A sad look at the conservative point of view.
Problems arise from conforming to the societal expectations in regards to the process of growth. They aren't adressed but instead the expectations get "solved" which creates more problems. The player is then asked to live with it and continue to fit into the "ideal" cycle of life.
You can't progress out of being a teen without having a failed love. You can't go through adulthood without your dreams being crushed. The game is overly pessimistic and it seems like all of it stems from the need to check these important moments.
You could argue that the message is supposed to be one of hope, but that point of view is void because the game treats both good things and bad things as things you have to do; As "problems". The hope aspect seems more like a whiny point about the fact that even if we want it to get better, it won't.
Gameplaywise though, it's a very bare bones menagement game. Boring.

Tuve la oportunidad de jugar este juego hace tiempo, y volviendo a él, repito mucho de lo que ya dije. Es un ejercicio simple de nihilismo, llevado a un aspecto de la industria humana especialmente siniestro, y a fin de cuentas, es poco más que una excusa para que le autore comparta su completo nihilismo ante la vida. En sus mejores momentos, este juego se siente como un exabrupto terapéutico, un grito de rabia convertido en píxel. Esa rabia puede ser muy poderosa de sentir, pero necesita menos ironía auto-impuesta.

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I already played this game a while ago, and going back to it, I'm getting mostly the same. It's a simple exercise in nihilism that's using a particularly sinister aspect of human industry, and in the end, it's more of an excuse for the author to share how little value they find in life. At its best moments, this game feels like a therapeutic outburst, a cry of rage turned pixel. That rage can be very powerful to experience, but it needs less debilitating irony.

I played Half-Life some years ago but eventually dropped it. Since then, I've had this preconceived notion that Half-Life is lame and stupid for some reason. And maybe the original game is, but Black Mesa is great!

It's just a really solid shooter. The movement feels smooth and slippery and fast. All the weapons feel so powerful and impactful. Sprinting while shooting with perfect accuracy is really fun. The game doesn't always play music, but when it does, it's super freaking hype. I liked the overall pacing. Similar to RE4, everything takes place in one day back to back to back. Each chapter picks up right where the last one left off and you go on the entire journey that Gordon does with no breaks.

The game has some stupid bits, like cable puzzles that last way too long, areas where it's not too clear where to go, and some combat encounters where you just get pummeled with bullets and don't have a chance to fight back. Also the audio levels are just super fucked up. Can't hear anything anyone says over the music and SFX. Surprised the devs never added a Dialogue volume slider. The pacing got a bit slower in the second half, sometimes there would be not very much shooting, just puzzles.

But this is a fun game, I understand the hype now :D

Playtime: 7 Hours
Score: 7/10

A fun and interesting horror action game! Never heard of this game until I watched GmanLives review of it on YouTube and it seemed right my alley! So what did think after playing it?

I liked the mood and atmosphere of the game with it being set on a prison island and all the inmates being turned into vicious monsters. I love the designs for them too being based on different kinds of prisoner executions. And of course you have the big monster that your main character turns into which can be fun when you want to smack enemies around or get out of a tough fight easily. I also enjoyed the ability to switch from first to third person with a push of a button, kind of like a Bethesda RPG and it was quite unique to have in a horror game.

While some of the horror is pretty decent, this is very much more of an action horror game, similar to something like Resident Evil 4. But I think the game balanced it all very well. The game also features a bit of a morality system which helps shape's the main character's past and whether he actually did the crime to get the time. While some choices are obvious, there are some optional ones that I feel help test your own morality as a player and I felt rewarded when I made those choices.

Only issue this game has is that the last two levels are absolutely awful and they can leave a bad taste in your mouth. The ending is alright, but the actual bosses are kind of lame, especially the second last one which is just terribly designed.

But still a fun horror game overall. Thankfully GOG did the work of restoring this game and its sequel, which I look forward to playing at some point.

All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/

An almost entirely miserable experience that gives you all the freedom in the world - to butcher, and butcher, and butcher, in unimaginative lands full of equally violent and miserable people as yourself, nobody with anything meaningful to say in their lengthy monologues, everybody sort of uncanny and ugly. It's not D+D, it's not Baldur's Gate, and it's not a good RPG. When it comes down to it, it doesn't even feel that big - it just feel torturously slow and clunky, with every battle taking forever, and painfully awkward traversal otherwise, all coming together to give the illusion of size, and of time well spent. BG3 is an enigma, if only because of how extremely shallow and juvenile the game is, and also how adored.

Well, I tried to like it. I promise, I tried. I spent more than two weeks playing this, and I can't think of a single quest or area or conversation I would like to revisit. Also, the UI is cluttered and the camera frequently worked against me. Also, it crashed 50 or so times during my time with it (on PS5), mostly when trying to load saves, sometimes after levelling up, and occasionally for no discernible reason at all. What happened to standards?

I keep thinking about all the unsurpassed freedom that this game supposedly offers. Well, I don't think a game needs to offer unlimited things to do and ways to do them, because games should focus first on doing one thing well, and then expanding where it has space to. Yet, since everybody and their grandma keeps bringing up how much freedom this game gives you...I never felt free to do what I wanted in this game. I felt trapped. Suffocated. More so than in most 'linear' RPGs I've ever played. You sort of have to do every quest you can find if you want to level up. Different dialogue choices lead to the same outcomes. You can never escape the endless vortex of (often meaningless) violence thrust upon you by passersby. There were so many fights I got into that I didn't want, so many people I had to kill that I would have liked to befriend, flirt with, talk to, be nice to... God, being nice! Acting like a regular human being to a fellow traveller! What a concept! Instead, your key interaction in this game is putting your fist through somebody's skull before they can do the same to you, through battle inputs that don't feel good or natural to use. It's mind numbing!

...Ketheric Thorm's voice acting was good. Stood head and shoulders over the rest of the cast.

Darkwood and I have a weird relationship, I bought the game on Steam all the way back during it's early acces phase almost 9-10 years ago. Since then I tried to beat it over 3-4 different playtroughs but never made it past the first chapter simply because the game is very tough and unforgiving. On paper it has everything that Iove, it's a survival-survival horror game with a very unique top down camera perspective where the player only sees what it is in front of the character. This means you can't see the monsters lurking behind you, you can only hear them. It is such a genius idea and makes them game really special. This works so incredibly well because the sounddesign is impeccable and it creates a very tense nerve wracking atmosphere. I also absolutely adore the art style, from the character design to the environment, every new enemy or character has such a unique design that I couldn't get enough of it and often asked myself where does human part of a character end and where does the nature part begins.
Still it took me almost seven years after it's full release to beat the game and wow I really loved it. Darkwood has no jumpscares and I still had goosebumps during my whole playthrough mostly thanks to the fantastic sounddesign. Especially during the nights it gets really intense because you can only hear but not see what's lurking outside while you hope that the night will be over soon and that your two bear traps are enough to make it through the night. This gameplay loop of exploring during daytime and shitting your pants at night is really addicting. But not only the gameplay and graphics are incredible, the story is also very compelling and mysterious. I love how they organically implemented the moral choices, all of the characters have their own unique story and each one of them is really interesting. The only thing that I missed was voice acting for the notes that you can find.

Darkwood is a masterpiece, everything works perfectly together and creates a incredibly tense atmosphere and it's probably one of the most immersive horror games ever. The story is fantastic, the art style works so incredibly well with the tone of the game and the sounddesign makes this experience more scary than 90% of the other jumpscare infested horror games.
The fact that the Devs are on a hiatus for the forseeable future makes me kinda sad because this game is phenomal. But still, I will wait for your return Acid Wizard Studio, you are so talented.

Favorite Horror games ranked

Games I finished in 2024 ranked

Pentiment is a special game in every respect; a true labor of love. Every time Josh Sawyer speaks about his work in interviews, particularly in the Noclip Documentary, you can see the passion and joy he had for this project in his eyes. In our fast-paced era where games are released and almost as quickly forgotten, Pentiment stands out among the ranks of games that are exceptional and, for this reason, has left a lasting impression on me.

It tells its story so wonderfully slow-paced and with such attention to detail. Every citizen in Tassing has their own unique handwriting, depending on the social class Andreas assigns them to. This is accompanied by such a relaxing ASMR quill sound that I had to snap myself out of a trance several times to follow the story. I like how historical themes of the time are explained and contextualized. In the middle of the game, the Peasants' War is presented in a way that is so understandable and interesting to me, unlike any other medium could achieve. It is only through this game that I engaged with my local history because a major battle of the Peasants' War also took place in the town where I have lived for a long time, and this is deeply rooted in the town's history. Before, I never felt the urge to be interested in it, and now a game from 2022 has done that. It's wonderful.

Many characters are written so realistically and lovingly that I wanted to experience every single dialogue with them because they almost always had something interesting to say. I appreciate that the game uses quiet moments to exchange information with the villagers over a shared meal or just to talk about the latest gossip. I also like that I can play Andreas in different ways. You can play him as a hedonistic jerk who never backs down from a fight, or as a theologically trained pedant who wants to impress everyone with his logical thinking. The decisions you make have significant impacts; for example, towards the end of the game, a character transformed so positively that I was truly delighted. It's nice that Josh Sawyer hasn't completely forgotten his role-playing roots but has skillfully woven them into the game.

It remains true to its main theme throughout the entire game: the examination of history and how it influences so many aspects of our lives in various ways, and how history can be interpreted differently and sometimes corrupts, But it also shows how incredibly important belonging and community are, and that every person deserves them. The ending is one of the best I have ever experienced, and having Lingua Ignota sing the credit song is the cherry on top. It is a truly almost unique experience that everyone should play if they are not averse to extensive texts.

Eu sempre vejo as pessoas xingando e falando que esse jogo é o pior da franquia inteira principalmente o AVGN ,mas eu não acho ele tão ruim quanto dizem

Sim ele tem seus problemas que muitos dizem,os Bosses são muito fáceis se tiver pego os itens e os itens são muito difíceis para achar e tive que até ver vídeo na internet e a gameplay é bem sem sal, porém a trilha sonora é muito boa e tem uma ideia bacana

Ele não é um jogo ruim mas ele não minha de jogos de Castlevania como um jogo ok

Um jogo que tentou adaptar a série, adicionando um aspecto mais RPG pra coisa. Ele é repleto de ideias interessantes, assim como de ideias horríveis...

No geral ele acaba perdido entre os primeiros Castlevanias justamente por esse estilo diferenciado que não se resume apenas a seguir em frente matando monstros, mas sim conversar com várias pessoas, recolhendo rumores que podem ou não ser verdade e explorar o mapa, fazendo e refazendo caminhos, para ir atrás desses rumores e prosseguir no jogo. Claro que essa mudança radical de gameplay acaba sendo bem incômoda para quem esperava algo similar ao seu antecessor.

Mas dizer que, no geral, eu gostei da base esquisita que montaram pra ele. Mas confesso que joguei usando um Walkthrough, pq ficar andando pra lá e pra cá, testando cada rumor, tendo que procurar cada passagem secreta/parede falsa ou bloco falso no cenário escondendo um NPC ou um livro de informação é simplesmente de foder!