Achievements of the Week – The Blessed Unbound Master Edition

It has arrived. The day is 11/11/11, and it is so much more than a Spinal Tap reference or a day to honor Veterans everywhere–it’s the day dragons awoke, the day I became a bearded man of import. Getting there wasn’t hard; Tara and I went to my local GameStop around 10ish, paid for my copies of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7 (which I won’t be able to pick up until early next week) and then hung out on the store’s floor for a bit. We gamed on our DSes for a bit, but eventually had to line up outside in the cold as we drew nearer to midnight. Once the time chimed high, we were sent into the store in groups of six or seven, given our copies, and ushered out. The drive home seemed to take forever.

Got home, made my character–his name is Lohgahn, and he’s rocking some killer Wolverine-esque sideburns–and played until the intro tutorial part was completed. Then I saved my game as I was a truly sleepy bear, but woke up early this morning to continue bounding onwards. Have only taken a break to make/eat lunch and type up this Grinding Down blog post.

I’ve never waited for a midnight release of anything before, and it was a little interesting seeing what type of people came out for this event. Mostly young teenagers or kids just getting into college by the look of ’em. There was a group attempting to sing–to everyone’s horror–Queen. And then listening to them spew words about how dumb Batman ultimately is and what Final Fantasy is the best had me cringing a bit–is that what I sound like, just not out loud? Ugh…

Well, maybe more on that later. For now, here’s a rundown of this week’s Achievements. They all come from a single franchise.

From The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion…

Blah blah blah, who cares now. All hail Skyrim Achievements!

From The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim…

Unbound (10G): Complete “Unbound”

Blessed (10G): Select a Standing Stone blessing

These are probably the first two Achievements the majority of gamers will unlocked. The first one is basically tied to Skyrim‘s tutorial/intro level, and the second is obtainable by following your companion right down the main path a little ways. Can’t miss it. Unless, upon the game truly opening up for you, you headed left or right with such ferocity that you never found the easiest Standing Stone possible. Bummer to you.

The first few hours of my game have gone well, and I certainly didn’t see any crazy horse-on-carts antics, but knowing it’s a Bethesda game means it’s only a matter of time until the glitches start popping up. I did stumble upon one oddity. I was speaking to a woman inside her own home in Whiterun, and she was ready to give me a quest, but said it’d be better to talk to her in her home in case anyone was eavesdropping. We…uh, were in her home. Speaking to her a second time triggered the correct dialogue, but it was still pretty amusing.

And with that, I go back to make Lohgahn a better archer, a better necromancer, and a better thief. To arms!

London Life Pauly, and the living’s easy

Have I gone into any long musings yet about London Life, the so-called mini-RPG bonus loaded with over 100 hours of gaming included with Professor Layton and the Last Specter? ::scans Grinding Down‘s archives:: Hmm…looks like a resounding no. For shame! I’ve lost a lot of Happiness.

First, let’s take a look at London Life Pauly in all his snazziness:

Pretty impressive, right? That snazzy top hat just melts your eyes. Normally, I like dressing in fairly bland clothing, the day-to-day stuff like a single-colored polo shirt or something flannel, but that 60 Formality really helps me get inside some of the fancier places in Little London, such as the casino. And you kind of want to get inside everywhere, as it opens up more quests, jobs, and people to mingle with. Let me set this all up a little better.

In London Life, you create an avatar and spend the majority of your days and nights talking with citizens, doing fetch quests for them, buying clothing, decorating your room, fishing, and earning money by completing a number of miscellaneous jobs. If it sounds a lot like Animal Crossing: Wild World, it’s because it is, with a few differences, some better and some worse: you don’t have a mortgage to pay off because you live in a tiny, small apartment studio; citizens in Little London do not really live lives, staying in their respective spots during the day and night times, speaking the same lines of dialogue over and over; and you have to be aware of your avatar’s Happiness, which I guess is a way to keep them alive. I’ve not yet run out of Happiness–though I’ve come dangerously close after some bad spouts of fishing–so I don’t really know what happens when the meter hits zero, but I don’t want to find out. A happy avatar lives better, they say. And there’s plenty to be happy about…

For starters, the writing in London Life is fantastic. And most has to do with the small observations or the flavor text for items, fish, flowers, furniture, and so on. There’s humor to be found in everything. Your avatar can basically examine anything he or she sees, and is rewarded with some text for it. Not just “It’s a desk.” This same level of attention to minutiae is prominently in Professor Layton and the Last Specter, found when tapping around the screen, and it’s greatly welcomed here. The music’s bubbly and bouncy, appropriate for each place you go into. And the graphics…my god, the spritework! It’s just heavenly, and it’s also amazing how well defined different items of clothing can be with just some simple sprites.

Okay, let’s take a look at my cramped living quarters, too:

Used to have a roommate, but he wasn’t down with my toy and stuffed animal collection, so he left. Toodles to him. Little London Pauly collects what he wants, when he wants. Not sure what the benefits of a roommate are, and I guess we share a bed Scott Pilgrim/Wallace Wells style, but whatever. With him gone, it just means I have more space to put stuff down. Such as a stack of books I recently bought. Yay!

I don’t know if there’s actually 100 hours of gaming in London Life, and I don’t really know how many I’ve already spent so far–maybe around six or seven–but there’s definitely a lot of things to do, and it’s just so dang charming that I’m going to keep on doing them until the charm wears off, which will most likely be after I stop getting newspapers full of quests every morning. Will try to check back in again, especially if I’m able to move into a larger pad or if I figure out how to open up that mysterious LOST-like hatch. Since the game is still so new and relatively obscure, there’s not a lot of info out there, which is actually kind of cool. It’s been some time since I’ve had to really figure something out for myself…

All must bow before the Master of the Fighters Guild

Well, of the remaining quests to complete to the Fighters Guild, three more involved going into a cave and killing [plural noun]. The final ones actually broke form, but even with that said, they weren’t that exciting, despite being concerned with taking down the Blackwood Company and destroying a crazy drug-producing tree. It was still go here, kill these people, report back what happens, accept next quest. Very disconnected and disappointing, but I’m glad to have to at least fully completed a guild questline–other than the easy-peasy Arena one–so here, look at my shiny rewards:

Champion, Fighters Guild (10G): Reached Champion rank in the Fighters Guild

Master, Fighters Guild (50G): Completed the Fighters Guild Questline

The final quest involves you taking down the Blackwood Company, a group of no-gooders that have popped up a few other times during your growing career in the Fighters Guild. Instead of going to a cave to murder them all, you go to their base of operations in Leyawiin…and murder them all. Molly summoned a lot of skeletons to distract them and then plucked them down systematically with her bow and arrows. Nothing terribly hard. In the basement, she found a tree surrounded by cogs and wheels and other crazy-looking mechanisms. Every time you click on it, nothing happens. You are tasked with destroying the pumps powering the chaotic thing; I loosed some arrows and fire spells into it, but nothing seemed to be working. Then I noticed some boards on the ground, which fit perfectly in the spinning wheels, breaking them fast and setting the whole place on fire. Upon returning to mean ol’ Vilena Donton and telling her all about Molly’s good deeds, she bestowed upon her the grandest of grand titles, the Master of the Fighters Guild. After that…um, nothing. There’s no confetti or party in the basement, no roasted rat meat and seasoned cheese wedges, no cheering and clapping, no anything. Hollow from beginning to end.

For this marathon run, I stayed focused. I picked up very little loot, unless it was lightweight or simply gold or more arrows for my enchanted bow of numbing, and that was a little hard for me at first. I am, by nature, a lootwhore. I like taking everything, whether I plan to use it or not. I mean, in my mind, there’s always the possibility that X might come in handy or that I could always just sell Y at a later point, but this then leads to spending a lot of time on inventory management. My goal was to see every quest completed, and so there was little time for fidgeting. Bad enough all the loading from fast traveling to and from constantly, from cave to city, city to city, city to cave.

And that’s mostly that for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. From what I’ve gathered, the most exciting guild questline in the game is that of the Dark Brotherhood’s, but I chose poorly, going with Fighters Guild and am now out of time. Tonight, I am going to be devouring The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in big-eyed fashion, and while there’s no Fighters Guild in this new snowy realm, there is another guild similar to them. The Warriors? I dunno. I think though for my first playthrough I’m going to work on getting into the Thieves guild and going from there.

Molly the Master, out!

Y’know, that Alpha Male Deathclaw glitch

I’m going to be talking about a spectacular glitch from Fallout: New Vegas today, one so amazing in its horribleness and mind-fuckery that I had planned to draw a journal comic about it, but my wife beat me to the punch, which is fine as it’s a great l’il comic that captured the infamous event perfectly:

Click for a bigger version, yo. And yeah, I like to sit on the floor when I play. Wanna make something of it?

Right. Glitches and Fallout: New Vegas. I just can’t seem to escape writing about ’em. And this one’s a doozy. I was just beginning to scope out the landscape with Rhaegar, my fourth playthrough character, trying to locate some of the more pertinent locations so that they would be ready for fast-traveling. Leaving Goodsprings, I headed out towards Sloan because I knew that I could at least get a few snippets of EXP from fixing one of the generators and healing Snuffle’s injuries. What, you don’t know who Snuffles is? Why, she’s Sloan’s personal mole rat, a friendly one too. As I crept closer, I noticed the [hidden] status changing to [caution] and then [danger] despite no enemies being nearby at all. The status continued to change back and forth, too. Very bewildering. I headed into one of the shacks in Sloan to ask about how to make Deathclaw omelets, hoping to nip this weird status glitch in the butt. Nope, so I headed back outside…

…to discover, to my and Snuffle’s horror, that an Alpha Male Deathclaw, probably the toughest enemy in all of Fallout: New Vegas, had spawned directly in the middle of Sloan. Now that blinking [danger] status made sense. With one swipe, it murdered Snuffles and then took Rhaegar down. The game loaded up with my latest auto-save, which was me exiting the building, and the Deathclaw still spawned. Rinse and repeat. The third time, I turned 180 degrees, and went back inside the building, praying nothing followed me–nothing did. Carefully, cautiously, I went back outside. The Deathclaw was gone, my status stated I was safely [hidden], and all was quiet. Too quiet. No sniffling sound, and that’s when I saw her, Snuffles, slumped over, unmoving, unmovable. The Alpha Male Deathclaw glitch had left its mark for certain. I made a bee-line for Novac and haven’t gone back to Sloan yet. Probably never will.

Last night, Boone found himself trapped inside a bunch of desks in Vault 3 for too long, switching between melee and ranged weapons with strange determination. A funny glitch, but not as harrowing as the Alpha Male Deathclaw one. We’ll see how many more pop up as I continue to hunt for those few remaining Achievements…

30 Days of Gaming, #29 – A game you thought you wouldn’t like, but ended up loving

I have to believe that the last time I played with LEGO blocks–actually played with them, like used them to build the most buffoonish of homes loaded with booby traps and secret rooms–was when I was still only in the single digits. Now, as a man of twenty and eight years, I play with LEGOs all the time, but digitally, with a controller in hand, using them to collect a bajillion studs, form platforms, and as a means of transportation. That’s right. From toys to videogames, the building blocks of life.

At first, when LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game came out, it was hard to think of it as anything else but a children’s game. I mean, it uses the toys of children to tell a simplified story of something much more epic, with no punishment for failing, minimalist controls, and bright, colorful characters. It plays everything safe from a visual standpoint, and at that point, no one knew what a LEGO game was. Some kind of sandbox thing where you just play around in a room with virtual LEGO blocks? A racer? Multiple choice trivia? Nowadays, everybody knows what a LEGO game is, and you’ll either love love love each one that comes out or find them uninspired and repetitious. Me, I’m addicted to their goofiness and collection-based gameplay.

I remember the very first time I played LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game quite well. I was beardless then, and in a Target, wandering around the aisles. Many of my weekend evenings were spent doing this, as at the time I had no girlfriend, no wife, no friends. A playable PlayStation 2–behind glass and locks and the occasional employee with shifty eyes–was making noise, and that noise sounded pretty dang familiar. Upon closer inspection, it was the theme to Star Wars. You know how it goes. I grabbed the controller and started playing. I was a little LEGO Jedi, and the first action I took was to use the Force to push a battle droid all the way across the screen until it exploded…into LEGO bits. Like magic, every ounce of me warmed and tingled, and it never got tiring, Force-pushing dudes. Some young kids stopped behind me to watch, ooh-ing at all the right times.

Getting to the know the LEGO games more intimately, I saw that they were just as much for adults as they were for children. In fact, many of the puzzles were overly complicated, involving planning and meticulous placements of key items. Kids might enjoy seeing characters falling down or opening a treasure chest to find a lone banana in cutscenes (those folk at Traveller’s Tales love their fruit jokes), but it’s the little nods and things unspoken that hit home for older gamers in the know. Such as LEGO Jack Sparrow’s swagger or the way LEGO Malfoy heckles Hermione or how LEGO R2-D2 floats perfectly across a chasm. And they are fun to play co-op, though maybe not at first, as the camera tech hadn’t come around until LEGO Indiana Jones 2, allowing players to split off in any direction and join back up whenever they were ready.

Since that infamous day in Target, I’ve played every single LEGO-based videogame save for these: LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars and LEGO Rock Band. That’s not surprising as I’m not interested in much Star Wars lore other than episodes four through six, and plastic instruments are inferior to true instruments. Sorry, it’s true. And I’m picking up LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7 on the same day I get Skyrim, and while I’m naturally more excited about traversing mountains, cooking salmon, and stealing spoons, I’m also giddy to get back to Hogwarts with my wife and cast some spells. Very curious to see if this LEGO game gets as dark as the final books/movies, though I’m mostly confident that TT will have handled the material a whole lot better than the film franchise.

Too many caves for the Fighters Guild to count

Molly’s been working like a mule as of late in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, increasing two more ranks in the Fighters Guild. See here, non-believers:

Warder, Fighters Guild (10G): Reached Warder rank in the Fighters Guild

Guardian, Fighters Guild (10G): Reached Guardian rank in the Fighters Guild

Ping and ping. That’s all well and good, but to be honest, these last few quests have been a grind. An extremely bland one, too. All involved going to some cave marked on the map and exploring it, whether to find out what happened to so-and-so, escort so-and-so safely through, or simply murder a bunch of so-and-sos/escaped prisoners. In fact, the majority of quests for the Fighters Guild so far have been of this ilk, with the only ones standing uniquely being “A Rat Problem,” “The Unfortunate Shopkeeper,” and “Drunk and Disorderly.” Otherwise, it’s been this on repeat: tip-toe through a really dark cave that looks just like every other cave in the game, spam the heck out of Nighteye and Minor Life Detection spells in hopes of seeing something, and save frequently to avoid losing progress to quick deaths from unseeable tripwires and pressure plates. Not overly exciting stuff, and it doesn’t help that I’m sitting in a freezing cold living room, crawling through digital caves that look just as cold, if not colder.

But up two ranks means that I’m almost done with the Fighters Guild, right? Well, no, not exactly. The endgame of the latest quest got problematic. Seems like the mother of Viranus Donton, found dead in a cave, was not happy with the mission’s outcome. Did I also mention she’s Master of the Fighters Guild in Cyrodiil? Yup. So, she threw in the towel, firmly, firing Modryn Oreyn for his lack of winning. Molly was also reprimanded and demoted down to the rank of Defender. So, it’s more like, up two ranks, down two ranks. I gotta make good and climb back up the corporate ladder for the Champion and Master ranks, which means more cave quests. I think I will just grin and bear it though as I’d love to complete at least one whole guild before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim arrives. Once that game comes out, I’ll probably forget all about its predecessor–the same thing happened with Fallout 3 once Fallout: New Vegas reared its shinier head.

I’ve already joked with Tara that I’ll basically stop playing Skyrim the way it’s meant to be played when I get my first cave quest. I’m sure my character will be content to just spend the remainder of his/her days in a safe, well-lit town, decorating his house and chatting with locals. Maybe he’ll start a spoon collection. Or just make potions and fancy foods, sunrise to sunset. Who knows. The realm is my oyster. It’s gonna basically be Animal Crossing: Wild Skyrim, and that’s fine. Unless, I dunno, the caves got a whole lot better in the fifth game or my bad eyes are perfected magically overnight. Let’s hope for both of those things, my fellow fantasy spelunkers. Let’s hope.

Games Completed in 2011, #33 – Deus Ex: Human Revolution

This took some time, but I finally got around to writing down all my multifarious thoughts about Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a game that did not turn out like I’d hoped. Head over to The First Hour to read, read, read.

It was hard to assign the game a numerical score, something I don’t like doing in general, but I think 7 gets the point across–by no means is this a horrible, excruciating experience. Adam Jensen’s journey through a bleak and fascinating future to find answers is quite good, but marred by many elements and too much frustration for players that enjoy going the ninja route. Re-reading, I see that I actually forgot to talk about some other things in the review, such as the hacking mini-game and the augmentation that lets Jensen read personalities and whether or not someone is lying (this was not used enough, honestly). Oh well. No re-loading now.

Actually, I’m hoping to not have to write about Deus Ex: Human Revolution for awhile. Kind of burnt out on it. As promised at the bottom of the review, I do plan to go through it one more time, guns locked and loaded, but with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7 dropping in just four days, that might not happen any time soon. Fine by me, really.

Right, another game done for 2011. Oh, and thanks, Greg!

Achievements of the Week – The Highly Trained Old School Gamer Edition

Honestly, I didn’t expect much in terms of Achievements this week considering I was without my Xbox 360 for three-fourths of it thanks to that crazy October snowstorm. In case you didn’t know, power outages and console gaming don’t get along. I only just got to sit down and game a bit last night, giving Mass Effect 2 some solid minutes, and that game is starting to sink its narrative hooks into me, even if it is severely less of an RPG than before. I don’t even bother looking at stats or skills after enough experience has been earned, simply hitting “auto level up” and then going about my day.

That topic’s probably for another post. Today, however, is all about the Achievements! See ’em below.

From The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion…

I moved up the Fighters Guild’s rank ladder pretty fast, going from Journeyman to Defender after a handful of mediocre quests. You can read all about that here, and I’m still planning to hit the top rank of Master in at least one guild before Skyrim takes over my life. That’s in seven days, people. Seven freakin’ days.

From Mass Effect 2…

Exploring more of the Normandy, I stumbled across several Achievements just sitting there, waiting to be unlocked. I hadn’t played Mass Effect 2 since the first main mission of rescuing the salarian scientist Mordin Solus, but had an itch for some dialogue trees and Paragon actions. This spurt of playing included running around the ship like a kid on Christmas morning, getting drunk with the onboard doctor, and rescuing an old friend by the code-name of Archangel. A nice mix of things to do really.

Scientist (10G): Complete any research project in the Normandy’s laboratory

Highly Trained (15G): View all advanced combat training videos at Shepard’s private terminal.

Scholar (15G): Unlock 15 new Mass Effect 2 codex entries

Prospector (5G): Retrieve mineral resources by scanning and probing a planet in the galaxy map

Not exactly sure what to do next or who to go after so I headed for the Citadel to see what’s new with that place since Shepard last saw it. I’ve only just gotten inside thanks to Michael Hogan. Hope fast travel is readily available and that I can remember what is where. Shepard’s planning to do the old “pop in” on the Council, something I’m sure they won’t like, especially considering many still believe him to be dead. Can’t wait to see their faces.

From Deus Ex: Human Revolution…

Old School Gamer (10G): You found all the hidden story items in Megan’s office. Point and Click much?

Not enough, to be honest. Need more point-and-click games now that I’ve wrapped up Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. Anyways, I started a new game just to get this Achievement, but don’t know if I’ll play again. I’d love to see more of the side missions, but I’ve turned bitter towards the game, and even going into it all guns blazing seems unappealing. There’s fun in sneaking through a room successfully, little fun in hiding behind a crate and firing a gun until all is motionless. I dunno. There are parts of this game that I love, and parts I loathe. A full review is coming soon to The First Hour.

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Proud of a certain Achievement this week? Tell us about it below in the comments, even if it’s from a Kinect game.

Humble Indie Bundle is back to it with the Humble Voxatron Debut

I didn’t expect to purchase the latest and greatest from Humble Indie Bundle–which, when announced on Halloween, was simply Voxatron Alpha–but then they went and threw in two more games, specifically Blocks That Matter and The Binding of Isaac, both of which I’ve seen in action thanks to GiantBomb‘s Quick Looks and found appealing. To get all three games, you have to pay above the average price, which at the time of purchase, was $4.75. My lunch at Panera Bread earlier this week was double that (turkey artichoke panini and broccoli and cheese soup for the curious). Included in the purchase are two soundtracks, as well as the promise of further updates for Voxatron Alpha, a game not fully complete yet, hence the alpha-ism.

It’s all good either way because I’m pleased to announce that all three games run–and run amazingly–on my Mac. My Macbook’s torrid history of trouble playing newer games has been steadily documented here on Grinding Down. Knowing that, I continue to try, and as each game loaded up, I held my breath with worry. Would it load at all or just quit to the desktop? How unbearable would the lag be? So many questions, none that would ultimately be answered. Every game loaded without a hitch, and plays very smoothly. This warmed my gaming heart and fingers immediately.

Of the three, the one I played the most of after installations were done was Blocks That Matter, a cute puzzle-platformer that has some elements of Minecraft to it. You control a tiny drillbot and are trying to rescue your creators by navigating through each level to a magical portal at the end. The trick is in figuring out how to use the blocks you collect to build new platforms. The other two titles, Voxatron Alpha and The Binding of Isaac, are interesting, if very chaotic. A lot of runnin’ and gunnin’ if you know what that means. Maybe I just need to get used to the controls more. Both require fast response skills, and sometimes that’s harder to do–at least for me–with a mouse and keyboard than a gamepad. We’ll see if I can get any better at ’em both.

If past bundles are any indication, there’s the strong possibility of Jeffrey Rosen adding more games to this bundle before it closes for good. Since I’ve already bought in, hopefully that means I’ll get further perks for free, such as soundtracks, additional gamey games, and pivotal updates, which is always nice. If anything, these bundles are just a great way to show support for indie game development, something I’m growing increasingly aware and curious of, and whether or not I love every game I buy, I still like to be involved.

35 videogames completed so far in 2011, but aiming for 50

The last time I wrote a little bit about the actual number of games I’ve completed within a year, the post got featured on the front page of WordPress.com. The attention the post got was very nice if a little scary. Thankfully, there were only a handful of trollish comments to deal with, and the rest were just as excited as I was to be making progress with games and not just starting them and then tossing them aside for something shinier. We’ll see what happens this time…

So, it’s the beginning of November 2011, and I just beat my 35th game last night while Tara and I watched a badly taped version of The Goonies, which featured some amazingly amazing commercials from 1988. Remember camera film? They used to have commercials for camera film. Anyways, yeah, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars gets all the glory here, but there’s plenty more to come. Two months left in the gaming year, and I’m wondering if I could cross the “50 videogames beat” mark, let alone reach it.

Looking at my backlog, as well as what’s still to come, I think it’s doable, but probably requires much more dedication from me than I’m capable of. See, I have gaming ADD, and whether or not it is actually a disease confirmed and diagnosed by a doctor, I have it; I absolutely love starting a new game, getting to see all of its mechanics and how it opens; very rarely do I push further past this bit magic and fireworks. Take, for instance, Radiant Historia, a stunningly original RPG for the DS that I gobbled up, but only until something else came out. Haven’t gone back yet sadly. Even my Chrono Trigger progress comes in spurts of activity, as I just can’t seem to stick with it for too long, always drifting away to something else with hopes of returning soon. And one game I do want to play of more is Professor Layton and the Last Specter, but Tara’s currently enjoying it, and I like when she finds a game enjoyable, so it’s all hers until she beats it herself.

And of course, November is loaded with big name games to help me climb a little higher. On 11/11/11, I’m picking up not only The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but also LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7, the latest LEGO game for Tara and I to plow through. There’s other titles too that I want, but feel like I’ll have to resist in hopes of not breaking the bank (for example, Cave Story 3D, Super Mario 3D Land, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and Jurassic Park: The Game to name a few). It’s a disgustingly great month to be a gamer.

In terms of the backlog, well, if you’ve been reading me for awhile now you’ll know that I’ve been slowly working on collecting as many decent PS2 games as possible before they disappear entirely from store shelves. So, there’s those. Namely Suikoden III, Ys: The Ark of Napishtim, and yes, probably to Greg Noe‘s horror, Escape from Monkey Island. See, I have plenty to play, but it just requires willpower and time, and if I also want to be a famous artist/writer, well it’s probably not going to mesh well with that. So while I’d absolutely relish in joy if I completed around 50 videogames for 2011, I know it’s also probably not probable.

You can read about every game I’ve knocked out of the 2011 park right here on Grinding Down by following this nifty tag. Or, if you’re into looking at lists, I keep one pretty up-to-date over at GiantBomb.  Other than that, good luck to all of you out there with a compulsion to complete all that you got and please wish me luck on fifteen more.