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"I'll Play It Later" - 37 Games, 15 Weeks - AFTERMATH
Trynant
Maniac BrawlerRank 20.100 and full WildRegistered User regular
Maniac BrawlerRank 20.100 and full WildRegistered User regular
Hello forum-goers. I am Trynant, and I decided to undertake what could possibly be an interesting endeavor called "I'll Play It Later". I decided to try to play what is pretty much a huge amount of game in far too short a time to do it all in--something of a backlog challenge. The time I allotted to this project is passed, and the games have been played and not played. To be honest, the whole thing started with promise, but about halfway in I began screwing up and this whole thing got put on hiatus--a bad thing to happen when the whole undertaking is on a timer. And so it's over now and I have some tales to tell.
A video summarizing my experiences will be posted shortly and I will bump this thread when that happens.
What This Is All About
See, I have a backlog of unfinished games. A lot of them. It is to the point where I feel like I am always obtaining the newest and best stuff and never completing older titles. Starting this school semester, I've decided to draw the line. I will tie up my loose ends and play all the games I left to gather dust, and I will do it within four and half months.
I currently have with me 37 games, expansions, and downloadable content with a single-player component that can be "beaten." I decided to divvy up these games into the weeks of my school semester and play through as much as I can within the time allotted.
And of course, I will be writing and recording as much of this crazy playing as I can, and sharing it with you all.
Rules
With so many games, I need to set some rules for how to proceed with the playing of games and what happens under various circumstances.
1. A game will be counted as "beaten" if I go and complete the optimal ending. For example, if I were to play Dead Rising I would not only
2. A game doesn't need to be 100% completed. That is, not all of the side-quests, secret items and super duper gameplay need to be completed unless it affects the ending (see rule 1).
3. I play the game on whatever is the default or "normal" difficulty if there are multiple difficulties provided.
4. If I don't beat one or more of the games in the week I assigned myself to play it, I shelve it and move onto the next set of games. If, however, I get really close to the ending or just want to end a game, I may break this rule.
5. No cheats, mods (except expansions), glitches, etc. I play the game straight up.
6. Strategy guides and sites like GameFAQs are fair game. I may not be cheating my way through a game, but damn if I'm going to spend a billion hours going in circles because I didn't pick up item X.
The Story So Far
Well, it is over. I will just sum up for you how "I'll Play It Later" went. Badly. In the words of internets, it was Fail. The results of my attempts at gaming are below. The video above should explain quite thoroughly what went wrong and what I could have done better. Looking back at this attempt at a marathon I think I learned a good amount of things, and I can take my experiences and make it for the better. There will definitely be a sequel to this project and I will either make a new thread for that or update this thread.
And Now For the Games
Here are the games I attempted to play, and the results of my playing. Not to spoil anything, but it didn't go well. Games I beat are marked with a green WIN. Games I didn't finish are marked with a red FAIL. Click the spoiler to see the results.
It's been an interesting ride, and I can only say sorry for being on hiatus for so long, but hopefully I can make up for it with some entertaining aftermath videos. I removed a lot of the raw gameplay streams becaues frankly they were horrible quality and pretty much a waste of space on the internet. Instead of making a lot of crappy videos, I'm going to make a few, well-edited, decent videos for your viewing pleasure, as well as some text and such posted here and at my blog to accompany it.
A video summarizing my experiences will be posted shortly and I will bump this thread when that happens.
WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS
"I'll Play It Later" is finished! The results are in! I didn't do too well!
BLOG
BACKLOG OF GAMES
STUFF THAT IS NOW OBSELETE IS SPOILERED BELOW.
What This Is All About
See, I have a backlog of unfinished games. A lot of them. It is to the point where I feel like I am always obtaining the newest and best stuff and never completing older titles. Starting this school semester, I've decided to draw the line. I will tie up my loose ends and play all the games I left to gather dust, and I will do it within four and half months.
I currently have with me 37 games, expansions, and downloadable content with a single-player component that can be "beaten." I decided to divvy up these games into the weeks of my school semester and play through as much as I can within the time allotted.
And of course, I will be writing and recording as much of this crazy playing as I can, and sharing it with you all.
Rules
With so many games, I need to set some rules for how to proceed with the playing of games and what happens under various circumstances.
1. A game will be counted as "beaten" if I go and complete the optimal ending. For example, if I were to play Dead Rising I would not only
need to beat 72 hour mode but the extra 24 hour mode that is unlocked when you get the A ranking after the first 3 days.
The exception to this rule is when the best ending requires something ridiculous like playing the game twice over (think the secret ending when beating Legendary on Halo)2. A game doesn't need to be 100% completed. That is, not all of the side-quests, secret items and super duper gameplay need to be completed unless it affects the ending (see rule 1).
3. I play the game on whatever is the default or "normal" difficulty if there are multiple difficulties provided.
4. If I don't beat one or more of the games in the week I assigned myself to play it, I shelve it and move onto the next set of games. If, however, I get really close to the ending or just want to end a game, I may break this rule.
5. No cheats, mods (except expansions), glitches, etc. I play the game straight up.
6. Strategy guides and sites like GameFAQs are fair game. I may not be cheating my way through a game, but damn if I'm going to spend a billion hours going in circles because I didn't pick up item X.
The Story So Far
Well, it is over. I will just sum up for you how "I'll Play It Later" went. Badly. In the words of internets, it was Fail. The results of my attempts at gaming are below. The video above should explain quite thoroughly what went wrong and what I could have done better. Looking back at this attempt at a marathon I think I learned a good amount of things, and I can take my experiences and make it for the better. There will definitely be a sequel to this project and I will either make a new thread for that or update this thread.
And Now For the Games
Here are the games I attempted to play, and the results of my playing. Not to spoil anything, but it didn't go well. Games I beat are marked with a green WIN. Games I didn't finish are marked with a red FAIL. Click the spoiler to see the results.
Week One, Aug. 24-30: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night FAIL, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode One FAIL, Shadow Complex WIN
Week Two, Aug. 31-Sept. 6: Doom FAIL, Everyday Shooter FAIL, Megaman 9 FAIL
Week Three, Sept. 7-13: Dead Rising FAIL, Fallout 3 WIN, The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess FAIL
Week Four, Sept. 14-20: Beyond Good and Evil FAIL, Cave Story FAIL, Mad World FAIL
Week Five, Sept. 21-27: Killer7 WIN, Mirror's Edge FAIL
Week Six, Sept. 28-Oct. 4: Mass Effect WIN, Sonic Unleashed FAIL
Week Seven, Oct. 5-11: Half-Life Series (!) FAIL
Week Eight, Oct. 12-18: Deus Ex FAIL, Odin Sphere FAIL
Week Nine, Oct. 19-25: Fallout 3 DLC FAIL, Little Big Planet FAIL
Week Ten, Oct. 26-Nov. 1: Fallout FAIL
Week Eleven, Nov. 2-8: Fallout 2 FAIL
Week Twelve, Nov. 9-15: Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast FAIL
Week Thirteen, Nov. 16-22: Baldur's Gate 2: Shadow's of Amn and Throne of Bhaal FAIL
Week Fourteen, Nov. 23-29: Planescape: Torment FAIL
Week Fifteen, Nov. 30-Dec. 6: Persona 4 FAIL
THE END RESULT
WINS: 4 FAILS: 33
Week Two, Aug. 31-Sept. 6: Doom FAIL, Everyday Shooter FAIL, Megaman 9 FAIL
Week Three, Sept. 7-13: Dead Rising FAIL, Fallout 3 WIN, The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess FAIL
Week Four, Sept. 14-20: Beyond Good and Evil FAIL, Cave Story FAIL, Mad World FAIL
Week Five, Sept. 21-27: Killer7 WIN, Mirror's Edge FAIL
Week Six, Sept. 28-Oct. 4: Mass Effect WIN, Sonic Unleashed FAIL
Week Seven, Oct. 5-11: Half-Life Series (!) FAIL
Week Eight, Oct. 12-18: Deus Ex FAIL, Odin Sphere FAIL
Week Nine, Oct. 19-25: Fallout 3 DLC FAIL, Little Big Planet FAIL
Week Ten, Oct. 26-Nov. 1: Fallout FAIL
Week Eleven, Nov. 2-8: Fallout 2 FAIL
Week Twelve, Nov. 9-15: Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast FAIL
Week Thirteen, Nov. 16-22: Baldur's Gate 2: Shadow's of Amn and Throne of Bhaal FAIL
Week Fourteen, Nov. 23-29: Planescape: Torment FAIL
Week Fifteen, Nov. 30-Dec. 6: Persona 4 FAIL
THE END RESULT
WINS: 4 FAILS: 33
It's been an interesting ride, and I can only say sorry for being on hiatus for so long, but hopefully I can make up for it with some entertaining aftermath videos. I removed a lot of the raw gameplay streams becaues frankly they were horrible quality and pretty much a waste of space on the internet. Instead of making a lot of crappy videos, I'm going to make a few, well-edited, decent videos for your viewing pleasure, as well as some text and such posted here and at my blog to accompany it.
"I'LL PLAY IT LATER" WILL RETURN
"I go where the games are." -Scott Ramsoomair
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
Trynant on
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Posts
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Dammit, this game is a hardcore maze. Castlevania made me come to terms with using GameFAQs for this LP. I managed to make it to the underground lake before I got hopelessly wandering in circles, hunting for the next area I could enter. Definitely one of the better games I have played, and I will have to come back to this one, but SotN is just not a game I could finish in such short a time.
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipices of Darkness Episode One
There really isn't an excuse for finishing this one. I got caught up with other crap (and a good amount of Shadow Complex) that kept me from getting to Penny Arcade. Nothing else to say other than that I failed miserably.
Shadow Complex
And here's a game that filled me with joy. A Metroidvania with next-gen graphics and modernized gameplay? I really could not have asked for anything more. Finishing Shadow Complex was a breeze. I loved the exploration, the controls and being able to speed dash. The only thing I can nitpick about here is that I didn't like how the game's hint system pretty much gave away where I needed to go. Sure there were secrets along the way, and I can disable the hints, but I just wish it wasn't there in the first place. But like I said, this is a nitpick. Play Shadow Complex, I cannot recommend enough.
Extended post on this blog.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
Doom
I don't know what to say about this one other than Doom is a tricky bastard. I started playing this week from an old save file, unaware of the difficulty I was playing on, it turned out I was on Easy. Apparently, playing on a difficulty lower than whatever is "normal" will prohibit you from completing anything but the first episode. As soon as I got teleported into hell, I was kicked out of my game to the title screen. Dammit. I will defeat you Doom, one day.
Everyday Shooter
HOLY FLIPPIN' FUDGE-BURGERS THIS GAME IS HARD. I am sorry folks, but there was a very simple reason as to why I did not beat Everyday Shooter, it was just too freaking hard. I could not squeeze in enough time to master the little dot character I controlled throughout each level. Considering this game has no "saves" and requires me to play with limited lives, I had to actually reach a level of skill high enough to be able to not die during levels. Well, that didn't happen. Level 3, "Lush Look Killer" killed me. I could only complete it once before getting slammed by the next level. Oh well. I still love this game to death and will have to beat it some other day.
Megaman 9
While not as mind-boggingly difficult as Everyday Shooter, Megaman 9 certainly presents some old school challenges. In a way, this reminds me of a (much) milder version of I Wanna Be the Guy (it's probably because IWBTG directly rips off of Megaman in many places).
I killed five out of eight bosses, but by the time I was working on the next three and Dr. Wily's lair, Sunday had passed and the next week of gaming started. Well, Megaman 9, you won this round. Until next time.
Extended post on this blog.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
Week Three: It Ain't Over Yet! (Now With Video)
Dead Rising
Technically I beat this game. I mean, Frank has spent his three days in Williamette Mall. But you know, if you complete all the case files in Dead Rising there is that final 24 hours to cap the game off. That needs to be finished. All I can say is that Special Forces are tedious to kill and playing from a stream is annoying as hell when HD is all but needed to read the text in this game.
I finally set up my capture card and software to be able to record videos. Hence I posted several videos of my run through of Dead Rising's 24-hour mode. Lots of dead coppers!
Vids wrapped in spoiler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW-cfEObzrs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMJZBulP8r4
Fallout 3
Finally got through the main storyline! Like other Bethesda titles before it, Fallout 3 is a game where there is so much side stuff that you just get pulled away from doing the main game. Well, I braced myself and got the game done. I got the "good ending" where I reached high karma, got Lincoln's head back on his body, fixed Galaxy Radio's signal, didn't put the FEV virus in Project Purity, etc. And the damn final cinematic bugged out. That'll teach me to finish a game. Either way, I still have lots of DLC to play through, expect to see that in a few weeks.
The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess
Curse you Link. I get you all the way to the sky dungeon and then you just sit and wait for me to play you to the end. Dammit, I'm so close to finishing the game I can almost taste it! Twilight Princess has been a fun run, probably my second favorite game on the Wii (first being No More Heroes). Great dungeons, great gameplay, etc. Probably more fun to play on the Gamecube ironically; the Wii never really has the best controls :?
View related info on this blog post, as well as some info on my Rock Band/Guitar Hero addiction.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
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When you see the unreasonably long games all jammed in one week (say Fallout 3, Dead Rising and Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess), they're usually games I have already played and have a save file pretty far in on. Usually.
Half-Life series is going to screw me over hard.
I did a little bit of streaming tonight and got some rather fail-tastic recordings of Beyond Good and Evil, which I'll put up onto YouTube ASAP.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
This is the week where I try to finish five games, two of which are carried over from last week (breaking rule 4).
The first of these will be Beyond Good and Evil. I have some videos posted on YouTube of my current failings of playing the game.
Cave Story is in the progress of being played like mad, and I'll be recording what I can of it. I like what I have played of it so far, hopefully I can finish a good chunk of it before long.
I have only just unwrapped Mad World this very week, so anything you see me do will be from my first time playing it! I expect lots of stylized violence.
Dead Rising is begging to be beaten. 24-hour mode is only so long!
The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess is also very close to completion. I'll be squeezing out as much gaming as I can to finish this one as well.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
If I tried this.. Well..
:!:
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
I know the feeling of having a large backlog to clear as well..
Although normally I wouldn't try this many games when I have, you know, classes to deal with, but my scholastic workload is so light this semester I can afford to spend my time like this. This is still a rather daunting task; it's just less so with the absence of work that is usually there.
Expect more game stuff tonight; I've got class-stuff to do.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
They can be pretty brutal time-wise.
Odin sphere and P4 going to take awhile. Working through them as well. Along with other stuff.
Have you considered a streaming channel on Justin.TV or something, cause it seems like it will be easy to catch you live with SO many games that needs to be played, and it could be way more fun than a bunch off youtube videos :P
Looking forward to Half-life.
to see me stream games. I usually will be on around 9:00 P.M. EST.
At the moment I only know how to stream PC games, but I can record and stream videos of console play and comment on what the hell I was thinking when I jumped into a pit of death
For that matter, does anyone have any advice on how to stream console games? I have a capture card and WebCamMax, but I cannot figure out how to get sound working when I try any other software other than what came with the capture card, and when I try to record what my capture card software displays it generates intolerable lag.
Either way, for now it's going to be full-blown streaming of PC games and video-commentary of console games.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
For streaming console games, I use livestream.com and the Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder 3 (What a name!). On AFMLE3, you can set what you want your audio to be as the input, so you could set it to Stereo mix, un-mute your mic and do both mic and game sound, or you can set it as line-in and just do game sound. (I have to use a splitter cable so I get audio to both my line-in on my PC and my capture card's inputs)
It's been a LONG time, but if I remember right that's just how Doom works. After you finish Episode 1, start a new game with Episode 2, then repeat at Episode 3. Each Episode is designed to start you with a pistol and nothing else.
From the 1/4th of the way through thing, you might be looking at a walkthrough for "Ultimate Doom", which was the retail release; the original Doom only had three episodes.
Thanks for the help. Right now I'm annoyed with livestream for various reasons and have been sticking with ustream, and I don't have AFMLE at the moment (which I probably should have gotten
I have some videos from my streaming of Cave Story on UStream, and these would be on YouTube except that they are 30+ minutes long and I'm still trying to figure out how to cut them down! Here are the links to the UStream vids, I'll get them YouTube'd as soon as I figure out FLV editing (again, any advice on how to do this would be greatly appreciated).
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2174225
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2174225
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2174225
EDIT: And Baldur's Gate will be a bitch, but I'm more worried about playing the entire Half-Life series in one week
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
That being said, I will probably ending continuing Half-Life into the next week, meaning it will interfere with Deus Ex and Little Big Planet, but that might work out. *shrug*
I think today I will play more Cave Story, and after thinking about it I will probably go ahead and try for the hell-mode ending. Wish me luck
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
Still, there are definitely some games that will either eat my week or will stay unfinished. We'll see!
I have a lot of Cave Story footage recorded and will upload it to YouTube as soon as I can cut up the videos into 10 minute segments
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
Persona 4 will tear me a new hole and then penetrate it vigorously.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
I'm still only about 80% done with the game.
If you really rushed though, could probably get it down to ~50h.
I think he's allowed, in good faith, to quit a game if he has something more important to do. He's already put off some week 1 games cause he had other things to do, like playing more games.
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
Exactly!
Still playing lots of Cave Story, and I finally found a way to convert and split .flv videos! YouTube links should be going up in a few hours.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
What converter do you use?
I think what I am going to do from now on instead of relying on UStream to record videos is just to record from WebCamMax, which is what I'm using to stream on UStream anyways. That way I don't have to convert FLV back to AVI back to FLV again.
One more hour or so and I should have Cave Story here, I already have some videos posted on my channel.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
EDIT: Part 4 and 5 are uploaded!
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
I am going to try to blaze through games as fast as possible while trying to complete the main storyline and get the "optimal" ending. I may very well beat the BGs in time, but it will be close.
Streaming at 4:00 P.M. EST today (15 minutes)! This time I will be trying my hand at Twilight Princess, taking a momentary break from Cave Story to beat games I already have save files in that are close to the end.
EDIT: Dammit, my stream of console games stopped working. I probably still won't be playing console games live on stream due to my screen capturing software not capturing my console-capturing software (damn overlays), so bear with me for a little bit on that.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
This is the first week I have used recording software, so things went pretty rough. So rough, in fact, that it had a very adverse result on my game-playing. But from now on I will have video summaries of my gaming experiences of the week!
AND I STILL HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT HOW TO STREAM GAMES FROM MY CAPTURE CARD, AUUUGGGH!!!!
Video removed due to suck.
Dead Rising
Ugh, to think I tried to finish this game. You know, this is why I don't overlap games. I just won't finish the game from last week in time and cut in on time I could spend with games from this week. Blarg. Oh well.
The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess
At least I did something in the far-too-little playtime I gave this game. I beat the City in the Sky dungeon and got 1/3 of the way into the Palace of Twilight. I have some videos of my play at least.
MadWorld
Okay, there's not even anything to say here. I played the four other games, didn't even get to this one. Sorry folks
So that's week four. Not exactly my moment of glory, hopefully that will be week five. Killer7 and Mirror's Edge coming up!
And again, you can see the related blog post here.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
But yeah, I severely underestimated how much playing I need to do and how to prioritize my time. Also, I really fugging hate trying to record my console gameplay
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog