Análises recentes de Ragnar

A great point and click adventure game that gets so much right.

Taking the role of Kathy Rain, a 20-something journalism student, you come back home for your grandfather's funeral and begin an investigation into his misterious illness. What follows is the typical point & click process of investigating locations, talking to everyone, picking up items, and solving puzzles. What sets Kathy Rain apart is the pretty pixel art, interesting story, solid writing, good voice acting, and intelligent puzzles that naturally lead into the next.

The pixel art is very well done, particularly given the AGS engine's 320x240 resolution. My favorite part, and a very pleasant surprise, is that the far more detailed character portraits change to reflect the people's emotions. Characters will smile, or smirk, or frown, or roll their eyes during conversations, and it really serves to bring already detailed characters to life. The good voice acting helps a lot with that as well.

The story was slow to get started, but interesting, and had me guessing as to where it was going and what was going to happen next. The characters were likewise interesting. The protagonist, Kathy Rain, was particularly enjoyable to play as, with tons of personality - I loved her comments, observations, and dialog choices. The writing was good, and ranged competantly from funny to sad. This is one of the few games that made me laugh, and I laughed often due to the sharp and witty writing.

The puzzles are logical, and well connected, such that the solution to one puzzle intelligently leads you to the next. The game helps keep you on track with notes / conversation topics in your notebook, and by keeping the inventory largely limited to useful items and greying out locations that you are finished with. There's no pixel hunting due to being able to highlight objects of interest, and there's a clever "Think about" function that serves to both provide backstory and hints as to what the item might be used for. The puzzles are pleasantly on the easy side, though there is a noticeble difficulty spike about 75% of the way through.

I did get stuck three times, about 75-80% of the way through where the difficulty spiked. One code puzzle I just needed a hint for, one I missed that an object had a gained new interaction ability that it didn't previously have, and the third was a poem / riddle that were so vague as to leave me completely stumped and reaching for a walkthrough.

I also encountered some initial technical issues due to the AGS engine. It failed to start when set to automatic resolution as it tried a resolution that was way too big. When manually setting the resolution, fullscreen would stretch the game out even though I had black bars enabled in the launcher. I had to set the game to run in a window to finally make it work.

Overall, Kathy Rain is a great point and click adventure game, one of the best I played. I highly recommend it to adventure game fans.

Stories Untold is a delightful little suspense game. Very retro in design and execution, it evokes an ’80s aesthetic in everything from the audio and visual design to using a text parser for some of the gameplay. The individual stories are interesting and varied, and are at times really clever. They build on each other, employing things you learn in the first story in the second, and so on. While the first story starts out with an initially intimidating text parser, it was easy and simple to play through, and later stories use more mouse-based interaction.

I enjoyed playing through the individual stories, but it’s the fourth story that really made me think, “Wow, this game is great!” It’s really clever and smartly done, and was an excellent conclusion that elevated the entire game.

I would characterize Stories Untold more as suspense rather than horror, because it builds and instills a feeling of dread throughout rather than utilizing jump scares, or body horror, or being chased by a monster. As someone who doesn’t like horror games (or movies) because they’re too scary, I had no problems playing Stories Untold.

Saints Row: Gat out of Hell was my first Saints Row game, and was a lot of fun - a ridiculous super-powered game built on the GTA framework. Rather than going for realism, the game went the complete opposite direction, starting you out with super speed and wings, and piling additional super powers on top. It seemed the developers wanted to pile on the absurdity too, with delightful results - from the stated goal of punching Satan in the face, to a mid-game cutscene that had me grinning with joy.

There are very few story missions, relying instead on completing activities in the open world. However, you’re free to do just the activities that interest you, and nothing is locked off, so it’s pretty pleasant overall and the meter fills before you know it. All in all a delightfully silly and over-the-top super-powered romp.

The one downside, however, was that it was rather unstable on my i5 / RX 480 system. Sometimes it ran fine for hours, and other times it would freeze and crash to desktop 2-3 times an hour. It almost always crashed when I was just exploring and fighting in the city, rather than doing one of the activities, and it automatically restarted the game after a crash (and also caused the Origin client to crash if it was open in the background). Closing all background tasks and applications seemed to help improve stability.

Such a good game, and impressive in so many ways.

I was initially very dubious. The multiple technical difficulties I encountered due to owning an AMD card were very frustrating. Once those were conquered, it was on the the game, but the beginning didn’t inspire. A pretty boring intro sequence was made worse by the most egregious screen tearing I’ve ever encountered (I had to disable V-Sync to progress through the intro). For a first-person-shooter, it certainly took its time in giving me a gun. What does it think it is, Half Life?

But then I got a gun, and another, and things kept improving from there. The shooting felt great, the guns were fun, the levels varied and allowed different approaches - everything from being sneaky to running in with two guns blazing. What most impressed me was how competent the game was at things you wouldn’t typically expect in a first-person-shooter, let alone a Wolfenstein game.

For example, there was stealth, and it worked really well - sneak up on soldiers and you can take them down silently with a knife, or shoot them with a silenced pistol. With in-game rewards for stealth kills, it made not-shooting in a shooter fun, and I had a blast sneaking around levels and silently dispatching enemies one by one.

And then there’s the story - a bizarre alternate history with sci-fi elements that was surprisingly good. I never would have imagined a story about the silent meat-head of Wolfenstein being good, but the writers worked wonders, and the voice acting was great. I had several genuine laughs along the way, and grew to care for the characters.

A God of War style game with surprisignly high production values and really solid combat.

The story is nonsense, the explosions are huge and frequent, and the quips are ever-ready. It's obviously cheap and cheesy, like an 80's action movie, but it's similarly lots of fun. But the most important part is that it absolutely nails the fun of GoW style combat, far better than most of its AAA contemporaries. Hell, I think I enjoyed it more than the most recent God of War game I played.

It was clearly made on a budget, but the developers did the most with what they had to produce a title far better than I expected. I could critique it for the lack of usefulness of some weapons, but that's a critique just as easily levied at the games in the God of War series that inspired it.

In the end, I had so much fun playing Marlow Briggs that I actually felt guilty about how little I paid for the game.

An exploration game set inside a franken-house as full of memories and history as it is stuff. Delving into those memories, you explore the stories and history of your family. Whimsical and wonderful, the game is an emotional roller coaster.

If you enjoyed similar exploration games, such as Gone Home or Dear Esther, you'll really like this one - it's one of the best, and raises the bar for exploration games.

It's first person, which always feels more natural to me on a mouse and keyboard, but while it plays well with mouse and keyboard, it seems designed for a controller as some actions feel awkward with a mouse but perfectly natural with a thumbstick.

Do note that the game did give me motion sickness. The only other games to do so were the similar Gone Home, and low texture games such as Minecraft and the original Doom(s). I wonder if it might be due to the FoV, and would be alleviated if playing from further away on a TV?

A fun and entertaining point and click adventure game - with a few minor issues, but easily forgivable.

Simple, but adequate graphics, moody music, and surprisingly good voice acting. The main character was actually the weakest in terms of voice acting, in my opinion, and a few of the voice clips for the main character cut out part way through or didn't play at all (the main issue I encountered).

The story was entertaining, partly predicable and yet partly surprising - and the predictable parts were enjoyable, with the developers realizing they were cliche and playing to that to make them fun.

The puzzles were generally logical and straightforward (even if a few were silly when you think about them), though there is a considerable amount of back and forth within the areas of each self-contained chapter, and I did get stuck and had to consult a guide twice.

I count the short length as an asset - the game tells its story and entertains without overstaying its welcome.

Overall, I recommend it for fans of story based point and click adventure games.

Just Cause 3 is ridiculously delightful, and delightfully ridiculous. This is evident from the very beginning, which starts you off standing on top of an airplane using a rocket launcher to take out SAM sites. It only becomes more ridiculous from there.

Just Cause 3 thinks that running around is far too slow, and thus gives you a grappling hook, a parachute, and a wingsuit. The grappling hook lets you move around the battlefield in an ultra-fast version of the Vanquish slide. That same grappling hook combined with a parachute will launch you into the air. Get high enough, or jump off a great height, and switch to the wingsuit to fly across the islands. Keep using the grappling hook while flying to build up speed and you can navigate the island at speed without ever touching the ground.

But that's not all the grappling hook can do. Grapple an enemy, and launch yourself at them to deliver a flying kick. Grapple two items - like an explosive barrel and an enemy jeep, or an enemy and the ceiling - and use the tether to pull one into the other. You can also grapple onto vehicles to ride on top, or below, or hijack them.

The ridiculousnous continues as you fly into a town or base, run around causing chaos and mayhem, kill countless enemies while destroying their tanks and helicopters, liberate the area, and then be on your way.

The ridiculousnous extends beyond the combat. One of my favorite moments - as I was driving a prized car back to the garage to unlock it - was when my GPS malfunctioned and sent me driving off a cliff and into the ocean. I was okay, but my prized car was now at the bottom of the sea. But wait! Maybe if I... Yes! I was able to tether the mangled remains up out of the water, flip the car up onto the dock by the garage, and use the tether to drag the wreckage - sparks and debris flying off of it - to the garage. It was enough to make a copy, and unlock it. Success!

But my favorite moment was when my young son climbed into my lap and we flew over the island until we found an orange car (his favorite color), and then just drove around the island. No combat, no missions, just following the road wherever it takes us and soaking in the beauty. The driving is slick arcade style, drifting through tight turns, and AI cars are usually smart enough to slow down or get out of your way. In a game of chaos and destruction, we found peaceful relaxation in just driving around the beautiful island and watching the hills and ocean roll by.

[Update]
One significant negative, however, is the default always-online server connection. It's used to provide times for your friends, so you can see how you did in comparison and encourage competition. That part is fine. What's not is that the server seems unstable. The first week, I never encountered a single server issue. This week, though, the server seems to be down every day. You can play offline, but every time you pause the game or open the map / drop / mod menu it tries to reconnect, which results in waiting and watching a wheel spin for 20 second. It greatly interupts the flow of the game when you open the map for a sec, but have to spend 20 seconds doing nothing while the game tries to re-connect to a server that's down.

I had to block JustCause3.exe in the Windows Firewall to avoid the constant reconnections while they got their server issues sorted out. It let me play the game without interruptions, but it meant that any Feats I accomplished while off-line didn't count once I went back online.


In addition, there are a couple mods I recommend you get, one practically essential and one optional but fun.

First, pretty essential, is the No Intro mod, to remove the 30 second unskippable intro. The intro is cool the first time you see it, but the length and inability to skip it is inexcusable. Download the mod here: https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/download/863-just-cause-3-no-intro-mod/

Second, optional, is the double range grappling hook. I find it makes it more fun without breaking the game. Just be sure to only install the double range one, as the infinite does break some aspects. Download the mod here: https://justcause3mods.com/mods/grappling-options-infinite-range-double-range-etc/

Recommended with reservations (after completing Episode 1).

Void and Meddler has a gorgeous aesthetic. The beautiful graphics and music combine to create a lovely cyberpunk city populated with the best kind of strange characters. Regular humans, humans with horns, cat people, bird people, and others all intermix beneath the neon lights. It's a unique and refreshing setting, and I find myself wanting to explore more of it. The game looks even better in play than in screenshots.

Void and Meddler grows on you. There are amusing and clever bits that you discover throughout. The first "quest" is to turn on some music to relax, and of course the protagonist's relaxing music is the most horrendous noise. There are different ways to finish each act, and the way you pick describes the character you're playing - a violent solution paints a violent character, while a clever solution a clever one.

The protagonist is unsympathetic, which makes for an unusual game. You can do something really awful in Episode 1, which I found horribly distasteful, but who could I blame? Sure, the devs coded it in, and the protagonist carried out the action, but I was in control - I was the one who chose to do something I knew was wrong, that I didn't have to do to advance the story, so who can I blame other than myself for the awful outcome? Where Spec Ops' nastiness was forced, here it was optional - I didn't have to turn off the game to make it stop, I merely had to find another way to advance.

The writing was a mixed bag. The descriptions of people and things were often lovely, but the sometimes long monologues upon visiting a location for the first time seemed unnecessary and out of place. It seemed that the writing was trying too hard at times, and worked better when it wasn't. Part of it is expectations - I expect a description when I examine an item, I don't expect a monologue when I arrive at a new place.

Other reviews mention the walking speed, but it seemed perfectly fine to me, and at times beautifully synchronized with the music. Episode 1 does lack quick transitions for double-clicking on an exit, but that is added in Episode 2.

Unfortunately, despite looking into the future for its setting, Void and Meddler brings with it frustrations from Point & Click Adventure past. There is little direction, though it's partially forgivable given that the protagonist is supposed to be aimlessly stumbling her way through the night. I was able to get through the normal ending of Episode 1 without a guide - relying on just stumbling around, clicking on everything, talking to everyone, picking up everything in sight. But the alternate and hard endings to Episode 1 require leaps of logic that seem impossible without a guide - having to examine or use the same item twice, trying to pick up things you'd never think to pick up, combining items without any reason or explanation for doing so. I'm not sure if Episode 2 improves on it yet.

So I recommend Void and Meddler, but with reservations. If you like cyberpunk and unique games, and don't mind having to blindly stumble around or use a guide to get through the illogical puzzles, you'll find a lovely neon city to explore and bizarre characters to encounter. The visuals and music are a potent and delightful combination, and the setting is refreshing and begging to be explored.

Also, note that you do not need to purchase the Deluxe edition if you don't care about the soundtrack. The Season Pass includes all the episodes, and is less than half the price of the Deluxe edition.

A beautiful and haunting point and click adventure game with gorgeous yet creepy art design and music. Despite the childlike asthetic, it's at times very dark, occasionally grotesque, and tosses around mature themes.

This game has an amazing setting and style. The art is trully beautiful, and the game alternates wonderfully between innocent and childlike and creepy and haunting. The story was interesting and unexpected, and exploring this world was a constant pleasure.

Puzzles are pretty straight forward, there are occasionally two solutions to a given puzzle, and there are thankfully no pixel hunts. The puzzles start out simply and get progressively more complicated. I did get stuck a few times, but the puzzles are expertly constructed such that I came upon the answer on my own just as I was about to get frustrated and consult a guide.

My one criticism is that the ending felt inexplicably rushed, with many plot threads left dangling. Fran Bow was an overall wonderful game and a beautiful journey, but I do wish the ending had been better.