Been too caught up in anime to finish many games, and when I did finish them been too lazy to post here. But the latest one was Technobabylon and it was awesome, so deserves a posting :)

Thanks to PaterAlf I could finish Duke Nukem, once agian, thank you very much!

This game teach patience... Although game mechanics is pretty simple it is not easy game. Last level in second episode and further levels in episode three are really demanding.

Minecraft Story Mode Season Two

Might be my last completed game of 2017, the other I'm currently playing will require more time than I might have until january 1st. Oh, well, all in all, 2017 was a pretty prolific year regarding completing games, so I'm happy.

Mincreaft Story mode Season Two wasn't the worst game to end the year with, either. Granted, it's a little less... "intense" than the first season, but I still really enjoyed it a lot. No bugs, no crashes, but some translations problems, still. Didn't prevent me to finish the game, but that was a little disappointing from TellTale games...

So far in 2017: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2017/post15

Shotgun Legend

Saw it for $0.49 on the steam sale with great reviews, decided to give it a shot. I'll just copy&paste my Steam review for it here.

An excellent old-school action-adventure in the vein of the original Zelda.

You have your primary weapon - the titular shotgun, and find a number of secondary weapons and passive equipment along the way. While the shotgun's range isn't too bad, it has a pretty large spread so you want to be relatively close to your target for maximum damage. 1-2 close up shotgun blasts will take care of most normal monsters, or you can keep picking away at the enemies' invisible healthbars from the relative safety a few meters grant. Most of the secondary weapons require ammo, that randomly drops from enemies, and can also be bought from some vendor or replenished for free from the occasional ammo station. Regaining lost "hearts" (HP) works the same way - loot drops, vendors, health stations. As you progress, you also find heart container (max health) upgrades, ammo capacity upgrades, and shotgun upgrades (adding additional pellets to the shotgun blast). You can switch secondary weapons by cycling through them while playing, or from the inventory screen which pauses the game play so you don't get hurt while picking the best weapon for the current situation.

The map is open world, littered with monsters and dungeons. Plenty of secrets in both the map and the dungeons, most of them blocked off by obstacles that require a weapon or item found in the dungeons, so it's best to note down where you come across the (quite obvious) obstacles so you know where to revisit later. The monsters respawn after you move a few screens away (not sure how many, maybe 4-5), but the cleared obstacles remain cleared.

The vendor at the starting location has a compass costing 10 coins (drops from monsters). You should buy it quickly, as it gives your character's relative position on the minimap for both the overmap and the dungeons. However the actual dungeon rooms/features will not be visible until you find the dungeon's map somewhere inside, and the overmap features will not be visible for quite a while longer. Again, note taking would be encouraged, though there's no real need to actually draw a square-by-square map of your own like some games pretty much required in ye olden times.

The game controls great with the Xbox 360 pad, so I never tried the keyboard controls. One thing to keep in mind is that this is not a twin-stick shooter. The only direction you can fire your weapon is the one in which your character is facing, and the only way (as far as I know) to face in that direction is to move in that direction, which adds a level of difficulty when trying to blast nearby enemies without colliding with them and losing health.

There is a hardcore mode, where you only get the one life and if you die it's Game Over. I did not even attempt it, considering how many times I died on my play through. In non-hardcore mode, if you die, you get sent back to the save point. There is only the one save slot, but that never presented much of a problem to me. Save points are placed at all dungeon entrances/exits, health & ammo stations, some in-dungeon transitions, and whenever you find an item/upgrade. If the save is made when your health is too low, reloading it will bump you up to 3 HP or about half your max HP, whichever's greater.

I had a lot of fun in then 5.5 hours or so that it took me to complete the game. I did miss one passive item and a few ammo upgrades along the way, hunting them down without a guide would probably take another hour or two, and I'm not enough of a completionist to do that.

Honestly, I'm not sure why Shotgun Legend still in Early Access - I played it from the beginning to end without encountering any bugs.

Hyper Fighters

Played it to see if it's as bad as everyone says it is. It's not. It's not even worse than that. It's actually ... playable! In spite of the efforts of the team that ported this thing from the Wii. Arrow keys to move around, mouse to shoot, R+arrow keys to barrel roll. Good thing I never needed to barrel roll.

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action

Damn, what a game. I absolutely loved this. Though it is essentially a visual novel, it's a really fucking good one. Extremely immersive with a fantastic, beautifully told story. This is coming from a guy who doesn't really play many visual novels at all (Though I have nothing against them, and I do enjoy text adventure games).

A loveable cast of characters with their own personalities, drink preferences and stories - I genuinely cared about what happened to these people. When shit starts going down in the city, my mind instantly went to the well-being of one character in particular who would have been at the center of the action.

The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine

Well, I can finally say I've officially "beat" the Witcher 3. There's still hundreds of hours of content for me to get through, and I doubt I'll ever finish it all, but I've finally completed all of the main stories for all the DLCs, ending with -- as you can probably tell -- Blood and Wine.

Phenomenal story. Excellent voice acting. Beautiful landscape and city that -- oddly -- performed way better (in terms of FPS) than the main game. CDPR really hit their stride with B&W, and I cannot fucking wait to see what they do with CP2077.

Shadowrun Hong Kong

I've played very few "true" RPGs that can exceed the quality of Shadowrun Hong Kong. Improved animations, visuals, and gameplay mechanics as well as a more likeable cast of characters compared to its predecessors (Dragonfall and SR Returns). I genuinely felt like I was the leader of this little group of Shadowrunners, and I honestly felt like I was playing a role that I defined for myself. I cared about my crew, and they cared about me.

My character (A female elf with a focus on Cyberweaponry -- arm blades and the like), with the street name "Cat", was tough and ruthless, but also honorable. If I take on a mission, I follow it through no matter what (Unless it turns out that I'm actually harming innocents, but that was rare), even if a better offer comes along, even if someone tries to get me to turn on my employer.

My one regret with this game is that I rushed through it too quickly. To be fair, you are warned that you won't be able to do side content if you progress past a certain point in the main story, but for some reason I assumed I could finish it up afterwards - I was wrong. And because I was enjoying the gameplay and shadowruns themselves so much, I didn't take the time to talk to my companions at base much, meaning I missed out on their optional "loyalty" side missions.

However, all of that just means I'll absolutely be bringing Cat back for round two soon - this time doing it right.

Played many more games than this, of course, but these are the ones that stick in my mind the most - plus I have a habit of not finishing most of the games I buy. ;)

Technobabylon



I started the game in late May this year. But in late July i got brand new PC which allowed me to play Witcher 3 finally and that consumed all my gaming time since then.

I was literally at the end and could have finished it in five minutes. Which I just did.

Really good game. Not the hardest, which is good as all puzzles make sense. Did not have to use the walkthrough at all.

The bad thing is that there are slightly too many parts which are escape room style of puzzles. That slows the plot progress a lot. but they are not that obnoxious so all is good.

hope they will make a sequal.

Witcher 3

And another game finished today and last one for 2017.

I got the game in 2015 on release but my laptop could not handle it properly and therefore I stopped playing after only 45 hours.

restarted from the beginning with new pc this July and only finished today. It was pretty much the only game I played in past five months (also played Deux Ex: Missing Link).

Many words were said about the game so I won't repeat them here. Just wow. It was such an epic adventure. I still have expansion packs to go but I think I will take a break from Geralt for few month. Maybe in March I can play Heart of Stone.

I think I got the best ending possible. That made me very happy!

Elevator Action Returns. This is a pretty neat sequel to the classic arcade game, giving you three characters to choose from, more enemy types, weapon power-ups, and nicer graphics and more complicated level layouts. All that 90s stuff. As much as I like it, I have to admit that I think I still prefer the original. One of the big flaws in both games is that you often have to stand around waiting for an elevator to make its way back up to you if you missed it, but it seems like I was waiting around less often in the original game? I also wasn't crazy about the game blaring an alarm at you if you take too long getting to the red doors to defuse the bombs - the sound just reminded me too much of an alarm clock in the morning.

OMG, the original was probably one of my favorite arcade games.

Clicker Heroes

In a game with no actual end, that I've been playing steadily since I think July, I'd set a target a few weeks ago of quitting when I got bored and/or reached level 30,000 (highest level with an in-game achievement).

Thanks to the patch the developers put out last week, that target became not just achievable but kind of mind-numbingly easy.

In Aesopian fashion, the game turned from a tortoise into a hare, and not entirely to its benefit. Or to use another game analogy, similar to when WoW completely gutted the leveling process (Cataclysm, perhaps?) the patch emphasized late-game content, but really lost something along the way.

I went from increasing my power by about 5-15% per Ascension/Transcension to more than doubling or even tripling. After 3.5 months (not entirely min-maxing, and not taking advantage of any MP bonus, just playing pure solo) I had reached level 6,500. In a bit less than a month since the patch, even with less time actually playing the game, I rocketed up to level 32,500 or so.

As far as clickers and/or idles go, this was my favorite by far. I think there are aspects of this game that actually do a good job simulating middle management IRL. Figure out the rules, manage your time efficiently, adjust resources towards your high performers, and then get out of the way until you're actively need to manage or in crunch time [the most effective playstyle was hybrid idle/active]. You can micromanage and click your brains out if you want, certainly, if you want carpal tunnel or shoulder strain.

The trouble with the new game for me, aside from the fact that the intent seems at least in part to be to move current players through the current game in advance of their new p2p sequel, or maybe just into end game. But that assumes people play for end-game- some do, some don't. Even as someone who raided in WoW, for example, I was an alt-oholic who mostly played for the journey and sense of growth.

Now, this game is not WoW, by any stretch. It has the additional problem that a number of the features really aren't designed for this pace of growth - either missing features they should have added, and also some deadweight they should have cleaned out. Of the 70 or so heroes, about half are completely useless. Another 15-18 have fairly marginal utility for buffs, and the design is such that as you open the next one of [the key heroes] up, you really don't go back to the prior one, because within an ascension growth is on an e/10x scale. Your 1e1246 hero adds nothing to the equation when you have a new one popping 1e2650.

Will say, i really enjoyed this for months. Debated making it my game of the year. As is, though, I'm just kinda glad to have met my goal and call it done. Still probably the clicker I would recommend to someone new to the genre, and hey, after that first ascension you'll be off to the races as a new player. I'm just not sure that's what made this game hum.

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty (free) Campaign

Blizzard did (generously?) open up the first campaign in SC2 for free, perhaps as bait to get people to buy the full battlechest to unlock the remaining campaigns. Only $35 on sale now!

I have pretty mixed feelings on this. Early on, in particular, I was quite enjoying it. I'd played the demo, but being able to actually get in and use the features of your on-board ship (armory/laboratory/cantina/bridge) did liven up the game quite a bit. The in-game news reporting was fairly well done.

That said, outside of Raynor/Tychus, most of the other characters are forgettable cliches. Hell, I got the sense Blizzard copied the ship's mechanic from some dwarf I'd forgotten in that other IP they own. The bigger problem is aspects of the story line are just bad.

For a brief second I thought the ending would make the Tychus subplot at least pull a rabbit from the hat, but it was exactly the obvious thing you suspected at the very beginning but disregarded only because logically it made no sense at all with several other key plot issues. So...I guess they're hoping that by the end you've forgotten literally everything else that transpired (particularly the Media Blitz quest line)?

Play-wise, the majority of boards derive from plot action, which has the advantage of keeping them from all being the same build/defend/expand/smash cookie cutter, but a number of them really aren't that interesting. You've been here before and done basically these exact quests before in other games. The majority really aren't even that challenging.

The game wants you to replay them to unlock additional achievements. Achievements are hit/miss for me, and here they were a miss. For the most part they aren't interesting and the majority you will pick up in the normal course of completing the board anyway.

The last map ("All in") was probably the most creative. Personally, it didn't play to my strengths - far too much quick twitch to juggle multiple-layered combat on multiple-fronts topped off by Kerrigan's ability to just disappear even your most powerful units from the map at will. And even though I played around, it didn't seem to offer any other solution - any beatdown of enemy resources in advance will just be washed away as anything you kill replenishes almost instantly.

Which certainly fits the plot/mood of the board, but strategically it's not very interesting - kinda have to figure out the 1-2 narrow paths to win and then just ride out 30 mostly frenetic minutes.

Will say they did a good job with Raynor though. Perhaps for that reason alone it's probably worth playing the (free) campaign.

A Normal Lost Phone

I didn't like it very much. I thought it might be fun to explore a story by examining a lost phone, since phones these days reveal so much about their owners, but in a jumbled way, so you have to put the pieces together like a puzzle in order to get an certain idea of what that person might be like. This being a game, it allows the player to get involved with another one's (fictitious) personal life, get closer to them, learn very intimate things about them, and at the same time detach their own person from the implications of being inappropriately intrusive and curious to the extent of voyeurism. From what I gathered, some players still have issues with that, but that wasn't what bothered me - in games I assume a lot of different personalities that aren't my own and do things that are immoral, and it doesn't make me feel like a bad person in real life. But it's also interesting to see where everyone's boundaries are when it comes to immersing yourself into a game, and also to discover how easily tempted one might secretly be of trying immoral things, if only in their imagination, and how much you might secretly enjoy (or not) e.g. snooping around in other people's private life despite knowing it is wrong, because your curiosity got the better of you.

The problem with this game though is that, on the contrary, it didnt make me very curious at all. After a while I realized I was rather bored with all the snooping and it became more of a chore. There was so much text but so little of interest contained in it, the controls for scrolling through it were rather unintuitive and inconvenient on the PC, especially with my laptop's touchpad (and it doesn't offer keyboard controls), I found the music on the phone somewhat bland and distracting, and the gameplay apart from reading was restricted to finding out a few passwords, which wasn't exactly fun. There was one idea/twist, which surprised me a bit, but everything else about the plot was kind of predictable and I didn't think the writing in the dialogues very good either. It's certainly not easy to walk the line between hammering something in, in very blunt and clichéd ways, or being so subtle about it that it doesn't feel convincing either, but I feel the writing often failed in this regard. The game seemed to be more educational than entertaining, like the message was the most important thing about it, and while I don't necessarily mind the message or games having a message in general, I thought it was too blunt here, and at times it was as much fun as reading (a tamer version of) a self-help forum. And I don't even think I learned anything from it, it felt more like a waste of my time.

All in all I felt like I was playing something derivative of Digital: A Love Story and Gone Home, but less well done and enjoyable, and also not as new and refreshing anymore.

Interesting. I own the Android version of this game and the gameplay feels (unsurprisingly) very natural on a smartphone. I can imagine the controls must feel way more cumbersome on a PC.

As per the story, I've only played it for a little bit, until I started feeling like I should be taking physical pen&paper notes in order to keep track of who's who and all their relationships. Of course that didn't pair very well with playing the game either on the bus, in bed, or at the toilet (my three favourite places for mobile gaming :P), so I ended up putting it on hold. Your review didn't exactly encourage me to pick it up again, though. :P

Kona (Linux)

This was one of the best looking games I finished on my old rig so far and I'm still amazed it ran so well on highest settings.
It took me only about 7h but those were well invested and I really want to see a second part.
The genre is hard to define, it's a mix of adventure, walking sim and (only very slightly) fps with a survival element.
I don't want to spoiler it further but can recommend it.
What annoyed me was, that because of the latest Unity updates giving all Linux users problems with Fullscreen, I had to change a simple configuration setting in a file every time before running it but that's also happening in other Unity games lately.

8/10

Few days ago, right under the X-Mas tree, I have got my second PS4 Platinum Trophy (Project CARS GOTY). Finished the 16th gold accolade Championship/Race, and got 3 trophies at once :P . All of them pretty rare. It took me 120+ hours to get it, including races in online championship with my friends.

17 Playstation Platinum Trophies so far.

Currently I am playing Shadowrun Dragonfall, while I still have few days off-work. I still have not finished it, despite having it in my catalogue almost from release date of the game :(

List of all my games finished this year

Well, regarding the story, different people might come to different conclusions, of course, but it didn't do much for me.

I found the PC controls unintuitive because scrolling works just like on a phone (swipe in the direction opposite of the one you want to scroll in), but on the PC, when I see a scroll bar on the side, I try to use it with the mouse, and the scroll bar is actually the one spot where your mouse clicking, holding and dragging does absolutely nothing. Instead you have to click, hold and drag anywhere else. And seeing as I only had a touchpad at my disposal, holding and dragging in order to scroll through long conversations was cumbersome. I'd have liked an option to use the cursor keys or page up/down instead. I can imagine that swipe controls on your Android phone work much better. It probably feels a bit more authentic, too, to pretend your actual phone is the phone you're examining.