This would be a good game if only it was shorter. I know that many gamer consider the length of a game a virtue, bit I found this game a perfect example that more is not always better. Games should not be so long that initially good gameplay mechanics become tedious and repetitive. Unfortunately, this is the case with this game. It's too big and monotonous and padded out.
I came to this with an open mind, as I had no expectations, espacially not the expectation of getting an "old-school" difficult adventure game. And I enjoyed this immensely. Yes, the puzzles are not very difficult in the first part, but I liked that, as this doesn't stop the flow of the game and the story and avoids frustration - something I don't like about many adventure game classics. However, the puzzles are never so easy as to become completely devoid of challenge and boring. The puzzles in the second act are more difficult though, but never too obtuse. What I really loved about this game is the graphics, the characters, the dialogs, story and humour. The graphics look like animated children's book paintings, and they are simply fantastic, amongst the best I have ever seen in a game. The characters are likable and funny and unique, the dialogues are just right and - contrary to a lot of contemporary adventure games - don't carry on too long. The story might not be the best story ever, but it has a few nice twists and keeps you motivated to get to know more. And it's actually quite clever and open to interpretation. I saw this game being about breaking out of the expectations of others or of oneself, about growing up and thinking for oneself instead of accepting others' opinions and tradition as law. Broken Age reminds me of a Wes Anderson movie: Serious themes mixed with whimsy. This game is beautiful and lighthearted and whimsical and never mean-spirited or vulgar (like in Daedalic-adventures). It isn't laugh-out-loud funny, but it' so good-hearted and makes for fantastic entertainment.
I liked this quite a bit. The best thing about this is its story, which is captivating and just well written and told. The puzzles can be a bit obtuse sometimes and I admit I looked up a walkthrough sometimes, but overall they are at least solid, and some are actually quite good. But in my opinion, this is played for the story, not so much for the puzzles.
I found this to be a fantastic adventure game, and I'm usually very critical. Everything just works. The characters are likeable and well fleshed out and the story is suspenseful and sensible. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous, among the best I have seen in an adventure game. The animations are so good it almost looks like a Pixar movie. The puzzles are logical and exactly the right amount of difficult. Some might find them too easy, as they never present a huge challenge, but I found them just easy enough as not to stop the flow of the game and story for too long (something I hate in adventure games), but challenging enough to still require the player to think. I am disappointed by a lot of ridiculously praised adventure games, but with this one I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed it. It made me remember why I like that kind of game.
This is going to be a very unpopular review, but I would rather be honest: I didn't like it. To put my review in perspective: I started playing PC games in 1998 and these days I'm probably a casual gamer - I hate micro management and overly complicated rulesets and gameplay mechanics. I want games to be easy to learn, hard to master, not the other way around. I played this game only for the first few hours, after which I gave up. The game has, in my opinion, very clunky and cumbersome controls. I guess drag and drop was all the rage back in the early nineties, but dragging items around with the mouse cursor instead of the player character doing it feels wrong and breaks the immersion for me. It might be fitting for a God simulator like Black & White, but not for an RPG. It is way too easy to steal stuff with this mechanic: As long as the victim doesn't look at the player characters and as long as the item is transferred to one of the companions, you can steal stuff from under people's noses without repercussions. This also breaks immersion for me. The story might be great (I wouldn't know), but it is told in the most boring way. You travel around and listen to people ramble on and on about their private lives and belief system. The fighting is abysmal, like the poor man's Diablo. But apparently this game isn't about fighting anyway. I think the game expects you to explore its world a lot, which I don't have the patience for, but others might like it and relish the freedom to do crazy things like bake bread. I appreciate that this game might have been groundbreaking in 1992, but I don't find that it holds up well today. Of course this is a very personal review (as every review is), so if you like to learn clunky mechanics and rules, don't mind slow storytelling, rambling NPCs, a lot of wandering around and immersion-breaking, old-fashioned gameplay mechanics, or just like player freedomin an open world, maybe you'd enjoy this game, but I certainly did not.
It's been a few years since I played this, and I am torn as to whether I actually enjoyed this game. It's easy to get swept away in all the praise that this game gets, but this would mean ignoring all its faults. I measure this game not according to the standards of its time, but according to (my) modern standards, as the reviews should offer guidance for buyers now and not 15 years ago. What's great about this game is its story and characters. The story is philosophical and so much more intelligent than most fantasy RPG stories that are basically Lord of the Rings fan fiction. Planescape Torment, on the contrary, is really unique and inspired, it makes you think and shows you how poor most games are on an intellectual level to good books or movies. Not only is the main story fantastic, but there are so many little personal and gripping story in there that it really makes the world feel real and alive. However, the gameplay is clunky and cumbersome. All too often, I didn't know what to do. While I do find that many modern games offer too much guidance and take away from discovering a new world, take away from the mistery and immersion, I think there is such a thing as too little guidance, and this is the case for Planescape Torment. I had to consult a walkthrough on several occasions. Moreover, the D&D RPG system is not very intuitive if you do not know the rules already. I just find it not a very good fit compared to RPG rules that are specifically designed for video games. I also didn't like that on some occasions you have no choice but to fight. So while you can get through big parts of the game without fighting (apart from annoying little skirmishes), the occasional fights can get really quite hard - but then again, I am not too good at RPGs in general. I never liked the pausable real time combat in Infinity Engine games anyway as opposed to turn-based combat. There is a lot to read. Whether this is a good or bad thing is certainly subjective. I think it impedes the flow of the game, but it also makes possible the fantastic story. There is a fantastic story (and stories) and characters hidden underneath cumbersome gameplay that often feels more like work than it is fun. It's like reading Moby Dick or War and Peace: It's often boring and tantalising, but looking back after having finished it, you will remember it fondly and be glad that you endured through it.
I missed this game when it came out originally, perhaps due to the high system requirements and did play it a few years ago. Outcast is a very absorbing and addicting game. You really do get immersed into this alien world. I like that it is basically an open world RPG mostly without the boring obsessive-compulsive elements of RPGs like character leveling and looting (though it has some of the latter and you can get better weapons by doing quests), but with the exploring and questing that actually feel meaningful. It holds up really well nowadays, especially regarding the core gameplay mechanics.
This is a game that despite it's low production value is so much more gripping than most of the big budget productions. The story is fantastic and intelligent. The atmosphere is great, very dark. And I liked that for the puzzles you actually have to think like in real life and not like in adventure games (which is try out everything and then do something that would never work in real life). The voice acting as well is so much better than in most games and contributes a lot to the atmosphere and story.
I hard a hard time getting into this game because I found the puzzles to be quite hard. Apart from that, there are very few games that have as much heart and character as this game has. It's just so charming and lovely and the story as actually really good. And the puzzles may be hard, but mostly not unreasonably so, and some of them are actually quite inspired.
Both Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena are very good shooters that hold up well today. Nothing exceptional about these games, but very enjoyable none the less.
