I finished the Revenant game yesterday. It certainly lasted longer than I initially expected. Rough around the edges and difficult. You move by holding RMB, not by clicking the LMB. Apart from just clicking to kill, there are many combat maneuvers to learn (and use them in battles) which use different combinations on the keyboard. Dark story, with full voice!

Ravenswatch

Ravenswatch is a roguelike by the developers of Curse of the Dead Gods. It features a cast of fairytale/folklore inspired characters such as Red Riding Hood, The Pied Piper and Beowulf among others (total of 13 characters with 2 being paid DLC). You can play solo or with up to 3 others but total deaths are shared and once you run out of lives that is the end of the run.

Each character feels unique through their separate movesets and gimmicks so there is a character that will fit most peoples playstyle. Attacks are separated into different types which can then be powered up by items collected during a run and talents selected whenever you level up.

Each run consists of 3 acts (+an extra boss on higher difficulties) with each act taking place on a different map. The general map layout is static but the points of interest (where you find items, upgrades etc) are randomised. The maps are also split into tiers of difficulty which dictate how you progress through them. Each map has a 20 minute timer (though this can be turned off with modifiers) after which the boss awakens and you need to beat it to move on.

Overall, I enjoyed what I played of Ravenswatch so far and will no doubt come back to it again. It felt fresh and different enough from other similar games. My only criticisms would be that it is pretty difficult (though it gets easier with time), more maps would have been nice (maybe some will get added as the game is still being actively worked on and updated) and there is not much boss variety.

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Forager

Forager starts you on a small island with a pickaxe along with a few respawning materials and not much direction so you start collecting the materials, gaining experience in the process. After a while you level up and gain a perk which unlock structures or give you passive bonuses. You start to build structures to process materials into various other resources and items (which can also be automated) and in turn gain more experience for more perks. Once you start getting gold coins you can buy adjacent islands to expand the area you have to work with which comes with new resources, enemies, puzzles and dungeons to conquer. And so on..

It's a fairly simple gameplay loop but also quite satisfying and fun to progress through however can get a bit stale after a while and once I had unlocked most of the things I wanted to I lost interest a bit.

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Half Life Opposing force (Steam)

Finally finished the series. I don't know why, I don't like any of the series all that much and this one was no different. But at least I can now say I've played all the main Half Life games.

I still like the original Half-Life just fine, and the expansions are tolerable from what I remember. I've never particularly liked Half-Life 2 and I can't say I've ever been keen on whether Half-Life 3 will come out at all.

Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition, Nov 11 (GOG)-After starting this a couple of years ago, I finally got around to finishing it. I was really impressed with how good it looks for a 12 year old game. The game itself is brutal in the beginning. Captains and their minions swarm you constantly and I had to run away a lot. I managed to rush the first 8-9 missions in about 2 hours without much trouble but soon hit a wall that required quite a bit of grinding for xp to unlock the best abilities. Once you get those abilities the game becomes far easier. The story didn't grab me and the mini stories within the main quest line should have tied in together rather than be completely separate. The side quests while essential for leveling up were very repetitive. Opening up a second map that was just more of the same was a let down. Late game having to sneak around for a mission with instant failure was annoying when the character was so overpowered. The final boss was a series of QTEs and I played about 5 minutes of each of the DLCs. The Nemesis system was ok I guess. Most of the board was clear for the game and the couple of times I died 6-8 new low level captains would spawn and I'd have to clear them again. I never really developed a true nemesis that I could tell. The game had some moments but overall pretty underwhelming. Not really looking forward to the sequel.

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