#recently completed

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: Gravity Circuit (PC)

This is a side-scrolling action game that's like Shovel Knight meets Mega Man X.

Look, I could spend a bunch more words describing this game but I've already sold two friends on it with the sentence above. Pretty much everything about this game is high quality, particularly the killer soundtrack. It's fun and I loved it. Play it!!

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: Half-Life 2 (PC)

This is a first-person shooter that blew my mind in 2004, and that I've played through a small handful of times since then. (I would do it more often, but there are one or two sections of the game that I remember and go "ugh, I don't wanna do those")

You play as Gordon Freeman, a scientist who did a bad job (not your fault!) in a science lab and opened portals to earth for an alien invasion. You've been away for a while and the invasion is long over; the earth has been subjugated and is being stripped for parts while humanity dwindles away. Maybe we can still fix this? Let's find out.

I have a memory of my university roommate downloading a leaked copy of the Physics Test map before the game released, which sent us into a fever pitch of hype; imagine what a game could be like with physics this realistic?? It turns out, it makes for some amusing interactions and a couple of see-saw puzzles that are annoying in 2025. Fortunately that wasn't the only thing HL2 had going for it on release. Great story and art direction, great voice acting, fantastic sound design and varied environments.

It expanded and improved upon the first game in every way and remains a true classic of the genre. Play it if you somehow haven't already!

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: Hexcells Plus (PC)

This is a calming, yet challenging logic puzzle in the vein of Minesweeper. Solving a puzzle feels like slowly untangling a terrible knot, and the satisfaction from completing later puzzles is immense.

Play it!

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: Mass Effect (PC, Legendary Edition)

This is a third person shooter/RPG set in future times. Humanity has extended its reach to the stars and (mostly) made friends with its neighbours out there. Your character comes into contact with an ancient alien artifact, and gets blasted with a terrible vision of organic life being wiped out across the galaxy. Then, uh oh, here comes a gigantic alien craft that intends to do the wiping!

(tbh this is the best quick summary I could come up with)

I played this when it came out in the 2000s, and over the years I've tried to get into it again but never gone the distance. So I'm pretty familiar with the first hour or so!

Finally, I bought this last November and played it off-and-on with my Steam Deck over the past year. But never without headphones, because the music is what makes the game for me.

The gameplay is little stiff in some places, padded out in others, but it's neat to see where this trilogy started out.

Past Me, playing this for the first time, would have been appalled at Future Me's playstyle for a few reasons:

1.) I skipped dialogue more aggressively this time, where Past Me would have let everything play out

2.) I let the system automatically level up my character and my party members, letting it spend skill points as it wished. Past Me would have needed to micromanage every character

3.) I left a lot of sidequest content on the table because I felt pretty strong most of the time, so I didn't need the leveling, and storywise they didn't really do a lot for me.

Anyway that's my scattered thoughts. It's good space opera with a metric ton of optional lore to absorb, and a great start to a beloved trilogy. Play it!

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: Project Warlock (PC)

This is a retro-style first-person shooter in the vein of Wolfenstein 3D or Blake Stone. You're...um, a warlock, I guess? And you use a lot of guns and magic to kill all the monsters and...stuff. The story didn't make a big impact. And even though I had a lot of nitpicks with it, I was compelled enough to blast through the campaign anyway.

This game is a land of contrasts. The spritework is great but I found the rest of the game kinda ugly. The map is useless but the levels are often short and flow decently well, so you mostly don't need it anyway. And on and on.

I wouldn't strongly recommend it, but if there's a good sale, check it out.

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: WHAT THE GOLF? (PC)

Quoting their Steam page: this is "a game made for people who hate golf, by people with no clues about or respect for the game." It 's a bit like miniature golf crossed with WarioWare; each hole is some sort of wacky new challenge, and there's tons of holes to play. My family and I had a delightful time.

Check it out!

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: This Super Famicom Tattoo (My Arm)

Last year I was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer. I did chemotherapy and major abdominal surgery about it, and now I'm a cancer survivor with a permanent colostomy. I also have a long history with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and just seeing the controllers lying around makes me happy. So, partly to commemorate living through the thing, I decided to put a controller on my arm and now I always have something with me that can help me feel a little happier. Also, I prefer the Japanese button colours to the North American ones, which is why they are not purple.

Later, my counselor suggested that this image can also serve to remind me that I'm in control of my life, and I get to decide on the person I want to be going forward from this. A nice added layer that I hadn't considered before.

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: LEGO Builder's Journey (PC)

This is a charming, gentle puzzle game about a parent and child that go on an adventure. Your job as the player is to move certain Lego bricks around to create paths, operate machines, and repair things as the are separated but ultimately reunited. The music is lovely and the game conveys the tactile, clicky feeling of the physical bricks really well. Controls can be a bit to get used to, but you'll get the hang of it!

Play it, and if you have a beefy gaming rig, enjoy the remarkable levels of detail you can activate. I played it on my Steam Deck with headphones -- also a very nice time.