Ostatnie recenzje napisane przez użytkownika racha

4.5/5

I've recently played the Dead Space Remake and I had to come back to this. And you know what - I still like Dead Space 2 more. I won't really compare it to the original Dead Space because this game was an upgrade on many levels technologically, so I will compare it to the more recent Dead Space Remake.
Fun fact - original Dead Space was a sleeper, this game was the first Dead Space game for many people. That is an important factor when it comes to Dead Space 2's ratings years later.

It's kind of like comparing Resident Evil 2 to Resident Evil 4 for me. Like RE2 does on the RPD Station, Dead Space 1 completely relies on the Ishimura. Those levels are meant to be explored and backtracked many times, and that level design is so nerve-wrackingly effective - you've explored those locations tons of times, you know them like the back of your hand, but it never gets you prepared for what could happen next. On the other hand, Dead Space 2, just like RE4, goes out for an adventure, with a ton of stuff going around, with more lore to it and with more characters to it. People complain that the level design is not as rememberable as the one in DS1, and they're generally right, but is it really supposed to be as etched in your mind as the Ichimura to have a great experience? I personally find this game to have more memorable experiences, especially with that iconic eye surgery scene being one of them. This game "replicated the cinematic voice and breakneck pacing" of many of it's influences, but not for one moment did it lose it's unsettling factors and it's survival item management that the original one was notorious for.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413895123
If I had to compare the stories, DSR probably does have a stronger story on it's hands now that Isaac Clarke has lines of his own. Side characters, I feel like they've never been that strong in Dead Space games. So, they're kind of okay. We get more of Nicole here (not really Nicole of course), but in these games you generally lack interaction with other characters, so Ellie was a welcoming character. I also do think that the dialogue here was underwhelming compared to the new dialogue in DSR. It's more like Isaac Clarke is Tom Cruise in a movie about being lost in space fighting monsters, if you get where I'm going with this. DSR hit the sweet spot with the protagonist lines, even though I didn't have a high affection for the writing of the side characters' dialogues. Scrapping the text and audio logs in DS1 and pieceing them together was a far more immersive way of storytelling compared to what we have in DS2.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413887913
Original Dead Space was also very slow at introducing enemies, it really took it sweet time. First chapter, you get some typical necromorphs, some slashers, then let's get you some leapers, then here's one brute, then let's make that one chapter with some twitchers. Not in Dead Space 2 - here, you've been dropped right into damn hell, with a ton of them swarming from all around and you get like almost all types of enemies thrown at you before Chapter 4 even starts. I've played all of these games on max difficulty, and trust me, this one is marginally harder. DS1 made enemies the ultimate bullet sponges, you could sink tons of bullets into the damn things and you could not kill them, but they were not fast and many of them were really not agile either, so your strategy was to manipulate them and just get by them with as little damage as possible. Dead Space 2? Boy, this game is the definition of "kill or get killed". The enemies are crazy fast and agile as hell. But what is even more important is that it holds this combat fast, tense and fun throughout the whole game. And all of that is just a culmination to that ending sequence which is literally a damn nightmare (I've googled and most people turned down their difficulty for this one).
So, Dead Space 2 goes out and adds more enemy types as well. And they're very effective, it's one of the reasons I like this game more as well. Those Stalkers that run all over the damn place, that you catch a glimpse of and then they disappear, and then they start peeking at you one by one from all these different covers - for me, that is like peak horror. And man, someone had to be incredibly stressed out adding all these kids and babies you're supposed to shoot at. It's so over the top for today's standards. It's horrifying but I found it really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ funny at times. That daycare scene was completely out of pocket.

Now onto one thing that made me wish for more in Dead Space Remake. It's the sound design. Yes, the sound design is crazy good, but I personally thought the game didn't have as much ambient sound queues as I would like and as I felt that it would make it a more immersive experience. DSR is really quiet and toned down compared to DS2. In DSR, an enemy breaks the vent in the distance and I know that I have a couple of chill seconds to get prepared mentally. In DS2 there's constantly stuff going on. Disturbances, chatters, baby cries, literally everything is going on around you, and all of that makes you much more unprepared - especially considering that at times there are monsters literally waiting to jump out at you directly from inside the walls. I also like how this game did quite areas too, breaking off the silence with the damn pipes going off or something. Yes, it's cliché at this point and it's more kind of cheeky than scary, but it's just effective. For me, it was a scarier experience than DSR. And that's most thanks to the differences in enemy behaviour, they're just out there to really destroy you. I've already mentioned Stalkers before, but those scenes when there's a ton of them are just great. You're visually limited, catching only glimpses of the creatures, but they're all around you making these wheezing and screeching sounds, and even though you hear it all, you can barely tell their direction or their distance. That is one of the examples why I find this game much more spine-chillingly immersive.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413895368
Visually, Dead Space 2 is really eye-poking at times. The textures are low resolution and the texture filtering itself is not really good. BUT, I've recently started using some shaders off of Nexus, and man do they bring this game up visually. It's like a completely different game, it does not feel like the game came out in 2011 at all. So, big hats off to modders for that one. I would recommend you to get RIG - Reshade Integrated Graphics mod on Nexus before you even start the game, and to turn on that beautiful smart DoF effect.

Even though it seems like I might be devaluing DSR at this point, you shouldn't get me wrong, Dead Space Remake really is great, but damn that game seems really slow after I've replayed this. Just like my preference of RE4 over RE2 due to their playstyle, it's something really subjective when it comes to these two games.

For the final say, Dead Space 2 is a game that should have stood on it's predecessor's shoulders, but it has proven to be worthy of a shoulder-to-shoulder stand, and not many franchises can say they're proud of that. To each it's own taste, no matter which one of these two games you go for, I assure you that you will have the time of your life.

4/5

This is my favourite Quantic Dream title and I think it's easily their best. But it's still Quantic Dream and it's still a David Cage scenario, which himself is a pretty controversial person (most importantly not the best writer either). Many people downrate this game massively due to him, but I think this game is a case where you need to separate the art from the artist. And what I mean by that is that this is not David Cage's game. Yes, he was involved for the most part, but there are many more people on this team worth noticing that made the game good, and you downrating it because of him is an insult to the team.

Detroit: Become Human is an incredible cyberpunk adventure. The story is set in near future where humanoid androids are used in everyday work routines, until they decide to "wake up" and put an end to what is pretty much enslavement of their species. The point of the whole game is to test your morality and to understand whether should these machines be considered as a new intelligent species or simply machines, and all of your choices lead to different outcomes. Even though this game leans into a very particular conclusion, you absolutely must admire it because it shows off it's ideas in a really powerful way, and in the end, it still gives you multiple choices instead of locking you into one. It's just kind of funny that you're supposed to play the game the "peaceful way" and simply march your way into a literal holocaust camp.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3407003220
You know how these types of games always say they've got this crazy number of different endings, and it's always overblown - not in Detroit: Become Human. It's truly amazing watching how different playthroughs are between different people. I'm very happy that everyone lived in my first playthrough, because I could not stand watching some of these characters die. Upon completing the game, I've decided to see some of the other outcomes, and man was I impressed. Small choices matter more than you could ever think, not just in the endgame, but in early stages as well. Yes, some endings are incredibly hard to achieve, you would have to purposefully fail multiple times over and over again in order to achieve them, but they are there and they are very different from the other endings, so it's a very big point in my book. And I must mention that having these path maps when you end a chapter is a great addition to the game and I wish all choices-matter games had these.

When it comes to these choices, they feel very engaging. You're free to explore places, find lore-friendly items and choose different dialogue options. The more you discover, the more options you will have further down the story. Cutscenes are very good, but what I really like is that playing the game feels much more immersive compared to other Quantic Dream titles. QTE feel really good and even though it uses a big number of different combinations, they're not that rapid to be annoying.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3404238479
The story pacing is good, some may find switching in-between these characters unnecessary fast at the beginning, but believe me it pays off and it tells these parallel stories very well. Obviously, Connor's part is the best, followed by Kara's close behind and then Markus', somewhere off long in the distance. Connor's story is just really interesting and much more creative compared to others. Everyone loves Connor. He's the ultimate deviant hunting machine, that himself turns deviant in a crazy plot twist or simply puts an end to his own people depending on your choices. The way the dynamic between him and Hank works is just great. Connor coming back from the dead for the 5th time is comical and the way their relationship builds up is wholesome, but at the same time, man can this campaign be so depressing if you choose differently. Kara's story is more about humanity. People are flawed and this story shows that, in this case, some androids are truly capable of caring and loving more than people. I do wish Alice was written better, because pretty much everything in Kara's story revolves about her. While mentioning Alice, this game has some really great side characters. I truly wish we could have more of Luther, but him, just like many other characters, had a really good platform but was simply underdeveloped.

Now, Markus' story is a bit weird and it needs questioning. It's absolutely hilarious how he's portrayed as this "android messiah". He points at an android, and the android suddenly "wakes up". I always wanted to know what does he even show them for them to suddenly gain this conscience. Let's just go with the idea that whatever the first android experienced was a trigger that produced a software instability that is now, in conclusion, a virus, which was later transferred onto another android when they connected. But then, where was the original distinction between consciousness and sentience? Was it in autonomy of decision-making, is it experiential factors, in perception, in ability to feel fear or pain, to have a moral compass and to make ethical decisions? It gets quite philosophical when you think about what exactly makes a species an intelligent species, and Detroit just avoids mentioning or answering any of it.
I don't want to say that Markus' campaign is unimportant, it is probably the most important campaign to your overall progress in the game, as you have to decide whether you will lead these protests peacefully or start a revolution against the humans, which affects public opinion and with that the other two campaigns. But this story just feels really rushed. Yet, if it wasn't for Markus' story, this game would feel absolutely pointless. Why would you play the other two scenarios if you had no effect on how humans treat androids. I feel like the whole Jericho thing could have been a really good story, but I just don't see a way for it to fit within the time frame of the other two stories, and that is what kind of limits it too.
It is also weird when you think about how unrealistic these androids' capabilities are. They simply hack into everything and everywhere - no matter the type of the android. It's a lot of why's and how's with this story, but for a sci-fi game I find it pretty decent.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3407029329
And something else that has to be mentioned. Graphics look great. Rarely facial animations get buggy, but overall, it's a very nice looking game. I've particularly liked the way this game uses the depth of field effect. The focus is always on the thing you're looking at, and everything in front of it and behind it is in a blur that is visually appealing, per my taste. I must mention that I really liked the vibe Zlatko's basement gave off. The horror genre is definitely something this game could have stepped into more. And the soundtrack feels bit of like you would find it in a high-budget Hollywood movie, it's kind of generic but it still sounds good.

I also just love the way Chloe interacts with you in the main menu. I wish more games used some of the things this game introduced.

I believe that if this game had proper story material, it would be a transcendent piece of media. Besides that, what is presented in Detroit: Become Human is still more than enough for me to recommend it. It's emotional, it's enjoyable, it's exciting, it's sad. It can trigger all kinds of emotions depending on the way you play it.

Base game - 5/5
Artorias of the Abyss DLC - 5/5

This is a classic. There's not much to say that hasn't already been said over the years - this is one of the greatest games of all time. It's not the most popular title FromSoftware has released, but it is definitely their most defining one - both for the company and the genre.

It has a seamless, very immersive open-world design, and even though this world is not revolutionary in design nor particularly big, they've made such a great metroidvania type interconnected world where you have the freedom of choosing multiple path progressions which in itself drives you to explore the world completely independent of the natural game progression. The only parameter that determines which path you should take is your own skill and knowledge of the game. Levels are designed with a lot of shortcuts and hidden passages to discover which makes multiple repeated visits to the same area fresh and interesting - the levels loop back on each other in ways that in hindsight seem so obvious, yet you somehow never notice it. I mean you always get that jaw drop when you realize that you can go from that Undead Parish elevator back to Firelink Shrine. Then they do it with Darkroot Basin to Valley of the Drakes or the other way to the Valley from the New Londo Ruins once it's drowned. It's just level design at it's best. However, this is partly gone with the Lordvessel. After that, the level design, even though it's still really good, heavily depends on warping between bonfires rather than connecting them like it does in the first half of the game, so it definitely feels a bit rushed. That's why I believe nothing else comes close to the brilliance of the level design in this game prior to Anor Londo.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3398226572
Even though the camera controls show it's time, combat doesn't. It's still highly impressive and truly brilliant when you come to think of it - they've given you very simple standard RPG stats, but they combined it with mechanics such as poise, critical hit multipliers, staggering effects, different weapon types with one-handed/two-handed stances, magic etc., and on top of that you have great block, parry, dodge and roll mechanics. What you get is a great variety of viable weapons, and combining this with a really good variety of different enemy types, it makes for an immersive experience, but even more important, highly replayable one. Yes, the combat might seem weighty and slow if you're coming back from DS3, or Elden Ring, but this game makes you utilize your critical thinking and mechanical smoothness rather than relying on your memory and rhythm. You WILL certainly eat your mistakes.

This game's reputation is notorious for having a stressful grind with overly-difficult bosses, but I would say that the truth is far from that. All bosses have their strengths and weaknesses, they all give you opportunities to capitalize on damage or avoid unnecessary damage, and it's up you to learn and master these techniques. Some bosses truly become a walk in the park after you do understand these. Yes, there is always a high possibility that you could be going into a fight underleveled, but this game gives you complete freedom to discover and toughen-up your character. Deaths are necessary and they are supposed to teach you lessons, so there's no point in stressing out about it really. In it's own way it's rewarding and very addictive. The runbacks from the bonfire to the boss fight have always been excessively time-consuming in Dark Souls games - I won't ever encourage them being as long as they are, and this combined with pretty long preparations in case you break your weapon or if you get cursed certainly is very annoying and it builds up on the reputation of this game which is already considered pretty hard. But you just have to love these boss fights - Ornstein and Smough, the Four Kings, Gwyn... they are all incredibly unique and just iconic at this point.

The multiplayer aspect of the game is fantastic. Why doesn't more games have a simple mechanic such as leaving messages to other players to warn them about something or give them hints/point their attention to something (or sometimes just simply bait them into death). It's interactive in the simplest way possible, yet this simple mechanic has connected the community in such a wonderful way. Wherever you enter a Dark Souls discussions, it's going to be full of references to these messages. Next to that, you have the black phantoms that invade your world to create havoc and the white phantoms that will help you in your journey as you summon them. These can be both NPCs or other players too. PvP though? It's really not balanced.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3399151731
The lore is deep and very interesting, even though it might seem confusing and unexplained. To be true, the story of Dark Souls is very cryptic, and you will certainly need to reach out onto the internet at times, but this exploration means understanding the story. It is not "set in stone", it's not told through cutscenes, the story of Dark Souls is told through your actions entirely. All the characters you meet and all the items you collect are there to guide you.

And the DLC... Man, I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love Artorias. Fighting Artorias makes you feel like everything you played through made you for that exact moment. There is no room for error. That's when you finally realize why everyone relied on him to save them. Through the game, you will hear the legends of Artorias fighting the abyss, and ultimately losing to this abyss with him being consumed to it. The DLC builds up onto the main story really good, and it's quite supposed to, as this content was meant for the original game which was cut short in order to meet the release date. The new area is great, and the new boss fights are great, with some very haaard boss fights (Kalameet and Manus). They are the toughest bosses in the game and a true test to your patience.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3399950806
This striking gothic art direction is S-tier, with both gorgeous and frightening scenes, and the game has a great sound design with really nice soundtracks. Some of these sound effects will get stitched on to your brain for the rest of your life. And the piano in the final fight... After all the struggle through the entirety of the game that was dead silent and plain dreadful, that piano was a cherry on the top. Everything about this game's art direction is just masterfully elegant.

Play it. If you start it and you just can't see this game being good, return to it later. I swear, this game will just click with you one day and you'll understand it all then.

4.5/5

An incredible remake that was ruined by bad optimization and occasional bugs. These performance issues are the very first thing I have to mention because I feel like this is the deal breaker for many people.
I'm always sceptical of anything made in the Frostbite engine, and here it's even worse than I expected. This game uses Nvidia DLSS/AMD FSR by default, and that's for a good reason. I unknowingly turned this off before even starting the game for the first time, and what I got was constant 95-100% CPU and GPU usage. This game will FRY your PC trying to run it in native resolution. And even when not trying to run in native resolution, this high load induces bugs that many people report - FPS stutter, laggy traversal, audio stutters/cut offs, cinematics not loading properly or characters/enemies not loading at all, and most probably the laggiest main menu ever added to a video game. Add various bugs onto this and it could make an unbearable experience if you barely meet the minimum requirements or you usually run games at higher resolutions. From my personal experience, I had 2 very crucial bugs in two different runs, one at chapter 10 and the second one at chapter 12, where I could not progress any further. I've even tried loading older saves and replay that part once again but it would not fix the issue. So the only thing I could do was download other people's saves and continue from there on.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3388292172
Now, let's talk about if this remake lives up to the original. Yes, it certainly does. It improves in almost all segments while being 1:1 to the original game. The biggest improvement is obviously in the graphics quality and the overall atmosphere, which is amazing. The incredible lighting and gnarly detailed textures make for a very terrifying and a very claustrophobic experience. However, I've expected more from a AAA title released in 2023 - many reflection artifacts appear on certain materials and shadows as well have poor filtering. It's ridiculous they did nothing about the reflection artifacts that appear right as you walk out into the Ishimura, like the very first part of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. Next to that there is a very weird depth of field effect. Things are always randomly getting out of focus.
Animations are better comparing to the original. I'm on the line when it comes to the sound effects - they're very well made and bring the atmosphere to a spine-chilling level, but I think there's not enough ambient sound effects that could have made it even scarier. The change in story and characters is probably the biggest change. The story is pretty much the same, but it is expanded with new side missions, and the main protagonist, Isaac Clarke, finally has lines of his own - which makes so much more sense. He finally acts as a ship systems engineer, which is his role originally, and now, he's the one that takes his own initiatives on action since this is his field of study, instead of taking orders from people that have no relation to these subjects.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3388287513
The gameplay has also been improved. Weapons are satisfying to use and the upgrade system is very good. Now you have the Zero-G feature that was not there in the original game, but in Dead Space 2. I wish some kind of dodge mechanic was added too because it really seems like some enemy attacks are almost impossible to evade at times. The map areas now have interconnecting segments, whereas you were only able to approach these by the tram in the original game. They are designed very well and it feels seamless going between them. It also makes backtracking much more interesting. Enemies are all improved on and their dismemberment never felt more satisfying.
Next to that, the new suit and weapon unlocks you get upon completing the game, including the alternate New Game + ending, makes the game boast a high level of replayability, especially considering how well the difficulty levels are designed.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3388290941
Some people might argue that this remake is made just too close to the original game, but that is literally the point of a "remake" and this brings some form of nostalgia that I wouldn't get the other way.

If you're lucky to have a beefy enough PC, Dead Space Remake is probably one of the best survival horror games you will get to play. In my personal opinion, it might even be the best one in the franchise.

4/5

Following the success of the Walking Dead series, Telltale decide to make a game about Fables, characters out of some of the most well-known children's stories, where you play as sheriff Bigby, the big bad wolf. And I always loved this concept. It's like we always get to see these characters and their good sides out of the fairy tales, but here they show off an idea of them living in an urban city such as New York, using magic in order to disguise themselves as humans and committing terrible acts in order to survive in such a rough environment where work is scarce.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385344964
The story is very good - the pacing is great, it's very interesting and unpredictable with a ton of deceiving moments. Bigby Wolf, the protagonist, is a character every other Fable is afraid of, and he himself pretty much has the nature of the "bad cop". On the other side, the second most important character, we have Snow White. She is pure and she wants to show that she cares for their community, but also wants to do everything by the law, acting as the "good cop". When these two find themselves discovering a series of murders, they decide to get to the bottom of it, where, along the way, they uncover just how corrupted their government is. It's up to you to act as a team and make decisions together with Snow or do everything your own way.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385303830
Just as Walking Dead, this is an interactive cinematic. Pretty much every action has a consequence, so making these decisions is really not easy at times. Most of the times you're given 4 dialogue choices, among which one is to stay silent, which is, at times, the best option too. All of these choices assert your relationship with someone depending on what you choose, and that further changes a number of outcomes. When you get to play the game, it's mostly in limited space, where you have limited time (sometimes) to find a number of clues. These clues are important as you can't really make a case on something without them, and that takes away from your further progress. However, these clues are pretty easy to find and connect. I really wish they were harder to find and that there were more puzzles overall.

I liked the QTE - they're simple yet not too simple. You use WASD to evade, mash Q and your mouse to attack certain enemies and to decide the path you take in a scene or so. While doing these QTE, sometimes you get the best outcome by not doing them at all - so you're required to think about your choices before committing to actions. This way they're much more interactive.

It's hard to imagine how would a game with characters out of Fables involved in series of murders in the urban New York look like, but I think they absolutely nailed the visual style and the overall atmosphere.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3383886710
If I had to note some things I didn't like - probably the soundtrack, it was very cool, but it's too short and it's mostly just the intro to the episodes. I wish these tracks were used more. Also, at times there are missing sound effects and the animations get wonky, but it doesn't really take you out of the immersion too much.

This game is a great choice for people who like noir films, crime investigations and point-to-click adventures, or if you just like games where all your choices matter.

2.5/5

I'm on the line here. For it's time it seemed like a pretty cool game, and even though it is polished, has some nice features and the action is there, it is close to being boring for the most part. Me, personally, I would probably not go through with it if I wasn't such a big Warframe guy. The game is structured well, it works nicely even today and it's got some detailed mechanics I really liked. In it's template it is similar to the Resident Evil and Gears of War franchise. The setting these events are happening in is really not that interesting, even though it looks okay, but I love the chilling and alarming atmosphere it gives off.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3382815358
The story is sadly just about mediocre and underdeveloped. Characters aren't interesting, and that even goes for the protagonist somehow.
First few chapters are very repetitive and straightforward - fight tons of enemy waves and find your way through. The combat is okay but it is just too repetitive for the most part. That is until you start the boss fights later on. Those I actually really enjoyed. Fighting and figuring out your opponent's weaknesses kind of felt really cool. Playing the final three chapters was really a blast for me.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3383797891
But, most of all, I enjoyed watching this game for what it is ultimately - a Warframe predecessor, or "Lotus" to be exact. Simply observing and drawing all these similarities to what came to be Warframe is very fun. The characters, the Excalibur "protoframe", the movement mechanics, the abilities you gain, using different elements of the universe, the weapons among which is Glaive that was very fun to use here, the enemy designs, among which are the infested, the Jackals and more, all of these ideas were ported to Warframe eventually.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3383798198
It feels like this was a project that let Digital Extremes experiment and learn so they could ultimately make something bigger that they had in their mind originally. And seeing that original concept video for this game back from 2004, I'm guessing that's exactly what Dark Sector was.

3.5/5

For me, it's better than anything in the Dark Pictures Anthology, but man is this game so full of absolutely great and disappointing stuff at the same time. Everything starts so distasteful and mediocre, but somehow they clutch it and it actually becomes really fun. Let's start with the bad stuff first and work our way from there.

The character introduction is even superficially awful and unconvincing. Characters show no genuine motives, and their dialogue lines are plain terrible. It's like they gave an 80-year old scriptwriter a goal to purposely make the most ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying gen-z teenager personalities they could think of. For some characters, like Jacob and Emma, I'd say this is continuous through the whole game - they're uninteresting adult kids that behave like absolute ♥♥♥♥♥. And even when they try to make these characters "open up", it just feels so shallow that it has absolutely no effect on the player. At the same time, they bring something goofy to the game that wouldn't make it the same. I'm just glad that their chapters are the shortest ones by far.
Even though characters appeal very uninteresting at the start, some characters get a really nice development. Dylan and Ryan become an interesting duo, even though Ryan has kind of a boring personality and Dylan is incredibly annoying, at least you get to see these characters think, express real emotions and their motives. With duos like these or later on with Laura and Ryan, you actually get to see someone building their relationship and trust with someone. Kaitlyn, even though appearing very annoying and disconnected from the group at first, becomes more interesting because she gets to show her experience and she puts in effort to work as a team player as you go on through the chapters.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3377536767
So that's my biggest complaint with the game. Now onto what makes me love this.
I really like the story and the setting, even though it has been done a ton of times already. It's a cursed quarry that is usually a lovely summer camp, but it becomes a vicious hunting ground as the moon goes full. The level design is good and ambience is petrifying with pretty solid sound effects, which definitely makes for a spine-chilling presentation. But this, combined with interesting story-linked discoveries and developing characters, makes for a really engaging and fun experience.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3377529674
They definitely stretched it a looong way when they said this game has 168 endings. It does have a decent variety of them, but it's realistically nowhere close to that number. I don't want to say that your decisions don't make a difference here, it's very easy to get one of your characters killed and alter your story, but rather that sometimes you're given choices that make absolutely no difference - this is mostly because the script requires certain characters to survive in order to make it make sense. And personally, I don't mind it. The assortment of endings is enough to make it worthy of any further playthroughs. However, I really do not like how the game abruptly ends with no proper "goodbye". What happens to the characters and their relationships they built after they survive? No one knows. You get to kill the beast and lift the curse, and the game is just done - roll the credits. All the relationships that were built up during the game are left off unresolved.

I believe that the graphics are the game's biggest compliment. The environments are nice, but the photo-realistic characters are beyond stunning. It makes your every screenshot seem like it came straight out of a movie. Next to that, it's well optimized and the animations are very good about 90% of the time. Other 10% it's a bit odd, and it's mostly weird facial animations. I must mention that the motion blur in this game is disgusting and that it can't be turned off in the settings, however there is a mod on Nexus that removes it. Thank you modders.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3376887430
The mechanics - they're the simplest among the simple, QTEs are pretty standard for a Supermassive game, and the camera controls are still janky as always.

One thing I entirely disapprove of is this obnoxious soundtrack choice. You're just out of an incredibly suspenseful moment and the game starts playing upbeat music. It completely ruins the vibe and it completely takes you out of that moment on multiple occasions.

So, overall, I'm full of bipolar impressions with this one but I had so much fun playing this after the story heated up that I actually can't give it a bad rating. Contrary to that, I'm going to experience this in co-op, can only imagine what a blast that is.

3.5/5

Probably my favorite game out of the Dark Pictures Anthology. It's definitely not as scary as others and the jump scares are much less frequent. However, the game is significantly better compared to others when it comes to the characters and the writing overall, with a pretty interesting plot.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3369625357
It's still pretty bland, but at least the second half escalates a bit and is actually exciting to play. The time and place setting is good, and even though the characters are very dislikeable at first, their stories improve amusingly and they do end up as some of the most memorable characters out of the series. The same quality is put in setting up and explaining the story of the evil enemies. Their reveal is very "classic horror"-esque, showing only glimpses of the creature and building the suspense and tension.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3369624298
QTE's are pretty classic and there are some harder sequences but nothing worth bashing your head over it, even though later towards the end a death could come with each failed QTE.

The graphics are very good and the mocap animations are solid, with some visual bugs that happen unoften.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3367087476
Camera movement is still kinda wonky on keyboard/mouse but it works.

It takes about 5 hours to fully complete the game so I really recommend it if you're in for a quick horror experience.

3/5

It's a fun little game. Took me a bit over 30 minutes to complete. The story is okay and the atmosphere is cool but the detailed sound effects make this game much better. A lot of spooky moments, yet the game doesn't overuse it's jump scares. Give it try if you're in a mood for a quick horror experience.

3.5/5

Even though this is still a really good game, Rise of the Tomb Raider does things pretty much the same or better in most cases.

The scenery and world design is still breathtaking, with a beautiful South American jungle setting. The optimization and the graphics are so good that it's being used as THE benchmark even today, many years after it's release.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3305433181
The open-world is decent in size, pretty populated with a number of small side-missions, so it's still a lot of content here. It does feel like they wanted to focus more on the exploration part here rather than combat, and personally I didn't mind it - tombs felt bigger and equally cool as in RoTR, and challenges felt more engaging than before. However, the lack of combat encounters and having the same old skill tree, while also keeping all the weapon variations and weapon upgrades does feel kind of weird and pointless. One of the things I noticed immediately and has been bugging me for the whole playthrough were the NPC voice lines - in English there are only about three different voice actors that voice all the NPCs in the game. In the native language there are more actors, but still not enough to not make it obvious that there is only a handful of people doing these voice lines.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3302346318
I've already said in my previous review that RoTR has the best story line in the trilogy, and I still believe that. However, that does not mean this game's story is bad. It's a very interesting story about Mayan legends and ultimate discovery. The story is cohesive and it doesn't feel like it loses it's tempo over the time. I've also really enjoyed the interjected chapters of Lara's childhood. Why I still think this game is not as good as the previous one story-wise is because it's less emotion-driven. But I do think the side characters have been written better compared to the other games. Their motives all felt much more understanding, making them intriguing.

When it comes to mechanics they're pretty much the same compared to RoTR, which is great. There are a couple of few small additions, mostly in climbing mechanics. The combat feels exactly the same. About the only change is that most of the equipment is now obtainable via merchant shops rather than game progress itself. One thing that is new is that crypts now reward you with multiple craftable outfit parts, but all of this is on such a small scale that it doesn't really make sense to me why would this be added instead of just simple craftable outfits like it used to be. And as I said before, considering that in many missions here you're limited to a bow and the native outfit, keeping the same skill tree, weapon upgrades and then these different outfit pieces really doesn't feel necessary. It feels like the game had to be at least twice the size to make these features make some real sense.
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3302333256
This game should still be considered a classic. A true Lara Croft Tomb Raider classic, focusing more on exploration and puzzles which made the franchise popular in the first place. And I personally think that playing Rise of the Tomb Raider and then this makes for a perfect little marathon where both of these amazing games compliment each other in the best possible sense with their great stories, vast open-worlds and many exciting features.