Finally a game that deserves the title "interactive movie". And no, this is nothing to be proud of. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally into "walking simulators" if they are about exploration and let you roam freely to unfold a story. But exploration is completely absent from this game and your only freedom is to decide which way you want to walk through a room/hallway until you are thrown into a new (cut)scene. Even the mouse look is limited almost all the time and forces your view down to door handle etc. which actually makes me feel uncomfortable and dizzy. There are some good things though. The graphics are very abstract but mostly in a good way with nice colors and lighting. Also the music is well done - but doesn't really make up for the complete lack of voice acting. The story looks interesting at first but is soon drowned in pseudo-profound symbolism. At the end, there is almost no story at all. Just some bits and pieces that leave you disappointed with the taste of wasted time.
This game immediately reminded me of Bastion and Transistor regarding the artsy style and atmosphere but also regarding the Narrator (Bastion) and arena fights (Transistor). What "Stories" also shares with these games is its very limited content. However, where Bastion and Transistor slowed down the progress by repetitive challenges, replaying levels is a design element here. Which is actually quite clever and for the first few replays (you need a few to finish), different paths within the levels and locked doors (you can only open later with the according swords) make the replaying quite enjoyable. Then there's the narrator and his commenting of more or less everything you do adds a certain self-ironic touch that I liked a lot. The actual game mechanics are rather simplistic though. There are only very few (and very simple) puzzles and while there are different paths to take and some areas behind locked doors (which always contain treasure chests with upgrade items), you actually just need to run through a level and survive a few arena fights on your way. The movement and fight system is (more or less) completely mouse based and very simple but it actually works quite well. Again, the twist in this game is that after each level, you can make a choice how to continue and each choice will have consequences that you can't predict in the beginning. So you need to fail a few (at least four) times until you can finally win. Now, theoretically you can continue playing the game to play through all possible combinations, but I didn't feel the urge to do so and I guess most people won't. Even tough I enjoyed the game, I need to add that there are some technical issues. Firstly, this game has absolutely excessive loading times for such a small game. Even reaching the main menu takes minutes on a Core i7-6700K when installed on SSD. Plus there are some bugs and glitches (getting stuck in walls, graphics missing so you are walking in the air, mouse cursor vanishes).
The game is a mixture of exploring the planet to collect build material or story clues and fighting robots from other fractions. Capturing outposts allows fast travel and upgrading guns and shields. Nothing to complain here as the the game mechanics work well and I liked the graphic style a lot. There are some quirks though. Like enemy robots tend to spawn behind you while you try to sneak on a base. The few bigger enemies (bosses?) are slow and stupid so they can be always killed easily from a distance. Also while there are dozens of weapons you could build, there are actually only a few different models and there's not enough crafting material in the game to build even half of the guns (unless you'd invest hundreds of hours to kill thousands of enemy robots). There are some indoor levels which I found quite annoying as they are somewhat ugly and maze-like and most of them actually have an "impossible" layout where you exit one door and arrive in the same room again. Unfortunately, while the story sounds interesting at first, the game ends quite abruptly with two possible end sequences which are basically the same and leave you with no answers. So while I enjoyed the game despite of its limited size and some minor issues, I felt like the developers owed me a proper ending.
There's actually more story than in the main game and the DLC is larger than the first one, but the progress is slowed down by exhaustively generic dungeons filled with literally hundreds (no joking!) of the same boring enemies like skeletons and spiders. The graphics look a bit generally better then in the main game but issues like clipping errors in the distance are still there. The starting village is quite beautiful and the enemies look better, but large parts of the world are empty and boring again. Also the cutscenes look OK now and the issues with voice/music volume seem to have been fixed. However I had problems with no voice acting at first as there is no proper language setup, so the game obviously tried to access language files and subtitles it didn't find (no problems in the main game). I needed to install a patch from the Topware site to fix this. Still even then, when importing a character from the first DLC, all inventory items from this DLC just have substitute names. Apart from the main quest, most of the side quests are somewhat weird and quest markers don't seem to work at all. For some quests, you can't even activate them and even if you can, they tend to point to the location where you got the quest. Actually there is at least one quest entry (chicken) where I didn't even understand if this actually is a quest. Plus there are stupid collections task. I finally gave up finding the last scarlet butterfly and some beaver lodge in the swamps after running around frustrated for some hours. Also the Boss fight is completely ridiculous and involves standing around waiting beneath a column for two minutes or so. At least you can continue exploring after the main quest is over - but then there's nothing to explore (other than looking for that last butterfly and that stupid beavers). Hey, but you finally got to see the face of Dar Pha - which however is another stupid twist in a way as they needed to change her skin tone just for this.
I didn't quite know what to expect from this and must admit that I was drawn to it mainly by its nice graphics. To my surprise it wasn't just an artsy shell and actually quite polished for an Independent game. The graphics are stylized but still beautiful due to very good color design and lighting. Also the voice acting of Henry and Delilah is done well and the witty dialogs made me smile more than once. Actually the bond of friendship that evolves between Henry and Delilah during the game is one of the things that makes this game fun to play. But let's start with the basics: Firewatch is a game which is mainly based on exploration of the area around your lookout tower. There no real riddles to solve and it's always clear where you need to go and where you are. You need to pick up a few objects and do a few things to proceed but the main progress is somewhat automatic. Like when you decide to go back to the tower or tell Delilah (your boss) that you are ready to proceed. You can essentially walk around the whole area all the time, it's just that some locations aren't reachable until the story progresses far enough (like you get a key or an axe or the firefighters cleared a path). Firewatch is an Open World game in the sense that the whole world including caves, cabins and lookout towers is one big "level" without any transitions. Still this world is not very large and you can only jump and climb where the game allows you to. There is no time pressure, there are no enemies, you can't die. You don't need to take notes or look around for hidden objects. The few humans you encounter are only silhouettes and there are just two (visible) animal you stumble over. Anyway, it's fun to explore the world, there are a lot of small things to discover albeit most of them are not really relevant for the story. Which in the end is not very mystical but very grounded. So, yes it's quite short and there's not a lot of a typical gaming content in it, but I still enjoyed it a lot.
I bought this mainly because I liked the Shadow Warrior Remake (2013) so much. Actually, to some degree, my expectations were fulfilled, as technically and game play wise, the games are quite similar. As with Shadow Warrior, the environment is destructible and can be used against your enemies. Controls work perfectly fine, weapons are diverse and fun, there is the right amount of secrets. Still, Hard Reset Redux is not nearly as good as Shadow Warrior. The whole story is bizarre and pointless, instead of pretty cut scenes you get weird comic style panels and suddenly the game is over without a real ending. Instead of diverse locations, it's more or less all the same dark dystopic alleys and factories. So yeah, you can play and enjoy it if your into old school shooters with modern graphics and it's not a bad game at all, but it's not really noteworthy either and just too short and generic to be a must have.
While I loved Duke Nukem back in the days, I think I never played more than the demo of the original Shadow Warrior and I wasn't really impressed as far as I recall. Still, I enjoyed the remake much more than I expected. And not because it's a very modern game but because it's old school in a good way. I still recall how much I loved Duke Nukem for allowing you to interact with the world. And this is exactly what makes Shadow Warrior fun. About everything here can be destroyed either to damage your enemies or to search for secrets or just for fun. Yeah, it's strictly level based, heavily scripted and the enemies are dumb, but slicing through them with your Katana is just a lot of fun. There are a lot of different locations, the right amount of hidden secrets and the graphics look quite good for a game that is not the AAA title of a big studio.
As I backed this on Kickstarter I kind of hoped for a game like Flashback but with a more exotic story and scenery. And while the story and graphics more or less met my expectations, the gameplay really didn't. First of all, the controls are terrible. Really, really terrible. They are sluggish and imprecise worsened by the fact that you need to do lots of pixel exact jumping with your left hand. And this includes pressing shift with your left pinky for running/walking. Plus the mouse cursor is tiny and hard to see most of the time. To make it worse, you can't use any weapon or ability while you're not standing. Not when jumping, not when crouching, not even really when running. Taking into account that the main mechanism is a platform game, this is kind of a showstopper. Actually, the game touches several genres but none of them is really implemented well. There are stealth elements, shooting, skill tests but everything lacks polish to be really enjoyable. There are quite a few puzzles, but not a lot of good ones. Actually, some are really badly designed. Quite a few times it's more of trial and error and fighting with the controls than puzzle solving. At least in one case there is more than one solution but the game will just accept only "its" correct solution. Still, the game is best when it keeps to this action adventure puzzle solving mechanics around the four special abilities you earn in the middle of the game. Every other genre it touches is even worse like the stupid obstacle chase or the crappy final boss fight. Well, actually I find it had to come up with a fair judgment, as I have mixed emotions about this game. There were points when I really liked the game, some when I really hated it and lots of "meh" moments. Actually, the game has a somewhat weak start, some good moments in the middle and a lot of frustration towards the end. If you had asked me before the super annoying, silly and cheap final chapters, I might have given it a higher rating.
I didn't really have big expectations so I was pleasantly surprised that the game was not only much more self ironic than I thought but also actually quite a good game by itself. The most fascinating aspect of the game is that it's somewhat open worldish. Even though there are some in-/outdoor transitions, the complete tower is one big continuous space - which is pretty unique for this kind of game. Even just before the final boss fight, you can jump from the top down to the ground. You can also teleport to all the checkpoints at any time which allows you to go back and forth to look for hidden loot. Also there are some bonus challenges like jumping down the tower through loops or hitting hidden targets. The game actually encourages you to jump down the tower by allowing you to teleport back to your previous position. There are some issues though: firstly the audio is screwed. All the dialogues including the director's comment are much too silent and nearly inaudible with any Windows speaker setup. Secondly, the game doesn't remember the non-VHS settings for video and audio. Thirdly, when leaving the game after reaching a certain checkpoint, it tends to forget about the last checkpoint or certain events (mid boss fights, achievements like coins, loops or targets). Last but not least, there is a lack of puzzles or Metroidvania like use of special abilities to progress. There are a few points where you need to use a special ability of a certain character to continue, but these are too few and too obvious. Usually, backtracking with a new ability will just give you a few extra coins. Generally, there is not much to discover apart from the route up and the game is relatively short. So I had a lot of fun playing it but at the end I was a bit disappointed that it was already over with my character(s) only in the middle of their potential development. I kinda hope there will be a successor of some kind with a bigger, more complex world and more Metroidvania like puzzles.
This version suffers from lots of technical flaws. You need an external (GOG provided) tool for language setup (Season 2 needs registry hacks). Cell shading would be OK, but due to low poly model and lowres textures, lots of things just look carelessly designed and flat. The locations are very small with fixed camera, invisible borders/obstacles everywhere. Controls are minimalist but don't work well: when selecting options via mousewheel sometimes nothing happens or the selection you wanted is skipped. Add time pressure and you end up with the option you wanted least. Also controls are inconsistent. Like options displayed as left/right arrows need a mouse click instead of pressing left/right. There's no option to speed up or skip dialogs or cut scenes. When you finished an episode, you need to exit to the desktop and start again to continue. Viewing the stats doesn't work and freezes the game. There are 3 save games with a bit of savegame handling and you can rewind to replay. However, the game created two save game folders somehow and when installing Season 2, it will select the wrong one. Game design wise, this is an "interactive story" which just consists of dialogs, very simply 3 click "riddles" and quick time events. The "your decisions are important" claim is not really true. You can't really change the story. If you choose between 2 characters, both will die in the next 5 minutes anyway. You get hints like "XY will remember this" and then "XY" dies 4 seconds later inevitably. The game tends to ignore your choices anyway. Like you decided not to take something and then are only presented with dialog choices allowing you to excuse or defend for taking it. There are some cases of unnecessary brutality where you need to chop into some body again and again and again - which is just gross and without any purpose. Don't get me wrong: I liked to protect Clem and the story is OK. But this is just too little of a game and too badly executed for the full asking price.
