Boyfriend Dungeon, Aug 7 (Xbox Game Pass)-Both the dungeon delving and the weapon wooing are a little lackluster. There are two very annoying characters that I wanted to punch in the face. And seven potential love interests was at least two too many for the small amount of content in the game. It also didn't seem to matter what I chose with any of the characters, the love meter would fill up regardless. The sound track was pretty good, the opening theme was especially catchy. A little disappointing that only a couple lines per character were voiced.

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Train Sim World 2 (XSX Game Pass)

Toot F@%k'n Toot! I thought I'd just play this one for a few hours before it leaves Game Pass in a few week. That turned into about 60 hours of train driving, sometimes to 2 in the morning. You could say that I got a bit hooked on it, and did all the journeys that are included in the base game. The journeys are a story mode that takes you from the first day on the job, through training on the types of locomotives to time table jobs and, the best part of the game, the scenarios. Once you get the hang of it, there is real satisfaction in loading up a 60 car coal train (suck that shit up Greta!), configuring multi power units, then taking to the junction over 3 hours, up and down gradients with ice and snow, obeying signals, using the dynamic brakes to control speed on 1.5% down gradients and not derailing- it's actually really satisfying. Not something I'd want to play all that often, but something that I really felt like playing.

The game has some really annoying bugs though. Well, some things are not bugs- more like inadequate tutorials. The main one being the American Diesel Electrics, which are the most fun to operate, are woefully under explained when it comes to setting up multiple power units to work together. The tutorial teaches you to use a single unit, not multiples. You need to look up online manuals (which are plentiful and easy to find). But it's funny seeing all the one star reviews on Xbox claiming the game is broken because the train won't move- when it is really because they haven't set the trailing engine correctly and it's sitting there with its brakes on- the game is working correctly, it's a user fault.
But there are plenty of bugs that are real. The main one being the save bug that basically means you cannot rely on saving mid mission and reloading. If you do the bug kicks in, seems to be only with multi setups, where the reloaded game applies the brakes with no way of getting them off! It makes the mid mission save function pretty much worthless, meaning you have to do large scenarios that take several hours in one sitting...hence the 2AM play sessions.

But I enjoyed my time doing the journeys and will probably put some more time in before it leaves Game Pass in a week. I do have it on PC as well, thanks Epic Game Store. Of course there are bucket loads of expansion routes and locomotives, but I think the base game is adequate for the purposes of myself and all but the biggest train nuts.

In terms of gameplay they are perfectly identical and from what I recall players are usually free to choose on the spot who is gonna do which part of a task (but not always). They do differ heavily in terms of personality and background story, though.

The Pedestrian, Aug 8 (Xbox Game Pass)-A puzzle game that reminded me quite a bit of FRAMED. It's quite a bit better and harder than that game I think. I thought the gameplay was good except for the mechanic to use the archway (doorway?) to teleport into another panel. I could never really get the hang of that one. The 'twist' for the last level was pretty good, too.

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Just beat Stray on PS5. I'm quite immune to any hype at this point and usually feel no urge to play games so soon after release but this one also happens to be included in my PS Plus subscription so I gave it a go.

I had no idea what to expect other than what I knew from screenshots. All in all I was very positively surprised by the game and enjoyed it a ton, though it is a very brief ride. I actually took my time, exploring a bit more than I had to and doing a bunch of optional things, and I beat it in less than six hours. But I did enjoy pretty much all of it.

So, it's a game where you play a cat who accidentally ends up in an underground city populated by robots and is looking for a way out. There isn't all that much to the game, it's actually a pretty basic action adventure. There are multiple levels, some of which are relatively open hubs where you explore, talk to robots and even do some optional fetch quests while others are more dramatic linear sequences. There's naturally a ton of platforming though there's no real challenge involved as all jumping happens through contextual actions which can't be failed - the only challenge is finding paths to the destination and even that isn't too difficult. Besides all the jumping there's a lot of exploring, evading enemies, some puzzle solving and also a bit of stealth. But honestly, it's a very casual experience all in all. It's just engaging enough to be enjoyable but never gets particularly challenging.

I'll be honest: Stray is a pretty extreme case of style over substance but it has so much style that it's okay. The world, a run-down cyberpunk city shrouded in a mist of neon lights, is simply utterly gorgeous and just walking around it and exploring every corner was mesmerising experience to me. I also really love the robot population which has a depressing experience on one hand but also manages to be heart-warming and funny on the other. Oh yeah, and the game has one of the most bizarre but hauntingly beautiful soundtracks I have ever heard in a game.

And finally there's of course the fact that you're controlling a cat (well, a cat and its robot sidekick who allows communicating with the other robots). It's obviously what instantly sold the game and made it one of this year's biggest releases. And yeah, it's an important part of the experience, obviously, and many of the animations are great, you can do all sorts of nonsense like take a nap, scratch furniture or rub yourself on a robot's legs. In the PS5 version, when you let the cat sleep, the controller actually starts to purr. An argument could be made that it's not really a "cat game" and you could just as well be controlling the robot who accompanies you but... it's a cyberpunk game with a cat! Who cares!

But that also kinda leads me to the part with the lacking substance. I don't think the plot is particularly clever or original - I can think of two games with very similar themes which were a lot more sophisticated, one of which I beat rather recently. And also the gameplay is kinda just functional. And frankly it kinda feels like they put all the effort into the first 1-2 hours of the game. When the game starts every corner feels meaningful and there's a lot going on but past the first half it kinda feels like the developers had either run out of time or ideas and you just breeze through it. I think this is best captured by the fact that in the first area there are what feels like hundreds of ways to get from street level to the top. In the visually most spectacular area, which the artists probably put most effort in, there's no way to reach a single roof and this whole sense of playing a cat who can freely explore a city is kinda just gone. Quests also get replaced by collectables at that point. The game also doesn't get more challenging or particularly dramatic as it approaches its finale. It didn't make the game terrible but it did make it feel like less what was promised. But, well, luckily the game ends very quickly after that point and the credits roll just before you can get bored or frustrated.

Briefly put: it's no a fantastic game but it's an amazing interactive audio-visual experience that I ultimately found to be more similar to Flower or Abzu than any platform or stealth game. And that is perfectly fine.

Lust for Darkness (2018) (Linux/Proton)

I didn't like it. It was easy and short enough to complete, but I cannot recommend the game and I'd rather avoid other games of this kind. I get the whole idea, it may be even interesting, but the aesthetics is just too tiring and disgusting.

I played on Steam using Linux/Proton, but:
– it was necessary to use "PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%" command to launch the game
– I also faced some minor issues (light effects' problems and crash near the end).

List of all games completed in 2022.

How did you get past GFWL for Kane & Lynch ?

If it's good enough for GOG, there is no GFWL.

This game use to require [Games For Windows Live] to launch on Steam. I guess Square-Enix updated and patched the game to not require it anymore. Good to know that you can just launch and play the game now without GFWL.

100 hidden frogs (2021) (Linux/Proton)

100 frogs to be found. It took me 7 minutes, it cost me nothing. Recommend.

List of all games completed in 2022.

According to the reviews I've made, I only managed to beat two GOG games last year, so I'll post the GOG games I managed to beat this year.

F.E.A.R. Platinum
I managed to get around to completing the FEAR expansions this year after beating the base game last year in a few days. Took months in between. I must say, FEAR and Extraction Point are fantastic. Perseus Mandate is merely okay, if only because it's more FEAR.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein
I actually played this way back on Xbox back in the day. I liked the Egypt level in that port. Unfortunately, I feel like time has moved against this game and it has not aged gracefully. The New Order is still going to be my favorite Wolfenstein game.

Crysis
I was really excited for this game back in the day, but luck did not grant me a decent computer, and then I had to move around a bunch and only until this year, 15 years after it debuted, did I manage to play it. Well, okay, I played the Xbox 360 version for like a level until it crashed on my Xbox One. I guess it can't play Crysis, amirite? Anyway, fun game, planning to get to Warhead eventually.

World In Conflict
A fun take on RTS, if it abandoned base building to focus on micromanaging units. Normal difficulty was a bit too easy for my tastes, but evidently playing against Hard AI in skirmish is a bit of challenge if only due to the fact that I got rusty from not playing it after a while.

SWAT 4
Latest game I beat, fun tactical shooter. I wish there were more missions because they end up being too short once you figure out how to just shoot everyone with the pepperball gun and win. Frustrating too when your squad isn't too smart and gets killed by suspects, but I guess repetition with randomization is supposed to make it replayable. Still, in spite of the problems it has, I liked it well enough.

As for games I plan on beating, I have quite a few:

Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption: Actually making progress, if slowly. Got to the Tremere domain but have been holding it off a little bit. Is on top of my priority list.
Far Cry 1
SiN
Deus Ex: I swear I will eventually beat this game in spite of all the spoilers I've endured. I played it back in 2012 and went to MJ-12 jail, but sometimes I can't do thinking man's games much. It's shelved, but in a way I will come back to it.
Fallout: Same as Deus Ex. Played it back in 2012, almost beat it, laptop died. This game, I got to Necropolis. Maybe sometime this year.

Games I booted up and have made substantial progress, but this year is a big if:

Blood - Fresh Supply
Enclave
Unreal Gold
Thief
Far Cry 2: Hilarious because I've beaten this game before, twice, and I keep making new games, I get to the second map, but then I fizzle out. I fizzled out this time because of the realization that they never fixed the tape bugs. What a shame.
Just Cause: Again, already beat this game before, twice, and it's real easy to boot, but maybe that's why I've put it off.
Heretic
Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth: I got hit by a bug where peeking into a room triggered a cutscene which then soft locked my game. I can always reload, but that's another 15 minutes down the drain.
Morrowind: Playing it in OpenMW right now. Well, not right now, I've been playing other games, but it being a content rich game would require more of my attention than I have to spare, so mostly shelved aside from once in a while.
UFO - Aftermath: Completed the tutorial mission. Fizzled out real bad.
The Incredible Machine: Apparently, I'm on the hard end of the puzzles. I feel like if I devoted more time, I could beat it, but eh.
Papers, Please: Actually, this is probably something I could beat this weekend if I bothered. I'm actually quite far.
Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People

The shadows of Amn run deep.

Baldur's Gate 2 (Core Rules, Original Version)

Still a fantastic intricate and challenging game in 2022. My thoroughly well researched and magic heavy party consisted of a multi-class Warrior/Mage wielding the Flail of Ages, I usually preferred Shield of Harmony over the Sword of Quickness. Keldorn wielding Carsomyr +5. Anomen with Improved Mace of Disruption. Jaheira in a middle position with Spear of Withering +4, and Nalia and Aerie providing powerful magic support.

Not without a few dumb things like somehow being held when a character has free-action and spell interruption while your character has zero casting time.

5/5 Shade Lich's Defeated. Long live the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart.

I have been looking for PS4/5 games to play with my wife and installed Sky Force Anniversary, hoping that it would have coop. It actually does but I ended up beating it solo because it's not quite the right game for my wife, lol.

I've had this game on my PSN account since forever, I think I got it from PS Plus ages ago, but it just seemed so painfully generic that I never bothered to try it. Big mistake!

So, it's a shoot 'em up game and, from what I could gather, it's actually a 2014 3D remake of an older Polish 2D shmup from 2004, originally released for pre-smartphone era mobile phones and also the PSP or something. I wasn't expecting much but it's actually a pretty great game as far as I'm concerned.

Admittedly I wasn't wrong with the "generic" part: The game is utterly devoid of any personality. It has a generic "planes and sci-fi stuff" style like many classic shmups, it has a generic electronic retro soundtrack, it has a generic graphical style, there is no story other than a few lines spoken by a generic pilot chick and a generic pilot villain and the gameplay is pretty darn basic. However, I found the execution to be remarkably good!

I think that the game is quite interesting in that it mixes highly precise bullet hell style gameplay with progression. In my experience shmups tend to be either these hardcore bullet hell affairs OR they are based on progression but have rather forgiving or "dirty" gameplay in return, like in Tyrian or Jets 'n' Guns (the latter is very challenging but it is "noisy" and does forgive many hits). Sky Force, however, is fundamentally designed in such a way that all levels can absolutely be beaten without taking a single hit. Health upgrades allow you to survive additional hits most of the time and you can heal with pick ups mid-level but that's just an aid for getting it through levels at all.

What isn't really optional, on the other hand, are upgrades to your weapons. Enemies just become too resistant pretty soon unless you upgrade your weapons and buy additional ones, so the game kinda forces you to keep replaying levels and farm currency for the upgrades - as a matter of fact you must not only beat levels but also gather medals in order to unlock additional levels and you get medals for performing feats like killing 100% of all enemies, not getting hit even once or rescuing all "humans" (cute little pilots) on a level. The game is really designed around replaying levels, which I found worrying at first, but I ended up enjoying this a lot! I don't really have the patience anymore for traditional "git gud" style arcade games but here, with the progression system which makes you advance at least a little bit even if you fail, I was actually motivated enough to keep going and replay the levels and memorise the patterns. Oh yeah, and additionally random "cards" drop which give you some permanent bonus - it's a small detail but it keeps you looking forward to the next drop.

As I said, it's a pretty basic game. The only standard weapons are guns that shoot upwards in a straight line and homing missiles (which have such a low frequency that you can't really depend on them most of the time). During a level you will only find upgrades that increase the firing rate for the remainder of the level. Eventually you will also get a few powers with limited uses, like a laser, a shield and a "mega bomb", but that's it. But, oddly enough, that's good enough.

Anyway, I found the basic gameplay to be very solid and enjoyable and not frustrating at all (though it does require you to be focused) and the way the economy is set up it's pretty addictive. I always kept going in order to reach the next upgrade or get one more medal or replayed levels on a higher difficulty which will unlock once you've gotten all medals on that particular level (and where you get more stars for upgrades). And those aforementioned powers like the laser or shield actually start without any ammo unless you buy ammo for them just before playing a level, so you can make a level easier by slowing down the progression a bit. It's seemingly all very simple but the game had just enough depth to keep me engaged. Oh yeah, additionally there's leader boards and some "tournament" thing playing in a loop but I didn't go into that stuff.

So, if you're looking for a simple and not too challenging but fun and solid shmup, Sky Force is actually a pretty awesome choice. I'm not sure full-on shmup aficionados will enjoy it much but for a relatively casual shmup player it's great, I think. It's not a memorable masterpiece but it is a surprisingly satisfying and addictive game.

Oh yeah, also, apparently there was a follow-up game called Sky Force Reloaded. And you know what? I think I'm gonna get that one as well.

Distraint 2 (2018) (Linux/Wine)

My opinion is similar to the review of the first one (link). It's a melancholic game focused strongly on psychology and fighting your inner fears and traumas. I think it's smart enough to help some people or to trigger some deep emotions. I didn't liked it much because of gameplay (not interesting puzzles and a lot of walking), but it's not a bad game. I think D2 is better then D1.

Works well under Wine. It crashed once, but run well after restart and never caused any problems again.

List of all games completed in 2022.