Bridge Constructor Medieval

There were a couple of improvements compared to the original Bridge Constructor. The campaign was more cohesive (this time, you could say there was an actual plot too) and the missions, where the objective was to build a bridge that would ultimately fail once all the enemies are on it, were really fun. On the negative side, the game was pretty short and the physics were still a little bit wonky. Also, this time it was impossible to build an uphill or a downhill bridge. Good bye crazy madman-built bridges only designed to work once. Well, it was still a nice little game.

Of the few "walking simulators" I've interacted with, Gone Home is probably the best designed and most stimulating, but in the end I'm just not into this sort of thing. Maybe if the story really blew me away, but Gone Home's story is pretty bland and ends up being yet another paean to misunderstood teenagers with an added bonus of crappy 90s punk on the soundtrack. I was more intrigued by the stuff going on with the parents, actually, but maybe that's because I'm getting old and cranky :p

Downloaded it yesterday, played a while, finished it this morning, uninstalled it immediately.

Have you played To the Moon? That's basically a walking simulator for the most part, just with a different perspective.

Yeah, I did play that one a while back. It didn't do much for me, either. I just don't think these sorts of games agree with me because I play games to feel tested, and an experience that consists of "walk here and push a button to make stuff happen" just doesn't address that desire.

I'd be interested about the effect Knytt Underground has on a person like this.
It's quite testing, but also forgiving and a LOT of exploring (walking, climbing, searching).

Finished Bret Airborne, some sort of crappy casual game on Desura. Not really good.

Full list here.

Superfrog HD
Some might call "Blasphemy!", but I think this remake is much better than the original game (which was great at it's time, but didn't age very well). Major improvement is the zoom function when you jump which helps you a lot to see what is going on. You no longer die, because of enemies that suddenly come out of nowhere or spikes you couldn't see beforehand (ok, sometimes it still happens, but it's rare).
There's also a proper save function now (you can return to every level one you unlocked it and while the one-armed bandit is still there after every level, you no longer need it to get a level code (instead it unlocks the original levels).
Controlling the frog is also easier, because you can use a gamepad now (which always makes platform games easier in my eyes).

But there are also some flaws: Sometimes it's hard to tell harmless background items from dangerous foreground stuff, because it looks similar or because there is too much of it on the screen. And while the overall level design was ok, the location of the checkpoints was a bit strange from time to time. Especially in the last level (where the first checkpoint was just some easy jumps away and after that you have to get through 60% of the level to reach the next one).

All in all I would say that it was enjoyable and I would call it a good game, but it's certainly far away from being a masterpiece in the platform genre.

Complete list of finished games in 2014

I finished a few this past weekend:

Hyrule Warriors - I was pretty much hooked on this game right out of the gate. I've never really played a Dynasty Warriors game before, but consider me a fan after playing this one. I could definitely see myself going back and playing more of the Adventure Mode and continuing to level up my characters.
Kung Fu - Ah, another cornerstone of my childhood! I had beaten this game many times before, but I hadn't done so in 20+ years. It was a giant wave of nostalgia and surprisingly, I still had a lot of the muscle memory required to beat many of the enemies.
Gauntlet (2014) - I know reviews have been mixed on this one, but I started it on Saturday and plowed through it in about a day. It took me about 8 hours and aside from the last boss feeling rather cheap, I thought it was great. It seems like it'd be a huge grindfest to max out the characters and such, so it's probably just a co-op game for me at this point, but I feel I got my entertainment out of it.

Full List
Full List + Details

The problem is I love RPGS. So I play 90% of the way through alot of the time and can't slog through the last 10%

Oh, yeah, that's a tough genre to make significant 'progress' in, with most of them being 40+ hours. And it sucks to abandon such story-heavy games halfway through or shortly before the end. I have a few on my list of unfinished games, too, including Arcanum, The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 2, NWN: Shadows of Undrentide, Avadon: The Black Fortress or Anachronox, to name just a few. :/

Have you played The Path? It gets thrown in with the walking simulator games but it does have some actual gameplay elements such as there being items to collect and the fact that you can get bad endings if you don't discover certain things, sort of like a point & click adventure game I suppose.

Ah, been there, done that. Daggerfall, Geneforge 2 and Baldur's Gate 2 come to mind.

Hidden object games are up for me. Nice change of pace, requires no "skill" and fulfills that gaming fix when I only have a moment to play each day and don't want to get into anything meaty.

Just finished Discovery! A Seek and Find Adventure. It was played out like a gameshow where you compete against other hidden object finding NPCs. Was beat in a day and has no reason to replay. Although it did attempt to offer unlockable mini games and challenge modes (but those are unlocked with little effort and don't seem to offer much reason to replay). Its story mode simply stated I had won everything... bah-bye, and then credits rolled.

Worth the price of the bundle it came in. Not worth much else with no real replay value. All IMHO, of course.

Now I'm on to Midnight Mysteries which are far more enjoyable in the same genre. Plot, better visuals, decent music, etc.

Hitman Blood Money

All the levels kicked ass, being able to chose between walking in there with an M4 or silently killing with fiber wire.
The finale was also awesome.