Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

This is a game so let's start with the gameplay. Nothing ground-breaking and nothing really special even considering it's all old hat. The beginning of the game nearly put me to sleep. Exploration is meh. The only good part of the exploration is in the visuals. It's really simplistic as far as the "puzzles" go. You look around for runes to open doors and frame shattered images to modify your surroundings. Blah. Combat is ok. You have three attacks, block, and evade. There is one really slick feature of combat I won't mention as it might be considered a minor spoiler. Hint: Not the mirror. Where the game shines is in telling a story. The audio and video presentation are truly special. The story is good as well. Senua as a character is really impressive. Her psychological demons are really what makes this whole game work. I don't like the 5 star rating system as it doesn't provide enough granularity. I give this game a B-, C+ Pros: Stunning presentation. Impressive characters and good story. Cons: Very short(Hence the 30$ price tag). Repetitive gameplay that is a bit trite. I suppose all gameplay is trite these days but this just felt especially dull. People really need to stop giving games more credit than they are due just because they are pretty. This is pretty good. I would say it's in a tier above walking simulator type games.

I love this game. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. The graphics are spectacular (runs buttery smooth on both my R9 370 and 1060 rigs), the music (by Andy LaPlegua of COMBICHRIST) is subtle, gorgeous and many times terrifying and the story is unlike anything I've ever seen in gaming. It's the closest thing I've seen to a playable movie in quite a while. At first glance one might say this is just a really pretty button-smasher; the fighting mechanics are simple enough that one might almost consider them an oversight. I mean sure, you fight...I'm most reminded of that old iOS unreal engine showcase INFINITY BLADE; guard, dash, slash and hack. Those are your options. However I don't think the fighting is supposed to be the star of the show here. The star is the rich, detailed story and the beautiful-yet-dreadful setting. It gives me a bit of an old-school CASTLEVANIA vibe actually...where you want to pause the action sometimes just to stare at the scenery. At $30 you really can't go wrong. Ninja Theory's goal was to create a top-class game on a shoestring budget costing gamers half of comparable titles and I'd say they accomplished that and then some! All in all a wonderful experience and I can't wait to see what they do next!

The story is straightforward (that's a strength), and masterfully delivered. The mental health issues are quite believable, well-presented and visceral; playing the game feels emotionally difficult - again, a strength if this is what you want. The mental health specialists they consulted certainly did a good job. Senua is both simple and complex, acts with and without reason, but is always believable. The Norse mythology is also accurate - if not detailed - , and generally presents the dominant academic interpretation. Besides storytelling, the game has long walking sections, long walking puzzle-solving and short combat encounters. The combat is basic, with moderately accurate feedback, but gets the job done. It is helped by the fact that The Voices give tactical advice - good and bad, but the useful information is mostly discernible. The walking controls and camera, however, are simply abysmal. Turning is sluggish, and the camera is stuck, aimed at the back of the character's head, zoomed in. You can't see below the character's waist. There is method to this madness - it does help immersion greatly, by portraying both the character's restricted point of view and giving a feel to her helplessness. However - bad controls are still bad controls, and these are exceptionally poor. Also, the game doesn't have multiple save slots. Every failure is counted and, after failing too many times, the game will have to be restarted (Ironman). Not having an option for this is, again, immersive and, again, mechanically poor. In conclusion, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice follows its goals with singleminded devotion, sacrificing the game part for the experience. And it's an amazing experience. It's quite clear-cut: if you don't care for the poor state of the game mechanics, and are fine with the emotional effort in playing the game, you will likely have an outstanding time. Otherwise, steer clear.

Incredible game about exploration of mind of people who's brain can simulate incredible amount of information and detail. So much information that it often becomes a burden, or even in Senua's case, living nightmare. Biutiful graphics and glourious sound, makes this possible and makes this game one of the games which will be remebered. Congratulations to the develpers!

The visuals are impressive and the atmosphere and the scenarios, breath taking. Game play wise, the game is short but quite intense, and it can be disturbing and scary at times. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The combat is one of the best parts, it's very intuitive, easy to learn, but with depth enough to make it interesting. Also, the puzzles are very clever and very well done. Although, i found some small physics glitches (sometimes you see things shaking weirdly), and there was a couple of times that I got a bit stuck in the game, overall, it's an amazing game. Definitely one of the best games I've played in many years. It's very important that you watch the feature on the game once you finish it. It's quite eye opening, it will make you understand a lot of things from the game. Just don't watch if before you played as it will spoil the whole game.