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

Driving past the Sydney Opera House in a Lancia Stratos

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.

Horizon Chase Turbo

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 100%

Yay, I finally finished the World Tour mode! So, technically I haven't finished all the challenges available to you (as I still have to complete all the tournaments and Endurance mode) but World Tour is the main mode of the game and showcases most of what the game has to offer. I've unlocked a whole bunch of new cars including a random oldschool car called the "Gentleman" (which looks like an MG T-Type), an Aston Martin One-77 (thanks to Luke), a VW Beetle, and a Kombi van (which now requires me to play the following song):

Also, the final race in the game has you racing around an erupting Kilauea volcano which is kind of topical considering this update was released the same time the real volcano was starting to destroy settlements on the Big Island, although somehow in the game, your car can drive through lava!

So, what to play next? Well I think I'll have to try and get rid of the four games that I've technically placed "on hold" that are listed below (i.e. Hand of Fate, Stardew Valley, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes and Battlefield 1). I'm also replaying Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption at the moment but I won't update my progress on that for Pile of Shame since while I have already warned you that this post features spoilers, I'd feel bad spoiling a narrative rich game like Hero-U so soon after release.

Hand of Fate

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 91%

On hold while I'm playing other games. 😊

Stardew Valley

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 20%

On hold while I'm playing other games. 😊

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… well… a lot of other games 😊.

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… well… a lot of other games 😊.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

• Picked by Luke
• Percentage Complete = 13%

Man, every time I fast travel in this game, I have a habit of falling off buildings: I need to learn to fall gracefully or ensure I dive into haystacks (somehow, even if you're 10 stories up in the sky, diving into a haystack will always break your fall, guaranteed). Also, I'm often stuck in combat since I'm not accustomed to all the controls yet, so more often than not I'm standing there like a buffoon doing absolutely nothing. One thing I do like, however, is how pistols are really cumbersome to use in this game which is similar to how these early gunpowder weapons were in real-life: it takes ages to reload and you have to do so after each shot!

I've progressed a bit further into the story and learned that I'm actually working for the Templars (surprise, surprise). I also was ambushed by a whole bunch of Assassins at one point, but they were all a bunch of amateurs. Quite underwhelming considering they're meant to be badasses, right?

Hacknet

• Picked by Choona
• Percentage Complete = 57%

I granted access to this group called CSEC – I doubt they have anything to do with the Citadel Police Force in Mass Effect but who knows? I did happen to stumble across a server holding X-COM research data after all so I guess anything is possible in this game 😉. What I'm wondering is if they're just another hacker group or maybe they're something more sinister? Or maybe they're actually a white hat group of hackers?

I also had a mission where I was being traced and it was a race against time to hack into the ISP's server in order to reset my IP address. For several seconds I was wondering what the hell I was supposed to do which is why when I completed the task I only had a few seconds left on the clock: it was definitely a close call!

LINK:
[ The Pile of Shame ]