Consortium - This was an interesting game, with some interesting ideas and execution. It's feels like an extended episode of Star Trek or something similar. The game is set on the the future of air travel, an airplane that has cool glowing engines, and the limited setting is a benefit to this type of game. Going in, I knew that the game was short but I was still a little surprised by the abruptness of the ending. It spends 15-20 minutes setting up the next portion of the game, and then it ends. This seems like the type of game which would benefit from multiple playthroughs to explore the breadth (or lack thereof) of options.

The Cat Lady - Wow, this game is already a contender for one of my favorite games. I went in without any expectations whatsoever, and I was enthralled within 20 minutes. The overall tone of the game is drastically different than anything I've played in the past, with its primarily black and white art and the creepy music. While games like STALKER and other post-apocalyptic games share the similar bleakness, this game feels even more bleak because of the relevant discussion of topics like depression and suicide. The violence in this game packs quite a bit of punch because of this. It's story heavy with lots of dialogue, and excellent sound design. Highly recommended.

So far:
Kingdom Rush: Frontiers
Kingdom Rush
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
FEAR
FEAR: Extraction Point
FEAR: Perseus Mandate
Consortium
The Cat Lady

Been on a bit of a posting hiatus so I have a few games from this year to catch up on.

Think the first game I completed this year was Shadow Warrior (2013). I really enjoyed it, felt like it recaptured the feel of the FPS from the era while modernizing some of the mechanics. I haven't played Duke Nukem Forever yet, but I know the game had a lot of criticism thrown at it. I would love to see a Duke Nukem reboot done in the same vein as Shadow Warrior.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a great experience, but I can't compare it to the older games. I generally found the original XCOM/TftD to be something I could just sit down and play through without getting bored, always restarting and finding new ways to do things. In the new version I tried to make a new game after completing it, but it felt like a chore to go through everything again. I can't pinpoint why, perhaps it's the added rigidity in the base mechanics, or something as dumb as the changed UI. More likely, I've just changed personally as a gamer.

As a standalone game I liked my playthrough. I'll hopefully go back and try some other stuff further down the line when I find myself in the mood.

Gauntlet was gifted to me by a friend over Christmas for some co-op fun. Really, really short but fun enough, and we're still going back for the season changes. I dislike DLC in general though and knowing the paid Necromancer class exists is something I find off-putting.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3. Always wanted to play one of these games, I had a demo of it on my PS3 years ago and I loved how cinematic it felt. I wasn't sure how much I'd like the game but I've put almost 40 hours into it so far, completing all the side stuff and mopping up the achievements. The combat is a bit simplistic and the main plot is easily 75% cutscenes, but the overall presentation is great. Well worth playing if you are or have ever been a fan of the series.

Finally, just played through Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons a few days ago. Very much late to the party but it was a wonderful experience, I've never played anything like it. Went back to it to mop up the achievements I missed and actually ended up playing through the whole thing again.

Apparently there is a whole host of things that can change in each playthrough of Consortium, so you should be able to get multiple unique playthroughs out of it, which is always nice. I myself got a semi-good ending (including finding a secret area at the end) but never solved the main mystery haha.

As far as The Cat Lady, I agree, it's a wonderful game and I rank it very high on my list of all time favorites. If you didn't know, there are multiple endings based on your choices, so there is some replayability. If you haven't already, give Downfall a try (you can buy it here, or download it for free legally from the publisher's website).

Downfall is the first game set in the universe that The Cat Lady is set in, and a few characters are in both. It has more traditional point & click gameplay as opposed to The Cat Lady's sidescrolling point & click style, but it is similar to The Cat Lady in every other way (art, story, theme(s) and atmosphere, etc).

Infested Planet

An unexpected gift so it was even more enjoyable to play the game!

I really liked it, the game is simple but very addictive. Basically you control a few mercenaries and have to fight swarms of aliens. You usually kill thousands of them in each mission so it can be a bit... overwhelming. Even with active pause things can get hectic and out of control easily. Just don't get me wrong - I loved that aspect because it really captured uneven and desperate fight with aliens. At the beginning you face mindless drones but after some time your enemies start to mutate every time you destroy one of their nests. Things gets really interesting after that. The game is hard and the final mission is really, REALLY hard but manageable.

What I didn't like is that the game is too grindy. In every mission you have limited points how you can upgrade your soldiers so you really need to buy every possible buff before that mission and to earn enough money you have to grind a lot first.

The story is also forgettable, with the most clichéd characters ever: cynic mercenary, obsessed and egocentric general, mysterious lady scientist and meta-reflective alien. Sigh...

But it doesn't change the fact that I really enjoyed the game, especially b ecause it can be played in small portions, one mission here, another there... it usually takes 10-15 minutes to finish one.


Full list

Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal
Resident Evil Revelations
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag
The House of the Dead: OVERKILL Extended Cut
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Paladin Difficulty
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
WATCH DOGS
Killzone 3

2014 List

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post22

2013 List

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2013/post118

I was without a gaming PC for about 6 months (only got a new one last week), but in the mean time i have played with Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

So, my completed games 2015 have been on console platform, but i will post them anyway:
-Assassins Creed IV Black Flag
-Watch Dogs
-Shadow Warrior
-Dead Island Riptide
-Prey
-The Darkness
-The Darkness 2
-Chronicles of Riddick, Escape from Butcher Bay

Next one to the list will hopefully be Divinity 2 Developer's Cut on PC :)

I finished Nightmares from the Deep: Davy Jones. I enjoyed the game, even though it had some bugs. I was surprised to see in the bonus game a dialogue choice. That's another small step of hidden object adventures towards "real" adventure games.

Lost Constellation.

Lost Constellation is sort of a companion game to an upcoming game named Night In The Woods. You control a alligator (who happens to be an astronomer) who is on a journey, a journey that takes you through a grim living forest, thick brambles and a coffin salesman's house. Along the way you'll encounter colorful characters, including a cat who is very...catlike, a talking horn and a snowman who is experiencing mental issues.

Gameplay is simple, walk around, build snowmen, chat with characters, interact with a few items, and toss the occasional snowball to knock something down from a tree. There is no combat and the (few) puzzles usually come down to "you need to go find an item you missed in the trees". There doesn't seem to be a way to fail in the game, and there is no combat.

I found the writing to be very enjoyable, lots of witty (and sarcastic) dialogue, plenty of humor and surprisingly well handled serious topics. Topics covered (on the serious side) include death, the afterlife (and trying to reach it), and regret. Not that it's a "serious business" or "feelings! art! awards please!" game, it just happens to occasionally touch on serious topics.

Graphically it has a clean, crisp and cartoon-y look that I think is very good looking. Both characters and world/environment are pleasing to the eye, and it has a couple of neat environment effects (such as the moving trees).

Everything sounds good, from the sound of snow crunching under your feet, to the music in the background. I wouldn't say anything stands out (save for one or two music tracks) but everything does its job without any issue.

Overall I have no problems giving Lost Constellation my full recommendation. It's short (it took me maybe a half hour to finish) and it's completely solid through and through. The ending is one that I'll remember for quite some time.

An Untitled Story is a cute freeware (http://mattmakesgames.com/games/AnUntitledStory.zip) Metroid-type game made by Matt Thorson, who's probably best known now for Towerfall. You control an egg that falls out of a tree and as you roll around doing the usual Metroid thing, gaining abilities as you explore that let you explore even further, a little story develops.

People who turn up their noses at indie games with basic graphics shouldn't bother with this one, because the graphics are as elementary as you can get without resorting to geometric shapes, but the game design is outstanding and the controls are pretty tight. There are some spots where I felt maybe they were a touch too tight, but nothing that seriously harms the game. You'll encounter obstacles that will make your eyes bug out of your head at first, then after trying and failing to overcome them, you'll barely scrape by, and then later on when your character is fully powered up, you'll charge through everything like it's nothing and feel like a kung fu master.

I was hoping to 100 percent the game, but I got impatient and decided to have a go at the end boss and surprised myself by beating him after a couple of tries.

Yeah, that's my problem with the game, i had to change my harddrive so i'll have to install that game again but i really don't have the mood to play it because of how grindy the game is, it kind of reminds me f2p games, the game gets so hard that you have to buy special units (1 use only) for the missions and for that, well, you have to pay... and to pay it you need money... and to get money you need to repeat some missions...

Just finished Blackguards. The battles were fun, diverse and just the right challenge for the most part. The mechanics were pretty good too once I got used to them (e.g. 65% chance of hitting usually means almost never hitting with an attack during battles), especially the freedom to do as you please with skills and leveling up. My main issues with the game were the buggy quests and storyline. The game world is pretty solid, but the storyline fell apart especially towards the end with a lack of player choices, no real alternative endings, and no good way of seeing or knowing how your choices throughout the game affect the outcome (if they even do at all). All in all though, the game was pretty fun, mainly due to the enjoyable combat.

My list

Darksiders

I had already completed the 1st Darksiders years ago but, still, I wanted to do another run on the game before I tried the sequel (which I played but never completed). For extra lulz, I played the game on Apocalyptic difficulty with the keyboard, but it really wasn't hard. Oh sure, enemies dealt more damage (sometimes significantly so) and maybe it took a bit longer for them to die than what I would have liked at times but, as far as hard difficulties are concerned, I wasn't impressed at all. Even the final boss was a massive pushover.

Difficulty aside, back then, I thought that Darksiders was an enjoyable game, albeit one feeling like a Frankensteinian creation composed by the parts of other games. Call it World of Warcraft, Legend of Zelda, Devil May Cry, Portal or Prince of Persia, the game definitely reminded me of those. My opinion, since then, hasn't really changed tremendously, except for some negatives. One of those is that War feels ridiculously slow at times and traversing one of the open areas can feel like a real chore at times, which is in stark contrast to the otherwise linear dungeons. This can make collecting everything in the game a pain in the ass but even if you decide not to, you will still get a taste of the chore as you'll have to go on a fetch quest later in the game and you have to traverse a number of areas again. Another negative is that the game has almost no visual options to tweak, ran like crap on my PC and didn't even have such impressive graphics. Maybe it's something specific with AMD cards, I don't know and I don't care. Anyway, now that I have completed Darksiders again, I'm ready to play the second one.

Full list.

Completed that one, twice, Once on normal which was really difficult for me and the second run on apocalypse with abyssal armor and it felt really easy compared to my previous run. Didn't even need to heal in my entire run. A really good game but Darksiders 2 wasn't as good. I am probably alone on this point but I felt like War's scythe felt more scythe-y than Death's scythe.

I completed Pillars of Eternity.


(j/k) But I am curious to see who will be the first to post that they have really completed it.