Oh, right, I completed the free We Were Here (on Steam).

It's like a virtual Escape Room or Exit Game that you play in 2 player co-op mode. Both players are trapped in different areas of a castle and have to help each other out by communicating via radio (that is microphone / push to talk). It's a pretty neat replacement for Live Escape Rooms, in times of the pandemic, even if there were a few things I didn't like.

For one, two of the puzzles had time limits, with the risk of dying once the time had run out. Even though time limits are common in Live Escape Rooms, I found it pretty counterproductive to the fun here, since it didn't really add anything to the game. Maybe also because contrary to Live Escape Rooms, here the order of the puzzles is strictly linear. If you're stumped and stuck on a puzzle, additional pressure doesn't really improve your thinking, and it's all about thinking (and communication, but mostly thinking), not about quick reactions and dexterity or so. The more time passes, the more one player's field of view is decreased. And if you die, you just have to repeat the puzzle from scratch. All of that is more of an annoyance than actually scary or exciting. I think those puzzles would have been better without the time limit shenanigans. Also, the checkpoints weren't always placed directly before each puzzle, and if you died on the second one with a time limit, you always had to repeat the puzzle that came before it, too, even though you already knew the solution, so it was trivial but tedious, a waste of time.

Another thing I did not understand was why they made the better ending require random trial and error without hints or clues, like an easter egg, which doesn't really seem to be in the spirit of Escape Room games.

And the roles were a bit one-sided; they are even called "Librarian" and "Explorer", so the first player always has to search for clues they can give to the second player, so that the second player can solve the puzzle on their side. But I think it would be even more fun, if those roles were switched several times during the game, so that both players have to master both roles in one playthrough. Because while you have to replay the game with reversed roles in order to get all achievements, what's the point if you already know the solution to the puzzles?

That being said, it wasn't bad, especially for free, as a teaser for the paid episodes, and it's surprising there aren't more games yet adapting this kind of gameplay, considering how popular Live Escape Rooms are.

The Journey Down: Chapter Two (2014) (Linux)

01kipper was right. The second part is much better. Or perhaps I've just started to like the protagonist and the story is picking up. The music is still outstanding (last time such a good jazz soundtrack in Jack Orlando), the voice acting is perfect, a sense of humour is above average. I've finally realized it's really decent point&click adventure with unique visuals, some cinematic shots and interesting ideas making it worth playing.

List of all games completed in 2020.

Grim Dawn: The Forsaken Bride

A very nice HOG/Enigma game. The story is cheesy at best, but the HOG parts and the enigma parts were quite clever, and I enjoyed it as a whole. Played the extra story since I seem to have the "complete" edition. They need to work on their endings, though... ^_^

So far in 2020: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2020/post29

oops, yeah, I forgot one word! I started the second game and it's more streamlined that the first one with better graphics, but I'm not sure it will be as good as the first one

1. Unrave PS4l
2. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune PS4
3. Pokemon Ultra Sun 3DS
4. Need for Speed Heat PS4

Total War Three Kingdoms

With 4x games or grand strategy games it is always hard to say i'm done. Games you have well over 4 or 5 hundred of hours of time in invested have the tendency to linger around still i would like to add Three Kingdoms to the list of finished games in 2020 since, well maybe just because i want to have something to write about.

The reason this particular game finished was by a spectacular defeat against an a.i. opponent, after about, i dare say. 10 turns of game time which is approximatly 2 years ( 5 seasons a year, 1 season per turn )
Bought mainly because i was interested in the art and engine, not so much the total war concept i find this game atm certainly recommendable for both newcomers interested to the grand strategy scene as well as veteran armchair strategists. While the game certainly has its flaws and quirks the huge offer the game presents in both different playstyles in both tactical and strategical scope makes the three kingdoms release certainly worthwile unless you really have trouble with total war games

The game zooms in on a 80 year period described in a popular chinese novel/work of art. This is probably one of the most bloodiest periods in Chinese history and lends its self for that reason alone for a war game. Another reason might be the intrige, the disputes between the various characters, bonds and the feeling of ruling a dynasty, leading a rebellion or even try to be a bandit in this chaotic time

For me personally this game had a rough start. I had to wait for seemingly ages before some graphical defects where finally patched out of the game, not to mention the sometimes poor behavior displayed by the a.i. on the tactical battlefield but over time this has evolved into a trusted factor which i will return to at least a couple of times a year

Recommendations to people looking to play are, have a decent gaming pc in your corner of the house and don't try tactical battles with the pause function unless they really trouble you

Cormyrean Nights (NWN:EE)

Review

Betrayal in Antara, June 4 (GOG)-This game felt like a bad version of Betrayal at Krondor. That isn't necessarily a bad thing since I loved BAK. But I think they should have been able to make some improvements in the four years since even if the plot was weaker. But I'm not sure I can judge BIA fairly since I encountered a game-breaking bug that prevented me from completing the game for over 3 years and soured me a bit on it.

I wasn't too impressed with the plot but with the long break in the middle of playing I lost track of quite a bit of it. There weren't many roleplaying opportunities. There were side quests you could either complete or not but no dialogue options or alternate solutions. Combat was a high point but very slow and often tedious. It was especially bad when combat started to turn and you had to finish a battle you had no chance of winning because there was no option to leave the combat screen (retreating not available when one or more characters has fallen). Enemy archers also seemed far too powerful here.

One of the bigger gripes I had was with the extremely limited inventory. BAK had this too but it didn't seem as bad then. It was really difficult to leave so many items behind as an RPG pack rat. Also there was an abundance of quest items that stayed in inventory so I wasn't sure if I could discard them. Lastly, rations and money took up a separate screen and filled up far too quickly.

The biggest problem I had with the game was the final chapter. Each chapter limited the areas of the map you could access. This happened in BAK as well although here the play area felt much smaller. In the last chapter if you don't have certain items in your inventory you're in for a long slog. In fact I think if you don't have a certain set of items you won't be able to finish at all. With I believe only two stores available on the limited final chapter map (one selling armor and the other books) you can easily end up in a walking dead situation. I didn't have the full compliment of items I needed but I was able to struggle through it nonetheless.

In the end I enjoyed a bit Betrayal in Antara but I could only recommend it to someone else who loved Betrayal at Krondor and was willing to accept a much lesser game to scratch the same itch.

Full List

The Black Ring Pox (NWN:EE)

Review

Far Cry 4 (XB1X)

No idea how this game got away with only a MA15 rating from the Australian OFLC. One of the most touchy subjects is voluntary drug use to gain benefits and this game has it every where. One entire quest chain is entirely about taking drugs and the resulting trip through drug clouded la la land. I lost count of the number of time someone injected me with something.

Fun game. Except for the overdone animal attacks. You can't walk 100m in Kyrat without being attacked and mauled by something. Don't worry about the people carrying guns and rocket launchers, the most deadly adversaries here are wild cats, dogs, fish, eagles, Rhino's and the deadly Honey Badger. Why the hell anyone would want to live in this place has me mystified.

But the gameplay was pretty good. I liked all the mission types and quest chains except the Shangri-la quest chain. I especially liked the checkpoint races, but I always like racing in open world games. At first I thought the stealth system was totally broken, but it isn't. I came to like it in the end. It's stealth more like a Sniper Elite game rather than Dishonored. Taking objectives by long range sniping and moving after each shot from cover to cover to prevent the enemy zeroing in on the your shots is quite satisfying. Overall it's not a ground breaking game in any way, but it was good fun, had a great world map to play in and good shooting mechanics. Just screw them animal attacks, that's all.

The Journey Down: Chapter Three (2017) (Linux)

At first I was quite skeptical, but after all three chapters I have to admit the game is just awesome and it's hard to find any disadventages. We've got really good point&click adventure with interesting (and funny) puzzles, great voice acting, amazing jazz soundtrack, nice sense of humor, rather interesting plot and some scenes looking like well-done action movies. There are moments of a bit worse dialogues or some parts of the game where puzzles are not enough challenging (especially first locations in each chapter, but I guess it may be intentional to grab player into the plot before things become more complicated). I liked it and I recommend the game to all fans of good music and classic p&c adventures.

List of all games completed in 2020.

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse

It's a strange subtitle because the story doesn't have anything to do with a curse, but I'm getting off topic. The 5th game in the Broken Sword series (I was told to avoid 3 and 4) which once again see's George and Nico travelling the world to stop some ancient evil from being unleashed, this time searching for a blasphemous painting central to Gnostic beliefs. The puzzles are usually good, most of the time you're trapped in one room so you can usually work out what needs to be done. There are some annoying's quirk's in some puzzles, at one point you retrieve a bad of tools but for some reason you refuse to open it and must instead give it to someone else first. One puzzle also requires knowing how to read music, which I hadn't done in 10 years, another requires knowing how to solve a substitution cypher, they were good puzzles, much better than the minigame one's from the Deponia games. The game did crash twice during a puzzle involving a goat, but aside from that it was a decent experience.

Maneater (PS4)

A ShaRkPG (Shark Role Playing Game, I didn't come up with that) where you play as a shark enacting revenge against a famous shark killer, terrorising the waters to prove yourself king of the ocean, all set against the backdrop of some low budget reality tv show. You start as a pup, eat your way through sea creatures and humans until you're a megashark, while also evolving special powers from all the toxic stuff in the water. If you like rampaging in GTA, this is more of the same, as you rampage more you become more infamous, encouraging stronger and larger foes to attack you. The side objectives can be done fairly quickly, meaning the game doesn't get boring if you want to 100% it. My one complaint is that you can reach Max level about half way through the game if you're thorough and it makes Late games incredibly easy. If you don't like button mashing, there are one or two mechanics you won't like (I'm not sure if it's different for PC). Controls are difficult to get used to at first, one annoying thing is you can't descend in water if the camera is facing towards your face, which is annoying as you need to do that to keep an eye on enemy movements. Overall it was a pretty decent game, with fairly decent humour, enough for me to 99% it. Why not 100%? Unfortunately in its current state there are a fair few bugs, including one that makes certain collectables in one area disappear and unobtainable, there are also some crash and save corruption issues. Because of the glitches you may want to wait a bit before buying, the developers are still working to patch the game at the moment.

Minecraft Dungeons (XB1X)

Diablo Light set in the world of Minecraft. It's not a massive complicated experience like Path of Exile, but more intended as a fast ARPG for people that like Minecraft. It's short, but has a huge number of difficulty tiers for those people that like to keep levelling to build their perfect character- kind of the point for these sort of games for many. I didn't expect to like it much because I don't play Minecraft and Diablo style isometric RPG's are not my favorite game type. But I played it through once and enjoyed. I've even started a second play through to keep levelling.

It looks the part and runs well...though standard Xbox, PS4 and Switch only run at 30fps. Better to play on PC, PS4Pro or XB1X if the choice is available. The game got dealt with a bit harshly by the "professional" game review industry. Yet it's been the number one played game on Xbox this week and Game Pass...usurping long time number one Minecraft itself. Plus thousands of user ratings coming about to around 90%. So it seems that Mojang knew what their players wanted, even if the gaming press did not.