Seneste anmeldelser af Rusty

Like Limbo before it, Little Nightmares is a puzzle platformer about a fragile child trapped in a horrible world. Its style could loosely be described as moody eastern-european cinema. I'll get my positives out the way first but don't worry, this won't take long.

The game is gorgeous to look at, equivalent to the best stop motion films at times but even more twisted in it's visual design, with some of the enemies being particularly creepy and memorable. It certainly goes towards creating a moody and oppressive atmosphere.

The main character's yellow jacket against grey and often muted backgrounds is even reminiscent of Schindler's List, and the section with all the decaying shoes also invoked the Jewish holocaust. I've no idea if this was intentional but I guess that at best they thought, "hey, that Spielberg film was striking to look at and the holocaust was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ miserable, let's shoehorn that into our Limbo ripoff in the vaguest most superficial way possible" (I guess that's my positives out of the way).

As to why the world is the way it is, or why it's populated by monstrosities who appear to be trying their hardest to kill or eat a small child, I've no idea, because the game doesn't tell me. There is no story to speak of and what can be read from the visuals is entirely speculative. Even Limbo, as vague and lacking in traditional storytelling as it was, had enough going on in the visuals and scripted encounters that I could hazard a guess as to what was happening. The title also helped. So I felt no connection to the world of little nightmares, nor the child I was playing as. Speaking of playing, let's talk about the gameplay.

So that nightmare part is on the nose because little nightmares sure is a nightmare to play. Whereas Limbo had the good sense to keep its platforming to two dimensions, Little Nightmares has more of a 2.5D aspect as you can move up and down. This makes platforming a massive pain in the arse because you can't really gauge distance in either plane and the pov messes with your depth perception. This leads to lots of trial and error when attempting what should be simple jumping puzzles and it's not fun to play.

There are also lots of set pieces and escape type scenes in which you have to do the exact right thing or die, and it can get trying as you have to repeat the same bit of the game again and again. Luckily it's quite a short game, but I shudder to think how short it would be if I didn't have to trial run so many sections of the game multiple times.

So, nice to look at but it's all style over substance and utterly fails as a puzzle platformer. I'm so done with these pretentious, artsy, indie games, with stories so abstract and vague they'd make David Lynch shake his head in disgust. More like Little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

I can only imagine that 'director' David Cage sees himself as some kind of Spielberg of video games. Unfortunately for mr Cage he's closer to being the Tommy Wiseau of video games. His* interactive narrative experience, Heavy Rain, is full of human Emotions™. I say human, but the emotions on display here bear little resemblance to normal human emotions, instead coming across as bizarre imitations of human behaviour, hence the Tommy Wiseau comparison.

Storywise, Heavy Rain is a fairly generic thriller about a serial murderer who is dubbed the origami killer because they leave little origami figures at the scene of their crimes. The crimes always take place during periods of ' heavy rain' and start with a kidnapping. After a few days the kidnapped victim, who is always a kid, turns up dead. In the game, because remember this is meant to be a video game, you play as four different characters; an FBI agent investigating the murders, a private eye investigating the murders, a careless father looking for his kidnapped child and a woman who's tits you get to see. So far so unoriginal but here's the twist (and I don't think this is a huge spoiler), one of the characters you play as is the origami killer! In more capable hands this could work, but this is David Cage we're talking about. The events that occur during the killer's* chapters are often contradictory or at odds with the fact that this person is the killer. In fact, as you'll see if you get to the end, some events will be flat out different to how they played out originally. If this was a film, as David Cage clearly wishes it was, then it would be an illogical mess full of plot holes, because as it turns out, Cage isn't a particularly good director and nor is he a very good writer, resorting largely to melodrama and clichés. It's quite amazing how much angry yelling, screaming and crying, Quantic Dream have shoved into Heavy Rain.

JAAAAAAASON!

Cage is obviously a fan of Hollywood movies and Heavy Rain is clearly influenced by any number of thrillers. There are two notable examples of films that Heavy Rain is ripping off. Sorry, paying homage to. The first is the Saw franchise, as the father in Heavy Rain has to carry out a series of sadistic tests for the killer's amusement* in order to help track down his son. The other that I noticed is Minority Report; yes, the Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller has been pilfered. Most notably is the fact that Tom Cruise's character also has a missing son called Shaun and there's even a scene where he desperately looks for him, yelling his name (seriously go look it up, it's uncanny how much Heavy Rain apes this scene). The FBI agent in Heavy Rain also uses an interface very similar to the one in Minority Report that Cruise's character balletically manipulates, and it's just as much of a gimmick in the game.

So if Heavy Rain fails as a work of cinema then how does it fare as a 'video game'? Those sarcastic air quotes might be giving the game away; Heavy Rain is barely a video game, even when compared the QD's previous game, Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit). That title at least started off feeling more like a traditional adventure game, as you tried to cover your tracks whilst simultaneously investigating a crime. Heavy Rain is a series of 'scenes' in which you perform quicktime events and interact with your environment using control gestures. These gestures are done by moving the analogue sticks* in certain ways and through button prompts, and the controls are truly awful, often requiring precise movement and lots of trial and error to get it right. Seriously, it took me longer to open a cupboard in this game than it did for me to beat the end boss of Dark Souls, and there are loads of these interactions. It's actually amazing how many mundane and pointless things you can interact with in each environment, but the goal of each chapter or scene, no matter which of the 4 characters you're playing as, is to find the interaction that progresses the story. Sometimes it's literally just a waiting game. Or a walking game, but I hesitate to call it a walking sim as it's clearly more of a talking sim.

The closest it ever comes to being a game are the chapters were you control the FBI agent. Yes, you're essentially just interacting with all the objects you can to progress the investigation, but at least it feels like there's some deduction going on and you're not just a passive observer. You can also miss clues or come to the wrong conclusion which can ultimately effect future events including the ending, and even the fates of the main characters. The various choices in the dialogue can also alter future events to some degree. It's actually quite impressive how many permeations there are, even for little things, but the killer is always the same and ultimately this feels like Cage's interactive story, not my video game play through. Saying that, there are some quite harrowing choices you have to make which are quite shocking in the immediate moment but would generally be replaced in my memory with something stupid a few scenes later.

So I wouldn't recommend Heavy Rain for its gameplay because it barely has any and the story isn't gripping, or clever enough to recommend it either, full of plot holes and hilarious melodrama as it is. Actually that hilarity might be where my slight recommendation comes from. There are elements in the story and the gameplay that are so bad they're good and it can be quite a laugh to see where things are going. Plus the press button to JASON,/SHAUN will never get old and is practically a meme at this point.

*This is a Quantic Dream game but David Cage very much likes to be front and centre when it comes to knowing who is the driving force behind Heavy Rain. His name is all over the credits.

*This is only revealed towards the end of the game, but as I said a more competent team could have given us some way of working this out as we play but it pretty much comes from nowhere.

*Although the reason is never really made clear.

*You'd have to be a sadist to play the game with mouse and keyboard.

A mechanically simple yet highly addictive gameplay loop that will keep you entertained for many hours, late into the night. There's a ton of content and the fair, steady progression system means you'll likely see new 'stuff' after every run.

Vampire Survivors is essentially a reverse bullet hell (be the bullet hell, is their tagline) which tends to make the end of your run rather easy as you'll have unlocked and evolved a number of powerful weapons. There's not the high skill ceiling of bullet hells and late stages tend to involve just walking directly into waves of enemies, hoovering up the experience gems they drop. It can be quite hypnotic and even relaxing but it's not much of a challenge. It's very much the kind of game that once you've unlocked enough of the content there's not actually much of an incentive to keep you playing because the gameplay is pretty basic, rather shallow and dare I say it, boring?

But that's unfair, I've spent a fair number of hours on VS and a lot of love has clearly gone into its development. I've certainly got my money's worth, even if I'm unlikely to revisit the game despite having some content left to unlock.

If it was expensive I might tell you to avoid it as a bit of an endorphin trap, but at under a fiver it's a bit of a steal, especially when compared to other games at this price point.

There's also no sneaky microtransactions in a game that if it were developed for mobiles* by a company like Zynga, would be full of them. You pay your money, you get your game. How tragically old fashioned.

*This is the kind of game that should be being developed on mobiles rather than the microtransaction laden toss designed to pull money from the vulnerable that basically plays itself.

Resident Evil 4 revolutionised 3rd person survival horror when it released on the GameCube back in 2005 and went on to influence titles such as Dead Space whilst revitalising its own stuttering series.

It did this by moving from a fixed camera to one that floats behind the player's shoulder. This made the combat much more exciting and dynamic, increasing the scope of the arena and improving player mobility. Enemy ai that could dodge and behave unpredictability as well as the ability to shoot enemy projectiles out of the air made the combat a joy to play, with this new perspective putting you right in the action. The action is also really well paced with peaks of intensity bookended by calmer sections and boss fights.

The gameplay has held up really well although the inability to fully rotate the camera does restrict visibility somewhat and the quick time events during cut scenes are something I didn't particularly like when I first played RE4 in 2005. I don't mind the QTEs that occur during gameplay as much because they tend to be used to avoid enemy attacks as there is no dedicated dodge button. The ledge climb button mashing QTEs can piss off though. Even the parts of the game that involve escorting Ashley are rarely frustrating as you can order her to hold back or to hide in a bin. In fact, many parts of the game where you have to watch out for Ashley just add to the chaotic, exhilarating nature of the combat.

A lot of the tension and fear in this horror game comes from the peaks in the action, as you barely hold off hordes of villagers with your rapidly depleting supplies of health and ammo. Highlights for me are the opening village assault, the defense in the cabin with NPC Luis and the horde of cultists that attack you and Ashley in a large castle room. Then there are the relentless and seemingly indestructible Regenerador's who embody the feelings of panicky ♥♥♥♥♥♥-ness I felt while playing the game.

RE4 also comes across as fairly self aware when it comes to the games story and characters, embracing the camp and silliness inherent in a series that usually takes itself so seriously. Resident Evil is a series known for its bad dialogue and RE4 embraces this, with ladder hating Leon in particular -in this game a 12 year old boy's idea of a 'bad ass'- delivering his daft lines earnestly, with a mostly straight face and just the right amount of sarcasm. Squeaky voiced midget Salazar is another highlight and the moments when the villains take over your walky-talky are wonderfully camp with over the top villainy. Not to mention the cockney pirate merchant.

The plot itself is your usual RE fair; there's an evil group bent on world domination by way of a deadly virus. But RE4 shakes things to here too by moving away from Umbrella, the T-virus, zombies and the USA, to a religious cult, parasites, crazed villagers and "Europe". The exact setting is unclear but the parasite hosting villagers speak in some sort of Spanish, so chances are its Spain. A very rural, backwards Spain by all accounts but it's certainly a nice change of setting and vibe. There's also the presidents daughter to rescue, so just another day for our glossy haired, roundhouse kicking hero.

Despite all the the tongue in cheek elements the game still has loads of atmosphere with its grainy graphical style and rustic visual design. There are creepy forests, ramshackle villages, a misty lake, crumbling ruins, gloomy castles, grim concrete fortresses and clinical, claustrophobic labs. Lots of grim visual touches too; the villagers 19th century clothing is blood spattered and filthy as are their homes. There's general decay and mess in the villages which is contrasted nicely by the cleaner, more ordered areas in the castle. It appears that classicism has finally come to Resident Evil but it also shows how the leaders of the cult are more in control of their parasite than the mindless villagers. There's also some great body horror as hosts become infested with parasitic appendages, heads and limbs explode and mangled flesh glistens.

The sound design is also fantastic, from the kaw of crows to the moans and chatter of enemies, their screeches and screams when they spot you and the slow, monotonous chanting of the priests. All this audio adds to the atmosphere and in practical terms it helps you locate enemies when the camera isn't helping, allowing you to swivel and face incoming foes when you hear running footsteps or groans and squelches fading in. The guns are also suitably loud and meaty sounding as bullets thud into body parts. Ashley yelling "Leon!" constantly whilst often helpful can get annoying, but kudos to the audio of the oozing, twitchy Regenerador's, making them all the more frightening.

So if all that hasn't made it clear, I love Resident Evil 4 and think it's well worth playing, even with a PC port that's far from perfect. It's constantly surprising you and while there are a few sections of the game that haven't held up as well, or are frustrating (I'm not a huge fan of the truck section or the U3 mini boss), it's mostly great, a true survival horror that's creative, tense, horrifying, entertaining, silly and utterly charming*.

* While I haven't played the remake I'm a little worried that some of this charm and campy fun might be missing from it. It looks to be back to that dark and serious Resident Evil which to me isn't the RE4 I love. I did thoroughly enjoy the RE2Make though so will still be checking it out.

I have never played the tabletop RPG this game is based on, nor indeed any Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game. My experience of the D&D universe is limited to the terribrill film, general pop culture osmosis and most relevant to this review, the isometric CRPGs released by Bioware and Black Isle (later Obsidian).

Of all these titles, Baldur's Gate II (and its expansion) was the standout, and I'd still say it's one of the best games ever made. Planescape Torment and Mask of the Betrayer may have had better writing, and the Icewind Dale series better combat, but BG II shone in all areas. It featured lots of different classes which increased replay-ability, a lengthy story campaign with player choice and branching paths, one of the best villains in video game history, memorable and unique companions, relationships with those companions, interesting side quests, a great sense of progression, exciting and varied combat encounters, moral choice, a fantastic soundtrack and some great loot.

It set the bar for future CRPGs and created a template to build on. Many of its features and mechanics becoming commonplace in modern RPGs.

Why all this seemingly unrelated preamble that has nothing to do with Pathfinder: Kingmaker? Well, in the mid 2000s, Bioware, Black Isle (now basically Obsidian) and Larian Studios moved away from isometric CRPGs, and in Bioware's case especially, started making games that were more streamlined and some would say, console friendly. It appeared that 2D was dead and 3D was here to stay. That was until Obsidian's 2012 Kickstarter campaign for a CRPG in the style of BGII and Planescape Torment raised over $4 million. This success opened up the floodgates.

We've since had Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity and its sequel Deadfire, Tyranny, Torment: Tides of Numenera, two Divinity Original Sin games, three Wasteland games, Disco Elysium, remasters, numerous indie games and in 2018, Pathfinder: Kingmaker. All these titles owe something to BGII and could be considered spiritual successors to the 'classic' isometric CRPGs, sharing many of their mechanics and approaches to game play.

Of all these titles the two that come closest to replicating BGII's quality across the board, as well as its tone, are Original Sin 2 and Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and because OS 2 is not strictly isometric (you can rotate the camera and the environment is 3D) and has a slightly different style of combat, the spiritual successor crown has to go to PK.

At times it's uncanny, like you're playing a direct sequel to BGII only with nicer looking pre-rendered backgrounds. The game even features the little green circles around your party members. The D&D setting certainly helps with that feeling of familiarity and while there are differences to classes, races, skills, spells and monsters, there's also a lot that's recognisable to someone like me. From my admittedly limited perspective I'd say that the Forgotten Realms is traditional fantasy to Pathfinders folkloric fantasy (there are Jabberwocky's and Fae, for example).

The main story revolves around a kingdom in the Stolen Lands and starts off simply enough with a contest. There are a number of twists along the way and numerous instances of player choice that can affect the plot. It's all well written by the developers at OwlCat, with help from industry veterans like Chris Avellone. I also want to praise the games villain who is both layered and sympathetic, which is a nice change. She's no Jon Irenicus but there are definitely shades of that character.

The companions are well written and likeable too. They have their own wants but you can still shape and influence them. Like BGII and OS2 there's a lot of humour in the character writing, but it's nicely balanced with more serious stuff. The voice acting, while not used for every line of dialogue, definitely helps bring the companion to life. They all have their own branching quest lines and completing these allows you to gain influence over them, whilst revealing more of their personalities and backstory. These quests generally lead to some kind of moral choice that you can attempt to swing a particular way.

The main story campaign is split into numerous acts and quest lines, and like BGII the game often surprises and delights with where these quests go. There's lots of variety to locations and encounters and even the smallest side quest will have some kind of story line.

The combat also features lots of variety and strategy, and while I do have complaints, I mostly enjoyed it. The sheer number of creatures, classes, spells and abilities makes each encounter a little different and it's nice to see strategic real-time with pause combat again, and done to this level. The similarities to BGII's combat system certainly help, but now we also have fancier particle effects. You're also rewarded with decent loot for overcoming some of the tougher optional battles which can go on for some time. These kinds of encounters require some tactical thought you'll have to manage your party and skills carefully.

An addition to game play not found in BGII is Kingdom management. This involves picking advisers, carrying out tasks and timed events, and managing a kind of fantasy spreadsheet/text adventure. I do have my problems with it, but it can be a nice change of pace from all the combat and exploration.

My biggest complaint is that PK has a reverse difficulty curve, with some incredibly hard enemy encounters early on. These spikes in difficulty flatten as the game goes on but it's almost enough to stop you playing and is a high barrier to entry. The first proper 'boss' encounter is a bandit with some deer antlers on his head. He and his band of merry men pounded me into the ground so many times that I almost quit. There were also normal enemy encounters that wrecked me early on because I didn't have the required knowledge of what spells and gear to use.

After being destroyed by a wisp for the 50th time I looked online for a solution and felt validated by the sheer number of guides for these difficult encounters. There were also many threads with people complaining about the early difficulty, and it's an unfair difficulty requiring specific classes with specific spells to make these encounters doable. Forcing a player in an RPG down a specific combat route is not good design but thankfully after act four things balance out a bit. There are still challenging encounters throughout but they don't feel unfair, and I didn't feel limited by my chosen class or abilities.

The sheer number of classes and abilities doesn't help with the initial difficulty or ease you into the game. I think a more tutorialised intro may have helped as I felt pretty overwhelmed despite having some D&D experience from other games.

Kingdom management can also become a bit of a chore later on and the time limit you have on certain quests is not very well explained. The concept of kingdom management is a nice idea but I felt like it was getting in the way of the rest of the game towards the last few acts.

My final issue is with the role-playing and character alignment. Like in BGII you pick your initial alignment, but in PK numerous dialogue choices have alignment specific options and I frequently felt like the specific dialogue choice didn't match up to that particular alignment. It's a small issue, but one that does hamper role-playing a particular way, especially if you want to keep your initial alignment. There were also far more choices for certain alignments which is rather limiting.

These last two complaints are small though and don't really detract from what is a fantastic game. The poor balancing is harder to ignore (if not fixed), but I would urge you to struggle past it if you're a fan of the genre and particularly if you're a fan of that magical isometric CRPG, Baldur's Gate II. It might not match that title in quality (few games do), but it's certainly a worthy enough successor.

Disco Elysium is a text heavy CRPG in the Planescape Torment mould. With all that dialogue to read through listen to, the writing really needed to be top notch. Fortunately that's the case here; the writing is superb. It's intelligent, creative, witty and engaging, all in equal measure. There were a few moments that went over my head, or had me skim reading when the politics got a little heavy, but mostly, I was along for the ride.

And what a ride it is.

Rebuild your shattered mind and body in this beautifully stylised, deeply immersive world, and maybe have a go at solving a murder while you're at it. The complex character system really impresses, allowing you to play a number of detective-like roles.

Here's a short list of some of the things you can get up to during a play-through:

1. Have a heart attack whilst getting dressed.
2. Proposition a suspect.
3. Punch a child (don't worry, he deserves it)
4. Debate morality and race with a xenophobic-nationalist.
5. Fail to knock out a xenophobic-nationalist.
6. Tie people up with your impressive logic.
7. Leap across buildings.
8. Breakdance. Become one with the music of the universe. Disco Elysium, baby!
9. Substance abuse.
10. Talk to yourself.
11. Argue with yourself.
12. Love yourself.
13. Substance abuse.
14. Karaoke.
15. Become a communist.
16. Become a capitalist.
17: Eat a sandwich!
18. Hunt for creatures unknown to science.
19. Solve complex bullet telemetry in your head.
20. Read a book.
21. Introspection.
22. Sleep.
23. Throw-up.
24. Substance abuse with some homeless men.
25. Play Boules with a veteran.... and much, much more.

If all that doesn't make you want to play, I don't know what will. Maybe try substance abuse?

The striking visuals could be seen as a metaphor for the chaos and blurred morality of WW1. Similarly the tedium of war is captured perfectly by the gameplay; this is probably not intentional. The music and impressionist art do the emotional heavy lifting when the storytelling -specifically Harry's romance story- falls flat.

The engine and art direction fail to truly capture the horrors of war, but it is nice to see a game like this that doesn't involve killing people, or black and white morality. You do shoot people, with a camera, which feels gimmicky if I'm being totally honest. They could have done a lot more with the mechanic and with the letter writing aspect. Neither seems to have any real affect on the story, and the amount and 'quality' of the photos seems meaningless.

Despite some creepy audio effects and grotesque imagery, The Evil Within 2 is light on tension and horror. The atmosphere is all over the place, going from haunting, to farcical and then to dull throughout.

Exploration is engaging and rewarding as you'll stumble upon new items, gameplay and story nuggets that help build a better picture of the world, enhancing the otherwise generic characters and the fairly average stealth-action gameplay.

An intricate faction system and a wealth of content that can be a joy to experience, but aspects of the story, locations and quests feel rushed or unfinished.

The writing in Deadfire is snappier, but mostly inferior to Pillar of Eternity's. There is more voice acting, which is great, but it also means we get more terrible voice acting; I especially wasn't a fan of the nasally, youthful sounding narrator. There's also too much contemporary dialogue for my tastes and the immature, flirtatious, too cool for school pirate talk is sometimes Bioware-cringingly bad.

There's less chance to roleplay in Deadfire as you're stuck in the pirate setting with a fairly limited story and whilst the game is more open than PoE, your choices appear less important. There is also very little urgency, (seriously, it's like a Bethesda game) lessening the impact of the plot and there were numerous occasions when none of the dialogue choices available for my Watcher were ones I wanted to pick. I also encountered situations where I felt the games writers where overruling my moral choices with their own, a good example of this being Maia's companion quest and the slavers quest-line. Companion quests all end abruptly and with the addition of poorly implemented romances I feel that the companions themselves have lost a lot of their depth and appeal.

Loot is much improved this time around and the game is gorgeous to look at, with improved animations and lighting effects, although performance is still poor, and the game has lost some of its atmosphere. The combat is an improvement on PoE's although it can look messy at times and there's a downward difficulty curve. I know this reads as mostly negative but i'd still recommend it to old school cRPG fans if they've exhausted the superior prequel, or titles like Divinity Original Sin and Pathfinder.

Ultimately, for Obsidian, this still feels like a step backwards from a narrative perspective, which is worrying.

This is a pacier, more dynamic Resident Evil 2. The snappier nature helps me overlook the back tracking and mediocre puzzling that was present in the 1998 original. The boss battles are still terrible due to the limited fov, lack of a real dodge and the tight/narrow environments, but the Resident Evil 4 style combat and mobile camera are still a big improvement.

The RE2MAKE is more of an action game than a true horror, despite some effective jump scares. The visuals are obviously a massive improvement and the darkly lit environments create some of the tension that is missing due to the removal of fixed camera angles. The flickering lights and damp, narrow, blood spattered corridors give the game a creepy enough atmosphere, at least initially.

The characters are still as bland as communion wafers and the dialogue is pretty terrible, especially with the often stilted delivery, e.g.

"It's good to see your face"
&
"We can get a puppy!"
"A puppy".

Both campaigns are basically the same, with each story appearing to exist in its own universe. It would have been nice if they'd spent more time on making each character's campaign different, with more interactions between Claire and Leon.

The game does get survival right, as resources are limited but well placed. The harder to put down zombies and relentless Mr X, mean strategy is more important this time around, which adds variety to each play-through.

It performs well on my potato too.