Recent reviews by PossiblePsycho

Очень милый на вид симулятор ходьбы, в котором, как бывает с подавляющим большинством отечественных игр, тексты писали обладатели двойки по русскому языку. Еще и на качестве микрофона для актрисы, озвучившей главную героиню, основательно сэкономили (монотонность ее речи, так уж и быть, спишем на последствия анабиоза). Кому-то такое, может, и сойдет, а я, пожалуй, запрошу рефанд.

It's easily the best of Octavi's games so far, but damn, it hits hard (I should probably be more attentive towards trigger warnings from now on). Frankly, I didn't expect such an emotionally heavy game from this dev - all the previous ones were on the more entertaining side even despite some serious topics in From the Woods, but here we have a rather extensive collection of nasty psychological stuff, and some of it was way too close to home for me. Still, it's an easy recommendation to any horror adventure fan - both writing and visuals are superb, it manages to remain creepy without resorting to cheap tricks like jumpscares, and the length is just perfect - still bite-sized, but long enough to tell a truly grim story.

Ух. Вот побольше бы таких отечественных игр, за которые по-хорошему нестыдно. Как известно, классический жанр «война глазами ребенка» не терпит фальши, и тут игра не роняет планку ни на секунду, прямо как безупречно снятое кино (единственное, в конце больно резанули глаз буквальные родные березки, слишком прямолинейные и слащавые - но буквально через полминуты выяснилось, что это сюжетно оправдано). Это очень нежная и трогательная история (мы тут за наивную маленькую девочку играем, в конце концов), но и в плане жести разработчики себя практически не ограничивают: это война, и даже самому невинному существу пройти через полноценный ад.

Здесь нет пропаганды и пошлости, вот вообще, что для игры о войне, вышедшей в современной России, похвально втройне. Подход к истории - максимально честный: да, люди, вернувшиеся из лагерей в Германии, оказывались в лагерях нашей светлой родины. Это исторический факт. И если уж ты рассказываешь об остарбайтерах, от него не спрячешься - но разработчики и не пытаются. НКВДшник - сволочь. При этом в игре полно советских людей, военных и гражданских, к которым авторы относятся с большой теплотой. А еще они не занимаются демонизацией мирных немцев, за что отдельное спасибо.

Как цельное художественное произведение игра прекрасна. Геймплей не существует отдельно от сюжета, визуала и музыки: здесь всё едино, все элементы дополняют друг друга. Он, в принципе, крайне прост: чуть-чуть нехитрых головоломок и мини-игр, простенький стелс и немножко платформинга - причем игра сохраняется буквально перед каждым действием, а загрузка в случае неудачи происходит моментально, так что перепроходить длинные периоды не придется, а застрять физически не удастся. Еще раз, это как отличное кино, только интерактивное.

В общем, очень рекомендую, крутое актуальное искусство здесь и сейчас.

That's it, I am done with this failure of a game. And I had such high hopes for it, I do so enjoy my turn-based cRPGs, and this one looked promising - we might have way too many post-apocalyptic RPGs available, but this one looked original because of Australian elements (I mean, who wouldn't enjoy kangaroos sauntering around you, right?). Can't comment on fighting system, I literally had one tiny encounter in 5,5 hours (I would still mention that difficulty levels are a must, our skills and preferences differ vastly, and offering only some midrange version alienates both casual and hardcore gamers). What I can comment on, however, is writing. It's so boring, so bland. I haven't seen even a single memorable character, had an interesting dialogue or completed a noteworthy quest. When a certain incident with some kind of strange energy happened, I was probably supposed to recognise the perpetrator, but I couldn't, he was yet another faceless person to me. By now, I'm tired of waiting for this world to suddenly become alive and immersive (and the fact that music is extremely generic isn't helping).

Oh, and it's buggy. I got teleported to another part of a town for scripted dialogues two times in a row, talked to an NPC who was pretty far from me (I guess, we were screaming really loudly), had a quest added to my journal without talking to a questgiver, passed through a solid fence and was finally hardlocked after obviously choosing a wrong answer in an extremely important discussion about some national dish (ok, I admit, the latter was almost amusing) — all this within about 15 minutes. After closing the game via task manager I realised that I had absolutely no wish to run it again.

Such a beautiful little parable about dealing with grief and accepting one's past. It was very relatable for me: after I lost my dad, I also had to work through that intense feeling of guilt that's quite common when we lose our loved ones. This sci-fi metaphore turned out to be just perfect, and I suspect that the game itself can be quite therapeutical. In fact, it's perfect in every aspect: while the game world is really small, it's not claustrophobic, but cosy and enigmatic. Almost every character is likable - from Lila's friend, a huge yet intelligent and kind-hearted cyber-orangutan (yep), to a formal antagonist, a tiny priest who dreams of being appreciated (there's also a main villain, sure, he's not a nice guy, but we barely see him). The chemistry between Lila and Master, our protagonists, is palpable, their interactions happening in all the wrong order are a joy to behold. The story itself is rather intricate, yet very simple in the end, and that's wonderful. The art style and the music are pure perfection as well, and honestly, who needs voiceovers in tiny indie games? I absolutely adore this little masterpiece, games like this bring out emotions those huge AAA monsters are just unable to evoke.

Unfortunately, I just can't recommend the game. The plot is incredibly lazy. You get what's happened maybe 30 minutes in, and the next 4 hours or so you just gather clues to prove your theory. I was hoping for some twist, but it never happened. So, basically, it fails miserably as a detective story. Still, many crime stories just pretend to be detectives to tell us psychological stories about broken families, mental health issues and so on. Is this one of these stories? Nope, not at all. The characters are one-dimensional, and no, they won't get any further development in emails and text messages, Sharp Objects or Gone Girl it is not.

I was lucky enough to play through the whole game without any glitches, so no complains here. The visuals are pleasing enough, but I just don't get it, the interiors are a bit retro even by the 2020's standards, laptops are from our time, how is this futuristic?

Gameplay is pretty solid - that is, if you don't mind pure exploration games. Sure, there are some light puzzles, but I doubt you'll ever get stuck; still, personally, I don't mind this approach at all, it's calm and relaxing. I'd be quite pleased with the game were it not so shallow and predictable.

Should have waited for reviews - but no, I love the base game way too much, so I went ahead and got this DLC on release. Big mistake (can't refund it, spent a few hours playing the base game before starting the DLC). Once again, I love the base game. Despite all the fart jokes, clumsy platforming, occasional racism and a plagiarized musical theme for Bid Wars (a base game auction, not the DLC) it somehow manages to remain deeply entertaining. But this time around, the devs decided to completely remove the whole "find treasure among junk — sell it — rinse and repeat" loop I've come to enjoy. You just don't get to search for items anymore, you purchase containers, spend several seconds gathering items and sell them right there in the theme park. The items are literally the same as in the base game, the customers are as well. There are also some side-zones, but I never got to understand how they work, they look both boring and really confusing at the same time. As for general weirdness, maybe someone could enjoy it, but I can hardly imagine that person. While we are at it, the visuals literally hurt my eyes.

Well, that's official: I've been playing PC games since mid-90s, and this one is the second game ever that made me cry. And that's totally a compliment: I hate phony overly-sentimental stories that try to manipulate my emotions. Cats and the Other Lives is definitely NOT one of them. The writers skillfully build a story of a family (a rather broken one, of course) where each and every member has a detailed and complete personality, never superficial, always believable and relatable. We witness 3 days of this family through the eyes of an elderly cat Aspen. We eat, sleep, scratch a sofa, play a lot, communicate with humans, meow to get a door opened - basically, do whatever any cat does, but also see visions from the past and sometimes direct our relatives' actions. Being a passionate cat person, I'd say that it's a pretty valid depiction of cat behavior (considering a bit of artistic interpretation, of course).

Gameplay-wise, it's mostly a point-and-click interactive movie with a bit of puzzles, rather simple, yet witty and satisfying. The only thing I didn't like were completely unnecessary arcade sequences; to be fair, most of them were pretty easy even for such a clumsy person like me, but the one at the end required maybe 20 attempts in my case (maybe add a skip button?). Still, totally worth it for the profound catharsis in the end.

A very short and deeply amusing Halloween story with a unique visual style and a traditionally impressive usage of Ortodoxy motives from that awesome Romanian guy who's already given us Grey Dawn and Last Day of Lazarus (both games were definitely among the best horror adventure games I've ever played). The familar style is very much here, but this time around the serious tone is gone, and we've got a light story that includes a funeral home, a jumpscare (a cheap one, and I'm pretty sure that's intentional), a devil and a lot of jack-o-lanterns! It's fun, and I mean it! It's a perfect game for the kiddy holiday many adults enjoy so much!

On a side note, the game is finally voiced in Romanian. I suspect it's only this way for budget reasons, but that's how games with a unique ethnic vibe should be played; I hope that Romanian voiceovers will be present in this dev's future games.

Don't pay attention to my playtime: frankly, I've just idled it for cards. Couldn't make myself suffer through the whole experience, sorry. This game is both disgustingly preachy and obscenely superficial - and, let me tell you, cheap slogans is not the way you communicate with a suicidal person. A depressed person's mind is not one-dimentional, and this oversimplification and devaluation is sickening (no, it's not enough to repeat stuff like "value your life", "you've got so much left to do" and "love your family" to help a suicidal person). Also, it's just poorly written. Ghosts have no personality, they are here just to deliver the above-mentioned cheap slogans.

Also, apparently the game's creators don't like cats. Just saying.