FEAR Perseus Mandate, Feb 1 (GOG)-This concludes the FEAR Platinum bundle. Like Extraction Point this had an increased difficulty and scare factor compared to the base game. Unfortunately in the last 3rd or so it got really buggy like the base game and crashed every 5-10 minutes. By this point the FEAR universe was getting a little stale with predictable and repetitive levels. Overall I think its a slightly above average shooter leaning a lot more towards action than spooks. The two expansions try to make up for the lack of scares but don't quite get there.

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Age of Decadence

That was an intense ride. AoD is a totally unforgiving Fallout-Wasteland-esque game set in a deeply interesting world (post apocalyptic ancient Rome!) with a surprisingly well thought out lore which takes real effort to unravel. It's not a big budget development which definitely shows in places, but I didn't find myself too bothered by it. I expect that was because of how novel the whole experience was, and how invested in the story and locations I had become.
Compared to something like Fallout1&2 it is very non-linear, with radically different quest chains depending on what character you play (pure combat/pure talker/something inbetween) and what allegiances you choose. However because of the lower budget development the world isn't nearly as interactive nor does it feel as 'alive'.

Thankfully there is a demo to try out, which I'd definitely recommend, but just be warned: it's designed as a hardcore experience (though I did find the final third of the game very easy)

That was quick. It just came out a few days ago. I'm guessing this one is a lot shorter than the average Yakuza then? I was thinking of starting this, but I thought it might be another 60 hour beast like Yakuza: LaD (though that is probably the most enjoyable new game I've bought in years). The turtling opponents does sound annoying, but I can probably live with that.

Finished Men of Valor

Absolutely baffled by the low overall rating (3.2/5) and even lower verified user rating (2.8/5). This is a great game.
Yes, it's hard, your squad AI gets in the way A LOT, and enemies can sometimes spawn on top of you or behind you and gun you down in a second, but otherwise the game has several unique and beautiful set pieces (especially taking back The Citadel), has a great narrative with quality voice acting, runs silky smooth and sounds great. The invective the enemies hurl at you in the heat of battle cracked me up a bunch of times.

The cover/leaning system, and cover itself, is absolutely paramount to progressing and is implemented well. The weapons have good feedback, though I very rarely used grenades. The most helpful review mentions the possibility of running out of ammo. You have 4 weapon slots. Most of the time I ditched my grenades for another rifle. Running out of ammo might only be possible if you refuse to ditch your American rifle for NVA weapons from those you've killed. You can loot ammo and health from almost all the enemies you kill. The game makes killed enemies (looted or not) disappear quickly (bordering on too quickly at times) to prevent you from running back for health or ammo, adding slightly more of a challenge.

You can get shot up and lose 75% of your health in the blink of an eye, but as long as you find cover, you can bandage yourself freely and regain most it. Another well implemented feature.

The most helpful review also mentions a 'lives' system. Maybe this was patched out because there was no such thing in my playthrough. You die, you respawn at a checkpoint, if you reached one. If you failed to reach a checkpoint, you begin at the beginning of the loaded map. Each Operation contains up to four missions, each mission can have several, or a few, maps and each map has one or two checkpoints. Most maps don't take long to finish, though exiting the game after a checkpoint sends you back to the beginning of the map.

It's been quite a while since I played a 'Historical' FPS. Glad I chose this one.

Chicken Police
3.5/5 stars
A good noir visual novel. It's quite short, about 7-8 hours without skipping dialogs. The best for me is the voice cast and music. The style graphic is ok but i was strange seeing the anthropomorphic characters. I prefer the Blacksad style, animals with human clothes than human bodies with animal heads.

It is shorter in a story sense than the Kiwami games I'd say. Keep in mind that I don;t get very involved in the many side activities like bowling and darts etc. I just play the side missions and concentrate on the story- in that way it took under 30 hours.

Doom 64 (XSX)

Pretty good fast paced old style shooter. It's also quite different than any other Doom version. The pace and gun play were pretty much spot on, I'm glad they took the time to bring it back so that it isn't stuck on a single console that not many people have- a console with only one analogue stick at that.
There was only one issue in the end, that was in fact the end- or the final boss. What the hell is an artifact? I didn't find no artifacts. I played the game without a walkthrough, how was I going to find any artifacts? How was I to know they even existed?
So I had to do the final boss the hard way, or the cheesy way. After using up all my energy weapon ammo on the crowds, I found that I could hide behind one of the switches and kill the final boss with the chaingun and shotgun without taking damage...so I cheesed it big time. But hiding game critical items in secret levels is pretty cheesy anyway and takes "gimmick bosses" to a new high.

Cyberpunk 2077 - GOTY 2020 for me

Finished the game with 62 hours in. I finished with the nomad ending and I must say it was something totally different then I was expecting but nevertheless a great story.

As for the game itself. If you played Witcher games then you will feel at home in Cyberpunk 2077 and yes its not GTA V but I never expected that it will be like that.

I essentially played it like a shooter, partially stealthy with hacking capabilities developed. For weapons - there is a lot of loot, so you essentially don't need to buy a gun, you can just upgrade the best gun from the loot or craft a better one if you wan't to. I played the whole game essentially without crafting stuff cause that's the most boring thing I find in rpgs. Upgrading your character is done through points system so you have 6 different fields that you can improve and that gives you different buffs. There are several romance options in the game, depending on your sex. Romancing opens up end game options so depending on who you romance you get a different ending. Eddies aka Eurodollars the ingame currency you get by doing side missions, gigs. Those range from saving people, killing people, hacking, robbery, etc. The Cyberpsycho missions can be quite hard especially when Cyborgs start appearing.

The game does have some bugs and glitches. Personally the release version was the best till now. The more patches came through the more unstable, buggy the game became but still nothing serious. For example I had a lot of naked V's standing on the bike while I was driving :) Some bending trees :) But nothing that would be game breaking for me.

The game does have a nice feature that when you finish it gives you an option to go back before you start the end game and you can finish other missions, gigs and try other game endings. As much as I know there are at least 6 different endings. So still have far to go but will probably deinstall the game for now and wait for game improvements before I play it again cause I really don't wan't to destroy my new Nvme drive with constant 70GB updates.

Cyberpunk 2077 is for me one of the best games I have ever played but in its current state its not for everybody. Its obvious that there is a lot of stuff cut/missing but that does not break immersion as long as you don't expect that you will get GTA. Cyberpunk is essentially Witcher in futuristic setting.

The Medium (XSX Game Pass)

Well don't believe the people saying it's only 6 hours long...well unless you want to run everywhere and not stop to read all the notes that tell the story. I'd say it took closer to 10 hours for me, but I am very thorough and found all notes, postcards and diary entries on the one play through. Don't believe people saying it's a walking simulator either, you have to solve some puzzles (not hard) and just generally do a bit more than just wander around reading in your own time. The much advertised dual reality game play is fun, though it does not make up the bulk of game play like people may assume.

It's an awesome looking game overall, especially the forested areas- no one seems to do natural looking moody forests like Bloober Team. The levels look great with their lighting and , in this case, some ray tracing here and there as well. The only area it's slightly let down are the animations of some of your own character during certain postures- squatting for example...sometimes it just looks like the body proportions are a bit off. Just normal walking around though is fine. As far as I know this is Bloobers first third person game using fixed camera angles, I cannot recall a single time where the camera annoyed me- something these type of games often have issues with.

The story kept me hooked. Rather than calling it horror, I'd class it more as a supernatural thriller. I always found myself keeping on because I wanted further info about what was happening, all whilst making my own theories along the way. It doesn't really have jump scares, only pushing the horror aspect during the stealth avoidance and chase scenes.

But did I like it? Yes I did quite a lot. In my opinion Bloober Team are a small studio that have got better for me with each game. Layers of Fear was good but dragged on to long without game play variety to back it up-6/10. Observer was better 7/10. Blair Witch was really good 8/10 and I'd give The Medium 9/10 within it's genre of slow story focused adventure. Is it worth its price though? That's harder to answer. Whilst game length doesn't equal quality or enjoyment, it cannot be denied that length still comes into the equation for value for money. But you're all adults and can work out where the line is for price vs game length for yourself. On Game Pass though...you would be mad to not at least try this one if you have a subscription anyway.

I have finished quite a few games in recent days.
First there is Batman: Arkham Origins. It is lowest point of the series but it was still decent entertainment and I completed most of what I could. I ran through the campaign, doing everything I could, finding any secret, then I went through DLC, New Game+ and I did all challenges with Batman, all but customs with Deathstroke and only DLC ones with Bruce Wayne. I still got only 98 % completion but I don't know why and couldn't bother finding it anymore. It re-uses a lot of places from Arkham City, story and gameplay re-uses some of it too and a lot of new stuff is not that great. Honestly, if the game wasn't of Arkham universem, I would most likely gloss over it. But it is so I sank dozens of hours into it.
Decent thing but nothing memorable.
6,5/10

Then there were Sakura Magical Girls and it had one big pro. The bundle of those game I had is done. Good riddance.
2/10

Yesterday I completed Ori and the Will of the Wisp. I played on hard, got 100 % and most of the achievements, except those really hard ones. It is just as good as the first Ori. It has very fluid gameplay, looks beautiful (it is noticeable it is done in Unity, though and show it's age a bit) and the story is compelling and quite touching. It is was fun to collect everything and it didn't even take so long to get everything. Some 18 hours with my slow gamestyle to get 100 % on hard. It plays really great, controls are responsive, most things one can do are quite clearly telegraphed to player and as one gains abilities, the movement becomes more complicated in terms of difficulty but simply because areas get more complex and it necessary to utilize most skills. But it also gives feeling like one got some meanigful new ability to move around and it is good to have that increased mobility. It really shows when revisiting old areas where before it was quite difficult to move around and suddenly you just move through them with neck-breaking pace.
I would certainly recommend it to all fans of platformer. It is best game I played this year so far for sure and I think it will stay among the best for the rest of year.
8,5/10

Then I finished Hentai Jigsaw Puzzle but let's pretend it never happened. For fan of jigsaws it is sub-par jigsaw game with ugly pictures, with many of them not too suitable for jigsaws (aka too similarily colored pieces and big areas of same color).
2,5/10

i also think I am done with Slime Rancher. I have not completed it but I went through Adventure mode and then some and I simply have no drive to go on, get higher rank and 100 % everything.
It is certainly not bad game and it is very cute and relaxing but I think it could have been done better.
The progression is quite bad and even before I compelted adventure mode, I had my farm fully setup, with all slimes I wanted and there was really nothing much to do. I still haven't got big amount of rafinery buildings and I had many ranks to level up, but it would be progression for the sake of progression. I had the whole world explored as I did so during story and while I had many decorations to build and big amount of higher tier machines to unlock and construct but beside that I would simply be waiting for resources and money with nothing to do and that is simply not fun. If there would be something to explore, new slimes to breed or something else to do, it could keep me interested but this way, where I was only waiting for stuff to be done for number to go up, it was just not enough to keep me playing.
It is over week since I played and I feel no urge to go back so I think I will declare it finsihed and move on.
Until then I had my fun and the game is really cute so I certainly don't regret playing it but I always felt there is something missing. I think, it could have been done better but it is certainly not bad game.
6,5/10

That should be it.

Full list.

Heretic

Surely it was Doom + fantasy but still a piece of good game. Some weapons were not that great, like mace grenade spammer (so slow) or red plasma staff (so slow), and even Tome of Power turn them into different tools that still make them tricky to use (mace firing even slower grenades, huh, and flamethrower is tricky to use while moving).
Managed to find all secrets but since they give you map, usually in easy secrets or at the end, it's not a problem.

OST was nice but some tracks sounds like there was something laught
And damn those red flying and coming-out-of-nowhere mobs were annoying, every level gave me little heart attack thanks to them.

So far I'm more into Heretic games than Hexen games. Never managed to finish any of those, dropped H2 and other halfway through because I had enough. And i like dungeon crawling...

The Falconeer (XSX Game Pass)

One mans glorious attempt to revive a dead genre. Remember the 90's where arcade flight combat games were everywhere? Then since Crimson Skies all we've had are Ace Combat games (excluding some roguelike space offerings). Ace Combat is okay but all missile focused...missiles take the personal touch out of flying up behind someone and shooting them in the back.

The Falconeer will likely end up being my favorite indie game played this year. It feels most like the old Xbox version of Crimson Skies but with one single open world with a story and you fly huge birds with weapons mounted to them. The game has it's own visual style and proves once again that indie devs do not have to make pixel art games. It ran and controlled flawlessly. Whilst it is an arcade game set in a fantasy world covered mostly in water, the game still has simulation aspects. Like energy management which is the fundamental aspect of all aerial combat- height and speed is stored energy to spend on maneuver and climbing. You also have to manage and replenish ammo.

If the game has even a single flaw then initially it was not explaining much of how anything works early on. It took me quite a few tries to even work out how to land on the perches (turns out I was flying in too fast). Tomas Sala apparently doesn't like making tutorials. But soon I just set off and explored a bit and learnt the upgrade system that way. You soon find ways to earn money to buy better weapons and passive buffs that make a huge difference.

The flight combat that makes up the bulk of play is excellent, though quite easy on normal difficulty. Next time I'll bump it up. Surprisingly the story is also quite good. You play through 4 chapters (plus a prologue and epilogue), each chapter from a different factions point of view so that you get a picture of each sides motivations. Though you change character each chapter, you keep your levels and weapons/artifacts- only having to re-buy your favorite Falcon if you choose. As well as story missions you can do side missions to earn money- I did a lot of them during chapter 2, but less as the game went on as there are only a limited number of unique types.

Great game that I enjoyed far more than I was expecting. It's took me about 12 hours and I hope it gets a sequel for some more.

Finished a few games since last time:
- A normal lost phone: A short game about reading and unlocking stuff on a phone found in the trash. The story was interesting but not the puzzles.
- Along the Edge: A great visual novel with a few choices. Finished it twice to see different paths.
- The Council: A great detective game with rpg-elements. The story and dialogues are very good on the first 3 episodes, a bit less in the two final episodes. I highly recommend it though.
- Shaq Fu: A very fun 2D beat'em all with lots of humour. Also not too difficult.
- The First Tree: A walking simulator, quite boring due to long travel distances without much to do.
- Flashback HD: My advice: buy the 25th anniversary edition instead of this low quality remake (animations, bugs, story, movements...)

Full list here

I did something stupid. I beat Last Rites. Yes, the one on GOG. I'm not sure why I did that, lol.

I never played the game until two days ago, when I noticed that it's on GOG, though I remember it vividly from an ancient issue of the German magazine PC Joker and instantly recognised it by the player's AI-controlled companions. For some reason that one dude wearing shades got stuck in my brain for over twenty years, lol. And I remember that the game got a terrible terrible rating, something between 30 and 40 percent, I think? For whatever reason I really wanted to give it a try and ended up beating it in two days - took me almost ten hours.

Given the game's infamy I expected it to be technologically very primitive, something like Wolfenstein 3D or Rise of the Triad at best but it turns out that this game appears to have an actual 3D engine, in spite of using sprites for characters, and has solid mouse look and also some nice lighting effects that surpass anything in, say, the Build engine. The game's look actually reminds me a bit of Alien Trilogy, though the latter had much nicer environments. That said, the tech is a bit awkward. Movement and especially collisions feel pretty wrong and the game even glitches out once in a while, especially when the environment moves - the most damage I've taken in the game literally came from glitched collisions with doors, lol. I guess what the game's "feel" reminds me the most of are Bethesda's Terminator games like Future Shock - it's kinda stiff. And yeah, undoubtedly the character sprites in this game are pretty terrible and it hurts that the game runs at something like 320x240 pixels when even Duke 3D could already handle 800x600 if not more.

Anyway, the game surprised me in a ton of ways. It's certainly more ambitious than I thought it would be. For starters, it has a very nice electronic audio soundtrack that gives the game a pretty serious and creepy atmosphere, some of the tunes remind me a bit of Terminator in terms of mood and style. That's pretty cool! And it really caught me off guard when the first level turned out to be a massive city environment where you have to follow a marker on a sort of motion tracker while being followed by surprisingly capable companions. Soon the city turned out to be very basic and empty, with very simple geometry and very few buildings you can enter but it instantly made it clear that the developers were aiming for something bigger than just a basic Doom clone. The result of these ambitions ranges from bad to mediocre but at least it makes the game kinda interesting.

As a shooter it's admittedly not good but also not dreadful. Perhaps the game's biggest problem is that enemies are generally very boring to fight. Luckily many of the zombies actually throw stuff at you, so it's more than just shooting at defenceless corpses walking towards you, but yeah, it's not a game with great and dynamic combat. And it's actually a ridiculously easy game. There are no difficulty settings, besides the option to set the companions' skill (who aren't even present on all levels) and you generally take very little damage and there are more than enough supplies on the levels. Most of the time all my weapons were fully loaded. The biggest threat are literally occasional turrets and later on occasional robots who can take you down in few hits - well, besides the aforementioned doors. Besides that the game is neither difficult nor particularly engaging at all.

But the game's biggest problem has got to be the level design. Besides three or so levels on the city map the game actually mostly takes place in claustrophobic locations and rarely have I encountered levels that are so monotonous and difficult to navigate. Everything looks the same and the levels end up being something like ridiculously large dungeons - I literally drew a map for some of them because there's no actual map in the game (though sometimes you will find a map attached to a wall and I implore you to take screenshots of those - that will make the game much easier). And to make matters worse the level designers just loved using switches at random so you will frequently stumble upon buttons that will allow you to unlock a door somewhere on the level without any indication which one. It's quite a nightmare. It really puts the mazes in the likes of Doom or Wolfenstein 3D in perspective.

Oddly enough towards the end the game gets much better - not great but actually kinda enjoyable. Later on you get far more abstract and complex levels and ironically they are much easier to navigate than something like the second level, a mall, because the level design is far more playful, a bit like in Doom, and you will actually encounter recognisable rooms. Heck, even the use of switches becomes far more reasonable. And the last level suddenly introduces two enemy types that still aren't great but are actually kinda fun to fight, namely floating kamikaze skulls (yeah, almost like Doom's lost souls) and pretty terrifying demon wizards of sorts that can turn invisible and fire barrages of fireballs at you or something. The levels are still a bit too maze-like and cryptic for my taste but honestly, if the entire game were like the last three or four levels I'm sure that the entire game would have a much better reputation than it does.

Also, I think the developers deserve some credit for the weapons. You start out with basics like a handgun, a shotgun, a UZI and an utterly crappy flamethrower but three other weapons are actually kinda interesting and fun to use and you can actually find upgrades for them that not only make them more powerful but may add cool features to them. The probably most powerful gun in the game, the "Shredder" is an automatic weapon that fires three big projectiles that later on get a ricochet effect. The rocket launcher can actually lock onto multiple enemies. There's also a gun that charges and deals more damage the longer you hold down the mouse button which makes it the most useless weapon most of the time but it suddenly becomes super effective when those demons appear. At some point you also get a super weapon that's anything but super but still, especially the shredder and the rocket launcher actually made the game surprisingly satisfying in the later levels.

In summary: Last Rites is IMO a surprisingly okay game and far from being the worst shooter I've ever played. It's just painfully mediocre and unnecessarily cryptic.