I feel like Koudelka is one of those games that sort of becomes a bit hard to appreciate without actually taking into account the context in which they were released: on a technical level, it was universally acclaimed for being highly innovative in its use of motion capture and for the creation of truly stunning cgi scenes, elements that for his time certainly led the way for new perspectives on the expressiveness of storytelling through the physicality of characters.
It is also certainly interesting how these technical factors have been applied to a gothic horror setting, created with the goal of providing an experience that is dense with atmosphere and rich in interactive cues, with many environmental puzzles and objects to collect to enhance the gameplay experience.
Unfortunately, Koudelka was also, and above all, a title with a troubled gestation, which had to juggle too many different angles without really coming to a sufficiently defined direction, ending up integrating very different influences with, in my opinion, very variable results.
It was definitely an overly ambitious project for a rookie independent studio, which had to manage an overly complex balance between survival horror, tactical rpg-like elements and genuinely wanting to push the immersiveness front.
What we are ultimately faced with while playing Koudelka is a not always satisfying experience, one that works quite well as an rpg and much less so as a horror game, with great charm and a real passion oozing from every angle, very fascinating to look at but not as original to play.

I do love a good hacking simulator and for years I've really wanted to love Uplink - the ideas here are so cool and the idea behind the game is the original quintessential hacker sim, but sadly this game is just so dated.

The idea is that you've been hired by a special group to perform hacking for clients they connect you with. Each job comes with a task and a price, but you're only as good as your hardware and software. Some jobs require specialised items so you have to start small and work your way up to more complex jobs. Failure means risking your reputation and losing your acquired assets.

All of the different tools and how you use them plays out like an 80's hacker film as you target password fields and click a button to see numbers and animations play while the cracker figures out the password - the police constantly zoning in on your position creating a count down timer as you slip into bank accounts and transfer money, clearing up your logs after. It has such a fun premise and the gameplay itself has some great moments.

Sadly this is all undercut by the games poorly explained core mechanics and highly repetitive missions. Expect to be doing the same few tasks over and over to generate cash and then not know what to do with the new software. There are also some simple tricks which end up breaking the game and skewing the difficulty. Not to mention the game UI feels like you're in a Linux machine from the 80's which might seem charming but just becomes clunky and difficult to use over the course of a run.

This game is in dire need of a remake and I'd be the first to buy it if they did, but sadly this game is just a bit too rough around the edges for the fun to shine through. High marks for originality and ideas, but it just can't land the execution by today's standards.

This game was bestowed grace only by the good will of misguided 2010-era reviewers who, at the time, didn't know better. Deadly Premonition and its development team - Swery65 ahead of the rest - deserved to get much, much more shit for this game and especially its god-awful PC and PS3 port than they ever got.

The port first (PC): Game crashed 8 times. Lost my save file 3 times over 45 hours of playtime. Without a fan-patch, it looks worse than ass. Just an absolute piece of crap port, only topped in its awfulness by Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition.

The story of this game is a patchwork of more or less memorable scenes, torn from each other square by square and then scattered with the wind on the deadest open world map you've ever seen. Yes, the team went to the Pacific Northwest for research and yes, large swaths of land there are legitimately just unused and not given sufficient purpose - but it is not as bad as it is in this game. The shoddy, unsatisfying collectibles barely do a thing to brighten up the piece, and sidequests are often laden with repeated lines or otherwise utterly banal filler-dialogue from characters. (I'm going to slap someone if I hear "A human bone...?" again I stg)

There's also a persistent sense that the happenings of the game were thought up fairly disconnected from each other, and then put in a very loose sequence. Threads fray and are abandoned, and many of the twists happen with very little discernible motivation or reason. Characters turn around to be villains and, in the process, shed their entire prior characterisation. And frankly, all Deadly Premonition had were its characters. Subverting them and breaking them in half is at best an exercise in aimless shock value and at worst a despicable product of a bigotry towards the people the story villainises.

Combat fucking sucks. It's slow, and the most frustrating and least responsive-feeling type of tank-controls. Tank controls aren't a priori bad, but here they feel like you're reversing a truck at all times - and the flash-stepping enemies without a clear silhouette don't do it any favours. Encounters are repetitive, weapons work nonsensically. No.

Deadly Premonition, like all work that Swery65 misdirected, is joylessly derivative and deeply despicable, rewarding any good you may see in it only with disappointment. This is among the games I wish I could unplay - get the ~2 days I sunk into it refunded back into my lifespan.