A straightforward action-adventure game with simple RPG elements which looks pretty promising in the beginning but everything happen in clunky and slow way. The game controls are very clumsy and annoying. You cannot even move sideways unless you are locked onto an enemy. Switching between weapons and equipping them is slow and very problematic in the heat of combat. Most of your melee strikes won't hit anything because of short reach and poor hitboxes. After two or three melee hits your character is out of all stamina, and when that happens you are totally frozen and it takes a long time to recover. Enemies don't have that problem at all so they can spam their attacks. You can block attacks only by using a shield which will break very soon. You can also throw your equpped weapon at your enemies but most of the time it just flies over the enemy without causing any damage. Item pickup and object interaction is made unneccessary difficult. You have to manually browse through nearby items with a button press and after that you can pick up or interact. Sometimes you automatically drink a healing potion right away after picking it up, sometimes you store it in your inventory. Other annoying problems: campfires won't hurt enemies, archery is very inaccurate, there are not much methods to heal your character, there is no mouse cursor in the game menus and you have to make "are you sure" confirmation every single time you save and load. Not much good things to mention. The game has pretty good looking light and shadow effects, there are physical objects to interact with and enemies get sliced into peaces. And there are some nice little details, like the character turns his head towards a nearby item and wounds appear all over your body. And that's pretty much it.
This short review is based on the original copy of the game, so I have nothing to say about the functionality of the GOG version. A third-person action shooter game with platforming and some simple puzzle solving. You have three different personal characters to play making the gameplay more varied than the first MDK. The Kurt levels are most versatile and balanced. Max levels are more about straightforward shooting and some platforming with the jetpack. The doctor levels are the weakest of all but they are tolerable. The game controls are simple enough. There are not too many buttons to press making the gaming experience fluent. The game levels have impressive size and scale, visuals are solid even these days, there are many fancy particle effects and colors, and still the game runs smoothly. The musics are awesome to listen too. Unlike in the first MDK, this game has an actual story to tell which doesn't take itself too seriously, but there are not much goofy surprises like in the predecessor. Unfortunately there are many frustrating moments in the game. Pixel-perfect platforming with the doctor who cannot even mantle over ledges. Some punishing trial-and-error puzzle solving – especially in the level 6. Weapons like the atomic toaster without any auto-aim. Shooting very fast moving crystal balls or something with Kurt's sniper scope. And the last boss fight is a bit disappointing. But even so, I have been returning to play this game which has noticeable originality.
I had to try this aPRG since I have played Baldur's Gate series and the first Diablo. The PC port of this PS2 game is done well otherwise, excluding the UI/UX and the mouse + keyboard controlling. This flaw can be seen in dialogue menus and in other in-game menus too. So Xbox controller is must to have for the full gaming enjoyment. The combat system of the game is okay, though aiming the small fast-moving targets is challenging and smaller enemies will just circle around you rapidity before attacking. There is a blocking system but there are no other combat tactics, like counter attacks and dodging. So lots of hit points and healing potions matter like usually in aRPGs. And not sure if armor rating has any impact in the game combat. This aRPG seems quite simplistic compared to E.g. Diablo: no item identify, no magic wands, no equipment repairing, no dual wielding weapons or such. And there are not much use for money besides just buying new equipments. There are some puzzle elements to bring more variety to the gameplay, though I didn't like the platforming puzzles in this game. This game has some replay value with random loot and with the three character classes which is little for an aRPG. This aRPG doesn't support many play styles equally, the melee combat seems the only viable way. There are not good selection of ranged weapons, and the aiming is difficult. The enemies will engage in melee combat so quickly you cannot do much ranged attacks. And browsing the feats and the spells from the list is frustrating. It's fun to notice there are some familiar voice actors in this game: The voices of Minsc, Dynaheir and Sarevok from the Baldur's Gate PC series. And the voices of Gimli and Frollo too.
This game caught my eye since it has got good game reviews, it has localized into my language and I haven't played many adventure games. So I gave a try with this one. The game controls are simple: four directional keys and the Enter key. Nothing more is needed, and thus you can easily get into how the game works. And I also like there is no frustrating pixel hunting like in many point-and-click graphic adventure video games. So the game challenge is done right: figuring out how to handle the hotspots, not finding them desperately. The game visuals looks quite dated but they are suitable for this kind of game on the other hand. Grim, stylized and low colored. It looks so much like in some older flash horror games. The voice acting is pretty okay but it's nothing special, and few dialogues are totally muted for some glitch. It's nice to see the game is localized in my mother language which is rare, but the game localization is quite lacking unfortunately. Some translations does not match with the dialog, there are some spelling errors, few texts are overlapping and few texts are not localized at all displaying them in the source language instead. Also the readability of the texts are not so good because of the font style and the weak contrast between the texts and the background. This game was not that scary for a horror game. There was really no tension or any suspension to keep on toes. The gore and the sexual content was not really shocking or anything very noticeable despite the warning. And the story of depression and being suicidal went quite sidetracked in the last two chapters. Anyway, I had good time with this game. If only it would have more replay value, like real choices that affect the game storyline.
The overall game idea, the visuals and the design is good but the game is still flawed. The game challenge requires so much precision and quick reflexes. You cannot move while aiming. You can only guess your aiming direction. Why there is no Mouse and Keyboard control? And there is not really rewarding elements to keep playing. Nothing much to say about this.
I really needed to check this game since it has been praised so much and it was the beginning of the APRG genre. I have quite mixed thoughts about this game regardless of the positive game reviews. Originally Diablo was supposed to be turn-based, so all movement is grid-based. But later on the gameplay was changed to be real-time which has some problems with the grid system. Moving around is clunky and unpredictable, targetting fast-moving and teleporting enemies with the mouse is frustraiting and mouse button mashing to attack is so repetitive. There are also other annoyances like dragging items to slots in the game interface and small gold stacks taking inventory space. Graphically the game has not aged very well. Everything looks grainy which makes hard to search small items on ground like rings and potions. And the game view is quite little which causes problems to detect super annoying ranged enemies who will start rapid-firing far away offscreen before you can even see them. Also, there is no clear feedback like how much damage did you cause to your target and does "MAX" resistances actually protect you from anything at all. But the game has its merits. There is no frustraiting character creation like in Baldur's Gate and no stupid RPG class restrictions, so a warrior can use scrolls and a sorcerer can use swords. You have freedom to develop your character whatever you like. And the game world is not some clichéd and generic high-fantasy with elves, dwarves , orcs and such. So the game has it's own style and it's own grim atmosphere. The game has replay value with different character classes and random-generated dungeons and loot. But since there are Diablo 2 and lots of Diablo clones with more fluency, this game is just dated.
A horror game which is not about boring zombie shooting or anything such. The game is about exploring, Lovecraftian mystery and puzzle-solving which I like. The object interaction system is neat and it brings more immersion to the game than just simple button pressing. The system brings more depth to the gameplay and physics-based puzzle-solving but it is not so perfect: you cannot pick up candles from tables and torches from walls. The game looks impressive depsite the fact that only four people have made it. And the environments have nice variety though the game takes place indoors almost entirely. And the game atmosphere is strong and suspension thanks to the game pacing, musics and sound effects. I didn't like the inventory system of the game. It take a whole screen, it pauses the game and it takes you away from the game world. This totally breaks immersion which is very important in these kind of games. The same problem is with the notes and mementos too. I would have preferred more minimalistic system which happens in real-time. Also the monster encounters could be even better. Some of the monsters just spawn to some of the game levels out of nowhere and the game gives a clear warning of their presence. I would have preferred something more unpredictable. With the Windows version of the game I had a weird mouse issue which prevents me to look around in-game. Despite all my fixing I could not solve the issue and so I ended us using a Xbox controller to bypass it. The issue seems to be a common and it is still occurring? Even so, the game still gives me creeps after many years and couple of walkthroughs.
My review is based on the original copy of KQ8. Since I have never played previous KQ games, this review is not about how successful KQ8 is as a sequel. KQ8 is a hybird of 3D action-adventure game, point-and-click adventure game and role-playing game. You can pick up weapons, armor and magic potions. You will do fighting, puzzle solving, platforming and exploring. The tank controls of the game are quite okay but the 3rd person camera gets clunky too often. The GUI of the game is handy without lots of menus pausing the game and taking you out of the game world. The game graphics are outdated with low polygon count and dull colors. And the level design is sometimes poor because of the lack of details. Evens so, the game areas have strong atmosphere thanks to the great musics, voice acting and sound effects. The main focus of the game is too much in fighting with too simplistic combat system. You just keep clicking your left mouse button to perform attacks with your melee or ranged weapon. No blocking, no dodging, no parrying or anything. The combat system is easy to learn but it is just not interesting. Besides, the enemies have no special features to bring some variety to combat. There are puzzles to solve and they are nicely mixed between the logic and the physical, but they are not that challenging. Also, the story of the game is flat without interesting characters, climax or memorable moments. If KQ8 would have been something like Quest of Glory with 3D graphics and without any connections to KQ game series, it would have been much better game. KQ8 is too insufficient for an adventure game, too clunky for an action game and too simplistic for a RPG. Despite the flaws, the game has strong nostalgia value to me.
I actually liked the game style and the game idea about dungeon crawling with mental health mechanic. But there are too many game mechanics I didn't like at all and which are totally overlooked in so many game reviews. The straightforward dungeon crawling makes gameplay fluent, but it's still has artifictial difficulty. Backward movement in the corridors is punished. In combat it's not clear how does the turn order work. Sometimes enemies get lots of turn and you barely can even start your own turn. Besides, the challenge of the game is all about RNG: dodge, miss, resist... The inventory is way too small which is very strange in a game in which resource gathering is a big element. You need so much supplies to carry with and you also need to gather lots of resources, and there is simply not enough room for that. The maxium stack for torches, food, money and such is way too little. Also, you cannot pick up items later from chests and containers after opening them which is SO stupid. In the hamlet everything is so expensive and most of the time you cannot upgrade anything with the limited resources. And I really hated how the caretaker occassianlly takes one of the few slot in the tavern or in the abbey, how does some slots in the tavern and in the abbey become unavailable suddenly and how some heroes become unavailabe for a week. So you end up having bunch of low-level stressful heroes with all kind of diseases, negative quirks, unavailbility and so on. The game is not that awful at all despite my review, but I still had not much motivation to keep playing this game that much.
Basically a walking simulator with physics-based object interaction just because it was included in Amnesia and Penumbra. There are less emphasis in physics-based puzzles unlike in predecasors which make the whole object interaction system quite pointless in this game. Otherwise it is impressive how the small game team like Frictional Games can make such a game with so much visual details. The gameplay experience is quite straightforward but not too linear fortunately. Because there is no journal or any mission log at all, it was not always clear what I was supposed to do. Of course it's good to figure out things by myself, but there was a few part I was hoping to have at least some hints to proceed. The game automatically chooses an appropriate item from your minimal inventory, so you don't have to figure out what item to use. On the other hand, the minimal inventory system eliminates frustrating pixel hunting since there are not much items to pick up. It would be a nightmare to looking for little items like tinderboxes and lantern oil and such from such dark and high-detailed game world. It's not clear how the stealth system works in this game, or how does the enemies spot the player. I got caught many times too easily because the enemies can detect my presence even behind the walls no matter how quiet I was. So I just ended up running past the enemies many times unless they were blocking my way in thight corridors. So I found the enemies more annoying than scary. Also the game seems to run quite slowly even with the minimal graphical settings. The game doesn't look so impressive graphically these days, but even still the game demands some PC performance. At lest it was not totally unplayable with my low-end system, and so I had an experience of an interesting scifi story.
