Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood

This one surprised me a bit - it's one of the best Artifex Mundi games I've ever played. It's still quite short and simple hidden-object point&click following well-known schemes, but it's also beautifully designed, has relatively interesting puzzles and quite decent story. It has also darker atmosphere then the previous one, however it's still Artifex-horror, which means you can actually play with kids being around ;)

This is my first review ever of a video game. I've been gaming for almost 30 years of my life, and with the advent of this digital age allowing us all to write our thoughts for the rest to read, you might wonder, why start now? I'm a firm believer that reviews are almost never good for the video game industry. What's the best method then (apart from downloading a demo) to see if one would potentially like a game? Go to YouTube, watch somebody playing the game for a few minutes and if you like what you see, trust your guts. But I wanna write this as a letter of appreciation for the devs of this game (hope one of them reads it). This game is a breath of fresh air amid the overly complicated mechanics of the gazillion RPGs churned out every year. This game felt to me like a very atmospheric walk in the woods where you feel every step and enjoy every gaze of the environment. No need of 100+ hours of game time, no need of ray-tracing or multiple g-buffers and shaders to show something nice, no need of complicated tutorials to teach you the ins and outs. Just you, your laptop and a mouse. Are you still reading and haven't bought it. Ok, here's more: killer atmosphere, moody music, engrossing story, beautiful art, excellent pacing, relaxing puzzles and excellent price. Wait until night, pour yourself a glass of red wine and let the game take you down the role of a forty-something year-old female detective in a supernatural adventure. You won't regret it. The only complain I have is that this game hits so much perfection in its genre, that I'm almost sure it'll be very difficult to replicate in their upcoming outings. Hope they can prove me wrong.

Another evening with a friend and the second Enigmatis game in a trilogy completed. To start off let me make it clear that the sequel follows the original in most regards: staying strong where the latter was, but also repeating its predecessor's weak points as far as I'm concerned. The visuals are still very nice; kept is a style similar to the original, they look even better at times, perhaps due to the knowledge there are supernatural elements at play from the get-go, which allows the scenery to be more... lively, so to speak. Either way, visuals remain the game's strongest point for me. The story has a similar problem to the original: it starts nicely, but quickly the mystery is gone are rather than uncovering the truth, you're just working to complete further objectives. There's no 'who' or 'why', but rather 'how': how do I get inside... where do I find what I need... how do I grab that item. It's not about some grand mystery, but just progression through the game, which I think is a wasted potential, especially given the location of the game. Coupled with predictability, it just isn't what it could've been. The riddles feel a bit more chellenging than in the original and crossing items off the list is also tweaked to the point that you sometimes need to collect one item to use in finding another, which adds a bit to the gameplay of "object piles" that you have to get through to complete the game. These piles still feel rather random, but that can't be helped. A bit on the annoying side is that about 80% of times the item you need to progress is usually in the same location or not particularly far, which felt a tad uninspired. But the riddles do seem less obvious than in the original, so there's always that. Overall it's a good sequel; if you liked the original, there's a high chance you'll like this one as well. It did keep me interested throughout most of the playthrough, but - much like the first game - it isn't a title I'm likely to replay.

No Pixel hunting at all this time around trying to find those pesky click detection boxes for items. Also movement was far easier and superior to the original with access to move between areas using the map. Just slightly let down by the age of the graphics at times and whilst the map shows where actions need to be undertaken the map area may actually contain a couple of locations making it tedious to determine where an item needs to be undertaken before determining what it is that needs to be undertaken.