Recent reviews by j-draper

Like Her Story, but with better writing, more characters and sets, and more clips to sort through. I loved Her Story, and I love this game too.

The only thing I would say to new players is to notice that you come into a video clip partway through, and you can drag to the left to rewind to the beginning of the clip. I didn't notice that until after I'd finished and I wonder what I missed out on.

It would be nice if there was a slider bar where you could skip straight to the beginning, or if you started at the beginning by default.

Really enjoyed it on the whole. Spooky and unnerving without resorting to cheap jump scares. I also loved getting to operate all the old eighties' equipment- it felt very mechanical. The sound effects in particular for the old keyboards, dials and cassettes was great. The twist in episode 4 was as trite as it gets, but it was well-delivered enough that I didn't mind as much as I normally would.

However, I do have one big sticking problem with this game, and that is accessibility. I don't have particularly bad eyesight, but I was struggling to make out the words on some of the screens, and the zoom function wasn't strong enough to help. This was particularly a problem with the microfilm machine in episode 3, where I had to give up and find a walkthrough a few times because I just couldn't read essential codes. Similarly, the radio in that episode isn't subtitled, which made it really tricky to hear the correct numbers. It was a shame because otherwise that was the best of the four, in my estimation.

A really interesting way to do what is essentially a detective-story mechanic- finding clues and piecing them together.

My only complaints would be a) that Symes feels the need to give me his opinion on every little thing, which interrupts my train of thought somewhat and b) that the game crashes in Day 5 every time Delacroix tries to talk to me.

The writing is excellent, as is to be expected from Blithell. It doesn't outstay its welcome and is the right price for what you get.

The game takes place entirely in a single carriage on a circular metro line. You are a robot detective, interviewing your fellow passengers to figure out why other robots are disappearing. This is a great concept, and I love short stories that take place entirely in one setting.

However, the game does seem to think that interviewing randomers who happen to use your carriage is a good substitute for, like, methodical investigation. A robot on my train would pass on a third-hand rumour and it would say, "Ooh, you found out something useful there!"

Additionally, the callback to "Thomas Was Alone" was really awkwardly wedged in there.

But these criticisms are minor compared to this single point in the game's favour: at one point, the game actually made me get up and find some scrap paper, write out a logic table, and solve it. Brilliant. Worth it for that alone.

An enormous amount of complexity is squeezed out of very sparse controls. Easy to learn, difficult to master. Even at the easy levels, it captures the fluidity and beauty of a great choreographed martial arts sequence. Thoroughly recommended.

A really great game. In the same way as "Papers, Please", it doesn't just show you a corrupt official: it gives you the decisions that official must make and watches you get corrupted by them.

On the other hand, there's no skill to it like Papers, Please, and no tautly crafted difficulty curve: some days you'll be sitting on your hands, on other days there'll be three fights, a riot and a massacre to sort out.

In my first playthrough, I tried playing a hard-nosed Sam Vimes type: staunchly on the side of the angels. I got shot by the Mafia after a week and a half. So the game doesn't really let you take that route, although it professes to: your deputy tells you right at the beginning that it's possible to do everything cleanly, even though it really isn't.

The game feels a bit slow in places- although the voice acting is generally great, some of the actors (Chaffee, Christopher Sand, Boyd himself) seem to have been told to slow down, and others to hurry it up (Emma, Mrs. Markham). This means the cutscenes can really drag, and the gameplay- the management sim part- gets pretty tedious after a while, probably due to the aforementioned lack of skill needed.

Also, I took down the entire Mafia about halfway through. I really thought they'd be the Big Bad that never quite went away- taking them down was a bit anticlimactic. The boss didn't even get a cutscene!

Despite these issues, the game is excellent overall. The mood is perfectly noir in a way that many struggle to capture, without even resorting to forties' iconography. I love how the music becomes more modern as you move towards the end. I also liked the case-solving parts, although some of them were bloody tricky.

Would have benefitted from being a bit shorter, but thoroughly recommended.

Firewatch is beautiful. Both the art direction and the voice acting really make this game stand out. Yes, the plot's not entirely satisfying, but it does take you on a great ride. You really do feel as if you're out in a huge wilderness, even though the game world is pretty small. I love that you can take photos of whatever you like, although the first time I played I thought I'd need the camera for something important later, so I didn't take too many.

I do recommend going into the options as soon as you start the game, and turning off the marker that shows where you are on the map. Then it becomes a proper orienteering game. It feels a bit weird not to have that at first, but if you do get truly lost you can always stick it back on.

One thing I would like: better achievements! All the achievements are unavoidable as you play the game. Give me ones for finding secrets instead! Otherwise, what's the point?

I really enjoyed this game. It's not particularly challenging, but at least it doesn't expect you to come up with weird combos of items that you'd never think of normally, which is a pitfall of many similar games. The art style is lovely and it's pretty funny, too.

I thought the Stanley Parable was a good game, but this. THIS. is great. The writing is just superb. Finally, we are beginning to see video games rise to the level of art.

Are you really allowed to call your teenage protagonist "Caulfield" any more?