2016 is the year of cleaning off my hard drive (in part because the computer is likely to die before I finish all the games on it that I've partially completed over the years anyway).

So with that said, quitting:

Tom Clancy's Super Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.

Played through the first 2-3 missions a month or so back.

Coming back to it now I'm on a boat, and I killed a guy to finish the mission, and now just need to work my way back out. Easy, right?

But the map is no [redacted] help at all, other than to taunt me with a blinking red light but a bit shy on details on where I've been or how to get where I'm going. I went down three levels, killed a guy and went past him out the door only to find myself back somewhere I'd already been on the way to kill the target.

Pros: The AI is generally pretty sharp, and the scaling "alarm" system raises the difficulty bar the more you slip up, so one mistake probably won't be fatal, but 4 might be. The game is pretty decent at the stealth bit.

Cons: The map function is fine, if not particularly good, on outdoor spaces, but in a 3d space like a freighter it's just downright terrible. Had I finished the current mission before taking a month or two hiatus and forgetting my way around, who knows, perhaps I'd be rolling along. But the map wasn't going to fill in that gap.
Other cons: KB+M are functional, but a lot of commands really aren't where you'd want them to be. E.g. you can't grab an enemy with a gun in hand, and the control to grab requires hitting the enter key twice. So you can take your hand off the mouse entirely and holster weapon with left and hit enter with the right, or holster with MMB and use your left hand on the enter key, which isn't exactly natural for me.

Meh: Level design is whatever. This isn't Dishonored. In terms of design and controls honestly it's not even as fun (imo) as Dark Messiah. The other opstat features (other than the map) are fine if pretty bland.

If you're a fan of the series it's worth playing, or enjoy it for the memories, great, and maybe a controller would take out much of the clunkiness vs. KB+M.

Hearthstone

I still think it's a good game, with a really fair F2P model in which it doesn't really make sense to spend real cash on anything other than the adventures which are all good value for money. However it just takes too much time if you want to keep expand your card collection: At least 5 or so daily quests in a week plus some tavern brawls and arena games. That's quite a few hours a week, and I can't really play much outside of weekends. With some higher profile items on my backlog, I decided to drop Hearthstone.
Still for anyone that can spend an hour or two every other day to do some daily quests, it's a really worthwhile and fun game. The matchmaking system seemed to really be effective at pairing me with people of more or less equal skill. Only about two/three times did I get steamrolled by a vastly superior deck.

Butcher ("Hardest" Difficulty Run):

I've already cleared through the first two difficulty levels of this game, so I did beat the game...twice. So this is more of a "quitting a playthrough for a now" than a "I'm giving up on the game entirely" kind of post.

As far as the first two modes go (Hard and Harder), the game isn't really that bad in terms of its difficulty. In fact, it's kind of forgiving at times. The enemy encounters most of the time don't feel unfair (and when they see you they take about a second to start attacking), there's plenty of ammo drops when killing enemies or finding them in certain spots, and the developers did put in a few spots in most levels where you can hide behind if you need a second or two. There were only a few levels that gave me issues, but overall the game wasn't that hard.

Then I started playing "Hardest" mode. The first two difficulty modes gave you plenty of chances to get med kits and shield upgrades to recover if you took a few too many hits. So what did the developers do to make this mode harder? They removed med kits and shield upgrades entirely from the levels. The enemy placement and (as far as I saw) the damage they deal aren't different from the other two modes, but now that you can't heal you can't afford to get hit (like ever). Not to mention that some levels can take up to 5-7 minutes to complete, and there aren't any checkpoints anywhere. If you die, it's back to the beginning with whatever you had going into it from the previous level. I seriously got stuck on a level (Jungle World level 3 to be specific) for 2 hours despite knowing where enemies spawn and how to get through it, and I'm still stuck. =S

There's another difficulty mode above that called "Impossible", but I didn't unlock it...so I don't know anything about it. So I'm taking a break from this game to play something else.

Dragon Age: Origins. I'm somewhere around an hour and a half-ish into it, maybe a bit more and I'm sorta struggling to think of any positive things to say about it, although I don't have anything PARTICULARLY negative to say about it either. Every single thing about it screams "Generic Ye Olde High Fantasy"...which is something I'm generally not into. Graphics are fine on a fidelity criteria but nothing special or unique, the music is nice but again..."by the numbers" fantasy music. The writing is not particularly charming or entertaining for that matter, but again it's fine on a technical level. The combat is okay in my brief experience with it, but nothing to write home about.

I think I just don't like Bioware's style. Well, I can't even say THAT haha. I never got far into Baldur's Gate or any of its brethren from the Infinity Engine but playing Dragon Age: Origins has somewhat rekindled my interest in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, they seemed to have a lot more charm to them.

<span class="bold">Resident Evil HD</span> (PS4)

I got this game for free this month, I’ve never played any RE games and thought I’d try it out.

When I first started playing I was enjoying it, I can certainly see how this game was popular, it has a great atmosphere and fun exploration. However, there were a few things which really ruined my enjoyment.

The first thing is the camera angles, I understand this was due to technical limitations and the way the game was made but it doesn’t mean I have to like it… it’s not so much of a problem when first exploring, but it becomes annoying when you’re trying to travel a long distance.

The next one is limited saves. I don’t always have long stretches of time when I can play, often I can only play in short bursts so limiting the number times I can save is annoying. After each play I have to think “should I save now, or replay that part faster next time?”, that’s pure BS right there, I should not have to be thinking that.

However, the biggest problem I had with the game was the limited inventory. This really becomes noticeable the longer you play and the more stuff you try to pick up, eventually reaching the limit. And you can’t just put stuff down, once you have it you’re stuck with it!! I eventually found a room with a chest where I can put my extra stuff, so I started shuttling items over into it… but one of the doors into that area “broke” and became unusable… WTF that’s when I quit.

<span class="bold">Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall</span>

At the start this game reminded me a lot of Ultima Underworld, which is a very good thing! I was having a lot fun exploring the dungeon, killing things, and looting. However, once I finished the Starter Dungeon I was thrust out into the wilderness and the city of Daggerfall… ouch, what a boring slog :(. I couldn’t hack it, at that point I quit. If the entire game was set in a big dungeon it would probably have been a great game.

<span class="bold">Star Trek 25th Anniversary</span> (GOG)

As a point-and-click adventure I’d rate it “OK”. The UI is a bit awkward (requires too many clicks for my liking), but the missions (that I played) although short are interesting and are reminiscent of the TV show.

However, the entire game is ruined by an awful and unavoidable space combat mini-game which is completely out of place in a point-and-click adventure. I persevered through the first three missions, until I reached a starship combat scene with two opponents. At that point it was simply not worth it and so I quit.

RUNE

Fun but WAAAAY too buggy.

Oh? I can't really remember anything buggy, but it's also been many years since I've last played the game. I do remember being incredibly annoyed with the skeletons though. Specifically how difficult it was to kill them for good by landing a blow in exactly the right place to knock of their skulls.

Hmmm that is kinda starting to ring a bell. I checked some steam forums out of curiosity: apparently it's the short sword specifically that has this problem, at least for some people. I'm now starting to think that happened to me as well. Incidentally, it's that first starter sword that is so useless against skeletons for some reason. I remember I didn't really start to feel like I could quickly deal with skeletons until I got the next sword, a roman gladius type sword. But unfortunately you have to deal with several skeletons until you get it for the first time.
I wouldn't completely cross Rune of my playlist if I were you though. It really is a very cool game and it just keeps getting better the further you go. Unfortunately you have to suffer through the first two or so hours before you start getting better gear. Same goes for shields. (but it could also just be the nostalgia talking :P)

One game that plays a lot like Rune but that I'm properly sad I missed to grab before gog removed it is Blade of Darkness.

<span class="bold">A Good Gardener</span>

I thought I knew quite well what I was in when I got this game: an intriguing plot with simple graphics and minimalistic gameplay. And more or less, I got all of that. I still think the best part of this game is its premise: it's wartime and for some reason I'm tasked with growing some plants in a tiny roofless room with some fertile ground in it. Every day my supervisor will give me new seeds and all I've got to do is water the plants in order to 'help my country's war effort'. After that, I can retire to my lodgings and end the current day.

And it worked for a while, until I discovered my water supply was severely limited and every time I ran out of water I had to skip several days until it rained and my watering can could be replenished. With more trouble than I anticipated, I finally managed to fully grow some plants (some of which looked suspiciously like bombs and other types of weapons) so my supervisor came and congratulated me. And then, back to the same routine: plant seeds, water them, run out of water, wait for a rainy day.

There's when I got bored and I started to willingly sabotage my mission by not planting nor watering anything, in the hope that maybe that's what the game wanted me to do (my supervisor had informed me in his second visit that I was a deserter, and so my gardening tasks were some kind of mild forced labour). No dice: I started skipping days like crazy, at least 20 or 25, but nothing happened. The game really wanted me to grow those damn plants, and to wait for the damn rain so they can grow to their fullest. I just decided that it was not worth my time and that I was not having fun, so I exited it and uninstalled it.

Super Meat Boy

In a thankfully relatively brief lapse of sanity I thought I'd chase a 100% completion. But just now, after about the 50th death on a Hell Dark World, I started to realize that I just wasn't having fun anymore. Still, 77% overall completion, including the light world Cotton Alley isn't too bad. In other words, most of the 'easy' part of the game. The rest is just too insane. I mean look at this horrid warp level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTPT2kv6PXw
Depending on who you ask this is the most difficult part of the game, or at least the first two levels are. I could barely manage the first one after what must have been an hour or more, but the 2nd one was just too much. There is very little room for movement around those spikes/blades.
Other will say that this warp level is the most difficult level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1olnjzyzwE
It's not technically as difficult as the first video, but instead is made almost impossible due to the 3 lives limit on each of the three levels. Expend all in any of them, and you have to restart at the first level.

No, just no for 100% completion...

King's Quest III (I played the 1988 DOS version via ScummVM)

Recipe for How to Improve Upon King’s Quest I and II:

1) Add a timer. Nothing is more fun for a point-and-click game than working against the clock!

2) Add a wizard who is constantly checking up on the player. What’s not to like about having the player constantly return to one location to hide every item they find?

3) Put more foes in the environment. Running away from foes was the best part about the other two King’s Quest games, so add more of them this time around!

4) Hide tiny objects in the environment with no written description of them when the player types LOOK. I know I enjoy pixel-hunting, and with low resolutions it’s even more fun! For extra player enjoyment, make sure that even if the player figures out something is there that they get the message “You are too far away to do that!” at least two times before you let them interact with it.

5) Players love plummeting to their death by misstepping, so be sure to make the most treacherous trail yet! And then put that trail along the route the player *has* to travel back and forth along multiple times because there is no alternate route!

Mix together and serve: King’s Quest III: The Best King’s Quest Ever!!!

lol - sounds fun.