Recente recensies door Yanarsen

I will keep it short and simple, by copy-pasting the comment I've read on the internet about The Wolf Among Us:

"This game is better than all Telltale Games combined!"

No

After Remember Me, Vampyr is definitely a proof that Dontnod should stick just to story-telling games. They simply can't make a title with average mechanics, I wouldn't even talk about advanced ones. Upon all, Vampyr is worse than Remember Me, or should I say, Remember Me looks perfect compared to Vampyr. Idk why are they tryharding so much with combat-style games, while they can't bring that to players. What a disappointment...

P.S. make Life is Strange 3 instead.

Worst simulator I've ever played

Probably most underrated game I've ever played. For some random reason, this game hit low scores on Metacritic and Steam. But the truth is, I had more fun playing American Fugitive than some of GTA games. since they both are from the same genre. And in my opinion, without any subjectivity, game should have at least 8.0 score, if not even more, rather than 6.6, as it is currently. True, game has some flaws, but which one doesn't? Now to pros/cons:

Pros:
Ambience - that chill feeling of living inside some remote city, basically like a village. No single building, just houses, filled with playgrounds, cemeteries, a lot of small stores, fishing spots, nothing too special, but nothing small neither. It fits perfectly for places like ones represented in American Fugitive.
Map - Well, I've said mostly about it in lines above, but few other stuff to be mentioned: map kinda looks small, but its exactly how it should be. You can across from farthest point A to B in around minute or so, but it feels like you traveled way longer, you will come across a lot of interesting stuff during that "trip". Also, I don't remember last time when I had that "hype" after unlocking a new city, as I had after moving to second city/island. And very cute details are where you have cobblestones on map like they are regular road. And second city feels like metropolis compared to first one.
Soundtrack - Not a lot of songs included, but all songs that are in this soundtrack are STUNNING!
Story - Compared to GTA, this game is not all about killing others. This game actually has a story. While some missions are to kill others (I mean how can you even have this type of game without any murders), there are a lot of missions that are story related and make sense, and more about that in mission section.
Missions - They are fairly easy, all of them. And thats actually good. Because I see no point to make harder missions as game goes on, just for the sake of having harder missions. Also missions follow the story, and that makes sense (I know I already said this but does it matter?). For example, you have a missions for some person near the end of the game who is owner of some warehouse, and most of missions are to move some stuff there. They are super easy, but they make sense. He needs help for his warehouse. If I remember good, I failed maybe few missions in total, during my entire gameplay (and again), but thats good! Cause you can follow the story, and have chill time. You don't have to tryhard some mission 100 times to pass it, and then actually forget what was going on before you started with your attempts to that particular missions. Remember how pointless and frustrating helicopter missions in GTA were?
Collectibles – Compared to other games, American Fugitive implemented some new, interesting “formula”. Instead of walking around without any clue where can any of collectibles be, they actually showed some of the collectibles, so you can get solid progress in the beginning, but later, well, you have to search for them. However, if you collect shown collectibles, you can easily get solid amount of upgrades (any collectible = 1 stat upgrade point), which is great. Also, some collectibles are shown with question mark, and there you can get some clues of collectible, instead of collectible itself. Which is cool. Like in GTA, you have “stash”/hidden packages, and for most of them, you have to do specific stuff to get it (rob the house and search for exact room before police comes), get clues/papers with directions where the stash is, or what the code is.
Thief activities – I don’t remember anything interesting as stealing stuff from other people houses. If you are experienced enough, you can sneak into anyones house without being noticed and steal whatever you feel like stealing. However, if you get caught, home owner will call the police, and you have specific amount of time to leave the house. If you don’t do so, police will block the doors, and if there are no windows in surrounding rooms, you will get arrested. Insane concept! Also, for every room, you are shown how much time will you lose if you search it, and when you see police is on their way, adrenaline starts rushing through you to get everything you can before they arrive. You can do the same most of stores, but there, owner will instantly call police. So you can kill the owner, or restrain it. Really great concept!
Police – Nothing is realistic as police is in American Fugitive. Whatever mess you make on the streets (and was seen by any NPC), they will call the police in instant, and you get your first wanted level. Escaping the police is relatively easy, that’s true, but this is the case only because developers made police so realistic. To escape the police, you simply have to leave the circle/area where they are after you. If you hide somewhere outside of chase, they will look around, but not go directly into you, as they do in GTA. So you always have a chance to run away from police once you build a good strategy where to hide, and simply know the map.
Developers – One of the things that I like the most (and to be honest, I barely see it nowadays) is when developers are actively engaged with their community, as developers of American Fugitive are. I was fascinated when I posted on the game page forum and got an answer from developer in less than an our. Remember, this game was released 1.5 years ago! And haven’t ended up well (sadly), but developers are still there on daily basis for the community! They are also even updating the game after all this time! Most recent update was released like 2 weeks ago. I will repeat, game was released around 1.5 years ago!
Achievements, etc. – Game has achievements if you are into that kind of stuff. And none of them is something hardcore. Harder ones indeed expect you to play a lot to obtain them, but they aren’t hard. It took me 30 hours to get “perfect” game. Also, game has steam trading cards, emotes and backgrounds if you are into that kind of stuff as well!

Cons:
Bugs – They aren’t anything specific to ruin your experience in this game, but they exist. Some of the bugs I’ve came across is that car alarm won’t stop, like forever. But you simply change the car and problem solved. Sometimes you can’t set a marker on the map, but restarting the game would solve that. And that takes like 15-20 seconds, and also that bug appears once in a few hours. And last thing was difference in volume once you enter industrial area of any city. Sound doesn’t slowly add up, but it just blows your ears in instant. This is specifically happening in second city.
NPC’s – Even tho I like how NPC’s react with calling the police whenever you cause some harm in the city, I’m kinda disappointed that they have no other purpose. NPC’s simply doesn’t feel like part of this game. They are completely harmless, whatever you do to them, they won’t fight back. They will simply just run away. I know that from story part, residents live in fear since a lot of crimes and fugitives are around them, but still, some fight back would be nice. Also, they barely react when you try to run over them with a car. Same goes for police officers once you hit high wanted level. As they are smart inside the cars, however, outside of them, they act dumberish most of the times.
Trees – Alongside houses, trees are only unbreakables in the game. So yea, you can simply run over the walls, other cars, and everything, and crush it, but when you try to hit and destroy the tree, nope, won’t happen. While I understand this idea for big trees, I just can’t get over it that even small, tiny trees will make you stop your car and unable to run over them.

Conclusion: If you want to have a chill time while playing some game, then American Fugitive is what you need! You will get lost into this world, music, and everything else in instant.

There is tremendous difference between watching and playing this game.
Joy from watching can simply last forever, but joy from playing lasts 1 hour at maximum.
Everything interesting about watching this game is frustrating while playing it.
From random falls, hitboxes, to jumps not reacting most of the time, and many, many, many other bugs that looks it is supposed to be like that when you watch others. You can't see it until you feel it.

UPDATE: Amount of cheaters in this game is INSANE!!!

Update of update: Updated for Steam Award quests. This game still sucks

Compared to season 2 and Michonne, A New Frontier is finally something good in this series. Even if we don't compare it to TWD at all, but in general, game is good! It still has the same flaws as previous seasons, but one thing where Telltale improved a lot is: story.

Without any spoiling, I can tell that this story is way mature than previous games, and way less predictable. I still don't know how much decisions would actually impact in this one, but FINALLY, A New Frontier is not about "Who will live or who will die" (and everyone dies in the end regardless).

I won't make this review as long as previous one, and I didn't want even to bother with negative review about Michonne, but few things to point out from this game are:
* Good story
* Some decisions are really tough (and you are not time limited for them, so you can think)
* Writting was good to the point where you basically don't know which decisions to pick towards some people [since they are good, but then went crazy, with good arguments for why are they acting in a way they did]
* First game to actually have some backstory, and it has it a lot
* Better characters development, you get to know a way more about everyone important in A New Frontier
* A lot of decisions are about relationship with others, not only who will survive, or die, or left behind
* For the first time you don't have a group of 50 people, who will melt to 2 individuals in the end, and there are no stupid and useless people to stop others from surviving. They are all capable of fighting towards the goal.
* Game doesn't have an actual ending decision, which is cool imo, because your previous choices will decide how will game end, not only final decision
* This is the first game in the series that I want to replay it. It has a lot of replayability potential
* Finished this game in one day, one run. Never happened with any other game before
* Even entirely new to the series, Javier fits in perfectly. And he is not alone like Lee. He has entire family into this one, and as said earlier, they are not useless like Kenny family was in season 1

One thing that I hate so much about A New Frontier, and well, it actually started from Michonne is that you can't see major decisions and their global stats after every episode, because for whatever the reason, you need to connect to Telltale server, which is, guess what? Dead.

I still hate time limited decisions, but gladly, all choices I was stuck with had no time limit. Game is short as Season 2, but it doesn't feel that short, because you are most of the time on the same place, not like there where you simply skip the gap of few story hours just to proceed to next event. Also, they allowed to skip credits, which was so frustrating back in Season 2.

In general, great game, would recommend to anyone, and lets hope that final season won't be a crap like season 2 and Michonne (and partially season 1 as well).

What a disappointment. But somehow I've even expected it. Cause thats the most common mistake of small industries when they make something big, they rush second season of it just to keep the money rollin'. Had to google it to prove this, and damn I was right. Second season came ONLY SIX MONTHS after DLC for season one. Shame. Game wouldn't be that bad, if this was the first season tho. So, here is how it is in my opinion:

Cons:
- Choices doesn't matter. At all. Again. Once again, you have to choose who lives and who dies. And what a surprise, everyone dies regardless. I ain't call this even a spoiler, since this kind of a "choices" became extremely predictable somewhere in the middle of episode 2, season 1. And instead of improving anything, they did NOTHING!

- Time for choices. Again. Yes, there are periodically minor choices, simple conversation, etc., etc., which (probably) won't change anything, but still. You are given like 3 seconds to decide. Even some "major" choices (major, cause they appear in post-episode screen) have 3-5 seconds to decide. Like, give me a break! If its decision-based game, give me a proper time to think and decide what I want to decide. I'm not lying when I say that ~80% of decisions I made in rush, cause I didn't had enough time even TO READ ALL POSSIBLE OPTIONS.

- Animations suck. Again. You don't need even to pay close attention to recognize how many times PER EPISODE you can see characters changes poses in instant. Later it feels like that devs have done it on purpose. Like frames have been cut-out. How characters look dumberish when they fall, slip, etc. Face expressions where you don't know whats going on. You pick up some positive decision, and guess what? Clementine shows anger on her face like she is going to wipe-down entire group. Someone is speaking some sad stories, but then when you see their faces, they have a smile, like wtf!? You can't know how characters actually feel like.

- Music. If I'm not mistaken, they took entire OST from 1st season. Without any single new song. How lame that is. And even so, songs sound like some 2D game back in '90. Only the song in the ending is good.

- Story. Nothing. Repeating the same process over 5 episodes. Running into strangers, killing each other, repeat. Also, all "arguings" are terribly written. People will start argue between each other for no reason, just to build up some drama in game and put you in with some decisions, where, guess what? You have 3 seconds to decide! And after countless deaths, there is simply no way that you can feel some emotions about any of the characters.

- Nationalism. Which citizens are the bad guys? Well, russian, ofcourse, what a surprise! I'm tired of all american movies/games where russians are always the bad guys. And whats even worse, if you decide to place russians as bad people, and even pretending them to talk russian, add proper subtitles for the love of God! Imagine listening to russian language, and you see in subtitles <SPEAKING RUSSIAN>, no sht Sherlock? I'm not russian btw, so yea, people outside the Russia would like to understand the dialogues spoken in their language.

- Game length. It took me 18 hours to complete season 1 with DLC (which took me around 1 hour). Completing entire season 2 took 8 single hours. Plus I had some pauses with opened game. Its simply around 1.5h per episode, which is extremely short.

I can go on with cons all day, but I'm just tired of them. I'd say "comic style" graphics were pros, but since that makes really no significant change, I won't even mention it. Plus thats just my opinion, things above are the facts! Regardless, I will complete other TWD games, since I've got the bundle pretty cheap on HumbleBundle, but if other games keep this way (pointless decisions/poor story/time for decision-making), I swear I will talk worst possible about the series wherever I appear IRL or on the internet!

And give negative review on TWD S1 even tho I have that game prepared to review when Steam offers quest with reviewing a game.

Whole crap

Huh. Where should I even start with this game. To make things clear, this is not POSITIVE review! This is NEUTRAL review. But given positive, because it is not negative neither (duh). Ok, so, we are talking about the game which was in last year "The Game Awards", candidate for "Best Narrative". From that "Best narrative", I can tell that I've seen none, or at least not much. Game which have won "story-rich" award on Steam in 2019. Game which writter was the same person from Life is Strange 1, multiple award winning game back in 2015. Game that costs 45 euros. With all this being said, it became also "a game with high expectations" in my eyes. What game actually offers?

* Great first impression. At least for me. Game starts in the forest, you can't evade the amazing graphics and atmosphere... and flaws as well. When I first started the game, my FPS got capped on 30, instead of regular 60. As someone who played so many new titles on maximum configuration with flat 60fps, seeing this game launching on 30 already made me wondering whats happening? Optimization problems! I had to lower graphics to medium to get 60fps, and even then, game periodically drops to 30-45fps. Graphics were still good, don't get me wrong, but when your PC fits "recommended requirements" and you can't play it on maximum configuration, then there is some problem.

* Story? Honestly, but honestly, I don't understand whats so fascinating about it. Everything in the game is predictable. Characters are poorly written, without any backstory about them, and by the end of game, I felt no connection to main protagonist Amicia, or Hugo, her younger brother. While on the other hand, I got that feeling in soooo many games that I've previously played. In first 30 minutes of the game, you already know everything what is going to happen. Your dog Lion (or Leon!?) dies, your father dies, your mother dies. And no, this is not a spoiler, because, as said, all of this happened in first 30 minutes of the game or so. I know about the later part with mother
> So basically, you kinda get "immune" to feelings of someones death, because you already got used to it in the very beginning of the game. I seriously don't know if this game was supposed to be sad as well, but for me it didn't. In fact, the saddest thing and literally only thing that was in my head for the time of playing this game was death of your dog... and that happened in like first 5 minutes of the game. Only death with solid animations/cutscene, watching someone in pain before it actually dies. And entire scene was intense until it ends. Father death? *Gets hit* - dies. Mother? *Gets hit* - dies. Everyone else in the game who will later die? AGAIN, they will simply get hitted once and die. Like how do you even expect to "provoke" emotions inside people with that?
> Also, in those first 30 minutes, you figure out that inquisition is looking after your brother Hugo, that he has "something special", which leads up to figure out entire story. No twists, or anything like that. What I also dislike is that you are aimlessly running from place to place, and typical stuff like "Oh I'm finally here", and apparently you won't get there what were you looking for, so you have to check another place, where same thing will happen, and it repeats over and over until you finally get what you need and advance in story, which is already dead and have no story in it at all.
> Also some chapters are 1 hour long, while others are 10 minutes long. Which is stupid in my opinion. And timelapse between some chapters feels like skipping around 2 hours of gameplay. Like you spend 6 chapters to reach destination B from destination A and in next chapter, you are already back to destination A again.

* Mechanics: extremely boring and repetitive. I know that you are helpless little girl, so you can't do much against soldiers, but I'm pretty sure there are even simplier mechancics, that would be more interesting and encouraging (with adding more to the story [like Life is Strange]) than throwing rocks from sling and hide'n'seek over and over again. It was interesting at the beginning, but after very short time it gets super boring and repetitive. Periodically you will have to solve simple puzzles with annoying rats. Also game gets easier and easier as you progress and get new powers. They even included some "boss fights", for whatever reason where you are fighting with guess what? Your rock and sling ofcourse!
> Crafting system is bad, and if we go even deeper with it, upgrading orders are entirely messed up. For example, some upgrades are stronger on Level 1, than on level 3. Or when you get to some Level 3 upgrades, they are completely useless. To upgrade/craft, you need items. They are not hard to get, but what made me laugh so badly that even this part is extremely messed up. With one thing that I hate in all games - RNG. You ask how? Well, you can get items when you kill soldiers. But! If you get killed and repeat the scene, you can get different items from that soldier, maybe ones that you don't need at that point, or third, and worst possible outcome, that dead soldiers won't drop any item at all! I ended up the game with 2 things not being fully upgraded (and I honestly didn't even need them) not because it was hard to find materials, but because you were always at full inventory! Even tho I maximized my material/ammunition equipment first, I'm always full with both of them and can't carry more. So, you can carry up to 22 material of each type [at max level]. Some materials you will have constantly at maximum, and can't hold more, but when you get other materials you need to upgrade your equipment, they will usually cost minimum 15 or more. Including both rare and common materials. And you get stuck. You can't spend them, but when you upgrade, you have none of them. That could be made better and way easier! Like giving less drops, or maybe more upgrading levels, or anything, not to be stuck with full inventory. But whatever. Too much about that.

* Music: mediocre! Not bad at all, but from this genre, I've heard better OST in almost any other game.

Aaand good things.
* VA of all characters. Especially Amicia. French accent while speaking english was amazing. Through entire game. And other characters voice actors were great as well! It was all well packed up!

* Graphics, they are stunning. Not much as characters, as surronding world is! All the places you come across, nature and weather, they all look fascinating.

Aaaand thats it. Yep. Those were only things I've actually enjoyed while playing this game. I could also add tons of other stuff I didn't liked, like how Nicholas can't die, even when you throw stones at him and hordes of rats multiple times, but he (ofcourse) kills Arthur in one hit, and many, many other things that make no sense. But as said, I will leave this review on positive side because, as usual, I highly support small developers and their hard work!

If there will be sequel of this game, would I play it? Most likely, but definitely with less expectations!
Is game worth 45 euros? Not at all! I paid it around 18e (60% off), and still feel robbed.
Would I recommend this game to others? If you like this type of games, then sure. But just don't expect too much from it!
Is there anything unique about this game? Nothing much that you haven't seen in any other game up to day.