Assassin's Creed (Xbox One)

Started replaying the series earlier this year and started with my favorite- AC2 using the Ezio Collection. Wasn't going to do the original, but the recent "enhanced back compatibility" for XB1X got me interested. Basically, it's the original 360 version with it's code untouched, but using emulation to bring the resolution up from 720p to 2160p...and the difference is amazing- ultra sharp, better view distance, better texture filtering, even some better LOD's and smoother frame rate, and enforced v-sync (no frame tears ever). Some other games to receive this treatment, like Mirrors Edge, even get boosted from 8 bit color to 10 bit. All just using emulation and assets that were already in the original code- assets that the original 360 just couldn't use. And it all actually worked, not a single glitch or crash during my 100% completion run. I am actually very impressed with what Microsoft is doing with this stuff.

My views on Assassins Creed itself haven't changed. It was a great idea, but with a few flaws built in that Ubi tweaked in the next installment. Great setting though, I'd like to see a true modern sequel to the Altair story actually. Like people know, it gets repetitive very fast, since the entire game is rinse and repeat. But it all started here, and no matter what anyone says about the series, I still love my yearly run through some amazing historical based world, I'll take historical over a modern GTA city any day.

Jack Orlando: A Cinematic Adventure - Director's Cut

Pros:
- "Open world"
- Great music
- You can die
- There is really a lot of object and player must think first, otherwise inventory became waste dump
- Excellent stereo sound

Cons:
- Illogical puzzles
- Stupid triggers (you cannot enter bar until somebody tells you about it, although there is huge label above it...)

There were so many irracional puzzles, that I finish this game with walkthrough help.

Many of those maps are deceptively tricky! The designers must've been sadists.

Just Cause 2 with all achievements.
I managed something that I was unable to do on X360 (had to sold it due financial issues). Made 1000/1000 with JC1 but only 850/1000 with JC2. Now I finished the job.
Some things were enjoyable (challenges, racing, flying under bridges and of course DESTRUCTION) some not so (collect X stuff) and some were infuriating. There is one missable - to drive 104 cars and it was good idea to buy DLCs because some vehicles are not available in te freeplay mode or near impossible to find even with guides. The rarest car? A friggin tourist bus in the desert. No kidding.
I had to connect my old gamepad to finish QTE in the final scene because 1234 keys were borked and show FAILED most of the time despite pressing the right one. Weird.
And there were 2 challenges that you had to do with slowest airplane - fly under 30 bridges and fry near the surface for 30seconds. For some reason if did not worked over the ocean, I almost put my wheels into the water and it still not count the time. Weird.

Gears of War 4 (Xbox One)

Straight up, this is the most fun I've had playing a game this year. It's always a worry when a change of developer takes over a franchise, but I think this is the best Gears story campaign so far.

You play as JD Fenix, the son of Marcus. After all the years of Delta squad it took a few hours to warm up to the new crew. But worry not, the game ends up paying tribute to all that came before in the best way.
It's still the well balanced shooter roller coaster ride as before. Action gets mixed up to keep it fresh, one minute your stopping waves of enemies in the usual way, then you will be thrown into a tower defense section and then a vehicle ride and even an occasional on rails shooter segment to break things up. And the final act finished thing up perfect...answering questions from the first trilogy and opening it up to an obvious story direction to come.

And well done to the Coalition for actually knowing how to tell a cinematic story without having the cut scenes completely break the flow of the game, no cut scene ever interrupts you when you're doing something, they tie perfectly into the game play flow so you hardly even notice. All this and it even ran at 60 fps. And the best use of Unreal 4 I've yet to see.

Majesty HD

One of my favorite games, now in HD. A great game and even greater expansion. Seriously, it’s what a proper expansions should look like, not lame DLCs we get nowadays. A few interesting additions and a lot of hardcore action to check if you have really mastered the basic game. Time limit on Legendary Heroes will rush you and reappearing Spires of Death will make you cry. I love this game!


Full list

Majesty is one of my most favourite games, but man, I was never able to beat Legendary Heroes without cheating (save scumming casino to make big momey quickly). Even while cheating I had troubles handling it. No other quest came close to it and while some were quite challenging, this was the only one I found almost impossible.
For me it's one of the hardest map in any game I played extensively.

Embassy + Outpost can give you 8 new heroes relatively cheap. And since each guild can hold only one hero in that mission it's the only reasonable way to win this mission. Trust me, it's doable, especially if you are lucky (like getting two wizards and no gnome from embassy)

Home

This is a 2D adventure game with pixel art.

It's quite short (I explored almost everywhere and it took me under 1.5hrs) and fairly creepy. It's also quite linear, although you can make choices as you go along which will change the story and the ending. The most annoying part of the game is that it has checkpoint saves and fairly often it will close off behind you without warning, so you can't go back to continue exploring if you hadn't finished exploring a particular area yet.

Overall it's OK, and I think it's worth the time it takes to play.

Fallout: New Vegas

Just finished my first playthrough after 136 hours. Despite a few flaws and several crahses i had a great time in the Mojave. New Vegas is my favorite Fallout game so far (haven't played F3 yet) and i'll certainly play it again one day... Or maybe i should finish those 2 DLC quests i haven't tried yet now... :D

Fallout: New Vegas - Ultimate Edition (Linux/WINE)

It took me over a 100h, for which I needed months.
First of all, I wouldn't recommend doing the first playthrough with the DLCs. Rather adjust the level cap with JSawyers Ultimate mod and simply go for the base game since the DLCs aren't integrated into the flow at all and are rather long distractions from all the stuff to do and find in the base game. If you already finished that once, it's probably less of a problem because it goes faster and you already know things. Some of the DLCs were quite good but they are games on their own and should rather have been added more specifically like before or after the base game, especially Lonesome Road should just be automatically added after the game since it has the actual ending.
I also encountered some immersion breaking flaws, like not being able to tell Yes man to eradicate the BoS after joining them and similar things. The companion quests are hard to get, you need to find and choose a partner early on and visit all locations with him. Since I found Veronica really late in the game, I wasn't able to see most of her quest and she also didn't react much to me giving her Vera's Dress, just said "Oh, you shouldn't have", felt like there is supposed to be some more. Same for Raul and some others. In order to see everything you either have to use a wiki or invest 500h in replays which a working person just doesn't have.

For some reason stealth didn't work so well for me.
I had it on 100, always crouched and yet was always noticed at some point if I didn't have a stealth boy applied, so I had to count on critical stealth kills which don't work as well with energy weapons than with rifles and I was a tech guy.
The irradiated creatures in Lonesome Road all saw me from a distance even with stealth boy. :/

Well, it did work a bit better when I had Lily with me.
I played it with Adam's WINE wrapper in Linux Mint and it worked way better than Fallout 3 in WinXP back then.
I avoided power armor or other stuff that has a stealth penalty in the description (although I think 80 Stealth after 20 malus shouldn't make me flash up like it seemed to have done), does medium armor do invisible stealth penalty?
Even with the fully upgraded stealth armor from Old World Blues enemies have seen me way too fast, maybe it was because of ED-E?

Another big gripe I have about New Vegas is the crafting system.
There is no manual - neither external nor in-game - so it's just trial and error. Unfortunately all those parts weigh tons so you never carry enough different stuff with you for that trial and error, that's just bad design.

That said, it is an actual successor to Fallout 2 made by some of the original devs, many references/cameos, mostly good writing, a bloody lot to find, several important decisions to make etc...
Graphics are good, it seems to be more stable than Fallout 3, rarely crashed at all and felt like a proper RPG.

Just pointing out the odd coincidence, two people reporting finishing the same game within moments of each other, both reporting it took them over 100h.

Yeah, what are the odds, lol. Not sure a game being shorter would make it more likely that two people finish it at the same time, though.

Anyway, just finished Assassin's Creed IV: Freedom Cry on PS4. So, it's a downscaled version of Black Flag in every way and while I appreciate the theme and everything it's just not very good. The new mechanics related to liberating slaves are badly executed and, if you overthink things, pretty distasteful. Frankly I just wanted to get it over with and breezed through the story missions, skipping almost everything else, and luckily the whole thing can be finished in like two hours or so. But even though I was hoping that it would be short I was still kinda disappointed by how abruptly it ends, the final mission is a very basic assassination like hundreds before it in the series and there's no notable aftermath or anything. A short conversation with the only other remotely developed character in the DLC and the credits roll. I was expecting a bit more, especially after a pretty spectacular and emotional sequence in the penultimate mission. Too bad.

Well, seven AC games down, four to go.

Edit: Since the credits started rolling I've made some coffee, taken a dump, read a review of the new game by Supermassive Games, carefully checked out today's GOG deals, read the main Assassin's Creed article on Wikipedia a bit and written this post. And they are still rolling. It's taking friggin' forever. Seriously, I think they've been going on for like 20 minutes now?

Holy crap. They literally last almost half an hour. That's like a quarter of how long it takes to actually finish the game if you skip side activities.

I've finished it a few hours earlier yesterday and posted about in on the other forum.
When I saw that here, I just copied over. ;)