In the thirteen years since I opened my Steam account, (Thanks, Half-Life 2) I've collected an enormous collection of games through various Steam sales, and bundles for sale through sites like Humble Bundle, Indie Gala, and Fanatical (formerly Bundle Stars).
The thing is, I haven't played almost any of them, but the most 'popular' titles, and I've got no idea what is good, and what is bad. Steam does have a system of user reviews; but I like to experience things for myself, without context, and to suspend judgement from what others have written.
Steem Stats Sourced from Steemdb.info
So here we go, approaching my Steam Collection with alphabetical precision. I don't know what the frequency of these posts will be, but I can tell you that there may end up being a lot of them!
Ace Combat Assault Horizon Enhanced Edition
A game about flying aircraft with guns, missiles, and other bits and pieces that make things go boom. There's a certain joy in this title, it being an arcade style wargame, where you don't really need to worry all that much about keeping the plane in the sky, and can instead focus on dog fighting strategies, and well, being a predator in the sky.
There's also some scenes very early in the game where you get to pilot other vehicles, with a great on rails part where you get to be on a chain gun while raiding some site.
There's a bit of a story involved, but it doesn't seem so deep. I stopped playing after dogfighting with an enemy pilot for ten minutes while my half a dozen squadmates seemed to do nothing to shoot the sole remaining enemy plane out of the sky. Not the sort of game that I am bound to enjoy for any length of time.
How did I get this?
I think it came in a pack with Resident Evil, or some other titles that I really wanted in a bundle.
Rating
4/10
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
What's this? A MMO? That you have to pay monthly time for? What's this doing in my Steam Account? I suppose I should create a free account and see what happens with this. Even though the game was fully downloaded through Steam, the moment I launched it, extra downloads started left, right, and center.
The interface on the website, and the account, which I got to take a real close look at, while the game client updated, looks like it is legitimately from the late 1990s, with that online game vibe heavy. And wait, I did, with the game servers only able to serve out a 12.4GB update at under 2 megabytes per second, when my connection is capable of 5 times that speed. Not a great start, but I'll persist, I enjoy RPGs.
Finally, after a few hours (don't know why) - the game installed correctly, and allowed me to play. Only, character creation was next to impossible, due to many cryptic classes, combos, and other things not being available with the "free" version - while I purchased the game at some point, I can't remember what was, and what wasn't included.
In short order, I discovered that I could create a bikined archer, and set to doing that. So I did. The femal archer came armed with an oar with which she could beat things to death. I beat a few things to death in a rather bland, poorly voice acted world, encountered a level 2 boss. I pressed ressurect, and promptly crashed to desktop.
Game over, for Age of Conan, please. What a terrible, awful game that wasn't worth the time, bandwitch, or effort it took to type this.
Verdict
0/10 - I wish I could banish it from my Steam library permanently.
Age of Empires II: HD Edition
This game doesn't need an excuse to be in my Steam library. It just belongs. In fact, it belongs on every PC gamer's machine; or, at the very least, should have at some point. A sublime piece of gaming history, AoEII was a massive game for the time, with multiple armies, rich story telling, and fantastic strategic depth.
In addition, it had the bonus of teaching some historical bits and bobs about warfare, as well as the politics of the age. While it might not be as accurate as a historical study on why pottery made one army superior to another; Age of Empires II is a must play; and the HD edition revitalizes the original with additional content, stability on modern operating systems, and support for higher resolutions.
If you haven't played the original, and you want to see where the modern RTS managed to appeal to the masses; AoEII HD edition is a good as start as any to the genre as you're likely to get.
It also enables easy mod support through the Steam Workshop, which adds further depth to the title.
How did I get it?
This was purcahsed via Steam like any ordinary, sensible person would.
Rating
8/10, lovingly re crafted, but I still feel like my money was taken from me too easily, with the hounds of nostalgia yapping at my Achilles.