Enslaved: Odyssee to the West (and Pigsy's Perfect 10)

Liberal game critics might praise the game for the courageous attempt to tell a kinky romance story (pet monkey comes to enjoy submitting to his lovable mistress) - one year before Shades of Grey even! Mysogynist internet trolls might applaud the affirmation of the traditional views on gender roles and relationships (pretty, petite and bitchy woman abuses muscular, protective and grumpy man and makes him do her bidding). And malicious tongues might call the game a meta-parody of railroading in "modern games": a good looking but bossy mistress orders the player character about without allowing him much freedom and exploration - the game constantly tells you what to do by using the voice of Trip, and if Monkey strays off the path too far, he simply dies, just because he took the liberty to try and do something else than what he was told to do, the insolent slave. :P

On a more serious note, the game was alright. Casual entertainment with nice (sometimes blurry) graphics, loud noises and colorful explosions (I like colorful explosions). Story was interesting enough, if a bit simple, characters were well designed and kind of likable in their very own way. Combat was easy on Normal for the most time, sometimes made slightly frustrating due to camera angles and occasionally bad checkpoint placement (most of the times it was fair though).

There were quite a few issues with the game design though, despite the generally enjoyable gameplay. The automated platforming could really get in the way of combat or, well, platforming at times (what fun to see Monkey hop onto a pipeline in the midst of a fight and defenselessly cling to it, just because it happened to be close when you pressed "A" to make an evade roll; or to see Monkey running on the spot, in a futile attempt to drop off a ledge because you're not perfectly standing where the game expects you to stand). It was also quite annoying that you lose all collected upgrade points since the last checkpoint when you die, seeing that there's absolutely no challenge in collecting these glowing red orbs which are just lying around on the floor.

And as already hinted at above, the slave headband mechanic is also extremely aggravating. One time I managed to clear an area of tougher enemies after several attempts, supposedly collected all the red orbs and then ran a few steps too far away from Trip to check if I had missed something, only to be killed by the fricking headband and start all over again at the beginning of the section. Argh. And it's not even as if you could run too far ahead of Trip, as the areas are rather small in the first place and sectioned off by gates that you can only open when you've achieved your current objective. The headband kill serves no purpose but to remind the players that they aren't free to do whatever they want. Yay!

The worst part for me though was that the upgrade menu is tied to the supporting character Trip who then becomes unavailable for a longer time without warning, combined with the fact that the only way to look up the controls for combos and such is ... your upgrade menu. Meaning you're not only on your own during these levels, you also can't spend your collected upgrade points in case you find out you need a different tactic, and you can't even look up your controls.

The add-on campaign Pigsy's Perfect 10 was a nice idea, and I liked that it played a little different than the main game, even though the story was even simpler and the mechanics had their share of problems, too (mostly because I had trouble getting accustomed to the controls for using special gadgets, and it can get hectic if you keep confusing them while your nearly defenseless character is being charged by melee enemies). It was quite a bit longer than I expected, btw.

Even though that all sounds rather negative, it's not a bad game at all; I had fun with it. I'm just not sure whether I would recommend it to others. It's nice enough, but definitely not among the best I've played and not all that remarkable despite the nice graphics and setting.

But then again - Andy Serkis! :D

For most of us, "finished" means "finished the story campaign(s)". Definitely not "100%d"! Don't you need to do NewGame+ for some of those achievements anyway? I actually don't recall, but it might be possible to switch between Standard and NewGame+ modes even after you've started NewGame+, which would make getting some of those standard achievements easier.

On the other hand, some of those achievements like HeroMode+ or whatever - not worth it, IMO.

I'd recommend just playing and beating NewGame+, and not worrying about any out-of-reach achievements.

Funny you mention that. If "HeroMode" is the achievement I'm thinking on (not +, just normal) I actually restarted a new party last night to try and do that. But I took the advice posted on the achievement and turned xp up to 300%, so it really won't take that long it seems.

It actually changes the experience quite a bit since you're limited to just 6 pieces to put on the board as opposed to burying the board in full coverage - the flip side being that you really need to buff them all while also casting much more aggressively than I usually had to on a standard playthrough. So it's been worth it to try it out.

On the side the past few nights I've been juggling playing through the Nox wizard campaign and Grimrock 2.

I took a look at that game, it actually looks good art wise, but as you mentioned the animations aren't very good. It's clearly a budget level game and that has to be taken into account, but it just looks like it has more negatives than positives unfortunately. Thanks for bringing it to my attention though, I may pick it up eventually just to try it, I've certainly bought worse looking games haha.

Yeah I don't really recommend it unless you can get it for less than a buck or in a bundle (I got it as PYWY from indiegamestand a few days ago, deal is now unfortunately expired). It's just not very well-fleshed out and only held my interest for about 10 minutes. I'm also fairly certain that the background artwork is not original and are actually "borrowed" famous/historic ukiyoe prints. It's a great concept though, and one that I hope some day could be developed into a real game by someone.

Thank you very much for that added info, I do think I'll be passing on it entirely (unless it's in a cheap bundle). I agree, great concept though, and I really wish there were more games like Bushido Blade, even if it just in the "one move can end a fight" way.

Mar 18 - Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden

Another good hidden object game by Artifex Mundi. The graphics and cutscene animations are well done, though some of the character models are a bit stiff and strange looking. The soundtrack and sound effects fit the game nicely.

The storyline is decent, as is the voice acting, though there are a couple points where the voice acting falls completely flat (the ending comes to mind).

Surprisingly, the hidden object scenes were more difficult at the start of the game and became easier near the end. In fact, the only hint we used was in the very first hidden object scene. The puzzles and quests were a fair challenge, not too easy and not too hard. We didn't have to skip any.

This game does, however, have two pretty big points against it:
1) The map is not a jump map. You have to go everywhere manually which often includes a trip through the elevator and the cutscenes that entails.
2) Since it's underwater, the game has a low rumbling throughout the entire game that we found to be extremely annoying to the ears. Luckily, turning the bass all the way done pretty much eliminated it.

Also a minor point against it:
Some of the names of the hidden objects weren't very precise and one was completely wrong.

Finished two short games last night.

The Expendabros - a free 2D action game. I had quite a bit of fun with it. The bosses were a bit strong compared to the rest of the game and I think I might have beaten them by luck only, not skill. Hell, the big robot boss I don't even know how I beat it. And for the final boss I just used one of the bros who, instead of the grenade skill, kinda lounges with his knife. I used that to reach the boss quickly and finish him. I don't think that's how you're supposed to beat him but whatever :)

Fortix - easy fun for just over an hour. Decent game but Fortix 2 is better and bigger so I won't be re-playing Fortix 1 on higher difficulty, I'll just go to Fortix 2.

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

It was awesome. Changed my avatar to the psychedelic tiger of doom.

I ran into that problem as well. I don't know what the cheat is but I ended up just restarting the game. Annoying!!!

I really like Crystal Caves but that is solely due to childhood memory bias

For Crystal Caves:

"While playing, hold Z + E + U + S to toggle god mode. While it's on you can press "G" to toggle gravity."

Finished The Next Big Thing. A nice point'n click with gorgeous graphics and great characters. There were a few very bad puzzles where there was no clear indication (or even not a single hint) as what we were expected to do.

Full list here.

Dominique Pamplemousse in: "It's All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings"

I suspect that only a comparatively small niche audience would appreciate this game, but luckily I'm part of that audience, as I've been a fan of Deirdra Kiai's work ever since I played Cubert Badbone P.I., and this one, her first commercial title, actually reminded me of the freeware "debut".

Domininque Pamplemousse is an extremely short and simple adventure game that mostly consists of following the dialogues - there is only one button for all actions, just a handful of screens with few hotspots to examine, and the one or two puzzles in the game are standard fare and very easy. Animations are very minimalistic, too. I'm almost tempted to call it an (audio)visual novel instead of an adventure game. So whether you like it or not strongly depends on your enjoyment of the quirky setting, art style, humor, and music. And the singing is intentionally silly and bad, but in a way that I did not find as awkward as I had expected. And I think you really have to have some talent to pull off bad singing without making it too awkward. I actually liked it in this context, and so I also enjoyed the game.

The only thing I didn't like about Dominique Pamplemousse is that it's made in Flash and apparantly uses the same save game system that rendered 1000 Amps unplayable for me: it works only as long as you don't clear your internet cache - if you do, your save game is gone. Using this system is a pretty bad choice for a supposedly standalone game, but I guess the developer's forte is her creativity and for the technical side of things, she just uses the premade tools that are available to her.

In any case, to anyone interested I'd recommend checking out her freeware adventures (especially Cubert Badbon P.I.) to see whether it's your cup of tea at all.

The Old Tree is a tiny little thing, sweet and interesting enough to linger on the palate. It's a free Flash game, and it's brilliantly brief. I downloaded it on Steam, but you can also play it on the developer's website. In this and other ways, it's kind of Samorost-y. It should take you 15 minutes or so to finish, though I put in more time than that because I tried playing it at work and ended up having to quit and start over later from home.

Basically, you play as the watcher who makes safe passage for a little hatchling who looks like a cross between an apple and a squidlet. Your hatchling is on a trip upward, and there are a few small obstacles to get past. You'll left-click a couple of times on likely spots, and when the coast is clear it will creep along to the next puzzle. There's atmospheric music, seamless execution, and an upbeat finish to this trifle. A properly-calibrated monitor will make this all much easier, since some of the puzzles are in murky dim light.

Totally fun, and made me happy.

My small list for the year so far