Report #71
Final post for 2023. It’s been a slow few months since my last post in terms of gaming, but I still managed to complete a few games:
Reviews
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Mirror's Edge™ Catalyst
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Sprout
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Human Guise
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Call of Juarez
10.1 hours playtime
no achievements
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Half-Life
10.9 hours playtime
no achievements
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Galaxy of Pen & Paper
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Radiant One
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst (2016) is the reboot of the original Mirror’s Edge, a genre-defining parkour game. I preferred Catalyst over the original; it plays much smoother and offers phenomenal cinematics with great graphics overall. I completed the game in September because the online achievements were going to shut down. Unfortunately, it turns out that all achievements are broken or bugged now, so achievement hunters, beware! Apart from that, I highly recommend it! Rating: 4/5.
Sprout (2007) is a short, free point & click game with hand-drawn graphics. Unfortunately, it was a bit buggy for me. Rating: 2/5.
Human Guise (2021) is a short point & click game that got removed because the developers had no more time to continue with the game. I grabbed it beforehand and quickly completed it. It had some potential but was a bit clunky overall. Rating: 3/5.
Call of Juarez (2006) is a classic FPS set in Wild West era Texas. I finally got around to playing this classic and much-beloved game. Despite showing its age on a few occasions, I enjoyed it a lot. Gameplay and story were still great, and the graphics are still bearable. Rating: 4/5.
Half-Life (1998) needs no introduction, does it? Yes, yes, shame on me, but I never played it until it was free on its 25th-anniversary. It’s still a great game, and I’m glad I played it. I had a lot of fun with the mix between fighting, jumping, and puzzling. The controls were a bit wonky at times, and I think the difficulty spikes a bit too much occasionally, but overall, an absolute recommendation to play this game. And I don’t say this about every classic – Fallout 1 and Deus Ex both got a 1/5 rating from me. Rating: 4/5.
Radiant One (2018) is a short point-and-click game about lucid dreaming and beating inner demons. Graphically pleasing with an enjoyable soundtrack, it makes for a good overall experience of about an hour of gameplay. The game is by Fntastic, which is closing down after the absolute disaster/scam that was The Day Before. This was their only game I was interested in (and only 1 buck), so I grabbed it before it may become delisted. Rating: 4/5.
Achievement Cleanup
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Dungeon Siege III
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Master of Orion
I’ve obtained almost all the missing achievements for Dungeon Siege III, but beating the game on the highest difficulty is a bit too much for me. I’ll leave that game beaten for now. I revisited Master of Orion (2014 remake) and had a lot more fun than the last time. There are still tons of achievements to unlock, so I plan to re-revisit it again in a few years :)
That wraps up my gaming adventures for the year 2023. While I didn’t set any specific goals for the year, I’m pleased to have completed almost every game I acquired during 2023. I hope to continue in this fashion, completing new games and beating some I already own…and in about 15 years my backlog should be cleared ;)
Wishing you joyful festivities, stay safe, and remain positive as we head into 2024!
Happy backlog clearing,
Vito
You can still get most of Mirror’s Edge achievements but you need to follow this guide + get versions.dll like people say in comments. I can confirm that some still work, I got two story achievements after server shutdown (albeit with a ~10 minute delay, but still).
Thank you for adding to Mirror’s Edge Catalyst. I wasn’t aware there is a workaround, I just heard from some people that the achievements are broken/buggy now. Glad that they still work. I’m happy that I got them before the shutdown nonetheless :)
Really nice write-up, even if I’ve never played any of those games. Thanks for posting, and happy holidays!
Thank you! I think Half-Life and Call of Juarez are nice games if you are into oldschool gaming, the others are up to personal taste. I wouldn’t call any of them absolute must-plays although I enjoyed almost all of them.
Hope you have/had happy holidays as well :)