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Starfield
121 hours playtime
41 of 50 achievements
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Disco Elysium
16 hours playtime
11 of 45 achievements
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The Case of the Golden Idol
6 hours playtime
11 of 17 achievements
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Froggy's Battle
2 hours playtime
8 of 15 achievements
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Eastward
28 hours playtime
17 of 30 achievements
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Cult of the Lamb
29 hours playtime
30 of 48 achievements
March 2024
I missed February, whoops!
Not so much that I wasn’t playing games, I just forgot. When I realized around the middle of March, I decided to just wait a couple of weeks and post a bigger update.
I played some big titles and got quite into them. While I didn’t finish many games, I enjoyed the two months of gaming. There were a couple of frustrations though, I’ll explain those as I write about the games themselves. The type of games and my experiences playing them over the last couple of months means I’ve written much more than normal, probably no more insightful than the stuff I usually write though!
Outside of gaming, I used up all my holidays at work that were going to expire so I had quite a few long weekends. I wasn’t very productive, just gaming and lazing around. There was still stuff to do at work, so the 3-4 days I was in the office each week were pretty busy. Hay fever season got into full swing and I’m walking around kind of squinting all the time even with medicine.
February included the NextFest event and so I played quite a few demos.
NextFest Demos
Helskate - Basically a Tony Hawk game with a sword and demons. Pretty fun but I think I enjoy pure skating games more.
Pepper Grinder - Traverse your way through levels by holding a massive drill that lets you dig through materials and collect gems. Easy to play, fun, wishlisted.
Creature Keeper - Monster-taming game. Basic demo with only combat, other elements may make it more appealing to some but didn’t really grab me. Also bleepy and annoying music.
Code Zodiac - Pixel graphics, boss rush game. It’s ok but looks like it might be a bit repetitive. I won’t be following this one but may try it if it pops up in a bundle.
Biomorph - Good graphics, dialogue not as good but not particularly important. A fairly standard metroidvania-platform game but you can morph into the creatures you kill and use their different skills. Something I’d probably play from a bundle, but I’m not sure I’d buy it.
Pacific Drive - I’m sure most people are aware of this already. Looks great, atmospheric music and it really draws you in from the start. Reminds me a little of Control - kind of spooky. I got stuck and didn’t go back to it (or something didn’t trigger based on a video of the demo I watched) but I enjoyed it up to that point! Interested and will be watching this one closely.
Crypt Custodian - Ghibli looking cat with a broom hits things in the afterlife. Adventure game, metroidvania kind of thing. Character is cute but a bit big and bit wooden looking when moving. That aside, it’s fun. Tight controls, nice music. A game I would try from a bundle, but I probably wouldn’t buy it otherwise.
Overmorrow - Your character looks like an asian origami girl with a tail. You have 30 in game days before the game resets itself. I think it’s 3 days in the demo. Billed as ‘a serene, nonviolent, exploration adventure game’. Graphics are so blocky it’s difficult to know what is what on the screen. Water, cliffs, sand, grass, trees, they’re all just blocks of colour. The only way you know which areas you can move through is by trying to walk over everything. I encountered crystals and was told to use magic by pressing buttons. No control over that magic or explanation of what it is. So, the demo involved trying every direction to make my way through to the next screen, pressing my ‘magic buttons’ to see if anything happened then moving onto the next screen. I did not feel serene playing it. Ignored.
Children of the Sun - Another game most people are probably already aware of. Shoot people from a distance and you get (teleported?) to where they were. So, you need to work out if you can see your next target from that position. Points for speed, distance, hitting a moving target, etc. Stylized graphics, violent, simple. A bit too simple, an alright game but it’s not for me.
Rusty’s Retirement - I feel like this should appear in my list of assassinations, but as the demo no longer appears on my Steam account it’s not. Initially looked interesting - idle game that takes up about 20-25% of the bottom of your screen so you can watch videos, surf the net, etc. and click occasionally. So, I saw it as an idle game to play between doing other things rather than something to focus on. Click to plant seeds and build things, the character waters, harvests and converts the crops into biofuel. You can then buy bots to help and other things. What I didn’t know was that the demo has achievements, so I triggered one then felt like I needed to get them all as it probably counts towards my Steam Steam average. This meant I spent about 10 hours on it. No longer interested, it got old fast! I’m back to ignoring all types of idle games.
Steam
Starfield
One of the most anticipated releases of 2023. Based on initial reviews, I planned to wait for a deep discount and bug fixes before buying it. I actually won a copy just as the bigger issues were solved. Played a little but it was only during the last month or two that I sunk any significant time into it
I like Bethesda RPGs which means I'm a bit more forgiving than with other publishers. Fallout New Vegas was a big hit for me and is one of the few games I played through more than once. I tried Fallout 3 soon after and it didn't quite hit the mark, no idea why. Maybe it was too similar (graphics, gameplay, story) to FONV and didn't have the same impact. I think I played through Fallout 4 a few times too. I held out on Skyrim for a while as the setting (fantasy, magic) was less appealing. When I finally played it, I enjoyed it but the setting was a major negative for me. Fallout 76 - tbh I haven't played enough. I'm not interested in interacting with other players, so it's basically more of the same isn't it? I should go back to that but the negative reviews have maybe soured my image of the game. I don't usually write much, so why am I banging on about Bethesda RPGs instead of Starfield itself? Well, basically because it's the same game. FO3, FONV, FO76 are set in the wasteland, Skyrim is more fantasy-based with magic and dragons and stuff, Starfield is futuristic with spaceships and intergalactic travel. Setting aside and a few gameplay elements (V.A.T.S stands out), I see them as the same game. The basic movement, combat, interaction with characters, quest system, etc. is basically the same in my opinion. I liked it in FONV and I like it in Starfield, but the problem is the games are too similar. Don't get me wrong, Starfield looks better than FONV, especially the scenery and cut scenes, but it's not a big enough improvement. There are 13 years between the games. Despite graphical improvements, the characters look flat and glassy-eyed and lifeless. The game is big, but I didn't feel invested in the story or the characters. The number of loading screens adds to this lack of involvement. I have no desire to explore all the 1,000 explorable planets in Starfield. They are too similar and the game offers no incentive to explore them. As I wrote earlier, I like Bethesda games and I like this because it's a slightly improved Fallout in space. I've spent 121 hours in this game, so of course I like it. There are some stand out missions too, like 'Entangled'. However, it is equally disappointing. if you compare it to a recent game like Cyberpunk 2077, despite the problems that game had on launch, it is a much more complete and polished game than I imagine Starfield can ever be even with patches. It looks modern and impressive. I think of this as a Fallout mod or a good old game that I somehow missed when it was released 6-7 years ago but it is not a good game by today's standards in terms of story, graphics, or (for much of the time) gameplay. This game is like an old pair of slippers. They're comfortable, I enjoy them, but I would not recommend them to other people, get excited about them or choose spend a lot of money on them. Beaten for now. The other achievements I need require grinding and dealing with the base building system which I have 0 interest in. Maybe I'll come back at some point.Disco Elysium
I was interested in this game after seeing a review on the ACG youtube channel. The amount of reading put me off a little though, I often click through long sections of reading in games to get to the gameplay and have very little interest in lore. It stayed on my wishlist though and was bumped up a lot when the Final Cut version was released with voice acting.
Wow, just... WOW! This was unlike any game I've played before. There is nothing technically groundbreaking about the game, but the writing, story development, voice acting, and just the way the world is revealed and the characters are developed as you play is unlike anything I know. I would need to replay it several times and make notes to learn everything about the world it is set in and the political theories that are explained as you play (which is more appealing than it sounds, even to a lazy, lore-avoiding person like me). Even the music is great. Reading about what happened to the creators and development team behind the game, it's sad to think that it's unlikely that there will be another game like this (unless somehow individuals can make it work) but perhaps that will add to the legacy in a way. A single masterpiece. Play this if you have even the slightest interest, I'm sure you won't regret it! I need to replay this a few times to get the other achievements. I might actually do that, but not now. There are other games that I want to play first.The Golden Idol
Another big title. Great reviews, very positive reception and award-winning. From one well-received innovative detective game to another, or so I thought....
I do not understand the hype behind this game. The story is revealed to you as you play through the chapters and is ok, but aside from that I don't see many positives here. It looks like a point-and-click adventure from the 80's and plays a lot like one too but is more limited in that you don't move and are limited to very few screens in each 'chapter' of the game. The puzzles that make up the main part of the game are more like mini-games that you would get in a more substantial title. You click on things around a scene then use the words that appear to complete gap-fill sentences or charts. I'm honestly not sure why this is seen as an innovative game. It feels like a combination of a HOG and a logic puzzle you get in a book ("A is older than B, C lies, C is younger than A, B always tells the truth" kind of thing). If you get stuck, you can brute-force most of the puzzles. Maybe I am just missing something or it isn't my kind of game but I did not enjoy this at all. Some of the achievements need the DLCs so this is gonna stay beaten.Froggy's Battle
I hadn't heard of this, just stumbled across it while checking Steam reviews. A simple game, cheap and fun.
You are a frog, on a skateboard, skating around a loop on the screen killing enemies that appear. As you progress, you get new skateboarding tricks, weapons, magical abilities, and hats that help you defeat your enemies. That's all there is to it. Watching a short video will reveal everything you need to know. Despite the simplicity of the game, there are skill and time based achievements that I doubt I'll get, so this will stay as beaten, I think.Eastward
Playing this game could be one of the most frustrating gaming experiences I have ever had, it is certainly the most frustrating achievement-related experience.
So, first off. It's a good game. A very good game. It looks great, the story is engaging, the characters are interesting and they have very distinct characters. It's not overly challenging, so you'll likely make steady progress and can beat any of the more difficult sections after a couple of tries. The music is good too. I can't think of many negatives. It is quite long and there are some very long cut scenes, but that's not really a negative. So, why was it frustrating? I mainly played this on my Steamdeck for about 20-30 minutes at a time over a couple of months while commuting to and from work. I didn't really think about it much at the time, but as I was playing offline, the achievements didn't pop. No biggie, they usually just pop when I connect at home. In the latter stages of the game, I started playing at home. The achievements for these chapters popped but the earlier ones didn't. Okay, so I have to replay those chapters. A bit annoying, but I found out a chapter selection option appears when you complete the main story. Some of those chapters were quite long but it's still doable. So, I go back and play those chapters and the achievements pop. However, none of the other achievements will and there is no way I can get them without starting a completely new game. It seems that with an achievement like 'collect all Xs' you need to be connected to the internet while you collect ALL of them. It's not a case of collecting the last one, there is no tally of the ones I collected offline at all. So, I can't load a chapter with my saved data up to that point and collect the last item, I have to collect all the items while I am connected to the internet. It's a very linear game and I spent over 30 hours on it, so it's gonna stay beaten for now and despite it being a great game, it's left a sour taste!Cult of the Lamb
One more big release. I had to look back in my BLAEO feed to see when I got this, I guess it was from a trade in December.
I'm sure you're already familiar with the game - a roguelike with elements of management/colony simulation. I much preferred the roguelike elements of the game to building my base and taking care of the followers. While it was interesting early on, later on the benefits of having resources and followers seemed to drop off to me. I tended to focus on one thing at a time, either pushing forward with the main part of the game and attempting stages and boss battles, or spending time on my followers and camp to get achievements. There are benefits you can take on each run from a well-developed base but most of the time the time spent on getting them outweighed the actual benefits (IMO). Maybe it was because I was playing the game on normal difficulty, the benefits may be more useful when playing at a higher difficulty. I started playing in March and at the moment, I consider it 'beaten' as I've beaten what I consider to be the main boss. There are still lots of achievements left though and additional bosses to defeat. I doubt I'll get to 100% of the achievements (time based and skill based achievements), but I will probably play for a little longer and hopefully get a few more. It will stay at beaten though, so I'll add it to that category now.Backlog Additions
Five additions. I didn’t actually buy any of them (trades, gifts, wins) but still additions to the backlog - Rakuen, Chants of Sennaar, Froggy’s Battle, Slime Rancher, BZZZT.