Recent reviews by Domgrief

This game is weirdly coercive and I felt like I was being pushed into making bad choices. It's a clever, surreal game, and there were some great moments, but it did not work for me and I have no desire to finish it.

An rewarding noir detective adventure game. There are several points where I needed to submit "whodunit" answers using a multi-choice questionnaire - initially this felt like a comprehension test, but by the end of the game it started to feel like a real puzzle, and it was quite tense not knowing if I'd nabbed the right person and avoided a crisis.

I really enjoyed this.

I feel like a keyboard-only "hacking" game might have limited appeal. But if it does appeal... this is brilliant.

The core gameplay is a neat mix of action point tactical combat, and deck-builder balancing of programs (spells) with the available slices (mana). Every level is different, which keeps things interesting and forces me to regularly change my loadout and play style.

The plot is clever. It nails the dystopian, Gibson-esque cyberpunk theme. Even though there aren't many plot decisions to make, they feel important and complex, and it's fun seeing them weave back together at the end of the game.

The hieroglyph translation puzzles in this game are really clever. Between the translations, the conversations and the overall mystery, there's enough to keep the game engaging throughout.

About a third of the game is spent awkwardly navigating a ship through "space". I did not enjoy this part of the game at all, but even those tedious moments are punctuated by interesting conversations with my crewmate.

20% walking simulator, 20% investigation, 60% running around an enormous map trying to find every collectable and secret.

The characters and setting are surreal and interesting, and the mix works well. I enjoyed coming across an item while running around somewhere I wasn't even sure I was supposed to be able to access.

Only thing that doesn't play out well as I'd hoped is the game's notion that Facts are subjective. It's an interesting idea, but the game naturally converges on a single interpretation of events, so I didn't really feel like the ending was Mine. Overall, it was still a satisfying conclusion.

VR is the perfect medium for this colourful, enchanting adventure game.

The use of scale is brilliant, and I enjoyed the way that it rewards interaction both using the characters and directly with the VR controllers.

It's quite short (it took me about 3 hours to play through) but it stays interesting throughout and there's a lot of variety in the environments.

(VR Review)

Deemo was a delight to play on a mobile device. The story and the music were lovely, and precisely hitting the notes at the right time felt very rewarding.

The VR world is beautiful and I'm sure the story would be even more touching in this format.

But the gameplay has gone from a piano-like precision on mobile, to awkwardly trying to hit the right part of the "piano" with bizarrely oversized hands that are partly out of my control.

This looks beautiful and the puzzle mechanics should suit VR really well. Unfortunately, the game requires a lot of (virtual) moving around, and wasn't comfortable to play in anything more than short bursts. I might finish it on a flat screen instead.

The extra gameplay mechanic works well, and some of the side quests and locations are entertaining. However, the narrative was too cryptic and fragmented for me to enjoy, even being familiar with the Alan Wake story.

My favourite Remedy game since Max Payne.

Likes:
* Excellent engine (raytracing was cool, had a few fun moments with reflections and the projector)
* Special abilities are practical and easy to use in combat
* Fits with the style of the studio, unapologetic unexplained-phenomena-that-you-can-shoot mystery/scifi
* Fun story with a decent ending
* Superhero type sequence in the mid-late game was a blast

Dislikes:
* Frequent texture "pop-in" issues were a bit ugly
* Boss battles and difficulty were a bit uneven