Games Finished - 2020 Edition

[Blackhawk]

I just finished my second run of Void Bastards today. The first was in January, so it's been almost a year. What a great game.

I also finished Fallout: New Vegas for the first time since the last DLC was released (and the second time ever.) Such a good game. Not perfect, but really, really good. I skipped all of the DLC this time due to wanting to clear out some gaming time for Cyberpunk 2077, but I had a lot of fun with the main quest plus lots of the side content. This time I went with the Independent New Vegas ending (last time I did NCR.)

[Kasey Chang]

I've "finished" Mars Rover Mechanic and while it's somewhat charming, it's not that different from any of the other mechanics games once you've learn the general layout of the rover.

I've started a second Genesis Alpha One run, and this time I want to explore the entire quadrant complete with shields and hyperdrive and stuff, and engineer everyone. I've even build alien containment and have fried a couple aliens in "investigation" already.

[$iljanus]

Fare thee well, 2020 thread. You've done good and now you get to live out your life as a regular thread!

[Paradroid]

I've "finished" Mars Rover Mechanic and while it's somewhat charming, it's not that different from any of the other mechanics games once you've learn the general layout of the rover.

Rover Mechanic Simulator? I feel like I've probably done everything in it as well by now, but it's a bloody good game that I really enjoyed. Also, going by what the devs said on the Steam forum, it's surprisingly accurate. They consulted technical manuals and drawings, analysed everything that was publicly available, and had access to someone who works at the JPL.

Also, thanks to the in game radio I discovered the joys of electro swing music!

[Rumpy]

I've "finished" Mars Rover Mechanic and while it's somewhat charming, it's not that different from any of the other mechanics games once you've learn the general layout of the rover.

Rover Mechanic Simulator? I feel like I've probably done everything in it as well by now, but it's a bloody good game that I really enjoyed. Also, going by what the devs said on the Steam forum, it's surprisingly accurate. They consulted technical manuals and drawings, analysed everything that was publicly available, and had access to someone who works at the JPL.

Also, thanks to the in game radio I discovered the joys of electro swing music!

I'm quite curious about this one, and seeing as our club has a contact with a lead engineer for the Perseverance Rover, I wish I had known about this before had given a talk to our astronomy club, as I would have asked him what he thought.

[Blackhawk]

Also, thanks to the in game radio I discovered the joys of electro swing music!

It's been a go-to for me when I'm not sure what mood I'm in for years now.

[Paradroid]

Nice, thanks! I've been following some random playlist on Spotify so I'm familiar with Booty Swing, but Pantaloons was new to me. Another artist to add to the library!

I can't believe I'm only just discovering this awesomeness!

[Isgrimnur]

Then you may enjoy Beats Antique

[Paradroid]

Then you may enjoy Beats Antique

Let's see:

Growing like wildfire under the canopy of live electronica and world roots music comes a masterful merge of modern technology, live instrumentation and seductive performance, built of brass bands and glitch, string quartets and dubstep: the musical trio Beats Antique.

Sounds great! And glitch is another genre I've recently got into, too. Thank you!

[Kasey Chang]

Finished Train Mechanic (2017) and Trident's Wake.

Fix Diesel, Electric, and Steam locomotives, from simple replacement bits to diagnosing problems, to almost a full rebuild. Most parts can be "repaired" and thus, come in under budget which gets you a bonus pay. But if your repair skills at the workbench aren't good enough and you ruined the part, you can always order a part and fix it that way, you just don't get the bonus. There are only so many missions, but there is a train "world" for you to drive your repair train around, and when needed, deploy your crane to put a derailed engine back on track and tow it back to the depot for repairs. Somewhat charming, but by now, a bit derivative.

The game about renovating a whole train station, on the other hand, sounds a bit more intriguing.

Trident's Wake is a co-op isometric shooter a-la Hell Divers but lacks that something to make it infinitely playable. The weapons don't seem balanced or suitable for fighting the enemies you can see and the procedural missions are boring. Every one of them are one of two objective types: unlock archive and run, or do Alamo against all comers for 20 seconds. Weapon upgrades are slow and tedious. Good story, lousy play mechanics.

Gave up on Damnation a little while back. Alternate history... when Civil War destroyed both the union and confederacy, steampunk inventors took over, and GSI basically became this irresistable force complete with brainwashed soldiers using a super-soldier serum and steampunk tech including huge siege tanks and armored soldiers. Only a few fighters are doing what they can against this menace. You play the major, and you usually have an companion, could be the loudmouth shooter, the native healer, or the former turncoat. THe problem is the females are pretty scantily clad, as you can see from my Steam screenshots, and the gameplay is basically vertical puzzles, where you need to jump up, and up, or down and down. Basically doing acrobatics while wearing full armor. Even the game jokes about "don't your arms get tired?" as one of your companions joked. Other than the verticality, there's really not much new here.

Yes, I wrote the review at 2.2 hours played. Didn't change my mind at 8.6 hours, when I was utterly STUCK in the sewers.

Finished Skyhill, don't really want to play higher difficulty levels, or try for various other endings.

Will continue MarZ , and maybe try old Greed Corp, Crying Suns, and continue Radio Commander.

[Kasey Chang]

MarZ final mission, #20, basically messes with you that if you don't "exploit" part 1 of the mission, you'll never survive part 3.

Spoiler:

The mission has NO harvesting. What you start with is all you get. And you ONLY have 3 crew. TOTAL.

Mission part 1 was to send the crew running around and start a force field all around to protect you all against incoming zeds.You have 20 monoliths, so you insert them into 10 different posts, each with 2 sides, and you generate a force field that also activate the elevator that takes you down a level.

Mission Part 2 is where you see an underground town, and get attacked from multiple directions, and this has "Crushers", basically hostile mechs that is VERY resistant to damage, and you have no super weapons to call upon. If you survive that, you get to Part 3.

Mission Part 3 is where the elevator goes down again, and this time, you get to see the last new type of enemies: cryo zombies, and their cousin, the fat cryos. If you survive this wave, you've finished.

The problem is even with the best tower available, level 3+ drone tower (that's with the minefield upgrade) 3 is just not enough, not when enemy has a full swarm that just bulldozed over your tower.

I searched around, and apparently the solution is: you have to turn on "supply crates" perk in part 1, or "bounty" perk in Part 1, and NOT finish the forcefield. You have to leave ONE gap, and put up your towers to defend that gap and that gap ONLY. You use this to "farm" the bounty and supply drops until you get enough to get reinforcements, afford extra towers, and so on. You keep doing this until the entire elevator is spammed full of towers that formed the perfect perimeter or you can't hold the perimeter anymore. Given you have 3 hubs, at max upgrade, that will give you 25 towers, assuming you have researched appropriately

Okay, did finish it myself... Did have to exploit a bug in the system.

Spoiler:

Sometimes, between parts, some of the towers became "self-powered". Despite graphics shows it connected to a hub, the hub says it's not drawing power, thus you're able to deploy additional towers from the hub. I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I exploited that for all its worth.

I ended up with 12 actual powered towers and probably 16-20 towers overall. Typical setup per 'side' is 1 tesla, backed up by a 2 lasers, and as many as the drone towers I can field. There were so many drones even Crusher, the heavy mech, was basically sandblasted into submission. Most of the lasers have prism so it kills its target AND one or two additional targets, so it's basically sweeping the field, and not even a phalanx formation of enemies can survive multiple lasers and a whole swarm of drones shooting at it.

And that's it, folks. Onto the next game.

[hepcat]

8/10 The Procession to Calvary (PC) - It's really a great follow-up to Four Last Things if you like the cut-out-classic-paintings animation style. But kind of too short and pretty easy.

I’m playing this now on Xbox game pass and I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in a game in ages. For me, it’s less about the game and more about seeing what ludicrousness the writers come up with next.

[JetFred]

8/10 The Procession to Calvary (PC) - It's really a great follow-up to Four Last Things if you like the cut-out-classic-paintings animation style. But kind of too short and pretty easy.

I’m playing this now on Xbox game pass and I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in a game in ages. For me, it’s less about the game and more about seeing what ludicrousness the writers come up with next.

Did you play Four Last Things? He's got another coming, Death of the Reprobate.

[hepcat]

No, but I’ll look for them now.

[Skinypupy]

I started this today as well. Very funny and the Monty Python-ish humor is right up my alley, but I am absolutely terrible at adventure games. My logic circuits never seem to jive with WTF these game developers want me to do.

I had to look up how to complete the very first puzzle…not a promising start. I checked the wrestling dude’s clothes pile for the socks before talking to the sockless dude. Didn’t consider that it would change to an actionable item if I went back to check it again.

[JetFred]

Four Last Things and The Procession to Calvary are both totally doable fairly quickly without hints if you are willing to backtrack like most adventure games demand.