Oh well, not everyone knows, but this game is much older then it looks. Its was initially released in 2008 as rather simplistic God sim (at core point nothing changed). It was made on Flash, so that from where all that lags and technical issies comes from. Years later developers decided to rework it in BIG NEW Game with same core mechanics. And they did, sorta. Main problem is that its still flash based, still laggy, still buggy. And yeah, promised Linux build was scraped as usual. Not like its worst game ever, but its so full of ideas didnt worked right - initial simple mechanics is plays nicely on Big Universe, its laggs and so on. The good point is that games features GREAT chiptune soundtrack well worth listening along. Somehow soundtrac is making up a lot for game weakness.
Jazzpunk - is wonderful, crazy, psychedelic adventure. Right from start you taken into open, colorful, and bizarre world, filled with various jock and culture references on every corner. Aesthetics, level design, music, voice - everything is so tightly fir in place so you literally cannot find any real weak sides. There is no single moment in this game boring. At very start this game may look challenging, thought its not at all. You need to infiltrate Soviet building. task is looking hard, you don't know that to do, right? Well, instead of hurting your mind you starting to walk around, doing some crazy stuff wandering that else developers managed to put on level and they did a lot. On next levels you pretty much doing same - crazy job for crazy goals while searching for various jokes scattered all around levels. Somewhere from resort level its feels like humor is getting spread little too thin and overall level feels underdeveloped, but that's fine, since its still great. And of course, extremely bizarre final. If you look for some type of challenge, mind bending puzzles or quick reflexes - this game is not for you. There is no way to lose here, but if you think about it like of Comedy you take part in - its great. Is there bad sides? Yes. Its rather short. Can be completed in 1.5-3 hours completely. Replay value is low, unfortunately. Once you done - there is no point to return. But is it worth to spend one evening to play Jazzpunk? Hell yes! Do it now!
I got this DLC as part of Deluxe Edition. Lets get it clear - Bestiary and Myths interesting to read, Guide saved me several hours of life, and its not that detail so you lose any interest in game - its rather useful direction. Soundtrack is good, but is INCOMPLETE. There is several tracks present in game and missing in OST, but you can find it (not ideal quality) in game folder you know? Map and stuff is nice to have, but not adds much. And finally, Talisman - its, mostly, useless. All its do is collect energy from you gaining EXP, charges itself anfd allow you to get little more stats point to level up. Thats all. If they really wanted to add some usefull stuff to LOX, developers should develop something moe interesting, because Talisman doenst affect game much.
First, the good - music is good, picture is beautiful, game play is rather interesting. Is it worth to get? Yes, on sale. Second. In this review i will concentrate on critics mostly. While playing i found 3 main areas of problems 1) World design. Creators claim that you will get "giant" world to explore, but in truth is no that big. Its not small either, but considering amount of solid forests, mountains and stuff you have not so much to explore as you may think. A lot of backtracking is also problem. Design is repetitive - 4 castles, 4 towers, 4 churches, 4 witches. After some gameplay there is stable sequence repeating again and again. Luck of difference is big. 2) Gameplay. Items is scarce and often useless, food is pain in ass, random encounters is both overwhelming and often boring, but considering need of grind is unavoidable. Big amount of luck is needed because its easy to stumble in extra hard enemies, but thanks to game there is option to flee at least. Additional problem is stats, for example you constantly need to increase constitution to get more weight you can carry but for many characters these stats is not very important. Speed is often most important skill. 3) Main dish. Technical problems. As Linux user i can say version for Linux is "lazy port". In other words, its rather low quality. Game uses Mono (which already not good news) and leaks memory. A lot. Longer you play more memory it hogs. Its often starts to get choppy and drop frame rates with no reason. Battle scenes with a lot of enemies feels slow and laggy. Did i mention that games constantly drops to "loading" screen when switches to battle and map? Sometimes these loading stall and you doomed to kill game. Sometimes games loses all textures and screen filled with black patches - need to restart. Several times games managed to hang whole system to me. Not like its often but its happens. Its also need 32bit libs to run. Considering time passed these bugs will never be solved.
(Based by Not GOG version). At first, WHF is thankful tribute to many Sci-Fi works - Doctor Who, The Futurological Congress by Lem, 1984 by Orwell, Equilibrium and so on. And in that area its brilliant! Visual design is rather strong point of this game too - outskirts is rundown, city center is colorful (especially on pills) and pleasant to watch. But as long you digging deeper things (just like in game plot) starting to get not so beautiful . Level map is generated in procedural way, but while it can differ in details in always very similar. Same streets, almost same buildings, very same peoples, same phrases and so on. Gameplay is basically plagued by same repetitiveness. Sleep, take a walk, search for food, occasionally loot some items, engage in fight, sleep again. Day after day you repeat same day, like in Groundhog Day. Exploration is not strong point either. You have bunch of almost same "poor" islands, you have good looking center and several areas you need to visit by plot. Feels like whole gameplay plot is only driven by your need to find way to pass artificial barriers. Anyway, better watch some letsplay on Youtube first, since this game maybe not that you expect it to be.
First and most important ( in case of this game) - do not expect any support for this game if you going to pay for this game. Its totally not GOG fault, but developers of this game have, literally, no interest in it anymore, along with purchasers. They still keep it up today on well known "S" service, but "too busy" to do that on DRM-free ones like GOG or Humble. Its taken months of whining and to keep asking on Steam and developer own forums to update game and in the end they released updated version here for Windows. Still no interest shown to release MacLin one. In Humble game builds not updated for two years and nobody cares, developer says they "maybe" update it (Game you paid money for). Figure it yourself. Now, as for game itself its cartoonish kind-of God simulator filled with micromanagement. Its not really bad game at all, but its not live up to expectations of most who anticipated it and its certainly not THAT great for developers to be so cocky
Many one before called this DLC utterly boring, but its hard to believe them seeing nice screenshots. Unfortunately, they generally correct. While putting a lot of fantasy (in all means) in that new mode developers forgot to put any meaning. Literally, you just fly over ocean, encountering some rocks, jump pads, islands with various castles and buildings. There is birds, dragons, dolphins and stuff. Really zen like. Fun? Maybe for 5 minutes. No goal, no events in games. You can still die by hitting things, so its not "100% relax mode". After 5 minutes of play only thing you can try to do is to get on roofs of that building. I wasnt able to imagine anything else. Most unpleasant thing, btw, is that DLC itself included in main game. DLC provided here is literally small unlock file to activate it. Why didnt thy added it as free addition? Many blame Flipfly for breaking whole point of game, but naturally Race the sun is pretty limited and straightforward game, there is not much to add or remove - they had either repeat themself in DLC or make something opposite. They chosen second, but not really succeeded with it. Anyway, i will not say "Dont buy" since i dont feel like money i paid was wasted totally. Flipfly certainly had some interesting idea while making this DLC. But i suggest you to wait for some big sale and get it cheap since its not add a lot of value to game.
Ok, there is a lot of various opinions about this game, but most of them is correct. I will not talk about story and puzzles, but about quality of game as is. This is SHORT, Simplified, BUGGY and generally "not feels finished" game. Right from the start it feels like someone tried to make new Machinarium and guess that? Its Flash based games. Yeah, FlashAir. In this years its just ridiculous, but developers still try that "easy to make" stuff causing problems for most customers. Moreover, many developers made Flash based games that works rather well, but not this one. Everything is slow, jerky and generally just unpleasantly sluggish. Oh yes first i tried it on Linux. Not good at all. Tried it on Windows? SAME result. So, if you want to get this game no matter what - get in on sale.
