TerinHD's 06/09/18 Update!
1,655 Achievements (+209) 10 Perfect Games 30% Avg. Completion Rate
Back to the Passion!
It has been a while since I posted here, about a year actually. Life has been a bit crazy in the past year and my motivation to post has been at 0%. I have been getting back to trying to crush my backlog and working through that. I also made a deal with my wife recently that has my passion spark back to life. I sold all my old game consoles and handhelds to buy a Nintendo Switch. I think it was a great move as I wasn't playing those systems any more and now I have the new hotness.
As far as my progress over the last year on the destorying of the backlog, it was a long road but I think I made massive strides to completing it. The biggest part is that I made a real impact on the games I have gotten for free from SteamGifts. This is highly important to me as I feel I should appreciate those as people have freely given them to me.
Part of me has been dreading this post as there is so much that I want to do but I know I shouldn't push it or my motivation to make these posts will return to 0% again. So, going to try doing some new things in my posts to limit my posts a bit and we will see how it goes. The first thing I want to try is getting feedback from you all on what I should be playing next and what you all want me to write a review of next. This will probably be met with only a bit of participation and I don't think I will mind that too much.
Statistics, Tables, Charts, and Polls OH MY!
Games Played Last Year
What I have played in the last year? Lots of games actually, I just haven't felt the want to post. Part of that is because in July I broke my New Year's Resolution last year and bought Albion Online. But I don't feel too terrible about it as I got 6 months of play out of the MMO. It was fun but I got tired of it around January of this year and my new coworkers talked me into getting The Witness. Well, you can read later what I think about it if you want later. And then in March I started to pick back up on slaying the backlog as well as getting those Steam trading cards. Anyways if you click this list icon next to the following progress bar you can see all the games I played within this past year. Let me know if you want to talk about any of them. In addition to that I have started Zelda Breath of the Wild and Mario vs Rabbids on the Nintendo Switch.
| # | Game | Achievements | Playtime |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | XCOM 2 Badges Left In Progress Long (>25 hours) Won on SteamGifts | 24% (19 of 80) | about 28 hours |
| 2 | Tomb Raider Good Reviews Medium (10-25 hours) Won on SteamGifts | 38% (19 of 50) | about 11 hours |
| 3 | Penarium Good Reviews Short (< 10 hours) | 58% (14 of 24) | about 7 hours |
| 4 | Planetary Annihilation Short (< 10 hours) | 27% (5 of 19) | about 6 hours |
| 5 | Space Food Truck Endless | 49% (13 of 27) | about 13 hours |
| 6 | Stonehearth Endless Wait for Patch/Updates | — | about 14 hours |
| 7 | The Flame in the Flood In Progress Medium (10-25 hours) | 17% (6 of 36) | about 3 hours |
| 8 | SpaceDweller Won on SteamGifts | 17% (2 of 12) | about 3 hours |
| 9 | No Time To Explain Remastered Short (< 10 hours) | 0% (0 of 9) | about 1 hour |
| 10 | Stronghold Crusader 2 Endless | 3% (2 of 81) | about 1 hour |
| 11 | Runestone Keeper In Progress Short (< 10 hours) | 43% (34 of 80) | about 11 hours |
| 12 | Monster Slayers Won on SteamGifts | 23% (5 of 22) | about 9 hours |
| 13 | Master of Orion Endless | 23% (23 of 102) | about 26 hours |
| 14 | Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide Endless Won on SteamGifts | 18% (19 of 108) | about 7 hours |
| 15 | SPACECOM Short (< 10 hours) | 30% (5 of 17) | about 6 hours |
| 16 | Squarelands Endless | — | about 4 hours |
| 17 | Guardians of Orion Endless | 80% (8 of 10) | about 4 hours |
| 18 | You Must Build A Boat Medium (10-25 hours) | 17% (2 of 12) | about 2 hours |
| 19 | Super Blue Fighter Endless | 13% (2 of 16) | 35 minutes |
| 20 | Brigador: Up-Armored Edition Medium (10-25 hours) Won on SteamGifts | 5% (3 of 63) | about 2 hours |
| 21 | Kerbal Space Program Endless Good Reviews Play Again | — | about 103 hours |
| 22 | Company of Heroes Good Reviews Medium (10-25 hours) | — | about 10 hours |
| 23 | Age of Empires II Good Reviews Long (>25 hours) | 4% (11 of 294) | about 8 hours |
| 24 | The Witness Long (>25 hours) | 50% (1 of 2) | about 23 hours |
| 25 | Just Cause 3 In Progress Long (>25 hours) | 26% (17 of 66) | about 22 hours |
| 26 | Pillars of Eternity In Progress Long (>25 hours) Won on SteamGifts | 28% (13 of 48) | about 35 hours |
| 27 | FTL: Faster Than Light Endless Good Reviews | — | about 17 hours |
Overall Backlog Progress (Last Updated 01/06/17)
| Games | Now | Then (01/06/17) |
|---|---|---|
| Own | 275 | 245 |
| Beaten | 37 (13%) | 17 (7%) |
| Completed | 18 (7%) | 5 (2%) |
| Won't Play | 44 (16%) | 21 (9%) |
| Unfinished | 101 (37%) | 105 (43%) |
| Backlog | 75 (27%) | 97 (39%) |
What should I play next? What should I review next?
I mentioned this earlier, I have a poll here for both figuring out what I should play next as well as what I should review next from a list of previously beaten games. Both will be on my next post here on BLAEO!
Let's talk about a few games!
My coworkers at my new job that I started back in September all got me into this game. There were many discussions around how all the games mechanics worked. It helped make this game what it was for me, a puzzle solving delight! It definitely takes sometime to figure out some of the puzzles as they can be a bit abstract. But overall, I was really happy with the game as it made me think about all the mechanics at play. The only downside is the ending, it was a bunch of BS. We can talk about it in the comments with spoiler tags if anyone wants to.
Tomb Raider
19 of 50 achievements (38%) 11 hours playtime
And she's dead again... was the theme of me playing this game. I started to chuckle everytime at my own ineptitude at the games quick fire, button sequences. But boy is this game pretty, I think this and Just Cause 3 are the first time I am really starting to get the best use out of my now out of date graphics card. I think solely for the purpose of seeing this game's art it is worth a purchase. The gameplay is great, but it is really the game as a piece of art that makes this game standout for me.
Wowza! XCOM 2 is brutal. I thought I would have an easier time since I played a lot (for my standards it is a lot, 138 hours) of XCOM: Enemy Unknown & Enemy Within. But man it really brought the feeling of desperation back. The struggle is real to even get a playthrough going, but I love it so much. I am a huge fan of controlled randomness in games, I think I like it so because of the challenge of mitigating the randomness. Mix that with the awesome theming it is definitely going to be up there on my list of like top 25 games of all time. Once I finally beat it, I will definitely be writing a review of it. It does have some issues here and there though, mainly little bugs that seem to manifest themselves over time.
It is hard to say much about this game. It tries to be a successor to FTL, but it falls flat in pure polish. I think if the wrapper was a bit cleaner it could have really gone somewhere. But as it is I just feel meh about it. I don't think it has enough in it to carry me long term within the game. I might end up going back and beating it, or it might end up on the Won't Play list purely out of mehitude.
Those are some really good games to go with amazing layout. :D
Have you tried real hair physics option thing with Tomb Raider? That’s the real performance tanker apparently.
Yeah, I really like the layout I had come up. Simple, clean, and relatable to other players on here. As far as the real hair physics thing, I must have had it on the whole time or it isn’t in the first one? I looked at my settings right quick and they were all maxed out and it seemed to work great. I have a GTX 1070 in this machine so I guess it can handle it. But overall, it was such a beautiful game!
Welcome back! Congrats on your progress, am glad you got the spark to play again. Got any Switch games in particular you’re stoked about playing?
I’m still on the fence with The Witness since I’ve heard mixed things, but I recently looked into it more and seems like something I’d enjoy. Was gonna check out some gameplay see if it was my cup of tea.
I was really stoked about Mario vs Rabbids, but not sure if I still am after playing it a bit. It really just doesn’t seem as in depth as I wanted it to be… I really want to try Splatoon 2, the overall concept is really intriguing to me.
The Witness is really good at making you think, I am not sure watching someone else play will give you the real sense of the game. It can get frustrating at times trying to figure out what you are missing and sorta wandering around trying to figure it out. I equate that part a lot to Myst influence.
That’s interesting, I watched some guys play it and honestly was surprised by the depth vs. what I’d expected. So the exact opposite haha. Sorry it didn’t live up to your expectations. :/ Hope you enjoy Splatoon!
I’ve heard people get motion sickness with The Witness which I’m worried about since I’m pretty sensitive. In general I’m not able to play for super long periods of time, not sure if the breaks would interrupt my enjoyment of the game if it sounds more like a “sit down and really delve into it game” vs. individual puzzles? Either way will still keep my eye out for it, thanks for your reviews. :)
Oh yeah if you get motion sickness, it could be a real problem with the Witness. It is more about getting into it and understanding the game. I think it might get really frustrating if you have to do it in short spurts.