First let me admit that I only played the original version powered by the Source engine. But considering that the port, according to the description, only features cosmetic upgrades I feel that all my criticisms remain valid. Dear Esther is the original walking simulator - well, the way Gears of War is the original cover based shooter. Others have done these things before but these are the landmark titles that set standards for many years to come. Now, it's easy to dismiss Dear Esther for providing "no gameplay" since all you do is walk until it just ends. However, personally I instantly grabbed my wallet when I saw the game released on Steam several years ago because I actually admire games that explore the limits of the genre. The problem is that Dear Esther has in my book ONLY its experimental ambitions going for it while the execution provides nothing noteworthy other than a few nice views, unlike later more sophisticated titles like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Kholat or even the much earlier The Path which actually bothered to use the genre's format for more than just boasting about impressive environmental art skills. So what does Dear Esther actually provide? Well, you walk on a nice island but only along a narrow tunnel so you don't really feel like doing any exploration, more like sitting in the world's slowest roller coaster. You see stuff that you can do nothing with. As you walk a narrator occasionally reads randomly selected excerpts from a letter. In the end something happens that you don't care about because the game's format fails to sensibly convey any facts about anything. The end. In conclusion: A tech demo for the Source engine that is not even powered by the Source engine anymore and that, if its original release were today, would go by as unnoticed as a depressed teenager's self-pitying tweet. For anyone wondering: The one extra star in my rating is for the nice presentation and atmosphere.
As a fan of Planet Moon's previous game, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, I'm really sad to be among those to post a negative review for Armed and Dangerous on here. Armed and Dangerous is clearly a spiritual successor to Giants, being a third person shooter filled colourful characters, crazy ideas and comedy that ranges from simple slapstick to some really black humour. Sadly A&D also inherits Giants' problems and adds some of its own. As a shooter A&D is simply mediocre with no big original ideas to even out its shortcomings and at times barely functional. You can give orders to your two mates, which generally really isn't necessary or useful, and there are some turret defence missions where you protect towns from huge invading armies, which may sound fun on paper but is very underwhelming in practice. Also in terms of level design there's nothing interesting going on and there's some really frustrating moments, luckily saved by the ability save anywhere. Like with Giants A&D's big strength is its content. The wacky main characters and their antics are really original, as far as action games go, and there are a few really good laughs in there but I felt that the delivery and execution are quite botched most of the time and badly fit into the stuff actually going on during gameplay. There are weird skips even in the cutscenes themselves, and the timing is often so off that it ruins otherwise good jokes. And many cutscenes curiously miss music or even ambience to underline the hilarious events and conversations, feeling really unfinished. Speaking of unfinished, so does the game feel as a whole (curiously Giants suffered from the same thing). When the final cutscene played I just thought "wait, that's it?", leaving me quite unsatisfied, without a final bossfight or even fully wrapping up the story. And sadly there is no multiplayer this time. If you really REALLY love wacky black humour give the game a try but otherwise you don't miss anything.
