February'23 overview

Feeling like I'm still treading water... With a light sense of moving forward.

I’m failing to avoid getting new games. Amount of never played games is the same as it was when I came to BLAEO - 141 titles (but still, in percentage terms, it dropped from 55% to 40% - this can be considered a success). New additions to my library are mainly short games though. I hope I will manage not to get more than 3-4 new games added in March… But it will require a lot of effort from me -_-

Very honorable mention (not a boast at all)

• Aperture Desk Job
  

  0.5 hours playtime

  no achievements

Aperture Desk Job is a nice little game, which I played at the beginning of the month IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE PURCHASE OF THE STEAM DECK!!!!1111 😀 Ladies and gentlemen, this is a real game changer for me! So far I’m happy with the device and how it perfectly fits into my life (I’m the type who suffers from short gaming sessions). I simply can play 15 minutes, turn it off, and continue to play from the very same place in the game hours later or even next day without losing any progress. That is sooooo convenient! It even works better for games where you can’t save progress between the chapters or checkpoints - you can slowly progress whenever you have time and mood. Well, in general, the Steam Deck suits me personally in almost everything and I can play more games with less friction.

Games highlights of February:

• Hollow Knight
  

  32.4 hours playtime

  20 of 63 achievements

• Stray
  

  6.1 hours playtime

  16 of 24 achievements

• Catie in MeowmeowLand
  

  3.2 hours playtime

  9 of 13 achievements

• DARQ
  

  4.8 hours playtime

  12 of 17 achievements

• A Tale of Paper
  

  4.0 hours playtime

  21 of 29 achievements

• TSIOQUE
  

  3.9 hours playtime

  31 of 31 achievements

Hollow Knight: It took me two months to beat the game with 77% progress and it was worth it. Should note that I felt punished a lot of times for playing it and I can’t imagine how much money one should offer me to make me complete it for 100% (for precision: 112%). But the overall experience from the game is great. 8/10 - if you already have it in your library you should definitely give it a try.

Stray: I won it on SG in December and deliberately postponed playing it until the purchase of the deck. The game is good, not as good as the hype around it ;) The game is simple, colorful and pleasant to play. The further along the story you are going the less world around you is interactive - that was kinda disappointing. There is so much to do in the first district of the city (explore, look for secrets and notes, solve puzzles), but with each new area of the city, everything becomes very linear and without any additional amusements. Game is good but overpriced, I think 50% discount is what you might want to look for before purchasing. 7/10

Catie in MeowmeowLand: A short absurd story with excellent art. Great for one or two evenings. Perfect to play with children :) A game for relaxation and to please your eyes. If you love the point’n’click genre - notice the game :) Grab it during sales with -50% and thank yourself later. 8/10

DARQ: The game exceeded my expectations. The base game and both free DLCs feel different, but all are good in their own way. The main game is such a complex experience both in terms of emotions and gameplay, and the DLCs are more like just puzzles in the game’s setting: it expands the mechanics and presents new ones, the puzzles themselves in the DLCs seem to be even more interesting, but there are no such emotions that were in the main game (does not “scare” and does not intrigue, almost no events are scripted to revive the world). Sound and graphics are excellent! 9/10

A Tale of Paper: I liked the game. In the reviews people wrote a lot that it is like Little Nightmares and Limbo had a cute baby… I disagree. In some ways, in style and essence (3D platformer with puzzles), of course, it reminds me of these games, but no more. Much weaker in immersion, in emotions. The style is nice, the sound is pleasant. Enjoyable 3d platformer. 6/10

TSIOQUE: A very special game for me. I stumbled upon it while I was searching for ROW keys to give away on SG last year in August. Cheap short game with excellent reviews and appealing art style - SOLD! Since then I have given away or gifted more than 20 copies of this game. Every time I said to myself: one day I will play it myself. But at the same time I was worried “Is the game really as good as it seems to me?”… And in January I finally got this game as a present (Blame Generous People™)! Excellent quest with very nice art. In some places the logic of the developers didn’t match mine and in several places puzzles were solved by old-good pixel-by-pixel clicking of the entire screen… But this is a common situation for point’n’click in my case :) The story is sweet, and the development of the plot (denouement) was unexpected. By the combination of parameters - a very good game at least for fans of games of this kind. 6/10

January'23 overview

Hoarding more games while playing more games.... Is this my plan?

I got inspired by some of the “end of the year” posts here on BLAEO that slightly changed my attitude regarding how I treat my stats and how I feel about them. I was feeling bad to put games into “won’t play” list. I even were preferring to delete games I won’t play from my library instead of just putting them into the named list… That is, you know, kinda crazy… Any justification for such behavior is simply far-fetched.

There is no reason to force yourself to play games you don’t want to play (especially if they’re not gifts or wins), nor to force yourself to delete such games from your library (unless you are sure that it is complete peace of trash). Like, for example, old Sid Meier’s games. Some of them already were played outside of Steam, some of them landed into my library just because I bought Sid Meier’s bundles… Why should I feel bad for not wanting to play them or why should I want to delete them from my library? :) So from now on I will move such games to “won’t play” list and I won’t feel any discomfort because of it. Thus, for the first time since the start of monitoring, the percentage of games in the “won’t play” list has grown from 11% to 12% :) It really helped to lower the stress and make the backlog fighting more pleasant.

Back to monthly stats: January

Library has grown a lot in size again, not as bad as in December… But still +12 games is more than I planned. On a bright side: I actually managed to beat same amount of games. I also joined Play or Pay and started playing a really long game they choose for me - the Hollow Knight. I spent already about 32 hours in it in January - that is around 50% of all my actual monthly playtime. And it is not yet beaten. I hope PoP will continue provoking me to beat long games :)

Games highlights of January:

• Pumpkin Jack
  

  8.8 hours playtime

  25 of 33 achievements

• Blue Estate
  

  6.1 hours playtime

  11 of 27 achievements

• Contrast
  

  4.4 hours playtime

  20 of 22 achievements

• One Way: The Elevator
  

  2.2 hours playtime

  6 of 18 achievements

Pumpkin Jack: When PSP was a THING I spent a lot of time with MediEvil. Heck, last time I played it on my PSP last year! And you know, Pumpkin Jack is a great way to get alike experience in modern days. Game is not polished, there are some issues and bugs… But overall experience from it is good. Story is fun, level design is not bad at all, graphics is pleasant. My rating is 7/10 (read 6/10 if you don’t like or know what MediEvil is) and only if you got the game during sale or in a bundle (or for free). Even at -60% discount it is overpriced - it should be better polished to justify the price.

Blue Estate: Pure gem if you are into well-directed action, goofy humor and rail shooters. Short game sessions (up to 30 minutes in story mode and 3-10 minutes in arcade mode) makes game perfect for short brakes. 8/10 - grab it during next -75% sale :)

Contrast: The game is not very difficult, but pretty exciting. I would even call it meditative. Graphic and sound design immersed me very well inside the game. It was just nice to be there and wander around, looking around the corners. There are a lot of small things you can stumble upon, like Doctor Who’s TARDIS hidden around the corner or Darth Vader’s sword on the display in museum and similar small trifles. The world of the game in general is wonderful to my taste, a kind of fusion of stylized realism and surrealism. Very beautiful. I explored all the locations purely out of curiosity, which allowed me to collect all (except one) of the collectibles. It might sound strange, but the desire to explorer game world and look into every corner in Contrast is very close to the feeling and desire I experienced in Bioshock. The gameplay is very entertaining, you have to think in 3D and 2D simuntaniously. All the riddles are very simple - I didn’t need any tips or help to solve them. The game does not punish “wrong behavior” in any way - you can set up as many experiments as you like. I only once managed to break it so that I had to restart from the last save. Plot/story is OKeish and I can’t figure out what to say no to make any spoilers :) 7/10 - it wasn’t discounted for 2 years already, but if you will have a chance to grab a key at 5 USD or below - consider doing it )

One Way: The Elevator: Got it during 50% sale and it cost every penny. Very well made point and click quest (with a sad plot). My eyes were happy, the brain was resting. One screen - one puzzle. There is no need to run back and forth looking for clues and puzzle pieces. Really good game for one or two evenings. 8/10

December'22 overview

I'm not even sure if this month was productive or counterproductive...

I will not do any huge “summing up the results of the year” or any kind of “top of best games” (also Steam by itself made a pretty good job). Just a short summup. For me the gaming year started around March. According to Steam Stats I have played 1% of time in January and 0% in February…

Before joining BLAEO in May I had 255 games in my library and now 334. Yap, +79 new games. Almost +31% to the size of my library (and I started to use Steam 16 years ago, on 29 of December 2006 (oops, missed my steam cake day)). So I failed hardly in my attempt to get less games…

Now:

In May’22:

While my library has grown impressively - the number of finished games has also increased: from 33 to 86 (sick!). While the percentage of unplayed games has dropped from 55% to 45%. Maybe I wasn’t successful with fighting my backlog, but I did play games! A lot of games! As I said earlier - more than in recent years! And I didn’t quit while playing! I’m pretty happy with it :) Special thanks to BLAEO, PAGYWOSG, “Playing appreciated” and “Playing matters” SG groups and a huge THANK YOU to our local SG community - you bring up in me a responsible approach to games! Also I have joined PoP and think it will be a nice addition to the list of people/events I’m grateful to :)

And now, back to December:

Library has grown a lot in size in a month, hasn’t it? Blame people’s generosity! :D Lets count together: 9 games I won on SG and 6 games I got as gifts. 15 out of 22. Damn sneaky generous people!… I love you all and thank you for all these great games that I can enjoy!
Although the number of finished games is also not small - blame my “luck”, I got pretty heavily sick in mid December and was locked down at home, so I had an extra time for playing my games. According to steam same time I had the longest strick of consecutive days I played (14).

Games highlights of December:

• Cuphead
  

  26.6 hours playtime

  21 of 42 achievements

• The Adventure Pals
  

  12.1 hours playtime

  29 of 31 achievements

• Little Nightmares II
  

  11.0 hours playtime

  12 of 35 achievements

• Lost in Play
  

  5.2 hours playtime

  19 of 19 achievements

• Wunderling
  

  9.6 hours playtime

  35 of 41 achievements

Cuphead: HLBT says the main story can be beaten in 10½. It took me 26 hours… Well, maybe I shouldn’t play games when my body temperature is above 39C° … Nevertheless I really enjoyed playing it (besides the King Dice. He can twist himself through his own ass until he won’t fade into nothing!). Every part of the game is great. Gameplay, graphics, sound, levels design. It is really difficult (at least it was for me) but the feeling of victory over the bosses balances the negative “component”. Already got Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course and plan to revisit game soonish. 9/10

The Adventure Pals: Simple colorful game with a lovely story full of absurd humor. Slightly addictive, not very challenging. Definitly deserves ones attention, especially if you already have it in your library and it is still unplayed ^) 7/10

Little Nightmares II: I’m huge fan of the Little Nightmares and LNII is definitely worthy of the first part. For the first 2/3 part of the game I even thought that it was better. Little Nightmares made me fall in love with those emotions/experiences that it gives during the first play. The atmosphere and gameplay create such a great oppressive feeling (not to be confused with all sorts of horror stories where you are just marinated and prepared for fear). Run? Crawl? Stand still? Is it a threat or an entourage? You can’t be sure of anything and you always have to be on the alert. At the same time, you do not feel fear when playing.
The atmosphere of the game has grown compared to the first part. And the sound, and the light, and the work of the camera - everything is much better than in the first part. It immerses you even better in the game. But the Sixth itself periodically ruined the whole atmosphere/immersion. You are hiding from the boss in every possible way, sneaking around - the tension is colossal… And then this child of flowers just follows you across the open space, right in front of the boss and everyone doesn’t care - nothing happens… Despite this, the first 2/3 of the game is just great, but the last third is like a different game. More like a puzzle. Beautiful, interesting - but the feeling is generally different. It doesn’t look like the first part, not like the first two-thirds of the second. I enjoyed the game and I think I will return to it at some point to collect more achievements. 7/10

Lost in Play: Played it with my daughter and both of us had a blast! Pretty simple, very beautiful game with a lot of absurd humour. A living fairy tale in which you take an active part. Cudos to illustrators and story writers! That was the first quest I played with a controller and I liked it that way! All previous attempts to play quest with anything beside moue were terrible… Also game has a very well thought out system of hints, that help to progress without spoiling the experience. 8/10

Wunderling: I haven’t yet finished playing it but I hope I will find several hours to beat it this year (huge doubts). For me this game is from category of Steam hidden gems for all for all lovers of fast paced arcade puzzle games. It is not punishing (like for example Meat Boy). It is challenging just right. I was continuously getting positive vibes from the game without any negative emotions. Every level so far is doable without taking any hints on the internet, the most hard ones for me were taking just around 15 minutes maximum to beat with all secrets unlocked (while every level once solved can be beaten in between 14 and 60 seconds).
And while playing I physically felt that developers put love and soul into this game. If you found of such games - give it a try: it is bloody cheap on sale. 8/10

October&November'22 overview

Still hoarding games, but at least I'm playing some of them at the same time...

Had some sort of vacation from online socialization and missed the October report. So will report two months at once :) Sometimes taking a brake from any sort of activity is really important ;) Also it turned out that when I’m not spending time on Discord/SG and other places - I have more time to play games :D

In May, when I came to BLAEO, I had 141 unplayed games. Now I have 144 unplayed games… Might look like I’m not progressing at all. But in May I had 255 games in my library and now I have 312. In May I had 33 beaten/completed games and now I have 75. I haven’t played that much since years! Even that I’m focusing mainly on lowering amount of my unplayed games - I’m managing to beat a lot of them. And I’m getting a lot of fun along the way!

In October there was a huge injection of new games to my library mainly because I got afraid of getting “gift ban” on Steam. Since June till October I bought ~70 games as gifts for others, while bought for myself around 7 games -_- So I decided to slightly increase the amount of games I purchased for my self so that Steam won’t think I’m doing business… This decision statistically destroyed my backlog progress. But, you know, better safe than sorry.

Games highlights of October&November:

• Batman: Arkham Knight
  

  57.5 hours playtime

  78 of 113 achievements

• Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
  

  12.1 hours playtime

  27 of 47 achievements

• Call of Juarez Gunslinger
  

  6.2 hours playtime

  14 of 26 achievements

• My Friend Pedro
  

  5.0 hours playtime

  24 of 30 achievements

• Cats in Time
  

  6.4 hours playtime

  24 of 24 achievements

• XIII - Classic
  

  10.7 hours playtime

  no achievements

Batman: Arkham Knight: I have never paid attention to it this title as I thought it wasn’t my kind of the game. But I was lucky to win this game in July in public giveaway on SG (0.0048% chance of wining - sick!). Right after I won it I spent 9 hours in the game. It was interesting, but felt slow and too much mixed up (fighting, stealth, racing, running, flying, searching…) and I put it on top of pile of my unfinished games. Some months later I gave it a second try and, oh boy, it turned out to be epic. Once I unlocked more gadgets and figured out how to play “properly” (including the “force saving” of the progress, as my playing sessions can be as long as 15 minutes…) the game become more enjoyable. It is so cinematographic and story was told so good, there are so many details in everything… After spending 20 hours more in the game I bought Arkham Collection. By now I’ve finished all story related stuff and happy that fate brought me to this game. In total I’ve spent almost 58 hours in game (that is a lot for me for one offline game) and can see my self playing it for another 20 hours (new game+, finishing the riddles and challenges) :) Probably will do it after I will buy a Steam Deck :) 10/10 - it become one of my favorite games.

Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition: Since I have played Arkham Knight first - Asylum felt more like a big DLC :) If Asylum was the first game I played from this trilogy - probably I wouldn’t be interested to try City or Knight. It is not bad but everything felt slightly off. Not enough intrigue in the story, stealth and fighting are not distinguished enough by diversity, lurking between the locations felt more like a punishment rather than exploration… 6/10

Call of Juarez Gunslinger: The game is good. I really enjoyed how the shooting part is handled (very pleasant) and how the story was told. Not sure how to explain, but I will try :D Moments when you are going the wrong way and eventually dies and the MC tells something like “I knew that it was a suicide to go this way, so I choose another one” before restarting from the checkpoint. Or when, depending on your choices, the story is told slightly in a different way (“I saw them first before they saw me” vs “They saw me first, before I saw them”). And the way the map transforms when certain goals achieved (“After I disarmed the dynamite, I noticed a ladder that I hadn’t noticed before”)… Overall experience is very cinematographic. The plot itself is very simple, yet interesting. The way the whole story is told through small connected “novellas” is really good find for developers. The abrupt change of scenery made the game fun (no need to go to the same locations just to make the game last longer). BUM! - you are in the city, BUM! - you are in the forests, BUM! - you are in the caves, BUM! - you ride the train. Very dynamic. 8/10

My Friend Pedro: Saw this game here, on BLAEO, and it caught my interest and landed in my wishlist. Later won it on SG and got a pleasant time playing it. While there is nothing special in any part of this game: story, action, graphics - everything separately is pretty average… But all togather works really good and gives good experience. Defenetly worth one playthrough and couple of my evenings. 6/10

Cats in Time: Was playing it with my daughter, so game took 6 hours instead of 3 :) Game is pleasant, but definitly too simple and doesn’t worth the price they ask (unless you are playing with a kid). 5/10 get it only with 50%+ discount and only if you are really into this type of games.

XIII - Classic: Played it years ago (before even got my steam account, and it is 15 years old already) from a localized CD and should say: original text and voiceovers are way more better. Getting back to this game was a very pleasant journey to the almost forgotten feelings when life was much more easier :) Also was surprised that the game aged so well in terms of both, graphics and gameplay, it is not bad at all - while played it I’ve never thought to drop it (and such thoughts usually happens a lot while playing older games). 7/10

September'22 overview

Some more positive results!

Well, I’m very happy with my self this month. I finally managed to drop my un-played amount of games below 50%! That is a milestone for me. I’m not focused on beating all my games, but at least to try all of them and beat those I really enjoy. Probably in future it will become harder and slower since I’m staying away from some big titles in my library that I know I want to beat but also know that each of them will take more time than I have for gaming during one month… But that time will eventually come. Also I feel like I can semi-control my self in terms of obtaining new games, so I expect to see the number of un-played games continue to drop.

New games I got this month are mostly short and most of them were beaten (like Mushroom Cats, A Building Full of Cats, Ever Seen A Cat? - very pleasant small games to play with daughter). Also I’ve refused to even think about playing some of games I got for free (like ARK: Survival Evolved) and removed them from my library. I think it is one of ways to take control of my library back and lower the psychological pressure during my crusade against backlog :) The only reason why I got them is because they were free…

Games highlights of September:

• Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition
  

  11.3 hours playtime

  11 of 46 achievements

• Going Under
  

  7.8 hours playtime

  11 of 23 achievements

• Thomas Was Alone
  

  4.1 hours playtime

  35 of 35 achievements

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition: I was ignoring Shantae games every time I saw them. Solely based on the visual part and my opinion formed from it. I thought it was a children’s game aimed at slightly horny teenagers… Well - I was completely wrong. I finished main story (with 100% completeness) and I plan to get back to it and play all included DLCs. Playing it was a pure joy for me. Also it is my first Metroidvania and I’m re-evaluating my perception of games of this genre. 8/10 - If I knew what this game is actually like - I could buy it years ago :)

Going Under: I really liked the story (who turned out to be the main villain was a surprise for me). The story itself is very stupid, but stupid in a good way :) I liked that a lot. Unfortunately, outside of the story, the gameplay is too repetitive. Once I’ve finished the story line going through the same 3 dungeons (even albeit with options) is not that fun at all. 6/10 good for grab on big discount.

Thomas Was Alone: I bought this game on May 16, 2014 and never played it until September 2022… And I’m sorry about that. Awesome little game. Not complicated at all, very meditative, with excellent sound design. And what a great voiceover! I even became curious who gave the game this voice. It turned out to be comedian Danny Wallace, and for this voice acting in the game he received an award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 2022, this is still a great game for a couple of evenings. 9/10

August'22 overview

Some positive results!

This month was very productive! Not only I managed to play and even finish some games - I almost avoided adding new titles to my library! I even managed to avoid adding any freebies this time :)

All 3 new games in my library is the fault of the SteamGifts :)

• Going Under
  

  7.8 hours playtime

  11 of 23 achievements

• Prey
  

  0 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Hidden Paws
  

  0.9 hours playtime

  3 of 8 achievements

I won Going Under on SG in August and it was beaten in September, so my impressions will be later. Rest two games I bought, but it’s still fault of SG. And of my daughter in case of Hidden Paws :) I stumbled upon Prey keys on gray market and decided that it is a good option for future giveaways. And to make sure keys are working - I activated one for my self. No regrets - this is a great game that worth to be completed after so many years. And Hidden Paws… I was making giveaway for that game and my daughter forced me to buy it and play it :)

Games highlights of August:

• Necrosmith
  

  12.2 hours playtime

  24 of 24 achievements

• Forgotton Anne
  

  8.9 hours playtime

  27 of 33 achievements

• Voidigo
  

  8.7 hours playtime

  45 of 91 achievements

Forgotten Anne: Before I started playing, I expected it to be just an arcade/platformer. But it turned out to be more of an interactive “choice matters” graphic novel with platforming and puzzle elements. I’m not a fan of graphic novels… But I enjoyed this one! The graphics are very attractive, the plot, although naive, is intriguing. 7/10

Necrosmith: Well, there are not many games I finished for 100%. And now that is one of them. It was good enough that I made a giveaway for it even before I finished playing it. It is fun to play in the beginning because of the short sessions (it will take some grind time before you will be able to withstand all the waves of enemies, and the game simply does not allow you to play more than 15-30 minutes, depending on the overall progress). Slightly disappointed that there is no save option as last final run took me more than 2 hours and it was beyond my free time I had at the moment… But it wasn’t very frustrating as, in the end, I was able to find the way to reduce amount of mobs needed to guard the base from 8 units with one mob constantly being under my control to just 2. That allowed me to rush the search of the final scroll without too much involvement on my side to finish the game having 13 mobs exploring the map on their own. 8/10 Great value for its price.

Voidigo: This game was gifted to me by a total stranger. That made my day and even week. I’ve beaten it (finished a run defeating all the bosses) but there are dozens of hours of gameplay is still available. Very well made game, even it is in “Early access” it already feels like a finished product. Short runs, pleasant graphics. Very dynamic with very responsive controls. 7/10

July'22 overview

I'm still loosing the battle...

In July I bought only one game - It’s Spring Again Collector’s Edition:

• It's Spring Again
  

  0.2 hours playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

The sole propose was to play it with my-soon-to-be 3 year old daughter and to watch theatrical performance that is part of DLC. She liked both, but most of the time she forced me to move mouse instead of her (she was just clicking) :)

The rest games are presents (8 out of 11 new games in my library are part of SG_SummerSecretSanta22 https://www.backlog-assassins.net/lists/9b45k9l) or SG wins or random freebies….

My resolution for August is to finally reduce amount of unplayed games I have and keep new additions to minimum (will try to avoid adding anything except wins from SG, if any will accrue).

Games highlights of July:

• Slime Rancher
  

  9.8 hours playtime

  41 of 57 achievements

• Redeemer
  

  5.9 hours playtime

  32 of 40 achievements

• Donut County
  

  2.9 hours playtime

  15 of 20 achievements

• CROSSBOW: Bloodnight
  

  0.3 hours playtime

  3 of 4 achievements

Slime Rancher: I liked the game in common. Can rate it 7 out of 10. But it also can be called “Shuttle Run Simulator”. Many repetitive actions, while they are not meditative. Very limited inventory - it does not allow you to fully immerse yourself in either the exploration part of the game or the collecting/farming part. You often have to run back and forth and it gets boring. Probably it can be improved with automation and teleports, but they are too expensive and I didn’t have the patience or spare time to grind it. Nevertheless I liked the game in the end: exploration part is grate, some locations are truly beautiful, setup of basic economy is fun.

Redeemer: Overall impression is very good: I liked how the fighting part is done and the graphics. Also as that gaming sessions can be 15-30 minutes made me able to beat the game in a very leisure manner. Oh, and that there are extra condition in every chapter (like kill everyone, or don’t brake something or kill X in a specific way) made the game more interesting. On bad part: Storyline is weak, but not boring. Last 3 chapters and final boss were slightly disappointing. The game worth buying during sales if you like “Beat ‘em up” games.

Donut County: I enjoyed playing it (with my daughter). But overall experience was less fun then I expected. There was a constant feeling that the jokes could be a little funnier, that the levels could be a little more interesting, and so on. Everything seems to be good and fun, but something is always missing.

CROSSBOW: Bloodnight: My biggest disappointment in last months. I’m a big fan of arena shooters and was expecting to get a lot of fun from this game. But in the end came to conclusion that it doesn’t worth a dollar I paid for it :)

June'22 overview

My progress is negative...

Yes, really late June overview. Almost in the end of July…

On the bright side: I have bought only 5 games for myself. “Fallout New Vegas: Ultimate Edition”. I’m big fun of classic Fallout games and I was completely disappointed by the Fallout 3. Never followed franchise after that… But recently I was convinced by the fellows gamers community that “New Vegas” is a thing and that as fan of original Fallout I must try it. Now it is in my backlog :`) Also it was dirty cheap in my local retailer.
The second one is Fibrillation HD - it was originally released in 2012 by the developer of the Armored Head (one of my favorite games, it is one of those hidden gems on Steam). Wanted to support one-man-company and will eventually beat it.

“Vampire Survivors” - At first I made a giveaway of this game, after the end of giveaway almost all participants bought this game. So did I to try it some day as I like the genre… And I spent there about 17 hours :) Good game, hope to get back to it one day again.

And the last one is “100 hidden cats 2”. I liked the first part, was playing it with my 2.8 yo daughter for more than an hour :) Plan to play it once again with a daughter later.

On the “dark side”: I took a part in the “Summer Secret Santa” event on SG (for a local community) and as result I got huge amount of excellent games… I planned that I will gift some and will get some, but everything went out of the control… I got 8 gifts in June and 7 more in July. Made a separate list here to follow the progress, all games are from my whilst so I will eventually beat them. Community was crazy and total amount of gifts went beyond 429 games!

Also I started to remove from my library games I got as freebies just because they were free, or games that were part of the bundles that I never intended to play (I even didn’t know that they exist in my library).

Still ashamed, hope this felling will push me in the right direction and won’t cause extra depression :)

Games highlights of June:

• BioShock Remastered
  

  14.9 hours playtime

  46 of 65 achievements

• Vampire Survivors
  

  16.8 hours playtime

  79 of 123 achievements

• FAR: Lone Sails
  

  6.6 hours playtime

  14 of 14 achievements

• Armed with Wings: Rearmed
  

  5.9 hours playtime

  13 of 20 achievements

BioShock Remastered: First of all I need to say a huge THANK YOU to Skanda as it is fully her responsibility for me playing this excellent game as she named it for a challenge. Without being challenged I would probably keep it under dust in my library. The game, as I already said, is excellent. Before I only played Infinity and can say that Bioshock 1 is not worse, maybe even better in some cases.
I enjoyed both gameplay and the story. Also graphics still is beautiful to my taste. Also game helped me to stay in positive mood during treatment in hospital. There were 10 days when I had to do drips and every morning I was playing the game awaiting for my drips to be ready. That rare case when game was more that just a game.

Vampire Survivors: Very addictive gameplay, also not very time consuming. Runs are from 15 to 30 minutes, so it is easy to progress in game if you have just 15 or 30 spare minutes :) Can recommend to all genre lovers, well made game.

Next two titles were my submissions for “June is a “play a game you won on Steamgifts” month” and I will allow my self to just copy-past the aftertaste I had from there.

FAR: Lone Sails: First play run was a charm.I enjoyed mechanics, graphics and tension in couple of places. It was really interesting. Second run (to get “finish game under 90 minutes” achievement) was also good as I got even more tension because of time pressure. But after that I had to farm miles to get last achievement That is a piece of stupid achievement for such a game. There is no content to play it for that long… At first you are trying to manage resources, avoid threats… But once you know that game is 100% scripted and that you can burn engine 100% of time (you get more stuff to burn then you actually need) - there is nothing you can still enjoy. Still 4/5 - can recommend at least to play once.

Armed with Wings: Rearmed: I was expecting it to be more of a platformer/puzzle game (because of the bird). Turned out it is more of a grindy action game. Story line was uninteresting and unintriguing. Fighting was good after I learned how to make combos and opened some good swords. Didn’t like that at first I was straggling to progress in campaign because my attacks were to weak and that lead to unnecessary grinding to open better swords. Once I have got a really good sword - difficulty dropped significantly. And once I learned that after getting all relics you can beat a special level and get access to a god-like character… Well, that It devalued all past work. With this character you can rush through all levels on basic difficulty without any problems (I tried final boss on lvl 40 with this character and beatn it in 3 minutes or so). And on hard difficulty you also car rush all levels, but in last boss fight die from 3 missed blows (aslo tried finall level from mission picker). My overall experience was 6/10. I enjoyed playing the game, but not ready to grind all the achievements. Can recommend only for genre lovers.

May'22 overview

Thank you BLAEO, now I know for sure I have a problem...

First I stumbled upon Steamgifts in mid May, and shortly after that I stumbled upon Backlog Assassins. Before that I have never paid attention to my steam library and my “consumer behavior” under such an angle. Can’t say that I considered myself a games hoarder before that, but now I clearly can see the problem.

There are 16 (!) new games on my account by the end of the month. Most of them appeared before I joined BLAEO… Most of them I got before realizing that I have a problem. From now on I will starve to get less new games per month then I’ve played. And will use this “diary” to track my progress.

Won on SG:

• Painkiller: Recurring Evil
  

  3.9 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Tropico 5
  

  11.7 hours playtime

  12 of 70 achievements

• Armed with Wings: Rearmed
  

  0.4 hours playtime

  4 of 20 achievements

Painkiller Recurring Evil - My first win on SG! Hurray!.. The experience was awful. I saw ratings but was thinking “It can’t be that bad.” - I played first games in series and it should be hard to spoil the idea of the game. Turned out it can be that bad. I deleted game twice from my laptop. After the second and the fourth chapters. It wasn’t fun, the level design is terrible, the enemies are stupid and gameplay is too monotonous. I went out of my way to end the story line just to prove to myself that I can be a responsible gift recipient :)

Tropico 5 - my second win. A real gift that I am very happy with. Once I will finish the campaign (on mission 7 I realized that I did everything wrong and short-sighted - and had to start over) - I will definitely try some ideas in the sandbox. The game turned out to be almost perfect for me. 8/10

Armed with Wings: Rearmed - Won it on May 26 and so far just tried the game a little. First impression: it is not bad at all. Submitted it for a June is a “play a game you won on Steamgifts” month - Fire and Ice event.

Can you challenge me?

I want to join June event (Dune) with one of my games I have never played before. Can you choose a game for me that will suit the June’s Theme? Preferably not a long one to beat. Thanks! :3