
TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews
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TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews's rating
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This builds very nicely on Rusty Lake Hotel, an already amazing game. It doesn't spell out the events of that one but does thematically explain a lot, being set nearby. Also it adds a nonlinear approach where you get to choose the order in which you play the levels all of which show an important event in the family Vanderboom who you follow from multiple generations as you see their various traumas. I quite appreciate that while at times you do appear to be controlling one of the characters on screen since what you do corresponds to what they do at other points it seems like you are this omniscient force not passively observing but influencing events. For a while I wasn't entirely sure where it was all going but I did find the conclusion quite satisfying. It has a much greater variety in multiple areas such as the locations where you are in multiple rooms yes but also the garden and other areas. In addition the puzzles have that element such as in the drag feature at one point you color in painting another you spell something with a Ouija board and it's much more rewarding because of how it's done rather than how it would be if it was genuinely limited to clicking. It does maintain the issue that sometimes you can't tell what will happen when you press and sometimes stuff gets stuck too close to each other so it can't tell exactly which one you're trying to do something with. The psychological and disturbing material it goes into is more personal this time around. All of these improvements reflect that the developers had more experience by the time they made this and really listened to player feedback on what was their first paid game. Like in that one this could be the very first video game that you ever play to be clear it shouldn't be played by children it's much too morbid for them but if you are someone who is good at brain teasers this one won't require you to also know very much about this particular medium all you need to know is how to use a mouse and heck this can even be how you learn to do that. Basically you'll always find yourself dealing with a few screens at a time you can click on certain things if you try anywhere that you can't, it just won't have a result it won't lead to a failed state or something. You gather items that need to be used on something, some of them have to be combined with each other and the like and gradually you construct or uncover something. There are times where you will actually be shown what you are supposed to end up with and thus you have to work your way towards that and can get a real sense of what is missing. This is especially true for the more intricate of the stuff you have to do. They are really great at poking at things that disturb us. Sometimes it is injury or death other times it's other kinds of taboo stuff that is gross. They play a lot with context things that would be acceptable in a certain way but the way they're doing it, it absolutely isn't. This opens on a marriage proposal where she is pricked by the thorns of the rose he gives her he wipes off the blood with his handkerchief and proceeds to write the proposal with that handing her a ring from a cut off hand. So we have this blending of something life affirming with something that reminds us of the frailty of the human body. This is of course something a lot of those working in fiction tap into another example would be South Park. In addition to the homes of the various members of the family who we follow from birth for some of them this takes you into the front of World War II surreal dreamscapes etc. There was one part where you see both sides of a rather messed up situation and relationship and I have to say as much as the first part hit me like a ton of bricks it was nothing compared to the second. It is not a terribly long title though there is stuff you can do after your initial completion including unlocking a secret ending. And certainly I don't think that it's too short, it feels like a very full experience. It's also worth noting that it doesn't spoil the original game so you can play these out of order something I hear is true for the rest of the entire franchise as well which by this point has over half a dozen entries which also helps make it feel more fulfilling in that there are more parts to it than these two. As per usual I would recommend getting them on sale every so often all of them go on sale on Steam. The graphics are quite good. I appreciate they don't try to pull off something that they can't make look right. It's not even remotely trying for a photorealism which also wouldn't really fit the tone. The stylization is much more appropriate and also helps make it less horrifying what we see which allows them to go further with it and deliver some deeply memorable stuff that I haven't seen outside of this series. This is far from the goriest that I've experienced but it uses what it has really well and frankly I found it much more effective than some that are much more eager to show you for example decapitated heads like say the original Outlast in part it's because you know some of the people who you're seeing be cut up and in fact you are the one manipulating their destroyed and sometimes dead and decaying bodies rather than merely witnessing what somebody else did. Recommended if it sounds appealing to you. 8/10.
I haven't played the original and I do also want to acknowledge that right now this is no longer on sale on Steam which is where I got and played it through the then heavily discounted Sega Mega Genesis Classics bundle. But hey maybe at some point in the future it will be again. This is very much of its time. It was made when the way to ensure a video game took a while to complete was that you couldn't actually do it the first time you sat down with it. You could get some part into it then you'd have to start over and the next time you would probably also not get all the way through but you would gradually improve to the point where eventually you could. That is still possible to do with this now that you're using an emulator to play it but it is also opened up to people who can't do that. I myself struggle with carpal tunnel syndrome and in addition I also decided to use the rewind function when that was helpful and like that you can get through this in just over an hour. It's important to note that this doesn't eliminate all the challenges far from it since even when you use it there are a lot of occasions where you'll have to try out multiple options each of which is difficult to do in order to get past something. It is a fairly simplistic thing and I understand that some were frustrated with that as well as it not bringing in very much innovation. I would compare this primarily to Raptor: Call of the Shadows. Imagine that only you move in a pseudo 3D setup and never get access to a gun other than the initial machine gun and it is set in the distant future on other planets instead of on Earth present day. This is a great thing. Basically this consists entirely of you moving between the different parts of the screen as it hurdles through levels at a pace you have no control over and doesn't change. You have to avoid flying into objects, some of which can be shot, others have to be dodged; some enemies will also try to hit you with their vehicle and/or the projectiles they fire, some of them can block your attacks. It's not only about figuring out exactly where on the screen you can be since a number of enemies will aim for where you are regardless of where you are so you may also have to move out of the way of their fire without hitting something else. There are boss fights with pretty varied designs and tactics and in general this keeps throwing something at you that you haven't seen the exact equivalent of before within the relatively narrow scope that it operates. You need fast reflexes quick thinking patience and you have to deduce how to successfully destroy those you square off against. And even with all of this it is still tough and deeply satisfying to do well at. It is fairly colorful and bright a lot of the time and the score is futuristic and you'll be humming it all day. There is minimal plot basically at the very start you're told some context and the very end features some wrap up with wonderfully unfathomable years as a setting; it really does exist primarily to justify the game play and thus doesn't get in the way of it; it's not really what we're here for. Over the course of it you will go up against robots, aliens etc of various shapes and sizes. Some stuff literally appears to just be the local animal life whereas others feel more militaristic like the force meant to prevent you from reaching the part of the planet that features the boss. There's a lot of open spaces which enables you to focus on just the clear obstacles that you have to avoid hitting some of them are genuinely just columns and in general like construction others feel more like parts of nature I wouldn't go so far as to use the term lived in but it definitely does feel fairly well realized for the limitations and the decision to keep it as focused as it is there is nothing that can distract you because anything you see is a potential threat that you have to deal with in one way or another avoidance or destruction. If you press the a button before the game leaves the opening screen you will go to a menu where you can set the difficulty between easy normal and hard. As far as I can tell all this affects is how many points it takes to earn extra lives since regardless you can't even take one bullet and live. There's also a setting for auto fire on and off. I recommend putting it on since this means you won't have to press for every single shot though you will still have to let go of the button and press it again after firing a few. There is also the option to invert the controls so up is down left is right etc I'm not entirely sure who that's for but hey nobody's forced to use it it doesn't bother me that it's there. There is a level selector for this but all it enables you to do is go to the level you choose before you play all the rest of them. So if you choose the second to last one it doesn't take you to the final one but the first one and then it skips the one you already did when you would have otherwise gotten to that one. So it essentially exists to let you practice a specific level and get it out of the way before you do other ones that sort of thing. I highly recommend this to every fan of arcade shooting games. 8/10.
This is up there with Monsters Inc and Up as some of the very best the studio has put out. It delivers everything we expect from one of these; it's funny, exciting, tense, heartbreaking, cute and communicates an important message really well. This is about how we live our lives and our perspectives on what we do. The classic want versus need is handled impeccably. Also the animation is spectacular, everything moves just right except for when that's the gag. And they find something extremely close to the uncanny valley; it looks almost photorealistic a lot of the time but it's off just enough that it's impossible to ignore, not so much that it really hurts.
Everyone is well cast. A lot of them are playing roles similar to what they have done elsewhere. I am very happy to write that this will in fact get to even people who don't really understand jazz; I would know I'm one of them. Plus, I love how bathed this is in African American city culture. I already mentioned the music in addition there's the family unit, the barber shop and playing the dozens. While I had been a little worried that 22 would end up getting really irritating something she even says she goes out of her way to be honestly they manage an impressive balance we find her annoying of course we do she's been outlasting mentors for thousands of years and yet we also come to really understand her see things from her point of view. This film would fail if a substantial chunk of the audience never grew to care about her. This could help increase empathy, something extremely important today I mean any day obviously but especially right now. 8/10.
Everyone is well cast. A lot of them are playing roles similar to what they have done elsewhere. I am very happy to write that this will in fact get to even people who don't really understand jazz; I would know I'm one of them. Plus, I love how bathed this is in African American city culture. I already mentioned the music in addition there's the family unit, the barber shop and playing the dozens. While I had been a little worried that 22 would end up getting really irritating something she even says she goes out of her way to be honestly they manage an impressive balance we find her annoying of course we do she's been outlasting mentors for thousands of years and yet we also come to really understand her see things from her point of view. This film would fail if a substantial chunk of the audience never grew to care about her. This could help increase empathy, something extremely important today I mean any day obviously but especially right now. 8/10.