Finished Bet on Soldier
Ironically - DRM free version came from steampowered rivals and someone gifted it to me. Still waiting for the addons (these are on another site).

Didn't managed to finish it decade ago because one of the twin brothers champions (Boryenka) kicked my ass.
Then I uninstalled it and my old Win98 PC died. Thanks StarForce...

Bit worse impression, seems like rose shades don't help. Still - shooting was better than most FPS titles since release.
And these endings, both of them...what a trash.Twist so bad it cringe.
I sucked badly at this game because I can't play FPS titles at all recently and enemies dodge faster thanks to better PC.
Still - some stuff was neat like save points costing money or betting. Story was bad.

Now I think about Iron Storm...

I didn't even know about an extended version.
Unmechanical was so nice but really too short indeed, it's a shame that the dev doesn't seem to care about PC gamers. :/

I didn't time myself, but on a guess I'd say about 25% the size of the base game. Some of the puzzles are a little bit more difficult too, but still not too hard.

I got the game free with PS+ last month, so I personally can't complain about the price ;).

Gears of War (360)

360 version but played on Xbox One using the new emulation. Ran flawlessly all the way. I can now say that screen shots don't do this game justice, it looks better in the flesh than i was expecting, especially for what was one of the first ever 360 games. I played it on Hardcore difficulty.

I had low initial expectations, it just looks...well derivative. But it exceeded all expectations and then some. So many games have since cloned the Gears cover combat system, everything from Uncharted, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, Max Payne 3 and Mass Effect 2+3 (with RPG elements tacked on) etc- but i now know that they all missed the boat to some extent.
Gears is HARD. That got me by surprise, given the games immense popularity, i expecting something easier and more approachable. Your character may look like a bullet sponge tank, but he is not. There is no health bar, you take damage and you have a split second to get into cover or you're dead. Getting oneshotted is not that uncommon. The first hour of play was the hardest, then i began to see what it was about- that is this is all about tactics and having a plan, flanking, using cover. Do the typical shooter stuff like run around jumping like a lunatic and circle strafing and you are dead within 10 seconds. What i like about this is that is how soldiers act, real soldiers stay in cover and only take calculated risk. And that is how you have to play Gears of War.
Gears also has no aim assistance at all. Not even an aiming reticle until you go to iron sights. So when in cover you just have to line the screen up as best you can then home your aim when you go to sights. I sucked at it at first, but i became good at it. That's why the game got easier as it went on despite the enemies getting harder. You learn.
The enemy AI is awesome for it's time, and unpredictable. Sometimes they are aggressive, sometimes they stay in cover. They flank and they know when you reload your weapon. And even though you may have to reload some encounters many times to pass, the AI does not always do the same thing each time you try the same encounter. Also the enemy AI targets your AI mates just like you, which becomes part of the tactics.
You cannot save during the encounters, and some of them are long. I accepted this and changed the way i played to an ultra careful and sensible play style. I now know why Gears fans love the games so much and i'm now one of them, but I also understand why some hate the games with an equal passion.

As much as i like it, there are some problems. There's very little story, but i'm okay with that. But the "bro-force" nature of the squad members is a bit annoying. The friendly squad mates do some daft stuff sometimes, which often results in them getting their dumb asses shot to pieces withing 20 seconds of an encounter. But on the bright side they act as excellent decoys to draw fire so you get time to set up head shots.
But the biggest problem is something i hate in any game: whilst cutscenes can usually be skipped, quite often at the start of an encounter there is a lengthy section of dialogue that cannot be skipped. For some of the longer, more difficult encounters this really came to piss me off. After the 10th time of hearing the same lengthy set of dialogue, all i was hearing was "blah blah, yadda yadda, bullshit bullshit"...and 20 seconds later dead again, repeat! Often it took longer to sit through the dialogue than it took to die afterwards. This was serious enough that i decided i couldn't face up to the same areas again for a play through on the insane difficulty, otherwise i would have done just that.

But the negatives didn't outweigh what i enjoyed by a long shot and i will be playing the entire series now, which thanks to GwG i have them all except number 2. Come on Microsoft, how about Gears 2 for Christmas next month?

Wacky Wheels (Linux)

Since my gamepad wasn't properly recognized as a joystick (buttons worked, but neither the sticks nor the d-pad worked), I've disabled joystick support in the config file and used QJoyPad instead and mapped the dpad and buttons how I wanted to have them. I've tried various image filters as well via config-file, just choose something with 2x and you're good.

Now to the game itself:
I've finished all cups including the bonus cups on easy as first, tried all characters and the duck shooting and consider it done since I've got no desire to play it anymore.
The graphics, soundtrack and effects can neither compete at all with the two years older Super Mario Kart (1992) nor with the excellent PC version of Street Racer (1994) which was released only a month after Wacky Weels.
The framerate is fixed to a very low value which makes playing a bit tiring, the resolution is really low and the music is the usual apogee midi stuff.

The characters are cute, the track design is solid, the weapon system is good and the controls are responsive.
As weapons you get to throw hedgehogs at your opponents which you have to roadkill first while they are doing weird stuff on the road (including sitting on a toilet). The can be used like non bouncing green turtle shells.
Every hedgehog you didn't use gets transferred to the next race, so your stack can grow quite a bit. In addition to those, there is also a fireblast, an oil slick, a bomb (which is more like a mine), a weird stationary couple of bouncing red balls and some ice cubes.
There is a brake and a handbrake although you really have to be give the handbrake only a slight tap to not completely turn around, it is very useful though once you get the hang of it,

It was fun for a while and is worth a dollar (not the $2.99 I've paid though) imho and has a certain historical value.

Just when I thought that there should be a modern sequel, I just got to know that there actually is although I wonder why they still use flat "3D": http://wackywheelsracing.com/

List

Darksiders

The forces of Heaven and Hell have always fought each other, bringing chaos to the universe. When a third kingdom, home to humanity and in future probably capable of shifting the balance, arose, an entity known as the Charred Council decided to force the old powers to a truce. Convinced that both the older kingdoms would bring everything to annihilation, the forged seven seals to hold them at bay; only when all of them will be broken, their four horsemen will come to pass judgment on everyone.
In this modified biblical scenery, you take the role of War, the red horseman. Someone decided to break the truce and to destroy the third kingdom, so you thought it was time to intervene. Fact is, before this happened somehow the last seal hasn't been broken and none of the other horsemen showed up, so you end up being accused of conspiring with the betrayers and start a mission to clear your name, restore balance and punish the culprits.

Finding this kind of action game in the AAA industry is pretty easy, yet in my opinion Darksiders takes the distance from the standard due to its varied gameplay.
Obviously, its main focus stays on combat, and while it doesn't add anything new to the formula I must say it executes it excellently: the controls are flawless and perfectly responsive, and they never lock your character in the middle of a combo or in forced animations leaving him open to attacks, allowing you to cancel an action and change it with another in any moment.
War will find new weapons -both ranged and not- during the entire course of the game, each one with its own properties and array of moves, purchasable and upgradable form your nearest demon vendor in exchange for souls (you can find them by killing enemies and looting chests).
The enemies are many, each with its own technique, strength and weakness; the regular ones come in small, medium and large sizes and can be exterminated easily, while bosses always present a good challenge that will require you to combine both skill in combat and wits to find the right way to wound them.
War will also find lots of gadgets useful for navigating the various environments, spanning from a simple chain to a crystal-breaker gauntlet or a device to slow time and open dimensional portals; they are often used between fights to find the solution to many interesting -but fairly simple- puzzles, a welcome change of pace that enriches the game adding a further level of depth.
Last but not least, the game has mounts. They call you Horseman for a reason, after all!

Graphically, despite not being cutting-edge technology even for its time, the engine does not fail to impress: characters and environments are awesomely designed, and the post-apocalyptic world is anything but bleak, often showing impressive and unexpected landscapes considering the premises. Many details had to be cut to allow the open levels to run well on the old generation of consoles, but the wise decision of adopting a comic book-like style prevent this form becoming an issue.
For what concerns the sound department, a good musical score, a wide selection of sounds and an excellent voice acting further add to the overall quality of the game.

That said, I have some criticism to move: I absolutely loved the game, but I found the PC port severely lacking on several aspects. For example, there are no graphic options aside from resolution and Vsync, so you can either run the game well or you simply cannot, as there is no room for tweaks or setting adjustments. Then, I encountered a weird glitch that nobody, neither me nor a GOGlodyte nor GOG support has been able to solve: after around 20 minutes of play, the backgrounds started to stutter like they ran at less than 15fps, while the main character remained perfectly smooth and the framerate stayed at a constant value of 60. That could be solved only by rebooting the system -I still have not even the slightest idea of why this happens, and I tried tens of possible solutions to no avail.
In any case, this does not seem to be a common issue, and I have probably been particularly unlucky.

I warmly recommend Darksiders to any action fan out there, as it will provide you with many hours of fun.

The Ultimate Doom - First time playing through this important game in the genre, and it doesn't seem outdated or stale. The gameplay mechanics and the shooting feel well-refined. The guns pack quite the punch, and their impact is visceral and satisfying every single time. Playing with the keyboard feels quite natural, though I didn't realize that you could run by holding Shift until the 4th episode.

Having read Masters of Doom several years ago, which told the story of id Software's rise, it's great to be able to experience what was talked about in that book. I've played two other games from the same time period, Duke Nukem and Dark Forces, and playing through Doom makes me want to explore further. Fortunately, I've already got Blood, Shadow Warrior, and Doom II in the queue.

Portal

Bought it 4 years ago during the winter holiday sale - finally sat down and played it through in the last day or so. Funny dialogue, though pretty easy until the last two boards.

If I had a critique it would be that the difficulty scaling really isn't there at all - it's really easy and then kinda slams you in the face with a couple much harder puzzles, whether because they require quick reactions, or bizarre solutions, etc.

But on the whole it was fun. They should make a sequel or something.

Yes, they should. ;-)

Wing Commander: Prophecy

Quite a good arcade flight combat "sim". I played it at the hardest difficulty, but it wasn't that hard, I cleared most missions on the first try. The last three missions were quite hard though, as you couldn't save between two missions (and the latter mission was the harder one, so failing that meant you had to replay the earlier mission too), and the last mission was longer than other missions, One probably should have a proper joystick for this game, I do.

GOG reviews suggest that this is worst of the Wing Commander series, but I disagree. I found at least the gameplay better than on the earlier WC games. WCP had less (but still some) emphasis on the movie-like parts than WC3 or WC4, but I think that was just a positive thing.

Now I am playing the expansion pack,Secret Ops. I didn't realize first that it needs to be installed separately. Already cleared like 8 or so missions yesterday (on hardest difficulty). Nice change of pace from Tie Fighter, where I was stuck playing some latter missions for dozens or even hundreds of times.

The sequel came out four years ago. :P
It's a lot better than the first one.

Finished Infected: The Twins Vaccine. Half hidden objects and half classic puzzles. From a technical point of view it was quite good, but from a gameplay point a view, only average.

Full list here.

DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon

The life of a Smitemaster is hard. That is what Beethro Budkin, professional exterminator, could assure you if you happened to met.
Clearing monster infestations to make a living, the incredibly ugly man has been tasked to clean all the 25 floors of King Dugan's Dungeon -a mission that will prove to be much more difficult than expected.

Unlike my usual reviews, due to the nature of the game this time I will spend very few words: DROD (Deadly Rooms Of Death) is a puzzle game based on very simple rules. Each room is grid-based, and you can move of a single square each turn (which can last as long as you need it to) in eight directions, wait or swing your Really Big Sword™ clockwise or counterclockwise. Your objective is to sweep room after room to kill every monster (which, by the way, will move in turn after you, something you would do better to remember) in each floor by hitting them with your weapon, opening your passage to the next level. That's it.
Despite the simplicity of the rules, though, don't think this game is easy. Since the very beginning, you will be challenged by the developers, and the difficulty constantly ramps up immediately after the first tutorial rooms. Throughout the course of the game you will feel like the level of challenge is constant, while in truth this impression comes from your own improved skills: the difficulty does in fact scale brutally, and each new level is immensely more difficult than the previous one; each time you think you have grasped the way things work, the game deploys something new, being it a new monster, a new trap or a new, twisted way to trick the habits you formed during the previous rooms. Due to this, the hundreds of rooms never feel repetitive, and each one will force you to gain a new perspective on the possible approaches to the solution.
Each time I cleared a room, overcoming its tricks and requests, I felt like a genius! The sense of satisfaction is really among the strongest I felt due to a game.
I have been able to finish the immense main game in nearly 42 hours, not counting several secret rooms and the additional dungeon “The Choice”; if you also consider that this is only the first entry in the series and that GOG sells the first three installments in a single package, the DROD bundle undoubtedly represents one of the very best deals on this site.

My one and only complaint to this game is level 13: it is a giant maze that you have to circle almost in this entirety, first to kill the only present monster, then to find the exit. Well, as it happens, mazes are NEVER fun, and I would have gladly skipped it if I could. Actually, unlike I usually do and unlike with the rest of the game, after a few minutes I simply searched for the solution on the Internet.
It is worth to notice that if you are stuck, the Caravel Games forums offer you many hints without giving away the solution, thus pushing you forward eliminating the potential frustration without spoiling the fun.

I thoroughly enjoyed every single second (well, maze aside) of the game, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Anyway, be advised that DROD is a game of pure brains mad only for those who do not shy away from really difficult puzzles and want to test themselves against a masterfully crafted “clockwork” system, so you will need a lot of patience and some cool water to avoid neural overeating.
In my opinion, considering you can save and pause at any time, DROD is a game best suited to accompany another one, a game to play often but for small amounts of time, just as long as you seem stuck; coming back after a while, finding the solution will seem easier and more satisfactory.

25?!
I'm at level 7 and already in despair. I haven't touched the game in one or two months, because it is so hard but I thought I may at least have beaten it soon...
Ok, I officially suck at this game.