I like simple games if they have something cool about them. Could be a nice core gameplay idea, or interesting style or story. Even before the proper rise of indie games, there were super low budget PC and console games. Series like “Simple” from D3 Publisher or the “SuperLite” from Success even gave birth to niche but popular franchises, most notable being Earth Defense Force. When I first saw Children of the Sun, I thought of such games and was hoping that it could have that “something cool”, whatever it is. But after the quite short playthrough of the title and just one day passing, I’m already struggling to remember the game.
Tag: game review
O tempora: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
While I suck at fighting games and (to a lesser extent) beat em ups, I grew during the era when they were The Coolest Thing Ever. A local arcade, and I’m still surprised we had one after the crapshow that was Soviet Union, had cabinets with Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Streets of Rage II, Vendetta (Crime Fighters II) and, of course, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And all of the NES clones came preloaded with X games in one packages where at least one of the classic TMNT games would be included. The TMNT animated series from the 80s were also all the rage and so was the first live action movie. Heck, as a child I even liked the second one.
But it’s been decades, TMNT is no longer as popular as it used to be (though still quite liked), Konami stopped making good games and then any games (and are quite disliked). Curiously, the same year as this Cowabunga Collection released, a genuinely fun new game inspired by the titles from the collection was released – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. So, while game preservation is really important, would there be a reason for people who didn’t grow up on the titles from this collection to check it out?
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In love with: Chants of Sennaar
Something about the games where the “puzzle” involves translating languages fascinates me. Maybe it’s my own background as a Ukrainian interpreter, someone who had to juggle several languages in his mind since early childhood. Or maybe it’s the curiosity of how such a complex idea could get “gamified”. But it feels like something finally “clicked” for the developers when the fantastic Return of the Obra Dinn got released, as its central idea of assigning assumptions to concepts and then having the game confirm or refute those assumptions in bulk became the basis for now two language-focused puzzle adventure games: Heaven’s Vault and Chants of Sennaar. Games that are similar in many ways, but also extremely different in where their focus lies.
In love with: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake
Back in 2013 Starbreeze Studios was in a weird position. They had lost several key team members in the years prior and in 2012 released Syndicate, a game that wasn’t well received. Releasing a small downloadable only cinematic platformer title was not something people expected of them at the time, but Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons was a success that made people trust the studio once again. Pitched and directed by Josef Fares, who has since worked on purely cooperative titles A Way Out and It Takes Two, it was a very curious attempt to create a “single-player coop” kind of game. That used its simple yet inventive controls to tell a wonderful fairy tale (in the classic dark but hopeful way) story that evoked emotions through basic interactions.
The game has been re-released and ported numerous times since then and now, over 10 years since release, it got an almost shot for shot remake of the game, similarly to Like a Dragon: Ishin! from last year. This remake aims to be a new definitive version of the game and while it doesn’t quite succeed to be that at the moment, the game at the core remains amazing.
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O tempora: Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
While I’ve played every other entry in the Jedi Knight series of games, the very first entry has eluded me for years. No one I knew talked much about it in the 90s, as prior to the sequel we didn’t hear about it and after the sequel was out we were more interested in it and the expansion that followed. While in the 00s, after Jedi Outcast was out, I got interested in revisiting the earlier games, but they were very hard to launch on the hardware I had at that time. When Dark Forces was re-released on GOG in a playable state, I… didn’t care, to be honest. And only recently, when the fantastic fan made Force Engine was made available decided to give it a go, before abandoning it about half-way through.
Now that an official Remaster is out, made by NightDive who rarely disappoint, I decided to give it another chance. And I almost wish I didn’t. As for how important this game is in terms of historic value, it’s also one of the most frustrating classic FPS titles I’ve played in years.
Thoughts on: Hollow Cocoon
There has been a lot of attempts at creating horror themed adventures that focus on a stalker-type enemy ever since the 90s. Clock Tower series are possibly the best known example, but one can think of plenty of other examples, starting from something simple like the werewolf in Ecstatica, to the more recent and complex xenomorph in Alien: Isolation. Hollow Cocoon is a very respectable attempt at creating a horror themed stealth action adventure with a persistent stalker from a small studio. I’m very happy it exists and I really admire it. But it’s also not a game that I could recommend to most players.
Happy about: Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley
Even if you didn’t read the stories or watch any of the adaptations, it seems almost impossible to not be aware of the Moomins and their visual designs, both created by the Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson. Yet, there haven’t been that many videogame adaptations of the series and those that existed seem to have been exclusive to either Finnish or Japanese market. As such, Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley might be the first videogame adaptation of Moomins to release internationally and on several modern platforms. It is a very very simple game, but also a very very charming one.
Disapprove: Alone in the Dark (2024)
Another decade, another attempt to revive Alone in the Dark. I’ve recently covered all of the previous games in the series (excluding Illumination, because who cares). The inspiring original trilogy that shaped modern action adventures, but aged poorly. A much simpler first reboot The New Nightmare that nonetheless did several incredibly ambitious things. Overly ambitious Alone in the Dark from 2008, that attempted to reinvent the genre but failed miserably. And now we have a third game simply titled Alone in the Dark, except this lacks any ambition of the previous entries.
Happy about: Death Stranding Director’s Cut
When Death Stranding was first announced, no gameplay was shown, so no one knew what to think of the game. When the game was finally released in 2019 and you could play it, it was still hard to understand what this game is. A delivery person simulator in a post apocalyptic world with horror and sci-fi story, action adventure gameplay with stealth, light survival game mechanics and crafting in an open world? Huh? …Is it fun? This question will not be possible to answer until at least a few hours into the game, as it takes a while before you start getting into the pace it establishes and understanding if you like whatever this is or not. I think, I really liked it. But it also took me over 80 hours to finish it and have this answer.
Thoughts on: The Thaumaturge
While I didn’t have high hopes for The Thaumaturge, it seemed potentially interesting. The setting, the time period, the topics and how mystical dark fantasy story could be integrated in all of that was promising. And the mix of story driven adventuring with turn based battles had a lot of cool ideas about them. But, unfortunately, the end result is quite underwhelming for the most part and outright bad in a few spots.