Broken Age. I liked it. It plays like Amanita's games in that you mostly click on hot spots and solve puzzles by dragging inventory items to those spots. It's a pretty easy game overall, but there are a couple of difficult puzzles later in the game. Even those are pretty fairplay, though, with visual cues to help you work things out.

It has that charm that Double Fine brings to all of their games, with good voice acting and beautiful, distinctive artwork. I can't say I felt that the story held together very well. I still need to watch the making of documentary, so maybe there will be some illumination on how they built the story there, but I felt as if the creators had this idea of two very different stories intersecting and then sort of tried to improvise ways for them to come together and didn't sweat working out all the inconsistencies. Then again, I took a couple of long breaks from this game so maybe I just forgot some details.

<span class="bold">The Legend of Kyrandia: Book Two - Hand of Fate</span> (played on ScummVM v1.6.0/v1.7.0)

Two books down, one to go! As expected, the second episode of the Kyrandia series left a much better impression on me than the first one. Some of the latter's shortcomings and bad design decisions are still present in Hand of Fate: it's still possible to die (although you're always warned of what can befall you if you insist on doing what you shound't), and some of the puzzles make little sense or seem to appear out of nowhere (but on the other hand at least this episode comes with a built-in hint system that, should you realize it's there, will come in very handy and will always give you a good hint about what to do next).

But by far the biggest improvement with respect to Book One is the fact that this time around you cannot reach a state in which you can no longer make progress and eventually beat the game: essential objects can no longer be carelessly discarded, and you are no longer supposed to carry important objects with you whenever you move to a new location. I've read somewhere people claiming that there actually exist some of these 'dead end situations', but I couldn't be able to find any of them during my playthrough. I guess you must need to do something really, really stupid in order to put yourself in such a situation...

The rest of the game's aspects -graphics, music, voiceovers- are at least as good as in the first instalment of the series, with perhaps a higher variety thanks to the many different places Zanthia gets to visit in order to save Kyrandia... again. Yeah, now I've mentioned this game's main character and its plot, I guess this is where one has to take the bitter with the sweet: Zanthia is a terrific protagonist, full of the character and charisma that Brandon lacked in the first game (and so are many of the sideshows, by the way), but on the other hand I felt like the plot gave a lot to be desired. I mean, instead of continuing the story of Book One (which is what they eventually did with Book Three) they more or less repeated the same storyline, but with a totally new and unrelated villain. In the first game the story was extremely formulaic but at least it made sense overall, something that I cannot say about this one. Well, at least the hand is kind of cute... :P


My list of finished games in 2016

Planet of the Eyes

Options include buttons for music, sound effects, "autoplay" (if selected will automatically play audio tapes as you find them), subtitles, vsync, fullscreen/windowed, and display up to 1920 x 1080. I had no troubles using my Xbox-360 controller.

What can I say about Planet of the Eyes? There's not a lot to it, whether you're talking story line, puzzle difficulty, music, or gameplay; it's all rather simplistic. Run, jump, bounce, climb, swim, find audio tapes, try not to die. It's inconsistent in the fact that sometimes a VERY short fall will kill you, and sometimes you can fall three times that distance and be just fine.

The game took me just over an hour and a half to complete, and I'm sure I didn't die once in the first 25-30 minutes of the game. Most of my deaths came about due to carelessness rather than challenging gameplay. There's nothing to collect (save the audio files, but those are well nigh impossible to miss), no hidden secrets (OK, maybe a couple of secrets. :p)... Just straightforward light puzzle-adventure play with a little bit of platforming thrown in.

There are 14 achievements.

The voice over is well done, and while the story is semi-interesting, it never gets to the point where it becomes compelling.

The absolute best part of the game is what happens when you hit the 'Y' button on the controller (not sure what the keyboard equivalent would be... Try hitting random buttons!) Made me laugh out loud and I'm still grinning just thinking about it ;D

I didn't hate it, it's just that there's nothing special about it. If you're looking for a deep and meaningful puzzle-adventure, try The Swapper. If you're looking for a quirky, colorful, and innovative platformer, try Stick it to The Man! If you're looking for some fluff to keep you busy for an hour and a half (and already own the game), then this is the perfect game for you~

Games Finished in 2016

Dragon Age: Inquisition I still like DAO the best, but this was certainly a big step up from DA2, and I can see me giving this one another go with a different character (I played a Qunari Rogue this time through). I thought the main story was well done and pretty solid, with some familiar faces showing up and a couple surprises along the way that relate to the previous games. Companions were enjoyable and had some decent quests attached to them. I quite liked the diversity in the game with the various styles of quests/missions (the War Table, exploring various areas, etc.) And this game is big. I put close 140 hours into it, but I'm a bit of a completionist and generally slower to play through RPGs than many people. Still, even if you play through only the main quest and are much faster than I, it's a large game.

Combat mechanics were much improved over DA2, although the tactical camera is such a pain in the ass that I just defaulted to the pause button and switched party members when necessary. The AI handled my NPC members fairly well though most of the time. I found the abilities you pick up in the skill trees were, for the most part, fairly interesting, although I did tend to default to the same handful of skills in battles for almost the whole game.

I thought the crafting in the game was reasonably robust and if you're not a crafter, you can easily get by on gear you find or buy without too many worries. Crafting gets you the best gear though, but it does come with the risk of making your team almost untouchable. There are tons of ingredients to harvest and they respawn after a fairly short time period or after leaving the area (this is a bit jarring at first when you realize that even mineral deposits regrow... lol). One thing I found was there were a lot of resources that were unable to be harvested. They'd ping on your search but they were placed into the world mesh in such a way that they were impossible to pick up. Luckily, as noted, they respawn quickly and there are no lack of places to harvest any particular material elsewhere, so it's really nothing more than a minor annoyance.

Armor can be tinted to please your aesthetic and there are lots of different armor and weapon designs, so that's a nice touch.

Some of the complaints I've read about the weak side quests are, for the most part, valid. Most of them are very generic fetch and/or kill X amount quests with little depth to them. There are, of course, exceptions, and these tend to be quite good when they've got some meat to them. As well, while the big main areas are almost all very open and non-linear, the structure of each area is the same: arrive, close fade rifts, collect shards, collect resources, find mosaic pieces, find astrariums, fight the bad guys to find the special/needed items, etc so you can garner enough power points to spend at the war table in order to advance the main quest. Speaking of astrariums, I really enjoyed those. All of them involve a constellation where you have to join the stars with a single line (not retracing any parts) to form the figure. Some were very simple and a few required a little creative thinking. But they're a type of puzzle I enjoy. If you don't, you'll hate them. But they're not terribly difficult and you get a little lore/codex entry once solved.

Exploration was generally fun, as I always like finding new places and hidden things. BioWare still, unfortunately, insists on showing you where almost everything is on your maps with nice big markers, so there's not a ton of stuff you can easily miss, but there are some you can easily bypass if you don't regularly use the search function. Speaking of the search funtion: the 'loot radar' is nothing short of goofy. I can see people hating that one, but I could tolerate it. Weird though. Very weird. Oh, but the BioWare 'jumping game' is decidely not fun. There are places that require you to jump a la platforming in order to reach things (almost none that are important enough to be required), and that particular aspect is... decidely unfun. But if you're determined to explore everywhere and/or try to collect everything, you have to put up with it.

Enemies were fairly standard Dragon Age fare, although there are very few darkspawn in this one - mainly demons and humanoids this time around. You can take on several dragons throughout the game, and they can be a nice challenge if you haven't kitted yourself out in uber crafted gear (by the time I got to my fourth one, I had, so they didn't tend to last long).

You get a nice variation of areas to explore, from delvings into the Deep Roads, to a short stint in the Fade (thankfully not a huge area and much, much better than the Fade in DAO!), to deserts, forests, plains, caves, dungeons, swamps, and ancient ruins. For the most part very nicely designed and all nice to look at (IMO).

Ok, let's talk about Denuvo: I don't think I noticed it. The only thing I can say is the game is slow to start up, but whether or not it's Denuvo, I don't know. Other than that, I had no issues. My old rig (Core i7 920, GTX 560Ti) handled it well with great frame rates (I didn't measure it, but found very, very few times did it stutter or seem to have low frames), transitions were smooth, although loading new areas, if they were big, sometimes took a few seconds, and the game crashed only a single time in the 140 hours I played. So, yeah, Denuvo. I think there's a ot of FUD spread about it, given my experience.

I think I've rambled long enough: overall, I give this one a solid thumbs up, much to my surprise and pleasure. It still suffers from many of the BioWare quirks and foibles, so stay away if you don't particularly care for BioWare's more recent games, but I found it very enjoyable.


Full List.

titan quest original campaign

i start play this game in 2008 but i didn't have patience to come at end. now i finally finish it! (^_^) i die 13 times magic number from jesus christ + his 12 followers. ALL dies was in orient last act 3 - first 3 because of a hero spellcaster who 1-hit me, next 7 death because of some blue reptilian pack leaders who also spell caster - they shoot sometime 4 projectile which stun, big damage, big speed. they only weakness is that they don't have much health and alternate between 2 spell attacks. and last 3 die was because of Typhoon titan - last boss. i play brigand (hunting + rogue)

<span class="bold">Tengami</span>

Tengami is a point and click adventure game that takes place in ancient Japan. The style looks similar to traditional Japanese painting, with a 3D pop-up book look. The game includes puzzles and takes 1h to finish.

Complete list of games finished in 2016.

I just got the Spaceport in SC 3000. Isn't that kind of the end? Is there really anything else I can accomplish?

Toonstruck
The good:
Great art style.
Great music.
Good animation.
A few good twists in the story.
Very imaginative.
Voice acting.

The bad:
Most characters are nothing more than stereotypes.
Christopher Lloyd is overacting all the time.
They linger too much on many jokes.
The story is, for the most part, quite generic.
That f****** ending.
Moonlogic and pixelhunting are involved in a few puzzles.

Overall:
Quite good, a bit too loony performance (even if that's supposed to be the joke) from Christopher Lloyd, and a few puzzles will annoy, but otherwise, good.
8/10

Wolfenstein 3D. Once you get used to how stodgy it feels compared to FPSs nowadays - I'm mostly talking about the squared off level design and the controls - it's still a very fun game to play. You run around, you shoot Nazis...it's not complicated. Even the longest levels don't take very long even if you move at a deliberate pace.

I do think, as an old Castle Wolfenstein fan, that at this point in the franchise it would be neat to bring back the stealth/infiltration-oriented gameplay of the original. At least do a spin-off? You could make it like the Hitman games, where you have to sneak around, show fake identification, worry that your costume won't stand up to scrutiny, etc. No? Okay then...

Just finished the Eye of the Beholder series. I remember playing the first one briefly back in college (when it was new) and I enjoyed finally playing the games now. The third game is rightfully considered the weak link, but even that one had some good moments - I enjoyed the underwater level, for example.

Planescape: Torment

Highest rated game on GOG, though that doesn't accurately describe it.

As someone who has played countless games with moral choices and good story and who wasn't a gamer, let alone a PC gamer when this came out, I didn't have the benefit of a nostalgia filter to enhance my experience. The game is 17 year olds, however the story is probably one of the greatest stories I've seen in a videogame, you play an immortal nameless man who has lost all memory, who has just woken up on a slab in a mortuary with a floating skull making conversation to him. Thus begins an epic tale of recovering your memory, and dealing with the consequences of your past lives, maybe you'll save the world along the way as well. There is a lot of humour in the game yet with the depth the story goes I'm unsure whether to describe it as a comedy game.

There is a slight problem with gameplay, it uses the same system as Baldurs gate, which means when you click to attack an enemy, everyone groups together and somehow the weakest member is always at the front, who the enemy fights 1 v 1 whilst the rest of the party struggle to get into position. I played Baldurs Gate 2 earlier this year, but I found this game a lot more fun and enjoyable, mostly as there's less reliance on mages, you also get most of your xp through chatting with others, so if your into the story, the game gets easier.

I'm pretty sure this game is a huge inspiration to other designers and would have resulted in some great games released now adays. It is a good game, I really did enjoy it, while the gameplay is a bit dated the story will keep you hooked. I would highly recommend it.

<span class="bold">Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior</span>

During the development of Viscera Cleanup Detail, RuneStorm created two standalone expansions of their own game, which featured the same mechanics but different settings: Shadow Warrior and Santa's Rampage.
Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior is set in the first chapter of Flying Wild Hog's Shadow Warrior, cleaning up the mess Lo Wang left in the original game.

Complete list of games finished in 2016.

Resident Evil 4 (Wii)

Everyone knows of this one and has an opinion on it I think. It's the first Resi game I've played actually. It seems to be a title that is mostly loved except by a few people that seem to hold the game responsible for changing the direction of the series and destroying everything Resi games stood for etc. The usual gamer rage stuff then. I have the Wii version, so I got to play it on a true gaming powerhouse in beautiful 480p and with waggly controls. Actually the graphics were okay, after the first few minutes of retro shock I completely forgot about the resolution.

The single biggest Resi culture shock I had was not being able aim and move! I thought this had to be a fault or something unique to the Wii version, but no, it's meant to be like that. I'm not used to the idea and even after a week of playing I still found myself trying to back away when shooting and finding myself staring up at the sky instead.

Otherwise I mostly really enjoyed the game. The first half especially. The early settings in the weird village and the spooky Castle are classic survival horror material and were great fun. The sense of dread and tension mostly comes from lack of ammo and situation rather than cheap jump scares. In fact I don't remember a single jump scare in the entire game. Unfortunately once leaving the Castle and going to the Island the game lost a lot of it's atmosphere and started feeling more like a military shooter. It also started to drag on a bit.

The characters and story are perfectly par for the genre. Far fetched, over the top B-grade horror material all the way. Honestly that's exactly what's expected. I've read that Resi 4 represented a huge step forward in voice acting too...so the earlier games must have been pretty bad! Again, to me the acting was typical B-grade horror stuff, exactly what the genre is known and loved for.

I also played the bonus Ada campaigns as well- Separate Ways and Assignment Ada. Separate Ways was a great idea. Playing as the stories other main character and filling in the blanks from the perspective of Ada and her interactions with Leon from the main story.

I'll have to play the rest of the series now I suppose. So...Resi 0 and 1 are remade at decent prices, the 4 remake comes out in 2 weeks and 5 and 6 are relatively new- all those can be done on Xbox One. The spinoff titles like Code Veronica are available on 360. So that only leaves Resi 2 and 3 that may be a problem. Was Resi 3 a Gamecube game at all?

Edit: did some quick research and Resi 2 and 3 are on Gamecube, so it's that or wait for the remakes which I'm sure will be coming. It is Capcom afterall.

Wing Commander 2. Another one that I've replayed a few times. It's pretty much just like the first game except a little bit better all around. I do kind of miss the chalkboard with the kill tallies on it. The story a bit more involved this time around. It also inadvertently creates a pretty good illustration regarding why the military so strongly discourages fraternization.

My favorite ship to fly in this one is the Broadsword. It's slow but I love how much punishment it can take and it feels really good to blast some itty-bitty enemy with just a couple of well-aimed shots. Least favorite is definitely the Sabre. Angel calls it the best ship but I hate how wide the spread of its guns is - unless you get a good view of the enemy's broad side, at closer range there's a good chance your shots will actually go right around it even if you're zeroed in.

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

I played through Super Mario 64 earlier this year and although it is regarded as really influential in the 3D platformer genre, it felt like a grind having to go through each level 7 or 8 times to fully complete it, which is why I never got round to getting all the stars. However Super Mario Galaxy was different. Each path to get a star was unique, and it never got boring or frustrating. The game takes place in different galaxies, where you traverse around small planets, trying to get all 120 Power stars and save Peach from Bowser. The gameplay is fantastic and is a huge step up from the previous 3D platformers and has also introduced many new features such as changing the direction of gravity or the new powerup's like Bee Mario. While you rush you through each level the orchestrated sound track sounds amazing. I loved this game and it makes me sad they don't make many 3D platforming games nowadays. I would recommend this game to anyone with a Wii, though it does tend to be more expensive than average pre owned Wii games.