Donut County was first released for smartphones - and it shows. While the gameplay and the controls are rather simple, the game itself is strangely pleasant. Your goal in each level is to swallow various objects with a remote controlled, ever growing hole in the ground. Sometimes there are little puzzles, but they are very easy. The story is simplistic, but funny. The art style is minimalistic as is the music, but not in a bad way. The game is also very short: I finished it in under 2 hours (of course there were still some achievements left). Before you buy keep in mind that this is a game originally designed for smartphones, so do not expect too much. I got it in a sale and I do not think that the game is worth its full price, especially if the game only costs $5 in the App Store (with the same content apparently). More levels and more puzzles would have been nice.
When I was a kid I did not play many racing games with this kind of perspective or art style (Lamborhini American Challenge on the SNES comes to mind), but Slipstream somehow really did strike my fancy. The art style is good and fitting, even if limited as mentioned by other reviewers. Yes, there are not that many different objects in the scenery, but it does not bother me, because you do not really have time to look at them on the highest difficulty. I really like the strong colors in the background on some tracks (like Oil Ocean or Stardust Speedway). I also really liked the soundtrack, which is inspired by the 80s. Some tracks fit in perfectly because their own speed/tempo/momentum. You have to keep in mind that this is not a full price title. There are 20 tracks, but they do not have any kind of gimmick to differentiate them from each other. The game modes are standard. I think the main motivation to keep playing after the first two hours or so is to get all the achievements. If collecting them is not your thing you will not get much from this game. In conclusion I must say that I find this game oddly entertaining, even though there is not much content and I did not play this kind of game in the past. I think the price is OK (I got it with the launch discount), but if you are in doubt about getting this game then wait for a sale.
I'm no big fan of point&click adventures, but from time to time a good title will hold my interest long enough to finish it. The Raven Remastered is such a title. I really liked the first part of the game: the setting is nice, the atmosphere is right, the art style and voice acting is good. The story is interesting and the puzzles are maybe not the best, but quite fitting. The notebook with the optional hints is a neat idea, but it would have been nice to know in advance that using the hints will lower your score. The possibility to highlight all "hotspots" on the screen can be helpful for beginners, but the highlighting could be a litte bit more noticeable. POSSIBLE SPOILER FOLLOWING In the second part of the game you will replay some scenes from the first part, but from another perspective. It is really interesting because you get answers to questions which may have came up in the first part. The puzzles are not really good here: often you simply combine everything with everything to progress and will shake your head because of the "solutions" (yeah, I really must find a drain to bend some piece of wire because how could bend a piece of wire otherwise?). As interesting the notebook is with its descriptions of characters and events, it becomes confusing later on because you do not get a notification about which parts have been updated. Because of that I barely read the notebook in the second half. The end was really surprising and I could not have guessed it, but it could have been handled better (maybe dropping the faintest of hints around the game to get you thinking). I do not have a reference for how long a good point&click adeventure should last, but it took me nearly twelve hours to finish it. Fortunately the first part took more than half of the time. I would advise anyone interested in the game to wait for a sale: it may not be worth full price.
