NerdyMrSimms
Despite its problems, Emperor's Tomb is probably for better or worse the best Indiana Jones action game, not counting Fate of Atlantis. The fight controls, the uses of the whip, along with its artstyle, as well as its sound effects and music give off a very professionally made presentation that isnt stinking of a low budget title. It truly feels like care was taken to make this - for the time - a true Indiana Jones title.
However, the game isn't a well oiled machine. Everything about the movement and physics of the game is very janky. Even when playing with the analog controls properly set up, Indy somehow can't walk in a straight line. The game is also sometimes finicky about whether or not the whip can reach its whippable point. There are also no checkpoints aside from the level load in, so there are the general annoyances of dying near the end of a large level and having to start over again.
With everything set up though, this old windows game is able to be played pretty well on the Steam Deck despite the graphical issue that appears only if the level is outdoors.
However, the game isn't a well oiled machine. Everything about the movement and physics of the game is very janky. Even when playing with the analog controls properly set up, Indy somehow can't walk in a straight line. The game is also sometimes finicky about whether or not the whip can reach its whippable point. There are also no checkpoints aside from the level load in, so there are the general annoyances of dying near the end of a large level and having to start over again.
With everything set up though, this old windows game is able to be played pretty well on the Steam Deck despite the graphical issue that appears only if the level is outdoors.
The dungeons lack the finesse of other 2D Zelda games where there are a lot of dead ends that only serve as rooms for keys, forcing you to backtrack through the platforming rooms after obtaining the items on another end. It's actually quicker to save and quit so you respawn back at the entrance of a dungeon.
The last dungeon, Sword and Shield Maze, contains one of the most annoying soundtracks in the series, which is made even more so by having the dungeon being one of the largest and longest as well.
Despite those, I had a good time with this game again.
The last dungeon, Sword and Shield Maze, contains one of the most annoying soundtracks in the series, which is made even more so by having the dungeon being one of the largest and longest as well.
Despite those, I had a good time with this game again.
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 learned from its predecessor's mistakes and shines brightly from correcting them. Unlike the first one which had many points where the story dragged hard, this game's pacing flows smoothly throughout its five episodes.
New to this game is Logic Chess, which is basically the protagonist Edgeworth's way of perceiving the opponent's secrets, along with his flow through the conversation with the opponents to expose the secrets they're hiding.
It's a pretty genius game mechanic from a writing perspective because it showcases Edgeworth as a master conversationalist. The first Investigations game used basic logic to solve puzzles which in turn made every other character around Edgeworth all seem like they are suffering from brain damage.
With logic chess, it shows that the other characters aren't incompetent and that Edgeworth is just that good at listening and using the opponents' words against them. It really hits home on the fact that Edgeworth is really good at his job, as well as making sure that other characters don't suffer from suddenly being forced to be dumbed down to let the protagonist shine.
The logic when presenting evidence is very straightforward, aside from very few instances where I did save before presenting evidence. The previous game suffered from having far-fetched logic shoehorned into the evidence you're presenting and made it seem like Edgeworth was phoning in the logic.
I don't think you need to play AAI1 before playing this game as this one does a decent job of reintroducing the characters from the first one, but it helps tremendously to know certain things that carry over to this game. It's just a shame because the first game drags pretty hard while this game is actually good.
New to this game is Logic Chess, which is basically the protagonist Edgeworth's way of perceiving the opponent's secrets, along with his flow through the conversation with the opponents to expose the secrets they're hiding.
It's a pretty genius game mechanic from a writing perspective because it showcases Edgeworth as a master conversationalist. The first Investigations game used basic logic to solve puzzles which in turn made every other character around Edgeworth all seem like they are suffering from brain damage.
With logic chess, it shows that the other characters aren't incompetent and that Edgeworth is just that good at listening and using the opponents' words against them. It really hits home on the fact that Edgeworth is really good at his job, as well as making sure that other characters don't suffer from suddenly being forced to be dumbed down to let the protagonist shine.
The logic when presenting evidence is very straightforward, aside from very few instances where I did save before presenting evidence. The previous game suffered from having far-fetched logic shoehorned into the evidence you're presenting and made it seem like Edgeworth was phoning in the logic.
I don't think you need to play AAI1 before playing this game as this one does a decent job of reintroducing the characters from the first one, but it helps tremendously to know certain things that carry over to this game. It's just a shame because the first game drags pretty hard while this game is actually good.
Mainly played this to get prepped for the second game, which I heard from the fans that it is better. I'm hoping that's the case because this game had a ton of parts that dragged. I also can't help but feel that pretty much every character in this game is so dumb that they essentially need to be spoonfed information about something that is literally right in front of them.
I get that Gumshoe can be very absentminded but he does try his best to help in the previous games. Here, it's almost like he has permanent brain damage, all to make light of the fact that Edgeworth's "superpower" to solve cases is basically logic. No magic magatama or bracelet to guide the characters' process to peel through the layers of the other character's head, just basic propositional logic.
Case 3 is the point where the game drops the ball. Not only is the case uninteresting, but it drags on for far too long due to circumstances that felt like they were forced in to make the episode longer than it needed to be. The game does pick up in episode 4 and the first half of episode 5, but then it drags on again in the latter half of the last episode.
When presenting evidence, there will be times when you present evidence that can logically fit with your argument. However, it isn't the correct piece that continues the conversation. The game expects you to present things that are pretty far-fetched to a testimony, yet the game will try to shoehorn its reasoning by making it seem like you're tackling the argument from a different point of view that doesn't flow through the conversation well.
It's like "yeah, I know what happened here at the scene, but how does the game expect me to explain it if the evidence related to the line of reasoning penalizes me?" And then it's a process of saving your progress before presenting evidence and then throwing everything until the green penalty bar moves out of frame.
Basically, the game had some good ideas that put a new spin on the Ace Attorney formula, but the writing in this game is not up to par with the rest of the series. At times, it really tried my patience with the constant "Not so fast, you failed to mention this!" bits that almost seemingly didn't end. We'll see if this game was worthwhile playing before GK2.
The best thing I can say about this game is that this song absolutely slaps: https://youtu.be/pucxhTspFrQ
I get that Gumshoe can be very absentminded but he does try his best to help in the previous games. Here, it's almost like he has permanent brain damage, all to make light of the fact that Edgeworth's "superpower" to solve cases is basically logic. No magic magatama or bracelet to guide the characters' process to peel through the layers of the other character's head, just basic propositional logic.
Case 3 is the point where the game drops the ball. Not only is the case uninteresting, but it drags on for far too long due to circumstances that felt like they were forced in to make the episode longer than it needed to be. The game does pick up in episode 4 and the first half of episode 5, but then it drags on again in the latter half of the last episode.
When presenting evidence, there will be times when you present evidence that can logically fit with your argument. However, it isn't the correct piece that continues the conversation. The game expects you to present things that are pretty far-fetched to a testimony, yet the game will try to shoehorn its reasoning by making it seem like you're tackling the argument from a different point of view that doesn't flow through the conversation well.
It's like "yeah, I know what happened here at the scene, but how does the game expect me to explain it if the evidence related to the line of reasoning penalizes me?" And then it's a process of saving your progress before presenting evidence and then throwing everything until the green penalty bar moves out of frame.
Basically, the game had some good ideas that put a new spin on the Ace Attorney formula, but the writing in this game is not up to par with the rest of the series. At times, it really tried my patience with the constant "Not so fast, you failed to mention this!" bits that almost seemingly didn't end. We'll see if this game was worthwhile playing before GK2.
The best thing I can say about this game is that this song absolutely slaps: https://youtu.be/pucxhTspFrQ
Tl;Dr: The first game is good, albeit a bit uneven. The second game is amazing but needs a playthrough of the first to make it that much more complete.
1: A huge breath of fresh air after experiencing the sub par efforts of AA5 and AA6. Admittingly, some of the parts of this game's story tend to drag on, however, the payoff in the end felt very rewarding. It serves as a great setup for the next game.
2: You'd be very dumb to skip out on this game along with the first one if you are even remotely an Ace Attorney fan. It has some of the best written characters in the franchise and it isn't as gimmick plagued compared to the later games in the mainline Ace Attorney series. Episodes 4 and 5 in this game rank among the best episodes I've ever played in the entire franchise, although it has a deus ex machina in the end that kind of soiled my appreciation for this game. Despite that, dare I say I've enjoyed this game more than the first Ace Attorney game overall, which is my favorite game mostly thanks to Case 4 and Rise From The Ashes.
That's all I have to say about this duology. Go play it.
1: A huge breath of fresh air after experiencing the sub par efforts of AA5 and AA6. Admittingly, some of the parts of this game's story tend to drag on, however, the payoff in the end felt very rewarding. It serves as a great setup for the next game.
2: You'd be very dumb to skip out on this game along with the first one if you are even remotely an Ace Attorney fan. It has some of the best written characters in the franchise and it isn't as gimmick plagued compared to the later games in the mainline Ace Attorney series. Episodes 4 and 5 in this game rank among the best episodes I've ever played in the entire franchise, although it has a deus ex machina in the end that kind of soiled my appreciation for this game. Despite that, dare I say I've enjoyed this game more than the first Ace Attorney game overall, which is my favorite game mostly thanks to Case 4 and Rise From The Ashes.
That's all I have to say about this duology. Go play it.
You'd be very dumb to skip out on this game along with the first one if you are even remotely an Ace Attorney fan. It has some of the best written characters in the franchise and it isn't as gimmick plagued compared to the later games in the mainline Ace Attorney series. Episodes 4 and 5 in this game rank among the best episodes I've ever played in the entire franchise, although it has a deus ex machina in the end that kind of soiled my appreciation for this game.
Despite that, dare I say I've enjoyed this game overall more than the first Ace Attorney game, which is my favorite game mostly in due part to Rise From The Ashes.
Despite that, dare I say I've enjoyed this game overall more than the first Ace Attorney game, which is my favorite game mostly in due part to Rise From The Ashes.
My rating for this game is super biased because I grew up with Homestar Runner and the jokes in this game hit just right. It is otherwise a pretty basic point and click escape room esque game spanning three rooms. You may want a guide handy if you want to get perfect scores in the rooms.
Overall, I had a good time with this romhack. The dungeon level design was a bit rough though, a lot of times I had to run back and forth between rooms because there were spots I missed that had keys to the other doors. I did like the final boss, but the old OOT/MM camera hampered it a lot when using the rom hack's exclusive item.
A huge breath of fresh air after experiencing the sub par efforts of AA5 and AA6. Admittingly, some of the parts of this game's story tend to drag on, however the payoff in the end felt very rewarding. It serves as a great set up for the next game, and I am looking forward to concluding that journey.
2019
Void Bastards advertises itself as a System Shock 2 roguelike but it's more like a first person Rogue Legacy collectathon with guns. You're trapped in a nebula and you go on derelict ships to collect food, fuel, and resources to build things that either upgrade your arsenal or advance the game's plot. Along the way you'll fight enemies that have unique personalities and attack patterns, along with dealing with pirates that will make mincemeat of you if you're not prepared. Rinse and repeat until you build the final plot device.
The roguelike portions come from your characters being generated after your current one dies, and they're all basically prisoners that have been sentenced for humorous crimes. These crimes affect their traits which either help or hamper you, and include various assortment of abilities including being able to pick up loot just by approaching them, being able to move silently while sprinting, or something negative like having PTSD and combat music starts playing when you're not actually aggroing an enemy. You are able to change your traits if you find ships that have a gene therapy kiosk.
The game presents you with a variety of weapons and gadgets to take on the ships, but as you upgrade, you're pretty much going to stick with three weapons - at least I did - which were the staple gun (basically an automatic shotgun), the bushwhacker (a proximity explosive, very useful for the enemies that try to attack you from behind), and the upgraded kitty bot that releases explosives upon exploding, effectively clearing out a room full of enemies. Enemies almost always prioritize attacking the kitty bot over you unless you attack them, so it's almost a no brainer to take with you unless you absolutely can't. The only times I've used other weapons were when I was forced to after dying, as the game randomizes the ammo your character starts out with once they've regenerated.
Graphically the game looks good. It's a comic book styled 3D game with 2D billboards for weapons and enemies, basically a prettier Doom. They all work with the game's artstyle so I'm not at all complaining.
Difficulty scales the deeper you go into the nebula, as such the resource yield also increases. However despite this, the game pretty much remains the same all throughout its session and the only thing that really keeps it afloat is its comedy. Once the novelty of its comedic tone wears off, the game becomes extremely repetitive.
The roguelike portions come from your characters being generated after your current one dies, and they're all basically prisoners that have been sentenced for humorous crimes. These crimes affect their traits which either help or hamper you, and include various assortment of abilities including being able to pick up loot just by approaching them, being able to move silently while sprinting, or something negative like having PTSD and combat music starts playing when you're not actually aggroing an enemy. You are able to change your traits if you find ships that have a gene therapy kiosk.
The game presents you with a variety of weapons and gadgets to take on the ships, but as you upgrade, you're pretty much going to stick with three weapons - at least I did - which were the staple gun (basically an automatic shotgun), the bushwhacker (a proximity explosive, very useful for the enemies that try to attack you from behind), and the upgraded kitty bot that releases explosives upon exploding, effectively clearing out a room full of enemies. Enemies almost always prioritize attacking the kitty bot over you unless you attack them, so it's almost a no brainer to take with you unless you absolutely can't. The only times I've used other weapons were when I was forced to after dying, as the game randomizes the ammo your character starts out with once they've regenerated.
Graphically the game looks good. It's a comic book styled 3D game with 2D billboards for weapons and enemies, basically a prettier Doom. They all work with the game's artstyle so I'm not at all complaining.
Difficulty scales the deeper you go into the nebula, as such the resource yield also increases. However despite this, the game pretty much remains the same all throughout its session and the only thing that really keeps it afloat is its comedy. Once the novelty of its comedic tone wears off, the game becomes extremely repetitive.
2001
Aside from being based on one of the best adaptations of Batman, this game ranges from being serviceable to annoying. It's a third person/first person hybrid game that has you going from point A to B in levels whilst beating up enemies in a half baked fighting game style combat with the occasional puzzle solving.
The controls during the combat portion are pretty basic, but some enemies will be quick to stunlock you during those portions. You are able to leave the fight by pressing a specific button, but as soon as you're punched again, you will be forced into the fight again. After the enemy is knocked out, they will eventually get back up unless you handcuff them. Unfortunately handcuffs are very rare to come by in levels, and the game's minimal UI doesn't do any favors of letting you know how many cuffs you have either.
Third person camera control is extremely poor. It's a chase camera with absolutely no way to control the rotation. You have two methods of controlling the camera; flicking the right stick to center the camera behind Batman, or use one of his gadgets to go into first person.
What made me put down the game is how janky some of the platforming portions can get. On certain points, the game expects you to be pixel perfect with your jumps across an instant kill hazard. Batman is extremely picky with what ledges he can grab and mantle up vs approaching a ledge, do nothing and fall to his death.
It started to become a commonplace the more I played the game, so I abandoned it. This game is good to satiate your curiosity of playing a Batman game before the Arkham games, but there isn't anything redeemable otherwise.
Also for some reason, the game doesn't save automatically. If you play with save states in emulators that shouldn't be an issue. If not, you have to manually save your game in the main menu before you turn off your system. Ah, yes, the early days of playing with memory cards.
The controls during the combat portion are pretty basic, but some enemies will be quick to stunlock you during those portions. You are able to leave the fight by pressing a specific button, but as soon as you're punched again, you will be forced into the fight again. After the enemy is knocked out, they will eventually get back up unless you handcuff them. Unfortunately handcuffs are very rare to come by in levels, and the game's minimal UI doesn't do any favors of letting you know how many cuffs you have either.
Third person camera control is extremely poor. It's a chase camera with absolutely no way to control the rotation. You have two methods of controlling the camera; flicking the right stick to center the camera behind Batman, or use one of his gadgets to go into first person.
What made me put down the game is how janky some of the platforming portions can get. On certain points, the game expects you to be pixel perfect with your jumps across an instant kill hazard. Batman is extremely picky with what ledges he can grab and mantle up vs approaching a ledge, do nothing and fall to his death.
It started to become a commonplace the more I played the game, so I abandoned it. This game is good to satiate your curiosity of playing a Batman game before the Arkham games, but there isn't anything redeemable otherwise.
Also for some reason, the game doesn't save automatically. If you play with save states in emulators that shouldn't be an issue. If not, you have to manually save your game in the main menu before you turn off your system. Ah, yes, the early days of playing with memory cards.
2022
A top down old school Resident Evil game, yet it feels more balanced than the game that inspired it. Possibly because of how easy it is to control your player character vs RE's tank controls - along with a singular camera angle - make it pretty accessible to sneak around enemies without wasting ammo. There is going to be a lot of backtracking due to your limited inventory space, but if you muster through that, Signalis is probably the best survival horror game of this generation.
2022
Played in early access between 07.13.2023 and 07.15.2023
I picked this up because after playing the System Shock remake I've been on an immersive sim kick. The game was designed to be an intentionally clunky old school immersive sim, right down to needing to reload your weapon manually when you are out of ammo, along with having limited slots in your quick access bar, and limited inventory so be prepared to stockpile your loot somewhere near a trader. You're only allowed two weapon slots; the first can fit all weapons, the second allows only the knife, pistol, and weapons of similar sizes. You also have three accessory slots for healing items along with Molotovs and drinks that give you specific bonuses.
The aggro system is odd. Enemies are able to hear your footsteps and see you if you are in their line of sight. They cannot however hear your gunshots. Once you aggro one enemy, every single one within several meters of it will be aggroed as well, so you will be ambushed the moment you are spotted. The enemies will chase you until they can no longer see or hear you, and they are able to follow you eons away from their placements. The gunners will always lead their shots, so you have to be mindful to change direction after you hear them fire or you will run into the bullet's path.
The basic ammo have almost no punch aside from getting headshots. The enemies in the second map are spongy as all hell, able to soak up to about four bullets from the upgraded revolver I got from the first map, and about three non-headshots from the double barrel shotgun. Headshots are pretty much mandatory to kill. I don't know if the guns' ironsights don't line up to the center of the screen or I'm just bad at aiming, but I've had an easier time getting headshots from the crossbow than any other weapon since the aiming reticle doesn't disappear when I ADS. I've had better luck with the knife in the first map which has a surprisingly long reach and has even the headshot function if you knife the opposition in the head.
Keep in mind you'll be facing more than three enemies at a time if you aggro any one of them in the crowd so it's absolutely not advisable to start a firefight, which is odd since the steam page advertised that it is an option for progression. The game throws a lot of different enemies at you when you aggro them, and you are left to basically shimmy through a maze of lead on bullet fire while trying to headshot the running melee rushers. With the limited HP you have, you are brought down in about a total of four hits from enemy fire unless you upgrade your HP, then it's maybe five.
Death in the game is incredibly punishing. When you die, you will suffer a penalty towards one of your attributes unless you have a trinket that protects you. Die three times and the penalty becomes a curse that penalizes you further. You could have less max HP or make more noise when you sneak, or various other things. You are able to heal the curses through drinking a specific potion, or by doing a task that the totem in the respawn point gives you if your penalty becomes a curse after three deaths.
I would have been fine with how the curses worked, but the game punishes you further with how far some of the respawn points are. In the second map, there are very strong and spongy enemies that ambush you if you aren't stealthy, and I was only able to find one respawn point, which is the one you start at when starting the map. So not only will you suffer curses, but you will have to traverse back all the way from your respawn point to where you wanted to go with all of the enemies you've killed along the way respawned. You are put at a further disadvantage each time because you are spending money to keep yourself stocked with ammo along with the trinket to protect you from the curses. Eventually you may run out of those resources effectively making the game needlessly more difficult and tedious to get through, forcing you to grind to kill the respawned enemies to gather up the money needed to remove the curses and keep you healthy.
Mechanically the immersive sim portions work pretty well and the game has an interesting world to explore, especially the second map. The issue is that the game is brutal and expects you to take a lot of punishment. However instead of designing it in a way where you learn from your mistakes, it punishes you further with a very questionable enemy design where you are effectively playing a lead on bullet hell with far away spawn points. It tested my patience so much that I essentially save scummed to circumvent its mechanics rather than to use them as intended, because after awhile, trying to get through an area's long slouches of walking from point A to B without dying to bulletfire had stopped being fun.
Another point I should make is that the game has no real way to save either. You're only given two options to save your progress; either at a respawn point or you can quit the game through the pause menu and it will save at the exact location you're standing at. Your progress will be overwritten the moment you respawn, so the way to circumvent its long and tedious grinding is to force quit the game between the time you die and the moment you respawn. That way you are able to resume the game without losing progress if you've saved through quitting the game through the pause menu.
With the way the save system is designed, it's very likely that the devs do not want you to create your own checkpoints and quicksaves, hence why I'm a lot harsher with my criticism of the game. However the choice is your's. Either you waste time to manually save the game then resume, then alt+f4 and resume the game quickly after dying, or waste likely more time to grind to get back what you've lost and find your way back to where you've died.
As this game is still in early access, I'm hoping the devs will iron out and balance some of the shortcomings to make this game worthwhile to return to when chapter 3 rolls around in December.
I picked this up because after playing the System Shock remake I've been on an immersive sim kick. The game was designed to be an intentionally clunky old school immersive sim, right down to needing to reload your weapon manually when you are out of ammo, along with having limited slots in your quick access bar, and limited inventory so be prepared to stockpile your loot somewhere near a trader. You're only allowed two weapon slots; the first can fit all weapons, the second allows only the knife, pistol, and weapons of similar sizes. You also have three accessory slots for healing items along with Molotovs and drinks that give you specific bonuses.
The aggro system is odd. Enemies are able to hear your footsteps and see you if you are in their line of sight. They cannot however hear your gunshots. Once you aggro one enemy, every single one within several meters of it will be aggroed as well, so you will be ambushed the moment you are spotted. The enemies will chase you until they can no longer see or hear you, and they are able to follow you eons away from their placements. The gunners will always lead their shots, so you have to be mindful to change direction after you hear them fire or you will run into the bullet's path.
The basic ammo have almost no punch aside from getting headshots. The enemies in the second map are spongy as all hell, able to soak up to about four bullets from the upgraded revolver I got from the first map, and about three non-headshots from the double barrel shotgun. Headshots are pretty much mandatory to kill. I don't know if the guns' ironsights don't line up to the center of the screen or I'm just bad at aiming, but I've had an easier time getting headshots from the crossbow than any other weapon since the aiming reticle doesn't disappear when I ADS. I've had better luck with the knife in the first map which has a surprisingly long reach and has even the headshot function if you knife the opposition in the head.
Keep in mind you'll be facing more than three enemies at a time if you aggro any one of them in the crowd so it's absolutely not advisable to start a firefight, which is odd since the steam page advertised that it is an option for progression. The game throws a lot of different enemies at you when you aggro them, and you are left to basically shimmy through a maze of lead on bullet fire while trying to headshot the running melee rushers. With the limited HP you have, you are brought down in about a total of four hits from enemy fire unless you upgrade your HP, then it's maybe five.
Death in the game is incredibly punishing. When you die, you will suffer a penalty towards one of your attributes unless you have a trinket that protects you. Die three times and the penalty becomes a curse that penalizes you further. You could have less max HP or make more noise when you sneak, or various other things. You are able to heal the curses through drinking a specific potion, or by doing a task that the totem in the respawn point gives you if your penalty becomes a curse after three deaths.
I would have been fine with how the curses worked, but the game punishes you further with how far some of the respawn points are. In the second map, there are very strong and spongy enemies that ambush you if you aren't stealthy, and I was only able to find one respawn point, which is the one you start at when starting the map. So not only will you suffer curses, but you will have to traverse back all the way from your respawn point to where you wanted to go with all of the enemies you've killed along the way respawned. You are put at a further disadvantage each time because you are spending money to keep yourself stocked with ammo along with the trinket to protect you from the curses. Eventually you may run out of those resources effectively making the game needlessly more difficult and tedious to get through, forcing you to grind to kill the respawned enemies to gather up the money needed to remove the curses and keep you healthy.
Mechanically the immersive sim portions work pretty well and the game has an interesting world to explore, especially the second map. The issue is that the game is brutal and expects you to take a lot of punishment. However instead of designing it in a way where you learn from your mistakes, it punishes you further with a very questionable enemy design where you are effectively playing a lead on bullet hell with far away spawn points. It tested my patience so much that I essentially save scummed to circumvent its mechanics rather than to use them as intended, because after awhile, trying to get through an area's long slouches of walking from point A to B without dying to bulletfire had stopped being fun.
Another point I should make is that the game has no real way to save either. You're only given two options to save your progress; either at a respawn point or you can quit the game through the pause menu and it will save at the exact location you're standing at. Your progress will be overwritten the moment you respawn, so the way to circumvent its long and tedious grinding is to force quit the game between the time you die and the moment you respawn. That way you are able to resume the game without losing progress if you've saved through quitting the game through the pause menu.
With the way the save system is designed, it's very likely that the devs do not want you to create your own checkpoints and quicksaves, hence why I'm a lot harsher with my criticism of the game. However the choice is your's. Either you waste time to manually save the game then resume, then alt+f4 and resume the game quickly after dying, or waste likely more time to grind to get back what you've lost and find your way back to where you've died.
As this game is still in early access, I'm hoping the devs will iron out and balance some of the shortcomings to make this game worthwhile to return to when chapter 3 rolls around in December.
2005
This review contains spoilers
Geist is a first person shooter that allows the player to take possession of NPCs and objects, allowing them to solve puzzles using character specific abilities.
To possess a mammal, you need to possess certain objects near the mammal to scare them. Usually scaring them involves two or three stages where you scare them once and they'll move to another location. Scare them again at the new location and they'll be scared enough for you to possess them.
On paper it's a very interesting and ambitious idea, but the game executes it without a lot of finesse. You possess engineers and scientists to go through doors that are restricted, possess soldiers for firepower, and animals to go through areas that are too small for a human to fit through, or instances where you are forced to possess an animal because there isn't anything near a human that could scare them.
Almost every time you possess someone with a weapon, the game wants you to use that against anything that moves unless told otherwise. I would like some variety where you could blend in with other soldiers and talk them through letting you pass, but mostly that is usually solved with a firefight that you start. Though, the game is simple enough that accomplishing those tasks is still rewarding.
That is, until the end of the game. Then it becomes insanely annoying with sudden difficulty spikes, along with instances where you have to fight off ghosts possessing you by mashing A as quickly as possible all while moving your joystick in the opposite direction of where the ghost wants to move you. They usually want to move you into an instant kill hazard like a pit. It had gotten so annoying to deal with that I mapped a button to function like a turbo A to repel the ghosts away.
The boss before the final one also has some kind of repulsion effect to the auto aim, and if you're close enough to him, your auto aim actually aims away from him rather than be fixated on him, pretty much like trying to clamp two magnets that are of the same pole.
Speaking of auto aiming, there is neither a way to turn it off, nor does the game give you options to adjust the sensitivity of aiming. Your only option is to invert the pitch. The lack of options make controlling the characters very sluggish, and I really wish they put more emphasis on giving players more options for more comfortable controls.
I think they wanted to make it different from other FPSs by having shooting not the main focus of it, but like its lack of finesse with its ghost functions, the game clumsily flips between wanting to be a first person shooter and an adventure puzzle game in first person rather than having them seamless like System Shock and Metroid Prime.
Another gripe I have with the game is near the end. An animal trainer is missing her pet rat. During that time you control another human being. You follow down a hallway into a storage area filled with rat traps. You come into another storage room where the rat is along with other wild rats. So, I would think since I am in control of someone, I can just scoop up the fancy rat and take it to its owner, right?
Nope, you have to scare the rat, take possession of it, avoid the rat traps (which the rat will gravitate towards because the bait is too much of a temptation,) and take alternate routes to the trainer because apparently rats can't climb stairs.
But enough with my rambling. Geist feels like it had a lot of ambition while being developed, and it shows as what it accomplishes right it feels really great. Unfortunately the shortcomings of its game design along the sudden difficulty spikes at the end make completing the game feel like a fight without it feeling rewarding in the end.
To possess a mammal, you need to possess certain objects near the mammal to scare them. Usually scaring them involves two or three stages where you scare them once and they'll move to another location. Scare them again at the new location and they'll be scared enough for you to possess them.
On paper it's a very interesting and ambitious idea, but the game executes it without a lot of finesse. You possess engineers and scientists to go through doors that are restricted, possess soldiers for firepower, and animals to go through areas that are too small for a human to fit through, or instances where you are forced to possess an animal because there isn't anything near a human that could scare them.
Almost every time you possess someone with a weapon, the game wants you to use that against anything that moves unless told otherwise. I would like some variety where you could blend in with other soldiers and talk them through letting you pass, but mostly that is usually solved with a firefight that you start. Though, the game is simple enough that accomplishing those tasks is still rewarding.
That is, until the end of the game. Then it becomes insanely annoying with sudden difficulty spikes, along with instances where you have to fight off ghosts possessing you by mashing A as quickly as possible all while moving your joystick in the opposite direction of where the ghost wants to move you. They usually want to move you into an instant kill hazard like a pit. It had gotten so annoying to deal with that I mapped a button to function like a turbo A to repel the ghosts away.
The boss before the final one also has some kind of repulsion effect to the auto aim, and if you're close enough to him, your auto aim actually aims away from him rather than be fixated on him, pretty much like trying to clamp two magnets that are of the same pole.
Speaking of auto aiming, there is neither a way to turn it off, nor does the game give you options to adjust the sensitivity of aiming. Your only option is to invert the pitch. The lack of options make controlling the characters very sluggish, and I really wish they put more emphasis on giving players more options for more comfortable controls.
I think they wanted to make it different from other FPSs by having shooting not the main focus of it, but like its lack of finesse with its ghost functions, the game clumsily flips between wanting to be a first person shooter and an adventure puzzle game in first person rather than having them seamless like System Shock and Metroid Prime.
Another gripe I have with the game is near the end. An animal trainer is missing her pet rat. During that time you control another human being. You follow down a hallway into a storage area filled with rat traps. You come into another storage room where the rat is along with other wild rats. So, I would think since I am in control of someone, I can just scoop up the fancy rat and take it to its owner, right?
Nope, you have to scare the rat, take possession of it, avoid the rat traps (which the rat will gravitate towards because the bait is too much of a temptation,) and take alternate routes to the trainer because apparently rats can't climb stairs.
But enough with my rambling. Geist feels like it had a lot of ambition while being developed, and it shows as what it accomplishes right it feels really great. Unfortunately the shortcomings of its game design along the sudden difficulty spikes at the end make completing the game feel like a fight without it feeling rewarding in the end.
As good as most licensed games in the 00s, it's mediocre. This game follows the formula of fighting a couple of enemies at a time with some platforming on the side. Your goal is to reach the end of a stage, save the captive natives along the way, and collect relics to use them to upgrade your attributes. Rinse and repeat for roughly 24 levels.
It didn't take a page from the 3D Mario games by having the character's shadow underneath them at all times to assist the player to land when jumping, so it makes it unnecessarily difficult to judge where to land when jumping across. Sloped edges on the ground may cause Jack to lose his footing, so that plus the troubling depth perception makes it a pretty frustrating time. Enemies also tend to respawn out of view and immediately fire upon Jack without warning.
It's a short game. You could probably finish it in under 5 to 6 hours.
It didn't take a page from the 3D Mario games by having the character's shadow underneath them at all times to assist the player to land when jumping, so it makes it unnecessarily difficult to judge where to land when jumping across. Sloped edges on the ground may cause Jack to lose his footing, so that plus the troubling depth perception makes it a pretty frustrating time. Enemies also tend to respawn out of view and immediately fire upon Jack without warning.
It's a short game. You could probably finish it in under 5 to 6 hours.