I agree. The interface and animations are too slow to endure. The graphics aren't too bad.

Fallout 4 - wow, it took me a long time to convince myself to give it one more chance. But then I finally did, after lame introduction, it turned out to have quite a lot of stuff which gives some fun. Wasn't expecting that (giving the game's reputation, although I must admit, that it's partially justified...)

Clash: Artifacts of Chaos - I knew I won't be disappointed with next game in Zenozoik and I wasn't indeed. Good stuff, only regret a bit that there is no additional stuff aside from story mode (like arena in first Zeno Clash).

The Sinking City - a shame that fighting is quite mediocre and that inverstigations are focused on very limited mechanics... but I still enjoyed it. And I'm genuinly sad after reading, that investigations won't be integral part of the sequel.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Classic Mode 2 (DLC)

I've been wanting a game like Castlevania 2 (nonlinear sidescrolling overworld with dungeons, multiple towns) for a while, and this DLC did definitely deliver. It's clearly based on Castlevania 2, complete with the day-night cycle, but not without differences. Specifically:
* Subweapon ammo and currency are separate resources.
* No leveling up. (In Castlevania 2, you could level up up to 6 times during the course of the game.) There are, however, items to boost max HP and MP. (No defense upgrade, however.)
* After talking to someone, there's a menu option that allows you to review the dialog.
* There;s a few buyable consumables, like healing potions (though you can only buy if you have less than 3).
* Night works a bit differently; unlike in CV2, the enemies don't get a power upgrade. Instead, there's changes in enemy placement to make things harder, and a few events that change depending on day or night. There's a consumable item that will trigger the transition instantly, if you don't feel like waiting.
* Each dungeon has its own theme, as well as a boss at the end. (In CV2, the dungeons (mansions) have a similar feel, and there's only 2 bosses in the entire game; this has changed.) Also, each dungeon has a musical theme. (And there's some nice music here.)

As for physics:
* You can't switch directions mid-air. You can, however, start jumping straight and then start moving in mid-air. Also, you can turn in mid-air to whip behind, but your movement path doesn't change.
* You can jump onto and off of stairs.
* No backflip or extended whip, but there's a backdash you can buy in the first town, and a few other abilities you can get as well.

It took me around 5 hours to reach the end, though I didn't get the best ending yet.

In summary, I would recommend this DLC (though I think they could have released it as an entirely separate game).

The Calisto Protocol (PC Game Pass)

Very heavily inspired by Dead Space, not as good though. Worth playing just the same. My main issue was that the melee combat was of little use when faced with groups, which was most of the time. They just keep stun locking you. Ammo is too critical for half the game, so melee is essential.

Otherwise, the game also pulled the old "pick something up and get jumped" trick too often. Or hit the plot switch or item pickup and have a wave of enemies' spawn out of nowhere- right from where you just cleared.

The mood and tension are good, the graphics likewise, as is the sound. Well, sort of. I had a quick look on my Xbox first. As expected on a high-end PC it runs and looks better. But the console has the better sound, with Dolby Digital surround built in automatically at system level and supported by the game. The sound makes a difference in tense horror games like this, but I still went with better graphics and double the frame rate.

It's worth playing through once for sure.

I can understand the sentiment of these comments, I just find that my nostalgia for the games that I either played (Ultima, Might and Magic, Wasteland) or ones I didn't get to like the original Fallout or Lands of Lore, hasn't faded so much that they're not unworthy of revisiting or giving a go for the first time as I was away from games for many years. Writing reviews and commenting on annoyances is something I could easily do (having to steal from your companions to trade gear, who thought of that?!?) but I'd rather focus on my nostalgic enjoyment. Looking forward to tackling Fallout 2 at some point this year as well!

Wait, what game did this?

I do remember Ultima 3, at least in its NES incarnation, would not let you trade with dead party members. Similarly, Final Fantasy 6 wouldn't allow you to change the equipment of dead party members. (Justification for Ultima 3 would be to add the risk of losing items if the character gets turned to ash; FF6 has no such justification.)

Original Fallout

Yeah I had to go search online for how to do this, ridiculous! LOL

Still Wakes the Deep (PC Game Pass)

Spend around 5 hours walking around, climbing around and swimming around a crumbling Oil Rig. All whist something is trying to kill you. The Oil Rig is a good location, I think I even learnt something about how they work.

It has more action and less wandering around reading stuff than most walking simulators. It's pretty good for a short experience. All the characters are Scottish...luckily the game has subtitles because I canne ner' underfuckingstand a word that Scottish people are saying. There's an option to play the game in Scottish Gaelic...honestly, I'd understand just as much of that as their English.

FIST Forged In Shadow Torch, Jun 20 (Xbox Game Pass)-This was fun but very challenging metroidvania. I had to switch it to easy about 1/3 of the way thru and even then I still struggled with both halves of the final boss. Some of the platforming mechanics were quite fun especially when I got the whip and movement was finally much less restrictive. Once you get the rebreather the underwater portions aren't too bad and I actually enjoyed the underwater chase sequence. Although the underwater snake boss was annoying due to limited movement and abilities you have underwater. The ancient complex was an interesting puzzle level. Combat was very difficult as enemies quickly felt like bullet sponges and you'd fight wave after wave in some areas. I did not want to learn a combo system for the combat. Writing was not great, voice acting was average in most places with a couple of bright spots, Rayton, Duke, Lady Q. Cutscene graphics looked pretty good and the game very well with the exception of one or two areas of stuttering. Also, I have no idea who or what was forged in Shadow Torch or even what Shadow Torch is.

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Strange Horticulture

I lost my mind and all my plants died once, but I persevered not using any continues and completed this crafty game on my second attempt. I had my newts-eye on Cultist Simulator for some witchcraft but I believed this is an even better choice. I got Ending 2 "Elderphinium" with all characters surviving. A+ in Herbology Class.

Hints: 0
Mistakes: 5
Game Over: 1
Plants Identified 59/77
Game Completed no. 112

Observer (or I guess technically it's >Observer?). I wanted something short I could complete before going on my vacation, and landed on this one. I did indeed finish it before leaving. You control Rutger Hauer, who's playing a cyberpunk detective who can uncover stuff about suspects by linking into their brains. He's investigating a murder involving his son at the grungiest, most pigeon-infested apartment building you can imagine.

The pattern the game falls into is you finding a crime scene, using your super detective vision to uncover clues, and then checking someone's mind for further clues, which cause you to go through very trippy (epilepsy warning is quite appropriate) explorations involving mazes, navigating simple obstacles, and later on doing stealth sequences. It's too involved to call the game a walking simulator, but it's on that next level above. You mostly walk around and poke at stuff, but there are occasional game overs if you're not careful.

I can't say I liked it very much and its short length was probably the only thing that kept me playing through to the end. That, and I wanted to finish the game for Rutger Hauer, since it was his last role. It looks pretty nice and they certainly art-directed the crap out of it, but I rarely found it truly involving and the dream sequences could sometimes go on a bit long. The story in general isn't anything special, sort of standard cyberpunk stuff, and probably could have been wrapped up even sooner than it was.

Myst: Masterpiece Edition. I had played this when it first came out (I think I still have my original CD-ROM copy...), made a certain amount of progress and began to get the gist of the story (find the pages of the books imprisoning the wizard's sons to release them, even though it's clear that the sons are probably stuck in the books for good reason), but then got pulled away by other stuff. Replaying it now, it's actually not that tough a game, although it definitely has its moments, nor is it a very long game.

It still looks quite nice. Obviously pretty primitive now but it's well-directed. Everything just looks like what it's supposed to be and the video sequences are well-integrated with the rest of the game. It's impressive what the Millers did considering it was mostly new territory for games at the time. I generally like the puzzle design, which encourages just poking around at stuff and figuring it out as you go. As usual, the one that stumped me the most, the gear-turning puzzle, got me because of how it requires a non-standard control interaction. I was getting out the scratch paper to work it out and all you have to do is hold the freaking mouse button down instead of clicking to trivialize the puzzle. Then again, I seem to recall that was one of the puzzles I solved the first time around, so maybe I'm just getting dumber...

My main complaint is that the slide show movement can be confusing at times, especially in areas with multiple exits close together. I kept getting turned around and disoriented in the tree village world. I have to assume the full 3D remake probably fixes this.

Arcade Tycoon finished.
Gave it four stars.
There is 12 campaign stages to unlock 3 categories bronze, silver and gold trophy with each category having a goal and unlocks something.
I liked the game very much and it's procedural unlocks even got all achievements for it but i started using galaxy at the 8th level i think. So the game lenght might have been over 30 hours.
The beginning isn't easy but you mostly need money and stars are for unlocking machines, researches, upgrading machines and latter i found out even for changing perks if some of your employes get a bad perk then you can change that.
Only had 2 crashes and the floor glitch in version 2.0.3 is fixable by loading right away in a save game that didn't have the glitch.
If you remember that the floor wasn't glitched and you load and get a glitched floor just reload and don't save the game with glitched floor or you will be stuck with it in that save file.
Also used only manual saves.
Now getting money in this game seems the more you have the more you get meaning bigger interest in positive money. Didn't use loans much.
Also there are some rng like thieves mostly appear more if you have more money, aliens might steal a machine from you or bust the machine so it needs to be fixed for money yes fixing anything costs money because they are replacing the parts.
Kinda didn't like how small some spaces are it's basicly tetris space with your machines and stalls.Most levels aren't that big.
But i think if you reach a goal that doesn't get deleted when you reach it and delete some of the machines with the already reached goal.
Also don't like how if i want the laast decoration and i click away on something else i need to scroll the mouse wheel to get to that decoration.
You can also earn money stars and coins for unique machine by accepting some challenge jobs like play at 4x times speed for this many minutes or clean 50 garbage with a tool on your own. You can get money or stars from it but if you make 5 jobs you can get 1 coin for 1 unique machine.
This is a recently bought game i beat already today and is my 89th beaten game on gog.
There is a sandbox mode but it's more better to play the sandbox mode after you beat the campaign game as not all machines are unlocked in sandbox unless you go through the campaign.

The Rewinder, Jun 21 (Xbox Game Pass)-Beat this a few days ago. The story was somewhat interesting and I really like the idea of time manipulation in games but in general the puzzles and gameplay weren't great. Although I think they could make an entire short game about the backwards time puzzles in the cave. I think I was supposed to connect with the characters more because when certain characters died or made great sacrifices it didn't hit that hard.

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