HROT

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Possibly in my top 5 of retro shooters. A few levels in between were a bit less exciting, but all in all, it had a surprisingly high number of memorable ones, and quite a few delightfully weird and funny surprises. The only part I did not like all that much was the final boss fight of episode 2, because the arena is so small and the boss and his minions absorb a lot of ammo, making it a sparse commodity. I eventually beat it, but with a lot of save scumming (hurray for quicksaves!). Final boss 1 and 3 were rather easy in comparison but also a lot more fun. I don't really have much else to say because most everything was pretty good.

Oh, there's one more thing: I played through the whole game without map, thinking it didn't have one, but at the very end, I actually found out it's on the "M" key (not "Tab" like I would have expected). Still, it was perfectly fine without the help of a map. And that reminds me, I also made use of the footkick only very late into the game. I should have experimented with it much earlier. It seems that it's possible to kick enemies of ledges, Dark Messiah style, and I regret never trying it!

Coffee Talk 2 Hibiscus and Butterfly, Jun 1 (Xbox Game Pass)-About as good as the first game. I think I preferred the characters and stories in the first game to this one slightly. Still managed to mess up a bunch of drink orders. Also frequently forgot to give items to the characters. Every character felt like a therapist who couldn't figure out their own problems but they knew how to help the person sitting next to them and vice versa.

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Steve Jackson's Sorcery! (XSX)

It's all four of the original game books combined. I played it for a nostalgia trip, since I played many of these as a kid and we swapped them at school to play the ones that each of us had. I only played the first book in the Sorcery! series.

Unfortunately, this video game compilation isn't very good. Hell, maybe the 4 original books weren't that good for all I know. The first book is actually pretty good, but it falls apart after that and just really becomes a drag in the end. The obvious problem in these CYOA game books is having paths instantly cut off by your choices, essential paths at that. In the shorter books it's not a big deal, as they're not very long. But, in this series, it's a huge issue.

The video adaptation tries to mitigate the issues by allowing you to rewind, but you can actually need to rewind hours of play because you missed something important. It's too much of a grind.

The final nail in the coffin is the combat. It's woeful. They seemed to have changed it from the system used in the original books, to make it more video gamey I suppose. It's just terrible though, feeling more random than the dice rolls used in the books.

I feel like I wasted my time with this.

Resident Evil The Village,
The Ascent,
Horizon Zero Dawn The Frozen Wilds DLC.
God Of War for PS4
Far Cry 6
Control
Ratchet and Clank PS4
Starfield
Evil West
SOMA
Terminator Resistance plus DLC

Eschalon: book 2

Gameplay-wise, it’s mostly the same as book 1, with a couple of nice quality of life improvements like: a key-ring, automatic stacking of items etc.
The only really noticeable gameplay change was the inclusion of weapon skills that can be used every once in a while (depending on skill level).

Book 2 has some good exploration and a few good dungeons to crawl through, just like the first game. Other than that, there isn’t much to it: the areas are large but half empty, you walk so slowly, enemies are mostly brain-dead, NPCs are basic quest dispensers and the quests themselves are nothing to write home about.

The story is mostly fine, nothing exceptional, but fine. I’m not the biggest fan of how they tied the stories of book 1 and 2 together and I can’t help but be disappointed by the ending.

Overall, a decent game.

Similarly like its predecessor Resident Evil Revelations 2 is pure action game missing horror content. Finished all four episodes to see how story concludes. Bonus episodes does not took my attention as it uses same maps, first is pure shooter and second is about hiding and remaining unseen. The most interesting part was changing characters to progress flawlessly.

Just finished Bugsnax

Dont really like first person games but this game was a pretty fun short romp. No motion blur so no motion sickness while playing even for a prolonged time. Story was ok, pretty forgettable tbh. Honestly a decent game to try out on PS Plus.

Ravenlok (XSX Game Pass)

Made by the same team that did Echo Generation, this time it is a real time light action RPG. You can finish it under 6 hours and the gameplay flows really fast and nothing ever gets in the way of progress. It's not a game for if you're looking for a deep experience, but it's a short and fun experience. It also has good artwork, music and runs well.

Chorus, Jun 4 (Xbox Game Pass)-Its not a genre I particularly enjoy so I was actually pleasantly surprised by this game. The combat was frenetic and fun. The ship powers were ok. I thought the voice acting for Nara was good and everyone else was passable. The plot was alright but I never really got absorbed in it because all the characters were just interchangeable spaceships that you generally only interacted with for a few missions. But man those cutscenes looked really really good. One major complaint were the flaky quest markers. Quest markers would disappear or change colors or not really lead you to where you needed to go so I ended up wandering around lost occasionally. Probably won't play another like this for a while but this was still pretty fun.

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Planet of Lana (XSX Game Pass)

Quite a straightforward puzzle platformer. Great art and sound. Only really has a few different puzzles though, they are just repeated over, it gets a little more involved towards the end- but not much. It's like The Last of Us which just had two puzzles- throw Ellie up to a ledge to knock down a ladder and find a wooden pallet to get Ellie across water. This game is a bit the same as that.

It's short enough though, that it is still worth a play through for its artwork and simple story. It took me 5.5 hours to complete. Only one annoying technical issue, which may not be an issue to others. Some areas were darker than I'd like, making it hard to see. The game has no gamma setting. Every game should a have a gamma setting. So, I either had to put up with it or adjust my display settings- which I hate doing because they work just fine for pretty much everything else. But not a big deal really.

So finished Ara Fell enhanced edition.
Finally i see the end to this game as it was a demo for a very long time which i never played the demo before since it was released on another forum i visited.
Though i somehow stopped playing at the second mimic chest for a long time, which i couldn't beat until i used the proper skills which i seen on a video.
Then i just played until the end, they even have an epilogue.
The game was interesting with all of it's exploring, crafting, story, enemies, world.
Too bad the game was kinda slow on this pc for some reason but i still played it to the end.
Think this is my 80 game completed on GOG.

Eschalon: book 3

In terms of gameplay, there aren’t any noticeable differences to book 2, for the good and the bad.
However, this one is much shorter than the previous two games. The first book took me over 28 hours (with a restart after the first 8 hours due to a messed up build), the second book took me more than 17 hours, but the third book took me less than 9 hours (with all quests completed and a reload for the alternate final battle and ending).
The two endings are ok, but poorly handled if you ask me. There is a single choice at the end that determines what ending you’re going to get. It would be nice to incorporate the two sides throughout the game and not just a single button-press at the end.
The final battle is a disappointment, two armies fight each other, but you don’t need to take part at all. I reloaded the game to before the choice to see the other ending, I purposefully stayed out of the fighting and my side won anyway.

No Longer Home - avaiable on GOG
https://www.gog.com/en/game/no_longer_home

Although it's listed as an adventure, it plays more like a visual novel with limited exploration. There is no inventory or puzzles to be solved - just walk around, talk to people and look at stuff. Gameplay is spent either looking at things or advancing dialogue. There are two cats that show up, both of which can be pet.

Luna: https://imgur.com/5MuDanv.jpg
Autumn: https://imgur.com/CWfhF2O.jpg


Catlandia: Crisis at Fort Pawprint
https://imgur.com/L0e5bBs.jpg

This is a RPG where you play as cats. Equipment in the game consists of costumes, collars and collar charms that gives you Mewgic abilities. Although a lot of dogs are enemies in this game, there is a good boy. I got this one through a charity bundle on itch.

Beneath a Steel Sky. I'm about to start playing the sequel to this, so I figured I should replay the original. Which was a good idea because it turns out I forgot more than I realized about this one. I mostly just remembered vague stuff like moving between the different levels of the city and the old lady with her dog. So in some ways it was almost like playing the game again for the first time.

It holds up really well and is probably my favorite Revolution game. Although it's very British and has some of Revolution's quirks, like the characters who have some degree of free movement (which means you have to stand around and wait if the person you need is off-screen), it feels almost like an unofficial Lucasarts adventure, outside of certain parts where you can get yourself killed quite fast if you're acting foolishly. The puzzles are generally pretty fair. One unfortunate aspect of the game is that the graphics are so low-resolution that it doesn't favor Dave Gibbons's art outside of the cinematic intro. It would be cool to get a remaster where they could really show off his fine linework.

The Legend of Tianding (XSX Game Pass)

Very good side scrolling brawler that is set in Japanese occupied Taiwan. You play as the Taiwanese "Robin Hood" Liao Tianding. The story is actually quite decent, made even better by being set in a place and time that is uncommon in video games, you may even accidentally learn something. The art style and storytelling is done in a comic book style.

The combat is good as well. Just deep enough for what is about a 7-8 hour experience. Unlike something like Streets of Rage, you cannot move in and out of the screen, instead you have a lot of vertical moves and abilities to make up for it. One of the best abilities is your special attack that actually steals enemy weapons from them- including guns. One of the best modern 2D brawlers, up there with The Dishwasher games and the newer Battletoads. Worth a play if you like 2D side scrolling brawlers or just something set in a different setting.