The Long Reach
I got it from the community giveaway, donated by z02228, thanks a lot again!

As most reviews criticize the game has a weird controls – WASD + F + I but without mouse and what's even worse – you can't change it so it seems to be designed for left-handed people. Yeah, it's weird but I won't talk about it.

I did enjoy the game but it's not a masterpiece. A rather short (I believe it took me about 3 hours) adventure game where you have to solve a few puzzles, avoid some dangers and learn about the story. Out of these three elements the first two are rather bland. Puzzles are mostly about gathering items and using them in appropriate places. Nothing really difficult nor frustrating but it felt like a chore. Avoiding a murderer on a killing spree was mostly annoying and way too simplistic to be anyhow enjoyable...

The story itself is actually quite generic but the way it's told and the atmosphere of the game make it worthwhile. As you can read from the description hallucinations play a major role here. The good thing is that you never know which is a reality and which is not. When a room is suddenly changed into an open space with a tree in the middle you immediately assume that it is a hallucination. But when you see a dead body of your friend you can't be so sure anymore... I know that it may not sound anything special when you read it but believe me – it will be when you play it.

I don't like how scientists are presented: maniacs who thinks more about their research than anything else. I'm a scientist myself and trust me – in reality we are different, less dangerous and more boring so I'm not surprised that people want to think about us as mysterious maniacs. But frankly, it's getting old...

Fun fact: the game actually makes a very subtle hint about the influence of player on a main character but it does it without breaking the forth wall which is pretty impressive. I don't think I've seen anything like this before. It's easy to miss, I actually realized a day after finishing the game so if you have played it but don't know what I'm talking about – thing again about what was the experiment all about.

The game definitely offers some decent entertainment so I can recommend it!


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Far Cry 2

Not the greatest game I've ever played but I probably enjoyed it more than most other people, going on what I've heard.

Age of empires 2 has pretty nice singleplayer campaigns imo (especially the expansion which adds Huns and Mesoamerican peoples among others), a lot more challenging than Starcraft's campaigns (which were well-done, but pretty easy, more of an introduction to the various units as a preparation for multiplayer).

Yes, Brood War does get kind of challenging, especially the Zerg campaign (I never finished it, iirc I never tried the last two missions; did the first eight, and some of those were definitely tricky due to limited resources and aggressive enemies). But the original Starcraft isn't really that hard, apart maybe from the last 3-4 Protoss levels. The enemies are pretty passive and mostly you can just build up a huge army in relative peace and then steamroll everything.
When I first played AoE2's campaigns, I actually felt overwhelmed, because it's definitely different from Starcraft's leisurely campaigns (and those longbow archers in the Jean d'Arc campaign...so frustrating). But when one adapts, it can be great fun, especially the scenarios from the expansion, felt like huge battles at times.

Okay, let's say 1998 +/- two years: off the top of my head there's obviously the early Command & Conquer games: C&C, Red Alert and Red Alert 2 (Tiberian Sun sadly sucks, in my opinion) as well as Dune 2000 which is basically a remake of Dune 2 on the engine of the first two C&C games. Then there's also Total Annihilation, Dark Reign or even the first KKnD - out of these Total Annihilation is probably the best (it also had a fantasy sequel, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, but I didn't like it that much). Many will also tell you that the first two Age of Empires games are amazing (personally I never quite played them enough to recommend them). And ones I haven't played in ages but loved back in the day were two early 3D RTS games: Warzone 2100 and Earth 2150 (I have no idea how well those hold up, though). Oh yeah, and there's also Populous: The Beginning which is far less conventional than all the others I've listed here but one of my favourite RTS games of all time.

Now, as I said, not one of these is even remotely as well-designed as StarCraft and in most of them the factions are very similar but frankly most of these were kinda more enjoyable to me in single player, e.g. because of higher mission diversity, more fun AI (by which I mean that the enemy keeps you on your toes rather than that it is more sophisticated than in StarCraft) or better pacing.

The first Age of empires has some pretty flawed design though, especially the 50 unit limit which means you can only build up a fairly small army (e.g. think of a maritime level where you have to transport troops across sea...you have 20 workers, 10 transport ships/war galleys...which means you can only have 20 ground units...now factor in that a few of those are priests and siege engines and you'll see how ridiculously limiting this is).
The 2nd one is much better due to the higher unit limit.
As for the early C&C games, those were fun in their time, but for anybody who didn't play them then, they must feel incredibly archaic.
I agree that Tiberian sun was pretty bad (or at least mediocre), killed my interest in the franchise.

I guess I might have finished the original SC then, do seem to remember various moments from it at least. And yeah, I was trying to turtle and eventually amass a solid army. Recall my defensive perimeter with Terrans, alternating bunkers with turrets, 3 marines and 1 firebat in each bunker I think, a medic behind the bunker, at least a science vessel on each side, wraiths above the turrets, a couple of ghosts a bit further behind if needed. (Later edit: Wait, also had siege tanks. Did I alternate the turrets and the tanks between bunkers or were they behind? Not sure anymore.) Nothing broke through.
But about steamrolling, recall one Zerg scenario in BW, may have been the last one I did, not sure (think the one I stopped at required me to stop enemies from getting in through multiple points on the map, just couldn't spread my forces like that and keep watch on all places and last), start in one corner of the map with the whole rest of it filled with several enemy bases, may have destroyed one or two earlier, not sure anymore, but otherwise turtled, a row of sunken colonies and one of spore colonies, some zerglings that could squeeze through to get at siege tanks at first, then a few fliers for that, a couple of queens, and just waited out the enemy to completely drain the map of resources while I just used my area, drained it completely too, made use of the fact that you can still get some vespene gas from a drained vent too, then created as many units as I could with what I had, had the max number of groups, though I think the last couple weren't full, units of all kinds, and then took everything out in one massive wave, workers too, also making good use of defilers and queens, and just crushed everything in my path. The last enemy base, think it was white?, which also used Zerg stuff, still was an issue, had lots of mines too, had to pick my way, but it felt good :D

Had a pretty darn hard time with the Protoss though, in general I mean, as they're not made for that kind of defensive play, no way to heal or repair, just the shields, and less defenses.
Wow, you sure know your RTSs!

Protoss have shield batteries though, so you can have pretty strong defenses, e.g. with archons whose shields are constantly replenished. A couple of reavers behind photon cannons are also effective against ground units, especially small ones. And templars with psi storms are useful against even long-range units like Zerg guardians.
That you can't heal the hit points of Protoss units is annoying though, especially when there's Zerg who can use that "blood bath" spell...can mean that all your carriers permanently lose most of their hit points (apart from shields) due to a single spell. Would be even worse when coupled with the Terrans' emp wave...

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (2005) (Linux/Wine)

I'm great fan of Call of Duty series, I've played also and quite liked some of Medal of Honor games. I'm not looking for realism and frustration from a first mission; having some fun is enough for me. This one seems to be a bit more ambitious and trying also to play on emotions. Second part of that plan completely did not work in my case. But tactical aspect of the game is nice and I really liked how it supports immersion when you cannot just run and shoot to win.

I also liked that - after teaching you to keep low and be careful - it also makes you to make some brave moves in the last part, when you just cannot eliminate all enemies and you have to show some courage (and rely on your luck). All in all - interesting game being probably a bridge between arcade gaming and something more serious, with some story and characters. I'm glad these games are here and I'm happy I've grabbed them all with release discount.

Game works perfectly under Linux/Wine. No additional actions were needed in my case, it works out-of-the-box.

List of all games completed in 2019.

Super Mario Bros (NES Classic)

Every gamer knows this one of course, but I've never actually played it other than the first level on my Wii VC version. But I recently set up my old monitor in the bedroom and hooked up my NES and SNES Classics to it for some short sessions before bedtime.

I went into this with no real prior knowledge. I didn't read the manual or watch any videos. So I was pretty proud of myself for finding (first try) the secret in 1-2 that lets you level skip all the way to 4-1. But then I felt like an idiot when I got all the way to the long jump in level 8-1 where I finally learnt that the "B" button is a run button...I thought "B" was just for shooting projectiles when you're Super Mario. I have no idea how I got almost to the end of the game without knowing about a major game mechanic...but there you go. You really should read manuals, or at least the control mapping.

What holds up best about the game is the graphics. They are timeless and still look fine on a modern high res display- you cannot say the same about early 3D platformers. The controls and feel are just fine too. If the game doesn't hold up in one respect it's the limited variety in level themes and design- mainly due to hardware limits I suppose. But compare to anything on home computers from the time (like C64) and I doubt there are any platformers that match this for speed and overall playability.

The Swapper, Feb 3 (GOG)-This was a really good platformer. The mechanic was pretty fun and the puzzles got pretty tough at the end. Even the story was interesting if a little cliched. Only complaint is that its a pretty short game. I think I beat it in 3-4 hours.

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Mages of Mystralia

Recently bought, motivated me enough to play through it in a couple of days (about 13 hours as a slow completionist). It's a nice little game, simple and predictable story but graphics are pleasant enough, music and sounds are good, mechanics are fun and despite the limited map, there's quite a bit to explore and many puzzles to solve. I have several smaller criticisms of things without which the game could have been even better.

The intro cutscene is a totally different art style from the rest of the game, but okay. I assume it was also a kickstarted game, as deducted by the inscriptions on tombstones and possibly some statues which felt very out of place. I dislike the practice of developers allowing their sponsors to interfere with their work of art in this way just for a second of fame, but to be fair, I could have just ignored the messages instead of reading them (and I might have, if I had known this before).

The concept of 'programming' your own spells (and being able to name them, too) is very cool, and it enabled me to build the ultimate overkill spell in the end, but I also felt it was a bit obscure and unnecessarily complicated, because the game was very vague in how it actually works and unless I'm mistaken it also never clearly stated that you can get very different results with the same ingredients, depending on how you connect the ingredients with each other (what is connected to what, and in which order).

Free experimentation was also a bit hindered by the fact that the game only gives you six slots for each of the four different spell types. I'm not sure that would be enough even just for the spells the game requires you to create, letalone the ones you make up for yourself, so you often have to erase or change already created spells.

And then there's a bit of an imbalance in the usefulness of the four spell types; the flexible ranged Acto type could have done with a lot more slots than six, while two slots would have been more than enough for the restricting melee type Immedi. And I hardly ever used any magic shields, unless a puzzle required it. I think this part of the game could have been more fun if rules had been clearer and if some spell types hadn't been as restricting and boring.

The various wands you could find were also a bit pointless. I just used the fire wand all the time, which was the second wand found in the game, and none of the others could really compete with it, IMO (except the healing one, but then again, the game is rather easy on the regular Adventure difficulty so I preferred bypassing fire resistances to unnecessary healing).

There's a map which is very basic and doesn't really help orientation within the areas, but that's fine. And the world is not that big, but I still thought that there could have been more than three quicktravel points. Also, there were some one-way drops in the game, meaning to get back up you had to make a grand detour, sometimes even leave the area and return via a different entrance, and that made the endgame hunting for missed collectibles and unsolved quests rather time-consuming and tedious. Especially since you have nothing to gain anymore from fighting all the respawning enemies on your way (there's no leveling, and hardly anything important to buy with the loot 'money').

And even though the game has side quests, there is no journal or similar to track your progress on them or let you re-read the info about them. No possibility to make in-game notes either, e.g. about the location of puzzles you don't have the means to solve yet and need to come back to later in the game. If you don't write it down or make a mental note of it, it's as if you never even got the quest or never found the puzzle, so better keep pen and paper at the ready.

Following the main story doesn't really suffer a lot from all these minor issues, but they can slightly decrease the enjoyment of a completionist playthrough. In the end, I resorted to looking up quite a few things on the net, be it side quest locations or optional puzzle solutions, because I just didn't feel like wasting any more time on figuring it all out by myself, running to and fro and trying to remember or make sense of what the game told me or not. I still don't know whether all those purple soulbeads I solved the puzzles for have an actual use in the game or if they're just collectibles. And I think you can only see how many of them you've collected shortly after collecting one. No indication of how many there are in total. And since I played the GOG version without Galaxy, no other kinds of tracking or achievements either. Just a vague completion percentage on the last savegame (92%). (EDIT: Correction, you can actually see the collected number of soulbeads in the inventory, and they have a use in the game, which I misunderstood - could have been worded clearer, too. With the help of this use, you can figure out how many there are in total, so I think I found 36/40).

Anyway, despite all this nagging, I really enjoyed the game for the most time. After all, I was hooked enough to play through it in such short time, and that's something. It's just easier to come up with points that could have been better than praising a game with so many different words. Mages of Mystralia is not perfect, but it is quite good. (It's a bit similar to how I felt about Yoku's Island Express, which I liked a little bit better yet, but both games are fun.)

Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Feb 4 (GOG)-Another short one but another one I enjoyed. It was repetitive by design but that didn't bother me too much. It was also much easier than I remembered the original being. It's not a bad adventure back into the world of Alan Wake but it mostly serves as a reminder of how much I want a proper sequel.

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E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy (Steam)

I had to play this after reading about it in the CRPG Book Project. Otherwise I wouldn't have known about it. Then it was on a Steam sale for only $2 recently. It's a weird game- it was made by French people. Basically it's a FPS/RPG hybrid of the Cyberpunk style...or maybe more Warhammer 40K style. You play as a sort of warrior monk and the story is very hard to decipher and make sense of- I believe deliberately so. Also, it seems you need to play through 3 times to get three different endings to unlock a final ending that provides the most closure. This ties to the basic theme of the game- it's story being one of a "circle of guilt". I'm not sure yet if I'll play it three times, but I may do so on easy.

Technically, it's built with the Build Engine and could be called a Half Life 2 total conversion mod I suppose. Though there's not much HL2 left here, except when you pick things up, like barrels, it feels like the gravity gun. Being released in 2011 on a dated engine gives the results you would expect. Slightly dated polygons but with a strong visual design, great lighting and very sharp looks. But you can see the age of the engine. That also means anyone with a 10 year old or better PC will run this fine. I ran it at 1440p max settings with plenty of headroom to lock to 60fps.

The games mechanics are quite deep with so many character building options to suit play style. This is offset a lot by the fact it's also made with three playthroughs in mind. In the first playthrough I found that I never really got enough money and level up points to really go very deep into the systems, so I pretty much played a sniping gun user with cloaking and strong hacking. As far as FPS RPG's go this game could have more character development options than any game I can think of. You can optionally return to mission areas for random generated missions to level and develop your character- something I didn't do much.
The save system feels very strange, but matches the story and the circle of guilt dream like story. It's checkpointed but logging out and returning always returns you to a certain area first before walking through a portal to return to where you were- it's part of the weird story.

Like the character building system, the game also has a huge variety of equipment and guns. Plus you can research more as part of character building.

The mission areas are large and open. My main complaint about the gameplay is the sometimes ridiculous enemy respawn rates. You can reduce that in the options, but even then it is still sometimes excessive. Also, in some of the later missions, a few of the enemies could be classified as the very definition of "bullet sponge".

The game is known to be buggy if you look on the Steam forums, mainly a habit the game has of sometimes messing up your start location in some missions or failing to load an NPC. I only had this happen once and simply quitting out and reloading began the mission correctly. Otherwise I had no issues with bugs or crashes at all. Though sometimes you will come across things in game that you may think are bugs...but are just simply part of the weird story. Lastly the game is quite infamous for it's bad translation. But again, many people think that's just part of the games strangeness.

It's a rough game, it's also unique and well worth giving it a try for people into first person action RPG's. No Dwarves or Elves to be found here. Get it on a Steam sale and it's at least worth a try. Some will hate the game for it's strangeness and some will love it for the same reason. I may later play through it 2 more times on easy to speed things up and get the "true" ending. Each ending has one level to itself depending on the major game choice you make. It took me 12 hours...but on easy and with prior knowledge that could easily be halved I think, just to get to the branch point for the other endings.