Eddie

Welcome back ladies and germs, to the Humble Purge. For those who need a reminder, the Humble Purge is a project I undertook last year, where I set out to play most of the unplayed games in my steam library, i.e. my backlog. I already wrote two articles about it, the first advertising the project, and the second reporting on it after completion. In total I devoted about 758h to it last year and played 110 games, which is quite a lot. Too many to tell you about in my articles (even in the indigestible second one that is an unnecessary 7300+ word), which is why I planned to release a couple articles devoted to the games played during this Purge. This first one is an Awards Article. Coasting off the popularity of the best awards show in the world, The Muggies (I started writing this a while ago 🙃), I thought I would talk about some games that were the best or the worst in some aspect.

Some things to remember from my backlog: I categorised everything, rated games on how excited I was to play them — I called that hype and rated it out of ten — and then gave games a score out of ten once I was done with them. I played games for a minimum of an hour.

We've already talked about the overall bests in my second article, so we'll have more fun categories here. Let's start with one such award that I alluded to in my second article:

Top of the Bell Curve Award 🔔

Sniper Elite 4 by Rebellion

Sniper elite, released in 2017 is a game where you play as a sniper (no way) and kill nazis (yippee). The game is divided into missions, with different maps and objectives for each. You can go stealth or guns blazing, although the latter option is definitely not how the game is intended to be played. And when you play how it's supposed to be played — scouting the map for enemies, for entrance points to your objective, laying down traps and waiting for sounds to cover your gun shots — it's really fun. It looks good, the gameplay loop is great, the movement and gunplay are improved from the third, the maps are well designed and fun to explore. They didn't spam enemies, which would have made the game tedious, and the AI is semi-competent once they have been alerted. While not alerted though, the AI has the IQ of a lukewarm oyster. The difficulty is well balanced in my opinion, and I would recommend the “Sniper Elite” one. It removes the aim assist, has gravity and wind affecting the bullets as well as less forgiving AI which make it challenging, but is generous with the autosaves and not frustrating at all. Making any shot without assistance, taking into account the wind, gravity, movement of the enemy and noise, is very rewarding. One of the great feature it has is online coop, which although I didn't partake, would have no doubt made the experience really fun. I played this for 15.5h and gave it a 9/10 in the end.

Now why did it win the Top of the Bell Curve Award (aka most average award)? Well, it's simply because, as detailed in my second article, the most common first letter for games I played in my backlog was an S, the average year for games in the backlog was 2017, on average the games had a steam score of 89% and metacritics of rating of 79, and the most common genre was the all-encompassing “Action” genre.

Sniper Elite not only fits the best amongst the games in this backlog (start with an 'S', was released in 2017, has a steam score of 91% and metacritics rating of 78 AND is an action game) but the best fit amongst all of the games that released in 2017.

Wet Firecracker Award 💦🧨

Doom 3 by Id Software

I think doom is cool. I read how Doom came to be in Masters of Doom by David Kushner, and it was really interesting to read about how visionary and technologically advanced it was, on top of having a humongous cultural impact. When the Doom reboot came out in 2016, it soon became one of my favourite shooters. Seeing that Doom 3 was in my backlog, I was naturally very excited to play it, an gave it a hype of 9/10. Doom 3 came out in 2005, eleven years after its last mainline predecessor and it is fair to say that it is a completely different game altogether. In my review, it garnered a 2/10.

Doom 3 really disappointed me. I was expecting Doom, but I got something more akin to no-great Dead Space 1. Played it for an hour and never looked back. I won't spend too long on this because I want to spread joy and positivity all around me (I'm just that kinda guy), but I really did not have fun playing Doom 3.

Why is it the wet firecracker of the backlog? Well, just like a wet firecracker, I expected it to be a banger 🧨💥, but it just flopped 🧨💦.

Gold Nugget Award 🪨🪙

Molek Syntez by Zachtronics

During my backlog, I discovered that I really like puzzle games. I completely get that they are not for everyone, but they are very satisfying to me, even if they often forgo a lot of aspects of video games that most people care about. On average, puzzle games in the backlog got a score 8/10 where the average for all games was closer to a 6.8/10. I did not know that I liked puzzle games though, and I originally only gave Molek Syntez, which came out in 2019, a hype of 5/10. What a little treat it was though. The purpose of the game is to fabricate various chemical compounds, using other molecules. Not all of your building-block molecules are 100% what you need thought, and you will need to transform them to suit your needs, before assembling them into your final product. You program little arms that can do various action and only move a certain way around your lab bench. It's really fun and it can be as easy or challenging as you make it out to be. You can brute force it and have 24 instructions per arm, using all the arms available, and need millions of cycle to create your product, or limit yourself to using as little instructions/arms as possible and optimising everything. Once you're done programming, you can hit play and see the arms making your target molecules (or not if you messed up). It's really fun, you have to take into account the usual rules that you've probably learned about in chemistry class, but it's pretty simple overall.

I played Molek Syntez at the beginning of my backlog for a total of 12.5h. I will a 100% get back into it to finish the extra puzzles, but at the time I felt like finishing the campaign was good enough for the project. I had a lot of fun though, and if you like puzzles and chemistry, you will like it too. (Actually maybe even if you hate chemistry as I do)

Gold nugget 🪨🪙 awards if for the game that I didn't think I would like, but ended up being one of my favourite.

Dogged Game Award 🐶

Guacamelee! 2 by Drinkbox Studios

While completing my backlog, within 10 minutes of playing a game, I would know if I was going to play it until I roll the credits, or just play it for a while, or only play it for an hour. I have never been more wrong than during my time with Guacamelee! 2. At first I thought I would only play it for an hour. After the hour had passed I kept playing it, but knew for sure I wouldn't play it for the ~9h required to clear the campaign. Then I rolled the credits. It's not as if I was only starting to get the hang of the backlog, as I played this in May as my 63rd game, roughly 57% through all the games. This little mexican game was just tenacious, it was dogged, and didn't let me put it down until I was done with it and it was done with me. It's a basic action platformer, and a very very soft metroidvania if you want to unlock everything. There is barely any backtracking involved if you just wanna finish the main campaign. After the corruption of the hero Salvador by his own mask, the “Mexiverse” is in peril. You play as a retired luchador, out for a last mission, to prevent the corrupted Salvador and his three assistants from collecting the three sacred relics (a tortilla chip, a molcajete and an avocado if my memory serves me right). Along your travels, you recover your former wrestling moves, and those are also used as ways to move around, allowing you to reach previously unattainable platforms/clearing obstacles. You can also transform into a chicken.

The platforming is very decent, and not super super tricky. You can switch between the world of the living and the dead which makes for some interesting platforming challenges sometimes. Some combats interrupt your progression, a nice occasion to test you new moves, but it's never frustrating as less than 2 waves of enemies have to be faced each time. Everything is a tad janky and unpolished, but it still works and adds charm to the game. The lore is pretty goofy, but it doesn't take itself too seriously so it's fine. The music is pretty catchy and a nice companion during the campaign. It's a good game overall, and wins the Dogged 🐶 game Award.

❓ Award

Paratopic by Arbitrary Metric

I was gonna start by saying that Paratopic is a game developed by Arbitrary Metric which came out in 2018, but it doesn't feel right to say that. It obviously is a game, but it is so far removed from any typical game that it feels like a disservice to call it that. It is a surrealist game, and I'll just leave my original review describe it:

wtf? Incredible artstyle, great sound design. Weird ass story, the way it is laid out is peculiar to say the least. The timeline is not linear and we jump from one character to another from past to future and vice versa without any transition. Very much a “just experience the game” game. Kinda feels like a weird dream/nightmare. I like trippy stuff and artsy movies and games; I liked this game.

That is very much a “video game as an art form” game. Its extended version will come out “soon” and I will play it for sure. For now, the game earns the ❓award.

Cranium 🧠 Award

Duskers by Misfits Attic

Duskers from 2016 is a game where you command vacuum cleaners. Ok it's actually drones, but they all look like roombas. It's also sort of a horror game. The main goal of the game is to traverse the galaxy, by salvaging abandoned ships along the way to fuel you. You can also find some scraps, pieces of technology and even other drones in there. When you arrive at a ship, you choose where to dock you vessel, and then you have to send your drones out. You'll have to power the ship that you are boarding, but you can only power certain sections at a time. You cannot operate anything that isn't powered. You have to manage access to room, with doors. Now you could just open every door you see and explore, however, there's usually a reason the ships are abandoned. Alien infestation, rogue drone, traps, radiation, vacuum... there is danger lurking in the shadows. The kicker — everything is only interactable via console commands on your end. Want to open/close a door? type “open/close [door name]“. Want to have a drone move to a room? type “navigate [name of drone] [name of room]“. There are two views, the main one being top down, where you cannot see anything specific, but have a global view of everything. The second is going into a drone directly, where you can see what it sees in front of it, and can also move it with wasd. You do lose the ability to see everything else though. Everything is slow and tense. Try typing anything in the console under pressure when shits hits the fan; it's very stressful. You have to plan carefully, but most of the time, still have to act without proper information. And I haven't even touched on most of the gameplay for this game.

So, what is the Cranium 🧠 award? Well it is simply the award for the most innovative and original gameplay. Sure console commands have been done before, but the combination of the two views, the gameplay loop, the tone of the game... it just mixes to become the most innovative thing I have played last year.

Wrench in the Works Award 🔧

Sekiro by FromSoftware

Sekiro is goated, and gameplay wise I think the best game not only in the soulslike genre but in the “dude/gal wielding a sword” genre in general. The combat is precise, calculated, balanced — it's perfect. The level design is great and the movement mechanics are dialled in. The setting is amazing, the enemies are well designed and the boss fights are *chef's kiss*. If you were to tell me that Sekiro is an objectively better game than Darks Souls III, my favourite game ever (also developed by FromSoftware) I would probably agree with you. It's easily one of the greatest game of all times.

Now let me take that thing out of my mouth and explain the Wrench in the Works 🔧 award: it's basically an award for something that detracted me from completing my backlog. For instance a game I had played before but replayed during the Humble Purge, and took time away from actually completing the project, like Sekiro. I replayed it after Spencer and Vivian mentioned they were going through it, and I just had to do a quick playthrough (which means completing the whole game with all the optional things). It was only around 40h though, which is equivalent in terms of time to... 32 of the games I played for the shortest time during the backlog. Oh well, I don't regret it, it was time well spent.

Conclusion

Well, we've talked about quite a few games, euhh like 7, but one isn't from the backlog so 6, which is 5% of the backlog. At this rhythm of an article per year, in 20 years we'll have talked about them all. I'm not planning on talking about them all, and only when inspiration strikes you can hope to get another Humble Purge Article. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this one, and as always:

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author