What I've Been Playing This Week (aka Pile of Shame Sunday)

Mark likes big nades and he cannot lie...

The following post is part of a series of posts that are published every Sunday to update readers on what Mark G has been up to with respect to finishing off games on his "Pile of Shame". The games to target are picked by Choicest Games contributors Choona, Luke and myself. As I'll be talking about my progress through these games, there may be spoilers ahead, especially for games containing a narrative. Consider yourself warned.

Hand of Fate

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 83%

Wow. This week was the first time I haven't been able to make progress in the single-player campaign for Hand of Fate. Okay, I still made some progress with respect to earning card tokens (since ultimately more cards to choose from is a good thing, right?) but yeah, first time I never got to the boss. On the King of Plagues stage there is an effect called "Wrath of Food" where the player inflicts double damage on counter-attacks (which is good) but also loses one food each time he does it! Consequently, after my first playthrough (when I didn't realise this), I actually stopped using counter-attacks – although I should've been less stingy with them on the last stage because food isn't so much of an issue if you're almost at the boss... next time Gadget... next time...

The Walking Dead: A New Frontier

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 60%

I completed episode 3 and as expected, things went south pretty quick. Turns out Javi's brother David doesn't actually hold all the power in the community of Richmond (which I'm assuming is based off Richmond, Virginia). So Javi, Jesus and Tripp are out on the street again but David ends up keeping his wife (who is scared out of her mind) and his son, Gabe, within the safety of the settlement. Poor Tripp, his life got a whole lot worse because of Javi...

Later on in the episode, you find out that David isn't exactly in such a strong position of power as you first expected either. He finally finds out the truth about the New Frontier and how they're raiding other settlements just to make their lives more comfortable. It doesn't look good for either him or Javi as they both get apprehended at the end of the episode.

The Testament of Sherlock Holmes

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 25%

I haven't made any further progress on this – it's now on hold while I am distracted by Telltale adventures 😊.

Battlefield 1

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 10%

I haven't made any further progress on this – it's now on hold while I am distracted by Telltale adventures 😊.

XCOM 2

• Picked by Luke
• Percentage Complete = 30%

I spent a long time on the first Blacksite mission and I still managed to lose one of my guys - only because (1) I didn't realise that the drone guy I had didn't specialise in medic drones and (2) somehow you can't heal other team members with a medkit - or at least I couldn't see any way of doing it. So the scenario ended up like this:

*Guy gets poisoned by Viper*
[Poisoned guy]: *Cough cough* "Hey, does anybody have a medkit?"
[Drone guy]: "Oh sure, I've got one. Come over here so I can use it on you."
[Poisoned guy]: "Thanks buddy, I'm coming back to you."
*Poisoned guy runs to Drone guy*
[Drone guy]: "Okay, just let me get it out... hmmm says I can heal within this radius and you're within it, so we're good to go!"
[Poisoned guy]: "Awesome. Just hurry up will ya? I've only got one health left"
[Drone guy]: "Sure, here we go... hmm doesn't have a target but I'm guessing since you're the one that needs it more than I do, you'll get healed if within the radius, right?"
[Poisoned guy]: "I don't care! Just do it!"
[Drone guy]: "Alright, alright. Here goes nothing.... oh whoops, it healed me for some reason well... TROLOLOLOLOLOL"
[Poisoned guy]: "You son of a ...."
*ALIEN ACTIVITY*
*Poisoned guy is killed*

Anyway, the mission was ultimately a success and I took the Avatar Project down a notch. I got a whole bunch of wounded dudes though... one of them's going to take almost a month to recuperate!

????

• Picked by Choona
• Percentage Complete = 0%

Choona has not picked a new game off my Pile of Shame for me to play this week (again) – so once again, I have another break :). Hopefully he'll have something for me next week!

LINK:
[ The Pile of Shame ]