Clearing my backlog, I may be some time.

Hitman Codename 47, I hit that, man. Over the years I've tried to play this game a few times and never been able to deal with the lay up of most of the levels. And man, it has not got better with time. A quick save would have saved me so much time. The time I wasted just trying to get through the security gates to get to the ship drove me mad, then just to then not be able to figure out the layout of the ship, so the nuke goes off and I have to try it all over again. This game is brutal. I ended up using a guide from about the forth or fifth level in, the one where you go through the hotel. I actually found some better approaches than the guide provided on a couple of mission, but just knowing what needed to be done made things so much easier. Stuff like wearing the right outfit was pretty obvious, but which is the right outfit? And a fail could immediately lose you half an hours work, at least. What stopped us having a quick save...

Hell gone and got itself a new slave king. I quite enjoyed Hellslave, got to about level 9 then realised status affects like bleed and poison did massive damage, and how to interpret and manage the timeline mechanic in terms of those effects. So it was time to restart the game with a build aiming at those. Hoo wee, the big dude never stood a chance. A tip, one you kill 6 bosses in 1 room, stop and go do everything else first. Think Dark Souls after getting the Lord souls. Anyway, time to move on to the next game. We'll series of games. We got 7 Hitman games coming up next, and obviously starting with Codename 47 I actually own this on disc from when it was released as part if the "sold out" series, but i also got it as part of an Eidos anthology, so playing that version save messing with installing the standalone. Apparently "Sold Out" games are starting to hit collectors lists at the moment...

Half file 2 Episode 1 episoded. Gordon is still out and about and GMan is probably not best pleased with his little pet, going to burn through Episode 2 and back on with the list. Hellslave is next on the list so I'll get back to the updates once I have conquered the inferno.

Prelude:  This will not have a material impact on my actions going forward, Episode 2 does appear to have come out around the time of cloud saves and achievements. I have a host of achievements that are showing completed 10/10/2007 and a host of saves from Jan to March 2008 available for loading. HL2 base game has no achievements though and reloading my saves from 2007 and 2014 do not activate them, so had to start and go through it all again, currently on my way through Highway 17. Episode 1 seems completely devoid of history, so no idea what happened there. Post:  Well, back goes the Free Man back into space sleep. Half Life 2 done, again. I mean, when I say sleep, it will laster approximately 5 minutes while I go make a drink, and start Episode 1. I have decided to split these up as episode 2 does not need a rerun as part of my backlog. Saves and achievements are still available from 2007. Should not take lo...

Half-Life Opposing Force is considerably longer than Blue Shift, but not as long as 1. However it was still a good 5 hours even if you know what you are doing. As you can see, I am not dead. Yes general, than you for that insightful observation. I also completely forgot about Otis showing up in both Blue Shift and this struggling to think about anything other than food and making all us fat guys look good. Anyway, now for the big one, Half-Life 2. Which now includes Episodes 1 and 2 as well as the base game, unlike when I first played them nearly 2 decades ago. Before achievements, before cloud saves, before Skyrim, before old man problems. Well, time to get Gordon out of inter dimensional retirement. 

After Golden Light it was time to move onto an old favourite, the Half-Life series. Now I have played all the Half-Life games before, many moons ago, and do not have any save files to show for it. Also, after HL2, Ep1 and Ep2 were all merged together on the store, I need to redo it really anyway. I played the 1, and the source version back in September 2024, back to back, as I was intending to run through them all. And it was actually those playthroughs that got me thinking about clearing my backlog, it just took a few months for me to start. I decided to play Blue Shift first and as that is roughly about 3 hours, it did not take the evening to get it completed. Well done Barney, see you in a few hours. Time to move onto Opposing Force.

OK go Galactic Civilization 2 is beyond me. Once again I am not into strategy games, never have been, and to me GC2 is just way too complicated to be able to get my head around, let alone enjoy. I spent years playing the early single planet based civ games and still enjoy then now and again, but this is just another level. Sorry but just no, my brain hurts. I imagine it is definitely a winner for some of you guys out there, but I just need to move on. Next on my list is Golden Light. I did play a bit of this earlier in my running of things, and oh my god it's weird, but let us see where this gets us.

So last night was a big night, I finally finished Golden Light, albeit with the dog ending, but an ending is an ending. I did get the head hand and leg. Decided to grind out some kills gold and levels so decided to replay the first few and decided to look at what could be found in the walls. Found a door. Was running around like the "short legged dog" memento, found She and Ruby, game over. This game is well weird,and took me far too long to understand what was going on, in nearly every aspect of the game. It is a proper brain melter, and with nearly nothing available online about some of the more obscure mechanics, I decided early doors there was no point in me trying to find out.

There has been a slow down lately due to real world stuff, so this took a bit longer than expected, but... For honor is honorable done for. Story Mode completed anyway. Not bad but not my cup of tea. While some may like the combat, I was not a fan. I found the "stance" mechanics far too restrictive and it largely felt like it was just reacting to other characters than having any real feeling of driving combat myself. Kind of like playing Sekiro on easy mode and Rock, Paper, Scissors at the same time. Anyway, next on the official list is Galactic Civilizations 2. I seem to have a lot of sequels without the originals here. But anyway, here goes.