Well, according to some sources the "burning bush" is actually a metaphor for sexual ecstasy... Not implausible when you consider that receiving visions this way (maybe with the help of some... interesting plants) is a really ancient technique. And it's practised even today, in Asian traditions as well as in some occult circles (Crowley used it extensively).
I guess a bit hard to implement in a game and avoid an AO rating....

In general, thanks for the post, and thanks for reminding me why I'm no achievement/trophy hunter. The red vases thing sounds exactly like the arbitrary bullshit many achievements have you do. Why bother at all? For some icon in the client?

Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag (Steam)

Continuing my replay of the AC series. Still one of the better games in the series but not as good as the Ezio trilogy. Far too many of the main missions are tailing missions. The problem with the tailing missions is that they would be okay if used sparingly for variety. But every mission pretty much starts with them, only to eventually ending with you having to kill the target anyway. so my question is "why don't I just save time and kill them right at the start instead of following them around half the map?". Or if I need to eavesdrop for info, then why don't I just grab them and beat them within an inch of their life until they tell me? Always keep your plan simple, that's my motto.

It does have one of the better stories of the franchise. The PC version that I played this time ran really well and the game still actually looks great. Using just a low mid range setup (R2600x/RX580), 1440p at max settings and 60fps was easy. With one exception being that any AA higher than 2x FXAA was glitched and caused the game to freeze on cutscenes- maybe an AMD driver issue. Low quality AA isn't that noticeable at 1440p on a 28" display though, so not a huge deal. Otherwise no bugs or glitches at all.

I just played through The Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 Hell on Earth. First three episodes of Doom on Ultra Violence, everything else on Hurt Me Plenty.

I tried GZDoom and Chocolate Doom, but eventually settled for Crispy Doom keeping all extras disabled except bug fixes and widescreen.

Hey, these games are pretty cool! I'll definitely go back and play everything on Ultra Violence one day, but I don't feel like doing that now.

Well, personally I don't really perceive achievements/trophies as something categorically worse or all that different from how video games themselves work. In the end an achievement is just another formalised challenge + reward. I mean, rating systems or medals in games like Hitman and Wing Commander have given me some of the most rewarding gaming experiences - motivated me to master those games. As have tons of optional objectives or self-imposed goals. And so did getting a platinum trophy in e.g. God of War HD.

And achievements/trophies being openly displayed on a profile and potentially competing over them with buds is a nice bonus, IMO, and they may also give me some extra motivation to revisit games that I've enjoyed in the past. That was certainly the case when they added achievements to Half-Life 2 in a patch which made me discover and try stuff which I had totally missed during my first playthrough. Or HL2: Episode 2 has the brilliant Rocket Man achievement which requires you to carry a garden gnome through almost the entire game - it sounds stupid but it's actually a very fun thing to do (funnily in my case the achievement glitched out and did not appear on my profile even though it popped up in-game... twice, lol).

Of course achievements become a "problem" if they suck and make people do utterly unfun stuff (as was the case with AC Origins) but that's also something that many games manage to pull off just fine on their own. My playthrough of Driver comes to mind, lol.

Wasteland 3 - Xbox for PC Game Pass / PC.

After an approximate 67h 24m or so, the awesome & out-standing Wasteland 3 here is now completed, now in the books. With lots of choices that feel like they matter to shape the entire game's journey and its final outcome/permutations; really good writing & dialogue; really good voice-acting; and great strategic-style turn-based combat here - it's hard to argue against the game. While the game's technical performance, load times and having to lock it down even further down to 35fps just to keep it stable was annoying, that still doesn't stop this game from being great. These are minor problems here, as this game's great at...pretty much everything else. This really is the true spiritual successor Fallout 1 & 2 and also a true modernization of those style of strategic party-based and turn-based CRPG's set in an post-apocalyptic setting. This is a trip to Colorado that no gamer should miss. Take this trip to Colorado; it's a great one.

Complete list of 2020, over here:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2020/post24

That was not my experience. Any bugs/glitches were minor, not even worth mentioning. I played it with TSL Restored Content Mod 1.8.5.

Prey (2017)

One of the best games I've played since... System Shock 2. Yep, this is probably the closest a game will ever get to being SS3 (I don't have high expectations for OtherSide Entertainment's "official" version).

The first few years after Prey's release, I didn't have much interest in this game. Probably because of it's name and reading everywhere online that it's an FPS (=shooter). Well, I don't consider Prey a shooter at all - it's an immersive sim, not a "shoot-everything-that-moves-and-not-much-else" game, like Doom or Quake, or ... etc.

I guess times have changed - nowadays, everything FPP with the ability to 'shoot' is called an FPS. I guess I'll have to go with it so I won't miss out on a hidden gem. So... I'm going to try Mooncrash... keep an open mind... even though every description tells me that it's a shooter/roguelike(or lite, whatever... it's a genre that never interested me). I care about interesting experiences - not about repetition to train my hand-eye coordination. I like my 'challenges' to be intellectual.

Anyway - Prey doesn't have the greatest story, but it's great at "creating a world" (see Looking Glass logo). Most "good stories" are more about how they're told than what they are anyway.

Yeah I get that. And I think there really are some cool achievement ideas around. And we, back in the day, also came up with challenges like that for ourselves. Like beating Q1M1 on Nightmare with 100% kills and secrets - only using the axe (except for the one secret button you need to shoot)

But what you described sound awfully like tedious work and I have enough of that IRL. So I'd like to understand why you bother, instead of moving on to more interesting challenges.
I really need to find the time to play it...

After much procrastinating and mostly thanks to COVID, I happened to have fully finished:

Shadow Warrior 2013 (PC) - July 2020

DOOM 2016 (XBOX) - August 2020

Fallout: New Vegas (beat it on PC years ago, this time it's for XBOX) - September 2020

Great description, my wishlist have one more item.... ;)

Ion Fury
Dusk
Bloodstained
Pathologic 2
Blasphemous
...and I think that's all. Really haven't had much time to play this year it seems.

Lost internet connection for two days or so and played through two short titles during that time:


Chook & Sosig: Long Weekend

A simple point & click demo with barely a story and - euphemistically speaking - an open end but stunningly beautiful 2D graphics, a few funny character interactions and two easy puzzles. Only takes a few minutes to play through, but I thought it was fun. Probably more enjoyable though if you're already familiar with the characters (as I was, from the other games).


after HOURS

A Humble original I got from the Treasure Trove. It's more of an interactive multimedia art project than an actual game, and I have to admit I didn't fully get it. It proclaims to deal with the themes of borderline personality disorder and molestation, although especially the later was rather obscure and cryptic, only hinted at, and you don't really learn anything about it unless you read between the lines and connect the vague dots - if that's even possible; I fear it went a bit over my head, but maybe you're not even supposed to know. So in this regard I don't think I gained much of anything from it. Not that everything has to be spelled out for me, but there wasn't enough info for me to connect, empathize, or have any thoughts and opinions at all. I played through it two times (it only takes a few minutes) and my experience with the second playthrough was slightly different from the first, but not significantly enough to encourage further playthroughs.

On the other hand, I really liked the presentation, the audiovisual concept, the style and art direction, the FMV and animation parts, the atmospheric soundtrack. The voiceovers by the author took a little getting used to because I was unfamiliar with her accent - seems like it is a South African one. But this specific context made it a little more interesting to me as well. I really didn't know what to expect when I started the game and I was positively surprised by the pleasant presentation (despite the unpleasant topic). So I'm kind of torn. I thought it was a truly "original" work, something different, and in general I enjoyed it and didn't regret spending time with it. It's just that the themes didn't resonate much with me in the way they were implemented, but I guess that's art, it's a very personal approach, not catering to expectations.

Dry Drowning, Sept 28 (Itch)-An above average mystery visual novel that suffers badly from a poor translation. The story was generally pretty good until the endings which got really unwieldly. Also, the basis for the main characters' current desolation was pretty flimsy and some of the interrogation questions required big leaps of logic. The under-utilized mechanic of clicking the highlighted phrases in the witness's statement to learn more didn't seem to serve much purpose. There was no difficulty to that mechanic and it could have just been a response from the main character. The overall visuals were good with some uncanny valley moments and a weird Val Kilmer look for the young version of the main character. With a couple of gameplay tweaks and some more polish on the translation and story and this could have been a favorite.

Full List

Requiem - Avenging Angel

Snatched it after 2nd re-release here.

Most guns are pretty good. Grenade launcher is awkward and stiffy, with low range for such weapon, zoom in sniper only by holding LMB where you're forced to fire.
Some powers are ok (meteor brimstone, lightning, haste, bullet time) and some are terrible (Heal that give you 5hp for 50 mana, at the end you have little more than 200mana, Deflect is great but work for like 1second so it's useless in fights where you need it the most).
Lighting bolt is powerful and flexible, need 4 mana and can be charged, but often miss the target even when it get through enemie, which confued me.
Had to use it in final fight, which was ok except surprise electric attack that are hard to dodge without bullet time/haste.

Best combo is bullet time+pistol for headshot spamming, best for these moments when enemies respawn almost endlessly and catch you by surprise.
Game is difficult if you don't play smart. Enemies can put you down with 2-3 burst even on Easy without any armor, and you will loose that precious armor often.
Goons with assault rifles are bad but dual pistols and sniper are the worst, they take you down way too fast if you try to play fair without powers.

Voice acting back then was either bad or bearable, but this one have few good exception like Lilith and Lucifer.