SOMA (XSX)

This is what you get when the people who made Amnesia the Dark Descent decide to do something with more story and a quite good one at that. It may be a funny comparison, but it's story draws similarities to NieR: Automata in a very broad sense. The devs usual strengths of slow atmospheric horror, unfortunately works against the game a bit on this occasion. The stealth sections and sometimes overly long puzzle sections almost start feeling like unwanted roadblocks delaying the impact of the story. I suppose they kept their usual game play elements so that it wouldn't be accused of just being a walking simulator. But overall, I really liked it- as the dark brand of sci-fi world building was really well done and the story is thought provoking.

Edit: It's also on sale on GOG right now, if you didn't already get it free on Epic.

9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, Jun 23 (Xbox game pass)-This game was awesome. Probably my favorite game played this year. Its also pretty easily my favorite visual novel surpassing Higurashi. The puzzles were very, very light but the story was fun and the twists and turns were very good even if some of them were expected. I really enjoyed the branching paths and need for multiple playthrus to unravel the entire mystery. My only complaint is that the ending went entirely off the rails in the last hour or so. One other minor quibble. The voice acting was mostly good but only covered about half the game. Novel sections were voiced but puzzle sections were not which was a little disappointing.

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Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Forgotten Realms: Icewind Dale Complete - Heart of Winter

Boy, just finished the Heart Of Winter expansion for IWD (original 'complete' version) compared to the main game teh town is more interesting and role playing-ey but the dungeons and encounter areas are even more of a slog
The boss fight with the dragon at the end was a doozy too, nice to actually meet a Dragon in a Dungeous and Dragons game though...

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Shadowrun Returns (XSX Game Pass)

Don't know why it has taken me so long to start playing this series, since it's the type of game I really like and I've had the PC versions for years. They just turned up on consoles finally, and I've just finished the first in the series.

I really like the character building systems and combat a lot. Quite simple, yet lots of options to build in very different directions. I kept things simple, since it's my first experience with Shadowrun games. I just built a dedicated min/maxed gunslinger that specialized in rifles. Plus the minimum spell casting (lvl 2) required for the healing spell. Then, towards the end when, when my rifle and speed and dodge was maxed I put the remainder into charisma to open new dialogue. The gun fighter was very easy to play and it was an easy game overall.

The story parts of the game were less amazing, very linear and a simple but decent story. Where the game lacks mainly for me is the support characters, they mainly just come and go as part of the story with the addition of generic shadowrunners that you hire. So there is very little connection with your team. I've heard that aspect is much improved in the two sequels, which I'll be getting to over the coming months. Still this first game in the series is a good introduction.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Shredder's Revenge (Gamepass)

I had a free month of Gamepass lying around and I finally decided to activate it to test this game.

Well, everything everyone said everywhere is true, this is an incredible and awesome beat'em up and a perfect follow up to the classic Konami games.

Played on normal difficulty and it's pretty easy. There's a bit of a difficulty spike in the last few levels, but if you kept playing with a single char, changes are you reached level 10 with it and the extra initial lives, health and max super bar level it, make it a breeze anyway.

Bosses are really on the easy side, but I'm glad they're not damage sponges. Most are quick and reasonably fun. Most are recicled from the older games with one or two new tricks, though there are a few new bosses as well.

There's an attempt of narrative involving rebuilding Krang's robot body and stealing the Statue of Liberty again. It's simple, but kinda works for the gametype. There isn't as much Shredder as it could, though. He screams around about having his revenge most of the times he appears and says something. It's fine, I guess, but I wish we could have spent some more time with him in this game.

As a bit of criticism, it's very weird that a game with so much voices around, has a bunch of cut-scenes with no voices, including the ending.

Record of Lodoss War- Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (XSX Game Pass)

I'm not really familiar with the Lodoss War, but doing a little research and it was originally a Japanese RPG world, think of it like Forgotten Realms for example. It was rule less, just world, characters and stories that people could then apply to whatever RPG system they prefer. It gained popularity in Japan, so Novels, Anime, Manga, RPG Rule Sets and video games soon came. This is the latest video game in this world and this time it's a 2d "Metroidvania" with most of the emphasis on exploration and combat rather than platforming- though there is a little platforming near the end.

It's actually a really good game. You play as Deedlit, apparently a major character in the Lodoss world- sort of like Drizzt for example if you were talking of The Forgotten Realms. The story is canon and fits in-between some established material. Unlike many games in this genre, this one doesn't go overboard on requiring too much backtracking. Most backtracking will be voluntary to uncover the map and find weapons and spells to make bosses easier. Most of the path is linear and loops around on itself to allow you to unlock shortcuts, rather than backtracking. It's short for this type of game- most will finish it around 10 to 12 hours. There's no difficulty levels, but it's also not a terribly hard game and save points are right before all bosses for if you do fail. I actually thought the games difficulty and the pacing of new abilities versus game length was spot on. It was well worth playing.
I think I'll give this a try next. I played AI: The Somnium Files last year and it ended up in my top 10 for the year and wasn't what I expected a VN to be like, so I want to try a few more Spike Chunsoft published VN's. The first two Danganronpa games are also on Game Pass on my shortlist.

What was AI: The Somnium Files like? I've got my eye on it but there are a couple other games I want to finish first.

Alice Madness Returns, Jun 27 (Xbox Game Pass)-A buggy, janky mess. I still had fun with it but parts of the game were definitely a struggle. Almost without fail the game would crash or freeze 1-2 times per session. The controls were often unresponsive or glitchy. The game often wouldn't register multiple button presses like for example running and jumping at the same time. This made what should have been relatively easy platforming much more difficult. Occasionally I would get stuck on uneven ground or obstacles. I had to use a gamepad a couple times because no mouse or keyboard button allowed me to stomp when you're giant in the Red Queen's level. Plot was fine but predictable, combat passable, collectibles plentiful.

I have a general complaint about action adventure games like this that present you with two paths, one leading to a secret area and one continuing the main story. You don't know which is which and if you pick the main story you're locked out of backtracking to the secret area. I find that really irritating and Alice did that a lot.

The general atmosphere of the game was suitably weird and disturbing. It felt like the unholy love child of Tim Burton and Tim Schafer and I got a lot of strong Psychonauts and Halloweentown from Kingdom Hearts vibes from it.

There were a lot of areas or mechanics that felt like crappy minigames. The extra life/secret rose areas were nothing exciting. The slide sequences were ok. The pinball parts were terrible. Yoku's Island Express is a much better pinball game.

I think I'm done shitting on the game. It was still fun though. Not nearly my favorite of the year and not as good as I remember the original to be but still worth some time.

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It's a very long game for a start- at least 20 hours. It's like you described for the Zero escape game in that you have to play through all endings to get the full resolution. The acting is great and the length really gives the time for characters to be fleshed out. Hard for me to say how it compares to other VN's though, since I've only ever tried a few- and it's the only one I really liked.

Teenagent

"Teenagent" is a 1994 point-and-click adventure by a Polish developer Metropolis Software. It tells a story of Mark Hopper - a titular teenage agent, trying to solve the puzzle of gold disappearing from banks.

It's a short game, took me about 3 hours to beat while checking guide a few times, which actually brings me to the biggest problem I have - there are puzzles that are literally impossible to figure out without looking up in guide. Other problem is lack of locations, as there are literally two places player visits throughout the game and that's it. Unfortunately it pales when compared to some more ambitious point-and-click games like "The Longest Journey" or "Syberia", or even "Kathy Rain".

Aside from that, it's a fun, humorous little game and the fact that it's free and short makes it a perfect for quick evening play.

The Room

Back in 2017 I finished The Room for Android (the steampunk / Lovecraftian puzzle box game not the computer game version of Tommy Wassau's magnum opus that exists only in your strangest fever dreams) and wrote about it on this very forum Here

At the time I said that due to innovative use of the all the features that mobile gaming can provide like multi-touch and the rotation sensitive accelerometers and such, that the mobile version seemed like it would be the best, most definitive version and today, after finishing the PC version I can sat that.. I wasn't wrong, no!

Wow takes you back to a time when there was still hope that the mobile games market could be an interesting and innovative creative space, before it was just a wall-to-wall pay to win, gacha machine hellscape, though, doesn't it?

The PC version is still, crazy fun and strangely menacing Victorian puzzle boxes are still more than worth the entry prices (especially if you pick it up in a sale) and the 2 to 3 hours of your time it will take you to beat though, don't get me wrong - still heartily recommended

Still intrigued about those sequels that I really should get to at some point, also reading stuff you wrote 5 years ago can be weird sometimes, turns out!

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Let me know how it goes. I'm juggling some others right now before I move on to that one.

Beat Monster Hunter Stories (61 hours). Not too shabby. The amount of "quests" in this game is amazing. I will play MHS2 on the Switch, for sure.

Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Dont Dry (2018) (Linux/Wine)

It's not Larry as we remember him. Terrible game.

List of all games completed in 2022.