I quite enjoyed Memoria and played it without realizing it was a sequel. I ended up liking it more than Chains of Satinav when I finally got around to playing that one.

Finished a few games since last time:
- 03/08 - Cold Fear: More a TPS than a survival horror as we have plenty of ammo. The final boss is overly difficult, though.
- 03/24 - Dead Rising. A really cool game until you meet a boss or someone with a firearm. I ended up playing it in god mode and really enjoyed the zombie killing part.
- 03/31 - Unravel. A really zen platform game better played in short sessions. I liked it.
- 04/10 - Asterix & Obelix XXL 3: Le Menhir de Crystal. An average Asterix & Obelix. It was enjoyable but highly repetitive.
- 04/11 - Where the Snow Settles. A small narrative game I got in the itch.io bundle for Ukraine. It was short but ok.
- 04/25 - Not For Broadcast. An game with original gameplay (you must direct the television normal and handle bad talking, interferences... I liked it but the sequences became too lengthy in the end. Music, singing (!) and humor were quite good.
- 04/26 - The Light at the End of the Ocean. A short visual novel. It was ok but not really exceptionnal either. I got it in the itch.io bundle for Ukraine too.

Full list here

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, May 1 (GOG)-Wow. Really good story and really good storytelling. The combat was a low point. The voices were excellent. The voice acting in general was excellent but I was particularly impressed by the voices Senua hears, at times trying to encourage her and at others trying to deceive her and just constantly chattering away like some Greek chorus. I look forward to the sequel with both hope and apprehension. I want to see what else this developer can do and I fear nothing will be able to stand up to this and only serve to sully it's memory.

Full List

Finished Party Hard just now. BEST PREMISE EVER. Each and every level should be remade as a Hitman mod.

Shadow Of War. It was a pretty long game but I finally finished it for the first time.

The Witcher. I just had the itch to replay these games. The first game is definitely showing its age a lot these days in terms of graphics, but my opinion on it hasn't changed much. The bad parts include that there's a certain point in the game where you feel like you're running back and forth across the levels, bringing stuff to people, having conversations, then setting out to meet someone else, like you're the world's toughest errand boy. I kept trying to work out how I'd approach side missions to minimize how much travelling I'd have to do. Admittedly, it's a problem many modern RPGs have. And of course the combat system has never been very interesting. It's an experiment that didn't quite pan out.

On the good side, I think it's a great representation of its source material. The writing is well-done and the characters generally seem like themselves. It's up there with stuff like KOTOR and the South Park RPGs in that it might not be the very best sort of game, but it is great at portraying its license.

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Annalynn. This is a retro arcade-style game that takes a lot of inspiration from Namco's classics in particular. You control a miner named Annalynn and you have to pick up gold coins and gems while being chased by four snake-like creatures. It's pretty good, although I don't it has quite the same magic as Locomalito's work, as a comparison. It feels like a sort of Frankenstein's Monster that was assembled from pieces of Pac-Man, Mappy, and a little bit of Donkey Kong Jr., so it mostly works but feels vaguely off to me.

Postal (2003) (Linux)

What a crap. I've completed the game, because it has cult status and is considered as an important part of gaming history. Gameplay-wise it's still playable (which is not always a case in such old titles), but it's simply poor game, nothing interesting here, sorry.

List of all games completed in 2022.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 - The Secret Files - 3/5

I played the base game, the Secret Files levels, and the Shareware Edition levels. All I can really think about is just how thoroughly mediocre it all was (Tubelectric's still cool though).

I'm a huge fan of the original Jazz Jackrabbit, which I played a lot of back in the day, but I never got around to playing the second game - until now. Maybe I hold the first game in such high esteem that JJ2 could never live up to it in my mind.

Regardless, JJ2 certainly has a bunch of jank. It's easy to just get caught up on the side of a wall or on a bit of a ledge. I even got completely stuck inside the environment twice, which meant having to reload an old save. And then there's the secret level - once you "complete" the secret level, it just takes you back to the start of the level, so you end up just stuck in a loop indefinitely.

Perhaps I'll play the Christmas Chronicles levels around December...or maybe I won't, who knows. But I think I've had enough Jazz Jackrabbit for the moment.

Half Life: Source

It had been a while. got nostalgic and beaten it again. I think for the last time.

one day need to play full release of black mesa.

Sunset Overdrive.
Pretty fun game, although it's pretty short.
It gave me borderlands 2 and brutal legend vibes, although I liked the writing in Sunset Overdrive more than Borderlands 2.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike, May 3 (DS)-I'm a little torn on this one. I liked it in small doses but it got repetitive and sluggish at the end. The early game was probably a little too easy but it got rather difficult in the late game after Crystal Calamity. I would probably still be struggling if I didn't go to a walkthru for CO recommendations on the last few missions. The mission objectives were varied but I preferred domination types rather than capture or destroy an objective types. And I really wasn't a fan of the timed missions. Fog of war was a mechanic I think I could have learned to like but it was used to infrequently that it seemed gimmicky more than anything. I generally just used the same one or two COs for all missions until the end. That may have limited me on some maps but it wasn't that big a deal. All in all it was fun but it didn't quite live up to the hype for me. Word.

Full List

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (XSX Game Pass)

The new "definitive edition". This is the first GTA I've ever played, weird but true. So I have no nostalgia back to the original PS2 version when comparing this game. I do have the original PS2 game and the PS2 to try it out on and I did just that. There is no way I'd play the original over the definitive edition. The only advantage the PS2 version has is the overall art style with it's orange fog look- mainly done to control view distance. The new version runs much better, controls better, is sharp and you can see way off in the distance. There could have been so much more done to make the new version so much better- but I'd play this over the original any day. But like I say I have no nostalgia with this game.

The game is actually outstanding fun for 98% of the game. The missions are fun and I can now see where the first 2 Saints Row games got their inspiration. The characters are good, the story is okay and the game play is fun- except for the habit of every main enemy running away and making me chase them. The map is awesome for its time.

But that last 2% really kicks the game in the balls- or more to the point what you have to do to get the final mission. The pacing of the game was really good up to that point, the missions flowed into each other and were not too long- so even the tedious or hard missions only needed a few quick re-tries. But to get the final mission you have to control 20 territories from other gangs. Following the story will only have you with 5 territories. That shit should have been for post game content. Taking territories isn't fun like in Saints Row either, it's a grind. I'm glad to be done with it.

So the final part of the game left a really bad taste for me. But the rest of the game was a lot of fun and has me wanting to play the rest of the series- I think I'll do GTA IV later this year.

The Elder Scrolls: Arena

The first one in a series of games known to every gamer worth their salt, released in 1994, it's one of the oldest games I've ever played. I actually finished it for the third time so I knew my way around and admittedly there are some dated mechanics (like riddle doors) and controls, but it's entirely manageable and after some getting used to it turns out to be actually quite fun.

The story, set in the third era of "Tamriel" (game world and one of the continents on planet "Nirn", or "Mundus"), follows Player Character on a quest to free the Emperor Uriel Septim VII (better known for his appearance in TES: Oblivion), who's been sent to another dimension by his treacherous Imperial Battlemage Jagar Tharn. To accomplish this, the PC has to find eight pieces of Staff of Chaos, each located in a separate dungeon in one of the provinces of Tamriel. In addition, for every "main" one there's a dungeon containing clues as to the location of the piece of the staff, giving 17 main dungeons in total (counting the last, "boss" one). There are some locations better known from later installments, like Red Mountain in Morrowind, Labirynthian in Skyrim or Imperial Palace located at the center of the continent.

There's of course a lot of side quests and activities, though I admit I found those to be repetitive and not really worth the time. I got more than enough rewards from main dungeons to successfully finish the game, which actually brings me to the biggest problem I found - the lack of sense of character progression. After level 15 or so the experience table gets so steep that the only feasible way to progress further was to farm hardest monsters, and I didn't even get past level 20. This is obviously in stark contrast with later games in the series where every dungeon, nay, every activity rewards the player with skill points.

All problems aside, I actually had tons of fun with the "Arena", and not just because of nostalgic feelings. The game provides a solid 20 hours or so of entertainment. Actually it must have been mind-blowing at the time of the release, with the big open world and epic quest across the whole continent. Now it's on to the next adventure, "TES: Daggerfall", which I have much more experience with.

I just finished Arena and Daggerfall myself, for the first time. I'm pleasantly surprised with how accessible the games are, considering their control schemes and age. It was like I was a kid in the 90's again marveling at the ambition and technical achievement of these games. I'll admit I resorted to using the guide book for maps for some of the more obtuse dungeons and riddle solutions, and to acquiring the Oghma Infinimum twice to boost my character in Arena. It was also a mistake for me to make a non-magic user. I also totally botched my Daggerfall character, since my max mana pool was 50 while some spells cost upwards of 200+ mana to cost. Despite being very buggy, I loved my time with Daggerfall, it's one of my new favorite games. :) Now it's on to Battlespire for me.