If you enjoy redoing levels a lot and waiting around, then you may find enjoyment. There's no save points and a hit seems to rely almost entirely on knowing the patrol routes of certain people. So if you fail a couple of times, you're restarting the whole mission, and waiting around for the right time this time. If not, there's not much to be gained from playing this iteration. If you're a Hitman fan, even less so, as several missions were remade and improved in Hitman Contracts. It'll feel like you're playing a bad ripoff while drunk. This is a very old game at the beginning of a new original franchise. It's simply a case of every other game in the franchise being great and this one being the rough, unpolished, awkward beginnings.
Only you know if you'll like this game. This is either an amazing experience or what could've been an awesome game let down by awful gameplay. This is your typical wacky Japanese game, hence its popularity. 'Big-lipped alligator moments' galore, the music is cheesy and everyone's a nutjob with unspectacular names like 'Brian'. You may have heard that this game is a 'so bad it's good' thing, but for me this concept doesn't work with games. Bad movies are an hour or two and doesn't need your undivided attention, but this is 20+ hours long, VEEEEEERY slow-paced and requires your input. This IS a horror game at times. The horror sections are legitimately creepy at first, and provide a huge to the nutty 'real world' parts. Unfortunately, the gameplay turns these sections as boring and a chore as the rest. It's hard to tell whether the gameplay and cutscenes are intentionally bad or dumb, or if they saw the wackiness as an excuse to put out what unfortunately is a bad game and say that the game being bad is the big punchline. The cutscenes and goofiness are the only parts I stuck around for, at which point I realised I should just watch the cutscenes on YouTube and stopped playing halfway through. I realised I was just running past all the monsters and skipping journeys and time, so what was the point in me playing?
The basic premise: A 'your choices matter' game set on a futuristic ship where your objective is to mingle. The game has about the same proportion of action and talking as an episode of Star Trek. THE REAL PREMISE: Time-travel to an alternate dimension and use a real human for your own entertainment, constantly flitting between dimensions and timelines to try and discover the deep conspiracy based within the future(s) AND the present, if you're bothered. Well that was unexpected. Choices do matter, more than most games that claim this. Play this twice and you'll get two different enough timelines. And you're kinda SUPPOSED to play this twice, quicksaving and loading along the way. Not to see how different things go, but to gain info on what's going on. A bit like Life is Strange's time-travelling during conversations, but on a game-wide scale rather than just a few seconds, and it's YOU gaining info, not a character. As this game will have a sequel, this creates the profound future starting point of you the 'character' (or the 'vessel' that you inhabit) living in one timeline, but YOU the guy reading this now having the knowledge of several timelines, saved and ready to be loaded, and all the info that came out of all the different events that happened. This game comes with a bunch of files, including a PDF file detailing the backstory (or, to use the buzzword, 'lore') which is 130 PAGES, plus the website which is just as creepy. So you know this might be a little deeper than expected from the cutesy screenshots. As for the bugs, the game's now been patched to the gills and it works fine. Might be the odd bug, but nothing a reload won't fix. (Note that this game will be a bit disappointing for the deaf though. A lot of the non-interactive conversations you will encounter is just subtitled "background chatter". In a game primarily about talking and learning info. That's just not on.)
You'll get a few hours out of this. It's a fun game that unfortunately turns frustrating in the last levels, meaning you finish the game in a bad mood rather than a good one. I recommend it only at a cheap price; there isn't enough content or gameplay to warrant spending more than £2. It's also a cool way of seeing what games would be like if the Mega Drive and SNES were 80s consoles.
Another in the long line of indie horror games that never gets going, has an interesting concept that's quickly abandoned with left-field developments, all filled out with a clichéd and predictable plot. For the horror aspect, well it's best to say: even I wasn't scared by this game. I don't play many horror games, I'm easily scared by their shenanigans, but this one never really tried. It was certainly unsettling, but that's only down to you and how long it takes you to realise you can run around and make as much noise as you like when no demons come out to get you. The concept seemed to be that you're roaming a hunted house or being attacked by demons, but with the killer twist that you're just a baby. This concept is explored for all of 20 minutes, after which you enter alternate worlds (the classic MC Escher-inspired linear platforming, toddler style). It doesn't help that you'll likely guess the ending and major plot points in the first 10 minutes. The characters say or do a couple of things at the start which appear to be hinting and foreshadowing, only for it to turn out they were just saying random crap you shouldn't have analysed. This feels like a 3-hour concept video or game a developer would show publishers to get them to invest and publish a hypothetical full game. It's tempting to recommend this just for the potential it has even though it never used it. Instead it's another game that's best right at the start, then they go "I guess we better put some generic gameplay crap in there so it's a game" and it's done. P.S. It should also be noted that this is a Kickstarter game, and the backers who donated $150+ and qualified for rewards haven't received them. Another reason to not recommend this game.
There are two ways to enjoy this game: 1) play it 'properly' or 2) play each level until you're bored then skip it with a cheat, getting to the lightsaber duels faster. At the time, this game was something amazing. It gave you lightsaber face-offs, effectively a short movie due to live-action cutscenes, and use of the force. This came long before the prequel era and I don't think there was any game like it before. All of it was/is pretty clunky and unwieldly, and look even worse compared to the finesse of battles from even unspectacular games like the Episode III game. Battles basically involve you running in and out hitting the 'attack' key. While the nostalgia is heavy for many, if you're a younger Star Wars fan who never played or heard of this game, there isn't much for you here unless you're an FPS addict, maybe. The game is primarily a very basic FPS. You shoot, you get shot at, you heal yourself. There's no story progression to keep your interest through the levels like modern FPS', you just blast your way through a map until you finish the level and maybe get a cutscene. Of course, this sounds like the famed Doom et al, but for a 20 year old in 2015 it's going to feel empty. 2/5 may seem a low score, because back when it was released it would be 4/5 if not 5/5, but take the nostalgia goggles off and the vast majority of other Star Wars games are far more playable than this is today.
This is one of those games that, while you play it, it is enough to keep you playing and, once you finish it, you forget about it. Not bad, but not amazing. I think those who would appreciate it most are those that haven't played games like Freelancer or X before. The rest will see it as an alright game that doesn't do anything new, but was amusing nonetheless.
Play the first few hours, read (p)reviews, and you'll see an emotionally-driven story about choice and fate, where you're penniless and broken and have to go on a difficult journey getting your life and partner back. Alas, all these concepts get abandoned and by the end you're left unfulfilled, with cop-outs and odd character behaviour along the way, until the game is telling you you're a broke bum who desperately wants your ex back, but in reality you the player are ACTUALLY full of money and don't give a crap about the ex because s/he's a jerk. You might go through hell and do drugs if it meant getting the love of your life back, but would you do it just to go to someone's wedding? No, but the game apparently thinks people do that. As a cop-out, you even get to make some choices about the actual plot. You decide who dumped who, and why, and this one 'choice' hidden away in a conversation (a couple of hours before the end) is what impacts the ending most, without even alluding to it! In one person's story, you dumped a girl because you wanted to bang some more chicks, then changed your mind, crashed the wedding and she came crawling back. In another's story, you got dumped and now you're acting like a crazed stalker to see her again and ruin everything. In another, you may not give a crap about her. The game, however, is adamant that in each scenario you're going to the wedding to crash it or be a wuss and do the whole "I just want her to be happy but I still love her" shtick, and likely end up depressed anyway. Because the plot isn't as flexible with choice as it suggests. Other little things about the game can make it frustrating. Press space to speed up the text, and you might end up accidentally making a choice that pops up without the usual pause, and you'll have to reload your most recent save. Play Blackjack and if you and the dealer have the same hand (a 'push'), you still LOSE. In hindsight, my hours would've been better spent playing something else.
I didn't buy this for a while because many reviews spoke of mainly 2 reasons that made the game frustrating: 1) A lack of autosave means you have to do the WHOLE level again if you get caught. 2) It isn't clear what you have to do, and you spend forever wandering around trying to find or use the right item. What they don't mention is 1) a level lasts 2 minutes when you figure what to do and, bar 1-and-a-third levels, you can move freely around your mansion. 2) You're given many clues, but there's always Google for when you derp. I HATE doing the same thing over again, even just backtracking, but I had no problems here. Another common complaint is the linearity, but the way you have to kill them is often the logical choice. You're supposed to cover up your kills, so the game just letting you shoot everyone would bore as well as defeat the point. It falls down at the final part/ending, it's a bit awkward, but overall it's a fun, quick game. While some things aren't amazing (voice acting, cutscene animation, music use), it should be noted that this unique game came from an independent developer from Finland, so I give them leeway, it's all still fine. Best of all, they actually care about their players. I'm reviewing their final, polished version. When there were noises that the finale was disappointing, they made a thread on Steam and asked for feedback and if people would like an alternate finale, then added one (it's a bit better, but at least they tried). So go, be that creepy mute kid who follows people around on his tricycle down hallways. Otherwise you're missing out.
