OzuJL

^ I also pre-ordered it. If it's anything like the first game, then it should be an awesome game with endless replay value.

Gemini Rue turned out to be a slightly disappointing point-and-click adventure. Published by the same company that delivered the brilliant Blackwell series, Gemini Rue is set in a sci-fi world with very heavy noir overtones. The best things about the game are the gloomy atmosphere and the cyberpunk setting, but its thematic adventures fall quite short of their ambitious goals. It ends up being a rather superficial take on memory and identity and its entertainment value depends on its many twists, most of which can be seen coming in advance. It was compelling and short enough for me to finish the game, but it didn't live up to the expectations set by the company's other work and the press. I also managed to start playing the Gabriel Knight series and have already finished the first game, Sins of the Fathers. While exploring old adventure classics that in some cases I don't really have a thing for the puzzles and in some cases that disappoints me even if the game is great otherwise. Gabriel Knight featured just the sort of puzzles that I don't like: they often rely on small details found only with pixel hunting (and in this case you can't even see the points of interaction unless you click on everything) and the logic of some of the puzzles is rather bizarre. While Gabriel Knight didn't delight in bizarre inventory puzzles, it was often very hard to figure out what I was supposed to do next. However, checking the hardest parts from a guide didn't actually hurt the experience even though it does so in many other games. The writing itself was so damn good and even learning the answers of the puzzles by reading made them fascinating enough. So for me the game was more of an interactive novel than a proper adventure game, but it was entertaining and impressive nevertheless. I look forward to playing the other two games of the trilogy and hope they have a more straightforward interface and not as obscure puzzles.

I prefer Vol 1. Although Vol 2 is more serious and rich in content, Vol 1 is an amazingly well done piece of crazy popcorn entertainment. It also helps that I'm easily fascinated by anything Japanese so that adds an appealing finishing touch to the experience. It is rare to make a film that handles its many pop culture references so well at the same time as it stands properly on its own. Heck, even Inglorious Basterds felt like an unbalanced mess partly due to the references being all over the place.

I just completed Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. Now that was one hell of a cliffhanger ending with a scenario that seems downright impossible for the protagonists. If I had played the game back when it was released and would have known that it would take 8 years for the story to continue, I would have been mad as hell. Anyway, the game itself was pretty entertaining although it certainly didn't live up to the high standard of the original Longest Journey. Visually it was some inconsistent as the quality of the character models and textures were spotty here and there and most obviously the character animations really stood out as dated. The original Longest Journey was at least consistent in its graphics so it has aged a bit better than Dreamfall. The control scheme was also quite clunky and tough to get used to and it was even more irritating when it was combined with a very crude (and pretty much unnecessary) action and stealth elements. Puzzle solving was streamlined to the point that it didn't really feel like a classic point-and-click puzzle adventure game in the vein of the original. While I'm not missing the insane inventory puzzles of the original, I was somewhat disappointed to find that the gameplay didn't really prove to be challenging at all and some of the puzzles were replaced with silly minigames. While the gameplay was disappointing, it rarely got in the way of enjoying the writing. Just like the original Longest Journey, Dreamfall delivered a genuinely rewarding and mature story although it sometimes played around with rather naive extremities when it comes to its exploration of cultural and religious conflict, but in the end it handled the issues decently enough. What I like about both games is how they gradually develop the central protagonist that comes across as a one-dimensional teenager at first, but ends up turning into a character with very tangible emotions and motives that feel genuine. Oh, and Dreamfall had really awkwardly placed insert songs that felt really jarring at times.

I only bought the game because the pack with all the DLC cost way too much. Thanks for mentioning the DLC, though, because it made me look up what they offer and found a couple of interesting packs that I managed to get while they are still discounted.

It is free to play until next Monday, but at first I didn't want to take advantage of that because I would then just end up buying the game to continue once the tryout period ends. But then I saw that it had such a sweet discount and thus I decided to buy it.

Crusader Kings 2 since it is 75% off on Steam. Too bad I have way too many other games to play first so that I won't be able to invest time in it in a few months.

I found RDR an entertaining game, but I don't think it's a masterpiece. While the writing in general was above average, I found some of the side quests (and even main quests) tedious. I also wasn't too fond of the ending.

I'm also waiting for a discount (and possibly a couple of patches) on Sunless Sea. Judging by what I have read and seen of it, it should be just the sort of game that I would sink hours into.

That's a good idea - although I tend to enjoy stories more in both films and video games when I get to experience them alone. At least I have noticed that the presence of other people often disrupts the first time I watch or play something. But solving puzzles is definitely more fun with other people than trying to struggle on your own.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War was not so great. While I think that way too many games these days have poorly made open worlds and that I want more games with solid linear storylines, Valiant Hearts felt too linear. It feels like you are just aboard a train rushing to its destination regardless of what you do. Partly this is due to the fact that this is a side-scrolling game with heavily restricted movemement and without anything to "discover" - there is nothing superfluous in the game. All of the background story and historical trivia are dumped into a separate menu and all you can do is complete the actions the game forces you to do. The puzzles are simple to the point of feeling unnecessary and a great deal of them are basically quick time events, which goes to show how simplified the gameplay is (which also feels rather repetitive since the game lasts well over 7 hours). There are some gameplay elements that are a lot of fun (like the old school chase sequences tuned to classical music), but for the most part you need to deal with "puzzle solving" by repeating similar patterns and following unclear instructions (it takes some time to get used to how each mechanism works because the instructions for keys do not always notify how you are supposed to use them). In addition to the mixed gameplay, the game's style and writing do not always match up that well. The heavy and tragic anti-war message of the game is often forgotten thanks to the very cartoonish visual style and outlandish action spectacles that makes the game's atmosphere much more light-hearted even when it shouldn't be. The most jarring element of the story is a recurring enemy general who is more diabolical than a bunch of cheesy superhero villain put together. The fight with him ends up being mostly handled in cutscenes and pure quick time event sequences, which is another problem of the game: the gameplay hardly ever advances the plot, but instead feels like a separate entity from the story that is mostly advanced in cutscenes and quick time event sequences. Add to that a bunch of fake deaths and an ending that overlasts its welcome and you get a pretty confusing gaming experience in terms of storytelling. As much as I can complain about Valiant Hearts, it was nevertheless an enjoyable game. I loved its haunting soundtrack (which ended up being the only effective storytelling device) and the game looked nice for the most part even if the style didn't always fit to the story the makers were trying to portray. Knowing that Ubisoft was responsible for the game, it feels like a businessman's attempt to get some money out of the indie game market by dumping a game with awfully simplified gameplay, endearing visual style and forcedly sentimental story.

^ Even if I had a tabletop game I was interested in, the bigger problem would be that I don't have anyone to play with at the moment.

^ Pretty much. Intel has dominated the market in recent years and have had the freedom to set ridiculous prices for their CPUs while AMD has focused more on mid-range products that are a tad cheaper than the Intel products in the same performance range. However, you don't need to spend *that* much if you aren't going to overclock the CPU since the more expensive models are worth getting only for overclocking. If you want a CPU socket that is a safe choice for the future, go with LGA 1150 (AMD should be changing its socket sooner or later so everything they have out right now may not be supported for long). I bought an i5-4460 which seems to be considered the best Intel CPU for gaming when used with factory settings and it has performed very well for me at least. If it costs too much, I can look around for a cheaper model that performs well for its cost. For the SSD, there are a couple of models that are considered the cream of the crop when it comes to quality and they are not even that expensive: Crucial's MX100 and Samsung's 840 EVO, 850 EVO and 850 PRO. MX100 is the budget choice, but Samsung's models only cost a little more. I would personally pick MX100 just because it has the cheaper price and only a marginal difference in performance. It's the one I will buy for my secondary PC that I will be building during the summer. For SSDs the price gap between 250 GB and 500 GB is still quite huge - at worst it can even be £100. So if you think you can go with a 250 GB, you should get one now and you could upgrade to a 500 GB drive later on when the prices have gone down. Or just use that 1 TB HDD you already own as a secondary drive.

I'm personally not a big fan of board and card games, but that Chrononauts sounds like a neat game.

Thanks. When I saw Ekkill in The Banner Saga, I knew I had to use his face as my avatar.