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Well, after playing this through i dont quite get the controversy this game have received. Sure, there are some slightly disturbing scenes, but other than that it is basically story of cruely raised man who spreads his trauma upon with his acts. It took about 3 hours to play through once and for what it is worth, it is nice experience overall and sits with right price range. In the end, i would say to buy and play it through to support developers. Just dont have overarching expectations and you will probably end up liking it at least a bit.
So finally here we have indie experiment with The Elder Scrolls: Skyrims massive success. It is rather welcome experience since suprisingly few have even tried to copy that receipt. So, how did it end up? It is absolutely excellent. World is massive, but unlike with so many other games, the world is actually worth adventuring & exploring, with many secrets, loots and quests waiting for your arrival. Voice acting is diverse, though at certain times it feels a bit mixed bag; its like there are experienced VA and folks who have never done VA mixed together. Nevertheless, for some odd reason it still managed to work overall for the game. Might be Wyrdness? Skills feels a bit boring, they are all basically some percentage or amount modifiers, with very few exceptions. At some point i realized with one save i have thrown my skill points everywhrere, but they had so little impact on my character that it didnt really matter at the end. It is also massive world with lots of quests to do. Sure, if you streamline main quest you will complete whole game in somewhere around 20-30 hours. Well, i got out of 1 act to 2 act after 60+ hours. I like to explore every nook and canny and complete all side quests + listen everything people have to say. If you are anywhere near like me, you will certainly get your moneys worth even without discount. Surely enough in familiar TES fashion, it is still rather buggy and glitchy mess at some times. There is one certain side quest that comes to mind which cannot be completed because NPC has vanished. Drawing a bow will every once in a while forgot to load your arrows, meaning you will shoot invicible air shots at enemies. You will more than couple times walk through solid wall or rock formation just to end into the uncoded abyss. Luckily there is nothing game breaking here, but if you cannot stomach these kinds of.. "experiences", then you should still wait a while for devs to iron bugs out.
Considering I am not into these kinds of games at all, this is more or less enjoyable experience in it's mediocrity feeling. Worth saving to your own library from delisting. Fare thee well, Deadlock. May your space voyage carry you on.
Okay, so i honestly wanted to give this game a fair chance. I thought i would be happy to have "updated" version of OG to make sure it runs properly on modern machines. But after 4 hours, it is just too messy at its current state. Sure, they have modified amount of different slots, changed UI and made interesting choices regarding playability overall - i think these should be something that are as optional options to keep the original flavour without forcing it on the players - especially since they are something that were on the original. However, what was too much for me was the bugginess, glitches and very oddly behaving targeting that made me refund this. For example: - Player getting constantly odd animation bug when moving, switching to some one leg hopping that stutters. - Whenever moving camera, the landscape gets glitched into massive black void. - Trying to hit the enemies, the player decides to start some ballet dance pirouette without actually attacking. - The very first movie after creating character, the voiceover goes around 15-20 seconds ahead of the movie itself, so the last 20 seconds of the movie were in complete silence. For game titled "Remaster" i would also be expecting some kind of honing and smoothing for the gameplay itself. It just feels all clumsy and junky. I dont know, was i the one who expected too much? After devs fixes the bugs and listens the overall development suggestions from fanbase, this might very well be worth it. Before that, i just cant see myself spending anymore time with this.
Game is basically separated into 4 chapters. First 2 chapters were nice; it had enough exploration and talking with folks, getting to know them and the lore that was looming over them. Of course this also kind of gave away the future game was going to give, but there was slight hope it wouldnt be butchering for the experience. Except it was. You could say all the real puzzle moments were included in the third chapter, while fourth chapter is simply moment of letting player see the ending. Which, with all due respect, was awful. It is almost like 2 different games within same universe were combined with no intention to even try to get them fit together well; just smash them together and call it a day. Someone may argue about the ending, but i feel it was extremely disappointing and a bore. While VA was enjoyable, point-and-click cliches entertaining enough and game didnt overstay its welcome - the latter half of the game.. Hogwash.
Gradevor, Expedition 33 Didnt know what i was getting myself into. i approved to go and start an adventure i never expected to be experiencing. At the beginning i felt a bit lost, maybe even frightened as i was wondering how everything would work out, how things would change.. how i would change. When starting my first fight, i felt right at home: turn-based fights. I love these! Take your time to plan, select what to do and smash those critters out of this world! Expect wait, what? Realtime dodging and parrying? Oh. Oh no. ...expect i got hang of it pretty quickly - and it is awesome. Even the most difficult opponents would get swiped off by constantly parrying their attacks. At some point it started to make "impossible" enemies to fall just because i studied their patterns. Which might have caused some unbalance to some fights, but oh well. No matter. I like feeling like a god. I wasnt alone either; there were likeminded adventurers who would join my expedition to face the otherworldly creatures and gasping sights to behold together. They all felt like they had their story to be unfolded, told and listened to. They all filled the void there otherwise would have been, sharing their grieves and events that have made them who they are. Though not everything went as smoothly as i was hoping. We have encountered losses, felt and relived connections once forgotten, cursing some odd patterns that felt like they were straight from demons pit.. almost crying when it came to platformer sections. Luckily latter were mostly optional, but darn i felt like my feet were painted with some slippery oil whenever jumping a wee bit higher to the platform. For some reason i had and urge to roll myself into the abyss every. Single. Time. Dont know what it is with myself. Expect that my head made itself pretty familiar with desk. Well. Eventually i got over it. Instead i started more carefully investigating all the pictos, skills, weapons and outfitting myself and companions to look like we are having nice summer vacation. A bit of laugh, until i felt like face-smashing myself again into the abyss. In the end, i loved every second i have spent in here. Watching it all to end made me sad, felt the mixed feelings everyone had there. I wouldnt change a thing though. I feel like this was the finale i had to have closure as. As who we are, where we are, when we are.. we eventually see it again. For every one of us.. tomorrow comes.
So basically header says it all. This is rather lengthy visual novel (took me around 100 hours trying to do everything) with some RPG mechanics and lots of rather well done CG. World of Evenicle is full of rather disturbing events, which might be "too much" for some. These events however also play crucial role in the story. For people with weak stomach, i suggest just trying to get over it and otherwise enjoy well done experience. There are lots of side quests, which will open up possibilities for better items and/or new scenes. They tend to get locked after reaching next chapter, but you can activate them again after completing main storyline. So nothing "missable" in a sense. If you know anything about Alicesoft, then know that this will be quality time you will gain that is true to Alicesoft skills.
Basically as header says. There might be occasions when game remotely gives you Resident Evil vibes, but gameplay wise this is extremely far from it. Unless you think RE4 or other action game, then maybe. So you got SMG and shotgun to blast through enemies, but also thing called Frostgrip. It allows you to freeze enemies through mines, beam, ballistic and you can destroy enemies as they are frozen. Story tries extremely hard towards the end to throw some emotional rollercoaster at you, but since story does not seem to be heavily focused or at least that well done - it kind of fails. It is okayish to play through. Just dont expect survival horror.
For starters it is worth to note i have never before played any Alone in the Dark games, so i dont have any earlier experience to compare this with or nostalgic glasses. Okay, so how is the game... Game is rather pretty looking. Too bad it keeps stuttering, bugging out and being rather demanding for its provided quality. Story is so-so. Voice acting is somewhat average, though for this game they are also the best part, which is a warning sign for overall experience considering their quality. Combat feels like it was afterthought or if it wasnt, it was done awfully. Sure you can try to sneak your past some enemies and situations or distract them with throwables. For the parts were combat cannot be evaded however, it is atrocious. It is all clunky, unsatisfying and really brings this all down even more. Also for people suffering from "completionist" virus who want to have at least every collectibles/conversations/lores, this is nightmare. Oh, but by using walkthrough you will not miss any and can just play it once through and be done with it? Hah, you wish.. See, there are 2 characters you can play as - and you must play with them BOTH to get all aforementioned collectibles. So, suffer through this all AT LEAST TWICE to be satisfied with collectibles. This truly is horror experience.
This is some fine point-and-click adventure, probably one of the greatest ones i have played and enjoyed through in years! Puzzles are not out-of-this-world, tho couple caused a bit head scratching. VA is extremely well done, story fun and light-sided but constantly progressing and well built. Music and tone fits overall atmoshpere greatly. While ending kind of knotted the ropes, i really hope to see someday continuation for the trio here. They all contributed to the enjoyment game gives out and it would be shame if we wouldnt get more of them in the future.