GNOG

Curious little puzzle game in which you fiddle with various themed toy boxes vaguely reminiscent of heads and cassette tapes, in order to first open them and then solve the problems within. It operates without words, has a unique visual style and is a lot about sound and music, too. The gameplay mostly consists of clicking things to see whether they're interactive, pushing buttons, turning wheels, and trying to decipher the meaning and solution of the puzzles. Sometimes they became perfectly clear to me pretty quickly or I knew what to do and just had to find clues for the right order or combination, sometimes I solved the puzzles before I even knew how and why. The mouse controls for turning wheels and such were a bit clunky and imprecise at times, but manageable. All in all there are only nine boxes or levels, so to speak, and how long it takes to solve one of course depends on how quickly you can figure it out and whether you get stuck or not, but I'd estimate it's something between 5-15 minutes each, so it's a rather short game. It probably won't leave a lasting impression on me, but it was nice as a casual distraction.

The Mooseman (2017) (Linux)

I loved the game! This one is perfect example of how astonishing some small little indie gems may be. Pretty visuals, smart puzzle, light gameplay focused on atmosphere, story based on Komi-Permian folklore/mythology and absolutely delightful music. It's not more then 1,5h of gameplay, but it's definitely experience worth the time invested. Game is provided with Mac and Linux ports.

List of all games completed in 2019.

Games I finished in 2019

[i]Resident Evil 2 Remake (PC & PS4)
DMC 5 (PC)
Anthem (Don't get me started on this one) (PC)
Monster Hunter Stories (3DS)
The Division 2 (PC)
Fade to Silence (PC)
Lapis X Labyrinth (Switch)
Sekiro Shadows Die Twice (PC)
Windscape (Switch)
Truberbrook (PC & Switch)
The Caligula Effect (Switch)
Remilore (Switch)
The Texorcist - (PC)
Monster Hunter World (PC)
Fire Emblem Three Houses (Switch)[/i]

I'm probably leaving a few out.

Just beat Mad Max on PS4. I've rarely felt so cheated out of my time by a game. I have easily put 60 hours into this thing and throughout this massive amount of time the game has given me maybe thirty minutes of joy. The melee combat is a poor clone of the Arkham series - it's like the developers were like "hey guys, let's just add a counter button and it's gotta be good!" and they didn't even bother with a proper technical execution anymore. And the vehicular combat is just a boring mess. I'd rather play 60 hours of Destruction Derby on PlayStation than this crap. My biggest complaint, though, is that the game pulls every trick in the book to stretch out playtime without actually offering anything in return. It occurred to me what I was getting into pretty soon but I figured that I'm already far enough into the game that I'll make it all the way till the end. Had I known how long that would take and how little original or quality content there is in this game, I wouldn't even have bothered to install this abomination.

game over)

South Park: The Stick of Truth

I enjoy South Park's brand of humor, although I have to admit I would have enjoyed this game a lot more about 10-15 years ago. As far as making a South Park videogame, they nailed it completely. It's been said a million times, but it can't be understated how much this looks and sounds like the TV show all the time, from beginning to end. Everything related to the effort of bringing the personality, the storytelling and the art style of the show to videogame form deserves 11 out of 10.

However, there is a game too. An RPG game. And it's combat plays like Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars if that game had animations 5-6 longer on average and was repeating a joke every time you used a special attack, or finished a fight, or x other situations. QTE heavy turn-based combat is already tiring, then you add the layer of repetitive jokes on top it. Let's just say that by the end of the game I was very happy to be done, despite having enjoyed my time with it a lot.

It's very much a case of mediocre gameplay saved by great presentation and storytelling. And just for the record, I played as the jew.

Managed to beat Diablo+Hellfire with a monk. So hellfire was more expirience gaining than getting loot since some enemies were rather hard for the monk.I didn't get too good items for a monk sure i had health of 220 or more resistances were close to 50% except lightning, i actually went through most of the game with a staff casting lightning and also trapped enemies on fire wall or lightning wall while smacking them with a staff while they were burning or being electrified.
Though Diablo final boss was rather hard to beat i still did the same in the end fire wall trap him and smack him with a staff, sometimes he got stuck in several firewall spells.
I find diablo 1 with hellfire a pretty nice game.
Guess i will try diablo 2 lod from where i left now.
Also my right shoulder i played too much diablo, just much clicking.

Just beat the base campaign of Road Redemption on PS4 which I snatched pretty cheap during the summer sale. I always loved Road Rash (the 1996 game, that is) so I have always been curious about this "spiritual successor" to that game but the reviews I read were pretty discouraging. Well, screw those reviewers, this game is awesome!

Yes, it looks like a PS3 title and yes, it is not a technical marvel with some weird stuff going on at times. And I couldn't care less! What matters is that those guys managed to capture and improve that combat from Road Rash. It's a game where bikers beat the crap out of each other at high speed and it just works and is fun. Furthermore they added a lot of depth and variation as you have different types of melee weapons for different situations and lots of other fun stuff like guns, pipe bombs, satchel charges and even a grenade launcher. Gradually you move from melee towards guns as those become more common pickups and to my surprise you can actually hit stuff, in spite of the insane speeds you travel at. There's also some variation in the enemies as you encounter guys with shields, enemies who can only be hit with counter attacks, hostile cars and even bosses and more. It's really a barrel of fun.

To my surprise this is not just a racing game but they added a basic story (an assassin killed a gang leader and now several gangs are trying to hunt him down for a huge reward), different objectives (come in first, time trial, kill the targets, kill the boss) and roguelike elements as you have temporary upgrades that you lose on death and permanent upgrades. The unlockable drivers also differ a lot - most of them seem to make the game harder, though, rather than easier (which makes sense in a rogue-lite, I guess). Oh yeah, and the game has some futuristic elements which I had not expected with some cyborgs a ruined city and whatnot. It's crazy but I like it.

Of course it's not perfect, though. The game economy revolves too much around nitro for my taste and makes the game quite frustrating when you've fallen behind the other bikers as nitro does not replenish on its own and the best way to get it is to kill other bikers who are obviously out of range at that point. There are also not that many tracks and some of them are reskins of others, apparently, or at least portions of them. And the production value is generally really low, with pretty generic music, an abysmal intro etc.. Also, at least on PS4 the loading times are frustratingly long.

Still, even though I've only done one playthrough so far I already feel that the game was worth the money and will definitely go for more unlocks and maybe try the multiplayer with a friend, local or online.

Yup, pretty much exactly my sentiment when I finished it about a week ago (though I'd rather say mediocre combat/rpg mechanics)
Loved the setting, story, jokes and how it pretty much felt exactly like one of the episodes. It's only the rpg and combat mechanics that I think was a bit poorly implemented/designed. But for any fan of the show I think that should be but a minor quibble overall.

Ratchet and Clank 3 (PS Vita)
Technically today, but I may have stayed up way too long playing it last night... again. Still Ratchet and Clank and still fantastic.

Escape Goat (2012) (Linux)

I can't remember who recommended me the game (it was somewhere here, on GOG forum), but if you read this and you think it might be you - thank you! I usually avoid fast-paced platformers (I'm just not fast enough to beat and enjoy them), but this one is special. Each of 65 levels in base "campaing" (without additional ones to be unlocked) is a little puzzle to solve. You need to try many different approaches and die a lot in order to figure out a proper solution and execute it (which, in turn, needs good timing and may be a bit hard). But levels are not too big, there is not so much repetiotion and the game does not become frustrating (at least for me). It took me long 3,5h and 303 deaths to complete the main story, which probably shows how bad in this kind of games am I ;) But I really liked it!

List of all games completed in 2019.

Aarklash Legacy, Aug 18 (GOG)-I'm counting this one finished even though I didn't beat it myself. Midway through Act 3 the game froze on me five times in a row and I was afraid it was going to destroy my computer so I ended up watching the ending on youtube. I didn't miss much. It looked like I was about 2-3 hours from the end. The story was an interesting one and the characters were good. I liked the art and music but voice acting was hit and miss. I found the actual gameplay to be terrible. Pathfinding was pretty bad and misclicking was frequent in a game where you often needed to be perfect to survive. The battles were incredibly difficult and felt more like puzzles with only a single solution. The puzzles were just time wasters. The looting and crafting were bad with only 4 inventory slots for each character. Leveling was lackluster with only 4 skills for each character. I give it a 1 out of 5 only because I can't give it a 0.

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I actually liked the combat, but I got stuck in the "maze" environmental puzzle. I had to take a break from playing when i was like 80% of the way through the maze (where you have two+ mirror maps), and with all the mobs dead I couldn't get oriented at all to which map I was on.

So I didn't finish it either ;)

9 Clues: Secret of Serpent Creek (thanks to Marko's GA)

Steam says my play time was 2 hours, but it was probably like 2:29.

as HOGs go, this one plays pretty smoothly, but it's super short, most of the puzzles are super easy, and...the plot is fine but nothing to write home about.

You get captured by the not-so-subtle villain like 4 times and for some reason...not killed despite all the other murders he's apparently behind?

It was an enjoyable dalliance, and maybe a decent starter for a teen player. The "mystery" mechanic makes for pretty good narrative motion, but a bit meh gameplay-wise.

All in all, it was definitely ok!

Not my proudest moment: I beat My Name is Mayo on PS4 today, the infamous clicker game that pretty much only exists for cheap achievements and that's actually why I got it: I have a buddy who has 24 platinum trophies while I had only 4 and I like to tease him so I figured I'm gonna go through a series of games with quick and easy platinum trophies just to rub it in his face that I have more platinum trophies than he does.

Anyway, I was almost surprised by how clever the game is. Yes, it's fundamentally stupid and is about nothing but tapping a jar of mayonnaise. However, it's of surprisingly high quality: it has nice music, nice sounds and surprisingly good artwork. There's some trolling going on in that you unlock "stories" which lead to a series of further unlocks which you have to select manually (I guess the main purpose of this is to make it impossible to get all achievements/trophies by simply turning on some sort of auto fire). These "stories" tell brief absurd, well, stories and are accompanied by pretty funny costumes for the jar.

It's obviously some sort of experimental anti-game that can be beaten in less than an hour but the truth is that I got a few good chuckles out of the title and am in retrospect kinda sad that the developers decided to waste so much creative potential with such a dumb premise because these guys are clearly pretty smart, original and able to deliver something of high quality.

Ion Fury on default difficulty with 28% of secrets and more than 90% of all enemies plus all bonus missions (same as in Demo). I can't think of any good way to finish off the last boss on higher difficulty, won't even try.
The game was nice, good level design, but I expected something more, probably more color palette. I still prefer Duke Nukem 3D over this game for some reason, maybe it's because of aliens vs oddly robotic enemies. And I've never hated flying drones as much as spider drones in Ion Fury, they were my constant headache.
I'm not sure how to check the library ID in browser.
[UPDATE]: sorted out