Neue Rezensionen von satyreyes

The problem isn't really the first puzzle. The first puzzle is unusually tricky and not especially on brand, but it's not unfair, it just requires more exploration and lateral thinking than you might come to the game expecting. The problem is that the game as a whole doesn't create an unsettling ambiance very effectively, and the puzzle design in particular doesn't support the horror genre. Amanda 1 did it better, partly because the puzzle elements and the environment were creepier, but also partly because the core idea of the game was new and unsettling. In Amanda 2 it's not new anymore. It feels comfortable. The design needed to shake the player from their zone of comfort, and it didn't. Thumbs-up anyway for fair puzzle design, great world-building and backstory, and a ridiculously reasonable price point.

ACE ATTORNEY IS BETTER AT: Music, production values, the art of the turnabout.
TYRION CUTHBERT IS BETTER AT: Pacing, romance, worldbuilding.
BOTH ARE GREAT AT: Humor!

Man, this game should have been up my alley -- sort of Neverwinter Nights crossed with XCOM, what's not to like? But the writing (or the translation) is unnatural and heavy-handed, and gave me no reason to care about the characters, setting, or story. And while clearly some work went into polishing the UI, it still winds up feeling clunky and dated, like something from fifteen years ago, even in the strategy layer (in spite of the modern, processor-chugging graphics). I hope this developer keeps making games, and learns something from this one.

The authors compare this game to Myst, but the truth is it's much more linear and modern than Myst in its design. I was never unsure what I was supposed to be doing, and the puzzles were diverse, bite-sized, and fair. The story alternated between sweet and spooky in a way that felt natural. Nicely done!

This is just a ton of fun, and I don't know how I had never heard of it. KickBeat is a DDR-style rhythm game with a holistic sensibility about the beat, jumping among drums, guitar, and vocals as they become prominent in the song. It doesn't feel like you're playing the drums with your keyboard; it feels like you're conducting the whole song. The mapping of the built-in songs is precise and joyful. The songs themselves are way more industrial-metal than I usually prefer, but in this game they work perfectly, and you'll agree with me even if it's not your genre.

Apart from gameplay, one thing that really stands out is the unexpectedly hilarious writing of the cutscenes. Honest belly laughs. It's baffling how writers with such good instincts could name their game KickBeat, possibly the most forgettable name for a video game I can think of, right up there with the equally underappreciated Defender's Quest.

The upper difficulty levels sometimes require three simultaneous button presses, and some keyboards -- including both of mine -- have an issue with "ghosting" that prevents them from registering all three. This is not a game bug, it's a hardware bug, but it's still something to be aware of before you buy. The lower difficulty levels are still plenty satisfying and offer lots of replayability.

Full-throated recommendation. This game deserved press and didn't get it.

I guess I have to give this game a negative review! It's *such* a cool idea, and the implementation is smart: nodes showing problems, issues, and policies, connected by red and green lines that show how they're related to each other. But this game needed a lot more testing. I dare anyone to get reelected in Zambeezia; you start out terribly unpopular and simply can't get enough people to join your party in four years, and unaffiliated voters mostly do not vote. There are strange omissions ranging from "CO2 emissions apparently do not affect air quality in this universe" to "I have no tools to fight terrorism other than military spending." And maybe weirdest, it seems that my voters' and ministers' opinion of the issues is absolute, not relative. That is, if a country starts out very un-capitalist, I can do nothing but pass capitalist policies and still get resignation threats from my capitalist ministers, because capitalist voters hate me. (One wonders whether they've seen the opposition party's policies!)

And, you know, fair's fair -- it's a one-man studio, and this is a pretty awesome game for one person to have made. If I'd made it I'd be pretty pleased with myself. But I really can't recommend it as a commercial product unless you're interested in game design, where this game has various good and bad lessons to teach. Extensively modded, it might be salvageable. As-is, no.

Too much randomness, too little skill, and frequent stalemates where the best move is to deny your opponent play. Boring except when it's frustrating. Get the original Puzzle Quest, or Gyromancer, but not this.

I am a fan of the storytelling mode used by games like Bioshock, Fatal Frame 2, Amnesia, and others, where you move through a strange and mostly empty space, reconstructing what has happened here from your environment and from notes left by the inhabitants. Actually, I'm such a fan of it that, when it's done well, I sometimes get irritated when enemies appear and I have to fight them instead of exploring and piecing together the past. The games I mentioned do a pretty good job striking their own balances between exploration and confrontation. But you can move the balance point pretty far to one side or the other, if you try.

I just finished playing Gone Home. It is the game that I have always wanted to play at the moments when I feel sick of shooting splicers. I don't want to say more than necessary about it -- it would be very easy to spoil it -- but I can safely say that it's scary, that it's about relationships, and that if you've ever felt the way I described above, you should probably play it.

Block off a few hours and play this all in one sitting. I'm not sure how much of a *game* it is. But it's gripping, heartrending, and powerful, a meaningful interactive exploration of what it means to live a fulfilled life. Probably the closest to literature I have seen video games approach.