I used to get a ton of enjoyment out of playing some of them with walkthroughs, but that was in the '90s when a "moving graphic novel" like that wasn't something you could find trivially anywhere.

You could set rules for yourself, like that you have to be stuck for 1 hour without making progress (if you find some new thing, timer resets) before using a hint. I try to follow something like "cannot look up a hint that day if I get stuck, have to try on a fresh day first", and then sometimes another day (so one full "day" of being stuck).

I would recommend "a day" as opposed to "an hour of playing time" because one of the cool things about games like this is you sometimes think of solutions (or at least something to try) when you're not playing, like in bed that night. That happened to me this time with MI2, something suddenly occurred to me long after I'd put the game down. "Ohhhh I can use that thing in that place..."

Grim Fandango is more contained than MI2, I beat it in college without hints. Tricky bits but I don't recall how tricky.

More on the "thinking of solutions when you're not even playing". When I was 10 years old some friends and I were playing The Black Cauldron, an early Sierra adventure game, based on the Disney movie which is based on a book series. We'd been playing for weeks or months at our own houses, sharing tips when we made progress.

We were eating sandwiches at Jeff's house taking a break from the game. There was a character we'd been looking for. Jeff suddenly stops eating and exclaims "I know where Fflewddur Fflam is!"

He was right.

The Surge

I found The Surge 2, which I wanted to play for a while now, on sale and decided to buy it, but it turned out that the first game was also on sale for like 5$. Now, I've heard that the first game wasn't really good, but at that price I decided to buy it and see for myself.

I have A LOT to say about this game, since it does some things really well, but many other very poorly, so I'll just post few random thoughts below to not create a wall of text. Let me preface it by saying that I also played The Surge 2 for a bit and it seems to fix pretty much all issues I have with first game, so it's likely a must-buy for any soulslike fan. Back to The Surge 1:

- combat: the most important part of any soulslike, I like it a lot (to the point where it pretty much carries the game for me), but I can see why people have issues with it. It feels weird, because attack animations are very slow, Dark Souls 1 style, but movement is much faster, with instant dash and running. I'd say that anyone can know within first 30 mins if they will like this game - if you can't get into combat, it's just not for you. Oh, there's also a really unique mechanic of cutting of body parts to gain enemy's gear, which I like a lot

- level design - I never thought I'd say this, but the levels in this game are actually TOO interconnected. The game is divided into few areas, and each of them only has one med bay (bonfire), with literally 20-50 (!!!) shortcuts coming back to it. While I really applaud level design this clever, it is really hard to navigate. I tend to have a very good sense of direction in games and never get lost, but here I'm actually not sure if I explored every level 100%, due to how complicated they are. And, of course, no map.

- art style - normally not an important thing for me, but here it's just painfully consistent. The setting is industrial rather than sci-fi - you're exploring a very large factory and after short while everything begins to feel similiar. This also makes issues with navigation worse, since it's really hard to tell where in a level you are using visuals.

- bosses are... ok. They are definitely not the focus of this game, there's only 5 of them and first 4 are gimmick fights that become really easy once you figure out the gimmick. Final boss has a really cool design, more Dark Souls style, but its difficulty is a joke

- difficulty - this game is hard, significantly harder than Dark Souls (apart from bosses). There are no trash mobs, everything can kill you really fast and you're never just cruising (even when backtracking, since the game throws new enemies in already explored areas). I like high difficulty, but I'd say around half of the game (took me 22hrs btw) it becomes a bit too much for a while, fortunately you get significant gear upgrades soon after that and it gets managable again. I've seen players saying that they just ran around enemies without fighting them due to frustration, I never did that, but was pretty close in that mid section.

- character progression - it's strictly gear-based, the only thing that leveling up does is it lets you put on more advanced gear. Now, this is just a flavour thing, but personally I prefer having stats on my character that I can improve to create permanent builds rather than loadouts. However, this lets you try out multiple builds in one playthrough, which many will prefer. Also, I didn't experiment too much, but it felt like simply pumping up your hp and stamina is the strongest build, and could never get something more non-standard like drone build really working (though maybe I was approaching it wrong)

- story - not much to say, typically for the genre it's very cryptic, I kinda liked it, but the writers did go for some rather cheap gut-punching moments few times. Cryptic stories work better with more subtlety

overall, I'd give the game 7/10, but it's pretty much only due to how much I enjoyed the combat - if I didn't like it, this would go down to like 3/10

I have been reading this book series to my son and this post made me smile

The Surge 2

Alright, this will be a short one, promise

I don't want to repeat my previous post, so let me just say that I absolutely love this game and they fixed literally every single issue I had with Surge 1, and then added the best combat mechanic I've ever encountered in a soulslike, directional parrying. There are still some minor issues (storytelling is more direct and a bit bland, bosses are better, but still not great and DLC is too short), but they don't stop this from being an extremely fun experience and the best soulslike I've ever played - and that comes from a person who vastly prefers fantasy settings over sci-fi

9/10, must play for any souls games fan, would also be a great point of entry for a newcomer to the genre'a (though you should still play Demon Souls or Dark Souls first)

Have you tried Sekiro? Imo better than all of the souls games.

not yet, but I'm definitely planning to - I'm actually much more pumped for it now that I've seen how great can a parry mechanic done right be. Not a big fan of parries in Souls games.

that being said, I'm a big fan of RPGs, so Sekiro being an action-advanture game is a bit of turn-off, that's why I haven't gotten it yet and I'm happy to wait for a decent sale

Dark Souls games have some stats that basically don't mean anything so if you consider that an RPG I guess Sekiro is slightly different but the thing is Sekiro is exponentially better than the rest.

Sekiro on sale humble atm

Hades - I've finished this only to the extent that I've completed the main story. There is still more story and character progression to unlock, and therein lies the genius of this game. I've avoided roguelikes because the idea of gameplay based firmly around repetition is anathema to me. Took a (discounted) punt on Hades due to the reviews praising its integration of story with the gameplay loop. They were very right.

Hades succeeds at something Diablo 3 fails to do - give the player a reason to play through repeatedly for reasons other than gearing/character building. Tying story progression to the repetition was a stroke of genius. It's a genuinely innovative approach. There's an astounding amount of dialogue; I've done about 60 runs so far and have barely heard the same line of dialogue twice. The combat's also so damn fun. Tight controls, loads of variety in weapons and builds, loads of unlocks, and RNG means two runs are ever the same.

The total package makes for one of the most addictive games I've played in a long time, and one that craps on Diablo 3 from a great height. This should set the bar for building gameplay around repetition. I hope that Supergiant change their practice on DLC, because I would happily pay for more Hades.

You convinced me to pull the trigger on Hades. Like you, I kept seeing rave reviews and, while I love ARPGs (which are similar in a number of ways), I've never been too keen on any roguelikes. Hopefully this can change my mind!

If you like ARPGs then I think you'll like Hades. It handles death in a great way - every time you die you will be able to become more powerful and unlock more of the story. Its not like the Souls games where you lose all progression. It took me 32 runs to clear the game for the first time, but it was never too frustrating because you gain ground in some tangible way every time.

I started re-reading it for the first time since I was 8 or 9.

Hades is great. You'll def like the game. It's truly magical. Rook didn't even mention that all that dialogue is also voice spoken as well. It feels so rewarding to keep unlocking stuff and you can customize your build quite a bit.

Code Vein - anime souls

yeah, I really have too much time on my hands due to covid... Anyway, next game in my queue was Code Vein. Simliarly to Surge 1, I have a lot to say here, since the game does a lot of things wrong, but a lot of them really, really well.

- story/aesthetic - normally I wouldn't talk about it first, but here it is the most obvious thing to notice: this game is anime as ****. Now, I've never watched any anime and I generally don't like the genre, so I was a bit sceptical, and unfortunately the game did not change my mind. The aesthetic is just so weird and over-the-top, with every female character (including monsters) sexualized to absurdity, yet nothing sexual is ever even mentioned. The story doesn't help too - it's very convoluted, with extremely long cutscenes that for me were just plain boring. You can skip those cutscenes, which I eventually started doing, but you still have to suffer through some very long load screens (more on that later). So yeah, I doubt that the story will be enjoyable to anyone but hardcore anime fans

- combat - here's the most important point in any soulslike and I have to say that it is really, really good. It is fast, fluid, with a lot of weight to it, but also offers tons of options. There are some similiarities to Nioh, in that there are a lot of systems, that you can, but don't have to learn. One weird thing is that most of those systems do not work on bosses, but I imagine that they were sacrificed for more balanced challenge. There are some minor issues, like backstabs being so OP that they make parries redundant, but overall a very good and deep combat systems. I still slightly prefer the one from Surge 2, but only because directonal parries there were so well done.

- level design - the game got a lot of grief from reviewers here, but I didn't hate it. Sure, levels are a bit repetative (saving money on those assets), but if you enjoy maze-like design you will feel at home here. That being said, those mazes are usually about going forward, with some branching paths, but the metroidvania-like design from DS or Surge is gone, there are some shortcuts but they are rare and unimpressive. The game is also almost 100% linear, with one meaningful path choice being very early and in the worst possible moment (the default path leads you to an insanely powerful boss). Overall, world/level design is servicable, but not impressive

- difficulty - a bit of a weird one, since the game is clearly designed to be played with a partner, either AI or online. Now, I hate coop, so I played the entire game solo (summoned help for 2 extremely hard bosses) and it turned out to be a good decision. The game was quite hard that way, but everything was doable and I really had to learn it well to progress. I imagine that playing it intended way would make it far too easy, especially since the game does not adjust difficulty at all if you summon.

- bosses - oh, yes, this is definitely where the game shines. Boss designs are fantastic and very imaginative, with proper challenge when played solo and very satisfying learning curves. Their difficulty is high, sometimes even very high, but nothing feels unfair. Impressively, there are almost no weak points in the roster. Overall, I haven't seen boss design this good since Dark Souls 3, and even that game had some weaker bosses

- technical performance - usually I don't mention this, since I really don't care about ocasional bugs, but here I have 2 issues. First, I had this really annoying bug throughout the entire game where the game would suddenly start ignoring inputs from my mouse (I play with kmb) and I had to quickly open/close inventory to fix it. Secondly, the load times - they are really, really long and load screens are everywhere, even though there are "load tunnels" that you go through between each level. Worst thing is the fact that you get a load screen after each cutscene, and they are sometimes chained together, so if you are bored by the story and want to skip them you can face 4-5 load screens in a row, which is ridiculous

Ok, those are my main thoughts on the game. I would also like to mentioned that the game is long, much longer than other soulslikes, it took me 48hrs to beat it with careful exploration, but nothing close to 100% completion. Speaking of completion, there game also has its own version of Chalice Dungeons from Bloodbore. They are not randomly generated, but they are a nice addition, especially since you can meet different version of bosses there. That being said, I couldn't be bother to do them all, especially since gaining access to them is very convoluted

Overall, I'd give the game 8/10 as a soulslike fan, but that it mostly due to fantastic bosses. If you're not a fan of the genre or don't care much about bosses, it's probably closer to 6/10 due to many annoying problems

The Curse of Monkey Island (Mac, from GOG) - Not as good as Monkey Island 2, but decent. There's too much talking especially in the first main area, and the dialogue isn't funny but it very much thinks it is. These are the cardinal sins of adventure games imo.

The second major area is a lot better, very atmospheric with satisfying puzzles and not quite as much of the talking.

Endgame is kinda crap as is usually the case with Monkey Island games.

15 hours, no hints, didn't remember anything from my first playthrough ~2004.

So it sounds like you didn't really enjoy it then? I never played them as a kid but I did like King's Quest even tho I had no idea wtf I was doing mostly (am 35 for reference of age playing as a kid).

I overall enjoyed it, the second main island was very good. Cool area to wander around in, great puzzles, atmospheric. First island had decent puzzles but I didn't like the vibe. Could have been a lot better by just cutting a bunch of dialogue.

I was a Sierra (King's Quest) etc. kid, but they're not as easy to pick up and play now as LucasArts games are. Definitely gonna replay them soon though.

If you want a taste of classic point and click, Monkey Island 1 or 2 (2 is much better and is GOAT, but is harder for a beginner) or Full Throttle through the first main area as I mention in a review above.

FWIW I loved Curse of Monkey Island when I played it in ~'98 or '99. ~20 year old me thought it was really funny. I'd love to replay some day.

Same. I thought the later chapters got even better.

My family played it when they were still releasing chapters one at a time. We couldn't wait for the next chapter to drop.

You might be thinking of Tales of Monkey Island which was released episodically

Oh you're right... lol, I thought Tales came out in late 90's. oops.

I liked Curse too. I remember it was fairly hard.

Forza Horizon 4

Got the game on sale for $19.99. I had pirated Forza Horizon 5 and wanted to try out some of the online aspects of the game but didn't want to pay $60 so I went with Forza Horizon 4. FH4 is pretty much the same exact game as FH5 but in a different location (Britain instead of Mexico). Technically the game is slightly easier on your video card, but both games look identical. The game looks decent and runs well; I haven't suffered many FPS issues at all and have kept 60+ FPS.

I have trouble recommending this game. I really enjoy realistic racing games but they all struggle with tying a narrative to what would be an excel grid of races. All races take place on a world map that's completely open from the start of the game. You go to various locations to start a race event there. You do the race and you're put back on the map to go drive to another race location. However, the races are too damn short. Sure there are road, rally, and cross country racing, there's drag racing and drifting competitions but they all get finished within 3 minutes. There's only 2 races that last 10 minutes in the 100 hours I've played this game. I'm a huge fan of 20 minute to 1 hour endurance races which this game just doesn't have.

The reward system sucks. You don't really make much money to buy all the cars you want but rather are given random cars as you play through the game. Sometimes you get nice cars, sometimes you have to buy them with your limited funds, and sometimes you have to overpay for good cars that people auction off. I probably made about $10 million in my 100 hours and the best and most sought after cars start at $12 million on the auction house so only dedicated or lucky players will get those cars. There are side missions that you can do where you purchase a business, drive some type of vehicle really fast, and then you get a score of 1-3 stars. Every couple of days you are paid based on how many stars you've earned so far but the amount of money you get is only just enough to pay for the upgrades on a car and not for a new car itself.

I purchased FH4 for the online features but sometimes it takes up to 30 minutes just to get an online race going plus 5-10 minutes in between each 3-minute race. These loading times have you stuck on a loading screen too; you're not allowed to drive around the map gathering collectibles or trying to do side quests, you're stuck looking at a camera rotate around your car while your avatar constantly dabs at you because you thought it would be a funny emote to use. Even though you're racing against other people, online features really don't exist for this game other than downloading other people's liveries and tuning setups. You can't use your mic even though some how other people can have theirs turned on without them knowing its on (and you can't mute them). You can't type to people, you can only use Rocket League-esque quick emotes. You can see other people on the map and drive by them but they are ghosted and can't be rammed or whatever. Any kind of online feature you're looking for in this game will need to be found by you outside the game.

I wouldn't recommend this game, nor would I recommend any other editions until they at least bring endurance races to the game.

I picked up Hades for Christmas, along with RDR2, Demon's Souls and Metroid Dread. I played around 45 minutes of Metroid Dread Xmas day, but then when I wanted to play some more my son was on the switch so I threw Hades in instead. I haven't touched another video game since. Hades is the most addictive game I've played since Guitar Hero 1/2 in the mid-00s. The combat is superb, with every run feeling unique. The six base weapons all play a little differently, and then the dozens/hundreds of power-up combinations means you are constantly finding new, interesting ways to attack the legions in front of you.

The game's pacing is perfect. It feels hard as hell at first, but you find yourself constantly getting a little further, then a little further, etc. New levels bring on steep difficulty ramps, and the bosses are great at testing your skill. You die a lot, but fortunately, dieing never feels that bad...

...because of the genius storytelling. Every time you die you unlock a little more of the story. Any frustration you have from the death is wiped away 5-10 seconds after arriving back home as you start talking to characters and advancing the plot. Meanwhile the voice acting and art style/direction are among some of the best I've seen in years. And so much voice acting! I read there are over 10K lines of spoken dialog. The polish is through the roof.

I have been blessed with playing some amazing games the last 1.5 years: GOW, TLOU1/2, and Sekiro were all fantastic, all masterpieces. Hades doesn't have the cinematic elements those games have, but holy cow it's every bit as impressive. It's one of the very best games I've played, one of the most fun. It's worth all the praise it's received.

Quick Hades epilogue: 1.5 months later, just put down the controller having received my last trophy and platinuming the game (1st game I've ever done that). There's still things I didn't do. I stopped ratcheting up the difficulty at 16 heat level which is the last level needed for a trophy. (Heat is Hades' system of adding difficulty to end-game runs: you can choose from 14 different options of facing more enemies, stronger enemies, faster enemies, new/harder enemy move-sets, less healing, etc.; each time you add a layer of difficulty, you increase your heat 1-4 points.) The last in-game recognition/cosmetic reward can be earned at 32 heat, which is largely considered the threshold for beating it on the hardest level (although you can theoretically go up to ~60 heat).

I also didn't completely fill my codex (missing 1 fish, didn't visit Erebus enough or summon all the companions enough times to complete their entries) and am one purchased-item short of fulfilling all 55 prophesies. I also never got good at speed runs: my fastest run ever is ~22 minutes, whereas most invested players will have times in the low- or mid-teens, and many people have runs of 7 or 8 minutes.

I'm tempted to keep playing and truly 100% the game, but my backlog is so big, I have to tear myself away 3 months after starting. Truly a superb game, one of my favorites I've ever played.