You play as a porn director in the afterlife, creating porn movies using a cast of monster girls. Very fetish specific, but it could have been great for a specific audience. But the final result will likely not satisfy anyone. This tries to be two different games in one; an AVN and a card game, but fails at both. The visual novel part doesn't do much with character development and doesn't have much of a story to tell. The second part involves playing cards from your hand to build a porn scene but it requires absolutely no skill and is based solely on RNG. Pros: +Cute monster girls. +Fully voice acted. +I like the art style. Cons: -The gameplay is entirely devoid of skill. Basically, you "win" a round by playing cards adding up to above or below a fixed amount, or cards of a certain suit. And you have modifier cards that raise or lower card values or change suits or allow you to draw more cards. The problem is that everything is random. You either get the cards you need, in which case winning is easy, or you don't, in which case winning is literally impossible. There's no strategy involved. You don't even get to choose discards. -The music is too loud and overpowers the voice acting. That wouldn't be a problem except that some idiot didn't add a separate volume control for the music. So it's hard to appreciate the voice acting because it's buried under the music and there's no way to change that. -The AVN part that happens between winning rounds of cards is fairly boring and unspectacular. It definitely doesn't give me the sense of wanted to keep playing to see what happens next. -The porn scenes are not great. Low framerate animations (probably around 10 fps) and only one animation per scene. Fairly boilerplate dialog as well. The card game dynamic needs totally redone and the story and animations need more effort. As it stands, this isn't really a bad game. Just a boring one. I really wanted to like this, but I just can't recommend it as-is.
Competent writing and believable characters save an otherwise lackluster attempt at erotic fiction. The story is interesting but linear, with choice being an illusion. Pros: +The story is interesting and fairly unique in its setting, taking place several centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire. It's not historically accurate, but it does make for an interesting and seldom used time and place to tell a fictitious story. +It has good story pacing, neither bogging you down with miles of extraneous dialog nor flinging events at you at a breakneck pace. +The characters feel believable (I didn't say "likable"). No one can be completely trusted, and the main character is out of his element, being more familiar with battlefield tactics than palace politics. From spoiled princesses to scheming attendants, they all seem "real". +There are vary few spelling or grammar mistakes. A rarity in the VN world. Cons: -Abrupt ending. I know this is "volume 1", but that's really just an excuse that far too many creators in the VN genre use to justify a long and possibly endless development cycle. Just know that you're not getting a complete story. -The erotic scenes aren't very erotic. As competent as the writer is, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. And erotic fiction isn't this writer's strength. -No animation. Animated sex scenes are a staple of the AVN genre these days, and the absence of them here definitely stands out. -A few characters/scenes feel completely out of place. Namely, the goddess and her companion. It's like casting Jim Carrey in an episode of Game of Thrones. -Choices don't matter. You receive influence points with various factions based on your choices, but it doesn't amount to anything. It's as if the creator wanted to add a branching narrative and more complexity but ran out of time or talent to do so. Overall, it's alright for a few hours of light reading. Just don't expect it to complete with the best of the AVN genre.
I originally played this game back in the 90's and recently re-played it for nostalgia sake. I loved it then and I still love it now. Sure, it's not going to stack up against a modern AAA title. But for an "old school" shooter, it's hard to beat. Pros: +Mostly great level design. +Some impressive set-pieces. +Has an engaging story (a rarity for shooters of that time). +Great Midi soundtrack and sound effects. +Voice acting....in 1995! (Seriously, there's no excuse for a game made today not to have this.) +Lots of fun weapons to play with that are actually useful in different situations. Cons: -A few levels can get really confusing and maze-like. They could have done a better job of steering you towards the next objective in those cases. -Even on easy, the jump in difficulty in fighting a Phase 2 Dark Trooper vs any other enemy is pretty big. They are supposed to be the toughest enemies, but they are REALLY tough compared to everything else and can take your health down to nothing in seconds. It feels a bit excessive. -Landmines. I hate the landmines and you will too. -Character controls feel a little floaty. When you lift up a movement key, you keep going a bit; almost like you're on ice. As other reviews mentioned, unless you're looking for a true "old school" experience, you're going to want to download the Force Engine. It's a source port for this game similar to what GZ Doom is for Doom. It gives you modern FPS controls like WASD movement and mouse-look. In my opinion, it's a must have. Other than that, I'd say that this game is perfect considering its age. It's one of the best Star Wars games ever made; up there with Jedi Outcast and TIE Fighter. It's also a stand out in a sea of Doom clones that were popular around that time. If you're a Star Wars fan or just a fan of old shooters, you should give this a try.
I wanted to check out Summer with Mia because I enjoyed Inceton Games' other title, Lust Theory Season 1. I knew that it wasn't going to be as good as Lust Theory, but I wasn't prepared for just how bad Summer with Mia is. While not the worst AVN I've played, it's completely tone deaf and offensive. (For the record: I'm not bothered by the incest.) Pros: +The renders and animations are average (not great; just average) Cons: -The main character is a despicable human being. He commits several acts of rape and sexual assault. He tampers with his mom's prescription meds, switching them with sugar pills. He drugs his mom "accidentally" while trying to drug his sister. Blackmail, coercion, etc, etc. -The other characters are about as deep as a puddle during a drought. It's like the writer has never met a real person before. -Racism! Because who doesn't like a bit of "funny" racism in their AVN? How about an Asian character (portrayed by a white character model squinting), speaking "Engrish", in a scene completely out of nowhere, all so that the developer can re-tell that joke from Southpark about the Mongolians tearing down his wall. Funny, right? Right? -A white character who gets yelled at for "talking black", because more racism! Still funny, right? -Scenes just happen...because. There's no rhyme or reason to anything. It's as if the entire plot was written by a chatbot. -The music either isn't present at all or it gets stuck on repeat for 15 minutes. Unless...we're supposed to be listening to dance music at breakfast? -Half-implemented ideas, such as free roam that stops after the first act. -No choices matter (except the choice not to play this). Not only is this one of the most irredeemable pieces of garbage that I've ever played (topped only by Tales from the Unending Void), but I've actually lost a lot of respect for Inceton Games because of it. Just play Lust Theory to scratch that sister itch and skip this trash.
Usually, I like to list all of the pros and cons of a game, but I don't think that I can do that in this case. This game is the absolute peak of Mediocre Mountain! *The graphics are serviceable but not impressive. *The models and animations are average. *There are multiple weapons but the gunplay is basic. *There's porn but it's censored. *There's voice acting but it's in Japanese. *There's a story but it doesn't make much sense. *There are characters but they're shallow and one-dimensional. *There are different levels but they play basically the same. *There's nothing particularly terrible about the game, but nothing stands out as great either. If you can catch it on sale and you're curious about it, I'd say go ahead. It's worth a few bucks and a few hours. But if not, you're not really missing anything.
Yeah, it's a cute story...right up until the end. Then it's a punch in the gut. During the course of this story, you're given several choices. There's absolutely no indication that any of these choices are important or impact the story in any way. Then you get to the end and you discover that you get the "bad ending" because you chose to act like you weren't hungry instead of eating horrible food. Or you avoided trouble instead of apologizing to staff after your ninja waifu tried to kill someone. Or you talked to her at her job instead of just watching her from a distance like some sort of creeper. Basically, in order to get a good ending, you have to get lucky enough to make ALL of the right decisions the first time without any indication which one is right. Which begs the question: Why have those decisions there in the first place? Like I said, they don't affect the story in any way; only the ending. What an idiotic decision on the part of the developers. Pros: +Art and animation is nicely done. +Voice acted female character. +Amusing and likeable character. Cons: -Arbitrary choices that don't matter until the end, with no indication of what is "right" and "wrong". -Terrible ending if you make even one "wrong" choice. -Voice acting is only in Japanese. -Typical Japanese censoring of nudity. Honestly, I'm a bit bitter and my review reflects that. I enjoyed the story right up until the end. It's just completely baffling that a developer would create a story like this and make the ending dependent on completely meaningless choices throughout. And punish you so severely with such a terrible ending for making any wrong choice throughout the playthrough. Dear developers, don't do that. If you're going to play this, do yourself a huge favor and use a walkthrough. Trust me.
"And the award for worst writing goes too..." This could have been another quality release in the adult visual novel genre. Unfortunately, the developers seemed to have rushed to the finish line and not invested the time to iron out this game's many rough edges. (For full disclosure: I purchased this game a month or two prior to its release on GOG through itch.io. It's possible that the GOG version is different and that my criticisms don't apply here. Caveat emptor.) Pros: +High quality renders. They look good and are more vibrant than the average VN. +Smooth animations. I have seen better, but not often. Lust Academy does better than average in this department. +A few mini-games. Nothing on the level of Being a DIK, but they're inventive and fit within the story and setting. Cons: -The dialog is atrocious! Seriously, some of the worst that I've read. It's pretty obvious that Bear in the Night just ran all of their dialog through Google translate and copy/pasted whatever gobbledygook that came out of the other side of that translation. I don't mind the occasional spelling or grammatical error; this is not my first VN after all. But there's just so many of those mistakes in this! You can't go 20 seconds without reading something that just sounds ridiculous and it really pulls you out of the story. -It's short. Very short. It feels more like an early access release than a complete season. This will take you a few hours, tops. -"25 potentially romanceable characters." Yeah, that's a bold-faced lie! Most characters are done after one or two conversations. -Characters are non-sensical and things in the story just happen....because reasons. There's really not much of a story here and only one character has what I would describe as an arc, albeit not a very big one. My advice for Bear in the Night is this: Hire a professional translator! Also, an editor wouldn't hurt. My advice for people thinking about buying this: Don't.
This is actually a prequel of Cthulhu Saves the World, but you don't need to play that title to enjoy this one. This game does a good job of merging Christmas and Cthulhu and provides short but sweet entertainment for a few hours. Pros: +It's got a good sense of humor. Mostly of the pun variety and fairly PG rated. I enjoyed it but it's not going to be to everyone's taste since humor is very subjective. +The music is awesome. There aren't a ton of music tracks, but what's there is exciting and well made. +Three different difficulty settings for those who want a challenge or just a story. +Surprisingly a lot of character customization for what is essentially an RPG Maker game. It's not D&D but it stands above its peers. +It's short, only taking me about 4 hours to beat. For most RPG's, I would consider that a negative. But I'm not interested in dumping 30 hours of my life into a holiday themed game. Cons: -The levels are pretty short. Once you start a level, it only takes a few minutes to get to the boss. -The hub world limits the amount of time that you can spend there. A shame, since some of the most interesting and funny interactions happened there. -The weapon and item stats need more explanation. -Some of the game mechanics (namely hyper and chicken) need more explanation as well. -It's a one-trick-pony that only works at Christmas. Yes, it's probably one of the best Christmas themed games ever made, but that's not saying much considering some of the garbage that fills that niche. If you're looking for something to occupy your time for a few hours around Christmastime, you can do far worse that this. Just don't expect it to be a serious gaming experience. This game is clearly just for laughs.
A fun tactical RPG with a lot of humor. Just don't ask me to pronounce the title. After 30 hours playing, I still have no idea how to say "Naheulbeuk". Pros: +Excellent voice acting for every character in the game. To me, this feature really made the game enjoyable. +Genuinely funny. Some of the jokes do wear a little thin, but overall I really enjoyed the banter between the main characters. +Surprisingly deep tactical combat. Not grognard levels of complexity, but more than I expected from an RPG from an unheard-of developer. +An interesting story that flips a few of the classic RPG tropes on their heads in surprising ways. +Lots of character customization with different skills and stats. Cons: -The A.I. cheats. I experimented with some save-scumming and found that some of the random events during combat weren't so random. Things like critical failures are definitely pre-determined either at the start of combat or possibly before. It also seems that when you're doing too good, the game increases the chances of these critical failures or of an enemy parrying or dodging. -There's a bit too much back-tracking to complete various quests. And the fact that you can't use healing spells outside of combat will send you running to the tavern to rest and heal quite a bit. -The ending sucks. The final boss is so easy that I didn't even realize that it was the final boss until I saw the credits roll. And the story's conclusion comes out of nowhere and left me with a dumbfounded look on my face. I understand what they were going for, but it fell flat and was very unsatisfying. -There were a few bugs. Combat got stuck a few times with the A.I. never finishing its turn. I also had a few crashes to desktop while loading a new zone. This is one of those times when I wish that GOG had half stars in its rating system. This isn't a 5 star game, but its problems don't warrant losing a whole star, IMO. It's a fun adventure with a disappointing ending.
I spent about 72 hours with Wasteland 3 over the course of 4 months and I mostly enjoyed my time. It has a few minor annoyances but ultimately is a worthy successor to Wasteland 2. Pros: +Great soundtrack. +Fully voice acted. +Multiple ways to complete most objectives. +Choices matter and affect the story. +Lots of different character builds available. +Tactical battles are both fun and challenging. +Adjustable difficulty (in case the battles get too challenging). +Story is entertaining, if predictable. Cons: -Songs get repetitive as they play on repeat during boss fights. -I experienced several glitches where the combat would get stuck on a friendly or enemy turn but nothing would happen, forcing a reload. It's especially frustrating when it happens during a long and difficult fight. -I had several areas where my framerate dropped substantially. (I'm playing with a Ryzen 7, RTX 3070, and 32GB of RAM.) -The DLC's are a pretty big jump in difficulty over the base game. Especially the Cult of the Holy Detonation. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a distracting jump in the challenge. -The journal that tracks your quests could be better designed. -The final battle is a walk in the park. I finished the fight expecting it to be one of several leading up to a climactic finish, but the next thing that I see is the ending cutscene. My first thought was, "That was it?" -Some of the weapon specs could be described better (or maybe I needed to look harder). -You really need to play Wasteland 2 to fully understand and enjoy this one. (Not really a "con" since it's a good game too.) -Base building/ally recruiting is mostly pointless. Overall, it's a good game and my "cons" are mostly minor. If you enjoyed Wasteland 2, you'll probably enjoy Wasteland 3 as well, for most of the same reasons. If you didn't like Wasteland 2, Wasteland 3 won't change your mind. And if you haven't played Wasteland 2, why are you reading this? Go play it.
