Pixeljunk Shooter (PC)

This is an interesting puzzle/ space shooter style game which sees you pilot a ship into a planets core to try rescue a bunch of researchers. The main puzzle feature is the use of the various liquids (Water, Lava, Some kind of magnetic Oil), if you need to get rid of lava, try get some water onto it to cool it down, a load of ice in the way, get some lava on to that and so on. It's very interesting, however the game is quite easy, it would be a good game for a child or family to play and there's even a co-op feature. The gameplay is fun however the game is quite short. I'd recommend getting it, and you can buy it on GOG

Dead Island Definitive Edition (XB1X)

Second full play through of this game. I really like the game far more than I probably should. It does many things I usually don't like, such as overdone weapon wear, escort quests. But I like it anyway. There's always some shiny new weapon around the corner or another choice of where to put your level up point in the skill tree.

The definitive version is the same game just ported onto the newer Chrome Engine used for Dying Light. It looks better than the Xbox 360 that I played last time and runs smoother as well. It still has the wonderful, and genre correct, B-grade voice acting. It's still the same tropical resort Zombie outbreak. This time I played as Sam B who specialises in blunt weapons. He's not as good as the blade weapon specialist I played last time since ,for some reason, the blunt weapons really suck and I ended up using modified shock blade weapons just like last time.

I cannot go straight to Riptide, as that would just be a case of too much of the same thing. Riptide will wait until I'm in the mood again. I'm surprised that these games are not on GoG yet. They are old enough and Deep Silver/THQ Nordic do release their games here often enough. But not this one for some reason.

Abyss: Wraiths of Eden (GA, HOG)

I was looking forward to this one, and perhaps my hopes were too high. It's ...very short, even by HOG standards. I finished somewhere around 2.5 hours with only 3-4 uses of the hint bar when I wasn't sure what the game thought I was supposed to be doing next.

The art work is fairly well done - the voicework is mixed. The main character in particular seemed somewhere between calm and underwhelmed at rescuing her husband from an underwater super demon. The plot is pretty standard.

I think this one just felt like one damn thing after another to me more than a coherent story. The end does answer one very minor mystery, but ...not particularly believably (even with full suspension of disbelief).

It's not altogether bad but definitely in the "wait for a bundle" territory, I'd say. And perhaps I just need a break from the genre for a while as well, but not a classic of the genre either.

Dungetris

A roguelike where you expand the dungeon by dropping dungeon blocks wherever you chose. A novel idea, but becomes extremely repetitive.

'Splosion Man (XB1X)


2D (sort of) platformer that gets quite hard. Very simple to learn, all you can do is run and "splode". You can't really even do a regular jump. You can splode off things three times before needing to recharge on the floor or on a wall (whilst sliding). But like I said it does get hard in an annoying sort of way, in that you need to use a lot of trial and error as the game goes on. By that I mean you cannot really see what traps await you a lot of the times until you get killed by them, then you know to avoid it next time.

The gameplay is good though, and let's be honest most platformers do use trail and error. The main thing that got on my nerves from time to time was the camera. It's 2D, but not quite all the time...the camera often skews of to an angle and sometimes zooms out, which I find messes up my distance judgment pretty often. Similar to the how the camera sometimes messes with you in 3D platformers. Also in some areas (like the final boss fight) it zooms out so far that I find it hard to see my own character in amongst the clutter- which is bad for a game that needs so much precision.

Still a good game overall though, and is very highly rated overall. It has 50 single player levels which is what I completed. It also has 50 different co-op levels as well. It's a 360 exclusive and playable on Xbox One. The sequel is also well rated and also available on PC (Steam).

Tecmo Bowl :D

Remember playing Tecmo Cup Football way back when I had that NES clone. Was in Japanese, so I figured what option did what by trial and error, and of course had no clue what the comments made by players or coach said. Definitely didn't finish it back then though. Think I only got as far as the last match before part 2? Or first of part 2 maybe, not sure. Was a team that thoroughly trashed me each time if I made it that far.

Yoku's Island Express (Nintendo Switch)

A metroidpinballvania. Sounds great, plays even better. Wonderful soundtrack, marvellous graphics, relaxing gameplay. I finished the main story in around six to eight hours, completing the game to 65%. So there's still something to do and to find. I'll definitely return.

Kero Blaster (also played the two demos, Pink Hour and Pink Heaven). You control a frog who works for a company that services teleportation devices but these weird black fuzzy creatures are clogging up various teleporters, so you have to visit each location and clear them out. What this means for gameplay is that it's a run-and-gun game in which you blast enemies and fight a boss at the end of each level, and then move on the the next. Each enemy also leaves behind some money, which you can collect to buy power-ups for your weapons or extra health and such.

For the most part it's pretty easy and it's really only the boss battles that can get a little tough. Even then, if you die you keep all your money, so you'll be in good shape to buy something to help if you need it. I remember Cave Story getting pretty tough in spots, especially if you were trying for the ultimate ending, but Kero Blaster is pretty laidback in comparison. Of Pixel's three games, I would say it's more well-rounded and involving than Ikachan but it's definitely not as ambitious as Cave Story was. It has a lot of the basic action-platform game tropes, like an ice level in which you slide all the time or get blown back by strong winds, and a level set on a moving train is probably the closest it comes to some kind of wild setpiece. Some might find that disappointing considering what a big deal Cave Story was when it came out, but if you're really into Pixel's style this is still a cute and fun game. Worth checking out if it's on sale.

Ori and the blind forest



WHAT A MASTERPIECE


It's sad to see that triple A game developers with their over-inflated budgets cannot make memorable, great games like this and instead push out same old garbage every year with micro-transactions.

Over the last few weeks I've beaten two excellent top-down, twin-stick, rogue-like shooters named Razenroth and Feral Fury four times a piece.

Razenroth has a H.P. Lovecraft vibe to it with huge levels, primary and secondary weapons, RPG elements, and a hub cabin that can be permanently upgraded.
Feral Fury is set in the future is very much like The Binding Of Isaac with bombable walls, special holo-abilities that are charged by collecting orbs, and a ton of perks that come in the form of interchangeable helmets.

Metroid 2. I figured it was about time I got around to playing this, since it's the only one of the classic 2D games I haven't played before. I liked it. It takes some getting used to because the Gameboy zooms into the action a bit more than the surrounding games, which means it has better graphics than the original game but it also feels more claustrophobic. Thankfully, the designers compensate by making it relatively easy to figure your way around - most areas loop back into each other, so if you feel like you're going in a circle you probably are - and enemies can't attack you from offscreen.

Differences from the first game include the addition of the spider-ball power, which lets you climb walls and ceilings, and the ability to jump in ball form, and the game is a straight-up hunting mission. You have 40 metroids to kill. They tend to get more evolved/difficult the deeper into the game you get, and after you've killed all the metroids in the areas accessible, an earthquake will occur that lets you know a new part of the environment has opened up (which usually means that a lava pit has drained).

The game doesn't take a long time - I beat it in just over 7 hours and I could probably cut that down a bit and get a better ending if I replayed it because I'd be wasting less time bombing floors to find secret areas - but it does get a little wearisome just wandering looking for more metroids to scrag. There isn't the same emphasis on getting new items that let you get where you couldn't reach before, so the flow feels a bit off compared to the first and third games because it's all about taking out enemies to get the lava/acid to go away. So I enjoyed it but I definitely still prefer the other games in the series. I'll probably check out the remakes eventually.

Mini Metro (2015) (Linux)

Very nice puzzle game based on extremely simple idea of designing metro lines in quicky growing cities. The purpose is to connect the dots smart enough to eliminate delays. If any station is not connected properly, it becomes crowded and after some warnings causes "game over". It takes a few minutes to reach that stage (at least for me, perhaps you can stay in game a bit longer), so it's perfect game if you have only a while to play.

List of all games completed in 2018.

I finished Pillars of Eternity a day or two ago - I'm quite satisfied by sheer build options and combat mechanism, as well with content I get. I feel like my pre-order money was well spent. I skipped most of the story, but I still think all this hate is unjustified.
I used custom history fair and balanced.

Expeditions: Conquistador, Jul 18 (GOG)- Someone called this Oregon Trail meets King's Bounty and I think that's a pretty good description. The game is generally pretty good. The writing is excellent except when its not. For some reason in the first half of the game random pronouns or proper names would be left out of sentences making text awkward and difficult to read sometimes. This was pretty minor though. My biggest complaint is that the game world was so big but there wasn't that much to do in it. And what you could do was very repetitive. Also the ending screens almost mocked me for not killing everything in my path.

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