May '19 Play Log

Overall a decent point & click game, it’s not going to win any awards for it’s story or gameplay though.

Pros:

• The hints are decent for the most part
• There’s a button that shows you all of the different things you can interact with
• The voice acting is quite good

Cons:

• Another game where you pick up random stuff without knowing how it’ll be used, although it’s not as bad as some games I’ve played
• I came across a hint that didn’t make sense. It turned out to be referring to something I hadn’t discovered yet.
• Multiple endings. Some people may not consider this a con, but seeing as it’s the only place where you can influence the story at all personally I’d much rather knowing exactly how the story ends than being able to pick between multiple different ones. It made me feel like the game had left me hanging.

Verdict: 7/10

This game continues the overarching storyline from the first game but with a new protagonist. Gameplay wise it’s practically identical to the first with no new mechanics added. Frequently I find older games don’t age well, especially shooters. This is one of the few series’s that does.

Pros:

• Decent voice acting, though it’s a bit weird to me that the you (the protagonist) are always silent
• Excellent graphics given the age of the game
• AI is quite good
• Good controls for the most part
• Levels are varied which keeps things interesting
• Decent story, with various bits of intel to be found that expands on it a lot. I highly suggest looking for all of this as without it the story may make less sense.

Cons:

• Hard mode is very hard, frequently in a bad way. For example, you can git one hit killed even with full armour and full health.
• Given that left shift and control are very frequently used, having z as the health kit button is really awkward
• For some reason sounds straight ahead of you are very muted, which sucks during cutscenes since you can’t hear someone talking if you’re looking at them - you have to look to one side of them in order to hear.
• It’s frequently not clear why you die - you don’t hear/see a bullet/melee enemy, but you die anyway. This can lead to strange situations where you think you’re alone in an empty room and then die for no apparent reason, which is frustrating.

Verdict: 8/10

Quite a good puzzle game. It’s a port to VR, but still makes use of motion controllers. Given that it’s a puzzle game though, the additional immersiveness of VR doesn’t add as much to the game as something like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. It’s still worth playing in VR, but I wouldn’t bother buying the VR version if you already have the non-VR version.

A warning for achievement hunters: leaving the terminals till the end may make it faster to get all achievements, but the game is much more enjoyable if you read them as you go.

Pros:

• Uses tracked motion controllers
• Movement is heavily customizable, supporting both teleport and traditional movement, snap and smooth turning, and reducing FOV to prevent motion sickness
• Includes the DLC
• The difficulty curve from easy puzzles to harder ones is good
• Lots to explore and find, with multiple endings possible
• There are backups automatically created that you can restore to get other ends/achievements without having to replay the whole game
• I thoroughly enjoyed the story, especially the audio logs
• Road to Gehenna is a brilliant addition

Cons:

• I found the elevator buttons to be really finicky to push
• Towards the end the tetromino puzzles get really large and difficult. Personally I didn’t enjoy them so I ended up just using a guide to get past them. I’m not sure how this could be improved though.

Verdict: 9/10

Decent if short game. My biggest complaint, and the sole reason I’m not recommending it, is the horrible, horrible, movement system. It’s janky, slow, hard to control, and imprecise. Part of this has to do with the way the camera changes angle when you go to a new area. A click to move system, or even a first person POV with more typical behaviour, would make the game much more enjoyable. I’m curious to see what happens in the next chapter but don’t want to deal with the frustrating movement again.

Pros:

• Graphics-wise it looks pretty good
• None of the puzzles are overly challenging - the game is more about the story.
• You don’t just pick up random items and find a use for them later. If you find an area where an item in a previous area could be helpful it becomes interactable.
• Some of the comments about things you (the robot) doesn’t understand are chuckle-worthy

Cons:

• As previously mentioned, movement system can’t get much worse
• No chapter select on beating the game, so you have to replay it to get any missed achievements
• Cutscenes are unskippable. That’s fine for the first playthrough, but for a second one to get missed achievements it’s incredibly frustrating.
• There’s almost no emotion. Given that you’re playing as a robot with other robots this makes sense, but it also makes it much more difficult to become invested and drawn into the game.

Verdict: 6/10