2021 Backlog Thread

[rivethead]

After some more tweaking and going back and fourth on the forums with a few other people, this build is damn near unstoppable:

Spoiler: GrimTools

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YVWePayN?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=4d8aedf3ceabcb8fa9df6f619c454e33f73f24cd-1620509007-0-AWzJd4fG-gOYOA2Bzi9AIKi3Rf62RR8_mN14xPhhv0MZH30wsVjNqEyLtmFMv1eAY8cia0EH-6ghzz1fOXAtd1nZUE1996osmshqMOwhyVbYiBRgGjJvxoNbZ3UciLrKiuaLLxCrEzHQYtPzPB38AFyVpPYbthO9rxQmtPW2oE54ol8QLv9cazA4Ho7zorQyotLpmE56jVWvD1PmDdot4hkwXrhE0kGznP2Op82bsXPMTCHXgN0nr6hsVRPn991zRmh-MPaSSA-1Xl-hL2WYZBoiLYNq5k37Vku8oRsdtjw9aJL68qZ0QHkBCXTdJzxBRMVvrD6DeTyHIUa5lysgOAbLRygXPJuJn_na3QOrUDfVBW1Sq1OeA7BI3Rr_-aBgL5bSqghZV_wAHq1pCCultdUnwikE9e1SsojFP2l-vzdl

So far I've cleared all the way through Ultimate, completed all of the rogue dungeons, killed every nemesis boss, and killed several of the secret bosses without dying (Although John Burbon and Lokarr made me retreat to heal multiple times and Rashalga almost one-shot me several times). I still have all of the super bosses to kill, but I'll get there eventually.

That's awesome! I haven't really looked into any ranged weapon builds before. I'm guessing those rings required some farming?

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Stg-Flame]

That's awesome! I haven't really looked into any ranged weapon builds before. I'm guessing those rings required some farming?

Thanks for sharing!

Oddly enough, I already had five of those rings. The Rimetongue mask took me the longest to find and since I got tired of running the Crucible, I went back to farming totems, Nemesis Troves, and rogue dungeons for the missing gear. I use GrimStash to help store all my legendary gear I find since I ran out of space in the transfer stash a long time ago.

Personally, I prefer ranged builds since it lets you focus more on damage output than trying to balance defense and offense. The resists are the most important for just surviving normally and that's easily achieved with components and augments. The only downside to ranged builds and casters is that I personally haven't been able to make one that can kill the Celestial bosses yet (though I know other people have accomplished this). My poison/acid DoT character was able to take down Mogdrogen and Lokharr, but none others. I came close numerous times with the Ravager, but the rest I could barely touch.

 

[Fenixgoon]

just finished wasteland 2. solid turn-based RPG! the mechanics take a little getting used to. the only downside is early on you're really hurting for skill points, so things like lock picking, safe cracking, hacking, etc. can be tough if you don't have the right characters.

i really liked the number of party members available. they were all very different in terms of class, backstory, and they all had good voice acting. the number of voice lines in the game has to be astronomical. lastly, there seems to be a good amount of meaningful choice in terms of how things play out.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

just finished wasteland 2. solid turn-based RPG! the mechanics take a little getting used to. the only downside is early on you're really hurting for skill points, so things like lock picking, safe cracking, hacking, etc. can be tough if you don't have the right characters.

i really liked the number of party members available. they were all very different in terms of class, backstory, and they all had good voice acting. the number of voice lines in the game has to be astronomical. lastly, there seems to be a good amount of meaningful choice in terms of how things play out.

-I've had a couple false starts on Wasteland 2. Last one ended when early in the game I had to ride an elevator up to a higher level and one of my squad members didn't get on the elevator and got "left behind" since the elevator wouldn't go back down. Which was kinda ridiculous cause it just left me 20% down on manpower.

I'll fire it up and beat it some day. Wasteland 3 looks like it upped the polish considerably with way less early Kickstarter jank.

 

[rivethead]

I'll fire it up and beat it some day. Wasteland 3 looks like it upped the polish considerably with way less early Kickstarter jank.

Yes. No surprise, Microsoft bought InXile before Wasteland 3 was released and, as I understand it, dumped some money into the project.

 

[Stg-Flame]

January - Hades + Darksiders
February - Darksiders 2
March - Dawn of War Soulstorm + Unification Mod
April - Warhammer 2 Total War, Company of Heroes 2, Trine 4 (not going to play Trine 3 since it's just a flaming pile of garbage)
May - Just Cause 3

I think I played JC3 wrong in that I took the time to liberate every single settlement right off the bat which made 99% of every campaign mission trivial and boring. Mostly my fault, but Avalanche should have taken the advice from players who complained about this in JC and JC2 that a lot of people are probably going to scour the map before doing any missions. Though I suppose it makes sense that if the missions take you to an enemy outpost that you've already liberated, it won't magically go back to being in enemy hands. Also, they give you the best rocket launcher in the game right before the final mission. There's nothing to use it on other than maybe the final boss and even that wasn't even worth it. It still has bugs that were reported over four years ago and some missions are just janky as hell. Still, a pretty fun open world sandbox game that lets you literally fly around and blow things up.

Also made a lot of progress on Binding of Isaac's final expansion/DLC but the new areas and bosses (and characters) are absolutely ridiculous. A lot of work needs to be done by Edmund if he plans on making BoI available to the casual public again since there are rooms in the new area where it's impossible to avoid damage. Plus Edmund nerfed so many items, it's incredibly difficult to even get a start anymore.

Edit: It appears that I forgot to buy the game I was going to play next when it had a massive sale last month. Guess I can finally beat Shadow of War while I wait for another sale. For some reason, I've tried to beat this game twice before, but I get to the point where you're building an army and I just get bored since it's mindlessly running around recruiting.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

OMG I need to take a break from Kingdoms of Amalur, this game is friggin massive and not really in a good way.

50+ hours in and I'm close to finishing up the first continent and heading over to Klurikon (which I figure will set the game on a generally more linear path without faction quests etc).

Completed the House of Ballads, Warsworn, and Scholia Arcana storylines where were all fairly solid. Have the Travellers remaining.

However, the game is kinda well past the point of showing me anything new. I have my build more or less figured out (universalist) and the skills I want and my weapons and play style.

I'm at a point where I'm trying to do the worthwhile story content/main quest and beeline toward the ending.

So while I pause from KOA, I fired up Wolfenstein 2 for a radical change of pace and tone. Game is definitely a bit flawed compared to it's predicesor, but seems like a solid short round of high addrenalin action, which I am all for.

 

[Fenixgoon]

OMG I need to take a break from Kingdoms of Amalur, this game is friggin massive and not really in a good way.

50+ hours in and I'm close to finishing up the first continent and heading over to Klurikon (which I figure will set the game on a generally more linear path without faction quests etc).

Completed the House of Ballads, Warsworn, and Scholia Arcana storylines where were all fairly solid. Have the Travellers remaining.

However, the game is kinda well past the point of showing me anything new. I have my build more or less figured out (universalist) and the skills I want and my weapons and play style.

I'm at a point where I'm trying to do the worthwhile story content/main quest and beeline toward the ending.

So while I pause from KOA, I fired up Wolfenstein 2 for a radical change of pace and tone. Game is definitely a bit flawed compared to it's predicesor, but seems like a solid short round of high addrenalin action, which I am all for.

are you playing regular or remastered?

i thought the game was ok. the story was actually really interesting, but only for the last... 1/3 of the game maybe where it actually kinda clicked.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

are you playing regular or remastered?

i thought the game was ok. the story was actually really interesting, but only for the last... 1/3 of the game maybe where it actually kinda clicked.

-Original.

Was actually inspired to play it thanks to the remaster coming out and thinking "if the game has enough of a following to be worth a remaster, I might as well give it a shot cause I already own it..."

I actually really like the main story beats, and the faction content and even some side quests are executed very well. There is just so much stuff and there is no knowing what's going to be quality and what's just filler trash (even ignoring all the "task" quests).

 

[Stg-Flame]

OMG I need to take a break from Kingdoms of Amalur, this game is friggin massive and not really in a good way.

I seem to recall having a discussion about KoA and the scale of the game being the reason I stopped playing. There is such a thing as too many side quests and this game just doesn't know when to stop with them.

The bad part is that when I played this on the PS3, I was severely over-leveled after completing everything before moving to the next area and when I got bored of just doing non-stop quests everywhere, I started finding myself getting overwhelmed in the story missions because I was now under-leveled.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Completed the fever dream that was Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus last night.

Great game, but a lot of... weird edges. I'll do a write up later.

Back to KoA for a while I guess.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Just finished the super lo-fi indie adventure game "Metal Dead" that feels like a zany modern take on very early point n' click adventure games. Low production budget, but good writing and reasonably logical little puzzles kept it moving forward to resolution in about 3 hours of play (used a walkthrough two or three times because I wasn't about to be assed with some of the less straightforward puzzle solving).

A quick clean weekend game off the backlog.

 

[JujuFish]

Not on my 2021 list, but I played through Mass Effect. I then started ME2 and saw that I had to deal with ammo and was immediately turned off.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Just completed a run through the indie side-scroller puzzle game someone's bad acid trip that was Inside.

Great and I mean *great* game, but honestly what the everloving **** did I just play.

 

[pmv]

My backlog's gotten even larger, due to all the freebies from Epic. For some reason I never feel like playing anything, other than Civ V. And even that I never finish a game, just keep restarting over-and-over and getting dispirited.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Playing Into the Breach as another refresher game as I burn through storyline quests in KoA. Holy crap I'm really done with KoA but I'm in full sunk cost fallacy mode at this point. Completed the seige quest in Mel Senshir and I really just want this to god damn end at this point.

Into the Breach: Kind of a fun weird take on a turn based strategy game crossed with a roguelike. A lot of very simple "small" tactical strategy game elements that come together to form something greater than their whole. You lose a lot, but you carry some stuff forward from your prior loses into future campaigns and it all slowly snowballs.

 

[Stg-Flame]

January - Hades + Darksiders
February - Darksiders 2
March - Dawn of War Soulstorm + Unification Mod
April - Warhammer 2 Total War, Company of Heroes 2, Trine 4 (not going to play Trine 3 since it's just a flaming pile of garbage)
May - Just Cause 3
June - Shadow of War + DLCs

It's kinda cheating because I'm still working on the final DLC, but this one won't take me too long to complete. So far, Shadow of War is a lot of fun and can feel a bit grindy at times since it forces you to go back and fourth between regions and by the time you revisit a region, all your old captains are vastly under-leveled and need to be either upgraded, or culled to make way for new captains. The only main gripe I have with the game is that the bosses (ie. final bosses, not warlords) are just QTEs with extra work. Most of them are "Dodge X attack three times, then perform an execution, then repeat Step 1 until boss is at 75% health then dodge Y attack three times, then perform an execution, then repeat Step 2 until boss is at 50% health...". Granted, while they are just QTEs with extra steps, most of them don't feel like QTEs or a chore to do like most QTEs in the past.

That being said, I would still greatly recommend Shadow of War to anyone who is a fan of The Lord of the Rings or just third-person action games in general. The vast majority of the game is a lot of fun and allows you to decide how to tackle most encounters with a fairly varied skill layout that gives you plenty of abilities to use. Not just abilities for Talion to use, but you can also use the environment to your advantage (and in many cases it's necessary) so most of the encounters fighting captains, war chiefs, or warlords, rarely feel the same. Not to mention WB really outdid themselves with the different styles and abilities you can find on ork captains. In my 130+ hours I've played, I'm still finding captains with traits and abilities I've never seen before. Edit: Just don't expect a lot out of the online fortress battles since a ton of people used trainers to make their orks virtually invincible. There's a good chance you'll end up fighting a hacked fortress or a really low level fortress - there really is no middle ground here but you don't miss out on anything by not doing the online conquests. They're just extra fluff quests that aren't required for anything.

As for the DLCs, Eltariel's DLC was fun for a while, but there were more than a few times that it pushed me to stop playing for the night. It's really linear which isn't a bad thing but some of the legendary item captains took a really long time to kill just because of how they are set up. You can probably blow through this DLC in five to ten hours without much issue and without skipping anything, but the final boss encounters were easily the worst part (see above for QTEs). I'm still working my way through Baranor's DLC and it's a lot more fun than Eltariel's simply because it forces you to take encounters a lot slower and utilize everything to your advantage so you can have the upper hand at all times. Since Baranor doesn't have a ring of power, he can't dive off 400 foot cliffs and survive, so you'll have to use other means to travel around (I won't spoil it, but you meet a familiar face from the first game: Shadow of Mordor).

Edit: I forgot the most important part: Play on Nemesis difficulty. It's definitely worth it and it's not that difficult. I honestly don't understand why there's lower difficulties since the Nemesis system really only makes the early game difficult. Later on when you have a plethora of skills to use, the Nemesis system just adds an additional layer of fun to the game.

Edit again: Finally beat the Baranor DLC and it's far more fun than the Eltariel but it unlike Eltariel's DLC which gives you captains to use in the main game, Baranor's DLC is just for something else to do and hit a high score. It might not be everyone's cup of tea since it features perma-death (though you do keep all your upgrades and augments if you die), but it is a lot of fun.

 

[Stg-Flame]

January - Hades + Darksiders
February - Darksiders 2
March - Dawn of War Soulstorm + Unification Mod
April - Warhammer 2 Total War, Company of Heroes 2, Trine 4 (not going to play Trine 3 since it's just a flaming pile of garbage)
May - Just Cause 3
June - Shadow of War + DLCs
July - Dishonored

Fun game with a really bland story. Fairly fluid game mechanics allow you to traverse the maps in many different ways so you can tackle most situations however you like. The choices you make in-game actually affect the ending which I like and for some reason, I have a soft spot for any game that features an actual song during the credits - huge bonus points if it's a good song (Dead Rising, Dishonored, Portal, all Supergiant games, etc.). I started to play Dishonored 2 but after a few hours, I just became bored. The plot starts off incredibly bland and throws you back into the spotlight of being the one-man (or woman) army. The levels were very similar to the first game and none of the new mechanics stood out. I might come back and play through the second game later, but it'll probably be a while.

Now to find something else to play...

 

[JujuFish]

Also not on my 2021 list, but I finished Metroid Fusion today. First time actually playing through a Metroid game, and I rather enjoyed it. I wanted a taste before Dread comes out to see if I might be interested. (This isn't PC gaming, but it's still gaming.)

 

[Fenixgoon]

Beat Othercide. Absolutely fantastic game. I love the art style and the gameplay mechanics.

Hilariously, when I was fighting the last boss, I assumed that I was going to lose and have to start another run to level up my team a bit more and buff them up. But the boss got low on hp and it was like "oh, I can actually kill the boss!" 😂

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Still
Playing
Kingdoms
Of
Amalur

Getting through the House of Sorrows quest. Actually damn good story here but why back-load it into the part of the game where folks are gonna be burned out...

 

[Stg-Flame]

January - Hades + Darksiders
February - Darksiders 2
March - Dawn of War Soulstorm + Unification Mod
April - Warhammer 2 Total War, Company of Heroes 2, Trine 4 (not going to play Trine 3 since it's just a flaming pile of garbage)
May - Just Cause 3
June - Shadow of War + DLCs
July - Dishonored, Noita, Darksiders 3 (cont.)
August - Darksiders 3

Noita is incredibly confusing, but rather fun simply for the chaos that can ensue. While it is fun, it's also excruciatingly difficult and I believe most of that is due in large to the fact that nothing is explained in-game. It is very similar to games like Binding of Isaac in that dying is just part of the learning process. I saw a lot of what the game had to offer but I was unable to see most of the secret stuff and when I was getting burnt out I downloaded a wand-maker mod just to see some different spell combinations. This particular mod gives you the ability to create any kind of wand you want with any kind of spells on it and it wasn't until I downloaded that mod that I truly saw the complexity of the spell system in this game. Not only are there around 40 or 50 base spells in the game, there are hundreds of modifiers that can be used in countless combinations which can drastically change how the spells act. Definitely check out the Steam trailer to get a better idea of how unique this game actually is.

Darksiders 3 got a lot of hate and I didn't know why until I played the game. I'm going to say it right now that I do understand the hate, but I absolutely do not agree with the hate because the game is outstanding. The hate comes from people complaining about the combat system going from a traditional action game (like the first two games) to a Souls-like system. First off, normal enemies can wreck you if you don't pay attention. I quickly realized the combat was a lot more brutal than in previous games and instead of jumping in and slashing enemies to ribbons (like one of the Four Horsemen should be able to), I had to take encounters a lot slower. Learning an enemy's attack pattern is only part of the battle because Darksiders 3 features a pretty interesting counter mechanic that most players feel like you must rely on to win simply because the counter damage is so high. It sounds weird and seeing it written on paper makes the game sound horrible - that you're now better off waiting for an attack so you can counter it, but that's not the case. The combat is a great mix of knowing when and how to strike - whether its just DPSing them with normal attacks, waiting for a counter, or even deciding which weapon is best suited for the enemy you're facing.

The combat wasn't the only thing changed to be more like Demons/Dark Souls. The souls you collect from defeating enemies or the soul clusters you find hidden around the map are your currency and you spend that currency on either buying items or leveling up your character. In true Souls fashion; if you die, you leave a spirit where you died and you must collect it to get your souls back. If that wasn't enough Dark Souls for you, you're also given a healing item that can be replenished in various ways (mostly by killing enemies) as well as upgraded to contain more free heals so you're not stuck using all of your healing shards you find. The developers also did away with giant maps that take forever to traverse and instead went with one map that intermingles with every area. It's not so small that you feel confined and the areas are built so well that it never feels like you're just running with nothing else to do (like most of Darksiders 2). The music is great, the combat is outstanding, and the graphics (especially the underwater areas) are phenomenal. This little summary is a lot longer than I wanted it to be, but I can't let the negative reviews be the loudest voices for a game that you can definitely tell was made by people who not only listened to the fans, but also took a lot of care into creating the game.

I finished the game at level 88 and I allocated roughly 85% of my stats into Arcane Counter Damage. To give a better idea of how strong counters are, my normal attacks from a completely maxed out weapon were doing about 230 damage per hit and my counter did a little over 3,100.

 

[Fenixgoon]

January - Hades + Darksiders
February - Darksiders 2
March - Dawn of War Soulstorm + Unification Mod
April - Warhammer 2 Total War, Company of Heroes 2, Trine 4 (not going to play Trine 3 since it's just a flaming pile of garbage)
May - Just Cause 3
June - Shadow of War + DLCs
July - Dishonored, Noita, Darksiders 3 (cont.)
August - Darksiders 3

Noita is incredibly confusing, but rather fun simply for the chaos that can ensue. While it is fun, it's also excruciatingly difficult and I believe most of that is due in large to the fact that nothing is explained in-game. It is very similar to games like Binding of Isaac in that dying is just part of the learning process. I saw a lot of what the game had to offer but I was unable to see most of the secret stuff and when I was getting burnt out I downloaded a wand-maker mod just to see some different spell combinations. This particular mod gives you the ability to create any kind of wand you want with any kind of spells on it and it wasn't until I downloaded that mod that I truly saw the complexity of the spell system in this game. Not only are there around 40 or 50 base spells in the game, there are hundreds of modifiers that can be used in countless combinations which can drastically change how the spells act. Definitely check out the Steam trailer to get a better idea of how unique this game actually is.

Darksiders 3 got a lot of hate and I didn't know why until I played the game. I'm going to say it right now that I do understand the hate, but I absolutely do not agree with the hate because the game is outstanding. The hate comes from people complaining about the combat system going from a traditional action game (like the first two games) to a Souls-like system. First off, normal enemies can wreck you if you don't pay attention. I quickly realized the combat was a lot more brutal than in previous games and instead of jumping in and slashing enemies to ribbons (like one of the Four Horsemen should be able to), I had to take encounters a lot slower. Learning an enemy's attack pattern is only part of the battle because Darksiders 3 features a pretty interesting counter mechanic that most players feel like you must rely on to win simply because the counter damage is so high. It sounds weird and seeing it written on paper makes the game sound horrible - that you're now better off waiting for an attack so you can counter it, but that's not the case. The combat is a great mix of knowing when and how to strike - whether its just DPSing them with normal attacks, waiting for a counter, or even deciding which weapon is best suited for the enemy you're facing.

The combat wasn't the only thing changed to be more like Demons/Dark Souls. The souls you collect from defeating enemies or the soul clusters you find hidden around the map are your currency and you spend that currency on either buying items or leveling up your character. In true Souls fashion; if you die, you leave a spirit where you died and you must collect it to get your souls back. If that wasn't enough Dark Souls for you, you're also given a healing item that can be replenished in various ways (mostly by killing enemies) as well as upgraded to contain more free heals so you're not stuck using all of your healing shards you find. The developers also did away with giant maps that take forever to traverse and instead went with one map that intermingles with every area. It's not so small that you feel confined and the areas are built so well that it never feels like you're just running with nothing else to do (like most of Darksiders 2). The music is great, the combat is outstanding, and the graphics (especially the underwater areas) are phenomenal. This little summary is a lot longer than I wanted it to be, but I can't let the negative reviews be the loudest voices for a game that you can definitely tell was made by people who not only listened to the fans, but also took a lot of care into creating the game.

I finished the game at level 88 and I allocated roughly 85% of my stats into Arcane Counter Damage. To give a better idea of how strong counters are, my normal attacks from a completely maxed out weapon were doing about 230 damage per hit and my counter did a little over 3,100.

maybe i will do another run of DS3 and focus on arcane instead. i basically did the bare minimum in HP to not get blown up, and then put everything else in attack to do the most DPS.

i really love the DLC weapons even though they are more or less reskins of the OG weapons. using frost + fury power + fury generation on hit gives lets you sustain your invulnerability, and it's quite awesome

lastly, getting the abyssal armor (DLC) makes life so, so much easier. you can actually take like...6 hits instead of 2

 

[Stg-Flame]

maybe i will do another run of DS3 and focus on arcane instead. i basically did the bare minimum in HP to not get blown up, and then put everything else in attack to do the most DPS.

i really love the DLC weapons even though they are more or less reskins of the OG weapons. using frost + fury power + fury generation on hit gives lets you sustain your invulnerability, and it's quite awesome

lastly, getting the abyssal armor (DLC) makes life so, so much easier. you can actually take like...6 hits instead of 2

An arcane run was definitely a lot more fun than previous iterations of Darksiders simply because it gave me something else to focus on instead of just running up and mashing X. At the end, I had 10 in health, 12 in physical damage, and 66 in arcane. I was one-shotting most enemies and taking down the biggest champion enemies in two or three counters.

The only thing I didn't do was a full Crucible run. Wicked K is just going to have to stay down there for eternity because that's way too much of a time sink for me. I got to wave 50 and was so bored I just stopped, used all my crucible coins, then left.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Sort of out of gaming at the moment. Fired up Orcs Must Die 2 and I'm starting to slowly run into the "these maps feel like they were built for two players" feeling.

Have an open game of Into the Breach that I jump into from time to time.

On the last leg of the Kingdoms of Amalur main quest. All the faction quests completed.