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I want to say first off that I don’t think Prey was a bad game. Some of what I’ll say will sound a bit negative but overall it is a solid game. It is like a space version of Bioshock and Dishonored but it has worse combat than either of those. It has many things it did well but I didn’t enjoy the combat much. I found there to be too few weapons to use for my liking. There is a shotgun; pistol and a wrench as your main weapons. There are some grenade type weapons you can use that have different properties and there are powers you can choose to learn. Overall though I wasn’t interested in the alien powers and found the environmental attacks such as throwing furniture at enemies cute but not something that I wanted to do often. I also didn’t like the zero gravity parts as I found moving around annoying as I kept flying past where I wanted to go. There were also some timed missions which is a game feature I despise. Another game idea I hate that was used was respawning enemies. After killing all enemies in an area I could return later and there were new ones there. Now they weren’t the same ones, it was trying to say that the aliens were moving about the ship and nowhere was safe but the timing was way off. I could leave an area and return seconds later and there would be new enemies. You may say the game doesn’t follow real time but the timed missions were indeed using real time so I maintain it was poorly done. Many objectives were also very vague about where to go or what to do. Others were very specific or easy to figure out so it was a toss up on whether I would enjoy the mission. Lastly I was hoping that there would be some explanation about just what the Nightmare Typhon was but it never came. This thing stalks you across the station and even if you kill the thing it will come back later and hunt you more. I thought that maybe it would play a bigger role than just annoying me but I was wrong.
I had waited a while to play P.O.L.L.E.N due to performance issues. The wait was not worth it. The store page talks about how interactive the game is but all that means is you can pick up pretty much any object but there is no reason to do so for much of it. The game’s puzzles are decent but a lot of it is made worse by the handling of objects. Picking them up and inserting them into spaces is very clunky. There is also very little idea of where you must go next or what to do there. I’m not asking for a giant arrow pointing the way but some more work could have been done to make subtle hints. One part I loved though was the alternate history background story. There was a lot of detail that went into it and it is represented well in the game in terms of explaining why certain tech is more advanced and some is worse than what we had at that time period in our timeline. The story itself was interesting as well and I was trying to enjoy it but the clunky game play and constant searching for what to do next was getting in the way. Lastly the graphics were no better than decent. Object detail; lighting; shadows; all of it was alright but nowhere near as good as it should have been for needing such horsepower to run the game well maxed out. I played P.O.L.L.E.N. on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any glitches or bugs. The performance and optimization was atrocious though. Even with my 5700XT I still had the odd dip here. The game uses the Unity engine. The game uses an auto save system. The game has 8 graphics options; 2 AO options; 3 AA options and an FOV slider than goes from 60-120. I played version 1.01 of P.O.L.L.E.N. Settings Used: Highest; TSMAA; HBAO+ Disk Space Used: 7.4GB GPU Usage: 1-99 % VRAM Usage: 6896-7714 MB CPU Usage: 18-48 % RAM Usage: 5-5.5 GB Frame Rate: 39-135 FPS AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4 | RX 5700 XT 8GB | Mesa 20.0.8 | Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500GB | Linux Mint 20 | Kernel 5.4.0-48 | Wine 5.19 | DXVK 1.7.1L
Shadows of New York will be enjoyable for anyone who liked Coteries of New York. It has a lot of the same strengths such as using the lore and universe of Masquerade; having great characters; giving you a lot of choices to make the character feel as your own; and having a great initial story. Like with Coteries though the story takes strange turns near the end that don’t quite feel like where it should have gone for me and left me a little unsatisfied. At first I felt like that I should have been given the option of which pivotal choice near the end to pick. The game is trying to say that you already made this choice based on your previous choices but I disagree with where that road should have led. The art and music are both top notch and serve to set the mood well. As with Coteries the dynamic backgrounds are really well used and set the visual novel apart from many others. I will also say that I really enjoyed the subtle references to Coteries thrown into the story for Shadows. I also thought that the traits system was a nice tough although it seemed a bit underused due to the game’s length. I played Shadows of New York on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. The game uses an auto save system that saves the game whenever you exit and picks up where you left off. This means that if you want to see how different choices pan out you have to do a whole new play through. I would have preferred a manual save option. You have 3 save slots for separate play throughs. The game uses the Unity engine. I played version 1_0_0_41075 from GOG. Disk Space Used: 3.4 GB VRAM Usage: 2080-2161 MB CPU Usage: 2-6 % RAM Usage: 1.7-2.3 GB AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4 | MSI RX 5700 XT 8GB | Mesa 20.0.8 | Linux Mint 20 | Kernel 5.4.0-48
There were times in Jenny LeClue where I was pretty frustrated but it was hard to stay mad at the game. It has a lot of charm and is just very likeable. The characters have depth and humour; the town has history and class; the world has a brightness and great art design to it. The music was enjoyable although a bit repetitive. The puzzles are a very mixed bag and the game has some technical warts but nothing that is game breaking. The game consists of using the keyboard to move Jenny along in a side scroller manner and solving various puzzles to progress the story. You get the option to choose various dialogue responses in between the puzzles. You also get to interrogate various people by having to notice certain clues on their person and then using those clues to form a correct hypothesis about whatever you suspect them of. Many of the puzzles are very easy and just overly apparent what you have to do to solve them but there were these radio wave puzzles where you have to adjust a variety of dials and switches to just the right combination to hear the message or see the video, I found these very annoying. It would have been better had the dial or switch locked in when it was in the right spot so that I wasn’t constantly readjusting them. The story was really well done and had a good amount of twists. It also did a good job of using the stories author as a narrator and I found many of his comments about Jenny’s escapades to be pretty funny. The game ends on a cliffhanger which annoyed many people but I didn’t mind it. I won’t let the last few minutes of a game ruin the previous many hours of enjoyment I had. My System: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 5700 XT Gaming X 8GB | Mesa 20.0.6 | Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500GB | Manjaro 20.0.1 | Mate 1.24 | Kernel 5.6.11-1-MANJARO
Hellblade was a fantastic experience overall but with a couple very big issues. One major issue with it was was the puzzles. I despised the many puzzles where you had to find a specific rune shape hidden somewhere in the near area. This doesn’t sound bad but it is extremely frustrating when you have found this shape and are focusing on it but the game refuses to recognize this until you move an inch or two to the right or left to get lined up just how they want it. That and sometimes the shape would not be a static image but you would have to stand in such a way that a couple tree branches form the shape. I was in an angry state by the end as these make up the bulk of the game’s puzzles. The combat itself is fairly good for the most part with the exception of the fact that the game would auto focus on a specific enemy and would switch target when it deemed it best which leaves you open to attack from other sides easier. The overall presentation of Hellblade was simply amazing. The music was well used and always fit the mood well. The voice acting was superb by all involved. The facial expressions captured for Senua were the best I have ever seen. The graphics were fantastic, everything from the clothing detail; facial features; world detail; lighting; shadows; all was just top notch and had a great direction to it. In particular there is a scene where you’re supposed to be wading through a bloody river full of corpses in what I can imagine would be representative of “Hell” that was by far the creepiest version of Hell I have ever seen. There was one scene where the lip syncing was mistimed with the voice acting but it only lasted a minute or so. I would have also liked to see an option for a map added or some kind of direction identifier as some parts were very difficult to navigate. I will also say that the representations of auditory and visual hallucinations seemed authentic and well done.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York does a fantastic job of using the Masquerade universe and lore to center the story around. It will be easy enough for newcomers to grasp as it has a glossary for terms but still has enough for those who know more already. The characters were well done and I was enjoying the story up until the end. The game does a good job of giving you choices over when to feed or not; when to use violence or not and who to befriend or not. It could have been better in some ways though. The ending itself was too sudden and left too many unanswered questions. It also made most of the middle part of the game, which is forming your own coterie, kind of pointless as you never get to interact with these new friends much. The music was pretty good aside from one weird part where there was silence. The art and backgrounds was fantastic and possibly the only time I have seen a visual novel use dynamic backgrounds. I played Coteries of New York on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. The game uses the Unity engine. The game auto saves on every page and overwrites the one save. You can have up to 3 save games going at once but you can’t use more than the one slot for any one play through. This makes it near impossible to see where certain choices go as you would have to replay the whole game to try things out. I played version 1.06F1 of the game from GOG. Disk Space Used: 2.9 GB VRAM Usage: 1971-2022 MB CPU Usage: 3-7 % RAM Usage: 2.6-3 GB Overall even with the poor save system and the rushed ending the game is still a lot of fun and does a great job with characters and atmosphere. I finished my first play through in 4 hours 20 minutes. I paid $22.79 CAD for it and feel that is a fair price. If you enjoy visual novels, and especially if you enjoy the Masquerade universe, give Coteries of New York a try.
In The Pillars of the Earth each scene you have to solve a puzzle which will be your typical fare of using something in your inventory on the screen or combining items. After each puzzle scene there is dialogue in which you will be making dialogue choices. The puzzle parts are usually pretty straight forward but there is the odd time where I could see what they wanted from me but the solutionboggled my mind and didn’t seem logical. The visual novel parts were well done. The game did a good job of not making the choices black and white or good/evil. Some choices are timed where more important ones are not. At the end of each chapter you get a summary of your choices and some of the outcomes. If I have one gripe about the game was the story itself. It was pretty dry at times The ending was a bit different from what I was hoping as things seemed to go a bit darker before settling into a more typical happy ending. The animations, art and voice acting were well done The game required a file, “libpng12.so”, that wasn’t shipped with the game and after installing that the game started just fine. It opened on the wrong monitor. There was no config file I could find to specify which monitor to use and no in game option for it. Alt-Tab worked just fine. You can manually save whenever you want and there are checkpoints for those who don’t want to. While playing the game my total system RAM usage was 3GB, the total CPU usage was around 7% and my VRAM usage was 1.1GB. There were no graphics options besides resolution. I played using version 1.1.703 of the game from GOG. Overall whether you enjoy visual novels or 2D point and click games I can recommend The Pillars of the Earth. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it is very enjoyable for the majority of the playthrough and is solid on both fronts. I paid $13.99 CAD for it My Score: 7/10 My System: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 | MSI RX 580 8GB | Mesa 19.1.4 | Manjaro 18.0.4 | Kernel 5.2.8-1-MANJARO
Here is the story of one of my reigns as Prime Minister of Canada: I am in power for 20 years. I give the people everything they want to the max in terms of govt funded education and university; max funding to libraries, subsidies to every sector; legalized drugs, prostitution and gambling. I won every election with 96% of the vote. People don't care that we are $1.4 trillion in debt, have a deficit of $100 billion/qtr and are heading for the brink of destruction. This all with an income tax rate of 55%, corporate tax at 25%, sales tax at 20%, Next I tried a more libertarian approach, Still had all of the personal freedoms but no government funding to all that I could. I reduced the income tax from 55% to 20%; reduced the corporate tax from 25% to 10% and abolished other taxes. We had $100 billion in reserves and had a surplus of $10 billion/qtr after five years. I lost the election only getting 2% of the vote. Now my first thought was that this game just loves left wing socialist policies but maybe it was trying to make a statement about how dumb people are. I then thought that maybe the moral of the game was that it isn’t your job as leader to do a “good job” but to get elected. I could easily win the game and continue to get elected if I pushed aside my personal views on politics and policy and went with what would garner votes. In the end maybe it doesn’t matter. If you enjoy simulation games and have an interest in politics you will surely find some value in Democracy 3. I played Democracy 3 on Linux. It never crashed. There is a manual save option. Alt-Tab didn’t work while playing. While playing the game my system used 525MB of VRAM, 2% of my CPU and 2.3GB of system RAM. I was playing version 1.30.2 that I got from GOG. My System: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 19.1.3 | Samsung 850 Evo 250GB | Manjaro 18.0.4 | Mate 1.22.1 | Kernel 5.2.4-1-MANJARO
Every so often the visual novel genre gives me a real gem of an experience. That was the feeling I had after finishing The Falconers: Moonlight today. It has great cinematics at the beginning and the art is top notch. It has a very good style to it that almost strikes a steampunk kind of vibe. The choices you are presented with are of a good amount and give you a good amount of feeling of control of the story. That’s another great part of the game was the great story. I was almost waiting for it to veer off into more typical VN fare where the protaganist falls in love or has sex with one of the secondary characters in a throw away meaningless manner but the game stays focussed on the characters, their motivations, their histories and having a good twist or two instead. I played The Falconers: Moonlight on Linux. It didn’t crash once. It allowed manual saves and had nine pages worth of save slots. My total system RAM usage while playing was no more than 2.7GB and it used no more than 5% of my CPU. It used just 608MB of disk space. I got my copy from GOG and used game version 1.0.2. Alt-Tab worked just fine and it opened on the proper monitor. The game used the Ren’Py engine. It isn’t a very long game. I finished my first playthrough in a little over an hour. It’s a worthwhile experience though. If you like visual novels I would easily suggest The Falconers: Moonlight. It has a free demo available so you can see if it suits you. I paid $10.99 CAD for it but would say it is easily worth $25 CAD to me. My Score: 9.5/10 My System: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 19.0.3 | Manjaro 18.0.4 | Mate 1.22 | Kernel 5.0.9-2-MANJARO