Nylige anmeldelser av PHI

For the first 1/3 of this game, I would have given it a "no." Then up until an hour or so before the end, I felt pretty neutral about the whole thing. By the end of the game, for whatever reason, I had fallen a little bit in love with the world(s) this adventure spans. So it's a yes, but with some warnings.

This game was created at a time when 3D graphics technology, even pre-rendered, was quite limited. It shows, big time. The characters are chunks of polygons and the animations in particular are quite absurd. Like, unintentional humor absurd. Nonetheless, I could see how this could be visually captivating for people-- 14 years ago. I didn't come into this game expecting anything other than dated graphics but it is not a game that has aged well in that respect.

In terms of "gameplay," there isn't a whole lot of it. It's an adventure game, so it comes with the territory that a lot of your time will be spent walking about and taking in the storytelling. This game felt like 80% of it was just spent listening to people talk. There's just a lot to listen to. At times, especially towards the first half, it can seem very slow just listening to all the talking. But there are eventually puzzles to solve. Unfortunately they're not good puzzles. If you're familiar with adventure games, you'll know there are right ways to do puzzles and wrong ways to do them. TLJ does them the wrong way. I was forced to consult a walkthrough several times in order to progress, and the things I was "missing" were always ridiculous.

The defining (if not redeeming) aspect of any adventure game of course is the storyline. Despite a funky opening, The Longest Journey doesn't exactly dash out of the gate. The aforementioned long-winded dialogues quickly reveal a diverse cast, but they're not all what I would necessarily consider "fascinating." Unfortunately the voice acting is extremely uneven. Rarely, it's quite good, but occasionally it's plain terrible, and often it's just "off" enough to keep it from being believable. The game is ambitious; it really tries for a lot of drama with developed characters and action and humor, and the acting really doesn't sell it. Admittedly, 14 years ago, it was probably pretty impressive. So the game throws you into the "Journey" with really little reason to be interested in it, largely because you're not sure what's supposed to be going on. Then soon enough things get weird, and you start getting a sense of the scope of all this weirdness, but it honestly feels pretty cheesy. For some reason it was enough to keep me coming back to playing TLJ again and again (it IS a long journey), and eventually the game lulled me into appreciating the depth of its story. I became numb to the games flaws and was left to contemplate how thorough a world was created here, particularly the many characters and their stories, and how they all together belong to something bigger. Still, it isn't fantastic, but it is something rather special. By the end, I was glad to have met them, awkward as some of them may have come across at first.

The Longest Journey was clearly a very ambitious adventure, and while it may not have aged so well, you can still sense the vision of the creators as something that is quite remarkable. The game's ending can be described as unsatisfying, but moreso than leaving a bad taste in my mouth it just left me wanting more. And, as it turns out, there is more. So that's where I'm headed next.

A terrific demonstration of how adventure games can create experiences like no other genre can.

It's a good concept... a Megaman-esq action platformer shooter that isn't Megaman. It's got a great look and music that tickles all the right spots if you're nostalgic for the glory days of Megaman X. But while A.R.E.S. has some good moves and gadgets and the makings of a solid and exciting action game, it stumbles at every step of the way. The developers made every mistake in the book. It starts with the unfortunate controls that will have you endlessly fumbling your controller, despite the fact that none of the movements you're performing are original in any way and have been done better in every other game that features them. But it extends into the enemy, level, and boss designs (the end-boss is terrible), which will leave you cringing again and again. It's too many little details to list, but you'll be dying a lot and it will be for stupid reasons every time. That is, unless you play on easy (well, "Normal") and spam med packs. Which in retrospect I might recommend because at least it's less frustrating. But a game like this shouldn't have to rely on a big health meter to be playable.

I make it sound like garbage, but if it weren't for the heap of frustrating ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ too big to sweep under any rug, I'd probably love this game. It's not long, and it's not very original, but the elements it brings together are definitely fun ones. If the controls were reworked properly, that alone would make this a lot more fun. The rest could be fixed with a day's worth of focus-testing and tweaking. Unfortunate that it wasn't.

I didn't hate my time playing through this, and if you enjoy games of this nature you may not either, but there is a lot of potential here that got buried under the myriad of small but significant mis-judgements in design.

Warframe does a number of things oh, so right, then misses a lot of potential, then botches the landing hard with an ultra-grindy mid-to-late game. There's fun to be had, but the longer you play it for the less fun you'll have. And like so many other addictive, grindy games, it's usually after you've wasted way too much time that you realize how little fun you've been having all along.

May be worth a play if you have dexterity and just want to blast and slice some dudes. But be very careful about getting sucked in because this game does not reward dilligence; it punishes it.

Windosill is one of those things that reminds you there are still things you have never seen the likes of before. Sort of an elaborate, digital puzzle/toy, it isn't very long and isn't particularly challenging but it is an experience worth sipping and savoring on a quiet day.