May 2023

It looks like a much quieter month’s gaming, but both Sleeping Dogs and Danganropa 2 were long, and I have 20h in Yakuza Kiwami (which should end up beaten this month), plus a bunch more time in Sniper Elite 5 playing again on Authentic difficulty.

Steam:

• Sleeping Dogs™
  

  26 hours playtime

  26 of 59 achievements

• Dorfromantik
  

  13 hours playtime

  26 of 85 achievements

• Dorfromantik: It’s difficult to determine where some games are “beaten”. For instance, Binding of Isaac is technically beaten when Isaac beats Mom for the first time, but most of the game is beyond that. I’m using Overachiever IV (13.9% global completions) and Landscaper VI (16.9% global completions)as my milestones for DR, but will no doubt play more of this relaxing tile laying game.
• Sleeping Dogs: A GTA3 derivative set in Hong Kong. I played for some hours before and stopped. Then it was selected as a game for Play or Pay so I restarted. I know why I stopped – it was distinctly… ok. I’ve since been playing Yakuza Kiwami, and that’s been more fun– particularly the complexity of the combat. (Edit: I’m finding myself a little annoyed by games that don’t respect player time. I would rather play a 2 hour game that needs to be 2 hours, than a much longer game which pads its worthwhile content out with meaningless filler. Take the collectables in Sleeping Dogs, for instance – there’s no skill required for most of them, and a straightforward fight for most of the rest. Compare that with Arkham City, which while it has way too many Riddler trophies at least gates these most behind somewhat unique challenges. Yeah, I know I don’t have to collect collectables I notice, but yeah I do).

• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Anniversary Edition
  </p></div>
• Planet of Lana
  </p></div>

Gamepass

• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Anniversary Edition: I didn’t play the first game, but instead watched the anime covering it afterwards. The sequel is a good but overlong murder mystery game (I took 27+ hours to beat it, and would need a lot more to complete!). Some of it made me laugh (it feels like Gaki no Tsukai’s New Year shows at times), and pleasantly, a bunch of initial weirdness eventually makes sense within the context of the world.
• Planet of Lana: Some good puzzles stretched by some excessive traversal (they could have cut probably 20+ minutes out and lost nothing). One thing that (for instance) Eternal Hope did to assist full completion is to not only have selectable chapters, but selectable sub-chapters which is considerate.