Game 10 - Brütal Legend - Week 4 - Jan 20

rütal Legend was something I did not expect I would enjoy as much as I did. Don't get me wrong a guitar toting hack and slasher? Hell yeah. But when you get suckerpunched by 'Alice in Wonderchains meets an 80s heavy metal album cover brought to you by Jack Black himself' you can't help but think to yourself. "Wow, this is fucking amazing. Why have I not played this until now!?". This is what I experienced in the opening sequence as you die in 5 minutes, steal a your demon patron's axe from cultists and escape in a hot rod you build in five seconds Lego style. Fleeing as the sky opens up in front of you revealing warp storms in the sky and meteors rain down around you. The game does a good job introducing its protagonist Eddie (Black) the roadie who will unite the Brutal Land by bringing together the band and hitting the highway to hell, vanquishing all corporate sellouts, emo punks and demons as you go. The Metal truly will not die. The cast is fantastic, with Ozzy Osbourne aka the Guardian of Metal dishing out your metal abilities and upgrades to your hot rod as the definitive highlight. To say the OST is extensive is an understatement. Possibly the largest OST I've ever seen in a game. The relationship between Eddie and Ophelia aka Jennifer Hale aka Commander Shepard, felt like a guilty pleasure. That's possibly the best way to describe this game, from the head banging army to the guitar solo effigy "made of rock" to the triumvirate of villains; a self-centered glam rocker, a goth rocker full of 'black tears' and the ultimate cunning demon to rule them all. The game is just a pure ode to heavy metal legends. And if as it seems, this game was just a tribute, they did a double fine job!

My god. How could I forget! The intro and main menu is one of the best I have ever seen in a video game. Schafer and Black delivered an unexpected intro for an entirely unexpected game. 

Game 7-9 - Various - Week 4 - Jan 20

Three more casualties to the moved on pile! 

o more room in Hell was a game I would have enjoyed in high school and university. It's well made for a free-to-play game. It reminds me of playing zombie mods in CSS with a Left for Dead mission design. Probably because it was made with the Source engine. I enjoyed it but just can't justify the time for diving into these janky replayable multiplayer games unless they're something unique, fresh or heavily appeal to my tastes. I did invite my cousin who I play games with regularly. He shall be named Chronic Ragè in all future posts as this funnily is his defining characteristic as a gamer. A few maps in we saw another player kill themself. From that point on the game became a suicide simulator. Often rushing to open defenses before ending ourselves to watch others rush for guns in a mad panic.

uck Game was interesting from Steam storepage. It looked like Doom meets Duck Guy as a 2D sidescroller from the art. But it played like anything but. A run of the mill side shooter with ducks. The game has two modes. Arcade and multiplayer. The later rarely has players (hopefully amended by the recent humble bundle) and the former was set in a hubworld where arcade machines represented different challenges. The novelty ended there however as the challenges were boring platformers and kill static spawning enemies. I was about to uninstall when I got a match with a random player. This was far more enjoyable as you were thrown into different maps against each other and had to rush to grab unique weapons and kill each other. Guns such as "mind control that makes him run off the edge", webbers where you can pick enemies up and throw them off the edge, chainsaws, proximity mines, etc. I only played with one other player, but it's clear that with 3 friends this would be an exceptional game to jump in for 20 minutes or more.

eat Hazard on paper sounded like the most interesting of these three games. Asteroids where the asteroids are sync'd to your personal playlist? Sign me the fuck up!!! Sadly there was no way for me to download my Spotify playlist so I had to use a YouTube converter to download a few songs. You select a track from your playlist and that's essentially the level. I tried Foo Fighters - Everlong, and Tenacious D - Tribute. It syncs well to your music and the power of your guns are tied to the highs and lows of the song. It's cool at first but quickly becomes two note; dodging in the lows and going on the offensive in the highs.  The art feels placeholder and gives off an overall lack of polish. I did appreciate how the songs volume (which seems to be tied to your weapon power) is controlled by an onscreen powerup. Not quite sure how it was coded, but Tribute has the intro from the music video which was weird to play to. It would have been cool if the level doesn't start until the beat does - an optional amp up prelude. Get the right song and it can be fun, the slow escalation of Tribute was fantastic and the solo hit at the exact moment the boss showed up. Other times the screen is flooded, Everlong required a seizure trigger warning.

Game 6 - Miscreated - Week 3 - Jan 20

iscreated like its concept was a pure miscreation. A disgrace to all survival games and everything their designers try to achieve as artists.... Where as masterpieces like DayZ and The War Z have put you in tense situations that require you to make hard choices that could only be made in a dystopian setting, Miscreated is a run of the mill walking simulator with no substance.

I am of course, completely joking The game seems quite good for what it wants to be actually. I was quite sure that this game was going directly to the "moved on" pile of games and 45 minutes later I was correct. I received the game in a humble bundle back when I was playing Day Z and Rust with a regular group. This game never joined that circle of gaming friends as I soon left it. The game seems like (at this stage) a mix of the two and far more polished. I enjoyed the scavenging aspects and how the world feels full yet empty. You can search every cupboard and trash pile but it's probably empty or useless, pick your marks or suffer from the elements. Giving you a true scavenging experience.

Game 5 - Mr. Shifty - Week 3 - Jan 20

r. Shifty is a game that interested me for two reasons. One - it was made in my critter and mutant infested land, Australia. Two - it appeared to essentially be Hotline Miami with teleporting, and I'm all for that. 

Three characters. The protagonist, mute Aiden Pearce ala Mr Shifty. Nyx your 2-cent Oracle, with intel (i.e. tips) delivered just as much as wise cracks. And Chairman Stone your misanthropic nemesis whose lines humourously follow the pattern of... "I bet you can't get past my trap this time!" followed by "Wha..what! How!?" Yes, the story is more or less an episode of Road Runner. But the flow of combat momement to moment is good that the story doesn't need to be more than a few chuckles. It doesn't quite reach the heights of its kin (nor does the sound design/track) but shifting behind a goon only to grab a broom and clean out the trash is always fun. My personal favourite tool was the Aspis shield pulled from various statues around Olympus Tower. Throwing this through multiple enemies or getting the rebound only to shift back to it and repeat was intensely satisfying. The puzzles are great without any reuse across levels, keeping you on your toes and making good use of your abilites and wit. Often weaponised, such as activating lasers and teleporting out the room leaving the slow grunts to their death, or grabbing a proximity mine sticking it to a fool and shifting the hell away. All in all, the experience was short but shifty.

Game 4 - Flame in the Flood - Week 3 - Jan 20

lame in the Flood was something I wanted to play since it was announced. The absolute gorgeous visual and oozing bluegrass feel of the overall game was instantly attractive even from a few pictures and words in a Game Informer magazine. It was simply like anything I'd ever seen and experienced previously. And playing the game the overall journey certainly lived up to that. I appreciate the comparatively stark divide between the soft visuals and harsh unforgiving gameplay. My first death? Destroying my raft and sinking into the beautiful rapids.
My second death? A pack of wolves slaughtering me. My mistake? Not listening to the cries and simply leaving the island.
My third death? A surprise bite from the occasionally hard to see snakes? My mistake? Not listening to Aesop's warnings.
My fourth and final death? A bear charging and mauling my body into an instant corpse. My mistake? Fucking with a bear. Eventually you learn how to easily navigate and avoid getting into these situations. The rapids become shortcuts, snakes become weapons, packs of wolves die to poisoned bait (grotesquely often wolf meat), and bears die a shit ton of traps, arrows and hope. This represents at it's core the most interesting aspect of my journey for survival. The land is the central character. From the few dotted zany survivors, to the beautiful flowing river, to harnessing the land as your greatest weapon of survival via a mix of the crafting system and perception. Finally, the overall energy, style and spirit is captured perfectly in the folk-based soundtrack by Chuck Ragan. My god what a beautiful companion it was on this journey, an instant add to my Spotify playlists and on the list for greatest original game soundtracks.

Game 3 - Halo: Reach (MP) - Week 2 - Jan 20

alo: Reach was a game that most my high school friends played but I never did (excluding a few times at a friends house) having owned a PlayStation 3. A few of my closer friends, and diehard Halo fans despised the game. Why you ask? The game added sprint, and other abilities that ruined the high skill ceiling and map control which Halo was all about. According to them it was "CODified". Cornering frags, weapon spawns, choke points, superior ground, headshots, double taps, etc was an art to them. The games were all skill and the only thing that could break that fact was poor latency.

I jumped on to MCC to get all the games as I've always wanted to play through the original Master Chief saga, but decided to wait until they were all out to play through the campaigns. Instead I was curious to see what the MP was like. And I have to say.... It's even worse on PC from what I can tell. Not because of technical issues (I haven't noticed a single bug) or a toxic community. But for one single reason. Everyone plays Slayer and you start with a DMR. Now this wasn't as much as an issue on Xbox I imagine but starting with a high damage semi-automatic rifle that can hit anyone from across most maps is ridiculous. Why use any automatic weapons? Literally ever again? No one does. It's all DMRs. The game isn't Halo anymore.Where are the iconic needlers and plasma pistol? Left on the ground because the DMR is better. I'm not a fan of the abilities either, map control is gone when you can run to the rocket launcher with sprint. Now there are no fights over key points and resources, those resources are abilities. I think 343 Studios could have solved the core issue of the DMR, albeit boldly, by starting you with the classic kit of assault rifle and magnum instead. But there are other design choices - which many suspect to have been a testbed for Destiny - that would have always permitted me from enjoying this installment as much as the original trilogy.

Edit 1 8/3/20: I noticed playing Halo CE they've released an experimental AR mode in Reach - I'll have to check this out and give an update on my thoughts - I hope people are playing the mode.

Game 1-2 - God of War Trilogy - Week 1 - Jan 20

God of War Chains of Olympus (2016)
I considered going back and playing this again but I couldn't bring myself to do it. The story was okay but didn't add much to the legend of Kratos beyond giving him more reasons to hate the Gods. It did setup a cool scene through exposition in the third game however.

God of War 1-2 (2019)
The first two I finished in December, but had already many years ago. This game still holds up, the move set gets tired after a while but the way magic and mythos was mixed was just awesome. Kratos is a brutal, animalistic departure from the heroes we've had and lets the player feel and release that throughout gameplay. I'm not a big fan of puzzle games, but I've always loved them in God of War and how they affect the world. You're not always just unlocking a door, you're complete a puzzle that then moves an island across a sea. I really wanted to feel the rage of Kratos and have that contextualised experience moving into Dad of Boy. The full Kratos experience, and to do that I had to go back and play GoW 1-2.

God of War Ghost of Sparta - Game 1 
This installment fell somewhere between Chains of Olympus and the original two for me. The gameplay was fun, but it still felt like it added nothing major to the overall arc beyond giving Kratos more fuel where he already had enough. The side story with Deimos was cool however and at this point now every single iconic detail that marks Kratos has history and meaning. Excited to see if his brother or family is brought up in God of War 4.

God of War 3 - Game 2
This was the big one for two reasons - I played the first 2 on PS2 and had pushed back the final chapter for almost a decade. And I had refused to play the apparent masterpiece of a continuation until I went back and finished 3. And oh boy am I glad I did, this game, ohhhh boy this game. Take God of War 1 and 2 which dialed it up to 10 in the violent savage combat and story, then keep turning around 2 or 3 more times until the dial is broken. That's God of War 3 in a nutshell. The first scene on the back of Gaia and then fighting Poseidon is one of the crowning achievements and examples of video games as art. The sheer spectacle and epic nature of it presents the peak of playing a legendary myth that Kratos, God of War always tried to be. And when it came down to kill the Gods, they were all disturbing and over the top. Cutting off Hermes legs, tearing off chunks of Hades and fighting them. But watching Kratos kill Poseidon from his own POV was something to behold and a truly uncomfortable moment. The art and grandeur of the areas have always been a mainstay of the series, but this one was exceptional. River Styx and Hades were my personal favourite. I can't wait to see how they reinvented and reinvigorated the series in God of War 4!

10 Years of Service

I hit 10 years of service on Steam recently. A decade of Steam, a decade of collecting. Going through my Steam Library backlog like anyone else I recoil in horror at how many games I own. Over 500 in total. A seemingly impregnable Mount Olympus of game libraries. In 2016 my PC died a painful death and crashed any time I played a game of mild intensity. What resulted was a hiatus from Steam and a return to my library of PSX games (which I now bounce between regularly). And you know what? I enjoyed myself a hell of a lot more without the weighty pressure of a backlog on my shoulders. As it stands my Playstation backlog sits at a mere 15-20 games. With over 100 completed and on the shelf. 

Eventually I got my PC fixed and realised that I tend to look at my game library, feel overwhelmed, and return to playing a multiplayer game. A game with infinite replayability. typically played well past the point of enjoying the current game. Smite, Counter Strike, DayZ all come to mind. In the time that I spend on these games I could experience dozen games. Looking through my library I've completed, moved on or played through over half these games  (Hibernating, Moved on, F2P). Most of those are lengthy single player games. However, in my Hibernating Indie's 80% of these have taken 6 hours or less to complete. Two thirds of the 200-300 games left unplayed are of this length. If I finished one of these 1-6 hour experiences a week it would take me 3 years to complete 85% of my steam library. A lengthy, but achievable goal. 

Favourites (the pile of shame), A (installed/playing), AA (want to install/play), Benched (waiting to play), Hibernating (played), Moved on (why did I buy this?)

So it begins, the climb to the top. I'm going to finish what I started and get to ground zero for my backlog.  And I'm going to record that journey here. Starting in 2020 with the games I've played so far. It's a good opportunity to practice and reflect on my writing skills too. If anyone's reading this, I would love for you to join me with your own blog that I could follow (but who am I kidding, it's only you future Dan reading this, probably overly critical of your writing and editing it). Simply decide on X number of games you want to reach. Not all games you will want to complete (unless you're a masochist). So I'm calling it the "content" status. Content that it's complete, thoroughly experienced or not for you. But you must post why, regardless. In my quest I'll be climbing from 200-250 content games to 500.

Ground rules - non-negotiable 

• Cant uninstall games until posting thoughts (100 words min) - once content with it
• This is about having fun - if I don't like it nor want to play it, it's moved on into Moved on (i.e. content) 
• Everything content must have been experienced for a minimum of 30 minutes to get a good sense of the game
• Games played elsewhere or before Steam can be content (i.e. for me Crysis, STALKER, F.E.A.R.)

Ground rules - personal (choose your own!) 

• 1 game per week - as long as your games aren't exceeding your weeks you're winning! (i.e. Week 7 - Game 10 = SUCCESS!)
• PlayStation games will be mentioned here as well - some might think why is this in the Steam challenge? Well my backlogs are intertwined as some games I prefer on the big TV. I would have played them on Steam if I did not own a PlayStation console (or it wasn't exclusive).  
• Can only purchase a new game if I intend to play and finish it then - and only bimonthly 

I have hope I can do this, the games at which I add to my backlog have rapidly decreased. Here's hoping come in another ten years I won't have a single game behind me, but a new decade of games to look forward to!