Finished Leisure Suit Larry 3 for the first time on 16 Oct 2017. What a great game!

I chose IV because it's one I never played (I couldn't get it to run correctly in the early 00's. I played III many years ago, and while I didn't complete it, I wanted to give IV a try. The early game was fun when there were places to explore and monsters to fight, but I'd reached a point where I'd revealed most of the map and the monsters were getting very dangerous. I'm not an RPG purist, so I got bored and moved on.

I played II back in the day, but I only got to the second town before I gave up. If I replayed it now, I'd probably make more progress. I just remember doing poorly in combat and getting killed off in some dungeon.

Crimson Skies- High Road to Revenge (Xbox One)

I once played a little of the PC version way back. The Xbox version is quite different and I'd say better. It has better mission structure and plays much more like a space shooter such as Wing Commander except you spend your time dogfighting between canyons and building.
As most will know it's an alternative 30's era where flying became a common mode of transport for almost anyone. Sky piracy is rampant. Embark on an OTT story of revenge. The missions are quite open, in many chapters you can explore the open areas doing a small number of side missions whilst gathering info to progress the story. Combat is arcade but perfectly balanced once you get the hang of it. There are lots of different aircraft from agile racers to slow flying tanks and they can all be upgraded one degree using money and tokens.

I had some some of the most fun I've had in a game all year- all from an original Xbox game. Microsofts new OG Xbox emulation performed faultlessly throughout the game. I think many OG Xbox games had unlocked frame rates, so the excess power of the new machines seems to nail the frame rate to 60 as far as I could tell- it was smooth anyway. And as if that isn't enough a standard Xbox One upgrades the resolution to 1080p and a One X to 4K...well okay it's really the 4:3 ratio equivalents of course. And it makes the game look new, razor sharp and clear with the original simple shapes of course. I thought it looked awesome, especially considering it's being done entirely with emulation without touching any game assets. Absolutely recommend this if you have an Xbox One.

Oh yeah and if you still have your original disk, that works too- as does system link multiplayer, even between OG Xbox's and Xbox One apparently.

Machinarium

I don't like it. I suppose I'm just not smart enough to enjoy the game. It has interesting setting and beautiful graphics. A lot of puzzles are nice and entertaining. Unfortunatelly, the game is really hard and it does not only come from puzzles being hard, but from how the game is designed. Items and active elements are not indicated until you are next to them. I don't expect highlighting. I mean they do not react, even if clicked, if you're a step too far or sth. It causes that you're not only searching all the locations pixel by pixel, but you also need to walk the whole location step-by-step to be sure that you've checked it properly. Sometimes you know what to do and just don't know what is missing. Sometimes you have all the elements and have no idea what to do, because you haven't noticed that small lever on the right.

List of all games completed in 2017

I didn't like that aspect of the game either. The game is cute and has really nice graphics, animations, storytelling and music, but the puzzle design can seriously mar the fun at times.

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters (PSP)

Between 2002 and 2007, 6 Ratchet and Clank games were released, anyway that's my fact of the day over with. Size Matters is an attempt to bring the Ratchet and Clank experience onto a handheld, it's a weird experience, it feels very much like a Ratchet and Clank game but with a few differences. The game is shorter, probably less than half the length of the original Ratchet and Clank, the lack of a right analogue stick and L2 and R2 also makes you have to learn a different style to how the old R&C's were played. The downgrade to handheld hardware is therefore very noticeable, less enemies appear on the screen at any one time (I think the most I ever saw was 8) and there is almost no voice acting outside the cutscenes, strangely I also noticed that a lot of enemies and bosses didn't have sound effects. Because of some other changes made, most noticeably Guns become fully upgrade after 4 upgrades compared with 10 in previous games, it means the game starts off incredibly easy, however it becomes really difficult about 3/4 of the way through, if you didn't upgrade most of your weapons to max then you run out of ammo very quickly during bossfights, and it's hard to collect ammo when the bosses can kill you in 1 hit. It doesn't mean it's a bad game, it's probably the best game I've ever played on the PSP... though I've only played 4. It's only £7 as well, and that's when its not on sale so it's good value. However I would recommend any other Ratchet and Clank over this.

Club Life

Another VN. Another one that might make me lose faith in VNs, even if I've played quite a handful of good ones. But once again, you follow the story, you make choices and then the ending makes no sense...

Oh well, the positive in all that is that it's another game off my backlog...

So far in 2017: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2017/post15

Summer Fling

And another VN again. I really should stop playing VNs, at least for a while, and at least edited from Dharker Studios, since I seem to only ever get the bad endings...

So far in 2017: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2017/post15

Finished Pyre. A great game:
- Gorgeous graphics
- Good music
- An incredibly developed background (world, characters...)
- Interesting gameplay (a bit of strategy and many dialogs with choices)

There was at times too much to read. Also, its grows a bit repetitive in the end.

Full list here.

Finished Clive Baker's Undying
Pretty good game where half of your spellbook and weapons is trash tier. Running with celtic Scythe and slashing mobs was more satisfying than I expected. Skull Storm spell ftw.
Last chapter was massive letdown. You went to the caves system filled with cro-magnons because last witch in the family was interested with tribal life. Then you get betrayed by your friend who morph into ugly, early 3D abomination that go fast (and does not die by decapitation like other siblings).

Probably first game on Unreal Engine 1 that does not have any problems on modern system (maybe beside lack of AA and some sounds scratches).

Finished MDK
easier and shorter than MDK2 yet still better (the only good part of the sequel are Max levels and his music pack), found some borrowed resources like Doom shotgun grunt growl. Cool snowboard levels (Goldeneye theme plays), cool music and nice final outro that gave me some flashbacks from Tetsuo-Iron Man for some reason.

Such posts make me think of my backlog as a Wonderland full of treasures ;) Thanks!

NOW I've actually finished Painkiller: Black Edition. I had totally forgotten that there was an expansion, Battle Out of Hell, that I never played. I only realized it because I felt like replaying through the original campaign. A couple of levels had some totally unfair parts, but I still enjoyed it (although not as much as the original campaign). Didn't like the overall ending, but I know there is a true ending if you play on harder difficulties. But I don't really want to do that, so I watched the true ending on YouTube.

Just finished the game myself last month. I quite enjoyed it, but yes, some of the spells are kind of useless for the most part because you didn't even remotely need them except for one or two parts (e.g. Haste) or there were clearly better options. Did you make sure to use the amplifiers, though? Amplified Shield is a Godsend. It really helps for Ectoplasm and Skull Storm too.

Also, the final boss isn't actually Jeremiah, your former friend. It's the monster that had been sealed away (the Undying King, IIRC) for hundreds of years, and killing all of the Covenant family released it. A fairly tough boss though. I think the pacing between bosses after the first one could have been better, though. The first one takes a while to build up to, and then the others come in relatively rapid succession. (I read somewhere that there were some development mishaps, but what exactly it was I don't remember).

I know he's not the final boss, nemesis maybe? The bad guy that run the show.
Shield and Skull Storm (and Ectoplasma before you acquire Skulls) were these useful spell, Amplified Shield was a godsend when I fought that mad mage at the top of ziggurat and last witch.
Sure I used amplifiers but these scrolls that boost mana regen were even better, (scythe slow it down and even drain with alt attack).
Videogames have that issue with final parts (thanks to the crunches and short development time made by publishers) that made them unfinished and underdeveloped or devs straight out run out of ideas how to wrap it all up with satisfying finale. Undying was that case.

Vigilante. The old arcade game that's a sequel to Kung Fu. Your girlfriend is kidnapped by skinheads, most of whom actually have hair, so you must "TAKE THE LAW INTO YOUR OWN HANDS" (I think some versions say "power" instead of law, as if that fixes everything). Just like Kung Fu, outside of bosses and guys with weapons, most enemies will just try to grab you and suck out your life through their palms. I suppose they're smothering you or something?

It's not an amazingly good game, but I've always had a soft spot for it because I love its sound effects. All good beat-em-ups have great, crunchy sound effects and this one has some of the best. Every time you punch or kick someone, it's like a high-speed car crash just happened. I can be pretty easy to please in some ways.

OK, these are not exactly completed, but I'm finishing my adventure with these two:

Duke Nukem
thanks to amrit9037!

OK, this game consists of 3 different episodes being in fact different games. The first episode (Shrapnel City) was almost "piece of cake" ;) The next two ones - Moonbase and Trapped in the Future - are much more challenging and it seems I'm stuck in both of them. After repeating certain levels many times and after several hours of gameplay I must simply give up.

I must admit however that the game is much more interesting that I expected. Controls and physics seems to be a bit clumsy at first, but after some time you just get used to, it became natural and I had A LOT of fun with the game. What is interesting (especially after playing Prehistorik 2 before) - there is a real story in this platformer. And a lot of aspects reminds me DN3D. I didn't realize how deeply DN3D is inspired by DN1 (and probably DN2) - I always thought these games shares the name and the main character only.

Door Kickers
thanks to adamhm!

This one is a bit surprising, because I expected easy, casual and relaxing gameplay. For some reason I found this game quite hard and - after a few small successes - further campaings were always ended with all the squad killed-in-action (with some episodes being just nightmares - like a parking lot one). Well, it seems that coordinating many units is quite complicated for me, even with active-pause mechanism. Lack of IQ? :) Giving up after not more then 10 hours of gameplay.

List of all games completed in 2017