MaxyBee
I love a good picross game. This is almost that.
A touch too easy, and with an obnoxious timer on the boss puzzles that meant I had finished every single other puzzle with a HUGE amount of those left over. A completely needless feature, as the post-game catalogue (including some bonus puzzles) removes the timer entirely. A very Konami move, and I’m shocked you can’t pay your way past it. Not that I’d want to, it’s just… Konami, y’know?
An excellent argument for turning off your wifi once in a while, too, as the many adverts for other Konami games only actually attempt to appear of you’re connected, and their very presence isn’t just obnoxious, but actually impacts performance.
A touch too easy, and with an obnoxious timer on the boss puzzles that meant I had finished every single other puzzle with a HUGE amount of those left over. A completely needless feature, as the post-game catalogue (including some bonus puzzles) removes the timer entirely. A very Konami move, and I’m shocked you can’t pay your way past it. Not that I’d want to, it’s just… Konami, y’know?
An excellent argument for turning off your wifi once in a while, too, as the many adverts for other Konami games only actually attempt to appear of you’re connected, and their very presence isn’t just obnoxious, but actually impacts performance.
2006
Wait, have I never rated this?
It has baseball! And pretty good baseball at that.
It has tennis! Kinda mediocre but still fun tennis, anyway.
It has boxing! Which is uh. I dunno. Maybe I'm bad at it.
But more than anything it has bowling, in a most excellent form that never stops being fun.
Wii Sports good.
It has baseball! And pretty good baseball at that.
It has tennis! Kinda mediocre but still fun tennis, anyway.
It has boxing! Which is uh. I dunno. Maybe I'm bad at it.
But more than anything it has bowling, in a most excellent form that never stops being fun.
Wii Sports good.
This review contains spoilers
Oh great, now I have to be haunted by this game for the rest of my life. To be cursed by a disquieting tale of folklore, superstition, archaeology and cats that falls somewhere between Lovecraft and The Wicker Man without truly being quite like either.
I often struggle with what I specifically want to talk about when reviewing a game, but here it’s only more so. I’m a southern person whose family come from a small bit of Wales, and who spent over half a decade living in the north, and those differing perspectives and tones and communities all inform how I’m perceiving Thomasina, how I’m perceiving this village, and the northern sorts within. The alienation, the closeness, wariness of others, distance from anyone but the village you live in, there’s stuff to connect to that makes you understand the less sinister characters more, but does nothing to lessen the unease when dealing with peculiarities, eccentrics and absentees, none more than the local lord, who upon your meeting (well, re-meeting, his identity is unknown earlier on) shows you his DEFINITELY NOT SUSPICIOUS ancient church he’s having rebuilt to bring back the worship of something… old. Forgotten. Dangerous.
You have regular nightmares, visions of the barrow you’ve come to excavate, communicating with a sort of goblin creature (the mythology is brilliantly explained, but I’ll keep it simple here), trying to convince you that your ultimate goal is to free him. Thomasina talks to the player via a letter to her Mother, some time after the game’s story has finished. We know that whatever he’s promising isn’t going to be what we really want. But the deception, the corruption of him, infested with the increasingly powerful, sanity-breaking, unseen Abraxas, is still a gut punch, as you see that no matter the intent, this evil is beyond anything anyone could have prepared for. And Thomasina’s fate is a capstone on that.
There’s a lot about Thomasina’s Father. He’s the root of the story, after all, bedridden, incommunicative and non-functioning as he is. We all have Daddy issues, but the way this played out was unanticipated. To not truly know your parent, to then learn they were something the opposite of what you expected, and had done something terrible along the way… it’s effective.
The whole game is effective. The hens are gone. The church is risen. Abraxas walks.
I often struggle with what I specifically want to talk about when reviewing a game, but here it’s only more so. I’m a southern person whose family come from a small bit of Wales, and who spent over half a decade living in the north, and those differing perspectives and tones and communities all inform how I’m perceiving Thomasina, how I’m perceiving this village, and the northern sorts within. The alienation, the closeness, wariness of others, distance from anyone but the village you live in, there’s stuff to connect to that makes you understand the less sinister characters more, but does nothing to lessen the unease when dealing with peculiarities, eccentrics and absentees, none more than the local lord, who upon your meeting (well, re-meeting, his identity is unknown earlier on) shows you his DEFINITELY NOT SUSPICIOUS ancient church he’s having rebuilt to bring back the worship of something… old. Forgotten. Dangerous.
You have regular nightmares, visions of the barrow you’ve come to excavate, communicating with a sort of goblin creature (the mythology is brilliantly explained, but I’ll keep it simple here), trying to convince you that your ultimate goal is to free him. Thomasina talks to the player via a letter to her Mother, some time after the game’s story has finished. We know that whatever he’s promising isn’t going to be what we really want. But the deception, the corruption of him, infested with the increasingly powerful, sanity-breaking, unseen Abraxas, is still a gut punch, as you see that no matter the intent, this evil is beyond anything anyone could have prepared for. And Thomasina’s fate is a capstone on that.
There’s a lot about Thomasina’s Father. He’s the root of the story, after all, bedridden, incommunicative and non-functioning as he is. We all have Daddy issues, but the way this played out was unanticipated. To not truly know your parent, to then learn they were something the opposite of what you expected, and had done something terrible along the way… it’s effective.
The whole game is effective. The hens are gone. The church is risen. Abraxas walks.
2021
Tens of hours poured into this, and I'm still not bored of it. Main game completed, using bonus jobs as a chill between other games.
The sheer methodical satisfaction you get from reorganising your comics, stacking things neatly in a cupboard, or completely filling in the margins of your notebooks with ink.
The sheer methodical satisfaction you get from reorganising your comics, stacking things neatly in a cupboard, or completely filling in the margins of your notebooks with ink.
2022
Peach is mad, Mario is invincible, and I'm having a great time. Mario 64 hasn't aged super well in many regards, but this shows the sort of QoL changes you could make that'd bring it forward. Or just tech to make awesome fan games. Whichever.
2002
Just finished a fresh playthrough, and... I dunno. Amazing linear game, if you just get what you need and plow through the story. But the me of today compared to when this came out can definitely see how it's a bit naff as a Metroid experience. The most limited title of them all (save maybe Metroid 2, which this calls back to a lot, funnily enough), with what is normally a joyous full-powered clean-up turned into a pain in the arse slog.
But... just don't play it like that. Treat it as Not A Metroid and it's great. Thumbs up.
But... just don't play it like that. Treat it as Not A Metroid and it's great. Thumbs up.
2020
There’s something here. A glimmer of something truly excellent, held back by a couple of key issues.
First, the card game. The idea is sound, creating a sex scene across different positions and actions in a three act structure, all done using a deck of cards, a randomised element that means you may not have the act needed to achieve the given objective of any shag. But all failure means is a lack of progress in the main story, and any starlets you’ve levelled up will still have their stories continue regardless, at least if you have a backlog to get through. It’s unexciting, and a limited pool of cards (including the starlets themselves and special event cards that adjust stats or redraw hands) and an even more limited pool of objectives means that repetition sets in QUICK. But given expansion, more risk and reward (a management sim aspect perhaps? Something to make success more crucial), and some smarter missions (how about a no-penetration challenge? A ‘keep it internal’ challenge?), this could work out great.
Secondly, the starlets themselves. They’re all decent horror designs, but hold too much back. You have an opportunity with a game like this to indulge deeply in fetish, and sadly it is ALWAYS restrained to the point that there’s not much difference between the cast beyond the occasional bit of translucence or an extra limb.
You need to go all out. Lucy is a muscle-bound oni, but her body type is lacking in mass. Make her swole as hell and lean into it. Like full bodybuilder. Redd is a slobbish werewolf, lean into that body hair, baybee! Blibby is the curvy slime character, hungry for food and sex, give her more than the tiniest of tummy bumps, maybe even get that vore gig going. Someone’ll be into it! Susie Stitches is an undead girl built for sex, made of various people’s body parts, play with the customisation. Heck, go dark, that means she can take it rough! Hips ground to dust by a mega-shag would be easily replaced, so go heavy!
Instead they’re all just… fine. Sexy, cute characters. They’ll do the job for the average gamer, but they could have been so much more. They could have been perfectly perverse.
Also it just doesn’t have an ending. It just… keeps going after you’ve seen all the scenes. Gimme closure. Gimme a climax!
A final frustration: why are all the sex acts so straight(see note) when every male character is not a part of your deck? If you’re gonna only have the female starlets accessible, have at least SOME of the cards reflect this, rather than the penis-sprouting approach the game currently takes. The boys are well-designed enough, and in the visual novel sections we get to see the, in action, as well as the girls dealing with each other as needs be. But the game itself is so penis-to-vagina oriented that it kind of blows.
I’m talking myself out of the good time I’ve had, but it really is cute. Which’ll do. But I want more, and I want it bigger and better.
*(note: for purposes of this review I’m being a bit basic about gender here, but it’s clear from the designs that this is reflective of the game itself as much as me being so simple on genitals.)
First, the card game. The idea is sound, creating a sex scene across different positions and actions in a three act structure, all done using a deck of cards, a randomised element that means you may not have the act needed to achieve the given objective of any shag. But all failure means is a lack of progress in the main story, and any starlets you’ve levelled up will still have their stories continue regardless, at least if you have a backlog to get through. It’s unexciting, and a limited pool of cards (including the starlets themselves and special event cards that adjust stats or redraw hands) and an even more limited pool of objectives means that repetition sets in QUICK. But given expansion, more risk and reward (a management sim aspect perhaps? Something to make success more crucial), and some smarter missions (how about a no-penetration challenge? A ‘keep it internal’ challenge?), this could work out great.
Secondly, the starlets themselves. They’re all decent horror designs, but hold too much back. You have an opportunity with a game like this to indulge deeply in fetish, and sadly it is ALWAYS restrained to the point that there’s not much difference between the cast beyond the occasional bit of translucence or an extra limb.
You need to go all out. Lucy is a muscle-bound oni, but her body type is lacking in mass. Make her swole as hell and lean into it. Like full bodybuilder. Redd is a slobbish werewolf, lean into that body hair, baybee! Blibby is the curvy slime character, hungry for food and sex, give her more than the tiniest of tummy bumps, maybe even get that vore gig going. Someone’ll be into it! Susie Stitches is an undead girl built for sex, made of various people’s body parts, play with the customisation. Heck, go dark, that means she can take it rough! Hips ground to dust by a mega-shag would be easily replaced, so go heavy!
Instead they’re all just… fine. Sexy, cute characters. They’ll do the job for the average gamer, but they could have been so much more. They could have been perfectly perverse.
Also it just doesn’t have an ending. It just… keeps going after you’ve seen all the scenes. Gimme closure. Gimme a climax!
A final frustration: why are all the sex acts so straight(see note) when every male character is not a part of your deck? If you’re gonna only have the female starlets accessible, have at least SOME of the cards reflect this, rather than the penis-sprouting approach the game currently takes. The boys are well-designed enough, and in the visual novel sections we get to see the, in action, as well as the girls dealing with each other as needs be. But the game itself is so penis-to-vagina oriented that it kind of blows.
I’m talking myself out of the good time I’ve had, but it really is cute. Which’ll do. But I want more, and I want it bigger and better.
*(note: for purposes of this review I’m being a bit basic about gender here, but it’s clear from the designs that this is reflective of the game itself as much as me being so simple on genitals.)
Delightful. Like a school play written by and starring kids, and as such a game so perfectly written as to capture that feeling while still being good. And it knows that books are worthless. Four stars.
2021
What a game! A tightening up and paring down of the original's experience, save for a wonky but still enjoyable boss fight at the end, it really shows how far the core concept can go. AND IF THAT WEREN'T ENOUGH, the three bonus levels show experimentation and variation for how Toree can broaden out, in ways that felt peculiarly Gex-like (I blame the televisions in the first bonus level).
I'm insatiable now. This and its predecessor were fantastic pocket experiences. Now I want to see a fully-fleshed out entry, or at least one twice the length, and with more of the bonus experimentation on display. What a hoot.
I'm insatiable now. This and its predecessor were fantastic pocket experiences. Now I want to see a fully-fleshed out entry, or at least one twice the length, and with more of the bonus experimentation on display. What a hoot.
Absolute garbage. Barely playable at times, clumsy to control, painfully short, and with some truly woeful voice acting, albeit still miraculous as it is actually Brosnan, which is worth something in 1999.
But.
It’s kind of fun. Tiny micro-levels you spurt through, playing a Bond almost pathologically incapable of stealth or turning corners, blowing away enemies with their own assault rifles (the only viable strategy most levels), desperately trying to conserve lives before any stage with a boss encounter, terrifying bullet sponges that can tear you apart in seconds. But by your third Bond or so they’re down, and you’re onto the next wild thing, be it a dizzying and clumsily made ski section, a short car sequence where you just hold fire and hope for the best, or the game’s one true gem, a level where you circle around a small village, not killing civillians and hunting out a rocket launcher so you can show a bunch of turrets what’s what.
Sometimes wallowing in garbage isn’t so bad. That’s why bachelors exist, after all.
But.
It’s kind of fun. Tiny micro-levels you spurt through, playing a Bond almost pathologically incapable of stealth or turning corners, blowing away enemies with their own assault rifles (the only viable strategy most levels), desperately trying to conserve lives before any stage with a boss encounter, terrifying bullet sponges that can tear you apart in seconds. But by your third Bond or so they’re down, and you’re onto the next wild thing, be it a dizzying and clumsily made ski section, a short car sequence where you just hold fire and hope for the best, or the game’s one true gem, a level where you circle around a small village, not killing civillians and hunting out a rocket launcher so you can show a bunch of turrets what’s what.
Sometimes wallowing in garbage isn’t so bad. That’s why bachelors exist, after all.
2013
Replayed recently, and lowering my score a whole star, as for all the neat aesthetic and the creative elements add to it, it’s kind of a shit to actually enjoy playing.
2021
A little tasty morsel of a platformer from a non-existent age, and while I’m never going to care about getting faster times, the dash and jumps feels so nice that I’m more than satisfied with my basic playthrough. Also it cost me pennies, so I’ve nothing more to ask of it.
2018
Gorgeous, delivers on its concept, is fun and very replayab-
TIME’S UP!
[PRESS X TO CONTINUE]
You don’t realise how short 60 seconds really is until late-
TIME’S UP!
[PRESS X TO CONTINUE]
Apparently you can finish this in less than 25 loops, but I-
TIME’S UP!
[PRESS X TO CONTINUE]
Look, it’s just a really good game, right. Recommended to a-
TIME’S UP!
[PRESS X TO CONTINUE]
TIME’S UP!
[PRESS X TO CONTINUE]
You don’t realise how short 60 seconds really is until late-
TIME’S UP!
[PRESS X TO CONTINUE]
Apparently you can finish this in less than 25 loops, but I-
TIME’S UP!
[PRESS X TO CONTINUE]
Look, it’s just a really good game, right. Recommended to a-
TIME’S UP!
[PRESS X TO CONTINUE]
2018
This review contains spoilers
Dave Gilbert and all those hanging out under the Wadjet Eye umbrella have been banging out some of the greatest adventure games of the 21st century since 2006’s The Shivah, every bit as essential a game to the canon of the genre as a Monkey Island or Broken Sword or Space/King’s Quest. The Blackwell series in particular represented (mostly) a high for them that I considered impossible to top, especially after Epiphany’s perfect closing chapter.
And yet here we are, with Unavowed. A new high for Wadjet Eye, and an exemplary specimen of what the genre can be.
A solidly written story of mysteries, magic, and many deaths is what you get for playing, but the playing itself is the true joy, using a team-building mechanic where you can take any two of an eventual four (well, five) partners with you to investigate the hellish machinations an apparent demon possession caused your player character to inflict upon New York, and each of these partners has their own moral values, distinct opinions on choices you make, and abilities for puzzle-solving, delivering something akin to Dungeons & Dragons’ moral alignments, albeit with them managing to rationalise or cope with you doing something completely opposed to your opinions.
Not that you’ll often find that being the case. By choosing certain teams, it influences you the player as a role-player yourself (and your character is even something of a choice too, as you combine gender and job for some variation, and name yourself, kinda). It makes you want to not just choose what your team-mates are suggesting to please them, but also to choose something based on their input, as the writing is so well done as to make them feel like fully-realised human beings (or half-djinn in one case) whose opinions you value.
There was one moment within the game where I had, without much thought, chosen Mandana (aforementioned half-djinn with a sword) and Vicki (ex-cop, has gun). This is a team more accepting of the ‘easy’ solution to problems, and one where I would feel less guilty for doing just that. We’d survived an outburst of unfettered creativity (long story), and had to deal with the one who inflicted this upon us. In other, similar situations, Eli (un-aging fire mage) or Logan (bestower with a child ghost attached) would pull me down to earth. But no, this was a team that could kill, and I the player wouldn’t feel guilty. Instant choice. Vicki. Bang. It felt like a natural outcome of the team chosen, regardless of the possibilities available, and that’s some storytelling magic. It’s one thing to give a player choice. It’s another to make one of those choices feel incredibly natural under the circumstances you’ve made for yourself.
And that’s the magic of Unavowed. It creates these moments with you, and that now feels like the baseline adventure games should aspire to.
And yet here we are, with Unavowed. A new high for Wadjet Eye, and an exemplary specimen of what the genre can be.
A solidly written story of mysteries, magic, and many deaths is what you get for playing, but the playing itself is the true joy, using a team-building mechanic where you can take any two of an eventual four (well, five) partners with you to investigate the hellish machinations an apparent demon possession caused your player character to inflict upon New York, and each of these partners has their own moral values, distinct opinions on choices you make, and abilities for puzzle-solving, delivering something akin to Dungeons & Dragons’ moral alignments, albeit with them managing to rationalise or cope with you doing something completely opposed to your opinions.
Not that you’ll often find that being the case. By choosing certain teams, it influences you the player as a role-player yourself (and your character is even something of a choice too, as you combine gender and job for some variation, and name yourself, kinda). It makes you want to not just choose what your team-mates are suggesting to please them, but also to choose something based on their input, as the writing is so well done as to make them feel like fully-realised human beings (or half-djinn in one case) whose opinions you value.
There was one moment within the game where I had, without much thought, chosen Mandana (aforementioned half-djinn with a sword) and Vicki (ex-cop, has gun). This is a team more accepting of the ‘easy’ solution to problems, and one where I would feel less guilty for doing just that. We’d survived an outburst of unfettered creativity (long story), and had to deal with the one who inflicted this upon us. In other, similar situations, Eli (un-aging fire mage) or Logan (bestower with a child ghost attached) would pull me down to earth. But no, this was a team that could kill, and I the player wouldn’t feel guilty. Instant choice. Vicki. Bang. It felt like a natural outcome of the team chosen, regardless of the possibilities available, and that’s some storytelling magic. It’s one thing to give a player choice. It’s another to make one of those choices feel incredibly natural under the circumstances you’ve made for yourself.
And that’s the magic of Unavowed. It creates these moments with you, and that now feels like the baseline adventure games should aspire to.
1997
Replayed this for my rewatch of the film of the same name, because that’s what I’m about apparently, and more than a blast reliving the iconic shooter of my single digit years, this was more like a curious step into the mind of a still-growing foetus that would one day become Timesplitters 2, in every way the logical endpoint of what was being developed here. For what it is it plays well despite its often confusing movement controls, sounds fantastic, and looks good enough for the time. And yes, it’s funny that Brosnan’s hand creates the illusion that he has an extra wide mouth on the cover.
Didn’t get to relive the multiplayer, sadly, but it’s hard to get everyone together for a bit of slappers when you’re over 30.
Didn’t get to relive the multiplayer, sadly, but it’s hard to get everyone together for a bit of slappers when you’re over 30.