Recent reviews by Harry

This game left a rather interesting feeling in me and I'm hoping that maybe this review can help me make sense of it. Also, it will contain SPOILERS so read ahead at your own risk.

First off, the game looks great. I have a soft spot for games that let me inspect stuff in the world and this game has it in spades. There are even ways this mechanic is used to portray information that isn't directly spoken to the player (for example, the books around Leonard's room are very mathematical/science-y but the ones closest to his bed are more spiritual and ghost related...interesting.) The game does a great job putting you in the physical realm of an off-putting hotel, right down to its "Shining" inspired carpet (a nice touch).

Secondly, the sound design is wonderful. With nary a single jumpscare (kinda), the game really puts you on edge with random floorboard creaks in rooms you aren't in or window shutters slamming shut. You never truly feel safe walking through the halls, despite the main character, Nicole, having been raised here. It feels as alien as any random hotel you could hope to stay in and really does make the player feel uneasy. Also, the dialogue between Nicole and Irving takes a few in-game days to grow on you. I was genuinely involved and cared about Nicole's character.

This is the end of the compliment section of this review (lol). So many things made up this story that never payed off, in my opinion. The game leaned heavily into the supernatural and it felt like there might have been an ending in mind that made better use of those elements. You discover a team of ghost hunters visited the hotel and were spooked off (allegedly by the ghost of Rachel) and you use the parabolic mic they left behind to listen to actual whispers and other spooky sounds. You father, Leonard, is apparently a brilliant
astro-physicist turned occult-dabbler and I honestly believed that maybe Rachel was still alive between dimensions or some sort of Schrodinger induced existence (Leonard alludes to this possibility by stating that stars can exist to us and be dead at the same time; we see their light, even though they are long dead).

There were certain sections of the story that made absolutely no sense to me. You discover that Irving was actually not a FEMA agent at all, but rather, Rachel's brother that you forgot about and he has been luring you around the hotel to discover the truth that he somehow suspected but also somehow needed you to uncover? And then once realizing the truth, that Clair (your mum) had killed Rachel, he accepts the truth and...kills himself? What? Even Nicole suddenly attempts to kill herself (which you can either stop her or let her, the ending doesn't change but the dialogue for stopping her is nice) which feels completely out of the character we spent the game discovering. There are also certain sections of the hotel that felt like there was more planned, but went unused; strange symbols in the crawl spaces that felt intentional but weren't used anywhere else and a doorway that went to a ski lift, but was unaccessable (to the best of my knowledge).

Now my main gripe with the story: the pedophilia. The game makes no attempt to paint Leonard as such. Nicole and Irving both paint Leonard with rose-colored glasses, as the poor, brilliant man with plenty of weaknesess but dangit, he just had so much love to give. Even Claire, the mother is ultimately made out to be the villain here; she was the jealous wife that couldn't handle the affair, not Leonard, a grown man who impregnated an ambiguously handicapped teenager and then made a shrine to her, complete with retainer and rocking horse.

I want to like this game and I think I ultimately do, but the ending left such a weird taste in my mouth. Where Firewatch left me with a "gotta carry that weight' feeling, TSORF has me wondering if there wasn't more of the story to carry.

Absolutely gorgeous visuals and intuitive controls. Soundtrack is absolutely amazing!

Here I thought I was the only person who had ever HEARD of Escape Velocity, let alone having played the everliving hell out of it. Endless Sky gives me the same feeling of adventure that EV gave me. Haven't discovered the forklift cheat yet, but I would still rate this 10/10. A must play :)

Very awesome! One thing I'm kinda bummed about is that it takes FOREVER to join a match, but that's probably because the game came out yesterday.

Holy sh*t. Not many games gave me the chills like this game. The zombie factor is perfect. Not too much that makes you hate killing zombies like Left 4 Dead, but just enough to provide apprehension of running into one. Love the scarce ammo. Can't wait for Act 2!!!