Something, something backlog andrzej’s profile
An adult gamer that enjoys completing games, but at the same time tries to fight achievement hunting urges ;-)
When I joined BLAEO my backlog wasn’t really a problem and I felt I could use the site for better overview of my games. But over time my backlog is growing instead of shrinking and I try to 100% my games which slows down my progress.
February report
Hello Assassins!
Finally I’ve beaten my most shameful win (because it took me a year) and got to 100% SG wins beaten! :-)
Beaten
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Black The Fall
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Brütal Legend
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Virginia
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The Uncertain: Episode 1 - The Last Quiet Day
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Styx: Master of Shadows
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Tacoma
-
Total War: WARHAMMER
Brütal Legend: interesting combination of action game with RTS elements but IMHO it is only okay. Music and Heavy Metal inspired visuals are awesome but I'm a metalhead so I'm biased here ;-)
Virginia: the story is a bit cryptic at the end (lack of dialogs does not help with that) but all in all Virginia is a pretty nice experience for one evening.
The Uncertain: Episode 1 - The Last Quiet Day: game is beautiful but this is only first episode so the story ends abruptly. Plus some dialogs could be better, right now they are quite cringy.
Styx: Master of Shadows: very good stealth game, be warned though that contrary to many games it is not really a choice - if you try open confrontation you will most likely die. The last fight is quite annoying and if you're going for playthrough without detection I would advise to have at least two knives and some amber with you.
Tacoma: pretty good sci-fi story and really good mechanic for its presentation.
Total War: WARHAMMER*: I had many problems along the way (e.g. failed graphics card, no space for 35GB update, etc.) but finally I managed to play and beat it. It was my first Total War game since Shogun so I cannot really compare it to other titles but I enjoyed it a lot. So far I've only beaten campaign with Empire, I would gladly try a different race but my backlog is still strong and the game is really long so I think I will have to wait a few weeks with another run.
* - SG win
Current stats | Change since last report |
---|---|
267 games | +12 |
27% never played (73) | +5 |
5890 achievements | +267 |
94 perfect games | +4 |
89% avg. game completion rate | -1 |
December/January report
Hello Assassins!
Had to skip December (real life strikes back), so here is short summary of my progress in the last two months
Beaten
Mskotor has written a very good and lengthy review here, where he also gave pretty good hints for mods - I recommend "All quests on the map", "Disable storybook videos" and "Fast travel from anywhere" (but be careful with this one).
Half-Life 2: Episode Two: IMHO it is worse than Half-Life 2 and Episode One but still quite enjoyable. Collecting achievements is a bit annoying though.
Quantum Break: Great story with refreshing approach to time travel, very nice visuals and gameplay. Except for the last fight which is so annoying it earned itself dedicated threads on steam and game forums. Beware though that Quantum Break is half game, half movie - there are many cutscenes and an actual (long) movie fragments with real actors.
Assassin's Creed Revelations: very similar but a bit worse than AC II and Brotherhood. It is alright but from technical side it is a piece of garbage - it has its share of bugs and I had a lot of problems with game crashing or Uplay not being able to connect or start the game. Additionally V-sync is causing screen tearing (!) but if you disable it you will experience more crashes…
* - SG win
Current stats | Change since last report |
---|---|
255 games | +13 |
27% never played (68) | +7 |
5623 achievements | +235 |
90 perfect games | +3 |
90% avg. game completion rate | ~ |
November report
Hello Assassins!
Shortest summary so far but Pillars of Eternity, Witcher 3 and Real Life consume so much time…
Beaten
Pillars of Eternity*: in the beginning Pillars of Eternity is pretty slow, for me it was on a brink of being boring, but there was something that kept me going. And I'm glad I didn't give up as after ~20 hours I was completely sucked by the PoE world. Good story, interesting characters, nice graphics and awesome music. IMHO it is worth your time but the game is definitely not for everyone, it requires some patience, especially in the beginning.
* - SG win
Current stats | Change since last report |
---|---|
242 games | +7 |
25% never played (61) | +6 |
5388 achievements | +62 |
87 perfect games | +1 |
90% avg. game completion rate | ~ |
October report
Hello Assassins!
Short (and late) summary of my October killings.
Beaten
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Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (Classic, 2005)
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Strider
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Maize
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Rise of the Tomb Raider
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The Descendant
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Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter
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The Detail
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The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut
Strider: solid metroidvania, story is meh but gameplay is pretty good.
Maize: short and easy adventure game, with a bit of humor, and nice graphics. It's ok if you do not expect too much.
Rise of the Tomb Raider: good gameplay, ok story and gorgeous graphics. Very similar to first game and IMHO quite enjoyable. Unfortunately some of achievements are glitched, and backtracking to get 100% completion might be a bit annoying.
The Descendant: very similar to telltale games, but I think that the choices you make here are even more meaningless and do not matter 2 minutes later. I also encountered a case where a dialog in the game referenced situation that did not happen because my choice was different. And the voice acting sometimes fails - in general it is ok but sometimes you encounter a sentence that sounds out of place. Still, I would recommend the game because I really enjoyed the story.
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter: very good detective game with some QTE. It is quite easy because evidence are fairly easy to find and you can always change the final outcome if you will make a wrong judgement. Additionally some puzzles might be skipped but you should be careful with that if you want to get all achievements.
The Detail: a mix of comic and visual novel. Choices you make are only temporary, though a lot of achievements are tied to them. It is not bad, but there is nothing great here either.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut: just three Van Helsing games stitched together with mechanics and classes from the third game. Fortunately barely any bugs (enemies are stuck from time to time but nothing serious) and I encountered only 2 crashes during play - comparing to Van Helsing III this is great. As fr the game itself, it is an ARPG with great music, tons of pop culture references, a lot of hidden content and a bit of humor.
* - SG win
Current stats | Change since last report |
---|---|
235 games | +4 |
23% never played (55) | -2 |
5326 achievements | +276 |
86 perfect games | +4 |
90% avg. game completion rate | ~ |
September report
Hello Assassins!
Short summary of my September killings, finally I’m back at 100% of SG wins played but beating the remaining ones will take some time (and by some I mean a lot).
Beaten
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Goodbye Deponia
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Deponia Doomsday
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Half-Life 2
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Half-Life 2: Episode One
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Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
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Project CARS
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Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
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Resident Evil HD Remaster
Half-Life 2 / Half-Life 2: Episode One * / Half-Life 2: Lost Coast: I'm guessing everybody have played it already but if you didn't you definitely should. Great FPS with some puzzles on the way, highly recommended and it costs pennies during the sales. Episode One is a pretty short continuation of HL2 (also good), Lost Coast is basically a technology demo with some insight in the technology in form of creators commentary.
Project CARS *: I've won championships in all classes so I believe that I can finally say that I have beaten the game. It is amazing, a lot of tracks, tons of cars, changing weather, and so many options to tune the difficulty (as well as length) of races. The career mode is really rewarding and several times when I intended to play just one or two races I ended up spending whole evening going through whole racing season. There are a few minor issues and default controller settings are pretty bad but IMHO it is a really great racing game.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood:The story is continuation of Assassins Creed 2 and the gameplay feels pretty much the same as AC2. Story is a bit worse but still it's a really good game.
Resident Evil HD Remaster *:I have mixed feelings about this one - there are parts of good game here but at the same time a lot of cryptic puzzles, bad dialogues, nonsense story and annoying camera angles. Fans of survival horror and zombies should be pleased though.
* - SG win
Current stats | Change since last report |
---|---|
231 games | +13 |
25% never played (57) | +5 |
5050 achievements | +162 |
82 perfect games | +4 |
90% avg. game completion rate | +1 |
August report
Hello Assassins!
Short summary of my August killings.
Current status
Beaten
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Saints Row IV
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Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
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Tyd wag vir Niemand
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Tales from the Borderlands
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Nihilumbra
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Deponia
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Chaos on Deponia
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Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood *: - great FPS, had a lot fun with this one.
Tyd wag vir Niemand *: - only for hardcore platformer fans or masochists. It looks nice, music is alright (even very good on some maps) but gameplay is really annoying, furniture level was probably the most frustrating gaming experience I ever had (it took me about 2 hours and 100 tries to beat this level). I would just delete this game from account if it wasn't an SG win.
Tales from the Borderlands *: - there only a few and very easy puzzles, very limited time to select dialogue options and your choices don't have that much impact anyway. But the story, characters and humor make it a great game. I think you do not even have to know other Borderlands games to enjoy it but I guess that the more you know the more enjoyable the game will be (I played through first installment and half of the Pre-Sequel before starting Tales).
Nihilumbra *: - short and pretty easy puzzle platformer. Very enjoyable, and if you finish the story mode you will unlock the void mode that is much harder.
Deponia / Chaos on Deponia *: - okayish point and click. I have a bit mixed feelings about it, some puzzles are fine but some don't have any sense, there is a bit of humor but on the other hand main character can be very annoying.
Borderland: The Pre-Sequel *: - I was a bit worried about playing TPS. I liked the setting, humor and art style of first game but IMHO it was a bit boring. Did not feel like that in TPS so I enjoyed it a lot more and I guess I will now have to add Boderlands 2 to my wishlist :-)
* - SG win
Current stats | Change since last report |
---|---|
218 games | +8 |
24% never played (52) | -1 |
4888 achievements | +338 |
78 perfect games | +5 |
89% avg. game completion rate | +1 |
July report
Hello Assassins!
Beaten
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Broken Sword 5 - the Serpent's Curse
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GemCraft - Chasing Shadows
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CONSORTIUM
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Alan Wake's American Nightmare
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Headlander
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Quantum Conundrum
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Stronghold Crusader 2
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Jotun
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System Shock 2
Broken Sword 5 - the Serpent’s Curse: pretty good point & click, everything is on point. I haven’t played other Broken Sword games but that did not stop me from enjoying this one.
GemCraft - Chasing Shadows: really great Tower Defense game. There are 9 gem types with different abilities that you can mix together and put on towers or traps. You can adjust difficulty to your liking and on many maps you can draw your own maze. The only bad thing here, is that at about half of the game you can start using strategy that will allow you to beat the game easily. And that it lags horribly when there are a couple thousand monsters on the screen.
CONSORTIUM: interesting game with pretty ok sci-fi story and a bit of 4th wall breaking. Tons of dialog options, though I think that most of your choices will just change how the characters speak with you, without impacting the story significantly. This also causes that getting all achievements is really painful, especially that you cannot skip dialogs. Single playthrough takes about 4-5 hours, apparently this is a first part of trilogy so it ends with a cliffhanger.
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare: not as good as the original, I think it is a bit worse than DLCs for Alan Wake but still it is quite good. There is more focus on killing the Taken in this title so there is a lot of gun types and tons of ammo everywhere.
Headlander: alright metroidvania with a bit of humor.
Quantum Conundrum: really fun puzzle game with a lot of humor and cartoonish art style. Unfortunately there are achievements for beating rooms in a given time which I hate…
Stronghold Crusader 2*: similar gameplay to original Stronghold Crusader with some improvements (like automatic buying/selling goods) but also some things are definitely worse (you cannot zoom out to see bigger part of map; no moats), some annoying bugs (like soldiers stuck in walls) and DLCs that seem pretty expensive for what they provide.
Jotun: I did not expect much but artwork is really nice, music is great and dialogs in Norwegian (I think) create really great atmosphere. About 5-6 hours for playthrough, and it is not very difficult, but achievements are quite challenging and Valhalla mode seem to be really hard.
System Shock 2*: awesome game and huge improvement from first System Shock. Graphics are a bit dated but the gameplay is really fun (for reference, Bioshock gameplay is basically a dumbed down version of System Shock). The last two fights where a bit of a letdown but overall I do recommend to play this classic.
* - SG win
Current status
Current | Change since last report |
---|---|
210 games | +9 |
25% never played (53) | +1 |
4550 achievements | +192 |
73 perfect games | +3 |
88% avg. game completion rate | -1 |
Won on SG status
June report
Hello Assassins!
Late as usual :-/ , but here is my progress for June.
Beaten
Kentucky Route Zero*: the story is weird and interesting but the game mostly consist of reading, there is not much of actual gameplay. I liked it a lot though, music is great and graphic style is very nice. I hope that last episode won’t take years to finish…
GRID: a lot of cars from different classes, a lot of tracks, damage model, simply everything that should make this game the best racing game ever. But somehow I played it more to mark it completed than because I was actually enjoying it. Something just did not click for me, I don’t know, maybe it’s because progression was not that rewarding.
The Turing Test: decent sci-fi story with (mostly) easy puzzles and good music.
DiRT Showdown: you can clearly see that a lot of content was just copied from Dirt 3, but this game is more arcade’y and revolves around crashing into other cars. It is quite fun though.
Lifeless Planet*: Walking simulator with an alright story and a few easy puzzles. Some sections feel a bit empty and platforming can be annoying but the graphics are very nice and music is awesome (though it only plays in a few sections).
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen*: spent most of my gaming time on this title. A bit of mixed feelings here. The combat is great, and I really liked the fact that you can climb monsters to get to the weak spots. And the fact you can change your class during playthrough is awesome. The story is ok, but dialogs are not that great and the music playing during the “romantic” scenes seems like taken from a soap opera. But the fact that there is only one save slot is pure bullshit. Overall I liked it but I know there are people here who regret buying or wining this game so YMMV ;-)
* - SG win
Current status
Current | Change since last report |
---|---|
201 games | +11 |
26% never played (52) | +4 |
4358 achievements | +288 |
70 perfect games | +3 |
89% avg. game completion rate | -1 |
Won on SG status
May report
Hello Assassins!
Short report on my progress last month.
Beaten
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Grim Fandango Remastered
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INSIDE
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System Shock: Enhanced Edition
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SUPERHOT
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The Deadly Tower of Monsters
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Black Mesa
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The Magic Circle
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Layers of Fear
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Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition
Grim Fandango Remastered*: really good point & click game, story is nice and the music is really good. Unfortunately cut scenes have not been remastered and look terrible, also there a few problems with controller support.
INSIDE: very good game, really weird but IMHO it is worth to play it. Seemed fairly easy.
System Shock: Enhanced Edition*: controls are awful, and sometimes it feels you’re just walking in a maze. But you can feel that for its time it must have been revolutionary and the music is great (and I can believe I say that about midi music).
SUPERHOT: interesting concept, feels more like puzzle game than FPS. It is pretty short, but there are many challenges that can significantly boost play time.
The Deadly Tower of Monsters: really fun game, in the style of b class movie. Also it is fairly easy apart from survival mode.
Black Mesa*: I must confess that I never played Half-Life so this my first time with this story. I liked it, though some sections seemed a bit to long. It is pretty hard, i played it on normal but switched to easy for final fight as I got really pissed after several deaths. Oh and the hat achievement is really annoying, if it would at least stay where you leave it and not roll… For now I marking this one as beaten because last level is not available yet.
The Magic Circle: very weird but interesting meta game. Possibility to mix abilities of creatures you can edit makes for really interesting combinations, e.g. you can add flying ability to turtle-like creature and use it as a platform to travel through the level.
Layers of Fear*: a creepy walking sim with unnecessary jumpscares but overall pretty good game, I liked it a lot. It is a short game to beat (though you should find all memories to discover whole story), but a bit cumbersome to complete. Getting all endings and achievements can be annoying as the guides are a bit confusing.
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition: I have mixed feelings about this one. I enjoyed humor and metroidvania elements, but fight and platforming were very hard (fight with Flaming Skull and platforming in the volcano with rising lava was just ridiculous) and sometimes you have to deal with both at the same time. Sometimes it just felt unfair and this game actually made my hands hurt :-/
* - SG win
Current status
Current | Change since last report |
---|---|
190 games | +9 |
25% never played (48) | +1 |
4070 achievements | +271 |
67 perfect games | +5 |
90% avg. game completion rate | +1 |
Won on SG status
April report
Hello Assassins!
Again late, this time due to short vacation. Better late than never I guess.
Beaten
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ICEY
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35MM
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The Butterfly Sign
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The Butterfly Sign: Human Error
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Murdered: Soul Suspect
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Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition
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The Swapper
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Johnny Graves—The Unchosen One
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Darksiders
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ENSLAVED™: Odyssey to the West™ Premium Edition
ICEY*: good story. Not listening to narrator, exploring all the areas and getting achievements is the only way to see all of it. I did not like the fighting though.
35MM*: story is alright but the game is a bit too slow (e.g. you have to wait for your companion to slowly walk to end of the level, or you are traveling on a trolley for a few minutes), and it is poorly translated.
The Butterfly Sign*: seemed like a promising detective game but it is only first episode that is very short (took me ~68 minutes) and optimization is horrible, only Arkham Knight run so bad on my PC so far. Wouldn’t be bad…
The Butterfly Sign: Human Error**: ..if not the second episode that is a joke. In second chapter you visit the same locations, you can solve the same cases (they are not required to progress the game but they give tons of achievements. Actually you get an achievement for almost every click…), there are two cases to solve added and a few are removed. At the end you get an additional cutscene. In total about 5-6 minutes of new content, this should be free update and not a separate game.
Murdered: Soul Suspect: after Butterfly Sign disaster I wanted to play a real detective game, and had one sitting in library for a while. It is really good, though the demons are annoying and you can’t really fail a case. There is a lot of collectibles but they provide some backstory so it is not that bad.
Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition*: this time you play as Death in story parallel to Darksiders. Game is as good as first part, but with more RPG elements. If you would like to play DLC please mind that The Demon Lord Belial is a complete mess. Massive amount of bugs, most could be avoided by exiting and loading game again but I encountered game braking bug where I couldn’t continue, and only way to complete it was to start the new game+ and run DLC again (but fighting Belial on deathinitive difficulty was not fun at all).
The Swapper*: great game, if you like puzzle games you should definitely try this one.
Johnny Graves—The Unchosen One*: I won this game when it was in early access and I have waited a long time for when it is completed. And I guess that I had too high expectations… Story is pretty bad, FPS can be anything between 15 and 160, you can get stuck in environment, and the worst thing of all - it just wasn’t fun to play it. Music is alright though.
Darksiders*: well, I liked the series so much I decided to play also the original version of Darksiders ;-) I’m glad to hear there will be Darksiders 3!
ENSLAVED™: Odyssey to the West™ Premium Edition: started the game on hard to speed up achievement hunting and it was not a good idea - it is really hard! Additionally there is so many collectibles in the game that I started wandering if there are people that actually have fun in collecting those? For me this was ridiculous… Other than that this is a great game and I highly recommend it! DLC is also good and offers completely different gameplay than main game.
* - SG win
** - technically SG win - got this because of gifter mistake
Completed
Alan Wake: completed Nightmare run and got a few achievements I missed before.
Current status
Current | Change since last report |
---|---|
181 games | +7 |
26% never played (47) | -5 |
7% unfinished (12) | |
13% beaten | |
52% completed | |
3799 achievements | +504 |
62 perfect games | +8 |
89% avg. game completion rate |
Won on SG status
511 | games |
12% | never played |
2% | unfinished |
18% | beaten |
63% | completed |
6% | won't play |
- Won on SteamGifts 68
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