Such a shame the original Dino Crisis ended up being more about puzzles (and not even good ones, just the same type that gets increasingly more annoying the further you progress) and less about survival horror, it starts off quite strong, also with the cheesy voice acting and everything. If there is one Capcom game that truly deserves a remake, it's absolutely this one. The sequel has shown that it's a lot more fun as a braindead shoot'em up, but I'm not losing hope of getting a genuinely good survival horror with dinos.

Goldeneye's big thing is that it was a console shooter that hit the mainstream and it a few years before the first Halo. My big issue with the game is that when you ignore the "cultural impact" and it setting industry trends, the game at it's heart is just a typical movie tie in game. Games like Spider-Man 2(2004) and King Kong(2005) at least felt more cohesive if you didn't watch either of the movies for them.

007 Nightfire in a lot of ways is much better than Goldeneye was, the one big problem the former had to face was going up against Halo during the height of it's popularity and the PC version being trash didn't help.

I remember the PC version being completely different from the (much better) console iterations, running on the same engine as the original HL (GoldSrc). I've been working on it up until I got fed up with every gun that wasn't the pistol being less accurate and significantly less effective, ultimately resorting in what I hate doing to video games the most: retiring them. Random crashes were not helping, either. I believe my most favorite 007 game on PC, to this day, is still Blood Stone. Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond and the opening theme in that game is incredible, but that game is also pretty close to being a straight-up shooter, without all the cool gadgets that the early 007 games are known for, same as Quantum of Solace. I wonder how First Light is gonna fare, but I'm not getting my hopes up judging by the footage that I've seen so far.

I hate it how the real challenge in GoldenEye is overcoming the shitty single-nipple-N64 controls, the moment you start playing the game with something like mouse & keyboard, it gets laughably easy. That game certainly did not at all stand the test of time, but then again, it might be just a matter of an opinion: I personally think survival horror games such as the original RE trilogy is still playable to this day, but a more modern player may disagree with that assesment.

Could this be The Citadel?

Correct!

What the hell is that? And why did someone bought it lmao

Probably some CIA-tier software lmao, I do remember seeing something else for at least double the price, it was quite obviously some effortless slop but it's the fact that Steam allowed it to be sold for that much is what makes it so amusing.

Holy smokes that's way too much xD

Fat chance, I thought it would work =)

Kathy Rain

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is my ultimate pick, it's the game I can play regardless of how I feel at the moment, the fact that you can quit at any time without losing much progress is the cherry on top. Other than that, I like to "speedrun" the original Resident Evil trilogy and shooters like F.E.A.R.

Black Mesa (casual replay of a masterpiece, still so good)
Deponia (my journey across Daedalic's catalogue continues with their most successful PnC, let's see if it's as good as the Edna & Harvey sequel)
Life is Strange: True Colors (Love the voice acting and the small town atmosphere, but the special power in this one seems rather lame, I'm curious as to what they make out of it though as I've enjoyed every game in the series so far)
The Suffering (I love the sequel, but haven't yet beaten the original, this time I'm sure I'll get to the credits lol)

It's usually related to technical issues or the lack of any balance in difficulty, things that are often seen in less known games (especially euro / slavjank). I absolutely hate retiring, but if these issues are noticeable from the start or early on, it's a lot easier to quit.

I usually replay games on Normal difficulty, since the actual challenge run take place on my first playthrough, assuming the hardest difficulty is unlocked from the start. Now, there's games like DOOM (2016) / DOOM Eternal or Outlast / Outlast 2, where you have to restart the whole game upon death on the hardest mode so I avoid these the first time around because of that. Everything else, go hard or go home: high stakes means you have to learn to adapt and understand the perks of each mechanic, which in return leads to super focused gameplay and I can get the most out of it. If I played everything on Normal / Easy right from the start, I would have burned through my backlog already, no question. But to me, it never has been about beating as many games as possible or getting through fast enough so I can immediately move on to the next new thing.

But I digress: every now and then, just the hardest mode alone won't cut it and I have to improvise, which leads to some interesting scenarios, the most promiment ones I can think of being Condemned: Criminal Origins (Hard mode, no healing, no guns, no taser & no manual saving), F.E.A.R. & both expansions (Extreme mode, no healing, no slow-mo, no grenades, no manual saving), Resident Evil Remake (Hard mode, knife only, no saving, under 3 hours) or BioShock (Hard mode, vita chambers disabled, no gun upgrades, no research upgrades, no manual saving). There's plenty more, but these were genuinely super fun to do, it's just that I at some point I can't think of anything else as to how 1-up myself yet again on said titles and I'm not the biggest fan of permadeath / no damage runs unless we're talking survival horror classics that can be done quick if you know your way around.

Some cheap PS3 games

We honestly need more of those 7th gen "offshoots" like Fuse or NeverDead

I know! I've been steadily trying to find more to play as of recently. I'm definitely going back to Spider-Man 2 on Gamecube one day, but so far most of the the movie licensed games I've played are... not great. I remember I enjoyed the Spongebob Movie game when that released and I did play some of it a couple years ago to see how it was. Even with my major issues with games like this, I still feel they're much more playable and less cynical than anything made today by Gamemill or ESPECIALLY Microids *shivers in fear* God, I'm shocked at how low effort the majority of their games are and usually I try not to dump on certain companies but man, Microids are just awful when it comes to licensed crap. I don't know how the adventure games they put out are, but I hope they're better than something like "Garfield: Lasagna Party" or "Garfield Kart"

There's a good few I would recommend, just off the top of my head:

Captain America: Super Soldier
Peter Jackson's King Kong
TRON: Evolution
X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Nothing super amazing, but given how low the bar has been set in terms of quality when it comes to movie-licensed turds, there's fun to be had.

There's just too many things wrong with this game and I basically made a checklist of everything that is bad about it. Horrid Framerate, Appalling Drop Distance issues, Insane Lack of Polish, a general sense of cheapness to everything, it obviously felt rushed, ugly graphics, characters look either stoned, dead inside, look like they had a lobotomy or look like complete roadkill, the voice acting is so inconsistent and sucks, the dialogue is nonsensical, characters have stupid reasons for not helping you in levels, they don't attack either since they barely have any AI, enemies kept getting stuck on so many damn boxes, I can't believe they were still using FMV scenes in a 2007 game, awkward platforming, annoying puzzles, rigid controls, you can get stun locked to death if you don't block, pointless collectibles, pointless item shop where they have things that should have been unlocked after beating the game regardless and it's just so thin and unfulfilling. And this is supposed to be an Xbox 360 game but it felt like a bunch of PS2 assets ripped onto 360 with a bit of bloom and shine.

I don't know how I beat it, but I did. This is without a doubt one of the worst games I've ever endured. The only plus side it has basically is that it's not Shrek 1 on OG Xbox. A certified 3/10 game. I talk more about the issues on my blog.

Movie-licensed games, those were the days!

Onimusha. Remastered I assume.

That reminds me I still need to replay the third game.

Yup, playing it for the first time, loving the Resident Evil vibe. It appears the entire series will be getting the remaster treatment and I'm all for better accessibility.

Dex?

I remember playing a Spyro demo on a PS1 demo disc from a gaming magazine when I was a kid. I bet I replayed that demo a dozen times, but never actually got my hands on an actual Spyro game, which is a shame. It's looking like it has aged wonderfully.

I'll share these less beautiful pics from Divinity: Original Sin. It really doesn't take much to make me happy...

This is the 2019 remake from a different studio though, I haven't played any of the original Spyro games but this trilogy is great and quite relaxing to kick back to :)

3 replays, 3 new completions: not much in the way of making serious progress, but such is life when you've got other stuff to deal with :shrug:

A Plague Tale: Requiem - 27h5m / 100% (2 playthroughs)
God of War (2018) - 81h / 100% - BEST
Star Wars: Republic Commando - 8h20m - REPLAY
Vietcong: Fist Alpha - 4h20m - REPLAY
XIII (2003) - 5h15m - REPLAY
XIII (2020) - 10h55m / 100% (2 playthroughs) - WORST

A Plague Tale: Requiem is the second and most likely final game in the Plague Tale series, a shining example of when a sequel truly surpasses the first part in almost every possible way. This game is so unbelievably gorgeous, you almost have to force yourself to not press F12 whenever you enter a new scene because of how authentic and rich in detail everything is put together, for an AA title they sure achieved something some triple A projects could only dream of, it really does feel next-gen overall. It's not lacking in the sound department either: this time the voice performance is tremendous in both French and English, the ambience breathes so much life into every location and the score during both calm and tension-filled scenes is close to perfection. Some tiny changes were carefully applied to the already existing mechanics and new abilities were added to avoid being labeled as "more of the same", areas with a more stealthy approach offer more room to get from one point to the next, there's greater emphasis on exploration since finding materials allows you to upgrade your gear on top of various little side-interactions between characters, you've got more replay value thanks to NG+ and the game's length has almost been doubled without filler. A bit disappointed about the lack of real boss battles (it's what's been criticized the most about the first part, but I personally never thought it was problematic), though some of the regular combat encounters were mildly frustrating and the ending, while understandable on paper, could be done a little less "blunt" for a greater emotional impact, but maybe that's just me. Asobo Studio has done a fanastic job all around and I've really enjoyed every minute of it.

God of War (2018) is the 7th game of an originally PlayStation-exclusive hack'n slash series and is quite the departure from all the previous iterations, it's become so different it would split the fanbase for admittedly silly reasons such as "Kratos being less agile" or "Kratos not being able to jump" etc. I personally welcomed almost every change this particular entry has introduced, the story really delivered across the board with its well written & voiced characters, the relationship between Kratos and his son as well as some unforgettable, highly cinematic set-pieces. The visuals are crisp, the love put into smaller details is nothing short of admirable and the performance on PC is flawless. Every downtime section is filled with interesting and at times witty dialogue, the score is deserving of higher praise. The real meat has to be the impeccable soulslike-inspired combat system: the narrow FOV, the weight of your actions and learning the patterns, everything has been designed to work in harmony and while the mechanics are reliable and tight in execution, I still wouldn't recommend going down the same road as I did and start the game on the hardest difficulty unless you're in for serious ass-whooping, it's easily the hardest GoW has ever been and the first couple hours will be a real skill check. However, most of the regular enemies are just reskins and rarely feel different in terms of combat patterns, which is something that reviewers rarely mentioned to my suprise. The fast travel system is also not the greatest with how it's been implemented, making the mop-up work feel a bit of a drag. The Spartan Rage ability should also have been more powerful given how fast it runs out and how long it takes to refill the bar, but I suppose that too has been an intentional choice in design for the sake of proper balance. I'm glad that I finally caught up on this franchise, but now I'm in a bit of a burnout after doing absolutely everything the game has to offer without even tackling NG+ so Ragnarok will have to wait.

Star Wars: Republic Commando is a squad-based FPS set in the Star Wars universe and is considered a real classic when it comes to some of the more memorable titles from the PS2 / Xbox era and one I remember having tons of fun with during my first playthrough, but I think I haven't really done myself a favor by coming back to it. Now, I still love it for the how charismatic your fellow squad mates were, the dynamic visor wiping off whatever fluids obscured your view during heated combat sequences, the trademark Star Wars-esque soundtrack as you would expect and how the whole thing has been designed to take advantage of your team as much as possible to even stand a chance against your adversaries. But it appears I've been less critical towards its shortcomings such as enemies soaking up bullets like nothing, the AI ignoring orders at times, the guns lacking in punch and, obviously, the cliffhanger ending that made you feel as if there was an entire other half missing. Revisiting older games rarely led to my perception being altered in a positive light and I'm afraid it's no different with this game. It's not that I now think significantly less of it, but sometimes I wish I didn't focus as much on certain things to not sour the experience, if that makes sense. All things considered, Republic Commando is not a bad game, but it's certainly a product of its time.

Vietcong: Fist Alpha is the expansion to 2003's Czech tactical FPS with a campaign mode covering the events prior to the base game's timeline. It hasn't really done much in the way of changing anything in its core design and it mainly adds a bunch of new weapons while shoving you in the boots of a different main character that didn't quite grow on me as much. The objectives still offer just about enough variety, it's still very slow paced, with most missions taking place in dense jungle-like environments and you can expect to get ambushed a lot. Adding more mandatory stealth sections wasn't a smart move though since triggering a checkpoint / quicksaving at a bad spot could potentially softlock you, forcing you to replay bigger chunks or even restarting the whole mission. When the VC do lay down on you and each shot has to be accurate, it's more often less frustrating in comparison to the original, but the enemy AI is still a good shot and to not be underestimated, even on Normal mode. Ultimately, Fist Alpha does what most expansion packs / DLC set out to achieve: supply you with mostly more of the same without necessarily replacing the source material in quality and for that, it does a decent job.

XIII (2003) is a heavily stylized UE2 FPS completely designed around the comic-book aesthetic and probably the one and only of its kind. As with some old games, it requires a bit of tinkering before it can be played without issues and thankfully there's a very comprehensive guide for that which can be found on Steam. It follows the same events as the graphic novel series of the same name, but does cover it entirely as this game too ends on a rather nasty cliffhanger and since it sold poorly, it's never received a sequel it oh so much needed. The most striking thing about XIII is obviously the unique and fresh approach to artstyle: the use of comic panels, visualised sound effects, speech bubbles and cinematics almost resembling the feeling of flipping the pages of a comic book that you appear to be inside of, it's basically giving the game a timeless look. The soundtrack is fantastic and dynamic in moment to moment encounters, the voice acting is somewhat a double-edged sword despite featuring David Duchovny and Adam West, the story offers plenty in the mystery department and does not let go up until the end, the evident James Bond / GoldenEye influence is simply charming and the level / objective variety is kept strong as well. Aside from the not so desirable voice performance and the usual cliffhanger business, there are a few questionable things here and there. For starters, why can I not bind crouch to CTRL instead of C? I never managed to solve that mystery so I had to get used to using C which made things a little more cumbersome. Next, the checkpoint issue: the way checkpoints function in this game is straight up bizarre as they have to be saved manually if you plan on quitting the game, I completely forgot about this and played through the first 7 or so levels, only to come back and realize my progress hasn't been saved due to my assumption of checkpoints hard-saving my progress by default anyway. Also, there are some unskippable engine cutscenes you have to put up with and some checkpoints are placed right before them... why? The worst offender for that is the final boss bit: you have to descend the longest ladder in the whole game and watch the cutscene that introduces the final boss EVERYTIME YOU DIE and that bastard is tough. Speaking of bosses, it's the typical early 2000s regular-enemy-with-bloated-HP-type that describes every major fight in this game and it fucking sucks, at least the first boss isn't hitscan. And last but not least, the inventory system: having to scroll through your shit in the middle of combat is no fun and just breaks the flow, especially the difference between quick heal and inventory heal is so huge it almost comes off as an oversight in design. Long story short, it's no game without problems worth mentioning, but it's a competent and charming enough shooter nonetheless.

XIII (2020) is a remake that I don't think anybody has really asked for, though it still painted me intrigued as I could imagine it with a Borderlands-like makeover and tons of QoL features / changes. Ho boy, that's nowhere near what we actually got: this game came out a trainwreck and it wasn't until 2 years later until considerable changes were made. In its current state, it's still quite bad and XIII most definitely deserved better, but I can't say I didn't have a wee bit of fun with it either. To list the improvements, there's quite a few: all the necessary PC settings, FOV slider included, are there and there were no performance issues or crashes during my playtime. The inventory system has been improved by altering the quick heal button to be able to choose either the small or the big medkit on the fly, the inclusion of weapon wheel that pauses the game is too the better solution, the ragdoll system complements your firepower, chapter select is a handy feature for achievement hunting, the static JPG backdrops from OG have been replaced with fully detailed scenery, your tools are now context-sensitive and don't need to be equipped before use, the gun models look great and the boss battles are "more fun", if for the wrong reasons. But here's the biggest F: the drastic change in art direction, if you compare the first version with the overhaul 2 years later, neither version manages to capture the vibe but the final one looks way worse with eye-cancer-inducing oversaturated colors and missing lighting effects, there's not much left in the way of what made OG so unique in the first place. In terms of voice acting and overall content, it's exactly the same as OG, the only difference being the shift from UE2 to Unity and the environments being cluttered with more props. The hipfire accuracy has been reduced to force you into ADS more, the AI behaves in the most funky fashion by either staring at walls or running straight up to your gun barrel, the bosses can be softlocked by spraying them in the head at the start of each fight rendering them completely useless, the first-person animations are much too exaggerated and every cutscene is now fully animated with the same engine graphics minus the stylized presentation, mostly coming off as extremely awkward and inappropriate. Music tracks during boss battles are missing and so are some of the cutscenes upon level transition so if this is your first time in XIII, you'll find yourself confused a lot. The gunplay itself however is, assuming the AI does act half-decently, pretty tight and your guns feel fun to use, especially the revolver with the ridiculous knockback. Collectibles unlock access to a 3D model viewer and a bunch of lore text, which is a neat little extra. Exploration is still key since you now start out with a new loadout in each level unlike in OG, which is something I didn't like at first but then learned to appreciate as an extra challenge in an already rather easy game, even on the hardest difficulty. This remake isn't Ride to Hell: Retribution tier, but it should have been a studio that knows what they're doing and the Ukranian team behind this mess didn't cook nothing. They didn't even bother to include that "To Be Continued" line in the last scene since everyone involved knew very well people would tear it apart anyway, rightfully so.

Lunacid?

Aye

Is that Lichenvale?

nope