I'm writing this as somebody who originally bought Intravenous on Steam and decided to double-dip on the GOG version because I want to support DRM-free games and the developer. In short: this is a delicious throwback and one of the best stealth games in years, to boot. Intravenous hits the sweet spot of "easy to learn, hard to master" with enough frequency for its lesser stages to be easily forgotten. There aren't too many tools at your disposal, but each is worth trying out in its own right. There's also a solid dichotomy of brute force and never-seen-once sleuthing that makes each stage replayable past the initial charm of trying not to stay detected. In fact, replayability is one of the things that Intravenous does best. There is a swath of options to play around with, from the ability to have a custom difficulty mode to mutators that both enhance the already solid gameplay while making it wonderfully stupid at the same time. This is all bolstered by the superb Artificial Intelligence, which makes the best of the combat/stealth dynamic without ever making either side feel too unbalanced. All of that is great, but: the story is more of an afterthought, and if you're a sensitive person, my recommendation is a 50/50. The narrative is that of a pretty standard B-Revenge-Movie. It gets better as it goes along with a few neat twists, but it isn't nearly as consistent in its delivery, unlike the gameplay. As for this game's content, if you are a person that's sensitive (I.E., you get offended easily), you might want to watch a few gameplay videos to evaluate whether or not you can handle some of the filthier dialogue in this game before making a purchase. I don't personally believe that it's offensive enough to take away from the overall experience, but that's an opinion that might differ from person to person. All in all, this is a superb sophomore effort from developer Roman Gelebenkov, and I eagerly await whatever project he might work on next.
I hold some reverence for the first two games in this series. While the second game has some issues and the following three games don't quite stack up, you're still in for a fun time--granted, you know what to expect. I think it's silly to label these games are adventure games. I mean this without wishing to sound derogatory: these are interactive movies with some elements of player choice sprinkled in, through and through. While games like Until Dawn and Life is Strange are better at the illusion of choice, The Walking Dead's first season is still one of the best interactive movies ever made. What makes it work so well is that the writers have a fundamental understanding of what makes and breaks this kind of game. If the writing isn't good, everything around it suffers, and the experience as a whole feels lackluster. The Walking Dead: Season One gladly stands alongside The Last of Us as one of the most human stories ever put into gamer's hands. Season Two falls a little short, but it still manages to pull together great situations out of interesting characters in its prime. I have to state this, though: if you do NOT like interactive movies, art games, or walking simulators, these games will not change your mind. As for what makes this collection so interesting for those who are in this game's camp. All of the games that came out before, I believe, Season 3 got remastered. S1 still looks a little robotic, but the change is massive. Also, there's dev commentary, but it's separate from the game itself. Cool gesture, but I would have loved to hear that stuff as I played. To cap this off: I'm super disappointed that they chose to do a digital-only release for this on PC. As a massive fan of the first two games, I would have happily paid for a collector's edition that comes on discs--or, hell, even a USB stick would have sufficed. I know physical media is slowly dying out, but goddamn it, I adore holding the games I love in my hands.
It's hard to escape the notion that the hype surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 has somewhat overshadowed the actual game. Before release, there were tons of brand deals and entire communities dedicated to hyping themselves up for the game. Delay after delay only raised expectations. Now that's it here, though, how is it? Pretty fun, for the most part. It's worth noting that, for as ambitious as Cyberpunk might be on paper, it has nothing you haven't seen before. At heart, this plays like a Bethesda RPG, with the only major addition being that I care about what's going on in the story, and I like the characters. This, however, isn't a condemnation of the game. It works with what's tried-and-true and occasionally tries its own spin on that. Sometimes it works; other times, it stumbles. If you liked New Vegas, you might dig this. Right now, I have two major issues with this game: the driving and the bugs. Right off the bat, I'm going to recommend having a gamepad by your side. While the driving here isn't amazing, it's a thousand times better when you're using a gamepad. With a mouse and keyboard, it feels like the way cars were handled in Grand Theft Auto IV at the best of times. It's still not perfect with a gamepad, but it's far less egregious. Then there are the bugs. As much as I am currently enjoying Cyberpunk, it should not have been released in this state. Not for sixty dollars, not even for half of that price. As much as it's become a joke that Bethesda and Bethesda-like games are stupidly buggy at launch, but this isn't acceptable. This goes for more than just your regular bugs, too. While the game is running fine on my computer, I've heard numerous reports that it's an unoptimized mess on other computers with way higher specs than mine. Also, don't get me started on that PS4 port! My bottom line is, get it when it's ready. I know CDPR has used that statement a lot in their marketing, but this ain't ready, chief. Three stars now, four for when they fix it.
I speak as somebody who's played through Dishonored a good one-to-two times while also having played it extensively on my PS3 before getting it on PC. I bought the trilogy bundle because it was on sale for $25 (seriously, that's a steal considering the bundle usually goes for eighty bucks!) with the intention of really playing through the second and third installments. What I can say about the original Dishonored is that it's easily one of the best games of its generation. It revitalized the Immersive Sim while being accessible to newcomers and, almost ten years later, still holds up tremendously. It's incredibly replayable, to the point where I don't think you can say you've beaten it until you've played with all it has to offer. The stealth isn't completely in-depth, and hardcore stealth game fans might some grievance with this, but it hits that sweet spot between streamlined and niche so I don't think it's that bad. Where this game falls apart is its story. Dishonored, undoubtedly, has some fascinating lore and an interesting world to boot. But the tale it tells with that lore and world is an uninspired revenge tale with pretty flat characters. I guess that I should note that I don't like fantasy settings too much (I'm more of a Cyberpunk kind of guy). Even if I did, though, Dishonored's Steampunk-Fantasy setting still wouldn't be enough to offset the bland story at its heart. What makes things somewhat interesting is that the moral choices here are bound to how often you kill people and what playstyle you choose. They really went all out, though; you can tell a high-chaos playthrough apart from a low-chaos one just through the level design, and I wish more games with these kinds of systems did this. There are probably more problems with this game than the ones I've outlined, but the general gist of is that this is a modern classic that shouldn't be missed.
UrU what's this?
Blood Money is probably the best game to play if you're looking to get into the classic Hitman games (Codename 47 up to Absolution). It looks great, plays great, and is just, in general, a ton of fun. The one thing that hasn't really held up is that the controls are kind of stiff and do take some getting used to, but it hardly impacts the gameplay at all.
