Casual achievement hunter’s progress log #75
The month when I was always playing games. And when I started a Youtube channel for video game reviews. Ah the cringe!
Beaten
Focus and Spiders both are known for clunky RPGs. This is probably one of the most polished game they've released though, which is nice.
As a sequel of Mars: War Logs, you play as a dude from the opposite faction.
Look, honestly, I find it hard to describe most things about this game, but here's what I can say.
The game's beautiful. It's jank that you can adapt to. I had a fair bit of fun, but the game has a lot of filler as well. It's a 18 hour game that has 9 hours of filler (approximately).
The folks are hidden and finding them is not always as fun as you might think.
Hidden Folks takes the "Where's Waldo" concept and slightly expands on it by making larger areas and making them interactable. The real issue however comes in with the visuals being monotone and everything being so cluttered. I had a headache twice during the 3 hours that I played. It kind of just abuses your eyes a lot and I just can't approve of it.
Also, the way you find some people is a bit annoying. Sometimes you have to find insanely small details hidden underneath a random cluster of same-looking clutter. So for example, you need to interact with like 20 clouds in the same place just to find some small item. It's no longer that fun type of "Do you notice the detail", instead it's more of a "Can you be bothered to click on 50 items to search them to find whatever you need."
The images are cute however and I don't regret my time with this.
Also, you need a DLC to get all of the achievements, which is genuinely just malicious business practice.
Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition
7.9 hours, 19 of 60 achievements
Beaten as part of the August Monthly Theme
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I'm surprised how great this game looks.
The gameplay's definitely a bit simple and repetitive, but I enjoyed the game regardless.
A total fucking banger of a game, honestly. Arkane's done it again! I beat the game twice, thinking I got all the content out of it, only to find out that there's a fair few things I could've also done.
Prey's totally worth it if you're like me and want an experience where you're dropped in a new setting and make you try and figure things out, turning from prey to predator in the hostile environment.
Another Tropico game. Yeah, the story's solid, but it's nowhere near as fun as Tropico 4. Regardless, it's done and I don't regret my time with it.
A great walking simulator with a decent story. Sadly, the posed mystery isn't really answered satisfyingly and so it can leave you unsatisfied. Regardless, I still recommend this game.
Finally finished it! It was a lot of fun, played through it twice, in fact.
The game's ridiculously gorgeous, which makes me confused as to why games often can't reach this level still.
Yeah… I liked Metro 2033 a lot… I beat this one twice as well. :)
Though, visually it's a bit underwhelming, yet still beautiful.
Once again, 2 playthroughs. Yeah, I love Metro a lot! Basically 6 playthroughs of Metro in a month. A bit of a more simplistic entry this time. The gameplay barely evolves and the story's a total step down. Just overall, Last Light is definitely weaker than 2033. It's less interesting and compelling.
This one got me thinking enough to make me want to make a video review as well. As of now, there's 40 minutes of audio and 4000 words in the script. Even then, I held back a lot. The original plans would've made the script around 7000 words long…
Wanted to get another Steamgifts win finished. This time, it was a short one. Ferrum's Secrets is a pretty weak Point and Click game with HOG minigames. The story's really boring and uninteresting and the gameplay's pretty weak as well. I don't recommend this game almost at all.
Was gifted this a while back when I gifted the same game to my friend. But unlike him, I actually didn't really want it. So I'll be honest, I was a bit bitter about getting a gift like this. I bought it for him because he wanted it and he obviously bought it so he'd have someone to play with, not because I would be happy to get it. Regardless, a gift's a gift and I can't complain. I didn't expect anything in return, but it just didn't feel like a gift for me, instead a gift for him again.
We played the multiplayer and it was pretty boring. But I saw a story mode, so I didn't uninstall. So I finally went into it (8 months later) and I expected basically just bot matches with some basic story stuff added. Instead, it was a really fun and funny experience. An hour and a half of a legit story. No multiplayer garbage and instead this was a totally new part of the game.
Completed
Legendary
5.8 hours, no achievements
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A Z-tier CoD wannabe. It's clunky, but it was decent enough to not make me want to die during those 6 hours.
Tropico 3: Absolute Power
52.6 hours, no achievements
Completed as part of the August Monthly Theme
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GOOOOOOOOD MORNNNIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNG TROPICOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Basically this is the less flexible father of Tropico 4. No real imports, no quick builds, no convenience. But it's still a really fun game.
Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry
4.3 hours, no achievements
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It's a pretty decent Assassin's Creed IV expansion. Basically just a more compact version of the original.
Grand Theft Auto III
12.6 hours, no achievements
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Basically a GTA game without the character around it. So, the story's very threadbare and also a bit uneventful. Yet, the game's still fun and entertaining.
My 2 minute long video review (I'm aware of the audio edit issue :D)
100%d!!!!!!! This marks another Bethesda game that I've 100%d! So far, I've got Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, Skyrim SE and now this. Sadly I don't have VR and Fallout 3 doesn't have actual achievements. Though, Fallout 3's been 100%d in-game as well.
Fallout 4 definitely made it the hardest to 100%.
Answer Knot was a fun ride. 45 minutes to tell a quick story.
| 23,521 achievements (+195) | 86 perfect games (+1) | 43% avg. game completion (+1%) |
| 1,470 games (+11) | 1,745 DLC owned (+26) | 163 reviews (+3) | 890 wishlisted (+17) |
| 50% never played (-1%) |
| 18% unfinished (-1%) |
| 16% beaten (+1%) |
| 15% completed (+1%) |
| 1% won’t play (+0%) |
Another review channel GET. You have a pleasant listenable voice without doing any gimmicks like exaggerated reactions or such.
Thanks for commenting on my video as well! Honestly, I was worried that my voice wasn’t going to be pleasant to listen to (I guess we all dislike our voices to an extent when listening to it).
I’ll definitely try and keep myself more grounded with the reactions and stuff. Can’t guarantee that I won’t have a noticeable reaction, but in those cases they’ll be legitimate. That much I can promise :D
I’m glad that there are people willing to give my stuff a chance. :)
Figured me out, huh? :D
Really good video. I really feel like the throwing knife is OP as all hell for stealth, though. Even if you miss you can still recover it. Also, should I have a dedicated weapon with a silencer or will knives do for sneaky bits?
Figured me out, huh? :D
Had my best people on it, but we got you!!!
Really good video.
I appreciate the good words :)
Honestly, I always had this setup: If you have 3 slots, then pistol (sniper later in the game), assault rifle/SMG, shotgun. At least one of them should be
silenced.
I didn’t really mess around with throwing knives either. Mainly takedowns and just shooting. The throwables had awkward controls for me, so I never could properly rely on them. Instead, if need be, you can just sneak past whoever is too risky.
Am I blind and I can’t find link to your YT channel or did you not post it here? And if I had to guess from what I saw of your posts on SG I would guess you’re doing videos ala MandaloreGaming, Raycevick etc? If that’s the case, I’m interested.
As for Metro, I really really really recommend books by Dmitry Glukhovsky! The games didn’t do the books justice, although I was heavily biased by my STALKER fanboyism back then, as people often compared Metro to them.
I posted links to the videos I made on some of these games (GTA III and Answer Knot) and I’ve also added a link to the Metro 2033 Redux review I made in the description. I wasn’t sure if I could post the link in the title, since it might go against the rules and I also didn’t want to seem like I’m forcing my stuff on people.
And if I had to guess from what I saw of your posts on SG I would guess you’re doing videos ala MandaloreGaming, Raycevick etc? If that’s the case, I’m interested.
Honestly, you’ve nailed two of the four inspirations I had that kind of kicked me into gear with what I’m currently making. The other two are TehSnakerer and Whitelight. Basically a person that can make anything engaging and Raycevick’s long lost brother.
As of now, my videos aren’t too much like them. With two of the videos being legitimate quickies and Metro 2033 Redux being a video review that’s relatively short. I have two longer projects that I’m working on right now (one needs me to re-record it since there are some glaring audio niggles that I just can’t slide past, even with my low standards) and 5 smaller projects that are at various stages of completion. Also, I have two ideas for videos that aren’t directly just reviews, but still tackle certain aspects of games. In these two cases, they’re both about a single game franchise and a single aspect I’d want to dive deeper on. But as of now, I haven’t done much with them due to a small technical issue and also the fact that my video library’s a bit too small to start working on something like that.
But it’s a long way of saying that basically I’m not exactly like them, but they’re major inspirations to me.
As for Metro, I really really really recommend books by Dmitry Glukhovsky! The games didn’t do the books justice, although I was heavily biased by my STALKER fanboyism back then, as people often compared Metro to them.
I still need to read two books to reach my goal for this year, so I might as well have at least one of them be a Metro book. I’ll have a look at what I can get here! :)
Thanks for showing interest. I legit didn’t even expect a comment to begin with, much less comments that are all showing interest in my “works”. :D
I’ll link you my channel here as well, in case you’re still interested
I know Whitelight too and enjoy his content. I subbed to TehSnakerer after Whitelight made celebratory video and giving a shoutout to a lot of similar youtubers but I haven’t seen any of his videos yet. If you want even more, I also recommend ColourShedProductions and PostMesmeric.
Some thoughts, hopefully it’s not too much for you and if you agree with me, don’t try to push yourself to implement all of it right away.
I watched all 3 videos and I think you did okay. I noticed on your GTA III video you were staying silent for 1-2 sec between sentences but I didn’t noticed that on your later videos which is good. Subbed! Your voice is nice :) I guess you could try record more footage if you have storage for that, if you talk for example about AI, show it in action as you speak about etc.
Also make sure to tag your videos as much as possible to help growth. Thumbnails are super important too, you may want to hire someone to do them for you if you can, or try something yourself, right now to be frank they’re kinda bland.
And the infamous algorithm, I don’t know how to use it to your advantage but you probably don’t want to wait for someone to binge through video game reviews & essays and find you after 50 videos or so :P
I also recommend ColourShedProductions and PostMesmeric.
Already got them in my sub box :D
I’ll recommend Liam Triforce, Ludo Lense, JamesBlack47, minimme, Game Maker’s Toolkit obviously, Super Bunnyhop, Chariot Rider, Indie Bytes, Atmos Fabula, Novacanoo, SquidTheSid, Hey hey people Seth here.. .SsethTzeentach, GAMESD, whatever’s left of MisterCaption. Dude had a mental breakdown, and the gaming related videos of hbomberguy.
Not all of them are directly related to the stuff I make since a lot of them talk about games in general, but they all have something I’d like to learn from them. A lot of them do some things really fucking well. I highly recommend putting at least one video from each of them (if they have some topic you’re interested in) in your Watch Later list if you can.
I watched all 3 videos and I think you did okay. I noticed on your GTA III video you were staying silent for 1-2 sec between sentences but I didn’t noticed that on your later videos which is good.
Yikes, that video’s a total mess, honestly. I was thinking of putting it on private, but it’s probably better to just leave some fuckups on display. Even better that it’s literally the first video. :D
Subbed! Your voice is nice :) I guess you could try record more footage if you have storage for that, if you talk for example about AI, show it in action as you speak about etc.
Thank you! Disk space is genuinely one of the biggest concerns here, yeah. Currently I started trying out GeForce’s Shadowplay, which has active recording, which you can then save when you think there’s something of note. I’m doing that now with one of my reviews. Though I haven’t even beaten the game, so we’ll see when we can see those in effect. I’ll try and get more comfortable with the editing software too since I’ve never really edited videos before and these 3 are basically my first times :)
Also make sure to tag your videos as much as possible to help growth. Thumbnails are super important too, you may want to hire someone to do them for you if you can, or try something yourself, right now to be frank they’re kinda bland.
Tagging’s a weird one yeah. I try and get the search terms, but it’s always rough to know if there’s something more I could’ve done or not. As to the thumbnails, again, I have to do them myself, so I’m basically learning GIMP from scratch. Everything I do is on a $0 budget (except for the games I’ve purchased at some points, though never specifically for reviews as of now), so hiring is out of the question. I’ll try and experiment slowly with the stuff. Just yesterday I learned another new feature, which is the reason I was able to slightly improve the font game with the thumbnail. Regardless, I’m learning 3 programs at once, so I hope the progress won’t be too slow because of that :D
And the infamous algorithm, I don’t know how to use it to your advantage but you probably don’t want to wait for someone to binge through video game reviews & essays and find you after 50 videos or so :P
It’s always a gamble, yeah. In all honesty, that’s kind of what I do with channels that I find, but I know others don’t tend to do that. Also, a lot of luck’s involved, so I also kind of have to hope for a video that just happens to get a few more eyeballs on it. From what I’ve seen, this stuff’s a grind to an extent, so it’ll be hard to achieve much if I hope for one hit wonders. I need the experience anyways, so might as well make stuff :D
Thanks for the advice! Honestly, the thumbnails were the only thing I was “satisfied” with for now, but it’s good to hear opposing ideas. I’ll try and think of ways to spice them up a bit :)
Prey is goddamn brilliant. i wish it was more popular, then again the aspects it takes a more niche approach are the ones that stand out the most to me.
i say this with love, the people at Arkane bow to Looking Glass like they have the higher authority on how immersive games look like, which, well… they’re not wrong.
Yeah, 100% agree with you here.
Though I understand why it isn’t more popular. The launch was rocky at best, with people being more than pessimistic about the game. That wasn’t really helped by their pre-release demos, which literally showed the worst aspects of the game off. So, no interesting story stuff, no interesting enemies. Just being in space, which was honestly, just total filler. Same goes for actual review copies, which were under Bethesda’s controversial fist of “Day 1 review copies”.
Prey started doing a bit better over time though, so perhaps it’s not that doomed yet. Fuck would I love a Prey 2 (and that’s a rare thing to hear from me). :D
Cool stuff. Is there a way to get a template like your total break-down? I like it a lot.
Hey, thanks for checking it out!
I’m actually using a website to do it: Link. It’s got Steam integration for the smaller details and it has different designs you can use. It’s really intuitive.
The bottom stats are a makeshift formula I basically created for myself. I’ll try and edit the comment with the source if you want. I can’t remember how to do it at the moment though :D
Thanks for your quick answer. I also use the BLAEO generator at times, e.g. for profile limited games. Better than the one integrated here.
I see. It’s a handmade table. I think I start a thread on the discussion board to give others a chance as well to share useful templates like yours. Thumbs up!
Better than the one integrated here.
Haha, yeah, it’s a very rickety one, I know. But imo it’s pretty solid for conveying information in a clear way :D
Hey, just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed your channel and subscribed just now. I didn’t do much research but I think there aren’t many channels that review older games so yours was definitely a breath of fresh air (and the short videos also help). Good luck with it! :)
Thank you so much for the kind words! There definitely are some channels that review older games, but they tend to also go for the old and obscure ones. I don’t really want to pigeonhole myself here, so I won’t really claim what I’ll specifically review. But as of now, I have 7 reviews in the works. All of them are pretty popular games and they’re all games from 2012+ (except for one quickie video, which is about a game that came out in 1995 and is an old game for me as well). Just a warning, my goal’s to have a couple of longer videos sprinkled throughout as well. But since they’re huge pains to create, I won’t be relying on them too much. As of now, two games have a longer video planned for them. Though, one of them’s less of a review and more of a… eh, I can’t even think of the words for it :D
Thanks for the kind words! I’ll do my best to improve and so far I’ve been having a lot of fun with them :)
I do enjoy longer reviews/video essays (like some of the channels mentioned below) and since I liked the way you spoke/reviewed the games/wrote your script (especially Metro since it was a bit longer - I have yet to play it, I don’t know if it would be too scary for me) so now I am curious to know how you would make a longer video, so I’ll patiently wait for them. Having fun is important as well. Keep it up :)
Also, your Technomancer made me want to play the game (I’ve already played Mars and won both of them on sg) but since I’ve recently went through Mad Max I’ll wait a bit between picking it up.
Honestly, that means a lot to hear it. Even if I’m happy with something I’ve achieved here, I’ll still be really critical of it (which is good, of course), but sometimes I just don’t have a good perspective to judge my content, so it’s easier to think it’s trash instead of decent. So to hear that I wasn’t totally awful is definitely a great motivator! So, thanks :)
If you’ve got “setting fatigue”, then sure. Both are basically just games that take place in deserts. But if that’s not your issue and it instead is a worry about the gameplay style, then I’d say it won’t be a huge issue since Mad Max’s combat is similar, but not enough to mimic The Technomancer in a noticeable way. A lot of the game is still talking to people, moving around the hub world and stuff.