That's my favorite area, even though the item theft is inexcusable. Getting out of the dungeon is just so satisfying.

Nice review! You caught my interest in this title... I think I'll buy it as soon as I finish a few of the (many!) games I still have to play. Thank you!

Not had so much time for gaming recently. Or I've invested all my time on AC4.

08-25-14 - Gunpoint
Finished this last night. And kind of by accident. Had been slowly doing one mission a night or so. And suddenly it was over! Didn't really get too invested in the story, but in the end it managed to suck me in. Really awesome little game. If I had one complaint it would be that this was bit too easy.

08-09-14 - Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
No doubt the best AC yet. And I played them all, well except for 3. At times the game felt like modern day Pirates! Really enjoyed this one, even if it was at least 10h too long. The story just goes on and on. Or maybe I had used too much time on the side stuff. Ended up using most of time just cruising (literally!) around and did not do do so much of the typical AC parkour stuff. One annoyance I ended up having was the endless animations. The dude did not manage to climb the stairs/wall properly and ended up doing something completely different, using ages on the actual character animation. Or in the coolest part of the game, attacking other ships. The winning animation and take over battle ended up being such a bore that in the end I just ended up sinking everything. Had the companion app on my tablet installed at the same and must admit it was done pretty well. The app was completely free and did not have any of the usual IAP crap. And actually using outside the game helped the progress.

Just finished Chains of Satinav. Yes, it is not very long and the puzzles aren't quite complicated (every solution can be found in-game, which didn't always happened in Deponia, for instance), but I think it's worth playing. The art is absolutely gorgeous too. The story is quite light hearted, more in the Chronicles of Narnia side, but it gets darker by the end. Still, it was somewhat refreshing to experience this kind of story telling, since most of current fantasy feels forced to be so grimdark, like Skyrim or Game of Thrones. The references to the Dark Eye universe were great as well, and it was nice to see a game set in that world that isn't a combat oriented rpg.
Now it's time to start Memoria! :)

Mass Effect 3 ... lol.

Perfect review! Seriously, it's all there is to know! :)

Finished Dragon Age: Origins for the 4th time, this time with a rogue noble (though it surprises me how a noble could become a stealthy thieving type, backstabbing people - nobles do it metaphorically, not literaly, but noble is the only available Origin for a human). This one I won't continue onto Awakenings, as I want ot cut back on the number of still ongoing games (which is 34: all games I started, didn't quit or finish and still want to finish).

It's like Batman, only with killing :)

Just finished Diablo III: Reaper of Souls (expansion) [PC].
Finished the Campaign on Normal w/ my Witchdoctor character.

This game has improved A LOT w/ ROS + Loot 2.0.
Major improvement over D3 base-game, if you ask me.

Now, if only they'd add an offline mode for the PC version... ;)

Anyways, added it to my 20014 finished list:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post79

Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan

Great artstyle, nice writing, boring combat which makes up 95% of the gameplay. Pretty short too - finished in under 3 hours, and it ended with a "to be continued" so it's really Episode 1 of something that may or may not be finished one day.

Am I the last person in the world to play The Blackwell Legacy? I think I might be. For some reason I seem to own most of the Wadjet Eye games on both Steam and GOG, and in this case I played it on Steam so I could get the achievements. Why not? If there are achievements, I might as well go and get them, right?

The Blackwell Legacy is a fun little trifle - it runs a few hours long at most, with only five locations in total and just a handful of main puzzles (which did not stop me from getting stuck on one of them). It introduces the main characters who will, I gather, recur throughout the five Blackwell games: Rosangela Blackwell, a reluctantly-spirited medium, and her chatty ghosty sidekick, Joey Mallone. This first adventure is short and sweet, and involves uncovering the circumstances behind a student suicide at NYU.

I've been looking forward to starting these games, because in real life I know the folks who voice the two main characters: Rebecca Whittaker, who plays Rosa, and Abe Goldfarb, who plays Joey. It's really fun hearing them do the roles.

This is spare if satisfying point-and-click adventuring; you've got an inventory to combine items, and notebook in which you can combine clues. It's fairly thin, but it's also the first commercial release by Wadjet Eye, and dev Dave Gilbert is frank in his comments that it was a learning experience. There are two commentary tracks you can listen to while passing through the game a second time, if you like that sort of thing. One was recorded with the initial release of the game, and the second was laid down five years later on the occasion of a game update. That amounts to a lot of Dave Gilbert, but the comments are interesting, if repetitive. I quite enjoyed hearing him address what he regards as design faults in the game I have just played - things like information dumping, adventure-game logic, and details about recording voice-acting are all explored. Good fun.

My tiny list of games finished this year.

Do try to keep the spoilers to a minimum :)

Fair point. I'd argue there wasn't really much to spoil there, since the plot is revealed quite quickly - there's less than three hours' worth of play in the whole thing - but you're right that it's information uncovered along the way, so I've edited out what you won't know from the first telephone call. Thanks for the comment.

Finished up Magic: The Gathering, the really old one by Microprose. I had an urge to play MtG again after quitting at least 12 years ago, so I had fun with it.

I kinda want to get back into MtG for real and play with newer cards, but I'm not sure I want to commit to that drain on my wallet. I read somewhere that Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 isn't very good and earlier versions don't let you fully customize a deck (then what's the point?), so it doesn't seem like games are the way to go either.

I see this mindset often, and it really irks me.

The point of the DotPW games are...

From the perspective of WotC: As an entry point to play MtG Online, where they make boatloads of cash from people paying real money for virtual cards.

From the perspective of a gamer: For ten bucks (Regular price! on Steam sales you can get them for like $2.50!), you can play 10+ preset decks against opponents, unlock predetermined additional cards for those decks, and have a little customization that way. They also break up the action by having puzzles (this is your hand, you have 1 life, enemy has 15. Defeat the enemy in 1 turn!)

If you want the full MtG experience, which will cost you upwards of hundreds of dollars, why are expectations so high for a $10 game? You have to look at PotDW not for what it isn't, but what it is.

I find that the PotDW games have a lot of hours of gameplay for the paltry entry price. Plus they give you the flavor of Magic the Gathering, exposing you to new cards and a little bit of customization and satisfaction of getting new cards through the unlock system. What more could you ask for in a $10 game?