Bad Bots

While the game was fun enough, though somewhat monotonous, for most of its 4 hours duration, the part leading up to the final boss, the final boss fight itself, and the part after the final boss fight were a real chore to play. That last part after the boss in particular would've been impossible if you didn't come into it with the right secondary weapon and plenty of ammo. And I'm pretty sure the part before the final boss fight would've been impossible if not for a real cheap trick I discovered.

Oh and did I mention that the game uses a checkpoint system where you only have access to the most recent one and many checkpoints are in places you cannot retreat from to heal up or pick up replacement weapons? So if you're low on health or ammo or have the wrong weapon at the wrong checkpoint - well, better luck next game.

So yeah, some really bad design decisions in this one, and I have 0 desire to try the now unlocked Hard difficulty - the last part of the game was aggravating enough on Normal...

Amerzone - The Explorer's Legacy

One of the great things about point and click adventures: they end. And then you can add them to lists like this.

Amerzone is particularly brief, enough so that people have complained about it. It's almost like a blueprint, or an outline of the game that could be made; in some ways, though, that's enough. It's from 1999, and so the graphics are a bit cloudy at times; all of the innovations in inventory and controls that make these adventures more flexible are not present. And yet the moody quiet absence of clues works in these short, dreamy chapters, which take us on an adventure to a mythical land in search of great and equally-mythical white birds, following in the steps of explorers who made the same journey decades earlier.

You can almost feel the moldering, intricate game that would be made from this scenario today. Benoit Sokal has always been a mystical artist, and he is cryptic and laconic in this project. We start on a bicycle riding down a country road to visit the aging explorer, who dies obligingly as soon as we arrive (most characters do this, actually). Soon we get behind the floppy-driven screen of a magic airplane, which is boat and submarine and glider and helicopter by turns, and set out into the lost corners of the world.

The puzzles are not all especially easy, but they are all on point - we're generally tasked to do something that more or less makes sense in the game, but the solutions can be elusive. In part that's because there is no dialogue. The few characters we meet are voiced, but in Muppet-sounding monologues (which kind of works, so that's not really a criticism). No dialogue means no feedback, and that can get confusing.

This is a bit of a trifle, but it's a moody, tasty one. There are hints at an alluring world behind the few screens we visit. Worth it for the atmosphere alone, especially on sale.

Finished Stick It To The Man!.

Due to the kindness of the people making up the GOG community, I got this game gifted to me as soon as it was released here, and though I knew I was going to enjoy it, I never thought I'd like it as much as I did, after I actually played it.

This game is, in many ways, a love letter to the Tim Schafer games everyone loves and asks for sequels. The art style, voice acting and writing are very reminiscent of Psychonauts, and the superb soundtrack has a distinct Grim Fandango Peter McConnell feel.

Stick It To The Man is a very short game, I finished it in one sitting, in about four to five hours, and even though it has some sort of 100% (it keeps tabs on how many minds you've read during the chapters), it's fairly easy to achieve that. The game was originally developed for the PS Vita, and it shows: it's obvious this game was made to be played during short periods of time, while commuting or taking a short train or bus trip somewhere. Still, I loved it. It may be short, but whatever it does good, it manages to do so perfectly.

It is an adventure game with platforming. Newcomers to the adventure genre may find it a bit frustrating, especially if they come into the game expecting a stellar platformer. It's an excellent mix of both genres, but there are definitely more challenging platformers and adventure games out there.

All in all, I give it 5 out of 5, even though I admit it won't be that great a game to many people. Personally, it has everything I look for in a game, and since I don't have the "replay value" issue most gamers seem to have, as I can boot it up and have fun replaying it over and over again long after I've finished it, not even that is going to lower my score.

A game you should definitely check as soon as you can.

Dracula 2, The Last Sanctuary (3rd May 9am)

Its worse than the first plus it has quick time events. Hot spots are way too small and can easily missed and some of the stuff you do it quite random

Very true! And the maze at the end of Moebius is still a little more fun than the one in GK2 :)

+ Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia - Shanoa & Albus modes (3DS-XL)

Dynamite Jack (3rd May 1;05pm)

A fun game, its like MGS with dynamite. Some of the levels are easy some of them are hard. Yeah good game I guess

2014-02-21: The Plan
2014-02-22: Thomas Was Alone
2014-03-08: Sequence (Normal)
2014-04-08: Thief (2014) (Normal)
2014-05-10: To The Moon

Bioshock Infinite 1999 (and Scavenger Hunt achievement)

Hm, except for the Siren fights, this wasn't really that hard. >_>

I just finished Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura.
I made my adventurer a melee fighter plus so-so magic user type, because I heard that in this game gun or tec user is week. All in all I enjoyed the game. Unlike many people, no bug experienced. Exploring a steam-pank world was kinda fun.

My List

Just had a go at The Swapper and managed to finish it quicker than I would have liked.

The game was quite good with its atmosphere and its nice visual theme of recycled props (the escape pod consisting mainly of a tin can) and the puzzle mechanics were quite intuitive and natural to the game, the only real complaint to the game I could make was that I personally was struggling to make out the voice dialogue during the game but I did manage to grab the idea towards the end.

till next time! :)

See what else I have been up to here!

Over the may-days I finished three games.

Syder Arcade
I finished the story-mode in less than an hour but I played it a little longer since I restarted the campaign after three missions. I played on the "Young Gun" difficulty and chose the ship "Dart".
It's a nice spaceship-scrolling-shooter and the second one I ever managed to beat.

Thomas Was Alone
Nice gameplay and a good and fun narration for four hours. My only complain is that the later characters (the gray ones) don't have much of a personality... but nontheless I had a lot of fun with this game. I even got all achivements, which is the second game where I managed to do that.

The Plan
A very, very short game where you play a fly and fly around. I finished the game twice in not even 15 minutes.
Remember: If you see a light at the end of the tunnel, don't get TOO close. ^^

Here's my list.

Unreal

I bought it the other week on sale, as I have many fond memories of Unreal Tournament. This was...well much worse. While shooting was fairly satisfactory, I had to consult manual way too often for my liking as I was getting lost or without any clue what am I supposed to do next. Lack of voiceover and to a lesser extent, cinematics was also annoying.
Playing games like this makes me realize how much have (good) games improved storytelling over the years.

I fired up Return To Na Pali, and hearing some voiceover gives me hope that it will be better than the original.

Full list here!

Resident Evil 5 Gold edition

Just completed Half-Life 2.

This is one of the many on-off-on-off games I've been tackling over the past few years, and I think the save game from which I've just completed the game was started in 2010. There was a scene on which I was stuck, but after revisiting the game, I finally managed to pass it.

A great game, plenty to do, although it started to drag on a bit in the middle before finally picking up pace and adding variety towards the end (the 'corrupted' gravity gun was awesome to use). Also, those fucking striders were quite possibly one of the worst game design decisions, as were the AI 'teammates' later on, who had the intelligence of a labotomised cauliflower and frequently either got in your way or nudged you off ledges. Also, the typical Source Engine foibles with physics, where you'll often get stuck on a plank just lying around on the ground while trying to escape or dodge gunfire - very irritating.