Recent reviews by Sargon Aelther

Requires an online PSN account for arbitrary reasons. Will not launch without it.
Half the world is not allowed to buy a Ragnarok, despite being able to buy God of War 2018.

According to the store page, Broken Pieces was developed by a team of only 5 people, so with that in mind, it's a pretty impressive achievement. Sadly, this game seems to have flown completely under the radar. It definitely deserves more attention!

The game was designed for a fixed camera view, but the latest update added a 3rd person mode. You can choose the camera placement at the start of the game, but you cannot change it afterwards. I actually really like this addition. Fixed camera angles may have made sense in the past with 2D environments, but now that everything is 3D, it's just so much nicer to enjoy the beautiful scenery with free camera control of 3rd person. I actually really wish that Syberia 3 and 4 had this option.

There is another reason why I brought up Syberia though. While the screenshots may give the impression that this is a survival horror game, it really isn't. It feels and plays more like a traditional adventure game with some basic combat on top. While the situation that the protagonist Elise finds herself in is terrifying, there are absolutely no traditional scares for the player. There is hardly any inventory management either. There are two bullet types: low quality and high quality. HQ bullets deal more damage, while the LQ bullets are infinite. While it is possible to run out of inventory space, you will rarely ever have to drop anything for the sake of something else. There is also a chest at your home to store excess loot at. Any junk items placed there will get converted to high quality bullets overnight.

Enemies can spawn randomly in certain predesignated areas. Unlike most survival horror games, they cannot be avoided, as a barrier gets created, trapping Elise and her enemies in an arena of sorts. The only way to escape this arena is to defeat all the enemies. Infinite bullets come in handy in this case, because you will never be able to find or craft enough high quality bullets to deal with all the enemies. The combat is simple, although the dodge mechanic feels a bit janky and unpredictable.

The game has several time and weather manipulation mechanics. These are used to solve puzzles. Most of the puzzles are simple, which is a good thing in my opinion. The game is also on a timer of sorts. The time between 08:00 and 20:00 is considered safe, but everything outside of that is dangerous and Elise will refuse to explore further, insisting to go home "before it gets dark". There doesn’t appear to be a penalty for taking your time, besides missing out on one achievement that wants you to beat the game in 5 in-game days.

You can save the game by sitting down on a bench. You can also rest to heal on those benches, but doing so will consume 2 hours.

Voice acting is good, the puns are great, the story is interesting, although the ending leaves us more questions than answers. The story absolutely needs a sequel or an expansion pack at the very least.

I would recommend this game to adventure any game fan. If you are looking for a survival horror game, this may not be quite what you're looking for, but it's still worth a try.

Sir Whoopass is a fun silly little game that doesn't take itself seriously. It's a bit like Goat Simulator of fantasy RPGs.

The story is basic here, but, of course, the humour is the main attraction here. There is only one voice actor in the entire game, but he does a really good job as the narrator.

The combat is simple and a little bit janky, but this sort of a game wears it as a badge of honour I imagine, so It works. There is some platforming and puzzles, but they are simple and don't overstay their welcome. The game features a small open world and you can acquire a hovercar and a jetpack to help you travel. There is a lot of verticality in this open world, so the jetpack is justified.

The game features 3 weapon types: Fast Melee, Heavy Melee and Ranged.
Ranged weapons offer the biggest variety, while heavy weapons are the least varied. Most of the remaining loot consist hats with all kinds of properties, ranging from ammo regeneration to various stat boosts.

There isn’t a lot in terms of character customisation. There are a few cosmetic skins on offer, as well as the aforementioned hats. Maximum character level is 10 and you get one attribute point per level to assign to one of the 4 available attributes. I would say protection is probably the most valuable one, as you can acquire some really overpowered weapons, while there isn't much in terms of new armour, beyond a few hats. There is no respec option, although it would be nice if one was patched in, or if level cap was increased.

Sir Whoopass features manual saving, which is always a massive plus in my opinion. There are autosaves too, which are unlimited and you may quickly find yourself with 100+ of them. It may be a good idea to implement an autosave cap or a "Delete all autosaves" button.

There are some achievements for straight-up glitching, so they have embraced their bugs.

I had a lot of fun with this game and I would recommend it to anyone who thinks they would enjoy a "video game trope parody" game.

I really could not care less about Harry Potter, but I was told to boycott this game so many damn times, that the only sensible thing left to do was to pre-order the deluxe edition.

Rowling is laughing all the way to the bank.

It's an unholy union of Postal, Doom and American McGee's Alice of all things… and it's magnificent!

The gameplay is fun, every gun feels distinct and useful, and the levels are fun to explore. The game features crouch-jumping or "Slide-Jumping", which is very fast. I recommend binding crouch to Shift for easier access, as crouch-jumping should be used at all times for dodging and platforming. It’s just so fast and satisfying.

My favourite part is chapter two where it uses many surreal environments. The game is jam-packed with pop culture references and they're all great. Music is pretty catchy as well

The game features level select as well as manual saving with quick save and quick load, like a true PC classic. I always welcome manual saving in every game.

If you like Postal games, old-school shooters and creepy visual designs, this is a game for you!

Beautiful! Simply beautiful. I have played many amazing games over the years, but no other game fits this particular description more than Syberia TWB. Benoît Sokal and Microids have really outdone themselves this time.

The game runs buttery-smooth. The graphics and the art style are amazing. Ostherthal is a lovely location, whether we're exploring the beautiful city of Vaghen or its country side. I could not stop spamming my screenshot button. Inon Zur's music is unforgettable and I'm definitely adding some tracks to my playlist. The voice acting is phenomenal, which is very welcome after the somewhat-disappointing third instalment.

The game takes place roughly a year after the events of the third game and is accessible to new player. The story is good and bittersweet, although somewhat predictable. It also has nothing to do with the island of Syberia anymore, so perhaps changing the name should be considered in future games. Afterall, Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy takes place in the same universe, so it wouldn't be the first time.

On PC, Kate Walker can only be controlled with the mouse. Manual movement via WASD, introduced in Syberia 3, is gone, but thankfully pathfinding and camera work is much better this time. Having said that, there have still been a handful of locations where it was hard to make Kate go into a particular hallway, due to an awkward camera placement, so I still would have preferred to have WASD movement as an option.

The game has 3 profile slots, without manual saving or chapter select. I personally will always prefer having the ability to save manually, especially since the first two games had that, but it’s not a very big deal.

TWB is a worthy addition to the Syberia series and I recommend it to all fans of the franchise, as well as any newcomers looking for a story-rich game with a fantastic art style.

It’s really sad that Benoît Sokal did not get to see this game finished, but it will forever live on as his swan song. RIP and thank you for this wonderful journey.

Arguably the best and most true-to-the-source way of adapting a book. We need more games like this!

Blade of Darkness is one of my favourite childhood games of all time, I literally took the name of one of the playable characters and have been using it as my nickname ever since.

The game could be considered the grandfather of Dark Souls for its difficult and elaborate combat system. Like many games, there are some combos that you can do, but they are short and are not the focus. The game is more about the direction and timing of each attack. Most games tend to have a light and a heavy attack. Blade of Darkness has maybe 10+ of them. Low cut, middle cut, spin attack, forward attack, thrust, roll thrust, etc. You achieve these different attacks by combining the attack button with the movement keys.
The game has some platforming sections, but not many.

Some people say the controls are bad, but I disagree. The default key bindings are bad, not the controls. Change the key bindings to something modern and you will be fine. The only lacking feature, in my opinion, is the ability to move sideways (when not locked-on), other than that, the controls are fine.
I have also personally made a backup of my key bindings and have also edited the default keybindings. These are stored within "Blade of Darkness\Config\Control.py" and "Blade of Darkness\SCRIPTS\DefControl.py" respectively. Next time I reinstall this game, I will simply replace these files, without having to rebind every single key again.

Weapons actually feel like they have real weight and feel very satisfying. The game has a dismemberment system as well. It looks really good for its time, with blood splattering all over the walls and floors. Limbs actually look like they are being chopped off, instead of exploding off, like in Bethesda's games. Bodies do not disappear either, so you can play a butcher as much as you please. If you want to chop up enemies into little pieces, after you've killed them, you can. You can also take someone's limb and beat their buddy up with it, or throw someone's head at another enemy. Just about anything in this game is a weapon. You can beat people up with a stool in the earlier levels, if you wish.

The game has 4 characters to choose from. Each has their own preferred abilities, armour and preferred weapons. Each characters also has their own unique starting level. Technically any character can use every weapon, but if that weapon is not intended for them, they will hold it awkwardly and be clumsy with it in a fight. There are countless weapons in the game, including some special ones. The special ones may look weak on paper, with their weak basic attacks, but their special combos are incredibly powerful and unique. A useful hint: The Ice Sword, found somewhere in the Gorge of Orlok, is arguably the most powerful sword in the game.
Armour is specific to each character and is not interchangeable. The knight has light, medium and heavy armour, the dwarf has light and medium, while the barbarian and amazon only have light armour.

Blade of Darkness is one of the first games to use dynamic shadows. In dark areas, lit by torches, shadows look beautiful and sharp. They move and look pretty realistic too. Other than that, the game looks dated, as is to be expected. I'm very glad that this game got rereleased with proper widescreen support. While you could run the original in a widescreen resolution, the image would get stretched and look terrible. Now we have proper widescreen support.

There isn’t a lot in terms of story here, but the combat is really satisfying and quality gameplay more than makes up for the lacking story. There is plenty of replay value here too. Blade of Darkness is a magnificent gem and we need more games like it, perhaps even a sequel, with some improvements in the story department. I bought the game on both Steam and GOG the moment I saw it, just as a thank you for rereleasing it. Please consider a sequel SNEG, or whoever owns the IP these days!

Thank you for bringing Half-Life to the younger generation, who may be less inclined to play older games.
Legends never die, they are timeless!

The soundtrack is ok, I definitely cannot call it bad, however it feels very generic. If you played any track to me, I could not say where it originates from. I really do not understand why Hangar 13 didn't just use and expand Vladimír Šimůnek' masterpiece. You could play any song from Šimůnek score and I'd instantly recognise it as "Mafia OST".

I understand the need to re-record the lines, or adjust the script, the English dub of the original was awful, but that wasn't the case with the music. The music was phenomenal. Why replace it in its entirety?

It's good that the intro cutscene includes the original theme at the very least, but even that re-recording sounds very odd and bland (though I'll let the off the hook, for this one, as they had to record it during Covid). Why is it not included in this soundtrack though?