Finally got around to playing and finishing this. Not sure how long it took as I deleted it off my Steam account straight away.

Pros:

+ It looks amazing throughout, lighting, effects, theme, atmosphere - everything is spot on, even 3 years on.

Cons:

- Crashed 2/3 of the times I first loaded it, and 1/3 the times I first went to a new area via train etc. You'd think in the last 3 years it could have acheived some sort of stability. No other games I've owned are this unstable.

- Far too long for a game of this ilk. Given the obvious flaws it drags on a lot. Half the length might have been tolerable.

- Goals are far too repetitive and dull - go to area, discover power is out, restore power. Find keycard, use keycard to restore power. Set Alien trap by closing doors, restore power. Escape area, restore power.

- Randomised loot is BS in a game that relies in part on loot-based crafting.

- Randomised Alien behaviour is BS in a game where the Alien is an instant death trap.

- Auto-saves are completely fucked i.e. almost all the times where you do significant events, get cutscenes etc, the game - unlike every other game in the history of auto-save games - doesn't save. So you have to sit through all that again when the inevitable death / replay happens.

- Given the above, the Alien is generally overplayed and boring. Drawn out sitting in closets / under desks with no option to plan what to do and no possible respite if you don't guess what the randomised AI does next. The worst bits of Alien Isolation were those which involved isolation with the Alien.

- Control system is a bit bolloxed i.e. radial menu being the same button as "escape action" so trying to check inventory while in hiding = escape hiding = death. Accidentally escaping a loot box = default switching back from flamethrower to custom buttplug or something useless etc.

- Overly-clunky controls for actions are constantly tedious. There's a select button AND a use button but too many actions require switching to arrow keys or pressing aim and fire then left or right or back or some other gobbledegook.


In short it's boring, frustrating, repetitive, fan-boy only rubbish. The worst equal game I've played in recent years along with The Solus Project which was even duller but less frustrating. 

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified - 6/10
I quite liked the story and style. Prev-gen graphics though and tactical is a bit annoying and challenging. But I did enjoy setting up turrets and health bots and using the special abilities. The shooting was decent. Quite fun game.

Never Alone - 5/10
3 horu Unity indie platformer. Shitty controls, annoying puzzles and many, many instant deaths. Nice different theme in the snow but really, it could have had some nicer backgrounds. Really overrated on Steam.

GTA V - can't decide on 8.5 or 9/10.
I wasn't expecting to like this so much, it's my first GTA experience. The graphics aren't that great, but probably the best so far for such a massive sandbox game. 90% of this game is story cinematics and driving to start the next conversation. But it is driving simulation at it's finest, and for what shooting there is, it is enjoyable. I loved the characters and story, this would make a fantastic tv series, like a mix of Breaking Bad and Sons Of Anarchy. Main story must have taken about 25 hours, I didn't do any sidequests because the game is really quite easy as it is, there's no need for levelling or upgrading equipment, you get tonnes of money for doing nothing. So yeah great game, I wouldn't bother with GTA Online though. None of the graphic enhancement mods really worked. I think by the time we get to GTA 6 on next-gen consoles, it's going to look amazing with proper high quality textures and better lighting and weather effects. 

 

It is free at
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/shadow-warrior-special-edition

Valid for 18 hours as of the time when this post is made. 

Downloaded it last night, gotta be worth a try at that price! 

Lucius is @ 0.89€ for 9 days. 

What is it with games not remembering AND/OR not letting you chose whether you want to launch singleplayer, multi or something else. I am looking at Doom and Titanfall 2 specifically. 

Definitely getting value for money from this. After the fiasco that was Alien Isolation, this is a bit of fresh air. Sure the design is a bit bland, the theme is one that doesn't do it for me personally, and the graphics are pre-last-gen-pre-millenium etc etc, but it's good fun and the humour is fairly tolerable. The only big issue I've had is the horrible head-bob. 

Well worth it's recent price. Numerous minor flaws as well as the headbob including overly-arenay combat and boring bosses culminating in a final boss I simply couldn't be arsed to get through, and sometimes crude "gamey" designs. BUT then again numerous things it does right - good movement, fun weapons, useful sword, useful loot / minor upgrades, really useful quicksave, balanced combat, tolerable humour, skippable cutscenes, good variety in locations, a proper theme, decent enemies. In short as game that encourages you to shoot the shit out of a lot of things, it hits the mark far more than themeless and/or overly cheesy stuff like Painkiller, Bulletstorm, etc. Still not sure it's worth the £30 full price it's back up to but maybe if you like the style. 

 

 

Stumbled upon this today. No idea what the game is worth but the player character looks like a total wet dream for pervs, complete with kardashianesque silhouette, buttcrack camera shots (remember the original Tomber Raider? That was nothing!) and exaggerated boob sway... xD Oboy!

Just in case some of my fellow quakers would happen to be said pervs, be aware that the game is still available @ half price for about 3.5 hours on Humble Bundle. 

Japanese theme, got "Shadow" in the name, but somewhat different:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/418240/Shadow_Tactics_Blades_of_the_Shogun/

Got a demo to try to. I'm sure someone must have posted it already? Not a big fan of the theme, really don't like the cartoony outlines, a little bit too isometric.....but it seems pretty damn good in general. Proper easy to grasp hard to master style. 

Never been a fan of the Commandos style of gameplay but it looks niceish (it's more the waterfalls than the rather light cell shading that bug me). Medieval Japan is a theme much less used in videogames than WWII so that's fine by me. This isn't isometry BTW but real 3D: you can see the cam rotate at the end of the trailer. 

I played a couple of hours of the demo last night night, I know it's not true isometric. BUT most of it is on quite squarish grid and you can't move the camera angle in the vertical plane. Not a big deal TBH but iirc something like XCom feels more natural (although it's still very griddish). 

looks like a game I really want to enjoy but something that I will not enjoy. But I can appreciate the aesthetic. 

Also did anyone else play Satellite Reign? Not as tactically deep as ST, and a bit repetitive, but a very nice cyberpunk style. 

on Humble Bundle. 40 to 60% off. 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/650670/Grimoire__Heralds_of_the_Winged_Exemplar/

Cleveland Mark Blakemore's Magnum Opus! The ultimate classic style turn-based roleplaying game in the tradition of Wizardry, Might&Magic, Lands Of Lore and Eye of the Beholder! A game that took over 20 years to produce! As much as 600 hours of play with hand-painted graphics and old skool goodness!

This is basically a huge CRPG of the blobber type made by an insane Neanderthal living in a fallout shelter. Perpetually delayed, the game was a running gag until a demo was released a few years back and impressed everyone with how great it was. 

RiME

Started playing it this morning and it's absolutely gorgeous. Gameplay is so-so. 

I've seen all the physics comparison videos on the internet and read all the stories about how GTAV is a gameplay-wise step back from GTAIV.

Yet, it looks so good and it looks like it's got a huge map so I'd really like to try it.

Should I get it and get a savefile so I can cheat and play they whole map from the start? 

Never heard of it before. Watched the first hour of the video, looks lovely (I dig the cartoony design) and relaxing but I wonder about the game's interest in the long run: you seem to do quite a lot of running from point A to point B and back, it looks like an open world at first before you realize it's very linear and the puzzles don't offer much of a challenge. That said, I did spend one full hour only watching the vid and I didn't feel bored at all. Might be worth checking out after all...