SPAZ - Space Pirates and Zombies (Linux)

I've aborted this earlier this year because of a bug that didn't let me save progress anymore, when I changed the difficulty setting to reduce the grinding. I've noticed this after losing hours of gameplay and had enough.
Started it again in "casual" mode and it's still a bloody lot od grinding, especially if you don't adjust the rest too.
It's a nice concept, but the execution is hollow and there is only sand in this box indeed.
If you ever plan an playing it, I recommend reducing the number of stars to the minimum, raising tech availability to maximum, lowering difficulty to casual and reducing the bounty hunter activity.

In a way, it's addicting without being fun and I wouldn't have made it through without having webradio playing in the background all the time. In addition to the gameplay problems, it crashed my system when my mothership was destroyed and when I finished the game.

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I brought SPAZ to the abortion clinic very early on and couldn't bring myself to try again. Reducing star cluster and difficulty didn't amend the pregnant drunken duck controls, it's like walking on glazed frost. With those grindy action strategy/RPG type of games, I at the very least expect smooth and hassle-free controls.

Think I know what you mean, that's exactly how I felt about Drox Operative where I did finish quite a number of scenarios but I eventually snapped out of it (it can go on near endlessly), those kinda games are soulless time sinks even if there are some solid core mechanics at work.

Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe

A worthy predecessor successor to the legendary Shufflepuck Cafe. There are 12 different opponents (+ one final boss), several mallets and pucks and lots of achievements to unlock.

It was good fun to play against the different characters, learn their strengths and weaknesses and how to avoid their special strikes (and learn them myself). In the end I had to do a lot of grinding to get enough money to get access to the top floor and meet the final boss, but it never got boring, because there were different game modes and some small missions for each character, so you don'T have to play the same match over and over and over again.

My biggest grievance with this game is that there is no multiplayer mode. Would be a lot of fun to play it against a friend, but unfortunately there's only a single-player campaign. In my eyes that's a cardinal sin for a sports game.

Complete list of finished games in 2015

Spec ops:The line

One of the best stories in a computer game.Nice cover based shooter,although I hardly play this type of games.
The story and it's effects on gameplay is brilliant,you don't beat the game,the game beats you,it takes the fun out of shooting and killing the enemies give them faces and makes it emotionally draining.I got tired of killing the enemies in
the game and didn't want to shoot them anymore.

One of the moments I began realizing this game is different is when I was flanking to get to an enemy fortified position and a figure ran to me,I automatically shot it only to realize it was an innocent civilian a second later and I stopped and asked myself what the f**k did I just do,and than I had to run and continue to shoot enemies down.And the situations grew worse.It has some of the most memorable moments ever in computer games I played.

The game asks you if you feel like a hero.I shot enemies to put them out of their misery because I didn't want to see them like that not matter their previous acts and choices.

I wish companies would focus more on stories in games like in this one.It a masterpiece and a must play game,not an
easy experience though.

STAR WARS®: TIE Fighter Collector's CD (1995)

Finally beat this game, all the tours of duty (not simulated missions). I played on hard difficulty and originally had the principle that I will always beat all the primary and secondary objectives, and any bonus objectives I manage to clear.

This worked fine until the last tour of duty, "Emperor's Will":

Battle 5: Return to Vorknkx

This mission in madly difficult in hard. My retries are probably calculated in hundreds. You fly in a measly Tie Advanced which goes down from one enemy missile, and you have several Tie Defenders against you. If you try to clear them first, you'll have almost no time to save the bases from the enemy transports which are attacking them all the time, wave after wave. On the other hand, if you go after the transports right away, then all those Defenders are at your tail all the time, firing missiles etc. And your wingmen are useless of course, they hardly ever manage to kill even one enemy, maybe one Tie Defender if you tell them to attack one.

So eventually I just switched difficulty to Easy just to pass this one mission, and then switched the difficulty back to Hard afterwards. Phuck it.

Battle 8: The Trap is Sprung! (the final mission)

Not nearly as hard as battle 5, but you have to hurry up if you want to kill the enemy capital ship, otherwise it will flee. I concentrated on killing the enemy Tie Defenders as fast as I could. I didn't manage to finish one secondary objective (identify fleeing enemy shuttles) because I had to kill the enemy capital ship ASAP, after which the missions ends.

I have to say the last few missions in this last tour of duty left a bit sour taste in my mouth of the whole game. Earlier tour of duties I enjoyed quite a lot, and found them thrilling in their challenge. Those last few missions were just frustrating.

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin PC

This is my least favourite Souls game (haven't played Bloodborne). DS2 is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination but the level design isn't as good as DeS and DaS and a good number of enemies are uninspiring. I also found combat to be more sluggish in DS2 and this was even after putting many points into the right stat. My main problem was that you could stun-lock yourself by hitting an enemy since that would stun you for 0,5-1 sec. but the enemy could often hit you even after taking a huge weapon to the face. Drinking Estus also took way too long IMO. Also there are too many ambushes in the game and too many multiple enemy bosses.

All in all though the game is still fun and it still has the satisfying feel of defeating a boss or moving to a new area. It took me 90 hours to finish so there is good bang for the buck - though others can probably finish it much faster.

Ha, great review :)

Finished Costume Quest 2. It was really fun. A lot like the first one, but improved. Combat offered more variety than its predecessor though in the end, it was becoming a bit annoying.

Full list here.

The game itself is good (arguably great), but it had a few things that annoyed me as well:

-The adaptability stat was just a bizarre design choice when it came to rolling. You can pretty much go through the game with a low adaptability build, but it made rolling harder (and honestly for no reason, at least from looking at it). Adding points to the stat gives you more invincibility frames in your roll and makes the animation for healing go faster, but tying rolling to this stat just felt weird. Although I was honestly okay with how they handled the Estus Flask in this game, a lot of enemies and bosses were designed around that, and it kind of made fights more intense.

-Compared to the other games some of the enemy attacks had a lot of tracking to them. The Alonne Knights in particular at Iron Keep and in one of the DLC areas were the worst. Not exactly as bad as people make it out to be, but still noticeable (and annoying).

-Durability for weapons in this game was annoying. Instead of feeling like my character is holding something made of steel or some hard material, it feels like they're holding cardboard or plastic since durability is incredibly low for some stuff. There's a bunch of bonfires around in each area and a particular ring you can wear to compensate, but it still felt weird compared to the original Dark Souls.

Despite struggling here and there (even while in The Covenant of Champions, which made the game harder), the game was easier than the original Dark Souls. Still, for $25 (when it was on sale) it was worth the price overall.

Been playing Street Rod 2 again, and got to finish it, Streed Rod I finished multiple times but SR2 I've yet to finish before this go. Th Mountain race used to keep me from finishing it. Was lucky and got past it yesterday evening :D

Call of Duty Black Ops 3 (Xbox One)

Just the single player campaign. My first ever CoD experience. I know millions of people buy them and love them every year, but they are not really my sort of game...but i came into ownership of a disc Xbox One copy for free (long story, don't ask). Anyway i figures as a 5 day old game, it will make excellent trade material at my local EB store, but may as well play the single player campaign so i can make fun of it.

Actually it was a bit of fun for 8 hours in the single player game. I spent the first hour not having any idea what the hell i was doing- the pace is so high and i couldn't understand a word my squad leader was telling me. So i was just following the others. Luckily it didn't matter much that i sucked so bad because the AI squad seemed to have everything under control without me. Which did raise the question "well WTF am i here for then?!".

But after mission 2 it got a lot better and it became fun even. The controls and aiming are pretty much perfectly balanced even at the defaults and there are lots of little tweaks you can make if you need to. And the game engine looks great and runs fast. As it all should of course, since they make one of these games each year they have plenty of practice.

The story is...out there. Lets say it descends well and truly into the depths of "la la land". Strangely, byt the end it sort of even made sense. Sort of. Anyway, i think that's the sort of OTT thing that Black Ops is about anyway and honestly i doubt anyone that plays Cod is after story.

I briefly tried the Zombie "Hoard Mode" but it didn't interest me much. I didn't touch multiplayer as i have a phobia of being teabagged by 12 year olds. No idea what the correct medical term is for that phobia.

Anyway it was okay, but like i said right at the start- it's really not my thing. Anyway CoD is all about multiplayer and millions love the series and many play nothing but. Far be it for me to rain on their parade, i'll leave them to have their fun how they like it and i'm sure this version will please them just fine. Off to EB it goes...15% exrtra trade credit plus a $10 extra trade voucher i have, i can almost buy Fallout 4...

Finished Star Wars Republic Commando

To be honest, I'm not really a fan of the Star Wars universe. Of course, I enjoyed the original trilogy (before Lucas modified them), but I haven't dived in the Star Wars "lore" and it frankly doesn't interest me. So I was a bit wary, but a friend (much more fan than me) recommended me as a nice squad game... and he actually was quite right!

Independantly from the Star Wars universe, I quite enjoyed this squad shooter. The squad mates are quite responsive and it is interesting to put the in the right places for maximum damages. It's not too long (8-9 hours) so it's not boring. And the action can actually be quite intense...

Plus I found a patch that enabled me to play on a modern screen with 1900*1200 resolution, and nice texturing, so even if the game starts to be a little old, it was not too ugly (even if a little blocky)

But there were some game design flaws that made me cringe from time to time:
- who ever thought that a round crosshair was a good idea?? You actually have to make sure the crosshair turns red to be sure to hit something...
- the scavengers droids in the lost spaceship were totally cheated: an energy ray that never misses you and they divebomb on you when shot to death...
- same for the energy ray-bearing bugs... Come on, it's totally OP!!

But apart from that, it was quite good, actually.

So far in 2015: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2015/post2

Just finished Call of Duty 2.

Hmmm, I dunno. People say that CoD 1-4 were the best and that it went downhill from there, but I remain unconvinced based on CoD 1 & 2. Apart from the improvements in graphics (in which the evolution towards the current CoD engine is apparent), there seems to be very little difference between the two games gameplay-wise. It did offer two or three sections where it gave you a cursory degree of freedom of deciding how to complete the mission (which basically amounted to choosing which order you complete the objectives in), but other than that, it followed the established CoD pattern of bombarding you with noise and shouting, railroading you along a linear path and mollycoddling you towards your objectives.

The game always tells you where to go, what to shoot and when to do it, and never really leaves anything to initiative, and the few freer, more strategic missions make it all the more painful because it shows that CoD can be a good game when it wants to be. As it stands, it's just an incessant, relentless barrage of noise, explosions and shouting with very little gameplay value.

Fantasy Mall

It was included in a bundle I bought at lazyguysbundle when Desura was still around. This is a port of a fairly uninteresting mobile game. I took it as far as it would go in about 1 hour 10 minutes, though all achievements were unlocked at 40 minutes.

But let me stop myself right there. The amount of mouse clicking required to advance the game in the later stages is fucking ridiculous and entirely insulting. Thousands of times. With a super fucking obvious way for the game to have been designed with 1/30th the amount of clicks.

If you have this game in a bundle, I would suggest you delete your DRM-free backup file immediately instead of ever trying it out. These devs should be shot.

Update: Despite the hyperbole, I cut my Race Driver: Grid session short last night due to pain. Obviously I should have never played this trash or stopped when I realized what was happening. :)

Tetrobot and Co. (Linux)

It's one of those puzzle games that are actually fun.
Some flaws that where present in the first part of the series (Blocks that Matter) are gone. If you make a mistake, you can rewind and don't have to play the whole level again although replaying isn't as tedious anymore either, because timing and accuracy isn't important in this game. It's all about thinking and you've got all the time in the world.
The design and storytelling is cute, the music is relaxing and does fit the setting, the graphics are sharp and detailled, the game does play perfectly with just the mouse and no keaboard or gamepad at all, the engine doesn't give me any tearing (which was quite bad in the first game) and it's in general much more prefessionally made and nice to look at.
Since the new bot is able to hover and fly, you can focus on the puzzles and don't have to mess around with exact controls anymore. It's no puzzle platformer but a real puzzle game.
I've only needed to use a walkthrough a few times and finished it with 100%, so I consider it done.
Maybe I'll play it again some day. The only puzzle game I replayed was The Incredible Machine 2 by now, but this game has a charm that makes me want to play it again too at some point.

Unfortunately, there are two severe bugs present (11.11.2015).
1. If you shoot one or several blocks somewhere where it/they get destroyed and rewind, you have the blocks in your inventory again, but if you throw them, you get the animation, but the blocks are gone, so you have to rewind all the way back to the point where you picked them up, in order to really get them back.
2. When a slime is standing on a falling block and both are supposed to fall together, the slime often gets smashed by the block under him. This has messed up one puzzle big time and I was miffed when I saw in a walkthrough, that I actually did everything right and was just unlucky 4 times in a row.

In conclusion, I'd say that this is one of the best puzzle games I've played so far and would recommend it to people, that like puzzle games but are tired of puzzle platformers.
I'd loved to have given this game 5 stars, but I have to take one away for the bugs.

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