20
Products
reviewed
1811
Products
in account

Recent reviews by Tomas Mac Mordain

< 1  2 >
Showing 1-10 of 20 entries
24 people found this review helpful
10.8 hrs on record (1.9 hrs at review time)
Superb writing - even mundane dialogue with NPCs - excellent acting. Very decent dramaturgy and a story better than most 'content' that streaming services churn out on their conveyor belts these days.

Play it, if you like narrative-heavy action RPGs!
Posted February 18.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
1 person found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
3.0 hrs on record (2.6 hrs at review time)
“If you get your core ontology wrong, errors, misinterpretations and misunderstandings flow ceaselessly from your false model of reality.”
― Mike Hockney, Causation and the Principle of Sufficient Reason
Posted October 27, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
8 people found this review helpful
341.9 hrs on record
Yep. Play it.

I did not care for the contrived story, weak characterization, and somewhat bland 'factions'.

Nor did I care for the 'romances'. Most of the companion quests are unfinished or unsatisfying after completion as well.

However. Get yourself some mods for camera control and aesthetics - and we have something really decent here.

As is customary in computer RPGs, the systems are geared towards combat and combat only. Everything else is kinda there, but not a core mechanic. That said, the encounter design and environments are varied and creative enough that each battle has the potential of being interesting as its own little story, if someone was to turn it into narration. You can throw things (and people) at your enemies, manipulate surfaces, cast spells that compel behavior of the enemy etc. and the whole thing is a nice creative battle-box - caveat: only once you understand the combat mechanics properly.

Hoping that there will be some 'definitive' edition down the line with fewer bugs, better camera control and UI, a day-night cycle, more voice choices for characters, and proper progression in the last act. As is you hit max level about 30 hours before the credits roll, if you do all the quests, and why wouldn't you. On the other hand, on repeated playthroughs you can efficiently beeline for the final encounter, knowing what contributes to the main plot or interesting rewards, and what doesn't.
Posted October 4, 2023. Last edited October 4, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
27 people found this review helpful
1
85.5 hrs on record (18.7 hrs at review time)
Incoherent, bland, tedious, outdated, unimmersive, repetitive, and mostly ugly.

If you'd like a worse version of NMS with bethesda fetch-quests and 'join every faction in a single playthrough' experience design - coupled with quests that feel like they were designed and voiced by an unholy communion between an AI and a Radiant System. Look no further.

It does not deliver on any front for me. At all. I'd play it as a time-waster while commuting. That's ... all this does for me.
Posted October 4, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
 
A developer has responded on Oct 4, 2023 @ 7:58am (view response)
35 people found this review helpful
2
2
24.1 hrs on record (9.0 hrs at review time)
You're alone in a bunker during WWI - you're buried inside ... with a monster.

This plays very much like Alien: Isolation. Slightly less forgiving. Much smaller, but very well thought out map.

Slightly overtuned on Normal difficulty. Some resources are way too abundant (healing items - the monster kills you in one hit, they are mostly pointless), some resources are too scarce (bullets - I shot 0 times at the monster, and was short on bullets all the time having shot a couple of locks or explosive barrels to open up level areas).

The monster is mostly consistent in its behavior, which makes gameplay predictable once you get the hang of it. Unfortunately there are some sequences where the devs clearly 'want' the monster to come out, even though you give it no reason to. While understandable from a experience design standpoint, it's kinda meh when playing smart counts for nothing because the devs 'wanted' a chase sequence or force you into hiding at certain moments. That just makes it harder to learn what the 'default' behavior of the monster is - and navigating around this sucker is pretty much all you're doing in this game.

And just like in Alien: Isolation, the monster is tethered to the player a bit too much. Want to distract the monster by throwing a grenade over there? Too bad, it will not necessarily go there, it's more likely to come to 'you' instead - even if you moved entirely out of 'scope' after throwing it. It's all knowing sometimes. Found a hiding place in a corner somewhere? The monster might decide to check this one particular corner for no reason. Reload.

The game seriously lacks reliable hiding spots, and does not give you anything reliable with which to fight or outsmart the sucker, so you're basically trying to keep a low profile and when you have to make a ruckus, you plan your escape plan beforehand - since most hiding places are unreliable, that usually means making a beeline to the central safe-room of the bunker. This aspect could be much improved. There should be some reasonably available resource with which to deter the monster. It's not bullets. There's like 10 total in the game, about 3 of which you need to progress the story, and 3 are needed to deter a single monster attack - and you since you learn early on that bullets open locks (directly or indirectly) - why waste them on the monster? It will come back almost instantly anyway.

The story is barely there, but in this amnesia title, the story is not that important, gameplay and player agency is. Which is a welcome change from Rebirth, which was almost entirely story-driven, but the story and protagonist were not delivering for long stretches of the game. This time the protagonist isn't pointlessly afraid of the dark and does not have excessive voiced lines. Only talks through his journal entries.

There is some replay value as item placement and locker codes varies each playthrough. And you might want to go for a nice speedrun after learning how to progress the story.

Clearly the devs went back to the roots on this one - and the game came out ... pretty great!
Posted June 25, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
6 people found this review helpful
24.0 hrs on record
Absolutely wonderful horror classic!
Posted June 24, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
9 people found this review helpful
3.5 hrs on record
Different from 'The Dark Descent' - but worth the trip. Once you get past the opening sections - which can require some perseverance - the mid and late game are excellent. The plot is perhaps a bit weak - but it is thematically strong towards the end. Worth your time to see the whole thing once.
Posted June 24, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
51 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
3
3
1
9.9 hrs on record
Sadly that's a no. It's Incoherent (there is no clever tie back to the amnesia of the protagonist). The game's protagonist is not likable, and the game has very slow pacing. Level design swings between a tad too convoluted, or - for the most part- too linear. Too often the developers tried to set up Tomb-Raider-esque on-rails sequences, that were clumsily executed.

Half the time I could not remember where I was going and why. The whole story can be summarized as: protagonist wants to go to a nearby village, and is constantly distracted and derailed by falling through floors and cross-dimensional openings.

The 'resolution' of the amnesia story has a decent main hook (very predictable though) but 90% of the circumstances you find yourself in at the beginning of the game do not fit with the reveal. At all. It noticeably lacks the story-crafting necessary to make all make sense retrospectively. It was clearly not a priority.

The 'monster avoidance' stealth sequences are very unsatisfying. Your character is slow, is afraid of the dark, is afraid of the monster, is afraid of everything. And she does not shut up. Ever. Mid-to late-game sequences are set up in such a way that failure (when seeing them for the first time) is much more probable than success. Simply because the setups are just unfair, the levels are not up to the task (levels are too limited, and if the AI chooses to go left vs. right, you might survive or get caught - coin toss). The game does not have the good sense to let you fail properly, though. You'd expect to replay the section properly such that eventually you can 'succeed'. Instead it's a mixture of QTE, 'we kinda respawn you somewhere nearby', and giving you a 'sickness' as punishment for 'failing' - which prevents you from getting some achievements, but the game insists on keeping you on the same save 'iron man' style. This makes for a very frustrating mix. It is exacerbated by the fact that nobody is going to want to replay this looong, slooow, dredge through unskippable scenes and snail's pace walking, just to grab an achievement or two. You just can't properly save at key places in this game.

This title has also very predictable 2020+ female-centric writing. Most men are weak, fearful, stupid, incredibly selfish, or evil. It literally starts with the protagonist's husband being a ♥♥♥♥♥, and she needs to calm him down with a toy, infantilizing him. Most women on the other hand are badasses, competent, and the drivers of everything. In case women are antagonists, they're just misunderstood, or victims of some great injustice. Unfortunately it's really hard to build a good story around such constraints. This one falls flat too: the motivations and actions of the antagonist is entirely implausible given her circumstances.

What is really good about this title is the art direction, the lighting, the environments. It's always been the studio's forte, and it shows. It is really well done.

As far as writing goes 'The Dark Descent' was excellently paced and reasonably presented. Goals were mostly clear, and the amnesia 'reveal' was somewhat plausible. 'A machine for pigs' was really weird in its plot, but thematically strong, and for the most part well paced. Rebirth is thematically weak - women who 'just want a baby' is not a strong theme to hook a story on. Characters are weak in this entry, and cannot compensate - you learn next to nothing about what the people in this story are like, both pro- and antagonists. But you're also prevented from building your own head-canon for the protagonist because of constant flashbacks to concrete events of their life that just paint them as 'generic'.

Mechanically, this entry is the most frustrating with the protagonist being way too scared of the dark way too quickly. It's not a question of mechanics (they are pretty good) it's a question of balancing. They've overdone it here. If you're supposed to hide in the dark from monsters, but the effects of the dark are just as bad as being eaten by a monster, you're doing gaming wrong. It's frustrating until you know the level layout and/or monster AI by heart, and by then the game is no longer scary in the slightest. With a title like this you get one shot - because people will play though a long story game mostly once. And the devs missed their shot at the first time experience being satisfying.
Posted June 24, 2023. Last edited June 24, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
3 people found this review helpful
52.8 hrs on record (8.5 hrs at review time)
Good characters, gorgeous environments, absolutely stunning acting and voice acting, interesting enough story, only minor annoyances in gameplay, and a tad repetetive - like many open world sandboxes. Slow burn.
Posted February 4, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
65 people found this review helpful
7 people found this review funny
4
2
367.2 hrs on record (9.1 hrs at review time)
Dwarf fortress is not ready for mainstream consumption on Steam. It remains a niche game with obscure mechanics. You still need the wiki open when playing. Many mechanics are still unpolished and buggy. Abandoned half-finished features are everywhere. And basic stuff is still hard to figure out. You'll miss your 3rd party tools big time.

Play the original DF with your favorite mods and helper tools. Donate through their patreon or whatnot.

The steam version is not worth the effort.... yet.

I was expecting some more streamlined experience. There's still no decent menueing, inputs bug out all the time (like starting to type in an active input box to filter items, but the game registers hotkeys instead, so ♥♥♥♥ knows what you've just done...), there's still no way to tell properties of items. You absolutely need the wiki to sufficiently figure out the very basic economic chains necessary for survival. And the 'balancing' is awful too. Building a tavern with 4 rentable rooms and 4 tables in a fortress with 15 dwarfs invites 20 bards and dancers... event though you don't even have instruments (because ♥♥♥♥ knows how to make any of those - need to check the wiki)

And of course there are game-ending bugs that spiral a mutli-hour fortress into oblivion. A bard can end your fortress by just standing in your tavern and interrupting everybody's eating/drinking/sleeping actions even though they are not hostile....

In general, emergent deep bugs like this will never be fixed - it's going to be chalked up to unpredictable emergent behaviour. Besides. Losing is FUN! (True, but not to bugs that end a fortress before it even started)
Posted December 7, 2022.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
< 1  2 >
Showing 1-10 of 20 entries