Reviews

As a part of my 12 in 12 project, I completed Oxenfree. (You can follow my progress here → https://rawg.io/collections/my-12-in-12-project)

*The gameplay*

It's an adventure game which basically has two gameplay actions.
1. The dialog system. It's quite innovative. There are three options (usually) to choose from and the main gimmick is that the system is kind of dynamic which means that sometimes you can just keep silent and the NPCs will take “nothing” as the answer. At some points you can interrupt other people as well. The voice acting is done very well and the dialog system has several voice tracks which are triggered depending on which dialog option and when you choose. This system has its downside too, since you sometimes can't even read and understand what your character is going to say and you mash he button at the last second. So the timing is weird sometimes. The other problem I had is that I misunderstood some dialog options. I wanted the character to say something nicely but it turned out to be sarcastic or a bit mean.
2. The radio. It could be done better. You just go around and listen to scrapes of info trying to collect the full story. It could be used so much more but that's just it. At some point, even one of the “enemies” makes a joke about you how you go poking everything with your radio like with a stick without even understanding how it works. That probably shows how poor this thing is used from the game-design perspective, although obviously this wasn't intended as a self-referential joke.

*The story*
The story is good, the characters are well-written. Although I had two problems with it, and that is why the overall rating for the game dropped from “Recommended” to “Meh” for me. 

The first problem doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the game. The thing is, I read a lot of Lovecraft some years ago. And as a teenager I also read a lot of teenager horror fiction. And since the game balances just between these two I wasn't surprised at all, nor was I scared or drawn in the story in some other way. 

[spoilers ahead, scroll past the second screenshot to avoid those]
The second problem is how the narrative is constructed. First off, choices don't make much difference in the short run. There was a moment when ghosts made me run around the house searching for things. So I failed the first riddle and I decided to fail the next riddles too, just to see what would happen next. The result? Well, I had to fix three tape recorders after my three friends disappeared. I guess I would have had to fix one if I'd failed just the first riddle or none at all (if I had had just a bit more time to go around the house to find the right item). So you can't really lose here. There are more cases like this one.

Besides if you want to get the true good ending and break the loop you have to replay the game one more time and choose a specific dialog option and at the end of the game you'll have the option not to go to the island before the loop even starts and that's it. Happy ending. Sounds boring and it is boring. There's not much content and variety to replay the whole thing again.

[end of spoilers]
*The presentation*
The best part of the game. The art-style is unique, I made around 20 great screenshots (which I added to the game page here). The music adds to the atmosphere and works to present the locations perfectly. The voice acting is very solid, although I already mentioned it. 

*The summary*
The game disappointed me in the end, that is true. However, if you enjoy mysticism and adventures and you haven't read a lot of good books with the same style and theme, I recommend you to give it a try. It's very short (around 3 hours for a playthrough, at least what Steam reads, I felt that it was more like 5 hours) and you might love it.

I am still glad that I played it and knocked it off my backlog. Although I am making a note for my future self not to play the games which I know what to expect from.

Note: Make sure to either pirate this game or purchase it from a third-party reseller to avoid supporting unethical business practices.

I've seen several complaints that Mankind Divided is unfinished, and while I don't agree with this sentiment, at least not in that particular wording, it's incredibly easy to see where these people are coming from. The original Deus Ex, as well as Human Revolution (MD's more direct prequel), and *maybe* Invisible War (honestly I don't remember enough of it to really say), all feature *multiple* hubs, designed in a semi-open world fashion. These hubs often contain many friendly NPC's (that can be easily pissed off and usually executed), many optional areas, and side quest-like endeavors with many solutions that give the world a feeling of depth, vibrancy, and even a degree of realism, or at least immersion.

MD has one of these hubs: Prague, and it's shown in 3 separate iterations. It's a poor bastardization of something that was done really well in HR and probably the original as well (it's been a LONG time), returning to an area to observe the impact of both yours and the narrative's actions. Prague does that, except it adds a non-committal halfway point between the two extremes, and there's no other hub to break it up, just one-shot story areas. In short, you'll be really fucking sick of Prague by the end of this game, even if you ignore most side content, which brings me to my next point.

A lot of the main quest objectives feel like chores, and the illusion of importance is only preserved if you're the type to get sidetracked with mysterious air ducts and distressed civilians. I'm thankful that I have a near-obsessive compulsion to scrape content out of the corners of the map, or I would've *really* felt the back and forth nature of the questline.

Obviously, I'm addressing the campaign as a Deus Ex game. Even though the mechanics and formulae of Deus Ex are worth analysis and criticism, I enjoy its tropes, and these issues are ultimately irrelevant to my lukewarm opinion on MD. In fact, if the campaign were the only thing I'm addressing here, this would certainly be a recommended. I obviously have my issues with it, but the duct-crawling, armblade-extending fun is still largely intact. This is a game I wouldn't consider great by any measure, yet I can find myself engrossed in it for far more consecutive hours than most games I'd consider masterpieces. Take from that what you will.

The biggest threat to my opinion of MD is the pathetic, insulting, nauseating Breach mode. Before starting the campaign, I noticed the "Breach" option on the menu and made a point to investigate it after finishing the story. Throughout said story, I found many items titled "Breach Software", as well as a vendor that seemed to take those items and redeem them for *something*, without specifying what that something was. All of this made me very curious and excited for Breach, since I still had no idea what it *actually* was.

Breach is a bad multiplayer game, designed with a typical free-to-play economy at its forefront, and the primary goal of hemorrhaging its players to irresponsibly waste money on valueless fake currency, and to then irresponsibly waste said fake currency on intrinsically rigged and unfair lootboxes. You know what my "Breach Software" got me? Fucking lootboxes. I played an hour of this shit max, and it was incredibly obvious that many of the objectives being dangled in my face were designed to be impossible without a disgustingly bougie amount of money to burn and record-breaking lows of self-respect and dignity.

And that's all there is to say on that. On to the DLCs.

MD's DLCs are the definition of a mixed bag. Up first is Desperate Measures which is a pointless waste of time and belongs in the garbage. It's a single mission that fits into the main story. Like they actually just cut a mission out and sold it as DLC. Fuck you. Next.

Then it's System Rift which is...uh...okay, I guess. It's probably also pointless, but it manages to actually be enjoyable for the most part. Someone understood that breaking into the Palisades bank to rob corporate secrets was probably the dopest part of the main game, and it shows. Also at least there's a (very tiny) new slice of hub world. Even if it still takes place in Prague. My biggest gripe is a particular mandatory section of first-person platforming that just feels horrendous. Definitely not something the engine was cut out for. This is then followed by a really intuitive and intriguing bit of abstract puzzle solving which almost totally made up for it. But then the inspiration behind *that* short section visibly shrivels up and dies on-screen, taking the chances of this DLC standing up on its own two feet with it. But honestly, it isn't bad.

But then there's the last one. *Holy shit*, the last one. A Criminal Past is fucking top notch Deus Ex level design and gameplay. It's what all DLCs for this franchise should look like. A fresh and unique setting, familiar characters used only as a jumping-off point, new characters that actually have a point, world design that *rivals* and often *surpasses* that of the main game. Seriously, this bit in the prison is tangibly better than any section in the campaign. It's in a unique situation, where the thorough, meticulous, and immersive design of the main game, is paired with a story on a much smaller scale, and the result is ecstasy. It genuinely feels nonlinear, when you're tasked with breaking the prison's rules to accomplish your task, but the level is designed like an actual prison and not a corridor for you to progress through. You plan and execute your own jailbreak. Security is overwhelming and you're underequipped. Executing everyone and then casually picking your path is not a viable option. But even then it doesn't have to stay that way. Seriously the density of the prison as an area is absolutely fucking ridiculous and consuming. I joyfully tore through it in one sitting. 

Tl;dr the campaign and A Criminal Past are absolutely worth playing at least once, especially if you're a series fan, but keep away from the rest as far as you can *especially if you're a series fan*.

HEAVILY Policenauts inspired but, directed/written as it is by someone who isn't Kojima, obviously not quite comparing in the level of world-building and absurdly wacky plot. The world of Neo-SF is simultaneously more cartoony (with anthropomorthic animals and cutesy, colourful robots) and grounded in reality (with little being truly unfamiliar to real life outside of a few allegories), and feels much less dystopian than that of Policenauts. It also features lengthy conversations as its main gameplay component and, where most games of the genre use puzzles to break up the dialogue, any "puzzles" in ROM are light and so heavily railroaded they just provide more text to click through rather than requiring any thought. Where most games might say "It's locked" when examining a locked door and leave you to work out how to change that, in ROM Turing will stop you to tell you that NOT ONLY is it a locked door but WHY it's locked, the precise steps you need to go through to unlock it, and even its exact make and model number. Although it does make those interesting with slight mix-ups now and again, overall the game feels glacially slow and leans more towards a visual novel than its adventure games inspirations (although the wonky controller-based shooting sections are carried over perfectly, whether you want to call that a positive or negative).
Surprisingly the game is 95% voice acted and quality is generally high for main characters, although bit characters seem like they're mostly cameos from non-voice actors and can be more of a mixed bag: A protester played by someone I do like is nonetheless jarring and pretty bad, but 2 Mello - the game's composer - puts in a great performance as a street rapper who needs your help to think up rhymes (one of the sections I mentioned earlier that varies up the conversations). As you might expect from 2 Mello's involvement, the soundtrack is excellent (and probably my standout feature of the whole game). I'm particularly partial to TOMCAT's theme as it sounds bouncy enough to be straight out of an Ace Attorney game.

All of the character's I've mentioned, bar one, are good fun and undoubtedly the main draw for ROM - talking to all the colourful characters is given just as much prominence as the main story - but, unfortunately, the one character I found occasionally frustrating is the one you spend the most time with - Turing. Your player-character is a voiceless blank slate, having no real character other than "journalist", and so Turing both serves as your window into the world through examining things, and does most of the talking to other characters. While mostly fine he's sometimes really grating with how confrontational, and at times downright stupid, he can be.

After just completing it, the story never went as big in scope as I was hoping/expecting but none-the-less had a very satisfying ending and epilogue chapter, going out on a high note.

2064 also has (at least in the Switch version) an absolutely brilliant Extras section. It's unlocked from the start and has grouped sections for concept art, music (beautiful UI in that one), backgrounds/wallpaper, UI/HUD, and character sheets. You can zoom in on all of them, most have at least a couple stages of progression from concept to final version, and are annotated with descriptions and why things were changed between versions which really helps give a sense of how the game came together.

I blasted my way out through XC2 and by the end, my play time was at 89 hours and I didn't notice at all. I think that Monolith Software is finding the balance between story and characters, my biggest issue with XC1 is that the characters didn't stand on par with the story, they were too generic, but here, even when they represent some cliches, they're likable and charming in their own way. The music is good and some of the tracks are amazing, they remind me a little of crono trigger, but a lot of them are kind of generic. The combat is not as amazing as XC1 or XCX but is still good and it has its own personality thanks to the blades system which is so refreshing, if you're into JoJo's Bizarre Adventure the blades are practically stands, also speaking of JoJo, one of the writers (Soraya Saga) is a big JoJo fan, so I will say that some of the character's backstories are very dark and similar to the ones that appear in parts 7 and 8 of that said manga, but that's just a baseless theory anyway.

My issues with this game are that a lot of the side content is way too boring and generic as the back entries, and it needs a lot of mindless backtracking, the menu and hud are better than past entries but not for much, they need to sort that thing by the next entry. As for the blades, is an amazing system but it also depends a lot on luck, in order to unlock all the extra blades, you rely on certain items that summon by chance rare blades or normal blades, it seems to me more like a P2W mechanic and it also depends a lot on grinding, so I didn't like it at all. At last, the localization team seems to make a lot of changes in the names and some of the dialogue and is pretty noticeable when you play it with Japanese audio, and as far of fan service and anime-japanese things here is a lot of that, I like it but if you're easily triggered by cleavage and non-practical female outfits you may pass on this one.

I think that this entry expands on the universe set by the first game and is better in almost everything, but is still a little far to become a classic, that being said when you finish the 12 hour tutorial is pretty damn fun onwards.

I‘ve played every RE since the first undead turned his head at you. In a two-generation history Capcom created a riddle depth scavenger hunt with an over the years shifting action afflicted gameplay. In my experience this became worse with the setup of the 6th episode within Umbrella’s occurrence. What was well enough for most of the younger gamers had been a huge trouble for veterans. Like BB King said: The thrill is gone. Meanwhile and several side stories and remastered remakes later there was finally a light in the dark which became pretty dark again after a while. For the better...

After getting in touch with the demo version “Beginning Hour” I was already feeling a third wave that may change gameplay and atmosphere. With the full version in gold I finally got to experience this horror trip on a 4-meter screen with atmospheric surround sound that helped to scare the shit out of me. I did this game in two days and have to say it’s hell of a fun. 
Even after playing all there was that the series had to offer I got to know once more what true gaming horror is. In a Rob Zombie setting I never would have imagined to be crawling in the dirt to hide from one of the family members rather than running around shooting everything that moves. Coming back in shining armor - riddles and item management - the elements of the game do remind of a time long ago. Not as challenging as it could be but this may results in the overall generous difficulty. May be harder to keep aiming right or enter the next room while still shaking from the one before. Sadly this fails again (like in a lot of games, not only RE) in the final hours of the game. Making things just too monotone.

Nevertheless I’d like to recommend this game to everyone who was bored by the last installments or likes to experience horror in a newer dress for the Resident Evil series. I think the road taken is great and visually the best RE out there.