If you are a point and click adventure fan you shouldn't skip this trilogy. It's been a while since 1st and 2nd parts were released and now, finally, the finale! Story, puzzle quality, voiceovers, music is all there. With it's unique art style, spot on humor and loads of reggae music to boot, I'm sure The Journey Down will win your heart.
For starters, I can't stress this enough, if you are expecting a management and production oriented, harvest moon or stardew valley kind of game you this is NOT it. I personally found my coin's worth and then some in this cute casual exploration game. Main focus of Slime Rancher is exploring the world (other than the challange mode). You collect cute little slimes, feed them and get "plort", which is crystal shaped precious slime poo. Plort is the only thing you can sell. You do farm veggies and fruits and raise chickens in pens as well but those are used to feed slimes and can not be sold, sometimes you can trade them with neighbours if they request them. You do interract with some neighbours from time to time but it's not mandatory nor does it give significant rewards. Main focus of this game is exploration. Also farming and chicken husbandry doesn't consume much time so you can explore more. You make money from plorts and only from plorts. Money is used for unlocking new ranch zones, new abilities and items that help you explore the world further. The world is quite big and filled with many different slime types and scenery. In addition to exploring you get plenty of options to decorate your farm, make devices to help you travel faster etc and as another plus you can give your slimes googley eyes and such. Graphics and music-wise I like it very much too.
For me these are the most important positives: no GFWL nonsense nor other bugs and crashes for me. I owned a box copy of this baby and couldn't play it without loads of grief for a long time. Even with the unofficial patches and mods to run it it'd still crash like crazy. I like New Vegas'n all but FO3 always had a special place in my heart, it got me hooked. I own NV on a different platform and after playing the GOG version of FO3 I am very tempted to try the GOG version of NV. GOG has done an awesome job of making this game smooth and bug free. I'm not sure if these are included in GOG connect but if NV is fixed and smootehened up like FO3 I'd go for that as well. If you've never played this game before I'd suggest giving it a try, you wouldn't be able to resist the rest anyway.
For me these are the most important positives: no GFWL nonsense nor other bugs and crashes for me. I owned a box copy of this baby and couldn't play it without loads of grief for a long time. Even with the unofficial patches and mods to run it it'd still crash like crazy. I like New Vegas'n all but FO3 always had a special place in my heart, it got me hooked. I own NV on a different platform and after playing the GOG version of FO3 I am very tempted to try the GOG version of NV. GOG has done an awesome job of making this game smooth and bug free. I'm not sure if these are included in GOG connect but if NV is fixed and smootehened up like FO3 I'd go for that as well. If you've never played this game before I'd suggest giving it a try, you wouldn't be able to resist the rest anyway.
I can not be objective about this game. For me, it's a timeless gem. If you are a point and click adventure fan then you have probably played this already, if not, I'd urge you to get it. Double Fine's work is excellent. Since I can not objectively evaluate the game ( I would not dare ) all I can say here is if the game runs smooth or not. Sound & music plays smoothly, no delay no desync. Graphics both new and original look good. The screen size of the original doesn't fit the new screen sizes and paint job of the wider screens at times might look flawed but it's minor, you might not even notice it. Very few hickups in the cut-scenes, other than that everything runs smooth as a whistle. I experienced no crashes, freezes or long loading screens. Other than the above mentioned, it's all asphalt and trouble. You should see it for yourself.
While this game was marketed with Syndicate's name, it is nothing like the legend itself. As a Syndicate fanboy I feel ripped off. Voiceover, music and sound FX are poorly done. Graphics are not really special: everything is made "shiny" for the sake of futuristic coolness. Artistically, overall, the game is shallow, and frankly the design of the characters resemble a bunch of Lady Gaga concert rejects. There is no management aspect, no world screen, and basically you are always on the same big map (yet still loading screens). The big map your guys never leave, is seperated into sectors. There is no quicksaving, you can only save (and access your resources, weapon arsenal etc) at nodes and when you fail a mission you are spawned at the last node you visited. Autosaves are forgiving so saving is not an immense issue, there are worse things. Every sector have exactly the same missions which you can easily cheese. You can't pick up weapons, you have to buy blueprints from black market and research and then buy the weapons from a shop. Money comes only from ATM siphoning, scientists and agents are recruited at random by scanning NPCs, bribing or hijacking them. You can not drive cars, you can not blow up anything other than security doors. In the "real" one you'd get missions to recruit agents & scientists, robbing banks for money etc. or you'd get rewarded for killing rival agents, blow up armored cars and grab the loot on your way out. A few setups in upgrades from a pile of junk can carry you to the anticlimactic ending easily. NPC pathing & AI is really bad: you get these guards of different factions casually walking into restricted areas of other factions and starting little wars or civilian NPCs waltzing into restricted zones causing all hell to break loose, of course, sometimes messing up your progress. Breaking aggro is easy as runnig around a corner. There are silly things like you can't 1 shot a guy with sniper rifle but can "assasinate" with the basic pistol.
In my personal opinion this real time tactical stealth action gem, will give you your money's worth even at full price. If you like stealth action games this game will please you. Even if you aren't a huge fan of stealth action games you might still like it. Art style and music is pretty good, voice acting is solid and the story is compelling. It's not open ended but makes you want to go back to it regardless. I had one crash (which made red text flood the screen and I had to delete my save) but other than that it was smooth sailing. AI is pretty good: tracing foot prints and responding to noise (same as the previous games of this type) is one thing but some guards react to missing guards (whom you killed and hid) and when you're spotted they don't stop searching because you jumped in a bush or hid in a house. Shadow tactics mechanic adds a new advantage and challange to the above mentioned game mechanics. It's easy to learn the basics and leaves the rest up to you in a decent curve. Maps are big and detailed with multiple paths, fun interactable objects (which you don't have to use). I had some issues with controls: due to the camera angle sometimes a move order to a higher ground position sends your guy to a completely different wacky path going to & through low ground. It's most likely me rushing hence misclicking but I have to say I misclicked more in this game (so make sure you check before giving a move order), yet a decent human being would get used to it quickly. As I mentioned in the title "prepare to save scum", not that it's a bad thing. There's even a reminder system for it. Timing can be harsh, in some places game requires precision, so don't expect to rush through a map, even the starting one. To better put it the game leaves managing the pace of your progress to you. You can quicksave between every step or do a chunk and put it behind you. This is definitely a well thought out game and a love note to it's genre.
