i often wonder where the AA/AAA games about motherhood are. and while technically this is a game about siblings, the way both Amicia's brother, Hugo, and also occasionally young budding alchemist, Lucas, huddle around her during certain sections where she has to illuminate a path through a plague of rats with a torch felt really maternal to me. it's also really rare for a game with a female protagonist to be so devoid of paternal/male figures too. i think that's what makes playing feel so fresh to me (even if it's not the freshest concept outside of games).

i really fell for this game's emotional tricks. the way it throws you into a bleak, terrifying world and then - like a flower blooming in the mud, blood and shit of a corpse-ridden battlefield - gives way to these really relieving moments of young teen characters bonding as they clutch onto each other (figuratively and literally) through the hell of it all. i think the game really nails those little quiet moments between stealthing passed inquisition guards and piles of swarming carnivorous rats, there's often a real personality to them (sometimes they offer levity, sometimes, as wit Melie, you can feel a genuine tension that exists beyond merely being your new BFF).

odd note: but i appreciate that i didn't have to collect any journals (i don't know why that stood out to me). but the "environment storytelling" is mostly the actual environment, a few npcs maybe, but there's like no like walls of text or little notes left lying around. made the game feel more in the moment, more urgent and the world by extension less artificially constructed (even if by the end what it's doing with the waves of rats is some insane out of this world shit... game kind of goes too far there i think but oh well).

also appreciate that murder in this game - while painted as a necessary evil via lines like "there was no other way" - isn't completely written off as just another wanton act of regular video game violence. the first two men you kill feels genuinely harrowing. likewise there are moments where you have a "choice" to kill/let someone die and while there's no morality system characters may remark upon it and in those moments you can feel Amicia grappling with her actions. it made me wish the game put more thought into non-violent combat and scaled back the amount of encounters where you 100% have to brain a guard with a rock/sic rats on them (and by the end the game feels like it just said fuck it, kill everyone). a missed opportunity but possibly because of how considered it felt at other times.

It's a 10 minute tech-demo, not a legit game and that's the only reason I rate it so low, but I will say that as a graphical experience it the most realistic I've ever seen in the context of a 'video game experience' and what the Unreal Engine 5 is capable of is absolutely undeniably impressive.

When I think about how far our technology has come in such a short amount of time, it blows my mind. Pong, arguably the very first video game, came out in 1972. It was just a black screen with two pixilated bricks and a pixilated ball. We are now in 2021 and just look at our games, especially the cut-scenes in most legitimately look like movies and the new Unreal Engine 5 demo is pretty unbelievable, the most realistic I've ever seen a video game experience look. Next year it'll be the 50th anniversary of games, since it was just black and white 2D pixels. That is insane when you think about it, considering that's not a long time when you really think about it. Sure the years are double my age, but in the grand scheme of things, it's still not long at all.

It makes me wonder where we'll go from our current technology, is virtual reality the TRUE future? Will we all have outlets in our heads and be plugging into a Matrix like world in another 50 years or less from now?

A bland and unfinished prequel that feels the need to explain the unexplained. The mystery surrounding Rachel Amber drove the intrigue of Life is Strange's opening chapters, but to know every detail about her and to see firsthand her relationship to Chloe drains it of its best factors. It could be forgiven if the game did anything interest in itself, but the lack of powers and lesser quality writing than the first makes Chloe a dreadfully boring protagonist to play as. Really, the only fun part of this game is playing DND with Steph and Mikey.

There's a man who has artistic vision,

He's showing up Rockstar with each decision,

He makes it in a flash,

And all the assets clash,

Do his artistic skills know no boundaries?

Rockstar, hire this man,

Rockstar, hire this man,

He's using Unreal Engine in any way he can,

Take Carl Johnson's model for the first step,

And put him in a field filled with stock assets,

Then adjust the lighting gain,

And though it runs at 40 frames,

This man's still a master of the medium,

Rockstar, hire this man,

Rockstar, hire this man,

He's using Unreal Engine in any way he can,

Make a model's textures look realistic,

With no regard for artstyle or the aesthetic,

Oh, crank the bloom and then,

It'll really look next gen,

This man truly is a fucking genius,

Rockstar, hire this man,

Rockstar, hire this man,

He's using Unreal Engine in any way he can,

I'm a sucker for a flawed RPG and Vampyr has all the makings of a pre-GreedFall Spiders game, many of which have stolen my heart. Like most double-A productions you'll notice things like dated graphics and some technical issues that stem from having been made on a middling budget. However, developer DONTNOD Entertainment shows once again that they are one of the most creative names working in the industry today, and the unique ideas and compelling world they've crafted here make this title worth playing in spite of its faults.

Set in a plague-ridden London during the 1900s, this is a vampiric power fantasy mixed with a detective simulator (quests are even called "investigations") that lets you play doctor on the side. As you search for a cure for the epidemic that's sweeping the continent you'll be faced with a lot of morally gray decisions that will have serious impacts on the world around you. For example, a choice I made relatively early on in the story that seemed solid inadvertently led to an entire district descending into chaos, with a portion of its inhabitants either going missing, joining a gang, or turning into hideous monsters.

By far the most intriguing decisions you'll grapple with though are directly tied to the game's main hook. Every non-hostile NPC you come across can be fed on for a massive boost in experience points at the cost of their lives. While uncovering their secrets, healing them when they're sick, and completing side-quests for them offers a meager amount of EXP on its own, it also serves the purpose of enriching their blood and making it more profitable for you turn them into your next meal later on down the line. This mechanic creates an interesting dynamic where you can either help people out of the goodness of your own heart or raise them like cattle for the slaughter in order to get more powerful.

This is a significant feature because it essentially allows you to pick your own difficulty level. Choosing not to feed on people will ensure the world remains stable, but will make the overall game harder as enemies will always be at higher levels than you. Meanwhile, taking the alternative path and killing the locals for their blood will cause the city's status to deteriorate, but will allow you to unlock the most powerful abilities and can make combat a breeze. You can also strike a balance between the two options and only devour a portion of the population you deem unworthy of life.

In an impressive move DONTNOD put a lot of work into ensuring each character you encounter has a fully fleshed out backstory and set of motives. I met everyone from heartless serial killers to selfless hospital workers and plenty of types in-between. You can decide if the city would be better off without someone or not if you want to and that's a really cool feature. My one issue with it is that I never found talking to any of them to be all that interesting as your relationships with them never really go anywhere unless they are significant to the main story. So the only reason I ever bothered interacting with and learning about anyone was to get stronger, and even then I found myself skipping through most of the dialogue.

As far as issues go, this is far from the prettiest title on the market, but even the plastic looking character models can't rob this moody, gothic version of London of its personality and atmosphere. Load screens are long and you can even run into some random ones while exploring. I also experienced a few crashes. The biggest problems though are the lack of a fast travel system which leads to a lot of backtracking to and fro across the city and some trouble with the balancing at the very beginning and tail end of the game that are the result of enemies being too highly scaled above you. Part of this is intentional though to goad you into draining the NPCs of life as a means of somewhat simulating for you the protagonist's struggle with his constant thirst for blood. Which is creative, but frustrating nonetheless. There is a "story mode" where you won't have to worry about difficulty at all and can solely focus on the narrative, but playing that way locks you out of being able to get a certain trophy.

While known more today for their episodic, Telltale style adventure games, Vampyr like Remember Me before it makes a strong case for why DONTNOD should break out of their comfort zone more often. While they still weren't able to find the same level of critical acclaim here as they were with their Life is Strange series, they still created an exciting RPG based on original concepts that's worth looking at. Especially since its faults this time are more technical in nature rather than inherent to the actual design itself.

8/10

i really hoped i could like this game more because especially the first 1-2 hours are really fun
i love how they took this concept that you have seen so many times in movies (the most recent one would be palm springs which i didnt really like) and turned it into an artsy experimental game
they also created a small environment in which the game takes place which is a smart choice
thanks to that it doesnt come across as a overly ambitious game that wants to be so much more than it could ever be
i like how you can fuck around with many things in the game and there were many times where i was like "what? you can actually do that?" or "omg hes really commenting on that one stupid thing i wanted to do right now" (for example one of these moments was when i took an item and there were different outcomes depending on where and when i was using it)
i also love the look of this game (shining carpet aside)
just look at the rain covering the windows
it looks great

unfortunately there are many things i dislike about twelve minutes
first of all the well regared voice acting wasnt really all that great imo
willem dafoe is great as usual but daisy ridley and james mcavoy were just alright which isnt necessarily their fault i think its more because of the lame writing
the writing itself i think is a huge issue on its own the game has
for example there is a twist (not going to say what the twist is) and many people dont like it
they seem to dislike the twist because its disgusting or whatever?
but i think the problem here is the lame presentation, that it is kind of unoriginal (there are other stories doing the same thing but a lot better) and the fact that it doesnt work for me on an emotional level
and because it barely even scratches the surface of its heavy subject matter it falls really flat
like the whole thematic is just there to be there
gameplaywise i think it becomes tedious as fuck
one of the reasons is that there is no real "forward option" and this is a huge issue because you get to see the same shit over and over again
(this would give the player a better understanding on how the protagonist feels but the story is not interesting enough to justify this)
twelve minutes also has multiple endings which is a decision i understand because it just makes sense when having a concept like this
but the story it wants to tell doesnt need more then one ending and it should not be as overexplained as it is here

so to summon things up:
- i enjoyed the concept for the first 1-2 hours and you can tell the people who made this game really cared about it
- the visual presentation is very interesting
- i also didnt mention the great soundtrack
- sadly the story with its twist falls very flat
- i didnt emotionally resonate to the characters
- after you realize that in order to reach at least one of the endings you have to do the same things over and over again it loses its appeal

Very conflicted, as one of my more anticipated games for a long time now.
Mechanically as a game, i think it pretty much delivers what i wanted and feels great. For the most part everything progress logically and make sense when they do. There are definitely frustrating times when you know what to do but either missed a step or dont know the correct order, but even then when i eventually got them right they felt sound and reasonable in retrospect. For a game with not that many actual variables, i think theres a nice variety of possible interactions and ways to do things leading to different behaviour, dialogue, and developments. Some of these are unintentionally hilarious, especially if you aren't taking it as seriously as it wants which is probably the best way to enjoy this game.
As a story, its hard to understate what a complete and utterly disappointing trainwreck it is. The setup (and tease for years) is incredibly compelling, and I did really enjoy the suspense playing through the first time before learning everything. Every twist and new story development gets progressively worse, leading to maybe the worst conclusion and final synopsis anyone could've imagined going into this game.