2023
A videogame is a game runned by a digital device and played through an interface.
"Thank you, random dude on the internet, for stating self-evident things like that" you'll say. Fair enough. But have you thought of the implications of such things ? For instance, with a classical game or a toy, like Mikado or Jenga, the game's fun for the precise moment the structure collapses. Then, you have to tidy the game, which is lame.
What I want to demonstrate is a videogame is different from a board game or a toy BECAUSE of its digital essence. Things like destruction, big areas, expensive things, complicated mathematics or even physics laws aren't a problem in videogame.
In The Finals, when you shoot a rocket on wall, it is detroyed. Simple. Square. Clear. Fun. It seems simple, but which game does that ? Battlefield, from which The Finals devs come from. And which other game ? Red Faction. Minecraft. And a few others. Even very famous series or very wealthy AAA produtions most of the time do not feature destruction while featuring explosive devices in their gameplay : you cannot destroy a wall neither in Call of Duty neither in Halo, neither in Gears of War, even if you have rockets, grenades, missiles or even nuclear warheads. Yet, you know what ? Destroying a wall is fun.
This is a universal rule that has and will forever be true in videogame design : destruction itself can make a game because it is a videogame specificity you can only exeperience in an actual videogame. Think of Destruction Derby, which gameplay is simply "Vroom vroom one onto one other until we cannot vroom vroom anymore" : it is still fun nowadays.
On top of this very solid foundations, you simply have to trust your design and feature a little bit of virtuosity in your game and level design. Destroying things is fun, but it is also important thanks to the game's structure, based on timing and coordinated attacks. Destroying things create chaos, which is a great opportunity to create some subsystems to feed this chaos, like a player-class system, a local environmental modifier systems operating through equipement and barrels (which means level design) or a victory condition solely based on timing which leads to silly moves and pretentiousness. All of this relies on solid shooting mechanics served by a "I am forced to mention it because wow"-tiers sound design.
The final is... Clear. Simple. Fun. The only downsides of it are because of it's PvP structure, which comes with a lot of not-so-fun tryhard mindsets, a META oriented playerbase reliying on boring healing mechanics and a two-time based objective loop rewarding only on the very end of the progression while it should reward the first half as well. All in all, very few issues that won't prevent you from having fun. Watch out though, I think the skill of the playerbase is currently skyrocketing and won't stop until a glass-roof is reach, so you better play it right now if you don't want to be obliterated in a few seconds for your 20 first hours.
"Thank you, random dude on the internet, for stating self-evident things like that" you'll say. Fair enough. But have you thought of the implications of such things ? For instance, with a classical game or a toy, like Mikado or Jenga, the game's fun for the precise moment the structure collapses. Then, you have to tidy the game, which is lame.
What I want to demonstrate is a videogame is different from a board game or a toy BECAUSE of its digital essence. Things like destruction, big areas, expensive things, complicated mathematics or even physics laws aren't a problem in videogame.
In The Finals, when you shoot a rocket on wall, it is detroyed. Simple. Square. Clear. Fun. It seems simple, but which game does that ? Battlefield, from which The Finals devs come from. And which other game ? Red Faction. Minecraft. And a few others. Even very famous series or very wealthy AAA produtions most of the time do not feature destruction while featuring explosive devices in their gameplay : you cannot destroy a wall neither in Call of Duty neither in Halo, neither in Gears of War, even if you have rockets, grenades, missiles or even nuclear warheads. Yet, you know what ? Destroying a wall is fun.
This is a universal rule that has and will forever be true in videogame design : destruction itself can make a game because it is a videogame specificity you can only exeperience in an actual videogame. Think of Destruction Derby, which gameplay is simply "Vroom vroom one onto one other until we cannot vroom vroom anymore" : it is still fun nowadays.
On top of this very solid foundations, you simply have to trust your design and feature a little bit of virtuosity in your game and level design. Destroying things is fun, but it is also important thanks to the game's structure, based on timing and coordinated attacks. Destroying things create chaos, which is a great opportunity to create some subsystems to feed this chaos, like a player-class system, a local environmental modifier systems operating through equipement and barrels (which means level design) or a victory condition solely based on timing which leads to silly moves and pretentiousness. All of this relies on solid shooting mechanics served by a "I am forced to mention it because wow"-tiers sound design.
The final is... Clear. Simple. Fun. The only downsides of it are because of it's PvP structure, which comes with a lot of not-so-fun tryhard mindsets, a META oriented playerbase reliying on boring healing mechanics and a two-time based objective loop rewarding only on the very end of the progression while it should reward the first half as well. All in all, very few issues that won't prevent you from having fun. Watch out though, I think the skill of the playerbase is currently skyrocketing and won't stop until a glass-roof is reach, so you better play it right now if you don't want to be obliterated in a few seconds for your 20 first hours.
2017
Ingredients :
- A good part of Counter Strike for the competitive PvP shooter without respawn taste.
- Some fancy racing game with gun like Vigilant 8.
- A little bit of Super Monkey Ball. If you don't have enough Super Monkey Ball, replace it by any 3D Sonic game.
- A huge part of Smash Bros.
- Eventually, funny pseudos from steam.
Mix it up in a huge blender and you'll obtain something like BCA. As you probably guess, it can be very fun. As you also probably guess, it's impossible to market, so nobody play it.
I had a very good evening on this though.
- A good part of Counter Strike for the competitive PvP shooter without respawn taste.
- Some fancy racing game with gun like Vigilant 8.
- A little bit of Super Monkey Ball. If you don't have enough Super Monkey Ball, replace it by any 3D Sonic game.
- A huge part of Smash Bros.
- Eventually, funny pseudos from steam.
Mix it up in a huge blender and you'll obtain something like BCA. As you probably guess, it can be very fun. As you also probably guess, it's impossible to market, so nobody play it.
I had a very good evening on this though.
A game that begins with aggressive electric guitare cannot be lame, can it?
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, that I will call DDGROTD for the rest of this critic just because how absurd it sounds, asks you to choose two characters and a level. Then you hit thugs.
It is one of the simplest beat'em all I ever played. You hit with a button. If your special gauge is full, you can use a special attack among 4. Killing enemies rewards you with mana that refill your special gauge and money, that is used to both upgrade your character throughout your run AND buy new content in the outgame (including playable characters).
The original feature of DDGROTD is what I call the trukey feature. Each mission has secondary objectives. Some of theme imply turkeys and/or crowd controls. Crowd controls is the name given to simultaneous last hit done with special moves, ranking from 3 to 5 enemies eliminated simultaneously, respectively rewarded with an hot dog, an hamburger and a Turkey. The subtelty that gives its flavor to this system is that an enemy is considered eliminated once is health bar reaches 0, but it can be crowd controlled until its body disapears. That means mutilating corpses is a great way to achieve crowd controls, which is a way to heal your character and increase your overall money.
All in all, DDGROTD is as simple as fun. To play with your lover after a long day at work. Plus, it's cheap: I bought a physical copy 30€ day one.
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, that I will call DDGROTD for the rest of this critic just because how absurd it sounds, asks you to choose two characters and a level. Then you hit thugs.
It is one of the simplest beat'em all I ever played. You hit with a button. If your special gauge is full, you can use a special attack among 4. Killing enemies rewards you with mana that refill your special gauge and money, that is used to both upgrade your character throughout your run AND buy new content in the outgame (including playable characters).
The original feature of DDGROTD is what I call the trukey feature. Each mission has secondary objectives. Some of theme imply turkeys and/or crowd controls. Crowd controls is the name given to simultaneous last hit done with special moves, ranking from 3 to 5 enemies eliminated simultaneously, respectively rewarded with an hot dog, an hamburger and a Turkey. The subtelty that gives its flavor to this system is that an enemy is considered eliminated once is health bar reaches 0, but it can be crowd controlled until its body disapears. That means mutilating corpses is a great way to achieve crowd controls, which is a way to heal your character and increase your overall money.
All in all, DDGROTD is as simple as fun. To play with your lover after a long day at work. Plus, it's cheap: I bought a physical copy 30€ day one.
2020
My gf bought this because she likes to punch things. And also because I told her SOR4 had a reputation.
Here's an opinion I try to establish as a fact : SOR4 might have the most beautiful 2D animated graphics currently available. It is candies for my eyes. Everybody, from Blaze to the most random punk have tons of animated moves that both capture the essence of early 90s SOR and benefit from the 20 years past since. I must point out chara design, which is peak.
The gameplay isn't in rest. Punching thugs lessen their health. If you press a magical button called X on the switch controller, you do a special powerful move. Using this move is an interesting tradeoff : it diminishes your health, but you can regain it by doing normal damages. Nonetheless, if you're hit on your way to recovery, you definitly lose your health. That's the salt of SOR4. It is fun. Oh, and if you're an hardcore player, be sure the combat system is deeper than that and there are many difficulty level to choose from.
Overall, a very good retro beat'em all that is definitly a 2020 game, that knows where it comes from and respects its legacy. The only "default" is the game announces 17 characters whereas in fact there are only 5 characters made out of 2020 standards, while the other ones are retake from the genesis era.
Here's an opinion I try to establish as a fact : SOR4 might have the most beautiful 2D animated graphics currently available. It is candies for my eyes. Everybody, from Blaze to the most random punk have tons of animated moves that both capture the essence of early 90s SOR and benefit from the 20 years past since. I must point out chara design, which is peak.
The gameplay isn't in rest. Punching thugs lessen their health. If you press a magical button called X on the switch controller, you do a special powerful move. Using this move is an interesting tradeoff : it diminishes your health, but you can regain it by doing normal damages. Nonetheless, if you're hit on your way to recovery, you definitly lose your health. That's the salt of SOR4. It is fun. Oh, and if you're an hardcore player, be sure the combat system is deeper than that and there are many difficulty level to choose from.
Overall, a very good retro beat'em all that is definitly a 2020 game, that knows where it comes from and respects its legacy. The only "default" is the game announces 17 characters whereas in fact there are only 5 characters made out of 2020 standards, while the other ones are retake from the genesis era.
2015
Despair. Despair everywhere. Despair among us. No hope. Death. Desolation.
Well this is pretty much how it is going in DD's world. But does this dark theme (use dark reader to preserve your sight wink wink) also applies to gameplay? That's actually a good question.
I would have answered a straight forward "yes" if you had asked me this several weeks ago. But a friend of mine brought his Switch for the new year party (don't judge us) and made me play this. I was very pleasantly surprised by how "accessible" it was. I put "accessible" between quote marks because we must remember it is a rogue lite marketed as hardcore. That means it isn't accessible for 99% of videogame players. But it isn't as hardcore as I thought.
And basically that's why I liked it. It's actually cool. It takes his time to correctly explain what's important and then... The game vanishes behind its gameplay. Which is actually the best thing it could have ever do. And I'm very happy with it.
Gameplay is "aux petits oignons" as we say in french. Literally, "as sweet as onions". It's the infamous "everything matters" rule. The game's based on squads composed of 4 characters. The position of your squad members is utterly important : knights should be in front to tank and reach the enemy while mages must be backward to safely cast AOE spells. On top of this you add a little bit of randomness and a system of double health gauge (actual health & stress health) and you obtain a very addictive game loop. Of course, because XCOM exists, all the things you loot must be reinvested in your base to upgrade your buildings, which allows you to upgrade your characters, which allows you to beat greater challenges with greater rewards. And that's basically it.
I quit with no regret once the game became a little hard, just before it became "unfair" in my opinion (How are you supposed to have enough healing power in your team without a vestal?). I played... Holy moly 10 hours! I thought it was only 6h! If that's not the sign it's a good game, I don't know what it is!
It's a cheap game that supports an indie studio, go buy it and play it ;)
Well this is pretty much how it is going in DD's world. But does this dark theme (use dark reader to preserve your sight wink wink) also applies to gameplay? That's actually a good question.
I would have answered a straight forward "yes" if you had asked me this several weeks ago. But a friend of mine brought his Switch for the new year party (don't judge us) and made me play this. I was very pleasantly surprised by how "accessible" it was. I put "accessible" between quote marks because we must remember it is a rogue lite marketed as hardcore. That means it isn't accessible for 99% of videogame players. But it isn't as hardcore as I thought.
And basically that's why I liked it. It's actually cool. It takes his time to correctly explain what's important and then... The game vanishes behind its gameplay. Which is actually the best thing it could have ever do. And I'm very happy with it.
Gameplay is "aux petits oignons" as we say in french. Literally, "as sweet as onions". It's the infamous "everything matters" rule. The game's based on squads composed of 4 characters. The position of your squad members is utterly important : knights should be in front to tank and reach the enemy while mages must be backward to safely cast AOE spells. On top of this you add a little bit of randomness and a system of double health gauge (actual health & stress health) and you obtain a very addictive game loop. Of course, because XCOM exists, all the things you loot must be reinvested in your base to upgrade your buildings, which allows you to upgrade your characters, which allows you to beat greater challenges with greater rewards. And that's basically it.
I quit with no regret once the game became a little hard, just before it became "unfair" in my opinion (How are you supposed to have enough healing power in your team without a vestal?). I played... Holy moly 10 hours! I thought it was only 6h! If that's not the sign it's a good game, I don't know what it is!
It's a cheap game that supports an indie studio, go buy it and play it ;)
2000
This is a bitter sour 4 star rating. But a true 4 star rating anyway.
First thing : the game might be the most beautiful game of the PS1. You can move your camera on your own to see hidden places, and believe me it's worth it considering how everything have a little detail on it that make it lovely to look at.
Second thing : This might be one of the best combat system of any RPG. There are a lot of detail to watch for, as for the player is implicated in each fights with a lot of human input required. Below is a list of details that make this system brilliant in my eyes.
- You have to aim your shots to touch specific parts of your enemy. OFC, a dragon doesn't have the same parts as a ghost or a human. If you wound this part enough, your enemy gains a malus depending on which part is hurt : silence for the head, slow movements for the legs...
- Each enemy IS actually something. This something is weak to a specific type of damage (skeltons dont like blunt damages) and a specific type of weapon specialty (skeltons are weak to anti-undead weapons).
- Each action has a range depending on which weapon you use. Do not hope to hit the tail of a dragon facing you with a dagger. But you can do so with an arbalest.
- Enemy chara design is wonderful. If it's blue and use water magic, then it's weak to fire. If it's white, then it's certainly made either of stone either of bones, which means it's weak to blunt damages.
- A ton of gauges to fill or unfill. Each weapon have a gauge of efficiency you want to fill and a gauge of durability you don't want to unfill. If a fight is long, you'll certainly fill your risk gauge, which increases your crits chances, but lessen your precision.
- A craft system which allow to fusion two weapons to obtain a new one of a new nature.
- A rythm system. You have to hit buttons exactly when you hit your enemy to deal another blow. This blow has an effect depending on which button you pressed : it deals more damages, it fills the weapon efficiency gauge, it deals poison to your target...
- A very good pace. I never had to farm to progress but advancing on the adventure wasn't easy in any way : a lot of bosses made my day a tough one.
That's why this game is a 5 stars. That's why I recommend you play it if you like RPGs (which I don't). But as every game, Vagrant has flaws, and that's what made me abandon it.
I am french and played it on my PS1. This might be a detail but believe me it isn't. French electricity network is PAL, and not NTSC as USA or Japan one. PAL is 50Hz, which means every PS1 game is 1/6 slower in France than it is in the USA or in Japan. Vagrant Story is japanese. In my opinion this explains why everything is that slow. It might be bearable to spend that hell of time in spell casting animation and/or menuing in normal speed, but it is absolutely unbearable in 50Hz.
That really is the only complain I have about this game. Everything is slow, plus the menus are... Simply horrible. Equiping items isn't in the same place as observing items, each part of your body (2 hands, 1 head, 1 body, 1 leg, 1 necklace...) has to be changed individually through dedicated sub-menus. If you change your equipment in fight (which you have to do considering the weaknesses system) while a spell is cast on you, it is sometimes uncast and you have to cast it again, spending mana points... In short : it is awful. Oh, and there are "boxes you must push" puzzles which are great, but way too complicated for this type of game.
But here again, I don't like RPG. Maybe if it's your type of game you'll enjoy that kind of details I found horrible. That being said, I must point out as a reminder this game gave me unforgettable memories. Like this time I put my mace in a chest and encountered a Stone Golem with only a dagger to fight him which led to... A stupid fight in which I dealt him 2 damages in case of critical hits. Or this time the chara design of a boss was so good I instantly knew what to equip, which buff to cast and which part of him to attack to... Actually one shot him. Thoses kind of moments, to be honest, I only ever lived them playing Vagrant. This deserves to be noted.
To be quick on the narration: It's good. Not wondeful, because it lacks voices and musics. But good, because some dialogs are well written and lead to interesting thoughts on death, religion, power and madness. For instance, I liked how they justified why an undead always want to attack the livings. Because he simply is terrified of being alone, and wants his living firends to join him to enjoy their moment together, which imply killing them because they currently see him as a monster. This is actually smart.
In conclusion, I think you better play it on a PSP. Because it is portable, which allows smaller and fragmented gaming sessions, which is always good when it comes to RPG. Plus, certain details might have been corrected and the console is certainly a bit quicker in France thanks to some technical tweaks.
First thing : the game might be the most beautiful game of the PS1. You can move your camera on your own to see hidden places, and believe me it's worth it considering how everything have a little detail on it that make it lovely to look at.
Second thing : This might be one of the best combat system of any RPG. There are a lot of detail to watch for, as for the player is implicated in each fights with a lot of human input required. Below is a list of details that make this system brilliant in my eyes.
- You have to aim your shots to touch specific parts of your enemy. OFC, a dragon doesn't have the same parts as a ghost or a human. If you wound this part enough, your enemy gains a malus depending on which part is hurt : silence for the head, slow movements for the legs...
- Each enemy IS actually something. This something is weak to a specific type of damage (skeltons dont like blunt damages) and a specific type of weapon specialty (skeltons are weak to anti-undead weapons).
- Each action has a range depending on which weapon you use. Do not hope to hit the tail of a dragon facing you with a dagger. But you can do so with an arbalest.
- Enemy chara design is wonderful. If it's blue and use water magic, then it's weak to fire. If it's white, then it's certainly made either of stone either of bones, which means it's weak to blunt damages.
- A ton of gauges to fill or unfill. Each weapon have a gauge of efficiency you want to fill and a gauge of durability you don't want to unfill. If a fight is long, you'll certainly fill your risk gauge, which increases your crits chances, but lessen your precision.
- A craft system which allow to fusion two weapons to obtain a new one of a new nature.
- A rythm system. You have to hit buttons exactly when you hit your enemy to deal another blow. This blow has an effect depending on which button you pressed : it deals more damages, it fills the weapon efficiency gauge, it deals poison to your target...
- A very good pace. I never had to farm to progress but advancing on the adventure wasn't easy in any way : a lot of bosses made my day a tough one.
That's why this game is a 5 stars. That's why I recommend you play it if you like RPGs (which I don't). But as every game, Vagrant has flaws, and that's what made me abandon it.
I am french and played it on my PS1. This might be a detail but believe me it isn't. French electricity network is PAL, and not NTSC as USA or Japan one. PAL is 50Hz, which means every PS1 game is 1/6 slower in France than it is in the USA or in Japan. Vagrant Story is japanese. In my opinion this explains why everything is that slow. It might be bearable to spend that hell of time in spell casting animation and/or menuing in normal speed, but it is absolutely unbearable in 50Hz.
That really is the only complain I have about this game. Everything is slow, plus the menus are... Simply horrible. Equiping items isn't in the same place as observing items, each part of your body (2 hands, 1 head, 1 body, 1 leg, 1 necklace...) has to be changed individually through dedicated sub-menus. If you change your equipment in fight (which you have to do considering the weaknesses system) while a spell is cast on you, it is sometimes uncast and you have to cast it again, spending mana points... In short : it is awful. Oh, and there are "boxes you must push" puzzles which are great, but way too complicated for this type of game.
But here again, I don't like RPG. Maybe if it's your type of game you'll enjoy that kind of details I found horrible. That being said, I must point out as a reminder this game gave me unforgettable memories. Like this time I put my mace in a chest and encountered a Stone Golem with only a dagger to fight him which led to... A stupid fight in which I dealt him 2 damages in case of critical hits. Or this time the chara design of a boss was so good I instantly knew what to equip, which buff to cast and which part of him to attack to... Actually one shot him. Thoses kind of moments, to be honest, I only ever lived them playing Vagrant. This deserves to be noted.
To be quick on the narration: It's good. Not wondeful, because it lacks voices and musics. But good, because some dialogs are well written and lead to interesting thoughts on death, religion, power and madness. For instance, I liked how they justified why an undead always want to attack the livings. Because he simply is terrified of being alone, and wants his living firends to join him to enjoy their moment together, which imply killing them because they currently see him as a monster. This is actually smart.
In conclusion, I think you better play it on a PSP. Because it is portable, which allows smaller and fragmented gaming sessions, which is always good when it comes to RPG. Plus, certain details might have been corrected and the console is certainly a bit quicker in France thanks to some technical tweaks.
2014
I am happy TWOM exists as a piece of culture. I am not happy it is relevant because war exists. Neither am I I do not consider it a good game.
The point of TWOM is to reproduce a survival experience during a modern day siege. That's why the game is a 2.5D stealth-plateformer-management-visual novel game. You think it's a lot ? It is. Exactly as managing to survive a siege is. That's the genius of TWOM : it shows you how fragile is life by making any aspect of it's design absolutely ruthless and crucial, while letting you incarnate people. And people, as we all know, are normal : they fail to do stuff. They even don't have any ideas on how to do most things. It sounds frustrating ? It is. Especially if it happens on day 20... If you read my logs on the SoulsBorne serie, you probably know I dislike frustration, the lack of infos and hardcoreness. As for myself, I tried the main questline and the oldies radiomen. I failed those two quests and left the game.
You've understand it, TWOM is in my opinion a good idea shaped in a good game, but the idea itself is a bad game idea so I consider the game bad after all. It lets you play civilians stucked in an sieged Sarajevo. You must find way to survive by :
- Organizing your daily tasks...
- To gather stuff : scraps, supplies, ammunitions, money...
- To craft things : weapons, tools, furnitures, fortifications...
- To... I don't know. Eventually wait until the end of the game I guess ? I died before.
Each of your survivors has a talent : this one is a good cooker, this one hits hard, this one is stealthy... You must use them in the most efficient way to survive. Most of the time, in the main questline at least, you'll have one people doing daily things, another one sleeping and the last one going in an expedition to find stuff. As said earlier : every thing is absolutely necessary to your survival. Each mistake is lethal.
When we focus on the part of the game I liked the most (even if I found if kind of boring overall), which is managing your home, we might think at a first glance it isn't as ruthless as I say. But believe me it is. You'll have to build furnitures. To do so, you'll have to build tools in a first place. Every thing is expensive. Each tool gives you access to a limited amount of new furnitures to build. That means that if you craft a useless tool in a first place, you'll certainly die. Slowly but certainly. That also means that if you craft a bad furniture you'll die, because it used ressources necessary to do other things. For instance, what's the point of the radio ? What's the point, in the early game, of a heat source ? If like me, you constructed both in the first days, you'll regret it and you better restart.
The dialog + inventory + barter system is very good though. Items are stackable to a limit (which depends of the item we're talking about) in an inventory case. Tools and/or weapons also take an inventory case. When you see someone, you can either fight him, either talk to him, either avoid him. If you talk to him, you'll sometime have to trade items with him. Each item has an hidden cost that seems to depend on what the people you talk to needs more : if he's ill, he'll consider medicine a wealthy item for instance. There are even specific items like vodka or cigarets that are really powerful in a barter situation but near useless in the rest of the game. Inventory space is also a real thing : if you decide to go to the main square to see merchants, you'll have to seriously consider what you take with you, because it must be the most valuable for those merchant as well as taking the least space in your inventory to let you take what you want from them.
Eventually, I must talk about stealth and fight system, which is where the whole game collapse in my opinion. The other systems hide a lot of infos (where's the most valuable place to put a reservoir, how much worth is a fake cigaret made of grass... ?) but they are not based on timing and sometimes are not that ruthless. The stealth-combat system is, on the other hand, based on timing and is absolutely ruthless when it comes to gunfire.
Basically, you point n clic things. When you do so, your character goes in position to execute the task. If you clic once, he does it slowly and without making noise. If you clic twice, he does it fast in a noisy way. Noise alerts enemies. Enemies have guns. They shoot at you. You die. The game doesn't features saves. That's the first scenario.
The second scenario is they shoot and eventually hit you, but you manage to survive. Congratulations, you're now wounded, and you'll die of stravation/illness because your two other surivors cannot handle the daily task on their own and they'll eventually get ill or seriously exhausted. And you'll die.
The third scenario is you didn't made an noise so they didn't shoot at you. Unfortunately, the game forces you to go further and thurther in your explorations. You'll eventually end in a very dangerous area, full of armed soldiers you'll have to face. Now, you have to solutions : either play the worst game possible by hiding and waiting a looooooooooong time in dark holes for guards to pass, either you try, on day 30, to attack a guard. Unfortunately, there was no tutorials for that. You don't know how to do so. You finally approach the guard and try to neutralize him. You clic on him. Wrong call. I guess you should have clicked on the icon upon him, with the knife in your hand. He saws you. He shoots you. See scenario 1 or 2.
Again, that's logical. If I was stucked in a sieged city, I myself wouldn't know how to disarm/kill/stun a military aswell. This is the better "You are a civilian stucked in a war" game experience. But that game experience isn't something I actually want to experience. Nonetheless, I am really happy some game devs took the time to think about that experience and eventually delivered a game that made a lot of people think. A game that recenters the debate about war in videogames : war is a tragedy. Nothing less, nothing more. This is something important to tell, and TWOM tells it correctly.
So does the metal gear solid serie in a way better way in my opinion but that's not the topic there. TWOM is a good game with a good message. But I hated it's frustrating and ruthless game design.
The point of TWOM is to reproduce a survival experience during a modern day siege. That's why the game is a 2.5D stealth-plateformer-management-visual novel game. You think it's a lot ? It is. Exactly as managing to survive a siege is. That's the genius of TWOM : it shows you how fragile is life by making any aspect of it's design absolutely ruthless and crucial, while letting you incarnate people. And people, as we all know, are normal : they fail to do stuff. They even don't have any ideas on how to do most things. It sounds frustrating ? It is. Especially if it happens on day 20... If you read my logs on the SoulsBorne serie, you probably know I dislike frustration, the lack of infos and hardcoreness. As for myself, I tried the main questline and the oldies radiomen. I failed those two quests and left the game.
You've understand it, TWOM is in my opinion a good idea shaped in a good game, but the idea itself is a bad game idea so I consider the game bad after all. It lets you play civilians stucked in an sieged Sarajevo. You must find way to survive by :
- Organizing your daily tasks...
- To gather stuff : scraps, supplies, ammunitions, money...
- To craft things : weapons, tools, furnitures, fortifications...
- To... I don't know. Eventually wait until the end of the game I guess ? I died before.
Each of your survivors has a talent : this one is a good cooker, this one hits hard, this one is stealthy... You must use them in the most efficient way to survive. Most of the time, in the main questline at least, you'll have one people doing daily things, another one sleeping and the last one going in an expedition to find stuff. As said earlier : every thing is absolutely necessary to your survival. Each mistake is lethal.
When we focus on the part of the game I liked the most (even if I found if kind of boring overall), which is managing your home, we might think at a first glance it isn't as ruthless as I say. But believe me it is. You'll have to build furnitures. To do so, you'll have to build tools in a first place. Every thing is expensive. Each tool gives you access to a limited amount of new furnitures to build. That means that if you craft a useless tool in a first place, you'll certainly die. Slowly but certainly. That also means that if you craft a bad furniture you'll die, because it used ressources necessary to do other things. For instance, what's the point of the radio ? What's the point, in the early game, of a heat source ? If like me, you constructed both in the first days, you'll regret it and you better restart.
The dialog + inventory + barter system is very good though. Items are stackable to a limit (which depends of the item we're talking about) in an inventory case. Tools and/or weapons also take an inventory case. When you see someone, you can either fight him, either talk to him, either avoid him. If you talk to him, you'll sometime have to trade items with him. Each item has an hidden cost that seems to depend on what the people you talk to needs more : if he's ill, he'll consider medicine a wealthy item for instance. There are even specific items like vodka or cigarets that are really powerful in a barter situation but near useless in the rest of the game. Inventory space is also a real thing : if you decide to go to the main square to see merchants, you'll have to seriously consider what you take with you, because it must be the most valuable for those merchant as well as taking the least space in your inventory to let you take what you want from them.
Eventually, I must talk about stealth and fight system, which is where the whole game collapse in my opinion. The other systems hide a lot of infos (where's the most valuable place to put a reservoir, how much worth is a fake cigaret made of grass... ?) but they are not based on timing and sometimes are not that ruthless. The stealth-combat system is, on the other hand, based on timing and is absolutely ruthless when it comes to gunfire.
Basically, you point n clic things. When you do so, your character goes in position to execute the task. If you clic once, he does it slowly and without making noise. If you clic twice, he does it fast in a noisy way. Noise alerts enemies. Enemies have guns. They shoot at you. You die. The game doesn't features saves. That's the first scenario.
The second scenario is they shoot and eventually hit you, but you manage to survive. Congratulations, you're now wounded, and you'll die of stravation/illness because your two other surivors cannot handle the daily task on their own and they'll eventually get ill or seriously exhausted. And you'll die.
The third scenario is you didn't made an noise so they didn't shoot at you. Unfortunately, the game forces you to go further and thurther in your explorations. You'll eventually end in a very dangerous area, full of armed soldiers you'll have to face. Now, you have to solutions : either play the worst game possible by hiding and waiting a looooooooooong time in dark holes for guards to pass, either you try, on day 30, to attack a guard. Unfortunately, there was no tutorials for that. You don't know how to do so. You finally approach the guard and try to neutralize him. You clic on him. Wrong call. I guess you should have clicked on the icon upon him, with the knife in your hand. He saws you. He shoots you. See scenario 1 or 2.
Again, that's logical. If I was stucked in a sieged city, I myself wouldn't know how to disarm/kill/stun a military aswell. This is the better "You are a civilian stucked in a war" game experience. But that game experience isn't something I actually want to experience. Nonetheless, I am really happy some game devs took the time to think about that experience and eventually delivered a game that made a lot of people think. A game that recenters the debate about war in videogames : war is a tragedy. Nothing less, nothing more. This is something important to tell, and TWOM tells it correctly.
So does the metal gear solid serie in a way better way in my opinion but that's not the topic there. TWOM is a good game with a good message. But I hated it's frustrating and ruthless game design.
2013
In short : I did not like this game.
To elaborate on this we'll need a bit of context.
- I am a worker of the industry. I hear a lot about this game from my colleagues, my friends and my beloved sources thinking the videogame as a media (most of them a french, some are international)
- TLOU is considered a masterpiece. That's how I approached it. That's why I played it.
- TLOU has been published in 2013, 2014 and 2022. It's sequel has been published in 2020 and the show is available since january 2023. I believe it's fair to say this game serie had a huge spot in the media this last decade. I was, and I still am fed up with this game being always shown as a pretended masterpiece of both the genre and the media.
- I bought this game less than 10€ last week (either 10€ or 5€, I don't remember).
- This is my first contact with the serie. I never saw the show nor did I played TLOU2 or the other versions of TLOU. I didn't even played it for 10min at a friends' house.
- I dislike the zombie genre.
- I am positive gameplay should always prevail over narration.
- I played it intensively while being COVID. I had fever the first day. I had respiration troubles and headhackes the following days.
- I played the french version. Both voices and text.
- I played on a PS3 absolutely not connected to internet, which means I didn't get any updates. I don't know if there are updates anyways.
- Considering the influence TLOU had over the gaming industry, I must point out I played games since TLOU was out. That means I played games re-using parts of TLOU's design.
- I tend to dislike popular things. Don't laugh, it's more a pain than a pride : every time everybody seem to love something and I don't I feel like I miss something. This is very upsetting. I'm actually working on myself on this point.
- The more time flies, the more I dislike western games (in opposition to eastern and namely japanese games).
This being said, after finishing this looooong game for the first and I hope, last time of my life, here are the qualities I've seen in TLOU :
- Body damages are cool. Please keep in mind Gun was out in 2005, Gears of War in 2006 and Call of Duty 5 in 2008 but let's be honest and admit TLOU's body damages are cool.
- There are bonuses. One of them are gampelay stats, a thing I love.
- Giraffes.
- Underwater scenes are more inspired than the rest of the game.
- The "hanged-by-the-feet" moment.
- Piano.
- The fact that the infection comes from a mushroom instead of a more classical bacteria or virus.
- Planks and ladders puzzles.
- The snow chapter was the better one and should've, IMHO, close the game.
- I'm confident it's easy enough to be beaten by a lot of people.
- Some places are narratively interessting, like the university for instance.
- The box illustration is reversible. It is an ugly composition in a boring black and white but it is reversible.
- There's a promotional flyer of Die Hard 4 in the box. I like this movie. More than Die hard 2 anyway (of course less than Die hard 1 & 3, this isn't even a question).
That's all. That's all the things I thought I would have remembered once I finished this game. Unfortunately, despite I finished it only yesterday, I'm terrified to admit I barely remember anything.
I remember the traduction wasn't good at all. Three examples :
- Ellie speaking about a floating plank : "Look, it walks!"
- Joel "It's pretty isn't it ?", Ellie answers "Yes, allright"
- An untranslated line showing up in subtitles.
To continue on details, I found the game very buggy. During one cinematic, all the voice lanes of one of the character didn't start at the correct time but at the same time as Tess' lines. During another cinematic there was just no voice lines at all.
Gameplay isn't in rest. The game's full of narrow corridors where 2 to 4 people wander. Sometime, they want to climb a ladder your upon, some other time they move forward while you are still. In both cases, it leads to you being forced pushed out of your position in T-pose. Another time, Ellie climbs upon an enemy to finish him with a knife. It does launch the animation, but it doesn't launch its gameplay-side. Consequently, the dude continues to charge me with a pipe while Ellie simply flies. A final example : I shotgun a zombie down on a concrete ground, it is splitted in two halves, its torso is proppeled light speed in the air. These bugs aren't blocking in any way. Unfortunately, in a game supposed to be the jewel of the western industry as well as a game based on immersion, these flashs back to reality are a bit disappointing.
That said, buggy games aren't synonymous to bad games. I myself like Left Alives. So what are the things I really disliked about TLOU? To keep things shorts I'll focus on 3 points : production, gameplay and, who would have thought (you can't see me but I raise my eyebrowns), narration.
Let's start with the production. I know this generation of consoles well : I had a Wii and a 360 at the time. So can you tell me what are those horses? Why are they like that? Why are they made of... glowing clay? You know, if you weren't able to do horses, you weren't obligated to add them to the game... Okay let's forget about horses and talk about your setup. You want to do post apo? Great! Gears of war and Fallout 3 did it very well in 2006 and 2008, you'll do it easily in 2013! What do you mean? You're globally okay but we must not pay attention to details because you wanted to do way too much things for a PS3? That's why your trashbags are squareshaped in the first chapters? Allright but can we talk about your universe a bit? The apocalypse has taken place in 2013 right? So why do pretty much every middle-class american family still have cathode-ray tube screen in their houses? Is there a reason for it? How would this shotgun and these ammo have a chance to work considering they were in the open outside for... Well 20 years? Does that kind of things make any sense? I am okay with this stuff in Resident Evil or The Evil Within because they do two things to counterbalance this :
- 1st, they try to justify they're universe until they cannot do it anymore. RE2 for instance takes place in a police station, that's why there're guns, but it does not explain 4th dimensions infinite chests. As for The Evil Within, it takes place in a nightmare, which is certainly the best way to justify improbable things. TLOU, on the other hands, claims to be realistic.
- Secondly, these games are way more aware of themselves than TLOU. TLOU is serious. RE is absolutely not serious. Saving the president's daughter from spanishs zombies and crows dropping money is utterly stupid. This helps a lot to accept "gamy" things.
All cynism aside, it's easy to tell the game's a bit cramped on the PS3. Some scenes, like the snow scene, are technically great tho.
I don't want to speak a lot about TLOU's gameplay. It is... Lame. You know Uncharted? Well, replace the "okay-tiers" puzzle phases and the bad plateform phases with very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very poor infiltration phases and even more dialogs. Congrats, you have done TLOU. Oh no, wait. Get rid of the mise en scène as well. Now you're good. Gunfeel is unsatisfying. Gunfights are slow. Craft system is a craft system amongst others : I only search for clip capacity to trick the game into carrying more ammos as The Evil Within taught me. The problem is upgrades are a necessity to simply see the end of The Evil Within whereas TLOU do not make you uncomfortable : I finished the game full ammo and armed to the teeth. I said infiltration phases are poor. Indeed they are. Sometime a precise type of zombie sees you. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, in a comparable setup, it's the other type of zombie that sees you. By the way, the game's uplayable until you've bought the upgrade to counter clickers bites with your knife. Chara designing zombies in a way we can clearly differenciate clickers from "normal" zombies using Joel's ear would have been a nice feature to both spice up and increase playability of infiltration phases. Unfortunately, it is not the case : when you understand your heard, you just have to pray for a normal zombi to catch you while your invincible comrade shoots clickers down. Bosses are a straight up insult to boss design : even halo 2 bosses were better. I even think (I'm really not sure of it, I played it a very long time ago) Batman Arkham Asylum bosses might be better than TLOU's. And believe me on this one : Batman Arkham Asylum bosses are NOT good at all.
Gameplay's bad. And what? The consensus isn't we play TLOU for gameplay. So why do we play TLOU?
It would appear we played it for its narration. I tried many times to both write scenarios and dialogs and I miserably failed as many times but... How to say it? With such an established genre, with strong codes... Considering the game was out at the peak of the zombie trend, with the walking dead show being at its peak... Well at least we can say this game's utterly predictable. At a point I once or twice asked me if it was parodistic or not. Some examples :
- Oh, we are seprated from our teammates for... Approximatively 3 minutes in game. Just before we join her again, she whispers "oh shit". I tHiNk ShE's BiTtEn! Spoiler : she was.
- The only character defined by his sexuality is gay and there are jokes about him masturbating.
- You know which character should have been defined by her sexuality? Hint : she's 14.
- Joel is stupidly violent, at a point he certainly is mentally ill. To be fair, living in his world for 20 years would have certainly made anybody mentaly ill. But would it have turn them into psycho? I dont know.
- The end's zofhozhfhkjebrgjherbggizzrhrhfpozekefpopzekff and do not make me want to see those characters again in a sequel.
- I want to point out the tone. It's either the one of a naughty teen, either the image I have of a very cheap parodistic american action movie. In one word : crude. Like way too crude.
- Giving you characters biblical prophets names is either cute either :)
Strangely enough, the main complain I have with the narration is the universe. I talked earlier of the gamy stuff, which honestly I understand. Making games is my job ad I love that kind of things. Unfortunately when you tell a story that claims to be realistic you have to assume it. I have a simple question here : why are there so many people out there? I get it that this amount of people justifies the amount of zombies, okay, but... Wasn't the pandemic utterly infectious? Wasn't there absolutely no hopes of surviving it? If so, Weren't simply a few people park in fascist town, like what's shown at the beginning, whilst the vast majority of the country simply have died? I mean I get that very few communities have survived and organized themslves how they could but... Can zombies die of starvation? It seems so. So why 20 years (20 years!!! 20 times 365 days!!! Elie is born 6 years after the disaster and is now 14!!!) after the pandemic there still are so many people and as a consequence so many zombies? For gameplay reasons yeah, okay, I get it. But that's lame imho.
TLOU marked the videogame industry and my critic won't certainly change anything on this topic. That's not it's goal in any way. But if you authorize me to, I would want to ask everybody, when it comes to videogames, to ask themselves 3 simple questions :
- Do I find this game good ?
- Do I like this game ?
- Do the audience/critics like this game ?
As you've understood seeing my rating of the game : I didn't liked TLOU. But I humbly tried to explain why in this paper. Admittedly, I made it a little bit funny, I made fun of details. But ultimately, I tried to be honest with the game and my feelings about it, and I try to lie them on the internet so you can see it. My point here is : Like the games you like, nobody has nothing to say on it. But please, listen to the ones who did not liked your beloved game, and try to understand why they didn't liked it.
If everybody tries her/his best to explain their feeling about videogames, I am convinced this art will evolved for the better.
Thank you for reading, have a good game.
To elaborate on this we'll need a bit of context.
- I am a worker of the industry. I hear a lot about this game from my colleagues, my friends and my beloved sources thinking the videogame as a media (most of them a french, some are international)
- TLOU is considered a masterpiece. That's how I approached it. That's why I played it.
- TLOU has been published in 2013, 2014 and 2022. It's sequel has been published in 2020 and the show is available since january 2023. I believe it's fair to say this game serie had a huge spot in the media this last decade. I was, and I still am fed up with this game being always shown as a pretended masterpiece of both the genre and the media.
- I bought this game less than 10€ last week (either 10€ or 5€, I don't remember).
- This is my first contact with the serie. I never saw the show nor did I played TLOU2 or the other versions of TLOU. I didn't even played it for 10min at a friends' house.
- I dislike the zombie genre.
- I am positive gameplay should always prevail over narration.
- I played it intensively while being COVID. I had fever the first day. I had respiration troubles and headhackes the following days.
- I played the french version. Both voices and text.
- I played on a PS3 absolutely not connected to internet, which means I didn't get any updates. I don't know if there are updates anyways.
- Considering the influence TLOU had over the gaming industry, I must point out I played games since TLOU was out. That means I played games re-using parts of TLOU's design.
- I tend to dislike popular things. Don't laugh, it's more a pain than a pride : every time everybody seem to love something and I don't I feel like I miss something. This is very upsetting. I'm actually working on myself on this point.
- The more time flies, the more I dislike western games (in opposition to eastern and namely japanese games).
This being said, after finishing this looooong game for the first and I hope, last time of my life, here are the qualities I've seen in TLOU :
- Body damages are cool. Please keep in mind Gun was out in 2005, Gears of War in 2006 and Call of Duty 5 in 2008 but let's be honest and admit TLOU's body damages are cool.
- There are bonuses. One of them are gampelay stats, a thing I love.
- Giraffes.
- Underwater scenes are more inspired than the rest of the game.
- The "hanged-by-the-feet" moment.
- Piano.
- The fact that the infection comes from a mushroom instead of a more classical bacteria or virus.
- Planks and ladders puzzles.
- The snow chapter was the better one and should've, IMHO, close the game.
- I'm confident it's easy enough to be beaten by a lot of people.
- Some places are narratively interessting, like the university for instance.
- The box illustration is reversible. It is an ugly composition in a boring black and white but it is reversible.
- There's a promotional flyer of Die Hard 4 in the box. I like this movie. More than Die hard 2 anyway (of course less than Die hard 1 & 3, this isn't even a question).
That's all. That's all the things I thought I would have remembered once I finished this game. Unfortunately, despite I finished it only yesterday, I'm terrified to admit I barely remember anything.
I remember the traduction wasn't good at all. Three examples :
- Ellie speaking about a floating plank : "Look, it walks!"
- Joel "It's pretty isn't it ?", Ellie answers "Yes, allright"
- An untranslated line showing up in subtitles.
To continue on details, I found the game very buggy. During one cinematic, all the voice lanes of one of the character didn't start at the correct time but at the same time as Tess' lines. During another cinematic there was just no voice lines at all.
Gameplay isn't in rest. The game's full of narrow corridors where 2 to 4 people wander. Sometime, they want to climb a ladder your upon, some other time they move forward while you are still. In both cases, it leads to you being forced pushed out of your position in T-pose. Another time, Ellie climbs upon an enemy to finish him with a knife. It does launch the animation, but it doesn't launch its gameplay-side. Consequently, the dude continues to charge me with a pipe while Ellie simply flies. A final example : I shotgun a zombie down on a concrete ground, it is splitted in two halves, its torso is proppeled light speed in the air. These bugs aren't blocking in any way. Unfortunately, in a game supposed to be the jewel of the western industry as well as a game based on immersion, these flashs back to reality are a bit disappointing.
That said, buggy games aren't synonymous to bad games. I myself like Left Alives. So what are the things I really disliked about TLOU? To keep things shorts I'll focus on 3 points : production, gameplay and, who would have thought (you can't see me but I raise my eyebrowns), narration.
Let's start with the production. I know this generation of consoles well : I had a Wii and a 360 at the time. So can you tell me what are those horses? Why are they like that? Why are they made of... glowing clay? You know, if you weren't able to do horses, you weren't obligated to add them to the game... Okay let's forget about horses and talk about your setup. You want to do post apo? Great! Gears of war and Fallout 3 did it very well in 2006 and 2008, you'll do it easily in 2013! What do you mean? You're globally okay but we must not pay attention to details because you wanted to do way too much things for a PS3? That's why your trashbags are squareshaped in the first chapters? Allright but can we talk about your universe a bit? The apocalypse has taken place in 2013 right? So why do pretty much every middle-class american family still have cathode-ray tube screen in their houses? Is there a reason for it? How would this shotgun and these ammo have a chance to work considering they were in the open outside for... Well 20 years? Does that kind of things make any sense? I am okay with this stuff in Resident Evil or The Evil Within because they do two things to counterbalance this :
- 1st, they try to justify they're universe until they cannot do it anymore. RE2 for instance takes place in a police station, that's why there're guns, but it does not explain 4th dimensions infinite chests. As for The Evil Within, it takes place in a nightmare, which is certainly the best way to justify improbable things. TLOU, on the other hands, claims to be realistic.
- Secondly, these games are way more aware of themselves than TLOU. TLOU is serious. RE is absolutely not serious. Saving the president's daughter from spanishs zombies and crows dropping money is utterly stupid. This helps a lot to accept "gamy" things.
All cynism aside, it's easy to tell the game's a bit cramped on the PS3. Some scenes, like the snow scene, are technically great tho.
I don't want to speak a lot about TLOU's gameplay. It is... Lame. You know Uncharted? Well, replace the "okay-tiers" puzzle phases and the bad plateform phases with very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very poor infiltration phases and even more dialogs. Congrats, you have done TLOU. Oh no, wait. Get rid of the mise en scène as well. Now you're good. Gunfeel is unsatisfying. Gunfights are slow. Craft system is a craft system amongst others : I only search for clip capacity to trick the game into carrying more ammos as The Evil Within taught me. The problem is upgrades are a necessity to simply see the end of The Evil Within whereas TLOU do not make you uncomfortable : I finished the game full ammo and armed to the teeth. I said infiltration phases are poor. Indeed they are. Sometime a precise type of zombie sees you. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, in a comparable setup, it's the other type of zombie that sees you. By the way, the game's uplayable until you've bought the upgrade to counter clickers bites with your knife. Chara designing zombies in a way we can clearly differenciate clickers from "normal" zombies using Joel's ear would have been a nice feature to both spice up and increase playability of infiltration phases. Unfortunately, it is not the case : when you understand your heard, you just have to pray for a normal zombi to catch you while your invincible comrade shoots clickers down. Bosses are a straight up insult to boss design : even halo 2 bosses were better. I even think (I'm really not sure of it, I played it a very long time ago) Batman Arkham Asylum bosses might be better than TLOU's. And believe me on this one : Batman Arkham Asylum bosses are NOT good at all.
Gameplay's bad. And what? The consensus isn't we play TLOU for gameplay. So why do we play TLOU?
It would appear we played it for its narration. I tried many times to both write scenarios and dialogs and I miserably failed as many times but... How to say it? With such an established genre, with strong codes... Considering the game was out at the peak of the zombie trend, with the walking dead show being at its peak... Well at least we can say this game's utterly predictable. At a point I once or twice asked me if it was parodistic or not. Some examples :
- Oh, we are seprated from our teammates for... Approximatively 3 minutes in game. Just before we join her again, she whispers "oh shit". I tHiNk ShE's BiTtEn! Spoiler : she was.
- The only character defined by his sexuality is gay and there are jokes about him masturbating.
- You know which character should have been defined by her sexuality? Hint : she's 14.
- Joel is stupidly violent, at a point he certainly is mentally ill. To be fair, living in his world for 20 years would have certainly made anybody mentaly ill. But would it have turn them into psycho? I dont know.
- The end's zofhozhfhkjebrgjherbggizzrhrhfpozekefpopzekff and do not make me want to see those characters again in a sequel.
- I want to point out the tone. It's either the one of a naughty teen, either the image I have of a very cheap parodistic american action movie. In one word : crude. Like way too crude.
- Giving you characters biblical prophets names is either cute either :)
Strangely enough, the main complain I have with the narration is the universe. I talked earlier of the gamy stuff, which honestly I understand. Making games is my job ad I love that kind of things. Unfortunately when you tell a story that claims to be realistic you have to assume it. I have a simple question here : why are there so many people out there? I get it that this amount of people justifies the amount of zombies, okay, but... Wasn't the pandemic utterly infectious? Wasn't there absolutely no hopes of surviving it? If so, Weren't simply a few people park in fascist town, like what's shown at the beginning, whilst the vast majority of the country simply have died? I mean I get that very few communities have survived and organized themslves how they could but... Can zombies die of starvation? It seems so. So why 20 years (20 years!!! 20 times 365 days!!! Elie is born 6 years after the disaster and is now 14!!!) after the pandemic there still are so many people and as a consequence so many zombies? For gameplay reasons yeah, okay, I get it. But that's lame imho.
TLOU marked the videogame industry and my critic won't certainly change anything on this topic. That's not it's goal in any way. But if you authorize me to, I would want to ask everybody, when it comes to videogames, to ask themselves 3 simple questions :
- Do I find this game good ?
- Do I like this game ?
- Do the audience/critics like this game ?
As you've understood seeing my rating of the game : I didn't liked TLOU. But I humbly tried to explain why in this paper. Admittedly, I made it a little bit funny, I made fun of details. But ultimately, I tried to be honest with the game and my feelings about it, and I try to lie them on the internet so you can see it. My point here is : Like the games you like, nobody has nothing to say on it. But please, listen to the ones who did not liked your beloved game, and try to understand why they didn't liked it.
If everybody tries her/his best to explain their feeling about videogames, I am convinced this art will evolved for the better.
Thank you for reading, have a good game.
2003
I don't know if it's the "Ubisoft effect", but this game is actually very cheap in France because it seems a lot of people bought it at the time. Everytime I see a PS2 for sale, it has XIII as one of the 4/5 games accompaning it.
I never heard of XIII before buying it for 2€ and playing it. It was way better than I'd thought. The game's all in pace. You move fast, you shoot fast, and the art direction + sound design gives you clear feedbacks as for when an enemy dies.
The game loves diversity : infiltrations sequences, timed sequences, plateform sequances, tower defense sequences, light puzzles sequences... You never got bored with XIII. You might instead get frustrated during very few moments, when the game's a bit tough or when something isn't clearly indicated and your softlocked but these kind of moments are rare.
I must point out the quality of level design. The notable exception is the last infiltration sequence which is... Absolutely awful. This game moment aside, there are so much ideas in XIII's levels that you might want to replay it. Guns distribution through levels is great, challenges and objectives are diversified. I must specificaly point out the surgeons' lair, the canyon and the church as the best levels in the game.
P.S: The OST is certainly one of the best ever integrated gameplay-wise to an action game.
I never heard of XIII before buying it for 2€ and playing it. It was way better than I'd thought. The game's all in pace. You move fast, you shoot fast, and the art direction + sound design gives you clear feedbacks as for when an enemy dies.
The game loves diversity : infiltrations sequences, timed sequences, plateform sequances, tower defense sequences, light puzzles sequences... You never got bored with XIII. You might instead get frustrated during very few moments, when the game's a bit tough or when something isn't clearly indicated and your softlocked but these kind of moments are rare.
I must point out the quality of level design. The notable exception is the last infiltration sequence which is... Absolutely awful. This game moment aside, there are so much ideas in XIII's levels that you might want to replay it. Guns distribution through levels is great, challenges and objectives are diversified. I must specificaly point out the surgeons' lair, the canyon and the church as the best levels in the game.
P.S: The OST is certainly one of the best ever integrated gameplay-wise to an action game.
2013
I am convinced videogame isn't sufficiently considered as a media. Evoland is one of the few games that tries and actually succeeds in both telling the videogame and thinking the videogame (all things considered : don't get me wrong, this game isn't Metal Gear Solid).
Evoland's a journey through your culture and your memories. At least it seems so. In reality, a non player or even a very young child can play Evoland as their first game and enjoy it. This is a tour de force considering how referenced the game is : if you've played either a Zelda, Diablo or 90s Final Fantasy game, you'll say a tons of time "Hey, I got it!". There's even a triple triad TCG copycat as frustrating as the original.
Eventually this, with the pace, is the aspect I disliked the most in Evoland. Referencing is... something I do not like. Because it does not mean anything to me : "Yeah game, we've both liked FF6, and so? Do you wanna talk about it? If you do I'm in. No you don't want to? That's... A shame. I would have loved to."
The game's fine tho. It focuses on what's matter : not being too difficult, smartly use very few solid core mechanics, and varying the game experience from the begining to the very end even tho yes, the other critics are right, Zephyroth is a (light) pain.
Considering the game's based on a game jam concept and has been made by 4 people, it would be a shame to point out its few true default. As a consequence I recommend you play it and I hope you'll enjoy it.
Evoland's a journey through your culture and your memories. At least it seems so. In reality, a non player or even a very young child can play Evoland as their first game and enjoy it. This is a tour de force considering how referenced the game is : if you've played either a Zelda, Diablo or 90s Final Fantasy game, you'll say a tons of time "Hey, I got it!". There's even a triple triad TCG copycat as frustrating as the original.
Eventually this, with the pace, is the aspect I disliked the most in Evoland. Referencing is... something I do not like. Because it does not mean anything to me : "Yeah game, we've both liked FF6, and so? Do you wanna talk about it? If you do I'm in. No you don't want to? That's... A shame. I would have loved to."
The game's fine tho. It focuses on what's matter : not being too difficult, smartly use very few solid core mechanics, and varying the game experience from the begining to the very end even tho yes, the other critics are right, Zephyroth is a (light) pain.
Considering the game's based on a game jam concept and has been made by 4 people, it would be a shame to point out its few true default. As a consequence I recommend you play it and I hope you'll enjoy it.
2020
I have a strange feeling about Valorant. The three first things to say are :
- I HATE counter strike. Like really. Aside from DayZ, I consider it the worst game I ever played.
- I like Valorant 100000000 times more than CS. Does that mean I like Valorant ? No.
- Considering I dislike CS, I knew I did'nt like Valorant's genre before launching it.
As a consequence of these three considerations, I consider my opinion on this game absolutely pointless. A lot of people felt something with these titles I never and will certainly never ever felt, I think their opinion will be much more interessting than mine.
This being said. I think Valorant's better than CS for one simple thing : it overall feels much more like a game. First thing : the appereance. From chara design to world building, colors and themes, everything is much more appealing, looks much more like an actual game and is farther from reality, which is a huge advantage considering CS is about terrorism. Second thing : the gameplay. Aside from an asymetrical economy, everything in Valorant is more diverse, more audacious, more creative. In one word : better. It even is more balanced (because let's be honest one second, CS' AK is totally broken). As a matter of fact, even the economy is better overall (but not as audacious as CS' because not asymetrical).
Thus, CS and Valorant share the same core. This core is, in my opinion, one of the saddest action shooting game ever made. It features a broken balistique, a skinny movement set, an absolute interdiction to have fun by moving and shooting at the same time, a ton of pseudo-strategers overthinking an action game that relies on randomness, a stupid gunset insulting shotguns and explosives as game objects, a very old character controler (I state it considering I regulary play games from the 90s), tons of waiting moment that will remember you your best waiting rooms memories and a lot, I mean a LOT of untolerable frustration hidden behind the competitive aspect of the game.
You've understand it : I do NOT recommand you playing either CS either Valorant. Yet, if you want to discover the genre, which is a mindset I scincerly encourage, then I suggest you play Valorant instead of CS.
But let's be honest, if you want a good action shooter, you better play Halo, Left 4 Dead, TF2, HL2 deathmatch and much more...
- I HATE counter strike. Like really. Aside from DayZ, I consider it the worst game I ever played.
- I like Valorant 100000000 times more than CS. Does that mean I like Valorant ? No.
- Considering I dislike CS, I knew I did'nt like Valorant's genre before launching it.
As a consequence of these three considerations, I consider my opinion on this game absolutely pointless. A lot of people felt something with these titles I never and will certainly never ever felt, I think their opinion will be much more interessting than mine.
This being said. I think Valorant's better than CS for one simple thing : it overall feels much more like a game. First thing : the appereance. From chara design to world building, colors and themes, everything is much more appealing, looks much more like an actual game and is farther from reality, which is a huge advantage considering CS is about terrorism. Second thing : the gameplay. Aside from an asymetrical economy, everything in Valorant is more diverse, more audacious, more creative. In one word : better. It even is more balanced (because let's be honest one second, CS' AK is totally broken). As a matter of fact, even the economy is better overall (but not as audacious as CS' because not asymetrical).
Thus, CS and Valorant share the same core. This core is, in my opinion, one of the saddest action shooting game ever made. It features a broken balistique, a skinny movement set, an absolute interdiction to have fun by moving and shooting at the same time, a ton of pseudo-strategers overthinking an action game that relies on randomness, a stupid gunset insulting shotguns and explosives as game objects, a very old character controler (I state it considering I regulary play games from the 90s), tons of waiting moment that will remember you your best waiting rooms memories and a lot, I mean a LOT of untolerable frustration hidden behind the competitive aspect of the game.
You've understand it : I do NOT recommand you playing either CS either Valorant. Yet, if you want to discover the genre, which is a mindset I scincerly encourage, then I suggest you play Valorant instead of CS.
But let's be honest, if you want a good action shooter, you better play Halo, Left 4 Dead, TF2, HL2 deathmatch and much more...
2013
An interessting game ahead of its time. It features a layered story, cleverly told, enhanced by a polished level design, relying on lighting, environnemental narration and affordant signs.
Unfortunately, the game imho suffers from its concept when it comes to pace. Doing and redoing the same things with the hope of gaining something different as a reward feels like farming the story instead of a gameplay. Unfortunately, gameplay is by definition systemical, which means it is designed to be redone over and over again, whereas story isn't : story is finished.
This does not take away the boldness and cleverness the Stanley Parable deserves, that's why I humbly incite you to play it. Just don't Hope for thé best game you ever played. But a really good one
Unfortunately, the game imho suffers from its concept when it comes to pace. Doing and redoing the same things with the hope of gaining something different as a reward feels like farming the story instead of a gameplay. Unfortunately, gameplay is by definition systemical, which means it is designed to be redone over and over again, whereas story isn't : story is finished.
This does not take away the boldness and cleverness the Stanley Parable deserves, that's why I humbly incite you to play it. Just don't Hope for thé best game you ever played. But a really good one
This is the first Swery game I ever played! Yay! For the time I've heard of him! The japanese author that never really took, the Suda51 alter ego!
It was absolutely wonderful. I'm not a huge fan of cinematic plateformers (I've liked Limbo and that's all) but JJ Macfield fully convinced me.
The game's smart, dense and very well rounded. It has enough things to be interesting, and when everything has been told, it ends. The pace's good. Puzzles are smart and use the mutilation game mechanic in a clever, pertinent, humoristic, very appealing and efficient way. It was really pleasant playing a game aware of its ambition, featuring no superfluous features : no double jump, no combat, just a basic move set added to a simple and delimited mutilation system featuring :
- Dismemberment
- Burning
- Gravity reversal
- Player controller adaptated to your current state
What the game has to say and how it says it is subbtle and smart. It is an ode to happiness, love and life.
3 things I need to point out :
- The switch physical version of the game has been made in way too little examplaries. As a consequence, it is ridiculously expensive (80+€, which is obscene considering I bought a digital version 6€). It is a shame, because that kind of game from a renowed author is going to age well, and people will want to play it in 5, 10, 100 years. Unfortunately, it is also what has been done with the following Swery games.
- It might be the most violent game I ever played. It is the most 18+ games of every 18+ games. To not put in every hand, especially children hands.
- The end is a little bit too much oriented towards explainations in my taste. The final condrontation is great tho.
It was absolutely wonderful. I'm not a huge fan of cinematic plateformers (I've liked Limbo and that's all) but JJ Macfield fully convinced me.
The game's smart, dense and very well rounded. It has enough things to be interesting, and when everything has been told, it ends. The pace's good. Puzzles are smart and use the mutilation game mechanic in a clever, pertinent, humoristic, very appealing and efficient way. It was really pleasant playing a game aware of its ambition, featuring no superfluous features : no double jump, no combat, just a basic move set added to a simple and delimited mutilation system featuring :
- Dismemberment
- Burning
- Gravity reversal
- Player controller adaptated to your current state
What the game has to say and how it says it is subbtle and smart. It is an ode to happiness, love and life.
3 things I need to point out :
- The switch physical version of the game has been made in way too little examplaries. As a consequence, it is ridiculously expensive (80+€, which is obscene considering I bought a digital version 6€). It is a shame, because that kind of game from a renowed author is going to age well, and people will want to play it in 5, 10, 100 years. Unfortunately, it is also what has been done with the following Swery games.
- It might be the most violent game I ever played. It is the most 18+ games of every 18+ games. To not put in every hand, especially children hands.
- The end is a little bit too much oriented towards explainations in my taste. The final condrontation is great tho.
2020
Pikmin, or how to make capitalism appealing for everyone, including children or leftists like me.
You destroyed your environment ? No worries. Go in a brand new territory that isn't yours, meet local populations, exploit them to death (litterally), make them plunder all their natural ressources in your own sake, make them go to war in your name, and when there's nothing left, return home and leave theses populations without anything left.
You know what ? It is fun. I mean, it is really, REALLY fun.
Puzzles are great. Controls are beyond wonderful considering this game is an RTS on console. The game's colorful, cute and pretty. The objective is heartwarming and its reward (fruits being pressed) is one of the best thing I've ever felt in a videogame.
I am serious. I love theses fruits.
This was my first Pikmin experience (aside from smash bros serie). I recommend it very much.
P.S : bonus point for the bonus game modes, which are Capcom bonus game mode tiers. This means in my language they are part of the best bonus game modes in videogames (hello Resident Evil's Mercenaries, I'm looking at you)
You destroyed your environment ? No worries. Go in a brand new territory that isn't yours, meet local populations, exploit them to death (litterally), make them plunder all their natural ressources in your own sake, make them go to war in your name, and when there's nothing left, return home and leave theses populations without anything left.
You know what ? It is fun. I mean, it is really, REALLY fun.
Puzzles are great. Controls are beyond wonderful considering this game is an RTS on console. The game's colorful, cute and pretty. The objective is heartwarming and its reward (fruits being pressed) is one of the best thing I've ever felt in a videogame.
I am serious. I love theses fruits.
This was my first Pikmin experience (aside from smash bros serie). I recommend it very much.
P.S : bonus point for the bonus game modes, which are Capcom bonus game mode tiers. This means in my language they are part of the best bonus game modes in videogames (hello Resident Evil's Mercenaries, I'm looking at you)
2019
Although I'm a level designer, which means I work in the industry, I struggle a lot when it comes to be informed of which game is currently on development, which game is launched when and how is its reception, both public & critical.
A colleague producer recently recommend me "Silence on joue!", a french speaking podcast produced by Libération newspapers to follow videogames news. It works well, I recommand you this program if you understand french.
The main individual behind Silence on joue! is a huge fan of cards games (which I'm fond of since hearthstone, Kards and much more since LoR). He constantly talks about Slay the Spire, which I never heard of, and which is supposed to represent a whole genre : the rogue deck building. The game cost me 6€. Let's try it.
First and foremost : I have a strange relationship with rogue lites. I love Spelunky & Risk of Rain (& its sequel), I have mixed feeling about Noita, FTL & Rogue Legacy, I hate Binding of Isaac, and I've bought without taking the time to play them Hades & Enter the Gungeon. Why is that ?
Well, to me, it's all about faireness. IMHO, a good rogue lite relies both on skill AND randomness, not either one either the other. I hate Binding of Isaac because when you pick up an item, if you don't have a wiki openned on the second screen, you absolutely aren't able to tell :
- 1 : what this item it going to do
- 2 : In which way it is going to do it
- 3 : As a consequence of the first two points : if you must take it or not.
For instance if you take the peepee item while you already have big tears, it'll nullify both advantage of big tears (which are range+dmg) and replace them with the peepee which makes you shoot fast at a very low range. That means that peepee is, in this situation, abolutely NOT a power-up, but is actually a malus ! I think it's really unfair, I hate it and I don't understand why players tolerate it. An item is a reward, a reward is highly influenced by randomness in a rogue lite, certainly, but it should ALWAYS be positive.
The other aspect of rogues lites I dislike is difficulty. Most of the time, these games simply are waaaaaay to difficult for wrong reasons. It is the deal in order to give the player the feeling of progression, the advantage of experiencing multiple builds and techniques, and to progressively master the game. But it should be used with a lot of care, because it can lead to a feeling of injustice.
Slay the Spire is... Wonderful considering all the things I said above.
- 1 : It is honest : BEFORE you make a choice, it clearly shows you its benefits and its defaults
- 2 : It is hard, without being impossible : I finished the main game mode in about 6h, which constitute about 3 runs. I've not beaten the entire game tho : there are other game modes, other difficulty modes, a lot of characters to play with, daily challenges and a lot of options to customize your runs and never be bored. But I feel like I beat the game already because I did beat the main adventure (which I never did in 50+ hours of Rogue Legacy or FTL for instance).
On top of this (which means on top of the game's rogue lite structure), the game is smart and good. It focuses on what I love in card games, which is the deck building section. You constantly have to make choices that will affect your run in both short, mid and long term. I must also point out that the game's has a very good production value. Gamepad controls are great, interfaces are wondeful, accessibility is good enough (except maybe it lacks an option to adjust the font size), french translation is quite good and the detailled history of your previous runs is a wonderful feature.
There are no reasons you should'nt play slay the Spire unless you know you hate card games. It is fun. It is smart. It is well produced. It is a good introduction to both deck building and rogue lites. It can be played by a children. It is cheap.
I'm glad this game exist and I hope I gave you the desire to play it.
Have fun.
A colleague producer recently recommend me "Silence on joue!", a french speaking podcast produced by Libération newspapers to follow videogames news. It works well, I recommand you this program if you understand french.
The main individual behind Silence on joue! is a huge fan of cards games (which I'm fond of since hearthstone, Kards and much more since LoR). He constantly talks about Slay the Spire, which I never heard of, and which is supposed to represent a whole genre : the rogue deck building. The game cost me 6€. Let's try it.
First and foremost : I have a strange relationship with rogue lites. I love Spelunky & Risk of Rain (& its sequel), I have mixed feeling about Noita, FTL & Rogue Legacy, I hate Binding of Isaac, and I've bought without taking the time to play them Hades & Enter the Gungeon. Why is that ?
Well, to me, it's all about faireness. IMHO, a good rogue lite relies both on skill AND randomness, not either one either the other. I hate Binding of Isaac because when you pick up an item, if you don't have a wiki openned on the second screen, you absolutely aren't able to tell :
- 1 : what this item it going to do
- 2 : In which way it is going to do it
- 3 : As a consequence of the first two points : if you must take it or not.
For instance if you take the peepee item while you already have big tears, it'll nullify both advantage of big tears (which are range+dmg) and replace them with the peepee which makes you shoot fast at a very low range. That means that peepee is, in this situation, abolutely NOT a power-up, but is actually a malus ! I think it's really unfair, I hate it and I don't understand why players tolerate it. An item is a reward, a reward is highly influenced by randomness in a rogue lite, certainly, but it should ALWAYS be positive.
The other aspect of rogues lites I dislike is difficulty. Most of the time, these games simply are waaaaaay to difficult for wrong reasons. It is the deal in order to give the player the feeling of progression, the advantage of experiencing multiple builds and techniques, and to progressively master the game. But it should be used with a lot of care, because it can lead to a feeling of injustice.
Slay the Spire is... Wonderful considering all the things I said above.
- 1 : It is honest : BEFORE you make a choice, it clearly shows you its benefits and its defaults
- 2 : It is hard, without being impossible : I finished the main game mode in about 6h, which constitute about 3 runs. I've not beaten the entire game tho : there are other game modes, other difficulty modes, a lot of characters to play with, daily challenges and a lot of options to customize your runs and never be bored. But I feel like I beat the game already because I did beat the main adventure (which I never did in 50+ hours of Rogue Legacy or FTL for instance).
On top of this (which means on top of the game's rogue lite structure), the game is smart and good. It focuses on what I love in card games, which is the deck building section. You constantly have to make choices that will affect your run in both short, mid and long term. I must also point out that the game's has a very good production value. Gamepad controls are great, interfaces are wondeful, accessibility is good enough (except maybe it lacks an option to adjust the font size), french translation is quite good and the detailled history of your previous runs is a wonderful feature.
There are no reasons you should'nt play slay the Spire unless you know you hate card games. It is fun. It is smart. It is well produced. It is a good introduction to both deck building and rogue lites. It can be played by a children. It is cheap.
I'm glad this game exist and I hope I gave you the desire to play it.
Have fun.