Nedávné recenze uživatele kick

A fun, zany, even more cartoony version of Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch class-based shooters, that's even more on the casual side than Overwatch was, yet with some potentially advanced strategy elements thank to interesting buff/debuff ability combinations.

Some classes and gameplay elements bring something new to the class shooter table, and some of the side grade classes like Cassie, an upgraded TF2 Huntsman Sniper, are made more viable and entertaining than in the earlier games.

Technically, the looks and performance of the engine are good. However, after a long beta period, there are a growing number of bugs and balance issues, again following the trajectory set by TF2.

Solid casual fun, and definitely one to watch, with a lot of updates hitting right now. This will last quite a few years. But it is unlikely to challenge its predecessors' crowns.

Adrenalin. Explosions. Guts. Faster and faster. The best old-school shooter reboot ever made.

If you're a huge 2.5D 90's first person shooter fan like me – that is, everyone over 30 – then it's shameful you haven't installed this already. It's as hardcore as ever, with the same ultra-fast-paced, gut-spilling gunplay, and with no crappy modern mechanics to distract from the intensity. You'll be wanting to play on the highest difficulty, and you won't rest until you're done with it.

If you're new, this franchise has the most outrageous weapons ever seen in a first person shooter, elegant map design that reminds of Quake or Wolfenstein, and some of the most satisfying blood-letting you can find. All wrapped up in refreshing UnrealEngine HD.

This game did okay on release, but it's criminally underplayed by shooter fans, probably as many younger gamers won't have much idea what the original was, and older gamers will suspect it of being another bland modern reboot. Give this one a chance.

Brain-twistingly surreal, wittily written and beautifully drawn, the Knobbly Crook lifts point-and-click adventures to new heights while retaining classic puzzles. And all for free.

Despite its surreal approach and the cartoon violence of its plot, this is the kind of the game that leaves me with the kind of warm feeling I get when I watch a Wallace and Gromit animation. It even has cute (although potentially lethal) tribble-like creatures by the boatload.

When I say surreal, I'm not just saying there are some wacky characters who say some slightly out-there things. We are not in Borderlands, we are on a totally different plane of existence.

I'm saying this is a full-on, brain-baffling, sick, warped, renaissance-era mystical fantasy version of our world where exploring means diving into the acid-filled bowels of a giant, flying flesh-and-wood horse upon which you are travelling. A place where the horse-ship's captain lives in a dark hole and has a sextant for a head and a hammer for an arm. Where a beefy living rock handler wears oven mitts, has a colander for a helmet, is armed with kitchen spatulas and yet still manages to look tough. And that's leaving out the weirdest things, the ones I don't even know how to describe.

When it comes to the plot, the best summary I can come up with is that once-peaceful paper farmer O'Sirus is given a mysterious quest by ... someone, to do ... something, for ... some reason. That's seriously about as clear as it gets, but that doesn't matter. It's the charm of setting out on an adventure and meeting a range of funny, friendly, cute or hostile characters so far outside any reference points you're familiar with that you can't help take them at face value. That's what makes this game fun. You won't ever forget the people you meet on this journey, all distinct and memorable, from pocket sized Pokémon-types to room-filling hulks.

You will not have seen characters like this before unless you've smoked a lot of things you shouldn't, or you've played a lot of Zeno Clash.

One area I thought the game might fall down on when I heard it was an Adventure Game Studio (AGS) game, was graphics, as indie projects can't usually match the quality of their ideas with their writing and production quality.

But Knobbly Crook's bizarrely talented writer, artist, designer and voice actor, Ubisoft's Ethan Petty, doesn't do things half-a s s e d. (Look no further than the huge horse's a s s in the game, which he built with enough spare room to fit a bar into.) This is the kind of game you get from someone who's worked on often over-serious mainstream projects like Assassin's Creed, Watch_Dogs and Rainbow Six, now working on their passion project, and taking it as far away from those as possible. That experience pays off in this little indie title that hits big with brilliantly original and sparkling writing throughout. We have this intriguing parallel world with such an alien way of life, physical laws, and morality to our own and yet that echos our world in interesting little ways, keeping us on our toes in a really engaging way.

Visually, we have the best-looking game I have ever seen made with AGS, with incredibly intricate mouse-drawn HD graphics that are part Mayan sculpture, part steampunk, part science textbook, and part hardware store. You'll want to explore every inch of each screen, not just to hunt for interactive objects as is the old-school adventure way, but to hunt for meaning in the assorted symbolism and just to appreciate the sinister beauty of it all. With the animation, we have nice multi-layered animated characters and occasional brief, endearingly weird close-up cutscenes at key points. The only things I felt were lacking were a couple more cutscenes showing the consequences of the player's actions as a pay-off for what we were promised earlier in the chapter, possibly with a cowering captain in tow.

With the sound, we have the fully-voiced, or I should say, fully-growled, dialogue that's a demonic-sounding version of English matching the deranged and murderous characters perfectly, with an amusingly contrasting jolly folk guitar soundtrack by Pitx.

The adventure gameplay itself is the one area where the game doesn't try to break any moulds. You get the quests, hunt the items, mix them up in your inventory, and bring them back to advance the story. It's a pity that such a forward-looking game still has separate Walk, Look, Use, Take and Talk actions that need to be switched between by mashing your right click button, when left click and right click should do for such simple puzzles. Also, at a couple of points in the game, it's necessary to complete an action that isn't quite logically connected to the current goals in order to progress. Of course, as Petty has stated, this is a nostalgia project, so these gripes are partly a design choice and are pretty much standard for retro adventure games. I just don't feel that they add anything entertaining. The fact that this and a couple of absent cutscenes are the only significant criticisms I can make says a lot about the quality of the finished product.

If you're a point-and-click adventure game fan who remembers not just the puzzle mechanics of the 90's golden age, but also their offbeat black humour, this is the game you've been waiting for.

Excelling in design in multiple areas, notably the visuals and astonishingly creative and original story and characters, plus the free price tag, an open-minded adventure gamer of any persuasion would be crazy not to download The Knobbly Crook. It's a great joy to see what happens when someone finally makes the kind of game that inspired them as a kid.

RSI simulator, but with real RSI.

Making you feel powerless, this free five-minute painted point-and-click short story of a typical young woman's night out highlights how a low regard for and high level of objectification of women are all too often considered acceptable.

To those who are saying that this game is condoning such behaviour, you are responding emotionally as it intends, but missing that we are being shown the way things are, not the way they should be.

As a side note, while not obscene, this game is not for children. I hope Steam and other online distribution platforms come to implement age verification more thoroughly in the case of free games.

A creepily characterful and impressively detailed comedy asylum escape cartoon point-and-click adventure game from then independent German studio Daedalic, for which many of the reviews in the English-speaking press have been bafflingly low.

For neophytes to the point-and-click genre, perhaps it will test their patience too far. But for serious adventure fans, an unmissable slice of gaming history, as it started a raft of defiantly different titles from the same studio that maintained its independence from 2007 until May 2014.

Even taking into account that the only official English version has two serious (but fixable*) bugs, several puzzles that ask a little too much of the player's imagination, and that it occasionally lacks clarity in animation, this game deserves more attention.

Those negative aspects certainly prevent this game from approaching the upper echelons of adventure gaming or being recommended to players new to the genre, but its depth, its engaging and original story, and its many challenges will give regular adventure gamers, or simply lovers of a good tale, many moments of satisfaction.

Perhaps it's the unashamedly old-shool approach to puzzle-based gameplay that resulted in those scores, as seems to be the increasing trend in game reviewing. But it's exactly those aspects, the tricky but satisfying puzzles, the taunting clues, the asides and terrible puns that often had me staring blankly as often as chortling away, that give this game character, making it enjoyable and underlining my feeling that a lot of effort went into it.

This game is fully-voiced, and in this case, that really means something. The sheer number of voice lines included to cover virtually every item interaction is something I've only seen elsewhere in another 2008 game released slightly later, A Vampyre Story, made by ex-Lucasarts members, and featuring a similarly creepy tale and sarcastic female protagonist. Breakout's voice lines gave a real sense of character to Edna, our less than sane avatar, and her soft toy sidekick, Harvey, which is what adventure games are uniquely able to excel at - making you believe the people and situations.

Staying with the Vampyre Story comparison, since both games were heavily influenced by 1990's LucasArts titles: Vampyre is what a team composed of programmers, writers and artists with decades of experience and greater financial backing might produce: polished and slick. On the other hand, for a first attempt at a game made largely by a single student in his spare time, Breakout is impressively close in terms of ambition and detail, if not execution.

It's all those factors contributing to the game's believability that allows the story to make a pleasing transition in mood towards its latter half, where dialogue clues will increasingly give the player the sense of a shift in the way they think about the main character. Exactly where this happens will vary between players, but it's neatly done.

While the characters are colourfully drawn both literally and in terms of character, with a great attention to the details of their likes, dislikes and small personality details, and several characters are "cute", it's worth noting this isn't a game for very young children. It may not be clear from the game's marketing material which shows the potential heroine clutching her toy rabbit, who is her co-star, but certain sections of the game contain some rather gruesome cartoon violence. Nothing that would worry a teen or adult - we're talking Itchy and Scratchy here - but enough that it might frighten someone younger.

Final thoughts:

An underrated and creepy game with many laughs, but its oblique clues hidden within obscure item combinations and the leaps of logic required for certain puzzles mean it's probably not for those who are new to point-and-click adventures, especially if they are very young children. It's a three-star game, but it shouldn't be left to languish in the pile of the one or two star games it's often thrown in with.

Bug fix Footnote:

*To fix the English version's bugs with the kitchen menu and ending scenes, visit the Breakout section of the Steam Community Guides.

Surreal as it is, this melancholy road movie-style adventure about the search for an enigmatic highway remains poignant and emotional, drawing you in with its sense of mystery.

The absence of traditional gameplay objectives strengthens the mystery, growing your personal investment in your character and in the stories of the people you meet. You are welcome to set your own goals if that seems apt, but the only real goal is finding the way.

There are a few traditional (and yet unique) point-and-click adventure puzzles, but these are rare, and a lot of the joy of the game is walking, talking and exploring its serene and sad beauty.

A lot of what at first seems surreal starts to make sense when you start to realise the underlying narratives.

There is political commentary here about the post-2008 economic situation, but it's all handled in such an artistically imaginative way that it fits the adventure story perfectly.

Whether this game is for you depends on your love and/or patience for its untroubled, slow pace, and its minimal approach to storytelling. Also I would suggest that if you are a fan of arty games, of the process of creating art, or of point-and click adventures, this is definitely for you as it explores those areas too.

This is one of the most original narrative / point and click games in years, and the quality of the art and sound design is among the highest ever seen. It carefully controls shading and camera angles to often give its 3D engine the look of a 2D graphic novel. And every time it transitions to show its 3D nature for a set piece, the transition is a thing of beauty. Since release, this game has spawned countless imitators of its style, content and setting - the main innovation being players can just enjoy a game for its sheer beauty, without needing a real goal.

The only negative I would have is that the final chapter loses some focus and emotional weight, but as the game is intended to be enigmatic to the last, having a vague resolution seems apt.

The Steam version of the game now includes the excellent minigames that were previously released between chapters as standalones on the Cardboard Computer website.

I hope Cardboard Computer summon up the courage to make a new game, as it's clear from the development time that the process was a slog - my guess is they were not willing to compromise on quality. Long may that continue on their next adventure.

After years decades of updates, Team Fortress 2 has hundreds of weapons, multiple game modes, thousands of community-run servers (many better than official ones), various competitive options, and endless laugh-out-loud ways of interacting with your friends.

The amount of freedom TF2 gives you to play exactly how you want within the same game is often unbelievable to those who've played any other shooter.

You could play as quake-style Soldier, except you'd discover rocket jumping in this game is so intricate there are people who play on jump map servers for hundreds of hours, flying across custom maps, skimming across water or hovering over the ground.

You could learn the Sniper or Demoman classes to such a level that you could trap a full server of 16 people down a single corridor with your bullets or explosives, unable to get past you. There's even one rifle that lets you shoot multiple people with one bullet.

You could play as the Spy, who despite what new players will tell, you, is an extremely well balanced stealth class. Very weak in a direct fight, the Spy can disguise as the enemy, is totally invisible when cloaked, and can play such fiendish tricks that new players may not understand how they died. You can even make the game's kill feed lie to your enemies. TF2 is the only major FPS to include a fully-developed stealth class.

You could be a medic, make your teammates invincible to clear a stalemate, or give them 100% critical hits, blowing the enemy team to pieces.

You could be an engineer, the tactical genius who can stop the entire enemy team from capping a point with a sentry gun, using teleporters to get teammates to the front line and dispensers to heal everyone. Unlike sentries in other FPSes, you will find the gun can be levelled up to kill a tanky class in seconds, and you can take manual control of your gun to sentry jump to impossible hiding places.

You could realise that you can't aim, be a pyro and just spin around setting everything on fire. Slightly less sarcastically, you could also reflect projectiles back to their sender, or join a dodgeball server and use the pyro's airblast to reflect ludicrously fast homing rockets to blow up the enemy team.


You could join a competitive team, and although there's not much money in a game like this, play in international tournaments. Many of the top players from this game went on to become Overwatch Pros. (Overwatch is a simplified but much slicker version of TF2). To find out more, see https://tf2center.com, https://rgl.gg or https://ugcleague.com.

You could even completely ignore any pretence at playing the actual game and spend all your time trading for hats and other cosmetics until you've collected every last one. You could be there a while, as there are a couple of thousand, and the rarest cost tens of thousands of dollars.

TF2 was Valve's test bench for in-game economies, and some of the world's most successful new games learned from it, often in bad ways – this is the game that made loot boxes a hit. Don't open boxes. In fact, I would not recommend direct trading either as there are so many ways to get scammed, and scammers are rampant thanks to various ways to sell items for real money. If you'd like something, just save up and buy items on the Steam Community Market if you'd like them, checking pricing beforehand on https://backpack.tf.

With a loyal, vibrant community of long-time fans to meet, thousands of maps and servers, hundreds of weapons, and dozens of game modes, TF2 is overwhelmingly varied and huge.

It is still the best first person shooter ever made. Such is its size, uniqueness and enduring popularity it's hard to imagine how a developer could make a sequel. It seems that gamers agree, with the 2007 game reaching an all-time-high of 215,000 players in December 2023.

This is Quake-level greatness. If you have ever liked an FPS, you need to try this.