Report #50
It was almost in reach, completing Report #50 and reaching my goal of 50% backlog cleared. I even thought about pushing the Report back and wait for another couple of games, until the 50% are reached (I’m 3 games short). But then I decided…why is it so important? Why does a more or less arbitrary number gain so much meaning? I should not let numbers dictate my habits. Therefore, here is my 50th post on BLAEO!
Reviews
Shadowrun Dragonfall is the sequel to Shadowrun Returns and I could almost verbatim post the same review as I did after finishing Shadowrun Returns.
Although the world of Shadowrun is not entirely my cup of tea, it's still fascinating and it was an interesting setting for the game. I enjoyed the story and the gameplay. There is quite some criticism about the boring and repetitive fighting, but personally I wasn't bothered by it. Turnbased combat appeals to me and I didn't mind that the fights resemble each other quite a lot. I really enjoyed the detailed background artwork (the character models seem a bit amateurish in comparison) and the expanded background stories of your NPC companions.
However, the game engine is the same as for Shadowrun Returns and suffers from the same problems: Imprecise controls, hotkeys randomly not working and relatively long loading times.
The achievements are all obtainable in one playthrough if you plan ahead a bit (I found a spoiler-free guide, but lost the link somehow -- sorry!). And there is a ton of great looking community content, including whole new campaigns. I only had a quick look into the start of a few of those, but they seem promising. Unfortunately…who has the time?
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the game and I am glad I finally decided to play it. It was my favourite game from this Report's 3 games.
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE is the sequel (or an expansion?) to SUPERHOT. It seems to be free for owners of SUPERHOT, because it just appeared in my library one day. I decided to give it a go, because it fits this month's theme "Decades".
It's basically the same game as SUPERHOT. A FPS with an interesting core concept, as time only moves when you yourself move. It has its own style and is quite enjoyable for a few hours. However, I did not enjoy playing the game for about a dozen hours. I was bored at the end, especially since the game requires quite some concentration and effort in the last few levels. I would have given the game a better rating were it maybe 1/3 of the length. After that, I did not enjoy it anymore. And still continued to play MORE, which is kinda the message of the game and the hidden meaning, hinting at the addiction games can trigger and whatnot, but honestly I just wanted to play a FPS and don't care about the developer's deeper goals.
Dungeon of the Endless is a Rogue-li(t/k)e Dungeon Crawler (at least that's what I think you call it, I'm not very versed in the exact differences in such genres. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me, always happy to learn new stuff!) set in Amplitude's Endless universe and including TD elements in its gameplay.
Your ship crashlanded on the planet Auriga and you have to fight your way through several dungeon levels filled with monsters to reach savety. You (mostly) start with a party of 2 characters and can have up to 4 party members in total. The gameplay is a mix of realtime fights and turnbased progression. By opening doors to further rooms in the dungeon you progress through them, collect ressources, research new stuff and search for the exit of the current dungeon. You have to manage your sparse ressources carefully to not get overwhelmed by monsters. (I feel like I'm not very aptly describing the game, forgive me.)
My personal notes: This game has been on my unfinished pile for almost 6 years. I'm super glad I started it and was able to beat it. I rarely play games of this genre and it was welcome change up of the usual stuff. It is quite challenging though. Not unwinnable and I'm sure others might find it very fitting in difficulty, but it was almost too much for me. While I quite enjoyed the game, I did not enjoy it enough to put really detailed preparation and strategizing into it. I cannot compare it to a lot of other games of the same genre, but as far as I'm concerned it's a good game.
Currently playing
I don’t know what I’ll play next, I have to work for a few hours first ;(
50 reports done. Whew, that’s quite a lot. And there is still much backlog to be cleared…so on to the next 50 reports with all you lovely people!
Stay save and happy backlog-clearing to everyone,
Vito
I’m baaack :)) congrats on 50 posts and being so close to completing 50% of your games! :D
You did really well with Dungeon of the Endless, I’m impressed at how many achievements you earned! If you really wanted those multiplayer achievements, I could help ya out. As I actually discovered in this reddit post you only need to start a multiplayer match with another player, but can complete it on your own if they all happen to leave, and it will still count. Let me know!
Glad to hear you enjoyed the next SR game - I have all of them in my backlog too and am looking forward to the chance to try them out! Disappointing to hear they can be buggy at times, oh well.
Excited to see you hit 50% of the backlog!
Thank you for the kind words! I am excited for the 50% as well. Really motivates me to finish the remaining games quickly.
I visited my parents for 2 weeks of vacation and played a lot of Dungeon of the Endless there. Since they do not have the most stable Wifi there are some playing hours missing in the count. That is a very interesting reddit post. I was already wondering how many sessions such a MP playthrough would last or if you have to complete the game in one sitting…Thanks for the offer to help, but I already found someone to try them. We can still start up a game though if you’re interested in getting the achievements.
The bugs in the SR games are thankfully not game-breaking, just a bit annoying, when you have to click things instead of using the hotkey, because it stopped working. The first one is much shorter, so you can decide after that if it’s worth continuing with the next SR game for you or not.
No worries! Fortunately I’ve already done the MP achievements, and sounds like you’ll get them done too.
Hopefully I will enjoy SR as I am a big fan of similar games (like XCOM), but it’s good to hear the first one is short :D
Aww yeah, fellow “50 reports cleared” user. Congrats.
Keep playing and you’ll see the engine visibly dying in Hong Kong as scripts fail to load because areas are too densely populated with trigger and stuff. Lack of Unity updates really comes through with Shadowrun games, especially with mods pushing it even further as devs presumably realized the limits and only occasionally skirted them.
Thank you!
Well, that is unfortunate. I really like both SR games I’ve played so far, but the occasional missclicks or hotkeys not working really got on my nerves. I’ll keep my eyes open when playing HongKong, bummer. Thanks for the heads up!