Recent reviews by IceMajor

Quite rarely you see a sequel bettering the first title. But, how often can you say that about the third installment? Hardly ever. What if I asked you the same question, but the subject is a game which defined and changed the genre thirty years ago, now making a comeback. Expectations skyrocket immediately. As a developer, you are met with huge pressure. Then, you deliver the first screenshots giving players a peek into how the game looks like. It looks… well, it looks edgy and different. Way different from what we remembered from the previous ones.

Let’s talk about the actual game. Right away I got sucked into it so much that the water I was drinking became grog. Catchy, old-and-new soundtrack and the incredible voice acting are a big contributor to the world. Amazing performances done by pretty much everyone had certainly played their part. The atmosphere is undoubtedly right there.

In general, characters are well written – they have personality and, for the most part, are not there just to help you achieve goal by giving you quests and information (I was particularly dissatisfied with Elaine). Talking to them is not a chore (except the anchor girl :) ) which is a curse of many in point ‘n’ click genre. Though, you can clearly see that a couple of personas were abandoned at some point during the writing process while others were given care.

According to many complaints the story gets on nostalgia too much. In my eyes, that’s not true. The plot hits just right into the sweet spot. We start off in Mêlée Island trying to get a way of transport to Monkey Island. Moving around the town brings back memories and old friends. We do pretty much the same stuff as we did in the first game. This fills the whole two or three hours of gameplay and I think that’s just enough. Any more would feel like it is playing on an old concepts and is deprived of creativity. I do, however, think that the story lacks some character and originality. After thirty years, one would think that there has to be new, ridiculous, Monkey-Islandish ideas like insult swordfighting. There is none of that boldness and that is a big disappointment. But overall, it is an intriguing, decent plot with funny dialogues and a couple of little twists here and there to make it more colorful.

Playthrough had many movie-like moments, which I enjoyed. The good ol’ “meanwhile”s, cartoon-styled close-ups are nice little ideas that improved the gameplay. Fresh interface which I have not seen previously made everything smoother but arguably more limiting than the previous SCUMM verbs. A product of today’s trend – making things easier.

Not giving at least a short talk about graphic style, after all the surrounding polemics, would somehow be wrong. Return’s art style is what caused biggest controversy. It’s not evidently bad like a lot of the people claimed and I personally love it. Its colorfulness adds into the funky theme of the game. However after seeing some Photoshop work, there are some changes I would make like shortening the faces and adding the white of an eye.

Alright, so to sum things up - Return to Monkey Island is all good with a few disclaimers. But it’s Monkey Island we’re talking about, isn’t it? It’s not enough to just say “great game” – it needs to be reviewed on a higher level, we need to ask whether this game introduces something we’ve not seen before. People forget what makes masterpiece a masterpiece. Its new ideas, its unexpectedness, its pushing of boundaries are critical (in simplification, obviously). Monkey Island 1 & 2 were game changers because they did exactly that. They implemented a bunch of innovative stuff at that time – removed death (well, not entirely), included good smooth, intuitive interface that allowed for experiments or had a story that was one of a kind. Today all of it is taken for granted. If you polish the old ideas, it’s not bad at all, however I think it is too little to be able to call it a piece of art. Does Return to Monkey Island fit into the Game Changers?

Mastered, but mostly old ideas, awesome story, but lacking absurd concepts, new handy interface that probably limits the experimentation a little are not, for me, enough to say so. Surprising art style has nothing to do here – it indeed was unexpected, edgy and bold but it didn’t change anything. It’s just simply a graphic style that developers went for.

Concluding, I’m aware I’m very demanding. Game does a lot of things right, it’s just that when we talk about such a heir I feel like we have to discuss its past, current and future influence. From genre-defining masterpieces like Grand Theft Auto, Mario or, though not triple A, Monkey Island you expect the unexpected. Is Return to Monkey Island a good game? It’s better than that, it’s f u c k i n g excellent. Is Return to Monkey Island as big as the first two? Not even close.

Don’t get me wrong though, I highly recommend it for everyone – whether you’re a big fan of the saga or a newbie – for its humor, audiovisual aspects, atmosphere, logical puzzles, world and of course… the Secret!

The Search is a game about art and finding your true self that is so often forgotten in individuals as they get old. It takes on importance of contemplation, listening and loving the struggle itself that is art, or any other activity. It is about sending a message, what gameplay nicely follows along, to show the way how the search - struggle of improving and getting to know yourself - is done.

Though the game's narrative is way too new-agey with all of its clichés, spiritual overtones and motivational quotes, it definitely does have some value that struck me personally. Given the shortness of the gameplay (~60 minutes), there really is no reason not to play it - you may realize something imporant for you, or be reminded of it as we tend to forget the essentialist way of life where you are not everrunning treadmill.

You play as Lemeza Kosugi, a professor of archaeology, trying to discover the mysteries of La-Mulana ruins, where his father is also currently residing. However, the ruins immediately let you know it is going to be ridiculously difficult to succeed. But you try your best.

You encounter A LOT of traps: a few of them are obvious, but most of them, besides from surprising you, frustrate you and make you miserable. Even more than traps there's information given to you from which you have to make something out of. The clue you have just seen may be important now, at the end of your adventure or, perhaps... even later? That is why a good archaeologist carries a notepad with him at all times and makes nicely arranged notes. Without it, you may as well give up.

After solving a riddle, you feel a great deal of satisfaction which is instantaneously killed off by noticing your notes are already five pages long, or you just get instakilled right after and YOU HAVEN'T F U C K I N G SAVED FOR FIFTEEN M O T H E R F U C K I N G MINUTES G O D D A M M I T!

Welcome to La-Mulana ruins...

First and foremost, La-Mulana is unique. I'm amazed with the amount of passion the game was developed with: you see it at each step. Everything is detailed and connected in a way you may discover hours later or never at all. Plus, there are dozens of mythological references that surely were backed by research. This very point would make it hard for me not to recommend the game because seeing such a big quantity of quality and care makes it worth appreciating even if the game is hard and/or unjust at times.

However - mind you, because I am indeed going to dissuade playing La-Mulana. I don't recommend getting La-Mulana for anyone looking for a relaxing, "fun-type" game for boring evenings. Waste of time, nerves and money. Here, you are required not to be playing in it, but be in it. To paraphrase Mortimer Adler, you have to become acquainted with the world - you have to feel like a part of it. The game was created with passion and you have to be playing it with passion. Only then can you discover the secrets of La-Mulana.

Meanwhile, when you continue your adventure, the brilliant sounds of La-Mulana make you wanna dance eat curry and sleep, but you can't lose your focus. See this statue right there? Yeah, it is incredibly likely that when you go past it, it will turn to a f u c k i n g boss that will backstab you.

Jokes aside - one of the best soundtracks ever, seriously. Fits the aura of the world just perfectly.

The level of difficulty between puzzles and actual platforming - jumping, killing enemies, bosses and whatnot - is pretty balanced. Both will f u c k you up and you'll fail, oh, trust me... You'll fail terribly. After playing DOOM, I thought it is going to be hard to beat its level of intensity and fair difficulty (have not played Dark Souls or Sekiro), but DOOM looks like a baby doll in comparision to La-Mulana. The struggle, however, is worth it - there will be moments of glory when you unclench your buttocks after defeating the 2nd boss in the 25th try.

I cannot praise it enough because I simply love this game (though it hates me). It's both a work of art and a masterpiece. When do you ever see something like La-Mulana? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you do. The amount of gameplay that there is - at least sixty hours of playtime if you don't look up to the guide so often and most likely about two hundred and sixty hours when you never do so. Plus, it's not copy 'n' paste content like you see in every RPG. Ninety percent of s h i t you do is original and new - you don't know how to approach it, but it makes sense in the end with its great design. Especially the puzzles! I mean there's what? Easily more than a hundred of things wrtitten in, to quote George Carlin, "spooky language" to figure out. The best part of it is that they are really complex riddles but when you solve them, you notice how beautifully they all fit to the other ones, the world and the story overall.

For those who want to test their endurance, ambition and discipline, while accepting the fact that the game will be unjust and unfair at times, La-Mulana is a perfect choice. It has got everything the right video game adventure needs: witty dialogues, remarkable characters, fantastic, thematic music, complex riddles and incredibly tough bosses.

In La-Mulana there's no inbetween. You love it or you hate it. Either you survive or the ruins claim ya. Good luck.

Unavowed is, much like its "predecessor" - the Blackwell series - a fantasy themed game in which the story is placed in a world of spirits that you have to deal and/or cooperate with.
At first I was a bit disappointed as the story seemed cliché because of its fantasy world with some kind of weird spells and powers, demons to fight, someone getting possesed, supernatural characters, etc. However, I quickly found myself struggling to put the game away. "Just one more mission". "No, but for real now - last one". And so on. That's how I'd end up playing it for 5 hours straight.
The story became more complex and very engaging due to the excellent writing of Dave Gilbert. Each character had a clear, early-established background which made their motifs clear and made you sympathize with them. The plot itself is a linear one, so you don't get lost a lot. Choices that you make actually matter on a bunch of occassions - starting from meaningful dialogue options through deciding whom to take on a case ending up with choices on character's sex and past at the very beginning of the game. Especially the last one as it gives you a whole different storyline. It's not just that you're a man or a woman, actor or bartender, hell no. It'll have a greater impact - you'll meet new personas, locations and so forth. That's why you could've ended up with plenty of different endings. The richness of content taking into account that it's an indie game particularly makes Unavowed an outstanding one in its genre. The only thing I disliked were the puzzles. 99% of the time they were very easy. Too little challenge.
Overall, it's an incredibly good product. Every aspect of Blackwell has been expanded and polished in Wadjet Eye's Unavowed.

An average game usually tends to have some aspects expanded to a certain level. It'll have combat system, it'll have story, soundtrack, character development, options to choose from, and so on... If you play it and the story sucks, it doesn't neccesarily mean that it's bad. You still may have fun exploring the map and beating the s h i t out of enemies.

However, Impostor Factory is very limited in this sense. The gameplay is pretty much only about controlling the character and looking at objects. There isn't much else to do. But: is it good? Hell yeah it's good.

The game is based mainly on the plot. If the story doesn't deliver because it feels uninspired or rushed, you'll be disappointed. But, the story is immersive and incredibly thought-provoking. This 4th installment in the series (A Bird Story included) has been outlined by Kan Gao, the writer, 10 years ago or more. He does his job very well and that's why I don't really worry about the quality of Freebird Games's games before they release. There's no place for changing major aspects of the project a year before the premiere, which is very common in the AAA titles production. Good planning leads to good product.

The story is perfectly supported with, yet again, magnificent soundtrack. Lots of different songs, adjusted brilliantly to the setting and momentum.

My favourite game of all-time is Finding Paradise, so a previous game in the series, and I'm not going to lie, Impostor Factory is as good. But if I were to pick one, I'd choose the former as it was a significantly longer game.

Games defined by fast pace, chaos, gore and a science fiction theme have never been my cup of tea. I always leaned towards slow, set in a real world or a fantasy one, adventure titles that come from various different genres like RPGs, point 'n' clicks, shooters (like Tom Clancy's Blacklist), and so on... (It doesn't mean I dislike everything else).

One day, I felt like trying something new that is different from what I usually play. That's how I bought DOOM, which I perceived as a game where you have to do nothing but hold the left mouse button all the time. However, that's not what I got.

DOOM, if played on an engaging difficulty, requires you to constantly think and make decisions about where to move, what weapons to use and scream out loud "WHERE THE F U C K IS ARMOR?!". I wouldn't be able to list a lot of the games with same or better level of tension because DOOM managed to have me sit uptight in my chair while I tried to get some relief by nervously clicking buttons. May I also just note how f u c k i n g brilliant is the soundtrack? I cannot praise it enough. It truly adds +10 to skill.

I was also quite surprised with the story. When picking up games like DOOM, one usually has little-to-no expectations of the plot. And, I think, quite rightly so, because there can't be too much of it. In cases like this, the storyline should be told in a subtle manner so that it doesn't break the pace of the gameplay. And by doing so, developers made it quite exciting to follow the Doom Slayer's adventures. They also included data entries that, if picked up by a player, would provide more details about the story. When I was at the very beginning of the game, I'd read each of the data entries I found, but I very quickly gave up on this idea as it didn't really fit with the concept of DOOM. But for those interested, it's surely nice to read it all after completing the game.

What's also worth mentioning is that there aren't thousands of different enemies, but the ones featured are very unique and I tended to have a variety of approaches to them with one similarity that was running away with genuine fear.

To make this review a bit more balanced, I need to say that there were some moments where the linearity of most of the levels would become boring, but, thankfully, there wasn't much of it and the intensity of fight sequences would make it up to me.

Overall, the game turned out to be a little bit more than I first thought it would be (in a positive way). And while I maintain my genre tastes unchanged, I'll keep in mind that sometimes chaos can be quite refreshing!

Although, it's not a famous game (even in the kind-of-dead point 'n' click genre), I had some expectations when I was buying it.
It's not perfect, but I did enjoy it.
It's got some mini-games, so that the gameplay doesn't feel very linear (could have been more of them, though).
The soundtrack is good, but no matter what track was playing, I always felt there's something missing from it - like it's quality music, but not quite fitting to the scenery or missing some tune. Good, but not great.
The settings would sometimes feel kind of dead. Little details, no characters, place looking unfinished, and unexploited potential. At least, that's my feeling.
When it comes to some minor issues: long, boring animations (for example when using an elevator) and a few bugs with animations did occur. Nothing that made it unplayable, however.
Plus, the story is based on real life, so that's nice as you don't see it often in video games.
Overall - not a masterpiece, but a decent game so if you're into point 'n' click adventure games, giving it a try doesn't sound like a bad idea.

PS. I don't know if that's just me, but I'm sure that some of the walking sounds - grass ones - are from Minecraft.

As much as I liked Risen 1, I cannot say the same about its sequel.
I'm this kind of player who seeks for hidden paths, secrets and wants to explore every single inch of the map, basically. (This playstyle will also result in you being lost a few times in the game. I’ve completed a lot of quests before I even knew it was some task and then I would realize that I don’t know what to do next in order to advance). In the first game, you would do this with great pleasure (at least I did) and you would also be justly rewarded for it. However in Risen 2, wandering around was not fun for me. Reasons for it? Certainly, the actual size of the map. There's simply too much of it - you have 3 big maps and a few medium ones... It makes HOURS of opening locks, picking things up, talking to boring ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ characters, killing mobs who are rather annoying than challenging and climbing - yeah, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ climbing - it's awful. Also, it's not really rewarding... I mean, the legendary items are a good idea, but developers could have also included more sword parts or other ♥♥♥♥ than just money, grog and elixirs that you’ll never use. Which brings me to another point...
I wanted to create elixirs (the ones that give you permanent bonuses), but you need schematics for them from which half is nowhere to be found; I used my smithing skills in this game only once, at the very end, which is not surprising as there are only 4 special swords in this game (while Risen 1 had lots of them).
I have chosen the voodoo path, but the game does such a poor job at explaining to you how it works, that I eventually ended up using a limited for me sword fighting.
The story itself is fine, but man are the dialogues horrible. Do yourself a favor and just talk to others as little as possible. You’ll save a lot of time.
And the boss fight was easier than fighting a monkey…
Not worth it.

Usually, I'd really consider recommending a 2 hour game that costs 15 bucks. However, it's not the case with Gorogoa which was created with big passion and that is well thought out.
Pay close attention to the plot. Not only is it an original concept when it comes to solving puzzles, but the story itself, which is told in a very subtle manner - without a single word, is worth the money.

poor goat