I just finished Empire Earth 1 with all 4 campaigns completed.
I've heard that the AI on the skirmish mode is heavily cheated, so I don't bother it.
Here is my review of 4 campaigns.
The Greek ancient campaign is a lot of fun and has many historical flavors and events such as capturing the Trojan City with the famous horse.
The English medieval / Napoleonic campaign is my most enjoyed one. Begin with the RPG-like scenario in medieval times and finally beat France in Napoleonic times. In one of the scenarios, quoting the words of Shakespeare's Henry V made me chuckle.
The German world war 1/2 campaign is a bit tough, especially in the world war 1 scenarios, using artilleries is the key to success.
The Russia future campaign is the hardest one, but some Sci-Fi ideas are interesting. By the way one of the scenarios is about conquering Ukraine (Their capital city is Donetsk) and the Western allies with the mighty Russian army, which is in these days rather controversial, but this game was made about 20 years ago.

GOG sells the gold edition, which contains an expansion with 3 more campaigns, but I want to play other historical RTSs before taking it, first of all, I'll play Rise of Nations, which I've heard to be superior to Empire Earth.

My full list.

"Detroit: Become Human"

Playtime: ~11 hours
Was actually my first playthrough, even though I own the game since 2018 already (talk about a backlog, huh?)

I didn't achieve everything I would have hoped for (and I'm currently thinking about doing a second playthrough - which is extremely uncommon for me), but...
WOW! - what an experience.

I deliberately call it an "experience", not a "game", since - as any true David Cage "game" - it's more of an interactive movie than a "real" game.

But boy - what a great movie it is.

As pretty much usual with Cage's "games", gameplay consists basically of walking around, choosing between dialogue options and doing QTE's.

Now, I'm really not that fond of QTE's, but I found them to be pretty "solvable" in the vast majority of instances, despite having chosen the "experienced" option (wich apparently differs from the "casual" option, by offering the risk for characters to die - and die they will).

The main "problem" I had with the game, was that it features no free saving.
It's all done via fixed saving points (usually, yet not entirely exclusively, located between chapters), and if you (have to) quit the game between these saving points, all progress made up to that point is gone, and has to be repeated.

Of course - I understand the "why" behind that decision.
Just as in real life - you are supposed to live with the consequences of your decisions.

Though the game allows you to replay the chapters, either with new consequences saved, or not (second option is just to see, what would change, if you'd decided otherwise, I guess - didn't try it).

Unfortunately, and also as so often with "choose a conversation option" games:
it's often unclear (due to "single word" options), what any chosen option will trigger as a conversation piece in the end.

Which may cause a conversation to go in a direction, that you didn't plan/expect it to go.
Which, in return, may lead to conversations way shorter than you wish them to be, because an NPC blocks any further dialogue.

But overall, I really liked the "game", even though I would have wished for some things to be made different in details.

But, hey: if an interactive movie manages to squeeze out a few tears from a 50+ y.o., highly cynical, guy...it has to have done something well, I guess.

Would I recommend "Detroit: Become Human"?

Absolutely.

- IF you can live with the fact, that it is an interactive movie with a lot of QTE's.

But: if that's not your thing - stay the hell away from it.

Maybe watch a let's play instead. Because the story is worth being watched.

Edit:
did think quite a lot about a replay for the last few hours...but I'm really not sure.

One the one hand, I would like to get better endings for the "Androids" which I encountered and learned to like on the journey...on the other hand, I fear anything that I might change in a subsequent playthrough will only lead me to different (yet equally bad) situations, simply because the designers/developers decided so.

One example (pretty spoilerfree): I chose the "miss X" option in one chapter, in the hope of being able to avoid something...which ultimately lead me to a spot where I made the wrong decision (and how do I know if there was a good decision, at all?)
Would I choose the "don't miss X" option...would it result in a scenario where I will be facing the same choices? Or different choices, but with the same preset outcome?

That would kind of retroactively ruin my good impression of the "game".
Sigh...

Gears Tactics, Apr 21 (Xbox Game Pass)-This was a lot of fun. I haven't played too many tactics games but this is probably the best one so far. I liked the feel of the different classes. The leveling system interesting but equipping units was cumbersome. The plot was there and didn't really get in the way. I did think the missions got a little repetitive in the middle and I wished it ended a couple hours sooner but still fun. Also, there were far too many forced "side" missions that just padded the game length. Those could have been cut in half or probably eliminated completely and the game would have been better for it.

Full List

Behind the Frame

I was drawn to it by subject and art style, although I wasn't quite sure what kind of game to expect. It turned out to be an interactive animated short story, and it reminded me a lot of When the Past Was Around. Art and animation are gorgeous (if you can live with this odd little quirk that sometimes the characters' heads are disproportionately small compared to their bodies). The soundtrack is nice and put to good effect, too. The story is cute if somewhat predictable and nothing spectacular. But regarding the gameplay, I found it rather lacking. It works most of the times, though the puzzles are hardly ever more challenging than playing Simon Says - unless you overlook a hotspot to interact with, it's always pretty obvious what to do and almost spelled out for you. The puzzles also don't make a lot of sense if you apply real world logic, but the game isn't really bothered with making sense in that regard, and in hindsight I guess it's fine.

My main criticism though would be that while the puzzles are pretty straightforward, the controls are not, because they are inconsistent and at times very inconvenient. In general they should be simple enough, just click somewhere to examine and get some text comment, hold mouse button and move the mouse to look around. But sometimes, while the game displays the text comment, no other action is possible as long as the text is shown. And you can't just click the text away once you've read it. You have to wait for it to disappear again. In some instances this can take up to half a minute (I actually counted), even if it's just two lines of text. That's frustrating enough on its own, but before I realized that it works like that, I seriously thought the game had crashed or that it was very obscure what the game wanted me to do. There's also the other extreme occasionally, two different comments overlapping, because the old text did not fade away quickly enough.

All in all, it was a mixed experience for me. Nice enough as an animation short, and the interactivity helped to stretch it to 60-90 minutes, but not very fun as a game since the interactions are so limited and unchallenging. I guess sometimes I'd even have preferred to just click in order for the story to move on, rather than having to find the exact hotspot that does this, and having to wait before I could try again whenever I clicked on the wrong one.

The Finest Scenery

I overlooked that completing the game unlocks a new chapter. More of the same, beautiful again, but also a bit unnecessary. It explicitly explains the ending of the main game to everyone who didn't get it.

Beaten Senran Kagura Shinovi versus from gog.
Took me like 32 hours and 30 minutes.
Is a nice game with similar fight, some nice stories, lots of content when it comes to music, pictures, voices.
Many likable characters.
Only need to get like somewhere 20 lingerine on the lottery.
But everything else ingame is bought.
Now if we could get the rest of the senran kagura games that are missing on gog.
But the dlcs are something some people wouldn’t like about the monetary commitment this game needs.
Shinovi versus at least had all of the dlcs included.

Fuga: Melodies of Steel (XSX Game Pass)

Best turn based JRPG I've played in some time, also, the best game I've played this year after Wo Long. For a start it can be completed under 20 hours and the difficulty increases linearly instead of the usual JRPG method of being incredibly easy for 40 hours and then hitting a massive difficulty spike and having to spend 3 days grinding just to get yourself within 5 levels of some boss.

The game reminds me a little in spirit of the old Metal Max games. You drive around in a huge tank with multiple turrets that you place your team into to fight other mechanized enemies.

The combat in Fuga is a lot of fun and has about the right amount of depth for a sub 20 hour game. You know all you need after about 5 hours, but then continue to fine tune and optimize from that point on. The games bonding mechanics for your party members are important to get the best ending, something I did not realize until too late. All is well however, because the game lets you start NG+ from chapter 7 where the ending triggers begin to take shape- saving a lot of time over starting the entire game from the first chapter.

Fun game. The sequel is due in a couple of weeks as well and is also a day one release onto Game Pass. I will be playing the sequel sooner rather than later.

Ori and the Blind Forest, Apr 24 (Xbox Game Pass)-I fully admit I sucked at this game. 529 deaths and I'm not even sure that included the deaths on the final escape from Mt Horu area since the game started me right before there on a reload. It was way too difficult for me. Turning it down to easy mode didn't help much because most things that killed me were instant deaths. There were flashes of fun when I was able to string together two or three successful jumps. But mostly I was saving the game on each new platform I reached. Just not fun for me at all.

Full List

Dead In Vinland

It's a surprisingly big and long game, unfortunately a little bit too long for what is has to offer. But it is also a surprisingly fun mixture of ressource management, (somewhat bland but not too bad) DD-esque fights and soap opera. I rarely had such a strong "one more round" feeling recently. The first half of the game is utterly fantastic, in the second half it started to drag a bit and became tedious mostly because by then I had enough of everything so the survival and ressource management elements became quite pointless. Still had a lot of fun with it, but it is certainly only for patient players that can accept some repetition. 8/10

Doom 64. Bought it on Steam and finished up the game last weekend. It was worth the dollar something i paid.

Hello people! Am I still in time to say "Include me"?

If yes, let me share the list of the games I finished this year!

1-Sheepo
2-Boomerang X
3-Greak: Memories of Azur
4-Horizon Zero Dawn
5-Quake Enhanced Edition
6-Tainted Grail: Conquest
7-Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
8-Webbed
9-Dread Templar
10-Deadly Tower of Monsters
11-Tomb Raider Legend
12-Deep Rock Galactic
13-Kapia
14-Vampire Survivors
15-Stranglehold
16-Bright Memory Infinite
17-The Legend Of Heroes: Trails In The Sky
18-Project Warlock
19-McPixel 3
20-Blasphemous
21-Tick Tock: A Tale For Two
22-Sir Whoopass: Immortal Death
23-Earth Defense Force 5
24-Brigand: Oaxaca
25-Warhammer 40k: Boltgun
26-Jupiter Hell
27-HROT
28-Stasis Bone Totem
29-Streets of Rogue
30-The Entropy Centre
31-Subnautica
32-Avernum: Escape from the Pit
33-Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War
34-Weird West
35-Nioh
36-Baldur's Gate 3
37-Blasphemous 2
38-Serious Sam Syberian Mayhem
39-Kingdom Come Deliverance
40-9 Years of Shadows
41-Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech
42-Warhammer 40k: Darktide (kind of. This game doesn't really end)
43-Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate Daemonhunters
44-Ion Fury (+Aftershock)
45-The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
46-Yaga
47-Metal Hellsinger

Sam & Max save the world (remastered)

The last time I had played the original was maybe five years ago, so I can’t say how much of the dialogue was changed for the remaster. I know that it was an issue for many, but I hardly noticed anything missing, except for Bosco; his new voice truly sticks out like a sore thumb, I miss his original voice.
Other than that, a great game to pass some time. The episodes are bite-size, fairly varied and rather easy to get through. I like the humor, but I wish there had been a few less ‘insane’ parts to provide some contrast and a downtime in between the madness.

How was Tainted Grail? It looks fun but I tried it on game pass and it crashed so I figured my computer couldn't handle it and uninstalled.

I loved it so much I can say it's my favorite deckbuilder of all, even more than Slay The Spire.
Perfectly balanced, no run ever feels influenced by randomness and a wide variety of tactics are perfectly valid (much unlike in STS, where for the end boss you just *had* to get lucky with drops and prepare very specific tactics).

There are nine classes divided in three sub-groups, magic-melee-ranged, each with its own quirks and special ability, all fun to play and very satisfying for tailor-building crazy combos.
The progression is constant and adds more meat on the fire, you will will find yourself naturally scaling up the difficulty and experimenting with new tactics.

The setting is a very werid and grim take on the Arthurian myth, just deep enough to hit the sweet spot to stay on point without falling into being too concise or over exposed.

I cannot recommend it enough if you like the genre, top quality, really!

Sam & Max beyond time and space (remaster)

My favorite of the three Telltale S&M seasons. Good humor and insane characters getting into ludicrous situations. The puzzles aren’t much of a challenge, but that’s not a problem since the game is more of a comedy anyway.
Unfortunately, this remaster was not without problems. The game kept crashing on startup, but I found a solution for this in this forum post: Link . It’s just sad that this issue still persists, even though it was reported, and acknowledged by the developer, more than a year ago.

Cat or Ice Cream - available for free
This is a short quiz style game where you're given a shape, then need to guess if it is a cat or ice cream. The only negaives are that this game is short plus there's no varation, but it's free and has cute cats.

https://imgur.com/Hff4qcv.jpg


Farm Frenzy 2
This is a time management game with a farming theme that I got on a complication CD with a bunch of games. Although it gets odd later when you're farming ostriches for feathers to make fans that are used to make hats that are used to make dresses. There is a cat in the game and while the cat has several apperaces, I've only taken a screen shot of the cat maxed out. The first screen shot gives a clear view of a max level cat and the second is the last level, where I had more cats than anything else at one point. The cats help you pick stuff up while the dogs help with bear attacks.

https://imgur.com/undefined.jpg
https://imgur.com/HoKysjL.jpg


Chook & Sosig
This is a short visual novel that can be downloaded for free and introduces the characters. However the later games can be played without playing this one.

https://imgur.com/ECSuvZd.jpg


Chook & Sosig: A Case of Murder
This was the next Chook & Sosig game. While it still is a visual novel, there are some adventure game elements - specifically the presence of inventory items. Unfortunately, it is only a demo that was never made into a full game. Also you don't get to play to any sort of conclusion. The most noteworthy thing here is that while Min (the bat) states that she's a psychic, she's not able to see or communicate with Chook.

https://imgur.com/1Xqmi3G.jpg


Chook & Sosig: Hit the Club
Also available as a free download, this is a short one-scene adventure game involving Sosig.

https://imgur.com/MOd8WlF.jpg


Chook & Sosig: Long Weekend
This is the last of the free games. Like with Hit the Club, this is a short adventure game that takes place on three screens. You also control Chook this time around.

https://imgur.com/wo2QnMv.jpg


Chook & Sosig: Walk the Plank
available on GOG - https://www.gog.com/en/game/chook_sosig_walk_the_plank

Although the characters in this game appear in the prior games, it is stand-alone where they are not required. (However the others are all free.) You control Sosig (the cat) while Chook (ghost chicken) acts as a hint system in that she's cheated and looked at everything that is meant to happen. The other characters are doing their own thing, but they ultimately end up taking up NPC roles for Sosig. Because it alternates at times between the group sitting around at the table talking to each other and actually playing the game, the character dynamics are exeptional for what is a short game.

https://imgur.com/3cZHiEk.jpg
https://imgur.com/sFwz5Pm.jpg


Zodicats
available on GOG - https://www.gog.com/en/game/zodiacats
supporter pack - https://www.gog.com/en/game/zodiacats_supporter_pack

This is a short cat astrology themed puzzle game. For people that are willing to play through Galaxy, there's achievements for you. Besides the 12 zodiac cat puzzles, there's two bonus puzzles featuring Catherine.

https://imgur.com/IOvRpY0.jpg