January mission accomplished! (Sort of)
Barely finished with the plan (made a separate post for metro), watched a lot of great CS games during the major, grinded some hearthstone gold and introduced a few friends to paladins, overall little to no time was wasted on the never-ending games. My thoughts/impressions:
The Book of Unwritten Tales
17 hours playtime, Achievements N/A
User avg: 91%
This is a great point-and-click fantasy adventure game to play before bedtime, the puzzles are easy (except for a few rare occasions), the story might be cliche, but the way it’s delivered (with great voice acting, dialogue, lots and lots of humor) makes it a great game. Guaranteed to put you in a good mood. The second part is getting a bump on my wishlist.
The Walking Dead: Season 2
9 hours playtime, 36 of 40 achievements
User avg: 96%
Once my interest in the show faded (there are many better shows to watch, my TV backlog is at ~300 episodes), the same happened for the second part of the game. Not looking at the game as a fan of the show, the flaws are starting to show more, a lot about the story is poorly written and feels forced just to advance the game into a direction. Clementine is the centerpiece of the game(again), and they do a good job at eliciting empathy. At one point or another every character in the game blames you/clem for everything, this 11 y.o. girl that does everything for her group seems the be the root of all problems. The story is a step-down from the first one, still worth a playthrough if you enjoyed it.
Fez
6 hours playtime, 7 of 12 achievements
User avg: 92%
Simple mechanics, cruising though the game without any difficulty, only to ramp it up to puzzles and anti-cubes that don’t seem to have any clues. There is no middle ground. The navigation system does not help.
Done with the story and won’t be returning for more, can’t say I enjoyed the latter part of the game once the rotation mechanic got old.
Blade Symphony
0.4 hours playtime, 4 of 26 achievements
User avg: 74%
Unplayable. It looked good on steam with good reviews on first glance, didn’t notice that it doesn’t have single player, would have checked steam charts otherwise.
Only one active server with 6 players, not even possible to play if the other players don’t accept the challenge for a duel. Being multiplayer-only, this is as close as you can get to a dead game. Mistakes were made.
Plans for the upcoming month:
- The latest SG win (Shelter 2 - 2h), my puzzle solving skills paying off.
- A replay with developer commentary (Portal 2 - 9h+), always wanted to replay this, and listening to developer insight should be fun.
- And a couple that didn’t get enough attention in the past (Burnout paradise - 14h and Adwanced Warfare SP - 7h). Can’t remember if AW was dropped due to performance issues, will delay and switch if that’s the case.
For FEZ I only agree half. While part of the endgame is really obscure (which I haven’t solved) a lot of the anti-cubes can be found with a bit of perception. A lot of those are constructed in the same way the achievement cube can be gained. You just need to know the sequences which are hidden in the maps. And you need a XBox controller because there is at least one cube which relies on that …..
If you didn’t buy Blade Symphony too long ago you can refund it.
It was an SG win , one I should not have entered.
The Book of Unwritten Tales is amazing. The 2nd game is my absolute favourite point and click adventure game ever although it had a cliffhanger at the end so I’m hoping for a 3rd game. I still haven’t played Critter Chronicles though and I really want to cause Critter is adorable :D
Congratulations on beating these games.
Definitely exceeded my expectations, didn’t even know about Critter Chronicles (I’m at a point where my current games and the occasional bundle is enough to keep me occupied), some background on him will be interesting.
Thanks.