Solarix

It would seem that Solarix is the 20th Unreal Engine 3 game I have played. And for once -- maybe even for the first time -- I got to play an Unreal Engine game that was not ported to PC from a console version. Unfortunately it was made by a small Turkish-based developer called Pulsetense Games. The lack of resources shows and I would have refunded it within minutes if I had not bought the Steam key from Humble. (I think getting a refund from a third party provider is bit more complicated than from Valve.)

Hunted: The Demon's Forge

I suppose I bought Hunted: The Demon's Forge for the same reason as Blades of Time -- for fun third-person hack and slash. It did not turn out quite as fun as BoT, however -- melee combat seemed to involve being stagger-locked a lot. And so I played through the game using E'lara (an apostrophe because fantasy) who focuses on ranged combat. As the elf, the game is more of a third-person cover-based shooter.

Aarklash: Legacy

Nearly every new game that is part of the so-called CRPG renaissance has turn-based combat. To me that is disappointing because all the good old Infinity Engine D&D titles (and the Neverwinter Nights games, too) had real-time combat with active pause. And that is a much more interesting way of doing things, in my opinion. I guess it might be more difficult to balance, and even though the IE games had their problems in that regard, it did not make them any less fun.

Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol is the first non-sequel game by Obsidian Entertainment I have played thus far. It is interesting in that regard because it came out while Obsidian was still continuing to make sequels to existing franchises. I wonder if was the developer or the publisher, Sega, who was behind the idea to create the game.

Velvet Assassin

For having mixed user reviews, Velvet Assassin is definitely from the dodgier end of the games I have bought after coming upon them in my Steam discovery queue. But since the game was nearly free on sale, I decided to buy it regardless of its reception and having been made by a little-known German developer, called Replay Studios.