Because it is pretty much Dark-Fantasy version of the original Doom but with larger levels and guns replaced with magic! :-)
There wasn't many games like this and that is enough to love it.
Also it had good atmosphere.

First game I finished was Tomb Raider: Underworld yesterday.
Quite good ending to this trilogy of TR games but I felt like it was trying to do more and be better than previous games, offering more moves and new environment and gameplay elements but it was quite janky and felt unbaked in some of its parts. Almost the whole second half feels rushed compared to the first one and started to lose me at times.
Overal decent but not great.
6/10

Final Fantasy Origins, in other words Final Fantasy I and II. In truth I finished I and played through bigger part of II almost half a year ago, still I oficially finished this duology today.

Both are decent games overall and ones that I'm pretty sure I'll play again in the future (not so good that it would be nearest future though). Unfortunately neither of those nor the compilation is currently available on PC so getting ones hands on them can be pretty tricky, nevertheless I wholeheartedly recommend them to any fan of cRPGs (especially jRPGs obviously).

I'm looking forward to playing next games in the series. Thankfully all of them are available for PC.

The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate

It's alright I suppose. It is quite short with some obtuse puzzles. We used walkthrough twice, mostly by accident but henstly I don't regret it, some puzzles were dumb. It was funny at times and tiny but cringey sometimes. It took us slightly over 8 hours to beat and only because it is often hard to figure out what to do. There is not that many screens and many of them are quite empty and with only little to interact with and if it wasn't for some illogical puzzles meant to prolong the game. Sure, most point-and-clicks are like this but this one would be really short if one knew exactly what to do.
Story is nothing special either.
I'd rate it 6,5/10 but mostly because we played it as co-op and had more fun because of it.

Panzer Dragoon Remake

Ninja Gaiden

Some old games age well. Some others, not so much. Then, there is Ninja Gaiden, one of the most ridiculous NES games in matters of difficulty. Watch in horror as the enemy you just killed keeps reappearing right in front of your eyes until you move the screen forward. Dread the moments there is a chasm that you need to cross and hope that a bird won't magically spawn out of nowhere to knock you to your doom. Wince at the thought of trying to fight enemies between climbable surfaces and having your ninja keep sticking to them, leaving him exposed to attacks. While you are at it, facepalm that your ninja is unable to climb on a platform from a ladder and must jump his way on top of it. Learn to live with the frustration of missing an attack because of your sword's poor reach and questionable collision detection. Extra points when said missed attack leads to you to bump into an enemy that will knock you down to a chasm (the most likely way you will lose your lives).

Mercifully, all enemies (aside bosses) in the game will usually die to 1-2 hits and you have some power-ups that can help you with the more tricky ones. Less mercifully, if you die during the final bosses, you will have to do the whole very difficult final stage all over again! That's gonna leave a mark.

Just finished Ghost of Tsushima on PS4 Pro and even did the platinum trophy. Best Assassin's Creed in years!

Lemme get it out of the way: GoT is one of the prettiest games ever made (well, at least the first two of its three territories). I didn't quite get why people got this excited over its looks back when it was announced but the moment I actually started playing it I could barely take my thumb off the share button. The art team managed to achieve something mindblowing here by creating a game with ridiculously beautiful compositions of colour and lighting without giving the game an unrealistic overall style. It's just magnificent. Meanwhile the characters look very realistic and detailed yet somehow don't clash with the world. And also the blood effects are amazing.

Anyhow, besides that it's effectively Assassin's Creed in almost every possible way, especially the most recent "RPG-ish" generation of AC games - you have a soft blend of melee combat, stealth and archery in an open world. They even cloned the hallucinogenic poison darts that make enemies attack other enemies! Sadly especially the stealth gameplay and platforming aren't nearly as good as in the AC games (though IMO even the current AC games aren't as good as some older ones in this regard). I mostly blame the lacklustre level design that just fails to deliver interesting challenges or options to deal with enemies. What perhaps hurts the most is that later on you get a grappling hook but there are barely any structures you can use it on outside of special platforming challenges. Likewise the game early on introduces explosive barrels and hornet's nests that you can shoot with an arrow to hurt enemies but later on they are either absent or badly placed and when they are well-placed they are super easy to miss (which is kinda ridiculous given the game's super saturated style and the presence a "detective mode").

One thing I feel is much better than in all AC games I've played thus far is the melee combat. It feels like this is the first third-person melee game in a million years that didn't clone Souls (it's a good system but it's just not suitable for every single friggin' game ever!). The combat isn't ground breaking and is of course based on parries, counters and dodges but it's satisfying and - at times - quite challenging on its own, though you can usually spam gadgets and whatnot if things get too tough. What I'm not a big fan of is that they also chose to go with "combat stances" like in some Yakuza games and - I've been told - Nioh. There are basically four melee enemy types and there's one combat stance per enemy - you generally won't be able to break through an enemy's defense unless you pick the right stance (or counter, which gets increasingly difficult later on). I honestly don't like this solution and what's even worse is the execution: you literally have to open a menu, which slows down the game a bit, and then hit the corresponding button and then let go and then the buttons are used for actually attacking again - I've felt that this solution is very awkward to use and only hurts the combat flow. And what just sucks is that once you've mastered this stuff you could do it lightning fast but do it too quickly and the game won't register the stance change. But regardless, I've found the combat to be far more exciting and satisfying than in AC Origins - even once you're maxed out you still need to be focused because you can go down really fast if you don't pay attention. I guess it really fits the (exaggerated and stylised) samurai setting. Oh yeah, and once in a while you get a 1 on 1 duel and I genuinely loved those and the fact that the combat system IMO works great in those AND against larger groups just shows how good it is.

Then there's of course the world and progression and so on and I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand the devs tried a few great things here. For one, there's no mini map and no compass here - instead the wind guides you towards your current destination and you can always briefly cause a strong breeze with visible white lines. It's a magnificent solution that keeps your eyes on the gorgeous world instead of some GUI element. You also don't have horse GPS here, instead you have to navigate around obstacles yourself. Likewise there are various visual queues for important spots, e.g. foxes and golden birds will guide you towards hot springs where you can increase your health. Some spots can also be identified from a distance by smoke or fireflies. It's awesome! BUT then they all ruined it by what I like to call "paint exploration", that is, fog gets uncovered in your immediate vicinity which motivates you to cover every inch of the world anyway. Not only does this render all the aforementioned solutions useless, if you have a bit of OCD like I do you will constantly switch between gameplay and the map screen which is a million times worse than staring at a minimap. Frankly I think it's just stupid. Ideally they should have gone for a solution more like in Breath of the Wild, IMO. Ironically you have something similar to Ubisoft's tower climbing here, namely, clearing enemy camps uncovers their surrounding area but, sadly, you don't actually uncover much of the map this way, it saves you maybe a couple of minutes of exploration per camp. Also, there's exactly one set of armour in the game that increases the area you uncover on the map so that's the piece of armour I wore for like 95% of the game since it was the only piece of armour that supported my ultimate goal of maxing out the game (and yeah, you do max out your guy by exploration since you get health upgrades and stuff through scattered points of interest). To me the game literally would have been better without this armour and they should have made its features charms (equippable perks) instead. Oh well...

Okay, finally: story. It's apparently a polarising issue. I honestly don't know much about Japanese history or samurai films so I feel that I'm missing a ton of context necessary for a valid analysis of the game's narrative. What I can say is that in my opinion it is very focused and coherent and, in a sense, educational. What surprised me is that Ghost of Tsushima is ultimately really about war. Like, totally. The game's many stories, be they small side quests or any part of its main story, show you what war is like - in particular what happens to the population and how the population deals with war. It's actually quite ballsy and honest commentary that apparently sadly flew way over many critics' heads. Apparently unless you call your game something like "War is hell", "This War of mine" or "A game about how much war sucks" people just won't notice that that's what your game is about. And the main story, under the guise of a superhero story in a samurai setting, explores the morality of war - how we ended up with things like chivalry (or I guess in this case bushido) and later all sorts of conventions of warfare and why they are important and if it is ever justified to break them and what happens if you do and so on. I feel that a game that deals with such stuff in a sophisticated manner happens like once in a blue moon and am grateful that Ghost of Tsushima does. I get it that some feel that there's not enough drama and all in all the plot is predictable but honestly, as far as I'm concerned that's just what serious writing about serious issues looks like. Suck it.

Anyhow, so that's Ghost of Tsushima for ya. A good Asscreed rip-off that gets some things very right, some things not so much but all in all it's top-quality sandbox game with all the pros and cons of this format. For me a solid 8/10. Not as exciting or original as Days Gone but a million times better than Asscreed Origins as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks a lot for that review. Superb writing, wish I could hit that +1 more than once.

What you wrote about the topic of "war" really wants to make me play the game. Well if there ever would be a DRM-free PC version, unlikely, I know.

Hexen II (GOG)

Never played this back in the old days. It looks really good for its time and plays well except for that annoying movement feel that most of these old games had...you know how it feels like you're actually skating and not walking/running. It's harder to stop than to go, making the few platforming sections annoying as it's hard to actually stop on the platform.
However I love that this game came before the Half Life "everything has to be a scripted sequence" game design philosophy. Those games always feel like the developer is playing me instead of me playing their game. Here the enemies are there in plain sight and you can deal with them as you see fit.

The game was mostly really fun, but went downhill the closer to the end I got.

People say it's a hard game, and it is. There are two ways it's hard, one I didn't mind so much, but the other was almost game destroying. The first difficulty was the puzzles. This didn't bother as much as it could, because I knew in advance and just accepted that I'd use a walkthrough as soon I got stuck for more than a few minutes. For me this didn't stop the game being fun, especially since enemies don't respawn meaning you can search around the level at your own pace to find what you need to do.

The difficulty that really annoyed me towards the end was the damage sponge enemies, coupled with an often infuriating lack of "ammo". Honestly the enemies are never truly that hard, not even the bosses. They are made hard by constantly running out of mana which passes for ammo. Mana (of two types) is the only ammo and is used by all weapons. So, unlike something like Doom where you have a collection of weapons all with different ammo that you can switch to, here once you're out of mana you're shit out of luck and will be hitting everything with your unpowered up sword. Good luck killing any late game enemies with that. Nothing worse than a shooter that stops you from actually shooting, it got more like Resident Evil. I should mention that I played as the Paladin...maybe the other classes don't run out of mana so much...but I doubt it. Anyway, towards the end it really damaged what was a great game for the first half.

Finished:
- Welcome to Elk: A strange game which is a bit strange. Many stories and dialogues about real events with a few mini-games with really enjoyable graphics. Short but I liked it.
- Resident Evil Remaster: Still a very good game thanks to the updated graphics.

Full list here.

So, today I beat Art's Dream which is technically just a game inside of Dreams made using Dreams. I wasn't sure if that one is even worth listing but it's basically all the actual official gameplay content of Dreams and it was literally advertised and is still popularly referred to as Dreams' "story mode". Anyway, ultimately it's something between a tech demo, showcase and the video game equivalent of a short film. The whole point is that theoretically anyone could make this game using Dreams - I say "theoretically" because obviously this was made by a large team of very talented professionals and I doubt that any user creation will ever get close to it in terms of scale and quality.

Anyhow, the result feels like the kind of game that Double Fine would make with a hint of Media Molecule's own magic.
It's actually a very artsy thing that tells the story of a depressed jazz musician who somehow processes his guilt through "dreams" that you experience in the form of different games. I'd say it's a not so subtle attempt to demonstrate the wide range of things that can be made in Dreams. You get a simple point & click adventure, some 3D platforming, a shmup and even something that kinda resembles Space Harrier.

Now, honestly, I don't think that it's a particularly impressive game on its own. As an artistic project it IMO suffers heavily from form over substance - it's one of those things that try very hard to look and sound like an artistic masterpiece but are ultimately quite banal, like an art student's amateur short film. Likewise, at no point is the gameplay actually good. The platforming sequences aren't good platformers, the adventure part isn't a good adventure game, the shmup part is in fact terrible. On one hand I get it, this is just a showcase and making it a "good" game could make it a worse demo (e.g. by becoming too challenging or too long) - on the other hand it kinda sucks that the very talented people at Media Molecule didn't aim higher for Art's Dream in particular. At times you can totally feel that this was made by the same studio as Tearaway (which I incidentally finished last year and absolutely loved) but it's simply not even remotely as good.

But there's still a ton to like here. The production value of this thing is in fact mind blowing. Not only does Art's Dream often look jaw-droppingly beautiful and pull off amazing visual effects, it also has excellent voice acting and an amazing soundtrack that even includes some musical numbers that genuinely made me laugh. This was made in Dreams and has this plasticky minimalistic look but the art direction is amazing and it's just a joy to look at. It's really just held back by being a demo of sorts.

Anyway, I had heard some opinions that Art's Dream makes Dreams worth buying on its own which is IMO categorically false, if only because it provides only about two hours of content. But it's totally worth checking out if only to see what Dreams is capable of and seems like a good point to start one's Dreams adventure.

Anyhow, here's a full walkthrough.
And here's the soundtrack.
I may not be a big fan of Art's Dream but I will definitely listen to its soundtrack a lot.

Mad Max

A game I left too long unplayed, because I really enjoyed it! The visuals are really capturing the Mad Max spirit, it's really beautiful in its desperate way.

It handles a lot like the Batman action games, with a system of counterattacks. There are also lots of upgrades to be done to Mad himself and to its cars.

Lots of places to explore, lots of things to do.

A really good game!

So far in 2021: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2021/post12

I finish the following games:

The Fall
The Fall Part 2: Unbound
Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders
Pharaonic

Include me

Currently going through The Witcher 3, hopefully will finish it this month

1. Diablo 12.03.2021
2. Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate 17.03.2021
3. Resident Evil 7 17.05.2021
4. Grand Turismo Sport 28.08.2021
5. OliOli 31.08.2021
6. South Park: The Stick of Truth 07.09.2021
7. Pokemon Lets GO Evee 12.12.2021

Just beat The Knife of Dunwall, the first story DLC for Dishonored. I beat Dishonored quite recently and wrote a very unflattering review in last year's "games finished" thread. I had been promised by a friend - and one review that I read a long time ago - that The Knife of Dunwall is a big improvement over the base game. It isn't.

And yeah, I know, I'm totally in "old man yells at cloud" mode here. Anyway...

So it's a "midquel" that puts you in the shoes of master assassin and even assassin leader Daud who's an important NPC in the base game. Playing as Daud reminds me of an article I read recently about how characters from a universe's lore never live up to their legend if they appear as an NPC in a game. And playing as him does just that in the most extreme fashion. The gameplay of Dishonored just isn't able to deliver that "masterful leader of assassins" fantasy - sure, he can spawn an underling to help him out but what message does that send? That he sucks and needs help. And it's effectively still the same as spawning the rat swarm in the base game. Anyway, you still awkwardly stumble around the convoluted environments and only make plans as you incidentally gain some intel on site - you never feel totally professional or in control. And since all the NPC assassins are able to seemingly disappear into thin air and reappear wherever they want, Daud seems like the least experienced and clumsiest assassin of them all. Heck, there's a female assassin who's supposed to be Daud's underling but since she feeds him all the intel and is able to appear anywhere she literally feels like his boss! And it boggles my mind that again you start out as a noob without any skills even though Daud's already a legendary assassin - maybe I missed a plot point that explains why Daud is a wuss in the DLC but come on, why even make DLC about Daud in the first place, then? Given the DLC's premise (and the fact that it's just three levels) I was sure you'd start out with a full set of powerful abilities. Nope, you start out like just like fledgling Corvo. And then there's also the thing that you can play him non-lethally which felt out of character to me. Honestly, conceptually the DLC is just a mess, IMO, and I didn't care for the story (which I actually did kinda like in the base game).

Then there's the levels. I had assumed that the levels would overshadow the base game, both, in terms of level design and visuals. I was very disappointed. I remember reviews that praised the first level which is some whaling facility - that it's the most visually impressive place in the whole game. Yeah, it has guts and a big whale - besides that it's a painfully generic industrial complex like many others. It actually reminds me a lot of the industrial levels in the likes of Kingpin and Soldier of Fortune. The second level is just another little generic part of the city that looks like any other still functioning part of the city and has a building with a ridiculous amount of samey floors. The final level is pretty cool but it's literally a location from the base game.

In terms of level design I felt that the locations are actually even worse than the base game. They feel even smaller and more basic. In traditional "immersive sim" fashion you have a bunch of different paths but seriously, it's kinda silly that there are three ways to enter a facility if all of them are equally cumbersome yet still easy to use. I found myself prepared to use either entrance in all levels and it was an entirely arbitrary and meaningless decision which one I'd ultimately use. What's the point, really? There's no strategic decision nor do I get swept into one of the paths by circumstance. Heck, since you level up by collecting items that are scattered all over the place you will reach each corner of the map anyway so you won't even just pick the entrance you just happened to reach first - ironically the opposite happened, I'd reach an entrance and then walk away again to clear the map some more. It's not even like in Deus Ex or Arkane's own later game Prey where you can usually only use one or two paths depending on your build. It's also not like in Hitman where finding even a single valid path is a bit of a challenge and the mechanics push you to stick with one. It's totally and utterly pointless. It's frankly the same way with the different means of completing objectives - it's entirely a role-playing decision in a game that's not really a role-playing game.

Anyway, I had learned from the base game and decided to do a lethal walkthrough this time and not to give much of a rat's ass about getting spotted. So yeah, I got a few fun situations where chaos erupted and I had to improvise with the offensive tools. Actual combat is IMO a clunky mess and the pathetic movement speed just ruins it (and navigating the levels as well, to be honest) but sure, there's some fun to be had by throwing a smoke grenade and just stabbing the coughing enemies or by running away and letting an enemy get vaporised by a mine. It's not great fun but it beats the boredom of blinking and stabbing enemies the same way over and over and over. Besides that the game is of course ultimately still about slowly scanning every corner for usable objects, be they meaningless books, money (which I always have enough of even though I'm not even trying) or consumables which I can't even pick up because I'm already full.

In the developers' defense, they made one big improvement here: while targeting the blink (teleport) ability, the game stops, which allows for some bolder and more interesting manoeuvres. But, apparently to even out this goodness, they also nerfed the void gaze by only making you able to see enemies through walls at level 2 - at level 1 it only allows you to find the "level up" items which probably shouldn't even be in this DLC in the first place.

At this point I'm fairly certain that I won't enjoy the second story DLC either BUT I still have high hopes for Dishonored 2 since an even better friend assured me that that one addressed a whole bunch of things that I loathe about the first game. Fingers crossed!