Recent reviews by Grafvolluth

An entertaining what-if story in the XCOM universe revolving around what it would be like if an XCOM game occurred prior to modern days.

The Story: Is a pretty fun period piece. I enjoyed it and it seemed fairly true to the setting and time. The fact that there is more then just basic mission parameters in an XCOM game is actually pretty novel, they aren't really known for their story outside of 'Alien Bad, Kill Alien, Build Endgame Tech, and destroy mcguffin/location to win game' so that alone is a point in its favor compared to other XCOM games.

The Characters: Good, and there was actually some character development during the game. Much like how there is an actual story in this game, the fact that they are come across as something more then just simple exposition delivery devices is novel for an XCOM game. Another point in comparison to other XCOM games.

The Action: Serviceable, but a little janky sometimes. Nothing special, one way or another. It is a pretty nice translation of the standard XCOM gameplay into a, mostly, realtime 3rd Person FPS.

Overall, nothing about this game really lifts it up, but also nothing really drags it down. It's a pretty cookie cutter 3rd Person Cover Shooter with a few additions with the squad mechanics. I'd say the strongest parts of the game are the time period and story. I wish I had more to say, but it's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin.

I got about a solid 10 hours out of the base game and a couple more hours out the DLC.

Recommended when it goes on sale.

Like most of the recent Remedy games, Control has an interesting and a potentially great story marred with mediocre game play.

The Story: Is great, except when it isn't /spoiler mostly revolving around the ending /spoiler. As usual Remedy delivers an interesting story with some great world building, mostly conveyed by notes and in-game movies you find.

The Characters: This one is a mixed bag, there are a couple of very good characters and the rest are pretty milquetoast and shallow. There isn't really any development with the majority of them and barring the few exceptions, are just forgettable and simply a tool for the developer to move the story along. Just characters without much character.

The Action: Is...adequate, nothing to complain about but nothing to look forward to either. I found myself just TK'ing everything after a certain point, since you don't really have many times when any other ability you have is actually needed.

The Map: Whoever designed it needs to be fired in my opinion. This is actually my one big complaint about the game. It is a struggle to find where exactly you are on the map at many locations due to the fact that the map is multilayered in a 2D rendition without any way to isolate the floor you are on. Also, as a game that has a few areas that are blocked off until you gain certain keys or abilities the fact you can't make a little note is very irritating.

The Ending:
I have issues with the ending, it is rather anticlimactic and is basically a non-ending. There is, I feel, very little resolution and there are questions you have that aren't really answered. Eh, maybe there'll be a sequel, but given Remedy's track record...well I won't hold my breath.

DLC included with the Ultimate Edition: The Foundation is pretty good, but it doesn't do much story-wise other'n include a few more questions and those just act as sequel hooks. AWE - Was great, and I wish the rest of the game had been just as good.

Overall, barring my complaints, I did genuinely enjoy the game and got a solid ~25 hours out of it and with the DLC I got about 38 hours played total. It was worth the $20 dollars I spent on it.


Recommended.

A fun, if fairly simple, Metroid-vania style game.

If you've played pretty much any Castlevania since Symphony of the Night, you'll have a pretty good idea what this game consists of. It took me about 8 hours to run through this game on the hard difficulty while ferreting out 100% of the secrets, and it would have taken about 3-4 otherwise. The combat is rarely that challenging, and the bosses were pretty good, but not that challenging barring 2 or 3 of them.

At the time of this review the price for this game is $14.99 and I would recommend picking it up, albeit with a tad of hesitance. I don't regret the purchase, but I feel like this is more of a $10 game.

A good, solid hack 'n slash action game with a combat system that is as deep as you so choose.

You could go through the whole game using only the basic attacks or you could use the advanced combos to tear through enemies and boss with ease.

The difficulty gradually ramps up through the game, and while the common enemies will rarely give you much of a fight, it's the bosses that make this game shine. I heartily enjoyed virtually every boss fight. The puzzles weren't terribly hard but a nice diversion to keep things from being stale. Platforming elements were not too frustrating, barring one or two areas.

It took me about 30 hours to finish on Knight (Hard) difficulty, which unlocks the Paladin (Very Hard) difficulty. At this time, I haven't played through on that difficulty yet, but in regards to replayability, there is a decent amount. To get 100% in this game, after you beat it you'll need to beat every level over again on the max difficulty and there is a trial that is unlocked after every level is finished that you will need to complete.

At the time of this review the price for this game is $29.99, and I would recommend it at that price, and doubly so if you find it on sale which seems to occur fairly often.

An entertaining B-Movie-esque click and point adventure game.

Graphics are are fairly well done, the audio is fine barring a bit of shoddy voice acting but that works with the B-Movie feel of the game and I didn't run into any bugs.

The puzzles are actually fairly logical and I didn't arrive at a point in the game where I was scratching my head for hours trying to figure out how to fix a nuclear reactor and finding out I needed to use a platypus and toothpaste to prevent a meltdown.

The cost at the time of this review was $14.99 and while I enjoyed the game, it did only take me about 3-3 1/2 hours to finish. You can decide if the price is right.

So, I had the opportunity to try this on a free weekend, and I was enjoying it quite a bit until I ran into a couple of bugs that resulted in my being unable to progress.

The bugs in question seem to be collision or pathfinding in nature. One involves a cross shaped room, where if you place a module it can prevent you moving past and, if your character is close to it when it deploys, can cause the character to get stuck and be unable to move even after you destroy the module. Loading and reloading will allow you to move again and resolves the pathfinding problem, which would be a little irritating but overall a small issue, however I encountered a problem with the enemy pathfinding that caused them to get stuck inbetween rooms and due to this, you can't save and quit.

I ran into this scenario 3 times when I was around 3/4s of the way through the game causing me to waste about an hour to an hour and a half of my time altogether. Because of this I do not recommend purchasing this game, although I may revise my opinion in 6-12 months when they, hopefully, patch it and if I find it on sale for a few dollars. Not going to waste my money on this game full price after my experience with it.

This game touched me in places I'd prefer to remain untouched. It is a rather interesting look into depression that, despite being a affliction that is manifestly unique to each individual, remains fairly true in broad strokes...minus the trippy parts of the story.

It is a Point and Click Adventure with an interesting story, with voice acting of varying quality, that held me until I finished the game. It took me ~6 hours to complete and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys this style of game.

An entertaining game that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a decent noir-ish plot, because that is mostly all this game consists of. It is essentially a 3d visual novel with some limited stealthy portions. The story is your basic whodunit with a supernatural twist that surprised me, at least a little bit, in the end.

If you were to rush threw the game, you'd likely be able to finish it in about 5-7 hours and it took me ~9 hours to 100% it. I'm not sure if I would recommend it at full price ($30.00 at the time of this review), but I bought it at $15.00 and do not regret the purchase.

This is the first LEGO game I have ever played and I found it a lot of fun. The graphics are bright and clean and the sound design is quite good. The story is entertaining and the character interaction can be quite funny, if a bit silly at times. I did run across a number of small bugs and it did crash 6-7 times over ~30 hours of gameplay causing me to lose around 10-15 minutes of progress each time. The gameplay, from what I understand, is fairly standard fare for the assorted LEGO games and I found myself getting bored with the free-roam portions of the game over time, so I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed it quite as much if this wasn't the first one I played. I would still recommend picking it up at some point, although I might recommend waiting for it to be on sale.

I found this game to be a lot of fun. Decent graphics and sound design with entertaining gameplay. It all revolves around manipulating and balance the environments ecosystem. I enjoyed 'Waking Mars' up and bringing life back to it. Fairly sparse story-wise but interesting enough even if the real motivation to me to keep progressing was to see the next environment I would get to mess around with. I found it worth the money and recommend giving it a try. I look forward to more games from Tiger Style and I hope they will make a sequel at some point in the future.