game review – Page 54

Happy about: Stories Untold and What Remains of Edith Finch

19/07/2017 25/05/2020

For the past 10 years or so understanding of what can be achieved with videogames in terms of storytelling has changed quite a lot. From feeling too dependent on the gameplay mechanics to “be successful” which was then crushed by several titles like original Dear Esther mod or strange experiences from Tale of Tales we came to the almost opposite reality of games trying to brush off gameplay as unnecessary and trying to be as non-game as possible to tell their stories. But this whole movement seems to have finally matured in recent years and we’re getting more an more titles that try to mix gameplay and storytelling in ways that naturally complement each other, rather than compete with each other. And two new interesting examples of that are Stories Untold and What Remains of Edith Finch.

Happy about: Headlander and Kero Blaster

13/07/2017 23/08/2024

When you think Double Fine, you usually think adventure games, either point and click or action adventures. They do have attempts at strategy games and even simple jRPGs, but it still feels a bit weird to see something like Headlander pop up. Because Headlander is a metroidvania… At least, Pixel is consistent in his love of cutely drawn action platformers, even if, unlike Cave Story, Kero Blaster is linear. So, let’s take a quick look at these two games.

Thoughts on: Broken Age and Day of the Tentacle Remastered

08/07/2017 16/09/2017

The golden age and return of the adventure games. At least, that’s how a lot of people might think about Day of the Tentacle and Broken Age. Day of the Tentacle has always been considered one of the best examples of point and click adventures and was the first game with Tim Schafer having a leading role in development (after the first two Monkey Island games where he was a co-writer). Broken Age was the first huge gaming Kickstarter success marketed as the glorious return of adventure games, also from Tim Schafer and his current team at Double Fine. Given that I personally never liked Day of the Tentacle much and there were some really good adventure titles in the late 00s (especially those from Wadjet Eye) to make the Broken Age’s claims to “return” to something not make a lot of sense, I was really interested in playing those games back to back. The result was amusing, but not particularly exciting.

In love with: Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut

02/07/2017 28/06/2019

It’s been a while since I could write anything in the blog. Whenever you have a job that takes most of your day, playing long titles takes much longer than whenever you have a lot of free time. And apart from open world titles, most of which I tend to ignore nowadays anyway, RPGs tend to take most of your gaming time. Luckily, Wasteland 2 was that particular type of an RPG that was a joy to return to, no matter how long it took.

Ugly duckling: Vanquish

25/06/2017 28/06/2019

Ugly duckling reviews usually cover games that have a potential to be something amazing, but for one or the other reason fail to reach that goal. Which might leave you wondering – why am I covering Vanquish under this category? Well, there are reasons for that.

Disapprove: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (with DLCs)

21/05/2017 13/05/2023

Deus Ex is one of the rare examples of gaming franchises that managed to return from a long sleep with an entry that achieved almost the same amount of love and admiration as the first game, that was an instant classic. While Human Revolution had weaker story and a far more simplistic real world social and political commentary, in everything but that it felt like a game that was not just a strong return from a quite disappointing and hated by many Invisible War (which I like, fyi) but something that was almost better than the original. Stealth, action, social and exploration mechanics, most levels, most situations were so smart and solid, it was a joy to replay, taking a different approach each time around.

So it is to be expected that hopes for Mankind Divided, the sequel to Human Revolution, were high.You’re most likely aware of the reception the game has gotten instead. So let’s explore the game a year later and with all the DLCs. And let’s see what happened with the game that, it is currently rumored, has killed the franchise once again.

O tempora: Bayonetta (PC)

14/05/2017 28/06/2019

My O tempora posts tend to be about older titles, than 2009, the year Bayonetta was released originally in Japan. But Bayonetta became a milestone release, a new classic that ushered a new era of “stylish action” games and gave the Capcom alumni at PlatinumGames a much needed boost, despite the lower than expected sales. In addition, the core gameplay has been evolved and perfected so much since then it’s interesting to look back at where it started. But now on PC, with a surprisingly solid port.

Read more“O tempora: Bayonetta (PC)”

Happy about: NieR: Automata – 3C3C1D119440927

06/05/2017 28/06/2019

I gotta be honest with you. I didn’t expect to write about this DLC separately when it was announced. I’m preparing another “thoughts on several games” post and wanted to put it there, but… Goddamn, Yoko Taro. Goddamn.

Thoughts on: The Witness and Samorost 3

12/04/2017 28/06/2019

It might seem strange for me to pair these two quite different adventure/exploration/puzzle games into one post, but there’s a good reason for that, I feel. That is, apart from me playing them one after the other and not feeling like making separate posts. They’re both beautiful but flawed games. Flawed at the execution of the key ideas they aim to shine at.

Happy about: Technobabylon and Shardlight

07/04/2017 28/06/2019

Wadjet Eye Games has become somewhat of go to publisher/developer for story-driven point and click adventure games resurgence. With both their own developed games, and games they produce and publish they’ve shown how the seemingly outdated low res pixelated point and click adventuring can tell stories better than some of the high budget newest technology based titles. The quality of the games they publish is also mostly consistent and to this day I only missed a few projects due to rather mediocre reviews of those. Technobabylon was a game I heard good things about, while Shardlight reviews seemed a bit lower, yet still praised the game, so I was quite interested in checking both projects for a while now. Let’s see what Wadjet Eye Games helped build this time.