BLAEO — Backlog Assassins Extraordinaire

Untitled Goose Game

4 hours playtime

20 of 25 achievements
Dishonored 2

22 hours playtime

22 of 50 achievements

April

April saw me reach the ripe old age of 40. Man, where did the time go! I’ve lived in Tokyo for almost 15 years, the whole of my 30s. I am unmarried, childless, and live away from my home country in rented accommodation. Not what I expected when I was younger to be honest, but 90% of the time I’m happy with my choices and love the freedom I have. Big events and birthdays make me think a bit about the future though - health, whether to buy a place, whether I’ll continue to live here, retirement….but I should just push that out of my head and get back to gaming!

I got a deal with Humble Choice back in December and bought 12 months in one go, despite having only ever activated 2-3 months in the last 3 years. March was the perfect month for me to get the game – Control – a game I was very interested in, and the Xcom game which looked okay. Instead, I skipped and played through Control on Gamepass :)

Xbox Game Pass

Control

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So, initially I just planned to try this and then activate the game from the Humble Choice bundle. I got Alan Wake in the past and didn't like it at all, so wanted to check this before buying as it was from the same people. Then, I got into the story and just figured I'd finish it on gamepass. Borderline a bit creepy for me, but loved everything else. The presentation especially. It seemed like a movie to me. The storyline, the choice of shots, and even small things like the way that each chapter name came up at the bottom of the screen. No affect on my steam or BLAEO stats and no easy to see achievements, so here are a couple of slightly-too-small, non-spoiler images from near the end of the game.

Steam

Untitled Goose Game

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Short, but very fun game. The art style is really nice and the sound effects (something I never really think about) are great. I think the minimalistic style of the game really helps you notice things like the sound of the goose's feet slapping on the floor. Got to the end of the story, then used a guide to get some of the missing achievements. There are more, time based ones but after a quick go I don't think I'm gonna try for those just yet. Not sure I can do them to be honest! So, into the 'beaten' pile it goes.

Dishonored 2

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Got this in 2018, it was actually a price error in a store. The store contacted me afterwards and were supposed to be taking back the key which made me hold on playing it initially. Then, I kind of forgot about it and thought I should play Death of the Outsider first.

So, I finally played it this month. It was buggy. Had to play around a lot with settings just to get the game to run initially, then had control problems throughout and in the final few hours got graphical bugs. The most annoying was connected to the controls. At times my character would kind of get stuck in a defending pose. That meant I couldn't do any other attack actions - takedown, fire, slash. Each time this happened (which was a lot) I had to tab out of the game then tab back for it to unstick.

That took away quite a lot of the enjoyment, to be honest. I played through in low chaos mode (mainly choking people out) and got a fair few other achievements on the way. Most of the remaining achievements require playing through a full level, two levels, or for a small number - a complete playthrough again. If it wasn't for the controls sticking, I think I'd try and get the level specific ones, but I'm sick of the bugs. Beaten with 44% achievements and on to the next game.

Backlog Additions

There was a big discount on Desperados 3 at the end of March that I skipped thinking that it was a sign that the game would be in Humble Choice in April. It wasn’t and that low price was actually an error that was only available for a few hours. A bit annoying, but I managed to trade some old bundle keys for it.
I also picked up Scavengers. Initially a key drop on Twitch but soon after free to everyone on Steam. I’ve played a couple of hours. Not sure if I’ll keep it on my account, I haven’t made my mind up about it yet. I’ll probably get sick of it soon and remove it.