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As I previously said, I’ve recently started working my very first job. It´s pretty good. The atmosphere is nice, there isn’t much stress, and I’m familiar with the tools and the environment I’m working in, so there’s no anxiety about me not being able to do my part. The money isn’t huge, but my cost of living is extremely low, so most of it will be left for me to spend however I please.

The huge amount of free time I had is now gone, though. I wake up at six in the morning and I’m back home at around 16:00. I’m rarely ready to play anything before five in the afternoon. That´s still quite a lot of time available to play, but there´s also other things I want to do. Basically, pretty soon, money won’t be an issue with my hobby, but time will be.

That being said, my backlog library is huge, and a lot of those games are in it simply because they were bundled with something I actually wanted to play, they were dirt cheap, free, or I just thought they would be more fun to play.

This is why I feel a change in philosophy is in order. From now on, the goal of completing every game in my backlog is put on low priority. First and foremost, I’ll be playing games I know or really hope I’ll enjoy. That means I’ll also be buying new ones if the opportunity comes and I won’t be wasting too much time on games I´m not truly enjoying.

Of course, if I run out of those, I’ll be going back to my backlog, but that won’t happen too often. The blog will keep going, of course. It´s just that the games I’ll be playing will have more in common.

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It’s OK. There really isn’t anything else I can say about the game. It’s an OK game. It’s not great, it’s not awful, it’s just OK.

The gameplay can be fun enough, and could be great, but it’s worsened by artificial inflation of game time. Fly here, now fly back there, now do this mundane and simple thing. Fight these guys. Oh, you’ve killed them? Here’s another group of identical guys you also need to kill. This drags throughout the game and I really feel it isn’t needed. It took me about nine hours to clear this game, but I would have had more fun and a higher opinion of it if it took no more than five.

The voice acting would be pretty good, were it not for the main character. She’s supposed to be French, but it sounds fake. She’s supposed to be 14 at the start of the game, but she sounds like a 35 year old attempting to sound young throughout the game. She’s supposed to be human, but she sounds like a robot trying to act human and failing at it.

Air Conflicts: Secret Wars DeeDee Writes Memoirs

Aww, she get’s married to Edwards!

The graphics are also OK, nothing special, but you get a few moments where you’re amazed by the lighting effects or the style. It’s not a graphical style that ages amazingly, but it doesn’t age badly either.The rest of the sounds are OK, though. On several occasions, I was actually surprised by the sound quality, but most of the time, it’s just enough above adequate to be good.

All in all, as I said, it’s an OK game. Get it if you have nothing else to play and if you find it for cheap, but don’t go out of your way to find it.

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This is a game I have already played through, both in its original version and in the form of this remake. However, it was just launched on steam and I pirated it the first time around, so I decided to make this right this time. The game is well worth the money, what with being a Spiderweb game.

Nethergate Splash Screen

There’s that music in my head again…

Since then, I’ve loved every single one of their games. The only series I never played extensively was Geneforge, but I intend to eventually remedy that as well. Any CRPG fan should get each and every one of these games.If you actually are a returning reader of this blog, you probably know I absolutely love games by Spiderweb Software. It started with me playing the shareware versions of their Exile series, back in the nineties. I loved the world, the mechanics, the open-endedness and the dynamic progression it had. Nethergate pulled me in with the Celtic/Roman combination of mythology and atmosphere as well as the fresh  new graphic system back then.

As I said, I already played through this one, but I got it anyway and I might play through it again,even

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Well, not really the Balkans. The first two battles involved liberating the Balkans, thus the name of the chapter. The rest of it, though, took place in Berlin. With Tommy dying in the last chapter, DeeDee was forced to go back to the British general she hated so much – McIntyre.

Berlin, though ruined, was not as grim as the previous chapter, probably because suddenly, there was a feeling of victory. Most of the missions were straightforward, with basically just destroying enemies as fast as possible or before time runs out. One of the missions involved captain Edwards, the young intelligence officer DeeDee met during the Neretva missions.

Air Conflicts: Secret Wars, Egypt Flashback

The last flashback mission took place in Egypt.

With this knowledge, I’ve completed the final mission and was then provided with a choice. McIntyre was under attack by a couple of Nazi fighters. I could run away, kill him or destroy the two fighters. I decided to help him, because I really can’t see any other option as the morally right one.The flashback gave us the big reveal – the allies considered using chemical warfare during world war one. Even worse, they would use it against civilians. During one such mission, DeeDee’s father decided he would not allow it and attacked his own squadron to try and stop them. Because of this, McIntyre shot him down.

With this, the game was completed.

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Slovakia was a dark chapter of this game. After one of DeeDee’s friends died in France, Tommy, who was basically her caretaker started to drink again. Of course, you couldn’t tell this bothers DeeDee based on her voice. I’m sorry if I’m insulting anyone, but at this point, I seriously think the main character would be better if she didn’t have any audio, just subtitles. At least then, you could imagine the appropriate tone and emotions.

Air Conflicts: Secret Wars Ground Screenshot

AIr-to-ground missions might actually be more common than dog fights. I haven’t really counted, though.

In any case, Slovakia wasn’t too difficult, but I did get a few levels that were harder to deal with. It was quite long to, so it took me close to two hours to complete it. I’ve also unlocked my first jet fighter in this chapter, which instantly became my favorite plane in the game. It’s extremely fast and extremely agile, so you can use it to basically run circles around any other plane in the game.

Now it’s time to go back to the Balkans, and to the final chapter.

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Operation Overlord was a bit harder than my missions in Poland. Well, one of the missions was harder – the one where I needed to drop of medical supplies, mainly because the only planes I could pick were the crappy ones. Other than that one mission, everything was cleared on the first try.

Air Conflicts: Secret Wars - Train Collision

Apparently, it’s sometimes a pilot’s job to cause train collisions.

Again, I’m really, really hating the voice actor for DeeDee, but the rest are good enough. I’m also starting to dislike the length inflation. Some of these missions really aren’t needed to progress the story or the game. As it is, the game is probably about three times longer than it had to be. Not much I can do about that, though.

Next up – Slovakia!

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After getting some stability and organizing some things around my work and living place, I’ve finally managed to squeeze in an hour of gaming. Air Conflicts was as good a game as any to do this with, so I managed to clear the fourth chapter – Operation Belt.

Air Conflicts: Secret Wars - Briefing

While there are slideshows between some missions, most of the time, all you get is this screen.

It was easy, for the most part, with no losses and only a few close calls. As usual, the voice acting of the main character is atrocious, but the rest of the cast is decent enough. I’ve been communicating some more with Night Owl, and I’ve met another one of DeeDee’s father’s army buddies, who told me a bit more about the legendary pilot.

I’ve also unlocked two new planes, one of which I like a lot for its speed and agility. It lacks firepower, though, so I won’t be using it too often.