Thanks for reading, I hope you'll enjoy Tunguska as much as I did. I've been playing a lot of point & click adventures in recent times (most of them still unfinished) and Tunguska is the one I enjoyed most in terms of gameplay. In terms of story, style and atmosphere I've played better ones but the sheer amount of item-based puzzles with just the right amount of difficulty are what set Tunguska apart for me.

Torchlight 2.

Loved it, but it certainly has its flaws. For one, balancing was awful. I'm guessing there is an easy mode cookie cutter build, but I don't like playing that way. My build went from one-shotting hords of mobs through the first 2 acts to dieing 12 times before being able to clear a room of normal mobs in the final act. With very little direction from the game itself (tutorial, item hints, help file, etc) I found it very frustrating to wonder what implications each change would have. And the costs to play around with enchantments and respecs was too high to be taken seriously.

The voicing was good and the game interface was clean delivering a fairly bug-free time. The humor was good but very sparce and one of the jokes simply referenced how they basically didn't add a feature into the game.

Some very basic elements were missing. Why can't it simply tell me WHY I can't put that gem into that armor? How hard would a simple requirement text be? (just like the one on all the weapons/armor).

I like the achievements for this game. at 119, some are silly (squashing bugs along the way) and some are uber hard (finishing on the hardest difficulty without ever dying). They strike a nice balance between adding a little something to the game and also allowing me to not care about the uber hard ones. I'm not a fan of the ones that reward simply adding friends. This empowers completionists everywhere to spam random requests so they can check off a box.

Over all, tons of fun, but could use some work. Its presentation appears very polished, but it also seems that minor features were either forgotten or cut that would add a great deal of fun (and remove some frustration).

Replayed Prince of Persia The Sands of Time.

One of my all time favorites. Everything from the music to the writing (charming but flawed human characters that have a good arc) is stellar. Only issue was that I was emulating on the xbox360 and suffered from serious frame rate issues when in combat with more than 3 enemies on screen.

Replayed Penumbra Overture.

Enticing story and fun puzzles that actually seemed reasonable obstacles. Combat sucks a bunch but is not too bad when you figure out the trick.

Replayed Tomb Raider 2013

Story is rote and tropey as hell. They don't even develop Lara's character all that much like expanding on her background and motivations for doing what she does. The juxtaposition of her feeling remorse for killing a deer and then mowing down scores of baddies didn't endear itself to me at all.

The Gameplay however is stellar. Short but sweet, the mechanics are fun to use and the metroidvania style of exploration is a lot of fun. Upgrade system is bonkers but works well in practice despite its leap in logic. (like how does some scrap turn a Jap subgun into a Russian assault rifle). The game is super short for my liking though this is the 3rd time Ive replayed it.

Still the only game that reaches completion with me is Dragon Age. This time my Warden was a Dalish elf who sacrificed himself at the end, earning me 'The Ultimate Sacrifice' Achievement. It wasn't really role-play to be honest to have him sacrifice himself, he'd rather choose to live to be happy with Leliane after the battle is over, but I want to see all four possible endings that will grant me the 'Perfectionist' achievement in the end and I was reward by

[slight spoiler ahead]





the scene of the Warden's funeral

[more spoilers]

where Undorian being a Dalish Elf, his people, the Dalish were rewarded with lands of their own, as queen Anora wanted to honor of the Warden that ended the Blight in this most perfect of ways. A warming feeling it gave me.

I just completed The Witcher 2. The game was way shorter than I thought it was going to be. It's a lot of fun overall but it could have been longer.

True. There was a fair bit of waiting involved because I did resort to Rambo mode initially taking out the roving perimeter patrols. Then I went for a stealth approach within the compound, which took a fair bit of time to run around to get to the entrance. And then was the puzzle bit, figuring the sequence I needed to take out the guards to be able to get to the sniper rifle. And then guns blazing again at the end with the lab that needed to be blown up. The funny part was reading an FAQ afterwards and discovering that there was an exploit that made this part much easier. But I agree, this level was just a licence to kill everyone and not something that called for a professional hitman. I wonder how Leon would have fared?


It was a little unfair of them to throw the "Hey you finished the level.. and as a reward you can have... well exactly what you have now to start the next mission. Fortunately I got lucky and ended up with a machine gun (the M60 I think??) to start the compound level with, and the guards didn't see me as a threat with that weapon so I just had to wait for them to pass me by and then <click>...

I probably could have just finished the whole level that way, but I really wanted to get that sniper rifle, especially since they had a ton of ammo lying around for it at one of the other towers.


It was definitely challenging because it ramped up the size of the level, the complexity within the level, and the difficulty too - making all the previous missions seem like what they actually were until that point: basic training. And I liked the challenge of achieving the goal without killing any innocents.

I'd also add the harbour mission (with the ship) as a tough one that I needed a fair number of attempts to complete, but definitely the other two already mentioned were tougher.


Fortunately I already have both a retail and GOG edition ready and waiting - I just had to finish the first one! I might give Velvet Assassin a go though first - just to let a little time pass first so as not to dilute the experience of the 2nd Hitman.

I'll definitely have a look at this one.

Indiana Jones &amp; the Fate of Atlantis

Just finished one of three paths and all i can say is that it is a wonderful old adventure. I really liked the atmosphere it has, the humor, the travelling around the world, everything. The puzzles are good, i don't remember something being illogical, though i used the guide some times because even though i knew what i was supposed to do, i failed to do it for some reason, maybe because i'm a point & click amateur.

If you mange to keep the sniper rifle until the beginning of the compound level, you can


[spoiler]



simply snipe your target as soon as you begin the level. If you then drop it and you are wearing the higher rank officer's uniform you found in the first jungle mission, the rest of the level is very easy!



[/spoiler]







Good idea. I never play two similar games in a row for the same reasons! :)

Hotline Miami 2 (9 april 9:39pm)

It plays like a puzzle game really. I now hate dogs and large black dudes. However it is a easy game but I wouldn't recommend it

Never Alone

First of all, uhm... wait a sec.... Daniel Starkey needs to get another job, 10/10 for this game is just dumb, The game is short (i think i finish it in 2~3 hours), easy (later on gets a bit hard), terrible controls for some parts (you will get a weapon for the little girl and let's say that controlling that shit with the stick is terrible, back to start using the weapon + aiming at the same time and front to throw), the IA is terrible (sometimes it just stops or suicides), the camera is terrible, especially considering this is a 2 players (in my case the 2nd player was the IA/me) and they just get a bit behind meaning that when you're in a hurry the camera don't follow you in time and you will miss some jumps, the story is... bland, etc.

It's a mediocre plataform game, at least the game looks nice and the coop could be fun (local only), other than that i don't see why should this game be recommended, if you got it on a cheap bundle (or "free" like ps+) you could give it a try if you want a plataform game, otherwise you could play better games like Rayman, Trine 2, etc.

Bruce Lee 2 (http://www.bruneras.com/games_bruce2.php) is a freeware sequel to the classic C64 Bruce Lee. I played the Windows version for a bit but then switched to a C64 version played through an emulator because I think the C64 version is even better and more faithful to the original.

In this one Bruce's sister has been kidnapped by Lo Pan and you have to...basically do the same thing as in the original game, except the obstacles are a bit harder and more elaborate. New enemies include a samurai guy, Jim Kelly, and Chuck Norris. If you like the original game, you owe it to yourself to check this out. It's a lovingly made sequel.

Yesterday I finished Pokémon Red - TPP Anniversary Edition. It's a ROM hack based on another ROM hack, which was used in the popular Twitch Plays Pokémon stream, which was released after it was completed. Quite fun.

Includ me

Resident Evil HD Remaster
Guess there's nothing to say about :P

Dragon Ball Xenoverse
Pretty awesome fighting/"roleplaying"/collecting game. Got me amazed and 4 days in a row insanely stuck in the computer. Amazing soundtrack btw.

HeXen: Beyond Heretic + Deathkings of the Dark Citadel

Whereas Heretic was a game very similar to the original Doom, HeXen has taken some steps to ensure that it feels different, despite the fact that it's also using id Tech 1.

While it retains the same atmosphere/setting and the same item system, HeXen says goodbye to Heretic's episodic and linear level progression. Instead, it has been replaced with hubs, with each of them containing stages (think like Super Mario 64), which you end up revisiting more than once tlll you can find the way out of the hub and into the next one. Also unlike Heretic, HeXen offers the choice among three characters (fighter, cleric, mage), with each of them having different stats, along with different weapons. Thus, while the fighter is mostly a melee dude with high speed and armour, the mage is slow, weak but can take enemies from afar and the cleric is a nice balance between those two. Another neat thing is that some of the items' effects differ depending on the character. For example, while the Flechette acts like a throwing bomb at the hands of the fighter, it acts like a poison cloud at the hands of a cleric and as a timed explosive mine at the hands of the mage. Thus, replaying the game with another character will definitely feel different.

Having said that, I'm not totally impressed with HeXen's differences. While being able to choose among three differing characters is defiitely nice, I can't help but feel that the feature is underdeveloped. Being limited to only 4 weapons per character (as opposed to Heretic's 8 weapons), combats can end up feeling monotonous at times, a feeling that is exacerbated by the lack of tomes of power or even a secondary usage. Add to all this the possibility that you might not get the 4th weapon (it's split into pieces and you might end up missing some), or that even if you get it, it expends a lot of mana from both of your pools and you'll fall into the routine of using your 2 mana-dependent weapons over and over again and the small variety of enemies further reinforces this routine. On a bit of an unrelated note, I'm also not a fan of the way that level progression works, as the backtracking can be a bit too much at times.

In conclusion, HeXen: Beyond Heretic is a good game, with some interesting differences from Heretic that aren't, unfortunately, enough to make it as enjoyable as it (heck, it doesn't even have some memorable music. Boo!).

What about the Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, though? Let's see; no new music, no new level layouts, no new monsters and no new weapons/items. It's a mishmash of the levels from the base game with even more enemies, which ends up degenerating into a snorefest. Making matters worse is the changed respawning feature. In the base game, there might be the occasional 1-2 weak enemies respawning every 2 minutes or so, to prevent a revisit to one of the stages from feeling completely empty. in the expansion, 5 or more of the annoying enemies are respawned, which makes the already boring combat an even bigger chore. My personal recommendation is, thus, to only play the base game and to not bother with this waste of time.

Note: If you are going to play the game with a source port, I advise you against using Doomsday Engine, as saving and continuing the game might result in crucial doors not opening up and thus, preventing you from completing the game. I found that out the hard way and I ended up switching to GZDoom, where I faced absolutely no problem.

Updated the full list.

Finished Valiant Hearts. A brilliant game about the 14-18 war. Great graphics for a terrifying story. The ending was heart-breaking.

Full list here.