I finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown without the expansion installed. I really liked the game for it's pace: it's just like a chess game, you can take time to think about your moves and unlike chess, you can reload to try different approaches if something goes wrong.

After finishing the game, I allowed Steam to download the Enemy Within DLC expansion and started a new campaign, featuring the options of genetically enhancing your troops or building a mechanized power-suit. So I'm off to defeat the alien invasions a second time!

King's Quest V. I like most of this one, and it's nice to get back to King Graham after a couple of games about his kids, but this also has a few puzzles that were just really tough for me because they basically depend on the player eating some deaths to figure things out. Even as someone who likes Sierra games because I enjoy watching my character die, these were not very intuitive for me. The rest of the game is quite easy, though. Maybe I'm being too tough on it.

Cedric the Owl is a funny little character. I know many fans can't stand him but he made me and my wife laugh. I wish they'd been able to make him more functional in terms of solving puzzles, though, because while he serves some minor role in the plot, I can't recall a single puzzle that required use of him.

Bought the game and couldnt get into it. Had a hard time in the beginning passing the tank. I guess I just don't get where to position my troops. I will give atleast one more shot, as I should really like this game.

Just finished Darkstone. For the uninitiated, it's a hack and slash rpg with plenty of dungeons to explore with the obligatory side quests. It's pretty varied and while characters are classed as either Wizards, Warriors, Sorceress or Assassins, the builds themselves are flexible to a degree. For instance, if I recall, the Assassin vitality stat maxes out at 60 but there are potions and armour which allow this to be significantly exceeded.

You control two characters throughout the game. I chose an Assassin and Sorceress. With development, the Sorceress has access to loads of spells which is right up my street. The only downside is that I ended up relying on 3 or 4 buff spells and 2 attack/offensive spells.

Completing the game on the easier setting opens up more difficult options to play the game through from scratch. It's kind of relative though as you can export your characters who have also levelled up. Fortunately, a second play through provides different quests in order to achieve the same final goal...kill the baddie < I don't think that's a spoiler.

Graphically it does show it's age and I think I would find it hard to overcome if it was any older or inferior in its look.

Finally, yes, it is similar in gameplay to Diablo 2 but along with Nox, I prefer it.

I'm not sold on Galaxy in many ways, from a purely "Yes, this is clearly still in beta, and I have no idea when it will get out or what state it will actually launch in" sort of way, but I'll say this for it: the convenience of a client has motivated me to actually start chipping away at my GOG backlog. From my list in this thread, I see that until a few days ago, I'd played exactly one GOG game this year: Sam and Max Hit the Road. Otherwise, it was mostly non-PC games, with a few Steam offering's thrown in. With Galaxy, I've beaten two in under a week, and I'm midway through a third.

The Ballad of Reemus: When the Bed Bites is a nice, easy point-and-click that I had no memory of buying until I scrolled past it in Galaxy. When I say it's easy, I mean that even I managed to beat it without looking at a walkthrough, and in less then a day, so you can add "short" to that. The art is cute, the story is aimless but entertaining. The voice acting is also good. The main character is sort of a sociopath, which was surprising in what seems, in art, story, and presentation, to be a kid's game, not that I think kids would find it particularly upsetting.

I won't spend a lot of space on Telltale's Wallace and Gromit, since you can no longer buy it digitally. A pox on all licencing issues. If you've played Telltale's Sam and Max, think that, only kinder and gentler. I actually liked it better, although that might be because at only four episodes, it didn't wear out it's welcome the way the three-season Sam and Max did for me. By all means, if you happen to be in ... I don't know, wherever you'd buy physical copies of PC games; Walmart, maybe? ... and happen to see it sold at a reasonable price, by all means give it a try.

I just had it fullscreen but in 4:3 ration rather than messing about trying to get it to work in widescreen. It worked fine for me in its vanilla state so don't know of any tech solution. Sorry for asking but it took me a while, are you aware that you can spin the camera view, zoom in and out as well using your keyboard arrows? I'd recommend you try get a solution as, if you liked Diablo, I'm pretty sure you will like Darkstone.

Sorry I can't be of any more help.

I'll play with it some more. I still have the install file here on my hard drive.

Apotheon

Had time for one more game on my current computer. It's a pretty decent Metroidvania-ish game, although it began to get a bit tiring near the end, mainly because the combat is a little bit funny. A bite from a wolf can send you flying 15 meters into the air: hell, when I was fighting Poseidon, I was even flung into the clouds several times (although he's a god, so it makes a bit more sense). The AI fights like rabbits on speed, jumping and rolling all over the place; thus I didn't find any tactics in fighting. I just mashed the attack button. I did enjoy the setting and art design though. When I was a small boy I was a huge fan of Ancient Greece history.

Not the best game of this genre I've played, but not bad for the low sale price I paid for it. The setting makes up a lot.

Grand Theft Auto V (Xbox360)

Not particularly original choice, but pretty damn great nonetheless.

Man in a Maze
I enjoyed this game much more than I thought I would. Enter the maze, collect all gems, coins and tokens, destroy all robots, escape! That's it and it's perfect fun.

It is also a perfect coffee break game, because you can beat each level in about three minutes. Technically everything was fine, especially controls are very tight (I used a gamepad). I didn't like the gameshow aspect of the game too much though. It tried to be funny too hard, but it was too tame for a good satire.

Complete list of finished games in 2015

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel including Claptastic Voyage (Xbox One Handsome Collection)

Nothing in it that will change the mind of someone that hates Borderlands. But for anyone that loves Borderlands like me, then it's still a must play. It fills in lots of little details in the overall Borderlands meta story- which is the best story ever told in a FPS ever! About 40 hours of play to get through it all in standard mode and an hour into "true vault hunter mode" so far.
Highlight: a flip of the coin between getting to use Moxxi's back door and the Claptastic Voyage quest "You Can't Stop the Music" which is the most annoying and funniest side quest in the series.
Oh yeah and that final boss in Claptastic Voyage is a son-of-bitch, probably the hardest FPS boss since the old days for me, took me about 10 tries before finally beating it in a superb combination of figuring it out, skill and dexterity and luck. No cheaty safe spots like in the other games.

Downside: Who likes underwater levels? No one likes underwater levels. The Pre-Sequel initially feels like one huge underwater level with it's oxygen mechanic. However you soon learn that the system is actually pretty generous with oxygen fills and generators...i soon learned to deal with it and only ran out of air a couple of times in the entire game to be honest. So don't let what you've heard about that part of the game put you off if you like the other games.

Will take a rest now before finishing the true vault hunter play through at a later time.

Tales From the Borderlands: Episode Three- Catch a Ride

Because there's no such thing as too much Borderlands. Extra points in this episode for surprisingly tying directly to the Pre-Sequel story line in one of those "ah so that's how it happened" moments. Just have to wait for the final two episodes now.

I enjoyed Darkstone enough for one playthrough but I didn't find the quests quite interesting enough for a second playthrough. I did start a 2nd run but the randomizer gave me the same quests as on the 1st playthrough so I decided to leave things at that. Didn't get that same pull to play it over and over like Diablo 2. Overall, I had more fun with NOX than Darkstone but I have to hand it to Darkstone that there are some cool puzzles. Although the one with the eye orbs was a bit annoying, had to backtrack through several floors worth of dungeon just to find one eye I missed :/

After my first playthrough, I checked a guide to see if the quest variations were big enough to make it worth the effort. I think it's cool that there are different quests as opposed to Diablo 2 which has the same ones all the time.
Tinkered a bit with the other classes in Darkstone but only finished the game with the amazon.



You have to mentally switch to "PS1 nostalgia mode" then it's very bearable.

Sam & Max Hit the Road

Yup. A point and click adventure; been so many years since I last played one and, coincidentally enough, it was Sam & Max Save the World. Now, I do remember some stuff from Save the World, but not enough to judge whether Hit the Road is better or not. All I can say about Hit the Road is that it's a pretty funny game, and I never got tired of the crazy anthropomorphic duo. Simple controls with no need of any manual and a great soundtrack (too bad GOG doesn't offer a download for it.) only help to complement the experience. I really had a blast with that one.

The only things that I found hampering the experience a bit are that walking from one area to another can be slow at times (looking at you Biggest Ball of Twine), it's not always clear when an area can scroll, as you need to approach the edges with your character and not the mouse cursor, and it's also not always clear when there is another area you can go from your current location. Yes, faults of the time, I understand, but I still felt the need to mention them.

Now, time to play Sam & Max Save the World again. But before that, list!

Thief 2 - The Metal Age

Finally I finished this game. The last level was quite long and exhausting, but still quite interesting when you knew what to do. Is Thief: Deadly Shadows a direct sequel to this, as the ending seemed to suggest continuation? I had the impression the third Thief game is more independent game (story etc.), as it was the first Thief game also released for consoles. Wasn't it also made by a completely different development team? Oh well, I guess I will find out...

Overall Thief 2 was quite a good game, I enjoyed it. It had better a level design and less annoying enemies than the first game.

Now I am thinking whether to continue with The Deadly Shadows, or finally play Deus Ex. I had this weird fixation that I wanted to finish at least the first two Thief games and System Shock 2, before starting Deus Ex, maybe fearing Deus Ex will lessen the experience of playing those other games afterwards, or something...

It is not like there aren't lots of other games I've always supposed to start playing, like the Homeworld series, Battlezone 1-2 etc. etc. etc.. Or maybe I should surprise myself and play some short indie game, or some new-ish AAA title instead? Heck, start the Witcher series properly at last?

This is the part where I feel like a child in a candy store which I own myself, what to pick next from the vast gaming library...

EDIT: Oh, I recalled I do have many games yet to be finished, like Nox and Tomb Raider...