A charming turn-based sci-fi strategy game that hits the sweet spot in almost every regard. If you like delicious pixel art, squad-level tactics and are looking for something that’s simple with just enough depth to keep you engaged for about 15 hours and runs perfectly fine on any budget laptop, look no further than Halfway. Full Review - Part 1: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post2005 Full Review - Part 2: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2014/post2006
Beautifully made and satisfyingly long adventure game with tons of item and logic based puzzles of varying difficulty and only one puzzle that is too coo-coo for its own good. German voice acting is great all around. Full recommendation and worth it even at full price. 5 stars for the German dub only, the English dub is poorly done. For the best experience, choose German as the spoken language during the installation and choose your own language for the subtitles and you'll be perfectly fine.
A short but fun, low stress & puzzle driven adventure for the whole family. Finally, a game that finds the ideal balance between being neither too hard for beginners nor too easy for veterans. It can be comfortably finished in one evening but despite its short length, this game is packed with puzzles that feel like the designers made them to ENTERTAIN you rather than stop you in your tracks. Aside from a very basic understanding of electricity, no outside knowledge is required. All the puzzles are clued, creative but logical and don’t feel rehashed. No pixel hunting due to hotspot highlighting and no annoying timed puzzles, only one short sequence where you need to be careful where you’re crawling - thanks to the super simple controls hardly a challenge and you can’t die. Progression is entirely linear and tiresome backtracking is non existent. You can crawl on walls and the entire world will turn around with you, thankfully it’s not all too disorienting as the level design is simple and compact. Crawling on walls is a fun feature and a key aspect of the game yet never feels like a gimmick. Interaction with the environment is very limited but it's an acceptable price to pay for such a well designed, streamlined and frustration-free experience. The only bugs you'll encounter are the cute little fat ones you get to eat in-game, and even those are optional so no worries. As in Machinarium or Gomo, there is no spoken dialogue and not much of a story beyond the “rescue your friend and reach surface” premise. Instead, you get light-hearted slapstick humor and charming characters who mumble in a hilarious non intelligible language reminiscent of Pingu the penguin. Sadly, the game is all too short so if price for value is important to you, you might want to wait for a sale. Not as magical as Machinarium but Journey of a Roach is a very charming game that perfectly succeeds at what it intends to do. Final rating: 4,5 stars (rounded to 5 stars)
If you have imaginative young kids, they will love this. If you buy the game for yourself, try not to ‘game’ this as a jaded grownup but as a curious child, it will make all the difference in the world. The music is perfect and the visuals are very charming. It’s a whimsical and cute game with no disturbing or violent content (except for a minor nuclear missile launch). The game takes only about 2 hours to complete, less if you have an autistic genius in the house who can instantly solve that one 3x3 sliding blocks puzzle that held me up for half an hour. Most of the rather unoriginal puzzles are contained to a single screen and everything is simple enough for elementary school kids to figure out as long as they are patient and observant enough. The very limited amount and depth of gameplay is balanced out by the quality of the presentation and overall charm. An ideal little game that can serve nicely as a stepping stone to slightly more advance titles such as Machinarium.
Quick scoop: This is a quality adventure game with close to 10 hours of gameplay so about twice the length of Blackwell Deception, excellent value for price. Strongly recommended for traditional adventure fans, and if you’re too broke/stingy then at least put it on your wishlist and buy it later. If you enjoyed games such as Fate of Atlantis, Broken Sword, The Longest Journey, Resonance and the Blackwell series, you'll feel right at home here because this game has a little bit of everything. Presentation: Background graphics are wonderfully made, sprites and animations are solid and the music is fantastic, low key and enchanting without putting you to sleep or becoming unnervingly repetitive. Voice acting is acceptable. Gameplay: The difficulty is light to moderate but still satisfying, comparable to Resonance. The puzzles are logical and for the most part properly clued. Too well clued in fact, because the game often involuntarily suggests the solution to you before you are even presented with the problem. There’s a couple timed puzzles in the latter part of the game but nothing to aggravating. No major glitches or bugs worth mentioning and overall The Samaritan Paradox has strengths that more than compensate for any of its shortcomings. An engaging experience from beginning to the (somewhat unexpected) end, a very good medium length adventure with balanced difficulty that deserves at least 4 solid stars, closer to 5 if you are a sucker for this type of game.