• BioShock Remastered
  

  20 hours playtime

  28 of 65 achievements

• BioShock
  

  2 hours playtime

  no achievements

• OlliOlli
  

  8 hours playtime

  4 of 12 achievements

• Antichamber
  

  2 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Yoku's Island Express
  

  8 hours playtime

  22 of 31 achievements

February

A decent amount of progress this month. I was mainly going back into older games and trying to clear them from the backlog. In addition to the games below, I’ve put about 18 hours into Company of Heroes. I like it, but it sure sucks up time! I think my style of play is too slow and careful. Anyway, a bit stuck on that and I think I’m still a couple of missions away from the end of the main campaign. I have DLC content after that! (-.-;)

Bioshock/Bioshock Remastered
No achievements in the original. I beat the remastered version, so checking both off my backlog. I bought Bioshock in 2011, purely based on the positive reviews and reputation. I subsequently bought Bioshock 2 and Infinite without really playing the original, again just based on their positive reviews. I did try it but got a bit stuck and, to be honest, was a bit creeped out by it! The little sisters, art style, dark appearance, creepy voices and what I saw as a pretty disturbing story. I dipped back into the game (I noticed save games from 2017 when I played this time) but never really got into it. Last month, I started playing again and made more of an effort. Got into the story a little more and am I happy I completed it. Still have two more to play in the series!

OlliOlli
I’m pretty bad at this game. I’ve managed to clear all the amateur levels on career mode, but doubt I can get much further. The achievements are very tough! I could get most of the goals on the lower levels, but can’t get close on the higher ones. Took me a LOT of tries to get through the levels on stage 4.

Antichamber
I’ve played this before and got stuck. Played it a few times, but hadn’t been back into it for a few years. During this session, I resorted to using a guide a few times when I got stuck rather than get frustrated and leave it for a few more years! No achievements in this game. The ending was a bit of an anticlimax too, I was going to take a screenshot but kept waiting for the spectacular end, or some kind of congratulations that never came!
I thought the average time to beat must be about 1 hour, as I dipped into this several times before sitting down to finish it in this session. Not sure how I beat it in about 2 hours when the average time is about double that. Maybe the times I played before were very short sessions.

Yoku’s Island Express
One of my newer games. I think I added it this month, actually. Pretty fun, I beat the game and got a decent number of achievements. Has a bit of a kids game feeling about it,but challenging enough to get a few hours play. There’s a pinball aspect too, something that I hadn’t seen in games until I played Creature in the Well earlier this year - strange that I hadn’t seen this in a game before, then see it in two in quick succession.

Adding to my backlog

I got a free key for Misbits, but will probably delete it unless there is a lot of improvement. Doesn’t seem very fun, incomplete, no single player, and the servers in my area aren’t very busy. Also added 异常 | Exception as it was on offer. Pretty difficult, but I like it.

Real World News
Not much going on aside from work, really. The Coronavirus is news everywhere, I guess. It seems to have kicked up a gear here in Japan. Yesterday the government recommended that schools close for a month, and for some reason people have been panic buying toilet paper today. I’m not sure why really, it’s not like when there’s a big earthquake and people expect deliveries to stop. No change for me at work yet, and my company have never allowed us to work from home so I doubt that will happen. I think people with kids might get the option if things continue like this, but that doesn’t affect me.
I have a holiday to Thailand booked in a couple of weeks. Seems like I can go at the moment, but who knows what will change between now and then. I can deal with it getting cancelled. I’d probably lose a bit of money, but should get some back. I guess the worst case scenario would me that I can go but then there’s an outbreak and I can’t fly back!

• Dungeon Defenders
  

  19 hours playtime

  8 of 118 achievements

• Saints Row: The Third
  

  39 hours playtime

  40 of 83 achievements

• Fallout: New Vegas
  

  39 hours playtime

  24 of 75 achievements

January

I played a lot this month and beat quite a few games, a lot of my time was on Xbox Live though so my stats aren’t going to improve much. I have about 4 weeks left of my cheap subscription (didn’t stack codes as much as I could have when they were available) and so I’m trying to play a few games that are on my wishlist. I don’t really replay games once I beat them (as you can probably tell from the tone of most of my posts!), so playing the game on Xbox Live is a way for me to remove the game from my steam wishlist, either by beating it or sometimes trying the game and deciding I don’t really like it.

Steam

Saints Row the Third
I haven’t actually played this game this month, but I realized it was categorized incorrectly. I finished the main story back in 2013 but it was on BLAEO as ‘won’t play’. So. I’ve changed it and instantly improved my statistics! :)

Dungeon Defenders
I had played about 6 hours in this game but didn’t have any achievements. I think it may not have had any Steam achievements when I first picked it up. It definitely didn’t have cards, as these started dropping as I was playing this month. It also took me a while to realize that achievements don’t trigger when you play offline! All that aside, I don’t really like this. It’s kind of a grindy tower defense game.

I played the main story on easy to ‘beat’ it and get an achievement and picked up a few other achievements on the way. I then started to work through on Medium difficulty to get a couple more achievements, but then I looked more closely at the achievements. There are a lot. 118 to be precise, and a lot of them are connected to DLC. Most of the others involve playing through the game on Hard or Insane difficulty or levelling up characters. I’m not going to spend that much time in a game I don’t enjoy, so this is going in the ‘beaten’ pile (despite the measly 7% of achievements) and I’ll move onto something I want to play! :)

Fallout New Vegas
This was the first Fallout game I played, I guess it was around the release date of 2010. This was back before I used Steam. Really enjoyed it and put 70+ hours into it and completed the game. I’m not sure which faction I chose for the final battle, I think I went with ‘Yes Man’. I’ve had the game on Steam since 2012, but had never played it before this month.

I don’t remember any bugs when I played it back in the day, I guess compatibility with newer hardware and Windows is one factor but maybe I was just lucky too. This time around there were quite a few random crashes even after installing mods to fix the bigger problems, which was a little frustrating at times. I felt like I could play the game faster that the first time, but initially went through a bit too quickly was hadn’t levelled up enough for the final battle. Another 10 hours or so and 10 levels and I completed it with Caesar.

Managed to pick up a few achievements along the way, but (as usualy for me!) there are a lot left to get. I haven’t dipped into the DLC either. However, 41 hours of play in a week is pretty heavy going for me (I was on holiday and blitzed it!) so I’m a bit New Vegas-ed out for now. I’ll mark it as beaten and plan to come back for more, hopefully not in another 8 years though (-.-;).

XBox Live

Halo: Reach
Actually, the game is Halo: Master Chief Collection but Reach is the only game in the collection available at the moment. I played the original Halo back in the day on a friend’s Xbox and focused on multiplayer, but didn’t really try the campaign and haven’t played any other games from the franchise. Reach was pretty good. The story was decent, the levels a nice length, and a level of difficulty that kept me interested but never got too frustrating (I played on normal difficulty). Graphically, it looked good, and the game ran smoothly for most of the time (in one or two of the larger, later levels there was a bit of slowdown). I beat the game in just under 8 hours. I didn’t try the multiplayer side of the game. I’m sure it’s great, but it’s not something I really want to get into. I have plenty of multiplayer only games. They’re fun, but a huge time-sink and can have a bit of toxic atmosphere. I usually play them a lot when I first get them, then move onto other games and they’re dead by the time I come back! Here’s a screenshot from the game ending sequence…

Creature in the Well
Another game on Windows Xbox Live. I had it on my Steam wishlist, but had the chance to play it for free :)
I really liked this. One of my favourite games of recent months. It looks good and the gameplay is kind of new and interesting. It was a little strange at first. You’re thrown straight into controlling the character from when the game starts in the menu system but there’s no indication of this. This feeling of not really knowing what was going on continued for a while, but it was more intriguing than frustrating. Some pretty difficult sections, but nothing too bad. Took me about 5 hours to get through it and I have 99% of achievements. Another plus in my book – the achievements don’t require a lot of grinding play. Here’s a screenshot from the game ending sequence…

Wolfenstein 2

Another game wishlisted on Steam that I played on Xbox. In terms of graphics, control and combat, it’s more of the same if you’ve played the earlier Wolfenstein games. The story was pretty bad in this one though. I’m not sure if I’m remembering the previous games incorrectly, but I thought they were better. There are some pretty ridiculous moments in this one. Decent game, but I rushed through it a little just to finish. No idea about the achievements and I’m not gonna check! :)
Here’s a screenshot from the closing sequence of the game.

Adding to my backlog
I bought Session an early development skateboarding game. After 5 hours of play I can finally do a few things without falling flat on my face! Very fun and looking forward to seeing how it improves in the future. Buying this put me close to enough points for a discount voucher during the Winter sale. I didn’t need any more games, but as these vouchers are few and far between I added enough to my Steam wallet to get the voucher and then picked up a couple of cheap games - Reventure and Super Blood Hockey. Reventure was on my wishlist, but Super Blood Hockey was more of an impulse buy to use the rest of the voucher.

I hope 2020 has started well for everyone :)

• Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
  

  17 minutes playtime

  no achievements

• Half-Life 2: Episode One
  

  5 hours playtime

  8 of 13 achievements

• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
  

  8 hours playtime

  13 of 22 achievements

• Please Knock on My Door
  

  4 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• Metro 2033
  

  18 hours playtime

  20 of 48 achievements

• Katana ZERO
  

  6 hours playtime

  13 of 22 achievements

December

A good gaming month for me. 4 games beaten and 2 completed, some old and some new.

Half Life Lost Coast
Not much of a game, more of a demo of the game I guess. There were no achievements and it only took me 17 minutes to run through the story. A nice quick reduction of my backlog!

Half Life Episode 1 and Half Life Episode 2
I’m putting these together. I played them very close together, which makes the stories a little difficult to distinguish. Both good expansions of the core game and continue the story. I didn’t really play for the achievements, just the main story. Both very enjoyable and I can see why HL2 has such a following and is reviewed so highly. Perhaps the new Half Life: Alyx will be followed by another non-VR title. I’m not really interested in VR gaming, but it would be nice to see the series continued.

Please Knock on my Door
This is a game about depression and social anxiety. I’ve had friends who have suffered from depression, but I don’t consider myself to have. I think everyone has their low points though, and anyone who has felt this way and can be honest with themselves about that will connect in some way with this game.
It’s unusual. It doesn’t really feel like a game. I’d normally steer away from this kind of game, but I’ve been more interested in different genres in the last couple of years. It’s a heavy subject, but the game doesn’t force you to feel bad about yourself or the character. It kind of simulates the feelings, self-doubts, and worries that can go through someone’s head.
It didn’t feel like there would be an ‘end’ to the story, but there are three different ways that the game can stop. I managed to find them and all the other achievements. There were two that I needed a little help with, but I stumbled across the others. So long as you are aware of the topic of this game and are ready for the topic, it’s interesting to play. A rare 100% completion for me.

Metro 2033
Another pretty old game. I don’t think I really got into this when I first bought it because it’s kind of creepy (-.-;). Not all the way through, just in parts. Still, I guess it was enough to put me off the game.I persevered this time and managed to beat the main story. Nowhere near 100% and I doubt I’ll get near that.
I had the newer Metro game in my wishlist based on positive reviews, but removed it after playing this. I’m sure it’s a good game, but this didn’t really inspire me to play more. This one was pretty good, I liked the story. The graphics were a little dated because of the age of the game, but not too bad (I was playing the original, not the redux). I guess I just didn’t like the ‘feel’ of the game. It was a long way off ‘horror’ games, but there was enough there to make me think, ‘why am I playing a game in my free time that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable’…hehe…scaredy-cat!
Glad to get another older game off the backlog :)

Katana Zero
I traded a few games for Katana Zero this month and dived straight in. I don’t want to write anything about the story to avoid spoilers. The game is good. It’s pretty short. I completed it and then went back to get a few of the easier achievements and am on 5 hours of playtime. There are difficult points, but it feels like you can learn from mistakes and find a way to beat those difficult parts. Looks great, music is good, and it has a very nice visual style. I beat the main story and got what I think are the only two endings. There are a lot more achievements. I might try for a few of the easier ones but I’m not good enough at platformers to get the more difficult ones, like a speedrun achievement.

Adding to my backlog
I did some trading and cheap buying this month. I’ve already mentioned Katana Zero, but I also added SYNTHETIK: Legion Rising, Frostpunk, and Wuppo to my backlog. I should have probably resisted those and cleared a few more games, but too late now! I decided while writing this post that I’m going to treat myself to one more game…the skateboarding game Session looks good and is on sale while it’s still in development. It’s only available through Steam, so I doubt it will get significantly cheaper for a while.

Feels like a bit of a backward step adding more games that I beat, but even after buying Session I’m still slighty up this month (6 beaten and 5 added). I was tempted by a big discount on Wolfenstein 2, but as it’s included in XBox live I should just beat it there before my subscription runs out. All the other games on my wishlist can wait until I’ve cleared more games, I get a decent trade offer, or I win them on SG :)

Real World News

I don’t live in the same country as my family and I’m single, so Christmas isn’t really a special time for me. In fact, there are often fewer friends around as they fly home to see their family. Rather than spend Christmas Day at home, I decided to ignore Christmas and just travel a bit! I went to Ishigaki Island in Okinawa for 5 days. It’s normally pretty warm all year round, but I seemed to be lucky with the weather. A couple of showers on one day, but very clear aside from that and around 24-26 degrees.

Progress
I keep a tab of my statistics in my profile page on BLAEO, but I like to post it at the end of every year. I’m a little early with the ‘beginning of 2020’ statistics, but they won’t change much in the next few days. Still looking good and the backlog is slowly decreasing :)

Beginning of 2017 - 276 games

Beginning of 2018 - 249 games

Beginning of 2019 - 237 games

Beginning of 2020 - 261 games

• God's Trigger
  

  10 hours playtime

  15 of 41 achievements

• OneShot
  

  6 hours playtime

  8 of 11 achievements

• Half-Life 2
  

  21 hours playtime

  19 of 33 achievements

November

A good month for me gaming. I beat 4 games, some old and some new.

God’s Trigger
My latest Steamgifts win. It wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. Decent game, but not great. I can’t really put my finger on what I didn’t like about it, something about the presentation maybe. Anyway, I stuck at it and completed the campaign. Unlikely to play enough to get many more achievements, so marking this as beaten and moving on.

Oneshot
This should have been a game I could easily 100%. I played the first time without following an achievements guide (I did have to get a few hints when I was stuck), then I started again following a guide on the second playthrough to get all the achievements…but I managed to make a mistake…doh! Unfortunately, there is no traditional save system in this game. So, once I messed up, I was past the achievement point. Not keen on starting yet again, so I’m leaving it at 8/11 achievements for now.
Anyway, that long explanation out of the way. Nice game. I can’t say too much without giving spoilers. It’s very much in the vein of The Hex and Pony Island – kind of meta and breaking the fourth wall. Hits you right in the feels too (T.T)

Half-Life 2
Yes, I know, I should have played this a long time ago. Released in 2004, this was one of the first games I bought when I started used Steam in 2011. I think I bought a physical copy of the Orange box actually. I had played it a little, but I guess I either got stuck or just got into the habit of playing newer games that I bought rather than sticking with it and finishing the game. I guess pretty much everyone has played this, so I don’t need to say much. Even thought the graphics have obviously dated in the 15 years since it was released, it’s still a great game.

The Outer Worlds
Played this using the Xbox live gamepass. This took up a lot of my gaming time in November, but I don’t know exactly how much because I find the launcher and website difficult to navigate. I managed to find my achievements on the website after a long search, but no playtime to be seen.

Beating the game won’t reduce my backlog or help my statistics, but it was a very enjoyable game and I’m happy I could play it without having to wait until next year for it to appear on Steam, or pay the $50+ price on Epic now. The similarities to Fallout New Vegas are pretty clear, but I also felt like there were some small similarities to Mass Effect, like the companion selection, the interaction with companions close to the end of the game, and the involvement of other factions. I found it pretty absorbing, but I don’t think I’ve ever done more than one run through in a game, so this is likely to be the only playthrough I do unless I run out of other games to play!
I probably won’t get it on Steam either. Seems silly to get it just to have the name in my collection. I did that in the past with Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas (played them before I got into Steam) and have never played the Steam versions (-.-;).

Here’s a pretty unclear screen capture of the achievement you get for finishing the game.

Adding to my backlog
I did some trading and cheap buying this month, adding SYNTHETIK: Legion Rising and Frostpunk to my backlog. I should have probably resisted those and cleared a few more games, but too late now! I’ll have to try and exercise more control when the winter sales start. These days I’m getting sale emails every day and it’s difficult to resist the urge! Must…stay…strong… :-D

Real World News
I went to Nagoya for a few days (mentioned in my last post). That was good. I spent a lot of the time just wandering around the city, checked out some sights and read a lot in different cafes. Nothing exciting to write about, but it was a nice change to go to another city and the fact I wasn’t at home meant I could relax a lot more (no chance to go to the gym and no housework to do!).

Work has been busy and I’ve done a lot of extra work too. Aside from my main job, I often work in evenings and at weekends. I think this month, there were two days I didn’t work. One Sunday at the start of the month that I didn’t work at all and one Saturday that I only did an hour or so. Every other weekend I have worked, or will work, 6+ hours! Not a good routine for every month, but I don’t mind every now and then, and it means some extra money coming in :)
In my main job, there are management changes coming soon. Hopefully it will lead to improvements rather than more stress!

I’ll go on holiday again in December over Christmas. Five days in Ishigaki, which is an island in Okinawa - the southernmost islands in Japan. It won’t be tropical in December, but should be a little warmer. Japan isn’t very Christmas-y and as I don’t have any family here, I like to do something different. I haven’t really planned what I’m doing, just looking forward to going somewhere new and relaxing.

Hope everyone else had a productive November. Christmas is just around the corner if you celebrate it, and I guess most people will have holidays. Hope you all have fun :)

• DOOM
  

  28 hours playtime

  21 of 54 achievements

• Door Kickers: Action Squad
  

  12 hours playtime

  24 of 51 achievements

October

The end of October already! This month flew by. Not a bad month achievement-wise. I got a bit distracted playing The Outer Worlds on Xbox Game Pass for the last week or so. but still managed to ‘beat’ a couple of games this month.

Doom
This was one of the first games I bought after building a new PC a couple of years back. Really enjoyed it when I first played it, so I’m not sure why I left it unfinished for so long. Anyway, got back into it and completed the main story. I got a couple of the item/power up collecting achievements too. There are a few left, but the majority of the remaining achievements are multiplayer so I’m unlikely to get 100%. Will leave it as beaten and move on for now.

Door Kickers: Action Squad
There was a voucher stackable with a Steam sale this month but when I went to buy it I realised I already had the game! That was reason enough to start playing. Pretty fun. Very small install, only 59MB! There are currently 7 chapters in the main game and a challenge section. I’ve finished the chapters, so I’m counting that as the ‘story’ and marking it as beaten. There have been quite a few updates, so I’m guessing that more chapters will be added in the future. Beaten for now though.

Real World News
Not too eventful. The Rugby World Cup has been on, so I went out a couple of times to watch rugby in bars with friends. Quite a few people I know have actually been to the rugby World Cup matches (I live in Tokyo), but seeing them on the TV was enough for me.

Other than that….I’ve been getting used to being single again and plodding on with work, which hasn’t been that busy this month. When is was quiet and I was surfing the internet at work, I ended up booking a few holidays.

• Nagoya for a couple of days at the end of this week (using airmiles)
• Ishigaki Island (in Okinawa) at Christmas
• Chiang Mai in March

I get a health check once an academic year with my work health insurance. Normally do it in Autumn, but last year I was late and did it in January. I had this academic year’s check today, and I’m pretty happy with my weight loss. I’m about 6kg lighter than in January :) No detailed results yet, but my eyesight is deteriorating (mainly due to the cataract in my right eye mentioned in a previous post). Hopefully nothing else too serious.

Hope everyone else had a good October. Onward to November!

• Into the Breach
  

  13 hours playtime

  26 of 55 achievements

September

I traveled back home for two weeks this month, so not much gaming going on. Just one assassination…well, more like a maiming!

Into the Breach
There are still a lot of achievements left to get and it’s a nice game to dip into when I don’t have much time, so hopefully I can get more achievements in the future. I finished the main story once and played a bit more to get a few extra achievements. I actually managed to play this a bit before I bought it during a free period on the Windows Xbox account. It’s a nice game. Pretty simple, strategic and I like the graphics style.

Other news
Other good and bad news this month.

• I continued with the health kick that I mentioned in last month’s post and have continued to lose weight. Pretty happy with how it’s going and I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself too much. I’m about 5kg lighter than I was in May :)
• I went to a family birthday while I was back in the UK and met a few friends. It was nice to catch up with a lot of people, some of whom I haven’t seen for over 10 years!
• The relationship I was in ended. Not a complete surprise, it had been on the cards for a while. It’s the longest relationship I’ve been in (over 5 years), so obviously a bit upsetting, but on the positive side it was amicable and we are still in contact.

Hope everyone else had a good September! Onward to October and more assassinations!

• Road Redemption
  

  19 hours playtime

  25 of 55 achievements

• Borderlands GOTY
  

  27 hours playtime

  27 of 80 achievements

• Borderlands GOTY Enhanced
  

  13 hours playtime

  31 of 80 achievements

August

Not a great month of achievements, but I did beat the main story in a couple of games. A mix of old and new this month.

Road Redemption
I played the original Road Rash as a kid, so was interested in this when it came out. It had decent reviews and I found an ok deal, so I picked it up a month or so ago.
It’s okay, but not great. It seemed a little rough round the edges to me. Everything worked fine but I guess the voice work and graphics or something seemed a bit off.
Easy to dip into and I felt like I was always progressing, so it was easy to keep playing through the month. I’ve no desire to come back to the game though.

Borderlands GOTY / Borderlands GOTY Enhanced
I bought the game back in 2012 and had put a fair few hours in but never finished it. This is another one of the games where a free remastered version is provided without synchronising achievements, like Red Faction Guerrilla in a previous post of mine. I was able to import my character and most of the achievements I had in the original version of the game popped up, but not all of them. Thankfully, I could get quite a few quickly just by visiting different areas of the game I had already discovered.
I finished the main story, but not the DLC. Could probably get a few more achievements, but I’m gonna leave it for now and move onto other games.

Other news
I posted on Steamgifts with a bit of a personal challenge this month. I’ve been on a health kick and cutting back on snacks. Decent process so far and the accountability of posting on the site helps a lot.
Still busy at work, but I’m past caring by now! :) No overtime, I just get what I can done and head home!
I’ll be visiting home for a couple of weeks in September with no access to Steam, so doubt I’ll get many achievements next month.

Hope everyone had a good August, keep chipping away at those backlogs! :)

• The Hex
  

  12 hours playtime

  26 of 28 achievements

July

Not much progress. I bought a few games (Road Redemption, Wreckfest, The Hex, and Hell Let Loose), and only finished one, so my backlog has increased! Aside from these new games, I played some Heat Signature and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II. Not close to finishing either game though.

The Hex
Fun game, from the same person who made Pony Island. I think I preferred this to Pony Island. Both good though. I don’t want to say too much about it, because I feel like I’d spoil the fun of exploring the game and discovering what it’s about for other people. The game is set like a murder mystery at an inn. There are 6 characters at the inn that you get to control at different points of the game. Each stage has a different game mechanic, like platformer, rpg etc.
I completed the main story, did a few extra achievements myself, then started looking online for hidden ones that I hadn’t found. There are a lot of hidden achievements that I would never have found myself. There are some hidden Easter eggs that you can access by manipulating save files for the game. I stupidly did this without making a backup of the save and managed to lose my progress :(
The achievements are still there, but it stopped me trying to get 100% as I’d need to do a full playthrough to get to the remaining achievements.

Other news
Got back into the gym. Work is still crazy busy and I’ve been doing overtime a few nights a week. Got people leaving at work and hiring new people too, so feels like it will be busy for the foreseeable future. I went out drinking with a friend at the weekend to blow off a little steam (very rare for me to drink). Fun at the time, but the day after reminded me why I don’t drink! Felt rough all day and was very unproductive.

• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
  

  25 hours playtime

  32 of 49 achievements

• Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link
  

  5 hours playtime

  6 of 10 achievements

June

This month, I took the time to look through my account to pick out the games I bought in the first year of being on Steam and grouped these games in a new category: ‘2011’. I’ve spent a little time revisiting games in this group. Some of them, like ‘Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West’ I’ll probably never get many more achievements on because the servers are pretty empty (I think this was the first game I actually bought on Steam). I’ve already put a lot of time in others, like L4D2, and don’t feel like I need to go back to these. There are some that I can make some progress in though and that’s where my achievements this month come from

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
I had the original Deus Ex but never really got into it. I had a similar problem with Human Revolution. I got to the first boss (very early in the game) and couldn’t get past him. I came back to it a few times and even restarted, thinking if I made different choices I might have better skills/weapons to deal with him, but no luck. Years later, I came back to it. Only took me about 3 attempts to get past him this time. Beyond that guy, it was pretty smooth sailing. Getting stuck so early on in the game, I didn’t really understand all the praise the game got. Finally getting past that, I understand it now. Great story and pretty engrossing game. I actually bought Mankind Divided in a recent sale based on the fun I had with this one.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link
An early win on Steamgifts (2013) but I never felt I could play it until I got through the main game. Glad I could finally get to the DLC this month. It was decent, but much shorter than I expected. Granted, I didn’t get 100%, but 5 hours is pretty quick. It was decent though. Fit well into the main story, just a little short.

Other games
Aside from these two, I played some Terraria. Also a 2011 buy, but a much more difficult game to amass achievements on. Also some Stardew Valley, which I chose in order to get involved in the Steam Grand Prix, but quickly realised that the event is pretty flawed and it wasn’t really worth it. It’s very easy to sink hours into both these games and they’re fun, but I never really feel like I’m ‘achieving’ much! :). Other 2011 buys I dipped into were, Super Meat Boy (I’m bad at this!), Counter Strike: Source (bad at this too and I don’t find it much fun).

Other news
Quite a lot of gaming this month and it was at the expense of exercise. Working late, I was often tired and didn’t feel like going to the gym or dojo, so I just gamed for an hour or two and went to bed. There was talk of me being sent to the US for a week for a conference but I’m glad it didn’t actually happen, seemed like a complete waste of time and I’d be with a group of my bosses who I would not enjoy spending time with. This would’ve also meant I’d fall behind in other work too. As it is, I’ve been doing quite a lot of overtime trying to stay on top of a project. Aside from my main job, I’ve been working weekends in some part-time jobs too. Should get a bit quieter after this weekend, on the part-time work at least. I actually took a half day off work today and spent 3 hours sleeping! :D

Hope everyone else had a good June :)

• Yakuza 0
  

  66 hours playtime

  31 of 55 achievements

• Cargo Commander
  

  36 hours playtime

  19 of 19 achievements

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May

Yakuza 0
I picked this up in April and spent pretty much the whole month playing it. When I saw it was in the humble bundle monthly it wasn’t appealing enough for me to subscribe, but I had a decent trade offer so picked it up. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did if I didn’t live in Tokyo. I guess people who live in places that are featured in games a lot know this feeling, but this was the first time I’ve played a game set in a place I know well. The two areas the games are set in are modelled on districts of Shinjuku and Osaka that I have visited. The fact that the cut scenes were in Japanese was another appealing point. I could understand a lot of it, and it felt like I was studying a bit while having fun!
I played about 60 hours in April and beat the game, but thought I could get a few more achievements before I posted about it. That didn’t happen though. May has been very busy IRL and so I chose to play a game that was easy to dip into for 30 mins to an hour at a time.

Cargo Commander
Very fun game. Pretty simple game and concept, but very fun. Once I got into it, I thought it was 100 percent-able, so I stuck at it and found a few guides to help me find the rarer cargo items and finally did it! Reminded me of Rochard a little. Nice graphics, likeable character, simple but addictive gameplay and a it was easy to play and pick up for a short time. I don’t get 100% achievements in many games, so pretty happy with this :)

No screenshots this month. I took some, but they weren’t very exciting.

Other news
I’ve been thinking about other ways to approach my backlog recently. I like to play games that I’m interested in or feel like playing, but unless I make a conscious effort they’re always pretty new games. I might try playing one older and one newer game each month. I think it will be a good balance and will mean I can try to check off older games that I might not otherwise be motivated to play and also get to play new games that I’ve spent money on before they get included in bundles or distributed for free!

Work has been busy, particularly in the last couple of weeks. It’s all pretty interesting and I’m learning new things, but I do more than my job entails and I don’t feel that I (and a few coworkers) are really appreciated. Frustrating sometimes and I casually look at job adverts, but that passes when I look at the big picture as there are a lot of positives. I have a fairly steady job, good holidays, I like my co-workers, and the money is decent. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love any kind of job or are doing jobs that they hate, so I should be grateful. :)