Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly – Director’s Cut – 19 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/09/2023
Posted in: Microsoft, Retro Consoles, Xbox. Leave a comment

Publisher: Tecmo

Developer: Tecmo

Release Date: 11/01/2004


Available Exclusively On

Horror games from the 1990s to the mid-2000s hold a special place for me. These games were genuinely unique in the sense that they focused so much on the atmosphere that they may have been shunned in critic reviews, sold poorly, and generally ignored during their time, but we have come to love them later on. Horror games have rarely been made the same since. Fatal Frame was a very unique series that took the genre to new heights with interesting gameplay mechanics that steered away from guns and running away from things. Your Camera Obscura was your weapon and puzzle solver, and the first game won gamers over, but it had unfair difficulty and had clunky controls. The second game fixed a lot of this and was later upgraded further for Xbox. This would also, sadly, be the last game in the series on Microsoft’s green beast of burden.

You play as new characters this time around. Twin sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura You are trying to solve the mystery of the “Crimson Sacrifice Ritual” in All God’s Village, a fictional town in Japan. This isn’t a journalistic setting; instead, just two girls are playing in their favorite spot when a dam collapses and Mio falls. The original sacrificee wants revenge and her own twin sister back, and you both are prime candidates. The story is rather interesting and very dark and creepy. I enjoyed it quite a bit, as it surprisingly had more depth than most horror games of the time. Most of the story is told through texts you find (there are a lot) and not so much in cut scenes. There are crystals you can now pick up and listen to on your radio, and these are rather haunting. I enjoyed these quite a bit. The voice acting is surprisingly decent (for the time), and the voices of the dead can really make you feel uneasy.

Of course, the main attraction is the Camera Obscura. Once again, you use this to kill ghosts and see things that aren’t there. It’s more refined this time around, with better controls. You can switch to proper FPS controls, which makes playing much easier. Upgrades are more robust, as are equipped add-ons. You can find add-ons throughout the game, with some being passive and some requiring you to charge your camera. You can equip up to three add-ons and swap between them while in camera mode. These range from Blast, See, Stun, Slow, etc. These can be upgraded along with your basic functions, like in the first game. Finding passive ghosts and taking photos of them (if you’re quick) can give you Spirit Points as well as fighting spirits. You need spirit orbs to slot in to be able to advance to the next upgrade level. Each power has three levels. I highly recommend upgrading your basic stats first. Spirit Points are more plentiful than in the first game, which is a good thing.

Just like in the first game, your goal is to take a photo as close to the spirits’ faces as possible to be able to take a Fatal Frame shot. There is a meter that powers up around the circle in the center, and when it hits red, you need to be quick. There is a red flash at the top that tells you when it’s best to use a power-up. On rare occasions, you can get a two-photo combo for massive damage. There are film types in this game, and thankfully the weakest is unlimited. This means you won’t ruin your game (like in the first one) if you run out of film. The game will just become insanely hard. Higher types are plentiful, and I never ran out, but I recommend saving the Zero film for the final boss. There’s less than 10 in the entire game. I also found healing items incredibly plentiful, and I never ran out.

My biggest complaint is the backtracking and navigation. It’s hard to figure out where to go next. There are obscure objectives, and some things won’t trigger until you enter the correct room. This is a much bigger game than the first. With three large houses and the village itself to explore, I had to use a walkthrough throughout most of the game because I just kept getting lost, but that’s par for the course for survival horror games of this era. I found the visuals to be fantastic, even by today’s standards. Great textures, models, and lighting are amazing. The Xbox really shows off what the series can do here, and it’s a shame the third game never got a port.

Overall, Fatal Frame II is a fantastic upgrade over the first. Just make sure you have a guide handy. The controls are much improved, the camera system is more robust, enemies are actually fun to fight this time around, and bosses are challenging. The story is interesting enough, and the lore is creepy and unsettling. The atmosphere alone is worth playing through this game for. Haunting music, a few jump scares, creepy ghost designs, and insanely unsettling throughout.

Gylt

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/18/2023
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S. Leave a comment

Publisher: Tequila Works

Developer: Tequila Works

Release Date: 11/19/2019


Available On

Gylt, a Stadia (RIP) exclusive upon release, is a stealth game in a similar vein to Alan Wake. You play as a little girl trying to save her cousin Emily from monsters in a strange town, and you don’t know where you are on top of all this. You slowly get introduced to new gameplay mechanics and fight a couple of bosses.

Gylt’s short length means there’s pretty much no story or character to capture your interest or care about. In the four hours it takes to complete the game, there is zero world-building. There’s even a creepy old guy that we never find out what his purpose is or why he’s even present. We don’t know anything about the main character or Emily. It’s like starting 1/4th through a book and ending at the halfway point. I felt like there was a lot missing. There is no context, exposition, or anything like that. You can go around collecting journals, birds, and whatnot, but what’s the point? I won’t collect things in a game if I don’t feel connected to the world in some way. There’s no motivation to push me to want to find out the small details. Gylt has pretty much none of that.

When it comes to gameplay, Gylt is a run-of-the mill stealth action game. The puzzles are elementary, giving no challenge to the players at all. You have two tools at your disposal. A flashlight and a fire extinguisher. The flashpoint can not just light your way, but a focused beam can remove objects, bust pustules on enemies to kill them, and the extinguisher can freeze enemies, freeze water, and put out fires. This is all fine and dandy, but there’s nothing challenging to go along with these tools. You will be plopped into a room with a single moveable ladder. It’s obvious from one glance around the room that it goes against the wall with the vent. However, you must destroy three eyes with your light to unstick the ladder. It’s pointless filler gameplay. Even the light-switching puzzles are dull and simple.

Unlike Alan Wake, the focused flashlight to kill enemies just doesn’t feel as fluid, and I understand combat isn’t the main focus of Gylt. You are supposed to use it as a last resort—if you get caught at all. Most of the enemy patrols are easy to bypass as there are a ton of objects to hide around, and the game pretty much points a finger at your most direct path. There is a central hub with buildings that connect, and these are your main levels. Each level usually requires some sort of master key to get to its boss, and this is the only time the game was challenging or changed the pace. There are two bosses, and one focuses on combat and the other on stealth. I wanted more of this, but as the game dragged on, it never got more challenging.

The voice acting is good, the cut scenes are hand drawn, and overall, the visuals are nice. Pick any 3D animation studio in the last 20 years, and that’s how your game looks. It’s dark and moody, but never scary. A few monster designs are a little interesting and different, but nothing crazy. Also, don’t expect the game to push your systems to their limits. This game may look nice artistically, but technically it’s nothing special, and that’s also okay.

Overall, by the end of the game, I had no reason to care for anything I came across. The characters aren’t fleshed out, there’s no back story to any single thing in the game, and I’m left just moving on from this game and will most likely forget about it in an hour. I love indie games that are short and sweet, but many are forgettable with passable gameplay and mostly decent visuals. This is becoming a trend lately, and it’s kind of scary. I can’t really recommend Gylt unless you want a short, spooky evening, but don’t expect anything but average gameplay.

Reviewed On

Xbox Series X Controller

Resident Evil: Village – Shadows of Rose

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/17/2023
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S. 1 Comment

Publisher: Capcom Co., Ltd.

Developer: Capcom Co., Ltd.

Release Date: 10/27/2022


Available On

Resident Evil: Village is one of the best games in the series. It delivered dark horror that continued from VII, great level design, awesome characters, and an overall fun experience. Shadows of Rose ends up feeling like a super mini-RE game and runs for about three hours. You play as Ethan’s daughter Rose this time around, learn more about her kidnapping, and revisit a couple of areas as her, with new powers to boot.

The game plays exactly like Village did when you were Ethan. The only difference is that Rose is slower and not as strong as Ethan. You also only get two weapons in the DLC. A pistol and a shotgun. As a trade-off, you can use your anti-mold powers to interact with the environment and counter enemy attacks. You get to upgrade this over time through the story and can eventually slow down enemies with it and repel some. You end up revisiting Dimitrescu Castle and the home of the creepy doll, as well as a small section of the village. It’s nice to go back to these areas, but they are completely different with Rose present. There are also a couple of boss fights thrown in for good measure. The first third of the DLC is all action and shooting-oriented. You can still craft health and ammo, and you only find two upgrade parts for your pistol (none for the shotgun). The second third of the game is focused on stealth and puzzle-solving. The final third of the game is more cinematic-oriented and rather short.

I felt Capcom did a good job reusing these areas and constantly mixing up the gameplay. The stealth sections felt tense, the puzzle solving was simple enough to not need a walkthrough or guide, and the boss fights were pretty fun and interesting. It felt like Village all right, and the only question is whether or not the ending to Rose’s story is worthwhile. It’s included in the Winter’s Expansion, which includes a third-person mode and Mercenary missions, so I would say so. However, there is no reason to go back and visit this DLC, unlike the main game. The powers aren’t interesting enough to come back to either. They are mostly used to clear obstacles and stun enemies, and that’s about it.

Rose herself isn’t a very interesting character. I feel I don’t have any reason to care about her, and she wasn’t talked about enough in the main game. I feel she could have potential, but would need her own main game to pull this off. There isn’t much story in the DLC to begin with, and I was left with more questions than answers. I just shrugged at the end and didn’t give it a second thought. Most people come for the action and gameplay and not for the story.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

Outlaws – 26 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/06/2023
Posted in: PC Reviews, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification. Leave a comment

Publisher: LucasArts

Developer: LucasArts

Release Date: 03/31/1997


Available Exclusively On

Red Dead, who? You might ask. Western-themed shooters weren’t really a thing, and LucasArts made it their mission to be one of the first. Outlaws was the first of many things trying to break free of the Doom clones using their own Jedi engine known as the INSANE engine. It featured not just horizontal but also vertical aiming, the first shooter with a zoomed scope, and the first shooter to feature a reload mechanic. Outlaws pushed many envelopes in the PC shooter scene and was well received for its great visuals and solid gameplay. It was as fast-paced as any Doom clone and was recognized as such. If you are tired of Doom clones from the mid-to late-90s, Outlaws is a game that sadly passed you by. Outlaws was released on the cusp of new 3D engines like Unreal and Quake. The 2D sprites were welcomed as a breath of fresh air, as were the great art styles.

This was the first PC game I had ever played, back in 1999. My family got their first PC that year, but sadly, we couldn’t afford to actually buy any games. My late stepfather and I actually mastered the demo of this game for months. It featured the first two levels, and we wound up beating both of them on Ugly mode at some point, remembering all of the locations of enemies, canteens, ammo, etc. It was indeed a fun time, but we always wanted to know what happened after the second level. To be honest, I dabbled in this game over the years, but it’s so hard to get it running right on modern systems. Most of the game is broken, so if you have a retro PC still lying around with Windows 95 or 98, I suggest pulling it out. There are many fixes for the game from the community, so it’s mostly bug-free now. This game really needs a remaster or even a remake. Where are you, Nightdive Studios?

The plot in itself is mostly throwaway and uninteresting. You play Clint Eastwood. I mean James Anderson, a retired US Marshal who wants revenge for the kidnapping of his daughter and the murder of his wife. It’s a typical Spaghetti Western revenge plot with an evil German doctor, Bandits, and henchmen. There’s nothing special or interesting here, but the art is fantastic. You get LucasArts’ usual high-quality hand-drawn cut scenes and decent, for the time, voice acting. In total, there are maybe 5 minutes of cut scenes in the entire game. However, that’s not the most important part. You’re here for the shooting. The music is also fantastic, with the usual Western themes that you hear in movies and other media, but it’s still well done.

The shooting is amazing, even to this day. It’s fast-paced like Doom and Quake, but there’s some strategy needed, which makes the game feel a little more modern. It has both feet on two different thresholds. You need to swap around weapons for different scenarios, such as the (way too many shotguns, by the way) shotgun for small rooms, the pistol for mid-range, and the repeater for long range. It even comes with a scope, as mentioned previously. You also get dynamite to toss around, a minigun that you can only use stationary and is very rare, as well as throwing knives. Stealth isn’t really a thing in this game, but it’s possible. You rarely run out of ammo, at least on everything but Ugly mode, so shoot away, cowboy!

Enemies are rotating sprites, like in most shooters of the 1990s. They look good and are all unique. There are skinny and fat pistol shooters. Tougher riflemen appear, and then every level has a boss. These guys will appear on the level when you find all the keys (brass, steel, and iron) and are hiding in a final room sometimes as well. This was my biggest gripe with the game. Some of the levels are labyrinthine, such as The Basin, and while there’s a Doom-style map that fills as you explore, some of the levels also have keys in weird spots that you will miss easily. Sometimes you need objects to pass through levels as well. The aforementioned Basin level has a bridge that needs to be lowered, but the dark spot next to it blends in too well with the wall, and I needed an actual video guide to realize it was there. A flashing spot would have been nice, or even a giant sign.

I also found the controls pretty poorly set up, so you will have to manually change them. There is no weapon wheel, so you have to slowly scroll through weapons with the mouse wheel or numbers. There is also no quick save, and saving frequently is a must, so you have to constantly go to the pause menu to save. I also found things like alt-fire to be poorly mapped, which is the Z key and not the right mouse button. FPS mapping hadn’t quite been standardized yet, so I can’t be too harsh on it. Things like jumping and vertical aiming are a nice touch and continue to add to the strategy element of the game, such as aiming down a cliff or ledge. This also adds to the difficulty, as those used to Doom will assume the weapon will automatically shoot at anything not right in front of them.

Outlaws is one of the best retro shooters ever made, despite its flaws. The controls are terrible, the game is a pain to get running, and the story is pretty much pointless, but what is good is what matters most. The shooting. I didn’t like how confusing some levels were and how important interactions were easily missed, but these things can be forgiven slightly due to its age and how many things it innovated. Scope zoom, vertical aiming, jumping, great-looking visuals and music, hand-drawn cut scenes, and manual reloading The game is short with only 9 levels, but there were more added for free in Handful of Missions. If you somehow missed out on this classic, then go back and check it out.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare – 22 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/01/2023
Posted in: Game Boy Color, Nintendo, PC Reviews, PlayStation (PS1), PlayStation 2, Retro Consoles, Sega, Sega Dreamcast, Sony, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification. Leave a comment

Publisher: Infogrames

Developer: Darkworks

Release Date: 06/18/2001


Available On

A murder mystery. A supernatural thrill ride. A past that haunts you. These are many things, Edward Carnby and Aline Cedrac have to deal with. Carnby’s best friend, Charles Fiske, is found dead off the coast of an island. You are sent to investigate, but your parachute is damaged on impact, and you must fight off strange creatures from another dimension while trying to find out the fate of your friend. The story here is surprisingly deep and involved, but not very interesting. It’s akin to a sleepy mystery novel that keeps you hooked just enough to keep reading but then quickly forget about it shortly afterwards. The New Nightmare is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place due to the timing of its release. It came out just before the beginning of a new generation of consoles and kind of feels like it has a foot in each generation.

I do have to state that the visuals are very impressive right off the bat. For a Dreamcast game, the pre-rendered backgrounds would be mistaken for a PS2 title, especially when using VGA. They are bright, crisp, and well detailed without that 32-bit sheen that older “tank-style” horror titles had that used pre-rendered backgrounds. The lighting effects are well done, especially when using your flashlight, and the monster designs are surprisingly not very scary or interesting. They feel like generic sci-fi creatures from a B-grade midnight premiere on the Sci-Fi (yes, not SyFy; get that out of here) Channel. The atmosphere is really tense, and there are a few jump scares scattered throughout the game, but overall it does a great job of giving you a haunting, impending doom feeling.

Back to the whole one foot in each generation business it still has pre-rendered backgrounds, tank controls, and a tiresome inventory system. Thankfully, there aren’t a lot of items to pick up, as there are few puzzles in this game. Most of your pick-ups are weapons, ammo, saves, and first aid. You can combine and split objects, but I only had to do this once as Edward. I got tired of having to do a quick reload by going into my inventory screen and manually reloading there, as there is no reload button. You must wait until you are out of ammo first. This would be nice to have, as you eventually learn how many shots each creature type takes and can count them that way. I also hated how much the views and angles flipped around. I appreciate the more modern take on cinematic angles and camera views, but this game could have easily been 100% done in real-time on the Dreamcast with no issues. When fighting some creatures, you get knocked into another angle, and the screen pauses to load for a split second, making you disoriented. This especially proves troublesome during the final boss fight.

I did like how the game doesn’t skimp on ammo, but you must preserve it in the beginning and be smart. I easily missed the shotgun the first time around and had to restart, as you don’t get much revolver ammo in the game at all. The majority are shells. I wound up in a hallway with zombies, zero ammo, and 200 shells. Thankfully, it was only 30 minutes of gameplay before I could get to the shotgun again, but this is another foot in the previous generation. I like the better map with an actual dot on screen showing you where you are, but certain angles and lighting make things hard to see. Some items sparkle, but I would see sparkles through walls that were objects in another room. It doesn’t help at all.

If you conserve well during the first disc, you get many more weapons later on and tons of ammo, and you can just blast away. However, the game tries to guide you a bit better, similar to how modern games do. Puzzles will sometimes be two-way communication over the radio with hints or instructions you need to follow or clearly needing symbols for a code lock, but you can use an item to follow clues and trails to the symbols you need. It’s a great step in a new direction, as I love these games’ atmosphere, story, creature design, or anything else but navigating their frustrating, labyrinthine, and obtuse maps. Backtracking is also not super horrible here. There were only a few times I needed to go from one end of a level to another, and it was the final time before moving on to the next major area. I do detest the limited saving system. You need to find Charms of Saving, and there are only around 20 in the whole game. Thankfully, the game is done in less than 5 hours, and if you are careful, you won’t die and can spread them out. I only used about 10 during my whole playthrough.

Overall, The New Nightmare isn’t a reboot of the game (we were graced with that horrible beauty just a few years later), but a step into making the traditional point-and-click adventures console-friendly and trying to make them more modern. The story and characters are interesting enough to push you through the game, but mostly they are forgettable. The voice acting is surprisingly decent, and the visuals are awesome. There is so much pushing and pulling in two different generations that the game falls into typical 32-bit supernatural horror trappings but also tries to break free of some. There are plenty of weapons and ammo; the auto-aim system works well; the puzzles are not obnoxiously obtuse; and backtracking is minimal. Overall, The New Nightmare has aged better than many games of its era thanks to trying to push in more modern directions. This is a great way to spend a Halloween or dreary evening.

Reviewed On

Layers of Fear (2023)

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/19/2023
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox Series X|S. Leave a comment

Publisher: Bloober Team

Developer: Bloober Team

Release Date: 06/15/2023


Available On

Bloober Team seems to really love their Layers of Fear series because they thought it was big and important enough to remake both games and tie them into each other with a third overarching story. If either game was confusing enough, nothing is cleared up in the story, and it all comes together to feel mostly poetic, vague, and abstract. While the writer’s overarching story makes sense as she’s trapped in the lighthouse that was meant to be an inspiration, the painter’s or actor’s stories are much improved.

Trying to describe Layers of Fear is a challenge unto itself, as the gameplay is about as abstract as the story it’s trying to sell. The game is full of excellent visual effects, disappearing acts, illusions, the opening and closing of many doors, jump scares, and anything else you can think of to make a game feel like a lot is happening when really nothing is. The game is all flash with no substance, and the remake didn’t do anything to change this. It leaned into the flash at full tilt thanks to the Unreal Engine 5 upgrade and ray tracing. It looks pretty (mostly in the first game, The Painter’s Story), and that’s about all this game has going for it. I thought it would be scarier to push the supernatural themes a bit more, but instead, Bloober chose to just give us an enemy that can hurt us in each story, but it doesn’t add anything. They are slow; you can run from them, and you can also banish them with light, but they come back.

Layers of Fear came out when P.T. clones were rampant. You start out in a seemingly harmless house with rooms you can walk into, the bare sound of ambient noise in the background, lights flickering here and there, and drawers and cupboards you can open. You end up wandering around the first house a bit until you discover the painting room and dive into the first chapter. There’s a lot of narration in the background, disembodied voices, and notes you can pick up and read to help with context and exposition. Every interactive object has a white circle over it, and you can twist it, pull it, and turn it. Essentially, Layers of Fear is a Bop-It® simulator in disguise, but I digress.

There are rarely any puzzles to challenge you. There might be a large hub with doors that branch off and you need to get an object from each room, or there might be a code you need, but they are always right in front of you by opening a door or looking at the correct object. Layers of Fear‘s only challenge is not getting bored to death because the story is too busy trying to be poetic and pretentious over telling something interesting. Once you’ve opened the 100th door, most may turn the game off, especially when no other gameplay is introduced outside of crouching in the second story. Sure, the second story has fewer illusions and parlor tricks and feels more like an adventure, but I also understand the painter’s story is a trip through madness and insanity, but you sure wouldn’t be able to tell if it weren’t for the visual rollercoaster.

I even felt the DLC from the first game didn’t add anything known as The Inheritance. It was 45 minutes of frustrating mazes that didn’t deliver anything new or exciting. The new DLC called The Final Note is just more of the same without giving us anything unfamiliar or appealing in the slightest. Even the overall story for the writer that’s supposed to tie all of this together is very short, linear, and completely unnecessary in the long run. With two games to get through and the second story being much less interesting, I don’t see many players finishing this at all.

There are collectibles in each game that can get you achievements, but many are easy to miss. If you don’t look at the right object, open the wrong door, or just walk past something, you can miss it. They don’t give any additional facts, story bits, or anything noteworthy, so outside of achievement hunting, there isn’t a reason to do this. I honestly would have preferred an entire third entry rather than a remake after spending around 2 hours in each story. The game just becomes a slog of cheap thrills and poor storytelling.

The visuals are a treat at least, but for some reason, they don’t look as good when you get to the second story, which is Layers of Fear 2. I’m not sure if it’s because the graphics are just more plain here. Things are less colorful and trippy and are a bit more grounded, but the first story looks so good with great lighting effects and better textures. Once I finished the first story, I did look forward to what was happening with the writer’s chapter, but these segments are so short and don’t give us any more meat for this already scrawny game.

Overall, Layers of Fear is a remake no one asked for. Remaking an already mediocre and mostly bad sequel and trying to tie it together with a half-assed third story just doesn’t work. We get the first game’s DLC that feels pointless, a new DLC that feels aimless, and monster chases that are now dangerous but don’t need to be. The game is barely a horror title. Without the lighting effects done the way they are, you wouldn’t know. I didn’t ever feel scared; there were occasional moments of urgency, but that’s about it. The stories are convoluted hollow shells that do a bad job of telling a story in a game that you feel imprisoned in with no gameplay, and the only thing to look forward to is the story. This should have been a third game and not a remake.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux – 8 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/17/2023
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: The Astronauts

Developer: The Astronauts

Release Date: 07/15/2015


Available On

When it comes to walking simulators, some get more praise than others, and some are just forgotten. Ethan Carter was talked about quite a bit upon its first release, even receiving a BAFTA award for best game innovation. After playing this game, I can’t understand that kind of high praise for game innovation, but it sure does look pretty, and I have to give the ending some credit. It’s one game that builds up to a great conclusion where everything comes together. However, during the actual journey, the narrative is pretty messy and vague.

You play a detective trying to find a boy, Ethan Carter, and along the way, you solve murder scenes. The game is built to be sort of open-ended. You can easily miss side content (in the form of puzzles) if you don’t wander off and check out the house off the beaten path. Your main goal to advance the story is to find every clue for the scene, then go to the main part of the scene (usually an object), hold down the mouse button, and go into detective mode to piece everything together. Blue whisps fly out and show scene segments. You need to put them in the correct order and play it out to find out what happened. Once you do this, you get a piece of Ethan’s story and can move on.

There are a couple of areas with optional puzzles. You need to navigate an area to find the clues, which are usually identical to the area with the puzzle in it. These are either audio or visual clues; they can be quite challenging and make you think a bit. Notably, there aren’t any collectibles in the game, so you don’t have to worry about missing much. There are a couple of objects to find for achievements, but that’s about it. I wish there was some sort of reward for taking off into random, remote corners of the game. The path seems to be far more linear than it lets on. It’s really more of an illusion of how far you can walk.

The locales vary quite a bit, and the game is really pretty. When the game was initially released, it was a great piece of tech for PC gamers pushing Unreal Engine 3, and now it has been ported to Unreal Engine 4. While it looks sort of dated today with some less-than-stellar lighting effects and a lot of 2D leaves and branches on trees, there is still a lot of detail. Huge open vistas look into the forests, lakes, rivers, and dams of the Wisconsin wilderness. It looks good in these wide-open areas, but the interior parts look pretty average, and there’s nothing to write home about in terms of art direction or style. It’s hyper-realistic-looking, with very minor touches of horror sprinkled throughout.

While looking at the landscape is nice, you can easily get lost as the game prides itself on not holding your hand; however, being completely clueless also isn’t fun. Without a guide, many will turn the game off before even knowing you must solve these murder scenes during the first ten minutes. You can walk for quite a ways before realizing nothing is happening or hitting a dead end. This requires a lot of backtracking and aimless trekking through nothing but silence. While there is technically a “path” you can follow, it’s very loose and not so obvious all the time.

My favorite atmospheric segments were when the detective narrates and you’re just traveling through the vistas and valleys, taking in the scenery. It’s a bit foreboding in spots but never creeps into horror game territory. There are no jump scares, no ghouls, and nothing supernatural. A building might be dark and dilapidated, and you might enter an old mine, but there’s no creepy music or anything. It’s foreboding. That’s the best word I can come up with. I constantly found myself confused and disoriented trying to figure out what was going on in the story most of the time, so I always looked forward to that break in solving crime scenes with the walking and narration.

Overall, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a game I have put off for nearly a decade, mainly because I knew it would be a confusing mess and the story would disappoint, but I do have to say waiting for this Unreal Engine 4 port was worth it. If you like walking simulators, this is among the best visually and is a nice change of pace from the horror ones we seem to get mostly. Even if the open-ended nature of the game frustrates you, stick with a guide or keep trying, as the ending is well worth it and those open vistas are incredibly gorgeous to look at.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

Stasis: Bone Totem

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/16/2023
Posted in: PC Reviews, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified. Leave a comment

Publisher: The Brotherhood

Developer: The Brotherhood

Release Date: 05/31/2023


Available Exclusively On

The original Stasis is one of my favorite point-and-click adventure games. The atmosphere, the raw, gory imagery, the soundscape, and the overall tone were just fantastic. While the story and characters themselves were forgettable, you really got pulled into the alien world. Bone Totem continues this path but does a better job with the characters and story as well.

You start the game as a married couple who do contract work for private companies. Mostly rescue and salvage operations. Mac and Charlie have their own unique skills. Charlie can take two items together to combine them, and Mac can break a single item apart into a new item. You will use these features throughout the entire game, as items can be swapped between characters at any time, making backtracking a minimal thing. Oddly, this trick is never explained, as how do these items warp between characters no matter what situation they are in? Moses is your third character, introduced late in the first chapter, and he has no abilities. He is an animatronic bear with some sort of AI.

Just like in the first game, you can click around to move the characters on the pre-rendered backgrounds. Right-clicking will flash green and blue dots on the screen. Green are descriptive items, and blue are interactive ones. Always go for the blue. Each screen usually has something to interact with, and if you run out of things to do, then another character needs to advance the story somehow. The swapping of objects is how you solve puzzles. Some puzzles are strewn across all the characters who need to do something. Create a new object, find an object, break down an object, or something along those lines.

Cut scenes are all voiced, with pre-rendered scenes sprinkled here and there. Every time you enter a new area or interact with a blue object, a cutscene usually plays. The story is well-detailed, and it takes its time over the 8–10 hours it takes to complete the game. The salvage operation turns into a horror and nightmarish hellscape quickly, and the descent is pretty amazing. The visuals change constantly as you progress, and you always run into “WTF?” moments. The Brotherhood is great at making the game look like a 90s point-and-click with fantastically drawn art. A mix of their own style fused with H.R. Giger is just wonderful, and I can’t get enough of it. If you liked the look of the recently released Scorn, you will love the art in this game.

A lot of disturbing imagery fills this game. Flayed bodies, disemboweled creatures, eerily humanoid androids, and weird aliens The list goes on, and every time you interact with one that ends up being a blue object, you get an up-close, full view, and it’s marvelous and incredibly disturbing. The Brotherhood set the bar in the art department for retro point-and-click games. Every screen has something new to look at, and I couldn’t wait to see what they would show visually. Thankfully, the voice acting is pretty good, and the pre-rendered cut scenes are janky, but in that classic ’90s way, that’s so bad it’s good. They are clearly made this way on purpose, and I love it.

Thankfully, I always felt a sense of progression thanks to the lack of backtracking. The worst it got was when I remembered a clue maybe six screens back and forgot to take a photo or screenshot of it. Usually, it was my own fault. Puzzles are also not insanely cryptic. Usually, some fiddling here, some thinking there, and you always get that “AHA!” moment fairly quickly. Every time I got a new object, I would try it out on the next blue object for each character. Some items get held on to for hours at a time; some are used right away; but few are obvious in their uses.

Overall, Bone Totem is a great follow-up to the original. The gorgeous art, dark horror, gruesome rawness, and visceral detail in the imagery are a sight to behold. The voice acting is decent. The characters have depth, and I was hooked until the end. The ending also felt like a conclusive finish, and while I still wanted to know more about a few of the characters, their mystery might be on purpose. If you love 90s point-and-click adventures or just love gory art in games, then look no further.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture – 8 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/10/2023
Posted in: PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification. Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEI

Developer: The Chinese Room

Release Date: 08/11/2015


Available On

Walking simulators are something I really enjoy as they can focus mostly on the story, characters, and atmosphere. Sadly, it’s also a big gamble as sometimes the story can be great, but the gameplay is awful or the story is awesome, but the ending sucks and pretty much makes the entire experience not worthwhile. The Chinese Room is notorious for its walking simulators, being almost exactly that, and this game is a spiritual successor to Dear Esther which looked great but was forgettable.

The game puts you in a small rural British town of Shropshire where there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. All you know is to follow a ball of light floating around and it guides you around the town to activate cut scenes of the main characters talking about what happened at that moment. You will see the aftermath such as a wrecked car, a turned-over box, bloody rags, etc. There are no actual character models as they are just whisps of light in the shape of people acting things out on screen. This can make the game aggravating to play and pay attention to. A game with literally zero gameplay outside of an action button, and doesn’t have any characters on screen better be damn good right?

As you walk around and follow the ball of light you will sometimes hear a numbers station playing on a radio or a telephone ring. These are extra tidbits of stories you can listen to. Each part of the town focuses on a specific character, but sadly I was often lost as to who was what as there were no faces to put to any of the voices. Once you see a cutscene play out your ball of light will stop and wait, sometimes. There were quite a few glitches in the game in which the ball of light would get stuck in the ground, not continue on, or just disappear somewhere never to be found. I had to restart the game to get the ball back on track.

Major cutscenes that actually advance the story are triggered by grabbing a ball of light and moving it left and right until it explodes. This was originally an excuse to use the then-new DualShock 4 touchpad. Here it’s just a mouse drag and feels pointless. You know you are done with an area when you get a ball of exploding light that takes a few seconds to trigger. After this cutscene, the area goes dark and you follow a trail of lights on the ground to the next area. This is all there is to the game. It’s pretty to look at, even today. The game uses CryEngine so it looks awesome and holds up well, but it’s still forgettable. There’s nothing memorable about a realistic-looking generic old English rural town.

I did eventually get into the story towards the end. However, the game just ends on a pretentious note and I felt deflated and annoyed. I really hate endings like this. This was four hours I will get back and I won’t take anything away from this game at all. No interesting gameplay, no memorable visuals, and no exciting story. The voice acting is great, but that’s about it.

Sadly, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is a game I’ve avoided for a decade and there’s a reason for that. I knew that this game would be very forgettable and a waste of time. I enjoyed the idea of this strange apocalyptic infection that’s passed around through phone and radio waves, but there’s no pay-off in the end. That also doesn’t take into account the aggravatingly slow walking pace that most people won’t be able to put up with. Even if it was two times faster it would be more tolerable. It feels like you’re crawling. That would be fine if there were more visuals to look at but there aren’t.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

Bramble: The Mountain King

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/06/2023
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S. Leave a comment

Publisher: Merge Games

Developer: Dimfrost Studios

Release Date: 04/27/2023


Available On

Linear, narrative-driven adventure games are some of my favorites. Bramble does a great job trying to be different than the rest by delivering a little bit of everything and not overstaying its welcome. You play as Olle, who is trying to rescue his captured sister from the bramble and evil forest creatures who took her.

The game does a great job of luring you into a false sense of security. The game starts out bright and colorful, with beautiful sweeping vistas of green. You get to solve various simple puzzles with cute gnomes that laugh like little babies. The first third of the game is cheerful and bright—until it suddenly isn’t. Bramble quickly turns dark, gory, and downright depressing. Sacrificed babies, wading through pools of animal gore, climbing moldy meat—and those cute little gnomes get slaughtered at some point. It’s just done abruptly and suddenly, and it’s shocking.

The majority of the game has you running around areas with fixed camera angles, jumping, climbing, pushing the occasional push, twisting the odd lever, and solving the easiest puzzles. I honestly don’t know why these puzzles are even here. Exploration is also nonexistent. You go into a room with a locked door, only to find the key on the table in front of you. This happens multiple times as well. I don’t understand the point of it. There is a bit of combat thrown in, but it’s saved for boss fights. You have a ball of light that’s not only used to illuminate areas and clear some paths, but you can also chuck it at weak points at bosses. The boss fights are the only challenge in the whole game, as you must memorize attack patterns and dodge, jump, or toss your ball at the right moments through waves of attacks.

The environments are constantly changing, and they all look fantastic. Depth of field is used well here as you are a small person in a giant’s world, so everything from blades of grass to a normal-sized rock is huge. This is well shown, and the perspective is pretty cool with the depth of field effects used. Textures look great, and models look good too. The entire game is narrated by a woman, so it’s the only voice acting in the game. I do want to mention that the soundtrack is gorgeous. During chapter changes and while the camera pans across a vista while you’re running, an incredible vocal soundtrack will play, and I honestly would listen to it outside of the game. The soundtrack by Martin Wave and Dan Wakefield is fantastic.

Despite the great pacing, wonderful visuals and soundtrack, and challenging bosses, there still isn’t much of an actual story here. The game is narrated like a children’s storybook from medieval times, but that’s about it. I had no reason to get attached to the characters or the world around me. The monster and creature designs are top-notch, and I always looked forward to the next screen because it was always a surprise. The game is nice and short and is better than most short, linear, narrative-driven adventure titles. I love the dark tone and theme, and while you may not discuss this with your friends a year from now, it’s at least a sight to behold.

Reviewed On

Xbox Series X Controller