After playing the first two games back-to-back and enjoying them greatly, this came as a punch in the face. I'm playing with a mouse and keyboard, and boy the controls SUCK big time. This isn't a 'point-and-click' game anymore. This is a 'point-and-drag' torture game because it's not enough to figure out the puzzle, you have to simulate the exact motions with the mouse for some puzzles (i.e. unscrewing a screw = circular motion etc.), which feels like a really evil way to increase difficulty of a primitive puzzle. Just... why? Controlling Kate's movements is just as annoying in 3D, sometimes due to camera angle I can't get her through a door for example and she'll keep running into walls. It would be useful if you could switch to an overhead view at least, or something. Interacting with unimportant NPCs is ridiculous, they won't even turn or look your way when talking to you. Graphics are mediocre, especially for 2017 -- even with 'beautiful' graphics setting a lot of stuff is extremely low-resolution, like it was made in the early 2000s at best. Animations also feel like they're unfinished half the time. It's generally lacking the charm and mystery of the first two games, and NPCs are lacking any personality whatsoever. Overall, can't well recommend unless you're a completionist and fan of the series.
Playing this after the Dracula trilogy was quite disappointing. Was expecting another horror story similar to the Path of the Dragon, but these games (or rather, one game split into two episodes) were completely stripped of the horror atmosphere of the previous titles. They also felt rushed and incomplete and ended quite abruptly without any kind of epilogue. For an 'adventure' game, the story is severely lacking--in the end we don't really learn anything about Ellen's disease, or what's Adam's real purpose, or who was the mystery woman, or the people supposedly following you, or what became of the paintings you were supposed to find. There are a few references to Dracula 3: Path of the Dragon--the phonograph and wax cylinder, Arno's diary and a file on the vampiric experiments mentioned in the epilogue of Path of the Dragon--but the latter two are completely useless. Effectively it was just a casual puzzle game with some relaxing background music. Also not sure if it was a bug, but after the prologue in Dracula 4 I ended up straight in Whitby, completely skipping the Budapest part of the story, which was very confusing.
If I had to rate these games separately, I would give 2 stars each to the first two games, and 5 stars to the 3rd one. For me the difference between the first two games and the third is so glaring that it felt like they belong to entirely different series, which, in a sense, they do, as the first two games are set in the 'fictional' world of Bram Stoker's novel, and Dracula 3 is set in 'real' world, where the novel features as a work of fiction based on 'real' events. Dracula 1+2 get two stars because they look visually nice and have good creepy atmosphere. Gameplay-wise they were often frustrating because of counter-intuitive puzzles, but mainly because they were too dark, even with screen brightness at max; I literally couldn't see an object I was supposed to pick up at times, so I sometimes spent ages scanning the whole screen pixel by pixel to find a thing that I would use once and then discard, which was very immersion-breaking. Other times the puzzles did not make much sense, so I just randomly tried using every item in the inventory, until something worked. It did not help that the items had zero descriptions, and it was not always clear what certain items even were and sometimes I didn't even know why I was doing what I was doing. I do however recommend Dracula 3 because I found it really enjoyable compared to the other games, with equally unsettling atmosphere and interesting, sometimes quite challenging and most importantly, logical puzzles. There is an objectives tracker, which is useful if you feel stuck or forgot something. I also liked that upon dying you did not lose progress since last save, because game auto-reloads the last scene. The narrative and characters were kind of bland though, so the game is best enjoyed as a series of puzzles rather than story-driven adventure game, as it is extremely linear. The only problem I had with this game was actually getting it to run on Windows 10 at first, but a little googling helped to fix that.
Picked up this old title out of curiosity. A cheesy premise with a mad scientist dressed as a dominatrix trying to turn humanity into a bunch of ugly mutants, with some stolen nuclear warheads thrown into the bargain because why not. Yikes. Still, once you get over the b-movie quality of the story, the game itself is quite fun for a while. I also appreciated the fact you can skip the cutscenes; if you are replaying a level you don't really care about watching it again (what with the now dated graphics...). Gameplay-wise I enjoyed the first half better, plenty of gunfights against thugs, and alternative ways of solving each level, and sometimes your actions in one level can affect the next one, so there is some replay value. However, towards the end the game becomes rather frustrating for a number of reasons: some levels are very dark, to the point all you see is a black screen in certain areas and you can't tell if you are facing a tunnel or a wall. Snipers are annoying as hell, they are often practically invisible in the dark and you have to scan the darkness with your cursor and shoot at anything that makes it turn green, just in case. Movement is also quite iffy and it's hard to move around carefully, or even get up a ladder in a straight line--it felt like gliding on ice rather than walking, regardless of the surface. Last but not least, the game feels confusing and rushed, especially towards the end; at times I wasn't even sure why I'm doing what I'm doing anymore, and some levels were so short they felt incomplete. Eventually, all of it got so tedious I resorted to cheating just to get it over with. Overall, not a bad game, but not one I would want to play over and over.
Just played the game for the first time, on the PC. I greatly enjoyed the story, the characters and soundtrack, the sneaking around, and taking photographs as a means of earning money and also as vital part of the story progression. I found the gameplay well balanced between stealth, boss fights, racing, puzzles and mini-games. What I did not enjoy so much were the directional controls and camera. The controls appeared to be bound not to the relative direction of the player character (e.g. forward, backward, left, right) but rather to the edges of the screen (up, down, left, right) as if it was a 2D side-scrolling game. This wasn't noticeable if you were in a 1st person or 3rd person over-the-shoulder view, but it would throw you off completely when the camera suddenly changed to a side view (which it did frequently and unpredictably). Some boss fights proved rather annoying as well (I never felt fully in control during fighting sequences), but fortunately the game is designed to reload at the start of the current fight if you die, regardless of the last save point, making it a great deal less frustrating than it would otherwise be. You can die many times until you get through a seemingly 'impossible' fight--usually you have to figure out the correct attack pattern, so each boss fight is more like solving a puzzle than hitting until you deplete their HP (in fact, enemies don't have a health bar at all). Last but not least, the vehicular action, since you spend a good part of the game riding a hovercraft: Vehicle controls felt even more awkward than the fighting controls, to the point I eventually gave up on completing a number of side quests entirely (particularly the 4 race tracks and 4 looter caverns); luckily they were more like mini-games and not necessary to advance the story, so unless you are an obsessive completionist you can skip them and enjoy the rest of the game, which is what I did.
First time player here. This game is a great example of how to make a game that's both challenging and fun. You don't get a tutorial but are thrown straight into a mission and have to figure out things on your own. The game is linear but you have certain freedom of choice where to go and sometimes you need to explore a bit before you figure out where to go next. To aid you in this, you collect vital information either via radio or from the hostages you rescue along the way, Saving hostages is generally optional, but it's important not just to get information, but also to go up in rank, which directly affects how much ammo and rations you can carry, thus making your life easier as the game progresses. You can save the game anytime, but generally you don't have to worry too much about dying and losing progress; there are set checkpoints where you start over upon dying, usually the elevators, as well as certain exits. If you save the game for example after picking up some important item and then die, the item remains in your inventory and you can get on with the mission. In general, successfully sneaking around makes for quicker progress because you don't waste time killing everything in sight, but if you really. really want to shoot someone, completing the game unlocks a 'Boss Survival' mode where you can fight the various boss characters that you encounter during the game, to your heart's content. During the game they are mostly not required to be eliminated to make progress and they will respawn anyway, except those few whom you have to kill because they carry an item you need or something. Definitely recommended to anyone who enjoys some truly fun stealth action.
This game was made at a time when computer games were still made by nerds, for nerds; they were trying to do new things with software and games were made to be fun to play, not just milking a franchise for money ad nauseam. It's simplistic and silly--going around enemy bases shooting Nazis, searching for hidden rooms and collecting treasure--but it's also fun and in fact quite hard. Some levels are pretty straightforward, but many feature mazes that are easy to get lost in. I played this game only once so far, and went in 'blind' (no referring to maps) so it was pretty intense sometimes, especially if you're trying to hang on to that last 1% of life while enemies might be waiting round the corner. The enemy types are few but they are not to be underestimated, as they like to sneak up on you and shoot you in the back, or wait in ambush round the corner. There are times when you'll need to use different tactics than just brute force, because you're either out of ammo or nearly dead and need to pick off that enemy horde one by one. To make things harder, the enemy can hear your gunshots, and often they will rush at you from nearby rooms, so it's always prudent to save your game if you are entering an area with many doors. This behaviour, however, isn't always predictable and you can easily clear a room with a dozen enemies rushing at you, just to get shot in the face by the one guard who remained in hiding. I was actually quite impressed by the enemy behaviour overall, because I was not expecting it from such an old game. Overall, a fun and challenging retro shooter that doesn't take itself too seriously. Maybe a bit repetitive as you get through chapter after chapter, but still worth playing at least once. If you feel the price is too high (as I've seen many reviews to complain), you can always wait for a sale to grab it at a price you can agree with. :)
Riven is a great improvement over the first Myst game in terms of immersion and atmosphere. Not only the graphics are better, but mainly the way you interact with the environment. I really liked how polished the various mechanical contraptions and transportation animations felt. It's also convenient -- get ready to travel a lot back and forth between the islands, because it's easy to miss a vital clue every now and then, and also more interesting than relying just on the linking books to travel. The puzzles are great as well, although I have to admit that a couple times I was hopelessly stuck because I just didn't know what to do next or what I was supposed to accomplish, even after solving a part of a puzzle; the clues are there, but many come from the various journals you get to read and it's easy to forget what you'd read before by the time you get to the relevant part in the game. So it's a good thing to jot down anything that seems relevant, reread the journals if you are stuck, and keep a notebook handy because you're likely going to end up working out certain puzzles on paper, not because they are hard per se, but because they are complex and require visiting several sites to solve. The only regrettable thing is that there are many areas which are deceptively inviting--such as the village or the rebel base--only to disappoint later when you find out they are not accessible for exploration. :( Overall, recommended to anyone who enjoys using their brain, because despite its age the game still easily tops many more recent puzzlers.
I have no nostalgic memories of this game, but I give it 5 stars because what it does it does pretty well, despite the now dated graphics and mildly annoying navigation--you can basically only go forward, back, left and right, and sometimes there are more than one forward target so you have to guess where to click to go in the right direction. What the game does well is pretty much everything else, because it's unique in that it is an adventure game and you get to piece together a story whilst exploring the island, but there is no enemy to defeat and no threat to your life. All the puzzles have solid logic behind them, the only times when I needed any hint was if I'd overlooked some detail (I am not patient enough to keep searching forever), but generally the hints the environment provides are enough to keep going if you're observant enough. There is a variety of puzzles using sequences of symbols, sounds or switches and the like, and it's useful to write down hints because you never know exactly when you will need which one, especially when you start exploring the island. However despite the game being peaceful overall, it's the absence of enemies and creatures that sometimes makes it creepy--you'll still feel apprehensive about going down into a dark basement full of strange contraptions, even if you know rationally that you can't die in the game (especially if you play in the dead of the night). Bonus points for having books as integral part of the story.
One of the hardest games I've ever played. Unless your patience is limitless, I urge you to use the Hint Books included for all three games when you feel stuck -- sometimes it is difficult to know where to even start on the screen, or what is your objective. Sometimes this will be the only hint you'll need, other times things will get more complex; certain sequences require you to travel back and forth between screens, and so on. On the bright side, you can't 'break' your game because it won't let you proceed until you have done everything you were supposed to in every scene. The first game is the most difficult because you have a life bar which drains as your goblins get hurt or scared by various things. While there is a point in the game where you can refill it, I found that once it got drained too much before you passed a certain point, it became impossible to finish the game. That's because at that certain point you inevitably suffer some damage and just keep dying if the life bar is too low, forcing you to replay from the beginning, or from some earlier screen. This is why it's useful to jot down the passwords for every level. Luckily the latter two games did away with this 'life' system so the gameplay was a lot less frustrating. You can keep trying as many times as you wish and there is a normal save game system, too, so you don't need to finish a screen to save your progress. There are also more in-game hints. Still, referring to the Hint Book is useful because even if you have the right idea, sometimes there is a catch to the solution, such as getting the timing right (sometimes you have a split second to react for the solution to work), so it can save you a LOT of time pondering what you did wrong. Did I mention beautiful artwork, adorable character animations and witty humour? Recommended for adventure/puzzle game enthusiasts.
