October Roundup

No spooks here thanks

Games I beat this month:

Beaten in October 6 games

• TY the Tasmanian Tiger
  

  47 hours playtime

  39 of 39 achievements

• Mark of the Ninja
  

  62 hours playtime

  38 of 38 achievements

• Egg Returns Home
  

  4 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• Life is Strange: Before the Storm
  

  9 hours playtime

  34 of 34 achievements

• Thunder Wolves
  

  14 hours playtime

  20 of 20 achievements

• Hello Kitty and Sanrio Friends Racing
  

  2 hours playtime

  25 of 25 achievements

As tends to happen with life, this month was a lot better for me and mine. We got approved for a home loan, so we are well on our way to having a place that will actually be ours. The various ailments we were suffering with got better, and we've had some great spring weather. So yeah, all in all October was bid a much fonder farewell than September

On a gaming front, I took the opportunity of being ahead on my goals to focus a bit more on abandoned titles and also start a few longer ones, including the first Borderlands game. Not my usual style, but so far it's alright. I'm going to need to find a co-op partner though if I ever want to finish it properly. I also played a few games that I just know I'm never going to finish.

I'm a sucker for the occassional tough platform game and made the mistake of starting 2 this month. Splasher and Pewdiepie : Legend of the brofist. Both are very decent platform games and I've beaten them, but there's a few achievements in there that I don't think will be possible for me. Splasher has these speed run times and subsequent achievements that seem to require you are actually in the running for setting a world record in order to complete. I mean when even the in-game leaderboard only lists half a dozen people in the whole world that have beaten the platinum 100% run, you know there's no way you'll get it if you plan on playing other games in the next decade. Similarly, legend of the brofist has a hardcore single death mode, which may be doable on some levels, but that final boss, I just don't know. I think between the two brofist might be the more doable, but they'll probably both have to live on sub 80% completion.

This brings up an interesting discussion though. Should games add achievements that will only ever be unlockable by a very few people? I am on the fence. On one hand, beating that is a great brag, but I also think games should be beatable by normally skilled people, even if they have to do a bit of grinding to do it. For a lot of people getting a perfect game is not so much about bragging, but just about capping off a game, and closing the chapter on it. I don't think there's a large group of people going around looking at the achievements of others and being impressed that they beat such and such a game on 'superduperultra hardcore' mode. And besides for those kind of challenges there are usually leaderboards, so the glory is there for those that want. So I feel like for the most part developers should get someone with mediocre skills to set their time challenges, just so everyone can get the chance to notch off a game they've enjoyed.

2 of the games I beat this month were part of my new 'long game' list, which is a list of games I started and never finished, usually 4 years or more ago. I don't usually uninstall games I think I may be able to beat, so these were taking up space and I'm glad to have beaten them. Close to finishing at least one other on this list as well.

I also lost 2 of my game completions from the year, thanks to developers and their scummy DLC practises. I mean it's great to get new content, hooray! BUT do they have to add new achievements to the game as well? Guess I'll be ponying up for the DLC come next sale. Guess this has turned into a bit of a rant, but Screw those guys.

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE GAMES I BEAT

TY the Tasmanian Tiger

39 of 39 achievements (100%)

A nice slice of PS2 era nostalgia. I started this a while ago, but the interest my kids showed in it finally lead to me completing. It's your usual action platformer from that time, following a nintendo style mode, with a hub world and levels with various objectives. And it works very nicely on my computer thanks to the upgrade job they did. I'm hoping to get the other 2 sometime as well, as they are good 'kid fodder'

Mark of the Ninja

The "long" game
38 of 38 achievements (100%)

I got this from one of the first humble bundles I bought, installed it straight away and played a few levels. Then... forgot it. I even bought the special edition DLC at one point, so when the remastered came out, that got added to my account for free and I felt guilty about starting the remaster when I hadn't even finished the first game. Having done it a couple of times over now, I can say with certainty that this is truly a classic. The stealth is well executed, and unlike some stealth games, it doesn't punish you if your goal is to murder everyone. Best move is to terrorize the guards and let them do your dirty work.

Egg Returns Home

11 of 11 achievements (100%)

Frustrating to control, thanks to the genius who figured controls should be accurate to how an egg might move through the levels. Roll unevenly, jump inconsistently and land funny. Thankfully it's not too long, but for a lot of the time I wasn't exactly having 'fun'

Life is Strange: Before the Storm

34 of 34 achievements (100%)

I found the first life is strange to be reasonably pleasant, so got this on the sale they had last month. It's obviously shorter and we already know a lot about how the story ends, based on where the first kicks off, but I didn't mind the journey. Some of the dialogue is a bit cringeworthy, but I've never been a teenage girl, so I don't know if that is how they talk? Spoilery discussion for those that finished the game: The one thing that bugged me was the fact that Chloe had very obviously broken in to the DAs office and even left her stalker there for the police, but nothing more is said about it, other than a cut scene showing him leaving the school. Did he not make any trouble for her?
Also I sort of agreed with him about Rachel not being a very good friend, so I was a bit irked, that he just went pyscho regardless what happened. Man did have a point, Rachel was a bit flakey and seemed to use her friendship with Chloe solely for her own goals.

Thunder Wolves

The "long" game
20 of 20 achievements (100%)

I got this one from an early indie gala bundle (or maybe it was indie royale), and much like Mark of the ninja, installed it and then forgot it existed after getting a couple of achievements. Came back to it this month after I was looking for something to play with my son, and this worked quite well, as he could play the gunner with the mouse, while I controlled the helicopter with a controller. It's really not a difficult game, even on 'hard' mode, so we had fun. Just a word if you do play it with kids, maybe turn the sound down, as the pilots do drop the occassional 'grown-up' word.

Hello Kitty and Sanrio Friends Racing

25 of 25 achievements (100%)

Why did I still have this installed? Oh right I unlocked 2 achievements in it years ago because I thought it would be nice for the kids to play. It controls like a tank, but thankfully the AI is dumb so it's easy to finish the game. Less than 2 hours kind of easy actually.