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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
Recommended
48.6 hrs on record (34.8 hrs at review time)
TL;DR
A marvelous combination of Tetris and deck building artistically inspired by a romanticized version of medieval Europe.

Positives
  1. Adding Tetris as a deployment vehicle for a deck builder is a truly enlightened idea by expanding player expression above the bare "play card A against card/situation/deck B".
  2. Visual presentation of the individual pieces is gorgeous and consistent. When pieces of the same biome are placed next to one another they morph and create little dioramas (think Dorfromantik).
  3. Progression is dialed in just right. The player is being drip fed enough new cards by "just playing" to expose the player to new options. Exploring those options is then rewarded by further options. Rinse and repeat. (I write this at having access to 100% of cards in the game.)
  4. While I feel that the game was originally designed around a single faction, the additional two faction both provide a nice twist to the formula:
    • The Republic let's the player completely take over the board by huge cities. (I do love a water build here.)
    • The Order on the other hand reaffirms that religion can be used to completely steamroll an opponent with barely any offensive buildings.
  5. Special nod to the UI design. Every screen has exactly all the info the player needs. The design language is consistent. In cases where a shorthand is required (e.g. refilling health on the combat prep screen) a clearly understandable smaller element is provided.

Neutral
  1. There is a certain level of randomness required to get The Order properly going in a run, since there is no sure fire way to force a specific card draw and only a few faction/type specific group draws in a run. Then again, The Order is all about praying.

Negatives
  1. Scrolling on the world screen hitches from time to time.

Notes
  1. Received my copy from the developers via Dare Drop in exchange for streaming the game for at least 30 minutes. I ended up streaming 10 hours across 3 sessions.
  2. Reviewed at patch 1.0.1.
  3. Reviewed at around 34.5 hours with minimal AFK time.
  4. At review time achievement completion rate of 125 out of 133.
  5. Completed exclusively on mouse and keyboard.

🧡💛🧡
Posted 27 May.
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11 people found this review helpful
Not Recommended
3.6 hrs on record
TL;DR
A prologue masquerading as a full game.

Positives
  1. Prop placement greatly enhances how well lived in interiors feel. Even usually boring corridors are made interesting by small props like pipe work.
  2. Immersive HUD usage via in game surfaces, including computer consoles and player character's wrist strapped PDA.

Neutral
  1. Competent voice acting and voice direction in the few scenes that actors share.
  2. Floaty control and sluggish movement of the player character, classic symptoms of consolitis. Fortunately, most of the problems with the controls can be resolved by toggling settings.
  3. The game is very linear. While there is an illusion of choice, most objectives have only one possible path.
  4. QTEs intended to mimic tactile player actions ala Detroit Become Human are hit and miss. Rappelling feels good, while hooking under a vehicle in a storm is a combination of E and S, which is just weird.

Negatives
  1. Narrative
    • The narrative barely gets going and the credits already start to roll.
    • What is here is an extremely bare bones story of research gone wrong with a single person taking maters into their own hands.
    • Character and world development that should have happened across multiple locations, days is compressed into a couple hours in universe and around two hours of net game time. What is here feels like the dev team got their funding cut and had to radically scale back their initial plans.
    • Unfortunately, the script suffers from classic horror tropes of characters not being the sharpest tools in the shed. E.g. a character walking into a habitat under lockdown and the first thing he does is to take his helmet off. Which of course becomes a problem almost immediately.Later on the main characters keep not finishing off the antagonist even though they had several chances to do so.
  2. Classic Unreal Engine 5 experience: The game suffers from extensive ghosting that cannot be overcome by any setting combination.

Notes
  1. Purchased as part of Humble Choice monthly (January 2025).
  2. Completed on 2025-05-11.
  3. Completed at around 3.5 hours with minimal AFK time.
  4. Played exclusively on mouse and keyboard.

🧡💛🧡
Posted 21 May.
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8 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
Not Recommended
66.8 hrs on record
TL;DR
A solid shooting experience with great atmosphere slain by a thousand paper cuts of poor progression, horrible optimization and Unreal Engine 5 nonsense.

Positives
  1. General environment ambiance is spot on. Running on a random road 30 minutes feels as good 30 hours in.
  2. Voice acting - original Ukrainian. A nice variety of actors that put in good performances appropriate for the situation.
  3. Weapons
    • Every encounter range has several viable options.
    • Sound is adequate to the weight of each gun. Thus, shooting each gun provides that base visceral response one would expect.
    • Great attention to detail in modeling each weapon including the various attachments.
    • When at lower durability weapons get jammed in a unique way to each weapon. This is coupled with a bespoke animation to a jam clear for each weapon.
  4. Similarly to the weapon models, artifacts are exquisitely modeled. The only downside is that they can be observed only by inspecting from the inventory.
  5. The player gets an unlimited stash in each settlement. What's even better is that the contents is shared, eliminating the need to travel in between camps because "I left my grenade launcher ammo elsewhere".
  6. Sound design and mixing elevates most scenes. This is most apparent in more complex outdoor scenes: when one is out in the wild, fighting a storm with gun fire in the distance.

Neutral
  1. Hazard implementation and placement is adequate. I would have preferred them placed less frequently on roads and more frequently around points of interest.
  2. Mutants are ported reasonably well from the older titles.
  3. As usual in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games the main story is rather mid. Side mission are of varying quality. Out of all the main or side missions there is only one side mission that really stuck in my mind after 60 hours.

Negatives
  1. Unreal Engine 5
    • There are two modes: blurry and incorrectly lit with shimmering.
    • Incorrectly lit with shimmering mode is, unfortunately, native rendering.
    • To get an adequately lit scene one has to turn on either TAA or frame generation. But this introduces the good old "vaseline filter" and ghosting to every movement. Foliage and tree geometry suffers from turning these on as well. Especially when one is scanning the horizon, the apparent skinniness of branches and weeds is distracting.
    • I am immensely saddened that we came to a point where one has to do 30 minutes of trial and error to find which part of the engine is making the scene difficult to look at without a clear solution that would not introduce more problems.
  2. Optimization or lack thereof
    • During my PC gaming voyage I have intentionally stayed on lower resolutions than what is considered regular by most folks. This means that currently my primary monitor is a 1920x1080 display with a max frequency of 60 Hz. I couple the lower resolution with a mid range CPU/GPU combo to make sure that I don't have a performance problem. This is now a 7600 and 7800XT respectively.
    • With all that context the game regularly dips into the 30 - 40 fps range in more densely populated areas with less then optimal frame timing even when hovering at a VSYNC enforced 60 fps.
    • The performance stayed largely unchanged from the initial release of the title.
  3. Economy
    • The in game economy just does not scale.
    • Selling prices of everything are unreasonably low. This is most apparent with artifacts.
    • Enemy weapon durability is hovering in the 45% - 60% range. Coupled with traders not interested in low condition items means that only about a third of enemy weapons can be sold.
    • Due to the stinginess of economy, I have to also mention the inventory weight limit. With my default loadout of two guns, a pistol, ammo for each, 10 bandages, 10 medkits, 3 food of each type, a couple of grenades, 5 anti-rad pills, 5 energy drinks I can carry about four to five guns as loot. This is with using two artifacts that increase carrying capacity. The problem is that the higher tier your gear is, the more it costs to repair and there are no self repair options. If you run into lower tier enemies, the price of all of their guns will not cover the cost of repairs.
    • Weapon and armor modifications become exceedingly costly as the game progresses. It is more cost effective to wait for a named weapon or a higher tier armor respectively than to sunk thousands or tens of thousands to upgrade an item just to find it outperformed by a higher tier item.
  4. Stealth
    • Enemies are ridiculously perceptive. Even if you slowly approach an enemy crouched, during night with just a knife there is a subjective fifty fifty chance of the enemy noticing you, making a silent takedown a rather risky proposition.
    • Coupled with the unability to save during combat makes stealth virtually impossible.
  5. Enemy accuracy is ridiculously high and does not scale with more advanced enemies/weapons. Meaning that a random group of bandits with sawed off shotguns and barely functional submachine guns will hit you the same amount of time as the highest tier soldiers with sniper and assault rifles.
  6. Physical retail copy did not contain physical discs requiring a full 130GB+ download. I can still install all three of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games from the discs I got at purchase. Further, it did not offer a choice of a storefront. I would have preferred a storefront that provides a DRM free copy of the game.
  7. Full game price of 109,99€ is ridiculous.

Notes
  1. Purchased as a physical retail copy of the least complete version shortly after launch.
  2. Abandoned at patch 1.3.1.
  3. Abandoned at around 67 hours at the An act of mercy quest with minimal AFK time.
  4. Played exclusively on mouse and keyboard.

🧡💛🧡
Posted 12 April. Last edited 12 April.
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2 people found this review helpful
Recommended
5.8 hrs on record
TL;DR
A soothing mountainous archaeological expedition through a death of a civilization.

Positives
  1. A story of a hardy people that functionally experienced an apocalyptic event is richly relayed to the player without a single line of spoken dialog.
  2. Art direction is absolutely spot on. Great example of stylization trumping graphical fidelity.
  3. Level design is expertly used both as a story telling tool and to provide obstacles of an increasing level of mechanical difficulty. Several times during the experience, I came across vistas that completely took my breath away.
  4. The game stops at a fulfilling point in the narrative.
  5. In game actions are mapped to the controller organically, which makes the act of climbing exceedingly satisfying.
  6. The overall audio design errs on the side of letting nature speak for itself, letting the player explore the world in peace. Music is not ever present and comes in only to accentuate moments of importance.
  7. Exploration is rewarded with dead ends providing further flavor to the world. In particular, I enjoyed the three seashells Easter egg.

Neutral
  1. In most cases there is exactly one correct way how to proceed. While this is a shame in some respects as the 30 second loop is excellent, it allows the pacing to be tighter.

Negatives
  1. It is possible to wrap oneself around an obstacle which leads to the physics engine acting out a bit. Fortunately, the most amount of progress that I lost in such a way were mere seconds. This happened around 5-10 times in my playthrough.
  2. Triggering the devices that create shortcuts back down is a tedious experience. Sometimes the prompt shows quickly during approach. However, in some cases one has to dance around the thing for ten seconds to trigger the prompt.
  3. As I climbed the mountain I did not get the sense that the climber wants to make the ultimate sacrifice to return ballast to its kind or to bring back the rain. Thus, while I felt the final scene should have hit emotionally harder, the experience was lessened by the sudden jump in perceived lengths the player character is willing to go to in the last chapter.

Notes
  1. Purchased as part of the Humble Choice monthly subscription service for the month of October 2024.
  2. Completed at patch 1.07.1498596.
  3. Completed at around 5.5 hours with minimal AFK time.
  4. Completed exclusively on an XBox controller.

🧡💛🧡
Posted 27 January.
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7 people found this review helpful
Recommended
15.8 hrs on record
TL;DR
A slightly easier deck builder with a solid 30 second loop, a competent story and excellent music.

Positives
  1. Excellent adherence to theme in both art style, game mechanics and music.
  2. Love that different narrative situations are coupled with appropriate solutions on the gameplay axis. E.g. when a fighter performs hacking, it is on a very rudimental level compared to a hacking specialist.
  3. Robert Bruckmayer absolutely nailed the soundtrack. It is the exact blend of futuristic punk rock I would expect in a cyber punk setting. Special shout out to 'All Systems Alert' and 'System Smashdown'.
  4. The game nails the 30 second loop. Most cards have a type declared. This adds a combo effect on the base effect when played in a certain sequence. This results in a rhythm of alternatively playing 'A' and 'B' cards (think light and heavy attacks/support actions) with an occasional more expensive 'C' card (think special/expensive attacks) thrown into the mix. This rhythm becomes almost a trance like flow when, in the late game, it is not difficult to play fifteen cards in a turn with the base hand size of five.
  5. The game is split up to several heists. Each heist resembles a run in a standard rogue like card builder. But only from a distance. Compared to a traditional rogue like card builder, HeistGeist reduces the paths that can be taken in the service of the story. Moreover, HeistGeist adds team members to the mix. This results in the player switching between card decks and play styles, which keeps the game reasonably fresh until the late game. Special nod to mission Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.
  6. The devs know when to end the story. I never thought I would be praising such a basic concept, but after completing a few games where the natural point was missed, HeistGeist hits the emotionally correct moment to stop perfectly, while keeping the doors open for a sequel.
  7. Alexandra/Werner full screen hug.
  8. Enjoyed the performances of Maayan Voss de Bettancourt (Zoya) and Mike Bodie (Werner/Rez). Both slid excellently into their respective roles.
  9. While built on a fairly standard template, I enjoyed the story with its quirky characters, emotional balance just on the right side of being too cheesy, while constantly nodding at a potential dystopian future.
  10. Neat little day transition animation.

Neutral
  1. Difficulty is rather low. I only lost in a battle once as I was going out of my way to build a very experimental deck going up against an area boss. (Even in that situation the boss only had 5 health left.) Normally, this would be a 'Negative' worthy offense, but the 30 second loop is so good that it drags the point up to 'Neutral' territory.
  2. Build variety is fairly limited with Alexandra's options are basically limited to branching off to either exploit stealth or not, Werner not getting enough options to even discuss build variety and Zoya mostly getting straight upgrades as the game progresses. With all that said, all build limitations make absolute sense story wise and thus, I personally don't feel I need to ding the game more than putting this to the 'Neutral' block.
  3. Would have renamed 'Toxic' to 'Corrosive', as it is somewhat weird that machines suffer damage from 'Toxic' attacks. Some of the cards explicitly have a design that screams 'should be used against organics'. E.g. 'Neurotoxin'.

Negatives
  1. Lack of enemy variety in last third of the game. Instead of different tougher variations of known enemies (cheaper fix) or more tougher new enemies (more expensive fix) the game throws larger groups of already "solved" enemies at the player. This results in Alexandra's fights a moot waste of time with a pre-determined result. At the same time I was still looking forward to all of the Werner fights (due to limitations on his arsenal and thus higher difficulty) and Zoya's hacking sections (while easy as well late game, they were bite sized changes of pace).
  2. Missing a skip dialogue option before boss fights.
  3. I am not happy with the overall performance of Krys Janae who voice acted the main character. Delivery on most of her lines is rather flat. I would chalk this up to directions, but most of the other characters provide an excellent, if somewhat over the top performance.
  4. The overworld map is a somewhat wasted exercise. Since the player has a very limited set of actions available each heist day, the map adds an unnecessary extra click or two to most actions.

Notes
  1. Purchased as the XZone physical edition at full price close after release.
  2. Completed at patch 1.0.6.
  3. Completed at just under 16 hours with minimal AFK time.

🧡💛🧡
Posted 2 December, 2024. Last edited 2 December, 2024.
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2 people found this review helpful
Not Recommended
57.7 hrs on record
Thank you for dropping Linux support.
Posted 14 November, 2024.
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250 people found this review helpful
3 people found this review funny
3
2
Not Recommended
17.6 hrs on record
TL;DR
Another casualty of mystery box writing with glimpses of great character work in the quiet moments.

Positives
  1. Solid implementation of the music mini-game. Great framing and camera work, with a side nod to the song writing process.
  2. The writers know how to write small scale character dialog:
    • Pax's arc with her mother or Pax's relationship with Ziggy throughout the game are the best examples.
    • Pax and Noam are cute and the complexity of their relationship is believable.
  3. Loved the art direction on the in-game comic.
  4. Excellent voice performance by Ioanna Kimbook as Ziggy. The bar scene alone is pure gold.
  5. Notwithstanding other criticisms I might have, the authors picked the end at an emotionally correct spot.

Neutral
  1. The game takes place in an alternative reality version of the US. I would have loved a bit more information on the setting or I would have loved the setting to influence the narrative a bit more. At the end it mostly used as just set dressing. For example taking what happened at the end would have triggered a war between two major players in the setting.
  2. Inconsistent voice direction. Some scenes have the proper emotional gravity, elsewhere characters have casual conversations in the middle of combat.
  3. The game feels rushed. The last chapter feels like it should have been at least three chapters.
  4. While the execution of Sai's betrayal and reversal is believable and well acted, it is placed too late in the story making Sai's reversal just another deus ex machina.

Negatives
  1. The writers absolutely faceplanted on the big, macro stuff:
    • There is a distinct political leaning presented, which is driven across to the player with a subtlety of a velociraptor in a kindergarten. Which is a shame, as at the core of this game lies an intriguing concept of how language can be constructed and how it can influence our perception. For a good example of how to discuss such politically charged themes would be the original Deus Ex.
    • The writers make an easy mistake several times in a very basic aspect of story-telling. Instead of "B happens because of A happened" they went with "A happens then B happens". Especially obvious in the structure of chapters 6 and 7. In chapter 6, even though CT has no problem seeing the road, the bus hits something that she is not able to identify exactly where the plots needs the characters to stop. (She should have seen the robogorilla and swerve out the way.) A small girl who is supposedly afraid is not guarded by anyone and runs off into a storm without protection, because the story needs the main character to be stranded alone for a horror fake out. In chapter 7, the bus breaks down just in front of an abandoned house that has just enough food for a group this big with fuel that is seven years old that did not go bad and so on. There are just too many conveniences to constantly not get pulled out of the story.
  2. The cast of characters is too large:
    • Some of the characters like Sol and Ophelia don't get anything to do and leave the story as they entered.
    • Nainai is used for a single joke five times.
    • Girl is only used as a plot device.
  3. There are two character deaths in the game. While I could see CT's death as being earned if it had been better executed, Theo's death is an absolute joke. It feels as if the writers decided to put Theo's death in last minute to add some gravitas to the final "boss fight" against another "not a character that showed up five seconds before they were dispatched" Axiom.
  4. Virtue signaling is, unfortunately, alive and well:
    • At one point after the squad added a short person, I jokingly noted (I am glad that I streamed this to have evidence) that we are now only missing a person on a wheel chair, which was added a couple chapters later...
    • At some points there is a pronoun discussion which in itself is fine, until the characters of the main crew misgender (rarely) or assume (consistently) the gender of others.
    • For a couple of chapters at the start, the game tries to pull the same BS as Batman did a while back: "We are not the bad guys. We are just knocking out these people. These baseball bats are not lethal. None of them are dead. Honest."
  5. Combat is pitiful. There is no threat to loosing all health. There is little to no time pressure to execute moves properly. There are no specific counters required to combat a certain mix of enemies. Combat animations lack weight. While the team combos and the "whale on one dude" attack adds a bit of flavor, there is not enough of it to pull combat out of the gutter. A better option would have been to leave it out of the game. (I chose the "I want more combat" option.)
Posted 22 September, 2024. Last edited 22 September, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
Recommended
18.6 hrs on record
TL;DR
A dramatic story about loss, friendship, family and the cost of war that stumbles in the finish line.

Positives
  1. Both voice acting and direction is excellent throughout (original French dub). Would like to applaud Léopoldine Serre as Amicia for her excellent (and very difficult) performance.
  2. The writers clearly understand the human condition. Characters react appropriately to their station, age and overall situation.
  3. Level design is consistently great throwing in fresh things all the way to the end of the game, while not feeling overtly game-y.
  4. Excellent use of mid mission checkpoints. The game rewards experimentation without punishing the player too hard for their mistakes.

Neutral
  1. While the game uses quiet moments to flash out the experience to great effect, most of these lie behind an optional path.
  2. The players kit is fairly small, but in combination with various skills allows for interesting world interactions.

Negatives
  1. Story after the half of chapter 14 completely falls apart. There is a very natural ending point where most threads are wrapped up and our heroes can sail off (both literally and figuratively) into the sunset. Unfortunately, "and the kitchen sink" approach was chosen leading the end of the game into a hyper death gloom spiral. I have finished the original game in 10 hours. The sequel clocked in at just above 18 hours. However, the formula did not change radically between the titles resulting in the excess time being more draining than anything else. If the authors just flatly removed half of chapter 14, chapters 15 and 16 and reworked chapter 17 to match, the entire experience would end on a much more well paced glorious ending. (Even though the removed content would account for only about an hour and half.)
  2. While I understand the desire to sequel bait players with the post credit scene, I found it further breaking the sense of a proper "full stop" ending. Yes, the writers signposted this from a mile away (and I called it live on stream) with the major theme of the sequel being "recurrence", I would have still preferred Amicia's and Hugo's toil to mean something more than "just another point of suffering in the chain of suffering".
Posted 16 September, 2024. Last edited 16 September, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
Recommended
9.5 hrs on record (7.1 hrs at review time)
TL;DR
A gorgeous love letter to 1960s sci-fi.

Positives
  1. The overall presentation is stunning:
    • The player is guided through breath-taking environmental features.
    • All tech is lovingly crafted with focus on the tactile feel of the 1960s.
    • Love the physical map and journal implementation.
  2. Silly attention to detail:
    • Doodads in places with humans accentuates the feel of a lived in world.
    • Terrain differences and the way the main character leaves their footsteps.
    • No unnecessary HUD to break immersion.
  3. Excellent sound mixing which works well with ambient noises to build up each location.
  4. Voice actors were clearly chosen so that both the Alliance and Commonwealth citizens sound different and consistent within their group.
  5. Excellent pacing on the investigation. The main mystery has time to breath. Did not rush and felt comfortable with finishing the story six hours in.

Neutral
  1. Voice acting hits the mark well enough.
  2. Minor continuity mistakes with rover placement and movement off screen.

Negatives
  1. I had to reload a checkpoint at two different points in the game as machine interactions soft locked the main character within the interaction.
Posted 28 July, 2024. Last edited 28 July, 2024.
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2 people found this review helpful
Recommended
11.1 hrs on record
TL;DR
Mechanically meager action game that pushes it over the finish line with a beautiful animation style and a zany approach to story telling.

Positives
  1. Beautiful cartoon animation style. Strong "Dexter's Lab" vibes.
  2. Creature design is out there. John Carpenter has been called out in the credits. I can definitely see the boss battle creature designs pulling from Carpenter's work.
  3. It might be a little too on the nose for some, but the story landed just on the right side of a stereotypical vampire hunter schlock cartoon for me.
  4. Environmental puzzles. Both good amount, design and placement.
  5. Decent enemy variety both in looks and fighting style.

Neutral
  1. Overall map design is a bit of a milk toast. Would have loved to see more gadget use and less negative traversal space.
  2. Currency and inventory systems feel tacked on. This is especially apparent in the final boss level where access to inventory is taken away from the player for no apparent reason.
  3. Checkpointing is up and down. In some cases the game provides mid mission checkpoints at every turn, in other cases larger chunks of a level need to be replayed.

Negatives
  1. Hitboxes and hurtboxes are difficult to gauge due to the used perspective. Some levels actively hurt this aspect. (E.g. freezer in the convenience store.)
  2. Combat is shallow and unbalanced. Some of the more late game creatures are a breeze, while the basic flies and black little vampires are obnoxious throughout the game. (The devs know this and use the buggers to increase difficulty even in arena fights where they have no business of being environmentally.)
Posted 14 July, 2024.
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Showing 1-10 of 52 entries