Having finished punishment platformer Mr. Bree+, I thought it was a good time to take it easy, and have completed Fester Mudd Episode 1, a consciously old-school adventure game by Josh Mandel, who is apparently an old-time Sierra person. I got this as part of a Groupees bundle, so it also plays into my delayed, but not cancelled, attempt to actually play some of those.

It's fairly short (maybe two hours), and fairly easy, even for me--and I'm pretty lousy at adventure games. I understand the difficulty of balancing difficulty, and I think that "slightly too easy" is better then "bash my head against nonsense puzzles until I give up," but I also understand that there's satisfaction in finally solving a difficult puzzle, and this game doesn't offer much of that. As for "short," that's to be expected from an episode in an episodic game, but if you're thinking of paying the full ten dollar price tag, another hour or so might be nice.

It also suffers from pacing issues--after an initial puzzle, it actually does the "This guy will help you, but first you must perform four tasks!" thing; from a plot that doesn't do much--because the time that might have been spent advancing the plot is spent doing four unrelated tasks; and from a sense of humor that is sometimes to juvenile for its own good ("It's funny because farting!"). Still, it has its charm. I'd play the remaining episodes if they ever come out, but probably not at full price.

(And hey, I'm actually also starting The Bridge, although in my case it's a coincidence--I already owned it from some Steam sale or other, and finally decided to get around to it yesterday.)

edit: Just read that poor sales are probably going to mean no second episode. Well ... I sure didn't buy it full price, so I guess I can't really complain. Think they probably priced themselves to death asking $10 for a short episode. This is not the only "first episode turned only episode" that I have sitting in my bundle backlog.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Really, Neocore? Really now? You shipped the game with just one class and made the other two classes DLC? The companion too? Wow...

Anyway, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is, as I expected, a Diablo clone. A pretty one, but not a very satisfying one. While I appreciated the challenge that the game posed (at least at the beginning), I considered the character building capabilities heavily lackluster. Playing with pistols felt seriously handicapped because Van Helsing is so slow, I had to go in circles to dodge, shoot, avoid the enemies and not provoke other enemies. Thus, I stuck to melee, which is less of a hassle, though ranged enemies can be annoying at times. Even then, though, there was no whirlwind attack and no jump attack like Diablo's barbarian, so I always felt that Van Helsing was a pretty inflexible guy.

As I mentioned above, the game was challenging at the beginning with enemies able to kill you pretty fast (damn harpies or whatever they were) if you just stand around and don't move. Later though, enemies started becoming sponges, but so did I, making the game a hold-the-left-or-right-click to kill enemies, while occasionally pressing space to enhance my abilities, Q to use a potion and 3 to rush straight through them dealing some nice damage. Personally, I would prefer if they dealt more damage and had less HP, but oh well.

I also mentioned above that the game is pretty and, with the exception of the swamp level (Blergh!), it indeed is. Having said that, the transition between gothic and steampunk locations feels particularly jarring and I would have preferred if they had stuck only to a gothic setting. Also not helping the game's pace is the small amount of small maps (which feel large thanks to the large amount of enemies) which contribute to my overall unsatisfaction with the game. Yes, I enjoyed it somewhat, but I really wish I could have enjoyed it more.

List updated.

Just finished Morrowind for the first time as a level 18 Imperial Knight(Longsword + Shiled + Heavy Armor. A bit magic used).
Well,at least finished the main quests line. I even haven't begun two expansions yet...maybe in later days.

My list

Ittle Dew

Truly is a cute Zelda, charming, not too challenging, but still some puzzles and boss fights made me think a little bit. Hints are everywhere if a child needs them. Very well done, not too long.

Include me

Battlefield 1942
BloodRayne
BloodRayne 2
Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Remastered
Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror
Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth
CastleStorm
Commandos Ammo Pack
Final Doom
Long Live the Queen
Max Payne
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Penumbra Collection
Peggle Deluxe
Postal 2
Retro City Rampage
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Star Wars: Republic Commando
System Shock 2
Unreal Tournament 2004

A couple of days ago I finally finished The Witcher (first one). Great game and even though I owned it for quite some time, it wasn't until recently I could play through it since I didn't get a new computer until just recently. The computer I have is kind of old and was a gift from a friend so I'll have to hope it's strong enough to run The Witcher 2 well enough.

Well not exactly finished, but it feels like it: finally managed to destroy that blasted FTL flagship

Depression Quest :) Yeah, seriously, after all this drama I had to play it myself.
I was honest, focused, took medications and invited a cat. And I kind of won \ gpt happy ending in no time. After taking some classes in psychology, clinical psychology and psychotherapy I don't think it's that easy...

Trauma. It took about nineteen minutes, I ended up with one of the "Alternate Endings". Interesting game and the "draw your action" reminds me of Arx Fatalis' magic system.

I finished a couple of games recently:

Kabuki Warriors - I picked this game up a while ago for like $2, despite the fact that it was supposed to be a horrible game. I ended up playing it so I could make a youtube video out of it and was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty bad, but it wasn't quite as bad as I expected it to be. It had a few interesting ideas, but the fighting engine just wasn't very good and unfortunately, it's a fighting game!
God of War - If you've been following my posts on this thread (NOTE: I know nobody has actually been doing this :P), you may have noticed I knocked out a couple of my personal white whales (Sacrifice and Baldur's Gate). Well, you can add another one to the list. This game has been on my list since I first played it at a friend's house right after it came out. I had tried to play it a few times and I would always get frustrated it since I wasn't very good. So this time I decided no matter what, I was finishing it, even if I had to lower the difficulty down. And guess what, I ROLLED through it this time! It was a pretty solid game and I would've jumped right into the sequel if I hadn't gotten addicted to Shining the Holy Ark...

Full List
Full List + Details

Finished quite a few games since my last post oO

Child of Light

A new RPG in the tradition of classic JRPG's and it's just magical. Ubisoft created one hell of a beautiful game. The graphics are very beautiful and the environment is just breathtaking. It feels like if a children book has come to life. The story is also very nice, with some twist and became surprisingly dark near the end. Because this game is supposed to be a new 'JRPG' (even while it was developed by Canadians and not Japanese lol) the gameplay feels very classical and reminded me a lot of the old Final Fantasy games, I liked that a lot. The game also has an incredible soundtrack with one of the best boss battle themes I've ever heared, you just have to listen to that soundtrack. In total I was very happy with this game, because it really felt like a traditional japanese RPG and that is a nice change from all those western RPG's we got lately. If there's one thing I could complain about it's the lenght of the game, because I already finished it in 10 hours. But those 10 hours were soooo magical. A small, but very fine RPG gem, maybe even a masterpiece in one way or another. I really hope that Ubisoft will develope another JRPG soon!

Amnesia : The Dark Descent

The granddaddy of the modern survival horror games and the 'scariest game of all-time'. Compared to 'Outlast's' jump scare festival this game is full of a dark, twisted atmosphere and is actually scary. May it be the sound effects, the music or just the environment itself, everything is just damn creepy. You run around a big, dark castle and your only weapon is a lantern, which needs to get re-filled with oil from time to time. The gameplay is similiar to the 'Penumbra' series, so that you can move all objects around with your mouse. When your character stays too long in the dark or looks at something scary his sanity meter will go down and this can become dangerous. So try to turn on your lantern, but you have to watch out, the monsters can see you in the light. There are not many monsters in this game, but the ones who are were actually very scary and they can run fast. The only way to escape from them is to hide in a wardrobe or to run faster than them, because there are no weapons to fight back. I enjoyed this game a lot and it was very long for an indie horror game, it took me 5 hours to beat this game. I was just disappointed with the story a bit, sure it was twisted as hell, but the ending was extremely disappointing. Besides that, this Lovecraftian journey was great and the scariest game I've played so far. That storage and that damn prison *shudders* I should had played this on Halloween, a real horror masterpiece!

Amnesia : Justine

This DLC only took me 30 minutes to beat, but damn was that a fine DLC. This time you're not inside a castle, but inside of a torture dungeon. While the main game had many supernatural elements this DLC is grounded in reality. You are in the hands of a woman called Justine and the 'monsters' roaming the halls of the dungeon were other torture victims of Justine. She tortured them, removed their eyes and they believe that the player is Justine, that's why they attack you as soon as they can hear you. I liked this grounded in reality approach a lot, it was a nice change of pace from the main game. You're also able to save 3 other torture victims, depending on how many you will be able to save the game's ending will change a bit. The gameplay is the same as the main game's one, except for a missing lantern and a perma death system. If you get killed, you have to start all over again. Thanks to this system the final chase scene is one of the most terrifying moments in game history and will make your heart beat like crazy. Very great DLC, just a bit too short for my taste.

Amnesia : A Machine for Pigs

So this is the controversial sequel to the 'scariest game of all-time'. For starters, the gameplay has changed a lot, it has become very linear and you can hardly interact with any objects. If you can pick up an object, you will know that you have to use it soon. There's also no sanity meter anymore and the entire gameplay has become very 'short'. Many people use to call this game a 'walking simulator', which is kinda true, because the game will always lead you to the right way. The only difference is, that there wouldn't be any monsters in a 'walking simulator', while there are quite a lot of monsters in this game. The atmosphere of Victorian London is just great and the artistic style sometimes gave me a big 'BioShock' vibe. The environment, with all of it's machines, is still very creepy, even while the monster encounters have lost their scary touch. But where this game really shines above the first game is in the music and story department. The soundtrack for this game is just incredible (especially the track 'Mandus') and the story is one of the best and most thought provoking storylines ever written for a game. I was very surprised that I enjoyed this sequel more than the first game, even while it's way less scary and has not a much of gameplay. But there is something to it's twisted story and great soundtrack which is just fascinating. Maybe a disappointment in the scare department, but in my opinion a masterpiece of psychological 'mature' horror.

Great reviews, thanks! I didn't know Amnesia was that short, maybe I should give it another try. Does Child of Light have random battles and grinding or can you completely rid areas of opponents?

But that's just optional, for those who are fond of grinding? You're not forced to travel back and fight the same opponents again or repeat battles until you're strong enough to continue the main story?

No you're not forced, you can even avoid enemies while you visit a place for the first time. If I remember correctly the only forced battles were the boss battle ones. But I would recommend to fight some old opponents, because after every level up you will get skill points to learn some new skills, like 'Light Ray' magic etc. which will be very helpful forsome later boss battles. But it's up to you how you want to play it and how challenging you want the boss battles to become ^^