Clock Tower starts out well enough. There aren’t many point-and-click adventures on the Super Nintendo, so I can see why this slower-paced game never made it outside of Japan on the SNES. Initially, the controls are peculiar and challenging to adapt to. Using the L and R buttons causes Jennifer to continuously run in that direction. She will continue to run in that direction up any stairs, obstacles, or doors until you press the buttons again to stop her. The story is mostly difficult to understand and grasp. You end up in a scary mansion with a group of friends, and then they slowly disappear. The “Scissor Man,” who appears at random, chases you as you search for them.
The gameplay necessitates a comprehensive guide. This game is unlike any other I have ever played on the SNES. You can spend hours wandering around and looking into all the rooms, never truly knowing what to do or where to go. The idea of running away from the monster is novel, but without the guide, I would not have known that you need to do most things in a very specific order. Certain orders provide different endings, and you can also easily miss one of the few hiding spots in the game. When Scissor Man appears, you must keep running until you can hide, or he will not go away. It’s important to memorize the mansion’s layout and where each hiding spot is. My issue with a game featuring so many rooms is that many of them share a similar appearance. Despite spending a solid 4-5 hours playing this game, I often found myself lost, even with a comprehensive walkthrough. Some rooms will also lead to insta-deaths as well which made things more frustrating.
I’m also not sure how I feel about the game’s sound. It’s almost nonexistent. Outside of Jennifer’s shoes tapping on the ground, there’s nothing here to listen to. When the Scissor Man appears, his theme song plays, and if you’re lucky, you can use the panic button to escape his grasp. As you run out of stamina, your portrait icon will turn red, and you will need to rest by kneeling. You will find yourself engaging in this activity frequently. There are some items you need to find in order to unlock doors and various objects, but these will be impossible to find with Scissor Man constantly chasing you halfway across the mansion. Each playthrough randomly changes a few rooms, making it difficult to distinguish between the main hallways. Despite the tension of Scissor Man lurking around every corner, there aren’t any other enemies in the game, and the lack of sound effects and music removes any would-be tension.
Overall, despite the slightly interesting story and plot twists, many players may find the labyrinthine hallways, obtuse objectives, lack of hiding spots, and overall trial and error required to reach the game’s end frustrating. Although the concept is intriguing, the execution falls short.
I am absolutely fascinated with the human psyche and how to brain works being in a dream state. I find vaporwave aesthetics incredibly pleasing, and I can immerse myself all day in the border between retro analog objects and digital dreamscapes. Hypnagogia explores the real-life state of being in between dreams. The trippy PS1 aesthetic visuals mixed with classic platforming and storytelling of yesteryear make for one of the most nostalgic games I’ve played in a long time, but this also comes with its own set of issues.
The game’s goal is to collect nine dream shards for a mysterious bird in this hub world that you enter. Each similar to 32-bit era games like Crash Bandicoot, each shard resides in a unique level. Levels range from basic platforming to puzzle solving, and some levels are more entertaining than others. Some levels are more familiar to gamers who grew up with Banjo Kazooie, with your character meeting weird cartoon-like creatures engaging in simplistic dialogue, retrieving an item for them, and unlocking the next area. These were quite enjoyable, as they didn’t require a lot of brain power. Later levels, like the dreaded forest level, are way too long, have too many labrynthine levels, and have obtuse puzzles that drag the experience down. This particular level took me several days to complete, primarily because I was unaware that there was no save feature during the level. I would quit and have to start all over again from the beginning.
Zelda-like dungeons are present in the aforementioned forest level, but they lack effectiveness and enjoyment. The later levels resemble a walking simulator, involving some backtracking, until the final couple of levels abruptly transform into a terrifying Silent Hill-style experience. The game clearly pays homage to the games that shaped the gaming genre of that era. The floaty platforming can get quite annoying for the more platform-heavy levels, such as the second one, where you are in a giant ocean and need to retrieve keys from various corners of the level. The first half of the game just doesn’t have excellent pacing. While the atmosphere and visuals are fantastic and immersive, the gameplay itself can pull you out or make you quit for good.
That’s not to say the gameplay is inherently bad. It’s quite manageable, but the level design itself is quite atrocious and can even be downright boring. For instance, in the cyber level towards the end of the game, you must float through the air to collect cubes that unlock additional paths. However, this requires a significant amount of backtracking, and the act of floating around can be challenging to control. Many times it was difficult to figure out what the goal of the level was, and I wound up just wandering around talking to all the creatures until something happened.
The visuals are the game’s main attraction, and each level is oozing personality and wonderful texture work that make it feel like a PS1 game. The mall level in particular made me feel something. Being in a closed down mall and having it transform into an abandoned mall is something I enjoy watching UrbEx explorers discover. The reflective water, bright pinks, whites, and blues give it a vaporwave vibe, and a few levels have just enough of the game they are trying to copy to make you smile when you realize it. Overall, Hypnagogia is a fantastic game for those who are seeking this type of visual aesthetic or looking for something to itch their nostaliga. Just don’t expect a compelling story, good controls, or consistent level design.
The X-Files is one of, if not the biggest, cult TV shows of all time. I was a young kid when the series was at its peak in the mid- to late-90s, so I didn’t understand any of it, but my mother was really into the show. While I caught bits and pieces, I do remember the atmosphere the TV show delivered, and this has stuck with cult shows dealing with paranormal activities for the foreseeable future. While the entire show might not have aged the best by today’s standards, it’s still a highly entertaining show that really makes you want to believe. There weren’t really any video games on the show until this one. Long after the series final season debuted and long after the series peaked in 2004, 2004 was also the end of the Sixth Generation’s life cycle, with the Xbox 360 just around the corner. What did Resist or Serve bring to the survival horror genre?
Well, the short answer is zero. I feel like fans of The X-Files would enjoy this more than survival horror fans of Silent Hill will. You can choose between Mulder and Skully (the show’s two main protagonists, voiced by the show actors as well). Each side has slightly different events in the same levels, so it may or may not be worth playing the game twice. Once was enough for me. The game has fixed camera angles similar to Silent Hill, but nothing is pre-rendered. You can move around the environment well enough, and there is some light puzzle-solving and combat. Combat is on the rougher side. You can hold a flashlight and a gun at the same time, but you can’t run with the flashlight and the gun out. If you want to run, you can just hold the flashlight. In some levels, you get nightvision goggles that help, but they’re still annoying. There’s an auto-aim feature similar to Silent Hill, and it works well enough if enemies aren’t right on top of you. Enemies will bum-rush you, and a couple shots will knock them down. One or two zombies is manageable. Although the combat system is not the worst I’ve ever encountered, the narrow level design isn’t conducive to this kind of shooting. Many rooms are barely ten steps wide. When faster enemies, such as dogs, come after you, the characters can’t run faster than the enemies to gain distance, turn around, aim, shoot, and reload, which slows you down a lot. It’s better to do the age-old reload on the inventory screen trick.
Combat only becomes a serious problem during boss fights. These guys have a longer range of attack, and I could never outrun them enough to turn around, blast them, and then get going again. Most bosses are easier if you stand still and blast them. The challenge lies more in battling the controls than in the bosses’ design. Health bars in the shape of the show’s logo serve as a health meter for these bosses. The rest of the game is obtuse object hunting, but knowing what to do with these objects can be quite annoying, especially when combining multiple objects together or deciphering notes to gain access codes. At least the game’s pace isn’t all that bad, and there are many locales to move through, from a research facility to an underground occult lair.
Three episodes, each with a couple of acts, make up the game, with the first episode being the longest. There are a few pre-rendered cutscenes, but most are in real-time, and boy are the graphics rough here. In 2004, there was no reason for this game to resemble a PlayStation 1 game. The environments are bland and boring; there are zero facial animations; and the textures are a muddy, molten mess of colors. On characters’ faces and objects, textures literally blend and bleed into each other. The animations are stiff and awkward, and this honestly feels like a budget first-gen PS2 title, not something that should be out at the end of the system’s life. When it comes to the horror elements of the game, they kind of work in the beginning, but the same screeching violin and piano banging sound plays one too many times at the wrong moments, and the theme song repeats way too often. It will work for fans of the show, but not generalized horror fanatics.
To be honest, there really isn’t that much horror in the game. There are a couple of neat scenes in which Skully dissects a human a couple of times in gruesome detail, but the hideous visuals don’t do it justice. Some very dark buildings have lighting that almost works, but it doesn’t. The zombies are cheesy and stereotypical, and the bosses are just hooded cult freaks. There’s no exploration here unless you just want to find first-aid kits and ammo clips. There are no hidden items, and the only extras are lame storyboards. I played through Skully’s story first, and I had no desire to repeat the entire game as Mulder for a couple of different scenes and altered boss fights.
Overall, Resist or Serve is worth a playthrough. Resist or Serve may take you 5-6 hours to complete, and while it has a fairly interesting story, it ultimately succumbs to the whims of the TV show’s cliches and punchlines. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson phone in their voice lines, sounding like they are falling asleep or bored (I guess Duchovny always sounds like that), but it’s not an inherently offensive game. The worst parts are the boss fights, and it could have gotten a lot more wrong.
Resident Evil significantly established the benchmark for survival horror games and 3D gaming in general. Games were still trying to figure everything out. Camera angles, movement, pacing, and combat. It was up to these developers to pioneer 3D games for the next 20 years. Parasite Eve may have been a short-lived franchise, but it made a lot of advancements in the 3D action/survival horror genre that Resident Evil was quickly trying to dominate. Despite its late PS1 release, this game felt ahead of its time, even though I haven’t played the first one.
The story is surprisingly simple to follow and fairly interesting. As a MIST agent, Aya Brea, you embark on a journey to the Nevada desert and the town of Dryfield. Here, your mission is to devise a permanent solution to halt the NMC (Neo-Mitrocondira Creatures). There is a lot more to the game. You also start out in a mall in Los Angeles. There are a couple of twisty endings, and the story is well-told and easy to follow. There isn’t really any voice-acting due to space constraints. The visuals alone explain why the game spans two discs.
The game has both RPG and action-combat elements. There are plenty of weapons and magic to use, and the game is a tight balance of the two. This is also the era in which missing a key item could make the game artificially more difficult, so I suggest playing the game on easy the first time with a guide and then doing a New Game Plus on your own. Despite the game’s linear structure, the vagueness of your objectives could lead to many missed or lost opportunities. At times, your map displays the locations of your objectives, while others do not. You can pull up the help in the map menu to see Aya give you a single hint; sometimes that’s also enough, and other times it still leaves you clueless. There are only a couple of puzzles in the game, but there is still a lot of item hunting. You need to find key items that not only advance the story but also optionally unlock new weapons or items to aid you.
Parasite Eve II‘s combat is surprisingly excellent for the time. 3D movement is tank-based, but it feels more fluid thanks to better camera angles than most games in this genre. There is an auto-lock system with a large reticle that you can easily swap between enemies. The game is fairly smart and usually picks the enemy closest to you, but not always. You can fire rounds off, and reloading happens when your clip reaches zero. Secondary attachments on some weapons can stun enemies or deal massive damage. These all cost money, and it’s imperative that you acquire the best weapons as early as possible; however, this becomes a juggling act with inventory vs. your attachments. You need to upgrade your armor to increase your attachments, but you can also find small pouches on the field. You should always have a single weapon in hand and equip at least one other. It’s good to know what types of enemies are in the area to be able to balance this just right.
Weapons vary, from pistols to shotguns, assault rifles, grenade launchers, and attachments that help you miss and match. You can equip an M4A1 assault rifle with the AS1S shotgun attachment, allowing you to combine both types of weapons without requiring two inventory slots. However, you must acquire precious BP by killing enemies to purchase these attachments. Bosses give the most, but it’s important to kill everything around you so you can get as much BP and EXP as possible to level up your powers. There aren’t random battles or respawning enemies, but opponents will spawn in the same area after each objective is complete. Harder enemies start popping up, as well as more of them, so it’s really important to know their weaknesses and what weapons and magic attacks work best. Some will attack you in swarms, so stun attacks are best for these enemies. You can’t move around much, so make sure you really get the hang of the combat system.
Magic is interesting, as you will use it for stronger enemies and large groups. As you level up, you acquire new magic in different categories. You can level up Fire, Earth, Wind, and Necro magic to a maximum of three per power, and utilize the magic wheel to activate these powers. This requires MP, so you will need to boost your MP to use it in combat. You should equip some key items instead of using them, as they can significantly increase attack damage and even magic. Therefore, it’s crucial to utilize a guide during your initial playthrough, as inadvertent use of these items, such as boosting a magic point by one level or similar effects, can result in waste. While you can’t use an auto lock-on (the game pauses when in the magic wheel), magic is incredibly useful for bosses. Green vector lines indicate the path, and enemies will flash green to indicate potential hits.
The map system is rather useful. Rooms in red mean there are enemies in that room, and once they are all defeated, it will not be red anymore. When you initiate combat, the screen briefly turns white and you hear the sound of a heartbeat. Sometimes, if the enemy doesn’t see you yet, you can quickly change weapons, heal, or do back attacks that cause more damage. Aya automatically reloads after clearing all enemies in the room, and your winnings window appears. Item drops are incredibly rare. They only become more common when you start fighting the game’s most powerful enemies, the GOLEMS, towards the last fourth of the game on the second disc. There are only a few shops in the game, so this leads to a lot of backtracking. Additionally, the game does not allow you to sell items, meaning that if you inadvertently purchase something, you are unable to return it. This means you can only discard items not needed in your inventory or store them in a box. I recommend saving before buying anything; in case something doesn’t work out, you can reload.
The visuals push the PS1 to its limits. We still get pre-rendered backgrounds with some 3D objects in place, but the character models look good, and there is a lot of detail in everything. While the game looks mostly generic style-wise, it is a technical showcase for the PS1. Sadly, the lack of voice work and infrequent FMVs kind of hurt the game presentation, but what’s here works. Overall, Parasite Eve II isn’t perfect. It’s a product of its time, with developers trying to figure out how to do action games in 3D. The weapon balancing act is frustrating, and missing out on key items to make the game more enjoyable can cause a lot of problems later on when you realize it’s too late. The combat system works well enough, and there are plenty of weapons and magic. The game’s main issues were mostly backtracking and a lack of knowing where to go. The story is interesting, surprising in depth for the time, and well told.
Adventure games, specifically text adventures, were some of the first video games ever made. These were similar to choose-your-own-adventure books, but you had a set of common commands you could type, such as “Go To,” “Open,” and “Go Back.” Some games were super strict with these commands, while others were more loose. You could pick specific objects in the current text on screen to interact with. These can be very fun, as they are as much a puzzle game as an adventure game. Stories Untold starts off this way, but with a twist. I’m hesitant to reveal the game’s premise as it could potentially spoil the entire experience. All I can say is that there are four short chapters, and they all involve interacting with older 80’s equipment.
The game isn’t really a horror title, despite seeming so on the surface. It can be a bit unsettling, but there are no jump scares or ghosts. The game is full of puzzles to solve, but everything you need is right in front of you. You must tune radios, use scientific equipment, read the manuals for these devices, and follow the on-screen instructions. It’s amazing, and I had a lot of fun with these interactive pieces. I did find it a bit annoying when you didn’t exactly know what buttons you could interact with. In the second chapter, with all the science equipment, I encountered a bug that prevented me from turning on one of the boxes, forcing me to restart the game. Outside of these minor issues, the game has some decent voice acting and visuals, with some great lighting effects.
The first chapter’s 8-bit computer is quite convincing, allowing your typing to translate 1:1 with the sounds of a real 8-bit keyboard. Some will remember the CRT glow and the dark corner full of wood furniture. I never grew up with 8-bit computers as they were before my time (I started out with Windows 3.1), but for those who have, they would get a real kick out of this. My least favorite parts were when you did control the main character in real-time. There are two sections in which you do this, and it’s very slow, plodding, and uninteresting. I found the stationary parts to be more entertaining.
Overall, Stories Untold has four short chapters, and you can finish the game in about 3 hours, but it’s a lot of fun. I found the overall story and ending to be quite intriguing, and the development of the entire experience was commendable. The interactive objects and puzzles are clever and fun, but when you take control of the character itself, the game slows down too much.
Minimalistic indie puzzle/platformer games are something I really adore. Limbo, Inside, Little Nightmares, Unraveled, and many others like it are just full of atmosphere, clever puzzle design, and great platforming. The issue with all of these games is the story. It’s nice to be minimalistic with no tutorials, simple controls, no cut-scenes, etc., but please guys, start making stories we can care about. Darq falls under the same problems as these before, with interesting character designs but no context. Why am I running around themed levels solving puzzles and running away from creatures with lamps as heads, creepy women in wheelchairs, and a guy in a wheelchair with a tuba as a head? Why am I placing severed legs into sockets to solve puzzles? What does this all mean?
I feel like the meaning of the game would mean more than the game itself. Darq is only an hour long, probably the shortest of these minimalistic platformers I’ve ever played, and yet there’s no purpose to any of it. Sure, the concept of walking on walls, flipping and switching to shooting you between areas, and all the other puzzles are done very well and are quite clever, but why am I doing it? I don’t even know my character’s name; there’s not a single piece of written dialog, and all I know is that I’m waking up in a dream to solve these puzzles.
There are 7 levels, with one being a scripted running level, and they get progressively longer and more complex. By complex, I mean the game consists of “where does this piece go?” type of puzzling, and once you figure out where it goes, the actual puzzle is fun and not very hard. I had more trouble finding the pieces than solving the puzzles, and there was an occasional section in which I had to hide from an enemy, but it was only a single section of the level. Puzzles range from switch flipping, lining things up properly, twisting things, etc. Nothing Myst-level or extremely vague. You can mow through the game in 60–90 minutes and be done, but I honestly wanted more—now only more if there was a story or something.
I found the atmosphere and art design to be rather fantastic. The main character looks like something from a Tim Burton movie, with everything in black and white and creatures that could fit into Silent Hill. The levels themselves range from a hospital, train, subway station, and four-way street in a neighborhood to a mine. Each level was unique and memorable, and I loved how you can walk on walls, as this game just worked your brain and really made you think, but everything made sense. There are no vague hints here; if you think it works, then it probably works. Each level can take about 10-20 minutes to solve depending on how stuck you get. I found the final level the most challenging, which is expected.
Again, the visuals are amazing, the art style is very unique, there are great monster designs, and the puzzles are well designed too, but why am I doing all of this? I’m tired of these indie developers thinking no story is some niche thing. Are developers catering to some pseudointellectual niche audience who think they “understand” these games or something, or are they just too lazy to design a story? Whatever the case may be, the flak “walking simulators” and other indie games that focus on gameplay and “story” over AAA bombastic scenes need to grow a little and maybe add a story and characters that we can care about.
I’m starting to see more and more games use Norse mythology and ditch Greek mythology. With games like God of War, Greek mythology was pretty much beaten to death in gaming, and ironically, with the new God of War, Norse mythology has made a comeback, and I also believe this has a lot to do with the Marvel Avengers movies. You play as a person who belongs in this Norse realm resurrected by a scientist, and you end up running around finding RFID keys, skulls, and upgrades for your arm.
Apsulov is a first-person horror adventure with a little bit of first-person action tossed in. This scientific base created around the World Tree is your main area, and all you know is that you’re supposed to gather these things for a scientist named Henrick. The RFID keys allow you to access new areas of the base, and sometimes you will travel through the roots of the tree to other realms. These few levels consist of mostly action as you run around, avoiding ice giants, to gather the keys to lock the gate to Helheim. Some areas require stealth as you have to avoid creepy enemies, and then when you get your arm, you can shoot them with a charged shot, but upgrades are needed to add more charge. This isn’t very useful at first, but later in the game, it becomes essential and then part of the actual story.
The atmosphere in Apsulov is pretty intense and scary, with fantastically done ambient sounds of people screaming, squishing, torture, and creature sound designs. I wasn’t so creeped out, but I was incredibly tense through most sequences. The base does become a bit disorienting after a while, as you actually do a lot of backtracking after the first half of the game is over, and you will need to enter areas multiple times. Towards the end, this gets really annoying, as you know you just went through this area and it’s either slightly altered or you have to creep past the same enemies again. I also didn’t like that when you die, you are brought to some room where you must insert two orbs into a socket to open a portal. The problem is that Loki is running around here, ready to get you, and once you pick up an orb, you can’t run. You have to sneak around trying to get these things, and if Loki gets you, it’s back to the last save point. If you get both orbs in, then you can pick up right where you died. It was a really strange system for sure, and I didn’t like it at all. Most of the time, I just opted to restart from the save.
There aren’t any boss fights except for the final boss, which is actually pretty fun and makes good use of the arm. I did feel more powerful toward the end of the game, and it made the ending pretty satisfying with an obvious hint at a possible sequel. I also didn’t quite understand the story until the last 30 minutes, when everything came together. The game is really bad at delivering pieces of the story until this point, and it makes playing seem somewhat pointless as audio logs tell you what’s happening around you but not what your purpose is. I wish this could have been spread out more, as the game only lasts 4-5 hours. I also felt the arm upgrades were useless as the ending changes the way your arm is used and all the upgrades are meaningless. Even if you got all the upgrades (I was short 2), it only allows one extra charged shot, and you still can’t take down more than that as you must find a charging station or charging pods to refill your arm.
Outside of these minor issues, Apsulov is an interesting adventure game that really uses Norse mythology well. I just wish it didn’t only matter in the final moments of the game, as the previous 4 hours felt pointless. I also never connected to any of the characters, as they just weren’t written very well, especially myself. The dialog is just a little sterile, and when the game ended, I knew I would quickly forget about this game in a few days. The story isn’t even all that great, despite making sense towards the end. With constant backtracking and a shooting mechanic that just doesn’t feel right, Apsulov falls a bit short of becoming a sleeper hit or even game of the year material, but adventure game fans will love this.
Publisher: Remedy Entertainment/Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Remedy Entertainment/Nordic Studios
Release Date: 02/16/2012 (PC), 05/18/2010 (X360)
Available On
I always come back to Alan Wake every few years because it’s just such a good game. Great combat, storytelling, varied gameplay, well-written characters, and an overall solid experience. Almost a decade after the original release, I went ahead and played through the PC version again, and it’s held up surprisingly well. Despite its graphical age, it feels like it could have been released yesterday.
You play Alan Wake, who is a writer who takes a vacation to the Pacific Northwest in Washington and stays at a cabin in Cauldron Lake. Alan has a scuffle with his wife and wakes up—not really himself or anything around him for that matter. Without spoiling too much, the story revolves around darkness and always wondering whether what’s happening to Alan is real or if it’s all in his head, as you will see major story landings in which this question comes up. Even at the end of the game, this is never really answered, and maybe it’s best to leave the player guessing a little.
The story is well told and might take a couple of playthroughs to get everything, but it does keep you pushing through the 6-hour story until the end. Characters such as Barry, Alice, Sheriff Wheeler, and even the doctors and radio station host are all just so well written and memorable. Other story tidbits include finding manuscript pages, watching live-action episodes of “Night Springs,” clearly inspired by “The Twilight Zone,” and finding radio station bits by finding radios. It’s nice to see the story unfold outside of cutscenes, and it really gives you an insight into what’s going on in Bright Falls outside of what Alan is doing. The whole premise of Alan Wake feels special to me, as I originally played it while living in Southern California and not really caring where it was set. Almost ten years later I now live in the PNW just outside Snoqualiamie, WA where the setting was inspired. It’s awesome to personally experience this setting and then come back to the game; I appreciated it so much more.
The main gameplay elements here are your flashlight and guns. Light plays a huge role in this game, as the story is centered around it, and your flashlight is a weapon. You can boost the flashlight beam, and a circle will get smaller on enemies, and once the circle is gone and you beam away from the darkness, they become vulnerable and can be shot with the gun. There are easy and hard enemies, a few fast ones, and inanimate objects that become enemies later on in the game, such as boss fights with harvesters, cranes, trucks, and barrels. It’s interesting how the combat is designed, and you have to be afraid of everything around you, even birds! The use of the flashlight and guns is just so well done, with great controls, and the guns feel satisfying to shoot. You always have to be on your toes, and every gunfight is never the same with limited ammo, no flashlight, and sometimes tons of ammo to make you feel powerful. There are even lights in the environment you can use to take the car down, such as spotlights, floodlights, and headlights on cars in the few driving sequences.
The game, however, is extremely linear, and you rarely get to stray off the beaten path. These are only seen in the car sequences, where you can stop at a house or two to find collectibles and then continue on. Despite this, the heavily scripted events are fun, there’s so much variety, and the pacing is spot on. Going from chaotic dark forests to a New York apartment and then to the psych ward and even a cafe is a nice touch. It lets you breathe.
Overall, Alan Wake is one of the best games of the Xbox 360 generation, with fantastic character dialogue, an interesting story, and fun gunplay with variety in level design and great pacing. The PC version adds DirectX 10 lighting and features such as ultra-widescreen support, a FOV slider, slightly better textures, and character models. Overall though, the textures still look really muddy, even during its release, and there are obvious LOD and draw distance issues with pop-in that the PC didn’t need to experience.
I love horror games set in space, as it’s probably the most unknown part of life that we know, the most isolated, and can be quite scary. Observation forgoes the aliens, monsters, and ghosts and literally gives us an enemy that is the unknown incarnate. You play as the AI of the space station observation, and you help out crew members trying to unravel the mystery as to why their space station broke down.
Playing as the AI itself is rather cool and something completely different in an adventure game like this. You control cameras in a couple dozen sectors of the station as well as a sphere that you can move around in freely. The sphere is not where you spend most of your time in the game, but rather flipping through cameras, downloading data, and solving puzzles. It sounds odd and confusing, but the game really opens up with fun puzzles and an incredibly tense atmosphere.
The entire goal of the game is to follow the objectives the humans give you, which can range from scanning systems to locking down hatches. You can download audio logs and scan documents found on walls throughout the ship for extra story insight, but it’s not as easy as that. Each module in the station has 2–3 cameras, and they have a limited viewing range. Most stuff comes from laptops, which require you to add them to your link list by pressing three random buttons that come up or turning on the power socket near them. These contain schematics to open doors, audio logs, and sometimes hints. Your SAMOS has a map of every module, and you can switch between cameras here as well as check various systems throughout the ship when an objective allows it.
It seems kind of lame on paper, but the execution of making what you can do as limited as the AI or a computer can be is just so fascinating to play with and explore. Being an AI that can see what goes on with these humans and you can’t do anything for them makes for some great tension and puts the entire story into another perspective that really hasn’t been explored all that much. I feel if this game were played normally as a human, it would have been boring, but whole new mechanics open up and require you to think differently. While the objectives change frequently and most things are only done once, they are fun puzzles that require a little bit of thinking and reflex. One of my favorite things was going out into the sphere and exploring the space station in space. It was such a cool moment to see that, as most games put you in a fighter jet, space just doesn’t look so big and empty. There’s very soft music and little ambiance, so it’s just you and the station in this big empty void with a planet below you. Subtle things like this can really boost a game’s cool factor.
The visuals are pretty good, but the animations are really awkward, animatronic-like, and kind of creepy. The voice acting is spot-on, as I felt the character’s pain and sadness through their voice, so it really hits home. My only big complaint is that the game is 4 hours long and the story has too much of a cliffhanger. The story itself has a lot of plot holes because we never know why the station was attacked, what these beings are, or why they want the people in the station. Without spoiling the story, the ending is just a big, “And that’s it?” but it does leave room for a possible sequel…maybe.
Overall, Observation is one of the standout games this year due to its tense atmosphere, great voice acting, and overall unique gameplay mechanics that really feel fresh. I wanted it to last longer and I wanted the story to be more fleshed out, but what we get is something really memorable and unique, but sadly, most people won’t play this because it’s an indie game and these don’t get pushed like they should.
The plague was a devastating disease that wiped out millions in the medieval era. It’s uncommon to see a disease revolve around a game’s story, but A Plague Tale does it wonderfully. Full of adventure, sadness, excitement, and little hope, Innocence does an amazing job of making you care about its characters and world.
You play Amecia de’ Rune, who is a girl of royalty. She goes on a walk with her dog and father in the woods, and, well, I don’t want to spoil a thing here; bad things happen, and she must suddenly flee her home. The entire game revolves around trying to find a cure for the plague and her brother, who has a mysterious disease that may or may not be tied to the plague itself. Amecia and her brother Hugo are fantastic characters and I was glued to my screen and played through the entire game in one day. I wanted to know what was next, and the great stealth combat is some of the best I’ve played in the last decade.
The game is a mix of stealth combat and cut scenes with just some exploring. The game is highly linear, but the combat areas become more open later on in the game, with multiple ways to get through enemies. The main focus of combat is fire and your slingshot. This sling can be used to whip rocks at enemies’ heads to kill them, but doing so around other guards will alert them. At the beginning of the game, you will just toss rocks at metal to distract guards and use pots to lure them away. You aren’t killing too much during the first few chapters of the game, and this is okay. The game slowly adds new ammo types, various ways to combat rats, and new ways to use fire.
Soldiers and rats are your enemies in this game, and the rats are the most deadly. Outside of hiding and working your way around enemy soldiers, the rats are completely afraid of fire and light, as it kills them instantly. The game has some sort of “rat” engine as thousands appear to scream and swarm around like bugs, and it’s rather disturbing to see at first. Various forms of fire will light your paths, such as sticks that burn quickly and are used to solve puzzles, haystacks, torches, braziers, and various light sources. Some areas are puzzles that require you to light your path through rats, and towards the end of the game, you can use the rats against soldiers since your ammo allows you to put out fires and not just start them. I won’t give away the combat types in the last 4 chapters, as this will spoil a lot of the story.
What makes the game so great is not just the story, amazing voice acting, and characters, but the combat unfolds so slowly throughout the game, and each combat scenario is different from the rest, that you want to keep playing. The game never gets boring, and the environments are constantly changing. You also get to upgrade your sling with more ammo and faster reloading and aiming, and this is done by looting materials throughout the world. You can find workstations, and later on, you can acquire an upgrade that allows you to do the upgrades without a station. You can also craft ammo types, which are essential for getting through the game. Towards the end of the game, you must think and really know your arsenal and various ways to get through combat areas are available that allow you to sneak or fight.
The game also looks amazing, with gorgeous vistas, amazing models and textures, and superb lighting effects. For an indie game, this is one of the best-looking games this year and even has great controls and a good camera. Even having to have Hugo tag along with you all the time doesn’t get in the way. He’s always holding Amecia’s hand; you never have to leave him to go do stuff and make him come back like in other escort-style games.
Overall, A Plague Tale is one of the best games released this year and has everything going for it. It never got boring and was just so much fun to play through and I always wanted to know what was coming next and see Amecia, Hugo, and their friends make it through to the end. Sadly, with this being an indie game, a lot of people are not going to play it, and I really hope to see more from this studio.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…