June '19 Play Log II

If you’re a fan of horror games this is a decent one, but it’s far from perfect. At certain points it gets so difficult that you have to repeat areas many times to beat them, at which point the horror elements get old and the gameplay can get frustrating, ruining the experience.

Pros:

• The atmosphere is done very well
• Strikes a good mix of creepy atmosphere and children along with the occasional jumpscare
• The sound of the forest, the children, and how the music gets louder and quieter depending on how close the children are is very well done and adds to the atmosphere
• The children and their actions are genuinely creepy

Cons:

• I imagine it would be boring/repetitive if you’re less interested in trying to trigger the various events etc required for achievements. To beat the game you really just need to run around the forest not being killed for the night, there’s nothing more to it than that.
• There is some story present, but it could have been improved and expanded on so that you get a better idea of what actually happened by the end of the game.
• The difficulty in avoiding some children negatively effects the horror elements, because it comes less scary and more frustrating having to continuously repeat it because some of the children are more difficult to avoid, especially in the No Way Out expansion
• The behaviour of the children is changed in the No Way Out expansion. In some cases this is okay, but some of the changes add an element of luck, and if you get unlucky you’ll die and there’s nothing you can do about it

Verdict: 6.5/10

Overall a decent game. Not Telltale’s best work, but if you’re a fan on their games you’ll probably enjoy this. I’m not sure how I feel about them doing action games though. Obviously anything Batman related has to have action in it. For this game it’s simply quicktime events, and if you miss too many you die and have to try again. It’s extremely straight forward and feels quite pointless. The story is decent though. As with all Telltale games it won’t change drastically based on your choices - certain events will happen one way or the other, and the ending doesn’t change. The details of the story, how you get to the ending, and the relationship between various characters is what changes.

Pros:

• Decent story with some tough choices and surprises
• Genuinely curious to find out what would have happened if I had changed some decisions, so there is replay value here
• Voice acting is good
• Has many familiar characters but Telltale puts their own spin on things, rather than sticking to the same established backstories (though I’m not familiar with the comics, so maybe it was the movies that were different)

Cons:

• I came across at least one story bug where I didn’t give a cops name to a reporter, but later the story acted as if I had
• Quicktime events for action sequences isn’t that interesting
• Sometimes there were quicktime events or push a button to do something that felt unnecessary, like ‘we should put something here so they player doesn’t get bored’
• There are the tough choices near the beginning where it’s more of a genuine ‘do I do the right thing or do I take revenge’ type of question, but later in the story where you’d be more tempted to take revenge rather than arrest someone (for example) you aren’t given the option

Verdict: 7/10

This is one of those games you finish and think ‘WTF did I just play?’. That by itself isn’t a bad thing but there has to be something about it that makes the game enjoyable, and I just didn’t find anything.

Pros:

• Reasonably straight forward, so you won’t get stuck
• Somewhat intriguing graphic and sound style that could work if the story was actually interesting in some way

Cons:

• The atmosphere is somewhat suspenseful, but overall this fails to meet the standards of a horror or suspense game, at least for me
• Despite being less than an hour long there are three relatively lengthy driving sections that add nothing to the game
• Mutually exclusive achievements in a game with next to no replayability
• Achievements don’t pop up as you get them, but at the end of the game, meaning you have to beat it even if you only missed one achievement at the very beginning
• Related to above, there’s supposedly a chime to indicate you got an achievement, but even when I was listening for it I often couldn’t hear it

Verdict: 4/10

Experienced on Oculus Rift

This is a must have for any VR owners. It’s a brilliant game that’ll have you crawling around the floor. I imagine it’s probably ideal in a large room with 360 degree tracking, but it worked quite well in my small computer room with only 2 sensors. I came across two bugs, but nothing insurmountable.

Pros:

• The variety of difficulties is done well
• Good graphics, sound, voices, etc
• The office worker robots are quite entertaining
• They actually give you a reason for the teleportation locomotion, which I thought was a really nice touch
• Somewhat interesting story that’s left open for a sequel (which I would buy in a heartbeat)

Cons:

• The ‘Sniper’ achievement is next to impossible to get
• At the start of the game you’re supposed to have a pager delivered that explains what’s going on and how to get the movement device. You can’t do the game without it. For me this didn’t happen. I had to figure it out from playthroughs. Eventually I found the pager sitting on a random table, but I wasted over an hour stuck at the beginning because of this.
• Another bug I came across was items getting ‘stuck’ in my inventory, making them unusable and taking up a valuable inventory spot.

Verdict: 9/10