Tiny Bang Story Genre: Somewhere between puzzle game and HOG.

Overall I'd grade it a B+/A-. Beautiful art, creative world. A few puzzles I found pretty opaque. Level of difficulty was really all over the place after Stage 1. Some things incredibly simple and obvious, others designed to be much more challenging with no real pattern.

A lot of opening storage spaces, seeing an object you don't need yet, and hoping you remember where it was when you inevitably do need it 10 min. later.

As for the puzzles themselves, difficulty also varied quite a bit. There was one with pipes and valves where I was adding valves, but it wasn't really clear why I was adding valves. Not that understanding was crucial for the story, but it felt like a bit of a weird disconnect / forced. And it wasn't the best execution of that type of puzzle I've seen either.

I didn't quite get 100% - missed 1 puzzle piece on stage 4 and 2 on stage 5. Apparently the game let me finish anyway.

Fun on the whole, though I'd say I was more or less ready for it be over when it was.

How? What's your secret? Did you play it on easy or very easy? I'm struggling to beat Mortal Kombat 2 on normal for a year now already and I'm getting my ass kicked.

I did play it on easy, but frankly those 2 are a piece of cake compared to MK1. The AI is totally vicious in that game. My secret is, I played the games through DOSBox SVN-Daum so that I could use state-saving. =\ There's no way I could've beaten Goro / Kintaro / Motaro without it, they hit too hard and the A.I. reacts too quickly.

Fair point. To be honest, I'll have to re-play the first 2 chapters whenever Chapter 3 comes out, as right know I can't exactly remember the whole backstory of the protagonists (and proving your point xD)

Witcher 2. Lots of thoughts about this one, I'm not sure where to start. Well, right off, it made a pretty bad first impression. The opening section is loaded with "walk a few steps, do a thing, see a lengthy cutscene" gameplay. The graphics and general presentation are certainly outstanding but that sort of thing isn't what I'm generally looking for in my games.

Things settle down in the first chapter, and I appreciated the appearance of side missions that let me do witcher stuff, but the setting is so claustrophobic that I found it hard to enjoy going out in the woods to beat up nekkers and bugs. Another thing, during combat the camera had a bad habit of swinging the trees right into the center of my view, so Geralt and his enemies would be hidden from sight and I'd be fighting blind for a second or two.

Speaking of combat, coming from the first game's system, it's a bit of cold water at first but I liked it okay after a while. Basically, you learn what you should or shouldn't be doing and go off of that ("oh, it's bad if 25 guys surround me and start a backstabbing party? Huh, who'd have thought?"), and when you get good at it you feel like a tough guy but still vulnerable. I liked the emphasis on using potions to prepare, although I felt as the game went on that I was using potions to prepare for beating up humans at least as much monsters. Maybe it's my ignorance of the books but that doesn't seem like a very witcher-ish thing to happen?

The game also has quicktime events. I don't know why. I felt as if the developers were keeping a checklist of everything wrong with modern video games and throwing them all in there. At one point I started thinking, "Well, at least I haven't had an escort mission yet..." and then an hour or so later I was doing an escort mission over and over. *sigh* Oh, and the interface sucks. Consolization strikes again?

I really liked chapter 2 and that was when I started really looking forward to playing the game at length. Then in chapter 3, I felt that the hardest, most time consuming thing was simply learning the labyrinthine layout of that ruined city. Chapter 3 is okay but felt undercooked compared to what was just before. So basically, you have a somewhat frustrating beginning, a really good middle, and then a bit of a wet noodle finish.

The story is okay for a video game, but I wanted more monster-hunting and less political intrigue. One thing I really liked about both this game and its predecessor is that I always feel like the dialogue options have something that reflects my own perspective or reaction to what's happening, so I rarely feel like I'm being railroaded in terms of how I characterize Geralt (again, not sure how it is in the books, but I reckon Geralt to be the sort of guy who's big on personal integrity and direct interactions; i.e., if you're nice to him, he'll be nice back, and he'd rather save a friend than worry about saving society or greater truths or whatever).

I liked the game and eventually I'll replay it and go with the alternate path (I went with Roche on this one), but on the whole I think I preferred the first game, even with all the tedious busywork in the swamps. It was just a bit more of a consistent experience. I'll get to Witcher 3 before long but I'm a little Witcher'd out for now, so I'm going to finish up a few other games I've been playing before tackling that beast.

Finished The Witcher 3, not the best game Ive ever played, but its among the good ones.
Just finished the nth run in Renowned Explorers recently, I love the devs, they are still updating the game even though the game is finished.

I've completed Halo Combat Evolved, Saints Row 4 and the first Max Payne this year.

Max Payne was the best of the bunch and made it to my favorite games. The first Halo really didn't age well and Saints Row 4, while fun in places is tedious as hell.

Include me.

Portal 2

Pretty well known game so no real need to talk about it much. I played the Linux version, it doesn't work without steam, it ran flawlessly even allowing me to alt-tab.

As for the game it took 9 hours to complete and I spent sometime thinking about whether it was too simple or not and thought back to the major difficulty that stopped me was really almost always finding that one hard to find portal capable surface not working out what to do. So I would say it was probably a bit simple. I guess this is probably another one where the game is just the base for user content. It was enjoyable though.

Yes, the AI is notoriously cheap. They don't have to perform the same combos as a human player to perform any special attacks, they can use them instantly and swiftly. If you do use the state-saving to play through the games, you can experiment with the A.I.'s reactions, how long it takes them to 'learn' and change their tactics, and so on. At least on easy, for MK 2 and 3 the most effective basic attacks seemed to be uppercuts, back+high kick, and jump-towards+high kick.

And another finished game/goal for me. Tales of Graces f Platinum Trophy on PS3. 100% playthrough finished after aprox 337 hours of playing O.o

Added it to my List of finished games

The AI is cheap, but it's also exploitable. You can flawlessly uppercut (or UF/B+HK) Motaro on easier settings. Kintaro (and everyone else in MK2, but Kintaro is particularly susceptible because of his boasting pauses) can be easily beaten by cornering him and spamming HP. I know there are 100% combos and infinites in MK2, so that might also work if your execution is good enough.

I don't use it. I kinda consider that cheating.

If there was a DRM-free version available... you would have just sold me the game. Even the disk version isn't complete - the whole 3rd episode is downloaded from Steam and some other stuff apparently too. So my "buy disk version and un-Steam it" approach won't work either :-/

Quest for Glory (Series)

Legendary series that will have you interpret a nameless hero from the East, Quest for Glory is an epic saga composed by five chapters that will see you rise from the position of “average guy” to that of an hero renowned in all the world.

The most peculiar trait of those games stays in the hybridation between the adventure and RPG genres: your protagonist will have in fact to be chosen among the classes of Fighter, Wizards or Thief (and later, if you satisfy certain requisites, Paladin), each one mastering a specific set of abilities, like weapon use, parry and throwing for a Fighter, Magic with all its many spells for a Wizard and lockpicking, climbing, acrobatics and sneak for a Thief.
It is actually possible to play a hybrid character with all the abilities of every class, but in my opinion that leaves all the role playing fun out of the equation, providing you always an easy solution without the challenge to think like a determined character would (and forcing you to grind for hours, if you want any kind of mastery in any discipline).
All the five installments have been programmed to respond differently to what you choose, presenting many alternate solution to each riddle based on your class specialties, so even considering the basics alone a great replayability us already guaranteed. I have especially appreciated the fact that, after finishing an episode, you can transfer your character to the next, maintaining your stats and -some-of your items.

The strong points of the series are not only its hybrid nature, but also the great and always present sense of humor (with maybe a bit too many puns), the strong personalities of every character, from the main antagonists to the average farmer, and the huge amount of different cultural folklore themes the developers included.
Each chapter has in fact a main setting and a main theme, starting from classic among the classic Medieval Germany to the Middle East, Africa, Transylvania and Greece, everyone bearing more or less known traditional elements, both visually, mythologically and humorously wise.
Another aspect that really impressed me with the series as a whole is that each game shows also the growth of the young hero, initially facing relatively small challenges and aided by many friends and lately left alone in unknown lands fighting against some of the greatest menaces the world could ever face.

As far as mechanics go, there is little to say you already don't know: the first two episodes use a text parser input method (something I struggled a bit with in the beginning but learned to appreciate more later, even arriving to hope some new game can take that road again) while the first episode remake and the others are your classic point and click adventure goodness.
All puzzles are very well studied and will require cleverness and effort to be solved with only a minimal amount of grinding to hone your skills enough to make them effective in the most hostile environments, and completing each quest is extremely satisfying and could really make you feel a bit like an hero for a day.
Moreover, in addition to the diversity given by the three classes, it is noticeable to see that even for a single one the puzzles have multiple solutions more often than not and will rarely let you feel stuck; speaking of which, I have to move a criticism.
There are no illogical puzzles, and with a bit of effort everything can fall into place... the real problem, though, is FINDING what you have to do. The rudimentary “copy protection system” pushed the developers to craft very large, maze-like confusing maps that you can easily navigate only when looking the manual, and while this is annoying only in the beginning (after that, you'll either recognize the paths or you will be allowed to quick-travel) it is the most displeasing and painfully time consuming present feature.
The combat is also a nice addition, keeping things simple (hit, parry, dodge, cast, each game has it sown way of dealing with them) and fun and showing you the ample display of monsters a true hero should have to face. By the way, Beware the Antwerp!
Another criticism I have to move is the number of forced combat encounters for every class (my Thief was especially hurt by this) in QfG5: that game was heavier on the RPG side than on the adventure one, increasing the number of combat gadgets but also sometimes requiring forced physical engagement over more elaborate and peaceful solutions -solution that usually proved to be the most enjoyable way for non-fighter characters. Still, it remains a great game and a very fitting conclusion to the series.


I recommend Quest for Glory to everyone, not only to fan of then genres; it is a real classic and the perfect definition for good old game, and it will probably remain immortal in the Olympus of gaming awesomeness, along with titles of the caliber of Ultima Underworld, Deus Ex and others.
Playing trough it was a real joy, and I admit that I will miss the series now that it is over. Few games could make me say the same.
Missing it would be a real injustice, so I warmly invite you to play it: you won't regret a second of it!