The shortest month of the year is here and with it comes the most auspicious of competitive events in the world! Blood will be poured, tears will be shed, and sleep will be lost on what went right and wrong. No, I’m not talking about the Super Bowl. I’m talking about Four in February!
For those of you unfamiliar with the event,the goal is to complete four games in your backlog or games you’ve started and never finished. Some can be games you’ve beaten before, too, but the point is to aim for four completions. Pretty simple, but not always doable. However, we here at the 1-Up Cup do not shy away from challenges. As such, we’ve all put our proverbial money where our mouths are and compiled a list of things we’ll be grinding out this year. Check it out!
Bradburn
For my 4 in February, I am picking Transistor for the PS4, South Park: The Stick of Truth for the PC, Valiant Hearts for the PC, and The Wolf Among Us for the PC. All of these games have a theme, in that they were all on Game of the Year 2014 lists. The 3 PC games are all games I picked up during the Steam Winter Sale and would like to play to clear out my Steam backlog and Transistor I picked up at launch last year, just never played it until now.
I plan on focusing on one game at a time, starting with Wolf Among Us, then Valiant Hearts, followed by Transistor, and ending with Stick of Truth. If I complete all four prior to month’s end, my plan is to complete as many games as possible. These games include Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Game of Thrones Episode 2, Tales From the Borderlands Episode 2, and Fire Emblem: Awakening. I find I best play games when focusing on one at a time rather than multitasking games.
Hobbs
My 4 in February is a bit of a stretch; I know I’m pretty close to done with them all so I’m adding a 5th to round it out. My primary games are Assassin’s Creed: Unity for Xbox One, Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland for the NES, Bioshock Infinite DLC: Burial at Sea Parts 1 & 2 from Xbox 360 and Guacamelee! for the Xbox One My bonus game is going to be Magic 2015 for the since I know I started the game and love playing them but know I am close to done with all of the above listed titles.
To tackle this five-headed hydra, I’ll be running out Unity as soon as possible so I don’t lose my bet to Chris Johnston. Don’t know about that? Check out our 50th podcast! I’ll be streaming Guacamelee! for you guys on 2nd Shift Gaming every Thursday and I’ll have a youtube recap of my experience on the NES with Tiny Toons. I’ll be working Bioshock in whenever I’m between the other games.
Guffey
With 4 in February coming up, I decided to play Assassin’s Creed Unity, Mass Effect 3, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Duke Nukem Forever. Aside from Mass Effect 3, each of those games holds a special place in my heart due to their respective franchises. I recently got into the Mass Effect series and decided to save the third for February.
It was a really hard choice to decide on priority, factoring in game length. Assassin Creed games are generally longer, so it will be up first in my “to beat” list, followed closely by Mass Effect 3. GTA5 and Duke Nukem are already started so they shouldn’t take many more hours to complete.
Kiray
Four in February is somewhat daunting for me. However, 4iF is an opportunity to tie up some loose ends. Knowing what I can and can’t handle played a huge role in my selections for 4iF, and the combination of my need to finish some things left over, to try new things, and work within my own time constraints led me to pick the Borderlands 2, Prince of Persia, South Park: The Stick of Truth and The Swapper.
The Swapper is something new for me – if I’m going to push myself to reach some goals, I may as well test new waters at the same time. I’ll be returning to South Park: The Stick of Truth which, for those of you who have read my Salt Lick article about it, to put it politely, I had a bad experience with this game and never finished it. In a similar vein, Borderlands 2 was something I never found the time to plow through. Rounding that out I have Prince of Persia, which is kind of a cop out, as it takes no more than an hour to complete the game. However, I did say that I need to manage my expectations and I don’t just intend to beat the game; I plan on getting back up to my old standard of a roughly 35 minute completion time.
Grubb
Four in February is officially upon us and that means time to stop slacking. It is now time to man up and power through games I’ve been meaning to play or have started but subsequently stopped playing and haven’t beaten. I’ll be focusing on Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (campaign only). Now I know you’re all nervous – a few of those are large games – Dragon Age is nearing completion but I haven’t played it since November and Shadow of Mordor I’m about halfway through-ish.
The plan is to knock out Dragon Age then Shadow of Mordor. I’ll then take a quick jaunt through the campaign of Call of Duty to break up the Assassin’s Creed like gameplay of Shadow of Mordor, then on to Assassin Creed: Unity.
Bird
Last year for 4IF, I completed 4 and 1/2 games (4 games and 1 DLC.) This year, I plan on following suit. My list entails Grim Fandango: Remastered, Outlast and its DLC, Transistor, ObsCure and Fire Emblem: Awakening. These round out my current backlog while indulging in current endeavors and hype producers.
I plan on streaming most of these so that you can follow along with me. Fire Emblem will be something I have to work on in my spare time, but I’m still confident I can work that in there.
Ando
For my 4 in febuary I decided on picking some games I bought a long time ago and either never played at all or ones I played for like an hour and then quit for some reason. I have a giant backlog problem which I’m getting better at managing but two of mine I bought and haven’t touched them since I bought them months ago and now am finally gonna clear them.
Of the games I planned on playing are Spiderman: Friend or Foe. I don’t know why I never played or picked it up before; it looks decent and Bird says it plays like Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks so it can’t be too bad. Next is Ed, Edd and Eddy the Mis-edventures. I loved the show back when it aired on Cartoon Network and from what I’ve seen it has the same feel of the show. Next I have Wario World. I’m a fan of the Wario games and I’ve been putting off this one for some reason and there’s no time like the present. Last is Chibi Robo. I’ve played most of it; it’s a fun title for GameCube that really didn’t get enough recognition. It’s too bad it’s a really different type of game.
This is what we’ve got on the table. There’s a lot of variety here and a lot of tall orders. What are your games for the month? Let us know in the comments and keep us updated! We have to help each other through this!
