Finished Her Story, a very good detective game. The gameplay is quite original and the story quite interesting. Liked it a lot.

Full list here.

The longest journey
I will come clean and admit it; I don't like this game much, and I'm not sure why. I understand why people like it; there is a certain charm in this game and a sense of imagination and discovery. Something I rather enjoy, but in this case, i kinda didn't.

i finish point of view, a half life 1 mod ok?! :-/

Yes! I just completed Outlast and boy am I proud of myself! I love horror games but this game was so intense it was almost unpleasant to play. I had parked playing it and didn't go back to it for 18 months as I was a bit overwhelmed by the terror it induced. During those 18 months I managed to get through Alien Isolation which give me the courage to back to it. So, like with Alien Isolation, I feel a real sense of achievement for managing to get through the game. I ain't gonna be scared of no horror game now - bring them on!

Mafia III + Faster, Baby (PS4 Pro)

I've finished lots of games this year, but haven't bothered to make any notes on them, but after Mafia III I wanted to put something here as I really enjoyed it and believe the game is a bit unfairly maligned or misunderstood. First of all, it initially looks like a straight GTA clone, but actually it isn't. Whilst it is more open and "sandboxy" than the first 2 Mafia games, Mafia III is not a GTA game. There are no non story related missions apart from the 12 enjoyable racing side missions. Everything other mission ties to the overall story and point of the game- taking over as crime boss of New Bordeaux. Each mission consolidates your city control by gaining territory, income or cementing the loyalty of your underlings.

I trusted my instinct and played this game without reading reviews as I didn't want to be biased by the usual media and forum ranting. I read some reviews after finishing and the complaints fall into 3 main areas.

1.Technical issues on launch. That's a fair enough complaint for sure, if you bought it and had issues. For me it ran flawlessly, so that wasn't an issue.

2. Repetitive missions. Really? What, like every open world game ever made pretty much? Yes the objectives of each mission are the same- since you're taking over the city piece by piece. But the actual play of each mission can be quite different. Many of the building and areas you need to raid are really well done. Take the time to scout around the area and you find better or secret entry points. I liked the missions, Lincoln Clay is no invincible bullet sponge and can be killed by a close range shotgun blast easily. Taking out some of the buildings without even setting off an alarm was quite satisfying to me. Then other places I just said "fuck it" and went in full Johnny Rambo. There is a pretty decent collection of weapons that can completely change your tactics. I mostly went in quiet with a silenced pistol and semi auto carbine and used finesse rather than brute force.
Best of all I liked the missions because the devs almost never resorted to my pet peeve- mid mission cut scenes and scripting to force you into stupid situations. Mafia III just points you to the location, says there is the enemy, now spank him however you see fit. I like how the story cutscenes only come at milestones in the story and don't screw with you.

3. Too much driving and no fast travel? That's not a game flaw, it's a feature. Mafia games have always had driving and the cars front and center. You either like it or you don't. It gives you plenty of time to listen to the >100 licensed 60's songs, which make up one of the best period soundtracks ever put into a game. The driving model is very solid and even gives the option of switching to a harder less arcade mode. I love the cars and the driving in Mafia III, but I like driving games of all types anyway...but not everyone does. Whether you should be allowed to cheat and fast travel, I don't know. I'm happy without it.

I loved it. I got the game bundled when I traded my PS4 on a Pro and the game version I got comes with the season pass. So I also played the first DLC Faster, Baby. There are 2 more story expansion still to come. Faster, Baby is how I like DLC, though it was a bit short. Otherwise it expands the game with a new area and set of missions that have a different flavor. Faster, Baby is the game version of the old TV series "Dukes of Hazard". You spend 90% of the Faster, Baby story driving around in a stereotypical redneck car with a convoy of at least 10 police cars chasing you- complete with conveniently placed jumps to launch you through billboards (yes it even switches to slow motion, but you have to yell "yeeeh haaaw" yourself)). I really enjoyed the first DLC...though it short at only about 3 hours to do everything.

It's was the most fun open world game I've played since Red Dead Redemption and Saints Row 2. I came to really like the main character and his CIA sidekick especially. Admittedly the other main characters could have done with more fleshing out. I also liked how the story was told as a post documentry format.

It ran smooth on the PS4 Pro at 1080p, the extra power being used to smooth things out and add some post processing I believe. I think it can run at 1440 if you have a higher res display. I downloaded the Xbox demo version just to compare how it runs with less than half the power. Surprisingly the Xbox version looks decent albeit with less AA and and a sometimes choppy frame rate when the action gets intense...but I get the feeling that the PS4 Pro really should be doing more with it's extra power- it isn't the jump that more than twice the graphics power should be delivering.

FATE (ARPG - original game)

Made by at least some of the same creators as TQ and torchlight, this game has way more in common with the latter than the former. That said, it really falls between TL1 (combat/vending pet, fishing, graphics, 1 single dungeon) and Din's Curse (quasi-random quests from NPCs in town, even less of an attempt at a singular plot than TL).

Cons:
-Unless I missed it, there's no weapon swap button
-Loot is a pain in the ass. Trying to pick things you want is occasionally really finicky. Trying NOT to pick up things you don't want is also really finicky.
-Some builds seem more focused than others

Considering some mobs have high resistance/immunity to certain types of damage, and add in the lack of weapon swap, (not to mention the sheer number of skills it would take to build a good melee heavy toon) and this game seems skewed towards a caster build, or caster/archer hybrid.

But as ARPGs go, it was a lively affair, and after a few early regrets that I'd wasted $1, it actually blossomed into a pretty entertaining game (about 20 hours total - 5 on a melee build, then 15 to beat the game with a caster build). Combat was challenging, and adapting to different mobs, and the sheer unpredictability and possibility of getting in over my head kept me engaged.

You can keybind 12 spells (though in steam F12 keys to 'screenshot' as well, so I just bound 11), which as a caster or caster/hybrid is really where the combat variety comes from, and I was constantly bouncing about between 5-6 spells.

It was hard not to compare it to TQ, which I'd played pretty much immediately proceeding this. The story is nowhere near as good in FATE vs. TQ, FATE lacks some modern niceties (other than items, attacks bind to LMB and spells to RMB), and yet it was ultimately probably just a little more satisfying, and engaging, and knew when to quit at 15 hours. It also has a better save system, in that you can save/quit anywhere, and come back in right where you left off.

It was also nice that gold can be used towards actually useful gear, enchants, and even towards buying skill points. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that there's no shared loot. The alt-oholic in me was a bit frustrated at all the great melee gear going to waste, but...it did keep me focused on just the one playthrough, and once I gave in to the reality, a looooot less time messing about with storage than TQ/TL2/GD/etc.

So in the end it was probably a good thing.

That said, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much (or perhaps at all?) had I stuck with a melee focused toon. It was a better game once I rerolled and embraced what the game does well.

The Book of Unwritten Tales

I actually bought this with the intention of playing it with my 4 & 5 year old boys but they got bored after the first 10 minutes. I would never have bought it otherwise as I'd played only one point and click adventure before and that was Fran Bow and it was the horror element that attracted me to it. Still, I thought the game was charming and kept on playing it. I thought the characters and scripting was really good and quite funny. I really enjoyed it. It did take me 25 hours to get through it so I guess my puzzle solving skills for these types of games still need some refining. I've bougth quite a few point and click adventure to try next, this time I'll be looking for something a bit darker. It's between the Blackwell Series, Primordia, The Cat Lady or Syberia. What one would you go for next?

I can't speak for Syberia (haven't played it yet) but if horror and darkness is what you're looking for, go for The Cat Lady. It's not a proper point-n-click game as it is entirely controlled with the keyboard, but it's definitely worth it.

Thanks I think I might just do that!

Persona 5 (PS3)

Persona 3 and 4 are two of my favourite rpg's, Persona 4 came out in 2008 so it's been almost a decade since a game in the series was released (That wasn't one of the many spin off's). Initially planned for release for 2015, it released in Europe last month and was worth the wait. It is the same format as previous games: The gameplay is split into 2 parts: a dungeon crawling, turn based combat part and a social interaction part, where you can build relationships. The relationships you build in the social part give you advantages in the dungeon crawling part.

I don't play many new games on release but this was an exception, the story is good, gameplay is great, music is great. Absolutely loved it, I don't think the characters were as good as in 4, but I managed to sink 100 hours into it even though it wasn't open world. Only available on PS3 and PS4 though, so that's a shame.

1. Silence
2.She Remembered Caterpillars
3.Emily is Away
4.Endless Sky
5.Big Bang Empire
6.Clicker Heroes
7. A Normal Lost Phone
8. Voodoo Garden

Finally played through Shadows of Undrentide, after 10 years or so of owning it. It's not as long and tedious as the original Neverwinter Nights Campaign, and there are some cool ideas in it, but ultimately it's still rather forgettable, especially when compared to many of the great custom modules I've played.

Anyway, after I had taken such a long break from NWN, it was nice to revisit it, and I had some fun, with the exception of the last level which was a snorefest and made me use cheat console and kill switch to speed things up a little. I've never understood why anyone would think battling the same groups of super annoying enemies over and over again, in a bland environment without any other diversions, would make for an exciting finale, but apparantly that's Epic CRPG Design 101. Along with making your story about finding a number of artifacts, several times, for that matter. :P

Finished episodes 3 & 4 of The Walking Dead: Season 3. There are ups and downs in those episodes, they are not as good as the previous seasons. The ending of episode 4 makes no sense.

Full list here.

Last week I finished Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the PS3.

Nice thing about the single-player campaign (I don't do multiplayer), was the variety of missions and maps. Of course there's a lot of shooting with lots of various guns to choose from, but there's a chopper mission as well, sometimes you get to control a Predator attack drone, there's a mad snowscooter ride, there's missions with stealth and sniping. Environments vary from American cities (a bombed out Washington DC stands out in particular), snowdrifts in mountains, caves, oil platforms among others.

What I liked as well was the game isn't as hard as the first part of the CoD:MW games. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare I didn't manage to finish: the final shoot-out at the Pripyat fairground in the famous All Ghillied Up mission was too hard for me and I had to watch a Let's Play to see the rest of CoD 4.

The story of Modern Warfare 2 however was a mix of interesting and confusing. Some nice twists in the beginning that I won't spoil, but some plot turnings I didn't understand. Explanation of why decisions were taken by the main characters and what the effect was on the in-game events is mostly poor and left me wandering 'I know what fight I am in now, but why am I fighting it?'.

One fun thing about the Call of Duty games though, is the reoccurring of characters in other games of the series. Right now I'm playing Call of Duty World at War and in the Stalingrad mission you are a sniper that gets guided by Reznov, a character that I know from the (later released, but played earlier by me) Call of Duty Black Ops, taking place in the sixties, where Reznov, by that time two decades older, plays a mayor role. Another example, the recruit you start off playing in Call of Duty 4:MW has made it to Captain 'Soap' MacTavish in CoD:Modern Warfare 2.

*edit: Call of Duty is a very popular series that at the same time is being frowned upon as being a series for teenagers with a short span of attention, but not having to deal with teenagers as I don't play online, I do like their single-player campaigns, even though the quality of writing varies. The writing that most impressed me was Black Ops, even though I hated the game at first for putting me in the shoes of a CIA-man out to kill Fidel Castro. The CIA is very very dubious, but at the same time BO had a great story (that alas can only be experienced in it's intention only once, when you're still unspoiled by knowledge of it's ending).

<span class="bold">Trine: Enchanted Edition</span>

Humble bundles notwithstanding, Trine was the first digital game I ever bought (on Desura!), back in 2012. It was also the game that forced me to upgrade my GPU in order to be able to play it on something else than the lowest graphical settings. Needless to say, it holds a very special place in my heart and I played it incessantly until I beat it, but strangely enough I never felt the need to 100% it, i.e. finding all the secrets and the experience potions in all levels.

Fast forward to the present, when I decided to revive the experience with the Enchanted Edition of the game. The original was (and what the hell, still is) an impressive-looking game, but oh boy, the adoption of the Trine 2 engine really turns it up to eleven and everything looks, feels and plays much, much better. However, since this is a remaster and not a remake, most of the original game shortcomings (like the lack of enemy variety) are still there, but other problems have been addressed (e.g. now the wizard doesn't spend mana when levitating objects, only when creating cubes, planks or flying platforms).

I'd swear I played the original game on the normal/default difficulty setting, just like I did this time around, but for some reason I did find the remake significantly easier. So either the Enchanted Edition got its difficulty toned down a bit, or my puzzle-platforming skills have considerably improved during the last couple of years. Be as it may, I managed to find everything on every level without much trouble so I can finally mark it down as completely beaten for good. Now I'm looking forward to being amazed and enthralled by the second chapter in the series... just before being disappointed and let down by the third one (according to the general consensus).


My list of finished games in 2017