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.

I might play this for the architecture alone. Maybe on discount.

I like what they are going for, but it looks rather monotonous. Poolcore is a varied aesthetic.

I've added this to my whislist, too. It's not a procedually generated world, so I'm kind of excited to play it - as soon as there's a discount.

I think it's trying too hard to be weird. It's kind of a bland aimless weirdness.

I kind of expected more from it. It's cute, funny and the gameplay is absolutely fine ... but I just thought there would be more about the Cylinder than just a glorified system for enclosing levels.

This feels very oldschool. It reminded me a bit of Alone in the Dark: New Nightmare (2001). The biggest problem is that it's kind of boring. As Arseniy mentioned, the writing is weak and the gameplay isn't anything special either. I'd rather play Alone in the Dark.Other Media

I had no trouble finding a cheap copy after reading this thread. Getting it to run took only a bit of effort. It's really a decent game.

I wouldn't really call it obscure, but it's hard to get nowadays. I played it some time after it came out, I think I rented a copy from our local library back then. I might also still have a disc around but, I don't think I want to go through all that work to get it running again. I remember kind of liking it for the atmosphere, but I disliked the gameplay. I can absolutely understand that it's a game you can easily get obsessed with. It's from that short era where graphics in 3D games were decent and used creativly. Most of the time you only get one of the two.

From what I can gather now, the game is too simplistic for it's own good. It wants to be a survival and crafting game with those meditation mechanics slapped on top, but nothing is really deep. Your mental bar is just another status you have to keep topping up by looking for the right resources (domes) and waiting for a while. I'm most disappointed by the survival mechanics. While there are different kinds of afflictions, like pathogenes and poison, they don't make a different. Any kind of affliction basicly means you die within a day if you don't find a way to treat it. Nothing goes away by itself, so your health bar in this situation is only a timer. Your character also stays fit as a fiddle until the very last moment. You can also only get one condition at a time, so have fun dancing on snakes when you drank bad water. This wouldn't be so bad if survival games of this kind weren't a dime a dozend nowadays. Many have done similar mechanics and most have done it better. Well, I'm only some hours in, so I'll post again when I've finished it.

I'm sure it's fun with friends, but playing it alone just gets boring and repetetive.