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.
Tag: Highly recommended
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.
Thoughts on: Axiom Verge
A lot of people seem to call this game a love letter to “metroidvania”, and I can’t fault them for that. This is one person’s attempt to create a truly modern 2D Metroid-like game, using all the lessons learned from the best of the best in genre and adding new elements, that weren’t tried in the genre before. This game has exciting exploration, varied locales, fantastic soundtrack, unique visuals that mix old-school 8bit and 16bit era art with subtle modern effects, surprisingly good challenge for the most part and a very interesting atmosphere that can probably be summarized as “sci-fi adventure as if Another World/Out of This World was designed by H.R. Giger”.
In love with: SOMA
Time is a curious thing. 2006, the Penumbra tech demo and a completely different me. Today it all feels so far away. So many changes, so many things to happen, choices to make, emotions to feel. It’s 5 years since Amnesia: The Dark Descent. 2 since A Machine for Pigs (even though it wasn’t made by Frictional). Two more versions of me. Would all these versions of myself and me today live together? Would we understand each other? How would that work? Are we defined by our consciousness or something more than that?
Loving the: Alien: Isolation
Ridley Scott’s Alien is still an amazing movie. 36 years later its “future technology” has aged. Computers slowly render the information in 2 colours on a CRT monitor while their hard drives make lots of noises – this feels like it has no place in space flight of the future, even though space flight is usually planned to have cheaper more durable hardware installed. Yet, so many people grew up on the sci-fi with this technology, myself included. And the costume and set designers tried their damnedest to create something tangible, something real, something one would want to visit. If if that beautiful and outdated set is populated by a terrible alien creature which is as much a cultural icon as this type of sci-fi itself. How many games tried to do Alien. How many failed. And most aimed to be something closer to Aliens anyway, something action heavy and lighter on horror theme, not a pure chilling horror in space where no one can hear you scream. Alien: Isolation is hear to fix this unfortunate error.
Revisiting Cryostasis
So much stuff has happened since 2008. The last, at least for now, game from Action Forms got released and since then they were in “a stasis”. The same game got to be my second ever post that can be called a review or an opinion. Three years later me and DiodorOFF interviewed Igor Karev, as per link above, about Action Forms. And every hot summer me and my best friend used to replay the game just so we can feel the chills. It never failed. Yet, since 2012 I have not played the game and since then, I’ve gotten a widescreen monitor and, very recently, a GPU from nVidia, so now I had a chance to replay the game “the way it’s meant to be played” with the really beautiful PhysX effects turned on and running (almost) well. It was as if I was playing it for the first time again. It’s a shame that the game is still not digitally sold due to conflicts with 1c…
Psyched about: Wolfenstein: The New Order
MachineGames – is a game developer studio founded by some of the key people from Starbreeze Studios. Who worked on Riddick and Darkness. And you can feel it in this game. Which is already a pretty high praise for the new Wolfenstein.
Metro 2033 Redux. Better in most things edition
4A has recently released Metro Redux – a pack of two remastered games, Metro 2033 from 2010 and Metro: Last Light from last year. Both games were moved to an updated engine with updated lighting, both games have new distinct modes of playing them – Survival (closer to 2033) or Spartan (closer to Last Light). Both games got updated voice acting, with the same voice actor for Artyom in all main languages and new localisations including the Ukrainian. I’ve already told what I think of the Metro: Last Light Redux, which was less affected by this remaster. Metro 2033, on the other hand, looks very different now, several levels were combined, some scenes and sections were redone, at times completely, the weapons were redesigned to be closer to how they work in the second game (so you modify weapons now instead of exchanging different weapons with different modifications), controls were updated as well. Most of these changes were welcome and make the game far more fun to play. Yet, there are a couple of changes that are questionable at best and outright dumb at worst.
In love with: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Sometimes I feel like PlatinumGames can’t make a bad game. Something niche, sure. But that niche will worship this game forever and consider it one of the best of all time. This is the team that has an understanding of action in their blood and western developers can just scream “FUCK YOU!” with impotence. Finally, one of their titles is on PC and it feels my dark soul with liiiiiight (11!!!11). Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance… And I gotta say that Revengeance is a silly word but is actually real. And here I was hoping for a sequel called Unvengeance. I’m still hoping for a sequel, though. I mean, a PC port of Bayonetta would be great as well, but until that happens, we have MGR: Revengeance to fill that genre void on PC. And besides, the games are so wildly different despite their similarities.
Thoughts on: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Three years ago Amnesia: The Dark Descent took everyone by surprise. When all big budget games decided to ditch the “slow paced” genres and bank everything into the “cinematic” and explosive, a tiny studio called Frictional Games did everything differently and finally got the recognition they’ve deserved ever since Penumbra. After a slow start and very niche horror success it exploded in popularity due to the rise of the “scare cam” let’s players, who loved to scream like children on camera and pretend to be very scared. What once was a niche evolution of horror adventure for a smaller audience became a well known huge hit, something to play on a bet, “the scariest game of all time”.
It’s not surprising then, that after a while a counter reaction followed. “The game isn’t even scary”, “why is it so popular”, “this is so lame and overhyped” and etc. It’s in this climate the “sequel”(not actually a sequel and from a different developer) Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs got released. The game has been just released and already there are thousands of people disappointed in it without even trying it and being shocked that Pigs isn’t The Dark Descent 2 (which will never happen and wouldn’t have happened). Which is especially funny, since in many ways A Machine for Pigs is exactly the kind of game Frictional wanted to do in a while.