His Father's Sword + Her Father's Sword (NWN:EE, Review)

Didn't find that much time to play this month but I squeezed in Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon. After beating EDF 4.1 I felt like playing even more EDF and picked up this one for PS3 (and only after starting this playthrough did I notice that there's actually DLC for EDF 4.1, heh).

This one stands out in that it's one of two EDF games designed with western audiences in mind and (I believe) the only one actually developed by a western studio. The result is kinda grotesque, to be honest. Insect Armageddon is older than EDF 4 but looks kinda more modern because it tries really hard to look and play like a western AAA game. The result is reminiscent of Serious Sam 3 and 4, though: the bizarre setting and arcadey gameplay just doesn't work well with Call of Duty or Gears style military porn. The unnecessary attempt to make the game feel serious in any way only drags this fundamentally colourful and fun experience into a generic ugly brown mess.

So the graphics are actually more realistic and detailed than in the newer EDF 4 but, as a result, if it weren't for the giant insects you couldn't tell game game apart from the myriad of other sci-fi shooters of its time. Missions are over-designed and too long, with far too many stops where you do the same thing over and over anyway - it just makes the game feel like a drag. At the same time the missions are too samey. Where the Japanese EDF is imaginative and playful, Insect Armageddon is aiming for "solid" and the result is just plain. Instead of unlocking crazy and sometimes ridiculously useless or overpowered guns here you pretty much gradually level up dealing more and more damage. EDF 4.1 has more memorable missions than Insect Armageddon has in total. The dialogue sounds like a parody on military shooters but it neither engages you in the (obviously dumb) story nor does it make you laugh - it's cringe. And of course there's active reload like in Gears because of course a third-person shooter must have it even if it doesn't make any sense for this particular game, right?

To be fair, it's still kinda enjoyable all in all, for the most part thanks to what the game directly inherited from Japanese EDF: mindless mayhem and wanton destruction. But it's simply not nearly as good as the real thing.

Night Slashers. An arcade beat-em-up from Data East with a horror theme. You have a choice of a guy who looks like Captain America got his arms replaced with bionics and joined a hair metal band (strong and slow), a classic Van Helsing vampire hunter type (balanced), or a Chinese girl (weak but fast). You beat up zombies and werewolves and stuff. It's pretty standard stuff in terms of gameplay but I just like how it looks. It's got that quirky vibe that a lot of Data East's classics had.

RAGE 2 DLCs

So... Upon seeing a somewhat minor promo on the DLC Coins*, I decided to get one of the packs and get as much of the DLC as I could with it. So I upgraded to Deluxe and got the normal version of Terrormania, which left me just missing the cult of the death god.

Rise of the Ghosts is actually lots of fun and quite a good amount of extra content. The story is better told than the main one, and this time around you actually see the improvements to the town hub as you do missions. Overgrown City is quite nicely designed and feels quite different from the main game world. Side activities are almost all the same stuff, just reskinned from the main campaign, but they`re nice. Being a fully upgraded character, the new enemies were mostly pushovers, but I still enjoyed the few different gimmicks they had. The new "force grab" type power is good, the Laser gun is very fun, and quite overpowered, but the new grenade type felt just useless. The new villain is interesting, but she was even more of a pushover than the bosses in the main campaign. I did run into a few bugs, but nothing that broke the game for me.

Terrormania is just a set of arenas, with reskinned enemies and new macabre locales made from reskinned assets from the main game. It's very fun, but ends quickly and. towards the end, gets a little tiresome. It's the most difficult challenge in the game, mostly because skeletons with rocket launchers spawn all the time. The definitive highlight is the new magic sword weapon. It quickly became my favorite weapon to run around killing enemies with and I was surprised to realize how well it works with the rest of the game. It should have had a similar weapon from the get go in the main campaign.

The BFG 9000 from the deluxe edition is nice, but I used it very little so late in the game. Since most locales don't have a lot of space for the energy ball to travel, it ends up blowing up early and not killing enough enemies.

* My argument being since I was going to play immediately, it was worth spending the money.

Les Ombres de la Toile, Chapitre 1: L'Errance des Innocents (NWN:EE, Review)

Among the very best NWN modules I have played, sadly French-language only.

Finished Postal 2 (+ Apocalypse Weekend) for the first time - A GOG freebie.

I was certain Saints Row 2 would be the most ridiculous game I played this year, but Postal 2 is quite possibly the silliest, most outrageously ridiculous game I've ever played, and I enjoyed every second of it.
Well done, Running With Scissors. Well done. I'll definitely be buying Paradise Lost.

3rd Edition Adventure Series - The Sunless Citadel (NWN:EE, Review)

Also, last week already:
Trine 4: the Nightmare Price (3 player co-op)

Almost exactly like Trine 2. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on how much you wanted more of the same, with better graphics. The story-telling is just as random, confusing and ultimately forgettable as in the other titles of the series, puzzles are what you'd expect, with only little innovations and just one or two new elements added. The gameplay is still fine though, quite fun in online multiplayer co-op. Combat is rather easy and at least half of the few bosses are puzzles, not action-based, but the final boss was a typical boss battle, and like most typical boss battles, I did not like it very much. It was even more frustrating due to the controls and imbalance of character skills in that regard, but in the end we beat it anyway. It just doesn't feel like the right kind of game for something like that. Still, an enjoyable co-op experience, despite hardly bringing anything new to the table.

Castle of Illusion Staring Mickey Mouse (2013)
Was a fun short 3 hour game that I completed in 1 sitting. Never played the original nor do I have any intention to. The only other Disney game I've ever played was Aladdin on the computer back in the early 2000s and I remember it being really hard. This wasn't as challenging but I can imagine it would be kind of difficult for little kids, especially the last boss fight. Definitely worth getting on sale if you have kids. 3.5/5

Max Payne

it was a bit of pain. I don't think the game aged well. It is bit of chore to play and it requires large amount of scum-saving as enemies often shoot you almost just the milisecond you peek out of cover and if they get lucky shot, you are dead and it wasn't exactly fun to constantly dread every encounter and not being often able to do anything about being injured.
I had a lot of sound issues but it is my fault I kept them all the time. It took me long time to realize there is supposed to be voicing in cut-scenes and when I did, I felt too lazy and not that interested to look for solution. Only after beating the game I checked and found there is a solution to it all.
The story tries to be dark and serious but I don't think it was presented that well and I felt disinterested most of the times.
I don't think there is much point in playing the game nowadays.
5/10

Full list

Ys origin well i played all 3 stories on normal and i liked the game, i know there is only one story that is canon, there is still some bonus content to play. But don't think i am gonna play it on nightmare soon.
The game does have different attack methods with different characters, but the tower progression and enemies get sameish. Except a few different bosses dependable on the character you choose.

3rd Edition Adventure Series - The Forge of Fury (NWN:EE, Review)

GTA 3 - with that reverse engineered port

I wasn't going to do much more than play a little, then I figured I'd open the second island, then the third, and, finally, after a small break, got back and finished it.

It's a damn good game. Technology aside, there are many parts that aged poorly (5 songs radios, for a minor example), but the whole is still great.

I didn't go for a 100% run, but I did take time to grab all hidden packages (because it unlocks the hideout weapons) and did all the phone icons missions (I did skip that serial killer missions though).

I liked the story, but I did kind of understand why later games went in the direction of making you try to interact with characters beyond getting new missions. The game tells you to care about Maria, but never really gives you an opportunity to get to know the character and like her. So you never care about her at all (and there's the classic ambiguity about the ending as well).

Too bad they DMCAd the port, it is great and I never had a problem with it.

They're both made by the same developers, Avalanche Studios (RAGE 2 in collaboration with id Software), so probably that's the main reason for their similarities. I'm waiting for the RAGE series to come to GOG, before giving them a try. I finished Mad Max yesterday and I enjoyed it more than I was expecting - same goes for Generation Zero.

Have you played other Avalanche games? I was looking at TotalBiscuit's WTF video for Just Cause 3 and I'm not sure if it's something I would enjoy that much, but the world looks gorgeous.

Oh, yes, I was aware. Back when Just Cause 2 was about to be released, I got both and then played through them very quickly. I also played through 3.

I made that EDIT because while playing, I kept getting Just Cause 2 vibes from the game (with you having to find boxes to complete settlements), though I was aware people compared it much more with Mad Max. I just couldn't remember much about Mad Max despite the fact that I got all achievements for it. So when I saw that review, I was like: "Oh, Rage 2 definitely is a lot more like this game".

I tend to like Avalanche games, though they're frequently accused of having extremely slow starts, but it's not something that bothers me. I do remember not liking Mad Max's story all that much, and the only thing that really made Just Cause 3 worse than 2 for me is that it forces you into a bunch of those races and time attacks and other boring activities just to get your upgrades, instead of finding an infinite number of boxes.

I haven't played Just Cause 4 so far, I have the Epic free version, but I'll probably pick up the complete version on Steam at some point.