On the top of my favorite games list. Innovative concept, immersive play style, a story that changes according to your decisions, you really feel like you are there. Exploring the memories is a very special experience, but really feels plausible. There is not too many things you can do in the memories, but still enough to have some sort of puzzling challenges. A way of solving puzzles I never saw before. With the sound effects and graphics and ways to explore it's really has it's own, special atmosphere. And it also contains many philosophical thoughts about our future and technology life, also makes you think about the meaning of life. I really liked it. The game performance btw is also very good, I was playing this with "High" graphics settings on my laptop with a Geforce MX250 and it was running very smoothly. Good job Playmestudio! Great game. Definitely worth the full price, I would even pay more. Nowadays, with the thousands of games on the market, game studios really dont' have it easy. I think we should support the developers of really good games much more.
First: don't expect this to be a pure (Point&Click) Adventure, it's mainly an Action-(Adventure)-Game. It has a story, but you have to fight and escape or hide very often. But if considering this it's an awesome and epic game with incredible detailed graphics, good voice acting, many many scary moments (I definitely would add the Tag "Horror" to the game!) and an atmospheric soundtrack. The game length is, for this type of game, in my opinion also quite good. I beated it after about 17 hours. Definitely worth the full price. I got it for free on Epic but decided to buy it again on GOG, wanting to support their great work. (And I anyway don't like the Epic client..) So all in all the game is great "fun", emotional, scary and partly also quite challenging and great historical background (sure still fantasy) and setting. But it also has it not so good parts, even I gave 5 stars, but it's still very joyful to play: Sometimes it doesn't feel quite immersive, like for example (maybe mini spoilers ahead!) you have to hide from the soldiers who are searching the house for someome, but then just standing around and talking .. "luckily" giving you enough time to escape from behind.. (okaay..) Generally how the soldiers acting is not so realistic .. sometimes remind me on Skyrim's "Must have been the wind" :D But we all still loved Skyrim, isn't it? :) Also it's sometimes not quite clear what you have to do. But you will figure out after while, don't worry. Prepare to die several times. If that doesn't matter for you, then this is the right game for you.
I enjoyed playing this game. The story is good, the atmosphere is still quite "broken sword like", even though it is 3D you still feel like in a broken sword game. The riddles are not too hard and most times logic, with some few exceptions where you have to try the same action another time or you think you already tried, but just another type of action is needed (like the view action instead of the use action). The graphics are, for that time, partly quite nice, party a bit boring .. one reason, why I only give 4 stars. The controls are really a bit annoying, but I was getting used to after a while. If you can use a game controller - use it, it will make controlling the game more easy. It has been ported from the PS console, changing it to point&click or another interface type would cost too much, I guess. So they mapped the gamepad controls to the keyboard, which really needs some time to get used to. But apart from some few scenes, where the right timing is needed, you don't have to rush, so controlling the game with the keyboard feels okay after a while. The voices and music are typical "broken sword", which both will give you a bit of a classic feeling. All in all I liked the game, and would even give it 5 stars, if there would not be the bad controls and partly not so nice graphics. For me it was about 17 hours of fun and solving puzzles, as I basically did not use any walkthrough. Using a walkthrough you will finish the game much faster for sure. But it's all solvable. If you just stay patient and trying different things you can solve them all without having to use a solution.
In my opinion a very enjoyable, challenging and atmospheric puzzle game with nice story integration. All in all the main game (without DLCs) took me about 33 hours to play through without walkthrough, where I enjoyed almost every minute of it. The game also has it's not so good sides indeed, but 90% of the game I really found joyful. So on the good side: + Great graphics + Challenging puzzles, but fair and always able to find a way out with logic or "creative" thinking + Well I would say "nice" story integration, while not perfect and not always logic, it still gives you a part of the game's atmosphere + Great atmosphere + The chance for a "dead-lock" situation is very low + nice sound effects The neutral side: o There is some music, but I would not really call it music. But it's okay o Indeed there is much profanity in this game, but that's part of the protagonist's personality, so for me it's okay :) The negative side: - There are some few situations where, with bad luck, you really can stuck and have to restart the level - Checkpoint saving ... I personally really did not like that, because it means you have to complete a puzzle before you can save the game .. which in later levels can take more than an hour.. Most time it's not a big loss, as, if you already know how to solve the puzzles, you can usually redo the steps in about 5 minutes, but there are also some puzzle elements which needs accurate moving and/or timing, where it's really annoying if you can not save and have to redo it, if you need to quit the game.. But all in all I would buy this game again and I even rebought this game for the full price to support the, in my opinion, developer's great work. Thanks for given us that game. Perfect for people seeking out for more after Talos Principle or Portal :) It's not the same .. sure! .. it's not that perfect .. also sure! .. but it's still totally worth buying and playing :)
When I first started to play Machinarium I thought it will be like other games by Amanita, yeah will it has the typical Amanita flair, but the difficulty level is not what I have expected. But the puzzles are all (somehow) logical and if you really stuck you can use the integrated, wonderful hint system. The graphics are pure artwork, creative and a joy to see, as I already expect from a Amanita Design Game :) You dive into a imaginary fantastic world of machines where you have to figure what actually you should do. But step by step you will figure out more about what to do and also more about what happened, before you started the game :) The graphics resolution is quite static, as everything is handdrawn. As the graphics are not vector but images the upscaled screens may look a little bit more low-res, but still give you a nice experience. I had some issues sometimes, when I started the game it got frozen sometimes in the intro screen, and in that state it's almost impossible to close the game, because it always stays in front, you are even not able to see the windows task manager. I was able to work around that problem by opening Notepad, write some few letters into the notepad (don't save) and then start the game. If it then hangs I will press Ctrl+Alt+Del and choose to Log Off. The game is then closed, but because the open notepad, the log off will not finish, so I click "cancel" and restart the game :) Usually the second it worked then. All in all, even that game already aged a bit .. but we are on GOG here, aren't we? :) ... I still highly recommend this game, also the soundtrack is a special joy. Buy the game and relax, but also expect you have to use your brain cells quite much. :)
Ich muss sagen, dass ich noch nie zuvor ein Spiel gespielt hatte, das mich so gefesselt hat. Es ist alles so perfekt in Szene gesetzt, einfach Wahnsinn. Man kommt sich wirklich vor wie in einem interaktiven Film, teilweise mit Ghibli-ähnlichen Elementen. Der Soundtrack dazu ist immer passend und fantastisch. Das Spiel baut eine sehr fesselnde Atmosphäre auf, und das Herzklopfen der Protagonistin ergreift auch den Spieler immer wieder. Erkunden, laufen, staunen, flüchten, Auswege finden, fürchten, überlegen, probieren, nochmal fürchten, entkommen, so kann man das Spiel wohl zusammenfassen :) Ich spiele relativ viele verschiedene Spiele, aber an kein einziges, anderes Spiel, muss ich so oft zurückdenken, wie an Little Nightmares. Nur für die Steuerung würde ich dringend ein Gamepad empfehlen, weil das Spiel an manchen Stellen mit Tastatur einfach fast unspielbar ist. Mit Gamepad funktioniert die Steuerung dafür aber sehr gut. Nicht zu schwere, aber ansprechende Rätsel. Spielzeit bei mir etwa 14 Stunden, ich hab mir aber auch alles ganz genau angeschaut und gestaunt und genossen, aber auch nicht jedes einzelne Geheimnis gefunden. Alles in allem ist das Preis/Leistungsverhältnis meiner Meinung nach Top. Kann ich bedenkenlos empfehlen, auch zum Vollpreis. Sowas muss unterstützt werden!
After the masterpiece "Little Nightmares I" I was really excited, when I figured out, using the Demo, the second part also runs on my laptop, even with the high minimum requirements given. The graphics and general atmosphere is astounding, I would say graphically even better than the first part. But.. for me .. it did not let me become totally lost in the game like the first part. The music, if even really existing, also did not give me the same experience. This game is, by the aspect of music, imo partly too quiet. And the second part, for me, also had it's annoying parts, especially in the middle of the game, where you get the feeling you can never have a break, one running/fighting/hiding scene after another, some quite hard to control and very tough - where you have to try again and again, sometimes you even don't know what you have to do in the beginning, you have to try it and die. Funny for me: in the last part of the game it seemed to become more easy. No fighting system anymore, more thinking, running and hiding, finally more like in the first game. The last part I enjoyed most. The first game I played through without any walkthrough, in the second game here I had to check a walkthrough several times, because I didn't want to redo the scene after annoying 20 times of trying.. For me the second game had a higher frustration factor, especially in the middle part of the game, the beginning and ending parts were more enjoyable for me. Well, why I still give 4 stars for the game? Because all in all the graphics is astounding, there are still many enjoyable scenes, the story is great, and they still put so much love and details into the game, that I could not give less stars. The DLC btw is a joke... just a few small, additional rooms in the main game, where you can get a new hat.. wow!1!1! If you want to buy the deluxe edition just for the DLC (like I did) .. don't do it, you will not miss anything! But the game itself still can be recommended.
Endlich mal ein Spiel wo man sich Abends nach der Arbeit hinsetzen, alle Sorgen vergessen und einfach relaxen kann, ohne Möglichkeiten zu sterben oder Fehler zu machen. Einfach fliegend und gehend die wunderbaren, künstlerisch simpel gestalteten Landschaften erkunden und mehr und mehr von der Geschichte dieses Landes erfahren. Es gibt auch Rätsel zu lösen, die aber einfach und trotzdem lohnend zugleich gestaltet sind. Die Story ist relativ rasch beendet, aber auch lange nach der beendeten Story kann man das Spiel noch weiter genießen und immer wieder neue Details entdecken. Es macht einfach Spaß und die Musik dazu ist einfach traumhaft. Alles in allem ein sehr gelungenes Spiel von Daedalic. Ich würde mir mehr von dieser Art wünschen.
