A low budget Resident Evil clone with all the annoying aspects amplified. Atrocious voice acting, awful animations and ugly character models. Horrifyingly bad cutscenes and story. Decent gameplay though, too bad the puzzles are terrible. Puzzles are either boring and tedious, annoying, unnecessarily complicated or all of these combined. Even if the story is bad at least there are notes to read, long boring notes. One took it as far as having eight pages. At least there's always the rest of the game right? Nope, playing the actual game doesn't feel good either. Interaction points that have already been dealt with like opening lockers still flash quickly when you get near, making me believe I'd missed something. The process of shooting zombies isn't satisfying, I'm not actually sure why, luckily it isn't my job to fix this issue or any other issue the game has. One last thing, the menus! No mouse support, likely to be more like classic Resident Evil. Those menus weren't so bad though, these are. The menus have a clear need for mouse support and a change to how they look and work, though I doubt this will be implemented. Opening the inventory takes quite a while, closing it is almost instant. If you press the key more than once the character opens it again. Making you wait for the slow animation to finish. Let's discuss something positive, the game handles reloading in a unique way. You load bullets into cartridges/magazines, then outside the inventory you choose which will be used for reloading. Reloading can be done quickly or slowly. A fast reload drops your current magazine on the ground, a slow reload puts it back into your inventory but boy is it slow. Not that having to pick up your magazines after combat is much better. Items are useless, they work on a timer, one you can't see unless you're in the menu. No way to tell when it runs out. Daymare: 1998 is awful, actually dreadful. It was a waste of my money and time, I regret wasting my time playing this.
Rogue Trooper is not a bad game, it's not a good one either. The controls are awkward, aiming is more of a suggestion, a big circle showing around where you'll hit. Switching weapons takes too long, properly animated sure but it makes the fun of actually playing take a hit. The game has stealth, it's basic and isn't polished. There's crafting, ammo and upgrades. Make sure you walk over to every enemy corpse and interact with them to get resources for the crafting. At least you don't have to pick up ammo constantly? The graphics are stylized and yet the game still manages to look bland. Considering the plot is extremely uninteresting too I cannot think of a redeeming feature aside from not being broken.
Is Echo a bad game? Yes, yes it is. The first hour is basically nothing but walking while characters talk, spouting exposition the entire time. Once you get to play it starts out extremely simple but you get more to do as the game progresses. The game progresses in short cycles, each time the AI will use the moves you used last cycle against you, like being able to open doors, shooting or running. It's intriguing, but it's not fun. The world seems interesting, barely anything the characters have to say is. If you die you'll have to replay decent chunks. I didn't really enjoy going through these parts the first time, I didn't enjoy doing so the fifth time. I'm almost four hours in and I can't bring myself to continue, nor would I encourage anyone else to try. I hear they're making a film based on Echo, I'd like to see it. That might be just what Echo needed, not being a game.
Deathtrap was a minigame that showed up a few times in Van Helsing 3 and Van Helsing: Final Cut by the same developers. Deathtrap is a Tower Defense game where you walk around attacking things yourself. Mechanics here were slightly changed to fit the genre better, different skill trees, but is it enough? Deathtrap has 13 maps, around 10 hours. Lots more to do after, redoing maps on higher difficulties. I have no interest in doing so. The game has plenty of towers available; you can reset the skill trees for both the towers and your character by paying gold, it's fine. Having to buy potions seemed weird and less fine. I played this while watching YouTube videos on my second screen, I doubt I would have kept going otherwise. The game is technically fine, it's not broken, it's not boring. It's not anything. Games that are fine are worse than bad games, because you can't even enjoy how bad they are. Deathtrap is the absence of enjoyment.
Bogus Detour is just like Serious Sam except topdown. It just has a few issues that ruin the game for me. The weapon shortcuts have been slightly altered compared to every other Serious Sam game, seemingly for no reason. Due to this I kept getting the wrong weapons. When a weapon ran out of ammo the game switched me to the flamethrower which is near useless. Enemies take more damage than they should, it's just not enjoyable. This is especially a problem with bosses that just go on forever. The final boss is ridiculous with four players, I've beaten it alone. Together we could not do it in like four hours. There's no map or minimap, this would be fine if not for the fact that every level is sprawling with plenty of secrets and places to get lost. All of these issues just add up and make the game a pain. Even in coop you won't be allowed to have much fun as the lives are shared. Imagine dying and then spending 15 minutes watching others beat the level. Serious Sam's Bogus Detour is just not a game worth recommending for any reason.
Escape a hotel room. Endure the voice acting. Honestly, the game is pretty terrible. Movement feels weird despite the fps being above 60. Visuals do some weird stuff that just feels uncomfortable. You can pick up a LOT of items and most of them will just be trash, cluttering your inventory. New items get added at the back instead of the front. Sound is weird, music from a device being way more quiet with your back turned to it. This seems to be determined by proximity; You can hear stuff perfectly through the wall at at least one point due to it being close to the object making the sound. The very low rating is mostly due to one specific puzzle requiring pressing notes in the order a music box plays. You have three tries until this resets. This puzzle is evil. The twist at the end was alright, not worth the two hours getting there though. Recommended for masochists.
