On a mountain trip with your niece you get separated from her when she gets abducted by a mysterious magician. In your search for her you meet residents of a secluded village and learn that the magician is the master of the land. Through a magic mirror he provides villagers a connection with their dead loved ones. The price for this is high though and his intention is not clear. Can you save your niece before it's too late?

An okay HOG from Artifex Mundi. The Graphics are lively and colorful, voice acting is nothing amazing, but can do. Puzzles and hidden object scenes are good, nothing too hard, one of the puzzle types gets a little bit overused though. Through the story you will have to make choices on how to proceed next. Your decisions will be then accounted for in the final showdown with the villain, the ultimate end is unaffected by them though. To get all of the achievements you have to play the game two times.

In Haunted we play as a young girl Mary who is living in the streets of 19th century London. Haunted by guilt and visions of her dead sister she falls into the hands of a creepy duo, Professor Ashcroft and her simplistic assistant Ethan. Mary learns that prof. Ashcroft is doing some experiments with ghosts in the University. She captures them and wants to use them as an energy source for some strange machine. On her run from the University she frees her first ghost helper, captain Oscar. With his help she sets on an adventure through gloomy dark London, Scottish outskirts and deep forests of Transylvania. With the help of ghosts she encounters on her quest she gets closer to saving her sister from the clutches of our devilish duo.

So, the game starts all right. The atmosphere is fine, introduced characters play their role well, and the story is showing some potential. Sadly, this impression didn't last till the end. There are no puzzles, you are just required to combine items between themselves or use your ghosts on them (which I liked), the problem is that you have to do it in the right order or it won't do anything. I got stuck a few times because I tried to do one obvious thing which was pretty clear you have to do, but she declined to do it. And I didn't know why she refused it. She didn't say "That would work, but maybe I should do something else first" as is usual in such games (I believe)… it's maybe my fault for not seeing the other things, but it would made no difference in what order those action happened, trust me…
The humor is focused on bickering between the characters. Some bickers more than the others, but mostly all of them participate in it. What was a little bit amusing at the beginning turns to be annoying at the end. I would say that this kind of partnership works well for two of the ghost group, others are caught in it only because it seemed funny…? Your ghosts are usually on the screen and talks to each other, which seemed as a great idea, but they talk slowly or to better put it, it takes some time until each line begins, so if you want to listen to their whole conversation it turns into a huge time sink, ultimately I have decided to ignore it.
The graphics are not so bad, somewhat cartoonish and colorful, but also blurry and with almost non existent facial expression or lip movement. Music is fine, reminded me little of Fable I think.

Whole game consists of 6 chapters, after you complete the main story you can play a bonus story. The middle of the game lost its breath and I wasn't particularly enjoying it. The last chapter was fun though. Few aspects of the story, especially about Mary's parents, seemed somewhat off. I suppose there was a plan for a sequel, otherwise I don't get it.

I have not encountered any game breaking bugs except for horrible lag. It occurred every time after 20 minutes, not sure why. Simply closing the game wasn't enough as the lag continued even after getting back to the game, deleting saves also didn't help. Also the lag was only in game itself, cutscenes worked without any problem. Only solution was to play in a short session, which just prolonged my agony. Overall disappointment with the game just reminds me of another adventure game with ghosts - Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island, which also showed wasted potential.

Oh, BioShock, one of the best games ever made. It's brilliant. Even though I have played it a few times already, I am still mesmerized by Rapture… the idea, the characters, the story…

This time I have aimed for 100%. It was easier than I feared. You are allowed to save anytime even on the hardest difficulty, so you are pretty safe. Yeah, some of the fights can be pretty frustrating, but all it needs is some clever tactics. It was quite fun to tell the truth.
I didn't have any problems with the Remastered version, not a single fall or anything like that (a lot of discussion about it on forum). Only thing was that after my first death the difficulty got automatically lowered, so I had to restart the game (luckily I died pretty soon) to not lose the achievement… apparently you can play the game on lower settings and then put it on high, but I wanted the challenge. So check your settings properly before you go for the achievements.

In this playthrough I have also watched all of the developer commentaries. And it was pretty interesting. It's fascinating how the final product differs from the beginning idea. How the things that I found totally awesome, are just an outcome of necessity instead of a creative outburst… and many other fascinating facts. It offered another point of view on the series. Watch it after you play through the game (at least once) as there are spoilers (one wouldn't say, right?).

I love games from Supergiant games and Pyre is currently the best of them for me. It just has everything - great lively characters with brilliant voices, charming graphics full of vivid colors, beautiful… sooo beautiful soundtrack! And we can't forget the fights - challenging, ever changing, full of twists. Whole game is filled with so many emotions… I simply love it.

As I am now playing it on Steam again I will write more about it in the next update… maybe.

First game offered three goblins, second just two and in this game we have only one hero - brave young journalist called Blount. He sets on a quest of interviewing rulers of two quarreling kingdoms, queen Xina and king Bodd, and uncovering the roots of their animosity. But as his journey will be rather turbulent and full of obstacles he will need a lot of help... that he will get from three little sidekicks - silly parrot Chump, cute snake Fulbert and old magician Ooya. Even all their help can't prevent Blount from getting into trouble though. One of such situations results in Blount spontaneously turning into werewolf under the moon shine! Nothing stops him on his quest though and as he reconciles two old enemies he also uncovers a mystery about himself!

In addition to classic puzzle solving on screen with a set of items and your helpers there are "handy" mini games. In those you have only your hands to use, but beware, each of the hands can perform only one specific action, i.e. left can open, right can hold. Sometimes it could be pretty confusing and challenging, but it's still quite enjoyable. You also get to play as Blount's love interest, Wynnona. It's fun, even though it's only in one scene.
I liked how your helpers switch through the story, that way you can enjoy more of the funny moments with them as you try out their skills. Were-Blount also brought great laughs.

Third Goblins are probably best from the series, also hardest I would say. Puzzles require more of an actual thinking than mere trying. If you get stuck you can use Jokers, which work as a hint or more like a walkthrough, you will learn all required actions for the scene from them. Used it once on one of the "chessboard" scenes, gah, it was driving me crazy. Nice colorful graphics and good sounds set a great mood. In addition to cutscenes you can read in Blount's newspaper to follow his story.
Humor is still brilliant even after all these years and I have enjoyed it very much.