Gorky 17

I can't get enough of turn based isometric games, I happened to see this in the Made in Poland sale and snatched it up. The game sees you play as a group of NATO soldiers sent into an abandoned Russian city to investigate the disappearance of another group of NATO soldiers. Upon arrival they find a city overrun by strange hybrids of human, animal and machine, the men must find the missing soldiers, find the cause of the hybrids and escape with their lives. The game is a sort of combination between survival horror and turn based strategy, you have limited ammo and medical supplies, if you don't conserve them then you'll die. It can be difficult, especially at the beginning, if you don't learn the right strategy you will struggle, because if one character dies it's game over, the whole game is really one big escort mission for whoever your weakest character is, however the game was fun, though the amount of really good weapons you get by the end is absurd and makes the game really easy.

There is a strange thing in the game where a certain character dies if you enter a certain battle, however that battle is optional (I chose to avoid the battle), you might think it's a glitch however the character had dialogue near the end of the game. There are several inconsistencies with the story, but nothing major. The English translation is fairly good, though it does lead to some interesting enemy names, 'Reverend Insect' was my favourite. The story sort of goes in a strange direction towards the end and I wasn't a fan of it. The game has 2 sequels, neither of which is available on GOG and neither of which are turn based and I don't think I'm invested enough into the world and story to want to play them. It was a good game, a bit short, but I'd recommend it.

And the Longest Journey Is done.

Great game. Only looked into the walkthrough twice. and for minor things only...

Epistory - Typing Chronicles

A neat typing game with great aesthetic, good narration and a story that had me a bit confused. Gameplay got kind of repetitive, and a couple nests took me 5+ tries to beat, though possibly because I tried them tackled them before I found the lightning & wind powers which might've made them easier. Well, the adaptive difficulty eventually made them easy enough for me to beat, I guess.

You're a better adventure gamer than me.

Day of the Tentacle: Remastered (Maniac Mansion included)
I won it in bjgamer giveaway, thanks again

I can’t really say anything new about these two games. True classic, masterpieces, setting high standards for p&c adventures, three playable characters… yeah, it’s been said so many times that I don’t dare to repeat it. I would like to say a few words about the remastered version. In my opinion it’s just how it should be done. Basically every aspect has been remastered: graphics, audio, voices and user interface. The best thing is that you switch between the remastered and original for each of these aspects separately. You want to play with the original graphics but with enhanced UI? Suit yourself! This way the game cab be applied to nostalgia-driven fans which may prefer the original look but can also encourage younger gamers to discover this gem. Everybody wins! Can’t recommend it strong enough!


Full list

Finished two games lately:
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Still good but very difficult, finished thanks to the quick save/load included in the Sega emulator.
- Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice: A very good game but a bit difficult at times and not recommended if you are a bit depressed. Story is interesting, puzzles are light and not to annoying but a few battles were too long for my taste.

Full list here.

ekhem... thank you

but

I beat the game 14 years ago and sortof, while not exactly remembered the puzzles, i had vague idea what to use and what will be the result.

so doesn't count :)

Trine 2 - Complete Story

Like its predecessor, very enjoyable and original variation of the Lost Vikings formula, with good graphics (if sometimes a bit too gaudy for my taste), great music, sound design and voice-acting, fun mechanics and quite a lot of secrets to discover. The story-telling is a bit weird, I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but somehow it manages to make a quite simple and classic story seem fragmentary, confusing and uninteresting, but then again, the story is not the main reason to play this game anyway.

The main game has 15 levels through which I breezed in a couple of evenings, while greatly enjoying myself. The last two levels were somewhat less enjoyable (a lot of acid, lava, spikes, light but deathly arcade action, and tricky physics related puzzles that could turn kind of frustrating when playing alone and with a gamepad), whereas the final fight was a bit of joke due to how easily you can cheese it (not that I'm complaining, I don't much like boss battles anyway). But all in all the gameplay is pretty good, also because the game allows you to create your own solutions. You can either solve the puzzles as they were meant to be solved or find new ways around them with the many options offered by the characters' skills. And it's all up to you in which skills you would like to invest in what order. I was amazed how well this game works both as a single player and a three player co-op experience (played it a bit in co-op before, but this complete playthrough was in SP mode).

The DLC was quite good, with very high production values. Contrary to the main game, it had additional cutscenes before each level, and the 5 extra levels themselves were very varied and original, with cool new locations that I think I liked even better than the original ones. The story was easier to follow, but secondary to the gameplay as well. I tried to be as much completionist as I could, but at the end of both campaigns I was still missing 4 out of 17 paintings and 2 out of 17 poems, and the occasional magic xp pickup as well, so that I couldn't fully max out all skill trees, but the 3 or 4 skills I was still missing didn't sound that interesting anyway. Due to the powerful skills I had by the time I was playing the DLC, it was even easier to circumvent the puzzles at times, when I did not feel like going along with them because my way was less of a hassle. On the other hand, I think many puzzles also assumed that I had developed all these skills by now. The final boss can be a bit frustrating if you haven't quite figured it out, but once you do, it's easy enough.

On the technical side, the camera could occasionally get in the way but it was not a big problem. I ran into one small issue though (which appeared to be pretty big at the time), in that the controls don't seem to be fully set up for Xbox360 controllers (at least in the Steam version), so that I couldn't control the free moving portals (levers wouldn't budge), and I didn't know why. Fortunately someone on the internet provided the solution by pointing out that the controls for "MOVE" in the control settings are blank, only those for "MOVE (AXIS)" are defined. If you copy the controls from Axis to Move, you're good to go. Seeing that it was the ultimate Complete Story Edition and that the Xbox360 gamepad should be the most common one in use, I thought it was a bit weird that in all these years, apparently this was never fixed ...

Gorky 17

I think I would've enjoyed this a lot more when it came out. The turn-based combat is passable, and if you're not paying attention it can quickly devolve into an exercise in frustration. However the combat is structured enough that it's, as far as I could tell, probably possible to beat each fight without losing any health. I didn't go to that extreme, but my cautious thought out approach to each fight I'm afraid to say ended up making the game pretty easy. Towards the end I had more medical supplies and ammunition than I knew what to do with. This made the final two fights, including the final boss, a cakewalk. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit bored by the end :P
I'm afraid I'm going to find it difficult to recommend this to someone purely on gameplay grounds. If however you're nostalgic for this turn-of-the-millennium kind of game, with 3D models on very highly detailed pre-rendered 2D levels, then you'll find Gorky17 embodies its era exceedingly well. In fact, the levels are very meticulously put together, so much so that it was even fun to explore at times.
Somehow this game reminded me a lot of Silver, which is something I'd much rather recommend over Gorky if you're after something from that era. Though Silver is realtime and set in a typical fantasy universe.

I finally finished Inquisitor!
It took me over three months and 124 hours; Level 53 Thief. I actually uninstalled it after beating a brutal boss somewhere in the second act, then going into a rage when I found out shortly after that my skill points (you only gain 4 / level - they are extremely valuable) were permanently reduced during the fight. I'm glad I decided to re-install it after I calmed down.
It was an incredible journey. Amazing artwork and soundtrack accompanied an incredibly dark and satanic story line that's especially relevant these days considering satanism / luciferianism is becoming more and more mainstream. The story is quite eye-opening, rife with the elite (mostly the church), whom the people trust, participating in ritual sacrifice, debauchery and demonic invocation rites all to further their agenda.

Mother of God, I finally did it. Just finished Yakuza 0 on PS4. On normal difficulty that is. If the in-game clock is to be trusted it took me 96 hours. I guess I'd have to subtract 5-6 hours of idling (the game keeps counting while on the pause menu) but that was still one hell of a long ride. At least doing as many side activities as I did, including completion of both characters' business mini games. This is gonna be a pretty long post, ain't it...

So, I absolutely loved the game and it's kinda crazy that it (according to my buddy) actually launched at 20 bucks, considering the quality and amount of content. First off: story-wise it's possibly one of the best games I've ever played. Well, some of it is a tad absurd and over-the-top in typical Japanese fashion but actually a big chunk of the story was pretty humble and relatable. Before things really escalate it feels rather realistic, like Mafia or something, which caught me quite by surprise. Anyway, the plot seems for the most part pretty plausible and most importantly the game is riddled with very likeable and believable characters. Sure, there's some of those pseudo-philosophical moments where characters will tell their childhood story in weird moments and discuss their motivations and whatnot but as far as I'm concerned it's not overdone and the moments aren't too random or anything. And the plot kept me engaged form start to finish - there's tear jerk moments, there's super violent dramatic moments, there's hilarious moments and it's kinda hard to stop following this kind of thing. And since I don't know Japanese I may not be a good judge of this but also the acting seemed fantastic, especially of the two protagonists.

The weird thing are the "substories", side quests that is. These are entirely detached from the main plot and are generally far more cliche JRPG writing, with the hero helping people with the dumbest of errands. I didn't like the substories that tried to tell a serious story but luckily like 90% of those are there entirely for comic relief and holy shit, did many of them make me laugh. After a few of those I actually had tears in my eyes from laughing, whether it's because of a guest appearance of totally not Michael Jackson or because one of our heroes' got caught up in a hilarious misunderstanding that totally cock blocked him. One would think this kind of stuff detracts from the very serious main plot but somehow this really worked. Seeing the protagonists in such absurd scenarios somehow only adds depth to them, it often brings out their qualities that the main plot can't deliver.

As for the gameplay: I really enjoyed most of it, although it certainly is not without flaws. It is largely very original, though, and a welcome change from the western approach to sandbox games. It's a pretty interesting blend of a GTA style sandbox game (alas, without vehicles) with a JRPG. First off: exploration is simply fun in this one. The world (or rather two worlds) is rather small but filled with a ton of content. There's a shitload of the aforementioned substories, so especially early on the game feels very organic, with a small adventure potentially waiting behind each corner. It was only by the end of the game that I had gotten tired of the cities. There's also a ton of fun side activities like arcades (where you can play SEGA classics like OutRun), darts, pool, bowling, fishing, and quite a few Japanese gambling games, some of which I haven't touched yet because I haven't yet felt like learning the rules. And the most extensive minigame is probably pocket racing which has you customise small cars and race against other people. The weird thing is that while in most sandbox games I never quite feel like it's the right moment to engage in such activities or they feel out of place, here I felt like they really add to the world and characters.

And then there's the pretty extensive business games with one character engaging in a real estate business while the other one manages a club where guys get to flirt with hostesses. I literally spent two weeks only maxing these mini games (well, while also doing some substories). The real estate game is just your typical "invest money, wait, get more money back" thing like in many other games like the Assassin's Creed series but at least it came with an extensive side story with bossfights. The club management game is far more interesting because it has you manage the club in real-time for a few minutes per session, assigning women to clients and reacting to their emergencies like having to bring a towel or swap an ashtray. And you get to dress up your girls which was a bit awkward but I don't care.

But the core mechanic is the combat and well... it looks fantastic and is often very satisfying but in the end it's ironically not a particularly good system. Each character has four combat styles (with the last one only becoming available after finishing their respective business game) and each style has a shitload of unlockable actions. The system is far more convoluted than it has to be and the problem is that you don't have to master it at all. At least on normal difficulty the combat is pretty darn easy and most fights can actually be won via button mashing. It doesn't help that in typical JRPG fashion you can bring along a ton of consumables and heal mid-combat, so even if you're doing badly you can usually even things out with a few "potions". There's really just a handful of tough fights but most of them are optional. I don't think I "died" a single time during a story mission. Which doesn't mean that the combat isn't fun, it really is. It's just not the kind of quality you would expect and can find in some other sandbox franchises. Then there's the weird thing that there's no XP, you actually pay for character upgrades and new abilities with cash and you get most of it from the businesses. But as I mentioned: the game is pretty easy, so luckily I never had to grind. At least there's no random enemy encounters: enemies roam the streets in packs but you can actually avoid them and later on you can skip fights by throwing money around. That's actually pretty awesome.

Anyway, so I loved the game in spite of the meh combat system (and too much time spent with the business mini games). I played it for about a month (excluding a break I took) and don't regret investing so much time into it because I got a lot in return, mostly through the game's fantastic content. On one hand I can't wait to see to go straight ahead to the next game, Kiwami (which would a remake of the original game and is currently included with PS Plus) but I guess I'm a bit exhausted from the series for now. Especially the fact that the games apparently share most mechanics and the same map means that I really have to go for something different for now.

Shooty Fruity (PSVR)

This game is basically a wave shooter where various enemies come at you, and you have to use an assortment of different weapons to shoot them before they get too close. There are a nice variety of weapons and enemies, with different strengths and weaknesses.

However, the difference in this game is that while doing that you simultaneously need to scan groceries or pack groceries or load food trays, in order to unlock your better weapons! This adds another dimension to the game and makes it more interesting and adds replayability.

Overall I found this pretty good for a wave shooter, fun in short doses.

Batman: Arkham Origins. I guess this is the odd duck of the franchise since it wasn't made by Rocksteady and seems to have been part of an abandoned plan to annualize Batman games like Call of Duty? It's basically the same thing as Arkham City except with some relatively minor changes (e.g., subway maps are gone to make room for more neighborhoods above ground) and more bugs. Sometimes bugs can be fun - I liked it when a couple of times I punched a guy and he just blasted off into space instead of falling down. Crashing to desktop not so much.

The story is that it's early Batman and someone has hired eight world-class assassins to take him down on Christmas Eve. The city is experiencing a blizzard, which is why the streets are deserted except for mobs of crooks (like shaving a dog and seeing all the fleas exposed, I guess). None of the games have what I would consider a good story, but this one is especially bad. It's just weighed down with a lot of angsty post-Crisis stuff I've never much liked, such as Batman being a dick to pretty much everyone, the Joker having a weird infatuation with Batman, making Batman's code against killing some kind of psychological hangup instead of simply a principle he tries to follow, etc. I guess if you're really into that stuff it doesn't matter. Also, eight assassins is a bit much, I think. Four to six would have moved things along more smoothly. And I don't recommend being a completionist about the Riddler challenges because the ending to that subplot isn't really an ending at all.

One way it definitely improves on the previous games is that the boss fights are consistently more interestingly designed.

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The Way. It's intended to evoke Another World and Flashback (hey, GOG, hurry up and get Flashback here), and it actually does a decent job of it. You control a future scientist guy whose wife died from a disease, but while excavating an alien world he found signs that the previous inhabitants may have found the secret of eternal life, so you dig up your wife's grave and haul her in a cooler across the galaxy to try and bring her back, which involves solving a lot of puzzles and the occasional action sequence.

The puzzles are generally not too bad, although there were two or three that I found pretty obtuse and I think I even solved a couple by accident, just tinkering with them and trying to figure out the "rules". The action stuff is more of a mixed bag, with some parts that would be downright infuriating if it wasn't for the game autosaving so often and reloading quickly.

The graphics are pretty nice, primarily the backgrounds. I don't know that it looks quite as good as its influences, but it does get across the alien world vibe effectively. The animation is fine but not as eye-popping as the rotoscoped games were in their time. Like Another World, you get a buddy that tags along with you most of the way. The way he's used in the story is kind of manipulative but I did get a little misty-eyed anyway - I'm an easy mark like that - and it was a factor in my choice of ending (although I immediately reloaded and did the other ending just to see it). I do think the game could have cut down on a lot of the text and done more wordless storytelling, as AW did, but that's just a nitpick.

Finished Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories on PSP yesterday. This was quite an interesting experience since it was basically a return to GTA III, which I haven't played in like fifteen years, but with missions I have never seen before and a few features that were introduced in Vice City.

So, the game has basically all the pros and cons of the original GTA III. First off: the city (which remains virtually unchanged from GTA III) is rather meh. Just like in GTA III the first island is pretty good, the second one is okay, the third one is pretty much ass. The main problem is that the islands get increasingly complicated to navigate with fewer and fewer connections. It's only the first one (called Liberty Island, I think) that, in my eyes, really gives you a ton of freedom and is riddled with interesting and recognisable places. All in all GTA III's Liberty City is in my opinion by far the worst map in the first generation of 3D GTA games.

Secondly: the driving actually still holds up. It's super simple and arcadish but I had no problems controlling the cars and I still consider these simplistic driving physics much more fun than GTA IV's. What seriously sucks at first is combat controls. I had only played GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas on PC before, so I had no idea how these games controlled on console. Apparently it was even worse on PSP than on PS2 because the PSP has only a single analogue stick. I don't know how the controls worked exactly on dual stick controllers but on PSP you have only a single analogue stick, so there's no sensible free look. If you want to freely look around you can only do this by holding down the left shoulder button and using the analogue stick. Curiously that wasn't really a problem to me. The real issue is how aiming works. You can engage free aiming but generally you hold down the right shoulder button to lock a target and then press the O button to shoot, There's no sensible way to swap targets, the stick makes you strafe (if the weapon allows it). So the shooting boils down to pressing R1 + O the moment you get into range of an enemy. That's it. And before you get used to it you will often target the wrong character. This was a nightmare at first but actually I got used to it pretty quickly. What's funny: the console versions of Rockstars' games behave quite similarly to this day, so it wasn't that big a deal, actually. Sure, in GTA V and RDR 2 you have sensible aiming like in any shooter but you still mostly depend on the lock-on feature, so it really isn't that much of a difference. In the end, all things considered, the controls were okay.

But let's get to the more interesting stuff: the story and missions. The story isn't as engaging as that of any other main GTA title. Kinda as the title implies this game just provides some extra backstory. You assume the role of Toni Cipriani, who was originally a minor side character in GTA III (and whom I didn't remember at all) who is pretty much nothing more than a lackey of Salvatore Leone, the leader of Liberty City's Italian mafia. Dude comes back from exile after icing a guy and now works his way to the top of Don Leone's family. The story is really more about "Sal" Leone, in my opinion, and little more than an excuse to give more screen time to GTA III's more memorable characters (most of whom I actually didn't remember). It's not particularly engaging or dramatic but it's a fun excuse to do more missions in Liberty City and meet some pretty hilarious characters (again). Toni may be even more shallow than GTA III's silent protagonist but the story gave me a few decent laughs and added some backstory to some of the characters. Considering the game's very premise and title, it was actually almost more than I expected.

In true GTA III fashion the missions are very much hit or miss. Some are pretty fun but none of them are particularly great. A few of them were quite badly designed and highly frustrating, some are most easily beaten by using exploits (e.g. they can be nigh-impossible if you have shitty equipment or too easy if you're well-equipped). But what really blew me away is the style of some missions. In retrospect these older GTA games were interesting middle-ground between these heavily story-driven modern GTA games and the top-down original games. Some missions will have you do some crazy stuff, e.g. a priest will ask you to just cause mayhem by using a fire truck and the "hero" will follow through without questioning it - a few moments later you find yourself running over hundreds of pedestrians for no good reason. Generally the missions have such a weird style where you do a variety of things for the dumbest reasons. And I kinda loved it and it makes the "offensive" moments of GTA IV and V appear kinda tame. Also the humour is a lot more offensive and even more politically incorrect than in modern GTA games, even including jokes about paedophilia that, I think, can't quite make it into modern GTA games anymore. It was a really different world back then and it's quite interesting to experience this today.

But what seriously sucks are some fundamental issues we haven't dealt with since GTA IV. Saving can only be done at your hideouts and dying or getting busted by the cops results in losing all your equipment. If you fail a taxi appears that can bring you right back to the place where you trigger the mission that you just failed but considering the losses in equipment you're better off just reloading your last saved game. And often getting to that point takes longer than it takes to fail a mission. It's pretty nasty shit and I'm too happy that sandbox games have moved beyond that. Also the economy is quite messed up. You keep getting pretty puny sums for each job, you never quite get enough money to just go crazy, you loot enough weapons and ammo from enemies anyway (as long as you keep reloading each time you fail) and the best source of equipment is collecting the hidden packages. It's quite shitty, really, and the game is either too hard or too easy, depending and what you've got. It's pretty bad.

But how do I feel about the game in the end? Pretty well, actually. It's not a masterpiece (although it kinda is impressive to play such a massive game on PSP) but it's certainly a fun addition to the GTA III experience and in retrospect it's kinda sad that they had never bothered to port this to PC as it's really not any (or at least much) worse than the "big" GTA titles from that generation. I actually can't wait to play Vice City Stories, now, which should take care of the game's biggest issue, namely the pretty crappy map.

Just In Time (PSVR)

This game has a great concept: you enter a scene where someone is about to die, everything is in slow motion and you have to save them from a gruesome death! I’d describe it primarily as an action game, with some light puzzle elements.

The graphics are blocky and cartoonish, but work pretty well against the theme of horrific deaths.

My main problem with the game is the only movement available is by click-turning and teleport, no smooth-turning or smooth-movement is available. I always find that form of movement awkward at best, and would have greatly preferred a smooth option.

The game is also quite easy and can most likely be completed in a couple of hours (longer if you want to replay the levels to try to get all the trophies).

Overall I found this game to be pretty fun, but marred by the movement options and the short length. I’d still recommend it if on a good sale though.

ESPER (PSVR)

This is a physics-based puzzle game, your task is to move balls and blocks around various maze-like structures. There is a humorous narrator who talks to you which adds interest.

However, the game is very short (only 25 levels) and very easy, it feels more like a prologue than an actual game. It also doesn’t make good use of VR, since the player is always sitting in the same location and most of the action takes place immediately in front of you.

It’s not a bad game, but for the content you get I’d only recommend buying it with a steep discount.