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I finished a videogame recently. This might not sound like a noteworthy event, but... it kinda is. For any given game less than 1/3rd of the people who play it complete it. Videogames, and books, being artforms that take more time and effort to experiance are unique in this respect, and its a well known epidemic. If you read books you probably have a TBR pile that might be a skosh intimidating. Videogames, given digital video game sales getting incredibly steep discounts, and Epic giving away games for free everyweek, seriously have this problem. I have access to a downright embarrassing amount of games and I'll bet my personal completion rate is less than 30%. So what right? Who cares if you complete a videogame? So long as you get an amount of entertainment out of it that correlates to the value of the money you spent on it its all good right? I mean yeah, technically, but isn't there more to a videogame than a dollar value of entertainment?
If you spent $5.00 on Spec Ops: The Line on sale, and played it for like 3 hrs. that's a good amount of value. Just under 2 dollars per hour. Bout as much as a movie rental. pretty solid, but did you really experiance Spec Ops: The Line without its iconic ending? Videogames are art and if we honestly believe that we should treat them as holistic experiences and not as trivialities to be discarded when the novelty wears off. It feels almost disrespectful to videogames and to the artists who craft them to discard the majority of games one enjoys before completing them. So I've made myself a promise. I'm not buying a single videogame until I complete the games I have. Not all of them of course. There are the infinite games like Elite: Dangerous, and games that just aren't as good as I thought they'd be when I bought them. So, I made a list. Round about 150 games at the moment with an estimated total completion time of 80 days of unbroken gameplay. It will fluctuate as I add games I have that I'd forgotten about or regain interest in, and remove games that lose my interest, but this is a list of games I intend on completing, and eventually I will have completed every game on that list. At that point: I can buy games again. Being honest, I don't know if I'll stick to this. This is a project that could take years, but it's worth it to at least try, and, hell, it already got me to finish "Shadow of the Colossus" which was every bit the classic that it's reputed to be.
Next on my backlog because it be spooky season is "Burnhouse Lane"; the fourth (sort of 5th) and latest in a series of horror adventure games developed by Harvester Games. Their most famous effort being the absolutely jaw-dropping "The Cat Lady". Their First effort, "Downfall", has been superceded by a remake, "Downfall: Redux" which was remade in order to fit it within the same world and overarching narrative of "The Cat Lady". Both games form two thirds of "The Devil Came Through Here" trilogy; the third being "Lorelai". "The Devil Came Through Here" games are must plays for horror fans, and even adventure game fans more broadly. Each provides interesting and thematic puzzle challenges with deeply emotive and intelligent stories. Seriously, think Silent Hill without the combat. "Downfall: Redux" especially takes the basic premise of Silent Hill 2 files of the serial numbers and takes things in a slightly different direction. Admittedly that is to it's detriment, but The Cat Lady has a hell of a pitch. The titular character is Susan Ashworth, a suicidally depressed woman who, during a failed attempt, meets a supernatural entity called "The Queen of Maggots". The Queen of Maggots curses Susan with immortality and charges her with the task of killing 5 "parasites": serial killers that she is destined to meet in the coming days. What follows, and what characterizes the whole of the trilogy is at once grindhouse horror pulp and prestige storytelling in a grotesque marriage. They are incredibly emotionally effective and sensitively written to discuss the complicated topics surrounding mental health and trauma, but also offer the cheap thrills of gore and supernatural spooks. Lorelai leans a bit more heavily into the mechanics of the series' supernatual elements, and they feel somewhat disconnected from the protagonist's personal struggles. It also suffers somewhat as a direct sequel to "The Cat Lady" feeling a bit repititious of the elements that made TCL stand out. However, it's graphical and gameplay improvments can not be understated. If only for the smoother gameplay, and clarifying of the lore "Lorelai" is 100% worth a play. As for Burnhouse Lane, I'll have to get back to ya'll on that when I finish it. The trailer promised more action game elements such as combat and rudimentary platforming; while still using the same control scheme as Harvester's other releases. This could be a recipe for disaster, but we shall see; the game is very highly reviewed amongst Harvester Games fans.