Platform: PC

I enjoyed the original Call of Juarez and its spin-off, Gunslinger, but this one didn’t really grab me. It tries to mix things up by letting you play each level as one of two characters, Ray or Thomas. But, in the end, it’s still just a very standard shooter with bland environments and no real weapon variety. I guess learning Ray’s backstory (this is a prequel) was interesting and there was a real attempt to craft some genuine character development. Otherwise, it was just so-so to me.

Okay, here’s another Borderlands sequel. Actually, this is more of a large expansion pack to Borderlands 2—using the same engine and most of the same mechanics. The only new additions are the low-gravity environments and oxygen management. Admittedly, the ability to jump hundreds of feet into the air is pretty fun and opens up many of the levels, but, in the end, it’s still the same old game: run towards the map marker and shoot anything that gets in your way. Your reward is more guns and a mediocre story (unlike the excellent Tales from the Borderlands). Woo hoo. But really, the point here is that you are supposed to experience this mediocrity with friends and, as I begrudgingly have to admit, this is the best co-op game play experience out there these days. In the future, I would love to see more actual team-based tasks. You know, one guy holds the door while the other takes point or whatever military squads do when the aren’t practicing the Harlem Shake.

Okay, first things first. Machinarium is a beautiful game with excellent art direction, sound and music. However, something about this point-and-click adventure just didn’t… er… click for me. It could be the fact that the game erased my save files halfway through my first attempt. I didn’t pick it up again for at least a month after that. But I think this is just a little too puzzley for my tastes. At times I really didn’t have any motivation other than there was a guy who had an object that would obviously be useful somewhere. I can tolerate that in a Professor Layton game where there are funny characters and back story to reveal, but here it felt like tedium. Still, I’ll give it higher marks than I should for trying and being pretty. Oh, and the inability to use right click to drop objects annoyed me to no end.

Outlast is one of the most nerve-racking games I have played. The game delights in distracting your attention then blasting you with a heart-stopping jump scare. The first couple of hours, when you don’t really know what to expect, are the worst. This is a stealth game in which you have no weapons, no means of defending yourself. Your only tool is a video camera with an infrared mode to help you see in the darkness. Other than that, the available options to avoid being killed are either to hide or to run. As the game progressed, I realized that running was far more useful than cowering under a bed or in a locker.

The sound design and music are really effective in mounting the tension. As danger approaches, your character starts to breathe heavy and shiver and the music gets more and more intense. I only which it took better advantage of surround sound. It would haven been nice to be able to listen to where those footsteps were coming from in the moments before I got clobbered into a bloody pulp.

Most of the tale is told through found notes and documents. I really didn’t read too deeply into anything, but it really doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that you are alone in an abandoned insane asylum, creatures are trying to kill you, and you need to find a way out fast!

I was initially drawn to the isometric art style of this turn-based RPG. My hope was that it would play like Wasteland 2 but I wasn’t sure what to expect. The combat is similar, but it has nowhere near the depth and strategy. I some ways that’s good. Shadowrun Returns feels much more casual and less nitpicky with things like ammo and inventory management. But, even though it’s party-based, you only really control the development of your one character. The other combatants are just expendable hired hands with little to no backstory.

As a smaller, episodic type game it works well. The game ships with development tools and has a rather large Steam Workshop page, so the idea probably is that this is a framework to build on. The story here is very linear. I was surprised that there was no overworld to explore or major side quests to complete. If it wasn’t for the fighting, this could almost be considered a point-and-click adventure. Thankfully the story works well enough as a cyberpunk take on a film noir: A friend from the past has been murdered and, as a last request, he has a video message hiring you to find his killer. It’s nice that an RPG doesn’t need to have a “save the world from evil” plot (although it veers that way towards the end). Overall I liked the game, it just needs a bit more refinement and polish to make it great.

At first you’d think Home was a retro-looking point and click adventure, but that would be giving it too much credit. It’s really one of those trendy, arty indy games that supposed to be a deep meditation on interactive storytelling. In other words it’s a bore. Like Dear Esther or even Photopia (although Photopia is actually good). The pixel graphics are neat and it seems to be a nod to Atari’s Haunted House in the way it treats stairways and the use of atmospheric sound. It’s just not fun to play. Thankfully it takes less than a half hour to finish, so good riddance.

I went into Bulletstorm not knowing anything other than I heard there was a lot of cursing in the dialogue. Well, that much was true. This is a first person shooter based around the mechanic of building elaborate kills in order to score points. The points can then be used to buy ammo and upgrade weapons. Higher scores can be had by utilizing your grappling tether or your powerful kick to throw enemies into the various sharp objects that litter the landscape. After a while, much of the novelty is lost, trying to manipulate bodies as they drift by in slow motion. It doesn’t help that there is absolutely no exploration in the level design and therefore not much strategy. Basically the game is one giant long hallway with your final boss at the end. Imagine an on-rails light gun shooter with a bit more control over your character. Every four or five levels there is a slight variation on the game play, such as a runaway train set piece or one where you remotely control a giant monster, but then it’s back to the boots to the head. The story is simple, but the focus is more on the relationship between you and the other surviving member of your doomed pirate crew, Ichi. Hey, it’s not My Dinner with Andre, but it suffices and, though there’s not much depth here, Bulletstorm is a rather fun romp that doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Wadjet Eye continues their run of solid point and click adventures with their latest, Shardlight. This may be their best looking and best sounding game yet. You play as Amy Wellard, a member of a lower caste in a city recovering from a nuclear-scale bombing. On top of the misery of scavenging for food and dealing with the iron rule of “The Aristocracy,” you also have caught a case of the green lung for which vaccinations are in short supply. The plot is pretty linear and avoids that open, branching middle that adventure game devs of yore seemed to love. Really, we are just here for the story anyways and, at times, even puzzles get in the way of that.

The puzzles are fair and only a couple really require a little deeper analytical thought. I was only stumped once and I feel so stupid for missing the solution (hint: paper is far more rigid in the post-apocalyptic future). The focus here is dialogue, storytelling and characters. Unlike Technobabylon, conversations are concise and to the point and I was not clicking past the voice acting as much as I am wont to do. I almost would consider this Wadjet Eye’s best game but there are a couple of weird choices near the end of the game that kind of spoiled the immersion and narrative for me. It made the ending somewhat unsatisfying, but all-in-all the game up until those final moments is stellar.

Wadjet has produced another solid point and click adventure game that makes up for its somewhat lackluster predecessor, A Golden Wake. This one is a sci-fi, cyberpunk thriller in which there is a killer on the loose “mindjacking” his victims’ memories.

I never quite understood the appeal of cyberpunk. My experience in the genre is limited mostly to The Matrix movies and a fruitless attempt to play Neuromancer on the Apple IIgs. Thankfully, most of Technobabylon takes place in meat-space with a focus on criminal investigation and dialogue. At various points in the game you control one of three characters: Regis the old-fashion police detective, Max his assistant who uses her cyber-skills to investigate, and Latha the girl who is addicted to “The Trance.” I’m not sure how one could get addicted to standing on empty platforms and hacking food vending machines, but then again I don’t understand let’s play videos either.

As with all the other games from Wadjet Eye, the voice acting is (mostly) professional sounding, the pixelated art is as lovely as ever, the plot moves along at a decent clip, and the puzzles are for the most part fair. As per usual I would only get stuck when I would miss clicking some tiny detail on the screen. The Shivah had a nice feature where you could hold down the mouse button to reveal the clickable hotspots. The AGS system is pushed to the limits here. I really wish they could upgrade the sound and animation. As it is, dialogue can sometimes feel robotic, with no cross-talk and occasional stuttering glitches. These are minor complaints and even these glitches can add a little to the old-school charm of the point and click genre.

Back in 2007 I played a free, ad-supported version of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time which I enjoyed quite a bit. Although I missed seeing commercials for McDonald’s between every level, this is more or less the same game. There seems to be more of an emphasis on combat in The Two Thrones but the core platforming and time-shifting mechanics remain. Since that first game however, this sort of acrobatic platforming has been done a zillion times better in the Tomb Raider games and I started to get frustrated with blind jumps at about the halfway point. The whole time-reversal mode seems like a kludge to cover poor level design and camera control. The game does do a good job at keeping its bare-bones story moving along and will occasionally break up the monotony with a chariot race or tower of Hanoi puzzle.