Report #53
With 2020 rapidly nearing its end, I want to get one last post into the year. About 3 months ago, in my last post, I celebrated clearing 50% of my backlog. Since then, I took the time to play several unfinished endless games. It wasn’t my plan to finish them and so all of them are still in the unfinished category. I just wanted to make some progress, which I did, and have fun playing without any goal I “needed” to reach, which I mostly had. Therefore I’m not going to write reviews for them, but if you’re curious I’m happy to share my thoughts on the games. With Divine Divinity I completed at least one game, probably the last one for this year.
It’s a bit early, but since this is going to be my last post in 2020 and there is not too much time left, I think it’s okay to evaluate my goals in terms of gaming for this year. Let’s have a look:
- Get the 'Completed' and 'Beaten' catgories to a combined 50% of my backlog: I reached that goal several months early, yay! I'm still pretty happy about it. I know it's just a number, but it helps, that for each game I still want to finish, there is already one game I did indeed already finish.
- Beat or finish at least 75% of the games I myself add in 2020: Well, I did not reach that goal. I added 5 games, 3 of which I beat/completed. Still, I'm fine with that. Close enough! Finishing CK3 is unrealistic anyways ;)
So, what about my goals for the upcoming year? I’m really not sure yet. There are several candidates: Raising my AGC, reducing my unfinished game category, finish at least x amount of games and so on. I’ll try to formulate some goals in my first 2021 post. Until then it’s total anarchy!!!
Endless Games
-
Sid Meier's Civilization V
60 hours playtime
47 of 286 achievements
-
Rise of Nations: Extended Edition
14 hours playtime
19 of 38 achievements
-
Endless Legend™ - Emperor Edition
37 hours playtime
49 of 139 achievements
-
Warframe
69 hours playtime
100 of 193 achievements
-
Football Manager 2015
72 hours playtime
39 of 105 achievements
-
Tales of Maj'Eyal
31 hours playtime
44 of 1755 achievements
Reviews
Divine Divinity
Divine Divinity is a classical isometric RPG from 2002. It's the first part of the Divinity franchise, which was reinvigorated with Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2 in recent years. You play as a single hero and make your way through an enormous map and many additional dungeons. It has more RPG elements than a pure Action RPG like Diablo but fighting is still the main focus of the game.
Let's get the obvious out of the way: This game is old! The isometric perspective aged graciously compared to most games from that time, but the UI and controls are not up to modern standards. Especially inventory managment or skill activation are way to impractical. Apparently there are also quite some problems with running it on newer machines, though I personally encountered none. But apart from that, I can only recommend the game and had a ton of fun playing through not only the main quest, but also almost every side quest I found.
The game does not take itself too seriously and offers a lot of humor. At some point in the game, several NPCs have to state a codeword, which is almost impossible to pronounce. Seeing (and hearing) those NPCs and their solutions to this problem was hilarious to me. The story is nothing special, but it was enough to keep me interested -- although the finale was a bit underwhelming. There are a lot of smaller side-stories only told through optional side-quests which fleshed out the world considerably. While the setting starts very classic (humans are under attack by orcs), the game shows that orcs are more than evil brutes over the course of the game. I enjoyed this development, which goes a bit deeper than just the usual stereotypes (spoiler: In fact, one of the things I enjoyed the most about the story is exactly not giving in to those stereotypical expectations. Over the course of the game you rally one ally from each race around you, but unfortunately almost all of them are killed by the main villain shortly before the end. Only the orc representative manages to survive, by outsmarting(!) the main villain. I find that a really cool detail.) Leveling and looting are satisfying and exploring the huge map always leads to new discoveries. The background soundtrack is very fitting and overall enjoyable. I was delighted to discover that some of the themes reappear in Original Sin. If I had one gameplay complaint, it's balancing. Fighting normal enemies is relatively easy, but some of the bosses and mini-bosses have an awful spike in difficulty. On the other hand, some of your skills are almost gamebreakingly overpowered compared to others.
All in all, I really enjoyed the game. It has its flaws, sure. But I would gladly play through it again.Happy holidays and backlog-clearing to everyone,
Vito
I take another approach for strategy game that have no solo campaign:
If I win one or two map -> beaten.
Completed whenever (if) I decide to go for the achievements.
Otherwise it takes more dedication to the game than I could muster to put it in completed/beaten.
How is CKIII? Way better than the II ?
That is a good approach, very reasonable. Giving the game a try, but not overstaying its welcome. As you say, going for the achievements is always an option left open by putting games in the beaten category.
Oh, I didn’t even start CKIII yet. I don’t feel like jumping into it at the moment. I just wanted to buy it, because I enjoy Paradox games and I could support a streamer by using his referral link. CK is almost a bit too complex to get into it. I played quite a bit of CK II but never felt like I know what I was doing :D Still a really great game though! I’ll let you know what I think about III vs. II once I have played CK III!
I found it really interesting what a great game DD turned out to be despite publisher mandate to make it real-time instead of turn-based Larian intended. In essence, Original Sin was them finally realizing that original vision. What are your thoughts on Civ5 compared to Civ4 if you played that one?
Have a great time spending the holidays. ;)
I didn’t even know that about DD. I think real-time works quite well for the game though. Not to unhappy about the decision.
It’s hard to compare both games since I played Civ4 so long ago. I’m more fond of Civ4, but I suspect a lot of it is nostalgia, plus I mostly played a modded version, which expanded the early eras, which I find much more interesting than the later ones. I can say however, that I lost interest in Civ5 rather quickly and moved on to RoN after only finishing one single Civ5 game. Most of the overall playtime is not from this year but earlier.
Thanks, you too! :)
Sorry for a late response, I kinda forgot to visit the site. Does Civ5 have any notable mods to keep in mind?
I’m afraid I don’t know, I only played Civ5 vanilla.
+1 for anarachy! Woo!!
Raising AGC is a really good goal! Trying to get more achievements across the board, rather than say, forcing yourself to get 100% perfect games (which can be quite painful) is a good strategy. Personally I’ve been trying to raise mine to a nice round 60%. It’s been hovering on 59% for MONTHS. Just teasing me >:-[ Every time I feel I’m getting close, I’ll start a new game which brings the average down. Lol…
Anyway, good luck for 2021! (I know it’s already started but still)
I agree, sometimes it’s not possible to get to 100% in a game. Or rather, it may be possible but unfun as hell.
I was stuck at 74% for like a year :D It just happens. Not starting any new games is hard after all and sometimes you just do better enjoying something new instead of the same old same old.
Thanks, good luck to you as well in the new year! It’s never too late to wish someone that :D
Agreed! (x3)
This comment was deleted about 3 years ago.
I’ve noticed since I began working more consciously at reducing my backlog that starting a new strategy game suddenly seemed a greater hurdle – there is just more low-hanging fruit elsewhere. But you pulled off a bundle, good work! A couple of titles there on my “someday maybe” list. How did you like Endless Legend?
I definitely share that feeling. It’s the same for me with long RPGs, I really hesitate to start them, although I know I’m probably going to have a lot of fun with them (like Divine Divinity).
I would say that Endless Legend was my favourite game out of those. The UI is cleverly designed and I liked the overall art style. There is a very unique quest system integrated, which adds another layer to the game. And there is a ton to do, since the game was heavily expanded over the years. Which can be overwhelming at first. I started the game 2 times before and both times gave up pretty quickly because I did not know what to do. But once I took the time to read up a bit and explore the different elements of gameplay, I enjoyed it.