Incidentally the crafting is probably the main thing that made me abandon the game back in the day. It pissed me off that as soon as you start the game you can almost max out all the bags (and yeah, it stinks that crafting is only for inventory size, sigh) so the first thing I did both times I approached the game was max that stuff out instead of doing missions and fighting mercs. It took me maybe 2-3 hours (but not at once) to do that as most animals can be reached quite quickly and all of them are easy to hunt. So no, it did not get old because crafting ends so quickly.

The hunting itself is trivial as most animals pose virtually no threat and are easily found by crafting a special syringe that highlights them through foliage and level geometry. And luckily the map tells you where you can find which animals (although for reasons unknown they don't show the name of the animal on the map - it took me a while to find boars because they look so similar to domesticated pigs). The one thing that really frustrated me is that if you're unlucky with the order you do the crafting in you will have to go back to hunt the same animals you've already hunted because suddenly a different bag needs the same animal skin again.

Luckily the final crafting levels require you to hunt rare animals which can only be accessed through quests which need you to take down some enemy camps. Sadly the rare animals aren't hard to track or kill either. Then again, after Red Dead Redemption 2 I'm kinda glad that hunting isn't a brutally tiresome mess here.

Same. From what I understand Far Cry 4 fixes a number of things that I loathe about Far Cry 3. Although most people I've talked to say that Primal is the best one of the series. I think I'm gonna try Blood Dragon next, though, as it was released after FC3 and from what I've been told it is much better even though it was just supposed to be a joke spin-off.

Limbo, Dec 3 (Humble Bundle)-This was a weird, little, puzzley game. Creepy at times, fiendish at times, but the platforming/puzzles were quite good. I was quite pleased with myself for beating this without a walkthrough as I typically get stuck late in these games for hours and give up. I'm not sure its quite as great as everyone says it is but if you like these types of games its a pretty good example.

Full List

The Thing (PC)

Runs pretty good on modern PC. Except cheats, they don't work, some changes in registry made it so you won't be save spamming these days.
Game wasn't much of a challenge except hangars with airplanes and maybe final 2-3 missions. And lab escape when you lost all guns.

Oh and blood tests are pointless, if there is spare engineer on the level then your old one get mutated. Every time, like a clockwork.
They're only good to boost morale which I did, dunno, twice?
Starting new levels only to find out your teammates are gone, with your guns and spare clips/mags.
Pretty annoying.

So, I just beat Diablo for the first time, playing as warrior. I've actually played the original Diablo a lot, at least since 1997, and it is in many regards my favourite Diablo game to this day but somehow I never got around to actually finish it and always stopped in either the third or fourth world, most recently about five years ago.

So, of course it is pretty basic and rough around the edges but it also got many things right on the first try and ironically some of these rough edges and design decisions that seem almost bizarre in retrospect make it better than virtually all ARPGs I've played. David Brevik once offended Diablo 3's developers by claiming that they didn't understand why they had made certain decisions in D1 and D2 and the truth is, I think not a single ARPG, including Diablo 2, fully respected the core of the original Diablo. Also: funnily I've been playing Diablo 3 a lot lately (in coop with my wife, actually) and I believe in full honesty that Diablo 1 is a much better game.

Ultimately I believe that Diablo 1 primarily revolves around dread and uncertainty and it is something that even Diablo 2 utterly lost. No imagery is too brutal or perverted for this game and if you actually pay attention to the environment you will find some truly disturbing stuff there - the Butcher's lair is just the tip of the iceberg. You usually have very limited sight and never know what monsters lurk around the next corner, especially in the first world even once you have line of sight to monsters they are still so obscured by the darkness that you can barely make them out (and it should be noted that the lighting system was one of the game's core features according to its design document). Skeletons may emerge as you destroy barrels in your pursuit of loot, opening chests may trigger traps that can actually kill you, shrines can permanently improve or hurt your character. It's really a theme in this game. And also the randomised dungeons and even randomised quests feed into this. Even if you've played the game before: you never know what you will encounter. It's friggin' brilliant.

And I mentioned that the rough edges partially support the game. Sure, the grid-based movement is clunky, sometimes the hero may not go where he's supposed to, projectile collision is wonky shit and so on, however: the grid-based system also makes positioning and level geometry much more important than in any other ARPG I've played. Monsters can and will overrun and surround you if you're not careful and thus you must use bottlenecks like doorways and corners to even the odds. Open areas and long corridors are your single worst enemy and luring monsters to advantageous positions (for you) is a necessity. It becomes especially tough when (playing as warrior) you suddenly face armies of ranged enemies, especially ones who flee if you get close, and so instead of luring them you must push them into corners. It is fairly basic stuff and yet: there's constant threat and challenges. Not to mention the extreme cases where a bunch of ranged enemies may be hiding behind grates, making an approach particularly dangerous. No other ARPG I've played is quite like this.

Then there's the loot system which seems badly balanced: I found a ridiculously overpowered helmet in the first hour or two and I never found a better one. Sometimes I wouldn't find anything particularly useful for hours. The side effect was that I cared about almost every drop. In D3 I couldn't care less if I miss some stuff, an equally good item will be dropped a minute or two later. It's hilarious what "good balancing" can do to a loot system.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm not saying D1 is perfect. Playing as the warrior the gameplay was very basic as I couldn't depend on spells and there's no other character abilities here. Luckily the game was just short enough that I didn't get bored. And sure, the game lacks some enemy diversity, it usually just spams two or three enemy types but at least many of them feel quite different. And sure, it's a tad frustrating when the game just spams succubi and mages later on who bombard you with barrages of powerful ranged attacks but at least the dynamics changed completely due to this. And yes, Diablo is a pansy who goes down in half a minute and there's very little replay value here (without Hellfire there's not even higher difficulty levels in singleplayer). And yes, the biggest problem is that if you don't use spells there are no other options than basic attacks - but I still had to operate more tactically than I have to in D3, in spite of its extensive amount of (ridiculously overpowered) abilities.

Anyway, so as I said: there's a lot about Diablo that I enjoy to this day and I'm glad that I've finally beaten it. And the truth is that if there's one series of games that genuinely built upon the vision of the original Diablo it's the Souls series, not any of the clickfests and loot games that the game has sadly given birth to.

Breath of Fire (Switch)

I played Breath of Fire 2 a few years ago back on the Wii Virtual Console, while exploring the free SNES game collection you get when buying Nintendo Online, I saw the 1st game in the series and decided to play it. Breath of Fire is a classic JRPG, by classic I mean good but unpolished. The main character Ryu, who can transform into a dragon (hence the name of the game) sets out to stop the evil Emperor Zog from reviving an ancient god and destroying the world. He's joined by a cast of other adventurers made up of humans and anthropomorphised animals, as they travel across towns, solving problems, killing monsters and getting screwed over. The game isn't as good as the sequel, the story is lacking and it seems features in the 2nd game that seemed strange (Going to churches to see what xp you need to level up) are attempts at fixing problems present in this game (You can't find out when you'll level up until you do). What this game does do better than the 2nd one is translation, which in the 2nd game was appalling. Like in my review on Demons Crest, I would recommend getting Nintendo Online just for this collection of SNES games. Unfortunately the collections not as great as the virtual console library on the Wii, but its basically free if you just do the free trial.

Subsurface Circular

An interactive story about artificial intelligence, in the form of a slightly noir-style investigation. You're an android - here: tek - filling the role of a detective on a train used only by other teks, and you go off protocol by taking on a case of missing teks that was proposed by a random tek on the train instead of coming directly from Management.

The game's presentation is modern, with moving 3D models, but the gameplay is limited to clicking through conversations, thereby finding new keywords to use on other teks, and occasionally it includes simple (dialogue) puzzles.

The story is interesting enough though, and offers an ambiguous choice at the ending, which provides some food for thought and discussion. The author is Mike Bithell, who also did Thomas Was Alone, and there is some reference to this title in the game. I played through it in two sessions of about one hour each.

Finished a few more lately:
- 11/20 - Condemned: A good game but a bit repetitive. All the levels look the same.
- 11/24 - GRIS: Great graphics, gameplay is ok but story is disappointing...
- 11/25 - Algo Bot: Fun way to "learn" logic/alogrithms in short sessions.
- 11/28 - Full Throttle Remastered: Not as good as in my souvenirs. Great characters and story but puzzles are average at best and arcade sequences are boring and repetitive.
- 12/05 - My Memory of Us: A great game about the world war 2. I highly recommend it to anyone who like puzzles and light platforming with a great story. Graphics are damn pretty too :)

Full list here.

NecroVision

Surprisingly, this one reminded me of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Needed to use a patch to get proper FOV at 1080p, and while it did crash it only did so on the first level or two.

I enjoyed the the game more than I expected to given the mediocre reviews - in the beginning and the middle. The late game though, especially final couple levels, were a slog for me at the "Demon Crusher" (Hard) difficulty which disables quicksaves in favor of checkpoints. The big bullet sponge enemies were rather annoying, especially when you die and then have to face them again and again. The final boss fight was just plain bad. Maybe I just didn't play it the way I should've and wasn't using the right weapons or the right powers appropriately.

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! (from the Spyro Reignited remake trilogy)

Like the first game I loved the presentation but find the gameplay to be merely OK. Controlling Spyro while flying and boosting is still a PitA with a 360 controller, and this time around swimming is added to the mix, but I realized that switching to Mouse+Keyboard for these sections makes it oh so much easier. Good thing the game doesn't require you to tinker with options to do this - all input types are always active.

I've also settled on the perfect graphics combination that gives me 60fps @1080p most of the time on my 1050ti while sacrificing little if any visual quality: Shadow on High, Ambient Occlusion on Low, Vsync+Motion Blur off (personal preference), and everything else maxed. Though the game still chugs a LOT for a short while after entering a level as it keeps loading assets in the background.

Creature in the Well
I got it from the community giveaway, donated by BeatriceElysia, thanks a lot again!

Hands down, one of the weirdest games I’ve played this year! Quite enjoyable but with many issues. First of all I don’t really agree with the description. Sure, the game might be inspired by pinball (many typical shaped bumpers are still here) but gameplaywise it’s not really pinball anymore - pinball is all about scoring without losing a ball with a help of flippers. Here on the other hand you don’t care too much about your balls at all - you just charge and fire them and that’s it (there is a small section where you have to collect balls back but it’s not a core mechanics). And definitely it’s not a hack & slash game. It’s just not. At all.

There are eight levels but they are kinda boring: the layout is almost identical so you should be aware where is health regenerating pool every time you start playing (and this room is very important). Each level slightly changes colors and maybe add some additional assets (plants for example) but they still look very, very similar. Each level is usually centered around a particular mechanics so there is some differences gameplaywise but not that much anyway.

At the end of each level you always reach a room where the creature emerges and cryptically complains about what you are doing and in the very next room the creature will drag a platform with you down and you will have to ascend back by defeating it in several stages. In every single level the same thing happens!

The story is forgettable, NPCs may as well not exist at all, upgrading yourself and finding new equipment is not really interesting.

So as you can see I complain a lot. So was it a chore to finish it? Well, not at all. Despite this numerous drawbacks the aforementioned boss battles are just superb. Each of them is different and it will test if you learn a particular mechanics well enough. So yeah, you can expect dying a lot during the boss fight (no checkpoints during the fight – you have to beat all stages at once) but it’s very satisfying to finally beat it.

So yeah, the game can be very rough but in the end quite entertaining nonetheless. Considering it’s kinda unique I encourage you to give it a try!


Full list

Mass Effect 1

Great game! I'm not going to write a full review here; you can read on why it's such a great game all over the internet.

Things I thought that could've been better:
- The side missions: empty planets and bases that all have the same layout. It reminds me a bit of Dragon Age 2...
- Too much "loot". I guess Bioware has been doing that since Baldur's Gate - but it used to be easier to manage.
- EA still hasn't updated the game with controller support. But there's a mod that adds it.

The free DLC Bring Down the Sky is probably the best side mission. I didn't really care for the skirmish battles in Pinnacle Station. If I'd wanted to shoot a bunch of monsters for no reason (or an achievement), I'd play Doom or Quake, or some multi player game.
Prices for DLCs for Mass Effect 2 and 3 are just nuts.

I'm looking forward to playing ME2!

Tomb Raider (2013)

Excellent game, and very long overdue for a Tomb Raider fan! I took my time to get 100% completion and also chased several achievements, making my playthrough 21 hours. Though possibly about 1-2 hours of that was idle menu time / looking through extras (artwork and models).

The game is a lot more action oriented than previous games, ridiculously so at times, but it manages to pull it off very well. The level design for the most part is stellar, and even though there are several linear sections, the game makes up for it with a few large open areas where you have a lot more freedom exploration wise. There are also several collectibles of various sorts scattered about most locations, along with optional off-the-path tombs, and to me at least these were fun to hunt down and explore. Mechanics-wise I was completely content: Lara controls well, the fighting's brutal and all of it feels intuitive.

The meta story is actually pretty interesting and found myself caring about how the story would end, but the same can't be said unfortunately for several of the characters. It's as if the games tries to make you care for some of the characters, but to me at least any such attempts usually just fell flat. Some of the characters downright annoyed me. Not Lara though, she's great :)

The trilogy collection might have all DLCs included(or at least the main story ones)...you should check into that.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/mass-effect-trilogy
Nah, the PC version of ME2 only includes 1 single player DLC.

Just beat Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. My first impressions were pretty bad. This whole 80s / early 90s action flick parody stuff has aged quite badly as there have been tons of films and games that parody them since Blood Dragon was released and the truth is that Blood Dragon isn't the best or funniest of the lot. Also, Blood Dragon is even more "designed for fun" than Far Cry 3 was but inherits a number of crappy things from that game like too small hitboxes, unnecessary grinding and collectables that make the game less fun than it could and should be.

That said: a few hours in, as my hero and his guns had become more powerful, I began genuinely having fun (how can you not enjoy a sniper rifle with explosive rounds?) and especially the final missions and their cutscenes made me laugh a lot - some of the sequences and dialogues were just brilliantly moronic.

In my opinion it isn't a very good game, it could have easily been much much better, but it is a pretty fun (and luckily brief - maybe 3-6 hours depending on how much you grind) experience.

I know, right? I think it's psychologically counterproductive, too, that the DLCs cost more than the main games, despite providing much fewer hours of gameplay (and the DLCs hardly ever go on sale). On top of it, they excluded the DLCs from Origin Access, even if you pay for Premier. At least they got rid of Bioware points, but I think now you can't even buy the DLC individually anymore? Otherwise I would have recommended to just get a few select ones. Citadel for ME3 is the most memorable one.