There was about a decade between when I played the demo when this was brand new and actually being able to play the full thing and in that time I never lost hope that one day I'd be able to try the full thing and it did not disappoint. At first glance this might look like it's just trying to do exactly what Mario and Sonic were doing but there are a couple of things that are unique to this and if you're at all a fan of those I recommend trying this as well. Honestly, if you're only gonna play one of these and you haven't made your decision yet, I recommend this one over those. Since you're playing as a gecko you have the ability to stick to walls. Sometimes this means the actual background of the level, other times it means that you can ascend a wall and even climb upside down and there are areas that require you to master this. You have various power ups and weapons and something I greatly appreciate is that whenever you find one you can choose to use it normally or you can use it to get back a little bit of health depending on which of these you most need to proceed. The different kinds of attacks are fun and memorable and one of the best things about this is that it really does take its core concept and run with it. This truly is someone who is trapped inside a TV constantly dealing with pop culture. Smurfs attack you with gifts and (invisible, presumably for copyright reasons) Bugs Bunny eats carrots suspended in midair shortly after you touch them, necessitating you moving on very quickly. The horror segment features zombies and off brand versions of slasher icons. No area overstays its welcome and they made some really fun choices. If you watched American TV around the time this came out you will recognise so many things you saw on there and it's genuinely really engaging to get to interact with them. Controls are very easy to master and movement is fluid making the near constant platforming substantially less frustrating.
Similar to Duke Nukem 3D this was a game that did not attempt to beat Doom at its own game but instead bring a distinct different identity to it delivering FPS gameplay, and the fact that this one was forgotten probably does come down to that it just did not deliver quite enough that hadn't been seen before. The engine is fairly similar to Duke Nukem and lacks some of the most fun stuff of that one. I will say that they did a fantastic job on the vehicle combat where you can actually drive certain vehicles and fire guns and it's incredibly smooth. And they also don't overly rely on that. It does deliver on playing a martial arts flick. This was back when a number of the major video games set out to let you do in a game what you like seeing in genre flicks and like many others it absolutely excels at it. The sword is absurdly powerful but does of course also force you to take a huge risk because you have to get really close to every enemy you attack with it so there's a great cost benefit analysis when it comes to it. The various ranged weapons all have their effective uses. There was nothing that I found myself just never firing and there's some quite cool choices. The level design is cool, there are some real nail biting challenges. In one part you actually have to run on the outside of a plane flying fast through the air. I mean obviously it doesn't quite have realistic physics considering when it came out but even so yeah. One misstep and you immediately fall off the thing. That's really really fun. It's quite clear that they wanted to fit in as many cultural elements as they could and it really is impressive how much there is. It's in the music, enemy designs, environments your arsenal which includes throwing stars. I appreciate that it features outside and inside areas. The graphics are quite good, the sound design is great and the two worked together to deliver gnarly bloody brutal gore and violence.
There are definitely some things here that you have to get used to. Every level relies heavily on one or more gameplay elements that are simply allowed to overstay their welcome and without a doubt some of them feel quite awkward even if they are very interesting ideas. With that said, all of them are creative and fun. One has you going around as a kaiju. In another you're playing a board game. It also does have some issues with the platforming that make it frustrating when it doesn't have to be. At times it's difficult to tell the distance between two things you may need to jump. This explores some very mature themes for a game that is okay for young audiences. These include depression, propaganda and perception guiding our actions in the wrong direction. This does a great job of gradually introducing more complexity and giving you more abilities so you never reach a point where you're bored because there just isn't enough new cool stuff for you to adjust to and play around with. It is definitely true the Energy Ball that you use to run, jump and fly takes more getting used to than it should. It honestly feels like they were just so determined to reinvent these three common features that they refuse to let go of something that just wasn't quite as easy to use as a platformer requires it to be. You can do the same things in the first two Earthworm Jim games and there it is completely intuitive. This came out after those and so has no excuse. Basically you go into a lot of individual minds and help relieve the psychological issues that they're dealing with that are the cause of the problems they're facing. This is a wonderful message for the intended audience of trying to help people. Let's be honest we have more than enough games where the solution is finding the right face to punch and then punching it, like, super hard, dude. The graphics are quite good for the time and there's some really solid sound work helping to bring to life the quite ridiculous concepts.
Unlike the remaster of the first in the series this one does have a UI very similar to the third entry making for significantly smoother gameplay. Basically you hold down one of the mouse buttons you get several options for how you can interact with whatever you're pointing at you move the mouse to choose that one rather than having to use the hot keys(one of which I still could not tell you because I use it so rarely switched to the old setup which thankfully now does include the voice acting) and click the verbs or use the mouse wheel to scroll through. It's honestly so baffling to me that they didn't jump directly to this when making that one since they already had the perfect model for it from back in 1997. I don't know maybe it was a new Coke type situation. I appreciate that this does certain things very different from the first and the third. This one doesn't have insult sword fighting and there's less of a focus on Elaine which makes for a more different experience then what we got before and since. The humor is about the same. There's basically every single type of joke present at one point or another so you never know exactly which one you're going to get; verbal, gross out, sight gag, pop culture reference, meta etc. This has a truly “you gotta see it to believe it” ending and while I don't know for sure I can imagine it divided people, it's very much a love it or hate it and I'm firmly in the former camp. I won't give away what it is but I thought a little bit about it every day for a week after completing this. This does a good job at being a sequel building on things that were set up in the first without feeling like a retread. They clearly still had ideas; they weren't just doing it because the first one did well. This has some of the best locations, characters and puzzles. There is some offensive stereotyping albeit not quite as much and at least some of them are depicted as being good people who helped you out which can maybe help temper racism.
This was the first time that the UI was incredibly smooth and easy to use in this series. I'm not saying they could have done it sooner; I’m praising them for doing it this well the first time they were able to. Basically you hold down a mouse button over what you want to interact with three options will pop up you choose one of them by moving the onto it and letting go of the key. No more having to click the verbs on the screen. This also introduces voice acting. I honestly can't even imagine this series without these voices; I played this one before the others and have now played the remaster and special edition of the first two. Without Earl bowens raspy tones it's simply is not the same pirate LeChuck. This has a lot of my favorite characters of these three. I cannot get enough of Murray The Living skull who is still convinced that he and his kind will win despite the fact that he no longer has a body. This was also the first time that I felt emotionally engaged with one of these. I like to think of it as the first two feeling like they were made by the Monty Python crew and this one was more Edgar Wright think of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz: Funny right from the start but now there's character arcs and we actually care if someone succeeds at what they're setting out to do or not. I'm not saying the former is inherently worse but I do think that this way hits much harder and encourages more replayability and going over stuff in your head afterwards and such. There's finally actually consequence to Threepwood’s incessant incompetence and now the way you’re relating to Elaine is actually trying to make things better fixing your own screw up because you have always been the biggest problem in her life. This brings back the insult sword fighting and adds that you now have to board other pirate ships from yours in order to engage in it and you're not just doing it for an ego boost like everything you did in the first two - you're doing it to save your love.
This is not trying to be exactly the same as the trilogy and so should not be judged as such. I do think some of the changes go a little too far. I've seen some compare this Garrett to the Crow and there's definitely some truth to that it's just a bit too emo and or goth. I don't think Erin is necessarily a terrible idea but we do end up with the character who spends a lot of time talking about her pain. I think it would work a lot better if there was at least a little bit more depth there. Though I do respect that there probably is a number of sad teenage girls who vibe with this franchise. I really appreciate that this does not get completely taken over by the grappling hook and such. I was a little concerned about that when it first popped up. Also I know some people really don't like that tapping space twice and then moving in a direction allows you to move fairly fast and yet fairly quiet regardless of what material you're on. Please keep in mind the game never actually forces you to use this. It's there to open it up to people who are not yet ready to meet the, let's be honest, at times fairly intense challenge of the trilogy even on easy difficulty settings. I like most of the additions. Looking for hidden panels, breaking into a safe, that sort of thing. The story is quite engaging. I really appreciate that this doesn't undo any of the trilogy. It also doesn't expect players to know. Like, there's a couple of little tidbits for us long time fans but this could easily be the first you play. I don't think that a sequel to the trilogy, one that was very directly tied to those, is particularly likely. I just don't see how you follow up the perfect ending of Deadly Shadows other than this sort of soft reboot thing. This honestly might be the one that does the best job of finding a way to drag Garrett kicking and screaming into contact with the plot without it feeling ridiculously contrived. Let's be honest, that's always been a bit of an issue for this series.
It is true that like other works this did start out overly ambitious and end up under delivering. In my opinion what we got was still amazing. I'm not going to go too much more into detail since it's been covered quite well already. Suffice it to say the trailer seemed to promise one thing, it ended up becoming clear that they couldn't quite make that and so they instead found ways to include all the things that we saw there but in a way that they could feature. This features a well realized world that I loved exploring. It feels lived in and you get a strong sense of what it's like to actually reside in Columbia. The gameplay is satisfying and the way that you unlock an upgrade abilities over the course of it keeps it from ever getting stale. I do wish that Victoria did not feel so much like a walking plot device. Yes, it's nice that she's not just a damsel in distress but those are not the only two options. With that said I quite appreciated how we see the relationship between the two leads grow and the way that really it starts out seeming like he's her knight in shining armor and ends up being more like, well, Adam from Beauty and the Beast. The first person shooting feels fairly well realized. I found myself liking a lot of the weapons and really appreciating how each of them have very different uses. None of them attempt to just be the solution to every situation. It is kind of silly how the limitation to how much you can carry leads the game to just having it toss you literally the weapon you need in some situations. They didn't just reiterate the first two but instead went for a new thing though it is still very much about equality. I am aware that some people read this as saying that if you fight fascists then you're no better than they are. I respectfully but vehemently disagree. In my opinion it is saying that we must be careful that our revolutionary actions don't end up being as brutal as what we fight which is what happened with the French Revolution.
The coolest thing about this is probably the way that aspects change as the first person narrator changes details in the retelling. It does legitimately let you experience a lot of cool Western legends. Some of them are just pointless name drops but others do the thing that they’re infamous for and you are sometimes tasked with trying to stop them. The only positive thing I can say at all about the duel mechanic is that if you play the story mode it doesn't force it upon you all that often. I would definitely avoid the mode that is purely made up of those. Almost everything about the duels is frustrating. Probably my biggest issue with this is the fact that too often enemies blend into the background. This is obviously a problem for a game that is about you being able to spot them and open fire on them. I just feel like Where's Waldo shouldn't be an FPS. There's too little variety to the guns. I never found myself actually using a shotgun. I appreciate that they were trying to only go by what was available at the time and seemingly they also didn't want you to be able to pick up a tomahawk or a bow and arrow even as you see others use those. But they could still have done better. I haven't played the first three. It sounds like the first two are substantially better. I do not know why they dropped a bunch of features from those for this. It honestly seems like a very ill advised decision. The skill tree is nowhere near as satisfying and gameplay evolving as Dead Island by the same developer, a game that overall is inferior to this but definitely does provide much more engaging gameplay. I played all the way through the campaign of that three times not starting over mind you keeping intact all of the upgrades and such but still. This I doubt I'll play even a second time. The plot is paper thin. The ending feels too obvious and so much of this you spend bounty hunting but without the world building of Thief: The Dark Project which is also largely a series of jobs.
Played everything the developers put out up to and including this one and this was definitely the best of them. I definitely did miss some of the things they removed but the overall is superior. I'm going to go as far as to say that if this does not scare you you are not actually letting yourself be transported by it. I fully realize that different people disagree on what is the most terrifying thing. But if this does not have a strong impression on you it's because you're going out of your way not to let it get to you. You're not impressing anyone, you're just ruining the experience for yourself. A lot of the puzzles do boil down to key hunts since they did away with the inventory. Sometimes you do carry items but when you get to a place where it makes sense for you to use your character will just automatically bring it into view of the player. From what I understand this was in response to feedback and I do definitely appreciate that Amnesia the Dark Descent has a lot of complex brain teasers that revolve around this mechanic. I didn't personally think it was too many but I do really respect listening to your audience. Frictional really hit the ground running. Really the only thing of theirs that I didn't think was amazing for the time and budget was Penumbra Requiem and honestly if that one just didn't try to have anything to do with the first two parts of the trilogy I would like it a lot more but because it keeps reminding us of them without being up to the standard they set. Each time they come up with something fundamentally horrifying and with this one not only did they top their previous work as they usually do they hit on something that universally really strikes a nerve and they take a jackhammer to it. Death is thought by many to be the single thing that causes the most anxiety but as this proves it is nothing when compared to the idea of living on possibly forever in loneliness and struggling to come to terms with the reality of how trapped you are.
I have no idea how many times I've played all the way through this it's got to be at least half a dozen considering all the different things I tried. While I won't claim this is perfect, it is the best of the first three, I haven't played the fourth one yet, and there's so many things that it gets exactly right. As a RPG-FPS hybrid it is accessible enough for people who are not sold on something that's only the former and works rather well as a gateway game. This was the first role-playing game I ever tried and now I've played a dozen different ones. If you're considering this franchise I would definitely skip the second one but back to this one specifically. You’re forced to make a number of choices that hugely impact the rest of the experience. It is literally completely impossible to try everything without replaying it. There are a number of augmentations and every time you install one you have to choose between two different options. For example you can run silently or faster; the former is great for stealth the latter greatly assists you in a more combat-oriented playing style. Ultimately these are two of the major ones that you can choose for how you approach the entire thing, although I can't claim that it is equally open to both the way that Splinter Cell Blacklist is. You also upgrade abilities. At the lowest you can hardly even aim the type of gun and at the highest you're a crack shot. Given how open it is it is actually possible to go all the way through this and barely at all use any violence and it doesn't try to force you into doing something that truly does not feel right for you. Sometimes you're forced to get very creative but it is actually doable. I have never struggled so much with what I wanted to keep in my inventory and what to leave behind. This includes but isn't limited to that some weapons are much larger than others which of course means you can carry multiple small weak ones or a few really large ones that end fights extremely quickly.
