STASIS is one of those Kickstarter projects that went for the nostalgic feeling. The ones that usually get most attention and love, because they promise a return of something that wasn’t done in quite a while. Some perform way above expectations (Pillars of Eternity). Some are better than nothing. And STASIS? Well, it does deliver on a lot of it’s promises and is certainly better than nothing. But by how much?
Tag: game review
Revisiting Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut
It’s been a while since I’ve played Deadly Premonition. Funny story – I was actually one of the seemingly few, who were waiting for the game to get released way before it was named Deadly Premonition. Originally it was announced as “Rainy Woods” in 2007, was even more Twin Peaks influenced and for me, a huge survival horror fan with soft spot for that David Lynch series, it was enough to get excited. But then the game just kinda dropped off my radar until suddenly popping up in a Destructoid review by Jim Sterling in early 2010, who loved the hell out of it. I didn’t even recognize the game back that from the start, since it has changed the title and even the looks (and name) of the main protagonist (the original name went to the next Swery’s game – D4). But when I finally did I knew – I need this game in my life. I never had an Xbox 360, but my friend did, so he grabbed the game, lent me the console for few weeks and I found a new game to put in the list of absolute favorites. But it was flawed. It needed a remaster. Is The Director’s Cut here to do the job? I’m going to spoil it right away – it isn’t in the slightest.
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O tempora: Unreal II: The Awakening
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Last years of 20th century and first years of 21st were really interesting for FPS game genre. The genre was slowly turning from fun mindless shootouts to story-driven events with Half-Life being the example most tried to follow. There was some resistance to this idea – Serious Sam being the best example of that, a mindless action game where you killed hordes of enemies with only basic outline of a plot. But most developers tried to go for something very cinematic, something that mixes shooting with other elements and ideas. In between release of Unreal 1 (released just half a year before Half-Life) and release of Unreal II we had Halo, Kingpin, Jedi Knight 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, several Medal of Honor games, Aliens versus Predator 2, Undying, Red Faction and even Metroid Prime (which is not a pure FPS, but a hybrid) all trying out very different often innovative things and new ways to mix storytelling and first person shooting. And then we have Unreal II, which at the time of release received mixed reviews and was completely ignored by me. Was it really that weak? Hahahaha, oh I couldn’t even predict how much.
O tempora: Unreal Gold
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Unreal – the name probably came from just how beautiful the game looked at the time of release. Yet, for me and my friends back in the day the name became a joke – it was “unreal” to make it work with a respectable fps count, unless you had a really powerful PC. And my friends didn’t. So we could either play the game on much lower settings or watch the amazing jaw-dropping slideshow of a game. And that was one of the main reasons why I’ve never actually played the game properly until now. I have played all the “Tournament” games (which I won’t be covering), but both singleplayer Unreal games passed me by. Was the game all looks, or did it really have something good about it?
Thoughts on: INSIDE
It may be done by the team behind LIMBO. It may start like LIMBO. It might feel like LIMBO. But INSIDE is very much not LIMBO.
Thoughts on: DOOM (2016)
After so many excited positive reviews I’ve heard about this game, I didn’t even know what to expect apart from the fact, that it should definitely be awesome and fun and make me feel great. Aaaaand it kinda didn’t. I did like it, though.
Revisiting The Witcher: Enhanced Edition
I loved this game back in 2007, before a lot of patches made it better, I love it today, when some of its parts are very outdated. It’s still an amazing adventure in a truly unique world with great story, witty dialogue and Slavic mythology. Though, if you play it in English, it will lose some of its charm (note, I recommend playing it with Polish voice acting even if you leave text in a language you do understand).
Thoughts on: Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture had a weird road to take. Prototyped 4 years ago as a PC game about the world ending, and playable hero having a limited amount of time to do whatever they think they can or should do before the world ends it ended up being much closer to the first The Chinese Room’s project – Dear Esther. And, to be completely honest with you, despite loving Esther (and Pigs), I was sad to hear that Rapture will abandon the original plan. Afraid to see that Rapture will overstay the welcome of less interactive games and have a cold reception and, well, be simply much more boring then Esther was. In a few ways, I was right to be afraid. But mostly, Rapture is a huge “this is how it’s done” lesson on how to make a beautiful theatrical touching story with little to no interaction, which, at the same time, simply wouldn’t work in any other medium, other than games.
Thoughts on: Sylvio
Sylvio might look like “yet another Unity engine First Person horror adventure game”, but it’s not. It does things in a very unique and interesting way and it all boils down to the fact, that the game is all centered around the EVP – Electronic Voice Phenomena. If you were every interested in any paranormal things you might understand that no matter how unscientific and disproved this is, it can still be a thrilling theme to explore. Hence the popularity of the topic not only in classic horror movies, but in modern ones as well. Yet, surprisingly, not a single game (to my knowledge) before Sylvio has dedicated itself fully to it.