Re-evaluating goals

I've been re-evaluating my goals.  

After opening the refrigerator door of my Steam Library so many times, everything looks like last weeks meatloaf.  To this effect, I have decided:

• Games that I bought in a bundle/sale - I must play at least two of, but the rest should be considered "free with the upgraded purchase".
• I will know if a game is terrible after 2 hours, there is no need to suffer a full 10

Dead Rising 3

This was the game that almost pushed me over the edge to get the Xbox One, and probably would have if there was backwards compatibility.  I was a huge fan of both flavors of Dead Rising 2 (the normal and the fan requested "Off the Record"), it was an obvious progression from #1 and they got it the way Dead Island didn't.  It's fun to build overpowered combo weapons and wade through hordes of undead like a badass, but that can't be the entirety of your game experience.

Dead Rising 2 had amazing psychos impeding your progress, each one a window into intense crazy.  Dead Rising 3 uses the same construct, but the psychos are for the most part - lackluster.  

In the effort to make the game more approachable, the game has been dumbed down way too much.  Instead of having to learn where items are to craft them, or making it one of a few crafting tables - you have the ability to combine anything at any time, even autoselecting the craft pattern for you.  Plus you are given a locker at a number of different safe houses where you can create with no resources any weapon you've previously crafted.  It got to a point I wouldn't really bother creating anything but the most recent collected blueprint so I would have the template and then use these safe-houses for my overpowered combo weapons.  The same can be said for the craftable vehicles - there is no challenge to create them, you can't even be interrupted while constructing.  If your vehicle blows up from overuse or crashing - there are simple vehicles all over the road to jump in and drive, but I would only drive to my car ports and load up on my next zombie crusher.

Even though the obvious answer would be to force myself not to play with these enhancements - it's my job as the player to come up with an easier / better way to manage my inventory or required resources, if it's designed into the game to be easy - I'm going to do it easy and look for an easier way even.  This is exactly what I did - when a survivor mission was to bring 5 pieces of zombie flesh, I didn't collect them - I went to a safehouse and created 5 from my locker.  There is no need to pick up a shotgun hoping for the chance to find a machete, oftentimes very obvious crafting items were left together in a pile of detritus, and combo craft-able cars were parked right next to each other.

Was it fun? "sure"  Was it worth it?  Yes and No - it got played and will continue to get played only because it's the only okay title we have for Xbox One.  I really expected more.

Anna - Extended Edition

This is a mind-twist/horror game with a clunky point-click interface and unintuitive puzzles.  I'm going to assume that most people are playing with some sort of guide because very little of what I've done makes any sense outside of the recipes they spelled out carefully some books.  Many times I fell to clickity-clicking everything in the environment with a new inventory item I picked up.

You play as someone in a dream(?) who feels compelled to explore a house he feels he knows.  In the course of exploring the house, you hear voices of a man arguing with "Anna", it's later you have an Angel Heart moment where you realize that you are the man.  The story is that you fell in all consuming love with a statue of Mary Magdalene (Anna?) and stole it from the church after you were kicked out for obsessive worship.  In either jealous rage or perhaps to end your torment, when your wife found out, she destroyed it with an ax.  You snapped and presumably killed her and your children.

They do a good job of messing with your mind.  I think it was to my overall benefit that I played so long without a guide, I would get to a lulled and slightly annoyed state - then a door would slam, or I'd hear someone screaming for help, or weeping - and it would jolt me back.  One thing they did very well are their line-of-sight gags, changing things that are just out of visual range (think "Weeping Angels") - I had a few good jump scares when looking back over my shoulder.

There is no combat, the only way you can perish is by losing your sanity - which was about four hours in for me when I decided to follow a guide and plow through it.

Painkiller: Resurrection

I've played enough of this one to call myself "done".  This is a fan-made installment, and it plays like it.  But not in that cool, "wow I can't believe they were able to take it there!" way -- moreso in a "hey, I recognize that game asset" way.  I only played the first couple levels - which are repetitive enemies spawning in areas with panel doors that open after you've killed X waves.

Painkiller: Resurrection is the next in the Painkiller line, you start out as a hitman who botches a job getting himself and a busload of innocent people killed.  Once again you become a minion of someone in Purgatory, and your mission is "kill".

I only played the first two levels before giving up on it - I read the Wiki to see if anything amazing developed in the story.  It is your typical "Hunt this demon with the help of another demon, oh wait - doublecrossed - kill them both" storyline, with one possible twist -- there are three endings Bad/Good/Neutral.

The Twilight Zone (bad) ending has our hero returned to life, but at the precise moment he botches the job again.  In the Hollywood (good) ending, you are sent back to the night before the job and "decide to be good".  I'd like to think if I continued - I would get the Tarantino (neutral??) ending, where you are given an epic sword and made champion of Purgatory. \m/

You should skip this one.