Jan 30 2017 Godzilla (2014) Platinumed.

REDVWIN

<span class="bold">Puzzle Agent</span> (I played the Steam version)

This game is basically a series of brain teaser puzzles strung together by a linear story and a simple point-and-click interface.

I found the puzzles to be fairly easy (I could solve most puzzles within a few minutes with no hints needed). I found the jigsaw puzzles too easy though, because the pieces would snap together even when they were not lined up in the correct area on the board.

The story is quite linear, it manages to be both funny and creepy at the same time and was enjoyable (although it does end on somewhat of a cliffhanger).

The game is also quite short, I finished it in under 5 hours.

Overall I’d recommend it if you enjoy brain teasers, even if you’re not very good at them because the game has a generous hint system to help you out if you need it.

Shadwen

It was alright. I liked it well enough to play through it, but I'm easy to please, in some regards, and I can see why others wouldn't enjoy it as much. I first did a complete peaceful stealth playthrough without killing anyone, and then re-played a few levels as ruthless killer. Both ways were quite easy; the peaceful playthrough can be accomplished by using just the basic stuff you learn in the tutorial, and without using any traps, but if you decide to just kill the guards, there's hardly any challenge in it at all, and you don't really need traps either.

Traps are fun and can actually make the game a bit more challenging, as e.g. explosions draw the attention of other guards further away, so you need to either hide the bodies quickly or deal with the new arrivals as well, as fast as possible. But traps are made from crafting materials you find in hidden or guarded chests, and there's only a limited number of chests and materials (once looted, a chest stays empty), so I guess you can use each type of trap only 1-3 times in the whole game or so, which is a bit disappointing. I tried to find all chests but never really used the traps I crafted (just once during the killer playthrough, to see how they worked).

The game has 15 levels, and while you can't save manually, you can access any level you've started and any checkpoint you've already passed from the main menu. Also, the levels are rather short, and so is the whole game (an everage playthrough should be around 5-7 hours, depending on your playstyle?). Frozenbyte has also added a free "Escape the Castle" campaign, which are essentially all 15 levels as re-worked versions to be played in reverse (personally I didn't bother with them though, so I can't judge how different they are; there is no extra story content connected to them and I didn't really feel motivated to see the same levels again, regardless of any changes to them). There's also a level editor and some custom levels available (at least in the Steam version).

The story is told through cutscenes at the beginning and the end of the game, as well as through bits of conversations between guards and voiceover dialogues between Shadwen and the orphan girl Lily on the loading screens between levels. There is no fully revealed linear plot here, you have to piece it all together yourself, and the dialogues between Shadwen and Lily change significantly depending on whether you let her witness your killings or not. I enjoyed this story-telling approach, even though the setting and the story remain quite simple and vague (which does not mean boring!).

I liked graphics and sound design, but it has to be said that there is some but not that much variation in the level design, it's mostly just the same city and castle walls, in- and outdoors. And there are only two types of enemies in the game, regular guards and more heavily armed guards (the latter aren't quite as easy to kill as the former, but still easy enough, and in a peaceful playthrough there isn't really a difference between the two apart from their looks). The AI is not particularly clever either.

The best thing about the game are the time mechanics. Time only flows when you move or keep the real-time button pressed, otherwise it stops. Which e.g. means you can jump, freeze in mid-air, and calmy aim your grappling hook at your next target, before allowing time to flow again. If you are spotted, or if you miss a jump, or if you killed someone and didn't mean to, you can just press a rewind button, rewind as far back as you like and try again. This might not be to everyone's taste, but for me, who's not a big fan of stealth games, it made things so much more enjoyable and fun, because it removes all the frustration I usually encounter in the genre. Theoretically it would also allow you to be violent and peaceful in one single playthrough, because you can experiment with the meanest ways to kill guards and then just rewind time and pretend it didn't happen. ;)

Burnout Paradise (PS3)

My poor hands ache so much...

Ignoring that, one of my favourite games when I was younger was Burnout: Revenge, I wasn't any good at Racing Games outside Mario Kart, but it was great fun to takedown my friends cars in races. Burnout Paradise has more of the same, instead of individual levels it's all set on an openworld island and encourages online multiplayer. There are 4 types of challenges: Race, Road Rage (Destroy X amount of cars in 2 minutes), Marked Man (Reach a destination without being taken down) and Stunt Race (Perform Stunts for Points). Races were fun, and if you made a mistake near the beginning you could usually catch up, however that does mean that most of the times you lose were down to something that happened just before the end. The locations were great, as were the tracks but there were only 8 finishing points for the races, which means you'll end up just going down the same roads over and over again, there's an mechanic in this game which means when you complete a certain number of races, they then get marked as uncompleted meaning you may end up doing some races 5 times.

Overall it was a great game and I had fun, but until you get a Grade B license, the game is incredibly easy, at which point it suddenly spikes in difficulty. The AI is just as capable at turning at high speeds as you are, I think the only changes as difficulty increases is how fast they go, because they were still constantly crashing in to buses as I upgraded. You can't restart a race if you fail, you'll usually have to drive to the otherside of the map if you want to do a race again, which wouldn't be a problem for me, if this wasn't something you could do in all of the previous Burnouts. It's a great game, but I'd much rather play Revenge again.

Finished both expansions of Shadow Warrior Classic Redux.

Twin Dragon started off weak, ended up great.
Wanton Destruction - great all the way through. Enjoyed the new sprites and their audio.

<span class="bold">Little Briar Rose</span> **Note: I played an earlier/shorter free version from the game’s website (which version is no longer available), not the currently available version**

This game is an enjoyable point-and-click fairy tale adventure.

The artwork is unique, resembling stained glass. The puzzles are quite easy and the game is very short (I completed the game in less than an hour, although as stated above I played an earlier/shorter version), but it’s a charming game and I’d recommend it if you enjoy point-and-clicks.

Feist

Sadly, the game belongs to slightly-clunky-controls series. The game itself is not really long nor interesting - you just go right and fight enemies by hitting them with sticks or throwing some small objects at them. No real puzzles to be found here - sometimes you just have to push a boulder to reach higher ledges. In theory the game can be completed within an hour or even less. It takes a bit more time but only because controls are a bit clunky. Inertia is really weird but aiming is a real nightmare here. In the end it’s okayish but I can’t really recommend it to anyone.


Full list

Beyond Eyes

This is quite literally a walking simulator. In third person perspective, you control a blind girl on a walk in search for her lost cat, and there is no running or stopping for puzzles or anything, it's really just a slow two hour long walk.

I really wanted to like the game, because it's cute and has a beautiful watercolor art style, reminding of a children's picture book, the sound is nice, and it's based on this design idea that your walk into the unknown is represented by a white screen that's getting filled with colorful landscape around you while you explore (the girl wasn't born blind, so there's a possible explanation for the visual component, which might represent her memory of how the world looks).

So far, so good, but sadly the lack of any other gameplay elements and the really slow walking speed kind of made it more of a slog than fun to play after a while. I consider myself a pretty impatient guy, but I guess that's not really true, since I can't imagine anyone I know, adult or child, mustering the patience to play through the whole game; despite it being this short, I could only play it in short bursts (or chapters - since you can't save the game, you should only quit at the start of a new chapter, otherwise, IIRC, your progress will be lost, and you really don't want to replay a chapter). There's also a bit of backtracking involved sometimes, which makes the slow walking even more tedious.

There are some nice design ideas here, and it shows that it's a labor of love with good intentions, but it's just too slow and lacking in gameplay to be worth the two hours I invested for whatever reason. The story is meant to evoke emotions, but due to the shortcomings of the game, I never really managed to immerse myself enough to feel anything other than mild sympathy and, mostly, sleepiness ...



ABZÛ

And this is a swimming/diving simulator, and technically there isn't that much gameplay either, apart from some very simple "puzzles". But I really liked it, because the movement is fast and fluid and there's always something happening around you, something new to marvel at, even when you're just swimming, and combined with the stunning visuals and the hauntingly beautiful audio, it's really relaxing and atmospheric. The setting is cool, the environment colorful and diverse. The story is simple but told without words, just via environmental story-telling and events. It's also very cinematic without seriously interrupting the gameplay all the time (even when the credits roll, the game doesn't take control from you). A bit like an animated film without dialogues, in which you're free to swim and look at the pretty scenery and fauna as much as you want (because it's actually fun instead of tedious). Lasted about two hours as well, but I enjoyed every minute of it!

PC:
+Transistor

I liked the game. A creative take on ARPGs which blends between direct combat and planned strikes in a very short amount of time. You either go ahead and attack everything normally, or enter a planning phase in which time is stopped, letting you plan your actions and execute them at once at the expense of dodging because you can't use most of your abilities afterwards, until you are able to plan again.

The art style is pretty and distinct, futuristic as well, in an age where technology altered just about anything. The game starts out without telling you or explaining it to you why or what happened and leaves you off to learn of your surroundings and whereabouts. A brief but nice experience. Just know that it is stingy with leveling up and it is far from generous on that.

When everything changes, nothing changes.

Not really counting, but let me add the browser games that appeared during the recent massive protests that took place here as an entry to the year's list, since I have the bunch pending in queue for MobyGames too.

General period for them probably starts on Feb 7, since I believe that's when the first couple of them ended up on my feed, and let's say until Feb 16 since I more recently learned of one that was a tad late to the party, actually being developed by game developers and having more to it than the rest, and I just got 2 proper good endings and submitted that today (or yesterday already, considering the time here).
List:
- Da o palma coruptiei: Can't call it a game, but it's there.
- Rade mustata: Again can't call it a game, but it's there.
- Flappy Dragnea: Flappy Bird clone. If there's a finish (such as at an amount just under the threshold originally in the draft edict), I sure got nowhere near it.
- CACMAN: Pac-Man clone, no finish that I could find, after level 10 it just keeps repeating the same message at the start of each level and enemy patterns are the same. Had to let myself be caught on purpose for screenshots for MobyGames...
- Teleorpacman: Another Pac-Man clone, single level but better AI for the enemies, author said in an interview he purchased Pac-Man code thanks to Patreon backers and though he has nothing to do with game development otherwise modified it in an hour and released. Guess completing the level counts as finishing, and actually took a few tries before I got the hang of it and ended up needing to lose on purpose for screenshots.
- PSD Invaders: Space Invaders clone, originally released last May, re-released now with a different end boss. Initially gave up after quite a number of tries, could find no way to defeat the boss, but eventually tried again a few days later and on 2nd attempt actually beat it, so can even count as something "finished", even if it's just a matter of a few minutes if you manage it.
- InterrOUGation: Bit late to the party, released only Sunday now, but actually developed by a small game development studio from here (and also rather acting as an ad for the actual game they're working on, Interrogation) and having a tad more to it than the rest. And not being a clone, unless you mean a clone of their own game that I mentioned, which it is. Got 4 of the 5 endings, can't figure out how to get a success outcome out of Iordache.

PC:
+Dear Esther Landmark Edition

I've got the original standalone game ages ago on Steam via a giveaway group (EDIT: actually it was a trading group with the occasional giveaway) and never finished it because I was somehow stuck around the boat wreck section, fixated on continuing it from there. Little did I know I was supposed to hug the cliffs.

I ended up downloading the Steam version off my account and hooking it with Smart Steam Emulator to play the Landmark Edition. Couldn't understand half of what was said. But of what I understood, the protagonist felt guilty and came to the setting of this game, an island, to wrap things up there. He of course had me company with his deliriums. But if anything, this game is true to what everyone says about it: you walk to the end.

At least The Beginner's Guide, while still walking in a sense, thrown ideas at you in the form of unfinished games with interesting ideas. This one is all about the guy's past, though make no mistake, the visuals do make for a lot of pretty wallpapers and there isn't even any kind of HUD necessary.

Dear Esther?

The wolf among us
I liked it even though it's not much more than an interactive movie with quick time events.
I grew fond of the story and characters despite it being one of the countless “dark and adult” story-lines that infest modern media the same way fly-larvae infest festering cuts of steak. If I could complain about the characters, other than them being dark and edgy for the sake of being dark and edgy, it would be that there is a very small cast of them. I would certainly like to see more.
The story is fairly good, at least up to the last episode which was rather boring and disappointing.
The gameplay on the other hand is garbage: qte sections, simple puzzles and an overall lack of challenge. There are story-altering choices, but I'd have to replay the game to confirm how much impact they really have.
Overall: the episodes felt short and the lack of challenge doesn't help to alleviate that. Also I greatly missed interactivity in this interactive “game”. But I got my money's worth, I think, and can recommend it for the story and characters alone.
6/10

I recently finished:
Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist [1993]
Medal of Honor Airborne [2007]
Medal of Honor Allied Assault [2002]

Theme hospital also homm3 restoration of erathia campaign,2 campaigns left in homm3.

Finished recently:
- Kimmy: It was in the Humble Monthly Bundle from january. Graphics are plain Paint bitmaps and the gameplay is really dumb. It seemed short (~2h I'd say) so I went on to get the whole story but it was not really good.
- South Park: The Stick of Truth: I don't know the cartoon but I liked the story and the humour. Gameplay was ok but fights were a bit too easy on normal difficulty.

Full list here.