biosynth8

I couldn't get past the RTS stages because they were so horribly boring.

I've recently beaten this. It's a Myst-like. It's very French in the way that you meet a lot of characters that don't have much to say. The sound and overall design are good, though it's sometimes unclear where you can and can't go. Most of the puzzels are fine, but there are two atrociously hidden objects (including having to pick up a specific _leaf_ in a _forest_) and sometimes puzzles need a special trigger moment to be activated at all. I could not make heads or tails of the story and I'm pretty sure the last level was cut. You are introduced to a new place, raise a bridge and the the game ends. Overall, it's pretty medicore. Not a must play, but reasonable if you're a fan of Myst-likes.

Atmospheric, but sooo slooow.

Pretty good, but the final boss is a bit too much. I could master almost every level before him without dying, but wasn't really able to beat him. One wrong move and he obliterated me in seconds. The magic isn't useless, though. There are totally overprowered spells that you can just toss in somewhere and they clear a room completely. I forgot to use them most of the time though and they aren't worth much against the bosses.

Meh, I prefer Dwarf Fortress. It's really not that hard to learn, unless you want to make soap or clear glass or something else crazy.

In theory this is a great game - in theory. The theory is that you have a consistent, closed-off city with a limited number of citizens, who all have consistent randomly generated biographies, schedules, partners and so on. In this world, randomly generated crimes happen. You can solve those by finding proof like finger prints or incriminating, letters, objects and so on. In practice, however, this doesn't work quite right. First: murders are exceedingly rare and only happen every few hours of gameplay - if at all. In my 18 hours of gameplay I had three. So most of the time you are doing minor detective work: Exposing cheating spouses, getting revenge on people, sabotage, vandalism. You can also help people finding lost items, but I never found a single one and it's no fun. The problem is, that the "random" in "randomly generated" doesn't quit work. After you have played some missions - let's say two - you'll notice distinct patterns. Like everyone having a note with their computer password in their nightstand. Or that people in most cases are connected through their work places. These patterns ruin the immerson and make many tasks rather mundane. On the other hand, you spend a lot of time waiting around for people to walk somewhere. For example: The first murder case I sloved by collecting many clues at the crime scene, analyzing the victims e-mail conversation, asking neighbours about what they saw, comparing their descriptions of a possible suspect with people that met with the victim and so, and so on The second murder I solved by finding the unknown finger prints at the crime scene and breaking into the victim's work site to find out which of her collegues did it. It also becomes clear that clues aren't "generated" by the crime taking place, but they are placed at key points by the algorythm. You won't ever find a unfaithful husband in his mistress' apartment. You can't follow them to see who they meet up with. A murderer was never really at the victims apartment and has no need for an alibi either. Mailboxes seem to have random fingerprints of the inhabitants of an apartment complex on them. The problem is that you notice all this all the time - because you are litterally looking for these things. The game constantly breaks the immersion of you solving a "real" crime by making you hunt for carefully placed breadcrumbs. There are different ways of solving each case, but only because of redundant clues being placed. If you get too creative and try to avoid the patterns, you quickly hit a wall. All in all, it's a great concept of a game, but it does not work.

Fantastic for me too. One of my favourite games - and also my favourite horror game. The sequel was such a let down.

It's fun and as 2000s as anything can be. The missions are always very short and can be lost or won in a few minutes.

I don't know whether you should remove this one, or find a way to still play it.

Meh, it is kind of cool that this was made, but it still plays like a barely functioning mod.

I still got the box somewhere. I remember the campaign losing me pretty early on, but the gameplay was generally solid.

It doesn't. It has less of an open world than Dark Souls. There are classic levels, they are rather long and you can return to them, but they are seperate levels with no connection between them. Apart from that, it's an interesting game with a fresh setting. It's competently made, the graphics are good. But... it's not really good. Thin story, kind of bland in general. They tried to make the settings rather realistic, which means you are mainly walking through similar streets most of the time. This isn't helped by the fact that many assets for buildings are re-used several times in each levels. I got lost all the time. It's also suprisingly easy. You get a freeze gun early on and it works on almost every boss. You also have a wide variety of weapons to make the game more difficult for you - or only use the chain weapons, that keep you out of reach of many enemies.

It's not an old school fps. It's more akin to shooters of the late 2010s - dashing, no quick saving, special abilities. I didn't like it.

The first one is better, especially atmosphere-wise.

Not bad, but in the end it's just another retro shooter.