The 1 hour Challenge!

So, I totally stole this idea from NeoGAF. Basically, take a random game from your backlog, any game, as long as you've never played it before. Then, play it for an hour, and post your impressions!

Pretty simple, and a neat enough way to randomly tackle your backlog (or to see if you even like these games).

For me, though? I'm going to leave the decisions of what I play to you guys (and guys on other forums and Twitter, because the more the merrier). Here is my Backloggery filtered to only games I've never touched. Pick one (or a few) games you think I should try for an hour, and I'll play it! I do have a couple exceptions (can't play SMG2, W101, or DK:TF because of lack of Wii U space, and I won't try sequels before the previous games), but otherwise it's free reign. Tell me what to play! :p

But yeah, feel free to participate as well! Pick a game at random, don't think about it, and play it for an hour! Have fun (or not, sometimes)!

I suggest you to try Hotline Miami. I am going to try Coded Arms for PSP.

Love this as an idea, might give it a go myself at some point! [EDIT: Decided to try A Story About My Uncle.]

I'm going to suggest Papers, Please or Hotline Miami or The Banner Saga.

I'll give all those games a try, thanks guys! <3

Can't wait to hear y'all's impressions, as well :)

I also vote for you to play Hotline Miami, I personally love that game.

For myself, I think I will try Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.

Cool, got a huge backlog, might as well participate lol.

Try SMT IV

I'll be trying MediEvil for ps1.

Played Coded Arms (PSP) for 1 hour, here my impressions:

very basic FPS with somewhat odd controls, but I suppose you get the hang out of it at some point. The intro cutscene shows alot of different enemies & guns so that's always a good thing. There are sectors in the game, each sector has 3 locations and each location has 6 short levels. AI is pretty stupid, the gameplay is very forgiving with semi-autoaim, there are so many health & ammo drops that it's just impossible to die. No difficulty selection, after finishing each location you are given a stat screen with how many rooms you cleared, how many enemies you killed and how long it took you to beat it. I thought it was alright, the graphics are good for PSP, but could get boring really fast.

[A random question for pongsifu or Everdred: Would me making separate game-specific threads for my impressions be a bad idea? I like making threads for separate games but I don't want to clutter anything up if that would be bad :p]

I don't think it would clutter it, though it may be difficult to get discussions going in separate threads (almost all the game-specific threads seem to have this issue), but you can do it whichever way you think is best.

As for a game suggestion, I'll back the others on Hotline Miami. Judging by your comment on the Mass Effect collection, you've played the first, you should definitely get around to finishing the trilogy if that is the case.

Hellboy :The science of evil

Its a generic hack'n slash. Mediocre at best, the combat is stiff and doesn't have a lot of variety. Fighting with his big ass arm and his gun, that's it. There's different ammo for the gun, but that's the only upgrade in the game so far. The rage meter empty really fast, 4 attack combo and its out. you can use a light and heavy attack, but the charge heavy attack is not really useful, its strong but enemies will stagger you, No dodging system.
I fought 3 type of enemies through the whole 1st chapter which took me around 1h10. The hellboy character is really interesting, hes arrogant and talk like a bad ass, i might read the comic.
I might finish the game just for the character and because the game cost me 2$ lol.
I hope its not to painful to read lol

Definitely Hotline Miami. That game is dope.

[A random question for pongsifu or Everdred: Would me making separate game-specific threads for my impressions be a bad idea? I like making threads for separate games but I don't want to clutter anything up if that would be bad :p]

I don't think it would clutter it, though it may be difficult to get discussions going in separate threads (almost all the game-specific threads seem to have this issue), but you can do it whichever way you think is best.

As for a game suggestion, I'll back the others on Hotline Miami. Judging by your comment on the Mass Effect collection, you've played the first, you should definitely get around to finishing the trilogy if that is the case.

I'll just keep it to the thread, then. :3

Also on the Mass Effect thing: I really do need to get to 2 and 3, but I have to replay 1 for the PS3 first, and while ME1 wasn't absurdly long (I did a lot of stuff and clocked in at ~29h on the 360 version), I just lack the motivation right now. Perhaps when I'm done clearing out more of my Steam backlog and beat some games I'm still in the middle of :3

Okay so since everyone told me to, I played Hotline Miami. :p

I played for about 40 minutes at first, but I said "well, it has to be an hour", so I played another chapter. I am now on Chapter 6.

Overall, I like it a fair bit. I thought I wouldn't like it too much, because of the fact that dying was so easy and I thought it relied on stealth (I'm the type of person that sucks at stealth because I'm impatient), but the game wasn't quite like that. It's very much 'strike first or be killed', and while I fell into the 'be killed' part a lot of the time, the length of the 'levels' made retrying quick and relatively painless, so it was still fun even though I'd die... a lot.

My only problem is with how seemingly random some things are. Like some guys will take completely different routes each time, while others will take the same route. Or sometimes guys will not see me standing right in front of them, but other times they have eyes in the backs of their heads. It's not something I personally tick against the game itself, it just seems a little odd for a title that really relies on precision and speed to have a seemingly random element like that.

But, I'll definitely play this one to completion. It leaves a good impression for me :p

So, I totally stole this idea from NeoGAF. Basically, take a random game from your backlog, any game, as long as you've never played it before. Then, play it for an hour, and post your impressions!

Pretty simple, and a neat enough way to randomly tackle your backlog (or to see if you even like these games).

For me, though? I'm going to leave the decisions of what I play to you guys (and guys on other forums and Twitter, because the more the merrier). Here is my Backloggery filtered to only games I've never touched. Pick one (or a few) games you think I should try for an hour, and I'll play it! I do have a couple exceptions (can't play SMG2, W101, or DK:TF because of lack of Wii U space, and I won't try sequels before the previous games), but otherwise it's free reign. Tell me what to play! :p

But yeah, feel free to participate as well! Pick a game at random, don't think about it, and play it for an hour! Have fun (or not, sometimes)!

Barely looked at your list. Bayonetta. It's one of my favorite games ever and I don't get to play the 2nd, don't have a Wii U. You have that access. Play them both.

This is a cool idea. Unfortunately, I barely made it to an hour with my first choice for this, Capsized. This one really did not resonate with me! You crash land on an alien planet (we're good so far) to a cool tune (still good), and the alien planet is full of extremely hostile plant and animal life (no problem). The movement and controls didn't feel good to me. They were floaty and not tight like a lot of platformers I enjoy. I didn't like the controller button layout (I especially hate when UP is jump), but it was worse when I assigned A to jump, because then I couldn't jump and aim at the same time. I guess that's the issue with having to aim and do things at the same time: it's hard to assign both actions to buttons requiring the same thumb. I'm trying to think of similar games, and The Swapper comes to mind for its similar aiming. Except I played The Swapper with mouse and keyboard, again, because I didn't like the gamepad controls, but I was fine with mouse and keyboard I think because I didn't have to kill anything. Anyway, I have no reason to keep playing Capsized. One hour and done! I'll try another tonight.

2nd i tried Hotline miami

The game seem good, cool graphics. the 80's theme is pretty sweet. I usually play games with a controller but it f**ked me up so much. sometime it auto aim and messup everything. I might play it again some other time. but i really hate the keyboard control.

2nd i tried Hotline miami

The game seem good, cool graphics. the 80's theme is pretty sweet. I usually play games with a controller but it f**ked me up so much. sometime it auto aim and messup everything. I might play it again some other time. but i really hate the keyboard control.

(not being a PC gamer) i cannot imagine playing this WASD

(not being a PC gamer) i cannot imagine playing this WASD

its not just that, think of a twin stick shooter that you move with WASD and Rotate/shoot with the mouse, a real pain for me lol

This seems fun! I'll do mine sometime tomorrow and then update with my first impression.

My first will be The Witcher : Enhanced Edition.

3 looks really awesome, but I need to play the first two, especially since, well, I bought them and still haven't. I can't play it right now though (I have to work super early in the morning) and I have a family thing to get to but after that, I can't wait!

(not being a PC gamer) i cannot imagine playing this WASD

And I couldn't imagine playing it with a controller, heh. Aiming with the mouse in Hotline Miami was essential for me.

So uh there is this new FPS on Steam called Putrefaction and apparently it's oldschool. The next hour of gameplay will be dedicated to it.

I'll add Bayonetta to the list :3

Alright, for my second game, I decided to go with Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, since someone on Twitter recommended to me, and with my boyfriend being home from work I wasn't gonna kick him off the computer to play more Hotline Miami :p My first part of my playthough only lasted 30 mins before I had to do something, so I didn't "have" impressions; the second part, I wasn't paying attention, but I ended up finishing the main campaign, at around an hour and 45 minutes. I had a lot of trouble finding Paz.

I must say, I really enjoyed the gameplay. The iDroid tech was cool to work with, as was interrogating guards to get enemies and weapon/ammo caches marked on the map. Stealth and shooting alike felt quite smooth, too. Only thing I thought was weird that I couldn't find anywhere to stuff dead bodies easily. I still was able to hide them (if there weren't 4+ to hide... heh...), but still. Oh, and I'm pretty terrible at being 'stealthy' in stealth games.

But that story? Man, that was rough. Those bombs? Really? Ugh. Not to mention implied shit from some of those tapes. For a series like MGS, which typically makes it massive acts of violence and 'evil' over the top (with moments of emotion sprinkled in), these acts are... well... I guess over the top as well when you think about it, but in a bad way that comes off as tasteless. I'm personally not a fan of all that craziness.

I decided to try Insanity's Blade because of all the positive steam reviews saying "If you like retro games, you'll like this" and I'm a big fan of retro platformers. Well, I don't think it plays anything like retro games, really. The enemies just walk straight at you and you are so powerful that they don't get anywhere near you, so you're just walking forward and throwing blades constantly and everything dies without even being a threat (this is on normal). The only possible way to really die, from what I played, was falling in pits or insta-death spikes. Upon reaching the third level, I'm told by an NPC that I have to do a quest first, this quest has me going back to the second level that I *JUST* beat and play it all over again and go through a "secret" area. I say "secret" because it was a very obvious wall that was different and I tried to open it the first time, but it wouldn't let me because I didn't yet have the quest, so you're just required to do the same boring level twice. I didn't even give it the full hour, I was that disappointed in it.

I would not recommend this game to retro platformer fans, or anyone really. There are far better retro games out there.

Putrefaction:

Another very basic FPS game with oldschool elements such as no reloading, healthbar and being able to carry all guns. The "story" is told in loading screens and is extremely generic. The game itself reminded me alot of Doom 3, but qualitywise, it's not on par with it, not even close. Very quick loading times, choppy performance and no v-sync. Levels are big, but the amount of assets is extremely low so they all look the same. Enemies spawn randomly without any indicator whatsoever, they could atleast have added an animation like in Doom 3 or some sound effect like in the first Doom games or in Serious Sam. There are 4 difficulty settings and a Survival mode which I didn't play yet. I started on the highest possible and died alot in that 1 hour. You can only imagine how frustrating it is when enemies don't have fixed spawns. Played with 2 guns, the assault rifle you start with and a shotgun, a really powerful one. There is plenty of ammo but hardly any health. On Extreme, you die in 2 hits. 3 hits if it's a range enemy. So the only way to succeed here is to trial & error your way through. Plenty of checkpoints but no manual save. You also get an axe for melee but using it will only get you killed quicker. There are a handful of different enemies and the gore effects are nice to look at. Overall, it's not really good and it's low pricetag says it all. If you want a basic indie FPS inspired by Doom 3, go grab it.

The next game is going to be Silence of the Sleep, perhaps the only alternative to The Cat Lady.

EDIT: I played it for another hour and ran into the first boss. There is no way you can beat him on Extreme difficulty, the balance issues and random spawns of small enemies are really kicking in here. Stay away from this garbage, it's just another edgy developer who made a stupid hard game for all the wrong reasons.

Glad to see everyone participating! I didn't get ot try anything else this weekend between a rather stressful circumstance, needing to beat a review game (which was =_=, to put it in emotes), and deciding to give Hearthstone a download, only to play it for three hours.

I'll give another game a shot today!

Or play more Hotline Miami.

One of the two.

Finally played The Witcher : Enhanced Edition. Been a really hectic week.

I couldn't even make it an hour. I really don't like the way this game plays. I just couldn't do it.