Oxford Dictionary
Backlog: an accumulation of something, especially uncompleted work or matters that need to be dealt with.
Week 11 Progress
- Halo Wars 2 (XGP) – 70%
- Night in the Woods (XGP) – 25%
- Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (NS) – 15%
- CASUAL – Animal Crossing New Horizons (NS) 3 hrs
- CASUAL – Rocket League (NS) 6 hrs
- CASUAL – Rogue Company (X) 3 hrs
- CASUAL – Super Mario Bros 35 (NS) 2 hrs
It seems like forever since I didn’t complete at least one game during the week. I would be ashamed for my mission…had I not still put QUITE A BIT of time towards video games this week. I added a few titles I played casually up there, including the amount of hours for scale.
For Night in the Woods, I’m reserving my thoughts on it until completion. I think it deserves that.
I’ve almost completed Halo Wars 2, which is a fun game, if not let down by gameplay a bit since the story is PHENOMENAL and the CGI cutscenes are out-of-this-world lovely. I love strategy games, but this one feels like it doesn’t offer enough nuance for the genre–units just do their thing without detailed action options, resource gathering is an afterthought, and unnecessary boundaries on maps cause some glitchy issues. It still has a place in the Halo series, but I now understand why it’s never really met expectations to expand it as a cultural phenomenon.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions has a pretty bad start (the story is uncharacteristically clunky and bland), but each battle brings a little more enjoyment until the meat of the fantasy starts peeking through. Of course, the appearances of Fire Emblem characters brings an added reverence to the characterization and really motivates you to unravel more of the story behind their appearances.
To get back to the casuals–these titles all had updates to an extent; Animal Crossing started the Fall update, with new critters and spooky additions; Rocket League I played for a Community Night due to its recently minted free-to-play status; Rogue Company dropped a new Rogue and a map was finally added to the rotation that was promised previously. Super Mario 35 was released on October 1st and is a GREAT time waster. It’s not taking the place of Tetris 99 for me, but it certainly brings new life to classic side-scrolling Mario Bros.
WEEK 12 – October 6th – October 12th
LEGEND: XGP=XBOX GAME PASS, XGWG=XBOX GAMES WITH GOLD, NS=NINTENDO SWITCH, NSO=NINTENDO SWITCH ONLINE, PC=PC
*Added estimated time remaining to completion*
The announcement of the Xbox Hall of Fame CONTEST threw a wrench into my backlog mission, which you will see in this list.
- Halo Wars 2 (XGP) – 2 hrs
- Night in the Woods (XGP) – 4 hrs
- Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (NS) – 30 hrs
- Casual – Killer Queen Black (NS) <–GO GET IT FOR $2
- HOF Afterparty
- HOF Banjo Kazooie
- HOF Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
- HOF Death Squared
- HOF Deliver Us To the Moon
- HOF Doom Eternal
- HOF Enter the Gungeon
- HOF Fractured Minds
- HOF Lonely Mountains Downhill
- HOF Moving Out
- HOF New Super Lucky’s Tale
- HOF Oxenfree
- HOF The Turing Test
- HOF What Remains of Edith Finch
SO. With the HOF-categorized additions, I will have played at least 120 of the titles now on GamePass, which hopefully will keep me in the running for the Game Pass Ruler trial (who knows, really?). These will also hopefully add a few achievements onto my gamerscore, and if I’m extra lucky, I might be able to finish a few and add to my completed list. Otherwise, my incomplete game list will be a little lopsided for the time being.
If I have enough progress or interesting things come up, I may have multiple posts throughout the next couple weeks, so keep an eye out!
Incomplete Games List 2020
| TITLE | Play Again? | Time Remaining |
| Bad North | Yes | Every Play is 2 hrs |
| CrossCode (XGP) | Yes | 30 hours |
| Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (NS) | Yes, casually | 5 hours |
| Drake Hollow | Yes | 12 hours |
| Hypnospace Outlaw (XGP) | No | 5.5 hours |
| The Long Reach (NS) | Ugh. Maybe | 1 hour |
| My Friend Pedro (XGP) | Yes | 1.5 hours |
| Tiny Metal (NS) | Yes | 6 hours |
| Ungrounded | Yes | 5 hours |
| Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition (NS) | Yes | 40 hours |
Completed Games 2020
| Game Title | New Release? |
|---|---|
| A Plague Tale: Innocence | No-2019 |
| Battletoads | Yes |
| Carrion | Yes |
| Coffee Talk | Yes |
| The Gardens Between | No-2018 |
| Gris | No-2018 |
| Metro 2033 Redux | No-2014 |
| NieR: Automata | No-2017 |
| Observation | No-2018 |
| Old Man’s Journey | No-2017 |
| Ori and the Will of the Wisps | Yes |
| Panzer Dragoon Remake | Yes |
| Pokemon Sword | No-2019 |
| Quantum Break | No-2016 |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider | No-2015 |
| Tacoma | No-2017 |
| Tell Me Why | Yes |
| Timespinner | No-2018 |
| The Touryst | No-2019 |
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