Utnayan backlog challenge: part 2 ends Jan 31
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Rajaah
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Been bouncing around this weekend.
Dishonored 2 - Man, this game is annoying. It's got all the tools to be great, but the level design sucks. Every time I turn around there's some new obstacle that doesn't make much sense and slows me way down. Chapter 4 took forever to get through because I spent most of it running from bots and lost in the transforming house (which was an incredible idea at first) until I finally found explosives and annihilated the bots. Tried to explore the outer part of the level a bit and it's got those annoying bee enemies EVERYWHERE. Constant instant-death traps everywhere that can be disabled, yes, but I'm tired of running into them around every corner. If you couldn't save whenever you want, the game would be obnoxious. Save-anywhere shouldn't be a crutch for lousy level design. It sucks because otherwise the game is good. There's just an awful lot of obstacles slowing things down for no reason and things that aren't conducive to fun in the level design.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart - This game is awesome. Yeah it's pretty basic and occasionally the level design is a little iffy, but it captures the spirit of those old 3D N64 platformers really well. There isn't much to this one and I probably wouldn't be playing it if not for this backlog challenge, but at least I'm having fun with it.
Anodyne - Indy game I bought a while back and left off partway through it. Bought it because I read it was Zelda-inspired, IIRC. It's very simplistic and has 8-bit level graphics, but it isn't bad at all. Plays just like Zelda 1 on the NES, looks like an 8-bit Mother 3, and has music extremely reminiscent of Earthbound (aka weird and eerie). It's kind of hard to get into due to how antiquated it looks and I wouldn't have bought it in retrospect. However I have it, it got good reviews, and I want to knock it off the list.
Resident Evils - Tried to start up RE Zero again, immediately remembered why I hate it as I wandered around lost for a few minutes. Might be better off just starting it over from the beginning and following a walkthrough, as much as I want to pick up where I left off and finish the thing. It's a game that if you put it down and don't remember what your next objective was, you're kind of F'd.
Dishonored 2 - Man, this game is annoying. It's got all the tools to be great, but the level design sucks. Every time I turn around there's some new obstacle that doesn't make much sense and slows me way down. Chapter 4 took forever to get through because I spent most of it running from bots and lost in the transforming house (which was an incredible idea at first) until I finally found explosives and annihilated the bots. Tried to explore the outer part of the level a bit and it's got those annoying bee enemies EVERYWHERE. Constant instant-death traps everywhere that can be disabled, yes, but I'm tired of running into them around every corner. If you couldn't save whenever you want, the game would be obnoxious. Save-anywhere shouldn't be a crutch for lousy level design. It sucks because otherwise the game is good. There's just an awful lot of obstacles slowing things down for no reason and things that aren't conducive to fun in the level design.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart - This game is awesome. Yeah it's pretty basic and occasionally the level design is a little iffy, but it captures the spirit of those old 3D N64 platformers really well. There isn't much to this one and I probably wouldn't be playing it if not for this backlog challenge, but at least I'm having fun with it.
Anodyne - Indy game I bought a while back and left off partway through it. Bought it because I read it was Zelda-inspired, IIRC. It's very simplistic and has 8-bit level graphics, but it isn't bad at all. Plays just like Zelda 1 on the NES, looks like an 8-bit Mother 3, and has music extremely reminiscent of Earthbound (aka weird and eerie). It's kind of hard to get into due to how antiquated it looks and I wouldn't have bought it in retrospect. However I have it, it got good reviews, and I want to knock it off the list.
Resident Evils - Tried to start up RE Zero again, immediately remembered why I hate it as I wandered around lost for a few minutes. Might be better off just starting it over from the beginning and following a walkthrough, as much as I want to pick up where I left off and finish the thing. It's a game that if you put it down and don't remember what your next objective was, you're kind of F'd.
Rajaah
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Gotta say, I'm learning lately that maybe I'm not that much of a gamer anymore. I'm not enjoying half the games I'm playing, and I've discovered that there's a reason some of these were backlogged to begin with. They just aren't that enjoyable to me, and got shelved. At least I have no issues tapping out on something and shipping it off to ebay-land now, whereas in the past I would have gone balls-out to finish those games despite their un-enjoyability.
Pretty much every half-completed game that I'm trying to resume, I'm finding unfun. On the flipside, the games that I didn't start at all, like Ratchet, and GOTG, are a blast. So maybe I don't dislike games now, I just dislike...tasks. And some of these really feel like tasks.
Pretty much every half-completed game that I'm trying to resume, I'm finding unfun. On the flipside, the games that I didn't start at all, like Ratchet, and GOTG, are a blast. So maybe I don't dislike games now, I just dislike...tasks. And some of these really feel like tasks.
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Erronius
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As expected, it was a very shallow game. Some fun to be had, especially with the couch co-op. But not a game I’d recommend.
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Crone
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RDR2
Cyberpunk 2077
Witcher 3 DLCs (Heart of Stone/Blood & Wine)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Farcry 6
Control
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Metro Exodus EE
These are games installed and started, but never finished. I need to get on this. Trying really hard to set aside mental blocks and just get it done.
Cyberpunk 2077
Witcher 3 DLCs (Heart of Stone/Blood & Wine)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Farcry 6
Control
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Metro Exodus EE
These are games installed and started, but never finished. I need to get on this. Trying really hard to set aside mental blocks and just get it done.
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Rajaah
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Just pick one, give it a few hours, if it doesn't tickle your fancy then sell it and pick another one. Focusing on one is the way to go. Out of that list I'd go with Horizon or Yakuza myself. I found Cyberpunk and Farcry to not be worth the (massive) time required. Control has a super shitty map system so you spend half the game lost. So I'd drop those 3 myself.
Re-read what I said. I'm plowing games but I'm not particularly enjoying most of them. Like it's work and I'm realizing why I shelved some of these. Problem is, some of them are games that are really good / highly-acclaimed and I'm not enjoying those either. The most fun I've had with games in the past month was probably Terminator and Code Vein, and both of those were like "7 out of 10" experiences that I went fairly mild for. I also like Ratchet and Clank but it's very much not my style of game.
It might be that I'm rushing through them, maybe that's hurting the enjoyment factor. Something like Dishonored 1 and 2, though, I'm noticing all the flaws as I go through them and the level design is making me straight-up angry. It's like I'm starting these games in year 5 of a relationship instead of year zero, when you're just annoyed at all the stupid things your spouse does and none of it is cute anymore.
Also tapping out more than I used to, and quicker, on games that I thought I'd like, like Farcry 6 which I played for like an hour and returned to the store after it pissed me off. I would have never done that even a year ago.
That's why I'm wondering if maybe I'm not much of a gamer anymore and just going through the motions out of habit and still having so many things I want to get to. I was 95% sure I'd love the Dishonored games, but I find them obnoxious and it's more of a sunk cost thing than anything else that I'm still chipping at D2. I had today entirely set aside for backlog-gaming and barely put in two hours, just couldn't be arsed.
Yeah, I think my ambivalence slash antipathy towards a lot of the real world nowadays has seeped over into my video game hobby and hurt the overall enjoyment. Once I'm done clearing backlog, or as much as I can anyway, I need to settle down with one particular extremely good game for a while. Probably one that I have prior experience with and know I'll actually like. Might be time for a Mass Effect trilogy replay. Taking 3 weeks off in January to move into a new place, so I'll have plenty of time to de-stress either way.
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Erronius
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Rajaah
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LOL my bad, I was in a pretty bad mood today after Dishonored 2 whooped my ass for a couple hours, so I was probably reading things all wrong.
Still though, no joke, everything I'm playing at the moment pisses me off in one way or another so I'm wondering if I'm even into games right now.
Crone
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You've been cranking pretty hard. Maybe take a break? Like right now I'm on an MMO break hence why I'm trying to knock out some of these games. I added a few more to the list today that I'd like to at least play through the story. Added Assassin's Creed Odyssey + Valhalla, and Watchdogs.
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yaph
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To do List:
Death Stranding
Dishonored (Thread reminded me I never finished it)
Alien Isolation (Thread reminded me I never finished it)
Witcher 3: Blood & Wine (140hrs played and never finished the expansion)
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Got stuck on the last boss and never revisted)
Death Stranding
Dishonored (Thread reminded me I never finished it)
Alien Isolation (Thread reminded me I never finished it)
Witcher 3: Blood & Wine (140hrs played and never finished the expansion)
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Got stuck on the last boss and never revisted)
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Rajaah
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Yeah, I've pretty much taken a break today (and worked hard on RL things all day instead).
I actually advise against AC Valhalla. It's a massive time-sponge and never gets particularly interesting. That's a problem the recent "open world" ACs have had. AC Origins (the Egypt one) was much longer than previous games in the series, but it's okay because it has an amazing setting. However, then Odyssey goes ahead and doubles the length of Origins, while not being interesting enough to justify it. Still, Odyssey was a good game (if a bit mundane at times) and worth a run if you have the time for it. However, then Valhalla goes ahead and doubles the length of Odyssey, while becoming even more mundane. The one major complaint people had about Odyssey is that it ran way too long, so Ubisoft didn't listen AT ALL.
At the end of the day if you're going with a big open-world AC I'd go with Origins. However Odyssey is also good, and if you like Greek/island themes more than Egypt/desert themes it can be considered a superior game. Just avoid Valhalla.
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Rajaah
Crone
Yeah I kind of got burned out to but I’m also having some stuff like with my dad being sick (he’s recovering) so it’s been no EQ or backlog
Gavinmad
qualifiers. I am working on kingdom come deliverance. It is so good I’m enjoying taking my time on that one.Once this ends we’ll brainstorm with
Utnayan
and immediately kick off a new contest. I think the overall desire for this thread should be getting people finishing at least one or two games that they’ve had a backlog per year.. Maybe do a contest where there’s multiple winners or pick some AAA games that are 80 hour plus and a contest for games 1-5 hour plus etc . The last thing we wanna do is have hard-core achievement hunters winning all the time. I want to get people who have a big backlog more involved. If I win this I’m gonna to have
Utnayan
keep money and turn right back around and start a new contest. I feel like it’s more important that we get people wrapping up the backlogs.- 2
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Rajaah
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Definitely knock off Bloodstained. It drives me nuts when I get to the final boss of a game and leave it unfinished. Did that with Metroid Dread for weeks.
I left off on the final "battle" of Five Nights at Freddy's 5 and I'm tempted to take a run at it this week. All I have left is the final challenge of the game, but it absolutely curbstomped me in the past. Also, every time you fail, you have to wait through a bunch of spoken dialogue, then do a super-annoying and easily-failable number minigame before you can try the last challenge again. If they'd just put a checkpoint right before the actual challenge rather than having it five minutes earlier and before a bunch of annoying shit, I would have definitely kept at it and finished the game. On the bright side, the final challenge is pretty cool, and finally calls back to the gameplay of earlier FNAFs (after most of FNAF5 goes in random other directions).
FNAF5 is super poorly-designed in general though. I mean it's the very definition of taking something that ain't broke and breaking it. I bought all five FNAF games back in 2016, loved the first two, tolerated the 3rd, tapped out on the 4th. Took me years to finally get through the 4th because it's when things go south gameplay-wise. Then I was stoked for 5, only to find it was even worse than 4, and never finished it.
Also think I'm gonna drop Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart from my list of things to try and finish this week. ....because it's awesome! That's right, I really like this game, so much so that I think I'm gonna go for the platinum. Gonna put it aside and play it in a few weeks when I'm not rushing, and go for the 100%.
So yeah, R&C is back onto the backlog shelf. I'm still working on: Dishonored 2, Anodyne, RE Zero.
Rajaah
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Yeah I kind of got burned out to but I’m also having some stuff like with my dad being sick (he’s recovering) so it’s been no EQ or backlog
Once this ends we’ll brainstorm with
I'm down. I'm no hardcore achievement hunter, but I do have a massive backlog thanks to how much I bought in 2021. I was planning on clearing it out once I had more free time but I lacked motivation until I got into the thread. Here's what I cleared out from what I got at the beginning of the year:
And this is now only like 30-40% of what I bought this year. I should make a new picture to start X-ing things out on.
Regime
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Mines much much larger if I count Xbox 360 achievement whore kind of games. Yours is larger if I’m counting just AAA games or high end AA’s.
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