STEAM Backlog Project 2012-2017

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 9:55 am

YellowKing wrote:Just a quick update here. My "one game at a time" philosophy is paying off and I've been doing very well completing games.

Yeah it was working great for me too, but then I decided to patch up The Secret World during my LA Noire play through. I *really* need to get back to LA Noire... oh and doesn't Omerta come out tomorrow? Crap.

Smoove did get me to knock a good 20 games off my backlog by posting this thread. Sure a dozen or so were games that I quickly discarded, but it got me to play AC brotherhood and revelations, Arkham City and most of LA Noire, all excellent games.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 9:46 pm

That's the goal - even if you're only knocking off a few a month, that's progress, eh? Besides, the next major STEAM sale should be five months away.

I was going to fire up a campaign of GalCiv 2 as part of the Ultimate version I purchased last summer. But after firing it up I recalled all the time I spent on the Impulse version of the game and figured it really wasn't "backlog". Though honestly, I'm not sure if I'm mentally prepared to take on a game like GalCiv at this point either.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 10:11 pm

Maybe I'm getting old and crotchety, but after spending a few hours with Heroes of Might and Magic V, it made me remember how much I enjoyed HoMM 3. Never played 4, but this just feels...off. I don't think I care for the art direction. Or maybe I'm just being picky. I also remembered playing the stand alone Tribes of the East for a while many years ago and not enjoying it either. Another one down.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 10:21 pm

I've been dealing with my Steam backlog by not touching a game in two weeks. So far it hasn't been a particularly effective approach.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 10:47 pm

I've added a new Category to file all the Free-to-play games under so that I can clear them out of the list when I gaze at the mountain of gaming that I have in front of me.

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 12:39 am

Smoove_B wrote:Never played 4, but this just feels...off. I don't think I care for the art direction. Or maybe I'm just being picky.

Then it's best you didn't play 4.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 9:20 am

Yeah, I seem to remember the impressions of the early adopters being less than favorable so I completely skipped it. I can still remember playing hours and hours of hot-seat MP HoMM 3 with a buddy during college. The idea that we'd sit in front of an old Packard Bell PC for hours on end taking turns on a computer is hilarious to me now.

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 12:30 pm

3 almost cost me my graduate degree

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 12:32 pm

JetFred wrote:3 almost cost me my graduate degree

Heh - me too. That, and Civ II (or III, can't remember now)

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 1:55 pm

Yes, Civ 2 for me. But not nearly as bad as homm 3.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 9:38 pm

Put some more time into Hinterland today - a game that is certainly better than the 65/100 ranking on Metacritic (at least, in my opinion). My current game has raiders on and I'm not enjoying it at all. I think I knew to turn them off, but it's been so long since I played, I just forgot how annoying they were. And I think that will complete my backlog for January...

Post by **godhugh** » Sun Feb 03, 2013 6:33 pm

Finally finished Far Cry 3, so I can at least say I've completed one game in my backlog this year. It was a very good game, but probably about 10 missions to long. I was definitely ready for it to be over with. I think I clocked in around 35 hours.

Up next, I'm going to tackle something a bit shorter in To The Moon. After that I'll take care of another quick one and finish up The Walking Dead (3 episodes left). I think at that point I'll be ready for another big game and try and tackle Dark Souls, Sleeping Dogs, LEGO Lord of the Rings, or Max Payne 3.

I'm also stealthing my way through Mark of the Ninja with my daughter. I'm not killing anyone since I don't really want her watching that, so it adds a little extra incentive to be stealthy. Game is pretty fun that way and I'm setting some ridiculously high scores.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 6:29 am

"Finished" Sleeping Dogs (the main campaign), haven't tried all the challenges and whatnot, and will try the DLC next.

EDIT: some of the missions are just... repetitive. There's like half dozen different missions where you...

Spoiler:

I think I'll go try the tournament... I defeated two "martial arts clubs" (i.e. 1 vee many fights for six rounds) thus far. And that yields quite a bit of $$$.

Apparently you can also rob armor vans by doing "action hijack" (borrowed from the "Wheelman" game, it seems)

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:37 pm

I picked up HOARD during some type of sale, spent my requisite 5 minutes with it and never touched it again until tonight. Now that I own an iOS device, this is like a glorified app (an opinion offered in the linked thread). The thing that surprised me most is that it's currently retailing for $9.99 -- which is insane.

I suppose if it played easier with a mouse and keyboard, I might spend more time, but the fact that I have to dig around and look for my controller....just not worth it.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 12:04 pm

Max Payne 3 is done. 2013 is shaping up to be a very productive year.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:51 pm

Wish I could explain Home. I wouldn't call it a game. An experiment? An exercise? Possibly. But a game? No. I think it took me 45 minutes to finish. I have no idea what I was supposed to take away from it all.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:59 pm

godhugh wrote:I'm also stealthing my way through Mark of the Ninja with my daughter. I'm not killing anyone since I don't really want her watching that, so it adds a little extra incentive to be stealthy. Game is pretty fun that way and I'm setting some ridiculously high scores.

You can always play Deus Ex: HR with stealth... and go for the pacifist achievement.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:22 pm

I would really like to keep playing King's Bounty: The Legend, but the auto rotating camera is making me want to throw up. Had to stop playing as the motion sickness was getting to me. Didn't see an option to disable it, though I'm feeling woozy and maybe I missed it...

Found a solution:

Open your game.ini file and look for the following line:

setf ~autocamera 1

Change the 1 to 0 and you can get rid of the annoying camera swings. On Windows 7 systems, the file is located under "../My Documents/My Games/King's Bounty". It may be elsewhere on different systems, but you can always do a search for it if necessary.

Mine was set to 2 not 1 which I'm sure wasn't helping. I'm really enjoying this game so far. Can't believe I never played it.

Captain Caveman · Post by **Captain Caveman** » Fri Feb 08, 2013 12:38 am

The KB games are like crack to me. I play them like my mother-in-law plays mahjong-- the hours just melt away. I recently finished the latest one, taking more than 60 hours to do so, and now I'm having trouble feeling inspired to move on to something else. Maybe I'll give it another go on hard...

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Fri Feb 08, 2013 3:30 am

I'm working my way through Transformers: Battle for Cybertron, and I'm in the Autobot campaign, one mission in, having finished the Decepticon campaign already. The game's problem is the map doesn't quite show where the ammo and weapons are, so you don't know where to find the reloads, and the landscape's too busy to pick them out of the background (they don't glow a different hue or something).

EDIT: Finished. The end boss "Trypticon" battle is a real PITA, died a dozen times as the boss has no less than FOUR different attacks: energy mortars (with Area of Damage), energy balls, missiles, AND dark energon spiders. AND you have to "kill" him a couple times. Argh. But it's the same playing the Decepticon campaign with the end boss being Omega Prime.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Feb 10, 2013 6:34 am

Just played through Spec Ops: The Line. Man, this is one mind-f***. I played it all the way through... 11 hours on wimp difficulty, and I still died like dozens of times. You just don't know who's good and who's bad any more, and at the end, you'll doubt your own sanity. And depending on which "choice" you made you'll get a lot of different achievements. But it's sure a complete f***ing mess.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 8:47 pm

Working my way through Mass Effect 3 now. This one I'll probably gnaw at for awhile. It's not compelling enough to make me want to play it in long bursts, but I'm having enough fun that I don't feel tempted to abandon it for something else.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 3:12 pm

I was enjoying the King Arthur RPG for a bit, but as people have noted in that thread, it ramps up pretty fast. I'm not really mentally able to deal with squad management and it's one of the reasons I keep buying games in the Total War series and then giving up. This does have the auto-resolve option in combat (which is nice) but I'm guessing that I'd be missing out on a bunch of the experience if I keep doing that. I didn't realize exactly what they meant by "RPG", but I do really enjoy the world map elements and picking a story path. It seems like a solid game, I'm just not into all the elements.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 1:33 pm

Finished LA Noire last night, then chapter 4 of The Walking Dead, the Harley's Revenge Arkham City content this morning (really done with Arkham City now), then Omerta after that. Somehow I don't think it is appropriate to play Chapter 5 of The Walking Dead while the kids are around.

Progress!

Don't know what to do next... installed games
Spec Ops: The Line - I am maybe an hour in and bleh. I died and didn't feel like trying again
Orcs Must Die! 2 - It turns out I suck
STALKER Call of Pripyat - Difficulty level too damn high, stuck about 30 minutes in with some damn dogs that eat me up. I could go to easy but I hate doing that
Torchlight II - Just not interested
Saints Row the Third - not with the kids around
Dead Rising 2 - Stuck at a spot that feels impossible (2 chicks) - may need to restart

The Walking Dead - has to be done when kids are asleep or away
Sniper Elite V2 - frakking hard
Two Worlds II - hate returning to an RPG when I forget what was going on
Divinity II - see above
Borderlands 2 - just a little ways in on playthrough 2, difficulty causing me to lose interest
Tomb Raider Legend - puzzles hard
Jagged Alliance Back in Action - haven't played it since it was "fixed" - probably ought to

Nothing but excuses.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 1:43 pm

Yeah, I've pretty much removed all the RPG titles from my backlog list. 5 hours isn't enough time to do anything other than figure out whether or not I like it. I'd rather go through the backlog in "waves' and more or less knock out the first round of games that are just clogging up my account and giving me the paralyzing issue of too many choices.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 3:11 pm

Going back to Sleeping Dogs for the collectibles and whatnot, then it's off to the Nightmare at Northpoint DLC.

Post by **godhugh** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 2:56 pm

Finished To The Moon. What a great little game.

Think I'll be moving on to The Walking Dead now.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:42 pm

I loaded up Two Worlds II but couldn't remember how to do anything.

I then loaded up Jagged Alliance: Back in Action and I am enjoying it. I wish this team would get together with the XCOM team. XCOM could bring the polish and JA:BiA could bring the flexible systems. I don't really remember what my complaints were when it was initially released, but I am enjoying it now.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sat Feb 23, 2013 4:37 am

I think I'm done with Sleeping Dogs. All the major achievements are done, it's now just completion stuff.

Started Darkriders, and story is interesting, but the game can't decide whether it should be a regular fighting game or a platformer. I feel like Mario at times, hunting for switches and whatnot. Then the boss fights are f***ing ridiculous.

Spoiler:

Tried iBomber Attack (dual-stick top-down shooter) and iBomber Defense Pacific (tower defense) They're kinda cute, and cheap for simple diversions.

I may go back to Just Cause 2 or something.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sat Feb 23, 2013 4:49 pm

Starting on RUSE. This feels like a regular RTS (Eugen systems is known for their "Direct Action" RTS, sorta adaptations of Dale Brown novels) but this time with some emphasis on spy capabilities, fake moves, and such "ruse". In other words, special abilities. Sounds cool, not quite as cool when you try to play it.

It's a PITA to install though. on Win7. Had to find the RUSE.EXE and set it to Vista SP2 compatibility mode, else it crashes, but the crash dialog is hidden behind its title banner. ARGH! Then I had to bring up the UPlay account, which is another PITA.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Feb 24, 2013 5:13 am

Jumped to Testament of Sherlock Holmes. They reused quite a bit of the assets from their previous games, but polished it up quite a bit. Not bad.

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 5:31 am

Smoove_B wrote:... The idea that we'd sit in front of an old Packard Bell PC for hours on end taking turns on a computer is hilarious to me now.

Yes, it's funny to think of those days, and yet I long very much to recapture the same feelings I got doing just exactly that (including the Packard Bell).

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Wed Feb 27, 2013 12:25 am

Finished Farcry 3 today. I broke down and bought one game since last year, and I wish I didn't because it wasn't what I thought it was. Someone started a Railroads thread and it got me thinking of Sid Meir's Railroad Tycoon. For some reason I thought that's what I was buying at STEAM for $5. Turns out it was the Gathering of Developer's version. While it's a good game, it wasn't what I wanted

Now on to finishing Call of Duty Black Ops 2.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 3:56 am

Finished Testament of Sherlock Holmes, ending is slightly shocking, and there's a couple "twists" that's pretty darn "WTF?!" but they managed to wrap up the story okay.

Jumping back into R.U.S.E. The WW2 campaign is somewhat amusing, as the RTS aspect of build a base, then build units, is still present. The only thing really "new" is ability to play a "ruse", or deception, and/or special recon abilities, that makes the stuff interesting.

TazFTW · Post by **TazFTW** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:33 am

The Walking Dead is done.

Completed

Blue Toad Murder Files - The Mystery of Little Riddle
Back to the Future
The Walking Dead

Next up: Ceville

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 11:07 am

I'm at the final 2 missions of R.U.S.E., and I have a feeling I'm going to get slammed by the AI, as I CANNOT build a base in this mission (WT?!)

Jumped over to Sleeping Dogs and found all the "Hell Shrines" in Nightmare in North Point. Then switched back to regular and did the 5 special missions in the Speed Pack regarding that special car.

Went to two non-Steam games... the AC-130 Operation Devastation and SAS: Secure Tomorrow.

May go back to Sleeping Dogs for a couple more achievements (Karaoke?) or play a bit more Dead Island 2.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:13 pm

Finished Dirt II over the weekend at 100% completion at a variety of difficulty levels. Stupid rally races.

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:02 pm

I never claimed to be an active part of this, but after finishing The Walking Dead, I bought The Cave and immediately played through with my first 3 characters. It took about 5 hours, and now I'm about halfway through with another 3 characters. I like it a lot. The writing is dark and funny, like a Tim Burton movie. At the moment I'm stuck with the time traveler. No spoilers, please.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 7:03 pm

Smoove_B wrote:I remember now why I stopped playing Burnout Paradise - the "figure it out yourself" style of racing where you're supposed to quickly parse a city street mini-map while driving at break-neck speeds to the finish line. While some might scoff at the idea of mystical glowing arrows giving you some guidance, I guess I'm too used to what has become acceptable practice in more current racing sims. The car feels great and the soundtrack is nice, but I don't think the game is for me.

Burnout Paradise is going into the Abandoned pile. I spent 1.5 hours with it, and the poor design decisions and arcadiness of it just aren't what I want to play any more. Starting every race with at least half the pack flying past me sucks. The Marked Man missions where I can be "Taken Down" that turns my car into an unguided missile into the nearest solid obstacle are annoying as all get out.

It might have fared better if I hadn't just finished Dirt 2, but I doubt it. At least in something like Sleeping Dogs, I don't feel like I'm being so obviously handicapped by the computer.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 6:22 pm

With all the Lara Croft fanfare going on, what better time than to try to get into Guardian of Light. I spent a little bit of time with it today and my preference for these types of games is on my Xbox, not a PC. That being said, it plays without an issue using the Xbox360 controller on my computer and the visuals are outstanding. My only complaint (and I think this is why I lean towards playing on my TV) is I was left with a sick tummy - I think it's the closeness of sitting at a computer and the scrolling visuals. Some games I'm fine, other games make me ill - this appears to be one of them. I'll probably try a few more times, but there's nothing worse than getting motion sickness while playing a PC game. Smoove_B random fact - the first time it ever happened was while playing the original Unreal.