Commandos 3.

The first Commandos is one of my favorite games; the 2nd was too dumbed-down for my taste, but still ok. I hadn't played the 3rd one until now since it gets mostly bad reviews, but have now played through it over the last few days. It really is the weakest of all the Commandos games. Feels more like an expansion to Commandos 2 than a really new game, and is quite short. The levels are pretty small, nothing like the huge levels of the first two games. Most annoying is the change in gameplay: You've still got some stealth missions (which are quite fun, even if they're nothing spectacular), but apparently they wanted to make the game more action-like and dynamic, and so you've got time limits in some missions, and unforeseen events that make some missions feel pretty unfair on a first playthrough. In some missions this new design kind of works, but in others it's pretty unfun.
I'm somewhat torn on what rating to give this. I'd say 3/5 for the stealth missions reminiscent of the first two games...while rather unoriginal, they're decent fun for a few hours. Other parts are more deserving of a 2/5.
On the whole not a totally bad game, but not great either. If you think of it as a mediocre expansion for Commandos 2, you can get some fun out of it; otherwise it's disappointing.

Trine 2 + goblins DLC

Great game with amazing music and astonishingly beautiful graphics. Took about 13 hours to finish.

Finished Between Me and the Night and I was severely disappointed. Good graphics and music, but the story makes no sense. Puzzles don't make much sense neither most of the time. There are some actions sequences but they are not very interesting (either hack'n slash with no way to die, either run to escape monster). And the main character is slow as hell...

Full list here.

+ goblins DLC?
OH WAIT, I see. It's included. I was looking for the DLC as something extra I needed to purchase.

Crysis 3 (360)

Just an average shooter. The nano suit is so powerful that you have to get lazy and complacent to actually die. Likewise there seems little point to experimenting with all the different weapons since I just mostly walked up behind most enemies and insta killed them.

The enemies also would be some of the dumbest I've seen. I couldn't believe how often they blew themselves up with their own grenades for example. The AI cheats outrageously to try and make up for it's deficiencies...you can be cloaked and move around the map and observe how the enemies (who don't know where you are supposedly) sort of follow you...go to the left of map, the enemies drift over to the left etc. And they lob grenades at you when you are perfectly hidden and cloaked when they really shouldn't know where you are.

It's mainly a tunnel shooter, though the tunnels are quite wide and some of the lushest looking tunnels you will see, even on a 360. So I suppose the graphics have to be classed as the games highlight. Especially the city jungle areas early on. But the views don't make it anything other than just an average shooter overall.

Pony Island

I had a great time with it. It is one of the better meta-about-games experiences. Bonus, it is pretty short.

The Count Lucanor

Really awesome for its price / playtime but could use more multiroom puzzles and less predictability to really mess me up. It loses a lot of the horror when you understand the rules for monster spawning. Still, very good, very sincere, highly recommended.

Worse than Crysis 2?

Full Throttle Remastered

Another LucasArts classic point'n'click adventure remastered by Double Fine. Unlike Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle, I had never played Full Throttle before. Well, I lie: I vaguely remember playing a demo of sorts back in the day... and not liking it much.

After playing the remaster, I've been reassured in my old impressions. On its day, this was the most expensive game LucasArts had ever made (with a budget over one million dollars, according to the in-game audio commentary) but they clearly decided to spend most of it on cinematic cutscenes and flashy (at the time) 3D models, and drastically reduced the puzzle content to a minimum. This might have been brand-spanking new and innovative back in '95, but when looked at with 2017 eyes I can only rate it as 'just OK'.

Because the end result is a far too easy adventure (except for the infamous wall puzzle, of course), that can be summed up as a succession of "OK, I need to get items A, B, and C so I can progress" situations, and of course neither item isn't particularly hard to obtain. As a consequence, the game can be completed in just a couple of hours. And it would be even shorter if it weren't for the action sequences you find mid-game that force you to fight a bunch of bikers from rival gangs in order to get that section's items B and C. Those sequences aren't particularly fun or engaging, and it all boils down to find out which weapon is effective against which enemy. To make matters worse, while immersed in this section I found a bug that didn't let me exit it nor find a rival biker to fight, so I was forced to reload an old saved game.

Like in previous Double Fine remasters, you can instantly switch between the old and remastered art styles by pressing the F1 key, and thus realize how much have the graphics been improved by the remaster (particularly the 3D models). The new audio is way better too: the voice acting sounds way crisper and so does the music, especially during the most action-packed (cut)scenes.

So yeah, if you liked the original you're probably gonna love this remaster. But if you didn't, or even if you never played it before, chances are it's not gonna blow your mind by any standard.


My list of finished games in 2017

I'm not qualified to say, as Crysis 3 is the only one I've played so far. I usually do make every effort to play series in release order...but I got it as a free game on Xbox a few years back and I felt like a short shooter, so played it. I think I'll get the first game next time it's on a GOG sale.

Just finished Batman : The Telltale Series season 1

An in-the-upper-average Telltale game. Lags, bugs and bad translations that make me wonder how long Telltale will be able to keep on that formula to work on their current engine and obvious disdain for the foreign public.

But the story is not bad, another take at the early moments of Batman. Not too short, not too long.

So far in 2017: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2017/post15

At last, finished Dreamfall Chapters.

I have so much respect for The Longest Journey that I'll just pretend Dreamfall games never happened, and leave it at that.

The Count Lucanor

I really liked this mix of fairy tale and horror. It was just the right amount of cute, eerie and uncanny, with a bit of grotesque and gruesome, but in a good (creepy but cartoonish) way. The story-telling was gripping, the writing very nice, and the atmosphere was great, with awesome music and sound design, nice graphics and animations (simple but effective pixel art and high quality anime cutscenes reminding of Studio Ghibli). Puzzles were fun as well. In the beginning the walking speed seemed a bit slow, but I got used to it; and the save system (only at certain spots, for the cost of a coin) was much more forgiving than I expected, especially later in the game - it worked pretty well. I finished the game with two different endings, but apparantly that's not even half of it, and there are still several secrets to discover that I missed. Not sure if I will play around with it some more or not, but the time I spent with it so far (4-5 hours) was well worth it. Awesome little indie game.

Portal