Recent reviews by HellWolf

A memory altering adventure disguised as a JRPG

Pros:

• Great story
  
• Nice graphics
  
• Original concept
  
• Great soundtrack
  
• Easy achievements

Cons:

• Game mechanics almost non-existent
  
• No voice acting
  
• Minimal replay value
  
• Lack of challenge

What is this game?

To the Moon is a point-and-click andventure/puzzle game from Freebird Studios released in 2011. The game was developed using the RPG Maker XP engine and it was released on all major home computer formats on Steam.

Long review

As you first start up the game 2 things can come to your mind. First, this game looks like a JRPG. Well, if you are expecting one you won't get it. The graphics are done in 2D pixelart, in a very similar fashion to the old Final Fantasies and other RPGs on the old Nintendo or Sega systems, but this is far from being a fantasy setting. While the game has a near future sci-fi setting, in most cases you will see current time architecture, landscape and items. No crystals, dragons or monsters here. Secondly the music. It is mostly keyboard, and it's setting up the tone of the this emotional story perfectly. So what is this game about? We control two doctors in the game, Eva (you control her most of the time) and Neil. They are employees of a company specializes in fulfilling dying peoples' last wishes by altering their memories. Their patient here is Johnny, who - obviously - wants to go to the moon, but he don't know why. It is our job to find out. From the very beginning it is obvious the two doctors are not getting along very well, and this is the source of the humor of the game: they say a lot of negative remarks about each other, and sometimes put themselves -or the other - embarrasing and hilarious situations, which could've been even better with a nice voiceover, but sadly you have to read everything, just like in those old RPGs. That's fine, but what do I do in the game? Well, sadly not too much. You move, talk, and inspect objects and memories. Also, you have to solve a picture puzzle if you want to advance to the next memory. As you start the process of altering Johnny's memories, you'll have to go back in time. Finding memories will allow you to go back further finding a perfect place to alter his memories to become an astronaut. You have to collect all the memories in given segment to access the puzzle and solving it takes you to a younger age. During the puzzle you have to flip the pieces to reveal the full picture, but you can only flip rows, columns or across. You have a set number of flips you can make, so be careful. While I find this mechanic completely unnecesessary, it's still the hardest part of the game. Also finding some memories can be tricky, but overall the game is far from being hard. There are a few cases when you have to do something else besides object finding and puzzle solving, but those are few and far between. As the story progresses, after halfway - in true Star Trek fashion - there is a huge twist in the story and the tone of the game changes drasticly, as it should be. In reality the story is the element that drives this game forward, you want to know more about the doctors just as much as Johnny, what happened to him and why did it happened that way, as the doctors learns a lot about themselves and each other too. I don't want to spoil the ending or the second half, but you may prepare a tissue for the end, that's all I'm saying. ;) Also the ending teases a possibility of a sequel, so we can look forward to see more from these guys. As far as the story goes, while the game is not a JRPG, the overall plot shows similarities with those game, while being much shorter. If you are into achievements, you won't really find easier anywhere. Just complete the game, that's it.

Conclusion

While the gameplay is heavily lacking, it would be wrong to call this a walking simulator. The story and the music together makes up for an excellent, satisfying experience, even if you may not play it again. I recommend this game for everyone, it's well worth the few dollar/euros it costs.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment or contact. Good gaming to you!

This is how you make a game with rectangles interesting

Pros:

• Game mechanics are done very well
  
• Incerdible narration
  
• Great soundtrack
  
• Interesting story and 'characters'
  
• Satisfying conclusion
  
• Easy achievements

Cons:

• It is a short experience
  
• Around halfway puzzle platforming turns to speed platforming temporarily
  
• Graphics are too minimalistic

What is this game?

Thomas Was Alone is a 2D puzzle platformer created by Mike Bithell first as a flash game, and later ported to the unity engine and released in 2012. The game is also available for PS3, PS Vita, Linux and android besides Steam's PC and Mac version.

Long review

This game is about getting rectangles to the end of the level. No, seriously. These rectangles can move, jump, and some have special abilities. Also, they come in all shapes and sizes. Working together, they have to reach their corresponding exit. Sounds amazing right? No? Well, thankfully it's a bit more than that. Taking cues from the widely successful Bastion, the game's story is told by an exceptionally good narration, done by Danny Wallace (also know as Shaun from Assassin's Creed II and onward). But he is not just telling the story, he represents the thoughts and personality of the rectangles, whom by the way have their own name. How can a rectangle have personality, you might ask? They are actually A.I.s inside a computer system. A.I.s, become sentient and suddenly realizing their fate and purpose. Your job is to guide them across the hazards of the enviroment to get to their destination. Additional story bits can be seen as pieces of the programmers e-mails pop-up from time to time. So as you may have guessed, in the beginning Thomas was alone, and then came others to help him in his journey. The narration is very well written and also very humorous, frequently telling us about the A.I.s relationship with each other. As you progress through the game more and more A.I.s come, slowly introducing new personalities and abilities to the game, keeping you interested throughout the entire story. It won't be always crowded tho, the number of rectangles you have to get across are varied. But what of the hazards? Not really much to say on that regard, at first you won't have any, your goal will be to get them across walls mostly. Later comes water (which only can be traversed by one A.I.) and of course the all time favourite spikes. In the late game some of the A.I.s abilities are mixed together, so the challenge will be to maintain the use of the right one. The gameplay is solid, all movement animations are spot on and hard to find problems with them. The only thing I found hard to get hold on is the character change mechanic, I never knew which I'm going to switch to. The graphics are very minimalistic, even for a 2D platformer. All solid objects are black and every A.I. is represented by it's unique color, while the background is made of one color and a dark one at that, ocasionly having a pattern on it. Two things stood out for me in the graphics: The water looks and feels great, and the shadows also been done very well. Gravity is simulated very well, making a good jump feels satisfactory and diving into water realistic. Sadly the game comes to a short but satisfying end, lasting not much longer than six hours. Thankfully the ending is a good one, both happy and sad, and I shed a well deserved tear as the credits rolled. Achievement wise it's a fairly easy game, half of the achis are for completing the story and the other half is for finding all the hidden hollowed rectangles in the game. Some of those are a bit challenging, but nothing serious.

Conclusion

While Thomas Was Alone may only be a short, one time experience, it's an excellent game, achieving everything it's set out to do. The great level desing, exceptional narration will suck you in really fast and won't let you go till you finish the game. I can recommend this game to everyone, even if you don't like the genre, as the difficulty is not that high here. That may turn down some hardcore platformer fans, but even if you never come back to this game, the story still worth it alone.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment or contact. Good gaming to you!

The game that pushed the open world western RPGs to the next level.

Pros

• Incredibly detailed and unusual fantasy world
  
• Original leveling system
  
• Incredible modding potential
  
• Best sky representation in it's time, especially the night sky
  
• Music, sound effects, voices
  
• Completely open world from the get-go
  
• Great main story
  
• Lots of quests to do
  
• Lots of factions and guilds to choose from
  
• Weather effects (especially ash storms) adds a lot of uniqueness to the enviroment
  
• Almost limitless potential in spellcrafting and enchanting
  
• Limitless character developement potential
  
• Large amount of weapons and armor to choose from
  
• Still runs fine after all these years
  
• Low HDD space requirement
  
• Tutorial is short but tells you everything you need to know
  
• You can become a vampire or a werewolf

Cons

• If you are not the patient type, travelling can be a chore
  
• No day and night cycle for 99% of the NPCs
  
• NPCs are mostly static and do not travel at all
  
• Lack of mounts
  
• Lack of player housing
  
• Fighting mechanics are clunky and barely exist
  
• Cannot fight and cast spells at the same time
  
• Character creation have very few options
  
• Leveling has some issues
  
• Character animaton is a mixed bag
  
• Useless 3rd person view option

What is this game?

Morrowind is a first-person view based, open world, non-linear western style RPG released in 2002 for PC and later for the original Xbox. This is the 3rd main title in the Elder Scrolls series, the first fully 3D game and the first with 100% hand crafted enviroment. This version includes both official expansion packs released to the game. While the game is excellent by itself, it is highly modable and let's you upgrade almost all aspect of it. In my opinion it's significance can only be compared to GTA 3 and Final Fantasy VII in their respective genres. A must have experience for RPG fans everywhere around the world, highly recommened. NOTE: There are independent content patches for this game and I'm not sure if they are included in this version. These can be found on the Bethesda website.

Long review

First of all sorry about this 'short' review, I had to cut the review in half and redo it completely to fit it in this tiny space. Also this is my first review, so bare with me. Let's get on with it then. Let me start with the beginning, character creation and tutorial. You start as a prisoner released to freedom by the emperor. For what reason? That you'll have to find out in the main quest. Sadly the game don't have too many options coming to character creation, it's very simplistic. Rather focus your attention to your race, class and birthsign: these will determine how powerful your character will be at the beginning. Why just the beginning? Because there is no limitation in skill progression in this game. You can max out everything. To help out newcomers I give a nice melee character combo: Redguard - Knight - The lady. The first building serves as the tutorial area, so examine everything you find, or just skip it entirely. In this game nothing is forced on you. After you got your relaese papers and fee, you are free in every possible respect. While you got pointers to where to go first, you are not forced to, you are set to explore the island of Vvardenfell. At first it seems like just a regular fantasy setting, except for maybe the giant bug you see right next to the village. Yes, that is just the beginning. As you venture into the island the first thing that stands out are the giant, 10 meters high mushrooms in the grasslands. And further traveling in the island there is nothingness. Vegetation gone and vulcanic ash everywhere. You bump into ancient ruins of Dwemer, Daedric and Dunmer in origin, far from being abandoned. You can find cities made of giant crab shells and magicly altered mushrooms. Your travels will be slowed by ash storms, thunderstorm and bandits. But you'll have to walk, as you have limited ways of transportation in this game. Not all is hostile to you tho. You can find several towns and cities with merchants and inns to sleep in, but most importantly you can find guilds and factions to join. They not just give you additional quests, but they will provide discounted services for you and additional storyline . Speaking of quests, there is of course a main story in the game, which I don't want to spoil too much, is a great epic journey of a prisoner becoming one of the empire's blades agents and at the end ascending to godhood. The main story is about politics, religion, revenge and redemption. You are going to set things right in this land. As your adventure goes forward you will learn a lot about this land and the empire from NPCs and books. Books are also good for leveling your skills, which is mandatory, as this game is all about skills. Skills can go from 0 to 100, representing your chance to succeed in use of given skill. This is important, as the game doesn't make it a secret that everything you do is based on those hidden dice rolls and skill chances. There are no mini games here, even your sword swing is just a start of a dice roll. Skill are also important in leveling up your charater as there is no XP in this game. Instead you have to level 10 major or minor skills to level your character. And when you do, you can increase 3 of your attributes. You can add a multiplier to those attribute levels by leveling skills governed by that attribute. While character creation is simple and hard to do unique characters, the itemisation is very extensive. You can choose from several armor sets and weapon types. If you do not prefer weapons, there is a huge selections of spells to choose from. Even better, you can create your own spell. You can also create magical weapons and potions in the game. Voice acting is good in the game, even if the game is not fully voice acted. Every race has it's unique voice in the game. The music is excellent, composed by the one and only Jeremy Soule. While listening to the nice relaxing medieval melodies traveling the wilderness, it can quick turn to a battle chant when you got attacked. Outside of the game world one of the most important aspect is modding. This game can be modded by almost any way you want, or the engine lets you to. Glitches can be patched, graphical fidelity can be upgraded, new stuff can be added to the game. You can make this game feel and handle so much better if your are not satisfied with it's original ways. And there are some things to address here. The leveling system need some tweaking or complete overhaul. Character animation is bad for some races. Characters can use some more polygons just as better textures. A whole graphical overhaul is also can be on the table, especially the viewing distance. Player housing is completely missing from the game just like mounts. NPCs are few and very static with missing day/night cycles, you can change that too.

Conclusion

Even if the game has several faults, it is nothing short of an ambitious project succeeded. The game has a unique feeling to it, loneliness is weightet heavily on your shoulders as you traverse the vulcanic wasteland of the island or it's catacombs. As you progress through the game and a greater evil force your hand to act, you slowly find a purpose and a goal, even the gods starts to smile on you. It can take 100s of hours of your life easily with one character, not to mention more. I hope I've encouraged you to try this or any of the Elder Scrolls games, they are great experiences. Also, if you are looking for the previous games, you can download the Elder Scrolls 1-2 for FREE from Bethesda.

Feel free to comment and send me messages. Good gaming everyone!