[Lucien21]

Back to the Future Episode 1 and 2
The Back to the future trilogy has always been a favourite movie series for me and for years I thought it would make a perfect adventure game. Using Day of the Tentacle as a template for time travel games. There are so many possibilities.

I still think that it would but unfortunatly this ain't it.

That's not to say that it's bad, just seriously disappointing.

It's not all bad. Telltale has captured the atmosphere of the movies perfectly and the voice work of the two main actors is spot on.

However the Telltale engine is seriously showing it's age with the limitation on movements being a serious flaw. You are restricted to a couple of locations and even in the town square you can walk where you like but are stuck to linear pathways that the game wants you to follow.

This makes the game very linear with little exploration.

To make matters worse they have dumbed the puzzles to the level of a 3 year old.

A perfect example was the officer in the speakeasy who is affected by Trixi's songs. He is sad - play sad song, He has a secret play secret song. For Feck sake at least try and put some challenge in your games.

The problem is that this has probably been Telltales most successful games so they will probably take away the lesson that good license and piss easy gameplay equals success. Shallow sells to the moronic mass market unforunatly.

If that is the case this might be the last Telltale game that I will ever buy and I will go back to dreaming of my BTTF. A Back to the Future game done right.

[scary penguen]

amnesia the dark descent..
the end was not as good as the game

[maladroid]

Puzzle Agent

I am not very fond of puzzle-oriented gameplay (except Portal ) but this game has a lot of charm going for it and I must admit that I had a good time for the better part of the 4 hours it took me to reach the end. Loved the art style and the atmosphere but what really stands out is the incredible voice work, where Telltale usually excels. I wasn't completely satisfied by the ending but the overall story was interesting enough and the majority of the puzzles fun to solve.

Back to the Future Ep.1

Never have been an avid fun of the movie franchise, even though I recognize it's certain charms. Still, the game is too vanilla for me, nothing really seems to stand out from mediocrity and besides it being awfully short, I wasn't in the mood for more when the end came. I am certainly glad I got a chance to try it out with the free Ep.1 promotion, otherwise I might be tempted to spend money on it, once it got cheap(er). If the remaining chapters get seriously improved, that might still happen but I will be waiting for a major sale this time around. Pretty much agree with Lucien on this one.

[SamuelGordon]

Dragon Age 2. No words can express my disgust.

0/10 (or 0,00000001)

[D.C.]

Gray Matter:

I've been looking forward to this damn game for freakin' years, so I was all kinds of apprehensive about it not living up to expectations. I've got to say I was a little disappointed at first. Not at the writing, story or characters -- just the clear lack of polish to a production seven years in the making. Fortunately the more I played, the more compelling it became. I found myself immersed in the world and the mystery that was unfolding. It felt like I was playing a Jane Jensen game. (A flawed one, but still a damn good Jane Jensen game.)

I liked the contrast between the Sam and Dr. Styles chapters and the complicated relationship that was forming between them. I liked exploring the surrounds and investigating the key players, the pieces of the mystery moving into place. If a game this flawed and unpolished can be so immersive, I can't help to think how great it would've been with the production values it deserved. I thought it ended a little abruptly too. (Although we've got a lot to ponder.) There's a whole lot of potential here and I hope we get to see more of the series.

[Jelena]

I finished Gemini Rue the other day. I absolutely loved it in spite of its shooting sequences where I really had to pull myself together in order to manage, even though easy mode.
The story pulled me into the game right away and the way it came together in the end was excellent. I loved the old school graphics and the gritty atmosphere of the rainy worn down city.

[kuze]

Originally Posted by SamuelGordon

Dragon Age 2. No words can express my disgust.

0/10 (or 0,00000001)

Agreed. It's horrible. Why did you play all through it if you hated it so much though?

[SamuelGordon]

Originally Posted by kuze

Agreed. It's horrible. Why did you play all through it if you hated it so much though?

I always finish a game if i'm half through even if it's horrible, maybe a compulsive thing lol?

[DustyShinigami]

Dead Space 2

Pros:

+ Although they're the same as in the first game, the graphics are still great and the environments detailed. As before, the Necromorphs look appropriately grotesque and the environments are scary as hell to traverse through.
+ The music and sound effects are just as great as last time. From chilling ambience that keeps you on the edge of your seat, to dramatic 'horror' pieces, and sound effects like people and monsters screaming throughout the corridors etc. Without the game's great use of music and sound, the game wouldn't be half as scary as it is.
+ The core gameplay is still the same, but is just as good to play.
+ Though some are small and subtle there are a few improvements. Apart from new Necromorph types, there are some new and better suits, interfaces/menus at shops are better presented, you can now remove all Nodes you've used to upgrade a weapon so you can use them for something else, you can shoot out certain windows to suck enemies out into space, impale enemies with long, sharp objects (including their own limbs), and even move around freely in Zero-G etc.

Cons:

- Isaac Clarke's voice sounds so generic and boring! He was much better without one. Other characters are voiced better, but still sound somewhat generic. The voice acting doesn't help make the character's relatable either.
- The story is, again, generic and 'meh' at best. The first game's story wasn't anything groundbreaking, but was more interesting to follow thanks to slowly unravelling it by collecting text, audio and video logs.
- A lot of the horror, like in most of these kind of games, feels like it's forced down your throat. Not to mention clichéd. A perfect example would be Isaac's 'mind fucks' (hallucinations). After a bit I found those to be more annoying than scary. Yes, the game will make you jump, but that's all it's able to achieve.
- The multiplayer component is another sorry excuse that feels like it's been tacked on. I mean, it's alright, but not something I'd wanna keep coming back to. If there were ahievements to gain for example, it would probably give me an incentive to come back to it.
- A personal gripe of mine is that the hardest difficulty is ridiculously hard. You can only save 3 times throughout the whole game! This made me give up on getting the final achievement I needed. I wasn't prepared to traipse all the way to the half-way point in the game before saving, only to accidentally die or something and have to do it all over again from scratch!
- I don't recall there being many boss battles in Dead Space 2 compared to first one... And compared to the first game's ginormous boss at the end, the last boss battle is a joke!

Overall:

[terhardp]

Portal

There isn't many games outside the genre that interest me, and genre-wise, I'm still waiting for several new titles. So, I've decided to try something different.

I've learned about "Portal" by accident. I was browsing through AdventureGamers and immediately noticed the high rating. Then I've read the official review, and got even more intrigued. Finally, I've got the game about a week ago.

At first, I was somewhat sceptical, and felt a bit cold about the game. One of the reasons is because I usually play the games in 3rd person and haven't played someting in 1st person for quite some time. So I've needed some time to overcome the occasional dizziness and get used to the game mechanics and navigation.

Speaking of which, the portal concept showed itself as both funny and effective. And even though the entire game revolves around creating and using the portals, it doesn't get boring with time, thanks to the carefully designed levels.

Speaking of design, I must say that I like "Portal" more audibly than visually. This doesn't mean that the game looks bad. On the contrary; it features many unique and recognizable graphic motives, however, the entire thing does seem bland at times. It looks that the upcoming sequel will fix that issue with style.

The main star of the game is, without any doubt, the bad guy (or should I say, bad girl). GlaDOS, can IMO rival even HAL 9000 from Space Odyssey. Being both caring and menacing at the same time, it's a perfect villain and driving element for the game. Voice acting and portraying of the GlaDOS are simply brilliant.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the game. It's almost like an invisible bridge between the classic adventure and a FPS game.

Verdict: 4,4 / 5

[erodola]

Jolly Rover

Really liked it. Especially fun. Recommended!

Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei

The first game ever from the megaten series, NES version. A real pain without a walkthrough if you ask me. But I liked the end! Ah, japanese only.

[plobone]

Silent Hill homecoming
nice game 9/10

and

Dead Space 2

Great game, it is really nice that you can see Isaac's face and hear his voice. But I didn't get that feeling of isolation that the first one had.

So 8/10

[Niko]

Dead Space 2 - 10/10

Awsome, better than the first one.

Dragon Age 2 - 8/10

Dispite the flaws, enjoyed the stories & characters.

[zane]

just finished edna and harvey: the breakout and its quite the trip.
pros: wonderfully quirky, long, engaging, and an incredible amount of responses. You pretty much never get the typical "you cant do that" with anything you try. You can even talk to all of your items and theres individual responses for just about everything. Hours can easily pass by as you try every combination just to hear all the different jokes there are. Edna and harvey were also both endearing characters, and despite being totally silly it also felt emotionally charged and serious. The game also features some of the best 4th wall breaking moments iv ever seen in an adventure game. This game can be really funny.
cons: some of the animations felt unfinished or lacking. Also the endings felt rushed and very strangely abrupt. The puzzles often bordered on illogical, and were sometimes pretty frustrating.
overall: edna and harvey was a really impressive adventure that id recommend highly. I'd especially recommend it to fans of the 2 rincewind-discworld games as it shares the following traits: lots of long funny dialogues, and over the top puzzles that arent always totally logical. Id rate the game 9/10

[Oscar]

Last finished Lost Horizon. Excellent game, Deep Silver's best yet. It has a lot of talking and too much story, but everything else about it is strong. Possibly the best graphics for an adventure game ever. 8.5/10

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Back to the Future Episode 1 and 2
The Back to the future trilogy has always been a favourite movie series for me and for years I thought it would make a perfect adventure game. Using Day of the Tentacle as a template for time travel games. There are so many possibilities.

I still think that it would but unfortunatly this ain't it.

That's not to say that it's bad, just seriously disappointing.

It's not all bad. Telltale has captured the atmosphere of the movies perfectly and the voice work of the two main actors is spot on.

However the Telltale engine is seriously showing it's age with the limitation on movements being a serious flaw. You are restricted to a couple of locations and even in the town square you can walk where you like but are stuck to linear pathways that the game wants you to follow.

This makes the game very linear with little exploration.

To make matters worse they have dumbed the puzzles to the level of a 3 year old.

A perfect example was the officer in the speakeasy who is affected by Trixi's songs. He is sad - play sad song, He has a secret play secret song. For Feck sake at least try and put some challenge in your games.

The problem is that this has probably been Telltales most successful games so they will probably take away the lesson that good license and piss easy gameplay equals success. Shallow sells to the moronic mass market unforunatly.

If that is the case this might be the last Telltale game that I will ever buy and I will go back to dreaming of my BTTF. A Back to the Future game done right.

Great review. Telltale disappointed me with episode 1 and I decided not to continue. I feel it was made to be too accessible and easy for new players in order to sell more. It really does feel like a game for children, and it tries too hard to appeal to fans of BTTF. It needs to be a good game in its own right, it's not enough to worship and bow down before the movies.

[Guardian_Misterioso]

I finished "Tales of Monkey Island" two days ago. The adventure is much better than "Escape from Monkey Island", of course, but very very easy. I like classic adventures because they were a challenge for the user, but today is almost impossible to find a game with that difficulty.

[JemyM]

Undercroft (iPhone)
Undercroft is free on iPhone to promote some MMO. Ignore the MMO and grab this RPG instead (appstore). It was originally developed for Pocket PC 2006 and there's also a PC version (1.20) floating around, but the iPhone version is an enhanced edition.

Story
The game got six levels but the final level is much larger than the previous ones. Each level of course contains plenty of sidequests and loot.

The story in Undercroft is not on the serious side. After betting on a tavern that you can steal a dead kings treasure, you drink too much and end up in a jailcell in another village. Your very first mission is to recover hens which you appearently set loose when you are drunk. After that you must find the graveyard where the grave is located. Naturally it's not that easy and once you find the treasure you are less than half through the game. This is just not a story you are going to remember after playing the game.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
Undercroft is a Dungeon Master clone (Eye of the Beholder, Ishar etc) that is seen through a first person perspective. As a such the artwork is well drawn, both monsters, backgrounds, character portraits and equipment. The sound is decent. The game have continous background music that I felt to often be out of place and repetitive. Monsters have their own sounds which may also warn you that they are attacking you from the side or behind.

Gameplay
This is a turnbased partybased RPG, which means you are likely to have a fighter, a mage and a priest in your party, filled up with the the two odd classes assassin and summoner. For my game I used the assassin that when boiled down was a ranged damagedealer. Each class have around 12 unique skills and three basic abilities (strength, dexterity, constitution). Strength gives melee damage and hitpoints, dexterity gives ranged damage and defense, constitution gives stamina (and mana) and resistances. Naturally the mage have spells, the priests have healing and protection spells, the fighter have strong attacks and weapon specializations and so do the assassin.

As a turnbased rpg your party attack one at a time, then the monsters attack. You attack by pushing an attack button and the selected character will make their attack against the selected monster. I rarely found the need to complex things, clicking the attack button repeatidly was the fast route, strategy just took time and you had no alternate skills to mix things around with either.

Now due to one significant design choice, the variation in skills is a waste. You just get TWO skillpoints per level. Unless you pump your primary abilities every level they will lag behind, causing your fireball to deal almost no damage at the end. I toyed around early at the game to try different skills and ended up severly crippled because of it at the end. The only route to take is to put one point in your primary weapon (or spell), then the other in your primary ability, thus ignoring 90% of your skills. This is too bad, as I do not believe having a few extra points would have hurt the balance much, but improved variation and strategy.

Conclusion
Being the best and free on iPhone doesn't mean Undercroft is great compared to other platforms, but at least it's decent enough to make a seasoned RPG fan to want to finish the game. I have to say though that Redshifts Legacy on Pocket PC was a much better game in all aspects, both gameplay and story.

[Fantasysci5]

Well, I'm not completely finished with the whole game, but I finished the Predator campaign in the new "Aliens vs Predator".

It was quite short, and it says my story progress was only 41%. So I'm wondering, did I miss things in the campaign, or will that number go up when I play the other campaigns.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the game a lot. I've always liked Predators, so being able to play one and use all of their cool technology was fun. The graphics were gorgeous, and I'm not much of an FPS gamer, but the easy level was just easy/hard enoguh for me.

[Lucien21]

Dead Space 2

Issac Clark doesn't have much luck. Having barely escaped the Necromorphs in the first game. He now finds himself three years later the centre of another outbreak on Titan.

Basically a tweaked version on the original it retains most of the weapons and gameplay while adds some new weapons, maks the stasis and kenesis more powerful and introduces a greater variety of locations.

Pros

* Cutting limbs is still loads of fun
* New freedom in the Zero-G sections
* Ripper gun
* Variety of locations and huge set pieces make for more thrilling game
* Looks georgous
* Sound design is still amazing
* Limited ammo keeps up the feeling of dread and constant danger

Cons

* Story is a bit Meh
* Issac's voice is dull as dishwater
* Game play hasn't changed, meaning that Issac still moves a bit like a tank and can easily be surrounded.
* Wanted more on the Unitology religion, but it's basically forgotten once you get past the church


Overall it is about 10 hours of intense, dark, scary gameplay.

I fecking loved it.

9/10

[Guyra]

Project Zero
Great game, recommendable if you're into the genre. 7.5/10