Fun old-school shooter with non-stop action. Fun level design with lots of secrets and some platforming.
Great immersive sim, aged well.
Another entry in the red faction series with landmark real-time destructible environments. Unlike Guerilla, this is not an open-world adventure. It's mostly a 3rd person shooter in a mix of indoor and outdoor environments and with limited vehicle sections. Weapons are varied and fun, and are all viable. There's a few powers such as kinetic blast, a shield, etc. and they all share the same cooldown. The bad thing is that the game is held back by a file corruption bug on Windows 10. Your options and player progress (XP and ability upgrades) are stored in the same file, and it often gets corrupted. When this happens, all menu strings appear as IDs (e.g. pld_boot_screen instead of "Booting"", or MENU_OPTIONS_AUDIO instead of "Audio", etc.). It also causes cutscenes to have no audio. The fix is simply to delete the file and set your options again on launch...except that also resets all your XP and upgrades. Due to the aforementioned bug, I had to finish the game almost as a level 1 character with only a couple of abilities. This made a couple of end-game fights much, much harder than they had to be. I redid the last boss fight about 20 times. I only recommend this for diehard Red faction or Volition fans.
The atmosphere is masterfully crafted, almost immediately evoking images from "Alien" as you watch the intro cinematic. The enviornments, the lighting, and the ambient noises are top-notch. The music--by Mark Morgan--is sublime, and is used very effectively. The puzzles are mostly straight-forward and logical, occasionally frustrating and progress blocking. Generally above average for adventure games, which tend to have a certain logic of illogic within their worlds. The story is delivered via voice communications with other parties (competently acted), and through readable personnel logs. The writing is generally good, although it drops dramatically near the end. I found the villains to be cartoonish and one-dimensional. You probably won't feel afraid playing this game. However, you'll feel horrified, shocked, and appalled as you learn what's happening. The game pulls no punches, and I was emotionally crushed near the end. I found the ending satisfying if a bit cliched. From a mechanical perspective, the controls are fairly simple: Left click to walk, double-click to run. Hover on objects for description, click on them to interact if a context-sensitive hand icon appers. There is no quick save or load, but you can save at any point by opening the menu. This is important, because the automatic checkpoints often occur before unskippable dialogue or custscenes, and if you die you'll have to go through them again. Indeed, you can die in this game. Often times it'll be obvious that the action will lead to death, but sometimes it isn't. Also, sometimes you die if you don't act fast enough, and it's in these pseudo quick time events that the game becomes more about trial and error than puzzle solving. Highly recommended if you're a fan of SciFi horror or adventure. I recommend playing the game with a walkthrough/guide if you're not an adventure fan, just to enjoy the atmosphere and story.
Magrunner is a solid first-person puzzler in the same genre of Portal. Instead of portals, the game uses a variation on gravity. Your gravity gun charges platforms, blocks and certain world objects with one of two charges (colored red and green by default). Like colors attract, opposite colors repel (which is the opposite of how gravity works, but allows for easier visualization and preserves your sanity). Using the attract/repel mechanic you can do a variety of things: Ride platforms and move them to and fro, propel yourself forward or upward on top of gravity cubes, smash enemies or glass barriers, etc. I found the game quite challenging at times. The puzzle difficulty is rather uneven, meaning that it doesn't necessarily get harder as you progress. Every now and then you'll face a puzzle that's much harder than what follows it. There's no save-on-demand, which can create some frustration. If you die, the last checkpoint is loaded, and you'll have to listen to whatever dialogue there is over and over. This is especially grating because I absolutely loathed the protagonist. While most of the characters are meh, the protagonist takes whining to a whole new level. I found his voice acting to be constantly hysterical (Gamaji! GAMAJI! wah wah, boohoo), and his character completely annoying. The antagonist isn't any better, although thankfully he makes fewer appearances. The game is at its best when it lets you figure out your solution to the puzzle at hand. Occassionally, you will be under pressure because of a monster chasing you, or because the puzzle is actually a boss fight. Those levels were the worst in my experience. The game overstayed its welcome a bit. I felt like it could've been a tad shorter and been stronger for it. For most of the final act, I was not playing for fun, but to finish.
