Wolfenstein: The New Order. The angle with this one is that poor BJ is still fighting WWII in 1946 when he gets put into a coma and wakes up in 1960, finding the world has been conquered by the bad guys. Maybe I missed something but I don't think the game ever explains why the Allies didn't get the bomb first. Anyway, BJ joins the resistance and starts blasting everyone.

I was just playing a few levels of Wolfenstein 3D a few weeks ago, so it's pretty weird to go from that to this modern game in which BJ apparently has an actual personality (he's a pretty cool guy, actually) and gets to know and even have conversations with people around him. I liked how the English-speaking characters used the traditional Blasko-witz pronunciation of his name while the European characters correctly called him Blasko-vich. The story is mostly entertaining although it gets annoying when certain characters clearly have plot armor on because it makes BJ look ineffectual.

It's still a fun FPS experience, although I have my usual complaints about modern FPS stuff. The game has very good graphics but the tradeoff is that it's so hung up on realism that I sometimes literally couldn't see what I was shooting at because of all the lighting and particle effects obscuring your view (the bad guys of course don't have the same problem). This was especially bad while fighting the end-boss because there was so much going on that I had trouble figuring out what I was supposed to even be looking for. And while it's nice that you can dual-wield every weapon in the game, the guns are so huge that having two of them on screen at once hogs a huge percentage of your perspective, so I often stuck with just one anyway. The enemies are a bit on the spongey side.

Thankfully, there is no crafting or shops to bother with. They give you a perk system that's supposed to reward how you play and encourage you to try different stuff. I ended up maxing out the stealth side and that was it. I never bothered with the sprint-slide mechanic, which I found annoying to pull off on the keyboard. There's an important choice you're forced to make early on - I went with the Scottish guy because he seemed more entertaining.

I enjoyed the game, although I also feel like the series is on a general downward trend. I replay the original 3D game periodically after all these years, but the sequels, despite being good games with particular merits in each one, still feel less fun overall and it's hard to see myself replaying any of them going forward.

Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, Feb 26 (Xbox Gamepass)-I thought this was a really good game even for people who are only casual Star Wars fans. The game felt really polished and the story was pretty good. Combat was difficult but generally not too bad once you got a handle on the game mechanics. New skills and lightsabers gave a real sense of character improvement at least until I hit a wall with the final two bosses which were much more difficult than anything else in the game. Exploration was fun and little secrets and bits of lore are there if you care to look. The game did feel very empty and lonely. You only really visit these abandoned, isolated areas with few exceptions. I don't really have many complaints about it. The frequent sections where you're sliding down hills was a little silly but nothing that I really disliked.

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Far Cry 6 (XSX Game Pass)

Well that took me longer than I expected, mainly because of my own insistence of having to take every single military target on the map. For now, I've skipped FC 5 simply because I own the game and can play it anytime, so have taken the opportunity to play FC 6 on Game Pass. I still like the Far Cry series. The open world shooter formula is as fun as ever when the game gets out of your way and lets you approach things however you want in the open world. Select an enemy base and take it however you want, stealth, full Johnny Rambo, parachute in, take a helicopter gunship or drive a tank in (my favorite).

The actual story missions can be disappointing though. I found too many of them contained scripted idiot game play where you were forced to do something suboptimal via cutscenes or because some babysitter NPC says so. Everything else was fun and the actual shooting is as smooth as ever. As are the weapons and vehicles. I especially like that the micro helicopter has returned in a slightly different form from Far Cry 4.

Side activities were pretty good, especially the checkpoint races- though they were very easy. Thankfully the animal attacks have been toned down from FC4. The deadliest enemies in FC 4 were not the armed soldiers with rocket launchers, but the dreaded Honey Badgers. Those things were just evil. I still managed to set the enemy, myself, my pet, the forest and every vehicle and building in a 50m radius on fire far too many times...but hey, I love incendiary weapons so what can I do?

It was good fun, and the series at least doesn't come out every year so doesn't feel as saturated as Assassin's Creed. That being said, this is the lesser game in a series that is slowly declining. Far Cry 2 is one of my l time favorite shooters, and my favorite open world shooter for sure. From there I feel each game in the series is just slightly less than the one before it...though I still need to play FC 5 like I said.

February 25, 21:30 – New Game + of Dark Souls: Remastered on PS4 has been completed :). The second ending was of course To Link the Fire, which gave me another trophy in my Platinum run. During this run, the goal was all miracles trophy, and all missing weapon ascension trophies, with the exception of Knight's one, for which I need to defeat Sif one more time, and then run all the way to Anor Londo blacksmith. During NG+, I have found out, that this game started to feel much easier with melee character than with the sorcerer one. The only exception was Kalameet, which was destroying me for almost 3 hours and almost always around 10-20% HP mark. I am just happy, that I have learned how to control my rage, as few years ago, I would be most likely in need of a new controller :D

Full list of my finished games can be found here.

Include Me!

Gosh page 8 and March already? Well OK then!

Last Year (2023)

Current Play List
2D Action - Overhead/Isometric: Monaco
2D Action - Side: Potsworth & Co. (C64)
2D Action - Side Force Scroll: Odyssey (C64)
3D Action Adventure: American McGee's Grimm
Adventure: The Cameron Files: The Secret at Loch Ness
Fighting: Super ComboMan: Smash Edition
FPS: Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders - Episode One: City of the Damned
FPSRPG: Dead Space
Open World: Bully: Scholarship Edition
Puzzle: Hanono Puzzle
Racing: Project Speed
RPG - 3D: The Witcher
RPG - Isometric: Riverbond
RPG - Japanese: Soul Blazer (SNES)
RPG - Turn Based: Geneforge
RPG - Other: Bardbarian
Sports: Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe
Strategy - Grand Strat: Reus
Strategy - RTS: Sacrifice
Strategy - TBS: Attack of the Earthlings
Vehicle Combat: Koronis Rift (Atari 8bIt)

Completed This Year
2024-02-29 Deadlight: Director's Cut
2024-04-02 SC2VN - The eSports Visual Novel
2024-04-18 Steel Storm: Burning Retribution (main 'Burning Retribution' campaign)
2024-04-19 HOME

Catherine (XSX)

The classic Xbox 360 version played via backwards compatibility on XSX. Not the newer Full Body edition. I quit this game about 4 years ago during stage 3- it was too hard! Like always, games that I quit for being too hard always eat away at me until I eventually return, HTFU, git gudder and finish. I don't think I've ever truly quit a game simply because it was too hard. But damn, this game tested me. I almost quit it again, but I prevailed. It's the hardest game I've ever played.

The story is unique, it all about the moral implications of cheating in a relationship. The game has no actual nudity or sex scenes. The story is told mostly at the Lost Sheep bar and works similar to the interludes between dungeons in a Persona game. That's not surprising, since Catherine is also made by Atlus. Instead of traditional Shin Megami Tensei dungeon crawling in between story interludes, Catherine uses a tower climbing puzzle game instead. I think the tower climbing is like a metaphor for climbing the tower of life and what it throws at you. It's exactly the type of game play that really pisses me off! The strange thing is that it appears to be just me, since the achievement stats say that almost 30 percent of people finish the game- which is actually a very high completion rate and suggests that the game isn't that hard to most people. So, I just suck at it. Unlike many people, I don't take offense at being told to git gud. I take it as a challenge to improve, persevere and overcome. I ended up getting the "normal cheater" ending. It was a really good ending too, I'm not sure how the endings are arrived at. The are seven other endings to get! I'm not playing it seven more times.

Oh yeah, this game also has the most horrifying bosses I've ever come across. Like a giant ass (I mean literally an ass) on legs with a tongue coming out of it, or a giant baby with a chainsaw chasing you and calling you daddy. Babies are horrifying enough without having a chainsaw.

Return to Grace (XSX Game Pass)

A walking simulator with only the lightest of simple puzzle solving and a very Asimov sort of story. If you like Asimov's overall Robot and Foundation story line, then a lot of this game may resonate. It's only about 3 hours long and that's assuming you try to fully explore for all lore findings.

A walking simulator needs one important aspect for me. With the lack of real gameplay, they really need a hook that entices me to keep going to uncover the mystery. The end destination doesn't even have to be anything special as long as getting there was enticing. In that respect I really liked Return to Grace and put it up with other great games in the genre like Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and What Remains of Edith Finch. This game does have a reason to play twice to see an opposite ending, which will only take an hour or so, since you have no need to explore for lore that you've already seen.

The only problem, as with all these short experiences, is whether the full asking price is worth the length of the experience. For me it was worth it because I have a GP subscription anyway. If not, I'd personally wait for a sale, even though I do like the game.

Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror (GOG)

It's about on par with the first game. This time I couldn't remember much past the dock warehouse scene from when I played it back in the late 90's. It's a serviceable point and click adventure game with some good artwork and some obtuse puzzles, but at least it doesn't have much pixel hunting. That's it for the entries that I've previously played before, now it will be on to the three games that I have no prior experience with.

Ah, so THIS was the demo with the dock! For so many years I've been trying to figure out which adventure game I played a demo of way back that was basically just that scene, from what I recall. Thank you!

Good job! I bounced off of this one for the second time a few months ago. I like a lot about it but the strict time limits and the screen-shaking graphics combined with the puzzle solving was just frustrating me. When I play puzzle games, I prefer to be able to ponder them a bit, so I'm not a good match for games that demand you solve them with like 1.5 seconds worth of free time while the game basically screams at you.

Distant Worlds 2

Spent the past weeks investigating the 'stellar' update. This left me lost for words. Be gone, stellar ;p

empire building remains a glorious undertaking. setting up the game to your taste demands a wizards degree atm

links and updates will follow when i'm less moody

Goooo now, Go! Now! Goooo noooow nanana naaaa naa

Yes, whilst I don't particularly like the block climbing puzzle segments, the timer is the real killer during the boss stages. I'd love to replay to see the other 7 endings...but the game only lets you skip stages that you gain Gold ratings on. I only got Gold ratings on 3 of 9 stages...so I'd basically need to fully replay most of the game. The Full Body version allows you to skip stages after completing them to any rating, I believe. But playing such a difficult game using the Switches controls does not sound like fun- it's only a matter of time before SEGA bring the newer version to Steam and Xbox anyway.
Honestly the dock warehouse segment is probably the best part of the game, so you may have already experienced the best the game has to offer.

Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition

Finished this last night having wanted to try it for some time. Generally, for the most part, I found it to be enjoyable and it was fairly short so didn't overstay its welcome.

The music was great and the combat was probably the highlight (though it did have some frustrating moments) and felt like it had a good amount of impact. The maps were fine with shortcuts being opened up as you go typical of metroidvania type games (though I've heard people complain this game is too linear compared to some others which I could see potentially although I don't have a huge amount of experience in the genre for comparison).

The dimension swap was a fun mechanic that led to some interesting moments however as these were typically platforming challenges (which I frankly am not great at) some felt quite difficult and I would have to take a break and come back mentally fresh at times to proceed.

The boss fights (with the exception of the last two) were fun and felt fair. They usually took me a couple of tries due to learning the patterns but when you fail it reloads from the beginning of the fight so it is quick to get back into the action. The last two bosses had quite a difficulty spike that did have been questioning whether I could actually finish the game but with enough retries I eventually got into the right pattern to beat them which did lead to a great feeling of satisfaction (although paired with the desire to not have to do it again).

Anyway to wrap up - fun game overall and I would recommend to anyone interested in the genre however just bear in mind it has some quite tough segments and the final bosses are no joke.

Magic Pussy: Chapter 1 (Steam)

Just in case that Catventurer person happens to read this, this is NOT a game about a magical cat. There are no actual cats in this game.

Ni No Kuni Wrath of the White Witch Remastered, Mar 9 (Xbox Gamepass)-I'm conflicted on this. I had some fun but there was a lot that I didn't like. By far the highlight was the writing and voice work of Mr Drippy. He's easily my favorite character of the game and his snark was so good. Voice work in general and graphics were good and most of the other characters were fun. I liked the use of spells for puzzle solving and the whole take heart/give heart mechanic. Unfortunately both of those mechanics while fun and interesting were ultimately very shallow. Soundtrack was pretty good with a couple sections giving strong Star Wars vibes. In fact the entire final dungeon felt very Star Wars to me.

Now for the bad stuff. The game is far, far too long. I beat it in about 38 hours of game time with another 5 for lost progress due to full party death. Of that 38 hours over 20 hours were spent grinding both for experience and just to finish dungeons because of the sheet number of combats the game throws at you. And the combat was terrible with incompetent AI both for companions and enemies. Even the pathfinding on the player character was terrible with other characters physically blocking and preventing engagement with an enemy. There was also very little variety to the combat. I mostly just pressed the same button over and over again to finish combat as quickly as possible with physical melee attacks rather than to pause and cast spells and defend and do other things. Then repeat 10 seconds later for the next encounter. Boss battles were different but equally repetitive and tedious. For boss battles especially the later ones I just spammed the most expensive spell and refilled mana and just repeated those two steps until the boss was dead only very rarely stopping to heal myself or my companions.

I did most of the pre-end game side content and none of it was great. As I said above, I liked using spells to solve puzzles but usually the answer is given to you immediately and its never more complicated than cast bridge to create a bridge across this gap. This felt like an area of missed opportunity. The side quests were mostly fetch quests or kill this enemy types and not super inspired. The take heart/give heart could have been more fleshed out but it ended up being just a series of fancy fetch quests.

This game reminded me of a mix between Pokemon, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, with some Epic Mickey thrown in. With the exception of FF12 none of those games are high on my list of ones I enjoyed so its not a big surprise this one didn't exactly click with me. I had some fun especially with Mr Drippy but I won't be playing the sequel. The game should have been 20 hours with maybe 5 hours of grinding and it would have been a lot better for me.

I forgot to mention. Since at least last summer on the Gamepass version there is a glitch that causes all the onscreen button prompts to instead show random gibberish. So you don't know what you have to press to perform a specific action. You have to randomly press all the buttons on the keyboard or controller to figure it out. Particularly tough to do in combat and caused a handful of misclicks. This probably helped quite a bit with my decision to only spam a single attack with a single character and made the combat feel even more one-dimensional than it should have.

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