Останні рецензії користувача egg Immortal

No joke, as much as I like HL2, I just think didn't hold up as good as the first game.

I know Half-Life 2 was groundbraking on many levels, but there are just so many episodes where Valve introduced new mechanics and forced player to use them. I mean, look at how many people hate boat and car segments. I kind of hate those little physics puzzles, because there's a lot of them and they're not that clever. They were just astounding at the time.

Overall, the game still is great to play today and it only proves how massive of a success it was for the industry. I had lots of fun playing it.

More than quarter of a century have passed. We've seen a lot more mechanics introduced to games. But even then, Half-Life plays good. Because it stays true to its nature and builds on that. Looking at its sequel, it coooouuuld be said that Valve played it safe, but it is also their first game so... It's amazing.

This demo is very cool, I especially adore the freedom of movement.

There are just some things I find weird. For one, the game feels a bit empty. It sets the scene, but there are really few arenas and I breeze through them quite quickly. Walking around empty spaces, I felt like something was missing.

The movement is still cool, but I had a hard time getting to some secrets just because the controls are way too sensitive and I frequently just fell off some platrorms.

Other than that, it's a promising game with nique style, great sound design (especially with weapons, they're so punchy) and overall I am waiting for more.

The strengths of Mouthwashing is that it doesn't babysit its players. Explicit imagery is mostly absent and besides just one scene is never shown. The game cuts to black screen and let's player imagine the scene for themselves, with only the sounds to guide them. Mouthwashing features nice artstyle, but its graphics are not its strongest part. Even if they were, the decision to not show brutality feels much more tasteful as the game doesn't rely on shock factor as a cheap selling point. As it comes to the story, the game does the same and leaves parts to be figured out. Some dialogues are omitted and you can understand the meaning with the context alone.

Unfortunately, it is how this style of directing becomes one of Mouthwashing's weaknesses also. After playing the game for 2 times now I felt like there were things we don't get to hear about. In the Q&A Wrong Organ did mention some peculiar facts about their characters, and these facts are actually important for character development: like Anya failing to get into medical school 8 times (we only get to know that she didn't study there) or Daisuke actually hating his internship (Daisuke states many times that he likes it here, and his actions never prove otherwise). These things should've been left in the game.
On smaller scale, it felt weird when characters would be talking, then screen would cut to black and them we get to learn what just happened from context. It's like minute pieces of dialogues being torn out for no apparent reason, as if one or two sentences would bore player so much they would stop playing.

On bigger scale, Mouthwashing suggests a lot. I am dumb to hints, so I didn't figure out that - apparently - one of the characters was raped by another. The game leaves you with only bits of information but I had a hard time connecting them. Rape fits here very well and explains a lot of characters' behavior, but the suggestion is very vague. After watching a few playthroughs I know it's not just me who missed it. I am conflicted as to what to conclude: it's either that the story just isn't clear enough or I am dumb. Really, what's the value of hiding the plot from the player? What does it achieve?

It's a pity that a lot of horror moments for some reason revolve around a pony mascot. Characters working for Pony Express company has nothing to do with the themes of Mouthwashing. It just feels cheap when horror with such heavy themes and implications wastes time on "oh no, I've gone mad and now cartoon horse scares me". Mouthwashing slightly touches upon capitalism and how all characters are affected by the company going bankrupt, but the story doesn't elaborate on it in any meaningful way. It sucks, but it is not a tragedy. And if it is, I never was given a reason to care as much as Jimmy who spouts his frustrations onto captain Curly.

Because the game switches timelines, some inconsistencies follow: like the sanity of Curly. It is a big twist in the game that the actual captain - Curly - on the ship didn't cause the crash, in fact it was his co-pilot Jimmy. But to cement it in player's head and to convince them that it really was Curly (to wow them with truth later on), the developer made one segment when he has vision with severe distortions of reality. It is not something just "a bit of center" or "keeps you on your toes". I also don't understand why one of the crew would prioritize getting paid to survival, initially calling that idea to search for resources in cargo room stupid and more dangerous than dying. It is especially weird when it already took them 2 whole months to start considering opening the cargo room in the first place. I don't know how it would be possible for Jim to save Curly after cutting off his leg if previosly he couldn't stop Daisuke from bleeding. I don't understand why characters, when posing a threat to each other, just let each other walk away at times. Like the time when Jimmy just left Curly standing in place and crushed the ship. And Curly just.. stood there. Then, the flight was supposed to finish after 8 more months. 2 months after the crash (leaves us 6 months) Jimmy discusses with Daisuke how much food they have left. Dai says it's 4 months. Does it mean they were supposed to die from the very start or what? These inconsistencies really affect the believability of the story.
I was also disappointed we got to see Curly's face. I think it would be so much more impactful if we didn't and the only picture of him we would have in our minds is him completely mutilated. I think it would've left a sour taste in my mouth after playing.

So far it seems like I didn't enjoy the game, but that's not true. I liked Mouthwashing and for someone's second game it is simply astonishing. They managed to create an engaging cinematic experience. With non-linear narrative player always jumps between different time-lines and always wonders what happened in between and what did they miss. Some people call this style Tarantino-esque, but I think they're downplaying his work that way. That way of storytelling is just interesting, but there isn't anything extraordinary but the fact of 2 timelines that meet at one point in time.
Visual style of Moutheashing is also interesting. Cartoonish, but detailed in faces - the most important part here.
Personally, I was sold on game's music. Can't say a lot. Main theme is just right.

And then there's the big question. Do our weakest moments make us a monster? The game is trying to solve it in an interesting way. Jimmy is unanimously hated for everything he does. The guy is a rapist, he's impulsive, he lies, manipulates, endulges in his own delusions. He kills everyone. But then, in the end he saves Curly. And kills himself because he is truly, deeply sorry for what he has done. That way, I think the game says our strongest moments do not define us. And we can extrapolate that logic to the thesis to make up our mind on it. It was a fat hint, but because it isn't clearly stated and left for a player to figure out it feels much more respectful. It's a pity that for that argument people don't actually have to ponder on the question at all, because there's nothing to prove to anyone when everyone already believes that.

Normally, with all the problems the story of this game has I would leave a negative review but I liked Mouthwashing strong enough not to do so. It truly deserves better.

Very cool. Please release it on Bandcamp. (you get bigger % from sales from there)

I was pretty excited about the game but once I actually played it I just didn't have fun.

The animations are gorgeous, but everything relating to the game is simply broken. Sometimes literally. I encountered numerous bugs such as getting stuck on repeating animations, not being able to press a button, disappearence of all sounds and some other little things.
The puzzles themselves are very unclear at times. I know this game is very abstract and that's the point, but it doesn't help when you need to kick some pillar and you don't even know that this pillar is interactable. You need to use some mechanism but it just doesn't work. Why? Because some cog rolled away and the game didn't put an emphasis on that, showing you some pretty animation of a weird creature instead. Also, you somehow should've made the connection that one object in one room relates to another object in another room. I refused to continue playing once character just ceased to interract with an object I clicked on. The puzzle was time-based and when I lost, I had to watch the same animation 4 times in a row. Not to say that at start I didn't even know what I needed to interract with - I had to use a guide.

Many pieces of Mr. Coo is so abstract it requires hints to play it. But when hints straight up tell you what to do it just becomes boring as I don't actually figure out the solution myself. I am thankful the game puts it on player to reveal the whole solution or just a part of it, but I still felt like I got robbed of some experience when I didn't understand unclear sequence.

I really wanted this game to be great because I know how hard it is to make all these animations. The attention to detail is honestly astonishing. But when we talk about the game part, it's just awful and not fun.

I can't believe I bought this game for that one scene in the toilet.

....how low have I fallen?

I thought, the biggest problem in Scorn is its combat. The character is very slow, the enemies often overpower you, the surroundings are just corridors. But it isn't. The problem is that player lacks motivation.

When starting the game, I don't know what the character wants and with such visuals I also have no idea what this world is. I don't know what I have to do, and why I have to do it. And in this case I don't fight enemies to get what I want but because I don't want to be bothered.

Same thing for puzzles, but on a bigger scale. Again, I don't know what I need to do. Then I figure out that to progress I need to open a door. To do that, I need to retrieve a key, and for that I have to solve a puzzle. Once I have completed the task and leave the area, Scorn leaves me aimless once again. The game pushes me to find new motivation to play. And I just didn't find it. I tried to play this game several times, but dropped it again and again because it was tedious.

Cut out enemies, cut out guns, cut out gameplay and leave walking around beautiful, disgusting, thrilling and provoking landscape of flesh. That would be a much better art piece than what we got - a mediocre game. What a shame so much of its content was cut.

I spoiled The Witness. I blame myself for watching someone else play it instead of experiencing it first hand, and while it was an interesting journey along with one youtuber, I certainly have failed my own enjoyment of discovery in this game. What can I say? I didn't even know what the game was. The Witness holds a lot of surprises. It is the game best played completely blind. Here I present my thoughts, but remember that my opinion might be shaped by someone else years ago. My criticism isn't "pure" and "proper".

When it comes to puzzles (the main attraction) the game falls flat in some areas. While most of the problems cleverly designed to involve player's surroundings, there are just so much of them that later puzzles reliant on it become trivial. At other times - rarely - I brute-forced some pannels because although some of them involved using environment, I still couldn't understand what the game wanted from me. Even after watching guides.
The final area has interesting ideas such as projecting a trail from a line you would have to draw on a pannel yourself, or integrating one puzzle as a part of the other. But it is the same place where instead of presenting even more unique tasks, the challenge is to just see the puzzle itself. It spins, it blinks, it changes colors... They are not hard to solve, just hard to comprehend because of visual effects.
Some concepts are overused in the game and become easy while others are so obscure you have to think even more out of the box to get to the solution. Tasks rarely fall inbetween. Probably The Witness wanted to make player go further an beyond thoughts they acclimate to over the course of playing, but I believe it would only work if the game had more of such demanding examples. Some panels could be taking you hours at a time to solve. It's a real pleasure if you do it them yourself, of course.

The ending is truly unsatisfying. But unlike some people, I think it is a good thing for The Witness. It is a game about perspective in more than one way: it is about people trying to make sense of the world around them. If you listened to enough voice-journals, you know it.
The Witness comments on it with environmental puzzles too. Walk around a flowerfield and at some point you might see the same symbol you draw on puzzle pannels. See a stain at the top of the chimney? If you walk far enough and find some pole, it might turn into another symbol. And the game is full of stuff like that. Just as the world around us. Or, we think it is. People try to solve the world around them - find the sourse of some phenomenon, give it meaning and etc. We are very good at connections and see them everywhere. And many think that it is because we see them, it is there. And for some reason too.
Now, imagine we got all the answers right. "*This* is how the Universe works, *this* is why it's happening and *this* is what it's for". Do you expect a cookie for that? When the game ends so ubruptly, erasing everything that you have done, not giving you any reward, isn't it the point of our efforts to study anything? As I see it, the game encourages you to look outside at your own life and find different perspectives on questiones you're bothered with.

And this is where The Witness contradicts itself in a way. If you striving for 100% completion, good luck. Literally, good luck. Some of the challenges The Witness presents in terms of these environmental puzzles (where you have to find this symbol in nature around you) are buried behind layers of 3D environment. There's just so many of them, that you might spend weeks trying to seach every inch of an island. It's rich with details. Too rich. And as much it is good for two separate people have two separate experiences with the game, it also means that the game never wants to be solved and plays against the player at times. Do you know that there is one puzzle that requires you to wait almost an hour to complete it because its beginning connects to the end with an object that moves along the screen veeeeeryyyy sloooowlyyyy? AND - get this - it's one of the films you might find in a game (You also don't know how long the film will take you to watch beforehand). So, if you find it, you probably will watch it first and MAYBE notice that there's a part of a puzzle. Then you will start searching for places where this part might fit and then you will have to watch this film AGAIN to finish the puzzle. This is terrible.

For a game that inspires curiosity, The Witness' secrets are so unbelievably time consuming, that it undermines the whole message of the game. At the same time its implementation makes perfect sense. Just hearing what different people have to say on topics of religion, culture, art and science makes you reflect on world around you. Maybe, The Witness is not the game that asks to be completed in any way, just as you can't complete life. Maybe you really just need to close it and go outside.

I recommend playing The WItness. I don't recommend finishing it.

I really want to recommend Paradise Marsh but to be honest I have mixed impressions after playing it again after the last update.

The thing is, this game is supposed to be relaxing. All you do is walk around and catch bugs and frogs, talk to birds and also interract with some random objects. The praphics are very cute, the music is chill, the illumination is soothing and warm. Very cozy. Game's world is very small, vibrant and has a lot of bioms to roam in. It's cool. What is not so cool is how much stuff there is now.

First you just search for bugs, then you are begginning to find these messages in a bottle. And that's pretty much all you're asked to do to finish the game. But Paradise Marsh quickly becomes surprisingly overwhelming because every 30 seconds or so some exciting *thing* happens and asks you to interract with it. You can build snowmen; skip rocks on water; collect trash; eat mushrooms, apples and drink energy drinks to run faster, eat some flower that will make you move faster; jump on tires; jump lily-pads; fish; make photographs and A TON of other stuff. Each of these 'points of interest' begs you to pay attention: "Look at me! Try me! Use me!" You could ignore it, but isn't it the opposite of what the game wants? If it wasn't the case, why would it throw an abundance of interactable objects?

I don't mind the variety of experiences Paradise Marsh provides. Frankly, the only issue I see is with how small this world is - this is the reason it is packed and you won't go 1 minute without finding anything. But it would be truly relaxing if you had to actually explore and search for those things. And the game simply doesn't allow it in current state.

Yes, I know the game is about death and coming to terms with it, but the story isn't the main point, I figured.