Recent reviews by fathamburger

They've cracked it with this one. An FMV game that's actually fun to play AND replay especially if you're into detective stories and mysteries. There's multiple mysteries and layers to keep unravel here starting with the randomly generated whodunnits and different killer outcomes. On top of that you have the Chthulu like lore of the island, the mystery of the gallery itself and the separate stories and mysteries of the muses. It's all a fantastically designed layered package and will probably be seen as one of the best and most underrated FMV games ever made in time

Very enjoyable tale and for a theme that hasn't been done to death. Highly recommended if you like the kind of age of exploration / alan quartermain type era when a lot of the world was still unexplored. As a survival mgmt game, the game definitely has its moments. If you enjoyed and completed games like Dead in Bermuda / Dead in Vinland this is a lighter more manageable 10-15 hr version that still spins a good yarn.

It was definitely worth it for the developers to struggle through and get this game made

I was hoping for a game mainly built around the BBS part and instead that part is just a glorified download manager/window for mini games that was a nice polished way to wrap up what must have been a bunch of cleaned up prototypes from the devs in the past.

Glad I got this via humble bundle because it's not worth more than $3 imho depending on how much you want the mini games. I still expected more story and "BBS simulation" as an ex sysop myself but didnt think the mini games were going to be THE game. Your mileage may wary, I was still looking forward to the model kit builder game and that was the one I ended up enjoying most. The food assembly line was probably the next best one while the puzzle bobble/puyo puyo knock off experiment was just too frustrating and had bad flow so I can see why they never pushed onto a full game with that one. There are TWO solitaire games so if that's not your thing, The other programmer type puzzle games will depend on how much you enjoyed other it's mostly downhill from two solidaire games. However the cracktros were a nice touch to that era on the games as well

There was a little bit of a nostalgia touch and I got a few bucks enjoyment out of it overall but im definitely glad I effectively didnt pay more than that

Playing this in 2023, it really doesnt hold up and won't age well. Only reason to play through this is if you like psychological thriller/mysteries but even then.. everything in the game's implementation is painfully janky and the story... probably might have only been acceptable for a video game by early 2000's standards

The only thing worth recommending here is a playthru for the story otherwise there are literally a billion better adventures out there if looking for a similar but "not Gabriel knight" type fix i.e. Cognition, many of the Wadjet Eye games such as the Blackwell series

Its a bit slow to start but this is a beautiful, unique world as far as isometic adventures go. Fans of Disco Elysium as well as weird, "biologically ewwy" indie adventures like Santiarium and the developers' original Stasis and Cayne games will enjoy a more optimistic yet grand and exotic similar style here.

Reviewing this in 2023, I would still recommend this since despite 2008 era jank, the story still hooks you and this is one of the better adventure / whodunnit series of all time. All the elaborate scheming of the villains does completely stretch plausibility by the end. Just suspend your disbelief and enjoy the crazy ride.

At whatever bargain / practically free prices you can get the game for now, it'll be a steal

Tentative yes for adventure game fans on reduced combat mode. If only the combat wasn't so bad that its preferential to dial it down but this leaves the game without any meaningful combat at all. It seems like the developers wanted to at least try to get things Resident Evil functional but ran out of time/budget

The story and graphics are decent if you like this sort of thing but the game is fairly short <10 hrs. . Worth it at discount or bundle only

The combat is fun and the art style is the best part. There's roughly 4-5 cyberpunk "cityscapes" for those that love that sort of thing. However the story is basically written by a kid almost with all kinds of random characters and anime style jank that you'll just have to not take too seriously. It's very similar to Dex, if you enjoyed that you should enjoy this. Lovers of Cyberdec, The Ascent and of course Shadowrun and other cyberpunk single player things will feel right at home here.

I had much lower expectations due to the reviews but there's a lot more meat to the mystery if you follow through all the other paths and also unlock the audio logs...

Any fan of Jagged Alliance 2 will finally feel satisfied at a real sequel. They hit it out of the park.

Only wish there were more mercs, Bobby Rays etc. The game does max out a bit early otherwise.