There is a free demo of the game which is worth more than any review. However I will try to mention things that might be usefull even if someone has already played the demo. As a start there the full release has some improvements. I was not able to use my cheap controller in the demo but it is working in the full game. In the demo the tree tops sometimes obstructed the view to the car and now whenever the car goes behind a tree the tree-top becomes invisible. The list of cars is pretty decent. There are some unusual for a really game: BMW M1, Opel Kaddet(last generation), Ferrari 308 and even some exotic looking vehicles. The cars are being unlocked by playing the career mode which starts you with a couple of available vehicles and by racing you gradually unlock the rest. In custom rally mode more cars are available from the start but some still need to be unlocked in career. The vehicles cannot be upgraded but there are some basic setup options - stability control assistance, ABS assistance etc. With the Stability contro assistance at 100%(which is by default) the car tends to understeer prety badly so turning this down a bit made the hadnling much better. There is car damage a certain amount of which can be repaired at predefined stages of the rally. There are five locations - Finland, Sardinia, Japan, Germany, Norway. If some locations are locked behind completing career events I haven't seen them yet. I personally couldn't find that much of a difference in how the car handles when driving on another location/surface type. There are different whether conditions and times of day - fog, rain, morning, afternoon, sunset, night so it covers all the bases in that regard There is a free roam option where you can drive through the locations as much as you like(even offroad) and discover photo-shoot spots(just like in NFS 2015) and find collectibles. All in all for me Art of Rally is a fun arcade rally game with Micro Machines like point of view.
I've been away from my desktop PC for a while and had to game on a laptop. I was starting to miss Escape from Tarkov. I've dreamed about the endless inventory management, deciding what item is valuable/helpful so I can try and stuff it in the backpack. I craved the frustration of going into a raid and getting killed at some point loosing all my gear. I missed the sweet, sweet decision whether I should risk looting a bit longer or just try to find the extraction and leave with what I currently have. All this essential Tarkov experience can be recreated on a modest hardware when playing Stoneshard. The game offers suspense, simplified tactical combat, lots of loot, classless character progression system, nice pixel art, voice acting. What the game sorely needs is a "save and exit" option. This is the biggest problem with Stoneshard - if you are not hardcore enough and instead of continue playing the game you choose to go to work, school, see your parents, go to the grocery store your progress will be lost. You can save only in town(for a price) or in cleared bandit camps. But what if you are in a dungeon and you need to quit the game because you need to walk your dog outside or your grandma calls and asks to go see her cause she has opened a jar of kompot? I like Stoneshard and this is why I gave it a high score but if you are not absolutely sure that in the next hour you won't be needing to get away from your PC don't start playing at all.
Whether you will like Shardlight or not greatly depends on how invested you will get into the characters and their fate. The puzzles are OK but nothing to write home about and there are no innovative game mechanics either. Just plain old point and click stuff. For me the characters and setting made up for the bland gameplay but this might not be the case for everyone. I was interested in the setting and I have received exactly what I was expecting. It is a bleak post-apocalyptic world, but there is still some order in place since there is government(aristocracy) which upholds the law although the law itself is not particularly a fair one . The main protagonist Amy is a great character, not because she has some extraordinary trait, but because she is a normal and relatable person. Amy is just trying to survive and while doing so she accidentally gets involved in a political power struggle which is way over her head. The rest of the characters vary from likeable down to earth people to cynical upper-class members and blood thirsty revolutionaries, all of them invoked a certain emotional reaction. It can be a great game if you find the characters and the plot interesting, otherwise it can be a bit of a dull experience.
The game may look like an old school point and click but it is much more polished. There is no pixel hunting thanks to the the function which highlights the points of interest on the screen. The puzzles for the most part are logical and all the information you need to solve them is in the game. The main character is likeable and at certain points in the story I got worried about her fate which tells a lot. It is not the typical detective mystery plot since it has some X-Files influence which might not be everyone's cup of tea. Graphics are serviceable although the aspect ratio is odd and cannot be changed. The soundtrack is OK and the theme song(menu screen) is quite good. I like point and clicks but I get frustrated with the illogical puzzles and the pixel hunt and I haven't played one for a while. Kathy Rain ignited my interest in that type of games again.
The game is a light-hearted RPG without a bad bone in it. The cat puns/memes are coming thick and fast so brace yourselves. The gameplay is nothing to write home about but it is fun enough to keep playing and pushing forward. The mechanics are easy to comprehend so anyone can pick it up and enjoy. The art style is gorgeous and suits the gleeful atmosphere. If you are looking for a serious/complex RPG this is not what you want. If you just want to be taken on a ride with lots humour and cat jokes this is a must play. It is kind of sad that the game comes to GoG so late for which I am a bit annoyed with GoG, but as they say, better late than never.
