Hob

This game was awesome. I'm particularly impressed with the great level design in such a huge open world and how well the game worked without the use of many words, explicit tutorials or handholding. There are the slight exceptions of occasional (necessary) button prompts and the (unnecessary) words describing abilities (I think they could have communicated that via pictures as well), but everything else, the story, the map icons, what the game is about, how everything works is for the player to find out. And that's why I won't really talk about these things here, as that could potentially spoil the experience. I hope I'm not way off here with this assessment, but I think it can be seen as a game that's somewhat in the tradition of ICO or Shadow of the Colossus, even if it's probably much easier.

I actually find it hard to come up with things to criticize about the gameplay this time. On the technical side, the game could have been a little more polished - one time I got stuck in the scenery and had to respawn, other times some things that worked fine before suddenly became tricky to handle for unknown reasons, occasionally the fixed camera perspective complicated things a little, and two times the game crashed on me. But as bad as that sounds, I didn't lose any progress due to these issues and was always able to solve any problems I had. So the very good game design made up a little for the few technical deficiencies. Still, it would have been an even better design, if there was more than one autosave slot, because if reviews are to be trusted, some people allegedly ran into game-breaking bugs. If you want to be on the safe side, I'd suggest making backup copies of the save files from time to time (Documents/My Games/Runic Games/Hob). EDIT: Oh, I see there is a backup folder in the save directory, containing no less than 10 backup savefiles. So it looks like Runic Games has that covered, too, and the reviewers just didn't know about it.)

I could also imagine some players getting a bit bored with the game, since while there is some variation in the landscape, opponents and puzzles, it's possibly less than in other games of this size and length (10-16 hours, roughly estimated, the game itself doesn't keep track of time or completion rate though). You're essentially doing the same things over and over again, in a huge open world, without significant increase in the suspense curve, and aren't given explicit motivations for doing so, since the story is simple but obscure, not clearly told to you, and most of the times non-existent. Personally, I didn't mind that though, since I liked the gameplay mechanics well enough, there was much to explore, and the world you discover is strange and interesting in itself.

All in all, I thought it was an excellent game.

Leroux, I loved your Mages of Mystralia review, and have certainly been eyeing Hob. Did you play Hob with controller?

Yes, both games actually (wired Xbox360, worked fine).

STAR WARS: Dark Forces did not aged well. Controls are absolutely terrible, luckily some guy made "Darkforces+" which implements WASD control system and non-inverted mouse. But for this game would be unplayable for me and even with this jumping puzzles are extremely hard (especially in level 6). Apart from this game still has great atmosphere mainly due to great music and original level design. Best thing is probably goal for each mission which must be completed and very often hero must not only beat into the core of enemy base, but also run back to safety.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PS4Pro)

This one is often marketed as a stand alone expansion. It's standalone in that it uses UC4's engine and assets, but features it's own seperate story and world featuring Chloe Frazer (the best character in the series) and Nadine. Chloe deserves her own lead role in a game for sure. Otherwise it's an Uncharted game through and through with all the good and bad points that entails. It's length falls somewhere between your usual DLC, and a full regular game in the series.

For anyone that liked the semi open jeep driving chapter in UC4, you're in luck. The Jeep driving returns and it's much better in this game, in fact I'd say it's the best chapter in any game in the series. Instead of the usual rigid linear tunnels with foliage, this chapter is a medium open area where you drive around exploring and jump out to achieve your various objectives, plus there is even an enjoyable, and optional, side mission that rewards you with a useful item. The less artificially forced gameplay was a really fun break from the series rigidly scripted norm...Naughty Dog should maybe explore this more in future games.

Otherwise, the games main strength is the same as usual- the excellent characters and their banter and growing friendship over the games course.

The bad stuff is still bad. Fake enemy AI that will happily walk across the map whilst Nadine shoots them point blank in the head (with the enemy rag dolling all the way)- just to shoot at me who's doing nothing. It was forgivable way back in the series beginnings, but it needs to be overhauled. It needs something like Gears of War, where your companions can actually draw fire and hold aggro, allowing you to use tactics like flanking.

But it's fun overall and Naughty Dog do seem to be finding a better balance between combat, exploration and simple contraption based puzzles these days.

Pro Pinball Fantastic Journey (1999) (Linux/Wine)

From 3 Pro Pinball games this one is probably the worst. I didn't know this part before and expected the same quality as Big Race and Timeshock, which are probably the best pinball PC games ever created. Unfortunately FJ is definitely far from being perfect - physics has some issues, the table is not as feature-rich as in TS and BR, the efects and graphics are a level below that games. Still - it's better than most of pinball games, but a bit disappointing if you know other Pro Pinball titles.

Game works perfectly under Linux/Wine. No additional actions were needed in my case, it works out-of-the-box.

List of all games completed in 2019.

You can mostly set up standard WASD controls by just running the Setup file and changing controls, the only thing that I didn't get to work that way is looking up and down with the mouse (had to use keys for that, but it's not that much of a problem).

Teenagent (1994)

Just beaten it. according to galaxy it only took 3 hours. I have played the game 20 years ago or so (either late 1998 or early 1999) so weirdly I remembered some puzzles and solutions to them.

encountered one issue. Could not find an item, to puzzle which i knew exactly what it is for. so had to look into the solution. I missed an item which is small and surrounded by other items (which are not pickable but have their own description)

still funny. glad that gog got polish languages as this is how i played it first time.

Kingdom Hearts 3

Kingdom Hearts 2, released over 10 years ago, is one of my favourite games of all time, in fact last year I put the HD remake as my favourite game played of that year. So the day the game released I got up early, ran to the game shop and brought a copy for £52, the most money I'd ever spent on a single game. I read in a magazine the story would take 40 hours to beat, however I managed it in 21. Since then I've been coming back to it to try 100% it. I won't go too much into the story because it would take too long, however its basically you explore a bunch of worlds based on Disney movies in order to train yourself, so you can rescue old heroes and then together defeat the big bad group of villains in a final climactic battle.

First impressions were great, the art style is drastically improved and the music is as good as it was in the previous games. Characters actually have decent facial expressions, so they no longer give blank stares when their supposed to be feeling sad or angry. The gummi missions (the method you use to go between worlds) are vastly improved, and its actually possible to avoid most enemy attacks without building a ship that looks like a giant donut. Levels are huge allowing vast exploration.

Combat 'looks' amazing, and it feels amazing to use all the different abilities, that is until your a few hours in. Combat can involve just normal attacks and combos, magic, retaliations, form changes, summoning allies, team attacks, attraction attacks, shotlocks and flow motion. While it sounds like there's multiple ways of doing a fight, the reality is you spend 90% of the time just mashing the x button, even on harder difficulties blocking is barely needed until the last boss fights. Combat is flashy, but dull, and there is barely any challenge at all. One particular ability allows you to immediately retaliate after just 1 attack, and then continue using combos as normal. The final bosses are epic, however the rest aren't so much. For example the end boss in the Frozen level has a vastly inflated health bar and I'm pretty sure he has more health than any other boss or superboss in any of the other games in the series. Speaking of superbosses, they are a Kingdom Hearts staple, however this game doesn't have one, only one boss killed me, cause I accidentally pressed the wrong button, the hardest battle is probably this optional one where you have to fight 6 tanky bosses followed by another wave of tanky bosses, but that was more frustrating than anything.

Story wise, it's good in a Kingdom Hearts style way, however the role of the main baddies is that they do barely until the end, in fact the levels have a lot of padding, possibly so the game wouldn't be so short, which makes you annoyed that the stories taking so long to progress, until it suddenly comes all at once, close to the end. It does however have a lot of fan service, poking fun at the ridiculous situations and complex plot that occurs throughout the story. One surprise however was there is a complete lack of any Final Fantasy character, with the exception of a brief cameo of Noctis from FFXV appearing on a fake video game trailer and 3 models of summons from Dissidia hidden away in a cabinet. Apparently there's rumours that this was the case because the director was unhappy with the direction FFXV ended up taking and so dropped the characters entirely from this game, however I'm not sure how true this was.

While I wouldn't call this game 'Disappointing', it was a good game after all, that I enjoyed very much. However it isn't great, they've added too much flair and not enough substance, the middle levels are full of padding and drag on too long (Although it does pick up towards the end). I had also spent a long time waiting for Persona V to come out, which also experienced countless delays like KH3, however with a vastly superior end product. I really hope they add additional content in the future, because it just seems like its missing quite a bit.

Fortune-499, Feb 8 (Humble Bundle)-Far and away the best game I've played this year (I know there haven't been many). It's fun, it's funny, it oozes charm. It bills itself as an RPG card battler but it's more of a puzzle game. Only a couple of gripes. Your deck resets after each floor/department so there's no long term strategy really (makes sense since its more of a puzzle game than RPG. Also final/ending is a bit of a letdown. Still an absolute blast to play.

Full List

Batman: Arkham City:
Unexpectedly, even better than Asylum. I wish I could've finished the Riddler's story, but some of the trophies are just too frustrating and not fun to get. I play games for the overall experience, not to perfect my hand-eye coordination.

And just now, Torment: Tides of Numenera:
I'm glad I played it, and finished it. But there's still a lot of things wrong with this game. I wonder, is it that expensive to make a game these days or did they just waste a lot of money?
Blah, I'm not a review writer - I'll leave it at this.

So, what now? I'm thinking of Alan Wake... (though there are still a few Bioware games I want to play/continue)

Two Worlds : Epic Edition

Despite this game's many, many flaws (combat is meh, a few minor bugs) I actually really enjoyed the majority of it. I spent a lot of time exploring, "crafting", and questing my way around the map and generally had a lot of fun.

I actually went and bought it on sale when I was halfway through Two Worlds 2 - it's interesting. Some things they definitely improved for the second game, though a few things are slower mechanically even if somewhat streamlined (deconstructing gear in TW2 is easier to manage than TW:EE's "combo" system which kept me busy hauling and matching gear).

I will say the game ends pretty abruptly, and it's not entirely clear how you get from the end of #1 to the start of #2 plotwise (even if you pick the dark ending vs. killing the bad guy), but yeah, $2 well spent from my POV.

Yeah, had heard stuff that made me expect bad things when I started that one, but the exploration felt just really nice in it, was just riding everywhere and uncovering every tiny piece of map, even if there was a hard to reach spot with pretty much nothing to find there, gathering stuff I never used... Second seemed to lose all that, and the "feel" of the different areas too, could hardly find anything likable in it.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North. It's a hack-and-slash/beat-em-up game with some RPG elements (managing equipment, getting XP and upgrading skills). I decided to go with the ranger over the elf "lore-master" and the dwarf fighter. It's okay, although it feels like it goes on a bit long considering its gameplay. You just go in and use either light or strong attacks or whatever special moves your class has, and although you can unlock more attacks with higher levels, the core doesn't evolve too much over the course of the game. It also feels like something that was designed to be played co-op ideally, so if you're going solo like I did maybe that contributes to it getting a little tired after a few hours.

Although it takes after the movies, it feels like the people who worked on it were fans of the books because they squeeze in a lot of cool background on the setting that the movies couldn't. It's certainly much more respectful of Tolkien's work than the Shadow of Mordor games are. Not sure about the eagles talking, though... The graphics are mostly fine, although Liv Tyler should probably yell at someone for making Arwen the ugliest elf in the game. I'm not sure about the optimization, though, because the game had this consistent framerate hitch that I couldn't get to go away no matter what I did, and it's not like it was some bleeding edge system killer even when it was new. It's also a bit crazy with the gamepad rumble and I couldn't find an option to switch it off.

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Cayne. I played through Stasis a while back and figured it was time to go through this one. In some ways I liked this better than Stasis. It's smaller but that has the effect of it feeling like a tighter experience, and maybe I'm wrong but it seems like the graphics/animation are a bit more polished in this one. Despite some pre-release chatter about it being a prequel to Stasis, the events, which concern a young woman trying to get an abortion that goes horribly wrong, take place after Stasis.

There's one puzzle that I thought drifted slightly toward moon logic territory, but most of the puzzles flowed well and had solutions that felt natural and were based on clues you could easily find just by being observant.

As with Stasis, if you're into stories with happy or even just non-depressing endings, you probably won't like how this turns out. The horror mood is thick, although it does get kind of silly when a guy who's been disemboweled manages to hang on long enough to cuss you out at length. Also, for a very pregnant woman, the heroine takes a couple of violent falls right on her belly without remarking on it (although that would have certainly changed a few things with the story...).