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Dark Souls III (Steam)

Third play through in 12 months, first two were on Xbox. But the game is so good that I bought it on Steam when on sale. Played out the End of Fire ending. From Soft have come a long way with their PC ports, this one is a work of art compared to the original PC version Dark Souls. It runs really well. I played at 1080p maxed settings, I tried 1440p but could only get around 45fps average unless putting settings to the bottom end. The advantage of Steam was far more players available for co-op boss fights, I never had to wait more than a minute to call someone in or get called in. Other than that, it's the same experience as on Xbox- I honestly don't even think the frame rate jump made any difference, I even started up my Xbox game to compare.

Anyway, it's still one of the best games ever made, and the best game since the first Dark Souls. Only NieR: Automata comes even close in modern times. Playing a game I'm already quite familiar with made things go way faster and allowed me more time to notice small details that From Soft put into their games. Like the AI...just little things like misfiring a spell at an unaware enemy results in them flinching and glancing where the spell impacted and not immediately turning (and magically knowing exactly where you are) and charging straight at you like in most games. Or how enemies that cannot reach you easily will take cover out of you firing line or stay with fire support of their archers- even when the archers move. These are the things that set From Software games apart from otherwise really good similar games like The Surge or Ashen.

Oh yes, I tried mouse and keyboard to see how it felt. Don't do it. These games are made for a controller, and that's how I played.
Post edited May 05, 2020 by CMOT70
Streets of Rage 4 (XB1X)

Xbox Game Pass day one release. I only played through once on the default difficulty and only with one character so far (Blaze). It only takes around 3 hours. Like all these types of brawler the real game is in getting better and completing all difficulties, get S ranks on all stages and with all characters. That would take a long time. I'm not really that into these types of games, I'm happy to just finish it once for now.

I played the older 3 games about a year or two ago, so I still remember them well enough. This has the look, feel and sound pretty much right. I'm glad they did not go pixel art, not every game has to be pixel art to revive the spirit of old games.
I have the feeling that I still liked the older games better, especially the second one. Whilst this new game controlled mostly well enough, I did have trouble guaging how far into the screen my character is, because the sprite size does not change as you move into the screen. I never really did get the feel for that and would find myself striking at thin air very often because the enemy is one row over. Don't remember having the problem so much on the older games, so I'm wondering if this time they made the screens deeper maybe. Also, I think some of the enemies use some pretty cheap attacks that are almost impossible to see coming or avoid. But still a pretty good game. Not quite up there though with my favourites in the genre- the Dishwasher games by Ska Studios.
Post edited May 05, 2020 by CMOT70
Next game on my 2020 finished list is Vaporum from GOG. Steampunk dungeon-crawler RPG made in Slovakia. After I've found out, that this game was made in my home country, I purchased it immediately, and started to play few days later. I was not satisfied that much about game purchase in very long time. All what I have expected from the game was delivered and some things have been surmounted. AI on normal difficulty was satisfying, enemies challenging and puzzles were doable with little bit of thinking. The only one, which outmatched me, was the teleport puzzle in The Office level, where I was not able to find out any visual hooks to teleport in correct order to the final switch. Also the game was balanced pretty good for older people, with slower reflexes :) . Few timed puzzles were on the edge, but they added time stop feature to help you out. Although I haven't used it, I see that feature as a big plus for elderly gamers.

The biggest negatives for me was little bit to dark levels for my linking, few of the hidden buttons were impossible to be found without map guides :( and me being to rusty for this type of games :D Still most of the secrets were easier to find than in Grimrock 1 for example.

In few weeks there should be released prequel Vaporum: Lockdown, which I'll be awaiting with open arms and wallet :D

Complete list of games I've finished this year can be found >>>HERE<<<
The games are sorted by the order I finished them and divided by Windows and MAC.

WINDOWS

1. Wolfenstein: Youngblood
2. NecroVision
3. NecroVision: Lost Company
4. Aragami
5. Ori and the Blind Forest (Original Version)
6. Ruiner
7. Zombi Army Trilogy
8. Escape Dead Island
9. Zombie Vikings
10. Manhunt
11. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
12. 198X
13. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
14. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent
15. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
16. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist
17. My Friend Pedro
18. Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure
19. Indiana Jones and The Emperor's Tomb
20. The Suffering
21. The Suffering: Ties That Bind
22. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (Including Escape From Butcher Bay)
23. Painkiller: Black Edition
24. Painkiller: Overdose
25. Chaser
26. Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death
27. Gekido: Kintaro's Revenge
28. Marlow Briggs and The Mask of Death
29. Titanfall 2
30. Nier: Automata
31. TimeShift
32. XIII
33. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
34. Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
35. Sin: Gold
36. Driver: Parallel Lines
37. Call of Juarez
38. GUN
39. Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition
40. MDK

MAC

1. Apotheon
2. Teslagrad
3. Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
4. Draw Slasher
5. In Between
6. Toki
7. The Final Station
8. Boo! Greedy Kid
9. Manual Samuel
Post edited October 13, 2020 by bluethief
Gears Tactics - Played it on Gamepass. I had a lot of fun with it, even though it got painfully repetitive in Act 3. The final boss was awesome and intense, so it was worth the effort.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition - Tried it before and didn't like it. Decided to give it another chance after enjoying Tactics, and this time it clicked with me. Hopefully Microsoft ports Gears 2 & 3 to PC someday.

Streets of Rage 1, 2, and 3 - With Streets of Rage 4 out, I decided to see what all the fuss is about. Great games all of them, but Streets of Rage 2 especially is a masterpiece.
Post edited May 07, 2020 by zazak09
Kim Possible: Kimmunicator (NDS)

I was on a shopping spree lately, buying tons of older consoles, and this game was included in a lot of broken DS Lites.
The way it started I have really expected more. The graphics are really cool, 3D that plays like a 2D platformer. You have the usual assortment of tools and a readily available store, and you're on your way.
Just as I was getting warmed up, the game...ended. Just like that. After 2 or so hours of gameplay, you get a short convo between characters and that's it.
I really expected a bit more.


avatar
zazak09: Gears of War: Ultimate Edition - Tried it before and didn't like it. Decided to give it another chance after enjoying Tactics, and this time it clicked with me. Hopefully Microsoft ports Gears 2 & 3 to PC someday.
Did you get absolutely mad at the final boss too? The difficulty spike is just...ugh.
avatar
IronStar: Did you get absolutely mad at the final boss too? The difficulty spike is just...ugh.
No, because I found an easy way to cheese it. Take cover behind the last box on the right side of the first train car, and RAAM will be unable to hit you.
So far, only Luigi's Mansion 3. I still have a lot of unfinished games but I simply don't have the time (I mean I just finished LM3 and bought it the day it came out, and started playing that very same day).

Since I don't live in a country with... you know... quarantine... I have work to do and that takes away from my free time.

But anyway, coming back to finished games:

Luigi's Mansion 3 is way too long for it's own good. Yes, I found every hidden gem and caught every Boo, but still, it took me 21 hours to get through the 15 floor hotel. And I liked Dark Moon better since it has way more replayability (given you can play one or two missions from whichever mansion you want and not having to start the game from scratch for that). Still haven't play the original though, but yeah, I was so hyped for LM3 and was really dissapointed because it began to drag, and drag... Not a bad game, it's actually really good, specially for fans, but damn I just wanted to be done with it.

Current backlog:

.Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
.FTL (never finished it really, always die at the end)
.Deus Ex (that game is really long, but so unique)
.System Shock 2 (time, where are thee)
.The Banner Saga 2 and 3: I'm still in the 2nd one, but I think the first one was way better.
I've just finished playing LA Noire(Xbox 360)

A masterpiece of a storytelling, that had me feeling like I was actually in the world, in some great Noire film.
My enjoyment was just spoiled by having to be very, very careful with driving as I was raking fines for destruction of property, and that I was REALLY bad at conducting interviews, so I gave up after a while, and just used a walkthrough for those.
The Wizard's Apprentice (NWN2)

The first NWN2 module I ever finished, apart from the official campaigns. Review here.
Gears Tactics (Win 10 Store)

Whoever thought of making a turn based tactical game set in the Gears of War universe knew what they were doing. The cover shooting in the regular games are already quite tactical to begin with. Gears Tactics turned out pretty good, it brings a few good ideas to make it feel apart from other games in the genre. It also has a few small problems.

Technically it's hard to fault. It has an excellent PC settings menu, complete with a built in benchmarking application with frame graph. It accurately tells you the loads on CPU and GPU and you can find what is bottlenecking at a glance. The benchmark surprisingly set me up for 1440p at mostly ultra settings with a few high settings. It sounded a bit unlikely for an Unreal 4 game on my setup, but it worked perfectly at a locked 60fps all the way. So it's a very well optimised game that ran with not a single glitch or bug all the way.

The game does a few things that make it feel different to XCOM. You have 3 action points per turn instead of 2 for a start. This automatically encourages more aggressive tactics which the class skill trees emphasize further. There are 5 classes but they can feel very different depending on how you use the skill trees- each tree having 4 specialty directions. Then there are the Gears of War signature moves- like finishing downed enemies with the chainsaw. These special moves, that risk sticking your neck out, reward the entire team with bonus actions. Because nothing inspires someone more than seeing a teammate turn an enemy into a chainsaw sculpture.
This is absolutely a Gears game in every way. It looks the part, it feels the part and the simple story has ties to Gears 5 if you've played that. So the tactical gameplay is a highlight.

The campaign and missions are where the game eventually falls a little. It has no strategy layer at all. So it's more like Mutant Year Zero. You follow the story and go from battle to battle and develop and build your team, the story missions pause during most chapters whilst you do a few side missions to reach a quota to unlock the next story mission. I do prefer these tactical games to have a strategic layer (like Jagged Alliance), but I still enjoy these types as well. However the games biggest issue is that the variety of missions runs out as the game goes on. There are really only 4 types of side mission and by the end I was wishing for more variety.

But overall I enjoyed it a lot. I really hope they keep going with this as a spinoff series and improve the campaign and mission structure to go with the excellent combat mechanics and polished and optimized presentation. There's real potential here. Being on Game Pass makes it easy to try out as well.
Post edited May 11, 2020 by CMOT70
XCOM: Chimera Squad (Steam) - can't recommend it, 6/10 score (my opinion), XCOM tactics somewhat the same with minor breach and turn sequence changes which are good actually, questionable predefined characters, limited map and mission types.

Well, I get it because of 50% discount and in hopes to play XCOM 2.5 but I should have bought Gears Tactics instead.
Played it on second to last difficulty, it was not difficult at all, maybe the first boss. For some reason you'll operate with only 4 team squad at all times and you can have up to 2 replacement androids if some of your team members KO, and it happened a couple of times and never I've seen an android back up support! Also for some reason you can employ only 8 members in your squad which is ridiculous since they all have *personalities* and speech why on earth you can't check them all? And if you research double research, training and scout that mean that apart from 4-team squad you might need at least 6 more members, not 4. The main mission marked in purple or violet color and it take some time for proper investigation before you may proceed further on, there are side missions however some of them also market purple, some just normal yellow: purple will always have investigation progress bonus, e.g. -2 days; normal side missions could also have that bonus. But you NEVER should want to speed up the investigation process even though the game implies the opposite: I was barely able to research full armor (x2 times) and weapon (x2 times * 4 types of weapons) and full train key members before the final mission was reached and it can't be postponed (Critical Mission). Normally you could have to wait 1-2 days before plot mission becomes critical and that time is extremely important to cure scars if some have them, to complete the training for important characters (always take the medic and train medic first, on Impossible difficulty you may choose different character, medic is in intro/tutorial and a default predefined character for any other difficulty), to get an important character back from side operation mission, to wait on important research as well.
I did not like the characters at all except for maybe 2: Zephyr (lovely voice and beautiful accent, also nice legs) - she is very powerful at the beginning and uses special gloves for close encounter attack, I wasn't able to find the upgrade for her weapons and she becomes quite weak later in the game (WTF); another one is Blueblood (cool african-american dude, good voice actor as well) - he is a very strong pistol assassin and I gave him a special pistol with lighthands ability for 1 spare shot, he did the most kills from almost ridiculous ranges.
Default characters are:
Cherub - good shield ability but really-really odd voice and character design (something between gay from sitcoms and hero's sidekick from animation TV series for kids)
Godmother - bland shotgun black woman, she is good but she is not special in any way
Terminal - medic, the most important character, sometimes her jokes are funny, a mixture of passive-aggressive and cheerfully dramatic
Verge - the weakest of all, not very interesting character for me personally, and I wasn't able to use his Slam ability because there was no such an option in tactical menu for some reason (it's a pity and it made him even more weaker), his other mind attacks were not impressive.

I will never play this game for a second time.
Post edited May 11, 2020 by Cadaver747
Smash brothers Ultimate, I was trying to collect all the spirits, I have all buy 6 and the 6 I need are not spawning so I would consider my game completed. I wish I had friends tho to play with.
Gris (Win 10 Store)

Xbox Game Pass for PC. Artistic 2D platformer that is not the walking simulator that a lot of reviews claim. There is puzzling that gets a bit more complicated as the game goes on. I think some people think a walking simulator is just any game where you cannot die, and you cannot die in Gris- but you can get stuck for a few minutes whilst you figure things out.

The game has great visuals and music and the story will be whatever you choose to interpret it as. I'd say it's about someone struggling to over come depression- you bring colour back to the world, put yourself back together and climb out of the hole you're in. But like I say it's open for interpretation. It was well worth the 4 hours or so it took.
Post edited May 12, 2020 by CMOT70
Tomb Raider Definitive Edition (2013) PS4.


Beautiful game on PS4 with great exploration and decent combat and satisfying stealth. Highly recommended if you are into action adventure games.