Penumbra Overture

A decent first game for Frictional games. The horror aspect is in my opinion a bit weak. The "click and drag" interaction for many objects and weapons is flawed and a bit annoying. I think a simple point and click interaction would serve the same purpose. The sneaking is primitive and often times not really needed. There is a limited number of enemies and enemy types(3). The dog enemies have a particularly stupid AI and it seemed that they sometimes "forgot" that I was around the corner half a minute ago. Standing on crates turns out to be their Achilles’s heel, as they constantly charge and retreat unable to touch you and you are free to toy around with them using a weapon of your choice. Most puzzles are simple and the exploration limited to small areas only. The story isn't half bad but it's nothing special and uses the same techniques I have seen a hundred times in other horror games.
Overall a good game if a bit uninspired at times.
6/10


Penumbra Black Plague

I have never seen a more schizophrenic game. It tries to scare and disturb you as a horror game should. It tries to be dark and bleak, with an original idea. It got rid of the stupid battle system from Overture and became more original. But something happened and ... well ...
I can't take the game seriously. I don't understand how anyone can. Half way through your character "obtains" a comic relief "friend" and a female scientist starts contacting you and telling jokes. This isn't a case of "so bad it's funny", it's a case of failing at horror and comedy simultaneously.
And the end game is ... is...I won't spoil it.
The game is short(shorter than Overture), it's easy and it constantly ruins the mood.
Objectively, it's the best of the three Penumbra games, but I just can't take it seriously.
5/10

Penumbra Requiem

A departure form the previous two games in that it is a more puzzle oriented game with less story, less horror and less sense. It's not scary enough to be a good horror game, not challenging enough to be a good puzzle game, not long enough to be a stand alone game and it's too similar to Portal to be original.
The story is nonsensical and the "computer announcer" is undermining the mood. The puzzles are mostly physics based (the worst type of puzzles IMHO) with a dose of first person platforming (the worst type of platforming IMHO)
Overall: A decent game for two or three hours, but nothing special.
6/10

Sacred 2
Previous game got nice feature, where lower level enemies didn't bothered us. Here it's suppressed by level scaling. Not cool. Pretty cool game, better than Torchlights 1+2 that I finished few months back.
Font was terrible, barely read anything. Thank goodness someone uploaded Torchlight (lol) font which was better than default.
Oh and it needed Community Patch, which was hard to find thanks to the silly Sacred community, which changed links to the patch for X-mass theme and didn't switched back. As I said - it's silly...
Played Temple Guardian named Dogmeat - some stuff were borked, like flamthrower not touching enemy hitboxes. Weird.
In Sacred1 flamethrower was way to go,

Neverwinter Night 2, both OC and Mask of Betrayer.
I don't know what I was thinking... OC was too long (thanks to slow running characters that went me insane, mind you I don't ask for fast travel or anything) but not a single quest or mission felt like a filler.
MotB on the other hand...people called it "second Planescape Torment". It got few similarities but that's all. Even though it was way shorter than OC - some parts felt like a filler (like the island, Ashwoods or what was it called), romance before entering gates of hell felt forced and out of nowhere.

Wanted to go with other expansions (Storm of Zehir and Mysteries of Westgates) but first - my exported characters were too stronk and second - OC and MotB is maximum for me,

Aliens Infestation.
I beat Aliens Infestation today. I decided to finish it off (it was 3/4 of the way there) since I had the game a couple of years. Like the Last Story I played it mostly in bursts, this time of three: when I got it, a few months ago, and today. The other reason is that I have been plagued with never ending computer trouble and wasn't able to play Panzers Phase 2. Which will look strange, seeing as how this is the second non WII game I have beaten this year. Oh well, on to my impressions.

First off,the game seemed to be on a less than extravagant budget, but darn it looks good. Not quite as good as some of the other big wig side scrollers on the system but awesome non the less with really, really detailed animations and individual idle animations for the various marines you can play as. The game has a comic book/graphic novel art style that works well for the game and franchise which mostly come into play for character portraits.
Gameplay is kind of like a Metroid game but a little more narrow. The emphasis is not quite concentrated on the action, not quite as much exploration as a Metroid, and there is not quite the emphasis on character development as a game like Symphony of the Night but it's a good balance of all of this. Although, character development is squarely on the weapons which can be upgraded. Your lives in this game are different marines with their own art, back story, and idle animations. Their sprites are also largely unique. I tried to keep as many marines alive as I could but in order to beat a few bosses I had to make some sacrifices (entire original cast: gone), the last of which was Henick, whom I played as for the most part.
Sound is good, some cut outs in intense scenes but the aliens sound about right as does the pulse rifle and the smart gun.
One thing I like about this game and find vital in any Metroid or Castlevania game is that there be nice quick immediacy to your characters attacks. This game has that and is incredibly satisfying after upgrading some of the weapons like the shotgun. Chest bursters are especially fun to kill.
The difficulty is a little funny with how sometimes it's pretty fair and other times it is really hard. But, it's an Aliens game and I expect difficulty. Speaking of which, this is a pretty good game with regards to fan service (as in nods to the franchise and shout outs to the movies).
This was quite a good game, but it's a little short on the content, unless you're me and what should be a three hour game turns into seven or eight. Still, it's another excellent Wayforward game.

Massive Chalice (Xbox One)

Turn based squad tactical game with a simple strategic meta game- exactly my type of thing. Though not usually something I'd even think of playing on console, it's normally PC territory. But Massive Chalice was a day one (for the game, not the console) Xbox release and also a day one Games with Gold game. I only just got around to trying it. First of all the interface is just perfect, there was no learning curve at all getting used to scrolling around and switching characters with the controller. It just all worked perfectly for me.

The game is played on two levels like most people will know. The tactical combat side is deceptively simple but plays really well. The three basic classes work in the usual tank/ranged/ AoE DPS relationship and each class has hybrid classes that can be bred in the strategic part of the game. Early on i tended to use 2 tanks, 2 hunter types and an alchemist as a good balance. By the end of the game my hybrid alchemists (Boomshots) were so brutal that I phased out one of the tanks in the final 100 years.
My favorite game, Jagged Alliance, manages to instill a deep attachment to your characters through their personality. This game does it in a more long term and subtle way. Your hero's tend to go in generations, you see them start as green youngsters, mature into fighting machines and sadly end up retired and dying of old age after their campaigns are over. If they had glorious careers they may pass on their mighty weapon to an heir and the legend grows generation by generation. So you do become attached to the blood lines for sure.
The only thing i felt missing from the tactical combat side was the absence of an "interrupt" system. So the enemy can dart from cover spot to cover spot without you being able to take a shot at them in between. But the balance of that, I suppose, is that at least they can't do it to you either.

The strategic part of the game is mostly a breeding simulator. Whilst not compulsory (you can just recruit random troops using the Chalice), the best way to get ass kicking soldiers is to breed them by establishing blood lines. Blood lines have advantages and disadvantages. On normal difficulty there is definitely a bit of leeway in the system. You can make mistakes with your bloodlines and recover. Early on I didn't have a clue what i was doing and failed to set up a line of Alchemists and had to rely on recruiting using the Chalice to get them. Finally i set up a blood line and produced my outstanding Boomshots. Then there was the Grundy dynasty (my special tank class family). They seemed to breed like rabbits and reminded me of the Freys in Game of Thrones. Every where i looked in the realm there was damn Grundy looking back at me.
The strategic part of the game does work and dares to do something a bit different than other games of this type. If it has a fault it's that it probably didn't go far enough with the concept.

I really enjoyed the game and only one thing stops it from being a timeless one like XCOM and Jagged Alliance. The first 150 years were fun and everything seemed new and I was still getting the hang of things. The second 150 years then became the same thing with bigger numbers. Even the enemies are all just "advanced" versions of the ones you've already encountered. Nothing really new ever pops up in the second half of the game, it's all just about fine tuning you processes for the coming end battle.

But a great game overall and one I'll play again on harder "Iron" settings where it plays like a rouguelike.

Assuming that's "too strong", you mean the game didn't let you import them or you didn't like it due to the resulting too low difficulty?
Remember playing SoU with the character I finished the original NWN1 campaign with, starting at level 17. Was nice, just enjoying the ride, nothing to bother me.

Finished Undertale, Wishing I'd played it sooner.

Finished Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People - Episode 2. Story was more interesting than episode 1 but gameplay wise there were two issues:
- A puzzle that required us to sweep all the scenes with a metal detector without really knowing where to look.
- A strategy minigame quire boring and difficult (has to use a guide).

Full list here.

<span class="bold">Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance</span>

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is an action hack and slash game developed by PlatinumGames and produced by Kojima Productions.
I have not played any of the other Metal Gear games, and only knew this was different from the series. The game turned out to be great, with some of the most epic fights, and an awesome soundtrack to go with it.

Complete list of games finished in 2016.

Zen - Intergalactic Ninja, Gameboy

I remember enjoying this as a kid, but only had the vaguest actual memories of it; in fact, I couldn't remember its name until I described it to my older brother and he told me. So, in a bit of nostalgia, I fired up an emulator* to see how it held up.

Well ... not bad at all. It's a platformer, fundamentally similar to something like pre-SotN Castlevania, but much, much easier. You play as Zen, who is apparently a character from a comic book series. You jump, swing your staff, or charge up projectile attacks; the projectile attacks kill pretty much anything in one hit, so playing patiently and keeping your staff charged kind of brakes the difficulty. The game is environmentally themed, and you fight through four polution-themed levels with a polution-themed boss at the end (e.g. an oil rig level, with "Oil Slick" as the boss). With only five levels total (the four polution-themed levels and a final one after you beat those), and the game, as mentioned, being quite easy, it wasn't a lengthy experience: I started it a few hours ago, and am now adding it to my list. When I did die, I found the checkpoints to be quite sparse; the game would have been even shorter if they hadn't been, of course, but it's especially noticeable that when a boss kills you, you don't continue at the boss, but start at an earlier checkpoint and must fight your way to it again.

Enjoyable while it lasted.

* I do try to support companies supporting their old games when they're available, e.g. buying PSX games on the PSN or gameboy games on the Nintendo Store. This game doesn't seem to be for sale.

<span class="bold">Outlast: Whistleblower DLC</span>

Outlast: Whistleblower is a DLC for the first person survival-horror, Outlast, developed and published by Red Barrels. The game starts as a prequel to Outlast, revealing the reasons behind Mount Massive Asylum's outbreak, while simultaneously overlapping with the main story to reveal its conclusion.
Somehow, the DLC managed to be even more terrifying, bloody, brutal and disturbing than the main game, with 2-3h of gameplay. I haven't been so disturbed ever since I played The Cat Lady and Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Complete list of games finished in 2016.

I wish I could complete this, I constantly got stuck in Outlast due to not looking at the ceiling or just getting lost.
It was even worse in Whistleblower.

Yeah, I know, I remember a few chase scenes where I got stuck because I didn't look up to go through a vent.

Carmageddon Splat Pack

Horrible expansion for a great game. Carmageddon has a special place in my heart. It was one of the coolest games of my favorite gaming era (late 90s). The Splat Pack, however, is a miserable game in comparison to the original. Let's start with the worst part: Grinding. Carmageddon also had this problem of having to play the same missions over and over in order to unlock the next one. Yet, the missions were usually designed in a way that allowed the player to collect plenty of points and hopefully unlock a mission without any repeats. Splat Pack, on the other hand, delivers missions which usually have a good make-up (themes such as Mayan Temple, glacier etc), but very bad execution. You keep going off track to areas where it is (i) very hard to drive properly and (ii) usually not very possible to collect a lot of points. On top of that, now you need way higher scores to unlock the next mission. So you end up grinding the same boring missions over and over again.

Also, gone are the cities where you can just drive inside to a football stadium and slaughter the players. Aside maybe from the final mission, there isn't really anything creative going on in the expansion pack. In some of the harder missions, you are racing against big rigs and you will have a very hard time beating the mission if you wanna do it by wasting all the cars (which is why you play Carmageddon anyway). You could presumably take the big rigs and drive them (assuming the player has unlocked them) but unfortunately you have almost zero vision when driving big rigs or trucks which makes the game almost impossible to play. Finally, there are also graphical problems where you cannot move due to invisible walls.

To sum up, Splat Pack is an abysmal piece of crap. I would recommend the original game but if you wish more Carmageddon, just move on to the second game and avoid this expansion. My completionist side made me somehow play it until the end without really enjoying it, but in a world where there are so many great games, life is too short to waste your time with bad ones.

damien score: 4.5/10

List of all games finished in the last years with best and worst games played in each year

Escape Goat 2

I had a lot of fun with this game. It was longer than the first one and most of the levels were more about the puzzles than about reflexes and 100% accurate jumps.
But in the end I wasn't able to beat the last level. Everything before was more or less relaxing and easy to beat. But level 9-10 suddenly was extremely difficult and maybe even on par with the insane bonus levels of the first game.

I guess I can still mark the game as completed, because it was just a bonus level and I saw the normal end (I guess there is another one when you beat all bonus levels) and the credits.

Complete list of finished games in 2016

Mark of the Ninja - This stealth platformer has many good aspects, but I wasn't ever quite hooked by it. This could be due to the similarity of levels visually, or the lack of growth in player abilities. Since combat isn't a feasible path, and being seen is essentially instant death, there isn't a lot of options in how to play the game. The stealth is adequate, but never feels challenging. An okay platformer, with some frustrating parts at times.

Q.U.B.E. - Decent, little puzzler in the spirit of Portal, with a unnerving underlying storyline. This is an example of a game, where the storyline and gameplay aren't linked in anyway. One of the characters even remarks that you shouldn't expect to save the world by solving puzzles in a box, which I thought was humorous. It's not very long, so it doesn't outstay its welcome. Overall, an enjoyable puzzler with some interesting design. This game reminded me of the recent film Oblivion, in some respects.