TL;DP Reviews: Community Edition (formerly "1 hour in" game reviews)

UMOarsman wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

Looks like we need another call for writers. I wouldn't mind running these regularly as our Friday content.

I've got enough unplayed games in my steam library to keep this up once a week for a while.

I'm working on Neighbors from Hell 1 & 2 right now. It's a little bit of a cheat, since I finished one of them with my kids, but my opinion of it hasn't changed since the first hour so I'll count it.

Stay tuned.

As we speak (figuratively), I am going through your steam library and figuring out what I should plead for you to do a review of next. Perhaps we should start a poll and have the community vote on what back catalog game you should give the full work up to.

EDIT: Agricultural Simulator: Historical Farming. Please?!

Okay. After I get done writing the Neighbors from Hell review, I will hit AS:HF.

I'd vote for some of the Oddworld games.
And regarding Gary's Mod... have you played any of the game modes, or just the building part? Cause the game modes are excellent, and a lot of fun.

wordsmythe wrote:

Looks like we need another call for writers. I wouldn't mind running these regularly as our Friday content.

Is that why you bestowed your generosity on me with 9.03m? Because although I thank you, I'm pretty sure my reviews are middling at best.

I'm almost two hours into The Last of Us Remastered. This is my first experience with the game and I've managed to avoid all spoilers. I went with Easy difficulty to focus on the story. I'm only going to spoil the very beginning introduction in my review here.

The introduction reminded me of the beginning of a big budget movie. From the beginning splash screen I was content to not touch any buttons and just let the game present to me. There was a time I would have ridiculed this kind of presentation in favor of the always-in-control Half Life mentality but I didn't feel that here. The facial animations and voice acting kept the feeling of being in a movie and when I first took control of the protagonist's daughter I had a desire to make sure my movements were realistic. When I saw the news report go dark my knee-jerk reaction was to step back away from the television. The game design effectively made me want to play within its cinematic constraints without thinking about it.

The only critique I have of the gameplay so far is my companions occasionally get too far ahead or behind me and it feels awkward walking past them through a narrow space. This is because their movements are so realistic that it feels weird when they backpedal away quickly in a tight space together.

Now if my work day today would just go faster I can get back to the cinematic action.

I was going to write another one for Rage but someone in the Final Fantasy thread got me hooked back on FFVII... as if I didn't have any other games I haven't played sitting on the pile.

I should write up my unfortunate experience with Wildstar.

BadKen wrote:

I should write up my unfortunate experience with Wildstar.

You really should... I'm a big fan of Cory Loftis, and have been watching the gane for a while. I'm curious...

Taharka wrote:

I'd vote for some of the Oddworld games.
And regarding Gary's Mod... have you played any of the game modes, or just the building part? Cause the game modes are excellent, and a lot of fun.

I've been playing Munch's Oddessey, and the review for that is hard because the game is buried under some technical issues that really shouldn't be there in this day and age.

Probably some interesting reading in hearing my troubleshooting experience. I'll mine that.

1-ish hour (give or take a day) in: Neighbors from Hell 1 & 2

Sponsored by Steam Sale

TL/DR Review
A point and click adventure game without the adventure. I was going to say that makes it a "pointless and click adventure game" but that was a little too on-the-nose.

Longform review
So imagine you're making a Tim Schafer adventure game. Imagine you've created a simple inventory combination system, an intuitive point and click interface, and some serviceable (for the time) 3D graphics.

Now imagine you get drunk and tell Tim Schafer that you thought the SCUMM system was overrated and that you never actually finished Maniac Mansion. And imagine further that Schafer leaves the project, leaving you with nothing but your interface and simple inventory system.

Finally, imagine you're a really huge fan of Punk'd.

That may as well have been the development cycle for Neighbors from Hell, a game that controls for all the world like an old Lucasarts adventure game but has no plot at all, just puzzles.

You play as the star of a reality television show called Neighbors from Hell, and your mission is to annoy the crap out of your hapless neighbor by breaking into his home and pulling random acts of vandalism.

IMAGE(http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130724143459/anime-arts/images/8/81/Trollface_uniform_jacket_patch_by_kanine1134-d4agv42.png)

You start with simple stuff. Whoopee cushions, drawing mustaches on family pictures, clogging the toilet. That sort of thing. Soon you're on the road to serious bodily harm by sawing through the legs of ladders, electrifying puddles near the washing machine and sabotaging hunting rifles.

This is all cartoonish fun, of course, and it doesn't hurt that the victim of all these pranks (it's one guy) is a characature of the kind of person you're supposed to feel good about not liking. Picture a person who embodies all of the qualities displayed in a "People of Walmart" calendar and you'll have a good idea of who you're pranking.

Uncomfortable class snobbery aside, Neighbors from Hell is a fun game if you're into old fashioned inventory puzzles.

The pranks all consist of finding something the neighbor uses regularly and then finding a way to mess it up. A given level will have five to ten pranks that can be pulled with a minimum number of pranks required to advance to the next level. Your rank in a level is dependent on combos.

You read that right. Combos. In a SCUMM like puzzle game.

Because the neighbor moves around the level in a sequence, pranks can be strung together for bigger point scores, tallied her as "ratings" for your prank based TV show. Clogging a toilet with paper towels is a funny prank. Giving the neighbor laxatives is another funny prank. Clogging the toilet so that the neighbor discovers the clog after addressing the complications of the laxative dosage, in this scoring system, is more than twice as funny because you get a combo multiplier that manifests as the neighbor appearing to have a heart attack.

Really.

Now it would be pretty dull fare if you were simply drugging the neighbor and then putting a bar of soap on the floor so he falls as he runs to the bathroom; as funny as all that sounds; so the developers added a stealth mechanic. If the neighbor spots you in his house he will beat the living snot out of you. Worse yet, you'll have to start over.

IMAGE(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V-7c8oIpM_s/T1tdkeSgttI/AAAAAAAAADE/ej4dx-ELoK0/s1600/643477.jpg)

The real challenge is figuring out how to string pranks in such a way that they give you time to set up the next pranks. Ideally, the neighbor should never get a chance to calm down (this, I forgot to mention, is the combo timer. If the neighbor returns to a serene state, the combo is over).

The sequel, Neighbors from Hell 2, is more of the same, but instead of all levels taking place in the same house, the main character is following the neighbor on a cruise and must pull tourism pranks that are, well, let's just say not PC.

Spoiler:

In a level taking place in India, you must tamper with a rope charmer's flute by so the rope will raise very high and then drop the neighbor on his head. Another prank has you tampering with the blanket of a holy cow...

Yeah.

... Tampering with the blanket of a holy cow so the neighbor will fall off of it when he disrespectfully tries to ride it.

The humor is pretty crude and self consciously offensive the whole way through both games, so your tolerance for things like, say, substituting cow pies for ice cream will determine how much fun you have.

Of the two, I'm going to go ahead and say the first one is the superior game. It takes place entirely in the neighbor's house which opens up more depth and let's the player really get comfortable with the levels so that, by the end, the complex pattern of pranking and sneaking feels like you earned it. Granted, you repeat the same pranks a few times, but the trick is knowing when to play them. There's a kind of depth there that really works, for what it is.

By contrast the sequel takes you to a new location every level with new contextual pranks to pull, and it feels a lot more pixel hunt-ey than the previous title.

NfH:2 is more difficult than the first game. In the first place, since you're in a new location every level, figuring out what can be interacted with at all becomes part of the game. Also, they added the horrible neighbor's horrible mother as a person who can detect and beat the snot out of you. To make up for it, the developers give you three "lives," which means you can be detected and beat up three times before having to restart the level. Also, there's no time limit in the second game. A counter tallies how long you're taking, and that's factored into your score, but running out of time no longer ends the level. This last one is probably the only change I can offer an unqualified approval stamp to, because I spent too much time restarting levels because the neighbor walked too slowly to the final prank and I ran out of time in the level.

I'm not sure what to think of this game. I bought it because it was on super Steam sale and because I thought it would appeal to my wife as a game we could play together. Instead I find myself playing both titles all the way through, getting all pranks, because my kids are really into it.

I know. Father of the year. At least I taught them to say "Neighbors from Heck" when they want to play.

It's not that the games aren't fun. They are: for certain values of fun (there's your box quote!) The puzzles and timing challenges offer a unique challenge in the inventory puzzle genre-- after all, the developer could have made just another "escape this room" game with the same mechanics and been absolutely forgettable.

The humor isn't bad, per se. Goodness knows I can appreciate a good fart joke every now and then. It just feels like the kind of humor you shouldn't like, but it's not so over-the-top or well enough done to justify all the bad behavior. It's trying to be Paul Blart but only succeeds at being Here Comes the Boom.

Overall, as a throwaway puzzle game you could do worse (no, I was wrong. [em] That [/em]was the box quote). It's certainly worth the two dollars I paid for it.

Will I keep playing?
Probably. My kids think it's pretty funny, and what questionable subject matter there is gets more than drowned out by the Warner Brothers style comic action. I don't think it will enter the "play it again" lexicon with Thieves in Time or DuckTales Remastered, but well probably play together long enough to do all the pranks in every level.

On a scale of 1 to Dark Souls
2. It's not a difficult game and while it does reward methodical thinking it doesn't really make it worth your while to replay after you've gotten all the pranks in a level, regardless of score.

I always look foward to new posts in this thread. That was a great read!

One hour into: Unepic
Courtesy of: The architect himself, doubtingthomas/colonelrambo

TL;DR Review
Bills itself as a hybrid RPG/Metroidvania with a crapton of nerd humor. Gameplay is clunky and frustrating, humor is clever but not frequent enough to justify the gameplay in between.

TMI Review
Full disclosure: never played Castlevania, never played Metroid, not really a tabletop RPG player. So maybe I missed on all accounts for this game's target audience. That being said, I suppose one measure of a good game is how well it can draw in people who aren't familiar with the genre. But I saw it during the summer sale, it looked interesting, I wishlisted it, and lo and behold someone (ahem-hem) gifted it to me.

Plot's a bit thin: you're a dude trying to learn how to play tabletop RPGs with your "friends", you go to the bathroom, and suddenly you find yourself in a big ol' castle with some sort of demon possessing you and mocking you at every corner, trying to get you killed so he can be set free. Of course, something about you makes him unable to control your actions, so all he can do is taunt you, mock you, give you terrible advice, etc. Slowly, you try to figure out the whole point of how you ended up here, having skipped the obligatory "receive quest from some dude in a tavern", to paraphrase your character's description of the trope.

Tropes are a good segue to the next point: the game has this sort of split personality concerning the nature of its genre. At times, it's very self-deprecating and lampshade-laden, as my description of the main character's snark in the previous paragraph suggests; other times, it plays things straight. Maybe this is supposed to reflect the confusion of the protagonist at the situation he finds himself in. Not sure what to say.

The nerd humor is scattered throughout, and it's delivered with laser-like precision. The references it makes are so obscure in places that I wouldn't be surprised if I missed one or two amidst the many that I picked up (seriously, a reference to Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls? Probably a clue as to the generation being targeted). If you miss a few, don't worry, they're everywhere, and they did succeed at making me crack a smile. That being said, the humor can fall flat in a few places. The obligatory ersatz Yoda made me roll my eyes instead of smirk. I tend to get squicky when sexuality becomes a joke topic, and shock and awe, the first time you encounter a hot elf merchant, your character tries to proposition her, only for all of his sexual idioms to be taken at face value (i.e. - "knock boots", "get busy"). Following that, you have the opportunity to take on a quest to fertilize female orcs in heat. The tasteful censorship of this scene wasn't exactly tasteful enough for me. I have a feeling mileage may vary here, and it does bear mentioning that the game has a "12+" and a "16+" setting. On 16+, profanity is commonplace, and I'm sure at 12+ the clumsy proposition would be replaced with tamer failed pick-up lines. Don't know what the fertility quest would be on 12+ though. Maybe the censorship would be even heavier. Hell if I know.

Gameplay is, as I already said, a Metroidvania-style platforming action RPG. There's the exploratory platforming nature of the Metroidvania combined with a combat system, inventory/crafting/magic system and an experience/leveling system from RPGs. The hand-holding is kept to a minimum, not sure if this was by design or by oversight. Two-plus hours in, and I never learned anything about magic, despite having access to wands, staves, and having a "Robes" stat in my character sheet. It feels like getting outmatched is very easy if you don't know what you're doing. There's also the frustrating "the game is always running" style of play, meaning even while the Start menu is open, things will move around you. Using your shortcuts (L and/or R bumpers plus A/B/X/Y) is almost essential (as is using a controller, if my previous parenthesis wasn't clue enough).

Truthfully, I don't think the game ever clicked with me. I put up with it for two hours to get the trading cards, and I experienced several changes of mind in that time. Every time I got a good rhythm going and thought I was finally getting things, I'd bungle up and get killed (which isn't that terrible on Medium, but always feels like it can be avoided), or run into some questionable piece of humor. I even got this weird Nethack-ish vibe from it, when I got poisoned without even realizing I could be poisoned, much less knowing how to cure it (it's a long ailment, and potions are at a premium, hence potion crafting is one of your few skills). There is a magical "heal and save" shrine which you can teleport to at any time (read: when you're about to die), but then it's a long and arduous trek from the shrine back to where you were, even using the warp system right next door.

Will I keep playing?
Doubtful. Story is a little awkward, gameplay wasn't drawing me in, and frankly, maybe this is just not my kind of game. They can't all be winners, kid.

I'm very sorry that you didn't dig UnEpic, Bubs.

I suppose that's the risk you take when you accept a gift from me of all people.

1 hour in: OddBox; Munch's Oddyssey

Sponsored by ccesarano

TL/DR Review
You have to love the Oddworld sense of style. You don't have to love the crappy, slipshod port to PC that this one got.

Long form review
This was part of an unexpectedly generous gift from Ccesarano that included not only Munch's Oddyssey, but all the other Oddworld games as well (including Abe's Oddyssey, Abe's Exodus and Stranger's Wrath. This is the one my kids wanted to watch, so this is the one I played first.

The first thing I found out is the Xbox controller I keep for console ports doesn't work on this game. Oh, the game recognizes a controller is plugged in, but it won't acknowledge any button presses. Nor will it accept keyboard inputs if it sees a controller. So in the first five minutes I had to force the application to close with the task manager.

Not a good sign.

The next thing I noticed was that the game had set my keyboard language on exiting. Oh, all the existing text (file names, websites, etc) still showed as English. But everything I typed came out in an alphabet I didn't recognize (and found out, later, was the Bosnian alphabet.)

Which made searching for how to fix that little problem [em]super[/em] convenient, let me tell you.

Can I pause for a moment to say a few words about Windows 8? I only have four. So here goes:

What. The. F***. Microsoft?

I love it when software developers decide to make things "more intuitive" by making them completely opaque and then telling the user how easy their experience is. It's like when George Lucas kept having other characters remark on how much in love Anakin and Padme were in, because [em]otherwise the audience wouldn't actually know.[/em]

America Online was the first to ride that wave to a brief spate of ISP dominance, with the whole Keyword nonsense that put this arcane interface between you and the internet then bragged about how easy their service was to use because they sold you a way to get around it. I ran into this with OS7 through OS9 on the iMac, an interface that was so blissfully unaware of how idiotic it was that they had to pay Jeff Goldblum to convince people it was intuitive.

Microsoft is continuing on the path AOL and Apple started on twenty years ago. They went so far out of their way to make Windows 8 idiot proof that they made it so only computer illiterates could figure it out.

There are two. Separate. Control Panels. That deal with user interface and the languages involved. One of them is in the control panels area. The other is hidden somewhere so deep that searching for it won't find it. You just have to know it's there.

Which would be fine, except [em]they both have different functionality![/em]. The one that controls what characters actually display when you press a key is the hidden one, while the other one has an option to change your keyboard language [em]that doesn't actually do anything.[/em]

So after a few hours using my wife's (Windows 7) laptop to figure out what the hell just happened, I was able to reset my keyboard and tried playing the game again.

Okay. Time to /derail this review and get back to the game.

The controls are passable with a mouse and keyboard, which is good because, as I mentioned earlier, an XBox game pad doesn't work. (Since writing this I've learned of a simple hack which may or may not solve the problem: in the config file, change default: walk to default: run. Or use a third a party controller mapping application like xpadder, which I'd rather not do since my controller works well with all my other games and I'd rather not break them just to fix this)

So. The game. For those of you who didn't play this game on the consoles, here's the deal: Munch's Oddyssey is a puzzle platformer where you play as either a humanoid named Abe or a monopedal frog thing called Munch. The object as either character is the same: rescue creatures that are roughly your size from enslavement and use them to progress in levels. Abe saves other creatures that look a bit like him, while Munch rescues these little adorable fuzz ball critters. While you're guiding your gaggle of freed slaves, you can give them simple commands like "stay here," "come with me" or "attack anything in the general area." I can't tell whether your buddies are invulnerable to enemy attacks or are just really good fighters, because I haven't lost anyone yet. I hope they're invincible, because escorting invincible NPCs around is so much more fun and generally makes me forgive the broken pathfinding you usually encounter in friendly AI of this vintage.

You know what else is fun? Piloting a mech that can trash crowds of enemies, which is also something you can do here with Munch's freaky-deaky mind powers.

Is the game fun? Yes, so far. Precision movements are tricky with the mouse and keyboard, but the first hour didn't pose much difficulty-- except for the parts where you have to swim when playing as Munch. Once I get the joystick thing figured out it will be much easier.

Will I keep playing?
Yes, but it's not on my top priority list. This will fall into the lexicon of Games I Play When My Kids Ask For Them.

On a scale of 1 to Dark Souls
1. This game, so far, isn't very difficult. Unless you count the technical issues with the port, in which case you need to add a zero to that score.

Review: Elite: Dangerous (Beta)

Sponsored by: Me and my lack of anything resembling willpower.

Review: At this point, I have many, many hours put into the game, and I'm going to cheat and not count my first several hours. Rather, I'm going to frame this review as though I just played an hour after playing about 3 hours of the game.
That may seem like a mockery of the system, but there's a reason for this. I wasn't able to control the game adequately until I got my flight stick setup, which was after about 3 hours of major, major frustration trying to get, first, a keyboard+mouse, then a PS4 controller to adequately control the game. It didn't work (though others in the GWJ forum have had much better luck), and this games deserves a proper review.

Anyway, onto the "one hour in after three hours" review.
This game is so much fun! I don't know if it's just because the genre hasn't been messed with lately, or if the fun runs much deeper than that, but I'm having a blast.
It should be mentioned that the game is in beta right now, and if you want to play the beta, it'll cost you an extra $25 on top of the retail price (retail: $50, beta: $75), plus the cost of a decent HOTAS setup ($50 for the Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X Flight Stick (as a review of joysticks mentioned, the joystick world is where puns go to die), so the game is quite expensive to get into. But worth every penny.
Right now, they've only opened up about 22 cubic light years to play in, but there's plenty of stars, worlds, and space stations to go to. The final game will have the entire Milky Way modeled, so I imagine it'll be quite lonely in some places.
"But what do you DO?" I hear you ask. Well, you can go be a pirate. Or you can go be a bounty hunter and hunt down the people who chose to be pirates. Or you can be, effectively, a trucker, hauling cargo from one space station to another. Or you can do a combination of those three. Or you can just sit back and marvel at flying around stars and planets and space stations. It's an open world.
There are bulletin boards, giving you bonuses for running cargo to particular places or participating in certain space battles. There's also 6 or 7 ships to buy, though you have to get the money for them first.
All in all, I'm just reveling in the universe that they've created and the mechanics of the game. And it's worth all $125 I've sunk into it so far!
And now for the downsides: None of the chat functions seem to work right now (text or voice), so it's hard chatting with your online friends. I'm sure they're working on a patch, though. Over the weekend they released two patches in three days, so they're definitely active in the game. And certain parts of the game could do with more explanation (but there's always reddit and google).

On a scale from 0 to Dark Souls:
Maybe an 7? Once you get the hang of flying and map the engine boost to some key you're not likely to accidentally hit inside of the dock, killing you instantly, it's not that hard. Mostly it's hard finding profitable trading routes.

Link for Doubting: Elite: Dangerous Beta (Taharka)

P.S., great review of Windows 8, Doubting, but I bet you've put more than one hour into that particular game :-p

Taharka wrote:

Review: Elite: Dangerous (Beta)
Sponsored by: Me and my lack of anything resembling willpower.

I like a gamer who's confident enough to own up to that!

I need to write up a one hour review for Assassin's Creed 4, sponsored by the most gracious Hyetal, but I'm too busy playing it.

Taharka wrote:

P.S., great review of Windows 8, Doubting, but I bet you've put more than one hour into that particular game :-p

You are correct about that.

Learning Windows 8 has been like trying to teach myself to play piano using only the extensive knowledge I've accumulated through decades of playing the Ukelele, with the piano manufacturer assuming I'll figure it out on my own because I've already learned an instrument that has strings in it.

I like that analogy... I may have to borrow it (with appropriate citations, of course)

One hour into: Goat Simulator
Courtesy of: Dixie Flatline

TL;DR Review
The most slapdash sandbox "simulation" game ever created, yet you can't help at least cracking a smile now and again.

Windbaaaaaag Review
I was stricken with analysis paralysis this weekend, pondering which game I should play. I stared and stared at my desktop with the gift games all installed, when I finally just said, "F*ck it, if I can't pick something, I'm playing Goat Simulator."

It's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: you're a goat, and you get to run around as a goat. Of course, you're probably some kind of goat mutant, since a) your body contorts in strange and unusual ways (I'm pretty sure the head was spinning uncontrollably as I climbed a ladder), b) you have a tongue which objects stick to when you lick them, up to and including cars and people, c) you can run up and jump from walls, d) you can ragdoll on command, Toy Story style, and e) you can ride a bicycle.

Gameplay is pretty much a sandbox, albeit a very dangerous sandbox, with fireworks, explosives and fast-moving cars everywhere in sight. There's this weird skateboarding game influence, since you earn "style points" for doing things like headbutting/kicking stuff, licking stuff, blowing stuff up, etc. The points don't really mean anything, but whenever you do something unique to the map (like finding your way into a gated-off low gravity test facility or blowing up a gas station), you complete a special purple-lettered "trick" which is good for a laugh (the gas station trick is called "Michael Bay" with the subtitle, "You know what to do"). Glitches abound, so it's not unusual to get stuck in a wall or a floor, or to suddenly be flung with some force, or for an explosion not to fling you, etc.

I didn't expect to get so sucked in, but it's like a weird explosive playground: there's little sub-zones which each have their landmarks to go blow up, desecrate and/or crash: a wheat field, a building under construction, a waterfront amusement park, a rooftop rave, the list goes on. What's more, there's achievements and hidden tricks to pull. I spotted some demonic glowing red pentagram while flying on a firework, and when I found my way to it, a message appeared at the bottom of the screen: "Gather the sacrifices". I couldn't get any people that I dragged to it to stay there long enough for anything exciting to happen. In the bayside zone, there's a dam you can wander on top of, and I am convinced there is a way to blow it up, or at least to open it up enough to cause some flooding. Also, I feel like there has to be something else to the amusement park, with all the moving rides. Good old fashioned mindless destruction and mayhem...

Will I keep playing?
I honestly don't have a clue. It feels like the sort of game where one playthrough is the same as any other, what you see is what you get. Yes, blowing yourself up, getting flung about and dragging a burning person around with your tongue is fun and all, but there's only so many times you can do it before it gets tiresome. It's really hard to tell what the developers were... going for... with this game. Like I said, it has the skateboarding game vibe of "tricks" and points, it's a pseudo-sandbox, it's nonsensical (which I guess is appropriate given it was released on April 1st), and I almost want to believe this started out as something more ambitious (it's built on the UNREAL ENGINE, FFS), but something ran out - time, money, patience, sanity, etc. - and for one reason or another, I think the final decision was, "F*ck it, fix the crashes, stick a glitchy goat in there and shove it on Steam. It can't be half as bad as some of the sh*t on there." I have a hard time believing that people who aren't psychotic would set out to willingly create something so pointless and broken from the outset.

Game: The Road Not Taken

Platform: PS4
Sponsored By: My PS+ Subscription

Review link: The Road Not Taken

TL;DR; Short Review:
It's a fairy tale story of a ranger (who appears to be a Jawa from a Galaxy Far Away) saving children from a cold winter forest. Mechanically it's an aesthetically pleasing puzzle game with randomized rogue-like elements in which you are moving around a grid and tossing lost children into the welcoming bosoms of their parents. Much like The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog it looks cute but has a vicious streak a mile wide.

Long Review:
If you just saw a random screenshot of this, you could be forgiven for thinking it's a mobile port.
There's a chunky style that is reminiscent of Facebook games, though the art here is a bit more finely detailed with a soft depth of field effect applied to give a bit more atmosphere.

The presentation hides gobs of depth though, and an hour is barely enough time to scratch the surface.

Essentially it's a turn-based roguelike that follows the traditional 'I go, you go' style. Everything takes place on a grid and you must traverse the grid-based forest, levitate objects with your magic staff and carry or toss them them to group objects together. Ultimately you're trying to toss the lost kids into their parents, but to do that you have to move a lot of other stuff around. A basic example is that locked 'doors' can only be opened by grouping like objects together. You can only toss items in one direction so sometimes you need to carry them space by space, which has a cost that I'll get to in a bit.
Opening doors and rescuing kids is just the tip of the iceberg as you can 'craft' items that have various effects by tossing objects into each other. These recipes are completely hidden and can only be discovered by trial and error in the forest or by befriending the townsfolk who will give you clues as well as equipable charms (power ups) or other items.

That's not all though! You also have an energy meter! While tossing items is free, carrying them space by space costs energy. If you run into certain creatures, you lose energy. Blizzards turn up that sap energy every turn. Run out of energy and you're not only frozen to death but a portion of your progress will reset and the levels will re-randomize. Actually, I think one of the more similar games I can think of is Shiren the Wanderer - if anyone remembers that game, you'd die and everything would reset but any NPCs you befriended or items you stored on the way would remain acessible later. This kind of works like that.

My fear is that frustration may set in as the difficulty ramps up. Even early on there are situations where you might have to toss objects from one room to another, but may first have to move objects out of the way in the other room, and so on. Doing so of course might have unforeseen domino effects that force you to make a change of plans. With so many moving parts it's quite difficult to get a sense of how an area's pieces fit together. Combine that with the constant threat of death and restart, and I can see myself getting frustrated. With that in mind we'll see if this has legs or not though.

EDIT for a mechanical tip. If you play this and get something that needs 3 or 4 of item, they must be grouped in a square, not in a line. Unless I missed something the game didn't make this super clear and it tripped me up once or twice while I worked on figuring out crafting and such.

Will I play more?
Yes! [color=green]3.5 frozen children out of 5.[/color] (The other half got eaten by a wolf).

Is it the Dark Souls of its genre?
Yeah, kind of actually. It's super challenging, there are tons of unexplained secrets, the constant threat of death always looms, and sometimes it's best to cut your losses and run away. [color=red]3 Havels out of 5. [/color]

IMAGE(http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/adam/2687b67a3a370a81dd941536c259018f/Road_Not_Taken-SCREENSHOT_05.jpg)

Game: Valiant Hearts: The Great War
Platform: PS3 (but available on PC and probably others)

Courtesy of: Myself

TL;DR Review:
An adventure game set in World War I, but instead of focusing on all of the glory and valor and BOOM HEADSHOT of war, it delves into the more human aspects while doling out a healthy degree of factual nuggets.

One Three hour in Review:
There was a lot of early buzz for Valiant Hearts: The Great War on the adventure game sites that I follow, and that combined with my love of military history had me extremely excited for the game's release, and so I bought it on launch day and then promptly ignored it for a month or two, because I'm a moron that way (and I hate money).

Valiant Hearts is an adventure game with a heavy theme: World War I. It was developed by Ubisoft (blech), but in collaboration with CC&C (producers of Apocalyse WW1), and the result is a relatively simple adventure game with a touchingly human story and a whole lot of cold hard facts about The Great War. Seriously, this is edutainment at it's finest - the game is broken down into four chapters, each of which has roughly ten scenes, and each scene gives the player 2-4 facts about the part of the war being covered and contains 4-8 collectibles, each of which is an artifact from the war. I usually hate collectibles in games, but each one in Valaint Hearts is unique and informative: they range from letters from the front, to art made from discarded shell casings, to a urine soaked cloth that was the first line of defense a soldier had against early gas attacks in Ypres. It's impossible not to learn a lot while playing this game, even if you're already well versed in WW1.

The adventuring component is fairly light. Each scene is a multi-step puzzle that involves finding objects and then using them appropriately. Puzzle solutions are largely logical, and there is none of the dreaded pixel-hunting that has ruined many otherwise excellent adventures. On top of the object puzzles, there are also a few logic puzzles that aren't terribly difficult, as well as a couple of "boss battles" (for lack of a better term) that require a little bit (but not too much) timing to pull off.

Where Valiant Hearts really shines though is in the art... and not just visuals, but all artistic facets of the game are extremely well done. The scenes are characters are an appropriate mix of charming and depressing; your portly little soldiers are run around trying to survive a world that has been torn up by the horrors of war. Blasted landscapes and shattered cities are the norm, and it really strikes a perfect tone. Likewise, the music in the game is enchanting... whoever is responsible for it should really win an award, because it fits so well. And of course the story is the pinnacle of it all; this is the story of families torn apart by war, and is incredibly human despite some of its more fanciful elements.

Will I play more?
Oh gods yes. This is one of the best adventure games that I've played in quite some time, and I really like the story they've got going, and the respectful treatment of a difficult period in world history.

On a scale from 0 to Dark Souls:
1, but only because you occasionally have to do a strange adventure boss battle, which can involve a tiny bit of reflexes and/or timing (but not a lot!).

Eleima wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

Looks like we need another call for writers. I wouldn't mind running these regularly as our Friday content.

Is that why you bestowed your generosity on me with 9.03m? Because although I thank you, I'm pretty sure my reviews are middling at best. :D

That was tied to the promise I made in an article to give out interesting games to people who have them on their wish lists.

But I'm still interested in making 1-hour reviews our new regular Friday content. It's good to have light stuff for Fridays.

Bubs14 wrote:

Goat Simulator

It's really hard to tell what the developers were... going for... with this game. Like I said, it has the skateboarding game vibe of "tricks" and points, it's a pseudo-sandbox, it's nonsensical (which I guess is appropriate given it was released on April 1st), and I almost want to believe this started out as something more ambitious (it's built on the UNREAL ENGINE, FFS), but something ran out - time, money, patience, sanity, etc. - and for one reason or another, I think the final decision was, "F*ck it, fix the crashes, stick a glitchy goat in there and shove it on Steam. It can't be half as bad as some of the sh*t on there." I have a hard time believing that people who aren't psychotic would set out to willingly create something so pointless and broken from the outset.

Just to provide some context, the devs, Coffee Stain Studios, released a video showing gameplay footage of the result of an internal one-month game jam that they did just for sh*ts and giggles. The overwhelming reaction they received from that video made them decide to release it as an actual game. So the whole game was essentially silly/non-serious from conception to (unexpected) release.

They even released a significant content update for free, along with the best patch notes EVER!

MeatMan wrote:
Bubs14 wrote:

Goat Simulator

It's really hard to tell what the developers were... going for... with this game. Like I said, it has the skateboarding game vibe of "tricks" and points, it's a pseudo-sandbox, it's nonsensical (which I guess is appropriate given it was released on April 1st), and I almost want to believe this started out as something more ambitious (it's built on the UNREAL ENGINE, FFS), but something ran out - time, money, patience, sanity, etc. - and for one reason or another, I think the final decision was, "F*ck it, fix the crashes, stick a glitchy goat in there and shove it on Steam. It can't be half as bad as some of the sh*t on there." I have a hard time believing that people who aren't psychotic would set out to willingly create something so pointless and broken from the outset.

Just to provide some context, the devs, Coffee Stain Studios, released a video showing gameplay footage of the result of an internal one-month game jam that they did just for sh*ts and giggles. The overwhelming reaction they received from that video made them decide to release it as an actual game. So the whole game was essentially silly/non-serious from conception to (unexpected) release.

They even released a significant content update for free, along with the best patch notes EVER!

The teaser trailer is also glorious:

I had forgotten the infamous "Goat Island" trailer.

Great stuff.

By the way, I'm thrilled to see this thread continuing to see updates. Reading first impressions of games is really interesting.

Oh, and I haven't forgotten about the Agricultural Simulator: Historical Farming review that I promised. It's in the works now.

I'm think some of my concerns about The Road Not Taken are entirely valid. I got up to year 4 last night and the game was already throwing rooms that were almost completely full of objects at me. I'm sure the situations are still solvable as the objects needed to press on are in a room somewhere, but the randomness makes the solutions incredibly messy and considering you need to conserve as much energy as possible for the next possibly even more complicated year, it can really put the player in a bind.

If it's possible to ask too much of its players, this game might cross that line. You can develop general tactics to deal with small situations through experience but the vast number of object interactions make planning a survivable path through a level a bit overwhelming. Even walking around to see what you have to work with can lead to angry racoons and wolves sapping your energy with every step, and the movement of living objects may end up invalidating whatever plan you came up with when you get around to executing. I'd like to see a dev playthrough of the finished product because I think there is a thought process that may be evident to them that might not be to people who didn't get to see the finished product getting built up.

Thing is I genuinely like the concept at work here. It's just that it's precariously balancing between an elegant but dynamic puzzle and a complete mess. I'm going to keep chipping away and hopefully that "ah-ha" moment will come... but yikes.

One hour in review: Firefall

Sponsored by: ...well, the game's free (spoiler: that's the best part of the game)

Short review:
Meh...

Long review:
Meeeehhhhhhhhh...

Serious review:
Quite literally the only good thing I can find to say about this game is that it's free. There's just such an uninspired, mediocre feeling about everything in here that it's hard to see why I should be playing it.

It's an mmo! It's an rpg! It's an fps! It doesn't do any of those things even remotely well!

It's not that the game is bad, or broken, or buggy, it's just... uninspired. Every mission I tackled in my hour of playing was "shoot your way to the target, shoot a big/multiple enemies at target, shoot your way out of the target, repeat ad infinity." And yes, you could argue that Borderlands 2 is the same, but Borderlands has a cool art look and is humorous. Firefall is pretty bog - standard graphics with a serious tone as delivered by average voice actors. There's just nothing to grab me and make me interested.

So one hour is what I've put into the game, and one hour is probably all I'm going to put in, because even at free, the price point is too high compared to the amount of hard drive space it's taking up.

On a scale of one to Dark Souls?
One Sparkle Ponies.

Link for Doubting: Firefall (Taharka)

Bubs14 wrote:

One hour into: One Way Heroics (PC)
Courtesy of: Eldon of Azure

TL;DR Review
Quirky, yet serious in a Japanese sort of way. "Turn-based" RPG + mandatory side-scrolling + rogue-lite elements. Easily one of those "aaand it's dawn" type games if you're not careful.

Totally agree with Bubs and Veloxi on this one. Don't know where the I spent an hour last night went - one second I was booting up the game, and the next second... yeah. It's one of those.

UMOarsman wrote:
Bubs14 wrote:

One hour into: One Way Heroics (PC)
Courtesy of: Eldon of Azure

TL;DR Review
Quirky, yet serious in a Japanese sort of way. "Turn-based" RPG + mandatory side-scrolling + rogue-lite elements. Easily one of those "aaand it's dawn" type games if you're not careful.

Totally agree with Bubs and Veloxi on this one. Don't know where the I spent an hour last night went - one second I was booting up the game, and the next second... yeah. It's one of those.

It so is. What a surprising little gem.

One hour into: Circuits
Courtesy of: Antichulius

TL;DR Review
Puzzle game about reconstructing music from individual snippets. Seems short, but the difficulty curve is smooth and the puzzling is sharp. Good ears required, good headphones strongly recommended. It's all in the lobes...

"Talk your ears off" Review
I was gifted this game in the twilight of the Summer Sale with the gift message, "This looks more like work than play, but I hope you enjoy anyway!" It was another cheapie, even before the sale.

I have a very deep connection to music. It can touch me in ways few other things can. It almost feels like my soul is resonating.

Barfing from the hippie talk yet? No? Good.

I mentioned in my Kairo review how one stupid puzzle involving almost an impossible-to-distinguish sequence of tones was so poorly executed (IMHO) that it led me to rage quit. Circuits is nothing like that puzzle; it's better in almost every way. Also, it's a full game.

Quite simply, you are given a "schematic" which resembles a wiring diagram with places to put various snippets of music. Your task is to put the snippets in the proper locations to reproduce the target track. This sounds simple, but believe me, there are moments where you really have to listen closely to certain segments, not only to distinguish the main tone, but also to distinguish other features of the sound byte (I'm sure there's a fancy term for it, but I'm a biologist, not a music theorist). It's predominantly instrumental pieces, but it's not all techno/electronica-type music. What's more, the game adds complexity in a tough but fair manner: first, multiple "layers" are added, restricting your options for the sound bytes for each layer of the track and allowing you to listen to each layer independent of the rest of the track. There is an achievement for never using the individual layers except in the level that introduces them, but this is my first playthrough, I'm making the most of them. Next, looping is added: a track element may repeat several times in the playback, and you have to assign the number of loops. It makes listening to the entire track a MUST; you can have the element order right, but if the loops are wrong, you won't advance (and you will feel foolish, ask me how I know). Segments of elements can also be set to loop. Then switching gets introduced, and here's where things get fun: the elements are pre-inserted into the circuit, but each branch of the switch produces a different variation on the element's music. You have to match the playback exactly, the game even reminds you of this in the little "basic" level that introduces the switch. Now is where you have to really, really, really, REALLY squint with your ears, the differences are extremely subtle and sometimes not in the main component of the sound byte. There are hints available, should you need them, but I'm doing my best to eschew hints.

I personally find it wonderful. The music is great, the puzzling keeps you on your toes, and most non-puzzle things are kept to a minimum (no need for a plot, graphics are elegantly simplistic). I have two main criteria for puzzle games: a) Do you get a good feeling when you solve a puzzle? b) Does the game make you feel stupid when you're stuck? For me, a) is answered when you hear the full playback of the song done exactly right, the music is its own reward. b) is a positive "No", the game is quiet in a good way. My only minor irk is that the game doesn't give you any cues after an incorrect playback that something is wrong until the message pops up that "Something is wrong". The only difference when you do it right is that the message says "Level clear, well done" and has buttons for main menu and next level. The "end animation" is identical for every puzzle, right or wrong. Some sort of "whoopsie" sound byte or the finish line not lighting up/lighting red instead of white would be nice, the message alone is jarring, particularly if you're as smug as me and think you nailed it every time (and believe me, trying to tease out a mistake can be challenging, that's why the layers and hints are useful).

Will I keep playing?
I only stopped because I got hungry, and I decided to write my review (which has taken me a solid half hour, so I'm gonna be good and hungry when I get to where I'm going). There's 25 levels, I'm on level 18 or 19, probably one more little session and it'll be done. There are some overachievements(TM), like I mentioned before, but I'm not that obsessed with Steamchievements. I am led to believe that there are updates in the works, including a level with music from Chipzel, the Super Hexagon composer, but this was back in April and there's still 25 levels.

Also, the OST is included with the game (plus a bonus track), which is great news for a hopeless music junkie like yours truly.

Linky for OP
Circuits (Bubs14)
[size=6]Think this one got overlooked...[/size]