Recent reviews by vandervast

Tomb Raider 2013 is your typical "cinematic" AAA experience - linear gameplay, B-movie-level writing, many many explosions, and... a surprising lack of tomb raiding.

Most of the "ancient dangers" are wooden structures so old that they fall apart the moment Lara touches them, and "tombs" are reduced to little side rooms with a physics puzzle inside. Your enemies will be your fellow humans for a whopping 95% of the game (not counting wolves, who appear about 4 times total).

The story focuses more on Lara herself... in a 'torture porn' kind of way. Lara is put through a lot of abuse to show us how much she "grows" as a result, but the facepalm-worthy writing makes this hard to take seriously.

As a whole, the game is just competent enough to be entertaining but does not excel or innovate in any way. If you buy it on sale - you're basically paying the price of a burger for a burger-level enjoyment.

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- LINUX USERS BEWARE. The 'native' build of the game has atrocious performance problems. You will have much better time playing the Windows build running via Proton.

- Make sure you're playing the right version from the start, because save-games are not compatible between Windows and Linux/Mac builds.

- There is a bug where some UI elements are displayed off-screen. To fix this, right-click on the game in your Steam library, go to Properties -> Betas, and select "build743.0 - TR Build 1.01.743.0".

Very solid conveyor porn with RTS and Tower Defence elements on top. Two planets to play on, with game mechanics so different between the two that it's almost like two entirely separate games. Gameplay does get a bit stale after awhile, as there's practically no story and only a few types of missions, but quantity and variety of maps somewhat makes up for that. Overall the game does a great job scratching the itch for resource management, logistics and number crunching.


*note:
The game is also open-source, cross-platform and available for free outside of Steam, although you miss out on Steam achievements and Workshop integration.

Regions of Ruin lacks polish in many areas, but makes up for it with good pacing and variety of game mechanics.
Fighting, crafting, exploring, platforming, puzzle-solving, city building, resource management, and even a clicker mini-game — it's all basic and shallow, but is also offered to you in bite-sized pieces to keep it fresh. The game makes sure you're not stuck doing the same thing for too long. Well... except figuring out how to play.

Yomawari: Night Alone is a decent horror game, but not without serious flaws. It's held back by technical issues, somewhat clunky controls, unfair enemies, and lack of character development.

For many players the game crashes at start up and may need some fiddling to get it working. From there on it's a pretty standard formula of running around, finding items and using them in the right places while avoiding monsters. Plenty of optional collectibles to find as well. There are many enemy types with different behaviors and ways to counter them...

...or not.

And here lies the game's biggest flaw: many enemies in the game appear unexpectedly, outrun you easily and kill you almost immediately. Usually there's a way to escape; Sometimes there isn't. Regardless, death comes so quickly that there's no opportunity learn or try anything. Thankfully, you don't lose progress upon dying, and save points are frequent. However, as a result, many dangers are avoided not with your skill, but by dumb luck, brute force, and trial-and-error. If you're willing to bear with that, the game is otherwise enjoyable, if a bit barebones story-wise.

Great to see Gothic being given another chance at life, and the idea with releasing a playable teaser is great. That said, I'm disappointed with what Gothic PT had to show.

Environments are confined and path-like with plenty of invisible walls and pre-set climb points. Cut-scenes are frequent, long, and often just unnecessary theatrics over something mundane. Enemies are as generic as they get - wolves, giant lizards, and mean humans. Voice acting is so over-dramatic that every scene and dialogue feel like watching a bad play. Combat system is incredibly unresponsive and clunky, with confusing and non-cancelable animations, and camera permanently locked onto enemies during combat.

Be it for the cinematic effect, or for console-friendliness, or other reasons - the game absolutely loves to take control away from the player.

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What I did like are character appearances, which maintain the overall style of the original but are much more detailed. But that's about all the positives I can think of.

Can't comment much on graphics because the optimisation is so poor that I can barely run the game even on lowest settings.

ZUP! is simply an achievement farm for those who want to spell something out on their Steam profile using achievement icons. While it also looks like a physics puzzle game - the puzzle element is almost non-existent. The mechanics are few and simple, and nearly all solutions require nothing but a bit of trial and error. The entire game took me 25 minutes to complete with all achievements, with the rest of the 'playtime' simply waiting for remaining Steam cards to drop

Minit takes the action-adventure formula and simplifies it into the most basic elements that make the genre fun, with a unique gimmick - you only have 60 seconds to make some progress (solve a puzzle, find an item, or open up a shortcut).

This 60-second limit turns your journey into a series of bite-sized puzzles and gives the game personality. But look past the time limit and all you'll see is a good, but very short barebones pixely adventure game that has nowhere near the amount of depth or content to justify the full price.

An interesting piece of gaming history that hasn't aged well neither visually nor mechanically, even in areas where it originally excelled. You will find very little that isn't already done much better in more modern games, unless you're craving for some old-school jankiness.

Enhanced Edition runs well out of the box, adds mouselook, and supports custom and widescreen resolutions via a simple tweak to a config file.

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Games like DOOM 1 & 2 stand strong to this day because their biggest strength is simple fast-paced dumb action - an old but proven formula for success.
System Shock instead took the path of slow-paced survival horror - a genre that was much more demanding, complex, and unexplored, and unfortunately it shows.

System Shock has many elements you've probably seen in more modern games - inventory management, loot, upgrades, puzzles, text and audio logs, running around a space station fixing things while characters talk to you on the radio, all that stuff... except a lot more ugly and clunky. The environments are almost Minecraft-esque and consist of uniformly-spaced blocks, slabs and slopes, with only a handful of textures per level and some props. Non-stop upbeat music and almost complete lack of eerie ambience fail to maintain a scary atmosphere. If you're hoping for at least some decent shooter action - expect infuriatingly bad hit detection, clunky UI and floaty-bumpy movement physics.

With neither the action nor atmosphere being very good - all you're left with is a cliche story and some puzzles, if you can stomach everything else.

Dear Esther has coined the term "walking simulators" - having no real challenge or interactivity, its focus is firmly set on visuals, atmosphere, and narrative.

However, the genre has evolved visually and mechanically since then, while Dear Esther now pales in comparison. The narrative, although unaffected by time, is ambiguous to the core and was created for a very specific niche, so your enjoyment will depend on how much you fit into that niche.

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Despite raising some controvesy over the definition of a "game", Dear Esther was still praised for its beauty. Atmosphere still somewhat holds up, but over a decade-old graphics detract from it, and even enhanced edition of the game does little to alleviate this.

If you were hoping to just wander around and explore - you'll only find yourself limited to a few linear paths, but even they don't offer much beyond some pretty vistas. There's very little to find beyond the same blurry props re-used throughout the game; Even less that may carry some meaning to the narrative, and what you do find can't be interacted with in any way whatsoever.

The story (or something resembling it) is fragmented and buried deeply in metaphors. Your mileage will vary depending how much you love finding hidden meanings, interpreting symbolism, or even venturing into the depths of Wikipedia.
In fact, developer commentary confirms that there is no story - it simply wasn't developed beyond vague symbolism, and it is up to the players to interpret it into something more.

Gone Home lures you in with a mystery, follows up with a good story, but fails to tell it in a compelling manner.

Gameplay is nothing short of a "note reading simulator", as that's what you'll be doing 90% of the time - going from room to room and sifting through large amounts of filler, underneath which the story is buried. The experience is further dulled by lack of interesting environments, since the entirety of the game takes place in one big but for the most part ordinary house.

While the story was fairly interesting (assuming you're not put off by the subject matter) and with a satisfying ending - most of the gameplay was just tedious.