New Year, new Motivation

Looking at my Steam Review, it is becoming clear that I play less and less new games and tend to stick to the same old games again and again. At least at the end/beginning of the year, I get a small motivation push to do some new gaming.

• Resident Evil 5
  

  83 hours playtime

  70 of 70 achievements

• Steelrising
  

  56 hours playtime

  55 of 55 achievements

• Lenna's Inception
  

  37 hours playtime

  53 of 54 achievements

• System Shock
  

  43 hours playtime

  45 of 46 achievements

• Terror At Oakheart
  

  3 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

Resident Evil 5: This one makes me actually quite happy. It was another game lying around in my library, completed in the main game. However, I was still missing the PvP section as I didn’t want to bother with other people. Then last christmas, I finally made a thread in the forum. And after a few days with smaller groups, we formed quite a large 20+ people group where progress could be made steadily across three continents. Even with this, the achievements have been a drag as you need to win 30 games in four different mode, with each game at least 3-5 minutes long. So, overall with helping other players this took about 20 hours. BUT, I have finally completed the game.
Other than that, I assume everyone knows what RE5 is about. It is an action co-op game in third person where you shoot people in Africa ^^’ Number one reason, it will probably get no remake. Nonetheless, it is one of the best co-op experiences i had. Fun game actually. (minus PvP achievements).

Steelrising: I think this is the first (?) “souls-like” that I ever played? You play Aegis, an automat coming to live during the french revolution. Initially, you only follow the queen’s order but are quickly drawn into the deeper conflict, fighting the hostile lifeless automats of the king. The setting and aesthetics are nice. There are quite a bit of weapons (however I tended to use the same three most of time due to familiarity). Personally, I found reading the attacks difficult sometimes and some bosses where quick to fight without items. But most of the time, you could overpower them with grinding levels. It is supposed to be an easy game. Achievement-wise, you have to pay attention as some quests need to be solved in a very specific manner and there are some missables. And you can NOT save. Everything is just on one auto-save. However, you can back-up saves from the folder. An annoying design decision.

Lenna’s Inception: This has been my co-op game with my friend i visit twice a year. And so, it took quite a bit of time to get most of the game done. About 2 years? It is a Zelda like game with a slightly silly story, rogue-lite random elements and glitches. It makes for an interesting approach and also has some mystery. We played through the game twice: normal ending and then the good ending. The remaining achievements I did alone which comprise the challenge runs. In these, you have to play the eight dungeons (or less) back to back with certain conditions like: only three hears, no sword but unlimited bombs, lighter run, glitch run, etc. So, what is missing for Lenna’s Inception for completion? The final challenge run: 0 hears. Play through eight dungeons without getting hit once …. Currently, I don’t have the patience for that one -_- Can’t even beat all bosses without getting hit. Still. a fun Zelda-like game with a kinda different story.

System Shock: 2023 Remake. Man, I was cursing in this game more than I should. System Shock is a sci-fi dungeon crawler where you - the Hacker - are transported to a space station that recently got some re-design by a murderous AI, named Shodan. Granted, I played on normal (and on easy there are said to be waypoints) but the navigation was brutal. You have this labyrinth like structures across 9 levels (of which you can access seven up to the same time at one point) and you have very limited clue on what you are supposed to do. I was running around headless quite a bit, as i just couldn’t find where to go next. And that with reading everything i found. Granted, one issue was that I did something earlier which resulted in game over but later you had to do this ….. Also, up to a certain point, enemies respawn making this a very hard ressource management. AND you have VERY limited inventory space. Overall, I managed to get through the game on my own! Minus one part where I had to collect a head. No idea, how I should have figured that out (especially where to find it, across seven levels). And the final fight (when you do it on hard) is very annoying and lengthy with no chance to save and easy to mess up. But yea, got through the game. And it was kinda fun. BUT, it makes you curse a lot and some things are simply to obscure. But for the most part it is an interesting experience to play something again which asks you to pay attention and to search around (looking at you La-Mulana). So, why is it beaten and not completed despite me having played through the game on hard (which means you have 10 hours, before Shodan kills you, which therefore you shouldnt do on your first run!). Well, I am missing the last achievement which is “Get all other achievements” ….. which I have ….. So, yea. The final achievement is bugged. There was supposed to be a November patch which didn’t come and there was no word since then. But hopefully, it will come soon and fix the achievement, so that I just need to start up once and have it done.
This is now the third SG win (Finding Teddy 2 and Poncho), I can not complete because of broken achievements -_- A bit annoying. I could have a better completion rate.

Terror at Oakhart: is a horror game or something like that. Initially, I thought this is a running around and hiding game, to evade the brutal murderer. Or to navigate through complex structures like Claire, with ressource management. Nope, for a good part, this is just walking without much gameplay, progressing the story. Because the focus is on the story where you sometimes play the victim, sometimes the murderer and sometimes the “hero”.The focus is nearly completely on the great pixel art with lots of different and grotesque monster designs (though gameplay is similar in most cases) which is okay. As said, some chapters are mostly walking around and getting the right sequence. And then there are three chapters which focus on action gameplay where you play the sheriff with unlimited ammo and dodge roll. All in all very weird but in a good way. What else? The game is short. Like i played through this in one sitting of three hours. Which is fine for me, because I need more shorter games ^^’ The pixel aesthetics are definitely the highlight of the game.

And now, back to more gaming? Probably more Puzzle Pirates, more Vermintide 2. Maybe getting back to Persona 4 and maayybe Resident Evil 1. But honestly, I think I will go for some quicker games and take a look at my Shadow backlog. I’m eying some puzzle games from the Humbe Bundle. Maybe Patrick’s Parabox. Lots of maybes ^^’