Not recommended – Page 2

O tempora: Alone in the Dark 1, 2, 3

08/10/2023 08/10/2023

O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

It’s been a while since I’ve last played any Alone in the Dark game. I admired the original and genuinely liked the 2008 game despite all of its numerous flaws. My favorite one was the first reboot, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. But the original still had that “something” about it that I really liked. Not the sequels, however. But for the sake of revisiting every game, I decided against my better judgement to play all of the first three Alone in the Dark games, knowing well that I will not enjoy the two thirds of the journey.

Thoughts on: Crysis Remastered Trilogy

24/03/2023 24/03/2023

I’ve revisited the original Crysis and Crysis Warhead just 3 years ago and that was the first time these titles at least somewhat clicked with me. As I’ve mentioned – I never found any of the titles in the franchise, apart from Crysis 3, to be all that fun. But replaying the first games, as rough as those original games are today, made me understand why someone would like them. Now that all numbered Crysis titles have gotten a Remastered release (sadly, Warhead was not remastered), I decided to play them and see if I can actually enjoy the experience.

Disapprove: Resident Evil Village – Winters’ Expansion

08/03/2023 08/03/2023

Two years ago I’ve completed Resident Evil Village and while my first playthrough of it was very entertaining, it turned out to be the least replayable RE game for me. I got bored on my third playthrough, while trying to unlock more stuff as I usually do, and found myself so utterly bored with the game that I stopped and haven’t looked at it since then. That is, until Winters’ Expansion, a new DLC, got released and I’ve finally decided to play it. At worst I expected this to be more of the same and, following this logic, at least fun on the first playthrough. But no. It wasn’t fun even the first time around.

Disapprove: The Callisto Protocol

24/01/2023 23/05/2023

I didn’t expect a lot from The Callisto Protocol – just a solid survival action game. I didn’t expect it to be as amazing as the first Dead Space, didn’t even expect it to be that much better than Dead Space 3, in ways in which it could be better at least. And after the disastrous launch when the game was entirely unplayable on PCs I’ve lowered my expectations even further. But the game still managed to disappoint.

Disapprove: Scorn

11/01/2023 11/01/2023

I know people have expected a lot from Scorn. Ever since the “gameplay trailer” the developers released 5 years ago, there was a lot of excitement for both the visual style and the fact that it included combat and seemed to aim at being a proper action horror game, not just a typical for the time horror themed adventure where you run away all the time. But I’ve had my reservations and the closer to release the game go, the more suspicious the trailers seemed to me so I wanted to wait and see what happens. A lukewarm reception is what happened, so I’ve decided to return to the game later, on a discount. But even that and low expectations didn’t make the experience with this game good.

Disapprove: Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary

23/10/2022 23/10/2022

I can’t think of any other example of the series, where each following release is progressively worse and more pointless, but somehow Q.U.B.E. manages to do this over and over again. The original game from 2011 was, and still is, a fantastic in its minimalist simplicity first person physics based puzzle game that takes under 3 hours to complete and looks really cool despite its somewhat outdated visuals. And now, after a pointless Director’s Cut and terribly boring Q.U.B.E. 2 we have Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary which promises to be an improved and definitive remaster of the original game but in reality it’s… Oh boy…

O tempora: Red Faction and Red Faction II

23/09/2022 23/09/2022

O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

It has been a very long time since I’ve played Red Faction last time. So much so that I’ve actually remembered the game being about twice longer than it actually is. Luckily, it isn’t and it still plays surprisingly well. With the help of a few mods, this title is still quite exciting. Unlike its sequel, but we’ll get to that.

Ugly duckling: Stranglehold

09/08/2022 09/08/2022

Now this is a curious one. By 2007 “bullet time” was no longer a hot new thing, in fact the last official The Matrix game was already 2 years old, while The Matrix Online was just 2 years away from closing. John Woo has also been long past his prime and Hard Boiled, the original movie the game is a sequel to, was from 1992. Heroic bloodshed and gun fu/gun kata were no longer popular either. So why is it exactly Stranglehold came to be is a bit of a mystery. But if nothing else, this title was ambitious and it does impress in many ways.

Read more“Ugly duckling: Stranglehold”

Disapprove: Wasteland 3 (with DLCs)

04/03/2022 10/11/2023

Even though I’ve still never gotten in the mood to try and conquer the original Wasteland, as with many other cRPGs of that era, I did enjoy Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut quite a lot. Back then I said that it didn’t feel like a Fallout game not because it couldn’t be one, but because it didn’t want to be one. It had its own take on a post-apocalyptic tactical turn-based RPG that still remains enjoyable today despite some flaws.

Wasteland 3 aims to be… different? Frankly, I’m not sure what it aims to be, but the result is not great.

Disapprove: Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View

16/02/2022 16/02/2022

This is the third outing by White Paper Games, a studio that has been experimenting with story driven adventure titles for almost a decade now. And it’s also the first one that I’ve decided to play till the end, as both Ether One and The Occupation got me bored and frustrated very early on in their playtime. I would’ve dropped Conway as well if not for a purely academic interest in seeing how other developers deal with detective stories. Now I have additional knowledge on how to avoid doing it.