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.
Tag: Not recommended
Disapprove: Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary
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first person physics based puzzle game that takes under 3 hours to complete and looks really cool despite its somewhat outdated visuals.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
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
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.
Disapprove: Wasteland 3 (with DLCs)
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
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.
O tempora: Syberia I & II
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Twenty years ago in 2002 when Syberia was released, the point and click adventures were on a decline. It wasn’t like the genre didn’t have any recent fantastic examples, The Longest Journey being from a few years before. But otherwise, it felt as if nobody really knew at the time what to do with the genre and how to approach it. And to be absolutely frank, Syberia itself often times felt like it didn’t really know how to approach the genre either, yet it so elegantly stumbled through its beautiful locations with its wonderful magic realist story that it pretty soon became a critical darling at least in some circles. And also started a short, but pretty decent run of adventure titles made by Microïds that ended around the time of the Sinking Island.
While I have played both Syberia and its sequel when they were new, and did enjoy them (the original more than the second game), I haven’t replayed them ever since until now.
Disapprove: Happy Game
Well, I suppose it was inevitable that Amanita Design would make a terrible game eventually. But I was hoping it wouldn’t happen.
Ugly duckling: Enter the Matrix, Path of Neo
Ugly duckling is a series of posts talking about games that could’ve been great, but were not.
Some licensed tie-in games are loved, some are forgotten. Some are fun to play, some are not. Some are very budget minded and simple, some are ambitious. The games based around The Matrix were ambitious and quite curious. Though, perhaps, the most successful and arguably fun of them was The Matrix Online, that I won’t be talking about here. Still, both action titles in the franchise – Enter the Matrix and The Matrix: Path of Neo, – were games I was considering replaying for a while now. Intrigued if I will like them more than I did back when they just came out. And I suppose I did. Though, not by much.
Гадкий утёнок: Enter the Matrix, Path of Neo
Гадкий утёнок — серия записей, в которых я пишу про игры, которые могли бы, но не стали хорошими.
Некоторые игры по лицензии любят, про некоторые забывают. В некоторые играть прикольно, в некоторые нет. Есть бюджетные попытки, есть амбициозные. Игры по Матрице были амбициозными и любопытными. Но единственной более-менее удачной попыткой была The Matrix Online, о которой я тут не буду писать. Тут речь пойдёт про Enter the Matrix и The Matrix: Path of Neo, экшен игры, которые я давно хотел перепройти. Потому что на момент релиза они мне очень не понравились, и мне было интересно, поменяется ли у меня отношение. Немного поменялось. Не всегда в лучшую сторону.