This is a very good looking game, with strong art direction. It starts off with a intro that is interesting at first, but it goes on for far too long as nothing really happens. Finally, in a cut-scene at the end of the intro, you accidentally fall off the path you're meant to follow and for some reason that's apparently your death sentence. Why? You never find out, but you're berated several times for having strayed from the path in a recurring dream sequence. It's the same horrible voice-over every time. From start to finish it's a pretty linear game that's 4 hours long, max. Throughout the game there are tapestries that are written in a font you can't read. You can find tablets that translate one "alien" letter into a normal one. The problem with this is that the letters seem randomly chosen, because when you get later into the game you'll find tablets that contain a letter you've already translated. You won't be able to read any of these tapestries until maybe half way through, where you can kind of guess what some words are supposed to be. You'll get stuck on geometry quite a bit, moreso in the latter half. A lot of sound effects seem to be missing, which makes the whole package lack impact and atmostphere. Movement is so sluggish and your sprint is limited to maybe 3 seconds. Jumping feels incredibly heavy and it'll sometimes take several attempts to jump out when you get stuck on something. Because of the sluggish movement, the combat feels really static and you'll mostly just stand there or slowly move backwards and try to soak as little damage as possible. I think you're supposed to be able to sneak by the sleeping dogs, but it doesn't seem to work as they wake up every time I was sneaking past them. I got in on sale for 5€ and I don't think it's worth more than that. I did not enjoy my time with it. Save your money instead.
A good shooter, with satisfying combat. The old-school episode-style level selection is good, but the last episode and all its levels are by far the weakest collection of levels out of all of them. The levels in the last episode are marred by mismatched textures and a generally much less coherent art-direction and layout than the preceding episodes, and ending the game with those levels is really a disservice to the otherwise great art-direction for the majority of the levels. My biggest problem with the last episode though, is that it introduces pits that you can fall into, which kill you instantly. Up until the last episode you didn't have to worry about this, and you could run, circle-strafe and generally just charge ahead and kill the enemies. But with the pits, it slows down the gameplay immensely, as you're now trying not to fall into those pits, as a single misstep can send you back to the beginning of the level. Aside from my issues with the last episode, the game has a general problem with a lot of the levels being too dark. You have a magic light that you get for free, but I'd rather not have that light and have the levels be a little brighter in general. Luckily, tweaking the brightness in the game works better than doing it on your monitor, but it does come with the downside that some of the secrets areas are completely blown out (Because they're so bright). I also had quite a few cases with z-fighting, mostly with decals on the walls, or bunched-up loot as well as the occasional secret wall that would clip badly when opened. Despite all the small issues with it, I still had a lot of fun, and would definitely recommend it. The shooting feels great, the weapon selection is good, and the upgrades are interesting. The enemy sprites are really good with cool death animations. Well worth the full price.
Fantastic game, easily a 5/5. Definitely had to pay attention to deduce the fates of the unfortunate souls aboard the ship. Little daunting at first, but slowly you get more pieces of the puzzle to solve more and more. A few of the "bodies" can be hard to find, but just keep looking around. And some of the voices can be a little low in the mix. Music is fantastic however and it's visually very interesting. The mechanics surrounding the solving of fates is great.
