The second week of my endeavor to finish as many 2014 games as I possibly can has come to an end! Even though I did have an entire week to get some games I finished I come to you with only 4 games completed. But hey, progress is progress!

Here's a link to the first week, check it out!

Game 6: Lovely Planet

Time to completion: 3 hours.

Lovely Planet is a first person shooter that oozes good vibes with it's striking visuals, catchy music, gratuitous use of Japanese and deceptively simple gameplay. All you have to do is shoot every baddie and get to the end of the level, how hard can it be? As it turns out, not that hard actually. At least, for the first few worlds that is. The game gradually adds more enemies and obstacles that require frame perfect timing from your shots in order for you to move on. As someone who isn't the best at playing first-person shooters with a mouse and keyboard, the game doesn't immediately throw anything at you that a couple of retries can't resolve.

Although, the game does reach a point where it gets real hard, real quick. I'd say World 4, the one where you're literally fighting things you can't see, is where the difficulty cliff starts to rear it's head. I managed to get through it with a bit of practice but the final set of levels feels way to tough. I did manage to complete most of it and see the ending but man, it's one hell of a challenge.

I'm not about to hold that against this game though, Lovely Planet's got an infectious charm that's readily apparent from the moment you start playing and it's just a straight up good time. Sometimes you just wanna play a video game and not feel one, Lovely Planet is just the kind game for that.

Game 7: A Story About My Uncle

Time to completion: 2 hours.

There isn't much that I can say about this game that hasn't already been said by Patrick in the video essay he made for the game earlier this year.

I've still got a couple things to say though! I'm gonna start by saying that this game's actual mechanics, y'know the swingin', are actually pretty fun to play with. The grappling hook in the game functions similarly to the hook from Bionic Commando when you want to swing and the hook from Just Cause 2 when you want to get somewhere quickly. It's a bit tricky to get it to work at first but once you get used to it you'll be soaring between platforms like it's no one's business! You also get a sweet pair of rocket boots about halfway into the game that help you get a little extra out of your airtime.

Unfortunately, the game ends rather quickly and most of the levels (save for the last one) aren't very challenging or have enough substance to warrant a second playthrough of the game. It's a shame because successfully getting your swings down feels great but the game is severely limited by the length of the story. And I hate to say it but even though the game is called "A Story About My Uncle" the story feels like it just gets in the way for the most part.

If this game were just 'Yo, swing around with this sick grappling suit" I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. As it is, it's just a cool first person platformer that's been burdened by an uninteresting narrative and a lack of challenge.

Game 8: Spate

Time to completion: 80 minutes.

In Spate, you play as a detective investigating a disappearance on a series of islands known as the X Zone. Along the way, he struggles with his absinthe addiction and tries to come to terms with the loss of his young daughter. In Spate the story and the atmosphere are the focus, the gameplay is purely secondary. As far the story goes, it's... fine. I would probably enjoy it more if I could better relate to it, but it does a good enough job helping you empathize with the main character in the short amount of time you spend playing it.

The atmosphere and the environments, I think, are this game's strongest assets. There's one moment that really stands out when I try to recall anything about this game. There's a sequence where you walk through a graveyard. You continue to walk forward as the main character recounts his last moments with his daughter. As the stories go on eventually the graveyard just turns into a series of giant skeletons and you start falling. You keep falling and the music becomes more and more somber and eventually you slip back into what seems to be reality. There aren't too many of them, but it's those moments and the surreal environments that make the slightly-less-than-competent platforming sections a bit more palatable.

Spate has been compared to both LIMBO and Gone Home, which are totally valid and justifiable but in comparison the game just doesn't hold a candle to those two. On it's own however, Spate is a short tale about loss and addiction loosely held together by some mediocre platforming that's probably worth checking out.

Game 9: Particulars

Time to completion: 7 hours.

Particulars is a puzzle game.

Asking someone to explain the gameplay mechanics of Particulars is like asking a particle physicist how particles interact. Luckily for you, as someone who has played this game for a short period of time I have become a legally certified(sic) amateur physicist and can adequately explain what the hell is going on in this game.

You start out as a down quark in subatomic space where you manipulate the mysterious power of magnetism between you and the other particles in order to complete objectives; which range from delivering particles to certain areas and feeding black holes other particles in order to increase it's mass. It's all good fun as the game's early stages walk you through the basic interactions as it gradually introduces more and more complex elements. There's a lot of information in this game based on real-life concepts, the game does a good job of explaining enough relevant information for you to complete your objective and even has an extensive encyclopedia for all the particles and other objects that explains their real life and in-game uses and properties.

The game does reach a point where you're going to need to take a look at some of that extra info because what's happening on the screen is practically undecipherable. I found that there was enough information present for me to get a very basic idea of what I should be doing or trying to do. When I couldn't figure stuff out there were often times where I would just stumble onto the correct solution. There's also a skip function for those levels that you just can't quite figure out, it's handy and probably something you're going to make use of later on in the game.

All in all, Particulars is a very fascinating game. It's very "fun" (maybe interesting is the right word?) to play some of the busier levels where particles are flying about and things are just constantly being annihilated because it just looks plain crazy. I kinda wish there was a free play mode so you could experiment to your heart's content and I think all the info in the game would probably benefit from a mode like that but hey, this game is still pretty dope and in playing it I feel like I learned a little somethin'!