Recent reviews by Dr. Mircow

Alien: Isolation is an action-adventure game developed by Creative Assembly and based on the Alien film series with a strong emphasis on stealth and survival horror elements.

The story in Alien: Isolation is set 15 years after the events of Ridley Scott's 1979 Alien film and follows Amanda Ripley, daughter of Alien protagonist, Ellen Ripley, and her efforts to investigate the disappearance of her mother. In due course, Amanda learns of a discovered flight recorder of the Nostromo stored on board of a space station, Sevastopol, and, with a small team, journeys there to recover the missing recorder. Not long after she sets foot on the station, things do go horribly wrong, as you might expect, and is forced to survive through various situations. At large, the plot takes some inspiration from the Alien film, which is a must-watch before playing this game, but a lot of the backstory, behind the station and its habitants, is filled in by tape recorders or diary logs stored on computers which can be accessed by the player at their leisure.

In terms of gameplay, the player must explore the space station and complete numerous objectives while evading, outsmarting or overcoming adversaries like human occupants or hostile androids. You can hide into lockers, behind boxes or under desks and even equip various weapons (revolver, shotgun, flamethrower, Molotov cocktails, etc.) or tools for self-defence, although the best and most useful item which you will be using throughout the majority of the game is the motion tracker, which not only helps keep track of nearby enemies (only when moving), but it is also a useful tool for guiding you to your objectives. On the other hand, when you are pitted against the Alien, about 6 hours into the game, all alone in the dark, it turns into a big game of cat and mouse. Unless you have sufficient fuel for the flamethrower or a handful of Molotov cocktails, all your other weapons are rendered useless against the Alien. While you cannot kill it, you can certainly make it temporarily run away from you if you expose it to fire, giving you a gap to resume your journey towards the objective. Early on in the game, these moments with the Alien can cause heart palpitations.

One praiseworthy addition to the gameplay in Alien: Isolation is the simple crafting system which allows the player to collect scraps, components or schematics scattered around the environments and turning them into (upgradable) items which can range from medical kits, distraction devices or weapons such as bombs. With the fear of always running low on health or ammunition, this encourages exploration and ultimately avoids creating a strictly linear experience.

The level design is satisfactory and packed with nice visual touches that stay true to the Alien films. Some levels, or sections for that matter, are fairly big in size and can occupy up to four floors, while others can be very small with relatively tight corridors. Usually, each section is composed of a set of rooms and corridors separated by doors. Some doors require certain tools, obtainable by the player as they progress into the game, before granting access. When it comes to accessing or hacking computer terminals, sometimes the player has to solve easy minigames to proceed. Furthermore, the inclusion of accessible ventilation systems allows for shortcuts to be taken which can also provide good sneaking spots to briefly hide, escape from a chase or access a restricted area. Admittedly, certain level assets do seem to be reused from time to time, causing a loss in level design uniqueness.

Visually, not only it remains faithful to the aesthetics of the original film, Alien: Isolation is absolutely a beauty to look at. It vaunts some of the best lighting, particle and smoke effects I have seen in a video game to date; possibly since the Metro series or any recent game on the CryEngine. Some of the most unforgettable backdrops will no doubt be outside the space station while wearing a spacesuit, especially in the second half of the game. On top of that, Creative Assembly has managed to pull off a fantastically optimised port on PC where you can crank up lots of videos settings to maximum even on medium-ranged PCs while still maintaining a high and stable framerate performance.

For such a type of game, the sound design plays a key role in the immersion and credibility of the atmosphere and is safe to say that is it unquestionably phenomenal, especially if you own high fidelity headsets. Certain sound queues play out during specific moments which give the player an indication of what is about to happen. Moreover, the soundtrack has a very distinct Alien-like vibe to it which is more than enough to please any person well accustomed to the Alien franchise.

However, Alien: Isolation is plagued with evident flaws as you progress through its overly long +20-hour story. In actual fact, that is one of its main problems as result of inconsistent pacing and lots of avoidable padding. It gets to a point, later on in the game, where you begin rolling your eyes every single time you complete something like a story arc while thinking you are near the end of your journey, but the game keeps throwing you new information right near the end and thus forces you to investigate new locations to see what is happening over there. Likewise, this does not help in creating a consistent scary and tense atmosphere in the long term as it gets same-y halfway through the game. Rinse and repeat.

Another notable issue is the backtracking as you will be revisiting the same locations at times, even when you have to travel to a totally new location in the space station. Even in the context of completing objectives, the game forces you to travel back and forth within a section quite a lot, which can be dull every now and then.

Admittedly, the saving system in this game has an interesting twist to it. To save your progress, the player needs to trace a specific terminal and manually insert an access card in it. There is no such thing such as quick-saves, conventionally saving from the menu or reaching checkpoints (except in three or so instances – which in their respective context make sense). Consequently, even at normal difficulty, this can lead to many downright frustrating moments where you either get caught by the Alien in a one-shot kill or taken down by androids (which are more of a nuisance than scary) and have to start a huge chunk of the section all over again. Some terminals are located way too far. It would have also been nice being able to actually outrun the Alien without being caught, but realistically, the Alien would be the fastest here.

The trial-and-error nature of the gameplay will most likely rub some people up the wrong the way, especially those not looking for a challenge. Connoisseurs of the stealth genre should, technically, feel right at home in Alien: Isolation, although even for them it might feel a bit unfair and irritating due to the very smart AI. There is no denying that there is a lot of trial-and-error in this game, even for my own tastes.

In conclusion, despite some very glaring issues, Alien: Isolation is by far the best Alien game to date for anyone craving for that true Alien experience of the original film, but it is also far from the scariest game out there, as it sadly loses some of its scary charm in the long run. It does, however, require a specific type of player to fully enjoy the entire experience; someone who is a fan of the franchise, in addition to being patient and methodical. At the end of the day, what Alien: Isolation accomplishes is in creating a strong concept and solid foundation for a sequel which at the very least should easily outshine its predecessor. Ironing out all the aforementioned issues will indisputably make it not only the ultimate Alien experience, more so than Alien: Isolation, but also one of the most frightening games out there.

Yesterday is an original adventure point ‘n’ click game by Pendulo Studios, renown for one of the most eminent adventure game series, The Runaway. Unlike their previous titles, Yesterday is the darkest and most serious game in their catalogue to date as it combines elements of mystery and supernatural; a departure from the quirky comedic styling of their other games.

In Yesterday, you begin with Henry White, a young and rich heir dedicated to a charitable organisation, who is investigating the case of the homeless people disappearing in New York whose bodies are found lifeless later on with Y-shaped scars. Years later, Henry crosses paths with the enigmatic John Yesterday, the main protagonist of the game, whose memory seems to have been wiped clean. From there on, the story of these two turns into a dark and terrifying one involving occult practices and Satanism with a big twist later on in the game in regards to John’s amnesia.

Once again Pendulo Studios have done a fairly good job in drawing captivating backdrops, even though the number of explorable locations is smaller than Runaway 3. They are also a lot darker and less cheerful than in past Runaway games for instance. This is partially due to the dark tone of the game and the fact that most events happen either in dark rooms or at night-time. By now, Pendulo Studios have already developed their own unique cartoony art style which differentiates themselves from other similar games. However, despite the nicely drawn environments, the walking animations for the characters in this game do fall flat. They are sluggish, more so than in previous titles by Pendulo Studios. For a game that came out in 2012, one would expect the quality of the animations to be on par with the standards of the genre at the time. Luckily, double-clicking allows the player to “teleport’ the character to the hotspot they desire, consequently skipping the lacklustre walking animations. This happens almost all the time in this game, perhaps due to a reflex of double-clicking on everything, so you will barely see the character physically walking from A to B. The animations during cutscenes are a lot better though.

The voice acting in Yesterday is very laudable and one of the best I have heard in a Pendulo game so far, aside from when characters try to put on accents. For example, a character you meet in Paris simply sounds way too fake with his French accent. Actually, there is not a lot of voice acting in this game, as seen in a lack of voice acting in scene descriptions. For me, that is not a major problem. Furthermore, conversations are done in a cinematic / comic book style where you see two big portraits of the characters talk with each other. The soundtrack of the game has a certain vibe to it which fits with the themes of the game, sure, but as a whole it is mostly unmemorable. Aside from the track with the whistling (pretty catchy!), no other track stuck with me throughout most of the game.

Compared to other point ‘n’ click games, the difficulty of the puzzles in Yesterday is fairly easy for the most part, even if, mechanically speaking, it does not reinvent the wheel. In actual fact, it is very minimalistic. Perhaps a bit too much. You have got your standard inventory management, combining items (oddly enough, you will have objects in the inventory that you will never use, like the cellphone) and so on and so forth. However, I would like to highlight that there are occasions when the writers tried to be a tad too creative for their own good with their puzzles, making them implausible in real-life, bearing in mind the tone of the story, but I can attest it is not anywhere near rage-inducing. After all, Pendulo is notorious for making similar puzzles in their games. Besides, you could also argue it is a computer game, right? Well, perhaps not always depending on certain circumstances. Anyhow, on the plus side, for people who are impatient, there is a simple hint system available whenever you get stuck which gladly does not spoon-feed the player with the exact solutions. Additionally, there is also a button which reveals all the hotspots in the scene, eliminating any pixel-hunting. Throughout my playtime, I had to use the hint system only in three instances which was more down to me either thinking way too much outside of the box or omitting an object.

Indisputably, Yesterday’s biggest strength lies in the story and narrative – which are not perfect though. The story starts off unimpressively, but to my surprise, as the player progresses, it gets much more interesting to a point of self-indulgence; in a good way. It is hard not to notice some inspiration taken from games such as Broken Sword in some aspects, especially Shadows of The Templars. That being said, the writing is not always stellar, which is sometimes a staple of Pendulo’s writing, and as with past titles, female characters (ie. Pauline Petit) tend to be the ones who are the least fleshed out in terms of character development. Another example is the big twist of the story. While the twist behind John’s amnesia is commendable for its originality, I personally felt the twist did not have a huge impact, the way the writers might have intended, because many allusions were made to it quite early on in the game which made it predictable. I kind of saw it coming, but the question was – how would the twist play out? Now come to think of it, many of the few twists in this game are not as jaw-dropping as you would expect and turn out predictable (ie. you know who the antagonist is very quickly), but the game does a decent job keeping you invested in the journey. The story is fairly absurd, but not on par with the second half of Runaway 2, so do expect to scratch your head a few times along the way. It may seem pretentious at times, but I did enjoy it, oddly enough.

Any issues present in Yesterday are due to its most obvious flaw which is the pacing, which in turn is due to the short length of the game. Yesterday is short and very streamlined as an adventure game and can be completed in 4 hours at most, without using the hint system. As a result, the writers had to cram in as much as they could into the game to make it at least comprehendible, to some degree, from a story perspective. So the player is left with events happening too fast, expositions being served like fast-food (I suppose it is better than longwinded ones), very limited cast of characters and there being not enough time for much better character developments for support characters. It is clear from all these that this game must have been developed with a very small budget which is a pity.

In conclusion, Yesterday is a point ‘n’ click game which does not fulfil its full potential as intended. Whilst it does not reach the same level of brilliance as Broken Sword: Shadow of The Templars, it is definitely an adventure game worth giving a shot for the story, at any rate. It does feel more like this is only an introduction to a bigger story, which may also explain why the ending is left open, intentionally, for a sequel. Yes, there are alternative endings, which are a nice touch, but their outcomes are similar. Now the game would have been phenomenal if it were longer, had more places to explore, more support characters, better character development and a slower pace than its current one. Heck, maybe some cool new gameplay mechanics too. I am surprised there were no mechanics involving using superpowers with all the supernatural elements of the story. Ultimately, I would say to anyone that is fascinated by adventure games with intriguing stories that Yesterday is a game which you will you either like it for what it has to offer with its story or be disappointed by how stripped-down it is as a game. Whilst slightly above average as an overall package, I will recommend this game solely for the story because it kept me invested. I really want to know what happens next.

I tend to write in-depth reviews where I firstly discuss briefly what the game is about, followed by my thoughts on all of its aspects. However, with this one in particular, it is going to be a different approach as I have this strong urge to express myself entirely from a technical standpoint instead, since I deem it more appropriate. As a result, I am going to avoid going through the story and explaining the mechanics of the game as that is not my intention here.

To get it out of the way, Bioshock 1 remains a timeless classic, even with some of its rough edges and streamlined gameplay compared to System Shock 2. However, this remaster for PC, mind you, left me with a sour taste in my mouth to say the least. Initially, I did not want to trust the "Mixed" reviews on Steam at first, although having played for a few hours now, I have got to agree with the majority for the time being. Here is why.

Firstly, my first surprise was noticing the lack of extensive graphical settings compared to the original version, which for starters, boggles my mind without a doubt. The only critical things you could change are your screen resolution (which is fairly limited), anisotropic filtering, anti-aliasing and toggling an "Expanded FOV" which I do not even know by how much it exactly improves the FOV (a slider would have been far more useful if you bother to implement a FOV option in the first place). Consequently, I decided to modify the configuration file stored in one the folders and tried to manually force the graphical settings I desired. However, by doing so, it caused the game to have insane pop-ins which nullified all my previous efforts, so I abandoned that tactic. Nevertheless, I eventually accepted that I had to live with these limited settings given and moved on.

From then on, things went smoothly the first two hours or so, and revisiting Rapture for the nth time still felt somehow invigorating, until the game experienced its first crash. This incident was triggered by wanting to play one of the discovered Golden Reels (unlockable documentary videos) straightaway, rather than afterward by accessing it through the main menu. For the record, Bioshock 1 is not a game which I would recall requiring you to manually save constantly considering it is not extremely challenging at normal difficulty, and thanks to Vita Chamber devices (sort of like checkpoints), you do not have to travel back for long distances to where you died. Thus, as a consequence of not manually saving at the right time and place before the crash, I lost about an hour of gameplay. Again, I accepted this misfortune and did a speedrun of the already visited section. Now, you know that saying “lightning never strikes the same place twice”? Well, that is almost a lie. In my case, I experienced two more crashes later on in the game; one during a loading screen which was loading the next segment of the game, Neptune's Bounty, and one when I opened up the main menu to fiddle about with some settings. Whilst throughout these two crashes I did not lose as much progress as I did the first time around, it made me paranoid and annoyed. For a remastered game, crashes like these should not be present in a version which pretends to be a superior than its original counterpart, especially when I personally never experienced a single crash in any of my playthroughs of the original game.

Furthermore, I would like to point out that, based on my own observations and deductions, I ultimately realised nothing was done to improve the "clunkiness" of the combat nor fix much of the technical issues which were present in the original version. I think the only big change which I did observe is that the ragdoll and object physics are not capped at 30FPS any longer, so I guess that is something after all. Simply put, at its core, it plays exactly like the original version, which, at the time of writing this, is 9-years old. Things like mouse acceleration/smoothing still being present with no way to simply disable it aside from accessing the configuration file is a shame. Hence, if you are one of those who felt the gameplay mechanics of the original felt somewhat sluggish or clunky at times, the remastered version will not attempt to change your opinion. On the other hand, if you are one of those who had no issues with them in the first place, then you will definitely feel at home here.

In the end, the point I am really trying to make here is that I could not care less for the extra algae and fishes they might have added here and there to show how much more stuff this version can render now, or any other small tweaks and enhancements done to in-game models, but the new version we received here is not a remaster in the proper sense. You see, at least for me, a remaster should be considered as one which fixes and/or polishes both the gameplay and visual experiences. Instead, this version has done half the job, especially for a PC port. This is no more than a retexture mod with some improved lighting effects. But even these graphical enhancements are pretty marginal when compared to the original version. Practically, those who are going to benefit and get out the most from this “remastered” version are the current console users rather than the PC users.

In conclusion, aside from Steam achievements and cloud-saving, you will not be missing out much by not playing this “remastered” version and booting up the original version instead. In case the brand new commentaries, found only in this version, might have been one of your incentives to try out this one, do no fret; they will be up on YouTube soon, anyway. Now, at the end of the day, you will still be experiencing pretty much Bioshock 1 in its entirety, but I personally cannot recommend this “remaster” over the original on the PC. Even though, like the majority, I got this version for free for already owning the original in my Steam library, it is a shoddy port, through and through, and I do not want to beat around the bush. So please understand that I am thumbing it down more due to the fact that this port deserved a whole lot better than what we got in the end, considering the status of the franchise. If things get fixed in time (most likely) and new options get implemented (hopefully) that make the original version obsolete, I will change this to a positive review.

Here is one last thing. By buying the game now, you will also receive a free copy of the original version, which is a nice gesture by the publisher. So, now consider the aforesaid issues with the current “remastered” version for a second. This begs the question:

What was the point of a remaster in the first place then? Especially if you are still going to own the original too.

The Last Door: Season 2 is an episodic story-driven point-and-click adventure game developed and published by The Game Kitchen consisting of four new episodes and a continuation from where the last game (season) left off, albeit from a different character’s perspective.

In this season, the story follows John Wakefield, the former psychiatrist of Jeremiah Devitt (protagonist from Season 1), in search for Devitt after his sudden disappearance in the previous game. Along his journey, Wakefield is accompanied by his close associate, Herr Doctor Johann Kaufmann, an unfathomable German nobleman who displays a high level of expertise in the understanding of the dark forces that affected Devitt and who aided Wakefield in investigating Devitt's condition previously. Both of these characters play similar roles to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson; Wakefield is the type of character who asks the questions and Kaufmann is the one providing the answers, except in a more cryptic manner. An issue in the previous game was the lack of memorable characters, and it is safe to say that that is not the case here. The story provides quite a few twists and turns, easily making it one of the main reasons to complete The Last Door: Season 2. It even has two endings which can be triggered by the player’s choice in the last scene. Regardless of the choice, both endings provide a suitable closure to The Last Door saga.

Much like the first game, The Last Door: Season 2 uses the same pixel art for its aesthetics which is simple but surprisingly effective, making it tough to criticise it for as it does not ruin the experience in any way; the pixel hunting (another issue in the first game) has been solved this time with items which look brighter and are easier to spot in the background. On a side by side comparison, the graphics do look polished up compared to the previous game whilst still remaining faithful to the series’ unique visuals. Lighting effects seem to have improved as well. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that its visual presentation might not conform with everyone’s tastes, much like the lack of voice acting. Moreover, both the sound design and soundtrack are well implemented in the world of The Last Door and do their job enough to create a similar atmosphere found in the first game, although, in terms of ambience, it does have some moments where nothing is played in the background which is a bit of a letdown.

The gameplay remains more or less the same as in Season 1; thus, expect your typical point ‘n’ click affair where you move the character around different locations whilst collecting items, occasionally combining, and using them to solve puzzles to advance the story. Just like the first game, many areas at the start of an episode are locked, but these can be unlocked by finding keys or using specific items. One notable (and welcomed) addition in Season 2 is the world map which gives the player more locations to explore in a non-linear fashion, to an extent, rather than being restricted to one single map as in the previous season. This helps giving the game a tad more feeling of exploration and variety. The feeling of any backtracking becoming tedious is absent thanks to the small size of the maps and the quick travel mechanic which immediately transports you to the next scene.

Once again, the puzzle solving is very easy and fairly logical, making it suitable to newcomers to the point ‘n’ click genre. Veterans of the genre will undoubtedly find it very easy though. There is hardly a need of checking a walkthrough at any given point, except maybe of a specific maze-like puzzle which honestly should not take too long to figure it out after some attempts. On the other hand, the advantage of these easy puzzles is that the pace of the story remains consistent without ending up meandering around, frustratingly looking for clues on how to solve a puzzle. The most noticeable improvement between the two seasons is that the variety of puzzles has visibly increased. As a result, Season 2 is longer in length, with around 6-hours to complete it compared to the roughly 4-hours in Season 1.

The Last Door series is well known for its emphasis on tense Lovecraftian horror and disturbing atmosphere, and Season 2 follows the same trend established by Season 1. However, having played the first game, it is hard not to notice how the creepiness was toned down in exchange for, arguably, superior storytelling this time around. Season 2 definitely feels a lot more focused on filling all those gaps left in the story from Season 1 as much as possible, as there are only a handful of scenes as spine-chilling as in the first game throughout the first three episodes. Thankfully, for those who loved the atmosphere of the first game, the last episode is a return to that specific atmosphere fans were accustomed. To provide some context, in the first game there were many moments where certain “supernatural” events would catch you off guard from time to time and created this tense, scary atmosphere as you did not know why those events were occurring initially. There was always a sense of mystery and intrigue. Furthermore, the use of imagery and disturbing backgrounds were also key to their effectiveness. In Season 2, as the story advances, you progressively get to discover, little by little, why these, although not all, events occurred and who is behind them which eventually becomes less terrifying the more you find out. The point I am trying to make is that, personally, I did not feel creeped out by Season 2 as much as I did in the first game which, for me, is somewhat disappointing since that is one of things I hoped the sequel would keep and even improve upon. However, in the end, I strongly feel that Season 2 is superior to the first season as a whole experience due to the small improvements made, here and there, and the better storytelling despite the toned down atmosphere. Do not get me wrong, it still has its petrifying moments, like the ending of the second episode.

In conclusion, The Last Door: Season 2 might lack the overall eeriness of the first game, but it compensates in polished up gameplay, crispier visuals, better variety of puzzles and superior storytelling that provides a satisfactory conclusion to The Last Door saga. Probably not as memorable as the first game, but definitely better as a whole package. Highly recommended to folks who finished the first game, any point 'n' click fans, and those who like Lovecraftian horror stories in general. If you are entirely new to this series, do yourself a favour and grab The Last Door bundle and enjoy the ride.

Dreamfall: Chapters is the third instalment in Ragnar Tørnquist’s The Longest Journey franchise and the sequel to Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (yes, the way they go about naming the games is somewhat odd). Initially pitched and funded through a Kickstarter campaign by Red Thread Games, the game is split into five books spanning thirteen chapters (referred to as Books) including a prologue, four interludes and an epilogue which took approximately two years of development. For the record, this review is based on a playthrough when all the Books were released.

Aside from the great storytelling and a cast of well-rounded characters, if a fan gets asked what makes these games so special, they would easily mention the embodied worlds of Stark (the futuristic cyberpunk Earth) and Arcadia (the magical fantasy equivalent) along with their respective sceneries which suck you in, and Dreamfall: Chapters remains faithful in this regard. Even using the Unity engine, Dreamfall: Chapters manages to create two mesmerising worlds (Europolis and Marcuria) with its own stylised visuals compared to other adventure games utilising the same engine. However, even with the impressive achievements of the engine, facial and (a few) movement animations can look rather stiff, making such observations difficult not to spot nor ignore. Furthermore, that is not to say that the game should not have toned down on the unnecessary overuse of lens flares which can get tiresome after a while. Now audibly, the game features strong voice acting performances from the cast and a suitable soundtrack which fits perfectly with the game’s themes and atmosphere.

The combat system from the previous game was ditched in favour of a new mechanic of choice-and-consequence, similar to the one present in recent Telltale games ever since The Walking Dead. At certain points in the game, your decisions will affect how things will play out to some extent. Most of these are only clearly visible in the last Book, and I can attest that some, not all, do manage to have an emotional impact. This clearly provides some replayability, although the game and how the story unfolds remain fairly linear even when you are allowed to wander around the environment which can honestly feel a bit challenging to navigate through at times. So, choose wisely.

Now the puzzles in the game are light, easy to solve and rarely give you the sensation of accomplishment (“Oh! I felt so smart solving that!”). Most of the times they boil down to navigating your character to specific locations, going through some long-winded (expositional) conversations and occasionally doing your typical item combinations in the inventory. And I think this is where the game starts showing its first cracks. Because of these so called “puzzles”, there is a great deal of wandering around and backtracking that sooner or later gets dull, especially when you are limited to only two principal locations, Europolis and Marcuria. Throughout the journey, you will be frequently revisiting the same places. Therefore, besides the choice mechanic and solving some of the “puzzles”, that is all there is to the gameplay. It truly feels like watching a movie rather than playing a game. Even older point ‘n’ click games had more puzzles.

Apart from some of the rather dull gameplay, most of the flaws in Dreamfall: Chapters are present in the story and narration actually. Now that is already a red flag for a heavily story-driven game. First off, the story starts where the last game left off by taking the role of Zoë Castillo who is trying to wake up from her coma. Later on, the player also takes the role of Kian Alvane, the Azadi Apostle, who is being rescued from prison after being accused of killing April Ryan, leader of the rebels and main protagonist of the first game. It is safe to say that the story feels like something from a The Longest Journey game: unique characters (some are not that impressive), tongue-in-cheek humour, themes of morality, the conflict between science and magic, and lots and lots of conversations. Now that sounds all fine and dandy, but throughout the 20-hours or so journey, the story takes a few major missteps.

Right off the bat, the story uses not just one but a couple of deus ex machina to advance the plot which make you roll your eyes. The story has too many convenient moments pulled straight out of its butt and leaps of logic which ruin some of its charm. There is also this side-story of a never-seen before character, Saga, which is told through interludes which the writers tried to squeeze in alongside and make the player feel like it is building up to something immense, crucial to the main storyline. The setup here is interesting, and it does lead to something central to the main story, except the fact that the outcome ends up being yet another unconcealed deus ex machina during one of the biggest turning points in the story with very little coherent explanation. This character eventually meets Zoë and Kian, within various circumstances, to basically tell them “Right, I have this ability that lets me do all this. I have seen the future and this is how it must end, so here is what you got to do. And oh, I just saved your life. I will explain everything soon (hint: not in this game)”. More annoyingly, even when Zoë’s story finally gets a proper conclusion (some things make sense, others remain questionable), it still leaves so many questions unanswered regarding some of the other characters. Moving on, another noticeable flaw with the story is that whilst it starts off well, it gets muddled up somewhere in the middle. Book 3 strongly feels like the story is going nowhere, or at least very slowly, and its only highlight is the return of Crow with his hilarious dialogues. So there are some pacing issues. Thankfully, the last two Books inject some excitement and suspense back into the story when Book 3 almost makes the player fall asleep. Then there is this romance which the writers tried to allude the player into, only to get a hard slap on the face afterwards if you intended to pursue it. What is the point? Lastly, the story has a number of prominent plot holes too, for instance when Kian uses a magic veil to mask his identity and keep himself concealed from anyone he does not want to see. Yet, a kid (who he eventually befriends) is able to see him and the same can be said with a guard during a stealth section. The list goes on. Plot inconsistency is present.

In conclusion, Dreamfall: Chapters, despite having the trademarks of the franchise, is disappointing as a standalone The Longest Journey game due to its limited gameplay, lack of puzzles that make you go “Eureka!”, erratic pace and a convoluted plot, but still remains a fairly competent interactive movie to sink your teeth in. As a result, I can only recommend it to two groups of people: firstly, the avid fans who waited 10 years to finally witness the closure of the Dreamfall saga (ie. Zoë’s story), like myself, and secondly, those who genuinely dig interactive movies with choice-and-consequence mechanics. If you are neither of these, then you will have hard time getting any enjoyment out of it and thus I advise you to look elsewhere. In actual fact, even if you simply enjoy interactive movies in general, you still need to have played the previous two games in the franchise to understand the already convoluted story in Dreamfall: Chapters and, hopefully, appreciate it to some degree.

Ultimately, I am giving it a “Thumbs Up” since I can recommend it, with huge caveats, to some people in the end. Otherwise, a suitable rating would have been neutral, if it were possible, since the game has a balanced mix between strong and bad qualities. It is just not as great as the original The Longest Journey game, in comparison. That is all.

So, are we going to wait another 10 years to finally get back to April Ryan's story?

"Look at you, hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone. Panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect immortal machine?" - SHODAN

The pre-alpha demo featuring the first 20 minutes of System Shock 1, all redone in Unity, is a fairly good gauge on what people should expect from Nightdive Studios. For the record, I had two nitpicks with this demo: it would have been commendable to at least feature some of the remastered soundtrack and include more options to tweak the graphic settings rather than manually editing the config file. Otherwise, a pretty solid demo considering being only in pre-alpha stage. For now, it seems to be in good hands, so let's keep it that way.

Admittedly, this is not a formal review but rather a warning to people interested in trying out a brand new TCG on Steam. I am trying to keep this brief because there is not much to say aside from the simple fact that the current developers completely abandoned this game. Exactly. No more future updates, thus the community is almost nonexistent. And yet, Ubisoft still have £193 worth of DLC available for anyone to naively purchase. You can stop reading here and AVOID this game entirely by trying a different TCG instead, with active developers and community. However, if you want a bit of a history lesson, then proceed reading.

I can attest that Might & Magic: Duel of Champions was an excellent TCG back in the day, and sadly only got into it just before it got ruined, which may explain my relatively low playtime compared to others. It had its own personality which made it distinct from other TCGs available on Steam and boasted some solid gameplay mechanics. Not only that, but the artwork featured in the game was stunning. Nonetheless, and perhaps most importantly, it was also very easy to get into and genuinely fun, whether that was with some friends or even strangers. Like most of these games, matches did not last too long, so the “one more match” mentality was inevitable. Up to a certain patch/expansion (the turning point where the developers, arguably, ruined the game) the grinding for booster packs and new cards was fair and at a tolerable level.

But then, as previously stated, some patch made things worse by making powerful cards way harder to obtain, almost forcing the player to spend real money on them if they wanted to beat stronger opponents. I suppose good things do not last forever, right? Naturally, players who spent money had an unfair advantage over those who were simply grinding them for free. Fastforward a few months later, the original developers were replaced by a different team and the game was eventually abandoned without a single notice from anyone at Ubisoft.

Nice one, Ubisoft. Thanks a lot.

Condemned: Criminal Origins is a first-person psychological horror game by Monolith, renown for kickstarting the F.E.A.R. franchise, where the player takes the role of Ethan Thomas, an FBI agent who gets framed by a serial killer for killing his colleagues during a crime investigation. This sets motion for the events that are to follow in which Ethan, guided by his only trustworthy ally who believes he was not behind the killings, has to hunt down the real serial killer. In the meantime, Ethan also begins noticing the sudden increase in some very peculiar events that occur around him and to almost every person he meets.

As a survival horror, Condemned: Criminal Origins is a “beautiful” experience. What I mean by that is that the game focuses more on eerie atmosphere and enigmas reminiscent of games like Penumbra. No overuse of cheap jump scares and excessive gory imagery. For me, this is what I always wanted in a horror game which in recent years Frictional Games have always successfully provided for my fix. But even when the game ends up using these tropes for one or two occasions, they are well placed in the game and not overstay their welcome. Sure, the game also throws in a few supernatural elements, which I do not want spoil for obvious reasons, into the mix later on that make the experience even more petrifying. Frankly, there are quite a number of things which Condemned: Criminal Origins nails perfectly, and one of them is certainly the stellar audio design. The moment you hear all that tromping upstairs or around you, you truly start believing you could bend a steel pipe by how tense your butt cheeks are. I am not joking when I am saying that I occasionally pondered whether the real name of this game should have been Condemned: The Ferret Tromping. Likewise, the great soundtrack compliments the atmosphere and fits with the tone of the game. You can feel the cold shivers running down your spine. Bloody violins.

When not wetting your pants like a sissy, Condemned’s gameplay is mostly all about melee encounters. Even though you can use a few firearms, their ammunition limitation makes them only worthwhile and effective in the short term. I suppose the best firearm is the taser as it can momentarily stun your enemies, giving you a window of opportunity to either steal their weapons or take an effortless shot at them, but it is useless against boss fights. Instead, you will be spending the majority of the time with melee objects such as pipes, planks, sledgehammers, axes, crowbars and many more, smacking your opponents to death. Whilst the melee combat might not feel exactly like in Chivalry: Medieval Warfare in terms of variety of moves, every swing has a “weight” to it. Thereby every miss you make can decide whether you will stay alive any longer. Now each weapon in the game has its own benefits and downsides. Some can deal more damage but are slower to manoeuvre and others deal less damage but are swifter. Honestly, the melee combat is perhaps amongst the best aspects of this game as it makes you think and move tactically. It feels satisfying too.

For a horror game, I think the AI in here is exceptional. Most of the human enemies will try to play hide and seek rather than simply attacking the player the moment they are spotted. Moreover, they do not just hide in one spot; they constantly switch their positions. This makes encounters unpredictable and always different in each playthrough. Naturally, there are a couple of scripted moments designed specifically to scare the player in the game, but thankfully these are very few.

In terms of graphical fidelity, the game shows its age quite clearly. There is no denying in saying that it feels visually “consolised” as the textures do look all muddy and the excessive bloom (when turned on) reminds me of games on a Xbox 360 from 2006. But in terms of art direction, it does a good job on the various designs of the enemies you can come across and the environments that almost feel like you actually visited them in real life. Additionally, the second half of the game, from a level design stand point, is much better and scarier.

Of course, the game is not without its fair share of problems. First off, there are sections in the game which require you to take down some sort of a obstacle like a (wooden) door to advance to the next area. Being in the possession of an axe most of the time, at least in my case, one would think that would suffice. But you thought wrong as the game explicitly tells the player that it requires a specific weapon, like a sledgehammer, to take it down instead. This leads to going back and doing a couple of fetch-quests looking for the right item. Plus, you cannot guess what item will require next time. Luckily, the aforementioned item generally tends to be nearby. Now, my main gripe with this is the simple fact that it is purely stupid. I have an axe, why cannot I take it down? Why do I need a different weapon which has pretty much an identical function as an axe in the game’s context?

Then there is Ethan’s walking pace and stamina. The game gives the player the ability to sprint, but only lasts as long as “running” from one end of the room to the next. It is not even running; it is a very slow jog. You see, it totally makes sense walking slowly in the more atmospheric segments of the game where you are in a pitch dark environment holding your melee weapon and a flashlight in hopes that nothing will startle you, but there are many occasions where that is not necessary -- such as when you have to backtrack in areas which you have already cleared out. This can be rather irritating when you are forced by the game to walk so slowly. It feels like the developers were somehow scared that people would sprint their way through the game, breaking the immersion they tried to achieve.

The next issue which I am about to discuss is not too serious, but the forensics investigations in this game are sadly meaningless since you are always told where and what to search for. Take your scanning equipment, focalise it on the object you want to analyse, press click and presto you are the greatest forensics specialist in the world. Personally, I strongly believe this is where the game missed its biggest opportunity to deepen its gameplay. Not only that, but it could have made you feel almost like a detective, looking for clues and making deductions.

Being a very linear game is not an excuse for the repetitive gameplay. The melee combat is definitely fun and rewarding, but after a few hours you will realise that smacking people’s heads and balls is what you will be doing almost the entirety of the game. It can get tiresome after a while due to the lack of variety. Because of that, the level design can also feel a bit too claustrophobic at times with its very narrow corridors and awful FOV. See, this is where a more complex and appealing forensics mechanic could have been handy to bring some proper variety.

And lastly, while the game’s story starts out very promising, leaving the player with many questions and interpretations, it falls flat right towards the end. You can already smell the Indigo Prophecy stench from miles away, and that is one nightmare I try to not remember. The approach of “show, do not tell” which is adopted in the first three quarters of the game is well executed, because you know, a mystery is ruined the moment you bluntly explain it, but the ending kind of ruins most of that. I even think the last scene of the game nullified your entire journey.

In conclusion, Condemned: Criminal Origins ticks all the boxes for a solid psychological survival horror game. Despite some questionable design choices and a rather abysmal ending, it is singlehandedly one of the scariest experiences out there, and I am not saying that lightly. Clocking around 6-8 hours, I would say that it has about the right length, so if you like horror games, pick this one up.

The Deed is a RPG Maker game with a traditional murder mystery setting. The story revolves around Arran Bruce who recently discovers that his abusive father removed him from his Will in favour of his cruel sister to inherit the family belongins. Furious about this, he decides to eliminate his sister in order to restore his own, rightful, inheritance.

The gameplay is all about getting away with the murder of Arran’s sister and trying to blame someone else for it. The player has the choice of who to talk to, what topics to discuss in conversations, which evidence to plant, the method of murder and how to handle the interview when interrogated at the end. Consequently, the paths chosen influence the final outcome (e.g. the ending), and that is all there is to its very minimal gameplay. Generally, a single playthrough takes roughly about 20-30 minutes at normal pace with all rooms fully explored and every possible conversation exhausted. In other words, it is all about solving the one single puzzle: getting away with murder. As a result, the game has a replayability value until the player discovers all the possible methods of committing the crime (while being undetected and without people being suspicious) and various endings. Likewise, this is good news for any achievement hunters who want to achieve 100% completion as it is very easy to accomplish it.

Admittedly, the writing is nothing terrific, and most of it is forgettable anyway, but it is enough to provide context for the puzzle. The very few set-pieces such as the flashblacks are a nice touch since they provide some backstory, aside from simply talking with other people, but that is as deep as the story can get, which is not a lot. Then again, the game’s length is extremely short after all, therefore there is hardly time to expand the story. Ultimately, The Deed is clearly not a purely story-driven game. As mentioned previously, it is all about solving the one puzzle.

The visuals are on par with what anyone should expect from a RPG Maker game. Thankfully, the game does not bluntly rely on stock assets which makes it stand out amongst the majority of half-hearted RPG Maker games out there, but as a whole it is clearly not as stunning as something like To The Moon, as far as RPG Maker games are concerned. It does a somewhat effective use of the dark tone and browny colour pallet to create at least a creepy atmosphere, even if there is nothing remotely creepy or even scary about it. Furthermore, there is no voice acting (as per usual with most RPG Maker games) and the sound effects used are minimal and rather uninspiring. The soundtrack is unmemorable, much like the writing, but does an adequate job in setting up the mood.

In conclusion, The Deed has a simple but interestingly fun little concept despite everything about it being fundamentally way too basic. The game has clear shortcomings which could have been easily avoided in the first place. For instance, the length could have been greatly improved through the use of more elaborate ways of committing the crime and the atmosphere could have also been enhanced by using eerier sound effects. Evidently, there has been a missed opportunity on expending the story due to both the writing and length letting it down. However, considering the price tag, all of these shortcomings are tolerable in this case since anyone can easily purchase the game for “free” by selling any marketable items in their Steam inventory, thus eliminating any notion of a buyer’s remorse. In actual fact, the game should have been (properly) free in the first place. For a fun fact, I bought the game for 7p during a sale by selling a Steam emoticon.

If you fancy the concept at least and can lower your expectations, I recommend giving The Deed a shot as it can be fun figuring out a way without being caught, but also mainly because of its price tag. Possibly the shortest, yet forgettable, fun you will ever have in a game.

Buenos días desde la Tierra de los Muertos!

Grim Fandango is an adventure game by Tim Schafer back from when was working for LucasArts in the ‘90s and it is widely considered to be the swansong of the genre. Many years later, Schafer’s own company, Double Fine, finally brings it back “from the dead” (pun intended maybe?) in the form of a Remastered edition after the original was not legally available anywhere for a very long time (you know, they stopped manufacturing retail boxes). So, what is all the fuss about Grim Fandango?

Well, when someone gets asked what is so great about Grim Fandango, they always pinpoint the quality of the writing firstly (or I would hope so). Tim Schafer’s writing excels in this game, as proven by a narrative full of clever and witty dialogues from well fleshed out characters. Now, the plot in Grim Fandanago is unquestionably one of those which should not be spoiled, but a synopsis can be given. Consequently, the plot essentially spans four years, each representing a separate chapter respectively. It starts off with the protagonist, Manny Calavera, a travel agent at the Department of Death getting fed up one day of dealing with not-so-great clients (ie. evil souls) and eventually steals a client, Mercedes Colomar, from his rival, Domino Hurley, who strangely always seems to get the best clients (ie. pure souls). Despite her being a pure soul, Manny mistakenly assigns her on a four-year journey to the afterlife, as all the evil souls are meant to, instead of the luxury express train due to a rigged database. With that, it is not long before Manny figures out that something fishy is happening in this department, and as a result finds out of the wicked scam. So he sets off to look for Mercedes and put a stop to this. In these four years, Manny faces a handful of challenges and meets many odd, but lovely, individuals. Admittedly, the quality of the plot, while still overall commendable though, peaks at the end of Year 2; with the subsequent two years being both less captivating and shorter in length, clocking up to a total of 10-11 hours of gameplay.

The entire Aztec themes with the calaca-like characters and the Day of the Dead inspirations, in addition to the film-noir vibe and Art Deco designs, are only some of the few things that make Grim Fandango’s world so exceptionally unique and memorable. Then there is the excellent voice acting and soundtrack to back it up. Having various Latino actors featured in the cast clearly helps cement the authenticity of the aforementioned themes. Moreover, the performances are so spot on, there is hardly a time when you are taken out of the immersion. Now, the soundtrack is splendid and, much like the voice acting, fits with the game’s themes too. It mixes genres such as South American folk music, swing, bebop and jazz all together. Peter McConnell did a brilliant job back then and does it, once again, by re-recording all those tracks for the Remastered edition. This soundtrack is one worth owning alone.

The original gameplay involved using tank controls exclusively, but now that is not the case anymore with the implementation of straightforward point-and-click mechanics in the Remastered edition. Much like any adventure game from that time period, the player must collect objects that can be used with other collectibles, people or environments in order to solve the puzzles and progress the story. The inventory system involves pulling each item in and out of Manny’s coat jacket for use or inspection. This makes an interesting spin on the inventory system, although the problem with this, compared to the classic hover tab, is that it is a bit more time consuming looking for the right item since you cannot go straight to the desired item right away. Manny has to pull in and out each item in turn. Puzzle-wise, Grim Fandango has an adequate level of difficulty in general when you put the effort to be observant. Nevertheless, and it is sad to say, there are moments when their logic jumps the shark, leaving the player clicking on everything and backtracking a lot in hopes of finding the right solution. Thankfully, the last two chapters are a bit smaller in number of places to visit, thus making the backtracking less prominant. Retrospectively, a couple of puzzle designs have aged badly and they sure would put off newcomers. Even veterans of the genre would rightfully complain and be annoyed. I did as well, at least in three instances.

Visually, being the first 3D adventure game by LucasArts, Grim Fandango looks all blocky and with muddy backgrounds by today’s standards. Artistically, there is nothing wrong with that, and perhaps the somewhat cartoon-ish appearance might give it an excuse to bypass this flaw. The Remastered edition tries to fix this by improving the character models and the engine shaders, but only does the job partially. Undoubtedly, the best part of the remastered port is being able to run the game on modern machines without fiddling with emulators.

If there are certain aspects to be nitpicky about though, these would indeed be related to the state of the port. As mentioned previously, whilst the character models were vastly improved through the use of enhanced textures, better cast of lighting and anti-aliasing for jagged edges, the backgrounds were left shockingly untouched. Even though they are not completely ugly, it would have been ideal to give them the same treatment as the character models since a lot of Grim Fandango’s unique charm comes from the world design. Then there is also the stability of the port as many people have reported being buggy. In my case, I have never encountered any game-breaking bugs which would prevent my progress, or any bug for that matter. However, one observation that I would like to point out is that there were, in my playthrough, severe drops in framerate during pre-rendered cutscenes causing them to be laggy on a arguably modern machine. Looking around, I think there is a conflict with the Steam overlay as I also noticed dialogues began to temporarily stutter after I would return from the Steam overlay.

In conclusion, Grim Fandango is a title absolutely worth to be called a classic and definitely amongst the best adventure games. As of now, almost two decades since its original release, it still remains one of the most original concepts in a video game to date. Even if certain puzzles might have aged badly since then, everything else from the narrative, distinctive characters, well-written conversations, stellar voice performances to the splendid soundtrack create this unforgettable ride. Now the Remastered Edition, on the other hand, is admittedly a tad lazy as not everything is in actual fact fully “remastered”; not that Double Fine ever claimed that. The counterargument for this would be that it is more of a case of preserving a lost classic by retaining its original aesthetics and feel as much as possible and making only small visual and technical enhancements where was necessary without ruining the original vision of the game. Ultimately it is up to you to contemplate this practice all you want, but at the end of the day this is still the same Grim Fandango as many people remember from ’98 -- a game I highly recommened to any adventure fan, at very least for the originality of the concept.