• God's Trigger
  

  10 hours playtime

  15 of 41 achievements

• OneShot
  

  6 hours playtime

  8 of 11 achievements

• Half-Life 2
  

  21 hours playtime

  19 of 33 achievements

November

A good month for me gaming. I beat 4 games, some old and some new.

God’s Trigger
My latest Steamgifts win. It wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. Decent game, but not great. I can’t really put my finger on what I didn’t like about it, something about the presentation maybe. Anyway, I stuck at it and completed the campaign. Unlikely to play enough to get many more achievements, so marking this as beaten and moving on.

Oneshot
This should have been a game I could easily 100%. I played the first time without following an achievements guide (I did have to get a few hints when I was stuck), then I started again following a guide on the second playthrough to get all the achievements…but I managed to make a mistake…doh! Unfortunately, there is no traditional save system in this game. So, once I messed up, I was past the achievement point. Not keen on starting yet again, so I’m leaving it at 8/11 achievements for now.
Anyway, that long explanation out of the way. Nice game. I can’t say too much without giving spoilers. It’s very much in the vein of The Hex and Pony Island – kind of meta and breaking the fourth wall. Hits you right in the feels too (T.T)

Half-Life 2
Yes, I know, I should have played this a long time ago. Released in 2004, this was one of the first games I bought when I started used Steam in 2011. I think I bought a physical copy of the Orange box actually. I had played it a little, but I guess I either got stuck or just got into the habit of playing newer games that I bought rather than sticking with it and finishing the game. I guess pretty much everyone has played this, so I don’t need to say much. Even thought the graphics have obviously dated in the 15 years since it was released, it’s still a great game.

The Outer Worlds
Played this using the Xbox live gamepass. This took up a lot of my gaming time in November, but I don’t know exactly how much because I find the launcher and website difficult to navigate. I managed to find my achievements on the website after a long search, but no playtime to be seen.

Beating the game won’t reduce my backlog or help my statistics, but it was a very enjoyable game and I’m happy I could play it without having to wait until next year for it to appear on Steam, or pay the $50+ price on Epic now. The similarities to Fallout New Vegas are pretty clear, but I also felt like there were some small similarities to Mass Effect, like the companion selection, the interaction with companions close to the end of the game, and the involvement of other factions. I found it pretty absorbing, but I don’t think I’ve ever done more than one run through in a game, so this is likely to be the only playthrough I do unless I run out of other games to play!
I probably won’t get it on Steam either. Seems silly to get it just to have the name in my collection. I did that in the past with Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas (played them before I got into Steam) and have never played the Steam versions (-.-;).

Here’s a pretty unclear screen capture of the achievement you get for finishing the game.

Adding to my backlog
I did some trading and cheap buying this month, adding SYNTHETIK: Legion Rising and Frostpunk to my backlog. I should have probably resisted those and cleared a few more games, but too late now! I’ll have to try and exercise more control when the winter sales start. These days I’m getting sale emails every day and it’s difficult to resist the urge! Must…stay…strong… :-D

Real World News
I went to Nagoya for a few days (mentioned in my last post). That was good. I spent a lot of the time just wandering around the city, checked out some sights and read a lot in different cafes. Nothing exciting to write about, but it was a nice change to go to another city and the fact I wasn’t at home meant I could relax a lot more (no chance to go to the gym and no housework to do!).

Work has been busy and I’ve done a lot of extra work too. Aside from my main job, I often work in evenings and at weekends. I think this month, there were two days I didn’t work. One Sunday at the start of the month that I didn’t work at all and one Saturday that I only did an hour or so. Every other weekend I have worked, or will work, 6+ hours! Not a good routine for every month, but I don’t mind every now and then, and it means some extra money coming in :)
In my main job, there are management changes coming soon. Hopefully it will lead to improvements rather than more stress!

I’ll go on holiday again in December over Christmas. Five days in Ishigaki, which is an island in Okinawa - the southernmost islands in Japan. It won’t be tropical in December, but should be a little warmer. Japan isn’t very Christmas-y and as I don’t have any family here, I like to do something different. I haven’t really planned what I’m doing, just looking forward to going somewhere new and relaxing.

Hope everyone else had a productive November. Christmas is just around the corner if you celebrate it, and I guess most people will have holidays. Hope you all have fun :)