Recent reviews by Brad

Third time's the charm?

I will reluctantly give this game a positive review, even though it is quite negative, but I still admire the world and art that Eggnut have created, and want to encourage them to improve.

The people at Eggnut clearly listened to the criticism the first game got, but they still really haven't got their act together. It improved on minor things but still has exactly the same root problems as the first game: It is too linear, and it bites of more than it can chew.

The linearity especially bothers me in this game, as it seems to lean heavily on the "choices matter" angle, as far as to ape the butterfly(effect) theme from Until Dawn.

It has a fully fledged story tree, but I instantly knew that it's mainly for the looks when I saw that the trees always end on the same place, so no branching story lines. The game merely references on the choices you made previously, but the game itself doesn't actually change based on them.

BUT there is one exception to this, the story if Eli was the only one that actually felt like a real branching story. The devs proof that they are capable of doing it properly, so why did they only do it properly for one quarter of the game?

My second point is that the game bites of more than it can chew. Or that the game was too short, whichever way you want to put it.

Rene's story feels like a short summary, and even with the apparent "branching story line", you can't affect how it develops at all. I know it has to end a certain way to make sense in the context of the first game, but it's still ambiguous enough that we could have had different scenarios that would all make sense in that context.

With Howard, it starts of promisingly. The first two acts are so good, I was totally invested in Howard's story, but then it does a thing that the game does all too often, it completely glosses over everything I did, achieved even in the first two acts, and brushes them off with a few lines of dialogue. I was enthralled when I pushed all the right buttons to get on the good side (the back side?) of Niles for the game to just gloss over it with "Yeah it didn't work out". There was a game's worth of things I wanted to see happen between the second and third acts of Howie's story.

The story of Clarissa I think maybe was not one that even had to be told...

And again, they did it best with Eli. I can't really complain about that story. If the whole game was on par with that then we would have had a good damn game on our hands.

So if someone at Eggnut is reading this, Keep Calm and Carry On. Do your best to improve. You have an amazing IP at your hands, and I wish so badly that there will be more of it. For all the negative things that I have to say about the games, there still some special magic about them that makes me come back to them.

EDIT: Eggnut has ceased all new development in early 2024... I will continue to hope that some day the next game will come out.

Mixed is the perfect grade for this game. I'll give it a recomendation IF you're interested in it. I was intrigued by it and don't regret playing it. It subverted expectations, but fell short in the long run.

The game starts out as run of the mill detective story in fictionalised 50's north America, and gradually spirals in to almost horror-ish low-scifi. I personally do not like the scifi aspects of it, but it works.

The epilogue is a great set up to the game, but unfortunately I think the game subverts too much from the premise. I think the game aims too high and bites of more than it can chew. It also doesn't help at all that the game poses more questions than it answers. That being, it constantly comes up with new questions and never answers old ones.

Final nail to the coffin is that the game ends prematurely. Nothing gets closed or explained in the end. You invest yourself in this world, these characters and the mysteries and in the end you will understand nothing. Waste of good world building in my opinion.

Also I think the game tries to be too "meta" near the end. It seems to try to build profile for the player all throughout the game, but in the end none of that makes any difference. I have no idea what the game is trying to accomplish with that.

As a huge fan of LA Noire I was expecting a bit more detective stuff and problem solving, but the game has none of that. Your choices don't make a difference and you can just coast through the game. Or at least that's how I've understood it, that in the end you get the same story every time.

But all the negatives aside, it was a fun ride. It has beautiful graphics, beautiful music, intriguing characters and setting. It has good moments and at least I was throughout the game emotionally interested and invested in the story. Unfortunately, towards the end the game kinda "jumps the shark", aims too high. Everything you do in the first 3/4th:s of the game was for nothing, and the end is a slap to the face. The writers just throw you out of this world you were so invested in and lives you with all the mysteries and questions unsolved, leaving a bitter taste to your mouth.

It's really a shame. It's a really unique game. Disney animal adventure meets Sin City. It has really dark and cynical themes and it sugarcoats nothing of it. It's close to greatness, but the writers didn't seem to know what to do with it all.

2/5

I would like to sugest it, but I won't.

The story of the DLC could've been much more interesting than it was. It's driven by conflict between Radzig and an old enemy of his, but Radzig hardly has any role in the DLC, and his old enemy only appears at the very end of the DLC. Instead the story mainly focuses on this merry band of mercenaries. The mercenaries are fine as characters, but they are so unrelated to the game that you just don't really care. The leader of the band is interesting enough, and Radzig basically abusing his debt of gratitude that results in his betrayal in the end was an unexpected. I also respect how the betrayal was handled. Radzig certainly hadn't been very generous to him, and his betrayal wasn't really personal with Henry. He wasn't made an antagonist, he just took a bribe and left.

The missions are also nothing to really get amazed by. It brings nothing new to the table. You get an investigation, a wild goose chase, a simple battle and the climax consists only of some dialogue and a duel. The missions almost felt like they recycled parts of the Neuhoff raid and the aftermath, with you having to investigate a crime scene, and later track down a man, and other than that, they are just battles. In short, the missions are pretty lame.

To capsulize, the DLC has uninventive and uninteresting missions. The story had potential that wasn't really used. The reason I got this DLC is because I knew that you can get a sweet looking armour set, especially a sweet looking hounskull bascinet after the final mission. I got this discounted for 2€, and it was worth it for just the armour set. I enjoyd the DLC more than I didn't, but most of my enjoyment came from the dialogue at the very start and the very end of the DLC, and also the new armour set it adds.

Not worth 6€, but if you can get it cheap, you might aswell. It's not repulsive, it's a fun enough rump and you get a sweet armour set from it.

The Rockstar launcher this game requires is a buggy pile of garbage.

Mafia 1 is horrible in many ways, but it's story and ambiance are so great that they make this one of the best games I have played. And it can't be just nostalgia for me because I got this game in 2017 for the first time. 10/5 if you ask me but 5/5 if I can't give more. If technical quality isn't your top priority get this game.

If 85% of your game is locked behind paywalls, don't make it free-to-play. If this game had a price of, say 30€, I would probably buy it and enjoy it, but when the game is initially free-to-play, but 85% of content is chopped into 10 pieces and for sale around 20€ each, suggesting that this quite basic video game is worth 175€, it's not worth it. Even if they were 3€ each I wouldn't bother paying for scraps of a game.

Iha ok

10/5 jos minulta kysytään mutta 5/5 jos totta puhutaan