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Ratings by Doom

Gobliiins 5


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on May 15, 2023 | edit | delete


Little me is happy


I was waiting for Gobliiins 5 impatiently, and it exceeded all my expectations. It teleported me back to my school days when I first discovered the adventures of Asgard, Ignatus and Oops, three silly little men named goblins for some reason who explored ridiculous levels filled to the brim with animated objects, hurting and killing themselves on every turn in the most hilarious ways. Some of the funniest and most horrific moments of my gaming virginity lie there.

I then happily discovered the rest of Coktel Vision’s catalogue, although it was pretty short as the company soon ceased to exist, leaving no successors. Nobody ever managed to replicate its unique style (yes, even Amanita), including the founding father Pierre Gilhodes whose fourth installment published in the 2000s, while not catastrophic, only proved that Gobliiins don’t work in 3D, same as Monkey Islands or Broken Swords.

And yet Pierre Gilhodes, good old Pierre Gilhodes, a superb artist with wild imagination and all-round wonderful person, refused to abandon his goblins and celebrated the 30 year anniversary with a true 2D sequel — working alone, as a one-man game/animation studio. Combining the premise of the first Gobliiins with the interface of the second game, huge scrolling multiperspective levels of the third entry and animation techniques used in Woodruff, it is an ultimate love letter to that epoch as well as Pierre’s personal Bible of game design, with its ups and downs.

For example, the story takes a step back to the naivety of Goblins 1-2. There’s a slight satire here and there, with a kingdom terrorised by the potato pandemic that quickly accepts it as a new norm and starts pursuing the “unpotatoed rebels”, but nothing like the dark dystopian totalitarian society or a journey into subconsciousness. Gob5 is joyful and lighthearted, even the evil dudes turn out to be not so evil while the protagonists reveal unexpected sides. Ignatius, a low-profile magician with unpredictable powers and a talking staff, is into Zen and women now. Oops — a complete opposite — is very shy and tries his best to fix things and not hurt anyone. Asgard is even dumber than before, trying to hit or eat anything he stumbles across, but the way he cares about his friends is really touching. The game truly shines with kindness.

That is not to say there’s a lack of cartoon violence, in fact it’s all over the place along with countless animated gags. The life bar is absent as goblins never die, but they are regularly get hurt or scared by the hostile environment in humorous ways. It only helps that, once again, everyone speaks using not words, but silly noises. Gilhodes went for an old-school 640x480 resolution, yet you rarely notice it sine the art and animation are of highest quality, and the many close-ups make it often feel like reading animated comic strips. The only downside is that once in a while an in-game cutscene starts, with goblins leaving their strategic positions and rushing to reunite just to share a word or two, while you are left with nothing but to wait impatiently.

The levels — 16 in total — are huge, they scroll in all directions (sometimes even dimensions) and take plenty of time and nerves to finish. As usual, they vary from simpler areas such as a noisy village or a crumbling king’s palace, to stranger ones, say, a science lab that produces evil potato soldiers, to utterly ridiculous: a giant snail taxi, a childhood trauma of the crazy professor, or a wall decorated with pictures, photos and posters that come to life. The latter feature some of the most imaginative level design I’ve seen in a good while, they are extremely fun to solve and explore. Puzzle logic is not always clear, but using every goblin on every item usually helps, or leads to some hilarious result at the very least.

By the end the gameplay does feel a bit unbalanced, clearly written with Oops in mind: he is the brain of the operation, doing most of the talking and puzzle solving, while Ignatius and Asgard in particular just run along, performing similar actions once in a while. Some levels might even play like fillers with a number of repetitive tasks that don’t require much thinking. Casting a relaxing spell on every potatoed creature you could find? Feeding every fish hidden on a flying ship? And then feeding goblins themselves with 20 snacks scattered around the house to satisfy their hunger? Somehow Gilhodes seem to enjoy those sorts of obstacles more suitable for casual games.

Gob5 was programmed using the AGS engine, and it works smoothly, although I don’t get the decision to abandon the “save” option: you may only reload a level once you reach it. Yes, similar system was used in the original Gobliiins, but that one featured much shorter levels. Here you may get stuck by the end of the chapter and then spend 30 minutes just replaying it. Hopefully this will be fixed in an update along with a final screen bug when a click on a weirdly named hotspot (probably a coding leftover) activates the ending credits. A little polish here and there certainly wouldn’t hurt.

But then it’s an indie effort we are talking about. An 11$ game from one of the greatest minds of the French adventure scene who managed to recreate not only mechanics, but also the soul of his earlier masterpieces all by himself, like a true artist who shows so much care for those funny little fellas. Whose adventures will hopefully continue as the ending promises. One could only wish to see Muriel Tramis, the founding mother of the series, joining its father on a new epic journey. This world really needs more gobliiins.


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Time Played: 10-20 hours
Difficulty: Just Right

Return to Monkey Island


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Dec 9, 2022 | edit | delete


A pirate game it was not meant to be


I’m not going to describe my long agromance with Monkey Island 2, how I spent weeks and months playing it as a teen, how it influenced my tastes in games and comedy, how I adored the final which came out of nowhere, and how I wished to see Ron Gilbert’s version of Monkey Island 3 one day. The way he described his “dream sequel” in his article totally clicked with me. Yes, make it like you always wanted to, like those 30 years that have passed since were just a bad dream. Then he actually announced it, and then… denounced everything he said before.

He didn’t want a straight-up sequel to his games as a matter of fact! Guybrush lived through all the other sequels and then more, matured and turned into a maniac obsessed with finding the Secret. Yeah, just like those fans who annoyed Gilbert all those years, how postironic - only I find it rather sad than funny to play the whole game as this sort of postironic Guybrush. In fact I hated him. The naive pirate-wanna-be was turned into a pathetic bastard unable to perform the simplest of tasks without failing or ruining other lives. Intentionally.

Of course, there’s nothing noble about being a pirate, but that was the whole point: Monkey Island has always been its own thing, a hand-made world of pirate-wanna-bees who did their best to look like smelly grog-drinking cutthroats, yet couldn’t harm a fly without properly insulting it first. And it worked really well even in later sequels that respected this original vision. Gilbert decided otherwise.

Return is nasty in its narrative and humour, it disrespects the established lore, it breaks forth walls right from the beginning and leaves you with a sense of emptiness. Besides endless references to previous chapters there’s hardly any plot, and those bits we get steal greatly from Secret and the “worst in the series” as Escape is (undeservingly) known these days. In fact I replayed Escape right after finishing Return and was amazed how much smarter, wittier and “Monkey Island"er it was.

In addition to recycled events and fan service Return also tries to be a poor man’s modern-day TV cartoon. The crudely drawn characters, both old and new, act totally bonkers for no particular reason, they run, scream, make faces, they talk non-stop and crack cheap jokes you forget as soon as you heard them. Guybrush is the worst of the bunch, of course, he looks and acts like a braindead dummy who doesn’t care about anything or anyone, including himself. It’s not the Guybrush who risked his life to rescue Elaine, to kill LeChuck, to save the Caribbeans, no. He just follows some voices in his head as it seems and keeps whining about “the Secret of Monkey Island”. Really sad.

Instead of verb or coin interface we now have a smart cursor that spoils all our actions even before we click on anything. Puzzles are easy even on the “hard mode”, even with a couple of unnecessary mazes, lots of backtracking and some poorly structured tasks like this new shady locksmith business, or the fight for a new queen, or the final test… In fact there was hardly a well-thought puzzle in the whole game. Most of the time we are just running in circles searching for x number of items or performing fetch quests. So much for Ron’s adventure making philosophy.

Of course, I’m probably reading too much into Return, it’s an ok classic adventure on its own, with some fun moments and occasional splashes of intelligence. I particularly enjoyed the minutes spent on board of a ghost ship and in the company of Stan who was arguably the best recurring character. And yet, as a Monkey Island sequel, I found it uninspired, rushed and unwanted, like the team was forced to make it instead of something else. Like milking a cow. Or joining a funk band. Or writing Thimbleweed Park 2. Or the *real* real Monkey Island 3.


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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Easy

SpaceVenture


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Sep 23, 2022 | edit | delete


Don't mind the title, it's Space Quest 30 years after


A lost license, a Kickstarter, 10 years spent in development hell, almost no news… up until September 2022 when the backers-only version was suddenly released. Do Andromeda Guys still have it? God yes! But there’s always a “but”.

The game’s a ride, both gameplay- and bugs-wise. I had to replay almost every section because of those, felt like walking through a minefield. I experienced every kind of bug possible and had to reload and restart multiple times, like in the good old days. It even froze during the bonus part which starts after credits stop rolling! And please, remember to enter the ship while you are fixing it, or the game will break itself.

SpaceVenture also feels dated and unfinished right from the start, with occasional graphical and sound glitches. Smart cursor is not all that smart, active areas don’t always highlight, so it’s easier to just click everything like in a classic Sierra game. Voice acting is great, but also messy: some lines are voiced, others — not, including the narrator whose voice actor did a great job impersonating Gary Owens (RIP) which adds a lot to the atmosphere.

I liked the idea behind the complex UI. Discovering it is kind of a puzzle itself, with all those numerous options (the app store parody was great fun!), but I see how it may become pain in the arse for many others, similar to Feeble Files. Combining items in particular is very cumbersome. A traditional Sierra interface would’ve worked better.

Where the game truly shines is humour and gameplay. SpaceVenture is funny, epic, well-written, a truly old-school Andromeda Guys game and a worthy successor to the Space Quest saga. Puzzle design is imaginative and often experimental, like the 3D physical puzzles which would be new to the series, but still feel right at home. They even included a space sim of sorts and managed to squeeze some jokes there too.

Overall I think they made good use of their engine, it really adds a new dimension to the old formula (unlike that pseudo 3D maze from SQ5). It just looks very dated and unpolished, like they found original assets from Space Quest 7 and continued from then on. At this point a port to Adventure Creator or some other professional engine would be more than welcome.

And while the game starts in a rather bland location, it actually gets better and better once you leave it and start fixing your ship to travel between various planets doing your plumber job and saving the galaxy. Gameplay becomes more relaxing and less linear as you are given several tasks to complete and can explore a bigger area LucasArts-style.

Local humour is a mix of old-school sarcasm and parodies with satire on modern entertainment industry, Facebook in particular as it’s part of the main plot. You can just lie down on your bed (like Ace does) and listen to half an hour of recorded parodies on TV shows and ads, very funny stuff.

I didn’t expect much from SpaceVenture and ended loving it. Yes, the current version is totally broken and unintuitive, probably doomed to be a spacegoat for many gamers and reviewers, but it’s this one game that brought my 1990s back. I can only hope Andromeda Guys will fix and update it before releasing to the public.


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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Just Right

Lost Horizon


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 27, 2022 | edit | delete


How Fenton Paddock once saved Shambhala from Nazis


Lost Horizon was a pleasant surprise. Yes, the protagonist and the whole story are blatant Indiana Jones rip-offs, and the game actually acknowledges it, not to mention some outrageous puzzle solutions reminiscent of the Tunguska games. And yet it has such a class - I almost forgot how much effort European developers put into those 2.5D adventure games back then. We don’t truly appreciate what we have until it’s gone.

Six chapters with plenty of locations to explore (Hong Kong, Tibet, Morocco, India, Nazi Olympics and a castle in Germany), surrounded by multiple movie and ag cliches/references that make up for a fairly long and exciting adventure. Not to mention art and animation that still hold very well: the devs felt no need to come up with excuses like “this is our vision and you will get used to rubber faces and abstract art”, all backgrounds are beautiful, some are even magnificent, same goes for cutscenes - and there are plenty of those, the hero is a clumsy badass who gets into all sort of trouble.

And while the gameplay is often hit and miss, with puzzles being both on easy and crazy side, it actually gets better with every chapter. The last two were my favourite, the one where we play as two characters stuck in different time periods in particular, similar to Day of the Tentacle. The game also successfully avoids timed/death sequences despite it often feels like there’s one on its way, even the last fighting scene (with some awesome choreography) feels like a parody of quick time events: you just choose your tactics and watch your character (the third protagonist) fight, always with different results. And then you could replay it in a “Bonus” menu.

Speaking of which, it also has another awesome addition that opens after you finish the game: a prototype game they developed 2 years earlier to attract producers. It plays like an additional chapter, or a short prequel, a game within a game! Wish more devs would’ve done that… Anyway, it might not be among the best adventures, but it’s definitely one of the more enjoyable games from the 2000s. Looking forward to the sequel!


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Time Played: 10-20 hours

Voodoo Detective


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Jun 14, 2022 | edit | delete


A Guybrush-inspired casual adventure about detectives and voodoo


Voodoo Detective is a very charming comedy game that could’ve been so much more. Having finished it in two sits, I got stuck only once on a surreal puzzle and then a bit more on a parody mini-game of sorts, also strangely out of place. This inconsistency could be seen in everything, from story to jokes to the general tone of the game, you can never be sure which direction it will take next.

At it’s core Voodoo Detective plays as a casual adventure, albeit heavily influenced by the LucasArts catalogue. The goals are clear, the puzzles are mostly straightforward and inventory-based. The one-button point-n-click interface and the lack of hot spots make it even easier to solve. It breaks my heart to think how criminally underused are those detailed locations reminiscent of Curse of Monkey Island which could’ve been stuffed with interactive objects and puzzles. Instead the local tavern or a graveyard, for example, are used only once or twice to solve a fetch quest or cast a spell.

Still I applause some unorthodox uses of items and voodoo spells in particular. Speaking of which, the Grammy’s book of Voodoo was a neat idea, a mix of potion cooking from Kyrandia 2 and voodoo doll making from Monkey Island 2. The spells vary from simple sleeping/love potions to a spell that frees our soul and moves it to another dimension. Alas, the game allows us to make each spell only once and only when it serves our current goal (then again, Kyrandia 2 had similar design and nobody blamed it for that).

I also found the game quite amusing, and some moments felt so silly that just thinking of them makes me smile again, like the - already infamous - toilet handle puzzle along with the toilet boy who takes his job too seriously. Or the captain of the ship where the most influential locals conduct their meetings who looks and acts like the most cliched stereotypical dirty pirate they could’ve come up with. Or a scene inside one of the hotel rooms… Those sort of “Wait, what?” moments worked better on me than many visual gags - and there’s no shortage of those, they are just too childish.

Detective himself was a solid and pretty unique character, and the music numbers that involved him were wonderful. That’s right, he is carrying a harmonica in his pocket and he is not afraid to use it. Always wanted a hero who can play musical instrument on occasions, and here it is even an essential part of some puzzles! Music in general and voice acting in particular are of very high standards, it’s always great to find so much quality in a modern adventure. The game feels like it could use a sequel or two, I just wish more effort will be put into the game design next time around.


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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Easy

Feeble Files, The


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on May 18, 2022 | edit | delete


A great adventure buried somewhere beneath all the frustration


So you are a talented adventure developer with a superpower to switch between genres to equally great results (Elvira / Simon the Sorcerer / Call of Cthulhu), whose entire family has been in this business since the early 1980s. And you decide to create a dystopian satire of Brazil or They Live proportions years before it becomes a reality in the 21st century. And you come up with a brave new world populated by stereotypical aliens and ruled by a powerful OmniBrain who orders everyone to be happy under a threat of extermination, who sees almost every action as some violation and inspires citizens to report neighbors and even themselves. The background is so reach that you even feel a need to include a big in-game encyclopedia which grows twice at one point.

The story is equally long, both grim and funny, characters are lovable and voiced by the famous British comics, satire - effective. Not to mention some brilliantly complex multi-step puzzles that obviously took a lot of time to design. So why, instead of joining instant classics such as Zork: Grand Inquisitor, Grim Fandango and The Adventures of Woodruff, this game got a reputation of an instant disaster? Because, as it seems, AdventureSoft went to all the trouble to create the most unfriendly and sadistic gaming experience, breaking every rule, just like Feeble does (don’t hesitate to check the extending list of “crimes” he commits for more laughs - that is, if you dare to play the game).

It is slow, VERY slow. The cumbersome Feeble slowly walks through locations with fewer hot spots than in some of the most recent walking sims, running fetch quests and hunting pixels. Then you’ll get to play as two equally slow characters at once, navigating them through empty jungle screens that scroll in all directions - hours and hours of pointless walking. There’s also at least one moment when the game freezes without warning and asks for a slow replay. And wait for a time loop sequence that extends to a whole level with every wrong step leading to an instant replay.

Puzzle solving is made even worse by the atrocious interface based around ORACLE - a portable computer where both the inventory and the aforementioned encyclopedia are stored in two separate and very tiny windows (think Nintendo DS), as well as several ugly cursor icons that look near identical, with the “use item” command resetting as soon as you click on something. But even if you get used to this traumatic experience, you are in for a surprise as somewhere in the middle of the road you’ll have to complete a bunch of VERY annoying mini-games without saving in-between…

There’s a big chance you’d uninstall Feeble by this point. Which is a shame, because what follows is one of the most beautifully constructed logic puzzles that requires you to figure out a complex code. And, of course, a rendezvous with SAM - the funniest killer robot you’ll ever meet. The rest of the game has more cutscenes than the actual gameplay if I remember correctly. Yes, I did manage to beat it when I was younger, just to prove myself something, but I’m not ready to repeat it today and can’t recommend Feeble to anyone. It just hates me, us, all adventurers for no reason. Maybe it was some special way of warning us of OmniBrain? Wink-wink.


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Time Played: Over 20 hours
Difficulty: Very Hard

Buddy Simulator 1984


Stars - 20

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 20, 2022 | edit | delete


Quest for Buddy: Too postmodern to be enjoyed


This one is weirdly named, and it plays just as weird - or at least it tries to. We take the role of us, a PC user during an alternative 1984 who installs this Buddy Simulator 1984 programme with a self-learning AI and the only goal in its, eh, life: to become our best buddy. In order to do so it studies some alternative facts about us, inspects our (hopefully) alternative computer and starts building “a perfect gaming experience” that advances both technically and gameplay-wise as we play. The AI keeps pushing its “buddy” agenda further and further, becoming more and more intrusive, and a number of “glitches” along the way hint there’s something wrong to all this situation.

It starts as a simplified interactive fiction which turns into an early graphical adventure which is then upgraded to a 3D-like JRPG. I really liked the concept and meta humour at first as I hadn’t played many games of this sort before (not counting a wonderfully crazy There Is No Game). Only later I learned that a whole subgenre of “anti-games” exists which started with the 1997 PS exclusive moon: Remix RPG Adventure and continued in more up-to-date games such as Undertale and The Sexy Brutale. They are all different, but what unites them is this postmodern approach of “breaking” traditional mechanics and promoting non-violent gaming. But here the solo developer went a bit further and broke this - originally cute - concept, now for real.

I admit, the game is pretty immersive and even imitates the earlier days of PC gaming, with the “green monitor” effect and distant sounds from the street being part of the gameplay, although it’s still too ugly graphically. It may be just me since I discovered video games during the 1990s, missing the majority of earlier releases, and I probably can’t fully enjoy this kind of throwbacks. But even then it felt unnecessarily simplified and undercooked to me, sacrificing its core gameplay(s) for the sake of a questionable storyline.

For example, the parser in the IF part is very basic, using just a handful of commands and nouns we learn immediately, so we can’t do much rather than follow a linear plot. Then it turns into a primitive Zelda/Ultima clone, we even find a sword and start hitting everything with it, but to no results, because the environment is non-interactive and we are meant to play it safe, like a primitive adventure. Even the pet the programme creates for us based on our description always looks like a hound. Accompanied by a zebra named Zebra that looks like a pixel dog - nice work, AI!

And when we move to the “JRPG” part, the game suddenly turns into a QTE simulator, filled with turn-based combat where we have to push random pop-up buttons non-stop. That’s when I lost my patience and finished the game at Youtube - to no regrets, as it ends with a series of depressing script scenes which buried the experience for me. To add to the frustration, it’s also glitchy - in a bad, unintentional way. There’s no save feature, only autosave, and thus at one point I had to replay half of the game after hitting a dead end.

I wish I enjoyed it more, I really do. It starts so innocent and lighthearted, but ends as a disturbing, claustrophobic and simply unpleasant anti-game - which, in this case, is not a complement.


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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Easy

Rama


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 19, 2022 | edit | delete


Rama, drama, Myst-orama


One of Sierra’s attempts to monetise on the success of Myst released same year as Shivers and Lighthouse, but also with Arthur C. Clarke’s name attached which was unusual for this company. Well, technically speaking it was made by Dynamix, but it has “Sierra” written all over it and owns a lot to their late SCI engine, pre-rendered graphics mixed with FMV and interface that takes half of the screen space. Similar to many renewed sci-fi authors of that time, Clarke didn’t hesitate to participate in development, and neither did his partner Gentry Lee who is even credited as a designer.

While I’m not their greatest fan, the Rama universe seemed to be really fitting the adventure format. The story might feel a bit confusing for those unfamiliar with the novels (like myself), but there are many clues left to figure it out. Basically there’s this huge spaceship turned into a planet, inhabited by three different races, and we are part of a space expedition sent to explore it. Everything else is up to us to discover. Clarke himself constantly appears as soon as we do something wrong and die horribly to lecture us on some important topics which is a nice touch.

Rama is a solid adventure, certainly inspired by Myst, but with a better presentation. First of all, the story is told not via countless notes and books, but through video messages, conversations with aliens and fellow researches who sneak around, and that’s definitely how I prefer it - I had nightmares about those volumes of handwritten texts from Cyan’s games! Here you never feel lonely, there’s even some serious drama awaiting near the end. Most actors try their best, and the way they are integrated into the gameworld is near-perfect: FMV figures interact with the CGI environment like they naturally would.

The planet is big enough, consisting of three smaller areas to explore (named after capitals of Earth despite having nothing in common with them or with each other), although I admit it doesn’t draw you in as much as Myst or Riven, it just misses something extra that made those games feel like living, breathing worlds, even without much interactivity.

In Rama all areas feel a lot less empty and rich in activities. A small avatar we carry in our pocket (based on William Shakespeare’s Puck) works as a substitute for a “look” cursor and sometimes gives hints. There are plenty of challenges, and from the beginning it is obvious that the game was made by someone with a good knowledge of science and math. A vast majority of puzzles are dedicated to learning alien cultures, alphabets, numeral systems, customs which is always fun. Inventory puzzles are also presented - in fact so much that very soon our inventory becomes crammed with both useful items and red herrings. And since we can’t get rid of them, by the end the search for a necessary item in our inventory turns into a challenge itself.

There are labyrinth-like corridors connecting some of the areas, but they are easy to navigate. The areas themselves - not so much, as with most other slideshow adventures. I constantly felt lost, spinning around and jumping from one corner of the map to another, trying to figure out the right path. I wish they just waited a year and ported Rama to the engine with 360º panning used in the more advanced Shivers II. This would’ve also allowed to polish the gameplay.

It is often described by some as ‘one of the hardest in its genre’. Personally I didn’t need a walkthrough, but had to replay a couple of levels a number of times because of some weird design choices. It’s like Sierra felt the game was on a short side, so the last part was artificially extended by a lengthy timed sequence. And it wouldn’t be all that bad if the timer functioned properly. Instead it followed it’s own logic, I barely had time to explore and solve everything, even when I knew what to do! And when I finally got to the last puzzle, the timer told me I… still had an hour and a half left to mess with it. Go figure.

But certainly a lot of effort went into making of Rama. It is beautiful, atmospheric, with varied gameplay and plenty of neat details often absent from similar games. Too bad we never saw a sequel which had been promised during the ending credits, but then we haven’t seen much of Sierra since 1999. Rama stands out as a monument to the epoch when true sci-fi still existed and the world-famous authors didn’t just sell their names, but were integral part of the adventure-making process. No other genre saw so many living legends working as game developers, nor ever will.


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Time Played: 10-20 hours
Difficulty: Hard

Galador: The Prince and the Coward


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 13, 2022 | edit | delete


Not horrible, I just forgot why


Galador might be one of the most forgettable games ever. I bought it long time ago, back when the genre was proclaimed dead, yet somehow European market was chock full of cheap adventure games: you could basically visit your local store and buy a new ag from almost any country on the continent. This one also didn’t go unnoticed, it was even advertised in gaming mags. I don’t remember whether it was a present or I just bought it myself, but I played a bit of it and uninstalled, being put off by the horrible localisation (guess some things just don’t translate). And completely forgot about it for years.

In 2021 I was reminded of its existence. By that time it was ported to ScummVM and translated into English, so I found my CD and played it till the end. And then completely forgot about it once again! A year has passed, and now I’m reading a review on this website, thinking “Oh yeah, there was this adventure… I wonder if I should play it”. Only to realise that I had in fact finished it last year.

What’s more, I found my own short review at the forums where I wrote that “it’s a pretty solid classic adventure with plenty of nice animations, some good humour and ok puzzles for the most part up until the last chapters when it becomes almost impossible. Had to finish it with a walkthrough by my hand, and I’m not proud of it”. This does ring a bell.

The game indeed has some good parts (mostly art/animation) mixed with some bad parts (gameplay-related), but it is writing that makes it so hard to remember. The developers created yet another parody fantasy world with a bit of everything thrown in, from wizards, dragons and vampires to ancient gods and demons, but didn’t bother to come up with any sort of storyline or at least some interesting setting for them, ending with an unremarkable series of quests that make you run between colourful, but unconnected locations.

Don’t expect to find a new Discworld here, it’s just not, not even close, even though the game tries really hard to look like one. Now let me forget about it once again…


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Time Played: 10-20 hours
Difficulty: Hard

Sam & Max Hit the Road


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 12, 2022 | edit | delete


100% natural Sam & Max


If someone around you doubts that adventures used to rule the industry, hit them with Hit the Road. Released during the spree of fat-budget high-quality games still guided by natural talents and creative freedom rather than media, marketeers and collective efforts of corporate slaves, this game belongs to a museum, next to Mona Lisa. It is heads and rabbits above not just the rest of the Sam & Max franchise, but all other 2D cartoon games in general.

Animation in Hit the Road is gorgeous, smooth and jaw-dropping, it’s one visual gag after another, animation for the sake of animation, and it feels so authentic! Unlike many other counterparts such as Toonstruck, Torin’s Passage or Day of the Tentacle which simply copied the Warner Bros. or Disney cartoon styles, here the team led by the multi-talented Steve Purcell created something of their own. A loony - and in a very, totally nuts sense - world feels absolutely natural and alive, exactly what an established comic book would look like if it came to life.

The pair of detectives travel on their old DeSoto from one corner of the map of the United States to another like it’s no big deal, visiting a whole bunch of fictional tourist traps on their way, and discovering them is a treat to the eyes and your imagination. All locations are full of bright colours, very rich in detail and like nothing you’ve ever seen: my favourite was the Celebrity Vegetable Museum in Texas where they could grow up your favourite celebrity face out of a vegetable of your choice.

Of the two Max the rabbit stands out as the main source of fun, entertaining himself by poking his fingers everywhere, jumping on beds or simply looking back at you with the wide grin over his face. And, of course, he could be used in many creative - and destructive - ways to solve puzzles which are another strong point of this great adventure. Of course, you really have to learn to think Sam & Max-style in order to succeed. I don’t remember how many weeks I spent during my first playthrough, but even today I get stuck on a thing or two.

Other characters you meet on your way are fairly insane as well, and what they say and do, while often just plain out funny, is not meant to entertain us, viewers, - it’s how they naturally act in this universe. Which gives a certain sense of involvement, but it’s also where my main problem with the game lies. I know it’s only a small sip of comics entertainment that wasn’t meant to get under your skin, but I always felt disconnected from most of the characters. Oh, yet another weirdo briefly introduced to us, righty so. Even the antagonists feel underdeveloped, like something we shouldn’t worry about. And we won’t after 2/3 of the game. In fact an already thin storyline ends at that point, and the rest 1/3 plays like a whole new quest that was added at the last minute to make Sam & Max last a bit longer.

Yes, it’s a game written by artists and programmers, same as many other games back then. And I can’t really complain here - deadpan comments by Sam alone are enough to make you roar with laughter. It’s that I wish it was something more than just a running joke, like The Secret of Monkey Island with its many moments that made it so memorable and resulted in a line of equally great sequels. With Sam & Max they waited 10 years to greenlight one, it was too late, the development stopped, the company died, and the episodes by Telltale that followed felt far less focused or mature than the original game (not to mention they were much uglier). So if you have to choose, always, always Hit the Road!


Read the review »

Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Just Right

Perfect Tides


Stars - 20

Rating by Doom posted on Mar 20, 2022 | edit | delete


Far from perfect


What could possibly go wrong with a game designed after Sierra’s classics? A lot, as it turns out. I know that Meredith Gran, who is a well-known comic artist, is also a long-time adventure fan, and the retro design of Perfect Tides is intentional, yet I failed to find a game here. I read some feedback following the release, and many praise it for a) nostalgic early Internet era, and b) the protagonist they can relate to. Not the actual story, gameplay or even possible message behind Mara’s experience as a teenager - and for good reasons, as there’s a surprising lack of any plot, puzzles or moral behind this, em, media. Yet somehow it is generally accepted as a great game.

Which is all the more surprising as I found Tides to be a failure both as a character study and a nostalgia trip. Despite I also grew up during the 1990s-2000s and spent a lot of time surfing Internet rather than socializing, I can’t and I don’t want to relate to the character of Mara - hardly a misunderstood teen writer with the heart of gold, but rather a lazy, autistic, selfish and simply dull girl as it seems, lacking any skills or ambitions. She is constantly checking a forum and chatting with a couple of online friends (and that’s all nostalgia you’ll get, don’t expect anything even remotely resembling the magic of Hypnospace: Outlaw), but never - writing. And I doubt she could write at all: her messy room shows no signs of literature, she has limited interests and poor sense of humour, she hates classes, forgets to do her homework and takes no participation in school activities unlike her close friend, and at the end of the day (year, to be exact) she learns practically nothing.

The story starts (and ends) on a tiny remote island near New York, a gay resort inspired by the real-life Fire Island where not much else happens after summer ends - and we’ll witness it as we’ll get to play through all four seasons. A bunch of locals spend their lives either sitting at their homes and waiting for another holiday season, or pursuing careers at “the big land”. There is hardly any community to speak of, this strange enclave society consists mostly of lonely and unmotivated people who show no signs of social life, including Mara’s own dysfunctional family.

Mara herself is ready to break up with those few friends she has as soon as she learns that they are moving away from this boring island. Although her friends are not much better, be it a gay writer who lives on the outskirts in a huge mansion and spends days lying on the floor doing nothing, or a couple of punks from the mainland who just wander around - you guessed it, doing nothing. In fact most people she meets are either misfits or lowlifes who are mainly attracted to Mara in a sexual way. Which usually feels more disturbing than comic since it’s a 15-turning-16-looking-12 year old girl we are talking here.

To be honest, I didn’t think any part of this game was funny at all, despite people tend to find it amusing. While some of the pixel animations made me smile simply because they were so good (praise to the animators!), Mara’s awkward mumbling as she tries to maintain dialogue or tired Nazi jokes on every occasion (she’s Jewish, so she’s afraid of Nazis, get it, get it?!) are examples of poor writing in my book, and the rest of the game mostly consists of hollow conversations, conflicts and Mara’s inner experience, not even remotely funny. All this really hurts the game, because, as I wrote, there is no game to speak of.

While visually Tides comes close to a mediocre Sierra adventure (the art is hit-and-miss, with some screens looking nicely detailed, and some - very generic), gameplay-wise it lacks any challenge, and it feels kinda surreal with the oldschool interface attached. If not for a couple of puzzles and pixel hunting instances, it could’ve been easily misplaced for a visual novel. A plotless novel, that’s it. There’s basically no story development! Our protagonist either creates a stupid situation out of thin air and tries to resolve it (but usually just suffers and cries in agony) or, like her friends, wanders around aimlessly. One might say: “Duuude, that’s what teenagers usually do”. But I’ll have to disagree since me, my friends and many other people I know also happened to be young.

Even this one game offers at least two characters who are always busy doing something useful, be it part-time jobs, various extracurricular activities or simple friendly gestures. Why are we stuck with this annoying girl? We are not even allowed to influence important events, despite it supposed to be part of the gameplay. Yes, we’ll make a bunch of choices along the way (some of them hardly influence anything at all), yet the scenes crucial for Mara’s relationships with family and friends are always played as cutscenes where she immediately starts acting like a douche. By the fourth season I got so tired of her and her environment that I couldn’t care less if she would fix anything in her life or not. There are no victims here, really, only one stupid teen.


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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy

Another Tomorrow


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on Mar 12, 2022 | edit | delete


Mediocre puzzle adventure to spend a lonely night with


There’s nothing really special about this game. Could’ve been released 10, 20, 30 years ago, and nobody would’ve noticed it. Fairly short, very simple in presentation and straightforward in setting goals, Another Tomorrow is a work of two people designed as a collection of logic puzzles scattered throughout 8 locations and loosely connected by an unimportant plot line.

Most of those puzzles are of Myst variety: we need to find a combination scrambled somewhere, make a photo of it (or remember/write it down if you want to play oldschool-style) and solve a puzzle accordingly. Of course, the game itself is no Myst as we are usually locked between 4-6 screens and can’t move on until we solve everything to receive a new “clue” and open a new location. The number of puzzles in general is solid, some of them are trickier than the rest, especially during later sections, there are even inventory items to pick up and use, and yet, again, there is nothing we haven’t seen many times before. And wait for it… There’s even a classical paper-under-the-door trick. In 2022!

The journey will take us through sewers, abandoned motels and apartment buildings, a hangar and an ancient temple for a change, and it’s just as exciting as it sounds. The visuals are bland, the isometric perspective is interesting at first until you realise that its purpose is to minimize production values even more. And yet… yet there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it - if puzzles is what you are looking for. With so many modern games being story/narrative-driven and lacking any challenge you’ll probably feel right at home, at least for a short period of time.


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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Easy

Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Mar 11, 2022 | edit | delete


Great and epic, but a remake wouldn't hurt at all


Access are among the most dedicated adventure developers, I always knew that. Even when adventures started turning into a niche genre, the team continued writing complex stories, creating fully interactive worlds and designing puzzles that made your hair turn gray. You can tell how much fun Chris Jones had creating those Tex Murphy “interactive movies” by just, well, watching him acting as Tex. In Pandora he proved to be not just a campy amateur, but a good enough drama actor, and Adrian Carr - a great director. In fact acting in general significantly improved since the last time, making it one of the most rewarding FMV experiences up to date.

While the game still follows B-movie tropes, with jokes and gags scattered around, it is more story-heavy and serious in tone than the previous installments. The non-linearity and multiple paths add new layers to a cliched sci-fi conspiracy plot, and writing really shines during dialogues and Tex’s narration. He has something funny to say about every tiny object on the screen - and there are tons of 3D locations in this game. Imagine how much work went into making.

It took me not just over 20 hours, but over 20 years to finish! And while I love long, complex adventures, this way wasn’t paved with flowers, oh no. Last time I played it, I was about half through the game when I got hopelessly stuck on a long and confusing timed sequence and finally quit in frustration. This time around I fought through this part, but soon got stuck in a maze with a not very fun twist, then - on an infamously overcomplicated logic puzzle, and then there was another maze with a midsection that inevitably led you to breaking your keyboard into pieces because of the navigational problems.

And I haven’t even mentioned numerous sliding and jigsaw puzzles. Yes, I know, it’s a good oldschool frustration that used to mark true adventure spirit since the beginning of our times, but was it really necessary to fill the game of this length and scope with such unfriendly and cliched game stoppers? Of course, there’s always an easier difficulty level which makes it less frustrating, but I couldn’t bring myself to try it. As Monkey Island taught me, I want it all, all the puzzles, all the work! So let me just praise Pandora while expressing hope that it will become an even better adventure with the upcoming remaster.


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Time Played: Over 20 hours
Difficulty: Very Hard

Legend of Kyrandia: The Hand of Fate (Fables & Fiends), The


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 16, 2022 | edit | delete

Almost My Floor


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 5, 2022 | edit | delete


Nice comedy-horror to spend an evening with


In fact I think calling Almost My Floor a “horror game” is a bit of an exaggeration. It’s surrealistic, maybe even lovecraftian, but it hardly ever takes itself seriously. It starts as a pure comedy about some loser who desperately tries to get into his flat in a filthy apartment which suddenly turns into a monster house filled with evil eyes, tentacles, green goo and other oh-so-creepy cliches that might even attack the hero, but more often they just gaze at him from walls. What follows is your classical “dreams vs. reality” case (consult Father Ted) where we see the world through those dreamy eyes and try to understand what’s real and what’s not and get away alive if possible. Or at least try and do something about the situation while learning the story behind the house and its inhabitants in the process. Another playable character - a very nice and sober PI - also helps to shed some light.

It should be said that the story, while nothing special, is still pretty decent for a 3 hour game. It’s no The Cat Lady, that’s for sure (despite I felt familiar vibes), but the way we gather information from scattered pieces was nicely done. I also enjoyed the silliness (in a good, self-aware way) of many of those visions that prevented the game from becoming stressful or depressing. Alex fights spider coffee mugs and toothy plants, confronts an ill-tempered goblin cleaning lady and tricks a huge red blob with a Peter Griffin’s evil smile on its… face? Whatever. It is possible to solve some of these and other problems either by brute force or by applying the remains of Alex’s logic, in which case he may consult his evil and good beings who appear out of thin air and start a short quarrel. Proven, but tasteful humour.

And the game does have both puzzles and action, it’s not an interactive novel as someone might’ve thought judging from the screenshots. Both elements carry little challenge, not to mention that the heroes often find themselves locked in just one-two locations, making Almost My Floor closer to a casual game, but the activities are still varied enough to entertain. In fact a couple of puzzles were pretty smart and could be reworked for a bigger game. Alex may - and will - also die from time to time (after which a huge, proud DEATH sign appears and the game takes you back for a replay) which is refreshing for modern stellar adventures.

The distinctive comic look and surprisingly effective point-n-click interface (seriously, it’s probably one of the best adventure interfaces I’ve seen recently, while all action sequences are also played with one mouse button) make it a very user-friendly experience despite the macabre themes. I was even more surprised to learn that the whole thing was developed by a small husband-and-wife team. So it’s only natural to expect that their next games will become bigger and better - and, hopefully, more complex. But it’s a great start.


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Time Played: 2-5 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy

Saint Kotar


Stars - 15

Rating by Doom posted on Jan 15, 2022 | edit | delete


Kotarstrophic


I invested about 5 hours into this game and I think I’m done with it forever. With a solid 2.5D presentation Saint Kotar looked very promising, like a new Black Mirror, or a new Black Mirror 2. Unfortunately, all similarities ended right there. After 5 hours I still can’t understand what the game tries to be: a dark fantasy of the Twin Peaks legacy, with characters acting “weird” for the sake of it, a Gothic fairy tale by modern Brothers Grimm or an Italian-inspired horror that just throws nasty stuff at you. It doesn’t work either way around.

Both writing, storytelling and puzzle design are of very poor quality. There are plenty of locations to visit, but there’s very little to do since there are no challenges to be found anywhere. 5% of the gameplay consists of such epic quests as “go to the next room and look what’s in there”. The rest of the time we are just walking, talking and suffering from what we hear. In fact dialogues were so bad that I stopped caring about characters, their motivations and those moral choices we can make very early into the game. And what kind of moral choice is it anyway when both our actions lead to a character’s certain death?

I rarely dislike games so much, but this one left me no choice. Saint Kotar is a lost opportunity. It could’ve marked a new return of quality 2.5D adventures if only the devs knew how to develop games. Instead it looks like they did the art first and only then tried to come up with some story and gameplay to accompany it. This never works, especially if you are not David Lynch. And Red Martyr are not.


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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy

Dig, The


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Jan 13, 2022 | edit | delete

Minute of Islands


Stars - 10

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 21, 2021 | edit | delete


Poor man's platformer


I played Minute of Islands straight after reading a raving 5-star review. And since the game was developed by the guys behind the Inner World series which I enjoyed (especially the second game), I was expecting nothing more than a masterpiece. Talk about overrating. I actually managed to finish only 2 out of 4 levels and watched the rest at Youtube on quick speed. For starters, it’s not an adventure, but a very uninspired, casual platformer with few basic and repetative puzzles thrown in. It’s VERY linear and EXTREMELY boring.

Each level basically plays like this: you slowly cross the central island to your boat and head for some other island; on your way you experience a sick dream after entering a yellow fog where you collect several floating creatures in the right order (which counts for a puzzle), then arrive to your destination and start looking for 2 or 3 switches you have to activate. But you can’t just explore the island the way you want - you have to follow one predetermined path and reach the switches in one predetermined order. Most of the time you just climb ledges, up and down, back and forth. There are invisible walls everywhere, so you can’t, for example, jump off a high ledge to get to the point - you slowly climb from one ledge to another. And this is all you do. Sometimes you pull levers that manipulate elevators or open doors just before you. Sometimes you push crates or alike to free your path. Sometimes you look for a key to unlock a door. A very basic platformer stuff.

You can also “collect memories” on your way which are also represented by 10-12 floating creatures. After you catch one, a monotonous voice which belongs to the narrator (there is no other voiceover in the game) reads 2-3 sentences, something like “Mo used to play with her sister in this hole. Those were the days”, and that’s all you get. All this time you have to stand still and listen to this dull, pointless “storytelling”. When you are finally done at the island, you have to make all the long way back to your boat and return to the previous island where you have to wake up one of the four sleeping giants by… reaching and activating another 2 or 3 power sources. Only this time instead of colorful islands you jump through some grey undeground maze - again, very linear and repetative, with constant backtracking and zero fun.

The whole game makes up for 5-6 hours, I tried to give it a chance and wasted around 3 hours on it, and those were some of the longest hours of my life. Yes, Minute looks pretty in Adventure Time’s sort of way, but that’s obvioulsy not enough. I enjoy a good platromer just like I enjoy a good adventure, but this one is neither. The devs should finally understand one simple thing: you don’t make an adventure game by simply stripping a platformer or an FPS off all the shooting and death encounters. You also have to ADD something, like Lair of the Clockwork God did. This empty game just tries your patience.


Read the review »

Time Played: 2-5 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy

Strangeland


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 21, 2021 | edit | delete

Runaway: A Twist of Fate


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 21, 2021 | edit | delete

Primordia


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 21, 2021 | edit | delete

Indigo Prophecy


Stars - 20

Rating by Doom posted on Jun 19, 2021 | edit | delete

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on May 27, 2021 | edit | delete

Mutropolis


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on May 18, 2021 | edit | delete


Archeology, sci-fi and comedy, a near-perfect blend


Mutropolis, what a pleasant, adorable adventure. Made by just TWO people from Madrid. Incredible! Somehow I kept thinking of Broken Age while playing it due to similar art style, although I would add it is everything Broken Age COULD’VE been if Tim Schafer did it his way instead of listening to his fans and backers. Mutropolis, on the other hand, stays true to the genre roots while also adding many fresh ideas and inventive puzzles along the way.

The story is about a team of archaeologists from a far-away future who research the 20-21th centuries, same as we are researching ancient times. This adds a lot of fun to an already wacky futuristic world which, unlike some other recent sci-fi adventures, DOES in fact feel like a properly developed universe, with each screen containing references to both past and present. Digging into Egyptian mythology also feels appropriate as this way we are introduced to one of the most charming and funny companion characters, while the protagonist acts a lot like modern Guybrush Threepwood WITH BRAINS.

The game oozes with that “easy to get into and lots to discover” atmosphere of LucasArts games. There are only 3 chapters, with the first basically consisting of one screen and the other two - maybe of dozen screens each, and yet the game never gets claustrophobic or tedious. In fact it feels very OPEN-WORLD, there is so much to do and discover, no task is forced or illogical, even when we are exploring a huge map for the fifth time. There was this traditional “collect 3 items” puzzle, for example, which involved a smaller multi-step puzzle which, in turn, consisted of an even smaller multi-step puzzles, and yet I was never lost, nothing felt out of the “scientific” context.

The game is very pretty as long as you accept this art style (I needed some time to be honest, but it quickly grew on me), the work with light and colours is truly outstanding. Voiceovers are also of high quality. There’s really little to dislike about this intelligent little game. Maybe the developers got a bit carried away during the last - and longest - chapter which takes place in the jungle and plays more like Indiana Jones rather than The Dig. But at the end of the day they’re all about ARCHEOLOGY, a topic which should be more presented in adventures since it works so damn well.


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Time Played: 10-20 hours
Difficulty: Just Right

Lost Words: Beyond the Page


Stars - 20

Rating by Doom posted on May 14, 2021 | edit | delete

Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark, The


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on May 5, 2021 | edit | delete

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 26, 2021 | edit | delete

TOHU


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 26, 2021 | edit | delete

Inspector Waffles


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 23, 2021 | edit | delete


Waffles & Spotty hit the road


Inspector Waffles came as a pleasant surprise despite it’s light on puzzles. At one point I decided to replay a chapter and quickly clicked through 2 hours of my life in like 10 minutes - it’s that heavy on dialogues. But I didn’t mind it, because writing in this game is so good. Certainly inspired by The Darkside Detective, sharing similar art style, only - to my taste - much, much better. I loved the world this French author created, with anthropomorphic pets playing on both animal and human stereotypes. The main cat-dog duo, Inspector Waffles and his sidekick Spotty, are excellent and grow on you with each chapter, and so does… the other playable duo introduced only briefly.

The world of Waffles is bigger and more detailed than in Darkside Detective, and the game gave me many Lucas Arts vibes. It never tries too hard to be funny or serious, but often succeeds in both ways. There are nice inventory puzzles that require thinking outside the box - again, very traditional Lucas Arts stuff. And there are collectables you may reveal during your journey (why I had to replay a chapter): they add extra scenes to the ending as well as extra fun since they are basically extra puzzles.

In addition, the author made clever use of dialogues by introducing mechanics that also plays like a puzzle. In order to get something out of characters you have to gather clues first and then smartly use them during interrogations. “Clues” could be anything you reveal during your investigation, from case-related leads to random information related to your current needs as well as inventory items. Sure, you can always brute force through dialogues by choosing every clue/item available - I did that several times early into the game, but then realised it was much more satisfying to connect dots in your head.

All in all, Waffles is a cute, colourful and funny take on the noir genre. Its a bit on the short side and I wouldn’t mind playing another chapter of this length, but for a debut game it’s a great achievement. Waiting for a sequel!


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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Easy

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Mar 5, 2021 | edit | delete

Oknytt


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 23, 2021 | edit | delete

There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Nov 29, 2020 | edit | delete

Lighthouse: The Dark Being


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Oct 27, 2020 | edit | delete

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs


Stars - 10

Rating by Doom posted on Oct 27, 2020 | edit | delete

Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on Sep 10, 2020 | edit | delete

Beautiful Desolation


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Sep 6, 2020 | edit | delete

Cat Lady, The


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Aug 29, 2020 | edit | delete

Röki


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Aug 26, 2020 | edit | delete

Lair of the Clockwork God


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 7, 2020 | edit | delete

Shivers Two: Harvest of Souls


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 5, 2020 | edit | delete

Silent Age, The


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 1, 2020 | edit | delete

Tormentum: Dark Sorrow


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on May 28, 2020 | edit | delete

Whispers of a Machine


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on May 18, 2020 | edit | delete

Memoria


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 17, 2020 | edit | delete

Disco Elysium


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 14, 2020 | edit | delete

Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav, The


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 28, 2020 | edit | delete

A.D. 2044


Stars - 20

Rating by Doom posted on Dec 8, 2019 | edit | delete

Hypnospace Outlaw


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Nov 10, 2019 | edit | delete

Edna & Harvey: Harvey's New Eyes


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Oct 20, 2019 | edit | delete

Sumatra: Fate of Yandi


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on Sep 27, 2019 | edit | delete

Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Sep 26, 2019 | edit | delete

Blade Runner


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on Sep 20, 2019 | edit | delete

Irony Curtain: From Matryoshka with Love


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on May 27, 2019 | edit | delete


A 70-year-old joke


I read in some promotional material that the game satirizing communism was made by people “who lived there”. The devs are Poles who indeed lived under communism for 40 years. And yet their game feels little more than a collection of all cold war cliches about Soviet Russia. The country of Matryoshka is presented as a post-apocalyptic society with decayed red-grey settings and endless Stalin/vodka/Gulag jokes. Same game could’ve been easily made by Americans or Brits. In fact Russians themselves made Red Comrades Save the Galaxy some 20 years ago that worked much better as a satire.

That’s not to say that the devs were trying to make a quick buck - despite the depressing setting the game is stylishly drawn and animated with lots of neat details and references. Evan the protagonist himself is a mix of Guybrush, Larry and Rufus. Another source of humour is inventory: the interface allows to manipulate items in a close-up view, and boy do I admire the fantasy of those artists who drew them.

Puzzles are of traditional sort, and there are lots of them - in fact too many for my taste. Taking that the game usually locks you up in 2-3 locations, the inventory-heavy gameplay gets frustrating at times, like in the 2nd chapter when Evan is running in circles doing 10+ fetch quests at once. By the time I received the key item I forgot who even asked me to bring it and why. And the further we move, the more linear and obscure it gets. There are also a bunch of logic puzzles and mini-games thrown in (mostly hitting-the-right-picture sort), none are too exciting.

No surprises in the story department as well, everything is obvious from the start. What I found ironic though is that during the final segments the game that satirized propaganda turns into propaganda itself, gloryfying American special forces that bring peace all over the world. That’s not how satire works, comrades, especially in 2019.


Read the review »

Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Easy

Guard Duty


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on May 8, 2019 | edit | delete

Beneath a Steel Sky


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on May 2, 2019 | edit | delete

Mage's Initiation: Reign of the Elements


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 16, 2019 | edit | delete

Forgotton Anne


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 12, 2019 | edit | delete

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 12, 2019 | edit | delete

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Jan 17, 2019 | edit | delete

Toonstruck


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on Dec 28, 2018 | edit | delete

Return of the Obra Dinn


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on Nov 9, 2018 | edit | delete

Post Mortem


Stars - 20

Rating by Doom posted on Oct 21, 2018 | edit | delete

Amber: Journeys Beyond


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Oct 15, 2018 | edit | delete

Darkside Detective, The


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Oct 2, 2018 | edit | delete

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on Sep 14, 2018 | edit | delete

Shivers


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Sep 14, 2018 | edit | delete

Unavowed


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on Aug 22, 2018 | edit | delete

Little Kite


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 30, 2018 | edit | delete

Detective Gallo


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on Jun 28, 2018 | edit | delete

Kathy Rain


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on Jun 20, 2018 | edit | delete

Unforeseen Incidents


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on Jun 19, 2018 | edit | delete

Karma. Incarnation 1


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on May 5, 2018 | edit | delete

Earthworms


Stars - 20

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 25, 2018 | edit | delete

Full Pipe


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 25, 2018 | edit | delete

Botanicula


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 25, 2018 | edit | delete

CHUCHEL


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 24, 2018 | edit | delete

Apocalipsis: Harry at the End of the World


Stars - 15

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 23, 2018 | edit | delete

Technobabylon


Stars - 35

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 23, 2018 | edit | delete

Gorogoa


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Jan 9, 2018 | edit | delete

Inner World: The Last Wind Monk, The


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Jan 1, 2018 | edit | delete

Paradigm


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on Jul 6, 2017 | edit | delete

Chronicle of Innsmouth


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Jun 21, 2017 | edit | delete

Thimbleweed Park


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 6, 2017 | edit | delete

Ween: The Prophecy


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Mar 13, 2017 | edit | delete

Goblins Quest 3


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 15, 2017 | edit | delete

Goetia


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 15, 2017 | edit | delete

Heaven's Hope


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Feb 10, 2017 | edit | delete

Quern: Undying Thoughts


Stars - 45

Rating by Doom posted on Dec 20, 2016 | edit | delete

Obduction


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on Nov 23, 2016 | edit | delete

King's Quest (2015/2016)


Stars - 20

Rating by Doom posted on Nov 18, 2016 | edit | delete

Loom


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on May 25, 2016 | edit | delete

Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble, The


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on May 25, 2016 | edit | delete

Broken Age


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on May 25, 2016 | edit | delete

Armikrog.


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on May 25, 2016 | edit | delete

Red Comrades Save the Galaxy – Reloaded


Stars - 40

Rating by Doom posted on May 12, 2016 | edit | delete

Shivah, The


Stars - 20

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 29, 2016 | edit | delete

Order of the Thorne: The King's Challenge


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Apr 11, 2016 | edit | delete

Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet


Stars - 25

Rating by Doom posted on Mar 23, 2016 | edit | delete

Dropsy


Stars - 50

Rating by Doom posted on Nov 17, 2015 | edit | delete

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers – 20th Anniversary Edition


Stars - 30

Rating by Doom posted on Oct 17, 2014 | edit | delete


Who is the target audience?


I’m not sure. If they aimed at modern crowd, they probably missed the mark. Not only the hardest and/or archaic parts were left untouched. Some frustrating logic puzzles were added. They make zero sense, they are no fun. And why would anyone EVER want to solve a “bonus” gem puzzle?

The graphics are now HD, but hardly up-to-date. Because of choppy animation some scenes that require good pathfinding or quick reflexes might really get on your nerves now. Not to mention that quite a number of animations are completely gone, making it more of a downgrade. The interface was reworked, and that’s certainly good news for those used to simpler point-n-clicks. Although that panel at the bottom reminds me of hidden object games too much.

Old-timers will immediately notice the significant change in art style. Many locations feel less atmospheric, lack details, character, New Orleans! Some of them - like the family castle - were completely redrawn. I do appreciate the updated cutscenes though. Now they look wonderful!

Slight adjustments were made to the gameplay. Unnecessary linearity was added here and there. Some locations are hidden or closed for stupid reasons unless you really need them. Several episodes were reworked as well. For example, one beautiful puzzle that required a little attention from the player was barbarically removed and substituted with a primitive “take/use” manipulation for no reason.

While the game certainly looks more polished compared to Moebius and Cognition, and obviously more effort was put into production, it still feels like a budget re-release, not a remake of one of the greatest adventure games. And it’s not just about the lack of money; it’s about craftsmanship. I’m not so sure Gabriel Knight 4 would be such a good idea now.


Read the review »

Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Just Right
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