Deponia

While Deponia has it's ups and downs it inevitably became one of my favorite adventure games of all time. I understand a lot of oldschool players don't appreciate Daedalic's approach on the genre much, but luckily they'll be left in the past playing their decrepit games over and over. I find it refreshing that Daedalic is taking a genre that was just about lost and making it new again. Telltale is fighting the good fight too, without a doubt, but I find their newer games to be either too traditional to a fault or too streamlined. Deponia itself sets itself apart by it's setting and atmosphere, though it keeps in tune with the kind-of-funny-kind-of-serious attitude we've come to basically expect from every good point and click at this point. It has good system of combining inventory and decently challenging puzzles which will keep veterans thinking as well as being accessible to new comers of the genre. The story line is interesting and unique, though cut short to leave room for the sequel. Characters are generally interesting, if a little static, though I despise the main character Rufus, which is funny considering my high regard for the game. It started with his voice and quickly became his personality. I just got the sequel so hopefully it holds up to this new standard Daedalic has set.

The only downside was the fact that only the 3rd install worked completely, and the saved games were not compatible - which is only found out by restarting the whole game from the beginning. After that all worked, including the mini-games. It has a certain atmosphere, which I found to my liking. The puzzles made my mind's abstraction cores to sweat, hard, but eventually figureable. Just enough to keep up my stubbornness on it's toes, but not too hard to give up and look for the hints / walk-thoroughs. A lovable one. Maybe a bit short, but never a dull moment - well written. I hardly can wait the 2nd part to finish the installation...

There are some serious bugs that won't allow you to progress. Happened to me twice. I had to download a hex editor to fix the first bug, and then download a savegame from the official developer's site. They acknowledged the bugs but they never repaired them. Plain horrible. The game also loses audio multiple times and you have to click LITERALLY 10 times on an object on your inventory for it to pop. I got so annoyed that I could not finish the game. It had lost all the fun. A pity because it is a very well achieved Point&Click game, the puzzles were decent and the art is nice.

the game is addictive but puzzles are difficult. Very beautiful Hand-drawn graphics .

This game is such an incredible piece of work that I'm genuinely shocked they managed to make more than one, let alone FOUR. A comedy game that isn't funny despite the dozens of attempts; a puzzle game that has some of the worst puzzles I've ever had the misfortune of trying to solve; an adventure game that feels like a chore to try and slog through. I managed to finish the second game before giving up on this utter disgrace of a series. One of the biggest issues of this game is the writing. An adventure game can be clunky, it can be ugly, it can have dumb puzzles, so long as the writing is enjoyable. The writers clearly think they're quite clever, seen by the audacity of them to compare themselves to the likes of "Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Matt Groening", so it's quite a pity that they can't fill the boots they bought. The worst example, without a doubt, is Rufus. I hate Rufus. He is without a doubt the worst protagonist I have had the displeasure of playing. The worst. He is irritating, rude, abrasive, mean, a bully, a liar, and has no redeemable qualities. You may think that it means he'll grow *into* a better person, but nope. You almost get the impression they're going to try that at the end of this game, but then you go into the next one and he's just as big of a dick as before. He doesn't change, or grow, or learn. He's just the biggest dick in the world. He deserves every bad thing that's happened to him, and worse. The awful, unfunny jokes just emphasises what an abominable person he is (and, I'd argue, reflect very poorly on the writers). The only positive I'll say is that it looks good. That's it. I think that's what they used to sucker people in, the pretty art. But for anyone who's brain isn't soup, that won't hide the true ugliness behind it. Do not play this game, or any of it's successors. Save your money.