A farewell to 2019

So as expected 2019 was a quieter year for me on the gaming front. It was a fairly big year for me and my family personally, between having a new baby and buying a house, which meant less free time. And it has been fantastic watching my daughter grow in her first year, and putting in the hours working on my house. So yes, on the games side of things I always knew there'd be less time, which is why I set my goal for 90 games completed in the year, and I finished up on 93. So still not too bad, but it's the first year I finished less than the previous year, and I also earned 800 less achievements. I also had a list of 25 games I wanted to play this year and only got to 15 of them. Which is probably the biggest failure of the year for me.

In order to keep the BLAEO home page free of clutter, I shall hide the rest of my ramblings, behind this big button, press it at your own risk

Stats for 2019

Achievements Gained 2977 (3772 in 2018)
Most difficult (according to TSA) 'Even Heavy Armor Cannot Withstand Fire of this Magnitude' in Company of heroes 2
Games added 234 added - 65 deleted
Total Games 2747 (2513 in 2018)
Achievement streak 1345 days (980 days in 2018)
Average Game completion 76% (73% in 2018)
Total number of completed games 454 (361 in 2018)
Games completed in 2019 93 (126 in 2018)

The full list of games I beat in the year is here but here's a list of my top 10 of the year

Assassin's Creed Origins

126 hours playtime

67 of 67 achievements

Assassin's creed reborn

Just when the AC series was getting pretty stale, this game came along to revitalise the whole thing. I think it redefines what is possible with an open world in many ways, and I loved every minute spent in the game. Looking forward to playing odyssey on day as well

Sniper Elite 4

75 hours playtime

85 of 85 achievements

Possibly the best one yet

With this entry to the Sniper Elite series, I think they are finally reaching the potential the series always had. Big open maps and open objectives which encourage experimentation, and allow you to perform some insane shots. The hardest mode is just insane, and finishing that was possibly one of the hardest achievements I did this year

Saints Row: The Third

93 hours playtime

83 of 83 achievements

Wow, this took a while

SRIII was one of the first games I bought when I started playing games on steam, so it felt amazing to finally beat it. I still think this is the best one in the series, leaning hard into the inherent silliness of the premise, and I honestly think it’s a better game than the grand theft series. GTA is like the ‘jock’ of the open world crime series, fuelled by testosterone and machismo, littered with enough sex jokes to make it ‘fun’, whilst SR is more like the class clown.

Mount & Blade: Warband

166 hours playtime

80 of 80 achievements

Can't wait for bannerlord

When I started playing M&B I will admit I was a bit lost as to what to do next. It’s such a sandbox experience that it can be confusing to know what you should be doing. But that freedom quickly became a reason to love the game as it really leaves so much of your experience up to you. Do you become a rebel leader, hell bent on conquering the world? Do you lead a small band of mercenaries performing jobs for whoever is hiring? A merchant making money through cunning trade? Of course it would all be meaningless if the combat wasn’t so comfortable to ‘get’. Here’s hoping bannerlord can keep the core of what makes this game great.

LEGO® City Undercover

128 hours playtime

48 of 48 achievements

Take me down to lego city

I play the lego games for the kids allegedly, but I will admit a certain appreciation for them myself. They may all play very similarly, but it’s still fun, and they are one of the best co-op games to play with a kid. This particular one, is one of the best in my opinion. Completely original characters and story, nice big map and plenty to do. My eldest still insists on playing it, but now it’s with his own characters and made up storylines, which I guess is another reason why open world games can be great fun

Borderlands 2

120 hours playtime

75 of 75 achievements

Ok I get it now

When people were raving on about the Borderlands game back in the day, I didn’t get the appeal. I still didn’t get the appeal when I played Borderlands 1 years later. But after playing through most of Borderlands 2 and it’s various DLC with my brother, I now get the acclaim. Whereas the first game lacked character, and the pre-sequel tries a bit too hard, BL2 gets it just right. Fun quests, interesting enemies and epic boss fights. Just a fun ride all in all.

Figment

12 hours playtime

23 of 23 achievements

A quirky little puzzler

I enjoy the quirky and unusual games a lot of the time. I think they break up the monotony of games the follow the same formulas and showcase a different way of making games. I enjoyed this developers previous game, Back to bed, and was pleased to see the figment upped the ante with better characterisation, a deeper story, and quirky soundtrack, complete with villain monologue songs. The puzzles were also pretty well thought out.

West of Loathing

39 hours playtime

23 of 28 achievements

Fun times in the wild wild wild wild west

I have a love hate relationship with RPGs. Some of my favourite games ever are RPGs, and a lot of the other games I really enjoy have borrowed RPG elements, but I just find a lot of them are too grindy and stats driven to just enjoy in small bursts. So this game was perfect for me. I never felt like I was getting outmatched because I didn’t have the perfect gear, and the humour is just perfect. There’s also tons of little secrets and sub-plots to unravel, and it took me a couple of playthroughs to get a lot of it. ( I did 100% the game, but then they added DLC. Thanks devs)

Supraland

32 hours playtime

59 of 59 achievements

Supra-Metroid-land

This is probably the shortest time I’ve taken from release date to beaten, especially for a game this long. I have a deep love for Nintendo and this game feels like a perfect mix of Metroid, Zelda and some Portal level puzzling to boot, so once I started playing I just got hooked into it, and before I knew, it was finished. Looking forward to getting the DLC and sequel some time. GOTY 2019 for me definitely. (Missed the deadline to nominate it here unfortunately)

Tropico 5

52 hours playtime

70 of 70 achievements

Your kingdom awaits, El-presidente

I love city building simulation games, even though I’m rubbish at micromanagement, so I’ve always loved the Tropico series for being kinder in that regard. You still have a lot of stats and things to pay attention to, but it’s more forgiving and with just a bit of common sense it’s not hard to succeed. I also love the quirky scenarios and random events that pop up. I don’t know why I took so long to finish this game, but once I started playing it again, it quickly sucked me in again and I’m glad to add this one to the list.

Most disappointing game

A great game and concept which I enjoyed playing… up until the point there was a randomly occurring bug which meant the one boss fight became a fight against pretty tough odds to beat. I wasted far too much time restarting that fight just to hope I could get lucky on all 15 of the attack selections and that honestly has a way of ruining a game a bit.

Flat Kingdom Paper's Cut Edition

27 hours playtime

48 of 48 achievements

Plans for 2020

I suspect the amount of real life busi-ness will still be pretty high this year, so I'm setting my goal for completed games in the year to 90 again, or to reach 540 completed games total. I'd also like to increase the average completion from 76 to 80, but that might not happen, if I start too many new games.

I have put together a new list of the 25 games I'd like to beat this year, but as we know, that may turn out to be completely irrelevant.

List is here