The 2024 Backlog Challenge

[Splain | 2,581]

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Finished Commander Keen Ep. 4. I'm pretty sure I used cheat codes to beat this game as a kid, but now I've beaten it for realsies. It's a funny game, most of the time it's easy peasy, but then there are levels with one little part in them that are hard as nails, and Keen has only one hit point ever. On Normal difficulty anyway. Great fun though. Time for Ep. 5 now.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,572]

Man, I haven't played that in probably 30 years.

[G-type | 2,503]

9 hours ago, Splain said:

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Finished Commander Keen Ep. 4. I'm pretty sure I used cheat codes to beat this game as a kid, but now I've beaten it for realsies. It's a funny game, most of the time it's easy peasy, but then there are levels with one little part in them that are hard as nails, and Keen has only one hit point ever. On Normal difficulty anyway. Great fun though. Time for Ep. 5 now.

That just reminded I beat Commander Keen Ep. 1 in 2023... time to edit my tier rankings

[Brickman | 4,009]

I've been chipping away at Wrecking Crew since the new year and am now glad to be done with it. I think if I had this game when I was younger I would have appreciated it more and how much is in this game. As an adult, 100 levels just felt like it dragged on and on, especially because some levels just feel like they're there to get the count up. I think 50-60 levels and the ability to save custom levels would have been much better.

It's an alright game, I like action puzzlers but it just got very repetitive and rather boring. 6/10 for me.

[Webhead123 | 687]

14 hours ago, Splain said:

Finished Commander Keen Ep. 4. I'm pretty sure I used cheat codes to beat this game as a kid, but now I've beaten it for realsies. It's a funny game, most of the time it's easy peasy, but then there are levels with one little part in them that are hard as nails, and Keen has only one hit point ever. On Normal difficulty anyway. Great fun though. Time for Ep. 5 now.

Reminds me that I should try to work my way through this series this year. That and the Jazz Jackrabbit games. I've been sitting on them forever with no real excuse not to knock them out.

[Splain | 2,581]

1 hour ago, Webhead123 said:

Reminds me that I should try to work my way through this series this year. That and the Jazz Jackrabbit games. I've been sitting on them forever with no real excuse not to knock them out.

Yeah dude, playing this made me want to play Jazz Jackrabbit, Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Jill of the Jungle, Rise of the Triad, Descent, Wacky Wheels, Duke Nukem etc. Next year's backlog might have a strong "90's shareware" theme.

[Brickman | 4,009]

First achievement unlocked!

Beat a NES/Famicom platformer

 

DuckTales 2 beat. This was a really fun platformer but not quite as good as the first. It felt a bit too similar to the first with only some small additions. Still well worth playing.

8.5/10

[Brickman | 4,009]

Beat 4 games on the Famicom/NES

Another achievement beat. Overall, probably should have selected better NES games. Oh well, there's always next year.

Ice Climber was the final of the 4 needed and I never want to play that game again. 

Seriously, how does this game rank in some people’s top 100 NES games? If this game wasn’t made by Nintendo or featured characters in Smash Bros, it would be lost to time. 

The jump mechanic is rubbish and broken, the platforms don’t work properly so half the time you jump through a ledge, the theme song is annoying, and the graphics look like someone vomited all over the screen while playing in the snow. Some stages it was just better to let the polar bear stomp you almost to the top of the level, because it was less frustrating than trying to do it yourself. 

1/10. I gave a point for the rather bizarre story of a bird stealing an eggplant. 

[Tantalus | 459]

After decades of owning it, I've finally beaten Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Game Gear. This game has good graphics and the play control is on point, but some of the level design is absolute bullshit. Way too many leaps of faith and trial and error with spike pits and inescapable deaths.

I actually ended up playing through it three times. For the first run through, I heavily abused the save states on the Analogue Pocket to learn the levels, and ended up with the bad ending (you don't get to play the final zone or rescue Tails). Next, I moderately abused saved states, while collecting all of the emeralds to access the final zone, rescue Tails, and get the good ending. Finally, I played through it one more time without any save states, though I didn't bother with all of the emeralds.

As a kid, I was never able to get past the third or fourth zone, at best, so I'm glad to have finally been able to see through the rest of this game and finally lay it to rest.

[T-Pac | 7,581]

12 hours ago, Brickman said:

Ice Climber was the final of the 4 needed and I never want to play that game again. 

Seriously, how does this game rank in some people’s top 100 NES games? If this game wasn’t made by Nintendo or featured characters in Smash Bros, it would be lost to time. 

The jump mechanic is rubbish and broken, the platforms don’t work properly so half the time you jump through a ledge, the theme song is annoying, and the graphics look like someone vomited all over the screen while playing in the snow. Some stages it was just better to let the polar bear stomp you almost to the top of the level, because it was less frustrating than trying to do it yourself. 

1/10. I gave a point for the rather bizarre story of a bird stealing an eggplant. 

Aw, really? I actually liked Ice Climber once I got used to the jumping, although I'll agree that it was never very intuitive or reliable haha.

I'm also itching to play Wrecking Crew after you mentioned it. Didn't know it had 100 levels, though. Maybe that'll make next year's backlog for me.

[T-Pac]

[T-Pac | 7,581]

02/40 - Axelay [Nintendo Super Famicom - 1992]

Finished: 2024/01/07

Caveats: I practiced with save-states, then managed to 1CC easy mode.

[T-Pac]

[Brickman | 4,009]

3 hours ago, T-Pac said:

Aw, really? I actually liked Ice Climber once I got used to the jumping, although I'll agree that it was never very intuitive or reliable haha.

I'm also itching to play Wrecking Crew after you mentioned it. Didn't know it had 100 levels, though. Maybe that'll make next year's backlog for me.

[T-Pac]

The first couple levels it is annoying but you put up with it. By level 32 you have to wonder how this garbage made it through the approval process. You fall through the platforms a lot of the time, that’s just poor game development in my book.

Wrecking crew is actually a good game so I do think it’s worth playing. The controls are tight and for the most part it is fun. Just knock a few levels a night through the year if you don’t have too much time for it. You can select the level you were up to.

[Gloves | 11,816]

Played From Below for a bit. It's still just Tetris and I can't stand it lol. Well built, nice design and graphics, cool music. Hate playing it. xD

[Gloves | 11,816]

I have officially played 50 games so far this year. Please ignore that 31 of those are in the "not on my backlog" list lol.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

Update:

Wizardry V - No progress.  On hold for now, will pick up again shortly.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - New save because it's been over a decade.  Due to prior achievement progress, I only need to progress the Mages Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines, plus the main quest and Shivering Isles quests...but I'm playing it for fun more than progress at the moment so I've done a few other things as well.

Other - While I've only done 1 game from my list so far, I'm currently on an 11 day new completion streak for the NES (12 games total), and have also removed a Game Boy game from my backlog.  Not sure if I want to track that, but I figured despite the lack of updates to the games I chose for this thread, I've still done well at chipping away at the overall backlog.

[Gloves | 11,816]

3 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Update:

Wizardry V - No progress.  On hold for now, will pick up again shortly.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - New save because it's been over a decade.  Due to prior achievement progress, I only need to progress the Mages Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines, plus the main quest and Shivering Isles quests...but I'm playing it for fun more than progress at the moment so I've done a few other things as well.

Other - While I've only done 1 game from my list so far, I'm currently on an 11 day new completion streak for the NES (12 games total), and have also removed a Game Boy game from my backlog.  Not sure if I want to track that, but I figured despite the lack of updates to the games I chose for this thread, I've still done well at chipping away at the overall backlog.

Have you done Shivering Isles before? I fuckin' loved that content.

[Brickman | 4,009]

14 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I have officially played 50 games so far this year. Please ignore that 31 of those are in the "not on my backlog" list lol.

In my mind any game is up for backlog status, except maybe games you've 100%, then they're just replays.

I think people get too bogged down on making a rigid list. I did the list of games approach the first year and I actively tried to avoid even touching those games. Ever since I went with a more general go with the flow approach I've enjoyed myself.

A large list of games works for some but for me just having the freedom of picking up anything I want at any time is better, I've also created achievements for myself this year to make it a bit more interesting.

[Gloves | 11,816]

26 minutes ago, Brickman said:

In my mind any game is up for backlog status, except maybe games you've 100%, then they're just replays.

I think people get too bogged down on making a rigid list. I did the list of games approach the first year and I actively tried to avoid even touching those games. Ever since I went with a more general go with the flow approach I've enjoyed myself.

A large list of games works for some but for me just having the freedom of picking up anything I want at any time is better, I've also created achievements for myself this year to make it a bit more interesting.

A good chunk of those games I have indeed 100%'ed, or at least beaten previously. A few of them I play at least once annually anyway.

[Gloves | 11,816]

Part of the reason I'm keeping track of literally everything I play in this year's thread is that I'm hoping to do a year-end writeup of games that were new to me. Also why I've added a "play a bunch of homebrews" goal. 

That said, I've just finished getting the Mastery on RetroAchievements for Gruniożerca on the NES and I feel like the game deserves a shout out. It's incredibly simple, but it's actually a pretty engaging little arcade style game. I think kid me would have loved playing this all the time if it were released back in the day.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,076]

I haven't done much progress on my backlog yet, because I'm still busy with the NES completions challenge. So far I've beaten 44 games, including some real "classics" like The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, Blues Brothers, Wayne's World, Total Recall, The Last Ninja, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Home Alone 2 and Dragon's Lair, which was easily the hardest of them all.

Some actually fun games that I've beaten are the two Flintstones games, Toki, Twin Cobra, Thunderbirds, Sky Shark, Rad Racer II and Hydlide, which I would consider to be a guilty pleasure of mine. I know that it's bad, but somehow I still like it.

I'll be clearing some more NES game in the upcoming days and weeks. Maybe this year we can beat the full library. We also have some legit great titles that are still up for grabs, like Blaster Master, Bucky O'Hare, Castlevania I and II, Double Dragon II, Dragon Warrior I-IV, Excitebike, Final Fantasy, Guardian Legend, Life Force, Metroid, R.C. Pro-Am, StarTropics, Super C, Tecmo Bowl, Tiny Toon Adventures 1 and 2 and Zelda II. There are others, that I'm forgetting, but there's still plenty of great titles if anyone here happens to be interested.

I'm playing bad and/or unpopular titles on purpose, so that there are more good titles left for others. Although I needed just a few legit fun games to recover from some of the bad ones. Dragon's Lair was especially grueling due to its difficulty.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

12 hours ago, Gloves said:

Have you done Shivering Isles before? I fuckin' loved that content.

Nope, not at all.  I've had it for a long ass fucking time, just never started it.

[Gloves | 11,816]

1 hour ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Nope, not at all.  I've had it for a long ass fucking time, just never started it.

Of the content for the game, it's probably my favourite. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

3 hours ago, Gloves said:

Of the content for the game, it's probably my favourite. 

Considering how awesome the game is, that's high praise.  Now I'm looking forward to it!

[Gloves | 11,816]

27 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Considering how awesome the game is, that's high praise.  Now I'm looking forward to it!

As an Oblivion fan I'm sure this goes without saying, but really go and explore, talk to NPCs etc.. There's so much goodness out there. 

[wongojack | 220]

16 hours ago, Gloves said:

Part of the reason I'm keeping track of literally everything I play in this year's thread is that I'm hoping to do a year-end writeup of games that were new to me. Also why I've added a "play a bunch of homebrews" goal. 

That said, I've just finished getting the Mastery on RetroAchievements for Gruniożerca on the NES and I feel like the game deserves a shout out. It's incredibly simple, but it's actually a pretty engaging little arcade style game. I think kid me would have loved playing this all the time if it were released back in the day.

A number of years ago, I actually started tracking all the time I spend playing video games.  It seemed ridiculous at first, but I do it with a group on another forum site, and it ends up being pretty easy.  I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but it helps me with a sense of progress and completion, and I also get to go back any time I want and see exactly how much I played of everything.