This game is BAD ASS. There's a BAD ASS goth vampire chick, BAD ASS jiggle physics on her boobs, BAD ASS one liners and killing National Socialists (which is always BAD ASS). The outdoor levels in Louisiana and the National Socialist castle are pretty BAD ASS, but half the game is in this indoor underground National Socialist base where everything looks the same. It's one of those 'where the &%#$ do I go' games sometimes, even with a button that literally points you where to go. The voice acting sounds like it was all done by adult film stars (BAD ASS) and there's no wimpy 'plot' or 'characterization' to get in the way of all the BAD ASS gore. The difficulty spikes are like a teeter-totter (a BAD ASS one, with flame decals on the side or something. Don't worry). On one hand, you can gun down most elite enemies with basic machine guns -- akimbo, of course (!!!) -- and the most efficient way to go through most chaff is to suck all their blood, one by one, in a giant BAD ASS conga line because you will out-heal the damage they do. On the other hand, bosses have some janky hitboxes and there are plenty of cheap deaths that you really have to be a BAD ASS to avoid. Fun for a few hours of mindless fun, and of course if you want to play the most BAD ASS game you'd ever rent from Blockbuster for exactly one weekend.
This is a below-average ARPG in an age where you trip on groundbreaking Diablo clones yearly. There's simply nothing here that is not done better than competitors that are even 10 years old, much less the classics or some standout new games. Fighting enemies feels like chopping down trees, the mechanics are even simpler than Diablo 3 and somehow not explained at all, and the pacing... Each act is set in a different town, but each act only has a handful of enemies and a couple of different maps. Think of Diablo 2, only act 1 only has Fallen-type enemies throughout the WHOLE THING. And it only takes place in the graveyard and a couple caves. This has got to be the worst act 1 out of any Diablo clone I've ever seen. It's 90% a sewer level, I kid you not. You'll be begging to go back to the generic cemetery or generic castle after only a couple hours. At least give us Skaven to fight in the sewers! Can I PLEASE hit a generic skeleton instead? Anything but another Nurgle cultist or ENDLESS GIANT RATS. This is to say nothing of the story, which may or may not exist. Teclis shows up and tells you to do things instead of just fixing literally anything himself. The guy is the most powerful wizard in the setting, and yet doesn't lift a finger or even understand how cultists or beastmen work. This would be like if in a DBZ game Goku showed up and told your OC create-a-character to go beat up gangsters in an alley and then asked what the Dragon Balls do. It's the most blatant, cheapest fan service for Warhammer fans with zero understanding of the material. Not only that, it doesn't stand on it's own two feet. There IS no story outside of 'save the king'. So who is this for? Warhammer fans who know this is an asinine plot? New people who don't know who this knife-eared fop is? It's for no one. We've seen it all before: the Warhammer IP goes out to a no-name mobile, or in this case, shovelware game studio for a song just to see if they can make a quick buck based on nostalgia and the hard work of art design and writing teams from decades past. If it weren't for the star-power of the IP there would be no crutch for any story or gameplay mechanic to stand on here, it's all smoke and mirrors. The game is dirt cheap, so if you were curious you wouldn't be wasting much money, but it would be a waste. Go play Torchlight 2 again. When's the last time you played Titan Quest? Dungeon Siege is pretty cheap. You played Grim Dawn, haven't you?
Darkest Dungeon was a game I never could get into. The grinding required to make progress had a sedative effect on me. But who doesn't love the art? The narrator? The promise of a unique turn-based RPG system? Well Iratus understands these things, but only skin-deep. Darkest Dungeon had this rough, heavily inked art that was dark and also covered up what were essentially Flash animations. Iratus has... High-definition models that have been heavily processed. This HIGHLIGHTS the horrible animations. The narrator? Horrible, horrible performance. Why they got, what I assume is an 80-year-old man to voice Nathan Explosion from Dethklok is beyond me. And I was literally wincing at the writing which I can only describe as embarrassing. There is also a mandatory tutorial that I think actually confused me more than if one didn't exist. The game is not half as complicated as it may seem at first. A lot of this is due to the amount of half-baked ideas that feel shoehorned in. If your minions die, you have to start from scratch! ...Unless you find a brain that's the same level as the guy you lost? There's a crafting system for your minions where you need to stitch together different parts to make them! ...But I always had every one I needed? There's an enemy insanity meter that gives a chance to kill them when drained! ...Or you can just attack their health and get a guaranteed kill? I'm sure there's more complexity later, but I don't feel like the grind is any less severe than the game Iratus is aping. So what does this game bring to the table that Darkest Dungeon doesn't give me? Uh, I can complete this game without dedicating my life to it. That IS a positive, actually. But why would I want to?
It's Katamari Damacy only you're trying to make all these nice fairy tale places gross and evil instead of crunching up everything into a big ball. Throw in some of the stiffest platforming I've ever seen and enemies that undo your work and you have a recipe for a pretty disastrous game. There's also retellings of Grimm's fairy tales with some un-creative liberties that are mind-numbing in their tediousness. Was it made for kids with the patience of an Ent? Is this for adults with head trauma?
Cool art, music and atmosphere, more campy than creepy. But my GOD the presentation is all over the place. This is the worst UI I've ever seen in an adventure game. And it seems like there is just no ideal way to run this game? Either the animations are spastic, but you don't die of old age waiting for the next line, or the animations are fluid but the text takes 20 minutes to get though. Yes, I've messed with the DOSBOX settings, this is just kinda how the game is. The CD audio actually makes this worse because not only is the VO work abysmal, it's not synced at all. As far as I can tell, this is yet ANOTHER Shadow Over Innsmouth adaptation -- excuse me -- ILLsmouth. Also why are all the characters 3.5 feet tall??
This would have blown my mind back in the day. Now? It was pretty entertaining for a couple of hours. The FMV sequences are interesting, but are obviously not novel anymore. It's kinda interesting watching how primitive they are, but also how effective they still are too. As far as an adventure game goes, it's pretty smooth sailing. That is, until you get to the room where you have to watch full MINUTES of leaver pulling just to get to the room you need. Lastly, the DOS version is all interlaced -- you're going to have to dig through forums to download a fix for DOSBOX. Why GOG will sell this game in this state is kind of embarrassing.
It's slow and plodding, even for a walking simulator. There's definitely some chicken-pulley puzzles ala old school adventure games that are NOT flattering. The game just doesn't respect your time. The puzzles are not explained at all and they're so far apart from each other you'll spend so much of your time holding down shift running back and forth trying to figure them out. The writing is very amateurish. Feels more like a Kaiju game than a Lovecraft game. If 'big tentacle monster scary' is all you want out of the source material, it might be worth it on sale.
This is really like a demo more than anything. The plot is basically a 1:1 recreation of Dagon, but that's okay. At least it isn't Shadow Over Innsmouth for the 1,000th time. It's a walking simulator without walking! There are little bits of trivia about Lovecraft's personal life and the history as a whole which are really, really interesting. It's a unique and informative addition to these games. Can't speak for the quality of the DLC, but this demo was a success: I will be buying them.
This is a phenomenal walking simulator! Instantly became one of my favorites. I don't understand the mixed reception at all. There's atmosphere for days, a story that pays homage to the great Silent Hill 2, believable characters, and more than enough twists and turns to keep one entertained. It's all killer, no filler -- aside from a belabored retelling of Hanzel and Gretel. I hate being the guy who says "people just don't get it," but if you had that ending figured out immediately, I want to see the rest of your bingo card.
The game is basically an easier X-COM, but it oozes style. The sound design is top-notch -- the VO effects for the tech priests are basically canon now. The writing is spot-on for 40k and always engaging. The music has some real bangers in there too. The gameplay itself is fairly unremarkable. It's hard for exactly 3 missions, then the game is very easy, even for someone like me who cannot play the original X-COM to save my life. The enemies are all necrons which, although thematic in-universe, are very boring to fight every single mission. There is variety though, but man, I was dying to see an Ork or something once I was 80% through. The Heretik DLC adds dark mechanicum, but that's basically a reskin. There's also a lot of ways to customize your experience. From melee only, to ironman. I wouldn't do permadeath, though. Once one of your tech priests die you cannot get a fresh one until you would have normally unlocked the next slot. Over all, I think this game is very worth it for 40k fans. X-COM fans will be bored in minutes, but if you don't mind games with a little more style than substance, I'd give it a shot.
