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Just finished Valiant Hearts: The Great War.

Holy Cow. If anyone tells you that Video Games aren't an artistic medium, make them play this game. This is single-Handedly the most beautiful game I have ever played. It's a fun Puzzle-Adventure game, with characters that you honestly care about and their stories during the first World War. It's one of the few games that have made me tear up at the end. Good Job, Ubisoft!
Hook (12 may 11am)

a nice little puzzle game with hooks. When you start the game you don't get it until level 6 ish
Sinister City.

This is a game I would normally bash pretty hard. Clunky and unintuitive interface. Buggy. Missing textures. Bad voicing. Cliched and overused game elements. Ridiculously short. Silly plot....

But the silly plot was actually quite enjoyable for some reason. I can't put a finger on it but it just worked. (not the game, the game was full of bugs, but the plot somehow pulled off a unique and pleasant experience).

In its current state and length (about 2 hours to beat). This isn't worth a buck. But in a bundle its quite fun (adventure, puzzle, HOG).
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Matter of opinion of course, but I found it just plain awful.
Just finished Volgarr the Viking.

Picked it up super cheap, wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did.

The obvious parallel is Ghosts and Goblins, getting hit removes armour, inability to change direction mid jump etc. I don't think it's quite as difficult as G&G though. It's more about memorizing the layouts of the levels than the fast reaction times inherent in the older games.

The game isn't that long. I think my first playthrough took roughly 2.5 hours and my fastest playthrough has been around 40 minutes. There are three possible endings though, and a bunch of fun achievements. All in all I spent 11 hours playing getting all the achievements and unlocking all the endings, plus playing through an extra time for good measure. I'll probably go back and play it again from time to time too trying to improve my times.

I'd say it's certainly worth picking up when on sale, if you're a fan of the old 2D side scrolling platform games it's clearly inspired by.
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Goatbrush: Just finished Volgarr the Viking.

Picked it up super cheap, wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did.

The obvious parallel is Ghosts and Goblins, getting hit removes armour, inability to change direction mid jump etc. I don't think it's quite as difficult as G&G though. It's more about memorizing the layouts of the levels than the fast reaction times inherent in the older games.

The game isn't that long. I think my first playthrough took roughly 2.5 hours and my fastest playthrough has been around 40 minutes. There are three possible endings though, and a bunch of fun achievements. All in all I spent 11 hours playing getting all the achievements and unlocking all the endings, plus playing through an extra time for good measure. I'll probably go back and play it again from time to time too trying to improve my times.

I'd say it's certainly worth picking up when on sale, if you're a fan of the old 2D side scrolling platform games it's clearly inspired by.
I've avoided that game because I heard it was really hard. Is it really as hard as everyone says? Did you finish it because you are you really good at video games or because its not that difficult?

I'm extremely old and impatient so I get frustrated quite easily.
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htown1980: I've avoided that game because I heard it was really hard. Is it really as hard as everyone says? Did you finish it because you are you really good at video games or because its not that difficult?

I'm extremely old and impatient so I get frustrated quite easily.
It has a reputation as being the Dark Souls of 2D games and it is difficult, I just don't really think it's so hard when compared to the older games of the same genre. It's punishing and like I said I think the main thing it requires is memorization, it can feel cheap when you die because of a trap which you weren't expecting. On my first playthrough while learning it, it said I died 78 times - and dying sends you back to the start of that level which can be frustrating.

I'd say the best way is to just watch some of the let's play videos on youtube if unsure. This one shows the first two levels. Guy seems pretty good though if that's his first attempt, the video I watched before playing it showed someone struggling a lot more on the first level but I can't seem to find that one.
Post edited May 14, 2015 by Goatbrush
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andysheets1975: King's Quest 3. One of my favorite adventures because I love the opening scenario. You're a slave to an evil wizard and you have to constantly poke at your surroundings to see what you can get away with, where you can go and when. It actually creates a certain amount of suspense in the early going and makes it quite thrilling when you start finding the hidden stuff and creating spells.

My big nitpick about it is that the clock is so important to the game and there's one particular section in which you basically have to solve it just by hanging out for a little while. A "wait" or "skip time" command would have been handy to speed things up some.
King's Quest 3 is the first game from the series that I played, and that was on a Color Computer 3. Pretty enjoyable game. I don't remember the waiting section you mention, but I remember navigating down the side of the mountain being a particular pain. :)
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htown1980: I've avoided that game because I heard it was really hard. Is it really as hard as everyone says? Did you finish it because you are you really good at video games or because its not that difficult?

I'm extremely old and impatient so I get frustrated quite easily.
I think that completing the game is not as hard as many say; the real difficulty is scoring a good time while finishing it on the "Path of the Valkyrie", a special set of levels that you can enter only after having collected "hero's souls", obtainable when you open sevral chests without being hit once.
I made it in 0:43'58, and I'm not even really good at it, so I say it is more than feasible.
Comparing it to Drak Souls is a bit unfair, imo; while it's true that you will have to restart the levels a lot of times, it is nowhere as frustrating and it is always very fair, never forcing you to memorize the location of obstacles before you even reach them (though doing so can certainly help! :P) or requiring you to dash through mobs of lesser enemies to save time.
I died dozens of times, yet I always understood my errors and never felt that the game was cheaply punishing me.
Also, (unless you are following the Valkyrie) you don't have to finish it in one seat: once you reach a new world, you can start from there any time you like (by immediatley moving to the left when starting the first level).

Imo, it is one of the greatest 2D games I have ever played, yet a good amount of patience is definitely required to enjoy it.
Post edited May 14, 2015 by Enebias
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adambiser: King's Quest 3 is the first game from the series that I played, and that was on a Color Computer 3. Pretty enjoyable game. I don't remember the waiting section you mention, but I remember navigating down the side of the mountain being a particular pain. :)
Yeah, Sierra did love it's treacherous climbing sections. Speaking of which...

Beat King's Quest 4 last night and although it was the best-looking of the series at the time, I think it was a step back in gameplay. I found some of the puzzle solutions rather more unintuitive than the previous three games, some sections like the troll cave basically require luck and/or a lot of saving and restoring to get through, and the game seems to have an awful lot of those damn staircases and cliff paths for you to fall from and die.

It still has a lot of that Sierra charm but easily my least favorite of my little King's Quest re-run so far.
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adambiser: King's Quest 3 is the first game from the series that I played, and that was on a Color Computer 3. Pretty enjoyable game. I don't remember the waiting section you mention, but I remember navigating down the side of the mountain being a particular pain. :)
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andysheets1975: Yeah, Sierra did love it's treacherous climbing sections. Speaking of which...

Beat King's Quest 4 last night and although it was the best-looking of the series at the time, I think it was a step back in gameplay. I found some of the puzzle solutions rather more unintuitive than the previous three games, some sections like the troll cave basically require luck and/or a lot of saving and restoring to get through, and the game seems to have an awful lot of those damn staircases and cliff paths for you to fall from and die.

It still has a lot of that Sierra charm but easily my least favorite of my little King's Quest re-run so far.
KQ4 was the second one of the series that I played.
Yeah, that troll was a pain as were the spiral staircases. If I remember correctly, those spiral staircases made you change which arrow keys you pressed in order to go up... but maybe I'm mistaken.

I recently finished making an installer for my Roberta Williams Anthology CDs and felt like playing through them all again. Fond memories.

Way back when, I called Sierra because the waterfall scene would crash the game with my floppy disk version of KQ4. I know I still have the patch diskette they sent me. I *might* still have the letter they enclosed with it.
Post edited May 14, 2015 by adambiser
Far Cry

Ever wanted to feel like the legendary John Rambo?
If you did, I might have some good news for you.

In Far Cry you will impersonate the unlucky Jack Carver, a poor tourist who didn't know that sailing for a certain unnamed island in the Pacific could have been his last vacation: once there, in fact, his boat is hit by a rocket, his girlfriend kidnapped and he is chased by an entire army of mercenaries.
Even if it has a couple of nice twits, the plot is quite clichèd and fairly uninteresting, but don't worry: this is not a game you play for the narrative, but for the excellent gameplay.
Alone, cornered and unarmed, you will have to fight like a Commando while moving throughout the archipelago, working hard to survive and overcome the overwhelmingly bad odds that being and intruder in a secret operation area don't fail to provide.
Despite what you might have heard, Far Cry is neither a Stealth game nor a real open world one; in its core, it is a quality first person shooter trough and trough, with some basic stealth elements that perfectly blend in and with a good number of large and open maps that allow the player to choose how to approach their objectives. Under this regard, there are always many radically different ways to complete an outdoors map; the same cannot be said about the very linear indoors ones, yet they represent a minor part of the game -and they still remain much more interesting than those you may find in the average post-2005 shooter.
While sometimes you will be able to entirely avoid encounters by sneaking away form the danger, this game is clearly based on combat, and stealth just serves to enrich the array of possibilities you can engage the enemies with: since the mercs will always outnumber and surround you, you will have to conceal yourself in the foliage, proceed slowly to remain unheard and crawl through narrow spaces to reach a vantage position.
The detailed realism plays a big part in the combat system: each weapon (there are many, but you can carry only four at a time) has its own peculiarities, varying from the others not only the rate of fire, precision and sheer power, but also for weight (influencing both your moving speed and accuracy in aiming), noise, recoil and fire modes; targeting different body parts results in different amount of damages, and just a few bullets can prove to be lethal, for you as for your enemies; health and armor do not regenerate, forcing you to rely on medkits and bulletproof vests; the physics, especially for what concerns driving vehicles (both on land, water and air), are always very believable; the line of sight and awareness of the AI emulates reality, meaning that each time you can see someone, no matter how distant, that someone may also see you, especially if you are not hidden I the jungle and if they have scopes or binoculars. Also, the mercenaries will not simply come towards you like zombies (as most shooters -or worse, “role playing shooters”- seem to do, today), but will try to flank you, use cover, move away from your line of fire and call for help or reinforcements -sometimes via air or water.
A point I have particularly appreciate dis that the game does not hold your hand: sometimes the difficulty can be really brutal (I played it one step below the maximum), but that pushes the players to focus on survival, making them rely on predatory tactics, ambushes, carefully aimed shots and attention to the sounds (you may hear enemies talk, reloading or crawling through the grass, foreseeing their moves or try to locate and hit them before you can actually see them).
A big criticism I could move is that, if you are shooting from very far away (when you can barely see them with scopes), all those positive aspects suddenly disappear, making enemies dumb like a practice dummy.

The graphic engine works wonders to enhance the experience: 11 years have passed since its release, yet the Cryengine still does not fail to impress, with remarkably detailed polygonal models, textures and effects (imo, the dispersion of blood in water is among the best I have ever seen).
The lush tropical island offers many breath-taking views, and the zealous attention to details makes exploring it a real pleasure.

All in all, I have really enjoyed Far Cry, and I could recommend it to every lover of “survival” shooters.


Edit: The full list.
Post edited May 14, 2015 by Enebias
lili child of geos

an ios game and it shows
very simple game play and its over in a flash
2 hours all told

not bad but not exceptional either

dear esther
..just keep walking walking walking
73 minutes later and i was done walking
a one of experience

star wars republic commando
great star wars and squad based fps
but after a while things started to get samey and the ending was a disappointing cliffhanger because the sequel has not materialized

i dont regret playing republic commando or dear esther but i wont be replaying them again in a hurry
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Goatbrush: snip
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Enebias: snip
Thank you both! You've convinced me to pick it up :)
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htown1980: I've avoided that game because I heard it was really hard. Is it really as hard as everyone says? Did you finish it because you are you really good at video games or because its not that difficult?

I'm extremely old and impatient so I get frustrated quite easily.
I bought it on Humble's $2 sale the other day as well. No question it's hard, and there is a bit more to it than sheer memorization.

Some mobs behave very consistently and a few don't - so you need to be dialed into the pattern while being flexible enough to accommodate other mobs perhaps changing up.

I've read a lot of those other reviews, and they're correct that save points are probably a bit farther apart than they need to be. But a number of negative reviews also suggest you have to start from scratch each time you play, which isn't true. Your last save point persists and can be accessed from the start menu by exiting screen left, rather than going right which does restart.

I've enjoyed it - just haven't had a lot of uninterrupted time to play this week :\