Chp 627. Reaching 500 Games + Level 50

Today, September 5th, I reached another very big milestone in my gaming career. I now own 500 games on Steam! :D

It wasn't very long ago when I blogged about reaching 250. But before you think I'm spending too much on games, most of the games I have bought were on discount. Big huge discounts. Like for example, the recent Steam Summer Sale. Yeah, I too have my bills to pay just like you.

The thing is, I don't have a social life. And being an introvert, I like to be on my own most of the time. So, I usually spend my weekends watching TV show marathons via hotstar premium subscription. But as I have blogged recently, I didn't have internet at home for the past 3 months. During those dark times, playing games was the only thing that kept me from losing my sanity.

I'm not going to make this post boring by writing a review on some of the new games I have bought. You can check out my profile on Steam - [link] anytime and see my games collection. I'll leave the reviews for another post.

Another big milestone I reached today was reaching Steam Level 50!

And not only that, I have managed to craft exactly 50 badges as of today. Very nice coincidence. :)

I feel kinda nostalgic, and quite accomplished to know that I have bought all these 500 games out of my own hard-earned money. It made me recollect all those years when I used to beg my dad or mom over and over again to buy me the latest Nintendo or Sega game cartridge out in the market, and I would throw a tantrum or sulk in a corner if they didn't buy it for me :D

I wish I could go back in time and bitch-slap the young me and say, "Listen son, you wanna play Contra or Mario bros, you better work your ass out. Work hard and years later, you can buy any game you want." and then I disappear in a puff of smoke while Britney's song "Work bitch" plays in the background :P

To keep this post short, yeah to me, collecting and playing different games is important, especially in my line of work. I like playing all sorts of games ranging from Casual to Action to Strategy to Tower Defense to RPG to MMOs to FPS to Simulation and so on (I think the only genre I don't play are car racing games :D ).

What is important is, at the end of the day, it makes me love my work. I don't hate waking up early to go to office every morning or staying back late in office after work. And that is a luxury most working professionals don't have.

So until my next post then, see you all, cheers.

Chp 626. My First 10 Perfect Games

So yesterday, I reached a milestone on my Steam account. I now have 10 Perfect Games! Woohooo!



A "Perfect Game" is when you complete an entire game, while unlocking every single achievement badge within that game. Once you have unlocked all achievements, then you get a "Perfect game" status.

Perfect Games are usually hard to achieve, depending on the mechanics of the game you're playing. In some games, you must play over and over again to unlock certain achievements, while in others you have to do a very difficult combo move and stuff to unlock an achievement. I have played more than 500 hours in "Team Fortress 2" and a few other games, but I am nowhere near a perfect game. And for games like Age of Empires II (on steam), one game analyst even did an extensive research and concluded that you must grind and play every civilization for at least 7000 hours if you want to get a perfect game! That is almost an entire year of continuous gameplay! Whoah.

And of course, there are games where it is impossible to get a perfect game, not because there is one last remaining achievement that is extremely difficult to unlock. In such games, you get an achievement simply for "pre-ordering" the game. Pre-ordering is when you buy a game before it has been launched. And so when you buy the game after it has been released and you play for weeks and unlock all the achievements, there will still be one last remaining achievement you cannot unlock, just because you didn't pre-purchase it. And so, no "Perfect Game". Sucks huh?

Anyway, I hope you get the gist of what a "Perfect game" means now…

Of course there are games where you can easily get all achievements, usually the cheaper ones, but I am not going to include those here. In this post, I want to talk about the 10 games where I unlocked all achievements but at the same time got an immense gameplay experience from. Also, I have included the time it took me to get a "Perfect Game" status, but if you're an "achievement hunter", then don't go by that number because you'll be able to do it much faster, I was just playing it at my own casual free leisure time (and in some cases, I have left the game on pause while attending a meeting).


1. LYNE

Total achievements unlocked: 33/33
Total time played: 19 hours
Game link: Lyne
Cost of game: INR 169

I'm a huge fan of puzzle games, and LYNE hit the sweet spot for me because it was a very interesting game with a minimalistic design. It is a mobile game ported to PC. I had to rack my brains for a long time trying to figure out the solutions. In this game, there are different colored shapes that you must all connect within a given grid, while making sure they don't intersect and at the same time, all paths are utilized. Tough AF.

And the best part is, every achievement is a letter, so once you get them all, you can spell out a name using it :D And since I wanted to use "MIZORAM" in my "achievement showcase" (as you can see in the pic above), I had to freaking play till the last level to unlock "Z",and that was how I got a perfect game from playing this game. Almost 20 hours! Totally worth the money spent.




2. Hexcells

Total achievements unlocked: 6/6
Total time played: 2 hours
Game link: Hexcells
Cost of game: INR 169

Next up is Hexcells. Any Minesweeper fans out there? This is one game you're really gonna love. It is much better than Minesweeper, and you have to think real hard in many scenarios. In this minimalistic puzzle game, there are a couple of hex tiles and you must figure out whether a tile must be highlighted or not based on the clues given. I unlocked all achievements in just 2 hours, and it was a very pleasant experience, especially because of the soothing ambient soundtrack.




3. Hexcells Plus

Total achievements unlocked: 6/6
Total time played: 3 hours
Game link: Hexcells Plus
Cost of game: INR 169

This is the second installment of the above game, and it is as wonderful as the first, though, maybe it's just me, but I felt this version had a lot more of "chance" situations, where the clues given were not enough to determine whether the hex tile should be highlighted or not. But then again, that's a subjective opinion. Completed the game in 3 hours.


4. Hexcells Infinite

What sets this third batch of the Hexcells series a bit different from the earlier two is that it has an infinite mode! And the last achievement to unlock in order to get a perfect game status is to win at least 60 of the 1,000,000,000 randomly generated levels, so yeah, it took me much longer to unlock all achievements, as you can see from my stats below.

Total achievements unlocked: 6/6
Total time played: 5 hours
Game link: Hexcells Infinite
Cost of game: INR 169


5. Hook

Total achievements unlocked: 1/1
Total time played: 2 hours
Game link: Hook
Cost of game: INR 58

Another mobile game ported to PC, this puzzle game entertained me for a good 2 hours. In this game, you must carefully select which line or section goes in first. It is quite simple, but not like "lame" simple. I found it very relaxing and it was worth the $1 I paid for this game. Once you complete the game in about an hour, you will unlock the one single achievement to get a "Perfect Game".




6. Gunpoint

Total achievements unlocked: 42/42
Total time played: 10 hours
Game link: Gunpoint
Cost of game: INR 369

Spent 10 hours on this game, and I just love it! It took me a while to understand the basic gameplay (lack of tutorial), but once I understood how things work, it was amazing playing this game. Gunpoint is a stealth puzzle game where you must steal items and stuff, based on the storyline, without being detected by the cops. And the next mission or story actually changes based on your reply to the conversation (decision-based game). That is why I replayed many missions to get different outcomes. And some of the achievements are really really funny as well. :)

Also, I received a free hat for "Team Fortress 2" because of this game :D




7. Thomas Was Alone

Total achievements unlocked: 35/35
Total time played: 4 hours
Game link: Thomas Was Alone
Cost of game: INR 369

What a beautiful, awesome and relaxing game!!! The story narration is well executed too, and taking that into account along with the ambient music and minimalistic design, I must say this is definitely on the Top 5 of my favorite games. If you really think about it, it is just a simple platformer puzzle game, with basic controls and gameplay. But the sound, design, character and narration turned it into a totally mind-blowing game.

Trust me, I never thought I could get so emotional about geometric shapes before I played this game! :)




8. To The Moon

Total achievements unlocked: 1/1
Total time played: 4 hours
Game link: To The Moon
Cost of game: INR 369

Speaking of being emotional, here is my favorite game this year. I'm not going to talk much about it here as I had already written an entire blog post about this tear-jerking super amazing game - Mizohican: To The Moon. All I'm saying is, if you haven't played this game yet, your loss.

You'll get a "Perfect Game" by completing the game as this game has only one achievement, but trust me, this is not about getting a perfect game status. Just play it and get onboard the Feels train, you won't regret it. 




9. The Purring Quest

Total achievements unlocked: 23/23
Total time played: 13 hours
Game link: The Purring Quest
Cost of game: INR 369

Another very cute and casual platformer game. My only criticism about this game is, the controls are a bit hard using a keyboard. But the story line and ambient soundtrack (which has a very similar "To The Moon" vibe) make up for the hard control system. You play the role of Kimchi the cat, and if you are a cat lover, this is one game you're definitely going to love! As you can see from my stats, it took me quite some time to unlock all achievements. Some of the hidden rooms were really interesting as well.




10. A Bird Story

Total achievements unlocked: 1/1
Total time played: 5 hours
Game link: A Bird Story
Cost of game: INR 299

This is the second game from the people who made "To The Moon" above. Perhaps because the previous game was so great that I wasn't actually impressed with this one. It is the story-based game about a boy who befriended an injured bird. The soundtrack is nice (but not as great as TTM) and there are some funny and emotional parts in the story (again, not as deep as TTM), but it’s a cute game, and I completed the game in less than 2 hours (don't be fooled by the 5 hours given above, this is one of the many games where I left the game on pause while attending a meeting or call conference).




And with that, I now have 10 perfect games. I do recommend all the 10 games above, not just for the achievement part but they really entertained me well.

Until the next update, cheers.