Community Backlog Blitz Season 16 - Runs July 1 through September 30 with a raffle at the end

[Parsnip]

Finished Darksiders Genesis. Might poke at it at apocalyptic difficulty and see if it's doable, I played the first level again with it and turns out enemies hit hard. Who knew!?
Would probably need to optimize my build a bit at least if I'm going to try, we'll see. If I can do it, then I'll probably get all the cheevos from it, aside from the difficulty achievements I'm only missing couple more so at that point might as well.

As for the game itself, it's pretty good. I played mostly as Strife and was very gun focused. Lots of boss fights with adds, which kind of sucks to be honest.
Darksiders 2 probably remains my favorite in the end.

 

[freshVeggie]

Finished Half-Life: Caged
My first game done since a long long time
It's a well-done singleplayer campaign mod available directly on Steam
You play a prisoner who escapes the facility on a tropcial island
Has a mix of known Half-Life assets and new ones
Short too at just 2-3 hours
Recommended

 

[Futaleufu]

Pang Adventures. The last area is very annoying. Pang 3, a 30 years old game is still the best of the franchise. Mediocre.

Thats 3 out of 5.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Dead Cells complete, at least in the sense of marking it done for now. Beat the big bad last boss, got the credits, and figure I can work on unlocking more and seeing other new stuff for a DLC focused completion later. And Castlevania probably its only focus separate from that.

Really good time. No surprise there.

Only Valhalla's first DLC remains.

 

[Futaleufu]

Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry

At some points it manages to capture the spirit of the original saga, at some other points it feels like they are trying to teach Larry to behave in modern society. For some reason developers replaced the narrator that made fun of Larry with the phone's AI that chastises Larry. There are some good jokes there, I would recommend it .

Thats 4 out 5.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Thread has been active the last couple days but just posting a reminder that we've crossed the halfway point in this Blitz. Hopefully everyone is at least halfway through their games!

I started the Valhalla Wrath of the Druids DLC tonight which is my final Blitz pick. Looks like it shouldn't be too long though I am usually somewhat thorough in these games.

 

[Deku]

Dead Cells complete, at least in the sense of marking it done for now. Beat the big bad last boss, got the credits, and figure I can work on unlocking more and seeing other new stuff for a DLC focused completion later. And Castlevania probably its only focus separate from that.

Really good time. No surprise there.

Only Valhalla's first DLC remains.

Congratulation on "beating" Dead Cells. You are one step further than me

Currently playing Trails in the Sky SC. I have already clocked over 30 hours of playtime and I don't see it ending any time soon. Minecraft got in the way again, but this time it only took a week from me

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Congratulation on "beating" Dead Cells. You are one step further than me

Currently playing Trails in the Sky SC. I have already clocked over 30 hours of playtime and I don't see it ending any time soon. Minecraft got in the way again, but this time it only took a week from me

I debated what it would take to beat it for my game completion tracking (and Blitz) and really it just makes sense for a full run through to the main game's ending. I do own a bunch of the DLC (all but Castlevania) but the only other options that would make sense (but be insane) would be to completely collect everything, which is a massive grind, or complete each run through the five successive difficulties. And based on what I skimmed online that seems extremely difficult. Some Rogue-lites, namely Hades, are designed with the actual ending tucked behind completing multiple times but Dead Cells doesn't quite have that same sort of design as best as I could tell.

I do think I'll go back to work on more of it and likely try out the second difficulty to see what changes as well as one of the DLC added an alternate ending path with a different end boss so that would be a secondary goal for a second campaign completion for me.

 

[Parsnip]

I'm swapping House Flipper to Remnant: From the Ashes.

Turns out that putting a time killer game like that in the blitz is a mistake, at least for me. I expect I'll be playing it for the rest of the year in small chunks.

I started Remnant and digging it so far, hopefully it doesn't get too too difficult, I'm not exactly great in third person shooters.

 

[freshVeggie]

Played ~2hrs of Ashen, will drop it and swap it with Days Gone.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Finished my final game: Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Wrath of the Druids. I'll get to the rest of the DLC soon enough but not likely before Mirage drops. It's more Valhalla so I had a really good time but it would have been nice to see something more unique either mechanically or a more original story. Instead it just felt like a mini-Valhalla campaign. Which makes some sense as DLC but also they have the whole Asgard optional stuff that feels a bit different (but only slightly) and the DLC for Odyssey went in a pretty different direction so I think there was simply room to d a bit more.

Anyhow, all Blitz games are done so now I can focus on 2023 games until the next Blitz!

 

[Parsnip]

Finished the main game of Remnant, the ending is quite anticlimactic. A wet fart even.
Apparently there's more story and a "real" ending in the second DLC, which I also own so I'm gonna play that too of course.

It's an alright game otherwise. Probably my biggest gripe with it comes from its procedural structure. It's impossible to "see everything" on a single roll of a seed, you have to reroll to be able to fight all the bosses, collect everything, see everything.
What's worse is that DLC 1 seems to be rolled into the game in the same way, it expands one of the locations and you might get the DLC stuff during your campaign, or you might not. It seems like rolling an Adventure Mode save (basically a mini campaign with just one location) in the location that the DLC 1 expands will get you to the new stuff, not sure if it's guaranteed but I at least got some new NPCs just now.

Another thing that I will mention is that like in your typical Souls game, it's difficult to compare weapons when they are all at different upgrade levels. Unless you check a wiki for the base stats of both items, it's not really possible to gauge if weapon x is better than weapon y if I just spent the mats on weapon y to bring it up to the same upgrade level as weapon x. And that usually means that I end up using the same stuff most of the game since I don't want to spend the mats to upgrade the weapon in case it turns out that it's not as good as my current weapon already is.
That's another thing actually, weapons. All the special boss weapons I got seem kind of bad. I ended playing through the whole game with just the basic ass starting repeater pistol and a sniper riffle. None of the boss weapons seemed cool or worth the mats, and bringing it back to the earlier point, I don't want to spend the mats on an unknown.

So while I did enjoy the game overall, some of that just leaves a bit of bad aftertaste.


I'm continuing to play it for now, currently doing the adventure mode in the DLC 1 area and then I'll do the DLC 2, not sure how long they are but with the main game done I'll mark it as completed for this blitz.

 

[Cacher]

Swapping out Danganronpa 2 for Mario + Rabbids® Kingdom Battle Donkey Kong Adventure. Finished the main game long time ago and now tackling the DLC. Ubisoft really did great work on this game. They nail everything, even the difficulty.

 

[ganmo]

Finished Dragon Quest Builders 2.
Original started to play it in 2021, but then I stopped, just to pick it up again in June 2023. And now few month's later I finally finished it phew...

Not that difficult game, but I guess it is your typical jrpg which takes long time to finish. Quite enjoyed the game, just a bit lengthy to get to the end where I then finally can enjoy playing the game like minecraft xD

 

[Deku]

Trails in the Sky Second Chapter done. And also fifth game done. These Trails games take time to play through. I guess I will take a month or so break until I play the third and final chapter

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Less than a week to go! I'll post another reminder in a few days but it's time to start wrapping up the Blitz games and updating it on the tracker! Hopefully everyone is making good progress with all the releases that have been hitting (and bracing for those still to come).

 

[Parsnip]

I probably won't finish more in time. I'm pretty far into Biomutant and could probably mainline the main story in an afternoon, but what fun would that be.

 

[KainXVIII]

Barely finished my blitz before the deadline (Ys 8), time for rest

 

[C-Dub]

I finished my Blitz a while back, which is a rare W for me. Thinking about my October to December one already. Got a fair few games I want to play or replay, but I'll need to distil it down to 5.

• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
• Vertigo 2
• Sea of Stars
• Anonymous;Code
• Moss: Book II
• Live A Live
• Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (in reality, this will be a full re-roll of the game, though)
• Persona 5 Tactica
• Metal Gear Solid
• Hitman: World of Assassination
• Death Stranding: Director's Cut

In the meantime, a non-Blitz game (Starfield) calls. Kind of at a point where I'm fed up with exploring now - I'm just gonna beeline it through the main quests. The writing has been so-so on this game, but there's a certain addictive quality to it that really keeps me coming back for me. Alas, starting to feel fatigue about 75 hours in, so time to wrap it up and move on. Maybe in a few years, when modders really do a number on the game and all the DLC is out, I'll be back for more.

 

[Futaleufu]

I started and finished several games instead of finishing book 3 of The Pillars of the Earth. Maybe I can finish the game tomorrow.

 

[Parsnip]

I haven't really thought about next one yet too too much. I'll move Hellblade forward from this one, but the rest are open. Though of course I have bunch of games on a list in my doc and a Steam category for what to play 'next', so I'll probably just pick something from those unless a theme of some sort comes to me in the next few days.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Two-day warning! Don't forget to update the tracker and complete any final games! Good luck!

As per usual I'll probably get the new Blitz up a day or so before I do the raffle and give a heads up here to get a head start in placing your games. Guessing nobody had any problems with the new way of setting your completion status with the drop-down? Nobody spoke up with complaints or suggestions but I'm always up for whatever.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

I was a little slow in getting to it with a bunch of stuff going on today but the spreadsheet is available for the next Blitz. As a reminder it's the second tab over and will be moved over tomorrow once the raffle drawing happens and the new thread is made. But feel free to go over and add your games now for the next Blitz to get a jumpstart on things.

First time resetting the new style of form so if you run into any bugs just give me a heads up and I'll fix it. Always open for any feedback or suggestions as well.

And good luck to anyone that might be rushing to finish anything before I do the raffle in roughly 14-16ish hours? Somewhere around there.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

The raffle has been drawn!

The big winner of this Blitz is Parsnip! You've got $26.63 in prize money to pick a game so just reach out in a PM here or on Discord with your prize selection. It was due to Darksiders Genesis that got you the win so give your thanks to that (great) game!

Good job all, there were a lot of completed games this time. The new thread will go up fairly shortly. For now give congrats to Parsnip and get your next set of games ready to go. Feel free to post them here before the other thread goes up if you wish but I'll get started on the new thread right now.

 

[Parsnip]

Woohoo!