Despite my low rating, I actually liked this one. The gameplay is abysmal, yeah, and it lacks some basic functions that one would expect in a video game.

Yet, I found it oddly charming. I had no idea what was going on at any given moment but truth to be told, it reminded me a bit of Henry Darger's Realms of the Unreal (just in space) in a way I can simply not explain.

It's weird, it's a bit out there and I frankly love this game for it. I think there is a case to be made for games like this, considering the current state of gaming and its relentless tendency to simply repeat familiar formulas.

Honestly, the nostalgia is strong with this one. When I was a teenager, I watched so many people play this on Youtube. Used to have a real soft spot for it, too.

I wouldn't say I enjoyed playing it myself for the first time. Sometimes, the game really doesn't do a great job of telling you what you're meant to be doing and it's frustratingly easy to get a bad ending.

The writing is mostly fine but not the plot not particularly scary or well constructed. This very much has that edgy, gory vibe that was essential to older pixel horror games. Younger me loved Corpse Party for that just but now, as an adult, I can't really bring myself to care much about it anymore.

Inkslinger doesn't lack potential. From an artistic point of view, it appears as a true masterpiece with a carefully crafted aesthetic and excellent design. The writing is wonderful as well, slightly poetic and prettily whimsical.

The gameplay is rather unique and intriguing, it fits the atmosphere perfectly. The game has the horror tag on Steam which I find a bit misleading. While the tone is definitely tense and a tad heavy but really not all that creepy.

Personally, I think the execution of the entire concept is a quite flawed - Inkslinger could have been truly amazing but its short runtime and predictable ending ruined the experience a bit for me. All in all, it took me not even 2 hours to finish the game, including getting all endings (although the story never changes, you just get a different slide show depending on what ending you got).

There are clearly signs of an interesting, complex world hidden in this. Why not explore them further, flesh out the characters and plot lines?

Listen. Hidden object games are my guilty pleasure. There's something about turning your head off and squinting at the screen like a 70-year-old woman who just discovered the wonders of video games.

This is one of the worst of the bunch and I'm 100% here for it. The voice acting is abysmal, the puzzles nonsensical and the plot (?) incomprehensible.

I mostly did what the vaguely Eastern European man on screen told me to do - such as throwing holy water on a crocodile in the Mississippi River and destroying priceless cultural heritage sites (to get to a skull that was hidden in a wall?).

Coppola could never.

I love Rusty Lake's games with the passion of ten thousand burning suns. There's something uniquely charming about them, from the characteristic art style to the intricate story lines. While they may not always be the best puzzle games available, they're certainly something else.

That being said, The Cave is my least favourite entry in the series for a number of reasons. In my opinion, most of the puzzles are absolutely tedious (bordering on nonsensical), to the point where I stopped playing for a while because I simply didn't have fun. Navigating through the game often felt like a chore and I had to force myself to finish it.

Unfortunately, this is also the part where they really expanded on the lore. It adds so much context to the way the Rusty Lake universe works and I would actually consider playing it essential to fully understand what's going on with the recurring characters.

I wish more people were talking about this game. It is a wonderful exploration of loss, grief and self-reflexion and utterly, utterly beautiful to look at. The art style fits the uncanny atmosphere of the narrative perfectly - this is the first visual novel that ever got me excited to unlock new images in the game's gallery, simply because each one of them is a piece of art.

Sure, the game isn't without faults, far from it. There's very little replay value to be found, some endings are incredibly hard to find and require a few, rather repetitive playthroughs.

I'd still highly recommend it - it is a lovely experience with wonderful symbolism and refreshing art direction.

Let's start with this: This game is dealing with an incredibly important subject matter and it handles it with great care and gentleness. I did really appreciate it for just that, there's so much empathy and love stored in this one.

Unfortunately, it is extremely underdeveloped. A predicable, shallow plot mixed with a short playtime. Interesting gameplay that is never really utilized, simple puzzles that left me unsatisfied.

All in all, A Normal Lost Phone is the very example of a game with so much potential and little payoff. It doesn't concern itself with details at all, instead focuses on just the basics of its own narrative.

I've read that it still means so much to many people and I get why. I'm sad to say that it didn't really leave any profound impression on me, even though I might have a lot in common with the protagonist.

This isn't really my kind of game. I found the gameplay to be a bit boring, the combat too repetitive. Honestly, I wish horror game devs would stop putting loops in every. single. game. While it was exciting when P.T. did it, it never really hit the mark after that.

Yet I still acknowledge that this is an amazing game. It's experimental in a sense, yes, but I admire its willingness to try out new things. I loved the FMV elements, I adored the voice acting and most of the time, I even enjoyed having no idea what the fuck was going on.

And let's face it, the musical sequence was one of the best things I've ever seen in a video game.

Wasted potential - the video game.

The premise of the game is one that is absolutely dear to me: The power of stories, how they connect us, how they can change our lives a little bit. Personally, I believe that humans were made to tell and share stories, it's in our blood. They're something really sacred.

It pains me even more to admit that almost everything about Where the Water Tastes Like Wine felt pretty undercooked. From the practically useless map to its weird approach to plot progression, nothing really clicked with me.

Although I found some of the stories in the game rather beautiful, they felt also very shallow. I grew tired of the whole concept after playing for a bit, mostly because some of the tales you hear were quite similar to each other and never felt unique enough to actually be rememberable.

That being sad, I appreciate what the devs were trying to do. Just wish they would have thought about this a bit more before releasing it. The soundtrack is wonderful, though.

What is going on in this game? The plot is completely nonsensical: There's a morgue under the school for some reason, students just hang out at the school at night, enemies have the worst AI I've ever seen in a video game.

And the dub. Oh god, the dub. How this managed to get released is a mystery to me. No shade to the voice actors (who are probably really lovely people) but the script isn't giving them much to work with.

Let's be honest, the first game was, despite its popularity back in the day, not a master piece. And still, the sequel seems like a horrible insult to the original.

Had I played this when it came out in 2010, I would have rated it much higher. At the time, it must have been quite impressive, certainly unique in a way. Sadly, it hasn't aged well.

The graphics might be a bit dated but they're still holding up in my opinion. I didn't even mind the gameplay mechanics. No, I was just very, very disappointed with the writing.

The narrative is pretty silly: It has plot holes, misplaced sex scenes and characters behaving rather weirdly in general. All of this wouldn't be much of an issue if the game didn't take itself so seriously but it just does.

I got the feeling that it was trying to tell me something important about society's structure but whatever point it had got overshadowed by its rather lazy writing and its awful conclusion.