Recent reviews by TheNumber_T

Orwell is a “visual novel” style game in which you have the ability to follow cyber-breadcrumbs in order to slowly uncover suspect’s online lives. Your goal? Stop a terrorist organization (?) from bombing public spaces. Your tools? As an agent, you are privy to the entirety of your target’s posts, articles, phone calls, emails, etc. Use this information to reveal more and more relevant webpages and conversations. The catch? You’re overlooked by a supervisor and you must choose what information to upload. This supervisor can only see the bits of information you feed him, so choose wisely or risk ruining an innocent’s life. The challenge? Upload only enough information to gain new leads, but not jump to conclusions.

Are you really helping the greater good by invading the privacy of the few? Or have you caused more harm than good, muddling in affairs you should have never been in? Are the internet spies of today, really the superheroes of tomorrow? Find out by stepping into these large, cyber shoes. Act quickly and stop a harmful event in its tracks, or wait it out and discover it was a false alarm. Big brother is watching you. You are watching the people. Lives are on the line. Decide.

Then watch as you say, “I never meant for this to happen.”

Let me start off this review by saying I’m one who really enjoys a story-based game. I particularly enjoy consequence based story games (like Telltale). If that’s not your cup of tea, this game is not for you. If you’re still interested, here’s the pros and cons for the game so far.

Interesting social commentary. There’s no denying that this is the age of technology, and with that comes a whole new slew of problems that our forefathers never could have foresaw when drafting the constitution. Orwell heavily and obviously alludes to the current hot topics of freedom of internet access, government access to our personal files and correspondences, and general cyber security we see crop up in the news time and time again.

Easy interface. There’s not much to learn but drag and drop. Your un-uploaded data chunks are marked so you don’t lose track of what you’ve read, need to read, and are saving for later.

More unique game flow. Events don’t happen unless you upload data chucks, leaving you to explore the branches of plot in whatever order feels natural to you. It does still feel a bit restricted, though, (see “A bit linear, limited” in cons) a perhaps more of a pseudo-free-directional choice. (But isn’t the concept of freedom what this game is all about?)

Intriguing artwork. The geometric artistic style lends itself to unconsciously nod its head towards the cyber-oriented world of the game. It ties in beautifully to the theme of the game—from the logo to the interface—without being too aggressive.

A better save system!! Update has added a rewind system, but I have not played since I cannot stress this enough. Since this is a consequence-based game, I’d like to be able to start from the end episode one, or so, with my decisions staying the same, and only make changes to my decisions from there out, with my profiles branching out from my first play through plot line. Starting over from the beginning is too much of a grind. Even a way to speed up messaging/call text on the second (and beyond) playthrough would be better for acheivement hunters or people just curious about the other endings. Examples of games with a good save system for this style of gameplay include A Wolf Among Us and Papers, Please.

A bit linear, limited. There were some moments I wish some bit of text was highlighted (you may only drag and upload highlighted data chunks) since I wanted to explore that avenue of inquiry, but Orwell had other plans. This gave the game a restricted feeling. It does not leave the game open to a world of naturally-occurring red herrings (only game-constructed ones, not user constructed), which I think would have added much more depth to the game. Also, it’s glaringly obvious which pieces of text carry great significance. (Those will be the ones with conflicting evidence) so sometimes the challenge of deciding to report information right away or wait was quite discernible, offering no challenge. Although, I will say that there are a few nuggets of data I uploaded without believing they would have as large of a consequence as they did.

Short. There’s only a little over forty minutes of game play per episode, and with five episodes, this leads to roughly four hours of gameplay (assuming you don’t replay events). I follow a rule of thumb of at least $1 to 1 hour of gameplay, so in that regard, it’s a bit pricey. Just wait for a sale.

Play in one sitting (or as close to that as possible, if you don't have a full 4-5 hours to dedicate to one game) The flow and length of the game lends itself to be optimally played in one sitting. Taking a break and not have a comprehensive refresher (like the cinematic playbacks of key choices in Telltale games) of your choices and actions is jarring to the enjoyment of the storyline in my opinion.

I’d recommend buying Orwell when on sale. It has an interesting and captivating storyline, despite some need of polishing. The interface, flow, and artwork lend itself to be an immersive experience into the lives of the people you are spying on to protect. Also, the current social commentary gives a real-world depth to the game. It does feel a bit restricting at times, and the story is short. The save system leaves much to be desired, since I would like to more easily explore all possibilities of my choices. But, despite these factors it was still enjoyable and fun to play.

TL;DR Version:
-Short game
-Only worth the sale price
-Lacking story:
-Wasted story potential
-Extremely linear story
-Wonky controls

+Amazing artwork

Passionate, Long Novel Version: (Slight spoilers)


I was so torn between giving this game a thumbs up or not. But in the end, I have to say no, because of the lack of a cohesive story. Although, I must say its 90% price is worth buying just for the incredible artwork. Full price: sorry, no.

Controls

Unlike what the store page says, you do not need a controller to play, but I would recommend it to facilitate the use of cranks and the “interact” button paired with movement that are used throughout the game.

Using the controls is, at first, clunky and awkward, as you move two characters sometimes simultaneously (Big Brother becomes your left hand and Little your right). I never got completely used to it, as the camera angles like to switch at undesired times, throwing off the directions.

Sight tangent…

This control system of a “single player co-op” isn’t common, but also not entirely unique. I was reminded of an old flash game I played called “Fireboy and Watergirl” that required you to control one character with the WASD keys and the other with the arrow keys to solve cooperative puzzles. Or other games like “Trine” or “Goodbye Deponia,” where you have three characters you must switch between to solve puzzles. (Granted these two are not direct comparisons.) I cannot ding a game for having the same controls, as another game (that would be ridiculous), it’s simply a small point I wanted to make.


Brothers has three main elements: Atmosphere, story, and (simple) puzzles that drive the game. First, I’ll address the puzzles.

No Challenge

As you would think, each brother has their own set of traits. Big Brother is stronger and taller and Little Brother is nimbler and, well, shorter. These traits are exploited on elements that could be counted with one hand. (You see a fence, use Little Brother. See a tall ledge: use Big Brother to boost Little Brother.) Use these simple rules to pull lever A to get to lever B. Meh.

Alright, so Brothers is not for puzzle aficionados, and just gives the player some much needed time in the lovely landscape. Let’s move onto the story.

Wasted Story Potential: Cohesion and Background

The story is incredibly linear and offers no playback value. Leaving players with roughly three hours of content. I think I can sum this sub section up in one sentence: potential wasted.

Why is this? Let me start by saying that perhaps I’m so hard on the story aspect because I wanted so badly for something to enhance and back up the beautiful artwork.

The story was strung together by good points, but no good transitions. I felt like I was playing a truncated, bulleted list of an epic journey: being jerked around from point to point with little to no context of why. I repeatedly had “Wait what?” moments as new elements such as trolls, giants, and gryphons were introduced and I was just supposed to lay down and take it as commonplace that these creatures were bound to appear and react as they did.

I found myself asking over and over, where’s the background? I want the background. There’s no context to the story. (Aside from the flimsy, dad’s dying we need to go help him.) Without the background, I absolutely could not make myself invested in the story, no matter how hard I tried. (Believe me, I wanted to.)

Where’s my character development? Where’s the scenes to tell us why we’re going on a perilous journey to save dear ol’ dad? Or why the brothers have such a strong bond? (Aside from the common knowledge brothers do)

Where’s my world building? The game gives us wonderful scenes that have so much potential to tell us another story within this story. To give us the lore behind the creatures we meet. To tell us the story of how the events we stumble upon came to be. (The valley of giants, the blood ritual, the crazy inventor, the snow village, and on and on)

I would’ve been happy with just a few pictures as cut scenes at least trying to explain the scenery. All of this would only serve to enhance the amazing locations the game places us in. For a story-driven game, the lack of context and cohesion is unacceptable.

Ending

When I ended the game, all I could say was “What a cop out.” When such a tragic ending as this happens, I want to see a purpose behind it. Does it further the story? Does it add to character development? Etc.

I saw no purpose but to rip out our hearts and saw aggressively at the strings with no subtly or nuance. And it didn’t even do that, because I wasn’t invested in the characters, all because the lack of character development and background I had previously stated. I hate to sound heartless, but this tragic twist ending of a trump card didn’t do anything for me.

The end also falls into that Lord of the Rings question of “Why didn’t they just fly there in the first place, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥?!” It felt like a hasty wrap up that tried to sew all of the locations together with a “travel home” montage, which could have been used to, perhaps, flesh out Little Brother’s character or something more constructive.


Finally, we come to the atmosphere. This is a very big pro in my books, so I’ll make it short, since the story is what I wanted to discuss the most.

Stellar artwork. It was the main pillar that made me almost give this game a thumbs up. It did a brilliant job of portraying both whimsical and dark, and everything in-between.

The music wasn’t anything special and neither enhanced nor detracted from the gameplay.

I spent a while trying to decide if the made up language everyone spoke detracted from the game, and ultimately I think it did. It felt like the game should have committed to a totally silent style and letting it’s “a picture speaks a thousand words” feel really fly, or given it some spoken narrative and dialogue to enhance story and characters.


All in all, I desperately wanted to recommend Brothers because of its wonderful artwork, but it’s simple, shallow storyline and lack of world building detracts too much from the game for it to be thoroughly enjoyed.

A fabulous action/platformer that you can hop on and waste hours or minutes on.

So what are you going to get? Buckle your pants, because there's a lot. You'll get a platformer, but with middle school fart jokes that you (admit it) still love to laugh at. You're going to die, a lot. You're going drown, get stabbed, exploded, eaten, and incinerated. You're going to kill your teammates, a lot. You're going to want to throw your controller across the room after trying to finish one section for the last half hour. You're going to yell at the other person in co op. You'll play long enough to unwittingly sing along to the soundtrack. You're going to obsess over gems and yarn. And over heads. (What do they do? Nothing, but there's a deep-seeded need to collect them all. ALL of them, I say!)

Only downside is that multiplayer is a bit dead, so you'll want to have friends that you can connect with. But despite all of the above, you'll come back and fire up the game again.

Definitely worth it if it's on sale.

An amazing, bittersweet end to an amazing series.

I got Epiphany as part of a Humble Bundle and was unfamiliar with the series so I went back to play the rest of the series first, and I’m so glad I did. Like all the Blackwell games, it has a pixelated art style and smooth repeating track for each location that is reminiscent of an old GameBoy game. The writing was intriguing, witty, and never dull.

Every Blackwell game does an amazing job of tying each game together. Epiphany is no different and answers all loose ends left from Legacy to Deception, even leaving small, satisfying "Easter Eggs" about previous games and events.
Some of the puzzles are a bit abstract, but the amount of items you sometimes resort to blindly using are not too vast, in that you can figure it out in time. Gameplay is also the longest out of all of the Blackwell series, most say around 9 hours for the first play through. I was more eager on hearing the story than figuring out the puzzles, which is reflected in my hours played.

The end is, as I said, bittersweet and leaves an unfulfilled hole in your heart, but doesn’t any story when you fall in love with the characters?

All in all, a fantastic point and click adventure game. Would highly recommend.

Murdered: Soul Suspect is a game that errs on the side of an interactive story. It’s short and fairly easy, but entertaining while it lasts. It’s definitely not worth full price, since it’s only really going to get you maybe 10 hours of gameplay tops if you take time to find all of the collectables without a guide, but if it's on sale, I say it's worth the buy. I suggest you put it on the big screen, grab a blanket, a snack, maybe your cat, and your controller and enjoy the small side ghost stories and the overall story from the comfort of your couch. If that sounds like your kind of night, then get it and enjoy!

Rating: 9.5/10

Short Version:

• Must for Lord of the Rings fans
  
• LEGO humor
  
• Epic music
  
• Open-world of Middle Earth-what’s more to add?
  
• Use a controller (or you’re gonna have a bad time)
  
• No, you’re not too old to enjoy it
  
• A few weird camera angles that impede progress
  
• A couple buggy achievements (read a guide to get the bugged ones)

Mini Novel Version:

I bought this out of impulse on sale (75% off) and the moment I started playing, I did not in the slightest regret my decision. Actually, I was disappointed I didn’t grab The Hobbit-LEGO while it was on sale too. (I bought it the second the title went on sale again, since LEGO titles seem to go on sale pretty often.)

What first sold me was watching the re-created movie cut scenes with the twist of LEGO humor. There’s about an hour and a half worth of cut scenes, which are definitely not a waste of time. The “voice acting” is audio clips from the movies so it’s obviously spot on. And the music consists of the same majestic scores you hear in the movies, making simple tasks like lighting a fire 1000x more epic.

If you’re going for 100% completion on the game, it’s going to take time: probably 30-40 hours. I’ve logged 37 hours and I’m at 82% completion, but I do mess around.

You get to unlock pretty much every conceivable character mentioned in the movies (and some from the books, like Tom Bombadil) which allows you do things like ride a sheep around the Shire as Sauron. Now tell me that didn’t make a “Thank you for your purchase!” email arrive in your inbox. The entire world of Middle Earth is your sandbox.

As a side note, I definitely suggest using a controller. The controls are pretty wonky and unnatural if you want to stay true to keyboard/mouse.

Really the only drawbacks would be (1) that you don’t have much control over the camera angles, which makes some areas hard to navigate, but those instances are minimal. (2) The fact that since it is a game made for a controller, it’s a “one button does everything” control system so you’ll definitely end up dropping an object instead of using it a few times. And finally (3) if you’re an achievement hunter, there’s a couple buggy achievements, so I suggest you seek out a guide to overcome them.

But all and all, it’s a great game if you want to kick back, enjoy Middle Earth, and hit things with a frying pan ‘till money bursts out. Oh, did I mention that there’s a “Mithril Disco Phial” that plays a remix song of famous LOTR quotes that your characters rock out to?

Yeah, just buy it.