Puzzle platformer with a blob. I couldn't quite grasp the story. I understand that the non-verbal storytelling is a design choice, but in this instance they could have explained it a little further. Apparently there are also collectibles, but there is no indication on how many have been collected thus far. Pacing is quite OK. It's not getting repetitive, but there's still some meat to the gameplay. I don't think I'll play this again, but it was a decent experience, a slightly different kind of puzzle platformer.
Disappointed. It's not a "bad" game, per se, but it certainly didn't leave a good after-taste, either. Some notable negatives: - occasional frustrating camera angles and aim-locks - confusing and frustrating wall-jump logic (potentially due to the camera angle) - save file issues with the Croft manor The bad wall-jump logic was especially frustrating, as many of the puzzles depended on it, and failing to do it properly often resulted in death, or a lengthy re-route. Better than the original? Sure. Good enough that I'll want to play it again? Certainly not. I'll toss it to the pile "been there, done that".
Fairly short, OKish light horror game. The "investigation" mechanics could have been better -- it started to feel more like "run there, then run over there", rinse and repeat. Can't come up with a better system, but won't give praises for it, either. I don't see much replay value, but it was a mostly enjoyable experience for the first playthrough.
Absolutely horrible rubberbanding. But you'll need that, as the "road" has some annoying little bumps and/or holes, that can at a moment's notice send your car flying at random directions, occasionally even to locations you cannot get back to, so you'll be reset (or you'll reset yourself) to a checkpoint that was 10 seconds before. But if you're at #1, the opponents won't be bothered by such issues. They'll drive perfectly, and any small mistake will send you to 2nd place. Also, there are only 3 cars in total. And on a regular championship playthrough, you probably won't get to play the other two, unless you stop to grind. Each car comes with 3x3 upgrades (boost, engine, tires), not much imagination there. Music is horrible (techno + rock). At least it was cheap. But probably won't play again.
The following notions are on the basis of the second easiest difficulty setting: 1) First I thought it was buggy, as the enemies kept spawning in odd places. But then I realized that the game actually intentionally spawns enemies behind your back. 2) The enemies' reaction speed even on the second easiest is insane. The moment they turn the corner, they are already shooting at you, with pin-point accuracy. And the game has a tendency to make cheap surprise attacks, so no matter how good you are, you WILL get shot. 3) Sniper rifle is pretty useless in regular combat. It only kills with one shot if you make a head-shot. But regular rifles quite often also one-shot-kills with head shots, and they're much faster and even have auto-fire. 4) I think there was one stealth mission, but now that I think about it, it wasn't really stealth, just sparse enemy placement so nobody ever got alerted. 5) The length of the game is quite short, but I'm glad I got it finished fast. 6) The lack of saving system breaks the enjoyment. You have to finish each mission in one sitting. But the enemies get harder the further you go in each mission, and the cheap surprise attacks often lead to deaths at the very end of the mission. So you'll have to replay the whole mission. 6) Story is gringe, and some of the "transitions" feel a little rushed. 7) The levels are linear. There are basically no alternative paths whatsoever. All in all: would not recommend.
It is not as good as the first F.E.A.R., but it is still an enjoyable experience. It's going more in the direction of action, and less in the direction of horror. The first installment had a better balance in that regard. The selection of weapons was fine, I didn't notice anything lacking -- though would have preferred to have the armor-piercing rifle a little more often. I liked the idea of achievement/challenges, but I also noticed that trying to collect them quickly became a distraction of the main game, i.e. you were just trying to do all the tricks to get the points. Especially since you had to do them all again in each interval. Probably would have been better as cumulative achievements. I'm also not sure if there was a plot hole or whether I just missed some of the story, but in the suburb level (interval 4?) the plot focus became to "save the woman", and I had no idea who it was, or why it was brought up in the first place. Later cutscenes made it clearer.
I ... expected more. Given how much the whole series has been hyped up, I had high hopes for this one. But before even half-way through, it became more of a chore to play through, than an enjoyable experience. Not sure I have enough interest to play the second one, anymore. I liked the idea of combining guns and magic, but alternating between them somehow didn't sit well. I ended up mostly relying on the guns. Not sure if intentional, but the vendor jingles were very annoying after a while.
The game itself is somewhat lackluster. There are only like 5 maps to play in, and the game artificially tries to extend the gametime by adding challenges, collectibles and bounties (last of which cannot even be done in a single run). Don't get me wrong, I like that sort of thing, but not when their sole purpose is to make up for the lack of content. Also, plot is unmemorable. I completed the game only few days ago, and I don't remember much of it, anymore. I did like the skill tree system, but I would have preferred more focus on a gradual character performance development, e.g. hand stability, breathing, reload speed, etc. multilevel upgrades. The fact that the upgrades are somewhat divided on the tokens was good, but the weapon upgrades were kind of an after-thought. And no silencers for the secondary weapon (rifles)? Ended up using mostly sniper and pistol. And now the worst part: The game is a complete mess on the performance optimization. I have AMD Ryzen 5600x and AMD Radeon 6700XT, and even with 1280x720 and lowest quality settings, I'm still getting massive framedrops and fluctuations, like from 100fps all the way to 10fps. I thought SGW3 was badly optimized, but this was on a totally different level. If the game was properly optimized, I would have given 3.5 stars, but as it is, I'm going with 2 stars and non-recommendation.
Very good puzzle platformer, requiring accurate timing and control. The plot is light but enjoyable. Nice humor. The gameplay evolves nicely, and you get to explore the different gameplay elements sufficiently. The difficulty curve was somewhat uneven, though. Sometimes I felt like I was waltzing through the levels, then came upon a high-difficulty level, and then afterwards waltzing through 10-20 more. But overall it was fine. Not sure if intended, but some levels had alternative solution paths. I also liked the extra challenge from collecting the cubes, but had to give up on completing the additional "hard levels". The first set was OK, but for the second set the difficulty skyrocketed, and at least for me it became more of a chore, rather than enjoyment. This game may not be for everyone, but if you like puzzle platformers with a challenge, then this is your game.
