welp this wont be my usual yammerings on positive and negative i unabashedly love this game and its not so sutle homages to superhot, syndicate (the FPS had exactly ONE good moment and its in severed steel so play steel not ea games), quake, cruelty squad, and such. I can not judge it objectively because i adore it far too much. Yes yes it uses wallrunning and i hate that but the gunplay is rock solid leading to gamelay being excilirating, all self feeding loop of awesome. there are even limited brekable walls and floors ffs!! who needs to have a way when you can MAKE one! soudtrack is not on par with AAA games but thats fair, noone can do it all and again the main part of the game is absolute perfection to MY eyes so i will not sweat over passable but unremarkable music. you probably should read some negative reviews this game is not perfect nothing is but i can recommand it for i thorrowly enjoy it.
this is one of those games that if you were around for its hayday you absolutley remember it being incredibly popular nigh on omnipresent. But tooday's generation dose not seem to know of. I generaly thought of it as slow planning maticulous but you absolutley can bumrush the nacis and make mince meat out of their defences if you know what you are doing (clearly i dont). Admitidley usualy mission solutions tend to be very narrowly plotted so rarely many drasticaly wild solution tho i am sure speedrunners found ways. i can not recommand it for everyne but if yu are interested in heart pounding thrill with tactical bent in real time playstyle (you know unlike X-com series) it MIGHT be righ up your alley, takes a lot of patience to grasp but is very accessable once you get the shortcuts for bag items, ithout that it realy is far too hard to do .) + style atmosphere challange gets you thinking in somewhat compelling manner - challange (yep its in both because its BS soemtimes) narrow solution conditions pathfinding (yeah yeah staple of 90s games) maddening compatibility mess solved by adding single m to the game executable. RIDICULOUS TL:DR if you know you probably already have it, if you dont than do you want 90s tactical isometric game in your life? its got plenty germs to germinate and to kill and will force you to think.
Book the name is so forgettable that even when i AM intending to play it i have troubble finding it in my library... its a sin against creativity. However it dose decieve by the label, what is hiding within the game is solid, more simple (as in streamlined) itteration on throne of darkness formula - that is to say classical diablo type game that had many interesting ideas of its own. Story itself is pretty fun and engaging, albeit yet another "you lost your memory" fare *shrugs* no need to reinvent the wheel just make it spin well thats enough for me, And the main star is, as it ought to be, the conbat you have three basic categories of companions you can "tag" into the play at almost any time (barring when your charakter it stunned or otherwise incapacitated) alowing you to have active party of four with some alternative builds (at one point you get a hunter, another you get litearly golem - a tank) so there is enough varietty and YES controll per charakter (you level ALL charakters at the same time via shared exp pool but allocate points and skills individualy each time they become avalable). This in itself offers great dynamic playstyle and caters to my personal preference to have ranged, DPS and tank along with special utility (the main charakter being demon who traverses into ghost real) which i turned into melee DPS for that side of things. Spirit realm bleeding into real world is used as a gimmick so you do have to often switch between the main charakter and more physical ones, i do like this strangley as it is rewarded by loot or story when you do go on exploring and or switching frequently. The side quets can span across maps and i pressume acts so its bit confussing in that manner, and some puzzles (yes game has puzzles) are bit annoying sometimes. - the name, sometmes quests go across areas, gimmicky bossfitght + the combat, the atmosphere, the concept, interplay between charakters, dialogue, story
First off: this is not realy a first person shooter, it is far more a stealth game with on the feet planning. I also would not want to coapre it to SWAT 4 because it is far less action oriented, this particular game is more like a puzzle with possitioning and tactical abilities of each agent being the focus. But realy parallers are not doing it justice. once deployed into the field your control over the agents is very direct if fragmented across two views (you can swap primary and secondary at your liesure but ... its fine as is). Even first propper mission was rather steep learning curve from tutorial but it did convey how deep can things get alternative paths, strange access alleways, tho no jumping allowed or mantling over things. Music i find rather bland and forgettable and voices could be better but tahts nitpicking the most important thing is that the game itself plays incredibly well and YOU shoudl try it too. - rather steep learning curve even if you do tutorials, some might be offput by graphics but its fine when you get used to it, music and soung in general whislt passable is not that great, + strong identity (thanks to graphics and hummour), incredibly solid gameplay idea executed well, fairly original if not wholy unique strategic infiltration balance that did capture my interest TL;DR: not an action game but more a tactical stealth (particularly sensitive to positioning your unitse so as to cover one another), retro style graphics, decent hummour, forgetable sound and music. Recommanded for those who want to take things slow and think about their actions before they execute them.
this has nothing to do with more grounded military shooters of 2'000s (thank you operation flashpoint for spawning that filth) this is just quake 2 with contemporary looks and ghoul system (disection of enemies by where they are hit / shot/ slashed). It is best being thought of as an action movie type deal - it makes no sense but thats its strenght. Sure tehre are drawbacks, some more modern audiences might dislike the graphics, i did get caught few times by strange level dessign choices but the most important thing: the gunplay is absolutley fantastic. If your tolerance for shooters of mid 90s is high raven is always good bet to satisfy (well was, than) . + Gunplay, + Ghoul + general action feel of movement and firefights - absolutley ridiculously stupid story - archaic by modern standards map design - some minute bugs (doors, edges of surfaces) - horrifyingly jingoistic (TL;DR) should you get it? fk yea! gun is good! story is bad
take one part bumper cars, one part car races, liberarly apply blog, gore, viscera add some creativity and very dark hummour and you get carmageddon. the fundation and my prefered itteration of the series (certainly like it more than Carma2 of accursed TDR). YES for anyone unfamiliar with the series you ought to start with 4th (reincarnation / max damage) but there is a lot more diverse feel within the original game (especialy this itteration that also features splat pack) tracks especialy but even classics like FEARarrari f666 (that some stupid maranello company did not find one bit funny, which makes it even better joke) are all here. Floaty controlls, short render distance (yeah for some reason it was console optimalised even on PC *shrugs* ) would be problem for rookies, but to me it enhances this feeling of nearly ballet-like proceedings. you spin and thwirl never feeling like you have full controll.... exactly how i'd feel within these insane contraptions. Oh yeah i gues be warned the game gets tad bit violent, with eyeballs popping out of corpses and such if the NPC gets hit hard enough .) I personaly love it, its manifestation of off sense of hummour, dark, violent, but ultimatley not melevolent. In some ways it is almost childish with its giddy attitude towards showcaing the violence or the triumph cutscene. If you want silly little car racing game with ability to completly wreck your opponents than Carmageddon is good, if you are adjusted to more floating controls or are willing to put up with them than conssider Max Pack, else Max Damage.
Lovely the developers had learned from the first one one... MUCH improved in terms of reward, preasure, perfectionalism and earnings. it is still grindy as all fuck but its nature means you CAN unlck things easier faster and more Smoothly than in freestyle you are no longer REQUIRED to 5* everything to earn enough to progress, it jus makes it easier to get things like ikes and attire... Not much change in sound and i do not like the music personaly however. Feeling of the play in this game is signifficantly imprved due in part to the less demmanding goal but also per specific challange (thats every mode on every map has smaller challanges within it) makes even less than stellar run feel more worthwhile. Good improvement and if they'd kept up this approch the series would have been pretty great by now. I can highly recommand this for quick few runs at a time, do not (like i did) play more than say two dozen it dose get very annoying at that point as bran will try to overoptimalise. + simple controls, good balance of incentives to challange (no need to 5*, 2 is plenty enough), reasonable feel of the handling, - it is still grindfest, music felt so anoying it had to be shut off within 10 seconds of starting the game, aimed at very specific nieche of player - speed precissoin platformer without hostiles or weapons, any positives start to decipate when playing for about hour at a time - keep it to 3 or so challanges and you should be fine
Appalling showcase of bad design concept (guns in racing games) combined with n ability to dodge that aspect of gameplay are just tip of how insufferble the game is. This game never seem to relate the sense of speed quite well enough, boost pads are only mildly effective, with usage of bar for velocity indication (generaly peaked on 3/4 for most part) that is not helping the sense of speed either. SOME visual mittigation is there sure but not enough. For speeds vehicles travel the track design is unaccomodating, also since it is all walled in the whole affair feels like claustrophobic mess where i spent most time actualy bounding off of walls. Audio being possible the game'S best feature and even there it is very lacking - no nice mechanical foly, barely anything (had to turn music off to hear boost sounds) realy makes sound - from wall colisions to intervehicle carambols... it all feels like barely there even tho there certainly is something in these situations that dose play. Music was mentioned so yeah faily generic sounding electronica that felt extra repetetive to a point where even i had to turn it off. ingame shop offers token customisation of each vehicle that apepars to be one item deep per 5 categories. so technicaly pasable but ultimatley i have not noticed any difference in boost or armor so worthless. + it runs i guess? - bad concept, bad sound, bad play, bad experience overall
The game dose rather rough trade of from more wide open world to very narrow path, maybe few side areas to explore if you realy want to but thing to change much of the play. Into very focused atmosphere centric play. I recognize that was nescessary to retain the style and the intended emotional effect but do feel like an elehant in dog sized enclosure sometimes - always pushed and prodded rather than naturaly wanting to go places. Still to its credit the trade off dose make atmosphere very heavy and that is intended. Sometimes harphing on it too much in dialogue but i guess some people need things explicit. Graphicaly it looks its age (barely year old at time of this review) nothing too extravagant but very solid adherence to a retrofuturism with rather original style is amazing breath fo fresh air, but acousticaly i think the devs nailed it - the sounds and music chosen plays perfectly - pulling my mind nigh on unnoticed into dark paces and wierd spaces. Very cautious recommandation - i understand that most peopel woudl not want to play restrictive walking somulator but i personaly was won by its artfullness (again very me thing so can not give more than 3/5). + Style Sound Story immersion - Exceptionaly restrictive play areas, to a point of it being distracting feeling of immersion can be easily broken by linearity
The subject matter (minds, their analysies and anomalies) is of particullar interest to be offcourse so i would have oviously been keen on the game no matter what, even with that bias i am quite impressed with the diverse mindscapes creator/s of this game managed to take me onto thusfar. Yes i get lost and meander in confussion btu that is norm for me and not game's fault, the portrayal of the patients is incredibly good charakter work trying to unravel what makes minds tick and more importantly not tick in an abstract world of drowning seemingly representing the protagonist's own mind decline. I wholeheartidly recommand this game altho just for fans of specific style of mostly wlking simulator style game riddled with puzzles and enviromental sheninigans. Be warned it is very much single golden path type game too so very little in ways of optional exploration that'd branch off into more interesting approach to each patient. there is only ever one way of solving each. I do remember comedy horrors from 80s so know that the combination can and will work in hands of decent writer. Even still the blend here of comedy, horror and mindgames from our beloved antagonist evokes the better if not very best of that genre by its ability to switch between menace and jests, sometimes jovial, without making the "Rainbow" contradictory.
