Recent reviews by codnik

This is Oregon Trail on steroids. Sadly with too many unpleasant side effects.

The game is pretty. This no one can deny. You can see it was made with love. But it's just not fun or memorable.

It's a breeze to get to the end boss on normal difficulty, but if you've levelled up several characters instead of a handful the fight will be unnecessarily tough. It just doesn't go together with the rest of the game and it might force you to lower the difficulty, which is just a silly thing to force on the player.

Midway I thought the story was okay, and was actually reading every dialogue and trying to connect with the characters. But by the last quarter of the game I didn't give a rat's ass where it was going anymore because it had stretched too far.

I wouldn't recommend playing this.

This game is an interesting journey and I recommend it more from an emotional standpoint than anything else.

Having had my share of mental health challenges in life I went in sceptical and afraid of a cringeworthy depiction. Coming out of it I actually feel like the setting and story choices truly helped picture Senua's struggles in a relatable, empathic manner.

The story has a backdrop of Norse mythology and is well told. The experience of psychosis is portrayed in a simplified way but one which is easier to grasp in a game context. After playing this, diving into real accounts of people with psychosis enriched my experience because it helped me understand why things in the game were built the way they were and what feelings they tried to infuse in Senua's experience.

Gameplay-wise I found the combat and puzzles to be fun, even if both were a bit stretched and at the end the game felt longer than it should have been. It also suffers from bad camera in some parts. But it's a worthy and respectable shot at sharing experiences of mental illness and raising awareness.

If you're interested by the topic of mental health, play The Cat Lady next, if you haven't.

This is a nice, casual story-driven game, and even if you didn't like Borderlands this is still a fun adventure. Soundtrack choice is superb and complements cinematic elements perfectly. The story is fun, with likeable characters and great voice acting and animation. I have played through this dozens of times (not on this platform) but Scooter's death still gets me every time. I think this is a testament to good storytelling, because these characters do grow on you.

There's some QTE required to advance the story but it should be fairly accessible to different player's abilities.

The game looks alright. It's got a somewhat nice atmosphere. Too bad its cutscenes are wasted on a shallow story, because the art isn't bad.

There's quite a bit of hand-holding, with characters thinking out loud about their every step.

Controls are unnecessarily frustrating (think the original Prince of Persia).

Luckily this game is short because it's not much fun. I wouldn't play it again for collectables.

This is a very casual puzzle with a cute but terribly shallow and underwhelming story. The visuals sure are pretty and the music is not bad. You learn one mechanic and that's what you'll use for the whole of the game. So even though this is a short story (1h-ish), the puzzle aspect almost gets too repetitive. If this doesn't bother you, I'd recommend picking this up on sale.

On the other hand, if you can't be bothered about the light puzzles and would like a story-rich alternative, I'd recommend checking out a visual novel called The 39 Steps.

This game is BAD. All it has is looks. It's boring and repetitive. No variety, with a handful of enemies over and over again. Its "puzzles" are a joke. Whole thing feels like a demo to show off *physics* which, by the way, is pretty broken in this game.

When I saw the trailer for Trine I expected actual puzzles where each character plays an important part. You don't need all characters in this game, you don't even need to use your head.

If you were intrigued by Trine but found it lacklustre, look for and play The Lost Vikings.

From the game trailers I thought this would be great. I was disappointed. And I don't think it's a case of having waited too long and now the game is outdated. Nope, it's simply a bad game.

The story is meh, character development is shallow and cliché, the platforming is fake and doesn't require any skill. Combat is okay but repetitive. The camera is ridiculously bad and irritating.

Chapter 7 (halfway through) is where it starts to get a little bit fun, but overall I wouldn't recommend the game.

Amazing game. Emotional and gripping. What a story.

Friends bugged me to play this game for years and even with all the hype they created I was not disappointed in the slightest.

The only flaw I can think of is the audio quality (namely voice recordings). Be careful when playing with headphones on as volume levels can go quite crazy.

WARNING: this is not much of a game. It's an interactive film where the "game" bit consists of inputting keywords in a search box to unlock video content and watch more of the story.

The story is not bad, but it's not incredible either. Still, it was an enjoyable few hours.

I love the movies, and this game is a nice addition to the story.

It's not as polished as some other Telltale games but that's alright. It's a more traditional point-and-click game than, say, Walking Dead. In terms of puzzle content I'd place it between The Wolf Among Us (not puzzly) and Sam & Max Save the World (puzzly). I think I remember getting stuck a couple of times.

I'd recommend playing with keyboard+mouse because controller support is super shabby and frustrating.