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

Surprise! You can randomly get killed by icebergs in Gold Rush! when you navigate Cape Horn

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.

Wasteland 2: Director's Cut

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 47%

Well, since I'm technically at war with the Mannerites, I've spent a lot of time killing them this week and I still haven't killed all of them off yet either. While I was trying to bust out of the Mannerite base I ended up killing their leader, Mr Manners, but since I was running out of ammo, I knew I had to return to HQ before I finished the job of clearing the place of all enemies. This was no easy task in itself since going out the front door is a large detachment of soldiers as well as this beefy gun called a Meson Cannon. I didn't actually end up seeing the thing fire but I'm guessing it dishes out considerable damage since it takes a couple of turns to acquire a target and charge up.

I did manage to get back to base and have bought some more medic kits, 9mm ammo, a new Kevlar vest for Rose as well as a machete for Angela Slate (since the Rebar staff was a silly idea). There was even a new recruit hoping to join our cause after hearing that we took out Mr Manners but since he was a proud Satanist who killed people for fun, I don't think he's the right kind of person we want as a Desert Ranger.

Homefront: The Revolution

• Picked by Luke
• Percentage Complete = 76%

I feel like I'm pretty close to the end of the game now since my latest mission involves saving every single citizen in Philadelphia against a gas attack by a fleet of blimps approaching the city.

How did I get into this predicament?

Well, after breaking Mickey Two Shoes out of jail the plan was finally in motion to capture the mayor and broadcast a message to start the revolution proper. The mission to get to the mayor was pretty simple but when we tried to coerce him into starting the revolution, he refused saying that doing so would bring a worse fate to the city of Philadelphia in that its entire population would be wiped out. Dana lost her cool and ended up killing the mayor leaving Parrish to come up with the words to motivate the population to revolt. He succeeded in starting the revolution proper but Sam the doctor came later and told us that everything the mayor warned about was actually true.

My current mission is to try and shoot down all the blimps out of the sky.

Gold Rush! Classic

• Picked by Choona
• Percentage Complete = 100%

I've bumped this up to 100% Percentage Complete as I've given up with this game since even with a walkthrough there are some things that are totally up to chance (and you can waste a lot of time hoping for the right outcome). Now apparently there's a random chance of dying of cholera on these trips and thankfully that didn't seem to happen with me, however there is another random (and deadly) event that can occur when you navigate Cape Horn and that's colliding with an iceberg. I'm pretty sure that means I need to restore before I even took the trip (i.e. a seed generated prior to the trip determines the occurrence of these random events, or so I've read). Since it takes about 20 minutes of just waiting to even get to that point, I don't think I'm going to waste any more time.

So, yeah, I can safely say I think I'm done with this game. Which means I can finally move on to some early SCI adventures! I'm checking out this list on Wikipedia and think I might take things in order of release.

For SCI0 that means:
- Police Quest 2
- Quest for Glory 1
- The Colonel's Bequest
- Conquests of Camelot
- Space Quest 3

LINK:
[ The Pile of Shame ]