Damn, this game still looks exquisite. The environments, the animations, the character models, the lighting - all perfect. Wanted to get it out of the way first since when I think of the Resi 2 remake I always remember the gameplay trailer reveal and the jaw-drop effect it had on me. Still does!

When it comes to the gameplay, I think it’s enough to call it a proper Resident Evil-type game. Walking around a large area, using your map frequently to check whether you’ve cleared each room (the map can sometimes be confusing, though, mostly involving staircases), solving puzzles (simple but sufficient for this type of game), managing your inventory and occasionally shooting down a zombie or two when they get in your way. The devs really pulled all the best bits from the original entries and modernized it to accommodate for the third person view and larger levels. Overall, it is a very satisfying experience, although the definite highlight is the police station and the weakest link are the sewers. Mr. X adds some tension, stomping around and making you check every corner twice, although he can be a nuisance sometimes, e.g. when he takes forever to leave the area of the safe room you are hiding in.

The story is extremely cheesy, but serviceable. Both Leon and Claire are likable, although the male protagonist is a total airhead whose lines and decisions had me rolling my eyes a number of times. The short interludes where you control Ada (Leon’s playthrough) and Sherry (Claire’s) are a nice way to break up the main gameplay loop and introduce some fresh gameplay elements.

What brings down the game’s quality significantly in my eyes is its treatment of the two campaigns. Leon’s and Claire’s stories are supposed to intertwine, but after finishing off Mr. X with the R.P.D. cop I found that I had to redo most of the puzzles and open the same doors again, this time controlling Chris Redfield’s sister. Narratively, it just doesn’t make any sense. Sure, some key items can be found in different places and you can get key A instead of key B to open a different room with some helpful item, but overall it felt like a chore. Since I knew where to go and what to do, playing as Claire felt more mechanical rather than truly exploring each of the main areas. I really did suffer through the second playthrough, save for the few levels that were unique to her. I treat these two campaigns as equally important to the game - after all, finishing them both is required to achieve the true ending - and I think that the devs could’ve come up with some new areas or puzzles for the second playthrough. Even the boss fights are repeated (except for the final one), which was a major letdown.

Overall, this is a very good experience for the first playthrough, whoever you choose, but then the second one is just a rehash that will probably make you try to speedrun to get to the proper ending.

I think it’s safe to say that 2021’s “Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion” caught everyone by surprise by blending competent 2D Zelda-like gameplay with quirky, plant-based humor and a pleasant visual style. I enjoyed it quite a bit and was looking forward to its sequel. And I was caught by surprise yet again, because it turned out that the devs decided to switch the genre from an old-school adventure game to a roguelite mixed with bullet hell. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as well as the original.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a fan of roguelites, and this is no exception. Running over and over through the same couple of areas and mowing down the same enemies gets old really quick for me, and Turnip Boy doesn’t provide enough scope or variety to make traversing through the map a truly enjoyable experience. Most of my time playing the game was searching for NPCs that I had an outstanding quest with - there are a lot of characters you can help throughout the 5 hours or so that it takes to finish the story. Honestly, I mostly walked aimlessly searching for an NPC whose location I had completely forgotten (the map is utterly useless) or simply because I had confused one NPC with another. This can be frustrating not only because there is no good way to memorize this (and some NPCs only show up in rooms that spawn at random, so you can be looking for a guy and never stumble upon him simply because his room didn’t spawn for this particular run), but also because you’re always under a time constraint. At one point I found myself with a long list of NPCs to interact with, a map that doesn’t help at all in finding them and a thought “yeah, I don’t remember where any of those characters are”.

Perhaps this problem is exacerbated by the writing. The trademark quirkiness is still there and some NPCs’ lines should make you smile, but either the novelty factor has worn off or the writing simply isn’t as sharp because I found the NPCs in “Tax Evasion” funnier, more memorable and their plotlines easier to follow than the ones in “Robs a Bank”.

Overall, I enjoyed the gunplay - I think there is a good selection of weapons available (a lot of them, obviously, are very comedic in nature) and they’re fun to use, but the fact that you can’t really store them conveniently (there’s one particular room where you can keep them for your next run, but it’s an extremely tedious mechanic) and that the only weapons that you have permanent access to in your hub are the most standard shotgun/rifle/bazooka spoils the fun of trying out new weapons.

Two other issues I’d like to mention are underwhelming boss fights (they’re all very similar and at the very end you have to repeat them all in one go, which is a chore) and the fact that about halfway through the game you find a way to earn tons of cash quickly and run out of things you can spend them on. I think the upgrade system could’ve been expanded to account for that.

Yeah, so… what happened? Don’t get me wrong, I never played the original Resi trilogy so I have no idea how faithful the remakes are, but the difference in game philosophy between RE2 and RE3 is staggering. After a game focused on meticulous clearing of each room and careful inventory management we get a game stripped of almost everything that made the previous entry in the franchise so fun to play.

The tension is almost entirely gone, maybe except for the first hour where you’re navigating around a sizable chunk of Raccoon City and, in proper RE fashion, need to find a handful of key objects to access the next level. The city looks gorgeous, both the street exteriors and shop interiors are packed with details that bring the city to life. But even in these first moments with the game it feels like a watered down version of RE2.

The game pushes you quickly from one area to the next without too much backtracking, which in theory should sound like an improvement, but the whole idea of the predecessor was learning the layout of the level and trying to survive amongst zombies which were difficult to put down for good and with Mr. X breathing down your neck. This time the experience is closer to a run of the mill action game with competent shooting mechanics and impressive visuals, but very little soul or tension left. And yes, Nemesis is an absolute chore to fight.

Lastly - it took me 4 hours to beat the game, almost to the minute. For a title with no replayability value it’s almost criminal to sell the game at full price, thankfully I got to play it through Game Pass. But the cut scenes look nice, maybe that’s where the budget went? Anyway, Resident Evil 3 is completely skippable.

Imagine “Little Nightmares”...Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Okay, I’m being a bit mean to the devs of “Bramble”, but the source of inspiration for this fixed camera, narrative driven, 2.5D horror puzzle-platformer starring an adolescent protagonist is obvious. It’s not bad per se, but I don’t feel like the game does enough to differentiate itself other than putting on a different coat, this time swaying into the direction of Germanic fairy tales and taking full advantage of how gruesome they were.

The controls aren’t as tight as I’d like them to be and the fact that there are some perspective issues making it hard to calculate where Ulle is going to jump doesn’t help either. There are very few puzzles that will make you actually stop and think about what you need to do next, with the ‘alchemy’ sections the most obvious example of “we kinda needed a puzzle here, but couldn’t come up with one”. There are a few tense moments, mostly towards the end of the game, where you need to use your environment to escape a horde of enemies and in general they’re well directed, but it doesn’t change the fact that for long bouts of the story you’re just walking forward with not much to do other than appreciate the art design.

The visual side is definitely the highlight here. The haunted forest is beautifully realized, with lots of detail and a colorful palette that brings this place to life. It’s an even greater shame, then, that there is so little opportunity for exploration. This is an on-rails experience and an unforgiving one at that. The character models are subpar and animations rather stiff. I did enjoy the boss fights, though - most of them are the definite highlights in the visual department.

TL;DR: This doesn’t feel like a Remedy game.

The experience is difficult from the very beginning - the initial 30 minutes or so are surprisingly sloppy. We’re dividing our attention between Jack dumping exposition regarding his brother and Paul, future Jack dumping exposition during his deposition, at the same time slowly walking around and gathering notes and memos to read more exposition, then following Paul and listening to him providing to us, you guessed it, more exposition. There’s even an actual PowerPoint presentation. This does not encourage players to jump into this world, quite the opposite. And the worst part is - all that exposition is in service of an extremely bland, uninteresting story.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t enjoy time traveling as a narrative concept. I think it’s inherently broken and writers often abuse various implications from characters being able to travel between different periods in time. And yeah, I couldn’t get into this story either, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s only due to my dislike of this particular genre. I couldn’t care less about the time travel machines, the implications of ‘ripples’, etc. mostly because the characters were not at all interesting. The game attempts to build this rivalry between Paul and Jack and does so sloppily. Whenever these two would face off I felt nothing, including the shockingly anticlimactic conclusion. Hatch rides on Reddick’s charisma and nothing else, Beth is kind of a wet blanket, and some other supporting characters like Liam, Charlie or Fiona (present almost exclusively in the show) mostly fall flat as well. The game wants you to believe that total annihilation is what’s at stake - that if Jack doesn’t succeed then ‘the end of times’ will take place. But this is such a vague and abstract concept that I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit about what happens to this world, also due to my not sympathizing with even a single character in the story.
Also, the game takes itself too seriously which makes the whole experience funnier, listening to cheesy lines about chronon fields, the end of time and whatnot uttered with straight faces. I’m pretty sure it would’ve worked better if the writers tried to lean into the cheesiness of the material they were working on.

Gameplay wise, it feels like squandered potential. Jack’s superpowers can be fun to use and even though they’re not overly original it feels good to slow down time, sprint between enemies and take them out one by one or to throw ‘time grenades’. However, in addition to those powers Jack is required to shoot his enemies down and I’m sad to report that the gunplay is simply unsatisfying. Most guns feel like peashooters with no punch, and some annoy with ridiculous recoil. I really wish Remedy had removed the ability to use firearms altogether and just focused on developing the time powers to make them the only available way to fight. Also, enemy design is just lazy.

The game doesn’t play great, but looks even worse. To be clear, I don’t mean the quality of the animations or character models - these all hold up well, although I’ll never believe that Aidan Gillen is below 30, even with that ridiculous glow up he’s given in the opening chapter. But ‘Quantum Break’ probably includes the most boring art direction I’ve seen in a AAA game. Every location is extremely bland, just a generic city with generic buildings and generic interiors. That includes even some areas where the creators could’ve potentially employed some more unusual concepts, like the time machine and all the relevant macguffins like weapons, armours, labs, etc. Instead, every little visual detail looks like something that’s been included in a dozen other games and shows with a similar minimalist, ‘clean’ aesthetic. Maybe it was done purposefully in order to be consistent with the show which looks equally bland, but I wish they’d showed some more creativity in that department regardless.

Another disappointing element was the level design. I struggle to recall any memorable set pieces or combat arenas or any of the like (there are some ‘platforming’ sections, but I’ll do the devs a favor and refrain from elaborating on those). Everything seemed very straightforward, with a couple of very simple puzzles thrown in to break up the monotony of the main gameplay loop. These aren’t too difficult also because the game uses its own version of ‘witcher vision’ (I just double checked and yes, it’s called ‘Time Vision’, Jesus Christ). So you don’t even need to think too much about what to do next, you just click a button and receive a solution instantly. I doubt I’m the only one who hates this mechanic as it makes the games just too easy and level designers too lazy (why bother directing the player through environmental clues? Just click a button to highlight all important parts, or spray the only available route among the rubble with yellow paint - there are many offenders in this area, this game naturally being one of them).

The time mechanic could’ve been used in a million ways to create some clever puzzles or obstacle courses for Jack to solve between shooting down Monarch guards. The only ones we’re given boil down to “hold Y to reverse time for a bit” and voila. It’s also infuriating how limiting the game is, e.g. only allowing you to climb specific objects that the devs wanted you to climb and whenever you want to get up an object of the same or even lower height, Jack just bumps off them. This is really detrimental to any attempt at building immersion.

One thing that I liked from the narrative standpoint was allowing you to make decisions as Paul. These then influence which of two episodes of the show you will see. It’s a neat idea and gives you some feeling of power over the story, but if I’m not mistaken it only changes things in the show - the game stays the same regardless of your choices, which is a bit disappointing.

A large part of the game’s marketing campaign was that Quantum Break was an experience combining a video game with an ‘equally important’ TV show. And yes, there are four short (around 22-24mins) episodes that delve more into the events behind the scenes and focusing mostly on characters not given significant time in (or absent at all from) the game. First of all - it’s very clear that the video game was the primary focus of the creators and the show is filling in gaps that otherwise would’ve been either included as cutscenes or as memos/e-mails/notes (boy, do Remedy love those). And I think it would’ve been fine, because the show’s production value is one of the lowest I’ve seen. It’s mostly actors walking around large, empty, cheap-looking sets and exchanging exposition. It’s a shame, because they clearly spent some money to get people like Aidan Gillen or Lance Reddick, but even their charisma can’t save this vapid, sometimes straight up dumb script. The inclusion of the poorly made TV show makes the whole experience feel cheaper and cheesier than if the information from the show was given to the player using in-game methods.

The game clearly wanted to be a blockbuster - a high budget story with high stakes and some recognizable faces playing the main characters. But the whole experience is so bland and uninteresting it’s almost hard to believe that it was Remedy who was behind it. This doesn’t feel like a product of a developer with almost two decades of experience in groundbreaking storytelling. It feels like a copout, a safe, focus group-driven product delivered to a major publisher who was in his TV era (yes, Xbox, we remember) and needed a showcase for the ideas behind his newest toy.

I also encountered some problems in the technical department, like how is this game locked at 30fps in such a low resolution on Series X? Many cutscenes included some odd stutters. Also, the episodes aren’t available to stream anymore which is disappointing - I had to watch them in pisspoor quality on Youtube. There was one cutscene that anytime I wanted to skip it would just crash the game. One little detail I also need to mention - this one time when Jack was talking on the phone I zoomed in to see whether I could see the phone screen. I could and I only saw the menu - why are you pretending to be on the phone, Jack?!

So yeah, it’s a skip.

I really enjoyed the first game. While far from perfect, it still managed to tell an interesting story with a fleshed out protagonist and used the medium of video games (the pattern puzzles, the binaural audio, the combat) to elevate said story. At the same time, I was surprised upon learning of the devs’ plan to continue Senua’s ‘saga’ in a sequel. I thought the journey she took in that first game was a full experience and didn’t require any further development. Whether it was a creative or a business decision to turn Hellblade into a franchise, I guess we’ll never truly know (although I have my thoughts).

To get the obvious out of the way - yes, the game looks absolutely spectacular. The character models and animations, especially facial, are on par with the best in the industry (thinking mostly of Naughty Dog’s work). This is supported by stellar acting, with a much bigger cast this time. The island vistas are stunning and I’m grateful that the art department decided to include colors other than brown and gray. Many times I found myself looking around and truly admiring Ninja Theory’s work in the graphical department. The devs are well aware of all this and they’re eager to show it off, and good for them. However, I still lament the decision to limit the game to 30fps for a ‘cinematic experience’. I don’t think I’m the only player to suspect that the devs simply didn’t manage to make the game run at a stable 60fps and opted for this excuse instead. Honestly, after the first 30 minutes or so it stopped bothering me too much and I forgot that I was only looking at 30 frames instead of the preferred 60. What I couldn’t let go of, however, is the frustration at the black bars visible on top and bottom of the screen throughout the whole game. Look, we’ve been there before - just look at the backlash to the same decision in ‘The Evil Within’ - and I still think it only hinders players from immersing themselves in the game. I’m certain there will be an appropriate mod available on PC, but as an Xbox player I was unfortunately forced to play with a significant portion of the screen covered in black.

Gameplay wise, the original Hellblade was never exceptional. As I mentioned earlier, it served the narrative well, but the simple and repetitive combat and overreliance on very similar environmental puzzles dragged the game down in my opinion. Well, for whatever reason, the gameplay in the sequel feels even more dumbed down. The puzzles where you look for patterns around you are largely gone, although they’re to some extent replaced by an entirely optional mechanic where you search for faces hidden in boulders - an addition I was happy with, as it is very much in line with the narrative aspect and also it kept me looking around the levels throughout the whole game without being too frustrating. The main puzzle segments utilize a very simple idea of interacting with an orb that switches between two versions of the level, e.g. you want to cross a river - you interact with the orb, a bridge appears, but then you need to interact with it again to get rid of the next obstacle, but then the bridge disappears. It’s very simple and unfortunately the devs didn’t make much out of it. Other than one singular instance when I had to actually think about the layout of the level to solve the puzzle, the rest were extremely simple exercises in going between points of interest and ‘focusing’ on the orb. I feel like there could’ve been so much more done to have the players flex their mental muscles, but it feels like the devs weren’t even trying to come up with anything more complex or interesting. Plus, the voices again give out hints way too quickly - please stop forcing puzzle hints on players in AAA games, thank you.

The combat feels at the same time more spectacular and clunkier. The fighting segments are well-directed and the number of unique animations employed during those is staggering. It’s even a greater shame, then, that the combat system has not evolved even by a bit - it’s still very simplistic, only this time I somehow struggled to get the timing right on the parry. I felt like there was no rule to when it worked and when it didn’t, so after a couple of hours I mostly stuck to the roll instead. In the first game, Senua often had to manage multiple enemies at once with the voices inside her head helping her out to make it out alive. These were some of the best moments in the original game, at least combat-wise. Here you always fight one on one, which deducts this crowd management aspect, unfortunately. At least the combat sections are less frequent in the sequel.

Additionally, there is quite a lot of downtime between the puzzles and the combat. There are long sections of simply pressing the left stick up and pressing L1 to have Senua walk a little bit faster, as nothing is going on around you. Sure, you can appreciate the graphics, but there’s not much else, including almost non-existent environmental storytelling. This reflects a bigger issue with pacing that the game indubitably has. Lastly, there are hardly any standout moments like in the first game, where you had to run between sources of light to escape a ‘dragon’ or fleeing from a fire ghost in a wooden maze. It all feels very flat and bland.

But the biggest gripe I’ve got with the game is the narrative. After all, that was the main draw of the first game and the story was so well-told that many players were eagerly looking forward to reuniting with Senua. I’m sad to say that this is probably the weakest point of the sequel.

[SPOILERS]

The first couple of hours are basically a regurgitation of the first game. Senua is on a literal guilt trip and the devs revel in her misery, pushing the game dangerously close to torture porn. The voices are still there to sometimes induce anxiety in Senua and sometimes to take her side, her father’s shadow is still harassing her, she’s still overcome with guilt over Dillion’s death. What was the whole first game for, then? It really feels like at the beginning of the sequel Senua is in the very same place that she was in the early hours of the original story. As if she didn’t learn anything. It’s a major letdown and, honestly, a baffling narrative decision.

I think it was the right call to have Senua interact with other characters. I’m not sure whether the game would’ve been able to tell anything new if it had only kept to Senua and her voices (which add a lot less this time around and honestly feel like a gimmick - they were there in the first game and that’s what people recognize the IP with, so gotta keep them, I guess!). The small cast of characters is interesting enough, however apart from the slaver we hardly see any development from them. I would’ve loved to have been given more opportunities to interact with these NPCs, to learn more about the stories, to even go on some quests together. But as they are now, they are mostly exposition machines that entertain the player while walking slowly and having nothing better to do. The abovementioned slaver’s story is akin to Senua’s in many ways, with his father issues and the impact of religion on this island community - more could’ve been done, having that character paired with Senua. The protagonist is also at one point close to finding something of a kindred spirit, and it’s only natural for her to search for someone like that - I wish this is where the game started and progressed from there, instead of basically ending right after Senua receives the chance to meet someone she could perhaps confide in.

I also don’t think it’s a bad idea to have Senua become a kind of ghost (or giant) whisperer, where through her ordeal she learned to help tortured souls and lay them to rest. That could’ve easily been the whole game with plenty of potential to include moving, ambitious stories on par with what was expected from Ninja Theory after the release of the first Hellblade. But this idea is squandered on opting for spectacle rather than narrative coherence. There’s so much talk about learning the names of the people turned into giants, but instead of delving deeper into their tragedies the game would rather focus on a flashy scene where a bunch of characters are throwing flaming spears at the giant’s head.

I was also disappointed with the ending. The game pulls the same trick that it did in the first one, i.e. all of the supernatural elements turn out to be figments of Senua’s imagination, or rather the result of her schizophrenia. Why are the other characters shown fighting with the giants, then? Is it also all in Senua’s mind? Did she make up the NPCs, or are they also sick? Is the leader of the tribe even real? Does her decision in the end have any significance? I’d love to learn about all that, but perhaps I’ll have to wait for some video essays or something, because I don’t think I can take playing the game again.

Man, I really wish I could give it a positive review, because this is clearly a labor of love. The score is very effective, oftentimes reminding me of big budget Hollywood espionage thrillers. The art style is minimalist, akin to ‘Firewatch’, but I liked it, even though some larger areas could’ve used some more ‘clutter’ to make them feel more lived in and not like empty sets. The character animations are very simple, but I felt they were usually effective in conveying the emotions of NPCs.

‘Virginia’ goes for the cinematic experience with very little interactivity available to the player. You’ll be mostly jumping from one short scene to another, observing events unfold in front of you. Sometimes you’ll be able to roam around a room or an apartment in search of an object to click on to move the plot further. Unlike in most walking simulators, you don’t have the opportunity to explore and interact with a variety of objects or documents that would help you fill in the gaps in the story - here you’re basically just shown 90 minutes or so of vague cutscenes (there is no dialogue in the game).

Understanding the story is one thing (mostly doable on your first playthrough, although some story beats could’ve been presented in a better way), but caring about the characters is a completely different issue. Towards the end of the experience the devs clearly wanted to elicit some emotional response from me, but they failed miserably as I was given almost nothing to make me form any attachment to any of the characters. This is where the game suffers most from its extremely minimalist approach.

I can’t believe it took me almost 15 years to play the ‘scariest game of all time’ that kickstarted the careers of countless YouTube let’s players. Thankfully, ‘Amnesia’ turned out to be much, much more than a cheap jumpscare fest that spawned tons of mediocre “you can’t fight back” horror games after its initial wave of success.

I love the pacing of the game. You’re given enough time to breathe and relax (?) between the properly stressful parts to sustain the player’s interest for the 8 hours or it takes to reach the final credits. The enemies (that you can’t fight, naturally) are used wisely and don’t jump at you at every corner, rather creep in the darkness around maze-like levels, making you fear they might be lurking behind every corner. This really heightens the tension, and even after figuring out what triggers and what breaks enemy AI and using this information to your advantage they remain scary opponents rather than annoying obstacles to run past.

Not unlike many representatives of the survival horror genre, here you also have to manage your resources, although rather than bullets and grenades they are access to light (lamp oil and tinderboxes) and sanity. Even on normal difficulty (recommended by the devs) on occasion I would run out of lamp oil and would have to desperately wander around the level in search of a container, with Daniel panting loudly and quickly losing his grasp on reality, which is expressed by the changing, wavy visuals.

The game’s greatest strength - next to the wonderful atmosphere, interesting puzzles and clever level design - is the story. I was genuinely eager to find the next note that would provide some more backstory for Daniel and Alexander of Brennenberg. The lore is quite rich and the consecutive revelations regarding Daniel’s role in the castle made me increasingly uneasy about controlling this particular character, which is not a wholly original trope in the world of horror stories in general, but it was executed quite well in ‘Amnesia’.

The game is ugly as sin, but that exacerbates the oppressiveness of the environments and increases the likelihood of getting lost, further increasing the stress levels (I never thought it reached the point of annoyance, though). The sound design is exquisite, always keeping you on your toes.

Launching this cult classic, I was expecting to require a lot more outside help during my first playthrough, which is often the case with adventure games from that era. When playing each of the chapters devoted to the main five characters I found the puzzles to be manageable, even if sometimes they veered into the more abstract category. This changed dramatically, however, in the epilogue - I honestly have no idea how anyone could achieve the ‘good’ ending without following a guide or prior knowledge of the game. The scope of that final chapter and the number of items in the inventory and interactable objects certainly don’t help. This should’ve been streamlined, or at least explained better to give players a real chance to arrive at the desired ending by themselves.

What I found a bit puzzling was the inclusion of a spiritual barometer of sorts. When the character we’re in charge of does something considered positive, e.g. helps an NPC, then it flashes green and the face of the character starts showing a faint smile. I understand that it is supposed to work in line with the overall theme of the game, which is facing one’s guilt/fear, but I’m not sure how some instances of relevant behaviors work into that. Let’s say a character is being kept hungry by AM - if they find something to eat, it also improves their situation and the meter starts glowing green. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I just failed to see consistency in the actions that were assigned meaning when pushing the characters into their best ending, which would see them face their guilty conscience.

The biggest problem I have with the game is its selection of characters and their ‘faults’. I struggle to understand why on the one hand, you’d include a literal Nazi scientist (who sold out his parents to Gestapo, no less) conducting experiments on prisoners of concentration camps and a war criminal who also might be a cannibal, and on the other hand a woman whose only fault was being raped or a man blaming himself for committing his spouse to a mental institution. I figure the common factor between all those characters is a sense of guilt that they need to overcome to finally find peace within themselves, but I found it hard to sympathize with the first kind of characters described above. Plus, they are all being subjected to unspeakable tortures by AM, regardless of whether or not they are actually guilty of anything. Those feelings were taking me out of the game at times, and what didn’t help was that some of the more mature topics, like the aforementioned rape or concentration camp, were handled poorly and without the necessary delicacy or nuance. Ellen's story especially feels out of date and in poor taste. The game also doesn’t skip out on gory details in most scenarios, which to me reads like a juvenile attempt at edginess rather than trying to comment on some important topics in a mature way. It does get slightly better in the final chapter, which leans slightly into some Freudian concepts and proves that humanity’s creations will always bear the flaws of its creators.

What I need to admit is that visually the game is still quite impressive, mostly due to the sheer variety of the levels. Each character finds themselves in a completely unique setting and each time I was eager to progress to see what else the game had to offer. The pixelart holds up really well, and it still proves to be the best way to preserve a game (unlike e.g. early 3D graphics from that time which often look hideous today). The music and voice acting are solid (even if some lines are janky), with the author of the short story Harlan Ellison stepping in to voice AM, the villain. I also appreciate the multitude of endings (not that many if you think about it, but still it’s a nice touch to have some variety in the outcomes in a point’n’click).

‘Planet of Lana’ is a 2D, narrative-driven puzzle platformer that reminded me heavily of Playdead’s most famous game, ‘Inside’. The core of the title is running (mostly) right, solving puzzles, evading enemies and learning about the world through environmental storytelling. The main difference, other than lack of oppressive atmosphere and inclusion of a more pleasant color palette, is that in Wishfully Studios’ debut game you are able to give commands to a tiny cat-like creature, Mui. This adds some flavor to the puzzles, although unfortunately most of them are much too easy to force you to rack your brain or to stay in your memory after you’ve solved them. The mechanic of ordering your animal companion around is underutilized, same with controlling hostile robots. I feel like there was potential for more complex and memorable puzzles, but as I’m writing this review - roughly a week after finishing the game - I struggle to remember any particular moments or set pieces other than the wind turbine section, mostly because that was the only place where I died several times.

The visual style is on the minimalist side, but that’s perfectly fine in a game of this type and scope. I liked the lively colors of the forest and the final chapter introduces some surprising backgrounds, although they could’ve used more variety and at least a little bit more detail to make each particular level more visually interesting. Storywise, the game only gives clues as to the nature of the events unfolding before our eyes, but it is told competently and welcomes various interpretations. Also, I liked the simple yet effective way the devs build the relationship between the titular character and her ‘pet’, Mui.

The controls feel a little sluggish, which also reminded me of some more famous narrative platformers. There aren’t too many places where it bothered me, though, as only in a few instances the game forces you to be perfect with your timing, although I did struggle with the flying sections as the controls were definitely too floaty and caused me to bump into obstacles and die a number of times.

Reading the previous paragraphs I feel like I’m complaining a lot, but I want to emphasize that the game isn’t bad by any means. It simply felt like it was a little too plain, perhaps too safe (understandable given this is the studio’s first game), but I definitely see potential and hope that future games by Wishfully Studios will take some more risks to differentiate themselves from other representatives of the genre. And drop the QTEs!

After a rather disappointing two playthroughs of the base game I was eager to jump into the DLC, which received widespread acclaim upon its release. My initial reaction was mixed. On the one hand, Dogtown makes a great first impression, especially the stadium filled with NPCs and interesting looking places which serve as an entrance to the large, brand new area. I also found the starting point of the plot interesting, as I seemed to have been contacted by a netrunner struggling with the same affliction as V. Also, the president of the NUSA needed to be rescued! As I went along, though, I felt more and more like I was playing an extremely generic, 2010s AAA title rather than Cyberpunk. Lots of bombastic set pieces and corridor shooting of private militia enemies (which look like something straight out of a recent Call of Duty), a B-movie like plot, where the president of the country turns out to be capable with a gun and starts mowing down enemies like it’s just another Tuesday for her. And yes, there’s even an annoying jumping section and a boss fight against a gigantic mech/tank.

I don’t know if this ‘camp’ was something that the game’s writers were aiming for but it felt slightly out of place compared to V’s main quests, which were often very somber and self-serious. A similar thing can be said about some portions of the story which quite clearly go for the James Bond type of narrative, also feeling slightly off when looking at both the DLC and the main game as a whole. The problem, however, is that most of these new missions are much more fun than wherever the base game had to offer. This is the root of my ambivalence towards ‘Phantom Liberty’ - on the one hand I was enjoying my time, but I knew well that was due to the game allowing itself to be written as a more standard AAA action title. There are definitely some more serious moments in the main quest concerning Songbird and Solomon Reed, but they’re often drowned out by the big set pieces and campy espionage shenanigans. There’s even an entire level dedicated to Alien:Isolation-like stealth horror, which was enjoyable, but drove home even further the point that the DLC was aiming for things that seemed fun rather than to present a more coherent, serious, truly cyberpunk narrative. This feeling was further exacerbated by the game frequently forcing the all guns blazing approach on the player (if you only focus on stealth, you might be in trouble) and drifting even further away from the original idea of a deep RPG presented in a complex, morally gray setting. Hell, they even introduced QTEs early on when fighting alongside president Myers.

There aren’t too many new gigs available (ten if I remember correctly), but this time around they are definitely more engaging and include a more meaningful narrative background. The way they play out is: you get a gig from Mr. Hands, you infiltrate an area (usually much bigger ones than in gigs in the base game) and at the end there is a twist that forces the player to make a choice. You won’t find anything too substantial in there, as there don’t seem to be any long term consequences for choices made in these, but they were a welcome addition as I could finally think for more than two seconds about what I wanted my V to do. I also liked the fact that some areas in Dogtown are only accessible on foot (or, if you try hard, on bike), making me pay more attention to the surrounding areas and in effect becoming more aware of the world around me.

What I didn’t enjoy at all was the addition of car theft contracts from one of the fixers. They seemed really low effort and simply have you drive a car out of Dogtown to some remote location within a given time limit, fighting off enemies on the road or delivering the car without damaging it too much. I gave up on those pretty quickly.

There are some genuinely interesting moments in ‘Phantom Liberty’, a standout for me was the youth sports ‘academy’ providing some scathing critique of the world of professional sports. Songbird’s story also turned out to be quite tragic, making me regret some of the earlier choices I made regarding her and her relationship to Reed. There’s also an alternate game ending included here, although it was rather disappointing and I don’t recommend it (although the base game endings were equally disappointing, so I don’t know).

I think this might just be the dumbest game I have ever played.

Starting off with a now legendary opening, where as Lucas Kane you need to cover up a murder you unwillingly committed in a diner restroom, the game effectively immerses you in its story. The chosen setting, a snow covered New York, plays really well with the potentially supernatural murder mystery the game seems to be going for in the beginning. I also really enjoyed the fact that you get to control both the perpetrator and the two policemen chasing him (a plot device that would return in Quantic Dream’s later games). And that’s pretty much everything positive I can say about ‘Fahrenheit’.

Before I delve deeper into the disastrous plot (especially in the second half of the game), let me quickly go over the ‘gameplay’ side of things. This is pretty much a QTE-fest with very little actual interaction available to players. Many of those button mashing sequences are ridiculously long (vide Lucas’ visions), and in some cases they appear in places they have no business being in. Why are we forced to do quick time events during an interrogation? Is it because otherwise the players would realize how shallow and poorly written this scene is? There’s also a level where we’re forced to do a painfully slow QTE sequence over a character delivering lengthy exposition. What is the purpose of this? Were the writers afraid that otherwise the players would get bored and not pay attention? If so, I hope it was caused by the writers’ awareness of the poor quality of their work rather than lack of faith in the players’ ability to focus on the game when they’re not actively mashing buttons like a maniac.

The controls are horrible and often I’d get frustrated with the controlled character for going in the total opposite direction I needed them to go in. There’s a dubious lives system that I see no other reason for being here than because it’s something that apparently should be in a video game (even though this video game tries desperately to fool you into thinking it’s more of an interactive movie). There’s also a mood meter affected by the characters’ actions and it also plays no important role in the game (other than sometimes reaching a failstate and retrying the scene). It’s just a trick to give players an illusion that what they do has some bearing on the story (oh, you’re depressed because you killed an innocent bystander? Here’s a cup of coffee, that’s +10 to mood, chin up!). You get some bonus points for ‘exploring’, which is not difficult as the levels are rather tiny and easy to navigate. There’s no other point to exploration, though, unless you enjoy opening and closing empty drawers.

Every little action - opening a drawer, then closing it, opening a door, climbing up or down a pipe or wall - is needlessly long due to the creators’ choice to have the player move the right analog stick rather than simply press a button. At times it was simply infuriating, especially in the many sections where you’re working under a time constraint. Also, the two sections with Carla walking around the police archive and the psych ward where she needs to hold her breath are simply annoying.

Returning to the story, the game takes some time to completely jump the shark, but even before it does there are a lot of serious problems with the writing. The dialogue is mostly terrible and very cliched, the characters are either a wet blanket (Lucas), a pretty offensive stereotype (Tyler) or a woman with big tits that gets undressed by the devs on numerous occasions (Carla). Most NPCs show up only for short episodes and they’re not given too much time to be developed properly. The worst part, however, is that the characters seem like total idiots. They take forever to reach the most obvious conclusions or make decisions so baffling that they would surely cause a collective burst of laughter in a movie theater. An old cop didn’t arrest a killer on the loose because he saved a kid from drowning?! Carla, a detective with years of experience, falls without a single question for Lucas’ story about ancient prophecies and secret societies?!

Another thing: the game throws in so many different inspirations from (or sometimes even blatantly copies) famous movies and tropes that it’s truly hard to keep track. We’ve got a scary psychiatric hospital, a serial killer in NYC, the chosen child who was born to save the world, The Matrix-like combat scenes with characters flying all over the city, a noir crime story, Mayan beliefs, secret military bases, alien artifacts, secret societies, the apocalypse, premonitions, ancient prophecies, rogue AIs trying to take over the world, brain controlling microchips. This is a total mess and there isn’t a writer that’d make anything coherent out of this. It seriously feels like a parody, but I have a suspicion it isn’t one, simply because Quantic Dream lack the self-awareness required. If this was turned into a movie or a series, its only hope for any relevance would be reaching a cult classic status a la ‘The Room’. You can’t even use the argument that player’s choices force them down these odd paths as until the very end of the game there aren’t any choices affecting the outcome - all this talk about ‘giving players ability to choose their story’ is just a ruse, always has been.

Fuck this game for wasting 10 hours of my life.