• Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad - Single Player
  

  13 hours playtime

  26 of 29 achievements

• Retro City Rampage™ DX
  

  12 hours playtime

  14 of 20 achievements

• INSIDE
  

  6 hours playtime

  14 of 14 achievements

• Gato Roboto
  

  8 hours playtime

  8 of 12 achievements

• Shadow Warrior
  

  20 hours playtime

  41 of 92 achievements

• Ultra Street Fighter IV
  

  11 hours playtime

  9 of 67 achievements

• Monaco
  

  18 hours playtime

  6 of 13 achievements

• Orcs Must Die! 2
  

  12 hours playtime

  7 of 27 achievements

• Wings of Prey
  

  11 hours playtime

  7 of 45 achievements

• Undertale
  

  9 hours playtime

  no achievements

June

Busy month on Steam and I could clear quite a few games. If you’ve seen any of my earlier posts, you’ll know I’m not one to chase 100%. In fact, if it’s a game I’m not keen on I’ll keep it on easy difficulty to clear the main story and knock it off the backlog. So, a lot of ‘beaten’ and very few ‘completed’ is the norm.

Removed Games
So, let’s start with the removal of Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45. A pretty dated game, but could still be fun so I attempted to play it and looked into the multiplayer servers a little. It’s a multiplayer only game and all the achievements require 15+ real players, so no way to use bots to activate them. Unfortunately, the servers are pretty dead. There is one Polish group that holds regular online events every week called ‘Red Orchestra All Nations Group’ but the time difference means I can’t get involved in this. The regular ‘FightNights’ are on Fridays 20:00 CET, which is 3am for me, so not really practical. Also, the regular events are not on an achievement server and so the chance to get the achievements are even rarer. I also got the community made mods of Darkest Hour: Europe ‘44-‘45 and Mare Nostrum in the pack that I bought back in 2012, so I’ve removed those too.

Steam

Backlog Additions

None! I added a few demos during the Steam event, but no new games. I’ve resisted the sale so far too, as I want to see what’s in the Humble Choice bundle before I get anything.

• Geometry Dash
  

  6 hours playtime

  22 of 120 achievements

• Stealth Bastard Deluxe
  

  17 hours playtime

  14 of 27 achievements

• Out There Somewhere
  

  3 hours playtime

  13 of 36 achievements

• Risk of Rain
  

  17 hours playtime

  5 of 15 achievements

• Hitman
  

  15 hours playtime

  28 of 69 achievements

• Tomb Raider
  

  24 hours playtime

  28 of 50 achievements

May

A fair few games beaten this month, although I use that word a little loosely. I don’t think any of the real achievement hunters out there would consider any of these games beaten, particularly the first in the list….

Steam

Geometry Dash
Technically, this isn’t ‘beaten’ but I have beaten each of the levels in one way, and I’m sure I will never be able to beat this game in the other mode. I’m probably mostly to do with the type of game (difficult, rhythm platformer) but I think it’s also partly my age! I just don’t have the reactions and rhythm to beat this game.
There are basically two game modes. Practice and regular. Practice is like having unlimited lives and save points throughout the level, and normal is like having one life with no save points. Two extremes. I managed to beat the first level on normal mode, but could only complete the others on practice mode. Even on practice mode, I died 200+ times on these levels! So, technically this should probably be a ‘won’t play’ after putting in my 5 hours of hell, or I should remove it from my account, but at the moment I’m interpreting ‘beaten’ a little loosely and the ‘practice mode’ as equivalent to ‘easy’ in other game types. :)

Stealth Bastard Deluxe

Enjoyed this much more than I thought I would. Bought this in 2013, I’d put a few hours into it back then, but guess I somehow deleted my progress as I started from scratch this time. I made decent progress through this. There were a few points when I needed a bit of help online, but most of the time it was trial and error. I think that’s where the enjoyment came from. It was difficult enough to be a challenge, but not so difficult that I got stuck. I beat all the levels. I think most other achievements are for collecting equipment through multiple playthroughs. Leaving it as a simple beaten game for now.

Out There Somewhere

I guess I was pretty far along in this game, despite the short play time. I think I stopped playing as I was stuck. Think I only had one achievement too, but with just an hour or two extra play time I beat the game and got to 13 achievements. More of a puzzle game than anything. It’s alright, but I’m not that big a fan so gonna stop at this point, despite the fact I’ve only got 3.5 hours on record.

Risk of Rain
I remembered this being very difficult. I think I had only played it on standard difficulty using the keyboard. Switched to an Xbox controller this month and was a bit more persistent. Still pretty difficult in the later levels and I could only really get anywhere with the Commando character. Eventually managed to beat the game on easy mode. There doesn’t seem to be an achievement for beating the game and the screenshot function didn’t work (maybe because I was in windowed mode?). Anyway, completing the game unlocked a Sniper character so I know I did actually do it and it wasn’t all a dream!

Hitman
Picked this up this month and dove straight into it. A lot shorter than I anticipated in terms of the number of levels. It’s basically half a game and Hitman 2 continues the story. I’m not very good at the stealth element of the missions, so often I’d start stealthily and end up shooting loudly and running away by the end of the mission. I have a decent number of achievements at 40%, but none of the really difficult ones or higher difficulty level completions. Lots more potential playtime here, but I’m doing my usual trick of marking it as beaten and moving on!

Tomb Raider
Picked this up in March when it was given away for free. Great game, I really enjoyed it. A friend recommended it to me a few years ago actually, but I was put off by the 1996 original and more generally the 3rd person perspective. As a teenager, I didn’t like the original at all and found that the camera angle made manoeuvring, lining up jumps, and combat all very difficult. I’m not sure what’s different with this one, I guess the cross-hairs were a big help with combat and maybe the camera angle was better? Anyway, no major annoyances with gameplay in general. It felt pretty tense at times, the small swimming areas made me feel claustrophobic and something about the game made it very immersive, it might have been the sounds. The only criticism I have is the timed button pressing. Granted, it wasn’t throughout the game (like Dragon’s Lair, a game I hated as a kid!) but I thought it would have been better missed completely. Got most of the single player achievements but a long way from 100% on Steam.

Backlog Additions

There weren’t enough games i was interested in to pick up the Humble Choice May bundle (I’ve skipped every month so far!) but MO:Astray was on my wishlist, so I traded for that. I also picked up the aforementioned Hitman. One more game I added is Project Genesis. I got an early access key, which may carry over to the full game. Not sure about it even before playing, but it interests me enough to get the key while it was free. I’ll just keep it in the library for now and decide whether to give it a shot or not at a later date.

• Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
  

  32 hours playtime

  no achievements

• PAYDAY: The Heist
  

  25 hours playtime

  8 of 56 achievements

• PAYDAY 2
  

  71 hours playtime

  229 of 1196 achievements

April

Working from home and most places are closed because of the pandemic, so I spent a lot of time gaming this month.

Steam

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Following on from Assassin’s Creed 2 last month, I moved straight onto the next game, and the only other Assassin’s Creed that I have in my Steam collection. More of the same really. Not much difference in terms of graphics or controls. Enjoyed it. Got through the main story and got a few other Uplay achievements on the way. Far from 100% with those, but no Steam achievements, so I get to mark this as Completed. Another game bought in 2012 crossed off the list :)

Payday: The Heist
I actually quite like this game. Reminds me of LFD2, which I played a LOT for about 6 months straight a few years ago. I felt the only bad thing about this game, was the grinding for new perks and weapons. I guess it’s an incentive to keep playing. The online community isn’t very active either.
This was a SG win back in 2012! (shame on me for not beating this sooner). I think extra levels and maybe other things have been added since then. Maybe they were once DLC and became free after Payday 2 was released? There are a LOT of achievements in this game, and I’m not good enough at it or willing to play long enough to get them all. As I can’t ‘Complete it’ I’m classing it as ‘Beaten’ as I managed to clear all the levels. Might not sound like a difficult task, but it took me longer than you’d expect! The multiplayer was pretty dead, so I did a few levels single player but got stuck on 3 on the levels where the I teammates weren’t helping much. Luckily I found a couple of populated online games and got through them.

Payday 2

There was a lot of controversy over this game when it came out regarding microtransactions. I think there have been a lot of changes since then and the majority that remain are aesthetic. I got the game for free on Steam in 2017, but didn’t start playing until this month. I actually ended up buying a DLC pack that included some extra levels just because I was playing so much and had got the original game for free.
Quite a few differences to the original. There are a lot more levels and you can choose to play most levels stealthily or loudly. There are obviously more active players than the original. Some are obviously cheating (hovering around the level, teleporting to different spots etc.), but I don’t think this is really a big issue to most people because you’re not playing against each other. It looks a lot better than the original and there is a lot more replay value. It does feel a bit bloated at times, there are a lot of weapons and mods available for those weapons.
Even more achievements than the original (1196 at the moment!), so no chance of me getting them all! I classed ‘beating’ this game as becoming ‘infamous’ by reaching the reputation level of 100. I think this was the original max level of the game. These days, this isn’t the end of levelling up. There are 25 levels of infamy available at the moment! Anyway, I poured 70+ hours into this game over 2-3 weeks and feel like I’ve experienced pretty much everything available.

Backlog Additions

I bought Fibbage XL to play with friends and family during isolation, Gato Roboto which was on sale (should have waited as it’s free with Alienware as I write this), and Gris which I traded for.

Spring Cleaning

I had another cull. I looked through games I tried and just couldn’t get into or actively disliked. I’m a lot more careful about choosing games these days, so I don’t often get games I dislike any more but these are all games from bundles or ‘classics’ that I bought based on name alone without looking into them carefully.

Removed Games:
Morrowind - I installed this, got a couple of mods for bugs and graphics then booted it up. Gave up after about 20 minutes. Very dated graphics, and far too much reading for me! I’m sure it’s a great game and loved by those who got it when it came out, but 18 years is a long time in the gaming world and I think it’s dated too much for me to enjoy.
Space Pirates and Zombies - is a game I tried a while back, but had absolutely no interest in. In the past, I was going to remove it from my Steam library but as I got it with Humble Bundle 6 it was linked to other games and these would be deleted too (Rochard, Shatter, Torchlight, and Vessel). I’ve completed the only game that I was really interested in from that set (Rochard) and while it’s annoying I’ll lose the game from my library, I think it’s a relatively small price to pay for getting rid of the others!
Hitman 2 Silent assassin - another game that I’m sure I would have liked if I bought it 18 years ago, but today it just feels too clunky and looks bad.
Lead and Gold - Gangs of the Wild West – I think this was the first game I bought through the Steam store. I was a bit suspicious about the process and got what I thought was a cheap, low risk game to try it out. I have 23 hours in it and some of the rarest achievements I own (mainly because nobody plays it!). However, the servers are dead now and it’s a multiplayer only game. It was fun in its time, but now it’s time to say farewell, Lead and Gold.

Hidden Games:
Half Life Deathmatch and Half Life Deathmatch Source are linked to other games in the Orange Box, so I can’t delete them but I’m never going to play them. Hidden on Steam and categorized in ‘Won’t play’ on BLAEO.

• Sniper Elite
  

  24 hours playtime

  no achievements

• 异常 | Exception
  

  7 hours playtime

  16 of 20 achievements

• Assassin's Creed II
  

  38 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Why Am I Dead At Sea
  

  6 hours playtime

  25 of 27 achievements

March

Steam

Sniper Elite
Got this at the end of 2011. I’ve played it a couple of times before but never got very far. I think in the past I didn’t really pay much attention to the mission instructions and just practised shooting people from afar. As a result, I got stuck a couple of missions in and stopped playing. Years later, I came back and played a bit more carefully. Pretty fun overall. The graphics are dated and I’m sure the 4 or so sequels have improved on the initial idea. Glad to be able to cross this one off my backlog. It’s always nice to get rid of an older game and, as a bonus, as there were no achievements I get to mark it as complete :)

异常 | Exception
Fairly new, for me. Through playing this game I realised I will never be able to program!
I’ve messed around with javascript for projects at work but that was mainly stealing sections of code and adapting them. I don’t think I have the patience or interest to learn something like coding.
It’s a pretty interesting game and at the start I could get through the levels without too much of a problem. The difficulty came when I had an idea of how to beat a level and couldn’t get it to work through the coding. I didn’t have the patience to sit and work out how to get my idea to work and I wasn’t invested enough in the outcome to stick at it. I guess if it was a labour of love, like a program I’d been working on and was committed to making I would work harder. Similarly, if I felt like making the code work would give me something back, like money or creating something that improved my life, I’d work harder. As it was, I just got frustrated and searched for solutions. Most of these were not the way I planned on beating the level, so even checking the answer didn’t help with my own initial coding attempt.
Sooo….probably a pretty good game for anyone who is interested in coding, can think logically or is patient and likes to work at puzzles.

Assassin’s Creed 2
Another old game to knock off the backlog. I got this in 2012. I have another in the series on Steam and possibly a couple more on the Ubisoft platform. As with other games, I felt like I shouldn’t try the newer ones until I beat this. I think the last time I played was 2015. I’d made a fair bit of progress but had either got tired or stuck. Picked it up again and played a lot in one weekend to finish it.
I had a few problems mapping my Xbox controller (didn’t have these in the past, so not sure why it suddenly happened) but once I’d fixed these and re-learned the controls it was pretty smooth sailing. Good game and the graphics still look pretty good. I’m sure everyone is already familiar with it. No Steam achievements, so I can mark this as complete even though I didn’t get all the collectables :)

Why Am I Dead At Sea
Picked this up this month. Looked interesting and was 80% off, matching a record low. I dived straight in and beat it :). Reminded me a bit of Emily is Away Too, Undertale, The Hex, Silent Age - short-ish games, story driven and a bit unusual. Beat it without any help, then checked a guide to get a few more achievements. I should really be able to 100% this, but I’m struggling a bit with the different endings so gonna leave it at 97% complete for now.

Adding to my backlog

Aside from Why Am I Dead At Sea, which I instantly knocked off. The only other game I got was Tomb Raider. There were lots of other freebies around, but I wasn’t really interested in them.

Other news
I went to Chiang Mai for a week. Not the greatest timing, as the Coronavirus really picked up as I left. Unfortunately, I couldn’t cancel without losing everything I paid for the flight and hotel, so I risked it. Thailand had a lower number of infections than Japan, so I guess there was less risk to my health (statistically), but it was the threat of getting stuck in another country that worried me more than getting sick. In the end, I could get there and get back (just in time, couldn’t do it now!) but it was pretty nerve racking seeing so many countries close their borders and airlines stop flying as I was away. A day or two before my flight, Thailand cancelled all sporting events and closed bars and massage places. The day before my flight there was a confusing notice about visas and entry to Japan too, which worried me a little.
Aside from that worry lurking in the back of my mind, it was a very nice trip. There were far fewer tourists than normal, so fewer crowds. I got an upgrade to a nicer room in my hotel and I got to eat a lot of very cheap delicious food. I probably could’ve spent a day or two less there, but it wasn’t a big deal and I found things to do for the full trip. I’m not very good at editing images or setting them out neatly, so won’t try and upload a lot of photos.

• 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!