game review – Page 36

Happy about: Trine 4 (and a few words on Trine 3)

04/01/2020 04/01/2020

It’s been a long time since I’ve played a Trine game. I didn’t enjoy the original much, but the second game was really good. Third title had a very bad reception for reasons I’ll explain, and I expected the series to be dead due to it. Yet here we are, Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince was released a few months ago to everyone’s surprise (or at least mine) and I decided to check it. And also 3, while I’m on it. It was a rather pleasant experience.

Thoughts on: Heaven’s Vault

29/12/2019 29/12/2019

Despite never giving 80 Days or Sorcery series a proper playthrough, I’ve been curious about Heaven’s Vault, a new game from the same developers at inkle. Probably mostly due to the fact that the game is all centered around the translation and archaeology, around uncovering history and visiting long forgotten places, which sounded extremely alluring to me. It looked like a potentially interesting, but rather niche game, but what I didn’t suspect was just how niche it can be due to it’s “choose your own adventure” non-linear approach.

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In love with: Disco Elysium

20/12/2019 20/12/2019

I think pretty much anyone I know who loves good stories mentioned Disco Elysium to me at least once since it’s release a few months ago. By the time of me writing this, the game has received several awards for its storytelling and yet, I find it a bit hard to explain what Disco Elysium is. The comparisons with Planescape: Torment are unavoidable, for example, yet this game feels almost completely different to play. What I can say quite easily, however, is that Disco Elysium is a really good game and an unforgettable experience.

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Thoughts on: Gears 5 (campaign only)

13/12/2019 19/08/2023

Occasionally I find myself in a situation when an insanely popular game or a franchise in a genre that I tend to like a lot, something that seems to be loved by most who like similar games, is just not working for me. Gears of War has been such a franchise – despite always having a soft spot for third person action titles, with or without adventure or platforming elements, I never cared about it. I did finish the original, on PC, I did try playing 2 and 3 on a friend’s 360 (personally never owned any Xbox consoles and don’t plan to) and got bored pretty quickly. Games had a certain feel to them, their flair of cinematic was really good and some of the ideas in them were absolutely brilliant, but I had no desire to play them.

I suppose, after so many years of not playing this type of TPS, as they going out of fashion at the start of this decade, and perhaps partially because I enjoyed replaying Mass Effect titles a year ago, I found myself wanting to play Gears 5 (they dropped the “of War” part with this one). And so I have, as usual completely ignoring multiplayer, horde mode and all the rest of the online components, though, unfortunately, coop as well. And overall, my experience with the story campaign of Gears 5, played solo, was quite surprising. Not amazing, but surprising and very much not bad.

Thoughts on: The Sinking City

11/12/2019 02/01/2024

A quick important note before I begin – I currently work at Frogwares and while I had no input in The Sinking City, nor any of its post-launch support, me working with the team that developed the game may still bias my opinion no matter how hard I try to let it not affect what I think of the game.

I’m not aware of all the details of what happened early in what would become The Sinking City development, but back in 2014 Frogwares announced that they will be developing a Call of Cthulhu game to be published by Focus Home Interactive. Few years of no news on the project later, things have changed. Cyanide were announced as a new developer for the Call of Cthulhu, while Frogwares were to develop their own separate take on the Lovecraftian lore with The Sinking City. Now that I’ve written about the utterly disappointing Cyanide title, is The Sinking City any different? Well, it’s plenty different. Not always for the better, though.

Disapprove: Call of Cthulhu

05/12/2019 05/12/2019

Despite still never giving a proper go with the works of H. P. Lovecraft, I’ve had a lot of experience with art and entertainment based or inspired by his writings. That included the previous most recent videogame official adaptation of his “lore” in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth from 2005. Despite its shortcomings and multiple issues that game was genuinely interesting and had numerous great moments and ideas (and I really should revisit it soon, since it’s been a while). This new Call of Cthulhu? Well… There’s hard to find many good things to remember this one by.

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O tempora: Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift

30/11/2019 18/01/2025

O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve played a Half-Life game… They were never really as important to me as they were for so many people. I did enjoy them all, I played quite a few mods, tried making mods myself (never got far), revisited them a couple of times and still have a lot of respect for what all of them were going for and how they innovated and influenced gaming in general. But I’m not really specifically a fan of the series, more of the admirer.

I planned this revisit since the fan-made remake Black Mesa is nearing its completion, and after finishing the original decided to revisit both of the game’s PC expansions developed by Gearbox Software (the third official expansion Decay remains officially console only, though there is a mod I decided not to play). With all of this done, I feel like my overall opinion on the game hasn’t changed much.

Happy about: Spyro Reignited Trilogy

23/11/2019 23/11/2019

Despite playing a lot of PS1 games as a teen, I completely missed out on the original Spyro trilogy and haven’t played it until 9 years ago. Back then I decided to give both best known PS1 platformer mascots a go and while Crash Bandicoot series didn’t click with me at all (I did kinda like the last of the original games, though), Spyro was an incredibly pleasant surprise. It controlled well, had great levels, stellar music by Stewart Copeland, visually aged shockingly well and felt like a true timeless classic – and this is coming from someone who rarely likes platformers. And while I liked the sequel a lot as well, I did get bored by the third game that felt like it was going for needless gimmicks instead of simply being fun and never finished it. When I heard of the remaster coming I was curious about how the games will be handled and if any of the occasional annoyances will be fixed since the game was being completely rebuilt from the grounds up on Unreal Engine 4. The Reignited Trilogy ended up being enjoyable, but somewhat confusing.

Disapprove: The Silver Case

16/11/2019 16/11/2019

A decade before gaining international recognition with killer7, Goichi Suda was writing for Human Entertainment and the games that to this day remain Japan-exclusive. After getting some fame (or infamy) with his bleak storyline for a wrestling game, he got a directorial role with the first two horror themed adventure titles in the Twilight Syndrome series. Following that, Suda51 decided to split with Human (a timely decision since the company went bankrupt a few years later) and founded Grasshopper Manufacture, the company he’s still associated with. The very first project they made? Japan-only Playstation 1 adventure/visual novel title called The Silver Case (prior to this official localisation also known as The Silver or Silver Jiken).

This was the game that fully established the recurring themes of Suda51 games, like “Kill the past”, introduced several of the recurring characters and concepts, the seemingly shared universe (it’s occasionally self-contradicting though) and other elements that can be traced even in the most recent Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes. And it remained Japan-only until 2016 where a PC port was suddenly released, followed next year by an updated version with further enhancements and story episodes released for PS4 (and as a free update on PC). Playing this game now, 20 years since its release and being more familiar with the games Suda51 would work after is a curious experience. But not a particularly pleasant one.

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Thoughts on: Ion Fury

08/11/2019 08/11/2019

Of all the 90s FPS classics I’ve always loved Build engine games most, specifically Duke Nukem 3D and Blood. When Ion Fury was announced (originally as Ion Maiden), I didn’t know what to think. Reusing the old Build engine in 2019 to create a completely new game, pushing the engine to its absolute limits sounded commendable, but was it necessary? Having played the game, I’m still somewhat confused about how to feel.