Recent reviews by foxtrot

Made me laugh out loud!

Signalis sits on the mantle alongside its two biggest inspirations, Resident Evil and Silent Hill, in scope and success. A return to form for survival horror that manages something new with the genre tropes and deliver an emotionally powerful story at the same time. A triumph of indie game development and must for any surival horror fan.

The good
– Gameplay manages to mostly exceed the tropes of the survival horror genre with intuitive but familiar mechanics that are extra rewarding for genre fans.
– The disjointed unreliable narrator presents a compelling, if not confusing, emotionally gripping story and world-building that rewards digesting every detail.
– The low-fidelity graphics have been given considerable care and the mixing of the 2D perspective with 3D models allows for effective use of lighting, atmospheric effects, and conveying depth.
– Music and sound effect work is exceptional.

The bad
– The anime aesthetic and ‘school life’ manga themes are going to be jarring. Perhaps if you enjoy that media, you’d like the style — but I personally found it out of place, both artistically and thematically, when contrasted with the much more poignant and interesting East German totalitarian aesthetic.
– Survival horror fans will not mind the inventory restrictions, but at the very least the flashlight should not take inventory space.
– Enemy attacks sometimes have a wide sweeping area-of-effect that isn’t telegraphed, and with such small arenas, it leads to taking damage when you are sure you were clear of an enemy’s range.

A lacklustre second-half lets down a strong opening. The real draw is the art direction -- particularly deep environmental story-telling and design establishes a fascinating and complex future dystopia.

But after a few hours the game begins to lose track of what made it so compelling. The environments appear rushed, with simple geometry and poor texturing. The player jumps from set-piece to set-piece so quickly, there is little in the way of story connecting them together. Long narrated on-a-rail sequences, jump puzzles, and vents lead to a lacklustre ending.

As a swan-song for the Source engine, and an exploration of the developer's own treatise on future dystopia, it is a fascinating game. Right now, though, its best as a curiosity for those who can get through the punishment.

I had fun doing the dishes, and I have no idea why.

Could've been something great, but for what it is, its still very enjoyable and difficult to master.

A standard in game design and story-telling

Terrifying.

Of the GameCube original, or the PS2 port, this version is certainly the worst. Performance issues are almost constant, every cutscene has audio desync issues, and the game has a nasty habit to crash when opening doors seemingly at random. Inferior to the original in every way, not worth the stress at any price.

A classic bought back up to standard. Netcode can be buggy at times, but mostly solid regardless.

Straight up, not as good as the first. Has all the right things going for it, except its clear the wanted to make a film more than a game, and the actual time spent playing was far far less that the time it took to watch the cutscenes. Disappointing.