This was one of the games that made me actively search for, and try to play, every point-and-click game out there. When I first played this, about a year ago, I wasn’t expecting it to be as fun as it was.
Beneath a Steel Sky is a 1994 cyberpunk point-and-click adventure game where you play as Foster, who is kidnapped and taken to Union city where he manages to escape. As Foster tries to find a way out of the city, with the help of his robot companion Joey, he learns more about why he was kidnapped.
This is probably the funniest game I’ve ever played, the voice acting and humour are something special. As you progress through the city which is divided in three floors, where the poor live on the top and the rich on the bottom, you’ll encounter ridiculous characters and find yourself in the most bizarre situations. Definitely a must play for everyone who is even remotely curious about this genre.
I won’t spoil any of the fantastic moments of this game, just go play it. You can get this game for FREE on GOG and Desura.
[Probably my favourite part of the game.]
I really enjoy when someone takes a simple fairy tale and makes something interesting out of it, a movie, a book, a video game, anything. No, I’m not talking about the Hansel and Gretel movie, I’m talking about The Path.
[The various red riding hoods(from left to right: Ginger, Rose, Scarlet, Ruby, Robin and Carmen).]
The Path is an horror game based on the Little Red Riding Hood, where you control not one but several Red Riding Hoods. After choosing which one you want to play first, the game gives you one objective and one rule: “Go to Grandmother’s house and stay on the path.”. You can do this but it will lead you to a failure ending and the game knows you really want to play in the forest.
By venturing into the forest you’ll find a few objects which allow you to find more about each of the girls when interacted with. Soon you’ll realize that the road you were meant to follow is no longer there and the forest repeats itself, but with the help of a mysterious girl who’s running around in the forest you can find your way back to the path.
But wait, isn’t there a wolf in the fairy tale? Indeed, the way to progress in this game is to find each girl’s wolf in the forest. This is where things start to get really interesting and you begin to speculate about the meaning of the game. The wolves you find in the forest take many forms, depending on which girl you are playing with, and they aren’t necessarily animals.
After finding a wolf you’ll be put right in front of grandmother’s house and ready to experience a successful ending, but not without walking around the house first. This is where the game gets weird, once inside the house the only thing you can do is walk and the game will automatically take you through different rooms based on the objects you interacted with while you where on the forest. The walk around the house is the creepiest part of the game and where you can give your imagination a workout, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
[One of the rooms inside grandmother’s house.]
I usually don’t like horror games but this one is different, this one grabbed my attention from the start and I couldn’t stop playing it until I finished the damn thing. Gameplay wise there isn’t much to praise or criticize, you just walk around and interact with objects. Apart from occasionally getting stuck on an object I wanted to interact with and having to reposition the character to make things work, I didn’t experience any major technical issues. I really liked the creepy music playing in background and especially the way the colors would get saturated when walking in the forest and vivid when I approached a meaningful place. I would also recommend searching online for the various theories surrounding the meaning of the game after you play it.
This game is available as part of the Indie Royale’s Evolved Bundle for the next 3 days as of the writing of this post or on the official website for 9.99$.
For some reason it is really hard to find good RPGMaker(or Wolf RPG) games, most people using that engine don’t even use original sprites or music, but I heard there were a few worth playing and that’s what I did.
The games I’ve played were: Mad Father, The Witch’s House, Ib and Misao,you can find them here. I was going to write a review of Mad Father here but these games are free so why don’t you just try them out? Anyway, all of these are horror adventure games made with RPGMaker and Wolf RPG and they’re all great. They all have twisted stories and most of them require you to have quick reflexes at some point, especially The Witch’s House.
[Illustration from Mad Father.]
I just finished playing Devil May Cry, on my quest to experience the games I missed on the old PS2, and having played Devil May Cry 3 as well, I can clearly see why people are upset about Dante’s new look. I’m sure Ninja Theory knew the reaction to the change would be bad, I just wonder if it is ever a good thing to make such a drastic change to something that was never broken to begin with.
It would be stupid to think you could change the most important part of Devil May Cry, the main character, without upsetting the fans. After seven years of Devil May Cry you can’t expect people to take something else and still call it Dante, people get attached to the characters they spent long hours with. I still think the game is going to do at least well enough and may get a sequel, which is the only really bad thing about DmC. I don’t care if they make a bad Devil May Cry game or one I don’t like but it’s a little sad if they never go back to the original Dante.
Just to be clear, I don’t think the change is worth a boycott or anything like that. I just won’t play it because I don’t think I can get used to it.
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is a point-and-click adventure game but it is a lot more than that. The game is presented to you in four sessions in between which you are advised to take a break and when you come back a narrator will tell you what happened in the previous session and prepares you for the next.
This is the story of a lonely warrior, a Scythian, that travels to a place near the Caucasus Mountains to obtain a magical book and stop horrible things from happening. A simple story that takes you through beautiful landscapes where you’ll have to solve puzzles and fight to progress. Even though the game isn’t as serious as I wanted at first, it is a lot of fun and still manages to to deliver a beautiful story. The simple combat system combined with the atmosphere as well as the story remind me a lot of my favorite game, Shadow of the Colossus.
I honestly don’t have anything bad to say about this game but I can say that the best part of it is the soundtrack. There is a reason why this game has “EP” in its name, the music is just magical, it makes Sword & Sworcery not just a game but an experience and that is why we need more of this.
Just in case you didn’t notice this game and its soundtrack were part of the Humble Indie Bundle V so you may already have it.
