Recent reviews by Camerooni

This was a great hidden object game.. obviously quite old now and held together with tape and wire and possibly a little bit of string.

My play-through was very satisfying despite watching parts of the game previously via various streamers. The game held itself together quite well with a logical path until about two thirds through where it felt like I must have wandered a bit off the golden path and none of the items I was collecting were naturally piecing together either the story or the logic of the gameplay and I had to resort to using the map to find where an '!' indicated that there was progress that could be made.. which I try not to do normally on first play-throughs.

It was at this point that the story jumped around a little bit, I was getting later bits of the story that made sense only after I got the earlier parts later - a game like this and it's story can often live and die by the quality of it's journal/notes/clues system.

I was especially frustrated with the bonus chapter where I 'knew'.. I swear I knew what I needed to do and had the means to do it, but the game wouldn't let me actually do it until I clicked somewhere else to get the in-game knowledge of how to do it and that was frustrating. Hidden Object Games need to manage and allow for multiple different play types and styles, and this one felt very much geared towards the moon-logic item placement and puzzle solving by following the author's very specific path.. which should be great for narrative and I'm onboard with that, but the narrative also wasn't that strongly linear.. so it felt a bit mixed and confused.

Sometimes the game felt like it wanted to trust you to do your own thing and solve a mystery and other times it wanted to pull the rug out of you and remind you that you're not solving this, you're being told how this is solved.. and I wish it was either more one than the other at times, just choose one and stick with it.

But overall it is clearly a game made by a team with a vision and a desire to make a 'good hidden object game'.. the hidden object scenes felt better, more realistic and grounded than in the base-game acts so there was some obvious improvement there, and it also felt like more was being done with the puzzle interactions though this game does not have a item combination, or use item on item system which can be someone limiting when interacting with the scene, it meant there had to be locations in the world to perform item combination actions which were only good for one item combination even though in theory it should have allowed others, leaving things a bit disjointed.. there was also the old.. I can't use this knife to open that cupboard, but I can use that knife fun going on as well.

I enjoyed the truly scary moments that this game had occasionally; I played at night with the sound up.. and there were a few genuine tingles even though a scare was VERY clearly telegraphed and played through exactly as you would expect.. I put it down to a combination of just the right audio cues and good timing.

Also bonus points for the music that is the same as the Buffy DVD collection menus.. I still love that and it makes me think of good times every time I hear it. Though loss of points for the music oddly cutting off, not looping when it should or just jumping.. not sure if technical issue, bad design or if it is meant to come across as 'creepy', but it just comes across as broken.. and annoying when moving rapidly between locations. It does really feel like the game wants you to just jump from exclamation point location to exclamation point location rather than naturally moving back and forth between locations when the music behaves in that fashion.

I shall have to play again in the future to get the 'Complete on Expert Mode' achievement and also find the figurines I missed on this play-through despite being very thorough and collecting all over evidence/facts. It looks like I am missing a Asylum staff member from the bonus tape, one of the small children (looks like there should be three), and maybe another of the 'scary girl' as there is a spot on the podium directly opposite the mother :/

Great game, got it because the third chapter finally came out.. I think some people have been waiting a really long time for it.. I've only just gotten into the series now due to the sale, but loved my time with it. Can definitely recommend based on only this first chapter.. looking forward to getting into the next (and eventually the conclusion)!

A series so long in the making is clearly a labour of love, and you can tell that they really do want to make a great game.. I can always appreciate that over the rinse/repeat flood the market HOG's. Though from what I've read it looks like the later chapters remove the HOG scenes and it goes straight point-and-click, which is a bit of a shame.. I love finding a lady bird within a tin can I've opened with a can opener found elsewhere in the scene (though I do have a feeling those kind of interactions remain) :D:

Demo was fine.. though I initially had it installed to a HDD and it was atrocious.. took forever to load.. menus were broken when I did get into the game.. started to think game was busted crap..

Remembered to try shifting to my NVMe SSD.. and wow.. yeah everything was fine. I forgot that all the big games now assume your have high speed drives as a minimum..

As for the game.. it looks alright but can wait for a sale.. has all the stuff a game like this needs.. I don't mind the Ubisoft formula, but I do mine the Ubisoft pricing.. like $180 for a deluxe everything all in? Nahhh.. I don't think so.. will wait until it is about $50 dollerydoos.

Got plenty of similar Ubisoft games - I can wait..

Sorry but this game is just dull and full of painful mobile style microtransactions for hints and to speed up unlocking of chapters.. I tried a couple of the 'hidden object games' on offer in their app, but there are so many great hidden object games available and there is always something on sale that even if you spend a couple of dollars you'll be getting a much better experience than anything this 'game' has to offer.

I love a good hidden object game.. I also love finding a bargain and playing something that is potentially free up to a point.. but I struggle to see how this game has anything to offer anyone who is curious about hidden object games or already enjoys them, if anything it has the potential of turning off a whole potential audience.. the games just felt so lifeless and dull.

Check out anything published by Artifex Mundi, Big Fish or Mumbo Jumbo to see what you can get out of this style of game.. even their demo versions of their games 'feel' better than these empty shells that push you to buy 'stars' and 'keys' to continue.

This game is great.. whole heartedly recommend it. Solid gameplay, still looks great today and isn't too annoying with the arena fights (unlike Uncharted).

It only took me 12 years to go back and play it again to 100% it, but it's shown games really haven't come along in the last 12 years. In terms of gameplay, narrative, action set-pieces, physics and AI we're still pretty much in the same place.

Also can someone check on the Cinematics Director for this game (also did the later God of Wars - particularly 3 where the violence in general ramped up and the killing of the medusas was ridiculously over the top), see if he's okay.. Seems to have some issues with women with what Lara goes through in this game and the amount of times you have to sit through some of these death animations and the general cutscenes border at times on torture porn :/

Interesting insight into Eastern European thoughts and experiences (Czech specifically) of the late '80s and their desire for regime change.

The gameplay of 'Where's Wally' style hidden people in a crowd dovetailed well into the individual snippets of stories for why the individuals were present and their reasons, aspirations and sometimes fears of standing up to power.

Worth experiencing for sure. I enjoyed my time with it. There is no need to find everyone to complete the game, other than the achievements - and of course finding out more from the different people partaking in the protests.

I'm off to Wikipedia to read a little bit more about the Velvet Revolution - most curious about why it is named as such.. so I feel the game has achieved it's goals.

Just completed the Medieval Castle and it's the most complex one I've done so far even though it seems less visually complex than the Noir train station scene.

Some pieces are a little difficult to make out, so there is a bit of trial and error but if you knew exactly where everything went from the outset then why bother putting it together. These extra kits have been great.. really nice to just relax to - though the dining setting in this castle had more pieces than an IKEA job!

Valhalla was like the extended version of the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King: the screen faded to black and you get up thinking now you can go to the toilet but no.. there's another ending.. fade to black.. get up again.. no it's just another ending - at least with movies it was linear and it was told in a way that made sense..

The Valhalla endings are all over the place.. have I finished the game.. who knows.. I got an email from Ubisoft saying I finished the game and I would get some ubi points or something (which never came through) and yet I've done two more 'endings' since then and have even more to go with the DLC.

Yaaaay!?

I was hoping that the 'new era' of AC games was done with this one, but it looks like Shadows will be similar. The series peaked with Black Flag/Rogue.

Absolutely hate how they've setup the DLC packs on the Steam store this time.. The other AC games, if you buy the deluxe edition it shows in the steam store in the client and on the website that you own all the parts within it - which prevents you from accidentally buying again AND prevents the steam algorithm from recommending you to buy it again.

I bought the Master Assassin upgrade bundle #1 which gave me everything that all the other DLC items include (except for the Map pack).. and yet.. as far as the Steam store config is concerned I could just as happily buy all the other items separately.. not cool.. this is not a Steam problem.. this is a Ubisoft problem - a problem that they avoided with their previous AC releases (see Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla).

As far as the Mirage game is concerned.. I'm enjoying it so far.. it's cut out a lot of the cruft of the open world AC games (Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla).. and is a little more focused with a return to social stealth elements like blending, and notoriety levels that feel like they work unlike in Valhalla where you just wait for enemies and smash them in the face because you're an unstoppable killing machine.

I still think the Black Flag/Rogue area was peak AC in terms of controls and activities and game structure. I liked what Unity was trying to do but unfortunately the buggy mess made them pivot back to Syndicate which did not impress anyone and they went the 'rpg' route with Origins/Odyssey and Valhalla.. the choices don't matter so why even bother.. please go back to structured stories.. Mirage goes back towards this and I enjoy it.

Bought this to get essentially what is in the Master Assassin Edition (bought the base game originally).

This is great for that purpose, but I absolutely hate.. HATE.. the way that Ubisoft is packaging it's DLC on Steam these days.. Steam is now constantly suggesting that I buy other DLC that I don't need because it's in this pack.

Please Ubi - go back in and add all the DLC's that are included in this bundle as items to the Steam package for this bundle so that the steam client tags them all as owned.. you're not going to trick me into buying them again so just do right by your customer and this storefront and make it as simple as possible for customers to know what they are buying and what they already own without having to open the stupid in-game store.

Annoyed that this is the actual second half of the 'base game'.. played Dreamlight Valley for so many hours wondering why it was so hard to complete some of the pictures or obtain some of the items - they are dropping again now that I have a Rift in Time.

Overall it's nice to have new stuff since all I had left from the duties list was mining Sapphires.. and it sure does introduce a lot despite it mostly being variations on a theme.

Ultimately you should have this if you have the base game as it completes it. Annoying about how they went about it all but if you're interested in the game then I have to recommend it.