Deus Ex GOTY Edition

Had it in my library for a long time now, so decided to give it a play. Deus Ex see's you play an augmented human working for a branch of the UN to prevent terrorism, help people etc, however nothing is ever as it seems, conspiracies around every corner and you never know who you can trust. It's a first person RPG with plenty of choice as to how you progress, you can be stealthy or you can be loud, you can kill everyone you meet or you can kill no one. For those that like lots of lore in game, there are dozens of e-mails, news reports and books scattered around to provide a greater back story to the game. It's also fairly long, which means you can spend quite a few days exploring the world. The story is heavily influenced by sci-fi, conspiracies and philosophical literature and there are numerous references scattered throughout the game world. It's easy to see how its regarded as such a classic.

When I started the game, I decided to do a no kill playthrough, this is technically possible but the game registers a few enemies as being killed even if you knock them out. Doing a no kill playthrough also makes the game incredibly difficult, the riot baton (the non-lethal melee weapon in the game) seems to prefer to be heavily dependant on luck, despite fully upgrading the melee weapon stat it would be random whether an enemy would shrug off a hit or fall unconscious, and when the enemies suddenly have miniguns for hands which they point at your head immediately, it can become incredibly frustrating when the baton fails. While stealth is an option, it's also very difficult. Tranquilizer darts immediately give away your position and take quite a while to actually knock people out, enemies seem to have night vision so hiding in shadows only works if you're very far away and often many enemies will chase after you down a tight corridor with little to no cover. Going non-lethal actually doesn't affect anything in the game, except dialogue, an extra reward from 3 missions, and your own conscience. In my playthrough 5 people were killed, 2 through decisions that can be made as progress, 2 got shot by other enemies shooting at me, and 1 (Who is probably the toughest enemy in the game) blew themselves up with their own grenade, so I think I did a good job.

My rant about going non lethal aside the only problem was frame rate issues, which I found surprising considering how old the game was, which caused the game to lag horribly while looking at Security Camera's, being near radiation, or being near areas with lots of electricity and water. This may have been down to picking the wrong settings though. My other issue is that I couldn't get the achievements to work, I assume it's bugged because there appears to be several very easy achievements that no one has gotten.

Apart from those issues, it was a great game, I wasn't a big fan of the ending as your previous choices prior to the final level don't really affect it in any way. This is actually the 2nd Deus Ex game I've played, but the first one that I'd played for longer than a hour. I seem to recall rage quitting Human Revolution because your energy bar drained completely if you did a stealth melee kill, which I thought was utter BS. I'm glad that this game was good though. I hope GOG will get Deus Ex Mahima as I've been wanting to play that for a while as well. I would thoroughly recommend this game.

Finished Call of Duty Infinite Warfare.

I had fun with the game. It was the first game I played that could run on my new Ryzen 5 rig but couldn't run on my previous core i3 rig as the game kept crashing due to lack of processor power or RAM or both.

As I said, I had fun with the game, but gameplay trumps story here. To put you in a variety of missions, from being on deck of a big spaceship to flying space opera battles in smaller spacecraft to mission fought on the ground on Earth, other planets or an asteroids, the game has you play [slight spoiler ahead!] a protagonist who becomes the commander of a spaceship, but at the same time functions as the boots on the ground (or suit in space) on the most dangerous missions that a commander should never put himself in. In the heat of battle, the commander constantly abandons his post to go on commando missions. Just as unbelievable or even more so, is the explosions and sounds of canons firing in the midst of space that, as we all now, consists of a vacuum in which sound won't travel.

Gameplay wise, the game is fun though. The characters are likeable, though all are of the tough but cheerful standard soldiering typecast. You get to do a big variety of missions and difficulty was mostly just right. I had some though moments (doing everything on normal) but I managed to finish the game even though at times I despaired I'd had hit a glass wall of difficulty that I couldn't get through. But after a rest and with lots of reloads, I managed.

A tip for those wanting to play the game: get the game on DVD in a sale. Not only does it save you from having to download the full 97 GB (instead from DVD it's just a dozen or so GB of updates), but I was able to get the game for a much cheaper sale price physically than Activision does ever offer for the digital sale on Steam.

full list

1954 Alcatraz, Sept 14 (GOG)-Not bad but not great. I liked the plot/setting of a prison break and having two main characters but the execution in this game was a bit of a let down. The puzzles weren't too difficult but too often I found myself stuck not because I didn't know what to do but more because I didn't click on something in the right order or talk to someone else first.

Full List

Rack N Ruin

An all right Zelda-like with a truly evil player character.

Tron 2.0

Fun FPS (with some light cycling). I never did use much of any weapons other than the normal disk, and later the Sequencer Disk since it let you do multiple concurrent shots. Played on Hard, almost wore out the quicksave/quickload key.... The bosses of the game were rather annoying, though I reloaded and double checked that the final one would've been a mite less annoying had I used the equivalent of a rocket launcher weapon you get almost at the very end of the game. Ah well.

Nantucket (2018) (Linux)
(thank you, DampSquib, for the game!)

OK, this one was really nice! At first gameplay reminded me Sunless Sea (or even first Ultima games;), where you operate on world map. But of course it's something much more - and it was more interesting for me. Nantucket is unique game, in which you'll find:
- engaging story and characters from classic Melville's novel (main quest)
- historical background - and not only about age of American whaling (newspapers!)
- great sailing atmosphere
- fantastic music - including perfectly performed chanties!
- turn-based combat with interesting mechanics - looks like strongly inspired by boardgames
- low system requirements and native Linux installer

The only disadventage is limited number of random events. At some point they become repetitive and main quest + few side quest are not enough to make the game replayable. If you consider the game one-time adventure, this should not be a problem; the game would not have time to become boring.

List of all games completed in 2018.

American McGee's Alice Madness Returns (XB1) - 4/5 - Great art and story. Wish the gameplay was more varied
Batman: Enemy Within (XB1) - 5/5 Great story, meaningful choices. The Telltale Tool at it's best
Counterspy (PSV) - 4/5 - Could get a bit frustrating sneaking around, but had solid mechanics. Love the art style
Flow (PSV) - 2/5 - Too repetitive for my taste
Flower (PSV) - 2.5/5 - Better than Flow in terms of mechanics, but still repetitive
Halo 1-5 (XB1) - 6/5 - Some of the best sci-fi storytelling ever, but upscaled for 4k!
Halo 3 ODST (XB1) - 5/5 - Great music and atmosphere. You get to feel how it's like to not be a Spartan in the Halo universe
Halo Reach (XB1) - 6/5 - One of the most incredible endings I've experienced in a video game
Halo Spartan Assault (XB1) - 4/5 - Solid story with nice top down perspective. Can get a bit grindy though.
Halo Spartan Strike (PC) - 3/5 - Total grindfest. Only for hard core Halo fans
Headlander (GOG) - 3.5/5 - Interesting gameplay mechanics marred by frustrating combat. The classic Doublefine style is what kept me through the game
Life is Strange: Before the Storm (XB1) - 6/5 - prequel to one of the best point and click games ever
Ori and the Blind Forest (XB1) - 3.5/5 - Solid mechanics but since I'm a primarily story guy, I was kind of surprised at how un-invested I was in Ori's predicament
Ryse: Son of Rome (XB1) - 1/5 - I played for the art. Combat is repetitive, story is boring.
Shantae: Half-genie Hero (PSV) - 4/5 - Great music, level design and mechanics. Must buy for metroidvania fans
South-park: Stick of Truth (XB1) - 4/5 - Hilarious and well made throughout.
Steamworld Heist (PSV) - 5/5 - I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this. Addicting game play and music coupled with a great artstyle.
Incredible Adventures of Captain Spirit (XB1) - 3/5 - Prequel to Life is Strange 2. It's ok, nothing to write home about.
X-COM Enemy Within (GOG) - 6/5 - My first serious foray into turn-based games. Absolutely mindblowing.

9/20
Octodad: Dadliest Catch (GOG) - 5/5

9/22
Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded (GOG) - 2/5

10/1
Hector: Badge of Carnage (GOG) - 4.5/5

11/16
Diablo 3: Eternal Collection (Switch) - 5/5

12/4
South Park: Fractured But Whole (Switch) - 3/5

is that this week or for the whole year? :D

May want to add "include me" to that list and maybe give SCPM a poke then, to have that post added to the OP links :)

Rage (XB1X)

Xbox 360 version on Xbox One. You can see how much this one is trying to be Borderlands. Overall I liked it, I always like driving in FPS's and this has lots of it and racing. The races are really easy though, but a fun part of the game. Other good points are the weapons, especially how they sound- quite possibly the most solid sounding guns ever. Actually the game looks and sounds great for a past generation console game and ran flawlessly at 60fps. Though I did find one bug, I found a way to fall through the game world and end up in an area where you can't get out of and looking up at the BACK of all the rendered town. It's always funny when that happens and I seem to have a knack for finding these world holes.
Best of all it has Claudia Black doing some voice on minor characters.

It had two things that hold it back from excellence and make it just a good game. The first is the stealth system. It's the most pointless stealth system ever and feels like it was just tacked on to check a box "modern shooter- must have stealth" box checked. The problem is that it only works in the very specific times that the devs allowed it to work. Everywhere else and you just cross a line on the floor and enemies spawn and come straight at you whether you are in stealth or not. Why have stealth if the games scripting just breaks it every time?
The other thing was the hub based world, which I liked, and it has extra side mission to do if you want. But since there is no RPG elements like Borderlands, no real upgrade path and no real rewards for doing any of the side stuff, then why would you? Well I did do them, because I'm a hopeless completionist sometimes. But they felt like a waste of time in the end. Not much point complaining about optional quests though I suppose.

But the straight story missions and levels were enjoyable. I'm glad they are making a sequel, the ending pretty much sets it right up for part 2.

Open Sorcery

Very nice text-based CYOA game in which you play as a firewall protecting a network of people including a school, a nursing home and your two creators against spirits of various matters and motives. Short (1-2 hours) but with actual replay value. Will probably play again, but I'll chalk it up as finished anyway as the one playthrough was quite satisfying already (even if I didn't manage to protect everyone).

Ratchet and Clank (2016)

I loved the old ratchet and clank games, so I waited until the newest one was on sale and quickly snapped it up. It's a remake of the original, with a new story, missions and weapons. The game itself was a tie-in with a release of the Ratchet and Clank movie, even featuring numerous cut scenes from the movie within it. While the gameplay is fun, it does seem shorter than previous Ratchet and Clank games, which is likely due to a lack of side content and the removal of skill points. I actually beat it 3 times, to try get all the achievements, of which many are hidden and require you to perform odd actions without any clue as to what these are (Such as standing outside a specific door for several seconds), which I assume was done so people would buy the game guide. One achievement in particular is absurd and requires you to use a certain weapon on every type of enemy in the game, which wouldn't be so bad if enemies actually respawned, with many only being available in certain windows of opportunity, this is coupled with the fact you can only have 1 save game at a time which autosaves after every encounter. While it is a good game, I prefer the older ones, I must've played over 200 hours of Ratchet Gladiator when it came out, yet going through the game a 3rd time because I missed ONE ENEMY with a certain weapon was a slog and ruined my experience. But if you don't go for 100% achievements, it's a good game, a bit difficult for a newbie to the series but its still a good game. I'd wait until a sale before buying it though, or looking for a cheap preowned copy.

SCPM, can you add me to the list?

Done, sorry for the delay!

Limbo
Not the usual game type I tend to enjoy, but played it under recommendation from a friend. Well thought out puzzles, which are mostly not to obscure to work out, often simply timing or logic coming into play. Odd puzzle here or there confusing enough to makes me resort to a walk-through (especially spider, log, water, in which I couldn't tell that the object I was climbing over WAS a log in the first place).
Frustrating enough in places to make you leave, but not enough that you don't return to try again later.
One particular chapter where the art direction was damn near frustrating (swinging light in factory), but otherwise...somewhat beautiful.
Character drowning was a pet-peeve, considering his apparent athletic skill. More imaginative deaths was a plus.
It was a delicious cake, but the icing (music) was thinly applied. 4 out of 5 .

The Tiny Bang Story
Typically frustrating for a game this style (hidden object). No actual in-game text a refreshing idea. Music sometimes irritating (in conjunction with frustration of finding a piece eluding you for many minutes), but otherwise in step with the game. Overall length, considering it was a retail version, was actually too short (a few more chapters were needed).
Art style reminiscent of well-drawn childhood puzzle books. Bug collection for hints was a good idea, but further frustrated with the number of bugs needed (rather than making the bugs harder to catch) . A game suitable for a wide range of ages. 3.5 out of 5.

Orwell
A little dry in my opinion. Had a reasonable plot, but the glaringly obvious for me is that the game would have fared better with professional voice-acting for telephone captures and contact with your handler. Could have had live video included in intelligence gathering, from security cameras and recorded video from television etc.
On-the-fly learning of the intelligence gathering technique was not clear enough from the get-go, and player ends up flying through the game simply my dragging every highlight into the Orwell system without more devastating consequences.
3 out of 5.

Braveland
Not worth the DL in my opinion. Story-line so short it is clear it was designed to suck players in to constantly purchase sequels. A game simply made to make money. Strategic combat was not diverse enough to warrant return plays.
2 out of 5.