Okay, cool and thx for the info.

Exactly at midnight I have finished STASIS: Deluxe Edition from this years Halloween sale, and I have to say, this was one of the best gaming deals this year. The atmosphere was really tense during the whole 10 hours of gameplay and the ending was unexpected. Some item puzzles were harder to crack, but 90% of the time, they were intuitive to solve. Can't say more, because I would spoil it for you, but if you like Horrors and Point-and-Click Adventures, I can only recommend this to you.

I have enjoyed the game so much, that I have purchased the deluxe content for the developers second game in the same universe called Cayne. This one, will be my next game to play for sure.

Complete list of my games finished this year

Call of Duty: WWII

I'm not into multiplayer gaming, so only installed it for the single player campaign. People said it was a good one, and people were certainly right on that account. It's not perfect - I could've done without the car chase segments, forced stealth, and most definitely the flying segment. But the majority of the campaign was about shooting nazis in the head, and that was good fun all around. Played on "Hardened" difficulty (3rd out of 4), and got sent back to checkpoint by death quite a few times, making this "6 hour campaign" last 8 hours for me. In fact it took me like 30 minutes to finally be able to make it to the 2nd checkpoint (sea wall on D-day) when it should've taken only a couple minutes without dying.

Game performed admirably on my i7-920/1050ti. Sure there were plenty drops, but it's not the twitchest of shooters so I made well do with 40+fps on more or less High settings (with Extreme textures 'cause that's how I roll.) Funny enough, the cutscenes that start playing while the next level is loading often drops into the teens fps for me, probably because my CPU couldn't handle the multitasking involved. Framerate would jump back to 60fps once the Loading stopped and "Press ENTER to skip" appeared.

Super 3-D Noah's Ark

Noah only brought 2 of each animal species on board, right? Gosh darn have these horny things been getting busy! And who the heck taught them to open doors and projectile-spit with the force of a Sturmgewehr 44??

Anyway, if you liked Wolfenstein 3D, or hated it because it was Too Soon, this is a non-violent version of that with no relations to any horrible genocides (except for that whole humanity-wiping flood thing, but hey you can't have everything.) And there's even an automap! Plus it's a user-friendly source port that lets you circle-strafe to your heart's content - not that it does too much good against the hitscanning enemies, which is all of them except for a couple bosses, but it makes it easier to get back into cover so save your god-fearing mug from impending spitting doom.

I did enjoy it. Much more than any of those Raycast Engine Maker games. Strangely enough, trying to run it at 4k brought my system to its knees, running below 20fps. Looking it up, that's likely because the GPU is not even involved in the rendering - it's all CPU. 1080p was silky-smooth 60fps.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (XB1X)

The modern remake that just released. Not usually the type of thing I'd be playing this close to release, but I found a console bundle deal that was too good to turn down, which included 8 games- this being one of them. So of course I played through the single player campaign and will either trade or sell it tomorrow.

It's hard to complain about anything from a technical standpoint. The game is visually stunning, they make one of these every year though, so if they haven't got the hang of the engine by now you would have to ask why. It runs dynamic 4K but seems to hang mostly around 1800p and scales only on the horizontal axis. It does drop a bit from 60fps on occasion, but stays within freesync range when it does- so it's a good compromise on visual vs performance provided you are using adaptive sync. I also should make special note of the HDR in the game- developers are really getting a handle on this technology now and it is a noticeable improvement over SDR colour ranges. It could also be my favourite implementation of positional sound in a game as well.

Then there's gameplay. Here it's going to depend on what you want or feel like. Do you like the idea of something like a war movie where you just aim and fire every time an enemy appears? Do you think that story scripted sequences in Half Life was the greatest concept ever added to a shooter? Well this is the game for you. Nothing happens that isn't in the script here, it is the concept of the cinematic action game taken to its extreme conclusion. You go along a linear path and when you cross a line on the ground Mr bad guy jumps out from the door on the left, aim fire, walk over the next line on the ground and two bad guys come through from the right. Do it for 8 hours, that's Call of Duty Modern Warfare. I'd say there's even less player agency here than an Uncharted game. There was one particular level where you infiltrate a mansion grounds. I decided finally here's a level I can play out in my own way. I went in loud and cleared the place out entirely then went back to follow the mission objective, after which that mansion I already cleared spewed out about 30 bad guys. I didn't follow the script. The game has no clue what to do when you don't follow the script.
So that's why I didn't love the gameplay despite also conceding that it's probably excellent if the above is what you're after. In fact I'd even say that the story and characters were pretty good in an over the top "yay go the good guys" sort of way. But for me the word "cinematic" when applied to Shooters and RPG's is a dirty word. Watch a movie for ffs.

But hey, everyone buys it for the multiplayer anyway.

Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter (XB1X)

The console only sequel to the earlier and similarly named Star Wars: Starfighter (which is on GOG). This one was PS2 and Xbox, I played the Xbox version on XB1X which means 16x resolution...and it looks actually quite good- way better than you would expect for a 16 year old game.

It was actually fun too. You swap between two characters depending on mission, where you fly two different craft. The Jedi fighter is nimble and fast whilst Nims craft is slow and heavily armed. The story proceeds through 19 chapters of which the first and last are just cinematic intro and prologues. It was better than I expected. You also unlock other craft and bonus missions by achieving optional objectives during missions. I didn't unlock everything, but being able to play missions with the unlocked, and far superior, TIE Fighter was fun.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Eh, it was rather short game.
All I remember that I wander a lot in Marsh's mansion and his refinery.

Final escape was easy and made on the first try thanks to... bunnyhopping, without it game would be pretty hard in this final moment.

Enabled God Mode in v1.5 fan patch and just stabbed those fish people in the caves. Got way more fun that way.
I have these moments with some games from my backlo- I mean, collection that are way more fun with cheats and not tedious moment, this was one of them.
Even with terrible AI enemies were annoying and you often wander aimlessly without purpose around. I don't want map makers or quest compass but clues would be all I need.

Health system was neat on paper, but there was a problem - my character was wasting needles&thread, barely using bandages. Even with careful approach and utilizing cover mechanic my wound were too deep to bandage.

yeah, had Dragon's Dogma wiki open while posting and this is the result D:

Spec Ops: The Line

Pretty decent cover shooter gameplay and a pretty interesting and dark story with twists that I still don't understand. Probably need to google some explanations. Was annoying to be limited to only 2 guns - you'd think you could at least keep a handgun in a holster as you're carrying two rifles around....

Played on the hardest difficulty available on a first playthrough, and died a whole lot in some segments. Of course my pretty weak for these days system was able to max it, and using Nvidia Inspector and PC Gaming Wiki I was able to turn on anti-aliasing, something the game lacks by default. Used the 8xQ setting - 8xS looked better but I wasn't able to keep a steady 60fps with it.

Borderlands 3

It delivered. Immensely. I don't regret a second to have preordered it! Of course, it's not a perfect game and the scenario, well... is there, at least, but the witty comebacks, the absurd situations, the whacky characters, the loot-a-gogo weapon system, the great landscapes and the gripping fight? Yeah, all boxes ticked!

Only did one playthrough for the moment, with FL4K and I loved him as a character, with his beast acolyte. I will definitely have to try the other character classes!

I loved every second of Borderlands 3! Will I have the guts to try to go to mayhem 3? Probably not. Will I replay that game like i did for all its other installments? Hell yeah!!

So far in 2019: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2019/post24

PREY from Arkane XBO

One of the best FPS I've ever played. It has an original gameplay and an awesome scifi history, all mix with synthwave soundtrack.

Rezrog
I've spent more than 110 hours with this game, so I obviously liked it. I think the tabletop aesthetic is pretty cool and I also liked the music. It's also nice that the single dungeons aren't very big, so you can easily play 15 or 20 minutes and complete one dungeon when you don't have a lot of time to play massive games. Another good thing is that you can customize your heroes in any way you want, so even your warrior can become a good magician and your sorcerer a mighty melee fighter.

But there are also several flaws. Game was patched and improved several times, but it's still buggy. Quite often you won't be able to complete a dungeon, because a doorway will be blocked by an invisible obstacle (it mostly happens when you defeat a monster in a doorway). Sometimes also the monsters won't take their turn and so you also have to restart the dungeon. And sometimes there are also graphical glitches (when a monster hits you, the perspective of the dungeon will turn and you can't reset it). None of it is game-breaking, but it's annoying.

The game is also unbalanced. Some of the skills and spells are completely overpowered and when you combine them in the right way, it's next to impossible to lose a battle. And in the end the game is also too long. There's no need for 100 dungeons when they are all similar. Also the last 30 are way too easy, because at this point your heroes will be completely overpowered and you will get through them without even a scratch.

But all in all I still enjoyed the game and would recommend it to people who like simple dungeon crawlers.


9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek
A simple HOG game. Puzzles and HOG sequences are very easy, but I liked the story and the graphical style. Nothing spectacular, but good entertainment for some hours.


Detective Gallo
I liked the graphics and the music, but the story was a little too silly for my taste. I would have liked it better if it would have been more serious to match the noir-theme. It was also annoying that quite often you already knew what to do, but couldn't perform the action, because you haven't seen a specific clue or dialogue line yet. Puzzle were easy for the most part (a little too easy for my taste), some are quite bizarre and illogical though.

I would say it certainly isn't a masterpiece in the point-and-click-adventure genre, but it is an ok game.

Complete list of finished games in 2019

Tyrants of the Moonsea (NWN:EE)

I'm a bit torn on this one.

On the one hand, it's an excellent showcase for some stunningly cool community created tilesets and monster models that I haven't seen used in any other single player module yet and that really give the term "enhanced" a new meaning. The voiceovers are also top notch and do not vary in recording quality as they did in Darkness over Daggerford. There is a whole new overland map of the Moonsea region and fans of the old Goldbox games or Forgotten Realms lore in general will be delighted to (re-)visit such places as Hillsfar, Mulmaster, or Zhentil Keep, including dealings with their tyrannic rulers, their forces, allies and opponents (Zhentarim, Red Plumes, Wizards of Thay, Harpers etc.). The story, while not particularly outstanding and more linear than Darkness Over Daggerford, is not the worst either, it's pretty solid D&D fare. The writing is quite good in general, there are some interesting companions and a substantial amount of content (I didn't track the time on my playthrough, but on the Vault page for the free AL3: Tyrants of the Moonsea gameplay length is listed as 6-10 hours, and I'm pretty sure the EE version is much longer than that, probably twice as much? Just a guess though). I played the free version years ago but I did not remember a thing about it, so I can't compare what's new, but I have a feeling it is quite a bit. In addition to the new tilesets, models, overland map, voiceovers, and possibly extended story and quests, there are also new intro and outro movies, the latter depending on the choices you made at the end (at least three somewhat different endings). All in all, I enjoyed playing it.

On the other hand I noticed several problems with it as well: First and foremost, I felt the balance both in combat and economy was all over the place. I had been warned that the combat in this DLC campaign was very, very difficult, but could not confirm it at all. I'm usually content playing NWN on Normal and don't mind if it's a little easy, but Tyrants had such a lack of challenge that I set the difficulty up to Hardcore D&D and fights were still a walk in the park and rather boring because of it (I also tried Very Difficult and it was still easy, just gave the opponents more HP and thereby slightly prolonged the boredom). I have to admit, I brought in my character from AL2 (Crimson Tides of Tethyr), and since there was no item strip at the start, I was way wealthier and better equipped as a newly created character would have been (you get a +3 weapon if you start fresh and 10k gold, but my character already had 600k gold, +5 weapon and boots of speed and many others things that also allowed me to better equip my new companions). So my mistake was to go along with that, thinking AL3/Tyrants would allow a seamless continuation from AL2 regardless, and I ended up feeling like I was cheating. But in the long run, I don't think it mattered all that much, since Tyrants of the Moonsea is an extreme Monty Haul game either way, and even with a new character I'd have been able to acquire all the powerful equipment soon enough without much trouble. And I don't think my good equipment can completely explain the imbalance away, because it shouldn't affect Challenge Rating and XP. My imported character was one level below the recommended starting level (you get leveled up to 15 if your character is below lvl 13, I think; mine was lvl 14), and yet the Challenge Ratings of opponents oscillated extremely all the time, from Effortless to Impossible (though even Impossible was easy most of the times), and most of the opponents at the end only gave 2XP per head, regardless of CR. Also, the most challenging opponent who was *actually* nearly impossible to defeat had no relation to the plot, no backstory, and was just sitting somewhere in a random room of an otherwise pretty empty dungeon.

Regarding the economy of the game, TotM throws a lot of powerful and valuable loot at you, way more than you can ever use for yourself, and selling it makes you very rich so you can buy more powerful stuff if you even need that, but it's a tough job and no fun at all, because (1) every merchant has a cap on store funds and it's usually rather low compared to the value of the loot you find, so sooner than you'd think, the merchant will not be able to take the loot of your hands anymore unless you buy something expensive from them, so they get more money to spend; (2) they also have a cap on how much they're willing to spend for your most valuable items; let's say you have an item that's worth 25k, then one merchant will only offer you 5k at max, another 10k, the third 15k, and if you're lucky you'll find someone that will pay 20k; (3) not every merchant will buy every kind of item; and (4) merchants are spread over several towns of the Moonsea region. All rather realistic, but it makes looting and selling a real chore with lots of inventory space/weight management and running to and fro involved. Even more annoying, you can't fast-travel to all towns directly via the overland map, but you often have to go to a harbor town and board a ship first to reach the other side of the Moonsea.

There's another "realistic" system in place causing your party to get tired once per day, resulting in temporary stat loss, and if you don't pay attention to it, it can happen at the most unfortunate times, like shortly before a battle (or even in the midst of one?). Not that it mattered very much, with the general difficulty being so low.

The area design leaves room for improvement. The new tilesets are awesome (apart from not being compatible with the "Hide Second Story Tiles" option which can result in high trees or walls obscuring your view), but they weren't always put to best use. Some areas are too big and too devoid of interesting interactions. You can also enter a couple of private homes that are realistically designed but offer nothing of interest and feel like a waste of both the players' and the designer's time. If there are people in them, they won't mind nor comment on your intrusion, just repeat the few one-liners that commoners outside recite as well, but then again, why should they mind, as there's nothing to loot either most of the times. Rogues looking for some burglary fun will be very disappointed.

The module makes ample use of environmental sounds to create a nice atmosphere which I'd usually applaud but it often goes a bit over board with it, confusing "ample" with "excessive", especially with regard to voiceovers, to an extent that there are hardly any pauses between the voice sounds and occasionally the same ones can be heard simultaneously, even. This quickly got on my nerves in some locations.

I noticed a few bugs like continuity errors in side quests/encounters, a quest breaking if you pass an NPC too quickly without giving him the chance to approach you, a dialogue option that gives you 4.5k XP every time you click it, one quest that rewards you for not preventing the worst outcome (regardless of your alignment), and I also had a quite uncomfortable experience with another issue: On more than one occasion an episode or a cutscene would remove the companions from my party and I had to let them join again afterwards. The problem is, I had told one of them to be stealthy most of the times and she continued this strategy even when removed from the party, which resulted in me not being able to find her anymore, because she was too stealthy even for the PC to see. I'm not sure to what extent that is a problem within the EE or NWN in general and to what extent a module author could have done something about it, if they had anticipated it. One time I was able to solve the issue because the stealthy companion was visible for a very short moment each time I entered the area, so I quickly pressed pause and clicked on her while I was still able to, the other time I had to cast True Seeing on myself in order to spot her. All in all, it could have been polished a little better (I had hoped that the late release on GOG would at least benefit from some fixes for bugs that Steam players found, but it's still rather buggy). Last but not least, the frequency of the random crashes in the EE was rather high compared to other modules (possibly because of the new tilesets?).

So, I'm unsure whether to recommend the DLC or not; it's good but could have been much better still. I don't regret playing it or paying for it though. Some things remain unresolved at the end, btw, and open up the possibility of a sequel.

Deus Ex: Invisible War

I finally finished the game, it had been sitting on my computer for a couple of months with a save near the end.

I took the Apostlelelele (JC Denton) ending, and then watched the other three ending videos from Youtube.

Overall I liked the game, it was better than I expected as there had been so many complaints about it, mainly that it doesn't live up to the first game, and "consolization". I still overall enjoyed it, the difficulty level was ok (more easy than hard) and story was interesting enough. It was also interesting to see some of the same locations as in the first game.

Still, I wasn't super-interested to play it for some reason, hence I abandoned it for some time. Now it is done and I can proceed to other games.

I got SOMA
during some giveaway and I am glad, that I got it this way. Generally I expected horror for dark evening and what I got was not scary at all. I still remember how as a teenager I played CoC: Dark Corners of The Earth
and during beginning phases I felt fully scary atmosphere how somebody is watching me and something is coming… only questions were what and when! This year I played Cayne
what was not so strong as Dark Corners of the Earth, but compared to SOMA it was definitely scarier. Next time I will have mood for something similar, I will probably try Stasis.
What regards other aspects of the game my main problem was, that monsters were insuperable, but many time when I started staring at the wall they kept me untouched, game was linear with some confusing areas where I walked in circle until I found single active element which had to be activated. Do not want to say some spoiler, but I do not understand how main protagonist could be astonished how it ends, he so it a few times during gameplay...

Icewind Dale Complete - Trails of the Luremaster expansion

After many years (I'm playing Complete rather than EE because IWD:EE didn't EXIST when I started!) I've finally finished PART of Icewind Dale - the Trials of the Lurmaster expansion to the Heart of Midwinter expansion!
(yeah, I've done it Russian dolls style - this, again is the first part I've finished)
I've seen people says the expansion-to-an-expansion a bit of a dull hack but personally I thought it had more interesting puzzle elements than a lot of the rest of the game, I found the final battle with the Luremaster himself and his ghost adventure party a bit of a nightmare that took many attempts some looking up online and a few different startergies even then! Although, conversely I've seen others say it was peasy and not at all memorable so what do I know?
I found that, once I'd wiped out all his friends in the center and he was pissing about dimension dooring around the edge, when he when out of range the game actually let me save and even rest for many hours! - Infinity engine can be SO broken sometimes, but that's just part of its charm, I guess!

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