Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack

I really liked this. I haven't played Katamari Damacy, but I think they're a little bit similar. Another game this one reminded me of, was Osmos. The gameplay is simply fun: absorb stuff, so that you grow bigger and thus can absorb more stuff. It shouldn't come as a surprise what gets absorbed in the final level :D The controls are tight, the levels were well designed, and it also had some puzzles, although they were really easy. A special mention goes towards the music, which in my opinion was really, really good and played a huge part in setting the just right atmosphere. It's not a long game: less than 3 hours, but all of that was quality time. Great game!

Just finished Half-minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax (Hero30 mode)

Yes, it's only the main game and I know there are other modes, so that's why, while considering it completed, I will keep it installed and continue to play it.

It was a fun game! At first I was afraid the gimmicky gameplay would bore me, but the tricks, the side missions and the general atmosphere were great, so it kept me playing and thus, it's a good game!

So far in 2014: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post132

Finished Final Fantasy VI (III) on an emulator. I've beaten that game before, at least twice, probably three or four times, so listing it here might not be in the spirit of the thread, but what are you gonna do about it, huh?

Would I like this game as much if it hadn't been a major game from my childhood. No. As an adult, I can see its flaws--shoddy translation, buggy game (the "evade" stat infamously doesn't do anything, for example), poorly-balanced characters, a large cast at the expense of having characters who aren't connected to the story in any real way ... and yet I believe that it genuinely is a great game, in spite of all of that--the music, at least some of the characters,, the variety of options you (each character has a unique ability), the secrets to be found, the non-linearity of the World of Ruin, the villain ... it all comes together really well, and the game is more then the sum of its parts.

Jisei

Part of the BadDecissions bundle backlog project. I got it in a Groupees bundle in August 2013 and finally played it last night.

It's a visual novel. I'd describe it as "functional." The art was pseudo-anime nonsense but not bad enough to be distracting, the story was OK, the voice acting was OK, the characters ... actually, the characters were pretty mediocre. Even by the standards of visual novels, you have very little control over anything, and the "talk to everyone about everything, see scene, talk to everyone about everything, rinse and repeat" format was repetative. The game is about an hour long.

So games like this ... it was OK. I don't regret playing it. But it's selling for ten bucks on Desura right now, for an OK hour-long visual novel, and lord, this game is not worth ten dollars. I sometimes worry about the effect that "bundle culture" has on gaming--"This indie game looks absolutely amazing! I'll wait until I can get it for a dollar!"--but during this project, I'm running into a lot of games that were practically designed to be sold that way. It would be absurd to go out of your way to play this game, or Bird Assassin, but if they happen to be bundled with another game that you actually want to play, so they're sitting in your backlog ... sure. Why not?

edit (same day, a few hours later)

Rijn the Specpyre in ... Manor of the Damned!
Acquired in Groupees Bundle of the Damned, October 2012.

It's a Zelda clone with a minor horror twist. Not as good as the actual Zelda games, but not the worst clone, I guess. You can buy it on Desura for four dollars, which is a little more reasonable, but "not the worst Zelda clone ever" still isn't really a recommendation.

edit (later still)

Good day for the backlog project. Just finished LaserCat, from an IndieRoyale bundle. And, finally, I hit a bundle game that I unequivocally enjoyed. Yes, it was short and easy, and irritatingly "wacky," and it wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but it was fun.

edited, for the last time

And I just beat Lylian: Paranoid Friendship, Episode 1. From Flying Moonrise bundle, I guess. I have no memory of every buying anything from them, but I have the game on Desura, which usually means I got it from a bundle. But it also looks like the kind of game I might have actually bought at some point, so maybe it's not a bundle game at all. Christ, I don't know. The price tag is five dollars. If I did buy it, I hope it was on sale. The atmosphere was interesting, sure, but it has the most boring gameplay I've seen in a long time. The combat, ugh, incredibly monotonous. It claims to be "Episode 1" and it doesn't resolve anything, but I don't suppose that another episode will actually be made. I wouldn't play it if it were.

Whatever. I'm going to bed now, and the next game I play will not be an indie game that I got from a bundle.

edit: The story so far...
Gone Home Steam, 1/13
Persona P3P, PSP, 1/13
Amnesia: a Machine for Pigs, GOG, 1/17
Brother: A Tale of Two Sons, Steam, 1/23
Long Live the Queen, GOG, 1/26
Detective Grimoire, developer (Kickstarter reward), 1/30
Icewind Dale, GOG, 2/03
Downfall, GOG, 2/16
Icewind Dale II, GOG, 2/23
Shank, Steam, 2/26
Broken Age Act 1, Steam, 2/27
Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom, PSP, 2/28
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, GBA, 3/11
Dust: An Elysian Tail , GOG, 3/18
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, GBA, 3/21
Kaptain Brawe, Steam, 3/27
Batman: Arkham Asylum , Xbox 360, 3/28
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, GBA, 4/04
Faerie Solitaire, Steam, 4/12
Dragon Quest IV, DS, 4/19
Wild Arms, PSN (PS originally), 5/14
Dragon Quest V, DS, 5/26
Among the Sleep, Steam (Kickstarter reward), 5/31
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, PSN (PSP originally), 6/21
Quest for Glory, GOG, 6/24
Thomas Was Alone, PSN, 7/22
Dragon Quest 1, Gameboy (remake), 7/22
Bird Assassin, Desura, 7/26
Final Fantasy VI, SNES (emulator), 7/28
Jisei, Desura, 7/28
Rijn the Specpyre in ... Manor of the Damned!, Desura, 7/29
LaserCat, Desura, 7/29
Lylian: Paranoid Friendship, Episode 1, Desura, 7/30

Freddi Fish - The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds
Just started the game to play for some minutes and to find out if the DRM-free download from the Humble bundle has German language as well (unfotunately it hasn't), but then I kept playing until it was over. Think the game is very enjoyable even for grown-ups. Of course you shouldn't expect something overly complex or difficult, but the game is well-made and has lots of funny scenes. Will certainly play some more Humongous Entertainment adventures in the future.

Complete list of finished games in 2014

I finished Risen 2.

I have mixed opinions about this game, and I'll try to explain why using a brief post. While I really enjoyed Risen 2 and I would buy it again if I still did not have it, it is fairly obvious that it could have been much, much better. The sheer amount of wasted potential makes me mad...
Let's start with the good aspects: nearly all of the harsh crititcisms the game has recived have no reason to exist now. It is virtually bug-free, the dodge move has been implemented (!) and textures do not flicker any more.
Dialogues and atmoshere are really excellent, as the quality of the writing in general, and the art style is top-notch: the caraibic world is beleivable, and the comments form both companions and all the others npc are often smart, witty and humorous. Oh, and definitely never politically correct!
The combat system is solid, and I would dare to say that I never saw a more entertaining one in a RPG for what concerns the human vs human duel. The tactical use of offensive and defensive stances, the good balance between parries and ripostes and the vast amount of dirty pirate-y tricks always makes for an excellent and enjoyable fight. For what concerns monster and animals, things get a bit dirtier: you cannot parry often, so you should rely to the roll move, but since each beast has its own exploitable weakness combat does not fall flat (by the way: despite what many others say, they cannot stun-lock you). For example, you can reverse a giant crab on its back, thus paralyzing it, or dodge the charge of a boar at the right moment and hit it from the flank while it's defenseless.
The gun mechanics are also great, especially for what concerns muskets equipped with a bayonet, and you'll want to use them when scouting the wilderness or facing a particularly strong opponent.
The character developement system is really good, too: you can increase your "overall" ability with a skill using the glory points (a.k.a. Experience. I think is is a joke, since "Glory" in German is translated in "Ruhm"), then learn the other talents by paying instructors with you hard-earned gold.
It might seem unbalanced at first, but that is because you need to carefully plan the use of items to boost your better attributes and limit your weaknesses. The thieving skills are vital, too: this is the first Piranha Bytes games where I felt the NEED to steal everything that wasn't nailed down. Besides, if you do so, you can only profit from that, investing more money in training – the advatages of pickpocketing and lockpicking are immense, especially if you acquire those abilities early on.
What really disappointed me is the map design: while the first areas are up to the PB's strandards, only in a smaller scale, the last ones are little more than corridors. I don't mean they are bad: their quality coul easily compare to that of The Witcher 2, but it is not what you could expect from a team that made his fame upon big and complex environments. Somehow, they feel rushed: I don't know if they ran out of time or budget, but something has clearly gone wrong... by comparing the maps withouth knowing who made them, you could never guess they were built by the same people.
Crafting and Voodoo are also nearly useless: there is no motive to create an item when you could just find it in a chest after forcing a lock. The possession ability makes for some of the funniest and weirdest comedy I ever seen in a videogame, though! :)
I could also criticize the menus in detail, but I'll limit myself to tell you this: they make the exact same mistakes the second Witcher did. Enough said.
I have big hopes for the third installment: if Piranha Bytes take the best from both Risen 1 and Risen 2, it could turn out to be a memorable experience. Let's hope for the best...

Long Live the Queen.

I've been pretty much consumed by it for the last few days. I died a lot. And then I died some more. I finally managed to finish it using magic and being rather non-confrontational.

I wonder how many different ways there are to win this thing? There is a metric crap-ton of variability for sure.

F.E.A.R. 3 co-op

Played through the 'story' co-op with a friend of mine.
Now the story is.. not that great and it's not a very F.E.A.R-like game to be honest, but co-op was a blast.
Basically you play as two psychic freaks, one with the power of bullet time like all the F.E.A.R games and one with the power to possess enemies and/or buff the other player with a temporary shield.
Quite a simple thing, but it does make it really fun to play.
Throughout the whole game there is also score being kept by completing challenges (make five dudes commit suicide, kill 15 dudes with a SMG and so on). So it's not only co-op, but also competitive.
Now I'm not going to spoil anything, but the competition does have a very small impact.

Serious Sam 3 co-op

The SS series has become a bit of a tradition with a friend of mine and we've played though all of them co-operatively.
I don't love all the changes they've made to the this game in the series, but in the end it's still a lot of fun to play with friends.
There is a story and some terrible jokes and puns, but mostly you play this for the hordes of enemies and those are still there. We played it on the hardest or just one below the hardest difficulty level and it was hard.
If you've played any of the SS games you'll know pretty much what to expect, except for the few COD-like additions to the game.
Now the level design wasn't as good as in the previous games IMO and the secrets weren't as fun as in the previous games either. But all in all it's still a fun game, especially when playing co-op.

Now I'm trying to find another co-op game like these two, that you can just jump into and have fun with for a couple of hours. I was thinking perhaps Saints Row 3 might be fun.

Thief 3 (4:20pm 30th july)

Its different but I kind of liked it, there are some meh missions and the loading stuff is annoying and the fact that there are no rope arrows is odd. Best thing about the game was the museum level

Avoid - Sensory Overload

Beat the Easy and Medium level sets, the higher difficulty ones are just too hard for me.

Fun game that's like a simplified mix of SkyRoads and Race the Sun, with a dash of Super Hexagon (mainly the female announcer :D ).

Shadows of the Damned for PS3.

I wouldn't really recommend it, it's a perfect example of why modern games don't appeal to me:

Style over substance.

It's buggy, glitchy, hit detection sucks, the game consists of repetitive looking hallways, it feels like everything is on rails, and finishing the game feels more luck based than anything.

Otherwise, nice graphics, funny dialog, memorable characters, and storyline etc.

Murdered: Soul Suspect

I really liked the idea and story of the game, but not so much the gameplay. During investigations, first you had to hunt for clues (hidden objects) in the scene (and man, was the game often picky whether or not you stood in a good enough angle towards the objects!), then "determine" what happened by choosing the most relevant clues from the list. Usually, the difficulty level of the investigations was something around "This person seems to have a rope around his neck and he's hanging from a tree branch. How did he die?" The side missions too were almost insultingly stupid: for example, this one chick couldn't figure out by herself how she had died despite standing on a beach with shipwreck pieces and memorial plaques everywhere around a 10 meter radius, and another one including an old couple who had killed a young girl just because she had listened to some music a little bit too loud, so I very quickly decided to skip them altogether. There was also some action in the game too, although there was only one type of enemy - the demons, as the game calls them, but their only purpose was to be there to annoy you. They didn't pose a particularly great threat, but you had to use stealth to kill them (or rather, as Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation calls it, the ghost wedgies because that's exactly what they were) and thus wait until they had their backs turned. Those sections were a complete waste of time. Finally, the final encounter was piss easy.

But like I said, I found the story really interesting and especially at the end I just had to keep going until the final truth was revealed. It did not disappoint: it was, in my opinion, well written all the way through. Even the ending, which I really liked. So basically, story was good, gameplay was not: I think the whole thing would have worked better as a movie rather than a video game.

After 103 hours, I have finished the main quest line in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I am far from finished playing the game (I still have a ton of side quests to get to, in addition to the Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs). I liked the way the main quest played out. It wasn't anything particularly special, as it was essentially a save-the-world situation, but the role of the dragons was pretty cool (it also helped that the dragon's sound really awesome when they talk, especially when they use the dragon language). Some people disliked the way the game makes you feel special right from the get-go, but I didn't mind it. It was just epic all the way through.

Is that the one with the big boner?

Kinda tempted by the Humble sale, but it looks tedious. Maybe if I hadn't played Thief already.

Divinity OS

I liked it because of the combat, it was fun to try out new ways to beat down on enemies. I think the game really shines in co-op as opposed to SP; I only played SP and didn't really get much fun out of the inter-party dialogue options. I didn't try the dialogue AI personalities as by the time that stuff was implemented, I had already invested points in the kind of builds I wanted for each character, and I didn't want to mess up my game balance. I think I'd like to try the AI personalities, gameplay is fun enough to warrant another run.

Quests were cool, but I would have appreciated less focus on combat. I really just want to play a RPG in which I can talk through the entire game, anything like that anywhere? No?

Ending was really lackluster, sadly. Tbh, I liked everything that was there with respect to the storytelling- the main story, the sidequests, various characters and their issues. Nicely built world, very interesting. Hated the ending, though. Well, nice game overall, very enjoyable.

Other stuff

You can skip a LOT of combat by sneaking & talking your way through Fallout 2 and Temple of Elemental Evil :).