Fallout 2.

To be quite honest I found Fallout 2 to be enjoyable but a steep decline from Fallout 1.

The starting village is very "tribal", despite being founded only 90 years ago by fresh out of vault err...vault dwellers. In those 90 years the former vault dwellers and their descendants managed to create a whole new belief system, grew to treat common (vault) technology as if it were mystical, they even created a giant ritual temple. In only 90 years. If it were set hundreds of years after the first game then maybe I would buy it, but as it stands...I just can't.

So the main character is supposed to be an "ignorant to the world" post apocalyptic tribal, having grown up in an isolated village with apparently NO outside contact whatsoever and NO modern technology whatsoever. However they can still operate computers or other advanced tools with no problem and don't seem to experience any shock at all when entering new towns for the first time. Not only that, but your character can understand 75% of lingo that was likely never used in their village, and can in fact talk in depth about technology that had never seen or heard of until it came up in conversation in their travels.

I've gotta say...all of the above is just as bad as anything in Fallout 3 in terms of having to ask yourself "WHY DID THEY (the devs) DO THAT?!?!?!".

So that out of the way, the rest of the writing is generally fine and still "Fallout-y", although it is a bit heavy on "humor". Conversations are still entertaining, with lots of branching and skill checks. Some characters fall flat but most will get some kind of reaction out of you, and give you motivation to help them or deal with them as part of a quest.

The new cities were...kinda not very interesting. I mean, some were pretty neat at first like Vault City but most were fairly uninteresting and the ones that were "neat" ended up wearing out their welcome after a bit. A few locations from Fallout 1 make an appearance here, so that was cool.

The quests are pretty varied, with most of them having multiple solutions. My biggest issue is that none of them are particularly memorable. Gameplay mechanics are pretty much exactly the same as Fallout 1. Not much more to say here...

I honestly couldn't tell you if there were any new music outside of a licensed song or two in Fallout 2, it seemed like it just reused Fallout 1's tracks. I ended up mentally tuning the music out after a while.

All in all...I liked it enough to finish it obviously, but the whole thing felt like a big letdown compared to the first game. Fallout 2 is often regarded as the best of the series, but I just don't see it that way, but at least I had some fun with it.

Biggest highlights? Getting the car running and visiting a certain vault...

I wholeheartedly agree. Fallout 1 is by far the best one in the series and the second one although still an excellent game just doesn't reach it.

Barony, very simple, wank combat, graphics i don't mind the whole blocky thing.
They did the job, everything looked as it should.
Music was horrid, turned that crap off, most of the levels are the same cookie cutter rubbish.
Monsters utterly boring, level design was bad as a single player game, so many items couldn't be reached.
Killed exiting the first door due to the dumb fucking comp putting a rolling ball there.
Level two only to get a minotaur and not much chance of survivng that, yay.
Waste of money, wanted to like this, should of been my thing :(

Crysis/ Crysis 2...ok games, one was a much more difficult than two.
Happy enough to try the third should it appear here.

Dungeon Rats...didn't like it.

Dex and Deadlight, both mediocre.

Galak - Z, pretty game, fun, bit quick for me, did struggle with the controls.
Took me back to playing solar jetman *sniff* sweet game.
Didn't think i'd like it, brought on a impulse, glad i did worth the money.

Kingdom : New Lands, go left go right spend gold rinse and repeat until utterly bored.
Not a bad game, twee music, gfx are functional, just wasn't enough to hold my interest.
Watch as the guards fire arrows into the enemy, yawn....really crap ending to boot.

Wait, are these games you finished this year and just got around to posting now in November?

Yes, some of them, not all, i had one hell of a backlog.
Just forgot to get around to adding to the list, so they built up, so yeah i could of added many more.

Transformers: War for Cybertron

I'm not a big fan of Transformers, having only watched the Generation 1 and Beast Wars cartoons (OK, and the first two Michael Bay movies), so I didn't have any initial intention of playing this or any other licensed Transformers games. However, after some recommendations, I decided to give this one a go.

No, it's not a fantastic game, but it's a pretty entertaining third-person shooter with all the usual gunfights, explosions, setpieces and of course, some driving (and even some flying!) sections, because why not? It's an action game! Further adding to the variety of the game are the 20+ weapons, the ability to choose among a list of Transformers (from both Autobots and Decepticons), each with their own special ability and vehicle transformation and also the choice to play co-op with up to two friends. Finally, the game isn't too long (5 stages for the Decepticons and another 5 for the Autobots), so it doesn't outstay its welcome.

Of course, the game is not fantastic (like I mentioned above). As entertaining as it is, it never rises above that level, feeling like a typical action game at times, something that isn't helped at all with its repetitive high-tech environments. While initially interesting, the game makes no effort for environmental variety and all I remember from them is just a series of high-tech walls, followed by yet another of series of high-tech walls. I also kinda hate the two-weapon restriction for your character, though I understand it's been done that way for multiplayer. Speaking of multiplayer, the only option is online. That's right, no local play or even LAN, either for co-op or competitive multiplayer, which sucks for a game like this.

Oh well, I don't think that the sequel will be much better, but I'm willing to give it a try. Who knows, maybe the Dinobots can actually provide something interesting to the game.

P.S.: The game is locked by default to 30 FPS, with no in-game setting to change it. Having said that, you can unlock it by using the method described here:
[url=http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Transformers:_War_for_Cybertron#High_frame_rate]http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Transformers:_War_for_Cybertron#High_frame_rate[/url]

Full list.

Yes, please include me - full participation in this thread, why not?

Just finished Silent Storm. Soloed it with an Allies sniper on Hard difficulty, not using Panzerkleins except for one random encounter. But now I'm thinking even that mission could be done sans PK if you're persistent enough.

The final encounter was a bit of a chore, as relying on my rifle alone took a long while to do enough damage, and I couldn't take hits due to the obvious danger of getting one-shot. Panzerkleins must make it super-easy here, all that fire power and armor.

Great game. I need a break from SS, but I guess I'll be back sometime for Sentinels.

So I beat Deus Ex - Mankind Divided. It definitely grown on me and I hate it less than initially. Especially because with the continual updates making the game more playable. The game have a very intriguing social political story line that is much more in depth compared to Human Revolution. Too bad urban settings are generally boring and a chore to navigate and is not fun or epic. This game have very big maps that some platforming which I think is an improvement from Human Revolution, unfortunately, if they are not memorable and lacking soul. You can say it lacks the Warren Spector touch, who focus more on making well designed and natural layout for smaller settings. This game portrayed a lot of social suffering, but somehow the NPCs didn't capture me the same way the original Deus Ex did. I feel like they failed to capture the noir atmosphere of older Deus Ex games. On the other hand, the writer does a very good job in some aspect to piece together connections in the timeline of the Deus Ex story, such as the creation of an Artificial Intelligence(s) that could later appear in Deus Ex original. There are some good "lights shedding" to the story which I think is worth playing for. Throughout the game I felt like like it's a dedicated group of passionate people that wants to make a good game, but can't because Square Enix's greed gets in the way.

The gameplay itself, to me there is certain touch that is lost from the original game, it feel more and more like Metal Gear Solid maybe. Believe it or not, there is a difference between a Thief type of sneak gameplay (full freedom), versus an espionage gameplay, which is what this game is. I guess it might be down to taste. You can say they improved on the combat from Human Revolution, but the way I see it, they made it into a methodical cover based play style and probably not fun. The battles felt more like an exercise than spontaneous, you take cover, wait for the enemies to poke their heads up from their cover, shoot, evade their grenade and find a new cover, rinse and repeat. The battle is tougher and you die easier, but Jensen also felt weak in this game. Deus Ex augmentation from the first two games were exotic and extravagant in some ways, the ones in this game are simply attribute upgrades (same as Human Revolution, except this game is a sequel and for the most part nothing has improved).

In term of freedom, this is one of those game that is designed in such that way that gives the illusion of choices, rather than actual choices. And it often punish you for making the "wrong" choice. But there are some good mission in the game as well, like the "Daria murder" one, basically a take on the Black Dahlia, which unfortunately is more interesting than the main story.

The main thing that causes me to want to boycott SquareEnix games in the future is simply they pulled a Witcher 2, maybe in a worse magnitude, basically ending the game halfway through. I already knew what it's feel like to waste my money on Half Life 2 episodes. By now I already know well of SquareEnix games and how they go to lengths to get as much money from their games. The arrogance of this company can be highlighted by when they said they will not remake FF7 unless they completely run out of ideas, and then their plan to make the remake "episodic". I plan to spend as little money as possible for the sequel to this, or obtain it through other means (I don't care if you judge me), I felt robbed spending money on a half finished game.

Also this game have worse optimization than No Man's Sky. I have a Core i7 and GTX960M and it can't play the game very smoothly at lowest setting in 1080p and I get 30-40 fps, I had to use 1600x900.

Space Quest 4 (I played the DOS CD version via ScummVM)

This game has a very funny narrator and a silly plot, but on the negative side I found it much more slow paced largely due to the rather a clunky UI (which is now mouse/icon-based instead of a text parser). There were also a lot more cut scenes and animations. Overall I did not enjoy it as much as the first three games, but it’s still OK.

include me

I finally got back into gaming this year. Had become a bit "meh" about gaming. So this year I have finished:

Bruce Lee 2 (C64 fan game)
SOMA
Westerado: Double Barreled
Eye of the Beholder 1 (new Amiga AGA version)
Day of the Tentacle Remastered
Spoiler Alert
Shadow Complex Remastered
The Witness
Super Hot
Not a Hero
Shadwen
DOOM 2016

I expect I will finish more games before we enter 2017. Currently playing the last expansion in SC2, Oddworld: New N Tasty, Malditta Castilla, Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans (leaked unfinished Blizzard game), Dreamfall Chapters and I hope to finish at least two of them before 2017.

Enforcement Droid: D.P.D.

All right, I'm kidding, but I would be lying if I I said that I didn't get a Robocop vibe from the game.

Future Cop: L.A.P.D. is a bird's-eye-view shooter that takes place in a futuristic Los Angeles plagued by violent crime. You take control of the bipedal mecha E̶D̶-̶2̶0̶9̶ X1-A and you have been authorized to use lethal force to put an end to it. Your 8-mission journey will take you across various locations of Los Angeles (like Griffith Park and Zuma Beach). In each mission, you'll have to hunt for switches to proceed to other parts of the area, navigate difficult and dangerous terrain, perform some platforming and fight various adversaries such as gangs, cultists, mutants and prisoners.

You have a variety of weapons to help you with this task, such as a miniguns, flamethrowers, rocket launchers and mortars. Initially, you only have access to a few of them, but you can unlock more as you progress through the game (and some of them are hidden within the missions).There are also power-ups that temporarily increase your weapon damage and shields that restore your health. You can also transform into a hovercraft that increases your speed and allows you to navigate water (but you won't be able to perform any jumps). Finally, you can also play the game co-op with a friend, but do mind that you'll be sharing the same lifebar; one dies and it's game over. In general, I had quite a lot of fun with the shooting part of the game. While strafing and turning around can feel clunky (the joys of early 3D gaming), the aiming part works pretty well, even though you'll have to rely on autoaim.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the platforming part of the game. There is quite a bit of it, which is guaranteed to frustrate you, thanks to a combination of X1-A's short, laggy jamp, the annoying need to a do a moving jump in order to get over a wall (standing jumps need not apply) and the landing damage that you'll receive from falling from tall heights (which in some cases can deprive you as much as half of your health and in an extreme one, will be an instant death). This wouldn't be too bad if the game had checkpoints or allowed you to save mid-mission... too bad that it doesn't. As a result, expect to repeat quite a few of the missions if you want to beat the game (I wince at the thought of trying to complete the game in co-op).

Hopefully, EA or someone else can create a new Future Cop game without the platforming bullshit (or at least improve it), because the game was otherwise a lot of fun.

Complete list.

I've just finished Technobabylon (PC)

Despite not really liking point and click adventures, I loved this game. The setting is nice, the story is good, the assets are nice, and it doesn't even force you to combine things to make other things in a way that makes no sense too often. It's not too difficult either, as my previous runs in adventure games usually involved digging through the walkthrough every few minutes. I just needed it a few times here. There are also multiple ways to solve the puzzles, and multiple endings to top it all. If you;re into sci-fi, I can't recommend this game enough.

SPOILER AHEAD!














It's just a bloody shame I can't get a game to let me let Galatea do what she wanted. Rapid development and all...













SPOILERS END!

I used to play the demo to death back in the day. I remember it being a lot of fun, but not the type of game in which I'd want to be stuck in a long campaign.

Brigador on steam reminds me a bit of Future Cop : LAPD, except for the different camera angle.

<span class="bold">Supreme League of Patriots</span>

Quite average adventure game, not terrible but nothing special either. I got Episode (or Issue) One some time ago in an IndieGameStand deal, and didn't like it much. But since it was pretty cheap during GOG's Fall Sale, I decided to give the rest of Season 1 a try.

And I'm glad to say that things improve significantly in Issues Two and Three: they are longer and the plot gets much more interesting than in the first chapter. However, this is not enough to make it a memorable adventure. The main characters are walking clichés, many of the jokes flew over my head as they are based on either fictional or now-that-well-known American celebrities, and those that I got were endless variations of the 'make fun of Republicans and bigots in general' variety. Even though I probably agree with the devs' political views, I found it somewhat tiresome.

Apart from that, and on the technical side, both the graphics and sounds are competent enough, but again nothing spectacular. At first I didn't like the voice acting at all, but it slowly grew on me until I not only tolerated it, but enjoyed it too. What I didn't enjoy at all is the unnecessarily cumbersome user interface, which almost seemed deliberately designed as to inconvenience the player.

All in all, a decent adventure for the price I paid, but that didn't leave me hyped for an eventual Season 2.


My list of finished games in 2016

Disaster Report, PS2

I played this when I was younger, and recently had an odd desire to play it again.

Disaster Report is an action/adventure/survival game--I guess I don't really know how to classify it--released on the PS2 in 2002. You play as Keith a reporter assigned to work on a man-made island, just as an earthquake levels it. You have to make your way to safety, avoiding falling debris and other dangers.

The opening three quarters of the game I'd call a "rough gem." There's unfortunately a lot not to like about it--a bad camera, pool localization and voice acting, and game mechanics that are never fleshed out properly (e.g. there's some sort of rudimentary crafting, where items are combined to make other items, something I never once had cause to do), but there's nothing quite like it that I'm aware of, and when the buildings around you are collapsing and you're trying to get to safety, or you're being swept down a raging river on raft, there's a very real adrenaline rush.

Unfortunately, the game becomes markedly worse towards the end. Human antagonists are introduced, and the novel survival game suddenly turns into a poor excuse for a stealth game, with camera and controls that do not support the gameplay style they're suddenly being asked to support.