Recent reviews by Awk

This is shorter than most other LEGO games and has streamlined a few things, but often for the better. If I had a particular affinity for the IP, I’d probably enjoy it more, but I still thought it was quite fun.

This game is very focused on combat, namely smacking legions of near-limitless identical baddies to pieces. When you’re trying to activate switches or aim your cursor at things, this onslaught of enemies is tedious and frustrating. The game tries to make combat more interesting by giving you powerful finishing moves, but these amount to nothing more than watching drawn-out animations, and it’s often difficult to know when you’ve got control and when you haven’t. Indeed, a lot of the action is spent watching little snippets of animation, Lego pieces falling into place or machines being activated, and the 'down time' feels longer than it should be. It’s not a problem unique to this Lego game, but it’s especially annoying here.

I think Lego games that feature ‘ordinary’ human people are significantly less fun than ones that feature super-powered people. What could be so interesting about playing as a bunch of people whose abilities are “hitting things with their hands” and who are differentiated by the type of machines they can operate? Corporate workers can access certain computers, intellectuals can solves puzzle boards, archaeologists can put bones together or dive into piles of poo… but you wouldn’t know from looking at them because they all look like ordinary Lego people. In fact, this is the first game in the franchise I’ve noticed where the characters’ abilities are written underneath their names!

Still, the developer treats all these franchises with respect and good-natured humour, and I do enjoy the family-friendly visual comedy they add to the scenes. Particularly amusing is how nobody dies in this game. Dinosaurs never successfully eat anybody, or their victims miraculously escape unharmed. Even that poor tortured woman from Jurassic World survives inside the mouth of the mosasaurus!

The campaign often feels like an arena shooter. Fights can go on for a while, the game sending increasingly ferocious monsters at you, escalating the intensity until you’re the last marine standing in a room full of melting corpses. It’s quite satisfying!

It does what it does well, confidently and without apology, but it’s just… not what I’m really looking for in a Doom game. The simple pleasure of blasting through fleshy hordes with your favourite weapon is marred by the need to juggle a comprehensive strategy at all times. It’s exhausting.

"When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left".
With irreverent humour and a clever structure, The Stanley Parable is a brilliantly funny exploration of the nature of choice in games. It encourages replays and experimentation and provides rewards for those who dig into it. The Ultra Deluxe version keeps all of this but then adds additional layers, keeping the core branches the same but adding optional modifications and additional extras, including some very funny self-referential meta-commentary. Every time I think I've seen everything the game is going to throw at me, it does something else hilarious! If I gave points just for how much a game makes me chuckle to myself, this would get a top grade!

That said, if you've already got The Stanley Parable, this version is probably not worth it unless it's discounted in a sale. If you've not played The Stanley Parable before (and it's the first version to release on consoles, so certainly true for a lot of people), then it's absolutely worth playing. It's superb.

All that's left to say is: "Happy Twelfth Birthday, Step-Niece!"

I tried. I really did try.

Dreamfall and its predessor, The Longest Journey, are often praised by adventure game fans, and I like adventure games, but I just cannot find anything to like about either of these. In Dreamfall's case, the adventure/puzzle component has been stripped down to a bare minimum and combat and stealth has been put in to make up for it. The trouble is, it doesn't do any of these things well, so by trying to appeal to "everybody", it becomes decidely mediocre at everything.

This isn't purely down to the game's age, as even fans of the game recognised these shortcomings at its release, but still praised its story. Well, after 7 hours, I can't share those sentiments either. The "twin worlds" idea of "technology" and "magic" is a naive concept at best (what do you think stoves, spinning wheels and doors ARE if not technology?), fate and destiny and conspiracies and ancient civilizations are potentially great sources to mine for a story but I found nothing new or interesting about any of it, at least not by the half-way point. The voice acting is terrible by today's lofty standards, which I accept is an unfair criticism of a relatively low-budget game, but the end result is something that comes across as amateur.

I've sat through worse games, and to call it terrible would be doing it a disservice, but the shoddy stealth/combat bits comined with a fiddly camera have broken this particular camel's back and I cannot summon the will to continue.

On the plus side, I had no problems getting the game running properly this time, which was nice.

I LOVED this! It's the best stealth game I've ever played.
It's built upon rock-solid systems of lines of sight, "sound circles" and predictable enemy behavioural patterns, so instead of being frustrating, it's really good fun. You can change costumes and equipment, and thereby change your approach to be more stealthy or more aggressive, go for points or go for style. There's loads of options.
Really well-made and satisfying!

Touching, memorable, nostalgic and emotional. A gripping experience that begs to be explored, and rewards you for it.

The worst you can say about Darksiders is that there's hardly an original bone in its body. The game is broadly a mix of God of War and Zelda, even down to the same structure of dungeons, chests, keys and a horse, but it doesn't reach the high standards of the games it copies, and the art style and tone of the game aren't particularly inspiring either.
However, it is solidly-made and usually fun. There are some frustrating bits (one in particularly where I nearly threw in the towel) but if you can forgive the unoriginality and you get on with repetitive enemy encounters, you'll probably find something to enjoy. I found it okay, but I wouldn't particularly recommend it.