Playing this shortly after revisiting Rise of the Tomb Raider, this felt a lot more like what I was remembering that game being. It plays out as an adventure story. Gameplay itself is quite good with the climbing/traversal being a lot more snappy than Ms. Croft's adventures. They even made climbing a bit more engaged than just holding a direction (Occasionally you will need to push your arm slightly sideways to find the next handhold) Gunplay (On hard) is mostly fine, though near the end it just became an exersice in frustration, when the game would throw large encounters with enemies flanking you at you. Ideally I would play the game stealthily. The stealth works okay in the standard fashion of tall grass and hiding behind obstacles to creep up on enemies for takedowns. The game ran well on my system with a more consistently solid framerate than Rise of the Tomb Raider. And the game looks gorgeous. I would find vistas to just pause on to take in the view on several occasions. The moment to moment gameplay might end up feeling a bit samey, but at least Uncharted 4 puts you in some nice looking locales and has a story to drive it forward. The smaller companion game was nice as well, but I felt the chemistry between the two main characters to be rather bland. And when I encountered an area which screamed "Hey look! We're open world, like Assassin's creed, can you find the collectibles" I audibly groaned. Thankfully there was just one instance of this. Thief's End is a good step down, but still okay. As a package, yes I can heartily recommend it if you want an action adventure game which doesn't waste your time by making climbing arduously slow.
I got interested in this game having heard it contained some metroidvania like progression, mixed up with a shooter of the time. And while it is true, that yes, you do pick up abilities required to progress further, I would hesitate to consider it a good example of metroidvania sensibilities. The game has 8 weapons (As was the style at the time) which at least do offer a bit of variety in how you approach the fights. The Egyptian theme is very nice and all, and the engine ran smoothly for me without any hitches or big glitches, so well done to Night Dive on that one. The main reason this is not a 4 star (Great) game for me is, that the enemy selection is rather limited. And some of them feel more like a waste of your time than a challenge. Likewise, urns/vases/etc. can be broken and will apparently at random either drop health/ammo, blow up in your face, or spawn some of these small enemies. While it does have some metroidvania progression, the game is still broken into levels. It is just that some levels will have multiple exits requiring the next ability to reach. So in all you're playing some levels several times (from the beginning, all enemies/pickups reset). The abilities don't really change the flow of the game all that much, the levitation one is a bit of a gamechanger, but the rest might as well have been keys. So in the end, after near 9 hours, I was just pushing onwards to say I had finished it, not because the story or gameplay was particularly engaging. If you don't mind some old-school frustrations, and have an itch to play a shooter from the late 90s, but don't just want the typical level based fare, this might be down your alley. But there is no reason for you to drop what you're doing to play this. (In my opinion)
The follow up to the 2013 reboot retains much of the gameplay, adding a few more mechanics and a new location and storyline. All in all quite good. The gameplay flows well as these kinds of exploration games go. Combat encourages stealth, but flows quite satisfyingly when it's time to get loud. All in all for most of the game I felt this was a solid 4/5 (Great) game, with aspirations to fantastic. So why only 3? Well, a lot of things compound to drag it down for me: It feels like they wanted to cram more typical open-world malarkey into the game, leading to a deluge of collectibles to look out for. Too many for my taste of these being text snippets which you either read at your own pace or have to sit around listening to, at times it felt like there were a lot more sitting listening than movement between the exposition. The side-quests might be a neat idea, but again it just felt like they were desperate for filler. The new snowy locale is nice, but it gets kinda samey and a lot less memorable than the 2013 outing. And what really soured me and had me push through out of spite not enjoyment was the end sequence which felt really unoptimized, along with combat upon combat upon combat with no satisfying stealth or exploration between them. Followed up by slow "puzzle" segments which felt a lot more like the game just desperately trying to drag out the playtime. The performance is also quite underwhelming. My GPU/CPU were never maxed out but the game would still frequently dip to 40fps and feel stuttery. DirectX 12 support still comes with weird graphical quirks so I suggest going a step back. So in all, it's a good game. If you don't mind frequent breaks for exposition, and could care less for stealth it might even be a great game (Consider this easily 4/5 then) It is certainly one of the more impressive polished games of this style. It just feels underwhelming after the previous game, and downright tedious and deliberately trying your patience at the worst of times.
While the music and chatting with NPCs make this feel like a slow paced cozy game, the climbing mechanic is what I were here for. While not too complex to be troublesome it still manages to present a challenge, especially in the latter part of the game where a couple of badly planned out climbs could see you starting over several times if not careful. Control wise, with mouse/keyboard, this feels good. Look around with the mouse, use left/right arm to grab by clicking and holding the corresponding mouse button. Move or try to stretch a direction with WSAD. That's about it. There are a couple of different types of handhold to make the climb more difficult, and there are a few gadgets you can collect to hopefully make things easier for you, should you need it. And yet, even being simple like this, climbing one of the trickier routes still gave a great rewarding feeling when finally you reached the top. I climbed every route available, engaged with a few of the side-quests and gave up the time trials rather quickly, I got around 8 hours of laid back but rewarding gameplay from this game. If you are intrigued by the art style. Or would like a climbing game without too much at stake, this game is very worth trying. Just don't expect the game to reinvent a genre.
Having recently finished Journey to the savage planet before playing this. This game feels like both a step forward and a leap backwards. There are more silly ads. And an actual plot this time around. A lot more variety in critters you encounter. And better ways to track where you missed something, if you want to go scan for 100%. Where the first game seemed like you had to sniff around each rockface for secrets, this game seems less speckled with secrets. Not sure that's true though, more the fact that this game has 4 planets with a large expanse of land on each. Gone are the small self-contained floating islands, instead there are areas with their own feel to them, but lots of blank space between them. Both a blessing and a curse. Where fall damage reduction, and putting all powerups on your HUD was a late-game upgrade in the Journey, here you can have them almost at the start. This removes your drive for exploration, but also reduces frustration having to find powerups in the huge open areas. Now you also have a menagerie you can capture and collect creatures for. And home base customization. And being third person you have more reason to go find cosmetics. In all, still a great exploration game, feels more homogenized than the first game, but tries to make up for it with polish, area and critter variety.
This game sees you stranded on an alien planet, needing to scan plant and wildlife while uncovering what is hidden on the planet. The game world is vibrant with some humour built into the animal and area design. Exploration feels good, lots of hidden nooks and crannies to go delving into. In a metroidvania fashion, you will unlock more abilities to harness the resources of the planet to open new avenues, so don't spend too much time trying to find your way past an obstacle, you will likely return later with better gear for the task. Compared to the sequel (Revenge of...), this game focuses a lot more on you exploring floating islands and small contained areas. Fall damage is a thing (Until you unlock the last upgrade anyway), so the game becomes a first person platformer puzzle combined with exploration of several smaller areas. The major downfall of this game for me is the combat which gets rather repetetive, and the game will mock you, if you decide to not scan every single creature and plant and pick up every available secret. At least the game will let you get an upgrade to ping pickups in your area onto your HUD for the completionist. But missing scanned items is pretty much a slog back and forth. In summary: Fun vibrant platformer focused on exploring rather memorable areas. Not many games like this out there.
I may be biased for this game. Montezuma's revenge was the first floppy game we got on the C64. Great little platformer with no air control (e.g. once you jump, you're not in control until you land) You go through different screens, picking up treasures and keys to unlock doors to move forward. Nothing fancy, just solid simple gameplay. Every "level" (set of rooms) starts off very similar, but becomes bigger and more complex. So what is new compared to the C64 version? * More room layouts so you rarely see repeats during the same level. * As a result, levels feel a lot nicer * End of level boss battle (Still no fighting) * Checkpoints clearing out your inventory once you reach a certain point, effectively breaking levels into smaller areas, so you don't have to backtrack all the way to find missing keys. * up/down conveyors * Trampolines for both platforming and switching conveyors. * Continue system (so you don't go back to level 1-3 every game over) In all, I'm quite happy with it. I can't think how they would update it more without risking fundamentally changing the game... Maybe a level editor, maybe. If you like 8-bit puzzleish platformers, you're very likely to have a good time with this.
This game had me going back and forth between being entertained and upset to downright rage inducing BS near the end. Good: Though Rudimentary, the stealth can be quite satisfying Bad: Frequently, there's no way to avoid combat anyway. Bad: And once you enter combat, you'll be facing off against several waves of enemies. Good: The graphics can look quite good Bad: And exceptionally jank. Near the start the complete lack of animation matching what is being said threw me off Good: The story is fairly good. Not too deep, but efficient for driving the game ahead Bad: And it is frequently voice acted like someone who didn't give a toss about what they were reading. Good: The combat can be quite cathartic. I mean, you get to tear people apart as a big huge monster Bad: And at least on Hard, even regular human soldiers can take horrible amounts of damage. If you're a 9 feet hulking beast with claws, you shouldn't have to hit an armored dude with a shotgun 25 times Also Bad: on a few of the later combat sequences, the background actually obscures the view of the action, not great if you're expected to dodge incoming attacks. For the huge discount I got it at, it's a good game, but had I bought it at full price, I would've been very VERY upset. For the most part, once you check your expectations, this is a 4/5 (Great) game And then the combat and frequently repetitive backgrounds brings it down to a slog. As it is, I'd say it's 3/5, good enough, not bad, but nothing special either.
This game tries very hard to be something you've played and enjoyed before. It looks and somewhat plays like Donkey Kong Country It has something that looks suspiciously like the Lums from Rayman Origins/Legends, and secrets hidden in the same way. It has areas which go 3D like Crash Bandicoot. It has a lovable idiot main character like too many of them were trying to be. Bright and colourful, if you liked the sound of the above you're likely to like this game. However, the controls are a bit floaty and occasionally means you'll miss jumping on enemies because you go just a bit too far. Simlarly there's a slight bit of jankiness to the animations which mean things will pop in and out of a pose noticeably. To beat it I took around 8 hours going for as many secrets as I could. That leaves the secret world, which will require secret keys found in the main game to unlock levels in. And to get to the end of that you'll need every gemstone in the entire game. That might be a turnoff for you if you're the kind who MUST finish all content. For me, I'll likely chip away at collecting things for a while yet. The game is quite enjoyable. Consider this game if you're itching for a cute not too hard slightly janky mascot platformer.
This seemed like it might scratch the same itch as Power Drive did. When I heard about the large amount of cars to collect, I was pretty much sold. Too bad then that, though the game looks a bit like Power Drive, it is far less arcadey, managing to feel heavy and sluggish all the time. It goes for a more realistic simulation field while also playing from a view much less consistent with simulations. in itself I would've awarded the game a 4 star rating. But then you hit the progression/menus. No licensed cars, instead you have a bunch of fictitious companies each with their roster of cars to buy. That would be fine enough, but then you find that almost all races require you to have selected the correct vehicle before starting, no guides or helpers other than a suggested car list. I think I may have spent more time navigating back and forth from trying to launch a race, to the garage to see if I could find a car that was allowed, only to have forgotten some of the list of allowed cars, going back forth, installing and uninstalling parts to meet maximum HP limits. Combined with replaying previous challenges in order to scrounge up enough cash to afford a car or upgrades to be anywhere near competetive in the next race. In short. Game looks like a good time. Plays like an okay time, but not what I expected, and is bogged down with menu friction and expectation of OCD car management that it's pretty much killed the enjoyment I might have found. There's an okay game here. It just doesn't want you to play it.
