backlog list: - Batman Arkham Origins - Haven - Hitman - Hitman 2 - Hitman 2: Expansion - Humanity - Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy - Party Hard - Rise of the Tomb Raider - Road 96 - The Warriors Edited September 22, 2023 by Hurricane_Tanya 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
princexedar Posted September 26, 2023 Share Posted September 26, 2023 To Play, Plat only. Sackboy: The Big Adventure 54% -> 87% -> 88% Deus Ex: Mankind Divided 45% The Quarry: 65% Moving Out: 37% Control (PS5) 9% Hades 3% Dark Pictures: House of Ashes 3% Last of Us Part 2 12% Spiderman 1% Spiderman: Miles Morales 0% Virtues Last Reward 8% Completed: August: Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor 100% (+1.0) Bioshock 2 74% (+0.5) September: Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory 100% (+1.0) Call of Duty: Ghosts 61% (+0.5) Life is Strange: True Colours 100% (+0.5) Current Total: 3.5 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crancian Posted September 27, 2023 Share Posted September 27, 2023 (edited) September update #1 New Games: 1. Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg 2. Final Fantasy 3. Final Fantasy II 4. Final Fantasy III 5. Final Fantasy IV 6. Final Fantasy V 7. Final Fantasy VI 8. Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII: Reunion 9. A Space for the Unbound Backlog: 1. A Space for the Unbound 2. Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream 3. Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg 4. Final Fantasy 5. Final Fantasy II 6. Final Fantasy III 7. Final Fantasy IV 8. Final Fantasy V 9. Final Fantasy VI 10. Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII: Reunion 11. Rune Factory 4 Completed games: 1. It Takes Two 2. RPGolf Legends 3. Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World 4. Atelier Escha & Logy Plus: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky 5. Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key 1. January DJMax Technika Tune 2. February DJMax Respect Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Future Tone DX Deemo Reborn Superbeat: Xonic 3. March Overcooked - 100% Overecooked! All You Can Eat Hogwarts Legacy Code Vein Scarlet Nexus Valkyria Chronicles Remastered 4. April Valkyria Chronicles 4 Shining Resonance Refrain 5. May Persona 3 Portable Persona 4 Golden Persona 5 Royal Persona 5 Strikers Untitled Goose Game Pac-Man World Re-Pac Valiant Hearts: The Great War - 100% Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series 6. June Octopath Traveler II 7. July Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth Valkyrie Elysium 8. August Hakuoki: Stories of The Shinsengumi Hakuoki: Kyoto Blossoms Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms Moving Out Moving Out 2 God of Rock 9. September It Takes Two RPGolf Legends Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World Atelier Escha & Logy Plus: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key Edited September 27, 2023 by Crancian 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darling Baphomet Posted October 1, 2023 Share Posted October 1, 2023 Been a busy month. Dealing with a lot of IRL shit that's been stressful, e.g. figuring out mail in a rural area with no car, and some internet issues. On the bright side, gardening has been going well - one of my sunflowers (ironically the one a friend ran over last month) is now almost as tall as me, though I've been having to conduct night raids on nocturnal beetles that have been ravaging them. Just finished making a raised garden bed from scratch using rocks, too, which I'm glad to have finally finished. Starting to sprout new flowers to plant in the garden near my studio, although I'm still waiting for my landlord to get the house painted. (Until then, I can't really plant anything right next to the studio since it'll just get trampled.) Onto gaming news: spent all my money on a new laptop as a somewhat late birthday gift to myself, and it came with a few free months of game pass (the horror!) so I played a bunch of Starfield. Fun enough game, although now I'm taking a break from it because the latest update broke my DLSS mod and I don't want to have to choose between shitty framerates and screen tearing. Have been neglecting my PS5 games as a result, although I did finish Humanity and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. The Mass Effect trilogy is also close to completion and I may finish it shortly since I'm not currently playing Starfield. Humanity was a fun game. It's a bizarre puzzle game sort of like a 3D Lemmings, only it keeps upping the ante by giving you new abilities and fundamentally changing how the game plays, going from simply guiding your endless stream of humans through obstacle courses to... well, let's just say the Lemmings games (to the best of my knowledge) did not involve armed conflict. It does occasionally get a bit frustrating, since it's possible to fail some levels completely (or fail the collectible for that level) and need to restart from scratch, especially on later levels that require on the fly commands so you can't simply import your previous setup and modify it slightly. The game also tries to be philosophical, and I've seen some people praise it for this, but I found it more to be one of the games that just tries really hard to be vague and mysterious without actually having that much to say. The music is fantastic, and the aesthetic is minimalistic but more than adequate. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a fun Borderlands game, but it's also kind of a bastard child. It sits in an uncomfortable middle ground between the original Tiny Tina DLC and a full Borderlands game - it's definitely much bigger than the former, but when compared to the latter, rapidly pales due to the lack of content and barely present endgame. Were this game sold for 40$, I would say, fine. That's fair. But for it to be more expensive than previous Borderlands games (due to the 10$ next-gen price increase) is rather insulting. The game is largely just a reskinned Borderlands 3 with less content - some guns are modified to be magical variants or crossbow hybrids, but many guns are completely unchanged from how they looked in Borderlands 3, making for bizarre situations where you'll switch from a crossbow revolver to a completely unchanged Hyperion shotgun that is unapologetically sci-fi. Instead of characters, each with 3 skill trees, you instead can choose one class and one subclass, which amounts to two total skill trees per character, and there are only six classes in the base game, leading to a lot less gameplay variety than in BL3. Being able to customize your character from the ground up, at least, is a nice change. The game itself is also very short, and once you finish it, there is no True Vault Hunter mode or equivalent option to replay the game with your current character - just strings of randomly picked arenas in the Chaos Chamber. The season pass is even worse - each individual DLC adds a mission that can be completed in 15-20 minutes, meant to be replayed a few times, but the only replay differences I noticed were changes to how the bosses play. People complained about Borderlands 3's second season pass being low effort, but Wonderlands' season pass takes it to the next level. It is speculated that what was intended to be the DLC for Wonderlands was shoved into the base game, and the event content was repurposed as DLC instead, which is supported by the 'DLC' area names in the files being labeled DLC and being entirely optional and unconnected to the plot. Even in this case, however, the DLC would have been weak, as each individual pseudo-DLC area is comprised of one giant map as opposed to the many maps that made up previous Borderlands DLCs. Hoo boy. That being said, it is fun. Spells are cool, as are the newly added melee weapons, and being able to re-spec to change your secondary class allows a lot of build diversity on a single character. I spent most of my time as a Brrzerker (melee / frost focused class) with a Spore Warden (companion focused class with a little mushroom follower) sub class, however to tackle endgame content I ended up switching to Brrzerker / Blightcaller (a seventh, DLC exclusive class focused on elemental damage), and ended up ditching melee completely in favor of ramping up elemental damage to extremes. The campaign was also fun to play through despite being very short - the locations are varied and interesting, and the fantastical setting of Wonderlands is entertaining. It is a shame that vehicle sections were cut altogether, although it does make the game flow a bit better overall. I played through the entire thing with my usual co-op partner and it was a fun enough experience, although it started to wane once I had to do the endgame grind, and eventually I just did the duping trick because I realized it would take 20-30 hours of grinding the nonexistent endgame to be able to afford all inventory upgrades. Also made a loooooot of progress on OhShape. Gotten to around 350 million out of 500 million points now, and at my current rate of 20-30 million points per session, I shouldn't have to worry about this game past October. Idling out the last 20 or so hours will be a pain, though. I'm feeling spicy, and something tells me that I'm going to be using my laptop a lot more in the future, so I'm adding Age of Wonders: Planetfall to my list to make sure I have a good amount of turn based games to pick from to play while otherwise occupied. On 9/5/2023 at 8:31 AM, StraightVege said: Aw, thanks; I really appreciate your kindness, and a few people have reached out to me with similarly nice comments, which is quite heartening. At this point, I've lost count of how many times I've been through the same ordeal, so I expect things will improve eventually. Hope so, anyway, 'cause this stinks. The feeling is mutual, but I'm afraid that Discord never quite caught on with me, probably because I'm an old, anti-social bastard who can't adapt to change. Of course, feel free to add me on PSN, if that suits you! In any event, I intend continue posting here occasionally (maybe visit once or twice a week?), but the frequency and length will be significantly reduced, for the sake of my own well-being. Ah, I'd completely forgot to reply to this, sorry! The beginning of the month was a mess for me and so I had trouble getting back to people. I hope you're feeling better. I'll add you on PSN shortly. I've taken a similar route towards PSNP, especially now that I have PC gaming back on my mind. Though I find I end up gravitating towards similarly frustrating spaces regardless. Backlog Games: Spoiler All entries are intended only to be platinumed unless otherwise noted IN PROGRESS Lucky's Tale - 12% Along Together - 34% After The Fall - 48% The Sims 4 - 17% OhShape - 67% Resident Evil 2 - 29% Seum - 15% Trackmania - 10% Return of the Obra Dinn - 0% Overcooked! All You Can Eat - 57% XING: The Land Beyond - 34% Mass Effect Legendary Edition - 80% (DLC) FINISHED (January) Moss - 100% (January) Serious Sam 4 - 100% (January) Serious Sam Collection - 100% (February) Manifold Garden - 100% (February) Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - 100% (February) Stray - 100% (February) BoxVR - 100% (February) Cat Quest - 100% (March) Cat Quest 2 - 100% (March) GRID - 71% (March) Prodeus - 100% (March) Mundaun - 100% (March) Creed: Rise to Glory - 100% (March) Evil Dead: The Game - 100% (March) Mythic Ocean - 100% (April) Chromagun VR - 100% (April) Grid Legends - 57% (April) Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan - 100% (April) Paradise Killer - 100% (April) Ghost of Tsushima - 64% (April) Foreclosed - 100% (April) Q.U.B.E. 2 - 100% (April) Star Renegades - 100% (May) Fashion Police Squad - 100% (May) Megaquarium - 100% (May) Psychonauts 2 - 100% (May) Pyre - 100% (May) Nightmare Reaper - 100% (June) Hero Land - 100% (June) Two Point Hospital - 81% (June) Shady Part Of Me - 100% (June) Warhammer 40000: Boltgun - 100% (June) Super Daryl Deluxe - 100% (July) Two Point Campus - 95% (July) Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop!? - 85% (July) Evil Genius 2 - 100% (July) Life is Strange: True Colors - 100% (July) Wolfenstein: The New Order - 100% (July) Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise - 100% (July) Neon City Riders - 100% (July) The Town of Light - 100% (August) Cozy Grove - 92% (August) Cities: Skylines Remastered - 58% (August) Road 96 - 100% (August) Far Cry 6 - 54% (August) Quake II - 100% (August) KeyWe - 100% (August) Marvel's Midnight Suns - 100% (August) Sam & Max Save The World - 100% (September) Humanity - 100% (September) Tiny Tina's Wonderlands - 98% January: Moss + Serious Sam 4 + Serious Sam Collection = 2 February: Manifold Garden + Spongebob Squarepants + Stray + BoxVR + Cat Quest = 3 March: Cat Quest 2 + GRID + Prodeus + Mundaun + Creed: Rise to Glory + Evil Dead: The Game + Mythic Ocean = 4 April: Chromagun VR + Grid Legends + Rainbow Billy: Curse of the Leviathan + Paradise Killer + Ghost of Tsushima + Foreclosed + QUBE 2 + Star Renegades = 4.5 May: Fashion Police Squad + Megaquarium + Psychonauts 2 + Pyre + Nightmare Reaper = 3 June: Hero Land + Two Point Hospital + Shady Part Of Me + Warhammer 40000: Boltgun + Super Daryl Deluxe = 3 July: Two Point Campus + Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! + Evil Genius 2 + Life is Strange: True Colors + Wolfenstein: The New Order + Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise + Neon City Riders + The Town of Light = 4.5 August: Cozy Grove + Cities Skylines: Remastered + Road 96 + Far Cry 6 + Quake II + KeyWe + Marvel's Midnight Suns + Sam & Max Save The World = 4.5 September: Humanity + Tiny Tina's Wonderlands = 1.5 POINTS: 30 NOT STARTED Forgotten Anne - 8% Groundhog Day: like father like son - 0% Iris.Fall - 0% Paper Beast - 3% Silence - 0% Spiritfarer - 0% Subnautica - 13% Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown - 0% The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - 11% Felix The Reaper - 4% Falcon Age - 28% BPM: Bullets Per Minute - 0% Tiny Metal - 46% Killing Floor: Incursion - 34% Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot - 43% Bug Fables - 0% Redout 2 - 13% The Last of Us Part II - 39% Borderlands 3 - 47% Surviving Mars - 0% Streets Of Rogue - 78% Mass Effect Andromeda - 78% Age of Wonders: Planetfall - 0% 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psy-Tychist Posted October 2, 2023 Share Posted October 2, 2023 Jeebus, looking at all these scores is making me pale at the thought of getting to the end. We must soldier on and see where it takes us, I suppose. With that wonderous thought, I did finish some games on this list and made progress in others. Call of Cthulhu has been finished after over 2 years on my list. The game itself is dark, spooky and all about the Lovecraftian horrors. Great for Halloween season but somewhat annoying for me. I believe there is a way to get all the four endings in one run, but the guide I had said to do it in two. The issue is that there is no difference in doing a second playthrough to make anything more interesting, so the slog was real. Enjoyed the story once but twice is a bit much. The Evil Within 2 is another old game that I dreaded coming back to for other reasons. Playing the game on Classic mode would be hellish considering you can't upgrade Sebastian at all and you have 7 saves for the 16 chapters in the game. Luckily, there is a cheap way of finishing the game if you have a Bethesda account that opens up cheats like infinite ammo and no damage. I chose the cowards way to finish the game as I'd already done everything there was to do in the game and didn't feel like doing all of that again on the hardest difficulty. It is over now and was fun to one-shot the bosses after the grief playing through it normally. Crazy Chicken Wanted was my first foray into a favourite series of some Discord friends that never really made it over to the UK. It was a fun and easy shooter in the vein of Time Crisis or House of the Dead without any real urgency and fun cartoony cowboy chickens to pluck from the sky. It's good for a couple of hours of cheap fun. Just have to finish the other Chicken game now... Mousecraft is a puzzle game in which you are a crazy cat scientist who is putting mice through a series of more dangerous and complicated puzzle situations to get cheese and finally power his coffee machine (this is not a joke). I started the game nearly 8 years ago and wanted to get this off my profile. The puzzles are fun and some are more challenging than others, but there is only so much variety and by the end, I found a youtube guide to get the last levels done and completed. Sagebrush was an interesting game, mostly due to the themes it was portraying. The hope and darkness that a cult brings into the lives of the disenfranchised is something I still have issues understanding, but it was brought to life quite well in this pixel-art styled sandbox game. The story is only really 2 hours long, doesn't need much direction to complete but has a lot of heart. I enjoyed this in a little bit of a morbid way but would recommend this to anyone who likes a narrative story fed in pieces leading to a satisfying conclusion. Frisky Business and Erica will be the death of me. FB is a VN which is bugged in so many silly ways it is beyond me. After finishing the story 8 times now, I should have all the trophies but the Alternate Endings and one of the 'banging' ones will not unlock. Erica I've completed 8 times and somehow I am still missing an ending and the final trophies. I have no idea what I have missed and will have to start again to see what has gone wrong. I would have added Sea of Stars to my list as I've been playing that to completion but I forgot to update as I've had rather limited computer time. Missed opportunity indeed. Call of Cthulhu - 0.5pt The Evil Within 2 - 0.5pt Crazy Chicken Wanted - 0.5pt Mousecraft - 0.5pt Sagebrush - 0.5pt Total points - 21pts. Here is the current affairs for my list of backlog: Horatio Goes Snowboarding - 97% Simulacra - 96% Draugen - 94% Call of Cthulhu - 94% --->100% Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition - 94% Deponia Doomsday - 91% Goetia - 90% White Night - 90% Close to the Sun - 90% Light Fairytale: Episode 1 - 88% Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 89% Spec Ops: The Line - 82% The Evil WIthin 2 - 82% --->100% Resident Evil 3 - 81% inFamous: First Light - 68% Frisky Business - 61% --->85% South Park: The Stick of Truth (PS3) - 61% Captain Cat - 48% Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate - 46% Crazy Chicken: Wanted - 45% --->100% Kingdom Hearts (PS3) - 62% Suicide Guy - 43% Far Cry 3: Classic Edition - 39% Not Not: A Brain Buster - 38% Whiskey & Zombies - 34% Sokocat Combo - 27% Mousecraft - 20% --->100% Underland: The Climb - 18% Reflection of Mine - 18% Foreclosed - 14% Dissection - 11% Remothered: Tormented Fathers - 9% Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - 9% Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - 4% Lydia - 0% Old Man's Journey - 26% What Remains of Edith Finch - 0% Virginia - 4% ---> 38% Stilsand - 0% The Long Reach - 0% Sagebrush - 8% --->100% Hatoful Boyfriend - 0% Spoiler Games completed: The Dark Prophecy - 1pt Cross the Moon - 0.5pt Autumn's Journey - 0.5pt Foxyland 2 - 0.5pt Fivies - 0.5pt Blind Men - 0.5pt Arrog - 0.5pt Cybxus Heart - 0.5pt Castle of No Return - 0.5pt Castle Pals - 0.5pt Alienzix - 0.5pt Black Death: A Tragic Dirge - 0.5pt Hakosan - 0.5pt Marsi's Adventure - 0.5pt Strawberry Vinegar - 0.5pt Aborigenus - 0.5pt Night Detective: Decrepit Manor - 0.5pt Knightin+ - 0.5pt Repentless 2 - 0.5pt Vera Blanc: Full Moon - 0.5pt Vera Blanc: Ghost in the Castle - 0.5pt Demon Hunter: Chronicles from the Beyond - 0.5pt Himno - 0.5pt Football Game - 0.5pt Thunder Paw - 0.5pt War Dog: Red's Return - 0.5pt Bleak Dystopia - 0.5pt Cubic Lines - 0.5pt Saomi - 1pt Black and White Bushido - 1pt Elea - 0.5pt Creaks - 0.5pts Rusty Spout Rescue Adventure - 1pt 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 5, 2023 Share Posted October 5, 2023 (edited) <deleted> Edited January 31 by Deleted User Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psy-Tychist Posted October 8, 2023 Share Posted October 8, 2023 Here to change around my list and add some games for extra points: Here is the current affairs for my list of backlog: Horatio Goes Snowboarding - 97% Simulacra - 96% Draugen - 94% Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition - 94% Deponia Doomsday - 91% Goetia - 90% White Night - 90% Close to the Sun - 90% Light Fairytale: Episode 1 - 88% Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 89% Frisky Business - 85% Spec Ops: The Line - 82% Resident Evil 3 - 81% inFamous: First Light - 68% Kingdom Hearts (PS3) - 62% South Park: The Stick of Truth (PS3) - 61% Captain Cat - 48% Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate - 46% Suicide Guy - 43% Far Cry 3: Classic Edition - 39% Not Not: A Brain Buster - 38% Virginia - 38% Whiskey & Zombies - 34% Sokocat Combo - 27% Old Man's Journey - 26% Underland: The Climb - 18% Reflection of Mine - 18% Foreclosed - 14% Dissection - 11% Remothered: Tormented Fathers - 9% Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - 9% Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - 4% Doki-Doki Universe - 4% Master Reboot - 1% Lydia - 0% What Remains of Edith Finch - 0% Stilsand - 0% The Long Reach - 0% Hatoful Boyfriend - 0% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddie1989 Posted October 9, 2023 Share Posted October 9, 2023 I have an October entry. Finally after months of nonsensical grinding Rayman Legends is complete! I have to say the challenges ruined my actual love for the game but a nice addition to the collection nonetheless! April Lego DC Super Villains Stray May Mafia Life is Strange: True Colours August Guardians of the Galaxy September Spiderman Miles Morales October Rayman Legends Call of Duty Ghosts 47% Metro 2033 Redux 1% Battlefield Hardline 24% Mass Effect Andromeda Endling The Ascent 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
princexedar Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 To Play, Plat only. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided 45% The Quarry: 65% Moving Out: 37% Control (PS5) 33% Hades 3% Dark Pictures: House of Ashes 3% Last of Us Part 2 12% Spiderman 1% Spiderman: Miles Morales 0% Completed: August: Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor 100% (+1.0) Bioshock 2 74% (+0.5) September: Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory 100% (+1.0) Call of Duty: Ghosts 61% (+0.5) Life is Strange: True Colours 100% (+0.5) October: Virtues Last Reward (+1.0) Sackboy: A Big Adventure (+0.5) Current Total: 5.0 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazzingWind Posted October 15, 2023 Author Share Posted October 15, 2023 I have been MIA for a good while now and that is because both my jobs are kicking my butt. When I am not working at one, I am at the other. And grabbing sleep when I can. I have been struggling to find time/energy to update the standings and I believe that before the true craziness of the holiday hours begin, the event should end on the 31st of this month. I sincerely apologize for needing to call it quits early but I don't see another option. The final update and point tally will be the first week of November with the prizes being DM'd to the winners that same day. Thank you for making this a great year of gaming 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurricane_Tanya Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 2 hours ago, BlazzingWind said: Thank you for making this a great year of gaming Thank you for a fun event! Hopefully you’ll manage to get some free time to yourself soon. It sounds like you’ve earned it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psy-Tychist Posted October 16, 2023 Share Posted October 16, 2023 On 10/15/2023 at 2:02 PM, BlazzingWind said: I have been MIA for a good while now and that is because both my jobs are kicking my butt. When I am not working at one, I am at the other. And grabbing sleep when I can. I have been struggling to find time/energy to update the standings and I believe that before the true craziness of the holiday hours begin, the event should end on the 31st of this month. I sincerely apologize for needing to call it quits early but I don't see another option. The final update and point tally will be the first week of November with the prizes being DM'd to the winners that same day. Thank you for making this a great year of gaming Did you want me to keep the scoring up to date and allow people to finish their games at the proper end? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 23, 2023 Share Posted October 23, 2023 (edited) <deleted> Edited January 31 by Deleted User Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StraightVege Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 Hi there! 🙂 Terribly sorry for neglecting the event lately, but between being absurdly busy (now I know how poor BlazzingWind must feel), clawing my way out of another depressive episode, and recovering from a nasty illness recently, I practically forgot all about this. It wasn't until the other night, when I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself as usual, that it suddenly occurred to me: "hey, what about that forum contest I was in?! Why am I withdrawing from the activities I used to enjoy again? Well, screw these negative thoughts; let's at least try to get back into it!" So basically, I realized that I kinda missed interacting with you folks to compare our progress and whatnot, prompting my return. Clearly, I have some catching up to do with reading posts here. I'm a bit disappointed to learn that the event is concluding early, but it's totally understandable. Hopefully, you'll find enough free time to host another one of these someday, as they're among the most fun contest formats on PSNP. Thanks a lot for running them! It's probably for the best, anyway, since forcing myself to quickly play through everything isn't the healthiest for me. Although I'm not really a competitive person, I get this strange notion in my head that I'll disappoint people if I don't try my hardest to compete and make the contest exciting, I guess. Admittedly, my progress as of late hasn't been particularly impressive, but here are the games which I completed since my last post, well over a month ago: DONE Death's Door Pinstripe Xeodrifter Endling: Extinction is Forever Moonscars Rising Hell Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection Kinda slow going, but it could be worse. To finish strong, let's expand the size of my backlog slightly, with these relatively short games: ADD Call of the Sea Minit Planet Alpha Roki I intend to really buckle down and beat these before the end of the month! Yeah, overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, but I gotta try. Hopefully, I can still manage to finish RE3 in time, as well. I've always been pretty adept at the RE series, so it should be possible. While not restored to my usual energy levels just yet, I would still like to offer some concise thoughts on a few of the games I finished during my absence. I know I'm way behind by now, and obviously won't get around to talking about everything before the end of the event, but it's better than contributing nothing. Suppose we'll tackle them in the order of completion. Death's Door: As a corvine reaper, you'll forcibly claim the souls of stubborn immortals to please your corrupt corporate employer, in this hack and slash reminiscent of the isometric Zelda titles. Judging it as the sequel to Titan Souls, it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi conferred to its predecessor by the unique "boss rush where both you and your foe are defeated in a single hit" approach the original took, being a far more traditional action game this time around. Death's Door is undoubtedly solid genre fare, however, and feels nicely responsive to play, as you dodge, melee strike, and cast magical projectiles at a variety of enemies in frantic battles. In between the skirmishes, you'll navigate the charmingly stylized environments to solve well-designed puzzles using four unlockable abilities—bow, bomb, grappling hook, and fireball—eventually culminating in a dramatic clash with the area's eccentric boss, including a giant, spinning grandma among their ranks! How many games let you clobber an old lady with an umbrella, eh? It was an odd choice to make the player hold both L2 and circle to shoot spells, though, since this needlessly complicates the controls. There's no reason why it couldn't have been done via the circle button alone, which would've made controlling the game feel nearly perfect and thoughtless. The best control schemes are always the ones where I don't have to think about what my hands are doing, something the developer Housemarque is quite adept at, and other studios could stand to learn from. The misguided insistence on arbitrarily featuring supposed "Soulslike elements" in these indie titles has become beyond tiresome at this point, too. What exactly does making me run back to where I died contribute to the experience of this particular game, other than mild tedium? Currency isn't even dropped upon death, so they might as well just checkpoint me outside the room where I failed, like they already did with the optional boss encounters. Thankfully, the maps are compact enough to dull the pain of these occasional walks of shame, and the "DEATH" screen is admittedly one of the more stylish I've seen. While it has its moments, the story was ultimately somewhat unremarkable in my view. Predictably and disappointingly, this is yet another piece of media depicting immortality in a largely negative manner, portraying those seeking everlasting life as selfish villains, who must be put out of their misery the hard way, because the world is stagnating due to their unnatural actions, yadda yadda yadda. So trite! How about some creativity here? My transhumanist side is showing now, but I swear, more people need to read Bostrom's "The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant." This game annoyed me similarly to Death's Gambit, offering little beyond cheap platitudes about our immensely sad impermanence. Sure, immortality could lead to horrendous outcomes in some contexts, but it could also be profoundly wonderful under the right circumstances. It'd be nice to see narratives exploring the latter possibility every once in a while, even if it's more difficult to write an interesting story in that direction. I almost wanted the final boss to kick my butt, because I sympathized with their position for the most part, and certainly couldn't fault them for trying to cheat death. That's one thing the writers pulled off more effectively than most games, at least: they made you feel strong empathy for your foes. Each successful battle is followed by a modest and respectful funeral ceremony for the fallen boss, which I found rather touching. Some real credit is due there. In the end, Death's Door is nowhere near as memorable or challenging as Titan Souls, but it is more polished, and there are far worse ways to spend 11 hours if you enjoy isometric action games. It plays well, looks cool, et cetera, and isn't bad at all, despite my issues with the cliché story. Furthermore, the game features a BIRB protagonist, which automatically earns an extra point in its favor. Pinstripe: In this poignant, bite-sized parable about the perils of alcoholism, you play as a rather sullen ex-minister by the name of Ted, apparently unsatisfied with his mundane family life. After seemingly finding himself and his preschool-aged daughter Bo in a limboesque afterlife, she's soon abducted by the sinister Mr. Pinstripe, a dapper demonic entity of some description, forcing Ted to pursue them through the game's meager few side-scrolling landscapes. With assistance from his talking dog sidekick, George, who can dig up useful clues, Ted must engage in relatively simple platforming, puzzling, shooting, and minigames to eventually rescue Bo. Along the way, he also meets other peculiar characters, such as an eccentric old couple who require Ted's help to be reunited. Pinstripe's serious themes are often presented in a darkly comedic tone, a combination that I found fairly engrossing overall, and speaking as a former lush, certain elements sure hit close to home. Another aspect I appreciated is how the ending was essentially left up to interpretation, varying slightly depending on your decisions throughout the game. What I definitely could've done without, however, was the choice to have famous YouTubers mumble into a microphone and call it voice acting. This almost never results in anything good, and next to the otherwise competent performances by proper actors here, it sticks out like a sore thumb. I have no doubt that pandering to huge gaming personalities improves sales, but it's not worth the hit to your game's quality or dignity in my view; text-only dialogue would've been preferable, frankly. Perhaps too harsh, but I have high standards for voice work, and quite dislike seeing real actors get passed up in favor of vapid e-celebrities. Furthermore, the writing leans slightly too far in the juvenile direction occasionally, to the point of being almost cringeworthy and unfitting for a game tackling serious issues. From a gameplay standpoint, nothing is particularly outstanding, so the main sense of reward stems from it moving the story events along. Initially using his missing daughter's slingshot, and approaching the end, a far superior secret rifle, you'll awkwardly move a targeting reticle around the screen like a mouse cursor, helping Ted knock the mostly nonthreatening drone enemies out of the sky or destroying various puzzle elements necessary to make progress. When not dealing with the lackluster combat, there's simple platforming to be negotiated, but lacking any real penalty for missing a jump, this isn't terribly exciting. Interspersed are carousel minigame machines imitating Flappy Bird, which require timed button presses to maneuver an object through gaps in rotating walls, until the device is eventually powered up, which are thankfully mercifully short. There's also a mandatory, but very easy balloon shooting gallery, hosted by an odd fellow lounging around in his underwear. Overall, I can't say these added much to the experience, but hey, it's a bit of additional gameplay diversity. None of this feels especially great to control, either, but at least it never gets close to becoming outright bad or frustrating; just underwhelming. My usual crotchety complaints aside, Pinstripe's distinctive audiovisual presentation, strong atmosphere, and meaningful narrative are more than adequate to make the brief excursion through its bizarre supernatural world worthwhile, even if there's nothing terribly praiseworthy about it mechanically. While it's over far too soon, what little content is offered was done competently enough that you'd almost think the game had a bigger budget. For the most part, it's a pretty enjoyable and thought-provoking way to kill a few hours. Credit to zizimonster for suggesting yet another solid game! That friendly fellow has excellent taste, although we do take completely opposite views of Jedi: Fallen Order, haha. Xeodrifter: During my endless search for ever more Metroidvanias to play (I'm quite the addict, if you couldn't tell), I recently excavated this little 2D side-scrolling adventure from the deepest depths of my PlayStation Plus backlog. Apparently, it was added to the monthly games way back in 2015, evading my attention somehow. As it turns out, I wasn't missing much, since Xeodrifter has to be the most bog-standard addition to the subgenre I've played in years. In fairness, it is quite old, and certainly not outright bad, but nevertheless rather uninspired. You're a diminutive space explorer, stranded among a constellation of four different-colored alien planets, after your ship is damaged by an unfortunate asteroid collision. According to the craft's sensors, the necessary materials to repair its destroyed warp drive could serendipitously be scavenged from the nearby worlds, so you proceed to explore them while carelessly murdering the often harmless native lifeforms with your blaster gun. Although lacking dialogue and cutscenes entirely, Xeodrifter still managed to make me feel like a real scumbag through its gameplay alone, particularly the cruel ending sequence. For the most part, the local creatures are minding their own business, and seem to need the resources you seek every bit as much as you do, but your own sense of self-preservation wins out over their interests. As per usual for these games, you can't fully complete the worlds without first finding new traversal abilities to bypass various obstacles, which requires some flying back and forth between them in your hobbled ship to make multiple excursions. Via collecting some alien artifacts, your tiny astronaut's suit eventually gains the capability to do everything from transforming into a sort of submarine for underwater navigation, to swiftly dashing across hot lava, to blasting upwards like a rocket through lengthy vertical chambers. The coolest power is probably the one allowing you to teleport between the background and foreground, which comes in especially handy to avoid certain boss attacks. Obviously, this has already been done in past games like Abe's Oddysee, but it's implemented fairly well here nonetheless. I would've appreciated having more opportunities to actually utilize it, though. Of course, there are also permanent boosts for your health and weapon cleverly hidden among the colorful environments, and while the upgrade system for your blaster is incredibly obtuse, it is pretty slick once you figure out the clunky interface. After about 15 minutes of messing around, I finally realized that you can slot collected upgrade tokens into different properties of the gun using the weird pause menu sliders, highly customizing how its shots behave, and you can even set multiple loadouts to handle a number of combat situations. For example, sinking points into various shot angles and shot speed will result in a fast-firing spread projectile. Even this mechanic falls short of being especially interesting, though, since there's essentially no benefit to spending upgrades on anything other than shot power and fire-rate, which is the most effective combination by far. Increase those stats several times, and nothing stands a chance against you. Although the abilities are reasonably fun to use, they ultimately didn't squeeze much mileage out of them, because much akin to its protagonist's stature, the game is rather short. By the time you unlock everything, you've basically explored the compact planets from top to bottom, and it's already time to face the final boss... which is practically identical to every other boss you've previously bested. Indeed, throughout Xeodrifter, you'll repeatedly fight the same old, recycled boss monster, with the only alteration being an additional attack added to their repertoire during each encounter. A standard feature I expect from almost any 2D action title is exciting, distinct boss battles, but this one fails to put forth even that basic level of effort, which is hard to excuse. It feels really lazy, not to mention how predictable the creature's behavior becomes after you've defeated them once or twice, resulting in a series of dull confrontations. In fairness, perhaps they wanted to build up this rival for you over the course of the game, leading to the big reveal that you were the real asshole all along, but I don't think it entirely works. Ya gotta have some boss variation! While I did enjoy the contrast between the cute, old-school graphics and the surprisingly dark implications of the players' actions, the game is serviceable at best, making for a lackluster experience. Unless you've already finished damn near every big Metroidvania out there and are scraping the bottom of the barrel like myself, conquering its alien worlds probably isn't worth your time. Not terrible, but pretty underwhelming, unfortunately. -Completed- 1. Dreaming Sarah - January 9th (+1.0) 2. Streets of Rage 4: Mr X. Nightmare - January 10th (+0.5) 3. Afterparty - January 13th (+0.5) 4. Mortal Shell: The Virtuous Cycle - January 21st (+0.5) 5. Gunlord X - January 25th (+0.5) 6. GreedFall - February 6th (+1.0) 7. Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour - February 8th (+0.5) 8. Shu - February 23rd (+0.5) 9. Psychonauts 2 - March 4th (+1.0) 10. Habroxia 2 - March 8th (+0.5) 11. Two Crude - March 10th (+0.5) 12. The Outer Worlds - April 2nd (+1.0) 13. Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity - April 4th (+0.5) 14. Valley - April 6th (+0.5) 15. Jydge - April 25th (+0.5) 16. Superhot - May 1st (+1.0) 17. Superhot: Mind Control Delete - May 5th (+0.5) 18. AER: Memories of Old - May 5th (+0.5) 19. Little Nightmares - May 7th (+0.5) 20. Little Nightmares II - May 9th (+0.5) 21. Amnesia: Rebirth - May 14th (+0.5) 22. Ghost of a Tale - May 18th (+0.5) 23. The Persistence - May 27th (+0.5) 24. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Fearless - June 1st (+1.0) 25. Mafia: Definitive Edition - June 2nd (+0.5) 26. The First Tree - June 5th (+0.5) 27. Trek to Yomi - June 11th (+0.5) 28. The Forgotten City - June 17th (+0.5) 29. Chicken Police - June 18th (+0.5) 30. The Gardens Between - June 27th (+0.5) 31. Tacoma - June 27th (+0.5) 32. Stray - June 29th (+0.5) 33. Omno - July 2nd (+1.0) 34. Axiom Verge 2 - July 3rd (+0.5) 35. Tails of Iron - July 8th (+0.5) 36. Rogue Legacy 2 - July 27th (+0.5) 37. Deliver Us The Moon - August 1st (+1.0) 38. I Am Dead - August 2nd (+0.5) 39. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - August 6th (+0.5) 40. 11-11: Memories Retold - August 8th (+0.5) 41. Alan Wake Remastered - August 20th (+0.5) 42. Death's Door - August 30th (+0.5) 43. Pinstripe - September 1st (+1.0) 44. Xeodrifter - September 2nd (+0.5) 45. Endling: Extinction is Forever - September 7th (+0.5) 46. Moonscars - September 10th (+0.5) 47. Rising Hell - September 14th (+0.5) 48. Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights - September 19th (+0.5) 49. Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood - September 29th (+0.5) 50. Ghosts 'n Goblins: Resurrection - October 5th (+1.0) Points: 30.0 Backlog: 1. A Tale of Paper 2. Call of the Sea 3. Minit 4. Planet Alpha 5. Resident Evil 3 6. Roki Good luck in the final stretch, people! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darling Baphomet Posted October 29, 2023 Share Posted October 29, 2023 (edited) Unfortunately it doesn't seem like I'll be able to finish OhShape by the end of the month, and Planetfall has taken far longer than anticipated, so my options are to scramble to finish Planetfall and probably not finish anything else or to try to finish as many of my shorter games as I can manage in the next few days... neither of which is going to give me enough points to make up for the last two months being rather slow. I had planned around slowly whittling away my remaining backlog games so the early finish definitely screws me with a whopping 3.5 points deducted. I'll probably keep working on Planetfall either way, so depending on whether I finish it in time or not my final point total will be either 25.5 (-1 for not completing anything this month) if I don't finish it, or 27.6 if I do. Edited November 2, 2023 by Darling Baphomet 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StraightVege Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 (edited) Whew, sometimes I surprise myself—I've actually managed to complete my last minute additions already, so my entire backlog list is finished now! Man, I'm tired, and I'll probably need a long break from gaming after all is said and done. RE3 turned out to be one of the shortest and easiest games in the franchise; kind of a joke for series veterans, really. Planet Alpha was surprisingly irritating, however, since it's terrible at communicating what's expected of the player in a given scenario, and I experienced some input delay to boot. Plenty of cheap deaths occurred, but fortunately, the game checkpoints almost constantly. For the most part, everything progressed smoothly with the final games, though. Still... I feel like pushing my luck a bit! Gonna ADD one more I've had sitting around - Arise: A Simple Story. This will be my very last game for the event, I expect, as basically everything else I have available is likely too long to beat in time. It's supposed to be another 7-10 hour platinum, so I'd best get started on it right away. -Completed- 1. Dreaming Sarah - January 9th (+1.0) 2. Streets of Rage 4: Mr X. Nightmare - January 10th (+0.5) 3. Afterparty - January 13th (+0.5) 4. Mortal Shell: The Virtuous Cycle - January 21st (+0.5) 5. Gunlord X - January 25th (+0.5) 6. GreedFall - February 6th (+1.0) 7. Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour - February 8th (+0.5) 8. Shu - February 23rd (+0.5) 9. Psychonauts 2 - March 4th (+1.0) 10. Habroxia 2 - March 8th (+0.5) 11. Two Crude - March 10th (+0.5) 12. The Outer Worlds - April 2nd (+1.0) 13. Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity - April 4th (+0.5) 14. Valley - April 6th (+0.5) 15. Jydge - April 25th (+0.5) 16. Superhot - May 1st (+1.0) 17. Superhot: Mind Control Delete - May 5th (+0.5) 18. AER: Memories of Old - May 5th (+0.5) 19. Little Nightmares - May 7th (+0.5) 20. Little Nightmares II - May 9th (+0.5) 21. Amnesia: Rebirth - May 14th (+0.5) 22. Ghost of a Tale - May 18th (+0.5) 23. The Persistence - May 27th (+0.5) 24. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Fearless - June 1st (+1.0) 25. Mafia: Definitive Edition - June 2nd (+0.5) 26. The First Tree - June 5th (+0.5) 27. Trek to Yomi - June 11th (+0.5) 28. The Forgotten City - June 17th (+0.5) 29. Chicken Police - June 18th (+0.5) 30. The Gardens Between - June 27th (+0.5) 31. Tacoma - June 27th (+0.5) 32. Stray - June 29th (+0.5) 33. Omno - July 2nd (+1.0) 34. Axiom Verge 2 - July 3rd (+0.5) 35. Tails of Iron - July 8th (+0.5) 36. Rogue Legacy 2 - July 27th (+0.5) 37. Deliver Us The Moon - August 1st (+1.0) 38. I Am Dead - August 2nd (+0.5) 39. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - August 6th (+0.5) 40. 11-11: Memories Retold - August 8th (+0.5) 41. Alan Wake Remastered - August 20th (+0.5) 42. Death's Door - August 30th (+0.5) 43. Pinstripe - September 1st (+1.0) 44. Xeodrifter - September 2nd (+0.5) 45. Endling: Extinction is Forever - September 7th (+0.5) 46. Moonscars - September 10th (+0.5) 47. Rising Hell - September 14th (+0.5) 48. Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights - September 19th (+0.5) 49. Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood - September 29th (+0.5) 50. Ghosts 'n Goblins: Resurrection - October 5th (+1.0) 51. A Tale of Paper - October 25th (+0.5) 52. Minit - October 25th (+0.5) 53. Planet Alpha - October 26th (+0.5) 54. Call of the Sea - October 27th (+0.5) 55. Roki - October 28th (+0.5) 56. Resident Evil 3 - October 29th (+0.5) 57. Arise: A Simple Story - October 30th (+0.5) Points: 33.5 Backlog: 1. Transference I'll try to pop in early next month for a final update, ending on some brief thoughts about all the games I haven't covered yet, if I can muster the motivation. I'm also quite eager to find out how we all placed! See you soon. Edited October 31, 2023 by StraightVege October 31st update: finished Arise, added Transference (33.5 points). 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KillerUni12 Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 Well, I think this will be my final update! I thought about trying to counter the last-second push from @StraightVege but I simply do not have the time to beat 4 more games in the next ~36 hours. Well played and congrats on 6 (!!) completions in 5 days - I usually don't complete that many games in a full month That said, I have completed the following in October: Dead Space (PS5) - I had sky-high hopes for this game and overall, it did not disappoint. The reworked graphics and story felt true to the source and authentic. I really appreciated the additional details and inclusion of Isaac's familial tragedy. However, this game felt too easy compared to the original and the weapons felt too weak. I felt like I found way too much ammo and the enemies were too bullet-spongey. In my countless hardcore playthroughs of Dead Space 2, ammo was extremely scare and, while enemies only needed a few well-placed shots, you had to make every shot count. I strongly preferred that format and felt like the remake strayed too far from it. (Or maybe I'm a terrible shot and that's why the enemies took so many bullets ) Hitman: Bloody Money (PS3) - At last, I've finally finished the Hitman Trilogy. This was easily my favorite of the 3 games - probably because it is the youngest of the 3. I didn't play many PS2 games growing up and without the nostalgia factor, I have a pretty low tolerance for the clunky mechanics of older games (not that any of the trilogy are bad games!). Blood Money plays much smoother and I enjoyed a number of added features. I may have to pick up the PS4 version of Absolution to close out the series. Ratchet & Clank 2 (PS3) - Sticking with the trend of completing old trilogies, I knocked out this title relatively quickly. I ran into a game-breaking bug during my Challenge Mode playthrough, but it was right after I finished upgrading my na no-tech and weapons. I had to grind out 1M bolts for the RYNO 2 on a new game, but it could have been MUCH worse. Don't forget to back up your saves!! Rez Infinite (PS4) - I had mixed feelings about this game. I loved my initial few playthroughs but it quickly became old. Replaying Score Attack 20x and the entire campaign mode 6x was a tedious process. Definitely appreciated the infinite overdrive cheat - I watched Netflix while pressing circle and grinding out the final few hours of the game. If you have a VR, I definitely recommend trying this out - but if you want the plat, you'll be in for a grind! Ratchet & Clank 3 (PS3) - Easily my favorite game in the series. I sped through this one in a weekend as I took a (much needed) break from thinking about my job and how projections are due at month-end. I wasn't expecting the grind at the end, but luckily it wasn't unbearable. Just confused who thought a 10M non-cumulative bolts trophy was a good idea! Overall, that leaves me with 3 games left in the backlog, 54 games completed, and a total of 31.7 points. A few superlatives while I'm feeling reflective: Best game completed: Until Dawn: Rush of Blood Worst game completed: Naughty Bear: Panic in Paradise Most unique: Paper Beast Longest: The Evil Within (Or the Dishonored 100%, which took me 10 years and 2 months!) Shortest: What Remains of Edith Finch (my first completion for this challenge!) Hardest: Thumper Most Memorable: Until Dawn (this story still sticks with me, I absolutely adored this game. Itching to play The Inpatient and The Quarry sometime soon!) I would be interested in hosting a similar event next year (with @BlazzingWind's blessing of course), though I wouldn't be able to provide the same (extremely generous) prizes we've all been vying for this year. I think it could be fun to discuss alternative scoring options as a group (weights for longer or harder games or wildcard months maybe??) to spice things up a bit, as well as what a potential prize could be (monetary or otherwise). What are people's thoughts on this?? Spoiler Completed games: What Remains of Edith Finch January Uncharted 1 February Astro Bot Rescue Mission February Lego Harry Potter 1-4 (PS4) February Super Stardust HD February Battle for Bikini Bottom February Here They Lie February Hitman: Contracts March Toem March Outlast March Paper Beast March Never Alone March Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order March Sound Shapes March Bugsnax April Hitman April Lego Harry Potter 5-7 April Infinite Warfare (Plat) April Costume Quest 2 April Until Dawn: Rush of Blood April Truck Racer May Valiant Hearts: The Great war May inviZimals: The Lost Kingdom May Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry May XBlaze Lost: Memories May Battlefield V May Blood knights May Until Dawn May Soma May Moss May Concrete Genie May Broken Age June Fallout Shelter June Farming Simulator 19 June Hitman 2 Expansion June Steins:gate July Draw Slasher July Hitman 2 July Naughty Bear: Panic in Paradise August Day of the Tentacle August Shutshimi August Grow Home August The Evil Within August Dishonored August Super Motherload August Thumper September Handball 16 September Tokyo Jungle September I am Alive September Dead Space October Hitman Blood Money October Ratchet & Clank 2 October Rez Infinite October Ratchet & Clank 3 (PS3) October Remaining games: Mighty No 9 The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners When Vikings Attack 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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