June-August
My longest streak of not posting. I’ve pushed the boundaries of laziness even further. My previous two-month break has been extended to a three-month one. No single reason. A very busy period at work and an 18-day trip to the UK are probably the main reasons. A few other minor things, but I probably should’ve limited it to a two-month gap.
Work - Pretty stressful, to be honest. My sleep and sanity suffered a bit too, but nothing too serious. It’ll be quieter until about mid-September so I can relax a bit. From September things will get crazy again.
UK trip - Not really a holiday, as I was mainly visiting family and friends. There were a few more touristy things thrown in there as my gf came with me. We managed to time the trip as some rail strikes were happening which threw things a little. Thankfully a friend could drive us on the two days that trains were canceled, but that was one more thing to think about! I enjoyed meeting friends and eating a lot! It would be nice to have another trip to a beach resort or something but unlikely anytime soon.
I started writing this mid-August during a week’s holiday from work, which meant I had time to look back at the games and think a bit. I’m back at work as I finish writing it, but not too bad at the moment. Aside from the games listed below, I’ve been playing APICO (relaxing, fun, slow progress), Good Night, Knight (I’m stuck, need to go back to this), Roboquest (Nice for short bursts of gameplay, no achievements), Darksiders Genesis (it’s alright, actually added it to my account by mistake!), Rollerdrome (great fun!), and Garden Story (enjoying this one too and seems to be quite a lot to do).
Onto this month’s assassinations:
Steam
A 3D platformer. It's a simple game but was lots of fun and there are plenty of challenges in there too. I doubt I'll get good enough to do the boss rush or speedrun achievements, so I'm content with Beaten for now. A quick look at a trailer will pretty much reveal all you need to know about this game, no surprises.
I didn't finish the DLC but the main story is done. Graphically and with the fantasy setting, this isn't a game I'd normally go for but I tried it on gamepass a while back and was interested enough to pick it up when I could get a good deal.
Tight controls, plenty of additional achievements aside from the main storyline, and great voice acting. That's something I don't really pay much attention to, but it really stood out in this game. Interesting story in there, but tbh I did zone out at times and just waited to get back into the action! I started to grind the DLC a bit, but it seems like it will take me a long time, so Beaten for now and I may come back to it.
An open-world gem. The game that the Yakuza series could have been!
So, I should start out by saying I enjoyed Yakuza 0, but it did feel very repetitive. Then I tried another in the series and just couldn't bring myself to keep playing. Now, Sleeping Dogs - yeah, it's a bit old so the graphics are a little dated, but this was the highlight of my gaming in this block. There was a good story at the core of the game, the missions weren't pointless fetch quests (yes, I'm looking at you Yakuza, with your 3-4 go and find toilet paper requests in a row!) and I was always interested and engaged. I mean, 47 hours and 100% for someone with my attention span is surely evidence! The ghosty DLC was weaker, but the Bruce Lee-inspired one was a lot of fun too. If you haven't played it yet, don't let the 2012 release tag put you off and go grab it. Completed.
Picked this up on thje strength of reviews. Definitely not from the trailer, which was a very weird style with human actors - kind of like a TV commercial for kids toys.
It was good. I mean, I can see why it got good reviews, but there's nothing particularly.... novel.
It's Sonic really, isn't it? Sonic and a few other platformers mixed up a bit. I'm not particularly good at platformers, but managed to beat the main story in a reasonable amount of time so I guess it's not too difficult. There are more achievements and things to collect but I've had enough! Just didn't really click with me, but I'd recommend it if you like classic platformer action. Beaten.
Played demo of this a while back, I think. It stuck with me, so I was on the lookout. I missed an Alienware (?) giveaway but got it in the end.
A kind of RPG where you play as a ghost trying to get back to the land of the living.
In a lot of my little summaries, I'm pretty vague and just write about games not really clicking with me, getting old, or being repetitive. I'm going to be similarly vague here, but this is one that did click. I just don't know why! I guess a lot of it was the writing and the humour. Corny kind of jokes but they weren't too repetitive. The gameplay was simple and the battles weren't difficult. It was a pretty short game, I just went back to find a few collectibles and get that 100% to make this - Completed.
Meh. Not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it. Not much of a game, more of a visual novel.
Again, a game that I got based on the positive reviews. I was still a little hesitant because I thought the anthropomorphic graphics were pretty jarring so this wasn't anything like a priority purchase but I did get it in the end. Dialogue choices seemed like the only real 'gameplay' in this and the story wasn't strong enough to keep me interested. After playing for a while, I knew it wasn't for me and opened up a guide so that I could get most of the achievements in one playthrough and avoid having to go back to it. I did need to replay a few sections but got them all fairly smoothly. Completed and a lesson learned, follow my gut instinct more!
A homage to the old game Rampage
I enjoyed Super Blood Hockey enough to keep my eye on this release from the same (one person?) developer. Terror of Hemasaurus is Rampage with a few extra elements. You destroy buildings, kick or throw people and cars, attack helicopters and blimps. There's a story tagged onto this (I'm not sure there was much of one in Ramapage) which, while not particularly compelling, explains why you would be smashing things and gives you a bit of motivation. There's an environmental theme int her e too but it's not rubbed in your face and is more of a funny approach. Simple fun, good to get on a sale, and not too challenging to get 100% - Completed.
Backlog Additions
The period June to Aug wasn’t too bad for my library with only a handful of additions. I’ve assassinated some of the additions already and am playing others:
Disco Elysium, Haiku, the Robot, Garden Story, Terror of Hemasaurus, Kaze and the Wild Masks, Rain World
Congratulations on all your assassinations and completing Sleeping Dogs! It looks fun even though I’m not super into street-fighting - But I do like stuff like Rain World! I hope you like it and I’m excited to read about it in a future post, maybe.
Glad you had an awesome vacation!!
Thanks!
Sleeping Dogs reminded me of a gangster movie, maybe another indication of whether you’d like it or not. It’s always good to go with your gut though, there are so many games out there!