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rayden54: Dragon Age, Awakening, and Dragon Age II.

I admit I don't get the complaints about DA:II. I have some, but then again I've got gripes about the first one too.
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Crewdroog: I am half was through DA:O and really like it, but I am hesitant to buy DA: II because so many people bad mouthed it. what do you like and not like?
I'm a bad person to answer that, I'm afraid. I'm odd when it comes to gaming preferences.

Con:
The combat is repetitive.
They did have a tendency to reuse "dungeons." That sort of thing doesn't bother me, but it seemed to be one of the most common complaints.
There's a few points when you really feel limited by the available choices (just try to NOT romance Anders as a male Hawke).
There's only one dedicated healer and one dedicated tank.

Pro:
I like the story. A lot of people don't.
The controls are great.
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Crewdroog: I am half was through DA:O and really like it, but I am hesitant to buy DA: II because so many people bad mouthed it. what do you like and not like?
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rayden54: I'm a bad person to answer that, I'm afraid. I'm odd when it comes to gaming preferences.

Con:
The combat is repetitive.
They did have a tendency to reuse "dungeons." That sort of thing doesn't bother me, but it seemed to be one of the most common complaints.
There's a few points when you really feel limited by the available choices (just try to NOT romance Anders as a male Hawke).
There's only one dedicated healer and one dedicated tank.

Pro:
I like the story. A lot of people don't.
The controls are great.
The story is probably the strongest point about DA2.
And yes, you're stuck with one character, which is a letdown...
And the character balance was crap in DAO as well. Like 6 fighters, but 2 rogues and 2 mages.

I'd like to buy DA2 for my pc though. They appear to sell just the base game... how can I buy the rest of the DLC?
Two in a day! With one hidden objects game under my belt - see above - I decided to zip through another while a big photo gallery batch job was running. The game lasted longer than the job, of course, but both got done.

Recently Momo gave me a copy of Lost Civilization, so I loaded it up to try a HOG from a different company. This game makes it clear how very very good the Nightmares of the Deep game I just finished is: compared to that one, which is a real pleasure to play, this is a shabby, dullish exercise in clicking. There's a rudimentary story, which is not really elaborated at any point, with throwaway "cut scenes" (which consist of a still picture, for the most part, with a bit of narration). The puzzles are simple and hokey, the plot is ludicrous, and the game is designed around hiding things in the interface, rather than in the game world. Where is the pair of scissors? Why, on the bulletin board, of course. Where is the fishing line? In a box, on the street in Prague. Where is the wine I need to pour into the wine bottle? Why, in the fountain in the public square. Silly.

Lost Civilizations was developed for multiple platforms including phones, which is probably why it is so flimsy on the PC. It might be a good game to introduce a sophisticated young child to the genre, but even in that context I suspect that it would fail to satisfy. This is the sort of game people must be thinking of when they say they don't like hidden objects games. It is not evil, but it isn't on the side of the angels. On the plus side, it has the good sense to be quite brief.

My wee list of finished games
Post edited August 17, 2014 by LinustheBold
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mrking58: Time Gentlemen, Please (17th August 7pm)

meh some people would think this game is really funny but once it got the poo and condoms stuff it kind of lost me. That stuff normally does. Plus I think the game went on far too long
Did you play this sequel without playing the first game in the series (Ben There, Dan That) first? If so, you really should've played BTDT before TGP, as it endears the characters a bit more to you (well, maybe.)

But if you are not a fan of poo and condoms in your adventure games, be sure to avoid Hector: Badge of Carnage!
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kalirion: But if you are not a fan of poo and condoms in your adventure games, be sure to avoid Hector: Badge of Carnage!
I'm not keen on poo and condoms in my adventure games but it wasn't enough to hamper my enjoyment of TGP and Hector. If that's the only reason why someone doesn't like them, they'd have to be extremely averse to any mention of body fluids. ;)
Railyard: Match-3 Evolved
This is a very strange Match-3-Game in which you have to manipulate railroad tracks in a way that trains of the same sort end up on the same track. I wouldn't say that it's a bad game, but the difficulty is completely unbalanced. Easy game is more than easy (it says in the description that your baby could play it and that's probably right) while normal game is very hard.

Took me quite a while to make enough money on normal, so I could upgrade my railyard. Once I did so (2 trains fuse instead of 3, added time for each fusion), the game suddenly became incredibly easy. While I made about $5000 in a game before, I suddenly made $500,000 and just stopped because I got bored. If you don't play completely stupid (or go away for several minutes), you won't be able to lose at that point.

After that I upgraded the rest of my railyard and the game became much harder again, because it added seral new trains which made it less likely that two of the same kind would show up at the right moment. But it still wasn't as hard as in the beginning (think I made about $80,000 on my first try).

Thank you again to roelibex who gifted me the game!

Complete list of finished games in 2014
Post edited August 18, 2014 by PaterAlf
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mrking58: Time Gentlemen, Please (17th August 7pm)

meh some people would think this game is really funny but once it got the poo and condoms stuff it kind of lost me. That stuff normally does. Plus I think the game went on far too long
Oh wow, you finished that.
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mrking58: Time Gentlemen, Please (17th August 7pm)

meh some people would think this game is really funny but once it got the poo and condoms stuff it kind of lost me. That stuff normally does. Plus I think the game went on far too long
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realkman666: Oh wow, you finished that.
I only bought when it came on GOG and since my backlog is kind of big
Update since my initial list:

8. Sanitarium - On the downside, the UI is poor and it started to crash majorly at the end. But the grotesque surreal setting and imagery make it quite a unique romp, as far as adventures go. I enjoyed the puzzles, and the mystery of what was happening was also a plus.
9. Spycraft The Great Game - Kind of a FMV point-and-click, but that does it a bit of disservice, because there's FPS action sequences and top-down strategic sequences. The jist of it is, you are a CIA agent whose main role is to protect a peace treaty between the US and Russia. You talk to people and search for information. That information helps you make conclusions and report to your supervisors, which triggers new events. Sometimes you'll be in the position of commanding an infiltration mission. Other times, you're caught in a shootout. It's the most spy simulator-like game you could play.
10. Corpse Party - Finally finished this RPG-Maker horror adventure. It definitely has a creepy, unsettling vibe, and retaining the original Japanese voice cast helps a lot in that regard. The best part about the game is that even when you lose, you "win" as there are a number of ways to die or progress the story based on your decisions and actions.
11. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Found out about this game when it came here. Very interesting point-and-click, with an unsettling backdrop, odd imagery, and dark story. I did have to "cheat" via walkthrough, since there's no way to get the good ending unless you do the scenarios perfectly. But even the bad endings are interesting.

Full List
Post edited August 18, 2014 by thuey
I just finished Salvation Prophecy. Many compare Salvation Prophecy to Mount & Blade and the comparison is not without merit, they do have many similarities. You start off at the bottom of a faction and work your way up, you have as many as twenty allies with you at a time while you take over a planet or defend your own and you can take on bounty missions, just to name a few similarities. However Salvation Prophecy definitely is it's own game.

Whether navigating your ship through a wormhole on the way to another planet or helping your faction take down a fortress there is always something to do, however there isn't a ton of mission variety. You'll usually be defending a planet or taking one over (replace "planet" with "fortress" for the space battles), out exploring wormholes or doing bounty missions. The lack of variety is (mostly) handled very well by the feeling of progression as well as the introduction of new elements, it feels like there is always something "new" to do even if it's just exploring a new planet.

The story is really well written...whenever it decides to pop up. I personally like the graphics and each faction and planet has it's own distinct feel, and planets you'll discover later are just dripping with atmosphere. Despite being pretty much being made by one man I didn't encounter any bugs whatsoever, it's really well put together.

One of the few complaints I have about the game is that you can make peace with a faction (or make them surrender) but if you have a base or a fortress that gets destroyed they may build their own base/fortress over it before you have a chance to rebuild. My other big complaint is that in the later stages of the game there are a few missions you have to do in order to further the game and the story while dealing with a major plot twist but the game can take its sweet time assigning you those missions.

All in all it's both more simple and more complex than it seems from the outside but it's quite fun and there aren't many games out there like it (besides Mount & Blade).
Sleeping Dogs - Enjoyable open-world game, particularly liked this one due to the good voice acting, enjoyable side missions that didn't feel stale or grindy (to me anyways). I didn't like the combat at first, but ended up liking it more towards the end.

Another World - This game was rather frustrating, requiring you to continually to get better. I don't really enjoy playing those types of games, that being said this game probably will grow on me as I replay it. It's quite quick, and I really did enjoy the art style, helped sell that you truly were in another world.

So far:
Carmegeddon 2: Carpocalypse Now
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Alien Shooter + Expansions
Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death
Waking Mars
Far Cry 2
Splinter Cell
Mirror's Edge
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol
Deadly Premonition
Metro: Last Light
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies
Sniper Elite V2
Sleeping Dogs
Another World
Just beat Dead Bits

Why did I just beat Dead Bits? I dunno. It's not very good. But took less than 2 hours, so that's fine, I guess.
I just finished Kingdom Rush
Normally I am not into tower defense games, but this one was surprisingly fun and addicting. The campaign missions were interesting and I think they were sometimes more challenging that the heroic missions. So now that I finished it once I might try it again in a few months on a harder difficulty level.
Actually, I finished this game several weeks ago, but I think it deserves a mini-review and a bit of advertising!

Long Live the Queen is a life simulator (well, it could simulate the life of a mage-princess *if* that kind of person existed) that faces you with the challenge of keeping together a realm after the assassination of the previous Queen. It does so by presenting you a tricky - and believable, despite the setting and the art style- challenge between the main character and the rest of the fictional world. The question it poses is "how would you react if you were the protagonist"? The premise tells you clearly that the kingdom is in turmoil due to the lack of a central power, and if you want to make a credible game based on that situation it seems obvious that you have to ramp up the difficulty and the complexity - and I think the game makes an excellent job with that. After all, you need to uncover the plots of treacherous nobles, foil several attempts at assassinations, stop foreign invasions, deal with any kind of unexpected accident and pay attention to the princess' own foolishness... if this was easy, anybody could be a king!
This same motives see the need to sacrifice a strong storyline in favor of a great number of different situations, but that only enhances replayability (seriously, if you dig deeper in the game, you'll find an astronomic amount of equally valid possibilities, à la "choose your own adventure").
The mechanics are fairly simple, but imo that simplicity makes the game more enjoyable: for every in-game week, you have to choose an activity (or attend to a few mandatory ones, like parades or court balls) that will influence your mood; this latter one will act as a modifier to the numerous and various classes you have to take in order to learn the skills needed to pass various ability checks. Every single one of them has its uses, but it is up to the player to find an adeqaute combination that can lead to success. It is obvious that, for example, trainig the princess in economics, history and sowrdsmanship is not a viable solution, while on contrary military strategy+economics+espionage is. The game does not hold your hand, though: if you want to discover what effects an ability can produce, you'll have to try it and discover the rest from yourself – fact is that most of the time this can easily spoil you long-term plans, leading you to a premature death.
In my opinion, the only real downside is that, after failing several times, you can easily recognize a certain constant pattern common to every playthrough, making the focal points predictable and favoring a trial-and-error approach to them (with a large possibility to abuse save-scumming). Besides, I think that a violent approach (military, weapons and desctructive+defensive magic) can easily lead to way better results than diplomacy.

All in all, I really enjoyed Long Live the Queen, and I certainly hope Hanako Games can come up with a sequel that addresses the few lower points while maintaining the same complexity in interactions, simplicity in mechanics and high replayability (if you look in the achievements section, you can easily understand what I'm talking about: I played the game several times, but I still have to unlock more than half of the possible paths!)
I just finished the main quest in Cold, Cold Heart, a DLC for Batman: Arkham Origins. It's not bad overall but just like the base game it feels extremely mediocre in every aspect (especially when compared to the previous games in the series). Keeping (almost) all of your upgrades and gadgets from the base game was a nice change though.