Lorelai is a very strong adventure title that is third in a series of wonderful emotionally complex titles. It is not as absorbing as the previous two titles. I think partly this is because the plot is more straightforward, and since you can see where it's going it is less scary. Also, this character is more developed than Susan from the Cat Lady which makes it feel more like you're roleplaying her and less like you're experiencing what she's experiencing. But all that is only in comparison to the previous two titles. This is still a great adventure game with a strong story with good dialogue (but easy puzzles). I'm hoping the next game from the developer explores the sleepwalker character because that could really open up the universe.
This is a sequel to the Cat Lady (perhaps the best horror game of all time). I think the description of the game in the store should say that. It's adapted from a freeware game that predated the Cat Lady and that made me think that if it was related to the other title it would be a prequel, but it is not. The designer has made some changes to this game to more closely tie and the Cat Lady together, and you should play the Cat Lady first. Both game spoil each other a bit, since their plots are a bit tandem, but it is much worse for the Cat Lady to be spoiled since the beginning of that game relies so much on your disorientation. Whereas the plot twist/resolution in this is a bit hackneyed. That's not to say this isn't a great game. It's more of a traditional adventure game than its predecessor. Rather than making your way through a story, you're looking around a surreal hotel searching for items that will allow you to explore more of it. Your discovery is bleak. The Cat Lady pulled you from the nader of depression to become, if not happy, at least a part of the world again. The hero of this game just explores the causes of his and his wife's suffering. He isn't allowed to make any progress. For a while I thought the story might be more allegorical than it was. That it was just the horrible feelings of a breakup and perhaps guilt at meeting someone new (Agnes) when you couldn't save the person you loved (Ivy). Instead you have a story of insanity that has been done before and has little meaning to impart to those of us who are completely bonkers. (or as Susan would say, those of us who haven't lost the plot). That being said the ideas in presenting the different broken aspects of the protagonists' psyches are awesome, and very original. And they are thought provoking as you think what does each of these things say about the characters in the game (if not what they say about us playing it). Highly recommended, if you like horror adventure games.
You'll have a lot of fun with this the first couple of times through the adventure. It's fun that you can choose different ways to handle the encounters, and how you handle the encounter affects what you get out of it. But whatever route you choose, the encounters play out in the same turn based combat (you have to use your imagination to know that sometimes this combat is representative of a conversation), and there is a lot of it, and although it is unique combat among games, it is highly repetitive with in this game. And so even though this is designed as a rogue-like, you won't feel the need to replay it once you've finished it once or twice and that can be accomplished in a couple of sittings. Maybe every indie game doesn't have to be a roguelike?
This is easily the best Tex Murphy Adventure, a series which started in the nader of adventure games, but has steadily rose with each title to become slightly better than average. What makes this game the best of the bunch is that the acting has finally risen to a high enough standard that I can stand it. It also has more puzzles than previous titles, I particularly liked the section in the Tesla labs, although other reviewers didn't. I suppose because it was sort of horror/stealth puzzle thing and other games have done that a lot better. But still I liked it here, and it's one of the few times in the Tex series where I felt some atmosphere building. (the puzzles in the secret society temple, on the other hand, should have been cut from the game.) What this game doesn't do so well is tell a coherent plot. Overseer was much better at that. SPOILERS below. Here there are just so many characters and lose ends. And most of them have little to do with the mystery. I think this had to do with the way the story was written and expectations. They had to at least name drop everything from the Overseer cliffhanger and the Tex Murphy Radio Theater, but frankly the kiddnapping of Chelsee and the Tesla Egg stuff should have maybe been two tandem mysteries rather than worked together. And even still it doesn't follow history, because in Overseer, Chelsee was living in the same apartment complex as Tex, and that's a part of the plot here. Also, if Chelsee had always been able to contact Tex and just didn't she's kind of a crappy person. (meanwhile in the Radio play she had tried to leave a clue for him) (But maybe that's why they gave Tex two more reasonable love interests this time.)
I can't play it through Day Four because there is a bomb that must be diffused that requires you to be able to differentiate red and green. I suppose I could maybe get a friend to do it for me, but I'm not all that into the mystery anyway. It's about Roswell aliens. It's hard to care. And the humor rarely lands. I'm not sure why these games are so fondly remembered. They are definitely on the lower end of the adventure game scale based on what I've played so far (Under a Killing Moon and this). Most of the game is running back and forth talking to the same four or five people over and over and over again about every new topic hoping it unlocks the next thing. One time I had to show a letter in a foreign script to a guy working in a diner, so he could tell me what language it was written in, then I had to go to a guy working in a pawn shop, ask about the language to be given a book of this dead language for beginners. In a world where they could hire a few more actors, why would I talk to either of these schmucks? Wouldn't it have made more sense for me to go to a library? Also the movement controls are really annoying, and there's some pixel hunting. Are there puzzles? Nothing too complicated that I've seen so far. If you want to play a good FMV game, I recommend Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within.
RiME is a very pretty game as you can immediately see from the screen shots, but its gameplay is very shallow. There is some platforming, which reminds me most of the Prince of Persia games, but not remotely as fluid and freeing, and there are some puzzles. These are of the more obvious sort. The sort you'd see in, say...well... a Prince of Persia game. There is no combat--not necessarily a negative, but in that case the puzzles should be a LOT stronger, while the story is only delivered by finding collectibles. That is perhaps the biggest sin, because the story is what's supposed to inspire you to complete the darn thing. I don't think I'm going to. I've completed two and half worlds, and think there are probably better ways to spend my time.
Dracula 3 was one of the best adventure games made. This is certainly not. The story line is simple and uninteresting. also, it has nothing to do with dracula 3 and despite a few pointless artifacts from the first game showing up here, there is even a direct contradiction to Dracula's backstory compared to that game. Besides that the ending is abrupt. The puzzles have little to nothing to do with the plot and remind me of puzzles from a Hidden Object adventure. The controls force you to swipe to look around the room giving you the feeling of a game made with mobile in mind. Some of the dialogue is ludicrous. There is an almost offensively bad implied sex scene where the protagonist suggests sex with her bland love interest despite being so ill she cannot stand. And finally, the voice actors dont' know how to pronounce half the foreign words. This is really garbage and if you liked Dracula 3, it's all the worse. Please ignore it and hope that some day this will be forgotten and the series will be revived with Janos's adventures during WW2.
