A few more things I forgot to mention that did not fit into my long review anymore:

* The included Frozen Wilds DLC was a worthy expansion. I liked it!

* Did not like: You can only ever have one quest active and displayed, and tutorial quests have to be active to count. If you fulfill their request on the side, but without activating the quest first, it won't be registered.

* On very, very rare occasions I bumped into an invisible wall or got a message of "you're leaving the play area, return immediately" which felt extremely clumsy and stuck out so much because you're usually free to go everywhere that you could realistically reach, and if you were not meant to be somewhere, the terrain just wouldn't allow you to reach it without help (e.g. I found a ruin that was part of the main quest line without having the quest, but I could only enter it later on when the quests spawned a ladder - also not very logical, but less conspicuous). No idea why they had to resort to such measures there. But it was really rather rare, maybe 2-3 times during the whole game, with me almost 100%ing the exploration parts.

* Regarding the writing, I found it rather odd how 19-year-old Aloy, raised by a taciturn man in a tribal, postapocalyptic anti-tech setting, was able to perfectly understand all the tech speeches from the old world without any problems, with not even a single joke about this dicrepancy in her comments. You could come up with explanations for it, but none of them would really convince me. There was a lot of storytelling potential wasted here, because in these parts the writers seemed so enamoured with their geeky old world plot and less concerned with character development in the present.

Immortals Fenyx Rising, Aug 7 (Xbox Gamepass)-I was looking forward to playing this for a while and I enjoyed it quite a bit. There were some ups and downs but overall it was really good. The writing, humor, and voice acting were all excellent. The plot was pretty generic with the usual 'twists' but still fun.

Keyboard and mouse controls were a little clunky so I tended not get too deep into the combat mechanics. Combat in general was pretty tough for me because the enemies would tend to mob me but boss battles were relatively easy because I could focus on just the single attack. Boss combat was made even easier when I discovered how overpowered attack and defense potions were.

Climbing always felt harder than it needed to be. This wasn't exactly Assassin's Creed. The platforming was ok but there were areas that were difficult especially with the introduction of wind direction. The vaults were a mixed bag with the puzzles generally pretty good and the platforming poor since you couldn't climb. I think I'd like the game even more if it leaned more into puzzles than combat.

The side quests were fun and the banter between the gods when they give you the quests was good. Leveling up the different abilities and equipment was fun too and never felt overwhelming. And for the most part the game let you level up in a way to fit your playstyle. There was also a ton of side quests and content that I skipped completely so there's a lot more gameplay to be had for those interested.

I had a lot of fun. The final boss was a little too easy, climbing the mountain at the end a little too annoying, and the game lasted a couple hours too long. But overall a really good experience.

Full List

I made an error. I thought the start of Operation Barbarossa signaled the start of the panzerkrieg DLC but i was wrong. The turn-over is with counterattacks starting when the army cores almost reached Moskow. So therefore i presume i have still have some hours to go and will adjust once i finish. The objectives are pretty cold too btw... damn.... Capture 80 russian units as main objective in previous scenario and in the current one i also have to capture 80 of those. Read some horrific stories of people just falling short after 10 or more gruelling hours..... talk about cold btw.... just had a mission in infiinity war where i cut the life support in a room filled with 'leaders' ... now that's war for you :(

Dust: An Elysian Tail: a good game that's more of a hack and slash than a metroidvania example.

Call of Duty - Infinite Warfare

It's been a while since i gave a shooter a fair chance, and i'm glad i did. I expected rollercoaster and boy they did deliver.

Mechanical wise the game performed almost like it should. I literally had one bug forcing a checkpoint restart. I prefer to be able to save when and where I want but that actually was not to much of a problem when i realized when i could quit this game without having to redo whole parts. Small parts.

Story wise..... I would rate it like a triple A action movie.... A couple of plot twists that really managed to surprise me. The game does not treat you with a silk glove, it is more of an armoured fist, you know, an iron glove or maybe titanium adorned with these spikes on the knuckles. Wolverine.....

Action wise... well i played like an ol'd fart but i'm glad i managed. With all the fun i had with the Jackal i'm actually a bit in doubt if i should continue with Battlefield 4 or go for Chorus as next action title

Graphics wise. All in good order, I enjoyed a couple of the sights. Actually cranked up my fps from the normal 60 to 144 since there is a lot going on.. and yea this made it better

Sound wise, pretty much okay. it was a shame i could not use my headset because of some interference. Maybe something to do with Dolby and DTS

As a firm supporter of the games initiative 'a dollar per hour of fun' this game did make me acknowledge the huge amount of work that went into creating this very entertaining campaign. Still, i'm not sure if i could recommend this game to someone who i know won't dive into multiplayer, without a at least 50% discount. It took 8.6 hours to finish (recruit difficulty level) and while i think i'm willing to give the campaign another go on a higher difficulty setting, i won't be surprised i f i don't (backlog wise and such). For now, it deserves a spot in storage.

To end in the spirit of the game

Peace to the Fallen

edit

- Battlefield 4 is in a unplayable state for me, which is quite the shame since the start with 'TombStone' managed to impress. The harsh state of a conflict zone today was well portrayed. Not the greatest of controller integration and a shitload of glitches made me move on to Battlefield 1. I forgot about that one and look forward, yes i do , to dive in the trenches of the war that never ends. I hope i can get past my biased judgement on the first few minutes. What, a dark skinned person in the trenches? of course, at the end of the introduction you get small message indicating that brothers were indeed part of the 1st WW. The method used though.... It reeks of the impure smell of ferocious commercialists. If i get past that moment i'm sure the game segmented in War Stories will be more then a weak minds attempt to come of as 'normal'

Days Gone (PS5 PS Plus)

Pretty good game, especially for people like me that really like games where you primarily traverse an open world using an upgradable vehicle- I even liked Mad Max. Actually, the Mad Max game is even a valid comparison as Days Gone attracted many of the same criticisms- namely how repetitive many of your tasks become, go to a new zone and just repeat the same stuff again. I actually found most of the tasks enjoyable, hence I enjoyed the game- plus it's no more repetitive than Horizon Zero Dawn and critics loved that game. The only tasks that I found really obnoxious were the late game Horde clearance missions, luckily you only need to do three of them for the story.

Story was okay, though a bit forced- what I mean by that is that is my character was forced to do way too many stupid things that I had no control over, that were delivered via cutscenes. The characters were mostly okay. On PS5 it is the PS4 game, with the exception of the frame cap being removed, so it runs at 60 fps and from my experience game play never seemed to waver from that performance- only some cutscenes getting some staggers with their animations. The game also looks great with awesome view distance...so much so that I find myself wishing that devs would concentrate on using this generations more powerful consoles to make games of this standard rather than pushing for overrated technology like ray tracing.

Overall, a very solid game where you get to play as a cynical biker for a change. I find it hard to look at the professional gaming media and see why there was such a large gap in scores between this game and Horizon Zero Dawn- both Playstation exclusives. To me they felt about equal, in fact I enjoyed Days Gone more than Forbidden West and Ghosts of Tsushima- both of which I played earlier this year. I hope I'm wrong, but I have the horrible feeling that Days Gone may have been too "white male" and not gay enough for modern audiences and the professional critics.

Longest title award.

Shin Megami Tensei: Avatar Tuner - Digital Devil Saga 2

The special bosses in this are perhaps the toughest I've faced, I recall surviving one encounter with 1hp being the difference between winning or losing. The design is reminiscent I felt of the anime Neon Genisis: Evangelion. I was thankful to be broke on this occasion to plug in my Playstation2 and play this fantastic jrpg.

Gamer Rage Moments: 2
Time: 124hrs 48min
Special Bosses Defeated: Archangels, Jack Frost, Shiva, Vishnu & Seth
Undefeated Special Boss: Satan (Hard Mode Only)
Game Completed No. 110

Larry 3 says hi :)

Alien Breed 3: Descent is more of the same, which I consider too much for Alien Shooter like game. Technically I did not finished the game, because when I met final boss it shoots four missiles and disappeared… bug which seems well known for this game. I waited one week for technical support recommendation, but got nothing, so I consider this game finished from my side. On the other hand fixed camera angle which prevent you from seeing enemies makes this game sometimes really pain in the …, so it is not much a problem, but other should know about this issue before they start playing it.

Descent II (like the first one, was using the DXX Rebirth source port). This is like the first Descent except more so. Instead of our own solar system, you're warped into systems around the galaxy. There are some differences in things like weapons, new enemies, and you have a guide robot you can release on each level who's supposed to help you if you're having trouble finding your way around, but in every way that matters it's still the same game where you fly through twisty little passages all around, shooting robots that have turned bad for some reason.

I like the first game but I felt it became somewhat tedious at a certain point, and I was hoping I would enjoy the second one more but I ended up feeling almost the same about it. It's really impressive and fun in the early going, and then somewhere maybe a little past halfway through I started feeling like it was going on a bit too much. And I've often read that the first game is considered more challenging but I must be weird because I found this one significantly harder. Yeah, you don't have as many hit-scanning enemies, but the game compensates for that by making the levels even more disorienting and I thought it did a better job of hiding enemies behind sharp corners, forcing you to fight in tight spaces, or giving enemies weapons like flash rockets that make it harder to navigate, and a couple of the bosses are real bitches. The gauss cannon was my best friend. I'll probably give it a bit of time before I check out the third one to finish off the series (at least until I play Overload).

Long time no see list! I was considering buying PS Plus, then I saw I’ve only finished 3 games this year, 2 of them being on PS3. Yeah, not worth my money, I don’t play nowhere near enough.
Anyway….

The other day I’ve finished Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
More of the same as in the previous two games - buy a wide assortment of guns, use like 5 at most, shoot baddies, somehow don’t kill Captain Quark, save the world. This time with double the Lombaxes, and without Clank for the most part. The formula works as good as it has worked before, you even get to actually fly your ship now and upgrade it! All the uninhabited moons come with an extra sidequest or two, and whilst they get repetitive, at least they made it obvious what do you need to do.
Solid 8 out of 10, deliverers on what it says on the tin, but doesn’t really go too far above and beyond that. Would play again, will play other games in the series.

Speaking of which - any recommendations for games of similar genre that are good and fun to play? Preferred platform would be PS3/4 or Xbox 360, but PC is fine as long as you can play it on a laptop with potato graphics chip.

Quake II Enhanced (XSX Game Pass)

I haven't played this since it first came out way back, so I couldn't remember much beyond the vague feeling that I liked the first Quake slightly better. This enhanced version is a great modernization of the classic and brings it to most of the modern platforms as well. The XSX version that I played is hard to fault, it even seems to have all the options that the PC version has with the exception of a fixed resolution and locked frame rate- in this case 4K120, provided you connect to 120Hz TV. Obviously other consoles will vary on resolution and whether they have 120hz support. Xbox also has the option of KB and Mouse control, though some are saying it is currently bugged and needs patching- I played it with controller and it was fine.

It's a great fast paced shooter that still holds up, but I still say Quake was better. But credit to all the involved (Nightdive, Bethesda, iD and Machine Games, Xbox Game Studios) for putting a classic enhanced edition on all platforms and charging a very fair price for the new work they've done- I mean come on, in my country it's only A$14, that's pretty fair pricing, especially considering all of the expansions, a new episode from Machine Games and Quake II 64 are all included.

Quake II: The Reckoning

Speaking of the expansions. I also completed The Reckoning. It's more of the same, it's a decent length. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the base game due to the amount of heavy bullet sponge enemies place around every corner towards the end. After a few days of straight Quaking I'm probably starting to feel a little burnout as well. That's why I'm going to come back the other expansions between playing other games.

Venba (XSX Game Pass)

A heartwarming little story about a small Tamil family that migrates to Canada and comes to maintain a connection to their culture through their traditional cooking. It plays basically like a short VN with cooking mini games in between the story. It's actually better than it sounds, and I ended up liking it. It can be completed in less than 2 hours, so makes a good little fill in game between longer ones.

Quake II 64 (XSX Game Pass)

Technically this is the most impressive part of the enhanced package. They took a low resolution, game that ran at something like 20fps most of the time and now it runs at 4K120 and contains all the modernizations of the rest of the package. It is not just the PC game ported to a console either- that would not have worked. It's feels more like a mission pack, the levels are smaller and the late game bullet sponge enemies can be more troublesome in tighter quarters. It's also quite short, less than 4 hours. I started playing this because I had it installed already, and I was waiting for my next game to download. By the time my game was downloaded I was already halfway through Quake II 64.