Recent reviews by Player 10

Forgive Me Father, for this game hath committed many a sin.
O.K. Long story short: Forgive Me Father is HIGHLY PLAYABLE. It is well made, well designed (I can't speak to the programming, but aesthetically it is stellar), and is, on the whole, a genuinely fun experience. I hate to leave a bad review, this is more of an "it is O.K."
however
There are many other games I would recommend OVER this one. I wouldn't say I don't recommend it, but I could give you a list of better experiences. Maybe give it a couple years, play other things on your wishlist, then check it out when you have money to burn and feel a bit bored.
I have to say, Civvie 11's hot take on it in ROUNDUP 4 - THE ALLUVION is pretty much an accurate description of most of my complaints: "A game everyone tells me I should love, but I don't. It feels weightless and strange to me, like the damage feedback is exactly the same whether you get hit with a paper airplane or a freight train. Shooting enemies feels like breaking cardboard cutouts, I keep trying to plow through it but like, EHH, I don't know... and this one just doesn't do it for me."

This game desperately wants to be a grand-slam love letter to Doom, Quake, etc, and join the mass of Boomer Shooters that have cropped up over the past few years. And you know, you would think given the inky, Mignola-inspired art style, and the full-on Lovecraftian, Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe influences that maybe this game could pull it off. But unfortunately, it has a lot of problems keeping it from doing anything new with what it has going for it. As much as the Lovecraftian has always been a major part of classic FPS games, this game doesn't really do anything interesting with it beyond the surface level.

To begin with, the "main characters" are little more than silent space marine-types. Except, no, they're worse than that. They *have* voice acting, on par with someone snagged on Fiverr, though. No disrespect to the actors themselves. They work with what they're given, but it isn't much. The most you get from them, honestly, is the odd "Ahh, ammo." and the most uninteresting sort of things that tell you nothing about them as characters. And even the actors themselves, their approach is awkward at best, cringe at worst. Its like having the choice between a ditzy journalist who's in the wrong genre, or the "world weary" preacher edgelord who is really trying to sell how depressed he is. And if that wasn't bad enough, the best time to actually give these pale excuses for characters some significance as regards the story is in between missions, but fortunately/unfortunately, they have opted for the typical "less is more" approach, read by a far more convincing, aged narrator. What little story is here, the cutscenes certainly steal the show in the art direction and narrator's grim reading.

The story itself is an issue. Scattered throughout, there are little text dumps to be read, titled "story", which is supposed to add to the world-building and story, but there is little to no coherency or importance to any of these readables, neither do they attempt to try to take a Bioshock approach with people's writings scattered around for you to follow some kind of goings-on that occurred before you got there. And for the most part, this game just devolves into just another Doom-like. There are little to no significant story elements or set pieces within levels, and you just start blitzing through them, or as Civvie said, "plowing", because this game just starts to drag. I honestly just found myself in an abusive relationship with this game playing each level to just see the end of it. And it just keeps going. More enemies, more levels, more enemies, more levels, another boss. Props on the creativity and work put into the levels, bosses, and enemies, but there are almost too many levels and enemies. The boss fights themselves are fairly well-designed, although this leads me to the balancing.

This game, at least when I played it before a veritable waterfall of patches came through, really needed retooling on the upgrade system. From what I've heard, it has improved, but when I played it, the upgrades came at an incredibly slow trickle. Its like when you are waiting for a drip of water to fall from a tap, and you're dying of thirst. I was barreling through level after level, getting to boss fights, going over and over them until my game plan worked out. And I began to wonder, am I making the right choice? For any of my upgrades? This is not a game that really encouraged any sort of flow or play style for me. I really didn't feel tempted by the upgrades because I couldn't usually feel they helped enough when I got them. It wasn't so much as play style effected as it was just a leg up every once in awhile over the hordes of Serious Sam-like arenas and Doom-like sprawling maps. There was no grind and excitement or desperate desire for an upgrade, it was just necessary for progression before I got irritated.

Oh, and the sanity/liquor meter? I don't even understand how they work. Honestly, I couldn't figure out how using abilities actually effected my sanity, I wasn't sure if alcohol added to it or what, I think that was separate. That whole idea was honestly a terrible mess, and yet the best they could do for the sanity effects is black and white with red blood? Really? The abilities were meh, healing is best.

Spoiler time***** Basically, you go to your home town in Maine (because of course), your cousin wanted to talk with you or something. Then you find he's been kidnapped, I think he's hung (honestly a highlight because of the dark, rainy night and all the townies with their torches and pitchforks, good level), and then you're basically on this quest to take down the mayor, and eventually the dark forces presiding over the town... ooo... ahhh... spooky. Yeah, it is just Cthulhu. Shocker. His reveal was pretty good, I guess. Honestly not the worst or hardest. That honor would go to the dishonorable... shadow... thing. I don't know how to describe it. Back to Cthulhu. So you kill him. At various points in the game there were segments which I swear were supposed to be plot/character relevant but are so subtle and vague and poorly planned that I had no idea what was going on. Woman screaming, a locket that I think the preacher goes "I thought I left that..."
Long story short, after beating Cthulhu, he sort of names you his heir or something, but that doesn't matter. In fact, none of it matters, as you discover that the events of the game you just slogged through (congrats) was all an insanity induced fever dream and you murdered almost everyone in town. The end. Which begs the question, I thought the devs would understand how to write a Lovecraftian video game? Isn't the existential dread and insanity supposed to happen AFTER you come face to face with the unknown? What set the main character off? Why did they pull the classic "IT WAS ALL A DREAM" thing, when it would have been more effective to, I don't know, tell a worthwhile tale of horror, mystery, and intrigue?

Overall, my experience with Forgive Me Father was a painful one. And not the good kind of pain. The kind that disappoints me. In the end, did I play a well-made, fun game that was stunning in a lot of ways? Yes, congrats to the devs. But could it have been far better, and left me with fewer answerable questions, and more unanswerable questions of dread? Yes. In the end, my experience was colored (out of space) by a lot of issues, some of which I'm sure I didn't cover (like how enemies were far too silent, and would often sneak up on me in some early levels). This game could really use, at least, a little more time in the oven, and at most, re-hauling and re-envisioning the experience. I can imagine so much that would have been neat to see with this concept, and at the end of the day, its just another corridor/arena shooter with scant storytelling and a lot of ideas that need re-tooling.

The Light Keeps Us Safe

——————————— I got a NEW COMPUTER. It seems to work. It was probably my problem. Read my review if you want, you might want to keep it in mind. I think my opinion has changed since writing this. ———————————

I hate to give this review. I really do. And honestly, if it weren’t for ONE GLARING PROBLEM... I wouldn’t review it yet because I’ve just begun the game. But this doesn’t stop me from writing a review, because the major issue I have comes from something you can observe from the very beginning of the game. And that’s what stopped me from getting any further it, because it was so bad I couldn’t keep trying to play it. I also have a couple problems with the gameplay and instruction decisions. So let’s begin.

This game looked really good. Sir, You Are Being Hunted was great, and I thought this game would be just as good, since it’s made by Big Robot as well. I eagerly awaited it to come out of early access. And when it did, I snatched it up. But I’m afraid this game has some major issues. Really just one major issue honestly. I’ll explain. So the game begins, and I start playing, it’s a little laggy, and I definitely don’t have a gaming laptop, but I didn’t think that would stop me. Later I even tried to play it on a gaming PC, a really good one too. Didn’t solve my problem. In fact, it might’ve been worse.

Anyways, I was getting things figured out, I met the first enemy type, and I left to go out into the auto-generated world. That’s when it hit. The Loading Screen. It takes. So long. I haven’t timed it, but it takes too long to be reasonable for any game. It takes so long, that when I tried it on the Gaming PC it had actually crashed and I was just sitting there waiting, reading something for 10 minutes before I realized. YEAH. I’m not even joking. And it shows all that it’s doing while it’s loading, you know, typing out everything that’s being loaded and turned on and launched, etc. So when it finally loads, it’s pretty cool. But that Loading Screen. It was bad.

On top of that, while on the laptop it loaded the world, the gaming PC didn’t. In the world, the function of the flashlight gun and the scavenging has already been explained a little. But the enemy towers, or probably anything else I might’ve met, hasn’t been explained how the function. And I can’t tell what they do. Neither has the stealth really been explained other than that the light is safe. But how safe? Am I invisible immediately? Can I still be harmed there? Can they see me? Or do they just avoid the light? And does the darkness make me stand out? Or can they not see me there either? Everywhere is dark, with only a little light. I was intrigued by the stealth mechanic of light and dark being reversed, but I’m not even sure that is how it works. They just sort of throw you into the open world, like in SYABH but at least I had a butler telling me everything I needed to know, and this game has very unusual gameplay mechanics. Where do I find upgrades for my flashlight gun? What can I do to fight against the robots? What strategies work better for some and not for others? How do these robots even work? And at one point (the game is so dark I could hardly see), I was walking into what I think was a lake, seeing if I could swim. Suddenly, a burst of light and a screaming thing came out of the water. When I closed my eyes afterward to recover from the flashy jump scare, I thought I saw what looked like a woman-thing/idk. I still have no idea what it was. There were too many questions that the nice Irish girl in your character’s earpiece isn’t apparently going to answer.

The main character sounds like he needs a brain. The Irish girl friend talking to him over walkie talkie is like “Why didn’t you come with us? You’re probably out of food and supplies by now! You’ve just made things harder for yourself!” Apparently there was some sort of robo-apocalypse (I see a theme here Big Robot), and this guy just decided to stay behind and whimper with his tail tucked between his legs because “BiG RoBotS!” (instead of staying with the pack like he should have on their way to some safe place IDK LOLZ). He decides now is a good time to leave. Slow golf clap. Nice. I guess that’s a video game premise. Maybe there’s a plot, or a reason why he stayed, but I’m not even sure.

It looked cool. I wanted to like it. And I might’ve actually figured out the gameplay on my own if it weren’t for the horrible loading screens/times. It’s unreasonable Big Robot. SYABH didn’t have that. I know they’re not the same. But FIX IT. I want to like this game. Until then, I can’t recommend this game. Sorry. I’m afraid not even The Light can Keep Us Safe from those awful game-crashing loading screens.

If you’ve ever binge watched a TV show, especially a mystery or drama series, then you know how they go. They draw you in. You can’t help but get excited, care for characters, really grind your teeth at others, and freak out when some secret is revealed or someone is about to die. Return of the Obra Dinn is like this in a nutshell, but its not what you’d expect. Its very unique, because not everything is known to you. Names, deaths, disappearances, whole conversations. The drama has played out, and the mystery is yours to unravel of what happened. You have to unearth what caused each and every tragedy onboard.

Its 1807 and you’re just any normal insurance investigator for the East India Company, with you’re job being to investigate the merchant ship, Obra Dinn, which vanished in 1802, and assess the damages and the fates that befell those on board. Of course, this would be boring and kind of pointless if you didn’t have the “Memento Mortem”, a pocket watch that allows you to view the moment at which someone died. This allows you to connect the dots on who killed who, when, how, and who may have escaped or been witness. So you write it all down in your notebook, because if you don’t figure it all out, you didn’t do your job and you’ll disappoint Dr. Henry Evans. Evans was actually onboard the doomed ship but escaped, but is unable to tell the wholes story, and expects you to solve the mystery with the Memento Mortem, journal, and letter he sent you.

The twists and mystery is intriguing as well, although really all you do is just look closely for context clues, use your journal, and elaborate on someone’s death, which for some reason it was less detecting than I thought there would be. Obra Dinn didn’t take me too long, maybe a weekend, which for me is pretty fast, especially when it took a good portion of my evening and next morning/afternoon. It’s quite difficult to pin down what precisely happened, and some of the context clues are pretty amazing to realize the detail that you have to rely on. Some of the work you do is just a matter of elimination and implication. I will say that I feel like in the end when you discover the influence of all the tragedy, it is a little understatedly vague, which I suppose is the point, but its a pretty decently satisfying finish.

The music can blare dramatically, and honestly its perfect for the atmosphere, and it has a very dramatic intensity to each death. It plays well with the chaos going on at sea. The sound effects and voice acting is top notch, and the dialogue sometimes can be a little difficult to hear because of distance between characters and the sea, but it makes you feel like you’re actually there. Dialogue always plays before showing the frozen figures during the moment of death, which you could say is to just save money on animation if you want to be cheeky. The graphics on the other hand.... Yikes. I would give myself headaches the first couple times I gave the game a spin. ZeroPunctuation describes it perfectly, but its so grainy and constant pixel shading and bland color and spots and sparks and frozen-in-motion particles that it can just be kind of hard to look at. Its actually horrible, but since thats the style of the game, and it does look pretty cool, you can’t really fault Lucas Pope, because this game is genius.

So, in sum, this game is amazing, enthralling, enjoyable, a little hard on the eyes, and wondrous. If you were hesitating to buy this game, I do highly advise that you Return to the Obra Dinn; its a ship of mystery and drama, and it's worth every bit of its insurance.

This is an awesome game. I’m serious. It has to be one of the most thrilling and insane shooters I’ve played, and I highly recommend it. Although some might say this episode of the Serious Sam franchise is one of the “weaker” installments, I think this game just brings something different to the table. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely some different approaches taken in this game. This “classic” fps franchise tries to update itself in this game, with a sprint, iron sight, and reload mechanic, as well as a few “COD” looking maps, and a more serious approach and realistic look to the game. Where Serious Sam 2 was cartoony, silly, and made you wonder what the devs were tripping on, this game seems to show that they regretted their young and foolish years and decided to take a serious step forward towards something a tad more gritty. But that doesn’t stop them from putting in a bit of tongue-in-cheek spin on the genre, something they’re well known for, providing a few laughs between the gore and the gibs.

So basically, the gameplay is this: it’s like a spoof of all FPS games. Instead of facilities and tight hallways, you’re out in open fields, canyons, temples, and so on. Not only that, but you’re surrounded by hordes of enemies, with wave after wave after wave being thrown at you, with the only way to stay alive being to keep some distance, backpedal, and strafe. Classic Sam. Throw in a few stupid jokes, a couple one-liners, and some tight gunplay and you’ve got the formula.

Like I said, in this game, they threw in a few “modern mechanics”, which is a little odd for the franchise and how the gameplay works, but it didn’t really bother me much. I will say, the one slightly annoying thing was that the game takes a little to get going. It introduces different enemies and weapons a little slowly, and there is a part in the game where they take away all of your weapons for you to find again within a level or two. That wasn’t a huge deal for me, but the beginning is sort of like “A NEW SERIOUS SAM GAME FOR A NEW GENERATION” with an unusually slow start and a “search for a missing person in a creepy dark place” level (and I won’t spoil what wants to kill you there, because I found those kind of levels thrilling for an fps). By the end it’s literally back to what makes Sam who he is.

The story is fine. Its a pretty ok prequel to the First Encounter, an “oh that makes sense” kind of backstory. Basically, humanity discovers an ancient civilization beneath the Earth, particularly in Egypt, and their technology helped us to advance our own and our society flourished. But somewhere deep in space, the evil Mental has gathered an army of aliens, mutants, and monsters so he can claim the power and secrets that humanity has found. So there’s a big war that humanity is slowly losing, and so humanity turns to the more mysterious discoveries they have in Egypt. Enter “Serious” Sam Stone, soldier of fortune and rockstar of hope for humanity’s future. And to save our future, he must go into our past. Which of course, the path toward that goal is overrun with monsters. No problemo.

Honestly, this game is difficult. And at times kind of horrifying. I’ve heard too many kamikaze bombers and seen so many Kleer skeletons (don’t worry, you’ll learn soon enough why I’m saying this) leaping for the kill to the point that, as a gamer, it can give you temporary paranoia and trauma. Close your eyes for a sec after playing. Insta-death running toward you. Freak out. Remember you’re not playing anymore. There are so many enemies, so many projectiles, so much running, and so many guys who wanna hit you, blow you up, or run into you horns first. Sometimes, it feels unmanageable. But just barely managing is a great feeling. Its like what DOOM Eternal has been promised to be like, constant juggling, constant watchfulness, with a dash of panic while you switch weapons in seconds to fend off from multiple hordes of different enemy types. There are also unique enemy types that are new to the series, one of which is very cheap, and can be frustrating to fight or ignore, but its possible.

Also, the music can haunt you too, and I don’t mean in a good way. The music isn’t too memorable, until you’ve listened to it about a thousand times, which will probably happen. Because of this, I can’t really tell you how much they recycle the same music, though I’m sure its got a full OST. But you’ll begin to notice the repetition, especially when this game causes you a few 20 times to get through a particularly difficult part. And don’t worry, there are saves as well as checkpoints.

So, to end on a serious note: should you buy this game? Yes. Yes, you should. Its intense fun. Its very worth the money. Is it perfect? Nah. Did I personally get addicted to it mid-game and decide to buy the dlc for myself and gift the whole game and dlc for my best friend? Yes. Yes I did. (Don’t worry, it was during a sale).

Its a chaotic ballet of blood and bullets and there’s just nothing like playing a deadly game of flag football with a bunch of freakazoids and having a good laugh in between the yelling. It really is so much fun, and despite its handful of small faults, its one of my favorite games. So if you’ve decided not to get it, you’re really making a mistake about it, but if not... Better grab a weapon or 15 and start running, cuz if you don’t get Serious, Sam, you’re going to get trampled, and that’s my warning Before your First Encounter.

If you’re tired of the old formula of walk into a room, shoot a bunch of baddies, move to the next room, and mind-numbingly repeat until you find a new weapon or move to a new environment to keep it interesting, die to end the pain, or beat the game mindlessly... then consider System Shock.

This game is pure genius from the minds of Looking Glass Studios in 1994, and updated by Nightdive Studios in 2015. Part FPS, part point-and-click, all immersive RPG. You’re dropped into a classic sci-fi action, horror setting: a space station where everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. Looking-Glass actually pioneered this trope, and have inspired games and probably movies by the story they told. In fact, the Deus Ex games (made by Looking Glass as well) and BioShock series were heavily inspired by SS1 and SS2.

In game, you’re a Hacker, arrested by Trioptimum for trying to get into their systems, and the executive Edward Diego asks you if you can do a little hacking job for him in exchange for your freedom and some high-grade cybernetic implants. You hack Trioptimum’s Citadel Station AI, removing it’s ethical restraints and giving control of it to Diego, and as promised, you’re given the surgical implants and put in recovery sleep for 6 months. But the AI, SHODAN, proves to hard to control by Diego...

When you wake up, the station is infested by mutants, cyborgs, robots, and other indescribable horrors who are out for your blood. You are, after all, the Hacker that gave SHODAN true life, and you’re the only one alive on board to put a stop to all the horrors the wannabe, delusional deity has planned for humanity.

This game is nothing like what games are today, and it has absolutely no hand-holding. The game features the first “audio logs” left behind by the doomed crew, and your progression relies heavily upon them, as much of your objectives and clues as to what to do and where to go are found in your large supply of audio files left behind by the recently mangled. The emergent gameplay involves survival, exploration at your own pace (unless you play the harder timed mode), story, and objectives. Get ready to be confused, because this game holds the mother of all maze-like level design, but if you really look into your audio logs and emails (if you’ve actually found most of them), then you should be fine with a little connecting of the dots... or you could lookup a walkthrough, but that sort of destroys immersion. The game is intended to immerse you within the world and the horrors within, despite the brightly colored and ancient graphics and mostly annoying, dated music.

Speaking of graphics and music, do you remember what the game DOOM looked like? Well, SS1, like any game from around then, especially DOS games, looks absolutely horrible. And I brought up DOOM as the example for better graphics AND music. However, the game isn’t too hard to look it after you get used to the older style, and the arcadey, pixel pop that plays in the background isn’t too bad, especially if you lower music volume a tad and clear Level One, asap (it’s the worst one in my opinion). The controls and HUD are also a bit confusing at first, but with some practice it’s easy enough to get the swing of. So many buttons, things in your inventory, guns, ammo, items, audio logs, key cards, emails, software, games, and upgrades to use.

This game really is a wonder, and it gave me the same sort of excited feeling I got when playing Hollow Knight (which I also highly recommend), from learning the gameplay to exploring, surviving, and progressing. With each door I opened I was drawn in, falling right into the story, and I quickly became addicted until I had beaten SHODAN. —I will warn you that the ending *is a little disappointing*, because all that you’ve gone through to get to the final battle... it’s really not anything to sweat over... it’s easy. Which isn’t something I expected when I saw the end screen.— But the game is totally worth it, and there’s technically a couple boss battle situations, ambushes, and surprises that make up for it. The further you go, the more it begins to dawn on you that the digital “deity” has it out for you, whether you’re ready or not. Its all up to you to take her down with all your technological knowhow, especially since it really is your fault that SHODAN is in such a state of System Shock.

A relatively simple stealth game with a charming but incredibly tense atmosphere. You have used a strange machine that has malfunctioned and taken you into an alternative reality where robots have taken over, and your Butler advises you to find the pieces of the machine and bring them back to the standing stone on the center island. The gameplay is similar to that of the Thief series but using brush and foliage rather than shadows. There's an inventory and you need to find tea and biscuits every once in a while so you won't starve.

The procedurally generated 5 islands are individually striking and, for what the graphics are, they are pretty, mimicking the British countryside and environs. As it's different in each playthrough it does make for some replayability, but you have to give it some time, because there's not much beyond the survival element and looking for the machine pieces.

This game has little story, if any, but I personally didn't mind. I was too busy sneaking around the countryside, running from robots with guns and their robodogs, up to my nose in mud and beartraps, my heart in my throat the whole time. This game is really meant for people who get something out of the experience, the gameplay, the immersion, the fear and sneaky satisfaction. It's mesmerizing, but if it seems too slow or you don't see any point in it then this game isn't for you. There's no cinematics or saving the world. It's just saving your hide. From Gentlemen Robots.

There is an adjustable difficulty for each enemy type, and there are several to keep an eye on, and the islands become unforgivingly crowded near the end. Brutally funny is the perfect description.

It has it's scary moments for such a whimsical idea but this game is absolutely fantastic! It was 100% worth the money and is one of my favorites, very satisfying to finish. This is a very underrated title, and if anyone cares, Gloomwood looks like it'll be very similar sneaky, creepy, gentleman game. This game is up there on my list of greats because, although there's not much to it, the simple wonders of stealth is strong with this one. I would advise a podcast in the background while you play, especially a funny one, because this game is rather tongue-in-cheek... But beware, the gameplay is 100% serious, and Sir, You ARE Being Hunted, after all.