Move through many different environments and face down hordes of enemy you have to purge area by area while collecting weapons that feel great and plenty of loot that jingle jangle in your pocket. The controls are tight and the graphics - if you like sprites - are beautiful. The music and sound effects get your blood pumping. A great game all around marred by a bit of repetiveness when you're locked in areas with excessive amounts of bullet sponge enemies. Overall a great way to rip and tear, especially if on sale.
The same as their Art of Fighting 2 port! I'll just mimic that review here because it all applies to this as well - This game is absolutely unplayable. Why? You can only use keyboard controls and they can't even be remapped!? Of course they are mapped horribly. The arrow keys are your directional movement (forward, back, crouch and jump) which any fighting game fan will immediately know makes it nearly impossible to do special moves where you have to do a quarter, half or full circle! A (punch) and B (kick) are mapped to X and C while C (throw) and D (taunt) are mapped to the Q and W keys making it difficult to quickly and properly switch from punch/kick to throw/taunt. It just blows my mind how DotEmu thought that this would be acceptable for any game let alone a fighting game that requires quick and responsive movement! Avoid this port at all costs!
I remember playing the Art of Fighting games in the arcades and enjoying them a lot, but this game is absolutely unplayable. Why? You can only use keyboard controls and they can't even be remapped!? Of course they are mapped horribly. The arrow keys are your directional movement (forward, back, crouch and jump) which any fighting game fan will immediately know makes it nearly impossible to do special moves where you have to do a quarter, half or full circle! A (punch) and B (kick) are mapped to X and C while C (throw) and D (taunt) are mapped to the Q and W keys making it difficult to quickly and properly switch from punch/kick to throw/taunt. It just blows my mind how DotEmu thought that this would be acceptable for any game let alone a fighting game that requires quick and responsive movement! Avoid this port at all costs!
It's a decent casual card game especially for the price. The graphics are super cute reminding me of a Scott Pilgrim cartoon. The story moves the game from card battle to card battle well enough, and the music is well done including an upbeat banger that will keep you in the game but does get repetative after a while which is the story of the game as a whole. The gameplay itself has strategy to it, but it's limited. Most of the time I found myself just trying to outlast the enemy by having them fill their board so they couldn't make any more moves or run out of cards, but that's when you see the "oddities" of the game. You and the enemy are supposed to draw cards randomly from your decks but you'll quickly notice when you take one of their cards out of play (attack them), their next card will be a revive card *every time*. When you attack the player character taking away life, they will get defend cards to rebuild health. Super cheap gameplay. When the enemy runs out of cards they'll take 1 damage each turn until they have no health, but they also draw a random card from... I don't know, the ether? They have no cards left in their deck so I'm not sure where these cards are coming from. I understand why the devs have this in the game, but why not have them reshuffle the deck or something. Finally, it all feels grindy. Having to defeat the same opponent three times is boring. It's not like there's a crazy new strategy each time. Grinding to find cards is boring. Ultimately it's all just... meh. Not enough true strategy for me to go back and when I do I have to be in the right mindspace to handle the grindy nature and the cheating AI. Most of the time I'll just pass.
This short prologue shows a lot of potential for the 4th entry in this series, especially after the many shortcomings of the 3rd. Although they didn't reveal much of the main story, they gave us a sense of these two characters from two different times and the emotional journey we have to prepare ourselves to go on in this new adventure - something that I honestly haven't felt since the first game. I felt connected to the characters and the problems they faced which is a huge step up from the previous games. The music composed once again by Inon Zur is amazing throughout. fitting the scene. The graphics are very much improved with much more detail and lighting, but I did catch a few hiccups during the in game cutscenes. The small details they give the characters and the environment are wonderful as they help build the world we are in. Gameplay is solid, even though the "puzzles" given are very easy. I do hope these get tougher as the game goes on. I really enjoy the camera - the way it pivots on a point to look around the scene like a head slowly examining the area you are in. All said, I went into this with reservations but I'm coming out really impressed and looking forward to the full release!
*I'm currently halfway through this game and will update it upon completion* I went into this game with elevated expectations knowing what Daedalic has put out in the past, but I'm currently sitting at mid-game with feelings heavily skewed to the negative. First of all, this story is wild... and I don't think in a good way. Yes, it has to do with global warming and climate change which is fine with me, but man do they really pound this message home. Don't worry though, our heroes have a plan to get this message across to any non-believers - a truly asinine plan that I hope backfires just because of how silly it is. Bottom line: the writing is mediocre in its best parts, and horrific in its worst - especially the characterization. There is one character in particular that is a misogynistic pig that constantly berates our heroine every chance he can get. Of course, she doesn't do herself any favors when her one job is to set up radio communications after traveling to the past... but she skipped the mission training! Still, it would be nice to know the future we are trying to save isn't utter crap. The graphics and animations are great as can be expected. Every location you visit is interesting and has a unique atmosphere without being too wild. The audio accompanying it is decent at best. There are a lot of crackles during cutscenes when audio starts/stops. Sometimes audio will overlay each other. Most of the time, during conversations it sounds like a computer is piecing together words to form sentences which can get annoying. The gameplay is generally good, for the most part. There are some scenarios where I don't know what the game wants me to do after I've literally searched everywhere only to find I have to click on something a second time or combine items in a way that doesn't make sense. Overall, it's an interesting ride I hope improves but only time will tell.
The 11th Hour tries to capitalize on the first game in the series - The 7th Guest - by wrapping what little gameplay it has in a slick FMV movie with a story that feels straight out of fanfiction.net by a writer trying to create some Twin Peaks/X-Files lovechild. It's completed by some truly laughable acting by most of the cast and some very strange practical/visual effects. On an odd level I began to enjoy it because of the absurdity. What I couldn't enjoy were the "puzzles". Good luck getting through most of these without a guide... which you technically have in game but doesn't do nearly a good enough job nor do you really want it to because you'd rather it all be over than to continue on another step much like our protagonists. The "gameplay" consists of you getting a clue from a PDA that you must somehow decipher in order to find either another clue you must decipher or the next puzzle which you must solve to unlock a video snippet of the movie which will eventually tell the entire story of the house and your current situation. An example of these clues are "Winter coat worn for a mixer" and then you have to somehow understand what object the clue is pointing to and in which what room. Did you guess tonic water... because that's what it is. The puzzles are mostly retreads or variations of some you find in The 7th Guest. At their worst they'll have you moving pieces around a board forty-some times in a specific order before you finally solve it; at their best they'll actually test your mind trying to find a solution and you'll feel good about yourself for a split second before you realize you're only a couple hours in this trainwreck. Overall, as bad as the writing and acting are, they are the best thing about this game. Everything else is just a delivery method of completing that story. If you buy it, follow a guide and revel in the B-rated glory.
*This is a review for the original version of The 7th Guest* I've heard a lot about this game and after reading all it had accomplished when it was first published I knew I had to try it if only just to say I did. I bought it so long ago but had yet to play it... travesty! I knew that it was a strange game, to say the least, but I don't think anything can really prepare you for the oddities that await you inside Stauf Manor! The story is delivered to you in bits and pieces as you traverse each room of the manor and it's up to you to piece together what is actually happening. I won't spoil anything by telling you it has something to do with the 7th guest! The puzzles weren't as bad as I expected even though the get really strange. There were some, like Bishops Puzzle, I used a walkthrough to guide me through because it has a total of something like forty-two exact moves needed on a chess board to complete, but most all others I was able to figure out with little to no trouble. They were creative and interesting. Compared to its sequel - The 11th Hour - these puzzles are a godsend! Bottom line, it's a great ride for nostalgia, but little else. You'll enjoy pieces but dislike others. You'll be glad you played it but happier when it's over.
After about 130 hours: I love it and I will play much more! The primary reason you are going to play this game is the tactical warfare, and it doesn't disappoint. Everything factors in to battles from how you level up your mechwarrior (including your background) to what mechs you take to battle, how you outfit those mechs (armor levels, weapons, equipment, mods), the type of planet you are on (tundra, desert, tropical, etc.), terrain hazards (geothermal, radiation, whirlwinds, etc.) and, of course, your enemies (mechs, vehicles, turrets) and how they are equipped). It's all super fun. Outside of battle you can equip your ship with various upgrades to help you travel faster, heal/repair mechwarriors/mechs faster, raise morale, gain XP faster, etc. There are incidents that occur randomly during travel that, depending on the choices you make, will get you a pro or a con (think FTL). The story isn't great, but it is good and does the job of getting you moving through the universe and battling for upgrades. After you are done with the story the entire universe is open to you allowing you to fly around as a mercenary company and just complete missions which is awesome. Some other random things: the music is great, the graphics are wonderful, the modding community is brilliant with many, many excellent mods that expand on the game. There are negatives. The camera sucks. It gets caught on terrain as you rotate it around pulling it away from your target and at times is difficult to get far back enough or at the right angle. You fight it a lot. The missions (before the Flashpoint expansion) repeat basic modes. There aren't a huge variety of weapons with the Star League weapons seemingly non-existent (which makes sense). It does take some small liberties from traditional Battletech, but nothing significant. Overall, it's a wonderful game that you can lose hundreds of hours in like I have.
From the very start Syberia is a cinematic treat. Its unique characters and gorgeous settings are shown in great detail, rich animation and creative design, and this carries on throughout the entire game. In fact, both get even more elaborate. There are a few annoying animations and the occasional empty areas you are forced to walk through that only serve to connect point A to point B, but they don’t take away from the game that much. The sound effects help bring the world to life and are fitting for each area whether it be beautiful sounds of nature or the mechanical sounds of the city. They help to immerse you in the world that Syberia creates, although there are some volume issues with quiet lines of spoken dialogue or overly loud sound effects but these are few and far between. The music… my word, the music is a treat. Cinematic orchestra swells in and the low woodwind bellows help pull you into this game that only feels like a movie. Of course, the real treat in Syberia is the story. It caught me off guard. What starts as a story about a toy factory turns into one of the most beautiful dramas about heart and humanity that I have seen in a while topping most movies and TV shows I have seen. Even the subplot between our hero and her boyfriend begins to take center stage and melds with the main plot at the end that could bring tears to your eyes. If you love adventure games or great stories in general, you are doing yourself a disservice by not playing Syberia.
