Short review: ✅ +Classic 90s point-and-click charm, polished and enjoyable. +Puzzles are mostly logical, self-contained, and not overwhelming. +Dialogues & story are amusing and fun. +Nice soundtrack, ambient, graphics and locations. +Difficulty curve starts approachable, later supported by a helpful hint system. +Great entry point for both newcomers or nostalgic players. +Hints system for whoever's into that ➖ +/- Director’s Cut extra content: offers some additional and different gameplay, I found it enjoyable to some degree, but inconsistent with main game. +/- I felt puzzles start out pretty easy and towards the middle of the game there's a difficulty bump, quite challenging but still not as hardcore games. Whether you like it or not depends on your gaming style. ❌ - UI elements scale poorly at high resolution (tiny on laptop screen). - Mini-games feel buggy, with clunky mouse controls. (but there aren't that many) Long review and disclaimers: If I recall correctly, Broken Sword was one of the first games I've owned digitally on a gaming platform, when at some point (I think) it was given away from free by GOG, then I got into the unfortunate habit of owning new games and never really getting to play them! At any rate, finally I gave this one a try (accidentally just in time when Reforged was released.... Oh Well). So, Broken Sword is an awesome adventure, point and click style game. It has all the charm and beauty of those 90's titles and does everything from solid to well done. What I do want to emphasis here is my experience as (a) someone who's completely new to the series (haven't tried the original as well) and (b) someone who really used to love point&click but finding it hard to play those today. So yeah, being older-ish with less video game time, and unfortunately less patient, I find the classic adventure games a bit demanding. Fortunately Broken Sword IMO is a great opportunity to get back to basics without being a too frustrating experience. I felt the puzzles are are relatively self-contained in the sense that most of the times you have a certain area or small number of areas where things are happening. There's no overwhelming number of items to interact with or inventory items. The dialogs are relatively straight to the point while still being amusing and fun. The solutions are pretty logical most of the time. In fact I think the first half to two-thirds of the game went by quite easily for me and I made it pretty much on my own but still feeling a bit challenged. Later on puzzles became more difficult, but the hints system was usually helpful enough to not spoil too much the puzzles. If there are still some hardcode adventure games left, they may find these as bad points, but for me I felt this all worked perfectly. As for the "Director's Cut" new content, I understand that didn't get much praise, and I can see why. I have personally enjoyed it, and I liked the idea of switching a bit to another character, experiencing a different sub plot, and Nico's puzzles which were slightly more "mini-games oriented" rather than the classic inventory puzzles formula. HOWEVER these parts definitely felt a little out of place and didn't feel coherent with the rest of the game. Story felt a bit meh-ish and didn't prove to have much impact overall. I think it's also done well before getting to the middle of the game which makes it feel a little imbalanced as well. So, not a must, it didn't hurt so much too. I think the "reforged" edition comes with a graphic overhaul and without the extra content, so may be a better place to start for some. One thing that slightly disappointed me is that the game scaled beautifully to high resolution except for the UI elements which became absurdly tiny on my laptop screen. I was lazy to search for a solution and switched to lower resolution (which virtually plays pretty much like the original version, I think). Additionally, the "mini games" felt a bit buggy and the mouse controls didn't feel smooth at all (possibly due to being a mobile port?), but that was just a tiny nuisance and not in a state making things unplayable. So, all in all, I had fun playing this and this is a great game to experience the magic of classic games which I could still fit into modern busy and a bit impatient lives. I think that's an awesome version for whoever wants a nostalgia trip or is a newcomer (but possibly should also check Reforged, hope someday I will as well).
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.
