Guppy's Grievous Gripefest

Guppy

I'm not good with alliteration.

Here's the list of what I'm going to try to make it through.

1...2...3...Kick it! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby)
AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
Alien Breed 2: Assault
Aliens vs. Predator
Alpha Protocol
America's Army 3
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
ArcaniA – Gothic 4
Arcania: Fall of Setarrif
ARMA 2
ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead
Audiosurf
Bastion
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam
Beyond Good & Evil
BioShock 2
BIT.TRIP BEAT
Borderlands(+DLC)
Borderlands 2
Braid
Breach
BRINK
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
Cogs
Commander Keen Complete Pack
Costume Quest
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
Counter-Strike: Source
Crazy Taxi
Crysis
Crysis Warhead
Crysis Wars
Darkest Hour: Europe '44-'45
Darksiders
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition
Day of Defeat
Dead Island
Dead Space
Deathmatch Classic
Defense Grid: The Awakening
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Deus Ex: Invisible War
Devil May Cry 4
Dino D-Day (Not sure if there are any servers up anymore)
DOOM 3
DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil
DOOM II: Hell on Earth
Dota 2
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Duke Nukem Forever
Dungeon Defenders
E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy
Fable - The Lost Chapters
Faerie Solitaire
Fallout 3 - Game of the Year Edition
Fallout: New Vegas
Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2: Fortunes Pack
Final DOOM
From Dust
Garry's Mod
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
Gothic
Gothic 3
Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods Enhanced Edition
Gothic II: Gold Edition
Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City
Grand Theft Auto IV
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
Half-Life: Blue Shift
Half-Life: Opposing Force
Half-Life: Source
Half-Life Deathmatch: Source
Hell Yeah!
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
HeXen: Beyond Heretic
HeXen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel
HeXen II
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
Hitman: Blood Money
Hitman: Codename 47
Hotline Miami
Jet Set Radio
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
Killing Floor Mod: Defence Alliance 2
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Lead and Gold - Gangs of the Wild West
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
LIMBO
Lone Survivor
Mafia
Mafia II
Magic: The Gathering — Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013
Magicka
Mare Nostrum
Mass Effect
Master Levels for DOOM II
Max Payne
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Max Payne 3
Metro 2033
Miasmata
Mount & Blade
Mount & Blade: Warband
Mount & Blade: Warband - Napoleonic Wars
Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword
NiGHTS into Dreams...
Painkiller: Black Edition
PAYDAY: The Heist
POSTAL 2 Complete
Post Apocalyptic Mayhem
Quake
Quake II
Quake II: Ground Zero
Quake II: The Reckoning
Quake III: Team Arena
Quake III Arena
Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon
Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Ricochet
Rock of Ages
Rune Classic
RUSH
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
Saints Row: The Third
Sam & Max Season 3
Sanctum
Scribblenauts Unlimited
SEGA Bass Fishing
SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Classics
Serious Sam 3: BFE
Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter
Serious Sam Classic: The Second Encounter
Shoot Many Robots
Sonic Adventure 2
Sonic Adventure 2: Battle Mode DLC
Sonic Adventure DX
Sonic Generations
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4 Episode I
Space Channel 5: Part 2
Stacking
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Super Meat Boy
Syberia
Syberia 2
Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 4 - The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood
Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 5 - Rise of the Pirate God
Team Fortress Classic
The Ball
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
The Sims 3
The Ultimate DOOM(I think I finished this a while back, but I can't remember)
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition
The Wonderful End of the World
They Bleed Pixels
Thief Gold
Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers
Toki Tori
Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Tomb Raider: Legend
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
Train Simulator 2013
Trine
Trine 2
Unreal Tournament 3: Black Edition
Unreal Tournament 2004
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II
Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II – Retribution
Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II - Chaos Rising
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Dark Crusade
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Winter Assault
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Game of the Year Edition
Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny

primesuspect

Hooo wow.. Good luck!

Guppy

Have about 100 minutes into the "1...2...3...Kick it! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby)"

I got this game in the "Potato Sack" as part of the Portal 2 ARG. It vaguely reminds me of playing Starfox. It's fun for a little while, but gets old fast. It doesn't feel finished. It needs more color, more variety, and more music options (although I guess the devs were expecting users would use their own music).

4/10

edit: I just realized why it doesn't feel finished. It's still in alpha.

RahnalH102

Guppy said:

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle Mode DLC

I actually question whether this one would count/work. They ripped it out of the standard package and assuming it's the same as the console then that means you need someone to play with and I doubt it has online matchmaking.

Guppy

Still on the first game. Went to the dev site and watched the video of what the game is supposed to look like. It kind of felt like this.

BobbyDigi

This post on their forum is exactly that. I had the same feeling until I figured out they were redoing the game from the ground up.

Guppy

Just finished my 10 hours of Ugly Baby.

The game got updated a few days ago. Instead of just collecting signal, there are now points to collect also. There are more obstacles to dodge, and more color.

I'll probably come back to this game as it gets updated. I'd like to see what Dejobaan does with it in the future.

On to my second game (and another Dejobaan title), AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity.

primesuspect

Good man!

Guppy

I'm about 100 minutes in to AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. This is another game I got in the Potato Sack, that I never looked at until now. So far, I love this game! I went in with low expectations, and was surprised by it. It's almost "Top 10" good.

This game is all about BASE jumping. You collect as many points as you can on the way down, and deploy your parachute before reaching the end. Points are earned by staying close to(hugging+kissing) buildings and other objects, hitting score plates(glass plates with a point value on them), spraying graffiti, acknowledging spectators (fans get a thumbs up, protestors get a two-fingered salute), and even hitting birds. It can get pretty challenging, but it's a lot of fun.





Also, it looks like this game can be played with the Oculus Rift. I'm really thinking about getting one now.

Guppy

I'm about 5 hours in now. It doesn't feel like it though. I'm pretty close to finishing. Everything was going fine until I saw this screen.



If you're wondering what this means, I'll explain. There is a menu where you select the next jump to attempt, each jump represented by a cube.



To unlock a cube, the player needs to collect enough teeth. This is done by getting at least a one-star rating from a jump. Most cubes are fairly inexpensive (around 2,000-4,000, I think) and the player can progress through the game fairly quickly. The more advanced cubes cost 12,000 teeth. I have to go back and get more stars, so I can get more teeth. I'm making progress, but very slowly.

I'm glad this game is presenting me with a challenge, but I'm sick of playing the same stage 10+ times and getting close to the same score every time. I still think this game is cool, but it's really frustrating right now.

Guppy

I finally unlocked and played all jumps. It took me about 9 hours total. There are a few other things unrelated to gameplay that I didn't unlock, but I don't think those really count. I unlocked about half of them, and realized they were just a waste of teeth.

On to Alien Breed 2: Assault.

Guppy

100 minutes in and, so far, I don't really care for this game.

Stand at a terminal, hold space, wait for the process to finish, watch 5-15 second animation (generator starting, bridge turning, elevator moving, etc.), shoot some aliens, repeat. That's about all there is to this game. It's really bland and generic.

The atmosphere in this game is mediocre at best. I don't really like horror games, but I don't feel any fear or uneasiness playing this game. Just because it's kind of dark, there are corpses all over the place, and there's stuff growing on the walls and floor doesn't make the setting creepy. I've felt better immersion from flash games. It doesn't have to have a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. level of immersion, but it could have been much more.

Guppy

Finished the single player, don't feel like trying the co-op. The game got a little better, but it was still mostly the same bland gameplay. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either. The story seems like it was cobbled together after they made the game. It's just really weak. The main antagonist makes his presence known at the end of the game. I thought I was just killing aliens. No mention was made about him save for a few log entries (maybe I just missed a lot of logs).

Also, I still don't know when I got this game. It could have been a free game at some point.


Next up: Aliens vs. Predator.

Guppy

Done with the Marine campaign of Aliens vs Predator. I had a little bit of fun with it.

You play as a rookie Colonial Marine, that gets separated from the rest of his squad. You have to follow the waypoints and shoot Xenomorphs along the way. You get bits of story through the audio diaries (collect all 67), but you won't be totally lost without them. It was pretty good, but way too linear for me.





The next game on my list I'm almost looking forward to playing.

Alpha Protocol

midga

Hello, surp.

Guppy

Just finished Alpha Protocol. It took me 15 hours.

I enjoyed it for the most part. There were a few things that bothered me about the game, but overall it's pretty good. You get recruited to an organization, and sent on a mission to find where a terrorist cell obtained its weapons. You end up traveling to three locations(Moscow, Taipei, and Rome), to track weapon shipments. By dealing with the contacts in each area you learn about what's really going on with the weapon trafficking, your organization and government.

When you have conversations, your responses are given in real time (so you can't take 10 minutes to think of a response). Your reputation with a person can go up or down depending on your response. If you get your reputation high enough, you can get assistance from that person and/or their faction. There are also other events that can factor in, such as how you complete a mission, or your reputation with someone else.

And here are the things that bothered me in this game.

I hated the hacking minigame.


You have two strings and you have to match them to two identical strings by moving them on top of the corresponding characters and clicking or pressing space. If you don't find them fast enough (or just can't get one line to move on top of the other in time) the code resets and everything shifts. If you run out of time, an alarm is set off. In which case you have to go over to the alarm and do the alarm minigame.


You can't carry a sniper rifle.


You can use it in one spot, and leave it there when done. To be fair, there isn't a lot of need for a sniper rifle, but I like to have the option. On a few mission, you can bribe a guard to leave a sniper rifle out for you, but you still leave it in the same spot.


There were little bugs here and there that bothered me.

This guy had no gun and walked around crouching. He eventually materialized a gun and shot me.


The guards would sometimes stand in the corner and stare at the wall. I'd wait about 2 minutes and they'd still just stare at the wall, never patrolling.

During a boss fight, the boss sped way up and I couldn't really hit him. He had no problem hitting me. Throughout the fight he was doing coke, but every other time it just made him powerful and invulnerable to attacks.

This next is the worst of them all.


That bottles on top are there, but the rest are just painted on. Worst safe house liquor cabinet ever.


But even with these issues, I thought this was a great game.
8/10 - would play again





Now for....America's Army 3?

It's not on my Steam list, but now that I think about it, I seem to recall playing it at some point. I guess I'm stuck playing 10 hours of it.

primesuspect

Nice progress!

Guppy

Just finished my 10 hours of AA3.

I tried AA2 years back and didn't particularly care for it, my brother on the other hand, played it about as much as I play TF2. I heard AA3 made some improvements over the previous game and thought I'd give it a shot.

I was already about 2 hours in when I started playing again. It took me almost 2 hours to finish training (had to disable anti-aliasing to see my HUD). I played mostly in the early morning (5-8am) so I'm not sure how many people actually play the game. I found only a handful of servers with people playing.

The graphics aren't bad(UE3), the sound is alright, and the gameplay is pretty cool, as long as you don't get a team full of CoD kiddies. Not much to say about this game. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I don't think it's something I'll play again anytime soon.


I haven't been looking forward to playing the next game on my list. It's another game from the Potato Sack. That's the only reason I have it. I have very little interest in survival-horror type games. But, I guess I have to press on so I can get closer to finishing this backlog, and get to some games I really want to play further down my list.

So I guess it's time to dive right into Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

primesuspect

If you're anything like me, you'll probably enjoy Amnesia more than you thought you would. That's about all I can say about it.

Guppy

I'm at the infamous Cellar Archives. Almost made it out, but one of those things pushed the crate right out from under me. I'll try again later after I've calmed down a bit.

Guppy

I took a break from my backlog so I could play Brütal Legend, which I started, and then stopped so I could play Bioshock Infinite. I finished Bioshock a week ago, and Brütal Legend just a few minutes ago.

I didn't care for Bioshock Infinite. I thought the characters, the story, and especially that ending were all just terrible.

I went in expecting Bioshock, but it felt like a different game. The title was either changed for brand recognition, or just made so that the series could be called a trilogy.

I knew I wasn't going to like it as soon as I heard "This job's getting worse all the time" after a tear reveals a marquee reading "Revenge of the Jedi." Booker Dewitt is not Duke Nukem. Maybe in a parallel universe, but not in the one I was playing in.

Why was he able to run around a populated area with a pistol drawn without any repercussions.

That guitar scene, what was the point?

If Columbia is able to make robots so easily, why don't they use robots for cleaning. It seemed to me like it was just an excuse to add racism to the plot.

Also, why is almost no one using vigors? You find bottles everywhere, but only encounter a few enemies that use them. Plasmids were a big deal in the first game. In this game it seemed randomly thrown at you.

That jump scare towards the end was weak. It worked in the first Bioshock, but you knew it was coming in this game.

The ending just felt like a cop out. But, maybe I'm just not bright enough to understand it since so many other people enjoyed it.

I'm willing to play through a second time and see if I'm being unfair, but that probably won't be for a while.

Brütal Legend was pretty cool. Great soundtrack, decent story, and the gameplay was pretty good.

I guess I have to get back to Amnesia now.

Guppy

I finally made it through Amnesia. It was alright, but I can't say I really enjoyed it. The story wasn't bad, the atmosphere was alright, and the puzzles were okay. I just couldn't focus on anything other than wondering when the next Gatherer would show up.

I'm going to skip Arcania and the expansion for now, so that I can play the Gothic games in order. Next up is Arma 2.

Guppy

I haven't made progress in Arma 2 because I keep buying games.

Since my last post I've bought:
Poker Night at the Inventory (It came with Poker Night 2. I unlocked all TF2 items, but I don't think that counts as finishing the game)
Poker Night 2 (haven't put much time into this one)
Euro Truck Simulator 2 (haven't touched this one yet, but it sounds pretty good)
Star Wars - Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (I finished this game years back, but I bought it on Steam because I don't know where the disc is)
System Shock 2 (started playing it a few years back, but didn't get too far)

I'll start making progress on these eventually and then get back to my backlog.

Guppy

After playing too much TF2, giving some attention to my Dreamcast, and starting to get into EVE Online, I'm finally returning to my Steam backlog.

I'd hardly made any progress since my last post, but today I actually played a bit of Arma 2. I was dreading it because I thought I'd end up doing training for 10 hours, and there are only so many times I can crash that helicopter before I can't take it anymore. I just now realized there is a single-player campaign.

It's the first option. I have no idea how I missed that every time.

Hopefully, I'll be able to finish that soon and keep moving forward.

Myrmidon

This thread is relevant to my interests. I was wondering whether or not to purchase alpha protocol...

Guppy

It's been about 4 months since I updated this. I still haven't finished ARMA II.

I will get back to it eventually, but I'm kind of busy with school and work right now. However, since my job is basically watching cameras for about 8 out of 10 hours a night, I have time to play games. The problem is, my current laptop isn't great. I can just barely run Minecraft and EVE Online. Does anyone have any suggestions for something that would run games reasonably well? I want to be able to run most games smoothly(especially TF2) even if I have to use minimum settings..

Guppy

I'm counting ARMA 2 as done.

I made it to the last mission in the "Red Harvest" campaign, but a bug prevented me from communicating with any other units. I had one more base to destroy, but it's impossible without additional units. And this was after building about 10-15 helicopters because they either spawned in a building and exploded, spawned too close to a fence, or the very tip of one of the blades touched a building. I think making it as far as I did and also putting 40 hours into it counts as finished.

Not going to do Operation Arrowhead, because I'm pretty sure it's just more of the same.

Assassin's Creed wasn't on the list, but it's supposed to be. I finished it, but wasn't too thrilled with it.

Not much challenge
As soon as you can parry fighting becomes incredibly easy. The timing window is pretty wide for that too. Since enemies attack one at a time, you could fight off an entire army without any problems. There were only a couple of times where I felt any actual challenge.

I didn't see any reason to be stealthy because I could just outrun my attackers or kill them. The only exceptions were a couple of missions where as soon as you're seen you fail.

The only real challenge not playing this game like I do GTA. I lost a lot of time to desynchronization up until about halfway through the game when I stopped killing so many people.

Too repetitive
Go to a city, climb some buildings and look around. Repeat until you find 3 informant missions. Complete these missions and then go assassinate your target. Then watch a cutscene where the target explains his actions. Return to assassin's bureau and get plot. Repeat for every target. I'm just glad I was able to fast travel to the cities I'd already been to.

Story wasn't great
I always think it's lazy when a story is based on religion. Also, I'm getting sick of the "everything you know is wrong" plot twists. I think it's just because I've seen too many games that do this.

The main protagonist was alright, but nothing special. I was expecting XxX420uber1337assassinXxX based on what I've seen of the fanbase, but he was just kind of bland.

I give it a 6/10. It wasn't as bad as I expected, and running around was kind of fun, but I don't think I'll ever replay this one. I've heard the sequels are better, but I'm not interested.

I'm not sure why Audiosurf is on here, I've got about 12 hours in it.

Since this list is out of order, I'm working on The Ball now. I'll get to Bastion after that.

In regards to my last post, I went with a Lenovo G505s. It's been pretty good so far.

Guppy

I'm done with The Ball.

It was kind of short(6 hours), but enjoyable.

You play as an archaeologist that falls into a cave and decides to go explore instead of just waiting for a crane. You soon find the ball amid the ruins of an ancient civilization.

The ball is used to solve puzzles as well as defeat enemies. Occasionally the ball will get augmented with something(e.g. spikes, electricity) that will help you defeat enemies or solve a puzzle.

The puzzles are plentiful, but not very difficult. It's usually something like "guide the ball from the level below" or "use spikes at the right time to take out a group of mummies." I thought this would get really boring after a while, but there was always some variety. It felt kind of like Portal, except Chell uses the portal gun to push an oversized companion cube(or sphere) around.

7.5/10




Bastion's up next.

I played this game a couple of years ago and liked it, but stopped playing for some reason. I don't remember what's going on or which weapon I should be using, but I'll pick it up as I go.

Guppy

I just finished Bastion. The credits are rolling as I type this.

I really enjoyed this game. The gameplay and music were awesome. Also, the narration is damn good. The level design was a bit different (level builds as you progress), but I thought it was neat. Even though you can only carry two weapons at a time, I didn't find this to be a problem. It added a sense of strategy.

I think a lot of people here have played this one, so I won't go into much detail.

I'll have to revisit this one later and try out the New Game Plus mode.

9/10

Up next: Battlefield Bad Company 2
Played a bit of this one a few years back, and don't remember it being anything other than another CoD-type FPS. Hopefully, it's better than I remember.

Guppy

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 single player is done.
It was alright. It was just another arcady shooter, with an okay story, and forgettably generic characters. It seemed like I was supposed to run n' gun, but half the time it just got me killed. The AI kind of sucks, don't trust them to "watch your back."
I did think it was cool how environments could be destroyed, but I don't like having jelly on my screen when I get shot. Also, way too linear. I thought the "you're leaving the combat area" thing was some kind of joke until I played this game. I hear the multiplayer is the highlight of these games, but I'm not really interested.
5/10 for single player.

Not a joke.

Them textures.

Next up is a game I've heard a lot of good things about and am really looking forward to playing. Time to play Beyond Good and Evil.

Guppy

I can now cross Beyond Good and Evil off the list.

I had a lot of glitches while playing this game, but it didn't detract too much from the experience.

I was really looking forward to this game, and wasn't completely disappointed. Semi-interesting gameplay, decent music, kind of cool art style, and a pretty good story. Overall, it falls short of a classic for me.

The game is a third-person action-adventure game where you play as an investigative reporter, Jade, that gets hired by a resistance movement, IRIS, to get proof of an alien conspiracy. This starts because aliens, known as the DomZ, have been abducting citizens, and the military group that stepped in to protect people, Alpha Sections, doesn't seem to be protecting much of anything. So you sneak around guarded facilities and get evidence that IRIS can use to get people on their side. It's not too difficult, but I did run into a handful of situations that gave me some grief.

You travel the world of Hillys in a hovercraft, and in order to progress with the story there are upgrades you need to have. The shop doesn't accept standard currency, but instead takes pearls. Pearls can be obtained by finding them, buying them, winning minigames, completing a mision, or taking enough pictures. As for the pictures, they have to be of various animal species found around Hillys. Each picture will earn you money, and filling a roll of film will get you a pearl.

It took me 13 hours, but it didn't feel like that long of a game.

I give it a 6/10. It was cool, but I just couldn't get into it.

Bioshock 2 is up next.

I recall trying to play it a couple of years ago, but GFWL caused it to crash and I just gave up on it. I enjoyed Bioshock, but heard the second game wasn't great(and don't even get me started on the train-wreck that was Infinite). Either way I'll make it through and report back.