That's something I liked on the other hand :) Tranquilize the guard standing near the railing so as not to kill him, only for him to slump over the railing and fall to his death xP I'm going to have to remember to try out the guard dog one on my next playthrough though. Usually I was more concerned with saving the dog's life first, which is why I never got a chance to notice it.

My biggest problem was that often bodies were discovered that I tried to hide. But that was usually sloppiness on my part, by underestimating how far certain guards/npcs wander in a level. Also, for some reason guards aren't fooled by things hidden in darkness if they're close enough. Not sure I liked this feature. Instead it'd be great if one of these stealth games tried to emulate light sensitivity to some degree, e.g. if you are inside a brightly lit room and it is dusk, then you won't notice someone prowling around outside.

Heh, this is what I have been playing recenly (before I hurt my hand and had to take a forced break). How do you like expansions to F.E.A.R. 1? I feel like Extraction Point took quite a dive compared to base game already and it doesn't give me good outlook for next instances.
Shame to hear that about shotgun in 2. It is by far my most used game in F.E.A.R. 1 becaus eit is just so damn usfel and fun at the same time.

Tupilak (NWN:EE)

Finished this 1-2 weeks ago but forgot to post. Quite nice and creative. Unusual setting for a Neverwinter Nights module, too (modern day Greenland). Full review here.

Gameplay wise, the expansions are solid IMO. I really don't like the story. It doesn't go anywhere and a bit messy. I think FEAR stands on its own without any sequels. FEAR 2 made me lose interest in the series. It lost what made it a FEAR game. Aside from what I already mentioned, the dynamic lighting that made the original game so atmospheric is gone. And the AI is dumb compared to the original. You can still have fun with it but it was a big letdown for me.

Framed Collection, July 2 (Itch)-A clever puzzle game wherein you slide around panels in a comic to progress the action. The mechanics were fun with added twists throughout the two games. The puzzles were a little on the easy side with the exception of a couple that were just trial and error. My only complaint is that I was unable to save so I had to beat each game in a single sitting. But overall a neat couple of games for an evening or two.

Full List

I figured that before moving on to another game I'd beat the expansion of Total War: Shogun, Mongol Invasion, playing as the Mongols. I guess I shouldn't have done that.

Mongol Invasion is a massive change over the base game but frankly not for the better. There are only two factions here, the defending Hojo clan and the Mongol invaders. What's cool is that the Mongols have their own units (while in the base game all factions have the same ones) and requires different tactics during battles, which is the reason I picked them for this playthrough. What's not so cool is that there's no diplomacy this time and the Mongols also don't have any management whatsoever. You don't construct anything (well, except towers), you don't train anyone, you don't collect taxes, you don't have any spies or assassins. You just regularly receive more units and move from one battle to the next. It's pretty darn boring and frankly after two or three battles I just used auto resolve every single time and beat the campaign in just a couple of hours this way. I guess the campaign makes much more sense playing as the Hojo, since then you have a lot of management to do and strategic decisions to make and I imagine that holding off an endless stream of invaders can make for a fun challenge then. But playing as the Mongols the campaign is frankly utterly dull. I guess I would have been better off just playing some battle scenarios.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall

Pretty decent game imo. Not top-tier, gameplay isn't anything that special. I played on "hard", and while some combat scenarios were mildly challenging, it was still on the easier side (so probably nothing for hardcore gamers). But it's enjoyable enough.
Story and writing are pretty good by videogame standards. I also liked that you get to make at least some meaningful choices. They even included an ending which allows you to join the main antagonist, with hilariously terrible consequences. Prettty nice!
My rating: I'm a bit torn between 3/5 and 4/5, but since I had quite a bit of fun with it, I'll rate it as 4/5.

Finished a few ones since last time:
- Lost:Via Domus: It was better in my souvenirs. Not very interesting and gameplay is less than average.
- Kentucky Route Zero: Act I: I didn't like it and did not understand what makes it a great game. I won't play the other acts.
- Lancelot's Hangover: The Quest for the Holy Booze: A really good (and short) point'n click. Highly recommended.
- Before I Forget: A short game about dementia. Not bad but not that interesting either.
- Shuyan Saga: A good visual novel with fighting parts. I liked it a lot.
- Bayonetta: A good beat'em all but really too difficult.


Full list here.

Shadowrun returns

Played this over the weekend. It's short and extremely linear with few real choices. Gameplay is ok, but nothing special. Still, I found the story and the writing enjoyable enough and had fun with the game. Ending was pretty amusing.
My rating: 3/5.

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus

Finished the main campaign and currently going through the DLCs. IMO, The New Order is a superior game but just by a hair. What sets back TNC is that there is just too many cutscenes/cinematics which I think messes up the pacing of the game. I love the character development though and I think it could have been done better even with the same amount of cutscenes. I just want long stretches of time where I could just mow down Nazis and robots. Irene Engel is an awesome villain. A worthy successor to Wilhelm Strasse. I want more Wolfenstein and hopefully, more Frau Engel.


Oh. And more Max Hass.

Until now

Final Fantasy VII
Cyber Shadow

The Eye of the Beholder (with All Seeing Eye)

Wow for me the All Seeing Eye mod MAKES this game - with it it's a fun exploration game where every step feels like a tiny bit of progress as your explore the map.
Without it it's just a dick of a game that leaves you lost and confused with puzzles that exploit the identical nature of the wall tiles to teleport the party all over the map without the player even realising! What kind of a game mechanic is THAT?
Also what's with making the player pick up every single projectile arrow, stone and knife after every battle and giving them back to the appropriate party member nicely? THAT'S a good use of the player's time! Good job that the game is relatively combat light I guess...
Also the level and puzzle design seems a little.. naïve, like something a teenager would think up to play on his kitchen table, although I guess there's SOME charm to that - it's an authentic D&D experience at least!
there's also random information missing like how much damage the weapons actually do (ooh a rock +2 but what's the base damage? Who knows?) and it tells you how much EXP each party member has but not the amount they need to get to the next level!?!
Also a wall of text ending sequence is always a bit of a cop out!
You may say I'm being overly nit-picking and not appreciating how old this thing is but it WAS released AFTER the 'gold box' SSI AD&D series and in many ways it feels like a step backwards!
So, in short, maybe worth your time IF used with All Seeing Eye and you happen to have some nostalgia about getting so far with it on the Amiga in the 90s..

Full List:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2021/post131

Thanks for the review. I've also just completed the game with the All Seeing Eye and my view closely mirrors yours. I found the combat to be underwhelming for the same reasons you did. Having to pick up every missile weapon and the slowness of combat magic resulted in me mainly relying on my front two melee fighters.

I finished it in 20 hours, but if I'd played it purely 'old-school' without the mapping provided by the All Seeing Eye, that could quite easily have been 30-40 hours. The game definitely has a certain charm and looks great but I'm not sure I would have had the patience to stick with it for that long.

Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. This is a solid improvement over Infernal Machine, and I think maybe the last decent Indiana Jones game? Maybe the one on the Wii was okay, I haven't played it. It's built on the Slayer engine that the developers used for their Buffy game on the Xbox, which means you get solid beat-em-up gameplay in which you can smash stuff, and then pick up the table or chair legs and use those as weapons, and there's a lot of context-sensitive moves. I only figured out toward the end of the game that you can do elbow smashes on guys behind you like in Double Dragon. It's not as well-developed as the Buffy game (since it was made for that franchise), but it works well for Indy, and then you've got some basic Tomb Raider-like puzzles and exploration. It plays fast and smoothly and is generally easy to control once you add a gamepad mod on top of the mod to make the cinematics play properly.

The guy doing Indy's voice isn't bad - he sounds more like Harrison Ford than the last guy they used - but it's kind of funny hearing Indy panting like crazy every time you do anything. I'm not sure they give Indy's cardio enough credit. The graphics are solid but unspectacular in that "made for multiplatform" way that you especially saw in 2000s games. At least they're clear and the camera doesn't flip out too much. The cinematics are relatively brief, well-directed, and feel on point for the character. Lucasarts used to be so good at that stuff. It's too bad they got killed.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon (XSX Game Pass)

Awesome game. So good in fact that I'd put it up in the "S" tier list for modern games along with Dark Souls, Bloodborne and NieR: Automata. Many people that have followed the series know that it has moved to a turn based JRPG. For me that's good. It's the best JRPG I've ever played now, better than Persona 5. The problem I always had with the other Yakuza games' combat is that of combo's. In that type of game I cannot (or I'm just too lazy to) remember more than 2 or three combo's anyway- hence I just end up using the same thing over and over, which sort of makes the upgrade system a bit pointless. But in turn based mode I use all my abilities because I have time. The turn based system is most like South Park Stick of Truth in that it is turn based with an active component to enhance attacks or defend better.

Otherwise, everything else expected from a Yakuza game is there. A main story with all new characters, with cameos from long time characters as well. Ichiban Kasuga grows on you over the game, being almost the opposite of the serious and dour Kiryu. Kasuga basically sees himself as being the hero in a classic Dragon Quest game, hence the turn based game style. It has a full suite of side activities and mini games that are just as ridiculous as ever. Most of the game plays out on a new Yokahama map which is much larger than any other map in the series. Plus the old Tokyo maps return for parts of the story as well.

The only thing I really feel is a negative is the respawn system. The series has always been known for the way you get jumped by random thugs when walking around, but in Like a Dragon it's more annoying than usual. After beating a trash mob up, they literally spawn again further up the same street, meaning you sometimes will run into them three times just trying to go down one narrow street. It's not as bad in wider streets because you can cross to the other side of the road to avoid encounters- they are always visible on map. In future I'd like to see a better and less annoying random encounter system.

A modern classic.