Reviews Rate the game you finished/retired

[Joe Spangle]

Blitzed through the missions once for Hitman 3....


Tale of two sides for this game.
The gameplay is excellent, as it was for 1&2. It looks great, controls well, loads of content, different ways to complete the missions, things to find, ways to play. Story is decent, wraps up the trilogy. If i was marking it on just that it'd be a 9 0r 10/10. However....

The way the game is sold and packaged is ridiculous, First the eggs nonsense, then the price on Steam once it eventually came out, then all the stupid options you have to buy a million different versions of the game.
Then the always online bollocks for a single player game. I hate it, its not needed, it often will pause during gameplay to connect to servers. unnecessary and annoying.

Also im getting some horrible micro stuttering which is annoying. Tried lots of fixes but nothing has sorted it.

So overall id give it a.......6/10

 

[Stevey]

I finished Entropy: Zero 2


Free mod for HL2.
Enjoyed it a lot, really interested to see the story out- although I'd put subtitles on as you play as a Combine Elite and it's hard to make out what you're saying :V
Probably biased as I love HL and Portal
8/10

 

[Yoshi]

Finished NARAKA: BLADEPOINT (but not really)


I purchased this game a week and did not expect to get hooked on it the way I did. Of all the battle royale games I've played, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT has to be the very best, and that's thanks to its excellent combat system. The movement, the fighting, the animations -- everything just feels so incredibly fluid.

NARAKA's style of battle royale is unique. The game has a heavy focus on it melee combat which is martial arts-based, but there are also ranged weapons you can use as well. You can choose from several different heroes, each having their own special abilities. Questing and leveling up will earn you currency and XP to unlock new heroes and glyphs. Glyphs are worthwhile boosts to your hero and can be upgraded up to five times.

The game is one of the few battle royales I know of that offers an all-bots mode, which can be played by yourself or with friends. The cool thing is, you can still earn XP and currency in this mode, as well as completing your daily quests. It's a good way to relax if pvp isn't your thing. The game has a cash shop with a vast amount of cosmetics for your hero, such as new outfits, accessories and more. Thankfully, there are no pay-to-win elements.

I'm "finished" with this game in the sense that I've upgraded all my glyphs and unlocked all the heroes, but even then I'm still playing mainly because the game is just too damn addicting.

High replay value with this one.

5/5

 

[Arc]

I finished this. For a B tier Souls knockoff, it was actually pretty good. The combat feels really good and is a mix of Bloodborne and Sekiro. Most of the boss fights are also well done and enjoyable. The main downsides are the game is SHORT. It took me a hair under 6 hours to complete. I did most of the optional content, but didn't bother with the postgame stuff. As long as you go in with proper expectations, you'll probably have a good time. I don't think I could suggest it at $25 though. I rented it, but I would suggest paying at most $15 (or wait for the inevitable Game Pass release).

 

[Paul]

I finished Entropy: Zero 2

Is it (and prequel) playable on xbone controller, do you know?

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Haven't done one of these in a while but I'll not attempt to recap anything prior

In meantime though

Finished Tormented Souls (Xbox Series S) 8/10


Quite simply a very good example of the classic old school Resi formula, and is well worth a playthorugh for any fan of the genre.
Only thing I would knock against it is that I found myself using a walkthrough a little more than I'd have liked towards the back half of the game; let's just say this game leans more on the Silent Hill end of its puzzles.
But I can't be too harsh for what is a great example in an under served genre.

 

[Stevey]

Is it (and prequel) playable on xbone controller, do you know?

I just loaded up Entropy 2 and tried with my Xbone controller, could move with the left stick and aim horizontally with the right stick but nothing else worked.
Don't know if it would work with some settings tweaking, but it's a free mod so try it out.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Hitman: Absolution (IO Interactive, 2012)

It looks like Hitman and I will never get on with each other. This game was my last remaining hope for finding a Hitman game that works for me, precisely because it doesn't just throw giant sandboxes at the player, but a healthy mix of big and small and long and short maps.

It has a comprehensive story with lots of cutscenes and great voice-acting, but it isn't really the hard-boiled agent thriller I was hoping for, more of a sleazy sploitation take on the genre (example: One set of enemy NPCs is a group of leather-latex dominatrices, in fetish nun outfits).

Gameplay-wise, it pretty much already contains all the mechanics and controls of the reboot Hitman 1-3 games, which is good. The level design unfortunately falls off in the last part of the game, and unless you work REALLY hard to make stealth happen, the game just devolves into a bad shooter, which you win by killing every enemy NPC on the map.

In short, everybody who likes the recent Hitman games should also like this - even if the main attraction for you in the recent Hitman games are the huge levels, there's some reasonably large ones in this game, too. Me, I just don't like the formula. Too video-gamey, not enough immersion into the whole agent-thriller scenario and no real suspense.


3/5

 

[fantomena]

Finished

Took me 55 hours to finish it including some exploration and side quests. It was a good game, nice graphics, big world, good combat system and lots of things to find out. Sadly I did not find it the best in the series. I cared and found the story much more interesting in Xenoblade 2, the world in Xenoblade 2 was also more interesting and the characters were more interesting in 2. Despite having played the previous games, I had a hard time finding out what was happening.

The systems, like the combat, feels at it's best in this game, but the story and characters is a mixed bag for me. The enemies are many and variated, the combat is good, the loot is fine and the game explains the systems a bit better the the other games.

Score: 8.4/10

Xenoblade 2 > Xenoblade X > Xenoblade 3 > Xenoblade

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Dropped Pac Man World RePac (PS5)


Not much to add beyond my initial impressions from the main thread, but I dropped it after finishing 2 worlds out of 6 (about 2.5 hrs in)

Singular issue really is that it's just kinda dull tbh.
It's all rather simple; every stage basically plays the same way, and the most complex it gets is the slight backtracking in stages with keys to get other items you've walked past (which is mostly pointless anyway cos it's just for boosting score and lives (but you're swimming in lives and never struggling for them)).

It's a shame I was quite looking forward to this actually cos while I didn't play the original back in the day I did play it's demo, and I've a great reverence for platformers of this era.

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Indivisible


Great RPG platformer from the developers of Skullgirls. While far from perfect, there's lots of stuff to like about this game:

• The combat system is lots of fun. The mix between turn-based attacks and a real-time attack gauge works very well, and makes timing important to deal more damage. You unlock plenty of new fighters throughout the game, and each one has a unique combat style and perks.
• The story is better than I expected. In the beginning it looks like a typical anime story about a 16yo girl with a big mouth. But later in the game, the consequences of her reckless actions hit hard. There's also lots of interaction with the other fighters and NPC's, and the dialogs are well written and often very funny.
• The majority of platforming is really good. The controls are tight and you'll get lots of upgrades to perform new moves. Using your weapons to launch yourself in the air or stick to the ceiling is so cool!
• The game sounds and looks amazing! I've played Indivisible on the Steam Deck, and was impressed with the colorful 2.5D graphics.

The main thing I didn't like is that there's only one fast-travel point in each world. As a result, you'll have to replay the same area's over and over again to reach new area's or gather more collectables. The platforming can also become a bit frustrating in the last part of the game, but it's doable after some practice. Very recommended!

Score: 8.0/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished The Pedestrian (Skookum Arts, 2020)

Pro:

• Great presentation somewhat reminiscent of The Witness - (almost) all the action takes place inside of two-dimensional playing fields such as signs, traffic lights, displays, etc., but they are all embedded in a full 3D environment which you traverse by guiding the player character through the two-dimensional levels (the camera just pans to the next 2D-object after leaving the current one). Pleasant, laid-back jazzy music that reminded me of Superliminal's soundtrack.
• Perfectly smooth difficulty curve that always kept things challenging, but never got me stuck and never required me to consult a walk-through.

Con:

• I was the tiniest bit disappointed that the game did not incorporate the mechanics and concepts of the incredible Perspective - but that's hardly a real complaint, just would have elevated this game to something really special.

4.5/5


Previously reviewed in this thread here.

 

[fantomena]

Finished


Fun game, very fun the first 5 hours, but got quite repetive and uninteresting once the first 2 worlds (there are 4) have been defeated. Beautiful graphics, nice, music, lots of different things to do and to go when you are not on a roguelike "run". Lots of things to take care of when indoctrinating new people to your cult, having them fed, farming, making food, chopping resoruces for idfferent buildings and such, getting more money, upgradingyour cult with prayers from your cult members and so on.

For calling itself a roguelike, I actually find it kinda linear. Took me 10 hours to complete. Overall, a fun game, the runs get's really repetive after a while, but lots of different things to do outside of the runs. Used a trainer at times when things got repetive.

Score: 8/10.

 

[Mivey]

I finished Digimon Story CyberSleuth (just the CyberSleuth campaign)

This is ultimately a pretty average SMT-like JRPG, with a mild focus on dungeon crawling and a pretty OK side quest system, with not too much creativity in the quest design. The only thing that really sets it apart, is the focus on Digimon. If you ever saw the series back in the day as a kid, and want to build your own small group of Digimon, then this game is 100% for you. Without that nostalgia factor, I don't think that the game really holds up all that well. That's not to say it's downright bad, it just drags on for quite some time, it took me about 45 hours to finish, and the story isn't really all that complicated.

Visually the game is pretty impressive at times for an old Vita game, though that's not to say it's looking modern. It's easy to tell that most of the assets are very simple and textures especially aren't anything to write home about. In fact, I'd recommend against playing this on a large screen. Games like this are made for the Steam Deck. At least, that's what I'd love to say. Sadly it runs incredibly poorly on the Deck. Barely hitting 40 FPS most of the time, often at the low 30s. And the crazy thing is, it's barely taxing the GPU or CPU. I had the game at 6.8W most of the time. I still finished it on the Deck, the game's mostly static camera helps mask the bad FPS and poor frame pacing. But it just shows how bad PC ports keep ruining games even in the future. Perhaps a future version of the Deck could brute force this game to run at 60 FPS or at least a fixed 40 FPS, but here and now, that's not really possible.

Overall a pretty ok game, but one I'd only really recommend to people who have fond feelings towards the old anime shows.

 

[MomoVideo]

If 10 is a fantastic game, 5 is an average, then Xenoblade 3 was 3/10 for me.

 

[Cacher]

I finished Digimon Story CyberSleuth (just the CyberSleuth campaign)

This is ultimately a pretty average SMT-like JRPG, with a mild focus on dungeon crawling and a pretty OK side quest system, with not too much creativity in the quest design. The only thing that really sets it apart, is the focus on Digimon. If you ever saw the series back in the day as a kid, and want to build your own small group of Digimon, then this game is 100% for you. Without that nostalgia factor, I don't think that the game really holds up all that well. That's not to say it's downright bad, it just drags on for quite some time, it took me about 45 hours to finish, and the story isn't really all that complicated.

Visually the game is pretty impressive at times for an old Vita game, though that's not to say it's looking modern. It's easy to tell that most of the assets are very simple and textures especially aren't anything to write home about. In fact, I'd recommend against playing this on a large screen. Games like this are made for the Steam Deck. At least, that's what I'd love to say. Sadly it runs incredibly poorly on the Deck. Barely hitting 40 FPS most of the time, often at the low 30s. And the crazy thing is, it's barely taxing the GPU or CPU. I had the game at 6.8W most of the time. I still finished it on the Deck, the game's mostly static camera helps mask the bad FPS and poor frame pacing. But it just shows how bad PC ports keep ruining games even in the future. Perhaps a future version of the Deck could brute force this game to run at 60 FPS or at least a fixed 40 FPS, but here and now, that's not really possible.

Overall a pretty ok game, but one I'd only really recommend to people who have fond feelings towards the old anime shows.

I have seen the first screenshot so many times even though I have never played the game before. People love that art lmao. Nice review. Planned to play it eventually.

 

[FunnyJay]

Replayed Darwinia 10000th Anniversary Edition.

This is such a great game, and I can't really say that I know any game quite like it. Sure it borrows from Cannon Fodder and Lemmings, and mixes that with an RTS. But on the whole I think it stands alone.

But I find it interesting that I really didn't remember much of the later levels some of which are really wars of attrition when the green Darwinians take on the red.

Truly an exceptional experience.

 

[LEANIJA]

I actually finished some games in the last couple weeks;

Stray (ok, a bit of a slog)
Ghost on the Shore (ok, also a bit of a slog)
Life is strange – True Colours (ok, also a bit of a slog)
Syberia – The World Before (ok, also a bit of a slog)

I might play Martha is dead next before Monkey Island comes out.

 

[lashman]

Stray (ok, a bit of a slog)
Ghost on the Shore (ok, also a bit of a slog)
Life is strange – True Colours (ok, also a bit of a slog)
Syberia – The World Before (ok, also a bit of a slog)

i'm beginning to see a pattern here

 

[fantomena]

Finished


Really fun game. You have a campaign mode with around 40 missions and a sandbox mode. In campaign mode you are sendt to different areas to do some objectives and side objectives, the objectives are usually to destroy something, to gather something and to carry something to your escape vehicle. You can also find collectives in the environment which gives you money that you use to upgrade your tools. For every main objectie and side objective you complete in every mission, you reach up a rank, for every 10th rank, you receive a new tool you can use in sandbox mode, like rocket launcher, grenades, planks, cables etc. Money is used to upgrade your tools. The main objectives are required to be completed to finish a mission, but the more side objectives you do, the faster you reach a new rank.

The main missions are quite repetive and the story is okay, the main core of the game is the gameplay itself. The whole game is built by voxels and you use your tools to destroy voxels. Sledgehammer can be used on tree voxels, but shotgun, bombs and rocket launcher is required for steel voxels. Usually you have to plan your objectives, because once you have complete the first main objective you have to plan how to do the rest of the objectives before a timer from 60 seconds reached zero and you have lost. Which was a times annoying.

The best part is the sandbox mode, here you can revisit all the areas from campaign mode and never have to worry about any timer. You can take your time and do want you want with all your tools. You can also download mods from the Steam worskhop to use in sandbox.

Score: 8.5/10

Finished


Fun game, but too chaotic for my liking. The design of the game is great and the gameplay is smooth, but everything is too chaotic to be fully understood and enjoyed for me. So I mostly just button smashed and hoped for the best. I did complete the story, but that was it.

Score: 7/10

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Loop Hero


Rogue-like auto-battler with a unique concept. Your hero is running in a rectangular path, and by defeating enemies you can gain cards. These cards can be used to change the tiles on and around the path, resulting in more enemies and buffs for your hero. If you managed to defeat enough enemies, you'll have to face a boss battle before going to the next chapter.

Each loop you gain valuables that you can use between your runs to place new buildings in your town. each building has a different perk, and results in new card types and even more buffs. This adds a bit of grinding to the game, but the new cards keep things fresh.

The only thing that I didn't like is that in the last chapter, you have to beat all bosses of the previous chapter again. This is needlessly time-consuming and prevented me from bothering to beat the game's (very difficult) final boss. But I still had many hours of fun with this excellent and very addictive game. Very recommended!

Score: 8.0/10

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Paradise Killer


Interesting open-world detective game, where you need to find out who's involved in killing the council on a mysterious island. Initially I found it difficult to fully understand what's going on, because the story is rather complex and the characters are extremely weird. But once I became familiar with the game, I really enjoyed the excellent story and well-written dialogs. At the end of the game, there's a big trial against all suspects where you have to convince the judge using the evidence you collected. This part is very well designed and a satisfying end for a detective game.

The open world nature of the game is hit and miss though. It's cool to explore the island and search the environments of a crime for evidence. But since you often don't get any hints where to look or what to look for, this can become rather frustrating after a while. To enter a certain building for example, you need an upgrade that's hidden in a small locker on the other side of the island. Even if you managed to find the key to open this locker, it takes a lot of exploring to find out where to use it. The fact that the game doesn't have a detailed map makes it even more frustrating.

Another bad idea is to require gems to use fast-travelling. These gems are hidden throughout the island like a bunch of Ubisoft collectables, but having to find these gems in order to fast-travel is no added value for the gaming experience. The island is rather big and your suspects are spread all over the place, so you'll have to travel the same long routes over and over again when you're low on gems.

Paradise killer is definitely worth playing, but not without flaws.

Score: 7.8/10

 

[LEANIJA]

I actually finished some games in the last couple weeks;

Stray (ok, a bit of a slog)
Ghost on the Shore (ok, also a bit of a slog)
Life is strange – True Colours (ok, also a bit of a slog)
Syberia – The World Before (ok, also a bit of a slog)

I might play Martha is dead next before Monkey Island comes out.

Played and finished Martha is dead; it was ok, but a bit of a slog at times.
I'll elaborate a bit further this time -- there were some tedious mechanics that took way too long or were just too slow and distracted from the otherwise good psychological story. I liked that part, the story, and the setting (1944 Italy). Gameplay is limited but okay for the most part.
The worst of it all was the performance, I couldnt get it to run well on my laptop (which has a 3060)... but I finished it last night on my "old" PC (which has a 1070 Ti), where it ran surprisingly well. So, that was a bit confusing, although maybe Linux/Proton (laptop) vs. Windows (old PC) had an effect? Usually thats not the case, and many people reported performance issues that mirrored my experience, the Steam forums were full of threads lamenting the game running badly.

Oh, and its also a very gruesome game in parts. Some would say disturbing even.

~

I could also elaborate further on the other games, but the basics are similar: good setting & story, likable & interesting characters, but unnecessary slowness and underwhelming or tedious mechnanics, and sometimes they felt way longer than they were. If your game is barely 2 hours and feels too long (like Ghost on the Shore), you did something wrong.

 

[fantomena]

Finished

I didn't have much expectations for this other than knowing that Ubisoft called it "one of the most ambitious expansions" and the PR compared it to great expansions like Bloodborne's Old Hunter, Witcher 3 DLCs, the great Borderlands DLCs etc. It's not.

It's a dissapointing expansion, lack of story, uninteresting areas, reskinned activities from the main game and overall just felt like a waste of time. Seems like Ubisoft tried to change and innovate certain things from the main game to make the expansion feel fresh, but they failed, everything new they tried felt like just a reskin. The main story missions are mostly the same from the main game, but with less meat around them. The story was awful, the new characters were decent, the areas looked nice for the most part, but the lava parts look bad. I did not bother with any side activities as I didn't find the main story missions interesting.

It felt uninspiring, uninteresting, boring, rushed, lack of good writing and a waste of time for the majority of the expansion.

Score: 5.5/10

 

[Paul]

everything new they tried felt like just a reskin.

Ubisoft in a nutshell

 

[Amzin]

Played and finished Ghostwire: Tokyo. I didn't really pay that much attention to it pre-release (or post-release), it just looked fun and was on sale. It ended up being quite good, and probably my favorite open-world city in any game - the details, distinct areas, atmosphere, etc. were all just phenomenal. It ironically felt like the most "real", lived-in city despite having essentially no NPCs, because of how they handled it.

The combat is kind of simple and pretty janky early on, I think it's probably much better on M+KB but I played the whole thing on a controller. There are a lot of collectibles / side quests to do to have more excuses to explore. You can kind of Batman it up and grapple / glide across the city quickly but I rarely did that because street-level exploring was so much more fun.

The enemies are creepy (especially early on), there's a bunch of Japanese mythology / folklore / culture in the description of items / entities you find (and landmarks) which is nice - I actually love playing non-western-themed games and learning about the background inspirations.

I think it's a very good game, but a lot of that is carried by the environment and the side stuff - if the combat had a little more depth and a few minor tweaks I think this would have been a 9/10 game easily. As it is, probably an 8 for me, given the givens, but it absolutely can get repetitive if you are just focusing on the collectibles and not the environment.

 

[Amzin]

I actually finished Ghostwire a few days ago, and started up (and now finished) Islets. I had previously played Sheepo, by the same dev, and loved that, so this was an easy one to buy day 1. It's probably my GOTY so far but the year has a lot left in store, some of which I'm getting into.

It really captures what to me are the key parts of a great metroidvania - good movement, fast exploration, just-fun-enough combat, distinct non-tedious boss fights, and plenty of secrets. Also the characters/dialogue are simple and small but generally adorable (even when they're suspicious or jerks). It's a near-one-person effort which makes it all the more impressive that the art is so nice (but still slightly different style from Sheepo), the sound and music are on point, and the platforming challenges are varied and most are pretty open.

The overall path is mostly linear, you can spin off it a few times but ultimately major story progression is in a certain order. Fast travel is initially just between gates but you can buy an upgrade that lets you warp from saves to gates so that does speed it up even more, and the mobility upgrades you get let you zoom through rooms in relatively no time when backtracking.

I have the map exploration at 100% but am missing a few achievements from some secrets, and that took me just under 8 hours. For $20 that might be steep to some but it felt well worth it to me. Too many metroidvanias are getting swept into the tedious world of little / no fast travel, slow movement, damage sponge multi-healthbar bosses, and it felt so good to have one that just wanted to be fun and reward you for playing with the tools it gives you.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Hypnospace Outlaw (Tendershoot, Michael Lasch, ThatWhichIs Media / No More Robots, 2019)

Pro:

• Highly unique and stylized variant of the still relatively young genre of immersive exploratory puzzle-adventure. It's not too dissimilar in concept from Sam Barlow games like Her Story or Telling Lies, but instead of task-driven exploration of video clips, you get to explore a very convincing and at the same time tongue-in-cheek recreation of mid-90s online services - on a 90s style graphical desktop interface, complete with primitive browser.
• Art direction is nothing short of brilliant, everything just nails the style the game is going for, and still manages to get zingers and great parodies in on top. Fantastic soundtrack, too - all of it super cheesy, but incredibly well made.

Con:

• The story that emerges during the exploration is a solid parody of a sci-fi-crime-mystery, but probably the weakest part of the game, since it's just a bit too predictable.
• On Linux, some hacking (outside of the game) is required to enable the text-to-speech feature (which I highly recommend turning on).

This is pretty much a must-play for anybody simply because of how well it's made and how unique the whole angle of it is. I had tons of fun with it - and while the actual puzzling/adventure part might not be too challenging, I actually loved to just be able to take in the wonderfully weird scenario without having to worry about getting stuck.


4.5/5


Previously reviewed in this thread here.

 

[fantomena]

Finished


Decent metroidvania game with some flaws. The positives are the grat pixelated graphics, the story and the characters you meet throughout the game. The negative is the janky and delayed-feeling gameplay which gave me a lot of frustrating and annoying moments and some of the level design is confusing and frustrating and the gameplay doesn't make it much better. The combat it self is mostly good with some annoying moments. Throutout the game you will find new abilities and weapons you can use and you will be granted special abilities by following the story which let's you access places you previously couldn't. The game has 14 "zones" and 4-5 of them are dungeons with regular metroidvania exploration. They are really big dungeons with lots of secrets to find.

The game is super hard which was annoying, but I used a trainer to make it easier.

It could have been a really great metroidvania with more polish, less hard difficulty and better level design in some places. The graphics, sound and story carried the game for me.

Score: 7/10

 

[Mivey]

I retire Pyre


A very different game from the two previous ones that Supergiant made. A mix of visual novel and sports tournament simulator, of sorts. My main gripe is that I don't like the Pyre game itself. It's not interesting, just a bit annoying. It's hard to care about the story, since it doesn't actually feature much plot, only background lore, and most of that you have to gleam from highlighted words that you need to hover over. It just feels like a lazy way of telling a story to me. I don't like how the story is told, I don't like how it introduces characters, the slow pace of everything.

I can respect Supergiant for wanting to experiment, but this game really wasn't my cup of tea. I still played through one "chapter" of it, liberating one of the characters, but I quit when the game wanted me to go through it again to liberate the others.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished The Swapper (Olli Harjola, Otto Hantula, Tom Jubert, Carlo Castellano / Facepalm Games, 2013)

If my soul were a bullet, would you fire the gun?

Pro:

• Simple, but effective art direction that creates a nice mysterious sci-fi atmosphere from the first level all the way to the end credits. There's also some very nice music, but large parts of the game only have sound effects. The few voice-acted bits in the game are very well done, but most of the story comes by way of text found in computer terminals.
• The story (written by Tom Jubert of Penumbra/Subnautica/The Talos Principle fame) is quite ambitious for an indie puzzle platformer and successfully adds another layer of atmosphere on the game.
• The puzzle platforming centers around the unique feature of the "Swapper" device, which shoots up to four clones of the player character, who then all move in complete lockstep. The device also lets the player switch between which of the clones they want to control, but in order to switch, there needs to be a clear line of sight between the clone that is currently controlled and the clone that control should be transferred to.

Con:

• Personally I felt the story was a bit too heavy for what is essentially just a quite goofy/glitchy physics-engine-based platformer, and the ending is also less than satisfying.
• Many sections can be cheesed HARD - so much so that skilled players can cut the playtime down by 2/3rds.
• The only achievements in the game are for finding hidden computer terminals, and they are just hidden away in literally invisible corridors in very dark corners of the already quite dark rooms. As fun as the main game is, hunting for these objects isn't.
• To add insult to injury with regards to these achievements, the game doesn't let you go back to the map (which you can travel around quite easily with fast-travel teleports during the game) after beating it, instead the last saved checkpoint immediately jumps to the end credits.

3.5/5

 

[spiel]

Human Resource Machine completed

4/5

It is an assembly programming game. The interface is one of the less fiddly ones out of all the programming-related games I've tried. That's partly because the game's scope is pretty small, so you're not overloaded with too many commands. The difficulty curve is gentle as it gradually introduces new mechanics. Most puzzles aren't too hard to complete because I know the basics, but the game was a good refresher on assembly concepts.

Each level optionally challenges you to optimise based on number of lines and/or speed, although 'm not very good at those.

I cheated on the last level

Because hell if I'm implementing insertion sort or bubble sort, or any kind of sort in assembly.

 

[Mivey]

I finished Resident Evil 3 (2020 remake).

A pretty short game, but I went in with that expectation and ultimately had a good time. RE3 shows us another look at the T-Virus outbreak in Racoon City, this time actually seeing more from the city itself, which Resident Evil 2 only showed very briefly with most of the time spend in the police station.
Jill Valentine is the last member of S.T.A.R.S. left in the city, and still working hard to uncover Umbrellas evil plans, when Umbrella sends another Tyrant after her, though this one with a special twist making it even deadlier. The flight and fight against the Nemesis (that's how the monster is called) is pretty much the story of the entire game. There's a brief subplot to try and produce enough vaccine to save the city, but it never goes anywhere and feels like an obvious red herring, even if you don't know the story already.

I played after the recent raytracing upgrade and it looks pretty stunning. The reflections are a mid "muddy" and there's a clear latency to how the reflections are updated, clearly compromises to make them viable on consoles too. If this is the best consoles can do, I am not sure I'll ever need to upgrade my 2080 Ti.

The gameplay is pretty much the exact same as it was in RE2, so very snappy and like a modern version of RE4, basically. Perhaps too snappy, it feels at times almost trivial to run around the enemies in circles, particularly with the dash move. You even get a QTE do save from getting too much damage in case you do get caught by a zombie. In other words, the game is pretty easy, but it also feels fun to play so at least for me there's nothing to complain. It really helps that the game is so short, no surrounding ever wears out its welcome.

Overall, a pretty good game. Just don't go in with the expectation to get another big game like RE2. It's not that, and it's ok to have shorter games in this series too.

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Gears Tactics


Decent turn-based game in the Gears of War universe. The combat is similar to the XCOM games, but with a few nice extra's. Some of the classes have a chainsaw on their gun, which can be used to cut enemies in half. When an enemy is almost dead, you can also use a melee attack to finish it. When that happens, all other units in your team earn an extra action point. I really like this feature, as it gives more strategical depth to the battles.

There's a lenghty story campaign with well-done cutscenes and several types of missions. Besides killing all the enemies and collecting boxes with epic gear, you'll have to free units from torture pods that are heavily protected by enemies. When you free a unit from a pod, that unit joins your team in battle. In another type of mission you're being chased by enemy units, forcing you to push forward to prevent from being killed.

There are a few flaws though. The game becomes a bit repetitive after a while because you don't unlock addition classes and the same types of missions are being repeated over and over again. The game also has an frustrating randomized hit calculator, possibly resulting in a failed mission when your 89% blast misses.

Last but not least there are the annoying secondary missions; these are nothing more than mission types you've already played and take place on maps you've already played. You are forced to play secondary missions after every two story missions, and the amount increases every act. This becomes extremely frustrating in the final act, which contains more secondary missions than actual story missions. I have no idea why the devs thought this would be fun for anyone...

Score: 7.9/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Assassin's Creed Syndicate (Ubisoft, 2015)

Slightly less buggy than Assassin's Creed Unity, with which it shares the game-engine, but the setting of Victorian-era London is so much fuglier than revolutionary Paris.

The story is just as forgettable as Unity's, the mission design is just as bad. A real tragedy is the fantastic soundtrack composed by Austin Wintory which is wasted on this giant turd of a game.


1.5/5

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Beasts of Maravilla Island (Banana Bird Studios, 2021)

On the Origin of Selfies

Pro:

• Nicely presented little photo-safari game (on foot, with free movement, i.e. not on rails), with some very catchy Rare-style background music that pleasantly reminded me of the similarly well done soundtrack to Snake Pass and well put together environmental soundscapes that really help with the immersion and make up for some slack in the graphics.
• Just about the exact right length (which is quite short, three hours for a nearly 100% run) for what it is.

Con:

• It's a kickstarted indie game, but even with some leeway given for that, the graphics sometimes become unfortunately PS2-ish (not in a good way), particularly in the last level. I would not even have mentioned this, if the main attraction (the animals and plants you're supposed to photograph) were consistently high-quality, but again, particularly in the last level there's some rather disappointing work on display there.

Nice, casual fun with a big cuteness bonus. Not really recommendable for hardcore hidden-object seekers, pretty much anybody who isn't in a rush should find almost everything there is to find right on the first playthrough and then there's really only three or four non-obvious achievements to mop up on a second run.


3.5/5

 

[fantomena]

Finished


Great side-scroller/2d horror game where you are a police officer working on uncovering some mysterious deaths in a Chinese family. Really interesting and well-told story that doesn't go too "weird" with supernatural elements, feels very grounded. Great design, basic gameplay that works well with how the game is. Good sound and good art style. A bit too linear at times as you mostly visit the same locations.

Score: 8.7/10

 

[Mivey]

Finished Return to Monkey Island yesterday.

Took me actually longer than I thought, almost 5 days. Steam shows a playtime of 13 hours, but I think that's just a bug due to Steam Deck over counting durations when it's sleeping. It's about 7 or 8 hours, which feels pretty much perfect for an adventure game, honestly.

The biggest surprise for me is how well it fits into the overall series. There was some worries when I heard that it was going to be a sequel to Monkey Island 2 how it would fit together (or rather not fit together) with the other games like Monkey Island 3 or Tales of Monkey Island, but somehow Gilbert and Grossman managed to find a way to make Return acknowledge all the other games perfectly. I won't spoil details here, but I ended up really liking the approach they took here.

What really makes Return such a joy to play is the brilliant writing. In that respect it feels like a perfect fit for the first two games. I love Monkey Island 3 and Tales too, but I think it's pretty clear to anyone that the writing there, how much wit and thought was put into every character, every puzzle and joke, simply cannot compare. That's not so way that everything about Return is perfect, but I don't think there are many games with such consistently good writing. On top of clever puzzles, the game also has a really nice hint system that should make Return accessible to truly everybody. There's also an "easy" mode you can select at the beginning that eases up on the puzzles (from what I understand). I really hope everyone who played the older games will give Return a try at some point. For me, it really managed to capture the spark and joy of the old games.

I guess something I also need to address is the controversial choice of having a unique and interesting visual style in a video game. Yes, how dare Ron Gilbert decide to not go for boring faux phtorealistic graphics again.
But seriously, I do not understand how anyone has any issues with the art style. It's fine, and in fact given how well animated everything is, this is easily the best looking game in the entire series to me. It surely has more charm and character than Monkey Island 3 ever had (and I gotta say I really did not care for the style of that game)

So, in short, if there is one game that you should buy even if it's more than 20$, it's Return to Monkey Island.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished OMNO (Studio Inkyfox / Future Friends Games, 2021)

This game has a similar creation story to Ghost of a Tale, where a professional animator with prior credits in film turned game designer and just did it all by himself, using a crowdfunding campaign to sustain the project.

Pro:

• Fun exploration game with puzzle (3D-)platforming and slick presentation.

Con:

• The game is sparse and abstract with regards to tutorialization and thus requires a lot of prior knowledge of the genre - but for players who do have that knowledge and the prior experience, it will be a bit too easy.

This game is an impressive achievement for a solo developer - armed with modern game engines, 3D character animators more and more turn out to be the new MVPs in game development. But the genre has a lot of competition and some really beloved titles at the top end. Due to the somewhat abstract art style I felt particularly reminded of Fe and AER - Memories of Old, and in terms of how much I liked it, it falls right in the middle between those two - ahead of Fe, but behind AER.


3.5/5

Previously reviewed in this thread here and here.

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Squad 51 vs the Flying Saucers


Great shoot'em up based on the science fiction movies of the 50's. The devs really nailed the classic movie vibe with their FMV story campaign, including hilarious overacting and visible strings on the space ships. But the gameplay is great as well: there's lots of variaton in the level design and plenty of different enemies and bosses. By increasing your total score in the story campaign, you unlock new perks and subweapons which can be applied to your ship between every level.

The game gives you a decent challenge, but is definitely a lot more accessible than other games in the genre. You get visible warning where enemies are about to appear on your screen, and the bullets don't move very fast making them easy to avoid after some practice. Last but not least the game is a visual masterpiece, with excellent 3D graphics and realistic looking models and backgrounds. Very recommended!

Score: 8.6/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Bucket Detective (The Whale Husband, 2017)

A short (less than one hour) and crappy edgelord meme-game (self-described as "dark comedy"), whose creator poured just enough effort into it for me to actually take it seriously as a game, so:

Con:

• Presentation of the actual game is somewhere between somebody's-tenth-Unity project and asset-store-joke-game. The cut-scenes are more original, but also fall somewhere on the spectrum of pixel-art and ms-paint meme. The best bit of the game is the voice-acting, of which there is quite a lot for such a short game and is very well done - but it can't save the whole thing.
• Performance is so-so, and most definitely not impressive relative to what's on display.
• Nonsensical story that tries to compensate for lame jokes with gore.

Would have refunded after playing if I hadn't bought it over a year ago.


0.5/5

 

[LEANIJA]

also finished The Return to Monkey Island just now. I liked it for the most part. The beginning hours felt a bit too fanservicey (too much banking on nostalgia), but then it was a solid MI game. Had some good laughs, some good puzzles, some more tedious ones (thank god for the hint system! that was a great idea that prevented me from googling frustrating solutions and getting spoiled)
Very mild ending spoiler (well, rather, opinion, but I consider opinions about endings mild spoilers ): I didnt like it. But whatever, the game around was good.

Regarding the art style, I think its super simple, everyone has different taste. I didnt like the new art style, but I could tolerate it for the most part. Sometimes Guybrush's face closeup were really weird. But hey, Gilbert liked the style, so be it. Im glad we got another MI game.

 

[Ge0force]

Finished AI: The Somnium Files


After finishing the Zero Escape trilogy, I was curious about Spike Chunsofts other games so I decided to play AI: The Somnium Files. In this game you play as Date, a detective with an artificial eye that hosts an AI named Aiba. This Ai can help Date find clues by using special tricks like zoom and x-ray, and by looking of stuff with it's wireless connection. Data also has access to a machine that allows him to enter the dreams of other people, which can be used to find clues or proof of crimes. When a serial killer starts killing people he knows in person, Date can use all the help he can get to find out what's going on.

Like Zero Escape, this game also has multiple story paths based on your decisions. I was initially disappointed by the first ending I encountered, but after finishing the other endings (including the true ending) I realized how brilliant the story is. The characters and dialogs are also very well designed and the voice acting is truly excellent. Only thing that bothered me were the lame "sex" jokes which occur way too much and don't fit the story or characters at all. For example, a bunch of professional mercenaries dropping their weapons during an intense firefight because they see a porn magazine is completely ridiculous.

Sadly, the "puzzle" parts of the game which are played when you enter someone's dream, were a HUGE disappointment for me. The clever puzzles from the Zero Escape games have been replaced by brainless trial and error puzzles. You can interact with objects, but because the "rules" in the somniums are different than in the real world, it's impossible to predict what the outcome of each action will be. Therefore, solving these puzzles is nothing more than trial and error and hoping that you're lucky. To make things worse, each puzzle has a time limit and time decreases by performing an action or by walking around. When your time is up before completing a somnium, you have to start again. This was extremely frustrating for me, and as a result, I completed most somniums with a walkthrough to get rid of them as soon as possible.

Tldr: AI: The Somnium Files is a bad game with a great story, and would have been better as a pure visual novel imo. Only worth playing for the story.

Score: 6.0/10



Retired Lawn Mowing Simulator


I got this game in a bundle and was curious what it had to offer, so i gave it a chance. And while mowing a lawn is as boring in a game than it is in real-time, I actually had a few hours of fun with this game. Lots of the locations are beautiful, and you can use the money you earn to upgrade your HQ, buy new machines and even hire staff in order to complete multiple jobs on the same day. Completing a lawn also gave me some kind of fulfilment, which I didn't really expect.

Sadly the gameplay grows old rather fast. This kind of games would be perfect to play for a short time when you want to relax, but most of the lawns are huge and take between 30 and 60 minutes to complete. There are also only 9 different lawn mowers available and the same locations are being repeated after a while. Fun for a few hours, but not more than that.

Score: 5.9/10

 

[MomoVideo]

I just completed Cyberpunk 2077. What a journey, I just finished it and I already miss it. I did every side quest except for the gigs. This might be one of the best games I have played in recent years. I never played it at launch, I started playing it when it was on version 1.5, but it was still pretty buggy, tho nothing that would require me to reload my save file or anything like that. I got to say one thing - despite having an awesome sound design and soundtrack during battle as well as quests, the radio was subpar and disappointing. There were only 3 or 4 stations that served serviceable music and even then even those stations had song that I couldn't stand so I found myself constantly switching radio stations while driving.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Titanfall 2 (Respawn Entertainment / Electronic Arts, 2016)

Played the campaign, since I heard and read good things about it.

It didn't immediately grab me, then pretty much exactly at the halfway point it threw in some pretty interesting stuff, both story-wise and in terms of mechanics and for a moment, I was all perked up.
But that was quickly over and then it just turned into an Oorah-Go-Go-Space-Super-Soldiers thing again and ended with what we now know is a bunch of references to then-future-title Apex Legends.
Throughout the whole thing the direction can't quite decide whether to tell the story straight or to go for the sort of wink-wink-nudge-nudge zingers that curse so many Marvel movies (or games like Halo Infinite).

Cost me 5 bucks and that's about what it was worth, too (it's also quite short).

Oh, and all the wall-running-ground-sliding "advanced movement" stuff is overrated, in my humble opinion. Most of the time it actively annoyed me and ruined the flow of the level by making me die by 3d-platforming accident. And make no mistake, the "advanced movement" is just 3d platforming. In a shooter. No thanks. Maybe it works better on multiplayer maps, no idea.


3/5


Previously reviewed in this thread here and here.

 

[fantomena]

Finished


Super fun and addictive puzzle-like game. Took me 47,9 hours to complete all 200 main levels + 30 sub-levels (to get an achievement). Didn't do any of the side content or post-launch content as I've had my fill with the game. I absolutely loved it, great art style, lots of variations, lots of different tools to use and so on.

Score: 9/10

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Inside


Wonderful game from the makers of Limbo. Inside is a perfect combination of platforming, solving puzzles and visual story telling. Graphics, sound design and atmosphere are top notch. A must play for everyone!

Really sad that Playdead's next game is published by Epic, which probably means it will be quickly forgotten in the EGS marketing blackhole.

Score: 9.2/10

 

[bobnowhere]

Finished Prodeus:


Finished it a couple of days ago on gamepass, enjoyed it for the most part, dragged a bit at the end. I have no idea if there was a story or not, maybe I missed it. Shoot the reds guys, shoot the blue guys, sometimes the red and blue guys shoot each other, go to another dimension and shoot everything and it ends.

3/5

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Conarium (Zoetrope Interactive / Iceberg Interactive, 2017)

Pro:

• Solid presentation all around
• Good execution of the typical Lovecraftian arc - starts out relatively mundane and grounded in reality, then gradually turns up the weirdness dial

Con:

• Towards the end the level design quality takes somewhat of a nose-drive - the last bits take place in what literally looks a Skyrim dungeon, except that the Draugr look like Argonians
• Every time the game tries to deviate from the walking simulator - puzzle adventure formula and throws in an action bit, things get quite janky

3/5

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Little Nightmares - Secrets of the Maw DLC (Tarsier Studios / Bandai-Namco, 2017)

The DLC pack adds two cosmetic items for the main game and a new story featuring a different player character, spread over three chapters, which took me 2-3 hours each, on first playthrough.

Pro:

• Two of the three chapters introduce some genuinely new mechanics not found in the main story
• Satisfying tie-in with the main story

Con:

• The first chapter is quite dull and the third chapter has a quite unfair "puzzle" bit as well as an action bit that is awesome in concept but quite poor in implementation. So that's 2 misses out of 3 shots ...

Still worth it if you can get a really good deal on the DLC (or the Complete Edition of the game), but only Little Nightmares super-fans should bother at MSRP.


3/5