Recent reviews by captnq

Look at my avatar. Any game I can become a burning god is awesome.

A great game to mod.

What can I say about a game I have to avoid like the plague because I have work to do? I mean it, you go, "Okay... just an hour." Next thing you know your editor is calling and you are a month behind. A very fun time suck.

If You enjoy bashing your head against a wall, BOY do I have a game for YOU!

Distrust is a game developed by some super sadistic russians who want you to understand what russian winters are like.

Apparently you die as soon as a snowflake hits you.

I have never played a more frustrating game before and I played Deadman setting on The Long Dark.

In this game you are a small group of survivors of a helicopter crash that goes to the dumbest arctic base ever constructed. Yes, indeed you will wonder to yourself how anyone even survived long enough to BUILD this base, much less live to broadcast a distress signal.

You will start at the helicoper crash. Right next to you is a building that will have a jacket and keys.

And that's about all the help I can give you.

No. Seriously. The game just relentlessly tries to murder you. Don't believe me?

Ahem.

You pick up a plank of wood. You impale yourself on it and start gushing blood. Within 5 minutes, you will be dead. I hope you found a bandage.

Did you step outside? Now you have a cold. You had better find that first aid kit in about five minutes or you're dead.

Did your friend you are playing fall into a coma? Guess what? You're dead as well, because now that he's unconscious, an entire army of demons from his Id will spring forth and murder you.

Did the other player pick up a tool? Well that tool just grafted itself to his hand and there is NO WAY TO SHARE TOOLS BETWEEN PLAYERS IN CO-OP. So if you need an axe and the other guys has it, you're screwed.

Found the kitchen? Great! Maybe you can cook enough food to last an extra ten minutes! Oh wait. Did you accidentally eat spoiled food? Hope you found pills because you're gonna be dead in about 5 minutes. BTW, everyone in this world is diabetic and needs to eat every 15 minutes or they are DEAD.

BTW, you need to sleep. OFTEN. Every time you go to sleep monsters come. First level, you can chase them off with light. Second level, heat. Third level, they are made of put electricity and shoot bolts of death in an AoE that basically is about as fun as being a moth dipped in gasoline tossed into a Bug Zapper.

That assumes you even find a bed.

Oh. Interesting game mechanic. YOU DO NOT WANT TO WALK AROUND WITHOUT SLEEP. Because you will slowly go insane. Some are stupid, like laughing. Some are harmless, like white noise. And some basically turn the entire screen into a swirl of pain and you can at best flail about helplessly as you die.

I have been playing this for over 17 hours with my wife and every moment is a moment of sheer masochistic hell. Seriously. If Epstein was playing this game in his cell, then I believe that I know why he killed himself.

In short, buy this game if you are the type of person who likes boasting how many times you have been shot in the chest.

If you liked EV override, this is a good successor.

The Long Dark may have been released officially in 2017, but I consider that a Beta Test, because The Long Dark has finally, truly arrived in 2018.

I say this without a single hint of irony, if there is only ONE GAME you buy that you are allowed to play for all of 2019, let that game be The Long Dark. Maybe in any other year, I would have said that The Long Dark was merely Excellent. Maybe I would have put it in the top ten. But fortunately for The Long Dark, the 1.43 version release that updated Wintermute came out in 2018.

And in 2018, there is no competition, what so ever.

I mean it. This is the game of the year. This is number one. No other game comes close.

Up until this release, I would have said the survival mode was amazing and fun to play, but the story mode was... the tutorial. Just something there to screw around with. I played it once, and had no intention of going back to play it, ever again. I rushed through it to get it over with.

Now that we have the Wintermute Redux (Ep 1&2), I rushed through it, but that was so I get get to posting my review of the game as quickly as possible. I have every intention of playing story mode several more times. There are at least three other choices I'd like to make. There are a number of side quests I blew past that I am eager to go explore and see what was done with them.

The storyline before was... rough... to be charitable. Now? Now it is sublime. The acting is vastly improved. The quality of the cut scenes is top notch. The return to a more traditional Story structure really pays off in this revamping of the rough draft that was the previous incarnation of the Wintermute story.

The NPCs that you meet that are your allies, you feel sympathy for. The NPCs that are your enemies, you feel rage against. There are so many subtle details added in. If you just want to run through the main plot, you aren't doing yourself any service. There are many subtle subplots lurking beneath the surface. If you look for them, they can be found to be enjoyed, and yet, they do not distract from the main quest. There is so much attention to detail. So many stories told without a word. So much meaning behind a trail of blood through the sparkling snow.

The tightening up of the time table to play the story mode also does it justice. It concentrates the good parts so that the story doesn't drag and keeps the heat on, making you feel like there is urgency and keeps you driving forward. The interactions with many NPCs have also been vastly improved. In the previous version, I wanted to shoot the old lady in the face, she ticked me off so much. But now? I genuinely feel a pang of regret at having to leave her. There are moral dilemmas that put your situation into sharp relief, which I will not spoil here, but such simple choices have sparked great debates on the forums.

The recurring character of Methuselah is also a welcome addition to the story, for he serves as an excellent framing device. Before he had but a minor part. Now he fits into the unfolding drama so well, I can't imagine him not having been serving in this capacity before. Dare I say it? I actually LIKE the characters now. And my questions are answered! The Plot holes are filled in! The continuity is top notch! There was one note I found that, well, to explain it would spoil it, but the dread at finding that particular note in that particular location was a palatable thing. I don't know if you understand the meaning of the term, "Fridge Horror", but it means that when watching a story, some time later it sinks in exactly what happened, and that's when the horror blooms.

It was beautiful in its' terrifying implications.

The newly redone Jeremiah is a joy to behold. The voice work is amazing, the animations truly bring him to life. I assume they hired a professional actor and did motion capture, because that's the only way they could have picked up the subtle nuance that makes this character so facinating.

And the main plot line... not to give too much away, but the old bear... oh... that old bear... Before that old bear was a major annoyance. Defeating the bear in the previous incarnation was a grind. The current finale, oh ho! Perfect. THAT is what I expect in a final boss battle. I expect to barely cross the finish line after slugging it out against impossible odds. When I stumbled back to Jeremiah, I felt I had EARNED that victory. And the backstory of that bear, the lamp shading, the myths and realities... oh... So good. Just so good.

And that's just the improvements to the story mode.

The survival game has had a large number of improvements given to it as well. The addition of new items have, in my opinion, breathed new life into the Broken Railroad map. The addition of radio towers to the Forlorn Muskeg map serve both a purpose in the Story mode, as well as drawing attention to areas that previously many players would have missed.

The addition of the Rabbit hat means that finally we can craft a hat after wolf and bear attacks have shredded our head gear. This means every surface that could be subject to frostbite can now be covered with crafted clothing.

The new Well Fed mechanic is an, and I don't use the word lightly, ELEGANT solution to the problem of players hoarding too much food in the mid to late stage. This sort of outside the box thinking towards game balance is exactly the sort of thing I want to see.

The real story here is to see that HLG has finally managed to make the Story Mode about the STORY and the Survival mode about SURVIVAL. I didn't think they were ever going to get it done. I wasn't sure it was possible. I thought, given the type of game, story mode was just always going to be the red-headed stepchild of The Long Dark.

To see the Wintermute storyline finally come into its own is a joy. A ray of hope in an otherwise gloomy, dismal year of disappointment and the lingering stench of failure and rotting loot boxes.

Raphael, the designer of The Long Dark, has restored my faith in humanity. It is still possible for beautiful, fun games to be created that are designed to be... fun. Just Fun. Nothing else. A game that is fun and exciting and interesting and gets you to care, just for the sake of being fun. There are many game designers who could learn a thing or a hundred twenty eight from Raphael.

He has knocked it out of the park. He has taken a mid court 3-point shot and hit nothing but net. Whatever sports metaphor you prefer, this was a complete, and utter success on ever level.

Is it "perfect"? No. However, the few quibbling concerns I have are more a personal preference, then any slam against the story or game design. The people who play the long dark are a diverse lot, so some of us are going to like certain things, and others will hate said things. This is the nature of game design. No game can be all things to all people. But DAMN did it come as close as humanly possible!

I could go into many details about what exactly it is that I like about this latest version of The Long Dark, but at this point I have to get into spoilers and I'd prefer to keep this free of that as much as possible.

Instead I will just state that the level of detail, care, and effort that has gone into this revision of the game is astounding. This was a labor of love and it shows. Someone BLED red and crimson to make this. You do not get this level of craftsmanship and storytelling without tearing out your own heart. It is clear that talent didn't just go into this redux, but pain as well. Nothing of this quality is made without it.

And I thank the ones who suffered for this art, because this was just phenomenal. Slow clap. Standing ovation. Drop balloons. Ignite fireworks. Take a bow.

You earned it, Hinterland Games.

You. Earned. It.