Just finished BioShock. I found some parts tedious, but overall found the game enjoyable.

Plants vs. Zombies

A little too drawn-out, but the final boss was cool.

GTA: San Andreas

Hmm the age old debate about which is better - Vice City or San Andreas?
Personally I loved both and it's like choosing a favorite child, yeah San Andreas made some missteps like DDR Rhythm dancing and date simulation but it also brought cool new stuff to the table - so happy that Carl can actually SWIM for a start. I liked the sprawling 3 city with wilderness sections approach, not sure if I liked it BETTER than VC's tight city but it was different and helped create it's own identity compared to the other 2 games (yeah, plain old vanilla GTA: 3 was amazing too, not saying it wasn't)
I also allowed space for lots more flying missions and a jetpack which was cool and crazy too
All 3 GTA 3 generation games are brilliant and I love them all in their own way

Full list:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post64

Thanks to EA Origin's Free Game-Time one week trial, Battlefield 4's SP Campaign is in the books after approx. 11 hours of it.

While the stories, characters + all of that stuff is very weak + paper-thin, as you'd expect w/ a BF's SP campaign...
....the campaign was actually pretty good - b/c of the actual gameplay. I'm actually surprised.

And here's why.

Namely, I thought BF3 SP's lacked the huge spawling open-spaces + awesome battles that happen in the MP w/ lots of vehicles, enemies + action happening on-screen. Well, DICE must've heard my complaints there - b/c BF4's SP, for the most part, is loaded w/ huge just that: huge open-spaces + awesome battles to ensue in most of the game levels.

Sure - the game's linear, there's scripted events, and a lot of those linear SP military-FPS trappings - but my one major complaint from BF3's SP is gone here in BF4's SP. The battles when in those open-spaces - they're just like how I like the MP found in the BF games: chaotic + a lot of combat going on.

Now, if they could actually get some good character, plot + story writers for the SP campaign - they'd be onto something.

Added it to my 2014 list:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post79

GTA: San Andreas is great and very well rounded, the only problem I had with it was having to eat or I would lose my muscle mass almost immediately, those popups only seemed to show up whenever I was doing a mission...or stuck in the sea somewhere. I'll be 'that guy" and say that I think GTA: 3 is the best of the GTA 3 generation, it's probably because of nostalgia but to me it's the tightest of the three games and I actually think it's graphically great even to this day. Still all three of them are brilliant indeed and it's easy to appreciate how each one builds on the previous game.

...Well come to think of it...there was one other issue I had with San Andreas...but it wouldn't have been an issue...IF I WOULD'VE JUST FOLLOWED THE TRAIN CJ!!!!!!

Crystal Caves (10th August 9:50pm)

I do love these early 90s apogee platformers. The shareware episode is quite easy but it does get harder. I would recommend it. Its better than Secret Agent but worse than Duke 1.

Mass Effect. Mind. Blown. *explosion* Finally a FPS with real RP elements in it. I actually cared about my squad and had a difficult time making some decisions. The combat isn't super challenging, but developing your teamates is rewarding. The story line allows for many replays. Why did I not play this game sooner?

Continuing my streak of old JRPGs, apparently. I guess I'm in kind of a nostalgiac mood, and I played a lot of them as a kid, but I really should get back to Eye of the Beholder.

Anyway, this time it was Dragon Warrior (Quest) II, an NES game ported to the Gameboy Color. I played it ion an emulator, although I own a physical, legal version of the game. This was because, 1) the Gameboy is not backlit, making it impossible to use when e.g. I'm in my bed in the evening, with only a dim lamp for light and 2) good lord, the combat in that game is slow and dull. And an emulator, of course, allows you to speed up the "have everyone attack until all the enemies are dead" routine by an order of magnitude.

Anyway, with the ability to not spend hours on the super-tedious combat, I blew through it in three days (admittedly playing it rather heavily). It has the aimless nonlinearity I like about the older Dragon Quest games, talking to everyone and keeping handwritten notes of the clues they give me and the places I needed to revisit. On the other hand, the combat was terribly dull, as mentioned, and the party system was super rudimentary. In the end, it isn't nearly as good as DQIII, but doesn't have DQI's charming simplicity either. It also really suffered from not having a good quick-travel function, given the amount of backtracking it entailed--later games would introduce a teleport spell.

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
EvilQuest, Desura, 8/1
Mother 1, GBA, 8/06
Great Greed, Gameboy, 8/08
Dragon Warrior II, 8/10
Soul Blazer, SNES, 8/11
Dragon Quest III (SNES remake) 8/15
Gargoyle's Quest, Gameboy, 8/17
Eye of the Beholder, PC/DOS, 8/22
Sword of Hope, Gameboy, 8/23
Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed, Vita, 8/26
Sword of Hope II, Gameboy, 8/28
The 39 Steps, Steam, 8/29
Dinner Date, Steam, 8/30
9.03m, Steam, 8/30
The Plan, Steam, 9/03--really cutting a trail through the "brief interactive experience on Steam" backlog
Secret Agent, GOG, 9/4
Mr. Bree+, Steam/GOG, 9/7/2014.

I just finished another game that I had previously quit, Contrast. On the positive side it has great music, it's well written, the art direction is is likeable, the atmosphere is effective and the overall theme is pretty unique and it does have some interesting puzzles. On the negative side the controls present a far bigger challenge than the puzzles do, which is bad enough in most games but due to Contrast's game mechanics it's even worse. The save checkpoints are occasionally poorly placed, in some places you can lose fifteen minutes worth of gameplay if you leave the game without reaching the next checkpoint.

Overall it's fairly decent (not great and not bad either) worth picking up, if only because of the soundtrack.

Finished Skyrim's Dawnguard quest line a few days ago. I really enjoyed it. Nothing really special about the story, but it had some neat locations, and I really liked Serana's character. There was one stretch that felt a little tedious, but otherwise, really fun. I'm looking forward to playing it again in the future, though I plan on choosing a different side.

Today, I finished the main Dragonborn quest line. Like Dawnguard, the story was nothing spectacular, but it made up for it by far in the new location and the sheer amount of content. Solstheim is really fun to explore, and I think they did a an excellent job capturing a feeling similar to Morrowind. I couldn't help but grin like an idiot when I was ascending the steps to the temple in Raven Rock and music ripped straight from Morrowind started playing. Same thing happened when I heard the familiar sound of Silt Strider. All in all, great DLC.

I've decided to put Skyrim down for now, or at the very least, play it in smaller chunks of time. There is still so much to do, but there are other games I want to play and I don't want to burn myself out.

Just finished The Last of Us.

PROS:
+Great story
+The most life-like video game characters I've ever seen.
+The game plays out like a good horror/action movie.

CONS:
-The whole time I'm playing I keep thinking: I wish this was an open world game, I want to explore, back travel, open every door and piece of luggage etc.
-NPC AI is a bit goofy, for example many times during a gunfight Ellie would run and stand right in the gunfire.
-Overall feel of the game is too movie-esque.


I would recommend this for anyone who has a PS3 or PS4, however a great alternative for those who don't would be Tomb Raider 2013.

Hurrah, just finished Escape Goat 2! The final room was a real puzzler, but I solved it at last, and am inordinately proud of myself for that. Figured I'd post to this thread at last to celebrate. Here's the list for this year so far:

A Valley Without WInd 1
Arson & Plunder
Bleed
The Bridge
Combat Cats
Corporate Lifestyle Simulator
Crimsonland
Eldritch
Escape Goat 1
Escape Goat 2
Finding Teddy
Gunpoint
Hammerwatch
Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition
The Horror at MS Aurora
Inescapable
Ittle Dew
Legend of Grimrock
Mark of the Ninja
MIND: Path to Thalamus
The Moon Sliver
Paper Sorcerer
Proteus
Retrovirus
Risk of Rain
Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken
Rogue Legacy
Shelter
Snorms
Symphony
The Witcher
Zombie Shooter

My timekeeping may be a little dicey on these, so some may have been finished towards the end of last year. Whatever the case, it's more titles than I expected.

Opinions available upon request. :)

Cthulhu Saves the World
A decent RPGMaker game (I've seen many, many worse) that took me about 12-15 hours to complete. Some of the combat mechanics (e.g. monsters get stronger with every turn) were interesting, besides that it's your standard RPG. Tries a little too hard to be funny from time to time, but overall I liked it.

Complete list of finished games in 2014

Actually, arguably the 2nd 'Shining' game after Shining in the Darkness, apparently

http://www.mobygames.com/game/shining-in-the-darkness
What? ALL of it? some of those later challenges didn't look humanly possible when I had a look - 4 5 ball stages in a row, 1 ball complete clear stages etc.
Pretty impressive!

Yes, played all three on the Genesis back in the day. Love the Shining Force titles even today.

While considered the same lineage, SITD is a dungeon crawl a la Eye Of The Beholder, whereas the Shining Force games are tactical party map battles. So stylistically the first Shining Force title can be considered the first in that regard. But it is the second in the Shining games. There are many others that are part of the game universe as well, such as the Shining Tears and Shining Soul titles. Most are stylistic departures as well, in terms of playstyle.