Went on another DA:O run and can confirm that it's still one the best RPG's ever made.

F.E.A.R. 3

First things first. Has it really ever been cool, in anyone's opinion, to replace an alphabet with the sequel number? Honestly? Anyway, I preferred "Fthreear" over Project Origin, but still think the original was the best. The first thing I disliked about this one, was the cover system they included. I just don't think it works that well in a first person shooter game. In hectic gunfights, it would feel as if I'm glued to the walls like a fly on honey when I'm trying to make a retreat. This cost me many lives in the beginning of the game. But thankfully, I found a way to fix the issue: ignore the fucking cover system entirely. That worked well. Then, I noticed that there's really no reason why Point Man, the protagonist, is silent. It only makes him look like an idiot, or a retard even, when he wouldn't respond to virtually anything. Fettel would give him crap all the time, and he just stares at him angrily, without even so much as a sneer. The Amnesia / Silent Hill main monster really didn't do anything for me and could easily be ignored, because I learned very early that he can't kill me even if he hit me, and only serves to produce jump scares. The same goes for Alma: every time she'd make "a spooky appearance", my thoughts were always "sheesh mom, cut it out. You're only embarrassing me and yourself". And finally, the end sequence could've been reworked for those who played the game in single player mode, like I did (basically, the game tracks how players do in co-op mode, and gives scores to the players based on their performance. I believe the ending is determined by which player won, but since I played alone, I basically got all the score and Fettel got jack shit). But that was mostly it for the major negatives. The combat was fun, and I was happy to see they once again made the Penetrator weapon as awesome as it was in the original (although I didn't get to use the gun as much as I would have liked since it was somewhat rare). The locales were the most interesting of all the games. And the plot was served as it should be: through cinematics and actual sequences, and not through trillions of lines of text as they did in Project Origin. Overall, I had a good time. But that said, I don't think it's actually that necessary to play the rest of the games once you're done with F.E.A.R 1. You've basically seen it all by then already, and like I said, I think it's the best game in the series anyway.

My 2014 list so far: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post56

Catacomb 3D abyss (25 Jan 8:05am)

Nice level design and art style. Bad things loading and sound (or lack of it)

Managed to beat three new games this weekend, which is a rare thing obviously.
Two of them are console games:

01-24-14 - GTA 5
With my limited time this took pretty much three weeks. Nothing really to say other than a great game, but everyone knows this already. Superb writing and setting. Sadly didn't enjoy the music in here as much as before and the mission structure start to feel very tired.

01-25-14 - Gone Home
Not much to say about this either. Nice short game and story. After playing it through surprised how come it was so high on various 2013 GOTY lists. Few hour teenager "drama" hardly is very substantial. Even if the way it was told was cool and setting (early 90's) was fun.

01-26-14 - PICROSS e3
This is a Nintendo 3DS downloadble title. Not quite as good as the Picross 3D, especially since this is just 2D. No cool "sculpturing" feel here. This game just feels light on the content, even if there are two game modes (well at least to me). The free mode which seemed to take bulk of my time with this is your standard nonogram that gives you no real feedback if you've done a mistake. Making the puzzles obviously much harder and longer. Didn't really enjoy the other addition mega puzzle either since it just felt too similar to the free mode, even if there is completely separate aspect with the new number. 5-10min is good time for a puzzle, but most of these, especially the ones on bigger grid just take way too long to solve.

The Nations Gold (a.k.a. Alien Nations 2)

Nordic Night Promo reminded me that it would be nice to complete the Nations. I only needed to finish one mission to complete the original campaign and two - for gold expansion. And that's how I spent my weekend :)

First of all I have to admit that the Nations improved on almost everything over its predecessor. Alien Nations was a bland strategy game, heavily inspired by the Settlers series and with a few (almost) game breaking bugs. The Nations, however, is a very solid game with a few brilliant ideas, I'll try to mention the most important:

- Realistic development. Add a few dwellings and your unit limit will increase? Forget about it! You can build as many houses as you wish but that alone will get you absolutely nothing! The basic unit of your society is a family (duh!). After some time children will grow up, move out from their parents and look for a spouse to start a new family. And then you are supposed to provide them a nice place to live and a suitable job. They can live without them for a short time (unemployment is not as bad as being homeless) but will get unhappy if it takes long enough. In practice that means you have to develop your city all the time. You cannot say to yourself: my economy is fine, I don't need more workers because I don't want to feed them (yes, you have to provide food and water for every worker!). If you don't create new workplaces unemployed folks will become criminals and being a mayor of a SinCity is not an easy task ;)

- Technological advance has its drawback too! After fulfilling a few requirements you can advance to a new era which enables you to make better inventions. But be careful! The demands of your people will increase too. They may want some luxury items and/or more temples so make sure you can cope with it because otherwise... have I mentioned SinCity? I believe I have!

- Trade and diplomacy. Now, that's where the game really shines. Trading is a very important part of the game. I wasted a lot of time during a few first missions because I didn't realize how important it was to trade! First of all there is a merchant guild (run by the storks, no less). In most cases they are willing to trade everything but they tend to be greedy. You can, however, trade with your neighbours. They won't accept every offer but you will get a much better deal with them. And most important of all trading influences your relations so sometimes it's advisable to strike a deal even if you don't need their resources badly. Just to show them you are cooperative. You will have a lot of problems if you forget about that. It's also important to mention that each nation can produce only a few luxury goods and you'll need all of them so you are bound to trade!

- Military units. Build a barracks and spam your enemy with countless warriors? Well, forget about it too! You can only build limited amount of strongholds and all you can do is to hire a warlord to occupy them. But remember! You'll have to pay something in advance and a daily fee. Otherwise the warlord will leave you. Each warlord has a different demands and what's most important - he comes with a different army! So it's not advisable to hire a cheap warlord who has only one or two followers. He won't do much in battles and he will occupy one of your strongholds! Set a reasonable hiring standards! Oh, and by the way. Warlords are the only units you can directly control (their followers will... well, follow them ;). The idea of hiring your military units is really great but unfortunately battles are a bit messy and tedious - conquering a fortified city is not a pleasant task (and sometimes it's your mission objective!)

The game is really good and I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

Full list

Finished The Wolf Among Us - Episode 1 for the second time. Still great but now I'd like to play the next episode.

Full list here.

I really fell off the pace there... Three games in the first week of 2014, and none over the next three weeks. But today, I finally finished Re-Volt. Decent game.

Full List

Third time is the charm, so they say and indeed, on my third install I finally have finished Dragon Age: Origins as a bi-sexual rogue, who was BFF with Morrigan (they really should just have made her the main character of the game).

Finished Mass Effect 3 again. Of all my playthroughs so far, I must say this has been the most satisfying. I'm not sure why, it just did. Also, this was the first time I truly had a hard time picking which ending I wanted.

(SPOILERS AHEAD) The first time I played I knew I wanted the Synthesis ending, simply because it was portrayed as the "best." I still believe it is in terms of ultimate peace, ethical considerations aside. The second time I played I chose the Control option because I believed my Paragon Shepard would be able to control the Reapers for the good of all sentient life. My third playthrough was with a no-nonsense-and-win-at-all-costs Shepard. He was mostly good, but he was, above all, pragmatic. Even if what he did was "wrong" or "bad," ultimately, it was for the best. Because of his slightly hotheaded nature, the Destroy option was obvious. This playthrough (actually my fifth; I didn't finish my fourth), however, I wasn't so sure. Above all, I wanted Shepard to survive. It might seem silly, but having romanced Liara, I couldn't imagine her without Shepard. But I also like EDI's character, and choosing the Destroy option would kill her. I ended up choosing that option, and while I felt a little crummy, I think it was (and is) the right one. While it might not be a permanent solution (at least according to the Catalyst), it leaves organics as they were and destroys the Reapers. The synthetics that were lost can be rebuilt.

*Sigh* This is the one series that could get me rambling, but I'll refrain. Suffice it to say, the series hasn't lost its awesomeness in the five plus times I've played it.

Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers

Believe it or not but it's the first time I played this game. Well, I tried to get back in 90s but with no luck and then I somehow forgot about it. I bought it from here some time ago, played a bit, got stuck, played different games, came back to Gabriel, after some time got stuck again... so yeah it took me quite a lot of time to finish the game but I didn't use a walkthrough and somehow I managed to get a perfect score. Wow! I'm impressed!

The game is just awesome, nuff said. I only have a little complain about the first part of the game (~first 3 days): you just collect a few scattered clues. There are nice puzzles there so it's enjoyable but too little happens plot-wise so it's a little bit boring.

Oh, and I absolutely hate how Gabriel treats Grace. The way he talks about Malia with her is just awful. I mean how stupid you have to be to say things like that?! Douchebag


Full list

Deadly Premonition - second playthrough, first time 100% the game (all subquests, all special weapons, all cards).
What can I say? Great game. One of few I tried to do everything I could before progressing the main plot, because I liked the town and the characters and wanted to hang around with them a little longer.

If there is one complaint I have from GOG, is that they have no ninja games, but several with pirates. Clearly GOG is discriminating against ninjas. It's a shame because...

Mark of the Ninja

... is an awesome game! It looks awesome and it plays awesome. You definitely feel like a badass ninja and you have multiple ways of tackling the levels. I loved the fact that the game didn't penalize you for killing your opponents. Oh sure, it is kinda disappointing that you can't use your sword if you are discovered and it can be frustrating that the button that hides behind objects and picks up bodies is the same, but these were flaws I was willing to ignore because the rest of the game was awesome. If you want a good 2D stealth, then I highly recommend it.

The full list.

Catacomb Armageddon (28th Jan 10pm)

Again great game great level design and overall a fun game (apart from the ant level)

Just finished "Midnight Mysteries 2: Salem Witch Trials". Not too bad of a followup to the first game. It mixes in more point and click adventure and puzzle game and less hidden object game than the first.

Catacomb Apocalypse (29th Jan 7:30pm)

What a weird setting machinegun skeleton, invisible pigs, and portals to each level. Great game but I didn't like the invisible walls since they come across a bit cheap at times.