Hitman: Contracts (1:03pm 19th sept)

some good levels, some bad levels and one awesome level. traditions of the trade is one of the best levels ever.

Interesting, my experience was quite opposite of yours. Not that I thought it was the most thrilling story I've ever played through, but the story-telling didn't bother me that much, I thought it was okay, and the gameplay worked quite well for me; the fewer but tougher opponents combined with the darkness and the lack of savegames (but a rather generous amount of lives) made exploration and combat exciting enough for me. On the other hand, I played a bit of Alien Shooter's demo and I quickly got bored and lost interest in it. I can see why you would prefer one over the other, based on your preferences, but maybe we were just looking for different kinds of games and they cater to different kinds of players?

My expectations from this game was that of a top-down shooter, something that it didn't succeed all that well. Mixing mid-level cutscenes into this kind of game feels silly to me and I wouldn't notice any kind of difference if they were removed. I would argue that it would actually make the game better, as I wouldn't have all this chatter of people just telling the protagonist to go there or do that or feel like an errand boy. It would also work to enhance the feeling of being lonely in dark places against a number of big threats.

Still, that wouldn't improve the overall sterile feeling of the game, along with the not so satisfying shooting. As for the lack of save, it didn't make the game more dangerous for me, as I had lives, but instead made it a pain in the ass, as I had to play the whole level in one go, which I absolutely detest when games do that.

I don't like that either, and there are good reasons for having to quit the game half-way through a level, so in that case I would agree with you. But I think pretty much everything else you say is based on your personal set of values and expectations, which is perfectly fine, but it just confirms that this game wasn't made for players like you. What would you think if someone wrote: "My expectations from this game was that of a FPS, something that it didn't succeed all that well." or "My expectations from this game was that of an RPG, something that it didn't succeed all that well"? ;) I think it would be pretty boring if every game followed a very restricted genre code and all games in the genre felt the same. This one tried something different, it didn't work at all for you, it worked alright for me.

The majority of the game is shooting; a lot of shooting and the upgrades are catered towards the shooting part. You can't do much else other than shooting. If you are not shooting, you are either walking slowly amidst corridors or watching a cutscene. If there was something else you could do, I would be inclined to not consider it a top-down shooter in the veins of Alien Shooter or Crimsonland, but it has nothing, thus I judge it as flawed, when compared to those two. Mind you, I'm not saying Alien Shooter is without flaws (Stupid, stupid pathfinding), but I'm willing to tolerate it because I really enjoyed the shooting.

Of course. You're free to like it and I'm free to think that it's not that great of a shooter. :)

Superfrog

Well, playing Superfrog HD on its own when I already own the original would be a big no, so I decided to play the original. Against my expectations, I was actually able to complete it pretty fast. Anyway...

First impressions are absolutely positive. The game looks great, especially when one considers its age (just 21 years old) and despite being just the DOS port (which I imagine looks worse than the Amiga original). Complementing the nice art is also the very catchy music and you have a game that definitely knows how to present itself. Cute game, isn't it?

WRONG! As soon as I took control of the mighty amphibian, the first problem that I encountered was that the game was too fast. No, nothing wrong with the cpu cycles, but the damn ampibian is just too fast. Who the hell does he think he is anyway, Sonic the Hedgefrog? But I did get used to the speed, though given the structure of the game, I really have to question the need for such speed, as much of the game is based mostly around jumping (well, you are a frog).

Which brings us to one of the game's big problems; the jumping. It's just impossible to control the height of the jump. Even if you just tap the button lightly, the frog jumps too much, which can make it difficult to kill opponents by jumping on top of them. But the biggest issue with the jumping is combined with another big issue to make it even worse; the gaming area is too zoomed in and it can be difficult to predict the danger ahead, including my dearest friends, the spikes! It's also impossible to look up or down, thus the frequent leaps of faith lead to frequent deaths by spikes, alright. Did I mention that the spikes cause instant death, regardless of your health and that they are not necessarily limited to pits? Fun times will be had by the realization that the game's collision detection might be a bit miss as even touching the side of the spikes will instantly kill you and the game seems to revel in this by placing springs below spikes, ensuring some pretty frustrating moments. Add the frog's speed into the mix and accidental death by spikes will be the majority of your deaths.

Another problem is the lack of saving. The game, instead, provides passwords like Mega Man... or not exactly. You see, after the end of each stage, the game grades you based on how much time it took you to finish the stage, along with how many fruits and coins you collected (coins are important in this game, because a certain amount of them is needed to unlock the exit door). It then grants you tokens that you can use to gamble on a slot machine and you if you succeed in lining up 3 cans, you'll get the password. Yeah, I'm not particularly thrilled by that implementation.

With all this frustration, why did I persist then? Because, even with the aforementioned issues, I found the game fun. Sure, it was hard and unfair, but it was still fun exploring all the nice-looking worlds of the game, doing huge jumps around the various stages and feeling smugly satisfied when I dodged one of the damned spike pits. My final verdict is frustrating, but fun.

Full List.

Hello, it's me, the head! Wait, no, that's not what I wanted to say. Let me try again...

Hello, it's me again! This time, Zombie Shooter 2 has bit the bullet.

Just like the first Zombie Shooter felt like a reskin of the first Alien Shooter, in the same way, Zombie Shooter 2 feels like a reskin of the Alien Shooter 2. Same characters, same environments, same skills and some of the same weapons. Zombie Shooter 2, unfortunately, lacks the challenge and danger of Alien Shooter 2 and is without the doubt the easiest of the series, with weak enemies and a plethora of never-ending ammo. There is not much I can say about this installment, since I didn't find anything particularly noteworthy on it. Yes, it can be a greatly cathartic game just like its predecessors, but it just doesn't feel as satisfying as them. Here's hoping that if Sigma Team ever make Alien Shooter 3, they will fix the pathfinding problems, as well as add a longer soundtrack. Hopefully, it can surpass Alien Shooter 2 (which I consider the best in the series).

List updated again.

I didn't finish Half-Life, but I'm finished with it. bad-tum-tish

Broken Sword 2
Blackwell Bundle
Resonance
The Shivah
Runaway
The Longest Journey
Gothic 1

I have to admit that I did not know about Wadjet Eye until the first Insomnia promo when I bought the Blackwell Bundle because of the positive reviews. After playing through Resonance, The Shivah and the first four Blackwell games I am pretty excited about Gemini Rue and Primordia. The money was definitely well spent

Finished the Campaign for Resident Evil: Revelations PC.

Added it to my 2014 Completed List:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post79

Falskaar, a fan made full length DLC for Skyrim. It's impressive in scope, considering it's just a mod, it's fully voiced, has a several hour long main quest, has side quests, and takes place on an all new land mass (that is a bit bigger than Solstheim) that even includes dungeons, ruins and forts.

The main quest is actually pretty good, like a more intimate version of Skyrim's civil war, the voice acting is decent enough and the island of Falskaar is well laid out. The dungeons themselves are pretty cool and have a bigger feel than vanilla Skyrim's dungeons, without being too big.The lore generally makes sense and the characters and the story is interesting and written well enough.

It does have some bugs, the final mission of the main quest bugged out in three different areas and I wouldn't have been able to complete it without the use of the console. Other than the final quest it crashed a few times randomly after quicksaving. It also gave me an incorrect quest marker once or twice. The other major flaw(s) would be the quests tend to send you across the island which is bad enough, but several quests assign you a follower who will only walk to the destination. That means you can get to the destination within ten minutes but you're going to be waiting a while (either in-game or in real life) before they show up.

Shelter completed. Well, at least I think so. Hard to discuss without spoilers. But a worthwhile experience.

Maybe a case for this thread then? I'm still deluding myself that I may *one day* try and finish it, even though I hate it right now. ;)