Recent reviews by DodderingOldMan

This could almost be a playable, if bare bones and not exactly great, VR darts game if it wasn't for the fact that somewhere between 25 to 50 percent of my darts that actually hit the board bounced out for no discernible reason. Utterly unplayable, refunded with haste.

It's... fine. The fundamental gameplay is solid and the guns are good. The level design is decent but there's very little variation in the look of the game from start to finish. The enemies are not very varied either, and on the whole they're not that interesting. It's also a short game. Ultimately it's worth playing, but maybe not worth buying at full price, cheap as it is.

The Trial is absolutely worth trying out. There's no denying DW9 is incredibly rough from a technical standpoint, and clearly a lot of people really don't like the open world stuff and all the other changes. Personally, I do.

I'm now strongly considering buying the full game. Not quite sure I can justify paying full price though...

For the extremely reasonable price of nothing, you get to have Simon Amstell talk to you for a bit.

Game of the year contender.

I rarely write reviews, and even more rarely do I write negative ones, but I feel like I need to put my opinion out there.

The thing is, there's a lot of potential to this game. It's atmospheric, the narrative (such as there is) is well constructed and implemented, there are plenty of intriguing elements. But there's just nothing of substance in the gameplay. There are no real puzzles, no real mysteries to solve or challenges to overcome. There's plenty of information to be gleaned from a diligent exploration of the game's tiny play area, but progress (again, such as there is) depends either on interacting with the incredibly obvious interactable objects or on incredibly obtuse and specific actions, neither of which create any sense of satisfaction.

I bought this game in part because it was compared to the absolutely brilliant TV show Black Mirror, but that's not a comparison that is going to put Asemblance in a good light, largely because it highlights the differences between interactive and non-interactive storytelling. Asemblance highlights the ways in which interactivity actually hampers storytelling, as it lacks the satisfaction and enjoyment of more dynamic games, but also lacks the pacing and deliberate, artistic construction of a good TV show. The story in Asemblance is basically pretty good (although it's no Black Mirror, and some of the presentation is a bit amateurish), but even a much better story would not be able to sustain my interest while I was wandering from one area to the next and back again, trying to find whatever I'd missed in order to progress.

If this was significantly cheaper, it'd be worth the purchase, just on the chance that there might be something in it that makes it worthwhile for you personally. And as a wannabe game dev myself, I know how hard it can be to hear that the product you've poured your heart and soul into isn't worth the cost of a meal at KFC (or whatever your local fast food venue of choice may be). But there's just not enough here, either game or narrative, to justify even that.

Bottom line: It's more Borderlands fun, but it falls short in a couple of key areas.

Borderlands 2 was one of my favourite games of the past ten years. I'm always a sucker for games featuring loot and stats and skill points, and BL2 married those OCD-friendly elements with some genuinely compelling FPS gunplay. More remarkable to me, though, was the quality of the writing and of the narrative in general. Usually I'm the sort of person who skips past dialogue and struggles to remember the names of the key characters, but BL2 was an exception. Jack was a great villain, ever-present and eminently loathable, and there were moments of real drama and intrigue, along with a whole range of interesting and amusing characters.

The Pre-Sequel, however, has few of these elements. The overarching plot is fairly humdrum, the pacing sometimes drags, and I often found myself going to a place I wasn't particularly interested in to fulfill some objective I didn't much care about. The characters didn't do a lot for me, and not just because of the cultural cringe attached to hearing exaggerated examples of my own (Australian) accent. Moreover, the game does disappointingly little to advance our knowledge of the deeper elements of the Borderlands world. Jack, of course is a main character, and a couple of other well known faces pop up, but I would have liked to have seen a lot more connections to the past games (even though it's set between them).

But a lot of people aren't going to caree too much about that. If it's just the gameplay you're interested in, The Pre-Sequel delivers a good chunk of blasting goodness. If you've played BL2 you know basically what to expect, but the additions of low gravity, lasers and cryo status effects make a difference, and a generally positive one. Double jumping through the air (or lack thereof) adds a sense of speed and momentum to the game that is very welcome, and the low gravity allows for verticality to become a key gameplay feature. Lasers are immensely satisfying, especially coupled with some of the new and powerful abilities at the player's disposal.

But there are flaws here too. There isn't a huge variety of enemies, and the ones that are here aren't massively interesting. The verticality works well, but the level designers haven't often managed to come up with areas that allow for it to be exploited in inventive ways. The lasers are possibly too powerful; in my first playthrough I barely used anything else. That's my own choice, sure, and the other weapons are as fun as always, but I do think they could be toned down a bit.

Also, there are bugs and crashes. I had to restart the quest I was on maybe half a dozen times due to gamebreaking bugs or fatal errors, and I also got to experience what it's like to have a shield that recharges instantly (very helpful, but kind of unbalanced). Such things aren't the end of the world, but they are mildly frustrating.

Ultimately, I do recommend this game, but I don't consider it a must-buy, even if you loved BL2 as much as I did. It's fun, and it's worth your time and money, but only if you've got plenty of both.

As a documentary, it's relatively well crafted, and if the subject matter interests you (and let's face it, you're on Steam, there's a good chance that it will) this film should easily hold your attention from start to finish. The drama of the tournament is depicted quite well, and the individual characters are presented in a way that is designed to make you feel for them.

I use the word 'designed' deliberately. Documentary makers have to pick and choose from all the different elements of whatever it is they're studying in order to craft a narrative that works as a film. However, there are varying ways of doing this, some more subtle than others. The makers of this film have definitely gone in the non-subtle direction. The three main characters are all presented with such pathos that it almost becomes ridiculous. Their stories of struggle and perseverence in the face of adversity are dwelt on a bit too much, and the sappy music doesn't do much to help. There is too much sentimentality. That said, the actual narrative that is created is genuinely compelling and moving. I just question how much it really reflects reality.

Also, in many ways this film is an advertisement for DOTA. The specially made CG sequences of DOTA characters look much like something you'd see in a trailer, and it becomes jarring. But hell, it works. I want to play DOTA myself now, despite having all the skill and dexterity of a jellyfish with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Final verdict: good film, worth watching, too obviously going for the heartstrings.

There are a couple of very good reasons to play Sequence. Firstly, the gameplay is spot on. Like most rhythm games you are simply required to hit buttons in time to the music, but Sequence has some interesting mechanics. You have three lanes of incoming notes that you can switch between at any time. One of them is defensive; any notes you miss here deplete your health. In another lane you must time your button presses to increase your mana, which is used for spellcasting. The third lane is for the spells themselves. Once you cast a spell you need to hit a short sequence of notes in this lane for the spell to actually take effect.

This leads to quite a frenetic experience where you're constantly shifting between offense and defense. It can be frustrating and it takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it's pure gaming bliss that rivals the old classic Amplitude, not to mention Guitar Hero.

The other, and possibly more significant, reason to play this game is the music. Much of the music is provided by Ronald Jenkees, a man of prodigious melodic talent. I've played Sequence for a good few hours, but I've spent much, much more time listening to the music of Jenkees. It's truly phenomenal, and even if you have no interest in this game I'd recommend checking it out.

Sequence is not perfect. There are RPG elements, and while they work well enough I can't help thinking that so, so much more could have been done with them. I'm put in mind of Puzzle Quest, another game which combined RPG elements with a totally different style of game, but did it in a much more dynamic way. Perhaps the makers of Sequence didn't have the time or resources to go that far, but I do believe they could have come up with something a little more compelling that repetitive grind they've got in this game. Maybe for the sequel?