It all happens in a middle of an alien-like invasion. They transform every human into a zombie like creature. The whole country (maybe the whole world?) is trying to survive. The train system is basically the only transportation system available.
You control a train conductor. You have to guide your train to station after station, performing some missions to save humanity.
It has simple controls, effective story, nice mechanics. You might even run a second time (because it is a quite short adventure) in order to do every possible achievement.
This small shot from the Mexican developer Tequila Works. A platformer, focused mainly on puzzle solving a bit of combat. It happens in the city of Seattle, during a zombie apocalypse. Zombies, platforming and puzzles.
The visuals are great. Very detailed environments and characters. The animations between stages are very well produced. It’s probably the highest point of the game. Since the very first moments I was impressed by it.
The story is bad. Lots of cliché situations and setups. Among the several problems, are:
Inefficient mystery: During the whole game, the protagonist have memory flashbacks. They give glimpses of what happen. But never enough to neither clarify what’s going on, nor to increase the tension. It feels that it’s a bunch of disconnected facts about the past.
Awful character development: despite your main character, the entire cast of characters is either boring or annoying. Or both. The character from the sewers excels in both categories.
The tension of the gameplay is valid. It’s real. The zombies offer enough challenge. It’s not like the running kind from Left for Dead nor the super slow and easy to avoid from Alone in the Dark
The infamous sewers level
I feel that if Tequila Works invested in a second game, it would be much more refined in the storytelling department. It falls short on its potential.
Yesterday I finally finished Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Great game! Underappreciated and undersold.
It tells the story of Monkey, a brute man that is really flexible and versatile. Gameplay and game story wise, this character makes much more sense those characters on Assassin’s Creed, parkouring around. He is a humble and simple man, that was captured as a slave. He finds Trip, a beautiful and resourceful girl that faces the same destiny. However, their destiny changes when the transport airplane suffers a problem and crashes. Trip and Money survive. Trip wants to return to her father and see the opportunity to do something really bold: uses a device to enslave Monkey using a special collar. Or he helps her to return to her home, or he dies. If he tries to remove the collar, he dies. If he gets too far from her, he dies.
He wants to live. So he decides to help. So the game starts.
The gameplay is basically a combat and 3D exploration and parkour. In a sense, is a mix of old Mario 64/Lara Croft, with Assassin’s Creed combat. It sometimes requires some puzzle solving, but generally they are very easy. The combat is rudimentary and only require some tactics and button smashing. Bosses are difficult, however. Time to time, the mechanics change to something special, like controlling a gun turret, but 99% of the game is very straightforward. In fact, it is probably my biggest complaint about Enslaved: Odyssey to the West: after while, you will not get anything new to do. It’s just repetition of the same things. This is the reason I played about half of the game, stopped and only returned several months later, with the mission in my head to finish it once and for all. It was surprisingly good, nevertheless.
Oh, there is another thing: every time you die, you are moved back to the last checkpoint to try again. Great. HOWEVER, you are forced to see the cinematic that are often played before the action. Every time. If it is a challenge part, like a boss, I bet you are going nuts for the time wasted. Developers, never (I repeat, never) do this. It is super annoying.
The visuals are a big plus here. Even for an older game (originally released in 2010), the game is still gorgeous. It has personality, flavor. The scenarios are all very pretty as well the characters. Money and Trip show emotions in a level that more modern games still struggle to accomplish. The animations are great and fluid very plastic.
The story is also a great point for the game. It is original, personal and compelling. You will love the couple. The protagonist is likable! What a great feature, so rare! The companion is a bit arrogant, but she is also very likable. Only the third guy, named Pigsy, falls into the typical NPC of boring, arrogant and annoying. Yet he is cool. 3 characters total and the story is still super cool. Great achievement. The ending is a bit of “the architect moment in the Matrix”, trowing a lot of information to give it all a closure, but it is really great and memorable. The main “villain” is also played by Andy Serkis, which plays the main character Monkey, is a big surprise (don’t worry, it is not exactly a spoiler).
Overall it was a great experience. I believe it is a new classic. The same kind as Blade Runner, that was critic acclaimed, but a commercial failure.
There is one that I just watched and is very eye-opening: it’s the annual talk from the guys of EEDAR (a data consolidation company) presenting numbers of the whole industry. There are talks about prices, sales, regions, and mobile/pc/consoles. Everything!
It is a must-see.
Orwellhttps://www.brunomassa.com/en/blog/orwell/Bruno Massa
Following yet another recommendation from Rock Paper Shotgun, I decided to give this small little indie game a try.
The game address the theme of governmental surveillance. The Big Brother. It’s definitively a reference to the US’ Edward Snowden case from 2013.
But unlike what traditional dystopian stories generally do, Orwell puts you in the shoes of the oppressing regime. To be more fair, you control a simple security agent, which makes you more a pawn than a King. It’s a similar position that you take from the excellent Papers Please. Following the rules and d questionable things is part of your job. You need to put food on the table after all. After the first negative (or at least not constable) impressions, you will get used to the job, and things get easier to digest.
Your official job is to track terrorist threats, listening to phone call, see video camera feeds, and read social media from targets. But these tools are available to spy on virtually all citizens, potential criminals or ordinary folk alike.
At very beginning of the game, the country suffers a major terrorist attack and the country is in a political crisis. It’s your job to find the responsible ones. You even have a lead. He might be innocent, but your investigation opens connections. Connecting one person to another, like teacher-student, neighbors, father-son, brings you new potential suspects.
A wonderful thing that I noticed while playing is that, without direct intervention of the game, reading the news, I created some conspiracy theories. I was trying to link dots, trying to see the “big picture”, trying to make sense of the chaos of facts and information. The game throws at you several misleading information, and like real life, you will have to filter what is relevant and what is not. It fascinated me.
The mechanics of the game are quite unique. Not revolutionary, but unique. If the theme is close to Papers Please, the gameplay reminded me of Her Story. Using trial-and-error and some deduction, you try to reveal the missing gaps. If you didn’t like Her Story, don’t worry, here the story is more traditional. Everything is scripted like and adventure game. You will not make a relevant change in the course of the story during game.
As a short game, I liked very much. I heard that they are doing a sequel, which is good news. I will be glad to try it also.
PS: yes, the game Orwell is a direct reference to Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) and his book 1984.
