Way too short and light of gameplay to really give me a strong take away from it, but as a potential preview of the upcoming game's atmosphere this has my attention, because its cool. I do love the vibes from supernatural stories set in the 20's and 30's which the demo already captures nicely and the monster design so far looked neat. The demo definitely succeeded in garnering my interest in the game when there wasn't much before. Check it out if you're interested, though the download is a bit beefy for such a short demo.

The initial honeymoon is very strong but quickly gives way to a weak Wolfendoom propped up by wonderful aesthetics and weight. The thunk of your marine's boots, the thwack of the boltgun, the thud of your armour into an enemy, the thrill of the chainsword all mean nothing when levels are quasi-labyrinths with the same gothic coat of paint, the same enemies, the same circle-strafing.

The chainsword is cool in theory but is not as snappy as DOOM Eternal's loot granting chainsaw. The weapons feel fantastic but most of the time you can just use the boltgun and ignore everything else. The raison d'etre to charge ever forward to maintain your defenses withers away when you're locked in an arena trying to hunt down one last blue horror so you can get a key, or when you're trying to find the elevator in a sea of brown architecture. The unique models might as well not exist if they blend together or recede into the background as visual mud. It feels like playing the handheld port of a console title, the inferior (if charming) sibling to Space Marine.

Is there a worse feeling than playing a game you got as a gift and realizing 20 minutes in that you cannot stand to actually play it? A pit in my stomach formed as I made my way through the first run of Untold Stories, realising after I died to the first boss: "Oh, oh no its one of those".

I don't particularly like Roguelikes or Lovecraftian Horror all that much but when I got this game as a christmas gift from my Mother, well obviously I was going to give it a try and damn well try to like it. She doesnt play videogames so obviously didnt know that I wasnt the biggest fan of roguelikes (or even what the hell a roguelike is) but likely assumed I would like it on its theme and the vague name of HP Lovecraft which incidentally shows you why they do that thing of putting Lovecraft or any other famous author's name on the box.

The main issue with Untold Stories is that its trying to be a horror roguelike with the usual sanity mechanics. Unfortunately due to poor balance or the simple nature of RNG pretty much every single "will you do the thing? : yes/no" event I experienced caused a negative loss of sanity with little reward, which just taught me to never bother to interact with anything.

Other than that its just a top down shooter with an iframe dodge roll as is mandated by the great indie roguelike council that doesnt exist. The first boss didnt seem all that hard, but the game had already lost me by that point and thats kind of the double edged sword of the , lets not say souls like but souls adjacent maybe, game, I'll throw myself at Ornstein And Smough over and over again because I enjoy the game and the challenge. If conversely I don't particularly like your game, throwing me against some asshole will just make me drop the game and try something else, except this is a physical copy AND was gifted to me by my dear Mother so it sits there taunting me with its presence and making me feel guilty. Well, fuck you Lovecraft's Untold Stories, maybe they should have stayed Untold!

Barely functional mess with no minimap on a pitch black map running at single digit FPS, with your only guidance forward being entirely over the voice comms that don't actually know where you are, sending you in circles through this indistinguishable lab that's constantly exploding directly under your feet making the directional sensitive platforming even clunkier than it already is. Controls like people pretend Mega Man Legends does but 2x worse and actually demands more of you in the process.

Add it to the list of BEST SEGA SATURN GAMES because it's technically true LMFAO

At least it looks cool I guess? I dunno, tired of being recommended post-Genesis Sega games to the tune of commercials; "3D GRAPHICS, SO COOL! GENERIC ANIME INTRO! OLDHEAD DEVELOPERS!!" Still wanna give this another shot but can't help but feel if this were a PS1 or N64 title it'd be slammed way harder than it is, Sega always gets a pass because {vaguely alludes to 90s marketing aesthetics}. I"d love to be able to eat my words on replay, truly.

Really don't get what people see in this game. I got this in the boomer shooter Humble Bundle a year or two back while it was still in Early Access and with its full release today finally beat the last episode after getting through the first two episodes some time ago.

This game is just barely on the precipice between alright and straight up middling. Enemies are bullet sponges, none of the weapons feel that good, and the game is a Scrooge when it comes to ammo to the point where it feels like a genuine flaw instead of a purposeful design decision. The atmosphere is good at times but there is way too much brown sewers and factories. The level design is also not that great and confusing at times. I had enough fun with it, but I'm glad I just got this in a bundle. You can do a lot better than this game when it comes to modern boomer shooter throwbacks.

Actually genuinely think this is incredible. Buying this completely blind, with all the DLC and gubbins was the sensation of having the most heavy game of all time airdropped directly onto me & flattening me like an Ed Edd n Eddy gag. Immediately evident in its years of careful tuning through content and quality of life updates on top of the sizeable season pass extra facilities and continents. Such a behemoth of moving parts would otherwise have felt mismatched, insurmountable and offputting were it not for the way these mechanics are eased and tutorialised through story context.
I had a session where I felt like building an airship for my fleet, and learned that I had to travel to the arctic, go on a perilous expedition to save a stranded soul, lost in the pale archipelago, carefully manage my campaign’s dwindling heat and health to best a gargantuan iceberg all to find a fucking Hydrogen vein I can transport halfway across the world. It keeps happening. I keep setting short term goals only for the floor to fall out from under me and suddenly I’m playing a completely different game. I’m terrified of what will happen to me if I open a restaurant for my capital.
Trust & believe in the sheer industrial might of Ubisoft Triple-A to cram a city builda to the gills with enough varied emergent content adorned by absolutely luscious sunkissed gouache presentation that I forget that I'm essentially doing admin. Tending to a blooming orchard of stacking intercontinental production lines, all the while receiving affectionate telegrams from a motherfucker actually named “Willie Wibblestock”. Entering first-person mode at key milestones in my nation’s development to see a downright adorable early 00’s PC game looking simulation of my beloved townsfolk livin their bestest lives I can afford them. It’s so nourishing yom yom 🥕🥦🌽💚💚💚😊.