Torchlight 2 +.

After balance frustrations, the game was still fun enough to play a second time, so I finished Plus mode. At over 300 deaths I'm done for a while with this one. At some point I'll try to find a definitive build guide and try hardcore (but at first glance people are arguing over what stats should be leveled... hence my frustration with the way the game presents data to help make build decisions).

Just as a note, most posts in the Runic forums are quite old. If you look at the newer ones, you'll see people have basically figured out what are the viable builds for particular characters, and those don't necessarily look like the ones posted back in 2012. On the other hand, people posting now are the folks for whom "viable build" means "level 100 build", which really isn't what most people are aiming for, not to mention grinding it up for the money and items, collecting the right gems, then catching a certain enchanter to raise your stats through the roof will take much more time than merely reaching lvl 100.

However, for those of us not-so-hardcore, the game is pretty forgiving up to Elite difficulty, and I think it's possible to finish it with any build whatsoever. Furthermore, there won't be much difference, I think - assuming the build focuses on the penultimate or ultimate tier of skills, you'll get to put about ten in the first and less in the second, therefore not really reaching the build's potential, meaning you might be better off spending your points elsewhere if you know you're not going to continue.

Space Legends: At the Edge of the Universe

Not a fan. Very short game. Puzzles were overly complicated for the genre with no plot or payoff to feel motivated to solve them. Abrupt end with no bother to close out the story and a broken hint system that leaves you backtracking and wandering around in a few places were the game doesn't know where to tell you to go next.

Just to clarify, I was discussing Plus mode (+). Which means I did beat the game, twice. I found balancing very rough. I found many folks complaining the game was too easy to which I believe they either didn't finish or they found a build more efficient than others. I found act 1 to be too easy. Act 2 to be easy. And, act 3 to be much more difficult. If I had to guess its that gear stopped dropping for me in act 3. Hense the 300+ deaths to finish Plus. Torchlight doesn't do a good job of letting you know what you need to fill the holes in your build. I've never had that problem with other ARPGs. (or even RPGS). There is a message that states that if you keep dying, upgrade your armor. I would have loved to.... But, thanks for the comments. It will be a while before I go after that one again.

Include me

Driftmoon
LIfeless Planet
The Dig
FEAR
FEAR: Extraction Point
Max Payne 3
Serious Sam 3: BFE
Tomb Raider

MouseCraft (Linux)

It's a nice little puzzle game. Nothing special but nice and relaxing. It's something I'd give my children to play if I had any, even the level editor is really nice and easy and could be used by children to make some fun levels as well.
The difficulty curve is very weird, in the middle I just wasn't able to get all the crystals but the last levels were really easy.
Linux port is mostly good although for some reason the desktop mouse cursor wasn't hidden and so I had two cursors on top of each other but it didn't bother me.

The timing is a bit buggy though, sometimes I had a mouse being in explosion range and sometimes not when running exactly the same setup again.

I'd recommend it for about 4 or 5 dollars.

Oh, I got that. The second paragraph was a general comment on the difficulty. I wouldn't like anyone getting discouraged. I actually remember your first T2 post, and I completely agree - the third act is palpably more difficult than the first two, and on my first playthrough, I died there twice as many times as in the first two. But the second time, I played much more "actively", extensively using keyboard shortcuts and keeping my distance with my squishy Embermage instead of spamming damage and hoping everything dies before he does, and my death count was a lot smaller. Not that it was as small as it could have been, because T2 doesn't really punish you for dying.

As for the game letting you know what you need to do, I do agree it doesn't, but I can't really remember other such games really doing it - I'm sort of interested to know what you have in mind. The reason T2 doesn't is something that was implicit in the first paragraph - the metagame changed as time went by. But I think that also holds for, say, Diablo 2 - a very long-running ARPG which basically annoyed thousands with each new patch, making your current build completely useless for high-level gameplay. I'm not much into them, so that's the only example I can think of, but I'd expect that to be standard practice for any game that achieves similar longevity - how else will it remain challenging to the hardcore crowd playing it?

As for what I've gathered from the forums that applies to every build regardless of character: 1) use a shield, it's the best sort of protection, armor is useless later on 2) 1-h weapons are better than 2-h weapons, not only because of shields, but also due to how the game calculates damage 3) fill sockets with damage reduction and life bonuses, though the best of these you'll find much, much later on 4) use the stats enchanter for everything, which is also something that comes into play much later on.

Unfinished Swan

So yesterday i decided to play and i wasn't having any fun, i played for 30~50m and stopped, the game was slow and the artstyle was bland.

Today i decided to give it another try (using spotify/music to help me from falling asleep) and finished the game, it took around 2 or 3 hours to finish it. Meh, it got better later in terms of gameplay and story but still not worth the time invested on it and while i was enjoying what i THOUGHT the story was going to be, it ended being disappointing, i do understand that it's a story meant for kids but in my mind i was imagining something sad and deep but the ending was a huge kick in the balls, it's just... bland, like the rest of the game. Oh well, at least it was short and i already deleted from my harddrive...

Finished Empress of the Deep 3: Legacy of the Phoenix

Last installment of the series and conclusion (certainly). Oddly, I did enjoy 2 the best, 3 was a bit of a letdown. The graphics were surprisingly not better than 2's. Overall, it's still a good game, and a good series, if you want a HOG-puzzle game that is short and has no replayability (at least for 1 and 3). Got them in a discount sale, so I won't complain.

The irritating thing in the 3 is that finally, the story doesn't really make sense at all, at least because of the final twist. But whatever. I was playing that game more for the puzzles than for the story, I have to say.

So far in 2015: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2015/post2

Very useful post. This likely explains my issues... I was dual wielding pistols. Very deadly, I was... but one-shot many times myself as well ;)

As for D2, I don't think it explained things better, I just think it made common sense. When I changed stats I immediately saw the difference and could plan things out (played that one on hardest difficulty with little issues). They also tied gear to classes much better. T2 didn't do a worse job of explaining per say, but adding vitality didn't seem to do what I thought it should. (unless I added it by the thousands). Regardless of frustrations, I had enough fun to play it twice and will likely pick it up again with a fresh start in the future.

Yeah, two pistols is a very cool-looking setup, but: the game rotates between the two, ie you're not firing them at the same time unless you have insanely high Execution (=high Focus), which you probably don't if you're using pistols or swords (because you want Dexterity or Strength). This translates into less damage than just firing your best pistol at the same rate, plus you're almost defenseless. Of course, this isn't absolute, there are some builds that go for perfect criticals, where the amount of damage from crits with both pistols is higher than no crits from one highly damaging gun. I'd still use a shield, act 3 has plenty of "oh, your concentration was less than intense for a split second? you're dead" situations. You're correct, it doesn't. It's widely regarded as useless. The only thing you need it for is blocking, but no one really spends leveling points on it, they just use that enchanter I've mentioned - or, like me, find a good shield and use the spell that increases blocking to some respectable percent (blocking a third of all damage is decent for such a low amount of effort, I think). That's probably poor balancing rather than poor explaining, though. Sort of like the armor thing. Unlike D2, there's no elemental resistances (percentage) or immunities, just elemental armor. Which basically means that if your damage is higher than their armor, they die. And vice versa - and later on the damage easily goes over the paltry amount of elemental armor you have (my lvl 54 character had about 100 across the board, which is laughable in the face of all of the 900 damage shots he barely survived).

Wolfenstein The Old Blood

If you're looking for something less story wise (compared to TNO) and more action then you will be happy, you do have an objective (tied in with TNO story) and some story elements but they're so minimal that sometimes you will just forget what or why are you doing in the missions.

I also felt like the levels get a little repetitive/boring because they're basically in the same area and they're all grey/dark, when you go for the 2nd part of the game is where you at least get more colours and more action.
The Stealth parts also gets boring, i don't think they're well done but in defense of the game you can just grab one of the weapons and start shooting (not sure how that will go in the max difficulty).

I will say that it is disappointing compared to TNO (i loved that one and felt like the story/dialogues were amazing) but it's still worth it for the price they ask, i finish the game in 6~7 hours, there still the challenges (small skirmishes with score) and i didn't do the nightmare levels because i was getting motion sickness. I'll play it again in the future in the max difficulty (i played in the normal/default) so that will double the playthrough time for me.

As a final note, the credits music is soooooooo good.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Another series Ive never played before. Its really been great picking up all these great series (PoP, Batman, Tomb Raider, ect.) that I missed for a cheap price digitally. Cant beat it!

Anyways started with the first game in the series, and glad I did, as it was a nice treat. No widescreen and a few bad camera angles, but no big deal. Great action, acrobatics, and a decent story. Picked up the whole series for cheap a few weeks back here. Next!

GTA Vice City 10th Anniversary (9 may 9:32pm)

Playing this game 12 years just shows you powerful these tablets have become. It is one of these amazing games from the year 2000s. controls work but graphic are weird

Nightmares from the Deep 3: Davy Jones

Another good HOG from Artifex Mundi, but many of the (non-HOG) puzzles were way too easy, and I found the plot a touch to similar to the first game in the series, The Cursed Heart.

Woolfe - The Red Hood Diaries

Not a bad game, but not a very good one either. An ok way to spend one afternoon beating.