XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Got this one as part of a bundle, so only had the base game with no Enemy Within.

I was pretty pissed when I lost all my latest saves due to the limit of 100 or so saves (yeah, I saved a lot) and the quirk of saves not showing up when you use the scroll wheel (as well as an apparently odd quirk of sorting when you hit 100+ saves). So I started deleting old saves and inadvertently nuked my latest ones. So after a bit of googling and finally finding out what the issue was, I started over. Turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise though, as I used what I learned about the game in the first run (turns out I was about 2/3 of the way through) to improve my strategy and tactics in the second.

Anyway, this is a fun turn-based strategy game where I thought the balance between the squad-based battles and the overall strategy was handled quite well. Kept me amused, anyway. I played on Normal setting and once I got some squaddies with psi powers, I poured a lot of funding and time into hiring new recruits and tossing them in the psi testing chamber. Ended up getting a full squad of 6 psi operatives and ran with them right through to the end game, thinking it would be crucial to have the squad 'psi-ed' up. Turns out it probably isn't (other than one mandatory), since I took down the last boss in one turn using Mind Fray hits from each of the squad members. Still, even though it made the end game mission trivial, it was satisfying to see how the investment into building a 6-member psi team paid off in spades. I kitted them all out in psi armor and mind shields, and the lowest Will rating I had was a base of 83 (the highest had a base of 104). Nothing could resist my squad's mental powers.

Not going to get too detailed, so I'll just end by saying I really had a good time with this one and will definitely be back for more at a later time, probably giving the Classic difficulty a spin.

Full List

Maniac Mansion. I played this game so much on my friend's C64 growing up but this is the first time I've been able to actually finish it (unless you count the "cause a nuclear explosion and everyone dies" ending). I chose Bernard and Razor as my buddies and basically defeated the meteor by getting the Green Tentacle a record deal. I really like how the game's solutions change slightly depending on whom you've brought with you. Visually the game still holds up pretty well. I've always liked the large, expressive characters and the mansion is well-designed - everything you can interact with is easily discernible and even if it isn't, the "What Is" command is handy for picking stuff out and reducing the need for pixel-hunting.

I did have to use a walkthrough a couple of times, and of course each time I looked up what I was missing I slapped myself for not seeing it.

<span class="bold">Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova</span> (Android)

4 games from the Humble Artifex Mundi PC &amp; Mobile Bundle down, 4 more to go (the two games that were added yesterday to the bundle I had already completed). This time around it's about vampires, as you had probably guessed from this game's title. But probably, just like me, you've got the rest wrong: at first I thought that 'Kisilova' was the rather sexy lady depicted in the game's cover and webpage. In fact it's the Serbian village currently known as Kisiljevo, which was the scenario of the events narrated in this game.

After completing quite a few HOPA games featuring original stories (original as in, newly created), it felt refreshing to play one based on a true story. Well, I mean an actual legend from the real world, of course I don't believe in vampires. Anyway, the story in Vampire Legends is not as black and white as in many other games from this genre. It's also quite dark, particularly the plot of the extra mini-adventure.

Gameplay-wise it's basically more of the same, unsurprisingly. Although this title seemed to be more focused on hidden object scenes, and less on puzzles. I usually prefer the latter, but in this case I think it was for the best: first, because the hidden object scenes were moderately fair and uncomplicated, so I didn't really mind them. And secondly, because the logic and consistency of puzzles decayed quite a lot during the game. This is something I've come to notice in several of the HOPAs I've played recently, and I'm beginning to wondering whether it might be a sign of a rushed development...

Let me explain: at the beginning of the game, all of the puzzles tend to be perfectly integrated in the plot and in the game world. E.g. I needed some water for whatever reason but the fountain/tap was not working because the plumbing was broken/unadjusted, so I just solved a pipes minigame in order to restore the water supply, probably after having to look for a missing pipe fragment. Made sense and felt logical. But as the game progressed the puzzles and minigames began to make less and less sense. For instance at one point, and for apparently no good reason, I needed to arrange some wine bottles in a rack according to some rules (a bit like a simplified Sudoku). When I got it I was rewarded with some piece I was going to need down the road for another puzzle, but I couldn't tell where did that piece come from exactly, and why did I have to arrange the damn bottles in the first place. Several of the puzzles in the late game were like this. It really felt like they had a checklist of puzzle types they had to put in the game, and run out of ideas about how to do it so they didn't feel out of place.

Nonetheless, I think the story kind of compensates the puzzle shortcomings so I can recommend it. Especially if you get it in a bundle like I did.


My list of finished games in 2016

Zack Zero

Played a bit of this one almost 3 years ago, now finally got around to finishing it over the past couple days. Attractive visuals but rather repetitive gameplay in this platformer/gunner despite the various suit powers. The still ending shot of "you've saved the day but oh no something bad happened what's gonna happen next?" actually interrupted the final cutscene, which I found kinda strange...

Was it the Definitive Edition? Hoping to see that come to GOG in the next year or so.

Mirror's Edge

Thanks to GOG & EA, I finally decided to play it and quite enjoyed it even if I have a few drawbacks. First of all, the artistic direction is top notch: the game is already 8 years old but you know it's still gonna age well as the fake minimalist graphics style do wonders in conjunction with bringing a "readable" gameplay flow by the use of primary colors. Played it with the X360 joypad and the controls and game engine respond well to the movements of the heroine (as it's very important in this type of game), there were only a very few cringing moments. The ambient soundtrack is very well adapted to give a sense of awareness and calm most of the time which suits well the skyscrapers landscape, it becomes a bit more mundane/common during some frantic moments.

The big drawback are the fight/gunfight scenes as even if most are "skippable" if you're good enough, they still feel mismatched with the initial gameplay (I think making some kind of bomb timer countdown would have been more suitable). The story is generic, cliché and boring. When the game is finished, you can do time trials of segments of the different levels but they're aren't extra tracks apart from the story mode (or you need a Origin account to download a map pack apparently).

Anyway, loved it overall, took less than 10 hours to complete.

Wizardry 2: Knight of Diamonds (SNES port)

And with that, my time with the "Llylgamyn Trilogy" draws to a close. There was a lot to enjoy about these games--a real sense of tension, where every encounter carried meaningful risk and every stairway down was an accomplishment, mixed with the knowledge that the next level would probably be worse. If these games were worse than they are, they'd still go down in history (Wizardry 1 being the first party-based CRPG), but actually, they're significantly better than some of their descendants, e.g. Bard's Tale.

Unfortunately, just as there's a lot to praise about these games, there's also--let's be frank--a lot of cheap bullshit, with high-level fights often being completely RNG-based (the enemy moved first and cast Tiltowait? Reckon you're fucked, son) in a game series where party annihilation means rolling a new party. Traps that can wipe out your entire party and end the game have not grown on me; neither have enemies that can drain half your levels and necessitate hours of extra grinding. The alignment system was gibberish, and in the only one of the three games to do anything with it, annoying. Neither do I miss losing stats upon level-up In some ways, I think modern games could learn a lot from the past, but in many ways, I'm glad that game design has moved on.

Anyway, Knight of Diamonds specifically. It was fine. In many ways, in fact, it was the best of the three. There were only half as many levels as in the first game, but in the first game the levels were virtually all filler, whereas in this game, there was stuff that had to be done on each level. That's kind of true of Wizardry 3, of course, but Wizardry 3 was seriously let down by that dumb alignment-changing mechanism. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't played the trilogy in such quick succession; Wizardry 2 and 3 are basically expansion packs of 1, without any new mechanisms to keep things interesting, and I just felt burned out by the time I finished this.

(As a side-note, if you're playing the PC version "fairly," then the only way to play Wizardry 2 is to import a party from Wizardry 1. I don't know if your party has to have beaten the game, but they have to be high-enough level to cast maximum-level magic. Importing the party deletes them from Wizardry 1, and of course a total party kill basically deletes the party from Wizardry 2, meaning being wiped out in Wizardry 2 meant re-beating Wizardry 1 so that you could then import that new party into Wizardry 2. There are several reasons I played the SNES versions--they're graphically superior, have had minor systems overhauls, and I'm only playing these games at all because I felt nostalgic for Wizardry V, which I played on the SNES as a child--but not having to deal with that shit was also a plus. You can import characters if you want to (reset to level 1, but keeping their stats), but the game was re-balanced for level 1 parties.)

Hatoful Boyfriend

Quite possibly the weirdest game I've ever played. It was at turns hilarious, goofy, dull, and just plain weird.

Of the 12 or so possible endings I only unlocked one, and am not particularly motivated to play it through again, but as a parody of dating sims, or even just the story of a teen human girl romancing a bird, it was amusing.

Esp if you read quickly and don't pursue unlocking multiple endings, it's well under 2 hours (maybe 75-90 min), but...it was something I guess.

Supposedly if you get all endings you get the a... different route.
Haven't bothered myself yet due to the quality of the dating sim routes though.

<span class="bold">Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack</span>

This is an excellent platformer I got in a Humble Bundle a long time ago (for Windows, Mac and Linux, by the way, don't know why GOG only offers one version), and never bothered to give it a shot. After completing it, I regret having left it in my backlog for so long: it's lots of fun and it oozes style through its every single pore.

Presented like the mix of a 50s monster/horror movie (including a curvy, old, and dirty TV screen effect) and a colourful cartoon, it tells the story of the titular mutant space blob. Starting as teenie-weenie little blob that escapes from the lab it was confined in, it proceeds to slowly but steadily growing larger and larger by eating everything in its way. The further into the game you get, the bigger the blob will be, and it'll be able to eat bigger things: up to tanks, helicopters, whole buildings, and even... well, I'll let you discover it for yourself, as the final level is quite epic indeed.

Even though you'll be eating people and destroying buildings throughout the game, the overall tone is extremely lighthearted, with a special mention for the cutscenes in between chapters. Each level is also plagued with pop culture references, with a special focus on other indie games and developers. They are always limited to the background, as adverts in billboards or the signs in storefronts, so they don't feel pushed down your throat at all.

Mechanically it's not very complex, but there's really no need for complexity in a game like this. The blob can do regular jumps as well as wall jumps, perform a slam-down when in the air, remotely control some mechanical apparatus, and later in the game generate magnetic fields in order to attract/repel (or get attracted/repelled by) metallic objects. Coupled with some clever level design, including parts of some levels in which the blob gains the ability to rocket fly, or the mid-chapter bonus levels, the gameplay felt highly satisfying. It helps that this is not a hard game by any stretch: all the levels can be easily beaten with a little bit of effort. The real challenge lies in finding the 2 blob friends that are hidden in every level, and obtaining a gold medal for eating most of the edible parts. I 100%'d every level except for two, which required extreme control precision in a couple of fast-paced scenes where the blob was either being dragged by strong wind currents, or chased by a relentless mortal ray. To make matters worse, if you miss a lot of 'food' in those scenes but make it alive to the end, you cannot re-try them unless you restart the whole level. So after trying it a couple of times I decided it was not worth it.

However, these tiny dark spots can't in any way sully a fantastic overall experience. Highly recommended.


My list of finished games in 2016

I hadn't heard that. But brings to mind that I forgot to mention you can play the game with bird or people images.

So if you play with birds, do you unlock nekkid birds? They're already naked!

I played with the birds, which I think was part of the amusement but also made it harder to remember who was who. And yeah, the story "quality" isn't exactly it's top feature. It plays more like a parody of dating sims (and often a lazy one) than anything serious.

Oddworld: Abes Exodus

The sequel (Though considered more of an add on and not part of the planned Quintilogy) to Abes Odyssey, a puzzle/platformer where you go around a factory rescuing your comrades who are having their bones and tears made into soda. You die, a lot, cause its 1 hit and your dead with these guys, your only weapon is your smarts and occasionally your farts. The game requires precise jumping and movement but has a quicksave so its not that bad. There's 300 Mudokans to rescue and you get different endings for rescuing: Under half, over half, all 300 and a special ending for killing as many mudokans as possible. I managed to rescue 248, cause I didn't know there were secret areas until after the first area. Good fun though, though frustrating at difficult parts.

Thank you. I didn't know there is a DLC. I had a good time with the game last year and so I think I will pick it up. :)

<span class="bold">Saints Row 2</span>

Before you play, I highly encourage anyone to check for some essential improvements and especially the [url=http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Saints_Row_2#Gentlemen_of_the_Row_Super_Mod]Gentlemen of the Row Super Mod from there.
Saints Row 2 is a open world game set in the fictional city of Stilwater. From the beginning of the game, the map of Stilwater is fully visible. However, shops and activities will simply be displayed as a question mark until the player discovers them. Missions are unlocked by earning respect from some fun to play mini-games and side missions.
The game is similar to titles such as GTA series, but with more comedy, chaos and weirdness. Comparing Saints Row 2 to the old GTA games, I liked the checkpoints during missions (looking back at San Andreas, some missions really needed this feature) and the ability to save whenever you want (not just at a safe house). Also, just like GTA, here you can expect a great variety of soundtracks and interesting radio stations.

Complete list of games finished in 2016.