It's probably my fault for over-hyping this game, thinking it was gonna be a new instant classic along the lines of Outer Wilds and Inscryption. Sadly, I've played maybe 7 hours on the week of its release and have been hesitant to open it since then.

Outside of its gorgeous presentation and intriguing atmosphere, I found the experience extremely tedious. The selling point of the game and its core mechanic, the car, ended up feeling like a burden instead of being a tool of experimentation and freedom. The reason being that you need to get out of your car every minute to pick up items and to explore buildings. The "drive 30 seconds, park, loot, drive 30 seconds" loop gets tired real fast.

It might still click for some enjoyers of looter/exploration game! I'll give it props for trying something new at least.

Nothing too crazy here. It's fun with a friend, but I would not recommend it for solo players. They have a cool coop mode where each player gets assigned a character and they ask you to pass the controller when it's someone else's turn to play.

It's fun to laugh at a friend who just missed a QTE or to decide on which choices to make as a group. The story and the characterization are pretty much inspired by b-horror movies so you know what you're getting yourself into. Once again, play it with someone else, that's where 90% of the fun will come from, otherwise you're probably better off just ignoring it or watching a playthrough instead.

In terms of "heavy on reading" narrative game, this is not as dynamic and interactive as a Telltale game like The Wolf Among Us nor as richly built and in-depth as Disco Elysium. It is its own thing, but not always for the better.

My main issue is that the game is to grounded in reality, trying to portrait what's authentic and how life was like in this period. This results in a myriad of conversations and small talks about villages, farming, food, religion, faith, family, etc. If this sounds like your thing, than you're in for a treat. I, on the other hand, would've liked a more fantastical approach to the narrative. The dream sequences and the inner monologues are a great starting point, but it needed to expend in that direction.

The pacing is also quite tedious. I ended up getting used to the flow of the game near the middle of the second act, but without spoiling anything, it changed back up in the last act and made thing so slow once again.

If you're a medieval history nerd or are interested in diving deeper into a religious setting, than you'll probably enjoy this a lot. I certainly respect this game for what it was trying to achieve, but I don't think it'll succeed for everyone.

I'm just so glad that a studio out there took such clear inspiration from the Half-Life franchise, and yet it's almost like a curse upon this game. I just couldn't stop making comparisons in my head and wishing I was playing Half-Life 2 again instead.

Not the be too harsh with this either, it's actually quite impressive what such a small team was able to achieve, especially as a first project. There's a lot to appreciate here. Some environments and set pieces are simply gorgeous, the gunplay is relatively fun and there's some great artistic/dreamy sequences sprinkled throughout the game.

On the other hand, the pacing is way off. You unlock almost all of your weapons in a 20 minutes timeframe, making you go from "guy with an axe" to "fully geared up army man". Since the game lets you know how many empty weapon slots you have left, it's clear that there's not much waiting for you in term of progression pass the 1 hour mark.

The fight encounters are also weirdly balanced. Sometimes you'll be fighting 2-3 enemies at once, and sometimes the game will throw 25 enemies at you, seemingly out of nowhere. There should be nothing wrong with this, but it's just not satisfying. You don't have a gravity gun or any other creative tool/skill to make each encounter unique. So you'll just spam your guns and alternate between them when they are out of ammo. There's some explosive barrels here and there so the devs clearly thought of some other ways to approach the fight, but it's just not enough.

The story, I'm sorry to say, is not really griping and the ending will leave you with more question than answers. Things also seemed to have been rushed in the last 20 minutes unfortunately.

The music is passable, even pretty at times on its own, but I felt like it rarely meshed well with the game itself. It's a weird feeling, like I just re-listened to some of the songs on Spotify and liked a lot of them, but never felt like they enhanced the experience while I was playing.

There's other thing floating in my mind but I'll stop there. Still glad I tried it, I'm wishing for more stuff with similar inspirations and references in the future. Also saw that the devs of this game are teasing something new on Twitter so I'll surely be on the lookout for whatever project they'll release in the future.

A fairly traditional horror experience in terms of objectives and gameplay. You've all been there: the door is locked, go find the right key, maybe find a lost letter with some tidbits of lore, make sure not to be spotted by the monster in the meantime.

But Mundaun still manages to stick out from the crowd by nailing 3 elements. First, it is grounded and based in the folklore and myths of rural Switzerland which makes the whole thing uniquely fresh and captivating.

Secondly, its visual style, consisting of entirely hand drawn textures paired with a vintage, sepia-toned filter makes everything much more dreamy and surreal.

Lastly, the sound design in this is great and you'll truly feel isolated on a mountain in a precise time and place. Oh, and every painting has a little story to tell. I won't say more.

Seriously, it's because of game like Mundaun, Iron Lung and No One Lives Under the Lighthouse, that I'm still on the lookout for modern entries in such an over-saturated genre.

A super compelling puzzle game that plays to its strengths without overstaying its welcome. Sweet, short, straight to the point!

The presentation is sublime and evocative. We are thrust into an alien world that plays by its own rules and constantly subvert our expectations. The score is also such a great match with the universe the game takes place in. Spacy and synthy all the way through.

The puzzles themselves are well balanced and you'll never be stuck on one of them for more than 5-10 minutes. And yet they feel rewarding and compelling.

I'm seriously charmed by what I just played and cannot wait to see what these devs will cook next.

I haven't played the first game (American McGee's Alice) so I can't compare the two or comment on how it holds up as a sequel. But as its own thing, Alice: Madness Returns is, sadly, quite mediocre.

It's your typical, drab, third-person platformer with "puzzles" and combat. The only unconventional thing about it is its whole twist on the Alice in Wonderland story. It does a great job at isolating key elements and characters from the source material and giving it a new nightmarish aesthetic.

The rest just feels so dry, the camera is clunky and I've experienced 2 crashes in only a couple hours. I know I would've eaten this as a kid, but as things stand right now, I don't see myself playing A:MR for 7 more hours.