Deadpool (PC)

Do you regularly clear out your browser cache? I think that's when such savegame data from Flash games is erased. I do and therefore hate when games rely on the cache. (But I guess I played through Dominique Pamplemousse in one or two sittings, so I didn't notice it's guilty of this design flaw, too.)

Yes, I think that's the reason. My browser cache is cleared when I shut down the browser. Tried to change the settings when I wanted to play NEO Scavenger, but the the save file was still gone once in a while.

And now I've just finished another long standing game - Enter the Matrix
Such an odd game with so many whacked-out design decisions
I actually technically completed it twice over because I took Ghost and Niobe through each level in turn - which is one of the more annoying design decisions right there - you choose between 2 characters at the start and most of the levels are the same but the paths diverge just enough so occasionally you have completely different level sections or slightly different cut-scenes or, in vehicles, if you're Ghost you'll be shooting while if you're Niobe you're driving so there's JUST enough to make you feel like you're not getting the full experience unless you play as both of them, and it's not even like they 'feel' any different to play as either!
Another odd one is that you have regenerating health but also there's health packs hidden away as little bonuses but by the time you get to them your health has regened by itself anyway!
I also did pretty much all the hacking stuff and used the code to unlock the 'training construct' secret level but I just found trying to kill 20 guys in the first training sub-game to be too frustrating especially as my char kept switching back to hand-to-hand right when I wanted him to shoot a guy!
One for connoisseurs of weird game design in otherwise AAA budget titles and / or huge Matrix fans only (although if your THAT big a fan you probably played this a decade and a half ago already!)

Full list:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2015/post118

Sea Legends : Phantasmal Light

Interesting setting/story. But gameplay I would say was probably my least favorite HOG so far.

Way too many searches, many of them rehashing prior boards/items. Puzzles were a mix. I'd been a bit undecided how to rate this game, but it tilted towards thumbs down when, on the final puzzle, one of the objects I needed to click was 'hidden' behind the 'back out' movement.

So twice in a row, despite trying to be careful, I backed out of a nearly completed puzzle and came back in to find it had reset back to the beginning.

The other big drawback is that, compared to similar games that require constant schlepping back and forth across multiple screens repeatedly, there was no map to just bypass. All that clicking, seemingly, was to cover over the fact there's really not that much content.

Compared to a game like Lost Lands: Dark Overlord, there's maybe only 1/4 to 1/3 of the actual content. That game took me much longer, and was much more enjoyable, despite constantly using the map for fast travel.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "don't play" but...it really leaned the most 'hidden object-y' and least adventure game-y of the HOGs I've played.

A Virus Named Tom
Somehow this game can't decide if it wants to be a puzzle game or an arcade game. The mixture is fine for the first few worlds, but the last one is a nightmare. You have to solve complicated puzzles and at the same time you need godlike reflexes to evade extremely fast enemies that come after you in great numbers. If that's still not difficult enough for you, there's also a ticking clock in the background to remind you that you'll have to do the whole thing, before your precious time runs out.

I like challenging games, but this was too much for me. In the end I used my collected tokens to skip the last few levels. I might have been able to complete some of them (but certainly not all), but it wasn't fun to even try.

Liked the cutscenes and the music though and I think that the game might be fun in cooperative or battle mode (which I didn't try, because there's only a hotseat mode and I have no one to play these kind of games with me).

Complete list of finished games in 2015

Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb (GOG)

I found this to be a very enjoyable point-and-click adventure.

I’m not sure exactly why I liked it so much. The characters are mostly one dimensional stereotypes but the voice acting was well done (if a bit hammy at times), there are a few maze-like areas (however they are easily mapped if you get out your pen & paper), the puzzles are all mostly quite easy (there are only a limited number of items you are carrying at any one time), and the plot is quite linear and only has a few humourous parts.

But somehow it really grabbed me, I think it was the world/setting which really caught my attention and made me want to explore and find out more. I’m not shy at all about quitting games if I’m not really having a lot of fun, and this game pulled me through right to the end. I would definitely recommend it to any point-and-click lovers, it’s a hidden gem (or at least it was to me, I’d never heard of it before!)

Bionic Commando Rearmed is a pretty faithful remake to the NES version of Bionic Commando. Run and gun gameplay in mostly vertical-scrolling stages? Check. Grappling gun? Check. Inability to jump and inability to shoot vertically/diagonally? Check. World map that gives a limited freedom on how you can proceed with your mission? Check. Communication centers? Check. Various weapons and items that you can find and use? Check.

There are differences, though. Aside the typical enhancements to graphics, soundtrack and physics, the game now allows you to fast-forward any dialog from the communication rooms and it autosaves between stages, so you no longer have to worry about doing it all in one sitting or leaving your game running. Other differences include real time weapon change (rather than being limited to just 1 weapon/stage), more varied boss battles, rebalanced weapons (so the rocket launcher is no longer the ultimate weapon), some easier sections, a hacking minigame (seems to be standard those days) that reveals information about the stage's boss, starting with a healthbar from the beginning (and you can only upgrade it once) and enemies dropping health powerups upon death. While a bit easier, make no mistake; the game retains all the frustration-inducing platforming challenges of the original, so if you couldn't handle that one at all, you are advised to stay away.

As for things I didn't like, well, some of the new "humour" from the game's dialog made me cringe and the new last level proved to be a major pain in the ass, mostly on account of being too damn large. Lose all your lives and you'll have to start from the damn beginning.
Dammit, why did they have to make such a mess at the end? Urghhh...

Anyway, the complete list can be found here.

Wizardry 6 Bane of the Cosmic Forge

I started this one hoping to take one party all the way through to the end of Wizardry 8. I've played most of Wiz 7 and completed Wiz 8 long ago, but i never played Bane at all until now. Well it's a pretty good game for it's time with graphics and sound on par for 1990. Surprisingly, the actual combat was not as hard as i was expecting from my previous experience with Wiz 7...in Bane i found the main difficulty was the puzzles and finding things. Well except for the final battle that is, that was hard.

I will never again play these games in a true "old school" way. My hand mapping days are over. So i printed out a set of blank maps off the net and the handy "clueless book" on standby just in case i were to get hopelessly bogged down in a puzzle. The blank maps and the resulting lack of wandering around for two weeks completely lost, meant that i got this finished in a couple of weeks of solid full on gaming instead of several months.

After reading a few online character creation guides and all of their conflicting information and analysis, i just said "fuck it" i'm just going to play whatever characters i feel like and not bother with all the class changing and boring stats focusing. If things didn't work out for the party i could just drop the difficulty. But my party (below) went all the way to the end on "normal" without class changing or save scumming at any point.

Lizardman Fighter- I'm a traditionalist and can't leave home without a full on bog standard fighter. Very useful early.
Felpur Samurai- Shared the front row with the Fighter. Didn't really get going until late game equipment came into play.
Dracon Ninja- This guy kicked ass. Brutal in melee. Was meant to be a stand in lockpicker, but ended up being front row DPS. Only issue on the front row was poor AC early on.
Dwarf Valkyrie- Best character by far. Uses all the same armor as the Fighter, and can heal. Was meant to be front row, but ended up back row melee/healer with her Halberd being long enough to strike from the back.
Rawulf Priest- Not much use other than full on healing. Spent most of the game sitting in the back row doing sweet fuck all.
Elf Mage- Destructive power, couldn't do without.

If i had my time again I'd probably replace the Priest with a second Valkyrie and when i go onto Crusaders of the Dark Savant, that's probably what i'll do. Or even replace the Fighter with a Valkyrie and the Priest with an Alchemist...yeah...that sounds good. Now i'm starting to sound like those online guides i was reading.

Frankenstein's Monster. This is a pretty good Atari 2600 game that sort of combines Donkey Kong and Pitfall. It's a single-screen platformer. Your guy starts at the top of the screen, outside the lab where Frankenstein's Monster is held. There's a storm occurring and the lightning strikes are gradually bringing the monster to life, so your only hope to stop its impending rampage is to climb and jump on your way down to the cellar, where you get blocks to carry back up to the lab to wall the monster in. Of course there are spiders and a ghost standing in your way, so you have to avoid those. When you get the block to the lab, the scene changes to one in which you have to run to reach the monster at the top of the screen while swarms of bats try to push you back to the bottom.

The game has an interesting design concept in that although you can certainly be killed by falling into the water on the lowest level (and the game does try its best to make this happen), the real challenge is the timer. Getting touched by an enemy won't kill you but instead stuns you for a few seconds, costing valuable time. After you've placed a few blocks, the game starts doing stuff like making the log floating back and forth across the lake disappear for a few seconds at a time, again costing you time as you not only wait for it to come to you, but if it's vanished you have to wait for it to reappear. The game does a lot of stuff to make you wait. In the beginning it seems like may have plenty of time but a victorious run will likely use up most of what's given to you. It's pretty suspenseful and requires you to quickly assess which circumstances call for haste and risk-taking and which call for patience. The major downside of the game is that the jumping sometimes feels a tad finicky and can cause some frustration, especially in the later stages that require more precision.

The graphics are pretty decent by 2600 standards, with dark, moody colors, and the simplistic Jaws-like music does its job in reminding you that your time is constantly running out. It also has one of the best game over screens for any classic 8-bit game, as the monster comes to life and stomps toward the player, finally filling the screen with a solid puke green color.

Finished the first episode of Life is Strange and I really liked it. The story seems interesting and choices are always hard to make. Even by rewinding to see the outcome of another choice, it is difficult to make a choice. Nothing is black or white, everything is grey and I can't wait to see the consequences of everything. Also, the graphics are simply delightful.

Full list here.

Time Mysteries Inheritance Remastered:

Very poor HOG. Items are washed out and hard to see. (not well hidden, just very hard to see even when you know exactly where to look). Low res images don't help. In many scenes, lights flicker constantly which enhances the washed-out "effect". Again, this makes its physically difficult, not challenging in a fun way. In some scenes, the images are more detailed... but nothing is hidden well. It seems the only way they could create a challenge is to visually obscure the image, which is very, very poor in this type of game. Voice acting is very stale and amateurish. Animations are laughable (the talking heads bloat up and shrink like a lava lamp to give the "talking" effect). The music wasn't all bad, but very small loops were noticeable, meaning it would repeat alot. Thankfully, one of the advertised features of the game didn't work at all (the misclick penalty for expert) and ridiculously washed out images could be found by random luck. They also had scenes where multiple correct images were in the same screen, but only 1 was right.

This one has high school class project written all over it.

Finished Archangel yesterday.

The game was...so-so. Pretty standard low-budget eurotrash third-person slasher/shooter with forgettable RPG elements, mediocre graphics, laughable dialogue and VO that had quite obviously been translated by an amateur translator from Polish into English. The swordplay and shooting mechanics were both very dodgy, as was the hit detection.

The music was a truly beautiful thing though - resembling something from an 80s B-grade action flick, switching between synth bass and choral themes. One theme in particular - which I'll term "Ivy's Theme" owing to the fact that it plays almost every time that the character Ivy Rose appears - was particularly haunting and beautiful.

And the story was remarkably compelling - a mish-mash of reincarnation themes, gothic horror and cyberpunk. It was all wasted by the cop-out ending though, and a number of revelations were either handled very poorly either by the script (chief among them the Abbot's fate, but also betrayals, which seem to be textbook examples of deus ex machina), or by unintentionally hilarious voice acting.

And it bugged me that not a single character in the game made a single comment on Michael's increasingly...erm..."gnarly" appearance.

To the Moon:

This is the problem with "talking sims". If I were to rate this as a "GAME", which it is sold and marketed as.... I would give it very low scores almost across the board.

I don't care for the visual style, which changes a couple of times, giving it identity issues.
The controls are not consistent, and clunky in many places.
The mechanics are repetitive and mostly feel out of place.
Some of the audio changes abruptly and doesn't match the quality of the rest of the game.
It has a very slow start with some odd and cliche'd dialogue that I would not have accepted for very long had it not been for overwhelming reviews and a promised short game.

But, In terms of telling a story that aids you in a life of reflection, decisions you have made in the past, how you got to where you are, regrets, dreams, and a number of other heavy issues... the writing and musical score alone pull that off very well.

I guess for me, the bottom line, what did this accomplish that a book and headphones couldn't? Why was computer game chosen for the medium to tell the story? Its not that its wrong, but IMHO, this lacked too much polish in too many areas to land as a game. Having said that, If you don't mind all dialogue and retro graphics... this was a very nice and sweet 4-5 hour long story to read. I'm glad I "played" it, and I'll even keep an eye on the sequel... but I also wonder if animation would be a better approach for the devs. Its already on rails, I'm thinking this would have been a better short film. But of course, that is my 2 cents. As I mentioned, if you don't mind all dialogue and retro (16 bit) graphics... this is a great time investment.