Reseñas recientes de svenevil

Is this game a masterpiece? Yes - Suikoden I & II were good. Really good. The two games have been repeatedly described by connoisseurs as two of the best Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) ever produced. However, part one was released in 1995 for the PlayStation (and later for the SEGA Saturn) and part two in 1998 (also for PlayStation). There haven't really been many conversions to other systems, at least not in English. That's why I'm pretty excited for this remaster.

The Suikoden (Gensō Suikoden) role-playing game series consists of five parts (and a few spin-offs), though the later installments (released for the PlayStation 2) weren't quite as well received by critics. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, a spiritual successor to the Suikoden series, was released in 2024. The world of Suikoden is not completely new - it is more or less loosely based on the Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan (The Thieves of Liang Shan Marsh) and adopts numerous motifs from the novel.

After starting, you can choose which part you want to play. In the first part of the series, we take on the role of a young hero from a noble family (we can choose our own name) who joins the Liberation Army, a resistance group that fights against the corrupt government. You control your group of heroes from above through towns and dungeons as you learn more and more about the world. There is no single villain or kidnapped princess, but you learn more about the whole world through countless individual fates. The game is more reminiscent of a political simulation in role-playing game form than a typical heroic story. For example, you get to know the 108 Stars of Destiny - 108 different heroes who can join you. Many of them as fighters for your party (of up to six people), but some also as residents of your castle, the headquarters of the Liberation Army.

The battle system is based on the old Final Fantasy games. When you encounter enemies, you can choose whether to fight them, run away or try to appease them with money. You can also let the battles take place completely automatically. Your heroes either stand in the front row (melee fighters) or can shoot from behind from the second row with ranged weapons. You choose a specific action each round (attack, defend, use item), as do your opponents. Magic is of course also present in the game - characters can be equipped with runes, which can have very different magical effects. Runes can provide attack spells as well as passive bonuses. Particularly important are the individual weapons, which can be improved in many levels by the blacksmith. In addition to the normal battles, Suikoden also features large-scale battles involving entire armies. Although these are not as detailed as in the Total War series, for example, they make a nice change and are also quite exciting thanks to their rock/scissors/paper principle. The duels, in which you fight against individual opponents 1v1, also follow the same principle.

With a playing time of around 25 hours, Suikoden I Gate Rune is rather short, while the second part is around twice as long. Dunan Unification Wars is generally a consistent further development of the first part. The developers have taken the criticisms of the first part to heart and delivered an even more spectacular game. At the beginning, you play two young people who manage to escape a massacre at the last second and learn about a terrible betrayal in the process. In terms of gameplay, not much has changed compared to the first part, the improvements are in the details. For example, heroes can now carry more than just one rune. The army battles now take place a little differently, but are not a core game element. Cooking duels, a small but nice mini-game, are a new addition. The bottom line is that Suikoden 2 is not only the best part of the Suikoden series, but one of the best JRPGs of all time.

Why should you play the new version and not the original? Do you own the original games? Part 2 in particular is comparatively rare and the price of a well-preserved (English) game is not exactly an occasion. Well, and then of course there's the higher resolution, which makes the remaster look great on new monitors. Many parts of the graphics (e.g. backgrounds, portraits) have also been redrawn - with considerably more colors. The sound has been completely overhauled and now sounds much better than on the PlayStation - why do you have that great soundbar? Even more important, however, are all the menus - the higher resolution made it possible to rework the menus and make them much clearer. The gameplay itself is also smoother now. You can let the battles run automatically, you can click on faster. The movement of the characters has also been accelerated - you can now dash from the start.

Conclusion:
Two of the most successful JRPGs in the early PlayStation years that JRPG fans should not miss out on. Both games boast a large number of characters and a highly complex story. Back then, the games were absolutely trend-setting, today they are still highly varied and exciting and clearly stand out from a typical standard JRPG. There are hardly any other role-playing games with so many great little stories. True collectors will of course hunt down the expensive original PlayStation releases, but for those who just want to play the classics, this new remaster is ideal. For a reasonable price, you can get both games together in a polished version that runs smoothly on current PCs.

Is this game a masterpiece? Yes - at least now, since the massive technical problems from the PC-launch (DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG) have been finally patched.

The story builds on its predecessor, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The two playable superheroes Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and his friend Miles Morales face off against the evil supervillain Kraven, who is causing chaos in New York. Kraven is looking for a personal challenge and has chosen New York because of its above-average density of superheroes to go hunting... kind of reminds me of Predator. And then there's a new character in the game: Venom. A creature from outer space that bears a certain resemblance to the aliens designed by H.R. Giger. Venom forms a symbiotic relationship with Peter Parker, which doesn't necessarily have a positive effect on his mental health.

25-year-old Peter Parker, who lives with his aunt, has just started work as a physics teacher at a college where his 17-year-old friend Miles Morales is also a student. Both were once bitten by a radioactively contaminated spider and now have spider superpowers - albeit with different specializations. As soon as lessons begin, the first fiend attacks New York. Sandman is devastating the city and the two superheroes are trying to stop him. Water is his great weakness, so the fire department would actually make more sense than beating him with your fists and shooting spider webs at him. Anyway, after we have swung our way along the skyscrapers to the scene of the action, the boss fight begins. The controls are explained and the boss fight is also the tutorial, in which we take turns playing both heroes.

The gameplay is very similar to its predecessors. At its core, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is a beat em up. Large groups of opponents have to be beaten up by our heroes using their superpowers and some technical gadgets. Dodge enemy attacks, immobilize opponents with the spider web or pull them towards you, hurl objects at opponents using the spider rope, change locations quickly with the help of your super strength and hit them hard with your steel-hard fist and feet in close combat. Spectacular finishers are something to behold, but don't forget to heal in time. If you're skillful, it looks fantastic and plays brilliantly. If you are clumsy, it looks stupid and the opponents will beat you up. The fights are surprisingly varied. In addition to the basic abilities, your heroes also have a whole host of special abilities (Peter, for example, has a few new tricks thanks to his symbiosis with Venom, or he uses the tried and tested Spider Barrage, Miles kills several opponents at once with his Venom Punch) and new toys (such as the Web Wings to glide through the air a little).

By earning experience points in the game (by completing missions and successful battles) you will receive skill points, which you can use to learn new attacks and moves. There is a skill tree for both heroes together, and each of the two also has their own. With the help of a special app on our cell phone, we are alerted to crimes that are taking place, where groups of heavily armed criminals usually want to pull off a coup. If we prevent these coups, we receive special points to buy or improve technological toys. Often, citizens are simply in distress and we have to put out a fire, for example, so that people can get to safety. Spider-Man doesn't usually kill his opponents (at least you don't really see that in the game), but only incapacitates them - at least if they are human opponents. Despite all the violence, the game is therefore at least not as abnormally brutal as a Doom or a Call of Duty, for example. It's just a Marvel comic in which the opponents fight each other with deadly weapons and beat each other up with superhuman strength, but (almost) never kill. It always reminds me of wrestling. Non-human opponents are of course eliminated. If one of our superheroes dies, we simply continue playing at the last automatic save point. And that actually happens quite quickly, especially when we are shot at by criminals with automatic rifles. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has quite an extensive story, but it also has a decent open-world component. Many of the missions are optional, but provide experience and useful technology upgrades.

Cloud saves are of course supported, as are the competitor's Xbox game controllers. The customization options to suit your preferences (or your system) are generally enormous. Linking to your PSN account is possible, but not necessary.

Conclusion:
The release of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was too early, but now it finally is what it should have been at release - a great and thoroughly improved sequel to the already fantastic first part.

Is this game a masterpiece? No, not yet. Build an Empire to Stand the Test of Time... but this time, your empire will definitely NOT stand the test of time and be dissolved. This is one of the main new twists - you will go through three ages, no matter what you do. Switching to a new age after a certain amount of turns almost feels like a complete restart of the game. In a new age, your old civilization is gone. Not completely, but to a large extent. A few hundred years have passed since the end of the last age, and you start from scratch. You build your new empire on the achievements of the previous age and take some bonuses (and your leaders) with you into the new age, but a lot of things are simply - gone. Or reset. All civilizations start again - more or less - with the same basic level. This is great if your civilization was a little behind. It reminded me a little of the ‘rubber-banding’ of some racing games, where even drivers who are far behind are suddenly catapulted back to the front somehow so that the race remains exciting for everyone. So you won't come across a knight sinking a battleship with his sword.

It's been almost 10 years since the last part of the Civilization series was released? How quickly time flies There's nothing better than following a civilization from the founding of its first city to the invention and use of the atomic bomb. The original Civilization by Sid Meier from 1991 is one of the most ingenious and influential computer games of all time. It may not have been the very first 4X game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate), but it had a lasting impact on the genre and left its mark on it. Just as Dune II introduced the basic rules of real-time strategy games in 1992, which are still relevant today, Civilization also implemented game mechanics for the first time that still form the basic framework for almost all 4X games today. And there are many imitators, not least the long-running Civilization series itself. The predecessor Sid Meier's Civilization VI was released in 2016 and did not receive particularly good reviews when it was released. The game was said to be too “comic-like”, not “serious” and also inferior to its predecessor Sid Meier's Civilization V (released in 2010) in all respects. Well, that's what can happen when you release a sequel to a brilliant game that has been improved with patches and expansions for years. Yes, Sid Meier's Civilization VI has changed a lot compared to its predecessor (and had a few teething problems when it was released), but overall, it was also an excellent game - just different from its (really good) predecessor. Personally, I actually liked the fifth part better, but I'm still glad that new paths were taken for the sixth part - otherwise I could have simply continued playing the fifth part for another 10 years. The ratings for Sid Meier's Civilization VI have gotten better and better over the years, after several paid expansions and also extensive patches have massively improved the game - and the initial shock of the fanboys about the changes had faded. In the end, both Part 5 and Part 6 are great games - and fortunately not completely identical. A similar thing has happened now - Part VII is different than the older games.

The basic gameplay is of course similar - you lead a civilization through the millennia. You start by founding a city, build new units and buildings, explore the environment, research new technologies (such as writing or agriculture), defend yourself against warlike inhabitants of the world and enter into diplomatic relations with the other major civilizations. The game is turn-based, you can move your units every turn and place new construction or research orders (which usually take several turns to complete). The addictive factor is like in the earlier games - just one more round... until the morning comes and I have to go to the office. Each city automatically generates food, production points and research points, which you can (and must, or your civilization will not develop any further). Cities grow continuously and take up more and more land if the conditions are right. Meanwhile, your units discover the - initially completely unexplored - surroundings of the city and find new resources or other cities. You are spoilt for choice right from the start - build this or that, research this or that? Every building, every unit, every research has its advantages and disadvantages. You will soon be able to focus on a specific goal - for example, do you want to become a military superpower, a center of science or a major economic power? Choose the appropriate advisor, who will give you useful advice. How do you deal with other rulers? Do you want to co-operate or confront them aggressively? Which form of government will you choose? Despotism has its advantages, but perhaps an oligarchy would be better? As you can see, there are countless decisions that have to be made every round right from the start. At the beginning, you choose the starting age (Ancient, Modern, Modern), then your civilization (10 available) and your leader (who doesn't have to have anything to do with the historical civilization). For example, I played as Confucius the Wise with the Roman Empire. Each civilization has some unique units, bonuses and its own development tree, some of which can be carried over to the next era as ‘traditions’. Some things cannot be selected in the first game - they have to be unlocked in-game. Unusual for a Civilization... now with roguelite elements, too?

The problem with the ‘one military unit per hex’ is now solved in that your general can take his entire army with him - and then unload it at the destination if necessary - it's much more convenient to play this way. You can now send warships along rivers - that's cool. ‘Gunboat diplomacy’ not just along the sea coast. In general, micromanagement has been reduced. There are a lot of tutorials, which are annoying for experienced Civilization players and overwhelming for newcomers - but I still didn't know several times why this or that didn't work again. A few well-placed hints wouldn't have hurt. The user interface seems a little cumbersome and in need of improvement in some places - or I'm just too slow on the uptake. The diplomacy system is a little simpler than it used to be - there are no more detailed negotiations about certain resources. Instead, you are sometimes given entire cities as a peace offering. Barbarians from previous instalments are now independent cities. Some are hostile from the start, but with enough influence (a new currency used for every diplomatic interaction) you can pacify them all permanently. Influence is also used for espionage - but you can no longer do much with espionage. Religion is also greatly simplified - you can now apparently only send missionaries to convert other cities.

Victory in a complete game of Sid Meier's Civilization VII can be achieved in various ways - military victory (even without destroying all opponents), economic dominance, researching three special scientific projects or a cultural victory. The end is often very unexpected - not like in Age of Empires, for example, where a ‘world wonder’ victory is initiated with a countdown and all the other players try like mad to destroy the wonder quickly. In Sid Meier's Civilisation VII, the computer-controlled opponents are a little more passive. But it is always difficult to program a sensible AI in such complex games, and this was always a point of much discussion in earlier series derivations.

Conclusion:
The game plays rather differently from the older parts. While it has been simplified (taking console gamers into consideration?), it is still not a game for beginners.

Is this game a masterpiece? Yes, absolutely, there is no better way to experience the life of a knight in the year 1403! Sword fighting, archery, sneaking, horse riding, a dramatic, brutal story with lots of twists and cutscenes. The game continues the story of the first instalment. We once again play as Heinrich von Skalitz, the (adopted) son of a blacksmith, who now works as a personal bodyguard for the nobleman Sir Hans Capon after all the dramatic events of the first instalment. We accompany him on a mission, but deep inside us lies the desire for revenge on Markvart. Revenge for the murder of our foster parents, and we also want to get back the noble sword that our foster father forged before his death and that was stolen as a trophy.

The game begins and all seems peaceful - our master has been commissioned to deliver a letter to Lord Otto von Bergow. As the postal service in 1403 was as reliable as the parcel services today, we prefer to deliver the sealed letter in person. So we ride in a small group of six men through Bohemia - which was quite sparsely populated at the time - and look forward to a bit of variety in the pub after delivering the letter. Bohemia was in turmoil at the time, however, because King Sigismund of Hungary had laid claim to the throne after the rightful king, his brother King Wenceslas IV, was captured by rebels. The best way to support such claims at the time was with an army, which now marched through the country and fought any nobles who refused to submit. There are those loyal to the king, rebels and, of course, bandits roaming the countryside. In short, the country is sinking into chaos and war. Just like the Middle Ages.

Of course, the delivery of the letter and subsequent rest in the pub does not go as planned. Careless behavior leads to the death of our people, we ourselves and our master only escape badly injured and find refuge with an old healer (with a daughter worth seeing) who helps us back on our feet. The letter is gone, as are our clothes, weapons, horses, companions, our faithful dog and everything else we had with us. Even our skill points have been reduced - because of the serious injury. Our enemies are searching the area for us - not a good starting point.

We now have to find our way around this world. This requires proper equipment. Sword, shield, crossbow, armor, a belt for a few weapons, a pouch for a few potions. The whole inventory management is much more complex than in most other games. The helmet, for example - you can't just pull any metal bucket over your head - you also need a soft base under the helmet. It's the same with the armor - you can't just wear it directly on your body, you need a padded vest in between. You can approach the game in different ways - with eloquence, by sneaking around (not in full armor, please), or with brute force. Soon you are faced with a large open world - small villages, bustling towns, mighty fortresses - inhabited by a variety of NPCs with whom we can interact - friendly or brutal? Soon we have several side quests to choose from, which can distract us from our main quest - but which can influence the game in different ways. And I don't mean that we receive a quest reward in the form of 100 pennies, for example - but through new allies or enemies, or developments that have an impact on the main story. Not even the brilliant Witcher 3 managed to make a world feel so realistic. We need food, a place to sleep, a little money... Just stealing anything lying around is not healthy - it leads to problems with the rightful owners.

The realistic depiction sometimes even goes a little too far. For example, you also have to brew potions. Find the ingredients, usually herbs of some kind. Then you need a place to brew the potion. A cauldron, a fire, a mortar. You look at the instructions in recipe book, then choose the liquid (water, wine, oil,...), heat it to the correct temperature, take the correct number of herbs, crush them (if necessary) in a mortar, add them to the potion and then bottle the result. Each step allows for slight variations, depending on the recipe. This all takes time - simply brewing a potion takes a little longer than quickly crafting a new laser pistol in most sci-fi survival games...

The world of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is significantly larger than its predecessor. However, it is also filled with exciting stories and not just empty dazzle. Inhabitants going about their daily business (working, sleeping), having their own stories and problems and a variety of (often very creative) quests and other activities to pursue really bring the Kingdom of Bohemia to life - really great, but also a little scary. This is not a one-night stand - it will keep you glued to your screen for far longer.

The world is brutal. We can avoid many fights, but we can't do it without fighting. And when we do fight, we shouldn't lose - because defeat often means our death (and a reset to the last automatic save point). The most important weapon in close combat - at least for a knight - was the sword. But wielding it is not quite so easy. These things are big and heavy, so we need to be careful with our blows and not wave them around like a madman. The simulation of the sword fight is well done. Attacks from above, below and from the sides, and we can also parry enemy attacks. After a perfect parry, we can strike back particularly hard. If we hit an unarmored opponent with our sword, we cause a lot of damage, but if our opponent is wearing armor, he can withstand a few hits. We have to tire him out to find a weak spot. And in any case, we need to gain some skill in combat - despite the countless other possible activities in the game, we can't avoid fighting altogether. Swords are of course not the only weapons in the game - there are a whole host of different, realistically implemented weapons, including ranged weapons, from bows to deadly crossbows. Besides fighting, we interact with the world - we can sneak, jump, run, climb a little, ride a horse, swim like a dog, talk to other inhabitants in multiple-choice mode (under time pressure). The details in the game are incredible - we have to eat and sleep, keep our weapons in good working order - but we also have to wash ourselves sometimes, or we stink like the plague and that was a bit unpleasant even in the Middle Ages. There were no showers in the accommodation in the Middle Ages, but there were washing troughs and rivers. There were also bathhouses in the towns - and they weren't just for bathing...

The game shows you the world from a first-person perspective. When you move around, your head shakes. Normally, this makes me feel nauseous and I turn it off as quickly as possible in the options. Unfortunately, you can't turn it off here. Strangely enough, however, it didn't make me feel nauseous - I would still like to turn it off completely, but at least it's built in sparingly enough for me to still be able to play the game.

Conclusion:
This is one of the best medieval open-world action RPGs I have ever played. It doesn't have to hide behind genre giants such as Witcher 3 or Skyrim, which are now a little long in the tooth. It offers what I first felt in games like Ultima VI: The False Prophet (Origin, 1990) - a realistic world simulation in which you have the freedom to behave as you wish - but also have to live with the consequences of your actions. The story unfolds slowly and lets you really immerse yourself in the authentically modelled, merciless medieval world - where you can then linger for countless hours and keep discovering new details. Absolute masterclass!

Is this game a masterpiece? It's 11 p.m. I actually just wanted to take a quick first look at Avowed. Four hours later, I'm still playing - a good sign! Tomorrow at the office will be exhausting, but it was worth it. Avowed is fun right from the start. You take on the role of an emissary of the king. He has sent us to the island of The Living Lands, where you have recently heard worrying rumors. Our mission is to go there and see what's going on. We start by creating our character. We can choose from 24 pre-made characters or put together our hero's face, hairstyle, nose, eyes, mouth, ears, head and body shape, skin color, background story and name in detail. And here you will already notice your special feature - your head looks a little strange. You have godlike facial features that look like strange mushrooms sprouting on your head, for example. We are close to a deity and therefore have some superhuman abilities. There are very few people like us, and while we are revered in some cultures, we are hated in others. In any case, we are an outsider.

So we set off for the Living Lands, and after a six-week voyage we approach the kingdom's first outpost during a violent storm. However, the kingdom immediately opens fire on us with its cannons, our ship crashes into a cliff and the crew drowns. So much for the small army that was supposed to accompany us on our mission. We are pulled out of the wreck by Garryek, who seems to be the only survivor apart from us. He also becomes our first companion. Armed with a small knife, we make our way to the outpost. Once there, we find a lot of corpses in the heavily damaged fort. It looks as if the soldiers in the fortress have all gone mad and ended up killing each other. The only survivor is an imprisoned smuggler named Ilora, who we free from her cell and who joins us. A few Xaurips sneak through the area, obviously enemies of the Empire. But they shouldn't actually be in this area. In fact, they are here and attack us immediately.

We use both melee and ranged weapons in combat. At the touch of a button, we switch between sword and shield as well as bow and arrow. We soon learn our first spells. We can use a little fire to burn plants that are blocking our path, or we can shoot our opponents with icy frost arrows. Our equipment is quickly upgraded - new shoes, gloves, armor, a helmet, a new sword... luckily these things are all lying around in the area, often in connection with the deceased previous user. We are invisible in the tall grass and can sneak up on enemies to kill them with a stab. We can swim as well as dive, climb ladders and jump over precipices. If we miss, we can withstand relatively high falls without hurting ourselves. In addition to items of equipment, we can also find plants that we can eat straight away to replenish our health points, for example, or materials that we will need later to create items. By winning battles or completing tasks, we gain experience and receive skill points, which we can use to unlock new abilities. If we die in battle, it's not so bad. We are simply reset to the last automatic save point, usually just before the battle. You can choose the difficulty level of the game from five levels - from simple to quite challenging battles. We can also create our own saves at any time.

Avowed is set on an island that is home to several completely different ecosystems. Each biome has its own fauna and flora and, of course, there are always unique enemies roaming the area. Fortunately, the strength of the enemies is static. They don't get stronger as you get stronger, as was the case in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, for example.

You don't have to fight your way through the Living Lands alone. Fighting alongside you are companions such as the healer Giatta, who can also cast protective spells and improve the party's abilities. Marius is a ranged fighter who helps you find hidden resources and can use his teleportation ability to get behind enemies and eliminate them backwards. Yatzli is a little pyromaniac who supports you with various explosive and fiery attack spells. Kai is the man for the rough stuff, he feels particularly at home in close combat and can withstand an inhuman number of hits. Your companions are played by the PC - Avowed is made for single players, there is no online mode.

In addition to your action RPG, Avowed is also a survival game. You will find various plants everywhere during your adventure that you can collect. You can also pick up a wide variety of other materials such as wood or stones, and when you kill enemies, they will of course always leave behind useful things such as skins or other body parts. Of course, there are always chests and crates in the strangest places, with things just waiting for you. You also need all this stuff - on the one hand to sell it, but also to craft new items. Crafting is an essential part of the game. You can craft a wide variety of weapons as well as armor and consumables. Funnily enough, you can also dismantle or melt things down again to get some of the materials back. You can also use certain spells to improve some of the equipment in your camp.

You can develop your hero in three different skill trees. On the one hand there are the combat-relevant skills, then the magical skills and finally a third skill tree for special skills such as dodging, sneaking or defensive improvements. We can take our time to look at our inventory and equip or consume items on separate screens, a map is automatically drawn on another screen, our open quests are listed on one screen, then there is a screen with the character values and a screen with our skill tree. All in all, everything is quite clearly laid out.

Avowed is basically played from a first-person perspective, but there is also an option to switch to third-person mode. I personally find this view much clearer. Avowed offers a variety of accessibility features to customize the game to your preferences. In addition to adjusting the field of view and deactivating camera shake, you can also turn off head bobbing in the first-person perspective. This wobbling of the camera may be a realistic representation of the head movement when walking for some, but for many players it just makes them nauseous. Personally, I no longer play games where you can't disable this. For people with poor eyesight, the texts or subtitles can also be set to a decent size, which is also very convenient when playing on a distant television. Control via gamepad or keyboard can be configured as required.

Conclusion:
Avowed is fun! Of course, that's the most important thing in any game. But with Avowed, the other values are also right - the graphics are smooth and look good, the battles are challenging (but not as difficult as in a Souls-like game), the fantasy story is told in an exciting way, and there are a lot of features that you would expect from a classic role-playing game. Lots of items, spells, quests and NPCs, different party members, different solutions and great cutscenes. I haven't had this much fun with an action RPG in a long time!

Is this game a masterpiece? In 1982, the horror classic The Thing by director John Howard Carpenter was released in cinemas. By this time, Carpenter had already made a name for himself with horror films such as The Fog and Halloween, but The Thing was initially quite a flop. The film only became popular in later years and is now one of the classics of the genre. The film is about a small group of researchers in Antarctica who encounter an alien creature that infests the humans, takes over their bodies (and those of their dogs) and multiplies rapidly. Soon, no one involved knew who was already infected by the creature and who was not. The film ended with an enormous explosion in the research station, but there was still no real happy ending for the people still alive...

The computer game was released 20 years after the film. It has now taken another 20 more years for the remastered version. The story of the game is a direct sequel to the film. You take control of Captain Blake, an elite American Special Forces soldier who has been dropped from a helicopter next to the American research station from the film with a team of three other people (a repair technician, a medic who automatically heals anyone in his vicinity and a soldier with an automatic rifle). Your mission is to see that everything is in order here. The station is pretty battered after the events from the film, but is still partially intact. You should enter it quickly, as it is around -40 degrees celsius outside, which is not very good for your health. You should therefore always keep your time outside as short as possible; a blue bar shows you how long it will be before you die of frostbite. It's pretty stupid when the only door into the base is firmly closed...

The game compared to the movie is like comparing the movie Alien (1979) is to the movie Aliens (1986). While the subtle horror and fear of the overpowering and largely invisible enemy prevails in the originals, the sequels feature regular battles with the enemies. We fight against mutated monsters in their original form, against humans who have been infected by the alien, and also against other humans from a profit-hungry company that wants to acquire the abilities of the alien life form for its own purposes and will go to any lengths to do so. It is a team-based third-person shooter that probably fits best into the survival horror genre. You have to watch your ammunition and health, and you must not lose the trust of your team. Every team member can become hostile towards you, and not just if you (accidentally) fire at them. Even if you take away their weapons, for example, this will not exactly increase their trust in you. Each team member is either green (obeys every order), yellow (ignores your orders) or red (attacks you).

After the first mission, you separate from your original team and begin to explore the (nearby) Norwegian research station on your own. Another team has also been dropped off here recently, but there is no trace of them. It doesn't take long before you meet the first survivor. Firstly, you must quickly treat his serious wounds, then give him a superfluous weapon and some ammunition to gain his trust. During the course of the game, survivors will regularly join your group. You can give them orders (wait here, follow me), you can send them to their deaths. If they see too many hard-to-digest things, they will panic. Take them away from the disturbing places or give them a tranquilliser injection. Otherwise, at some point they will be nothing more than a trembling sack and useless for anything. And you need help - engineers restore the power supply, medics heal you. Game over only occurs if members of your party who are relevant to the rest of the story die. Solve simple puzzles, such as opening blocked doors by exploding barrels, collect resources (ammunition, medipacks, tranquilliser syringes, flares, etc.), get new weapons such as a flamethrower. The game is automatically saved when you progress through the story or when you find an old tape recorder where you can create your own savegames.

Technically, there is little to criticise. Of course, you have to be aware that the original game was released in 2002, but the improvements are many and varied. For example, many small details have been added to the environment that were simply not possible in the original. New signs, objects lying around, more details in every room, plus much better character animations. Of course, the graphics as such have also been upscaled and now look (almost) like in the original film. In the original from 2002, the quality dropped significantly as the missions progressed, and some of the later levels and boss battles were simply sub-optimal. The level of difficulty often increased abruptly, some sequences could only be completed after countless attempts or were technically a little sloppy. This is where the developers of the remaster have made improvements - for example, the escape sequence with all the explosions is now much easier to play than in the original. The controls now also work perfectly with the gamepad or keyboard and mouse. High resolutions (4K) and 144 FPS are also supported.

Conclusion:
You are rarely taken by the hand in The Thing: Remastered. The level of difficulty of computer games in 2002 was different to that of most new games. However, the devs have honed many of the rough edges of the original. Fight aliens, explore the area, look after your team members, find out where to go next and use your inventory wisely. The graphics and still somewhat cumbersome user interface are of course not up to modern standards - but the game is still fun. If you like classic survival horror, the game is just the thing for you!

Is this game a masterpiece? It is the year 1936, and I'm marching through the jungle somewhere in South America. It's not really a jungle, it almost looks like a well-trodden hiking trail. The vegetation is not really dense, I hardly need my machete. My father comes into the living room, looks at the TV and thinks that I'm putting together another GoPro video. The graphics in the game are that great. But ok, my father also asked me 10 years ago who was playing when I was playing a game of FIFA with my son. And his eyes haven't got any better since then. Anyway, back to the game. I'm not travelling alone, but am accompanied by three locals, who are not only sweating under the weight of my equipment, but are also becoming increasingly panicked about supposed invisible dangers. The first one starts screaming like mad and runs away after I uncover an old stone head (Inca-style) behind a bush. What a coward. Shortly afterwards, the second one draws his pistol behind my back at a river crossing and runs away after I knock the pistol out of his hand with my whip. I'm still wondering what he actually wanted with the pistol. He could have turned round and run away without shooting me in the back first. Shortly afterwards, I find the entrance to an old temple. With torch in hand, I enter and shortly afterwards find the first explorer of this temple - or at least his skeleton. I continue, solve a small puzzle, and the golden statue in the centre of the underground complex is mine. Unfortunately, everything collapses and my companion and I make our escape in typical Indiana Jones style. Now my last companion stabs me in the back, takes the statue and leaves me for dead. Well, he didn't get far and I rush out of the cave, the statue back in my possession, fleeing from a huge rolling ball... a brilliant introduction to the game. This is Indiana Jones!

The game then continues in 1937, between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1936) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1938), at Marshall College in Connecticut. Indy is known to teach here as a professor of archaeology. After reading a letter from a student who has missed classes due to her lonely, sleepless nights and is now requesting private tuition, we set off in search of an intruder on campus. We find the intruder quite quickly, but he knocks us out and disappears, taking with him an ancient relic from Egypt that we found just a few weeks ago. After the robber loses an amulet, Indy immediately realises that it belongs to a Vatican special unit, packs his whip in his suitcase and the famous red line moves across the map as we fly across the Atlantic to Rome.

Of course, we can't just visit our friend Antonio in the Vatican, but have to make our way into a castle occupied by Mussolini's blackshirts. Apparently Mussolini is also looking for something in the Vatican. The path is basically like a tube, although we can always make progress on the ground floor, the first floor or via the roof, for example. We stun our opponents in close combat (or sneak past them completely). We also have our pistol with a few rounds of ammunition with us, but we shouldn't use it if possible. Fistfights and whip blows are hardly noticeable, but pistol shots are. Indy is always finding instructive books. If he reads them (costs adventure points), he learns or improves his skills.

After Rome, as expected, Indy then travels to places all over the world - which, when connected, form a large circle around the earth. The pyramids of Giza, a temple in Thailand, the Himalayan mountains, the jungles of Peru, China and Iraq are further locations... the level structure varies, sometimes the areas are open and invite free exploration, then they are a little more restricted and force you into a predetermined path. As a rule, however, they are extremely extensive. The gameplay in these sections is most reminiscent of Hitman. You will therefore very often sneak past enemies (it always takes a while for them to discover you) or eliminate them as silently as possible (preferably from behind and with a hard object), you can even hide the unconscious bodies. Even disguises to deceive grunts are possible.

As someone who has just played through the entire Uncharted series, a direct comparison with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is of course obvious, as the games do have some similarities. On the one hand, there is the climbing. Nathan Drake is a gifted climber and many areas consist of extreme climbing. Indiana Jones also climbs regularly - but much more realistically than Nathan (or Enzio, or Lara). Indiana climbs up rain gutters, shimmies along ledges, but he does so comparatively slowly, gasping as he does so, rather than making death-defying leaps across half the room to the next tiny ledge. Overall, it is much more difficult to recognise where Indy can and cannot climb. The climbable areas are not as graphically emphasised as in Uncharted. Instead, Indy has his whip with him right from the start, which Nathan only got in the form of the climbing hook in part 4 of the Uncharted series. Like Nathan's climbing hook, Indy can only use the whip at predetermined points. Then there are the firefights. In Uncharted, a significant portion of the gameplay consists of firefights. Nathan is an always friendly guy who is never at a loss for a funny word - but in battle he regularly massacres dozens of enemies. Indiana Jones doesn't play like that. Firefights don't play such a big role here. Indiana does fight against the Nazis (among others), but he's no BJ Blazkowicz (the hero from Wolfenstein), who blasts away numerous Nazi soldiers in electric super armour with a super-heavy machine gun. He's more the type to sell a leather jacket to underexposed Nazi henchmen. Or knocks them unconscious in a fistfight. Stealth and the use of tools lying around the environment to take out individual guards are much more often the means of choice. Indy uses candlesticks, hammers, bottles, brooms, pipe wrenches, fly swatters... whatever is lying around. Most of the time the stuff breaks after a few uses, or Indy loses it when he climbs. Gameplay-wise, this is far less spectacular, but at least it lacks the ludonarrative dissonance (friendly guy/killing machine) often criticised in Uncharted. Both games are very similar when it comes to the escape sequences. Just as Nathan escapes death at the last second through burning houses, over collapsing bridges, on the run from various overpowering opponents or natural dangers (tanks, fire, water, all-consuming bugs,...), Indiana Jones also narrowly escapes mortal danger time and again, like in the collapsing temple in the introduction.

In Uncharted, Nathan keeps finding valuable little things (treasures) in slightly hidden places that look great but have nothing to do with the story. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is completely different. Here, Indy is constantly finding things that are often lying around in plain sight and all have something to do with the story. Letters, notes, keys... plus various consumable items such as money, bandages, food for health or stamina, ammunition, maps of the current level... ok, and there are also collectibles - comic books like in The Last of Us. While Nathan carries around two weapons with ammunition, Indy has a small inventory with all kinds of items. Both games also keep us busy with small puzzles - but they are not really difficult in either games. One major difference between the two games is the perspective - we play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from a first-person viewpoint, which provides a much clearer overview than the shoulder perspective in Uncharted.

Conclusion:
Great story, soundtrack, graphics, better than the last films (in my opinion, but of course that's

Is this game a masterpiece? A total of two floppy discs with about 1MB of data each were sufficient when Rainbow Arts released the game for the Commodore Amiga in 1990. The new PC version on my computer now requires just under 600MB of space - around 300 times as much. I grew up with the Amiga. I couldn't afford a C64 in junior school and my parents had no interest in any technical devices - so in 1988 I actually had to use the money from my first holiday job (and all my other savings) to buy my first (of eventually almost 20) Amigas. At the time, I was convinced that I owned the ideal gaming machine - which was probably true for my situation, because I wouldn't have been able to afford console games. It wasn't until many years later - thanks to emulation - that I realised that although the Amiga was a technically brilliant device, the really professional (action) game development was mainly done for consoles. The MegaDrive, SNES and PC Engine were no technical marvels, but the games were on average much more professionally made. Anyway, back then I thought that the Amiga was one of the best systems for shoot ‘em ups (shmups). There were many dozens of them for the Amiga. Unfortunately, most of them are pretty rubbish compared to the competition. Years ago, when I read articles by well-known shmups junkies in which the Amiga shooters were largely labelled as ‘irrelevant’, ‘of inferior quality’ or ‘poorly designed’ and disparagingly referred to as Euroshmups, I didn't believe those guys... but they were (mostly) right. Still, some of the Amiga shmups are quite playable (like R-Type, or Apidya, Z-Out, Blood Money, Project-X, Banshee, Battle Squadron, Xenon II or Disposable Hero), and of course X-Out.

The first surprise right at the start. A trainer? In the style of the cracker intros of the time? All options in the trainer are initially locked and have to be unlocked first. The scrolling text in the intro is entertaining: This is not an illegal pirated copy! Please do not call the police or destroy the game! The game is completely legal... X-Out is a typical horizontal scrolling shooter that was extremely popular in the 80s and the first half of the 90s. This was before the Japanese bullet hell shooters from Cave took the genre in a new direction. In X-Out, as usual, we are humanity's last hope in the fight against parasitic aliens. The original was set in the future - in 2019. Fortunately, the real year 2019 wasn't quite as bad, as the Covid pandemic didn't hit until early 2020. In the game, we fly from left to right through the automatically scrolling playing field. We shoot at everything that moves or is simply in the way. At the end of each of the eight levels, a boss enemy awaits us. One special feature is that we are not flying through space, but the aliens have taken up residence under water. In fact, this doesn't matter at all - it plays like space and (apart from a few air bubbles) looks like space.

However, the real special feature of the game lies elsewhere. In X-Out you basically have exactly one life - or rather submarine. If you get hit or touch an obstacle, your life bar is quickly empty and it is game over. You can only continue playing directly if you have another submarine in your fleet. And you have to buy one first. In total, you can increase your fleet to up to nine submarines. You can also equip each of your submarines (there are four basic types with different characteristics - some allow more extra weapons, for example) with different weapons. Cannons, torpedoes, satellites, upgrades - you can configure the ship according to your preferences. The only requirement is enough money. You get this when you survive a level and destroy the boss.

Let's move on to the most important improvements in the new version. On the one hand, a local 2-player mode has been implemented. You can now fight through the eight levels at the same time, which is fun and almost turns the game into a bullet hell shooter. Then there is now a mirror mode. The graphics are displayed mirror-inverted and you now fight from right to left. Not bad for a bit of variety, which surprisingly plays completely differently. What is really relevant, however, is the overhaul of the store. Equipping your ships before the game was a little cumbersome in the original. This has been significantly improved and, above all, provided with help texts. You can buy two more submarines before the first level. In addition, the long loading times of the Amiga original, which slowed down the flow of the game after each death, have been removed. Especially because death comes very quickly in this game... even if you don't lose a life immediately with every hit. However, touching the landscape in particular kills in a flash. The screen is now a little larger than in the original - so you have more room to maneuver. Overall, this makes the game play smoother and easier - but that doesn't hurt either, because the original was damn difficult.

The music comes from Chris Hülsbeck, who is considered one of the best-known musicians of the (German) 16-bit era. For the remaster, he has given his old tracks a new twist - but fans of the original will immediately feel musically transported back to the 90s. Incidentally, the game's graphics were created by Celâl Kandemiroğlu, who sadly passed away in 2022. The man was an absolute genius as a graphic designer - at least that's how I remember him. He not only drew around 800 title graphics for computer games, but was also responsible for various in-game graphics for games from studios such as Rainbow Arts, Thalion, Reline and Ascaron. His graphics were above average and always immediately caught my eye - as was the case with X-Out (although Biing! was my favorite). Incidentally, the technical requirements for X-Out on a PC are extremely low - I played the game on an old gaming laptop with an Nvidia GTX 850M GPU and had no problems whatsoever. The only thing you need is a gamepad.

Conclusion:
The new X-Out plays better than the original. It has become easier to dodge enemy bullets with the gamepad and continuous fire activated. The brutal difficulty level of the original has been toned down a little - but the game is still far from easy. All hell breaks loose from the second level onwards. If you lose all your lives, you won't have to wait as long as before and you'll be back in the game much faster. No long loading times, disk changes, cutscenes, no cumbersome store. Click, click and you can start the next attempt. For fans of the original, the game is a dream - it is nostalgia combined with gaming fun. But the new X-Out is also fun, even if you've never heard of the original. It's just a typical horizontal scrolling shooter, which unfortunately is hardly ever developed today. It's a shame - I'd like to enjoy technically up-to-date, new shmups on my TV more often... and throw the gamepad into the corner in frustration when I've lost all my lives on the same boss again.

If you are just interested in point and click adventures go here: The Adventure Library

Is this game a masterpiece? It would be, IF... Deponia: The Complete Story is the magnus opus of Daedalic - a company often referred to as LucasArts successor (until they left the adventure genre, like their role model). This edition consists of the first three parts of the series, and it took me around 50 hours to finish it. I obviously enjoyed it, because the game offers well-structured puzzles, fantastic 2D visuals, professional voice-overs and a polished engine. The main parts of each of the three games take place in just one, quite large location. In Deponia you spend most of your time in your hometown with around 25 single screens, all full of hotspots, items, characters and often connected in some way. Chaos in Deponia takes place mostly in the Floating Black Market (and then on the surrounding isles), which is even a bit larger, while in the final part you are split into three separate characters exploring (most of the time) three separate parts of Porta Fisco - switching items between them. Puzzles are solved by using items, talking to characters, and the game contains various minigames. You can never die, you can never reach a dead-end, the story is kind of... funny. There are a lot of missable cheavos - I just got 67 of 105. The whole thing would be perfect.

It is not, though. You might dislike your character, Rufus, who is an annoying moron. But, well, you cannot always play the perfect hero. There are a bunch of other charming characters during the game as well, some in all three parts, some have to endure Rufus only for a shorter time. I personally loved his ex-girlfriend Toni. The story, while funny, has a bunch of twists that may not really make sense, but we are used to that from (not only) adventure games. More importantly, the game always kind of tells you what needs to be done next and drops a lot of hints on how to get there. Really well-done.

There is one thing that cannot be ignored, though: The Complete Edition contains at least two game-breaking bugs (and a bunch of other not game-breaking bugs). Two of the minigames in Deponia simply cannot be finished, which might not even be too obvious. So you are stuck, and don't even realize that you are stuck. I could only get past this by downloading a saved game from the (still working) homepage. The bugs are well-documented, but Daedalic is obviously not able to fix them. I am only upvoting the game because the rest of the game is really, really good.

Conclusion:
Near-perfect, long adventure in a cartoon universe - with two broken, game-stopping minigames in the first part.

Is this game a masterpiece? Yes, absolutely. It is a classic fantasy JRPG with a ton of things to do. Find stuff, buy stuff, talk with lots of characters, solve puzzles, fish and cook - and of course fight. Combat is not too easy, you will die a few times. The combat is turn-based, and you can think as long as you want. When you execute a move in combat, though, pressing the button at the exact right moment gives your attack (or defense) a little "extra" power, or helps you to make your spell extra powerful. The story is quite long and complex, I enjoyed some of the plot twists (although they were somewhat expected). You travel through the world in a beautiful isometric view in pixel art, reminiscent of the great SNES-area JRPGs like Chrono Trigger. The icing on the cake is the unique local multiplayer mode - up to 3 local players can play during exploration and combat - quite cool!

Conclusion:
Charming and polished JRPG that evokes the memory of the old 16-bit JRPG classics. Maybe not a new Chrono Trigger, but at least quite close.