Community Backlog Blitz Season 23 - Runs April 1 through June 30 with a cash prize raffle at the end

Wibblewozzer

Robot on the inside
Dec 6, 2018
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We just finished a successful twenty-second season of the Backlog Blitz. Nintendo is celebrating this new season by announcing Switch 2 details. That's real cool of them. What is coming out over these next few months? I'm sure there's some notable titles but I've completely ignored release lists as I've been working on the backlog games this first quarter. But I think I'll have to start playing some newer games soon so good luck to all those growing backlogs! With 22 seasons completed we have now bested Top Chef in number of seasons. I have no idea what they said to eliminated contestants but I imagine it's something about off the chopping block or they called them sporks or something?

We had 20 participants, which was more than double the previous Blitz. What woke all of you up? There were 96 game goals set (+53 change) and 60 of them were completed (+24 change). Congrats on clearing out those backlogs! The rate of completion was somewhere around the average we normally see so it's good that all the new participants largely took it seriously and worked on those backlogs! Congrats to Nzyme for winning the raffle. Make sure to give them congrats for clearing that backlog and winning. Nzyme got the win for completing Dark Souls. I'm sure that doesn't mean there's a lot of other FromSoftware games still waiting to be completed.

While this is starting on April 1, this is no April Fools: New games are still coming out. Backlogs are getting larger. The first quarter had quite a few very large games but this quarter is possibly a bit lighter on the big-name games. But some great indies are also lurking around the corners. For the big hits I imagine Doom: The Dark Ages will show up on future Blitzes alongside Death Stranding 2. And indie games are too numerous to know what will appeal but maybe take a look at Promise Mascot Agency and To a T. Oh, and Skin Deep. That could be really neat.

The spreadsheet has been updated, the prize pool has been reset. We'll start with $20.00 but chipping in is always welcome. The details to do so will be posted separately within the thread soon after we get started.

Pick your games accordingly!

What it is:

It's a simple way to clear out some backlog games. You select a number of specific games you want to complete and if you complete them in a set time frame you have a chance to pick a game of your choice within the prize limits.

Rules:

First off, there is no time limit on when you can join. If you come in late and only have a month left please feel free to join. Even one completed game will get you entered into the raffle detailed below.

Everyone shares the same rules so an agreed amount of time would be set (three months this time) and then a set amount of games you want to complete in that time (been using five games). You then pick your specific five games with the intention that you don't go changing it all the time. The idea isn't that once you beat some game you go and list it and mark it complete. Instead, you pick five games to complete at the start of the Blitz and ideally you complete them as well as anything else you want to finish in that time.

Prize:

In the end, I suggest a prize pool and a simple raffle done. I always chip in $20 to start it and accept any other additions. Raffle winners must use at least half but can go up to the full price of a game (capped at $60 if the prize pool gets large enough). Leftover goes to the next drawn winner until it gets down to $0 (or close enough at which point I'll just add it to the next Blitz).

Thoughts?

There's no entry fee or anything so there's really no loss for taking part or starting it and then ignoring it. It's just a fun way to clear out backlog games and have discussion about what you're completing. And commiserate if you pick a game you don't enjoy and sour one of your spots on your list.

I created the Google Sheet so feel free to add yourself and games:



I changed to a hide until replied as I think some people had issues with the hide until reacted. Ask any questions and sorry for those that already posted their new lists in the previous thread. Feel free to just post it again here as we continue for the next three months here.

Good luck, everyone![/REPLY]
 
Far Cry 3 + Blood Dragon: I know I'm super late to this but hey, it doesn't get more backloggish than this, i figured now that they added achievement it could be a good time to try.

Age of Mythology Immortal Pillars + Age of Empires IV Knights of Cross and Rose: I already have 100% from the base games so completing the DLC feels like a must

En Garde!: Sounds fun and I need something to play on my Deck

Stories Untold: Got recommended by a friend, Steam says I have it since 2021, go figure. I'm in the mood of something spooky so this looks perfect.

Orcs Must Die 2: Someone convinced me to play this coop so let's see how it goes.
 
Congrats Nzyme !


These are mine for the new blitz. No theme or anything, just a bunch of games. One of them has been sitting in my backlog for over a decade as Gunslinger came out in 2013. :cold-sweat:

1. Toilet Chronicles
2. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
3. Emily is Away
4. Forgotton Anne
5. Gamedec
 
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Right-o.

My list for this season with 1 slot open for now.
  • Spider-Man 2 - Completed
  • The First Berserker: Khazan - In Progress​
  • Dynasty Warriors: Origins - Completed
  • Silent Hill 2 Remake​
  • OPEN
 
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Congrats Nzyme

Here's my list:
  1. Blasphemous 2
  2. Pronty
  3. Death's Door
  4. Star Renegades
  5. tbd
 
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I was able to complete 2, which is better than zero! I will go for at least 3 or more this time.
  1. Expelled!
  2. Kingdom Come Deliverance II
  3. DOOM: The Dark Ages
  4. DOOM Eternal
  5. Blue Prince
Spreadsheet has been updated!
 
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Delayed picking my games since I was undecided on one of my slots and I don't like changing games once I've set them. But I still might after finally selecting the games.
  • Bloodborne - From the From Software category. Was going to be Dark Souls 2 but I went through that earlier than planned.
  • Death Stranding - From the Game of the Year awards category (this was undecided and was previously Ghost of Tsushima but I'm playing Assassin's Creed Shadows right now and decided I should probably not plan to do two historical Japanese open world games. Death Stranding may still get swapped out)
  • Teardown - From the Heist category. Played a little before and I really liked what I played. Will be eager to dig deeper.
  • En Garde! - From the Female Protagonist category. Started last night. World is a bit simple but the combat is satisfying, art style is really nice, and it's short so it shouldn't be too bad even if I get tired of the combat eventually.
  • Moonleap - From the Overwhelmingly Positive category. Just wanted a short game.
 
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Finished Stories Untold.

Spooky, the ambience and the sound is incredible. The gameplay loop is kinda hard to get and somewhat frustrating, it makes it difficult to advance in what is an otherwise short game, but the stories are engaging with a nice twist at the end.
 
First game of the season: Dusk

A good boomer shooter with decent weapons and level design but that feels a little bit too floaty. Some levels are particularly gimmicky/creative. I think Amid Evil and Ion Fury are better games from that time period but all of them are worthy to be played.
 
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Both Far Cry 3 and Blood Dragon done. Those were good! Didn't play any of them and now that they had Steam achievements I figured it was a good time to try, You can see how this game had an effect on the series and to ubisoft in general lmao, good for it's time but kind of a curse in retrospect. As for the game just dumb fun and shooting some bad guys in good environments, as classic as it gets.
 
HROT done. Its a czech boomer shooter that takes inspiration from games like Wolfenstein 3D and Quake. The combat is fun and there are some creative action pieces, The level design doesnt have much variety, the game is very brown and sometimes the difficulty spikes can take you by surprise. Recommended. Second game of the season.
 
This time I'm sticking to a pool of 10 games, and if I finish 5 of those. That will be... good. I will have achieved Absolute Victory**.

Rocket Boots Mania: the weird sub-genre I love where you do an obstacle course as a superhuman as fast as possible. Think Neon White.
Peppered: a new indie precision platformer, but also quite a bit of it is a relaxed adventure game where you just wander about talking to people learning about the world. I don't expect it's a large pool in the middle of that Venn Diagram, but I wish them luck. The closest thing I can think of is Wuppo.
Half-Life: Alyx: you play as a head crab who has teamed up with GladOS to take over the Team Fortress in a Counter-Strike operation.
Lies of P: Replaying before DLC comes out, because I lub dis gem.
Luigi's Mansion 3: the original is one of my favorite chill adventure games ever. I really didn't like the 3DS one. Hopefully 3 is better.
Dishonored 2: another replay. Doing this one with mods. And I already have all of the achievements, so I won't have my play influenced by a third-party.
Pillars of Eternity: I always aspire to be a sophisticate who plays CRPGs. But I never attach to them. I have latched to Pillars more strongly than I did to the last few attempts at playing a CRPG throughout the years. Here's hoping.
Dune: Spice Wars: This is a hybrid between a really fast game of Civilization and a really slow game of StarCraft. I'm trying to play outside of my comfort zone with this one and Pillars. I've won a few games on the easiest difficulty. Going to try normal next. I don't know if this game has an ending. Maybe finishing a Conquest on normal or higher is my completion goal?
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: There's no chance I finish this one in time. The opening is really good. I've landed in Hawaii.
The Legend of Zelda: Second Wind: This is a mod for Breath of the Wild that modifies all... most... many? of the shrines. It adds mechanics, items, a new village filled with quests and more. I have played the first 3 hours of BOTW about 6 times. Never come within a galaxy of finishing it. This time I'm doing it with lots of added stuff. I'm not even gonna know what's original and what's new. Let's go!

I have finished 1/10 1/5 0/5**:

Half-Life Alyx: My 3rd playthrough. Enjoyed it a lot. It's taken years longer than I expected to get back to this. Because the game's performance has drastically degraded because of the patch where they added spectator window, cloud saves and workshop support. Every time I boot it up, I remember it runs like ass now and dejectedly shuffle away. It took a handful of tweaks to get it running 90% as well as it used to. Ended up really enjoying going back, and it has probably Valve's best developer commentary I've listened to.

**Now that I think of it, I doubt replays count, so I guess I have made no progress and 3 of my 10 here are Traps of Wasted Time! Oh no!
 
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Control and all the missions/DLC finished.

Compared to Quantum Break, which was mediocre IMHO, Control is the real deal: great combat with several styles you can choose from, several kinds of weapons, many defensive options, level design that borrows some elements from metroidvanias and soulslikes and a good variety of enemies that will force you to change strategies. Story is told in a more traditional way, no longer you depend on stuttering streaming episodes from MS servers. 100% recommended, its a great action and exploration game. I haven't played Alan Wake 2 but if its built on this foundation no wonder it got a lot of praise.
 
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Started and finished Toilet Chronicles.
It's more of a joke delivery machine rather than a game, some of the jokes are alright.
 
En Garde! finished. It was fun but it seems quite a bit short and the weird jumps between episodes makes it feel like the story (or lack of ) is all over the place. But otherwise a fun 6-8 hours of swashbuckling fun. Works pretty good on the Deck.
 
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Completed DIRT 5 story mode, its mediocre.
Except for rock climbing and gymkhana all the events feel the same, cars from the same category are not balanced at all, some are objectively better than others. Not enough variety of circuits, the Donut media podcast gimmick gets old very fast and there is a lot of grind if you want a specific livery for a specific car. From what I've seen so far DLC adds new cars but no new circuits. Overall a step down compared to 3 or 4.

EDIT: only 5.8% percent of players completed story mode.

Fourth game of the season.
 
This time I'm sticking to a pool of 10 games, and if I finish 5 of those. That will be... good. I will have achieved Absolute Victory**.

Rocket Boots Mania: the weird sub-genre I love where you do an obstacle course as a superhuman as fast as possible. Think Neon White.
Peppered: a new indie precision platformer, but also quite a bit of it is a relaxed adventure game where you just wander about talking to people learning about the world. I don't expect it's a large pool in the middle of that Venn Diagram, but I wish them luck. The closest thing I can think of is Wuppo.
Half-Life: Alyx: you play as a head crab who has teamed up with GladOS to take over the Team Fortress in a Counter-Strike operation.
Lies of P: Replaying before DLC comes out, because I lub dis gem.
Luigi's Mansion 3: the original is one of my favorite chill adventure games ever. I really didn't like the 3DS one. Hopefully 3 is better.
Dishonored 2: another replay. Doing this one with mods. And I already have all of the achievements, so I won't have my play influenced by a third-party.
Pillars of Eternity: I always aspire to be a sophisticate who plays CRPGs. But I never attach to them. I have latched to Pillars more strongly than I did to the last few attempts at playing a CRPG throughout the years. Here's hoping.
Dune: Spice Wars: This is a hybrid between a really fast game of Civilization and a really slow game of StarCraft. I'm trying to play outside of my comfort zone with this one and Pillars. I've won a few games on the easiest difficulty. Going to try normal next. I don't know if this game has an ending. Maybe finishing a Conquest on normal or higher is my completion goal?
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: There's no chance I finish this one in time. The opening is really good. I've landed in Hawaii.
The Legend of Zelda: Second Wind: This is a mod for Breath of the Wild that modifies all... most... many? of the shrines. It adds mechanics, items, a new village filled with quests and more. I have played the first 3 hours of BOTW about 6 times. Never come within a galaxy of finishing it. This time I'm doing it with lots of added stuff. I'm not even gonna know what's original and what's new. Let's go!

I have finished 1/10 1/5 0/5**:

Half-Life Alyx: My 3rd playthrough. Enjoyed it a lot. It's taken years longer than I expected to get back to this. Because the game's performance has drastically degraded because of the patch where they added spectator window, cloud saves and workshop support. Every time I boot it up, I remember it runs like ass now and dejectedly shuffle away. It took a handful of tweaks to get it running 90% as well as it used to. Ended up really enjoying going back, and it has probably Valve's best developer commentary I've listened to.

**Now that I think of it, I doubt replays count, so I guess I have made no progress and 3 of my 10 here are Traps of Wasted Time! Oh no!
Replays are ultimately fine. I don't really have any rules for what can be included as the Blitz is mostly just about setting goals to help incentivize going through games you want to play but haven't given the time to. So if a replay is something you consider as part of your backlog then that seems fair. You'll also see people occasionally unreleased games in their picks, which I know some people are against and won't do, but ultimately I don't see why not as those will just extend the backlog if they don't get played, too. There's a chance I did a replay in one of the early Blitzes.
 
Finished Dynasty Warriors Origins last night - Wu Ending. Marking this as completed, but will be doing the other 2 story paths on NG+ Ultimate Difficulty. Looks like NG+ plus expands on some of the content (new skill panel/optional challenges with unique rewards, etc)

Also, did not get the Wu True Ending... which I wasn't aware even of! Might do that, too, since you can replay any mission you want freely. Origins certainly has a lot of replayability.
 
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Just finished Call of Cthulhu. Interesting concept but mixed feelings about the execution. It's a first person adventure games with some light RPG mechanics that define how you interact with people and puzzles. Includes very simplistic stealth modes. Story OK, you can lock yourself out of certain depending on how the game is played. On principle I recommend it but your mileage may vary.

And thats the end of the season for me. This one went really fast.
 
I played through Emily is Away yesterday. I knew it was short but I guess I didn't expect it to be quite that short.

Started Forgotton Anne today.
 
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