It is a roguelike, I get it. I am supposed to die, which counts as part of the learning experience, I get that too. What I don't get is where my motivation is supposed to come from when all the game is doing is to punish the player, mainly with useless loot. I've had countless runs without finding any ammo. I've had countless runs without finding any food. I understand that in a game like this there will be shortages the player needs to deal with and to overcome with careful ressource management and ingenuity. But how does one manage ressources if there are none? The game really is entertaining for some time and does a lot of things right. But when the games RNG is that flawed and the game is letting you die over and over simply by letting you starve to death time and again, then starting over becomes a chore and finally a frustration. I can see why people like this game, but do yourself a favour and watch a couple of gameplay videos before you decide to buy.
POLLEN is a very pretty looking game and I am sure it looks amazing with a VR set. But this is also the problem with this game, since after finishing it in less than 4.5 hours (and I took my time) I came to the conclusion that I've just wasted 20 Euro for a very prolonged VR demo. The story itself begins promising. These are the 90s, although we are in an alternate reality where the two power blocks learned to combine their resources to explore space instead of jumping at each others throat. On a research station on Titan, something unspecified happens and you are send there as a replacement. The story unfolds very slowly and mostly through audio tapes and a view notes. Unfortunately, nothing really gets explained and you get only a view hints about what happened before your arrival. And the ending... well, in my eyes you need quite some audacity to sell something like this as "conclusion". Nothing gets explained, nothing really gets a satisfying conclusion. POLLEN was an impulse buy, I knew nothing about the game, although I did expect something along the lines of SOMA. But the game is little more than a walkin simulator. You walk around, listen to some tapes, play with stuff, solve some very basic puzzles and then the game is over. One of the selling points of this game is "interactivity", but "interactivity" actually means that you open locker doors, play with switches that do nothing or move a forklift a couple of centimeters and kick chairs. You can pick up stuff and here "interactivity" means that you can shake those things. And when you get a bit more creative and try things like putting a beer can into a microwave, then nothing happens at all. I am under the strong impression that the devs focused all their energy on the VR part and put things like the story on the "finish when there is still time" list. Unfortunately, there seemingly was not much time left when the VR part was finished. On the plus side, the game has nice bees though.
The game does indeed start promising and the story raises interest. But the problem is that the game repeats itself over and over again. You will enter a new cave, the barrier to the next cave will open only if a certain amount of biomass, aka plants, is detected and your job is to exploit the traits of different plant species in order to support the growth. This soon becomes boring, because cave after cave you basically do the same thing. Sure, there are other repetitive games out there, but while some of them deliver a "just chill an go with the stream" kind of relaxing experience, WM completely fails to do so.
RTS is a strange little game. You will find yourself in a simplistic world of scattered geometric shapes. Your goal is to fly towars the sinking sun, which is powering your plane, until your plane runs out of juice or frontally hits one of the (often moving) obstacles. You can collect extras that for instance let the sun shine a bit longer or allow you to make jumps. RTS offers secondary objectives like making a number of jumps or travelling a certain distance. Reaching them will unlock upgrades or decals. What sounds boring becomes very addictive and has a very high "just ONE more run" factor. Sometimes the game feels almost hypnotic when you have a good run, letting you flick your plane to the left and to the right, accompanied by that "WOOOOSH!" when you miss obstacles only by a hair. Why only 3 Stars? A) RTS will not entertain for long periods of time. It is more like a sweet snack that you only want in small doses. B) Secondary goals that let the game become a chore. I could not make 20 barrel rolls in one run, even after almost a hundret runs, because the the course is just too crammed and the controls feel a bit imprecise. Sometimes the plane will do his barrel roll and sometimes it will not and thats just not good enough. In case you like games that become a chore, have a higher frustration tolerance or better reflexes than I have - feel free to add another star.
RotH is a horror adventure game with a dense atmosphere, an story that keeps you involved and great graphics. It was the game that made me buy my first 3DFX card. RotH begins at a mansion, only to let you plunge into a world that becomes more and more unreal. You will encounter strange and dangerous beasts, a beautiful 3D environment and weird characters. You will fight with conventional weapons, such as handguns, but also with magic daggers and (my personal favourite) even a magic muzzle-loader. Some of the riddles are hard to solve - although most of the time this is because you missed a switch or something similar. Fortunately this is not the case very often, most of the time you can solve everything you encounter by using your brain and considering the hints. Combat is quite fair, though it can be a bit challenging sometimes. But if you have ever played a FPS, you will have no real problems here. The gameplay is completed by FMVs, which do a good job to keep you involved with the story and the two main characters. RotH is a great game, if not to say a gem, worth buying and playing. Alas, there is one major flaw I just can not overcome, even after all this time - the terrible ending of the game. The story reaches a gratifying end... only to take one final turn that changes everything and leave you behind thinking "Wtf? WTF? W T F? I went through all the hassle for THIS?" and with a shallow feeling. Which is a pity, considerin how great this game is otherwise.
