Was struggling for a bit whether this deserves 3 or 4 starts and still can't really decide. The game itself presents a very original idea and I remember it was rather hyped back on release and captured my curiosity (yes, took me some time to actually get around to it). So this is one of the games which are heavily story-driven and there's not much besides that, with a nice twist - basically you're searching through database of videos and have to piece together the whole story which I would not spoil. I found the full (or at least the ~65% of story I've discovered) to be rather unique, engaging and interesting. The nice twist is that you have to really listen and catch glimpsed of information to know what to look for next. It's can actually be fun for a while if you're into this detective work kind of thing, which not many games incorporate. It's not insanely hard but also not extremely easy and the game doesn't hold your hand, you have to figure out everything by yourself. The clips themselves are relatively short, can be 10-20 seconds to ~2 minutes top, which also make the game easy to digest in multiple sittings and friendly for short sessions if that's your kind of thing. Not that it's especially long, there's a content of around ~2 hours in total here. And not that it should be longer, as I have personally found myself getting a bit tired after spending some time with this. It does get repetitive, but I think that I'm personally enjoying more of structured experiences in video games, while here you have basically you investigating a story for your own pure satisfaction, it's not really clear when's the end (although there is an ending point an credits rolling, eventually), there are not really any stages or guildeline in-game, you just get in and look for videos and get an option to say "I'm done" when around halfway through the database. Anyway, it's worth a try for story hogs if you're one, even a decade after release.
So, in short, this is really great, and as in all "games" which are in fact "interactive movies", "walking sim", and so on, you should obviously have your expectations match what this actually is to not be disappointed. So, be warned that this is not a "game" in the classic sense (and really that's not a big surprise today because there are so many titles like this out there). However, Dagon is just right in every aspect. The only downside I felt, is that this is "not even" a walking simulator. You click stuff to progress, and that really makes it more like a slideshow.. BUT. Even without being too familiar with H.P.'s works, I do feel the developers did justice to the original work and really put their hearts here. Though this is not a "scary" game the story is intriguing and makes for a good uneasy atmosphere. The scenaries are beautiful and aesthetic (which made me feel I really wanted this to be "at least" a walking sim, to be able to free-roam around a bit..). The SFX and soundtrack were really on point and the narrator's voice over was really good. This was a really nice and short interactive adventure which made me even more curious about H.P. Lovercraft's works, and I'm hoping to see more good stuff like this in the future (will give the DLCs a try as well)
So I should thank the first two comments which explain how to get around the annoying controls issue.. This is really the main problem here, you can't change the bindings so the game basically requires a controller or getting used to an extremely weird scheme OR mapping keys in your keyboard to others so that you'd be able to play normally JUST FOR THIS GAME. Even after remapping keys the controls are still a bit clunky and awkward. Anyway, besides that this is a very short but sweet platformer. The artistic style is very intriguing and the soundtrack is brilliant. It should take about 0.5-1 hour to complete, but it's worth peeking into. I hope this would sometime come out as a full and more polished game (with custom controls, please!)
Rayman, for me, was and still is a legendary platformer. Even up to this day this game looks and plays just fine for a 2D platformer! With brilliant level design, and OST & graphics which fit exactly the world'd mood and atmosphere, not much of a story or any background, just straight to the point platforming fun with increasing difficulty and challenge. Not many manage to do whay Ubisoft did back then (And even Ubi themselves) I did find a few drawbacks in this current version, having usually played the original release: *By default, this comes with NO MUSIC. You CAN revert this manually after some googling and tweaking with the game files - but that's a shame, *After doing so, the music doesn't play exactly as it did on the original version *Somehow the original release played much more smoothly. Somehow this release runs with some stutters and FPS drops. *They've completely dumped the intro & ending videos As a compensation(?) Forever comes with two additional levels packs: Gold and Rayman by His fans, plus a level editor if you're willing so much. The levels are not bad but are sometimes with questionable quality. Especiallly in the Fans pack, I've notices many of the levels are kind of replicas of each other, and I'm not sure what's the point of including all of them. The concpet of the "new" levels is generally to collect all Tings and find the exit sign which would appear later. Some of the levels are pretty fun, some are tedious. Some made the levels more "open" in a way it's not too clear where to go next, and you must explore around and find your way, which is sometimes nice. It's generally nice to have some additional levels, possibly more for the hard-core fans. All in all, it's good to have the option to play this classic up to these modern days.
Disclaimer which is also a pretty good bottom line - If you ever happened to play Dreamfall or Dreamfall Chapters, and enjoyed it, there's a very high probability you're going to like this title as well. All mentioned games share the same good aspects: Great storytelling, mild futuristic and\or sci-fi vibes, you get to play multiple characters who are mainly interesting and likeable, and it all generally has a nice cinematic view. The graphics and soundtrack also has a nice touch to them, and fit very well to the game's atmosphere. Unfortunately they all also share the same bad aspects: this product usually feels much more like a film trying to be a game, and doing to by plenty of mildly challenging puzzles \ mini games \ go-fetch-come-back sequences. This can definitely become a nuisance and a letdown for plenty of players. While I didn't suffer from those, I did find them slightly out of place or annoying at times, but there were also some good ones, too. This game certainly isn't perfect as an actual game, yet the plot kept me totally gripped and wanting more, and I felt that for this type of games, there was an OK balance between "plot moments" and "gameplay moments" , plus the overall experience and story were totally worth it. I hope to see more of this from Daedalic, and totally recommend this title!
Sure, Beneath a Steel Sky got quite old. It certainly does not match today's technical standards, BUT - as for the classic adventure genre this game may still hold a respectable place even when comparing to modern titles of the same genre. It has no surprises in the aspect of gameplay, this it your old point-n'-click style. The whole atmosphere, characters, superb voice acting, are what made this game such a classic. The game managees to masterfully tell a serious tale without taking itself too much seriously, as the dialouges and character interaction have their funny and peculiar bits. The game is quite short, which may be a disappointment for some, but I actually really liked its length since nowadays I don't have much time and patience to sit through classic adventures, which can be rather time consuming. The game does not overwhelm you with an overflow of characters, locations, items, etc.. Which I also quite liked. Every stage is relatively focused and the number of options to interact with is limited, but just enough so that you still have a challange of figuring out what to do next and still have the feeling there's enough content to explore. As for difficulty, I'd say just fine. About halfway through the game it was rather easy, puzzles made sense and were logical. The difficulty gets gradually higher, which is good, although I found that in my opinion towards the end the puzzles got a bit less logical, some events were triggered by others with seemingly no connection between them, etc. But it was nothing a little glimpse on a walkthrough couldn't help with. All in all, it was just fine and nothing too harsh. This game still gets 5\5 for me! If you're into classic adventures and didn't play this yet (which is highly unlikely), this is a GREAT beauty you shouldn't miss (And it's even free)
+An aesthetic experience - nice visuals & arts +Incredible soundtrack +Gameplay can be quite addictive +Solid story +Indie! +\- On "Normal" difficulty game is can be quite easy and played along casually, most of the time (I didn't die much) +\- Besides choosing harder difficulty you can "modify" certain aspects of difficulty in-game. This is good, and adds additional challange for whoever's interested. I found the game's "challanging" aspects to be rather frustrating and preferred to play "Normal".. But that really just a matter of preferences +\- Game is quite short (Again, preferences) +\-The narration can be a turnoff for some -Awkward controls, takes some getting used to -Well, it CAN get quite repetitive -General story was fine but I found the storytelling confusing at times -"Multiple endings" which felt quite thin and not really worth playing the game again to discover -Game represented at many places as "RPG" but its RPG elements are extremely light, casual, arcadish. So don't expect any RPG. Bottom line, this is a sweet game. Looking forward to try Transistor as well. The whole experience felt very aesthetic and generally well designed. Game flowed well and it's possible to play in a more casual and\or challanging manner as you wish. It's quite short but I believe it was just about the right length for this type of games, because if it was any longer it'd just get boring and tiresome. Full price is generally worth it but maybe slightly steep for a 3-4-5 h game (depending on your skill\speed\patience\gameplay stlye), but definitely get on a sale if you like the style and genre.
So, I've got around to playing this game since it's been laying in my library ever since I've opened my account (Quite some time ago!) And since I've decided to finally start clearing a bit my tad loaded video-games libraries I've given it a try. Actually this game is not bad at all. For a classic adventure, it complies the same style of many other games from the nineties of the same genre, no surprises there. The game doesn't take itself too seriously and so should you. It's (very) short, puzzles aren't too easy or too difficult, they're mostly ok. Can be vague at some points, but... That's just how those game go. Sadly this is just not too attractive nowadays. The game itself, while being alright, doesn't deliver much substance or any meaningful, memorable experience, and surely doesn't hold much replay value. The devs of the game are shut down and honestly haven't managed to make any remarkable titles throughout their years of existence (As far as I know), so, truly, this doesn't leave much reasons to play Teenagent - as much as I hate deeming stuff to timely execution - but here I fear there's no choice. Well, still appreciating the free game and the comical value.
First things first - this game is known as an interactive movie and there's a reason for it, it plays a lot like a movie you interact with rather than a game. I'm giving it a 4 out of 5 considering this is a very OLD game by now, and that it's pretty much the first attempt of the devs to do something like that - and that was a nice shot. It's definitely not perfect and you're going to enjoy it only with this aforementioned forgiving attitude. Good stuff: *You're choices mostly matter (Yes, you could say the story is still quite linear, BUT, there are relatively plenty of narrative paths and alternative outcomes, which is a good thing) *Nice OST *Casual gameplay, letting you enjoy the story and have a rather cinematic experience *70% of the story is great, intriguing, making you wander what's coming next *Nice acting (mostly) All in all - a nice adventure game\cinematic experience, especially if you want to feel Quantic Dream's early attempts. Weaker points: *Main characters..are..not so likable *Repetitive OST! *Buttons mashing are nice at first but it gets tiring... *Completely unfair and frustrating sneaking scenes *Towards the end of the game, it goes on a self-destruct-roller-coaster-pacing-amazingly-fast. The plot changes its pace suddenly and it all comes down to completely unnecessary romance\sex-scene and heavily-Matrix-influenced fights over and over until the end Bottom line: If you juge a book by its ending, this could look like a terrible game. Since I found most of the game an enjoyable experience, It still deserves a 4\5 and completely worth a play if you can forgive the flaws and the porduct beinf now over a decade old.
So this is pretty much a classic point and click adventure, literally classic, since it's out for over 20 years now. Not many surprises in that regard, it is very similar to games of the genre from that time. The special thing about the game is the brilliant story and twist, which is worth taking a look at. Besides, this offers an elegant, neat fantasy world atmosphere. I've decided to give it a try since it's been lying in my library for quite some time (I guess it was given for free at some point, because I didn't know about this game.) I wish I'd played that around the years when it first came out, because by then I could probably give it the justified amount of time! but for now I've decided to do it in one sitting using mostly a walkthrough. This is truly a charming and hidden title, although I did find the puzzles not easy at all to figure (Although they mostly made some sense), and also there's no way to quicken your pace up, so your characters walk VERY SLOWLY. Which can be quite tiresome. You'd sure need some patience for this game, especially nowadays, BUT, if you have some liking to the old classics, be sure to check this out !
