2020: Backlog Progress
I had another good year making progress on my backlog, I won’t go as far as saying the end is in sight, but it’s much closer. I definitely had a lot more time than expected which helped a lot! Below I’ve picked out my top 5 favourites I’ve played in 2020, and my 10 key targets for 2021. Feel free to ask about any that I played last year, there’s 79 in total so I’ll spare the full reviews unless you’re interested in any specific games, I’d be more than happy to give my thoughts! The full list can be found here.
2020: Favourites
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Batman: Arkham City GOTY
24 hours playtime
42 of 64 achievements
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Hades
39 hours playtime
23 of 49 achievements
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Mass Effect 2
63 hours playtime
no achievements
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My Time At Portia
113 hours playtime
91 of 91 achievements
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Portal 2
29 hours playtime
26 of 51 achievements
2021: Targets
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Assassin's Creed Odyssey
6 minutes playtime
0 of 93 achievements
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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided™
4 hours playtime
0 of 81 achievements
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Halo: The Master Chief Collection
0 minutes playtime
0 of 700 achievements
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NieR:Automata™
0 minutes playtime
0 of 47 achievements
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Ori and the Will of the Wisps
0 minutes playtime
0 of 37 achievements
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Outer Wilds
0 minutes playtime
0 of 17 achievements
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Return of the Obra Dinn
0 minutes playtime
0 of 16 achievements
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Rise of the Tomb Raider
4 hours playtime
0 of 143 achievements
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STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order™
0 minutes playtime
0 of 39 achievements
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Subnautica
0 minutes playtime
0 of 17 achievements
Congratulations on the MTaP completion!! I’ve been meaning to try, but the romance achievements are daunting to me!
I’ve been really enjoying Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey - nearly at 100 hours since Christmas Eve haha. I also have some similar games in your targets list in my backlog.. be interested in what you think of them if you get to them before me! :)
Thank you! It wasn’t so much difficult as it was time consuming, but still as you and Trilled Meow point out, I actually managed to fairly quickly! Once you’ve reached maximum relationships the quest lines for those don’t take that long, apart from one in particular which I made sure to do first…
Wow it’s always a good sign when you’re able to put lots of hours in over a short period! Really looking forward to Odyssey, I played through the whole AC series in 2019-2020, so it’d be nice to reach the end at last, was interesting to see how it evolved over time. I really liked Origins but found aspects of the open world design a bit tedious, so I’m hoping I might like Odyssey more! Good luck with your targets next year, you obviously have amazing taste in games :)
Excellent progress! :) Are you thinking of going for a 100% completion of Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes? A specific action oriented mission was quite tough for me to S rank. I’m actually thankful that I somehow got 100% on it.
Your avatar change is not lost on me, no more Wilshere :D
Thank you! :) Haha there’s absolutely no way I’d able to 100% Ground Zeroes! I know from just that short playthrough I did to beat it that Phantom Pain is going to be a struggle to play as I want to if it’s the same gameplay, my proudest stealth achievements in Deus Ex Human Revolution and Dishonored series were definitely helped by how quickly I felt comfortable with the controls, and I just felt incredibly overwhelmed with everything in Ground Zeroes, it was my first proper Metal Gear experience! That might improve over time as I play it though, so I could see myself returning to get higher ranks in the future.
Yes… well spotted, I decided I had to finally let go of Wilshere, I think it’s fair to say his career is unlikely to return to the promise it showed when I made him my avatar! It was a sad day when I changed it trust me! I see you’re still Illidan, I’m guessing its less likely you’ll be changing yours too any time soon!
Phantom Pain has exactly the same gameplay as Ground Zeroes with far more options to play with alongside boss battles. These games have a lot more detailed stealth elements than Deus Ex Human Revolution or Dishonored. Aforementioned two games can even be considered simplistic in terms of stealth when compared to MGS. Ground Zeroes has like 6 more missions by the way, they take place in the same map but your objectives are different. 2 of these are highly action oriented, rest can be fully stealthed. I suggest trying them out as well if you don’t mind it being on the same map.
My avatar is to stay as Illidan forever. Even if I were to change it it’d just be a different Illidan picture.
Ah right, I don’t think all the options available to you is a bad thing at all, I’ve seen some amazing videos of how people have played Phantom Pain, but yes just that brief bit of Ground Zeroes was enough for me to realise what a challenge it would be to master it! I’m definitely going to return to it before I start the main game just for the story recap, but I’ll try to get more out of it this time, that’s good to know that there’s more missions available to try out different objectives on the same map, I guess that would help get used to the gameplay more too, thanks for the heads up!
You’re lucky Illidan isn’t injury prone and now a free agent!
There are 2 missions that can only be unlocked when you complete the main mission with all patches collected. Rest of the missions are available automatically once you finish the main mission which you already did. Excluding the action oriented ones, side ops are just as fun to stealth as the main mission if not more.
Injuries etc don’t concern me. Illidan could die and I’d still keep him as my avatar. I won’t abandon just because he hurt his leg or something ;) I’m connected to the character on a much deeper and more personal level. My most favourite footballers are still Scholes and Xavi, both of whom don’t even play anymore. I just don’t care :D
I’ll look forward to returning to give those side ops a go, I must admit I feel like I’d need to be in the right mood for it, I’m not sure how you play stealth games but I often need a lot of patience in places, I just about managed Dishonored and Deus Ex like I said, but that was thanks to the abilities and takedowns, and I’m sure you once said those are frowned upon! From the bit of Metal Gear I’ve played I can easily see why you’d say they’re simplistic in comparison, but I think that’s just about the right level for me!
Ahhh you’re making me feel guilty now for abandoning him! I was definitely connected when I chose him, he was a must have wonderkid back on football manager 2011, and have fond memories of his performances for Arsenal, but nowadays I just get asked instead who he is, he never achieved legendary status like Xavi and Scholes (despite being better)! I commend your loyalty to Illidan until the end!
Always get excited seeing people play Portal 2!
You’ve got some great games heading into 2021, Obra Dinn & Nier are on my list as well. Enjoy. :)
I’m always relieved when I play games as revered as Portal 2 and appreciate why it’s viewed so highly! Was definitely challenging in places to figure out some of the puzzles, but how they worked with the level design was just incredible, I loved how the game and levels changed throughout depending on your relationship with Wheatley and GLaDOS! And it was very funny too which is always welcome, definitely a must play I’m glad I did!
Thanks, I’ve seen your list and you look to have a great 2021 in store too, I had a look at the post you made and saw you finished A Way Out last year, I had a surprisingly fun experience with that too in co-op, the ending was heartbreaking but so well done! Congrats on the 86 beaten and finishing Terraria, that took me ages to complete too, there was always new things to be found at every step!
I feel ya, there’s some games like Half-Life which is in that category for me. But hey worst comes to worst you don’t like the game but at least understand the references eh, even if it’s 10 years late! Portal 2 is probably my #1 favourite game, have beaten it a handful of times and it does surprise me just how funny and engaging it is even on repeated playthroughs. Personally preferred 2 a lot to 1, but can appreciate how the first Portal set things up to evolve on later. Shame we’ll not get another one. :(
The ending really was great, hadn’t expected it at all. Loved all the random side stuff too like Connect 4, such a good balance of co-opness and mini games alongside the main story. Thanks!
Haha true, it’s just nice to finally catch up on these things, suddenly references you’ve seen everywhere for years now make sense! Yeah I can definitely see myself giving it a replay in the future, it felt like it built on everything Portal 1 did. Maybe we’ll get a VR Portal game in the future only a few people will be able to play…….. I’m totally not bitter about Alyx! I played HL2 last year and it was exactly the same experience, holds up so well, definitely recommend, plan to play Black Mesa soon.
All those side activities were worth doing! My favourite was the swings in the playground, I actually burst out laughing when they argued over what on earth they were doing!
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Just looking at those targets gets me shaking.
Good shaking or bad shaking?!
The kind of “Assassin’s Creed alone would take me three months” shaking.
Haha! That’s fair, I didn’t quite get all my 2020 targets done but just nice to highlight the games I’m most excited about! I’ll have to see if I can manage it in less than 3 months…
Soooo many goooood games!
Are you looking forward to “My Time a Sandrock”? (Maybe we already talked about that… I talked with somebody about it O.O)
Have a great next year! Happy gaming! \o/
Yes really looking forward to that! I think if they learn a few things to improve it, as it was a bit rough in places, it has the potential to be a truly amazing game! I guess it’s enough of an excuse to revisit the gameplay with it being a new setting with new characters, I am excited about it!
Thanks, you too!
Me too! I might even bug some rl ppl to buy it for me, once it’s out and about! runs around excited
Looks like you’re gonna have a blast this year, so many great games. I only played the first Halo from the collection but really enjoyed. If I may suggest something, give yourself a break after each completed game in the collection, because apparently all Halo games have pretty much the same enemies, it might get boring to fight jackals and grunts for 1030566474 time in a row if you just try to beat the whole collection.
Also don’t worry if you feel like there are holes in the first game, they kinda expected you to read the book first I guess (The Fall of Reach). The game picks up exactly where the book ended.
Jealous of your Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn, would love to play these myself :D
Thanks for the heads up about Halo, I’ll definitely take breaks between them if it is like you say, I can see how that would get boring a few games in, it’ll be my first experience of the series so I appreciate the advice, thank you! I have been warned about the extra content outside the game that fills the holes… bit disappointing but hoping there will be some youtube videos out there to help, otherwise I’ll have to give the books a read if I’m interested in more.
Haha I fully expect them to be on my 2021: Favourites list next year… I should be able to play them both since they aren’t long, if it gives you any comfort they won’t just be sitting in my backlog!
Wow, that My time at portia completion!! Impressive. It makes me wanna go back to it and finish it (finally). Great taste for your favs of 2020 and a great selection for 2021, I hope you have a blast with them. I can tell that some of those targets might end up on 2021 fav’s list ;)
Thanks, I must admit I wasn’t expecting any reaction at all to the completion, was so long ago last year I can’t really remember much about it other than its length, so it’s been nice receiving so many comments about it! These huge games are always daunting to play for me, it really is one of those that eats up a lot of time so I pretty much set aside a month to focus on it… I think I was thinking of Portia when I was trying to fall asleep… what resources I needed for the next project and what I needed to obtain to upgrade my workshop, it was that intense! Can imagine it being a bit of a struggle to pick up where you left off if you’re part the way through with it being so long, but the game and objectives are very simple you shouldn’t have any issues!
Yes! The hardest thing will likely be which ones manage to make my prestigious top five!
Yeah my biggest “anxiety” factor to go back to Portia is that i had stopped because of a bit of a burnout but now i don’t even know where I was at. Then again like you say, it’s not like not rocket science either and it’s more a matter of just going back to it.
I’m surprised it took “only” ~100 hours to get all the My Time at Portia achievements. I just checked and found that I spent almost 40 hours and only got 14, though I was probably sleeping some of that time.
I think that’s a pretty good time - very efficient!!. HLTB has completionist at 146 hours : https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=52787 leisure at 200 hours..
I also looked it up because I was like.. hey I’m close to 100 hours! :P
As Jaded suggested, I tried to be efficient from as early as possible, as I’d heard how long it takes to complete! If I remember right it was some of the production tasks where I’d need a lot of new resources that I’d have to look up and find how to get them, instead of coming across them myself, and the relationships being a daily task from the first day to talk to everyone. I think it definitely speeds up towards the end once you’ve built a factory which was incredibly helpful to production, and also have an abundance of highly wanted gifts, I think it was fish in particular! I think I preferred Stardew Valley overall as once I’d opened up the whole map it was often a lot of waiting around and doing the same routines, so I was definitely rushing things near the end to be finished with it! But still a really fun game up to that point. Definitely a game where if you do take it at your own pace, I can absolutely see why the leisure target on HLTB is almost twice that!