Be Excellent To Each Other

1. Crysis (PC)
2. Octodad (PC)
3. Crysis Warhead (PC)
4. Tomb Raider: Anniversary (PC)
5. The Evil Within (PC)
6. Torchlight (PC)

Played until finishing the main story line, but also finished all the ember quests, all the fame quests, and most (?) of the portal quests. I played on Hard, because popular opinion is that Normal is too easy to provide any challenge, and that seems about right.

I never played a Diablo game, so this was my first experience with a mouse driven action RPG. The game doesn't really make any attempt at explaining the finer points. For example, sometimes it seemed that the game was not reacting to my key presses. But after some time I realized that since you can't perform an action while you are in the middle of another, what you have to do is hold down the key until the action can be performed.

I also didn't realize that my basic attack was becoming fairly useless, and that I should just assign my first learned skill (a slash attack) to the left mouse button instead and use that. I must have been about half through the game at this point. Of course, these learned skills cost mana to use, and this was where I had the amazing epiphany that even if you play as a warrior you should be expending mana at the same rate as HP, or you are simply not putting up your best fight. Once this was sussed, I started really dealing out serious beatings and combos and really got into the game.

You actually really do need to pay attention and use skills and strategies in order to succeed, and I felt that I learned as I played, which is always nice. It is a bit misleading at first, because it is not until the latter half of the game that it really starts putting up a challenge.

I tended to lose track of the mouse pointer when things got hectic, but that happens in RTS games as well, so maybe that's just me. I did also find that the enemies were too hard to target at times, especially flying ones, and I am not convinced it was my all my fault.

The game is rather simplistic in terms of presentation and story, but now I am looking forward to playing the sequel, which is supposedly a big improvement.

Torchlight was one of the most mind numbing experiences of my life. It's almost none of the guys know what made the first Diablo special (and the Torchlight team actually has some guys that worked on Diablo).

There's no atmosphere whatsoever and no rhyme or reason to the progression of the levels. No sense of place at all. This is basically an huge grind, clicking on stuff and watch numbers getting bigger.

I still think no game of this kind is as good as Diablo 1. And no game of this kind besides Diablo 1 is as good as Diablo 2. This is a genre which is awash with mediocrity and lack of innovation.

So what was it that made Diablo special?

Atmosphere and setting. Each new level really felt like a step closer to hell.

Facing the Butcher the first time was one of those unforgettable experiences. Same for Lazarus, or seeing the man bleeding to death in front of the church warning about the Butcher. There was an omnipresent sense of dread and danger. And that soundtrack!

Torchlight thematically was all over the place. One level had treetop villages, the next a sunken city and so on...

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty: I'm struggling a bit to form a coherent opinion on this one. I mean I definitely enjoyed it to some degree given that I played it through to the end (bad ending; fuck trying to rescue loads of the wee dicks) but so much of it was a fucking infuriating grind. Apparently the controls have been improved from the original game which terrifies me because they're still one of the main reasons you'll die so often. Even by the end of the game there were still plenty of times when Abe would jump forward rather up to grab an over-hanging platform and you'd get shot/exploded/eaten for the billionth time. And even without that factor there are multiple parts of the game where you've solved the puzzle and know exactly what to do but the execution is so fucking finicky--or just requires a massive string of pixel perfect jumps and rolls and whatever--that you can spend half an hour slowly perfecting what needs done. On the other hand the very fact that I was willing to spend half an hour solid on certain parts just to progress like two feet of in-game space does indicate that some horrible masochistic part of my brain did enjoy biting down the rage and just practising the same section over and over and over. You can totally tell that it's a remake of an old game because the whole design and execution of it's so needlessly unfriendly (it does a pretty shit job of explaining itself as well of course). I know a lot of people think games are too easy these days and we're no longer in some golden age of games design but those people are giant fucking idiots who's brains have become addled by all the nostalgia they've been huffing. The terrible cunts. So, um, I dunno. Is it a good game? I suppose. Did I enjoy? In some weird way, apparently. Would I like to ever play it again? I will fucking cut you!

Incidentally I started to play this the other day (it was a toss up between this and Valiant Hearts) and 'accidentally' killed the very first guy you see by dropping him down a hole. I didn't think that was fair and I wanted to rescue all the wee buggers (or at least try) so I jumped down after him to my death.

Which bizarrely triggered a bug which zoomed me much further into the game right in a really finicky section that involved dropping a bomb. I tried; I died. I couldn't restart to the last checkpoint cause it'd saved itself after this bug so I had to restart the whole game all over thing again.

Not a huge problem, cause I hadn't gone very far but still, not the greatest introduction to the game.

I'll come back but I started Valiant Hearts instead. Tch, aye?

5. COD: Ghosts: Well worth the £5 I paid for it but it is very linear. I also felt that a lot of the time, the story would have progressed whether I was there or not.

5. Valiant Hearts (PS4).

This is rather difficult so I'm just going to lump my thoughts in a big list.

a) Nice graphics in a 'Alien Hominid' kinda way.
b) Basic, almost child-like, puzzles that are dull without any satisfactory pay-off except that you can move onto the next rudimentary puzzle.
c) Jarring authenticity in the pictures and text about the actual WW1 (and even in the items you pick up such as the letters from real soldiers) that was, to me at least, fascinating.
d) Was the story based on real events or just made up? I couldn't make my mind up about it throughout. Was it telling me a cartoon version of real stories that actually happened or was it just from someone's brains or a combination of the two? It was all terribly confusing because I wanted so desperately to go along with it throughout. I longed to be interested in the fates of these four people yet something at the back of my head was telling me "just to the end and be done with it". The first two acts are typical silly cartoon villain stuff then the last two acts are less straightforward extended prologues to each of the four protagonists stories. I'll be honest, the bland gameplay really wore me down and by the end of it I just wanted rid. Not only that, the constant changing of the characters meant that when the end did come I had had enough and even the surprising ending wasn't enough to redeem itself.
e) The medic woman's QTE: get fucked.
f) The american guy's final fight? A QTE: get fucked.
g) The dog: I WUBS YOU.


i) 100 collectibles? Get to fucking off.
j) What's with the uPlay action things popping up? Get tah fucking the fuck off.
k) It's actually too long. Even though it's relatively short. Riddle me that, aye?

And so on.

Turns out that it's a semi-interesting cartoon puzzle game for kids with information about WW1 that you could probably find on wikipedia if you were interested enough to go looking into the horrors of that war. It might get your kids interested in history but as a game, for me, as a childless adult with no kiddies to play it with, it suffered from far too many samey gaming tropes to make it worthwhile.

Probably cause it was Ubisoft, right? Those cunts. They could have stepped up the horror and made a classic but they actually produced something generic and bland cause they ain't got the bollocks. Probably.

EDIT: Let's shove some numbers in here. 4/10. Transistor was better, but only just.

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus: Indie PC nonsense. Initially seems like it's going to be a Dear Esther-esque walking simulator--and there are certainly parallels in the presentation--but it quickly turns into a puzzle game with pretensions. It mostly concerns itself with the rolling around of balls and their placement onto switches (of a sort) to manipulate the environment. There are a couple of clever ideas in here that are effectively used now and again, but mostly the scenery just changes while very similar problems are placed before you. There's a few nicely designed environmental details but it's generally a bit unimpressive graphically and there was a fair chunk of hideous screen tear which annoyed me; especially as I'd turned on the v-sync option. Also the plot is half-baked psycho-babble and of little interest so you stop giving a shit about that aspect pretty quickly. I didn't hate it or anything but can't really recommend it.

6. Heir (Browser?). Platforming Shadow of the Colossus and a surprisingly fun distraction for twenty minutes or so. If you're bored at work and your pooty can handle it, it's worth your time.

7. COUNTER Spy (PS4). I must have been in the mood cause I've really enjoyed this and did the lot in 2 sittings. It's Rolling Thunder (well I reckon it has similar stylings. The artwork is real good actually), it's a puzzle game (so you want to clear a room of baddies by shooting them in the head one at a time so as to not alert the others? Go!) and it's a 3D shooter all in one (since the puzzle bit spins the screen in 3D allowing you to pew pew pew in the third dimension).

I think it's supposed to be Rogue-Like since it randomises the levels but that still didn't stop it repeating sections a fair few times during my playthrough. Bit disappointed by that actually.

Oh and it has this permadeath-esq mechanic that if you raise the Defcon level (it's all to do with getting spotted and allowing the baddies to radio for help) then you can end your "run" and back to go to start the game all over again. There's a catch though, cause you can pause and quit without being punished so if you're quick enough to quit after you die you won't lose your progress. Shame really cause I did fuck up bad once and I should have allowed the game to punish me but I cheated out. Tch. Gamers, aye?

Oh and the Defcon can be tripped in game which gives you 60 seconds to reach the end of the level and stop the countdown; that's pretty thrilling.

What else, the weapons are cool and meaty. The targetting is spot on (no invert on the controls though. MINUS ONE POINT).

Awww hell, it's just pretty fucking good fun and cheered up my sad little life for an evening.

Have a 6 out of 10 you fun but disposable game. It'd be a 7 but NO INVERT!?

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir
30. Rivers of Alice: Beautiful point and click adventure for Android with great music and sound design but the puzzles are obscure and annoying enough that I can't really recommend it.

Also, I notice last year it took me until October to get to a total of 30 so it looks like I'm no course to easily beat my score from last year. It's odd that I'm hammering through games so much more quickly this time round.

I noticed that. Are you more single this year than last year, or do you have a different job or something?

I am more single but that was never really a barrier to my playing games anyway. I dunno, I'm more motivated to play games than I've been for a while for some reason. Although most of the stuff I'm finishing is on Android and I'm doing exactly the same amount of mobile gaming as I always have because that's solely during commuting time.

It's one bugger of a commute to see Myp for some spooning. Much more time for him to play games.

1. The Book of Unwritten tales
2. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
3. Trine 2
4. The Banner Saga
5. Shadowrun Returns
6. Ziggurat – A roguelike FPS that manages to improve on Tower of Guns in many significant ways: The enemies are not bullet sponges, great variety of guns, and lovely aesthetics influenced by 90’s games like Heretic. I loved it, and the last boss battle was one of the most intense and moments in gaming I’ve ever had.

8. Apothena (PS4). Very Good. It's definitely Metrovania. It's all God of War. It's Myth. It's all sorts of lovely stuff.

It's platforming Greek god smashing great. The campaign is really good. Why? Cause it does different stuff init? Lots of new areas, new villains, puzzles, enemies, traps, underwater stuff, some stuff using a Wind Waker map, some stuff with stuff. Impatient like? Get on with the campaign it's 7 hours of good. Or you can stick around and find stuff: new weapons, hidden stuff, hidden people, stories, notes revealing the locations of more stuff. More, more, MOAR.

Games ain't all ain't killing folk are they? WELL THIS ONE IS. Fuck Gods up. All of them. Punch their faces off. Bash their heads in. Gods just destroyed your entire planet. FUCK EM UP THEN. It's like God of War 1 but with platforming and this strange (but thankfully very subtle) way that the game is being projected into stone. I kinda liked it and it suited the 'cave drawings' art style. Plus it never once bothered me, so we'll done whoever thought about doing something different like that.

Anyway, as far as free games go, you gotta say this is a solid 8 or 9. EXCEPT IT AINT. Cause it crashed 3 times in 8 hours and I got stuck in a bug that meant I had to revert to an earlier save (it saves often so I lost about 2 minutes, no biggie). BUT STILL I ain't very fucking happy about it. It's a bloody Playstation 4 and 3 time - THREE TIMES - it just packed up, said fuck you, and asked me if I wanted to send an error report. Not good enough.

Back down to 7/10 you go. Still well worth playing though. I kinda smashed through it cause it was so ace and I ain't been playing much lately so, y'know, musta kept me entertained.

I signed up for PS+ a few hours too late to get that for free which I'm annoyed at myself about as I really fancy it.

Well, I finally have one to add here.
1. Danganronpa. Whatever the subtitle is.
Well, maybe. It's a story more than a game. (which I don't see as a negative) Although I do seem to have the bears disappointed noise. Which probably isn't good.

It's never good to hear a bear's disappointed noise.

Well that came out a hundred times more gay than I expected.

9. Robocop Arcade (Mame).

Fuck this game.

I was fascinated by this as a yoof but can't remember getting off the second level. Turns out there's a really good reason for that - it's a dirty slot whore.

30 credits later (when I've finally finished it) the memory of Robocop The Arcade is finally trashed in a burning pile of repeating ED-209 bosses, endless waves of bullshit baddies bullets which you've got no possibility of dodging and dirty, grubby repeating level layouts (especially near the end). Seriously, 30 credits. And I was playing to win. I had set myself a goal of 5 credits but that soon went down the shitter after about the tenth attempt at a 5 credit finish and making it no further than outside OCP on a good day.

Robocop The Arcade: Go Fuck Yourself. 2/10 - 1 for the samples (ace) and 1 for the nostalgia.

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir
30. Rivers of Alice
31. Ascent of Kings: short Metroidvania for Android by the guy that makes all the "x Please!" games enjoyed by Grimm and I. Annoyingly he's managed to make a real arse of the controls since I first played it so there's a level of frustration involved that shouldn't really exist. Although I still managed to finish it and find all 12 lesser shrines which I didn't when I played it years ago.

How long is your commute?

Assuming the trains run on time, which they largely do, it's ten minutes on the train plus however much time I spend waiting at the station (<10 minutes). Ascent of Kings I knocked off over lunch time mind.

1. Proteus (Vita) - finished the game
2. Desert Golfing (iOS) - played 1,000 holes
3. Heavy Metal Thunder (iOS) - finished story
4. Driveclub (PS4) - finished Tour with 175/225 stars, finished free DLC trophies
5. Peggle Classic (iOS) - finished Adventure Mode with 18m points
6. OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood (PS4) - completed all stages on Amateur
7. Daytona Rush (iOS) - unlocked all tiers, top on friends leaderboards for all tiers
8. Super Mega Baseball (PS4) - won the League Championship

Behind the deceptively cartoonish graphics, this is a seriously good baseball sim with arcade elements. It took me three seasons to win the league despite making the playoffs each year, and the fact I didn't grow tired of the mechanics shows that it gets a lot right.

1. Crysis (PC)
2. Octodad (PC)
3. Crysis Warhead (PC)
4. Tomb Raider: Anniversary (PC)
5. The Evil Within (PC)
6. Torchlight (PC)
7. Mass Effect (PC)

What impresses about this game is how much you can make it your own experience. You can ignore all the RPG stuff (except outfitting), choose the Soldier class and just play it like a shooter and let the other crew members use their abilities as they like, or you can choose to micromanage every ability of each crew member and how they level up. Or somewhere in between.

Similarly, the story has lots of branches and possibilities depending on your choices. You can choose the Paragon path and be a saint, or the Renegade path and be the obnoxious bastard. Or anywhere in between. I believe there are different endings and outcomes, and those can be imported into Mass Effect 2 so you will get a smooth continuation of the story.

You can rush through the main story or do side quests. You can ignore all the background information (which is really well done and very sci-fi in that all the technology is explained in a fairly believable manner) without losing out on anything in terms of "getting" the story, or you can read through all that stuff if you enjoy it.

You can have elaborate conversations, probing everyone you encounter for all their personal details, or just get the bare minimum for advancing the story, again without losing out on anything important.

There is a stupid hacking mini-game that is repeated ad nauseam, but it too can be avoided by spending resources instead.

The story is epic, but despite the good voice acting, the cut scenes feel a bit drab at times. The setting is superb.

The side missions are mostly identikit raids and endless driving around on barren planets, but main story quests are good and varied. I did enjoy it and look forward to getting on with the sequel at some point.

I never played the first one but loved ME2 and allegedly it improves on ME1 in most ways.

I really liked the setting of ME1, but hated everything else. The game was boring, levels were just corridors. Wasn't good enough as a shooter, and it was way too shallow for anything else.

Then there's the Bioware level of C&C: either kill kitties or sacrifice yourself saving dolphins.

I got bored of me1 after an hour or so.

9. Oddworld: New & Tasty (PS4). It's bloody good this. Like the old game but like a new game. Looks the biz, has the Oddworld dark sense of humour and is actually reet bloody difficult at times. Recommended.

Now to the stats:
Mudokons rescued:
Sat: 125
Bamba: 118
Completion Times:
Sat: 6 hours 37 mins
Bamba: 8hrs 39 mins
Best times - Scrabania
Sat: 28 mins
Bamba: 1 Hr 9 mins
Where did some people turn it off:
Paramonia - level 4
Krazywookie
Fire-Free Zone - level 8
Runcle
Ending - the bad one. And bloody funny it was too.

So Oddworld: bloody good, a fabulous update to an old classic that's finally given me the chance to play it through to the end. It's reminded me of another game I've played recently, a new one, but I can't remember what it was called. It doesn't feel like an old game; it feels like one of the new indie crowd who don't give two fucks if it's a bit hard. The Meat Boys of the world if you will.

The new cut scenes were pretty good too. Nice and pretty. In fact, a lot of effort has clearly gone into this update. The backgrounds and stuff are really good if you stop to pay attention. Nicely detailed an' that.

The worse bit however are the controls, they're way too loose and fluffy. It's the jump button really, it's not any good. Jping to the side needs you to press the button and then tilt the stick; it's a bit crap really but you start to ignore it after a while until you come to a difficult section and it starts to be the main problem why you're not progressing. Still, the game isn't exactly a fast paced Meat Boy game so it's never a huge problem but a couple of control related deaths are enough to fuck you off a bit.

With this and [insert name of that other Oddworld game] I really hope Just Add Water come back and revisit the world again and again and again but with all the new games they had planned.

I'm going to say... 7/10. Very good.

I was immensely fucked off by the controls in more than one location but I somehow stumbled across the setting that meant you jump in the direction you're facing as soon as you hit the jump button and that made a massive difference to the playability of some sections. Why that's not the default is a mystery to me given some of the things it expects of you.

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir
30. Rivers of Alice
31. Ascent of Kings
32. Silly Sausage in Meat Land: brilliant little puzzler for iOS/Android that sees you snaking your stretchy dog through various levels trying to get to the exit without hitting stuff. Original and highly recommended.

1) Broken Sword 2 (iOS)
2) Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies (iOS)
3) Machinarium (iOS) - Puzzler where you play a little robot who has to wander around, find his love, and beat up some bullies by solving puzzles and pulling switches. Absolutely lovely, although needed a walkthrough for a couple of puzzles.

I played Machinarium with my wife and we loved it. The puzzles where excellent, and we had to record the music puzzle at the end.

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir
30. Rivers of Alice
31. Ascent of Kings
32. Silly Sausage in Meat Land
33. Catastrophe Escape: very short point-and-click escape type game for Android.

1. Crysis (PC)
2. Octodad (PC)
3. Crysis Warhead (PC)
4. Tomb Raider: Anniversary (PC)
5. The Evil Within (PC)
6. Torchlight (PC)
7. Mass Effect (PC)
8. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PC)

I had the impression this was going to be a fairly short walk-about simulator, but according to Steam, I got 7 hours out of this, which is pretty much my favorite game length.

The very structure of the game - and it is a proper puzzle game, just a fairly simple one - and the way it saves your progress is sort of a mystery in itself, but if you don't figure it out for yourself, the game will let you know eventually.

The player has to spend some time exploring for items lying around in the landscape, and a couple of them can be a challenge to find, so be warned, if that sort of things frustrates.

It is beautifully crafted. The entire game takes place in a smallish area centered around a dam, and the whole area is just amazingly detailed. Everything is arranged to provide the player with one vista after another. It feels like a real place, and if you can see something interesting, you'll probably end up going there at some point.

The story is a dark, gruesome tale with a fantastic and even darker ending.

In short, I loved it. If you are OK with the exploration aspect and the simple nature of the puzzles, and like psychological horror, it is basically perfectly executed.

I will get back to this, I haven't had my PS4 for a couple of weeks so I'm in a bit of a gaming lull.

I have read up on a few reviews, and it seems some reviewers are able to blaze through this in 3 to 4 hours. I'm not sure if Steam is lying to me or what, but just be warned that this is not a long game in any case. The original asking price is a bit much, but it is on offer on Steam at the moment for 7,59€, whatever that is in pounds of silver, and that is more than fair.

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir
30. Rivers of Alice
31. Ascent of Kings
32. Silly Sausage in Meat Land
33. Catastrophe Escape
34. Mystery of the Ancients: Curse of the Black Water: another of my guilty pleasure hidden object adventure games and a particularly well made example of the genre so I'm going to check if there are any others in the series.

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir
30. Rivers of Alice
31. Ascent of Kings
32. Silly Sausage in Meat Land
33. Catastrophe Escape
34. Mystery of the Ancients: Curse of the Black Water
35. Random Heroes 3: Jumpy shooty platformy fun for Android and perfect commuting fodder that's had me hooked for the amount of time it's taken me to batter through it. It's let down slightly by the fact that if you're clever about it and save up for a half-decent gun and the character who has the 'turns all coins to gold' ability you can grind the first level boss such that every ten seconds or so you get about 500 gold. This lets you very quickly buy and level up the most powerful gun in the game which means no enemy takes more than two shots; this does sort of break things slightly. The final boss took me ten seconds and I just had to stand still and shoot at him because there was zero chance he could kill me before my double-rocket launcher destroyed him. Still, good stuff all round.

1. The Book of Unwritten tales
2. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
3. Trine 2
4. The Banner Saga
5. Shadowrun Returns
6. Ziggurat
7. Legend of Grimrock 2 – In many ways it’s even better than the first. There’s a big Dark Souls inspiration to its intricate world, filled with secrets and understated lore. Many games of this genre, most particularly Dungeon Master 2, didn't make the smoothest transition to an open world/overland structure. In this game it works extremely well.

The level design is fantastic, and so it the general feel of the game. The only aspect in this game which might be slight inferior to its prequel is the puzzles. They don’t feel as focused, and sometimes they’re a bit aimless and in a couple of occasions I was forced to check an walkthrough, which was something that never happened in the first game.

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir
30. Rivers of Alice
31. Ascent of Kings
32. Silly Sausage in Meat Land
33. Catastrophe Escape
34. Mystery of the Ancients: Curse of the Black Water
35. Random Heroes 3
36. Never Alone: Sadly was simply Never Much Fun. It was gorgeous to look at and all but the game itself is the most basic of platforming you could imagine and just never does anything worthy with it's setting or visual design. A great big shame really.

Everyone has missed the point of Never Alone, it seems. It's immeasurably better in co-op.

1. The Book of Unwritten tales
2. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
3. Trine 2
4. The Banner Saga
5. Shadowrun Returns
6. Ziggurat
7. Legend of Grimrock 2

8. Primordia - Wow, another great entry into this new golden age of adventure games. Primordia does so many things right, stuff that should be common in every game of this genre, like multiple solutions to puzzles, branching paths and multiple endings.

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir
30. Rivers of Alice
31. Ascent of Kings
32. Silly Sausage in Meat Land
33. Catastrophe Escape
34. Mystery of the Ancients: Curse of the Black Water
35. Random Heroes 3
36. Never Alone
37. Aaru's Awakening: In the PS+ thread I said, "Aaru's Awakening is surprisingly fun. It's pretty rough around the edges and the controls are sometimes, by neccesity, the gaming equivalent of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time but I've really enjoyed my time with it. You will die an absolute shitload while working out what each section requires and then executing it but I'm not finding it at all frustrating; largely because the checkpoints are very generous. It's the kind of game I would usually expect to hate but something about it's really sucked me in and I think I'm only two levels off finishing it. So, yeah, worth giving it a shot though I suspect it won't be for everyone." And I mostly stand by that, though the last level and then boss fight was an utter motherfucker and possible the hardest gaming challenge I've ever actually completed. I was ready to walk away from it a few times but knowing it was the last part of such a challenging game made me grit my teeth and finish. I shudder to think how many times I died all in! The difficulty is certainly all over the map as, in the last set of levels, I finished three of them in under ten minutes then spent an hour on the last one and the boss fight. Even within that you can batter through 90% of each level but one or two section will hold you up for ages as you work out what the intended approach is then repeat it until you've perfected it.

1. The Room
2. The Room 2
3. Monument Valley
4. The Unfinished Swan
5. Flower
6. Age of Zombies
7. P.T.
8. Thomas Was Alone
9. Space Expedition
10. Xon episodes one and two (all that are available right now)
11. Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now)
12. Gunman Clive
13. Pixel Staff
14. Hellraid: The Escape
15. Forever Lost: Episode 1
16. GTA 5
17. Gene Effect
18. Nihilumbra
19. Limbo
20. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
21. The Cat Lady
22. Lily Looking Through
23. Botanicula
24. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25. That Level Again
26. Helidroid 3D
27. Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey New n Tasty
28. Mind: Path to Thalamus
29. Heir
30. Rivers of Alice
31. Ascent of Kings
32. Silly Sausage in Meat Land
33. Catastrophe Escape
34. Mystery of the Ancients: Curse of the Black Water
35. Random Heroes 3
36. Never Alone
37. Aaru's Awakening
38. Tiny Thief: I have played most of it before, though it was a good while ago, but I'd never played the final and newest level so I played through the whole thing again for that. Brilliant stuff and easily one of the best mobile games I've ever played. Essentially a point and click adventure game but just so well implemented and so pretty/charming to look at that it transcends that genre description in my opinion. I'm sure the version on either Google Play or the Amazon app store has a free level or two so there's no excuse for anyone not giving it a shot.

10. Bloodborne (PS4).

PS4 gets a barnstorming exclusive so early into its life. Yes, it's about time. Fucking cracking game this. 10/10

11. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (PS4).

It's bloody difficult this one. It's the same but it ain't. The music is similar but ain't as good. The graphics are the same but not as exciting somehow (probably cause they're near identical). The story is reasonably interesting but it's so crazy nutzoid that I couldn't piece it together in my mind. Having said that, I read some bits on it afterwards and was absolutely baffled that that was the actual story. Plus I couldn't remember what Jacket looked like; I mean, come on, he's hardly the most recognisable character when viewed from above. It's a confusing mess that's actually fun to unravel though, if you're into that. I can't exactly moan about this when I've just praised Bloodborne even though the story there is probably more abstract and crazy nutzoid.

Actually, whereas I was happy to get it finished I kinda want to go back and play it all over again knowing the story that I've read just so I can nod my head sagely and say "Hmmmmm" loudly to myself (and my dog) while scratching my chin knowingly.