Final October Report
So my first month (well, half a month) on BLAEO has come to a close, and I am pretty happy with the progress that I made. I played 10 games on Steam since joining this site midway through the month: 6 completed, 2 beaten, and 2 still unfinished. Of the two unfinished games, RE3 I intend to continue to play in November and hopefully complete. Styx, on the other hand, is still taxing my patience. I really only enjoy playing it for 30 minutes to an hour at a time which is not particuarly conducive to finishing it. My current goal there is to complete it by the end of 2020.
Games Completed Since Last Post
I really enjoyed this game, much more than I was expecting to since I knew it was a port from a mobile game. But it was an excellent take on the stealth genre. Interestingly, the player controls both a disembodied hacker (capable of manipulating cameras, hacking doors, etc) and the main character who you must direct about the map. Despite how strange that may sound, the gameplay flows easily. The story was quite robust with an interesting cast of characters (of which the PC is likely the weakest link) and the voice acting was top notch with some very prominent voice actors lending their talent to the project.
There was some glitchiness when the game (likely trying to help people playing on a mobile device) would automatically jump cameras at inopportune moments. Otherwise, the game ran smoothly and adapted well to PC controls. My only other main complaint was the ending (isn't that so often the case?) which I felt was underwhelming.
My overall impression of this zombie-platformer is "meh." It was short and sweet, with a platforming system that wasn't overly difficult but on the occasions that it challenged me, it didn't feel unfair. I got better at timing jumps and transitioning between motions as the game went on, so any early hiccups were down to my failures and not level design. The graphics were fine and collectibles weren't overly difficult to collect for the avid achievement hunters out there.
Now onto the negatives. The story was utterly forgettable. Admittedly, I clicked through most of the later cutscenes, but that was because I was bored with the story line within minutes of the game beginning. There are zombies trying to kill you and I think your family is missing? Wouldn't swear to it but that was my general impression. I also experienced some problems with the audio; the sound cut in and out so I was frequently playing in dead silence. Eventually, I removed my headphones and played on without any music or sound effects.
A decent game to waste a few hours with, but nothing spectacular. I'll likely reinstall it at some point for the final achievement but it requires playing the game without autosaves (the only type of saves this game permits) which means perma-death. I tried it once and died after I'd made a significant amount of progress and didn't feel up to replaying that all over again so this is being added to my "come back and complete for achievements later" list here on BLAEO =D
This is a game that I had won on SG and mostly completed except for the last few pesky achievements. I went back this month to 100% it.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. It's a quirky choose-your-own adventure type action game in a colorful world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. The controls are easy to grasp since you mostly rely on your mouse for movement and attacks. There were only 2 keys I remember pressing regularly on the keyboard: CTRL and Alt. The gameplay mostly consists of your beating up hordes of enemies with your sword and getting XP based on how well you do so which are then spent in traditional RPG fashion to gain skills for your character.
There are two main gimmicks: 1) the narrator and 2) the replayability. The narrator is a wry and witty individual who is narrating all the actions you take. The humor of this voiceover provides a lot of the enjoyment as he mocks you for your actions and poor decisions. The game's second gimmick centers on the fact your character obtained a book which can plot out all potential futures. You keep replaying the game (i.e. rereading the book) and try to take different actions to uncover 4 "truths" and then reach the "true" ending.
If you aren't an achievement hunter, I readily recommend this game. It is a lot of fun to play for 5-6 hours; the humor stays fresh and--depending on your choices-- you can still be seeing a lot of new content. It is totally possible to beat the game and get the true ending in that amount of time. However, there are 24 possible stories to uncover + 1 true ending. And finding every single story isn't enough to max your XP and get the final achievement, so you have to grind after the game is completed if you want to 100% the game. Unfortunately, while a lot of the cutscenes can be skipped once you've watched them once, there's a fair amount of dialogue that is unskippable. This is very dull as you repeat basically the same storyline with a minor variation to get the different ending.
Games Previously Reviewed
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Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
-
Moons of Madness
-
Kathy Rain
-
Overlord II
24.2 hours playtime
no achievements
-
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
-
Styx: Master of Shadows
Plan for November
I have fairly lofty goals for November; let's see how well I actually get to them! At the end of October, I started playing the RE:3 Remake which I hope to complete this month. I have 5 other games I want to beat and I'd like to make more progress with Borderlands 2. Here's my game plan for November then:
-
Sunless Skies
-
Resident Evil 3
-
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
-
Pinstripe
-
The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day
-
The Town of Light
-
Borderlands 2
I really enjoyed this game, much more than I was expecting to since I knew it was a port from a mobile game. But it was an excellent take on the stealth genre. Interestingly, the player controls both a disembodied hacker (capable of manipulating cameras, hacking doors, etc) and the main character who you must direct about the map. Despite how strange that may sound, the gameplay flows easily. The story was quite robust with an interesting cast of characters (of which the PC is likely the weakest link) and the voice acting was top notch with some very prominent voice actors lending their talent to the project.
There was some glitchiness when the game (likely trying to help people playing on a mobile device) would automatically jump cameras at inopportune moments. Otherwise, the game ran smoothly and adapted well to PC controls. My only other main complaint was the ending (isn't that so often the case?) which I felt was underwhelming.
My overall impression of this zombie-platformer is "meh." It was short and sweet, with a platforming system that wasn't overly difficult but on the occasions that it challenged me, it didn't feel unfair. I got better at timing jumps and transitioning between motions as the game went on, so any early hiccups were down to my failures and not level design. The graphics were fine and collectibles weren't overly difficult to collect for the avid achievement hunters out there.
Now onto the negatives. The story was utterly forgettable. Admittedly, I clicked through most of the later cutscenes, but that was because I was bored with the story line within minutes of the game beginning. There are zombies trying to kill you and I think your family is missing? Wouldn't swear to it but that was my general impression. I also experienced some problems with the audio; the sound cut in and out so I was frequently playing in dead silence. Eventually, I removed my headphones and played on without any music or sound effects.
A decent game to waste a few hours with, but nothing spectacular. I'll likely reinstall it at some point for the final achievement but it requires playing the game without autosaves (the only type of saves this game permits) which means perma-death. I tried it once and died after I'd made a significant amount of progress and didn't feel up to replaying that all over again so this is being added to my "come back and complete for achievements later" list here on BLAEO =D
This is a game that I had won on SG and mostly completed except for the last few pesky achievements. I went back this month to 100% it.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. It's a quirky choose-your-own adventure type action game in a colorful world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. The controls are easy to grasp since you mostly rely on your mouse for movement and attacks. There were only 2 keys I remember pressing regularly on the keyboard: CTRL and Alt. The gameplay mostly consists of your beating up hordes of enemies with your sword and getting XP based on how well you do so which are then spent in traditional RPG fashion to gain skills for your character.
There are two main gimmicks: 1) the narrator and 2) the replayability. The narrator is a wry and witty individual who is narrating all the actions you take. The humor of this voiceover provides a lot of the enjoyment as he mocks you for your actions and poor decisions. The game's second gimmick centers on the fact your character obtained a book which can plot out all potential futures. You keep replaying the game (i.e. rereading the book) and try to take different actions to uncover 4 "truths" and then reach the "true" ending.
If you aren't an achievement hunter, I readily recommend this game. It is a lot of fun to play for 5-6 hours; the humor stays fresh and--depending on your choices-- you can still be seeing a lot of new content. It is totally possible to beat the game and get the true ending in that amount of time. However, there are 24 possible stories to uncover + 1 true ending. And finding every single story isn't enough to max your XP and get the final achievement, so you have to grind after the game is completed if you want to 100% the game. Unfortunately, while a lot of the cutscenes can be skipped once you've watched them once, there's a fair amount of dialogue that is unskippable. This is very dull as you repeat basically the same storyline with a minor variation to get the different ending.
-
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
-
Moons of Madness
-
Kathy Rain
-
Overlord II
24.2 hours playtime
no achievements
-
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
-
Styx: Master of Shadows
Plan for November
I have fairly lofty goals for November; let's see how well I actually get to them! At the end of October, I started playing the RE:3 Remake which I hope to complete this month. I have 5 other games I want to beat and I'd like to make more progress with Borderlands 2. Here's my game plan for November then:-
Sunless Skies
-
Resident Evil 3
-
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
-
Pinstripe
-
The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day
-
The Town of Light
-
Borderlands 2
Hmm, didn’t know Kathy Rain is actually that short. I will try to beat it this month!
Congrats on completing Stories! I really enjoyed it too, but found it too repetitive to play more than the “strictly needed” paths. However, I liked it enough to keep an eye on the newer game(s) by the devs.