Play DOOM I Enhanced after Doom 64 and especially after Heretic wasn't a good idea. It was similar mistake as when I played Duke 2 after Bio Menace. First two episodes were literally boring. Interesting part started with third episode where was lack of ammunition and in fourth episode where was limited amount of health (at least in some places). The biggest advantage from my point of view is that levels are relatively short, although I played it after more than 20 years, I made some levels in very short time. Doom was important game in history, but later games from genre as mentioned ones and HeXen are better. Now I will be waiting with FPS for Chasm: The Rift, since I loved it in childhood.

Finally, I've beaten Wizardry 8 and finished the Wiz 6,7,8 marathon.
Unlike in Wiz 7, I didn't class-change the adventures except make a mage to a bishop when he had learned the nuclear blast spell.
My final team is Samurai, Lord, Fairy-Ninja, Valkyrie, Monk (with a deadly spear), and Bishop, plus 2 NPCs(Valkrie Vi and Monk Robo), Their average level is 22.
I like this game a lot but I still prefer 7 to 8. In the game, some puzzles required pixel hunting and maybe I could never solve them without a walkthrough.
But I like the skill system in which develop the skills by using it.
Also, some battles were too slow, even I used the wiz8fast mod when the enemies were many.
I'll play The Dark Spire on NDS as the next dungeon crawler RPG.

My list is here

Yesterday I finished "Spec Ops: The Line", and what an amazing story it was! Took me about 5 hours. It's a shame that we don't have more shooters with such a serious perspective on war subject.

The Forgotten City, Sep 26 (Xbox Game Pass)-It's got a pretty good story and the mysteries at the beginning are very intriguing. Once you start peeling back the layers you realize there's not too much depth there which I was worried about very early. The ending section was a bit of a cliched let down but still an interesting spin. A lot of the quests felt like glorified fetch quests. The voice acting and writing were pretty good.

The game generally felt very unpolished. There were a couple of game freezing bugs and a lot of camera stuttering. I also frequently got stuck on obstacles or landscape. The loading times were also a little long and made me wonder if the game was frozen or not. All of this makes it sound like I didn't like the game but I did like it. I just think it could have been better.

Full List

Kraken Academy, Sept 27 (Xbox Game Pass)-I'm not sure what this was. I was intrigued by the premise of a time travel to save a school plot but the actual game had very little time travel. In fact the time travel could have easily been written out of the story and you'd never know the difference. I think it's only really used to finish up side quests. The plot was meh and there wasn't much in the gameplay department until the completely unexpectedly difficult final boss. So I just put on invincibility mode and just kind of ran around the screen waiting for the monologue to be over.

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Where Am I? (NWN EE)
Review here

A Mountain of Trouble (NWN EE)
Review here

A Harper's Tale (Prelude) (NWN EE)
Review here

A Harper's Tale 1: Escort Duty (NWN EE)
Review here

Unpacking, Sept 28 (Xbox Game Pass)-It's a short, lite puzzle game about unpacking a woman's life over the course of several years. It's touching to learn what she keeps with her and what she leaves behind with each move. It felt a little voyeuristic this glimpse into a deeply personal side of a person even if that person was fictional. It was quite good and at the end I was both happy and sad.

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Deathloop (XSX Game Pass)

This one doesn't look much like an Arkane game from the outside, but once you get into it you soon realize that it feels a lot like Dishonored as a shooter. The Arkane DNA is well and truly present. So, as expected you can work through the time loop story playing as you like- from frontal assault to full stealth. Personally, I think the weapons and some of the special abilities you can attach to them are too much fun to play this game as ghost stealth. Killing things is too much fun and easier.

Time Loop stories always worry me as they can potentially be repetitive. Deathloop mostly get away with this. The 4 main areas are large enough and vary enough over the course of the day to make the game feel fresh enough as you play through the missions- only just starting to get a bit old by the final act. The story is average, but the dialogue is great, and the shooting is fun. At around 20 hours, depending upon how much side missions you try to undertake, it about the right length.

Halo. I played this a couple of times back when I had the original Xbox. I quite liked it back then and it holds up mostly okay. I think most people who played it agreed that its greatest flaw was the way they would recycle parts of the level design. First you're slogging through lengthy hallways that all look identical, then you're retracing your steps back through those very same hallways. The game is pretty fun until you get to the mission to find the map room or whatever and then the pace just dies and the middle part of the game feels like something you're enduring, then it has a little bit of an uptick in the last mission or two.

On the upside, the enemy AI is above average for the time, the weapons have a nice kick and I do like the two-weapon system even if I don't think it's something other games needed to mimic, the use of vehicles and their variety is good, and the presentation is quite good. The story is also not bad in a "let's rip off a bunch of sci-fi we like" kind of way. I've always enjoyed how the game presents the other soldiers, all their goofy one-liners, the way they get pissed off and waste ammo on dead enemies, and how they seem to have fun riding along with you, especially when you take a jump in the jeep and the passengers start yelling and pumping their fists. And terrorizing the little red and yellow enemies and the one-liners they give is hilarious. It's actually a pretty goofy game.

Immortality (XSX Game Pass)

The hardest part of this game is attempting to tell people how good it is without spoilers. It's near impossible as the only way to play this one is totally blind and with no idea of what it is really about. It is without a doubt my favorite of the three Sam Barlow FMV games by some margin. It's also one of the more mature and adult oriented games ever- the themes explored could easily bother or even offend a lot of people. There is a lot of nudity, but it's definitely not porn. It had several moments of total WTF revelations- especially when you accidentally reveal the games main "hook" for the first time (which could happen for everyone at different times depending on how you approach things from the start).

The only issue is pretty much the same as Barlow's other works- getting to the ending and understanding it (or coming to your own interpretation of it) isn't all that hard. But if you're a person that likes to 100% everything and uncover every video file and fill in every little blank- then it gets a bit grindy, as far as I can tell getting some rare footage comes down to just luck and keeping on clicking on some items until your lucky numbers come up. Regardless, play it to the official credits ending at least- that takes about 10 hours depending on either how lucky you are or the method you use for solving the story. It is on GOG too.

Sable, Oct 3 (Xbox Game Pass)-There was a lot to like about this game but it never really came together into an enjoyable experience.

I really liked the art style. It was somehow very vivid even though most areas were mountains and barren desert. The world building was pretty good with hints at story that I didn't fully uncover. Platforming and climbing were fun and reminiscent of Assassin's Creed style games.

Unfortunately all of these fun and interesting pieces didn't fit together in an engaging way. After a couple of hours I found myself a little bored and a little lost (a problem I tend to have with open world games in general). This game has a big, gorgeous world with not a lot to do in it and it all felt pretty empty. I ended up choosing a mask pretty early, leaving about 1/3 of the map unexplored. I think the return visit to my clan was supposed to be more impactful by that point I was ready to move on myself.

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Beacon Pines (XSX Game Pass)

I guess this one is best described as a CYOA book, except that most choices are blocked to you until you find certain charms- which then allow you to go back and select new choices. Ultimately this has less game play than what most people would describe as VN's or walking sims. It has beautiful artwork that fits into its theme of being a story book, but for me the actual mystery story was just too linear and on rails. You follow the story, make a choice from one or two choices, get a bad ending (unavoidable) then go back and make a new choice that will be available now. So great art and charm, but average in every other way.

Battle Axe. This is basically what you might have gotten if Henk Nieborg had designed a classic Neo Geo game. The graphics are gorgeous and it plays pretty well, aside from a few moments where the screen might get a tad busy and you lose track of some of the enemies. Much like Xeno Crisis, the game isn't very long but it's challenging and getting good enough to get through all four levels might take a while. I'm always up for a retro arcade experience if it does a good job of mimicking the feel of old arcade games and this is one of the better ones I've played, although the price is a bit stiff and I'd recommend getting it on sale.

The Excavation of Hob's Barrow

I've been looking forward to this ever since I played the demo (at the time still called "Incantamentum" and not yet elected by WadjetEye Games as their next published title; in the meantime I've also played and enjoyed "Sumatra: Fate of Yandi" by Cloak and Dagger Games, the devs). The demo - which is basically the same as the beginning of the full game - immediately drew me in with its atmospheric storytelling, but now that WadjetEye offered its support, the atmosphere was further enriched with great music and voiceovers. The full game turned out to be a bit of a slow burner with a plot you would more or less expect from this genre and hardly any challenging puzzles, but I still enjoyed it very much and did not regret paying the full price. I played a chapter a day and I managed to complete it without having to consult a walkthrough (one time I searched for a hint on a forum). Took me about 8 hours to play through (as a slow player), spread across maybe 4 days?

Castle on the Coast

Cute little platformer made to spread awareness of a Californian children's hospital and its mascot (so you could say it's actually an advergame) and to entertain the children at the hospital itself. As such, there is no real challenge for adults / experienced gamers. You can die - if you try hard to - but it has no consequences to speak of; you'll just start at the last checkpoint again. I still enjoyed it for the exploration and collectathon aspects, the platform mechanics were fun, and overall it was rather relaxing. Graphics are somewhat crude and yet pleasing enough, if you like colorful settings. The level design was varied in the different areas and with its short duration (2-4h maybe?), the game didn't overstay its welcome. Storytelling and dialogues were often kind of weird though; I actually think they game might have been more attractive to kids without them. And maybe I overlooked a few more costumes to unlock (?), but in the end I had over 1000 flower collectibles and no use for them. I'm not even sure if there is any reward for 100%ing the game, and I didn't see any counter for that either (I assume I was close but there was one item I gave up on because it was frustrating to try and reach it). I guess these collectibles are mostly there to show you were you haven't been yet, and yeah, okay, that works, too.