What is it: Psychonauts was released in 2005, and is a platforming game, with some fighting, puzzles and lots of collecting to do. You get to play the game from the perspective of a kid named Rasputin, more commonly called Raz. While I'm not a huge fan of platforming games, what I did play of this was very interesting. I do have to say that I did not finish the game, but according to the Steam counter, I have put 57 hours into the game.
Pros: The character/NPCs - they're pretty cool, and entertaining to listen to. There seems to be something interesting to everyone that you run across, and most seem to have very distinct personalities. If you're good at exploring, you can also find picture-books of sorts with parts of their past as well. Heck, even the tram system has its own voice, something that made me smile.
Graphics - I really like the style of this game, it meshes very well with the storyline and style of narration. The motions of the character and npcs seem smooth from what I noticed. It almost reminds me of Reboot in a way.
Music - It fits very nicely into the background, and it's overwhelming or jarring in tone for whichever setting that you find yourself within.
Cons: The controls - Perhaps it's because I played this on a PC, and not with the originally intended controller, but I found some areas of the game difficult to get through using mouse and keyboard. I also found myself looking up the controls constantly, and the inventory is a bit annoying to move through. I had a rather difficult time selecting exactly the thing I wanted at times.
Collecting - There is a lot to collect in this game, and sometimes it feels a bit tedious. Arrowheads, cobwebs, luggage tags, and psy cards. You have to collect arrowheads in order to use the store, and there are a lot of things to buy there.
Overall Opinion: I would say to give this a try. I was very amused by the characters and the quirky sense of humor throughout every area and encounter, and curious about the storyline, but the awkward gameplay using mouse and keyboard had me very frustrated at times. I may go back later, and try to finish this game. If I do, there will be another review on the rest of it!
Monday, October 21, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Coming soon...
PSYCHONAUTS!
Yeah, sorry. Totally did not mean to neglect this for over a month. But life has been... ick. I'll just put it that way. Hopefully I'll get back to where I wanted soon, one review a week.
Yeah, sorry. Totally did not mean to neglect this for over a month. But life has been... ick. I'll just put it that way. Hopefully I'll get back to where I wanted soon, one review a week.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Game Review, the first! - Torchlight
What is it: Torchlight is a Diablo style game released in 2009, created by several of the people who created Diablo II. You can choose one of three classes in the unmodded version of the game, and you descend through a massive dungeon, hunting down the bad guys and grabbing all the epic loot you can find as you go. With several different environments (underground caverns, abandoned temples, and all kinds of neat places), as well as some interesting enemies, it's well worth checking out.
Pros: It's fun. You get to run around zapping, shooting, or smashing your way through enemies and environments. You can choose something to hopefully fit your playstyle, since each class also has its own talent trees. I played through the game the first time as the Alchemist, a sort of mage and summoner, who can throw bolts of various sorts of energy and summon minions. Mine has a steampunk looking robot. There's also the Vanquisher, a sort of Amazon/Hunter hybrid with traps and dual ranged weapons. And finally the Destroyer, a barbarian with a Norse feel to it in having ancestor spirits to draw on. You can also learn spells that you find all around, with lots of interesting abilities that add to your own.
You have a pet. The pet fights with you, stores loot, learns its own spells, and can be sent back to town to clear your inventory space. It's crazy useful. You can also fish up different kinds of fish to either temporarily or permanently change your pet's creature type.
The modding community for Torchlight is awesome. They have created useful tools, entirely new classes, changes to pets, prices, and all manner of things. What I really like is you don't HAVE to play with mods. My first playthrough was without any mods, and I did just fine. But they do add a useful dimension to the game, and the Torchlight team seems to actively support the people adding to their game.
The music and graphic design. It's certainly a unique style, and one I had no problems staring at for hours on end while I was playing. The music is wonderful, you can hear hints of Diablo II coming through, which is no accident since Matt Uelmen was composer and sound designer. I personally loved his work in both this and Diablo II.
Cons: You have to chug potions. Constantly. On the upside, there are a ton of them laying around. Everywhere. The vendors will be able to fill their swimming pools with how much you'll be bringing them... There are limited means to heal yourself, that being potions, and the spells you can learn. Finding a heal spell can be rather difficult.
The classes are limited, unless you choose to mod. Which is a small detail.
Clicking. Lots of clicking. In my mind, the interface leaves a little to be desired, with 10 hotkey slots. Two of these will be taken by potions, most likely 4 by the spells you can learn, leaving you with 4 keys and 4 slots activated by clicking the mouse.
No multiplayer. It would be a much better game with this feature, which they added in its sequel.
Overall opinion: I would say this is totally worth getting, especially if you like Diablo style games. The price tag of only $15 makes it attractive (I'm writing this from the US perspective, not totally familiar with how much it costs elsewhere), and the modding community keeps things interesting.
If you've got questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to leave me a comment, and thanks for reading!
Pros: It's fun. You get to run around zapping, shooting, or smashing your way through enemies and environments. You can choose something to hopefully fit your playstyle, since each class also has its own talent trees. I played through the game the first time as the Alchemist, a sort of mage and summoner, who can throw bolts of various sorts of energy and summon minions. Mine has a steampunk looking robot. There's also the Vanquisher, a sort of Amazon/Hunter hybrid with traps and dual ranged weapons. And finally the Destroyer, a barbarian with a Norse feel to it in having ancestor spirits to draw on. You can also learn spells that you find all around, with lots of interesting abilities that add to your own.
You have a pet. The pet fights with you, stores loot, learns its own spells, and can be sent back to town to clear your inventory space. It's crazy useful. You can also fish up different kinds of fish to either temporarily or permanently change your pet's creature type.
The modding community for Torchlight is awesome. They have created useful tools, entirely new classes, changes to pets, prices, and all manner of things. What I really like is you don't HAVE to play with mods. My first playthrough was without any mods, and I did just fine. But they do add a useful dimension to the game, and the Torchlight team seems to actively support the people adding to their game.
The music and graphic design. It's certainly a unique style, and one I had no problems staring at for hours on end while I was playing. The music is wonderful, you can hear hints of Diablo II coming through, which is no accident since Matt Uelmen was composer and sound designer. I personally loved his work in both this and Diablo II.
Cons: You have to chug potions. Constantly. On the upside, there are a ton of them laying around. Everywhere. The vendors will be able to fill their swimming pools with how much you'll be bringing them... There are limited means to heal yourself, that being potions, and the spells you can learn. Finding a heal spell can be rather difficult.
The classes are limited, unless you choose to mod. Which is a small detail.
Clicking. Lots of clicking. In my mind, the interface leaves a little to be desired, with 10 hotkey slots. Two of these will be taken by potions, most likely 4 by the spells you can learn, leaving you with 4 keys and 4 slots activated by clicking the mouse.
No multiplayer. It would be a much better game with this feature, which they added in its sequel.
Overall opinion: I would say this is totally worth getting, especially if you like Diablo style games. The price tag of only $15 makes it attractive (I'm writing this from the US perspective, not totally familiar with how much it costs elsewhere), and the modding community keeps things interesting.
If you've got questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to leave me a comment, and thanks for reading!
Thursday, July 25, 2013
A little bit about me...
I can't expect you to read my reviews without knowing anything about me, right? Well, at the time of writing this, I'm 28, and I've been playing video games of some sort since I was 4 or 5. It all started with the good old Super Nintento Entertainment System, and Super Mario Brothers. I loved that game, and I still enjoy it. I will always remember my dad trying to shoot the dog in Duck Hunt. I moved onto computer gaming with a little title called Command And Conquer: Red Alert. And it was from that I got hooked. I still have my original disks for that one. I also played Tiberian Sun to death, as well as Black and White, American McGee's Alice, and Red Alert 2. Then I discovered Blizzard games. I started with Starcraft and its expansion, moved onto Warcraft III and its expansion, and finally to Diablo II and its expansion. World of Warcraft is something I've played on and off since launch, and I find myself coming back to play the new content.
Indie games and ones from smaller developers are something new to me, but no less fascinating. Audiosurf has taken a lot of my time, and both of the Torchlight games. Bastion is amazing, and I'm sure I will find many more games. My Steam library had quite a bit that is either untouched, or barely touched, and hopefully this will give me the motivation to work on this.
Indie games and ones from smaller developers are something new to me, but no less fascinating. Audiosurf has taken a lot of my time, and both of the Torchlight games. Bastion is amazing, and I'm sure I will find many more games. My Steam library had quite a bit that is either untouched, or barely touched, and hopefully this will give me the motivation to work on this.
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