If you have never been interested in walking sims, or had a bad experience with one, this is the game that will change your mind. Although calling it a "walking sim" doesn't do it justice, because it has more interactivity than most. What Remains of Edith Finch is a story about stories. It almost has a bit of a "Big Fish" vibe to it. You are Edith, the youngest of the Finch family, and you go through your old house to find answers to secrets that were kept, and to learn the fates of all the Finches who died in your cursed family. It's a series of immersive stories, each one unique in some way. Although there is only one button (not counting moving and zoom-in), each story has some sort of interesting mechanic. The storytelling is extremely moving, and combined with the haunting music and atmosphere, was more emotional than 99% of games and movies I've ever seen. The world design is fantastic, with excellent details to make it feel like a realistic house that people lived in. It's only 2 hours long, but I have no trouble recommending it, even at full price. This is an amazing work of art on every level, and as a whole. This is an example of what games can truly be, if they dare to be different. This is a perfect game, and one that you should play.
When I first played Project Origin in 2010, I called it a terrible sequel, a bad horror game, but a decent action game on its own. Replaying it fifteen years later, the "decent action" hasn't stood the test of time, and I'd amend my statement to call it a "quite weak" action game. If you liked FEAR, then get your hopes way down for this. Everything that made FEAR amazing is extremely dulled down in Project Origin, and the game suffers significantly from being a console-focused title. The game's "horror" just falls flat. Unlike FEAR, Project Origin couldn't get me to jump even once. The jump scares are cheap and poorly placed, with lame music cues. The overall atmosphere never feels as creepy. The new paranormal thing is... an awkward mind controlled tentacles that come out of the floor? For reasons. The story is stupid, and isn't worth mentioning in a 2,000-char review. As for gameplay: it still has slow-motion and melee attacks. Combat feels clunkier, with a 3-second sprint that keeps pushing you forward for a few meters after you let go of the button. The ability to "flip over" objects for cover will probably go unused (and often does little more than turn a file cabinet 90°.) Weapons feel and sound weaker, and the shotgun is pathetic. AI is okay, but too often stifled by constrictive level design. The one area that has any improvements is graphics, but it also suffers some setbacks. We get some ambient occlusion, higher-res textures, and some decent lighting effects. But on the flipside, shadows are worse (the flashlight doesn't cast shadows), effects and physics are lessened, and some new graphical "features" just look bad. Depth of field is finicky and ugly, and can't be turned off - nor can lens effects like bloom and water on the screen. The HUD is particularly offensive, with a permanent frame around the screen, a crosshair hit indicator, and enemies that glow brightly when you turn on slow motion. Don't waste your time. There was only one FEAR game.
See "POLYGON Western" in the Unity store. The game dev didn't even make a map; they just used the asset pack's demo scene for all 6 levels. I don't have a problem with using asset packs, if there is a game behind it. But there is no game here. This is nothing. This is a demo scene with some guns. This feels like a project from a first time developer who spent an afternoon experimenting with the Unity engine and called it a day. It consists of running around, being chased by hoards, and shooting [x amount] of enemies to win the level. That is literally all. Each level takes between 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The entire game took me 17 minutes to finish. I am absolutely baffled that this was allowed onto the GOG store; I thought there was at least some curation here, but I guess they have given up.
