Recent reviews by SaturdayMonk

Defied all my expectations about what it actually is and that was both a good and a bad thing. At base level it's just a delightfully weird and a pleasantly eerie game with a very unique premise but if you even put a little bit of effort to scrape the surface it shows to you that it ain't just a lake but in fact an ocean. That's great and all but, either by my own laziness or because the sheer size of the rabbit hole the game features catching me off guard, I quickly got stuck and felt like I was drowning. This might be child's play for a veteran who got through this kind of storytelling technique many-a-times but it was a bit much for me at the end so I'll probably resort to an extensive explanation of some sort. Nonetheless, without going into heavy spoiler territory, I can say that if you like stylized retro graphics, a creepy and an offputting-Lynchian atmosphere and most importantly if you don't hesitate to do some decent amount of sleuthing in order to see the whole picture of a narrative, pick this up without any second thoughts. To be honest though even if you don't exactly fit the last criteria you can still pick this one up because it still offers some kind of entertainment albeit for a shorter amount of time. My only criticisms can be that; firstly, some aspects of the game can feel a bit "invasive" and lastly there are a number of bugs that can lock your progression. I can gloss over the bugs because of the lack of a proper debugging team since as far as I understand this is essentailly a one person project but that also doesn't erase the bugs so, keep that in mind. At the end, I recommend this great oddity of a game which -I almost forgot to mention- also has a pretty cool soundtrack as well.

To put it simply, this is a game which has a myriad of ups and downs and most of them are laid down in great detail by a lot of other people so I initially just want to say that it's is still a far cry from the monotonous and creatively bankrupt hole Ubisoft have dug themselves in, regarding the Far Cry franchise in recent years.

But for my two cents I can say that the side missions were so good that they reminded me of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (one of my favorites and one of the best to ever do it) and I've played through each and every one of them with the biggest sh*t eating grin on my face (and I'm willing to bet you'll do the same if you have even the slightest interest in the types of stories they cover). Also the characters are handled brilliantly and felt really natural and authentic (which is sadly a rarity these days) thanks to decent writing and excellent voice acting performances and when you add the masterful art direction and quality graphics into the mix, the goods outweigh the bads such as the unintuitive combat controls, collectathon aspects not being intertwined well enough into the main gameplay loop therefore feeling a bit tedious and the general repetitiveness the game falls into.

Putting everything aside however, as the credits were rolling I was glad that I've experienced the whole thing. I knew it was going to be somewhat of a mediocre game from the start because of the general consensus towards it back when it launched but thank heavens for the fact that I've managed to refrain myself from diving into any of the intricacies of why people decided that way since not only I was pleasantly surprised by some of the key aspects of the game I wasn't aware of but also the weird itch that made me consider giving it a shot never went away because of some negative and that much credible opinions I could've read. Not every game has to be masterpiece to hook you in and this one managed to remind me of that. Give it a shot if anything about it you see seems intriguing to you.

Everything I dislike about the main game -melee combat, camera, enemy potency, pacing issues, claustrophobic level design and boss battles- is here and instensified like five times and on top of that (despite the slick presentation) story is disappointing too, if this is like the "true ending" it sure is as disappointing as the actual game. Also encountered a couple bugs and one of them required a load back to a previous save (don't climb over those floating boxes/platforms if you leave even a little room between it and the wall or you'll get stuck on it). No apparent critical performance issues though, so that's that. If you want to see the whole story of the game you already probably have it but if you don't really care about it you can safely pass on this one.

I can't wrap my head around how this melee combat system and overall UI design passed any kind of testing. Not only dealing with more than a couple of enemies with them throwing you around with nausiating camera movements (even with decreased camera shake), ambushing you all the time from behind and damaging you without your control and finally thanks to your character being as swift as a refrigirator therefore making the weaving and dodging mechanic hard to deal with feel annoying but also the lack of a simple weapon wheel/switching system in the name of this weird two-step one kills any kind of tempo the game could've had and when you combine all of the above with the weirdly claustrophobic, corridor based level design the combat just becomes a chore. Speaking about tempo, the constant slew of cutscenes, long and elaborate animations with unnecessary amounts of "shimmying" and "vent crawling" also do their part on butchering it and when you add the stealth sections with painfully slow character movement speed, I couldn't help but to feel like my time was being wasted.

It's just a shame since every other aspect of the game is top notch; game looks beautiful, so does the animations and -although underutilized- there is considerable talent behind the mocap/voice cast and the game world and lore each are fairly interesting so, if there was more work being put into the combat mechanics to polish them further into a more satisfying state the game could've turned out to be a solid one. There is some palpable levels of passion poured into this game and despite not excusing the initial early release window state the game was in performance wise, the continuous work being put into this game to basically save it from such a state is both admirable and shows that passion, shows that the team cares about their work. Nevertheless, all these positives don't erase the frustration I had with the game and I can't really recommend it.

I mean don't get me wrong, I pre-purchased the game, Dead Space is my favorite game of all time and I hold Glenn Schofield at a high degree. I just hope the launch shenanigans and overall issues of the game don't lead Krafton to pull the plug on the studio and they can manage to intially make a game which actually reaches the potential this one failed to, if they choose go into a sequel route or not. At the end of the day -believe it or not- I still have faith in Striking Distance however much the Final Transmission DLC seemingly amplifies every issue I had with the game at least five times. I just expect feedback like this -that they hopefully listen/read- helps them along the way. In an era where survival horror found it's footing by going back to it's roots -Resident Evil 2 remake for example- it might do good for a possible future project of their's to do the same instead of trying to re-invent the wheel; innovation is a good thing but this attempt in the name of it unfortunately went south. Once again though, I can't recommend the game in earnest except if you wish to support linear, single player experiences with substantial production value like this one in spite of the many errors it comes with like I did.

The whole narrative is kind of all over the place, trying to get all the endings to see the bigger picture didn't really help either. Expected the detective-work to be more sensical but it was basically the same thing which then evolves into something bigger and more convoluted but still ending falling short since it is sprinkled between all the endings, so that kind of goes into the bin too. I know it is dirt-cheap and has good intentions behind it but I couldn't get much enjoyement out of it. I'd give it a "mixed" if there was such a thing.

Haven't seen all the endings and content yet but I just couldn't get into it and I've tried. Someone who appreciate this kind of art style, themes and humour more can definitely have a better time, and I initially thought that I was also within that demographic but maybe I'm just getting too old for this kinda stuff. I mean I liked parts of the designs, some of the writing made me smirk and most of the unhinged/satirical parts were entertaining but all those happened way too sporadically and in between everything, I was just bored a little (clunky UI and odd controls didn't really help either). Management aspects were also decent but just can't see myself grinding each and every time to see every ending/secret (at least not in one sitting), I enjoyed one good run but that was it. Was on the verge of refunding it but decided not to and I'm confident that I'll get to see most of what the game offers while playing it periodically and then I might change my review to positive in case I enjoy the rest of it, but for now can't recommend it to like-minded people.

Edit: Nah, decided against it and just farmed the cards whiler trying to get more achievements to pass the time, just not my kind of game. Dropped a foil card though which was nice I guess)

Sweet and charming, Cloak and Dagger Games' next adventure after the delightfully eerie and weird Football Game definitely delivers. Charming writing, beautifully stylized cutscenes, a likeable cast of characters and satisfyingly common-sensical puzzles that are sprinkled throughout the thrilling adventure of the titular Yandi ends up making up for some other underwhelming elements such as the slightly less than stellar ending, some questinable UI elements, a couple puzzles that might feel like they were designed to pad up the playing time and one particularly nasty technical issue. Nevertheless, if you just don't try to mess with the resolution settings and therefore don't lose your progress because of a crash since there isn't any auto-save mechanic as far as I'm concerned, you ought to enjoy your -perhaps a bit short- time with the game, especially towards the latter end of it since once it picks up the pace, it reaches its' very best. I 100% recommend it and -a hundred and ten percent if you've already played and loved Football Game as I did- currrently can't wait to get into the rest of the C&D's works as they are surely shaping up to be one of my favorite indie developers as of recent times. You guys rock!

Seems to be abandoned by the devs yet I had fun for a good two hours straight, but of course could've taken me and my friend way shorter if it wasn't for my smooth brain. What the story entails and certain implications towards the hypothetical continuation of the narrative seemed interesting, however since it is unfinished the game just ends and very much disappointingly so. It has decent replay value (even if you know the solutions) and each player respectively getting a slightly different experience is a neat idea. Well, sad to see another game missing out on reaching it's full potential but at least it has an FOV meter which all first-person games must have so it has that going for it if nothing else. I know I'm just digging for anything right now but in short, if you have a friend and have a couple of hours -at most- to kill you can give this one a choice as it's free after all so very much accessible right away. If you don't really like puzzle adventures though, there's not much here to convert you into enthousiast of the genre. Slightly recommend it under specific circumstances.

A family friendly sports game where you can play bowling, improve your fitness with a pilates ball and even participate in a new and innovative sport called Z-Ball: Zero-Gravity Basketball where even white men can jump! So jump in and make us whole!!!1!!!1!11!!1!

Cool idea for a time waster/hyper casual title but I think it needs further tinkering and fine tuning to become a bit more fair than completely random. Also the usage of heavily trippy imagery and color-blending to increase the difficulty in this type of game doesn't offer an actually fun experience, losing just because random colors merged for a second and not because I wasn't fast enough is straight up annoying, a challenge is fine but RNG (at least in my opinion) is not. If you desperately want a time waster game to play while turning your brain off however, I guess this one is a no-brainer.

(Oh and yeah, also cards. Played this one because I needed to get some cards for a badge so wanted to fire up something to get quick cards to sell 'em for the other game's badge. So there's that).

So I'll make a confession, "Bless me father for I have sinned." etc etc: I got this game out of one those borderline scammy "X Random Games for X Dollars" bundles and here's my advice: Don't do the same. It can be addictive (I am lucky that I wasn't hooked on those things) since they are basically the gamer's equivalent of slot machines, so more or less gambling. I know I'm a random weirdo on the internet treating the review section of a practically unknown game like a confession booth but still, try to consider what I said and light a candle on your way out, would you?