Recent reviews by Kyrah Abattoir

(This review is purposely vague to avoid spoilers where I can)

STORY:
- The story is a bit difficult to understand, and while a lot is left to interpretation, "what the hell happened" will be made clear once you reach the very end.
- This game made me cry, a lot, most players I talked to had a very strong emotional response. (Love, despair and the banality of human suffering tend to do that)
- The authors created their own blend of an "Alien" type universe that mixes chinese and german inspirations, it is so refreshing to see something that isn't completely grounded in american culture or once.

GRAPHICS:
Given that this game is clearly attempting to mimic a specific console era (that I am peticularly fond of), this is what matters in this section.
- This game looks incredibly good!
- Easily rivals some of the best games of the late PSX & early PS2 era.
- Everything is rendered in the pixelated glory before the days of hardware texture filtering.
- Discretely leverage modern tech, such as realtime lighting and some fairly interesting shader magic.
- There is a CRT filter for maximum immersion, but I would not recommend using it for live streaming.

SOUND DESIGN:
- There is very little bad I have to say about it, the ambiences and musics fit the game quite well.
- Some of the subtle ambient noises are absolutely haunting.

GAMEPLAY:
- Pretty solid, it has all the trappings of classic survival horror games of the era: limited inventory, weird puzzles, lore elements scattered everywhere in the game world, stealth, combat, moments of utter panic, boss fights, save rooms, even cryptic radio transmissions.
- It is an homage to classics like the original silent hill, resident evil, dino crisis, parasite eve, and maybe metal gear solid while we are at it?
- I've only played with "modern" controls, which feature mouse aiming. Oldschool "tank controls" are also available and might have been the original intent for the game.

CRITICISM:
- Some of the enemy sounds got on my nerves after a while?
- Some of the puzzles feel that they've been watered down a little too much after what I assume was playtest feedback.
- I'm assuming that the authors have shaped the game based on some of their own experiences, but the game sometimes feels like an anti-communist hit piece. I LOVED the setting, but a bit more nuance would have been welcome.
- The German and Chinese "stinger" cards that sometimes flash/scroll onscreen during some sequence could have been translated. STIRB or 死 flashing on your screen doesn't quite have the same effect on you if you don't know what it means.

CONCLUSION:
It is a really good game, but if you are like me, it will probably reopen some old wounds inside your mind.
I rarely enjoy games this much nowadays, and I pretty much enjoyed Signalis from begining to end, so that's saying something.

10/10 will weep again.

ADDENDUM:
(original review is unchanged)

I think the reason why this game's disjointed dream-like story is resonating with so many people, is that it is talking to the current generation and stirring those thoughts of hopelessness and disillusion we have about the world we live in.

The game themes go deeper than plain anti communism, it is full of anger and rage against the suffocating obsession for control of a declining society.

That applies to the DDR, but it also apply to current day western capitalistic systems.

Things are not going well...
The future is bleak, meaningless and features rising ocean levels...
Private property is quickly becoming a privilege...
Billionaires ponder about running their very own space colonies on what is effectively indentured servitude...

I can't believe I did not review this one?

INFRA is an incredible little gem of a game. It starts a bit like what "feels" like one of those "edutainment" game:

"Hey you're a structural engineer, lets inspect this place you've been sent to review"

...and turns into a surprisingly engaging semi-realistic story, built around a conspiracy, and urban infrastructure decay.
The world if INFRA is rich and engaging if you enjoy relaxed exploration.

The playtime is also far superior to what this kind of title typically offer at a whopping 20 hours, which feels sometimes like the game keeps running on, but it was released in multiple "stages" originally, which is why each "chapter" almost feels like an entire extension of the previous one.

Recommended, probably not for EVERYONE, but this is a game that ooze with the passion of its creators and it shows, every step of the way.

Oozing with style. Truly enjoyable

The story is decent enough that I got hooked and had to play the entire game in a single sitting (about 8 hours but I've missed some content).

Some of the optional puzzles felt a bit rough but most of them were enjoyable and satisfying.

The detective/investigation aspects was very enjoyable, but made me wish for more.

The plot rushes into weird tangents near the end and tend to forget what the game originally was about. Not sure those boss fights were really necessary either.

There is also this constant feeling that the main character is assuming that you, the player know far more than you do. I'm not sure if it is due to some background informations that I missed, or if some content had to be cut out to finish the game.

Despite its flaws, It is a solid little adventure game that I can only recommend. There was passion and love poured into this and you can taste it.

This is an early review, the DLC isn't feature complete yet.

Far range branch line --> The new transition region that leads to the far territories from broken Railroad, it takes quite a while to cross but doesn't offer much exploration, as all transition regions tend to be. It really helps to give the idea that the "Far territories" are quite a way away from the main areas of the base game.

Transfer pass --> For what I understand, this is the far territories "hub" area, it is relatively small and centered around a small train station. It seemed relatively peaceful and currently connects to the Airfield, (and the two other regions in the future)

Forsaken Airfield --> This is the big one, this region is a huge barren wasteland, the way "down" from transfer pass will take quite a while, adding even more to the already long commuting time from broken railway. The weather in this region is, to put it simply "nasty", fog, blizzard, and the rare clear days. I quite like it, wandering aimlessly is a good way to get lost in the fog.

The glimmer fog is a bit of a weird mechanic, it appears to be an exclusive feature to the airfield (the entire region seemingly), that acts a bit like a day time aurora with minor affliction (insomnia).

I haven't found a lot of the alternative item variants so far. I did get my hands on a rifle that seemed to down bears better than usual, maybe I was lucky?

At this point I'd say the DLC is already worth it, just the new regions are a pretty sizeable chunk of land to explore even in their current state (i've found a few areas that have clipping issues).

I never reviewed The Long Dark despite owning it for... well, ever since it first came out.

It is a game I've grown to like over the years, it has matured into a fairly solid survival game with an expansive world and simple, solid mechanics.

Between the story mode, the challenges, and the 4 main survival difficulty levels, you get a pretty wide variety of experience and a good amount of replayability.

The survival mechanics are straightforward: stay warm, rest well, hydrate, and feed yourself.
Be a nomad, or maybe settle down. Scavenge, or try to live off from what nature provide.

The story mode is fairly nice, the experience is relatively "easy" and geared towards telling its story rather than pitting you against impossible odds, and can serve as a long form tutorial for those that need it. But the story and goal-oriented gameplay is a good way to explore the game too.

So yeah, recommended.

You can save a buck now by only buying story or survival but frankly I wouldn't bother, unless you are really strapped for cash, I'd just get both.

Quaid, start the reactor.

Once more I wish a "mixed" option existed for reviews, oh well.

The ambience of the game grabbed me immediately, good graphics, good performances, immersive audio.
The world building, the creatures, everything was gripping and tense, the combat was sluggish and death came quickly, reinforcing the oppressive environment and the dire situation our character found himself in.

It took me 2 sittings and about 8 hours total to get through it,

That being said...

I will not complain about the ending and keep this review spoiler free.
After completing the game, I briefly started a new game to collect the hidden achievement, pondered for a moment: "Is that all?" and uninstalled the game.

In the game industry, if you do not release a game, you have nothing. There is no consolation prize for never-released games, I know this reality on a personal level.

It is pretty clear at this point that the game had to be aggressively cut down for release as evidenced by the lack of tier 6 locks (despite the visuals indicating there are 6 security levels) and the myriad of evidence from the art book, teasers, and mentions (on the steam store as of today) about non-linear, open world adventure, that the game was supposed to be "so much more" than what it is.

There is no real way of knowing how much was axed in the end, or even why.

As a result, I cannot recommend that you get this game, it might be worth playing if Giger & body horror is your jam, but otherwise? Wait for a sale.

I am pretty ambivalent about the whole modding debacle, being a programmer myself, I do believe it is the right of a developper to decide whether modding their game is welcome or not.

That being said, in its current state, large VRchat instances are simply not viable on my current hardware without mods that allow to cull distant avatars from rendering.

Unless the VRchat dev team steps up and starts to churn out serious performance, and useability improvements, people will simply migrate to a more suitable platform.

UPDATE
---------

So... it appears that the VRchat devs have actually been scrambling to fill the gap that mods left behind and have implemented in the beta, so far: changing the clipping plane, avatar hiding by distance & count, personal mirror, FBT calibration mirror, horizon adjustment, color blindness, mic sensitivity, movable main menu, particle limiter, more favorites, ...
I hope this did not require devs to stay at the office instead of, lets say seeing their families... oh well.

As for naughty "haptics", I just use OSCGoesBrr, the only issue is that the people you play with have to setup a few minimal contacts.

As far as I am concerned, I don't have a "real" reason to be upset anymore.

I mainly play VR games as a way to keep myself physically active in an entertaining way. I usually play dancing/rythm games and I can get a pretty good and energy intensive session on these.

But nothing so far compares to the sheer intensity you get with The Thrill of the Fight. This game literally pushes my heart to its maximum, after an hour I have to stop, not just because I'm tired, but because I literally cannot punch hard enough anymore to even have a chance to beat my opponent.

The next day you might even want to play something else because you will feel every muscle of your body from the wrist to the shoulder.

I'd recommend to learn some proper boxing form because unlike rythm games, you might end up hurting yourself dodging and frantically trying to land a knockout.

The game also does an excellent job at preventing you from hitting your walls because it will always constrain the action within the inner bounds of your chaperone (the rectangular shape defined inside your wall boundaries) so you will never try to punch outside those bounds.

In general, for this game, a large playspace and a pulley system will give you the most out of the game, but even with my 2x1.5m playspace, I still get plenty of workout.

In a way it is also a bit of a negative for me and I do wish it was possible to configure this in a more "flexible" fashion as I personally use this area to define the "walkable" space in my VR playspace, and things like menus, or opponents could use about one more meter on one of the sides of my playspace (futon) with no risks of damaging anything, and I'd rather be facing away from the "wall" in my playspace.

Oh boy they did it again, and I fell for it again.

"Sorry kids, thanks for buying train sim world (2020), most of the features you expected will be in train sim world 2."

If anyone reads this, do yourself a favor and find a train game you like from a different company.


This is a textbook example of why you should never buy a game with expectations of future additions.