The Bunker

It was alright. The FMV production values were quite nice, I liked the few actors (mostly Adam Brown and Sarah Greene), and the story was interesting enough for me to keep going, even though it's neither that action-packed nor very complex, and partially predictable, but it's well told.

It isn't really much of a game though. There are some minor adventure game elements, like the player being able to freely navigate a set of rooms and examine what's in them, and there is one (!) puzzle in it that requires a bit of thought (though not too much), but other than that, you only press buttons to remind you that you're not just watching a movie. The hotspots for interactions are rather small, btw, and only show once your cursor gets near them. There are two types of QTEs in it, one about just clicking the indicated spot before time runs out, one about mashing a button until the bar is full (I played with gamepad and I have no idea how well the button mashing works with M+KB, but for everything else mouse controls might have been the faster and better choice).

For the most part of the game, I wasn't sure if you can fail or die, but during the finale I didn't notice one QTE quickly enough and had to restart the whole section because of that, which kind of sucked, since it just meant watching the same (minute-long?) footage again without being able to skip it, just so I could repeat quickly pressing a button two times in between. I think you can't skip any of the video footage in general. And at least in this case, you aren't rewarded with any remarkable bonus footage on failure either.

All in all, I took me about two hours to finish The Bunker. Contrary to other FMV games of this type that I've played, like Late Shift or Press X to Not Die, there were no real decision to make, no branching paths, and therefor it has no actual replay value.

Legacy of Lina

A pretty hard but short metroidvania-ish action platformer. Took me just under 5 hours to finish, much of which time was spent dying and retrying from last savepoint. Fun game for a fair price ($3.99, but I got it on a 70% off sale), though the area before the final boss was pretty frustrating - a bit more and I might have put the game on indefinite hold.... Thankfully after I managed through it there was a save point right before the final boss door, just as there was before all the other full bosses (though not mid-bosses.)

Prince of Persia (2008)

I'd say the graphics and especially the animation still hold up well, and the platforming is good (though it's impossible to actually die in here so much of the tension is gone), but the gameplay is rather repetitive and the combat sucks big time. Story's OK and I liked the dynamic between the main duo, but that ending... >_>

The only challenging point I remember in Spyro, except for the manta mini games, is the mining site with the railway carts towards the ending.

Corpse Party. It's an adventure game made in something that looks like (is?) RPG Maker, about a bunch of Japanese high school students (hey, wait, come back...) who perform an occult ritual for fun that's intended to bond them as friends forever but instead sends them an alternate dimension to be killed off by some vengeful ghosts trapped within the school.

It's divided over five chapters, with extra chapters that can be unlocked by finding various "wrong ends"; i.e., figuring out how you can get yourself killed. A lot of the game almost plays like a visual novel/walking simulator in that you're just going where you're supposed to go, doing what you're supposed to do, and watching the story unfold, but as said before, you can die by doing/not doing certain things or in some cases getting caught by enemies that chase you on certain floors. You have hit points like in an RPG, but for the most part these aren't relevant unless you're being obtuse or trying to get another wrong ending.

The story is actually fairly interesting and I might even check out the anime and live action movie adaptations to see how they did. You could argue that they should have used another game engine to make it, but I would say they did an admirable job of creating something worthwhile within the limitations they had. It's a low-budget, early indie success story.

You'd think with Undying and Evil Dead people would learn that messing with magic "for fun" isn't a good thing in most cases. o.0

Now don't mind me...I have to go catch up on some light(dark) reading....*whistles and walks away carrying the necronomicon*

A Tragedy in Tragidor (NWN, Review)

Styx: Master of Shadows (XB1X)

All the time playing this game I was thinking that it was a story sequel to "Of Orcs And Men" which I played last year. Until I got to the final cutscene...and now I think it's actually a prequel to that game that explains how Styx came to be.

This time it's entirely a stealth game. A real genuine stealth game too. Styx has no fighting ability of his own except a difficult counter parry move that cannot be relied on to get you out of trouble at all. So sneaking is everything. The first half of the game was pretty good. The levels were large and full of shortcuts, both vertical and sideways, to reward exploring. The difficulty ramps up from easy at the start to getting challenging. So all is good up to halfway.

Then it all turns to shit faster than a septic truck overturning in your driveway. The second half of the game is the first half played backwards. All the same levels repeated just with lots more enemies and new enemies that usually cannot be killed. It all culminates with the abysmal final two levels (repeats again) with a new enemy that can also sense you even when hidden, plus kill you with one shot It just becomes a boring slog involving countless experimenting and reloads. Then the final scene that is meant to pass as some kind of final boss fight. On second thoughts, make that two septic trucks overturning in your driveway.

I came so close to quitting during the final level, just the thought of giving a game in after getting so close to the end kept me going. It's too bad because I was really enjoying it up to halfway.

Lego The Hobbit.

Yeah, I know, it's a game with the word 'lego' in the tile. Having said that, the game is no more childish than watching Toy Story. So, it's really good and something which I actually got 100% on, even all the achievements (a feat I've only managed 9 times on Steam because most titles are impossible to get them all on).

Good humour, lots to do, very good game length and it's really nice if you're a fan of the books/films.

Recommended!

Finally completed Half-Life original series. While Half-Life, Opposing Force and Blue Shift were finished the same year they were released, I managed to play through Half-Life: Decay, Half-Life 2, Lost Coast, Episode 1 and Episode 2.
Decay was the last expansion for Half-Life 1 game with coop in mind. However it was made for PS2 and PC port was cancelled for unknown reasons, that is why I had to play the unofficial mod available at moddb.com source. All levels including the secret one were completed in single mode with fake bot and in coop with live person. It's not a good game, the levels are not related to each other more like different chapters since the main characters will always get different ammunition and weapons set despite the outcome from previous levels. But for any die hard Half-Life fans it's a must play game with a bit of additional lore, also the models looks nicer like in Counter-Strike: Condition Zero - "highly polygonal" kinda.
Half-Life 2. I remember playing this game in 2004 when it was released in my country though illegal party distributor and that game was nice but boring so I couldn't progress much further after Ravenholm. I tried to finish the game a few more times after I legally bought it from Steam and reached the prison section. And this time it took me 3 days to complete. I didn't like the level design at all, the plot line, the boat section (series of impossible jumping and odd physics) and I absolutely hated stupid squad nuisance (they always die, stuck and repeat the same lines over and over).
Episode 1 was much better, more fast paced but short and last boss battle was a joke.
Lost Coast was a nice looking level with new special effects, I don't understand how it's a canon game, probably took place before Half-Life 2 story.
Episode 2 is almost a masterpiece: beautiful graphics, great level design, actually fun play sections, especially surviving the waves of bugs. And the final battle was so epic, fun and a bit challenging. I felt almost as good as like playing Half-Life 1 back in the day. I loved the cliffhanger ending, it's so deep and dramatic. I totally understand why Valve couldn't develop Episode 3 they raised the quality bar so high. Thank goodness they officially sanctioned the release of another canonical game in franchise - Hunt Down The Freeman ;)))
Well at least Black Mesa is almost a good game with almost good visuals, only 7-8 years of active development. They should be tasked to create Episode 3.

As 10th game this year, I have just finished story of Reynard de la Foret in Celestian Tales: Old North as my first playthrough of this game. It's short (around 10 hours long) but enjoyable game in a style of JRPG, which has some interesting plot twists for player to experience. The most surprising thing for me was, that it is one of very few games, where you do not play the hero, which has to save the world, but you play a squire, who with other pupils, helps the big generals with small tasks in the background of the comming war against a threat from The North. The game has also a prequel DLC, which is story about one of these big generals, how he became the big hero.

All of my finished games can be found >>here<< :)

Assassin's Creed Liberation (XB1X)

The remastered version that comes packaged with AC III remastered, which itself comes as part of the season pass for AC Odyssey. Liberation was originally a PS Vita title that got the HD treatment for 360 and PS3. I've played the 360 version before and started it up again to directly compare, yes it's definitely remastered. Not just 4K compared to 720p, but textures are much better.

I still like the game as a shorter abridged AC game that mostly feels like AC II, with it's smaller individual areas instead of one huge city. It's pretty much a companion to AC III in that it's the same era, and one mission even has you briefly meet Conner from that game.

It ran quite well, but I had one annoying glitch that has existed as a potential problem from the Vita version and has never been fixed- at some point in the story I lost the parasol gun (blow dart) option from the weapon wheel. Not a huge deal but it stops me from being able to complete one achievement for 100%. Unless I restart the game...maybe, since it only takes about 30 minutes to get back to the chapter where you get the parasol.

Soul Blazer (snes): this is not the first time I beat the game, but I have never played it in French before. The translation is awful, to say the least. Soul Blazer is one of my favorite game of the 16bits era which I even prefer to Terranigma (an excellent title) and Illusion of Gaia. I just love the concept. Now I feel like playing Terranigma, of course.

Darksiders II

Started this one back in Summer 2018, but after maybe a dozen hours put it on hold for some reason. Now went back and played it to the finish - story finish that is. A bunch of side quests/challenges are left undone, and I'm not yet decided whether or not I want to tackle NG+. I think I might just see how far I can get in the Crucible gauntlet with the best equipment I can acquire as a mere level 21 and then move on to other games in my backlog.

As for the game itself, they really changed up the "Dark Zelda" formula of the original by introducing Diablo-like loot/gear aspect and skill trees into the game, and I'm still not sure how much I like that. On the one hand, I do like the loot-heavy Diablo-likes, on the other it really slows down the gameplay when you keep comparing drops with what you currently have. Reminded me of this RPS article. I do admit that being able to upgrade/customize possessed weapons by feeding them other gear was pretty cool.

Difficulty wise, I played on Apocalyptic, and in the late game I probably would've had a whole lot more trouble had I not kept a certain boss weapon in my secondary weapon slot which made all critical hits heal me for decent amount (and the crit % can easily be made really high in this game). The health steal works even for crits made with other weapons, which was good since this boss weapon quickly became obsolete damage wise, and I could just keep using my kickass primary weapon (a possessed scythe) with ~50% crit rate by the end.

Performance-wise, my middling PC could easily max this 2011 title, as could be expected. Only in one area did I notice constant framerate dips below 60, and that was just a portal hub with no enemies.

Just few days and hours later, I have finished the Celestian Tales: Old North – Howl of the Ravager DLC prequel to the original game. The gameplay is very similar, and you play as one of the young lords of Old North introduced in the base game. It's little bit shorter than the base game, but last two areas were for me tedious, which little bit worsened my impressions.

All my finished games can be found >>HERE<<

Giana Sisters - Rise of the Owlverlord.

I enjoyed it. In fact I liked it more than the first one. I guess the levels were better designed and the boss was not as annoying.