May 2025 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 12/2024

Ghostwire: Tokyo (Q1 2022) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 5 months

Action Light Horror
17h | 0 of 66 (0%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- If you're interested in Japanese culture there is a lot of historical lore to learn - Good soundtrack

The bad 👎
- Combat is really basic
- Enemies are not interesting and are very predictable
- There is a lot of padding (like in all Ubisoft games), so it IS a typical open-world "climb a tower" Ubisoft creation
- Story is very standard and ending is easy to predict
- Game requires 3rd party video codec to show cutscenes, that doesn't come with Windows or K-Lite codec pack. Either manually install from Windows Store, or manual installation via PowerShell is required

Conclusion:

The game starts as a mild horror, with us having to sneak around paranatural enemies in order to survive. And quickly turn into FPS with copy-paste enemies, map filled with endless supply of fetch quests and collectibles, and short main storylike. If you like generic "Ubisoft genre" you will be happy with hundreds of graffiti, spirit clumps, food types, clothes, small figures etc. to collect. Otherwise, you will be bored rush through main story and think "oh, it's over already?".

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Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☑ Average ☐ Good

Akito rushes on the motorbike (never a good idea) to the hospital to his dying sister. He gets into a car accident, suffer near-death wounds and is reanimated by a phantom of KK - a former cop who was fighting supernatural phenomena while still alive. Akito wakes up to realize 1) his body is not fully his own any more 2) everyone in Tokyo is gone, after making contact with spooky mist. He does the only logical thing - keep rushing to the hospital to see his sister. On place, it turns out his sister did not disappear in the poof of mist, but is instead kidnapped by clearly out of whack guy in a samurai mask. Mumbling about using Akito's sister to resurrect his family. From this point game obviously focus on Akito fighting city full of "visitors" - creepy being from the underworld - in order to safe his sister. Change from whiny crybaby to man up Schwarzenegger that fight oversized underworld bosses is rushed and not believable. And I won't be surprised if you know how the game ends, after my brief summary of first 1.5h gameplay.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☑ Boring ☐ Average ☐ Good	The city created for this game is very detailed. But also very empty. We can meet: visitors that try to kill us, cats that can sell us some junk (if we care enough to grind money to have funds), and dogs that can be pet. On top of that, there are a lot of spirits that "need just this one thing done for them before they can move on". Which is your usual fetch quests "go-kill-retrieve" slop. We run around the deserted city to the next objective. Use talismans to absorb spirits along the way. Collected spirits are later transferred via a phone booth into the "real world" to restore people there, and we get experience points and some funds in return. Problem is the number of spirits we can hold at a time is very limited, which means we constantly run between phone booths and spirit clusters. Like a person who drank too much coffee and need to constantly run for a toilet. It does break the flow of the game. It is possible to grind for cash and buy more amulets (so we can hold more spirits), but it makes the soul-absorbing loop just a bit less tedious. Not eliminate is entirely. Some experience is also gained from fighting enemies, but then combat is not great. So pick your poison.
🪄 Abilities ☐ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☑ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat	We can run, jump and have limited "hover" used to jump between rooftops (if we fancy). On top of that we can shoot energy with our hands, but it boils down to having 3 guns: green is assault rifle, blue is shotgun and red is rocket launcher. Ammo is limited, so shots can't be carefree. Especially if we don't spend time unlocking "Ubisoft towers" that contain bracelets, which act as passive damage boost for our abilities. It is possible to increase the ammo capacity, but it requires running around the city to find hidden statues. On top of that we have a bow (the only offensive tool we have at disposal when KK is "not available") but environmental ammo is very scarce, and the main source are cat shops. Which is expensive. There are immobilization or protection amulets, but they suffer from the same issue as arrows - can't be found around, need to be bought. There is a "scan" ability that is used to track spirits in handful of mission, and to highlight collectibles/visitors in 30(base)-50(upgraded)m radius.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☑ Adequate ☐ Fluid and enjoyable	Controls are fine. Thought there is not much that can go wrong. There is no parkour or precise movement required. We run around or go on the rooftops to jump around (easier to avoid visitors that way).
📇 Inventory and menus ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	The only menu I was using was the map for fast travel. The rest of the interface is focused on reading material on Japanese folklore, or to track hundreds of available collectibles. All long-winged cutscenes can be skipped if we die in the middle of a boss fight.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Great	Like I mentioned above, there are basically 3 types of weapons. Assault rifle for generic enemies. Rocket launcher for mini-bosses and enemies with shield. And shotgun, which I was using after running out of rockets. We shot with our hands. Enemies are brain-dead and always charge at us. So it's enough to walk back while shooting to end all encounters. Some sneaking is possible, and enemies can be one-hit killed that way. But then usually the rest of the enemies will notice us, and it goes into the usual gun fight. Some enemies have typical close range approach, while others can shoot various objects at us. And it is funny to see visitors looking as high schoolers, throwing classroom objects in our direction. After we deal enough damage we can expose the enemy core. At this point we can shoot it once or twice more to destroy the visitor, or extract it (which takes time and makes us vulnerable for attacks, but also conserves ammo). If we don't destroy the core within few seconds it will reset and visitor will be back at full health. Each weapon have ultimate fire mode, but it mows through ammo like crazy and leaves us dry after few seconds.
🤖 Game AI ☐ Brain dead ☑ Really basic ☐ Average ☐ Smart and responsive	Enemies have no strategy or thought. They just charge at us. The same goes for bosses. And there are no NPCs to see if they would have any brain power.

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☐ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☑ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☐ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☐ One checkpoint, frequent ☑ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☐ Can run on potato ☐ Medium requirements ☑ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☐ Nothing to remember ☐ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☑ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☑ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☐ No map ☐ Basic ☑ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details: - gameplay is flashy and city is fleshed out and well detailed - Japanese voice acting is in the same style like if you'd watch an anime

Activated: 09/2024

We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip (Q3 2023) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 8 months

Co-op Puzzle
3.0h | 12 of 12 (100%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- No walking-padding sequences like in the previous title
- Interesting challenges that require thinking, navigating and good communication
- Puzzles can be solved in "easy" way by getting fewer points per challenge, which will make it easier to play with kids
- Puzzles can't be solved or brute forced by one player
- Game doesn't have a "big backstory". Which is good, as the backstory of previous games was not great

The bad 👎
- It has only 3 puzzles, thought it is so cheap it is worth paying 3 EUR for it

Conclusion:

I do like it. Feel less bloated than the previous title. No unskippable cutscenes and no average voice acting. No bland villains to defeat. Just puzzles. Main characters survive a storm at the sea and end up on an island. Need to solve 3 puzzles to build the boat to leave. Each puzzle has a "completion level" which is signified by a ticket obtained at the end. Bronze - silver - gold level. To beat puzzles with brown level we don't need to have perfect communication or think very hard, which makes it more approachable for kids. To obtain gold tickets we need to be way more efficient and organized. There are more figures to describe in "select right character" puzzle, more trials to complete in "one played guides the other" puzzle, and more points to get in "generate points by creation of synergy between tiles on a map" puzzle. While previous game had all-or-nothing approach.

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Details

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☐ Story progression ☑ Few collectibles / easy to get ☐ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☐ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☑ One checkpoint, frequent ☐ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☐ Can run on potato ☑ Medium requirements ☐ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☑ Nothing to remember ☐ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☐ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☑ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☑ No map ☐ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details: - I saw people complain that game is buggy, but I did not saw any bugs myself

April 2025 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 08/2024

We Were Here Forever (Q2 2022) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 8 months

Co-op
15.5h | 39 of 39 (100%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- This game is less buggy and more polished than the previous games in the series, but it occasionally still needs to be restarted to reset a buggy puzzle
- Puzzles are interesting and less cumbersome, except the "whale-sound" challenge
- No issue with always-on mic that needs to be changed in the settings

The bad 👎
- Story is really meh
- Voice acting is very average

Conclusion:

Asymetrical Puzzle game with improved graphics and average voice acting. Some puzzles rely less on the partner, and could be solved single-handedly. Which is not a good thing when it makes your partner a bit obsolete. It is the longest game in the series, but some of the gameplay is spent on backtracking and watching unskippable animations. It does not negate the fact that the co-op puzzle genre sits in an abandoned corner, and it would be hard to find a better game in the genre. So I do recommend it, but you need to know that it is not without flaws.

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☑ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☐ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☑ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☑ One checkpoint, frequent ☐ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☐ Can run on a potato ☑ Medium requirements ☐ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures/geometry problems ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☑ Nothing to remember ☐ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☐ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☑ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☑ No map ☐ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details: Game is still buggy and requires checkpoint restart to continue

Activated: 12/2024

Dungeons of Sundaria (Q4 2023) ⭐️⭐☆☆☆

Beaten after: 4 months

Co-op, Dungeon-Crawler
17,5h | 8 of 13 (62%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- This game is so bad you start to enjoy how broken it is
- All armors are fully color customizable
- Depends on your preference, being so powerful to OHK mobs and mowing through bosses before they can finish their introductory lines can be seen as a positive or negative
- Loot constantly feels like a substantial improvement, not useless grind
- Enemy design is given way more attention than I would expect from a low-budget title, with each level having unique designs
- Long list of abilities to choose from
- Resuming game mid-level doesn't restart the level progress

The bad 👎
- Game is abandoned by the developers
- Can select any race for any class, even when it ends up not being able to aim (bulky lizard race as an archer obfuscates the aiming reticle)
- Platforming is not great, and you will repeatedly miss a jump and die
- In one instance, the same annoying huge damage-area boss spawned 2-3 times during one fight. Repeatedly. Which meant I had to kill 3 instances of the same boss. He was not supposed to respawn mid-fight and re-say his dialogue 🤣
- Voice acting is painful to listen to

Conclusion:

This is the type of game "that is so bad it makes it funny and entertaining". The first level is long and slow, then it gets ridiculously easy when you can mow through both mobs and bosses. I had to ask people I played with not to attack the boss, for the boss to have time to say their storylines. But then sometimes the boss keeps saying dialogue lines even after it's dead. Big difficulty spikes do happen, and the game is not well balanced. I have beaten the last mission before I was able to beat the second-to-last, as enemies there were OHK me. There are slight geometry problems during platforming. Or a pit we need to jump into to progress, has a 90% chance to kill us due to the fall damage. Enemies can do crazy break dancing after they are killed.

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☑ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☐ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☑ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☑ One checkpoint, frequent ☐ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☑ Can run on a potato ☐ Medium requirements ☐ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☑ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures/geometry problems ☐ Average ☐ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☑ Nothing to remember ☐ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☐ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☑ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☐ No map ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details: Imp enemy has a very loud and annoying dying sound

March 2025 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 12/2024

Impostor Factory (Q3 2021) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 3 months

PixelArt VisualStory
4h | 1 of 1 (100%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- we can run, which speeds up boring walking stretches

The bad 👎
- the mechanics are exactly the same as in previous games. Collect glowy balls to progress the story, without any sort of minigames
- story is not very engaging "you're stuck in a time loop". And then progresses into "run to the right, as a big chunk of the game is showing someone else's memories, to learn their story without much player interaction
- feels like a basic prequel of To The Moon rather than a full standalone game

Conclusion:

We're invited into a mansion for a demo of some device. The game quickly turns into a murder mystery, as our hosts get murdered and we're the main suspect! Thankfully, time get rewinded, so we get a chance to find the real killer. But in the end the hosts always die, and we can't find the killer. Then the game turns into a long sequence where we walk through someone else's memories, and our gameplay is limited to clicking on the characters to initialize the dialogues. It feels like a visual novel at this point. And then there is the matrix "reality-breaking" ending that doesn't feel right. And points to the events shown in To The Moon. So the whole game looks like a prequel to the original, with cut mechanics (no minigames) and the ability to run.

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Details

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☑ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☐ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☐ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☑ One checkpoint, frequent ☐ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☑ Can run on potato ☐ Medium requirements ☐ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☐ Nothing to remember ☐ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☑ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☑ Resolution, volume only ☐ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☑ No map ☐ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details: Apart from a bit smoother animations, there are barely any upgrates to graphic in comparison to 2014 Bird Story

Activated: 12/2024

Moncage (Q4 2021) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 3 months

Puzzle
3.5h | 15 of 15 (100%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- nice spatial puzzle design, which is logical and doesn't require guessing
- music is kept to a minimum, which helps with focus
- the background story that is told through background photographs is a nice add-on

The bad 👎
- quick switching between panels while zooming in/out can be cumbersome

Conclusion:

It is a nice game. Not too hard, and it doesn't require looking for obscure environmental pieces that need to be aligned, like in some The Witness puzzles. It can be easily played in short bursts, as we resume right where we ended. Not x steps earlier due to the game checkpoint system. I would not buy it at full price, but at discount, it's a nice addition for someone who likes enviromental "align stuff to progress" games.

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Details

📘 Story ☑ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☐ Good

There is some background story of a young man going to war. Although it's nothing more than a filler to make the transition between new box facets more interesting. We learn the story by collecting photographs hidden around the levels.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☐ Average ☑ Good

Each box facete shows a different environment/place. We can zoom into the facete to interact with the objects within it. When we zoom out, we can combine objects from different facets. E.g. align pulley wheel connected to a trap door, with a pulley connected to a weight, to spin the "composite" pulley and move the trap door; or align robot's arm from the factory with excavator arm from the warehouse, for the "composite" robot arm to reach into the warehouse and drop box in the factory. A good description of this game is "what you see is what you get". Image adjustment doesn't need to be pixel-perfect, as the game has reasonable bounds where it helps players to snap images together. There is also a basic hints menu. After we unlock all 5 box facets, new sides will override those that lack objects we can interact with.

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☐ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☐ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☑ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☑ One checkpoint, frequent ☐ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☑ Can run on potato ☐ Medium requirements ☐ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☑ Nothing to remember ☐ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☐ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☑ Resolution, volume only ☐ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☑ No map ☐ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details:

February 2025 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 10/2024

Cyberpunk 2077 (Q4 2020) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 3 months

RPG
50h | 0 of 57 (0%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Unlimited respec options
- The story is good but kind of short
- Very good system performance test 🤣 (though I think Wuhang already dethroned Cyberbug here)
- Cyberpunk climate is oozing from the screen
- A lot of attention to body and clothing customization
- Very good voice acting

The bad 👎
- Doesn't matter if we beat missions stealthy or aggressively
- Ending doesn't take into consideration our choices above "if you beat side quests, an extra road to the same ending will unlock"
- Abilities feel lackluster
- NPCs are brainless. They walk around, dragging their feet like a zombie, stuck in the same animation loops
- Enemies are very basic and their design is copy-pasted
- So much customization and we never see ourselves. Mirrors don't even show reflection unless we "activate" them
- Inability to change car paint color seems like a big omission
- It is painfully obvious that racing is rigged in our favor (competition waiting when we hit an obstacle, or rubber-band chase if we drive perfectly)
- During normal driving other cars move away to make us a path, like we are an ambulance with sirens on
- Physics can go bonkers, and walking past a stack of boxes or picking up a cup will send objects flying
- There are only 2 enemy robot designs in the whole game - flying scout and walking tank
- Interactions with Jonny don't matter, and the secret ending is unlocked after picking specific responses in one dialogue
- Starting background (badlands, street kid, corpo) doesn't matter
- Police can still spawn in the field of vision, and police chase sequences are very lack luster

Conclusion:

This game is like an empty easter egg. Very beautiful on the surface, and missing essence on the inside. Great customization options? Too bad we will never see changes to how we look unless we check the inventory. A lot of quests everywhere? Too bad they are basic filler, the main plot is short, and romance quests feel more polished than the main storyline. Romance storylines also take together more time than the main story, which is kind of weird considering V is working around the clock to not die. Big city full of opportunities? There is literally nothing to do, except visit clothes and cyberware shops. Or stealing a car to drive around without purpose. Tons of abilities to unlock and weapons to customize how we play? It doesn't matter if we play stealth or gun blaze, quests have exactly one end. Stealth only makes everything very long.

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Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☑ Average ☐ Good

There is a lot of lore for bookworms. Worldbuilding + atmosphere is very good. With a big help from the graphic quality. I played the main story for a bit, and got to a point "ok, let's focus on non-filler side missions now". I completed everything and went back to the main story. And I was literally one mission away from point-of-no-return. 5 out of 8 Act 1 missions feel like a long tutorial that ends with us getting the first cyberware. Act 1 concludes with two short missions where we see Johnny and learn how he died. Followed by 9 missions shared between Judy and Panam, which feel like side quests to build a romance with those two, not a part of the main quest. 4 Arasaka-focused missions. Which feels like the main missions, because we learn more about our condition, that Johnny will slowly "overwrite" V, unless we find a way to break into Arasaka and learn how to save V etc. This ends Act 2, and springs us into a short ending. Where we attack Arasaka tower alone, with Rogue or Panam. When I saw I had 3 choices of ending I thought "great, I can replay this and see how different the game ends!". But it doesn't matter. Alone/Rogue/Panam paths are 2 missions that focus on different ways to get into the Arasaka tower. But then paths converge, which kills replayability. For the whole game, we were doing everything to save V. And the game ends with "meh, doesn't matter". Feels like red/blue/green ME3 endings, where on the surface it looks like choices through the game meant something, but in the end, the illusion breaks. Wonder if it's because they were planning Cyberpunk 2 already, so having diverging endings would make it hard to execute.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☑ Average ☐ Good	Fast travel to mission, do mission, fast travel to next mission. The city is dead, and there is nothing to do. NPCs have nothing to say. There are a lot of "go and retrieve x" gigs. You can drive around instead of fast travel, but it feels off. Other cars will move to the side ever so slightly to give you space, so you don't hit them. Police lose interest after a couple of seconds (unless you go and kill civilians on purpose). Environmental food is often a flat texture, and V can't even eat it. The only way for us to eat food is to use it in inventory. Even part of the main story, where Jackie eats Chinese food during a long conversation is not animated properly. He is dunking chopsticks into a flat noodle texture and lifting pink cylinders to his mouth. Cylinders are not part of the dish when you look into the box. I think of GTA V released 7 years earlier, or 10 years younger Skyrim, and there was so much to do there, apart from going between the main missions. Pickpocketing people. Being caught during a crime and having a conversation with guards (in CP police shot us immediately). Interesting crafting. Going into a taxi to reach the destination. Using NPCs and environment to create your own stories. There are no environmental interactions in Cyberpunk. Except going to a cyberware clinic or clothes shop. V's flat can be used to see iconic weapons collections or change outfits. You can invite your love interest, but they have literally one dialogue to say (the same as they say if you call them over the phone). We have a long list of contacts in the phone book, but those NPCs also never have anything to say.
🪄 Abilities ☐ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☑ Advanced combat	There are a lot of abilities to unlock, but towards the end I was spending points just to use them up, and unlock some environmental actions (doors that require technical ability to open, dialogues that are locked behind the cool level). None of the abilities felt impactful. I focused on stealth gameplay with Intelligence and Technical. Intelligence focuses on having small boosts for smart (homing bullets) weapons, longer hacks (magic) queue, and getting back some RAM (mana) after we kill an enemy. Boosting RAM amount or its regeneration speed is a cyberware job. We load 2 hacks "into" the enemy (overheat + overload, disease + blind etc.) and wait a few seconds for the said enemy to die. It is very unsatisfying. If we get caught by an enemy netrunner, they reset my optics or send overload. Which means graphical glitches for few seconds or getting slight electrical damage. I played on normal, and the game was so one-sided I ended up not carrying if the enemy noticed me. Just upload overheat twice for a non-lethal takedown and boom, perfect stealth mission. With enemies dancing around as they burn. It get boring quite fast, so I decided to have a bigger challenge and use a dildo as a main weapon. Without investing anything in strength. And I was still breezing through, KO enemies with 2 hits and non-mobs with a handful. With weapons, you can slowly pick enemies one by one with 3 - 4 headshots. I saw on higher difficulty enemies are simply more bullet spongy. Which is disappointing and not something I want to experience.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☐ Adequate ☑ Fluid and enjoyable	Controls are good. There are no invisible walls, so if we invest in the double or higher jump we can go wherever. There is very basic parkour, things like jumping over barriers. If we get hit by a car we drop on the ground like a plank, and see "getting up" animation. Car driving can feel a bit soapy unless we drive a big and heavy car. Fist fights are very basic with the ability to do dodge and light/strong attacks.
📇 Inventory and menus ☐ Basic ☑ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	The only menus I was using were map, loadout, and abilities. There is inventory, but it's full of junk and it's easier to compare weapons on the loadout screen. Never found use for crafting, crafting materials are not abundant and it's easier to buy cyberware or hacks after we get a lot of cash from selling junk that we find. Weapon comparisons work well, with a clear indicator of stat change. Weapon icons don't clearly state weapon damage buffs (headshots, bleeding, poison, electricity, etc.) which is a bit annoying. Changing weapon scope/sight is a pain, as it can't be done when the weapon is un-equipped. We need to firstly equip the weapon, which makes its available mod slots visible.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Great	I already partially described it in abilities. On normal difficulty, it feels too easy and boring. On higher difficulties, enemies get bullet spongy. There is no level-scaling or "this area has stronger enemies". After the initial "beware, everyone has a skull symbol as they are above your level" we won't find a challenge. Even boss fights (there are like 4 - 5 of them) can be easily beaten by spamming hacks and some rifle damage. The only boss that put up a bit of a fight was the last one, but only because he has a few phases. The second to last boss bugged out and hang up in the middle of the room. Allowing me to shoot them without worry. Except for very early in the game, I never had to use a med kit. I forgot I have grenades. And used overdrive (intelligence tree ultimate perk) a few times for health regen during the fist fight side quests (I was a nerd with no strength, and it was the only way for me to get health regen). Going through slow stealth gameplay with manual takedowns doesn't feel engaging, as hiding the bodies inside a container counts as lethal action. So we need to pick up the enemy and walk with it outside of the patrol zone. Instead of quickly stash it away in a closet or dumpster.
🤖 Game AI ☐ Brain dead ☑ Really basic ☐ Average ☐ Smart and responsive	Meelee enemies will rush towards us. Ranged enemies will hide behind the cover, and wait to get headshots. Neutral NPCs are brain-dead and just roam around. They can get scared because we drive too close, and jump under our car in response. If we hit NPC car they will always try to drive away ASAP, while shouting some random texts. They won't stop the car, they can't get out. This means they sometimes hit other cars in proximity, which puts more cars in panic mode 😐

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☐ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☑ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☑ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☐ One checkpoint, frequent ☑ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☐ Can run on potato ☐ Medium requirements ☑ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☐ Nothing to remember ☑ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☑ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☐ Basic graphic settings ☑ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☑ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☐ No map ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☑ Minimap ☑ Fast travel	Details: It has beautiful graphic and devs make sure game supports all newest Nvidia bells and whistles. AMD and Intel counterparts are introduced with delay, Nvidia must still pay for game to be their tech showcase 🤣

January 2025 Update

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Activated: 12/2024

Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition (Q4 2015) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 1 month

RPG
63h | 48 of 54 (89%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍

It has a well-thought and executed co-op campaign. I did not think a game with choices could have co-op built in.

Combat is very interesting and complex. "Throw oil, that can be then ignited for explosion, and as you fight poisonous spiders, they will also re-ignite and explode as poison clouds are explosive" level of detail. Think Magicka in how you can mix different elements to make big booms.

Each main character has a "trait list". Like material / spiritual, obedient/independent etc. 9 pairs in total, and when we consistently exhibit a trait in dialogues we get it to be the "main". Which gives stat bonuses. Being independent gives +1 to willpower, and being spiritual gives immunity to fear. It is a nice touch to building a character.

There is a lot of lore to discover, but because the story is not interesting it doesn't feel important.

Character creation is flexible, and it's possible to make a warrior with necromancy magic, or an archer with high crafting. But in such configurations, they won't excel in either, so it will be a problem at higher difficulty. It may be fine on low difficulty to have a character with 8 in strength and intelligence (as opposed to pure warrior or mage that would end with a 12 / 5 split). But gear is stat-gated ("you must have at least 12 strength to use this sword" or "spell cooling time is 10 turns on a character with low intelligence") so it's an unviable approach where enemies hit very hard.

The bad 👎

Characters run so slow it takes ages to move around. Would not be surprised if at least 10h of my gameplay was spent waiting for characters to run across the map to where I pointed.

Equipment has endurance stat, and there is no "repair all" button. For both traders (who repair for a fee) and self-repair (for which we need to learn skills and have repair tools at hand). It is not fun to click 6 times "repair" for each 4 characters to be ready for the next few fights. The same applies to identifying equipment, everything above "junk" quality has hidden stats that need to be identified. It also requires clicking on each single item, no bulk identification is available.

Inventory management is just awful. Each character wears multiple items, and there is no fast way to compare if the new "God quality" shoes you just found are better than the "Unique" quality you have used for the past 2h across your 4-squad party. There is not even a rough indication with red/green text if the item has better stats vs the item the current active character wears.

There is no quick auto-heal after battle (sleeping bags, portable camp in a safe location). So each encounter ends with you swapping characters so they are told to eat to restore 10% health per click. Or wait a very long time for a basic healing spell to reset and be cast again.

Don't try to heal your warrior with carrots. Carrots may look innocent, but they give -1 to strength. This means all strength-requiring gear can get un-equipped. If you miss it, you end up fighting using a naked unarmed dude 😅

Default camera setting is "cinematic". This means it jumps around the battlefield, and we end up miss-clicking and walking towards the enemy instead of shooting them with an arrow.

Enemies have idle animation, which also moves their "click hitbox". The cursor was 1 pixel away due to their idle animation when you clicked? You move towards them instead of attacking from a distance. Even aiming at their "circle" below their legs is not safe.. as legs can also move. The only safe option is to remember to aim centrally at the biggest part of their model... I never before had an issue in an isometric game to miss an attack because of enemy idle animation.

Very steep difficulty spike after the tutorial.

Only 2 main characters can be respec ~3/4 into the game. You lose all abilities, and to regain them you need to find a trader with a specific skill book. Not all traders have all the books, so you may find yourself on an adventure to find the trader that has a higher-tier ability that you want.

Camera sometimes can go bonkers and zoom closely, zoom out, or just "fall" into some canyon we were looking over.

I understand this is a turn-based game. But why characters are so limited outside of combat? I unlocked a new character with a healing ability. Great, I can heal now faster post-combat! Right? Right?? Well, not really. When the mage plays long and pointless healing spell-casting animation, I can't click the other character and select their healing ability. It's locked. I need to wait for 1st character animation to end to do anything else, even if it's a different type of action like drinking a healing potion. Just ugh.

Animations are too long in general. Combat looks nice, for people who want to spend 200h in a game. But I want to click, attack, and move to the next character.

You gave a character a lot of perception, to spot those nasty mines? Great! They will shout "watch out, I spotted a trap!" right before they walk into said mine, killing your whole squad as there was an oil patch nearby that exploded after ignition.

Story is really shallow, and it's obvious after a few hours what will happen at the end of the game. And the whole "revealing hero history" trope is just an uninteresting drag. Like having a detective book pointing out who is the killer on the first pages, and then trying to create an atmosphere of mystery and "who could that be??".

Some quests just expect you to guess what needs to be done. No logical hints or backstory. I did follow Vanilla guides sometimes (they pop up first in search results), and saw devs adjusted quite a bit in the Enhanced Edition to eliminate some issues. But there is a moment near the end of the game, where I spent an hour in the inn, picking up and inspecting each possible piece of junk (chairs, cups, plates, fireplaces etc.). And would not be able to progress without a guide. And when the user who asked for a solution on Reddit asked "how did you figure out how to progress??" get "I didn't, I also found a solution somewhere else". Good work devs.

Some puzzles rely on the teleportation pyramids. Too bad that the use of it is so cumbersome. You throw the blue pyramid with he-character across the chasm, go to she-character inventory, and click to "use" on the red pyramid to teleport the whole squad to the blue pyramid. Now he-character needs to manually pick the blue pyramid, so each of the main characters "owns" one for the next time they need to be used. In theory, they can be put in quick slots, but when the pyramid is thrown out, it's un-equipped. So it would need to be put back after each use. And can't have both pyramids on one character, as some puzzles specifically require having one on each to teleport around in sequence. Or just the fact that the same character will not have both high strength to throw the pyramid far, and the perception to avoid mines that are surely found around the landing zone.

Persuasion is based on a rock-paper-scissors mini-game where AI always cheats. It's impossible to beat it, unless you have considerably higher charisma than your opponent and use the auto-outcome option. With a bit of help from F5/F9.

Shouting "When it rains, it pours" when it's raining (and it rains in game 80% of time), and "It's heating up!" when passing by the campfire. Why do characters repeat this one line endlessly, it's unnecessary and irritating.

You have a door key on one character and click doors with another. "Magic pockets are used to move the key from character x to character y and you open the door" pop-up window appears that needs confirmation. Just why?? I don't care, just open the door and "move" the item in the background if you must, due to some limitation of the Original Edition engine or something. It applies to all usable items - pick axe, shovel, runes.

Game sometimes "hangs" during combat, where it doesn't know what to do. It will move to the next enemy, show it's their turn in the queue.. and nothing. It just "thinks" for 10s or so before the enemy decides to move or attack. It doesn't actually hang, as it's still possible to move the camera around. It's just that nothing happens with combat.

Conclusion:

Predictable story without "badass companions" or any NPC. Ancient gameplay, where someone thought to move a turn-based table-top physical boardgame too directly into a PC interactive environment. And very good combat, if you don't mind lengthy animations and high tactical difficulty. I value story way more than combat, so even on the lowest difficulty level, it was an unnecessary drag for me. It is not necessary to know events from the 1st game to understand the plot in 2nd, so if you are not focused on complex combat I would skip it in favor of the sequel. It does look like devs ironed out a lot of those bad and tedious mechanics from the original game.

---

Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☑ Average ☐ Good

It is such a disappointment! Minor spoilers ahead. Two Source Hunters (members of an ancient guild, which has a holy mission of killing black-magic-wielding mages) are sent to investigate a murder in a small town. On the suspicion that black magic was involved. It quickly turns out that the city is under siege by the undead skeletons and orcs. Not long into the story, we find a star stone, which teleports us to a historian-imp, who records the whole of history. He tells us the story: Once upon a time TWO generals stopped the Void Dragon from devouring the reality. And they became guardians of a box, in which the dragon was trapped. Our true goal is to stop the Void Dragon, the imp says. We are chosen by gods, but he has no idea why. If we fail the universe will be lost! Half of the game focuses on uncovering the story of the mighty generals while trying to have a "big revelation moment" that we are the generals. It feels so weak and shallow, that I'm surprised anyone would be shocked by the "revelation" 😐 There is some backstory of a powerful mage/villain who goes insane and tries to release the Void Dragon. But yawn. The main villain is shallow and predictable after all.

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☐ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☑ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☐ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☐ One checkpoint, frequent ☑ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☐ Can run on potato ☑ Medium requirements ☐ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☑ Nothing to remember ☐ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☐ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☑ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☐ No map ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☑ Minimap ☑ Fast travel	Details:

This game does not have 2 stars only because I see how deep and enjoyable the combat can be, for the people who enjoy micromanaging the battlefield. I will start to play the second one by looking for QoL mods, to remove as many “leftover” drag mechanics as possible 😅

I’ve beaten Cyberpunk 2077, which will count as Feb game. And even when combat feels lackluster (or I just get OP by doing all side missions), the story is good and engaging. The ending is not great though.

December 2024 Update

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November 2024 Update

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Activated: 07/2024

F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch (Q4 2021) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 4 months

Metroidvania Steampunk
17h | 0 of 43 (0%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Good level design and map
- Fluid combat with combo system, and good enemy design
- Weapons (fist / whip / drill) are used for traversing the map as well, which makes it feel more coherent. Than just getting piles of shiny toys used to open one specific type of door
- Gorgeous graphic

The bad 👎
- There is a big difficulty spike right at the end. I had to drop difficulty to beat the game
- Characters are not fleshed out and lack backstory
- Story is average
- Parrying mechanic during combat is meh and hard to execute

Conclusion:

It is a solid Metroidvania, but still tier below Ori or Hollow Knight. Platforming and combat are smooth, albeit on the easy side. The visuals are good. The story is barebone. There is a lot of backtracking. If it's cheap (or free like I get on Epic) it's worth playing. The game has a demo on Steam, so it can be tested before buying.

---

Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☑ Average ☐ Good

This is not a strong part of the game. Ray lives his unhappy life as a veteran of an old world. The world where furtizens were free. Now they are under control of dog-machines, that invaded and countered the land. Ray doesn't care much, until his friend is kidnapped. Now it's serious, so he takes a piece of his old power armor (the fist, which must weigh a ton, and he easily carries it on the back). And off he goes, to punch some enemies, flirt with a mysterious cat, and save the world. There is a good idea there, that lands flat. We mostly run around the map, punching bad guys, getting pieces of story here and there.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☐ Average ☑ Good	Run from point A to B, and kill encountered enemies. Get an upgrade or new ability along the way, which unlocks additional parts of the map. Nothing ground-breaking that would expand the Metroidvania genre. It is solid though, not much to complain about. Later on, it is easy to avoid the non-boss enemies (they do respawn) so backtracking is a tiny bit less annoying as well.
🪄 Abilities ☐ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☑ Advanced combat	We can jump, wall grab, dash, float in air vents (with helicopter-drill), swing (with lasso), swim. A quite standard list for a Metroidvania. Combat upgrades are unlocked at the checkpoint stations, which also work as healing places. The game has single-use healing potions, but they are in limited quantity, don't restore, and need to be found in containers (or drop from the enemies). New abilities are unlocked in a linear way as we progress with the story. HP, special ability, and healing potion meters are upgraded by picking permanent power-ups.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☐ Adequate ☑ Fluid and enjoyable	Controls are smooth. Each weapon has many combos (feels a bit like Tekken lite with combinations), but in the end, I was using the easy-to-remember basic combinations. There are no problems with object collisions. The only problem I encouraged was that the parry mechanic didn't feel right. I could barely make it work, which made me not use it at all.
📇 Inventory and menus ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	There is no inventory. We can swap between the weapons on the fly. The menu button brings up a fallout-like screen where we can swap between the discovered map, found posters, items list, and options.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Great	Combat is flashy and fluid. General enemies are dumb and pose a threat only if present in large packs. Mini-bosses have more unpredictable movies and require more planning than spamming the same attack a few times. Bosses are a bit challenging but not more than to repeat the same fight 3 or 4 times to see the boss patterns. Nothing like the difficulty of the mantis fight in Hollow Knight.

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☐ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☑ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☐ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☑ One checkpoint, frequent ☐ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☐ Can run on potato ☑ Medium requirements ☐ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☑ Nothing to remember ☐ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☐ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☑ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☐ No map ☐ Basic ☑ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details:

October 2024 Update

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Activated: 06/2024

Chariot (Q4 2014) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 4 months

Co-op Action
17h | 17 of 46 (37%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Good physic
- A level design that prompts explorationn
- Child-friendly

The bad 👎
- The jokes quickly grow old

Conclusion:

It is a good co-op game, for both kids and adults. Some areas with ice can be a bit annoying but otherwise, the level design is solid, the gameplay is enjoyable and the rules are easy to understand.

---

Details

📘 Story ☑ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☐ Good

There is literally no story. A king dies and his remains are put into a coffin on wheels. Our job is to escort the coffin to the resting place, pulling the coffin (and thus the old geezer's bones) through the levels with ropes.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☐ Average ☑ Good	Levels are selected from the hub area. We enter the map and our goal is to move the coffin to the map exit. This unlocks a new level (or another entrance to an already visited map). The coffin is passive aka it doesn't move by itself. We need to push or pull it with a rope, that we shot towards the anchor points. We jump upon the platform, throw the rope to the coffin, and pull the rope to lift the coffin to the platform. Co-op challenges (fragments of the map designed for higher difficulty) can be quite hard, but the basic game is fine. It does require some timing and physics understanding though. We have a few gadgets that work as abilities, unlocked by exploring the maps - we can select to repulse or pull in the carriage without a rope (like a magnet), run faster, or slow down the time. I found repulsor to be the best, it allows me to move the carriage up faster. Just stay under it, and it shots it upward.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☐ Adequate ☑ Fluid and enjoyable	No issues with controls. It may take a few attempts to anchor the line (there is a distance limit to how far we can throw it) but otherwise, the character reacts fast to input, there are no weird geometry issues with platforms, and animations are smooth.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Great	There is an extremely basic combat in this game. We can find gems / gold on the map. Collecting small gold lumps is safe. Big lumps of gold or diamonds often have enemies spawn points around. Enemies notice us when we collect the gold, jump out from hiding, and attack the coffin, stealing the gold we collected for the deceased king. To chase them off the he-player can shoot rocks with a sling, and she-player can hit them with a sword. It's nothing complicated and can be avoided altogether if we avoid collecting "guarded" treasures.

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☐ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☑ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☐ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☑ One checkpoint, frequent ☐ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☐ Can run on potato ☑ Medium requirements ☐ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☑ Nothing to remember ☐ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☐ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☑ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☐ No map ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details: Sound is quite ambient and not big focus of the game. Extremely basic graphic options.

September 2024 Update

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This post is just a side note, but still connected to the games I have been playing in the past:

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  

  133 hours playtime

  75 of 75 achievements

• Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Single Player
  

  16 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Far Cry 3
  

  27 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon
  

  11 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Horizon Zero Dawn™ Complete Edition
  

  68 hours playtime

  69 of 79 achievements

• Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™
  

  32 hours playtime

  70 of 74 achievements

• Rise of the Tomb Raider
  

  37 hours playtime

  81 of 143 achievements

• Thief
  

  26 hours playtime

  28 of 37 achievements

• Tomb Raider
  

  21 hours playtime

  33 of 50 achievements

If you wonder what all those have in common: they all have a bow. I did leave out games like Orcs Must Die or Witcher, as those have crossbows. And surely forgot some less memorable games with bows. If a game has a bow I would use it. No matter how much better firearms were. I loved every minute of Tomb Raider 2013. Sneaking past, killing enemies with a well-aimed headshot 😎

I thought I could use my newfound time, away from SG, to go to the archery shooting range. A quick look around, and apparently living in a country of Robin Hood does have its perks. Namely: archery clubs. I managed to sign up for the last beginner course of this year, and I got the certificate 2 weeks ago. After some paperwork and joining ArcheryGB I will officially be an archer 😁

It does not mean I know how to shoot well, that requires months of practice. But I do hit the 30m away target, usually in the red / blue area. It is also not an expensive sport to get into, and a disassembled bow takes close to no space. I can at the beginning borrow the club’s bow. And then, if I still have time in a few months, I will shell out 300 - 350 pounds for my own bow with arrows.

This photo is obviously cherry-picked from the 8 sessions that I attended. But also it’s rare to have the target for yourself, which makes it easy to see where I hit :D

August 2024 Update

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Activated: 01/2024

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (Q4 2021) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 7 months

Action
22h | 0 of 59 (0%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Very good voice acting and re-creation of characters from the comic
- Fluid and carefree combat
- Good story that is not "just a background for shooting"
- Really good soundtrack
- Lots of character banter

The bad 👎
- Random animation bugs in cutscenes where our comrades can talk into each other, and we don't see the character we interact with
- Lack of enemy variety
- The game can glitch out and scripts don't fire (combat encounters start/stop etc.). Nothing that can't be solved with checkpoint reload, but still breaks the rhythm

Conclusion:

If you enjoyed the comics and movies you will like this one for the characters and humor. If you don't play it for the characters, you will be disappointed with how basic (but flashy) the combat is. The story is good but not extraordinary. I have faith you won't be bored by it.

---

Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☑ Good

Starlord and his team are in trouble, space police detain them and gave a short time frame to pay a fine. So they take a risky job that goes bad. And now they need to deal with space police, and religious fanatics that want to subdue the galaxy. The team also falls apart a bit as self-focused Starlord doesn't know how to be a leader, and needs to deal with his childhood traumas. But in the end, thanks to Drax's charm and Mantis' awkwardness, the galaxy is saved. The fine to the space police is paid, unless we run out of money due to wasting too much. And the team is back together to run into some more trouble.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☑ Average ☐ Good	It is a story-driven game with simple combat. At our space ship we chat with companions to learn more about them and listen to their banter. During missions, there is more banter and character background, and the story progresses between simple combat sequences.
🪄 Abilities ☐ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☑ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat	There is a simple experience system where we unlock the abilities for us and our companions. Each character has 3 abilities, which are variations of their main skill. Groot can hold down enemies with roots. Rocket shots grenades. Gamorra has sword attacks. Drax can hit enemies hard to deal damage and stun. Starlord can hover above the battlefield and tell companions which ability to use. There is only one pool of skill points, so we need to decide who we are spending them on. I didn't manage to unlock all character skills. Character's skills have a shared cool down, so using one ability locks the rest for a couple of seconds. There are also weapon upgrades for Starlord, where he unlocks fire / cold / electricity and wind elements. They are used in both combat and to solve simple environmental puzzles.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☐ Adequate ☑ Fluid and enjoyable	The controls are hassle-free. There are moments when we can drop from an edge, but we simply respawn close by.
📇 Inventory and menus ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	Menus are really basic. There is no inventory per se, as we can't change equipment. There is one menu to change characters' skins (they are found in boxes when we explore the nooks and crannies of the environment), and another to increase our health or rate of fire by the workbench (with some junk components we also find in boxes).
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Great	It is working, but nothing amazing. Shooting feels good. Companions' abilities are flashy. Enemies drop health pick-ups that we run around and collect. During combat, combo meter is filled, and when it's full we can gather up the team to give an awkward inspirational speech that boosts the team and resets the ability cooldown. If we fail to pick the right option for the speech only we get the boost. Enemies are basic and repetitive. And their AI is low.

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☐ Story progression ☑ Few collectibles / easy to get ☐ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☐ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☑ One checkpoint, frequent ☐ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☐ Can run on potato ☐ Medium requirements ☑ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on the screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☐ Nothing to remember ☑ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☑ Good OST ☑ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☐ Basic graphic settings ☑ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☑ No map ☐ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details: - All skins are in-game unlocks - Game is linear so no need for map

Those are some late updates, but I did not have time since the summer holiday to do it ☠