game review – Page 40

Happy about: The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky “Trilogy”

01/03/2019 11/03/2020

Ever since I’ve started playing games from Nihon Falcom, I’ve heard the Trails in the Sky subseries of their The Legend of Heroes franchise brought up a lot as an example of a truly amazing story-driven game with amazing character development, deep world lore and really good narrative. And since the official international PC re-release of the first game 5 years ago the talks about these games grew even harder to ignore. So I’ve finally decided to give all of the 3 games a go.

Disapprove: State of Mind

21/02/2019 28/06/2019

Since Daedalic Entertainment are usually better known for their more comedic 2D point and click adventure titles, I suppose a lot of people might be caught off guard with a serious cyberpunk adventure game with Dreamfall-like interface made in Unreal Engine. It tries to be an interesting cinematic adventure with a solid plot and a cool visual style. If only it could keep that throughout the entire game…

Read more“Disapprove: State of Mind”

Late thoughts on: Titanfall 2 as singleplayer

13/02/2019 13/02/2019

I’ve heard a lot of positive things about Titanfall 2 singleplayer campaign back when it was released over 2 years ago, but somehow couldn’t really be bothered to play it until now. Recent release of a (yet another) battle royale title, Apex Legends set in the same universe, reminded me that I need to check how good that campaign actually was. So I did. And… it’s fine.

Thoughts on: >observer_

08/02/2019 08/02/2019

I got around to playing the previous horror project of the developer, Layers of Fear, about a year and a half late, so I guess it’s only fair the same happened with >observer_. I was somewhat curious about this one, however, since I’ve not seen many horror titles of any genre in cyberpunk setting before, and since the developers somehow managed to get Rutger Hauer voice the main character of the game. Did they manage to make an actually good game this time around, or is it still all about cool visuals?

In love with: Resident Evil 2 (2019)

03/02/2019 13/05/2023

After the release of Resident Evil 1 remake in 2002 (colloquially called REmake) a lot of the series fans expected to see the same treatment to the second and third game in the series on GameCube. But it was not to be and GC releases of RE2 and RE3 were slightly updated ports of the Playstation versions of the game, which left a lot of people requesting Capcom for more remakes in the following years. It was so consistent and so determined that, perhaps, only the requests for Final Fantasy VII remake were more notorious. So in 2015 after asking the community if they are still interested in seeing Resident Evil 2 remade, Capcom announced their decision with the “We do it”.

Three years have passed since that surprise announcement…

Disapprove: Q.U.B.E. 2

27/01/2019 28/06/2019

The original Q.U.B.E. was one of the still quite few examples of well made First Person Physics-based Puzzle games, when it launched over 7 years ago. While never fantastic, it was a solid and stylish simple puzzle game with no story, atmospheric tunes and really cool visual design, combined with some fun puzzles all based around manipulating parts of the environment. It was then followed by Director’s Cut, a misguided re-release of the game that did remove a rather annoying puzzle, but also added a completely unnecessary, badly written and pace breaking narration and, to fit the new narrated mood, a more ambient score instead of a more pronounced music of the original.

And now, a couple more years later, Q.U.B.E. 2 was released. And I cannot figure out why.

Happy about: The Mooseman and It’s Spring Again

22/01/2019 28/06/2019

It’s always a joy to see games tackling on some themes or ideas that haven’t really been explored much, and especially unexpected when teams making said games are based in Russia. But that’s the case with the two little but very intriguing titles The Mooseman and It’s Spring Again.

In love with: Unavowed

15/01/2019 28/06/2019

Dave Gilbert’s Wadjet Eye Games have come a very long way. Despite sticking to the Adventure Game Studio and its aged and hard to work with tools, they’ve managed to both create and help create some of the most refreshing and innovative point and click adventures over the past 12 years. And while they have published some good games, I always preferred Dave’s own approach to designing adventures, which often favored dialogue and good storytelling over puzzles. And Unavowed may be the most interesting take at adventure games I’ve seen since the “golden age”. Or ever.

Thoughts on: Primordia and A Golden Wake

10/01/2019 10/01/2019

Before fully diving into the latest (and most impressive) title published by the Wadjet Eye Games, I wanted to finally catch up with the two games they’ve published that I’ve never checked. The main reason to ignore them was the reviews I’ve read – both Primordia and especially A Golden Wake seemed to be met with less praise than other Adventure Game Studio made point and click adventures Wadjet Eye helped see the light of day. Let’s see, if playing these games was worth the detour.

Happy about: Gorogoa and Donut County

04/01/2019 28/06/2019

There’s something special about the little short games that manage to cram a lot of awesome into just an hour or two. It’s not a common thing to happen, I’d say, as most titles tend to either aim at a longer gameplay time, or are very short experiments, that don’t feel like a complete experience. Even The Room series started as feeling like a really cool first part of something bigger and not as a complete package, even if the game was fun. But that’s what’s cool about two very different games, Gorogoa and Donut County, that will take you less than 2 hours to complete on the first try, yet still feel like a complete and fun experience.