Elvidur’s profile
Hello friends! How is your life going? For me it seems only work and sleep… Work and worry… Looking forward to be able to play some more in next weeks :).
Anyway, I took another close look to the challenge list, and started thinking in if I really want to play some of the games… The answer is no, so I will be putting those in red, and expect to have those increase over time. It’s liberating to accept that I made some poor purchasing choices in the past, and that i’m not gonna fall to the sunk cost phallacy again. I aim to finish at least 60 of the 100 games, which should be fairly achievable, not so many poor games anymore in my backlog :)
So, here is a quick resume of the best in this month, I will not list every game, since I don’t want to bore you…
Let's start with the best! Celeste is an incredibly good platformer. Hard as nails, offers a good challenge, that the game really wants you to win over, cheering you up, straight up telling you that you can pass this test, that you can climb that damn mountain. Story is simple, yet a powerful and important message is conveyed within. Level design is magistral, with varied and fun different areas, and controls are completely tight. If you die, it never feels unfair, which is a common problem in platformers. Also respawn is almost inmediate, and platforming comes into small areas that work as confined spaces, so game is constantly saving your progress, which helps a lot with the usual tedium of repeating large areas of a level. (I'm watching at you, hollow knight ¬¬)
I did not delve much into the B and C sides, which are even harder levels, since they are really difficult and I was here for the story and those levels already offer a sometimes harsh level of difficulty.
Overall, it's difficult for me to say something bad about this game, since it also comes from a small team, and I think they made a beautiful game. Very recommended.
First of all, I think this game is a bit overrated, I think it was very good, but not the "Instant cult game of epicness" I heard it was since years ago. It's a beautiful walking simulator with decent gameplay for the genre, but what is truly amazing is the not so obvious theme behind the game. I cannot say more without spoiling, so I will leave it here. I'd recommend it only for a fair price, since it's very short, around 2 hours only.
This is a game aimed for younger people. And it's a very good for that, with a very interesting taking in how to cope with depression and feeling of lose, which are so important to understand. Art is gorgeous, bosses sing like if it was a musical, and overall is a very charming experience. The downsides are that being your younger audience, game is quite easy and mechanics are not very complex. Good game for the intended audience, and enjoyable for all if you have reasonable expectations.
This game has a genius concept, but it's one so niche that it's very hard to recommend. You get a simple single task, wait for 400 days for the reawakening of your king. 400 days of real time. There are ways to get time flow faster, while you keep your charming character entertained. There are secrets to uncover, places to see. I will say no further, for this game is a journey in itself. It's slow, deliberately and utterly slow, the shadow moves at snail pace, every single action is slow, since one of the purposes of the game is to make you think about time itself, to make a pause in our lives and reflect in ourselves.
Gameplay is very limited, as it's fitting for a game like this. For me it was very satisfying to reach it's conclussion, but really, it's not for everyone.
Now for my biggest deception this year so far…
I wanted to like this game more. Art is incredible, and lore it's amazing. Enemy, bosses and background design are really good, but it has several big problems for me in a metroidvania, like the horrible level design, bland combat, cheap instakill traps and lack of movement skills and upgrades. But biggest problem of all, which is what made me uninstall it, it's the cardinal sin for games for me:
IT DOES NOT RESPECT PLAYER'S TIME. Every time I died, fair or not, I needed to backtrack from the last save point, which is always too far away from you. This problem exists in other games like Hollow knight, but in that game you can move faster and cover great area in a short time. In Blasphemous you are always sluggish, and controls are not as good. Overall, I think this is a good game, but I cannot tolerate it wasting my time every time I fall into a spike pit I cannot even see before falling down. I don't have time for that, but I think other people will enjoy it greatly.
That is all for today, enjoy gaming, see you all guys around : )
Hello everyone. Some big family problem and work peak did not allow me to post anything for a while. Here we go with some of the games I finished during this last month:
Amazing coop game with mandatory 2 players, each controlling one of the characters. Very engaging story, won't spoil anything. EPIC LAST LEVEL. You only one copy of the game for 2 players to play, even remotely. Really, really recommend this game to play with one friend.
This is a nice game, especially for its age. It's an action-puzzle game with very heavy vibes from Legend of Zelda games, with dungeon like areas in which you unlock one special items that you must use to solve the puzzles and defeat the boss. Combat is somehow repetitive due to lack of enemy variety and controls are a bit clunky, but the story was quite decent and game was overall great fun.
This game saddens me. I love this genre of jumpy parkour like games. The gameplay is very good, the controls are very responsive and the movements are consistent and fun. As every similar game, a lot of skill is involved in being able to finish the game. You can upload your runs or watch other people's, which is very fun and even useful if you get stuck in one level. So, why am I sad? Due to these two points:
- Difficulty is not consistent. Instead of having a good learning curve, there are a lot of difficulty spikes around the midgame, and most of the latter levels are easier.
- The game has kind of a protostory which make you want to complete more levels only for just not finishing at the end. You just complete the last level and go back to the main menu, no explanation, no ending. In a game genre that does not even need a story for work (see clustertruck, an amazing game)
Anyway, the gameplay is very fun, and makes this game worth every cent. I enjoyed it a lot even with its faults
I did not enjoy this game. I just went throught the motions to finish it as soon as possible. It's a smash 'em up with a childish story, bland characters and too high difficulty for what I assume is the target fanbase. Cannot recommend at all.
This game is also childish, with a very cliche and weird story which is arguably amazing. The game oozes charm and it's a lot of fun to play. Graphics are very cute, and obviously take from Adventure Time. It's platformer gameplay works very well, and I enjoyed my time playing it.
I got some more, but they are not that good or interesting, so I will not waste your time. Also, the games I gave up with:
I also discarded Metro 2033, because of my anxiety problems, not worth it for me to play scary games right now.
Thaat’s all for today, I will try to make more regular reports!!
Have a nice backlog killing, and keep yourselves safe and healthy!
SHORT UPDATE!
Hello there! I am advancing in some games, but some problems happened IRL and I have a lot of work, so not a lot of time…
I LOVED this game! I received it for free with a bundle choice last year, and I did not think about it, but it seems I was totally wrong. This is a management/puzzle hybrid, in which you must send trains with resources to fulfil the demands in each level. For example: Send people to log camp –> Send logs to board factory –> Send boards to city. This seems very simple at the beginning, but starts getting fairly complex by mid-end game.
GOOD
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Graphics are marvelous, animation is kinda childish, appealing directly to your inner child. I played all game in normal time speed, only to see those trains run along the tracks, those little factories expelling smoke…
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Game is very long, with 50 levels + 20 levels in a DLC (Did not play). Also have a lot of community created levels in the workshop, increasing replayability
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Gameplay is simple but fun, and scaling difficulty makes it good for everyone. Excepting some very few levels, it’s not possible to lose a scenario, so skill entry level is low, but it can be quite challenging to get those 5 stars in some of the levels.
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Music is quite nice, again with playful tones. Those train sounds are really cute.
BAD
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Track placement can be finicky and obstrusive some sometimes
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Due to previous point, some of the extra challenges in some levels become very annoying (Don’t destroy any tracks, for example)
I really recommend this game to everyone.
I also abandoned 2 games from the 100 challenge :_(
I checked on this game and it seems it’s an old version of the newer MudRunners, which I also have. The game is conceptually the same (Developer created a new IP due to some shady stuff from the distributor), so I will just support and play only the developer current version.
I did not understand this. It’s ugly, confusing and annoying to play. Uninstalled very fast, this game was obviously not for me : )
That’s all for today, happy gaming!
Greetings, fellow gamers! I had a busy week so I did not play a lot, but had some games still for sharing here. None of these were great games for me except for one, so I will keep it short. The good news is that I am right on schedule in the challenge! Let’s see if I can keep the pace till the end of the year.
This game seems very good. Graphics are impressive, audio design is amazing, it's binaural sound that really must be experienced with headphones. For the negatives I think combat seemed a bit clunky. The main problem for me is the incredible atmosphere of this game, it was too "heavy and scary" for me, and I uninstalled to avoid some unnecessary anxiety.
I cannot offer any meaningful insight on this game, but I'd recommend to any non chicken gamers
This is a spaceship game! Nice to play, but feels unpolished. It felt a bit grindy towards the end, since you need a lot of money to be able to destroy end game ships. Overall enjoyable.
I liked this game, but I should have loved it, since I enjoy a lot this niche genre. It's about renovation train stations, in similar fashion to House flipper or Viscera cleanup detail. You pick up the trash, make everything tidy and neat and furnish the stations. Nothing more, nothing less. It's like a zen experience to disconnect from world, and perfect for procrastinating real life cleaning.
UI is a bit clunky, and it had massive performance problems, which has been mostly fixed, but this together with the fact that the last levels feel rushed, make evident for me this game was not finished at release. With some more work this could be a very good game.
I'd recommend to play if you play it, it's very relaxing, but if you don't own it and are interested in trying this genre, go for Viscera cleanup, which is far superior, offers multiplayer, and it's just hilarious to play.
I also played FOR HONOR and STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT II. Since I don’t own them on steam, and I don’t have time today for fixing the panels, let’s wrap this up quickly:
For Honor
I just played the campaign for this. It’s competent enough, serves as a tutorial for the game mechanics, and the story is not bad. This is meant to play multiplayer, but I disliked the combat so much I finished the story and uninstalled without trying it.
Battlefront
I got this for free in epic games. That is the best and only good thing I will say about this game. EA crap with lootboxes and stuff is known by all of us by now, so I will not insist on that. Out of all the people I got to download the game to play some Star Wars! together, only one friend and I were able to play the game, if that unplayable mess can be called a game. Crashes, unstable connection for an MP game, even playing vs bots. Campaign again is meant as tutorial for different characters, and it’s bland and not very fun overall. Not recommended at all :)
And that’s all for this week, I continue with the pending games I have before starting another batch :)
Happy gaming to all!
Hello all again! I feel much better these days, even if works seems to be increasing. Today I will make small review for the games I was challenged to play, I want to thank EvilBlackSheep for choosing these for me!
Let me start saying that I don´t like cats. At all :D. But this game is quite a charming little RPG. The gameplay was fun yet simple, with a cute selection of equipment. While the main quest was predictable and nothing special, the side quests were really good, since every small town has its own chain quest that follow nice small stories. Overall enjoyable game.
Disclaimer: this game is very depressive. Misfortune is a really appropiate name for this "Little lady". I will not comment much to not spoil the game, I found the story quite entertaining, but I was not a fan of the art (Those animations… Yikes forever!), but the voices and dialogue are quite good, and Misfortune herself is a charm to follow around. Some design decisions made the game fall a bit short, but I enjoy it anyway
I loved this game. It's a platformer game with elements of metroidvania and … PINBALL! F****NG PINBALL! Awesome design, really fun to play, not much else to say, if you like original gameplay play it.
I don't rate it more because while fun and innovative, it's not a groundbreaking game, but I still recommend it to everyone that has access to it.
I did not finish Wargroove, only played the initial missions, because I know I will not finish it within the time limit, so I write down my thoughts so far. This seems a pretty decent "Advanced Wars" Fantasy game, which is a really cool idea. I am enjoying it, but you cannot truly jugde these games until you reach later stages, so I will review it again when I finish it.
And I leave my favourite of the bunch for last:
I don't know what other people will think about this game, but I was really touched by it. As an expat leaving far from home, I felt really identified with the feelings when you finally return back, even just for a few days. Life continues with or without you, your hometown changes and your relationships simply fade away, even the ones you are able to maintain just are not the same, and never will.
It also touches important themes about growing up, growing out, mental illness and such. I loved the art and most of the characters, they are charming and interesting. World construction is really good, you get the vibe of a small town dying out due to economical situation, something most of us experienced as well. It combines crazy moments with very mundane ones, as life is always doing. Some parts are not really good, like most of the dream scenes, and it's surely not a game for everyone, but I really liked it. Crimes?? Crimes!
I have more games to review, but I leave them for next time.
Happy gaming!
Hello fellow assassins. This past weeks have been very slow. I was diagnosed with post-Covid syndrome, which it’s making hard to breath and walk more than 100 meters, so I did not feel like playing anything, honestly. Please be careful with this shit, for you and your loved ones.
Anyway, I was able to do something for the 100 game challenge:
This game has always had mixed reviews from the community, and for me now it's clear why. It tries to emulate the good ol' Banjo games, which I did not play (PC gamer + Nintendo portable only, never owned a PS), so I cannot discuss if they are accurate in the feeling or not. But, what I can say:
The GOOD:
The game is beautiful, cute and very charming. Characters and worlds are colourful and fun, gameplay and challenges are a joy to experience. Variety of moves and powers is very good, you can feel the progress. Collectibles (a fuckton, but usual for this genre), do not get in the way too much, progress is bound to them of course, but I did not find it grindy at all to advance. Bosses were original and fun (not the last one, more about that below), and since they are not mandatory for the most part, it's an optional challenge you can enjoy or pass.
The BAD:
Here is were things start to get downhill. I loved the characters, the worlds and the general challenges, but there were 3 points that dampened my whole experience:
The CONTROLS. They are abysmal, unresponsive at times. I understand recreating the games of old in terms of gameplay and challenge, but for fuck's sake, you cannot create games which control like they are 30 years old. Huge dissapointment, and biggest sin of this game for me.
The last boss is unnecessarily long and unfair. I say unfair and not difficult, because I hate artificial difficulty. When you cannot dodge attacks because the flying controls are wonky as hell, then it's just not fun to play anymore. It's design is just annoying, and I saw this point repeated all over the internet as well. A lot of people just raged-quit at this point.
Minecart and some other minigames. They are a very good idea, badly implemented again due to poor controls.
That's all from my side, I really think controls in a game are very important, and if you get them wrong, you are hampering your customer's experience. This is not 1980 anymore.
RECOMMENDED TO PLAY: YES
RECOMMENDED TO BUY: NO, buy A Hat in time if you want a better game in this genre. That one is 9/10 in my book.
Shadowrun Returns
This game feels incomplete. I think the idea was for it to be a tool, in which you would download and play other people's campaigns. Official campaign is short, but decent, kinda as a presentation card for Shadowun. Gameplay speaking is nothing special, your standard turn based RPG. Difficulty is very lacking, even on hard, but does not matter much.
Setting is very interesting, and I look forward to read some more about this world and to play the next games (Dragonfall is also in this challenge).
I tried, but I really don't like card games :_(. I got bored almost inmediately, but it seems very interested, if multiplayer focused hybrid between card and board game.
Currently playing:
That’s all for today, be safe and happy, and keep gaming :)
Hello everybody! Today I present the final format for my challenge. I had some time between minutes and it ended like this, trying to keep the categories I set up last time (Big names, short games, things I think I will like, and bundle lefovers I did not know much about) . I also reduced my assassination target for this year, as troublesome times are coming (Extra advanced trainings and stuff that will absorb a lot of time), so it went down to 60 games from the grid, and we will see how it goes.
I will be adding 5 new games every month to the “to play” list. February ones were already stated last time, from the comments of you people.
Now, for this report, I will only comment one game, but it’s a big one…
Played on uPlayLet me state this. This is a big game. VERY big. Probably it's size it's the main issue I had with it. I will analyze it a bit more than usual since it's a big name game, but will try to keep it short:
POSITIVES
It's fun to play. Combat is good, overall gameplay is very good if you avoid the grindy, repetitive parts. There are some epic fights in this game.
It looks very good. I felt it was a bit a downgrade from Origins, but it's beautiful, and the ancient Greece setting was very well done, IMO.
I found the story to be quite decent. I mean, it's still bullshit, like every other AC game story before, but it's at least bearable and does not get in the way of the enjoyment. I actually liked how the linked myth with AC lore.
The Fate of Atlantis DLC is the single best DLC I played since Blood and Wine from the Witcher 3. It's huge, it's beautiful (OMG Elysium) and it's fun to play in. It does not feel cheap at all like the first DLC.
Sokrates
Got to kill all those malákas
NEGATIVES
The world is too big. Half the areas are totally empty, with almost nothing to do, which makes them feel like filler. If you are not going to properly use every area, just make it smaller, but richer in detail.
I did not like the main characters. I played as Kassandra, which seems to be the canon, and It's not that bad, but Bayek from Origins was hugely superior as a main character. Where he was believable and developed, with clear personality and motives, Kassandra felt plain and uninspired, where most quests only involve her a "mercenary", without any real personal involvement.
Forts and camps are very repetitive, but it's easily avoidable, since only some quests make you go to them, and you can skip most of them with no real impact.
Resuming, I find the pros of this game superior to the cons. I love AC games, and I've played all of them. While this one is not really a "proper AC" in terms of gameplay, I liked how it linked the story together and enjoyed my playtime with it.
FINAL SCORE: 9/10
RECOMMENDED TO PLAY: YES
RECOMMENDED TO BUY: YES
That’s all for today. Until next time, Be happy, Stay safe, and keep playing!
100 BLACKLIST CHALLENGE REPORT #2 - FOLLOWING ADVICE
Good day, friends!
In my list post, I asked for your advice regarding the backlog games I know little about, and I chose 5 of them from your comments as the new aditions to my inmediate to play list. Thank you very much to all for your advice and input. These are the 5, in no particular order:
Sunless Sea
Train Valley 2
Shadowrun Returns
Rebel Galaxy
Faeria - I don’t know if it’s possible to finish this one, but I will give it a fair trial
Now, for the games I finished since last time. I am still playing AC Odyssey, which is taking most of my playing time since December, so most of these games are quite short.
Dark Strokes: The Legend of the Snow Kingdom Collector’s Edition 
This is a fairly decent HOG game, but nothing special. If you are very into this genre it might be interesting, but there are much better games out there. To my knowledge is the last HOG I had, so time to play other things.
RECOMMENDED TO PLAY: YES
RECOMMENDED TO BUY: ONLY IN BUNDLES, THERE ARE MUCH BETTER GAMES IN THIS GENRE
Tacoma
What a fantastic small gem! This is a short "walking simulator" game with a quite compelling story and original gameplay that made the game interesting. I will not spoil anything, but I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys this type of story driven games.
RECOMMENDED TO PLAY: YES
RECOMMENDED TO BUY: YES
The Supper
This is how you make classic adventure games. Nice art, dark short story and a really nostalgic aura around it. For the grand prize of free, I'd recommend to try this 20 minute long adventure. I'll definitely keep an eye on this developer.
RECOMMENDED TO PLAY: YES
RECOMMENDED TO BUY: THIS GAME IS FREE ON STEAM
As some fellow assassin adviced me, this game is no longer playable, since the servers were taken down. A pity that I could not try it, i'm deleting it from the challenge.
RECOMMENDED TO PLAY: CANNOT BE PLAYED
RECOMMENDED TO BUY: CANNOT BUY
This game is hard. VERY hard, at least for the small team that was playing together. Gameplay is quite decent, and it seems to be kind of a "souls-like", but with guns. Atmosphere was good, story was spare but intriguing, but we could not finish the game. Difficulty was very high and my companions and I decided it was too much for us and uninstalled.
RECOMMENDED TO PLAY: IF YOU ENJOY A CHALLENGE MAYBE
RECOMMENDED TO BUY: NO
That’s all for today, have fun!!
100 BLACKLIST CHALLENGE REPORT #1 - NO PROGRESS YET
Hello there!! Happy new year to all! Today I write to ask you for advice from your vast pool of gaming knowledge. As I said in last post, I will try to tackle my remaining 100 backlog games, from which games 76 to 100 are in an undefined category for games I don’t know what to think about. Could you please recommend me some you enjoyed so I can prioritize them in the challenge, or that you hated so I can try them and axe them quickly to the abandoned category? They are the ones which interest me the least, so If not I’ll probably just procrastinate them till the end, which will be bad if I have to play 10+ bad games at once…
Here is the list:
American Fugitive
Ancestor’s Legacy
Aquaria
Cities in Motion
Devil May Cry
Faeria
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes
Full Metal Furies
Hob
Little Big Workshop
MudRunners
Outcast: Second contact
Phantom Doctrine
Rebel Galaxy
Satellite Reign
Shadowrun Chronicles - Boston Lock.
Shadowrun Returns
Shadowrun: Dragonfall
Sudeki
Sunless Sea
Survivalist
The Bard’s Tale IV
The Incredible Advent. of Van Helsing
Train Valley 2
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
Finally, since I should always post some kind of review, I post my first finished game of the year, which is not included in the challenge since it’s a coop game.
This is a little gem to play with a spouse/friend. It's a short puzzle game for 2 players, which must work together (Often in separate locations, communicating via walkie) to advance. Story makes no sense, but puzzles are interesting and varied, and overall it's a very enjoyable experience to share with someone.
RECOMMENDED TO PLAY: YES
RECOMMENDED TO BUY: Only if you have someone to play, since it's COOP only game, and online match may prove hard.
Thanks for the help. Enjoy the weekend, and keep gaming!!
THE BLACKLIST 100 CHALLENGE
Good day everyone!
After some years out killing backlog alone I came back here with the hopes of sharing some more advancement with you. This year was terrible for most people, but at least it allowed me to play more than usual. Always see the positive side of things :).
About the backlog, when I started some years ago I had almost 200 names in the list, of which I managed to reduced to almost 60. Then I got the brilliant idea of reclaiming (and gifting!) a lot of the keys I had in different platforms. That, combined with some recent bundles I got, finally gave me the actual number of 100 backlog games. Overall, my data sheet tells me I’ve got:
- 57% games finished
- 27% games abandoned
- 16% games in backlog
So with this very even number of 100 games, I separated them in categories, because I tend to be very dispersed sometime, playing a lot of indie and short games, which is normally a very good thing, but at the cost of procrastinating playing the bigger and longer games, which are also very good, and potentially costed me more money. The idea is to choose at least one game from each category and play all of them till completion/abandonment without playing any more games in between. (Exception to this are games that cannot be finished and cooperative games, which I play with my wife and are not included in the list)
This is first draft of a grid, in which I will be following this challenge. My target is to eliminate at least 70 names from it during 2021, starting with the ones I am already playing or have installed:
#1: Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
#28: Dark Strokes: The Legend of the Snow Kingdom Collector’s Edition
#41: Tacoma
#55: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
#75: Yooka - Laylee
We will see how it goes, I will make small reviews as I finish them.
For the last category, games 76 to 100, I will request some advice from you in the next post :D.
Don’t forget to stay safe for you and your loved ones, I just got out of COVID and I cannot recommend it at all, 0/10
Have a very merry christmas time, and thank you for reading.
| 487 | games (+224 not categorized yet) |
| 26% | never played |
| 1% | unfinished |
| 0% | beaten |
| 61% | completed |
| 12% | won't play |