Nintendo Okie

The Pile of Shame.  Everyone’s got one.  These are those games you bought and started playing with every intention to finish one day.  Most of the time they’ve gotten pushed aside because a game came along that caught your interest more, or you were just playing them to fill some time until the next game release you were excited about.  Whatever the reason is, everyone has a pile of shame.  It can be as small as a couple of games or as big as a couple dozen games depending on how long you’ve been playing video games.  I know I’ve got them as well and I’m going to let you know the top 5 games on my pile of shame right now.

The first game, and the one I want to get back to most, is Torchlight.  This PC dungeon crawler is brought to you by Runic Games and was released in October of 2009.  The game’s development was headed by Travis Baldree, designer of Fate, and Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer, co-designers of Diablo and Diablo II.  I downloaded the game, which was only $20 at the time.  It plays very much like those Diablo titles.  You’re exploring a dungeon clicking on every monster you see.  There are three playable classes that play a little differently than each other.  The biggest drawback of the game was that there was no co-op of any sort meaning it was a bit of a lonely experience.  Despite that the game’s writing is solid and the gameplay scratches that itch for a Diablo game perfectly.  There’s also news that the game will see a release on the Xbox and Torchlight II will be released early next year.

The next game on my list is Muramasa: the Demon Blade.  This Wii title was released by VanillaWare for Wii in September of 2009.  It’s a side scrolling action platformer where you play one of two different campaigns.  One stars an amnesiac ninja who has forgotten everything about himself, including a crime he has supposedly committed.  The other is a demon possessed girl.  The two campaigns start at opposite ends of a map where they meet in the middle.  The story is based around ancient Japanese mythology.  Gameplay is very fast paced using only a small number of buttons.  Depth is added through the combos you can string together and the RPG elements of the game.  One of the biggest of those is the ability to forge new weapons by collecting souls found throughout the game’s many levels as well as cooking and eating new food.  I finished the game for review back in October of last year, but started playing it again to really enjoy everything the game has to offer.  The reason I quit playing it then was because the game ends up being very long, around 16-20 hours in length.  My last save file showed I played the game in November of 2009 so I’ve restarted this game one more time and am soaking in everything about the game.  It’s simply gorgeous to look at, if nothing else.

The next game on my pile has become of a bit of a running joke between Scott and I on the site and in email conversation and that’s Rage of the Gladiator on WiiWare.  I got stuck on my second fight against Ixthid, which is a multi-limbed alien who shoots lasers out of his single eye.  The game is a Punch-Out!! style game that is more of a puzzle fighting game than a straight puzzle game.  Like Punch-Out!! you have to learn the patterns of opposing fighters and properly counter attack to win.  What’s different about this game is the ability to customize your fighter through an ability tree where you can lean more towards offensive abilities, defensive abilities, or a more rounded character.  I got stuck, put the game down, wrote the review and never got back to the game.  Despite the fact that I still continue to say that I’m going to.

Dragon Age: Origins is a game I just recently picked up, well actually it was a couple of months ago.  I played through the training levels and just exited into the Overworld and stopped.  I got so wrapped up in other games coming out on Wii that I needed to do for review this one just took a backburner and has been sitting there.  I want to finish it, but it’s really low on my list, in reality and I don’t know that I’ll ever get back to it.

Borderlands is the last game on the list I’m going to talk about today.  I borrowed this game from my brother-in-law and started playing it.  I only had the game for a couple of days before giving it back to him because he was still playing through the campaign.  I managed to level my character up to 14 and said I would go out and pick up the game to finish it.  It’s based on the exact same control scheme as Call of Duty, which is my favorite shooter on the 360, courtesy of the generous auto-aim.  (Yea, I’m not ashamed to admit it.)  Shelby’s played through the game seemingly 100 times since I first played it and said I was interested in it.  There’s now a ton of DLC to add to the experience, with even more coming out soon.  There’s no reason not to get back into the game and finish it.  I just need to pull the trigger, so to speak.

There are more games I could mention, but I think these are the five that come to mind first, more than anything.  Are there any games out there that make up your pile of shame?  Share your thoughts and your lists with us.  Maybe there are some games we could finish together.  It might make it a bit easier to take them off of those piles.