The Callisto Protocol, Jan 29 (PS Plus)-I had heard bad things about this game but it was actually pretty fun. I'd say worse than Dead Space but on part with Dead Space 2 and 3. The game looked and sounded great. The plot wasn't too bad. It leaned heavily into the survival side with resource management very important. Inventory limits were a consideration throughout. Melee and stealth attacks were a nice way to conserve resources. The developers got a little overzealous with the stealth level with room after room of 10+ enemies you stealth kill. The death scenes were very over the top. Overall I really enjoyed it because it was more survival horror than action horror and I would look forward to a sequel if it was ever made.

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Chicory A Colorful Tale, Jan 31 (Xbox Gamepass)-It was like a mix of Epic Mickey, Rainbow Billy, Undertale, and a couple others I can't recall. It had a poignient story that at times turned quite dark. The aggressive boss battles were a surprise. I did like the in game hint system by calling your parents for advice. It wasn't really my jam but I can see how some would really be into it. A low pressure but maybe too introspective game to pass a few hours.

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Half-Life (Steam)

It took me three years to finish it. I played it when it came out due to rave reviews, but I didn't like it. I didn't like the introduction of scripted cinematic moments, to me they were just an excuse for the developer to perform cheap ambushes that the player cannot avoid.

Anyway, I decided to play it again to see if my opinion has changed. Afterall, I thought Quake and Quake 2 were just average back in the day, yet I liked them more when I replayed the modern editions. But no, I still don't like Half-Life. I stopped playing it 3 times over the past couple of years at points that got too annoying. It's not just the scripted scenes either. It's the enemies waiting around so many blind corners and the cheap use, as the game goes on, of spawning enemies out of thin air behind the player. Every time it happens, I can hear the developer responsible laughing at me "surprise mutha-fukka!!!!". No matter how well or how carefully you play, you cannot avoid or mitigate most of these encounters in any way. Even though you know the ambush is there, you cannot do anything about it. You just reload and get ambushed again with the benefit of prior knowledge.

Then there's the platforming. The controls just aren't up to the task. It's a game designed to be made and beaten with save scumming in mind.

Despite it all, some of the middle levels where you fight mainly humans are fun. Overall, though, it is not the type of experience I like. I've never played the two expansions, when I'm feeling masochistic, I'll probably give Blue Shift a try at the very least. If nothing else, at it is shorter.

Starfield (XSX Game Pass)

It is with great regret that my current journey comes to an end aboard the "Family Space Truckster", my dependable modified Stroud-Eklund Narwal C class ship (in Periwinkle Blue) which served me so well from the halfway point of the game. Along the way we had some great tales, unusual tales, happy tales (getting married), sad tales (my wife dying), more happy tales (got married again!), I unleashed a clone of Genghis Khan upon the universe just because I thought it would be funny to see what he does! I had a ball all the way.

It's a game that suits a certain type of person perfectly. That type of person is me. Once upon a time I couldn't have a PC as a kid. So, I played board games and tabletop RPG's with friends from school. The funny thing about those old D&D and Traveller modules was that they had no real stories in them. They were just a collection of areas filled with all sorts of things that the players themselves formed their own stories from as they interacted with the world, adjudicated by a DM and a healthy dose of their own imagination. In video game form, those are the type of RPG's that Bethesda makes, and these days only Bethesda makes. Starfield is like a giant super D&D module filled with content where the story is not something the developer puts there for you, but the sum of all the little things the player does. Some people cannot tolerate this type of self-made storytelling, they feel lost and aimless. Unlike games such as Mass Effect or Horizon Zero Dawn where the developer role plays for you and you just go along for the journey, in Bethesda games you do the role playing. In Mass Effect it makes no difference if you hit the reporter or not, we all still end up role playing as Space Jesus. We all play the exact same person in Mass Effect, we all fly in the same Normandy. In Starfield you can be the biggest bastard in the entire universe. You can just let loose and watch the world burn- like I mentioned I set a homicidal Genghis Khan loose just because I thought it would be a laugh. Everyone told me not to do it, but I did it anyway. Last I saw him, he was doing a bit of honest pirating.

Is the main story good in Starfield? I don't care. Is the writing good? It's a s good as it needs to be, keeping in mind the wide variety of approaches and play styles the game has to take into account. I love the character-building system. The skills you learn are not just tiny modifiers to skills that everyone gets like so many pseudo-RPG's. The skills in Starfield define the very way you will be playing. Even at level 62 I only have a small fraction the skills- but I have the stuff I need to play my way.

Technically speaking it's mostly good with one bad. They could make it run at 60 fps and 1080p I'm sure, and that's how I would have played it if given the option. On the other hand, the 4K presentation is sharp and the games lighting is often stunning. I've never taken so many photos using a games photo mode. I love the clunky industrial look of the starships, often looking more like space faring gypsy wagons with a dose of NASA style. The combat is serviceable, though I'd like to have had Fallouts VATS. Starships combat is simple but became very easy once I set my ship up how I liked it, especially since I invested heavily in shipboard weapon system and shield skills for my character. The Family Space Truckster was invincible in the end.

It's a Bethesda game...but I had no bugs in the 130 hours I've put into it! Well, okay, my status page somehow got the "approaching bad weather" warning stuck- never to disappear even now. I just ignore it. In total I had about 5 crash to desktops when the game was autosaving into a new system. Otherwise, trouble free gaming all the way.

After 130 hours and finishing the main quest, all faction quests and god only knows how much other stuff, I went to NG+. NG+ is a bit different in Starfield, you can basically skip a huge part of the main questline. It sort of makes sense in context of the story. However, I quickly decided to put NG+ aside and leave it just finished at the first play through...where I plan to later pick it back up once the story DLC's come.

Not a game for everyone, but it's definitely a game for me. My second favorite Bethesda game after Fallout 3. I almost feel like playing it from the start again, just to become a pirate lord and see how the game handles it.

Terra (Quake Enhanced Mission Pack)

After finishing everything there was to play in the official Quake II package, I returned to the first game and played through this short campaign created many years ago by a senior level designer from MachineGames. The level design was pretty cool, especially the last one really stood out. Despite me having played all of the official campaigns and mission packs already, this still had something new and not-seen-before to offer. Enemy ecounter balance was a bit odd sometimes though. In the first levels there were just very weak and ordinary opponents, but once that changed, all hell broke loose all of a sudden, and through some parts later in the game I only got by savescumming (on Normal difficulty!). I had also forgotten already how annoying the ogres and the shamblers are, and this campaign even had the dreadful spawns in it at some point. Still, it was surprisingly good regardless.

Aviators (Steam)

It's a short and free adventure game about Polish airmen and airwomen serving in the RAF during WW2. It is not about the usual Polish fighter pilots but more about their other roles, such as bomber crews and female ferry pilots. It's basically a set of informative mini games with plenty of information entries to unlock. Whilst the action scenes are simplified to a point of being inaccurate, that's not really the point. It absolutely serves the purpose of education and awareness, plus it's quite fun and only 2 hours long.

Too bad my PC had trouble running it. At 1080p the initial hanger section gave me hope as it stuck well enough to 60fps. But once inflight, at night, with all the Unreal Engines lighting my frame rates tanked- even dropping to 720p couldn't get to a stable 30fps and it was all over the place from 15fps to 60 fps swings. I persevered, and it was only after finished that I finally checked the minimum specs for the game (probably should have done that first!) and found that my graphics card is below the minimum recommendation of a GTX 1070- I have an RX580. Still, being free it's worth a shot if you're not sure how your PC will go.

I liked it better than Alice Madness Returns as well. I agree the combat was novel but it was way too easy/shallow. I was able to build a deck with basic cards and never had any trouble. But its a fun game and definitely worth playing.

Honey (Quake Enhanced Mission Pack)

Another add-on by the same level designer as Terra, but I understand this one is newer? I was less impressed with it though. It's only two (longer) levels and a hub, and while the setting and level design in terms of atmosphere is nice enough, with some neat tricks and memorable scenes, I thought the encounter design particulary in the second level rather terrible. There's a serious overuse of the hitscan shamblers and that's just no fun, it's tedious and frustrating. It's cool to use them as rare scares for some special occasions (as this add-on did, too), but not if there's one around every corner, like in the end. It got so bad that one time I was standing before a closed door and said to myself, let me guess, there will be a ... shambler behind it! And then, when I opened it, suprise, surprise, there was a shambler - not behind the door, but behind ME, all of a sudden, just spawned out of nowhere. Psych! *insert eye roll here* My save-scumming to survive got even worse here than in Terra, also because ammunition was comparatively sparse. And I was glad when I was finally done with this (at least the silly epilogue was a small compensation).

Blue Shift is pretty lame tbh, feels more like a fan mod in places, doesn't add anything to the base game. Opposing Force is much better, has new weapons and enemies, and I enjoyed playing as a marine (not that it's drastically different, but there are a few sections where you fight together with other marines). It's still Half Life though, so if you didn't like the base game, it probably won't do much for you either.

Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator: Prologue (Steam)

It's the free prologue version of the upcoming full game. Like the name says, you operate a locomotive on the Trans-Siberian. The game also has survival elements, so you have more to worry about than just learning to operate the locomotive. The prologue is a just about learning to operate the vehicle and making one journey, you also may need to replace damaged components. It's pretty simple, especially if you've played 60 hours of Train Sim World 2 like I have. Most important of all you can honk the horn...that's why most people want to drive a train, let's face it.

The full game when it releases seems to have a full story mode mixing simulation, survival and dealing with things like the Mafia.

Doom 2 complete. Think I enjoyed 1 a bit more, truthfully, but the mods and wads for 2 are incredible.

Next up is TNT Eviternity followed by Plutonia and Nerve, with occasional Doom64.

Cats Hidden in Paris (2023) (Linux/Wine)

I like the idea and I do not like the execution.
Works fine with Linux+Wine.

List of all games completed in 2024.

Rubicon 2 (Quake Enhanced Mission Pack)

Just three levels and a hub, and the levels are independent of each other. It also doesn't seem to have a proper story or ending. But the levels were well designed, with fair encounters, and there were some interesting new enemies and traps. Also, no shamblers this time. ;P I liked it well enough.

Finished Out of Line which I got once with my Amazon Prime account. It was a good game: nice hand-made graphics, good puzzles, not too lengthy. The story was hard to understand though. I would compare it to Limbo or Inside.

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