Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

I really wish there were more games like this one out there. I understand that gamers get their fun of various things. To me, games are, where most of the creative folks went to earn a living. It is very refreshing not to be bothered with character/weapons customization and instead beeing hit by flawless gameplay, fantastic graphics and audio and simply superb direction and storytelling. Much was said about red dead redemption - but senua´s sacrifice does all that (and because of not getting into millions of hats and suits seems to do a better job in all the other departments). Let´s hope for a shift in production towards 20-30 hours gameplay without the the crap for the self-exploiting social media beeings, with interesting cultural content. The problem is the price...because they have to compete against the big brothers, they cannot release it for 20/30 $. Anyway, it is now on sale here, I grapped it (I am very pleased with this purchase - long-term) and so should you - even if you don´t play it, seriously - these developers should get your money!!!

This game came as a surprise. It's a story oriented one with good music, some puzzles and a bit of fighting mixed in a good proportion. The overall world is dark, gloomy just the way I like it. Highly recommended.

Beautiful cinematic game with interesting visuals, a very unique audio and storytelling, I saw all of that in the trailers plus very dynamic fights so I was immediately invested. Unfortuately, I agree with the main criticisms most people have: The fights look very pretty and dynamic, but when playing you'll notice that they're repetitive because the combat system is too simplistic, just dodge and stun-lock your enemies, rinse and repeat, no challenge whatsoever, no way to improve, no different enemies or attack patterns, even the bosses are boring. This was a huge dissappointment as this was the aspect I was looking forward to the most. The game is also horribly optimized, I have a very modern and powerful setup but I still had to run the game on high instead of very high, and then I noticed some hickups so I lowered it to medium, then to low... And they still happened so I lowered everything to the minimum only to discover that in certain parts of the game there will always be lag, with a game so visually intense having things blur or freeze every once in a while is dizzing, these issues happen less with the lowest graphics so I went with those which is a shame because I wasn't able to enjoy the strongest part of the game: The visuals/sfx. Related to optimization I have to speak about the general lack of polish, for example near many walls or obstables you can move the camera in such a way that you see through the wall and can see what's below or ahead, things like that really break the immersion which is the second best thing this game has going for it. Finally, my personal opinion. The game is constantly changing, you're supposed to be always lost, this led to half of my playthough being me looking around, stressed because I didn't look at a torch in a certain direction so a path would open or similar things, I know this is part of the puzzle and narrative aspects but I don't think it translates well into gameplay. The game is also too short for the price.

Nija theory made again. a very re-playable game. excellnet visuals and sound fx. owesome motion capture and an epic story.

Hellblade was very exciting to play. (The first game in years, that i bought not in a sale) Interisting character and level design. It is actually so good, that i walked most of the time. The sound and music design is the best i have heared so far, and im playing games since 30 years now. The Combatsystem is a one of kind. So far i thought that the Arkham games had the best combat mechanics, but Hellblade changed my mind. True you dont have the complexity of the Arkham games, but instead you have a very very dynamic and fast paste combatsystem. Evading and positioning are the key. That alone wouldnt be enough to change my mind. Hellblade really shines with its animations in combat. Every hit of an enemy gives you facialexpression on senua and she tumbles. Enemys react on blows very firm. Its hard to describe, but it has something in common with the souls games, where your own skills make you better. Even after playing for 6 hours i discovert new fighting technics like rushing in and making a leap, right in the face of the enemy. Some complained about too few enemy variation. Yeah you got like 10 diffrent enemy types, but every one needs a diffrent tactic. As the game progresses further the enemy types shuffle and you have to decide, which one to attack first, while evading the others. Further more the game has an interesting auto difficulty option. In short the Combat system is extremly satisfying. Fighting is only one small puzzlestone of the whole game. The main part is discovering and story, which is actually very very intristing. Have fun with this one of kind and awesome game. Thank you Ninja Theory for this great experince.