Recent reviews by Isoldael

I'm on the fence about whether to recommend this game or not, but ended up deciding against recommending because of the steep price.

1. Mechanics
This game is based around the premise that, as long as you stand still, time is (nearly) frozen. Only when you move does the rest of the world also move in time. This allows for some very strategic play and is definitely enjoyable, however, it is basically the only special mechanic in the game. A special power is added later in the game (you can swap bodies with enemies), but other than that, there isn't much progression in the game. It's just more of the same.

2. Story
Unlike many of the other reviewers, I wasn't annoyed by the story parts in between the levels. In fact, some of the dialogue in the beginning had me intrigued, as it hinted at great things to come. The fact that there was an empty box to start typing things was also pretty exciting - I was hoping for some sort of rudimentary conversation system where the other party would reply to some keywords, but alas. You basically just press random keys and it will type for you. At that point you might as well just play a video. Anyway, after all the hints in the dialogue, I was expecting some epic twist or some amazing story line, but was sorely disappointed. The story ends exactly as you would expect it to, and way sooner than you'd expect. The story took me just under 3 hours, and that included a lot of horsing around and setting myself impossible goals (complete this level without firing any bullets, etc.). If you tried and have decent hand-eye coordination, I'm pretty sure you could finish this in around 2 hours.

3. UI
The user interface in menus is old-fashioned, but I guess that's supposed to add to the atmosphere of the game. In-game, there is very little user interface, just some flashes across the screen that tell you what to do or what's happening. The SUPER HOT flashes after you complete each level are a bit annoying, but I could have lived with them, had they not covered the replay of your level. I would have loved to properly see myself take out the baddies in real-time, but the overlay made this a pain in the rear.

4. Misc
I have two other minor annoyances in the game, one being hitboxes that don't always match the visuals of objects and the player itself (I've gotten shot by things that "hit" me outside of my screen range, so it's a bit unintuitive how far you have to move to actually dodge things), and the other being that it's unclear when the game saves. I left the game via the menu at a point where the game naturally led me back to the menu, only to find out that I had to replay part of the story after getting back into the game.

If you read my points above you'd think that I didn't enjoy the game at all, but that's far from the truth. I pretty much played it in a single run apart from a short break, because the gameplay was addictive and I wanted to see where the story led.

If you haven't bought the game yet, I would recommend holding off until a sale. At the current price, I don't think it's worth it, but if you can pick it up at a discount it could definitely lead to a few hours of fun.

I got this game as a part of the yogscast humblebundle. I was quite happy to have a simple platformer there as sometimes I don't feel like learning an entire new game and just want to play a game for a few minutes at a time. Here are my thoughts:

Pros

• Simple platformer with a new concept (obstacles first being invisible)
  
• Short levels
  
• Simple control scheme

Cons

• No options. None at all. This means you can't change the resolution, turn off music or sound effects, or anything really.
  
• The speed at which various moves happen feels unnatural and inconsistent. Jumping is slower than moving across ground, to name one thing.
  
• Spikes seem to have a hitbox on the side that will kill you if you so much as brush them.
  
• Levels require you to make many perfect moves in a row, without checkpoints. Happy that you finally got past that really hard part? Here's a new hard part that will make you die and start all over again!

Overall, my game experience can be summed up as "more frustrating than fun". I like a challenge, but not like this. That combined with the lack of options is just a game breaker for me.

For an early access game, this is an excellent game. It's hard enough to be really challenging, but not too difficult. The world is empty, but not desolate. Good for hours of exploration and fun, either solo or with friends. Being early access, the game still has its flaws, but the game has an active and communicative dev team that works hard to pull this game beyond early access. Definitely recommend it!

I'll amend my older review: It's still a fun game and it's being developed, which is good. One of my major issues with the game though is the very clunky UI. Inventory management is a pain in the ass, which shouldn't be what you spend the most time on in the game. I understand having to "earn" inventory space by crafting bags, but there's no real reason to display all the separate bags, have no search function, no auto-stack, etc. I sincerely hope that this part of the game will be improved/

The concept of this game was really cool - the execution not so much.

+ Nice concept
+ Okay art style

- Doesn't scale well on fullscreen
- Hitboxes are off, making the game more frustrating than it needs to be
- The whole bronze / silver / gold system is very arbitrary and just forces you to restart the level (without a restart button unless you finish it first) to finish it the first time. Seems like it was added as an afterthought to give the game some replay value, but poorly so.
- Game is very short, can be completed within the hour with all achievements
- Many of the levels are completed within a few seconds and are way too easy
- Many of the levels are similar and the concept gets boring pretty quickly
- The controls don't always respond properly
- The levels make no sense if they were played forward, which is odd since it's supposed to be reversed in time

All in all, definitely would not recommend this game as a paid game. If you have some time to kill and got it for free, by all means, play it, but it's definitely not worth getting otherwise.

While the single player mode of Portal 2 isn't as witty as that of the first Portal game, the new mechanisms you have to use to solve levels keep things interesting. Portal 2's most important change though, is the coop mode and the community chambers. These two ensure that you have a virtually endless source of entertainment to enjoy with a friend.