Teslagrad

This was an excellent platform game with great level design and interesting puzzles. Even the boss fights were fun (and normally I don't like bossfights very much), because they were challenging, but never felt unfair.

I also liked the way the story was told. Completely without words, but instead you'll see small puppet theatre plays and collect cards (or scrolls) with pictures on it. In the end I didn't find all cards and so the ending I got was a little underwhelming. Guess there is a better one, but I didn't feel like replaying the whole game just to find the cards I've missed before.

Complete list of finished games in 2016

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA)

I played Dawn of Sorrow (The sequel) last year, which I felt was a pretty good game, so I got Aria of Sorrow this year. In the game you play as Soma, a white haired teenager who has the power to absorb the souls of monsters he kills and use their powers. He gets trapped in Draculas Castle after it appears during an eclipse along with his friend Mina, a soldier, 2 Occult Specialists, a man with Amnesia and a Missionary. You have to battle through the castle in order to escape. It is a standard Castlevania game, slowing unlocking new abilities to reach new areas, multiple endings where to get the good one you need to do something obscure and epic boss fights. The Soul Powers feature was a good addition but it does require you to kill certain enemies over and over again to try get their Souls. Only other problem was length, which is to be expected seeing as it's a GBA game. I've only played 3 Castlevania's, and I would say this is my 3rd favourite but I did really like it. However Symphony of the Night is still the one I think was the best. If you wanna play the game you can download it on Wii U or just look online like I did.

Spycraft: The Great Game - I wanted to like this game after playing for about an hour. The 90s aesthetic, interaction through reasonably believable computer interfaces, and cool spy programs to play with ultimately wore thin. The game's essentially broken down into a series of puzzle that you have to solve before moving on - however, these are often triggered when you view something that unlocks the puzzle. It got frustrating towards the end with this type of gameplay. However, the full motion video scenes were a treat, unfortunately, the game itself just isn't enjoyable to play.

Quake II: Quad Damage + Expansions - Dull, dull, dull. That's my opinion of this game, despite the improved feeling of the guns. To start with the game is unbearably dark, I started to get sick because of that. Once that was resolved, you're stuck with a game that takes place almost entirely within corridors of unremarkable design. That being said, I did enjoy playing through the main game and The Reckoning expansion, but the Ground Zero expansion is awful to the core. The level design is the same, boring interiors as the prior two iterations with the addition of turrets to drive home the tedium of playing the expansion. Turrets slow down the game and are frustrating especially when you start getting shot from out of nowhere. Overall, it's just a mediocre game, lacking the weirdness of the first in both locales and enemies.

Titan Attacks - An exciting, short game that expands on Space Invaders. You proceed through 100 waves of increasing difficulty while purchasing upgrades with cash. It's challenging, but not unfair. Overall, an enjoyable diversion for an hour.

Dead Space
Good game. Bit predictable after a while. Short story. Finished it over the weekend after its debut here at gog. I enjoyed it, even if was a bit formulaic and the ending on the shuttle was... just crap. I'm not sure where the stuff about Isaac's ghost girlfriend goes in the later games. Honestly not all that interested. The horrorcore aspects of the game were really fun, the late game movie-of-the-week, esoteric stuff not so much.

YES, that what I like to see! Can't wait!
<--obviously one of those who is into that kind of stuff ;D

I hope you'll enjoy it :) I might get back to it soon and perhaps grab the rest of it. It can be a bit much if I binge it and try to go for collectibles in the hundreds, but getting back to it now sounds good :D The tomb-raiding is also one of the greatest things about the game. Have fun! :)

<span class="bold">Alien Swarm</span>

Alien Swarm is a top-down shooter. The game has a campaign that can be played in co-op with up to four players. There are four classes available: Officer, Special Weapons, Medic and Tech. Each class has two characters with different stats for one or more of the following: aim, ammo, reload speed, special abilities speed and others.
It's a great short game, also it's free! It takes about 1-2h to finish, there are quite a few difficulty modes and other settings that add a lot of replay value to the game, such as friendly fire dealing more or less damage, and onslaught mode, which brings a high variety of enemies to the beginning of the game to make things more interesting.
Unfortunately not many people play it these days, but I still enjoy it from time to time. So if you are in need of a player, then just ask. I'll be more than happy to join, and I should be able to bring a few friends as well.

Complete list of games finished in 2016.

I literally *just* finished my fourth playthrough of Tomb Raider 2013, and 100%'d it of course XD
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=729123663

<span class="bold">Life is Strange Episode 1</span> (free now on Steam for anyone that wants to check it out)

Full playthrough took 4hours 20minutes.

Overall rating I give it: 7/10 + recommended

Here's my more in depth balanced review:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/skeletonbow/recommended/319630/

Vampire the masquerade: Bloodlines
I went into this game with an opened mind, expecting the great rpg everyone has been telling me about for all those years. And now, after all that timeI finally experienced what many consider to be one of the greatest achievements in gaming, a wonder of unique storytelling, marvelous characters and a Deus Ex like merger of many gamelay styles where choice is the prime ruler and the player can go his/her own way.
I finished the game just to have some ... let's just say, slightly negative feelings. I realize that I'm not making any new friends in the "I love Bloodlines community" by writing this, and I certainly don't wish to insult anybody. But the truth is, I found the game to be more flawed than most of you probably would.
The story is interesting enough to hold my interest, but nothing I hadn't seen before in other rpgs.
The politics and choices made my think Deus Ex all the way through, just replace sci fi with dark fantasy.
Most of the characters are unique and memorable, my favorite ones being Beckett and Jack.
But as soon as the game expected me to sneak, shoot or slash, it all came crumbling down. The combat in this game is atrocious, it feels terrible. Both melee and ranged just feel wrong and I not once enjoyed myself fighting. Diplomatic characters are more my cup of tea, but the mid to end game expects the player to be proficient in combat and even then I never had fun fighting. Sneaking was more enjoyable, but still felt off. I guess the game's obvious lack of balance and unfinished state are to blame for those problems.
And sweet Malkavians on a stick, the glitches. The bloody bugs and glitches. You don't know what a glitched game is until you have played Bloodlines. Prostitutes hovering above benches, hair and clothes developing a life of their own, teleporting mortals on the streets of LA and much, much more. The game crashed several times when I tried to loot crates, transition to other areas or fight a boss. My advise? Save often.
I always wondered why this game had so many unofficial patches and content mods. Now I know. It's because this game absolutely needs them.
I admire the dedication of the fans towards this game, but why do so many place this glitch ridden, bugged and unfinished game on such a high pedestal is a mystery to me.
Worth a playthrough, but save often.
6/10

I think most of the people who love Bloodlines are aware of all that and would agree, they just love the game despite it. I played it a few years ago for the first time ever and really liked it, despite struggling with the combat at times (but I admit in the end I invested in a character build that was capable of fighting, since I already heard that it's easier that way). What I thought makes it stand out and fun was mostly the atmosphere and the setting. There aren't any RPGs quite like it, and for me as a fan of RPGs since the late 80's, getting the chance to discover a game like that this late, after having completely overlooked it before, was simply great. Doesn't mean the game's perfect, but I thought it was a unique experience. I could never really get into Deus Ex though, and I didn't go into Bloodlines with all that hype for it on my mind.

Like Leroux said, all the love it gets is in spite of bugs and glitches and even the gameplay. It's for the stellar writing and atmosphere and voice acting and setting, likely very importantly the very fact that's an extremely rare proper vampire game, plus real freedom to pretty much play however (even if some ways are easier than others, of course).
I'll just keep quoting a comment I saw on an article about it once, saying it's a huge very rough diamond among the highly polished turds that the big publishers keep cracking out.

I actually remember very few bugs or crashes in Bloodlines, must have gotten lucky.

Then again I always was lucky when it came to killing folk. Or like, being a vampire.

Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist

I guess the less one knows about it before playing, the better. Anyway, you can probably imagine what kind of game it is, once you learn that William Pugh of The Stanley Parable HD is involved in it. And you get more or less what you expect. It's not as original, funny or clever as The Stanley Parable, but it's a nice enough diversion for 15-30 minutes, and it's free on Steam or
itch.io.


Bulb Boy

Boy with a bulb for a head wakes up late at night to find the house has changed and something happened to grandpa Bulb and his flying dog ... thing. Meaning things got even weirder than they were before in that happy little bulb family. And darker. This is a short point-and-click adventure in the vein of Amanita's games, made by a two guys indie game studio from Poland. It's completely without words and you advance by solving one screen after another. It's a bit creepy and amusing, quite disgusting and very charming, grotesque and green. And it features a 'boss battle' and 'QTEs' (which is at the same time annoying and funny). It takes about two hours to play through at max, and despite it being pretty non-sensical at times, I didn't need to consult any walkthrough because puzzles were easy - you only have a few spots to click on and your inventory rarely holds more than two items. Which is cool though. I liked it. It's what Gomo might have been - if Gomo was good. :P

Just beat Stranglehold, I liked it. I'd say it was definitely worth the two bucks I spent on it.