Finished Zeno Clash yesterday and it was a damn fine game. A weird world but the gameplay was quite cool.

Full (and final) list for this year: here for a total of 74 games.

Here are my 5 best of the year:
- The Wolf Among Us
- Murdered Soul Suspect
- Divinity II
- Blackwell Epiphany
- Stick it to the Man!

I just finished my last game for this year A Bird Story.

This is a short story about a boy who's (mostly) abandoned by his parents and bullied by his classmates. With no one to help him he's escaping into a dreamworld and has more and more problems to differentiate between reality and fiction.
One day he finds a bird who's chased by a badger. After saving the bird, they become friends. But this is not the end of his problems. His teacher and a vet won't accept the friendship and they stalk him day and night. Because of that the boy flees into his dreamworld.

[SPOILER]
During one of his bad days he kills the bird. He becomes depressed and can't even enjoy his stalker free life. The teacher and vet stopped stalking him, because plunging him into despair is what they wanted and they reached their goal.
At the end it turns out the bird isn't dead yet. The boy becomes happy, grows old and dies.
[/SPOILER]

I'm pretty sure the story isn't meant this way. But the actual story was pretty boring so I had to use my imagination to make it more fun (and dark).


Here's my list.

My last game of 2014 was The Blackwell Bundle. (Courtesy of LaPtiteBete. Thank you so much!)

What a great way to end the year! This is easily my favorite point and click adventure that I've played in years. The story sucked me in, and I spent hours at a time glued to my chair. The two protagonists are a perfect team, and they instantly became some of my favorite characters of all time. And there are plenty of other really fascinating characters to talk to throughout the series.
Just like other Wadjet Eye games, the art and voice acting were great quality. The music was really outstanding. I'm glad it has a free soundtrack as a bonus.

This was probably my favorite game that I played in 2014. I can't wait to start Epiphany. Thanks again, LaPtiteBete!

Full list.

The Witcher

This was my second take. Restarted from the beginning on Easy, intent on reading the glossaries, taking my time, accepting the controls and discovering that world. It's a funny thing when all the characters you meet in an RPG are meaningful and deserve your full attention. You feel like you're in a special world in which you matter. You can choose between right and wrong in your mind, but you don't always get what you want for you cannot see the consequences of your acts beforehand (The Witcher 2 is currently trying to make me depressive this way).

You can tell it's a book adaptation from the slow establishment of the characters, the political alliances and issues at hand, while you kill monsters and track a secret organization. When tension becomes chaos, the plot becomes epic beyond all your expectations and the payoff is one of the best I've seen in a game. I laughed, I felt disgust and I marveled at the brilliance of it all. Polish voice with English or French subtitles.

"This sword is for monsters."

The final game for this year is.... "drum roll"

... Saw: The Video Game

Saw is a horrible game. It's such a piece of s- "thud". "Dragging noises".

Ouch, my head. What's going on? Where am I?

Hello Grargar, I want to play a game. For years, you have been watching my movies for one and only reason; seeing other people die in horrible ways by my traps. But then, the Saw films ended and you became sad. You should rejoice though, for now, you can play my game!

But there is a catch. You have boasted about your gaming skills in the past; let's see how you can perform when your control over the game is far from optimal. You see, this game was meant to be played on an Xbox controller, but since you don't have any, you'll have to do with the inferior keyboard controls. Don't let me catch you trying to use x360ce or something else, or I'll just reverse your movement controls making it impossible to complete the game's QTEs. Do you stil feel like playing my game? The choice is yours.

Saw: The Video Game takes place in an asylum that has been abandoned by its personnel and has been overran by its inmates. Your goal is to escape from this dreadful place and try to find Jigsaw. Standing between you and your goal is the environment itself, which thanks to its lack of illumination and direct linearity, can be difficult to navigate and you must also watch out for the instant death shotgun traps that Jigsaw has set up. While exploring the game's decrepit-looking areas can be particularly suspensful, it all falls apart when you end up meeting the asylum's inmates. While you can get away from some of them by bolting one of the doors or setting some traps, you will have no choice for a number of them and must take them on directly. Unfortunately...

... the game's combat system sucks. There are many weapons to find lying around the environment, but there is no real reason to bother with them as they are slow and leave you wide open to enemy attacks. Stick to your bare fists or relish the rare times you will be in possession of a handgun, which can kill most of the enemies of the game in one shot, but has a limited number of bullets and can't be reloaded. Even then, you might still find yourself struggling with the combat as the block button doesn't seem to work and enemies can stunlock you into oblivion.

Aside from the environment and the denizens, you will also be challenged by the game's puzzles, which aren't particularly difficult and can be pretty repetitive. To make it worse, the game also implements timed puzzles in order to make up for the general non-difficulty of them, which means that you don't have time to dilly-dally. While it would be effective in short doses, the games ends up visiting the well of timed puzzles a bit too much, taking you back to the beginning of it when you fail. Something similar will occur when you have to save one of Jigsaw's victims at the end of each chapter. As a result and in stark contrast to the Saw movies, you can't progress in the game without saving them, which means that a particularly good player will never witness a single victim being killed. Also, none of them are the least bit grateful for saving them. Assholes...

As helpfully mentioned by Jigsaw above, the keyboard controls of the game are horrible and unbindable. Doing QTEs with either the keyboard arrows or by dragging the mouse never feels as natural as using the control sticks. Pressing 3 to heal, 4 to use your light source or either of them to avoid some gruesome death via QTEs feels very strange and so does dropping a weapon by pressing 5. Needless to say, prepare for some really bad controls if you don't have an Xbox controller.

In conclusion, Saw: The Video Game underdelivers both as a Saw movie and as a survival horror game. That's me being charitable due to the upcoming new year. Otherwise, I can easily say that...

Saw is a horrible game. It's such a piece of shit and you can bite me, Jigsaw!

Final list can be found here.

Happy new year and I'm eagerly waiting for the "Games finished in 2015" thread. Will you pick up the torch again, Austrobogulator?

Just recently:

Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, both Final Mix editions thanks to the recent HD release.

Diablo 3+Reapers of Souls expansion and thought it was OK.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Oveerated, thought ICO and God of War/Devil May Cry/Ninja Gaiden were better Action Adventures. (Though I am currently liking Warrior's Within better)

Last game I finished (well, got all endings at least) was Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (Vita).

It's a better game than the original (as far as new content, graphical look, and how the mechanics were slightly changed). The only thing that really bothered me was the new soundtrack. It felt too energetic and upbeat for the theme of this game. It wasn't a bad soundtrack by any means (there were plenty of tracks that I liked), but compared to the original it felt out of place. I guess there's the luck based aspect that annoyed me in certain situations, but it didn't feel any better or worse than the original. There's also some changes that made the game slightly easier (secret doors no longer closing when you leave a room, doors opening when you can't progress due to enemies being far away to kill, and soul/devil hearts dropping a lot at certain points), but then again it controls and performs better than the original...so there's that.

Overall, I say get it if you played the original and loved it.

Super Mario Bros (NES) - used the puNES emulator with XBOX Controller on Windows; unfortunately I cheated, i.e. unlimited lives :)

That's something really bothering me, especially when playing very old games: I just don't have the patience anymore and seem to be really spoiled by the "checkpoint" trend. Nevertheless I enjoyed and finally saw all the levels.


GTA V (PS4) - I bought it last year for XBOX360 but mostly focused on MP and when word was out it's going to be next gen/revamped I kind of quit and waited for it. On old-gen I played SP only about 25% and boy, am I glad I waited: the visuals really make a difference in perception/atmosphere of the world in certain areas.


Limbo (PC) - Great "artsy" game, enjoyed it. Used XBOX360 controller.


Deadlight (XBOX360) - That one really left an impression; so basic but the controls where very good (played like the early PoP game). Very nice GFX/intermission and atmospheric story. I wish there was a sequel sorts with Randall!

What I finished last this year was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare DEMO. I decided against getting the game proper as it was not really to my taste. But, before that short demo I finished Far Cry (yes, the first one) for the 5th or 6th time on 'veteran', 2nd hardest, difficulty; lowered from 'realistic' to allow for my age. The very beginning of the last level (Volcano) is still the hardest for me; a true pain in the arse and mouse hand.
Just some others recently played through: Master of Orion (1st one), Mount & Blade (again, the 1st one).

Ack, is that the one where if you as much as poke your head out of the entrance (elevator?), you get bombarded from around the map?

I think I abused the (introduced post-launch) quicksave/quickload to get past that, and it still took way too long.

Finished up one more game to close out the year.

Kingdom Rush: Origins - A pretty decent tower defense game, it's not easy and it does require strategy to figure out the optimal tower placement. This is first one of this series I've completed, and I will be going back to play through the previous ones. It's not quite as fun as Defender's Quest, another tower defense game I played this year, but it is a good game.

My list for the year: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post90

And now for a little discussion about what I liked this year:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
This whole series is very good at creating a world that feels real, and the open world nature of this game enhances that. Although there are fewer locations than the original, the three main areas are quite large and well designed with many interesting areas in them. The gameplay is as deadly as the Shadow of Chernobyl, and the world as unforgiving. The plot is essentially an investigation with many interesting revelations emerging throughout.

Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten
I had heard about this game from some websites, and when it came to GOG I took a look at the game page and wishlisted it. When I finally got around to purchasing it, I was hooked almost immediately. The addition of persistent towers ("heroes") and skill trees made the game more interesting, allowing specialization. The story is better than one might expect for a tower defense, and the characters make this happen.

Waking Mars
I picked this up in one of the build your own bundles GOG ran last year, and wasn't sure what to expect when I started playing. This is one of the best examples of a science fiction game in recent years, it doesn't rely on action to build the player's interest. Instead, the mystery and discovery in the cavern is more than enough. This game and The Swapper and recent examples of excellent science fiction games.

Alien/Zombie Shooter games
I played through all the Sigma Team games this year, and they were a blast. Now, they're not much for story or interesting gameplay; but they are fantastic for blasting through hundreds of aliens at the same time. They can't get a little annoying in the middle of the games, as you're going against increasingly tougher enemies and don't have quite the weaponry to counter that; but by the end of the game, you're rolling through them without any problems. If you're only going to get one, get Alien Shooter 2, as it is the most refined one of the bunch, and contains more involved RPG-lite mechanics.

Deadly Premonition
Calling this a Twin Peaks game doesn't do it justice. At first it hews closely to the premise of Twin Peaks, but it quickly grows into its own entity. The shooting and driving mechanics may be clunky, but the town of Greenvale is charming. The game has quite a bit to do, even though I only did a few sidequests, to keep you occupied for quite awhile.

Driftmoon
A charming little RPG I picked up in the same bundle as Waking Mars. It's not overly difficult or long for that matter, but it's wonderful for its length. It's a nice storybook-like fantasy tale, akin to the Trine series.

Chaser
This isn't a great game by any metric, but it's got some memorable moments. It's refreshing to see the player character (the titular Chaser) actually travel to his destination and encounter obstacles in the process, whereas a lot of shooters these days "warp" the player to the next shooting corridor. The voice acting is subpar, but it's always funny when Chaser gets angry/excited because he starts to sound drunk, which is good for a laugh.

Metro: Last Light
A great sequel to Metro 2033, it explores the ramifications of the canonical ending to the first game in interesting. The stealth is easier than last time, but allows for the avoidance of overwhelming fights in some sections. The only part I didn't like was the boss fights which were unavoidable and bullet spongy.

And looking forward to next year...

Games I started this year, but did not finish:
Age of Wonders: I really liked what I played so far, but I'm just not that good right now.
Total Annihilation: Same situation here, I reached the seventh mission of the ARM campaign, and am finding it rather challenging.
Alan Wake: I started a second playthrough back in August, and so far have finished 3 episodes. For the best playing experience, I've got to play at night with all the lights off.
Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines: After hearing great things about this game, I started to play it, but didn't get hooked right away. I might start with a different build to help out with some the challenges I encountered in the first part of the game.

Right after you get into the guarded building after crossing the lava in the 'Dam' level you face about ten elite grenade throwing mercenaries and one with a rocket gun too and you cannot retreat as the door locks behind you, Right after this you face off Krieger and four elites with that female agent as a hostage. Picture 5 seconds before I die.

No quick-saves for me but I admit wanting it in some spots. Fan patch 1.41 recommended, or mods.

Well, I thought "A Bird Story" would be my last game for this year, but just now I finished F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon, a great game to finish the year with.

This is a great horror 1st-person-shooter. Good graphics, good sound, good gameplay.
The game has two strange issues: It seems to have trouble with Logitech, because of that I had to disable a few HIDs.
And the game forgets the key for going backwards. I had to rebind it every time I started the game. The default key is ß, which is strange. Is that only an issue with the german keyboard layout?

And speaking of gaming-backwater germany. If you want the F.E.A.R. games, THIS is your best bet, as far as I know.


Here's my list.
I've finished 60 game this year, but most of them were short ones. The average playtime was 12:44h per game 764:03h for all of them... perhaps I should get a life...

Still NONE,
2015 Don't like my chances..
Gotta get there first 2016..:-)