Report #28: July-December + 2022 Afterword

New Year’s Eve and my first post in six months. I haven’t had much free time and consequently haven’t played much. It’s alright, I don’t mind.

Metro Exodus which I finished in July was probably my favorite game played in 2022. I also enjoyed Yakuza 0, but at 76 hours to finish, it was way too long for my tastes. I expect 2023 to shape up similar to how 2022 ended, so I’ll try to focus on titles I really want to play. I’ll keep going with Fallout 4 and will start The Wolf Among Us. After that, who knows!

Wishing all you assassins an excellent new year. Stay frosty.

Beaten

• Metro Exodus
  

  41.8 hours playtime

  34 of 68 achievements

• Old Man's Journey
  

  3.6 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Supraland
  

  21.9 hours playtime

  41 of 98 achievements

Also Played

• Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
  

  2.6 hours playtime

  2 of 48 achievements

• Fallout 4
  

  21.5 hours playtime

  6 of 84 achievements

Added

• XCOM: Chimera Squad
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 40 achievements

• Wasteland 3
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 86 achievements

Favorite Gaming Moments 2022

• Metro Exodus
  

  41.8 hours playtime

  34 of 68 achievements

• Rise of the Tomb Raider
  

  25.4 hours playtime

  26 of 143 achievements

• The Painscreek Killings
  

  16.7 hours playtime

  33 of 33 achievements

Steam Library Snapshot

End of 2022

End of 2021

End of 2020

Report #27: June 2022

Summer is coming.

Beaten

• Yakuza 0
  

  75.8 hours playtime

  22 of 55 achievements

Also Played

• Metro Exodus
  

  33.5 hours playtime

  26 of 68 achievements

• Fallout 4
  

  10.0 hours playtime

  3 of 84 achievements

Report #26: May 2022

Happy to report I finished two titles plus made significant progress on another big game. Also, no new additions to my Steam library, so another net negative month for the backlog! Hope to squeeze a couple of more games before summer begins for real.

Beaten

• Blacksad
  

  16.3 hours playtime

  20 of 39 achievements

• Metro Last Light Redux
  

  16.3 hours playtime

  no achievements

Working on

• Yakuza 0
  

  58.9 hours playtime

  15 of 55 achievements

• Don't Starve
  

  12.5 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Metro Exodus
  

  2.2 hours playtime

  2 of 68 achievements

• F1 2018
  

  1.0 hours playtime

  3 of 50 achievements

Report #25: April 2022

I’m posting this monthly report a bit early, since I’ll be going out of town and don’t expect to play any more until next month. Unexpectedly got some extra free time this month and put some of it into the backlog. The result: five titles moved to the Beaten category, including two that had spent a lot of time as Unfinished. Whoop.

Heaven’s Vault is a an interesting, modern take on the point&click genre set in a decaying galaxy (which for some unknown reason is referred to as a nebula). You play a space-faring archaeologist tasked with investigating the disappearance of a colleague at the university. Solving linguistic puzzles, you little by little uncover what happened to your colleague as well as the truth behind the extinction of long-gone civilizations and how it all connects to a current threat to the galaxy. A slow burn, but I enjoyed learning the ancients’ language and history.

Keeping with the archaeology theme, I have to admit I really enjoy the last Tomb Raider reboot, including this month’s Rise of the Tomb Raider. I love running around spelunking in caves, climbing trees, hunting animals, collecting resources, and crafting better equipment - it’s a great balance between excitement and relaxation. The story is the typical hodgepodge of myth, magic, and power-hungry antagonists, but the pacing is pretty good as are the set pieces, and it contrasts nicely with the freer inter-mission moments.

I recently realized I’ve collected quite a few racers that I rarely play, so I’m making an effort to move some of them off the backlog. I picked Grid first as is it is one of the oldest games on my Steam account. As far as the racing experience goes, it’s a good game, but there’s a limited number of circuits, perhaps fifteen in total, so progressing through the game gets a bit old with the same tracks appearing over and over.

Full Throttle Remastered is vintage LucasArts and together with The Secret of Monkey Island probably the pinnacle of the golden age of point&click. It’s got a short, fun story around a murder framejob, great voice acting, a couple of action sequences, but most importantly… no $%&( inventory puzzles! Pretty dated, but still enjoyable for a couple of hours.

You may know that Full Throttle was designed by Tim Schafer, who later founded Double Fine, where he designed the humorous open-metal-world game Brütal Legend. I imagine that if anybody with a lower standing in the gaming industry had proposed a major release based on the music, imagery, and fandom of heavy metal, they would have been laughed out of the room, but Schafer got it done. The gameplay is a mix of hack&slash and RTT and is… fine, but what makes this a game to remember is the love for its music genre. The voice acting is top notch: Jack Black is great in the lead, and the cameos from people like Lemmy, Ozzy, and Rob Halford are pretty cool.

Next month I’ll try to tackle Metro Last Light and Blacksad, mixed with some Don’t Starve and Yakuza 0. Til then!

Beaten

• Heaven's Vault
  

  21.9 hours playtime

  26 of 44 achievements

• Rise of the Tomb Raider
  

  25.3 hours playtime

  26 of 143 achievements

• GRID
  

  23.9 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Brütal Legend
  

  28.7 hours playtime

  13 of 59 achievements

• Full Throttle Remastered
  

  5 hours playtime

  no achievements

Chipping Away

• Yakuza 0
  

  30.4 hours playtime

  8 of 55 achievements

• Don't Starve
  

  7.7 hours playtime

  no achievements

Added to Backlog

• Fallout 4
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 84 achievements

• realMyst: Masterpiece Edition
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 34 achievements

Report #24: March 2022

With this post, I celebrate my two-year anniversary as a backlog assassin. Cake will be served on the patio.
The good news of the month: I finished two games. Cheers to me!
The bad news: I added four games (of which I finished one). Boo!
Amazing how I’ve put over twenty hours into Yakuza 0 and almost all of it is cutscene-watching.
Stay deadly, assassins!

Beaten

• FAR: Lone Sails
  

  6.8 hours playtime

  10 of 14 achievements

• Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince
  

  23.5 hours playtime

  18 of 39 achievements

Chipping Away

• Rise of the Tomb Raider
  

  8.5 hours playtime

  6 of 143 achievements

• Yakuza 0
  

  26.5 hours playtime

  5 of 55 achievements

• GRID
  

  9.1 hours playtime

  no achievements

Added to Backlog

• Blacksad
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 39 achievements

• Supraland
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 98 achievements

• Spyro™ Reignited Trilogy
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 105 achievements

Report #23: February 2022

February didn’t see all that much gaming from me. At the beginning of the month and somewhat last minute, I decided to finally go ahead and take a professional licensing exam that I had originally planned to take two years ago but that I postponed because of our dear friend Corona (there is international long-distance travel involved). Because of that, and once travel plans were made, I spent all of my free time studying. Before that, though, I played through walking sim The Painscreek Killings and was pleasantly surprised. You play as a journalist traveling to an abandoned village before it goes on the auction block, in an attempt to uncover the murder mystery that caused its demise. Gameplay is simple enough, you move around the village, trying to find either documents that expose the village’s secrets or keys that unlock hiding spots or new areas. The writing, however, is quite evocative, and I frequently found myself moving through the game’s deserted houses and streets with a chill running down my spine. Recommended if you don’t mind a slow burn.

Completed

• The Painscreek Killings
  

  16.7 hours playtime

  33 of 33 achievements

Also Played

• Rise of the Tomb Raider
  

  3.4 hours playtime

  1 of 143 achievements

Added to Backlog

• Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 48 achievements

• Runaway: A Twist of Fate
  

  0 hours playtime

  no achievements

Report #22: January 2022

This month I managed to put away four titles - more than I had expected - although, to be fair, one I had already played halfway through and two were very short. I also reached a milestone of sorts - 150 Steam games beaten. (I did not bring cake. :sadcat:)

Metro 2033 had languished in my Steam library since 2012, when I bought the THQ Humble Bundle, and it is the first game from that bundle that I’ve actually played… Overall, it’s a pretty dated FPS, and the voice acting in the English-language version is hammy and exaggerated. While I find the Moscovian underground setting interesting in theory, I am not fond of dungeon-crawling in general. The few missions where you have to venture up above ground are a welcome relief both in setting and gameplay - the underground levels play mostly on rails (sometimes literally) whereas the outdoor, above-ground ones are much more open to exploration and challenge as to where one needs to go. One more note about this game: Where are the women? The game depicts an already bleak future filled with war, disease, and radiation; if there are also no women, I’d just as well give it to the mutants.

I suppose Amnesia: The Dark Descent qualifies as a classic by now, being one of the first titles that popularized survival horror gaming aspects and that aimed to put the player in a state of intensely experienced vulnerability. In some ways, the goth-like setting of Amnesia’s medieval castle felt like a continuation of Metro’s repurposed subway, but of course, we do not have the option of pumping the monsters full of lead. This game too is rather dated, and it never feels like you are inside an actual castle, as opposed to a video-game dungeon. Also, isn’t it time to retire the overused memory-loss trope, as well as the torn-pages-from-a-diary-spread-out-over-several-levels one (it may technically have a different name)? I am not a fan of horror in general, but I have to admit that Amnesia contained a few delightful “OH S##T!” moments of pure adrenaline. It’s also fairly short, so I don’t regret playing it.

The Room is a relaxing, short, and sweet puzzler. The objective is to explore a few pieces of elaborate machinery to uncover the secrets hidden inside. This game knows what it is and doesn’t try to be anything else.

My final assassination of the month was walking sim The Fidelio Incident. You take control over the protagonist after a small-plane crash on Iceland and are tasked with finding your missing partner. There is a whole backstory to discover (also by way of torn-pages-from-a-diary-spread-out-over-several-levels), but thankfully there is no amnesia to battle - the player gets to uncover truths that are already known to the playing character. Some puzzles, nothing hard. Its achievements are bugged and didn’t unlock for me.

I don’t expect much gaming in February because of work obligations, so it was nice to be able to put away a few titles in January.

Stay pretty until next time, assassins! (Only a month away, you can do it!)

Beaten or Completed

• Metro 2033
  

  27.6 hours playtime

  19 of 48 achievements

• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  

  16.4 hours playtime

  9 of 18 achievements

• The Room
  

  25.1 hours playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

• The Fidelio Incident
  

  3.9 hours playtime

  0 of 14 achievements

Also Played

• Yakuza 0
  

  22.8 hours playtime

  4 of 55 achievements

• Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth
  

  19.0 hours playtime

  3 of 90 achievements

• GRID
  

  7.9 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Mini Metro
  

  91.8 hours playtime

  50 of 63 achievements

Report #21: December + 2021 Afterword

Happy New Year, assassins,

I had moderately high hopes for my December backlog-clearing and holiday gaming, which ended up dashed, mostly because one chosen title took a lot longer to finish than I had anticipated. I started the month by 100%-ing RiME, which I had already played to the end back in 2019. As far as gameplay goes, it’s not a deep game, but it’s has a bittersweet story, and as the sucker I am I always let myself be moved by tales of children in distress.

Each year, I try to figure out a game or two to play during the Christmas-New Year period that go well with that particular season. My requirements are a bit hazy, but I’m generally looking for titles that are story rich and adventure-y, with a touch of escapism and emotional hook. To give a few examples, games that I have previously picked out for this occasion include Beyond Good and Evil, Tomb Raider (2013), and Ori and the Blind Forest. I had originally planned to play Baldur’s Gate, but when I won Planescape: Torment on Steamgifts, I figured it might be a good swap. I do try to play my wins in a somewhat timely fashion. Torment, like Baldur, is a D&D-based, stats-focused roleplaying game, but has quite a different setting. Instead of the conventional high fantasy world of Forgotten Realms, it mostly takes place in a grimy city that lies at the center of a multiverse and that sees the tensions from being surrounded by all these various planes of existence. At the beginning of the game the protagonist wakes up in a morgue, having failed to properly die, and starts investigating the reason for this predicament. Parts of the story are great, and there’s a fair amount of freedom to play the character, which is cool, but it does not seem to me that the choices matter very much in the end. Also, what’s up with introducing a character that completely shapes the ending five minutes before you get there? I’m happy that I played this game and appreciate the work that went into it, but for me it has too many storytelling flaws to reach the expectations I had on it. And honestly, it’s a bit on the long side…

Overall, 2021 was a disappointing year for quality gaming for me; nothing like the glories of 2020, when it seemed I played a masterpiece every other month! Going through my list of completed games (twenty, a pretty good number!), I only find four memorable ones, which is way too few considering the time I put in. The meager result makes me wonder if I should maybe reduce my gaming time even further, or possibly change my game-picking criteria. Also a bit discouraging: I added 32 new games to my Steam account during 2021. Oh well, no need to bother you with all this, fellow assassins. I wish you a magnificent 2022 with plenty of backlog-crushing successes and gaming derring-do!

Be well.

Beaten or Completed

• RiME
  

  24.0 hours playtime

  31 of 31 achievements

• Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition
  

  75.8 hours playtime

  24 of 50 achievements

Also Played

• Metro 2033
  

  16.8 hours playtime

  11 of 48 achievements

• GRID
  

  6.5 hours playtime

  no achievements

I Am Weak, I Need Help (New Addition)

• TEKKEN 7
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 42 achievements

Favorite Gaming Moments of 2021

• XCOM 2
  

  94.3 hours playtime

  29 of 88 achievements

• The Walking Dead: The Final Season
  

  11.7 hours playtime

  36 of 48 achievements

• Hitman
  

  22.9 hours playtime

  18 of 69 achievements

• Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition
  

  75.8 hours playtime

  24 of 50 achievements

Steam Library Snapshot

2021

2020

Report #20: November 2021

Season’s greetings, assassins,

This month I did something I rarely do - went back and 100%-ed a game I had previously retired. Now, Everything is not a game you beat - it’s debatable whether it is a game at all - but its Steam achievements are an encouragement to explore more than anything. I got to hear all the Alan Watts clips and reached my zen, only to figure out I now have to unlisten to them! Jiminy. I also finished the more conventional The Secret of Monkey Island, one of the better point-and-clicks from the genre’s heyday. Its story and gameplay are often silly, sometimes funny, and only occasionally annoying (Hello Stan, used-ship salesman), so it was a somewhat successful choice and a decent counterpoint to the weightier Planescape: Torment, which I hope to finish in December.

Stay warm, friends! (or cool, for you southern-hemisphere individuals)

Beaten or Completed

• Everything
  

  65.0 hours playtime

  36 of 36 achievements

• The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
  

  15.4 hours playtime

  no achievements

Also Playing

• Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition
  

  15.4 hours playtime

  4 of 50 achievements

• Metro 2033
  

  1.0 hours playtime

  2 of 48 achievements

• Planet Coaster
  

  40.6 hours playtime

  24 of 32 achievements

The Curse of Sisyphus

• Heaven's Vault
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 44 achievements

Report #19: October 2021

I keep making a push on my Steamgifts wins; not that I will finish them anytime soon, but I’d rather not have a bunch of untouched year-plus-old wins. Up this month was XCOM 2, which entered my library in June 2020. :cryingspacecat: Last year, I played XCOM and loved it, so I already knew there was a good chance I would enjoy the sequel - it turns out I was correct! As with one of my favorite games from last year - Ori and the Blind Forest - there’s not one particular thing XCOM 2 does amazingly well, but it’s more that it doesn’t have any real weaknesses and that it all comes together to form a brilliant playing experience. I would definitely consider playing the campaign again, or maybe more likely, buying War of the Chosen DLC and play that campaign. That’s pretty high praise in the backlog-challenged community, I think you agree.

Stay beautiful, assassins!

Yes, I Finished a Game

• XCOM 2
  

  94.3 hours playtime

  29 of 88 achievements

Already Got a Leg up on my November Pledge

• Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition
  

  3.0 hours playtime

  1 of 50 achievements

Stupid Steamgifts

• Metro Exodus
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 68 achievements