Recent reviews by Bahru

Analogue A Hate Story is a visual novel that puts the player, a space investigator lone wolf, to check a long lost ship that has recently resufraced - the Mugunghwa.

The game has very limited gameplay, but that is to be expected from a visual novel - it is akin to having a story told to you with some binary choices in between. The game does, however, present itself in a different manner - the player must access archives that are slowly unlocked in order to learn more about the ship's sordid past, and what lead to its eventual dereliction. You do this with your sidekick AI partner *Hyun-ae.

I cannot comment on the story for fear of spoilers, as this game is very story-centric indeed. However, I will say this - I found it to be a strong, solid tale of a retrogade society diving into its demise. It has a good couple of side stories as well, but the main arc is where all the meat is at. You also have a second AI partner who you encounter (or not) after a certain point.

Overall, I feel that Analogue manages to vary the visual novel platform enough to attract people that would otherwise not liken the visual novel structure. It has a strong story, excellent art assets, and a solid, yet limited, soundtrack. Do check it out.

Tomb Raider (2013), the reboot of the long-running Tomb Raider series of platforming games, puts the series in a fresh new direction. The game is charming, and is a great effort that reinvents the game whilst keeping it true to its core.

Tomb Raider explores the story of a young Lara Croft as she gets throw in the middle of an adventure that she didn't ask for. The game starts off with young Lara getting stranded in the middle of a island off of Japan, and she ventures forth into the wilderness in a quest of survival and discovery. The story itself is not terrible, but I'm not sure if it would win any awards - the character arc of Lara is a bit too short and rushed to give her the sense of transition from fresh-faced city girl to hardened tomb raider. Various story pieces also feel a bit convoluted, with some deaths being shoved in out of nowhere. However, the overarching mystery of the island and its back story is excellent and drives the player to seek out more journal entries and artifacts to learn more about the area. Sadly, I feel that the game rushes the end, and leaves a lot of lore hanging in the air, which is a shame, as it was a very good ride to the end.

Graphically, Tomb Raider may very well be one of the better looking releases in recent memory. Model and texture quality is excellent. The environments are all well designed, varied, and interesting. Each area manages to deliver the ambiance that the developers set out to, and I felt a bit terrified in some areas of the game, truth be told. TressFX is an interesting feature, but is a very big performance leech - you wont lose much from turning it off, as it only affects Lara's hair. It's fairly well optimized - on launch, I ran it on a 7970M on max, save for TressFX, and was averaging around 40-50fps. Now, when I go back to it with my current laptop sporting a GTX 765M, I still run it on max, albeit at 900p, on 60fps. It is a well optimized game, and should run well on most modern systems.

The gameplay takes a big leap from old Tomb Raiders. Based on personal experience, I did play Tomb Raider 3 on my PlayStation 1 - combat there was far more sparse, and emphasis was on puzzle solving and tomb raiding. This time around, combat takes a bigger role in the game - indeed, the actual tomb raiding is now set aside as optional side quests that give you perks if you do them. They are, however, well designed, if not a bit small - each tomb is unique, with various puzzles, and well-thought designs. The only bothersome thing about the game is the QTEs - they are numerous, but not enough to completely wreck the game, in my opinion. They are a nuisance, however - less would have been better.

Overall, this game is a great restart for the franchise. Hopefully Square will listen to feedback and tune it further, but that remains to be seen.

FTL: Faster Than Light is a spaceship rogue-like indie game. Its a small, relatively simple game, with huge depth, and a very strong hook that keeps you playing on and on.

The game has a simple premise - you are a captain of a ship for the Federation on the run from the swarming Rebellion fleet besetting the galaxy. You must make it to the last Federation fleet with the information you carry that is key to victory. Along the way to the stronghold, you fight pirates, raiders, slavers, and Rebel scouts.

The story is simple, and doesn't quite play a big part in the game. There are various species you come in contact with; some warring against you, some peaceful. There are various side quests that explore the dynamics of each species a bit, but nothing too in-depth - the game play takes
priority over the story in FTL.

Ship combat in FTL is real time, with pauses. You can pause time to move crew, set targets, or adjust your power. Your crew is made up of various species. Each species have unique abilities and traits. You assign each crew member to a room, where they boost the output of the room and automatically repair damage and put out fires. Over time, they gain experience, and become more efficient in their tasks. There are many ships to choose from when you start out, but during each run, you can only stick to one ship. You can change weaponry, add some modules such as stealth, customizing your ship as you see fit.

Battles can be hectic, and often requires great micro-management which is made easy thanks to the ability to pause. There are tons of things to watch out for - enemy boarders, ship fires, hull breaches, all of which require you to send crew to fix the damage. The battles are intense, challenging, and fun. It is easy to find yourself wanting to play just one more time after barely losing to a automated drone.

Overall, I feel that FTL is worth a purchase. It should be noted that its soundtrack is absolutely wonderful as well, and segues seamlessly with each event in game.

The complaints are all bollocks - the game is still like Hitman of old. The main missions are far from linear, the new disguise system makes things far more tricky, and the story is, in my opinion, quite good.

I do think they overdid the whole "escape from cops" thing in most parts, as those were the more linear stuff, but definitely isnt the main feature. A great Hitman game.

Even at its current Steam Alpha state, I highly recommend this game - its very fun. Very very fun.

Insanely good music (Kerrang!, and the classical station are awesome), authentic Hong Kong - no really, it makes me feel like I'm back there. Get it, get it, get it!

Aboslutely excellent, intense, strategic, merciless game.

Libertarians!

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGa6fhFjJcs

Now get.