Thoughts on: The Silent Age, Mr. Pumpkin Adventure and Four Last Things

The art of point and click adventuring can be tackled in many different ways. Some focus on story, some on puzzles, some on comedy, some just try to create an unexpectedly deep adventuring via a simple mouse-based controls interface. The Silent Age, Mr. Pumpkin Adventure and Four Last Things, however, are of the simple sort. The story, the puzzles and the comedy.

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Thoughts on: Several games I’ve had no time to write about before

It is time again to write about a bunch of games I played, some of which I finished, but which didn’t really require a full on exclusive review for them (or even the dual/triple review post, for that matter). The games I will cover here are these: Pony Island, Refunct, Deus Ex: The Fall, Layers of Fear, Dream Machine, Hidden Folks, Clustertruck, Superhot, 2000:1 A Space Felony, Goat Simulator, Environmental Station Alpha, Ori and the Blind Forest and Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse. Yep, that’s a lot of stuff that piled up over the course of about half a year. Let’s get to it.

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Disapprove: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider used to be one of the biggest most important, most influential franchises. Then it started becoming stale, although, to be fair, with strong, refined games like The Last Revelations. So it got updated. Unsuccessfully. I feel like the fear of creating another Angel of Darkness still clings to the series with every next part that tries to change things. Maybe that’s why Rise of the Tomb Raider tried to avoid the change at all costs?

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Disapprove: Quantum Break

Remedy Entertainment are well known for their cinematic action titles. But ever since Max Payne was released almost 16 years ago, they could never really recapture the fantastic balance between the amazing cinematic storytelling and fun gameplay that went so well in their classic. Max Payne 2 felt a bit too boring to play, Alan Wake was really boring to play with it’s spin-off semi-sequel being slightly more fun. So, where does this leave Quantum Break?

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Disapprove: DreadOut and Keepers of the Dark

Ever since the original teaser demo in 2013, I consciously avoided DreadOut. Back then it felt like an unoptimized complete lack of understanding of what actually made Fatal Frame an interesting game, an attempt to cash in with the jump scare linear horror-themed titles that got extremely popular back then due to the scarecam craze. But recently, I decided to give it, and it’s standalone DLC Keepers of the Dark, a try. I mean. What if I was wrong?

I wasn’t.

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STASIS. A drug induced coma

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?

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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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