Fallout

The GOG Classic version, also installed some mods that fix things and that.

I played with high difficulty (game + combat), but I admit I occasionally put the difficulty to easy in the early parts because otherwise I couldn't lockpick some doors or lockers. Later when my lockpick skill got better, I didn't change the difficulty anymore.

I occasionally used this walkthrough as a generic guideline, at least to create a pretty good character etc., but I didn't fully follow it. Yeah I guess I should have just played it "blind" and find about all the things by myself, but I wanted a good playing experience already on my first game, and not constantly learn from mistakes and wanting to restart the whole game because I made a wrong kind of character or made stupid decisions in the game etc...

Overall... yeah I do understand where the praise comes for this game. It just blows my mind to e.g. think how many different ways to beat the Master in the cathedral has been implemented in the game, I think I could count at least five different ways IIRC, with some variations. Overall it was a pleasant RPG gaming experience, and I also liked it didn't feel too long, too drawn out, like some other RPGs which just go on and on and on, very slowly (looking at you, Daggerfall). This is more compact and level sizes are good.

Some negative things I liked less:

1. The user interface was oddly gimmicky in my opinion. It was not very intuitive, like how to select the action you want to do with some item, NPC or party member. It was also very odd how you had to use the "Steal"-option in order to give your party members new items (weapons, ammo, armor, stimpacks). And that 999 bottle cap transfer restriction is bullshit.

2. I didn't like the fact that you apparently couldn't directly control your party members. The stupid asses would just head towards enemies head on, while I wanted to wait and ambush enemies outside a doorway or such. I was able to keep all my three party members (Dogmeat, Ian, Tycho) alive the whole game, but boy it was hard especially for Dogmeat.

3. Right, that Dogmeat... I really don't understand why I've heard such legendary stories of it, has it even won some "best RPG companion" poll or something? It is just a stupid dog that does very little damage to enemies, just follows you around. Considering how much I've heard about Dogmeat and how attached some gamers have become to it, I was surprised how meh it was at least in this game. At least I wish you could have bought some bulletproof vests or plasma-powered steel teeth for it for extra damage and protection. Yeah I tried my best to keep it alive, but more for the challenge than actually caring for it or anything.

4. Not much of music. I tend to think RPGs usually have some memorable music (like in the Baldur's Gate games, Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld or Icewind Dale), but not this game. Apart from the "Maybe" title music, there really wasn't much of a music, more like just atmospheric background sounds.

Interested to try Fallout 2 next, and maybe Fallout Tactics too. Hopefully Fallout 3 and New Vegas appear also to GOG in the meantime, even though I have them already on Steam.

Titan Quest

The Anniversary edition. Did I beat it? Yes and no. No Immortal Throne part, because once again, I'm just stuck at the final boss of Titan Quest and being one-shot dozens of times in a row is absolutely no fun. I know, you can beat it, but I guess it means a fine-tuned and well-thought build with skill micro-management.

Not my style of play. I play to have fun, and this is no fun to me. If there are gamers who enjoy that kind of things to do, no problem for me. Just absolutely not my cup of tea.

Which is a pity, because except the final boss, Titan Quest is a fantastic game: the setting, the graphisms, the controls, the random loot, yes, this is fun and this is what make a great game in my books. But that final boss...

Time to move to something else. When I get angry playing a game, it means that I'm doing it wrong.

So far in 2016: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2016/post46

One thing I liked in Spec Ops The Line was that somehow it was able to convey the feeling of intense combat and firefights. I don't know if it was partly the third-person view or such, but for the games I've played, it has given me the best feeling like I am watching, and being part of, some war battle scene in a movie, or even real combat.

It did it much better than e.g. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 that I played later. The battles in COD just felt like a game, while Spec Ops was something else. Again, not sure if it was due to the third-person view or what.

The Fool

For a HOG it was quite good and I've really enjoyed it. The story was interesting and very well told in the "cutscenes" between the chapters and there was a nice variety of puzzles which weren't always completely easy to solve. Just a few hidden object sections in between (I think there were four in each chapter) and even those had some small puzlles included.

Think this was the best game that I've played in thisa genre so far.

Complete list of finished games in 2016

What a coincidence, I'm just now playing Titan Quest AE for the first time.My hero is Warfare+Nature build because I need heal magic.
I have not read any wiki or walk-though sites for min-max build.I like to play the game as just random fun walking, so I could not beat the final boss :D

Haha, I guess I was also Warfare+Nature. Not specializing in Nature gave me the most useless wolf companion in the world: despite several points carefully spent in his branch, he kept getting wiped out at the first occasion, so I quickly respec all my points to warfare skills...

Alright, so last Monday I got the Humble Artifex Mundi PC & Mobile Bundle even though it doesn't include DRM-free builds of the PC versions (do they actually exist? I seem to remember you could buy them DRM-free for Windows and Mac on their website, before they redesigned it). Anyway, I intended to play them on my Android phone and so I've begun to do these last few days.

First of all, I got a bit disappointed when I realized only one of the 8 current games in the bundle is actually made by Artifex Mundi themselves. The other 7 are from other devs, and it shows (at least for the three I've already completed). And most importantly, the AM website doesn't seem to specify who developed each game, so you can only find out if you visit the corresponding Steam page. Hmmm...

Anyway, I decided to play them in chronological release order, so here's what I think of the first 3:


<span class="bold">Dark Heritage: Guardians of Hope</span>

The weakest of the three. Instead of the usual 3D-rendered graphics the cutscenes use full motion video, and the result is lackluster at best. Plus, it's kind of creepy because the actors don't move their lips when they are supposed to be talking. Apart from that, both the story and gameplay are what you can expect from an Artifex Mundi game: keys, locks, gems, stones, hidden objects, puzzles, some occult shit going on, and a main character with a golden heart who will save the day.


<span class="bold">The Secret Order 2: Masked Intent</span>

Certainly better than the first one. Better cutscenes (3D-rendered, this time around), better graphics in general, and a slightly better story (but with the same old magic and occult elements, of course). If felt longer than usual (I don't mean it in a bad way), and at the end I discovered why: the short extra chapter/adventure that is usually included in the collector's edition of these games has been seamlessly (more or less) inserted into the main adventure. Plus, this extra content was totally new and wasn't just some recycled assets and locatons from the rest of the game. Nice.


<span class="bold">Eventide: Slavic Fable</span>

At first this one seemed like it could be the best of the three, but by the end I felt like it was dragging a bit too much. Of course it could just be me getting somewhat fed up with the formula. Because yeah, this one is about some magical creatures from the Slavic folklore! Although I admit it was kinda funny meeting some of the same beings from the Witcher universe. Mechanically-wise, the hidden-object parts were more varied than usual, as they sometimes involved finding and assembling the pieces of a tool I needed to make progress. On the other hand, the backtracking I had to do in the later part of the game was quite annoying, but luckily I wasn't playing with the hardest difficulty setting so I could always rely on the map to tell me where I needed to go.


As a recap, I enjoyed playing these games but I don't recommend you to play them obsessively one after another. I think it's better to intersperse them with something else, and that's what I'll do: no more HOPAs for me in a while.


My list of finished games in 2016

Finished the second episode of Batman - The Telltale Series. It's more of the same but I like playing as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. A good game if you like Telltale games.

Full list here.

<span class="bold">Back to the Future - The Game: Episode One: It's about Time</span> (Sept 24, 2016) - approx 4 hours.

Review: This review of the first episode of the 5 episode game.

Story line:
The game takes place after the events of the movies... or does it. Well, in the case of a franchise that is specifically about time travel, it technically takes place after the movies however due to the time travel element, they travel back and forth in time potentially all over the place. The story is of a very similar nature to that of the movies although not quite as strong and compelling as the original movie which was a masterpiece in my eyes. I just watched all 3 movies a day ago to have the entire movie franchise completely fresh in my mind in order to appreciate the game that much more, and to catch any movie and movie timeline references etc.

Graphics:
The graphics engine uses a cartoon-like art direction with the characters drawn in a caricature format which ends up working out quite well. I generally like the overall art direction in the game and thought they did a great job. An upside I always appreciate in any game, is that it supports my native monitor resolution of 2560x1600, however sadly the game has some hard coded limitations of assuming a 16:9 aspect ratio and therefore shows small black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. That doesn't deter from game play much, but whenever I notice that in a game it shows me that the programmers are too lazy to make their games work properly in an aspect-ratio agnostic fashion which I consider a very important part of making video games for at least 10 or more years. There's no excuse for it really, however for this particular type of game it isn't a major issue. If it was an FPP or TPP type game I would give it high negative points for this, but for a point and click adventure game I'll let them off the hook with a minor nit. The game does look quite nice overall.

Gameplay: The game play is mostly fun however it can be a bit quirky at times also, greatly restricting where you are able to walk, causing you to hunt around to find where the correct limited path is to get around which breaks immersion a bit. It's also a little hypersensitive in terms of clicking on objects, where the bounding box of an object is often quite larger than the object so you see it highlight and click on it to find out what it is to determine that it is a nearby object and not what you actually clicked on. That can be problematic also when 2 objects (or people for example) are close by and you want to talk to one of them but it goes to the other one always. The camera angles auto-adjust through most of the game and do not always choose the best angle which can accentuate the previously described problem. The puzzles and steps you need to perform next are sometimes very non-obvious and you can waste some time trying to figure out what it is that you're supposed to do while thinking you've tried everything possible. All games experience that to some extent I suppose but I found it occurred a little too often and had me just wanting to move on instead of being hung up on one thing for too long. Eventually I figured out the missing link though and was able to proceed. Often it is a matter of exhausting all possible dialogue options with each person you encounter and going back to them all again and again until no more possibilities exist.

Pacing and linearity:
I find that the pacing of the game went well at times but then slowed down significantly while getting caught up trying to figure out some obscure combination of events you have to do in a certain order. The game has a very linear feel to it overall which is not altogether uncommon for point and click games, but it's more pronounced in this game I feel. In other words the game looks and feels on the surface like a choose-your-own-adventure type game, but underneath the surface it plays out more like a linear semi-interactive movie. You're essentially watching a video game style interactive movie. Sometimes you may have several open tasks/quests per se. but most of the time they are tasks that must be done in a pre-determined sequence, while other times you may do A, B, or C in any order but must do all 3 of them before proceeding to the next phase of the story. This isn't good or bad per se, it just is.

Sentiment:
So far I'm enjoying the game as an extension of the movie experience and am about 1/3 of the way through the 2nd episode as I type this. I think the game would be a fun experience for those who loved the original movie (with or without the sequels) and who generally like point-and-click style adventure games with more modern graphic engines.

Rating for episode 1: 7/10

I will post individual reviews of each episode, along with a final summary review of the entire game once I've completed it.

<span class="bold">My complete list of finished games in 2016</span>

Star Wars Dark Forces

I would rate it 3/5.

Those platforming sections are some of the most annoying first-person platforming sections I've ever encountered in a game. Completing the game mainly left me irritated. I doubt I will play through it again, platforming in old FPS games like this using only keyboards ? no thank you. I'm not fan of 1st person-platforming in general, so that is probably a factor to consider. However judging by the game's GOG reviews I did not anticipate this kind of platforming.

However there's still enough cool things about the game to keep the rating at a respectable 3/5. The level design up until those platforming sections was clever and challenging, in a really fun way. There was plenty of variety in the scenarios and settings, and lots of cool weapons.

<span class="bold">Back to the Future - The Game: Episode 2: Get Tannen!</span> (Sept 24, 2016) - approx 5 hours.

Review:
See my review of episode 1 for an overall general assessment, as this merely continues the story with identical graphics/tech, gameplay etc.Nothing unique to report for episode 2.

Rating for episode 2: 7/10

I will post a final summary review of the entire game once I've completed it.

<span class="bold">My complete list of finished games in 2016</span>

I feel quite accomplished this year. So far, I've finished:

Might and Magic IV-V: World of Xeen
Pool of Radiance
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Champions of Krynn

Although I definitely intend to play through the remaining Krynn games, I cannot do so right away since University work is getting serious at this point of the semester. Any gaming I wish to do will have to wait until December, when the onslaught of tests, projects and homework ends.

Finished Of Orcs and Men.
Definitely one my (surprisingly) favourites this year. Wasn't expecting much...read a bit about it, saw it on eBay for ~$4, picked it up and just had a blast all the way through. A great story told from the perspective of orcs and goblins to go along with a hybrid of turn-based-ish RPG and Stealth mini-game. Sure, it's just a bunch of linear hallways containing enemies to battle, but the combat is quite strategic and fun, and being able to thin out the ranks with Styx before Arkail rushes in to do battle is just awesome.

I've played only Mars: War Logs from developer 'Spiders' and Styx: Master of Shadows from developer 'Cyanide Studio', which I found mediocre and quite good, respectively, but they did a great job co-developing this game. I may look into playing Bound by Flame some day.

Anachronox

A rpg with plenty of humour set in a sci-fi future. You Play Sly Boots, the private detective who ends up having to go and save the world alongside a cast of unpredictable and varied characters. The story is ok and humour is very good, however the combat, which is turn based is a huge let down, the main reason being how slow it is. And the need to make it last longer by giving half the enemies in the game attack animations that last about 10 seconds. For me the game started good and had a high point in the middle somewhere, however afterwards the story took a more serious turn, slow combat encounters became more frequent and enemies seemed to be able to dodge more attacks, a surprisingly difficult Penultimate boss and then a final boss that is more like a puzzle and isn't difficult as much as extremely frustrating because of how long it takes just to take a turn. The game was had plenty of glitches, mostly graphical, but it did crash twice and I also got stuck twice and had to restart the game. The game was still in my good books until the sudden twist at the end, and then finished the game on a cliffhanger.

There is no sequel to this game, there were 2 DLC's and later a sequel planned but the developers lost the right to the IP before they came about. One of the main developers said that "he was happy it ended on a cliffhanger because most characters had resolved their inner turmoil" (Yes the 3 characters who actually had story behind them). A sequel is possible as Square is now letting developers use it if they want, but I don't think it's likely. I don't think I'd play the game again, I'd only recommend getting it if it was on sale.

Did you use the \ key to speed up the battles? As I recall, it's a must to cut down the wasted time in the game.