I have played the very short point and click Butcher, free on itch.io. It's like a precursor to the Bad Dream series, but more rough around the edges. It's a 15 minutes game, only because I didn't notice a location earlier. The rest of the freebies seem to be prototype parts for Bad Dream: Coma. Only for fans. I recommend getting the full paid series here for some weird indie poiting and clicking.

Black (XSX Game Pass)

OG Xbox version played via backwards compatibility, which in this case means 4K plus HDR. It is probably one the best console shooters, only ever being released on PS2 and Xbox, though the Xbox version is the superior way to play on an Xbox One or new Series console because of the improvements.
Pretty straight forward shooter that has none of the forced stupid scripting like modern Battlefield and COD's. Controls well and looks pretty good. It has 8 levels, the first of which is a short prologue, after that the levels are quite large and take around an hour each. The only downside to an otherwise excellent shooter was the last 2 levels, where bullet sponge enemies wearing what must be tank armor and shields start appearing around every corner. It really slows down the pacing in the final levels of an otherwise well paced game. Good effort for a developer more known for the Burnout and Need for Speed games.

Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders

I really like mystery games, but their not the most common genre and depending on the mechanics used can be quite long and awkward. However this one, starring France's most famous detective, Poirot as he attempts to track down a serial killer who appears to strike targets down in alphabetical order. The game is a point and click with various 3d puzzles to solve, for some reason every suspect has a chest or clock that has a puzzle as the lock. While there are dialogue choices, it's impossible to fail the game, however you get more points for 'acting like Poirot would' and there are also 6 occasions where you can make 'mistakes' such as accidentally drugging witnesses or causing a heart attack. About half way through the game you can easily narrow down who the killer is to 2 people, and then about 3/4 of the way through you already have a good idea who it is, however even if you don't Poirot summarises events and talks things through logically so you can arrive at the same conclusions he gets. Achievement hunters might be annoyed as the game has some very finicky achievements to get that require a 2nd playthrough and likely following a guide. One nice surprise is that the voice actor for Poirot's assistant appears to be the same guy who voiced Holmes assistant in Sherlock Holmes: Nemisis which I played earlier this year.

Zork 1
Walkthrough was absolutely used to beat the game.
The maze with twisty passages that all look alike and the mine zone were the most baffling and non-intuitive areas in Zork 1 for me. Going Up or Down never occurred to me because there was no in-game text descriptions of staris/ladders/inclines in those zones.

Games Finished in 2020 Part 1
Games Finished in 2020 Part 2

Games Finished in 2020 Part 3:

288: Donna: Avenger of Blood (Blazej Dzikowksi) (2012) (WIN)
289: Mysteries of Peak Valley 1: The Lost Sonata (Sunny Penguin Games) (2013) (WIN)
290: Mysteries of Peak Valley 2: The White Lady (Sunny Penguin Games) (2013) (WIN)
291: Mysteries of Peak Valley 3: The Ruin of Souls (Sunny Penguin Games) (2018) (WIN)
292: John Sinclair: Voodoo in London (Ger) (Neon Games) (2016) (WIN)
293: Focality (Drew Wellman) (2011) (WIN)
294: Dead Silence (Diath) (2010) (WIN)
295: Entrapment (Scared Square Games) (2014) (WIN)
296: House of Fear: Revenge (Falcoz) (2014) (WIN)
297: Living Nightmare 1 (Domithan) (2008) (WIN)
298: He Came Through the Door (Teksti) (2019) (WIN)
299: Suspicious Mind (Marc Denizot, Kastchey) (2019) (WIN)
300: Albino Lullaby: Episode 1 (Ape Law) (2015) (WIN)
301: Night of the Zombie Fish! (Daniel Hanley) (2004) (WIN)
302: Mystery of Haunted Hollow, The (John Donlan) (2004) (WIN)
303: William's Nightmare (Mr. Frisby) (2003) (WIN)
304: Shrine 1 (Scumhead) (2019) (WIN)
305: Beasts (Remaster) (LesHauSsebons) (1994, 2004) (WIN)
306: Dark Alleys: Penumbra Motel CE (ERS Game Studios) (2012) (WIN)
307: Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes 1, The (Legacy Interactive) (2008) (WIN)
308: Shrine 2 (Scumhead) (2020) (WIN)
309: Catacombic (The Makers) (2005) (WIN)
310: Wolf Country (Aussie Soft) (2005) (WIN)
311: Gone, My Angel, Gone (Tildy) (2012) (WIN)
312: Forest (Vince Twelve) (2013) (WIN)
313: Simulacra 1 (Kaigan Games) (2017) (WIN)
314: Last Harvest, The (Stormbell Entertainment) (2006) (WIN)
315: Naked Fear (Harry Ominous) (2014) (WIN)
316: Dabda (Bitwarrior) (2017) (WIN)
317: Ballads of Reemus, The: When the Bed Bites (ClickShake Games) (2012) (WIN)
318: ESPER: The Town on the Edge of Darkness (Esper) (2005) (WIN)
319: Dream Chronicles 2: The Eternal Maze (Katana Games) (2008) (WIN)
320: Tengami (Nyamyam) (2014) (WIN)
321: Leisure Suit Larry 06: Shape Up or Slip Out! (Remaster) (Sierra On-Line) (1993, 1994) (DOS)
322: Lilly Looking Through (Geeta Games) (2013) (WIN)
323: Little Acre, The (Pewter Games Studios) (2016) (WIN)
324: Darq DLC: The Crypt (Unfold Games) (2020) (WIN)
325: My Brother Rabbit (Artifex Mundi) (2018) (WIN)
326: Crazy Dad 1: Sweet Revenge (Carmel Games) (2014) (WIN)
327: Crazy Dad 2: A Day at the Library (Carmel Games) (2014) (WIN)
328: Crazy Dad 3: Payphone Mania! (Carmel Games) (2015) (WIN)
329: Bear with Me: Episode 1 (Exordium Games) (2016) (WIN)
330: Bear with Me: Episode 2 (Exordium Games) (2017) (WIN)
331: Bear with Me: Episode 3 (Exordium Games) (2017) (WIN)
332: Bear with Me: Episode 4 – The Lost Robots (Exordium Games) (2019) (WIN)
333: Crazy Mom (Carmel Games) (2016) (WIN)
334: Christmas Blackout, A (Carmel Games) (2015) (WIN)
335: Christmas Cookie Quest (Carmel Games) (2014) (WIN)
336: Fedora Spade Case 2: The Red Ring (Radical Poesis Games) (2007) (WIN)
337: Fedora Spade Case 3: Death Wears a Fedora (Radical Poesis Games) (2007) (WIN)
338: Crazy Dad 4: Cinema Madness (Carmel Games) (2016) (WIN)
339: Katja's Escape 1: The Pharaoh's Tomb (Carmel Games) (2015) (WIN)
340: Katja's Escape 2: The Mad Scientist's Lab (Carmel Games) (2015) (WIN)
341: Fedora Spade Case 4: The Last Job (Radical Poesis Games) (2008) (WIN)
342: Detail, The: Episode 1 – Where the Dead Lie (Rival Games) (2014) (WIN)
343: Detail, The: Episode 2 – From the Ashes (Rival Games) (2015) (WIN)
344: Dakota Winchester 1 (Carmel Games) (2014) (WIN)
345: Dakota Winchester 2: Cactus City (Carmel Games) (2014) (WIN)
346: Dakota Winchester 3 (Carmel Games) (2016) (WIN)
347: Return to Mysterious Island 1 (Retour sur l’Ile Mystérieuse) (Kheops Studio) (2004) (WIN)
348: Myst 3: Exile (Presto Studios) (2001) (WIN)
349: Golden Wake, A (Grundislav Games) (2014) (WIN)
350: Batman: Death in the Family – Interactive Movie (Warner Brothers Animation) (2020) (BLU)
351: Agent A Chapter 1: A Puzzle in Disguise (Yak & Co.) (2015) (WIN)
352: Agent A Chapter 2: The Chase Continues (Yak & Co.) (2015) (WIN)
353: Agent A Chapter 3: Ruby’s Trap (Yak & Co.) (2016) (WIN)
354: Agent A Chapter 4: A Narrow Escape (Yak & Co.) (2017) (WIN)
355: Agent A Chapter 5: The Final Blow (Yak & Co.) (2019) (WIN)

- Final Fantasy X.
Loved it! Definitely shows it's age in the combat, but still a wonderful game.

- Dark Souls 1, 2, 3.
Played the series for the first time this year and love each game. 3 is probably my favourite, simply because I'll end up playing it the most.

- Moonlighter
Really enjoyed this one. I would have liked there to be more customization with the shop/village, but still a fun game! Haven't played the DLC yet.

Creaks - 3/5

There's some very clever & creative puzzles, and none of them feel like filler; every puzzle seems like it exists to present an interesting concept about the game's mechanics.

The soundtrack is incredible - and not just because of how pleasant it is to listen to; the way it dynamically evolves as you progress through each step of a puzzle is brilliant. I'd love to see more games do a similar thing.

The visual art, on the other hand, doesn't quite merge gameplay and aesthetics as successfully. There are a lot of areas where the intricately drawn art style can make it hard to distinguish foreground from background and important object and random decoration.

The minigames, while completely optional, all just feel like chores to get through.

But the one thing that really bugs me is just how cutscene-heavy the game is. It might not be a huge deal if it were ever obvious when you were in a cutscene, but it never is. I can now say I truly understand why so many games switch to being letterboxed during cutscenes, because not knowing if you have control over your character or not can be extraordinarily frustrating.

If you can put up with the annoyances, I'd say it's worth checking out if you're in the market for a whimsical gothic-fantasy cinematic puzzle-platformer.

Dusk is very successful at recreating a late 90s FPS style. This is more of an achievement than it sounds like, since we've seen a number of retro FPSs that still can't resist crap like procedural generation, crafting, or RPG elements. If you've already played stuff like Quake, you already know how to play this, minus minor touches like giving you a flashlight, a slide move, and letting you pick up and throw objects. You're dropped into a particular environment - in this case a backwoods region in which everything wants to kill you - and you simply run around, gather weapons and ammo, find keys to color-coded doors, and move on to the next level while blasting as much as you can. The graphics are pretty blocky, probably a bit more than a studio like id would have allowed in their time, but everything is so fast and smooth that I didn't mind at all. It helps that the game has nice, atmospheric art direction.

You go from the woods to an industrial area, to a small city, to an underground lab, to...a lot of weird stuff. It's Lovecraftian in the same way that Quake was. The level design is consistently good, although there was a more puzzle-like level toward the end involving gravity shifting that I wasn't too crazy about. The weapons are mostly basic (melee, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, etc.), but dual-wielding shotguns never got old and the game has probably one of my favorite implementations of a grenade launcher in a game.

Despite the GRIM HORROR vibe it has, it's got a goofy side that you don't see in a lot of games anymore thanks to everyone being so hung up on immersion (I highly recommend throwing the bars of soap at everyone).

It's a shame this game didn't get a PC version. Played it on the PS2, might be the best FPS on that system

I finished SUPERHOT recently. It's pretty good, but they should've made a level creation tool.

BloodRayne -Terminal Cut

Mixed feelings. Some parts of it are quite nice, others mediocre to terrible. Surprisingly, the whole exploitation theme of bloodthirsty vinyl vampiress vs. evil nazi occultists is something I count among the good things. It is so silly and over the top, walking (quite probably intentionally) a very thin line between f******* cool and extremely cringy. Some of it is really too much and deserves more than a facepalm, like costume, jiggle physics, and camera angles for the supporting female NPC, or Rayne quipping: "Do I look fat in this? *giggle*". But I can't deny that I actually found Rayne kind of awesome, like a kinky Lara Croft with vampire powers slaughtering her way through Castle Wolfenstein, and I enjoyed the hell out of letting her kick ass and hearing Laura Bailey voice her ironically detached one-liners. I also felt reminded of VTM Bloodlines now and then due to the theme and music (although I also found odd and unlikely parallels to the movie Run, Lola, Run from 1998 there, which also featured a red-haired badass of sorts; I know this seems like a very random comparison, but hear me out and check the music in the videos below, just for the fun of it ;) ).

The story has some neat elements to it, although nothing all that original, and the plot is rather basic and dumb, mostly just an excuse to kill nazi officers and other monsters. I say other monsters, but there isn't really much variety, only 3-4 different species (including humans), and at least one of them is really lame and boring to fight on top of it. The best levels were actually those where you mostly just had to fight nazis equipped with regular weapons and nothing supernatural(ly boring). In those levels you even get a certain amount of freedom in how to tackle things and in which order you want to cross your nazi officer targets from your list, like a real 'Hitwoman'. It's worth noting, there is no manual saving and there are no checkpoints within a level. If you die, you start at the beginning of the level. I knew that from the demo I played back in the days, and at that time I used to think BloodRayne was a hard and frustrating game, and precisely due to one of these levels where you get to roam around freely and kill nazi officers. But now I realized that those are in fact the fun levels, and they aren't as hard and dying in them isn't as demotivating as I thought, even if it happens after you've already eliminated 2 of your 3 targets. Due to the granted freedom, the possibility of switching order, coming in from different sides, everything playing out a little differently this time (sometimes also leading to funny cheese solutions of friendly fire among the opponents or targets accidentally killing themself by falling off edges), I didn't mind starting these levels over. It didn't take long to replay them either, as they were fast paced and fun, and I was learning the layout of the big nazi base. The risk of dying and having to start over in this case actually added a bit of excitement and warned me not to be too confident all the time, because generally, I found BloodRayne rather easy on Normal difficulty, since you can quickly regain lost health by snacking on the next opponent you manage to isolate.

I just wish the whole game would have been more like these levels, because sadly it's not, and other levels are just rather tedious and linear affairs in which you keep fighting the same kind of enemies over and over again with the sole purpose of following or finding the path to the next level, and most of the times it's possible and often even advisable to try and ignore the opponents and just run past them to the next section. The second half of Act 2 (of 3), for example was such a slog and I couldn't wait for it to be over. I also didn't like the loot mechanics which occasionally let you find weapon/ammo pickups if you destroy crates, but more often than not the crates are just empty and it gets really old to hack all these crates to bits in the hope of an unlikely find, really not worth it. And while as a power fantasy, it is very satisfying to hack opponents to bit, in truth the combat is not very interesting and rather clunky (in that regard it's also a bit like VTM Bloodlines). Melee with WASD and mouse is just chaotic and prone to lead to hectic circling around enemies and senseless button mashing. Shooting uses auto-aiming, except when you try to snipe, but the sniping mode was the worst I've ever seen in a game so far, since in order for it to work, you have to step into the enemies' line of sight, without cover, because otherwise you'd just shoot the walls, then you have to zoom in manually, you can't move while you're in this mode, your shot doesn't even go where the crosshair is, it's just a vague point of reference and you have to guess how high above it you actually have to aim. On the other hand, you get abilities like bloodsucking - which at the same time heals yourself and kills your opponent -, slowing down time for everyone (including yourself) or gathering enough rage to do powerful slowmo superattacks for quite a while.

Due to all of this plus the uneven level design the balance was really off. Regular opponents were seldom a threat, more a means to regain health and rage that you could then unleash on the officer targets or bosses which made them go down fast and easy. The things I struggled most with, on the other hand, were some labyrinthine level layouts, not knowing where to go (even though the direction is always indicated, but it doesn't always help), especially if searching around for the level exit brought me in danger of falling off edges, into (hurtful) water or poison, risking a restart. Sometimes the game pulled some bullshit of putting additional, unexpected dangers after a boss fight or a goal finally achieved, making me tremble at the very last moment before the level exit when the game would be saved. But some levels were really bad on the whole, like the mecha level (mechas are supposed to be fun, this was so tedious), The Bridge (jump across a minefield towards a group of bazooka wielding enemies, fight a mecha, watch two cutscenes, make one wrong step in the following platforming section, repeat everything from scratch), and the endboss was a pain to fight as well, because you had to hit a certain spot that was hard to see, and as mentioned, the aiming is off anyway (in the end I got lucky and was able to cheese it, but bullet sponges with tiny weak spots are no fun).

So, in the end I don't really know what to think. It's a cool game. It's a lame game. It's awesome. It's awkward. It's great fun. It's tedious and frustrating. It's special. It's mediocre. It's a guilty pleasure. It's a waste of time. I dunno. All of the above to some extent, maybe. But it got me involved enough to finish it, and that's something, I guess.

That being said, as a previous buyer of the original, I'm thankful for receiving the Terminal Cut for free, which didn't offer gamepad support as I thought it might, but gave me an incentive to finally play through it for real.

TL:DR
An uneven videogame adaptation of the movie Run, Lola, Run, with more vampires and nazis. And here is the proof:

Exhibit A
Exhibit B
;)

Finished Tukoni, cute but very short adventure game. However, the game is so easy and the menu so intuitive, that I was able to play it even though I can't read Ukrainian. Just by guessing you can make out start, save, load and quit, though why a game that lasts only 10-15 minutes needs the option for multiple saves is anyone's guess. Still, the cuteness makes you feel good and it's free on Steam.

Full list: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2020/post71

Well, I only died once before even unlocking anything and then it was pretty easy so 1. I wouldn't worry too much about losing progress and 2. as a result I don't really know if the unlocks are all that useful, lol. What I know:

* There are different corporations with different start conditions. You can unlock higher levels of these by reaching certain benchmarks (like "refine 60 units of iron ore in one round") which take a while to achieve, though. Better corporations start with more resources but the numbers I've seen don't seem like all that much. I *think* that would save you 2-3 hours at best (in a game where a campaign can easily last dozens of hours) but I may be underestimating this, e.g. you *might* be able to start with facilities that you'd normally only get much later which would be pretty useful but I really don't know if that's the case.

* By beating the campaign (colonising a planet) you can unlock more species for your starting crew - in my opinion the differences between the species are rather negligible, especially in the early game where you can still handle a lot of the tasks yourself, so I don't see how starting with non-human crew members would be a big boost. Plus, it will take a while before you even get to colonise a planet.

* Over the course of a campaign you acquire artefacts which are effectively perks - upgrades to the captain, your harvester ship etc.. When you start a new campaign you can equip several artefacts that you've found in an earlier campaign. Some artefacts are pretty darn useful and chances of finding a specific one appear to be tiny so I guess these can indeed provide a very powerful boost when starting a new campaign. And better corporations actually also start with more artefacts so that would probably be the biggest benefit of getting those.

* Finally certain benchmarks unlock new modules for your ship and from what I understand you get to keep access to those in new campaigns. Some of them are pretty cool but I don't think they'd make a great timesaver.

Sooo that's the progression / unlock system in a nutshell. The artefacts alone should make things a lot more bearable if you lose. Plus, if you start over you can build your ship much more cleverly than you will in your first attempt (both my ships were quite a chaotic mess, lol) - I actually almost hoped I would lose just so I could start over and build a prettier ship, lol. But as I said, the game is actually pretty darn easy so I wouldn't worry too much.

Thanks for your honest review, I'm very interested in it to play it in the future but I don't need to be hyped about it. I'll take it as it is.
Nice! Its a free game and the art has a children book kind of beauty. I'm installing it rn.

^Thanks! :-)

Code Vein (XSX)

Post Apocalyptic Vampire Anime Dark Souls. Or probably closer in some ways to Ashen in that you can always take along an AI controlled (or RL) partner to help. Complete with Waifu Creater '19 as your all in one anime character builder to get you going.

Unlike Dark Souls the story can be understood without diving deeply into the games depths and making sideways assumptions. That's good in a way, though the Dark Souls story is one of the best in gaming at the same time. Code Vein's story is basically that humans, in desperation, created Vampires to attempt to fight off the apocalypse with an almost immortal army. But it didn't really work. That's the basics, though there's a few more twists in a weird Japanese normal sort of way. The story quite neatly explains the Dark Souls mechanics of constant revival with loss of "memory" needed to be collected to regain lost experience.

The game is way easier than Dark Souls if you play with an AI side kick- that's the games normal mode. Hard mode would be to play solo. The AI partners are very competent and useful and the enemy AI generally deals with them if they are considered the main threat, which allows tactics built around that.
Character building is also quite good. Class is defined by a "Bloodcode" which can be changed at any time as you find them. There are many classes, some with only subtle differences that mix up your stats and Ichor (mana) to fine tune your play style...ranged, tank, slow and heavy, fast dexterity build etc. I mainly settled on a fast spear user using a very balanced Bloodcode. It all combines well resulting in many subtle way to build to your play style and what sidekick you want to take along.

Bosses were done well for the most part, avoiding the gimmick type of boss that plagued The Surge. Though as the game goes on most of the bosses become what I term "Thrashers"...their difficulty coming mainly from how difficult it is to find an opening to ever get in and deal damage. They just thrash around the arena endlessly. They were mostly okay though, but easier than Dark Souls. Once I learnt the game and worked out my play style I beat almost every boss first try, except The Skull King- the very definition of a thrasher boss.

Some of the areas are really well done, but some just lack that From Software sort of touch and come off a bit dull.

Excellent game, would have been the best game I've played this year if it wasn't for the fact I replayed Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3 earlier in the year. Whilst it's not quite up there with From Software games, it compares very well to the competition, I'd rate it level with Nioh at the very least. The game has four endings, I got the True ending. I'll replay it for sure later to see at least the main two alternate endings.