Recent reviews by Vampus

Fun, F2P game based on the Fallout franchise. Despite it being F2P, you don't need to spend any money on it to enjoy and I'd recommend you don't spend anything on it. Game plays smoothly, but new content hasn't been added in years.

Middle of the road review. I've gone with recommend, as it's not BAD, just lacking.

Adr1ft is quite an visually appealing game. You play as a lone survivor of a space station disaster, floating amongst the zero-g wreckage, completing tasks and refilling your dwindling oxygen, until you're able to evacuate back to Earth.

Positives:
*Great visuals
*Believable physics
*How I'd imagine movement in an EVA suit would be (despite complaints of it's difficulty)
*Audio Logs

Disappointments:
*It felt like a tech demo rather than a complete game
*Objectives were bland and repetitive, like they were tacted on at the last minute to turn a tech demo into a game
*Despite enjoying the audio logs, there were far too few of them to make them worth adding as a feature
*Minimalist HUD/interface. This I imagine was a design decision, to have the interface/messages appear in the helmet to make it more immersive. I felt it limiting, like I was missing a lot of messages/info, while at other times it felt underutilised
*A lacking in a sense of purpose in my actions/objectives. For the most part, I felt less like I had to get X to do Y, and more just following the waypoints blindly.
*This game had collectables, but the "just follow the waypoint" approach to objectives, combined with a ticking clock of constantly needed to refill my oxygen supply, made me feel like I didn't have an opportunity, or the game didn't want me to, explore.
*Lack of agency. I guess this is a minor thing that felt off a little. I know this isn't a RPG, but I never really felt in control of my character, just railroaded to follow the waypoints, but at the same time it felt like I should have some impact on my world and surroundings more.

Definitely not a bad game, just not one I would recommend. Not my kind of game, way too challenging and frustrating for my enjoyment level. If you like Rhythm games which have you memorising patterns with precision and have the time and patience to master it, give it a crack, otherwise I recommend avoiding.

Certainly evokes nostalgia for the arcades and I guess if you loved the arcade beat them ups or want to experience what that era was like for us, it might be worth a look for the right price, but it's a big thumbs down for me. I'm not sure how much of that is this port vs how much is the original game. I was always terrible at it in the arcades, and can't really say if it was a good game, or just we didn't really have better at that time. On this play though, I felt like I constantly fighting the game (rather than just the enemies) and that made it a REALLY frustrating experience for me. Lots of shouting and expletives shared.

My review is pretty much in line with everyone else. It's a fun, WW2 board game that you get a certain number of free games before it becomes Pay to Play. Again, like everyone else, I'd rather they offer a fixed price purchase option. I'd happy recommend this game otherwise and if it were to become a fixed price game.

A cute little detective game. You discover an unlocked phone. Now search the phone and piece together the story of what happened in the owners life and how the it ended up being here. This involves reading through a lot of messages and emails and solving some puzzles. The puzzles aren't super hard, but at the same time, aren't always obvious. The things you read and learn will certainly give you a push in the right direction. If you get suck, there is a helpful guide that will give you a nudge in the right direction or the whole answer, if you'd prefer.

Ageless is a twitch precision platformer. I certainly don't think it's a BAD game, it's just not a genre I enjoy and thus not something I'd recommend. I found it too frustrating, having to grind the same section until you've mastered it, requiring at times precision movements and twitch reaction times to solve the puzzle.

It was definitely an enjoyable experience. Fans of the franchise should enjoy it. Quite well polished with fewer bugs than Fallout 3/New Vegas. The franchise is moving further away from story/RPG and more into straight shooter, which is a little disappointing, but there is certainly story there. Ending was a little disappointing, at least based on my ending path and felt a little railroaded (no pun intended) to get us there.

This game is disappointing, even for its price. It has 30mins of gameplay on a good day and you can't complete the episode. No other episodes produced as of the writing on this. Story has you rescuing 3 virgin women who were kidnapped by witches for unknown reasons and NPCs sprouting "Yo Momma" jokes. Wandering monsters appear every few seconds to pad out the playtime.

The key for this game was provided by the devs for reviewing. The review and opinions are my own and have been not been influence by this.

Darkarta: A Broken Heart's Quest is a puzzle game from India which has the look and feel of a HOG, except with a variety of puzzles. I quite enjoyed the array of puzzles provided. While I can’t say I enjoyed each puzzle type individually, you would generally only be given a certain type of puzzle once, so enduring a disliked puzzle will usually be over quickly. The variety of puzzles to me also felt like a bit of a double-edged sword. While I appreciate the use of variety helps to remove the feeling of doing the same thing over, it also made it feel somewhat unfocused. So, was this a case of the game not being able to win? Liking the variety but criticising it for it? Not sure exactly why, but something just felt a little off with only doing puzzle types once. Usually in puzzle games, they introduce a puzzle concept to you and “train” you on it, ramping the difficulty as it went. Perhaps for me then, I would rather have had SOME variety in the puzzle type, but not so much that most types felt like a disposable one-use? YMMV of course.

Several puzzles also have an “alternative solution mode”, where you can instead bypass the puzzle by complete a match 3 game. While I didn’t mind an “alternative” option, the match 3 game felt clunky and lacking typical match-3 options like bonuses for matches of 4 or more.

Visually, Darkarta had some beautiful art direction with lots of attractive locations and clear items. The only downside for me were some of the choices of character art. A lot of the female characters in the game looked rather similar, and it made it a tad confusing during cutscenes to recall which person was which. This could simply be a case of my “western eye”, owing to the game being based on Indian characters and mythos. Additionally, the child, Sophia, had some peculiar looks about her, which may be an art decision or perhaps because we often find her in a distressed state. These aren’t really a big thing, just stood out some to me.

Overall, I enjoyed the story the game provided. I won’t recount it here, as it may spoil it for those interested in such things, but it touches on elements of Indian mythos, love and sacrifice. The voice acting and script however left a little to be desired, especially when dealing with our female lead, Mary. While the actress had a pleasant voice to listen to and was clear, I felt the acting fell a little flat and was let down by the dialogue she was given. This resulted in her coming off as repetitive and her emotions being disingenuous; sounding more like ‘I read a line, I read a line, I read a line.’ rather than parts of a continuing, flowing, dynamic story. In the end, it’s probably on par from what you would expect from the genre, but kudos to the devs for including the voice acting regardless.

Speaking of writing (literal writing/text that is, not story), the game felt a little unpolished here. There were numerous instances of grammar mistakes, odd word selection, repetition of text between paragraphs and a few “localisation” issues, that is, terms or items that only someone from India might use. Nothing that is going to prevent you from playing the game, just something that stands out as unpolished, like it needed a good once over by an editor/proofer.

I will end this critique on a few positives. The devs knew that chances are, on a second playthrough, you would be hunting the collectables you had missed and guides you a little towards them, depending on your difficulty level. Additionally, achievements are quite obtainable, nothing that is going to requirement you to dedicate a large amount of time into, although you may need a second playthrough to complete them all. I recommend that an experienced HOGger play the game through first time on Expert mode, then swing by on easy mode for the second game, picking up any missed achievements.

Despite this review being more a critique, I would recommend the game. It something different for the HOG fan in both story and gameplay.