Time’s up. Shameless gaming month is over. Please put your controllers down and pass your results to the front of the class.
Or don’t. The point of this month was to go back and explore the uncharted territories of your gaming collection. There’s no reason to stop now just because an arbitrary date has arrived.
Some people may have demolished their pile of shame this month, others might have managed to triple it. I’ve barely scratched at mine this month but that’s not how I judge success. Success is all about enjoying the games that you otherwise wouldn’t have played. By that measure, this month has been a remarkable success for me. Being able to move the goal posts does help a little.
In terms of actually completing games, I’ve done fairly poorly. This week, I managed to play a paltry few chapters of Luigi’s Mansion 2 before becoming distracted by Dota 2 and League of Legends. Distractions are the fertiliser that helps the pile of shame grow. Doesn’t matter; had fun.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 is one of the most charming games that I’ve played. Everything Luigi does bursts with character; from his gangly running animation to the shaky “hello?” he lets out when you hit the D-Pad. Not only that but the game perfectly conforms to the limits of the 3DS. The chapters are short and to the point for people that are only able to play in short bursts yet there are plenty of collectibles and exploring to be done for those with a little more time. Maybe my biggest complaint – and the reason I haven’t invested more time – is that the original 3DS just isn’t a very comfortable console to use for long periods of time. Even with my tiny little hands, the temptation to steal my girlfriend’s 3DS XL has been rather great.
I will keep playing a couple of chapters a week until I’m done and then probably go back and tear the mansion apart in the search for collectibles. Luigi’s Mansion 2 strikes me as exactly the sort of game that can be enjoyed over a long period of time like that.
I’ve also still got Dark Souls to finish. Now that I’m farther along than I’ve ever been before, I’m crippled by choice. There is so much to explore and so many things out there to kill me, I don’t really know where to begin. I know that eventually I will have to tackle the infamous Blighttown and the best way to prepare for that seems to be to by taking a trip to Darkroot Gardens.
Looks like I have a giant butterfly to go kill.
After writing this, I went to go get the above screenshot. I rushed through the entire area, straight to the boss and figured that I might as well try my luck. Then this happened:
What the hell am I meant to do now?
How did your month go? Find any diamonds in the rough? Get started on a game that you’re going to be playing for the next few weeks? Realise that you own some truly awful games that belong in the trash instead of the pile of shame? Let us know in the comments.
Comments
48 responses to “Trjn’s Month Of Shameless Gaming: Week 5”
My month was slow, but in the last week I finished:
Max Payne.
1-1 in Demon’s Souls before packing it in. My aim was to finish 1-1 and then decide how I felt about the game – I concluded that the mechanics are excellent, but I just don’t have the time necessary to beat the game.
Replayed Braid.
Finished Super Meat Boy (light world only, which was hard enough)
I think I’m going to extend Shameless gaming to December this year. My pile of shame is close to 100 titles (that’s only including titles I bought but never played). It’s time to re-evaluate how I buy games.
Demon’s Souls (and Dark Souls) are annoying like that. My girlfriend refuses to play them for the exact same reason, it just takes too long to learn even though the games are brilliant.
Well done on SMB though. That’s still sitting on my list. Platformers kick my ass.
Yeah – I found Super Meat Boy to be strangely addictive. I think its the fact that the levels are really short, so even though you’ll restart some of the levels 200 times, you never lose ‘that’ much problem.
Demon’s Souls definitely takes a lot of time to learn. My main issue was that my gaming sessions are very snatch and grab so I don’t really have the time to finish levels in one go as the game requires. Still, I respect Demon’s Soul’s for what it is!
The persistent saving in the Souls games do make it a lot easier to put them aside. Unfortunately, if you put them aside for too long, you get rusty. When you get rusty, you get dead. Well, more dead.
Yeah – that’s the conclusion I came too. The game requires concentrated practice to complete, and I don’t have the time to develop those skills. Wish I did though!
I can tell you that beating Moonlight Butterfly yesterday was exhilarating. The Souls games are definitely worth the effort.
If you do ever find yourself with the time, give them a proper shot.
Yeah – that looked awesome too. I love the bestiary. I really should buy the art book for Dark Souls.
Completely skipped the games I installed as my girlfriend brought The Last Of Us for me and insisted I play it..however after the first clicker encounter and the noise it makes she was off playing animal crossing on the 3DS with headphones in.
She still watches every now and then but as I trudge my way through the apocalypse bare knuckle boxing the infested
Playing on Normal I assume?
I did the same. Tried to conserve items by meleeing everything I couldn’t avoid. By end game I was getting annoyed at how many items I had to leave behind.
Great game but probably try to play a little less conservative. Gives you some great combat options.
Yeah doing it normal first play through.
I’m not conserving I’m shooting everything I can’t strangle and when they come running at me theres no time to reload so it’s bash the melee until everything is not moving, then reload.
I might have played slightly more strategically than you :p
Probably my girlfriend says if it was real life I would be dead so fast haha
After finishing Max Payne 3 the week before, Sunday night I finished Vanquish a game i got one year ago today. For the longest time i couldn’t work out why it was MA and not M but the ending made it clear!
Was Vanquish that slidey cover based shooter? Looked like a great change of pace to the usual third person shooter. Worth picking up?
The mechanics of Vanquish are super fun – definitely worth giving a bash. It’s only let-down is that there isn’t really any progression. You have pretty much all your abilities from the start of the game and it never really changes for the rest of the game. It’s more like a third-person SHMUP – just gets more difficult each level.
Looks like I’ll have to grab a copy.
Yes. There’s nothing quite like sliding all around the battlefield, bashing the crap out of some hapless robot then ducking behind cover for a smoke!
Vanquish is totally under rated. I played it earlier this year. So fun, so fast.
I knocked off Valkyrie Profile on DS, and Star Ocean International on PS3. Im most of the way through Far Cry 3 too. Also bought more games than I played to satisfaction…
Everything else aside, i found shameless gaming success because jumping in a little thrashmobile and chasing tigers in far cry is more fun than it probably should be (dont tell the WWF).
Success \o/
I’ve got a smidgen of Red Dead Redemption to finish but might do a few trophies for fun. Not interested in the multiplayer (if there is even anyone left who plays it now).
MGS3 HD is progressing. I ate a reticulated python.
Next on the list is Undead Nightmare (RDR expansion) and I believe Lego LoTR drops tomorrow for Vita on PS+.
EDIT: Oh, and I also finished (platinum) Hatsune Miku Project Diva f and am just going through trying to get some Perfects now, although I’m finding it fairly challenging even on normal difficulty.
Good job on Hatsune Miku! I’m still personally stuck on a few Extreme songs (Rin-Chan Now and Sadistic Music Factory comes to mind) and have pretty much burned myself out for Shameless Gaming Month. Gonna have to pick it back up after I recover from the stress :p
Wow! I can only just get Standard on Extreme songs and haven’t even tried Sadistic Music Factory, because that really wrecked me on Hard. Most other songs on Hard I could get Great/Excellent but that and another song or two I could just manage Standard. I guess it’s just a matter of memorising the notes and training up some muscle memory.
I started and finished the Last of Us. That’s… something. I guess.
I played and finished Shadowrun Returns over the last weekend. Made a bit of progress on Uncharted Drakes Fortune. Finished Chapter 1 of Back To The Future the adventure game. Installed Witcher 2 but didn’t progress much further than completing the tutorial. Also installed and got through the first mission of Dawn of War 2.
Finished Sleeping Dogs 2 days in then…. Well yeah I guess it was Sleeping Dogs…
And then I bought 26 games during that sale thingy….
One step forward…
Knocked off Bioshock Infinite, Metro 2033, Metro Last Light and Pokemon Black 2 – started Syndicate (2012), Pokemon White 2 and Stealth Bastard (Inc.) for Vita.
I intended on finishing up some things but my PS3 decided it had other plans, Hard drive corrupted, unrepairable by the ps3, after several weeks of research / failures I managed to repair a whopping total of 102 bad sectors and successfully got it working on Monday. I did however manage to finish off Hotline Miami on my Vita and start about half a dozen games, that’s about it 😛
\o/ for Hotline Miami.
/o\ for the rest.
i suppose i still consider the month a success cause i saved all my save data.
Was pretty chuffed cause sony’s encryption is just insane,
I’m making August my belated shameless gaming month 😀
I made it through Atelier Rorona, Atelier Totori, Fire Emblem: Awakening and Crimson Shroud but fell short of finishing Atelier Ayesha. All in all, I feel like I knocked over a good amount in terms of my backlog and I’ve also started re-evaluating my purchasing habits and game tastes. So I can seriously say that Shameless Gaming Month helped me become a better person. \o/
\o/
Glad to hear it!
Have you played Atelier Meruru yet? I heard that was the last of the Arland games, whereas Ayesha moves into a different setting.
After meaning to finish The Witcher 2, all I did manage to finish is Saints Row 2 and Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. Been playing too much LoL and BF3…
BF3 is also my kryptonite to single player gaming. ‘I should totally play *completable game X* tonight! Wait. I’m playing BF3 again. How did this happen? Oh well, when in Rome.’
Shameless gaming month, what did I play…? Lost my The Last Of Us save file along with every other ps3 save data I had, my account was deleted for some unknown reason (I blame my sister’s little shit of a boyfriend). So I ran through it again and made it back to where I was originally and no further so that’s what my August will consist of.
Bought a tonne of games in the Steam sales – played and finished Dust: An Elysian Tail which was unbelievable. Loved it! And just finished the first world in Giana Sisters.
Started a new game of Pokemon Black 2 in preparation for X/Y, my mate FINALLY bought a 3DS so we had a little fun with that.
All in all, I had fun. SUCCESS!
I still have 8 hrs. There is time dammit!
Controllers.
Down.
Now.
but….but….hehehehe butt
I have about 80% of the last level of tropico to complete so hopefully I can get that finished off tonight. Although in all likelihood I’ll just end up playing war thunder.
Didn’t get anywhere near as much completed as I wanted but made some progress
Completed rogue-like: FTL and Puzzle: Offspring fling. Played way more online multiplayer than I usually do and added a dozen games and some DLC to the pineapple.
But I did get through enough of bioshock to ensure that i will finish the game so I’ll call it a successful SGM
Probably the saddest thing about this ending is that everyone is going to have to wait a year before they get to see my amazing screenshot and photography skills in action again.
Original goal: Finish the last act of The Witcher 2, the last 80% of The Walking Dead, and a rerun of Halo 4 with the context provided by Silentium.
Result? Finished TWD and 400 Days, got a couple of hours into Halo 4, and haven’t touched TW2. Have spent 60 hours in Borderlands 2, 20 hours in Civ V, and ~20 hours in State of Decay, however, plus picked up about 15 games in the steam sales. And I picked up Shadowrun Returns last night.
Under the circumstances, despite having rather meagre goals and not meeting them, I had fun, and spent a ton of time playing games. I consider that a success.
At least you only played one session of Civ 5 😉
Two, actually. First one took eighteen hours, and ended with a scientific victory over the Dutch. Second one ended abruptly when Genghis Khan proved to be a psychopath, and murdered everyone with seemingly endless battering rams, while everyone else was peacefully trading.
Awesome! 😀
Animal Crossing happened.
My plan to finish Dust: An Elysian Tail by the end of the month failed miserably. 🙁
Just finished The Last of US On Hard mode. It was solid! Now I’m playing Project X Zone. Chapter 15 already.