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.

Blades of Time

Blades of Time begins a series of less-known games in my shortening backlog. It also got rather close to breaking my rule of not buying or playing Japanese games. While the developer, Gaijin Entertainment, is Russian, the game has a very Asian-inspired thing going on with its visuals. Which is the reason I almost skipped it. But it is not quite there.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Making a sequel to a game as huge as Borderlands 2 can be difficult. It would need to have massive amounts of new stuff and innovation to justify its existence as an actual new game rather than a lazy recycle of old assets. Thus a third game in the series remains to be seen yet -- at least one with a 3 in its title.

Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 succeeds at being what a game sequel should be. It retains the familiar gameplay but refines it to a better experience. Old features were improved and new ones were added. Maybe there could have been more additions, though, and maybe some features could have used more work -- like the skill trees not being again filled with somewhat dull passives. But overall BL2 is simply a better experience than the first one in every aspect.

Borderlands

The Borderlands series had never seemed too interesting in the past but I decided to buy the Humble Borderlands Bundle last summer regardless. I even paid for the full package because I like my games complete. The bundle did not include the third game, however -- only a coupon for it with a pretty short expiration date. I decided not to use it as The Pre-Sequel! will probably be on sale later on and I should play the two games first to see how much I even like them.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution

I happened to notice an oddity in Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising's Steam global achievement stats as only 7% of people have the most unlocked one. I wonder if they were added later when Games For Windows Live got ditched because that is a really low percentage. Usually at least 40% of people have the first achievement of any given game on Steam from what I have seen.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising

It has been some time since I last played a Warhammer 40,000 game, and even longer since I played Dawn of War II. Thus I decided to replay the original campaign the standalone expansion Chaos Rising comes with as well. To remind myself how it was and also because you can import your save into CR's campaign and have maybe slightly better equipment at the beginning.

Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas is yet another case of Obsidian Entertainment being commissioned to make a sequel to a game. It is also bit special in that because several of Obsidian's founders had worked on the original Fallout games. And maybe because of that, New Vegas is a whole lot better than Bethesda-developed Fallout 3 -- at least in my opinion.