Clearing my backlog, I may be some time.

I must admit I am struggling getting into Resident Evil 4. The controls are a bit jank and combat is terrible. The FoV and aiming makes it near impossible to deal with multiple enemies and I absolutely hate escort missions, and the one I am on is notoriously one of the worse. I have been filling my time bringing some of the Dark Souls 2 characters up to scratch, and feel I need a break from the backlog. Also, as I have a PS5, I am still getting free monthly games, so decided that I need a break from RE4 and clear some of the PS5 games while my subscription is still active. I think I will start by finally finishing the PS5 version of Hollow Knight before moving on to The Last of Us (already done on PS3, but you know) and part 2. Looks like it is time to make another spreadsheet. 

OK, so this was not the original 1999 release of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, but the remake. While I had strong nostalgic feelings for RE1 and RE2, which meant I quite disliked RE2 remake for various reasons, this was not true of RE3, but I still felt the same. Both RE2 and RE3 seem to be cash grabs off the back of RE7 success using its engine and assets. Mia is still floating her hair about in these games, first person aiming just feels wrong to me somehow, especially with fast moving enemies such as lickers and dogs, and the small changes to the story or gameplay do not really add much to the remakes. I did however love the obvious reusing of RPD and the street behind it when it was applicable. I had not really felt it early on in the game as many of the street scenes look completely different, and less on fire. But getting to Kendo's, seeing the street outside, hearing the discussion between Kendo and his daughter before Leon got there was awesome. And while it was never really ex...

It has take me a while to finish this one, but not really. I started this a couple of weeks ago, and have been very on and off. Once again, as a PS1 Resident Evil game I played the original to death. But back in the day, I never played the Claire story, cannot remember why now though. However, I have fond memories of it and still play it from time to time, still just the Leon story, still no idea why. I did prefer the story of this to that of the original, and it was actually the first Resident Evil game I played. Having recently finished the 2015 remake and liked the style of that remake, specifically the fact that it kept the main feel for the originals, while adding a few new elements and better graphics. However, this remake does not fill me with the same nostalgia. While I am fine with the overall progression and story tweaks made to the game, the combat, and most of the assets just feel like a complete lift and shift from Resident Evil 7. No, don't get me wrong, I love RE7. I...

Yep, I dropped 1 Valve game just to pick up another, Portal 2. However, Portal 2 is a game I have played and loved before, when it originally came out on Xbox 360, I even completed the CoOp stuff with my son back in the day. This was going to be an easy win. With Stephen Merchant and J K Simmons urging me on, how could I not enjoy this puzzle fest. More flying through the air at ridiculous speed from insane heights just to land firmly on my feet without injury, what did they do to me in stasis? Throw in some ground up moon rocks and weird goo, and I'm bouncing, sprinting and teleporting my way to reinforce the idea that even the most intelligent AI is stupid. Now, Wheatley is having fun with his friends in space ("in space!!!") and GladOS has come to the realisation that keeping me around is dangerous to her health, I am once again free to pick what I can use to distract myself from the fact that I may be the only human left on the planet. OK, no I am not Chell, I am in t...

It's been over 3 weeks since my last update and my commitment to this journey has been a bit hit and miss. Games like Left 4 Dead, and by extension Left 4 Dead 2, don't really scratcxh and itch for me play wise. It falls in to a category similar to Dead By Daylight or COD Multiplayer. While fundamentally it does differ from the others I mention above in that there is something of a story progression going on throughout the individual missions, it is in subcontext, the primarily driver behind the game is repeatable maps played in co-op. The story may move every so slowly forward, but the gameplay itself does not. There is no character progression, no challenge to overcome. Every level is the same. Starts the same, ends the same, and other than the specific route taken, they journey is the same. This bores me, more than thought it would. I didn't really notice it in the first L4D as it is only a handful of maps, but L4D2 is much bigger, and after the 4th map, it hit me. A rea...

 As a general fan of the Borderlands series, well up until Borderlands 3 anyway, I was asked to help a friend get into 3 on Playstation and show them the ropes. As part of that I noticed that I had both the PS4 and PS5 versions in my library, and having completed it on PS4 on release, I decided to burn through it on PS5 too. So over the last couple of weeks, I boosted a mule character on a second account to level 55ish using the character migration tool, then used that to burn through the story for a new character. 36 hours later, that is done and done too. A bit of a side quest, and just redoing everything I had already done, but at least it is off my list.

So today marks the 1 year anniversary of my Backlog journey. So how's it going?  I have knocked out 55 Steam games I had never finished before, and nearly all of them I had never played before. I have failed to get through 25, most of which need kernel level anti cheat or a third party account, which is outlined as a no no in the completely arbitrary rules I set myself. I have covered off a lot of games I have already played on other platforms, such as Assassins Creed Odyssey, the Bioshock, Dead Space, Prototype and Dead Island games, as well as replaying the entire Half Life series because I had lost my save data. A Nice Surprise However, there have also been some genuine surprises with games I was wanting to play but actually really enjoyed, and now annoyed me I did not play them before. These include the Deus Ex, and Just Cause games. I did enjoy the Hitman series from 2 onwards, but that first one was a chore, as it had been every time I had tried to play it since buying it bac...