This month could be going somewhat better. Instead of reducing my pile of shame, it has ever so slightly grown.
Instead of playing Dark Souls and Hotline Miami, as planned, I instead scratched an itch that I didn’t even know I had. Late last week, a friend gifted me a copy of Rogue Legacy on Steam. 10 hours of pixelated sword swinging later and I’m finally starting to feel less compelled to load that up every time I sit in front of the computer.
It seems to be against the spirit of Shameless Gaming Month to devote almost my entire gaming time to a shiny new game. That’s because it is.
Every time I sat in down in front of the computer, I was faced with the decision of playing Rogue Legacy, Dark Souls or Hotline Miami. Rogue Legacy managed to edge out the other games because it just happened to check more boxes. Feel like exploring? Well, that’s Rogue Legacy or Dark Souls. Something I unlike what I normally play? Rogue Legacy or Hotline Miami. Whatever criteria I try to apply, Rogue Legacy seemed to cover it.
Fortunately, the ultimate aim of Shameless Gaming Month is to have fun, not to be some labourious chore to grind your way through a stack of games you don’t want to play. Rogue Legacy is fun. Even though I’ve barely made progress on my pile of shame this week it does not feel like this week has been wasted.
That being said, I am slowly plodding along in Dark Souls. When I first played the game, I made it as far as the Capra Demon, a mini-boss relatively close to the start of the game. Right now I’m currently trying to get past the Bell Gargoyles in the Undead Parish.
The Bell Gargoyles are an early boss fight that can be rather devious because they fight in pairs. My main approach to combat has been to isolate enemies and then poke at them until they fall over. Hence my current predicament. During my last fight against the Bell Gargoyles, I tried the cunning plan of walking off of the roof that we were fighting on. This plan turned out to be as effective as it was cunning.
It does seem to sum up my experience with the game rather well though: unexpected and abject failure.
After that fantastic fight, I decided to do some exploring. My exploration lead me to Havel the Rock, a chunky mini-boss clad in heavy armour and wielding a massive dragon’s tooth as a weapon. One hit from him can kill even high level players but I thought that I’d try my luck. Five deaths later, I decided that maybe luck wasn’t the best thing to rely on.
As perverse at it seems, the harsh punishment for failure and the high frequency of it is what makes Dark Souls and Hotline Miami so great. There’s something strangely enjoyable about having everything go all wrong. With my interest in Rogue Legacy starting to wane, it’s time to scratch a more masochistic itch.
That’s how my Shameless Gaming Month is going so far, how about yours? Any tales of success or failure worth sharing? Any games discovered that turned out to be rather brilliant or mediocre?
Comments
36 responses to “Trjn’s Month Of Shameless Gaming: Week 2”
Wait…it started already??? :p
I decided to go back and play fallout 2
I did that earlier this year, and I just couldn’t get through the end bit without it crashing 🙁
Ultimately I had to grab the save editor and boost everything to the point that all combat was resolved in one shot. Still took three goes, but I finally managed to storm through the ending.
Great game, but so many bugs.
I’M HELPING \o/
Me, well a new Minecraft patch came out, and a friend got a server so I have accomplished absolutely nothing (except lots and lots of digging)
I’m still hoping to maybe finish BI or Far Cry 3, but I doubt it 😛
Jerk!
Still crashing through Sanctum 2, we’re not likely to finish it lol we have too much fun doing maps over and over and over in multiplayer 😀 oh well!
I’d just like to mention that running through areas of Dark Souls in the hopes of getting a screenshot of the Bell Gargoyles is a bad idea.
I haven’t played shit this month, unless you count unlocking some stuff in the recent updates to Jetpack Joyride, which I don’t.
Friggin MK9 got released on PC. Been chewing up my time. Also been playing Ashes 2009 just because I want to let the Aussies win, at least digitally. These 2 games, along with consistent iracing, has seen Dead Space 3, Darksiders 2 and Mark OF The Ninja be untouched. Sigh. Oh, Waling Dead 400 Days didn’t help either, although that was only 1 night written off. Still a bit of time left…
Said i’d finally finish ME2, yet i ended up buying Remember Me and am loving that instead.
So far I have managed to complete a rogue-like (FTL) and a puzzle game (offspring fling)
Making good progress on my FPS (bioshock) and god game (Tropico 4)
Still struggling to make any progress towards completing online multiplayer shooter but I keep trying
Master the no scope 420 yolo headshot and that probably counts as finishing the game :p
Excuse me while I go scrub myself in bleach for typing that.
My original plan was to go back to either Uncharted:Golden Abyss, Resistance:Burning Skies or Gravity Rush.
Somehow, I have been sidetracked back to Virtua Tennis 4 : World Tour instead. Not the original plan, but it was still apart of the backlog, still a bunch of things to unlock and slowly working my way through that.
Might have to forego the online grind trophy, it seems quiet online so it would be a tough slog.
I hate trophies that are tied to multiplayer. Once interest in the game dies down, they become pretty much impossible to get.
Shame that when the servers are dead, they don’t ever update those kind of games with an achievement worth the same as all the multiplayer ones combined “Well at least you tried: Attempted to play a multiplayer game without success”
That’s be nice. Although I much prefer the option of not putting those achievements in.
I have been going through Baldurs Gate EE as I always meant to play the original but never got around to it.
The weird thing about Baldur’s Gate is that I can’t remember if I finished it but simply can’t justify buying it a fourth time.
Luckily this is only the second time I have bought it :p
I wasn’t going to get it until it was the steam special last week for 5 bucks.
I found the bell gargoyles relatively vulnerable to thrusting attacks, if you have a spear handy it might be worth trying that.
Of course by “relatively vulnerable” I actually mean “I managed to do a tiny bit of damage and stay alive long enough to kill the feckers”.
As for my gaming, I have to get back to finishing both The Last Of Us and Remember Me, I’m on the last level of both but then got distracted by Arma3 again. To add to the distraction, there’s a psychotic little girl who wants me to play bunkers & badasses…
I was trying to pyromancy the first one before the second arrived and then use my spear to finish it off. Fireball’s casting animation is slow enough that they dodge about half my shots, which means the second one spawns and my plan fails.
Might have to just go for the old run and poke.
My first go at the gargoyles was in the xbox version, I only just made it after dozens of deaths trying to take them with the drake sword. On the PC, I killed them on my second attempt because I got invaded by some weird friendly chap who dumped a +5 lightning fork on the ground & then ran off, made the fight a hell of a lot easier. Only reason I died the first time is the ease of killing the first gargoyle caused me to underestimate #2. It’s the classic trick of dark souls, as soon as you lose respect for anyone with a weapon, they’ll kick your arse.
My plan was to finish Witcher 2 and The Walking Dead, and do a re-run of Halo 4 now that I’d finished Silentium. Finished TWD over the weekend and started Halo 4 on Sunday night. So far so good, but getting distracted by Borderlands 2…
I’ve always had all the metal gear solid games, but never played through them all, except for 4 and peace walker. So I’ve started at metal gear 1 and have been working my way through them all, I’m up to 3 at the moment. 🙂
Excellent
My old housemate did that a few months back. Seemed to go well for him.
I’ve actually gone back to Demon’s Souls. I had finished it originally, just decided to play it again now it is free on PS Plus. Also as a bit of a pre-cursor to maybe picking up Dark Souls again.
I decided to go for a pure Magic build this time. Finished worlds 2,3,4 and up to 1-4 only 36 hrs sunk, so fairly happy with that so far.
I was hoping to upgrade all my Magic weapons with colorless demons souls using a well known sparkly the crow exploit, but unfortunately there’s no-one in human form to actually kill me so I can go back and collect the soul again. If anyone wants to kill me in Demons Souls say ooh 20 – 25 times, just let me know. Level 70-ish now.
In Dark Souls I am yet to ring the 2nd bell. I got stuck trying to defeat that massive wolf. Should my shame get so unbearable, and I pick it up again I think I will head straight to Quelaag
I finished Dishonored this week, quite enjoyable, even though I kind of raced through the last few missions with stop time and sleep darts.
Played some more Fable 3 (cheap as free edition).
Also enough Super Meat Boy to unlock three trading cards. I already have a double 🙁
Well done on Dishonoured. Was considering playing that this month but have too much on my plate already.
Steam trading cards are weird. I think I have duplicates of half the Portal 2 cards and don’t have any of the other half.
Max Payne 3 for me. Still.
Shameless gaming going relatively well for me. I finished The Last of Us and The Testament of Sherlock Holmes. I’ve almost finished Metal Gear Solid 2 on Vita. I’m starting inFamous: Festival of Blood tonight, and after that I’ll be starting Red Dead Redemption. Feels good to get some backlog out of the way, but the only reason I’ve been able to do more than The Last of Us is because I left it at one playthrough on Hard. I’d like to go back and get the platinum later on, but dammit, this month is about reducing the backlog!
You won’t regret Red Dead Redemption. Great game.
Recently started Dark souls and I’m around where you are, help me good lord…
I finished Atelier Rorona and am about a third the way through Atelier Totori. I’ve also managed to stop myself getting distracted by side-quests in Fire Emblem: Awakening long enough to do a couple of the main quests too. All in all, the month’s going well. Though I did order the Metal Gear Solid Legacy collection this week so that’s going to sit and tempt me from the shadows of my lounge room sometime…
I’m also using this month to play Dark Souls. It’s my first attempt, and I’m loving the brutal curve in it. Learning that the Capra Demon was near the start was a shock though. It took me ages to find him!
I’m looking forward to trying Rouge legacy. Had my eye on it for a long time. Just trying to scratch this itch first. I waited a long time for Dark Souls, and it’s been worth the wait.
Dark. Souls.
I’m ready for you.
My plan was to finish a couple of Ps3 games, Disgaea 4 and FFXIII-2, but I foolishly loaned my ps3 controller to a mate ‘just for the weekend man’, but that was 3 weeks ago… so its off to the PC. Have managed to finish Farcry 3 (what a lame final boss after mohawk Joe) also been playing some LAN MP Torchlight 2 (but still early on it that), also a couple of DOTA2 lan sessions with 5 or 6 others. Man, really, nothing beats a good LAN session compared to online gaming.
I’ve always avoided the pile of shame articles till now. So I need to ask what constitutes finishing a game?
The Singleplayer Campaigns? If so, does the difficulty matter?