MalcomGTX

I really wanted to love Alan Wake 2. I played the OG Alan Wake on Xbox360 all those years ago and more recently played Control which I would rate higher than this but still was a bit disappointed in. Really like the visual aesthetic of that game though. There are glimmers of incredibly funny and fun minds behinds this, little environmental things, art and the entire character concept for Rose are amazing. I played through the whole game collecting all the stashes, lunchboxes, rhymes etc. I really enjoyed some of the skits and the whole 'Coffee World' theme. The story and main characters though? Oh man. Incredibly disappointing, from unnecessary racism to incoherent SCP fanfiction this series is drowning in poorly thought out ideas and design decisions. The game-play is as uneven as the tone. Multiple times you will know exactly what you are suppose to do but be unable to accomplish it until you 'file the paperwork' and have Saga state the most obvious **** you have heard in your life. The writers call her seances 'intuition' as if you did not immediately realize she is coming up with **** from talking to spirits. She does admirably care about her daughter (who is named like the Wolverine for some quirky reason), but her FBI partner Casey is obviously far more important to her than her husband who the story barely remembers exists beyond the first half of the game. Alan is an apologetic mess, something they could have sold understandably with his PTSD from being stuck in the dark place for a decade, however especially at the ending it just feels like a sick way to denigrate him so they can prop up and justify adding Saga to the story. This just devalues both of their stories. Saga was interesting at first despite the oblivious way in which she is written but she feels incomplete, as if she was made up just for this game to say she was 'tired of white writers' putting her into their stories, something she -literally- says at the end. It is just insulting to her as a character at the same time as needlessly insulting to half the audience. Litter in the racist countryfolk overtones in the beginning and it paints a picture of the writers anxieties more than it calls to correct any social issues. Beyond that, the constant 'flash images and make sudden sounds' is just plain annoying on top of being inconsiderate to sensitivity, it doesn't set the mood, it just peaks my speakers and takes me out of the atmosphere and makes it so my wife can't enjoy playing together. In the end, I am just left disappointed in the spiral.

Game is far better than it initially seemed. At first I was annoyed, but then it just.. clicked. There is so much love in the design of the world and plenty of **** around too, they clearly had so much fun making this game. Its not the most polished but man it really does have heart. Love the little cartoons they animated for the save rooms.

Absolutely wonderful. Loved playing through with my wife, we tackled the puzzles together and the feelings of figuring it out ourselves was amazing and so nostalgic. There was one particular puzzle though, a riddle, now that one was the wrong kind of nostalgia, like old adventure games where you just have no idea what logic they are working on, but everything else was just fantastic.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

It started strong, was intriguing and held my interest. I played it two player with my wife and we had fun, but as the story developed it started to show how poorly written it was. Small details at first followed by odd reactions (apparently suicide is a-ok?) leading up to a frustratingly dumb ending and reveal. We rented it with the intention of buying if it was good to add to our collection, this will not make it. Long story short, it wasn't worth the rental price to us.

The game was great. I really enjoyed the atmosphere at (gasp) the cut-scenes. I will say I wan't pleased I couldn't skip the first one, since I wanted to setup my graphics settings. But all the rest are skippable by pressing A. The cover is not supposed to be a core part of the game, you should be using bullet-time as that is the core mechanic of the Max Payne series. The story is good, very "Die Hard' and the action is quick and responsive. I did play with a controller so I cannot vet the PC controls but really they were always designed to use a gamepad anyway. Overall its a very fun ride and I enjoyed being in the Max Payne universe again.

If you enjoy the 'everyone dies and the world is terrible' zombie cliche then you will enjoy the walking dead. Otherwise skip it. There were many instances that felt contrived, For instance the second episode has a end you can see from a mile away and is frustratingly slow and painful since you can do literally nothing to stop it. These types of games try to show the 'realistic' man-kills-man world and just ends up failing to truly leave a lasting impact. Gameplay wise I enjoyed the style of play, but was frustrated by the inconsistency of the gun mechanics the few necessary times it must be used..

Fantastic game, story, graphics; only one major flaw. Hordes and hordes of bandits. I often found myself wondering: if life is so difficult to survive in after the apocalypse then why are these so many damned bandits willing to throw away their hard-earned lives to gain absolutely nothing by killing the death tornado that is our main protagonist? It seriously killed immersion around the halfway mark. In fact it gets to the point where if you see a happy glimmer you know for sure it will up in less than 5 minutes. A particular level has you racing past what seems like HUNDREDS of men firing guns and chasing after you in a BARREN waste of a frozen mountain village with barely any food about. Where are they getting so many bullets? Why would they deem to waste them? Even if they are eating people how on earth would they be healthy enough to chase me? Where are the women? A tarnish on an otherwise great game.

Completely imbalanced, ridiculous paywalls and poor performance on iPhone 4 or lower kill this title for me and my wife. The game is designed to require paying real money for fake ponies, and I'm not talking about 2 and 3 dollars here and there. To unlock everything in the game you have to play for 14 years every day or spend over 350$. This is ridiculous and greedy, not to mention an unsustainable model for business. Games like this rise and fall quickly. Do not waste your time. The minigames are useless and far too few. Four in all, three of which stop occurring after leveling each pony, and all of which happen in under 20 seconds.

A great game that was engaging and solid to a T in gameplay. Then ending is... awful and is what gives it an 8.5 in my books. It truly is bland and unmoving which is a terrible shame. I really wanted to see more about the 'outsider' and several other aspects that get completely glossed over or forgotten. They should not have made three separate endings, there should be only one strong ending despite the branching game-play. It really has no point in the end. I truly love the game and the world and it is totally worth playing, but man.. its a trend with games now to end with a wimper, mostly due to cut funding or strict timelines, really is sad.

I bought the anarchy edition but ended up giving it to a friend and playing the PC version a year later.. review for that as my remarks for the story are still applicable and I have played a bit on the xbox first : I played it on STEAM just a bit ago, it took me 19 hours trying to get everything and find everything and I am utterly dissapointed, The ending just, ends. No explanation, no boss battle, no closure. I was enjoying the game 'ok' but kept feeling like something was going to happen. I kinda felt like the 'bad' guys had no reason to be labeled 'bad'. I never actually saw them do anything wrong. I thought there would be some kind of 'surprise! they aren't bad!' ending, but no.. bland and derpy. The character animations and textures are great and I didn't encounter any bugs aside from intentionally glitching out of the level once. I really wanted to know more about the people but each one only has maybe 5 lines of dialogue. The game is gorgeous as long as you stand still as if looking at a painting; quick movements cause texture pop-'up' not really pop-in, but sort of uprezzing on the fly. Even with a modern AMD 7850 and Intel 3570. In short, a huge let down, could have been so much more and leaves me with a dead feeling. Not recommended even at bargain prices since the ending is such a letdown. The DLC is absolutely worthless.

I played it on STEAM just a bit ago, it took me 19 hours trying to get everything and find everything and I am utterly dissapointed, The ending just, ends. No explanation, no boss battle, no closure. I was enjoying the game 'ok' but kept feeling like something was going to happen. I kinda felt like the 'bad' guys had no reason to be labeled 'bad'. I never actually saw them do anything wrong. I thought there would be some kind of 'surprise! they aren't bad!' ending, but no.. bland and derpy. The character animations and textures are great and I didn't encounter any bugs aside from intentionally glitching out of the level once. I really wanted to know more about the people but each one only has maybe 5 lines of dialogue. The game is gorgeous as long as you stand still as if looking at a painting; quick movements cause texture pop-'up' not really pop-in, but sort of uprezzing on the fly. Even with a modern AMD 7850 and Intel 3570. In short, a huge let down, could have been so much more and leaves me with a dead feeling. Not recommended even at bargain prices since the ending is such a letdown. The DLC is absolutely worthless.

Excellent game, interesting and engaging up until the last 10% of the game. It has a weak ending, but up until then its atmospheric and exciting. The battle system could use some work, though I definitely enjoy it more than Total War. It could use a bit more conquest and diplomacy.

Serious technical flaws mar this otherwise fun game. I really enjoy the complexity and flavor of the Civilization-esque over-map, though the battle map could use much more work. While it is impressive to see so many units on the field, the combat is dull an uninteresting with little tactical significance. The game is buggy, and can have issues loading. I haven't ever experience a crash in game, but loading the game up I have many times. Overall I am happy I bought the game while on sale, but would not pay full price due to the technical issues.

A beautifully atmospheric game, but the reliance on jump scares killed my enjoyment many times. The, 'huh wonder if some thing is going to jump out of that obvious grate' feeling pops up constantly, yet it still made me jump as fast moving objects tend to do for me, not so much fear as adrenaline. I would have preferred more sinking horror and less of a surprise fest.

The multiplayer is fantastic, IMHO the best in the Halo franchise, however the Story was a bit 'generic' feeling. Although I know the ending was coming, I felt no sympathy for any of the team; their characters did not connect with me so the 'sad' sequences did not feel as moving as they should have. I still feel like an ending where you escape/live might have been stronger, it just felt like too much of a downer, especially knowing it was Bungie's last Halo game. I feel like they should have gone out with a bang, not the slow crawl to death, despite the emotional impact that kind of ending was meant to give.

For awhile this game had some popularity from appearing on early DirectX Benchmarks, then dropped off the map for some reason. It is a first person shooter, but feels much more like a puzzle/adventure game to me. This is the kind of gameplay that FEAR tried to become (or maybe just what I wanted it to be) It is a bit choppy though. Even on pretty decent hardware (ATI 5770 w/ 4core proc) it was a bit choppy and textures sometimes were muddy. Overall however the visual aesthetic made up for that though. I really enjoyed the game, the atmosphere was great and I'd recommend it to those who enjoy ]the idea of 'Amnesia', but want more combat and maybe just a tad less frightening.

In my opinion, Fallout: New Vegas is vastly superior to it's predecessor; Fallout 3 There are more quests, more locations, more interesting things to do. I particualrly enjoy playing 'Caravan' a card game.. within the game. Yes. The story is more engaging, though it starts to lose my interest near the end, probably because of my incessant combing of the wasteland for stuff to do, to the point of needless inventory management and tedious leveling. I'm not sure if I can fault the game for that however. The DLC for NV is a bit of a different matter. I really only enjoyed 'Old World Blues' (At the time of this wrigting I have not played 'The Lonesome Road') The other two, 'Dead Money' and 'Honest Hearts' were... pointless really. They felt like needlessly padded sub-quests.. The initial 'oh wow this is new' wears off quickly. I highly suggest 'Modding' this game for full enjoyment. There is a huge community of modders over at newvegasnexus with plenty of great content.

Machinarium is a point and click adventure game made with flash, as such sometimes I experienced weird performance issues, but overall a fun adventure. The atmosphere is very calm and enjoyable. Some puzzle suffer from the typical adventure game issue; such as when you can think of a solution that 'would' work but is not the 'one' solution. Still, I only needed online help once but also felt challenged. I'd love to see another in the same vein/aesthetic.

I had a great time with Enslaved, the world was interesting and the characters were moving, especially in the middle of the game. The game is not hard per say, though I did get stuck a few times. The gameplay is largely thematic. Graphically the sets are nice, but there appear to be issues with the engine's performance as sometimes texture pop and frame split. Not much to say without spoiling anything, but I will say it is best on the PS3 despite some claiming more graphical glitching, the controls feel a bit smoother better than when I played on the 360. I do have a faster 3rd party 7200RPM drive in the PS3 with a 4GB cache. (Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 2.5 Inch)

I had a great time with Enslaved, the world was interesting and the characters were moving, especially in the middle of the game. The game is not hard per say, though I did get stuck a few times. The gameplay is largely thematic. Graphically the sets are nice, but there appear to be issues with the engine's performance as sometimes texture pop and frame split. Not much to say without spoiling anything, but I will say it is Best on the PS3, the controls feel a bit smoother better than when I played on the 360.

Excellent time sink. I don't usually go for games like this, its kind-of 'Cooking Mamma'' meets 'Final Fantasy' dungeoneering. A real interesting twist of gameplay. I recommend it as one of the better phone games, deeper than many of the arcade style things flooding the app store right now. If you enjoy this, try Recettear, or conversely try the Recettear demo on STEAM to see if you like this kind of game. Its pretty similar in design.

A much meatier game than many on phones, I really enjoyed the voice-acting and story, top notch stuff. The combat was fair and could use a bit of tweaking, though it is understandably hard to make good combat without a physical controller. I suggest playing with headphones. Overall I really enjoyed it, and the devs are regularly upgrading and making changes. DM often is compared to Infinity Blade and I would say its way better than the first Infinity Blade, but seeing as how I haven't yet played the seccond I cant comment on that comparison.

Great game if you can get past some of the weird graphical issues, lip syncing is some of the worst. It was a game that had its design goals changed and budget cut mid-creation, so some areas that feel exploratory are actually linear and were intended to have more content. Still, the atmosphere and story make up for its shortcomings and is one of my favorites. I really hope to see an Alan Wake 2 soon with a bigger budget, given what the devs displayed here with a cut budget and little time, I have high hopes for what they can do in the future given the resources they need! Pick it up if you have the change, its totally worth it and do remember, it was originally released in 2010 with a bootstrap budget so don't expect 2012 big-budget graphics.

Despite what others might say, a fantastic value at 14$, with the promise of user mod content and new campaigns I find it a striking value for dungeon crawl enthusiasts. I would suggest however purchasing from GoG where you receive a DRM-free standalone as opposed to the steam version. On to the game itself; BORDERLESS WINDOWS!, absolutely necessarily in any game for those who use dual monitors and is a simple toggle in the game. It's nice to see a relatively low budget game run naively in a borderless window at 1080p. Some AAA games don't even have that feature. The gameplay revolves around puzzle solving and dungeon fighting, kind-of like a real time turnbased game if that makes sense. It brings fond memories of tabletop games like D&D, take a look at some of the excellent video walkthroughs to see if its a game you would buy though, as it is not for everyone.

The game is fantastic. It's a bit of a mind blender game, so I can understand why its not great for everyone, but the mechanics are simple and the puzzles range from easy to obscure. Some puzzles are even hidden in the achievements. (hint hint) The overall style is very cute and has an old school vibe, even 'crashing' at one point to boot from bios like an old school DOS game. Really the charm of the game is its strong suit. My wife and I have enjoyed playing for hours; one nice thing is that you are never forced to work on one puzzle at a time. If you have a problem, you can just go to another world-space and explore there. To counter a few of the other reviews: "Darthultros Apr 13, 2012 5 No objectives but collecting blocks put in plain sight, no goals otherwise." Many of the cubes are hidden, even completely out of sight until you find the right angle or special combo. Many hidden maps are scattered throughout the game and ciphers must be found to translate them. A whole lot of investigative work goes into solving the more advanced puzzles. Possibly he/she did not play past the first few worlds, as game-play progressively extends at a gradual pace as each new area is unlocked. IMHO, good design. The game is not a platformer, its a puzzle game with platforming elements