Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 3
Did you expect me to give this a bad review? What, do you think I'm some kind of monster?

This is just what a sleepy Sunday afternoon needed. A zero-stakes, simple adventure game that didn't tax my braincells and frequently made me laugh. Each episode is more expansive than the last (and by "expansive" I mean that the second episode lets you put stickers on a notebook, and the third episode gives you a sick-ass scooter) and the twist in the third episode got me genuinely emotionally invested.

The only thing that kinda irked me was the occasional moment where the creator would literally insert herself into the game, interrupting the story to deliver some kind of "well, actually" message about how something a character said was wrong. I don't know if these moments were supposed to be jokes but they felt really weird to me, like the video game equivalent of a Twitter community note.

It's cute, it's fun, and it's on Game Pass. If you're looking for a short little adventure game where you don't have to think very hard then Frog Detective is perfect for you.

P.S. I'll play some actual detective games soon, I swear!

A short, sharp shocker, A Chair In A Room is part-VR escape room, part-Southern horror story. As a nameless amnesiac who winds up in a mental institute, you'll go through a series of flashbacks to remember who you are and how you got there.

Though this is a few years old now, I was still pretty impressed with how the game looks and plays. There's a really nice, spooky atmosphere throughout, and the way the game uses lighting (or lack thereof) is really effective. The motel section even included a scare that actually made me say "oh fucking hell" out loud (which doesn't happen often, believe me).

At around 3 hours long this really isn't worth the full price tag, but definitely pick it up on sale if you're into VR games and haven't played it yet.

The trepidation I felt when I realised that this game was published by TinyBuild and had "Hello" in the title, let me tell you.

Luckily, Hello Puppets! has nothing to do with that other TinyBuild "horror" game series and is, in fact, it's own rather charming VR comedy-horror game. You play as an investigative journalist who breaks into the set of an old 1980's puppet show, only to find the puppets are alive - and evil. You end up with one of these puppets - the rather vulgar Scout - grafted to your hand, and it's up to you two to work together and escape - think Bendy & The Ink Machine meets Avenue Q.

The main gimmick of the game is Scout herself - she'll be by your side (literally) for most of the game, and as you progress you'll really start to bond. You'll have to work with her to solve puzzles, take direct control of her at some points, and even bond with her as she occasionally asks you questions, which you can answer by nodding or shaking your head. Her VA Kelly Pruner does a fantastic job voicing her, and it's clear she's the star of the show. Scout is a great use of VR and is pretty charming - even if her near-constant vulgarity starts to grate after a while. I have no issue with swearing but the whole "children's puppet says fuck" joke can only get you so far.

Is the game scary? It certainly tries. This is a comedy-horror but there seems to be more emphasis on the horror; a couple of very tense sequences and some fun jumpscares but nothing that will keep you awake at night. Aside from the puppet gimmick, Hello Puppets! is a pretty generic run-and-hide horror game. There are puzzles to solve and monsters to run and sneak away from. It's also rather short at just two hours, with no apparent replayability.

It's also unfortunately quite buggy at times; for instance, in one area I walked into a room and Scout says her lines. I died when in the room (thanks to some wonky AI), but when I exited the room again after dying Scout suddenly says the same lines that she said when we had first entered the room. There was also a puzzle in that very same room which bugged out and I had to restart the entire game to complete. This same room also doesn't "reset" after you die, for some reason. All I'm saying is if you play this yourself, you will have a bad time in the laboratory. There was also another very unfortunate bug that happened right at the very end of the game, which again I had to restart the game to fix. Aside from the bugs, the VR controls are very minimal - being stuck in snap-turn with no seated mode isn't my ideal way of playing VR, but considering this was released back in 2019 I can let it slide.

Definitely one of the better VR horror games I've played, and probably one of the better examples of "mascot horror", too. Hello Puppets! got a non-VR prequel, Midnight Show, a couple of years back so I may give that a go at some point too.

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 2
An FMV interactive movie with lots of style but very little substance, The Isle Tide Hotel describes itself as "A British Twin Peaks" on it's Steam page.

I have to ask... how exactly is this similar in any way to Twin Peaks? Twin Peaks has a charismatic lead actor, this does not. Twin Peaks has an intriguing, twisting plot, this does not. A show/film with "weird" characters doesn't automatically make it "Lynchian", and it's pretty insulting to David Lynch that The Isle Tide Hotel would describe itself in this way.

The basic plot of the game has you play a father who is requested to visit a hotel by a private detective, to save his estranged daughter from a cult. Given the "choose-your-own-adventure" narrative that most of Wales Interactive's FMV games follow, what happens to the main character once you arrive at the hotel is largely up to you. To the game's credit, there seems to be quite a few different paths you can take and endings you can unlock, but I wasn't impressed enough with it to go beyond the one ending I got.

Some positives; the sets, costumes and cinematography were pretty nice, and I definitely got Eyes Wide Shut vibes from the use of masks. Like most FMV games, the acting is a bit all over the place. Jemima Rooper does her best as Price, but I feel like Michael Xavier sleepwalks his way through the central role. And the fact that they cast Richard Brake but only give him around 3 minutes of screen time is borderline criminal. The rest of the cast are varying degrees of "okay" - the entire production still gives me "student film with a budget" vibes.

!!SPOILERS AHEAD!! My biggest issue with the game (and bear with me since I only did one ending) is that the overall plot is pretty flimsy: it's not really established what the cult's overall goal is or what they want with Eleanor. You hear words like "term" and "core", the cult's leader waxes poetic and "body-swapping" is mentioned at one point. The fact that I got through an intended ending of the game knowing little about the actual cult is a criticism in itself.

Yes, I realise that this isn't really a detective game and I Pony Island'd myself again. But for a mystery game there's not much atmosphere or intrigue, and for an FMV game there's no real sense of fun. There's better mystery games and interactive movies out there.

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 1
If I was to do THIS 🤟 would that mean anything to you?

A campy, delightfully British murder mystery, Contradiction is like an interactive episode of Midsomer Murders but starring the world's goofiest police inspector. Frederick Jenks walked so that Harry Du Bois could drunkenly stumble. Seriously, put those two in a room together, and they would just be asking questions to each other till the end of time.

The "gameplay" consists of clicking around the map, going from location to location and collecting evidence, that you then present and ask questions about to the game's cast of suspects. When you catch one of them in a lie, you select the two contradicting statements to push the story along. That's all there is to it, but as the statements build up it can be difficult to keep track of everything that's been said to see if a suspect is lying. You really have to pay attention by the game's late stages.

As a former film student the rinky-dink filming style and spotty acting made me very nostalgic. Rupert Booth is the standout actor here, with his performance as Jenks knowingly over-the-top and fitting perfectly with the FMV game theme. The late Paul Darrow also has a great turn as the sinister Paul Rand, though as the most experienced actor of the cast it shouldn't really come as a surprise. Every line of his absolutely drips with quiet menace. It was also nice to see Huld Martha giving an understated performance before their absolutely unhinged turn as Jimmy in the fantastic At Dead Of Night, Baggy Cat's only other game after Contradiction.

The ending is a bit rushed, and the killer reveal is a bit of a let-down (it doesn't take much pushing for them to admit it in the end!). There's also a very obvious tease for a sequel that will probably never come, sadly. But I still had a really fun time with this, overall. A nice way to kick off my deep dive into detective games.

P.S. If you're reading this and you haven't played At Dead of Night, go play it! It's fantastic!

As someone who was very impressed with Propagation VR's horde-style horror shooter, I was curious to see how Wanadev would do with a full narrative-driven game. I'm happy to say that Paradise Hotel is very good... for the most part.

The game has you playing a hotel worker in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, with a very simple task: get from the bottom of the titular hotel to the top to reunite with your twin sister. Of course, it's not as easy as it sounds. In the vein of classic Resident Evil, there's a lot of running around, looking for keys to open doors, solving puzzles and shooting zombies.

The game looks great, with excellent environments, character models and lighting. There are a lot of areas that are completely dark, and you'll only have the flashlight to let you know where you're going. This leads to some incredibly tense sequences and there are some genuinely scary moments throughout the game. The entire experience is made even more tense due to the fact that the zombies you kill have a habit of getting back up even after you've killed them.

There are a few glaring problems with the game. It's very short, and if you're skilled you can be done with the game in a couple of hours. It's not helped by the fact that the ending is a pretty unsatisfying cliffhanger. It feels like there's going to be another hour or so of game, but then it just... ends. It's a little limp, to be honest. The voice acting isn't great, but that's to be expected of an indie horror game.

The biggest issue with the game is that, even as strong as the rest of the game is, the final boss is terrible. It's clear that the developers wanted to do an epic, Resident Evil-style boss fight, but it just does not translate to VR at all. You're left with a horribly clunky fight against a giant enemy that can basically glitch into you and instakill you if you don't cheese it.

I had a great time with 95% of Paradise Hotel, but the final boss and sudden ending really soured me on it. There's more than likely going to be another instalment, so I hope the devs will focus more on fleshing out the story and pushing themselves to make a longer, more expansive game.

It's Star Wars-flavoured Dark Souls, essentially.

A pretty simple "go here to get this thing" story, with a cast of interesting characters and fun set-pieces. Weirdly, even as someone who has played all of the Soulsborne games I really struggled with the combat at points. Still, it's a fun ride, Merrin is a cutie and the final chapter is a blast.

I've heard that Survivor improves on this in every way so I'm looking forward to playing that (now that they've fixed the bugs).

A weird mishmash of F.E.A.R. and DOOM that feels less than the sum of it's parts.

The gunplay is fast and fun; sneaking up on an enemy while in active camo to deliver a two-footed dropkick to his head will never get old. The maps and enemy designs are pretty interesting and vary from level to level but the story wasn't original or compelling enough to hold my attention.

The horror elements are odd and feel pretty tacked on, as much as the developers wear the F.E.A.R. inspiration on their sleeves. I feel like the main "super-soldier caught in a conspiracy" narrative works well enough on its own, but when you're suddenly facing enemies that look straight out of DOOM 2016 it's pretty jarring and kinda takes me out of the game.

A couple of miscellaneous points - the weapon/character customisation was pointless and feels like it's only there to appeal to COD-bros. The cheat options were a cool addition and add some old-school flair. And as a Yorkshireman I thought the game's interpretation of a Yorkshire castle was pretty funny.

I'd recommend picking this up on sale if you're fiending for a fast, frantic FPS.

What's with that name, anyway?

It's not as well-regarded as Quake, and it's not as pure fun as Quake 3 Arena, but Quake 2 is the one that I spent many afternoons as a kid playing. Now granted, that was the Playstation version which is a little different to the PC version, which is what is remastered here.

It's just as fast and frantic as you'd like from a "boomer shooter", with a nice range of satisfying weapons and enemy types to blast them with. The environments are pretty bland, as much as Nightdive Studios has spruced them up, and the map design can often be confusing as to where exactly you have to go next, especially in the later levels. Luckily there's a handy little "compass" feature to point you in the right direction.

A solid shooter experience that doesn't outstay it's welcome.

I have grown more attached to Shadowheart than I have to most people in my actual life and the fact that she's not real depresses me immensely.

Oh, the game? It's great!

The amount of ambition on display from Larian Studios here is absolutely staggering, to the point that it's actually surprising just how much of it pays off. The characters are all incredibly interesting, well-rounded and fantastically written and voice-acted. The gameplay kept me engaged for the most part, and despite my general dislike of turn-based action it was pretty easy for me to get to grips with it.

The story is great and there's enough side-quests off the beaten path that I feel like BG3 is well worth paying full price for. I went through the game at a fairly brisk pace and clocked up 85 hours in the end. If you were willing to explore different ways of playing the game (including the unique Dark Urge path) then you could easily lose hundreds of hours to it.

Sadly a few issues prevented me from giving BG3 full marks. The game's third act can be very overwhelming at first, and it can be difficult to know what to do and where to go without losing certain content. Some side quests feel unfinished, like Larian ran out of time before they could flesh them out properly. That's not to mention that a lot of the stories of your fellow companions, so beautifully developed in the first two acts, tend to fizzle out. Once you complete their personal quests they stop being the fully fleshed out characters they were and end up just being sorta... there.

There were also a few annoying bugs riddled throughout; characters sometimes being unable to jump, textures not loading properly or being stretchy, enemies taking almost a full minute to decide what they wanted to do in a turn. Nothing game-breaking but they added up.

I don't regret any of the time I spent playing this - in fact, as someone with absolutely no prior experience with anything D&D-related this has actually made me want to get into it more, whether that's through other video games or actually playing it with other people. Of course, for that I actually need to find some friends first...

P.S. I don’t care if the ‘Party Limit Begone’ mod is ‘cheating’, nothing feels better than running around the city with my merry band of ten adventurers. The easier combat is secondary to not having to miss out on any companion-specific dialogue with NPCs.

Was itching for a VR answer to Metal Gear Solid and this seemed to be the best on the market right now (in terms of PCVR). While it definitely tries it’s best to emulate the MGS feeling (even the sliding door sound effect is the same as in MGS1) this sadly felt too barebones for me to want to continue past the first couple of missions.

The AI isn’t very smart and you can’t really do a lot beyond sneaking or shooting (although the voice-activated shakedown function is pretty neat) and after the first couple of hours I kinda got the point. A decent enough stealth experience if you can get it cheap enough.

With VR games starting to pick up steam again, I feel like Konami are missing a trick by not developing an actual MGS VR Missions VR game. Although given the events of MGS2 that may not be such a good idea…

"I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings."

Still kicks all kinds of ass even after a dozen replays. Max Payne, along with its sequel, slot comfortably into my top 10 games of all time. It still holds up (save for some weird compatibility bugs that are easily patched), plays great and has writing and voice acting that is still unmatched compared to most games that have come out since.

Remedy has been on an absolute tear with Control and Alan Wake 2 so if they can take that magic and apply it to the upcoming Max Payne remakes then a stone cold classic could possibly be made even better.