Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

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.

This game is short, indeed. And there are repetitive parts and visual riddles, that might feel dull. But besides this, hell, what a game! No, wait a moment, we are not talking about the game, the visuals, the controls, we are talking about the experience! Do you know, what I mean? When was the last time, a game touched your very soul? When was the last time you could realy feel the reality of the character? And when was the last time a game played with you, fouled you, ignored you? This game is one single experience from start to the end. If you can, play it within one session. Live through this nightmare and embrace the beauty of the presentation, the characters, the voice acting and everything else and put away any expectations and demands like "I dont want to see the same spot twice, I dont want to redo the riddle". Just dive into it and become completely absorbed.

Amazing, truly intense experience. Wear headphones, turn the volume up and dive in to Senua's nightmare. The combat is flud and satisfying, the enemies are menacing and the Bosses are terifying. The graphics are excellent and combine with the audio to perfectly draw you in to the warped world of the game.