Spellforce 3: Soul Harvest - Completed. Took me a while to get through this due to a lack of time, it's not even that long. I really enjoyed it however. It's not remarkably different from the original game, but the storylines and characters, especially the voice acting and writing are just so good. It still surprises me how much quality is in these games and how likely they are to be overlooked. The gameplay is still fun, though I still contend that the skill trees are a bit limited and the items are a bit weird but I was still able to build out a full roster of characters I had fun playing with. The characters though are just amazing, so well enough to choke me up with emotion from time to time. Obviously these things are really a "your mileage may vary" kinda deal, you might hate the gameplay or not gel with the characters or storylines but I really do think these games are worth your attention, it's one of those properties you've probably had in your peripheral memory and just considered as generic high fantasy, and the earlier games maybe but Spellforce 3 and this expansion have really elevated the bar, the developer craftwork here might not be groundbreaking but it's certainly notable. I honestly hope everyone involved is proud of their efforts because I am for them.

While I disagree with Le Don's concerns about the streamer in question as I think any drama about him shouldn't be impacting something like this

Just to clear this up, my concern is not that there is some drama, which itself I couldn't care less about. My concern is how this drama is being handled (by spreading lies, misinformation and stirring up more drama) and if this is any indication how this initiative will be handled, then this has the potential to hugely backfire on us.

I really get your apprehension of this being legislated against poorly, it would definitely be par for the course for lawmakers to misunderstand a situation and then half-ass a solution that doesn't even handle the issue.

But I think the real issue here is just doing nothing at all. A half-assed solution that does "nothing" isn't entirely nothing, it finds boundaries in law where none exist right now that honestly need to be established, like "is a game actually a service or a product? and what defines that" instead of getting a million conflicting answers, one definition under law so people can move forward from there.

Doing nothing though, that's the real danger. Poor legislation is a potential, but the slow attrition of whatever rights we do have currently, being pushed by publishers is an existing and evolving reality. And not just in the gaming space I might add. I'd rather be afraid of what I know is going to happen rather than be afraid of what might happen from a myriad of potential outcomes.

The worst thing down the line really is going to be a push for subscription based libraries. The OUYA and Stadia's failure was a blessing, I honestly dread the next time this attempt comes around, where better implementation accustoms people to not even having the files on their system and everything lives with perpetual impermanence in the cloud. So many games existing at the whims of publishers and profit, available only for those free and cognizant during a brief moment in time and willing to experience it. It's so ridiculous that it even has to be considered that way.

Mine is stuff I own and have some possibility of playing, so it's not everything I own. For example I've gotten some of those massive itch.io charity bundles and I sure haven't added everything in those to it. Same with Epic freebies; while I don't grab them all, I do grab any of vague interest but only some get added to the actual backlog. As for my backlog itself, I view it as more of a library of choices than anything. Once in a while I'll check it over and do a little pruning.

"As for my backlog itself, I view it as more of a library of choices than anything"



Thank you. Makes me so sad when people look at their "backlog" as some kind of chore. Imagine having access to so many games and experiences, so much potential and being....distraught at the idea of engaging with them. There's just so much to explore and not enough time.

Indeed, if you are from the EU and haven't heard of this or signed it yet please, please, please lend a hand. If you've looked at this and thought "oh this is just another one of these silly gamer petitions" and assume it won't do anything, please reconsider since this is an actual part of the EU framework to get lawmakers to start considering problems people are encountering.

Nearly everyone these days I imagine has had some situation where a game they've bought and enjoyed just evaporates or even some drama involving something like Concord becoming such an historic flop it implodes and disappears within weeks. Things like this will keep getting worse and become more commonplace until we force some kind of analysis on these dodgy practices. Worst case is nothing changes but we can at least say we tried.

Every time I complete this game 100%, they add more maps and achievements the following week. It's a never-ending cycle.

I hate when this happens, here's hoping your "Sisyphean task" can end some day, good luck :)

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I did some 100% clean up in the last few weeks on a few Sonic game. These were just remnant achievements so it's nice to revisit them even if they weren't the greatest games it was still fun enough trying to work the harder ones.





After that Primal Fears - Completed. This is not a particularly noteworthy game. It's by the same developers as Dead Horde and is in ways a sequel to it, same basic top down gameplay etc. The major problem here is that it has no specific story, you are dropped into a hub area and there's 7 different stages you can play and that's it. They tried to gatekeep each stage with a score requirement but you'll likely crack every score limit on the first stage. Regardless, even if you do just play them in order there's no connective tissue or anything. Not a huge deal really, the main appeal is just shooting hordes of monsters and to that ends it's a bit of a mixed bag. Enemy variety is really weak, you get money for each enemy killed to buy ammo and weapons and upgrades but most weapons are far to limited in ability, either they are pitifully weak, too situational, most are just plain bad, so expect to use the basic rifle for 90% of the game. There's no music to speak of, overall it's not a very compelling package. That said, I did have enough fun with it, it's like a lesser version of Alien Shooter, it gets enough right to be enjoyable but you can see the ways they could have made it so much better, which is unfortunate.



and Crash Dummy - Completed - This game is awful. It's so bad I'm stunned by it because this was the developers second stab at this CID the Dummy game and the first you could argue was an amateurish attempt at making a 2.5D / 3D platformer and it just missed the mark, nearly 15 years ago. For this game to turn out this badly, make so many god awful mistakes, in a purely 2D game it boggles the mind. The design ethos is all over the place, it feels like a modern attempt to make one of those nightmarishly difficult Amiga games but without any of the glorious Amiga charm. Just endlessly bad stages, constant trolling of the player, obscure hazards, unintuitive interactions, ambiguous controls aww it's so bad I didn't even want to play it and it's barely 4 hours long. The one saving grace here is that the lives system doesn't seem to matter at all, you have infinite continues and literally respawn where you died. I can't even tell if this was a design oversight on the devs behalf or some kind of compassion for the player, either way it's very welcome. Not that it matters either way I would just say avoid this game, one of the worst I've encountered. Not even going to put up screenshot because it didn't even end with a credit scroll.

A few completions over the last few days

Clockwork Tales: Of Ink and Glass - Was alright, pretty standard, though a bit underwhelming and disappointing because I feel like they wasted the steampunk setting.


Left in the Dark: No One on Board - The weakest of these Artifex Mundi Hidden Object games so far, just feels phoned in and that's saying something cause most of them generally feel a bit like that. Has more consistency than Clockwork Tales but it's short, repetitive and doesn't even have additional stuff like the others.


Dark Arcana: The Carnival - Whiplashing from the weakest so far to one of the better ones. Generally still mostly the same stuff but the production quality is up there with what was seen in Enigmatis 2. Great looking aesthetics, a relatively interesting story. Pretty good I enjoyed this quite a bit.


and finally, Heroes of Might & Magic: The Quest for the Dragon Bone Staff. Bit of a misnomer because I believe this is actually more King's Bounty than HoMM (haven't played any King's Bounty to know for sure). I enjoyed it for what it was though, a bit basic, very frustrating at times. I had to get a bit creative to kill the final boss, I literally restarted the game thinking I had completely bricked my save game, and if it wasn't for reading up on something online (the Dragon Bone Staff gives 4x damage vs. Dragons) I never would have loaded up the save to try it again. Glad to have finished it, and with it I think that's every single Heroes of Might and Magic game completed, what a journey :)

SpellForce III: Reforced - Completed - Took me ages to get through this, life kept getting in the way. Didn't mind too much though because I actually really enjoyed this game. Quite an improvement in some ways coming from Spellforce 2 and its numerous expansions where it never made the improvements that were needed. It's not a complete knockout game though, has several minor issues that kinda stack up to undermine it in ways.

I learned that the Reforced remaster severely dumbed the game down, not sure how much I like that fact since the extra decision making would have been really nice. That said there are several difficulty spikes here and there that just feel really unfortunate to deal with, mostly coming in the form of the RTS segments. Loot and character building has improved the most, but it still feels "off", they've done this really weird thing with several items where the upgraded versions of them are worse than the lower quality ones, so it ends up being a case of "I've been using this weapon for 30 hours and never found a replacement".

And overall there's just a general lack of variety, there's a handful of enemy types that just show up everywhere, wolves, bears, beetles and spiders, then a host of "humans" counting the rare exceptions you fight orcs, elves and undead. It becomes a bit silly when they send you back to old areas which feels like padding just to smack around another outpost full of humans. They also lost the concept of puzzle maps and other goofy things like the tile games which gave the world a bit more flavour in the early games.

All that said it's decent. A big highlight is the voice acting, every character, regardless of importance was treated with real effort. I actually felt bad any time I was skipping through dialogue just to get back to the gameplay. The writing also is up there, some characters just ooze personality in all the best ways.

Not sure how to recommend it though, it's a good game, I'm not sure if they original Spellforce 3 would be better or not. 3 games deep in the series, it stands well enough by itself, the quality is there so sure, if you want a competent RPG / RTS it's worth trying.

L.A. Noire

A visually beautiful police procedure, set in 1940s Los Angeles for you to drive around from suspect to suspect and case to case. The game follows your characters progression through the varions case desks of the LAPD. Along the way you take in the Black Dahlia case and in a dlc episode a connection to Howard Hughes and his 'Spruce Goose' mammoth airplane.

The game is almost completely linear. You can fail interviews entirely and imprison the wrong guy, but it doesn't make any difference to your progression. At first this can seem like a glorified method of delivering a graphic story and in some ways it is, but the character modelling is outstanding and the acting is top draw. The NPCs have real and very different characters and you end up likeing and disliking much about them, ultimately developing a cameraderie with many.

There are no weapon upgrades but as you successfully complete cases it unlocks new outfits which come with player buffs to the aim of gun types and even resiliance in a knuckle fight...and yes you do have to slug it out when running down some suspects. There's a variety of gameplay, from car and foot chases, to shoot outs and hostage situations to voluntarily respond to as well as dozens of cars to tick off as having driven. You have to balance, climb, use discovered evidence to crush suspects in interviews and sometimes solve puzzles to progress. All in all there is enough to keep you interested here in a game that will take some 25 hours to complete with the dlc.

L.A. Noire is like living a movie where you make the choices and it's a tremedous experience that is rarely replicated in games. The liner and the slightly superfluous nature of your actions is the only thing that undercuts the experience and if it wasn't for the outstanding writing and voice acting, it wouldn't be half the game it is. That said it isn't a fast game and won't be for everyone, but if you can get past these flaws then you are in for an enjoyable and immersive story.

Regularly available through the year for about $7 at sale times.

It's so sad they never continued with more L.A. Noire games. It had its problems, the implosion of Team Bondi and the investment in the tech might not have been entirely worth it but as you said, as an experience, even the setting held a lot of promise. You'd think with the relative success of the Mafia series they might consider giving it another try.

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Cosmic Leap - Completed. Not the greatest game but fun enough as a time killer. Can be really frustrating since the controls can be reaaaally unintuitive and frustrating when you can't tell which way you're actually going to move. Most of the time it's not a big deal, it can mostly function as an auto-runner and you just time when to jump but the more complicated levels that require you to stop and change direction can become a bit of a nightmare. It's a bit odd that a game this simplistic can have a problem that basic. But it's something that can be overcome, as annoying as it is. Most levels aren't too difficult and there's certainly a satisfaction in knocking out each stage then getting all the coins etc. Not for everyone but you can do worse if you are interested.

Twin Sector - Completed. Had a fun enough time with this game, a first person puzzle game in the style of Portal, just a lot more basic and with a much lower budget. But it has an earnest charm to it and for the most part some fairly decent puzzles to navigate. It's quite janky at times, has some pretty funny engrish in places, but overall it's playable and satisfying enough to solve. It's probably going to be waaay too janky / out dated to appeal to many people but if you can get past that it's not a terrible experience. Worst part is it plays like a prologue to the actual game, and no sequel / follow up is likely to ever happen so that's a bit unfortunate lol.

Sonic Colors DS - Completed. I was fairly impressed with this game, I wasn't entirely in the mood for it otherwise I might push to get all S ranks or something but the fact that it's just like a "secret" Sonic Rush sequel is great. They captured the general feel of both Rush and Colors really well. Only real downsides I have are that the dual screen mechanics are as disorienting as usual, found myself just wishing it was a single screen situation multiple times, and some of the wisp powers are a tad finicky to control. But overall it's a pretty decent game.

I loved both Hand of Fate games. I absolutely didn't go for 100% though. It's a shame the studio was shut down.

I didn't even realise they had shut down :( that makes me sad. Does make me appreciate Hand of Fate 2 that little bit more knowing that 3 won't be happening D:

Hand of Fate 2 - Completed. Not a bad game but pushing to 100% it has been quite the marathon. It's not a bad game but I was honestly done with it about 60 odd hours ago but those last few achievements and dealing with endless mode really dragged it out. I personally think the first game was better, just by virtue of being more contained, less is more, pure condensed experience. This game is mostly the same, and if you enjoyed the first you'll likely enjoy this too but it just has a habit of either outstaying its welcome or trying too hard with being gimmicky at times. Don't wanna rail on it too hard, part of it was a me problem and burning out a bit on it in the process. So glad it's over now though lol.

Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden - Completed. I'm a bit split on this one, it's pretty standard as a Hidden Object Game, takes very obvious inspiration from Bioshock with it's art deco underwater paradise gone wrong theme. The puzzles though are at times ludicrously easy, objects are frequently just sitting in the same scene, a lot of the hidden objects are really easy to do. And there's some basic annoyance with the flow of the game having to constantly go up and down an elevator that you can't skip. Not huge deal breakers but would also be a bit better if this wasn't the case. Can't complain too much overall though.

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak - Completed. Surprisingly decent, managed to translate a space based RTS into a ground based one fairly successfully. More importantly they managed to maintain the general atmosphere and tone of the Homeworld games which was great. Only real downside is a general lack of "sophistication", limited controls in terms of formations etc. that were a big aspect of the previous games. Game plays kinda slow at times, units don't move very fast but they die quick which can be a bit annoying, and there can be a lot of busy work just getting things ready or into position. Also has a bad habit of just surprising you with game altering situations out of nowhere or just ending missions on trivial things. I really miss Homeworld 1 not ending missions until you choose to dock all your units and manually progress. Not a huge deal just one of those cool little things that meant you could always prepare before leaping into the unknown.

Heroes of Might & Magic II (GBC) - Completed. It was fun enough, nice of them to include a campaign mode of 7 maps and a free choice of hero to start with at the beginning. Still extremely basic though and nowhere near competent or as fun as the actual proper PC versions, but it's charming enough seeing how they tried to pare this down to a handheld again. It has another set of scenario maps so I'll keep playing to knock them out over time since it's fun enough and after that I'll look forward to the "Quest for the Dragonbone Staff" Playstation game :D



edit: Dark Heritage: Guardians of Hope - Completed. Fairly standard Hidden Object Game, nothing really stands out about it to be honest aside from their usage of live action actors instead of the cheesy tween animation / goofy 3D models they've used in the past. Would have scored a bit higher but encountered a bugged puzzle and the music kept skipping and had obvious repeat breaks in it, and it's not like these are technically demanding games. Otherwise it's a decent little time killer.

Just 3 games this month

01 - Amnesia: The Bunker
06 - Sonic Colours: Ultimate
29 - Spellforce 2: Demons of the Past

Best - Sonic Colours. I started somewhat lukewarm on this game but it grew on me in a big way. It's solid, just a lot of great fun, good stages, fun bosses, amazing music as usual and the wisp powers add a lot of variety and planning to some stages, good stuff.

The Worst - Amnesia: The Bunker. Awful game. Game world is too small, monster is constantly hassling the player to the point of annoyance. Gameplay is just tedious, a real disappointment. Game tells you that various strategies are possible but 9 times out of 10 you've got one solution and the game is constantly roadblocking you with new mechanics that require specific items to progress, ultimately lying to the player. It's an interesting experiment but a failure in my eyes.

The Rest - Demons of the Past isn't bad enough to get the worst, even though it is janky and fairly mediocre overall. But I enjoyed my time with it, the RPG aspects, the RTS parts are as fun as ever, and even though things like the story etc. are a bit convoluted, I love the voice acting in these games, for some reason it just stands out, and the character writing, something about how the characters talk and how they are brought to life is just very well done and I commend those efforts. I look forward to seeing how / if Spellforce 3 improved things from here since there was clearly a lot of room for improvement :)

Spellforce 2: Demons of the Past - Completed. It's fine, more Spellforce 2. The story is completely lost on me at this point, I can barely keep track of the characters and who did what and when. Gameplay is just the same which is fine, I had fun playing it but it's not without its issues like copious amounts of jank.



Also spent a lot of the month 100%ing Sonic Colours. It's the perfect example of why you should try to 100% games, especially Sonic games, this went from a fairly mediocre, somewhat annoying 7/10 kinda game to a 8 - 9 quality game. I loved it, so much fun, especially getting used to all the wisp powers and figuring out when best to use them. The S rank scoring system was a bit weird, but it had its charms not worrying completely about speed all of the time.

Sonic Colors: Ultimate - Completed. Was decent enough, I will probably keep playing and try to 100% it. Nothing too wrong with it, not a big fan of the wall jump cause I kept sticking to things unintentionally. Some of the wisp powers are a bit pace breaking and clunky but overall it's fine. Character / Story is a bit cringey but again fine. I duno I liked it, you can tell this was a game of them finding their stride, shame I couldn't play Unleashed to get a real sense of the progression first though, but yeah this definitely feels like they made it out of that early 2000's era jank.

Anomalously low times like that should and likely will get pushed out of relevance as more people start submitting times. Especially in the launch window when everyone else is actually playing the game instead of submitting proper times, it's just something that will solve itself eventually. Sucks for sure, but in time it'll sort itself out.

I managed to get through a lot of stuff this month.

09 - The 3rd Birthday
13 - Inside
14 - Dagon: The Little Glass Bottle dlc
16 - Silt
17 - Lake Haven - Chrysalis
19 - Choo-Choo Charles
23 - Scanner Sombre
26 - Darq
27 - Swallow the Sea
28 - Sheepy: A Short Adventure
29 - Dagon: The Railway Horror dlc

The Best - It's a really tough call, there was so many good games. Inside and Choo-Choo Charles and Darq all could easily claim the spot but the real surprise for me this month was Sheepy: A Short Adventure. Everything about it just stands out as impressive, it's short, looks great, sounds great, plays great has some great moments to boot. And it's a free game which blows my mind because it's better than a lot of other stuff out there. I want people to give this game a try.

The Worst - Probably The Railway Horror dlc it was just too basic and not even that scary, trying to make a whole experience out of one of H.P. Lovecraft's dreams based on a letter he wrote. It was a neat idea but I wasn't too impressed. If dlc doesn't count then The 3rd Birthday would be the loser, it suffers from really annoying controls, repetitive gameplay and frustrating design choices. A real shame because if this game had the rough edges sanded off it it might be something incredible, but as it stands it's just like the unfortunate last remnant of the Parasite Eve series :(

The Rest - Inside was great, loved a lot about it, does so much so well, even though at times it starts to feel a bit aimless and the ending is a tad mediocre imo.
The Little Glass Bottle is close to The Railway Horror though a bit more charming.
Silt is fascinating and was a lot of fun to experience, it just lost out to other better games this month too.
Lake Haven - Chrysalis was a neat little homage to PS1 era survival horror games, though it's just a prelude and tbh a bit boring and lacking on content. Puzzles are basic and there's no real survival elements, but it shows promise for the future and the atmosphere is great.
Choo-Choo Charles impressed me a lot, I had so much fun with it, especially in Nightmare mode where the stakes are a lot higher due to permadeath.
Scanner Sombre has made me interested in playing more LiDAR games because I love the atmosphere it manages to create.
Darqwas another pleasant surprise, love the style and the puzzles and scope were a lot of fun to engage with, lots of clever ideas that were well executed.
Swallow the Sea was rather bizarre, very short but interesting.

I've tried writing and manipulating for like 10 minutes in different ways and haven't been able to trigger it. That message is for a client-side catch all error boundary.

Would there be any additional information you could provide? Special character usage or copy pasting certain items or anything you can think of?

Nothing off the top of my head no, sorry. If it happens again I'll see if I can get more info, at least I'll know it's something on my end causing it.

edit: just thinking about it, each time I was about ~2000 character deep and the page had been open for a while, probably longer than 10 minutes, so it wasn't an immediate thing. Like I said not a huge issue and can be worked around, not like it crashes around that character limit specifically since I can save and continue from there unimpeded, so I'm not sure what the exact trigger was.

Hi guys, longtime user of the site. I was just curious as to what the colors blue and red in the background signify when looking at a games hours to beat count? Some games have a blue background for everything while others are in red.

Just to add to UnsungGhost's reply, on the front page there's an accuracy guide to show the colour scaling.

I've been trying to write a review a few times now and the page has crashed (in page, not the browser or tab), being replaced with "Something went wrong! Please try again later". Not sure what's caused that to happen, I'd guess the live preview?



Not a huge deal, just need to save and edit the review more often, just letting you know in case there's a fixable problem behind it.

As someone who grew up playing these games and has been undertaking the same full series playthrough over the last few years this is a cool thread. You're putting in some great effort here, always nice to read some lore and in depth opinions.

Keep it up Exi :)

Thanks for making me aware of Sheepy: A Short Adventure! I just beat it in 1h 20m.

I share your opinion, it's a fantastic game of very high production quality. Even after your glowing review I did not expect such a great experience (especially the latter stages). It reminded me a bit of Celeste. So many things are done well here: gameplay, music, controller support, art style, atmosphere. If this was not just a 1 hour game it would rival some well known metroidvanias.

This makes me happy, so glad you enjoyed it too and that I was able to bring it to your attention :D Apparently there was news of a future game earlier this year so let's hope it's just as good or better.

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Amnesia: The Bunker - Completed. Seemingly an unpopular opinion given how well this game appears to have done, I really did not like it however. The idea is great, and it's hard to say it's not well executed because it is, and frictional are masters of their craft at this point (I'd argue they always were, even with missteps like Amnesia: Rebirth).

Problem for me here is the core mechanics led to some really degenerate gameplay that seemed to work in opposition with their intentions. What I mean is, having a hub you need to keep returning to in order to save and feel safe is a decent idea, but when the game world is so small, your inventory so limited and your goals so constantly impeded by light, items, monsters etc. I ended up just sprinting around the place in the dark like a madman not caring whether I lived or died. Doing this made it so I was mobile, had less chance of dying and ultimately gleaned more information than sneaking around praying not to get spotted by lurking enemies.

By 2 hours in I was so bored having to do this silly dance in every new area, realise i needed something, realise X was locked or Y was blocked or the map was lying and I just got tired and started using a guide for things. A short game but so overwhelmingly tedious to me that it felt several hours longer.

Other people seemed to like it a lot though so, take my words with a grain of salt I guess :P