GOG:
To The Moon Minisodes 1 & 2
A Bird Story
Broken Sword 5 - The Serpent's Curse
Commandos 2
The Longest Journey
Transistor
Roller Coaster Tycoon 2: Time Twister

Steam:
Fallout: New Vegas + 4 DLC
Just Cause 2
Gemini Rue
Deus Ex

PS3:
Puppeteer
Entwined
Rain
Ducktales: Remastered
Mirror's Edge

PSVita:
Tearaway
The Unfinished Swan
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1
Rogue Legacy
Guacamelee!
Touch My Katamari
Kick and Fennick
Uncharted: Golden Abyss
Virtue's Last Reward
Raman Legends
Atelier Rorona Plus
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Castlevania: The Dracula X Chroncles
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood


...I've really been lovin' my Vita this year.

Tetrobot & Co.

Really cute puzzle game. All in all a fun puzzle game with a nice little story which does not get boring because after every mini chapter a new mechanic is introduced. Just finishing the levels is normally not that hard but if you are going for perfect by collecting extra blocks the puzzles can be quite difficult.

The Darkness II

Pros:
Decent cell-shaded graphics, great voice work especially from the supporting cast.
New Game+ (not that I have any will to play the game a second time.)

Cons:
Everything else.

This game was hot garbage, a buggy mess, a piece of shit - take your pick.

The concept was decent but an absolute fail in execution.

Ultionus. This is essentially a tongue-in-cheek sequel to an old game called Phantis. Serena has just saved the universe only for some pretty-boy jerk to troll her on *ahem* Spacebook, so she sets off to get her revenge against him. It's a 2D action game. A couple of stages of shmup-style, one stage has you riding on the back of a dinosaur, and the rest involve walking, jumping, and shooting (as I understand it, this is largely the same as Phantis's structure as well). You can get a good or bad ending depending on whether you find the secret thing in each of the exploration levels.

This game won't melt your brain, but it's a pretty entertaining side-scrolling shooting game, and it has really gorgeous 16-bit-style graphics. I'll be looking for the creator's next game, which was Kickstarted a while back. Pro-tip: Instead of shooting as normal, which requires you to stop and lets the enemies close on you, get used to jumping forward and shooting constantly, because your rate of fire is doubled when you're in the air. Makes the game quite a bit easier and you'll have it as good as won once you get the boss patterns down.

Police Quest (EGA version). I get the sense that this game isn't very popular nowadays because everyone complains about having to follow the manual so closely, but to me that's what makes it interesting - that rigid adherence to police procedure. I can honestly say I learned a pretty decent amount about the drudgery of police work from this game.

The story is pretty cheesy, the driving is unecessarily hair-raising, and the puzzles aren't really that hard (because it's really just about figuring out what the proper procedure is for most of the game situations), but it's classic Sierra. I like it.

Red Dead Redemption Great open world/TPS type of game from Rockstar. It's so much fun just riding around the prairie hunting game and killing bandits and doing stranger missions. The story of John Marston is also pretty great and the game even has a pretty good ending. But most of my 40 hours was spent just roaming around and seeing the sights like the gorgeous sunsets, stars at campfire at night, snowy mountains, cacti, and just riding on my horse. There is quite a few side activities that can be undertaken like poker, horseshoe throw, shooting challenges and hunting challenges. Overall it's a great game that is among the best the PS3 has to offer.

I completely agree! Red Dead Redemption is definitely one of the very best games of the last generation, and a very good reason to own a console. I was about to say "it's a real pity there is no PC version", but then, thinking of how Rockstar usually treats its PC games, I think it is better this way.

If you liked RDR, you'd love The Witcher 3. You probably know this already, but those two games have a very similar feel, even if the settings couldn't be more different: roaming trough vast lands while hunting both normal beasts and unique monsters, scavenging for treasures or searching for ingredients, a tough and cruel world, deep main storyline and interesting side quests.
I'm glad CDProjeckt RED decided to take inspiration from Rockstar's and Piranha Bytes' games rather than from... other open world games with a huge fandom. :P

P.S. I finished several games, lately, but I didn't have time to write down my opinions about them. I think that when I'm going on "vacation" next week I'll drown this tread in comments! XD

Halo Master Chief Collection (Xbox One...obviously), Halo ODST (360), Halo Reach (360)

You know how it goes. I kinda felt like playing a traditional sort of linear action shooter for some quick simple fun. And i had the MCC as it came with the Xbox One, so i thought i'd finally give the original Halo CE (remastered) a go. Just the first game. But one thing led to another and 2 weeks, 6 Halo games and two live action series later...it's all done. My only previous Halo experience was an aborted underwhelming try at Halo 3 a few years back. Starting at 3 was the wrong move it turns out. Things went much better this time.
What's so good about the Halo games is that they know what they are, and make no effort to be what they aren't. At their core they are really just old style straight linear shooters. But perfectly balanced...the weapons all have a place and make sense, as do the vehicles and the lore and story is quite good. And probably best of all the enemies AI. They actually want to stay alive almost as much as you. They retreat and recharge shields, run, hide, frustrate you, draw you into ambushes. Seeing the Jackals in Reach form shield wall formations and advance is pretty awesome.

Halo 1: shows it's age for sure, gets a bit dull and repetitive but still has amazing AI for a game that is 13 years old. The vehicles handle like shit though.
Halo 2: improved everything, especially vehicle handling.
Halo 3: would be the best of the Master Chief games if it wasn't for 2 really annoying (to me) Flood levels.
Halo 4: my favorite of the Master Chief games because no more Flood. The new enemy is a lot more fun to fight.
ODST: completely different, no super soldiers here. Play as a ODST in an open city trying to find and link up with your other squad mates. Very solid game but quite short, more like an expansion.
Halo Reach: the best best paced linear story shooter i've played, that includes PC shooters. Best of the series for me.

A buggy mess? Could you give an example. Played through it multiple times and didn't really notice a lot of broken stuff.

Tell me about it! I happily installed this game a couple months ago and even more happily moved around blocks, having lots of childlike fun. Until one level very early into the game trolled me with a seemingly impossible golden block that I just couldn't get, you know one of those special ones one doesn't have to get. I'm primarily playing this type of game to have fun, and maybe feel like my brain is getting smarter (anti early Alzheimer's measure?) but that level stopped me right in my tracks. Should have just continued like some people recommended and returned to that puzzle later but then I went on to play a whole bunch of other puzzlers instead.
Currently "working" on 13 puzzlers, 30 point & click adventures, 15 strategy games, 4 RPGs. The puzzlers I'm most likely to abandon completely are Spacechem and Prelogate, both are excellent games but if one tries to relax and gaming isn't your main occupation then those aren't fun. Unless you're a math genius programmer / physicist type for whom this type of game is relaxing compared to their -actual- work. Those two games make me feel like I should get paid for playing them, not the other way around!



Great! Your reviews are a staple resource in this thread, I especially like to read the longer ones. Now you must spend your entire vacation writing long reviews but it looks like this is your own masterplan already!

I would advise you to just go on and come back later. I also did that because sometimes I was just completely stuck when trying to get all the golden blocks. I realised that when I returned later on, I often had a good idea and it worked out. Especially since sometimes there were some tricks you learned in later levels (blocking these moving walls etc) that I had not realised before :-)

Good to know I'm not the only one who just can't seem to stick to one game at a time and as a result ends up with an incredibly long "games in progress" list. :D

Yes, myself and the person I played through with both noticed the following over and over again during playthough:

1.) Unresponsive and inconsistent controls.
2.) Enemies walking through solid objects.
3.) Invisible walls/restrictions for no apparent reason.
4.) Inaccurate hit detection.
5.) Terrible enemy AI. (not really a bug, but bad programming.)
6.) Overall glitchiness during combat, especially while fighting multiple enemies at the same time.
7.) Auto-equipping different weapons than what I had in hand (for example, I have a single gun in hand and the game auto-equips dual handed - which I rarely if ever use. This happened multiple times during the game, usually right before an event. If this was intended that's even worse, I don't need the game to hold my hand and tell me which weapons to use at any time.

And this is just the bugs, I won't even touch on the game design.

For me, I absolutely hated this game. It seemed like it was rushed out on an unreasonable time-constraint.

Anyway, glad you liked the game, it seems most people did, it seems I rarely share the same opinion on anything as mass audiences.

A Mini Falafel Adventure

Let me spoil this post by going straight to the conclusion: A Mini Falafel Adventure is free and absolutely amazing. So why don’t you point your browser to its itch.io page and taste this sweet ball of chickpeas for yourself? Now back to regular review flow…

While its name evokes a bite-size time management/oriental restaurant simulator, that would be much too mundane for developer Beadybox! Instead, it has built a medium-size metroidvania, with Gameboy-like graphics, featuring a falafel in search of its falafel friend who got abducted by aliens. Oh, and chiptune disco music! If all that sounds amazing, that’s because it is!

A Mini Falafel Adventure is basically perfect because it achieves all of the goals stated in its description:
=> Memorable bosses? Check
=> Quirky characters? Check
=> Game-twisting new abilities? Check
=> Chiptune & Disco/Funk soundtrack? Check (and awesome!)

I said it was a metroidvania, but keep in mind it is of the linear kind. There is small room for exploration, but not much. One may lament the fact, but it makes for a very tight and intense game. The wait between exciting stuff is always short. Silly jokes, new power-ups, boss fights... everything arrives in quick succession.

Those fights are the heart of the game and they are all interesting, each one putting your newest abilities to clever use (think Zelda bosses). One of those abilities is the power to drop mines. They first release high-pressure gas, allowing you to reach high heights if you’re standing on them, then ignite flame-thrower-like to damage enemies (or yourself, if you’re not careful enough). It’s a device you’ll use a lot, and its originality is a big part of A Mini Falafel adventure’s appeal.

The graphics may be 4 shades of big gray (or other colors, you can customize the hue in the options menu) pixels, but they’re making the most of those self-imposed limitations. This is retro graphics at its finest, with more personality than many AAA 3D titles rendered in Full HD. Music is similarly delicious. Going through the levels happens to the (chip)tune of the music you come to expect from such games. Once a boss shows it ugly/cute face, though, we’re entering disco territory, sometimes with guitar riffs. I usually don’t like such technological anachronisms (you could not have such music on the Gameboy), but in Falafel, it just works! I loved it.

The game was made by a lone developer, Chris Nomo for three years in his/her spare time. It is incredibly polished, and I encountered zero bugs while playing it. Finally, fans of Super Mario Land will enjoy one the later levels that pays homage to the venerable title’s final section.

I recommend A Mini Falafel Adventure to absolutely everyone. I can think of few better ways to turn a lazy afternoon into an intensely fun adventure. And remember: it’s free! I’ve seen the developer lament on Twitter that he got absolutely no press coverage, which is totally unfair and unbelievable, so be sure to tell your friends about it.

Binary Domain.One of the many hiddem gems on the 360.Nice cyberpunk story with a basic but great world design.
Really great graphics and action set pieces,you fight a giant robotic spider on the second chapter for crying out loud!And you there's a lot of twists and turns on the plot that leave you guessing what'll happen next.
Overral,great game that sadly many people don't know about.