"4 for February"

http://www.joystiq.com/2015/01/31/four-in-february-challenges-you-to-finish-the-fight/

Even if it's from another site, I definitely want to give this a try(kind of a cool idea). The idea is that by the end of February, you finish 4 games that were just sitting in your library that you wouldn't otherwise play.

I went nuts in the fall on my Xbone buying games. So much so that I've got a massive stack of backlog to play, but here's my list:

Sunset Overdrive

Rayman Legends

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

The Evil Within

What are yours?

Shadow of Mordor - keep getting sidetracked giving out death threats and trying to farm epic runes.

Platinum Geometry Wars 3

Divinity OS (can't see this happening, this game is huge and I suck at it)

And.... maybe attempt to get into Battlefield again, which is hopefully sorted now.

Four games is a kind of a lot...

I'll probably finish Dying Light. I don't rush games anymore. I play them when I am enjoying them and when I find myself getting bored or annoyed... I take a break.

For a second, I thought this was a list of games we should play and discuss.

I LIKE THAT IDEA. Pick a few older games everyone should play, then reconvene at the end of the month to discuss them. Like the Sphere podcast.

Games that you otherwise wouldn't play?

Hard to get time for that with the PS+ titles that I want to play getting the company of Yakuza 4 and Apotheon next week, and then 1886.

I'm working on Final Fantasy 9 and Skyrim. If I manage to finish those I'll pick the other two but hell if I know man.

I keep meaning to finish off Deponia and the rest of the series, so maybe those?

I mean, the reason I'm not playing the games I'm not playing is cause I don't want to play them, so I can't really choose 4, but if there was some randomiser or something to pick 4 for me then maybe
I'd do this.

I'll give it a shot... not that it will even put a dent in my Steam backlog. I'll try to play Alan Wake, Binary Domain, Bioshock, and The Swapper.

Working on Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen and Metroid Prime (not the first time I've played it) at the moment. Next on my Steam list is AC: Freedom Cry, Iron Brigade, and Valkyria Chronicles.

Man, I've got so many games in my backlog. I'll just say I'm gonna try to finish Strider, Freedom Planet, Revengeance and Zeno Clash.

With the trend of my gaming tendencies nowadays that will be nigh impossible.

Edit: Well, almost anyways...

1. Mega Man
2. New Super Mario Bros. U
3. Grow Home

I had a podcast with mates and we did a deliberations show to share our backlog picks and work out our 4 each. I chose Danganronpa, and the guys chose Shadow of Colossus, D4, and Valiant Hearts for me.

At some point last year I had the realization that this 'backlog of shame' thing is a construct we place on ourselves that really does nothing to help us enjoy the medium or further our appreciation of the games we've skipped. If there's something you skipped and wish you could go play, then by all means. But if you're sitting on a copy of Watch Dogs because you hate the characters and the only reason you want to play it is to justify the fact that you bought it, who's really getting anything out of that? Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather play games that I want to play than to kid myself into some sense of satisfaction over a few wasted dollars. After accepting that, I felt pretty liberated. It's pretty great just playing what I want to, when I want. Let the Giant Bomb guys be the ones torturing themselves with nine different Mario Party games, they get paid to.

Sure, I like this idea. I wanted to really tackle my backlog this year anyways.

So! These games, in this order:

1. Darksiders
2. The Secret of Monkey Island
3. Dust: An Elysian Tail
4. The Wolf Among Us

I'll also wrap up the new Shadow Warrior.

I don't have a backlog. That said, I'm currently playing through Sleepy Dogs and Resident Evil so maybe I can finish them in the next week or two. February is a real busy month for me this year.

I wouldn't mind just hitting random and picking four games from my backlog. In fact, I've done that very thing in the past. I'm bad at making decisions.

For me, the "backlog of shame" thing comes more from me wanting to actually play those games. I enjoy having the knowledge of what a game truly is, having finished it and seen most (if not all) of what it has to offer. There are a multitude of games on my own list that I want to have played--it's just hard to find the time or desire to go backwards when new, exciting stuff is released. For example, I've had Pathologic on my drive for months with the intent of finally playing through it; however, I know that will be an intense experience that demands my full attention, so I put it off in favor of "fluff" games like Dying Light.

I do absolutely agree that playing a game in a backlog out of some sense of financial responsibility (such as playing an MMO every day because you're paying monthly for it and feel obligated) is a bit foolish. There are plenty of games I payed a decent amount of money for, started to play, hated, and uninstalled with no intent of ever going back. If anything, the thing that drives me forward through a bad game is the intense desire to understand that game, even if it means suffering for its length. Lucius is a janky piece of shit, but I finished it because it was unlike anything I had seen and I wanted to know.

We all have our reasons for finishing games. As long as those reasons are out of some actual desire, whether it be enjoyment or fascination, I don't see how it's a problem.

@wemibelec90: I was only meaning to speak for myself, and the line of logic that led me to an enlightened existence. Haha... I don't judge people for playing the stuff they play. But I'd happily encourage folks to abandon the notion that not playing something should make you feel ashamed, that is fucking crazy.

I'm kind of working on this, but it's more my immediate backlog - catching up on and finishing stuff from the most recent holiday season.

I'm still making my way through Dragon Age Inquisition (currently at 80 hours). I need to finish off Assassin's Creed Unity (which I put on the backburner because I knew I could return to it later and still enjoy it), Far Cry 4 (which I've barely touched), Captain Toad (somewhere in the second book) and Sunset Overdrive (which I just picked up alongside an Xbox One a little over a week ago).

I've been enjoying Dragon Age Inquisition so much, and there's so much of it, that my immediate backlog kind of very quickly built up over the last couple of months.

So no delving into my real backlog this month, but I'll be doing something similar.

Finish - Shadow of Mordor
Start - Dying Light (once we get it in Europe)
Start - Lords of the Fallen
Try harder difficulties on Diablo Reaper of Souls

I hear Transistor will be on Playstation Plus so I'll have to check that out too, I fly through games so there is not much of a backlog left.

Four games is twice as many as I finish in a year, so doing that in a month seems pretty unfeasible.

I ended up beating my first game today, actually. I finished the Legend Mode in Hyrule Warriors earlier this morning. Been working on a couple of other games from time to time because my backlog increased a good bit after the holidays. Thinking on it now, I think the other three games would probably be:

• Valiant Hearts: I keep forgetting I have this until it's brought up from time to time (like earlier in this topic, for instance)
• Drakengard 3: I'm literally at the end of this one, and have yet to even attempt to try the last scene in the game (I've been at this point since June of last year). After that, it should be a simple Platinum too. I won't anytime soon, but I'd also like to tackle the DLC for this game too, once I have the cash to actually purchase it.
• Dust: An Elysian Tail (PS4): I specify the PS4 version because I finished the game almost a year ago on Steam, but got the game for free through PS+ and wanted to have another go at it. I'm at the point of no return in the game after having found everything in the game (the only thing left for me to do is hit 4 stars in every challenge map on this playthrough) but stopped some time last year and never went back to it yet.

I'm working on a few other games but I can only take them on a bit at a time because of my work schedule, and I'm taking my time with them. Those would be:

• Dragon Age: Inquisition (Just made it to Skyhold and did a few things there)
• Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire (Yes, both of them. Just have the first badge in both of them too. Mainly focusing on Omega Ruby now though)
• Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!: Playing co-op with a friend through True Vault Hunter Mode. I also still want to complete the game on the normal difficulty as Jack's Doppelganger, and now as Aurelia too (who I thought I'd hate, but I had quite a bit of fun playing as her when I started a game with her over the weekend)

Kamen Rider Battride War: Need to beat the final boss and Rider Road.

999: Always meant to play it and finally found a copy for a decent price.

Odin Sphere: Despite being one of my favourite PS2 games I've never actually beaten it.

Disgaea D2: Bought it on Boxing Day, got half way through it and then just stopped for no reason. Will finish it up, probably won't do too much of the post game though.

I'm just going to go ahead and give myself credit for finishing any four games in February. I just so happen to have finished Shadow Warrior today (this game is awesome) and, as I type this, I'm looking at the credits of Episode 1 of The Walking Dead: Season 2. If it has credits, it counts, so I'm halfway there.

I don't have a backlog anymore. I cleaned it over the last year. I now only keep a couple games per system at any time. And I can't buy another unless I make room finishing or getting rid of another. It's working well so far. I save lots of money I used to waste on buying games I might never play. And I don't stress over playing a backlog.

I don't have a backlog... I'm a tidy gamer.

Might get Dying Light.

@hatking said:

Similarly, I didn't mean to imply these things about your statement. I just meant it in a general sense. I agree that people shouldn't want to play things just out of a sense of shame or expectation (although I admit I have done just that). As long as you're getting something out of an experience other than obligation, it's all good.

I guess I chose a good time to finally start Metal Gear Solid. I played a bit of 1 in January though. Amazingly, I've managed to remain unspoiled all these years. Really looking forward to it even if some of the game play is pretty dated. Revolver Ocelot killed me a number of times. It really wasn't entirely clear what the game wanted me to do in that fight, even after I won. The incredibly low poly, low-res texture butt shot of Meryl as she ran away was priceless.

I can probably finish 2, 3 and 4 before the end of February. I'm hoping to get through a couple this week anyway.

Nice idea ! And my favourite part is that I can see people here mentioning amazing games, so that always warms my heart :'D Like Rayman Legends, Captain Toad, FF9, 999 and Opin Sphere. The issue I have personally is that I'm really into J-RPGs and those tend to get super lengthy... but what the heck ! Let's try this out !

• Xenoblade Chronicles - I'm maybe a quarter of the way through, loving it !
• FFX-2 HD - This is really silly but I'll see it to the end !
• Bleed - Probably going to get the last couple achievements... or give up trying.
• Gabriel Knight 2 - Replaying this game for the 20th time or something. It is the best.

Right now I'm trying to focus on The Witcher 2, Grim Fandango, FTL and possibly Final Fantasy VI. Though I might add Life Is Strange to the list. It looks short enough to get through on a lazy weekend.

Normally this challenge would seem completely insane to me, but I have kind of been on a roll lately: I finished 5 (maybe 6) games in January (which might be an all-time record for me), so I just might be able to pull it off. It sounds like fun to try anyway. I'm eyeballing Never Alone, Renegade Ops, Enslaved, and maybe Alan Wake. I think that would make for a pretty awesome month.

Really liking the idea. I think I'll spread them across the consoles I use the most...

• Transistor - PC - Transistor was the 2014 game I was looking forward to the most, but issues with the PC version running on my Windows partition on my macbook left me with no way to actually play my copy I got Day 1. Picking up a PS4 controller and the release of a Mac port helped alleviate those problems, so nothing is stopping me but time and motivation.
• Suikoden - PSOne Classics via Vita - Played through the first two hours of this and put it down a while ago. This is my introduction to the series and I really want to play Suikoden 2, so I have to get through this first!
• Shantae: Risky's Revenge- DSiWare via 3DS - Started it a long time ago and was really enjoying it, but just put it down for some reason...
• Eathbound - SNES via Wii U Virtual Console - I'm finally going to finish it. I'll finally finish this game. I've tried 3,4, maybe even 5 times, but I'll finally do it.

I am sooooo jealous of you that you get to experience that Visual Novel for the first time. A tip: You need to play through the game multiple times, but it becomes faster each time (you can skip all the text you've seen before). I would suggest playing through to at least one bad end. If, after that, you want to continue to the other bad ends, go ahead and experiment with other doors. If you, however, want to move on to the end of the game. Go through these door sequence:

Hope that helps!

@hatking: I came to a similar realization myself recently where I had some sort of OCD need or want to finish all of my games, which included many humble bundle games which were usually ancillary to the game I wanted to get in the packs.
And I found myself at a point where I was getting bored playing these games, and not going back and re-playing games I had fun with or ones I was really excited for and hadn't yet.
So I just.. stopped doing that, made a spacial list in Steam of games I just want to play and that's that, it feels great, don't think I played a new game at all last month and that was great because I was just replaying ones I loved.
Having fun! With games! What a novel concept haha.

@devoureroftime: Oh man, Earthbound... I should probably get to that as well. Where are you currently at in the game ? Because I'm like 5 hours in and I'm really curious to know if this game gets any better, because for now I just want to eat my eyeballs out of frustration :'( Any tips ?

Also, heck yeah 999 !

My backlog is shameful buuuuut...

Dragon age inquisition

Monster hunter freedom unite of MH3U (slightly farther in MH3U, but FU feels better at least portability wise with two analogs. What constitutes beating MH anyway?)

Secret of Mana (yeah already played but only beat once a long time ago. Still stone cold classic and have been meaning to revisit it)

Either Dying Light as i bought it when i said i wouldn't buy anymore, or finally get gud at smash bros.

OR i'll squander this all and play another few dozen hours of Diablo III.

OR change tactics and clean out the shorter titles in my library. I hear The Fall is pretty good...

...and roll credits on Episode 2. This stuff is easy guys!

3/4

I've gotten to like the last 5 hours of the game before... I just never finished it. That's on the cart I have of it, but I'm trying to play on the Wii U because I don't have a good CRT and the Wii U gamepad allows me to pick up and play a lot easier. On the Wii U I'm about 10 hours in. The game picks up once you get your 3rd party member, but constantly fluctuates from tedious to enthralling.

The game definitely is a product of it's time. There's lots of grinding needed and a lot of very frustrating encounters. If you just give up on the game entirely, I would recommend picking up the fan-translation of Mother 3. Much more of a fan of that game and it's balanced a lot better. It makes it harder to go back to Earthbound though...

Oh cool Imma jump in on this!

Might as keep trucking on what I'm already playing

• Suikoden (90% done)
• Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (30% done)
• Lords of the Fallen (40% done)

and for the 4th.... hmm let's say

• Blackwell: Epiphany

Longshot 5th- finish Dragon Age: Inquisition

extra stretch goal if I'm crazy start Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings

"Games I wouldn't otherwise play" really just sounds like "Games I don't want to play right now" to me. Seems like a recipe for a pretty shitty February.

Also, I still have PS2 games in my backlog. It's not getting cleared out in my lifetime.

I'll keep playing P3P to and from work. The Order 1886 is out at the end of the month so I'll play that and it'll still count. I'll keep logging into WoW daily. I might keep Warframe going. I'll get back to Dragon Age: Inquisition. I've pretty much forsaken what's on my backlist now as bad choices when I'd too much money and not enough time and ideals of "I'll totally play all these games!".

Looking to make a go of Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. I think there's also a new Tales from the Borderlands episode this month, assuming that counts as completing a game.

Other than those, I'm not sure what else I'll have time for. Shaping up to be a busy month for life stuff.

I'll give this a go.

Dying Light currently playing it.

Game of thrones episode 2, Life is Strange episode 1, & Tales from the Borderlands episode 2. I'LL lump these together since their short.

The Order 1886, the fear is that it will be like 5 hours long. I think it won't that short, hopefully somewhere around 10-15 hours. I wouldn't mind a pretty looking gow clone.

Far Cry 4, I'm still early in this but plan on going back to it after dying light.

I would also like to play some Evolve and try out Gravity Ghost (not sure if will have time for this one). Also, plan on trying a few hours of the hardline 'beta' this week, although I don't real ly see a reason for that game to be a thing.

This is half my list as well

- The Swapper

- Binary Domain

- Starcraft 2

- Dishonored

Using this as a way to clear XBox One games I've just left and not played and also added an alternative PC games list as bonus games for when the missus has the TV.

Here is my list;

Watch Dogs

D4

Resident Evil Remake HD

Rayman Legends

Bonus Games:

South Park Stick of Truth

Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3D

Broken Age

Far Cry 3

So, February is essentially over at this point. Did any of you duders end up finishing your 4 for February? I know I did!

I kinda beat 2 games (Beat the Story but not Rider Road in Battride War and did one route in 999) and will beat a third today (Disgaea D2) so no but close? If I really wanted to I could speedrun MGR or Yakuza 4 and get to 4 but meh. Didn't get to Odin Sphere because PS2 classics don't work with the Dualshock 4.

I got two out of the way.

I got sidetracked by other, more pressing games like Robot Roller-Derby Disco Dodgeball and the second 55 hours of my second Persona 3 playthrough. I did play Alan Wake, though.

Pretty much this entire year is tackling my back catalog while trying to buy as few games as possible. In January I finished Mass Effect 1. February I finished Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Shovel Knight, Hand of Fate, and a few Stanley Parable endings.

As for buying games this year I'm doing okay. Only bought Besiege, Hand of Fate, and the C&C Ultimate collection (How could I pass up such a deal and get rid of some of the old discs taking up minimal amounts of space!)

Valiant Hearts is next on the list and some more Stanley Parable before getting into a longer game or group of games.

So I ended up finishing completely different things and only three of them

• Fearless Fantasy
• Shantae : Risky's Revenge
• Dust: an Elysian Tail

and came very close to knocking out

• A story about My Uncle
• Cognition: AN Erica Reed Thriller

This month ended up being chaotic in my personal life and I just didn't get to the right frame of mind to finish off the bigger titles I'm still chewing through/