March 2021 Update
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Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince (Q4 2019) ⭐️⭐⭐⭐☆
Puzzle Co-op13,5 hours | 39 of 39 (100%)
- graphic is simply charming
- physic is bit less wonky than in previous games, but for the price of less movement freedom
- devs gave up idea of this weird half-3D gameplay, and went back to what worked well before
The bad
- wizard summons always materialize above his head, not where the shape was drawn
- thief can attach rope only to the pre-defined spots, not to all wooden surfaces like previously
- boss fights can be bit annoying
Conclusion:
Puzzles feel easier than in previous games, although I played 1st Trine 6 years ago and it did give me time to learn some tricks. Game is well made, graphic is gorgeous, co-op works perfectly. This one is surely on the recommended list. It does feel that devs played on the save side after the disaster called "Trine 3". So I hope they will go more crazy / interesting in Trine 5 with more abilities / puzzles variety.
Story:
Gameplay:
💸 Microtranzactions | None! | 🏆 Achievements | Possible to get everything in 1 run, and missed collectibles can be easily backtracked to. |
📊 Performance | No issues, high FPS. | 💾 Save system | Checkpoints on screen transition. Each map consist of few screens so not much progress is lost on death. |
🌍 Map | Levels do not have in-game map but it's also not necessary. It's not metroidvania to look for secret passages. Overworld map is nicely detailed yet simple. And it's easy to see where we miss some collectibles. We can move freely between different screens of the level, and journey to the next location on the main map acts as both loading screen and time for narrator to say next bit of the story. |
🎮 Controls | Controls are responsive, there are no problems on the edges with collision detection. Characters can jump and dash. Zoya can additionally use the rope to swing but rope can be attached only to pre-defined spots. No more jumping around like crazy by anchoring rope in any wooden surface. I found it to be easier to control wizard spawns with K+M, as gamepad don't have enough buttons to have everything at hand. |
📇 Inventory | There is no real inventory. Only that Zoya can rotate between different arrow types and Amadeus between different objects to summon. |
🏹 Weapons | Zoya has bow, Amadeus has... nothing, and Pontus has sword with shield. Simple! |
🕵️♀️ Abilities | They work well but feel like a step back from Trine 2. Zoya can use ice or fire arrows but puzzles can be often solved easily with only Amadeus abilities. She can also tie two objects together or make them weightless - which is used far more often. Amadeus can summon planks, boxes and balls (one ball variant is bouncy) but it's not possible to magnetize summons to create some monstrous towers to clear the screen in some weird way. He has this bouncy ball but I literally never saw a reason to use it. There are environmental spots that can magnetize nearby summons but it's all pre-scripped. Pontus can have lightning shield and sword that basically deal more damage to enemies. And dash ability to smash crystal walls (with a help of wizard balls or rocks). |
🤖 Companion and enemy AI | There are no companions. And enemies have quite simple AI with predictable behaviors and not much variety. |
🥊 Combat | Combat is limited to enclosed spots. Not like in previous games where enemies were spawning on the level. Here "dream cage" is created by a purple walls on the side of the screen (that not allow to leave the area before fight is over), and some purple platforms spawn along the enemies. So we need to jump around to reach enemies, hit them till they die and go to next platform. Some enemies have force shields and we need to destroy one enemy to be able to attack another. In general combat is straightforward but it sometimes feel like I died because there was too much happening on the screen and I missed enemy attack on the side. Not that I played in a bad way. |
Technicalities:
Music - ⭐️⭐⭐ - Music is atmospheric, voice acting is good. Narrator has fitting voice and just feel "right".
Bugs - ⭐️⭐⭐ - I didn't encourage any.
Night in the Woods (Q1 2017) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆
Adventure15,5 hours | No achievements
- unique art-style
- interesting characters
The bad
- walking is a bit too slow and there is no way to move faster which makes whole game dray for way too long
- ending is some sort of "big revelation" that is not interesting and leaves loose ends
Conclusion:
I feel like this game overstayed it's welcome. I did like it but there was too much empty running around. Game has a bit of Oxenfree feel but also feel inferior to it.
Story:
Gameplay:
Game has only checkpoint system with no ability to reload previous save. So story needs to be seen in one go, it's not possible to reload if wrong option was chosen or player is unhappy with the outcome. Two playthroughs would be required to get all achievements.
Structure of the game is quite simple: Mae wakes up, leaves the house, go to hang out with one of the friends (it's not possible to hang out with both each day, so only half of the story can be seen in one run), go to sleep, see the nightmare sequence. It is possible to explore the city in simple platforming, but city is small and going rounds to make sure random NPC on the rooftops was not missed gets boring and repetitive fast. There really should be an indicator (even as an option) to point if there is something interesting somewhere. At least Bea and Greg are always in the same spots so it's easy to find those.
There is guitar mini-game where Mae can play in rocksmith-way by pressing button to hit one of the 4 strings. But I get bored with it fast. And did only bits required to progress the story.
Technicalities:
Music - ⭐️⭐☆ - I don't remember the music... and characters speak in SIMs way by humming stuff.
Bugs - ⭐️⭐⭐ - I didn't encourage any.
GTA V (Q3 2013) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆
Action36,5 hours | ? of 77
- good voice acting
- NPCs, traffic AI is really nice
- graphic is good
- environment reacts to player destroying stuff - fences, concrete blocks, graveyard stones etc.
- heists mechanic is interesting and gives some choice in how missions will be done
The bad
- bad lag when in pause menu with V-sync turned on and when frame rate is high
- no visible stamina meter
- swimming mechanic is bad and it's not possible to stay underwater for more than few seconds
- possible to buy properties, but they generate pitiful amount of money
- money is scarce and there is no money cheat
- it takes long time to start police pursuit and then it's way too hard to escape - police chase into unrelated buildings like player has magnet in the ass, and see through the walls
- not possible to store more than one vehicle in the house garage. Or even swap default car with new one
- game has only one auto save and keep asking if we want to override it
- weird delay between accessing the map, closing it and then trying to jump back to it fast
- not possible to sell weapons so they would stop to clog the weapon selection menu
- characters are so fragile few shots kills them. Same as leaving a vehicle while driving means instant death
- story breaking bugs that has solution of "call taxi and go on place by skipping the journey"
- vehicles shadow problems where there is big rectangular shade under the whole thing
Conclusion:
I had problem to try and summary this game and I think this will be best: I'm glad I uninstalled it. It's not bad as full of bugs, bad story, awful mechanics etc. It's just so average... Yes storytelling is really nice. But what about it when it's telling average-hollywood-predictable story in a big city with bare number of side activities or anything to do apart from the main mission. Game has too much of "Read Dead Redemption 2" inside, and many tasks are too long or too tedious just for the sake of "reality". Also Trevor is simply repulsing. I played many games where I had to kill hundreds of people, played as psychopaths or whatnot. But I never before dreaded every minute I had to play with a character. I dunno, there is something in a way he is shown that would make me gladly skip all his sequences if possible. First time in past 20 years when I saw opening sequence and was like "Oh God, please, I don't want to play with this thing".
Story:
Gameplay:
💸 Microtranzactions | None. | 🏆 Achievements | Don't know how to check really. I saw some popping up. |
📊 Performance | Game runs smoothly apart from this years old unresolved bug when game menu is sluggish with V-sync turned on. | 💾 Save system | One automatic checkpoint and 15 manual save slots. Problem with automatic save is that game asks each time if we want to overwrite previous save. It's not possible to save mid-missions as well but it's the same as in previous games. And manual save menu is weirdly located in our phone menu. |
🌍 Map | Map is big and detailed but also doesn't remember our preferences. If I change view to un-cluttered I'd want to start it like that each time. There is also weird hard delay between closing in-game menu and opening it again to check the map. Press ESC - click on map to see it - close map - leave the menu. Pressing ESC shortly after closing the menu does nothing, there is 2 or 3s delay before menu can be accessible again. It drove me nuts as I often go in and out of the map when I play. |
🎮 Controls | No real issues here. Cover system in combat is decent. Characters can't crouch for some reason, they can only enter stealth mode. But game is obviously not a stealth game, so this mode is entirely useless outside of the training mission. Characters can run but the stamina meter is hidden. And it's not possible to know how much of it is left unless we see it's already gone as health starts to get a hit. For some reason bikes don't sprint when player press SHIFT. It needs to be toggled with CAPS LOCK. Why devs assign any functions to it, I don't want to leave the game and then see I write in all caps in a message or in my google search... At least it's possible to change keys binding easily. Cars and motorbikes driving is flawless. Various cars types feel different to drive, they don't slide like on a soapy road and have nice weight to them. But good driving is in GTA for years, so it's also not revolutionary. Flying with helicopters and planes feel bit stiff but thankfully not much needs to be done. |
📇 Inventory | There is no real inventory. Clothes can be changed in house or shops but game does not remember our selection. Or even ask if we have preference to keep. So it's pointless to go shopping as we will start playing missions with random clothes. Who would run down to the hideout each time save is loaded or mission change to get their favorite clothes? Game could at least start in the hideout to give easy access to clothes but noooo. While I can ignore that I run around only in slippers or ugly dad sweated I found weapons selection to be annoying. Characters will automatically pick any junk dropped by enemies and it's added to the weapon selection menu. And surprisingly our selection is also not remembered here. Game will simply equip 1st weapon in the selection menu which is ofc the weakest one. What was the point of buying and customizing this nice AR or buying nice machete when mission will start with default selection? "Just start mission by pre-selecting your weapons so you're not surprised mid-fight!" Is not a solution... It should be possible to select default weapon. Or just drop the junk we picked up... Also clothes selection is limited in comparison to what we had in San Andreas. No watches, chains, helmets for bike etc. |
🏹 Weapons | Meele, pistols, micro rifle, assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, grenade / bombs, heavy weapons. So generic-realistic selection. Weapons feel different to use between types but really similar when we compare them inside the same category. I didn't feel difference between different snipers or ARs. So in general - meh. |
🕵️♀️ Abilities | Each character has special ability - Franklin can make sharp turn while driving, Michael can slow down time in fight, and Trevor can go into rage mode where he gets less damage. But I literally never used those apart from the tutorial prompts. Esp Franklin and Michael abilities feel totally useless. And like a justification to make character squishy in combat - we will make you weak to force you to use abilities in combat approach. Apart from that there are various stats that grow as we use connected ability - driving, shooting, running, special ability, stealth etc. But I did not feel much of a difference between being level 0 and 100% in something. So again feels like empty module of the game that doesn't really matter and is there just "to be". Esp in case of swimming / diving as it's something we literally never need. Unless we'd decide to swim around just for the sake of it. |
🤖 Companion and enemy AI | Pressing ALT on the keyboard allows us to switch between Michael, Trevor and Franklin on the fly. There are only short sequences where we can't switch between characters during or in between the missions. But only active character can really do some damage. Other two will mostly shot blindly and if one get swarmed with enemies - game will start to make noise to urge us to swap to them to clear the enemies in this spot. Enemy AI is decent but not amazing. They will stick to the corners and repeatedly lean to shot at us which gives plenty of time to headshot them. They also literally never use grenades. Police behaves like player has magnets in the ass as they will always follow in a straight line. No matter that we dropped car, run past some buildings and swim across the river. As long as they are within "search time" when stars are blinking they will chase us no problem. But at least they do not spawn like zombies in CyberBug... |
🥊 Combat | Aiming is good and enemy / environmental hotboxes well made. So there is not problem of "I clearly shot his head, why this wall has so huge hit box!!". Problem is that our character is made from the toilet tissue and dies after 3 - 4 shots sometimes. Which is just annoying. It's possible to buy armor but it doesn't replenish. I will not run to the store before each mission to re-buy it. There should be some super expensive armor that would auto respawn on mission start. |
Where is ability to drive bus, fire truck or ambulance to earn few bucks? Same as stealing cars to earn money. I remember how much fun I had to look for specific car in Vice City. Here we can't even swap the default car. No turf wars as it's not about creation of strong gang like in San Andreas. Game is like a story of caravan moving through a desert. Desert is really detailed and all, but there is nothing else to do than follow how camels travel through miles of sand.
There is literally no way to earn cash in-game. Even when we buy properties they give so pitiful return it would take hours to hoard money to re-invest. And properties are basically just the source of endless fetch quests. Main missions give couple dozen thousands at best, and hijacking cash transport can yield few thousands. That's it. Tuning some cars can swallow all in-game credits. There is stock market but this is not a stock simulator. I don't want to spend time looking for companies that predictably fluctuate, to buy cheap and sell tiny bit higher. There are assassination missions but if started early in game it's impossible to buy any businesses that cost >5 mln credits. It's possible to use other codes but the one for extra credits is not there.
So to be able to throw cash around player would need to literally read the guides before playing. To know to leave Assassination missions for the very end of the game (they allow to play the stock market to our favor). As we are showered with millions of credits after last mission. But why? Why game doesn't give any useful amount of credits along the way, lock code for money and then give millions after game is beaten? I don't need this money at this point. The only explanation I have is this way devs wanted to make game grindy and artificially extend it's playtime. In ghost city with no routines we can follow. Yay.
After last mission and leaving most of assassinations for end (I learned too late I need to wait with them...) I had like 60 mln credits. Enough to buy all properties (except from golf field for 150 mln), plane, helicopter, boat. But why, when game is in a state to be uninstalled? Also I was left with like 10 mln and weekly income of 0,5 mln. It would take 140 * 2 = 280 in-game weeks to get enough money to buy last property. It takes 5 "real" hours to skip 1 in-game week. 280 weeks... is not really reasonable is it? Or I could grind this time by repeatedly going to sleep with a character (it skips 8 - 12 in-game hours), but for what? I really don't get it esp that game does not have monetization, so there is no way to skip this useless grind with some dollars.
Ofc you may disagree with my opinion, but I don't want to have flame wars in the comments. You had a blast with a game - great. But this is not a GTA game that I wanted. I wanted to be a gangsta, get some dirty money, feel I make progress by upgrading my properties / guns / cars in a steady way, make some crazy things. And this game did not give me any of this.
Technicalities:
Music - ⭐️⭐☆ - I didn't really like any of the custom radio stations and was just listening to generic station with licensed songs. Weapons sound nice and voice acting is really good.
Bugs - ⭐️⭐☆ - some graphic glitches here and there or this problem in the menu. But nothing game breaking. From what I read online some missions are bugged when trying to beat after reloading the save and there is problem when main mission does not start when player arrives on place by foot or in a car.
Side note
I saw banner on Sharky post which turned out to be iterated from Lengray post. I tweaked it up a bit. I didn’t know that you can do this kind of thing with simple HTML before. BLAEO doesn’t support CSS so I never went into trying to make simple banner.
I started to learn Python so I’m surprised I managed to beat that much last month (I’m not super consistent with it though :hehe:). I made a list after Winter Sale with games I have and that it would take me most probably whole year to go through them. We’re just done with Q1 of the year and I already beaten 7 / 15. So looks like I may beat those by the half of the year. So I may buy something during the Summer Sale after all :D
Also I went ahead and incorporated more game dissection in this review. Night in the Woods doesn’t fit into it so it has “normal” review. But I like how it turned out to be. Some summary of points that repeat in nearly all my reviews and optional extra text under if some aspect doesn’t fit - like broken money economy in GTA V.
I used icons from this page, to show gaming platform in my post: https://icons8.com/icons
Actually, it does. There’s plenty of things you can tweak as long as the code works inline.
Start selling the code you will make a fortune
I tried for days to make carousel screenshots but it requires CSS. And I realized it too late. Normal CSS has bare bone HTML tags and styling part in the top part of the website that tells browser how to display it.
And BLAEO supports some weird mix of SG-like formatting and HTML. You can style your text inside div or span class but it’s done in standard HTML way. Like I write top part in HTML and bottom in SG-like. But I can’t use ** to bold text in top part, as it’s in HTML :hehe:. It’s confusing, so no wonder so many people don’t format their posts.
Good that we have generator that allows people to make fancy posts in easy way.