50 Game Round Up: 251-300 (Peter)

Posted: 16th January 2014 by Mulholland in Round-Up
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Never EVER again. You hear me? So many games were off-limits in this 100 that this blog became a huge chore at times. Whole series such as Mario and  Zelda became off-limits for a year whilst other games that we wanted to play or revisit have been neglected. In many ways it allowed us to focus on genres, years and platforms so that we did not suddenly get ahead of ourselves again. We are still woefully ahead on the Gamecube which makes me feel inexorably sorrowful.

For the next 50 there will be no gimmicks or anything we HAVE to play. Just good old fashioned gaming… and I believe I can hear Mass Effect 2 calling me from the near future.

Best Game I Had Not Previously Played

For the first time in a while a game I believe to be best didn’t feature at all in Jeroen’s post and that would be Braid. This innovative and original puzzle-platformer won me over from the word go. Sadly I was aware of the sting in the narrative’s tail but that did not make my playthrough any the less enjoyable. The use of time in solving puzzles was an absolute stroke of genius!

Other really enjoyable games from this? Well I have to mention Bioshock. I am not a fan of games that make me jump but the powers and the complete taking down of Ayn Rand made for one hell of a game. Also a good contender for me was Team Fortress 2 but more on that later.

Worst Game

I will have to concur with Jeroen on this one. Race Pro was an absolute stinker. I just could not get to grips with this game and it was so lacking in rewards that I don’t feel the need to ever pick it up again… no other games really stick out in comparison.

Most Surprising Game

In one way Afrika was a big surprise because it was not as crap as I expected, it still isn’t better than Pokémon Snap but it was a fun game for a Sunday afternoon.

However, the crown for me has to go to EyePet. In many ways I am cynical about obvious attempts at cuteness (on the other hand I am a huge fan of Kirby games) so I started out on this game with a bit of a negative outset… it did not last long. Apart from some trickiness with the camera and it picking up on the action card it was incredibly immersive. I still think about the pet trapped underneath the floorboards and the times we made toy cars together.

Biggest Disappointment

Without question it’s Stretch Panic. It was one of the games whose entry and picture convinced me to try this deranged assignment of a blog and it was the first game I tracked down on eBay for the purposes of the blog. It could probably never live up what I expected but… it was ridiculous. Pinching big breasted demons who use their endowment like helicopter blades? Ridiculous controls that defy reason sometimes? I don’t know what this game was but it was not that great.

Best Blast From The Past

 Two games stand out here. Firstly there is Okami, which I really need to finish at some point since I finally got beyond the bits that were irritating me. It’s beauty and use of Japanese mythology have yet to be equaled in a game if you ask me. Then there is the old chestnut Grand Theft Auto 3. Seeing it again reminded me of all the joy I had playing it and how much of my life as a gamer has been influenced by it’s charms.

Games We Kept Playing

This 50 coincided with most of my NQT year of teaching which meant that there have not been many games played for too long after we did them for the blog.

With that being said there are some that did maintain interest. Machinarium and Braid were played until completion and my understanding of the games did benefit from this. I also finished Prototype and had a bit more fun with Demigod. Okay, so I know I need to pick a game from this 50 and it’s a no brainer… Team Fortress 2.

For gamers this has become a bit of a cliche to become addicted to this game but it’s like gaming catnip and reminds me a lot of Timesplitters: Future Perfect. A high complement coming from me.

50 Game Round Up: 251-300 (Jeroen)

Posted: 15th January 2014 by Mulholland in Round-Up
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So here we are, another fifty done. Fifty games I had not played before, which was an interesting introduction. It’s also made us decide not to go for these themes again, not for this long – it took too long to get through and blocked too many other games.

Still, we made it, and the next fifty should be all the more interesting because of it.

Best Game I Had Not Previously Played

Well, there’s a field of fifty to look through this time – with the restrictions this fifty, I’ve got plenty of choice. Okami was gorgeous, Bioshock gave us some of the best story telling I’d ever seen, while Dead Space just impressed us with its scope.

The big winner for me though is The Witcher. True, expected from me, but it’s a game that shows me the more classic RPGs still have a future and that (as much as I loved it), the shooter/RPG merge from games like Bioshock aren’t all there is.

Worst Game

Right, so we didn’t get along with Race Pro – but I suppose there’s some unmet expectations involved with that one – the game just didn’t suit us.

Freak Out (or Stretch Panic) however felt puerile and unnecessary. It wasn’t fun to play and half the game’s challenge was non-existent. Beyond that, the story was twisted and the design felt made by a thirteen year old. Without adult supervision. Not worth it.

Most Surprising Game

It’s difficult to remember what my reactions were to a lot of the games, but one really stands out in my mind.

Earth Defense Force 2017 sounded like a pretty generic, B-Movie, boring game. And its plot is, to be fair – big insects attacking the Earth. You got to stop them and kill them. However, this is all wrapped in an engaging game that has some awesome fights and – more important – brilliant multiplayer. We just enjoyed running around shooting things and winning together. Far better than what we expected based on the name.

Biggest Disappointment

There’s been several games this round that really didn’t work for us, even though it should have. Just Cause was probably our fault, with everything pointing to us picking the wrong platform. NHL 10 looked like it would be a great sports game, but didn’t work.

The biggest disappointment for me, however, was far more personal than that. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance is a good game. It just didn’t work for me. For me, the comparison with its PC version made it fell down. The struggle with multiplayer mode (which, as said, seemed a bit unbalanced when we were playing) didn’t improve this either. I think I need to give it another go (with no blog pressure behind it), but I had been hoping to love this more.

Best Blast From The Past

This (obviously) doesn’t apply for me this fifty. Only Gauntlet came close, I suppose, through playing its sequel in the past.

Games We Kept Playing

Despite the good games in this batch, there hasn’t been one I’ve gone back to yet. There’s plenty I want to come back to – The Witcher 2 first and foremost – but it just hasn’t happened yet. Just too many other things to do lately.

It’s been an interesting 50, and as an experiment it had plenty of challenges of its own. I’m happy to move forward to more free picks though in the next fifty – with plenty more Mario, revisiting some older series, and finally starting some of the greats (for me) like the Elder Scrolls series and Doom. Besides, during the next fifty we’ll reach that one in three games point… Onward it is!

#473 Grand Theft Auto III

Posted: 14th January 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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300th played so far

gta_3_10Genre: Action
Platform: PC/Playstation 2/Xbox
Year of Release: 2001
Developer: DMA Design
Publisher: Rockstar Games

I’ll be honest – the lead-up to playing this game was a bit more difficult than normal. All excited about playing game 300, we inserted it into our Playstation 2 and started playing it. Within seconds it crashed with a disc error. Surprised, we cleaned it, tried, and got the same error. A third deep clean was tried, but crashed again after the first few missions… I was getting fairly upset since these original PS2 versions aren’t exactly cheap so… ack!

So yeah, we were happy Steam was having one of its semi-regular sales (summer sale – sorry, we’re about six months ahead at the moment – we like our buffer!) so we could cheaply get it and play it – we wanted to do it!

With it being a classic, Grand Theft Auto 3 came up as one of Peter’s big (and influential) games, with his love of the series having become quite clear to me. Saints Row 2, to be fair, showed as much. Of course, that also means it’s my turn to play.

Our Thoughts

It’s difficult, sometimes, to divorce a game’s innovation and features from the effect it had later. This feels especially true for this game, which might not have been the first to do the open sandbox genre (a form clearly introduced by DMA Design’s earlier Body Harvest, but in a way going back to early Elder Scrolls game and even more, Elite). Alright, retract those claws. Remember this is a game I love!

Still, the GTA series put the sandbox on the map with this game. While it doesn’t feel as open as later games, with less semi-organized activities, there’s quite a bit of pleasure to be had from riding and traveling around the island. Although the world doesn’t feel as expansive as, say, the Saints Row series, or your average Elder Scrolls game, there are still plenty of things hidden inside. (Patience grasshopper).

There’s more that could be improved here though. The city is made up of mostly greys and browns. While there’s some splashes of colour, it feels few and far between, and even when it’s there it’s faded. With the last-gen graphics, it all becomes a bit blurry and messy together, and doesn’t leave for many memorable sights. Even the bigger showpieces just don’t feel that way.

The game starts off a bit bland as well. Your mission is a generic escape and the first few missions have very little characterization in their storylines and cutscenes. This changes a bit later on, especially when the branching missions get unlocked. It’s still a bit flat, with nothing standing out in the main character, and as a player your avatar is generic enough that your involvement doesn’t matter. You just get swept up in everything. It’s fair enough as a choice, but makes the storyline a bit more distant.

Although there’s some occasional issues with missions (having to park a car in the exact same place as where you stole it from gets really fiddly, especially as you can’t damage it at all) on the whole they’re fun and varied. There’s a few mandatory murders, but this soon diverges into a lot more. The aforementioned mission requires you to steal a specific car, get a bomb strapped to it and drive it back to the same place (undamaged – you have to repair it if it isn’t) to blow up the owner. Well, that’s murder too, but the process is different! Different in style is certainly driving prostitutes to the police ball, or just ferrying people from one place to another. There’s a whole list of the latter, where just disposing of the car is fun on its own.

While the missions get difficult early on, they’re not frustratingly so. While there’s a big tutorial element early on, it isn’t that obvious. Aside from some initial prompts, the new things are easily integrated to the points that you don’t really realise they’re doing it just to teach you something.

The main thing is that it takes some time to get going, but after that the game feels like it is up there with most other games of its type. The main downside is, as said, the colours being drab, while everything else needs more time to fall into place.

Final Thoughts

Here’s the thing. There are a few things in this game that its sequels and such improved. The main thing I can fault it for is its bad graphics, and with that in particular its colour choice. The lack of vibrancy makes the game feel a bit less alive, which is a shame when you want to create a city that feels lived-in.

The thing is that when you play this having not played it back in the glory days it appears underwhelming (at least it did to him). To me the moment we started up the first mission I was instantly taken back to those evenings in the park killing hookers after they filled up my health bar, running from the Triad after pissing them off and that insane sniper mission which took me FOREVER to clear. Is it the best game in the series? No, for me that’s a tie between Vice City and IV. But it is a clearly ahead of the first and second installments in the city and is a worthy game to have such a landmark number.

I may have to replay this now…

#767: Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Posted: 10th January 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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299th played so far

256px-Hotel_DuskGenre: Adventure
Platform: DS
Year of Release: 2007
Developer: Cing
Publisher: Nintendo

As common as adventures are – their lack of action usually making it more playable for handheld gaming in particular – most of the bigger example tend to be a bit tongue in cheek, funny, and while they build a good story, there’s some levity clearly present.

This seems less present in Hotel Dusk: Room 215, which claims a fairly serious, film-noir inspired game and storyline. Perhaps taking itself a bit too seriously, but we’ll see how that pans out.

Our Thoughts

Here’s one of my bigger bugbears with any adventure game: making a game unwinnable through a single mistake and taking ages to tell you. It’s a staple in the old Sierra adventures – in one of the King’s Quest games, if you don’t pick up an item early in the game, you’ll be in trouble in the endgame – with no hints or ways to recover in between. Frequent saving may help with this, but you’d still need to replay from that point (and hope you haven’t forgotten anything) – assuming you realised what went wrong. A problem we also had with The Last Express so we got fed up and used a walkthrough for hints.

All of this is to explain why I gave up relatively early on in the game. I used a wrong sentence in a conversation somewhere, and after doing more work, I suddenly got a game over because of my (rather unclear) sentence selection. Whoops, replay several steps of the game. Sorry.

Conversations are slow – they’re long, parts feel totally irrelevant, and each sentence takes ages to show up. Oh, but don’t dare look away – if you look away you may miss a quick time event and miss out valuable information. Yeah, it rather sucks, and as most conversations feel like they last half an hour, it becomes a drag.

Navigation and exploring feel equally sluggish, with opening a door taking three or four taps, trying to create multiple options, but a lot of it getting in the way.

The thing is, once you get past this awkwardness, there is a pretty fun game there. The puzzles are challenging and you need to do a lot of searching to figure out what’s where. The character interaction (though awkward) is done well, creating interesting characters and putting in a lot of back story and variety. The graphics in particular are interesting – rotoscoped, drawn art of actual human movement. It creates an interesting feel, combining realistic movement with clearly artificial characters. It’s slightly unsettling, but mostly does look wonderful.

The in-game graphics are blurrier, but suffice for most exploration. I think one of the difficulties here is that we’ve been playing this on a larger screen than the game was developed for, making it more obvious. Still, considering how many assets seem reused, it does look like there is more that could be done here.

Thing is, I could have made it past all of this, if it wasn’t for this first bit. If I knew I could finish the game by just investing more time, that’d be better. But having to replay potentially large parts of the game because I may have missed them just felt a step too far. Shame. I was enjoying the story.

Final Thoughts

Hotel Dusk, as an adventure, doesn’t align with my sensibilities. I’m a Lucasarts fan, not as much a Sierra fan, and I enjoy being able to keep going to explore, rather than no-win situations around every corner. Even more of a shame, it felt like it was such a concious choice here, that I wish they’d have gone this way so I would be more interested in continuing to explore the hotel of secrets.

#685 Uno

Posted: 6th January 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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298th played so far

Genre: Puzzle/Strategy
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Carbonated Games/Gameloft
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios/Gameloft

For a long time, Uno was (possibly still is) the highest selling Xbox Live Arcade game. Yeah, that’s right, with all the options videogames afford us, it’s a virtual version of a board game that people prefer to buy. An interesting situation, really. Don’t knock it, I used to love my Cluedo video game when I was younger.

All of that is, of course, for a good reason. The game is meant to have a good implementation of the rules, being pretty intuitive and easy to follow. Of course, that’s also down to us to weigh in on.

Our Thoughts

It’s a double-edged sword. Looking at the numbers and a lot of what you can do, this game is pretty complex and playing it without computer help would need a lot of pen and paper, figuring out how to keep track of the score, what moves you can make and what they do.

The videogame version takes a lot of that away from you. It obviously keeps track of the score, prevents you from making illegal moves, and reduces it all to button presses and paying attention so you can catch cheaters.

If this sounds simple… that’s because it is. Because the rules are all worked out for you, it really is a matter of selecting the card or pressing the indicated button to draw a card or such. This is a disadvantage sometimes – even after playing it for a while, it didn’t really become clear how the colour change cards worked.

All of that, though, doesn’t really diminish the fun of playing the game. While you don’t always get the satisfaction of play, with part of it reduced to button pressing on command, when you do get a chance to choose strategy comes in, figuring out what cards the other players have and how you can most effectively block their moves. It’s where the game shines more and provide ssomething meatier.

Most of the real fun, then, comes from playing against other people. The AI is just too straight forward that there isn’t much satisfaction in figuring out whether you beat it, with no bluff elements possible. What doesn’t help is that a lot of this game is random, like a computerised version of Snakes & Ladders.

Graphically, you just can’t expect much from a boardgame, even adapted like this. One of its nicer surprises is probably the use of avatars. They react to what happens in-game, being a nice ‘thing’ to read. While not a major thing, they’re a nice touch, creating a bit more involvement with the game and allow play to be less abstract.

Final Thoughts

Don’t get me wrong – we enjoyed the game. It is quite addictive to play through. It just leaves you wondering whether an adaption of a card game like this doesn’t limit your interaction a bit much sometimes. It’s fun when there’s some actual strategy involved, unfortunately however, these occasions can be lacking sometimes.

#556 Zoo Keeper

Posted: 2nd January 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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297th played so far

Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Internet/DS
Year of Release: 2003
Developer: Success
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment

Some games, when you look at the initial graphics (loading up the game as we did in this case) just don’t give many clues on what theyre’ about. Zoo Keeper may sound somewhat straightforward at the start, but thinking about if afterwards, it isn’t clear what you actually do. There’s something with zoo animals, true, but what or why? Who knows.

Our Thoughts

At its course, the game is actually not that complicated. Really just a variant of Bejeweled, you match three or more animals in rows or columns, when they disappear (possibly creating further chains) increasing your score and ‘capturing’ them.

As a game (at least in infinite mode) it’s pretty addictive, simple to play but something you could keep playing for a while. To be honest, it offers little over the other variants, other than that the animals look cute and react nicely to what happens in the game.

Some of you may be looking at the title and have a little flash of memory. Back in the mid-00s this game went viral and appeared on a lot of websites meaning people such as myself found themselves compulsively playing this slightly odd little timewaster.

The more interesting part of the game are the story and quest modes. They set some nice goals, especially the latter. Rather than just capturing more and more animals (in order) you can specific and diverse requests – things like destroying without causing a chain several times in a row or getting ten vertical lines.

While, to be honest, I can’t say I understood much of what was going on (the Flash version was in Japanese only) just the graphics and responses were pretty nice to see. The animals react to what happens – not by much, but enough to make them a bit more… well, sort of alive.

Final Thoughts

The basics of the game are very familiar, but the additions in gameplay, with the quests and piece design, make it a lot more charming and worthwhile.

#136 International Karate +

Posted: 29th December 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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296th played so far

Genre: Fighting
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1987
Developer: System 3
Publisher: System 3

Fighting game, fairly old, something karate with some control improvements according to the book. Sorry, near-300 exhaustion is setting in and there are only so many things we can introduce these with.

Probably the main innovation mentioned here is the introduction of a third fighter – apparently one of the first fighters to do so – changing the dynamics of the game.

Our Thoughts

Playing this game, it’s fairly obvious why these sort of arena-based fighters (for lack of a better term – fighters where it’s about two equal opponents facing each other, rather than you fighting off a rush of enemies) haven’t really featured three combatants in a round. First, there’s the inherent (seeming) imbalance where two gang up on one – something that seems likely. Second is the simple chaos of it. It can be hard enough to keep track of one character and balance your moves and combos against them, having to worry about more can be even worse.

The game is confusing in other ways as well. Because of its platform constraints, the only control used is the joystick (or similar) – attacks are made by going up and down together with a direction. It is as awkward as it sounds.

It makes for some pretty chaotic and uncontrolled fights, where it felt like any damage we dealt was down to luck more than skill. There’s probably some pattern to it, but it was difficult enough to find out, let alone get further in winning.

The main attraction (I suppose) are the animations. Sure, nothing too special now, but with a number of them being based on recordings of actual fighters (apparently at least some were from a Grease background dancer), they seem fluid and natural.

To me the main attraction was the button that made all their trousers fall down and gave them a shocked/embarrassed look on their faces. It’s the small Easter eggs that makes life worth while.

Final Thoughts

As appealing as the graphics are (comparatively), the game feels chaotic, thanks to the extra fighter, and difficult to control. It makes for an interesting data point in the evolution of the genre, but for me it’s not sharp enough to really enjoy.

#945 Race Pro

Posted: 25th December 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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295th played so far

RACE_ProGenre: Racing
Platform: Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: SimBin
Publisher: Atari

There’s not much more I can continue to say about these racers, to be honest. Car. Race on track. All sorts of classes and types. And supposed to be very realistic. Go!

Our Thoughts

Here’s the problem with all racing games (except, possibly, some extended arcade installations): You just don’t get the right sort of feedback. Moving a stick left and right is no substitute for a steering wheel and its more direct feedback, and you lack the feedback from the car, the engine, control over the pedals when you grab a controller when you compare it to actually driving.

That doesn’t mean I’d drive with record time on the track, but I think I’d at least know how to keep it on the track better.

This becomes a bit of an issue when the game touts realism as its big selling point and wants you to play as such. In a Mario Kart game, physics can be tweaked to account for the inaccuracies in the game, you get some leeway and it’s all well and good.

Which means that when you get to playing a game like Race Pro, where its realism and ultimate simulation are big selling points, you get trouble. Originally a PC franchise, you can see how you could play with a racing wheel to get it more right. When you transfer that to an Xbox 360, it becomes more awkward.

As much as the simulation might be right (and I’m sure it is in this case), it becomes borderline unplayable for the casual player. Just getting past the first ‘introduction’ lap takes a few goes, and we lost the first race several times when we tried, never winning. Playing against each other we didn’t do much better – although that had the added disadvantage of no split-screen multiplayer, with us taking turns racing, with the other player being CPU-controlled. Probably better for the simulation, and absolutely tweaked for online multiplayer, but not fun when playing in the same room.

If you’re more into racing games, this might come together better, and the breadth of options seems to indicate that there is a lot to discover here. We just couldn’t spend the time needed to get there.

Final Thoughts

This feels almost like a waste of a port. There is what could be a solid simulation racing game here, realistic, but the demands that placed on the controls just make this a lot less playable (for us at least). It’s a shame. It’s also a waste of money if you ask me, in the wide genre of driving and racing games this just feels ridiculously hard.

#422 The Longest Journey

Posted: 21st December 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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294th played so far

256px-LongestGenre: Adventure
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 1999
Developer: Funcom
Publisher: Funcom

Some games just attract you with their screenshot alone. This was the case with the one featured for The Longest Journey (as well as its sequel, also listed, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey). The market in which the protagonist is standing is filled with some weird masks and art objects, while the characters surrounding her just look slightly off.

Our Thoughts

Some games are difficult to discuss here without spoilers, spoilers you don’t want to immediately get into. The Longest Journey starts with a dream sequence that doesn’t explain much, but sets up some questions about April and her personality. After that, the game spends just as much time on world building as it does on setting up April and her friends.

Without giving too much away the game spends time in two worlds, the one April is in contact with during her waking hours and the other she can reach in her dreams. It’s a bit debilitating at first, what with the annoyed talking tree, but the strands of the two worlds do compliment each other.

And April is a very good protagonist for the game. Snarky and funny, but still firmly in the world – no fourth wall breaking. She’s got plenty of her own problems – mostly very relatable – and as a character she makes the world a lot more relatable.

One of the problems in making a world as diverse and weird as The Longest Journey tries to create is that it has to look that way. A lot of the weirdness comes from it showing you and convincing you that way. The game, due to its age, doesn’t always convince as much – it gets too blocky – but most of the time it works well to convey what it’s trying to do, and the dark, brown objects that are around are pretty much ugly enough to show us how bleak her life often is.

A bit stronger, the voice acting is wonderful. They really give you a good feel of the character, all of it flows together nicely and the whole just seems worth listening to. Counter to what we usually do, we skipped past it a lot less often.

So far, the game hasn’t really stumped us yet with its puzzles, but I’ve been told that will follow later. So far though, this is as good and together as an adventure game can be.

Final Thoughts

Again, don’t be put off by the game’s dated looks. They won’t be a problem for long and soon the game will be as gripping as any adventure. It was one of the last bigger ones in the genre before it was put to bed as a blockbuster genre, not to be revived for nearly a decade. And with that, it is a good one, together with Grim Fandango and the other final entries of its era.

#201 Another World

Posted: 17th December 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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293th played so far

another_000

Genre: Platform
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1991
Developer: Delphine Software
Publisher: Delphine Software

I’ll be honest – before this blog, I hadn’t really heard of this game, but its legacy had interested for me a lot longer. Another World (Out of this World in the US) is the brainchild of Éric Chahi, who went on to create Heart of Darkness, a game I had read up quite a bit about in the past, enjoyed the demo of, but never really got to do much with.

Heart of Darkness, of course, didn’t make it into the book (as could be expected), but its predecessor did. A cinematic platformer…

Our Thoughts

Despite all that, this isn’t entirely new, of course. The main thing I was reminded of playing this game was Prince of Persia (how have we not covered you yet), with its fluid animation and jumping controls. Its story, however, is simpler than what you see in Another World, even though here the general gist might not be as strange (escape an alien planet), the many other bits added add to the interest, and make it a true story rather than something that drives game design.

To give an example of this, early in the game – the ‘boss’ of the first ‘level’ starts showing up in the background the moment you leave the first screen, clearly following you as you move along to meet him.

What makes this a bit more of an interesting platformer is how you deal with it. It’s not a battle, instead you run back and swing away on a vine. True, not the most difficult or creative, but it makes a change from dropping them into lava.

The whole adventure continues taking you, for lack of a better word, through an actual adventure. Cut scenes are few and in-game, with far more defined by your actions. Prescribed by the game, of course, but still more integrated than you often find in these games. And it works, making it feel much more immersive.

The other side of the game, though, is its difficulty. If you are anything like me (and please tell me you are, if only to make me feel better), the first level will take you a few goes to get right and get past. It’s not difficult, it’s just sudden to be dumped into this much danger (and this often). Even later on you may have to try the earlier screens a few times before getting through them. And that’s sort of indicative for the entire game – death is easy and while you never go back far, catching up can still take a lot of time.

Graphically, the game looks quite good for its age. The main player’s graphics look fairly realistic, similar to Prince of Persia‘s titular prince. The environments are stranger though, at times a bit too cave-like, but effective – as atmospheric as the entire game.

Final Thoughts

This is an enticing game, both because of its puzzles – manageable and just as much reliant on reflexes – and the story it aims to tell. Its difficulty is a bit higher than what we’ve got patience for now (but we found ways around that), but on the whole the game stays absolutely enjoyable.

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