Should you actually choose to continue forth with Far Cry, PLEASE get/use FCAM from the beginning as you are unable to switch profiles down-the-line without restarting your save file

NOTE -- as I did not complete the game, this review should not be taken as a serious critique, but more-so as a set of observations.


Contrary to popular belief, I don’t like to give up on video games. No matter how much I may disagree or dislike some aspect of a title, I know significant effort was put into its overall conception, and that effort consequently deserves to be rewarded with a full-fledged critique. Yet, as I get older, I find myself pondering the idea of time- we all have a finite amount of it on this planet, and when we decide to invest some of that into playing a game, the question each and every one of us should be asking is, am I having fun? And, if not, is there a point where I anticipate the gameplay loop becoming fun?

If the answer to that follow-up is also no, then perhaps it’s in your best interest to drop whatever you’re playing. At least, that’s the conclusion I came to when attempting to beat the original Far Cry. As you can easily surmise, this is the entity that began Ubisoft's eponymous cash cow, though unlike later members of the series, it was developed by Crytek three years before they made their own mark on the industry with Crysis. Unfortunately, if Crysis was a glorified tech demo, Far Cry is a glorified beta: its fascinating aspects bogged down by technical issue after technical issue.

Let’s get one thing straight -- this is a broken game: not too cracked to be unplayable, but fissured enough to make it overly-frustrating, and no matter how much the “get gud” crowd may gaslight you, take solace in knowing you’re not hallucinating. Enemies have extraordinary sightlines coupled with pinpoint accuracy, and while such design schemes have been successfully used in other ventures (most notably All Ghillied Up), here it’s so aggravating I’m convinced it was not intended. The sultry of apologists out there will claim Far Cry to be this strategy shooter wherein you’re meant to observe a post from a distance, mark the goons on your map, and employ some gambit to cull them with minimal self-injury. First off, that’s not true (more on that later), but secondly, even if it was, I would have no problem with it -- not every game needs to be a run-and-gunner, and it certainly fits in with the premise of a lone wolf taking on an army of mercs. The problem is stealth is completely defective due to those aforementioned sightlines imbuing every approach of yours with a 90% chance of failure, and when one guy is alerted, the rest of his cohorts gain awareness, no matter their distance from patient zero. Yes, it’s easy enough to shake them off, however their displaced movements combined with a refusal to return to previous walking patterns ruins any pre-planned stratagem you may have had.

Highlighting with your binoculars is also faulty, not only because it’s impossible to catch every single thug, but because even those you successfully snag end-up rendered as confusing triangles on the minimap (a minimap that, for the record, does not indicate elevation and goes outright bonkers whenever you enter an interior). And to any gamers out there thinking they can deal with miscellaneous mercs via playing it by ear in the field, understand Far Cry’s directional sound simply isn’t good enough to warrant discerning NPC locations via dialogue. Taking all of this into account, I genuinely found there was no point in trying to be stealthy because you were eventually going to get caught, meaning it was better to find some decent cover and simply trade fire from the get-go. Sadly, this is where the “pinpoint accuracy” dilemma comes into play as your HP gets knocked down very quickly. Against a few enemies I could see these duels being fine, but 9 times out of 10 you’re up against squads of 12+ men coming at you from multiple angles. Sure you can pick-&-pop, however even this tactic is impacted by numerous confounding variables: enemies are capable of seeing and shooting through walls; the many acres of foliage block your view but not theirs; grenades lack an indicator; RPGs, snipers, and helo gunners are potential one-hit KOs, and, worst of all, you have a bloody checkpoint system that forces you to literally reset a block should you not reach that invisible star barrel.

Now I’m sure the cost-sunk fanboys will come out of the gutter to tell me I was playing the game wrong, that I needed to be smarter and slower in my approaches, so let me give you normies a mind twist I alluded to above - Far Cry has TONS of mandatory combat! I obviously can’t speak for the game as a whole, but in the 4+ hours I played my character was put into many close-quarters situations wherein he was charged with taking out an entire attack force without ANY prior opportunities for stealth. One section has you defending a fort as it's assaulted by Black Hawks and rocketeering boats; another sees you paragliding from a cliff only to conveniently meet a chopper midair; and still an additional instance involves you battling your way across a ship deck to a spare lifeboat. You got vehicular shootings, air-deployed goons, alarm triggers, and more I’m sure I'm missing, all while contending with the aforestated issues of impeccable vision cones and deadeye accuracy.

And look, maybe the game was intended to be hard. Granted, I was playing on the normal difficulty (and consequently expected an appropriately-tuned experience…), but that could’ve very well been the intended challenge, and certainly plenty of franchises ala Ghosts 'n Goblins exist for the sole purpose of vexing buyers. Fair enough. But anyone who goes around telling you the game is a black box masterpiece or deliberately-geared towards “strategic” playthroughs is lying to you. I said it before and I’ll say it again- Far Cry 1 is broken, and what’s funny is I didn’t even make it to the part of the game that most reviewers agree is unfairly brutal: the Trigen (see my guy GManLives’s video to get an in-depth breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmkCCih1T00&).

Now, from what I understand, Far Cry wasn’t always like this. It was only after the release of a patch called 1.5 that a number of these defects arose, and such an update must’ve severely affected the source code as no mod exists to absolve it to this day. I prefaced this critique by mentioning FCAM as it does address some of the qualms: enemy viewing is no longer extraneous, mercs can’t shoot through walls, and you have a quick save button in the menu (negating checkpoints). These are definitely great implementations, but the elephant in the room is that the other issues aren’t tackled, and in my honest opinion those are still big enough to justify labeling the game too knackered to be worth a run.

I don’t want to sound like it’s all bad as there is a lot to enjoy about the gameplay. The shooting is still great with weapons handling fantastically (in fact, one of my reservations with FCAM is that it adds iron sights when the vanilla aiming was better), and enemy AI is pretty decent: some will amble in the open stupidly, but the majority are either flanking, fragging, or going prone to draw you out/avoid fire. When it comes to duking it out with patrols you really do have to be smart, and at its best Far Cry genuinely makes you feel like Rambo, sneaking through the wilderness against unsuspecting nobodies. It’s a shame those moments are few-and-far-between.

The technical facets aren’t particularly noteworthy. Far Cry was no doubt impressive when it came out, helping popularize what I’ve called the deserted island trope via its coastal beachfront, submersible waterways, yellow-green vegetation, and bright open sky, and that art design remains pretty dang gorgeous to this day. That said, the graphics are regrettably held back by outdated texture streaming that glazes everything with an atypical fuzz. Leaves, grass, and streams are generally fine, however, everything else, from trunks to the skyline, are way too hazy, as though the cameraman forgot to leave the autofocus on. Hampering things further is improper polygon modeling for the slopes, forcing you to indulge in the tried-and-true tactic of bunnyhopping to ascend a hill.

With regards to the music, I obviously didn’t beat enough of the game to rate its OST minus the main theme, which I felt was a bit too bombastic sounding despite being well-composed. SFX, on the other hand, is pretty good; firing and reloading mechanisms are sharp, whilst footsteps boast that soft yet distinct thud you’d expect from forestral traversal. I did feel the game overused stock animal sounds for fauna that were pretty blatantly not in the world (nothing but birds), though I understand Crytek was trying to conceive an untamed atmosphere.

Voice acting, at the point I was in the story, was pretty negative. NPCs are as hit-or-miss as you’d expect in a Ubisoft product, while main character Jack Carver literally comes across like an 80 action hero parody. Perhaps that was deliberate, but something tells me it wasn’t given how good his handler, Doyle, is. Played by a guy named Cornell Womack, Doyle has one of those genuinely pleasant voices like the Transistor, making you want to follow whatever plan he's laid out.

Sadly, he doesn’t have much of a presence in the early parts of the narrative, the whole of which I cannot give an oversight on due to the lack of subtitles and dedicating audio settings for vocals. Wikipedia provides the following synopsis (“Jack Carver has left his mysterious and bitter past behind him and dropped out of society to run a boat-charter business in the South Pacific. He is hired by a female journalist named Valerie Constantine to take her secretly to an uncharted island in Micronesia. After Val takes off on her own with a jet ski, Jack's boat is blown apart by a rocket, but he survives by diving into the water”), which sounds pretty cool, but having played the beginning I can tell you it’s nonsense. Outside of an amazing intro showcasing said boat attack, there’s NOTHING about Jack’s background or why he was even sailing the rig in the first place (Far Cry must be one of those games that summarized things in its CD case menu).

But look, it’s not like a great plot would’ve been able to overcome the gameplay dilemmas. While Far Cry deserves its place in history, it’s best left aside as a relic of over-ambition.

NOTES
-You can’t cook grenades.
-Lip syncing is surprisingly on point, even if the mouth movements are grandiose.

For my initial thoughts on the game, see https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1086632/

When I first beat Portal all those years ago, it was on a 13x8 laptop screen capped at 1080p with built-in speakers. Thus, in replaying the iconic title on a significantly better set-up, part of me figured it would significantly bolster the experience ... .until I started thinking. See, no matter its revolutionary gameplay loop or ginormous rooms, the truth is Portal’s real strength lay in its fundamentals, fundamentals that wouldn’t drastically change no matter what kind of rig you launched it on.

And so that latter prediction came to pass. While some things were improved in my replay of the iconic puzzle game, it was ultimately more of the same, an aspect that, though inherently positive, did end up yielding its own negatives (more on that later).

Regardless, Portal deserves a proper review, and so we shall begin with the story. The premise is you’re a young woman named Chell stuck in a laboratory run by a malevolent AI named GLaDOS. The Queen Bee wants you to complete some tests utilizing a hi-tech weapon known as the Portal Gun, created by the building’s former occupants, Aperture Sciences, prior to the events of the game. The Portal Gun allows instantaneous travel between two manually-created points, and it’s an item you’ll want to master should you wish to survive GLaDOS’s many many chambers…..and that’s it. Though you get some twists down-the-line, the reality is they aren’t hard to see coming, and, more importantly, don’t mask the fact that Portal just isn’t interested in telling a story. From SHODAN in System Shock to AM in I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, we’ve seen these kinds of tales involving regular humans duking it out with super-intelligent agents, and GLaDOS, to Valve’s credit, certainly stands apart on her own merits. It’s just the narrative around her simply isn’t good enough for you to care about anything -- Chell has no characterization or reactions whatsoever despite her precarious situation, the background behind the desolation of the facility is relegated to brief jabs from GLaDOS, and there’s very little indication about the kind of society you’re in (even as this game reportedly takes place alongside Half-Life).

Fans may counterclaim that the sheer amount of dialogue is intended to make-up for these deficits -- that the point of Portal is its satirical jabs at corporate culture, and NOT the overarching dystopia. And that’d definitely be a fair point….were it not for the game being so dang tame. Don’t get me wrong, Portal does throw some nice quibs your way: the idea of employee safety being harped on whilst companies cut costs, the Orwellian-esque monitoring done by bosses on personnel, the nonsensical comp packages propped up by businesses for disgruntled workers, and so forth. That’s all well and good, and genuinely got a laugh out of me at times. The problem is it just doesn’t go far enough -- there’s nothing about mandatory OT, sexual harassment, office politics, unlawful terminations, the travesty that is HR departments, etc…etc…And yes, I get that Portal came out pre-#MeToo Movement; however, these were ideas strongly baked into the American consciousness well around/before the years of Portal’s release.

It’s especially disappointing as, graphically-speaking, Portal nailed that parody-corpo scheme to a tee: the dirty white tile framework highlighting Aperture’s tepid attempts at cleanliness/appearances, the padded cell bricking of the rooms symbolizing socioeconomic imprisonment, the rusty grimy interiors with their blood stains and spurting automatons indicating the true essence of the consortium, all do a fantastic job showcasing the type of rundown soul sucker GLaDOS is desperately trying to maintain. It’s a shame the writing couldn’t capitalize on these aesthetics in an efficient manner.

Beyond the environments, Portal’s artistic virtuosity stretches into other compartments, most notably the eponymous warp zones. No matter what chalken-surface you’re blasting, the transportation ovals always look like they’ve materialized out of said surfaces’ physical coating rather than a secondary skin plastered on-top. Coupled with the illumination effects for the portal device’s spark mechanic, and you’ve got a real testament to the strength of Valve’s artisans.

Like every game, there are drawbacks in the visual department, the lion’s share here ironically manifesting with the Aperture Science elevator. As you’ll quickly find out, this baby is (poorly+) used to disguise the game’s loading screens, and it seems to have been a last minute addition given the shoddy texturing of its interiors in comparison to literally every other environ. Adding onto this, liquid-based exteriors tended to not flow as fluidly as they naturally do in real life, often seeming like rectangular sludge, though I understand that was most likely a limitation of the Source Engine at the time.

Strangely, my worst criticism resides with an aspect you’re not liable to seeing often, that being Chell’s character model. Be prepared to reinject the phrase “uncanny valley” into your vocabulary as this is an utter monstrosity: the way she walks, turns, jumps, and blasts the portal gun are some of the ugliest, jankiest animations I have ever had the misfortune to witness. I don’t know how she got the short-end of the stick given how easy Valve’s made it for players to see her (simply place two portals adjacent to each other), but nonetheless you’ll be glad she’s largely out-of-sight for your playthrough.

On that note, the gameplay is obviously Portal’s core hook, and there’s nothing I can say that summarizes the experience best other than that it’s incredibly well-developed. It would’ve been very easy for Valve to fall prey to difficulty spikes or outright gimmickry, yet that’s not the case here: each level builds upon its predecessors’ tenets, adding new systems you get the hang of very quickly in time for their successor’s new obstacle(s). Whether you’re utilizing gravity for a linear momentum burst or redirecting lasers, it’s smooth, it’s organic, and, most importantly, more than earned its merits among the gaming community.

In my initial observations, one of my points of contention was a pacing issue that afflicted the game in its final act, a critique I no longer hold in this full-fledged write-up. While Portal’s been criticized for having too little content, I found it near-perfect in scope (though those wanting more are entitled to try the optional Advanced Chambers post-completion).

SFX-wise, Portal is surprisingly deep for a game that doesn’t employ extensive object interaction as, while you’ll only ever really have to grasp drones and blocks, every single grabbable item was still granted its own unique din which you can hear courtesy of smashing said item against the nearest wall (e.g., computer towers are a heavy metal vs chairs boast a lighter thin tinge). Voice acting, on the other hand, is a bit more mixed- it should come as no surprise that the bulk of it rests with Ellen McLain as GLaDOS, and though she does a great job, her first bout of screentime sees the editors overlay her performance with some awful misophonic effect that makes Rubik’s the Amazing Cube sound normal by comparison. I get that they were trying to digitize GLaDOS initially as a way of disguising her personified traits (proven by McLain sounding more and more “human” as the game progresses), but those initial stages were definitely rough on my ears.

Still, I can’t deny McLain nails the dark sarcastic tone, and during the final level, is even given a chance to indulge in some of the AI’s hidden personalities. Given her talent, it’s kind of sad McLain never went on to do much outside of Valve projects.

All that said, the real star of Portal rests in the turret drones, mini armed sentries Chell will occasionally have to bypass throughout the abode, as OMYLORDARETHEYSOF%CKING ADORABLE. Pardon my French, but I’ve never encountered an entity in a video game that was simultaneously this dangerous and ABSOLUTELY HUGGABLE (their polite lines upon defeat adding to the cute factor). The voices are technically attributed to McLain too; however, given the overly-computerized filter put on them, it’s not something I can astutely claim came from her aptitude.

Last in the sound trifecta is the music by Kelly Bailey and Mike Morasky, and it’s quite good, balancing that exploratory and office horror atmosphere the game blatantly generates throughout Chell’s journey. Interestingly, though, listening to the OST separately yielded a much more lackluster experience, and I believe that had to do with its implementation within the game. The way the composers designed the tracks, they’re intended to bleed over into one another between levels, said bleeding concurrently synchronizing with the advent of new themes or storybeats, and that’s just not something you can replicate in a standard music album (basically the compositions aren’t as good a listen outside the game, the exception of course being the Still Alive end credits song).

But in the end, what matters most is the game itself, and Portal more than succeeds. As mentioned in the introduction, Valve mastered the art of fundamentalism: focusing on the perfect ingredients needed to bake a cake the perfect video game recipe. Portal does lose some of its charm in repeat playthroughs; however, for those of you experiencing it for the first time, prepare for an enjoyable treat.


NOTES
+You’ll still have to go through loading buffers between the majority of rooms.

-One thing I did appreciate about Chell’s model were the addition of leg braces, explaining how she’s able to survive long drops/lunges.

-You’ll inconsistently find a radio that emits a really annoying tune.

This is not a legitimate review as I did not complete the game. Please take it more-so as a warning borne out of genuine criticism


"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be an errand boy” - said no f&cking person ever. And yet, that’s apparently what developer Illusion Softworks+ must’ve heard when they watched Goodfellas all those years ago. If you aren’t aware, Mafia is widely viewed as the video game equivalent of Scorsese’s magnum opus, focusing on a similar premise of an outsider joining the local mob. When it released back in 2001 it opened up to widespread acclaim, and for the life of me I cannot see why- not only did Mafia do nothing revolutionary to warrant such unadulterated praise, but its fellow competition that year (Halo, MGS2, GTAIII, Super Circuit), should’ve highlighted its flaws.

I don’t want to spend too much time talking about a title I don’t recommend, so let’s get straight to the bad: this is a boring game. Despite having a cool concept, you literally spend the first 3+ hours acting as a glorified delivery boy, and I wish I was kidding. But no, apparently no one in the Salieri Crime Family knows how to run a f&cking car, forcing you to be the designated chauffeur in every single mission. When I think mobsters I think guns, booze, racketeering: when Illusion thought mobsters, it was clearly driving, driving, and more driving. Maybe this would’ve been less disappointing had the navigation been on RockStar’s level, but it’s jammed with so many defects I’m surprised it got through testing. For starters, you have the usual problem you see in other titles containing drivable vehicles of the acceleration being faster than the steering, yet Illusion has made even that more aggravating by way of compounding any mishap into total mayhem. You guys know how, in Mario Kart games, if you try to boost from the get-go your kart will swerve uncontrollably? Yeah, imagine that with motion and you’ll understand the horridness that is Mafia’s driving: turn a corner even SLIGHTLY too strong and you’ll pull a 360; lovetap a pole and you’ll careen out of control. You’re basically expected to cruise around at a snail’s pace lest you trigger one of the game’s nonsense physics and cause significant damage to your ride.

Don’t worry, it gets worse. Apparently someone in the development team thought this hitch wasn’t enough to impede player enjoyment, so they threw in a few more fun surprises to best suck away your merriment: cars take forever to accelerate, and when they do hit maximum velocity they don’t feel anywhere near as fast as their real-life counterparts (and no, this isn’t for rendering purposes since you literally operate a formula car in one of the missions). Not that you’ll want to reach those speeds as traveling faster than a whopping 40 mph will get you flagged for speeding! That’s right, a title whose whole gameplay is based around driving PUNISHES you for engaging in the very essence of said activity! And to make things stupider, speeding doesn’t matter because there’s no currency here, meaning there’s no loss of income from paying these fines. The only thing it does is kill the (very little) momentum an action beat has going for it.

To add salt to the wounds, Mafia has one of the worst-designed free roam cities I have ever seen in a video game. It’s like they took the grid scheme of Washington, DC, split it into three sections, and connected them with specific pathways. I’m not joking when I say you’ll frequently have to pull-up your map to find the one street that leads to the one bridge to the next borough -- expect to frequently slow-down, take sharp turns, and backtrack as you maneuver from zone-to-zone. If this was based off a real metropolis I suppose I could understand the decision, but considering that Lost Heaven is a fictional scape, this ends up being bizarre. Oh, and speaking of backtracking, guess what the ending of most missions consists of? That’s right, returning to the point of origin! Because I guess coming up with enough original content to justify that $60.00 price tag was asking too much.

Look, there definitely are positives- the two times I shot a weapon they responded well, and the variety of firearms at your disposal indicates a lot of potential. I also acknowledge the game could very well improve down-the-line and that it’s only this first part which drags. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s a positive that the introductory phase of your title is bogged down with so many issues- first impressions are everything, especially for non-RPGs that last less than 20 hours.

From a graphical standpoint, Mafia unfortunately hasn’t aged well either. It came out during the early-2000s when polygon modeling still wasn’t refined, resulting in humanoid figures with inconsistent features. There definitely is a style-and-rhythm to the world (the brown grading no doubt a throwback to gangster films), and the artists did a phenomenal job dressing the NPCs about you (citizens with their 20th century apparel and henchmen with their brimmed fedoras and long trench coats); however, it’s inherently static. Eyes have a thousand-yard stare, animations are crooked, and clothing looks compressed over garnished.

One of the more interesting things Mafia does is implement a Stanley Hudson-scheme to facial features: while the top-half is fixed, the bottom half boasts a decent amount of movement, leading to accurate word formations. Unfortunately, it’s hampered by unstable lip syncing and a general lack of dynamism in NPCs, which is a shame as the voice acting is actually pretty good. It would’ve been too easy for this game to end-up like a Godfather-parody, but the actors they’ve assembled do a solid job standing out from their genre influences. It’s sad that their vividness couldn’t be properly conveyed on their respective character figures.

I was too frustrated to pay enough attention to the SFX, but from what I recall it was adequate enough. Cars surprisingly have varied horns, walking differs between surfaces, and breakable objects shatter as needed. Where Mafia really shines, though, is in its score by Vladimír Šimůnek. With an emphasis on moody orchestral beats, it is absolutely fitting- heck, I’m still humming the main menu theme as I type this review!

But yeah, I ultimately can’t recommend playing Mafia as the driving is awful- the part that outright broke me was a literal race you had to lap FIVE (!) times (and no, you can’t skip it as the skip button just results in you auto-failing and having to restart). My constant failures on the very easy difficulty made me genuinely yearn for those Hoverbike tracks from Ratchet & Clank 2, which yes, is a bad thing.

You guys need to understand that Mafia isn’t like Just Cause where other aspects of the world can be focused on: driving is the main component, and if it is fundamentally busted, it brings down the whole enterprise. If you’re interested in this game, it’s best to check-out the Definitive Edition (at least, I hope it fixed things).

I don’t know why, but back in the day I always found the NiGHTS mascot enchantingly alluring. Maybe it was the dream drop pose, violet shades, or humanoid/alien physique; or perhaps it was a combination of all three- form, colors, and character combined into a decidedly hypnotic image.

Whatever the case, it left a lasting impression on young me, and while this is admirable given the plethora of 90s mascots at the time, there’s a reason why this franchise never took off the way developer Sonic Team’s titular series did -- it was an arcade game in a console-ridden landscape. By the time the fourth generation rolled out, home consoles had cemented themselves as THE market leaders of the gaming stratosphere, meaning arcade cabinets and their assortment of featurettes were increasingly less appealing- why waste hour after hour competing for the highest score when you could get a funner, more diverse experience right there in your living room?

That’s not to say all arcade games were like that- certainly the myriad of successful ports/sequels/homages to the present prove they remain fertile. However, the ones you see tend to have something extra going for them: co-op (TMNT), challenge (Contra), story (Time Crisis), or some amalgamation of all three (Mortal Kombat). Though eSports will always exist to prop up the old model, the majority of gamers simply do not care to be stuck in a repetitive circle whose only yield is bragging rights, and that’s unfortunately the problem with Nights into Dreams- it has no other recourse for longevity, leaving you with 2-3 hours of okay yet ultimately forgettable fun.

The gist is there are 6-8 levels (more on that below), each revolving around the same schtick: you control a kid, head to a warp zone, and transform into NiGHTS to try and get all these tokens to unlock a boss. NiGHTS is on a timer which can only be replenished via acquiring said keys, providing a bit of an old-school platformer feel ala Super Mario Bros. The problem is, that’s about all the game does to evoke this genre as everything else is more akin to a rail game, which wouldn’t be bad were it not for the fact that it’s used in service of a collectathon -- NiGHTS is stuck on invisible tracks that only allow horizontal movement in a fixed circle, and so you’ll be spending most if not all of your time running (err flying) around this scape again and again and again until you acquire enough orbs to unlock the cages housing those aforementioned tokens. Strewn amidst these keys are generic collectibles whose sole purpose is to, you guessed it, boost your score. And given how they’re laid out in particular patterns, it’s clear the purpose of the game is to master your flight skills so as to be able to grab them all in singular, consecutive swoops.

It’s enjoyable at first, thanks to the purple demon controlling EXTREMELY well and the HD remaster incorporating modern controller support: floating, twirling, and soaring amidst these lands without hitting awkward resistances is a genuine testament to the skill of Sega’s engineers. No matter how often you switch directions, change velocities, or outright swap forms (a makeshift vehicle, a dolphin tale), not once will you notice a jarring transmogrification with the animation.

It’s sad, then, that they weren’t able to (or unwilling to) do more with the overall system- every action gets repetitive, and you’ll be looping about so much that even the stage layout will give you deja vu. It got to a point where, once I understood how things worked, I would actively speedblitz areas to avoid over-monotony.

Alas, those of you wanting to get your full bang for your buck will have to engage with this framework as unearthing the final world (levels 7-8) requires you to get a C grade on each of the preceding six, something I personally did not have the patience to do.

Graphically, this is a pretty gorgeous game. Sonic Team did a phenomenal job updating the Sega Saturn’s style without losing its essence, and while they weren’t quite able to iron out all the bumps typical of 5th gen polygons, the butter smooth animations and eye-popping hues more than atone for this. That said, I wish the devs had done more as far as making these planes surreal -- with the exception of one centered on a funhouse, every single mainland is something you wouldn’t deem out-of-place in Mario 64: grassy fields, snow-capped mountains, it’s literally been there, done that….save the boss stages. These babies are exactly what I was hoping the main game would be, dream realms full of nightmarish tones and eccentric constructs. It’s a shame you spend so little time in them as the fights are on a ~2 minute timer (a facet that also makes the game slightly aggravating since it’s rarely clear what strategy you’re supposed to be doing).

The sound, unfortunately, hearkens back to those arcadey dins with comically-exaggerated noises for character noises, item collection, enemy deaths, and damage-received. I’m not saying it’s bad or anything, it’s just a product of its time and, like the gameplay, gets repetitious to a fault. The score, attributed to three individuals, is good, though a bit too happy-go-lucky for my taste. It’s well-known the Sega Saturn sound chip was better equipped for music than the SNES, and these maestros have certainly taken advantage of it, albeit towards a tone that’s less befitting than the title would imply. Let me put it this way- I was hoping for more dream-inspired psychedelic melodies, and though you get some of those with tracks like “Growing Wings” and “After the Dreams,” the majority are tunes that wouldn’t be out-of-place in a Galaga remake.

In the end, I just don’t see Nights into Dreams providing any real value to contemporary gamers. It rides on nostalgia that was outdated even at the time of the original release, and if you’re that desperate for an arcade throwback, there are a ton of better titles out there. A competitive multiplayer mode exists that might provide some measure of fun with a buddy, but YMMV as far as how much.


NOTES
-Through a menu option, you are free to play the original version, though you’d definitely be doing yourself a disservice.

-You’re able to free roam on the lands as the Kids in any direction, making me wonder if it was an abandoned travel concept for Nights.

-The remaster includes a digital version of the vanilla game’s manual, which outlines the story and how to play the release.

Long before I decided to become a game reviewer, I used to jot down brief thoughts on the games I was completing in order to capture my feelings for personal archival purposes. Since then, I’ve of course evolved my craft into full-fledged write-ups, but I do think there is enough merit to some of the earlier critiques to warrant their publication, especially for titles I do not intend on replaying (in the near future at least). I’ve thrown in some updates, but this is one of them.

Graphics
-Beautiful menu interface

-Graphically the game is gorgeous, but I had to turn down my settings to not only to stop it from constantly crashing (though even then it would still occasionally crash) but to stabilize the fps and avoid motion sickness. The Frame Rate takes a particular hit when turning the mouse. Not as bad as in the Portal elevator, but still not good.

-Texturing in particular is extremely well done, even though the worlds are mostly simple.

-Egyptian carvings on walls are impressive at first until you realize they are just repeated ad nauseam.

-Matrix glitches are cool

-Water effects were good

-No character shadows or footprints

-Lots of particle effects but nothing substantial- raindrops hit the ground but don't splash, clouds rarely move, falling leaves phase through the ground.


Story
-Game's philosophy is really good via the terminal entries, Milton Library Assistant (MLA) dialogue, and QR codes that reveal messages from other players, but The Talos Principle’s biggest problem is that the puzzles don't relate to the philosophy. They act more like literal levels serving as a barrier between the philosophical checkpoints. As a result, the game starts to significantly drag towards the end. Though I admire the developers for putting in this content, it honestly could've been made shorter to better serve its story.

-MLA reminded me a lot of the Computer from Courage the Cowardly Dog with his sarcastic attitude. I liked the number of responses the developers put into the interactions with him. The psych profile in particular was a big trip since it nailed my mindset.

-100% ending sucks.


Gameplay
-Like that level signs get crossed-out/X-ed when you complete a level so that you know if you completed it. Unfortunately, the stars are deliberately not made clear, so that can get a little annoying.

-The levels for the most part are very well-made. Aside from a few, I never once felt that there was a difficulty spike- they were all solvable. One thing I would say is I hated the levels that relied on you having to pull secret levers as that didn't require skill and was more of a pain.

-Lack of checkpoints in levels was also annoying. It's obviously fine in the short ones, but in the longer ones it can be anger-inducing.

-Hate that resetting resets the entire world rather than just the specific level, as it hinders your ability to get the stars that require some change from different levels.

-The tetris puzzles got tiresome towards the end (bonus star doors and the elevator doors).

-Hate the lack of quick travel between the three stations, especially during the end part where you have to drag the ax around between them.


Music
-Esc menu music = opera (different from the game)
-Music transitions are naturally done

A free prequel to Unboxing the Cryptic Killer, Unsolved Case has you and a buddy teaming up to complete three “levels” through the power of shared deduction. How fun is it? Well, with a nice difficulty balance and cordial emphasis on cooperation, it ends up being a solid foray into the standing co-op genre.

The story involves two former detectives receiving a package tied to a cold case from their past. It’s a standard template used to sprout a potentially invigorating thriller, and while the game was too short for me to get caught up in its tale, I can see a larger release doing something memorable with the events on hand.

Graphically, Unsolved Case is pretty unique in a retro kind of way, its aesthetics harkening back to those expensive Flash games you used to see dominate the Internet in the early-2000s: you know, titles like Neopets and DragonFable. For the uninitiated, what this means is you’ve got pseudo-3D environs filled with bulky objects and heavy ink shading, the trio drawn as though with a carpenter pencil. I loved it, though I can see newer gamers being put off due to the inherent antiquity of the style.

Interspersed between levels are comic book panels unfortunately rendered in a much cruder, simpler art that speaks of low prioritization or misguided direction. Still, they’re far better than anything I could ever make, and I did appreciate the protagonist actually resembling normal human beings compared to the default supermodel caricatures you often see in mainstream releases.

Voice acting for the duo is average, the bulk of it deriving from grungy intonations a bit too deep on the characters’ respective accents. SFX, on the other hand, is deeper than I expected; stock heavy, yet relatively dynamic. Finally, music is limited, but serviceable when it props up.

As you’ll be playing on the same server as your compatriot, most of the puzzles come down to both players putting together two halves of a puzzle, either literally (i.e., two sheets of the same fax) or figuratively (i.e., one holding the instructions, the other the contraption). There’s not much I can say here without spoiling the game other than that it’s fun, creative, and surprisingly even-handed. I’ve indulged in a number of these titles over the years, and finding the right difficulty balance has always been an issue -- you either get braindead easy riddles or illogical leaps of faith.

That Unsolved Case manages to evade these pitfalls makes me eager to play its sequel.

The Timeless Child is another escape room title built on the backs of the standing co-op genre -- tl;dr, you and a mate are tasked with helping each other bolt out of an enclosed dwelling. Question is, how fun is it compared to its compatriots? The unfortunate answer is not too much given some overly-frustrating puzzles.

Criticizing The Timeless Child brings me no joy given its free price tag and the fact that it was made by two (read, TWO) dedicated developers. But I’d be lying if I said I found strong enjoyment in their product, and a reviewer should always be honest, no matter any external variables. What it comes down to is half the game’s puzzles are obscure even by escape room standards. See, you and your friend are dropped into the same mansion albeit in different timelines(+), with one party holding the solution for the other’s obstacle (or vice-versa).

The problem is, because the game is built on communication, these enigmas are sometimes too complicated to the point of being pointlessly hard to convey. For example, one section in a greenhouse involves you having to tell your pal the ingredients for growing a plant with a robot, yet the formula entails you not only having to match words to colors, but then having to take those colors and mathematically-compute them into a singular string of numbers (and to add insult to injury, the robot moves slows, meaning any mistakes result in a prolonged period of reset).

Not everything is like this, and I did enjoy around half the entries, but when almost 50% of your output falls into such a category it can negatively affect the experience as a whole. And it’s a shame because this is an absolutely stunning game that had no business being free. I’m not sure what engine was used, but if it was Unity the contents certainly don’t resemble it in the slightest- from the wood furnishing on the floors to the individual seams of cross-stitched portraiture, it genuinely looks like a AA production, not an indie release from two college students. I’ve played a lot of these escape manor titles, and it’s saying something when it feels like every asset here is wholly unique. My only complaint would be some occasional framerate drops I experienced in the beginning of the game, though those quickly fizzed out within the hour.

SFX is a bit more restricted in scope, but that’s to be expected given the limited gameplay and, ultimately, it does serve its purpose. The same can be said about the music, which never falls into distracting territory (even if part of me kind of hoped it would indulge in heavier isolation leitmotifs in light of the dark fantasy themes).

In terms of voice acting, there actually are a few lines in the introductory cinematic, and like their accompanying cutscene, they’ve got solid production value. The premise is something of a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, and while I would’ve loved to delve into it, the reality is there’s no point. See, unfortunately, the developers ran out of money and have consequently stalled any add-ons for the foreseeable future.

Though I was mixed on the title, I genuinely would advise the developers to reconsider relisting their product with some cost because it truly is worth at least $1.00 from prospective buyers.

If you’re really into this genre, consider giving The Timeless Child a go. Just know what you’re in for based on this review.

NOTES
+I don't actually know if they're in alternate timelines: I just assume so based on the corresponding venues.

Tell Me Why is an emotional rollercoaster, the kind of masterwork produced by a team fully in hone of their craft. Like most gamers, I had played Dontnod’s Life is Strange back in the day, and while it was enjoyable, seeing how far the company has come since then brings me great pleasure. From a mechanical, artistic, and narratological level, Tell Me Why is notches above its originator, and though there are drawbacks in each category, none significantly infringe on the experience as a whole.

Before proceeding further, I should issue a disclaimer about Dontnod’s (since rebranded Don’t Nod’s) graphic adventures to those unfamiliar with their model; they are one-step removed from walking simulators. What I mean is, though they technically contain some type of gameplay gimmick, it’s purely utilized in service of a storybeat rather than any independent junctures; the game can’t exist without this system, yet at the same time it wouldn’t be impossible to sever it (if that makes sense). The appeal of these titles is in their story and dialogue, and so if you’re someone who prefers playability over narratives, it’s best you look elsewhere

I’m of the opposite, and given my introductory praise, it goes without saying Tell Me Why weaves a fantastic yarn. Twins Tyler and Alyson Ronan are reunited 10 years after a tragedy involving their mother forcibly separated them, with Tyler rejoining Alyson in the smalltown they grew up in. Despite their inherent sibling bond, there’s no denying some things have changed: Tyler has transitioned, Alyson is less confident, and the ghosts of their past continue to prop-up in spite of the twin's attempts to move on. Further impeding the latter is the Ronans’ discovery of the Voice, a shared ability allowing them to recreate memories from their childhood: memories that reveal the truth isn’t what they thought it was.

Tell Me Why is one of those titles that’s better the less you know going into it; I know, because that’s exactly what happened with me. It’s no secret it attracted a lot of attention due to being the first AAA game centered around a transgender protagonist, and so I walked into things fully expecting a sentimental tale about forgiveness/acceptance/tolerance and all that other syrupy material any normal person understands. And yet, to my delight, what you actually get is something more akin to a mystery thriller that is less about bigots and more about misunderstandings. Those aforestated themes are still there, but they’re pushed to the side in favor of a tale focused on unraveling secrets and coming to terms with the past. Dontnod nails the close-knit, suburban atmosphere that has come to be associated with dark secrets, yet it’s a testament to the writing staff that I never once felt frustrated when an NPC was blatantly hiding something. What I mean is we’ve all played games or watched movies which indulged in the annoying tactic of having someone be deliberately vague for the sake of prolonging a revelation, and the reason Dontnod avoids stumbling into that pitfall is because they understand the balance between dropping bread crumbs, building walls, and initiating player agency (all while ensuring the mystery remains reticent). When the Ronans unearth part of a truth, an obstacle props up; when an obstacle props up, they circumvent it; when they circumvent it, they find a clue that only widens the berth. It’s a cycle that could’ve very easily fallen into monotony, especially with the gameplay being minimal in general. However, the fact that Dontnod evades this trap AND successfully builds up to an emotional climax is a testament to their storytelling competency.

Of course, you need good characters for any of this to prosper, and, on that front Dontnod, once again, more than prevails. Tyler is an interesting specimen as, given his protected class, it would’ve been very easy for the writers to go the holier-than-thou route in framing his personality. To elucidate, when it comes to minority ubiety, I’ve noticed a relatively consistent trend in pop culture, regardless of the group being portrayed: first there’s no representation, then there’s integration in the form of [offensive] stereotypes, then comes characters positively defined by their trait, and finally you have average lay figures who happen to be X. Obviously that’s not an absolute, and I’m sure you can find works “ahead of their time” peppered here-and-there, but it’s overall a decent canopy.

In regards to the LGBT community (particularly trans members), I definitely feel like we’re still in that third phase, and while such oeuvres have good intentions, the reality is they go too far in trying to counteract the prejudice of Phase 2. Regular viewers desire authentic human beings, flaws and all, and whenever you see polarization in minority-focused media between critics and audiences, I genuinely believe the majority of that faultfinding from the latter arises from anti-purism attitudes over xenophobia: i.e., disliking X individual being portrayed as morally better than others. While reviewers tend to lap that up under “artistic expression,” normal people see through the charade.

Anyway, the reason for this tangent is to explain why Tyler is a great character- he’s not righteous. There are occasional moments, but the lion’s share of his depiction is through the standard range of human emotions: you see him act selfish and courageous, empathetic and judgmental. It reminded me a lot of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart -- yes that was an anti-colonial text, but it wasn’t afraid to portray its protagonist as ignorant and physically abusive of his son. Tyler has flaws, however they only serve to ground him in verity.

Alyson is also beautifully-realized, her protean temperament an interesting mash of optimism amidst psychological anguish. She arguably suffered the brunt of the twins’ shared trauma, which goes a long way towards informing her various actions throughout the narrative. One of the best compliments you can give a writer is understanding where their character is coming from, and Alyson has that in spades (minus player choices, but more on that later).

However, the real gem of Tell Me Why has to be Ronan’s mother, Mary-Ann. Again, I don’t want to go too in-depth for risk of unveiling the plot, but what I will say is she might be the best depiction of mental illness I have seen in a video game, which is saying something considering her background is obscured for most of your playthrough. Any conceptions you have about her are guaranteed to change as you advance from chapter-to-chapter, her scenes showcasing how agony is a horrifying process no good person should ever have to undergo.

The numerous other NPCs you run into, though less fleshed out than the trifecta above, are solid enough to pull their own weight. Absent are lazy caricatures, replaced with individuals you literally could run into on any given day. As I said before, this is a story-driven game, meaning your conversations with them had to carry some meat lest they devolve into pointless filler, and thankfully these confabulations work due to astute scripting that understands when to start-and-stop.

Not everything in the storytelling department is sunshine and rainbows, starting with the Voice. A pet peeve of mine is when characters in non-fantasy settings aren’t shocked at the existence of preternatural elements, which, surprise surprise, happens with the Ronans and their mental ability. I get that they’ve had this since they were children, but it’s still bizarre that they just accept it as is. Second is The Book of Goblins. This is a compilation of fairy tales Mary-Ann scribed for the Twins back in the day, and on its own merits, it is an extraordinary creation: an enchanting assemblage of fables on par with the Grimms’ publications. Unfortunately, it becomes apparent it’s actually a series of metaphors detailing Mary-Ann’s backstory, and once you deduce which animal represents which character, it ends up being outright spoiler-y about later divulgences (whilst simultaneously making the Twins look like idiots for not putting two-and-two together). Thirdly, I wasn’t a big fan of the “once upon a time” recaps at the start of Episodes 2 and 3. I get what the developers were going for, but it came off as a bit too kiddy for my liking. And lastly, I severely disliked the lack of a skip option for dialogue- it’s obviously fine the first time you’re hearing things, but accidentally reinitiate a word strand, and you’ll be forced to listen to the exchange again (to be fair, I have seen playthroughs wherein players were able to skip, indicating either my copy was defective or it becomes available upon replays).

Luckily, relistening isn’t all that bad given the quality of the voice acting as this is an extremely well-cast game, with nigh-near every performer embodying their respective character to a tee. All those emotional variances I outlined earlier are brought to life by the VAs, showcasing the vibrant symbiosis that occurs when a skilled actor meets a virtuosic ADR director. As the main playables, August Aiden Black and Erica Lindbeck bounce off each other really well, hitting that fine gap between siblings who are simultaneously bonded yet estranged. Lindbeck, alongside Emily O’Brien (Mary-Ann), Grace Kaufman (young Tyler), and Gianna Ernst (young Aly) were the standout performances in my opinion, delivering their lines so pristinely that I was genuinely moved to tears at times.

That said, there were two issues I had with the overall line-up, the first concerning Neil Kaplan as Tom Vecchi. Kaplan is a charismatic voice talent, and Vecchi a side NPC running for mayor, meaning the pairing should’ve been a theoretical match made in paradise. Unfortunately, he ends up sounding so out-of-place, almost like he’s portraying a parody of a political candidate than a genuine campaigner (a facet made worse as Vecchi’s screen time grows in successive chapters). The second is Lindbeck’s choice of dialect for Alyson. Now, this is admittedly more of a subjective notation, but I’ve been noticing a trend in AAA gaming lately concerning the voices of Caucasian females in their early-20s sounding eerily similar despite deriving from very different (and very gifted) actresses. I dub this phenomenon “American Girl” syndrome (I know, I’m vastly uncreative) as it’s a bit perplexing hearing considerably disparate characters like Aloy (Ashley Birch), Mary Jane (Laura Bailey), and now Alyson come across as aurally synonymous. But hey, maybe that’s just me.

Musically, Tell Me Why is magnificent. Composed by Ryan Lott of Son Lux fame, his score surprisingly called to mind Christopher Young’s from the movie Untraceable (a film that, for the record, is over-hated, though that’s a discussion for another day) in terms of its reliance on soft piano chording amidst string overtures. This is a soundtrack capable of building up a thrilling atmosphere via simple melodies, and the fact that it doesn’t fall prey to overly-saccharine euphonies during the heartrending sections is the cherry on top.

SFX is pretty good. Graphic adventures tend to rely primarily on foleying due to the majority of the gameplay revolving around object tactility (picking up and placing down stuff), and it’s as sharp here as it is in a RockStar game. One of the smaller details I perceived concerned the implementation of that minute transition noise that occurs whenever an item is moved back-and-forth from a stationary position. What I mean is, you guys know how, each time you grab something or lay it back down, there’s a slight rasp between the item landing on a surface and settling into place? This happens because, as you would expect, humans aren’t capable of perfectly lifting/dropping things, meaning there’s an intermedial phase in-between the two motions. Well, the sound design for Tell Me Why accounts for that, and so prepare yourself to catch the sly rustle of a paper, stuffed animal, box, etc…as it's moved from one state to the other.

On the topic of object interaction, we should finally speak about the gameplay. The system here is fine enough, though keep in mind there is a noticeable two second gap from your tapping of a button and corresponding action (which yes, you do adapt to, but is still dumb). Besides that, as I mentioned earlier, Tell Me Why runs off the gimmick of memory recreation, and to be honest with you guys, there’s really nothing more to say. As I noted in the disclaimer, this title has the skeleton of a walking simulator, with any gameplay additions being in pure service of the plot. And so, for better and for worse, the power of “The Voice” is not detached from the narrative; you only ever reconstruct remembrances when mandated, and even then it’s as straightforward as pressing a prompt. One of the more interesting ideas involves the Ronans recalling different versions of the same event and you having to accept one as the truth, and while it impacts future dialogue chains, it’s never expanded to its potential and consequently feels like a last-ditch effort at giving players pseudo-agency.

There are other decisions you’ll be making during your 12-13 hour runtime, and, to Dontnod’s credit, they actually culminate in multiple finales here compared to the disappointment that was Life is Strange’s binary conclusion. However, none of them change-up the climax, which, all things considered, is the only important facet. In many ways, I kind of wish they’d axed the branching narrative system and just gone for a direct linear thread as it’s evident that’s where the company’s strengths lie (not to mention they are clearly incapable of putting in the dedication such a spiderweb requires).

Graphically, this is a lovely-looking game. Dontnod wanted to jump into the AAA space, and they have more than proved their mettle: character models are photorealistic, environments cooly baked, clothing extremely well-textured, and facial expressions on-point. Gone are the erratic lip syncing and recursive posture animations of yesteryear, replaced with a new algorithm specializing in organic body language. I love seeing companies make large strides from their roots, and Dontnod is a clearcut example of such growth. Their penchant for environmental storytelling continues to remain on point as well, with interiors decked in personalized detail conditional on the occupant (spaces like Mary-Ann’s room, Denise’s desk, and Sam’s boathouse standing out in particular), and they’ve even implemented jittery motion tracking whenever you handle possessions in those areas (something L.A. Noire didn’t have).

Like every video game there are drawbacks here. One, I hated how closed-in the third-person camera was as it never allowed you to fully take-in an area; two, as much as I want to praise the modeling, several NPCs (Sam and most of the cops) have traces of that old-bleariness that accompanied 3D figures back in the seventh generation; three, hair is not where it needs to be (Alyson, Michael, and Mary-Ann look fine, however Tyler, Eddy, Sam, and others have an unnatural composition to their barnet that unfortunately sticks out); and four, you’ve got a medley miscellaneous graphical discrepancies via inconstant fog breath and disappearing snow prints (what is this, Pokemon Sapphire?).

Overall though, there is nothing that will take you out of the magic circle, which is great because you’ll want to be immersed for the journey before you. Tell Me Why is a shining example of the power of video game storytelling, and if you’re looking for a strong drama not particularly reliant on gameplay, I highly recommend it.



Notes
-A cool sonoric facet occurs wherein dialogue switches between speakers contingent on which ear is facing the orator.

-It is incredible seeing fingers that don’t look like unnatural, elongated twigs.

-I wish a real-life version of the Book of Goblins was sold as I imagine it’d be popular among parents.

-The game makes a big deal about poaching/hunting, yet is content with fishing. Moral hypocrisy much?

-Photos strangely look like painted portraitures than 2D prints of the game's 3D models.

The Metro series has always been one of those franchises I consider glorified cult classics -- they sell tons of copies, but whenever you ask their admirers what exactly they do right, it always comes down to something shallow: atmosphere, immersion, atmosphere, visuals, and did I mention AT-MO-SPHERE? No seriously, read the comments on any review and that’s what 90% of them are raving about.

Don’t get me wrong, atmosphere is important, especially for post-apocalyptic titles like Metro, but it’s arguably the least vital aspect behind things like, oh I don’t know, story, optimization, and gameplay, all of which 2033 has major deficits in. The premise is a nuclear war wiped out most of humanity, leaving mutants on top and the remaining Russians underground where several factions, including neo-Nazis, have formed. There are a lot of holes in this concept that, while I’m sure were addressed in the source material, aren’t even touched upon here (at least so far as I didn’t catch them). For starters, how exactly did the Moscow Metro protect against radiation when much of it is exposed? In Fallout, the bunkers were hermetically sealed; now I may not be a scientist, but in the game, you’ll find so many mask-free hypogean spaces, it seems illogical that airborne ionizing rays magically avoided them. Secondly, what exactly are the mutants? Wikipedia claims they’re transmogrified animals, however, nothing in the actual story indicates such, and given how absurd some of these monstrosities look, it seems like a giant stretch, even by sci-fi standards. Thirdly, how are there so many dang Nazis? The nuclear winter emerged in 2013, well after World War II, and you’re only ever in Russia, so where did an army of them come from? Out of all the states in history, I sincerely doubt a Slavic country would house a bastion of Nazi sympathizers given the atrocities of the second Great War.

I’m sure I could come up with more, and I certainly don’t mean to be nitpicky, but you guys need to understand dystopian video games are highly dependent on their lore: if you don’t understand how things came to be, it results in the world becoming generic to a fault. And that’s kind of the case here- the metro is a cliche dilapidated hub, the mutants indifferent from your standard vampires/zombies, and the Nazis another run-of-the-mill evil faction in the same vein as other hostile survivalists. And it’s a shame because I doubt the author of the book (Dmitry Glukhovsky) or the writers here intended for that. But without in-game descriptions, or at the very least optional data files, 2033 ultimately fails to be indistinguishable from its calamitous brethren.

All cards on the table, I doubt I’d be criticizing the setting this much had the narrative been up-to-par, but it’s honestly pretty bland. You play as Artyom, a young soldier tasked with delivering a message to the metro capital about a new threat called the Dark Ones. If you guys have ever seen the phenomenal movie 1917, Metro’s story is basically that minus the personality and impetus. Arytom’s journey takes him to many decrepit sections of the subway, but it never feels like you’re doing anything grand or important, namely because of two reasons: one, the Dark Ones are even duller than the mutants, their essence obscured for sequel purposes; and two, Artyom joins a long line of pointlessly mute protagonists, sapping him of any humanity he may have had. I’ve never understood the rationale behind narrative-driven games opting for silent heroes; it’s one thing if your product is gameplay-directed, but for titles like the original Dead Space, certain Call of Duties, and even Half-Life, I find it to be a fundamentally dumb decision, and 2033 joins those infamous ranks. By leaving the relative safety of his compound, Artyom is theoretically undergoing a nerve-wracking experience (as he literally conveys via diary entries in and in-between scenes [more on that later]), yet illogically shuts his trap when in the midst of this very madness! It’s genuinely anti-immersive, especially when you see how conveniently hackneyed the script is in its attempts at working around this lack of dialogue. Real-time observations about the state of affairs around you, whether by inner monologue or general discourse, could have also gone a long way towards imparting a sense of history to the slums you stumble about, slums that otherwise suffer from a severe lack of environmental storytelling. Don’t mistake me, each location you travel to is technically distinct from its brethren, however, the developers didn’t do much in the way of visually conveying that- everywhere you look it’s the same basic rusted metal grating contorted around shoddy marketplaces lit up by oil drums, their NPCs donning similar apparel regardless of their age or gender. The few times you head to the surface don’t bear greater fruit as the everlasting Russian winter poorly masks what is effectively a standard post-nuketown metropolis we’ve seen a million times over: you know, the leveled buildings with blown out windows, smooshed vehicles, broken down signposts, and scraggly foliage.

I get it, there’s only so much variation you can do with this archetypal setting, and I doubt the real life Moscow Metro would’ve been substantially altered in just 30-years of crude maintenance. But considering this is a game with psychic attacks and flying wing demons, a little artistic licensing wouldn’t have hurt. As it stands, it rarely feels like you’re progressing towards a grand marker when the lion’s share of milestone camps are optically indistinct from the place you just came from. There was an area later in the game that I swear induced an overwhelming sense of déjà vu in me due to its eerie similarity to a prior stage.

I don’t mean to sound completely whiny as Metro’s story isn’t bad by any means. In fact, it’s a perfectly solid entry in the standard man vs. monster conflict we’ve had since the dawn of humanity. I only bring up these criticisms to caution against those aforementioned praises coasting on atmosphere relishment: it’s vastly overstated, the subterranean tunnels being more detrimental than ambient.

Then again, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking 2033’s plot would be epic given the stunningness of the graphics. Playing the Redux version, I don’t know what upticks were done, but the final remaster is definitely breathtaking: cracked walling, razed concrete, the sleek green tint of a radiated pool, worn out textiles, and the natural disbursement of snow on corrugated surfaces; all are superb exhibitions of the monster that is 4A’s proprietary engine. From the splatter of blood on your visor to the flying of casings as you discharge weapons, tons upon tons of smaller details have been coded that I’m sure warrant multiple playthroughs to catch in their entirety. Yet even these pale in comparison to the grand feat that is the lighting. Conducting a bit of research (that is, browsing Wikipedia), I wasn’t surprised to learn that 4A’s software specializes in subsurface scattering as 2033 might have the best lighting I have ever seen in a video game. As you can imagine, you’ll be underground for the majority of your playthrough, meaning most of the effulgence derives from improvised ignition sources stuck in stationary poses: gas barrels, torches, and lanterns all make their presence known between levels, sending orange and gold shadows radiating along walls. And while an inherent baked overlay exists to prevent overwhelming darkness, the fact that you can discern a blaze fount from a distance speaks wonders about the overarching quality of the lighting.

Like most AAA games, these praises are unfortunately capped by foibles in the craft. First and foremost, 2033 has not been optimized well for PCs- I experienced numerous crashes that were only absolved by turning off certain settings (I’ve read other players have had to outright tone down the resolution). Secondly, shortcuts were effected with Artyom’s model as he is essentially an exaggerated first person camera: taking a gander down will reveal the absence of legs, while his uncovered hands look uncanny as heck (thankfully he wears gloves in the final act). Thirdly, and most noticeably, are the mutant responses to damage- 2033 may very well hold the worst paired animation schema I’ve witnessed in a video game as these motions are jarring. Whenever you slay a monstrosity, there’s no transition between the last bullet and death call -- they just up-and-initiate their pre-programmed collapse. It reminded me a lot of that defect in the Civil War FPS “A Nation Divided” wherein allies would spontaneously die on the spot without reason.

Shooting, in general, is pretty poor largely because of the inconsistent damage threshold. Every weapon feels great, but you won’t have much fun using them courtesy of the mutants varying in fatality margins: some go down consistently with headshots, others can tank an entire assault rifle clip (this being particularly irksome if you play on the harder difficulties with scarce ammunition, though more on that later). It’d be fine if 2033 made combat encounters intermittent or outright optional, but as it stands you’ll be in mandatory firefights for a good chunk of your playthrough and have to witness this incongruity.

Human enemies are luckily more stable in their faltering, and even against monsters, you’re occasionally provided allied AI that actually do a solid job mowing them down, so it isn’t all bad. On the flipside, 2033 has compulsory stealth sections which are underdeveloped, though in a twist of faith, this tends to be in your favor. See, the game hypothetically operates on the basis of shading- light sources can be destroyed or switched off, wherein you’re provided a veil of darkness to meander in and one-shot bad guys. The problem, based on my experience at least, is that lighting is ultimately irrelevant due to enemy vision cones being inherently impaired- I’ve literally had goons walk right by me while I was crouched, or see me as I peaked around corners, and not get alerted. I’ve heard the Redux version attempted to revamp the stealth, but these alterations have clearly resulted in coding errors which, combined with long-range silencers and throwing knives, honestly make the stealth a bit of a cakewalk. I’m not saying you’ll never have to redo a section, but chances are it’ll derive from accidentally springing a booby trap than a hoard catching you.

Unfortunately, these positives are negated by a baffling game design decision that frustrated me to the point of not having fun. What it comes down to is the same problem I had with Mirror’s Edge, which is this disparate juxtaposition between pure linear pathways against a free roam blueprint. When you begin a level, 7 times out of 10 the spaces before you look open-ended, seemingly promoting this idea that you can approach such obstacles in more ways than one. Sadly, though, what you’ll quickly realize is that this isn’t the case at all, and not only is it not the case, it’s downright insulting. See, 4A wasn’t interested in creating playpens for gamers to meander around in- they want you to do things exactly the way they intended, and if you try to deviate, be prepared to hit the reload button again and again and again. A group of guards blocking your way? Well, don’t bother sneaking around because you NEED to climb the ladder instead. Want to save a prisoner on the verge of execution? Don’t even think about it cause that’ll put you in sight of the snipers above. Want to take your chances fighting a giant mutant guarding a doorway? You’re wasting your time cause, plot twist, that entrance was blocked off anyway!

It does get better in the second half (one chapter set in a rundown library, in particular, is absolutely brilliant in composition), but the fact that you have to meander through 50 percent of the game dealing with this pseudo-sandbox is aggravating to a fault. Yes, you do have a compass which shows the right way; however, it more often points in the general direction of the next objective over the exact method you are obliged to utilize.

On the topic of the compass, much has been made about 2033’s HUD (or lack thereof), and while I’ve always felt animosity towards gaudier HUDs to be a bit silly, I can’t deny the numerous benefits that come from a clearer screen. That said, 2033 has a needlessly complicated tool interface that I believe could’ve been alleviated had the developers not gone tabula rasa with the display- you can only equip one ranged armament at a time (swapping requiring you to go through two different menus), certain gear like the night vision goggles need to be periodically recharged, and your watch (which reportedly indicates your oxygen level and hidden status) must be manually prompted to be viewed. These may appear like small potatoes, but when you’re in the heat of a battle and have to quickly toss a molotov grenade, or cowering from monsters and have your specs deplete, it can be pointlessly vexing.

Now the counterpoint to these grievances may be that 2033 is part-survival horror, meaning the extraneous elements are meant to deliberately induce stress in you. To this I respond maybe? I’m not huge into the genre, but my understanding is that it’s more about inventory management and maneuvering around conflicts than haggling with menus. And to be honest, after my playthrough, I don’t really consider 2033 to be survival horror- vendors for recuperating gear are a dime a dozen, there’s a lot of mandatory combat (including one scene that straight up feels like a CoD set piece), and the game is ultimately not scary. Granted, I did beat 2033 on the easiest difficulty (namely due to aforementioned annoyances with the mutants), so these facets could very well be amplified on the harder modes. But when I see titles like Dead Space and Black Flag master the interface in both a minimal and ergonomic way, it encroaches on 2033 a little.

Soundwise, I have no complaints. This is a firmly crafted enterprise that accounts for the differences between the occlusion of a sunken city and the wide berth of an exposed surface: plangent gunshots boom in the tunnels whilst gusts dampen your footsteps above. And while there isn’t much enemy diversity, mutants are capable of being individually identified by way of their unique gait (it’s saying something when the flap of wings can induce a heartbeat skip!).

When it comes to the voice acting, I’ve seen much debate online about whether to go with the Russian or English dub. To clarify, my philosophy has always been to adopt the version most culturally appropriate- if a work of fiction is rooted in a particular country, chances are the voices from that state will better infuse the story with that indescribable factor we call authenticity. Under these circumstances, 2033 is theoretically better suited with Slavic dialogue- it was made by a Russian studio, is set in Russia, and reportedly incorporates some Russian Orthodoxy. However, despite such notations, I actually recommend playing in English for a couple of reasons: one, subtitles are NOT present for the numerous side NPCs you hear conversing in the background (who tend to make interesting remarks about the world), and two, during shootouts, it’s too risky to glance at your comrades words whilst dodging creatures. Contrary to what some russophiles will tell you, the English voice acting is well-cast. No, they’re not as good as their Eastern counterparts, but at least they speak with accents (unlike a certain “acclaimed” miniseries). Plus, 4A has redone the lip-syncing, meaning you’re not dealing with any poor ADR.

The score by Alexei Omelchuk and Georgiy Beloglazov is good enough. There are times where they weirdly indulge in old-timey radio tunes that take you out of the game, but the majority of the music is what you’d expect from an action horror title- ambient beats without a particularly formative structure. Basically, they get the job done.

In the end, Metro 2033 is a fine enough FPS hampered by boneheaded mapping and a forgettable story. I won’t degrade other people’s experiences, but for me, the atmosphere truly wasn’t that great, at least not enough to supersede the game’s many problems.


NOTES
-There is an alternate ending, however the way to get it is a little contrived and not worth pursuing, especially since it isn’t canon for Last Light.

-I wasn't able to fit it in organically in the review, but facial animations are extremely well-done here, the Redux version putting them in the same camp as contemporary eighth generation releases. One of the cooler things 2033 does is have certain characters actually look directly and say something to you whenever you get up in their face (compared to most other titles where it's like you don't exist).

-Certain levels have a volatile autosave wherein it will either behave normally or force you to restart some portion back, so be warned.

-Being able to wipe off blood and soot from your mask is pretty cool, but not seeing any of it on Aryom’s palm is an example of two steps forward, one step back.

-Flies populating the face shield appear indifferently animated than flies populating your regular face.

At first glance, it’s hard not to look at Quantum Conundrum and see the similarities to Portal: both involve a silent hero completing a set of test chambers whilst a sociopath barks out sardonic dialogue. Yet, as a critic and gamer, I’ve never had an issue with such homages provided the work is of sufficient quality, and not only is QC well-above that threshold, it really isn’t anything like Portal. You’re not creating makeshift warp zones between ingresses but rather manipulating objects via a Power Glove, and so the question that remains is does QC stand as a worthwhile platformer? Well, I kind of spoiled things already, but the answer is absolutely- it’s clever, consistent, and most importantly fun…aka, all the traits you’d want in a puzzle game.

The premise is you’re a little boy sent to live with your mad scientist Uncle Fitz who, in the midst of one of his crazy experiments, has trapped himself in a pocket dimension and turned the manor topsy-turvy, leaving it up to you to save the day. As you can imagine, this isn’t a story-driven title, with most of the narrative deriving from the diatribes Fitz hurls at you as you make your way from room-to-room, and under the direction of former Portal designer Kim Swift, it’s clear Airtight Games was trying to replicate the Chell/GLaDOS dynamic here. Yet, more often than not, I found myself cringing instead of laughing at Fitz’s rants, and I think a large part of that has to do with the relationship structure. In Portal, GLaDOS was an amoral AI who had no connection to Chell; Fitz, on the other hand, is a human being with explicit familial ties to the protagonist, and while I get he views the latter as a nuisance, it wasn’t enough for him to outright not give a sh!t about the boy endangering himself, let alone the constant castigations your ears are subjected to.

I know I’ll be hit with the whole “it’s a comedy, why so serious?” defense, to which I respond some comedic topics require stronger execution than others, chief among those child abuse, and I genuinely feel an easy solution would’ve been to just give a voice to the kid- having him verbally spar with his Uncle or retort with sarcastic quips could have gone a long way towards alleviating Fitz’s acerbic venom. As it stands, YMMV as far as how funny you find the jokes since it’s essentially indifferent from a stand-up comic routine.

But of course it’s the gameplay which’ll be the deciding factor for most players, and on that front there’s honestly not much I can say other than that the levels are incredibly designed. You never run into anything long or overly-complicated the way Portal 2 was structured, but that’s perfectly fine and leads to arguably more unique scenarios based around the four powers at your disposal. I’m not going to go into details about them as I think part of the fun comes from discovering them on your own; just know that they’re mixed-and-matched appropriately and used to their fullest potential. Not once did I exit the game thinking a lot of concepts were left on the cutting room floor, and that speaks to the degree of craftsmanship that existed at Airtight’s studio.

The only criticism I can drum up is the lack of a character model for Fitz’s nibling as it made some of the platforming slightly imprecise. Like you’re not even given an arm, which is a shame as the device for triggering the dimensional shifts literally looks like the Infinity Gauntlet, and it would’ve been cool to see the corresponding nodes glow like the gems did in Avengers whenever Thanos activated them. But this is slim pickings as the graphics, in general, are superb. If you had told me QC was built in Unreal, I would not have believed you as this is the first time I’ve seen a developer not go the photorealism route with Epic’s baby. Yet the results more than speak for themselves, with every object and environ rendered in a cel-shaded style baked with mundane tints, hitting that thematic mishmash I’d expect from a standard laboratory undergoing a radical change. In particular, I was impressed by the artistic malleability as applied to object geometry, with round and flat models alike constructed smoothly without any of those incongruent angles you often see in TellTale releases.

There are a couple of graphical downsides, namely QC’s overindulgence in aimless corridors between levels (no doubt a cover for the game’s loading screens, but to repeat the same hallway design and 90% of the paintings is where I draw the line), as well as the occasional clip-in (especially from broken glass). However, I think the visuals more than speak for themselves when I have to be petty with my critiques.

Sound unfortunately cannot get the same praise, beginning with the obnoxiously synth-heavy score by Chris Ballew. Ballew was evidently trying to musically recreate the gizmo-and-gadgetry noises you’d presumably hear in a scientific area, but the problem is he maintains that backgroundy nature to a fault, leaving most of the tunes largely forgettable (not a good thing for a level-based platformer). And even the ones that do stand out do so for negative reasons, strewn with 8-bit melodies that wouldn’t be out of place in the original Mario Bros (and yes, that’s a bad thing, sorry retro gamers).

SFX is more consistent, with Airtight doing a decent job diversifying the sonority of kinetic items depending on their velocity and collision surface (though couch cushions are abnormally loud). Where the company stumbles, however, is in its ambient noise: maybe they were relying on the OST, but I found a lot of the stages to be unusually quiet. Sure you hear the drolling of machinery and buzzing of lasers, yet other facets like the sputtering of static devices or churning of liquid in pipes is strangely absent for a game largely taking place in an enclosed space.

Voice acting comes down purely to John de Lancie, who is sadly handicapped by the aforementioned defects in the script. I like my charismatic narcissist as much as the next guy, but some substance has to be there to account for the toxic emotions, and Lancie simply didn’t have enough to work with.

In the end, though, Quantum Conundrum is more than entertaining enough to outweigh these flaws. It’s a shame Airtight went under as their sophomore outing easily exhibits the promise of a thoroughly-talented developer.

It took me about 7 hours to beat the game, which is more than worth the $8.99 asking price.


NOTES
-For all my complaining about the absence of gauntlet changes, the dimensional fluid does alter hues contingent on the active ability.

-De Lancie famously voiced William Miles in the Assassin’s Creed series pre-Origins. I say this because Fitz frequently speaks on a drinking bird toy called Desmond, making me wonder if this was a small Easter Egg.

-The game ends on a cliffhanger that was obviously intended to lead into a sequel…one that will never come to light.

-Two short DLC were produced for Quantum Conundrum, “The Desmond Debacle” and “IKE-aramba!”. Given the largely negative reviews on Steam, I have opted to abstain from getting them (at least for the time-being).

-Speaking of Ike, I can’t be the only person who thinks he was intended to be a meme/mascot that never caught on.

Serena is a “horror” “PnC” that’s neither scary nor enjoyable; a mediocre piece of shovelware representing yet another failure of the Greenlight program. At a 30 minute run-time and $0.00 price tag, I felt ripped-off, annoyed, and in desperate want of a refund.

Given the very short length of the game (and my ultimate un-recommendation), I won’t invest much time into a fleshed-out critique. The premise is you’re an @sshole mourning the departure of his ex (the titular Serena) after she left him for greener pastures. To the game’s merit, a ton of dialogue has been scripted to flesh out the guy, with each line enveloping the spiderweb of emotions most of us experience when processing a complex thought. Unfortunately, because the lion’s share are optional and non-linear, you never get a sense of build-up or even chaotic compendium, making it hard to invest in the storyline.

To add insult to injury, the voice acting for the main guy is timorous, the high gain of his shoddy mic amplifying his soft tones into Meatwad territory. Credit where credit is due, he does fare better during angrier moments, and Serena’s actress is outright good, making me wonder what went wrong for the leading man’s quieter scenes.

SFX is entirely asset-rehashed. On the plus side, the few music tracks you hear are good in a gothic chamber manner.

Visuals are the game’s high-point, the eerie cabin an assemblage of dark oak panelings and dusty paraphernalia. The setting definitely evokes the kind of desolate, tired atmosphere Senscape was going for.

Unfortunately, any poignancy is brought down by rote gameplay somehow made tedious in spite of the short playtime. You’re technically supposed to click on a series of objects in order to trigger the next major event, but the problem is the game gives no indication or hint as to what kinds of items need to be selected or when. Whether this was done to artificially-prolong the length or force players to randomly grasp every object, I do not know, but let’s just say I did not regret beating Serena with a guide. A shame, considering the existence of a shifting poem on one of the walls would’ve been the perfect opportunity to incorporate some clues.

So yeah, in the end, Serena is not worth a second of your life. To call it a tech demo would be insufficient, its contents more resembling a proof-of-concept project some ludology student submitted for graduation that ended up unintentionally gaining steam on, well, Steam. Avoid.