Rise of the Tomb Raider (20th Anniversary)

Not quite sure about this. On the one hand, it was addictive and I had loads of fun with it, just like I had with the first one. It was also an improvement over the first in that it hardly featured any of those cutscene QTE's that were so annoying in the first part of TR2013. And there was no section as frustrating as the waterslide from the first game. I did have an issue with one obligatory stealth kill diving section which I thought tedious and not much fun, but the game allowed me to deal with it by changing the difficulty in-game whenever I wanted to. So that's cool. It also added some optional open world gameplay with quests and challenges, which was nice enough. IIRC the tombs might also have been a bit better than in the first game.

But I think the game still felt a bit too similar to its predecessor. Even though the story and setting were different, many sections and ideas gave me that deja vu feeling. And the story was actually worse, Lara's involvement in it less credible and interesting, and the showdown was pretty anticlimactic. There's still that huge gap between the new narrative of a nice caring young woman and the gameplay that encourages her to kill as many people and creatures and as brutally as possible. IMO the storytelling was lacking in originality and credibility.

The Baba Yaga DLC did not make that much sense, but its story was a bit more fun and it offered a more exciting showdown than the main game. The Blood Ties DLC on the other hand was a waste of time. You just walk around the Croft's manor, examining objects and reading diary entries, which would be fine if there was anything interesting to learn from that, but I found the backstories here more cringeworthy than gripping.

All in all, it's a nice enough game that I enjoyed playing, but it's just solid, not outstanding. If you liked the first one, you'll probably like this one as well, but you'll hardly see anything new here.

Just finished Fracture, now that's a game I wasn't sure I'd ever actually play. Everything I had read about it suggested that it was a mediocre shameless Gears of War rip-off or something. Luckily I was very positively surprised. The terrain deformation mechanic, that allows you to create cover and squish enemies and is also used by a number of environmental puzzles, was really refreshing. Also the shooting itself was surprisingly satisfying. partially due to the lack of the standard cover mechanics. The story wasn't too bad either. Was also really impressed by the tech, be it the terrain stuff, AI or animation. If that's what passes as a mediocre game I'll really have to extend my search.

Studying engineering and starting The Witcher 3 isn't a great recipe for completing games... 2017?

XIII
Shooters sure have come a long way. In my youth I would explore the mazes of Wolfenstein, find secrets on Mars and kick ass with the Duke, now I'm walking down linear corridors, trekking through small maps while voices in my ear tell me where to go, what to do and try to convince me why I should care.
Sigh.
It's not a bad game, it really isn't. But I wish there would be more to it.
The story is good enough, no wonder though since it is based on a long running comic book series of the same name. And the game's overall presentation has a comic book style too that I find to be "well aged", even though it certainly has aged.
And come on, a conspiracy story involving the voices of Fox Mulder and 60's Batman? Come on!
As for the gameplay, there is not much to say. The words: linear, instant-fail stealth, but also varied and charming come to mind when thinking about it.
Clearly not the best shooter around, but worth a few hours of your time.
7/10

i finish dissolution of eternity, an add-on for quake 1 with 15 new levels. in last mission you get to kill a flying dragon

Oxenfree. As walking simulators go, this wasn't bad. I wanted something that was kind of relaxing for a few hours and it fit the bill fine.

The game's main claim to fame is its conversation system, which I have mixed feelings about. On one hand, allowing you to keep up conversations while you're moving is a great move and prevents the game from bogging down into walking sections vs. talking sections. OTOH, I found the flow of conversations a bit stilted in that what you're mostly doing is constantly interrupting whomever's talking, often at awkward moments. If I cut off people that frequently in real life, I think people would rightly not want to bother speaking to me. Also the story is intriguing but the dialogue could be better. The characters tend to yammer at each other, taking a lot of words to not say all that much.

Some of the music is pretty good. The voice acting is mostly okay but tends toward being understated, which sometimes doesn't fit the situation. It's a supernatural thriller about these kids being trapped on a deserted island, yet they almost never seem particularly stressed about their impending doom.

Snake Blocks

I like the concept, but it's certainly not a masterpiece. There was this one very hard level that probably took me longer than the whole rest of the game, but besides that controlling was the hardest part. And I'm pretty sure that's not a compliment for a puzzle game.

Complete list of finished games in 2016

PC:
+Touhou 10 - Mountain of Faith (ReimuA, Normal, 1CC, 1 life and 0.95 power remaining)

The best part about clearing this game is that I literally did not have to try the game a second time to beat it. It just naturally came to me on the first try.

I did reach the level where I point at a Touhou game and have it finished it in a few days, if not the first attempt like this one. How outrageous.

Everything else

Finished episodes 1 & 2 of The Walking Dead: Season 3 and it is excellent. I had a few moments where things completely went unexpectedly and blew my head off. Definitely better than season 2. I had a few glitches though (camera seemingly stuck for 10-15 seconds before the game moving on).

Full list here.

PC:
+Touhou 11 - Subterranean Animism (ReimuA, Normal, 1CC, 3 lives and 1.00 power remaining)

This is Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom's right hand man. As in, it is more brutal than the rest and only SECOND to LoLK in difficulty. Really horrible monsters to fight and deal with.

But yet, it fell.


Who will fall next?

I just beat Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne on the True Demon Ending route.

Breach & Clear - A perfectly competent, if unchallenging, turn based strategy/tactics game that could be compared to Frozen Synapse superficially. It's got a lot of squad customization, especially in the weapon department. It's obvious that was a focus of the developers. The game moves through a series of 7 environments, each with 5 maps. The real shortcoming of this game is that apart from unlocking new weapons and gear, there's no new mechanics introduced. What you do on the first level will be what you're doing on the last, with little difference. It's best played in short spurts.

Out of the Park Baseball 14 - I've played this series for quite some time, but hadn't picked it up in awhile. It's the perfect baseball management simulation, dripping in options. There's not much I can say that hasn't been said already by other reviewers. It's an excellent game, and one of my desert island games.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords - Wow, this game surprised with its story and characters. I had already heard that it was a much better game than the first KOTOR, but whereas the first is a traditional Star Wars tale replete with its singular bad guy, this one is an examination of the Jedi and the role of the Force in the galaxy, and whether or not that's a good thing. The villains in this one are largely unseen until the endgame, but there's plenty of engrossing quests and plots to keep you interested. The move away from the extremely binary characters and morality choices of the first is most welcome. I must say that this is another Obsidian gem, and definitely one of the best games I've played this year.

Rollercoaster tycoon deluxe,what can i say the game is good,but does get annoying sometimes to wait for a certain goal to reach in certain year or waiting for research to give you the right rollercoaster to build ten different rollercoaster also you can't change the speed of the game.
Very challenging scenarios and does offer some differences in goals also loopy landscapes only has free entrances and you need to make money from rides,which i say excitment rating equals money for ride.Sometimes i saw a goal and just decided to quit the game only to come back another day and try to build the 5 or 4 unfinished rollercoasters to reach a good excitment level and yes there are tasks like completing the unfinished coasters which you can't delete the tracks that were already built at the start of the level.In the end it's not so hard to make good excitment just make sure you don't make too big G forces simple is just make some drops and lifts almost never go into a corner with too much speed or just make em a little banked curves instead of just going into the curve,other track pieces also never go into it with too much speed,most speed can only be done with drops and lifts and loops doesn't effect the peeps too much.
It did feel like the scenarios you have much too do not just always wait to finish the game.The final two levels of loopy landscapes are a little different megaworld park you just have to check that your staff does it work properly and hire some more of them which gets annoying,micro park oh boy that one was challenging you have very little land and you also can raise land so you build a ride on top of it lower the land and build under the ride another ride,just build coaster on a higher ground in micro park and good luck trying to place paths there it got pretty complex.Added attractions and loopy landscapes does give some more rides, scenery and shops than just owning the original game.I don't know why but i really like water rapids ride and i love building it.Lots of peeps can get on that ride.
Also i preffered researching thrill rides instead of just rollercoasters or gentle rides,but that also depends on what people you have in park and place rides for them.Two goals were special one in added attractions one was only build gentler rides with low intensity or another goal only build high intensive rides.
Anyway that is it with this game,didn't play the extra or real parks,now i will probably never need to play this game again.Have save files for the german version don't know if save files are all compatible with all languages,but i played the first game with german language which only has one translation error with peeps needing to go to the toilet they say they don't need to go to the toilet.The second game i will play in english on.

Just finished Secret of the Silver Blades a few minutes ago. Now only Pools of Darkness remains, but that will have to wait until February.

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