In the thirteen years since I opened my Steam account, I've collected an enormous array of games.
The thing is, I haven't played almost any of them, but the most 'popular' titles, and I've got no idea what is good, and what is bad. Steam does have a system of user reviews; but I like to experience things for myself, without context.
Steam Stats Sourced from Steamdb.info
So here we go, approaching my Steam Collection with alphabetical precision. I don't know what the frequency of these posts will be, but I can tell you that there may end up being a lot of them!
Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
Everyone who has played BG2 will remember their first time. I was young. My computer was slow. I had awesome speakers, though; and that helped immensely with the audio. My favourite audio part of BG2 was the EAX logo emblazoned on the box, and the voice acting.
BG2 is a game full of atmosphere, fantastic writing, and exceptionally memorable characters. It lets you go completely mental with the Advanced Dungeon and Dragons ruleset, and even import your original character from the first Baldur's Gate tale.
The scale of the title, the depth of combat, and damn near unlimited ways to navigate through the game make it entirely enjoyable, memorable, and something that has stood the test of time, in this, the enhanced Edition, at least.
The original version will work on a modern operating system, but it will also require a fair bit of tinkering. If you want to replay this game, the Enhanced Edition gives you everything the original had, in addition to modern operating system support.
It can look a little tired and ultra-high resolutions, but it works best, I find, in a window.
Balls of Steel
My fondest memories of early computer gaming are with the Microsoft Pinball that game pre-installed with almost every Windows Machine of the mid 90s. Balls of Steel takes this one step further with apogee / 3D realms themed pinball tables.
I didn't think I'd find myself playing this title nearly as much as I did going through my Steam collection, but I found myself spending more than a few hours going through the various tables, trying to beat high scores.
I imagine that back in the days of its original release, this would have milked hours out of CPUs. A surprisingly good title.
Bastion
An interesting title about a great calamity. It has role-playing elements and puzzle elements, and is heavy on the narrative, with a gravel-voiced narrator explaining every action in game as it unfolds.
As a result, it is a title reliant on sound - based on the musical score and aforementioned narration. It is set in a world that is perpetually falling apart, and everyone's gone, or set in stone; and as you explore the world, you unlock new skills, new weapons, and anew abilities to help you survive.
There's some impressive technical bits and pieces on play here, but I personally did not enjoy the game due to the way in which the game play was structured. This isn't because of the platform elements on display, which its well known I hate - but the way combat behaved.
It isn't that it is difficult it just feels disjointed, especially with the mouse and keyboard. I hear its much better with a controller; which I did not play the game with.
Prior posts in this series:
Part 9
Part 8
Part 7
Part 6
Part 5
Part 4
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1