South of the Circle

I enjoyed it myself. If you are expecting non stop button mashing and grinding for xp, this ain’t for you. But if you like an engaging, emotional story, that is set in a real historical background, that also makes you reflect and think about choices, and decisions, you will be delighted with this game! And I very much enjoy the animation and artwork, the work and research that was done to be accurate with the time period, and what was happening at the time. Overall, I am very leased with the result!

This is a very weird one. I see positive reviews here, praising the look and feel of the game, and I can see why. I also see some negative reviews, complaining about the game's "style" and characters, and again, I can see why. Sailing the story with emotion-based choices was at first very interesting experiment. I like being showed problems and being asked questions, especially if I wouldn't think of that myself. But choosing emotions instead of "proper" responses make your character's re/action very obscured, and lots of times outright surprising. As in "I didn't want THAT to happen!". Luckily (with or without irony), your choices don't really matter. The story is a train on tracks, the tracks are laid out, and you can either ride along, or get off. Among the choices the game remembers is "do you drink your tea with sugar?", for crying out loud. I don't, and court-martial me for it. Your choices don't even influence the dialogue following them. I hit a spot in the game where Clara responds to two very different calls from Peter with the exact same response in the same tone and everything. One of the calls fits with the response well, the other doesn't. And that's just lazy. Talking about Peter and Clara, and well - every character I met - I didn't really build any connection to any of them. Not that I disliked them, but especially the main heroes were really colour-less taste-less odour-less blobs of pixels. Being products of their era, seen and judged by standards of today... I don't really want to be around them. I loved the voices, however. Too bad they are attached to... (gestures wildly) that. I don't know if the art style is deliberate choice, or a choice out necessity, and I don't mind the style per se, but- yea, I was impressed that Peter leaves footprints in snow, however I was equally let down when characters stand ankles-deep in rock or float knee-high above their shadow. Not good.

I picked this up as a freebie in a GOG giveaway and had a fantastic time with it. The art style is simplistic but very pleasing and certainly helps to create an impactful atmosphere - especially when paired with the music which is fantastic and deserves a special mention. The gameplay is somewhat minimal, and could perhaps be a sticking point for some people: you guide the protagonist through the landscape on foot bar for a couple of short driving sections, and there are a few items to interact with along the way, but the vast majority of your time will be spent engaged in conversation with the other characters. As with the music, the voice acting in this game is mesmerisingly good - just as well seeing as so much of the game is spent in conversation! During a conversation, you get to choose how to reply but instead of your typical dialogue tree where you are presented with the different response options up front and pick which one you want to go with, here you pick from symbols representing emotions. For example, you may get a choice to pick either an enthusiastic response, a negative response or a panicked response. Because you only see the symbols, you're never sure what the main character will actually say, and while that is quite refreshing and can lead to some unexpected twists in the middle of a conversation, it can also feel a little jarring when a piece of dialogue comes out of left field and takes you on an unexpected/unwanted tangent. I completed this in a couple of afternoon sessions, playing at a leisurely pace; quite often stopping for several minutes to enjoy the landscape and hauntingly beautiful music. If you are looking for a relatively slow-paced adventure and can accept that this is not an action packed button masher, then you really can't go wrong with giving this title a go. It achieves what it sets out to achieve, and does it very well. If you can pick this up for less than £15 it's an absolute bargain.

The game is a walking simulator, you can "choose" some dialogues but is more the atitude you deliver in whatever the main character will say, there are decisions but we can talk about that later. The main character is a british university professor and a metheorologist. The game is divided is 2 parts: one is about a tesis that the main character is making but he got stuck, he also meets another professor who is a woman who obviously the main character falls in love, there are connotations about cold war, feminism and bad parenting. The second is about the main protagonist getting into an airplane accident with a partner in the middle of nowhere in antarctica and you have to stumble between bases until you get what is going on an looking for a way out. SPOILERS Your decisions in how you manage the relationship with the girl are a lie if you are "moraly" correct. I did half and half but it amused me how it was invalidated my choosing of the color of the house and the sugar i take in my tea, making the main character an corroborated git if you play like the devs think a man in this era should have, or a delusional liar if you choose a moraly correct answer invalidating any of those, it felt like playing Emily is away again. The antartic part is better as you have more control of the main character and don't suddenly says that i shooted the soviet man or i was whining all the way to the bases so i take my only winning of surviving. Conclusion, the game wants to tell a story and your influence is minimal. Haft of it is about telling how bad men where in the cold war and the other half a surviving story. My advice? Be a total asshole at least it will fit the story undermining less your choices.