Combat appears in the middle of the game (i.e. all the start of the game was without enemies). From what I've seen on the web, there is no way to kill enemies but rather to slow them down... which involves picking up objects on the ground and throwing them on them. I was killed three times in a row without being able to find an object to throw at them. Each time, there is a long loading time before returning to... the menu. Then you click on continue, wait for load to finish and re-try. Too tedious for me so I disabled them.

Steam says it took me almost 3h too finish the game. I liked better the atmosphere than the gameplay.

Only three hours? That's really short! Okay, then I'll maybe try it with combat first and then will disable it if it doesn't work out! Thanks!

Inquisitor

Story, atmosphere, collecting testimonies and evidences, interrogations and burning evildoers at the stake are great. Fighting hordes of monsters - pretty much terrible. You just have to grind and grind and grind until you get enough xp to move to another area and face tougher monsters. It's just tedious and makes the game unnecessary long.

I can recommend it to people who crave an original story and atmosphere - after all there are not so many games where you can torture your prisoners and burn them at the stake if found guilty. But remember that before an actual interrogation you have to collect testimonies and evidences - so you can expect walls of text in the game. I really enjoyed it because it was well written but I know some people do not like this in games.

Phew, another game that I've started playing more than a year ago finished.


Full list

It's been a while since I last completed a game. And its name is:

Hotline Miami

The first thing the game reminded me was a Grand Theft Auto game on GBA. I know there was GTA Advance, but I have never played it, so I can't tell with certainty. Anyway, the game.

It was nice. Fast and furious action with plenty of cartoonish gore, I did enjoy it much, especially the fact that you can try different approaches with each stage. Melee, distraction, all guns blazing, using the doors to knock out opponents, using human shields to cover yourself from gunfire, there are plenty of ways to try out each stage and the different masks complement your options nicely, whether you want silent weapons, killing fists or, even, killing doors. The problem with the game is its trial and error nature, along with the fact that it is short. Who knows, perhaps the sequel might improve those factors. Oh, and the updated version is quite buggy. It crashed on me more than 10 times and it would consistently crash at the end of the first level, till I was forced to switch to Windowed Mode, which resulted in poor frame-rate. Sigh...

Full list here.

Dungeon Keeper (Gold) + Deeper Dungeons

Finally. This was a game I was close to stop playing midway several times, but I'm glad I persisted. In the end I liked it so much that I'll probably replay it at some point, but for now, proceeding to Dungeon Keeper 2.

Funny how I kept learning new things about the game all the way through. Like I didn't realize until the last Deeper Dungeons level (Belial) that I can easily get rid of unwanted minions by dropping them back into the portal. DOH! Maybe it was mentioned somewhere in the manual....

Just to think how much time before I used slapping the unwanted minions repeatedly in order to kill them away, or trying to cause the accidents or send against enemies they couldn't possibly win.

Also, I never realized that (apparently?) rooms are more efficient if they have walls around them? I used to just clear all walls away, and make rooms side by side without walls, in order to use the available space more efficiently. Oh well.


Oh, and one thing I definitely liked about the game: no different difficulty levels. I just like that in most games because it is a guarantee to me that the hardest difficulty levels are not near impossible. I guess they could have implemented difficulty levels e.g. so that in the hardest level you get gold only half of what you'd get otherwise, and all enemies would be twice as powerful as in easier levels. But I'm glad they didn't implement it cheaply like that. Having only one default difficulty level (and no micro-transaction powerups, mind you!) makes sure they have to thoroughly play-test and balance the game,

The Cat Lady

Great adventure game, though some things about the ending (gameplay not cutscene) just didn't make sense to me. I'm surprised I didn't even mind the keyboard controls - they worked pretty well. Strange there was no joystick support though, would've fit perfectly, but maybe that's a limitation of AGS.


Hero Siege

Nice, relatively minimalistic, roguelike-like obviously heavily inspired by robotron and binding of isaac. Finally managed to beat it on Normal after lucking into an overpowered combination of items.

Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe

I can see where the developer drew his inspiration. The game is just a lightsaber short of being a complete Star Wars spinoff/ripoff. As for the game, well, it's air hockey with power-ups. And by God, are you gonna play a crapton of air hockey to get the to the end. The game overstays its welcome so much, I would want to laugh, except that it isn't funny. There's so, so much grinding...if the game length had been 25% from what it is, then it would have been okay. And I assume, that even though I won the final boss: the game is still not satisfied. Once I get off the planet, I only get a lackluster "The end (or not)" message, and the achievements for beating the game do not unlock. I suspect the game still wants me to reach the highest level and beat all side-missions in order to get a "real" ending, but to be honest, I'd rather drink an elderly person's anal water before even thinking about doing those. To summarize: a pretty fun game, but there is way, way too much grinding involved, playing the game almost begins to feel like a chore. Eventually it killed the game for me and there is no way I would recommend this game to anyone.

Finished Dragon Age: Origins for the third time, this time with a Dwarf Commoner called Björn (a name derived from the Norse word for Bear).

It's pretty much the only game I play lately. There's often complaints of the games being too easy and indeed it's very doable even at nightmare difficulty, but I play games to relax and take a break from the difficulties of real life. In real life, it's a very hard fight to create a better world, the sweetness of a game is how easy and straightforward it is to save the world. Dragon Age serves me just right, even though the moral choices are sometimes too realistically greyish.

With all three characters that finished Origins I've started the Awakenings expansion and 7 characters are still involved in some stage of the Origins plotline.

It's strange how Dragon Age took over Baldur's Gate from the position of game-most-played in campaign after campaign. I've still got two BG Tutu and two BG II - Shadows of Amn campaigns and bought the Enhanced Editions of BG I & II, but they're like frozen in time on my computer now. Ive hardly advanced the campaigns beyond were they were in 2012 and haven't even started to play BGEE and BGIIEE.

Love

Really short score attack twitch platformer. There's not really much to it except keeping trying for a higher score. On my first attempt got a C, on second B-, on third B. However I don't think I can do significantly better than my third attempt.

To the Moon
I really liked this game even if I feel that there was a little too much drama in some parts of it (e.g. Asperger's Syndrome, Brother's fate). I never cry when I watch movies or play video games, but when Johnny and River first met at the carnival, talked about the stars and he gave her the platypus toy, it nearly got me.

Wonderful story, atmosphere and music. The only thing that was aweful was the action sequence near the end of the game.

Complete list of finished games in 2014

There are certain games that you never finish. Case in point, I've been playing Civilization IV, which is one you could literally keep playing for your entire lifetime. However! I hit a landmark today because I managed to finish a game with a Space victory. I've never finished the spaceship before - when I survive that long I always run out of time to produce everything. But this time around it was the year 2047 and I squeaked out my last part just in time.

I consider this a victory, which is good because hopefully I'll be able to move on to something else and get my life back for a bit. No more accidentally staying up until 2am on worknights, nosiree!

My list

Both DAO + BG series are both great. I don't know how the hell anyone can go wrong w/ playing the hell out of any of those games.

Just my 2 cents.

No spoilers, but I bet a Cat Lady would hate you for this. :D