Project Eden (GOG)

I truly enjoyed this substantial action-adventure from the early noughties.
Setting and atmosphere are absolutely top-notch; the game really does a great job in depicting your progressive descent into the dark underbelly of a sprawling megalopolis from a dystopian future.
The level design is superb: vast, complex, and elegant, with cleverly devised puzzles. Often your team splits up, the individual paths crossing and interacting in different ways until they get reunited at the very end. It's sometimes challenging, but never confusing (well, maybe once...) - there is nothing abstruse, it all makes sense in the end.
Yes, the game can get a bit fiddly at times, especially with those puzzles that require you to constantly switch between characters, operate a number of switches at the same time, and the like; but your efforts are always rewarded.
AI isn't great though, both that of your teammates and of the enemies. Combat is not that hot, as a result: enemies just run around, and things can become quite hectic in crowded situations, especially when you inadvertently transfer control to another squad member by clicking on him/her while you're shooting at opponents. Sometimes I had better results simply choosing the cyborg and fighting alone, leaving the others behind, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Things get better along the way, however, as you get additional, interesting weapons and enemies become more varied. And this game is not a proper shooter anyway: the focus isn't on combat, but rather on exploration, observation and puzzle solving.
The "follow me" function is especially problematic, as your companions more often than not get stuck somewhere, behind a corner, or a step, so you have to manually guide them one by one anyway - navigating narrow passages is particularly painful in this regard. And sometimes it's exhausting having to repeatedly track back to health and charge stations, so this game definitely requires a degree of patience.
Graphically, it obviously shows its age, but I think it doesn't look half-bad for a game of its time, plus I'm nostalgic for this kind of graphics. The textures are especially effective in evoking the dismal, dilapidated environments.
Voice-acting is weak - I mean, it's OK for the main characters, I guess, but for some of the NPCs and enemies it sounded poor, and at times even a bit silly, like they were going for a comical effect.
The ending wasn't entirely satisfying to me, for a few reasons I won't go into so as not to spoil anything.
I don't want you to fixate too much on the above criticisms, however, as they didn't really detract from a memorable, engrossing experience. All in all, I think this is a great game from the past, that deserves not to be forgotten.
My rating: 4/5

--- the year so far

Chants of Sennaar, May 21 (Xbox Gamepass)-This was a really unique puzzle game focusing on language and communication. The puzzles were challenging, multi step affairs. Typically there would be a period of exploration and collecting various glyphs representing different unknown words. Then through context clues via conversations or signage you identify the glyphs you found. Lastly, you use the glyphs you identify to solve a light, more traditional puzzle such as flipping switches in a particular order or mixing components in the correct amounts. Then there were several Duolingo sections where you had to translate a conversation into another language. The game was challenging and fun but overall not too difficult. A lot of the passageways were very mazelike and reminded me of MC Escher especially the true ending sequence. There were also a handful of small stealth areas and a bit of an action sequence at the very end but I wouldn't let that stop you if you are otherwise interested in the game.

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CULTIC (Chapter One + Interlude)

After feeling somewhat lukewarm about Prodeus recently, CULTIC turned out to be the kind of retroshooter that I like - even loved, most of the times. I'd put it up there with DUSK and the others.

Even if the story is just another variation of mad cultists trying to take over the world by summoning eldritch horrors, I thought the writing was much more interesting and comprehensible than in Prodeus, the settings and events more memorable, and it felt more like a real adventure than an arcade-y gauntlet run. Enemies are visible from afar (if you spot them, because it can be tricky with the limited palette and pixel graphics), you can surprise them and snipe at them, they can also surprise you, you can duck from or dodge their fire, you can get creative with the weapons, blow things up, kick enemies of ledges, one-shot them with well aimed headshots, and true bullseye shooting gets rewarded with short slow motion / bullet time windows. Plus, the game offers manual saving and quicksaves on top of autosaves and checkpoints. Like in Prodeus, there's also a currency of collectibles that you can use to upgrade your weapons, but it's not used to unlock weapons but to modify them, and you have several choices on what modifications to focus on, which makes the system much more interesting.

I've read in another review that CULTIC has no real filler material, that every level feels exciting in its own way, and I tend to agree. I was motivated throughout the whole eleven levels and about 9 hours (as a cautious, slow and meticulous player, on "Hard" difficulty, which is really "Normal", I guess, since it's the mid-tier, meant for people who have played shooters before). The only thing I didn't enjoy that much about it were the two boss battles. They're not too tough if you know what to do, but not really fun. The Interlude boss was also just an enormous bullet sponge, but easier to handle than the other scripted bullet sponge bosses who had enemy swarms helping them. And saving was deactivated or nerfed during these scripted boss battles, which I didn't like either. But then again I enjoyed the game mostly for the exploration, venturing into the unknown, sneaking around corners, having shootouts with a couple of single enemies and monsters, not for jumping around bullet hell arenas. Thankfully, what I perceived as a bit of a drag was probably less than 15 minutes of my 9 hours playtime, and the rest was great.

DORONKO WANKO

Just a silly little casual game about a pomeranian wrecking a new house, good for an hour of entertainment at best, but it's amusing and cute (in a mischievous way) and very well made for a free game.

Oh, and I also liked the credits. I always appreciate when a game does a little more with them than just have the player sit back and passively watch text scroll across the screen.

Lost Words: Beyond the Page

The second game of Maximum Entertainment Bundle donated by Doc0075 in the Community GA

At first I try using a gamepad, which is what I usually do playing a sidescroller 2d game. But some aspect of it like dragging stuff all around the screen makes it so much better for me with mouse and keyboard.

As for the game itself, this is a surprise. Diving it without any expectation but this game makes me all emotional. The theme is how a young child dealing with grief. Suited for kids and also adult.

While playing it, my mind and heart remembered all my late grandmothers. I love them all, wish I know them better.

Regency Solitaire

After the intense 110 odd hours of Baldur's Gate 3, I needed a cognitive palette cleanser, something simple, fun and linear.

If On A Winter's Night Four Strangers, May 22 (Itch)-A horror game with light adventure elements. It starts off pretty interesting with strangers meeting on a train. You get some backstory of who the characters were before they met. The first two backstories are good, the last was a bit meh. Then the game ends abruptly with a bit of a forced twist that was very unsatisfying. It felt like the first 2 hours of a game and the last 10 minutes of a game but it was missing the middle 1-2 hours.

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I Have Low Stats But My Class Is "Leader", So I Recruited Everyone I Know To Fight The Dark Lord

I got this through one of those massive bundles on itch. This game is hilarious at first where you're literally recruiting everyone in the town, including the princess and a cat. I would say that the first thirty minutes of the game where you're running around recruiting everyone really is the best part.

Once you leave town to go fight the Dark Lord, things turn to a tedious slog because you have a party of 99 characters that can't be rearrange people to group people with the same class skills together. It's meant to turn RPG combat into a puzzle, but it ends up not being fun.

I liked the first thirty minutes enough to keep the game and have replayed that part more than once, but I wouldn't recommend spending the $14.99 USD to purchase this game on its own.

Project Eden is the last full box game I bought.

Spoilers

It was a such an unique experience i haven't played before or since.

Spoilers

Not just the gameplay of 4 characters with seperate abilities and strengths solving puzzles and fighting between puzzles.

But the setting.

You start under open sky and then level by level you go down deep into the megacity


Start in living functional levels and then climb to more deserted, abandoned, more savage. Exploring them, encountering ruins of the old world build over and forgotten. And even deeper.

It has been 18.5 years but I still remember how shocked was one of the characters when they realised that you might be going under the ground.


Glad this game still holds up. I got it here but a little scared to ruin my nostalgia by replaying it.

Mass Effect 2 (XSX)

Carried over my character from the first game in the Legendary Edition. This is the third time I've played the series and the first time I managed to get all of the team to survive ME2- the other two times I always Got everyone loyal but then managed to select the wrong person for the wrong team and got someone killed. This is also the first time I've played both of the main DLC's- which is the main reason I decided to replay the whole series with the Legendary Edition.

I still think first game is much better. As an RPG ME2 has pretty much no meaningful character or team building left in it. Also, the actual story component is really short- only a handful of missions, and not even very good ones. Most of the game is assembling your team- much of which is optional. The whole Cerberus story arc is actually rather dumb...and people complain about Starfield's story! Luckily, I don't care about story much in RPG's, so that isn't a big negative. The average combat and terrible AI (where every enemy on the field stops what they're doing to target Sheppard the moment you pop your head up), lackluster character building and main missions are definitely negatives.

The characters and the cast of voice actors are excellent. Just an average game overall, that is obviously necessary to get through the trilogy. As a trilogy, I've always felt that the sum is better than any of the individual three games.

Curved Space

The third game of Maximum Entertainment Bundle donated by Doc0075 in the Community GA

Shmup / bullet hell games are not my forte so I didn't really have any expectation. But this game is well made, the control are smooth and the graphics are not bad. Perhaps the weapons could have more variety in it and while the shooting is erratic and spammy there are times when the pace is really slow and I ended up approaching it as a tactical game and not gung ho.

I only finished one run on it in around 3 hours or so it but you can extend it with a new "loop" run in which you can choose another path compare with your previous one. Perhaps an achievement hunter will have the will to get the 100% it and have good fun doing that but I don't installed Galaxy and as I said it's not my type of games so 1 run is enough for me.

Lost Words: Beyond the Page

I had started this two years ago, and I think initially I liked it and was even touched by it, a little, but after a while I got really bored and moved on to other games. While looking for games to uninstall in order to get some disk space back, I stumbled across it again and realized that I had only been missing the last chapter in order to finish it, so I played through that today just for the sake of completion and to get some closure. Since the major part of my experience with the game was so long ago, I don't remember many details with regards to what I liked and what I didn't - I think I might have made some notes at the time, but I can't find them anymore. My general impression was that there is a nice concept here and I'm sure people put their heart into it (especially Rhianna Pratchett as the writer), so I don't want to be too negative, but the execution of the concept could have been so much more impressive, and the gameplay more enjoyable. The latter somewhat reminded me of Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, but that game was a bit more fun than Lost Words.

Lost Words is more like a Walking Simulator disguised as puzzle platformer. I mean, an interactive novel of sorts kind of fits the theme, I guess, but it's not interactive in a very engaging way. You get an array of words that allow you to interact with the world, but there aren't any real puzzles to speak of, as there's only ever one very obvious solution in any given case. No experimentation with the words, no creative solutions or funny failures at least. It just doesn't do anything interesting with its mechanics. Plus, while the graphics in general are nice enough, the levels feel kind of bland, drawn out and empty; and there isn't really much platformer action either, it's mostly just running and occasionally jumping or climbing from A to B without a lot happening in between, apart from the narration. And the narration is so sloooow. I recall that I couldn't play more than one chapter per evening back then, because I'd get so sleepy playing it, and I always felt kind of relieved when I got to the end of a level (I'm not even sure whether the game saves mid-level; I didn't dare test it as I didn't want to risk having to replay anything because that would have been even more tedious). The game is not that long (maybe 4 hours?), but it felt like it was. When I bought it, I had much greater expectations, it sounded much better on paper, but I guess it just wasn't really for me. Now that I've completetd it, I doubt it will still stay on my mind for long.

To end on a positive note, the thing I recently praised about DORONKO WANKO - interactive credits - was present in Lost Words, too, and that's a curious coincidence that I played two games in a row that had this feature, as it's really quite rare otherwise.

The Last Campfire

Nice little puzzle adventure, with adorable graphics and great voice-acting. There's only one narrator speaking all the lines, but I really liked her accent and performance, it was so cute. I don't have that much to say about the game otherwise because I enjoyed it and hardly found anything to criticize. Sometimes the tone in the writing could get a bit weird and slightly creepy, but maybe intentionally so? It mostly gives off sweet and wholesome vibes, despite also talking about anxiety and desperation and such, but at the same time, there are comments about eating frogs or cooking pork, when you've only just talked to a frog who was presented as a friend, or got help from cute little pigs. Occasionally, animations were a bit glitchy, when the character climbed a ladder, and one time I got stuck on an object, but reloading fixed it. Apart from that, everything was fine. Puzzles had the right kind of difficulty for me, never really hard, many even pretty easy. There were a few that had me scratching my head at first, but in the end they were all solvable without having to look for help. It also had a decent length; with about 6 hours playtime, it was neither too short, nor too long. All in all, I liked it quite a bit.

Open Roads, May 24 (Xbox Gamepass)-A narrative game about relationships between 3 generations of a family as explored during a road trip to an old summer cabin. The story was engaging and the voice acting was quite good. Not really any puzzles or gameplay to speak of short of clicking on an object to read or hear a description. The story had some heavy moments and many of the relationships were rather strained but it didn't hit like some of the other narrative heavy games I've played recently.

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Fallout: New Vegas. I was a good boy and mostly backed the NCR, up until the end when I went with the independent New Vegas ending. I think it's a good game overall, and in terms of the writing it's a last gasp of classic Fallout storytelling, but it's frustrating to play in certain ways. Even on hardcore mode, it's still a bit easy, and the way that your reputation magically goes up or down with an entire faction based on your actions anywhere is silly (I learned about a mod for that midway through, but I didn't want to risk spoiling my save games by installing it).

When I first played this on the Xbox 360, I found the way they incorporated the aiming feature with a first-person view interesting, but playing it through a whole run of the game makes it frustrating. There's a sense of the gameplay being neither fish nor fowl, not quite an RPG and not quite an FPS. The game's playtime did start wearing on me by the end, and I doubt I'll replay it as often as the old turn-based games. I like it but these 100+ hour games are tough sometimes.