FEAR. Another one of those games I'd played before but never completed for some reason. Like so many games, FEAR has a concept and story that can basically be summarized as "Aw man, that movie was awesome!" In this case, it's combining dark sci-fi anime like Akira (unscrupulous defense contractor uses human guinea pigs for psychic research that backfires spectacularly), The Matrix (bullet time, mundane settings, that double-jump-kick Neo does in the hallway fight), Hong Kong action movies (shit flying and exploding all over the place), and The Ring (creepy ghost girls with long black hair hanging down all the time). The story doesn't make much sense but it's not a big deal.

The game still looks great, with excellent lighting and deep shadows (you genuinely need to use the flashlight in several areas), and unsurpassed particle effects. What the game gets so well about action is that firing guns indoors immediately changes everything about the setting, with the impact escalating as more guns and more powerful guns are fired. It can make it sometimes hard to see what you're shooting at, but it never devolves into the sort of haze seen in many other FPSs that try to be realistic. It does get a bit silly when you nail someone with the shotgun and their head pops off like an action figure, but that's okay. Everything is high impact. My wife loved the enemy soldiers for their dialogue, especially when you switch to bullet time and you can hear them scream "OH SHIIIIIIIIIII--!" in slow motion when they realize they've just run in front of your muzzle.

Somewhat oddly, the game builds up to a final confrontation or something or other that never quite happens. You certainly fight some tough enemies in the last couple of levels but there isn't a boss encounter or even a sort of moment of the game just throwing a whole lot at you at once (e.g., what if it made you fight several of those mechs in one spot?). It doesn't matter to me since I think boss fights are overrated, but it really surprised me when the credits began to roll.

Hello andysheets1975!

Very fitting description and summary of the first game in the series. However, you missed out on mentioning the ragdoll physics in combination with the nail gun. It is hilarious on which surfaces the player can pin enemies with it.

One highlight for me was always the enemy AI and group behavior. Together with the radio chatter and screamed reactions of them you mentioned it creates a unique atmosphere that only few other games got even close since.

Kind regards,
foxgog

It's because it's in the next F.E.A.R. game that came after.

Syberia 3 (Steam)

Well, this game has one of the worst control schemes and UI ever. It's mostly a 3D world, but they tried to make it control like a 2D point and click adventure of old. I spent much of the time just trying to go in the right direction as the camera shifts keep changing my direction. The main trouble I had with some puzzles was not trying to work out what I needed to do, but how to make the controls actually do it. I had to consult a walkthrough a couple of times just to work out how to actually manage to do something regarding controls.

Persevere with the controls and it's a decent game to follow on from the first two. It has the same sort of odd world, same graphical style and excellent music. The characters are quirky, though I'm not sure if the devs were taking the piss with the villain Ms Effemova and what her name sounds like in English...or if it's just one of those innocent translation things. Anyway, like other B.Sokal games, the story is intriguing and draws you along. Though, in the end, it leaves many basic questions unanswered- like I still don't really have any idea why Ms. Fuckemova was even after us? Maybe it comes clear in the next game.

God Of War

Really great game!! I didn't kill the Valkyrie queen and skipped the whole Niflheim grind. Too hard/boring - I prefer spending my time on the adventure/story/puzzle elements and not on the "getting good" (at fighting).

Questprobe, Featuring the Hulk. I just had an itch to play this since I like comics. It was made by Scott Adams in collaboration with Marvel, with artists like John Byrne and John Romita Jr. credited as contributing to it, although I suspect their input was quite limited.

You control Bruce Banner/the Hulk and you're apparently trapped in some kind of virtual reality simulation or cosmic jail where aliens are assessing your puzzle-solving abilities. How this plays out takes the form of many classic adventure games in that you have to find treasures and drop them off in a designated treasure room. You win by finding all of them and getting a perfect 100 point score.

This game has a pretty notorious opening puzzle in that Puny Banner is tied down in a chair and can only escape by becoming the Hulk, so of course the way you generate the stress needed to trigger the change is to "BITE LIP", which makes no freaking sense. BITE LIP is actually an important mechanic in the game because it's how you trigger the change all the way through the game because special gas flooding many rooms constantly forces him to change back to Banner. It's a very small game with only a few locations with minor variations among them and you repeat a lot of actions like digging holes in the dirt to find gems.

I tend to appreciate the historical importance of Scott Adams's work rather than enjoy it and this is pretty lame. The puzzles are mostly unsatisfying and unintuitive in their solutions (BITE LIP...holy shit...) and it doesn't at all capture the flavor of a comic book. The Hulk doesn't even get to smash anything! Games like this were why people thought there was a curse on superhero games for quite a long time.



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Tunic. This is a Zelda clone that got a lot of "I'm serious, it's really good!" hype a while back and it's mostly pretty good indeed. Your Link is a cute little anthropromorphic fox who has to explore and find stuff like a sword to fight enemies. A fun aspect of the game is that you need to solve puzzles by collecting pages of the game's manual, which is designed to look like a Nintendo Famicom manual, right down to having occasional notes scrawled in it by a previous owner. The manual is also mostly in a fictitious language that you can translate if you have the patience to do so.

The graphics are an isometric 3D and the developer loves to hide stuff behind objects and landmarks, so exploring thoroughly is good and you'll often find chests or maybe hidden ladders and pathways.

The combat is probably the most unsatisfying aspect of the game because it's yet another example of taking influence from Dark Souls to not much effect. It's not as punishing but it's that same style of block/dodge roll/stamina/get clobbered in 2 hits/try again/etc. It just feels uninspired, although it loosens up a lot as the game continues and you get strong enough that the combat becomes more of a nuisance to get out of the way as you concentrate on solving the game's puzzles, which feel like the real meat of the game and the key to the true ending. Some of the puzzles can be quite fiendish and require lengthy combinations of flawless inputs to solve. I quite liked this and will look forward to what the developer does next.

First game for this year. even started it in 2025.

Bioshock 2.


It was fun game, really enjoyed it after 3rd level or so. After you get few more weapons, few more powerups which dont cost half of your eve.

Took 14h to beat. worth playing.

Got the good ending of course. I am not a monster.

The Valkyrie queen wasn't so bad on normal difficulty! It was one the most enjoyable parts for me of the game when it comes to fighting. All the Valkyries were! I also tried a month ago the game on the hardest diffuculty in new game + and I got to the queen again. I spent 2 days trying to kill her and eventually I ... uninstalled the game :))) Now that was nearly impossible battle!

Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit

A very nice tribute to classics like Broken Sword and Fate of Atlantis while still being its own thing, with the fresh setting of Lithuanian history, original scenes and puzzles and pleasantly colorful, modern 3D graphics. I also liked that it featured occasional choices like letting the player pick from three different professions for the main character (which I believe slightly changed at least one puzzle in the game) or offering different dialogue options, though with little impact other than allowing you to roleplay the attitude of the heroine. I think it's also the first and only point-and-click adventure I've played that lets you change the look of the character freely. It will always be Milda, but you can decide what version of Milda you like best or even just dress for different occasions. It's not purely cosmetic though either, as at least one puzzle takes this mechanic into account. I found this "customize character" idea in a P&C adventure somewhat curious at first, but also very refreshing and original, and I came to like it.

The puzzles were rather easy most of the times, and to be honest, I appreciate that in point-and-click adventures. Even when I didn't know how to continue, leaving the game for a day, then coming back with a new idea was usually enough to progress. The only times that I, regretfully, resorted to a walkthrough for hints, was when I overlooked a hotspot (even though the game has a hotspot key, but I guess I either didn't use it enough or this particular hotspot was harder to see even with the help) and when you had to get back and pick up an item that the character wouldn't pick up before, in an area that I had almost forgotten about at that time (which I consider not so great puzzle design, but to be fair, there weren't that many locations to search in the first place, so overlooking this one was also a bit of my own fault). Still, despite all that I would have appreciated an in-game hint system for cases like this, like some other modern adventure games have. But that's just a minor nitpick.

The story was interesting enough to follow and I found the dialogues quite witty even at times, although while pretty light-hearted, it aims more for a somewhat believable and realistic tone than a silly comedy adventure. In this regard, I was a bit surprised at times, when the heroine still acted more like your typical brazen point-and-click adventure protagonist than a normal person, doing some rather mean or outright criminal things just to get her way. And not everything she says puts her in the best light. But I still liked her and the other characters well enough, and the voice-acting was well done, too. The only disappointment to me was the ending, because it felt a bit rushed and apparently one puzzle was cut from it but the remnants are still there, making no sense. Maybe they ran out of money or had to wrap things up quickly?

But if there will ever be a sequel to Crowns and Kings - the ending hints at further adventures - I'd be interested in playing that, too, because all in all I thought it was fun.

Some Goodbyes We Made

A collection of short narrative-focused mini games around the theme of farewells. The games themselves were of varying quality, from surprisingly effective and moving despite their simplicity, pulling the right strings with such limited means, being relatable and/or cute, to rather random and seeming somewhat pointless. But I enjoyed the general idea of the collection, the soft, calm music, the cute and varied graphics in most of the games, and that playing each of them unlocked a short personal anedote of the developer remembering what events inspired them to this particular idea. Something I also liked is that curiously enough these little anecdotes included choices for the player, as if they were a "choose-your-own adventure" mini game themselves, thereby blurring the lines between autobiographical and fictional and allowing the recipients to insert themselves and shape the anecdotes in a way they perceive as the most meaningful.

I played through the whole collection in like 90 minutes and I take things slowly, but I thought it was worth it. It was also a good thing to play in between, when I didn't feel like playing anything else or when I was in a melancholy mood, because while the games allowed me to feel a bit sad, they did so in a positive, reassuring and relaxed way that made me feel connected to the dev and other people. And I should probably mention that all the goodbyes in the game were rather harmless, bittersweet and meaningful, but not really devastating, avoiding themes like bad breakups or the death of loved ones (not sure if the dev is just a younger person with a comparatively happy life or whether they intentionally didn't want to go there, but I thought it fit the overall tone of the game, and there are enough indie games that are truly depressing - so I appreciated this lighter approach).

A Short Hike. It's a short game about hiking hur-hur-hur. You control a woman who's a bird (all the characters are anthropomorphized), which means you can glide on your wings certain distances, as you're on a short vacation to a forested park. The ultimate object of the game is to climb the highest peak, for which you'll need to collect golden feathers around the park that increase your climbing ability, and there are certain sidequests you can complete to get stuff.

I quite liked how the game looks and controls. It's a reasonable choice if you just want something relaxing to play for one afternoon. My only problem is that it's a game about characters who are getting away from the city...and they go to a park that's full of just as many people as a city. I kept wanting to enjoy the scenery and sense of nature and then one or two other people would come running down the path or something with a bunch of lame dialogue if you pushed a button to talk.

Secret Files: Tunguska
and
Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis

The stories are good. The graphics hold up well. The music and ambient sounds too.
The voice acting isn't the greatest (I'm being generous here), but switching to German helped a lot, IMO.
The puzzles start out being mostly good, but further along the moon logic starts getting absolutely ridiculous.

Even with the moon logic I have enjoyed the games. I've started Sam Peters and will certainly also do Secret Files 3 after that, but you really do need to be a hardcore point'n'click fan to tolerate the worst offending puzzles.

My first time participating in this thread, and doing it now off of the strength of:

Felvidek [GOG]

Wow, I loved my experience. This game is an ambitious indie that accomplishes what it sets out to do with stellar success (and certainly raises the bar for other RPGMaker games to try and match or surpass, in several aspects). I have seen Felvidek described as a horror comedy JRPG. While that is not entirely incorrect, I was reminded of old-school adventure gaming on PC as well. It did not take me long to complete Felvidek; approx. 5 hours. I have seen others claim to have finished the game in half that time, but I tend to play more deliberately and savor my own experience at my pace. As a very general rule, I would prefer RPGs to be a good bit longer, but I have realized over the years that it is a game's internal pacing and amount of content/replayability that matters moreso than an arbitrary hour figure.

Felvidek gets high marks for atmosphere, immersion, and uniqueness. The washed out colors or whatever filter was used with the graphics (I don't know that much about game development tools or art/design programs made after about 2005, sorry) is a striking look, and I am a sucker for the PS1-style cutscenes. I will note the game world itself/number of locations is rather small, but it becomes clear that this is a game where neither world-space nor the player's time is wasted. Essentially, everywhere you go seems to have a purpose or some content/quest with which to engage. The game world feels alive due to the content being packed so densely; there is always something going on or changing during the course of your adventure (and, as a result, the small size of the game world serves it well since you can quickly arrive at the different locations to see what changed, what other characters appeared or disappeared, etc).

To draw an imperfect but decent comparison, The Age of Decadence is another favorite game of mine that I was reminded of, at least in terms of having a small but densely-packed type of game world (and that game also has a relatively short "Time to Beat" with much to go back and see on subsequent playthroughs). To continue the comparison, I will note that the RPG mechanics are significantly simpler in Felvidek (not surprising given it is classic JRPG style) but I was pleased to see the inclusion of difficult and possibly unwinnable combats for an unprepared character or party. This is a realistic, immersive feature that I look for RPGs to have. Also, as in The Age of Decadence, the player is locked in or out of certain party members, paths, and encounters based on actions or even inactions. For some players, that may be a detriment, but it is what I like in a quality roleplaying experience and it adds replay value.

That said, even if Felvidek was completely linear with zero choices or variations, I would still probably replay it a few times just off of the strength of the writing alone. The story picks up quickly; again, not wasting the player's time. I did notice (in English) some small typos/uncapitalized words/etc but I was having too much fun to care (there are also some nicknames and untranslated dialogues, which, whether intentional or not, helped immerse me further in Felvidek's alternate history). The humor, including dark humor, was consistently amusing to me with actual laugh-out-loud moments, and I am someone who tends to prefer games "grimdark" rather than comedic. One particular enemy animation (though relatively uncommon) may be immersion-breaking for some players as, for lack of a better description, it resembles a meme face. For me, it actually didn't feel that far out of place in Felvidek's strange land.

In any case, the amount of tonal darkness during non-humorous parts was quite satisfying to me and for some is likely to be uncomfortable, even. There are weighty topics depicted and discussed. To draw another comparison, the depth of darkness reminded me of the first Nier game (wish we could get that one here DRM-free, but I digress). Also, as happens to be true of Nier, there is a limited amount of music tracks but they are well-done and very well-fitted to the corresponding in-game locations/instances. I did not feel that the game would be improved by additional tracks. Coupled with the quick traversal to different areas, the music's repeating and changing over itself essentially provided me a meta-level rhythm. That may seem an odd description, but it was my experience and I don't know how else to put it. Also, the compositional qualities of the tracks are quite interesting. I particularly admired the use of dissonance.

My positive experience with Felvidek led me to do something I usually don't do, and that is to lurk the Steam forums to view discussion topics about the game, as it has remained on my mind. In doing so, I was quite happy to see that, months ago, the developer commented that a free DLC is in the works. I will eagerly anticipate it arriving here. When I was browsing RPGs to buy on GOG, Felvidek intially grabbed my attention via its unique graphical look including PS1-style cutscenes. It made me fall in love when I played it for myself and was pleasantly surprised at so many aspects, particularly the quality of tonal darkness during many scenes, the increasing revelations within the twisting story, and the intriguing soundtrack. I'm wondering if the developer might one day try making a game fully in the PS1 type of style that helped catch my eye with Felvidek...a survival horror game by this dev could be exquisite.

Include Me

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth (22nd Jan)