Grim Dawn - pure warrior

Enjoyed this play through more than the first time, in part b/c, while i had to do some kiting, it was a lot loss reliant on that tactic than my previous DoT/kite build. Did occasionally run out of combat just to let CDs recharge before blitzing back in.

5 deaths, and 3 of them were on the stupid aether carpet on a single side quest. Guess I should've stacked aether resist for that. Might've been smart. A 4th was dying to the boss in that zone when it was on 10% health and I took spike damage after I should've potted but thought "Nah, I got this", and 2 of the aforementioned deaths on the carpet were angrily/lazily trying to wander back to finish off the boss.

Ah well.

Also think the game looked better in comparison to Titan Quest (opening charm, but disappointing story depth after Greece and combat that for many classes never evolves beyond LMB spam) and FATE (charming start to finish, but lacking some modern amenities like weapon switching).

At least on normal the game is not particularly drop reliant either. I finished the game wearing lvl 10 gloves (on a lvl 52 character). It is both odd and nice that some zones scale +x above your character, but other zones, after you level past them, seem to convert to -x.

That makes grinding certain zones (and dailies) frustrating b/c you have to kill a bunch of mobs that aren't hard, but are enough to slow you down annoyingly, and other zones (and dailies) constantly open to you for grinding xp/rep/gear.

Not entirely sure I'm a fan of the game design that created two pairs of factions that are opposed and require you to make a binary choice between them. I'm not clear the choice matters all that much, but either way that seems flawed - if it matters, you're requiring people to stop and research the implications of that choice, or if it doesn't matter, what's the point?

But these are minor issues - on the whole a good ARPG. Maybe better the 2nd time - not just b/c you're likely to have a few pieces of twink gear, but b/c most of the whole (factions aside) make more sense.

And even the 2nd time, many of the hidden notes around the countryside are dark, dark, dark. Not sure the actual plot carries the weight that a number of those notes pull off. Dark, man.

LEGO City Undercover (PC version)

Yeah, I'm a sucker for LEGO games, and that one delivered! I'm so glad they ported it to PC! As always, tongue-in-cheek humor, lots and lots and lots of secrets to discover, vast area to freely play in... What's to complain about?

Oh, well, yeah, the port is not perfect: I've got several little bugs, like cutscenes not triggering, objects not being ready to be assembled... Each time had to restart the game (from the menu screen, not from zero) and then it went well. I didn't have many of those bugs, but it was a little bit annoying nevertheless...

But it didn't take away the fun I got with it! ^_^

As always with LEGO games, I'll get back at it later to try to 100% the game!

So far in 2017: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2017/post15

Stars in Shadow - my rating: 3/5.

Finished my first playthrough of this Master of Orion style 4X game, playing as the insect-like Orthin.

It had some balancing issues in terms the AI and resource gathering (research, minerals, money). Diplomacy is somewhat unpredictable: a faction I had a great relationship with suddenly turned on me for no reason and with no warning. I would expect that from a faction I had a negative relationship with but not one of these. What's the point in building up "trust" if they will turn on you 180'.

Also, there's not much you can do with your supposed trading partners, they never sell anything of actual interest, like planets, systems and resources. The game does list planets as a tradeable good, but even those I had a maxed-out positive diplomatic arrangements with would never sell me any of their planets, regardles of price and the development level of the planet. Towards the end of the game I found myself with tonnes of money but with nothing to spend it on, in stark contrast I was always struggling to gather enough minerals.

Amassing the highest levels of reserach (of any faction) never benefitted me in the end, it did little to impress the other factions. Having the strongest and most prevalent trading arrangements (of any faction) also did nothing to help me win the game. Instead it was pure military numbers that decided the game, I feel that was the only winning condition available.

So calling this a 4x game ? ... hm, I'm not so sure about that, since it implies you can win the game based on more than one criteria or condition. At least that is my interpretation of what 4X means, and I just don't think Stars in Shadow is balanced and complex enough to qualify for this description.

On a positive note: the game is very easy to learn and get into, the menues were well-organized and the interface was clear of clutter, there's a healthy dash of humor in the game, nice variety of unique factions, the visual style is very appealing, great soundtrack.

A couple of nice and useful features: you can automate what you build on each colonized planet, where the game decides what the best thing to build is, given your current level or status. At first I did not use this feature but once I got beyond 10+ colonized planets I turned it on. It was extremely useful. There's also an autocombat option. Again, I did not use this function at first, however once I enetered a war it became too time-consuming to handle combat manually.

Finished Broken Sword V: The Serpent's Curse and I am a bit disappointed. Graphics are fine and characters mostly good (except for the animations). Puzzles were mostly easy except for a few ones that were too cryptic.

The real problem was that moving around was really, really slow and annoying.

Full list here.

Chrono Cross. Final party was Serge, Orlha, and Steena. I really enjoyed the game. Among other things, the sound track was amazing.

Just finished Tales from the Borderlands (PS4). My first game from Telltale games that I beat, and it was awesome. Loved the characters, the story, almost about everything (minor some annoying moments and slower parts in the game).
Maybe I should go play the Walking Dead from these guys too...

My list (well this one just on it...)

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. 2/5

Camera and controls are a bit clunky with a keyboard and mouse. The puzzles are okay but still fun to do. Boss fights are simplistic but are strangely satisfying. The graphics obviously did not age well but I like the sound effects and music. The absence of a map or journal is frustrating. You will get lost a couple of times with no idea on what to do next and where to go. And that WTF ending.

On to the sequel and will hopefully buy the rest of the games in the series.

Y U no use gamepad?

I've finished them all (including "Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain") and my favourite of the series is still Soul Reaver 2.

Thanks for the review, pal.

Not trying to show off but Blood Omen: LoK was my first attempt with the Steam controller and, oh boy, it gave the title new life in 5 minutes, man.

(...)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

;P

Eternal Journey: New Atlantis (HOG)

This is in the Steam Hidden Object Bundle 4-in-1, and...that about covers it.

Pros:
The story was ambitious and outside the usual array of HOG tropes
Hidden object minigames were...fine.
In-game map showing active zones and zones with a yet-to-find hidden item

Cons:
Most everything else.
Puzzles were bland
Despite being ambitious the plot didn't seem to even try to draw me in other than the very beginning and end, and for a 5 hour game, that leaves a lot of dead space in between.

Worst of all, I found the gameplay was fairly poor on intuitive design. I ended up using the map because even when I remembered what environmental thing a found object was tied to, said thing was often not in a map location that was particularly intuitive based on navigating around within the game world.

So the whole thing becamse an exercise in one damn thing after another until finished.

Despite that, it's not a <terrible> HOG - everything works. And hey, it's not about a child/lover/parent sucked to some dark mystical realm. No, not at all - it's about a child/lover/parent in a dark mystical state on Mars! 150 years in the future!

Compleeeetely different. Right?

Not the worst way to spend $0.25, but definitely not the best use of 5 hours of precious life.

With that said, I will still almost certainly at least load up "Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story" to finish off the 4-in-1 set, because hey, I spent a hard-earned quarter to buy it.

Two more additions to my little list!

Yesterday I cleared once again Pokémon Red. Yup. Never gets old for me.

And today I beat Honest Hearts, a Fallout: New Vegas DLC for the second time. This time I chose the other option I didn't choose in my last playthrough.

Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story

Part 4 (at least of the order I played in) of the Steam Hidden Object Bundle 4-in-1.

By far the shortest (3-4 hours?), and certainly 100% true to the tropes of the genre - true love stolen away by dork mystical forces. I meant dark, but it came out funnier this way.

Anyway, this game does pull off some decent ambiance, and the final cutscene where _____ stays behind to fight the demons was laugh out loud funny, kind of sweet, and somehow appropriate.

I rate it "not bad."

Overall it's a decent bundle (except for the long, often tedious mess that was "Atlantis on Mars: Journey of WTF") if you like the genre.

Dracula: The resurrection
The story is simple with a few nice bits here and there, but unfortunately ending on a clifhanger. The graphics, and especially the animations haven't aged well, but the music is quite good. Puzzles are rather simplistic but mostly logical. The greatest challenge is not to overlook fine details (like running around for a half-hour because you didn't realize one can interact with a small, hard to spot metal-piece on a bookshelf)
Overall: a decent game with aged visuals, but nice ambiance.
7/10

22.5. - Torchlight (PC)

I really can't see what all the hype was about. It's an A-RPG where you click on enemies to make them disappear, and occasionally you press 1 or 2 to recharge HP or mana if there was too many of them to click at once. Then, at one point you start right-clicking as that makes them disappear faster, with the very same skill you had since the beginning of the game. Story is next to nonexistent, and you can manage to miss almost all sidequests if you don't activate them when you should and can't be bothered to backtrack half the game.
Am I missing something?