Well…that went poorly.

I knew when I was halfway through the month and I hadn’t completed the first Fatal Frame that I was likely going to fail, but I still had hope. I even had hope as of this past weekend. But when I never made progress in the first Fatal Frame, I knew I was headed for crapsville.

And friends, in crapsville I currently reside.

So I’ve decided to roll this challenge over to August. Yup, my goal is to beat the Fatal Frame trilogy before Until Dawn releases on the 25th. Because I have to tell you: once Until Dawn releases, that’s going to be my first priority. It’s my most anticipated game of the year, and I can’t wait to try it out.

I’ve written before about how horror movies don’t bother me, but how horror games freak me right out, and this month’s challenge fell victim to that. Basically, I wussed right out.

And that’s unacceptable. I want to have these experiences. I want to overcome those weird fears so I can have those experiences.

And that’s also my goal: to be more brave in my gaming.

I did make some game progress this past week, so that takes a bit of the edge off. My partner and I finished the Claptastic Voyage DLC from Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and it was far better than expected. I loved the DLC from the first Borderlands, and thought all the DLC from Borderlands 2 (excepting the Tiny Tina DLC) was lackluster, but this was so good on so many levels. It was genuinely clever, and weirdly moving at times. And of course, it contained the song I’ve not been able to get out of my head for nearly a week now: Mainframe.

I also finally got around to playing Her Story, which was an interesting experience. It’s a game that is difficult to explain, but it is more or less a detective sim. You interact with a computer interface and watch these old interview clips trying to piece together what happened.

In my nearly three hours with the game, I made four pages of notes trying to piece things together. When I felt I knew what the situation was, I activated the “endgame” and it sort of left me feeling odd. Not a good odd or a thoughtful odd, but a “Wait, what the hell?” odd. I had higher hopes for the game than how it all turned out. I’m certainly fine with ambiguous endings, but this sort of wrapped up one aspect in a blindsided way that felt cheap to me.

That being said, I liked the concept and most of the game. I just felt the ending wasn’t what I was hoping it could be.

I can not tell you how excited I am to dive into Until Dawn next month. Ever since it was announced years ago, I’ve been all over this game. When I got to play a demo of it around this time last year, it only cemented my interest. There are aspects of the story I want to know more about. I want to know how my choices will effect the story. I recently read you can make it through the game with all eight characters alive, with none of them alive, and any combination in between. I will do my best on my first run to make it through with everyone, but I love that the game holds so many possibilities. It’s a feat of game development, in and of itself.

I would also love to get back to the Witcher. I’m having a strong desire to return to the game now that the onslaught of patches has happened. And I’ve also been quite wanting to dive into Bloodborne, though that one may have to wait until October. November and December are going to be packed with huge games, and I’d like to have several of these other experiences under my belt before those blockbusters release.

Does anyone else have a challenge for August? If so, what are you hoping to accomplish?