January '22 Play Log

Brilliant sequel to the first, and just as funny. I’d suggest playing the first game if you haven’t yet, but it’s not strictly necessary.

Pros:

• The music was done well
• Good artwork
• None of the mini-game style puzzles were overly difficult
• Lots of funny moments

Cons:

• There’s definitely an element of try using random stuff until something sticks. Thankfully it’s usually fairly logical in hindsight, so it’s not as bad as a lot of point & click games.
• No hint system for if you get stuck, so don’t be surprised if you need to consult a walkthrough to get past certain parts

Definitely not your typical Artifiex Mundi game. It had plenty of funny moments which I thoroughly enjoyed. There weren’t that many mini-game style puzzles and there are weren’t difficult.

Pros:

• Pretty well written satirical story
• Funny dialogue & story moments
• Well voice acted
• Good animations
• Each area had a phone (or something similar) with a number you could call to get help. These were generally not difficult to find.

Cons:

• There were definitely elements of ‘try using random items with things and see what sticks’. I ended up using a walkthrough a few times when I got stuck.

If you’ve ever wondered why so many people seem to think of QTEs as inherently bad, games like this are why. It has way too many of them - they constitute 90% of the ‘gameplay’. If gameplay is what you’re more interested in, go buy one of those toys where you have to memorize and repeat the sequence of flashing lights. That’s 75% of the game right there. The story itself isn’t bad, but like many games it doesn’t do a good job of getting the player emotionally invested.

Pros:

• The music isn’t bad
• Well voice acted

Cons:

• The graphics aren’t great, but since it was originally released in 2005 that’s to be expected
• The controls are among the worst I’ve ever experienced in any game (at least on a controller)
• The camera angles are awful and frequently confusing. Sometimes the you can smoothly rotate it, other times it’s a 90 degree snap.
• Many of the QTEs are overly drawn out
• It turns out that some of the QTEs are meant to be failed - they’ll basically keep going until you fail
• The prophecy was vague at best
• There were several parts where it seems like the developers just stuck in laughably easy QTEs, perhaps to keep the player entertained during longer cutscenes
• For some reason interaction is done by pointing the control stick in a given direction. This means that if you don’t push it all the way your character may (for example) reach towards a door knob then pull back because you didn’t push the control stick far enough.
• At least one type of QTE (when you climb fences) seemed very error prone/overly picky in how well you do it, making these sequences the most frustrating in the game
• The nature of the most common QTE meant that you don’t really get to pay attention to what’s going on - the boss fight, what people talking are doing, etc,

Absolutely phenomenal game that IMO is well worth the full price. If you haven’t played the first it’s an puzzle/escape room type game that’s half James Bond, half Austin Powers. I’d suggest playing the first game before this, but it’s not strictly necessary.

Pros:

• I didn’t think it’s possible, but the intro cutscene for this game is even better than the first
• Great level variety
• Great voice acting
• Great music & graphics
• I loved some of the more random things you can do just for fun. Lots of stuff to play with and mischief to get up to.
• Plenty of “souvenirs” to find
• The speedrun times are challenging without being frustrating

Cons:
Honestly I can’t really think of any. I didn’t want it to end, but it did anyway.

Another brilliant puzzle game from Double Fine. It’s really funny and the puzzles are well balanced in terms of difficulty.

Pros:

• I really liked the silent movie style cutscenes
• Finding the dolls and playing with their abilities (read: using their abilities to torment other dolls) was a lot of fun
• Decent story with plenty of laughs
• Lots of entertaining side-mission type things to do (hi-jinks, collect the unique dolls)
• Good level variety
• Great hint system that gives you two increasingly significant hints before giving you the answer. This prevents you from ever getting frustrated. I wish more games had hint systems like this.

Cons:

• Having a vignette on the cutscenes makes sense, but why is there a vignette on by default in the actual gameplay? In fact, why is it even an option? It just blocks part of the screen without really adding anything.