Recent reviews by Corporal Yakob

Thoroughly enjoyable experience from start to finish! There is some slight clunkiness in the combat, and a fair bit of backtracking that at times is not particularly well sign-posted, leading to me only discovering an entire map section literally on the final boss's doorstep, but overall a most positive playthrough indeed.

JUST GO IN THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BUCKET ALREADY, JEEZ!

If you understood that reference, no doubt you're already shaking your head in contemptuous agreement. If not, then allow me to offer some thoughts on a sadly disappointing title. Corpse Party is a RPG Maker horror game in the same vein as Mermaid Swamp or The Crooked Man, where you must lead a gaggle of seven Japanese high school students to safety after a playful ritual goes horribly wrong. Trapped in a haunted school that sits between dimensions, the player must solve puzzles, read doomed correspondence and keep an eye out for booby traps and dead ends if they are to succeed.

Unfortunately, the player must also do battle with the demons of boredom, frustration and plain old not being scared. Despite a promising start, the game is bogged down with frequent irritations, most of which stem from idiotic character behaviour. Indeed, the entirety of chapter two is driven by a character's stubborn refusal to do the sensible thing regarding their condition and in turn forces the player to backtrack, over and over and over again, for several hours, to find a solution that turns out to be bloody irrelevant anyway! Characters will frequently be freaked out by the same corpse they have encountered three times before, and when you're forced to watch these unskippable interactions for each bloody character, the constant cries of "W-WUAAAARUGH!?!?!" start to grate. The voice acting itself is *infuriating*, with some of the female characters so agonizing that I literally had to mute the game to get past certain sequences; again, this is not helped by characters being terrorized by things they have already encountered half a dozen times in the past hour. Interacting with items and scenes can be a pain as well: one of the game's chief delights is to warn you in no uncertain terms that reading all documents will lock you into a bad end, only to then hide plot critical elements in - you guessed it - documents. Sometimes you can't even interact at all, let alone read these maybe-fatal papers if you don't find the exact right pixel to stand on and press use, and sometimes the only way to advance is to complete a circuit of the map and hope a plot item magically appears. A creepy atmosphere might have alleviated the sight seeing tour, but the only strings to the game's bow are skeletal remains and the occasional thunder jumpscare. I guarantee your courage will withstand these "terrors" far better than the game's cast.

I endured this game so you don't have to. Do yourself a favour and play Lone Survivor instead.

P.S Was the shower scene *really* necessary?

Despite being a startingly accurate recreation of my own days at high-school, right down to the possessed teachers trying to cut me up for failing assignments, I honestly can't recommend The Coma: Cutting Class.

The game starts off strong, with hapless everystudent Youngho being sucked into a twisted reflection of Sehwa High School, forced to explore the dark and eerie corridors with naught but a flickering flashlight at his side. The art design is fantastic in my opinion, and reminds me of The Darkest Dungeon: classrooms appear distinctively "wrong" and get worse as the game progresses, while make-shift barricades keep you thinking "Wait, what was that I glimpsed....". I fully applaude the artists for their efforts, particularly their understanding that not everything has to be drenched in blood and gore right from the get-go, and combined with the superb ambient sounds - definitely have your headphones on to enjoy this - you have the recipe for a great horror game.

Tragically, it all falls apart when you realize there is very little to actually threaten you.

The possessed teacher who shrieks for your blood? She can't keep pace with you at full sprint, she doesn't understand door handles, and she can't figure out where you went when you hide, even if she's literally just chased you into a room possessing one closet, which is labelled "I'M IN HERE DON'T MURDER ME." After the first hour or so, and you learn the audio cues that herald her appearances, all tension drains out of the game; I died just once in my entire playthrough, largely because I was testing if I could just run past the axe-murderer. Matters are not helped by a health and stamina system that are - in a word - broken. You have health enough to tank multiple hits, even in the endgame where the possessed teacher has been ubered up, and you lose so little stamina from running that the 10,000 recovery items you'll pick up in an hour's exploration are pointless. I of course exaggerate for comic effect, but seriously the game will fill your backpack with assorted goodies before you even realize and you'll just never need them.

Without the threat of death, there's no reason to be scared of anything, and without fear....well, something billed as a horror game loses its appeal doesn't it?

Trapped within the cluttered office of the beseiged Presidential Palace, rushing from phone to phone to raise any remaining loyal forces as the American backed revolutionaries began their final assault, and cowering under my desk as the gunfire and jeering crowds drew closer and closer, I pondered on the mistakes of my despotic regime.

Oh why, why, *why* did I have to ban decadent Western haircuts!?

If you love Silent Hill but have had it up to here with things like "realistic graphics" and "actual human faces" be sure to give this game a go!

Zombie Dragons at the Somme-if you need more information then that to make a game purchase I think we're finished here.