Overall, Dishonored 2 definitely felt like an all-around improvement over Dishonored 1. I especially enjoyed how it was more level-headed in it’s distribution of available playstyles between lethal and nonlethal. I was kinda crappy at stealth, but I still could finish the entire game non lethal and I enjoyed it, thanks to all of the new methods of taking downe enemies non-lethally even in hand to hand combat. In addition to that, you get a choice of new powers because of the choice to play as either Corvo or Emily. I chose to play as Emily for narrative reasons. Dishonored 2 also features improved level design, with two shining examples of one of the best levels in games I played, ever. One of those is the Clockwork Mansion, a moving, changing maze of rooms and platforms that twist and unfold into each other, with accurately represented spaces in between, that you can also explore. The other is Stilton’s Mansion, which includes a very fun gimmick where you hop back and forth in time, each time changing the sorroundings to represent their past condition. You can even “peek” into the other timeline via a special mirrror gadget, planning ambushes on guards by hopping in and out of the literal reality to ambush them, like some kind of space-continuum demon. Other levels are still pretty interesting, large and spacious, with various possibilities of approach, and generally keep the level of Dishonored 1, at the very least. The story is... once again nothing to really write home about, and in fact, seems kinda a rehash of the Dishonored 1’s DLC. I mean... Delilah again? Going after Emily? I SURE THINK I DID THAT ALREADY. If you want to see how I tackled Dishonored 2 playing for the first time, you can see it on my youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWUpnNrP-xYw4Zr0Y8JRRNOZ
Still Life is a dark, violent murder mystery adventure game, where you play the role of an FBI agent Victioria McPherson, investigating serial killer murders in 2004 Chicago, but you also play as her grandfather, Gustav McPherson, who was a private investigator in 1922 Prague, also investigating a series of serial killings that seem eerily similar. The strongest point of the game is probably the dark, opressive atmosphere. The game is indeed brutal and displays the effects of horrible violence, but it doesn’t really seem exploitative. Instead, it seems like a real-ish enough dive into a reality of investigating some of the horrible crimes that do indeed happen in real life. The story itself is nice as well – while I didn’t really like Victoria that much, I did like the character of her father, Gus, who was neatly fleshed out in his playable flashbacks. You can make reasonable guesses alongside the way to try and guess the conclusion of the story. If I had to note any particular drawbacks, it’s the rather cliffhanger-y and sequel-bait-ish ending, but the game overall was interesting enough not to be spoilt by that. As far as gameplay goes, I would describe most of the puzzles as average in difficulty, and sometimes pretty enjoyable to figure out. They are a good mix of item hunting and using the right items on right things, more classic puzzles with mechanisms that have moving parts, as well as some “riddle” style puzzles where you have to follow written instructions. If you want to check out how it plays or at least how it starts before deciding whether you are interested, or if you think it could be fun to watch someone approaching it for a first time, you can see a playthrough on my youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcOZZGVhSkA&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWXj1GgP6m-771uEEGPTdIFG&pp=iAQB
I was very eager to play Dishonored. I did, and I had a lot of fun. It was good. Very good at times, but in comparison to Arx Fatalis and Prey, it was probably the “weakest” of the three Arkane games I played so far. Which is a testament to how good of a studio they are, since to have something that’s”weakest” still be on that good of a level is nothing short of amazing. The story of Dishonored is... okay. Just that. Okay. There are no particularly interesting characters to speak of, they are all pretty flat, and Corvo himself is basically a blank slate for the player. You can guess major story beats before half way of the game if you read the notes and listen to the dialogue. A novel feature of the game’s story is that it react to your levels of violence and how lethal you are in dealing with your enemies – changing appropriately. It’s a fine concept that I enjoy and respect a lot. I wish more stories had non-lethal options of dealing with opposition. Speaking of positives, one has to definitely mention the art direction – the whole game has a rather unique, oil-painting-esque aesthetic. It doesn’t go for a very high realism portrayal, which defintely caused it to get older slower on the graphical front. The level design is nice as well – the levels are often quite spacious, with numerous alleyways and routes to approach your target, suited for different playstyles. That being said, I think Dishonored falters a little bit by not providing a non-lethal option to deal with hand to hand combat. The result is that if you want to go non lethal, as I did, after you get discovered you might as well reload the game, because in a direct confrontation you HAVE TO kill people or be killed yourself. If you are interested in seeing me go through the game blind and seeing me discover it’s world and comment on it, you can see me playing it on my youtube channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZT5DzcyEZo&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWVXdu09GfDWo3xdneIcaGLZ
Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos is a free standalone mod expansion for Gothic 2, that serves as a prequel for the Gothic series. You play the role of Marvin, who escapes from his home island trying to evade the impending invasion by the orcs, and forge a new life for himself on the island of Archolos. CoM:A consistently displays quality that is on par with the vanilla, classic Gothic releases. In general, the game definitely grew on me with each passing hour. While the Polish voiceacting is great, and the writing generally is pretty good, the English translation is, weirdly enough, maybe the worst element of the game. The translation is perfectly functional and most of the time even correct, but occasionally there are mistakes commited in it that do not really fit the professional level of the rest of the game’s elements to me. And now we come to the aforementioned game’s world. It’s brilliant. It has everything a great video game world should have – not that large swathes of land, but very DENSE, with plenty to discover behind each corner. It was absolutely brilliant to explore and it absolutely rewarded exploration in the best of Gothic tradition. The story actually pleasantly surprised me for the most part. The story dealt with a lot less high-magic and epic level stuff than the vanilla entries of the Gothic series, and istead delved more into politics of all things, which I found to be rather interesting. The story of CoM:A actually brings up a lot of topics that are in general kinda fresh for a fantasy game – things like independence movements, the realities of conquest of sovereign nations, foreign and domestic relations in a war situation, and even things like ethnic tensions or the treatment of refugees. If you want, you can take a look at my BLIND playthrough. I play with Polish voiceacting, English subtitles and English commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrAIS3hWcFI&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWUT0MB7DeV5WCvX-CceMCVj
I absolutely loved it! The general feeling I get is that the developers must have loved it as well – it’s created with plenty of soul. It shows in a lot of minor stuff – for example in how painstainkingly the medieval architecture and art is recreated. The game made a great first impression – Henry himself is likeable as a character, owing in most part to the voice actor, and the world is downright beautiful in some parts – especially the aforementioned medieval architecture and decor is top notch. The STORY of KCD was... a bit weird, since I can’t say I was that engaged in the main storyline – it seemed to be a little unfocused after a while, and didn’t really command my attention that well as a whole (as I said, the game took me 120 hours!), but ever other STOP on the main storyline turned out to be kinda great. I don’t think it was that great overall, but it did GREAT THINGS along the way, if you get what I mean. The side missions of KCD were absolutely great. I especially liked the quests that dealt with investigation, since the game treated the subject rather seriously and didn’t really hold your hand – you had to pay attention to what the characters said, to the terrain and clues therein. Now, COMBAT... What can I say about the combat system... In the words of Bilbo Baggins... Even by the end, I didn’t know half of the combat system half as well as I should like; and I liked less than half of it half as well as it deserved. In general, I absolutely loved KCD despite some of the flaws – it’s packed with content and created with plenty of love. It boggles my mind that such an ambitious game was Warhorse’s first project, and I’m very much looking forward to the sequel, especially since the game kinda ended on a clear sequel hook. If you think you’d enjoy seeing somehow getting through KCD for the first time, you might check my lets play on the youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o_0OQ410QU&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWUEtHNv33J40poxvClcaYTR
I’ve been a longtime fan of Gothic 1 and 2, but I’ve not played any Piranha Bytes game past Gothic 3. Thus, I didn’t really know what to expect from Elex. I was kinda HOPING for a “sci-fi Gothic 2”, since Gothic 2 was pretty great. I replayed it last year and it was still very enjoyable, even nowadays. Overall, I guess I DID kinda ejoy Elex and I don’t regret playing it, but “sci-fi Gothic 2” it wasn’t. It had some pretty deep flaws and was overall more than a bit frustrating. First of all – I think Elex handled difficulty wrong. The difficulty curve was horribly unforgiving, I’ve literally struggled with killing basic enemies for like HALF of the game. The main reason for that would be, I guess, that Elex’s idea of “difficulty” is just turning every enemy into a damn bullet sponge. Second, the game was INCREDIBLY frontloaded. You could (and I did) do like 95% of all of the sidequests in Chapter 1 or 2, and it seriously affected the pacing of the game in a negative way. The story overall was good enough, I guess. It wasn’t groundbreaking or particularly touching, but it had interesting moments and kept me somewhat invested. I’m actually PRETTY STOKED about the sequel hook idea. I liked the factions in Elex. Because they all kinda sucked. I know, that sounds contradictory, but my point is that I found all of the factions in Elex to be INCREDIBLY flawed. And it made for a very interesting decision when it came to joining one. The world itself was kinda cool – the patchwerk of magic/sci-fi/and “mundane contemporary” elements was a bit rough and sometimes a bit artificial, but I was able to suspend my disbelief and have fun with it. That may be because the exploration overall was done superbly and was very enjoyable. If you’d be interested in seeing me playing through Elex for the first time, you can see a blind playthrough on my youtube channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0aj9WFAinY&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWXw6b0Z_Ogu5ouJZbuzC7Ly
I’ve heard very differing opinions on Harvester. It’s either a disgusting, shock for shock horror kind of nonsense, or a clever commentary of sorts on media. I was a little curious about which is it, so I decided to try it. You’re Steve, you wake up in the town of Harvest, population 51, with amnesia. And your mother tells you about an imminent annual blood drive, where you would be “expected to give” and where they “don’t use needles”. The only way to be exempt is to join a Lodge – a mysterious organization that seems to hold much sway in the town, with an impressive, castle-like headquarters in the centre. What follows is a rather low-brow accumulation of low-quality filth: gore, cannibalism, sexual violence, body horror, harming children and things like that. All given in a campy, a little bit over-the-top package. The aforementioned over the top feel is, by the way, one of the reasons why none of the “shocking” things in the game are actually shocking, since you can’t really take them seriously. So the game isn’t even shocking per se, it’s just... weird and kinda gross at times. Is there a “message”? Well, yes, kinda. But the message is totatally not worth going through the game for, nor is it really that clever or profound. As far as the point and click adventure part is concerned, Harvester seems pretty standard. To make matters weirder, shooting and melee combat elements appears rather out of nowhere at the end of the game. They add nothing to the game in my opinion, and are rather unwieldy as far as controls go. Overall, I really believe after finishing it, that Harvester is trash. It’s “message” is trite and probably thinks of itself as a lot more clever than it’s actually is. I do kinda regret playing Harvester and I think it was a waste of time, but if you’d like to see how it plays and judge for yourself, you can see it on my youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPzYykOmL8s&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWXQuETyFICHCThcmw4O-nf1
I know “walking simulator” is pretty much an insult for a game, to most people. But the thing is... I don’t really agree. It might be weird to read, but I don’t really play games for gameplay per se. I play games for an emotional/intellectual experience (TM) – to feel something, or reflect on something interesting. If I wanted perfect gameplay, I’d just play chess over and over again. And “Observer” is generally a solid tier walking sim in my opinion – definitely engaging enough to keep me going. It’s a rather classic cyberpunk story, in a way – it doesn’t do anything that outrageously innovative or mind-blowing, but it has enough set pieces to keep me engaged. You play as Daniel Lazarski, an Observer in the 5th Polish Republic of 2080s. What’s an observer? It’s kind of a neural interrogator, that can connect to the minds of others, and get their deepest secrets laid bare. Don’t let me lie to you – the game really IS an epitome of a walking simulator. There’s really nothing to do in the game than just walking and looking around – most of the “puzzles” solve themselves, the “dialogue” usually consists of choosing one of two options, and there are really no enemies to speak of that would require any meaningful action out of you, barring one or two pre-set stealth sections. But if you relent to that, I think the exploration and the story in Observer are actually not half-bad. The game has a very bleak color-palette, which if fitting, since it takes place in Poland. Heh. The story hits a lot of tried and true cyberpunk tropes – as I said, none of them are particularly groundbreaking, but they are well presented enough to still be kinda interesting. Overall, though, Observer was good enough for me. Not mindblowing, but intersting enough to not make me feel like I wasted my time after playing it. If you’d like to see how it plays, you can see it on my youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P--E6h7FlSw&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWUFA0AZPNnv1q7Ebh-90f70&index=2
What first caught my eye about the game was the aesthetic – it goes for a “weird” “unsettling” kind of imagery – there’s some of the H.R. Giger-y biological shennanigans going on at one point, and prior to that you go around a crazy carnival setting of sort. The graphics do well to compliment the story and setting of the game in my opinion. But what is the game about? It’s difficult to talk about it in detail without spoilers, but let’s just say it’s the kind of story that delves into the mind of the protagonist and how his lived experience transforms into dreams and visions that reference what he has lived through. The game is essentially one giant metaphor and it generally works okay in that regard – there’s definitely joy to be had in trying to guess what the various elements allude to and what they represent inside the protagonist’s mind. That being said – it seemed to me that there’s just a bit of annoying pretensiousness about some elements of the game which seem to not be linked to anything in particular in the story, but seem like they serve the need of the developers to highlight their favourite motives or low-key brag about how well read they are. The puzzles are all rather easy to follow, so if you expect challenge in that regard you might be disappointed. That being said, I kinda appreciate as a general idea incorporating hints straight into the game. One of the most impressive features of Strangeland is a full on commentary and annotation mode that you can enable. It elaborates on all of the references, foreshadowing etc. in the game as well as providing voiced interviews with the developers, talking about their vision for the game. If you want to check out how it starts before you decide whether to pick it up, you can watch a bit on my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9c4mxekQ1c&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWXrode2At1bignPx3OTmOK3
I’m a big fan of games tackling the motives of madness, mental illness, shifting perceptions of reality and uncertainty about what’s real and what’s not. I’m also a fan of dark imagery. Fran Bow is a classic point-and-click adventure game in which you take on the role of Fran, a ten year old girl with a very active imagination and a very tragic backstory. After some horrible stuff happens, you are landed in a psychiatric hospital and have to escape and reunite with your beloved kitty, Mr. Midnight, and also learn the truth behind said horrible stuff that happened to you. Overall, Fran Bow does generally deliver on the “dark imagery” front – you experience horrible visions of an alternate reality that’s full of blood, gore and shadowy figures. But it wouldn’t be anything else than an exploitative shock horror for shock horror’s sake without an engaging story to perk it up. And I’m happy to say that I think Fran Bow delivers on that front as well – it’s pretty engaging to try to decipher “what it means”, as the story, to my mind, can be read in several different ways, including or excluding actual supernatural elements, depending on how you interpret it. It was really fun for me to try and understand what certain elements mean, what they relate to in Fran’s life and her lived experiences, and how the story overall ties together. Now, I said Fran Bow is a point and click adventure game, so you probably would like to know how it holds up in that regard. And I would say... okay? Please note, that I’m very much a newcomer to the genre of point-and-clicks, so my point of entry is probably lower than many of you. And Fran Bow’s puzzles are generally forgiving – there’s no egregious pixel hunting, the puzzles generally do make sense. If you want to see how it played to see if it would interest you, you might want to check a bit of my let’s play on the youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgU2KkzBB3o&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWVEpFqnEuIA7pyIuKD4VwV9
