August Roundup
Trips to the beach are fun
Games I beat this month:
Beaten in August 8 games
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Visibility
12 hours playtime
17 of 17 achievements
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10,000,000
20 hours playtime
14 of 14 achievements
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Snuggle Truck
6 hours playtime
11 of 11 achievements
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Alice's Patchworks 2
24 hours playtime
18 of 18 achievements
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Sniper Ghost Warrior 3
47 hours playtime
48 of 48 achievements
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Yooka-Laylee
41 hours playtime
35 of 35 achievements
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The Cat Games
5 hours playtime
16 of 16 achievements
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The Big Journey
12 hours playtime
31 of 31 achievements
So this was the month that I thought would certainly break my achievement streak, as we had my wife's parents visiting from overseas and we spent one of the weeks down at the beach, and I no longer had a laptop to take with me. BUT then I managed to borrow a laptop from a family member, and even though it was missing a few keys (thanks nephews) and it was toaster, it managed to run a few games and so by some miracle (and a once daily mobile data check in) the streak lives on. Don't know why I care particularly, but I think it's become a fun thing to see how long I can go for.
The holiday itself went pretty well. I didn't have high hopes as my wife's granny and slightly 'leechy' aunt and uncle had added themselves to the outing, but the house we stayed in was big enough that we all had our own space and with the kids we always had an excuse to find other things to do when the conversation about the 'good old days' from the older generation was getting boring.
Apart from the games I beat, I also played a fair amount of Toy soldiers and I'm getting to the end of quantum break. I'll admit I'm in a bit of a 'funk' at the moment, where I have a few really good games I need to play and beat, but I'm just not in the mood, so random little games have been filling my time. Nothing wrong with that I guess, and maybe after a little break I'll feel like playing some of those bigger games again.
Other stats
Achievements Gained 211Most difficult (according to TSA) 'Target Practice' in Company of heroes 2
Games added 5
Number of different games played 19
Achievement streak 857 days
Average Game completion 70%
Total number of completed games 314
Games completed in 2018 75
Well I was looking through my list of games to see which ones might work on the borrowed toaster, and saw I didn't have much more to do on this one, so I carried on and beat it. It's not as exciting as the initial premise might seem, and I think they could have made the levels a lot more interesting. Also the music sounds like some guy just sitting in his college dorm room picking at his guitar, so it gets annoying after a while. Anyway, the achievements work and you can beat the game, so no harm done.
10,000,000
14 of 14 achievements (100%)
This was toaster game number 1. And it was surprisingly fun. A nice little twist on the match 3 formula, that felt more exciting to play. I enjoyed it enough to immediately install the sequel when I got home. 1 more achievement to go in there and it's also done.
Snuggle Truck
11 of 11 achievements (100%)
Toaster game number 2. A bit like a cuter version of 'hill climb racing' on the phone. Nothing too sophisticated, but some of the last medals can be really tricky. I was glad that there was some DLC that added to the medal count and meant you didn't need to get all the medals to still beat the game.
Alice's Patchworks 2
18 of 18 achievements (100%)
My usual monthly puzzle game for coffee breaks. Although, why it needed a super grindy money achievement is beyond my understanding.
I know this game didn't review well, and I agree that the plot is a bit silly and the open world not very interesting. BUT it gets the most important part working pretty well. Sniper elite is still the better series, but playing this one on the hard setting, it feels incredible to land a series of quick headshots and take down a base without any alarms. I appreciate that they also tried to do something new with the open world and crafting, so I hope it's not the last of the series. Oh and probably the biggest plus is that for once the achievements don't require online play or DLC.
Such a lovely nod to the old school 3d platformers of 20 years ago. I know some people complained that there was too much to collect, but for someone who played a lot of the games back in the day it felt about right. Nothing too challenging bar one rex arcade machine which just would not respond nicely to the controls and I had to repeat like 20 times. I did need a guide to mop up at the end though, as not all of the pagies were obvious.
The Cat Games
16 of 16 achievements (100%)
Well... it was certainly a short experience, but I appreciated that the achievements weren't just for grinding the same 3 mini games over and over. So it was an entertaining hour or two, rather than a pain to complete. More devs with limited ideas should follow the same pattern.
The Big Journey
31 of 31 achievements (100%)
Squeezed this one in last night as the final game of the month. A cute 'psuedo' platformer, where you're not moving the character so much as the world around them. Mobile roots really showing, as it would obviously be played with screen tilt and a single button normally, but it functioned just fine on computer and was an enjoyable little game.