Scorn is a game that’s been in the making for a long time, despite my only knowledge of it being shown at E3 earlier this year. I’ve been hyped for this game since and stayed up until 3 a.m. on launch day to play it. The gameplay videos were misleading. It looked like a very atmospheric and macabre FPS; however, nothing was said about the heavy puzzles, short length, or complete lack of story or context.
The opening is similar to God of War. The menu is in real-time, and when you start a new game, you awaken from the main menu. I didn’t suspect anything during the first hour of the game. I expected the game to open up slowly and thought the slow pace, long hallways, and lack of any story, voice acting, or context were just the beginning. Sadly, this is the entire game. There are five main acts in the game, and each one is just a giant level full of puzzles, backtracking, and terrible combat. Combat isn’t actually introduced until Act 3, but I digress.
The game doesn’t start out well, with an incredibly frustrating slider puzzle. You must move pods around a wall, and I had to look up how to try and solve it right away. The first act took an hour to complete because of all the backtracking and trying to explore the level and see what parts of this puzzle I should tackle first. This quickly takes your focus away from the fantastic art design, infrastructure, and alien mystery of the game. I was running around pulling switches, pushing carts, and sliding puzzles for an entire hour. There was no reward to this except an incredibly disturbing and gory-cut scene of a poor creature pleading for help only to be sacrificed to progress to the next level. I thought during the E3 videos that this was what Scorn was full of. Incredibly gory scenes, but there were only a few of them spread throughout.
As you progress on to Act 3 to pick up your first weapon, you realize that this is all the game is. Puzzle after puzzle, endless rooms and hallways, no exploration, no side quests, nothing. The first weapon is some sort of jabber thing that gives you two hits before it needs to charge. This is where combat falls apart. The enemies are fine. There are three or four different kinds, ranging from weak two-hitters to massive dog-like ones that need projectile fire. The combat is just so slow. You need to aim, jab the creatures, then run away and let them recharge just to turn around and do it again. It’s clunky, I died way more than I wanted to, and health is way too scarce for this type of combat. Later on, you get a pistol and then a shotgun, but ammo is so scarce for them that I often just had to run from enemies. You eventually have to take everyone out, as there is a lot of backtracking needed to find keys, go back and insert them into the correct spot, then go back and do something else.
Reloading is really slow, and you’re vulnerable. If you thought Killzone’s reloading animations were long, this is worse. There’s no jump button, no crouch, but there is a sprint button. You can just run away, turn around, shoot, and hope your shots don’t miss. If you’re caught with an unloaded weapon, you’re dead. Normally, this would be forgivable, but there’s no reward for doing anything. The occasional gory torture scene doesn’t cut it, and they are short and spread very far apart. I actually enjoyed the smaller puzzles more than the large level-size main puzzle, but some were just way too complicated and difficult. I frequently got lost in maze-like hallways, and Act 4 was excruciatingly difficult due to all the enemies around and scarce ammo. I had to strategize what ammo to use on what enemy.
There is a final boss fight, which was more annoying than frustrating, and I did find several bugs in which I couldn’t activate switches, and my game crashed my whole PC once. Checkpoints are unfairly spread apart, and you are forced to restart entire sections and go through the same animations and small scenes just to die again. Even the ending didn’t save this game at all. There’s no satisfying conclusion. I kept telling myself, Okay, this is the moment! This is it! We’re going to see why you’re in this alien world trying to survive!” Only to get nothing. The game pretty much just ends without spoiling it.
I did enjoy seeing this game, though. Playing it again is another story. The game has some of the best art design, technical visuals, and sound design I’ve ever seen. The late H.R. Giger (Alien)-inspired architecture is fascinating to look at, and I wanted to stop and look at every new thing I came across. This game is a work of art, and I feel if they either went all-out with the combat Quake style or cut it out completely, it would have helped this game immensely. The combat doesn’t add anything to the game at all. It just hinders puzzle-solving and backtracking and makes the game take longer to finish.
Overall, Scorn is a pretty big disappointment with many shortcomings. The complete lack of story or context, awful and sluggish combat, scarce gory scenes, and maze-like levels hinder the game at every turn. The game’s only saving grace is the amazing sound and art design. It’s a visual masterpiece. The game’s short length is in its favor because of these issues.
I really like the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series, but they are insanely long and challenging. These are hardcore JRPGs, not meant for casual players. Most won’t have the stamina needed to sit through 150+-hour games, and the PlayStation Trophy data shows that. Less than half of all Persona 5 players finished the game. Thankfully, for people like me, Atlus put me in an extra-easy mode called Safety that let me finish my first-ever Persona game. I tried the third and fourth games several times and just couldn’t do it. While I eventually did well in battles, the games were too long. The story in Persona 5 is fantastic, and there are plenty of great things about this game, but a few key issues may drive most players away, even more casual JRPG fans.
The story is insanely deep and detailed. There are plenty of mysteries, twists, and turns that kept me trucking on because I wanted to see what happened next. The characters are compelling, well-written, and very likable; however, you still need to like anime to enjoy the characters in this game. There are some typical anime tropes that leak in, but I think people who play JRPGs are already aware of this. Your character is Joker, a teenage boy wrongfully convicted of assaulting a high-profile individual for just trying to save a woman from harassment on the street. You end up living with someone who volunteered to take in a convict and watch over you so you can get rehabilitated. This game plays just like previous persona games, with a time limit, days going by, social rankings, and acquiring personas.
The game will introduce things to you throughout the entire game, and I mean throughout. 40 hours in, I was still getting tutorial messages. The game is an incredibly slow burn. I didn’t get to do any battling until the fifth or sixth hour. This was all story and world-building, introducing the idea of personas, your purpose, and your back story, and showing you how to go about the day-to-day. The game is mostly dialog, to be honest. Out of the 80 hours it took me to finish the game, maybe 25 of those were spent actually exploring the dungeons and fighting. There is a lot of character-building and slice-of-life stuff in here. You also have a time limit to finish every palace, which is the main dungeon in the game.
When you’re not battling, you are living your everyday life. You need to go to school, and the day is broken up into sections such as early morning, which is reserved for dialog you hear on the train going to school, talking to friends at the train station, etc. Morning and afternoon are reserved for things happening at school during the week or random quizzes that you can answer to increase your social stats. These stats are knowledge, proficiency, charm, kindness, and guts. These are needed to finish confidant arcs and max out that persona category, so you can get stat boosts when using that type of persona. These stats can be increased by doing certain activities like watching movies, playing games, doing chores, and other everyday activities. It’s important to use your downtime to increase these stats, as the game is balanced by not just level grinding but having these extra stats for each persona type.
After school time is reserved for doing things around the city, such as said activities, and getting together to enter Momentos, which is a secondary dungeon with a few dozen levels that you need to descend to complete requests from people. In the end, it’s required to descend fully for the final dungeon, but before that, it’s optional. I recommend doing these late-game activities so you can just barrel through the levels at the end. The evening is reserved for nighttime activities and jobs, even to earn more money. After the activity is done, you advance to the next day and do this all over. Some days are interrupted by story elements, scripted scenes, and other events. It’s important to hang out with confidants when you get texts from them to advance their persona ranking. These are where the side stories for each character are held. They can be long-cut scenes too. Usually, you get 30 odd days between each major palace to fill the time. This time period can take hours to finish.
When you do actually battle, your persona is based on finding the weaknesses of your enemies. This can be both good and bad. If you find the weakness, you get one more turn. This can be elemental or physical. The downside is that the entire game can be over if you don’t find these quickly. It’s trial and error as to finding the weakness, and some just don’t have one. You waste precious turns trying to figure this out, and it can make some boss fights grueling. You can save within these palaces and return to the real world to buy items and increase your persona rankings more, but if you don’t find the treasure and beat the boss by the deadline, it’s game over. I’ve always hated this about the series, and it makes the game more difficult and frustrating than it needs to be. You can capture personas by talking to them when they’re weak in battle. If successful, they will join your ranks. It’s important to keep a good variety of personas leveled up and acquire new ones with better skills. You can fuse and itemize them in the Velvet Room, as well as sacrifice weaker ones to strengthen others.
While you can use multiple personas, your party members are stuck with one. Every few levels, they will gain new abilities for their personas, and you have a limited number of slots, so it’s important to keep them balanced. Inside these palaces, you can acquire items, treasures to sell, and powerful equipment that you can buy in the airsoft shop. These palaces are huge, with multiple levels, and can take hours to complete. I played the game on safety difficulty so I could beat each palace in a single sitting, but if you need to level grind and fuse personas, you could take the entire time limit. Each palace has a different theme, and they look cool, but the weak puzzles and labyrinthine halls of some of them are really annoying. Enemies walk around in real-time, and because you are a thief, you can get behind cover and dash around them stealthily or take them head-on. Some palaces are a really confusing mess, and I found some just went on for too long.
Those are your two main parts of the game. Battling in Momentos or palaces and living your everyday life to increase social stats and play mini-games I personally don’t like the trial and error of exploiting weaknesses to win each fight. The graphics are decent, while stylistically they look great with lots of flash and color, but technically it looks like a typical JRPG and borderline last generation and not too much of a step up from the PS3 version. While it seems there is a lot to do in the game, there actually isn’t. You’re so focused on visiting confidants and maxing out social stats in the real world that it feels like a chore after a while. You have to realize there are nearly 250 in-game days you have to get through on top of the palaces and moments. The game just feels like it never ends. 80 hours to finish safety difficulties, and it can take 150–200 hours for higher difficulties. I had to dedicate every free minute I had over the last three weeks to finishing this game and not playing any other games in between. I wish there was a warning at the beginning of the game letting players know how long the game can take on average, or even put it somewhere on an official source of information for the game. I have played and bought many JRPGs, not realizing just how long it takes to beat them.
Overall, I don’t want to talk too much about the story because I can easily spoil something. The Phantom Thieves and trying to change the hearts of criminals is a great story. It can be very dark at times when talking about child exploitation, abuse, murder, money laundering, and many other crimes. It’s a dark game, and I felt it had a very memorable story, but it takes way too long to tell it. Many will balk at the trial and error of weakness exploitation to win battles, insane amounts of grinding, and the constant need to micro-manage your personas to get a well-balanced, always leveled-up arsenal, which might seem like too much. That doesn’t include dozens upon dozens of hours of reading dialog and watching cut scenes. I recommend this only to the hardest-core JRPG fans. This game is not to be taken lightly. While I complain about some of these things, fans of this genre embrace it, and that’s okay, but for only around 40% of players to have finished the game says something about the length.
We all love a good scare, right? Horror games are some of gaming’s greatest past times. Usually booming in October, horror games from the past and present are played all around the world. The problem is, there just aren’t a lot of them made, and the best ones are far and few between. Usually, this is a great time to dig up old classics rather than trudge through recent crap. While the PS1/PS2 era was the golden age of horror games, the HD era, or the seventh generation of consoles, struggled and was probably the most anemic when it came to horror games, especially the good ones. There’s a reason why some of the rarest and most coveted physical games are horrors. It’s the genre that’s been the least explored and not done well enough most of the time. If you can look past clunky controls and awkward gameplay, most retro horror games do provide good scares, atmosphere, creepy monsters, and good visuals. I’ve compiled a list of the best and the worst.
American McGee is well known for his dark interpretation of the Alice in Wonderland series. The first game, American McGee’s Alice, was clunky mechanically but was a visual treat. The same goes for the sequel. It’s a gorgeous game with a lot of dark themes dealing with mental illness. The enemies are fantastically designed, and the levels themselves are living art. Despite the incredibly repetitive gameplay, this one is a blast to play through.
A lot of people didn’t like Homecoming due to its more action-oriented combat, but I actually quite liked it. I feel it was the last good Silent Hill game in the series, and it still retains the creepy atmosphere and insane creature design. The haunting music is still present as well. While it’s not as tense as the original trilogy, Homecoming does have better combat, despite being the wrong focus here. This was the first game in the series that was part of the jump to the next generation. The next game in the series, Downpour, would be considered the worst in the series, and I personally hated it. These would be the last games in the series to date.
Metro 2033 and Last Light were some of the best horror games to grace the seventh generation of consoles. While they played and looked best on PC, the console versions still looked great and did a good job giving us scares. The post-apocalyptic horror series had an intriguing story and a tense atmosphere, along with crazy creature designs. The final game in the trilogy, Exodus, would be on next-generation systems and receive mixed reviews.
While not inherently designed to give you nightmares, Shadows has a lot of horror elements in its design, such as creepy enemies and an overall atmosphere of dread. It’s more of a comedy-horror title, but it has tons of style that helps make swallowing the shallow substance a bit easier. It’s also not very good-looking, on a technical basis, but the art is awesome. Most of Suda 51’s games were one-shots and never saw sequels. SotD never saw high enough sales, even if he wanted to do a sequel. To date, it hasn’t seen a remaster, remake, or port.
Condemned Series
Condemned: Criminal Origins really showed us what next-generation visuals could look like. The E3 2006 demo blew me away, and it was one of the reasons I got an Xbox 360. This was one of the few games that looked the part and really pushed the industry into a new era of HD visuals. It’s a game that can be replayed many times, and you will always have a fun experience. It’s too bad the series is dead because Monolith nailed the atmosphere here. The game is intense, with crazy melee combat and incredibly dark and haunting levels. Crazy bums coming out of nowhere, breathing, panting, and trying to attack you in dark hallways is something else. The sequel, Bloodshot, was great but focused more on combat and less on the atmosphere, so it’s not quite as scary. It was also the nail in the coffin, as due to the poor sales of the sequel, Sega shuttered the series for good. To date, the series hasn’t seen a remaster, remake, or port of any kind.
Dante’s Inferno is one of the best hack-and-slash games ever made, but EA was bound to make sure you didn’t know that. It didn’t get much attention and was considered just another God of War rip-off. While the game was short, it had incredibly responsive and fun combat, an interesting protagonist, and insanely gory and adult-themed levels. It’s just too bad the story wasn’t fleshed out enough. What’s here is a fun 4-5 hour game that you won’t find anywhere else. Sadly, the game’s low sales sealed its fate to have no sequel, caused Visceral to shutter, and hasn’t seen a port, remaster, or remake to date.
Specifically speaking about the first two games, BioShock had a crazy dark atmosphere, some creepy enemies, and horror that kind of just oozed everywhere. There were no jump scares or downright frightening scenes, but you always had a sense of dread and fear, and that’s really hard to pull off in games. The game was more about psychological horror and isolation, and it sure pulled off mostly the best in the first game. Surprisingly, the entire trilogy was released during this generation and would receive barely passable ports later on as the BioShock Collection.
While Dead Space 3 was mostly about action and less about horror, the first two games were damn scary. I would consider them one of the scariest games I have ever played. Jump scares aside, there was a constant foreboding presence of something lurking around every corner, and the Necromorphs are some of the greatest video game enemies of all time. This was peak horror during the HD era. Another trilogy saw its ending in the same generation cycle. The series would stall here, and the first game would receive a remake two generation cycles later.
Deadly Premonition is the perfect game; it’s so bad, it’s good. The gameplay is dated and feels like a PS1 game; the graphics are terrible; and the voice acting is awful, but the writing and overall atmosphere the game presents are well done and memorable. It really feels like a PS2 game that was quickly ported over to next-gen consoles without any improvements in mind. It can be scary in the sense that its trippy Japanese horror weirdness will freak you out more than scare you. This is one of the few games you should stomach for its terrible design and weirdness. It’s worth it. It would get a sequel in the next generation, but it would not look like it and would be poorly received.
Oh, man, this one brings me back. The first game was very scary, with crazy The Ring girl vibes that were all the rage in the early 2000s. The gunplay was genuinely solid, and you needed a NASA PC to run it back in the day, but forget about understanding the story. The second game had some really scary elements but was more action-oriented and had less of a mid-2000s PC shooter Half-Life 2 style vibe to it. The third game, well, just isn’t scary at all. Another trilogy was released in the same console cycle. While the first game was a port and was released during the PS2/Xbox era, the entire trilogy would never see a remake or remaster.
The Resident Evil series really took off after the previous generation. This generation will see the most action-focused games yet. Resident Evil 5, 6, and Operation Raccoon City were the main releases. There was also an HD port of the 3DS exclusive Revelations, as well as Revelations 2 as a sequel. Some would consider this the weakest run the series had, only to go back to its roots in the next generation cycle, starting with Resident Evil VII. The games also weren’t very scary around this time. They were just too action-focused and didn’t have the same nuanced scares and puzzles as before. Revelations would be the only sub-series to feel scary or have any tension at all. Operation Raccoon City would be lauded as the worst game in the series.
The Last of Us would be considered one of the best horror games ever made. It was wildly praised and made waves throughout the gaming industry, receiving awards and praise from all angles. The tense stealth scenes with the Clickers were awesome. These monsters are some of the creepiest and eeriest creatures ever made for a horror game. This wasn’t just another zombie game. It would receive a sequel in the following generation as well as some of the most controversial decisions ever for a game. It would also receive a full remake and remaster.
Outlast
Released at the tail end of the HD era of gaming, Outlast never saw a port to consoles until the next generation. It was damn scary. This small indie game made waves and became one of the top streaming games of all time. The tense atmosphere and overall great design, in general, made Outlast terrifying. The sequel would be released several years later on PC and consoles, as well as a port of the first game released about a year later.
Amnesia was probably the top-streamed video game of the year in 2010. Game streaming was new, and scare reactions reached the charts on YouTube. There hadn’t been many really scary games during this generation. It was all action-focused and multiplayer-focused to generate sales. That’s why this indie game was released on PC only at the time. It had interesting puzzles and enemies you couldn’t fight. It wouldn’t receive a port until many years later and two generations later. The sequels, A Machine for Pigs and Rebirth, would be poorly received, and I personally didn’t like them that much either.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series
The STALKER series wouldn’t sell well at first but would gain a huge cult following. The entire trilogy was released around the mid-life of the HD era and was exclusive to PC. It’s rough around the edges, but a huge following of moderators would improve the game, and it wouldn’t be until two generations later that a true sequel would be released. The game never saw a port to consoles, and for a reason. The engine is already poorly optimized on PCs and wouldn’t do well on consoles. It would be a huge undertaking to port the entire trilogy, and it would be hard to market.
Alien Isolation
Alien Isolation wasn’t technically developed for HD consoles, but mostly for PC and next-generation systems. It came out right as the next generation was coming in, and the HD versions were quickly forgotten. Isolation is considered the best game in the Alien series and one of the best horror games of the last couple of decades. It captures the 80s aesthetic of the movies and tells a great story while being terrifying. I still haven’t completed it to this day because of how scary it actually is.
Penumbra Series
The original horror trilogy, Penumbra, was developed by Frictional Games, which would later go on to make the Amnesia series. This was released for PC only and never received a console port. It was a less talked-about indie series that was loved among horror fans, but indie PC games didn’t receive the same spotlight that they do now. Console gamers didn’t care unless they were ported. Penumbra is a slow-paced, puzzle-focused horror series all about adventure and discovery. It’s creepy, full of psychological horror, and a must-play for any horror fan.
While this is stretching it a bit, The Evil Within was mostly meant for next-generation consoles and PCs. It played and looked nice on PS3 and Xbox 360, but those weren’t the intended systems. This was Shinji Mikami’s next opus and was definitely creepy and had some good elements, but it was too action-focused and unbalanced, and the story made no sense. Some say that’s the charm of survival horror games. There’s a bit of jank that’s needed. I personally just thought this game was okay, despite the amazing monster designs. A sequel would later come out, but not sell as well.
This is one of my favorite horror games of all time. It has a great story, memorable characters, and a great combat system that plays off of light and darkness. I’ve replayed this game many times, and it wasn’t an instant hit for Microsoft. The sales were slow, and it wasn’t appreciated until much later. It received a PC port and a recent remaster. It’s a must-play for any horror fan.
Siren: Blood Curse
It was a surprise to see a niche and obscure horror title return to PS3. Siren didn’t sell or review well but is considered a cult classic and part of the classic survival horror era. Blood Curse was a digital-only episodic release in the US that had some great scares and an overall fun adventure. Sadly, only Japan and Europe received a physical release.
Oh man, where do I start? My favorite horror series was butchered with this release. I rented this from GameFly and had to follow a guide through most of the game. It was a confusing, convoluted mess and felt like a chore to play. It wasn’t scary, it wasn’t fun, and it was the worst game in the whole series.
While the movies were quite enjoyable despite their flaws, the games were just awful. They weren’t as gruesome as the movies and played it too safe. Pretty much every bad conventional video game flaw was present here. Awful voice acting, terrible graphics, bad puzzles, and poor level design.
Vampire Rain
Easily considered one of the worst games of the HD era, there was no redeeming value in this game. There was nothing you could overlook. There wasn’t any “it’s so bad, it’s kind of charming” to this game either. It was just a disaster and an unplayable mess. It wasn’t scary; it felt like it was trying to be several games at once; it looked bad; it played even worse; and it wasn’t any fun despite all the hype leading up to its release.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
This game needs no introduction. It’s been covered by every “worst of” and “most controversial” video game on YouTube out there. Its history has been extensively documented. From broken AI to awful visuals, this is just a completely unfinished and broken game. It’s also considered one of the worst games ever made. It’s a stark contrast to Alien Isolation.
I had the displeasure of actually finishing this game when it came out. I was hoping it was going to be a great reboot of a classic horror series. I followed the developer’s diaries all the way through the release and played it without reading any reviews. The game is pretty bad. It’s one of the worst games of the HD era. It was just an awful chore and a mess of a game. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t scary. It was just plain bad.
Amy
Probably one of the worst games ever made. This was a small indie game that was supposed to be full of suspense and horror, but instead, it’s a chore of a game with awful controls and graphics. The game was also poorly optimized and suffered terrible framerate issues. The story made no sense, and overall, it was just a stupid and lazy game.
I was so excited about this game, and every time I think about or have to write about it, it breaks my heart. I absolutely love Clive Barker’s work and have had it since I was a young teen. I fawned after the figures from Todd McFarlane and loved the characters in his movies. Undying was also a cult classic. The game was just trying to do too much at once. It had cramped-level design, awful performance, dated visuals, and just felt like a chore. The only thing it had going for it was the art design. It’s one of the worst games I’ve ever played and one of the saddest scars of the HD era.
Rick & Morty became an animation phenomeon due to its quirky humor, crazy art style, and memorable characters. A lot of people don’t like the show, which is fine, and a lot of people love it. I just want to preface this review by saying if you don’t like Rick & Morty you won’t like this game. It’s basically an interactive Rick & Morty episode with the same voice actors, but with original characters. It’s the same humor, but more vulgar and mature due to not needing to tone things down for cable TV.
You play as a Chairorpian. A floating person in a chair holding what looks like a PS4 controller. The center part shows Trover’s health and the button presses reflect yours in real life. This is mostly for playing in VR, but it’s still funny without. Your two dogs get stolen by an evil god thing and Trover is sent to you so you can control him to save the universe. The story is insane and crazy and while it makes sense it’s as simple as an animated TV episode. It’s nothing groundbreaking. The most entertaining part about the game is the dialog. Characters break the third and fourth wall constantly and call out typical video game tropes which is hilarious. You can stand near a character and they will drone on for several minutes longer with a new dialog. If you don’t do a certain action Trover will call you out on it knowing you’re supposed to do it. The writing never misses a beat and is spot on.
When it comes to gameplay this is where Trover kind of falters. It’s incredibly simple and basic and pretty boring. Trover has a lightsaber-looking sword and he has a simple basic and heavy attack, but the heavy attack has to be acquired later on. You also have a dodge roll button which also has to be acquired. It’s an obvious stretch for gameplay time and feels necessary. Enemies are “kiddie video game” territory in terms of ease. There’s zero challenge here. Some enemies need armor knocked off which you can do by throwing objects into them, but it’s still not a challenge. There aren’t any puzzles here either. The ones that could pass as one are super easy and require no thinking. There is some platforming, but this is marred by the weird camera angles due to your perspective. There are nodes that allow you to move around and you can hover higher up to get a bird’s eye view, but it still makes some platforming more difficult than it needs to be.
There are green babies you can collect to upgrade Trover’s health, but I didn’t bother much with this outside what was out in the open. The game is so easy the upgrades feel like an afterthought. I mostly enjoyed just exploring the weird worlds and listening to all the dialog. The game gets incredibly graphic, but I personally love this kind of stuff. Too many games are afraid to dive into this territory. It’s just gross, sexual, vulgar, and super weird which I can’t get enough of. The writing of the show is elevated a bit due to not needing to censor anything. Visually, the game is fairly tame outside of some cartoony gore, but the dialog goes off the rails.
The game can be finished in about 5 hours, maybe 6-8 if you collect all of the green babies. It doesn’t stay its welcome and has a satisfying ending. However, there’s zero replay value unless you want to go back in VR. The gameplay is so basic and dull that I wouldn’t even do that, to be honest. If it weren’t for the awesome writing and characters and striking visuals this would be a pretty basic and generic game at its core. The pacing is at least great and you get pushed along the story and always see something new. A single evening would suffice and it would be well worth your time.
Overall, Trover Saves the Universe is full of Rick & Morty humor cranked to 11, but offers simple childlike gameplay. If you hate the show you will hate this even more, but fans of the show must play this. The over-the-top writing that you never see or hear in video games is a breath of the fresh air and it’s never boring. Once you finish the game there’s no reason to come back, but the time spent is worth the price of entry.
Ever since P.T. was shown and canceled it set a new standard for survival horror games. Silent Hillhas always been the gold standard to live up to and many games have since. MADiSON is one of the first games I’ve played in the style ofP.T. to actually be good and pull off the scares and atmospheres. While not inherently as frightening as P.T. or other horror games it definitely gets across a dark and haunting atmosphere with plenty of scares.
The game starts out really solid but also has foreshadowing of the game’s main weakness. You start out in a dark room with just a TV on and your dad pounding on a door. You need to use the TV as a flashlight by spinning it around and finding a handle to a cupboard on the wall to get a hammer. You get to crawl your way into the rest of the house which acts as the main area you will be solving puzzles. Madison is all about puzzle solving as that’s all you do. The first half of the game can be solved fairly easily. It’s the same affair of examining everything you can and finding that one thing you can pick up and can use on something you remembered it would go to. A lot of finding and matching at the beginning. In between, there is the main gameplay mechanics which involved a Polaroid camera. A Camera Obscura isn’t unusual in horror games. The entire Fatal Frameseries is based around one, but here it’s used to advance the story. There are Polaroids laying around objects you can photograph. When you do you can shake the photo to expose it. While most photos don’t need this some need to be exposed to show a number for a combination lock.
I have to give the developers credit for the great layout of the house. This is a huge issue with a lot of horror games. Many require tons of backtracking through the same area and they grow as you unlock new areas. The house in Madison is well laid out with lots of landmarks to memorize where certain things are. I knew the main starting point with the “ritual area” was past the dining room. The basement was in the main hallway etc. The house is laid out like all horror games should be laid out. Make it memorable with easy landmarks because you trek through the house probably hundreds of times. Most of the rooms hold puzzle areas or transport you to new areas to solve puzzles. You also have an 8-item inventory limit and need to trek to your safe often to store and pick up items. Outside of occasional scripted events, not much happens in the house outside of sounds. There is one scene in a water-filled basement that was probably the scariest in the whole game. The developers really used audio to spook the crap out of you and draw out many fears people would have. Creepy static on radios with unclear voices is haunting.
When you’re wandering around the house nothing happens in between puzzles. Just a lot of squeaking doors, wind blowing, slamming doors, etc. There’s Luca’s breathing that gets annoying as his deep sighs repeat often, but the house itself is just haunting. The sterile lighting, the ultra-realistic look to the house, and the head bobbing. If you played the P.T. demo you know what I’m talking about. This is the new-age horror style that needs to get perfected and Madison definitely sets a new bar. Here’s where things take a bit of a dive. Halfway through when you get to the infamous candle puzzle area in the church many players may turn the game off. You must find four different candles in two different time periods and match those colors that are associated with religious imagery. You also have to navigate through four different mazes and if that candle’s image isn’t there you have to backtrack, go back to the other time period, navigate the same maze again, then repeat this three more times. The one thing the game doesn’t tell you is that if you listen to the confessional too early a ghost stalks you and can kill you if you don’t place the candle down before he shows up. Thankfully he only exists in one time period. I was able to place the first three candles before doing the last one, but many players won’t know this.
Then there’s the clock face puzzle. You must match clock faces that are shown on five different walls but the correct faces are spread out around the house. It’s a lot of memorization and backtracking. And then there’s the Blue Knees ghost puzzle that was incredibly frustrating at the very end. None of this spoils the story, but the last half of the game will really try players’ patience. The game got so much right up until this point and it felt like filler to stretch a 2-hour game into 5. Horror game developers please listen. You don’t need insanely mind-bending puzzles to be a good game. I know this is a trope, but please stop it. No one liked them 25 years ago and no one likes them now. We play horror games for the atmosphere, scares, and intense scenes, not puzzles.
In the end, the story itself is open to self-interpretation. It’s not obvious or clear when the credits roll about what happens to Madison or Luca, but what is obvious are the possible reasons why the ending occurred the way it did. Props to the developers for making an open-ending without being cryptic or making no sense. The visuals are excellent and the production values are up there, but those later half puzzles really bring the game down quite a bit. If you can push past them you’re in for a treat with this being one of the best horror games in recent years.
Oh man, where do I start. I’m not the biggest 3D Sonicfan and never have been. I didn’t care for Sonic Adventure even when I was a kid. My hot take here is thatSonic Adventureis awful and not a good game. Sonic Team seems to be the only developer on the planet that can’t improve their games in 20 years. Sonic Generationswas the only good 3D Sonic game because it cut out all the crap that slows the game down and makes it frustrating. Why do you need combat? Why do we need gimmicks? Mario hasn’t changed in 30 years but has somehow naturally evolved. Why can’t Sonic just do what it’s good at Going fast?
That may have made some people mad, but I don’t care. This type of stubbornness is just unacceptable today. NowSonic Colors is a better 3D Sonicgame, but it has many problems. The game is poorly balanced in difficulty, but it makes going fast still fun. I hate the combat. I don’t like homing in on enemies to speed the game up. If anything it makes jumps inaccurately. I nearly tore my hair out trying to complete certain levels due to stupid game mechanics.
Sonic’s double jump is terrible. It’s too floaty and I constantly overshot jumps or undershot them. His wall jumping is awful. You have to waggle the stick in the same direction as each jump. This is too much for a game that’s supposed to be fast. The Wisps, while interesting in their own way, just slow the entire game down. Some are neat like the drill that lets you burrow through water and dirt. The purple one that turns you into a giant monster is fun. The green one that lets you shoot around like a dart is also fun. The ghost is an awful Wisp. It’s slow, the zooming through rings mechanic just doesn’t work right, and it made some levels insanely difficult to complete. The Wisps are cute, but I don’t want them back.
Like other 3D Sonicgames, you are on a track and transition from 2D to 3D. I honestly wish the game stayed in 2D. The fun loops and speed pads are so much fun. This is where the game accelerates (HA!) and does a great job. The levels zoom by here and there are a good amount of collectibles. Red stars plus gold coins to spend in the shop to customize Sonic (which I didn’t care about at all), and it made my completionist demon itch. Sonic games have always been good at making you want to explore and retry levels and master them to know where all the goodies are. Colors kind of does this until you have to use the bad mechanics in certain levels. Why does the game need to slow down and make me bounce across a moving spring through half a level just die dozens of times to get a single jump timed right? That is what killed this series.
I also don’t care for the repeating boss fights. They are pretty dumb, to begin with. A giant Ferris wheel thing that just adds annoying obstacles later on that make it frustrating and not challenging. There’s a ship you need to take down and the captain jumps down after you get through its obstacle course. Later on, it adds missiles that need to follow you through a series of moving platforms to break a glass bubble. This slows the game down as you need to wait and guide the missile carefully. This isn’t what makes Sonic games! That’s like having Mario go through an entire level on a floating platform and jump over an occasional rotating fire bar. But that’s it. No enemies. No power-ups. Just float along and occasionally jump. It would be maddening!
There are a few levels that made the game enjoyable somewhat. They were better designed but didn’t have any obstacles or ridiculous platforming shenanigans or floating platforms to deal with. The levels that focus mostly on using Wisps also were frustrating and took dozens of tries to get through. I also never mentioned the story. Yeah, just forget it. It’s pretty basic and pointless and doesn’t really have a conclusion. The voice acting has at least improved over time.
The visual upgrade from the Wii version is decent. The game runs smoother and there are texture and model upgrades, but it’s not mind-blowing. There’s an extra mode where you can do challenges in 2D mode only, customization, and that’s about it. I don’t see any reason to replay this game unless you specifically like this kind of Sonicwith the momentum always being interrupted. It’s over-engineered gameplay when it needs to stay basic. Colors is decent to play through, but many gamers will turn it off after their first irritating level they get stuck on.
The original release of Doom 3was a huge deal. It was a technical marvel with fantastic new lighting effects and textures that could fill the latest GPU and all of your RAM. It split fans due to the slower pace and focus on jump scares (that honestly don’t really work these days anymore) and a bigger focus on the story (if you can call it that). The game retains the same dark visuals and monsters from before, but being the first game in full 3D it had a lot of problems.
The first thing you will notice is that this release has no visual upgrades outside of some texture filtering and anti-aliasing and slightly better lighting. The textures still look muddy and the models are still low-poly. With this being the third official release of this game I’m surprised more work hasn’t been done to it. You play as a marine who is stationed on Mars when things suddenly go wrong. The first couple of levels is probably the best since they slowly introduce the gameplay to you and have better-designed levels. Zombies emerge from the dark, and your flashlight is a lifeline. It does have a short battery but recharges within seconds.
The main issue with Doom 3 is its much slower pace in every part of the game. The movement is slow (you have adrenaline that’s used for limited sprinting which is annoying), and the weapons reload slowly (why is there reloading anyway?). Not to mention the weapons just plain suck. The pistol is useless outside of the first couple of levels. I never touched it after this. The machine gun is useless in later levels, and everything else just feels slow. Enemies feel slow as well. The environments are also cramped with too many enemies spawning at once and I constantly backed into walls and got stuck in corners trying to get away. Very rarely does the game ever feel like a classic Doom game with more open areas.
The level design is also terrible. The game is way too long as it is and it’s just boring hallways after hallway finding PDA access cards, running back and forth activating switches, and trying to open doors. nearly eight grueling hours of this. It felt like a chore after the first two. Eventually, you do get to Hell, but it’s such a short level with a boss fight at the end, but it still suffered from cramped areas and nothing new except a couple of enemies that finally show up such as the Hell Knight and Arch-Vile which are some of the toughest enemies in the game. I mostly stuck to the strategy of using guns that shot the fastest such as the Cell machine gun being the most powerful with the chaingun being second. I used the shotgun through most of the mid-section of the game until I got the cell rifle.
There are a few boss fights in the game that all play out the same, and in the end, the entire game is just one long boring chore. It’s fun at first, but if you are a veteran of classic Doom games then most of you may just shut this off early. This is my third play-through of this game and it’s less enjoyable each time. I originally played this on Xbox, and then PC, and then dabbled in it a bit on Xbox 360 and never finished it. Now I completed it on Switch.
Speaking of the Switch the game plays fine, but there is some slow down in the larger areas and it doesn’t always stay at 60FPS. In handheld mode, the game runs fine as well, and you have the option to turn off flashlight shadows to help, but overall it’s great to just have another FPS on the Switch. These don’t come around often. Included is the Resurrection of Evil expansion which I already finished once on Xbox and a new Lost Mission short campaign which I will get around to eventually. It’s nice that there’s some new content. Overall, this could have easily been a remake from the ground up or a mode that made it feel faster-paced like the classic games. If you are itching for a mid-2000s FPS game then go ahead. Don’t come into this thinking it’s like the newer Doom reboots. This game was a specific era of id Software at its lowest point (Quake 4, Rage)
I recently picked up the Complete Edition on Switch as I never got around to The Kid’s DLC, Secrets of the Maw. I replayed the original game and will post my original review below and address further thoughts with the DLC review.
Minimalist side-scrollers have become very popular in Limbo. Inside is just another example of these horror side scrollers done right. Little Nightmares doesn’t really tell a story through voices or words, but through actions. Unlike Inside, Little Nightmares doesn’t have too much of a story to tell. You play as a child trying to escape a ship from humongous fat monsters trying to eat you. That’s all we get really.
Sadly, the story doesn’t really explain much as the art direction, monster design, and backdrops are wonderful and beg for more storytelling. The beginning of the game is made up of basic platforming with simple physics puzzles and a lot of atmosphere. Eventually, you start seeing the occupants of this ship and that’s when things get creepy.
Little Nightmares does a fine job of creating a tense atmosphere and suspense. Grabbing and sneaking are tied to the shoulder buttons, so when you grab something you must hold the button down. This makes things more intense as you are running away from a monster with a key to unlock a door and if you let go of that button it’s all over. The middle of the game is made up of outsmarting these monsters and the puzzles get bigger, but not really harder.
There’s not much to really explore outside of lighting lanterns for checkpoints and breaking porcelain dolls to unlock achievements. The game is definitely intense throughout the 3 hours it takes to complete, there wasn’t a dull moment that I can remember. I always felt like I was running and overpowered and small. From climbing stacks of dishes and escaping on meat hooks to chopping off the arms of a doll maker. The game gives players something that most don’t and that’s solid gameplay while combining excellent visuals and touching moments.
Overall, there are some of the best 3 hours you will spend. From beginning to end,Little Nightmares has something interesting to offer and it’s never boring. The graphics are gorgeous with art styles that reminded me of Box Trolls mixed with Coraline. If you love horror games and platformers then this is for you.
Secrets of the Maw DLC
After replaying the original game I still felt the same about it. The game portrays a really creepy atmosphere and digs into the fears of children and well – their nightmares. TheSecrets of the Maw DLC tells the adventure of the kid you see in the cage when you first start the game up. The DLC is about as long as the original game and is divided into three chapters as well, however, there are more gameplay elements mixed into each chapter to make it more interesting gameplay-wise.
The DLC still gives off that creepy and dark atmosphere and sense of dread that the Kid has to go through. Sadly, we only get one new monster known as The Granny in the first chapter. You spend this chapter at the bottom of the ship in the sewers escaping her grip in the water. The main gameplay loop here is jumping around platforms in the water and swimming for your life to the next segment. I wish we could have seen her more instead of just bubbles in the water. She does appear at the end of the chapter, but with this being the only new monster it’s a bit of a letdown.
Overall this chapter focuses mostly on platforming and the DLC didn’t address any issues such as the camera problems and not being able to line up your jump correctly. The Switch version suffers greatly from long load times so dying often can be a frustrating mess on the Switch. Loading can take up to a minute between each death and sometimes I died shortly after loading just to wait another minute to try again.
The second chapter brings back The Janitor which was the first monster in the main game. This is a very long chapter that consists of three puzzle areas. Here you also get to solve puzzles with the little gnomes from the main game to push things around and activate levers. I found several bugs here such as gnomes disappearing through floors which required checkpoint restarts. Overall, running from The Janitor again isn’t as terrifying as the first time.
The last chapter brings back The Geisha which was the final monster in the main game. This one mostly focuses on a new flashlight combat system in which you shine your light on phantoms and they turn to ash. I found this frustrating as the closer they are to you the less effective the light is which doesn’t make sense. The smallest point of the cone of light is what causes this and it seems like an oversight. I found there were too many phantoms coming after you at once and it became overwhelming. The puzzles in this chapter are the best in the entire game, but again it’s another monster we’ve seen before.
Overall, Secrets of the Maw is a great DLC that doubles the length of the entire collection. It feels more like a game and less like a haunted house ride and just feels more thought out. There were some glitches, the platforming and camera need work, and reusing monsters brings the tension down too much. With the entire package wrapped up, you have about 3 hours of fun creepy atmosphere here.
I absolutely love Japanese survival horror games. Even the worst ones usually nail the atmosphere and scare factor and this goes all the way back to the PS1 era which is where they pretty much became mainstream. From the best ones like Silent Hill 3 to some of the worst each title is unique in its own way. I collect survival horror games because of the unique factors in each game. Some may have terrible visuals, voice acting, controls, or obtuse puzzles, but they usually always scare and have great monster designs and a great atmosphere.
Ikai only got my attention due to its physical release. I usually don’t pay attention to digital-only survival horrors as most are pretty bad, and rarely nail even the atmosphere. Ikai does struggle in some departments such as the story, characters, and visuals, but it’s really creepy and has a haunting atmosphere. You play as Naoko who lives in an ancient Japanese village. You are a priestess whose uncle leaves the village and leaves you in charge. Yokais take over and it’s your job to rid them before they take over the shrine, and there’s something about a wedding and an abusive fiancée. Yeah, it’s not clear and even the game’s description doesn’t say much about the story. There’s a mechanic in which you can draw Japanese symbols on paper to make seals to rid of the Yokai, but once you get to the library tables you have to stop every 5-10 seconds as they will pop up and kill you. It helps add a sense of urgency and dread.
Like most games that take less than two hours to complete you don’t get a chance to develop characters or stories. Your main goal is breaking four Yokai seals via puzzles and exploration. Naoko is defenseless so you can’t fight, but just run and hide. Most of the game is easy to figure out minus a few obtuse and obscure puzzles. The village itself is really small so it’s hard to get lost, but you usually have to find context hidden within. Bloody footprints, opening the right door to trigger an event – that kind of thing. The few puzzles involved are slider puzzles and putting objects in the right place. Some more frustrating exploration bits were being lost at the bottom of a well and having to find bamboo to use as climbing posts amongst tons of bones. I spend 45 minutes running around examining every inch of bone until I found them all.
Some events have you hiding from Yokai which wasn’t too bad. They are really creepy designs and can pop up at you out of nowhere. Ikai really gets the sound design down. Creaking floorboards, moans, whispering wind, and bumps that come out of nowhere can make you jump. The game is intense all the way through. It’s just too bad the Switch version suffers from serious graphical issues such as incredibly blurry visuals due to resolution downgrade. It also runs less than 30FPS a lot of the time, but it doesn’t look bad other than this. There’s lots of detail, great lighting effects, and good-looking textures otherwise.
Despite the visual downgrade the game still sounds great, and I can only recommend it if you find it on sale. The $35 physical price tag might be a bit steep for a two-hour game, but anyone who loves classic PS1/PS2-era Japanese survival horror games will find something to like here. I do have to knock it for it’s an almost non-existent and incoherent story and obtuse puzzles, but playing this in the dark with the lights off and headphones on could make for a fun and scary evening.
Bright Memorywas an impressive tech demo that was in Steam Early Access a couple of years ago. It had a scantily clad female protagonist (which doesn’t do anything for the game honestly) and a mix of sword and gunplay in the first person which felt fast-paced and punchy. Infinite is the fully released game, and it’s basically a much longer tech demo. You can finish the game in 90 minutes and this leaves nothing for story or character development which is almost non-existent. All I gathered is that there’s a black hole forming near-Earth and you must stop an evil military guy from taking some sort of artifact that will bring Earth back to Feudal Japan? I’m honestly not even sure.
The best part about the game is the gunplay. The swordplay kind of takes a back seat and is only needed in certain situations. You get a standard arsenal of four weapons. Automatic pistol, auto-shotgun, assault rifle, and sniper rifle. Each weapon has an alternate ammo type that’s usually explosive and does massive damage which is best saved for larger enemies and bosses. The weapons feel heavy and punchy, and they are fun to shoot and use. The gunplay was so good that it kept me wanting more from the game. It had a AAA budget quality to it that’s not seen in many indie shooters. The swordplay consists of mashing a single button or launching enemies into the air. There’s a tacked-on afterthought of a skill tree that lets you unlock abilities and upgrade your alternate ammo firepower, but in 90 minutes you upgrade almost everything pretty quickly so it feels trivial.
There is a grapple line for traversing long distances which are scripted, and you can wall run. These ninja acrobatics feels a bit stiff and not as refined as the actual gunplay. In fact, all of the animations feel stiff and like they were hand done. The faces almost don’t animate and thankfully there are less than 10 minutes of total screen time where the camera shows any faces. Your main character, Shelia, is questionable in the sexy department since you hardly ever see her and there are DLC costumes that seem pointless due to the short run time. You can go through the game again on higher difficulties, but I don’t see the point.
The issue with a short game like this is there is no incentive to come back. There are no modes, no multiplayer, and hardly anything to aim for. The visuals in the game are fantastic with great use of ray-tracing, but again the animations are weird. There’s a short scene where you drive a car and it feels really janky and half-baked. Overall, the boss fights are fun, but there are literally only four types of enemies in the whole game so it gets repetitive quickly. At a sale price, this could be a fun evening, but that’s about it.
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Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…