Timu's Train of Torture

timuchan

(171 games here- quick and dirty list. Might have included some that don't meet criteria- I hope.)

A.R.E.S.
AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
Alan Wake
Alan Wake's American Nightmare
Alpha Protocol
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
And Yet It Moves
Anomaly Warzone Earth
ARMA 2
ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead
Atom Zombie Smasher
Audiosurf
Avadon: The Black Fortress
Bastion
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition (beat on PS3, still count?)
Batman: Arkham City™
Battlefield 2
Battle for Graxia
Battlestations: Midway
Battlestations: Pacific
Beat Hazard
Beyond Good & Evil
BioShock
BIT.TRIP RUNNER
Blackwell Convergence
Blackwell Unbound
Borderlands
Breath of Death VII
Bulletstorm
Bully: Scholarship Edition
Bunch Of Heroes
Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box
Call of Duty: World at War (beat on PS3)
Capsized
Cave Story+
Cogs
Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
Conflict: Denied Ops
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Crayon Physics Deluxe
CrimeCraft GangWars
Crysis
Crysis Warhead
Crysis Wars
Cthulhu Saves the World
Darksiders
Darwinia
Day of Defeat
Day of Defeat: Source
Dead Island
Dear Esther
Deathmatch Classic
DEFCON
Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Deus Ex: Invisible War
Dino D-Day
Dota 2
Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition
Dungeon Defenders
Dungeons & Dragons Online®
E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy
Eets
Eufloria
FINAL FANTASY XI
Flora's Fruit Farm
Front Mission Evolved
Galcon Fusion
Garry's Mod (is not a game?)
Gemini Rue
Global Agenda
Gotham City Impostors
Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto 2
Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto IV
Gratuitous Space Battles
GridRunner Revolution
Gyromancer
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Hammerfight
Hard Reset
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
Hitman: Blood Money
Hitman: Codename 47
Indigo Prophecy
Infernal
Jamestown
Just Cause
Just Cause 2 (never "beat" but over 30 hours in it?)
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
L.A. Noire
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Lead and Gold - Gangs of the Wild West
Left 4 Dead (on various platforms > 10 hours)
Left 4 Dead 2 (probably 10 hours on various platforms)
Lumines
Lumines: Advanced Pack
Machinarium
Magicka - 52.6 hrs on record and I haven't beaten the original story. wtf.
Max Payne
Metal Drift
Metro 2033
Mini Ninjas
Multiwinia
Neverwinter Nights 2: Platinum
NightSky
Order of War
Osmos
Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3
Project: Snowblind
Realm of the Mad God
Red Faction: Armageddon
Ricochet (srsly?)
Rogue Trooper
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Sanctum
Season of Mystery : The Cherry Blossom Murders
Sequence
Shank
Shattered Horizon
Shellshock 2: Blood Trails
Solar 2
Spiral Knights (i think we said no to f2p like these yes?)
Splice
Starscape
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Super Meat Boy
Supreme Commander
Supreme Commander 2
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance
Swords and Soldiers HD
Syberia
Syberia 2
Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 1 - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 2 - The Siege of Spinner Cay
Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 3 - Lair of the Leviathan
Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 4 - The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood
Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 5 - Rise of the Pirate God
The Blackwell Legacy
The Last Remnant
The Longest Journey
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom - Gold Edition
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition
Thief: Deadly Shadows
Titan Quest
Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Tomb Raider: Legend
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Torchlight
Tribes: Ascend
Trine
Trine 2
Uplink
VVVVVV
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Game of the Year Edition
World of Goo
Yosumin!
Zen Bound® 2
Zombie Driver

primesuspect

If you beat it on another platform, you don't need to include it on the list. It's not technically in your "backlog". As far as 30 hours in but not beat? NOPE. DOESN'T COUNT. BEAT IT.

timuchan

Just played through the first two stages of A.R.E.S. Bullet hose games aren't really my thing, but I had a fair amount of fun. Looks like there are only 5 stages, so this one will probably be over pretty quickly.

ardichoke

You'd like to think that. Some of the later stages of A.R.E.S. are pretty damn hard, or at least they were for me. I ended up getting frustrated with it and quitting.

timuchan

Ugh, well here's hoping I can beat it by or during the weekend.

timuchan

Hmm. Is it at all possible for me to edit my first post? Or should I make a separate post to edit my list?

primesuspect

Hmmm.... I'm going to have to do some permissions jiggery to enable editing of first posts for everybody only in this forum. Stand by.

timuchan

No worries. ^_^

Tushon

I asked brian to look into giving people thread edit rights indefinitely within this sub-forum

Winfrey

Since my first post was technically 2 posts, I'm gonna need permission to edit that one in about 10 years.

timuchan

A.R.E.S.
Status: Beaten!
with...
2 hours of playtime and
6 achievements (all the simple ones)

Gameplay/Controls: 10
I played using KB+M. Controls were simple utilizing mostly just WASD, space and left and right click. I don't play this genre of games much but I found it easy to pick up and play. One puzzling thing was the lack of explanation on armor types. A brief popup said that it could help against certain kinds of damage... but I looked online and didn't see any armors I had that had any different stats. Overall, good gameplay and control mechanics.

Story: 6
There isn't a lot of plot to A.R.E.S. You are on a rescue mission on a space ship, you find alien gas possessing robots, you fight the robots and the gas. Mostly cutscenes were readable, but the subtitles in the opening sequence moved way too fast for me to read... which is a problem coming from someone watches lots of foreign shows and films (and yes, anime...so much anime). Story isn't exciting but it holds the game together and works for it.

Art: 8
Art was solid. Gotta love some good old parallax 2D. I mostly play newer, 3D games... I feel most comfortable with those. I really admire games like BlazBlue that take an old approach and make it new and beautiful again though.

Sound/Music: 7
Music was good. Not something I would probably listen to outside the game, but it worked well with the fast pace of the game and the art style.

Next up! AaAaAA!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity of which I have invested a whopping 7 minutes.

primesuspect

Boom! Nice work, Timuchan. FEELS GOOD, MAN One down!

timuchan

Feels good! Time to run train on AaAaAA!! Didn't know what to make of it when I played it last Christmas.

timuchan

AaAaAA!!! is turning out to be not so bad. I have around 3 hours in it right now (feels like more!). It is definitely a small-dose game, for me at least. Can really get the adrenaline pounding sometimes. I have about 10 levels left to unlock before I'm done. Close, but I keep having to go back to early levels and (attempt) to 5-star them to get more unlock currency.

PirateNinja

The last two levels I did required I unlock a video for 14000 some odd teeth first, then they each cost ~12000 teeth. Pretty much I needed 3-5 stars on every level to do all the unlocking. Caffeine was worth it. Not sure if any of this helps, but good work on your list!

timuchan

Thanks man, I definitely appreciate the advice! All these 12k levels are killing me!

timuchan

AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
Status: Beaten!
6 hours played
5/7 achievements

Gameplay/Controls: 8
It took me a long time to understand the controls. They are simple, but learning to finesse took quite a bit of time. LOTS of twitch adjustments are needed or you will over-correct and fly into a building or off the map. Great game if you want to improve your reaction time! My biggest annoyance in this game was being forced to waste money on tiles that were not actual levels. Two access two of the final levels (which are 12k teeth each) I have to first unlock a pointless tile that cost over 16k teeth.

Story: 2
Aside from some ridiculous plot devices, nothing really going on here. There are random tiles you can waste your money on that will just do meditation or weird sketches (i.e. one is about a grandmother cookies with someone's ashes as one of the ingredients). I tried to avoid these once I realized how precious the money was.

Art: 8
Art is okay. Level design is awesome at times, but can be very uneven. There are levels near the "start" of the game that I still struggle to get more than 3 stars on (I know, because to unlock all of the levels I kept going back and trying to do better on them), while I got 5 stars of 5 out of the 7 final levels with little effort.

Cool level near end. Took 45 minutes to 5 star it. Feels good.


Sound/Music: 9
Really great job here. The music is exactly what it needs to be and does its job- keeps you alert and makes your adrenaline pump.

Overview:
A very fun games to play in small increments... I am likely to play it again when I am bored some time, but I am unlikely to play it for longer than 20 minutes at a time.

This menu...


GOFAST plates. They make me lose the game.


Up Next: Alan Wake

@primesuspect plz cross out Age of Conan. It is not F2P. I rejoice.

primesuspect

Good show!

timuchan

Almost done with the original Alan Wake, near the end of Episode 4 right now. I'd like to think that I am handling the scares well, but my stiff neck says otherwise. I'm enjoying it though, which is good. After this there is the DLC, and then on to Alan Wake's American Nightmare! Which I am looking forward to. ^_^

timuchan

Some screenshots from Alan Wake

Oh, that looks nice.


Well that is a majestic chair.


This game is so pretty.

timuchan

The eternal cable lift.


It fell. :-|


Fallin'


AaAaaAA!!! Mini game here.


SPLOOOSH!


dddrrrruuuggggsssss


Odin and Tor. BONK!

timuchan

Beat the Alan Wake core episodes, just have to finish The Signal, and The Writer specials now. The game ended up being much longer than I expected, but it was good. Very good. Pleasantly surprised.

Tushon

I am excited for really getting going in that now

Winfrey

I really liked Alan Wake as well. They did a great job keeping up the tension and giving great narration to an interesting story. If you get Alan Wake's American Nightmare you'll get a small continuation to the story but mostly it's a game designed to be more of an arcade mode survival Alan Wake, with a lot less focus on the story and more focus on fighting stuff.

timuchan

Alan Wake + The Signal and The Writer DLC
Status: Boom!
15 hours played
36/67 achievements



Gameplay/Controls: 7
Gameplay was excellent. Controls were frustrating with KB+M and felt very float-y/inaccurate. I spent my first few hours playing the game wrong and only tapping the flashlight and trying to shoot the taken rather than blasting their shadows off and *then* shooting them. Ends up it takes a lot less ammo when you pay attention during the tutorial. Played on easy because I am a pansy.

Story: 9
Some serious inception business going on here. If you're going to play this, prepare your brain for a ride and make sure you get and read as many of the manuscript pages. Core: great story. DLC: fantastic conclusion to an already great story. I really loved The Writer. Pretty much the only way I'll play a horror game is if it has a great story. Now I'm playing scary games because I joined this challenge, but I am glad that Alan Wake ended up being pleasing in this way.

Art: 9
Gorgeous. Bink video encoding sucks- the in-game engine (on PC) was leaps and bounds ahead of the pre-rendered (and then artifacted by Bink) cut scenes. Pretty cutscenes, but having huge splotches of pixelation really ruins them.

Sound/Music: 10
Impeccable. Great foley and general sound engineering, but for me the biggest thing was the music at the end of each episode. Whomever created the licensed music selection is up there with a Tarantino movie. Having a great song at the end of each episode ended up being a reward for me getting through them.

Overview:
I loved it! If you have a decent tolerance for a scary game (it wasn't *that* bad. I only jump once, during The Signal DLC. Freaking chainsaw dudes.) and if shows up for around $20 on Steam again with American Nightmare I highly recommend it.

Up next! Alan Wake's American Nightmare

Barry Wheeler, Captain of Awesome

timuchan

Alan Wake's: American Nightmare
Status: Tasty
4 hours played
4/12 achievements

You are entering the vicinity of an area adjacent to a location. The kind of place where there might be a monster, or some kind of weird mirror. These are just examples; it could also be something much better. Prepare to enter: The Scary Door.

Gameplay/Controls: 9
Much improvement in smoothness of controls and maneuverability over Alan Wake. Plays more like an action game due to better combat mechanics. Newer weapons, improved responsiveness in the controls, and Alan's lack of run-3-steps asthma all work out to make this game FUN. Another huge update is that the game feels no where near as linear as Alan Wake. While you have specifics goals to achieve at any given time, you are given fairly large maps to run around and explore should you like.

Story: 7
Adequate. This isn't the intense thriller that Alan Wake was, but it builds on that. At this point Alan has sorted out what is going on and trying to put the finishing touches on reality in order to set the record straight. I have one annoyance about choice of story mechanics, but it is pretty well executed.

The dreaded TIME LOOP is already so frustrating in books and film, it is all the worse when you have to be in the character's shoes every step. Fortunately the developer's seem to have known this, and do a decent job of shortening and adding variety each time the story loops.

I still got the feeling that I was playing Halo: Combat Evolved at times... repeating the same motions repeatedly. Good thing that like Halo (or more so than), Alan Wake's American Nightmare made me enjoy the combat.

Art: 9
The game engine looks like it has had a complete overhaul since Alan Wake, and it looks great. Where Alan Wake was a serious, dark, survival horror game tribute to Stephen King, Alan Wake's American Nightmare is a more playful, Twilight Zone version of its predecessor.

Sound/Music: 9
I made up an Alan Wake playlist on MOG and am listening to it as I write. I love it. I knocked off a point here because some of the music got used a bit more than it ought to have been. Again the timing and usage of the music is perfect. There was a part near the end that it seemed like an endless hoard of Taken were coming at me. There was come heavy metal playing. I switched to my automatic assault rifle, chucked a flash-bang and dodged an axe attack from behind. *sniff* It was a beautiful moment.

Prepare to hear lots of this and like it:

Club Foot by Kasabian


Overview:
For the love of all that is digital, buy this game! It can probably be played in a couple hours, but it also has Arcade Mode, which is like a survival/hoard mode where you fight off increasing numbers of Taken.

The Taken are coming, did you remember your flaregun?





Up next: Alpha Protocol

Winfrey

The babes are what made the game, shoulda taken more screenies of the babes.

timuchan

Winfrey said:

The babes are what made the game, shoulda taken more screenies of the babes.

I figured you already covered that, so I went with my Alan Wake music obsession.

timuchan

Alan Wake franchise is 75% off for anyone wanting to add to their pain.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/108710?snr=1_41_4__42

timuchan

I've put a lot of hours into Alpha Protocol the last few days, and I am surprised to say I am enjoying it. First couple levels frustrated me, but once I got some levels into stealth and pistols things have been going a lot more smoothly.

timuchan

Alpha Protocol
Status: Beat It
22 hours played
achievements

Completely invisible


Gameplay/Controls: 8
Shooter mechanics: Mass Effect < Alpha Protocol < Mass Effect 2. I guess they aren't all that similar though. Mass effect does feel sort of like a blend of Mass Effect and a Splinter Cell game though. The shooting mechanics aren't terrible, it just takes time to line up every shot (1.5 seconds with the pistol fully leveled). That said, if this game is on your list, I highly recommend going pistol/stealth. I love that the game reacts to your play-style. If you kill a bunch of people, you'll be distrusted and miss out on some opportunities. People that would have been allies can become enemies. Very cool!

Story: 7
Better than Call of Doody. But seriously, I liked it. Nothing terribly deep about it, but some nice twists and turns and the game gives you a fair amount of freedom when it comes to choosing how to navigate the story and who to ally with.

Art: 6
Reasonably detailed environments, not too much repetition of models and textures, good character design. It doesn't scream eye candy, but it gets the job done- and I imagine that when it came out it was probably a pretty decent looking game.

Sound/Music: 6
Standard shooter game fair.

Overview:
This game is near-solid. It has a rough start, a bit of a learning curve, some frustrating hard bits, and some oddly helpful bugs at times (loading a checkpoint right after an auto-save will clear an area of enemies. I did this twice, unintentionally). I would love to play this again at some point, maybe attempt a 0-kill/unseen playthrough... Or see if it is possible to ally with everyone. Some fun possibilities.

Stephen Heck. This guy is nuts.


Leeland: Wears ugly suits


Isn't she from Saints Row: The Third?


That felt good.



Up next: Amnesia: The Dark Descent