Legend of Zelda

This is the game that started it all, one of the earliest rpg's, introducing so many game mechanics, unfortunately that was roughly 30 years ago. The game has not aged well, compared to say the Mario series. While introducing most of the staples of the Zelda Series (Except the chest opening music, cause there aren't any chests in this game) it is much more difficult and rife with translation issues (Delete Save has been translated as 'Elimination Mode' making me think it was some awesome multiplayer game). I would only recommend this game to those who want a taste of history, as it can get incredibly frustrating for those used to modern games. The Series didn't really reach perfection until Link to the Past and Links Awakening in my opinion.

lol~ I played on Human, the easiest difficulty, and I still had trouble! I do not have the finesse to pull off a lot of those moves! What I enjoyed most was the exploring to find hidden items and the story!

I just completed Recettear. It was a surprising good game. It was short but it was a smaller game (hence the low price) so it was what I expected. It had some pretty good humor and the dungeon portions of the game were actually pretty fun although there was only one good adventurer I had.

Enigmatis - Ghosts of Maple Creek (from MarkH01/ Community Steam GA)

On a quest to find the middle ground between HOPA and HOG?

Honestly, probably a bit too much of the latter, but the story/adventure part of the main game is well done and entertaining.

Only quibbles would be:
1) music got repetitive
2) maps required a lot of backtracking in the later stages
3) a few of the hidden object puzzles had a few frustratingly well-hidden/camo'ed items.

A solid play for the genre. Puzzles moderately easy, and as noted, lots and lots of hidden object finds, but overall a solid play if you enjoy the genre.

Ah, I wouldn't bother with the rest of the series in that case.
3 had a terrible PC port so I haven't played it.
But 4 is WAY harder than DMC even on Human difficulty.

Great that you enjoyed it. ;)

I thought that Ghosts of Maple Creek was pretty good, but the second one, Mists of Ravenwood, was excellent! One of the very best that IHOG's has to offer ^__^
To each his own, but I thought that Mark Hamil did a FANTASTIC job as The Joker in the Batman games. SO GOOD!

:) Thanks for the recommendation - it's available in the Community - Steam GA, I think, so if no one else picks it up sooner I might ask for it this weekend.

Trying to get through Portal 2 before I take off for the weekend, but may not happen. 18 levels to go, I think, and only 2 nights of limited playtime to do it in.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (Adventure)

There are so many options that it would be completely boring for me to list them all, so here are just a few: Resolution (640x480 up to 1920x1024), Language (subtitles are the default), Full-screen, Quality, five different sliders for Sounds, etc. You can play with the mouse and keyboard (key mapping is allowed) or with a controller, which is what I chose.

I could not play the game without it crashing when I was using a 32-bit system, but once I upgraded my Windows to 64-bit, it ran like a dream. (Happy day!!) It will auto-save at certain points, but there is no manual save.

Controls are basic, with movement, camera (full 360 at your fingertips), a button to inspect/interact, one to crouch, one to zoom, and one to run.

There are 12 achievements that unlock simply by playing through the game, but there are also two secret achievements to be had. One is rather easy to get, and the other is in three parts. You could spend hours combing through the lush environment and still possibly miss part one, but oh -- what a beautiful place to get "lost" in~!

If you've seen anything about the game, you already know know gorgeous the graphics are. There is a brightness slider if you're worried about not being able to see, but what I really would've liked to see is a contrast adjustment. I love it the way it is, of course, but the artistic side of me would've liked to make the visuals even more rich by increasing the contrast... but I digress! ;)

Those who'd like to just immerse themselves in the world of Ethan Carter will want to simply explore and learn everything by trial and error, but for those of you who would like the basics of gameplay, I'll add them in a spoiler text here:

***GAMEPLAY SPOILER***

A prompt will come up whenever you find something to interact with. You will find as you play that you can "see" things -- After all, you're a psychic detective! The view will expand when you've done something right, so if you don't see much at first, keep exploring and try to find what you've missed.

In order to progress in that first recreation scene, you'll need to put everything back the way it was before the incident happened, then try again (it will make sense when you play.)

*** END SPOILER***

There's a fascinating dynamic that comes into play as you progress, requiring you to identify the sequence of events that took place. This will come up in multiple areas, revealing more and more of the story as you go. It can be surprising, even confusing at times, but everything ties together at the end.

Ethan Carter envelopes a realm full of beauty, wonder, and -- at times -- fear and unease. The devs gave us a gift towards the end by allowing us instant transport to specific areas of the map so that we can continue to explore without having to spend 10 minutes or more just running to get back to where you want to go... Which is a good thing, because the game won't let you see the ending until you've discovered all of the story elements!

As for said ending, I really can't tell you anything without giving something away, and I wouldn't want to ruin it for you. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is something to be experienced for oneself, then talked about later. I will say that I think that the second playthrough will be even more enjoyable than the first, now that I understand how to play. Totally recommended for those who enjoy exploring and mysteries.

Finished games list HERE

Just beat Old World Blues, another DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. It was really enjoyable.

It's the best one. :D

OlliOlli (Xbox One)

A very simple, yet addictive game. It takes a few hours to complete all the levels, but what will make me keep coming back is the challenges. Each level has five challenges, such as "get x number of points, x number of points in one combo, collect all spraycans, grind the helicopter", and so on. Complete the five base challenges on a level, and get five more difficult ones. The controls are easy to learn, but it still requires a lot of precision and skill to pull off the more difficult challenges.

Fair enough actually. I didn't know that he did the Joker in the Batman games. I've only played Arkham Asylum, but if he was the Joker in that, then yeah he did a great job there.

He was Luke in Star Wars? O_o
I didn't even know he did anything aside from the voice of the joker. xD
Serves me right for never using google for stuff like this.

Half Life 2

Wow, I've never been so disappointed in such a highly acclaimed game. I mean when you hear people reverently talk about it, it's one of those games that is faultless as well as curing world poverty etc etc. But now I've played it, I don't even think it's a leader in it's genre for it's time. It has many issues, is average at best, and though I finished it I'm not sure I can say I truly liked it.

One thing I can't deny, is that for it's age it still looks outstanding. But everything the game did just seemed to rub me the wrong way. Valve seem to be masters of coming up with a gameplay element and then just keep on repeating way past the use by date, until I want to smash the monitor. First of all it took so long to actually get going...all I was doing was running. It's a shooter and I don't think I even got to kill anything or get my first gun until 30 minutes into the game! By then I REALLY wanted to kill something so bad.

Then I got chased by a Helicopter., which was okay at first. And then chased by a Helicopter whilst in a boat, then chased some more by a Helicopter. Then chased by a Helicopter just a bit more for good measure. And just when I thought the Helicopter was gone, the bastard came back and chased me some more. Finally I got to kill the fucker. Only to go into the games next phase...chased by a Gunship. Then chased by a gunship whilst in a Buggy. Then some more hounding by a Gunship. Another Gunship, then just to mix things up a bit- TWO Gunships at once!
Then came the Turret phase. Walk around every second corner...there's a turret or two. Over and over and fucking over again. Same thing.
The Strider phase followed by the infinitely spawning enemy phase finished things up.

And don't get me started on the "friendly" AI. I wanted to shoot them idiots so bad myself, just to get them out of my way, but the game doesn't let you. And I thought the jokers on my side in Perfect Dark Zero were bad. All these idiots did was continuously get under my feet and block my shots. "Get the fuck out of the way you morons" became like a theme song whenever I had "friendlies" with me. I couldn't even let the baddies just kill them, because the game just spawned new ones to "help" me.

It's not the worst game I've played, and yes I know it's an old school style corridor save scum shooter- I have actually played most of them. But I don't rate it up there with the Build Engine games, or Kingpin or Max Payne...or even the first Half Life (which I didn't like much either). But hey, I know everyone else loves it. So I'll leave you to it. My problem is I have the Orange Box collection and now don't know if I should go on with the Episodes.

I didn't really like Half Life 2 either, just not quite as badly as you did. :P
Episode 1 is pretty good.
The ending to Episode 2 is just the worst, I can't even remember any other part of it.
You have a car and have striders/others coming to a base.
Kill them.