7 years ago Her Story presented a very unique approach to an investigative adventure game, simulating the feeling of searching through the video archives of disjointed video clips and trying to piece together a more or less cohesive story out of it. A few years later, Sam Barlow followed the idea up with Telling Lies, a game that was criticized for having the same gameplay premise, but far longer video clips and more obtuse interface to turn the otherwise rather simple experience into a frustrating one. I haven’t played it myself, due to this criticism, but nonetheless was curious about what will come next. Immortality is yet another follow up to the idea first explored in Her Story, but this time the interface and the gameplay have been made less complex. Perhaps too much.
Tag: game review
Quick thoughts on: Hindsight
With so many story driven interactive experiences and story exploration titles around nowadays videogames are covering many topics and themes in various ways. Hindsight takes a form of something like an interactive photo album with a really cool visual style and a story about loss and grief. But for how pretty it is, playing it isn’t particularly enjoyable.
In love with: Axiom Verge 2
Seven years ago Axiom Verge got released and while I had a fair share of criticisms towards it, it really was a fantastic metroidvania. Without being too novel, it had several extremely clever additions to the formula of the genre and apart from that was a solid game with unforgettable soundtrack and cool visual style. A year ago Axiom Verge 2 got released on several platforms and had far less excited reviews overall, most emphasizing the change in focus of the game from action to exploration. Which excited me, because I love exploration in metroidvania games and the combat in the first title was my least favorite thing about it. Now that I’ve finally had a chance to play the sequel myself, I have to say that I love it even more than the original. Yet, I can see how it’s not going to be for everyone.
Ugly duckling: Stranglehold
Now this is a curious one. By 2007 “bullet time” was no longer a hot new thing, in fact the last official The Matrix game was already 2 years old, while The Matrix Online was just 2 years away from closing. John Woo has also been long past his prime and Hard Boiled, the original movie the game is a sequel to, was from 1992. Heroic bloodshed and gun fu/gun kata were no longer popular either. So why is it exactly Stranglehold came to be is a bit of a mystery. But if nothing else, this title was ambitious and it does impress in many ways.
Happy about: The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story
Yeah, it seems like FMV games are back in full force. From titles that play more like Visual Novels, to adventure games and even attempts at stealth, there’ve been plenty of very different approaches to trying to mix live action segments with gameplay. And overall, the results are so much better than what we had during the boom of FMV games in the early to mid 90s. The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, an FMV game from (surprisingly) Square Enix, is trying to mix the live action with a detective game and the results are pretty great, if uneven.
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Revisiting Resident Evil 4
I have a complicated history with Resident Evil 4. For a lot of people it was an instant hit, for me it was a frustrating experience. I didn’t “get” the appeal of the game for several years and only after several attempts, and because of the fact that the game influenced so many others, which gave me necessary experience to understand what it as going for, I started enjoying it. I still have plenty of criticism towards it, mind you, but nowadays replaying RE4 is an enjoyable experience for me. And I’ve replayed it many times over many different platforms, including this 2014 “Ultimate HD Edition”, which remains the best version of the game to play.
In fact, the main reason for my revisit this time was the fact that the version got even better due to fan work – I wanted to finally experience out the fantastic RE4HD mod, that more than lived up to my expectations. And in addition to that, wanted to have some fun with the recently released randomizer mod that adds some fun chaos to the overall experience. As I was about to play, the RE4 Remake got officially announced as well, so I decided that it might be the best time to revisit the original. And even in 2022 it’s still an extremely fun game… that really hates you.
Happy about: Stray
Action adventure game about a cute cat turned out to be an action adventure game about a cute cat. Who knew?
Happy about: Eternal Threads
Eternal Threads is among those pleasant types of games that don’t really invent anything new, but manage to take a lot of well established concepts and mechanics and combine them into an experience that hasn’t been attempted before. So while you’re playing, you’re enjoying the game as something that isn’t unlike what you already know, but when the time comes to analyze it and try to compare it to other titles you’ve played before, you realize – hey, this is actually quite new. It wouldn’t mean much if the game wasn’t good, but it is.
Happy about: The Gunk
The Gunk is a new project from Image & Form Games, a studio best known for the SteamWorld series and also their first fully 3D title. And it’s pretty good.
Revisiting Resident Evil 7, 2, 3 (with Ray Tracing patch)
After the entertaining but ultimately boring and disappointing Village last year, Capcom has announced that the updated rendering features from that game would be coming to Resident Evil 7, new RE2 from 2019 and RE3 2020. As new versions for the consoles and a free patch for PC owners. And that got me excited, because I was expecting that Capcom would finally address some of the issues that those games had on PC and in general for years and would breathe new life into these titles. Sadly, I was hopelessly optimistic and Capcom took an incredibly lazy route. But at least I had a reason to revisit two fantastic games. And also RE3 2020.
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