Virginia, May 25 (GOG)-This was just too random and disjointed and impossible to follow. I could never tell if Anne was sleeping or in the past or really a different character. The camera was also quite shaky and hurt my eyes a bit. I really have no idea what story the developers wanted to tell but I'm pretty sure there was a better way to tell it.

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Axiom Verge

Cool retro metroidvania (heavily on the Metroid side of tings.) The best part is the wide variety of power ups, my favorite being the remote drone. Tons of different weapons, most of which I didn't use, a bunch of which I didn't even find. Didn't like the way a couple of the power ups controlled though, not gonna mention which ones because spoilers. Didn't find the boss fights much fun either. And would've appreciated a fast travel mechanic too, alas there isn't one.

Plantera (Zeo's Non-GOG GA, donated by the1robert)

Pros:
Graphics
Basic Concept
Somewhat varied types of interaction

Cons:
Short
Not a lot of depth

Early game, this game is fairly fun as you plant things, collect animal products (eggs, milk, socks), scare off crows/foxes/wolves.

After 3-4 hours though, mostly what you'll be doing is logging in intermittently to collect the $$ and experience you got while idle/logged out. The grind from lvl 50 - 100 in particular was just kind of dull killing time to get the last achievement to say I was truly finished.

It's not a bad foundation for a more robust game, but as it was free, but even for the standard $2.99 price...it's probably a bit overpriced. I think ultimately I finished with 8 hours, but half or more of that was leaving the game running while AFK to try and gain more than just the one level at a time (the max you can get logged out).

Distinctly ok!

Katana ZERO

What a rollercoaster. Completely unexpected.

I must say it blew all my expectations: looks are great, gameplay flows quite nicely, soundtrack is right up my alley, and was really well developed, going from a total "what the hell is going on here?" to "oh... oh. OH!"

Let's see what else is in store for the game, since there's obviously stuff planned ahead.

I can't recommend this one enough, TRY IT.

Quake 2: Quad Damage

I enjoyed DOOM and DOOM 2, so I decided to move on to Quake. I did not enjoy the first one, which was mostly down to one enemy I absolutely hated and not being too keen on the setting. Thankfully Quake 2 ditched the more fantasy elements, making a sci-fi heavy campaign about fighting through an alien planet, disabling their defences and killing their commander. The game plays similar to DOOM, but with more gun wielding enemies and, thankfully, a lot less secret doors. The game is pretty long, so people who just like running around shooting have several hours to do so. It's a good game, and I'd recommend it.

Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition

The Story Mode specifically. And this is the game that conclusively convinced me that I really, really, suck at fighting games. Played first two-thirds on Medium difficulty, like I'd done Injustice before, but here the only reason I was able to win most matches is that the difficulty still autoadjusts every time you lose. I kept losing even the very first match until the opponent became a literal moving punching bag who refused to throw a first fight. Didn't quite get that bad later, there must be some kind of lowest level it ever gets depending on how far in the game you get. For example the boss fight 2/3 of the way through took me probably 20 attempts, and he still attacked then - though he "taunted" me at least as often as attacking, giving me free hits.

For the last third of the story I switched to Easy difficulty, and even then had to switch further down to Beginner for a couple "endurance" fights towards the end where you have to face 3 opponents in a row without replenishing your health. Brutal. And Even on Beginner difficulty each of those fights took me 3 attempts. Afterwards switched back to Easy for the final couple fights of the story, the final boss taking me maybe 8 attempts or so. And now I think I'm done with fighting games for the forseeable future....

As for the story itself, it was pretty epic, but not particularly well written, especially how the gameplay didn't always make sense story-wise - 1v2 matches in a tournament? What's up with that?

Hexcells

A nice laid back and relaxing puzzle game. Reminiscent of Mine Sweeper but with with a bit more mechanics and absolutely no need to guess - there is always enough information available to make the right move.

Hexcells Infinite

Boy, the first game was just a tutorial wasn't it. I haven't tried the second one (Hexcells Plus), but this finale in the trilogy is brain-bendy to the max. The second-to-last level took me longer to puzzle through (with a couple hints from helpful internet people I might add) than the entire of the first Hexcells did!

Quake 3: Arena

Single player campaign is gone, replaced with 25 arena matches where you go up against bots. I did the middle difficulty, which I assume was normal, it wasn't too difficult but I never lost a match. I've started to notice my backlog consists mostly of fps's (Stalker, COD, Serious Sam, Unreal, Medal of Honor, Suffering) a genre that I am slowly losing interest in. However this was pretty fun, and makes me miss the day's when I solidly did multiplayer. I'd recommend if looking for something quick and fun.

Soda Dungeon (F2P - Steam)

First off, I really enjoyed this game, for the most part.
Second, I should have paid the $1.99 to buy the 'Magic Clock' boost when I started playing, both to support the dev, and because grinding out the gold to buy it at the stage of the game when i did was very painful.

This game has a little bit of idle, a little bit of RPG, just a teensy bit of tactics/party building. And if like the genre at all, it's got a lot to offer.

It does have a few flaws, though:

1) Certain mechanics aren't well explained - you'll need reddit to figure out some of what you're actually supposed to be doing
2) The party AI when set to auto-combat is not so good. Equip your party with crowd control weapons and they'll still proceed to beat on the mob that's asleep instead of moving on to sleep the next one.
3) The itemization is poor. It's strange that you get better drops at lvl 900 of the dungeon than at lvl 1200.
4) A few of the available classes seem pretty useless in comparison to others.

Likewise, healers seem triggered to heal party members when they get down to 50% of health, which is ok for mana efficiency (though you can gear for that) but not so good at keeping a party alive, since esp. at early levels lots of mobs can take out a player at 55% health in 1-2 hits, and remember, your team could have cc'ed but didn't. So...

Yes, the game has two "idle" components - 1) you do earn a % of your gold while offline, but it's generally not your main income source since it caps per logout, and 2) auto combat, which is limited by the AI not being particularly tactical.

Still, I quite enjoyed it. I'm still going to play a bit more in endless mode, but technically I "beat" the game and am into the final endless world, thus "finished" I guess.

Microsoft Excel

Originally released in 1985 for the Macintosh, Microsoft Excel is the 2nd in the 'Microsoft Office' series of games, and is considered a spiritual successor of sorts to Multiplan. Whilst incorporating a number of features from the first game in the series, this game has moved to a grid based system. Whilst the game initially appears simple and is easy to get into, a lot of the advanced techniques requires significant experience & skill, something very few master. There is a huge variety of customizability, much more so than the majority of games I've played recently, with a wide variety of colours and styles to choose from. It runs reasonably well on my computer, although lag spikes do occur following intensive actions. Although there is no multiplayer in the usual sense, you do have the option to save your state and send it to others for them to either admire or work on.

The game has received countless updates since release, however it is barely recognisable compared to its original format. Story is negligible, Music is non-existent, with only a few sound effects to go on, although a lot of recent games focus on minimalism, I think this is a step too far. Another unfortunate bit of news is that DRM is required in order to play it, meaning it is unlikely to see a release on GOG. Overall I'd describe it as alright, although it requires a lot of work to get fun out of it.

lol

Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (PS4)

EDIT: GOG's wonderful forum won't let me imbed this link, possibly because it has a colon inside? So here it is nevertheless in all its messy and unfixable glory:
[url=https://dukenukem.fandom.com/wiki/Duke_Nukem_3D:_20th_Anniversary_World_Tour]https://dukenukem.fandom.com/wiki/Duke_Nukem_3D:_20th_Anniversary_World_Tour[/url]

This game includes all four episodes from the Duke Nukem 3D “Atomic Edition”, plus one new episode consisting of 7 maps. Unfortunately it doesn’t include the extra episodes from the “Megaton Edition”.

Added is a “true 3D” graphics option, which is a slight improvement but hardly necessary.

The new episode contains one new enemy type (not on every map), and one new weapon. The weapon shoots fire in an arc, and the new enemies likewise shoot fire at Duke. Neither are revolutionary, but are OK.

Similarly, the new maps are OK, a mixed bag but not bad and nothing mind-blowing.

I played the game on PS4 (using my PSVR headset in Big Screen mode), and it did take me a couple hours or so to really get used to playing the game with a controller, but once I did so the game played smoothly.

Duke Nukem 3D is a very fun game, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t played it before! If you’ve already played Duke Nukem 3D, I would only recommend this new version if you find it on sale.

The Curious Expedition
A gift from DampSquib, thanks again!

First and foremost - the game is a masterpiece. I can’t remember any game I recently played that got me hooked as much as this one. So yeah, I can wholeheartedly recommend it right from the beginning of my review. Please note that I mostly played on hard so my description applies to this difficulty settings (there are major differences in the gameplay, depending on the difficulty).

So what’s the game about? Well, obviously it’s about expeditions! At the beginning you pick a leader of you trek, each starting with some companions, items and perks. I would dare to say that your choice is not that important - it’s your own skills and knowledge is the most important, if you become an expert you should do fine with any character. However, at the beginning when you don’t know much about the game picking some of them turns the game to be a bit more forgiving (pro tip: a hunting dog is a killing machine)

Your task is to organize six expeditions, find a golden pyramid in each of them and get back to your ship. During your journey you’ll find special places like teleports, traders, villages, ruins, caves and many more. It’s advisable to at least check these places but you should be very careful about making decisions. For example you can find a few berries in front of a statue which were left there as an offering. Sure, you can take them and use to boost morale but your relation with natives will suffer because of this action. Is it worth it? That’s up to you to decide. Stealing valuable items from an altar usually ends up with a some sort of catastrophe but in this case the question is different: can you afford NOT stealing them? Why, you may ask? Well, you are not out in the wilderness without a purpose! Your task is to gain as much fame as possible and beat your opponents who wants to become the most famous explorer as well. Collecting artifacts it’s a very important part of gaining fame - after coming back from an expedition you can donate them to the museum and gain fame. Alternatively, you can sell them and use money to buy equipment/upgrade animals for your next expedition. Once again - the choice is yours but be careful what you are doing. Each successful expedition will also give you some fame. More, if you managed to be faster than your opponents so once again you’ll have difficult choice to make: should you rather rush to a pyramid and back to the ship (gaining more fame for being fast) or should you explore more (finding more artifacts but also facing a lot of dangers). There is no easy way to determine which strategy is better…

A very important mechanics in the game is a sanity meter. When you move around the map your sanity decreases. When it drops to zero there is a good chance that some of your companions will go crazy. Unpleasant things will happen then, for example one of your companions may decide to eat… another companion. The funny thing is that when I had a nun in my trek it seemed that she was always first to be eaten. Apparently nuns are very tasty ;) Anyway, as you may imagine there are ways to replenish your sanity by resting, eating/drinking and a some more activities so you should be well prepared for your journey. The important thing to remember is that if you plan to move a long distance at once you will lose less sanity then making the same distance step by step! At the beginning it seemed weird but after some time I started to appreciate it. Remember, it’s not a meter of you tiredness but sanity! Stopping every kilometer and discussing where to go next would drive me nuts too so this mechanics is actually well implemented!

During your journey you may also encounter aggressive animals, beasts and people and then a dice-based combat is initiated. It takes some time to understand how things work here but after some time I started to like it as well. However I still think that a dog dealing more damage than a gun is plain weird. The funny thing is that you can actually headbutt a raptor! Can you think of any other game that allows you to do so? ;) Later expeditions become more and more dangerous so be prepared! In theory you can flee but you’ll lose some of your equipment, member and sanity so that should be your last option.

I’ve already written a lot but trust me - it’s a tip of an iceberg. The game is complicated and there are so many things to discover that even writing several pages wouldn’t cover everything I learned about it. And of course the best part is to discover them by yourself so my general comments are spoiler-free and should only encourage you to check out the game.

In the end I mention how much time it took me to decide that I’m done with the game (only for some time!). At first I decided that I would consider the game to be finished after beating it on hard difficulty. After I did so I was still craving for more so I decided to unlock every character. After that I thought about beating the game on hard difficulty with every possible character. But it was still not enough so I decided that I would declare the game to be completed after beating the game three times in a row (still on hard). And yeah, now I do believe I’ve completed the game. After beating it… seven times in a row on hard difficulty. Trust me, I had a real blast!


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Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (PS4)

I've been wanting to play Duke Nukem for a while, and was annoyed to find out that it had disappeared from online marketplaces until fairly recently, in the form of this remake. I'm going to be making a lot of comparisons with DOOM & DOOM 2, as the two games are fairly similar in style. You play as the aforementioned Duke, whose just minding his business when aliens invade earth, it's up to you, the badass wisecracking one man army to destroy the alien hordes. The gameplay is very similar to DOOM, annoyingly they kept one of my least favourite aspects, the 'find secret door to progress' level progression, which involves spamming the action button on every piece of furniture and wall just to find a hidden keycard you need to progress. You have a variety of weapons, which sort of reminds of Ratchet and Clank, the point being you have 2 decent weapons and a bunch of weapons that are only useful in certain scenarios, speaking of ammo, there is a serious shortage of it in the early levels, something that initially put me off. My final grievance is the severe amount of enemies with 'chainguns' instead of projectiles, the key difference being you can dodge projectiles and see where they come from, where as chainguns force you to just keep running in and out of cover, and makes fighting enemies in an open arena a pain in the ass.

I've been playing a lot of FPS's recently and really the only thing that makes Duke Nukem stand out is the fact the protagonist can talk, and possibly the large amount of scantily clad women dotted around. I think the keep running and shooting style of FPS peaked with the Serious Sam series. I may just be getting tired of the genre, but I've got to clear out my backlog of all these FPS's somehow. It's not too expensive a game, so if you haven't played it before, I'd advise giving it at least a try, if you like this sort of game.

Dragonsphere
A point and click adventure that GOG offered for free when I first joined and I only just got round to playing. It's fairly short, but puzzles with obscure answers (Like freezing a dead rat to remove a portal from a doorframe) increase the length. There was a good twist half way through, but I think it still pales in comparison to the Lucasart greats. I'd recommend it a go if you managed to get it for free however.

Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs (PSVR)

This is not normally my type of game, but my son bought it so I thought I'd give it a try.

It's Angry Birds. It's in VR. That's it. It does a good job transferring the game to VR, it doesn't add anything else new so it's pretty simplistic.

It is a fairly short game, it took me a few hours to get 3 stars on all the levels. Some levels were fairly easy, others much harder, and there is quite an element of luck involved sometimes.

I'd recommend it if you like Angry Birds and can get it on sale.

Void Bastards (XB1X)

This one only released yesterday so I downloaded using Game Pass just to have a look. I ended up not stopping until finishing my first play through, Icewind Dale 2 had to take 2 days off. Void Bastards takes a bit of FTL, Sword of Stars The Pit and maybe Borderlands. Developed by Blue Manchu and published by Humble Bundle, available on Humble, Steam and Xbox (including Game Pass).

In this world prisoners are transported in powdered hydrated form (you know, like powdered mash potato) for space travel and rehydrated by applying water. Your transport has technical problems and no one is coming to help, so the ship AI rehydrates you to fix the problem. You fly around the Nebula like in FTL with cell shaded comic book graphics, searching for the items you need as well as food and fuel. Unlike FTL, when you find a likely ship to "aquire" what you need from- you board it and fight through it's rooms in FPS style. The cynical humour is similar to Borderlands. As the game progresses the parts you need tend to be deeper and deeper into the Nebula which also raises the difficulty. The game is "roguelight" in that you can die, but the game does not end, the AI just rehydrates another prisoner and gets to keep all the upgrades and story progress you've unlocked.

The graphics are like that old shooter XIII with it's cell shaded graphics. It ran perfectly for me- which is good since it's a Unity game and a lot of games built with Unity have performance trouble on the consoles- but not this one. I really enjoyed this game overall. It's just about the right length for a playthrough, much longer and it would be in danger of becoming too repetitive. It has a great learning curve, not just with the number of difficulty levels but the way in which the game ramps up the challenge- easy to learn but by the end you seriously have weigh up risk vs reward when selecting boarding targets and when to leave- as well as what enemies to stand and fight and which ones to just run or lock doors to block them. The game has a surprising amount of "on the fly" strategy needed, despite playing mainly as a shooter.

Really worth a try, I'll be coming back to it on one of the harder difficulties sometime for sure, plus to try and unlock all the items and upgrades. When playing this I did notice a funny thing- lots of the ship names were Australian cities and towns...like Colac, Queanbeyan etc. I'm guessing the devs are Australian based.

Oh yeah, someone started a wishlist for it too: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/void_bastards