There’s been a lot of games by Telltale games. Way too many, I’d say. And that’s one of the main reasons I’ve stopped caring about the games they make. They started with pretty average and often boring to play (but fun to watch) adventure games with 3D controls and a lot of classic point and click adventure elements in. That didn’t work out well. Then they tried switching to “interactive stories”, and it didn’t work out at all (with the Jurassic Park game), yet the second try was much better and their Walking Dead series, based on the comic book series of the same name, won several awards and were lauded as a story-driven evolution of adventure titles. So they did what a lot of studios do after they find a success formula that works and made, mechanically speaking, the exact same game over and over again for the past 6 years. Sometimes, based on franchises that don’t even make any sense (Story-driven Minecraft? Really?). But I heard good things about Tales from the Borderlands, and last time I heard good things about the Telltale game, it was about The Wolf Among Us, and that game was really good. So, how about the Borderlands game without the bazillion guns?
Tag: game review
Thoughts on: Sylvio 2
Original Sylvio was a game that came out of nowhere and charmed me with its very unique approach to horror-themed action adventuring. Being centered all around the EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) it went against the usual horror expectations – focusing almost entirely on terror, unease, tension and it was almost exclusively audio-based in how it evoked these feelings. Rare (and, to be fair, clunky) encounters with “enemies” weren’t horrifying and didn’t make you jump. Most things usually made you stop, slowly back away while trying to comprehend what you’re seeing and hearing. And while the action adventure elements with those rare action parts and physics-based puzzle solving, or the open map exploration weren’t always good and felt clunky, they added something very special to the game. The game wanted to be much more than it could, being a budget one man team product, but what it achieved was still good, unique and memorable.
Imagine my surprise at the fact that Sylvio 2 ditches everything but the basic audio analysis and exploration.
Disapprove: Mafia III (with DLCs)
Mafia series has come a long way in, actually, well, becoming a “series”. And that way wasn’t all what people wanted. After ignoring Mafia III for a year, I decided to give it a chance. There’re regrets involved.
![Happy about: The Turing Test, Event[0] and Valley](https://klardendum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/turingeventvalley-629x131.jpg)
Happy about: The Turing Test, Event[0] and Valley
Had a chance to play 3 first person adventure titles, all with different “adventuring” approach. Two of which dealt with questions of AI and morality and I wanted to end there, but then I also played Valley and couldn’t bring myself to play more of The Solus Project, due to all the “survival” elements in it, which I tend to not like. So, 3 is a pretty good number.
Read more“Happy about: The Turing Test, Event[0] and Valley”
Quick thoughts on Way of the Samurai 3 & 4
I’ve long been interested in checking Way of the Samurai titles, since they all looked like very curious attempts at mixing open world design which promises that you can “be whomever you want to be” with action adventure and choose your own adventure type non-linear storytelling. And they are. And turned out I wasn’t really in the mood for how exactly they implemented these ideas. But they are certainly a curious beast I want to write a bit about.
Thoughts on: Ys SEVEN
It’s been just about 3 years since I’ve first played an Ys game. Yet, ever since playing Ys Origin and the first two games I constantly had irresistible urge to play ever other title in the series that slowly roll out on PC. And I’m constantly interested in checking out other Nihon Falcom titles as well. Ys SEVEN is yet another rather old release, finally re-released in English on PC. What does it bring this time?
Happy about: Orwell, Emily is Away Too and The Banner Saga 2
Story-driven titles, be they based around simple text or visual based interactions or on top of fleshed out other genres/mixes of genres, always have to consider the dangers of being story-driven – does the story focus enhance with the gameplay, is something done at the expense of something else, are the stories written and/or told in a good enough way for the game to have a story focus? Let’s look at some good examples among the titles where story is almost all there is: Orwell, Emily is Away Too and The Banner Saga 2.
Read more“Happy about: Orwell, Emily is Away Too and The Banner Saga 2”
Thoughts on: Red Comrades (1 & 2) and Blue Estate
Pop culture reference filled parody games were never really my cup of tea. And they haven’t really been popular lately either, feeling more reserved to the 90s era. Let me write about games a lot of you will probably not enjoy: Red Comrades Save the Galaxy: Reloaded, Red Comrades 2: For the Great Justice. Reloaded and Blue Estate.
Read more“Thoughts on: Red Comrades (1 & 2) and Blue Estate”
Thoughts on: Neverending Nightmares, Dropsy and OneShot
Three open-ended exploratory story-driven games, all using unconventional approach to the genre they would usually be in. Let me write a few things on Neverending Nightmares, Dropsy and OneShot.
Read more“Thoughts on: Neverending Nightmares, Dropsy and OneShot”
Few words on Dead Rising
To my surprise, I’ve completed the first Dead Rising today, now that it’s on PC. To my surprise, because I felt (and still do) that this game isn’t really “for me” and because I attempted playing Dead Rising 2 before and didn’t enjoy the experience much. I still feel like I cannot write this as a “proper review”, especially since I cheated in a few places to speed things up and didn’t redo the same things proper, so my perception is a bit off. But I do have a few words to say about the game and what I’ve seen of the series so far.