It’s hard to believe I’ve already put in ten gaming sessions in the Backlog Bingo 2021! So far, it has yet to produce any results. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it means that I’m getting a good variety of games from the RNG and rather than grinding away at any one game for too long, it’s keeping my options fresh and fulfilling. I’ve only had maybe one or two sessions where I really wasn’t feeling it.
A lot of these games I’m actually playing for the first time, despite the fact they’ve been relegated to the backlog. Sure, I dabbled in them when I downloaded them, but I usually do that. It’s like my own little ritual whenever I download something that’s new to me. I’ll boot it up and play it for a few minutes, just to get a taste. It’s the spiritual equivalent of cracking open the NES game box and reading the booklet on your way home from the mall. As such, some of these games I have played, but I don’t really know much about. It’s something that’s become extremely obvious to anyone that’s watched the videos. A lot of these can be considered “first plays.”
So how’s it been going? Well, let’s see…
Star Wars: Republic Commando, despite being an original Xbox game that has existed for almost twenty years, has largely been ignored by me. I knew of its existence, but back when it came out, the trauma that was the prequel trilogy was still pretty fresh in my brain, and I just couldn’t get myself to look at anything Star Wars. Well, now there’s a new trauma, and it makes the prequel trilogy seem not so bad. Thus, I allowed myself to experience the lesser evil and give it a spin. I put a pretty good chunk of time into it on stream and I didn’t hate it. It definitely has its moments, but it’s also a product of its time, and the Rainbow Six-inspired squad gameplay is still a bit too basic and useless to be a real draw. The difficulty is also surprisingly steep. I might bump it down a notch just to finish it, as the game isn’t nearly great enough to endure a lot of its frustration.
I was actually enjoying River City Girls… for a while. The longer I played, the more of its small annoyances began to build. There are two main grievances for this game, and I don’t understand why either of them exist. Pile on top of that a boss battle that took waaaaay too fucking long (and ended with my death mere centimeters away from victory) and it might be a recipe for a Rant-astic write-up. it will be interesting to see if I finish this one.
Yakuza 0 is not a good game to play on stream. As a game, it doesn’t respect the player’s time, taking way too long to do basic things and often interrupting those things with even more things. It wouldn’t be so bad if 90% of the dialogue in the game wasn’t pointless bullshit. In true Japanese melodramatic fashion, it takes them 30 minutes to have a 2-minute conversation. And when you’re only doing a two-hour stream, it allows surprisingly little to be accomplished. I’ll continue to work on this one offline.
A Plague Tale: Innocence has been excellent so far. I’ve only had one play session with it, but I thoroughly enjoyed what I played. To explain the game would honestly do it a disservice, as the “game” part of the game is pretty basic stealth that has been seen many times, but the atmosphere and the acting makes this game more about the experience than the gameplay, and so far it has not disappointed.
The Backlog Bingo finally forced me to get back into Mass Effect Andromeda. Honestly, that’s the kinda the point though, right? I don’t hate ME Andromeda, but it’s just not… that interesting. The gameplay is fun, but the characters are super lame and I personally feel like the open-world(s) quest design is extremely sloppy. Many, many times I was confused about where I was going, or even what quest I was taking part in. All I knew was “go toward the spot on the map.” This is also a longer game, so I’m continuing my playthrough of it outside of streams as well.
Ori and the Blind Forest can fuck right off. There, I said it. I know it’s an indie darling and everyone loves it, but honestly I did not enjoy my time with it in the slightest. I feel the game is extremely cheap and 95% of the difficulty comes from either not know what you’re supposed to do, or what you’re supposed to do has such a tiny window of success that it takes a few tries. I stopped at the Ginzo Tree Escape, which is a tough section by most people’s account. I almost cleared it though, but I was so mentally exhausted from the game by that point that I gave up after a few tries. We’ll see how far this one gets before I delete it out of principle.
The Messenger is a cool retro-style game in the vein of Ninja Gaiden and Megaman, and I’ve been enjoying it… mostly. I mistakenly thought I was at the end of the game, twice, only for it to keep going. That’s enough to kill the buzz for anyone, defeating a boss and realizing it wasn’t the final boss. By the time I reached the third “final level” I was done. I haven’t given up on it though, and I’ll give it a go the next time it’s number is called.
Splinter Cell Double Agent is an OG Xbox game that I have already explained ad nauseum both on here and on the stream. I got the 360 version, it wasn’t the same, yada yada yada. My problem with this game though is that it seems much, much more difficult than any of the other Splinter Cells. I always felt I had a pretty good grasp of those games, but man I’m having my ass handed to me here. I can’t tell if I’ve just gotten that much worse of if there’s some wonky programming afoot. Guards seem to be damn near omnipotent and I’ve been easily spotted when my shadow meter is almost completely hidden. I may replay a mission or two offline, now that I have a feel for it, to see if it’s just my imagination.
Journey to the Savage Planet was the tenth and final game played before this write-up and I really did enjoy what I played. I look forward to this one again, but it did annoy me a little bit how unclear their objectives can be. At one point I had completed a mission and the next one was inaccessible, but there was no instruction on what to do next. Only after scouring through my active tasks and missions did I see that there were other tasks I needed to perform to complete secondary and tertiary objectives (that presumably will unlock an important skill or tech). Now I have to perform menial tasks like launching critters into the air and shooting them, or falling from a certain height and not dying. These are the types of goofy things that should be left for obscure achievements, not shoved into the early parts of a game. It feels like padding, and I’m pretty sure it is.
That’s it. Those are my first ten sessions, broken up into nine games (River City Girls popped up twice. Yay.) I haven’t completed any of them yet, but I’m making progress in the games I have played, and that’s really all I can ask for. Not really, I can ask for some of these games that I actually AM close to beating. C’mon RNG.
