Alpha Protocol (360)

I actually reported this in the games quit thread about 2 weeks back. But it kept nagging at me that maybe I didn't give it enough of a try...I mean I couldn't even get past the tutorial computer hacking segment! I came back to it, created a new character with points in tech to make the hacking a bit easier, learned to sort of look sideways and squint at the terrible hacking screens and got far enough so that it hooked me. And the game really did hook me in the end, despite a massive list of flaws:

It's ugly. For a game using Unreal 3 Engine, it honestly looks crap. I mean it's the same engine as Bioshock and the Arkham games, but looks no where near as good on the same hardware. I think Obsidian showed a lack of experience with the engine for sure.
Whilst I encountered no actual serious bugs, the game is glitchy. Enemies often get stuck running against corners or just stop for no reason. Lots of minor graphics glitches etc.
Aiming is sometimes a joke, especially with grenades. You aim around some obstacle with a clear sight line only to clip some object nowhere near you...resulting in grenades bouncing back on you and blowing your ass sky high. I gave up even using grenades as I blew myself up twice as often as the enemy! Luckily the enemy blow themselves up quite regularly as well.
On the subject of grenades, when are devs going to realize that they are heavy (really they are) and cannot be thrown 100m like a baseball? In fact many grenades are so heavy that an average user cannot throw them beyond potential blast kill zone- making them defense only (from behind cover) weapons. I wish developers would finally learn this.

I could list many other flaws but the worst one, my pet hate in RPG games, are the many forced stupidity scripted sequences. The type where your sneaking along perfectly in stealth, sneaking up on the bad ass dude, when you cross a line on the ground, and bingo, cutscene- your elite agent then stands up like a moron and walks openly into a room of enemies and has a chat. Then gets ambushed (didn't see that coming!) by 10 enemies that appear out of no where. I hate that shit. What's the point of game mechanics if a cheating dev is just going to override them to force their story down your throat?

But...I loved the game! I have no idea how I ended up liking it so much with so many faults. But there you go. The missions and the way you make real choices with consequences really held the game together and made it feel like a spy epic. I like it so much I even plan to play it again to make different choices and see what happens. Definitely a game that defines the term "diamond in the rough".

I'm glad someone else likes it as much as me. One of my favourite RPG's since the old Black Isle and Troika games. The second game is just as good, the third maybe not quite as good, but still decent enough. I played a mostly melee character in the first game and dedicated spell casters in the next two, and magic throwers have it easier for sure.
I especially like how experimenting with spells cast together can result in extra undocumented benefits, like cats eye and light enhancement. Adds a whole layer of exploration and experimentation.

Yup, that's the Alpha Protocol experience, alright :)

I'd like to ask you a question if I may. I'm about to start Book 2 and I noticed that the game has added a repair and a foraging mechanic... honestly, those both seem to me like they'd just be annoying and I'm very strongly temped to turn them off. In your opinion do they add anything good to the game?

Been a while since I've played them, but if I recall correctly, Repair is pretty much mandatory (it's a mechanic I don't care for in games at all either). Not sure if you can turn it off though. If you can, I'd recommend doing so. Forage... I seem to recall there's a decent reason to take that one, but don't have any real details on it.

<span class="bold">Hairy Tales</span>

Once upon a time, back in early 2013, my eye was caught by a cute puzzle game on Desura called Hairy Tales. Unfortunately that game was only available there for Windows and Mac, but the creator said he was considering a Linux version. A couple of months later he delivered on his promise so I bought it, played it for a good bit, and I liked it so much that I even wrote a review on GamingOnLinux. As hinted in the review I got stuck in the second boss (that's two thirds throughout the game, if you don't count the few first tutorial levels), and I eventually left the game.

Back to 2017, one lazy afternoon I decided to give this game a second chance. It took me a good while to beat that damn boss, but in the end I finally defeated it so I could complete the game for good. For a detailed description of what the game's about I'd encourage you to read the aforementioned review. I still stand by most of what I wrote four years ago, but I'm no longer a newbie to 'modern' 3D videogames so my judgement would be more strict nowadays: e.g. I no longer think its graphics are "pretty detailed". On the other hand I maintain that its combination of puzzles and action is rather unique and interesting, even though I found an annoying bug in the later levels that would've further lowered my score if I had known about it back then. Luckily it's no showstopper and the game can be fully completed, but it's a nuisance for sure.

I would recommend the game, but it's nowhere to be purchased nowadays. Desura is no longer operative as you know, the game never made it into Steam, and as it seems the developer has abandoned his videogame career, so there's that.


My list of finished games in 2017

I turned off the weapon wear and repair feature, as I think it was just way too overdone. I tried the food thing for a while and ended up turning that off as well. With them both off you pretty much have the same gameplay as the first game...you only sacrifice being able to get some achievements for your overall end game score.
From memory you can turn them off AFTER beginning a game if you don't like them (double check that though, it's been a while). So if I'm remembering it right then you can always just start a game and turn them off when you decide they are too annoying.

Wasn't there something in the game - some quest or some kind of crafting (quite useful) - that you needed to forage ingredients for? I seem to recall something like that. If you had your foraging high enough, you'd end up getting a crapton of ingredients when you camped? Crap, I'm quite fuzzy on it now. I just seem to recall forage being useful while repair was just annoying. May have just been my playstyle at the time though.

It's been a while, but what you're saying sounds about right. It's just that I decided the eating mechanic was way overdone and ended up turning it off anyway and sacrificing any benefits from the forage skill.. At least the game gives them as options.
I love turn based games with lots of stats keeping and detail, but eating and weapon wear are ALWAYS overdone it seems. I mean if you put it into real life context, most RPG would require me to stop and eat half way on the 10 minute walk to my local shopping center- of course in an RPG it would take a lot longer than 10 minutes because I'd also be breaking into every house along the way to steal what people have in their cupboards and murdering anyone that is home. So maybe I really would have to eat at some point, I don't know.

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly.

Well, robbery and indiscriminate slaughter is hungry work... :P

The Witcher 3 (main story)

Completed the main story last night. Took me 85 hours although I didn't play a lot of gwent, only discovered about half of the ? locations and treasure hunts as it felt once I was about half way through the game there was little reward in persuing these and gaming time is precious afterall. I did do around 95% of the side quests and contracts though. Such a fabulous experience, it almost felt like more than a game due to the depth of the immersion. I was a bit perplexed with the ending though, after the scene with the portal and the tower and I was kinda left guessing just what happened - felt a bit weird when the game ended but hey ho. My intention is to have a break before going on to Hearts & Minds but I'm already feeling the draw back in to the game - I wonder how long I'll manage to resist...

Finished Hero of the Kingdom II. A nice adventure game with an isometric view and quests to do. Nothing really excellent but it was fun.

Full list here.

I've completed Dark Arcana: The Carnival a few days ago.

I thought that Artifex Mundi hidden-object adventures are quite decent relaxing casual games. Not so sure any more. Most of them are extremely similar and after finishing 3-4 of them they become simply boring. It's always the same story, the same protagonist, the same tricks to make you scared and even exactly the same repetitive puzzles. All their games look amazing and many of them offers interesting themes and atmosphere (dark circus this time), indeed, but don't be fooled - it's just more and more of the same...

Woo. After almost 20 hours, I finally found every thing in Everything :D

Treasure adventure game.

I'm a bit conflicted with this one.
One one side I admire this game. It was made by(for the most part) one mad who had no prior knowledge of game design, yet it's full of charm, puzzles, exploration and boss battles. The pixel graphics won't be everyone's cup of tea, but the music is great. The game maintains a decent difficulty through out with a few difficulty spikes here and there.

On the other side however: the designer's lack of experience shines through. There are noticeable bugs(like falling through platforms), hit detection issues, odd physics in a few places and a massive amount of backtracking. And the ending is... let's just say: Monty Pythonesk.

The writing is also not very good and rather cliche. In the first five minutes you will witness three of the dreaded “writing red flags” that are commonly viewed as signs of bad storytelling (and many more will be introduced later). With this level of writing I was honestly surprised that the starting village wasn't burned down by a black knight who has a kidnapped princess with a mystical amulet in his backpack.

Overall: rough around the edges, but the core is golden.
8/10

Overblood 2 PSX
An obscure J-ARPG that is a sequel to an obscure survival horror game.
The gameplay mainly consists of platforming and finding/collecting items with some combat thrown in.
And a lot of cutscenes, both of the in-game and pre-rendered variety.
Seriously, days of cutscenes.
The story is Kojima levels of insanity.
And the graphics.. well even for the time they weren't very good.
I mean most NPCs don't even have faces.
It's kind of weirdly charming though, they certainly tried a lot of things.

Inside PC
Not much to say about this one.
I don't think it's worth the hype (but than again, games never are), but I had fun with it.
I would've preferred it if they'd gone for some world building instead of this 'what do you think happened?' BS they've gone for, but still a thoroughly enjoyable game.