Year of the Backlog

I prayed to the dark gods of backloggery, and they sent me a grim omen that simply said "Yo, play some Shadowrun". Oh god, this is the worst one of these I have done So yeah, I'mma get my RPG on. Probably will be a real hot shot rigger again, much like I played in the first couple of these. Can't get enough of that rigg. Gotta rig it up. Gonna hit the rig time. As always, I will at least stream some  of my progress on the 'ol Twitch page. Trying to be a bit better about capturing all my gameplay, but if I'm not having fun, I feel like it doesn't make for good watchin'.

I really enjoyed my time with this game. Pictured: Pipe Wife. I met her in prison. The combat in this game just felt good.  Just enough auto aim to make me feel like a badass, not so much that I didn't have to be paying attention to succeed. I played through this thing on... Uh. Hard? The second highest difficulty that had some goofy name. It felt like a good balance, enemies went down pretty easy, but so did the protagonist. It was a pretty straightforward action game, moving from place to place, shooting new and varied fellows. The only real bummer was the severe difficulty spike with the final boss. I won't spoil that (if you really want to see, check out the stream), but it was so difficulty that I had to turn down the difficulty to "medium". I had to turn in my gamercard. It was a whole thing. Anyway, it was fun. It's nice to play a straightforward fun game every once in a while throughout this process.

I am so excited. A game where I get to run around and shoot nazis? Sign me up. I get to hit that bad guy with a pipe? Sweet. As always, I will be doing periodic streams of this game on Twitch. In fact, I have a VOD of it over there  Right NOW . Wowee! This one is a lot of fun, and I anticipate playing it in full on stream, so if you have any interest, be sure to look into that.

I'll be honest, "Completing" a game like this is a nebulous thing. I called it after getting to the end of the last of the basic levels. I spent quite a bit of time unlocking Pro courses, but after playing them a bit I came to the conclusion that OllieOllie, while fun when it came to overall play, suddenly became not very fun when it started to demand precision from its controls. A lot of this feel for me came from the use of an analog stick for the tricks. Preloading by holding a direction kind of makes it hard to do immediate jumps, and the input is juuuust  spongey enough that pulling off specific tricks in succession was incredibly difficult. And I say that as someone who was a high ranked Dan player in Street Fighter 4 using an Xbox 360 controller. There was also the persistent feeling that the timing the game wanted for "perfect" landings didn't quite match up with the skateboarder's position. Always had to hit just a hair before what made se...

It's that time again. I pushed the button on the game slot machine, and after a bunch of buzzing noises and clanging the name that spelled out on the spinning wheels was OlliOlli . I've always wanted to be a skatesman, so I am very excited to bounce around and grind and stuff. Like the cool kids do. I plan to stream the start of this one, as I did the previous. And if I don't hate myself while playing it, might even stream more! Expect something on President's day, as the best way to protest is skating, or something.

I just spent probably 7 hours today just playing Grimrock, so it might take me a second to decompress enough to actually get my thoughts about the whole thing down. ... Okay. I think I am ready. HOLY COW WHAT A DISAPPOINTING GAME Everything about Grimrock, from the start, was screaming YO, REMEMBER THOSE OLD 3D RPGS?! WE MADE ONE.  And, as much as all caps and bold would make you think that I wasn't into that message, my actual response in return was a resounding OH HELL YEAH. For the first two hours or so, I was in love with the game. Moving around as a single unit, clicking on everybody's individual skills to trigger them in real time as their cooldowns expired like I am playing some kind of weird RPG adaptation of Simon; heck I was even into the weird flavor of the enemies. Just look at this little guy. His claws say "hello", but his armor class says "HAHA YOU FOOL, HOW DARE YOU ATTEMPT TO PIERCE THE HIDE OF CRABULON THE MASTER" But ...

I loaded up the science machine (patent pending) with the game punchcards, and pulled the enormous, gold plated lever. It churned for a while, dark gears turning, before hundreds of sheets of accordion paper came out of its gaping maw. Across 30 separate sheets, the words "LEGEND OF GRIMROCK" were written. So cool. Another RPG. Yaaaay. Hopefully I can knock this thing out in < 20 hours like the last one. I'm hoping that the emphasis on, uh, graphics might make it a bit more interesting as a watchalong experience. I'll be continuing to stream live on  Twitch , though I plan on putting archived gameplay on the YearOfTheBacklog Youtube account, with links to come as that gets actually done.

Game Time: ~12 Hours Thoughts West of Loathing is surprisingly deep for such a basic, colorless game. I constantly found interactions that would impact other areas of the game depending on what I had done previously. Like, for example, learning a skill called "percussive maintenance" that allowed me to bypass entire challenges, or being able to trade an item I didn't sell from the very beginning of the game that allowed me to skip the final boss encounter altogether. There are many things throughout that seem like they very well could be different based on which ally, or "pardner", I selected at the start. As well as what class I selected or even the way I decided to level up my character. It also seemed very likely that this is an RPG that could be won entirely as a pacifist, which I am super into. My only complaint, as a player, is that there are some reaaal rough puzzles and text chunks to read. If you aren't on board to sit with a pad of pap...

The first game that I will be attempting to beat, using nothing but my wits, and my moxie, is West of Loathing. I seem to recall people really liking that cowboy game. Lemme look at the Steam description for this one real quick. Tags RPG Comedy Adventure Western Funny Oh boy! I can't wait to root and toot and... Roll dice? I think that is what the RPG bit is. I will end up updating this post with where the streams will be, but for now, this first one, catch it over at  https://www.twitch.tv/the_joystick_hero

Before I start this project,  I should probably lay out the things that I am actually trying to beat, so that people can be all "oh my god joystick, I can't believe you never beat [INSERT FAV GAME HERE]". So, I am trying to push things down the page enough so they are "after the break". Just gotta waste a few more words. Couple more. Cool, okay. Written legibly: Grow Home The Metronomicon A Story About My Uncle Abzu Alpha Protocol Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs And yet it moves Battletech Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians Beholder Besiege Burnout Paradise Chroma Squad Cogs Corporate Lifestyle Simulator Crayon Physics Deluxe Cultist Simulator Darkest Dungeon Divinity Original Sin (Enhanced Edition) Don't Starve Dungeons of Dredmor Dust an Elysian Tale Eldritch FEZ Final Fantasy 9 Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams Half Minute Hero Half-Life 2: Lost Coast Hammerfight Insanely T...