Due to the abundance of story exploration games or “kinda adventure games but not really”, it’s very rare I bother playing any of them unless their story or presentation or anything else really grab me. When I first saw the store page for Mouthwashing, I dismissed it immediately and wouldn’t have considered playing it if not for catching a few streams of other people going through the game. Which has shown that this game has very strong writing and presentation that might be worth checking out for myself, even though I have, essentially, spoiled the story for myself with those streams. And you know what – it was still worth it. Even if, the more this game tries to be an adventure game, the worse it gets. And it’s published by russians.
Tag: game review
O tempora: Half-Life 2 (20th Anniversary)
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
For how influential, important and beloved Half-Life 2 is, I always struggled replaying it. I’d start, go through several opening chapters in a blink of an eye, loving every second of it and then stop somewhere in the middle of Ravenholm or right after. I dunno, the original Half-Life, despite also having weaker segments, always felt more exciting to me overall… Not that I disliked HL2 – I still felt that it was a great game, just, not quite as good as the first one. Which is funny, because at the same time I did love Episode Two a lot and even though it had horrible grindy achievements, first game to add them back in the day, I did all of them.
Except, it’s been around 14 years since I’ve played them last time. And after revisiting the original Half-Life with its expansions and later the fan remake Black Mesa, I was meaning to revisit the sequel as well. What stopped me was the state of the game – HL2 has been somewhat broken for years, having lots of visual issues and some logic bugs too. In 2023 Valve has brought a fantastic update to the original Half-Life, which got me excited about the possibility of getting the same treatment for Half-Life 2. And now that the 20th Anniversary update is out, I’ve decided to finally revisit the game and both Episodes, as they are now part of the same package.
Thoughts on: Nightmare House: The Original Mod
One of the main reasons In Sound Mind was such a pleasant surprise to me a few years ago was because I heard it was from the team who made Nightmare House. In my memory, Nightmare House was a very annoying jump scare Half-Life 2 mod that was of the same obnoxious horror design mentality as something like Cry of Fear. But then, I saw a lot of people speak of that mod with genuine admiration and it popped up in different conversations described as one of the best single-player Source mods of all time… As I’ve come to learn, what I was thinking is the original Nightmare House, while what people love is Nightmare House 2.
Which is where Nightmare House: The Original Mod comes in to clear things up a bit. Released as a free game on Steam, partially to promote the development of a complete remake of this mod, this game combines both of the original Nightmare House mods into one experience. With the original mod serving as a “Prologue” and the praised Nightmare House 2 taking up the most of your playtime. As far as I’m aware, apart from many quality of life tweaks allowed by a standalone release, both mods are presented almost exactly as is with only minor changes.
In love with: Slitterhead
Right from its initial announcement, Slitterhead was promising to be something special. The first title from a new studio formed by some of the key personnel who previously headed the original Silent Hill, the Siren series and Gravity Rush series had very little chance of being a “typical” game. I expected it to be at least a little bit jank and sometimes frustrating – and it is, – but I also expected to be amazed and excited. And I was. So while I can safely assume, Slitterhead might not “click” with a large amount of players, it is something to be experienced nonetheless.
Happy about: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Back in 2009 MachineGames was formed by people who decided to leave Starbreeze Studios after completing work on The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena – a good expanded version of the already fantastic Escape from Butcher Bay they’ve worked on 5 years prior. The title, that remains one of the best examples of a movie license game, was an incredible mix of different genres and somewhat of an “immersive sim-lite” and managed to perfectly replicate the mood and the style of Riddick movies in an interactive form. However, as MachineGames they’ve worked on titles that were a bit more conventional. While Wolfenstein: The New Order (and The Old Blood to a degree) had its share of curious and unorthodox decisions for an FPS game, it was still a more or less straightforward FPS. While Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Wolfenstein: Youngblood were showing them going an even more conventional and boring route, including a lot of very generic live service and looter shooter elements into the game.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was meant to be different. An unofficial return to the ideas of Riddick and The Darkness, of sorts. And while it doesn’t stick the landing, it mostly gets there.
Happy about: OneShot: World Machine Edition
OneShot has been originally released about 10 years ago as a freeware game made with RPG Maker 2003. It continued the wave of the games that were designed to provide experience inside and outside of the game window, like creating new files on player computer and changing the wallpaper, like it was already done in other well known titles like IMSCARED. And its biggest gimmick was in the title – you only had one shot at finishing the game. If you did something incorrectly, the game would become permanently unwinnable and you also could not replay the game from the start once you’ve finished it. Well… in theory – in reality you could make it work again, but the concept was still bold and the tone of the game was hopeful, but bleak and horror themed.
Then two years later a commercial version of the game was released, that started moving away from the whole “One shot at it” concept, but had even more crazy fourth wall breaking shenanigans and a bigger game world with more characters. Another year later, a “true ending” path was added as a big update to said version that I personally had a lot of problems with back when I reviewed the game. Fast forward to 2022, World Machine Edition got released on consoles, recreating all of the fourth wall breaking experiences within a virtual Operating System and adding some additional details and switching a lot of the backend elements of the title. And now, in 2024, this version has arrived to PCs.
Thoughts on: Death of the Reprobate
Well, I guess we got another painting-based Terry Gilliam-like animation game from Joe Richardson. Seven years after the funny Four Last Things and four years after the incredibly inventive The Procession to Calvary. It’s still silly, funny, visually clever and kinda fun. But this time it also seems somewhat unnecessary, a fact that the game itself acknowledges.
In love with: Tactical Breach Wizards
Whenever I see “turn-based strategy” or “tactical RPG” it’s an almost certain marker that the game is not for me. I’ve never had much patience for turn-based anything in general and very few (in a grand scheme of things) games and game series approached the concept in a way that I found exciting. Due to that, my initial reaction to Tactical Breach Wizards was dismissive – no matter how good the game could be, it had a high chance of being not my cup of tea whatsoever. But after seeing highly positive reception that especially focused on the writing I decided to give it a chance. When I learned that Suspicious Developments, the developers of the game, were the team behind Gunpoint, I got even more curious as while that game was also totally not my thing, it was inventive, understood how to mix planning and exciting action and was quite funny from what little of it I have experienced.
And even so, Tactical Breach Wizards exceeded all my expectations and are one of the biggest highlights of 2024 for me.
Disapprove: Ys X: Nordics
Slightly over ten years ago I’ve played Ys Origin – my first experience with Ys franchise or Nihon Falcom games in general. And it completely changed my understanding of what an action RPG can be. Every single entry I’ve played since, as they were gradually released on PC, was a pleasant experience. Even if not every single one of them were as fantastic as Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA, which remains in my eyes the pinnacle of the franchise as of now. So when Ys X was first shown to be a new “phase” in the franchise, where gameplay will be changed and new mechanics and ideas will be introduced, I was beyond excited to see what Nihon Falcom will do next. …Ys X: Nordics turned out to be the most disappointing Ys game in the series I’ve played so far.
Thoughts on: The Crimson Diamond
There are many classic adventure titles I’ve not played. Some I probably never will. Some do intrigue me still. For example – I heard very interesting things about The Colonel’s Bequest, an investigation focused title where you could completely fail solving anything and still finish the game. Hopefully I will eventually play it, but the reason I’m bringing it up is because The Crimson Diamond seems to have been influenced not just by any Sierra adventure titles, but this one in particular. And it’s not just the EGA-styled visuals that call back to the long past era of adventure titles. Far more interesting is the fact that this is a text parser based adventure. You don’t see these often anymore.