Fear Uncertainty and Doubt

Day 5 of Frag Cake's Steam Challenge 
Current Game: Amnesia: The Dark Descent 
Progress: 90 minutes played

Before I dive into the beating heart of this post, I'd like to present a few clarifications about how I personally am going about this challenge:

• I'm going alphabetically, top to bottom through my library. Some have discounted sticking to a rigid order like this, but I know myself too well - I need the tight leash or I won't finish this project
• I'm starting early and don't have an end date. This train goes from 1 2 3 Kick It all the way to Zen of Sudoku (man, that's a weird pair of games)
• The challenge says you can beat the game on any difficulty. I will be defaulting to "Normal" in most cases, but am not too proud to drop it down if I'm getting pwnt
• My library currently lists 107 games, but a few of those might be DLC or duplicates (like Team Fortress 2 Beta, etc)

 Next, a few things about the blog:

• I will continue to write a review for each game I complete. I'm not entirely certain about what form this will take and it may vary significantly game to game, but I will be sure to put some kind of post dedicated to each game
• I'll also try to keep general progress markers at the top of each post to make it more clear where I'm at with the game I'm currently on and the challenge in general
• If it's not abundantly obvious, I've never really used Blogger before. I'll try to make it look less generic and terrible if I have time. For now, content is king? Hopefully?

Allrighty, that's all out of the way. Now, I thought in the spirit of the next terrifying game in my list, I would break down the most daunting challenges in the days ahead.

First and foremost, Amnesia: The Dark Descent. This game scared the piss out of me when I first tried it, and I don't think I've gotten any braver since then. Granted, I'm not strictly required to play it in the dark by myself with headphones on, but I feel like that's part of the experience. I'm gonna have to become a man sometime. The first ninety minutes or so have already struck some real fear in my lizard brain . . .

Also, games I'm bad at like The Binding of Isaac. I have maybe 7 or 8 hours already logged in this game, and I still haven't beat it. Maybe I just don't have the twitch gaming skills for it, maybe I've gotten really unlucky on the chest drops, but I've only made it all the way to Mom one time (with a perfect, seemingly unbeatable combination of items) and I still ended up dying. Dungeons of Dredmor has also made me look pretty stupid (this could be a situation where I need to turn off Permadeath, though). My brain is also pretty bad at some puzzle games and I can't even imagine what will happen when I get back to SpaceChem.

The Steam Holiday Sale. According to the rules, if I pick up any new games they have to be completed before continuing down the list. All it takes is one really good bundle to throw me off my progress. I also definitely need to break myself of buying games I already own on 360 because they're cheap. Also, is it just me or are the Humble Bundles coming every few months or so? Those have not helped the library bloat situation.

Playing Borderlands again. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed this game, but I played through most of it on the 360. I picked it up on Steam for a lark thinking I would get some co-op in, but it never really panned out. Also, I've been playing a lot of Borderlands 2, so I feel like going back might not be the best experience ever. Especially because I have all the DLC for the first game. Maybe if I can find a different enough build (melee-only Brick or something), I can keep things fresh.

Titan Quest, Torchlight, and Torchlight II are almost in a row. I might just lose my mind with that much Diablo clone action, but that's a problem for future me. If we make it that far. It's also similar to the Borderlands issue because I'll be going back to older versions of games that might not have the same "quality-of-life" improvements that we've seen in games of the genre since.

And perhaps the most concerning, Games I Know Nothing About. What on earth is Cogs? When did I pick up Dustforce? Rochard sounds French or something . . . Vessel? Uplink? Wizorb? I got nothing. I'm sure they were parts of Humble Indie Bundles, or possibly also Potato Sack games but I have pretty much nothing to go on. This could also be a really good thing! Who knows.

For now, though, Amnesia awaits . . .