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Call of Cthulhu – The Verdict

Call of Cthulhu – The Verdict

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It’s 1924 and alcoholic ex-serviceman turned private investigator Edward Pierce is sitting in his quiet office, drink in hand, wondering where the next job is going to come from. All of a sudden there’s a knock at the door and before he knows it, he finds himself whisked off to a remote island to investigate the death of the Hawkins family in a fire that consumed their home.

The intro to Call of Cthulhu may seem a little cliche but that’s probably because because it’s the beginnings of a tale of Lovecraftian horror, a genre of horror that until now I thought I had no experience with. Truth be told H.P. Lovecraft has huge prestige in the genre and whether you directly choose to read one of his books or not, the chances are that if you enjoy horror in any of it’s mediums you will most likely have come across his influence. It’s at this point that I feel Cyanide Studio have set themselves a hard task, to convey their twist on a story told many times before while making it fresh and interesting.

The first couple of chapters of Call of Cthulhu feel a little on the slow side to me. Characters are introduced, you go to a couple of new areas but nothing much actually happens. Thankfully at chapter three things start to pick up and I begin to sense there is something not quite right with the island I have found myself on. While investigating various points around the island I get the same feeling as when I watched The Wicker Man, that everyone knows something that I don’t and that something is not good.

As this is my first real experience with a pure Lovecraftian story I find that the mystery behind the island and the deaths of the Hawkins family are one of the strongest points in Call of Cthulhu and they really carry the game forward. The developers have really nailed the setting, game design and atmosphere on the head and this creates a really spooky (but enjoyable) environment in which to explore and find out information from the other islanders.

Another strong point in the game is the stealth. Call of Cthulhu doesn’t afford you many weapons and being able to take out others by yourself is very rare. Instead you slip about the levels causing distractions that let you into areas you otherwise couldn’t reach. While some people may see this as a cheap way of making the game harder, in my eyes it increases the intensity and feeling of unease when trying to reach your goal. You feel a little helpless and less likely to just run about destroying everything and for a horror genre game I’d say that’s no bad thing.

On the whole the voice acting and writing is good although there were some irregularities with the volume of the voice acting from the main player character. Sometimes his voice would be really quiet compared to everything else. However I’m going to put this down to me playing an early release of the game as there really were no other problems with the game or settings what so ever. It ran really smooth and I was able to play through on the highest settings without any problems at all which is impressive considering how old my PC is.

There are slight RPG elements to the game also. You have the classic conversation options but in most cases you need to exhaust all options in order to advance anyway, so there’s not a whole lot of choice aside from a few occasions. The other element is the skill tree, which works much like Focus Home Interactive’s other game The Council in that it allows you to grow your character in the way that you see fit. You can put your skill points into things like being able to better spot clues or being more able to influence people when speaking.

Unlike in The Council I didn’t notice much of a difference when levelling up the skill tree and almost feel like they would have been better not even including skills in a game with only 10-15 hours game time. It almost seemed like an illusion of choice because if you explored each area thoroughly enough and spoke to each person for long enough you generally discovered everything you needed to advance anyway. This leads me to my biggest bug bear with the game that it seems to be very on rails. Yes you can explore areas, yes you can choose conversation topics but for the large part the game seems to pull you to the same point regardless of what you do.

The last few chapters of the game also feel a little disappointing in that they seem far more rushed than anything else. I get that towards the end you want to ramp up the intensity and finish on a bang but there were moments when I wasn’t quite sure what was going on in terms of the Lovecraftian lore and the game didn’t explain well enough for a newcomer like myself. Was it possible that the game was rushed to release or did they perhaps overlook the fact that a complete Lovecraft beginner wouldn’t be able to fully understand every aspect with ease?

On a whole I enjoyed the game but would have loved to have seen it fleshed out a little more to include more explanation of the lore and more scary areas to investigate. It would have been great to be able to better understand why I got the ending that I did as I know there was multiples ways for the game to end and again wasn’t entirely sure what I had done to reach the one I did. The gameplay was enjoyable, especially when investigating new areas and reconstructing crimes much in the same way you would in a Batman game and when dealing with the games ‘bosses’. Production was lacking in a few areas but like I said this could be down to having access to the early release version of the game.

The Verdict – On Target

Platforms Available – PC, Xbox One, PS4, Switch
Platform Reviewed – PC

Please see this post for more on our scoring policy. Steam review code supplied by PR.

The Council Episode One: The Mad Ones – The Verdict

The Council Episode One: The Mad Ones – The Verdict

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The Council is an adventure game set in 1793. Playing as Louis De Richet the first episode titled The Mad Ones begins with an invitation to a mysterious island by the secretive Lord Mortimer. Unsure of the reason for your presence on the island or that of the other bold characters, many questions are raised in your mind. Having recently been informed about the disappearance of your mother you have reason to believe that she may be on the island but know little more than that. It is your intention to discover the motives behind your mothers disappearance and piece together the goals of the other guests who all seem to have their own strange stories.

Character development is a key part of The Council‘s unique approach to the adventure genre. Adding RPG elements to a point and click game is certainly a new direction and one that feels like it’s been implemented well for the most part. The first thing to notice is that you have to choose one of the three skill trees; Diplomat, Occultist or Detective and then further advance this tree with specific talents. I chose the Detective tree as this is a mystery game after all and I wanted to feel adept at spotting the smallest of clues. From this tree I can choose to further advance my Questioning, Psychology, Vigilance, Logic and Agility skills with each point added meaning using these skills during main gameplay costs less ‘effort’.

Effort is a points based resource that can gathered and used during main gameplay. You start with six points of effort and utilising skills from your chosen tree uses a couple of these points or less depending on your skill advancements. The good thing is that just because you chose a certain tree doesn’t mean you will always be locked out of skills from other trees, it just means they will cost a lot more effort. Running out of effort is not something you will want to do as it usually means things will not go your way. People will see through your motives, you will miss hidden clues and some conversation topics will be closed off to you.

In past adventure games when making key decisions you are sometimes tricked into feeling as if you have majorly affected a plot, dialogue or outcome in some way but with The Council this – at least initially – doesn’t seem to be the case. Depending on how you developed your character you are literally locked out of some options as your talents have not been improved. This might sound a bit unusual but it fits well and the RPG element helps you role play the story and become more involved in it.

During conversations you can use items to help sway the outcome in your favour, unfortunately the inventory and item usage is not the most intuitive. There are four items that help you with things like gaining effort points and discovering character weaknesses but learning what these do and which symbol corresponds to which during the heat of a conversation took me a while to get used to.

Occasionally during conversations you will have a confrontation with another character. During the confrontation the opposing character is basically sussing out your integrity and your aims. This is an interesting part of the game that unfortunately seems too rushed to enjoy properly. Between the amount of text on screen, the timed dialogue answering and balancing the use of items I find it hard to focus properly during these moments, meaning I occasionally miss out on lines of dialogue or text. As enjoyable as these sections are I feel they should be a lot more manageable and streamlined.

Voice acting in The Council can be a bit hit and miss. During the thick of things It’s often quite good, but there are the odd moments where things sound awkward or unusual especially with the protagonist and this can be off-putting. Unfortunately the exact same goes for the script writing. During most conversations and narration the script is good, but again there is always the odd line that stands out as slightly strange. The developers Big Bad Wolf hail from France and I wonder if somewhere along the line the translation has not been handled in the best way. It’s only minor however and for some people this might not even be an issue at all.

One area the developers have really nailed is the design of the game and the character design especially is great. Each character has a strong and memorable image that makes them stand out as individuals and is among the best design I have seen in recent games. The level design is also top notch. Never did I feel like anything was out of place or that repeated textures and items had been used in a way that seemed lazy. Every room and building had bold and unique design.

After this introductory first episode I’ve been left with an overall good impression of The Council. I’m very interested to see where it goes with the rest of the episodes, how the characters and story develop and how the choices you make in the game really affect it.

The Verdict – Headshot

Platforms Available – PC, Xbox One, PS4
Platform Reviewed – PC

Please see this post for more on our scoring policy. Steam review code supplied by PR.

Niffelheim – Early Access First Impressions

Niffelheim – Early Access First Impressions

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Niffelheim is a 2D side-scrolling RPG currently in development in Steams Early Access Program. In it you play as a Viking who’s soul has been diverted on its was to Valhalla. You can craft armour and weapons, collect resources, upgrade your home base and defend it against numerous foes. Niffelheim is a true early access game in the sense that there are a lot of features still to be released, but the games developers are hard at work and keep in regular contact with the players via the Steam forums.

To see what the game looks like click the video below where I go through

Niffelheim is cuurently available on Steam for £14.99 link can be found here.

Deliver Us The Moon Early Access Demo Impressions

Deliver Us The Moon Early Access Demo Impressions

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Deliver Us The Moon is fresh out of a successful Kickstarter funding campaign and after having seen a trailer or two I decided this sci-fi survival/adventure game was due a deeper look. Upon first booting up the game I noticed that for a small indie team based out of Holland, developers Keoken Interactive have done a brilliant job with the visuals. Sure there are the odd optimisation needed here or there but for a demo this rates up there with the standard of many AAA demo’s I have played in the past. Solid mechanically, responsive and easy to control, not glitchy, interesting level design and probably the stand out thing for me in this demo is the lack of hand holding. There are a few pointers here and there but in most cases it’s up to you to figure out how to use equipment and decide what direction you should be heading in.

The demo is a short one lasting about 15-25 minutes and you can find my gameplay/commentary of the demo below.

The Kickstarter campaign might well be over but Deliver Us The Moon is still available to back on the official website and the first episode (of five) is due for release August 2016.

Tormentum: Dark Sorrow – The Verdict

Tormentum: Dark Sorrow – The Verdict

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There’s no denying it, the stand out attribute of Tormentum: Dark Sorrow is the brilliantly twisted artwork that fills this dark fantasy world with it’s unusual beings, scarred landscapes and hauntingly attractive design. In fact if it wasn’t for the incredible amounts of artwork, Tormentum would lose a lot of its character, however disturbing that character really is! At first glance Tormentum’s shadowy figure doesn’t seem like the kind that would be well suited to the point and click/adventure genre. But the game mechanics are implemented well and I never found myself scratching my head at an impossible combination of items or an unworkable puzzle as I have done with so many others. In fact I found Tormentum‘s puzzles to be a little on the easy side and I was able to enjoyably fly through the game in little over three hours.

Another thing I wasn’t entirely sure about to begin with was the silent protagonist and the games way of not really telling you much about him and how he came to be. Developers OhNoo studio explain this by means of the good old cliché of memory loss and I feel that there is a missed opportunity here to add lore and detail to the wonderfully designed world. I should point out that by the end of the game this sticking point had more than ironed itself out however and I was enjoying the freedom of imagination surrounding his past life. In fact much of what the character becomes is made through moral choices you encounter on your travels. There are a number of these choices throughout the game that directly effect the story and how you proceed in minor ways. There are also multiple endings in Tormentum that depend on your decision making and mean another playthough of the game is entirely viable if you want to discover all the outcomes for youself.

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I find it hard to write a full review about a game that only lasts three hours and doesn’t have all that much of a journey in terms of written dialogue and back story. Instead Tormrntum’s strong points come from allowing you to have the imagination of what it would be like in the amazingly drawn world and to create the protagonists characteristics through the choices and decisions you make and it does this very well. It doesn’t focus too much on bogging you down with tough puzzles or forcing you to remember hundreds of plot points, but instead has a brilliant and very polished world filled to the brim with imagination, creativity, strange and interesting characters and a new approach (at least for me) to the point and click genre and that is something that should be applauded. The dialogue that is present in the game is not voiced but is well written and again adds to the feeling of the world and its characters and having played through the game twice already this is a world I would quite happily visit again in the future.

The Verdict – Headshot

Platforms Available – PC
Platform Reviewed – PC

Please see this post for more on our scoring policy. Steam review code supplied by PR.

Dead Synchronicity Asks ‘What Will You Do When Time Dissolves Itself?’

Dead Synchronicity Asks ‘What Will You Do When Time Dissolves Itself?’

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Back in December Fictiorama Studios presented Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today at Adventure X London allowing attendees some hands on time with the game. Since then they have been hard at work and have just released the first gameplay footage.

The following video explains the ins and outs of basic gameplay as well as unique features “DS-backgrounds” and “Dynamic close-up dialogues”. There is also mention of a Kickstarter campaign due to launch around mid March for anyone who may be interested in backing the game.

To keep up to date on the latest Dead Synchronicity news you can find the developer blog here. It’s interesting to note that Fictiorama Studios mention a lot of other adventure games when talking about their inspirations. It’s clear to me that the developers have a passion for adventure gaming and a large knowledge and background in that area.

Get Hands On With ‘Dead Synchronicity’ At AdventureX London This Weekend

Get Hands On With ‘Dead Synchronicity’ At AdventureX London This Weekend

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AdventureX 2013 is nearly upon us and among the attendees at this years event are Fictiorama Studios with their new game, Dead Synchronicity.

Dead Synchronicity tells the story of the ‘Great Wave’ a chain of natural disasters that have changed the course of mankind and caused chaos and destruction to the inhabitants of the world. The army and government have flexed their muscles and taken authority over the survivors willing or not. Mysteriously they also seem to be the cause of an illness, of which the sufferers are called ‘Dissolveds’. This illness advances the sufferers cognitive skills far beyond normal levels, but ultimately leads to their gruesome death.

Is the army carrying out experiments on the people it claims to be protecting or is there something even more sinister behind the mysterious circumstances? You the player take control of Michael, a man who has lost all memory of his past, as he tries to discover just what led to the collapse of human civilization and the world he once knew.

Dead Synchronicity is available to play at this years AdventureX London held on 7th/8th Dec.

Goodbye Deponia – The Verdict

Goodbye Deponia – The Verdict

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Rufus is one of those combustible characters that try as he might, can’t help but cause chaos at the best of times. This characterisation combined with Deponia‘s off-the-wall humour has seen Rufus in quite a few predicaments throughout his adventures. The most memorable of which involved him being strapped to a giant circular saw blade and catapulted through the air, but only after the player had solved a mouse trap style puzzle in order to launch the device. The reason I bring up a scene from a past game is simply for comparison. It’s these moments of picturesque hilarity that mould the Deponia games from being simply funny, to hilariously memorable. It’s also something that Goodbye Deponia, the third and final part of the trilogy is sadly lacking a lot of. That’s not to say that these moment aren’t in the game, they are, just not on the same scale.

The change in humour in Goodbye Deponia lends itself somewhat to this in my opinion. With an overall darker feel, jokes about euthanasia and periods don’t fit well with light hearted and comedical situations leaving less room for these to arise. There are still laugh out loud moments, but having played through the entire game I am struggling to remember them.

One of the more memorable scenes from Goodbye Deponia.
One of the more memorable scenes from Goodbye Deponia.

Thankfully Goodbye Deponia excels in places that it’s predecessors didn’t, namely the puzzle solving logic which has been kept to an illogical minimum this time around. There are still a couple of sticking points where the illogicality really stunted progression but overall the flow of the game and depth of the puzzles work a lot better than in the past two Deponia games. The best part of the game comes when Rufus clones two versions of himself, meaning three times the mayhem and mishap all controllable by the player at the same time. Switching from Rufus to Rufus feels very natural and there are even instances where they can help each other to solve puzzles by exchanging items.

Goodbye Deponia clocks in at around seven to nine hours in length and contains plenty of what fans of the series will be looking for. The beautifully hand drawn backgrounds are back, looking as intricate and interesting as ever. The charismatic characters are all there from Goal, to Rufus, to Toni and Bailiff Argus. The story writing and voice acting is for the most part as great as it has always been, providing the power behind the characters and their reasoning.

This brings me neatly onto the ending of the trilogy, which of course I’m not going to spoil for you in any way. What I will say though is that I was a little disappointed by how it was handled. It comes around rather quickly and without much of a warning as you enter into what I assumed was the last quarter of the game. It certainly didn’t happen how I imagined and after three games worth of leading up to this point I have to ask myself was it all really worth it? I may be overreacting, and I certainly commend Daedalic Entertainment for ending the way they did, as I’m sure they knew it wouldn’t stick well with fans. Were they trying to give us a life message, something to take away from the story and think about? Were they proving the point that they are unlike other developers and don’t pander to the every need and demand of their fans? Or was it simply a sloppy ending to an otherwise well written and delivered trilogy of games? The decision is yours.

Verdict – On Target

Platforms Available – PC, Mac
Platform Reviewed – PC

Steam review copy supplied by Daedalic Entertainment.

Please check this post for more on our scoring policy.

Goodbye Deponia – Hands On Preview

Goodbye Deponia – Hands On Preview

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It’s evident that change is afoot in Goodbye Deponia, the third and final game in a trilogy of hilarious point and click games by Daedalic Entertainment. Early on in the game we catch our first glimpse of the inside of the Argonon cruiser headed for Elysium. It’s people look relaxed and are enjoying the high life unaware of the fact that people still reside on the planet they are about to destroy. Rufus and his band of stragglers are not about to let that happen however, and even after all his mistakes Goal has come around to his way of thinking too.

From the first moment you are able to take control of Rufus mayhem ensues, not in a frustrating ‘detrimental to the game’ kinda way, but in a wholly expected and welcomed ‘Rufus is back’ kinda way. If you’ve played the previous parts of the story you’ll already know that despite his best efforts everything Rufus touches is ruined in one way or another and the same is evident in the early story and puzzles of Goodbye Deponia.

The game mechanics are much the same as you would expect from Daedalic’s past games and indeed the past Deponia games. Space bar highlights any interactive points on the screen where as the left and right mouse buttons allow you to examine, pick up and use items found on your travels. Considering that this is the final part of three games, I would have expected the puzzle solving to be as hard as ever. Instead during the first few moments you are almost on rails and have only one option to advance. This is soon sorted and the proper puzzle solving kicks off but while the intro is entertaining, it also seems a little weak as far as gameplay is concerned.

Goodbye Deponia Screenshot Rufus Daedalic Entertainment Steam PC

As the version I am playing is only a preview and not the final product, there are still issues with sound balancing and missing text/voice from conversations. These are things that I would fully expect to be ironed out in the final product, but could cause frustration if they are missed. Aside from the obvious flaws, Goodbye Deponia actually seems to run a lot faster on my ancient laptop than the previous two games did. Again this could be because of the version but if translated to the final product this would improve gameplay and cutscenes nicely.

Daedalic claim that Goodbye Deponia can be played as a stand alone, without knowledge of the past two games and while they certainly try I don’t believe that you would experience the game properly. Without having that previous knowledge of characters, running jokes and puzzle solving methods many items of information would go way over your head. There’s even a quick run down of the past two adventures, but this for me acted as a jog of the memory more than a serious explanation that would allow an uninformed me to continue with play unhindered.

With all that being said the general feel of Goodbye Deponia is one of high quality care and attention, both in puzzle solving and game mechanics. The world, its characters and intricately hand drawn backgrounds are all still present and there is nothing to say that this wont be as good as the past two games, only time will tell. When all is said and done it really will be sad to say goodbye to Deponia and to Rufus, but at the same time I look forward to the conclusion of many hours of play and a genuinely interesting world.

Goodbye Deponia will be released via Steam and other outlets on October 22nd.