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

Next update (works only on profile page)

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 ☠

July 2024 Update

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Activated: 07/2024

The Falconeer (Q4 2020) ⭐️⭐☆☆☆

Beaten after: 1 month

Action
0.5h | 0 of 29 (0%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Nice visuals and music

The bad 👎
- Flying and combat are cumbersome
- Quests are really generic

Conclusion:

I know I did not play a lot, but it looks like a generic game with bare-bone flying, combat, and grind. Flying controls are not enjoyable, combat is generic "aim for circle to offset for enemy movement". It looks nice on trailers and it's impressive it was developed by only 1 person. Still, it doesn't mean people should play it or give it leeway when it comes to gameplay or quality. Fly for a long time to reach the spot, have 1-2 min fight, and go back to base is not a fun game loop.

Activated: 12/2023

Ghostrunner (Q4 2020) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 7 monts

Action
1h | 1 of 45 (2%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Music flows very well with parkour and combat
- Combat is smooth and enjoyable
- Upgrade mechanic where we need to "fit" abilities like Tetris blocks means we can't be OP, there is always a tradeoff as better abilities always take up more space

The bad 👎
- Checkpoints are too sparse, resuming the game can send us quite far back and force us to replay the same sequences

Conclusion:

I can see how it is a good game, and I could enjoy it a lot. But not with this checkpoint system. Beat a longer sequence and think it's a good time to end - nope, there is a need to replay the same sequence again 😐 Ugh. I don't have time for long sessions now and don't want to constantly repeat the same sequences because of devs' checkpoint placement.

Not much playing this month was away on holiday at home. Get my last wisdom tooth finally removed 1st week, and used 2nd week of annual leave to recover. Took 1.5h on the dentist’s chair, roots were underneath the 7th teeth and next to the nerve 😅 Still, nothing hurt me, even when local anesthesia wore off.

What are your experiences with dentists? Are you pain-sensitive, or are not bothered with drills and holes in your gums like I am?

June 2024 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 12/2024

From Space (Q4 2022) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 6 months

Co-op Action
13h | 24 of 41 (59%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Easy and brainless isometric shooter
- Net code doesn't give issues in co-op

The bad 👎
- Quite repetitive
- Barebone story
- Classes don't differ all that much

Conclusion:

It's playable but not great. Few generic quest types, generic story, and generic shooting. Aliens came to earth and we must kill them to prevent humanity's extermination. There are 3 classes (soldier, support, engineer) that don't differ much in the gameplay as the number of class abilities is limited and they have a long cool down. Enemies are generic and there is nothing interesting about the combat.

Activated: 05/2025

ENDLESS Legend (Q3 2014) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 1 month

4X
12h | 5 of 139 (4%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Each race has unique gamplay
- Good learning curve
- Interesting lore

The bad 👎
- Enemy turns take too long
- Quests we receive often don't have anything to do with our fraction. Build a trade route with x city in y turns? I play as a science fraction, why would I invest so many research points into expensive upgrades to build a road? I'm not a trader
- Combat is not great. I played all skirmishes on auto-option

Conclusion:

I see how it can be a huge time-sink. That's why I won't play it anymore. It is engaging. Finding out the optimal science path, building path, etc. But when beating one map takes 6h... it's too much. Especially that later on a lot of turns are just skipped as we wait for a new technology to finish, to get enough resources to build, or are waiting for something to get built. It is a good game when you're fine to play one thing for months. I don't have that much time or life left, too many good story-driven or puzzle games await 🤣

Activated: 04/2024

Supraland (Q2 2019) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 2 months

Metroidvania Puzzle
13,6h | 51 of 98 (52%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- The puzzles are good
- Upgrades are unlocked at a constant rate and don't require grind

The bad 👎
- Map is hard to read (and unlocked through the chest in a hard-to-find secret area...)
- Unless we find specific hidden upgrade enemies never stop to respawn. And combat is boring and repetitive
- The last boss fight is anticlimatic
- There is a lot of backtracking

Conclusion:

It is an interesting mix of Metroidvania and puzzle game. But map quality (when we manage to find it as an optional unlock) is poor. It doesn't mark any chests / coins / areas we saw (and lacked upgrades to reach). No discovered shortcuts are marked. It's possible to write with a crayon "on" the map, but then the crayon is red and it doesn't contrast well with the background. Puzzles are good, but backtracking to a specific one, after we get the necessary unlock, is a pain. And puzzles required for story progression have NPCs around, that will give hints if we like it or not (as a bubble above their head, that is normally used for some dialogue or banter).

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Details

📘 Story ☑ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☐ Good

Literally "nothing to see here". We are the son of the red king. Blue people stopped our water supply. We must reach Blue Village and restore water in the Red Village. There are some NPCs with generic messages about the world and a few cutscenes. And that would be all about the story.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☑ Average ☐ Good	It is an open-world Metroidvania. At first, we go through levels "in order" solving puzzles of various complexity to get upgrades. Puzzles include pressure pads, energy balls, connecting electricity rods, moving platforms, momentum, teleport gun, colorful door access cards etc. So quite a big variety here. Then backtrack to already visited areas to find shortcuts and solve optional puzzles. It would not be that bad if not for constant fights as enemies respawn endlessly.
🪄 Abilities ☑ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat	Some abilities are passive: faster movement (which is more of target movement speed, the walking speed we start with is so slow it would be unplayable), more health, armor, higher sword damage, coins magnet etc. We also have a few active abilities: summoning a cube that helps with reaching high spots or pressure pads, an energy gun that allows turning on switches, a magnetic buckle that allows us to levitate near metal objects, a teleport gun, and a line-gun. Active abilities are plot-related and passive are optional.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☐ Adequate ☑Fluid and enjoyable	Controls are fluid and precise. There are sometimes problems with cube placement, but it's to be expected in open open-world game where we can try to climb each rock. There are no issues with collision detection.
📇 Inventory and menus ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	Literally no menus. We can find hats around the world but not wear them. There are no items to be equipped.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☑ Boring and generic ☐ Average ☐ Good ☐ Great	I don't think combat was a good addition to this game. Early on it makes us struggle as basic enemies are OP. Later we want to run away from enemies, as they die in 1-2 hits and feel like endless fodder present just to slow us down. Enemies will brainlessly charge us head-on, there is no strategy for them or us to use. There are 2 melee, 1 range, and 1 "mini-boss" type of enemy. And that would be a whole variety.

💸 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: - The game doesn't have high requirements but is also really basic in terms of graphic

May 2024 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 12/2024

Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition (Q3 2020) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 5 months

Action
68h | 69 of 79 (87%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Interesting back story and story building
- Not much filler in terms of watch towers, bandit camps etc.
- Good enemy design and attack patterns
- Really good voice acting

The bad 👎
- Bow combat is not great 😅 and heard from people they just meele everything
- The difficulty level in DLC is ridiculous, and enemies are simple "bullet-sponges"
- I could not play it with a controller, aiming was so bad without a strong auto-aim
- There is no freedom in the parkour, only very specific edges selected by the devs can be gripped. It *looks like* you should grab an edge, but Alloy just slides down
- Walking in scan mode is too slow
- The game is badly optimized, textures pop in and out, and even the map overview can fail to load
- Random crashes all the time. The only solution is to drop all graphic settings to medium, as the game is apparently not adjusted at all for PCs
- "My face is tired" Andromeda level of NPC animation
- It's not possible to buy crafting materials. We are required to find spots where rabbit, badger, duck, or fox spawns, and then repeatedly go in and out of this zone, praying to the RNG god to give us a feather. Not a piece of meat. I played the game for 80 hours, and still was not able to upgrade all my gear.

Conclusion:

In the end, it is another "Ubisoft formula" game. With a bit fewer bandit camps, combat that in theory focuses on the bow (ends with a lot of melee, as it's just easier to aim at enemies with it), and good story.

---

Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☑ Good

At least the story is good. We are born in a tribe, living in the mountains among snowy peaks. Outcast, raised by an outcast. Only in the middle of the game it's explained why we are "unpure". The world is full of machines, which mimic animals in their function. We have bison, gazelles, wolves, giraffes, birds etc. Unfortunately, machines started acting up, and no longer can be easily hunted to get some spare parts. Our tribe is on the mental level of "gods shot lightning", and they have a lot of taboos. Including one about leaving the safety of the mountains. Although the elders do want to know why machines are going rampant. And Alloy, the person who is already an outcast, is a good candidate to "take a bullet for the tribe" and be allowed to venture forth. We will learn the origins of the machines, how the recent world came to be, and be left with (sadly) an unsurprising cliff changer that is preparation for 2nd game in the series.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☑ Average ☐ Good	There is a lot of running between objectives, and objectives focus on going somewhere, killing some machines or bandits (optionally finding some junk), and giving a report to the quest-giver. Nothing extraordinary. A couple of bandit camps, climbing towers, and a lot of collectibles to find. There are a lot of campfires that act as fast travel points, so at least it doesn't take long to jump around.
🪄 Abilities ☑ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat	There are no real powers. We can use gadgets like scanner or line harpoon that immobilize enemies for a short while. Otherwise, we can run, jump, and do basic parkour.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☑ Adequate ☐ Fluid and enjoyable	During parkour, there is usually one way to go, and it's enough to hold one button for Alloy to jump around. In combat bow aiming is bad. It works fine as long as we are hidden, but trying to hit the enemy weak spots, when they jump around and charge is impossible.
📇 Inventory and menus ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	It is clearly made for gamepads. But there is so much junk in the inventory all the time it's hard to navigate. The story collectibles menu is clunky and it doesn't "stay" where we were after we opened an item. E.g. we scroll down to open a voice diary, then we go back to listen to the next in sequence, and we end at the very top of the list. Why? There are a lot of notes and audio logs to read and listen to.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Great	We have up to 3 bows that can be equipped. The basic bow is pretty useless. Hunter bow has piercing / fire arrows that are used 90% of the time (except for when we run out of metal wire to make more piercing arrows). And 3rd bow that can shoot electric/corrosive arrows (I used it only for the achievements...). Electric/explosive traps. And line shooter that can immobilize or slow down agile machines. The usual fight looks like this: try to snipe the enemies on the fringe of the pack with piercing arrows. When they spot us switch to spamming line shooter and hitting with melee till they die. The only exception are the bosses aka Big Tirex or Storm Bird. They need to be immobilized and taken out from a distance. People are headshot with piercing arrows.
🤖 Game AI ☐ Brain dead ☑ Really basic ☐ Average ☐ Smart and responsive	Enemies have clear attack patterns, which are satisfying to learn. But it also means there is nothing unpredictable about fights. Enemies don't try to flank us. They always charge head-on. We can overwrite (aka hack) enemies to temporarily fight on our side. Then it looks like a brawl fight where they mirror their attacks until one falls. Human enemies are dumb. They will shoot without trying much to find a better cover. And melee enemies will try to charge us head-on. They are bullet-spongy, so better take them from a distance.

💸 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: I already mentioned performance issues and constant crashes. It is reported by people with both low and high-end CPUs and GPUs, so must be an issue with the port itself.

Late post, but was busy with life. I will sign for an archery course this month, so after a disappointing experience with this game, I may have some fun with an actual bow. I like simple recurve bows. Sadly no garden to practice on my own.

April 2024 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 06/2023

CODE VEIN (Q3 2019) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 11 months

Souls-like jRPG
7h | 8 of 43 (19%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- A lot of customization options during character creation

The bad 👎
- Extremely short window to parry attacks
- This game has just 4 years now, and levels are narrow uninteresting corridors or too big and empty open spaces
- Leveling up doesn't feel rewarding
- NPC companion keeps repeating the same few sentences all the time as a "banter"

Conclusion:

Combat-oriented game where combat doesn't feel good. The same couple of basic enemies over and over again, killed with button mash, that try to swarm us so we get stagger locked and die. There are better souls-like / combat games to be played.

---

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:

Activated: 03/2024

The Invincible (Q4 2023) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 1 month

Walking_sim
12h | 27 of 29 (93%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- If you like Stanisław Lem books, this game feels like an interactive Lem's book
- Good sound and voice acting
- Devs did answer people's complaints and adjust the walking speed, so it's no longer sometimes painful crawl

The bad 👎
- Memory issues, had to repeat one short section multiple times in a few days, as the game was gobbling up to 11GB of RAM and then crashing immediately after loading
- Sometimes objects can't be interacted with, which forces reload of the latest save

Conclusion:

If you want to "play" Lem's book - it is a good game, as all the elements of Lem's style are there. Sci-fi, morality, not obvious back story. If you want a masterpiece walking simulator - this is not the game. It can be clunky, but it is clear it was not made by a big studio with a big budget.

---

Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☑ Good

Our crew lands on a desert planet, trying to gather research data before our enemies (different human corporation) arrive. After a few days, all our companions are not responding, and we (as astrobiologist Yasna) are sent to the surface to investigate. We find some of our colleagues in a state of lethargy, and evidence of other humans already present on the surface. We try to recover colleagues from the surface and investigate what other humans are doing. There are some moral choices, but they have a limited impact on the ending.

</table>

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☑ Average ☐ Good	It can be boring, as we can walk. And not much more. In some scripped locations we can jump or climb. But otherwise, we walk around, chat with our commander on the radio, and read journals left behind. Sometimes we interact with other characters or there is one (not hard) combat sequence.
📇 Inventory and menus ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	We don't have inventory, radar and scanner we can use are tied to specific buttons. The menu is in the form of a map. The kind you make yourself, marking terrain as you wander unknown areas. Everything is really basic but also easy to navigate.

💸 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:

</div> </div>

March 2024 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 02/2024

Superliminal (Q4 2020) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 1 month

Puzzle
4,5h | 16 of 27 (59%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Interesting puzzle ideas that focus on perspective

The bad 👎
- Tutorial is not the best in explain mechanics
- it feels a bit like Stanley Parable in some designs, but Stanley did them better
- Only objects that are part of the puzzle are intractable, which means it's too easy to spot what needs to be done

Conclusion:

I am disappointed with this one. Promise looks great, but quite fast it's obvious only 3 things we can do in game is making objects bigger / smaller and multiply very limited number of objects. There is no real difficulty progression, puzzles don't really go harder or require doing something different. It is not groundbreaking or innovative game.

---

Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☑ Average ☐ Good

</center> Generic "you are stuck in a loop, you must break free". We wake up in a sleep research place, and it turns out we are so deep within our own sleep we can't really wake up.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☑ Average ☐ Good	We start each loop in a research room, and then progress through a couple of rooms until we go back to the start of the loop. Later levels show more of the "inside" of the facility, just like it's in the case of Portal. But it is predictable and doesn't feel so "revealing" that we are in fact test subjects in a testing facility.
🪄 Abilities ☑ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat	We can walk, jump, and interact with (limited...) number of objects. Why not design the game in a way that makes sure it won't break, even we use the sofa to prop ourselves up. Not just this one exit sign above the door that creators allowed? Getting closer to hold object makes it smaller, moving away from the object we hold makes it smaller. And clicking some objects multiplies them.

💸 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:

Activated: 03/2024

Manifold Garden (Q4 2020) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 1 month

Puzzle
5,5h | 22 of 25 (88%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Mechanic is easy, but enjoyable when we get a grip of it

The bad 👎
- Puzzles where we need to play Tetris in 3D do suffer from "I don't have level overview to know what to do next"
- I felt nauseous after watching non-skippable end sequence. I do understand some people will not be able to play the game at all

Conclusion:

I do like it quite a lot more than Superliminal, even when puzzles are also quite easy. There is no real story, but the game at least doesn't try to put some paranormal or similar "story through graffiti on the wall" generic theme. Puzzles have good progression, though at the end it's too easy to know which cube to grab and where to run to complete the level.

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Details

📘 Story ☑ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☐ Good

I don't think the game has story, except for "black goo invades reality, do something about it". And it's fine. No need to put murals with human-resembling figures praying to cubes to try and make it look like there is a deep story underneath.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☐ Average ☑ Good	There are 6 god cubes, one for each world. They are contaminated by void. Each level boils down to using normal cubes to redirect lasers, so that they focus on the god cube. It makes the void inside it expand, so we can walk into it and place void cube in void tree. And that cleanses god cube. Levels are constructed like fractals. They at first seems huge, until we realize it's a more manageable map repeated an infinite amount of times. Which means we can walk from "roof" of construction, to drop on the platform that was previously above us. It was a bit unsetting at first, as I have mild heights fear. But I get used to it, as we don't really fall anywhere. Or die, or get damage. The game is designed for us to constantly "fall" somewhere.
🪄 Abilities ☑ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat	We can walk / run (and run is infinite). Control the gravity (feels a bit like we walk in gravity boots, so there is no real "up" in this game. Ground is where we currently stand on), and move cubes around. Placing normal cubes in activation receptacles controls doors / platforms / creates new cube tree (that spawns new cube(s) like apples). They can also control the direction in which water flows. We can control gravity by clicking on a "walls". Only limit is that wall must be adjacent to our plane. So we can't click on the ceiling to teleport to it. Each cube has a color that corresponds to a wall color. If we are on blue wall we can control blue cube, but the moment we change gravity direction, blue cube will get "stuck" where we left it. E.g. we move red cube along green wall, by switching between those two gravity colors / sides. Walls are not actually colored, and it's our crosshair that points towards wall that indicates the color. Water can be controlled with cubes to power up water mills or grow new cube trees. There are also (for me a bit annoying) levels where we need to control huge Tetris bricks to make bridges. They have "up" and "down" side indicated by coloring, and we need to change gravity direction to move them in specific direction.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☐ Adequate ☑ Fluid and enjoyable	They are thankfully good. Aiming where to land when we fall down is easy. No issues with object models that would be bigger than their textures, so we don't get stuck midair. Change of gravity direction is fluid, and later on we learn how to do it towards the wall when we are actively falling.

💸 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:

Activated: 03/2024

House Flipper (Q2 2018) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆

Beaten after: 1 month

Simulator
17,5h | 24 of 86 (28%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- If you are stereotypical German, that comes from work to go work in game, this game is perfect

The bad 👎
- not possible to see color of furniture that is already placed, good luck matching furniture
- not possible to re-position things in bathroom
- no lawnmower to cut grass, and bug that allowed to cut grass for free is obviously patched immediately
- possible to put tiles through walls into adjacent room, which is just waste of material
- not possible to save collection of furniture that we like for easy access, everything need to by re-typed or re-searched through tabs each single time
- not possible to change external walls or build floors
- some ceiling walls are so low they block us from walking?

Conclusion:

I did think this game will be better for me. I do see how it can be a huge time sink and OCD soother. But also so many things are unnecessary cumbersome (or just put into DLC) that I could not bring myself to keep playing. And really, going after bug that allows to "cut" grass outside without paying for DLC, when you intentionally make garden look like shit with weeds, is a dick move. If they want to sell garden DLC, they could make grass grow in said DLC. Not make properties of people who don't want to pay extra look like ugly marsh..

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Details

📘 Story ☑ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☐ Good

Story is "buy house to renovate it and sell to the highest buyer".

🔄 Gameplay loop ☑ Boring ☐ Average ☐ Good	☑ Repetitive We buy house. Clean it from trash. Wipe dirt from ceiling, walls, floor and furniture (!!) with mop. Paint walls, put some furniture in, and sell the house to the highest bidder for profit. There are a couple of buyers, each with own preferences. Family with kids, grandpas, buy-to-let landlord, man cave dude etc. Walls are divided into roughly plank-size chunks, so painting / putting tiles / putting panels puts one strip of material from ceiling to floor.
🪄 Abilities ☑ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat	We walk, jump. Painting / building internal walls / cleaning gives experience that is spent on speeding up doing said tasks. E.g. painting walls allows investing in faster painting / painting more than one "strip" of wall, or rising efficiency, so we use less paint. Do you want to re-paint walls with the same color? Good luck, no color picker in this game.
📇 Inventory and menus ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	☑ Hard to navigate I think this aspect of the game should be way better. There is "recently used" tab, but it holds only 5 or 6 recent objects and is not remembered between levels. There is no inventory quick slot bar, where we could put most often used objects (dreaded radiators that are added to each house and need to be searched each time). There is no tab that allows to add favorite items. No filter by available furniture color, so we may end with putting all furniture in Oak, just to realize the shelf we thought about does not allow this variant. There is a lot of clicking back and forth through categories. Is toaster electric appliance? Is it a small object? Is it kitchen accessory? Who knows.

💸 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 2024 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 11/2023

Mass Effect 3 Legendary Edition (Q2 2021) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐⭐

Beaten after: 3 months

RPG, Story_rich
55h | 38 of 38 (100%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- It's possible to start game no on insanity difficulty, which saves one whole run for the achievement
- Companion pathfinding is greatly improved over ME2
- Combat is superior to ME2 in every aspect, especially in terms of power combinations
- Companions have way more interactions, both on the missions and on the Normandy
- Addition of weapon mods, which add depth to weapon customization, without need for resource grinding for crafting (like in DA: Inquisition)
- A lot more freedom when it comes to movements - dodging, running between covers, moving up/down ladders

The bad 👎
- Game can randomly crash for no reason, especially during the start-up when EA app is opening
- Reapers chase are just annoying, good there are mods for that
- It's really obvious some background animated objects are rendered in 30FPS. Those nightmare pigeons on the Citadel for example
- Ending where they threw some content to plug plot holes (like Normandy landing to pick up crew, and reapers kindly wait for them to leave) still feels awkward
- Journal is a bit messy and doesn't have much in terms of useful update. Like we can already have the object, and it will still show "travel there and look for". Mods do fix that, but better journal should be in vanilla game

Conclusion:

This is a great end to the trilogy, minus the ending. Gameplay is improved a lot over ME2. Feeling of urgency when we fly around, scrambling to make a device that could defeat the Reapers. Sadly, all the nice hints that show plot connections to dark energy from ME2 or Illusive Man being crazy from whole ME3 gets kind of threw out of the window, and we get Deus Ex ending. Pick a color, decide on fate of the galaxy. Would be better if the choice we make is more connected to what we did in game. Not only to how many war assets we accumulater over time.

---

Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☑ Good

☑ Interesting lore ☑ Well written NPCs After Shepard blew up a relay to slow the Reapers down in ME2, we're grounded after avoiding martial court. People still don't believe in Reapers, everything is covered up as much as possible. Geth attacked Citadel in ME1. Collectors were bad guys in ME2. And when earth military realizes Shepard was right, it's already too late. Thankfully, our pal Liara was digging through Prothean archives on Mars. She found a blueprint for a dark energy device, that was built by the Protheans to defeat the Reapers. Sadly, they run out of time, and were missing a Catalyst. We are sent on a mission to look for the Catalyst, and unite the galaxy to fight the Reapers. Instead of allowing fights between krogans, asari, salarians, geth, quarians etc. to continue.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☐ Average ☑ Good	There is only the "core crew" left. Liara, Garrus, Tali. Plus Vega, Prothean and 2 characters that could be spoilers to mention. There are no companion missions per se, we can hang out with people but not chase quest for them. Which makes the game paced better, it doesn't feel like one long "help me Shepard" side mission. There are optional missions to scan a system and retrieve items, or do some short N7 missions. But the main focus is on the priority missions.
🪄 Abilities ☐ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☑ Advanced combat	☑ Skill tree Combat from ME2 has an additional layer of combinations. Either technology or biotic. Priming the target with one power, and releasing the combo with another leads to an explosion that damages nearby enemies, and can set them on fire / freeze them / throw them in the air. Cover system is improved, with ability to move between covers fluidly. Shepard also learned how to jump across and climb ladders, which adds more depth to otherwise "flat" combat behind cover. We can now go to higher ground, and aim for enemies that would be hard to hit otherwise. Abilities are the same as in ME2, with a similar skill tree. Only difference is that now ability upgrade 4-6 gives a choice between two versions. E.g. incinerate ability can deal more damage per shot *or* bump up our clip size. Throw can seek 2 targets *or* hit a single target with more strength. It allows customizing our play style a tiny bit more.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☐ Adequate ☑ Fluid and enjoyable	They are better than in ME2. Bug with camera lock on aim is gone. Moving around the battlefield is more fluid. Active pause is snappy and companions don't require micromanagement to navigate the environment.
📇 Inventory and menus ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	There is no inventory. We can upgrade weapons on Normandy station, and weapon loadout/ mods are set before the mission. Menus are easy to navigate and not overloaded. Only issue is with journal, that could have more updates on our quest progress. Not only information we get quest to find a relic, and then info it was completed after we deliver.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Great	☑Well designed weapons Improved in a good way over ME2. Weapon mod addition to make gunfight more "personal", power combinations for this satisfying pop when enemies fly away in biotic explosion, new enemy types to force us to move around the map more. Not just camp behind the cover for the whole encounter. In general, we will fight Cerberus and Reapers. Cerberus has a mix of foot soldiers, engineers, snipers, agile assassins and heavy mechs. While reapers transform abducted races into foot soldiers. Turians as foot soldiers that can boost batarians armor. Rachni as walking cannons. Asari as a creepy teleporting nightmare that can one hit kill if they get too close.
🤖 Game AI ☐ Brain dead ☐ Really basic ☐ Average ☑ Smart and responsive	Like I mentioned, both our companions and enemies are smarter. Enemies have specific roles - to flush us out of cover, to break our shields, to kill us from up close, to limit our movement around. It makes the gunfight a bit more strategic than simple sticking to cover in ME2.

💸 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 did give a lot points to the music, but it is deserving it. It fits well into loss-filled game, with uplifting hero moments here and there.

January 2024 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 11/2024

Mass Effect 2 Legendary Edition (Q2 2021) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐⭐

Beaten after: 2 months

RPG Story_Rich
58h | 46 of 46 (100%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- More dynamic combat than in ME1
- More interesting companions
- Weapon damage and defensive / offensive stats are updated per weapon type or character class, no need to browse through piles of really similar equipment to find something better
- Last mission is great, with visible impact of decisions taken through the game
- Game has all DLCs, including a comic
- Planet scanning speed is increased
- DLC armors and weapons are no longer dumped on us at the start of the game, like in the original

The bad 👎
- Prevalent bug where it's not possible to move camera around for a couple seconds while aiming
- Miranda's butt shot during conversation is removed xD
- There is more hub areas, but they feel smaller than citadel hub in ME1
- Companions can have bad issues with path finding, to the point they get stuck 2 rooms earlier, and we need to babysit them forward

Conclusion:

ME2 improves on ME1 in pretty much any way, except for using thermal clip as normal ammunition. Instead of mechanism where weapons cool down. It had bigger sci-fi vibe. And legendary edition improves on some annoying features of the original, making annoying bits more smooth and less irritating.

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Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☑ Good

☑ Interesting lore ☑ Well written NPCs Shepard goes on a mission to secretly look for reapers invasion evidence. And get killed in the opening sequence. And then is "resurrected" by a crazy man with too much money, to protect humans from being abducted by insect-looking collectors. We then focus on solving problems of our companions, which takes like half of the game. After lost sisters, fathers, daughters and assistants are found everyone go to face the collectors. There is a lot of new lore to learn, new hubs to discover and companions to romance. The game ends with the famous suicide mission, where our progress with companions, ship readiness and decisions made during the last mission all contribute who will survive. If we rushed through the game and not care much about what is happening around us, we can even kill Shepard. Which is not common, games in general give main character plot armor or bend backwards in next part to explain main hero magical resurrection. And Shepard is not a cat, and was resurrected once already ;D

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☐ Average ☑ Good	☐ Grindy ☐ Repetitive Game is filled with our companion loyalty quests, instead of fetch quests from ME1. Which makes gameplay way less tedious. There are few main missions, a lot of companion missions, and some deliveries of quest items that we find along the way here and there. There is no hard point of no return, but there is soft one. Where delaying progress in the main missions will lead to death of some NPCs. But if we do side mission before progressing with the main one it will not happen. And if you rush through main missions in games, and ignore all (even major) side quests it's your fault! It is war, we must prepare for the fight.
🪄 Abilities ☐ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☑ Advanced combat	☑ Skill tree ☐ Statistics ☐ Crafting There are fewer abilities and the skill tree is easier to navigate. Instead of having to invest x points into an ability, before we can unlock something we want (like investing in first air to unlock neuron shock) we add points directly into specific abilities. All passives are part of the class tree (instead of being spread out among other trees), there is no armor restrictions. Abilities also have one common cool down, which means we don't keep from using them "for later" or use them early and having nothing for a bit later in an encounter. We can decide if we want to use weaker abilities more often, or less of strong ones. Like spam throw which can stagger enemies and have recharge of 2-3s, or use carnage that regenerates for 10s but deal a lot of damage. Experience is given for beating a mission, not killing enemies or doing side objectives. Which makes it impossible to level up mid-mission.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☑ Adequate ☐ Fluid and enjoyable	☐ Not customizable ☐ Stiff animations ☐ Sometimes confusing Controls are less stiff than in ME1, but still not great. The cover shooting mechanic can be a bit lackluster, there is this annoying bug where we get stuck aiming at one point (which means instant death on Insanity difficulty...). Only type of movement we can do is walking (and sprinting for short distance). No jumping, using ladders, dodging.
📇 Inventory and menus ☐ Basic ☑ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	☐ Made for gamepads ☐ Hard to navigate The fact that we don't pick up junk weapons along the way, and just upgrade stats for a whole weapon class, allowed devs to get rid of the tedious inventory management from ME1. We just pick up a weapon category (there are weapon restrictions per Shepard class, e.g. as sentinel I could at first use only heavy and submachine pistols) and upgrade it in the Normandy research section. There is no inventory screen during missions, we adjust everything before the mission. Rarely there are weapon lockers on the mission, which allow us to change weapons mid-way. Most of the time after we find a new weapon. As for the armor, we either pick a set (that we need to buy first most of the time) but it has disadvantage that it's not possible to remove helmet for cut scenes as they are one-piece. Or we adjust individual parts (torso / helmet / arms / legs / shoulders) with parts we find during gameplay. It allows having option to decide if we want to have stronger shields, weapons, melee, biotic etc.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Great	☑ Well designed weapons I do think it's improvements over ME1 for the reasons described above. Sadly, the really basic cover mechanic makes it less flashy and fluid. Enemies to respond to our action, try to flank us, or use abilities effectively. One funny thing is that in this game, enemy rockets are not homing. So it's possible to walk towards the enemy with a rocket launcher, and just side step incoming projectiles. Rockets in ME3 are faster and do follow us, so it's not a viable option anymore.

💸 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:

Activated: 12/2024

It Takes Two (Q1 2021) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆

Beaten after: 2 months

Co-op Puzzle
12.5h | 0 of 20 (0%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- Game is made for co-op, it's not just an element someone added later on
- Story is a typical "relationship breaks as people don't have time for each other", but shown in a way how it can be rebuilt. Not just putting blame on the other person for all the issues
- Most of the levels are well thought-through, and have interesting puzzles
- Game split screen is made in a good way, and camera is never an issue

The bad 👎
- Game is played through EA desktop (aka Origin) and keep having server issues
- Some levels are clearly less polished / more rushed than others
- There is a super cute (and huge...) jumping spider that we can ride on. I see how people with arachnophobia could freak out because of it though

Conclusion:

It is a solid co-op game, a step up from the devs previous "A way out". Not a simple "two players get the same tools to solve the puzzle" approach. Each character has different abilities, and this "forces" them to co-operate in order to get to their goal. And the story shows some simple truths about building a relationship, that we often forget in our busy lives. But at the same time game focus on "relationship rebuilding" may make game out-of-focus for people who would just search for another player online to "beat" the game.

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Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☑ Good

☐ Interesting lore ☐ Well written NPCs On the surface, typical story how adults focus on job, and it drifts them apart, until all they can think about it divorce. And a kid caught in the middle, which thinks it's their fault. The kid wants their parents to be friends again, so it "cast a spell", turning parents into toys and forcing them to work together in order to break the curse that was cast upon them. We travel through fairy tale-like maps, each one focusing on other aspect of a parent's life. Her singing, his gardening, their daughter favorite toys etc. Our guide is animated "Dr. Hakim love book". "Relationship help" book read by the kid that is part of the curse, forcing our character to go through different advices how to save a relationship.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☐ Average ☑ Good	☐ Grindy ☐ Repetitive It is a mix of simple mix of exploration and puzzles, that do work together well. There is not much side tracking to lose eyes from the next objective, and puzzles don't require a lot of thinking. Each map have its own mechanic. E.g. on garden map one character can turn into plants, and other water down plants; on "inside crazy squirrel's tree" map one character shots matches, while other covers items in flammable sap. There are some easy but well-designed boss fights at the end of levels, really basic enemy encounters on some levels. There is no hub area, we are teleported between maps by Hakim's book.
🪄 Abilities ☑ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat	☐ Skill tree ☐ Statistics ☐ Crafting Each map has unique abilities tailored for cooperation. One character shots nails that are used by another to swing around. Other time one character transform into plants, when other can water them down promoting growth or use scythe to cut down weeds.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☐ Adequate ☑ Fluid and enjoyable	☐ Not customizable ☐ Stiff animations ☐ Sometimes confusing Controls are crispy. No collision problems, no timing issues. Even flying sequences are fluid and natural. We can walk / run / use grapple hook. And then we get accessories that allow us to use map-specific abilities.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Great	☐ Well designed weapons There are some combat sequences, abut it's not a combat focused game. They work fine, are flashy and fluid. But nothing complex. Like combat with scythe dumbs down to pressing LMB.

💸 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:

Activated: 12/2024

Bound By Blades (Q4 2022) ⭐️⭐☆☆☆

Beaten after: 1 month

Action Mobile
3h | 12 of 15 (80%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- It works?

The bad 👎
- Grindy. Takes 2-3h to beat the game, but would need additional 10h to repeat the same couple battles to get 100%
- Backgrounds look like they were made in HD (or less...) and then just stretched to fit FHD
- "Cutscenes" are drawn in really lazy way, that try to spin it as being "artistic". Bad lines and contours, and colors that look like person who made it not care they move out of object bounds
- Really generic and dumb story
- There is an issue with statistics where they go up and down, no matter how many points we invest

Conclusion:

There are many good games out there, so go and play something else. It's not unplayable, but also don't have any good points. Games like this make me wonder why Steam doesn't have "neutral" option for review. Positive reviews do say that the game is not good, but also not bad. So they gives it thumbs up?

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Details

📘 Story ☑ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☐ Good

☐ Interesting lore ☐ Well written NPCs The world is attacked, and our heroes are trained since they are toddlers to save the world. Obviously, their "extremely powerful teacher" is killed soon after, and it turns out those barely teenagers are even stronger than he was. Just one big yawn.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☑ Boring ☐ Average ☐ Good	☑ Grindy ☐ Repetitive We pick up a boss (from a board in a village... not even a overmap), run around it on a small grid to kill it, appear back in the village to use boss drops to craft better loot. Rinse and repeat. Each boss has their own set, and it's necessary to kill it 2-3 times to get enough materials to craft a full set. Crafting a better set is basically the only way for us to get more powerful, so it's necessary for progression.
🪄 Abilities ☑ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat	☐ Skill tree ☐ Statistics ☐ Crafting We can run around, and have light + heavy attacks, and dodge. As boring and basic as it gets. And same goes for combat. Run around on a grid to avoid boss attacks, spam LMB when boss have break to deal some damage. There are 5 health potions per boss, and we will use them a lot, as our health and defense is made from toiler paper.
📇 Inventory and menus ☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	☐ Made for gamepads ☐ Hard to navigate Inventory allow to equip previous gear sets (but who would need to do it...). Not possible to sell stuff, so we just sit on a pile of junk. Normally we just go to smith to craft better sword, and forget about all other menus.

💸 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:

December 2023 Update

Next update (works only on profile page)

Activated: 11/2023

Mass Effect 1 Legendary Edition (Q2 2021) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐⭐

Beaten after: 1 month

RPG Story-rich
39h | 38 of 38 (100%)

⇱ Click to show summary⇲

The good 👍
- ability to mark junk and sell it at once
- still easy to mod (unlimited sprint, changes to exp, credits etc.)
- clear visual improvements
- game automatically starts from the hub launcher, no need to open ME1 menu and then pick to choose a game
- possible to skip news and squad members banter to speed up elevator loading times
- addition of photo mode, previously it was possible to have similar effect through console commands
- there is more light in the scenes, so everything is not so dark
- running in hub areas is fixed and Shepard actually runs instead of having just camera shake
- Enemies in this nearly 20 y/o game can be smarter than in modern games - they hide, use powers effectively and try to flank us

The bad 👎
- not possible to respec character
- planets and dungeons are really repetitive
- remaster introduced some errors, like lack of blinking hints on the galaxy map (solved by community mod patch)
- Shepard can still run for 2s before he's panting (solved by mods)
- game is short without doing side quests

Conclusion:

It was a good revisit of ME1 after a couple of years. Enough to make me forgot some details, but not enough to make me forget the dialogues ;D

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Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☑ Good

☑ Interesting lore ☑ Well written NPCs Shepard is sent on a mission to prove that he deserves the status of spectre. Super-special-agent who can go where he wants, and do what he wants. As long as he's on a mission given by the Citadel Council, representatives of the galactic government. Spectres are supposed to do the dirty work behind the scenes, so the Council can pretend all alien races live happily together. Sadly for Shepard turian spectre - Saren - has another idea. He kills a spectre that was supposed to grade Shepard, make a mess and put blame on our hero. The plot revolves around proving to the Council that Saren is a traitor. Can't say much more without spoilers, but story is the main focus of this game. And the whole trilogy in general. "Plot revelation moment" is not cheap and predictable like in many other games, as long as you did not have spoilers. Which may be really hard, as the game was released 15 years ago. The game is full of lore, sci-fi talk and a lot of memorable races. BioWare did create everything from scratch, Quarians, Turians, Krogans, Elcors, Volus etc. don't really have equivalent in different fantasy or sci-fi gaming media.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☐ Average ☑ Good	The game was released nearly 2 decades ago, so it's not a massive open world game. It is instead a semi-open corridor shooter. We can diverge from the path a bit, but not much. Levels have clear start and finish, and it's impossible to get lost. The game has (rather repetitive) exploration component where we land on some desolate word to scan some junk or kill few bandits. Going to worlds to complete main missions, which are well-written and interesting. Time between missions is spent either on ship chatting with companions, or going to the hub area (Citadel) to sell junk and buy some useful armor or weapons. All side missions can be ignored, and while it will limit our max level, it will cut all the busy work. And is entirely manageable if we want to beat the game only on normal difficulty. If we don't want to go to the hub area to sell junk, it can be transformed into omni-gel. And later used to automatically open locked doors and chests.
🪄 Abilities ☐ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☑ Advanced combat	☑ Skill tree ☐ Statistics ☐ Crafting There are three main classes. Soldiers who focus on gun damage. Adept (biotic) which is basically a mage. Engineer, who is a support class focused on healing and debuffing enemies. And three derivative classes. Sentinel (biotic / engineer), vanguard (soldier / biotic) and infiltrator (soldier / engineer). Each main class has unique powers, and mixed classes can access some basic powers from both, but not the more advanced ones. Sentinel can use throw and warp from adept class, but not singularity. There are no strength etc. statistics, leveling up gives ability points to increase power level. Each power has 10 levels, so it does take a bit to unlock most of them. It's not possible to respec in this game, but points are abundant, so it's not possible to mess up the build.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☑ Adequate ☐ Fluid and enjoyable	They do feel aged, especially in comparison to ME2/ME3. We don't always stick to cover properly, it's not possible to easily move between covers. Like in rest ME games, it's not possible to jump. We can only walk and run. Many people may not like the mechanic where space bar is used to interact / run / go to cover. But I did get used to it, as a series design choice.
📇 Inventory and menus ☐ Basic ☑ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	☐ Made for gamepads ☐ Hard to navigate Inventory windows are still small, but legendary edition added the ability to mark items as junk and either sell them in bulk or change them into omni-gel. Which is a QoL update. The original version spent too much time just selling junk one by one. Weapon and armor stat comparison is clear and easy to do. Command menu get update to look more like in ME2/ME3, but it's just aesthetic. But there is a bug where game does not register properly, we left the command menu. Pressing the weapon trigger immediately after turning it off leads to us "clicking" on the medi-gel, which basically we waste it when our squad does not need it.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Great	☐ Well designed weapons Cover shooter with enemies coming at us in waves. We can either close the distance and finish enemies directly, or stay in the back and pick them slowly with powers and long range weapons. I don't know how well the direct approach would work on insanity level (I was dying after 3s if not covered) but it's surely a playable approach at lower difficulties. There is a big variety in weapons (heavy pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles) and they all feel distinct. One big difference between ME 1 and the rest of the trilogy is that here powers all have individual long cool downs. Using all powers on easy enemies can leave us struggling with tougher ones.
🤖 Game AI ☐ Brain dead ☐ Really basic ☐ Average ☑ Smart and responsive	Enemies are responsive, use cover well and try to flank us. The big downside of our companion AI though, is that they can be quite brainless (I keep struggling why when enemies don't have problem with path finding). They will go under enemy fire, or just not be able to follow us around. So we may need to micromanage them in narrow passages.

💸 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:

That’s late December update. I get sick thorugh Christmas (similar to a lot of people at work) so everything I was supposed to do during break had to be done in January.

I have beaten Mass Effect trilogy so many times already. Getting 100% in legendary edition feels like a good way to say bye to all those amazing companions, while making tons of screenshots with better textures and movies ;D