The Testimony of Trixie Glimmer Smith, June 15 (Itch)-This was a really good visual novel. I thought the writing was ridiculously good. It reminded me of HP Lovecraft in both style and content. The plot was a fun mystery and all of the characters were weird and interesting. I enjoyed playing through each of the three different main paths. The music was also really good throughout.

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Gothic

I used to replay this game every couple of years, but didn't for quite some time since the DVD drive ffrom my notebook died and my new PC had no DVD drive. But now, after all this time, I could play it again and it was still tons of fun.
But boy oh boy. This has been the jankiest and buggiest playthrough I ever had. I used to play the Gothic Universe version (v1.08j) and had no problems whatsoever. Neither on my old WinXP machine nor on my Win7 notebook. But now on my Win10 PC it didn't work out of the box anymore. So I had to use some of the patches and mods to make it running again. I don't know if it was the version 1.08k or the additional stuff that was necessary, but I had bugs and glitches all around this time.
- After random time intervals, the game would just tab to the desktop
- when I tried to talk to people who are hostile to me, I first got locked in the dialoge scene and than after that, I couldn't open the menue anymore nor did quick save/load work
-Some cutscene dialogues were initiated with characters that were stuck somewhere else and you would be locked in the dialogue scene
- and some minor stuff that was not gamebreaking
I had to kill the process so many times this time around. Still a great game, but man, what a hassle.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (XSX Game Pass)

Stand alone tie in to Dishonored 2 where you play as Billie Lurk. The main character this time is more of a cold killer, being an actual assassin and all. The game reflects that in it's feel, there being far less incentive to spare life no morality system - literally just a single achievement for passing one level without kills is all. In fact it's quite the opposite, if you wish to complete all of the games side missions, one of them requires you to kill everyone in the level. So not for pacifists this time.

The level design is Arkanes strength and this one is no exception. I really enjoy fully exploring every inch of the levels for items and lore, though one level is a repeat from Dishonored 2 with different enemies. I liked it overall, but not as much as the others in the series. It ran really well, being one of the games that recently got boosted from 30 to 60 fps on new Xbox consoles.

* Dead Space 2
* Call of Cthulhu
* Dracula the Resurrection
* XIII

This is one of those games I keep meaning to give a try and keep postponing forever. Last time was when I watched Mandalore's review of it.

For a game that's so fondly remembered (and I first heard about it from a real life friend who loved it but wasn't much of a gamer), I wonder why nobody has made an OpenMW/Dagggerfall Unity kind of recreation yet.

But thanks for the note on the game.

Actually there is a project like that.
But with all projetcs like that, they are limited by manpower and time. And for the most part Gothic fans seem to have been fine with the mods and community patches that make the game work. And as I said, the game worked out of the box on my Win7 machine just fine. So the need for a engine recreation was rather small, I would assume.

I was talking about a more modern executable, with less bugs and more modern control scheme, that sort of thing. I normally don't care too much about graphical mods.

For example, last time I played Morrowind with the original exe and a bunch of bug-fixing mods, it was fine, but playing it the following time with OpenMW was better and more stable overall.

Golf Peaks, June 19 (Itch)-A really elegant, fiendish, clever, little golf puzzle game. Some of the puzzles I'd stare at for several minutes swearing the developers messed up and there was no solution. The introduction of new mechanics and tiles was good. Its a pretty enjoyable puzzle game.

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Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Lara strained our relationship by plummeting into lava frequently, but it was rewarding & punishing like only a game from my favourite era of gaming early 2000's. I think this is a remake of the original Tomb Raider. Recovered 9/10 Relics.

After a short break I went back to Druidstone – The Secret of the Menhir Forest from GOG and finished my goal, to complete the game on Hard Difficulty. The difficulty is pretty challenging, and to get all the missions on three stars, the player needs a lot of patience. The only downside of the game is little bit cheesy storytelling, but it pretty much fits the art and the gameplay. I am still missing three star award on one mission, so the next goal to finish is already set :P .

List of all of my finished games in 2021 can be found HERE.

The Land of Glass, June 21 (Itch)-I just completed the Prophecy campaign and I cannot in good faith recommend anyone play this game. I read some steam reviews and it seems the Prophecy campaign might be the best written of the four options (and the writing/plot is a high point here) so I may have lucked out. I won't be playing the other three campaigns.

The game's core mechanic is basically two simultaneous card games of speed and war. This is pretty unique but it quickly devolves into a frantic button mashing event and serious risk of repetitive stress injuries especially if you play through all 4 campaigns. After about five battles you've really seen all the game has to offer and there are still dozens of battles left.

During combat it also seemed like what I played didn't matter. There would often be combats where I'd play what seemed to be a devastating series of offensive and defensive cards but I'd look and my opponents health meter would be full and mine empty. The next time I'd make several blunders and win with full health. There would also be combats where I'd struggle and play several defensive and utility cards in a row and suddenly my opponent would die and fall off the ledge. It didn't seem to matter much at all as long as I was playing cards quickly.

The battle rewards of new cards to try in your deck seems fun and exciting but 90% of the rewards are worse cards than what you started with and the utility cards seemed very underpowered. Likewise the equipment cards that give passive bonuses sound cool but I don't think they made any difference. Halfway through the game I stopped equipping the new cards and it didn't seem to matter at all. Which means with the exception of a couple of higher attack and defense cards my character/deck never got any better the entire game. The was also a merchant you could buy things from but again the cards were always worse than what you already had so I never actually bought anything. The merchant was good for telling parts of a story in each town.

I think there's an interesting story here hidden behind a unique mechanic that fails in its execution (or maybe isn't salvageable at all) further hindered by tedious, repetitive gameplay and systems that are underdeveloped. The music and art were good though. But why the Land of Glass and the stained glass esthetic ? That didn't have anything to do with anything in the game world.

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That's pretty much what put me off right from the start: IIRC, the tutorial/tooltip/on-screen text tempts you to aim for achieving extra goals and finish a mission with three stars in the very first mission already, without ever telling you that it's pointless in the beginning to even try, that you won't be able to do it with the starting characters yet and have to come back later when you will be stronger and have more abilities. Felt pretty weird too for what I took for a story-oriented RPG. I'll have to give it another chance one day, maybe I will be more lenient towards it now that I know about this.

Imperator Rome

Just finished first campaign. managed to get mare nostrum achievement so that made me happy. not even close to whole world conquer as i guess i was too weak.

as rome

was in the middle of conquering gaul when the game finished. Only really mauria was left which would have been difficult to fight but would not figh them for at least another 15 years.

fun game but micromanagement of families and governors got super boring by the end.

Just finished FEAR a few days ago. The shooting and atmosphere is still good after all these years. Currently going through FEAR 2 and it was a downgrade from the first one. The graphics are certainly better but aside from that, there was not much improvement. The chaotic gun battles where everything seems to explode like in a John Woo movie is gone. You can no longer hear the shell casings falling on the floor. No more bullet holes on the wall. The tense atmosphere was replaced with cheap jump scares. And the shotgun, even the auto one, is underwhelming. The shotgun in the first game can annihilate anything at close to medium range. One of the best shotguns in any FPS game. The original will always be a classic to me and stands on it's own.