Beaten Kao the kangaroo round 2 some more collectibles, some mini games which unlock after getting crystals mostly each 50 crystals so still missing the 250 for baseball mini game,50 stars for each skill upgrade , some stages are decent, also good thing they removed the lives and made it checkpoint based.
Wish the ending was a little more fleshed out but it's more in the gameplay that you already did that.
I found it funny how they made the ending in Kao 1.
Still enjoyed it, but yes short game, not a lot of varying enemies.
Now only Kao mystery of the volcano is left.

Shadowgate, March 1 (GOG)-I have mixed feelings on Shadowgate. I started and stopped playing it several times over the last four years managing to get about 2/3 of the way on the easiest difficulty. But even on the easiest difficulty I got stuck in the castle and couldn't ever cure myself of the curse. Then I'd put it down for an extended period and never remember what my goal was when I picked it back up forcing more restarts. So I decided I'd just make liberal use of the walkthru and finish it.

To me this is one of those games that's hindered by its gameplay. The interface is terrible. If I want to read a scroll in a bag, I have to do the following:
Click on the bag
Click take bag
Open the inventory (might need to click to the page with the bag)
Click on the bag
Click open bag
Click Archive tab (might need to click to the page with the scroll)
Click on scroll
Click open scroll
Click look at scroll
That series of clicks is awful to simply read a scroll. This game really needed to have a streamlined, one click interface.

Additionally, the curse you get at the beginning of the game will cause you to die after too many turns if you can't cure it. So for over half the game you're penalized for doing things inefficiently, ie generally exploring and trying object interactions and things you typically do in adventure games. With a lot of useless objects to pickup as well and the need for backtracking the imposed turn limit really hinders enjoyment. There are also a series of 10 or so spells to learn but I never really knew what each spell did and so I never knew when I needed to use an inventory item or a spell.

Its not a bad game and the visuals and story were good if a little cliched but the actual gameplay really hurts and the overall difficulty was too much. It makes me think this would have been better as a visual novel instead.

Full List

OMG, the plot is as tangled as Cthulhu's tentacles :D, but – it's a fantastic game; don't skip it! I'm a massive fan of point-and-click adventures, and I'm generally let down by modern games. This is a great piece. Hand-drawn graphics and animation are incredible! It has outstanding voice acting and a good range of puzzles and dialogues. It's quite easy, which may suggest that there isn't enough challenge.

Beaten Kao mystery of the volcano i thought the game would be bad, but it isn't. I did like it more than i thought i would.
Got some interesting ideas for platforming.
Now back to my long games i think.

Game#2 - Deliver Us The Moon
(Completed end of February 2021, Xbox 1)

A somewhat short investigation/exploration adventure with some puzzle solving elements, you play an astronaut going to the moon to find out what happened to the energy production colony there, and to restore the power production if possible.

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*small spoilers ahead*
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Pros

Nice music and cutscenes, a nice plot and setting.

Also a very good game for those who like anything moon/astronaut focused.
(the launch bits were very nice, for one thing)

Cons & Misc

End bit has a time limit and some platforming before that, so it gets tense & maybe frustrating near the end. There are also a few rare time limits in other places as well....such as needing to run through some vacuum areas in a few places while collecting oxygen bottles.

A few puzzles are a bit tough to do(like powering the space station....you need to precisely dodge electrified cabling while free floating), and there are some "quick time events" in the form of pressing buttons when on the monorail which some might not like.

A bit short.....when I finished I was left wanting more. :)

Overall Score: 7.5/10

A great little space "walking sim puzzle adventure game"...especially if one can get it at a good price
(the length is a bit short for the normal price some stores want, imo)

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Agent A: A puzzle in disguise

It's a casual puzzle/adventure game made for mobile devices, but I played it on PC. The first time I tried it, I thought it was weird and clunky and immediately gave up on it, but I guess I also wasn't really in the mood for it. Tonight, I gave it a second chance and completed it in one sitting.

What marred my impression at first were two things: First of all, the presentation is very cartoony, light-hearted, maybe even a bit cute, so it looks like a harmless, family-friendly game, and for the most part it is, but it's also casually cruel or dark at times, which seemed a bit at odds with the tone of the game (nothing graphic, but e.g. it starts with the "flirty" female spy you're after murdering your boss - and possibly others - in a ship bombing). Second, you navigate and solve puzzles by clicking only, without any visible or named hotspots - you have to find them by clicking, too. They are things that stand out, so it's not much of an issue, but it takes getting used to a bit. Also, it often displays text when you click on things and the text just stays until it's replaced by other text, but it doesn't pause the game, like other adventures do, and being used to those traditions, at first I always thought I had to click the text away (which is neither possible nor necessary).

Anyway, that being said, once you get into it, it's quite enjoyable. The puzzles are all pretty easy and simplistic, but I thought that was fine. You should hold pen and paper at the ready though, as the game won't store any codes or clues for you, you have to write them down. The story is simple and predictable, graphics and spoken text are somewhat basic, too, and some puzzles repeat themselves (memorize and copy patterns, find out the right order of pressing buttons by trial and error, collect x hidden parts of y), but that's alright for a game like this. The overall atmosphere, locations and little animations/cutscenes, as well as the casual difficulty were enough for me to stay motivated. Near the end I got a bit impatient and checked a walkthrough once or twice to learn where to go next, just because I was fed up with all the backtracking, which gets a bit much in the second half. It's not really walking, just clicking through a couple of rooms (left mouse one room forward, right mouse one room backwards) and it only takes a few seconds every time despite some animations, but it's not really fun to constantly go to and fro, and you're risking to forget about things due to all the repetition. There would really have been no need for a walkthrough otherwise, though.

All in all, it was a neat little distraction, a very decent casual adventure game, like what HOGs would play like without the hidden object screens (which always feel out of place to me in HOGs). It took me between 4 and 5 hours, without rushing anything (and including all that backtracking which artifically prolonged the game a bit).

It's seriously overpriced on PC though, almost 4 times as much as the mobile version costs, and more costly than some of the greatest fullblown indie adventure games or the old classics. Thankfully, I got it in a low tier Humble Bundle.

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (XSX Game Pass)

I played it using the turn based combat option and do not regret it at all. Yes it's slower, but really combat is not a huge factor in this game- it's more about talking and having people talk at you and reading, lots and lots of reading. Those are the things that slow this game down, not using turn based combat. The main reason I went turn based is because it makes you far more inclined to fully utilize your parties abilities- you have the time to asses and target and you can more easily time interrupts to enemy spells and abilities. The system is not as deep as Temple of Elemental Evil however...you cannot form defense lines that target and block for example- here it's far too easy for enemies to just bypass and run around your fighters. But better than real time.
The other important consideration is whether to select level scaling or not. I went with no level scaling at all, i just prefer that for this type of game.

Unfortunately it's not a great game, despite some improvements over part one. Combat is improved by the turn based option. But the exploration is poor, very rarely does exploring ever reward you with anything that is worth the effort. The open maps from the first game are gone, and even in the first game the maps were only a shadow of the old Infinity games. In Deadfire you just sail around a sea map and explore tiny little maps to uncover the single encounter or puzzle contained on each. Even the games city is quite small.

Story was just average and is far too based on Gods and dreamy la la land stuff for my liking. Why should I care about Gods in a fantasy land? I don't even care about the fantasy Gods in our real world.

The combat is okay, but the equipment progression is not, I find it really hard to tell at a glance why i should ever use one piece over another. As the game went on I found most enemies had high armor which stopped my weapons from penetrating...so I just settled on weapons with the highest penetration and that worked. Most offensive spells were useless because they had low penetration.

I pushed on, as some of the worlds side quests involving the factions were pretty good. In the end I decided to abandon all factions and go the end game alone with just my party. I skipped all DLC as, by this time I just wanted the fastest way to the games end. Though, I have kept an end game save so I can go back if I ever choose and do the other faction endings or the DLC.

Oh yeah...naval combat.
almost forgot. Don't bother with it and the choose your adventure system. Take my advice and bypass CYOA right at the start by boarding the enemy ship when prompted. That way you just fight a standard battle, much better.

Even though I wasn't blown away by the first game, it was better overall than Deadfire. I'm glad that Avowed is taking Obsidian back to 3rd person gaming as i think they're better at it.

Just beat Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York on PS4. What made me finally play the game was that I got the Steam version from Humble Choice but then I figured that I need an excuse to not sit at my PC but relax on the couch so I promptly got the PS4 version and beat that one.

So, I didn't lament the fact that it is a visual novel - as far as I'm concerned the World of Darkness with its extensive lore and complex vampiric society seems a pretty great fit for this format and a visual novel may deliver on aspects of the WoD that a combat-centric RPG isn't all that suitable for. However, I'm under the impression that it's not a good visual novel, especially by modern standards - though admittedly I don't have much experience with the genre.

What's striking is that, while the game has IMO top-notch illustrations with nice animated backgrounds, a nice dark industrial soundtrack and also decent sound design, it comes off as cheap due to multiple odd omissions and other weird stuff. For one, it does not have voice overs. I'm not sure what the standards are in this genre these days but almost every VN I've ever played had VO and it's just such a waste - I feel that VOs, and also some more sounds, could have made everything feel so much more alive and I think their lack contributes hugely to the game feeling a bit cheap and boring. Likewise, the game lacks any form of character animations or at least facial expressions and - what's perhaps worse - has no illustrations that describe the action. Almost all of the action is described only in text form while you see generic backgrounds and don't even hear a sound. Also, oddly characters are only on screen while they are "talking" and usually hidden while you pick a response which makes conversations not feel like conversations? You also never get to see multiple characters on screen at once so you never have a sense that the screen really reflects the current situation. So, as I said, I'm not that familiar into VNs but everything I just described puts Coteries of New York way below the standards I'm familiar with. I mean, the first VtM video game released in ages should at least meet the quality standards of freaking Huniepop, right? I would honestly love to see a remaster that adds all these things - and am very disappointed to see that the sequel apparently didn't address any of those issues.

Besides that - the game didn't quite resonate with me and it's a bit hard to tell why. The writing style is decent enough, though it's a bit too emo for my taste and desperately lacks humor. I guess I appreciate references to current culture and events and that the writers weren't afraid of referencing real-world companies like Twitter and Netflix but I felt that actually the world feels almost too mundane. Unlife feels an awkward lot like no-life here and the morbid world of the undead feels almost tame compared to the shit that actual people do. I guess that made the game feel pretty boring to me. And it's nowhere as weird and exotic as the world described in Bloodlines or even Redemption.

Sadly also the plot - or rather plots, as there are several optional independent sub-plots - is quite underwhelming. Of course you play a fledgling who of course ends up being a pawn in a big game - and the game ends right on that level. In terms of gravitas it barely goes beyond what you'd see in an RPG's tutorial and comparably small side quests. And the plot is neither particularly clever nor complex and is still riddled with holes. It feels like an awkward fanfic rather than the real thing.

Also, it's one of those VNs that have hints of systemic gameplay. There's passage of time, which restricts how many optional actions you can perform per night and you have a blood level which determines what choices are available. Sadly the game doesn't allow you to really manage that stuff nor does any of it matter much. You can't e.g. choose to go hunting or build relationships to get a steady blood supply - you just incidentally stumble upon feeding opportunities during the main plot or subplots and can choose to use them or not. I played as Ventrue so it was implied that the blood quality is very important in my case but after the intro it turns out that that was just a sham and I could even suck the blood from a bum's buttox and be fine (if that was an option). So, that's disappointing.

The second thing is that you're building one of the titular coteries by doing the optional sub-plots with other vampires of your choice - it felt like a build-up towards something big, like preparing a crew for a big heist or something. That doesn't happen. The vampires you befriended just show up for one brief scene that feels utterly irrelevant and they don't even do anything special there. Heck, one of them even showed up even though I didn't finish their plot. And then it leads to a silly ending - apparently the only ending in the game - where your cotery isn't even involved. That's even more disappointing.

Sooo, as much as I love the World of Darkness (though I admittedly only know it from Redemption and Bloodlines), Coteries of New York was pretty disappointing on virtually every level besides the quality of the illustrations and the music, I guess. Apparently the sequel, Shadows of New York, is supposed to better but I'd rather do my tenth playthrough of Bloodlines than try that one, to be honest.

Seasons After Fall. Charming, confusing, overall good experience.

I just started Risen. This is going to be a pain. So many issues already after only 30 minutes. It better be good.

Not as good as the first Gothics I'd say. Thought it was nice enough up to a point, chapter one and most of two being the high points, with a partial recovery in part of chapter 4. So if you don't like the first chapter, wouldn't exactly expect improvements... Though I guess it may be a matter of preferences.

I read many reviews stating the same thing.

Medal of Honor Airborne (XSX)

Pretty crap shooter in the end. It started out tricking me into thinking it may be good, as the first couple of operations are okay. I do like the actual air drop aspect in that you can choose which part of the map to drop onto, the risky option close to objectives or the safer but longer route of using the green drop zones.
But the bad far outweighs the good. I'd say some the most unresponsive controls ever, plus your character gets hitched on small rocks that you should just automatically step over when running.
The operations rely on constant respawning enemies to give the illusion of a constant battle, you have to keep taking stupid risks by pushing forward to stop the respawns before you run out of ammo, and all the way your own squad mates are useless.

I can see why EA have pretty much dropped this franchise, none of the ones I've played were very good. It's a shame though, as a realistic game based around airborne operations would be something I'd really like and suits a video game more than trying to create a front line experience.

Last week I got done with Beyond Divinity. In the past I put it aside several times but this time I pushed through and got to the end.
Well, I was not impressed. The story is weak (although the twist was neat) and not presented too well. The gameplay is OK at most, as the 2 characters co-operation doesn't work too well and the skill system in the game couldn't be made worse and more complicated even if they tried. Battlefields are abosoutely boring, not integrated into the game well and make little sense and I skipped all of them in acts 3 and 4 as they were prolonging the game long past acceptable line.
Overall just average game and one RPG I don't have no need to go back to.
5/10

Yesterday I was quite busy as I completed 3 games.

First Call of Juarez.
Decent shooter. Not the best I've played by far but not the worst either. It is carried by its western setting but as game it is far from good.
5,5/10

Then I got done with visual novel LoveKami -Divinity Stage-.
It is quite short, straightforward (only single choice whole game), not well written and it doesn't appeal to me with its looks either.
3/10

Then in the evening I finished Mega Man 8 from the PC Legacy collection.
Yeah, I think I I liked this one. It is modern enough for my liking. It is animated quite nicely and the enemies and bosses look and move in pleasing manner.
Do I like the anime cutscenes? No. Did they bother me? Not much.
I enjoyed playing it with the exception of hoverboard sections (they simply suck and should burn in hell) and in those parts I really missed the rewind option that is not present again. It was doable even without it but it yet again took longer than the games that had rewind. I didn't mind it wasn't here, as it was fun to play it. I wish the save feature worked bit better, though.
7/10

Full list.

Stay away from Call of Duty then.

I also think it is a pity the game was not better than it is.

Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders and Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel

After playing these add-ons (not touching level-packs, like the one with 1500 levels? nah, nope) my opinion on Heretic didn't change while my dislike for Hexen bloat and slog grow even more.
Didn't liked more frequent monsters spawns, now replaced with those shield-wielding centaurs that
can spawn on your head, literally.

Some levels in Heretic had no map reveal at the end which catched me by surprise.
Most memorable level? Mausoleum, thank goodness it was secret level so I can avoid it in my next potential playthough...
Hexen was slowly switching from switch-sniffing every pixel to puzzles before they made Hexen 2.

I have some tolerance for some old and new games quirks but respawning enemies is not my favourite one, to put it mildly.

Baldur's Gate - Siege of Dragonspear

Got lucky discount along with the access to classic versions.
It did its job for a title connecting BG1 and BG2 - nice adventure on top of that, with good antagonists, NPCs and quests.
The city itself was cut into small pieces that looks bad on higher resolution. Also had to use arrow keys to move camera in windowed mode, mouse didn't work there.
They could change some thing in the final part of the final section of the game (post final boss) but they did good job in general.
As for that certain NPC that caused storm in teacup - nothing special? I guess it wouldn't cause that much of a storm at BG1 release, I guess?
It was game with gender-bending belt and nobody made any ruckus about it after all.

Did some quests on my way except first one with menhirs, for some reasons one of them didn't count, can't interact with any of them anymore.
Whatever, went elsewhere and found some XP farming spots to compensate for it :]

Got some nice, more memorable encounters like ritual site, camps attack. Actual siege wasn't that phenomenal tbh.