So, my first month here. It’s about time to report on my OCD-fueled journey through my backlog for the first time.
JANUARY 2019 LIST
I beat 11 games this month.
Man. Now when I played all the Thief games except the reboot, I can tell that I liked Metal Age the most. It was a close call between the first one and the second. I loved the first game’s weirdness and creepiness, but I’ve gotta admit I liked the level design for a second one more. It was more open about how you can perform the task and sure as hell less confusing. I swear to god, if I got a cent for every instance I've been walking in circles around the level in the first game, I'd have... like, 20 cents now.
This modern look on Thief universe feels a little too claustrophobic, and my immersion really suffered from mid-level transition zones. Overall it’s still a fairly solid game, although casualised - thankfully, not insultingly so. The atmosphere is top-notch, it’s really dark and grim. That famous Cradle level was a bit of a let-down (I guess I was too overhyped about it) - but just a tiny bit, it was still really good.
Essentially it’s a free sort-of-teaser for Kero Blaster. The plot was kinda cute. It was pretty fun and short. At least it was fun before I tried Hard Mode. Man, do I suck at precision platforming.
Essentially it’s a free sort-of-teaser for Kero Blaster, again. IIRC it precedes Pink Heaven. It was okay. It shows the game mechanics and… stuff. Not as interesting as Pink Heaven, as it’s twice as short and almost doesn’t have any story. I learned from my mistakes and didn’t bother much with Hard Mode.
It’s a cute little anime-style free game that takes place in a single classroom. It has some puzzle elements to it, and the stuff that might not be that obvious, even though your actions during the playthrough are really limited. I can’t call the twist that original or masterfully executed, but I don’t feel it needed to be either way.
Sort of sequel for Confess My Love. Didn’t like it as much, as it’s pretty much devoid of occasional humour from the first game, and the colour palette consists of grey and black colours. I know that’s the point, I do, but there’s nothing I can do about it looking dull for me. It’s just not as appealing as the first one, and the fact that it’s not free now is not really justified, in my opinion. It also has a DLC with Yume Nikki (I guess?) vibes, not a fan of this one either.
Cute, short and simplistic (very much so) point-and-click game. Essentially it’s a one-puzzle-per-screen game. It only has a few moments that can really make you think, at other times it is really straightforward. Pay no heed to that 4 hours playtime, it’s just one of the many cases where I left the game open and forgot about it. You can beat it in an hour and a half max.
Sequel to Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt. Although it’s not free anymore, there’s not much difference between this and the first one. I guess the main dish is that it has plenty of bosses now, which do spice things up, and I can imagine how much of a pain in the ass they are on harder difficulties. It’s fairly short and funny, just like the original.
Single-screen platformer, where you should perform various tasks while avoiding traps such as machine guns, rolling giant balls, icicles, lasers, you name it. Is it rage-inducing? It has an achievement for dying 1000 times, so there you have it. Yet it was still fun to play even for me (something about hard platformers just doesn’t click for me), so I managed to get through the main campaign and get somewhat decent in arcade mode.
It was surprisingly enjoyable for a game I bought on a sudden whim a long time ago. Space arcade-y shooter, sorta like Asteroids, but with ammo and upgrades that can make your life much easier or straight up miserable. There’s not really much to it, but it’s good at what it does.
Spiritual successor to the 10,000,000 game. It’s gameplay is pretty much the same - it’s Match-3 with real-time combat. It has way much more upgradeable stuff, so it can feel kinda grindy at times. I wasn’t up for getting the last achievement for replaying the game for the third time, but I guess I’ll get to it someday, I liked that one.
1288 games to go!
I absolutely adored the first Thief but it took so much time wandering/exploring so i hesitate starting the second even though i’m sure i’ll love it -_-
Yeah, I think you’ll love it, The Metal Age is essentially the same as the first, but better. They also toned down the paranormal stuff, although there’s occasional stuff here and there.
About wandering/exploring… yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaah, that’s gonna be a problem. There’s a lot to explore, although I finished it in less time than I did with Thief Gold, since at least I didn’t get lost that often.
Well, thanks to you i finished the Thief 2, i enjoyed it but the last 3 levels left a bitter taste and in the end i liked the first game more. Also it took me literally the same amount of time as the first one :P
The last level is debatable imo, I liked it a bit better than the straight-forward last level from the first game, although the ending feels too abrupt.
IIRC, the other two were the ones where you have to scout the area in the first and actually perform the task in the second? If so, then yeah… it was a bit of a weird decision. It still has some really great levels, I missed those already while playing the third one.
Wow, so many games finished! I wish I was that productive xD
To be fair, almost all of those are pretty short/don’t require long playing sessions, and my work schedule is pretty loose. I usually tend to play 1 or 2 “big boys” per month, and the rest is small stuff and wasting time on TBoI Rebirth (hitting 500h playtime soon).
Well, we all have those wasting time games xD that stop us from killing our backlog.
Though 8+ hours is far from a short game in my book! So it still feels like a great feat! Congrats to you.