Unfortunately this game does not work on Windows 11. Hope there will be a bug fix soon.
A lot of negative things have already been written about the game. I should probably have heeded it, because it's all true. - It's significantly worse than the 1st part. - The story seems completely implausible from start to finish. It becomes increasingly unrealistic and annoying towards the end of the game and is extremely drawn out due to plot twists that seem contrived. - The flashbacks to 2005 are completely unnecessary, seem contrived, have nothing to do with the main storyline and drag out the game. In the cliffhanger at the end of Still Life 1, it was 99.9% clear who the killer was. This could have been confirmed in an intro without interrupting the game with annoying flashbacks. - The puzzles are not particularly difficult, but they are annoying, repetitive and often time-critical. You often don't even know why you have to collect countless objects or look at things - it's just to unlock something (e.g. you get a phone call without which you can't continue). - The game only takes place in 3 locations and is completely linear. - The technical realisation is lousy (bugs, flat 3D graphics, badly animated characters, poor UI, constant changes of camera perspective and a missing hotspot function make searching for objects really annoying) - The voice acting is much worse than in the first part and seems quite unprofessional. In addition, the sound is poorly mixed. - Towards the end of the game there is a bug, which means you can't finish the game. There is neither a correctly functioning version, nor a savegame on GOG. I had to watch the end on youtube... This game is a prime example of what went wrong with point and click adventures in the 2000s. Fortunately, things have improved again much since then.
1. First the positive: The story is very well done and exciting. It kept me motivated enough at all times to endure even the annoying phases. It builds up a good arc of suspense, there are many gripping cliffhangers and for its time the game presents itself quite solidly in terms of multimedia. 2. The negative, which is due to the age of the game: Point and click adventure games had a difficult phase from the end of the 90s to the end of the 00s. After their all-time high as the pinnacle of the gaming industry in the 90s, they were marginalised. Customers wanted action and 3D instead of lovingly drawn pixel art, cartoon animation and captivating stories. The decline in popularity also resulted in tighter budgets, which, for example, no longer permitted top-class actors as voice acts. During this time the developers tried to spice up their games with 3D graphics, reduced dialogue, fewer objects, fewer story-based puzzles, but numerous brain and skill games included in the game. As we adventure game enthusiasts know, this usually went completely wrong. Here too: You have to click through lots of unnecessary (static, non-scrolling) scenes where there's nothing to click on. At least this is not quite as annoying in Still life as it is in the deadly boring Syberia - but almost. The wooden, disproportionate 3D characters sometimes make the game fall deep into the uncanny valley. Not as bad as Gabriel Knight 3 - but almost. The dialogues are flat, without choices and often dubbed in a somewhat unmotivated way. What is most annoying, however, are the many, stupid, completely out of place and implausible brain games (mechanisms, mechanical puzzles and locks). They are manageable but they interrupt the flow of the game and motivation. And then there's an extremely annoying game of skill towards the end of the game. 3. The negative things that went wrong with Still life in particular: There is actually only one thing: The controls and user interface are abysmal.
(+) The game has a basically interesting and exciting story. Visually, Hauma is well done and looks stylish. The voice-act is not bad either. Hauma also proves that a graphic novel COULD be combined very well with the game mechanics of a point and click adventure. (-) The characters and the dialogue are often rather flat and wooden. There is usually a lack of depth. An important supporting character is just annoying and clearly only has the function of advancing the story through his stupid bad decisions and scaremongering. The story sometimes seems hobbled and illogical. Once you even had to do such a morally reprehensible thing to a person in order to get ahead that your sympathy with the protagonist sinks to zero. There really could have been more in it - I would say the story would have had Gabriel Knight-like potential if it had been better realised. I was also very annoyed by the puzzle design, which oscillates between too easy and annoyingly repetitive. Especially that you have to combine some things in a certain order without it being logical. And when I write that a graphic novel COULD go well with the adventure game mechanics, I mean to imply that in the case of Hauma, unfortunately, this has not been fully achieved. In particular, the inventory without the possibility to combine things with the objects in a scene was clearly a bad decision by the developers. Finally, there are few technical bugs and shortcomings that will hopefully be eliminated with batches: Sometimes the background sounds are not played in scenes or the voice-over is missing in parts of the dialogue. Sometimes objects from the inventory are not displayed correctly. In addition, it is not possible to set the text language. For example, I would have liked to have an English text for the English voice-over and not a German one. Despite all the negatives, the game was still fun and exciting.
The game looks promising, but unfortunately has no voice acting. If it had one, I would even pay a much higher price. For me, good voice acting is part of the experience of a good point and click adventure game.
I'm a fan of Beneath a Steel Sky and I also liked Beyond a Steel Sky. Although I'm actually a very orthodox 2D point-and-click adventure enthusiast and normally can't stand 3D adventure games at all because I get spinning dizziness and nausea from them easily. However, this was not the case with Beyond a Stell Sky. Presumably because it is not an FFP game, but a well-programmed 3rd-person adventure game that avoids too hectic camera movements. The uncanny valley that I usually experience in many 3D games (especially adventure games) is also absent here, thanks to the graphic novel-like style. So for me, the game is technically very good, if you have the necessary hardware. Although, of course, there are the occasional graphics glitches that exist in almost every 3D game. How is the story: Quite good from my point of view. The cynical, post-apocalyptic and dystopian glossy world with a social caste system is portrayed well. Stylistically, like its predecessor, it can be classified as cyberpunk with a few steampunk elements. The story is coherent, although it didn't captivate me quite as much as the first part. Beneath a Steel Sky was bloodier, harder, darker, more unforgiving, more brutal and less suitable for children than Beyond a Steel Sky. But it was also a bit more thrilling and exciting. The puzzles in Beyond a Stell Sky are okay, perhaps a little easier than in the predecessor. Overall, I can recommend the game. It's just a more pleasant, easier-to-digest fare than its predecessor.
The story was exciting and had me hooked. It is a mixture of coming of age, mystery and psychological horror. The technical and artistic realisation is very well done, graphics, effects, atmospheric music and sound support the story perfectly. From my point of view, however, the game also has its weaknesses, otherwise I would have given it 5 points: The controls and especially the dialogue are poorly implemented. The dialogue is hectic, jumbled and you constantly miss some information or press on too quickly because someone in the teen group is babbling irrelevantly. A systematic approach, as I usually pursue in adventure games, is almost impossible here. Moreover, the puzzles are very simple or they mostly consist of a constant and annoying running back and forth of longer distances across the island. Oxenfree is clearly a point-and-click adventure, but certainly not a classic implementation. There are refreshing, new approaches but also annoying ones. In terms of gameplay, Oxenfree is certainly aimed more at a young Generation Z audience, and less at old, dogmatic "adventure dinosaurs" like me, who grew up with more uncomfortable games like Space Quest, Maniac Mansion, etc, which were unforgiving of the smallest mistakes. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed it and can recommend it to any adventure game enthusiast who wants to try something new.
I'm basically happy that there's a remake of Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers, as it brings Jane Jensen's great Gabriel Knight series back into focus after decades and makes it more accessible to younger gamers. I think it's a good, thoroughly enjoyable game in its own right, and I can absolutely recommend it. Still, it can't come close to the original, which I consider one of the best adventure games ever. 1) From my point of view, drawn, artistic backgrounds and sprites fit the slow, story-centered gameplay of "art-house" point-and-click adventures much better than rendered 3D worlds. Point-and-click adventures easily fall into the "uncanny valley" when they pretend 3D realism but fail to achieve it. A classic example, unfortunately, is the 3rd installment of the Gabriel Knight series. Unfortunately, this also applies - to a lesser extent - to the remake of Sins of the Fathers. 2) I don't like the look of Gabriel Knight in the remake. He looks like a cold, unsympathetic, out of time pretty boy. A bit like a singer of a 90s commercial hard rock band. In the original he was a likeable, cool guy with lots of rough edges who looked like a mix of a young David Bowie, Neil Tennant, Morten Harket and Conan O'Brien. 3. The voice acting in the remake is really very well done. However, it was brilliant and even much better in the 1993 original (Tim Curry, Mark Hamil, Michael Dorn, Leah Remini, Vriginia Capers,...). Too bad they didn't find a legal and technical way to use the original recordings and digitally remaster them. However, what has been significantly improved in the remake from my point of view: The cut scenes and the music (even though I still like the warm FM synth sound of the original).
At a time when I am eagerly awaiting some point and click adventures that have been announced for a long time and whose release dates keep getting postponed, this unexpected new release was a really nice surprise. I + A high level of tension, gloom and creepiness runs consistently throughout the game. + Despite the gloom, there are moments where you can smile. + The story is well done and logical. + The puzzles are logical (easy to moderately difficult) and fit well into the story. + The characters are well developed. The protagonist is likeable. + The music is superb and very atmospheric. + The voice acting is excellent and achieves the usual high Wadjet Eye quality. + The game is solidly realised. + There are unlimited save slots and still an autosave. - The graphics sometimes look a bit simplistic and crude without being artistically justified, especially the cutscenes and backgrounds. Overall, the graphics are not of a consistently high quality. However, this is not due to the retro pixel look, which I otherwise like. - The dialogue scenes could have been a bit better graphically. Faces are unfortunately missing. - While it is basically positive that there is parallax scrolling, it is not implemented very well. It seems rather crude, as if backdrops are being shifted back and forth. Even if not everything is perfect and the game may not be at the absolute top of the genre, it is still a good game that I can recommend. The focus is more on psychological horror, on an exciting story and not on jumpscares and gore. Especially the things that you don't see, that are only hinted at, are scary. The game seems to be unspired by titles such as "The Last Door", "Shadow of the Comet", "Kathy Rain" and "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" as well as "Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers". If you like these games and generally enjoy exciting, dark mystery and psychological horror adventures, you can't really go wrong with "The Excavation of Hob's Barrow".
This is the first game from the otherwise superb Wadjet Eye Adventure portfolio that I don't like at all. Why? 1. Extreme feel-bad factor. Like a cynical, sick visualisation of a severe depression. 2. The story is not exciting. It doesn't interest or motivate me at all. 3. I don't like the graphic style. A bit of wannabe Giger. 4. The "hires" graphics (hires at least for retro point and click adventures) are technically not as well realised as in other Wadjet Eye titles (e.g. Unavowed). For me, the game falls into the same category as "I have no mouth and I must scream".
