Recent reviews by egghole

One of the few games that made me go "Oh ♥♥♥♥, is that me? Is that what i'm like?" and encouraged me to make some changes for the best (Mia, I failed you and myself; we shouldn't be afraid of conflict. Mia, noooo!).

This is a charming game that I could not put down until i reached the ending. The soundtrack and visuals are so soothing, the characters fun to interact with (I love you Justin, you magnificent beast, you), and the mini-game component of replacing parts and cutting out boards to perfections is really engaging and fun; I was always looking forward to repairs, not dreading them.

I do think the emotion meter sets up social interactions in an unhealthy way, but it is a game mechanic, and for what it is, the meter does its job well by being a gauge of someone's emotions and attitudes as you navigate conversation in lieu of something more nuanced. It is a bit funny that Chris never acknowledges that the meter he built is the reason he is so persuasive; mainly because it would be creepy.

The only thing that peeved me was how i was often given only one way to react to my thoughts and dreams regarding the past, in addition to never being able to express doubt about the time machine to PET until the end. But that's just me adapting to playing the role of someone else, instead of being a self-insert.

I digress, if you're thinking about buying this game, I can't recommend it enough <3

Just as with Rebirth, I discovered this game's release by accident, and bought it immediately. I am always excited by new projects from Frictional. I went in completely blind, and so I can say that this experience was entirely my own. So here are my thoughts:

This installment of Amnesia is built around a very small play area that is packed with terror, atmosphere, and mechanical freedom and intrigue. Whereas with TDD, you had a whole castle to explore and would move from level to level through points of no return, the bunker setting has you returning to the same areas repeatedly with a safe room as your anchor. It's great concept and I think it was well executed.

I read almost all the notes and collected all but one dog tag by the end, and I'm pleased with the story. I was able to put together what was happening.

Amnesia is nothing without its monsters, so what do we have? Well, there are large, aggressive rats, and the stalker. There are also passive threats, such as tripwires rigged to various handhend explosives and utilities. Lets talk about how they all play together.

The stalker is very noise sensitive, and in the enclosed bunker space, every pin drop can be heard. It makes for a tense atmosphere. Sometimes, there are scripted events to introduce you to new threats, but for the most part, the stalker only comes out when you make too much noise. This rewards a slower, more careful playstyle. Everything you interact with makes noise, especially your wind-up flashlight, which immediately introduces a nice compromise: create light at the cost of detection.

In the darkness, the tripwires can be hard to spot. Some are lethal to you directly, and others are lethal to you because they attract the stalker. You can jump over them if timed right, but you cannot disarm them (well, maybe you could with the bolt cutters, but there were no more tripwires by the time I got them). The tripwires force you to pay attention to where you'd walking. Carelessness will leave you worse for wear.

The rats congregate at corpses which contain resources and dogtags which may have a code to unlock their corresponding locker in the storage room. You can kill the rats or scare them off. Get too close, and the swarm will attack and make a bunch of noise, which could draw out the stalker. Really neat mechanic. You are often provided tools to get the rats away, such as crafting a torch or a molotov. I didn't know I could make a torch until the end credits scoreboard.

Oh yes, there is a scoreboard. I was confused by this. It seems out of place in an Amnesia game. This is supposed to be replayed. I don't think I will, though, any time soon, and here's why:

This game was terrifying, but it was also suffocating. At first, when I knew nothing about the monster, every excursion sent my heart rate up. Because of the small map, the design makes these little explorations incredibly taxing. This draws things out. Ultimately, I reached a point where, to make progress, I had to stifle that fear by giving up and letting myself get killed. I saw the monster up close, saw how it killed, saw how it behaved, and then I wasn't scared of it anymore. I was then able to keep playing the game, now that the mystique was cleared.

I didn't like doing this, honestly. it felt cheesy and I wish it weren't necessary for me to complete my objectives with cunning confidence.

The greatest challenge offered by the game is fuel management and monster intelligence. The bunker has lights, but they are powered by a generator which you must refuel with resources found outside the saferoom. IF you run out of fuel, the lights go out. With the lights out, the monster will freely roam the bunker spaces and will be attracted by fewer significant player noises. The threshold for summoning the stalker is lower. This makes running out of fuel the biggest hurdle in the game. If you try to explore an area for the next objective in the dark, you will find yourself hiding for a long time. But hiding doesn't make it safe.

The Bunker allows you to hide under tables, desks, and yes, wardrobes! Classic. But the beast is not so easily fooled. When searching a room, eventually, it will smash the table for tear open the wardrobe. Hiding is temporary and maybe be more dangerous than confrontation.

So, how can you confront the beast? You are given many options. You have your revolver, whose bullet supply is very very scarce. There are grenades, which are best used to open doors (if there are no bricks around). Flares will distract the beast. Gas grenades are my favorite, since you can just put on a gas mask and watch all the rats and the stalker flee. Molotovs are good area denial. There's the shotgun, which you get in the endgame. You could lead the beast into a tripwire. The game almost encourages you to play aggressive instead of passively with the stalker. There are so few places to hide adequately. If you're not in the safe room, you could very well be killed.

To finalize my thoughts, I think The Bunker is a really neat experiment and it's nice to see the developers trying something new. But exploring the space and dealing with the monster was not fun. It was slow and grueling and I was glad when it finally ended. I think it's still worth playing and experiencing for yourself, but I'm not eager to revisit this installment. Like Rebirth, the game introduces new mechanics to play around with in a classic Frictional style, and if you've been a fan over the years, you'll likely get something out of this experience. The game encourages creative problem-solving, so go on in and adapt. Just don't expect a fast pace.

This is short, cute puzzle platformer with a beautiful visual style and a soundtrack that is making me cry. If you liked Limbo and Inside, you will enjoy Planet of Lana.

As of 3/1/2023:

I like this game. As it is still in early access, I cannot speak in concrete terms, as you may be seeing this upon full release. The controls and ROV operations are good. It's a god foundation. THe only thing that's leaving me wanting is a much more vivid marine life environment full of life. So much of what there is to scan and discover is repetitive benthic species; with the exception of charismatic megafauna encountered while lowering the ROV through the water column. Even with the abundant inverts on the sea floor, the benthic environment is barren and nothing feels real and alive.

I hope, however, that when the game reaches gold, that that will change. The ocean is full of unique, ediverse, and bustling life, This game only scratches the surface of its potential. For what it is as of this writing, it is worth supporting. And I look forward to seeing greater developments that enhance the experience.

I will separate my review into sections so that you may jump to the aspects of the game that you may find most important in your purchasing decision. I will also include a spoilered section where I will wax poetic about the game's themes, because I'm feeling inspired.

Table of Contents:

[1] Gameplay
[2] Graphics and World
[3] Story and Talent
[4] Bugs
[5] Wax Poetic

[1] Gameplay

As an adventure game, Deliver Us Mars provides an accessible and engaging set of rather simple mechanics. Nothing is too hard to learn or grasp. While the puzzles are relatively simple (compared to puzzles from, say, The Talos Principle), they provide a nice pace breaker and a good challenge of the mind. None of the puzzles were particularly mind-boggling to me; and that's okay. I appreciate the context they provide to the world and story.

Climbing represents a unique traversal challenge when moving through the world. It sometimes is not tutorialized very well, as is the case in chapter six, but it is not absurdly difficult to understand. After enough practice, you will develop the muscle memory and techniques to adeptly and quickly traverse walls in climbing sections. It is quite satisfying to climb a surface with no errors and see the progress you've made in this skill.

In sections when you are helping control a ship, you engage with the instruments in a satisfying sequential quick-time event. It provides excellent context and fulfilled my dream of being an astronaut. None of the controls are particularly hard to discern, even amongst the clutter. It is pleasing.

I will say that in some circumstances, I, as a player, made decisions that the devs clearly didn't account for. For example, in the prologue, Kathy's father, Isaac, asks Kathy to come back from the lakeside dock to keep her moonbear plushie out of the water. I stopped and walked back to Isaac on the porch, and he just stood there with no interact prompt. A couple more times throughout the game, stuff like this happened.

Other than all that, the gameplay is pretty walking-simulator-esque; and that's okay. With the puzzles, plot, and climbing, I truly felt like I was on an adventure.

[2] Graphics and World

Here, the game takes quite a few hits. The world, from Earth to Mars to space ships, do not feel lived in. They feel artificial and uncanny. NPCs are often just standing or sitting in simple animation loops. They do not comment on their surroundings or do anything a normal person would do, even if you walked up to them or bumped into them. It creates this unnatural and unsettling tone that persists throughout the entire game.

Facial animations outside of pre-rendered cutscenes are lacking, even on max settings, and sometimes character will speak without their mouths moving or syncing correctly. Body movements are stiff and unconvincing. Even in cutscenes, you can clearly see where the developers spent most of their time; that being with the player character, Kathy. These rigid NPC animations and details often defuse crucial emotional moments in the plot.

I don't feel as though I'm being unfair when I say that this world feels unnatural. The opening chapter of this game has you play as a child version of Kathy. Her body and face don't look like that of a child. They look like a squished adult form. This transfers over to the adult version of Kathy. I don't fault the developers that much for this, however, as even critically acclaimed games like The Witcher 3 struggle to make convincing children in video games.

[3] Story and Talent

This game's redemption arc concludes here. The story is wonderful. It has enough mystery to keep you engaged and it explores themes that make you stop and think about where you stand. Despite the poor facial and bodily animations, the voice acting is amazing. It carries every moment where people are talking to one another. With fixes to the animations, I think this game will be a slam dunk. I always wanted to come back and continue the story to find out what happens next. To piece together what exactly happened to Outward. I even got teary eyed from time to time. The writers and talent directors clearly knew what they were doing, and it paid off well.

[4] Bugs

As I mentioned, there are times when the in-game NPC's faces do not emote inline with their speech. In addition, there was a moment where I ran ahead of two NPCs in a flashback sequence and they did not follow. I walked all the way to the destination and had to run all they way back to them in order to trigger their movement and dialogue. It was a bit irritating. Other than that, no issues.

Cheers.

The water tool is so basic and limiting that I just cannot realize my visions. Water can only exist on flat surfaces. Want a river snaking down from a mountain and into a lowland swamp or lake? No chance. At best, you can have a waterfall. One stagnant pool of water dripping into the next, like steps of a stair. Is it really that hard to simulate liquid behavior??? I regret spending five hours in this game before realizing this. I'm so disappointed that I'm uninstalling it. A waste of $25.

First things first:

- To NVIDIA GPU havers: regardless of what the benchmark tells you, go to settings>graphics>textures and switch the filtering from AMD whatever to Temporal, and set textures and texture filtering to high. If you do not do this, in-world text is unreadable.

- Disabling motion blur and V-sync did indeed help reduce stutter


Now for the Review:

TL;DR stuff:

Total playtime, start to end, on normal difficulty: 13 hours
Graphics: Stunning
Combat: Intense and fun
Game Feel: Excellent
Plot: Nothing special
Characters: Paper thin
Dialogue: Clunky, unnatural, and awkward
World building: Serviceable
Atmosphere: Excellent

Recommendation: Maybe wait for a discount. I personally think the game should be in the $20-$40 range, given the relatively short playtime and low replayability factor.

In-depth:


This is the spiritual successor to Dead Space. Right down to the back-mounted GUI, to telekinesis, to the array of horrifying monsters for you to kill in whatever fashion you fancy, and then stomping their corpses for loot; There is even a object-dodge fall from the sky as seen in Dead Space 2. If you liked Dead Space and you have a NASA computer, you will enjoy the gameplay of The Callisto Protocol.

Unlike Dead Space, there is en emphasis on melee combat and hybrid melee-gun play, it is really engaging. If you pick this up, though: DO NOT INVEST IN BLOCKING FOR THE STUN BATON. Why? You still take damage when you block, and the follow up strike only lands once and trips the enemy over. You can't really combo it, it doesn't work on powerful enemies, and you can get killed doing this. Not worth the Callisto Credits. Dodging left-right is free, and works on all enemies, except for ranged attacks.

Gun play itself is alright. I never bought any weapons, despite finding all the schematics. I only upgraded the free weaponry the game handed to me on my journey, and had a lot of fun the GRP "Grip" (telekinesis) was a lot of fun to use. While you can't rip off limbs and propel them to impale enemies, the game gives you plenty of environmental options to annihilate mutants by launching them at at spike grids, or just flat walls as a specific distance if you max out the damage upgrades. the GRP really becomes my first-choice when it's fully upgraded. The GRP battery will onyl recharge when there are no enemies scripted to appear or present nearby, so recharge upgrades are a bit underpowered, since there is enough time between combat encounters fora full recharge, anyways. Instead, investing in damage and capacity will get the most value out of the GRP. Once your charge is out, it's gone until combat ends, unless you have consumable battery packs.

Early-on, its use is limited. The GRP can not be used on boss' or mini-boss', though, so investing in the GRP will not help you there. Picking up and flinging objects does not cost GRP energy, either, so when the game places explosives for you the hurl at a boss, or beefy enemy, you can do so without having to invest any credits into the GRP.

That being said, I advise upgrading the hand canon and riot gun up to, but not including, the alt-fire modes. You will get he most value out of the gun play mechanics by doing this. But by all means, if you want to play this game like the Third-person shooter, go ahead. Try out your own builds.

[BEYOND HERE BE SPOILERS, BEWARE]

The story is nothing special. When the big mystery is answered, it doesn't feel all that satisfying. Not because I wasn't provided enough information, but because it was. . . typical. This is partly due to the characters. They are so paper-thin and unlikable, save for Elias, who is killed off midway through when you just start to get to know him beyond his friendly and co-operative personality.The player character is so hostile to everyone, states the obvious, asks the wrong questions, and I don't like him. I'd have preferred a silent protagonist over Jacob.

Jacob's co-pilot, Max, dies in the crash that the game opens on. This is supposed to be heavy loss, but the player will never feel it. We spend maybe 1 minutes with Max before he is killed off, and we know nothing about him. The game has the audacity to inject Max's corpse throughout the game, as though this is supposed to be emotional or scary. It's unearned. Contrast this with Isaac Clark's dead wife. In game 1, you progress and learn more about her final moments on the ship. The loss of Isaac's wife becomes heavier the more you learn. In Dead Space 2, her specter haunts Isaac in a similar fashion as Max does, but it actually means something. You have the context and connection. But you learn little and less of who Max was and his importance in Jacob's life as you play through the game. So when he pops up, I do not care.

The writers did not give the player reasons to care about its characters. Elias is unique in that his role in Jacob's, and therefor the player's, life is brand new and is explored as such. You form a kind of relationship with Elias, and you may have wondered from the start why Elias was imprisoned in Black Iron. Jacob doesn't think to ask this until half-way through the game, and we get this real, human moment between two people. We get a glimpse into Elias' character, and it should have been the tip of the iceberg. But it's not. He's immediately killed after this moment. Fulstop.

Diana (IIRC, that's her name) is the Outer Way member who boards your ship in the intro. She's being framed for the incident on Europa, something that was immediately obvious to me. In response to this boarding, Jacob open the cargo door in space, and shuts the cockpit airlock door in order to purge the invaders while keeping he and Max alive. Diana decides to shoot out the window of this cockpit door (Really? Really??? The most important door that isolates the operator from the massive space behind them has a window on it???). This is what causes the ship to crash. Put a pin in this, I will be returning to it, later.

It is revealed that Diana lost her daughter in the Europa outbreak, and she tracked the contagions arrival to Jacob's ship. Jacob, it is later revealed, smuggled this contagion unknowingly. He knew he was smuggling something, but the specifics were unknown. This is supposed to be Jacob's guilt; that it's his fault for the Europa outbreak; that it's his fault Max died. These are the events that lay the groundwork for his boring redemption arc. Except. . . neither of those things are his fault??? Sure, he was the vehicle for the outbreak, but he didn't know what was on board. And how could he have known the Diana was going to shoot out the window when he open the cargo bay? That is out of his control. That is not his fault. Why does he feel so guilty about all this?

Diana is an okay character. She's your typical masculine female video game protagonist with a one-dimensional personality. She gets more backstory than Elias, but that backstory is nothing special. The only reason Diana and Jacob didn't co-operate until after Elias' death is because Jacob was way to hostile towards her up until that point. It was actually pissing me off how aggressive Jacob was. Like, why aren't you asking her why she boarded your ship? Why are you trying to square up instead of seeking answers and closure?

The game ends on a cliffhanger that hints at a sequel, or perhaps a DLC. We shall see. Despite my grievances with the writing, I look forward to this. As I said, the combat, game feel, and atmosphere are so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. It's worth it for that.

Some miscellaneous critiques: I wish there was a New Game+ so I could replay it with my upgraded weapons for funsies. There were some performance issues, but I was able to tune most of them out. There absolutely needs to be a cutscene skip option.

H. R. Giger meets I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Scorn is one of the most unique horror experiences I've endured. The masterful artistry combined with the grotesque imagery makes for an unforgettable visual environment. The lack of dialogue leaves pretty much everything about this world open to your interpretation. Having just finished it, I'm still processing everything I just went through. Trying to figure out what happened in this place and what my purpose was.

I honestly cannot tell if this game is weird for the sake of being weird, or if there is some underlying truth to everything that can be reached with careful examination. In either case, this game is art. It's terrifying and existential. It's unknowable. It left me wanting for answers, and for that, I have nothing left for my thoughts. That is raw. There's nothing profound about contemporary life to compare and contrast. Rather, you're left trying to make sense of the world of Scorn on its own terms.

Enough with the abstract, I'm going to get into the mechanical review. The game does not allow you to manually save, and the auto saves are few and far between. So if you ♥♥♥♥ up and die, it is punishing. When you it down to play Scorn, set aside a couple hours to make it the length of an entire act. There is no pausing and saving for later when something comes up.

In an irl sense, this is frustrating. In a gameplay sense, this makes monster encounters extra gripping. You become more cautions and cunning. You have to. You must read your environment or have all that time wasted.

Movement and weapon play is pretty rigid, and physical interaction with the game environment is lackluster. But, to the game's credit, the push-button interactions you do have are made organic in that everything your hands do is shown.

That's another wonderful thing. Nothing is explained. There are no notes, or flashbacks, or voice logs. The world you are in is both alien and human. And you must figure it all out on your own. It was rewarding, if not annoying, since I didn't figure out how to heal until the end of act 2.

On the subject of "non-linearity," I don't buy it. You have a personal, and ultimately meaningless (to the plot) decision in Act 1 and sometimes you can chose to run away from an enemy and wait for it to despawn, rather than fight it. Everything feels very scripted and linear. Linearity is not inherently a flaw. A straightforward and directed experience can be very beneficial; and in the case of Scorn, I think it benefits from being linear with just personal choices along the way.

If you try to rush through this game, you will miss out. Taking in and considering the area I was in could be deeply disturbing, curious, breathtaking, mysterious, and awesome. I believe the devs when they say that paying attention to the world is essential. There's nothing else to put the pieces together.

I think this game will spark a lot of discussion among passionate players once they reach the end. And I lok forward to being part of those discussions. I have much to say, but not in a spoiler-free review. If you lie first-person horror games and have a beefy computer, go for it. Don't listen to me, or trailers, or other reviews. Make this whole experience your own and reflect on it. Cheers.

My cat unironically likes this game. I've never seen him so focused on the screen like this. He sees and recognized the virtual cat and looks on with curiosity; even so far as to rush to the screen and swat at our little adventurer. I love this game. The music is amazing, the worldbuilding is amazing, and the character are lovely.

This game is about 6 hours long if you don't go around trying to 100% it. Collectibles, such as pins, are awarded for helping out some of the companions. I think there are only four you can get. The only other thing to scour for are memories, which are found through exploration. The memories can offer some flavor and worldbuilding, and the pins are just cosmetic.

This game is not difficult. It's a pretty casual experience, and is pretty linear. I still love it for the novelty of play as a literal cat. You can meow! Knock ♥♥♥♥ over! Trip people! Be a menace! All in Stray.

Oh, the memories!