Recent reviews by Lars Letmælk

This is suppose to be a "Tycoon Trading Game." Instead it makes no sense and is a waste of time.

The point of the game is to buy items in one location and sell it for a higher price in a different location. Sounds easy enough, NOT! How can you possibly progress in the game if you buy items for $15 and when you go to sell them somewhere else you only get $6 or less? Once you buy an item there is no one, and I mean No One, who will buy it for a higher price than what you paid. Which means... You auto lose the game every single time. It doesn't take even 10 minutes for you to lose.... And realize that the developer has just stolen your money and left you with a game that doesn't work.

I was trying to be fair with this game and played it several times. I thought maybe I didn't understand the game because there are no instructions, but I came to realize the game plays just like what the developers have done to the players. He has taken the money and ran. They also take your money in the game and run.

I have never, my mother will be relieved to hear, partaken in the use of hallucinogens or hard drugs. As far as I can tell, video games like 140, a blissful one-hour trip, seem to do a decent enough job of emulating the enjoyment of psychedelia. I’m happy to settle for strange experiences like this 2D platformer, which is so surreal that it calls into question the purity of its creator’s mind.

140’s abstraction makes it sound convoluted, but its platforming mechanics are easy to understand in practice. Your avatar for exploration is a morphing shape; using nothing more than the arrow keys, you move left, you move right, you jump, and you fall. You circumvent obstacles using logic and timing, hunting floating orbs that serve as keys to unlock doors. The monochromatic minimalism initially bears resemblance to Limbo, the marvelous, mystifying platformer which designer Jeppe Carlsen worked on at developer Playdead, but color of the world, the music within it, the undulating backgrounds, and the structure of a space all change when keys unlock a new remix.

This impressive simplicity, like Limbo’s, is a ruse. To progress in 140 is to improvise and adapt to its unpredictability and puzzles of escalating complexity. Blocks of black-and-white noise rhythmically blink in and out of existence, slam against the ground, and destroy your heroic rolling ball upon contact. Navigating around dangerous barriers requires reflexive precision and acute spacial awareness. More importantly, it demands an understanding of the music pounding a pulse into the world around your geometric explorer.

It feels oddly empowering to recover keys and bring these worlds to life. Each unlock gives 140 a more active, kinetic pace. Consequently, levels become more challenging and satisfying to power through. Puzzles have a holistic relationship with music, and the rhythmically challenged (see: me) will likely fall into deliberately placed traps.

Yet 140 is rarely frustrating. I frequently found myself stopping at a ledge, refusing to move until I found the groove of the music. Like playing an instrument, you can lose your rhythm and hop back into it with a quick mental recovery. 140 often baits you into making blind leaps of faith that, upon further consideration, require more thoughtful problem-solving. Where will the danger move after these three beats? Should I jump to the high or low note to cross this gap safely? What’s the correlation between that disappearing platform and the sound progression?

140 examines your understanding of its throbbing, memorable synth soundtrack with unique boss battles at the end of its three chapters. They blend elements of bullet hell and arcade shooters while completely changing the way you interact with 140. The addition of weapons – which auto-fire to the tunes, of course – forces you to move, attack, and avoid all at once. These finales are an exhilarating, tense highlight of 140 – particularly the last, which requires a bit of high-speed mental math to survive.

When the hour with 140 is over, you’ll unlock hardcore mode – which kicks you to the main menu after just one death. This should give completionists the extra run for their money. Here, indeed, 140 becomes an aggravating nightmare. Carlsen is plain cruel to the most obsessive and skilled of his players.

You could do worse things to your mind with 4.99€, though.

140 is a masterful, mentally stimulating platformer with a distinct visual and aural style. Its reflexive navigation is intrinsically tied to its awesome synth soundtrack, and its challenging levels are simple yet satisfying. At just one hour long, it’s about the length of an album rather than a game. Like a good record, though, 140 is worth throwing on repeat.

The Game Starts With An News Headline From Channel 5 News. They Tell Us That "Tim Denson" Has Been Reported Missing By His Family Due To Years Of No Contact. We Are Also Informed That The Apartment Complex On 123 Sleder Mill St. That Tim Was Living In Has Been Abandoned For Years. Locals Claim That They See Tim's Creations Walking The Halls Of The Building Looking For Their Creator, And Will Attack Any One On Sight, Especially Those With Criminal Backgrounds. The News Reporter Informs Us That These Are Myths. [One Year Later] A Burglar, Running From The Police, Jumps On Top The Building And Falls Through The Glass Ceiling Of One Of The Apartments And Now Must Escape The 7 Floors Of Terror.

The Presentation Is Probably One Of The Best Things In The Game. The Menu Is Creepy And Every time You Hit "New Game" It Plays A Different Evil Laugh. The Levels Are All Dark And Very Creepy. Not Creepy As In "It's So Dark You Can't See 2 Centimeters In Front Of You" But Just Depressing Creepy. The Place Is Filled With Mattresses, Cups, And Collectibles Called "Relics". There Isn't A Sense Of Life Here And The Game Shows This In The Monsters. All The Monsters Are Dark, Hard To See, And Creepy. The Only Complaint I Have Is That Every Level Features The Same Hallway & Staircase.

The Gameplay Is Aggravating Yet Thrilling. The Most Infamous Problem With The Game Is With How The Flashlight Barely Works. You Walk 2 Feet In Front Of You And It Flickers Like It's At A Rave Party! This Also Gets You Killed As Sometimes The Greeter Would Pop Out In Front Of You And Your Flashlight Turns Off; So You Mash The Spacebar And Finally Get Rid Of Her But Then You End Up Getting Killed By The Follower. The Flashlight Isn't The Only Infuriating Part Either, Their Is Also The Staircase. As Mentioned In "The Presentation" Every Staircase Looks The Same, With The Exception Of Level 1's Staircase (The Final Level's Staircase). In The Staircase You Must Keep The Flashlight On For As Long As Possible. If You Leave It Off For A Single Second, The Follower Kills You.

The Only Characters We Meet In The Game Are The Monsters. The Follower Is A Greyish Blue Goatlike Monster That Only Attacks From Behind. He Starts In Level 7 And Continues With You Until The Game's End. Every Level You Beat, He Gets Ridiculously Faster, With Even Level 5 (The Third Level In The Entire Game) Being Stupid With How Fast He Catches Up To You. Then In Level 1 He's So Fast That After Every Other Door Way You Must Turn Around And Get Rid Of Him. He's Also The Only Monster To Kill You In The Staircase. The Greeter Is The Second Monster You Encounter And Is The Most Common. She Is A Pink Bird With Hollow Eyes With Nothing Inside. She First Appears In Level 6 Until The Game's End. She Pops Out Of Door Ways At Random At Has No Real Pattern To Her. She'll Only Attack You If You Run Into Or Fail To Turn Your Flashlight On In Time (Both Of Which Are Hard To Avoid) She's A Neat Character And Is One Of The Least Annoying Ones. Finally We Reach The Third Monster, The Waiter. He's A Yellow Dragon Thing With Huge Wings. (Fun Fact: His Model Is The Only One To Not Change In Between Beta And Final Release.) He Appears From Level 4 Until The Game's End. He Is The Lets Players Nightmare. His Gimmick Is That Before You Pass By A Door Way He'll Make A Growl, In Which You Must Turn Towards The Doorway And Shine Your Light At Him In Order To Send Him Away. If You Stare At Him To Long, Or Pass By The Door With Hearing Him, He'll Kill You. He'll Often Get You Killed By The Follower.

The Game Ends With The Building Burning Down And You Being Pinned To The Wall As The Follower, Greeter & Waiter Approach You. The Credits Roll. After The Credits A Evil Laugh Is Heard As A Demon Named "The Nightmare" Emerges Before Descending Back Into The Flames...

The Plot: 6.5/10
The Presentation: 8.5/10
The Gameplay: 3/10
The Characters: 6/10
Final Score: 6
Additional Notes: This Game Is A Good Game, Just Not Really Any Reason To Pick This Up Or Play It After Seeing The Ending. The Controls Are Infuriating (Especially In Levels 2 & 1) And The Plot Is Pretty Ok. The Game Is Only 3.99€ But I Wouldn't Buy It Due To It Only Giving You About 2 & A Half Hours Of Game Time Max; I Don't See Much Reason To Pick It Up If Your Looking For A All-Time Masterpiece; But If You Want A Somewhat Startling Horror Game Or A Last Minute Lets Play Video, Check It Out...If You Dare.

Some games are just fun, even when you can't really point out why. It doesn't happen very often, but from time to time you can discover a game you like in a genre that you didn't even know existed. Serious gamers don't bother with casual titles like 12 Labours of Hercules, for example, unless they bring something really interesting to the table.

The trouble is that I can't really pinpoint why I find the 12 Labours of Hercules series to be an entertaining one, but I usually have a single metric for good games. If a game manages to keep me interested past 12 PM, then there is something to it. For some strange reason, I couldn't stop playing this one, although I should be able to say stop.

The players follow in the adventures of Hercules as he pretty much doesn't do anything and lets his servants do all the work. There is a story somewhere hidden in the game and some short clips, but I didn't really care about them. All I wanted to see was the next level and whether I could get three out of three stars.
The game's makers mention time management in its description, which is weird since it completely took over my time. My time management went out of the window, but let's get back to the game. I picked it up for 50 cents during the Steam Winter Sale, and I have to say that it's probably one of the most underrated games in that promotion. There are, in fact, four games in the 12 Labours of Hercules series on Steam, and all of them cost less than a dollar or euro. It's practically stealing if I count how much time I sank into the game.

Let's move on to the gameplay, which is actually based on one of the most interesting ideas I've seen in a long time. It's easy to say that you can't innovate in gaming, but it turns out that you can still do some things that haven't been done before, even if they now seem to be ordinary.

For most of the time, players control the servants of Hercules as they gather resources and clear the path for the mighty hero. There are three different types of resources: food, wood and stone, and money. Pretty much everything that can be done in a level requires one or more of these resources. Some actions, like clearing the road from debris, will consume food but will also give back some wood, for instance.

It's a simple recipe, to be honest. Use the resource to clear up the level before the time runs out and move on to the other level. The levels are not difficult to complete, yet it's a real challenge if you want to get the gold medal every time or if you try to get some of the achievements.

The gameplay is punctuated by boss fights from time to time, which require users to quickly click on the enemies. These levels are rather easy to complete and they don't actually fit all that well with the rest of the gameplay, but fortunately, they are pretty rare.

The backgrounds for 12 Labours of Hercules are hand-drawn, and this is probably part of the appeal the game has. They look really good, and the animations for the characters are spot on. The music is made in such a way that it isn't bothering enough for me to mute it, and it seems to be matching the game style.

• Easy to learn.
  
• Difficult to master.
  
• Fun and addictive

• Some of the final levels feel impossible to complete with gold.

• 12 Labours of Hercules is the kind of game that's promoted as casual, but I can tell you that's not a fair assessment. It's the perfect game to play when you have only a little time, but it will also keep you awake at night. It doesn't have amazing graphics or some powerful story. It's just addictive, fun, and that's pretty much all that matters.

10000000 is the latest in a growing collection of puzzle-RPG hybrids, a genre mash-up made in heaven. Gamers must slide rows and columns to create matches of three or more. Matching swords dealdamage, shields raise defense, keys open doors and so-on. Players can also match wood and other resources, then spend said loot between rounds to power-up their character.

Each round is a gauntlet of ever-strengthening enemies. The deeper players make it the more points they score. Cross the titular 10,000,000 point mark and you win back freedom for your tiny pixelated hero.

I really enjoyed 10000000’s strong retro style. Indie developer EightyEight smartly understood that it had a very simple (but very fun) gameplay hook on its hands. So rather than spice it up with unnecessary details the studio instead opted to tickle our nostalgia senses with catchy chiptune music and NES-style graphics. The simple presentation works perfectly.

The core row/column sliding feels perfectly suited for touch-screen gaming, although making matches can sometimes seem frustratingly slow during particularly tense enemy encounters. But 10000000 truly shines in the moments between each puzzle battle. You’re always just one round away from unlocking a more powerful weapon or other bonus that will help you progress further.

My love affair with 10000000 was brief, but intense. I played the game non-stop for three hours before I hit the score threshold and the credits rolled. Most players seem to take closer to five hours. At that time I was prepared to declare 10000000 an App Store classic. But after clearing the main adventure all that’s left to do is set a new high score in Endless Mode. I don’t think I’ll be diving back in for more. Several hours of entertainment for $1.99 will never be a bad deal, but gamers should know this isn’t a puzzler that will last weeks or months.

I was sniped by a man named *****snipers. I asked him to explain this hypocrisy. So he said, "He who snipes snipers, runs the risk of becoming a sniper himself. If you gaze into the scope, the scope gaze back".

Did not expect this level of philosophy in a video game.

Friendzone Simulator 10/10.

Much like the film industry it often imitates, in the videogame world the definition of an “independent” creation operates on a sliding scale. Outside of the sheer volume of a games production budget, there are also the questions of the development team’s size, their planned distribution, and sometimes even the concept. After all, even Bungie now qualifies as an independent company while piloting multi-million dollar projects.

Whatever your requirements for triple-A autonomy may be though, it’d probably be a safe wager that Vagabond Dog and their project Always Sometimes Monsters qualifies in nearly every way, and in this gamer’s opinion, almost all of them are good.

The premise of Always Sometimes Monsters, on the very surface, is actually very direct. You are playing a down-and-out artist who just finished losing everything after trying to make it big. With no job, no cash, and very little hope, your character receives a letter in the mail detailing that the last thing he or she cares about is slipping their grasp forever. With nothing to lose, you set off on journey to seize whatever happiness may still await you… or very possibly die in the process. The twist that makes this title extra-special however, come from the challenges that await your hero: everyday life…

Now admittedly, there isn’t much a person could think of that would seem like more of a mundane time-sink than a game about trying to make ends meet, performing great sacrifices for little reward, and the in-and-out stresses of paying your bills or doing the right thing. But Always Sometimes Monsters manages to keeps this tale engaging because your hero only has so much time to get any one thing done and achieve their ultimate goal. This creates a lot of pressure both morally and otherwise as you pilot your way past the various difficulties your hero is confronted with and what outcomes await you. Also, while many titles claim to feature it, Always Sometimes Monsters is a narrative adventure truly about choices and how through either action or inaction the course of your characters life will be changed. Choices like how not helping your kind elderly neighbor in order to keep a promise to your friend also means never seeing her again, or how protecting your integrity as a journalist means not making enough money to pay your rent. This isn’t a title simply attempting to mimic life, its mimicking a seedy variant of life that only certain individuals can empathize with but many should be able to imagine, a world where your life’s gone wrong and in the process your vision of “wrong” has become something other than what it used to be. While at times it’s more than a bit dismal, primarily it’s captivating.

As far as presentation goes, from the moment the opening logos have faded and the title screen music has begun, everything about Always Sometimes Monsters feels like an 1980’s throwback. The dialog is delivered through a series of slides beside an image of the speaker in question, your 8-bit characters move along gridded trajectories against largely un-interactive objects, and unless you scribble it down yourself there is no journal function or maps to speak of. This is bare-bones gaming by any modern standard and for the very newest generation, maybe even archaic. But in no small measure does this minimalist approach encapsulate Always Sometimes Monsters’ intriguing appeal. This game was purposefully made to be a simple creation with complex guts; dynamic enough that, if you so choose, the entire journey can fully and functionally be over within the first ten minutes with the real-world press of a button and a virtual pull of a trigger. This dynamic element however, is also where Always Sometimes Monsters can sometimes lose it grasp on your imagination.

The more options any game or story offers a person, especially tales which are supposed to mimic “real life”, more options and choices a person is going to want. Always Sometimes Monsters, in its simple virtuoso of substance over style, at times paints itself into a corner with that very question of; “ I could do this, why can’t I do that?" Also, the interactions with objects and NPC’s can feel a bit haphazard at times, proving cumbersome beyond titles implied dogma of “even the simplest tasks can prove a challenge”. As a matter of fact, if you happen to locate them in-game, there are a pair of avatars modeled after the developers who will tell you as much themselves.

However, all of this only matters as much as player actually likes the story itself. Sure, Always Sometimes Monsters has to roll the dice on whether or not a player will like it’s narrative as much as any other title that bothers to have one. However, in games which are only about the narrative, lacking any actual “gameplay” to speak of, this becomes a much larger concern. If you can’t get beyond playing a lonely vagabond, who at times needs to sleep on the street to stay alive… sell some drugs to win someone’s trust, or even believe in true love, there won’t be much here to hold you. However, if you love a good story and want a really creative way to take part in telling it, there is little reason not to toss this title in your shopping cart and bring it home. At the very least to give its hero a place to sleep tonight.

Sequels are a funny thing. When a game is good-but-not-quite-great, we see the smallest solutions to itty bitty flaws, a few things that could have been spectacular given just a little more spit-shined development time. Yet those few tiny tweaks typically aren't enough to regenerate interest, never mind entertain for hours on end, when a sequel turns up. It' almost as if that game had its chance, and now we expect more, more, more.

Shank 2 doesn't reinvent itself in the slightest, which is why, more than most sequels, it's difficult not to compare it to the original. Developer Klei used past criticisms to patch its pants and glue its building blocks together. It shuffles its pieces around, finds better places for them to fit, and defies the idea that overhauling a flawed experience is absolutely necessary.

The result is, of course, a better 2D brawler, the kind most wished it would have been the first time around -- and it'll absolutely turn your Shank crank again.

Shank 2 addresses flaws Klei is acutely aware of, so it practically shouts about how much better it is now than it used to be. Main character Shank dodges with an effortless flick of the right stick, which is a massive step up from the clunky trigger/stick combo from the first game.

Attacking and healing aren't tied to the same button as they were previously. Where the animation system used to inhibit Shank, it now enables him: He moves faster, pounces farther and higher, and can switch between weapons mid-combo without a split-second delay signing his death certificate. In addition, exclamation marks above enemies' heads act as an instant-death counter-kill indicator, which is massively helpful for plucking particularly troublesome guys from a group. Also, disarming and executing dudes is quick enough not to break your rhythm, but slow enough to glorify the grossness of kicking a baseball bat down someone's throat. Uninterrupted murder is a beautiful blend of graceful fluidity and harsh ferocity, and few melee-centric action games achieve this kind of big-combo bliss.

The combat is improved for more than basic input reasons, too. Enemies attack in different ways from various places -- dudes chuck grenades from across the screen, careful shooters take precise pistol aim from above, and maniacal machine-gunners fire bursts in your general direction. Instant-kill pits make short work of bad guys (and you) too, and throwing switches to crush five guys beneath a shipping container is sickening fun. Each encounter is an unpredictable puzzle where evasion, aggression, and an impressive array of acrobatics earn you a personal accomplishment greater than any leaderboard high score.

Juggling and switching from your quick-attack shanks to a heavy sledgehammer to the shotgun aren't just cool-looking tactics -- they're completely necessary to surviving. By comparison, the first game is slow, unsatisfying, and cumbersome. (Really, you can never go back.) Shank 2 is demanding, and in a 2D action game so reliant on player precision, these simple tweaks make your life a hell of a lot easier.

Even the most difficult problems in Shank 2 have easy solutions. More importantly, its harshest conditions can't come close to the maddening challenge of its predecessor. This is perhaps the best step forward -- the first Shank had some ridiculously difficult spots. In Shank 2, you'll only bash your head against the occasional brick wall as long as you let it stand. When shotgun blasts or the scythe aren't doing enough damage to certain characters, swapping to the revolver or chainsaw is usually enough to take 'em down. Main character Shank no longer switches weapons on the fly during a level, though, and must instead trade gear between deaths. It's small inconvenience, but knowing weapon properties -- bonus damage against fat enemies or a knock-back effect, for instance -- and changing your strategy accordingly is the key to powering through tougher sections. Boss battles are a particularly great example of these and the rest of Shank's greatest design elements coming together. As bosses are meant to be, they're the final exam for everything you've learned along the way -- if you didn't pick up on and make use of something new and important, you're going to have a tough time with their interesting patterns and brutal attacks.

Co-op would have made the campaign a cakewalk, which is perhaps the reason it's single-player only this time around. Shank 2 trades the first title's local cooperative campaign for wave-based online multiplayer. It's both a trade-up and a trade-down. Clobbering coordinated bombers before they blow up supply caches for 30 waves involves all the single-player's best Shank-isms -- two players use the terrific combat, mount weapons, and set off traps to eviscerate and burn bad guys -- and requires serious skill. Dying doubles your ally's duties, plus they're responsible for reviving you, so bring a coordinated comrade or suffer the consequences.

Earning cash for kills to buy mini-guns, turrets, decoys, and, uh, a wild boar gives you a reason to seek out incoming enemies as well, rather than just let your buddy take care of the worst situations. There's an alluring draw to replaying the three maps with new characters, too -- each has his or her own statistics, like health bonuses, item discounts, or damage modifiers, and each match plays out differently based on how you experiment with various pairs. Survival Mode feels thrown in out of obligation rather than inspiration, yet it still brings enough new to the table that it'll melt away an hour in an instant.

Survival Mode is probably where most will spend the majority of their time -- Shank 2 is only a couple hours long, and there's little incentive to replay the campaign. Granted, the single-player is flashy, gorgeous, and where the coolest stuff happens, like escaping giant boulders and buzz-saws, fighting through a burning village, or exploring a massive boat with a bunch of diverging paths. Survival Mode is missing distinctive qualities to call its own, so it exists if you feel shortchanged but is inessential if you'd rather move onto the next great game in your library.

If there's one major change in Shank 2, it's the tone. Thematically, Shank was absurd. The game was dark and violent, which didn't quite fit in with the Luchadores, strippers, guys in gimp masks occupying each arena. Shank 2 is about martial law, facist oppression, and endangered family. It doesn't do anything to capitalize on this stuff, which is a shame -- the cinematics are still goofy, profane, and senseless, and some of the bosses are a bit out of left field, visually. The grim approach a nice touch to the gameplay, anyway, and fits into the grand scheme of making Shank 2 feel much more in line with itself.

Claire is a 2D psychological survival-horror game that pulls a lot of inspiration from Silent Hill, Clock Tower, and a few other horror games of the early 2000s. I had been following the title since mid-2013, and finally gave it a play after a few patches had been delivered for the game post-release (which to the developers credit, they have been very active in responding to problems the game has via patches and being active on their steam community forums and twitter). I had played about an hour of the game last February off Desura, which was very rough at the time. I wasn't quite sure what the final product was going to end up like.

Claire stars the titular character as she wakes up from a nightmare about her childhood. She is in the hospital taking care of her mother, who is sickly and bedridden. However, as she fetches coffee to keep herself awake, the hospital suddenly changes... Shifts into some form of nightmare realm. Quickly finding aid from a dog known as Anubis, they go to try and find an escape to the twisted terror they've found themselves trapped in.

In Claire, you explore labyrinth-like locations full of enemies, traps, puzzles, scares, and atmosphere as you open locked doors and trigger events that advance the story. Honestly its all rather simple. Occasionally you meet a person in the labyrinth you can help with something via a side-quest, or some choice you can make or optional puzzle you can partake in. Your actions go towards what ending you'll get at game's end, of which there are six of.

The gameplay is simple, but is supported by good design, an actually helpful map (surprising as I find maps are usually useless in 2D horror games like this), fantastic atmosphere, and a number of surreal and interesting moments throughout, backed by a good lighting engine and moody sound design.

Monsters come in a few varieties, but none can be killed, simply ran from and hid from. And they can be determined buggers in hunting you down, bashing down doors you try to escape through, and can follow you into any room outside of save rooms. You either have to outrun them, outsmart them (like blocking a door), out-climb them (they can't climb things it seems), or hide in a closet/similar hiding place. Though some monsters don't chase you at all. One common threat is a type of monster that won't chase you, but getting near it will drain your 'sanity'.

Sanity isn't for insane effects or anything, but survival in Claire. Like Clock Tower's panic feature, basically. The more loss of 'calm' and scared you become, the more you'll start taking damage, until you're panicking and taking damage for simply panicking. A big part of the game, especially later in, is managing your health and sanity and playing wisely. This is helped by the fact that like Resident Evil, the stages are large with multiple paths, allowing you to make strategic paths through the facility once you've come more familiar with its layout.

Normally I build-up to my impressions of a review by talking about the elements, but to explain Claire I need to work backwards... I loved it. It's going up there as what I would list as the best 2D horror games out there, along with the likes of Lone Survivor, Clock Tower, Yume Nikki, Last Door, Ib, Witch's House, etc. Claire succeeds in making an unnerving atmosphere that actually managed to spook me on a few occasions, interesting moments in both gameplay, design, and narrative, and wrapping it all together into an enjoyable horror game package.

And its with this severe love I have for the game I must mention that the game still has some problems. The developers are responding to them and still patching the game, but I need to make note of this as the time I played it (version 1.145) that I ran into a number of issues. I played the game kind of stupidly on Nightmare difficulty (the hardest difficulty) on my first playthrough of the game, and as a mention I would not suggest playing on this difficulty unless you really want a challenge and have some patience. But maybe because of this I experienced more problems, as most of what I had problems with was the sanity system, which was very unforgiving and has weird problems like certain cutscene spots draining my sanity so fast I would die during cutscenes and would actively have to heal myself to keep myself alive to read the dialogue in cutscenes. And then some minor things, like how I found the flashlight not really useful most of the time and just defaulted to the lighter, or a few areas later in the game feeling a bit too much like trial-and-error in parts.

I'm sure most of my problems will be addressed with future patches again, and don't think this game is worth passing up on for this.

Claire feels a bit similar to some other kinds of horror games, with the easiest comparison to make being Lone Survivor (they share a bit more in common than just being 2D games with some Silent Hill influence, though let it be known if you liked Lone Survivor, you will most likely enjoy this). However, it also manages to create its own feel and tale of horror, and the developments in both gameplay and story for the most part feel satisfying.

It's a bit slow, there are a few places where navigating and where you're supposed to go can be a bit confusing. However, the levels have a fun exploration element and will usually reward you for taking time off the beaten path, with a variety of side-quest, goodies, hidden scenes and scares, and more.

Speaking of which, the game manages to pack some good scares and "WTF" moments through its course. I found myself a bit more comfortable and less on-edge after the first area, but the game managed to put me on edge and make me feel uneasy through the beginning first hour or two, and had its moments throughout its course. Of note, some of my favorite scares are indeed off the beaten path.

I might be a bit gushy, but that's because Claire surpassed my expectations and has stood better than most of the other recent horror game releases on Steam I have played. It's a quality horror title for lovers of old-school styled horror with a bit of something new, or those who have come to enjoy 2D horror games like Lone Survivor or Clock Tower. It's rough around the edges, but has the heart, good execution, and cleverness to pull off what it strives to be, and excel at it, despite the few flaws it has.

A bit slow, sometimes confusing, and I would not recommend going through it blind on Nightmare difficulty like I did, but a fantastic horror game that brings a lot in from the Silent Hill and Clock Tower class of horror, while also being its own thing that will be worth it for any genre enthusiast. But maybe wait to play through it once some of the bugs are ironed out.