Astro's Playroom (PS5)

Well, I wasn't in any hurry to get a PS5, but a golden opportunity arose to buy a sealed unused and unwanted prize from someone local for well under retail price- plus an extra sealed controller as well into the bargain. Only problem is it's a digital console, but I only have 10 PS4 disc games and it saved me hundreds of dollars. Plus, I plan to really use PS Plus to play Sony exclusives from here on and all the PS4 discs I have are part of PS Plus collection anyway.

As for Astro's Playroom, it is actually outstanding for what it is. A short platformer that showcases the new Dual Shock controller and pays fanservice along a journey through PS history. It's not very difficult, though a couple of the of the optional artifacts were tricky- the ones where you have to control a rolling ball using the touchpad along narrow paths...I despise touchpads as a control method. Other than that, it was awesome- I collected all artifacts and puzzle pieces for all areas including Labo. I'm about 50 hours into Persona 5 Royal on Xbox and this little game was a great diversion.

Haven't played it yet but herd many good feedbacks about it

SATAZIUS (Easy, sort of - last level on 'practice')
Yep, I just finished the side-scrolling bullet hell space shooter 'Satazius'.. on easy, sort of.. it only gives you a limited number of credits (9 though, I think), which is, admittedly quite a few) to complete an entire run of 6 level so what I actually did was I managed to get to level 6 which unlocked a 'practice' mode for just the last level which I managed to beat just now and got the 'You defeated the final boss and completed your mission' achievement so I'm counting it!

So, yeah, quite tough! Especially with no way to save your progress, levels are interesting and inventive with lots of cool ideas though! Glad I managed to get through it!

Full 2022 List

Starbound beat the Ruin just now and i still need to do the bounty quests and then i will be fully done.

Lost in Random, Nov 11 (Xbox Game Pass)-This game was great. Really, really dark at times and at other times a little too whimsical. I liked the art quite a bit and the voice acting was excellent. Plot was good and as mentioned had some very dark turns. Combat was really unique but ultimately too shallow and too tedious. The combat was a combination of dice rolling and card drawing with some deck building out of combat. But I only ever used the basic cards and never tried 90% of the other cards and still found it too easy. But many of the combats were very long and you had to slog through so many enemies. The boardgame combats were also an interesting twist but still too easy. Ignoring the issues with combat everything else was excellent and a lot of dark fun.

Full List

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood (2005) (Linux/Wine)

I liked "Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30" and tried the sequel in 2019, but dropped it because of much worse mission design and inferior difficulty level. Now I've finished the game, but I can confirm that I wasn't wrong. This game provides experience being so far from the previous one. After long hours fighting through the story I really hate the game. These sSituations when you are in the middle of farmland, but you can't jump over a low fence, but you just have to push straight to the machine gun position; this is completely against a whole idea of ambitious tactical gameplay and it kills the immersion completely...

Works perfect under Linux+Wine+DX3D9. No additional tweaks needed.

List of all games completed in 2022.

Just beat Besiege. I really don't have a particularly strong opinion about this game. I mean, the simulation is impressive, you can build absolutely insane stuff and blowing shit up and slaughtering little cartoon people is fun. The millions of YouTube videos about and gifs from Besiege make it pretty clear that it's an exceptional game.

As an actual game experience - as in, a series of challenges that requires you to learn rules and develop strategies - it's a bit underwhelming, however. It starts out very promising but soon it turns out that the game doesn't have all that much to offer in terms of content. I was expecting the game to confront me with increasingly complex and sophisticated defences that require increasingly complex and sophisticated machines to overcome. Ultimately I found the challenges rather repetitive and think that they utilized only a fraction of what the game is capable of. I also didn't like the fact that there aren't all that many parts and all of them are available to you from the beginning. I could beat most challenges just by slightly modifying designs that I developed very early. Also, in the campaign you face very strong restrictions when it comes to the dimensions of your machines. Oh yeah, and some levels were just annoying and I'm glad that you can skip individual levels (like in many mobile games, beating a level unlocks two levels that come after it).

I know that I could get a lot more out of the game by playing the sandbox mode or pulling more stuff from the Steam Workshop, however, personally I lack the time and patience for this when I know that there are so many other similar games that I could explore instead. That said, I do have a few ideas for vehicle designs that I'd love to try and I am pretty curious about the Steam Workshop levels so who knows - I can see myself investing a dozen more hours into Besiege or so.

Eventide 3: Legacy of Legends (2017) (Linux)

I like to play hidden-object adventures from Artifex Mundi from time to time. They're easy, they don't surprise with variety of puzzles anymore (I've played to many of them), but they're nice casual, relaxing games.

Played on Steam. At some point I hoped we'll get all these games here, on GOG, but after releasing some of them, Artifex never brought more.

Eventide 1 was really good, based a bit on Slavic fables. Unfortunately second part was much worse and the third part – is even worse. I don't recommend this one; only for hardcore enthusiasts of the series.

All Artifex Mundi games supports Linux natively.

List of all games completed in 2022.

Finished Runaway 3. When i played Runaway 2 the story was the worse part of the game in my opinion, but in the third part they resolved it in a better way. With gansters again and so on. A good end for the current saga.

Pink Gum (Steam)

Decent short game, or may I call it an 'experience' to be more accurate (I beat it in 11 mins). In short, it's just a form of art covered with little gameplay aspect (similiar to Plug n Play, if you know it). The storytelling & the music does good, but a bit predictable. My only complaints are somehow there is no music at all at the credit scene, and the game closes right after the game 'ends'.

Worth a try if you need some little break after beating a long, retiring game.

Full list

Checked another classic replay off my list tonight finishing Pool of Radiance. Over 30 years since the first time I completed it, was still a fun playthrough and revisit to the past. On to my next Good Old Game...

The Saboteur

Game mechanics were good enough to keep me playing for a while, some weaknesses in controls and AI can be tolerated, as well as the rare glitches that forced me to reload an earlier save 2 or 3 times. However story, storytelling, characters etc. are absurdly bad and the open world (that is outside of paris more decoration than anything else) can only save so much. After half of the game I decided to rush through it, it's a real shame they wasted the setting like this. 6/10

Airport CEO

Good game that lacks some polish and variety after a while. I love the setting and because they put a lot of attention into details and realism I got a lot of enjoyment out of the game despite its weak points. 8/10

Been forever since I actually posted here about a game I've beaten, rather than merely updating the list in my first post, but I just wanted to get off my chest that I only managed to beat Line of Sight - Vietnam by dialing the difficulty down to Easy and damage to "Arcade" (as opposed to "Realistic"). This made the game obnoxiously easy, but the only alternative, due to the BS AI noticing and shooting you through cover/pouring rain/at night (sometimes all of the above) was obnoxiously hard. Starting from the very first mission.

I've just finished playing Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. The remake is truly excellent. In my opinion, there are no negative points whatsoever. I commend both the staffs of Lizardcube and DotEmu for (re)making this jewel. Now I feel like playing the original Master System game for some reason...