Sorted by Review Date

Viscera Cleanup

You know those games where you run around killing all the bad guys. Or some horrible accident kills most everyone. Well someone has to clean up after all of that, and that someone is you. This one definitely only has niche appeal, but if you ever liked playing with a power washer and have a very dark sense of humor this might be a game for you.

Black Mesa

A remake of the original Half Life in a modern engine. If you want to replay Half Life get this. On the downsides, it still has those ever so annoying jumping puzzles and it can be a bit of a slog, but you have to play far enough to get to level 15: Zen. In the original game you can see that they ran out of time and the level is mostly just a big blank black space. Now, they have fully fleshed it out and it looks like a scene from Avatar. It's Half Life, just better.

Tailsman: Digital Classic Edition

It's faithful to the original and it still sucks. You might as well play Chutes and Ladders for all of the strategy involved. The only reason to play this is because it's free and nostalgia.

Dicey Dungeon

And for something at the complete other side from Darkest Dungeon we have Dicey Dungeon. A lighthearted Rogue Like game of rolling dice to defeat a colorful cast of "monsters". You get some skills to help you along the way allowing you to modify the dice rolls and try and create interested combos. With 5 playable character each very different there is a solid 5 hours of content. About my only complaint is the "unlockable" levels where they play with the formula like halving your health at the start for a "twist". These feel way to much like puzzles and are really dependent on your dice rolls.

Darkest Dungeon

Assemble you band of 4 mercenaries to brave the dungeons. Incredible art style and sense of atmosphere. That being said, I just couldn't get a feel for the combat. All of the reviews that I've read talk about the incredible complexity of the interaction with different characters, but I just didn't see it. It's a shame as I loved everything else especially the idea that all of your heroes get emotionally and physically beat up with every adventure and you have cure them as best you can in between adventures. Each get more and more "Quirks" as you continue to throw them in the dungeon to fight monsters.

Grim Legends

A hidden object game with a bit of a story. Follow along with the story and try to find the important objects on each screen. Nothing mind bending here. Just a fun and well put together casual game.

Bad North

This should have been a slam dunk for me. It looks good, plays smooth, has character, etc. Just didn't grab me. I can't tell if the battles are a bit to chaotic or I'm missing some important strategy.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

Another of the Choose Your Own Adventure Book to computer game translations. Still the same issues of arbitrariness with the books, copied over for random encounter after encounter. A real shame there is nothing to the source material as the conversion is rather nifty looking.

Elder Sign: Omens

It's Yahtzee. It's a downsized version of Arkham Horror that loses everything in the process to make it simpler. Roll dice and hope they match the symbols you need. No real thinking involved.

Vampire Survivors

Do you remember enjoying playing Robotron? If you do, you will like this game.

A modern take with retro graphics this version has you battling 100's of enemies at a time as you try and stay alive. The entire point is to stay alive for 30 minutes so that Death can swoop in and kill you. They added some interesting power up mechanics and a bit of randomness so while it's still possible to lose, you have a good chance of just becoming insanely over powered near the end killing 100's of enemies every second. A fun little game to pass the time and scratch that old time arcade itch.

Slay the Spire

A Rouge like battling deck builder. This one is difficult to review. From the number of hours played I certainly got my money's worth but this one is an uphill battle. I originally purchased this off of steam and played it for 9 hours and only 1 win before deciding to just stop. I notice Alex had it on his Steam list and sent him and email asking if he ever got farther. And wow, does he love this game. 100's of hours played and he was very certain that the luck element I was seeing was actually just needing to learn how to play the game.

With that knowledge in had I looked up some tips and tricks and somehow to play videos for another shot. Another 30 hours in and I had finally finished the game with 3 of the 4 characters but my win percentage is still very, very, low. With the Alaska trip the next week and knowing I would have tons of time to kill in travel I figured I would see how the tablet version played.

It is excellent on mobile. It's so good it feels like it was developed for mobile as the primary and then ported to PC. On the trip I was able to Slay the Spire with the 4th and final character but I still never got to the point where I could win with any frequency. Experts seem to have a 90%+ success rate, so I must be doing a bunch wrong, but I'm a bit burnt out for now.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

Released in 2006 I found this on a list of "Best First Person Games". Seeing it on sale for $5 I thought I would give it a try.

Unhappily this one just doesn't stand the test of time very well. The graphics are fine for a game this old, but it got old very fast walking around in circles trying to figure out what I was supposed to do next.

It was also hard, seriously hard. I never got the defense and attack mechanic down which probably fueled my frustration.

Sorcery by Steve Jackson

A digital conversion of the Book written in 1983.

On the plus side it's a very nice looking and faithful adaption of the same. Unfortunately it's a faithful adaption of the book with all of the randomness and arbitrary choices that might lead to your death for utterly random reasons. It's also a rather fast game to complete a single play through so I'm not too fond of the value.

For some reason I was not able to take pictures from Steam or from a straight Print screen so I'll have to steal one from Steam Games Page.

Hero of the Kingdom 1

A mixture of narrative fiction, with some trading, and a bit of find the hidden object. If none of that makes sense, don’t worry about it because it all makes sense when you play it. For me this was the perfect game at the perfect time. Something to relax with while drinking a couple of beers guiding your character around the story. At 5 hours it's a bit short, but if you can get it on sale it's well worth your money and your time.

A Mortician's Tale

Do you want an idea of what a Mortician does? If you do, this is the game for you.

Ok, it's more of an interactive experience as you can't die or fail, but it's an interesting experience. I only wish it was longer than a single hour. If you can get it on a heavy discount and find the information interesting it's worth the time. It kinda reminds me of the flash games that were popular about ten years ago.

Firewatch

More like interactive fiction than a game but interesting. Some reviews have called it a "walking simulator”. I don't think you can actually die but it does manage this continuous sense of anticipation during the entire game. It's a first person game that mostly has you walking around the wood and interacting with random items. As you do so, you progress the story along to the conclusion.

The most difficult part is finding your way around. This is not a FPS with a heads up display giving you a location icon that leads you exactly where you need to go. This game as a map and a compass. It does take a little pity on you with showing your exact place on the map at all times, but it's a heck of a lot more difficult to use a map and compass for all route finding that you think it will be.

And before I forget, here is a special shout out for that introduction. That is a hell of a way to start a game. Hey, remember that movie Up and how fun the intro was? I think we should make that into the start of our game.

Spoiler: I was going to give this a 4/5 but felt the ending was a bit of a letdown. Yes it's a fine ending but has a bunch of plot holes. After all of the buildup I was really hoping for a more shocking ending or something with a crazy twist.

Gorogoa

Puzzle games are not for everyone and normally they are not for me, but this one is simply incredible.

Where to start? At its most basic, it's a sliding puzzle game. But it’s also sliding puzzle game were the puzzle pieces are videos that play with your sense of location, scale, and rotation. By moving, zooming, and rotating the pieces you allow your character to walk between the tiles pickup up items that you need to complete the game.

And did I mention it has an overarching story tying everything together? And wonderful art and style?

Just buy it already!

Superflight

Short and fun. Strap on your wing suit and try not to crash into the rocks. It's hard to complain much about a $3 game. It's fun for an hour or so, but don't expect more than what you see. The controls are responsive and everything just kinda works.

Deathtrap Dungeon

A digital remake of one of the choose your own adventure books from the 80’s. About 2.5 hours to complete, but fun for the price. Like most of these it's VERY random. In this particular case they at least give you 6 lives to finish the adventure with you only having to replay some parts when you die, but you have to be fine with the utterly cheap deaths to enjoy this type of game. I purchased the 3 pack and played the first to the end, but was not interested in playing the next few.

The negatives aside, it's a great way to get the feel of the books in an enjoyable way.

"A digital adaption of the iconic Deathtrap Dungeon trilogy of books by Ian Livingstone. Play as a novice adventurer and rise up through the ranks in this epic tale of deadly traps, fearsome monsters and devious adversaries." - Steam

Inside

A side scroller that just drips with atmosphere. The game not only looks fantastic but the controls are tight and responsive. There is a great twist to the game at about the 75% mark and it's just great. A must play. Similar to the game Limbo so if you like one, you will like the other.

As with all of these types of games there are a couple of annoying timing puzzles that I could do without but there is an excellent play through on YouTube I used 3-4 times as I'm just not into banging my head against a wall anymore. The only thing keeping this from a perfect 5/5 is the slightly ambiguous ending.

Universal Paperclips

A little free game where you ask "what could possibly go having an AI run your paperclip making factory".

In the style of other "clicker" games you earn money, purchase upgrades and repeat. If you like this gameplay style at all this is a must. Even if you don't the ending of this game is simply brilliant. A sci-fi short story wrapped up in a game. Bonus points for a game that has you create von Neumann probes that drift from the mission causing a civil war.

The Long Dark

This review is for the Story Mode. I have not tried the pure survival style.

A fun game and worth playing the first chapter. I purchased this game years ago when most of it was unfinished but decided to load it again after seeing a note about the most recent update. I can say that it's a complete game and worth a look. I purchased it as a survival game hoping for more in the vein of Don't Starve, but the story mode seems to be were the development went. Not terribly difficult but I did have to restart about halfway through as I burned through to many resources while learning during my play through.

Crysis 2

A fun first person shooter. I almost gave up on this because I was playing it more as a charge forward and kill everything game in the vein of Serious Sam and found it extremely difficult. This game was made to be played more like splinter cell where you creep around shooting people in the back.

Portal 2

Maybe I missed something, but this just seems like a level pack for Portal 1. Portal 1 was great and the novelty was incredible yet I kinda thought this was supposed to add something more. If you just want more of the same, this will scratch the itch. If you are looking for a new experience just keep going.

Dragon Age Origins

So much to like about this game but it's just not for me.

After a couple of hours of play, I got the same feeling I did when playing Assassin's Creed. Namely that I was just playing an interactive story and not playing game where I could chart my own course. The second major issue for me is the camera angle.

While there is a top down view available my guess is that this game was meant to be played using a third person over the shoulder camera view. By far my least liked. While this view is fine for walking around, it's horrible for combat which leads you to switching back and forth all the time which really kills the immersion for me.

Lastly, while it's really cool to have 6 different origin stories when you start the game, I didn't connect with any of the 3 I tried. Maybe bad luck, maybe I just like going my own way.

In the past I've played and completed Baulders Gate 1 & 2, Icewind dale 1 & 2, and Neverwinter nights, so I'm not a stranger to this type of gameplay but this one just didn't work for me but can understand it's popularity.

Banished

It's fun and well-polished but to short. It seems that the "challenge" and long term play of the game is simply to grow a larger settlement and have more and more things to keep track of. This didn't really appeal to me as it seemed to be just the same task over and over. A shame as the base game play is fun.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Pretty much identical to Grim Dawn with all the same issues.

1. Your Character starts off to powerful
2. The view distance is small so ranged weapons are not that fun
3. You just get swarmed by monsters over and over without variation
4. When you get the options for skill upgrades there are no suggestions so you just go, meh?

Sacred 3

A very large departure from the other Sacred games and not in a positive direction. This game is not really even an RPG but more of a Hack-n-Slash in the vein of Gauntlet.

Assassin's Creed Director's Cut

It felt more like I was watching a movie than playing a game. To say that this game is "on rails" is an understatement. I guess I was expecting something with just a bit more freedom or at least some options.

What Remains of Edith Finch

Not as much a game as an interactive story. You wander through your old family house as the last surviving member of the family. As you wander about you trigger small set pieces about each of the 12 previous members of the family. While you can't die and there are not any jump scares, the game just gives this "off" feeling to everything. About the best I can relate it to is reading the old "Creepy Comics" as a kid, where every story not matter how wholesome it started was sure to take a dark turn.

While very short in game play, I could easily recommend this if you can get it on sale. It's unique and just does a great job leading you through the story. I'm only knocking off one star because it had an ambiguous ending. And I hate ambiguous endings.

Grim Dawn

It's a fine game but it didn't grab me. A pretty average CRPG identical to others I've played in the past like Diablo, Fate, and Titan Quest. This one just didn't have anything new to bring to the table.

It also has both problems I'm seeing with a couple other recent CRPG's.

1. Your Character starts off to powerful
2. The view distance is small so ranged weapons are not that fun
3. You just get swarmed by monsters over and over without variation
4. When you get the options for skill upgrades, there are no suggestions so you just go, meh?

Little Nightmares

I so wanted to like this game. It's very similar to Limbo which I loved so this one should have been a slam dunk. Great artwork and a really smart camera. The creepiness factor on this one is just way off the scale.

Unfortunately, the save points are automatic, and the 4th time you replay a section, it's anything but creepy.

I also found many of the puzzles to be unintuitive. I had this issue a couple of times in Limbo as well, but this time I hit three roadblocks in only an hour when playing this game. I'm sure I'll go back to this sometime but I really can't recommend it.

Sacred 2 Gold

Poor visibility and view distance seems to be the theme with last 4 games I've played and this one rounds out the set. The camera view on this is just horrible. You can switch to a nearly overhead view but you still can't see any reasonable distance.

Extra points for some of the worst character design in years. Who did the art design on this, a group of 13 year old boys? Wasp waists, big breasts, and boob armor with fig leaves. This is so bad it's more of a parody than real character design.

Tales from Candlekeep

Another game with plenty to like but hamstrung with poor tactical gameplay. I'm finding it very strange that they made a game entirely about small tactics, and somehow managed to miss the mark.

The problem with the game is that the area is just too small. To "reveal" a new area you stand at the edge of an existing area and then display the new area in a chunk. The problem is that the areas you reveal are only 3 or 4 squares wide and monsters move 5 or 6 spaces a turn. Compound this with a rule where monsters get to move right after you reveal and area and it removes any kind of movement or ranged weapon use. Even stranger is that the main character has a bow. A bow that is basically useless.

Rezrog

A small tactical dungeon crawl.

Let's start with the good. The graphics and style are a perfect 10/10 with a delightful little style. Everything about this game makes me want to like it. It also ran rock solid on my computer, so whatever bugs they had in the past are gone. But then things go downhill.

The first and largest issue for me was the lack of tactics. The rooms are so small that you can almost never use any type of ranged attack, and since the monsters move at the same speed you do, once you have started combat you can't run away. You will either finish it or die. All encounters then become a basic, open door, maybe get one ranged attack in, then stand toe to toe trading blows until one of you dies.

And then the Grind starts.

Side Note: While reading other reviews, it seems like much of the basic gameplay has changed over time, so by the time you read this you might or might not have a different experience.

At this time the rules are that once you start a dungeon, you must complete it to leave. If you "die" during the attempt your character is "captured". You must then use one of your free characters to attempt to free them. This sounds like an interesting twist on the surface, but it works poorly in practice.

• You don't know how difficult or how long any dungeon is until you try it. This leads to a lot of characters getting captured.
• Because you need multiple characters, you are always grinding multiple characters.
• If a character gets captured at the last second, you lose all experience and items.
• Since you can't do part of a hard dungeon, you are always playing the easy dungeons over and over again.

Truly a shame as there is so much to like here, but I just can't see grinding away at this for hours.

Skyrim

Yes I'm late to the party but yes this game lives up to all of the hype even 11 years later. Not a lot I can add that hasn't been said a hundred times.

In short, just buy it. The "Special Edition" regularly goes on sale a couple of times a year and will work just fine for you. It took me just over 100 hours to finish the main quest but I did get sidetracked a bunch. I could easily spend another 100 hours just poking around so it's really difficult not to get your money's worth.

Oxygen Not Included

Another fun game from Klei. Definitely more of a city building type of game than a survival game. While interesting I think it's almost mandatory to read some "getting started guides" before playing. I got far enough along to have done all of the basic base building activities, but kinda got lost with what to do next after finishing some basic structures like the barracks and hall. I had oxygen, food, and a relatively clean base and figuring out what to do next was a bit of a head scratcher.

Karateka (2012)

A fun remake of the classic from 1984. A nice 3D look. Short and sweet, it's fun but not something you are going to play forever. If you can catch it on sale it's a nice little find for some fun.

Red Orchestra 2

First Person military shooter. An attempt to be more realistic, but just way to chaotic for me. I found it incredibly difficult to tell friend from foe, or determine where the enemies were. The enemies on the other hand had no problem whatsoever in shooting me.

Ascension

A computer version of the Competitive Deck building game Ascension. You have seen Magic the Gathering, so you know what you are in for.

I loved that the computer version had the option to choose between 11 different expansion packs.

Reviews of the physical game on BBG are mixed to say the least. As I only played this game for 9 hours before calling it done and finished I would say I found it entertaining in the short term, but not really a game for the long term.

Many people agree that 2 players is the best experience. Or to be fair, they specifically say "only play this with 2 players. Do not play this with 3 or 4 players, it will suck".

Most negative reviews (which I agree with) cite the randomness, lack of combos, and lack of tactical opportunities due to the inability to know if certain cards will ever even be played in a specific game.

Antihero

A fun computer board game. Build and run your empire of thieves and take control of the city.

Enjoyable and good for about 8 hours of play. There is a campaign and skirmish mode if you want to play solo, but I got the impression that this was not the main focus of the development. While I enjoyed the campaign it was a bit short and could have used a bit more variety.

I would still recommended it but maybe not for the $15 full price.

Scanner Sombre

More of a tech demo than a Game. A shame as it has some interesting game play ideas. Just not much of a game.

Victor Vran

Another Action heavy CRPG. If you like this type of game this is well done. It reminds me of Bastion. Both are fine little games, but it's just not my type of gameplay. Much more of an "action" game than a "rpg". It looks nice and plays fine so if this is the kind of game you are looking for it's a good choice.

What does deserve a shout out is the great music by George Strezov which really hits that "Diablo" vibe.

F.E.A.R. 2

While I thought I had played this before, Steam has zero hours of me playing it. It's a fine shooter, but many of the interesting scares are really only super creepy the first time you saw them in FEAR 1. The bad guys are still smart and will flank you given any opportunity and the graphics are good. I've played about 1/3 of it so far and have just escaped from the starting hospital. I was going to call it as it had not grabbed me, but most of the reviews mention the first part being the least interesting so I'm torn as to continue or not.

Update: Seems the answer was not. Some reviews mentioned that the second portion of the game where you explored the city was more interesting but there was also some of the dreadful "sniper" areas where it was almost planned so that you would have to die multiple times figuring out the exact way across an area. Definitely an immersion killer.

Far Cry 1

Poor visuals even at max settings and horrible AI. Not that the AI is not effective, no they have super human vision and will see you and shoot at you a million miles away.

Released in 2004 this really doesn't stand the test of time. F.E.A.R released just a year later is an incredible superior game in every way.

PC Gamer had this to say about the game. "The original Far Cry stood out for its massive open environments and the aggressive AI soldiers within. Firefights didn’t take place in a tightly scripted series of corridors" but "with enemies that have acute senses and preternatural aim anyone would envy."

Besiege

Build a machine, then use it to destroy something. Think Polybridge, but it's in 3D and you are trying to destroy the bridge. Personally I found the game a riot. The do a good job switching up the challenges so that you have to keep changing your approach.

Difficult to find anything to dislike about this game. I'm only giving it a slight downgrade because of the tutorial. Getting a machine that can turn is essential to everything and the design they have you build is pretty worthless in that regard. I guess they expected the target audience to want to figure that out for themselves, but it's simple a lot more fun to at least have the base frame working before starting to experiment.

Bastion (2011)

A fun isometric shooter. If I liked isometric shooters I would easily give this a 4 or 5, but they are just not my type of game. I also died a lot. The Difficulty of this game really seems to increase way to fast. I'm getting less than 20 minutes of gameplay before I've got to the point where I'm dying every 5 minutes. Unsure if I'm just not good at them or if this is particularly difficult. I'm quitting because I'm tired of dying all the time. What really makes this game fun is the narrator who constantly narrates on whatever you are doing. It has a great sense of humor. The gameplay is similar to the old "Crusader: No Remorse" game.

Revision: So last night I fired up the game for one more play just so that I could get a few screen captures. Given my previous attempts I thought I would set a timer to see how long I could play until I just started dying all of the time. And of course, that meant that I didn't. After an hour of playing I was still happily going along finding new things. I'm really unsure what changed in my playstyle but a combination of being far more cautious in general with the occasional rush and run past everything seems to be the playstyle the game favors. If you like iso metric action games, I would definitely recommend this game.

Polybridge

Build a bridge. Watch it fall apart as soon as a car tries to drive over it. This is a riot. A must for anyone that likes to build things, or watch them fail horribly.

I played this over Christmas and was ready to put it away and then I noticed there was a way to compete with your friends for building the least expensive bridge that still survived. This led to a fierce competition with Alex that was an absolute blast. Given the free form nature of the game there are always multiple solutions, but some will be less expensive than others. Nothing like spending $10k on your masterpiece and finding out your friend completed the level with $8k and just staring at the screen wondering….. How!?!

Limbo

Some games have atmosphere, Limbo made from atmosphere.

A short (4-5 hour) side scrolling puzzle game. There are 38 Chapters each of which some have multiple puzzles.

I was ready to give it a perfect 5/5 but the last 3 Chapters were unlike the rest of the game and were all jumping and timing puzzles which are the ones I really don't like. I'm unsure why the developers just decided to switch at the end. That being said the rest of the game was very enjoyable. If you don't like hitting your head against the wall on some puzzles find a good hint site. There are plenty of good puzzles so there is no reason to rage quite because you can't figure out 1 or 2.

7 Days to Die

I've played a lot of 7 days to Die. 287 hours of a lot. There is still more to see and it has not disappointed.

I purchased it on 7/2016 so I probably started with Alpha 14 or 15. Given that the base building aspect of Minecraft was one of my favorite parts and I love zombie games this one was always going to be a slam dunk. Add some co-op with friends and this has become my favorite game.

Do you like to build things? Do you like to explore? Do you like the idea of building a castle and fighting off the invaders? Then this game might be for you.

ROTMG (Realm Of The Mad God)

I first played this game back in 2009 when flash games were all the rage. I played it a lot, but never really figured some rather important pieces and more or less stopped as soon as I got to the "god lands". This time I decided to learn more about the mechanics and see what else there was to the game.

My thoughts the second time around? Still fun. I do recommended it, but that recommendation comes with a bunch of caveats.

This is a "Rouge Like" and you will die and loose everything repeatedly. Not, might die, but "you will die". And you will do so over and over. If you are the kind of person that is tempted to "rage quit", this might not be the game for you.

With that being said, how to describe this game?

It's an arcade, multi player, lite RPG with 8bit graphics. You have an overhead view of the world and you running around killing monsters and collecting loot. You work up from level zero to level 20 over about 2 hours while trying not to die a single time as that means you start from nothing. Ok, almost nothing. You have a chest with space for 8 items, but anything you are carrying with you is gone.

There is no player vs player combat, and the game has a shared experience system, so it gives you plenty of reason to play with others.

I had planned on a much more expansive "Let's play" for this, but I got sidetracked.

I played for about 120 hours later so I think I saw most of what the game has to offer.

Can I recommend this game? Definitely. It's a "free to play" so your cost of entry is literally nothing but some time. I spent maybe $15 in perks to make it more friendly.

Fate

A nice little Action RPG from 2005. Available on Steam for $8. Created in 2005 it bridges the gap between Diablo 2 in 2001 and Torchlight lin 2010. If you are familiar with those, then you know the gameplay. From start to finish it's about 14 hours to complete.

I played this game only a couple years after it was created and played a handful of character builds so I would say there is a good bit of replay. But what I really like and what brought me back to play it again is the inheritance system.

After you have completed the Game, you have the option of "retiring" a character and creating a descendent.

At that point you will no longer be able to play the original character anymore and the save will be marked as "retired", but you will be able to pass along one item that your newly created character will start with. The item will also have all stats raised by 20%. Hum. It just asks to be power gamed.

Lux for the iPad

A better clone of Risk than Risk itself.

I’ve acutally been playing this on and off for a couple of years now, and I’ve bought both of the expansion games “Ancient Empires Lux” and “”American History Lux”. It’s still being updated and sold by Sillysoft Games. This type of game is perfect for the iPad and they have done a great job of keeping it simple while adding at least a few user options. The best feature they have added is the ablity to create, upload, and rate, user created maps. The maps are free, easy to find, and rateing by the user community so they are easy to find. It makes for some great replay after you have played the classic game a couple times.

Agricola for the iPad

Another game that I really wanted to like and while an excellent conversion, just doesn't make it to the recommended category. In this case it’s probably that there is some subtle part of the strategy that Louise and myself are missing which is limiting the strategic element. The in game tutorial is very nice but if you are a brand new player I think you need the complete rules available to get the details. From what I can tell the conversion is rock solid, so I would really like the thoughts of someone who is familiar with the original board game.

Silver Sword for iPad

I liked this game but it suffered from interface problems where on my iPad the movement buttons were not in a good place. Given the placement of the virtual arrow key buttons on the upper right I could find no comfortable hand position to use them. This might work for a top down game, but for this type of game you really need to use the arrow keys a lot. I think it might have worked much better with keys on the lower right or left.

This is not a fault of the programmer, but it’s amazing just how bad touch screens work for applications that required a single button to be pressed repeatedly.

It’s a shame because this is a great reworking of the classic Bard’s Tale games. If there was a better movement interface I would easily give this a 5/5. I’m wondering if the movement keys are located for use with an iPhone. Personally I would find the text far to small, but many people seem to read from the iPhone with no issue, so I’m probably just getting old. I also read on the message board that Bluetooth keyboards are now supported. Since I’m planning on getting one, I’m very interested in trying this again.

Talisman for iPad

Since I had wanted to purchase the board game Talisman for a couple years now (as it was the oldest item on my Amazon wish list) I was excited that a conversion had been made and the software was available on the iPad for only $7 and playable against the computer. Perfect for a trip we had coming up. The game looks great and is a textbox model of how to port a board game.

Unfortunately, the original game is rather bad. As one reviewer said “It’s D&D meets monopoly”. It’s mostly a luck of the dice game where the players don’t really have any meaningful choices to make and luck decides every game.

As I said earlier, this is a great conversion and I hope that the poor reivews of this game don’t convince other developers from doing more conversions in the future, I just hope they have better source material.

Note: The game sold as both Talisman and Talisman prologue (Single Player conversion with slightly different rules) but you can play the original against the computer.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Created in 2007, this is the next level in RPG games. From The Bards Tale, to Baldur's Gate, this is what RPG games have now evolved to. You can purchase it on Steam for $20 or wait a couple months and get it on one of their regular sales of $10.

Yes I know that this game has now been superseded by Part V: Skyrim but did you notice that in all of the reviews they keep referencing Oblivion? That’s because this is the game that it is measured against and for good reason. I just finished the main quest story line and it has an ending that is well suited to the grander and scope of the rest of the game. As far as “finishing the game” there are about 200 quests in the same so if you attempted to finish every single one it would take forever.

Just a few of the highlights

• The Gameworld is absolutely huge
• You could play for 100 hours and still have more to discover, or just play the main story quest and get a feeling of accomplishment and completion.
• A beautiful game on a modern computer where you can crank up the detail.
• Great and Epic ending to the main story quest
• A huge about of user mods so if there is something you dont like, you can fix it

The Bards Tale - Game Review

Personally I loved it. Consider it a trip down memory lane with the way back machine. This required it's own page.

FTL

It’s fun and good for a couple of hours. About the only negative thing I can say is that the end game is really way to difficult. I actually reached the last battle 3 times, and then lost each and every time. It’s only $10 on steam and regularly goes on sale for $6 so the price hard to beat.

One option to make the game more enjoyable is to turn ON the option for “Show beacon paths on hover”. I have no idea why the developer decided not to include this as a default.

Legend of Grimrock - Game Review

Do you wish they still made games like Bards Tale or The Dungeon Master? You’re in luck. In 2012 an independent producer created “The Legend of Grimrock”. It’s a “semi real time” grid based dungeon crawl. Similar to Dungeon Master from 1987 where you have a small amount of time to make your move, it’s not real a frenetic pace and plays more like a turn based game.

This is the game I wish they had made as an upgrade to the original Bards Tale. The graphics are great, the sound is great, the programming is great. Its smaller in scope than Bards Tales with only one dungeon, but they do that one dungeon very, very, well.

• If they made The Bards Tale today, this would be it.
• Great graphics, great sound, and just a solid feel to the game.
• It's only $15 on Steam with regular sales for less.

• The puzzles are slightly to difficult. Thankfully there is an excellent wiki online.
• The End Game sequence is more of an action game, whereas the rest of the game is more turn based.

Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together

With so many additions to the game since I last played it was time to give this another round of play. Somehow this is even more incredible. They have added enough content to keep you going for hours and hours and hours. I do think the entire boat mechanic needs some work so I did stop short of "finishing" the game. I did play long enough to kill the Ancient Guardian in the Labyrinth and I thought that a fine place to stop. Either alone or with a friends this is one of the best games of all time.

The latest video game addiction. Combine Roguelike perma death with Minecraft crafting and night and day cycles and add a dash of Tim Burton graphics and you have a wonderfully fun and frustrating game at the same time. Just when you think the game is to hard, it gets harder. On the flip side it just makes it that much more satisfyingly to finally survive a full winter in the game. You can purchase it on STEAM regularly for under $10 on sale. Hard to beat at that price.

Some of the highlights are

• When your sanity meter does down and all the graphics and music change
• Getting all your farms working by the end of summer, just to find that when winter starts, nothing grows
• Leading a pack of wolves chasing you into a heard of buffalo.
• Surviving to the last day of winter, and then meeting the giant one eyed killer deer
• Giving your Pig friend to much raw meat, and having him turn into a Werepig and staring killing everything

Left 4 Dead

Like first person shooters? Like end of the world Zombie movies? If you do this one is a no brainer. And yes, you can get it on sale from Steam for $6.

This was designed as a co-op game but I still found it fun to play as a single person. The computer will control the other 3 characters and while they will not be spectacular they will be adequate. I would not recommend "Left for Dead 2" if you are primarily going to play alone as the computer controlled NPC’s have difficulty with some of the scripted missions (notably the mission to fill the car with gas). I also did not see where the added complexity really added anything to the game play. That being said, I do see to be in the minority in view of this, so your mileage may vary.

Magicka

There is a lot to like in this game including lots of “in jokes”, good graphics, and an interesting magic system. I really wanted to like this and even tried playing from the beginning twice. Unfortunately it just gets way to hard too fast and I found it extremely difficult to remember the complicated casting system. If you thought Bioshock took some juggling you haven’t seen anything yet. After reading some message boards there were others that have made the same complaints about difficulty. The consensus is that while there are tons of spells, there are only a small handful that are super powerful that you ever need to use. I also found a mod or two that allows macros for the spells but it really didn't help. Definately a shame.

Serious Sam 1 in HD

This is a remake of the original Serious Sam from 2000 using the newer Serious Engine 3 from 2009. It really doesn’t have a story, and the AI is about as dumb as they come. What it does have is fantastic graphics and a dose of fun. The environments are brightly lit and there can be hundreds of bad guys on the screen at the same time. Of course being less that $5 doesn’t hurt either.

F.E.A.R

Yes it’s a horrible tortured acronym, but it’s also a good game. This is the first of the modern first person shooters I’ve played with smarter AI. It does take some getting used to having the npc’s duck, weave and flank you during combat.

Bioshock

An absolute must play for any fan of first person shooters. Wonderful graphics with incredible attention to detail combined with a great story. It doesn’t get much better than this. Actually it does since Steam puts in on sale regularly for less than $10.

Minecraft

01-08-2013

5/5. Simply Incredible.