For the last few years, the True Achievements community has celebrated summer by committing achievement hunter statistical suicide. Bean Diving, dreamed up by TA member Beanpotter, involves playing every game in your backlog until you pop at least one achievement in each.
The way I see it, there are a couple good reasons for taking the plunge (aside from the community event aspect of it). First, from an achievement hunting perspective, it makes your achievement stats an accurate representation of all the games you own; it means your completion percentage reflects your full collection.
Second, and I think more importantly, a Bean Dive gives you a taste of all the games in your backlog. It allows you to discover gems you may have purchased but overlooked. Past dives have gotten me really excited about some of the games I kept putting off. I take it as an opportunity to see what games I should be playing.
My Dive
This year, I figure I'll take some notes as I dive and share them with the world. Here's how it'll go down: I'll list a game, give an approximate amount of time to pop the first achievement, and then brief thoughts on it. At the end, I'll summarize the ones I'm looking forward to.
Asura's Wrath - 5 minutes - A beautiful game. The first level is a combination of Panzer Dragoon-type gameplay and quick time events. I think I'll enjoy playing it much more for the ambiance and story than the gameplay, but I'm looking forward to playing this one.
DiRT 3 - 5 minutes - DiRT 3 seems much more streamlined than its predecessor. Different options aren't as obvious, but I think that might actually make the experience a little less overwhelming. Should be a fun one.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - 10 minutes - Seems like this one's a pretty decent RPG, though completing the first quest doesn't show much of it off. I'm excited to come back to it.
Far Cry: Instincts Predator - <5 minutes - I didn't get much of a feel for this one, as I followed the solution on TrueAchievements for popping a simple multiplayer achievement.
Far Cry 2 - 5 minutes - This game seems like it'll just be your typical FPS. Nothing too exciting here.
FIFA 14 (Win 8) - 10 minutes - I'm not a huge fan of the sport in the first place, but I grabbed this game because it was free (I have to stop doing that...). It doesn't seem like it'll be a very fun game due to very simplistic yet frustrating controls.
Gotham City Imposters - <5 minutes - The achievement popped right as I booted the game, so I didn't play any of it. I already have the PC version, though, so I know what it's about. Seems like it'd be a lot more fun with a consistent group to play with...
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition - <5 minutes - The first achievement in this one is trivial, but I played the demo a bit earlier this week. I'm pretty excited to play this one for real, so it may be the first game I get into post-dive.
Kinectimals Unleashed (Win 8) - Another free game I'll regret starting. It just seems like it'll be incredibly tedious...
L.A. Noir - <5 minutes - The vehicle achievement can be done as soon as you get control of the character, so I didn't get to experience much here. I'll have to give it more of a shot later.
Microsoft Sudoku (Win 8) - <5 minutes - It's a basic Sudoku game. What do you expect?
Remember Me - 5 minutes - I'm intrigued. It's gorgeous, and it seems like it has an awesome story. Aside from running, there wasn't any gameplay in episode 0, so I can't comment on mechanics, but I think this will be another good one.
Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends - 2.5 hours - Nope, not a fan. I'm not sure why I picked this up in the first place years ago, as I've never really liked the "kill hundreds of mooks with sweeping attacks" genre. It's basically a button masher, and as such it's probably one of the last games from this dive that I'll play, if I ever get around to it.
Sanctum 2 - 5 minutes - I like this FPS-tower defense hybrid. This game may be one of the first I go back to after the dive.
Saints Row 2 - 1 hour - I'm losing interest in GTA-style games. Maybe it's just an age or maturity thing, but this one didn't appeal to me too much.
Saints Row: The Third - 5 minutes - This one seems much better. I think it's finally at the level of absurdity that it's essentially mocking itself and the sandbox crime genre. Smoother control scheme, too. Seems like a good one.
Spectral Force 3: Innocent Rage - 5.5 hours (I already logged 4 hours, though, so it wasn't that bad) - It's a turn-based strategy RPG, in the vein of classics like Ogre Battle and Fire Emblem. I like those kinds of games, though this one seems like it's exceptionally complicated.
Super Street Fighter IV - 5 minutes - I'm not a big fan of fighting games, and I've always preferred the ones that are way over-the-top to more competitive ones. This one seems like it'll be a pretty nasty grind for me. Not looking forward to it.
Tomb Raider: Underworld - 5 minutes - The tutorial wasn't bad, though the camera is pretty frustrating. Seems like a decent piece of the Tomb Raider marathon that I'll probably do at some point.
Viking: Battle for Asgard - 20 minutes - This game made a bad impression because I couldn't figure out where to go right at the start. It seems like it might be an entertaining third-person action game, though.
The Walking Dead: Season 2 - 10 minutes - Sequel to the popular adventure game; seems like more of the same. But that's not necessarily a bad thing!
21 games and nearly a full day later, my completion percentage has dropped a whopping 3.11%. I played another game for a couple hours, Dungeon Defenders, but I was still not even half way to the first achievement, so I decided to abandon it.
The Best of the Bunch
Having completed my dive, these are the games I'm most excited to play:
Asura's Wrath
Dragon's Dogma
Guacamelee!
Remember Me
Sanctum 2
Saints Row: The Third
I hope to review these games as well, so look forward to more detailed thoughts on these games in the coming months!
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