Murdered: Soul Suspect

Murdered: Soul Suspect

Operating System: PC/Mac/XboX/PS3
Website: Official Website

Rating: 7/10
Comments: This game. My god. I was so impressed with this. I really enjoy detective games, but they never really get them right. This game did. This is one of the best detective games I've played since Law&Order or Sherlock Holmes.

Let's begin by saying that the graphics are amazing. The cutscenes are like watching a movie like all next-gen games. I didn't expect to like it, but I loved the main character Ronan. He's such a gansta with swag, cracked me up. The main problem I had was that there seemed to be a lot of repeated character models, so I would be constantly confused by the random ghosts and NPCs wandering around thinking that they were Rex or Julia when they weren't.

The demons in this game were goddamn terrifying. That shrill cry they make when they first appear or when they spot you terrified me. Made me jump on more than one occasion. I did get more than frustrated with trying to dodge them though, ended up not being so sneaky and running through a whole bunch of them and getting killed more than once.

The other downside was that there was no in-game map and so I kept getting lost absolutely everywhere. Salem town is bloody huge too so that was fun, running around for 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get out of a back alley I had ran into.  I was also then disappointed by the lack of being able to fast travel anywhere (like a teleport save spot) because running around wasted a lot of time and took too long.

I liked the plot twist. I liked how it starts off as you trying to find out who killed you and ends up being a whole conspiracy of horrible murders and tragedies. At least it wrapped up nicely and had a good ending, if it had a bad one I don't think my heart could have taken it.

Law & Order Criminal Intent 2: Dark Obsession

Law & Order Criminal Intent 2: Dark Obsession

Operating System: PC

Website: Website page
Rating: 7/10
Comments: The graphics left more to be desired, but then again it is an old game. I liked how it had all the sound effects from the Law & Order show. The small bleep of your PDA could sometimes get lost in the action if you happened to be talking to a witness or travelling. And the amount of times the people called you about shit every time you didn't go directly to them after they called was ridiculous. There was also a small glitch that made item info boxes hover on the screen after you closed the PDA and the only way to get rid of it was to reopen the PDA and go to the item.

The plot was pretty much like playing through the tv show. You simply try to solve a murder in the city. It's probably one of the best detective games made and I enjoyed it a lot with the plot twists as per usual. While I was unhappy with the ending suspect it didn't change the fact that I had a lot of fun playing this game.

The gameplay was fairly standard of an adventure game, albeit slightly ambiguous. The cursor was a blue circle but when you could inspect something it glows a lighter blue. And some of those scenes were so goddamn fiddly with where you had to click. Dirt skid marks anyone? Geezus! It was good that a double click made Goren run because that fatass is slow! It also has a never-ending hint button in case you get stuck... which is me in every adventure game.

Machinarium

Machinarium

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 5/10
Comments: Machinarium is a unique kind of adventure game. The graphics are really adorable, like real hand-drawn robots and all, that are animated to suit the story. The story is simply a "rescue your girlfriend" scenario. Some bad guys at the start messed up the robot king and you happened to get sucked out of the city and your girlfriend held hostage.

The puzzles in this game are sometimes hard, but most of the time they're just time consuming and annoying... like the arcade games. Oh. My God. The arcade games were the worst. And there's no skip so you just have to finish the puzzle or give up if you can't.

The best thing was that there was a hint for every new thing that you needed to do, so if you ever got really stuck you could hint to get an idea on what to do next. I sometimes just wished he would walk a little quicker though, or even a fast click to the next area would have been good. The slow walking to every scene kinda made me want to shake the game.

NEO Scavenger

NEO Scavenger

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 7/10
Comments: This, once again, is a survival game that is still in beta stages. The basic story is this: you wake up in a cryotube with a name and a bank account number but remember nothing else about yourself. You can see lights of a city at night and so you go out in search for answers only to find that the world outside is in a post-apocalyptic state and has in general gone to shit.

I love this game. It's so damn hard to survive! I've died in so many, many different ways, recovered from sepsis only to be struck down by gastro and have also has my things stolen in my sleep and gone on a killing vendetta to get my stuff back. And yes, I have also resorted to cannibalism when I was starving. It wasn't a pretty sight.

I can't wait when they'll have different quests and all that. My main problem is that I still don't know how to save the game... so when I first got to the city I was simply looking for some iSlabs but it was late and I shut down my laptop only to find that it didn't autosave and I had to start again.

Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 8/10
Comments: I don't normally like zombie genre but this game warmed to me. Well, more like it warmed my hoarding. Because I am always that person who has to drop a healing potion to pick up another healing potion. I like raiding houses, chests and boxes for loot and this game. My god this game. The amount of loot lying in peoples houses is amazing at the best of times... and other times the curiosity can get you killed. Like I did. Many, many times. MANY times.

The intro says it all: There are no survivors. There is no hope of winning. This is how you die.

You have to run around and gather the necessary tools you need to make sure that you survive the zombie apocalypse which has ruined the world. I love this game to bits and it's only in beta testing. I can't wait until it has extra plot and features. So much to look forward to!

Artist Colony

Artist Colony

Operating System: PC
Website: BigFish page
Rating: 6/10
Comments: This game is rather reminiscent of a Virtual Villagers setting in that you can control each of your people, train them in different art styles and all that jazz. The biggest let down - just like with VV - is that after a while you have people maxed out and they're still complaining about the garden being run down. You just end up needing a ridiculous amount of cash to restore the colony and that's where I started to lose patience.

The story is what really keeps you playing though. The gameplay itself is rather tedious in the end but you do what you have to. The story is a nice step-brother rivalry for the affections of a girl; a story which happened exactly the same way with the brother's fathers and their mum.

Adera

Adera

Operating System: PC/Mac
Website: App page
Rating: 7/10
Comments:I played the trial of this because I had it on my laptop so I figured "why not?" and I had no idea what kind of game it was. Turns out it's a HOG, and it is rather snazzy too. Story is that your helicopter crashes, you can't really remember what happened until you make your way back to the wreckage and see that it's covered in ice and seaweed despite being over a desert.

Since you have this orb you go exploring and can open portals to a different land. I actually really liked this game, it was rather simple but I always prefer the adventure-based games more and this didn't have many HO scenes at all. I also got excited about the fact that you can get collectables and achievements (because it links to Xbox Live).

The only downside is that I have to pay to unlock more chapters, and this game has 5 of them :C