The Amnesia series from Frictional Games is one of the all-time horror greats. I was a fan of Frictional even before their breakout hit, though, back when Penumbra was their brand of horror. While that series has remained dormant, the bones of it still exist even in their latest release: Amnesia: The Bunker. In Amnesia: The Bunker, you play as a soldier in WWI who must evade a monster within an underground bunker long enough to facilitate your escape. It’s a simple, but effective premise with a unique setting. Is this enough to put this series back on the top of horror gaming? Let’s find out. A Streamlined Return to Form, but Does The Old Formula Work? The last Amnesia game, Rebirth, was met with mixed reception due to a number of factors. On the one hand, it was much larger in scope than prior games, which are usually limited to a few locations. The narrative was also far more grand and sci-fi than I think many expected. It was also low on scares, though it did have them. The penalty for death wasn’t very severe, and large portions of it were tense, but lacked any true threat to the player. Contrast this with the first game in the series, where you’re always on edge, and it’s easy to see why Rebirth didn’t quite land. With Amnesia: The Bunker, it’s clear that Frictional Games wanted to go back to their roots. The concept is simple, the horror is constant, and the tension is nigh-overwhelming. It worked wonders back in the day, but I left my experience with The Bunker wondering if perhaps things became too streamlined? Amnesia: The Bunker begins in the trenches of WWI, where explosions rock the screen and bullets fly during the tutorial. It’s a different kind of horror, but effective nonetheless. It’s not long, though before you awake in an underground bunker and soon find yourself alone with only the promise of a monster to keep you company. The mechanics are refreshingly simple this time around. You are armed with a crank flashlight, a revolver, and limited inventory space to explore the bunker with. Much like a sort of roguelike structure, you have a central safe room with a map, a stash, a crafting table, and a generator that lets you recoup your losses between journeys out into the Bunker. While prior games in the series had you steadily lose sanity in the dark, that mechanic is absent from Amnesia: The Bunker. Instead, the monster that stalks you is afraid of light and therefore becomes a constant threat in the dark. The aforementioned crank flashlight helps, but the sound of winding it up gives away your position. Thankfully, you can fuel up the generator in your safe room before heading out to look for supplies and a way forward. Don’t worry, there’s a catch. The fuel in the game is finite, so you’ll want to make the most of your time while the lights are on, … Read More
Destroy All Humans 2! – Reprobed Review: Set Phasers to Nostalgia
Destroy All Humans! is one of those franchises that offered exactly what I wanted as a gamer during the PS2 and Xbox era: wanton destruction and crass humor in equal measure. There was nothing quite like it, and to this day, I’ve never heard a better off-brand Jack Nicholson in a voice acting role. The remake of Destroy all Humans! in 2020 from THQ Nordic was good, but it brought to light the flaws with the outdated gameplay. With Destroy all Humans! 2 – Reprobed, the sequel gets the remake treatment. Beyond massive visual upgrades and a few quality of life touches, this is the game you remember, through and through. Does it ride the wave of nostalgia to wipe out its flaws, or did crypto not age well? Let’s find out. A Faithful Remake, Warts and All It’s funny that Destroy All Humans 2! – Reprobed opens with a disclaimer specifically about its content. The developers chose to leave the original narrative untouched and present it exactly as it was when it first released. The world is a vastly different place today than it was back then, and a lot of these themes, stereotypes, and jokes hit a lot different in 2022, but I can also respect the desire to keep the source material intact. Personally, I didn’t find anything in Destroy All Humans 2! – Reprobed to be offensive, at least not compared to the likes of Grand Theft Auto or other similar games, but I can also see how some of these elements would be seen in poor taste with the state of the world. While it didn’t personally affect me, the disclaimer is a fair one, and I think it’s completely fair for others to feel differently about the content in the game. In terms of the overall story and humor, I had a few laughs and some of the deeper mysteries intrigued me, but nothing about Destroy All Humans 2!’s narrative really jumped out at me, though I did appreciate the globe-trotting adventure and the variety of locales. From a gameplay perspective, Destroy All Humans 2! – Reprobed combines large open areas with fairly standard mission designs. Kill a certain number of enemies, destroy specific objects, escort an NPC, etc. The bonus objectives allow you to have some creativity, but beyond this, you’ll need to make your own fun as it were by trying out different weapons and combinations with your PK ability. The on-foot combat feels fine, but the boss fights in particular offer huge difficulty spikes that can be frustrating if you’re used to the pace of the normal missions. The variety of weapons keeps things interesting, as does the skill trees for each that let you increase their power or capacity. The other side of combat is your saucer, which is a little unwieldy to control but offers satisfying levels of destruction. You use the left stick to fly and the right stick to adjust your height. Holding the left trigger allows … Read More
This War of Mine: Final Cut Review – Close to Home
I’ve followed This War of Mine for a long time as a gamer, but never had the chance to really sit down and play it until now. It’s hard not to associate this game with current events in the world. Indeed, the game’s developer, 11 Bit Studios, recently donated £520,000 to the Ukrainian Red Cross using sales from the game. Playing a game like This War of Mine: Final Cut comes with its own emotional attachments, but knowing that this is reality for many people right now makes it even more haunting. There’s no other game quite like this this one, so does that make it a must-play? Let’s find out. War Through The Eyes of The Innocent This War of Mine: Final Cut, is coming to PS5 on May 10th and brings with it a collection of DLC that adds three story-driven campaigns to the freeform base game. The PS5 enhancements include 4K resolution and sharper graphics, all of which look exquisite with their washed out pencil-drawn style. For the uninitiated, This War of Mine: Final Cut is a survival game at its core, but it has a setting wholly unique in the genre. Where most games that even contain a hint of war place you in the shoes of soldiers and super-powered secret weapons, This War of Mine places you in the shoes of everyday civilians who are caught up in the chaos and the horror of war. This is survival at its most basic, and its most human. The procedurally generated areas are always some sort of dilapidated structure, bombed out house, crumbling apartment building, or the like. You start with very little, and unlike other survival games, you won’t ever find that things get better. At least, not significantly. Each day in This War of Mine involves managing the needs of your people, or in some cases your children. Things like hunger, thirst, and rest are all factors you need to account for, but mental states come into play as well. Characters can become sad, depressed, or worse. It’s an important dimensions to highlight in a game like this, because war and survival is mentally taxing in addition to being physically exhausting. During the day, you can navigate your shelter, make or eat food, craft new items at your workbench, or rummage through unexplored rooms. When it’s time to end the end, you assign roles. Who will get to sleep? Will they sleep on the floor or in a bed? Will someone go out to scavenge for valuable items and crafting material? If so, will they go with any weapons or supplies, or carry as little as possible to maximize their inventory space? Scavenging itself is a tense and unpredictable part of the experience that really brings home the atmosphere and tension in This War of Mine: Final Cut. One night while scavenging, I came across a young man who was hiding from a sniper in the nearby park. Without spoiling the rest of the scenario, … Read More
FORECLOSED Review – Putting The Punk in Cyberpunk
While the term “cyberpunk” may remind most people of the rocky launch of Cyberpunk 2077, other games have leveraged the sub-genre over the years to great effect. It goes beyond a style, however, and invokes a deeper look into futuristic societies and the things that can happen if we’re not careful to keep the powers that be in check. FORECLOSED, a new comic book style cyberpunk action game, leverages the style to great effect, but does this sleek look translate to compelling gameplay? Let’s find out. Stylish Looks Can’t Hide Less Than Ideal Story and Gameplay One thing no one can fault FORECLOSED for is its style. The game oozes comic book cyberpunk style that’s immediately eye-catching. The premise too is interesting. You play as Evan Kapnos, who wakes up one morning to find out his company has gone bankrupt and as a result his entire identity has been, you guessed it, foreclosed. While he starts out trying to do the right thing, Evan is quickly pulled into a conspiracy that has him on the run and dodging bullets very quickly into the story. The story itself is solid, but not incredibly compelling. There are some moments of downtime where you can choose dialogue options, but the game goes through long stretches of fighting rooms of enemies between exposition, so it doesn’t quite have the narrative-focused feel the game’s official description would suggest. One thing that’s really exciting in the opening hours of the game, are the ways that it transistions between comic book styled cutscenes and gameplay. For example, you’ll often see the screen split into panels before transitioning seamlessly into gameplay. An early chase sequence also has you running from armed enemies through the perspective of security cameras, allowing for a visual treat beyond the standard third-person gameplay. FORECLOSED is stylish, and it knows it. For a while, that was enough for me to look past some gameplay issues, but when we stop and break it all down, there are a number of problems with how the game plays. For starters, there’s a sort of hacking minigame that involves pressing directional buttons in sequence. It works perfectly fine, but it never gets more complicated than that. The same goes for these hidden switches you can find inside of walls using your vision, or ones that are scattered across an area. You’ll need to find and hack them all to move forward once the enemies are down They’re interesting at first, but soon become a repetitive aspect of progression. Combat is a mixed bag as well. No matter how much I adjusted the aim sensitivity and aim assist in the options, I could never get the gunplay to feel responsive enough. It was always a little sluggish and difficult to make precise movements. More often than not, I would just resort to strafing to line up my shot. Enemies also flood areas and just stand in place, which leads to simple shootouts. On the default difficulty, you’ll also find … Read More
Biomutant Review – The Price of Ambition
Time and time again, small teams have proven that they are capable of incredible gaming experiences. I’ve played countless titles made by a handful of people, or by a small group, and come away impressed. Of course, the balance here is between the ambition of the team, and what they can realistically accomplish. Biomutant, the first title from Experiment 101, published by THQ Nordic, is a title that has been in and out of the spotlight for several years, always garnering interest, but fraught with delays. Now, the full game is here, and I’ve played it on both PS4 and PS5 via backwards compatibility. How did this small team fare in their battle of ambition? Let’s find out. An Ambitious Action RPG that Struggles to Reach it’s Potential Biomutant makes a strong first impression with its CGI opener and a unique character creation system. Things like choosing a class, your primary fur colors, and base stats are all here, but the game also changes your appearance based on how much you lean towards things like intellenct or strength. The former will give you a big head, while the latter will shrink your head in favor a muscular build. Tying your appearance into your stats isn’t something I’ve seen since the days of Fable where your decisions between the good and evil path changed your outward appearance. Biomutant doesn’t take things this far, but the connection in the character creation offers a streamlined approach across your looks and your stats. While you are asked to pick a class, Biomutant allows you to refine your decisions as time goes on, so really the only permanent choice in the beginning are your base stats and your appearance. The rest can be molded as time goes on, which is a level of flexibility I appreciate in my RPGs. So, with your character made, you set out into the world. This is where the highs and lows of the experience become apparent. The first few hours of Biomutant aren’t incredibly inspiring due to inconsistent pacing and a litanty of tutorials. Flashbacks to your childhood are also prevalent and a little too long for the story they’re trying tell. I felt like these could have been cut or streamlined. Given the sheer number of systems at play here, I think the tutorials could have been given a little more room to breathe as well. From a story perspective, Biomutant presents a lush and vibrant world that suffered from an environmental apocalypse that wiped out humans, leaving mutated creatures to take over the planet. While things are regrowing and nature is returning to the world, the “Tree of Life” at the center of the map is threatened by creatures known as Worldeaters that threaten to snuff out this central aspect of the world. Among this, your character is the child of someone who once united the tribes of the world and perfected a style of combat called “Wung-Fu.” Your backstory is predictable, but sets the stage for … Read More
Poker Club Review – Going by The Book
While I am not an avid gambler, I do enjoy the thrill of a good game of poker. Before the events of 2020, I was in Las Vegas for work and lost a good chunk of change at the tables. One of my colleagues (who won a lot of money) would always ask “What does the book say?” before he made a decision, referring of course to the proverbial manual on how to properly play poker. Poker Club on PS5 feels like it was made with this hypothetical “book” in mind. Advertising itself as an immersive poker simulation, the promise rings true from a developer like Ripstone that has made the most faithful chess games I’ve ever played. The game isn’t afraid to throw its own book at you, but does the experience come together to truly capture the spirit of the game? Let’s find out. A Cut Above Other Poker Titles, But Not Quite a Winning Hand Considering Ripstone’s other work on chess titles, I think what worked really well there was a combination of excellent presentation, detail, and customization. It also did a superb job of teaching how to play the game, which really helped the experience feel complete. The first thing I noticed in Poker Club was how it kind of throws you into it without much care for those who may not know the rules or strategies. There is a spot on the main menu to learn more about these things, but the delivery is simply walls of text instead of interactive training sessions or something more engaging. It also doesn’t help that the text is incredibly small on a 4K display. Not even squinting could save me here, I had to get up and approach the screen just to read what it was saying. In terms of onboarding or welcoming beginners, it feels very much lacking compared to what it could have been. Moving past this, exploring the menu reveals options for single and multiplayer modes, along with variations like single or multi-table tournaments, and a number of other variations. In all, you’ll have 10 variants to choose from, but thankfully it’s quite easy to just get into a game quickly. While the loading times are incredibly fast on PS5, the pace of the matches may be slower than some expect. People will take their time online in some cases, which is unavoidable, but the animations, the dealer themselves, and the other aspects of the game all flow in a relatively calm manner. The way the cards are dealt, the slow slide of someone placing chips onto the table, it all feels authentic but can be a little slower than other poker simulators. One thing I found particularly satisfying was how you could hold the right trigger to flip your cards up and check what you’re working with. The close-up of the hands and cards here really added to the immersion for me, making me feel like I was truly at a table, stealing a … Read More
Returnal Review – Hardcore Deja Vu
I’ve discovered in recent years that I really enjoy stories centered around a time loop. I’ve seen some excellent films use the concept, and I’ve played even better games that use it. The Outer Wilds comes to mind as a perfect example, but when I saw a first-party PS5 title was using the concept in a roguelike with a AAA budget, I was absolutely on board. Now that Returnal is here in all its glory, it’s time to find out if the latest title from veteran developers at Housemarque makes the leap from arcade bullet hell to third-person bullet hell while also navigating a complex time loop story. Strap in folk, this is one wild ride. You’re Gonna Need Two Things: Time and Patience I have a mixed relationship with roguelike titles, mostly because I like to feel like I’m making progress in a game, and when the very concept prohibits you from making consistent progress, it can be difficult to really get invested. For me, it’s all about the story. I can handle repeat runs if I feel like I’m receiving motivation to keep trying. Hades is a perfect example of a title that nails this execution. Children of Morta also did well in this regard, offering bits of story between runs. With Returnal, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. There are audio logs you can find as you go through each randomly generated run into Atropos, and specific story set-pieces give you a glimpse into a house that shouldn’t exist on an alien planet, but the way the story is delivered is neither consistent nor reliable. Depending on my performance, I can go several runs without a single piece of lore, translated text, or audio log to motivate me. Given the sheer budget here, I would have liked to see more invested into additional story elements that make each run feel like you learned something, or at the very least tease you with new potential narrative if you can get just a little further. That’s not to say that what story Returnal does have isn’t good. The voice acting is excellent, with plenty emotion conveyed when the main character realizes she’s finding dead bodies of herself from other failed attempts to escape the loop. It’s all very compelling, and I certainly wanted to know what’s going on, but I think I would have stayed for another run or two per play session if I knew there was a narrative breadcrumb waiting for me at the end regardless of my performance. Now, for most people this isn’t going to matter. Roguelikes live and die by their gameplay, after all, you’re going to be playing a lot of it. They also typically leverage randomized environments or layouts to try and keep things fresh. This is one place where Returnal does shine. It took me several runs to get out of the first biome, and the environments shifted around just enough between each run to keep me from getting bored, … Read More
Paradise Lost Review – A Poignant Journey into The Heart of Grief
One thing I’d like to make clear is that I am not a fan of the term “walking simulator.” As a writer, I find that what I like to call “narrative adventures” offer a way to experience a story through light interaction and decision-making. Calling something a walking simulator devalues the work that goes into telling an interactive story. With that out of the way, Paradise Lost is a narrative adventure out now for PS4 and playable on PS5. It’s a story set in an alternate version of post-WWII where the Nazi’s decimated Europe with nuclear weapons, and our main character finds himself exploring a seemingly abandoned bunker that for reasons that become known as the story progresses. Does this dive into a version of history that never happened tell a story worth experiencing, or should we leave this paradise to the fold of time? Let’s find out! A Gripping Exploration of an Alternate Timeline Paradise Lost is a game that excels in creating a rich and detailed atmosphere right from the beginning. This level of immersion is due to a few things, but in no small part to the richly realized environments and little touches like being able to see your entire character’s body as he jumps off ledges or climbs through elements of the environment. The game’s story didn’t grab me immediately, but as it progressed through the roughly four hour run time, I found that it very organically reveals more and more about the events that transpired prior to your arrival, and the reasons for why you find yourself in this elaborate bunker. I say bunker, but it’s more of a sprawling underground city with multiple districts and distinct areas. In this version of history, the Nazi’s decimated Europe with nuclear weaponry, leaving the area in Poland where you spend the game nearly uninhabitable on the surface. With a few clues to go on, you play as a 12-year-old boy with nothing but his wits, a photograph, and a lighter to guide him in the beginning. The story is told through some flashbacks, dialogue between the boy and one other character (I’m leaving out their names as they’re not revealed right away in the story), audio recordings, and of course, the good old fashioned method of finding in-game documents. Where Paradise Lost’s story worked really well for me was in the way that it doesn’t show all of its cards until later. You’ll spend the first chunk of the game alone and eventually make contact with someone via the camera / microphone system, but even the documents play coy with what the Nazi’s were up to in this massive underground society. I imagine that some people will predict several elements of the story before they come to fruition, but I even found myself surprised at a few of the developments. It’s also a story with some flexibility thanks to a few different paths you can take through environments and moments where you interact with a complex machine … Read More
Doodle Devil: 3volution Review – Is it Good to be Bad?
One of the games I played when I first got a smartphone was this simple app where you combined base elements to unlock more complex items. It was just a drag-and-drop interface with very little flourish. It even had a basic name like “chemistry” or something. Nevertheless, it was addicting, even if I ended up just trying combinations at a certain point. Doodle Devil: 3volution is the latest game in a series that follows a similar formula, but throws in the theme of being pure evil and coming up with things like the seven deadly sins in your various combinations. Does this darker side of the Doodle God games offer an evil evolution worthy of your time, or is this title about as fun as a vacation to hell? Let’s find out. A Fun Core Loop With Unnecessary Baggage Right off the bat, it’s worth noting that Doodle Devil: 3volution is not an expensive game at all. While games like this originate as smartphone apps fueled by microtransactions, the exchange here is a slightly higher price in exchange for having everything in-game. With a price of $8.99, I’m taking the cost into account as I discuss the ups and downs of the experience. That being said, Doodle Devil: 3volution offers the standard gameplay that those familiar with the series are used to, while also adding a few extra modes that we’ll discuss momentarily. For those not familiar with the series, Doodle Devil begins with some base elements and a single category for you to work with. Using a combination of trigger inputs and button presses, you’ll pair things together like fire, water, earth, and so forth to create more complex things like steam.and lava. As you explore combinations, you’ll unlock other categories to keep everything organized. The twist with Doodle Devil is that you’ll be unlocking things like the concept of torture, the river styx, the seven deadly sins, and yes, even sex. I raised my eyebrows when I saw the game’s icons for some of these things, but nothing is inherently offensive. An option for younger players is in the settings as well for those who may have younger gamers playing alongside them. Things happen fast, and combinations are almost always rewarding in the opening portion of the game. Once you hit about 50 or so unlocks though, things slow down and you’ll find yourself accidentally redoing combinations without realizing it. An in-game store allows you to purchase upgrades that prevent you from seeing the same animations or giving you the abiilty to spot which items have combinations, but these need to be purchased first. It’s not a big deal, because the game gives you 10K gold off the bat to grab these things, but at that point it would have made sense to just enable them by default. Gold is also spent on purchasing hints or outright suggestions on what to combine, which is nice when you just need a nudge to keep things going, but the game … Read More
Spirit of the North Enhanced Edition Review – Taking The Scenic Route
The last generation of consoles brought two major characteristics of gaming to the surface: the inclusion of smaller indie studios, and games as a form of art. With so many titles made by small teams, leveraging unique art styles and storytelling, games became an even more diverse type of art than ever before. When I reviewed Spirit of the North on PS4, I found it to be a gorgeous looking game, with a presentation that goes beyond what you would expect from a smaller studio, but ultimately it didn’t have the emotional impact or depth that I would have liked to see from it’s unique storytelling approach. Now that Spirit of the North Enhanced Edition has come to PS5, how has that experience improved? Let’s find out! A Beautiful, if Similiar Experience Spirit of the North, for those who haven’t played it, is an action adventure title with a focus on a story told without words. You play as a fox who, with the help of the land’s guiding spirit, sets out to rid the world of a mysterious corruption that has taken hold through the various regions. There are hints are something greater, and a history displayed through the use of murals that you can find. Optional skeletons of what seem to be mages from a lost civilization can be activated as well by bringing nearby staffs to the bodies, at which point the spirit seems to thank you before passing on. Visually, it’s a stunning game with plenty of mystery in its various ruins and and the aforementioned murals that you come across, but it’s all hints at something greater and never quite becomes something more than that. I appreciate the approach of a wordless story, and I’ve seen it work in other titles like the excellent Virginia on PS4, but here I feel like the story could have conveyed more detail about the origins of the corruption, or the role of the titular spirit and their struggle against it. Missed story opportunities aside, the world in Spirit of the North is compelling to explore, with plenty of variety across icy vistas, water-logged ruins, and harrowing encounters with the corruption that has taken hold in later areas. Gameplay is a mixture of light puzzle solving, exploration, and utilizing new abilities you unlock to progress forward. There’s a nice sense of progression as new gameplay mechanics unlock and change how you traverse or interact with the world. I will refrain from specific examples as these abilities represent some of the few surprises you’ll encounter on your journey. Speaking of surprises, the environments also have a good sense of flow, conveying the feeling that you’re truly moving through a connected world. While the story doesn’t quite utilize them to the fullest, that sense of mystery and intrigue never quite goes away. Despite being linear, the environments are quite open, and while exploration can reward you with staffs to reunite with mage skeletons, there isn’t much else to motivate you, making … Read More