April '19 Play Log II
A few more games off the list, and since there was no incoming this week, I actually made some progress!
If you liked the first two chapters this is a worthy end to the trilogy. Sadly it is the end though. I’d love it if they were to come out with another season or a similar game. If you haven’t played the first two games I highly recommend playing them first as this is a continuation of the story.
Pros:
- Good music
- Nice art style
- Superb voice acting
- Hilarious in both dialogue and puzzles. If you have an idea for a solution to a puzzle but think ‘Nah that won’t work, it’s too crazy’, you’re probably on the right path. Think Saturday morning cartoons.
Cons:
- Doesn’t have a summary of the first two games. It’s been a while since I played them so a refresher would have been nice.
Verdict: 10/10
If you enjoy Point & Clicks with a sense of humour, ever enjoyed silly Saturday morning cartoons, or have any sense of humour at all then I can’t recommend this series enough. Sadly this was the last game, but I really hope they decide to make some more adventures with these characters as they’re absolutely brilliant!
A good detective game. If you enjoy point & clicks this is probably worth playing. It’s a fair bit different than most mystery/puzzle games I’ve played.
Pros:
- Unlike a lot of P&C games you don’t just collect random stuff for no apparent reason that happens to become useful later on.
- The way you choose various observations to put together pieces of the puzzle and answer questions is unique and very well done. Some of the options are obviously wrong but most of them could fit somehow, it’s up to you to think it through. It’s not too difficult for the most part but I confess there were a few I gave up on and consulted a guide for.
Cons:
- They could have brought emotion into it better. The enjoyment came more from solving puzzles than any sort of ‘Oh no we have to catch this evil killer quickly!’ sort of emotional response.
- The controls could be improved
- When observing someone it was more a matter of randomly hovering to find observation points, I found at least half of them to be entirely non-obvious.
- I dislike achievements that require multiple playthroughs when there’s no replay value, or achievements for making frequently obvious mistakes.
Verdict: 7/10
SG PA win. A decent puzzler, but like so many it fails to evoke much emotion despite being about a serial killer. I dislike achievements that require you to screw up. It’s one thing if it’s difficult enough that it’ll likely happen anyway, but that’s very much not the case here as it’s a fairly easy game. Possibly worth playing for anyone who enjoys puzzles, as the way you solve them is a bit different than anything else I’ve played, as long as the lack of difficulty doesn’t bother you.
Overall a very good point & click game, although the crashes are completely unacceptable. Thankfully it autosaves so I never lost much progress. Given the release date I doubt the implied sequel will happen, but I’d definitely buy it if it did.
I ended up using a guide for more of this than I should have in hindsight. I recommend against that. Just make sure you explore all areas as you’ll often find items in one area useful in another. Also always exhaust dialogue options even if you don’t want to say a particular thing as it sometimes results in useful items/information/etc. If you do get stuck and need to consult a walkthrough, I suggest just reading enough to get yourself unstuck.
Pros:
- Decent voice acting & graphics
- Holding space bar shows all of the things you can interact with, and if you’re holding an item what you can use it with
- Manages to be challenging without being impossibly difficult
- The dynamic between Ceville and Lilly is entertaining
- Quite funny in parts
Cons:
- Several crashes to desktop, and two freezes that I couldn’t recover from without rebooting my PC.
- Long load times, especially considering I had it install on an SSD.
- I think the ending could have been more satisfying, it felt like it wasn’t presented well.
Verdict: 7/10
Old SG win and medium Play or Pay pick. One of these days I’ll learn not to use a guide unless I absolutely have to. Despite the occasional crash, I quite enjoyed this game.
This game is NOT compatible with Oculus Rift, despite what it advertises. The touch controllers don’t work at all.
Someone gave me a key for this, but despite advertising Rift support it doesn’t work at all, so now I feel guilty for not being able to play it. Guess I should have paid more attention to the reviews. It also appears to be abandoned as the last forum post from the dev states that it now supports Rift with the ‘only bug’ being that Vive controllers are shown. I kind of think there should be a way to indicate to Valve that the store page is inaccurate and have them remove Rift support unless the dev actually fixes it. More work for Valve though so I can understand why they don’t do it.
That's it for now, enjoy the Easter long weekend everyone!
Part 3 is a worth ending to the story. Definitely a good game for kids! I agree regarding Ceville being underrated, also a good game for kids. The crashes are unfortunate though.
Ah, I didn’t see your reply. I don’t remember any crashes on Ceville, but then again I was probably playing on a Windows XP machine. :p
Ooh, I recently played The Journey Down 1 & 2 with my kids (7yo) and we all loved it. We still quote it from time to time (“Hey lady!” in our best Bwana voice or “You’re an idiot, Bwana”). I don’t have Part 3 yet but I’ll get it an some point and we can finish the story.
Ceville is one of the first games I ever played on Steam, back in 2012. I think it’s kind of an underrated gem. I agree with your assessment that it, “manages to be challenging without being impossibly difficult,” nor are many of the solutions totally illogical. I had a lot of fun with it…I should play it again with my kids.