Make no mistake. Space Trader is shovelware. It came out at a time when many small companies made shooters that were mediocre at best and near unplayable at worse. But this one had ideas, there was clearly some love put into it. This is a more interesting and far less frustrating game than something like Chaser or Iron Storm. It looks a lot nicer than most of it's kind. The gameplay movement is surprisingly tight and mobile. While most shovelware titles where slow and plodding, this has a little bit of Quake 3 in it's DNA. The weapons aren't impressive, but they work. And the music is fine. Despite the fact objectively it's not great (Really, I'm rounding up with the four stars. It's a three at most) I'm glad it's available here. The idea is you are a young and up-and-coming Space trader. You collect things to trade in hubs (Which are literally just lying around.) Then you trade them to make money. What little shooting there is is often simple bountyhunting missions, which are totally optional. Then you go somewhere else and trade. It's very easy to get the hang of. The writing has a lot of charm. It's not clever, but it has good sense of humour. It's probably the strongest part of the game. The is no game quite like it because of it. What will make most people put this game down it is constant loop that never changes. If you don't like farming or grinding. Don't even bother, it'll just annoy you. But as for me. I have good memories of just chilling with this game. Taking in the atmosphere and having fun running around, maybe with a podcast on in the background. Need a time killer with bobby first person combat and a relaxing space vibe? Well. Here you go!
When I was getting into gaming in the early 2010s Doom 3 had a fine reputation. Specially in the horror community. On any fanmade best horror games list of video, it would be there there, not the top five, but always there, and we knew why. Doom 3 has atmosphere. Atmosphere so thick it feels like you're wading through it. Every texture, sound, and environment has been optimised to make you feel like you're in an industrial nightmare. A place that feels angry and hateful, and that's just before the demons show up! A lot of the scares in this game really do hold up. The cycle of scares sprinkled between combat and exploration keeps the game exiting and your fingers twitching at any sound. The gore is lovely and and the game's lighting is legendary. Set pieces are well designed and the music is just perfect. Doom 3 is a horror game first and foremost. Just one where you have a small army's worth and weapons and ammo to fight the horrors back with! You don't feel safe though. You feel like humanity is doomed and you're just fighting the inevitable. If you're reading this, you know how the new Doom games have soured a lot of people on this one. A lot of people complaining Doom 3 ruined Doom got into gaming even later than I did. But if you go back to the first three episodes of Doom 1, play with the lighting and draw distance down, and a pre WASD control setup you'll see the similarities to Doom 3. The first Doom was always meant to be a horror game. Time has simply turned it into something else. I think Doom is valid as either an action or a horror series. Not to say Doom 3 doesn't have real problems. It runs out of steam around the 2/3 mark. The attempts at storytelling often fall flat. And yes, the pistol and shotgun are very disappointing. The TL;DR 5/5 as a horror game. 4/5 as an action game As a Doom game? Go in with an open mind knowing Doom has roots in horror and action, always has.
Take this review wither a pinch of salt. I am not an Adventure game player. I had to use a walkthrough to get anywhere in this game. Whether someone good at adventure games would find it well or poorly made I cannot say. However. I am a huge horror junky who enjoys "quiet" horror, like the stories of M R James. Barrow Hill is half M R James and half Nigel Kneale with maybe a little sprinkling of Lovecraftian technophobia. It's a dark game that drips with atmosphere. Little everyday things can just seem sinister and wrong. Gloom, darkness and hopelessness seem to drip from every pixel of it If you've ever walked down a rural road or abandoned house at night and wondered if monsters or something worse might be around and half wished there were you know exactly what this game is like.... It also has a beautiful soundtrack (Included with this realise) that I keep on my MP3 player. If nothing else, check it out for that.
This is a love it or hate it game. People never just "like" it. The issues with it are real. The game is deliberately liner. Some of the high-concept science doesn't make sense of you think about it hard. Enemies can be bullet spongy. If you despise the concept of "Games as art" then you will not like it. But for me it is the perfect game. Bioshock Infinite gives you a world of people who are not what they seem. At first the world of Columbia seems idealistic, almost heavenly. A concept that falls apart with in minutes. This sets up one of the game's recurring themes. People want simple truths, but people are complicated. Heroes hide dark truths and villains have hearts too, You can't just get an easy truth and run with it. That leads to misery. The other big theme is freedom, be it in games or real life. At the start of the game you are shown a living corpse inside a mechanical suit of armour called a "Handy man". A person striped of freewill. The line between freedom and machine is constantly questioned. Does our freewill matter? Or are we just "Tin men"? As for the rest of the story. I'd say try it for yourself :) But Bioshock Infinite is more than just a story. A lot of people hate the combat in this game but I can't understand why. You have an excellent selection of guns combined with a robust selection of powers which when put together can whittle nearly all the enemies health down to nothing in seconds. Add in environmental aids brought in via "Tears" in reality, very 3-dimension movement via Sky hooks and some punchy melee combat and you have almost ballet-like action with you as an engine of destruction. Play this game on the highest difficulty so you can put all of these perks to use. Mastering this game was a joy for me and I still come back to the "Clash in the Clouds" wave combat mode quite often. Maybe a game that focuses on the dark side of humanity should be this much fun. But I'm not complaining. So yeah. I think this game is pretty awesome =)
Quake 4 is underrated. It might not be a work of high art. But it's a very well put together FPS. Everything works. The design in Forever War/Sharship Troopers military Sci-Fi distilled to it's simplest beauty. The gore is plentiful, satisfying, but never overdone. The level design is efficient and never gets dull. The story isn't much, but it motivates you to keep going forwards. And it has some real hightlights (If you've played it you know what we're all thinking of ;-) ) and the world of the Strogg and Space Marines feels weird and cool enough that you just want to see more of it. And the game just feels big. The spectacle and size of it is enormous. You feel draw into the hellish world of sci-fi war. I might have a smaller budget, but it puts most modern warfare games to shame. What really makes Quake 4 a classic is the gameplay. It has a great line up of weapons. A sort of greatest hits collection from the first three Quake games. The Nail gun. Railgun. Lighting gun and BFG 10,000 (albeit renamed) all make a comeback. They've been tweaked and improved. And most of them have been given neat secondary fire-modes. Gameplay is fast and furious. With loads of verity to keep things spicy. The enemies come in wonderful verities and have differn't strengths and weaknesses. A mixture of difference environments and locals keep you on your toes and mean you have to switch up your tactics. Bosses are big and have personality. The difficulty isn't punishing. But intense. You need to play fast and smart to not run out of health kits or end of splattered against the wall. The end effect is that Quake 4 is a military sci-fi fever dream. It grabs you. It creates a frenzied atmosphere that can turn for abject horror to feeling like a stone-cold baddass at the drop of hat. If you like single player FPS games just get Quake 4. You'll like it. I promise.
Dear Esther is not for everyone. There's no getting around it. If you think gameplay is all the matters to a game think you will probably hate it. But if you like watching Ingmar Bergman films at midnight, listening to Vaughn-Williams while looking at the sea or reading surrealist graphic novels then this is something you must have. For those who just want a strong artistic and emotional experience Dear Ester is exactly the type of game you have been waiting for. It's a thoughtful. Calming but deeply sad game. The story is subtly told but very powerful. The Environments are stunning. The Music is perfect. And it is just the right length for what it is. As someone who has spent a lot of time in coastal Cornwall and Scotland I can say they got the lonely Celtic environment down to a T. And nothing in the game is half done. The sights and locations are all highly individual and add to the story and themes. Most movies don't have the same amount of thought put into their locations and props. If you are someone who loved games like Bioshock or Amnesia for using their setting as a character and to tell the story then rejoice. Dear Ester is up there with the best. That's not to say Dear Ester is perfect. Even if you are more interested in having an experience than raw gameplay. The fact that you can't do as much as open doors or pick up objects leaves you feeling disconnected from the world it is set in. And the game does a terrible job of giving you the illusion of free will. This is probably why it's Not as well loved as Gone Home or The Stanley parable. It's alienating. You need to put work into being drawn into the story. Almost like an old book. And It's slow. Not just that you move slow. But the narrative is drip-fed to you with long gaps with no narration. It's not for people who get easily bored. But if you are the right kind of person. The kind that likes gets excited at the thought of going to an art museum. Then you will probably find at least something about this game that sticks with you forever.
