Discount to 8.59zł supposedly from 26zł. Lowest price from last 30 days before "discount" - 8.59zł. Not nice.
It looks like a not fully developed predecessor to Elvira games whereas it surprisingly is a successor. When Elvira got me engaged this one got me quickly bored. Maybe it's because I started with the Egypt stage which - as others point out - is the most tedious one. But it was "too something" for every genre it tried to borrow something from. Too empty and non-engaging for a dungeon crawler (you just clicked on your screen and hoped that you'll hit the enemy; no stats, no proficiency in anything). Too spaced for a point and click adventure. I don't know what it was supposed to be but it failed.
The game costs 34,49zł then suddenly gets "discounted" from 45,99zł to 36,79zł.
I used to like point and click adventures. At least some of them. But There were some that I genuiney loathed. And this game draws from both kinds. The good - pleasing aesthetics, nice simple interface, decent but not too original story. Even the dark caves added some nice touch and got me back to the times of pen and paper drawing a map. The bad - some completely trial-and-error puzzles with no justification. And some moments where you needed to do (or do not) something and if you found yourself in a particular spot with or without an item having or not having done something earlier... well, you were in deep manure and had to start over. So while I enjoyed the game at the beginning and got about 3/4 of it judging by the walkthrough I consulted later, I gave it up frustrated. If you manage to get it discounted - it's a nice opportunity to see what point and click adventures were about. With its full glory as well as full annoyance.
OK, It should actually be three stars because there are many things bad about the game but the story has its mood and is quite consistent and the ending is only a tiny bit disappointing so I give it a one star extra. The good - the story, the mood, the visuals (for its time). The game quotes Stephen King and clearly draws from his works but does it well. You feel the heavy atmosphere that you can almost literarily cut with a knife. The in-game graphics are good for its time and are quite consistent in its design - although the overall feeling is a little... bleak. It could use a good counterpoint here and there, especially in the day episodes. The bad - of course the main culprit - the camera angle. I understand that probably the idea was to give you more of the protagoinst than just his backside but it's so annoying to not be able to know precisely where you are going. Ugh. Hate it. The gameplay is... interesting for a very short time. Then it quickly becomes simply tedious. You run around a lot, get ambushed from out of nowhere and you're always out of ammo. I get it, it's a survival horror (even though the authors say otherwise) and you're supposed to feel overwhelmed. But here there's no way to influence the game with your play style. You simply have to fight wave by wave of opponents. Boooooring. But maybe that's just that it doesn't fit my playing style. And of course since it's a console-based game we have the annoying checkpoint-based save system. I simply hate it. And the game is linear as hell. OK, you can walk around looking for radios, thermoses and alarm clocks but other than that it's simply following the dot on the "radar" and fighting enemies. With a trivial "puzzle" thrown here and there. And you have the "minigames" of clicking the mouse to push cart or jump-start a generator. And you have collecting the pages which doesn't seem to influence anything. Overall - playwise nothing to write home about. Luckily, the story saves the game.
OK. I have this in my list of completed games. I remember having played that game. I remember that I kinda liked it (which my rating of 4 stars in galaxyclient seems to confirm) but for the love of $DEITY cannot recall anything about the game itself.
OK. So this game was one of the first "major" polish games. At least PC ones. And that gives a lot of nostalgia value. But there's not much left otherwise. The riddles are ridiculous, the writing is awful, voice acting is abhorrent. And of course it's heavily lacking in the gfx department. So it's worth checking out for nostalgia or historic curiosity values but not much else. Luckily it's free.
Have this one on Steam. Completely fail to grasp any point of this game at all. It involves huge amount of micromanagement and... not much more. It's soooo tedious, unsatisfying and plain frustrating for me.
Well,,, my adventure with this game was relatively short. Firstly, the game opened under other windows on my desktop. Secondly, it took me some time till I found a key with which I could chose an option from the menu (that's a real facepalm). Thirdly, all those pixelated gfx games are sooo pretentious. Fourthly, a separate setup.exe? Really? In 21st century? Are you nuts? To add insult to injury, some unskippable cutscenees and annoying counter-dynamic physics. Well, no. There are many better games out there to waste my time wit. Luckily this one was free.
