The game's format didn't seem super promising at first but I ended up being super engaged. The art and the continuously odd, yet relatable atmosphere are impeccable. The characters immediately grew on me, as their dialogue is genuinely well-written. The story is fascinating and feels important (although I can't say I love the endings). This is an awesome example of magical realism. Game's relatively short and super packed with its story beats and light puzzle mechanics. Some of the latter are very cool and creative, and I can't say I missed the harder puzzles of most adjacent games here. Nothing felt padded out. This just doesn't try to be a classic Point'n'Click that's heavily centers on item puzzles.
Among my favorite games are 1990s classics – I'd say I'm pretty tolerant towards old stuff. However I've played 10 hours of the hallowed New Vegas now and can't recommend it. After those hours, I'm still not sure what the parties and conflicts of the game's world are and the main plot is moving painfully slow. I understand that games like this can't unpack the entire lore at once, but for a game that is often called one of the best RPGs, there haven't been a lot of interesting RPing possibilities going on in my playtime. There are frequent troubles with understanding where on earth you have to go, as the general level design/ segment design is atrocious at times. Especially the "inside" segments (cities, settlements, buildings) are WAY too stretched out and sometimes constructed of several little maps with confusing loading zones between them. The clunky movement and slow walking speed make it absolutely tedious to just snoop around until you found that one NPC or door that blended into the game's orange-brownish environment. Sometimes you also won't find the NPC because it isn't the right time of day, so have fun guessing wether to wait around or to search somewhere else. Having said that, I'll also have to adress that New Vegas looks awful. I guess that in 2010, Open World games had to make a lot of visual compromises, but New Vegas' looks very samey and uninteresting. This isn't a problem of technical capabilities but of art direction.
I'm so divided I felt the need to write a review. All in all: If you don't like really grindy action games, I can't recommend it. Even if the overall design, presentation and ideas are compelling. Shadow Warrior has a big and, in itself, fun arsenal of abilities and weapons. The way they are managed is pretty amazing. However: In a game like Half-Life 2 (2004!), there is only one special ability (Gravity Gun), and yet the designers found so many interesting and fun ways to use that ability, and to extend it. Throughout the campaign and even the two sequel episodes, the Gravity Gun doesn't get boring. SW is the exact opposite. There are a lot of abilities but all the designers turn them into is "uh yeah you can use them to either immobilize or sword-slash monsters, in different looking ways". This leads to the game becoming a drag around the tenth of the 17 chapters. I can completely see why I once abandonned it. It becomes incredibly repetitive: You'd be better off playing a Multiplayer FPS, as the challenges are devoid of variation. "Increasing difficulty" is equaled with "more of the same enemies". The storyline seems interesting, but is told badly. Mostly via pretty, but incomprehensible cutscenes. I also kinda hate how the tone during the first half is goofy and parodic, and then tries to become all dry and serious. This is a game where you get locked up in battle areas with a bunch of enemies in order to completely wipe them! How could anyone take this seriously?
What I appreciate: - Environment (the house) is interactive and atmospheric. - Gone Home is/ was probably important for raising the popularity of games with more mature plots. - Nice UI and menu design And why I can't really recommend it: - Some say art shouldn't be judged by numeric standards, but still wanting 18$ for such a short game is a joke to me. It's a 1 or 2 hours experience from 2013. - The spooky, empty house, the suggestion of family secrets... just wasted potential because nothing of that really gets deeper. Very disappointing, as that aspect is way more interesting than the actual main plot. - My biggest gripe: The story is super generic in my book. For a story-focused game, that's a dealbreaker. You expect something interesting and it turns out to be a bare-bones version of one of the oldest dramatic tropes, just spiced up in a way you've seen it a hundred times in other media. The only difference: It's told mostly through audio logs, in a video game. Doesn't stop the boredom.
What I liked: -nice looking graphics (read some comments on other sites calling them outdated- not sure what they're talking about? But I'm no expert) -good enemy design and placement -very good companion AI: The little girl you have to guide doesn't feel like a burden, as she's good at avoiding lines of sight. Cons: -Bad choice of music. Loud, epic violins don't really go with sneaking through a dark fort. -Physics can be buggy. -If you want to make a game that just doesn't have a super original central gameplay idea, that's cool. The pure third-person stealth aspect of this game is decent. But please don't try to make it relevant by adding mechanics from recent games just because you think they were cool. The "time moves when you move" thing from SUPERHOT feels incredibly redundant here. It worked for SUPERHOT's very abstract design, but doesn't make any sense in a real life environment with complex enemy placements. Now you have to keep pressing Q if you want the guard to keep moving- oh the joy. What on earth is the point?? Life Is Strange's time travel mechanic becomes another word for "quickload" here, instead of enabling time-related puzzles and tricks. And I guess this won't be different in the full game, as you'd show something like this off in the demo. My advice to the devs would be to ditch the pseudo-original elements of the gameplay and instead focus on story and characters.
