System Shock 2. It had been a good while since I played this. I was putting off a replay until Night Dive's enhanced edition came out, but I decided to just go ahead and install some mods to make it a little bit prettier. Anyway, it's a good game that remains good. I thought about doing something daring like play a psi-oriented style but I just sort of reverted to my usual habit of favoring combat, although I did play primarily melee with the wrench and then the crystal shard.

I do think that for all the control issues it has, the first game is better overall, mostly because some of the things they added for the sequel, such as the weapon degradation and the RPG elements, feel a bit contrived and break immersion. As much as I like RPGs, the proliferation of "RPG elements" in so many genres hasn't been a good trend, IMO. You still get a good time with the game, though.

I used to grouse about the story a bit, particularly the ending, but focusing on that a bit more this time around I think they did a good job with it. The final cutscene, awkward as it is, has a bit of a different spin to it when you realize that SHODAN is reacting more out of frustration that you've foiled her master plan and that she had a contingency plan ready all along (she always does). And although you're still very alone (aside from SHODAN insulting you and the Many occasionally bothering you), I've always liked how the battle on the Von Braun is still an ongoing thing while you're running around - you catch up to Dr. Watts in time for him to gasp out some last words, there's the whole Rebecca/Tommy subplot going, seeing Cortez though the window, hearing people crying out while you're running around the Body of the Many, and everything Delacroix is doing at more or less the same time you are. The first game had a little bit of this going on with the people barricaded on the flight deck, but the sequel adds just a little more. It's a way of adding proper NPCs without forcing you to have to interact with them.

It's amazing how people's experience may differ :)
I tried the game a few times and I was pushed back by controls and a game's physics. Terrible one for me.

However, I'm glad you've enjoyed it so much :)

Hi there, ciemnogrodzianin!

You're right, people have different opinions especially when we talk about subjective experiences and evaluations. When it comes to video games, I consider myself an old school guy. I grew up in the 80's and my first computer was an MSX clone by Gradiente and my first console was an Atari 2600 clone by CCE. I used to love games like The Goonies, Road Fighter, The Castle, Enduro, River Raid and Pitfall for instance. For me, the controls on these games are spot on, much like the good games from the third and forth generations. It didn't matter to me that, for example, Battletoads, Ninja Gaiden or Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels were tough games. It was all about having fun trying to beat every stage and learning to play better and better, one day at a time. As a kid, I never really saw playing video games as entertainment, but as an everlasting skill, always to be perfected and never to be mastered. The challenge factor was a huge part of the fun and vice versa. I come from a time where there were no tutorials or DLCs. Frequently, there were no passwords or the option to save your game. Many times there were not even manuals for you to read. The player had to figure things out no matter what because the internet did not exist back in day. And I didn't start buying video game magazines until the early 90's when I sold my Genesis in order to buy a SNES. The first time I played The Secret of Monkey Island on a 80286 processor took literally months to finish. It was sort of a collective effort, for all the kids I knew that could also play the game at home helped each other in order to try to solve the puzzles and see the ending of the game. So, you see, I understand that nowadays people are not accustomed or exposed to the same level of difficulty as before and definitely not the same gaming atmosphere as it was, for example, the arcade scene in the 80's and 90's. We're not talking about online multiplayer, but playing side by side against the best players in town. It was all there and it was really intense!

The game Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is medium to hard and even annoying in the Unknown Areas, which are not that easy to find by the way. Nonetheless, in my opinion, it's all an essential part of the experience. I used an Xbox One controller via bluetooth on Windows 11 and I think the controls are very tight and responsive. I don't get it when people say that this game has slippery controls. For me, it's the opposite. I had a very satisfactory control over the controls expected for this genre. Take for instance, La-Mulana. I loved that game. It's maybe the hardest platformer I've ever played. And the controls are excellent. It's funny to think about it, but one may understand that playing classics or tough games is a kind of masochism. To my view, all the hard work, all the trials, all the "suffering" and "sacrifice" go towards one goal: to have fun conquering a challenge. If the effort is too small, so is the prize.

Thank you for the message, take care and see you next time!

It looks that I grew up not more than a decade later, so most of that applies to me also. I even remember how surprisingly long took us to understand the difference between "Save" and "Load"; also discovering that Prehistoric allows you to use those level codes and does not need to be played from the very beginning every time :D

I don't know how to explain my point of view, especially in English, but I think I'm fine with game difficulty and I understand that it's sometimes the thing making them rewarding. I've accomplished games like Dungeon Rats or Hollow Knight and it was pure pain and pleasure at the same time :D The second game even somehow changed my life and attitude, I loved that experience. But in platformers it's all about controls and physics for me. Hollow Knight was perfect. Pinstripe was terrible, but liked it and finished. Prehistoric 2 is awesome. Prehistoric 1 is a disaster. Cuphead is awesome, but needs more keys that I'm able to use and I've never made any significant progress there, even with multiple tries and restarts. I don't know how to name the criterion, but I suppose some of these game are just not for me.

Thanks for sharing your point of view!

Hello, Leroux!

First of all, I'd like to say that it's very nice of you joining in this nice discussion about the different ways of perceiving and experiencing a particular game.

I see that you're more inclined with ciemnogrodzianin's perception, reaction, understanding and evaluation of the game Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. That's just fine. If my previous message seemed to be judgmental or have any trace of criticism, I say that it was not my intention. The main message I tried to convey was that games nowadays are for the most part relatively easier than older games. I'm not degrading modern games or gamers that don't like hardcore challenges or are prone to reject tough and demanding games.

You said that you didn't like the controls in Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap because they demand that you adapt to them. I wonder how can it be the other way around? The controls are programmed just like many other aspects of a game. Would you please give me an example where the player can impose a change in the controls behavior?

When you mentioned the learning curve of the game, it made me remind of Volgarr the Viking. If you haven't played it, don't try it. I believe you won't like it. For me, as you may guess by now, it's an excellent game, very much in the same vein as WBTDT. It's hard, but once you keep learning with your mistakes and countless deaths, you get this outburst of joy and an amazing feeling of accomplishment. But then again, that's my way to relate to it.

It's only natural that each person has their own backgrounds and tastes. Consequently, we are not supposed to follow other people's preferences. And that's okay!

I really appreciate your message. Have a nice weekend and see you next time.

I didn't perceive it that way, no. All good.

It was sort of a clumsy way to try and express what I meant, I guess. I was looking for the reason why ciemnogrodzianin thought the controls were bad and you thought they were fine. My verdict was that they are fine if you are into this oldschool style of platformers that's all about learning when to do what exactly. But they feel more rigid than in many modern games. If you jump and you see a monster jump in your direction at the same time, you can't cancel the move or quickly steer in the opposite direction, it is too late for that, you will collide anyway. So you need to plan ahead, you can't react intuitively but need to learn exactly how the moves work and adapt to the fact that you can't course-correct as easily as in other games. Of course you have to learn controls and adapt to them in every game, what I mean is that in modern games they often feel more smoothly, natural and intuitive, not part of the challenge but helping you overcome it. They allow you to react more quickly. Not sure if I make myself understood here, but it's difficult to describe and I'm not sure I can do it any better. Anyway, I was just thinking out loud - in written form, heh. Not sure if there's actually any substance to what I think I observed. ;)

Control: UE (GOG)

Awesome!
I think that I'll play American Nightmare next!

edit: I accidently edited the original post.

Imagine that you're sitting on a park bench on a sunny day and unexpectedly someone kicks a (soccer) ball in your face direction while you were staring to the other side. If you're lucky, in a fraction of a second, your brain is capable of somehow estimate the ball's velocity and your reaction time in order to make you move your head just in time to dodge the globular projectile. Your reaction is automatic. If you're not so lucky, you might get dizzy for a few minutes, after which you would be justly cursing the careless players that didn't consider hitting an innocent bystander.

In the real world, it would be impossible to cancel the hit if you didn't have an almost extrasensory perception (or just pure luck). There's no way to let's say cheat reality with a ball time special power. Only Neo could do it when he was on his journey to master the Matrix. I'm writing this funny message because I believe old games tried to capture and transpose to the screen a kind of an archetypal sense of reality. Sports games might well be the best example. You must indeed plan ahead when playing a platformer or any game that depend on decimal seconds of control input. Of course, some games are unfair because the controls do not function as expected or the AI is unfair because they function beyond of what would be expected of them. Would it be fair if the ball acted like a guided missile and hit you in the nose no matter what? I guess not. Would it be cool if you could avoid any injury by moving like Quicksilver? Oh, yeah! But that's only daydreaming, mere escapism.

All right, Leroux. Hopefully you don't get me wrong. I understand what you said. I think modern games try to recreate reality too especially when they emulate the physics of natural environments or the movements of characters like human beings, animals or fantastic beings. Maybe that's why they feel more intuitive and look more real or, at least, look like something that could be real. Nonetheless, they all have their own programmed rules and you'll have to time your actions and reactions in order to succeed. Now that I think about it, I tend to see that there's always been this fundamental set of rules for every game that you must follow if you want to play in order to achieve something. Taking only that into account, it's possible that we like games that we have the habit of accepting their rules and dislike those that we tend to reject the way their system work. Maybe that's why we immerse ourselves in some games regardless of graphics, sound, music, design, story, difficulty, controls, etc. That's some food for thought for you!

Lastly, I'd like to say that you can't really cancel a jump in Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap, but you can decelerate the momentum of your jump by pressing the opposite directional button and you can also regulate the height of your jump by quickly pressing the button or by pressing and holding it. There was some sophistication in Master System games after all.

I thank you for your reply, for it made me think of something that I had never thought before.

So long.

I have finished the main storyline of Final Fantasy XV on PS4. It is still mixed bag for me. Chapters 1-9 were pretty bland and boring, due to the mostly empty open world, and everything taking so long. The exceptions was dungeon crawling. On the other hand in chapters 10-14, I had pretty solid fun. Almost 86 hours spent means, that I enjoyed the game enough, to not throw it out of the window, as I was planning to do, after playing the Platinum Demo. Still it seems to me, that this game was failed live service, which did not achieve to hold enough interest for keeping player going back to the game. Having full story put in between movie, anime, DLCs, novels and audio dramas, did not help either. For Royal Edition, which wanted to bring the users back to the game, even the newly added mandatory storyline trophy has been unlocked by less than 6% of the owners. Which probably caused 3 more planned DLCs cancelled.

Full list of finished games in 2022 can be found >>>here<<<.

Just beat Desperados III on PC. It's one of those cases where a game is quite obviously excellent but for some reason I have trouble enjoying it.

I actually greatly enjoyed Shadow Tactics which I beat on PS4 a few years ago. I felt that Mimimi had done a fantastic job on bringing back the genre that I call "stealth tactics" and created the best entry in the genre yet. The precision with which they had refined and almost perfected the formula was utterly impressive and it also introduced some really clever mechanical additions to the genre.

The thing about Desperados III is that it's basically a western reskin of Shadow Tactics. In spite of that they seriously improved the formula even further here. There have been many subtle tweaks, there is more variety in the missions, the character skills have been vastly improved and also the production value has gone up with motion captured (albeit still top-down) cutscenes and better voice acting. And still... I enjoyed it much less than Shadow Tactics and soon enough just wanted to get it over with. As a matter of fact this was my second approach to the game. I first played it briefly after release on PS4 and abandoned it halfway in out of boredom and a bit out of frustration.

I presume that to some degree it's simply that Shadow Tactics was this great comeback of the genre and it felt very fresh in a way. Desperados III is kinda in the opposite situation, struggling to offer anything we hadn't seen in Shadow Tactics just a few years earlier. There's just one new enemy type, dogs (unless you count the fact that most enemies can now be female which makes them immune to your "spy"), and they barely even appear in the game. I think just two skills are genuinely new while the others are improved variations of stuff we had already seen before. Otherwise the game has utterly failed to surprise me in any meaningful way. And the truth is that after you get your final character, which happens about halfway into the campaign, the game doesn't introduce anything new anymore. It's just the same kinds of stealth puzzles over and over. None of this keeps Desperados III from offering the best gameplay in a very fun and addictive genre but it did turn the game into a bit of a drag for me.

But I suppose my biggest problems with the game are of an even more personal nature. I just wasn't able to care about anything going on in the game. It has a very generic approach to the western genre, the characters are very generic, the story is very generic and in my opinion it just lacks class. In my humble opinion it's riddled with very childish and unimaginative humor which awkwardly clashes with the game's attempts to tell a relatively dark and serious story. Oh and it's riddled with f-bombs for reasons I can't even begin to fathom. With a more mature style and story (or with a more consistently innocent and naive tone) I could have enjoyed it far more greatly but as it stands I found it even somewhat irritating. However, I also disliked the original Uncharted trilogy for similar reasons so what do I know? Anyway, I definitely preferred Shadow Tactics in terms of style and content.

Anyhow, as I said: I'm still pretty confident that Desperados III is objectively the best entry in the entire "Commandos-like" genre to date (perhaps with the exception of Shadow Tactics' stand-alone DLC titled Aiko's Choice, which I haven't played yet). If you don't feel the same way about the content that I did (and odds are that you won't), it will probably give you one of the best stealth game experiences you've ever had.

...aaand I finished it. Short and fun! Great atmosphere.

One more Remedy game left: Quantum Break
(I'm not really interested in Death Rally or CrossFireX)

This year: 2
Last year: none
2020: 20
2019: 12
....

Persona 5 Royal (XSX Game Pass)

134 hours says the save file. I think my original playthrough of the standard version was 115 hours on PS4. This time though, with the benefit of pre knowledge and going in with a plan I managed to pretty much 100% the Royal version. All the story done, all memento's completed, all proficiencies maxed out, all confidants maxed out, everyone taken to the level 99 cap, money at the games cap of 99 999 999 credits and all achievements. The only thing I have not done is to 100% fill the persona log, because I don't really see the point in spending a few hours doing all the fusions for no particular reward- there's not even an achievement for it.

The Royal version adds an entire post game story arc and its palace to infiltrate. It adds a lot of time with the extra content, but if you have the standard version, I'd happily stick with that too. Also, the original ending appears to be cannon according to the story sequel Persona 5 Strikers- don't be surprised though, if Atlus make a Royal version of Strikers as well.

Up until a year ago I would have said that P5 is easily the best traditional turn based JRPG. But then Yakuza: Like a Dragon came along and made the competition much tighter. Funny how I prefer my turn based JRPG's to be real world with occult leanings rather than the fantasy types with the unbelievable do-gooder trope characters and stories- like Dragon Quest. Anyway, after 134 hours I'm really looking forward to a few short games.

Rage. The game id made that no one loved. I've always enjoyed post-apocalyptic action, so I was very interested in giving this a more than fair shot and...it's...okay, I guess. The idea here is that a big asteroid is going to hit Earth, so you're part of a plot to keep the human race going by burying special people in arks around the world, set to wake up when the atmosphere has calmed down, but things go wrong and when you wake up, most of the people in the arks have died and the world has turned into a mutant-infested hellhole. It's kind of like Mad Max with a bit of Planet of the Apes added in. You make your way to a nearby town, get armed up, and get a car to explore and fight autoduels. People give you missions, which mostly involve FPS levels you have to drive to.

The shooting is going for a slightly more realistic vibe than the classic Doom/Quake games in that enemies are bit more spongey and you have to account for reload times and aiming is often a good idea. The weapons have a lot of punch, especially the shotgun. The cars are okay. At least they handle fine.

Level design is mostly linear hallways. Being a post-apocalyptic setting, you're encouraged to rummage around to find stuff to sell and do crafting with. Because all games need crafting apparently. The driving areas feel smallish and aren't very interesting to explore. As much as people might say there are too many open worlds in AAA games right now, this one feels like it should have been open world and it isn't - there's a real disconnect between the driving and the FPS sections. You can also pick up occasional side missions at towns.

The biggest problem with the game is that it feels like it's doing stuff simply because that's what everyone was doing in games at the time. Once you get beyond the concept, everything feels undercooked and uninspired, like id was trying to evolve by copying others without going all the way with it. There's a story but it's conveyed in a very rote manner and the the NPCs feel like they're yammering on without a point.

The game also feels front-loaded. It peaks relatively early, when you start exploring the ruins of a big city and end up fighting a giant mutant cyborg. After that, you mostly just fight goons of varying types. When I went into the final mission, I was expecting something really big to come out, like an even deadlier version of that giant bastard, but...nothing happened. I kept fighting my way through goons, then clicked on a few things to make machines start running, and then a brief cinematic played and the credits started rolling. I never even had to use my rocket launcher.

It's not that Rage is so horrible, but it's clearly missing some important elements and it feels like an album a band makes right before it breaks up or experiences a major lineup shift, like they weren't totally united and clear on which direction they should be going.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope (PS5 PS Plus)

The first game was on Game Pass where I played it, then no more came and now I see why. Sony got in with one of their "anywhere but Game Pass" deals.
I like this series so far- Telltale style CYOA movie games, but with much higher production values. Little Hope is a Ghost town story in typical B-grade movie style- where the people are all idiots that do the expected genre tropes, like wandering off on their own etc. It's all predictable, but strangely fun at the same time- since these games are short enough that they don't outstay their welcome. Just like Man of Medan the story eventually gives something of a rational real-world explanation for the occult horror story, especially if you fill in all the blanks with the collectible secrets.

Look forward to the remainder of the series coming onto PS Plus Extra as well, I may even replay Man of Medan first.