Return to the Lost Levels of So I Tried…

The last time I wrote one of these, I planned on never having to write another one. Unfortunately, for reasons often beyond my control, this has not come to pass. The most recent abandoned So I Tried… was what prompted me to write this -- I figured it was about time, then went to find out what else I hadn’t written about.

In all, I missed out 10 games. That’s quite a few more than I thought I had missed, I’ll be quite honest. As I mentioned, not all of them are actually my fault -- though some of them clearly are. It’s a gamut of being unable to run it through to the game scaring me.

What did I miss?

Speaking of which -- Shark Attack Deathmatch 2 is the first on this list. You have to fight another person or people whilst underwater, using diving equipment. It’s a simple premise, and one that I didn’t think would bother me, with its selling point of “the blood from your battle will draw sharks towards you”. That’s right, the longer you fight the more sharks come ranging from bottom feeders to great whites. And when you’re scrambling about for harpoons and oxygen, the last thing you want to encounter is a freaking great white shark right behind you! It got shut down long before half an hour…

Project Genom was missed through no fault of mine. Supposedly an MMO, I never got to try it out because some bug stops it from loading. I get a windowed screen which goes to Not Responding, even after a few updates to the game -- I’ve tried it a few times since, and the same issue. I’ll give it another go when I upgrade my PC, so expect to see this title again.

In December I was given Starbound for my birthday, and installed it right away. I fully intended on writing about it a short while later, but was drawn into it far too much. I played it for six hours that day, which gives a certain bias to these things. It’s in the same vein as Terraria: a 2D Minecraft. You’re stranded in orbit of a planet, and have to gather resources to build equipment, and get home. Or, it was before the V1.0 patch releases, where a proper story will be implemented -- it depends on when you read this.

Another game I played far too much of was Starpoint Gemini 2. I played it as part of an idea to write about the different space simulator games, and was going to write a So I Tried… about it too, but hours later I had to go to sleep, so finally closed the game. You’re tasked with avenging your father in an old beat up ship, and have to do this by trading and doing side missions to earn money and experience. It drew me in really quickly, and held my attention for the whole time.

The next day, I played StarMade for the same article, and with the same “I’ll write a So I Tried… about it!” idea. Another space simulator with trading and stuff, this one was 2D with a top-down view, and an absolute inability to capture my attention… I gave up in less than 10 minutes, as I wasn’t having any fun.

I decided that I would try Dig or Die when it came to my attention after we previewed it, and our Editor-in-Chief became literally obsessed with it. Also, it’s like Starbound, however, the way it’s played is quite different. I had to find a certain amount of scrap to build weapons, of which I had been assured I would need in abundance. However, I scoured the bits of the planet I could safely reach, and didn’t find enough scrap. With nightfall steadily approaching, I just gave up.

I decided that Edge of Space would probably be able to do a better job than Dig or Die had, and it was along the same lines as both Dig or Die and Starbound. Stranded on a planet, you have to use your mining gun thing to -- I have no idea. I spent most of my 16 minutes playtime reading the tutorial, and the rest using a useless laptop trackpad to aim the weapons. Unable to play, I gave up.

Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior is something I couldn’t decide on whether to write about. After all, I’d already written about Viscera Cleanup Detail Santa’s Rampage, so didn’t want to repeat myself too much. Having to clean up after a ninja/yakuza rampage, I just couldn’t engage all that much. I gave up when I spilt bloody water and undid five minutes of mopping.

One of the few 10/10 titles on GameGrin, The Novelist has been on my radar for a while. It’s hard to sum it up, but you’re a ghost who has to help a writer and his family decide things, to make or break their summer vacation, in a first-person perspective. I played it for two hours -- far too long for a So I Tried… It was engrossing, and as you have to make decisions, I fully intend on returning to it at some point for the alternate endings.

Which brings us to the final title on this list: SUPERHOT. You’re playing a game within a game, and time only moves when you move -- it sounds simple, and for the few minutes I played it was. But I played two levels on two different occasions -- because the laptop I was playing it on (a different one to Edge of Space) kept crashing. The loading screen between levels crashed the display driver, killing the game. I restarted the laptop and it happened again on the next level -- restarting the game right away actually made the laptop blue screen and restart itself…

What am I Still Playing?

I’m going to go back to SUPERHOT and Edge of Space when I get the chance. The Novelist deserves another playthrough, of course, to experience some of the other endings. Starbound is something I’m eager to return to, but I know that it will get a data wipe when V1.0 comes in, and I absolutely HATE losing my progress in things. I’ve kept memory cards for decades, due to not wanting to lose progress in the original Grand Theft Auto… Starpoint Gemini 3: Warlords is in Early Access at the moment, and I intend on finishing Starpoint Gemini 2 before it releases, so I can move on to it.

I’m writing this at the time of the Steam Summer Sale, so… I think there will be another one of these in my future… So I’ll see you then -- and in the meantime I’ll see you in the next So I Tried...