[Aptorian]

Haven't updated this in a month:

Magrunne: Dark Pulse - 3/5 Portals into hell. I think this game starts out really well. Like a low budget mix of Portal and Q.U.B.E. mixed with Lovecraft. But the story is terrible and surprisingly Lovecraftian elements lose all charm when you actually shine a light upon them. As the story progresses the puzzles began to get a bit too improvisation and not enough logic.

The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief - 4/5 pudgy constables. I was initially disappointed when I discovered this game was more point and click adventure than third person detective story but it grows on you. I am a sucker for classic Hercule Peirot types of crime mysteries and this game delivers on everything I wanted. I love the attention to detail and the charming cliches the stories are populated with. The second part of the game completely flipped the script which I didn't really like and I guessed who the Raven was immediatly but I really enjoyed this.

Tales from the Borderlands - 5/5 Vault Hunters. Loved this series. Best I've played from Telltale so far. It's basically Borderlands with out the first person shooting and a well told story. I love what the game does with Gearbox world and this game seems like a send off for Pandora before Borderlands 3 takes us gods know where in the Borderlands universe.

Fable Anniversary - 4/5 Chicken chasers. This game holds up surprisingly well despite being extremely dated. This game is pretty easy and it's easy to cheese the fights wih AOE spells but it's still fun. It's fun to see the game that was the foundation for 2 and 3. Playing this I REALLY want to play a fourth Fable game.

Woolfie: The Red Hood Diaries - 3/5 Gritty re-imagined fairytales. This game is a mess. Supposedly it was the first part of a series of games or a larger game, that was released before the studio went belly up. You can tell that the game has problems in terms of designh and pacing. But it's still a pretty cool action platformer. It feels like this game had a lot of potential but not the budget or talent to realize the developers dreams.

Rise of the Tomb Raider - 5/5 desecrated tombs. Absolutely loved this game. Couldn't put it down. It's basically builds upon the Tomb Raider reboot and creates a more polished, streamlined, well paced action and open world action adventure. You could criticize it for just reusing the prior games set-up but I think the game works really well. This game sort of ties the new games back into the old ones. It's going to exciting to see where they go from here.

COD: Black Ops 3: Campaign - 3/5 Frozen forests. I am sort of torn about this game. I don't think the story really works and the pacing felt off to me. By the time it actually clicks and you understand where the whole thing was meant to be going the game is nearly over. On the other hand, what they do in this game, especially towards the end is really cool. This game kind of makes me wish Activision would make an open world COD game like Farcry or Dying Light. There's some really fascinating possibilites built into the game but you never really get to explore it all.

Firewatch - 5/5 Sarcastic radio conversation. This is my kind of game. It's not particularly heavy on actual gameplay but it's not quite a walking simulator. What this game is about is the story and the interaction between the characters. The voice acting is superb and the writing is in a class of its own. I understand why people hate the games ending but if you've followed Idle Thumbs this is exactly the kind of story I would expect from Campo Santo. Can't wait to see what their next project will be.

The Witness - 4/5 incomprehensible line-puzzles. This game kicked my ass mentally. I wish I could say I completed this game fair and square but half-way through I gave up and just used a guide when ever I got stuck. As I got further and further into the game I realized the level of logic and understanding this game demanded was way past my intellect or patience. I can't say I entirely enjoyed how all the puzzles work and I think the game lies to you some times but I can't deny the games quality. Playing through the end game using a guide was baffling.

Teslagrad - 3/5 Calvin and Hobbs imitations. I quit this game halfway through because I just couldn't be arsed to finish it but it's pretty charming if a bit obtuse. I wish the game was better at guiding you and connecting the dots but it's a realitively cheap indie platformer.

Dark Souls - 3/5 bad checkpoints. Dark Souls is in my opinion a really good bad game. There's a really solid fighting RPG inside this game that is aided by a world of mystery that makes the player want to play more and more to see what hides around the next corner. Unfortunately the game is mired in a host of poor game design decisions, coupled with environmental design that malfunction and looks outdated the game becomes more tedious and frustrating than satisfying in the long run.

Painkiller: Hell and Damnation - 3/5 monsters impaled by stakes. This is a mediochre re-make of an okay classic FPS game. This game looks and plays like shit but it's hard not to sort of appreciate it for what it is, a salute to old school FPS games. Where you never have to reload, You carry 10 weapons with two firing modes, you run backwards at 50 miles an hour while 20 monsters run at you with no regard for their own life. Mindless fun.

Dying Light: The Following DLC - 5/5 hit and runs. Really great expansion to Dying Light. If you liked the main game then you will love this as well. The driving takes some getting used to, I felt really rusty at first, but the game holds up really well. Racing around crushing zombies with a car is a pretty solid gameplay experience. I felt like the new guns were a bit disappointing but I love the new crossbow.

[Mentalist]

Update: as mentioned elsewhere I finished the NG+ run of Arkham Origins. Really like the story, don't mind the combat-focused boss fights, except the response time on blocks is screwed up. Means I will never even consider doing the "Ironman" difficulty.

Onto Thief 3.

Steam has been informing me my wishlist games are on sale, recently. I think i'll set do down a rule where I can purchase a game every time I clear 5 games off this list.

[Aptorian]

Right, the end of the year is approaching and it's time to finally get around to updating this thing. Incoming avalanche of games played, completed or abandoned.

I was using Steam's "recently played" section to keep track of what I played when but that's gotten all screwed up. This will try to be a chronological order but it's gonna be a mess.

So in descending order from oldest play session to most recent:


Abyss Odyssey - Couldn't really get into this one. It's a 2D action platformer, where you are meant to die again and again as you make your way down through a bunch of levels.

Blues and Bullets: Rest of the series - The developer ran out of money and closed down so the series is dead. They released a second episode but I am not going to bother playing it, since I'd just get story related blue balls. A shame, that first episode was crazy.

Bully - 4/5 school fights. I didn't finish this game but despite it's age I really enjoyed it. This was a throwback to the original 3D GTA games. a semi open world with a hundred missions and small challenges and collectibles everywhere. It got too tedious in the end for me to want to bother with the game but for its time it must have been excellent. Would love a sequel.

Castlevania Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate. 3/5 wall chickens. This game made me realize that I don't really like 2D Castlevania games. Which is weird since I normally like Metroidvania games. This one just didn't click with me.

DARK - 4/5 Goth vampires popping and locking to euro dance. I played this expecting to hate it and was surprised by a rough but competent stealth action game. This game is sort of like Deus Ex with vampire powers. Only smaller budget, worse animations, bad writing and a story that makes no sense. And yet I really like it.

Divinity: Dragon Commander - I bounced right of this games tutorial section and never came back. The premise and the characters are really cool - Your empire has been ursurped and it's your hob to take it back from various fantasy races and political factions. You play as some kind of rocket dragon which should be awesome. Only the controls were so weird and confusing that I couldn't even figure out how to win the tutorial battle.

Dungeon Siege 3 - 2/5 poorly written voice actor lines. I wanted to like this game but it's just so dull. I played something like 8 hours but the game just never really got going. Just the same quests and areas over and over with little content of interest. I can't even really recall the plot.

Ether One - 3/5 mysterious narrative puzzles. I made the mistake of stopping half way through this game and when I came back I couldn't remember what I was actually doing. Watched a youtube guide and ended up just watching the last few missions instead. I really liked this game though, despite it being simplistic. It has a cool style and a weird atmosphere.

The Evil Within - I tried to get through this game but I pussied out. The atmosphere got to me. The opening part was horrific but I powered through it. Then I got to the more "normal" survival horror part of the game and while it was actually doable for me, the atmosphere, much like Dead Space was just too oppressive for me. I just do not like horror games at all.

Grim Fandango: Remastered - I usually like Double Fine games or stuff Tim Schafer has made, but this game was just a bit too old, too point and clicky and just not funny. The game forces you to listen to a ton of audio in the beginning and I just didn't find it funny or interesting. So instead of slowly withering in front of a screen I just deleted the game. Decided not to try Day of the Tentacle because of this.

GTA 4: Episodes from Liberty City - Doesn't run on my computer for some reason I couldn't figure out.

Killer is Dead - 4/5 weird homo erotic friendships. This is a crazy-ass Japanese fighting game. Really cool story, really weird, very confusing, complete nonsense all over. I typically hate Anime stuff but the art style and characters were fun for the most part.

Enough typing for now I think.

I've noticed that this year, in an effort to actually get through my backlog and because my play style was changing, I've stopped games much more often than powering through them. In the old days I would finish a game no matter what but I just can't be arsed in 2016.

This post has been edited by Apt: 02 December 2016 - 03:54 PM

[Mentalist]

This past year has not been very productive, gaming wise. I've completed maybe 10 new games, but the main problem is, I'm starting 2017 the exact same way i started 2016: hopelessly hooked on AoK HD, but now with a brand new expansion, even MORE custom content, and an extra 200-odd hours logged on the game. I have a notepad list of all the campaigns and scenarios in historical order, and out of the 93 entries, I've so far checked off about 12, so this is going to continue being a major, major timesink for me

Still, if I was to attempt to put together a very-cut down list of games I'd hope to complete in 2017 in no particular order, they'd be:

1) Bioshock Infinite
2) Disohonored
3) Of Orks and Men
4) Far Cry 2
5) Dead Space
6) Spec Ops: the Line
7) Remember Me
8) Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
9) Bastion
10) Stanley Parable
11) Mag Runner

All of these are games I've been putting off playing a long time, and they're mostly story-driven, so hopefully I'll be able to get through more othem than if i was playing an open world game

There's also a list of games I'm really likely to play this year:
-Another replay of Witcher 1, since I do one almost every year. That might actually drive me to finish "Blood and Wine"
-Replay of the Darksiders game sin the new remastered editions
-Replay of all the Batman Arkham games
-If I can buy it at a good price, DX MD
-I'm likely to go back to Medievel II total war + mods
-I'm likely to finally do another Alpha Protocol replay. Or 2.
-I'm also likely to dabble in E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy some more.

"New" Games that might take priority over everything:
-Torment: Tides of Numenera
-If I can find a good bundle, Total Warhammer

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 14 February 2018 - 04:29 PM

[Cause]

For 2017:

Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider
X-com 2
Deus Ex Mankind Divided
Infinite warfare
Battlefield 1
Bloodborne
Dark SOuls 3
Witcher 3
Assassins creed 2
Assassins creed Blackflag
Assassins creed Syndicate
Assassins creed Unity
Farcry Primal
Total War Warhammer
Bayonetta 2 (Come on Wii U emulation!)
The last of Us
Max Payne 3
Dead Space 1
Dead Space 2
Dead Space 3
Red Dead Redemption
Arkham City
Dishonored 1
Dishonored 2

[Morgoth]

Of all of those, Bloodborne and Witcher 3 are by far the best.

[Aptorian]

Your lack of alphabetical order disturbs me.

But otherwise those are all great titles.

[Cause]

25 games in the backlog alone! That's probably forgetting more than a few!

[Mentalist]

After the year-long delay (Basically, I got a bit obsessed with Age of Empires HD to the point where I have about 1200 hours played altogether.), I'm gonna try to get back on track with this.

Since the Winter Holidays I finished Dishonored + DLCs, as well as Mankind Divided + DLCs, and I started my first Cyanide/Spiders RPG.

The conservative goal for 2018 is to get through Spiders' catalogue of euro-jank RPGs, as well as a few of the linear shooters and some of the more linear action-adventures. Might throw in an RTS or big RPG in the mix as well.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 14 February 2018 - 04:41 PM

[Mentalist]

Summer of 2018 put quite a halt to my gaming progress (also, I burned out on StarCraft 2 halfway through the Zerg campaign).

Current goal for the rest of the year is to replay Darksiders 2 before 3 comes out; play Shadow of Mordor (given I'm fresh off a Tolkien re-read), and possibly wrap up the Sands of Time trilogy. For the holiday season I'll probably go back to some imsims (likely Dishonored 2), and then make goals for next year.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 28 September 2018 - 01:57 PM

[Maark Abbott]

I don't actually have any 'to play' games coming up. My schedule is looking totally empty until Brave Neptunia drops (or something else appears that tickles my fancy).

Presently I'm playing a lot of Rocket League and Borderlands TPS, with forays into Prison Architect and Omega Quintet. But the release schedule looks incredibly sparse of anything interesting until Spring 2019.

[Mentalist]

2018 was a surprisingly good year for making a dent in this list- I played and completed 21 games.

Here's hoping next year I can strike off even more of them.

EDITED on Jan 2nd: that being said, I went knda mental towards the end of the year wit buying games (with good discounts, but still). I'm yet to muster up the courage to go through my email and tally up the receipts from the Black Friday + Boxing Week purchases to see just how much money I blew on electronic entertainment.

To that end, 2019 will probably be a year of going through a lot of those games to learn about the various series that have new entries coming out in 2019 and beyond

-I intend to start the year with an imsim (Thi4f) or two (Dishonored 2).
Then I have a list of series to familiarize myself with:
1) Metro
2) DMC
3) Resident Evil

I also want to play the 2 remaining Spiders RPGs before Greedfall comes out, and I *might* play a From Software game of some kind after Darksiders III gave me a slight taste of a "Soulslite"

And hey, maybe I'll even get back to Remedy's back catalogue, finish Max Payne 1 and move on to their other games before Control comes out.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 03 January 2019 - 01:45 AM

[Mentalist]

Mentalist, on 31 December 2018 - 08:35 AM, said:

2018 was a surprisingly good year for making a dent in this list- I played and completed 21 games.

Here's hoping next year I can strike off even more of them.

EDITED on Jan 2nd: that being said, I went kinda mental towards the end of the year wit buying games (with good discounts, but still). I'm yet to muster up the courage to go through my email and tally up the receipts from the Black Friday + Boxing Week purchases to see just how much money I blew on electronic entertainment.

To that end, 2019 will probably be a year of going through a lot of those games to learn about the various series that have new entries coming out in 2019 and beyond

-I intend to start the year with an imsim (Thi4f) or two (Dishonored 2).
Then I have a list of series to familiarize myself with:
1) Metro
2) DMC
3) Resident Evil

I also want to play the 2 (Played 1) remaining Spiders RPGs before Greedfall comes out, and I *might* did play a From Software game of some kind after Darksiders III gave me a slight taste of a "Soulslite"

And hey, maybe I'll even get back to Remedy's back catalogue, finish Max Payne 1 and move on to their other games before Control comes out.

2019 I didn't play quite as many games, but I actually played a whole bunch of new releases, which is unusual for me.

This year, besides doubling down on the Resi games, and maybe moving off into related survival-horror stuff like Evil Within and Dead Space, I wanna play more shooters. In particular, the Id tech stuff (Doom 3, Prey 2006, nu-DOOM, Eternal maybe?)

Then there's Cyberpunk and Bloodlines 2 that are likely to take much of my time. If I'm not all imsimmed out by those, I need to:
-Play Dishonored 2 (And Death of the Outsider)
-Play the nu-Prey.


Basically, I need to catch up on Zenimax-published games, lol. Add:

-Rage 2
-The new Wolvenstein Games

to that list.

Other than that, there's still a bunch of 3rd person action/adventure and linear RPGs to play (mostly Kalypso and Focus stuff).

And I will probably want more souls-likes, now that I know that the lauded difficulty is....pretty bearable, actually.

-This is all with a big proviso that I don't start binging on AoEII DE again, ofc.

[Mentalist]

2021 update: I..... started Binging on Age of Kings again towards the end of the year, rofl. With a new expansion out in January, that is unlikely to cease anytime soon.

Despite discovering a brand new genre last year (Metroidvanias) which I now utterly adore and that's been taking up loads of my wishlist space, I still managed to play 3 decent-sized AAA games (Doom 3, Shadow of War and HZD), as well as one bite-sized (R3make). Also played a great retro title in Shadowman

For 2021, I really need to work on my shortlist of early 2000s titles. Since one of my main resolutions is not to buy any more games for the first 6 months of the year, that should be doable whenever I burn out on RTss

[Mentalist]

Been on a Lent hiatus from gaming, so I went through my library and catalogued a lot of the stuff. excluded AAA games, because they're mostly open-world timesinks.
I'm kinda hooked on Metroidvanias right now, because they satisfy my passion for exploring maps, but with limited scope and a variety of settings.

Long story short, I've got a list of about..... 50 of those. Gonna be interspersing them with an occasional AA action/RPG/shooter game, cuz those are smaller in scope, too.

[Mentalist]

2022 was a trainwreck in terms of gaming. At least I'm finally caught up with (non-custom) single-player stuff in Age of Kings.

Started the year kind of productively. Finished RE4, and also played The Chant already. I've also played 2/3s of the Devil May Cry Collection last year, and I want to play 3, as soon as my fingers stop hurting.

Since I'm a bit strapped for cash and the AAA prices keep rising, this might be a good combination of factors to finally focus me on the backlog.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 10 January 2023 - 09:55 PM

[Mentalist]

2024 shortlist and stuff:

-9 years of Shadow
-Aeterna Noctis
-After the Suns
-American Arcadia
-Anno Mutationem
-Arabel
-Atlas Fallen
-Aztech Forgotten Gods
-Binary Domain
-Biomorph
-Blades of Time
-Blood Knights
-Blood Spear
-Blue fire
-Bramble: The Mountain King
-Bullet Witch
-Bulletstorm
-Castlevania games
-The Collapse
-The Crown of Wu
-The Cub
-Cynthia: Hidden in Moonshadow
-Damnation
-Dark Sector
-Dark Void
-The Darkest Tales
-Daymare 1998
-Dead no Head
-Deadfall Adventures
-DeadSpace 1 & 2
-Death's Door
-Devil's Hunt
-Deliver us the Moon/Mars
-Disintegration
-Dusk Diver
-Edge of Twilight
-El Shaddai
-Elderand
-Elementite
-En Garde
-Erra: Exordium
-Eternights
-Everreach: Project Eden
-The Enthropy centre
-Get even
-Grey Skies
-The Gunk
-Hermea
-High on Life
-Hunt the Night
-Hunted: The Demon's Forge
-Hydrophobia
-I Am Alive
-Jusant
-Knight of the temple
-Lamentum
-the last Oricru
-Legendary
-Library of Babel
-Lost Planet
-Lunark
-Marlow Briggs
-Guardians of the Galaxy
-The Muller-Powell Principle
-Murdered: Soul Suspect
-No Place for Bravery
-Nier Games
-Nine Nights
-Ninja Blade
-No straight Roads
-Obscure 1 & 2
-Omno
-Orange Cast
-Past Cure
-The Pathless
-PoP- Lost Crown
-Potentia
-Praey to the Gods
-Quantum Break
-Recore
-Relicta
-Resonance of Fate
-Rise of the Argonauts
-Scarlet Nexus
-Shattered: Tale of the Forgotten King
-Solar Ash
-Souls of the Wind
-Steelrising
-Tails of Iron
-Tales of Kenzera: Zau
-Tasomachi-Behind the Twighlight
-Technomancer
-Terminator: resistance & RoboCop
-Tevi
-They Always Run
-There is No Light
-Third eye
-Third Power
-Tormented Souls
-Unsighted
-Valkyrie Elysium
-Vampyr
-Vanquish
-Velvet Assassin
-Venetica
-Werewolf: th Apocalypse - Earthblood
-Wo Long
-X-Blades
-Zeitgeist

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 08 February 2024 - 06:09 PM

[Tsundoku]

That's the short list?

[Mentalist]

Tsundoku, on 03 January 2024 - 02:09 AM, said:

That's the short list?

It excludes any open-world/infinitely replayable games, so yes.
I mean, these are goals, the point it make a list and then just work on it.