When I first saw the graphics style and a short gameplay video of this game, it reminded me of the Deponia series - and I was right, somewhat. Still, this game stands well on its own and is not a mere copy of another. The story of the little communist country visited by a communism-loving well-meaning western journalist (which you play as) is quite well laid out and given the topic and time (mid 50's) there's no shortage of irony (ok, it's in the title) and cynical sarcasm and in some instances quite dark humor. The story is not overly long but convoluted and with some twists and the puzzles are mostly of the typical adventure style, with some mini action-games thrown in. However, these positive aspects are completely overshadowed by the issues the game has: First, the german translation (text only) is horribly bad, to the point of being useless when it comes to hints about puzzles. Quite a lot of times you have to think about what the original English term could have been and deduce from that the solution. Also, a lot of jokes and word-play is lost, even though there were some obvious possible translations. And due to the bad translation, some puzzles basically have to be brute-forced if you don't speak English as the information you need is in the spoken (English) text but not the written (German) one. Secondly, the action-minigames are too fiddly. My advice would be to either remove them or at least make them optional after you fail once or twice. The mouse spot detection seems broken. Third, the game audio is filtered to sound like old-style 50's era radio transmissions, but after a short while this becomes unbearable to the point that I played mostly without sound, unless I got stuck at a puzzle (see above). But most importantly: The game crashes about 50% of the time it auto-saves or you save manually. That's a big no-go and I'm shocked noone caught that in playtesting — it even crashed at the credits, because it saves there!
It's hard to describe this game without spoiling too much of the story. Think Neuromancer, Bladerunner and Ghost in the Shell, mixed with Daedalics usual high-class imagination and ideas, give it a good stir and you get this game (maybe). Richard storx about his lost memories is only the beginning, there's much much more to this than it appears at first. And there are many things seemingly irrelevant and trivial which later on become important. Unlike your typical adventure there are very little items and no real item-hunting, instead the story is driven by dialogs and the interactions between characters. As there are several playable characters (you switch as the story moves on) and even though there is no instance where you play the same scene from two different perspectives, some events are seen through different persons eyes. Keeping with the dystopian cyberpunk theme, the overall atmosphere and setting of the game world is mostly dark and somewhat depressing at times. In contrast, there are places and locations which are exceeedingly bright and colorful just to make a point. The voice actors (for the german version) are good as usual, only in a few places I would have preferred different ones. Overall, the game is less of a typical adventure but more of an interactive story (in keeping with Daedalics history) which you play through and experience. But don't expect to be finished in a few hours, this game is quite long! So, if you want to experience this different and yet still somewhat reminiscent world I can highly recommend this game.
While I like the art style of this game, it reminds me of Deep Space Derelict and other smimilar ones, it is quite a rough experience. The interface, is seemingly intentionally, over-complicated to the point of being useless. I never had a game before where I was forced to restart just in order to get reacquainted with the controls - can't make head nor tails of them. It actually gives me headaches trying to figure it out. In a contest for the most cumbersome and convoluted gui this game's developers would score high. If you struggle to understand and use a game's seemingly simple controls and have to resort to just randomly clicking things it's a clear indication of very bad design. Other things are broken as well. After the first dive the playing field is literally clouded without any explanation or option to circumvent or avoid it. You get attacked and your pod is damaged yet you cannot see anything and again have to rely on blindly clicking random spots to achieve something. Twice I actually managed to escape and travel to a different area, but could not reproduce it because I don't know how and why it happened. So either the game is not yet finished and little more than an interactive trailer or so full of bugs that is's unplayable. If you want a good and interesting game, look somewhere else. (I knew beforehand that many people have trouble with this game, but there were a few favorable reviews and opinions, so I decided it'd be worth a try, especially given the art style. Sadly, it's not.)
Managing a tourist park that grandma is too old to keep running? At first it sounds like your standard run-of-the-mill economy simulation, but you'd be surporised. This game manages to pack a story in a completely different way than expected. Usually this would be a "normal" adventure-type game, but the developers decided otherwise and they were right. Tending to the park and caring about the tourists is only superficially, there's a story behind all that and even though it's short it's still well thought of. It's hard to describe what's actually going on without spoiling, so let's just say that halfway through the game you won't guess how it ends. That's a good sign. The graphics are vibrantly colorful and well-made and the tourists you meet in the park are likeable and quirky. As has been mentioned before, this game as somewhat similar to A Short Hike, so if you know that, you know what to expect. Overall, it's a nice like relaxing game you won't mind playing a second time. There's time ingame but it has no bearing to progress so you don't have to rush. The only downside I can thing of is the lack of seeing your current position on the map. At first this is quite annoying but the further you get the less it's a hindrance. Oh yes - "Piu!"
It's a really well-made game and the developers were obviously fans of the classic rpg games and there are several small hints to that. Combat is ok, if you've leveled far enough it gets more or less trivial, but that's fine. The main characters are likeable and well-thought of and there are some interesting developments even later in the story. Two things are a bit annoying and prevent it from getting a full score: Ingredients for crafting and potions are somewhat hard to come by and you have to scan every available trader (and one specific trader in several locations) to find some of them. Since you can't know in advance what you'll need later on for upgrades, this will get quite tedious. Combine this with the somewhat less-than-helpful map and the long distances to travel and it becomes a point of frustration. Luckily, the remainder of the game and the story manage to make up for it, so it still come out on the good side.
Friend of mine got the game as a present and we both played it but couldn't get far, maybe because his system couldn't really handle it. But I liked the idea and concept so I got the game for myself.Well, quite a mistake this turned out to be :( The concept and idea is really great, having an isle with humans basically being strangers and all the different types of animals struggling for survival. But that's it - everything beyond the original idea went totally the wrong way. First, there's combat. Now, this in itself is ok, it's in the description after all, but the amount is way over the top. And I mean WAY too much. Most of the actual time playing will be spent fighting or running away, at least trying to. Forget about exploring and looking at the scenery or investigating the island - if you want a 3D version of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat this is the game for you. Seriously, it's almost non-stop battle. Normally, Hue could run away but he gets tired and in order to refill his stamina (and his health) he needs food. Gathering it takes time and during which you are still being attacked. And eating takes time too, during which an attack will not only drain health further but also undo the health gain from any food you've just eaten. It's a vicious circle. The fighting is sluggish, unpredictable, slow and basically purely random. Maybe with hyper-speed reactions it's somehow doable but I don't have those. Savegames could be a solution but they aren't. The exact position is not saved, so you can reload to a location quite a bit away. And loading takes almost FOREVER, I'm talking like two minutes every time, on a system that's well beyond the recommended specs. That's probably why there is no quick save/load feature - it wouldn't be quick. So almost all of your time with this game will be spend waiting for the game to load after Hue died from another fight :( And did I mention the needlessly included jump&run puzzles? Better not…
A young orphan girl with a big robot companion in a large dystopian half-cyberspace city, trying to survive. That's quite a premise to work with and the devlopers did well. The world created by this game is interesting, humorous and sometimes quite dark and shows a lot of meta-gaming (which I like), without it being disturbing. If you know Bladerunner you will see many hints of it, but they are subtle. The same goes for Ghost in the Shell and other classical movies. The designers made no effort to hide that, and it fits. The puzzles are standard adventure-like, even though a bit on the easy side. I think in the later versions the size of the mouse-over spots was increased, abandoning the pixel-hunting you had to do before. Travelling between locations is a big aspect of the game, and you do more travelling than item-hunting, which serves to emphasize the point of a little girl lost in a big world. Some hardcore adventure players may dislike the lack of complex item-puzzles and some places only having one item instead of being loaded with dozens of them, but I like this deviation from tradition. It's the story the games focusses on and not so much the puzzles. One obvious negative spect, already mentioned before, is the lack of spoken languages other than English. As the game takes place in Berlin a German version would be obvious, of course. Still, the voice actors are good, some are very good, and the German translation is ok most of the time. There are secrets hidden in the game, which you can find or not, but have no influence on the story. That's fine with me. Sam (your robot) serves as your hint guide, but I found no need for that, as verything he can tell you get told anyway. Ok, the political aspects of the game can't get unmentioned but they are done in such a satirical and sometimes cynical way that they're not disturbing and fit with the story and the setting.
