Recent reviews by Dusseldorf Toy Factory Owner

Having been a big fan of the first game I eventually picked this one up, I was especially curious to see what happened to the main character from the first uncertain, but I couldn’t even make it through the whole game.

The developers threw away two golden opportunities. First of all you don’t play as a Robot, or really interact with them. Which besides being extremely unique also meant that voice acting and animation didn’t need to be life-like, because well they’re robots. All the characters are super stiff and Janky and the voice acting isn’t very good. It comes together some of the time, but you just wish you were still playing as the bots.

They also forwent the traditional point and click gameplay for a more modern third person style for really no reason. You still can only interact with only a few things in the environment, all it seems to really do is complicate development because now all the areas have to be fully traversable. I’m also assuming this is why the visuals have had such an extreme downgrade, as well as exhibiting a litany of bugs.

I could probably deal with this stuff, because I was still digging the melancholy vibe (although the first game was also vastly superior in this regard) but when I was looking something up about a puzzle I came to find out this game ALSO ends on a cliffhanger and the developers have flat out stated there not going to continue this series.

Yeah that did it for me. I skimmed the rest of the game on youtube and I can confirm that it clearly is meant to be a part of a larger story and without the rest it's just not worth getting invested in. It’s been stated by the developer/publisher that they aren’t continuing due to low sales, but I can’t really blame anyone for not being interested in this due to the fact that it's a downgrade in every conceivable way.

A pretty great survival horror game that had, and continues to fly under the radar. It’s obviously inspired by the likes of RE and Silent Hill, but to call it a clone of those things would be disingenuous. It brings a lot of its own ideas to the table and it has atmosphere to spare. I think it's a crime this game is underrated and at its price it's a steal. If you have any love for the survival horror genre you owe it to yourself to play this.

Red Alliance is the kind of game that I love and the kind of game that doesn’t get made anymore. It invokes that mid 2000’s shooter similar to games like half life 2 or Red Faction. The crude nature of things like character animations and story can be excused, because it nails what's important. Shooting, environments, and game feel. The lesser elements fall to the wayside because overall it's just so much damn fun. Wish it was longer, but I think a game that leaves you wanting more is better than a game that burns you out. Highly recommended.

I feel this game is still worth playing even though payday 2 offers a lot more content. It’s a different flavor of game. You’re doing the same basic thing (I:E heists) but the details are not the same, given its smaller scale the balancing of everything is a lot better as well. Considering this I feel this game is a lot more easy to just jump into and have a good time than payday 2.

Singularity is a shooter from its time period that certainly stands out among the rest, as it was released in 2010 during the height of the “Modern Military Shooter.” The game casts an engaging story with interesting environments with the added use of time manipulation for combat and environmental puzzles. However, while it does set itself apart from other shooters at the time it still doesn’t buck the deluge of tropes of the time period. Things such has extreme linearity, easy combat, an unnecessary upgrade system, and overall just a lot of hand-holding. This dampens the experience for sure, but that being said I never felt bored during my playthrough. I believe this is Raven Software’s talent shining through a lesser developer would have most likely a drab and boring affair that would’ve been thrown in the trash along with all the other COD wannabes.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein is definitely rough around the edges. Most of its problems can be attributed to a weird lack of direction. It feels like it should be a fast paced shooter, but you have all of these things in place making that impossible. Things like limited spriting (it has to recharge once depleted), high recoil, and just the devastating damage enemies can deal makes the game feel like mishmash of ideas. The devastating damage also makes any enemies that aren’t of the “german soldier with gun” variety not fun to fight. Ironcily the game is its most fun when it's at its most basic. Your gonna be frustrated when you play this game that's a guarantee, however, that doesn’t mean it's fun. This game comes from an era when even an unbalanced mess such as this can still beat the crap out of a lot of modern shooters in terms of being fun. So if your a fan of FPS it's definitely worth checking out, just don’t expect it to give you a smooth and fair experience.

My overall feeling towards the game is ‘Meh’. Medal of Honor (2010) comes from a time period where all the big companies were clamoring to have a game just like COD. That being said it's not the worst COD wannabe I’ve seen. It still doesn’t stand out in any meaningful way though and is left to fall by the wayside of the thing it was trying to ape. If you want a linear, action set piece filled, modern military shooter you're just really better off with the modern warfare series. Those games are fun for what they are and are much better paced as well. However, if your curiosity does get the better of you your not necessarily in for a terrible time. Do buy it when it's on sale though it's not worth the asking price in my opinion.

There is a lot of crap out there in the hl2 modding community (it seems to attract a lot of memers for some reason) but I gotta tell you this is one of the good ones. Including interesting environments with a lot of cool ideas, welcome difficulty tweaks (hl2 is a bit easy even on the hardest difficulty innit?), a reworking of the weapons giving them more of a punch, and more visual (as well as audio) feedback when shooting enemies. It feels fully realized too, no half-hearted sequences or mechanics. It gets in does what it want to do and gets out with no fluff, just the way I like it. It’s not perfect neither is it the best hl2 mod out there, but it is a damn fine one and I for one look forward to the author's next endeavor.

Note: I never played the original game so I do not not know how much the Director's Cut improves.
Deadlight is a game that I saw popping in out of steam sales for a while. I always thought about getting it, but always saw mixed opinions on the game. I never got it and promptly forgot about it. Years later it ended up in a humble bundle I recently got, and I thought that I already had it at this point I might as well give it ago. I wasn't really expecting much but the game pleasantly surprised me. What I loved most about the game were the visuals and the story. The basic premise is there are zombies and you gotta try and track down your wife and daughter. Despite the simplistic premise the game's story manages to be really engaging. The cutscenes are also great looking with a very well done comic book style with some very nice art. On top of all that the game has surprisingly good voice acting. the visuals are also very appealing. The game it self looks good, but there is so much detail going on in the backgrounds that it really just takes the visual style up a notch. However this game isn’t perfect. There isn’t one clear cause for the problems with the game, I find it's mostly just a bunch of little annoyances. Say for example maybe the game didn’t give you enough time to react to something, or maybe one platforming section is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, or the game doesn’t make it clear what you're supposed to do. Little things like this plague the game. However I don’t think these annoyances are consistent enough to say it makes the game a chore, but on the other hand it does take it down a peg. Overall I think this game is rather good, and worth buying. It’s only around 4 hours long but I think that works to its advantage. It doesn’t drag on and tells a story that feels complete without any padding thrown in.

I like to think I have a pretty high tolerance for crappy budget shooters. I have enjoyed quite a few. That being said The Stalin Subway is a piece of garbage. It’s not because of the graphics, it's not because of the horrid voice acting (I swear to god one of the voice actors for the russian soldiers spoke with a southern drawl.) It's because the game isn’t fun to play. The gameplay is clunky and slow, the weapons are in some cases fine, and in other cases awful, and probably the biggest problem is the enemies do to much damage. This forces you to be what I like to call a corner creep (when you have dart back and forth from a corner) just to kill anyone. This makes an already slow game just really unbearble to play. I only played an hour yes, but I was able to identify that the controls were really ♥♥♥♥ immediately, and nothing could change that fact. There is much better budget shooters so I would highly recommend you skip this one.