Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek (2011)

Another nice hidden-object point&click adventure from Artifex Mundi studio. The same as always - nice graphics, boring story, simple and schematic puzzles. Nothing special, but nice game to play between more serious titles or when you're not able to play anything demanding. Nicely satisfies the need of completing something ;)

List of all games completed in 2018.

Fallout 3 (main story) is my first completed game of 2018. I still have plenty of content left to finish in the DLCs, but I can add Fallout 3 to the completed list.

I was in a similar position last year. I think I finished around 30 or so, counting everything, but a lot of them were 5 hours or less.

If you're still letting people, then Include me, please.
By My count we ran through 39 games last year. Hope to improve on that but I doubt it.

(1/27/2018)
God of War III
(2/6/2018)
Uncharted 2
(2/9/2018)
God of War
(2/12/2018)
Onimusha Warlords
(2/13/2018)
Uncharted 3
(2/17/2018)
Onimusha 2 Samurai's Destiny
(4/21/2018)
Outlaws
(5/7/2018)
Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen
(6/16/2018)
Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash
(6/29/2018)
Bioshock
(9/9/2018)
Mighty Gunvolt
(9/25/2018)
Alliance Alive
(11/20/2018)
Medal of Honor Allied Assault: Spearhead
(11/27/2018)
Call of Duty: WWII

Farmington Tales Bought the latest Fanatical HOG bundle for $1 largely to try this out. For the money, it's a pretty good value - for certain types of players.

For me, I think I enjoyed it largely because it made me think about what else the genre could be besides just the same ol' tales of demons, pirates, and serial killers, or even serial killer demon pirates.

Pros:
Music was generally good, if perhaps the length of the game should've necessitated 1-2 more tracks.
Parts of the game are very kid friendly - both the object hunt, the safe subject matter, and some of the mini-games
The object searches themselves are fairly creative, however. The addition of the gems, plus bonus gold for completing certain challenges does keep it fresh longer than it has right to be. Just not 15 hours fresh.


Cons:
Way too long for what it is. Some of this was afk, but Steam has me in game for 15 hours.
Object find maps ended up needing to be used repeatedly as a result. There's a decent number of them, but the game just keeps going.
Difficulty curve is probably a bit much. Most of the game is exceedingly easy but the last few rounds of certain mini-games spike, and the games lack the tools the originals typically had to round them out - e.g. the minesweeper game ramps up to a ratio over 1:3, but doesn't include a counter of how many mines remain.

TLDR: On the whole I guess thumbs up, and parts of it would appeal to kids 5-10. But it needed more focus (is it a casual game for kids and lazy adults wanting to imagine themselves back home in the country, or a challenging game drawn out by hours of mindless clickery?) and a bit less length.

Sid Meier's Pirates!

A remake of a remake so I didn't expect too much from it but was positively surprised. It's still a lighthearted choose-your-own-adventure pirate game with a pinch of strategy and a bunch of mini-games. I don't know if new players can find it interesting but for those who spent a lot of time on original Pirates! the game should provide a lot of fun.


Full list

I found it very nice back when I played it, without having played the original Pirates.

On another note, see all these high numbers of games finished here and... Damn!
I only finished 2 actual games last year, both in January, if you don't count the silly (well, one was more serious) protest games played in order to submit on MobyGames in February (1, 2, 3, 4 (the more serious one), 5 (older one, created for the 2016 local elections, updated then with the new theme), 6, 7), and not sure whether I should count Might and Magic I abandoned in 2017 when I actually uninstalled it or in 2015 when was the date of the last save. And that's after 6 in 2016 (counting Tropico 4 as 2, because Modern Times and the one DLC scenario compatible with it are more different from vanilla Tropico 4 than it is from Tropico 3 with Absolute Power installed, and also counting Akalabeth even though I just rushed through it with the amulet exploit), 3 in 2015 (4 if you count the few games of Mice Men played in order to submit it on MobyGames when I remembered playing it back on my first computer and noticed it wasn't there, but I don't count it), 6 in 2014 (counting Alter Ego even though I just rushed through the browser version one day and died in old age, not reaching the proper ending, and also counting Akinator after using it for 100 characters when I fooled around with it for a few days or a week or whatever it was), and 2 in 2013 (counting the two Castle of the Winds games separately, since that's the full extent of it really, not counting Inner Vision which I just went through in a few minutes to submit on MobyGames when somebody pointed it out to me). Currently digging further back to see if I can recover the list (been logging dates finished since 2014 but sadly deleted the 2014 ones, so just recovered approximate ones now, had approximate ones for CotW, nothing before, but the games played in 2012 should be easy, I think 6 finished and one abandoned, dates will be harder. Before 2012 though, not sure how much I'll be able to dig up, but I did start blogging in 2007 so some sort of information may be obtainable that far, if very spotty in the first years. But still, you may need to go back to the '90s for me to find more than 6 in a year.
Er, ranting, right. Just no idea how you people do it...

"An hour a day" rule works wonders ;)

Depends what you consider a lot. I only average 10 to 12 games a year completed, but I mostly play big time-sink-type CRPGs. Many of the people with long lists have a lot of games on there that only take a few hours to complete. So the type of game one plays is a big factor in that.

My first completed game in 2018:

The Walking Dead: Season 1
A typical "modern" Telltale Games game. Not the right thing when you are looking for a lot of gameplay or clever puzzles. But absolutely the right one when you are looking for an interesting story and well-written characters. Especially the interaction between Lee and Clementine was heart-warming and the end of the game was one of the most touching ones, I've ever seen in a video game.

Bad thing was that the stats didn't work for me and so I missed out some stuff like credits or the final cutscen after the fifth chapter.

And of course there is the typical Telltale Games problem that your decisions don't really matter. They might affect the game for some minutes, but in the end they won't really change anything.

Complete list of finished games in 2018

Mafia: City of Lost Heaven (PC)

First one complete this year, and probably the only 1 completed for a while due to free time flying out the window. When I looked at this, I assumed "Hey, this is just GTA in the 30's" which it sort of is, but with a lot more differences. You play as Tommy, a taxi driver turned mafia hitman, who recounts how he spent his time in the 30's, which it turns out was full of action. Now if you like driving, this is the game for you, because driving is 90% of the game, in fact you don't actually fire a gun until the 4th mission, the 2nd mission is basically a taxi driver sim, there is an absurd amount of driving in this game, every mission seems to take place on the otherside of the city. However you have to obey the rules of the road, no speeding, no driving through red lights, no crashing into other cars, otherwise the police come after you. The police are incredibly frustrating, most of the time they will be driving faster than you, you cannot progress in missions unless you lose the police first, and they will often go after you because you make a mistake like accidentally showing a gun in public.

Enough rants about driving, let's get to the shooting. This is the 3rd game I've played in the last year that killed my hand, the reason being if you don't crouch near constantly, you will get shot to pieces. There are many long areas in the game where you must fight huge numbers of enemies, with no checkpoints, sometimes no first aid kits, and very little ammo. It is very easy to die if your not careful, the game does like to place enemies with shotguns around corners, and dying after spending 10 minutes carefully avoiding snipers whilst shooting everyone else isn't the most fun experience.

You may have noticed a lot of ranting, well I didn't enjoy the game much, and to put into perspective, here are some of the things that happened in my playthrough. In one mission my allies would run in front of my bullets, and also run into exploding cars and straight up to the enemy, and if they die it's a game over. In another mission I had to drive a car off a cliff, this is harder than it sounds because unlike GTA the car has to be stopped before you can leave it, also the car makes you permanently wanted by the police, this took 14 attempts eventually resulting in me punching the car off a cliff. At one point the car was rolling down towards the cliff, when the police drove up, crashed into the car and flipped it into a bush, and it's a long drive back to the last checkpoint. One mission I had to tail this car, that drove at 8mph, and I had to follow it for 15 minutes, and it would get stuck so I had to ruin my immersion by ramming it back onto the road. And the last boss fight is absurd, he has ridiculous accuracy, has to be shot about 20 times, and then follows a cutscene where it turns out, you didn't hit him at all.

Glitches are also a big problem, sometimes they're funny, like watching a guy smoke a tommy gun instead of a cigar. Then there are the game breaking bugs, that occur randomly, like allies refusing to move or speak, cars that can't be gotten into, enemies shooting through walls and falling through the world. The game also crashed... a lot, it didn't even crash at particular points it was just random. Oh at one point the game crashed, and somehow it also broke the galaxy client, so I had to reinstall it.

OK Good points now... story is good... and it's fun at points... I'm sure some people would enjoy it, but I didn't.

Party Hard
I got it from GOG community giveaway, donated by BeatriceElysia

I didn't expect anything good from this game but it turned out to be somewhat fun. Sure, it's not a masterpiece or anything, just a basic stealth-based slasher but still enjoyable enough to make me finish it. Sure, we can talk and talk about its flaws like repetitiveness, cliched story which is as stupid as terrible is the voice acting and so one. But it doesn't matter. The game is simple and is about crushing some parties hard way. Picking a lone dancer and slashing him/her with a knife. Setting a few traps that may kill several people but mostly hiding in the shadows and waiting for somebody to be alone. Yeah, the game is simple with a lot of nonsense stuff but it's not as bad as many people think. If played in small portions it can be relaxing and entertaining. What's there to hate?


Full list

Just finished C&C 3. I;m getting too old for this high speed crap. :P

Guess I'll hit the expansion "Kane's Wrath" before moving onto something like "Deserts of Kharak" that actually has a tactical pause.

List:
GOTY so far: Mini Metro - I have been playing this pretty much all year, and even though I am down to once a week, it is still enjoyable, so I moved it back ahead of Dungeon Keeper
Paperclips
Softporn Adventure
Mini Metro
Injustice: Gods Among Us
Gone Home
Hotline Miami
Virginia
Skyhill
Neverending Nightmare
Realm of the Dread Sorceress
Dungeon Keeper
Price
Deadpool
Guards
Slipways
Braveland, Braveland Wizard, and Braveland Pirate
SuperHot
Stanley Parable
Action Henk
Shining Force
Human Resource Machine
The Walking Dead Season One and 400 Days
A Kiss For the Petals
#Wargames
Ticket to Ride
Thomas Was Alone