Recent reviews by adam1224

This game looked like another case (or victim?) of the zombie fad. However I was always intrested in this title, as it's openly stated that it's a puzzle game. A zombie puzzler game. This is either really meh (zombies instead of coloured blocks) or pure sh*t (because noways you can sell anything, that has zombies) or something original. For me, it turned out to be the third option.
The game itself is really simple. It's kind of a falling-block game, but instead of the most usual match-3 system you need to surround a group of zombies with similar "coloured" units (Policemen, armymen, vandals or scientists) and depending on the size of the zombie group, you can get a bonus unique to the faction you used to contain the zombie group.
It's very possible that this isn't the first game with this mechanic, yet it was new for me. Some additional mechanisms actually contributes to the "zombie game" feeling. Sometimes zombies charge your group, turning people on the borders to zombies. The zombies are alive, and will attack neighbouring humans and turn them. And with this, we reached the most intresting part of the game. Imagine the situation: you try to surround a group of Zeds with policemen, and another group with vandals. However you're unlucky, and both groups attack two people who are neighbours - and the two hordes became one - but you possibly don't have enough character of the same type to surround them. You'll either lose, or you should kill smaller groups in the hope of bonuses (like molotov cocktail) to divide the big horde into smaller, managable sizes. This threat is kinda non-existant at early levels, but at middle-late campaign you should be very wary about how do you deal with Z groups fastly and efficiently.
A small list about the game's different aspects:
Game mechanism: traditional puzzle's mechanics (2-hit blocks and 1-colour-only blocks as well appear) with reasonable and well executed zombie mechanism
Game graphics: well, nothing intresting. I won't rate this with numbers, it's just average - nothing too ugly now nothing exceptional to an indie puzzler game. You won't have trouble identifying anything on the screen.
Game music: If I remember well this was actually really good, atmospheric zombie-music. However I think it's quite short, becomes repetitive after a while (played and finished the game a few weeks ago, please forgive me for my leaky memory)
Addtitional note: Campaign is quite good. Starts easy, becames harder as new enemies are introduced. It's learning curve is very reasonable, only bossfights can be difficult for the first few tries. I also have to mention the campaign's narration - it's visible on the road as you move from board to board - it's really well written, gives quite an atmosphere :)
As the game's base price is low, and also usually appears in bundles, I do recommend it. Gives a lot of fun for low price if you enjoy puzzler games.

I won this game, so got it without spending anything for it. Still, I'm trying to take it's price into consideration.
The game is about Sam Glyph, a private inspector, who's having problems with getting cases in the past months. Typical noir scene: private eye, whiskey, cigarette, rasping voice. Then suddenly the phone rings - murder. Finally something happens!
Well, I don't want to spoiler the upcoming ~ 5 minute of the game... yes, you head me right. If you just got lucky and do what the game thinks you'll do, the story won't last more than 5 minutes from this point. If you take your time and look around, maybe 15 minutes.
Opinion about the game:
I love noir themed films and games, and this one looked promising. So it must be stated: the game is in a noir environment, but the game ISN'T proper noir, and this is one of it's serious weaknesses. It tries to be funny. Like 10-year-old-boy funny. D!ck, @$$, p!ss mentioned, some lousy jokes about raiding a dead man's fridge is maybe punishable by law " but it's pretty hard to prove though" and then A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ TROLLFACE POPS UP. Later there is a clear "Science, ♥♥♥♥♥!" meme reference while confetti showers. Damn, I feel like this game just created the noir settings to have something that it can completely destroy.

positives:
-(wannabe) Noir setting
-Great music

Negatives:
-Atmosphere destoyed by pre-teen humour (Trollface, Science, ♥♥♥♥♥!, confetti, even a " O_O " in subtitles)
- Game seems rushed/ made without paying attention. Charater doesn't cast a shadow on toilet's door. Describes two people as sitting in the corner while they are in the middle booth of the 3. Also there is an animation of a police badge between scenes. It's terrible. They used a relatively small object and just animated/magnified it for the "coming closer" effect, and it became incredibly pixelish. (It's not the "cool" pixel graphics. This is just over-magnified.)
- This game has absolutely no menu. You can choose: continue or exit.
- You also can not skip cinematic parts. This also means that in the end of episode one you're forced to see a man taking a piss in first person.

Even though I hoped for a good game, this just won't make it. Maybe the upcoming episodes will be longer or more reasoned, I'll try them as well, although I would be surprised if there would be improvement.
Currently the 15€ game costs 4.49€ (-70%) , and includes season one pass (... there would be more than one season?). There will be at least 4 episodes - if each of them will be 15 minute long, you could get much more from a cinema ticket. Both in terms of quality and quantity. The full 15€ price is just purely outrageous. I suggest you never buying this game, not even on a sale, unless -90% and you really feeling like throwing away your money.

I recommend this game, as it's like most Daedalic point & click games: the story is good, the characters are okay (In the english dubbed version they sound really annyoying - but the personalities are quite developed), and the comic-like parts looks really great.
But then the negatives:
As good Daedalic is at making a good story, they are so bad at adapting it to another languages. So far:
I've found a cyrillic alphabet (I think russian) option at one of the point of the oil rig
Got a male guard referenced as she
"Hier is it" (hier is german)
"Savie the world" in epilogue
There are options for modifying how loud are: speech, music, and sounds. But you can't modify the cutscenes, they will boom at you with your computer's currently set volume.
Also the game doesn't saves your volume settings, they are getting reseted by restarting the program.
Lastly: the game CONSTANTLY changes between alga and algae. The whole plot is centered around this organism yet they can't decide how to spell it.

The voice acting is just terrible. I mean the characters are speaking clear, they are easy to hear, but they sounds like somebody's reading a really boring book. At one point the main character burst out, saying I think "no" numerous times, because somebody just straight out accused him of not taking his experiments seriously, while his family and private life was non-existant, he was so dedicated to his work. Hell, I'm more angry about burning my hand like this guy was. They could have said "No, I don't want scrambled eggs", the emotions were just as "intense". The plot twist part's voice acting is just plain atrocious, no better word.
Epilogue's voice and subtitles are out of synchron, too.
At the end:
Well made story, poorly executed in english, but it doesn't hinder you in any ways in completing (and kinda, enjoying) the game. Full price is 10$/€, it's maybe a little too high considering there is no replay value. If you can get in a sale at/below 5$ or in a bundle, go for it!

In a nutshell: if you like the game's visuals and platformers as genre, buy it. (If you can get it from bundle or on sale, it's actually a great deal.)

Little longer: Zack Zero is a classic platformer: linear levels with secrets, enemies to defeat, and coins - in this case green disks? to collect. There is a little tweak: Zack has his human + 3 elemental-imbued form, each with different abilities (faster, can surf in air, slow but great defense) besides 2 activable abilities. In combat each of them can be useful, but managing over the map and storyline or reaching certain spots (and secrets) you need to use specific abilities. These features are good additions to the gameplay, but nothing broundbreaking or really new here.
The game is quite family friendly: there is absolutely no blood or gore in the game - robot enemies explode, others just "shatter". You can watch it in the game's trailer. It's like a saturday morning's superhero cartoon.
Positives and negatives

+ Nice graphics with beautiful elemental power effects
+ Enjoyable gameplay: platforming not too hard (experienced players will find it rather easy), and there are lots of checkpoints (not indicated ingame)
+ Cool-looking cartoon animation to the storytelling between levels
+ Easy achievements: can be done in 1 walkthough, or artifact collecting by "select level" option.

- Bugs (RARELY) : Not as bug-ridden as older reviews claim, but there are some clipping issues with animation. In my 26 hours of gameplay ( ~ 1.5 walkthrough) I found one platform I kept falling through when tried to jump from, and one wall I stuck in it. Second can be considered as game-breaking, had to exit to main menu then continue from prev checkpoint. Lost ~ 5 minutes of game, nothing serious.
-You start with your suit at level 20, then it gets downgraded to level 1. You see each abilities with power levels decrease, losing powers. Yet during the game your suit levels up, but you can't check/there is no indicators, for when will you get for example the stone spikes power.
- And sadly a real pain: at certain points denied backtracing. Platforms cease to exist backwards, you fall somewhere and can't climb back, things like this. But there is a "select level" option at main menu, so you shouldn't be troubled if you're going for maximising points or collecting artifacts.
- I don't remember which one, but one boss fight was just plain terrible: the camera focus is glitched or something, I had to fight while being outside of the screen. As there is 3 or 4 checkpoints even in bossfights, it's not that hard, just a really awkward situation.

This game is a wonder. This miracle is a fruit of a single man's labour (Dean Dodrill), and this game just has everything. Combat, story, drama, squeeky cute pokemon-thingy (Fidget, the nimbat), a mysterious sword-wielder hero - sadly striken by amnesia. The game at the beginnning seems like a really child-game: nice, vibrant colours, quite easy combat, and the usualy quest: save the village. But the story turns darker and darker, with moral conflicts, not the usual "black or white" characters, and a great story starts to unfold. Currently I'm at 71% of the game, with 11 hour gameplay! (According to Steam 22: I died hellova lots of times at the early parts, Though difficulty not so forgiving) Oh, and while easy mode makes you heal to max hp every checkpoint, at higher difficulties the game is not just a breeze. Difficulty scales quite well, you need to pay attention to your moves on higher difficulty levels.
TLDR: I DO recommend this game. I got it from a humblebundle deal, yet still - this is one of the greatest metroidvania games I've ever played.

It's not easy to write a recommendation to this game. First things first: make sure you have any controller to use instead of the mouse!
I love the concept, the graphics are quite good, and gameplay WOULD be good too - but there are some issues with this game. Most of all: in many cases the mouse sensitivity is just absurdly low. You supposed to aim and breath fire with the mouse, but I'd bet my desk isn't big enough to make a 180° turn in this game, the mouse just doesn't responds as normal. The mouse sensitivity problems makes it unplayeable in this cases, sadly.
If you can solve/prevent this issue, or you can use a controller, the game worth it's money. If it's on 50% + sale, it's a really, really good deal, don't miss it out!