Busy Month##

Well, this has been a busy month so far or more a busy week. I applied for a Beta Test in a game and also got taken. Problem was that the Beta started a lot earlier than I assumed meaning the beginning of this week. Luckily I had to download the 40 Gb to actually play it TWICE because I stopped the download as I was on work and before I restarted it, they made some small patch which lead to Steam downloading everything again. I tried some recovery methods for the already downloaded data but was not succesful. So yea, this meant I had two evenings to complete my single player games. Let’s look on the games:

• Borderlands 2
  

  174 hours playtime

  75 of 75 achievements

• Contrast
  

  3 hours playtime

  22 of 22 achievements

• The Greater Good
  

  12 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• Streets of Red : Devil's Dare Deluxe
  

  7 hours playtime

  36 of 36 achievements

Borderlands 2: Unless you are sleeping a lot and don’t read any game related news, most of you should know that Borderlands 2 got a free DLC last sunday. And as they introduced new achievements I took my time and installed the 10 Gb again (together with the Beta I really fear to run into my 100 Gb limit this month ….) and completed the DLC. More or less I think it is okay and fair enough. However, if you havent played Tales from the Borderlands you may have trouble following along. While they avoid nearly all characters from Tales they don’t take their time to explain what happened although different stuff is important for the game: Scooter’s Death is only mentioned in a side quest, Helios is down on earth but nowhere is explained why, Vaughn just appears but there is no introduction whatsoever other than him being a Bandit leader although he is not the type for it and more . This was poorly handled. Also the DLC ends on half note and like another user has said: either there is coming a second DLC or this has to be handled as introduction of Borderlands 3. Achievements are mostly fair with one being missable and another stupid grindy one based on drop chance which took me most game time I think. Playing Borderlands 2 was nice again for some hours. But it didnt help me with the decision if I shall buy the Handsome Collection to play the Pre-Sequel or if I should replay the remastered Borderlands 1. Because completing them would probably take up 80 hours and more.

Contrast: Back then at the very beginning of Greenlight there have been three platformers which got a bit attention. The first one (and the hardest of the three) was Giana Sisters which catered for Hardcore gamers with some heavy rock music tracks and a world shifting gimmick. The second one ( my opinion one of the better platformers I played due to great level design) was Fly’n which looks cute but gets hard really fast and overstays it welcome at certain points. The last one was Contrast and I finally traded for it this week. And now that I have played it, I have to say: It isn’t much of a platformer. So either I have the Greenlight Page wrong in my memory or there has been some design shift. Contrast is neither a real platformer nor is it much of a puzzle game. It mainly lives from a semi-interesting story and most from its ambiente. Also it was interesting how they tied the shadow mechanic to the actual story which is kinda unusual. Overall it is a very easy game which can be completed in 3-4 hours.

The Greater Good: Found this in my humble keys and it looked interesting enough to activate it. Overall a good game with an interesting enough story and likeable characters. Though, I never understood the complete opposition of the main bad versus magic. The animations (like in the trailer) seem kinda odd and stiff at time but the aesthetic style and colour palette can create some really beautiful scenery. The game has light humour elements which is also good. I think main point for most people is the battle system which is ATB (with time frozen if one character is at its turn). For some this may seem to slow, others may like it. I have to say, the battles are actually balanced very well. For most fights in the game I had to keep a certain strategy, pay attention to my defense and even use items. End game (with optional bonus bosses) also demands some strategy from you although it gives you the possibility to overpower enemies by leveling up. All in all an interesting and good game which you should give a chance to due to fairly well balanced battles, nice music and really beautiful sceneries. Achievements can be obtained fairly well and none are missable as you can return everywhere late game. Always a plus. Sadly, I cant add it on my BLAEO profile as it has limited profile status since release October last year. For this reason, I built the icon for this post myself.

Streets of Red: The re-release of the updated Devil’s Dare. A beat-them-up sidescroller for up to four players. Colour palette maybe a problem for some. Also the game is rather slow most time. And if you played the original as much as I did, it is a bit easy. The game has a lot of interesting references in levels and bosses and playable characters but the game wants you to multikill enemy groups which leads to the mentioned slowliness. In comparison to the original you don’t pick up with the attack button anymore, and food doesnt disappear anymore. Both are a plus and make the game easier. Achievements are exactly the same (although the new version has secret bosses which kinda got ignored) with some slight changes like only needing four pendants instead of ten. All in all it can be completed a lot faster or it can be completed at all since the original STILL has a broken achievement (and I am STILL sour about it). Got it for free for owning the original. Wouldnt have played it otherwise probably -_- I really wish they would just remove the broken achievement.

I’m glad I got through the smaller games so fast (and I really enjoyed The Greater Good) and also completed Borderlands 2 rather fast. Also with the Beta ending next week already I will have time to return to Heroes of Hammerwatch as they added new achievements today for the coming patch and also spent some more time for the co-op achievements in Orange Juice (already got a lot achievements in the last month from co-op mode and from DLC I already had). Other than that I have to make up my mind about the Handsome Collection (til tomorrow), Borderlands 1 Remaster or what I want to play next after the big games are out of the way again. I may activate and complete Squidlit or maybe I find something nice to trade for, still have unused keys (on positive note I reduced the Shadow Backlog by 2 games with the Greater Good and trading Tower 57 for Contrast). I will also check again my never played, unfinished and beaten categories if I change something there (like Resident Evil Zero -_-).

Not game related but another reason for the busy month is me training for the “Deutsche Sportabzeichen”. Due to talking to much and loud (and also since I wanted to slim down a bit) I had to take part in the company run beginning this month (only 4.5 - 5 km but for someone not used to this, it is exhausting). And since I didnt want to lose completely, I spend 6 weeks training for it. And since I am traininy anyway, I decided to try the Sportabzeichen three weeks later. There are four categories with different disciplines (you only have to do one each) and I am confident to get Bronze in at least three of them. So next Monday I will due Endurance and Sprint in Swimming and 10 days later I will do the other two categories. And hopefully I will be succesful. I am still unsure about the coordination category >.<