Half-baked Gamer

I’ve really been neglecting this blog for a long time, but one of my goals for this year will be to change that. So what have I been doing?  We’ll live had gotten in the way, I have a kid now and he’s 18 months old, this has meant that my free time to play games has been somewhat reduced, but he’s great and I love him to bits. I’m also engaged now and due to get married later on this year. So with all that on the go my priorities in terms of gaming have somewhat changed.

As some of you may know I had a challenge to try and clear my backlog of games. These included games I’d bought, as well as games got through games with gold. The challenge has evolved over the past couple of years and has become quite streamlined. So my backlog only covers games I’ve bought and paid for. GWG have been removed, but we now have the addition of GamePass. 

I’m down to 9 titles that I’ve currently got on the go, as in I’ve started them and there are 4 in the yet to start pile. Which should be relatively easy to clear this year, providing I don’t pick up any new games! which considering Division 2, Anthem and Cyberpunk2077 are all due out this year, it’s gonna be difficult.

So what are the games I’ve already started?

Dying Light State of Decay Trulon Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen HomeFront: The Revolution No Mans Sky Marvel: Ultimate Alliance Stardew Valley Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

I’m not really which one to play next as I’ve just completed Fable Anniversary, on GamePass, and i always seem to have difficulty getting into another game straight away.

So yeah, I just wanted to drop by and let you know that this year I am to focus on paying more attention to my blog as well as building up my streaming channel. I try and tweet out when I’m going live on Mixer, so pay attention there and you’ll know when I go live, and you can feel free to watch me play and chat to me.

Catch you guys again soon.

So I managed to get 4/5 games completed, to 50%;

Peggle 2

CastleStorm – Definitive Edition

Lords of the Fallen

Worms Battlegrounds

However I’ve since gone back and finished all 4 campaigns for CastleStorm and i’m going to carry on with Worms as i didn’t finish that campaign either but will do. Peggle 2 I have one more master to complete along with all the trials for both of the last two masters this will give me a completed campaign. 

I enjoyed Lords of the Fallen more than I thought, i got really hung up on the achievement for finishing the first boss without getting hit that it kind of ruined it for me, but after a long break I went back at it, following a guide, and powered through. I will go back and play through the other classes as i enjoyed i and would like to see if the gameplay is all that different depending on class. 

In the mean time my playlist for march will be;

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

ZHEROS

Tumblestone

Crimson Dragon 

I’ve only gone for 4 this month as that seems to be a more realistic number. I’ve got 18 titles left on the backlog of already started games, but considering I’ve already gotten through 9 title this year I’m making good progress. I’ve also noticed that all 4 of these games are Games with Gold.

In 2017 I managed to complete 14 games to meet the challenge criteria, of those I completed 6 were to the full 100%.

I’ve decided that for 2018, I’ll pick 5 games each month and work on those, for January those were;

Thief

Knight Squad

Minecraft: Xbox One Edition

Slime Rancher

Pool Nation FX

for February they will be;

Peggle 2

CastleStorm – Definitive Edition

Lords of the Fallen

Worms Battlegrounds

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

You can follow my progress here;

While I’ve not had a lot of time this week to play and work on the challenge, I did manage to get one ticked off. 

Ryse - Son of Rome. I started a Legendary play through which, while a little difficult for not playing it in 3 years, The legendary play through gives you an achievement for each chapter that you finish. I managed to finish 3 chapters and managed to pick up a collectible achievement and a skill achievement, killing an enemy by perfectly deflecting an arrow back at them.

It’s been a long time since i last updated this blog, mostly due to being busy with life, but I’ve found that recently, last couple of months, I’ve reverted back to my old gaming habits of Xbox achievement whoring. I even managed to get my Xbox One Completion Percentage up to 50% which gave me an idea for a personal challenge, 50% Xbox one Completion Challenge.

This involves me taking the games I’ve got under 50% completion on, according to TrueAchievements.com and getting them over the 50% completion point.

I don’t really have a date of when I want to complete this challenge it’s more just for the personal achievement, as I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to put into the challenge. I’ll try and keep the blog updated with my progress so you all know how I’m getting on.

The list of games are below, with the highest completion first;

I'm thinking of starting a Twitch channel to record/broadcast "Lets plays" of Minecraft & Diablo 3.

N.B.- This is the second time I've written this post, as the first one got lost!

HD remakes have leveled up with the current-gen consoles as we are seeing re-releases of last gen games on the new consoles. Some people see this as paying for backward compatibility, and they aren't wrong. I don't have a problem with this. In fact if anything it's probably helping me move away from my 360.

I've already thought that other than South Park: Stick of Truth I'm probably not going to buy any more games for my 360. GTA V is a great example of a current gen re-release, and one I will be picking up when it's released as I've not played it on the 360.

I've also bought Tomb Raider Definitive edition, which as I loved the story, gameplay and setting was definitely worth it. The Multiplayer content that came with it was a bit of a waste as I've not play any of the Tomb Raider multiplayer on either console generation.

Now I'm playing through Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls Ultimate Evil Edition which has some interesting additions to the core game that i've played on the 360. Namely Adventure mode, paragon points and the campaign expansion. Unfortunately, All of these need you to finish the campaign first which I have done but i've not imported my 360 character across to take advantage of the new stuff, I have however started a new game with a new character and I'm enjoying it just as much as I did the first time.

Sleeping Dogs is a getting the same treatment as Tomb Raider but as I've already got this on both my 360 and my PS3, thanks to Games with Gold and PS+, and not played either of them I don't see the point in triple-dipping. That being said I would quite happily triple dip on the Mass Effect Trilogy if it came with ALL the DLC and the option to turn off the edited ending, which debunks the Indoctrination theory, that in my opinion is canon.

Yes, that's right, it happened.

I. . . .

So everyone on the interwebs seems to be up in arms about the Xbox One and the fact that you have to be connected in order to play your games, "but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies." Which leads me to my story, i was downloading some stuff on my computer and thought that while I was waiting for it I'd play some Dragon Age:Oranges. Unfortunately as it was loading my connection to XBox live and the Dragon Age Servers meant that the items I'd got for pre ordering/playing the facebook tie in game/buying Mass Effect 2 weren't available. Fair enough I thought, and tried to resume my game where I had one of the items equipped. At which point it told me I wasn't able to play my save. So no Dragon Age for me, if this happened with my XBox One, I wouldn't be too worried as I'd still have my 360 and PS3 to play on so it's not like I'd be missing out on my gaming!

I'll admit I was a little disappointed, and the realisation that this would be the case with all games on the Xbox One did make me stop and think. Not for long though, as most people seem to be forgetting, Sony haven't made any announcements yet as to the status of their console. Sony have also not made any announcements about preowned games. I'm not that worried, I buy most of games new anyway, and I don't trade in and on the rare occasion that I do it's usually so I can get the Game of the Year edition that has all the DLC with it.

My friend and his girlfriend, who is also a gamer, share their games. It makes sense for them and saves them money. He was worried that they would need to have 2 copies of any games but hopefully he shouldn't need to worry now, as the statement from Microsoft said that "your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited access to all of your games. Anyone can play your games on your console--regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you." So both he and his better half will be able to play the night away as they currently do.

Two other things that Microsoft have detailed is that the kinect sensor while being always on, which you can pause, when the system is in a low powered state will be listening only for the phrase "Xbox On". If I'm honest the whole "big brother is watching" thing doesn't really scare me. If some guy wants to watch me sit on my sofa swearing at my TV because I'm trying to fight that final boss or watch me for over an hour as a trawl over every inch of a map, twice, to find the last collectable then so be it. Am I going to know he's doing it? No. So no harm done. Secondly mandatory installs, again this doesn't me either the first thing I do when I start a new game is install it. Mainly because I believe that it cuts load times and also because it makes my 360 run quieter.