Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

I seriously can't believe the amount of one star ratings I see on this page. This game is amazing. The puzzles are great, the fights are challenging but not to the point of getting frustrating, the graphics and art style are otherworldly, the plot is truly engaging, and the overall message of the story is great. Maybe people putting 1 star ratings are just classic "gamers", but if you enjoy a well written story with amazing graphics (like the games by Quantic Dream or Remedy), then you'll enjoy this game.

Wow. I just finished Senua's sacrifice, and can safely say it's one of the most unique, immersive gaming experiences I've ever had. What first drew me to the title was recommendations online about the quality of the graphics. They weren't wrong. Beautiful and haunting environments, and amazing animation and detail of the main character. Some of the credit must also go to the actress who performed the motion capture. The story sucked me in, and I found myself driven to forge ahead on Senua's behalf. Amazing work done to capture what the "voices inside your head" might sound like. I found myself so absorbed in the game, during one of the last battles, the combination of beautiful graphics, the thumping music, and the overwhelming strong will to prevail for senua.. I snapped out of the immersion for a split second and literally said to myself "This is one of the best games I've ever played". Watching the making of video after playing made me realise the real respect paid to the source material, and thought that Ninja theory put into this project. Well done.

A very good game, deeply immersive and disturbing. Visuals and audio are excellent (headphones are strongly reccomended, for optimal immersion in the main character.) Very good work, Ninja Theory!

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!