al Qamar の最近のレビュー

Life is strange indeed, so is this game.


Anyone that likes to play point and click adventures should definitely read this review and will probably decide to invest some money into this game, published by Square Enix.

I bought it at greenmangaming.com with a 20% additional discount so paid 15 € for all 5 seasons.

Given the first season is not very long, still I think 5 € (reduced Steam price atm) is a fair deal.



As I am not a native speaker this game was a good lesson to polish my english language knowledge, though the language used in the game is very urban, so urbandictionary often enough helped me to understand phrases and situations much better than any Oxford dictionary would have done.
That said the language used perfectly fits the setting and their teenage slang, of course.

You play as Max, a girl that's on a college for photography / art, and just turned 18.
Very soon you will find out that you're not only an ongoing talented photographer but also have another gift:

BEING ABLE TO REWIND TIME

This adventure, unlike many many other I've played in the last 25 years, really cares about your actions and they will influence the story.
At the end of the game (Season 1) you'll get an overview that shows which path YOU actually choosed and which of the other possibilities the OTHER PLAYERS have chosen.

Based on this rating, it seems that the majority of players of "Life is Strange" do have a very righteous tendency I may say - just like me. I had just one exception from the mass. Interesting to know.

Overall rated the game is a great. It has a refreshing and interesting touch, plus is really worth the time and money as some professional reviewers have judged.

I can agree with them and I really liked the sketchy but technically modern graphics (CSQAA / FXAA) based on Unreal 4 engine and I really loved the ambient soundtrack. The characters are stereotypes but well so close to real-life, somehow.


To be honest I hoped for far more decisions and it gets a bit obvious over time that the decisions sometimes can be "undone" by rewinding and sometimes not. Also in dialogues you have options but they don't really influence the game that much as the about 8-9 key situations the first season offers.

- only 9 hours playing time for the Season 1 (other said they did it in just 3 hours)
- controls on PC with a mouse are not that intuitive as it is designed for controllers / Xbox
- some people report more or less severe issues but the staff has a fast pace responding at the Steam community. I can only file one bug as Fraps does not work with the game (taking screenshots will crash the game for me)
- Graphics are okayish but bear in mind the game intentionally has a sketchy style.
- most actions are not that carefully animated (playing guitar etc.) so in terms of motion capturing I've seen better things.
- the really decisive decisions are not that numerous, and there should be more variants in the next seasons.

But well all the criticsm is moaning on a high level.

So now I've played through Legend of Grimrock 2! After I already like the first part (my review here: http://steamproxy.net/id/alQamar/recommended/207170/ )

The second one superseeded my expectations and I really hope that the devs will make a third one, even more shiny and polished as this one.

I have to say that this game was a lot of fun and the puzzles are really really challenging, some were even too absurd to be figured out without the understanding of hints or things you even may have forgotten over time in the game.
Youtube was especially "RPGDivision" was a great help here. He helped me many times when I already gave up solving the puzzle my own. Given I spent nearly 70 hours on normal difficulty you can imagine what kind of a work it was, to solve them.




-> Earth magic is near to useless, spells are weak and it takes much skillpoints to get them, on top of that many monsters are resistent to poision or at least not as often vulnerable as to fire or other magic schools.

-> the music is much better as in the first part, and often I even had goosebumps and felt fear. But even though every level has an own "soundtrack" it becomes repetitive. It would be a great addition if the music would be tense or dynamic regarding the situation.

-> The final fight against the Island master is horrific. I've slain the dragon quite easy but then all the new diversity brought into the game how you can skill characters is rendered useless if you want to defeat the Island Master. It is all about HP, DMG and best elemental resistance at the end. It is a must to have strong built party, with certain equipment and spells etc to stand this last fight.

It find it very very sad that this final boss is actually so hard to be defeated, if you have not chosen an "ideal" party. During the game you can compensate any lacks but speed or exploiting monsters, but this boss will tear you apart if you are not properly equipped and skilled, so the diversity is simply not useful at the end.

-> All Ingridients, except blooddrop cap (healing) and crystal flower (skillpoints) are very plenty so on normal difficulty I was too savy using them.


-> a great well thought story
-> very very challenging puzzles
-> very good diversity in graphics, character building (with limitations) and monsters
-> much better music
-> great levels and landscape and lovely details
-> an intro and end scenes makes more rich, what you missed in Grimrock 1.
-> it is good that there are enough keys to unlock quite all gold caches and chests, but you need to be careful to find them all
-> because of the higher environmental and graphical diversity "secrets" are much more hard to find as in Grimrock 1
-> Workshop (Modding) support

Bought Flockers yesterday and I fell in love instantly. The sheeps have more cuteness factor than any cat video on the internet. The worlds are very detailed and have many active elements. There are some big advantages over Lemmings:

You need to collect boxes to get features for your sheeps. This was also something that got introduced with Lemmings 2 - The Tribes and Lemmings 3.

So far i cannot see a drawback. This game I bought for about 5 € but it is worth more definitely to honor the developers.

If there is anything I can complain about after a few levels, than that the music is not that good and repetitive compared to the ol' Lemmings tunes.

Flockers get a 10/10 out of the box!

contains cataphract camels which were shown in the pre-release trailers. of course this put CA in a bad light.
If you are looking for Rome 2 wait for a next -75% discount sale then they are good gimmicks for the price.

Nighmares from the Deep is a puzzle adventure about Davy Jones. Artifex Mundi just released the last one: http://www.artifexmundi.com/page/piraci3/

However this review is about the second game of this triology but compared to Enigmatis which I enjoyed very much, Nighmares from the Deep lacks the drama and tension when we are considering the story line. Also the music is very repetitive.

That said it seems Arifex Mundi is really having a template for their games. The puzzles are very similar if you have played another game like Enigmatis.

It is hard to recommend this game based on this fact. It seems to be a fish curse* itself.

A plus for the detaled and lovely graphics but named cons give the game a negative weight, too

At the end I can rate the game with a 4/10 and have to rate it as follows:
- 2 for the very repetitive music which does not fit the story all the time. Too less difference between action and calm scenes.
- 2 for repetitive puzzles compared to other Artifex Mundi games like Enigmatis
- 2 the story has not caught me much. There is too less tension and the end is obivous.

*most used term in the game.

This game was far off everyone expected and most itching what was advertised. It took a year till it got shaped and being in a state it should been have back in Sept. 2013.

In Steam Store it says: scalable experience regardless your rig
Citating CA: We had +40% more budget; AI dev said: "We never invested more into AI development"; CA promised "sieges battles of immersive scale".


Honestly this game was failure on release. The pictures we can see on Steam and in the trailers are in-game graphics but very much edited. I am not saying this to beat an already dead horse but because we customers have been betrayed like Varus.


Some people say the game is now absolutely fine but honestly CA is not able to fix this game completely because of the warcape engine which was never intended for Rome 2 like battles as it was made for line infantry battles. So if you care to directly compare the battle mechanics like Dr. Sane did on Youtube you will notice differences.

At the end of the day the problems this game has due the engine (core issues) and which have been discussed to death in reviews and forums either way STILL exist, despite the good efforts of the Emperor Edition and more than 14 major patches!

Also watch out this game is available legit for about 29 € so do not trust the prices on Steam. People in Russia and Britain pay a lot less than us even without discounts. Check out onlinekeystore.com to get legit and well priced keys for this game.

However, saying the game is not worth a penny is a bit exaggerated meanwhile.

By today (Sept. 2014) I rate the game with a 8/10 (original rating September 2013 4/10)

-1 point for the severe AI issues, which propably cannot even get patched.
-1 point for performance and LoD issues, which propably cannot even get patched.
-1 point for the streamlined functionality compared to previous TW games
-1 point for the athmosphere and music (music mods available by now)
-1 point for the battle mechanics compared to Rome 1 / Medival 2
+1 point for the good mods available
+1 points for the Emperor Edition release and changes
+1 for continued support

I still do not recommend to buy this game full priced! For the half price it is a good buy and can distract you for some time if you do not focus on the misses it has.

Tomb Raider 2013 is the first Tombraider I've ever played. This one I started and played it through with a lot of passion in about 37 hours of time, to make sure to get some achievements.

Based on this experience I can say that this game deserves to be played. The game offers a great athmosphere, stunning graphics (played maxed out on a 670 GTX), great audio / music and while you play it, most of the time you feel like you are hired as an actor to play the first role in an action movie.
The whole story in this game is consistent and of epic scale. I really loved to see what's comming next.

Well but there are some drawbacks I do not want to hide either in this review:

- the events are triggered which becomes really annoying
- the AI is quite good but often enough you find some ways to exploit
- fights against bosses are annoying because most of the times there are cinematics or scenes prior the fight that you cannot skip so in case you are dying you have to view these again and again and again... and again.
- the puzzles are easy most of all times
- a few fights are really challenging e.g. those with the bosses or hordes of enemies that try to kill you
- the levels are linear and quite "tubes", I prefer open world games to be honest
- Lara is quite indestructible and invulnerable.
- It would be cool if the dirt / crud on her skin would be more dynamically, e.g. would clean up if he is running through rain or water.


You should not play this game if you suffer a serious vertigo as there are some certain scenes where I got really scared to fall or to look down. No I am not kidding you.


Despite the drawbacks I found, I still I think that this game deserves a fair score and I consider it to be the funniest and most enjoyable first person "adventure" I've ever played.

Thus I rate Tomb Raider with a 8 / 10 score

and can highly recommend it, especially to those that might enjoy the good story placed well in an asian scenario.

If you are interested into it I have collected and posted my impressions of the game in a "Tomb Raider Photobook" on TWcenter.net:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?660809-Tomb-Raider-photobook

Just like the Duke from the past (Atomic Edition) with better graphics. Let's rock! You even can even use the maps you designed in DOS times. The map editor is still the same.

A 9/10 game for a strange reason the classic game did not have.

1 point less as me and a friend repetitively got headaches after playing it in multiplayer. V-Sync does not help.

Playing through this game was really fun. It took me 81 hours to complete including the add on and the missions are really nice made.

This game is a 7/10 for me.

1 point less for the music, which could be more diverse
1 point less for the fact you need to rebuild things very often at the start of a mission, rather than going on with the city you developed before
1 point less - the AI is exploitable

I have to confess I love point and click adventures. Some of the greatest I've played through are Zak Mc Kracken and both parts of Syberia. Enigmatis seems to be a great one of these genre. I've played only a hundred minutes but still am at the beginning of the game. The storyline seems to be consistent, the graphics are unique, held in a comic style, the music supports the great athmosphere. While audio is available in english only, the subtitles are german (localised).

Actually I find the game to be a good chance to improve my english language skills while listening to the talk of the characters.


The puzzles - at least till now - are quite easy, if not to say obvious. The story might be scaring for a younger audience.
So far I am happy with this buy and I hope this game will be even more tricky in the future.


Well it took me 6 hours to complete the game. I have to say the story was great also the athmosphere and cinematics. The music was good but a bit repetitive, although there are different tracks. I give this game a 8/10 rating.

1 point less for the quite short story (I have not yet played the bonus level yet you unlock after the main story)
1 point less for the quite simple quests compared to others like Syberia and other adventure I have played in the past.

After all this game is still a great buy. I only paid 3.24 € because of a discount I unlocked from some steam collective cards. This was also the reason how I learned about this game.

I would be happy if anyone that actually plan to buy this game and played it till the end would rate and comment my review here.