Kona

Not sure what this was supposed to be... It tried to be many things and failed at all of them. There's a detective story. You're looking for clues and piecing together what happened... but nothing interesting or coherent develops. At some point though you read something and you know exactly where this is going and you get the story spoonfed by dream sequences that are also explained (cause otherwise you wouldn't recognize anybody.) There's a survival game. But you're never really in any danger of freezing to death so there's no enjoyment of planning and calculating your next move through the cold. You just know you're going to make it anyway. There's exploration. But not that much to explore. And not really much you can do. You are very limited in what you can do. There's puzzles. Well, one puzzle is there. And it's not really a puzzle because it's extremely straight-forward. And there's one treasure hunt which is also extremely straight-forward. There is also some shooting and fighting, which, however is rare and nothing to write home about. One thing the game does get right is the atmosphere. You really do feel cold outside and cozy at the fire. And then there's the cheesy "philosophical" supernatural element including the awful ending sequence where the game turns to action somewhat (though as with everything else - not really.) Oh yes and white people are bad. Especially white men. Except when they fight the Kaiser, then they are good, cause the Kaiser is German and that's even worse than white. Besides not really liking the narrator's voice, I think I *could* have enjoyed this *a lot* if it had stuck with being an atmospheric exploration detective mystery story (and if there were a strong story) with some survival elements on top.

Takes place in the back country of Quebec which is the french speaking province of Canada. They captured the essence of 1970's Quebec quite nicely. While there are some great little gameplay elements and a decent story line, the voice acting isn't all that great. It will occupy you for a good 10 hours or so. Could be worth a replay. On sale, this is a must buy!

There's a lot to like about the open world in this game, and the pacing and atmosphere is great, but the story is way too short. Also I think the narration should have been first person, not third person.

How you move over the landscape, gives you this nice semi- freedoom. Along with the way of using vehicles, it builds up a realistic atmosphere at a level you don't see often. If you're after some gun action, it's probably not your game. The few combats you will encounter, makes you best off avoiding them, again, making the game more realistic in style. Interesting choice of supernatural story to a game, made really well if you ask me. I just wished the whole thing was longer, it felt as if I had just pushed through half the game when the credits showed up. (Based on my assumption when looking at the worldmap that is). Do I dare say it could have been made up to twice as long and still maintain its quality? Absolutely. Lastly, it has a good narrator voice in it.

I quite enjoyed Kona with it's style of gameplay. It was however clear that the game lacked certain useful mechanics, as you can also find pointed out in other reviews such as: a clean and easy to use inventory, clear step-by-step progress tracking, journal functions and then some. I did enjoy the approach though. The vehicle functions weren't too shabby and I was a bit surprised at how well it worked. A minor set-back was perhaps the inability to drive off reads with your pick-up truck. Alas the main good thing was the story, but even that seemed to be cut short in the end scene. I do hope this isn't the last we see of Kona as it has potential to become great.