I think I was backlog negative this year for the first time, although my last second purchase of 9 games in the winter sale makes it close. Before I bought them I took a look at my steam purchase history. I actually did pretty good and out of around 33 games this year only 4 are still in the backlog and I cleared out…

Adding on to this list with some of my favorites
S.P.A.Z.
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
SOMA
Machinarium
The Fall
Kairo
The Beginner's Guide (A bit meta best played after other indies)
LIMBO
The Moon Sliver/The Music Machine
Rogue Legacy
Hexcells (Minesweeper+logical puzzle)
Stardew Valley
Zeno Clash
Three Fourths Home
World of Goo
…

There are literally thousands of changes but the big picture ones are
1. Many more missions, much longer campaign
2. Troops need to be rotated to keep them fresh and they need time to heal.
3. You use 3-4 squads of 8 soldiers rather than just your top 6 soldiers
4. Harder than impossible by a bit (there is a difficulty…

Make sure to play the Minerva's Den DLC after the main game. It really is as great as the hype.

I fell hard for XCOM and ended up beating it on iron man impossible. When the expansion came out I did it again and then I installed the Long War mod. Long War can be a grind, but it is also the true realization of many of the gameplay ideas in the base game. If you love XCOM do take a look at Long War.

I think I like the FF games primary because they are able to create these slightly alien settings and then still get me invested in them. I think its hard to actually pull this off. A lot of RPG worlds just feel like Tolkien with the names swapped around or end up feeling like made up settings being described by an…

I played the free first episode of Batman and I felt pretty much the same. Well done but not quite engaging. I really want some branching in my Telltale games.

I played the free first episode of Batman and I felt pretty much the same. Well done but not quite engaging. I really want some branching in my Telltale games.

I cleared 12 games from my steam backlog this week. Nine of them were skipped for various reasons but I'm pretty happy with the three I did beat. I didn't click with Kathy Rain at first and even uninstalled it half-way through the first day of the case, but I gave it another shot last week and I'm glad I did. Once…

NOOOOOOOOOOO. RUNNNNN. It gets really drawn out as the series continues. Just go read ASOIAF.

So, How did you like Gone Home? I enjoyed it, but it felt pretty slight.

I could list a few problems with The Last of Us (it never quite integrated gameplay and story), but honestly its strengths were such that I was so stoked when they announced the sequel. The game is easily in my top 10 of all time and I am so glad that they have found a way to continue Ellie and Joel's story.

I finished Telltale Batman: Episode 1. It wasn't bad but it didn't make me rush out and buy the rest of the season. It was a little too much on rails for my tastes.
I'm trying to get into Kathy Rain. I've played the first hour twice and I keep getting stuck on the same point. Kathy had no reason to be…

I just replayed Portal 2 this week. They engineered out all close margins in the game (and I suspect that they sometimes cheat to ensure certain parts work) so if you aren't quite making it, you probably need to figure out a different approach.

I love open-world zombie games, but I got to the first boss in Dead Rising and was stopped cold. He was a ridiculous bullet sponge and when I died a few times I couldn't face trying that slog again.

OK, If the first campaign isn't working, I'll try the others.

I could have used a few more big filler fights towards the end of TLOU. I never got to use the flamethrower since by the time I got it, all Joel had left was stealth fights against the infected for which the bow is the weapon of choice. I also wanted one more big bandit fight. I didn't feel right about killing the…

Absolutely not, if I'm playing a game and not having fun, its goes into the dead pile. If the game is OK but not going to better than similar alternatives then it is similarly tossed out and there is no minimum play time. Most games get at least 30 minutes, but there have been some that I quit after 5 minutes (ex. a…

Dunno yet. If I remember I'll put it in next weeks WAYPTW.

The war on the steam backlog continues (~800 down ~600 to go), so its going to be another random grab-bag of games.