• 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

</li>

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. :)

April

A mini-update as I’ve been playing, but I’m not quite ready to officially post about it yet!
I picked up Yakuza 0 and spent most of the month on that. I’ve completed the main story, but and gonna try and pick up a few more achievements before I officially post about it. Hopefully I’ll have another game or two to add when I write a May post.

• Max Payne
  

  9 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
  

  6 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Max Payne 3
  

  9 hours playtime

  11 of 67 achievements

• Minit
  

  2 hours playtime

  18 of 27 achievements

</li>

March

Max Payne
More very old games. Max Payne released in 2001. I bought it in 2014 along with Max Payne 2 and 3. I had played a little, but didn’t really make an effort to complete it until this month. Very dated graphics, but a pretty fun game. There are some bugs and glitches, I’m guessing because of newer versions of windows. It runs at a ridiculous frame rate most of the time, there are some problems jumping or running in some parts of the game, and there is a risk of getting stuck in certain parts. Whenever this happened, I just did a quick search and found solutions like jumping sideways instead of forwards.
Two screenshots, one from the final scene and the message you get after beating the game. There are no achievements, so after a total of 9 hours play I can mark this as complete.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Straight onto the second in the series. Slightly better graphics in this one and no glitches (in my experience at least). Pretty fun again. The levels were a bit more varied and you get to control a different character for some levels. Not as dark and disturbing as the first one.
One screenshot this time. There was no message at the end of this one, so just a shot from the final scene. No achievements again, so after 5 hours play I can mark this as complete.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Onto the last in the series. Released in 2012 and you can tell it’s much later than the others. The graphics look much better. Great graphics considering it’s now 7 years old.
There are a lot more cut scenes in this game. At the start I found it pretty annoying. It reminded me of Dragons Lair, where you just sit and wait for ages until there’s a point where you interact with the game. Nowhere near as bad as those early interactive movies, but a lot more cut scenes than the others in the series and most games I’ve ever played. I got used to this after a while and enjoyed the game, but still think it would have been better with fewer clips.
Right, I’ve moaned about it a bit, now the good parts. It looks great, the voice acting and dialogue is good (I’m no expert on this, but I enjoyed it) and the game seemed tighter. Changes to the controls worked well and I was never searching for keys as I sometimes did in the earlier games. The story was pretty good and it kept me interested.
Unlike the earlier games in the series, there are achievements. A lot of these are multiplayer though, which I’m unlikely to get. Might add a few more to the ones I have, but I’m unlikely to get anywhere near 100%. Marked ‘Beaten’ for now. A couple of images from the final scenes below with Max looking a little like Walter White. Not the most exciting shots, but they don’t spoil the story and show the improvements in graphics.

Minit
I actually beat this in January, but didn’t add it to the report. I think I expected to go back and try and get all the other achievements. I played a little more in February, but haven’t really felt the urge to go back to it. Sooo….just marking this as beaten for completing the main story for now. Fun novelty game. Not much else to say! The main appeal is the 60 second limit to each playthrough. The graphics, dialogue, or story aren’t going to win any awards.

Other news
I’ve been playing Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (not as fun I remember the first game being, but maybe I’m looking back with rose tinted glasses) for the last week or so and have just started Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (A Steamgifts win, that I can already tell I’m very bad at!). I went to Thailand for a short break last week. Nice to relax a bit, work has been pretty stressful recently and I’ve been looking around for other jobs but nothing is as secure and/or well paid as the role I have now. I’ve continued the relaxation by not arranging any extra work this weekend and will be watching UFC and One FC fighting events tomorrow. Hope everyone else has had a good March :)

• Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered
  

  20 hours playtime

  16 of 57 achievements

• Red Faction: Guerrilla Steam Edition
  

  17 hours playtime

  10 of 60 achievements

• Neon Chrome
  

  24 hours playtime

  14 of 14 achievements

</li>

February

Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered

There seems to be a few instances on Steam when publishers give you an updated/remastered version of a game (in addition to the original) that means you have to finish both or have one languishing incomplete in your library. In my library, this is an issue with Darksiders (Darksiders and Darksiders: Warmastered Edition) and Red Faction Guerrilla (Red Faction Guerrilla Steam Edition and Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered).

This month, I completed the main story of Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered. For a while, I was trying to do all the other side missions, but there’s one vehicle delivery mission left that I tried to do A LOT and have given up on. I could probably get a few more achievements if I really tried, but never going to get 100% as there are a lot of multiplayer missions and the servers are empty. The game was pretty fun, mainly due to the fact you can destroy the environment. There’s nothing else that really stands out. Missions aren’t particularly good or varied, there isn’t much of a story, and the physics are a bit screwy (particularly driving). The graphics are dated as it was released in 2009 (there didn’t seem to be much difference in the remastered version to me). I certainly don’t like it enough to go back and finish the main story in the other version of the game I have. So even though I only beat one of the versions, I marked both as beaten on my BLAEO profile.

Neon Chrome
Delayed my February post by a few days to finish this one. Pretty fun game overall. I didn’t really think about the achievements for a long time, then had to grind a little to get all the weapons and complete every secret level. Beating the game wasn’t that difficult. The fact that you can spend money on stats and get new guns after each try makes it easier. Haven’t completed a game fully for a while, so nice to get this 100%.

Mass Effect 3
Continuing the Mass effect marathon, I finished the third in the series on Origin. The initial part of the game felt like it was very limited in choice. The first missions were very guided and involved me just following another character or on-screen prompts. Thankfully this didn’t continue throughout the game and later on it felt more like the other two in the series I’ve played.

The story made it feel different to the other two games in that I was being pushed towards a final aim rather than what seemed like more open exploration in the previous two. I enjoyed it, and it was nice to run into characters from the previous games, but I think I liked Mass Effect 2 better.

When I was very close to the final mission, I started to wonder about Galactic Readiness. No matter what I did in the game, this didn’t seem to be changing. I’m glad that I searched online, as I probably would’ve finished the game and got a less than ideal ending if I didn’t. There was an online element to the game that increased this readiness when the game was first released. It didn’t seem to be an option playing it almost 7 years on, but thankfully they replaced this with a kind of online game. There was no skill to it at all, just clicking and waiting for a few hours then clicking again. It delayws me completing the game for 2 days while I prepared this online aspect of the game. In the end, I think it helped me to get a better ending to the game (there are multiple, I don’t think I got the ‘best’ one).

Overall, a good game and one that was fun to play. In total I put 23 hours into this, but at no point did it feel like a grind. It seemed more difficult than 2 (perhaps I didn’t level up my powers/guns as much) but not unfairly so. The story was interesting and the missions varied.

I actually went straight on to Andromeda after I finished this, but was not impressed at all. The graphical style of the game is completely different and doesn’t seem to fit at all. The characters are uninteresting and some of the voice acting is pretty bad. Even the depart from the story arc was a little disappointing after all the time I spent with the characters from the original 3. I guess I might go back and give it another shot, but I’m not really feeling it at the moment.

One more thing
Almost forgot. I tried the Origin subscription thing this month (Origin access) as it was reduced. It meant I could try a couple of games that had been on my Steam wishlist for a long time without actually buying them - Hyper Light Drifter and Duskers. They were okay, but I wasn’t particularly impressed, so they’ve been knocked off my wishlist. Not exactly reducing my backlog, but it did help me decide not to buy them and so stop me from increasing the backlog!

• Emily is Away Too
  

  3 hours playtime

  21 of 21 achievements

</li>

January

Good start to the year. Probably because I had time off work and spent a lot of it inside, out of the cold and gaming. I bought quite a few games in Dec and Jan.

I didn’t mention the Dec ones in my last post, so I forget when exactly I got the different games but my total number has risen a little since the last post. I think this month it was: Heat Signature - which came with Morphblade, The Long Dark, Basingstoke, and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. Haven’t really put a lot of time into any of these yet as I was focusing on other and older games.

Emily is away too
Bit of a strange game. Interesting, but I don’t think I could have played it much longer than I did. The main issue I had was the typing method. Basically there’s a kind of internet messenger that you type messages in, but as the messages are set you can’t type what you want. Instead, whatever keys you press a pre-determined message appears. So if I type ‘asdjahsd;khalskfhal;shda;shd’ it might come up with ‘Hi Emily. What have you been up to’ and it’s one keystroke for every keystroke in the message that appears. Playing the game involves doing this a LOT and it gets old quickly. Aside from that there were some good references to the early days of the internet and popular culture which I could relate to.

Watchdogs 2
I spent a lot more time on this. 49 hours in total! Unfortunately it doesn’t count towards my statistics on BLAEO or Steam as it’s on the UPlay launcher. I got almost all the achievements, was just left with 4-5 achievements that you can only get by buying a DLC and 1-2 that are online (I’m not very good at the player vs player part!). Fun game. An open world (Just Cause, Far Cry, Saints Row kind of game. Big world and lots to do. It wasn’t too repetitive, but started to drag a little towards the end.l I’m not gonna get the DLC, so I don’t think I”m gonna get much further with this and have uninstalled it.

Mass Effect
Continuing my trend of using other clients this month, I went onto play Mass Effect on Origin. I’m very slow getting around to playing this. Released in 2007, I bought it in 2012, and last played it in 2015! To be honest, I didn’t remember that much of the story from the parts I’d already played but just continued from my last save. Total play time is 28 hours, but I guess only about 6-8 of that was this month.
There are no achievements, and I missed some of the best screenshot moments at the end of the game, only getting one of the ship heading into the distance and the credits. Not very exciting so I haven’t uploaded them. I focused on the main mission and didn’t bother with a lot of the side missions or travelling around the galaxy. I can cross this one off my list now, but I do have other games int he Mass Effect series to play, which leads me onto my next post!

Mass Effect 2
After Mass Effect, I went straight onto the second in the series. Another one I was slow to play. Released in 2010, I bought it in 2012, and hadn’t played it before this month.I enjoyed this a lot more than the original. Partly because the graphics were a lot better, but I felt a lot more involved in the story too. It might have been because I played through it all and so the story flowed better than the original. I liked all the characters too, aside from Miranda.
I think I completed all the major missions, got all the crew members and all but 3 of them were loyal to me. Managed to complete the final mission with the entire crew surviving. I couldn’t get any screenshots for this one, key combination I used last time wouldn’t work for some reason.

Real life news
In real life, I found that I have a cataract in one of my eyes. I posted about my eyes getting worse in an earlier post on this site (Jul-Aug), but the opticians I went to at that time didn’t see any problems. It’s very early, as I’m only 37. I thought only people in their 70’s and 80’s get them, but apparently they can start from around 40. Still a bit early. They can also be caused by accidents and blows to the head, which made me think whether 15 years of kickboxing might have had something to do with it (only a hobby so very few fights, but regular sparring). Everything I’ve read suggests it needs to be a pretty big impact though, like a car crash. So don’t think that’s part of it either. Not gonna do much about it just yet, other than get stronger glasses and get regular check ups. My left eye compensates a lot, so I guess that’s a good thing.
Just started getting back into the gym after the winter break and then got a cold :-( so that’s something I need to focus on in February before I get fatter!

Hope everyone else had a good January!

August - December 2018

No assassinations for a long time. I’ve been playing sporadically, but not consistently enough to finish any games. I also did a little gaming away from Steam. I picked up Watchdogs 2 from Amazon when it had a price error and have been playing it a lot over the last week during my holidays (29 hours in and at 64%). I haven’t been on Uplay or Origin for a while and have a few games I completely forgot about on there. I should probably include those in my stats somehow or make an effort to play them!

I actually did another clear out of games that I didn’t think I’d play again and reduced the number of games I have. Then went on a little buying spree. The total number is still lower.

Not that exciting in real life either - work was pretty busy, I went to Hong Kong for a short holiday, and I entered and won a kickboxing tournament. I’m healthy though and nothing really bad happened, so a good year in all!

2018 in retrospect

I didn’t clear any games, but have managed to improve most of my stats. My never played games are dropping as I make an effort to play them and the will never play games have been played or removed. One small annoyance is that as far as I can tell, removed steam games still count towards your average game completion. So even though I have fewer unplayed games, my average percentage dropped a little :(

These are my statistics going into 2019. I’m happy I keep these in my profile, as I can see how my backlog has reduced over the last two years.

Steam Stats

Beginning of 2019 - 241 games, 2690 achievements, 33% average game completion rate

BLAEO Stats

Beginning of 2019 - 237 games

• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
  

  6 hours playtime

  18 of 50 achievements

• Orwell
  

  4 hours playtime

  17 of 27 achievements

July-August

Not much playing time this month. I started Prey and Dead Cells, played Orwell and recently had a crack at Wolfenstein The Old Blood.
The Old Blood was a surprisingly short game. I should probably go back and get some of the achievements, but I’ll leave it at beaten for now. Fun game, but I wasn’t keen on the zombie part of the story. It’s rare for me to beat a game as I’ve not been playing much, so feels good to be able to post something here!

I knew Orwell was short. The style of the game was pretty novel and it was good to play something a little different. There are different ending, which I should probably try for as they’d be fairly easy achievements to help improve my stats! but we’ll see. I wouldn’t come back for a sequel, but glad I played it.

Been busy at work as usual, I visited family and friends in the UK for the last two weeks, and while I was back I got my eyes tested to find that one eye has significantly worse sight than the other. I didn’t really notice before as my other eye compensates for it, but now I know it’s very annoying! Anyway, I have new glasses, which helps, and I guess I should wear them more. My eyes are apparently healthy, but still a little worrying. Just getting old I guess :-(

Maybe I’ll get LASIK if they continue to deteriorate. How’s everyone else’s eyesight? any experience of LASIK or one dodgy eye? :-)

• Shadowrun Returns
  

  9 hours playtime

  no achievements

May-July!

Still busy and still not playing many games! On the plus side, I have completed one game, removed two from my library (Dota 2 - never played it, TF2 - played a bit but never really got into it), and I didn’t buy anything in the sale! I did ‘win’ one game from the very short amount of time I spent on the sale min-game, but not one of the ones I wanted. Hopefully it will be better than I expected.

Shadowrun Returns Can’t remember when I got this or whether it was in a bundle. I bought it as I enjoyed Shadowrun: Dragonfall a lot. This seemed a lot shorter game, still enjoyable but I preferred Dragonfall. There are no achievements in this game (unlike Dragonfall) so it makes ‘completing’ the game a lot easier. I’ve finished the story and there are no achievements, so all done!