New Year, new Motivation

Looking at my Steam Review, it is becoming clear that I play less and less new games and tend to stick to the same old games again and again. At least at the end/beginning of the year, I get a small motivation push to do some new gaming.

• Resident Evil 5
  

  83 hours playtime

  70 of 70 achievements

• Steelrising
  

  56 hours playtime

  55 of 55 achievements

• Lenna's Inception
  

  37 hours playtime

  53 of 54 achievements

• System Shock
  

  43 hours playtime

  45 of 46 achievements

• Terror At Oakheart
  

  3 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

Resident Evil 5: This one makes me actually quite happy. It was another game lying around in my library, completed in the main game. However, I was still missing the PvP section as I didn’t want to bother with other people. Then last christmas, I finally made a thread in the forum. And after a few days with smaller groups, we formed quite a large 20+ people group where progress could be made steadily across three continents. Even with this, the achievements have been a drag as you need to win 30 games in four different mode, with each game at least 3-5 minutes long. So, overall with helping other players this took about 20 hours. BUT, I have finally completed the game.
Other than that, I assume everyone knows what RE5 is about. It is an action co-op game in third person where you shoot people in Africa ^^’ Number one reason, it will probably get no remake. Nonetheless, it is one of the best co-op experiences i had. Fun game actually. (minus PvP achievements).

Steelrising: I think this is the first (?) “souls-like” that I ever played? You play Aegis, an automat coming to live during the french revolution. Initially, you only follow the queen’s order but are quickly drawn into the deeper conflict, fighting the hostile lifeless automats of the king. The setting and aesthetics are nice. There are quite a bit of weapons (however I tended to use the same three most of time due to familiarity). Personally, I found reading the attacks difficult sometimes and some bosses where quick to fight without items. But most of the time, you could overpower them with grinding levels. It is supposed to be an easy game. Achievement-wise, you have to pay attention as some quests need to be solved in a very specific manner and there are some missables. And you can NOT save. Everything is just on one auto-save. However, you can back-up saves from the folder. An annoying design decision.

Lenna’s Inception: This has been my co-op game with my friend i visit twice a year. And so, it took quite a bit of time to get most of the game done. About 2 years? It is a Zelda like game with a slightly silly story, rogue-lite random elements and glitches. It makes for an interesting approach and also has some mystery. We played through the game twice: normal ending and then the good ending. The remaining achievements I did alone which comprise the challenge runs. In these, you have to play the eight dungeons (or less) back to back with certain conditions like: only three hears, no sword but unlimited bombs, lighter run, glitch run, etc. So, what is missing for Lenna’s Inception for completion? The final challenge run: 0 hears. Play through eight dungeons without getting hit once …. Currently, I don’t have the patience for that one -_- Can’t even beat all bosses without getting hit. Still. a fun Zelda-like game with a kinda different story.

System Shock: 2023 Remake. Man, I was cursing in this game more than I should. System Shock is a sci-fi dungeon crawler where you - the Hacker - are transported to a space station that recently got some re-design by a murderous AI, named Shodan. Granted, I played on normal (and on easy there are said to be waypoints) but the navigation was brutal. You have this labyrinth like structures across 9 levels (of which you can access seven up to the same time at one point) and you have very limited clue on what you are supposed to do. I was running around headless quite a bit, as i just couldn’t find where to go next. And that with reading everything i found. Granted, one issue was that I did something earlier which resulted in game over but later you had to do this ….. Also, up to a certain point, enemies respawn making this a very hard ressource management. AND you have VERY limited inventory space. Overall, I managed to get through the game on my own! Minus one part where I had to collect a head. No idea, how I should have figured that out (especially where to find it, across seven levels). And the final fight (when you do it on hard) is very annoying and lengthy with no chance to save and easy to mess up. But yea, got through the game. And it was kinda fun. BUT, it makes you curse a lot and some things are simply to obscure. But for the most part it is an interesting experience to play something again which asks you to pay attention and to search around (looking at you La-Mulana). So, why is it beaten and not completed despite me having played through the game on hard (which means you have 10 hours, before Shodan kills you, which therefore you shouldnt do on your first run!). Well, I am missing the last achievement which is “Get all other achievements” ….. which I have ….. So, yea. The final achievement is bugged. There was supposed to be a November patch which didn’t come and there was no word since then. But hopefully, it will come soon and fix the achievement, so that I just need to start up once and have it done.
This is now the third SG win (Finding Teddy 2 and Poncho), I can not complete because of broken achievements -_- A bit annoying. I could have a better completion rate.

Terror at Oakhart: is a horror game or something like that. Initially, I thought this is a running around and hiding game, to evade the brutal murderer. Or to navigate through complex structures like Claire, with ressource management. Nope, for a good part, this is just walking without much gameplay, progressing the story. Because the focus is on the story where you sometimes play the victim, sometimes the murderer and sometimes the “hero”.The focus is nearly completely on the great pixel art with lots of different and grotesque monster designs (though gameplay is similar in most cases) which is okay. As said, some chapters are mostly walking around and getting the right sequence. And then there are three chapters which focus on action gameplay where you play the sheriff with unlimited ammo and dodge roll. All in all very weird but in a good way. What else? The game is short. Like i played through this in one sitting of three hours. Which is fine for me, because I need more shorter games ^^’ The pixel aesthetics are definitely the highlight of the game.

And now, back to more gaming? Probably more Puzzle Pirates, more Vermintide 2. Maybe getting back to Persona 4 and maayybe Resident Evil 1. But honestly, I think I will go for some quicker games and take a look at my Shadow backlog. I’m eying some puzzle games from the Humbe Bundle. Maybe Patrick’s Parabox. Lots of maybes ^^’

Ninglors Log 425

January Progress:
16
PPU monthly:
done
January Additions:
3

Games finished this week:

Won/Gifted Games:
Bought Games:
Cerulean Invasion - Kickstarter
Currently playing:

So much from me :3
Have a lovely week!
Queen Ninglor

• Blobun Mini
  

  76 minutes playtime

  no achievements

Top down puzzle. Arrow keys move, X undoes your moves, and Z is the confirm button for menus. The goal is to move over every tile without moving onto the same tile twice; a fairly common puzzle-type, and sure enough, a lot of the early levels are pretty boring and easy. That said, the game does start to get more challenging as the game progresses, and sure, part of that is because each world introduces new gimmicks and you’ll start to have trouble keeping up with all of them, but there were also quite a few levels where I did remember what everything did and yet still had to think about how to solve the level for a couple minutes or so. Some of the levels near the end are larger than what the screen shows, which is always annoying since you have to burn an attempt simply to scout ahead, but at least there are only a few of them.

Plus, the game’s free, so I can definitely recommend it. There’s also a paid, non-mini version, but looking at its screenshots, the only thing that stands out to me is that it has more gimmicks, including a darkness gimmick of all things, so this free version might ironically be the better game by virtue of keeping its scope somewhat limited in comparison.

#393
#3 of 2026
January 25, 2026

It’s called Braid because Soulja Boy had braids at the time

Completed January 2026:

159.6 hours playtime
46 of 46 achievements

Fashion Police Squad

Average boomer shooter with some good ideas, the game looks quite good, sounds quite good and even has some fun moving mechanics (that i would have like seen developed more) but overall is quite average, it rellies too heavily in its humor, that can be good sometimes but it gets kinda repetitive (kinda like Toriko if anyone has seen that anime, everything is gourmet this or gourmet that, just that its fashion this or fashion that here). The shooting is fine and I like having to switch weapons to target specific enemies. Overall I recommend it.

Outer Wilds

Maybe the best most innovatible puzzle game i’ve played in a long while, its really unique in its approach to puzzles and is really rewarding, i did use a guide for a couple of things but mostly figured things out on my own, i recommend this approach, most you need is there for you and you can help yourself with the ship log for hints, i also really like it’s approach to story telling, its another puzzle in and on itself and it manages to connect with the player. The music is also great though a bit minimalist at times. Fully recommend this game to anyone

Legacy of Kain™ Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered

Soul reaver 1 is an amazing game, it has an amazing narrative, great puzzles and an incredible gameplay loop with lots of spells to discover, collectibles and secret areas i love the exploration feeling of it I couldn’t get enough of it, soul reaver 2 is not that good, its good but thats it, combat became a the main mechanic, its not good combat and its not actually required to do most encounters, there is spells, no collectibles and no exploration whatsoever, there are still a couple fun puzzles but mostly the only thing going for this game is the narrative, it has like 2 hours of cutscenes and they are all amazing.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance

The finale of the story of Kain and Raziel, it improved the combat significantly and made use of the elemental power of previous games much better in my opinion, sadly the story took a bit of a drop not because it aint good because it is but it has a lot less story and the writing was simplified a lot, still i really enjoyed it and would recommend. I’ll probably fill the gaps with the two blood omen games at some point

A Plague Tale: Requiem

Great sequel to a great game, the mechanics have been improved, I don’t feel like there is only one solution to any problem anymore, a great closure (?) to the series narratively too

Red Dead Redemption 2

A masterpiece, this game is so good I could not believe it, the amount of interactivity that you have and the narrative are completely top notch, cinematics, music, characters, customization, map. There is not a single thing that this game doesn’t do greatly. Play it.

Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™

Good game, it’s fun to kill orcs and use powers, I am not as much of a fan as the rest of the people of the nemesis system for some reason but it’s still quite good, the narrative is quite weak tho, too little of it mostly. Still it’s a really fun skinner box that will make the time fly.

Supraland

Supraland Crash


Supraland Six Inches Under


I really loved these games, I always loved being small in a world like us, always loved Re-volt and the rats map on Counter strike 1.6. And this game is a great mixture of puzzle and action and humor, some of the humor is not to my taste sometimes but its usually pretty light hearted and fun. Really recommend it, will wait to get the new one when it’s on sale.

Reviewed all in one because they are basically the same game, the dlc is a sequel and the six inches under a side game; both with a couple new mechanics but nothing crazy.

Thank Goodness You’re Here!


Incredibly funny game, love me some british humor and this game has a lot of it, there is no much actual gameplay, it’s mostly a walking sim with a couple of mini games, but i really really enjoyed it

Etrian Odyssey HD


Pretty fun japanese dungeon crawler where its whole gimmick is that you have to map the world yourself and i quite liked it, its pretty zen for me, the combat its not, its good combat but challenging. It has good music, good art and the story even if little is well done.
The game kinda starts to fall for me in the post game, you have an extra dungeon in the post game and some extremely hard quests to complete but combat wise, boss monsters are really hard and you have a level cap of 70 for your characters and i cannot beat them. And mappingwise, that kinda falls apart too because the game gets extremely annoying with the amount of random teleporters and fall traps in the later levels so its more tedious than anything, i probably won’t be finishing the remaining quests because i would have to get new characters and follow a build guide or something but i will map it all atleast.

Mafia: Definitive Edition

I tried to play the original as a kid but had a bug that made my car disappear through the floor, now i finally was able to play it, it is a good game, nice music, the combat is good and the driving is fun, the story is the main thing tho and its quite a good story. Tbh i though this game was open world but its a series of missions, that was a bit of a disappointment but it’s still a great game

Report #55: July-December + 2025 Afterword

Happy New Year assassins, 2026 couldn’t get here soon enough. Last year turned out to be a bit of a disappointment after a pretty strong start. (I’m just talking about backlog-hunting.) Part of it was foreseeable - I moved and had my rig in transit and storage for a good three months. The break made me lose all momentum in gaming, and I found other ways to fill my time that persisted even as I rebuilt my battlestation. I did not finish any games after the month of June. Throughout the year I received a few gaming gifts and also decided to activate a number of keys I had sat on, so from May to year’s end I had gone from a backlog net change of -6 to +3. Fiddlesticks.

Given all this, the volume of 2026 backlog slaying is likely to remain meager. I will certainly not buy many games, but I may not play a lot of them either.

Good luck to you all

Beaten 🥳

• Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
  

Played 👍

• Persona 4 Golden
  
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
  
• 1000xRESIST
  

Added to Backlog 🙈

• The Council
  
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
  
• Sniper Elite 4
  
• 63 Days
  
• Myst III: Exile
  
• Desperados III
  
• The Lamplighters League
  
• Heavy Rain
  
• Beyond: Two Souls
  

Steam Library Snapshot

End of 2025

End of 2024

End of 2023

End of 2022

End of 2021

End of 2020

Rocket-launcher will solve you a lot of problems

Ninglors Log 424

January Progress:
13
PPU monthly:
done
January Additions:
2

Games finished this week:

Won/Gifted Games:
Bought Games:
Peak
Currently playing:

So much from me :3
Have a lovely week!
Queen Ninglor