Torment: ToN is a great example of a great game forced to meet unreasonable expectations. My advice: Ignore the mostly unreasonable 1 and 2 star reviews written by Torment fanboys that can't see past their own nostalgia. As someone who loves and appreciates the original Torment, I can also see the many flaws the original has. No, this new Torment isn't as good or quite as unique as the original, but it was never going to be. The special circumstances and time period that the original Torment was released in is part of what made that experience so special. If you can approach Torment: ToN without the nostalgia glasses, you'll find a great cRPG and a worthy successor to the original worthy of a score somewhere between 3-5 stars, depending on your personal preferences.
Dear Esther provides a very beautiful world to walk through, a mysterious plot (sorta), and the music is remarkable. Yet, as I went through the experience, I felt empty. Then I realized why I felt empty. Every positive point about Dear Esther I said above -- the beautiful world, mysterious plot, and music -- I had already experienced almost 2 decades earlier in Myst and Riven except that -- Myst and Riven actually had gameplay. THAT is the problem. Dear Esther is incomplete and lazy game design. Dear Esther did what Myst and Riven (and so many other games) already accomplished in terms of story-telling and atmosphere -- which is fine, but the developer of Dear Esther was too lazy or too blind to understand that gameplay is an essential part of gaming (and that gameply can actually enhance the story and experience like it did in Myst, and Riven). Instead of implementing gameplay into Dear Esther that could enhance the experience and maybe make the story even more impactful, the developer chose to just have us walk around the world and listen to the story unfold. Can you imagine walking around Final Fantasy 6, watching the story unfold without any gameplay? Without any RPG? That's exactly what To The Moon is. Can you imagine walking around Myst and Riven, listening to someone narrate the story without any puzzles that perfectly integrate into the story and environment? That's Dear Esther. These are not games. They're interactive stories. Dear Esther, and the vast majority of similar interactive stories, are ultimately empty, half-experiences that do half of what Final Fantasy 6, Myst, and Riven did two decades ago. They are an example of the devolutionization of "games".
There is so much to LOVE about this game. The atmosphere is one of a kind. The graphics, music, sound effects, and overall feel of the game make for a fantastic experience. Though the survival elements could be deeper (and will likely get deeper as the beta progresses), it is all still done so well. My main gripe with the game is the claim that there are no zombies. Technically, there are no zombies...but the wolves might as well be zombies because they act EXACTLY like zombies (and nothing like wolves). The game tries to provide some weird excuse that the changing atmosphere and end of the world have caused the wolves to not act like wolves. Yea...ok...whatever. But then don't make one of your big claims that "There are no zombies" when you clearly do have zombies in your game with wolf suits on.
Full Throttle will always have a special place in my heart because of the time in which I played it. But even I will admit that Grim Fandango is superior and the best point-and-click adventure game of all time. Grim isn't as funny as Full Throttle or Monkey Island or other Tim Schafer games. But the characters are more real, heart felt, and enduring than any other game I've ever played. This is the pinnacle of the genre. This is a game you will play and always remember.
KOTOR 1 and 2 are both not only amazing Star Wars experiences, but amazing RPG experiences. They came out at a time when Star Wars games had gone in a rut of not being very good. Then these games came out and blew my mind. While KOTOR 1 builds the foundation, KOTOR 2 improves it by adding a very deep story, awesome and complex characters, and choices that are no longer distinctly black and white, but morally gray and ambiguous. While some good old games aren't so good nowadays after the nostalgia wears off, this is one game that has unquestionably stood the test of time. I cannot recommend KOTOR 2 enough.
This is a perfect update and really the opposite of what the negative reviews say. The new art is very well done and fits the series. The voice acting is good. The interface is much easier to deal with than the old version. And frankly, if your nostalgia is so thick that you for some crazy reason don't like any of these updated features, you can play the entire game in the old classic style. As a result, there is zero reason to not like this rerelease.
KOTOR 1 and 2 are the best Star Wars games ever made. Whereas KOTOR 2 excels in the story and character development department, KOTOR 1 laid the foundation for not only one of the best Star Wars experiences, but one of the best RPG experiences I've had. And KOTOR 1 has a very good story and cast of characters as well, including a great twist. When you experience great Star Wars masterpieces like this, you wonder how George failed to even remotely deliver on the prequels.
