Report #9: November ‘20
The six games I beat last month were all part of Cjcomplex’s Monthly in a Month event over on Steamgifts. When I participate in a thing of that sort, I pick my games based on a) how long I figure it might take me to finish them, b) how long they have languished in my backlog, and c) what pleasure I think I can get out of them. Seeing as I managed to beat these games, I did a pretty good job on a), except for Jotun, which took me a heck of a longer time than the five hours HLTB indicated. Must have been some kind of speed run… On b), a few of these titles had been in my library for three years, so I’m sure they were happy to be shown some love. Most importantly, I had a great time with the games this month! Other than Jotun, they are all pretty narrative-driven, which is up my alley. Top title last month: I loved Kentucky Route Zero for its subversion of the old point-and-click and text-based adventure genres, although I realize it’s not going to be a game for everyone. Lots of reading…
Beaten or Completed
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Ryse: Son of Rome
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Quantum Break
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Jotun: Valhalla Edition
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Kentucky Route Zero
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11-11 Memories Retold
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Orwell
In Progress
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TASTEE: Lethal Tactics
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XCOM: Enemy Unknown
It took me way to long to figure out what WEGO and IGOUGO means in your response to Traqie’s post…now I feel dumb :D
I regularly take way longer than HLTB estimates, in fact I only treat the HTLB times as a very rough estimate nowadays…somehow I seem to be an extra slow gamer most of the time. Which is especially helpful with a backlog full of long-ass games!
Apart from that, you have played some great games. I very much enjoyed Quantum Break and was really stunned by Orwell. I know both games are not perfect, but I think they were quite interesting in terms of both gameplay and story. I still haven’t played the sequel to Orwell, maybe I’ll get around to it someday… Oh, and I absolutely loved XCOM. Do you have the Enemy Within DLC? It’s really worth its price in my opinion.
Point taken, I broke my own capitalization rules there, although it looks like it’s more common on the webs to type it that way, rather than the more straightforward “we-go” and “I-go-u-go”.
I’m like you, a pretty slow gamer overall. I think certain games, of which Jotun would be one, probably lend themselves more to speedrunning, and thus (for me) absurdly short HLTB times. With other games, like Quantum Break, I’m not that far off the mark - in those titles, there’s just less of a difference between being good and mediocre…
I had a great time with XCOM, so I’ll look into the DLC, thanks for the recommendation. Of course, I already have XCOM 2 in the backlog too :sigh:
Yeah, it’s common on the webs, I googled it for a bit. I just wasn’t familiar with the abbreviation and thought it was more complicated than that ;)
I think the DLC really adds to the game. I don’t know if it’s enough to start another playthrough right away though! I avoided buying XCOM 2 yet, because I want to go back to XCOM and I know I won’t do that once I own the sequel…
How is TASTEE so far?
And what ending did you get in 11-11? :)
11-11: On my first try, I figured I would help a friend in trouble, of course, I ended up losing my girl, my job, my reputation… The game didn’t say, but I’m fairly confident I drank myself to death after that. So I went back and played the ending in a different fashion, leaving the other guy to his own devices. I got a hero’s welcome back in Canada! It suppose it pays to be selfish.
TASTEE: I’ve been playing this and XCOM in tandem during the fall, and the sequential nature of XCOM is just so much more accessible and fun - you move from cover to cover during your turn trying to outflank your enemies, and the whole setup is immediately intuitive. In TASTEE, on the other hand, the action is simultaneous, so you obsessively lay out your squad’s maneuvers during the planning phase, only to see everything blow up when the 5-second action phase starts. The PCs have pretty limited responsiveness to what they encounter, leading to frequent frustrations. I haven’t played enough WEGO tactical games to know if I generally have a hard time with them over IGOUGO tactical games, or if it’s TASTEE’s mechanics in particular. In either case, I’m about halfway through the campaign and on the fence whether to keep going or to drop it…
Ah so you got peace ending too! That was also my choice on my legit play through, though later I got em all for 100%. I don’t regret it tho, I really like Kurt and wanted the best for him.
I wanted to try TASTEE at one point but I got discouraged by mixed reviews and the fact game seemed to have low player numbers and at same time it had some MP achievements. I think I even hidden giveaways for it on SG. I’ll look forward to your review if you decide to keep going.